Vegeta hung back and followed the little procession from a safe distance. He was close enough to the group so that he could see as well as hear everything but far enough away to indicate that he didn’t want to get involved in the little tour. Ordinarily he would have left and recommenced his training leaving his mate and son to show the brat around but he just couldn’t shake the strange feeling the boy gave him. This Wrench, as he called himself, didn’t look like a threat but that didn’t mean anything. He knew from experience that often threats were contained in the most inoffensive and surprising packages. His senses were telling him that this boy was not normal. He had a weak ki, the weakest that Vegeta had ever felt, but there was something unnatural about it. It was constant and steady. Every other ki that he had felt fluctuated with emotion and varied incessantly as its owner went about their activities, but not this boy’s and that was highly suspicious. This suspicion was compounded by the fact that Vegeta was sure that even though he didn’t recognize the child he had felt this Ki before, he wasn’t sure where or when but he was positive that he had. Vegeta was determined that he wasn’t going to leave Wrench alone with his mate and his son because of his uneasiness despite all of the annoying looks he was getting from Bulma.

"This is amazing" Wrench said genuinely looking at encapsulation process. The youth was highly impressed not only with the technology itself but also with its uniqueness. Usually most races develop similar technologies that vary only slightly from one another. Sometimes you were able to find a version of the technology that that more highly advanced than others but it was almost unheard of to stumble across an entirely new one. The rest of the technology was quite advanced but there was nothing that had really impressed him.

"Paging Bulma Briefs" a voice boomed from the overhead speakers.

"Oh crap!" Bulma exclaimed realizing that in her excitement at the prospect of showing off her company she had forgotten the 17 and 18 were coming. "Excuse me for a moment" she said with a slight bow rushing to the nearest telephone.

"So what do you think of it?" Trunks asked the older boy with a smug smirk of triumph.

"Everything I’ve seen is impressive" Wrench said "and especially these capsules. Tell me, have we seen everything yet?"

"Not quite" Trunks replied.

"Is there anything else as exciting as this?" Wrench probed.

"Well, there’s the space and military technology units but they never show those to anybody on tours. Other than that there’s nothing else except what’s in my mom’s private lab."

"She has a private lab?" Wrench asked with slightly more enthusiasm than he felt. "Is there anything in there worth seeing?"

"Let me put it this way" the four year-old said with a touch of arrogance. "Everything that you’ve seen is nothing compared to the things my mom does in her private lab."

"Really?" Wrench replied. "Do you think that I can see it?"

"Maybe" Trunks said disinterestedly. "It depends on if my mom will take you there."

"Well" Bulma said apologetically coming up to the boys. "I’m afraid that I have to meet someone and can’t finish your tour. I can call someone to finish it up though if you want to see more."

"I would if I can see your private lab" Wrench said innocently.

Bulma shot a disciplinary look at Trunks who shrunk back slightly. "I try to make it a practice not to show it to anyone" she told the boy.

"Not even for your biggest fan?" Wrench asked doing his best wide-eyed begging face.

Bulma smiled at the kid, he was even more manipulative than Trunks. "Well…" Bulma began.

"Please mom" Trunks said with a puppy-dog pout. "I only want him to see that you are the smartest and coolest mom ever."

"If you watch him, only show him what I tell you can and you leave the minute I tell you to I’ll allow it this once" Bulma said giving in to the ego petting.

"I promise" Trunks swore solemnly.

"As do I," Wrench continued.

"Okay" Bulma said to the boys. Before she could continue she felt a familiar presence in her head.

"Woman I need to speak to you right now" Vegeta’s voice said in her mind. Bulma looked up at Vegeta who still leaning against the wall staring at her intently. It was times like this that she wished she could answer him telepathically. Instead she frowned and hiked her eyebrows up at him in question. "I will explain when you come here" his voice next said more insistent. Bulma frowned and dropped her shoulders in defeat.

"I need to talk to my husband a minute and then we’ll go" she told them and headed towards where Vegeta stood. As soon as she reached him he pulled her into neighboring room and closed the door. "Okay Vegeta" Bulma said crossing her arms in front of her "What is so important?"

"Don’t take that brat into your lab" Vegeta ordered her pointedly.

"Why not?" Bulma asked in irritation. She was already fed-up with him after their two fights earlier that morning.

"Because I said so," he told her forcefully.

"I do what I damn well please and you have no right to order me around" Bulma told him.

"I am your mate and you owe it to me" Vegeta said with an impatient growl.

"Unless you can give me a good reason why I shouldn’t I’m taking him." Bulma answered stubbornly.

"Just trust me" he replied trying desperately to hold back his growing anger.

"Oh" Bulma snapped, "I get it. You don’t trust me but I’m supposed to trust you."

"What happened this morning has nothing to do with this Woman" Vegeta told her.

"No Vegeta it has everything to do with it" Bulma said fighting back tears. "You expect me to act like nothing’s happened but I can’t."

"Damn it Woman!" he said pounding a nearby table with so much force it almost broke it. "This is serious. I am sensing something strange about him and I don’t want you or Trunks to be alone with him. Not to mention the fact that I don’t think its wise to let him see the things in your lab." He gazed at her intently and received a fresh pain in his chest recognizing the contempt in her face.

"He’s an 11 year-old boy Vegeta" Bulma said to him incredulously. "What kind of a threat could he possibly be?"

"You wanted to know what my life was like before I met you? By the time I was his age I had taken countless thousands of lives" Vegeta shouted at her. "I had destroyed entire world’s, committed genocide on a universal scale and I had more blood on my hands than half of Freeza’s army. Just because someone is a child does not mean that they are innocent." He paused for a moment to see her surprise at his words. Her azure eyes locked on his ebony with uncertain fearfulness and they began searching his soul begging to understand his tortured outburst. He quickly adverted his eyes from hers before she could see too much. "Do what ever you want. I don’t care." Vegeta told her coldly grabbing the door and fairly tearing it off of its hinges as he rushed out of the room.

Bulma stared after him as he left. She numbly tried to understand what had just happened and why. She had run the gauntlet between so many different emotions since that morning and wasn’t sure how to react. Part of her wanted to run after him and to apologize for being so unreasonable but the other part stubbornly refused to back-down wanting to punish him for hurting her.

Bulma took a deep breath and then her eyes fell upon her son in whose demeanor it was clear he realized that there was something going on between his parents. It surprised her and disturbed her that he could tell the difference between she and Vegeta’s regular spats and the major discord they were now experiencing. She slowly stepped out of the room giving him a reassuring smile.

"Well," she said, "Should we go? 17 and 18 are probably tired of waiting"

"17 and 18 are here?" Trunks questioned beginning to perk up.

"Yep" she said. "Follow me."

"Who are 17 and 18?" Wrench asked. The names intrigued him.

Trunks looked up at his mother and motioned for the taller boy to bend down a bit. When he did so Trunks cupped his hand over his mouth and whispered to him. "Can you keep a secret?" he asked. Of Course Wrench nodded assenting. "They’re androids" he said excitedly "and my mom just built another one."

Wrench’s heart stopped when the small boy pulled away. "Androids?" he mouthed to Trunks in question. He looked at the child who merely bobbed his lavender head affirming what he had just said. Wrench, outwardly calm, thrilled to the news. "If this woman can create androids image her potential for other things," he thought wickedly. "Perhaps I will be bringing back more than I originally thought."

Vegeta stormed into the gravity room determined to take out his internalized hurt and frustration with destruction. Ironically he found as much catharsis in blowing apart the same machines that his mate found so therapeutic to create. "Set the gravity to 700 times earth’s gravity " he shouted "and deploy the training bots. Set them on the level of highest difficulty."

Raising his ki as he felt the strain begin in his muscles as he watched the first three robots enter the room. His charcoal pupils keenly followed their moments as his mind switched into battle mode. He watched, as the machines danced around each other, circling him, no doubt as they communicated their strategy to one another. Finally one swept down at him firing its laser. Vegeta flipped up into the air avoiding its beam and blocked the two that came at him from the other machines with two quick hand motions.

All three swept in on him at once as the saiyajin fearlessly stood his ground. They fired a volley of strong beams, which Vegeta deflected by flaring his ki around him. Flying up and over two he impaled the first bot with his fist and let loose a ki attack inside of it exploding the machine into a thousand tiny pieces. The other machines began trying to avoid the falling debris so Vegeta took advantage of the moment and shot two ki attacks at them. One machine merely avoided the blast but the other shot up its protective force field and deflected his own attack back at him.

Vegeta smirked pleased with the counterattack. He easily avoided the blast phasing out and then appearing behind the other robot kicking it into the path of the attack. The little robot disappeared in an explosion and Vegeta turned his attention to the last challenger. Arms came out of the sides of the floating ball and Vegeta smiled. This was new and he couldn’t wait to see what it meant. The machine rushed him punching at him. Vegeta blocked blow with his forearm and grabbed the offending appendage flipping over and sending the robot crashing into the wall. Vegeta blasted it with ki and vaporized it. Breathing heavily he told the computer to bring the gravity back to normal. He descended to the floor and leaned on the wall of the room smiling. Bulma had once again upgraded the robots to present more of a challenge for him. His satisfied smile turned into a frown as the reason he was there in the first place came back.

Vegeta turned and looked out the window in the door towards the section of the building he knew held her lab. He reached out and looked for both his mate and his son’s kis and felt relief when he still sensed them. Part of him wanted to sneak into her lab so he could protect her if something happened but the other half of him told him that if something happened it would be her own fault for stubbornly ignoring his orders so he shouldn’t bend over backwards.

"It is enough that I am monitoring the situation still. Trunks can hold off any trouble until I get there" he told himself still staring at the building. "She is fool for not listening to me because she let something so insignificant upset her" he reassured himself. His mind however would not listen. He knew he had to settle the bonding issue and the issue about his past sooner or later and that they were anything but insignificant.

"So you really think that this will work?" Android 17 asked from his perch on Bulma’s desktop. "Didn’t you try something similar a while back?"

"Similar to it but not exactly like it" Bulma said to the Android in irritation. There was nothing she hated more than using desks and tables as places to sit and his usual attitude wasn’t helping any either.

"There’s only one way to know for sure" 18 replied "and that’s if we try it."

"Well I don’t exactly want to try it with Trunk’s friend here" she said. "I’ll be right back," Bulma told the twins and she set off to find them.

After a little bit of scouring she found them at a computer console pouring over what appeared to be blue prints. Trunks seemed to be explaining something to Wrench and was pointing at the screen. For a brief moment Vegeta’s warning came to mind. "Don’t be silly," she told herself quickly. "He’s probably a very bright kid interested in machinery like Trunks."

"What are you doing you two?" Bulma asked them coming up from behind them. She looked at the screen and saw the plans for the regeneration tank she had built with Vegeta’s help.

"I was just showing Wrench the plans of something he was interested in" Trunks said with a smile.

Bulma looked at Wrench and received an odd knowing smile that nearly shook her composure. "Look" she said, "I’m sorry but you both have to go now." When Trunks began to protest she raised her hand. "We made a deal remember?" she told him. Trunks nodded his head sadly.

"Thank you for everything" Wrench said to the woman still with the knowing grin.

"No problem," Bulma said almost nervously. "You’re welcome to come back anytime."

"Oh I plan to" he said with a devious air.

Bulma watched as Trunks conducted him out of the room suspiciously. "I’m letting Vegeta’s senseless fears get to me," she told herself shaking the feeling. "He just doesn’t know how to trust anyone so of course he’s suspicious of the kid."

She turned a walked back finding the duo where she had left them. 18 though was now seated in front of her computer instead of standing.

"Well should we give it a try?" Bulma asked them.

"You’re the boss" 17 said wryly.

Bulma frowned at him. "He’s almost as irritating as Vegeta" Bulma thought to herself with a huff.

"Tell me when to push the button and I’ll do it," 18 said sitting ready at the computer.

17 watched as Bulma walked over and grabbed her goggles putting them on her head and snatched her tools. She created a curious picture with the goggles magnifying her eyes to twice their true size and a white lab coat made her look every bit the stereotypical mad scientist. She walked up to the lifeless android whose head was still open and connected to the computer. 17 winced when she stuck the tools down into the circuitry of 16’s head fiddling around with it for a while and he was glad that 16 wasn’t conscious to feel it. Although he didn’t betray it outwardly he was very excited about having the gentle giant around again. He was grateful for the way he had helped 18 and for everything he did against Cell. 17 was completely convinced that things would not have gone as well for anyone without 16’s help. At the same time, however, he doubted if the feat Bulma was attempting was possible even if Dr. Gero himself had tried it.

"Okay 18" the aqua haired woman said brightly lifting her head up after she had completed her adjustments. 18 hit the key and turned around. The occupants of the room turned eyes to the still figure lying prone on the table.

Bulma tore the goggles away from her head and intently watched for signs of the synapses firing. She held her breath as she saw a couple of sparks and heard a mechanical whir begin. She watched as his face began to twitch and bit her lower lip in nervousness. Suddenly the whirring sound ceased and Bulma felt her heart drop in disbelief. In frustration she reached out and hit the prone android’s head. To her shock, as well as 17 and 18’s, the 16’s blue eyes shot open with the hit and the entire synaptic relay finally took.

"Kuso" 17 swore. "I don’t believe it!"

Bulma jumped up and down for joy and 18 ran over to her crushing her in a bear hug.

His last memory having been of a battlefield the newly awakened 16 looked around himself in confusion. He turned his head toward the source of one of the expletives he heard and was surprised to say the least. "17? 18?" the giant asked looking over at the duo just beginning to become coherent.

"Its us" 17 said sliding down off of the desk. "Welcome back to the land of the living."

16 felt something strange at his head and directed his gaze upward. "Ms. Brief’s?" he asked seeing the upside down face.

"How many times do I have to tell you its Bulma?" she asked walking around to the side of him after finishing closing up his head. "Can you move your body at all?" she next asked poking at his upper arms.

16 slowly complied and found his arms much lighter than before.

"How are you feeling?" 18 asked him.

"Fine" 16 replied. "What has happened? Was Cell defeated?"

"Yep" Bulma said happily. "Gohan destroyed him."

16 smiled. He had known Gohan could defeat Cell.

"I promise we’ll explain everything to you as soon I check you out and make sure you’re in working order," Bulma told him. "Now can you sit up for me?"

16 sat up still smiling his calm and mysterious smile. He looked over at 17 and 18 happy that they somehow had been delivered from Cell while Bulma hovered around him checking him over. He was especially pleased that 17 and 18 seemed to have made peace with his human friend instead of following Gero’s plan to destroy all life on Earth, in fact he couldn’t have been more content.

Wrench sat back in his seat and watched as the files from Bulma’s computer scrolled by at lightening speed and carefully examined them. The microbot had tapped into her systems from a console and was feeding him everything from blue prints of her inventions to her personal logs. He was shocked to discover just how brilliant she really was. Given enough time she seemed to be able to build or calculate anything. She also seemed to excel at not only duplicating anything mechanical but succeeded in improving upon the original design ten-fold in the process. She had duplicated and improved upon countless alien technologies introduced to her by mate. Her current accomplishment, the reactivation of a nearly demolished android built by an equally brilliant scientist, though was the most impressive. She had improved on the previous designer’s model and in doing so had nearly broken through into the higher bracket of bio-mechanical technology that currently only one other planet had. This planet was of course his own home, the Machine Planet.

He found her personal logs most entertaining because not only did she record her scientific findings and reports on projects but she also seemed to use it as a journal of sorts. Sometimes she went several entries without personal information but she seemed to have highlighted every major event that had thus far occurred in her life. Through these entries he was able to glean a real sense of this planet’s culture and was able to clear up many of the mysteries he had come with. He finally found out what had happened to all those who had disappeared since coming to Earth, namely Raditz, Nappa, King Cold and Freeza, and exactly what had happened to the probe they had sent. He learned about the other mysterious saiyajin, named Goku or Kakorot depending on whom you asked, and was very disappointed that the Super Saiyajin was dead. He was pleased, however, to know that there were two other Super Saiyajin still alive one of who, not surprisingly, was Prince Vegeta himself. In fact, he found out quite a lot about Bulma’s relationship with the prince. Her journal was filled with all kinds of tidbits from angry rantings and tearful misunderstandings to romantic dissertations and joyful accounts. What he found particularly interesting was that she seemed to know nothing of his past and had no idea about saiyajin bonding. She seemed to have some kind of bond with the Prince but not the kind that could interfere with his plans. This fact was definitely a boon that would make his task a lot easier.

"Computer" he said out loud "establish a direct link between myself and Dr. Kougou." The youth waited impatiently steepling his finger and leaning onto his elbows until the man’s orange face appeared in his mind.

"Wrench" the doctor, said in a throaty tenorous drawl "I hope you have good news for me."

"Oh I do" the boy assured. "I have found us an endless source of new inventions on a rather backward planet."

"Really" the platinum haired scientist queried with interest.

"Even though most of the planet is too backward to even secure as clients there is one woman here with a mind so brilliant that it could almost compare to yours," he said with a smirk.

The doctor laughed. "That’s quite impressive if it is true" he replied.

"Oh it is" Wrench declared confidently. "You’ll never guess who her mate is either."

"Do you intend to keep me suspense forever my old friend or do you intend to tell me who this brilliant female and her mate are?" he asked.

"The woman’s name is Bulma Briefs and her mate is The Saiyajin Prince Vegeta" he informed the orangejin.

"Vegeta is alive?" the doctor queried in surprise.

"Very much so" Wrench said "and that is only one small piece of the information I’ve collected while on this planet."

"I’m all ears," said the doctor with a smile.

* * * * *