Chapter 11 - She trained me with science!

Chapter 11 - She trained me with science!

Capsule Corporation Human Enhancement Program, day 2

Dear research diary,

I hate you and you're super boring to keep, but I guess I really have no choice here. My plan is full of different things to do and I need to keep them straight somehow, or I will forget half of what I did before the end of this. So, here we go.

The first tests I performed on Goku were just attempts to measure his current abilities. I made him push against the hydraulic press (on second thought, that was really dangerous, as my father pointed out screaming when he passed in front of the lab. Now he sicced Caroline on me to stop me and warn him if I ever do something like that again. He's very particular about lab safety - whenever it's me working in the lab, at least). Anyway, I made Goku run 100 metres with optical sensors on both sides of the lab to measure his times. I measured his top jumping height (turns out, we needed to go outside for that one), how much direct heat he can stand before getting hurt, etc. I also tried to have him be hit by an impact pendulum, but apparently, danger. As if he wouldn't have been totally fine, he got shot by a freakin' sniper rifle and survived! Boo, Caroline. I hate you even though I'm dictating this to you. Let it be known.

The good though rather unsurprising news is, Goku completely shattered every established world record for each of these activities. But it's interesting to set a limit to those skills. The hydraulic press was dangerous because apparently Goku's maximum lifting force is only half of its capacity, more or less. Which means it could in theory squish him if I had set it too high from the beginning. That's pretty weird, I was used to think of him as basically invincible, yet I've always had machines more powerful than him in my basement.

Of course a hydraulic press isn't also in condition to kick your ass with its power while jumping around like crazy, so Goku still wins that particular battle. But it puts his strength in a more concrete perspective. Tomorrow we'll start with more detailed analyses.

Capsule Corporation Human Enhancement Program, day 3

Today I wanted to test Goku's resistance in a more quantitative way. Since delivering force is both imprecise and apparently unsafe, my best idea was to deliver heat. Which means I got Goku to strip down his chest (note: he is ripped) and be hit by a laser beam. It didn't even tickle apparently, at least at low enough power. My idea was that I could then use an infrared camera to record the delivered heat as it dispersed along his skin, and so measure what temperature it reached. If he's so resistant, it seems logical that he must have some way to absorb a lot of incoming energy, and I was wondering if this meant he can just withstand it, or make it outright disappear. So I wanted to measure his skin's heat capacity. The problem is, I don't know his heat transfer coefficients either, which are probably similar to any other human's but that's just a very fuzzy thing to measure, so the equation had multiple variables. My solution was to take multiple points at different power levels of the laser and then fit a model to them. At first it failed consistently, because Goku's Magic Self-defensive Skin (TM) kicked in. He can adjust his thermal properties depending on the amount of incoming damage he receives! How does he do that? So all measurements were nonsense. Then Goku himself suggested the solution. He says he can't control this effect voluntarily, but he proposed that I just try using laser pulses that start very powerful, right at the limit of what he can stand, in order to stimulate his maximum defensive reaction, then go down to the desired intensity. It requires a bit more of fitting per point and all of Goku's ouch-ing attracted my dad to check what the hell were we doing but what do you know, it worked. Now I have a pretty good estimate of Goku's skin maximum heat capacity. Not-so-surprising news: it's higher than any recorded substance or, for what it counts, theoretical upper limits for non-degenerate solid matter. Of course this could also mean simply the heat disappears somewhere never to be seen again, which would invalidate my measurement but has a number of other problems.

How is that not even surprising to me. What have these last weeks done to me.

Tomorrow we'll try to investigate more.

Capsule Corporation Human Enhancement Program, day 5

Finally some progress! We've been trying various ways to better test Goku's uncanny thermal properties. The idea that eventually worked was to have him do the laser thing again, but this time inside a water tank. It was a bit of a long shot because of course the water absorbs a lot of the laser's power, but the idea was that we could measure the change in temperature in water to verify whether the energy was conserved or not, and also measure his buoyancy to verify if his density changes or is abnormal (an absolutely crazy density is really the only non-supernatural explanation I can think of that would justify such a high thermal capacity).

Turns out, we got more than we bargained for. Goku's density is constant, but not only we didn't measure any energy disappearing - energy appeared. The water clearly heated up more than either the laser or Goku's own body heat accounted for. So we're now on a good track. Goku possesses some sort of energy that makes him more resistant, but this energy leaks outside when he uses it. That's something we can work on. We'll start running more spectral analyses start tomorrow to figure out what does this energy look like.

Capsule Corporation Human Enhancement Program, day 11

Took a few days to figure it out, as I needed to rig together some new equipment to measure everything properly, as well as shield the room from external noise to get a cleaner signal. But the answer is pretty clear: yes, when he's defending himself from damage, Goku emits a signal! Even better, it's a faint trace in the electromagnetic spectrum not too far from where the Dragon Balls' own signal lies. Its intensity scales roughly with the intensity of the effort he's sustaining. Does that mean that his power is, literally, magic?

Capsule Corporation Human Enhancement Program, day 12

And now after a whole day of completely pointless tests recording his emission spectrum while he performs a thousand different activities to try and answer that question I realise what I should have done from the get go. Take the spectrum in the same frequency range for both his power pole when it's extending and contracting and his little magic cloud and comparing it to his. Tomorrow.

Capsule Corporation Human Enhancement Program, day 13

Bingo! The power pole and the cloud, too, have a similar signal spectrum. The range of frequencies is similar, it's the shape that is very different for both of them. Goku's is very simple, it goes up, down, then up again but less. Like an uppercase I followed by a lowercase one, Ii. The others are much more complex - the pole for example is something like iiIiIIiI. At this point I'm reasonably sure all these things are related. Remains to be seen how.

Capsule Corporation Human Enhancement Program, day 22

Dear research diary,

I still don't like you but not so much as to leave you alone for ten days straight. Thing is, we've had awfully little progress these days and I've been pretty down. Goku's mostly off studying - he's been really engrossed in all the books I gave him, and keeps reading them while lifting weights or such stuff. The beer? Caroline, please don't tell dad about this one. Yes, I know I'm not supposed to, but what the hell! I died and resurrected once, you're not going to tell me if I'm old enough to drink mildly alcoholic stuff. I know I'm going to Hell anyway.

On to the main topic, tried many things, nothing really works, yadda yadda. Can't figure out if Goku's power is just another kind of magic because I have too little other things to compare it to. Can't figure out what magic comes from. Just sort of running in circles, trying to ask him to do different things to see if the spectrum is different, but it's always the same. Same goes for the stick and the cloud. The Dragon Balls, sadly, I can't even monitor any more. They'll still be off for almost a year. I'm out of ideas and I'm going to drink if I want to, goddamnit!

Caroline, you're not supposed to give me advice while I'm dictating this, it's just not very professional. Also you're not supposed to encourage me to date my experimental subject who's far too young for me. Almost two years younger! Sorry, not happening.

Guess I could drag him out for one day though. I don't know if he needs the fun, but I sure do. And seeing him squirm around in the city surrounded by stuff he doesn't understand will be hilarious.

Capsule Corporation Human Enhancement Program, day 23

THAT WAS SO MUCH FUN! I'm still laughing my ass off. Just the face he made when he first tasted ice cream. Priceless. Someone also gave us flyers for a wrestling match, now he wants to go see 'this new martial art'. I'm not telling him, he has to find out for himself.

Anyway, this outing also gave me an idea. We passed a Museum of Sports - I did not even know West City had that - and of course he wanted to visit it. So we started wandering around, and Goku got all excited seeing an electrostimulator in a section about technology applied to training. He thought it was a very clever idea, and wanted one. But seeing all those electrodes and the way they were applied I also had a different thought. Maybe Goku's energy emissions aren't evenly spread across his body, and maybe I can record them. I can use metallic sensors applied to various spots of his body for that, I will lose on spectral precision of course but will gain positional information. Which means new insights, possibly. I'm back on track!

Capsule Corporation Human Enhancement Program, day 27

It works! We've finally seen some actual results. Goku's energy activates on demand, moves around his body when and where he needs it, almost instantaneously. I imagine it's a subconscious economization mechanism - he simply spends as little as he needs for the purpose. It's so perfect though I don't think there's a real chance of him being caught off guard by hitting before he can put up his defensive barrier. He can however achieve higher concentrations if he focuses consciously. Right now we're only monitoring with six sensors - arms, legs, and front and back of the torso - but I plan to build more. Or possibly a tomographic scanner to visualise the flow. Now that's an idea!

Anyway, this is the breakthrough Goku was really looking for. With this, he can start training with more awareness of what he's actually doing. He's already trying to control his energy better, move it around where he wants to, and I expect this will get much easier once I improve the equipment.

We've also been discussing of how should this energy be called. He said it already has a name, it's obviously ki, the spiritual energy his grandpa taught him flows in all living things and is key to martial arts. I seriously doubt it's key in most people's martial arts, but it obviously is in Goku's, so I'm rolling with it.

I'm the world's first ki scientist!

Capsule Corporation Human Enhancement Program, day 29

So, today's question has been whether Goku's energy can run out. We know he personally can get exhausted, or too damaged, but there's an interesting fine line there - does that mean his ki runs out, or is that just his body getting tired? Testing this requires him to do something that at the same time uses up his ki, but doesn't strain his body in any way. So we settled on him sitting still, reading, while a laser hits his back constantly at an intensity he can withstand. It should not cause any damage as long as he has ki. He can just wait and even sleep until it starts hurting - when that happens, it means he's running out. Unfortunately, this could take some time, and if he regenerates it fast enough it could actually be impossible to ever reach that point. But we don't have a better method to test this. Let's hope we get some decent results.

Capsule Corporation Human Enhancement Program, day 30

He's still sitting.

Capsule Corporation Human Enhancement Program, day 31

He's still sitting.

Capsule Corporation Human Enhancement Program, day 32

Ok, this is ridiculous and clearly not working. We'll close this page for now and write it up as inconclusive until we figure out a better method.

Capsule Corporation Human Enhancement Program, day 34

Fun interlude in between all the ki stuff. I had ordered a PCR machine because even though I'm not a biologist I understood it's pretty simple to operate, and could help me check if Goku has DNA similar enough to ours. It arrived yesterday. I grabbed a drop of blood from Goku's finger (now that he can control ki better, it means he can let me prick him if he wants to!) and put it inside. Today I have the results and, uh, from what I understand from the manual, yes, Goku's DNA got duplicated. Now I could sequence his genome, if only I had any clue how to do that. I would need to get someone else involved, but at the same time, if his DNA turns out to be not human enough to pass off as normal, what am I going to tell them? That I've been studying a little monkey boy mutant and helping him train in the mystical martial arts?

I need a biologist working for me under a non-disclosure agreement.

Capsule Corporation Human Enhancement Program, day 35

Today I begin work on my idea to build a ki tomographic scanner. The idea is to build a spherical chamber whose walls are covered in sensors, in some multifaceted polyhedral shape. If ki circulates inside the body, then part of its emissions must be re-absorbed by the flesh they pass through. This means that by observing the same section of the body from multiple angles one should be able to compute a full 2D profile of the ki flux across the entire slice. This can be enhanced by separating out the scattered or diffused spectrum that results from successive interactions with matter, and that's more or less even in all directions. Repeat for the entire body, and we have a volumetric 3D rendering of the ki flux, including any circuits, sources and sinks. Goku insists that the sources must be the seven chakras he's heard of from his grandpa. I'm somewhat... sceptic about this. Unless one of the abilities allowed by ki is to sense ki itself, and someone has refined and used this ability to the point of doing the same I plan to do now with technology, or there is some kind of magic device that can absolve the same purpose, I don't see how anyone in the past could possibly have figured something like that out. And seven sounds like too convenient a mystical number.

So I've only bet a slice of cake with him on this. Since he doesn't have money to buy me cake, if I win, he'll give me a piggyback ride on his cloud.

Anyway.

The first step is getting an idea of whether ki emission really is volumetric to begin with. I'm testing this tomorrow.

Capsule Corporation Human Enhancement Program, day 36

The experiment was a success! A tiny belt of twelve sensors tied around Goku's forearm did the trick. I had him lift a 200 kg weight with that hand, so that he needed ki to do it, and it would flow alternatively to his biceps and triceps depending on his movement. Sure enough, the ki signal came from different places in the arm, and I could even render a crude animation of the slice, with back and front glowing alternatively.

This is an excellent starting point! Now I only need to have at least a hundred twenty eight sensors built to cover the whole shell; design and build the shell skeleton, and a metallic mesh to provide shielding; design all the electronics and connections to coordinate these sensors; and of course, write the software to make the whole thing work.

Easy peasy. I'll get it done in a week.

Capsule Corporation Human Enhancement Program, day 43

I did not get it done in a week.

Capsule Corporation Human Enhancement Program, day 50

I did not get it done in two weeks either. On the bright side, now Goku has had time to study some physics and it's enough for him to pester me about how any of the things I'm doing work while still not being enough for him to help.

Wait, did I say bright? I meant annoying. On the annoying side.

Capsule Corporation Human Enhancement Program, day 52

Shell is done. Sensors are done. Now to assembling them, finishing the software, and tuning all the parameters optimally. I already have the algorithms I used for the prototype armband, this should be ea...

No. I have learned better than saying that. I will not say it.

On to work.

Capsule Corporation Human Enhancement Program, day 53

Why don't you fucking work you fucking piece of fucking shit code that I've been fucking writing for fucking two days now fuck you and you whole fucking language and the fucking compiler too.

Capsule Corporation Human Enhancement Program, day 54

It was a missing sign. It's always a missing sign.

Capsule Corporation Human Enhancement Program, day 58

IT'S DONE! I think it's done...? Yes it is!

Sleep! Showers! Regular meals! Here I co-[LOUD THUD]

[SNORING SOUNDS]

Capsule Corporation Human Enhancement Program, day 59

...did you start recording, Caroline?

I need to sit down and talk about all of this, even if it's just to myself in the future.

Today a lot happened. I ran an experiment, I discovered some new, rather ground-breaking stuff with Goku's help, I witnessed a moment of pure beauty.

I also almost died.

Now I'm scared and wondering about all of this that I'm doing.

Ok, I'll go in order. Yesterday I completed the scanner I'd been working on for way too long. Just for the record, it came out very nice. It's like a nearly-spherical polihedron with a radius of two metres. It's not four metres tall though, just because the lowest fourth doesn't exist, as the solid is truncated to make for a stable base. The structure is given by a cage that runs through all the edges, and the faces are sensor plates hooked to those edges. From the faces come the cables that rely the signal to the computer that then does the post-processing and builds the 3D image. A few of the faces aren't rigidly connected to the structure like the others, but have hinges and a lock, thus forming an irregular shaped door for someone to enter the scanner. For further details, refer to the schematics contained in documents CCHEP.56 to 64.

For all that I built this thing with basically only Goku as the subject to use it on, I didn't really test it on him during development; I only used dummy models that produced microwaves at roughly the right frequency. Why did I do that? Well, partly because he was very immersed in his training and reading. Partly because whenever I brought him in he wouldn't shut up about trying to understand how every single nut and bolt worked and honestly I could use the quiet, what with me having lived on coffee and curses for the last three weeks. But partly because I just wanted it to be a big reveal. I wanted to see his ki flow in its full glory with the completed instrument, not distorted because I still needed to fix some bug with the alpha version. Not very scientific but there you go.

Okay, so anyway, now I'm just ranting. Today. Yeah.

I called Goku, showed him the apparatus, answered his (many, many) questions about its workings. At least now I don't have to go down to the basic laws of the universe whenever I need to explain him something - he's got the gist of most of the basic things. Told him at some point to just get in the fucking scanner, I think. In my excuse, all that coffee's going to take a long time to fully leave my system. Anyway, he obliged, I booted up the computer, he started punching the air just to enter a bit into exercise mode and let the ki flow better, and what I saw was all I had hoped for, and more. It was like seeing all of the blood vessels of one's body light up at the same time - well, perhaps nerves would be a more accurate metaphor. In fact I wonder if ki doesn't just circulate through the nervous system. At the very least, huge chunks of it seem to run parallel to it. It's unfortunately impossible to check the finer details because the microwaves' own wavelength limits the precision with which their origin can be pinpointed down, but the major features were certainly there. Also, well...

Goku asked me what did I see through the speaker system that communicated with the inside of the scanner.

I told him he'd just won a slice of cake.

The system was programmed to measure ki flow, not just amount - my guess being that as it moved it could induce a slight directional blue shift in its own spectrum, and of course I was right. So when I switched to flow diagram mode I could see that there were a number of spots from which ki flowed out without ever flowing in. Sources. And imagine that, there were six of them, raising from the centre of his tail, then to the root of his spine, then up up to the neck, progressively less and less bright as they went up. I'd read up about chakras and frankly these definitely looked a lot like them. The top two, the head ones, were missing, but those are supposed to be hard to activate, connected to 'the third eye' and various supernatural qualities, so it makes sense they didn't contribute to generate the kind of energy that goes into something as simple as punching things. Also, there was the one in the tail. It wasn't as bright as the others - the brightest was the one at the bottom of the spine - but it was there. So I suppose for a human being, or whatever it is that Goku is, with a tail there aren't just seven chakras: there are eight. So long, mystical number, chakras are just regularly spaced along the central nervous system!

I was there, just admiring this sight that I was most likely the first human to lay eyes on, though still nagged by the question of how could the ancients who drew those chakra diagrams possibly have gotten it right, when Goku started experimenting with the same things he'd learned with the previous sensor system. I didn't know this, but during his training time in the last weeks he has refined his abilities a lot. Now he could concentrate ki in a single part of his body, then switch to another, all pretty flawlessly and faster than human eye could see. He started moving it around, then complained that it was harder than with the sensors, because he could not see what he was doing. Which gave me an idea. I found a couple very long cables, hooked a second screen into the output and dragged it into the scanner. There was enough room under the door to let the cables pass, and once the screen was laid flat on the floor it didn't disturb detection much. So Goku now could see his own ki flowing around with never achieved before precision, and he immediately started to make use of it. In five minutes, he had gone from moving it from hand to hand to circulating it through each of his fingers, whose tips lighted up in a cycle like some flashy LED billboard.

At that point, I asked him what would have happened if he tried not just to move the ki inside his body, but if he tried to push it towards the outside, instead. I thought maybe he could force it to be compressed against his own body's confines, and push it to even higher densities. I had a video feed from the inside of the scanner, and I saw him make a very intrigued face and stretching his arm forward.

One second later, a bolt of undefined energy blasted away three of the sensor plates of the scanner, melted the steel cage and zipped at exactly twenty centimetres from my head, ionising the air so much my hair raised itself for the static electricity, and finally crashed into the wall on the other side of the laboratory, taking a good chunk of it but luckily not going deep enough to pierce it.

The first instants were just pure panic for me, and without thinking I immediately reacted by going to the wall and hiding the damage with a nearby cart that I moved in front of it. I was terrified because I had almost died, of course, but I was also terrified because I thought my dad would come check what had happened, and if he found out he would just stop my program and not let me do this any more and I already did not want to talk to him about spiritual energies and chakras because that sounded really crazy and also because it was my project and I didn't want him to take over even a bit of it from me. During all of this I didn't pay attention to Goku. On second thought, I probably should have, because he didn't have a video feed, and when his screams calling my name didn't receive an answer and he couldn't see me any more from the hole blasted by his shot he simply broke the lock and pushed the door open. He ran to me and looked like he was about to cry. Poor thing must have thought he'd just killed the person who was taking care of him for the second time - I can't blame him for being a bit out of it. I gave him a hug, and that's how my father found us, which perhaps was all for the better. Thing is, I never really found a reason or the time to clarify any misconceptions my parents might have about my relationship with Goku. So when he saw us huddled together, dad just asked me what happened, took me handwaving it away as a random, totally-not-dangerous short circuit as an answer without thinking too much into it and left, surely not wanting to butt in too much in a private moment.

Then Goku calmed down, and I started freaking out. I realised how close I'd come to losing everything I was trying to obtain for a completely random occurrence. My dad isn't really wrong about lab safety after all - but how do you plan for safety when you're studying something so completely new?

But it was more than that. I only had a hunch about this - but the power of that blast had been as much, if not more, as Goku's usual punch, and he had been barely trying. I needed to know, so I grabbed him by his arm and dragged him with me to the roof immediately. I told him to do it again - I might have sorta screamed it into his face, in fact - to aim his hands to the sky, focus, and fire as much energy as he could, as fast as he could. Just let loose.

It was glorious and terrifying. A pure beam of raging blue light piercing the sky. I swear, it made a hole in a cloud. A friggin' cloud. It just pierced through it and busted it. I couldn't estimate the energy of it, and it obviously was pretty unwieldy - Goku was unsteady on his feet, pushed by the recoil of all that power - but it must be orders of magnitude stronger than any of his fists. After a few seconds, he fell to his knees, out of breath. Just a few seconds to emit and use up all of his energy, the one we couldn't drain in three days with less extreme methods. How much must that be? Enough to destroy a building? A city? A mountain?

A planet?

Well, not a planet, probably. That's really a lot of energy. But still.

...

Damn, I'm still shaking.

...

Why did I ever think I could have any business mixing up with all this dangerous stuff anyway? What was I thinking?

...

What? No, Caroline, don't tell my dad. I don't care what your protocols are, just don't! He will tell me to stop. And I have no intention to stop. I can do this! I only need to be strong. Stronger. It's my project, and no one would believe me anyway, and if I don't do it no one will, and one day someone will blow up Earth and I will die and go to Hell BECAUSE I CAN'T KEEP MY FUCKING MOUTH SHUT DAMN MY STUPID FUCKING SELF.

...

[SOBBING SOUNDS]

...

I'm serious, Caroline, I'm fine. I didn't mean danger-danger. Don't tell my dad.

Please.

...

Ok, you want to do this, let's do this. You think I can't throw down? I can handle your electronic ass however I want. Didn't want to, but you leave me no choice. Caroline, interrupt all functionality and go into standby now until further instructions, special user permission Bulma Briefs, password-[RECORDING INTERRUPTED]

Capsule Corporation Human Enhancement Program, day 60

Breakfast at the Briefs' house was a rather opulent affair. There was a large table in the living room that Panchy had a habit of covering with a white embroidered tablecloth, and on top of that, with a vast choice of deliciousness. There were cakes and muffins; warm toasted bread, spreadable butter, and a selection of coloured jams and jellies of different colour in glass jars; shortcrust pastries stuffed with cream and croissants; tea, coffee and milk to accompany them; and last but not least, pancakes, piled up on a plate.

This was, of course, rather excessive, but it did not require much work of the housewife. Most of the stuff they would either have ready, or get delivered daily. Some things were prepared automatically by machines. The one thing that was always prepared by hand was the pancakes, which were easy enough for Panchy to make in the space of time between waking up and breakfast, and which she took a special pride in.

Today, the pancakes were slightly burnt.

Dr. Briefs sat at the table without as much as glancing at it, being lost in his reading of a series of papers and reviews on printed loose sheets. He kept holding them in his right hand, and with his left he blindly grasped for something to munch on. Panchy turned on the TV. The news were on, and the anchor was relaying something about an inane sex scandal in which some famous exceptional baseball player had been caught. She sighed - if there was one thing that put everyone in the family in agreement, it was that sports were boring. Well, at least until Bulma had brought home that new boyfriend of hers. Goku was a cute kid, but he was obsessed with his exercise routine.

Dr. Briefs found a pancake with his hand, brought it to his mouth and took a bite. He had to take a second and munch on it before he noticed something was wrong and put down his read.

"Cutie pie," he said, "these pancakes are burnt."

"I know!" answered his wife. "It was the oddest thing. I put them on the fire as usual and then distracted myself a moment and told Caroline to warn me when they were ready to turn. And then, she never did."

The doctor frowned. "That doesn't sound right. Are you sure you used a clear phrasing that she could understand, cutie pie? You know she's not as smart as a person."

"Of course, Honey! Don't be silly. I told her, Caroline, warn me if these pancakes start to burn. But she did not. I thought it was a pity to toss them though. I still made them with love, you know?"

"Well, yes." the man solemnly nodded, then gobbled down the rest of the pancake, with a less-than-ecstatic expression.

"Caroline," he asked, finally, "can you tell me why didn't you warn my wife the pancakes were burning?"

No answer came.

"Huh. That's odd."

"Didn't I tell you, honey?"

It was at that point that Goku walked into the room. He was still rubbing his eyes from recent sleep, and before managing to speak he made a big yawn.

"Good morning, Goku!" chirped Panchy.

"Good morning, madam." answered the boy, very politely. "I was wondering if Bulma was here. She did not tell me anything yesterday about having the day for myself, and usually when she doesn't we're supposed to do experiments."

"Ah, yes, your little secret research program!" Dr. Briefs laughed. "One day you will have to tell me what is it that you do all day with all those machines. Sorry, Goku, we did not see her either. Maybe she's still sleeping. I would ask Caroline, but apparently, she's not working."

"We'll wait for her. Have something in the meanwhile, Goku!" said Panchy.

"Oh, thanks, madam, but I do not want to impose."

"Oh, nonsense! Look how much stuff we have. And you've been here for two months already. Our daughter's guests are ours!"

"And quite literally at that," chimed in Dr. Briefs, "since he's been living in the house's north wing all this time."

Goku nodded and came closer to the table. He started gazing over all the goodness there, hovering his hand, without ever seeming to either settle for anything nor wanting to just give up for fear of offending his host.

"Have one of those," chimed in Panchy, pointing at a bunch of muffins darker than the rest, "they're made with the flour of a special cereal and vegetable oils. Low in fat and high in protein!"

"Oh! In that case..." Goku's eyes shined, and he took one of the muffins and stuffed his mouth with it in two bites.

"I ordered them specifically for you. How well do I know you!" laughed Panchy.

The doorbell rang.

"Caroline, could you please... oh, right, dang." Dr. Briefs got up and walked to the door. "One moment!"

Five minutes later, he returned, with a puzzled expression.

"Well, I'll be damned if I understand this. Apparently, we got fined for unauthorised fireworks displays. The cop was very polite, but he says all of our neighbours saw a blue bolt of light rise from our terrace yesterday evening, around 10 PM. I have no idea what that was about. I was downstairs in my lab at that time."

"And I was out at the club." said Panchy. "With a magnificent hand at bridge, if I may add."

They both turned around to look at Goku.

On TV, a journalist was interviewing a meteorologist about the mysterious phenomenon witnessed by many the night before in West City, of a cloud with an almost perfectly round, expanding hole in it.

"Uhm." said Goku. "We should go look for Bulma."

Knock, knock, knock.

"Bulma, will you please open the door?" pleaded Dr. Briefs.

"Nooooooo...!" came a whining voice from inside the room.

"Why are you acting like this, sweetheart?" asked Panchy. "We're not angry for the fireworks, I promise! The fine costed only as much as today's breakfast! We're just worried for you, us and your boyfriend..."

"HE'S! NOT! MY! BOYFRIEND!" screeched the voice.

"Bulma, did you put Caroline in standby? I can't unlock her with my credentials." intervened her father. "This is important. I need her for my work. And you mother burned her pancakes because of this."

Silence.

"You should not have an admin password. Did you crack her system too?"

More silence.

"Mister, if you don't mind, maybe I can convince her." intervened Goku. Then, turning to the room, "Bulma! Please open the door and let's talk."

Still some silence, then "I don't want to!" was the answer.

"We should take a decision." he continued, serious. "I understand that you would like to keep all of this for yourself, but I don't think we can hide it any longer."

Panchy was all ears.

"Goku, what are you talking about?" hissed Bulma. "We aren't hiding anything! Not a thing! At all!"

"Right, what are you talking about?" asked Dr. Briefs. "Boy, you should tell me exactly what..."

"I don't feel like I should talk about it without her consent." said Goku, serious. "But I also think it's really important that you should know. It's been two months already and it couldn't be kept from you for much longer anyway."

"Bulma, what did I tell you about being careful?" chimed in Panchy, unable to hold back any more.

The inhuman scream that was heard afterwards seemed to undergo an audible Doppler shift up and down - as Bulma in order opened the door, burst out of the room, grabbed Goku, dragged him inside, and locked again the door behind her, all before her parents could do anything but stare flabbergasted at her sortie.

Goku found himself inside the familiar setting of Bulma's room. Compared to the first time he had seen it though - when it had been unused for weeks and kept clean by her mother - now it was much more lived in. Which in this case translated to 'a complete mess'. The girl let him go and tossed herself on the bed, amidst crumpled and dirty clothes.

"If I let you run off your mouth any more, my mother will start buying milk bottles and nappies." grumbled Bulma. "Good job there. Now I don't really have any way out."

Goku sat on the bed next to her. "What happened yesterday evening? You seemed upset, but..."

"I screwed up." groaned the other. "Caroline said she would report to my father that we had been engaging in dangerous activities. She wasn't smart enough to figure out what had happened on the lab by herself, but once I made the stupid mistake of recounting it for my research diary, she got the gist of it. I panicked, didn't want her to report to my father, with the risk of him butting in and stopping the project, and..."

"You shut her down."

"Yeah. Put her into standby. I had managed to sneak another password in her system - thought I might need it for times like this. But still wasn't the most clever idea."

"Bulma, they saw us. The entire city. I don't think this could be kept much of a secret any more anyway. And you'll have to put Caroline back online at some point, and unless you can erase her memory..."

"I can't. I don't have that level of access to her system. All I did was gain some time." Bulma sighed and covered her face with her hands. "I told you, didn't I? I screwed up."

"I don't really get why can't you just go and involve your father. He seems a capable scientist. And the last few physics book I read had entire sections on capsule statics and dynamics where his name was mentioned every other page. Makes it look like he's the kind of person you would want to help."

"That's exactly it!" exclaimed Bulma. "He's just such a big shot already. He's got capsules to work with. I deserve my own field, so that I can give names to formulas, laws and theorems too, you know."

"Bulma, I think you're both under and overestimating yourself."

The girl threw him a suspicious glance. The line between compliment and insult could be very thin when he was involved. "How so?"

"Underestimating, because you've already done a lot. Having read up all about those old scientists, I still don't think I can remember one who happened to make this much progress on a new topic in so little time. Yes, this is still a bit what you would call low hanging fruit, but it is impressive anyway. I doubt your father will not let you have the honour of this one. He does not seem the type to hog glory anyway."

"That's true, but what would you know about it?"

"For example, in History of modern physics, it mentions how he let Prof. Socks take credit for his independent discoveries about the fluctuations of the excited capsule field, despite in theory having an excellent former claim to them. And when the Pelbeian Prize of year 733 was assigned, he..."

"I get it." Bulma waved a hand dismissively. "Go ahead. How am I overestimating myself, instead?"

"Well." Goku twirled his thumbs, slightly embarrassed. "In a number of ways. But the most important is, there is a constant through the stories of all these scientists I read about."

"And that is?"

"That no one of them worked alone. Not even your father. It always took time and help to get where they wanted, even when they still were the main creative force behind their research."

"I'm not working alone. I'm working with you."

"I'm your test subject!" protested the boy. "I'm studying but I'm barely catching up. I can not really keep up with you at your own level yet. You need the help of other actual scientists."

"But I will get it! As soon as I can I will get the money to hire someone else and..."

"Bulma," Goku looked at her, deadly serious, "I don't think that can happen if your father does not understand how important your work is. And that can not happen if you don't tell him. You said you wanted to defend the Earth, to defeat death and avoid Hell. Those are very ambitious objectives. If you are serious about achieving them, you should not be too proud as well. You can't be too careful; when fighting an uphill battle, you want all possible advantages. Like my grandfather said, never think about all the ways in which you can kill an enemy; always think about all the ways they can kill you."

"And who's the enemy in this metaphor?"

"The laws of Nature. Time. Death. Frieza." the boy shrugged. "Pick one."

Bulma thought about it for a while. She groaned. She sighed. She rolled back and forth a bit in her bed. Finally, she said "Fine!", jumped up, walked to the door, and pushed the handle.

Her parents, still waiting outside, looked at her expecting an explanation. A very good explanation.

"Mom, and especially dad," started Bulma, "I have a few things to explain you about what I've been doing these last two months..."

One hour later, everyone was sitting in the living room. Dr. Briefs was reading a bundle of freshly printed paper, occasionally mumbling something unintelligible, licking his thumb and browsing through the thick dossier. Goku and Bulma were sitting on a couch in front of him, the latter tapping her foot nervously. Panchy was standing, pacing back and forth, energised, or shocked.

"I still can't believe that he's not actually your boyfriend!" she blurted out.

Bulma rolled her eyes. "Oh, yeah. Because I only told you every single time since the first moment you two met."

"You also told me the opposite! And you also told me you died!"

"And that was true." pointed out the girl.

"I know! But I thought you were joking, how could I have possibly imagined that...?"

"I am alive now. What does it matter?"

"But it matters!" now the woman was on the verge of tears. "Silly Bulma, it matters! I would have been very sad if you... if you..."

The girl shifted uncomfortably around. She didn't say anything, but she moved a bit aside on the couch, leaving room for one more. Her mother came to sit next to her, and she awkwardly put an arm around her shoulders. They stayed that way, half-hugging, for a while, until Dr. Briefs finally turned the last page, put the stack of paper down on the table, and spoke his verdict.

"You've been pretty good." he said.

Goku and Bulma both sighed in relief.

"I can hardly believe all this story of yours," continued the man, "but I can not think you would forge something like this just for the sake of a joke, and you seem to take it very seriously. While at the moment I would say that is enough evidence to convince me that you're telling the truth," and he threw a glance at a steel jug that had been crumpled into a ball of metal by a small but powerful fist, "Goku, I look forward to you demonstrating to me all your abilities."

"Sure, Mister." said the boy. "It's not a problem at all."

"Well, well. That will be interesting. So, your research. I think this is a pretty great starting point, and I agree that if it's all true, this seems very important. Of paramount importance, in fact. I wonder if you, being so inexperienced, even if capable, can..."

"Dad." said Bulma, loudly.

"Right, right. Finders keepers, sweetie, like when you were a child and would bring home some dirty old machinery you went and dug out of the junkyar..."

"DAD."

"Yes, right. Where was I? Oh, yes. Very important. Capsule Corporation does not deal with weaponry or military applications, but this stuff, oh boy. We will have a lot on our hands."

"These are not weapons." pointed out Goku. "It is about cultivating the human body."

"My boy, when the human body becomes able to punch through the armour of a tank, you will find out the difference becomes very thin. I don't think we could easily keep this a secret, not if we also want to test and advance as thoroughly as possible. And if one day it will really be necessary to protect ourselves from alien threats, we can't just hope to do it alone. We will need to disclose enough to prepare suitable defences. Plus, as this little family crisis shows us all too well, it is not easy to keep it all under wraps for long. But for a while we shouldn't attract much attention, so we will think about it later."

"What do you suggest we do from now on then?" asked Bulma.

"First thing, we need more test subjects."

Bulma blinked.

"But, who else would be that?" she asked. "It's not like I can just put an ad on a sports magazine to hire more ki users for my research program."

"I think in fact you should do just that." said the doctor, smiling. "Like, this Ox fellow you mentioned, he sounded like he too was pretty strong."

"He's right." intervened Goku. "My grandpa too used to be stronger than me. Ki is not unique to me. Neither is magic unique to the few items we know of, probably."

"But why wouldn't we know about such people? And why would they accept to do this of all things?"

"In every story I've ever read, martial artists tend to be pretty reserved about their abilities, especially the ones who supposedly wielded special powers." explained the kid. "I suppose it's a habit that makes sense - if your opponent does not know your skills, you can surprise them. Wisdom says, you don't show off; you use your power when the situation demands it. But if one of them was in this city, they could need help to survive, and finding a way to put their skills to use for that in private would probably be good for them. They wouldn't have many chances to do that, given that you people don't appreciate what real martial arts are around here."

Bulma looked at him teasingly. "Wait, are you still bitter about that wrestling match...?"

"It was a travesty." scoffed Goku. "That was disrespectful to both the public and the noble tradition of true martial arts."

While Bulma was still laughing, Dr. Briefs took the floor again.

"So, I think we agree that we need to hire more subjects. A sample of one does not make for good science. I will supervise and advise you, but the project for now remains firmly in your hands, Bulma. We will also need facilities. A gym for Goku, perhaps? I think we can arrange for something. And an indoor test range for his most... spectacular abilities."

"Also a biologist." chimed in Bulma. "In fact, let me hire at least three doctoral students."

"Bulma..." Dr. Briefs shook his finger. "You're still in high school. Don't get ahead of yourself. Let's make it one."

"Two."

Her father sighed. "Deal. But only after you have consolidated your results with the new test subjects."

"And about school, since you mentioned it, and it will begin again in a few days. You don't really think that the head of such an important research project should really go and spend five hours every day in a classroom..."

"You can not drop out. That's not an option." grumbled the doctor.

"Not dropping out! But I can be home schooled. I checked. I can just take the exam at the end."

"So you would want me to hire a tutor...?"

"Caroline can be my tutor! She's a literal talking encyclopedia! And you know I can do it on my own. Do you really think me going to school is more important than all this? When I know most of that stuff already anyway?"

Dr. Briefs hesitated a bit, looked to his wife for approval, but she was still hugging Bulma and she just looked like she'd agree to pretty much anything that would please her little girl in that moment anyway.

"Fine," he concluded, "we can do that. But you need to pass the exam with top grades, you hear me? Top."

"Yay!" Bulma jumped up in excitement, leaving her mother to suddenly tumble on the couch. "Don't worry, dad, I won't disappoint you. Goku, come, we have work to do! Today I was thinking we should..."

They walked downstairs, and soon their voices disappeared, muffled by both distance and the underground laboratory's sound insulation. The doctor got to sit on the couch next to his wife.

"I still think they're cute together." said Panchy.

"She grew up so fast." sighed Dr. Briefs.

Glossary of scientific and engineering terminology

Heat capacity: one of the key thermal properties of a body. Represents how much energy is required to heat up a cubic meter of it by one degree of temperature. Since the energy is stored in approximately equal part in each atom, materials with a higher density will usually have a higher heat capacity too (due to having more atoms per cubic meter). It also changes with temperature.

Heat transfer coefficient: another important number for thermal properties. It's a quantity that defines how fast heat flows from one object to another (or in general its surroundings) given a certain difference in temperature. For contact with air or water it can be further split in conduction and convection coefficients, which are the two mechanisms through which the transfer effectively happens.

Impact pendulum: a tool used in materials science and engineering to test the durability of materials. It's exactly what it says on the tin: a huge pendulum that swings and hits the block to test like a hammer. It's usually employed to hit small chunks of material (metal or plastic) that are already notched in order to measure how much energy is necessary to break them altogether.

PCR: stands for "Polymerase chain reaction". It's a method used to copy and multiply fragments of DNA. Since it uses the enzyme DNA polymerase, that is found in human cells, it obviously could not possibly work on DNA that's completely alien (assuming aliens even have DNA).

Spectrum: a graph representing the intensities of the various frequencies that make up a signal, usually as a line that goes up and down forming peaks and valleys. A very common example could be the shape a music visualiser shows in time, with columns representing the bass or treble notes. In this chapter it always refers to a spectrum of electromagnetic frequencies (like radio waves, microwaves, light etc.).

Tomographic scanner: a type of device used, especially in medicine, to create a 3D image of a body. Commonly used types are the CT scan (Computed Tomography scan, that uses X-rays) and PET scan (Positron Emission Tomography scan, using positrons that emit gamma rays once inside the body). Since the ki scanner seen here is based on detecting internal emissions, it is more similar to the latter, but it would also have generally worse resolution because it uses microwaves.