Uncertain Alliances

[Failure-64]

There was something different about the Doctor that day. He was distant and uncaring about their routine -- he didn't even take notes when she had managed to break through her previous record on power level. A feat she had been particularly proud of and celebrated with a traditional "Hoorah!" even if he wasn't looking in her direction. She could only assume it was an off day for him. Perhaps his coffee was too cold, or the weather made his joints hurt.

Regardless, she was steadily improving, though maybe not as quickly as she would have liked. Surely, he was proud of her.

It was that very naïveté that kept her smiling as he led her to the storage room. The room where all of her failed "siblings" were laid to rest. Rows of pods and smaller glass containers held blobs of indistinguishable masses. Their fleshy bits gradually took form as one went deeper into the room. Fleshy balls were replaced by vaguely humanoid shapes. Some even sporting features and missing only a few bits and bobs to call them properly formed.

In the back of the room, three empty pods remained. Failure-64, Failure-65, Failure-66 was written in neon red text atop the windowed door, each of them ominously empty. They were for future projects that didn't quite live up to expectations, though why the Doctor was taking her here was enough to have her tilt her head and almost question him. Almost.

He opened the door to the Failure-64 pod, a loud hiss echoing in the narrow room as white fog spilled onto the floor around their ankles. Defeated, the Doctor grunted for her to get in.

She hesitated, even though she knew he hated it. She questioned him, even though she knew it wrong. They even argued until his sharp tone silenced her, assuring her that it was only temporary. Funding, he had explained. Cost of living, food... Excuses fell from his lips, despite disappointment so obvious in his eyes.

Reluctantly, she chose to believe him. She chose to walk inside the pod, following his command just like she had been for the past two years.

---

Glass shattered as she fell forward, her body sluggish from the sedative that had kept her asleep. She didn't even feel the bite of the shards slicing along her forearms, or the feeling of concrete against her bare knees as she fell to the ground. All she could do was gasp, her now-frail body struggling to adapt to the oxygen of the room. Or... No... That wasn't why she couldn't breathe.

The world spun into focus, the edges of her vision blurring as she blinked and looked about. Fires lined the walls leading back to the research facility. Where pods had once been neatly lined remained only shattered glass, fire, and the occasional spray of body fluids. The gases that once filled the pods now lined the floor, creating a horrible miasma that was made worse by the smokes of the flames.

The woman coughed, body trembling as if she were an enfeebled old woman. It was then that she realized that there were a pair of boots in front of her.

Panic gripped her entire body, squeezing on her chest as she sat up right, and her eyes bolted upwards to see a man with neatly cut black hair and cold, distant eyes. He hadn't hurt her in those agonizingly long moments it took for her to wake, so she could only assume he was friendly. Using her former coffin as a brace, she pulled herself to her feet, noting how off balance she was, and the throbbing ache that radiated from her body.

Even her bones felt stiff. How long had she been asleep?

"Who are you? Where is the Doctor?"

 

[Gehn]

"The tail was lost, a casualty of bridging the gap between the mechanical and the organic!"
"With an embedded power core to enhance energy generation..."
"A step on the road to the divine..."
"Power increase far beyond what I initially graphed..."
"You're truly not just a Saiyan anymore, you're better than Saiyan."

Only bits and pieces of the strange cyberneticists ramblings stuck with Gehn as he listened, in horror, at the explanation of what was done to him. He was strapped to a cold, hard metal table, held by restraints designed just for him. Yet, as the man said himself, Gehn's growth far exceeded what he planned for. That was why, in the moments that followed, the rage that came as a result of being told he was no longer a Saiyan overpowered those restraints. Gehn killed the man in an instant, ripped him in two, and tore the room he found himself in asunder.

With no fresh target for his panic, it subsided, and Gehn full into a heap. It was there that he rested, regained himself, felt the strange changes to his body. The doctor had something about his muscles being different, when he moved, they certainly felt that way. He felt the power, too. He also felt the artificial hardness of the glass that had replaced his proper eye. He couldn't even blinked it anymore, he no longer had an eyelid, and couldn't even see out of it.

Whether that would work or not, Gehn supposed he would never know.

So he began to rummage through the laboratory. Using the computers, he found a map. He exported all the information he could to a small data cube, which he stored in his pockets, and ensured that it had everything on the design of his "upgrades". It was then that he started to explore, finding manufacturing facilities, non-humanoid robots designed to help with assembly and, as he found, surgery.

It took little time beyond that for Gehn to decide that this place was best wiped from the face of the Interstellar Market, to cleanse this moon of whatever monstrous work had been going on here. Gehn started to destroy section after section, corridor after corridor, as he came upon a subsection labeled "FAILURES"

The view inside dropped his jaw.

Behind him, fires burned in the corridors he had begun to blast into pieces. Smaller explosions followed as fuel lines erupted and destroyed more and more of the facility. The orange light of that fire cast Gehn's shadow across a series of pods, each labeled as a "Failure" and with a number. He followed along from the first, finding a mass of what appeared to be organic monsters locked in some stasis, neither alive nor rotting corpses.

Until, suddenly, he found something altogether different.

Failure-64.

She looked to be a full grown, Human or Saiyan woman. She wore gray robes wrapped around a decidedly womanly body. From the outside, through the glass, it looked like she merely slept, though Gehn could clearly she didn't take a single breath. The dim screen attached to her showed that she was still alive, while the others past her, such as 65 and 66, were once again failed creations entirely. They looked humanoid, but they weren't alive.

Whoever that man had been, he seemed to mean exactly what he said: that he considered these things failures in whatever he was trying to achieve, even this living woman before Gehn.

His fist clenched at his side, just once. He couldn't imagine where he had stolen her from, what he had done to her the way he had done things to Gehn. If nothing else, he didn't end up like her distorted, dead siblings, and worried how close he may have come.

But he couldn't leave her here to burn.

His fist smashed through the glass and, immediately, Failure began to fall from it like a marionette with her strings cut. Immediately, he saw her take a breath as she fell onto her knees, the broken glass biting into her skin as he tossed away the door and tore it from the frame of her chamber. He kneeled in time to catch with his hands and shoulder, letting her lean on him as consciousness seemed to rush back to her.

Until she leaned away from him, looked up, and met his two unique eyes.

"My name is Gehn," he answered and, in that moment, committed to honesty -- no matter the consequences.

"I killed him."

---

Perhaps it was simple luck, that whatever overcame him to confess to killing someone whose relationship to him he did not understand, it was the correct one. Failure didn't turn on him, a blessing he didn't realize at the time. His eye, it seemed, had been replaced with someone bearing the functionality of a scouter. It didn't work most of the time but, at random intervals, flashed to life an allowed him its use.

When it did, some hours after they met and finished destroying the facility -- she had rarely ever left, he learned -- he saw the truth of her power.

Enormous hardly began to describe it. Even in his new state, empowered by the doctor's horrific violations of his autonomy, this woman was many times his superior. Even Gehn couldn't help his nerves around her, after that realization, though he could tell she took notice of them.

They didn't speak much, in that first or second day. Instead, Gehn struck a hurried and simply agreement: they would protect each other and, in exchange for her superior strength, Gehn would help her make her way as she sought to begin a life on this world. Help her decide what she would even do with that life, as the woman seemed lost in her thoughts more often than not.

Gehn, then, took the initiative to find a home for them. A simple, clean room in an average district within an average city far from the Interstellar Market's capital. He left her in the apartment as he quickly stocked it with food -- he found that she ate -- and began making arrangements for work, utilities, information, and more.

It was on the third day, as he returned in the earlier evening, that he opened the door to find her standing within, waiting for him. She looked fresh from a shower or bath -- she seemed to enjoy baths deeply -- with droplets through her long, raven hair. She looked at him intently as he stood there, leather bag over his shoulder, his black and dirtied gripping the strap. His once-white shirt was similarly stained, and a rough cloth covered his replaced eye like a bandana.

"Failure?" He spoke quietly as he stepped in and listened to the hiss of the lock as it latched behind him. Despite his best efforts, something about the staring unnerved him, and he felt sweat begin to bead across his brow.

"Did something happen while I was away?"

She never simply waited for him like some automaton.

 

[Failure-64]

It had been drilled into her very being that emotions were wrong. Things such as anger, jealousy, and fear were the downfall of the mortals. Made them incapable of making rational decisions. Made them lesser than the divine beings the Doctor struggled to reach for. Her entire life, she had been told not to let it get the best of her.

She couldn't be upset that he was gone. The only other being she had ever met.

"Oh."

Yet, when she spoke, she couldn't hide the bitterness. Couldn't deny the burning in the back of her throat.

Sluggishly, she turned and looked at the growing fires. Fumes bellowed from the machinery, sparks of pale light flickering in the distance as a warning. She knew at least on a surface level that the particular light was a bad sign.

"It's not safe here," she said, flicking her eyes back to the strange man before her. "There's no need for the both of us to die as well."

With a grunt, she squeezed Gehn's shoulder and pulled herself to her feet. Still, her knees were stiff and she could feel the joints grind against each other. For a moment, she wobbled, using Gehn as support, and then found her balance.

Without another word, she led Gehn down the hallway. Even if he spoke, all she could do was stare forward, teeth clenched, as she cursed the Doctor for not calling her to help.

She could have saved him, if he had only believed in her.

---

Days had passed since then. The first of which, Failure had only reluctantly followed along Gehn when he promised to show her how things worked in the outside world. Even if she felt an ache in her chest for losing the Doctor, she couldn't deny that Gehn seemed like he knew what he was talking about.

And that he had plenty of money to feed and clothe her.

At first, Failure stayed tucked away in the house Gehn had bought for them, her body aching and stiff. The effects of that sedative wore thick on both her mind and body, leaving her vulnerable. Even Gehn insisted that she simply rest until she was able to, at the very least, walk on her own. That was about all they had talked about.

She was never good at starting conversations; the Doctor only ever talked at her.

But, right Gehn may have been about her needing to recover, boredom ate away at her very being after just the first day. The house was small: a single bedroom, a single bathroom, kitchenette, and the living room. A single window overlooked the residential district, though all she could really see was the grimy backend of the building across the alley.

On this particular day, she had opted to simply lounge in the bathtub, letting the heat of the water soothe the dull throb of her bones. Only when it was about time for Gehn to return did she peel herself from the water, put on her dress, and comb out her hair.

If she had timed things right, he would show up right as she walked out of the bathroom...

...
...
...

Nearly half an hour had passed of her simply standing in the living room, waiting for his return.

Finally, the latch of the door jarred her from her daydreaming, and Failure stiffened her posture. A reflex attitude from her time with the Doctor.

"No? Why would have something happened? Did you do something wrong?" She asked with a tilt of her head.

Now that he was here, she could continue with her plan. She stepped towards him, putting on a small smile, and then began to wring out her hair.

"Regardless, I tire of being locked in here," she said, the words perfectly rehearsed. The gentle lift of her tone was an added touch she had decided last minute. "You promised to show me the city today."

Promised was a stretch, even she knew that. Though, he did suggest the idea the previous night while she was eating. Even if she didn't really respond, surely he knew she liked the idea. This shouldn't come as a shock.

"I'm sure you've planned a wonderful tour, haven't you?"

 

[Gehn]

For the first few moments, Gehn simply stared at her. Failure's reactions were always difficult to read. Misunderstandings were the usual with her, and Gehn had to consider everything she said from multiple angles. When she answered his concern with wondering if he did something wrong, it took him a moment to realize she didn't even comprehend that he might have been worried that something happened here, in their home.

Just as it was clear that she didn't yet fully understand rentals. She still believed that Gehn had bought this apartment outright, that it was now his property, and not just that they were paying to stay in it for a limited time. Failure even referred to everything in it and about it as "his" or "theirs," as if she too possessed a degree of ownership.

Yet, she also understood that she relied on him to handle these matters of living in society. Something he didn't expect from someone potentially powerful enough to inspire an uprising in her name.

He smiled when she brought up his passing comment the prior evening. It had not been a promise, but he wouldn't deny her. Instead, he walked past and laid his leather bag down on their plain, basic sofa. After he did, he lifted his hands, and showed the black stains across his fingers and palms. Then, he glanced down to his shirt, similarly soiled.

"I need to wash and change, if nothing else," he explained to her. "Us Saiyans are considered to be thoughtless and entirely devoid of manners. It's not a reputation I want to perpetuate."

Gehn looked up and down her with his one remaining, uncovered eye.

"How's the pain?" He asked as he made for the bathroom she just came from.

All he really needed was to wash his hands and replace his shirt, and he already had spares.

What worried him far more was that Failure had, since they met, explained that she was in at least a minor degree of pain at all times. Aches, as she described them, but he couldn't be certain that she wasn't downplaying it, or that her experience of pain wasn't dulled, and that even an ache indicated something critical. In fact, he didn't know why she was put in that chamber and labeled a failure to begin with. For all he knew, it was a shallow, petty reason.

Or she could drop dead tomorrow.

"Medical professionals here have some of the widest experience across species in the universe," Gehn continued as he began to run water from the sink and clean his hands of the black oil and stains from the day's tasks. "If it's gotten worse, the place you'll be able to get help is here, if anywhere."

 

[Failure-64]

Failure looked to his hands and nodded once. Indeed, he was quite dirty, though she didn't feel it necessary to say so aloud. Instead, she stepped to the side, allowing him to pass her and slip into the bathroom. Without much thought to it, she followed him and stood in the doorway, watching as he lathered away the brownish grime that had caked his nails.

Come to think of it, she had never asked what he did all day. A job of some sorts, to get the Zeni necessary for them to live. She understood that much, but the specifics were a mystery.

She was just about to ask when his own question pierced the momentary silence.

"Persistent, but bearable," she answered him honestly. "I don't believe the Doctor considered the long-term effects of his sedative on biological beings. Not that I fault him for it. I doubt he ever planned to wake me."

A light shrug followed her words. The motion, however, earned a split-second grimace as she felt the joints grind against each other. The jarring pain was just enough to distract her from the budding resentment inside of her.

At first, she wanted to believe that the Doctor had faith in her. That he truly would bring her back. But after seeing herself labeled a -failure- and hearing that she had been locked away for so long, even she couldn't deny it.

"Staying still for over a year probably wasn't the best for my health, either," she said with an added chuckle. "Regardless, I think I'm recovering. Even if I wasn't, I have some doubts on these medical professionals. I'm unlike any other being in the universe, specifically made by a man who's now dead."

Her smile remained, despite the overall negative subject. In fact, she felt a swell in her chest, like butterflies taking flight, and her smile widened.

"I should be able to return to my training routine," she announced, pleased with her sudden decision. "Which means it's only a matter of time before I'll be able to truly uphold my end of our deal."