Mardock Scramble

Boiled said nothing. He was looking over the object he had just picked up.

It was actually a rectangular piece of card. On the back there was a detailed grid. On the front, a table of rows and columns of numbers.

–Anyhow. You do what you need to do, and you do it now. Got that?

“Understood.”

The call ended.

Boiled placed the cell phone back in his jacket pocket. Having lost interest in the room he headed back out into the corridor.

The manager seemed visibly relieved to see that Boiled had finished, but then, “What’s this?” Boiled asked. Surprised, the manager took it from his hands.

“Erm… I’m not entirely…” he leaned his head to one side and caught a glimpse of Boiled’s cold, piercing gaze. “We could always, uh, ask some of our other staff.”

The manager returned to the front desk on the verge of a panic attack. Boiled used the time to call a number of limo companies, collating data on all the cars that had recently been sent to the motel.

“We’ve, uh, worked out what it is, we think. It’s a crib sheet. One of the other employees here is quite keen, you see…”

Boiled plucked the card from the manager’s fingers. “Crib sheet?”

“Yes, it has the odds of various hands for different card games, apparently. I couldn’t tell you in any detail…”

“Odds…card games…” Boiled muttered. Then, decisively, “You’ve done well.” He thanked the manager—if it could be called thanks—and headed straight out of the motel and into his car.

“Games…” His voice was heavy. He took another glance at the card before placing it in his pocket.

He drove off, turning the steering wheel sharply. There was a flicker of anticipation in Boiled’s otherwise blank gray eyes, and the car headed uptown into Mardock City.

?

As the car sped down the freeway, Boiled thought about the conversation that he had had with Faceman in Paradise. About violence, curiosity, and the value of life—it echoed all around before dissipating.

When had he lost his consideration for life? It must have been just after he joined the army.

Or was it when he was recognized as one of the best soldiers in his class and assigned to the fighter planes?

Either way, there was no doubt that one of the defining points in his life was shortly after the formation of the Airborne Division—the air raid designed to inflict a decisive killer blow on the Continent. Instead, Boiled made a mistake that ended up blowing his own life wide open.

He tried to remember what that moment had been like. How he had felt at that instant.

The moment he realized that he had just dropped half a ton of high-explosive incendiary bombs on troops on his own side.

Friendly fire, it had been called. The people that he had called his comrades, his friends—vaporized in an instant. Boiled was shielded from the media frenzy that ensued—he wasn’t named personally, the army made sure of that. But even the army couldn’t keep a lid on the disclosure of endemic drug addiction among the ranks of the elite fighter pilots. The press had a field day.

Not that it had been anything other than an open secret in the first place. In particular, it was common knowledge among the top brass. It was even seen as part of a fifty-year-long tradition, if not a particularly proud one. Stimulants were all but officially prescribed.

Indeed, it was one of these “officially prescribed” stimulants that Boiled was dosed up on the day of that fateful friendly fire.

Dextroamphetamine—amphetamines, or possibly dexedrine.

They stimulated your central nervous system, dispelled fatigue, and focused your mind and improved your reflexes. They were legitimate drugs with legitimate medicinal uses.

But the media didn’t refer to these drugs by their scientific names. They used more prosaic terms. Speed. Uppers. Pep pills.

These were prescribed as a matter of course to tired and nervous pilots on night raids. It was the obvious thing to do. It would practically have been wrong not to.

They accelerated your brain function, revved up your metabolism, made all your aches and pains fade away.

Time for R&R…

And made Boiled kill his comrades.

I’m due twelve hours of rest—no, make it six. As long as I can have…

Back then, Boiled had complained of fatigue to his commander. He was only asking for his due—adequate rest time in between strenuous missions. His commander’s response was that he should ask the army doctor for medicine that made him want to do his duty. Boiled did so. Then he went back in the sky and dropped the 500-kilogram payload on his target, with deadly accuracy, from a height of ten thousand feet. Thinking that the flashing light that signified “friend” meant “foe.”

Eight dead, fourteen wounded. The survivors were so horrifically maimed that they would never be able to find a job back in civilian society, let alone continue in the army. It was literally friendly fire: men he had ate with, fought with, slept alongside. Some of them were the ones who had celebrated with Boiled when he won his coveted place in the elite Airborne Division. They’d shared his joy, selflessly, without a trace of envy or jealousy. And when Boiled had the opportunity—the duty—to clear a path for his friends and comrades, to make their job easier by taking out the enemy they were advancing toward, he did exactly the opposite.

After the incident, Boiled was moved to the place where all soldiers with the “distinguished but dangerous” mark on their files were sent and had his options laid out in front of him.

It was a Hobson’s choice: transfer to the Experimental Strategic Space Corps, P7 for short, designed to pioneer high-altitude combat at ten thousand feet and above. Ridiculous by name, ridiculous by nature. Or be discharged.

At first Boiled had been prepared to accept a discharge. But then he thought of the life that would be waiting outside the army: no proper job, nothing but days of loneliness and endless guilt.

Furthermore, the side effects of the amphetamines were tearing up Boiled’s body at an alarming rate.

Boiled knew all too well what was waiting for him, having seen it in all too many of his comrades.

The terrible withdrawal symptoms that addicts would suffer if they deviated even slightly from the most careful weaning-off program.

Bouts of abnormal violence. Delusional paranoia. Insomnia. Hallucinations. At the end of it all, a pointless death.

So Boiled signed the papers that said he was volunteering for his new assignment and was bundled off to Paradise. In order to wipe the slate clean and return to being a good, upright, normal soldier again.

As it turned out, Boiled did manage to rid himself of his amphetamine addiction while he was there…

Driving along in the car, Boiled tried to remember what it was like.

The last time he slept. The last time he prayed for the souls of his fallen comrades. The last time he thought that life had any value—

As he tried to remember, he felt a phantom tingling in his right hand as it gripped the steering wheel.

Now, this thing is still in the experimental stages, it’s a prototype…

And he was reminded of the first time he had held it in his hand.

He had been introduced to it shortly after he first arrived in Paradise. He’d been passing, by chance. Before long, he treated it as if it were the only thing he cared about in the whole world. His only friend.

It was so warm.

It was in the palm of his hand, soft, trembling, and yet so comforting and warm.

I’m…so…cold…

That was how it spoke, the golden mouse—with great difficulty, in broken words.