Mardock Scramble

hidden away in the depths of her heart were suddenly revealed.

“When I was accepted onto the government’s research team, I received a couple of hundred counseling sessions, and I started my research after having a profound respect for human rights bashed into me, along with a deep understanding of ethics and morality.”

The Doctor spoke as if he were wringing out his voice.

“Well, I drowned in that ocean of counseling and became completely impotent. As a result, I split up with my wife. Even now, I’m almost proud of my sexual inadequacy—it’s like a badge of honor. There are even times when I start feeling like I’ve become a saint or something—”

“Erm, Doctor—”

Oeufcoque tried to interrupt, but the Doctor was having none of it.

“Very well. I’ll now give you a full account of what happened to you.”

The voice now showed a hint of anger, and Balot’s shoulders flinched. But the Doctor was polite through to the end. You couldn’t say he was calm and collected, but he showed no sign of needing to resort to more than words.

“In the first case, we made it our absolute priority to save your life. But there was no way of getting you from where you were to an emergency hospital. The enemy would have gotten wind of your whereabouts, and if you’d been in a hospital they would have come and finished you off. That’s where a quack like me comes in. As I diagnosed it, a normal skin graft wouldn’t have been anywhere near enough. You’d have met your maker long before your condition stabilized. And that’s where my craft comes in. On this point I think we’re in agreement, am I right?”

Balot gave a little nod. The Doctor was using plain words—not the slang of whores, or the affected language of posh princesses, but simple, direct language that hit Balot with everything she needed to know.

And that was good enough for Balot. The Doctor didn’t notice that this was one of the reasons that Balot was sad—it was good enough for the likes of her—he was, after all, the Doctor, and his mind was on other things.

“In the second instance, in order to help you face up to the case that’s now confronting us, we needed to make sure you had the ability to resist. Now, shall we have Oeufcoque give his testimony at this point?”

He pointed at Oeufcoque as if to say that he wasn’t the only villain in the piece.

Oeufcoque raised his hands and with noticeable reluctance carried on with the Doctor’s explanation.

“All right, Doc. My response. We could have handed you over to the care of the public bodies in charge of protection, but we wouldn’t have been able to tell if any assassins had infiltrated them. There are those within the police forces who almost look upon that sort of thing as a second job. And so we deemed it appropriate that we keep on guarding you while you developed your own powers of resistance.”

A pinging sound.

–Powers of resistance?

“Yeah, well, fighting strength, as it were. Learn self-defense skills, how to use a gun, that sort of—”

Another pinging sound.

–No way. I don’t want to become like a soldier.

Oeufcoque gave a little shrug of his shoulders. That was the last reply.

The display was now buried in Balot’s words.

The Doctor turned to the display and nimbly took the files one by one and collated them in a single file to be saved. Balot’s eyes followed the Doctor’s actions with a quick glance. She thought her words would be deleted, but the Doctor just carried on reading them.

“While you were unconscious we brushed on the memories in your brain’s outer threshold of consciousness,” the Doctor said, face still turned to the display.

“We’re not talking about tangible memories here, but rather your subconscious—we took all our technology and planning and threw it all together, and had the computer interrogate the mix. It’s one of the protocols used with patients in a vegetative state in order to decide whether or not to euthanize them. So we looked at the results after the prescribed six hours of interrogation, and then while you were asleep we conducted another six-hour interrogation. The results were the same on both occasions.” The Doctor wasn’t shouting now. He was informing her calmly, as if he were reciting a poem.

“Your current body—and this situation—this is the result that you chose.”

There was a short gap in the conversation, but before long there was another ping right before the Doctor’s eyes.

–I know that excuse. You men are all the same. “It’s what you wanted, you were asking for it.” That’s what you always say.

Balot stared nervously at the Doctor’s profile as she watched him read the sentence. Keenly. With the same expression as when she said that she didn’t want to be betrayed. Oeufcoque had placed a little paw on the base of Balot’s neck, as if to praise her for her bravery.

“That counseling…like a tsunami…” the Doctor muttered without thinking. As if he were remembering anew what he had gained and what he had lost. The meaning of the phrase that he’d said to Balot, everything turned topsy-turvy.

An almost diffident sound pinged before the Doctor’s eyes.

–I also know that you people aren’t lying.

The Doctor took this, and her earlier words, and stuck them into the file he had opened. As if he were scooping up her words. Then he turned back to Oeufcoque and said, “Now then, I’ll leave this bit up to your heart, Oeufcoque. I’ve been doing the maintenance on your guts all these years, after all. We’ll use its beat as a barometer.”

His facial expression was calm but also a little twisted.

“I know what needs to be done, but I don’t know what we should do. In particular when it comes to rebuilding the body of a fifteen-year-old girl and getting her to stand in front of a court.”

A pinging sound, and,

–Rune-Balot.

“Hmm. That’s your name. It’s been a while since we’ve called the person involved in a Scramble 09 case by their proper name. Rune-Balot. You’re competent enough to be able to give informed consent to your doctor. So, right now, what do you want to do?”

Again Balot’s head was bowed, eyes downcast.

The Doctor showed no particular sign of getting impatient but sat back in his chair and looked at Oeufcoque.

“The clothes Balot just ordered online have arrived.”

Oeufcoque answered in her place, meekly.

The Doctor raised both hands as if to say so? Balot hesitantly tugged at the hem of the hospital robe that she’d been wearing since she emerged from the insulator.

“And she wants to try them on and head outside. For lunch. And at the same time file a petition to have her manipulated ID canceled.”

The Doctor’s mouth twisted.

“So you weren’t particularly hiding away, then? Why didn’t you say so?”

Balot cowered, but the Doctor was just looking to Oeufcoque for confirmation.

“And I suppose you’re going with her, right? In an I’m your bulletproof armor kind of way? But take care, though. The preliminary report for the case is already out there. There’s a good chance the enemy will try something.”

“Well, it’d be good to have an opponent she could try out her new powers on. In any case, she’s yet to experience my usefulness when it comes to dealing with Scramble 09 cases.”

The Doctor shrugged his shoulders and stood up. He took out a card carrier from his back pocket.

He chose a cash card and handed it to Balot.

Balot had no idea what to do.