Mardock Scramble

“Flashbacks—”

In the end, the girl realized that she was right back where she started. In the same place she had run away from—

–Why me?

Balot was frozen still, the answer finally staring her in the face.

Here was the inappropriate material that the Doctor had warned about. Image after image exploded into Balot’s mind.

–Balot, don’t respond to any of these! They have nothing at all to do with your own past…

This was it. Inside the rotten core of Shell’s memory—that pustulent, scabrous yolk—he was forced to have sexual intercourse with his own mother. It started around the time Shell hit puberty and carried on right up to the time just before he turned twenty, when, finally, unable to bear it any longer, Shell fixed the brakes in his mother’s car so that she would die and it would look like an accident and he would finally be free of her.

This was the reason Shell felt his deep surge of empathy toward all the girls he had ever killed.

It was the despair of the first girl that he had ever loved with all his heart.

This was the plain and simple answer to Balot’s question.

The answer to Why me?

?

Balot imagined that she had screamed out loud.

In fact, her mouth had been clamped tightly shut, and all she had done was sit bolt upright and open her eyes wide.

When she came to her senses, she noticed the Doctor looking over at her, bleary eyed.

“Twenty-three hours…that’s how much time has passed since you first lay down there,” the Doctor said weakly. Bags had formed under his eyes. Balot imagined she probably had similar shadows underneath her own eyes. Then Balot checked that she had heard what she had just heard for herself, and stared at the Doctor as if she were looking to him for confirmation. Suddenly she was assaulted by a terrible chill. She felt like she was about to be sucked into the corrupted whirls of memories once again.

“Focus on your breathing, Balot. One step at a time, shallow breaths. Easy does it…” Oeufcoque said. But Balot’s mouth, clamped tightly shut as it was, showed no sign of wanting to open. Her jaws were locked tightly together, and she displayed the classic symptoms of heavy shock.

Balot shifted her body. She leaned forward in her easy chair and opened her mouth.

Before she had time to stop herself, to even realize what was going on, she plastered the floor with the contents of her stomach.

Her throat might have lost the power of speech, but just when she wanted it the least she found it was perfectly capable of making a series of unearthly retching sounds.

Sour liquid filled her nostrils and mouth, and the pain and discomfort caused tears to well up in her eyes.

The Doctor jumped up to comfort her, putting one hand on her back and thrusting out a towel with the other.

–I’m so sorry.

Balot just about managed to vocalize the words before grabbing the towel and burying her face in it. She was crying silently now. Everything was so unpleasant, so frustrating, so sad.

–I’ve made the floor all dirty…

The moment she said the words the corrupted memories started coming back to her again, triggered by the word dirty. I’m going to make you clean. That’s my job. Into a Blue Diamond. That’s the answer. I’m going to make you clean. Clean you up.

“Try not to panic. You’ll settle down soon enough. You’re just a bit frazzled from all your labors,” said the Doctor’s voice, nearby. Suddenly, she realized that something was being injected into her arm. “Tranquilizers and sleeping pills. You’ll be asleep in no time. You’ve done well, really well. Take it easy now. You won’t have any more nightmares. Oeufcoque will be here right next to you. Won’t you, Oeufcoque?”

Oeufcoque was wrapped around her tightly as her bodysuit, and he said something in response.

Right here—or something like that. As Balot’s awareness grew dimmer, she thought she saw the face of the girl who was killed by despair. She wondered what it was exactly that girl had wanted from Shell.

Probably the same as me, Balot thought. The same sort of answer as the one I wanted. A simple answer. Why me? Because I love you. The girl had probably thought all that mattered was to be loved. And, as a result, she ended up burnt out.

Balot slowly closed her eyes. She felt all her sorrows dissipate. The other person’s memories were no more —they had disappeared, silently—and Balot began to regain her confidence and started to believe for certain that she was now the only one.

Balot felt her whole body aching for the being that now wrapped her up in a warm cocoon, and she fell asleep.

?

When Balot woke again, she was a little surprised to find herself in bed wearing pajamas. She sensed that her pajama top was connected to her pants, and then realized that they were in fact Oeufcoque. There was an intravenous drip in her arm. Careful not to dislodge the tubing, Balot hugged her pajamas tightly, wrapping her arms around her knees. She stayed like that for a while, not thinking, just crying.

Oeufcoque stayed with her, silently keeping her company.

When finally she got out of bed and headed into the dining room, she found that the various contraptions had all been tidied away.

The Doctor had just finished sending his latest email to the DA, and he spun around to greet Balot with the words, “We have a date for the trial.”

And so it came to pass that, one week after she had obtained the chips from the casino, Balot found herself standing in front of the Broilerhouse again.

In order to climb her own stairway to heaven. The symbol of this city. Mardock.

Chapter 12

NAVIGATION

01

“Why am I here?” Shell repeated the words to himself over and over, muttering in a state of near delirium.

Boiled watched with steely eyes as Shell sat there on the bench, head in his hands. The two of them were the only ones currently in the Broilerhouse waiting room. Shell removed his Chameleon Sunglasses. Holding the deep violet sunglasses in his hand, he turned to Boiled, his voice a pitiful mess of self-recrimination. He should have worked it out long ago.