Mardock Scramble

caused by OctoberCorp’s irresponsible, gung-ho technology?”

–Do you think Shell would stop killing people if he had his memories returned to him?

Balot asked the question out of a simple desire to know the answer.

Oeufcoque fielded this one. “Well, there’s absolutely no doubt that Shell’s missing memories are exacerbating his urges. If all his memories were to be returned to him then his desire to rape and murder would certainly diminish, possibly even fade away completely. But Shell wouldn’t want this for himself.”

–Well, I wouldn’t want his past either.

After she spoke, Balot hung her head in contemplation. The Doctor and Oeufcoque left her in peace for a moment. After a suitable pause Oeufcoque continued gently, “The past is nothing more than a fossil. To think that the past always has to determine the future is to doom yourself into becoming no more than a fossil yourself. Shell made the wrong choice, that’s all.”

–Wrong choice?

“At the very least, we can say that he didn’t endure, didn’t resist, unlike you. He just thought to console himself with the sacrifices of others.

Balot thought about this for a while, then touched Oeufcoque.

–It was you two who saved me. Thank you.

The Doctor threw his arms up in the air and grinned, a twinkle in his eye. “I hope you got that on tape, Oeufcoque! There’s the proof of our usefulness for the Broilerhouse! What better words of validation could there be for Mardock Scramble 09?”

“Doc, you know as well as I do that there’s no way I’d do such a thing without Balot’s permission.”

“Hmmph. Shame…”

Balot laughed in spite of herself.

The atmosphere in the room—so heavily laden with the pressure of having all their lives so inextricably linked—lifted, just a little.

?

The trial began half an hour later.

As ever, the proceedings moved along at a sluggish pace, but at least Shell’s lawyer could see which way the wind was blowing, and he put up no more than token, ineffectual resistance. Rather than fighting the case, the defense attorney seemed almost to withdraw from the scene, looking for an escape route that would—as much as possible—allow him to keep both his dignity and career intact. As a result, Shell’s memories were shielded from the worst excesses of scurrilous gossip that usually came with the public dissection of juicy secrets—though Shell didn’t seem the least bit grateful that, in this respect at least, he had escaped the worst.

The trial was over by 16:45, four hours after it had begun.

Shell was taken to prison.

02

There was a sudden ping—a message had arrived.

The Doctor looked suspiciously at his PDA after fishing it out of his jacket pocket.

They were in the middle of an early dinner at one of the fancy restaurants in the neighborhood of the Broilerhouse.

It was the sort of place lawyers went to celebrate a victory or victims went to celebrate after being awarded a windfall compensation. Balot, the Doctor, and Oeufcoque were celebrating there too, although it wasn’t so much in order to enjoy a gourmet meal as to take a much-needed pause before the case was finally wrapped up. A pause to mark the end of one chapter in Balot’s life, to celebrate all she had achieved and to prepare her to embark upon a new chapter. Oeufcoque and the Doctor felt she needed a little treat.

“It’s from the DA. Apparently the other side wants to talk, and they’re putting in their offer to us immediately.” The Doctor looked away from his PDA and toward Oeufcoque, who was still in the form of a choker. “The person offering the settlement isn’t even directly related to this case—he’s stepped in to try and broker a settlement.”

“Who is it?”

“The director of OctoberCorp. Shell’s boss—and putative father-in-law.”

–What’s going on? I don’t understand.

Sensing that Balot was concerned, the Doctor smiled in order to try and calm her down. Behind his spectacles though, his eyes weren’t smiling. Rather they were set in steely resolution.

“You remember the man standing beside Shell at the Casino. Cleanwill John October. Well, he’s proposing a negotiation.”

–To negotiate what?

“The second case, as it were. The one that will implicate all OctoberCorp officials for more or less ordering Shell to commit his crime spree. You see, we intend to use your case as a vein and continue digging till we find the mother lode—it’s not just Shell that we’re after. That’s what they’re afraid of, so they’re asking for certain facts to be made public…”

–Use my case?

Balot frowned a little.

The Doctor hastily covered his tracks. “Not in a bad way. I just mean that the chips you won give us a lot of power and leverage.”

–So, to put it in blackjack terms, what we’re doing is instead of staying, we’re hitting in order to try and draw out some more criminals?

“Well, in the end, Shell’s just as much a victim of OctoberCorp as anyone else is. You’ve seen his memories firsthand, so I’m sure you understand that.”

Balot nodded. Oeufcoque remained silent.

The Doctor continued. “The brain surgery Shell received as a child, the A10 operation, that was OctoberCorp’s handiwork. It’s entirely possible to believe that this is what made him slavishly follow OctoberCorp’s orders.”

–You mean they messed around with his head and made him their slave?

“Not in the sense of controlling his thought processes directly, but I’d say there was a good chance they were artificially stimulating his pleasure centers, making it far more likely for him to follow orders with blind devotion.”

–How?

“Well, for example, they could make it so that every time he hears the OctoberCorp name or sees its symbol, a dopamine shot is released inside his brain, and he feels just that little bit better. Reinforced tens, hundreds of times, it becomes an unbreakable habit, absolute.”

–I think that all Shell really wanted to do was escape. From his own life.

Oeufcoque interjected for the first time in the conversation. “And what OctoberCorp did was provide him with an escape route. The ultimate inducement into temptation.”

Balot nodded. She started to remember what it felt like when she was watching Shell’s memories.

–Shell seemed to think that working for OctoberCorp was just like a fish returning upstream to spawn. He considered himself as no more than a little fish, placed deliberately in the river.

Then Balot turned straight to the Doctor to look at him and ask him a question.

–The case that they want to try and settle—is it my case too?

The Doctor was about to nod, but Oeufcoque interrupted him. “You’ve already solved your own case. There’s no need for you to put yourself in danger’s way anymore.”

“Hey, wait a minute, Oeufcoque. Her case leads to the mother lode. All that’s happened so far is that Shell has temporarily lost his liberty. As yet, OctoberCorp is still untouched and untroubled. In any case, she’s already