Mardock Scramble

Without her realizing it, Balot’s left hand had closed tightly over her four chips.

Her right hand was still pressed against his temple, and before long Balot had got the measure of the circuits to Shell’s brain.

–Everything that you’ve lost, I’m going to give back to you.

Balot took the vast amount of information contained in her left hand and started to feed it through the circuits and into Shell’s brain. Carefully, so as not to overload or damage anything.

At first Shell didn’t understand what was happening, but soon his face started twitching, and a crazed voice leaked out.

“Stop it…”

His eyes rolled back in his head so that only the whites showed. An unearthly scream left his mouth. A cry of despair. His mouth started frothing, then bubbled up, and blood poured from his nostrils.

Balot remained silent and continued to feed Shell’s memories back into his mind. His destroyed gestalt was gradually reconstructed, and even his paralyzed nerve circuits were being repaired electronically.

It wasn’t possible to manipulate his nerve cells directly, of course, but it was possible to restore the outlines of all the events that had taken place, with details of how they all related to each other, memories of the sights and sounds and smells and other stimuli.

Shell’s scream continued for a long time. This was the man who had voluntarily chosen to be an empty husk of a man, but Balot was now forcibly pumping the rotten contents that he’d been turning away from for so long back into him.

Eventually Shell was all screamed out, but the operation continued unabated for about thirty minutes. Only because of Balot’s incredible aptitude was such a speed possible.

Her glove squelched and swallowed up the chips again for safekeeping.

When she was finished, Balot touched the still-unconscious Shell’s head and communicated directly via the circuits in his brain.

–If you take good enough care of it then even a rotten egg might eventually come back to life.

Shell slept. Throughout the whole operation, from start to end, he hadn’t even looked at Balot once. Just like when he’d waved goodbye to her from outside the car that trapped her. He hadn’t really been looking at her—only his own reflection. You reap what you sow, Balot thought, and then she realized that this applied to herself as well. She had never loved Shell and never wanted to. All she had ever wanted was to be loved.

She felt a great void disappear—where there had been a sorrowful emptiness inside her, now she was feeling complete again.

The very next instant she sensed something approaching the building they were in. She gulped.

It was threat personified. A cold killing machine in the shape of a giant. And it was drawing near.

“Boiled is coming…” Oeufcoque murmured, for he too had sensed the impending danger.

Balot nodded. She felt overwhelming pressure bearing in on her from all around, and she shivered. For a moment she forgot about Shell, forgot about herself, forgot about the dead girls and their accursed lives— everything was wiped cleanly from her mind.

For that alone, Balot found herself feeling almost thankful.

04

–All air traffic has been cut off! Boiled has put in a thousand different investigation requests to the aviation authorities!

Balot heard the Doctor’s voice shouting down the cell phone in frustration. “Investigating the airways? What’s he playing at?” asked Oeufcoque.

–It’s not the investigations themselves that are important. He’s sent in aerial camera crews, weather balloons, that sort of thing, so as to block off all the flight paths. Humpty can’t get permission to enter any airspace on safety grounds. I can exercise my rights as a Trustee to get them out of the area, but it’ll take time for the messages to get through. Too much time. We’ve fallen right into his trap. What do we do?

“We prepare to defend ourselves and try to escape. What else is there? Even if the police were to come to our aid, there’s no guarantee that we’d be able to keep Shell to ourselves. If OctoberCorp has its way, Shell will be shot dead on the spot. There’s nothing else to do—we have to protect Shell,” Oeufcoque said, as businesslike as possible.

Balot could tell, though, that Oeufcoque was worried—and suffering for it. She listened to the conversation, tuning in to Oeufcoque’s feelings as he spoke to the Doctor in the form of a cell phone in her hands.

She sensed Boiled moving toward them somewhere outside the building. He would stop now and then to touch the building, and every time he did so Balot felt it as keenly as if it were her own body he was touching. He was closing in on them, like a grand master seeking out the opening that would allow him to checkmate.

Oeufcoque and the Doctor conversed quickly now. Oeufcoque kept a level head throughout. At no point did he even consider the possibility of giving up the case. This saved Balot—and gave her an answer to the question What should I do?

Outside the building, Boiled was moving in a peculiar way, cutting off their escape routes as he closed in.

There was only one of him. There should have been any number of ways they could have run. And yet there was no escape route. It was as if they were surrounded by an army of a hundred.

This was another answer to Balot’s question.

–I’ll protect us all.

Oeufcoque and the Doctor fell silent as Balot snarced the phone.

–How long until you can get here, Doctor?

–Two hours should be—no, I’ll make it there in an hour. Believe me.

–Sure. I believe you. I won’t run away.

–No, no, if it gets too dangerous then please do run away. I’m begging you.

–All right.

–I’m trusting in you, Balot, Oeufcoque. I’ll be there to pick you up as soon I can.

The conversation ended and the display on the cell phone went blank. Balot placed it on the floor.

“What exactly are you planning?”

–Please, help me with this.

Balot snarced her bodysuit to speak to Oeufcoque.

Shell had received rudimentary first aid—he was bandaged up and laid out on the concrete floor at Balot’s feet.

He looked almost like a mummy. He was trussed up in bandages, gauze, and ropes that bound his arms and legs. All Made by Oeufcoque.

Perhaps due to the magnitude of the memories that had just been crammed back into his mind, Shell showed no sign of moving or regaining consciousness.

He might have been drowning in a sea of dreams from his murky past, but his face was tranquil as he slept. Balot felt a pang of relief—perhaps it was true. Now that he had his memories back, his murderous urges might finally subside.

Balot knelt down to pick up Shell, who was as limp as a rolled-up carpet. Oeufcoque helped her. Here and there her bodysuit turned into a metal exoskeleton to support Shell’s weight.

Balot propped the sleeping Shell over her shoulder and went to the garbage disposal chute in one corner of the room. Checking first that there was no shredder or pulverizer at the other end, she lifted Shell’s body into the opening, holding on to him by the lapel of his shirt.

“Aren’t you going to let him go?”

–Not yet.

Oeufcoque realized immediately what Balot meant by this. He was genuinely impressed.