Mardock Scramble

She was waiting for the right moment. If Boiled was trying to ensnare them, she’d ensnare him back. Shrewd tactics—it was a gamble that relied on split-second timing.

She confirmed that Boiled was just about to enter through the front door, and she knew the moment was right.

–Bye-bye, Shell.

Balot snarced the words into Shell’s brain and kissed him lightly on the forehead.

At the same time she let go. Shell’s body slid down the chute, making a screeching sound as it did so before landing with a dull thud at the other end.

Boiled stopped still outside the front door. He touched the wall with his hand so that he could grasp what was going on, and it was clear he was considering what had just happened. Boiled understood Balot’s intentions. He also understood just how serious she was. Boiled walked closer to the front door.

Suddenly Balot’s knees started to wobble. She was gripped with the fear that came from knowing that she had burnt her last bridge—thrown away her last chance to escape. She opened her voiceless mouth to breathe in deeply, bringing herself back from the verge of panic.

Oeufcoque called out to her. “Balot.” Balot squeezed her bodysuit tight.

–There are lots of people I’ve wanted to be loved by. But you’re the only one I’ve ever wanted to love myself.

She spoke to Oeufcoque as she sensed him covering her whole body. She showed him her will, and her courage.

–I know the person we’re fighting now used to be a friend of yours, so I’ll do my best to stop him without hurting him too much.

Oeufcoque seemed to be inhaling Balot’s very intentions. To face an enemy as powerful as Boiled with the handicap of merely trying to disarm him—that was virtually suicide, a death wish. Boiled would ruthlessly exploit any perceived weakness to drive his advantage home.

Balot hugged her bodysuit still tighter. It was the weapon that covered her. Snug and tight.

–I won’t kill him. I won’t be killed. I won’t let him kill.

This was what she had learned from Oeufcoque, after all, and it was the only answer that she could give.

“We won’t kill. We won’t be killed. We won’t let him kill,” Oeufcoque repeated, as if it were some sort of mantra. “That’s an extremely difficult task we’ve set ourselves. But…it’s worth trying.”

Slowly Balot took her hands away from her shoulders and placed them back at her sides.

“I’ve got a good partner.”

With that, Balot felt Oeufcoque turn again. He wrapped Balot thoroughly, to protect her and to be her weapon, ready to respond instantly to her snarc.

Balot snarced her left glove. A metallic mass appeared. She gripped it tightly and felt its weight become part of her body. Balot and Oeufcoque were one.

?

Balot remembered how it was she used to survive.

Bad customers and good customers, she used to act in the same way: she just killed her breath and waited.

Waiting until she became used to it. Releasing herself into space. So that her heart wouldn’t be trapped in one place. It was harrowing in the extreme. Looking back, she was amazed at herself for putting up with so much.

It was all different now. And yet it was also the same. She had to do something. If she stopped her own breath, she knew she would die. But if she lost her focus on her opponent, she would also die. There was no point now in trying to escape from the reality that she was here. If she tried to box her heart up and put it somewhere for safekeeping, it would mean she wouldn’t be able to be here right now. She just couldn’t afford to hide her heart away.

She kept a steady rhythm, extending her consciousness, searching for a road to victory, letting go.

She took a quiet breath in. Then out. She sensed that Boiled had reached the top of the stairs. She felt the temperature in the room drop. Such was the creature that now stood on the other side of the thin door.

“I’m disappointed…” A voice came from beyond the door. A thick, heavy voice—one that she could have heard wherever she stood. “I anticipated that you would kill Shell for me.”

Something about the way Boiled spoke struck Balot as being very incongruous.

“You know the way I do things.”

The words pressed down on her now. Her breathing slipped, and she corrected herself, ensuring she maintained her breathing rhythm at all costs. Suddenly Balot realized why Boiled’s words had struck her as being so strange.

“Tweedledee was delighted to have found someone like you. Someone the same as him,” said Boiled.

Boiled was speaking directly to Balot, and to Balot alone. He had always spoken to Oeufcoque in the past.

“I’m delighted too, for the same reasons,” continued Boiled.

The air in the room went from cold to freezing. The oppressive air threatened to rob Balot of all her senses. But Balot was prepared for this. She felt a moment’s opening within the rhythm that she had been keeping, and she knew she had to take it. She knew that Boiled would be ready too. She had to bet everything on that fearful moment. She steadied her gun.

Balot realized all too well that she was hoping against hope for the jackpot. Boiled’s jackpot—she had to wait for him to make the first move. After all, she could fire as many bullets as she liked at him, thousands, but they’d all be deflected.

Her only choice was to aim for the instant that Boiled couldn’t generate his PseudoGravitational Float. The instant that he fired his own gun.

With those thoughts running through her head, Balot started firing. Over and over. Aiming for his gun hand.

The fateful bullets should have flown straight toward Boiled, blowing his own bullets off course along the way.

But Balot realized that something had gone wrong. It wasn’t only the air that felt as cold as ice—now the cold was encroaching on her heart.

Boiled hadn’t fired. She’d fallen for his feint. A circle opened up in the door, a circumference of bullet holes. The bullets that Balot had fired that were supposed to converge on one single point. Balot immediately crossed her arms to protect her face. A moment later she felt the impact.

Boiled’s bullet slammed into her crossed arms.

She flew backward.

The shock pummeled her very consciousness just as much as it did her flesh.

The door flew open and Boiled piled into the room.

Balot was numb, but the impact of the giant figure entering her territory brought her abruptly back to her senses.

She fell onto her back and rolled backward farther still to absorb the shock, then stood right back up again. She moved like a prima ballerina, leaving everything to her body’s instincts and to the suit that covered her. She stopped thinking with her mind and went with the flow.

She checked that both arms were still working fine, which they were. She had been far enough away.

Oeufcoque was just strong enough to protect Balot from bullets fired from a distance. It would have been a different story at point-blank range.

Boiled moved in to close that distance. Balot’s eyes filled with the giant man advancing on her with murderous intent.

Balot suppressed the fear and scowled. She snarced Boiled with all her might, as if