Mardock Scramble

after all,” Oeufcoque said, genuinely concerned now, and as he did so the car moved toward the mall exit. Then a large van emerged at their flank, and Oeufcoque immediately ordered, “Enemies! Snarc the car and let’s escape!”

–See, I told you something would happen.

Balot, who really was angry now, snarced the car as a reflex action. The car sped on—at a speed much higher than its official limit—and, barely sticking to the road, squeezed in front of the van.

Balot looked back and saw it following immediately behind them. Listening to the clamor of car horns sounding all around in protest, she asked,

–What do we do now?

“Let’s shake them off, using your abilities. I’ll give the directions.”

Oeufcoque turned into a Nav, and she asked him,

–So I should make the car go full speed ahead?

“Yes, with your seat belt fastened and watching out for pedestrians.”

–And I can truly rely on you?

“Absolutely.”

Balot pursed her lips and fastened her seat belt. Still looking at the display on the Nav in her hand, she concentrated on the inner workings of the car and snarced its circuits for all she was worth.

In an instant she grasped the layout of all the cars in her surroundings, the positions of all the pedestrians, and the obstacles—and, like a professional skateboarder, made the car jump through every little gap and opening, pushing swiftly onward.

–I’ve never driven a car before, Balot informed Oeufcoque (a little late in the day), but Oeufcoque just responded calmly, “There’s a first time for everything.”

As they pulled out of the East Side and entered the trunk road, two pairs of headlights emerged from behind and roared toward them, accelerating harshly. Their escape route had been read like a book. Without looking at the vans that were growing steadily nearer, Balot measured them, grasped them.

The window on the passenger side rolled down, and the barrel of a gun emerged from the gap.

“They’re going to start shooting at us, so dodge. Should be no problem with your abilities.”

It was strange—because Oeufcoque told her that this was true, she began to believe it herself.

Balot even knew the movements of the people inside the car. Even going nearly a hundred kilometers an hour, she could clearly grasp the movements of the person in the van putting their finger to the trigger.

Balot manipulated the whole car, snarcing every mechanism simultaneously.

The gunshot masked the sound of the car’s harsh breaking. Even as the bullet grazed the hood, the car swung around in a huge arc, moving in the opposite direction.

She grasped that the vans on either side had sped past and were now frantically trying to stop.

The car did a half turn, all four tires smoking, and sped off back the way it had come.

The cars that had been behind Balot were now in front of her, drivers frantically yanking their steering wheels. Balot grasped all their movements, dodged all the vehicles without a scratch, weaved through the oncoming traffic, and dashed on for a few hundred meters. She noticed that one of the vans behind her had stopped, crashed into one of the oncoming cars.

The car’s 180-degree turn and sprint were both Oeufcoque’s idea. Balot followed whatever path Oeufcoque indicated and found herself back in the bustling East Side.

–Oeufcoque, are you a pacifist? An extremist? Which is it?

“A pacifist, of course.”

–Would a pacifist make someone speed down a road the wrong way?

“It was the least risky means of dealing with the state of emergency that we were just in. It’s not as if I’m allowed to turn into a rocket launcher and blow the enemy away.”

–Could you really turn into something like that?

“It’s against the laws of the Commonwealth. If I turned into such a thing they’d dispose of me the very next day.”

–Even if it’s an emergency?

“It might be an emergency, but the ends don’t always justify the means.”

Unimpressed, Balot followed Oeufcoque’s directions, weaving freely through the complicated back streets of the city in order to try and shake off the other van. Soon they entered an underground tunnel, passed through a number of intersections, and when they re-emerged above ground near the central district of Mardock City the van was nowhere to be seen—all Balot could see was the night sky of early spring that flowed all around them like fresh black ink.

“Looks like we’ve managed to lose them completely. The first lot, at least,” Oeufcoque muttered thoughtfully, still giving directions as a Nav.

–Are you saying there are more?

Balot curled up anxiously, still gripping the Nav.

“Here and there I smelled something unusual. A sense of purpose completely without emotion—as if it were merely observing us.”

Suddenly Balot’s senses noticed that a car was drawing near. It cruised along at the same speed as them about a block behind.

–There’s a car stuck to our tail—an enemy?

“No…this smell…”

At that moment the car that was tailing them abruptly moved into the same lane.

It maintained its distance a few cars behind, precisely.

–Oeufcoque?

“It’s him—I’m sure of it,” Oeufcoque whispered in a subdued, serious voice that she had never heard from him before.

Before they realized it the car behind had gradually closed in.

At length Balot turned around and saw the driver with her own eyes and gasped.

It was the driver from that night—that night she was burned to death in the car, when Shell got into another AirCar, driven by his bodyguard.

“It’s Dimsdale-Boiled. OctoberCorp’s Scramble 09,” Oeufcoque muttered quietly. As he did so the car behind flashed its headlights.

–What? He’s asking us to stop?

Balot’s eyes widened. At that moment, the comm device in her car started blinking.

“As a fellow Trustee with responsibility for solving this case, I demand my statutory rights to Information Disclosure.” The voice was distinctive and hailed them from the car behind. Balot was startled. Oeufcoque was silent. The voice coming through the comm device continued, “We’ve already made our background checks on that rental car. If you refuse to participate in the Information Disclosure then the public rental car agency will testify as to your cooperative attitude.”

–What’s he talking about? Why can we hear his voice? What is this person saying?

“In order to come to a peaceful resolution wherever possible, Trustees in charge of cases will often negotiate with each other, exchanging certain prescribed pieces of information,” Oeufcoque explained. “Refusal to do so counts as a big minus in court.”

–What are we going to do?

“Let’s stop the car up here. We’ll just have to have a little chat,” Oeufcoque said, turning back into a glove that covered Balot’s right hand. At length Balot timidly pulled the car over onto the hard shoulder.

05

Boiled pulled up two car lengths behind Balot’s car.