Mardock Scramble

“Isn’t it great? Using the funds we requested for your Life Preservation Program I was able to source some first-class diagnostic equipment, tinker around with it, and polish it up into these. These beauties knock the training equipment used in the Major Leagues right out of the water!”

Balot snarced the throat of her suit, producing a crystalline sound.

–Looks like everyone’s an artist.

She looked around at the machinery, somewhat nonplussed.

“It’s important to be artistic now and then if you’re going to enjoy your life—the trick is to stop just before you end up on the wrong side of autistic.” The Doctor was in his element, able to fiddle with his machines to his heart’s content. “Are those clothes Oeufcoque?”

“That’s right, Doc. And I was told off by Balot for not being artistic enough in my own designs,” said Oeufcoque.

The Doctor nodded in agreement. “Get her to teach you some style, then. Now, Balot, I’m going to stick these on you, okay?”

The Doctor showed her some circular stickers. Balot nodded, and the Doctor started placing them all over her—knees, elbows, back.

–What are these things?

“Designed to send your biorhythmic data straight to this machine. They’ll capture your movements with a margin of error of less than 0.1 millimeters. Now, could you move around a bit? Do some stretches, that sort of thing.”

The Doctor took a seat in a pipe chair and balanced a laptop on his knees. Multicolored cords extended from the back of the monitor and plugged into the sprawling machinery.

Balot moved as requested. Some warm-ups. She snarced the suit here and there as she limbered up. A few patterns started appearing on the suit and eventually formed themselves into what could be described as a rough design, complete with colors.

Balot still didn’t seem satisfied, exactly, but at least she was getting there.

“You’re pretty limber,” Oeufcoque said as Balot performed a split, backside now on the floor. He seemed impressed.

Balot smiled and, from the same position on the floor, leaned forward until her chest touched the ground. From that position she spread her arms toward her feet, deftly touching the tips of her toes.

“Well, that’s one skill I don’t have. We have ourselves a bona fide gymnast!”

–I just like physical activity. It makes me feel like I’m in charge of my body.

She spoke without the electronic voice box, communicating with Oeufcoque directly.

“The Doctor calls me unfit because I can’t run twenty meters in less than a minute.”

Balot chuckled as she got back up.

–Would you like me to keep moving around?

The Doctor shook his head as he pounded on the keys, relentlessly entering new data. “No, we’re okay. Now, could you just stand on that platform there? Yeah, the one in front of those contraptions.”

Balot did as she was asked and stepped up onto the silver platform.

It too had a number of wires running from it. It turned out it was some sort of scale. A small display on one of the corners of the platform revealed some numbers, with the numerals to the right of the decimal blinking and changing rapidly.

A number of other displays could be seen, each flashing up different sets of numerals.

Balot looked somewhat sullen and turned to the Doctor with a puzzled scowl.

“I’ve taken some scales that they use to weigh baggage in an airport and modified them so that they can display biorhythmic indices as well. This thing’s accurate down to the last milligram and can pick up everything from your circulation to body fat percentages.”

–That’s the sort of thing you should have told me before I got on!

“Huh?”

–It’s indecent.

The Doctor looked suitably chastened.

Oeufcoque’s laughter could be heard emanating from Balot’s left hand.

“Don’t be like that, please. Any sort of proper training needs an observer on the sidelines to measure the progress.”

–In that case, Doctor, I’ll just have to think of you as part of the furniture.

“That’s not much better…” the Doctor grumbled.

–Very nice furniture, of course.

Balot was teasing him now.

–I’ll let you tell me whatever you need to say.

The Doctor shrugged his shoulders, but Balot could tell he was playing along now. She laughed and looked at the numbers on the indices.

The numbers to the right of the decimals whirled around when she shifted her balance from foot to foot. When she stabilized, the numbers started changing much more slowly, but she still couldn’t get them to stand completely still.

“Ahem,” the Doctor coughed, ready to start. “Your skin was originally developed to withstand the weightlessness of space vacuum, to allow you to move freely without losing your equilibrioception.”

Balot nodded and watched the figures on the displays.

“Parts of your brain—in particular your cerebellum—work by receiving these electronic impulses, which are constantly processed and updated. Your sensory nerves act as neural pathways, as in a normal person, but as a result of your new abilities the time it takes to transfer this information is drastically reduced—or, to put it another way, your brain is accelerated many times over. So, theoretically you can use your snarc both outwardly and from the outside in.”

Balot nodded. She was keen to know the as-yet-undiscovered areas of the abilities she had acquired.

“Should be a piece of cake, considering the incredible aptitude you’ve shown so far.”

–What should be?

“Achieving equilibrium. You need to be able to grasp—precisely and evenly—the details of your interior workings, just as much as what’s going on outside your body. In other words, the definition of ‘training’ for you is not so much a case of building up your muscles but instead to cultivate your sense of internal balance.”

–So what is it exactly you want me to do?

“Make those scales stop still on a single number.”

Balot looked at the digits again. The numbers that were spinning round and round.

She could easily snarc them in order to give the Doctor what he asked for.

But that wasn’t quite what the Doctor was after.

“You need to let go in order to get go,” Oeufcoque interrupted. “Try and get a grasp of how your body ought to be in the context of its environment. You should be able to feel exactly what your body needs to do in order to adapt to its maximum effectiveness.”

–Is that what you do when you turn?

“Exactly. Your genetic makeup is very different from mine, but the basic principles are the same.”

–Genetic makeup?

“Look, you don’t need to think too hard about it. All you need to do is feel it.”

Balot looked away from the numbers on the scales and stared into space.

She thought about how she felt when she first woke up inside this building. How she could sleep without feeling uneasy about her surroundings for the first time ever. How that was what she wanted—what she needed— with all her heart.

Balot closed her eyes.

She focused on her consciousness—until now only ever used to explore her surroundings—and turned part of