Mardock Scramble

it inward.

She felt her own rhythm, the pulse running through her whole body. She felt the sensation of understanding her inner workings at the most fundamental level. This was something that didn’t belong to anyone else—it was hers.

The external and internal gently connected in her consciousness. She could feel changes in her body and changes on the weighing scales with equal precision. Through Oeufcoque she could feel the flow of the air, and she grasped the layout of the entire garage. She could feel the shapes of the parked cars, the thickness of the supporting pillars and the walls, and even the electricity in the air as it flowed through her body.

She grasped her own tiniest movements, fractions of a millimeter.

Behind Balot’s back the Doctor kept his eyes glued to the screen—and she could sense him growing more and more excited. The Doctor was astonished and delighted in equal measure.

“Amazing—how wonderful to have my own inventions brought properly to life by a genius such as you!” But even as the Doctor spoke, she sensed a faint echo of remorse.

It suddenly occurred to Balot that she had never really given much thought to the question of what all these inventions were originally intended for.

–Don’t you like wars, Doctor?

She spoke with her eyes still closed.

Behind her the Doctor lifted his head.

“Well, no, of course not… Although, ironically, we’re talking about technology that was originally developed under a remit from high command in order to help soldiers fight in space more effectively, so that they could engage in hand-to-hand combat even when they were wearing their bulky space suits.”

–So why did you make all this?

“You know, I really had convinced myself that I was contributing to human progress, even to world peace. Although my wife and relatives all just thought I was a nut job obsessed with my quest to restructure the human body…”

–But you’re going to save me.

Balot’s eyes were still shut.

The Doctor chuckled. “Let’s hope so. Now, on to the next step!”

Balot opened her eyes.

The numbers were no longer moving, not even slightly.

She could now see exactly how they did move, and what she needed to do with her body to make them move—or stay still.

She spread her legs apart.

Still the numbers stayed the same.

Balot felt confident now—if the scales were fifty meters long and she was told to run from one end to the other, she knew she’d be able to do so and the numbers would barely flicker.

“Are you right-handed?” Oeufcoque asked.

–I am now, although I was born left-handed.

And then, after answering, she snarced just to Oeufcoque:

–I was told I needed to make myself right-handed, as some customers might feel uncomfortable around a southpaw.

“So, is it safe to say you could be ambidextrous when it came to handling weapons?”

–I guess I could get used to it, after a little practice.

“Then let’s start with the left. Let’s get a gun in your hand.”

Balot snarced Oeufcoque via her left hand.

Even though she’d never handled a gun before, she could tell that Oeufcoque was turning into the ideal model for her, the one that suited her grip the best out of all the models he had programmed into him.

The fabric on her palm turned with a squelch and she felt cold steel—and gripped it.

It was heavier than she’d expected—but her body soon adjusted to the extra weight.

Oeufcoque gave her some tips. “Parts of this are made from vulcanized plastic and some electronics, but basically this is just an automatic pistol. You pull the trigger, the gunpowder explodes, and the bullet goes flying out the end at high velocity.”

Balot nodded and leveled the gun. The grip was fused into the palm of her suit.

She tried letting go, twiddling her fingers, and it still didn’t fall. It felt like it was almost a part of her.

“The target’s set up over on that wall.” The Doctor pointed at it. A black cardboard cutout, the shape of a man, about 170 centimeters in height.

“We have pressure sensors set up all around the target, so we’ll be able to tell immediately where your shots land. You watched the video on how to fire a gun? Well, go ahead and try it for yourself.”

The gun was empty of bullets. Balot snarced it. She felt a click, and she knew that the steel chamber was now loaded with a bullet. She could grasp the addition of the extra weight in the chamber, down to the last milligram.

Click, click, and one by one the magazine filled with bullets.

Eleven shots total—with an extra one in the chamber for good measure.

She thrust her left arm forward, used her right arm to steady it, and readied her gun.

She leaned in to compensate for the force, maneuvering herself into prime firing position, just as she had seen in the instructional video.

She brought her finger to rest on the trigger.

A little electronic gimmick on the trigger saw to it that all she needed to do was to grip gently rather than pull the trigger hard—she hardly needed to put any strength into it at all.

Bang, a hollow explosive sound.

A bullet flew out of the muzzle, and a spent casing flew sideways out of the chamber. A piercing sound could be heard on the other side of the wall. A metallic clang on the floor followed.

She fired more shots.

One shot, two shots, three shots.

She could have pushed the sound of the gunshots inside Oeufcoque, silencing them completely, but that would have dulled the visceral sensations of the whole experience.

Yes, for the real marksmanship experience, you really needed to have noise echoing all around you.

She fired six shots to gain her bearings. The next five she fired with her eyes completely closed. The car park reverberated with the sound of gunfire, and the empty cartridge shells played a merry jangling tune as they clattered across the ground.

She could even feel the sensation that the bullets themselves felt, that of being shot out of the barrel of the gun. Wrenched out of place, jumping out of the barrel, rotating with tremendous speed.

The numbers on the scales that Balot was standing on twitched slightly, but in a moment they settled and became virtually still.

Balot had finished firing her first load. The breechblock slid back and stopped in place.

“Don’t reload it right away—drop the magazine to release some of the heat that’s built up.”

Balot did as Oeufcoque said and snarced the grip of the gun into ejecting the magazine.

Balot relaxed as the magazine hit the scales. The subtlest of movements. The spent magazine hit the silver platform and rolled across it.

The numbers on the display didn’t change in the slightest.

Balot snarced the gun again.

A new magazine appeared inside the grip, a perfect fit.

The gun loaded with bullets as she moved herself back into position, and at the same time the breechblock snapped back into place.

She relaxed her shoulders and fired again. Settling into a regular rhythm. From the first to the last shot, like a