Mardock Scramble

man’s chest. The electric charge from the bullet fried his wound—and his lungs—and he collapsed in a heap before a sound could pass his lips.

Again, no blood, and again the smell of fried flesh hung in the air.

“That’ll be me, then.” Medium leaned over the corpse and lectured the dead body in jest, waggling his index finger.

Medium put his gun away and lifted up the man’s wrist, staring fixedly at it. “Tough, professional fingers,” he said, taking his sunglasses off with his knife-wielding hand. “Just not really sexy enough. Let’s sell them off, Well.”

He was speaking now to Welldone, who emerged from the opposite end of the corridor.

Well was dragging yet another dead body by the scruff of its neck.

He took his sunglasses off, exposing his computerized red pupils, and spoke. “Three people exactly. We’ve cleaned up over here. How’s it going over there, Rare, Mincemeat?” Welldone spoke out loud, hand to his temple. The reply came:

–All done. Easy peasy! I’m just brewing myself some nice coffee in the kitchen. Rare’s girly voice sounded in Welldone’s and Medium’s ears and continued:

–It was a little boring, actually. The pigs were stationed exactly where we knew they’d be when we hacked their Ham & Egg system.

“Good…standby on alert.”

–All finished over here too. Looks like our tracking system’s working. When should I bring this pig out?

It was Mincemeat’s voice that now arrived on the scene, and Welldone responded. “Wait for darkness. We’re going to scramble all the Ham & Egg circuits in the area, along with all communications to and from the target house.”

–Am I good to soil them a bit, then?

“Why,

what’s happened, little Minty?” Medium asked, amused.

–There was a woman here too. They were trying to pass themselves off as a couple, but they’re both Ham & Eggers. Still, might have been a real-life couple, I suppose.

“Are they still alive, Mincemeat?” asked Welldone. He left the house and moved toward the car.

–Er…should they be?

“Not really. Do as you please. Just be sure you factor in enough time to tidy up afterwards.”

“Twenty minutes till sunset, little Minty. The sun’s almost down. Time for dinner.” Medium spoke now, standing in the hallway. He heard Mincemeat’s laughter echoing deep in his ear.

–More of a snack. I’ll leave the front parts for Well. Can’t imagine they’ll be to your taste, though. I’m going to do the rear parts myself, now, husband and wife in turn.

Mincemeat carried on cheerfully, and Medium burst out laughing. “Rare’s going to be all jealous…”

–Ooh, Medi, no, you know how loud I get! I just can’t keep it in. If I did anything now our target would know we were coming! I don’t like it unless I can scream real loud.

“Just don’t forget we need some time to load the pigs,” Welldone said as he returned with a suitcase in either hand. “Consume the prey without leaving a single drop of blood. That’s the secret of our success, after all.”

“That’s right, business is business, Rare, little Minty. Don’t let the pigs rot.” Medium took a suitcase from Welldone and knelt down by one of the corpses.

Welldone extracted the Lockbuster Card from the door and reset the lock. “Just don’t forget that you’re on the battlefield, Rare and Mincemeat.”

–That’s what makes it feel so good, though! Isn’t that right, little Minty?

–Yeah, it’s good. It’s really good!

Medium shook his head, laughing, and cut off his transmission from Mincemeat. “Looks like being on the battlefield just increases the thrill factor for them. Give us a hand, will you, Well? Let’s slice this pig up with our two-hundred-thousand-dollar butter knives.”

Welldone kneeled beside the corpse and took his Hutchinson Knife out, applying it to the corpse’s wrists. Flesh, skin, and bone were all sliced off together, but not a single drop of blood escaped.

“Easy does it. You know that red convertible we just passed—do you think he’s one of the PIs too?” Medium spoke cheerfully, and Well grinned back.

“He is. I had Flesh confirm it. So all we’ve got to do now is give the other PI a little scratch with our butter knives and then put the girl to sleep and bring her back with us.”

“My chest is pounding. It’s been a while. I’m almost as excited as that first time we ever set out as a gang.”

Welldone laughed. The two men cheerfully dissected the body and packed it away in the suitcases.

?

“Looks like the operation will commence in twenty minutes.” Inside the container on the trailer, Flesh wobbled his gelatinous body around toward Boiled as he spoke to him.

“Perfect timing.”

Boiled nodded his approval.

The container was full of machinery. Mincemeat was the trailer’s driver, and it was currently parked some distance away from the residential district.

“I’ll finish my work on the Ham & Egg circuits in a couple of minutes. Each of the three residences are set up so that if they don’t successfully send and receive a transmission from each of the others every forty-five minutes, the emergency alarm is sounded automatically. So I’ve had to fix it so that each one relays a message on to the next one every fifteen minutes.”

Boiled nodded again. His eyes were fixed on a monitor that showed a detailed image of the neighborhood. A number of flashing lights showed where Welldone and the rest of the gang were at that precise moment.

The next monitor along showed a building in 3-D. With perfect marking—radar devices set in three places around the building—they were able to triangulate and get a precise scan of its contents.

“It’s built just as it says on the blueprints. Have you ever been inside the building yourself?”

Boiled glanced at Flesh, unspeaking.

“We ran some background checks on you ourselves, you know. You’re amazing. All those cases you solved with that other PI called Oeufcoque, and every single one of them designated an Official License. You’re a real celebrity within the industry, aren’t you? And I hear you’ve got a lot of clout with the DA’s office too.”

“That’s all stuff that my former partner engineered after he dissolved our partnership.”

“Hmm…I would have thought you were the sort of person who didn’t worry too much about history, what someone might or might not have done. I was hoping you wouldn’t mind discussing the past?” Flesh asked.

Boiled continued staring at the monitor, but nodded slightly.

“We were all in the Forces. Well, Medi and I were all in the Experimental Mechanized Division of the Marine Corps—the Guinea Pigs, we were known as—and we met Rare and Mincemeat at the front when we were all thrown together in the same company of the Southern Division on the Continent. I was up for military discharge after getting shell-shocked and developing paranoia, but then loads of enemies came and surrounded us. We had to hole up in the forest for over ninety days before the helicopters were finally dispatched to evacuate us. Even today, whenever I see an oak tree it takes me back, brings back vivid memories.”

Boiled ignored Flesh, but he carried on speaking. “Everyone looked after me, a mere comm specialist. A lot of soldiers ended up regressing to a childlike state, though. Some grew paranoid, or started developing abnormally aggressive tendencies. Some units had a lot of these sorts of soldiers concentrated in one place, and I somehow found myself in one of them. At first we were the exception, but before we knew it our sort of unit became quite common, especially on the front lines. Then, as the battle intensified, it became completely normal. These are the only sorts of people who can really adapt to the front lines, after all. We fought hard and received plenty of medals.