Mardock Scramble

We killed a lot of people. A lot of enemies, a lot of allies. Guns, gas, bombs, electricity—we used all sorts of weapons. All day long I survived on tranquilizers washed down with scotch, firing away from inside my armored vehicle. Eating and shitting where I sat firing my guns. In a vehicle not unlike this one, actually, for three months, with no sunlight, in a place like a subway toilet. As a result of that I started suffering from white wax disease in my legs…”

Flesh stopped talking at this point and smiled at Boiled. “And what about you, sir? Have you been involved in experimental warfare?”

“I was in the P7 Experimental Corps.”

“P7…oh, so an Airborne Division? I know about all of them up to P6, in charge of the twenty- to sixty- thousand-meter altitude zones, right? I didn’t realize there was anything higher than that.”

“Strategic Space Corps. There were three of us, including me, who enlisted—volunteers from the Airborne Division.”

Flesh clapped his pudgy hands together. “Amazing! Just like a sci-fi movie!”

Boiled’s eyes caught Flesh’s again. After a second he nodded silently, facial expression immutable as ever. A movement like the cylinder of a revolver spinning in place.

Then a murmur. “The whole unit was a sham, a concoction. Objectives and results, all fabricated. It was only there as a smokescreen to develop pointless technology.”

And with that, he turned his eyes—devoid of sentiment as ever—back to the monitor.

Chapter 4

SPARK

01

It was four in the afternoon.

Balot was stirring stew in a saucepan, but she suddenly stopped. Oeufcoque was standing on the counter sniffing the air coming in through the ventilation system. Balot poked Oeufcoque with her free hand.

“Agh, that tickles.” Oeufcoque covered his sides.

But his nose was still to the ventilator.

He spoke with just a trace of nerves. “There’s an unusual smell.”

Balot poked at the stew. She lifted up the wine, bringing the neck of the bottle toward her.

“I’m not talking about the seasoning.”

Balot placed the bottle down and leaned her head toward him.

“There’s a smell of carnival. A group of people rejoicing, about to go to a party, or a festival…or maybe to war.” Oeufcoque spoke and sniffed the air again. “There’s also the faint, bitter smell of fear. As if someone has been killed.”

Oeufcoque looked at Balot, apprehensive. But Balot was no longer afraid of this sort of thing. She turned the heat down and entwined Oeufcoque around her fingers.

–Enemies?

“Probably. Check communication lines with the outside world, will you?”

Balot put Oeufcoque on top of her right hand and touched the intercom on the wall with her left hand as he’d requested.

She snarced the receiver without lifting it, putting a call out to the police escort that was staked out in the neighborhood.

–The lines are all ringing, but nobody’s answering.

“What, all three of the bases? What about headquarters? And try the Doctor too.”

–I’m not getting anything.

Balot tapped the receiver with her fingers.

–Something doesn’t feel right. It’s coming up that the lines are engaged, but it’s weird. It feels like I’m contacting somewhere entirely different.

A claustrophobic, urgent atmosphere pressed in on them from all sides.

Balot took her hand off the intercom and turned the stove off completely, and then she took her apron off and threw it over a chair. She headed toward her room, Oeufcoque still on her hand.

–They’re coming, aren’t they? The people who rubbed out our police guard. Coming here to assassinate us too.

“Highly probable.”

–I want to get ready. Will you give me five minutes? “What are you planning to do?”

–Take a shower.

She spoke as if she were talking about tending to her firearms.

Oeufcoque nodded. “But be quick.”

Dish, wash, brush…she felt the ditty spinning around the back of her mind as she savored the hot water. Dash, crush, rush, flush…

She knew that having dirt and grime on her skin weakened her natural abilities. So, whenever she was due to wear Oeufcoque she needed to make doubly sure she was clean. To scrub herself up spick and span, polish herself up like a stainless steel knife.

As she washed she started to feel that she might be able to grasp each individual droplet of hot water as it fell from above, down to the finest of movements. She probably could have. Even the destination of the water. She could almost imagine the whole world flowing through her skin.

Under her control.

My body is my own.

The seed of resolve was planted firmly in the back of her mind.

She wasn’t going to hand it over to anyone else ever again.

She would protect it—and fight.

Why me? The eternal question was about to deliver up an answer that she had never even dreamed of. Or not an answer, to be precise, but a reversal, turning the question inside out, just like Oeufcoque.

Whoever it is who’s targeting me—I’ll make sure they get their just rewards.

That was the answer she had to the question of why everything had to happen to her; she would take the question—Why me?—and shove it right back in her enemies’ faces.

Dish, wash, crush, mash…

She turned the shower off. She snarced the TowelJet without touching it, and strong warm gusts of air blew from all directions, drying her body.

She rubbed oil on herself, luxuriating under the warm breeze.

She was now the perfect blade, or so she felt. A blade so sharp it would even cut through its own sheath. She was a sharp sword who had the right to choose what she would have wrapped around her.

And, of course, she had already chosen. Her one and only scabbard—and weapon.

Goodish, fresh, wish…

Balot left the bathroom. She stood in front of the desk, not a stitch on her body.

She reached out her hand toward the mouse that was standing on the desk and sniffing his surroundings with a pointy nose.

Oeufcoque jumped onto her hand. “Good to go?”