Mardock Scramble

THE SECOND COMBUSTION

Chapter 5

PISTON

01

–I don’t want to die.

The thoughts were being transmitted to the blood-soaked gun, and every bullet that came flying out of its muzzle was loaded with sorrow.

–I’m so sorry, Oeufcoque. I’m so sorry.

Now Balot understood the meaning of the word abuse. She was abusing Oeufcoque. She had turned Oeufcoque into a dangerous tool.

The result was a gun that wept blood. Even after his body had been blown in two, the only thing Balot could do for him was to bring him more blood and tears.

Bullets clashed with bullets, flying through the air and disintegrating into powder, settling over Boiled and Balot like snowfall.

Boiled’s bullets made short work of the iron perimeter fence at Balot’s side, crumpling a pillar up like so much paper.

Balot didn’t even look—she just fired and fired. Her gun was empty in a flash, and as she ejected the spent magazine and the build-up of excess heat, a gush of blood came steaming out.

The gun and her hands were both bright red.

A new magazine clicked into place inside the steel, and the gun was reloaded. It was as if she were firing Oeufcoque’s flesh and blood in order to shield herself.

She focused on the bullets flying at her.

She could just about keep these away by sheer force of numbers of her own volleys, but her bullets didn’t even get close to Boiled.

PGF—PseudoGravitational Float—was the name of the technology that protected Boiled. It allowed him to activate a gravity field around his body and deflect any bullet that came near him.

“Why, Oeufcoque?” he murmured darkly from beyond his invisible shield.

Boiled fired bullets steeped in murderous intent.

Balot couldn’t hear what he had muttered. But her attitude toward him, about how to deal with him, was gradually changing.

Take him down. That was what she thought now. The idea of defending herself slipped her mind. All she could think of now was to stop the man from moving. That was the only thing she could get Oeufcoque to do.

But all the bullets Balot fired flew away from their target, their trajectories altered.

Boiled’s gun ran out of bullets, and he opened the cylinder to discard the empty shells onto the roof.

His thick fingers reloaded the gun with bullets and venomous hatred. His eyes remained fixed on Balot holding her blood-soaked gun.

“How is that girl any different from me…” His voice was oily, inhuman.

And then the gun was loaded, again, and pointed at Balot, again.

Balot stared at Boiled, unblinking. Her finger was poised over the trigger, ready to fire, but was held back by something.

Then, seizing the moment, she flew forward, throwing caution to the wind. The instant Boiled fired—that was when a tiny gap would open up in his PGF to let his bullet out.

One moment, one spot. That was the only opening in Boiled’s invisible and otherwise invincible shield.

In her desperate volley of dozens of bullets she had discovered it: the enemy’s Achilles’ heel.

Boiled noticed immediately that this was what Balot was aiming for.

A gruesome shadow, almost like a faint smile, appeared on Boiled’s blank face.

Guns still thrust out at each other. The tension between them was electric.

Blood trickled from a wound on Balot’s forehead, mingling with her sweat and tears and dripping from her chin.

“So that’s your usefulness, is it, Oeufcoque,” Boiled said in a heavy voice, firing his gun. “And yet all that’s really happened is a new monster has been brought into this world.”

A deafening roar resounded across the firmament.

A violent gust of wind blew all around.

The squall from some sort of giant flying object, neither plane nor helicopter.

“Oeufcoque! Balot! I’m here!” Shouting from a megaphone, echoing all around, and Balot and Boiled both looked to the heavens.

Only Balot was visibly surprised by what she saw.

A giant silver egg. An oval shape, over ten meters tall—it was as if a piece of the moon had broken off and descended toward the rooftop.

“A Humpty, is it? The Broilerhouse is sharpening up its response times,” Boiled muttered, looking up.

“Boiled, you are ordered to withdraw from the scene!” As the egg broadcast the warning, a part of its body cracked open with a loud noise to reveal a multitude of small hexagonal shapes.

The next moment—and even more noisily—the egg smashed its tip into the roof like that mythical egg of Columbus. Only in this case it was the concrete rooftop that was crushed into place, not the egg.

“Over here, Balot!” The Doctor appeared in the space that had just opened up, brandishing a rifle and shouting. “As of six o’clock this afternoon this case has been approved for the highest level of the Life Preservation Program! All Concerned Parties have been given temporary approval to take up Floating Residence, and hereafter any attempt to trespass on the residence or its inhabitants will be interpreted as intent to harm a material witness and be punishable under the full extent of Commonwealth law!”

Before the Doctor had even finished speaking Boiled’s gun was trained on the Doctor.

That instant Balot experienced the feeling of blood rushing to her head, as if it had started churning through her body in reverse.

For she had spotted the one moment, one point, where the chink in Boiled’s armor had opened up.

Boiled fired. Had her voice been working, she probably would have shouted out a war cry.

The bullet flew out of Balot’s gun—and pierced the back of Boiled’s right hand.

Boiled’s aim faltered as he was hit, and his bullet slammed into the side of the silver egg, causing an impressive but ineffectual explosion of sparks.

The bullet reached him.

Emotions bubbled up inside Balot, and that very moment Oeufcoque cried out in her hands, “Quickly…to the Doctor!”

Balot snapped upright. Her feelings of wanting to attack Boiled evaporated in an instant, and all she could now think of was obeying Oeufcoque’s words.

Boiled watched with dusky eyes as Balot ran toward the giant silver egg, ignoring the pain that wracked her body. He peeled the gun out of his injured right hand, checked that the grip of the gun hadn’t been hit, and lifted it with his other hand.

“Why… Oeufcoque?” Boiled muttered the same words over and over as he fired at Balot.

Balot read his movements precisely and fired back at him. And the Doctor let rip with his rifle at the same