Mardock Scramble

“Very well, then. As long as we get our valuable samples of your precious data, you go ahead and swim anywhere you like within the pool. We will just sit and observe your criminal acts.”

–Yes, sir.

“Tweedledum should brief you on how to use the Transmission Core.”

–Thank you very much.

Balot was genuinely grateful. She realized that the bargain that she’d just struck was a big one, with her own life at stake. Curiously, though, she felt neither fear nor agitation. All she could think was that she had done the obvious thing.

Suddenly there was the sensation of another person approaching the pool.

Dr. Easter approached, combing his tie-dyed hair upward.

He had the impatient look of someone waiting for a conversation to come to an end.

“Ah, Dr. Easter. I’ve just been listening to the valuable opinions of your client.”

“Professor…we’re most grateful for your cooperation.”

“Will you sojourn here for long, do you think?”

“Sadly, we have work to be getting back to…”

“Important work, no doubt?”

“Yes.”

The Doctor then turned to Balot. “I’ve finished my maintenance work on Oeufcoque.”

Balot searched for something to snarc so that she could reply, but while she was looking the Doctor carried on. “So, it looks like the Professor has put you in the picture?”

Balot nodded.

Faceman smiled. “She seems to have made up her mind to taste of the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, Dr. Easter.”

The Doctor was a little hesitant now. “I don’t want you to end up as an outlaw from the Commonwealth, of course. Your use of the Transmission Core will be under my name. All you need to do is work on finding Shell’s weak spot, whatever it is.”

–That’s fine. I want you to show me how you guys do battle, Balot answered, as Faceman permitted her to speak through his cage.

And then Balot realized for the first time that she was fully naked.

In a fluster, she scrabbled around for her clothes, but they were nowhere to be seen, and the Doctor took off his gown and placed it over her shoulders.

Faceman whispered, “And the eyes of Eve were opened, and she knew that she was naked.”

04

Eden and Sodom both at once: such was the night view of the postwar boomtown that spread out across the base of the rolling hills on the North Side of Mardock City.

It was a glittering pleasure garden to the peace activists, and the media folk and the materialistic youths— known collectively as the postwar generation—and it was vice personified for the war generation to whom having a son in the navy was the ultimate, most glorious social virtue.

Rich and poor alike poured into the city from the provinces, even from the Commonwealth’s capital city seventy miles to the north, all aiming for this little region on the slopes, seeking work or pleasure.

The skyscraper hotels that stood halfway up the hills epitomized the thriving prosperity of the postwar years, and at the same time seemed to lord it over the regions below.

Inside one of the hotel rooms was Boiled. A room equivalent to economy class in a passenger plane. From the fortieth floor down were lots of single rooms filled with people who looked after the needs of guests staying on the more luxurious upper floors.

It was in one such room that Boiled was taking a shower, washing himself from his head down, watching blood sluice off his body and down the drain.

The back of his right hand was peppered with holes and spilling blood. Bullets had pierced his hand cleanly and come out the other side, unlike the bullets in his arm that were now lodged inside him. He placed his mouth to the area of skin around his wounds and sucked the blood out. Along with the blood came a hard object.

He spat the hard thing out in the bathtub. A bullet. He rinsed his blood-soaked mouth out with water from the shower. Squashed bullets and fragments of steel rolled across the bottom of the bathtub.

There was a toilet next to the bathtub, and on top of the cistern were a butter knife and fork from the room, both covered in blood, trailing red lines across the white porcelain.

Boiled had used these to pry shrapnel from of his body.

Boiled closed his eyes and flexed his muscles one by one, to check that they were all still working properly.

After a while, he slowly opened his eyes, picking up each metal fragment one by one, then he turned the shower off and got out of the bathtub and stood in front of the sink.

The fogged-up mirror showed a faint reflection of his body—a rippling torso of living, breathing iron. There were also a number of wounds in his chest and stomach.

Boiled placed every last fragment of steel in the trash can, patted his wounds down with a towel, and applied antiseptic lotion before taking some pills that promoted accelerated skin growth. He applied gauze to the open wounds and wrapped himself in bandages and dressings as necessary. No blood seeped out anymore. The wounds were, once again, just wounds. Nothing to worry about.

He exited the bathroom, dried himself off, and put his clothes on. He strapped a holster to his side, picking up his gun in his hands. He passed it back from left to right a number of times, double-checked that it was fully loaded with bullets, then slid the revolver away in its holster.

He strapped his wristwatch on and had his special-order jacket in his hands when the telephone rang.

He lifted the receiver.

–Boiled?

Shell’s voice.

“Speaking.”

–Come up to my room, will you? There’s something I want to show you.

He sounded happy. There was laughter in the background. The melodious voice of a woman.

“I’ll be right there.” Boiled put the phone down, left the room, and boarded an elevator. The buttons on the inside panel ran only as far as the fortieth floor, and Boiled took out a card from his pocket and slotted it into the space below the panel.

The display light for the sixty-sixth floor appeared automatically, and the elevator ascended.

When he stepped out of the elevator, Boiled was confronted with a scene far removed from the previous one.

The corridors were wide, decorated in shades of blue. The carpet was plush and soft, dampening any footfall to near silence.

The crystal chandeliers twinkled, giving off a fine light that seemed to blend seamlessly into the clean air.

The walls were dotted with paintings—valuable enough that there would have been plenty of people glad even for just their frames.

Boiled stood in front of the door he’d come for. He knocked using the brass knocker—antique, analog, no cheap digital electronic intercom here—and the door opened immediately to reveal Shell in a smart suit.

“Come in, Boiled!” He smiled sharply and beckoned for Boiled to enter.

A pleasant voice bubbled forth from the adjoining room.

“Over here! Come and have a look at this!”

They entered the bedroom, where a girl was bouncing up and down on a double bed, giggling. She looked to be about twenty. Her blonde hair had probably been arranged neatly at some point in the evening, but now it was straggled across her face.

The woman saw the two entering and stopped laughing. Standing on top of the bed, she cried out— Ah!—in a loud voice, as if to tell them something. Watching this, Shell burst into a low chuckle himself.