Mardock Scramble

you finally return, it should be to here.”

Boiled shook his head slowly. “I came here ten years ago because I was ordered to by the army. Now that the war’s over I have no intention of becoming a victim of your experiments.”

“So that’s your postwar experience, is it? Many soldiers still drag around a victim complex with them. How about you?”

“I’m neither the victim nor the perpetrator,” said Boiled.

Tweedledee looked blankly on.

The conversation was going straight over his head.

Faceman turned to Tweedledee and smiled. “We won’t be needing you here any longer, Tweedledee. Why not head over to the West Forest?”

Tweedledee shrugged his shoulders and approached Boiled, then tapped on the man’s burly arms. Playfully, pleading. Then he disappeared deep into the forest.

“The only care he has in the world is that there are no active subjects around, so to speak.” Faceman watched Tweedledee’s back as he departed, then looked up at Boiled. “He was delighted about the fact that he thought he could get to know the new girl, though.”

Without changing his expression, Boiled dipped his hand into his jacket pocket and spoke. “I have three questions. Number one, where are Oeufcoque, his client, and Dr. Easter? If they are here, I need you to tell me where you are sheltering them.”

“We don’t shelter anyone here. We receive them as guests,” said Faceman.

“They’re here, then?”

“I believe I have the right of refusal when it comes to answering questions?”

“The right, perhaps, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you get to exercise that right,” said Boiled.

“Hmm. What are you suggesting?”

“I’m suggesting that this diseased facility, steeped in lies as it is, may soon be coming to terms with the reality of your death.”

Faceman just smiled gently. “So, death is your only true reality. How like you. Not that humans are capable of simultaneously experiencing alternative realities—but killing me isn’t going to change anything. Nor do I think that taking my life is going to be of much use to you. Unless that’s what you’re looking for, and it will give you closure? Is that how you feel right now?”

Boiled slowly drew his hand out of his chest pocket.

But he wasn’t wielding a gun. Instead, he let his arm flop down and started speaking again. “There’s another person of interest in this case who has already penetrated the facility.”

“I presume you mean the oil-soaked man who’s currently trying to gain access from the loading dock in the western ward? I see—if I don’t answer your questions then he goes off on a little destructive rampage, is that it? And this is how you choose to make yourself useful to society?” Faceman asked with absolute serenity.

Boiled replied, “I’m the only one endowed with the right to arrest him as a suspect and material witness. The paperwork has all been approved by the Broilerhouse already.”

Faceman furrowed his brow as if he were troubled by something. “Does your accomplice, who’s trying his best to invade the facility as we speak, know any of this? No, we’re talking about you. I’m sure you’ve told him the exact opposite.”

“Only as a means to efficiently ensure that he’s as useful as possible. A tactic used often in the army—or this facility.”

“There are means that are justified by the ends, and there are means that aren’t,” replied Faceman.

“I have no time for—or interest in—your moral lectures.”

Faceman sighed and spoke in a persuasive tone of voice that was also a warning. “Here at the facility we are constantly updating, examining, and refining our technology. All we did was permit Dr. Easter a loan of some of our facilities in exchange for the latest set of data he has on his civilian subjects.”

“So you admit to harboring a material witness?”

“It’s your choice to interpret my words however you choose,” said Faceman.

Boiled nodded. “Now, my second question.” He stared at Faceman with absolute indifference.

“Wait a moment. I’ll answer your questions, but in return I’d like you to sit down. You’re not positioned well, and I can’t see you properly.”

Boiled moved his chin from left to right. Not to respond, but to interrupt. “I need you to answer my question.”

“Hmm?”

“We will take custody of the data that Dr. Easter submitted to you.”

“You can’t really call that a question. In any case, what do you want that girl’s data for?”

“It could turn out to be a crucial courtroom exhibit.”

“Highly unlikely. Dear, dear. First Tweedledee, now you…” Boiled’s eyebrows tightened. Faceman continued, “Tweedledee wants access to the girl’s data too. Of course, I’m forbidding all access to it on the basis that I and a select group of researchers need exclusive access to it at the moment. And you’re just like Tweedledee.”

“What are you trying to say?” asked Boiled.

“It seems like you might be looking for a partner, just as Tweedledee is.”

Boiled stared at Faceman with a sharp glint in his eye. “The technology in Paradise only begets monsters. All that’s happened is that we have another walking, talking exhibit of this fact.”

“You’re right in that today’s society may well interpret it that way. One day, though, the technology will become commonplace,” Faceman responded coolly. “But looking at her data isn’t going to help you.”

“It’ll be evidence that she abused Mardock Scramble 09.”

“You won’t have any luck there. From a legal standpoint, it’s already difficult to judge what’s use and what’s abuse.”

“What—?”

“The girl is still growing up. Any current data on her is no more than material for a comparative study. The girl is a genius.”

“A genius? In battle?”

“No, in her ability to dissolve herself into the ether. ‘Dispersing her self-consciousness,’ I’m calling it for now.”

“‘Dispersing’?”

“The waveforms we’ve been picking up from her brain in her consciousness-threshold tests are very similar to those found when a person enters a trance state. I daresay it’s a form of autoimmune response, the dispersal and negation of her senses as a self-defense mechanism—something that the girl has developed in order to preserve a sense of psychological normalcy in the face of the atrocious conditions that life has thrown at her.”

“In what way?” said Boiled.

“As you know, one of the most common side effects of grafting metallic fiber as replacement skin onto a person is that their mental balance ends up shot to pieces. Just as if we were to transplant, say, a bat’s ears onto a human head—the animal would be bewildered and its brain wouldn’t be able to cope,” said Faceman.

“But you’re saying that this girl is coping with the technology?”

“Her Interference Rate—all her consciousness-threshold figures—are over 80 percent.”

Boiled was silent. This was a rare moment where he was actually shocked by what his opponent had to say.

“The fibers are embedded in the whole of her skin tissue. As her subconscious receives stimuli, so the fibers develop autonomously. The fibers we transplanted into your palm never even grew to the back of your hand. Think on that, and you’ll realize just quite how singular a being this young lady is.”

“So she’s wrapped in a layer of skin tissue?”

“No, not ‘wrapped’—it’s assimilated perfectly. In time, it could extend to her mouth, the back of her eyelids, even some of her internal organs.”

“Impossible.” Boiled’s voice rose, ever so slightly. Boiled noticed his own reaction, and it surprised him.

“I didn’t want to believe it myself, but it’s the truth. An incredible truth born out of the confluence of three factors: Dr. Easter’s innovative technical developments, the existence of Oeufcoque, and the girl’s upbringing. That’s why we wanted her data at all costs, and that’s why we let them use our labs in return.”