Mardock Scramble

“Both of Boiled’s hands have metal fibers grafted into them for electronic interference, just like your skin grafts,” the Doctor said, surprising Balot again. “Not quite as powerful as yours, though. At the time, Oeufcoque wasn’t really able to grasp his surroundings after he had turned—he didn’t need to. So all the main information about his surroundings was fed to him through Boiled’s hands. This allowed Oeufcoque to turn with the greatest level of precision and speed. It’s different now, of course. He has omnidirectional receivers to pick up sights, sounds, and—in particular—smells. He’s like a Christmas tree decorated with cameras instead of baubles. Like the compound eyes on insects. Oeufcoque asked for all this after the case had finished. And I obliged his request in order to try and assuage his paranoid neuroses.”

Balot nodded. She understood Oeufcoque so well that it hurt.

How it felt to have things done to you when you had no control, no knowledge…

It was a type of hopelessness. No hope in others, and no hope in yourself. She felt pain in her chest. As a victim of violence—and as a perpetrator of violence.

–When did Oeufcoque learn what he’d done?

“Long after the family’s factory was sold off, and after the family only received one-eighteenth of the reparations they’d originally put in for. When Oeufcoque learned the truth he fell into a trancelike torpor, shut away inside himself. To make matters worse, Boiled killed another two people using Oeufcoque while Oeufcoque was in this state. After that, Oeufcoque never entrusted himself into Boiled’s hands again, and Boiled in turn disappeared straight after the double murder. According to rumor he was picked up and recruited straightaway by OctoberCorp’s scouts.”

The Doctor sighed, remembering the past. “At one point it seemed as if Oeufcoque and Boiled might end up killing each other. I even wondered to myself whether I’d made the right decision in choosing Scramble 09. But… I didn’t want it to end like that. Oeufcoque and I have since acted as Trustees on a number of cases to try and recover our credibility as PIs. Boiled is Boiled, and has ended up on the opposite side of the fence to us in order to prove that he didn’t make the wrong choice, that his solution was the best. And the result of all this is that here we are again, happy families, with our guns rammed down one another’s throats.”

The Doctor took a sip of his coffee to try and wash the bitterness in his mouth away.

–Thank you for sharing all that with me.

“Don’t mention it.”

–Why does Boiled kill so many people, do you think?

“The last bit of stability he had in his life was his military training. Killing is probably the only way he can cope with the great emptiness he now feels. The sense of nothingness that he carries around with him isn’t your everyday stress and strain, after all…”

–That man wanted Oeufcoque.

“I’m sure he did. Oeufcoque is the only handheld Living Unit in the world. He’s the ultimate hand-to-hand weapon.”

–I think I can empathize with Boiled a little, though.

The Doctor choked on his mouth full of coffee. “You’re not saying that you want to become a PI so that you can turn into the ultimate killing machine?”

–No…but I still understand Boiled a little, I think. Because I was like that, for a while. I raped Oeufcoque. He became a sacrifice to my own burnt-out moral bankruptcy. And I think Boiled was the same. It’s hard to give that up when you’re on your own.

“You’re different from him, though,” said the Doctor. But the truth was that the Doctor knew that everybody had it in them to turn into another Boiled. To arrive at a state where the only way to wash away your dark and hollow sensation of world-weariness was to see yourself as a monster and act accordingly…

–Do you think Oeufcoque will ever be able to forgive me?

“There’s nothing really to forgive…” The Doctor caught Balot’s eyes and nodded neatly. “You’ll be fine. You’ll learn, you’ll reflect on your actions, and you’ll grow. Oeufcoque understands that all too well.”

Balot nodded too. Both Oeufcoque and the Doctor were very kind people.

But she didn’t want to start relying on that kindness—she suppressed any feelings in her that suggested she might. She was too embarrassed to rely on other people anymore.

She needed to think for herself, decide what her best course of action might be and act on it.

“Oh, by the way… Do you mind if I ask you something in return?”

–What?

“To do with Shell’s hidden memories…” The Doctor seemed awfully reluctant all of a sudden, as if he were terrified of imposing on her.

Balot put her hand to her mouth.

–I’m sorry. I’d completely forgotten.

She was speaking the truth.

Then she blurted out:

–Chips.

“Chips…?”

–One of Shell’s casinos is called Eggnog Blue. They have chips worth a million dollars each there, and he’s hidden these special media storage devices inside them.

“A million-dollar casino chip, eh? Well, well…a hidden treasure-within-a-treasure, huh?” The Doctor looked at Balot, full of admiration. “Well done, a great spot. You’re really quite something.”

–Tweedledum helped me. I never would have been able to work it out on my own. There’s a strict ban on taking the chips out of the casino, and other than at the big Shows the punters rarely get a chance to see them.

“They’re probably there as a way for other companies in the OctoberCorp group to secrete away some of their accumulated funds. They deposit a million dollars in the casino as a way of laundering money. At the same time, it’s great for the casino as the chip becomes an ostentatious sign that the casino has funds in reserve.”

–Yup. It looks like they were doing exactly as you say, Doctor.

“But to go out of your way to hide your memories in there…”

–I looked at the production records for the chips, and there were traces of evidence that they had been made specially. The records themselves had been deleted, but there were still fragments of data flying around, so I reconstructed them.

“Amazing. I know you had the might of all of Paradise’s facilities behind you, and Tweedledum’s support, but even so it’s pretty incredible that you managed all that in just a few hours.”

–I wouldn’t mind trying it again sometime.

Balot laughed as she spoke. The Doctor rolled his eyes. “Violation of Commonwealth law and aggravated hacking—you’re looking at up to twenty years in prison. If you don’t play your cards right you won’t be able to go near another computer for almost half a century, either. So just do me one small favor, will you—don’t go near that thing again unless absolutely necessary.”

–I’m sorry.

Balot seemed to grow smaller. She’d been told off for something similar by Oeufcoque not that long ago, and here she was doing it again. She needed to wield her power from a state of readiness. She was done with abusing power. She felt truly ashamed.

“No, don’t feel sorry. It just means that, in reality, you’ve taken a whole load of risk upon yourself, and you need to be ready for that. So, back to those million-dollar chips—how many of them are there?”

–Twelve in the whole casino.

“That’s quite a lot…all containing Shell’s memories?”

–No, just four of them. The ones that have the OctoberCorp company emblem stamped on them. They’re made by special order.

“I see…”

–What are we going to do? Steal them?

She was half joking, but—

“Robbing a casino is just as tricky as robbing a bank, you see. Burglary should be our last resort.”