Mardock Scramble

by Ubukata, Tow

  “Shell…” The girl spoke as if she were swallowing her own breath. That instant the man’s large body came down on top of hers. The glint at the back of his emerald eyes was different from any sort she’d ever seen before.

  “You be obedient, Balot.” The girl stiffened slightly when she heard the sharp tone in his voice, but of course, in the end she did just as the man commanded. The girl meekly serviced the man’s needs, and at the same time the AirCar eventually came to a halt by the large lake in the park, resting still in the air.

  02

  Central Park was known as the Spot of Spots. It bisected the city, and it was the only place on the circuit where different classes of cars—which were easily identifiable according to where they were coming from and where they were going to—might ever cross paths.

  Take the middle-class Cheap Branchers, for example. They migrated into the city in droves, and might drive from their homes in the purpose-built skyscrapers of the coastal district down to the pleasure quarter, but they would never go near the high-class Senorita district in the east, let alone the industrial estates to the south. The slums sprawled out throughout the southern districts, kept in strict isolation from the immaculate streets.

  In other words the red convertible wouldn’t be able to park right by the lake just because the black AirCar had done so. That would immediately arouse suspicion. So the convertible picked a riverside spot a few hundred meters away from the path toward the Senorita district the AirCar would later be taking.

  The night was thick and moonless. After the convertible killed its engine you could hear even the wind beating against the leaves on the trees.

  “There! There! It’s that man’s car!” Oblivious to the cold night wind of early spring hitting his half-jacket, the driver of the convertible nudged his Tech Glasses up with his finger and said,

  “Oeufcoque, time to turn.”

  He grabbed the Nav with his other hand.

  “Got it,” said the Nav. And then a strange thing happened. The Nav lost its shape. A squashy distortion, and in a twinkle it was a pair of binoculars.

  “Too dark to see anything, Oeufcoque.”

  The man was looking over his glasses into the binoculars, a frown expressing his dissatisfaction. As he did so the binoculars lost their shape in his hands. In less than a moment they had squidged, like quicksilver, into a pair of night vision goggles.

  “How’s that, Doc?” said the night vision goggles. The voice was identical to the Nav’s.

  “God damn, looks like that AirCar has a real expensive Gravity Device Engine,” said the man that the goggles were speaking to—the Doctor—as the solemn sight of the black car entered his field of vision. “I’d bet the shock absorbers on that thing are so good that a gunfight raging inside wouldn’t even register on the outside. Let’s have a look for the passenger in question…no, Magic Mirrors. Can’t see inside, just as I thought.”

  “Save up all your requests for one go, will you, Doc? Wait a sec, I’ll change into a pair with heat detectors.” The goggles distorted again. This time only the lenses. As this took place a kaleidoscope of the reds and blues of human body heat unfolded before the Doctor’s eyes.

  “Nice one, Oeufcoque—however tricky the request, you deal with it in a flash, the All-Purpose Tool that you are.” The Doctor peered through the goggles, satisfied.

  “They’re violently entangled. Could be engaged in hand-to-hand combat, Doc.” The goggles spoke in a serious tone, but the Doctor just shrugged his shoulders.

  “Hmm…you could say they’re engaged in hand-to-hand combat, yeah. Right in the middle of it. Man and…woman. No one else in the car. Let’s start filming.”

  “Already recording. But these images aren’t enough to determine whether we have the right man?”

  “It’s Shell-Septinos, make no mistake. A modern-day Bluebeard. The color of sin, the death of the six young girls—it’s flowing through his veins. I can see it.”

  “Yeah, but your testimony alone isn’t going to count for much down at the Broilerhouse, Doc. With all the fake footage about these days, recorded evidence has stopped counting for much.”

  “I know. But you’ve got records of his physical characteristics, right? If we can just identify something specific—any ailments, treatment scars—then a heat scan of his somatic cells will come in handy as evidence.”

  “According to an ailment scan we have a 72 percent chance of determining that it’s definitely him, by my calculations.”

  “What about his brain? He’s had operations there. If you can identify those.”

  “The brain is difficult…48 percent chance.”

  “The Broilerhouse won’t even take a second look unless we’re talking over 90 percent. What about the girl?”

  “Rune-Balot.” This time the goggles answered immediately. “We can conclude it’s her with a 96 percent certainty. She’s the underage prostitute scouted by Shell-Septinos back when she was a kiddie porn star.”

  “Damn it. This’d be useful evidence if she was the one we were trying to stop from killing him.”

  “Wait…something’s odd.” A quieter voice from the goggles. The Doctor’s face tensed immediately.

  “Odd? What’s odd, Oeufcoque?”

  “The odor. I’m getting smells from the car—not just pleasure, but something else mixed in there too.”

  “Explain that in a way that I can relate to. You know your nose is special !”

  “There’s the marked smell of…fear. They’re both afraid of something.”

  “What? In the middle of doing it? Not just the girl, but the man too? Why?”

  “No, it’s nerves…stress. Both people are subtly different but…similar.”

  “Hone in on Shell, the man, analyze him. We might be able to work out his motives for his crimes to date, Oeufcoque.”

  “It’s almost like a death wish.”

  The Doctor was visibly stunned by these words.

  “What? Shell’s planning a suicide pact with the girl?”

  “In a sense…that could indeed be the case.”

  “What a perfectly crazy bastard. Right—mission aborted—we need some serious psychoanalysis here. Okay, now that we’ve come this far our next step is to pay someone off, get them to turn this footage in to the Broilerhouse. Any charge we can make stick—breaking the protection of minors law, attempted coercion to commit suicide—whatever! Then we take over her case, offer the girl shelter—”

  “Won’t work. He’ll rid himself of all ties to her while the investigation’s under way, and you’ve got yourself an unresolved case, never to be closed. That’s one of the things her fake ID will be there for—so that he can cleanse himself of any ties to her in an instant if he needs to.”

  “Well, what do we do then? Carry on playing Peeping Tom?”

  “Hang on…something strange is happening.” The voice from the goggles was pointed, abrupt. “The man’s odor has changed. As if it’s oozing out. No suicidal tendencies anymore. It’s definite pleasure.”

  Right at that moment another AirCar was silently drawing closer from the other side of the park.

  ≡

  “You’ve questioned the status that you were given.” The man murmured while holding the girl. He laughed a sharp, hollow laugh. He stared at the girl, a decision hidden deep in his eyes.

  Held by him, the girl just lay there silently. She wondered, through the thin skin that separated her from the outside world, whether it really was such a bad thing to try and work out her own position in life. It must be a very bad thing, surely? Part of the girl became sadder and sadder as she thought about this, but another part—the heart from deep within—looked on, utterly indifferent.

  “Good girls don’t break the rules. Nice dolls exist to be obedient little decorations.” The man embraced the girl with both arms as he spoke. He wrapped himself around her tightly. This was different from a gentle embrace. It was like he was clinging, almost as if he were about to be dragged off s
omewhere but had found something to hold on to in order to stop himself from being pulled away.

  “But it’s okay, Balot. It’s okay. It’s tough for me, but it’s tough for you too. It’s tough. I understand. So tough I almost want to die. In fact, I am, practically, going to die. Part of my memory is going to die. But even if it dies away, the shape of it can still remain. Just like a Blue Diamond made from ashes.”

  The man thrashed around furiously now, ranting and raving. As if he were delirious with fever. As always at these times the girl remained docile. That was her job, after all, her talent.

  Eventually the man stopped moving, slowly peeled himself off the girl, and came out of her. He started dressing himself, and she was about to get up too when the man said in an unexpectedly tender voice, “Stay just the way you are, Balot.”

  So the girl lay sprawled in her disheveled state, and all she could do was gaze absentmindedly back at the man as he laughed his thin laugh.

  “What a wonderful sight. A beautiful sight. And after this you’re going to turn into something even more beautiful,” the man murmured as he moved farther away from the girl, pressing his back against the car door.

  “A Blue Diamond.”

  A watery smile, then the man raised his right hand to show off the glittering rings.

  “That’s the answer to the question ‘What becomes of children who break the rules,’ Balot.” Speaking these words, the man suddenly opened the door and jumped out of the car.

  “Shell…?”

  Just as she was hurriedly getting up the door slammed shut with a loud bang right in front of her.

  Instinctively she tried to open the door—no go. However hard she tugged at the electric inner handle the door just wouldn’t open. The man turned to look at her. Or so she thought, but then she realized that he was just using the Magic Mirror windows to straighten his clothes and hair and adjust his sunglasses. He wasn’t looking at her at all. The hands pulling at the door handles lost all their strength. She couldn’t even speak. The world was distant, and she was overwhelmed by a terrible premonition.

  When the headlights of the other AirCar came into view, the girl immediately understood that everything had come to pass just as the man had planned right from the start.

  ≡

  “Murder! I smell it! The girl’s going to die!”

  The goggles’ outburst was shrill.

  “Wait, there’s another car! Give me a head count!”

  The Doctor pointed the goggles at the other AirCar. Instantly the lenses transformed with a squash, and the body heat sensors turned back into standard night vision lenses.

  “I don’t believe it… It’s Boiled,” the Doctor said in a troubled tone. “Look. The man in the driver’s seat—it’s Boiled. To think that he’s now working for Shell! This isn’t good, Oeufcoque. If they’re planning on killing the girl then any rescue attempt by us could backfire. Boiled is the sort that will shoot her first.”

  Soon the other AirCar pulled up beside the one containing the girl. The new AirCar had normal glass in the windows, and the Doctor could see the stocky man in the driver’s seat. Short gray hair and a white face devoid of any emotion. Boiled opened the window and spoke to Shell. His gray eyes flickered, and—

  “Shit! He’s looking this way!” The Doctor hastily threw himself to the car floor for cover.

  “Calm down, Doc. I can’t smell any hostility coming from Boiled. Shell, on the other hand, is dripping with murderous intent. It’s a very definite smell.”

  “How’s he going to do it? Shoot her? Hang her? Poison her? Is the girl already dead?”

  “No idea how, but it doesn’t feel like it’s happened yet. Point me at them. I’ll start recording.”

  The Doctor got back up and pointed the goggles at the two AirCars by the lake. The man who’d gotten out of the first AirCar—Shell—was gesturing at the car containing the girl.

  “He’s waving his hand as if to say goodbye.”

  “Not really enough to paint a convincing picture of a man planning on committing murder, is it?”

  “Of course it’s not enough! He could give any old excuse for his actions. What the hell is he playing at?”

  “He’s keeping her trapped in the car. Shit! His murderous intent is starting to change to relief. There’s not a moment to lose. My nose is definitely right about this—consider this an emergency!”

  “And do what?”

  “Move! Save the girl!” the goggles yelled. The Doctor started the convertible as fast as he could.

  Up ahead the second AirCar, now with Shell on board, was starting to move away.

  The car with the girl in it wasn’t moving.

  The tires of the convertible spun violently, letting off a piercing shriek as the car took off.

  At that moment the hood of the AirCar containing the girl exploded into a million tiny pieces.

  Stunned at such an incredible turn of events, the Doctor rubbed his eyes. Then more terrible, thundering explosions. The darkness was ripped apart in an instant, the whole scene repainted with the bright red flames of an inferno. A roaring pillar of fire erupted along with the explosions, and the shrapnel from the car poured down in lumps of solid flame, bathing the lakeshore with its incandescence. The weird smell of roasting steel filled the air.

  “To think he’d blow up the whole car! Shit, Boiled made me take my eye off the ball! Instant death?” the Doctor said, despairing. Pieces of shrapnel rained down chunk by chunk on the hood and windshield. The Doctor pressed down on the gas pedal, and in his hands the goggles changed shape with a squelch and said:

  “An explosion of the front engine. The rear of the car was ripped halfway off by the first blast.”

  As soon as the goggles spoke they changed—somewhat surprisingly—into the shape of a fire extinguisher, and said, “The car was built to disperse the effects of an explosion. There’s a good chance that anyone in the back seat won’t have been killed by the blast.”

  “What, so if she’s lucky she’s just covered in third-degree burns instead? See? What really divides our little patch of earth from the fires of hell down below? Why not taste the flames for yourself, Mr. Soft-Boiled Oeufcoque!”

  “I’ll quench the fires of this world before they get a chance to burn me.” The fire extinguisher’s voice was deadly earnest. “That’s my usefulness.”

  03

  A number of thoughts ran through the girl’s mind just before the explosion.

  You’ve questioned the status that you were given.

  She’d just wanted to make sure. She’d just wanted to show her gratitude for the wonderful gift that she’d been given. That was why—just the once, she’d decided—she’d secretly accessed the city’s personnel directory and learned who she was. She didn’t think that this was such a bad thing.

  Why me? She’d just wanted to solve the mystery, learn the answer.

  When the other car had arrived, she’d considered again whether it was such a bad thing.

  And, of course, as it turned out it was. Without realizing it, she was trespassing onto the dangerous territory of a dangerous man. And this was the worst thing in the world.

  The man suddenly turned to look at the girl staring vacantly out of the window. Not at the window: he was looking directly at the girl beyond it now, and clearly waving goodbye.

  A Blue Diamond…something he can truly love. That’s what becomes of girls who break the rules.

  She could see the glittering rings on the hand that was waving at her. A shudder tingled down her spine amid her confusion. Synthetic diamonds made from human ashes. The rings that had been entrusted to her to look after during every Show. There were seven of them—the man’s mother and those poor, anonymous girls. She’d heard the rumors that he’d bought a number of girls and let them die. Those rumors were true. And now me too—a wave of nausea welled up inside her. She felt as if something awful had seared itself deep in her chest.

  Why? Why me?

  The q
uestion emerged from her mouth amid the daze. Now the question was no longer about love—it had changed into something more sinister and disturbing. At the same time her nose sensed danger, something burning…a disgusting smell. Sulfurous fumes filled the car, and the alarm in the driver’s seat was beeping, as if to warn of engine trouble.

  The man continued smiling and waving for a moment, then quickly turned around and jumped into the other AirCar. Just that moment she remembered some of her fellow whores talking about how gangs liked to burn their victims to death. It made it easier to process the corpses…

  She heard a voice: Come on out.

  Don’t shut yourself away in the shell of your heart. The words of the volunteer social worker from the Welfare Institute.

  The shell. That was what was supposed to have protected her. But right now, she was its prisoner—trapped by a man, the man named Shell-Septinos, the man who had promised to give her back everything that she had lost.

  She suddenly became aware that her hand was frantically fumbling at the door handle. For a moment, she didn’t even realize what she was doing. But of course she was trying to save herself.

  Deep inside her own heart, another girl, just awakened, looked calmly on at her floundering hands.

  Indeed…

  The girl murmured. So this was what it was like. To be shut away in a shell. The door wouldn’t open. Her hands kept on struggling with the door handle. She wondered again whether what she had done was really all that bad.

  Balot, somebody called. Ironically. The chick was boiled to death in the shell before it was even born. The clients said it was the name of a rare delicacy. The clients who favored doll-like girls. Balot had become the pièce de résistance—no one would tell her not to stay holed away inside her shell again…

  Before long the other AirCar started pulling away. As it did, the man in the front passenger seat turned back to her again and waved lightly, carefree. See you soon, he almost seemed to say.

  The nausea welled up inside her again. See you soon—once you’re a dead body. Would her scorched remains—her body turned to ashes—really be decorating this gambler’s finger as a synthetic jewel?