Mardock Scramble

by Ubukata, Tow

  In the elevator the DA spoke to the Doctor. “I have to say, you’re looking good, Mr. Easter! I wish you were always dressed like this—you’d put my mind at rest no end.”

  The Doctor’s hair had been dyed back to its original black and was combed down and slick.

  His suit looked good on him—it made him look gentlemanly, like a man of distinction. The Doctor gave a shrug and a little smile. The DA relaxed a little and then whispered in the Doctor’s ear.

  “But for next time let’s rethink the girl’s outfit. We’re trying to show that she was a poor girl from the West Side preyed on by one of the East Side rich, and she’s a little too—elegant—for that.”

  Balot could hear that too. Not the precise words, but a general sense of what they were talking about, by sensing the atmosphere. Unconsciously she folded her arms and wished for something to wrap around her tights. Her dress was dark, of course, just as the DA had specified, with the skirt hem coming down past her knees. She dealt with his request as she did with any of her clients who were fixated on her clothes.

  Oeufcoque, still a choker, said nothing.

  His existence was a secret to all other people, of course, but even if it hadn’t been, Balot wouldn’t have wanted him to say anything at this moment. There was still an egg-shaped crystal hanging from the choker, but this time there was a simple geometric pattern at its core, not a picture of a golden mouse.

  09:25 hours. Balot sat at the plaintiff ’s desk.

  On the defense side was the counsel, the accused man himself, and the Trustee for the defense.

  Balot was very conscious of her own abilities. She didn’t have to look that way, but she knew where everyone was and what they were doing. The defendant was calm, composed. There was a very faint sign of fear, but it wouldn’t be this man doing the fighting in any case. And he wasn’t the one who was going to be hurt. That was the counsel and the Trustee’s job. And Balot’s job. The accused didn’t even look at Balot.

  A number of reporters from the press—with their tags dangling from their necks—had firmly ensconced themselves in the front row of the spectators’ gallery, and all eyes were on Balot. They were here with a very different set of aims from Balot and the Doctor.

  They were here, inevitably, to write up events as scandalously as they could.

  They wanted to write about Balot as a modern-day Lolita. Someone who was all too aware of her sex appeal though still a girl, a girl who had seduced an important man from the amusements company, bringing him to ruin; that was how they were looking to make the story play out.

  How had she become the lover of this important man? And how was the girl connected to the Trustee of her case? The girl must have known what she was doing, must have been well aware of her abilities.

  This senior executive, Shell, was a foolish man too. Not only had he been deceived by this girl, he was now being forced to spend hours and hours in this place, time he should have been spending on important business.

  Deceived. By a little girl. By anyone. Never mind what actually happened, the details were trivial—if the defense could twist the facts to this conclusion then they’d have it made, the perfect story. The best sort of copy.

  The trial began, and the district attorney started off by stating in detail the injuries done to Balot. He explained how premeditated and how deliberate Shell was in inflicting these injuries. And what his aims were in doing so—what was he hiding?

  At each stage the counsel for the defense interrupted with objections such as “Irrelevant!” and “Conjecture!” He rebutted the DA’s arguments, claiming that the whole story was a fabrication by the plaintiff, designed to steal Shell’s assets by improper means.

  The defense counsel then pressed his case further, explaining in minute, piercing detail the track record of Balot’s dissolute and slovenly lifestyle, diligently arguing that Shell merely wanted to rescue Balot from her struggles. After all, Balot wasn’t forced to live with Shell in the first place—she’d gone there voluntarily, or would it be more accurate still to say that she’d forced herself upon him?

  As he did this the DA resisted in turn with strong objections of his own: “Counsel is deliberately trying to shift the focus” or “Counsel is appealing to the emotions, not the facts!”

  Now and then Balot was called on to testify, and at such times she pressed the buttons marked yes or no, or occasionally the no answer button. Whenever a more detailed answer was required of her she wrote her answer on a designated sheet of paper and handed it to the clerk.

  The courtroom was not set up to be particularly sympathetic to those who couldn’t speak. Instead, everything was rather awkward, stilted. As if to say, What do you mean, someone who can’t speak is appearing at the trial? An uncomfortable atmosphere pervaded the courtroom.

  And it was toward such a person—Balot—that the counsel for the defense would use phrases such as “You reap what you sow” or “The defendant can’t be held responsible for the plaintiff ’s choices.” At the same time the DA emphasized the enormity of the suffering that Balot had been subjected to.

  The grand jury craned their necks from left to right following each of these exchanges, as if they were following the volleys in a tennis match. Good? Evil? Like a rally. As if they were playing a game, climbing a flight of stairs, muttering guilty, not guilty, guilty, not guilty alternately with every step, and whichever foot they ended up on at the top of the steps would be the decider.

  “So, at the beginning, why didn’t you resist?” asked the defense counsel. “If Shell really manipulated details of your status, or forcefully raped you, or trapped you in a car, there must have been some point at which you actually tried to resist him?”

  While the DA was objecting, Balot thought back to her time in the institute.

  Back to the time when she was told, year in and year out, by the social workers what a bad girl she was.

  Some of the volunteer workers weren’t like that, of course. But some were, and they were the ones who had more clout when it came to the everyday management of the children’s lives.

  And so it was that when, for example, a male volunteer would rape a child on a lower bunk bed, the child on the upper bunk could only tremble in dread and pretend to be asleep. They had fear drummed into them as a way of life, each child deep in their personal hell.

  Once, a girl from the institute dropped a kitchen knife on her foot when she was on kitchen duty. Balot watched as the girl’s foot was skewered through her slipper. Balot remembered seeing the tip of the knife protruding from the sole of the girl’s foot. And, of course, the girl had dropped the knife—thrown it at her own foot, actually—on purpose, knowing that if she hadn’t then something even worse would have been lying in wait for her that night.

  The girl was taken to the institute’s medical wing, but she had to return two days later. Hobbling on crutches. Three of the workers gang raped her on the night she came back.

  “Why didn’t you resist?” the defense counsel asked Balot, bringing her back to reality. If Shell was deliberately trying to hurt Balot then surely there would have been some sign of resistance, no?

  The DA objected. Speaking rapidly, in a loud voice.

  Why hadn’t she resisted? Everyone tried to escape. Some of the children did manage to adapt to life in the institute the best they could. Those who’d worked themselves into positions of influence, of authority. But for the vast majority of the children, all they could think about was escape.

  And after surviving under conditions that felt like you had a knife to your throat every minute of every day, after having every aspect of your life regulated by those in charge—food, drink, shelter, leisure time, friendships—at the end of it all they asked you why you didn’t resist. The same adults that never gave you the slightest chance to do so in the first place.

  Balot’s reply to that question was no answer.

  Eventually they arrived at the recess for lunch, and the DA conferred with the Doctor regardin
g the points where they were losing ground.

  Balot and Oeufcoque ate lunch while the others talked in elaborate detail about possible strategies to ensure the case progressed from the provisional jury to indictment. She could barely eat anything, and he hardly spoke.

  –I want you to understand that I’m doing this for your sake, Balot explained to Oeufcoque.

  After a short pause Oeufcoque responded. “These are just procedural formalities. They’re not for my sake or for your sake. The real battle comes later.” He seemed somewhat apologetic on one level, but at the same time was deliberately keeping these feelings in check. In order to prevent himself from accidentally letting slip any words of apology, such as I’m sorry or This is inexcusable of me.

  Balot gripped the crystal on her choker and squeezed hard.

  “At this point I will need to disclose some shocking facts,” said the counsel for the defense. Brightly. As if he were relishing his duty—as, indeed, he was.

  “This girl had sexual relations with her father. Starting from when she was even younger than she is now. Isn’t that right, Miss Rune-Balot?”

  The courtroom rustled. A hesitant, low rumble.

  The DA jumped up. “Objection! Irrelevant, a meaningless question.” But the court’s interest had been piqued. The jury was curious, and who was a mere senior assistant district attorney to stand in the way of a jury’s curiosity? He gritted his teeth and took a seat.

  Balot stared right back at the counsel. Coldly. Coldly enough to freeze the poison solid in her heart. Slowly, calmly, she pressed the button.

  –Yes.

  The courtroom erupted. The judge banged his gavel. The counsel pressed further questions. Pointless, stupid questions.

  “Was it your father who initiated this?”

  –Yes.

  “Did you resist him?”

  –No.

  The courtroom held its breath, not even daring to swallow.

  “Why didn’t you resist?”

  Balot scribbled an answer on the paper she was given and handed it to the clerk.

  The clerk then passed the paper to the judge, who read it aloud: “Because I loved my father.”

  The courtroom erupted in noise, like a kettle overflowing. The judge banged his gavel wildly, repeatedly.

  “You mean, as a man?” continued the defense counsel.

  –No.

  “Then you loved him as a father?”

  –Yes.

  “You had sexual intercourse with him more than once?”

  –Yes.

  “Many times?”

  –No.

  “Can you remember precisely? The number of times?”

  Balot raised her hand and lifted three fingers.

  “Three times?”

  –Yes.

  “Your older brother attacked your father violently when he learned of your relationship, yes?”

  –Yes.

  “Do you know why your brother felt so angry at your father?”

  –Yes.

  “Why?”

  Balot was given more paper. She scribbled on it again, passed it to the clerk again, and again the judge read it out: “Because he loved me.”

  Further excitement in the courtroom. A number of the reporters rose from their seats, running to pass on the news.

  “Did he look at you as a woman?”

  –No.

  “Then as a younger sister?”

  –Yes.

  “Now, as a result of his injuries, your father was admitted to a hospital in the capital as a severely disabled patient, yes?”

  –Yes.

  “Did you ever see your father again after that?”

  –Yes.

  “How did that make you feel?”

  Balot, head bowed, didn’t answer. The DA leaped up and shouted, “Objection, an irrelevant question.” The judge banged his gavel. The counsel continued down a different line of questioning.

  “Do you still love your father? As a father?”

  –No answer .

  “Why can’t you answer?”

  Balot remained silent.

  “Do you love your father as a man?”

  Balot shook her head emphatically. The DA objected, screaming. As if to intercede, Balot raised her hand to call the clerk over for some paper. On it she wrote: “I don’t know how I should feel about my family anymore.”

  “Not just your father?”

  –No answer.

  “Your brother is still in the penitentiary, isn’t he?”

  –No answer.

  “After that, your mother entered an ADSOM facility—that is to say a rehabilitation center for alcohol and drug addicts—and still lives there to this day? Is that right?”

  –No answer.

  “Did your mother know about your relations with your father?”

  –No answer.

  “Do you believe that what’s happened to your family is your fault?”

  It was a reflex action. Balot didn’t press the button. But she did snarc it.

  –Yes.

  No one saw that Balot had actually not pressed the button, but then, no one was about to pay any attention to that now. Apart from the Doctor. The defense counsel then asked her a succession of additional questions. Balot just stared at the one button, fixated, snarced it, and made sure her will was unwavering.

  Balot’s answers to all the additional questions were the same: No answer.

  02

  Balot’s father was a mild man. He had a beard but didn’t make a frightening impression. He had a healthy physique and was a sound blue-collar worker. He was somewhat rustic—burly—but had a gentle grip. Even when his motor neuron disease started taking a turn for the worse and he was down to three fingers on his right hand, he still gave off an aura of gentleness. On his left hand he only had his thumb. His four working fingers undid Balot’s uniform when she returned from school one day.

  That was when she learned to project her consciousness into space. As Balot’s father’s fingers and tongue tentatively caressed her body, she felt an unknown feeling well up inside her. Desperately trying to suppress this feeling, she launched it into the air. There were the unbearable feelings of guilt, and then there was her clear, calm consciousness. With half-shut eyes she looked at the room, looked at the furniture, and tried to project her consciousness onto something else.

  But she hadn’t yet perfected her technique of losing herself.

  Sometimes her voice leaked out. Naturally. Like in the movies, when a woman was embraced by her lover. She fought it. Biting down on her lips, frantically averting her eyes. Trying not to look at her father’s face.

  How long had she been doing this? Then, all of a sudden, a feeling to extinguish any lukewarm waves of pleasure. A red-hot scalding sense of bitterness. It was penetrating her. She heard her father’s voice, apologizing. She heard her own voice asking him to stop, please. But the pain intensified, and her father started moving his body.

  She tried forcing her father back with both arms. Her father was crying. He gripped her arms tightly with his hand with three fingers. His tears dripped down onto her arms and breasts. As if he were vomiting up blood. Eventually, the waves of pain subsided into silence, and a lukewarm liquid—different from tears—trickled down her thighs.

  This was the “lucky guy” that the Hunter spoke of. This was why she had no answer when the defense counsel asked her why she didn’t resist.

  She could recall her father’s face from then—full of sorrow—anytime. She could barely remember him looking any other way.

  She’d wanted to do something about this sadness. Balot didn’t really understand that her father had just made love to his own twelve-year-old daughter as he would a woman, and in any case she wasn’t really in a position to refuse.

  After the last time they had relations, Balot was taking a shower, mind blank, when she heard shouting and screaming. And then—a burst of gunfire.

  Balot wrapped a bath towel around her body and came out
of the shower to look on the scene. Her older brother, screaming like a mad dog. At his feet was her father, writhing in agony from a gunshot wound.

  When her brother saw his little sister, steam rising from her half-naked body, he cried out maniacally.

  Her brother was a volunteer at ADSOM. The reason he worked there could be traced back to childhood, when his mother shouted at him for not properly holding the end of the tube she was using to bind her arm as she was shooting up.

  Balot’s brother was as neurotic as their mother. He was trying to save her from herself, but despite his good intentions, his irritation and hatred grew violently. And her brother was pretty much the only one in the family who could do a proper day’s work to earn a living wage.

  So her brother was always on the lookout for opportunities to earn money more efficiently.

  Before long he got mixed up in bad company and became a gunrunner. This all came out in the investigation into his father’s shooting, and her brother was consigned to the penitentiary.

  “It was all for nothing,” her brother said to her at their last meeting.

  Balot wasn’t able to say a word and just watched her brother’s back as he was led away. Then she herself was put into the institute, which was just as bad as prison. For a long time she thought of the institute as her punishment. That she was the one who broke her family up, so she was the one who deserved to be punished. Words that were said to her at the institute—bad girl, you’re a bad girl—still resounded in her ears.

  The counsel for the defense unceasingly pressed his line of argument: the explosion was a complete accident and Shell had absolutely no murderous intentions. Indeed, Shell had been trying to rescue her, but she wouldn’t trust him and started violently clawing at the door handle—and that had made the whole situation worse. He pointed to several scratch marks on the inside of the AirCar door as proof. As if the whole thing was Balot’s fault.

  The defense counsel spared no effort in his exertions trying to persuade the jury of this.

  Balot seduced her father without hesitation, wrecked her own family, plunged wildly into the uninhibited lifestyle of the dropout, and did whatever took her fancy—a Teen Harlot such as we’ve never seen.