Mardock Scramble

by Ubukata, Tow

  She shouted in an empty whistle of a voice.

  It sounded like a draft in a wind tunnel.

  “…Sorry about all that. I’m better now,” Oeufcoque said. He raised himself up gently and looked up at Balot.

  Large tears still poured out of her eyes.

  She wanted to say something.

  She wanted to explain all her feelings to him.

  But in her deep confusion she wasn’t able to say anything, and the best she could do was try and stop her confusion from pouring out. She didn’t want to hurt Oeufcoque anymore.

  “Try and stand up. It’s no use staying here. Let’s get out of this box.”

  Balot took a deep breath. Nodding repeatedly, she stood up and stepped out of the elevator.

  She wiped her tears away with one hand, carrying Oeufcoque along ever so carefully with her other.

  There was nothing on the roof.

  Nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide.

  The cold night air only reinforced Balot’s sense of isolation and helplessness.

  “…We need to buy ourselves a little more time. See if you can close all the shutters in the emergency staircase and turn off the elevators.”

  Balot manipulated the building’s security system, snarcing it as Oeufcoque had suggested.

  But she was under no illusions that this would be enough to stop that man forever. No trap or obstacle was ever going to be able to do that.

  “If it comes down to it he’ll just walk up the building’s walls. Keep a lookout for him.”

  –He was walking earlier. On the ceiling and the walls .

  Just remembering that scene sent an involuntary shiver down her spine.

  –What is he, exactly? My bullets had no effect on him either.

  “PGF—PseudoGravitational Float, it’s called—developed to give soldiers the power of independent movement in space,” Oeufcoque explained. “Powerful magnetic field generators are implanted into your brain and limbs, allowing you to create an artificial gravitational pull in any direction you want. This omnidirectional gravity field allows you to walk along any surface you want—or to deflect the path of any bullets. The reason he can use that enormous revolver is also due to his PGF. Boiled was the prototype—or, you could say, the first victim—of the technology, just before Scramble 09 was enacted.”

  Oeufcoque’s eyes were downcast now, and he groaned. “I should have told you all of this before today…I really messed this one up.”

  –Why didn’t you? Because you used to be friends?

  “Whenever he decides to act, he gives off a characteristic odor. The cold, harsh smell of a mercenary going to war.”

  He raised his head and returned Balot’s gaze.

  “As long as I could avoid it, I didn’t want to have to speak about him—or how his body worked—behind his back. In the same way that I wouldn’t want to talk about your past or your body in front of other people.”

  Balot’s eyes softened.

  –You’re so thoughtful.

  That was all she said. That was all she could think to say. And then she thought of herself, and how she had forgotten about his thoughtfulness, and she was ready to start crying again.

  But then she heard a gunshot down the stairs. The sound of shutters being ripped apart.

  She hadn’t bought herself much time.

  –Where should I go? There’s nowhere left!

  Balot was at the edge of the roof now, hands on the iron railings that ran around the perimeter.

  “The Doctor should be here. Close by. Can’t you sense him?” Balot looked up at the night sky. The clouds drifted slowly, revealing the sharp crescent of the moon.

  She sensed something from a distance that was gradually coming toward her.

  “As soon as he received my emergency distress signal, the Doctor started heading back. He can’t be more than a few minutes away.”

  Balot stared at the sky. She thought of an angel descending from the heavens. Just as she had fantasized whenever times were bad at the institute. The angelic visitor who would swoop down out of nowhere and rescue her.

  As these memories came flooding back, she felt even more keenly the terrible things that she had done while using Oeufcoque.

  Shameful, wretched things.

  “Balot…” Oeufcoque called out nervously.

  Balot spun around to face the emergency stairs.

  The gunfire was getting closer now.

  “Do it. Use me to protect yourself.” Oeufcoque’s little body trembled in Balot’s hand.

  –I don’t want to hurt you anymore.

  “I’ll be fine. I won’t get hurt.”

  Balot’s expression tightened.

  Right now, all she wanted to do was repent, confess to God, to anything.

  All she wanted was to have someone say All is forgiven.

  “He’s coming. He’s even faster than I thought.” Oeufcoque’s voice was harsh now.

  She could sense the man’s footsteps approaching the door at the top of the stairwell.

  Tears fell from her face.

  She reached out to Oeufcoque—and snarced him.

  He turned with a squelch.

  A reassuringly heavy object formed in her hands.

  An object with a gun barrel bigger than any she had ever used before.

  A gun that would stand up to Boiled’s weapon.

  This was Oeufcoque’s will—and a physical response to the danger that was drawing near. And it was customized perfectly for the situation. The grip of the gun turned, squishing into place as a belt that bound the gun to Balot’s left hand. A belt that wrapped her tight. Then it moved on to cover her wrist, with metal contraptions designed to deflect the force of the recoiling gun away from her body.

  Bullets slid into place inside the metal frame, and the firing hammer cocked automatically.

  And then she knew that her opponent was standing on the other side of the door.

  She also knew that he’d be expecting her to be standing there, gun trained on him. She sensed his presence.

  The air was pregnant with tension, and an unbearable heart-rending silence flowed all around.

  Then the silence was abruptly shattered.

  The first gunshots all sounded as one. An overwhelming number of bullets sprang into action. In that one instant, Balot fired off everything that she could.

  Gunfire echoed all around, along with the piercing metallic sound of bullets clashing in midair.

  A number of Balot’s bullets had managed to pierce the cannonball-like round that emerged from Boiled’s revolver, shooting it down.

  The overpowering smell of charred metal spread, and a dense cloud of smoke filled the area.

  When her opponent stopped firing, Balot too paused to eject her magazine, and with it the searing heat that had been building up in her gun.

  When she started firing again she could feel the shock from the blasts vibrating in her arms. Balot realized what Oeufcoque had been doing—suppressing all his own instincts to reject her, pushing them deep inside himself so that he could fill himself with bullets and be useful to her, protect her.

  In turn, Balot carried on snarcing Oeufcoque, helping him to continue. Even as the trigger was pulled and the electronic pulses caused the bullets to fly out the barrel.

  She twisted Oeufcoque’s heart and pressed down, hard.

  Balot’s eyes brimmed with tears, and her vision blurred; she fired by sensation alone.

  In her sorrow she felt herself go weak in the legs, and her knees suddenly buckled. She crumpled into a heap, her rump now on the rooftop.

  A pathetic sight.

  Still sitting, she carried on shooting, pushing the gun out in front of her.

  From beyond the door, now torn to shreds, Boiled’s bullets came at her, relentless, oppressive, crushing.

  Balot squeezed Oeufcoque tight and raised the level on her snarc up another notch, firing again and again with a face streaked with tears.

  She knew that if
she didn’t, she’d be dead.

  How pitiful and pathetic she was, doing all this just to try and save her own life.

  Suddenly there was an explosion right beside her, and part of the roof opened up. Balot realized that her aim was starting to falter. And there was nothing she could do about it.

  The melee was disrupting her breathing, and her internal rhythm was going haywire.

  Unable to withstand the pressure, her emotions were in disarray. Her breast was choked with sorrow, and she saw just how much stronger Boiled was.

  Her aim was all over the place now.

  The figure of her opponent grew blurrier still.

  No longer able to sense where her opponent was aiming, she was gripped by terror, and—without thinking—scrambled for cover, awkwardly trying to get to her feet.

  A life-threatening mistake.

  Balot realized that she had been shot at.

  The bullet flew straight for her face.

  Then it happened, in an instant. The gun in her hand jumped up of its own accord.

  The gun covered her face, turning with a squelch into a thick slab of shock-absorbent material.

  Such was Oeufcoque’s will.

  The bullet hit Oeufcoque. The belt fixed to her hand was blown away, and the gun flew from her fingers and smashed into Balot’s face. Her skin tore, and blood poured out from her wound.

  Overcome by dizziness in her head, she collapsed, as if she’d just been flung backward.

  The gun had—only just—saved Balot’s life, but in doing so it was blown to pieces itself.

  One of the fragments squelched its way back into the form of Oeufcoque, who gave another cry of anguish.

  At the corner of her field of vision Balot saw the golden-haired mouse.

  Desperately pulling herself up, she extended her hand toward him.

  In turn Oeufcoque suppressed his suffering with all his might and tried to jump back into Balot’s hand.

  A deadly bullet flew straight at them. Packed with cold, vicious intent.

  Paralyzed by fear, Balot couldn’t even move—she was petrified on the spot.

  But the bullet wasn’t aimed at her.

  The bullet exploded right in front of her eyes.

  The concrete rooftop flew up along with the target. The concrete fragmented and scattered, and a soft bundle of something came flying toward her, bouncing off against her chest.

  Oeufcoque’s flesh and red blood splattered across Balot’s white clothes.

  “Balot…” Oeufcoque’s voice.

  Mind blank, Balot tried to find the source of the voice. “Make me transform into something, quickly.” The voice was frail, but full of urgency.

  Finally Balot found Oeufcoque. He was the bundle that had just smashed into her chest and bounced off.

  The sight of him felt like a hammer blow to the side of her head.

  Oeufcoque’s lower body was shredded to pieces, and he was crawling along, arm outstretched toward her.

  Balot screamed.

  But, of course, all that leaked out of her mouth was a dry whistling sound.

  Crying, she hastily scooped Oeufcoque up.

  That same instant a bullet came flying at her.

  She felt a thud in her upper right arm. For a moment she thought her whole arm had been torn off, so powerful was the impact.

  Another blow followed to her flank. Her body flew through space. The air stuck in her throat and she lost all sense of up and down.

  Her consciousness receded into the distance, but her Made- by-Oeufcoque shell protected her to the end.

  She slammed into the iron perimeter fence, shoulder first. Thrown down onto the roof, she banged her temple against the concrete, jolting her back into consciousness.

  Blood poured from the wound on her forehead, seeping into her right eye so that everything she saw appeared coated by a bright red film.

  She was now a sitting duck. But no more bullets came at her.

  Instead, the giant man emerged from behind the bullet-riddled door.

  Smoothly, as if he had all the time in the world, Boiled walked toward her.

  “This gun is you.” Boiled stopped a little way away from her. “This gun is what you were, back then. You were made to annihilate, to bring nothingness to this world. Just like me. That’s the ultimate answer to all those debates about what we are.”

  He was standing a good distance away. A good distance to fire words off from, and a good distance to fire bullets off from.

  Boiled opened the cylinder of his revolver. Smoking cartridges scattered across the roof. His trigger fingers, and the fingers that he was using to load more cartridges into his revolver, were all covered with burns and blisters.

  The cylinder of his revolver clicked back into place.

  Gripping his red-hot gun, he turned the muzzle toward Balot.

  Balot’s left hand touched something soft. Without even looking at it, she knew exactly what it was. Without even looking at it, she knew exactly what it was trying to do. She felt his blood, slippery in her fingers. She closed her eyes, wanting to get a better feel of its warmth.

  She heard the firing hammer of Boiled’s gun clicking back.

  That very same moment, Balot brandished the gun in her hand—the turned Oeufcoque.

  Two gunshots fired simultaneously, echoing in the night, sparks flying through the darkness.

  The two bullets collided in midair, in the space between Balot and Boiled, smashing each other into pieces.

  Balot felt a warm sensation in her hands.

  Blood flowed from the gun, covering her hands and dripping to the floor.

  Crying, Balot squeezed the bleeding gun tight, pulling the trigger over and over.

  In order not to die—in order to survive.

  Book II:

  THE SECOND COMBUSTION

  Chapter 5

  PISTON

  01

  –I don’t want to die.

  The thoughts were being transmitted to the blood-soaked gun, and every bullet that came flying out of its muzzle was loaded with sorrow.

  –I’m so sorry, Oeufcoque. I’m so sorry.

  Now Balot understood the meaning of the word abuse. She was abusing Oeufcoque. She had turned Oeufcoque into a dangerous tool.

  The result was a gun that wept blood. Even after his body had been blown in two, the only thing Balot could do for him was to bring him more blood and tears.

  Bullets clashed with bullets, flying through the air and disintegrating into powder, settling over Boiled and Balot like snowfall.

  Boiled’s bullets made short work of the iron perimeter fence at Balot’s side, crumpling a pillar up like so much paper.

  Balot didn’t even look—she just fired and fired. Her gun was empty in a flash, and as she ejected the spent magazine and the build-up of excess heat, a gush of blood came steaming out.

  The gun and her hands were both bright red.

  A new magazine clicked into place inside the steel, and the gun was reloaded. It was as if she were firing Oeufcoque’s flesh and blood in order to shield herself.

  She focused on the bullets flying at her.

  She could just about keep these away by sheer force of numbers of her own volleys, but her bullets didn’t even get close to Boiled.

  PGF—PseudoGravitational Float—was the name of the technology that protected Boiled. It allowed him to activate a gravity field around his body and deflect any bullet that came near him.

  “Why, Oeufcoque?” he murmured darkly from beyond his invisible shield.

  Boiled fired bullets steeped in murderous intent.

  Balot couldn’t hear what he had muttered. But her attitude toward him, about how to deal with him, was gradually changing.

  Take him down. That was what she thought now. The idea of defending herself slipped her mind. All she could think of now was to stop the man from moving. That was the only thing she could get Oeufcoque to do.

  But all the bullets Balot fired flew away from
their target, their trajectories altered.

  Boiled’s gun ran out of bullets, and he opened the cylinder to discard the empty shells onto the roof.

  His thick fingers reloaded the gun with bullets and venomous hatred. His eyes remained fixed on Balot holding her blood-soaked gun.

  “How is that girl any different from me…” His voice was oily, inhuman.

  And then the gun was loaded, again, and pointed at Balot, again.

  Balot stared at Boiled, unblinking. Her finger was poised over the trigger, ready to fire, but was held back by something.

  Then, seizing the moment, she flew forward, throwing caution to the wind. The instant Boiled fired—that was when a tiny gap would open up in his PGF to let his bullet out.

  One moment, one spot. That was the only opening in Boiled’s invisible and otherwise invincible shield.

  In her desperate volley of dozens of bullets she had discovered it: the enemy’s Achilles’ heel.

  Boiled noticed immediately that this was what Balot was aiming for.

  A gruesome shadow, almost like a faint smile, appeared on Boiled’s blank face.

  Guns still thrust out at each other. The tension between them was electric.

  Blood trickled from a wound on Balot’s forehead, mingling with her sweat and tears and dripping from her chin.

  “So that’s your usefulness, is it, Oeufcoque,” Boiled said in a heavy voice, firing his gun. “And yet all that’s really happened is a new monster has been brought into this world.”

  A deafening roar resounded across the firmament.

  A violent gust of wind blew all around.

  The squall from some sort of giant flying object, neither plane nor helicopter.

  “Oeufcoque! Balot! I’m here!” Shouting from a megaphone, echoing all around, and Balot and Boiled both looked to the heavens.

  Only Balot was visibly surprised by what she saw.

  A giant silver egg. An oval shape, over ten meters tall—it was as if a piece of the moon had broken off and descended toward the rooftop.

  “A Humpty, is it? The Broilerhouse is sharpening up its response times,” Boiled muttered, looking up.

  “Boiled, you are ordered to withdraw from the scene!” As the egg broadcast the warning, a part of its body cracked open with a loud noise to reveal a multitude of small hexagonal shapes.