Mardock Scramble

by Ubukata, Tow

  “I’ll proceed according to schedule. I’ll send you a report on the outcome sometime between midnight and dawn.”

  –Night mail, then. I’m counting on you. Make sure that your night mail is good enough to banish my nightmares forever. Make the girl, the one that should have already disappeared a long time ago, disappear for good.

  “Understood.” Boiled cut the phone line. Next to him, Medium burst out laughing.

  “I have no idea what you were just talking about, but there’s one thing that I’m sure of.” Medium pushed his sunglasses up and glanced at Boiled. “Your client’s totally crazy.”

  “None of your business.”

  “Hey, I don’t mean it in a bad way. He’s about as crazy as us, I mean. A good client to have. A true fetishist’s assignment. That makes me happy.”

  Boiled didn’t answer. He slipped the cell phone back in his jacket pocket before changing the subject. “Earlier this morning I put in a request for a coworker on this case, as a witness. That’s you.”

  “Ha…so I’m a PI, now?”

  “A PI’s assistant. The target, the girl, has a similar request in.”

  Medium’s face twisted into an ugly sneer. “I get it. So we can kill her fair and square now, right? All above board and within the law. Brilliant. I’ll kill her all right. I’ll kill her good and use up all her parts. Until I’m satisfied. That’s the agreement, right?”

  Boiled nodded.

  “I can’t wait.” Medium’s face lit up in an instant, and he stared out at the long, meandering road in front of him.

  Greenery was all around them—a result of the plant farms that had been set up in the area, the loam impregnated with concrete-dissolving enzymes. All kinds of trees were there, and in the gaps, buildings that hadn’t yet been completely destroyed—a sort of graveyard for a city.

  “The reforestation program for the area bombed out by the war—a Band-Aid for a city, don’t you think? About as much good as a couple of Band-Aids after you’ve been shot up by a machine gun, I mean…” Medium’s eyes glinted red, and a twisted smile flittered across his mouth. “If I remember rightly, a number of unmanned fighter planes were shot down in this area. The ones that the military-capitalist Continentals started sending over toward the end of the war, remote-controlled to cross the sea automatically and release their payload. According to rumor, there was some sort of military facility here. Why would our little kitty-cat be in a place like this?”

  “She’s already on another road leading into the grounds.”

  “Grounds? Of what?” Medium asked.

  “The experimental facility. There was a time when the army and the government poured funding into it.”

  And then it emerged. A structure made of bright metal and glass—very different from all the abandoned buildings in the vicinity—could be seen in between the darkness of the forest nightscape. It was so large that it was hard to tell at first glance what sort of construction it was. Something vast and white, almost like an endless wall, surrounded it.

  “All the mountains…” Medium was struck dumb for a moment, then slapped his knees like a child enthralled by the television. “And here’s Noah’s Ark! What a surprise. So, this is where she’s hiding out. The little kitten’s rolled up in a ball, purring away as she sleeps? I’ll purr you, my little kitty-cat. I’ll purr you all right.”

  Boiled’s sleepy eyes were trained on the rolling hills in front of him.

  Mardock City was originally a trade port and an engineer’s city.

  The city developed, went high-tech, survived a war, and its prosperity was now firmly secured on the holy trinity of the industrial district, research institutions, and the harbor.

  Now, farther into the city, there was also an inverted triangle—an unholy trinity—of the city council, the pleasure district, and the media center.

  Each of the two triangles were in turn subdivided into smaller sections, like a dart board, where wealth, poverty, glory, depravity, and fame all sat jostling cheek by jowl.

  Boiled parked his car at the top of the slope. Medium opened the door and said, blood rising to his face, “Unleash me whenever you’re ready, boss,” as he looked at Boiled, who had emerged from the other door.

  Boiled pointed toward one of the slopes. “Head in from the west. There should be security firm personnel stationed there. Gather any intelligence on the facility you can.”

  “Shall I report back to you with my location?” asked Medium.

  “If possible then do. I’ll be heading to the main entrance and gain access based on official procedures.”

  “You mean they’ll try and keep her hidden? Say that she’s not in and never has been, that sort of thing?”

  “Exactly.”

  “In other words, then…” Medium spread his arms out, no longer able to contain his joy. “I can do whatever I like to the girl, seeing that she’s not supposed to be there anyway.”

  “Anything goes. Now move on in,” said Boiled.

  Medium spun around.

  His brutal smile seemed to linger on, like incense in the air.

  The hound dog, unleashed, went running off into the woods.

  Once he had disappeared completely, Boiled moved back into the driver’s seat.

  “An ark…” he murmured, gripping the wheel. “An ark that waits for the deluge that never comes.”

  Muttering to himself, he drove off.

  02

  Boiled flashed his PI’s license at the guard who appeared in the watchtower monitor in the middle of the revolving gate.

  The guard noted his license without emotion, as if he too were part of the machine.

  –You will be connected to the warden shortly, sir. Kindly wait there. Your voice and image are being recorded.

  Boiled nodded. The screen on the monitor changed.

  –So, the Rusty Gun has returned for maintenance, unable to cope with the poisonous rust that he produces?

  On the monitor, a man in late middle age. Only his neck upward was visible. Boiled knew all too well what had happened below the neckline.

  “Oeufcoque should be here, Professor.”

  The man on the screen—Professor Faceman—laughed quietly.

  –I say, this is rather off-topic from your official request. Is there nothing else you want to ask me?

  He spoke as an indulgent teacher might gently encourage a pupil to revise his answer.

  “There’s a possibility that a material witness for a case is hiding in this facility. I need you to open the gate for me.”

  –There’s no need to force your way in using a gun. Come over to the November Forest.

  Even as he faded from the monitor, Faceman’s tone was gentle.

  Boiled stopped the car and headed for the white wall of chalk, placing his hand on a small door that was etched into the wall.

  The door gave a little electronic buzz and opened inward.

  He stepped into a long, dazzlingly white corridor, and the door shut behind him.

  Everything around him was a clear white, and it radiated calmness, like a first-class airport lounge.

  Boiled walked on. Calm footfalls—this was a place he was comfortable with, at home. It was as if his body wanted these homely, nostalgic feelings in spite of himself, in spite of his resistance and disgust toward the very idea.

  Boiled continued down the corridor and arrived at the end without passing a soul. He came to a giant wall again. He touched the electronic pad on the wall, and the thick walls parted to either side to reveal trees and plants not dissimilar to the ones on the outside.

  Boiled entered the forest.

  There was a white table and chairs in a clearing surrounded by white birch trees. A young man stood by the table, and he smiled as Boiled drew near. Or so it seemed, but then the young man’s expression turned sour.

  “I took my telecom out of my head a long time ago. No use in snarcing me to communicate, Tweedledee,” Boiled said.

  Tweedledee looked more dis
appointed than anything else. He jerked his chin toward the table.

  There was a cup on the table, and the aroma of warm coffee drifted about the glade.

  Tweedledee signaled with his eyes that the coffee had been prepared specially for Boiled.

  Boiled ignored it and stood in front of the table. “Professor Faceman.”

  The old man’s head on the other side of the coffee—Faceman—raised his eyes from within his cage. “This forest is where many a war-weary soldier came to recuperate—and it’s also the final resting place for many. When 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.”

  “It’s a fairly straightforward auxiliary function to give a brain the electronic interference abilities of a snarc, though?”

  “Yes, but the same paintbrush wielded by two different hands produces two entirely different paintings. Some people are natural artists, others show no trace of talent despite the best tuition in the world. This is just like that. What’s unique about this girl’s snarc is a truly astounding level of concentration, her ability to focus her consciousness in on a narrow point, and her ability to diffuse all her senses. Theoretically the human body has the ability to respond to its own suggestions, manipulating its own senses at will. To feel warm when it wants to feel warm, to feel cold when it wants to feel cold, to feel nothing when it wants to feel nothing—even extend its control over its own inner workings. Through a deliberate program of training the subconscious, the body should be able to grasp everything that is happening all around it, intuitively, on a subconscious level,” said Faceman.

  “Theory is one thing, practice is quite another. There’s no way that such a thing could actually exist—an ordinary person able to manipulate their senses on demand.”

  This made Faceman laugh. “The origins of your own PseudoGravitational Float were fairly innocuous at first, if you remember—it started off as technology designed to help people cope with heights. Wasn’t it you yourself who mastered that technology so that you could walk across any surface, including ceilings and walls, at will? When I say that her data will be useless to you, I mean that it’d be impossible to try and extrapolate any general conclusions from it, just as it’s impossible to predict how she is likely to develop next.”