Mardock Scramble

by Ubukata, Tow

  “If we performed a full search of your body, we might not find anything. There may not be anything there. But that’s fine. You took off your gloves of your own volition. Neither the casino nor I forced you to. We’re clear on that, right?”

  Like a gunslinger in an old pulp Western confirming the rules before the duel, Balot nodded, holding her eyes steady on his face.

  “I say you’re a formidable opponent because you don’t run and you don’t hide.”

  Ashley’s hand flicked at the card shoe.

  The cards came. The dealer’s upcard, an ace. Balot had a 7-6.

  Balot thought to hit, and the numbers on her gloves agreed.

  She got a 2. Again the gloves said to hit, and she had no objection.

  She hit. Another 2 card came, and she stayed. Ashley’s hole card was a 6, making seventeen. A push. The cards were wiped, and beneath Balot’s arm, her true count updated. Even when cast aside, Oeufcoque wasn’t the type to neglect his duties—not as long as his duties coincided with his own wishes.

  The cards came. Ashley’s upcard, a queen. Balot had a J-3.

  Balot hit and added a 4 to her hand. This was a crucial moment. Within the relentless flow of the game, Balot’s senses clung to her cards like the cover on a book.

  She hit again and got a 3. Twenty. Stay.

  Ashley revealed his hole card, a 4. With the queen, fourteen.

  He drew a 2 and then a 5. Twenty-one.

  Like a hound points its nose, Balot directed her senses at Ashley’s rough hands as they moved the cards and chips from play. Even after her somewhat reckless hit, she still lost by a thin margin. But something had changed. She sensed the slightest of movement in the iron wall that was Ashley.

  As Balot stacked her chips with her right hand, she snarced Oeufcoque with her left.

  –Oeufcoque, can you hear me?

  –Oh, I guess I can still receive transmissions from you.

  An unusually sarcastic reply from Oeufcoque. That was how much of an effect being pulled from Balot’s arm had had on him. As the cards came, Balot grinned with amusement as she stroked the gloves and snarced.

  –I have a favor to ask of you. Okay?

  The right glove—the one she’d pushed Oeufcoque into—was directly under the shadow of her left arm.

  –If it’s something I can do.

  –It’s something only you can do.

  She wasn’t saying it just to mollify him—it was the truth. With her right hand, she signaled a hit.

  Oeufcoque’s reply was earnest.

  –What should I do?

  As she looked at her new card, she considered it.

  What should we do? She had only a vague idea.

  –I want to add my senses to the numerical display.

  Ashley’s upcard was a king, and Balot had an 8-5-2. Oeufcoque’s statistical analysis suggested a stay. But something tugged at the girl’s senses.

  –I want to know something besides the numbers. I want you to add it in.

  –Besides true count? You don’t mean withholding certain cards from the calculations?

  –No, I think that’s too narrow.

  Balot hit and drew a 5. Then she stayed.

  Ashley flipped his hole card. A 6. With the king, sixteen.

  He drew and slapped down a 4. Twenty.

  “We have a push.”

  As the dealer collected the cards, Balot thought she sensed a slight change in his expression. Perhaps a momentary thought toward vigilance after her last hit turned his twenty-one into a tie.

  Oeufcoque’s strategy was as precise as ever.

  –I will be as reactive to your thoughts as possible. Change the display however you wish. I will keep saving all the data.

  –Thank you, kind sir.

  –My pleasure.

  Balot stroked the glove. At the moment, it was the closest gesture to a thank-you kiss she could give him. To help clear her thoughts, she pushed her senses to the top of her consciousness.

  Her cards were a wave of low numbers. Ashley, on the other hand, received large cards, nearly all of them ten cards. If his judgment of the cards faltered by one, the ten card would become his hole card. It was a difficult pattern from which to discern a path to victory.

  The pattern arose from Ashley’s shuffling technique, but Balot’s handling of her cards began to influence the game. The same sequences repeating and the same cards appearing many times in the same hand was proof of that.

  As she confirmed those influences one by one, Oeufcoque’s numbers gradually—yet steadily—changed. The calculations were Oeufcoque’s, but the meaning behind them was up to Balot’s senses. Repeated cards and runs of low-value cards could be understood statistically, but that only resulted in a calculation of the winning percentage based on the cards in the discard pile. There was no angle of using it to influence the coming flow of the cards. All she had was a winning percentage and betting management of unparalleled precision.

  And that wasn’t enough to win against Ashley. No matter how perfect her tactics, he would manipulate the sequence of cards and bog her down in the marsh.

  A lull fell over the game, and Balot was inching toward defeat. Every hand was either a narrow loss or a push. She was honing her senses, separating out the things she should be sensing from the things that didn’t matter. Ashley’s fingers, for example. On both his hands, his pinkies and pointer fingers weren’t relevant. They only transported the cards. The movements of his middle fingers and thumbs, however, were essential to his manipulation of the deck, and his ring fingers kept everything in balance.

  And the most crucial supports to the structure of the card order were the upcards, from jack to king. Jacks were lined with odd-numbered cards, kings higher-ranked even numbers, and queens lower-ranked even numbers. Their relations with each other subtly shifted through the deck. But why? Because the game was focused around aces. Depending on the circumstances, the natural rules of the game and the rules of his shuffle joined and separated like a pair of dancers.

  As a result of this, Ashley’s most important cards were the aces, the fives, and the jacks so tightly bound to the other two. Even more crucial to defend against the player’s most profitable victory—the ace and jack of spades.

  Balot, utilizing Oeufcoque’s precise calculations and her own senses, modified the numerical readings, whose form had become a seemingly incoherent jumble of letters and numbers just on the edge of what Balot could understand.

  As the chips kept up their one-sided movement across the table, Oeufcoque and Balot felt more unified than they ever had before. They weren’t the protector and the protected. They were one united, leading and following in turn. She felt it in her heart—they were a team. Might those words lead her in a better direction. In her game. In their game.

  At the end of the fifteenth hand, Oeufcoque’s display was a simmering stew of numbers. Letters large and small aligned with countless numbers, winding and swirling together. It was Oeufcoque and Balot’s combined technique, and it was a singular breach in Ashley’s iron wall.

  Transfixed by the weaving of the dizzying patchwork array of numbers, Balot was unaware of her own change. A change in her body.

  The first to notice was the wall, Ashley.

  “Do you need to refresh your makeup?”

  At first, Balot failed to grasp his meaning.

  She thought it was another ploy, but it wasn’t. Balot’s brow and palms were caked with cold sweat. She had apparently been unconsciously wiping it off. When she saw that the fingers on her right hand were covered with glittering silver powder, she didn’t know what it was at first.

  Ashley snapped his fingers. A passing staffer came to the table.

  The dealer ordered a damp towel. When the man asked who it was for, Ashley turned to Bell Wing and shrugged, as if to say, What’s with this guy? and A battle is a battle, but one must be considerate of a lady. Bell took one glance at Balot and nodded. Then the man understood. It was for Balot.


  And Balot, too, finally understood her own state.

  Glittering stuff was all over her hands and her arms, her cheeks and her forehead.

  It was silver powder. Her skin was emitting glittering silver powder. That was the only explanation. She brushed her hand across her face, and tiny fibrous flecks rubbed off. It felt like temporary hair dye washing out, but she couldn’t remember putting that much in her hair.

  Balot became aware of a faint itchiness all over her body, like a thinly peeling sunburn over freshly healed skin.

  “You’re growing…” the Doctor whispered from over her shoulder. “Your metal fibers are autonomously growing to meet your body’s requirements.”

  A waiter came and handed her a wet cloth. Balot waited for Oeufcoque to erase his display before lifting her arm and applying the cool cloth to her face.

  The cloth was pleasantly scented. She wiped her arms and cheeks with it, clearing away the mixture of silver powder and sweat. The itchiness across her hands and cheeks faded. She was refreshed.

  She wiped her arms and her face as though she were polishing a blade.

  The Doctor took the towel from her hands before the waiter had the chance, and said, “If you feel anything abnormal, please inform me right away. Don’t overdo it. Just do what you can.”

  He made Balot feel like a boxer facing the next round.

  The girl nodded. She didn’t feel anything abnormal. She placed her left arm on top of Oeufcoque, and the numbers swirled against it. In an instant, she had returned to the game. Balot steadied her breath and stretched out her right hand. She placed her chips.

  –Thank you for your kindness.

  “You’re welcome.”

  Ashley put his hand to the card shoe. The game began.

  ≡

  Over the course of the next ten games, Oeufcoque’s display grew even more dizzying.

  The numbers swirled, flowing and recrystallizing again under Balot’s heightened abilities and Oeufcoque’s new technique.

  The flow was the development of logical measurements and predictions, and the crystallization provided an intuitive grasp of the full context.

  The cards and odds coming in waves—these data flowed. There was an awareness of things with a beginning and an end or that were new developments. The fluid data consisted of predictions and measurements based on both established patterns and novel events based on cause and effect. They circled, they spiraled, they oscillated, based on her most recent awareness—that was the flow.

  The crystallization, on the other hand, was the connection of multiple points, a patchwork of three-dimensional influences. A comprehensive awareness of sights and space.

  With no relation to the passage of time, the connections between past events strengthened until the points coalesced into the nuclei of even larger masses still to come. And from that, their location and orientation became fixed—those were the crystals.

  The mutual existence of flowing data and crystallized information was the very essence of human knowledge. Without one, the other lost its meaning. When consciousness was dropped into the vortex of the unconscious, the power of intelligence was born. Everyone had it. It was only waiting to be used.

  And at that moment, Balot was greedily feasting upon the sensation of that power. Oeufcoque and Balot were tightly connected, their senses bonded.

  At the twenty-seventh game, their senses had melded to perceive a deeply vivid image.

  Ashley’s upcard, an ace. Balot’s hand, 5-J. The cards were like the muzzle of a gun in Ashley’s hand, thrust right at her.

  Balot muttered.

  –They’re pointy. I want to round them off.

  She spoke unconsciously, to no one in particular.

  To the somewhat perplexed-looking Ashley, she announced her hit.

  Ashley pulled a card from the shoe. It was a 2.

  –It’s still light.

  Her voice was soft, but it jolted through the air of tension over the table.

  Balot hit. An ace.

  –It’s getting even pointier.

  Grief sounded in her words, but Balot’s expression was suddenly taken by a vastness that was hard to grasp. Where was she looking? What was she thinking? Her expression was unreadable. But she was looking at something. She had her sights on it.

  The Doctor gulped. Bell’s eyes opened wide.

  –Hit.

  Ashley’s hand moved instantly. Even if the card would bring about his own destruction, his practiced hand drew it without hesitation. Such was his skill.

  The card came. Another ace. Balot didn’t stop. Her body felt like a sharp blade slicing effortlessly through her opponent’s windpipe.

  –Hit.

  Another ace.

  –Hit.

  Another ace. Balot took a deep breath. 5-J-2-A-A-A-A—

  –Stay.

  Ashley revealed his hole card. A jack. Ashley stared at the table, speechless. In his place, the Doctor whispered with disbelief. “A push…”

  “It seems like it,” said the dealer.

  He quickly collected the cards, sweeping them into a neat pile, Balot’s senses attuned to their movement.

  Ashley looked down at Balot’s hand. He seemed to stare right through the chips stacked in a neat circle in the palm of her bare hand.

  “Do you know why I’m looking forward to the next card?” Balot looked up at him. With a vacant expression, she nodded deeply.

  She had become so focused on the game, she had forgotten to think of him as her enemy.

  –If it’s a king, you’ll lose. Especially if it’s a spade. It’ll mean you separated them for nothing.

  She appeared lost in thought, as if still trying to figure out why her statement was true.

  “You do know, then?”

  Balot tilted her head.

  “You managed to weather my special move, and I’d prefer not to think of it as by chance.”

  Finally understanding his meaning, the girl nodded.

  –I think I know.

  “You’ve seen through my shuffle?”

  His face was mischievous, but there was a bluster in it that betrayed a small thread of fear.

  Balot looked at him and slowly shook her head.

  “Then what do you know?”

  –Until a moment ago, the upcards have all been your allies.

  Her eyes gazed distantly upon the card shoe.

  –But now I too have allies.

  Ashley, his hand still atop the shoe, shrugged and said, “For sure. But I don’t think you have many.”

  –I don’t need many. It’s enough to know I have them. That’s all I know.

  “But will they arrive in time?” He smiled sharply at her.

  She thought for a moment, then answered.

  –I don’t need to win many times.

  Ashley’s smile froze. For a brief moment, his eyes went completely expressionless. Somewhere deep inside him, his caution toward Balot transformed into animosity.

  Balot tapped the table. Ashley’s hand flicked out the cards.

  His upcard, a 5. Balot’s hand, J-J.

  –It’s like they’re fighting. And just when I’ve come to save them.

  She looked at the jacks with disappointment. The red and black one-eyed jacks.

  –But I’ll stay.

  Without hesitation, Ashley turned over his hole card. A king. Spades.

  Beneath Balot’s left arm, Oeufcoque’s swirl of numbers adjusted.

  Some of the suits pressed together, amassing into an iron wall.

  With great contentment, Balot watched the dealer draw his next card.

  He drew a 6. Twenty-one. He was an overwhelming fortress.

  Ashley’s thick hands casually collected her chips. The cards went too.

  Balot’s eyes remained on the table as if seeing the afterimage of the cards: 5-K-6 and J-J.

  “Have you had enough?”

  Balot sensed something behind his mocking words. He was trying to hide the moment of defen
selessness born of a hastily built defense.

  That held the true meaning of building an impregnable iron wall in this game.

  Balot snarced Oeufcoque.

  –I want to bet on clubs. So they will become my ally.

  –Understood.

  He didn’t ask why. He didn’t ask how it would quantifiably affect her chances of winning. He wasn’t blindly following Balot either. It was his own decision based on his instinctive knowledge of her thoughts.

  Oeufcoque was in the fight too. As a part of their new combination.

  Balot smoothly placed her chips. Her impatience had vanished completely, not like the shadow had lifted into dawn, but as if her senses had pierced the unpredictable darkness, adding their own light to it.

  She felt herself becoming one with the game. The cards were her, and she was new.

  It was stress, it was hostility, and it was a blessing.

  Ashley’s management of the cards grew more and more skewed. That determined which cards Balot should chase after. Her 10 and 9 of clubs were impeded by the ace and king of spades. Next the 4 and 5 of clubs brought forth the king of clubs, only to be crushed by the jack of hearts and his reinforcements, the 3 and 7 of diamonds.

  Balot’s senses reached out like a hand searching through the darkness and colliding with something, for the ever-widening crack in Ashley’s flawless handling of the cards.

  The scariest thing within the darkness, thought Balot, is to be struck motionless from fear, unable to move even a single finger and to be freely used.

  Once, she hadn’t the will to resist being used. She had thrown away her senses. Until she’d met Oeufcoque. And now, from within her thin shell, she sensed with voracity. Suddenly, a sharp odor came to her nose. A phantom smell. A smell like the cologne Death would wear came over her body, enveloping her. Balot thought back to the time she’d been trapped inside that car, when the stench of gas filled the space. At that time, all she could do to survive was to withdraw into herself.

  At that time, she thought she would die. Sad and pitiful.

  But they came in time.

  Ashley’s upcard, an 8.

  Balot’s cards, 3-6.

  All of them clubs. Balot’s finger tapped the table.