by Ubukata, Tow
“Danger! Something’s coming, I can smell it!” Oeufcoque yelled suddenly. Balot snapped her seat belt off.
Her seat still in its reclining position, she sat bolt upright and tuned in to the car’s surroundings.
“Impossible! Where, Oeufcoque?” the Doctor cried. Outside, water poured down from the skies. The red car sped through the rain at well over a hundred kilometers an hour. They had already entered the highway, and traffic was sparse, with no obvious sign of pursuers.
Then, amid the storm, a single car cut in violently just behind them.
The car had emerged from one of the motel parking lots that were often found along the highway. The Doctor’s view of the feeder lane had been blocked by the high-rise buildings to the side of the road, and the pursuer had judged his timing perfectly, appearing right behind the red convertible, and was now on its tail.
The Doctor cursed and stepped on the gas. Balot had been inching toward the rear seats, and the sudden burst of acceleration threw her all the way back. She slammed into the seat, then turned to look out the rear window.
She could see the car, a mere ten meters behind them. She could almost see the aura of intent emanating from it.
“Is it Boiled?” the Doctor shouted. Neither Balot nor Oeufcoque answered. Their silence said it all.
In desperation the Doctor plunged the gas pedal to the floor. The red convertible sped up to full speed, tearing down the road.
But the predator had its prey in sight and was not about to be shaken off quite so easily.
“Looks like we’re going to have to fight him off. Balot—” Oeufcoque said calmly.
But the Doctor cut in, exasperated. “You’re at your limit!”
Balot turned to look at the Doctor, surprised at his vehemence. The Doctor stared back at her—and Oeufcoque—his eyes like those of a doctor ordering a liver cancer patient not to touch another drink, lest it turn out to be his last.
“I’m saying this as your personal physician! You’re completely at your limit—”
But he was interrupted by a crash. Like one of the rear passenger doors had been kicked in, hard. One of the side mirrors flew off the car, heading for the shoulder but then smashing into fragments along the highway.
“The windows and tires are a hundred-percent bulletproof. They’re not about to be troubled by any old gun. We’ll be able to hold it for a while.”
The very next instant a soul-chilling shock ran through the car and the rear window went white.
The problem was that Boiled’s gun was not any old gun. It was practically a portable artillery cannon. It fired shot after shot at the back of the car, crushing the trunk, sending sparks flying off the rear wheels, causing the whole car to swerve. The gunfire stopped for a moment.
Balot continued to spread her senses, to grasp what was happening. The two cars were fewer than five meters apart. Boiled was the only one inside the car behind them. Suddenly, Boiled’s car veered to the right and sped up.
He had finished reloading. Balot sensed Boiled’s car lining up next to theirs, Boiled taking aim with his right arm, judging the distance. The next instant, a roar.
Right at that moment the convertible swerved sharply to the left.
Boiled’s bullet grazed the taillight, then disappeared into the night.
“Balot!” It was the Doctor shouting. He was the one in the driver’s seat, but he understood immediately what had happened. Balot was driving.
–Just duck down. We’ll be okay. Just keep your body low.
Balot snarced the car stereo to communicate, and it obeyed her will, as did the rest of the car.
The steering wheel was spinning every which way right in front of the Doctor’s eyes. Only for a moment, though; it soon sank into the front panel, becoming one with the chassis. The Autodrive function engaged.
While the Doctor sat there in shock, Balot maneuvered the car to avoid the bullets. Three she dodged completely, one grazed the edge of the car roof, and one smashed into the taillight.
Balot had positioned the car deliberately to take this hit. The fragments of the lamp flew into Boiled’s windshield. Balot used this to measure the distance between the two cars, like a boxer’s jabs to probe how far there was between himself and his opponent.
Boiled went to reload his gun, and as he did so Balot unleashed the true potential of the convertible’s engine.
The tires, gears, and shaft were now all set to one single-minded purpose: speed.
The speed of the red convertible leapt up another notch. They were now roaring down the highway toward the outskirts of the city at a speed of over two hundred kilometers an hour. Balot felt her consciousness expanding and becoming ever more sensitive to her surroundings. The car groaned as it pushed on past its limit, and Balot seemed to moan along in sympathy.
Another shock. Not a bullet, this time, but rather the impact of Boiled’s car smashing into the side of theirs.
The red convertible shuddered. Its suspension screamed. The pressure was incredible. And Boiled’s aim was to take advantage of the moment when the pressure became too much—once Balot lost concentration, that was it, and the red convertible would be no more than a sitting duck.
The Doctor realized this. As did Oeufcoque, who said, “Balot, use me!”
Balot felt a faint glow of warmth in her right hand.
Balot hesitated. This was her hand—the hand that had once abused Oeufcoque so. Was she now supposed to forget about that and use him again? She felt the pressure more acutely than ever.
Balot’s eyes met with the deep red in Oeufcoque’s.
Balot closed her eyes. She felt Oeufcoque’s warm body heat and prayed for something to protect her. Just like when she first took Oeufcoque in her hands, all that while ago. Oeufcoque turned with a squelch. She felt a reassuring weight in her hands and a trigger against her finger.
“Don’t, Balot! You’re too—” The Doctor’s words were dissipated by a sharp gust of wind. The car roof was opening up, and the Doctor could only gape at it. The rain came down, assaulting them like razor blades.
Balot felt an extraordinary sense of precision amid the lashing rain and the car that was now pushing three hundred kilometers an hour. She was in control. She grasped the two cars. Their strengths and their Achilles’ heels. She sensed the currents of the violent winds and the raindrops that spiraled all around. The direction the two cars were heading in. Her movements. Boiled’s movements. She sensed everything as one, with perfect timing. Her whole world turned bright white.
Balot’s eyes became bloodshot, and she noticed her skin pressing in tightly on her internal organs. She heard a ringing noise around her forehead, and then could hear no more. The only body part left to rely on was her heart, which kept on beating away, telling her what she needed to do.
It all happened in an instant. The two cars were side by side. Balot leapt up, opened her eyes wide, and wrapped her finger around the trigger. Amid the torrential downpour she thought she heard herself screaming, yelling with all her might with a throat that had long since lost all powers of speech.
She fired. The bullets flowed out of the gun in quick succession, meeting Boiled’s salvo in midair.
Balot’s first shot smashed into the bullet Boiled had fired and was obliterated. So was the second, but the third was enough to deflect the path of the oncoming bullet. The fourth went straight for Boiled’s face, but was rendered harmless by Boiled’s PGF wall, as was the fifth.
The sixth and final bullet found its target—Boiled’s car.
Something ruptured right in front of Boiled’s eyes. Balot’s aim had been true, and she had hit the steering wheel just where she had wanted—on the spot to release the airbag. In an instant, Boiled’s face and arms and body were pinned back, the air pressure from the expanding airbag pressing him into his seat.
With a yell, Boiled focused his PGF, forcing the airbag back far enough for him to extricate his shooting arm. He pushed his gun into the gap so that the muz
zle pointed into the airbag, and fired. It exploded. The airbag shattered into a million pieces, as did the glass in the windshield.
Wind and rain and shards of glass came flying into the car, and all were reflected harmlessly off the wall of artificial gravity that Boiled generated.
On the other side of the newly created space was Balot.
The convertible was now back in front of Boiled’s car, roaring away.
Boiled screamed a wordless scream and fired again.
Balot had fired first. Boiled’s PGF was activated in self-defense, warping the flight paths of all bullets in his vicinity—including his own.
It flew up into the air, way over Balot’s head.
Like the red convertible, Boiled’s car was also supposed to have been utterly bulletproof. But Balot could accurately target the exact same location over and over as easily as she could walk a straight line. She fired repeatedly at the hood, hitting the same spot again and again, and this eventually opened up a bullet-sized hole in the not-so-impenetrable armor. Then Balot’s final bullet flew straight through the hole and ripped the cam belt to shreds.
In an instant, Boiled’s car lost the ability to convert its energy into forward momentum.
A gap opened up between the cars. Balot and Boiled both looked for an opportunity to fire, but too much space now divided them. Balot’s car was still devouring the terrain voraciously, and Boiled’s car could no longer keep up.
Balot and Boiled remained still lest a final chance—or need to defend—presented itself. Soon, though, it became clear that their duel had come to a close, at least for now.
Boiled jerked the steering wheel to the right, bringing his vehicle onto the shoulder beside the highway.
That very same moment the fuse in Balot’s consciousness blew.
–The steering…
It was the last thing she said. As soon as she’d confirmed that the Doctor understood that he was back in the driver’s seat, she collapsed across the rear passenger seat.
“Balot?” Oeufcoque called.
All Balot heard was a ringing noise. Her eyelids fluttered uncontrollably, her lungs panted—rapid and shallow—and her whole body convulsed.
“Shit, why does this girl always have to try so hard ! Can’t she just take it easy once in a while?” the Doctor lamented from under his rain-drenched hair. “Is this the only way she’s ever going to be able to live? To survive?”
The Doctor caught a glimpse of the Humpty up in the distance, descending from the heavens as if the moon had decided to come down with the rain.
He cried out to the celestial object.
Not so much in prayer—more to demand of the heavens that it keep its side of the bargain, now that he had kept his.
≡
Boiled stared out through the shattered window with dark eyes. He turned off the uselessly rotating engine, and when its noise had died down he could hear the sound of the rainfall even more keenly. Suddenly the ringtone on his cell phone decided to add to the din.
–Boiled? Are you there? Have you done it?
It was Shell. He had been calling incessantly throughout the whole car chase.
“They escaped. Further pursuit is impossible at this point.”
–You haven’t done it, then?
“They’re worthy opponents. I’d advise you to consult your lawyers to prepare for the next stage.”
–What’s that? “Worthy opponents”? You sound almost as if you’re enjoying yourself!
“Enjoying myself…” Boiled frowned. Shell then went on to hurl a barrage of abuse at him, to which Boiled listened silently.
“What did they get away with?” Boiled asked quietly, when Shell’s tirade had finally subsided.
Shell went silent. Then he started muttering in a tone completely different from his previous one.
–“What,” you ask? How can I possibly explain that… I’ve long since forgotten myself.
With that, Shell terminated the call.
Phone still in his hand, Boiled called for a tow truck and a replacement vehicle. He then got out of the car and looked up to the sky with his steely eyes.
“Rune-Balot.”
He spoke the name out loud, as if he had just heard it for the very first time.
04
“She has a terrible fever. It seems that the fibers have started developing abnormally quickly, and this is affecting her own metabolic system.”
The Doctor hadn’t wasted a second. The instant they’d clambered aboard the Humpty Dumpty, he’d laid Balot flat out on a table, disinfected his own hands in the dining room, then prepared his equipment. Medical apparatuses, bundles of towels, his computer, his spectacle-monitor, biorhythmic diagnostics—and Oeufcoque.
“We’ll take preventative measures immediately. Wrap her up, Oeufcoque. Just like when we first saved her.”
“Got it.”
The Doctor rushed to clear the chairs out from under the table and made some space beside Balot on the table.
Oeufcoque jumped down onto the cleared space, turning with a squelch as he did so.
The Doctor nimbly took a pair of scissors in his hand and asked, “Did she like these much?”
“Like what?”
“These clothes!”
“I think so.”
“Well, looks like you’ll have to make her another set.” The Doctor had already cut the dress open from the hem at Balot’s ankles up to her chest.
With the utmost care, the Doctor went on to cut the dress off her at the shoulders, and then he cut the waistband on her underwear. Balot’s chest swelled up instantly, and a heavy breath escaped her lips. Those lips were now trembling along with her arms and legs, and all were covered in silvery fibrous threads.
The Doctor took a towel in his hands and poured a liberal helping of antiseptic onto it before patting Balot’s body down gently, as if he were treating a burn victim, peeling off the rest of her clothes as he went along.
“Excellent. Her skin isn’t sticking to her clothing. No signs of peeling or hemostasis either. She really is developing most impressively. I wonder if some of the fibers have moved into her blood cells and are absorbing all the iron there…”
Before long, the towel that the Doctor used to wipe Balot’s body was covered in silvery powder. He discarded the towel on the floor and prepared the next one. He used this to wipe down Balot’s brow, the back of her neck, her armpits, and all the major joints. Finally, he cried out in joy, like a prospector finding gold.
“Wonderful! She started perspiring again! There I was worried that she was just turning into a lump of metal!”
All the while, Oeufcoque had finished turning. He was now an all-purpose medical pod, the pinnacle of human technological and engineering prowess. Turning into a gun was child’s play compared to this. The Doctor lifted Balot up off the table with surprising strength—the situation required it, so he just did it unblinkingly—and placed her gently into the pod.
“The preventative measure that the girl needs most of all right now is to eliminate excess stimuli. Wrap her up in a hermetic seal.”
The pod responded immediately to the Doctor’s instructions and started filling up with white bubbles to envelop Balot’s body.
The Doctor quickly double-checked that Balot’s airway was connected to the respirator and covered her ear holes and eyelids with a protective gel before fixing Balot into position. The bubbles moved to cover her completely.
“The fibers have started developing out of control, right, Doctor?”
“Not exactly, no—they’re developing just as the girl wants. The rate of development might seem abnormal to us, but as far as Balot’s body is concerned, everything’s going according to plan.” The Doctor wiped her right arm down and prepared her intravenous drip. “What we need to do now is make sure we have adequate preventative measures in place to keep things from getting out of hand. Help bring a semblance of normality back into the poor girl’s life. Show the aimlessly meandering runner
that the goal is in sight. In order for us to do that, you’ll need to consider yourself attached at the hip to her.”
“Attached at the hip?”
“Stay inside the pod with her, I mean. She’ll feel so much better knowing that it’s you she’s inside, not just some machine. I’ll feel better too.” The Doctor fixed the intravenous solution to the wall of the pod.
Then, just at the point when all there was left to do was sit back and wait, Oeufcoque screamed out in panic, “Balot’s responsiveness is fading! What should I do? Doctor!”
“Just stop trying to make her respond,” the Doctor said, nonplussed. Oeufcoque was at a loss for words.
“Let’s just allow her to rest,” the Doctor continued more gently. “She’s survived so far, hasn’t she? Using her own strength?”
The Doctor tapped the pod lightly to provide reassurance—to Oeufcoque, not Balot.
“I’m just going to transfer the data from the chips we won onto another drive, then get some sleep myself. We’ve still got a long road ahead of us, after all. Our next task is to go through all the memories of a man—and a serial killer at that.” The Doctor looked at Balot as she slept inside the pod. “Let’s just pray that they hold the key to victory for the girl.”
Balot slept for nearly twenty hours solid, cocooned by the white bubbles, her lungs pushed onward by the respirator.
She didn’t dream. The time simply disappeared.
She remembered pulling the trigger on the gun, then found herself inside a pod.
When she awoke, Balot found that she felt absolutely fine. Indeed, the whole world seemed clearer to her than it had ever been.
It was a peaceful existence inside the Humpty—the very definition of tranquility, if you ignored the Doctor’s constant clatter as he processed the data and sent and received emails to and from the DA’s office.
It was in these serene surroundings that the pieces to the puzzle all started to fall into place for Balot.
She got a glimpse of the yolk of one man, rotten to the core.
≡
Balot stared up at the ceiling from her easy chair.