Mardock Scramble

by Ubukata, Tow

  Boiled wondered whether he was crying.

  “No… I’m not hurt.”

  He wasn’t crying. Not a single tear flowed from his eyes. Rather, blood dripped from the wounds in his right arm and left leg, staining Balot’s white suit red.

  Nice…and…warm…

  A gentle voice. A voice that contained the last remaining fragment of Boiled’s soul.

  Boiled lifted his remaining hand and pointed his gun at Balot’s head, and the hammer clicked into place.

  “Try and stop me…try and stop my nothingness…”

  Softly, Boiled pulled the trigger.

  That instant the shell flew apart. Just as Balot had aimed for, this was the one moment Boiled could no longer move his gun and was committed. Her knife thrust forward and sliced the giant revolver in two. The powder in the remaining bullets exploded, and the gun that had embodied such lethal force scattered to the winds and was no more.

  Balot emerged from inside her shell and stared down at Boiled.

  She brought the gun in her left hand to Boiled’s throat.

  –This is what your sunny side up is…

  Balot pressed the muzzle into his neck, but her face was overcome by sorrow. It was also covered in silvery powder. Her skin was developing. Even her black hair glittered silver.

  Boiled didn’t answer. He just stared straight back at Balot’s face as he discarded the now useless half of his gun.

  “The girl did well.” The grip of the shattered gun hit the ground with a clang.

  “You should be the one to finish it, Oeufcoque,” Boiled whispered. He was close enough for Balot to hear his breathing.

  Balot opened her eyes. She couldn’t help herself from yelling out. Stop it! Stop this all! But of course no sound came out. Why would it? All that emerged was a hollow whistle of air.

  “I’ve spent twenty years on the battlefield. I am…most satisfied with my life,” Boiled said. His eyes were fixed on Balot.

  “Stop it, Boiled!” It was Oeufcoque’s voice.

  Boiled’s eyes flicked to the source of the voice, Balot’s left hand, and before she knew it his left hand, the one that had discarded one gun, was now on another—the gun in her hand.

  Boiled stood up. Balot felt that she was about to be pulled up to her feet with him, but then Boiled’s PGF kicked in, and she was sent sprawling against the wall behind her.

  The blow winded her. Her gloves had been ripped off. She had an uneasy feeling that something had been taken from her—something important. There was a click, and for an instant Balot couldn’t tell what it was.

  Then she realized that it was the sound of life and death.

  She realized that Boiled was holding the gun he had taken from her and looking her way.

  The high-caliber gun that she’d had Oeufcoque turn into. It was still loaded. And the click that she had just heard was the hammer drawing back. More than that—it was Boiled’s final act of doubling down.

  “Oeufcoque!” Balot tried to cry, but no words emerged.

  The name of the thing she’d had taken from her.

  She was filled with raw despair. Balot had drowned in the flow and now looked into the black void that was the muzzle of the gun in Boiled’s hand. What other way was there to make her cursed life clean again? She’d thrown away pain—now all there was left was to throw away the rest of her life.

  Balot’s eyes filled with tears.

  –I don’t want to die.

  She was resisting death’s sweet, seductive murmurings with a heartfelt cry that came from all her body and all her soul. Lost in the moment, she thrust the weapon in her right arm out. She knew full well that it was a futile gesture. But she had to do something, to grasp at straws for the chance to find value in her own life. It was her right to do so, her choice.

  And then:

  Nice…and…warm…

  The gentle voice echoed around inside Boiled’s mind. I finally have it back, he thought.

  The warm glow he first felt when he’d held the golden mouse. The last fragment of his soul.

  But all he could remember was the feeling of the mouse having been there. The warmth that he had once felt eluded him even now.

  Boiled pulled the cold trigger, squeezing gently—and there was the sound of gunfire.

  There was a wailing sound. Almost like a prayer shouted out loud at the top of your voice.

  Balot’s eyes opened even wider.

  The bullet that Boiled had fired had missed her by a considerable margin. It smashed into the wall far above her head.

  Had he really missed? Boiled? For a moment, Balot thought he really might have. But then she soon realized the truth. In a daze, she checked the weapon she held in her right hand.

  A giant gun with a huge muzzle. The weapon that had up until a moment ago been a magnetized knife had responded to Balot’s will and turned.

  “Oeufcoque…” Boiled called out. That name so full of warmth and kindness.

  Then Boiled started to lower his arm. As if to say that his thick, sturdy arm could no longer support the weight of a single gun. He let go of the gun even before his arm was fully lowered, and it clattered across the sidewalk.

  Right arm still holding the gun, Balot watched with wide eyes as Boiled disintegrated before her eyes.

  Boiled’s hand clutched at his chest. She realized by his actions that there was a large hole there. And that something was flowing out of it.

  His life, Balot’s heart murmured.

  The PGF that had been acting as a substitute left leg disappeared. The giant figure that had once exuded such awesome pressure now crumpled to the ground in a heap. It was such a pathetic sight that it was almost comical. Before long, the wounds where his arm and leg had been severed spewed forth blood like water from a garden hose. His chest and back also overflowed with fresh blood, pumping out with an audible gurgle. Balot listened to the sound of a life pouring out, down the drain. Into the gutter. Of all the sounds that Balot had heard so far, this was the most wretched and most dreadful.

  She stumbled toward Boiled to try and put an end to that awful sound.

  Boiled slowly turned his head up to Balot. For a moment, she thought he was asking for her help.

  But he was doing no such thing. Boiled merely gazed at Balot and said something to her. Scarcely audible.

  Balot nodded. She wanted to show him that she had understood. She didn’t know what else she could do.

  Boiled’s eyes moved, and he looked down at the blackness pouring out of his body.

  His lips moved again. Then he closed his eyes—and Boiled moved no more.

  Balot held her breath. Suddenly her right glove slipped off her hand and fell to the ground, along with the gun it had held. She heard the clang as it hit the sidewalk repeating over and over in her mind, and she felt such sorrow she was amazed she wasn’t crying. She lost all her fighting spirit the moment the gun hit the ground.

  –Oeufcoque?

  She snarced her bodysuit, but there was no reply. This time it really was an empty shell.

  Balot scrambled to pick up the gun. The muzzle was still red-hot.

  –Oeufcoque?

  She called him again and again. She wanted him to tell her what she should do. Suddenly, she realized something, and she stared at the gun. It revealed something about Oeufcoque’s actions—his will—that caused her to be filled with such sorrow she thought her heart would never recover.

  The gun had no trigger.

  The pain that had once left Balot’s body was now returning.

  05

  The wound to her temple throbbed. All her muscles screamed with pain.

  The pain still remained even after the emergency services had given her first aid and the effects of Boiled’s Area Device Weapon had been deactivated. Balot had taken it upon herself to feel the pain. It felt like it was the only thing she could do.

  Oeufcoque remained a gun, utterly unresponsive.

  Balot sat in the front passenger seat of the
red convertible, cradling the gun in her lap, facing down the pain that racked her body. Without her realizing it, that rhyming ditty had somehow returned again.

  –Dish, wash, brush, flush…

  The fire brigade, clad in red, sprayed fire-retardant foam here and there from atop their fire engines that were themselves the color of the fires they were dispatched to put out. Residents emerged with their claims for compensation and insurance, and their details were taken down by world-weary city officials.

  –Wash, crush, brush, hash…

  The police had cordoned off the area and had located Shell’s body—it had been safely deposited in some landfill, and he was now being stretchered away. The media were out in force, their cameras snatching what they could before they were pushed back behind the police line.

  –Bash, rush, trash, ash…

  People in white uniforms were taking blood samples and collecting body parts—Shell’s fingers, Boiled’s limbs—and wrapping them up in plastic bags before hauling them away. After that, the corpse was placed in a bag. There was only one dead body. Balot watched as the heavy bag was carted away with some difficulty.

  –Flash, flesh, mash, goodish…

  The Doctor was nearby, speaking to the police. Among them were some of the DAs that they had met or seen at the trial. They smiled and cheered the Doctor, who thanked them and basked in their praise. He was delighted.

  –Rush, josh, wish, rush…

  The Doctor parted from the police and came over to Balot.

  –Finish, hush!

  The ditty had now finished, and the Doctor was right there to fill the gap.

  “Well, looks like this will bring your case to an end. The second case will now progress from the preliminaries and on to the real thing.” The Doctor smiled gently. It was a smile of encouragement. It’s only just beginning, but we’ll get through it all right, he seemed to say. Of course, the Doctor now had a mountain of paperwork to tackle, not to mention his other tasks—his work really was just beginning. “Anyway, you’ve been through a lot of danger to get this far. It’s fair to assume that your reward will be accordingly high. As for any regrets, I should be telling you to blame Oeufcoque and me, but…”

  The Doctor rested both his arms on the car door and looked down at the gun that Balot was hugging close to her.

  “If you wouldn’t mind, uh, I wonder if you’d stay with Oeufcoque for a while to try and give him some comfort. The outcome of this case…well, it’s pretty close to the bone for both me and Oeufcoque, as I’m sure you can tell.”

  –That person said the same thing to me, at the end.

  Balot looked toward the dead body that was being carted away as she snarced the car stereo to speak.

  –“Stay by Oeufcoque’s side for me,” he said.

  The Doctor’s face looked surprised at this unexpected news. “Boiled said that?”

  Balot nodded ever so slightly. Then she asked another question.

  –Do you mind if I go for a little drive? With the car on AutoDrive? Just like when I first came here?

  “Uh, aren’t you a little tired, though? You know we still have the Humpty. You could always go and lie down there…”

  –No, I’ll be okay. Anyway, there’s something I need to tell Oeufcoque. Something that man said.

  “Boiled said something else?”

  Balot nodded again.

  –“Now I can finally sleep.”

  The Doctor didn’t nod. He didn’t shake his head. He just stood there silently, as if he were waiting for the words to fully sink in.

  “I was involved in that experiment myself… I was one of the ones who made him so that he would never need to sleep. Never be able to sleep.”

  Balot’s eyes lowered.

  The Doctor shook his head. “There’s still lots to do. That is, uh, there’s a lot we need to do right now…”

  –I know.

  “We’re going to have to save our grieving till later.”

  Balot nodded firmly. The Doctor needed someone to do that for him. The Doctor smiled, just a little, and left the scene.

  ≡

  Balot peeled her thick bulletproof clothing away from the bodysuit she wore underneath. It thudded to the floor of the car.

  Then she pulled her gloves off and exposed her perspiring hands to the cool air.

  The red convertible avoided the early morning rush hour traffic on the main roads and wound its way toward the coast. The car passed over a giant bridge that traversed the ocean and reached an area covered by a concrete platform. Beyond the clean and fresh coastal region lay the industrial zone, slick with oil, and beyond that were the multi-story apartments and public residences comingling with the graffiti of homeless teenagers, all sleeping under the same purple sky.

  Balot gazed at the banks of the city, held her gun to her chest, and cried.

  As she cried, she became keenly aware of the fact that she hadn’t died. She hadn’t died and was here, feeling pain.

  She hadn’t lost her life. She hadn’t lost her body. She hadn’t lost her heart. She had been wounded, and hurt, but that was it.

  Oeufcoque had protected her from everything. Right through to the bitter end. Even at that moment when, in order to live, she had to kill—Oeufcoque had protected Balot.

  Shell’s past had finally caught up with him and pushed its way back inside his mind. Boiled had welcomed the end to the senseless killing that he had so wanted. These were the final steps that the two would ever take up the stairway to heaven—to Mardock.

  Oeufcoque, too, had taken a step up that spiraling stairway. He had heard Balot crying out that she didn’t want to die and accepted it. He had repudiated his former user, transcended his own existence as a mere tool, and voluntarily taken it upon himself to kill. In order to keep Balot safe. In order to stop Boiled from killing her.

  In order to stop anyone from killing Balot.

  Balot heard waves. She could smell the sea spume. The air was heavy, and she caught a whiff of all sorts of other smells mixed in. The giant industrial machines in the factories were creaking, cradled by the stagnant air.

  The red convertible sped down Sea Street—the breakwater that the city had used to declaw the ocean, to tame it to the city’s needs. The car moved as if it were making a dash to freedom, away from something that wanted to press in on it and smother it.

  I’m just a tool, Oeufcoque had once said. A tool designed to protect its user. And a tool that was kind and gentle and patient and taught her so many things. Balot searched for the words that would call him back, but they disappeared from her mind as soon as they appeared. The Doctor had asked Balot to comfort Oeufcoque, but all she could do was what she was doing at the moment. Hold him tightly to her chest.

  Tears flowed from her eyes, dried, and then flowed again. She cried for herself, and then she cried for someone else.

  Suddenly she felt the steel in her arms grow warmer. She sensed Oeufcoque. But even though she waited, he didn’t stir. It was as if he really had become an egg. He stayed hidden inside his metal shell. But he was definitely there.

  –Oeufcoque?

  Balot called out to him quietly. There was no answer.

  She unfolded her arms in order to examine the gun more closely. That was when it happened.

  “Keep holding me like that,” Oeufcoque said in a little voice. “I want you to hold me for a little longer.”

  Balot felt something warm spread out within her chest.

  When she held Oeufcoque, he could feel her too. Her heart pounded at the thought. Oeufcoque had been sensing Balot all along. Her body heat, her feelings, more. Not just now, but always. This was much more than just looking at each other from opposite sides of the mirror, never to touch the other.

  People touching her, feeling her—this had always been Balot’s curse, the bane of her life. It was the source of all her fears. To be taken, to have done to her as others wished. In order to protect herself against that, her only strategy had been to hide i
nside a shell, to look on at the world from the other side of the mirror.

  But now her curse was lifting. She had been cleansed. The final piece of the jigsaw puzzle in her heart had been filled in, without her even realizing it.

  I’m going to make you clean. I’m going to clean you up. The insidious whisper that had followed her around and dogged her at every turn was now detaching its claws from her mind. Before long it became just a set of meaningless words and disappeared into the ether.

  All at once Balot’s eyes began to overflow with more tears. This time, though, they were a different type of tear.

  –Let’s cry together, Oeufcoque. Let’s cry so that our sorrows will disappear, just a little bit.

  Balot hugged the gun with no trigger.

  Then, with her eyes turned up to the sky about to break dawn, Balot wondered what she could do. What she should do. She wanted to stay embracing the half-baked little egg forever—this gun with no trigger. She knew that this was what she wanted. However bad things got, however burnt-out her life became, she wanted always to remain as someone who could do that. Right now, that was what she desired. It was what she could do. And it was what she should do.

  The car had finished its tour of the coastline, and before Balot knew it they were heading back in toward the city.

  The skyline was approaching, with all its tall buildings and numerous roads threading in between them.

  In the city there would be setbacks, discouragements, and the hands that emerged from dark graves to hold people perpetually back.

  The specters of the past would no doubt continue to rise up and rend the silence with clamorous gunfire.

  As she gazed at the view of the city, Balot remembered the name of the man who had died and nodded softly.

  To stay by someone’s side—to be with someone you wanted to do that with, and who wanted to do that with you in return—that was the last bastion of hope. It made the city bearable.

  In the same way that Balot now embraced Oeufcoque, the morning light of Mardock City gently caressed Central Park—that grand junction where all paths crossed. The Spot of Spots.

  Balot returned there.

  To the place where she had once died.