Mardock Scramble

“You’re here as a preemptive gag, as it were, to stop Shell from speaking too much and trying to deny everything. Don’t worry, this trial won’t be anything like the last one. The only person who needs to worry is Shell—he may have been laughing last time, but he’s certainly not going to see the funny side of this one. Not only will his past be dragged up for all to see and judge, he won’t even remember it for himself.”

–Not even the memory of killing his own mother?

“He was only about eighteen years old at the time, and we know that he killed his mother in cold blood, with half an eye toward her life insurance policy. He systematically cut the brake pads. The whole incident would have thrown his moral perspective askew, and the stress from that would have been enormous. And then there were his sexual relations with his mother…”

The Doctor trailed off at this point, searching for a new, slightly more comfortable, tangent. “Also, Shell’s mother was, in her own right, no stranger to the law. We ran a search on the old records at the DA’s office and discovered that she’d been arrested for insurance fraud, and not just once either. Furthermore, her husband was dead, and she was even suspected of murdering him in order to get her hands on his insurance, although nothing was ever proven. There’s every chance that Shell knew all about this and decided to do the same thing for himself. The mother had assaulted him, effectively, and what better way for Shell to repay his misadventure of birth than with her death by misadventure?”

The Doctor laughed in a somewhat forced manner at his own somewhat forced joke. Balot didn’t respond.

“You might want to work on that one, Doc,” said Oeufcoque, speaking for Balot as well.

The Doctor shrugged. “I’m just trying to get in the mood. Shell’s past may be somewhat useful as concrete evidence in the courtroom, but more importantly, it’s going to pique the curiosity of the jury. The more detailed and salacious the better, even if it does come in the form of a bad pun, as you so helpfully pointed out, thank you, Oeufcoque. The DA is certainly delighted with this new turn of events, anyway. He’s now confident that we’ll nail the case.”

The Doctor’s voice was steeped in cynicism, just as the whole situation was steeped in irony—indeed, there was no greater irony for Balot. At the previous trial, she’d found herself on the receiving end of the most thorough and gut-wrenching attack imaginable, all on account of her own history. As a result, she was forced to repudiate her past, cut it off and cast it away, or else her heart would have died from the pain.

And now Shell would find himself in exactly the same position. The difference was that Shell had already repudiated his past and cast it away. All he had left was lingering trauma.

“This is not about revenge, Doctor. Tell the DA to make sure he sticks to the relevant facts and doesn’t waste any time on unnecessary distractions,” Oeufcoque said, again seemingly speaking for Balot by proxy. “We’ve already filed papers for the next case, the one that this all leads to. Let’s make sure we don’t lose sight of the biggest fish of all.”

“Sure, sure. I know full well that it’s not our job to fan the flames of curiosity for the jurors and the media—they’re perfectly capable of doing that for themselves.”

–Thank you.

“Having said that, there are no guarantees, I’m afraid,” the Doctor continued, somewhat apologetically now. “The counsel for the defense is quite a lawyer. I wouldn’t put it past Shell to stir up the hornets’ nest either. If that happens, it’ll be hard for me to hold the DA back from laying it on thick…”

Then the Doctor’s tone changed abruptly, and he turned to look at Balot, his eyes sincere. “It’s just—well, this is only a theory, but hear me out. You can shave away the memory, but the shape of the memory still remains. All you need to do is apply emphasis—stress—to the outlines of that memory, and everything in your mind is thrown up in the air. Your moral compass goes haywire. What better proof do we need than the living example of Shell to show firsthand the sort of damage to society that’s being caused by OctoberCorp’s irresponsible, gung-ho technology?”

–Do you think Shell would stop killing people if he had his memories returned to him?

Balot asked the question out of a simple desire to know the answer.

Oeufcoque fielded this one. “Well, there’s absolutely no doubt that Shell’s missing memories are exacerbating his urges. If all his memories were to be returned to him then his desire to rape and murder would certainly diminish, possibly even fade away completely. But Shell wouldn’t want this for himself.”

–Well, I wouldn’t want his past either.