Mardock Scramble

–I wouldn’t expect you to think anything else—a creature who narrowly escaped destruction only by hiding behind the shield of Mardock Scramble. Your so-called Scramble 09 is nothing more than a smokescreen whipped up by freaks such as you so that you can desperately try to justify your existence to a society who never asked for you in the first place and doesn’t want you now. But has society ever felt that way about OctoberCorp, the OctoberCorp that fulfills so many of its needs? I don’t think so, somehow…

John’s voice was more sonorous than ever, and Balot honed in on the direction from which it came.

“No one who refuses to acknowledge that they themselves are potentially dangerous has any right to lecture others about morality,” Oeufcoque stated boldly. As he did so, Balot jumped into action.

With all her might she threw the glass in her hand toward the mirror at the end of the bar.

The mirror that one of the men’s stray bullets had cracked but not destroyed only a minute ago.

The glass smashed against the mirror, splashing the milk across the surface.

There was an audible gasp on the cell phone. This confirmed Balot’s suspicions, and she moved quickly. She picked up her gun from the counter and unloaded it into the mirror in one swift movement.

It really was a sturdy mirror. It took over ten shots before it gave up the ghost and started to collapse. Finally, though, it started peeling from the wall.

It was a one-way mirror. And the scene behind it was now revealed to all in the bar.

Balot threw her gun down and snarced the left hand of her bodysuit so that she held a brand-new one in her grip.

Gun outthrust, she stood in front of the warped mirror.

A wave of disgust ran over her, one that made every hair on her body stand on end. Before she even had the chance to think about what she was doing, she pulled the trigger, hard. Oeufcoque was there for her, suppressing the bullet, stopping the action inside himself.

“Ah…you seem to have us at a disadvantage, sir. I never imagined for a moment that you would be in such a place. Although I daresay the disadvantage is now all yours…” Unusually for Oeufcoque, his voice dripped with sarcasm. But Oeufcoque was Oeufcoque, after all, and he could only take so much—the whole scene was evidently getting to him. “I can’t say I think much of your hobbies, sir. By the look of it, I can see all sorts of laws being broken…”

Beyond the mirror were five or six boys and girls in varying degrees of undress, all young. Preteen young. In the midst of them was a giant lump of flesh—far bigger than Skyscraper—sprawled on a sofa in a nightgown, holding a phone in his hand and looking at Balot in mute terror.

“This is private property…” the corpulent figure finally managed to spit out. It was the same man they had seen back at the casino—none other than Cleanwill John October.

“Indeed, so we’ll refrain from actually entering unless we’re forced to. We’ll just wait here, keeping you under guard until the police arrive. Cleanwill John October, as a PI and Trustee for this case, I invoke my jurisdiction to arrest you on charges of attempted kidnapping, extortion, and—well, lots of other things.”

Oeufcoque managed to stay levelheaded. The proof of this was that he kept the safety catch on the gun firmly engaged. “Balot, call for police backup.”

Balot shook her head. She wanted to kill them—kill them all, even the young boys and girls with John. She remembered the lecherous smirk on Skyscraper’s face, thought again about what it meant he wanted to do to her, and felt her blood rushing around her body so quickly she thought it might start flowing backward.

“Balot.” Oeufcoque spoke even more deliberately.

“Yaaargh!” A scream came at them from behind, though not before Balot and Oeufcoque both realized it was coming.

Skyscraper had emerged from the booth and was charging toward them, gun in hand.

Balot didn’t even turn around; she merely fired off a number of shots over her own shoulder.

Both of Skyscraper’s shoulders and both his knees were pulverized in an instant. His scream rose in pitch a few notches, and he writhed helplessly on the floor.

Balot’s eyes remained fixed on the giant figure on the other side of the mirror. After the gunshots, all thought of resistance had been wiped from Cleanwill John October’s mind, and he blubbered, “Peace! Let’s do this in peace!” Both his arms were raised in a wobbly surrender.