Mardock Scramble

The sight that assailed her made her heart miss a beat.

A woman swayed in the water, her mouth O-shaped, as if she were screaming silently. Her head floated but her mouth was full of splashing water, and her eyes had started to go muddy, cooked by the near-boiling hot water.

The woman was naked, and her long blonde hair covered her body as the hot water continued to flow.

Her body was covered with black and blue bruises. Bruises that were no doubt inflicted on her when she resisted, or perhaps bruises she received because she couldn’t resist.

Finally, Balot exhaled. A stream of cold vapor in the steamy room.

“Looks like this was Shell’s fiancée…” Oeufcoque muttered.

Balot was suddenly overtaken by an urge. She left the bathroom and headed for the living room, positioning herself in front of the television. She snarced it to grasp its inner workings, then accessed the Internet.

“What’s this about, Balot?” Oeufcoque seemed concerned, but Balot ignored him, turning the television on and bringing up a map of the city. Her eyes remained wide open as she logged into a number of servers, cracking the encrypted passwords with ease.

“Stop it, Balot! What are you trying to do—find Shell? You’re hacking into public networks, you know! That’s a crime! There are official channels we need to go through for this sort of thing. Don’t you start running off the rails too!”

Balot stared at the television, tears suddenly filling her eyes. Her face crumpled and she sat down. She cried without making a sound, lifting her gun in her hand as she did so.

–Let me kill Shell.

Her face was painfully sad as she snarced Oeufcoque.

–Let me kill that man Cleanwill too.

“Balot, it’s no good thinking like—”

–Please. Let me. I don’t even care if I die afterward.

“Balot…are you angry? Or sad?”

Balot shook her head. Neither. Both. She felt her destiny swirling about her. Her terrible, terrible destiny. Why did Shell have to kill that woman in the bathroom? I’m going to make you clean. I’m going to clean you up. The words echoed around Balot’s mind.

–I think that woman in there was the same as me.

Balot managed to snarc the words to Oeufcoque through the terrible memories that were resurfacing inside her.

“The same…? You mean, that is to say…” Oeufcoque started, but he didn’t need to finish. He’d understood perfectly. The woman in the bathroom had things done to her by her father. Or perhaps other men and women had done things to her.

–Please, let me kill them all. I don’t care if I die myself. I don’t care if I die.

“Calm down. This has nothing to do with you. Don’t get sucked in. Take a deep breath and calm down.”

Balot held on to her gun. Her whole body shook as she cried. Quietly, her breathing a mess.

Every possible horrible fate seemed to be in this room. For the first time ever, Balot experienced the feeling of seeing her sorrow transform not into anger but into sheer murderous intent. She wanted to kill Shell. She wanted to kill everyone who worked for OctoberCorp. She wanted to kill the others caught up in this case, Boiled and even the Doctor. Then, after she had done all that, she wanted to save the last bullet for herself.

–I can’t bear it. Help me. Save me.

Balot felt a soft warmth in her left hand. She realized that Oeufcoque was trying to materialize.

Balot clasped her hands together in prayer, and Oeufcoque’s upper body emerged. She almost smothered him completely, so desperate was her desire to have him comfort her.

Oeufcoque’s piercing red eyes stared straight at her.

Tears dripped from Balot’s face and splashed onto his little head, and he lifted his head toward the warm shower and said, “It’s a good smell.”

Balot’s eyes narrowed as she looked at the mouse, the ultimate weapon and the last word in morality.

“Your soul—it smells good. Pure. It’s telling me that if there’s one thing I should believe in, it’s you. I want to make myself believe in you. Shell and Boiled—they can’t find it in themselves to believe in anything, so they’re doomed to stay on the other side of the mirror forever. That place where Cleanwill was hiding. A place with no doubts or regrets to trouble you, but no hope either. I don’t want to go to such a place.”

Then Oeufcoque spread his arms out in a broad gesture, just like when the two of them had been introduced. “I entrust myself to you.”

Droplets of tears welled up in Balot’s eyes. She realized that he was indeed telling the truth.