Mardock Scramble

Oeufcoque took advantage of the small pause to interject. “Doctor, if Balot says she needs something, you trust her judgment and hand it over without further ado. Got that?”

Something seemed to have got the Doctor’s tongue for a moment, but eventually he managed to speak.

–Fine, I’ll leave Shell’s security completely in your hands. The pair of you. Come over to the Broilerhouse to—

His tone of voice changed abruptly.

–Just in! The first information disclosure on Boiled’s whereabouts. Shell called Boiled from a pay phone on the banks of the East River. At around seventeen hundred hours. I’m going to publish the fact that we’ve just had some negotiations with OctoberCorp ourselves, okay?

“Do it, Doctor. Force their hand, make them give us as much information as possible.”

–There’s every chance that Shell is now hiding out somewhere in the vicinity of the phone booth. Let’s use the pretext that he may be armed and dangerous in order to force the other side into disclosing his exact location. I’ll get the DA to gather what information he can, top secret. So… Balot, I’ll have what you need ready for you—just come on over to the Broilerhouse to pick it up.

–Thank you.

The phone cut off. The car sped on toward the Broilerhouse, and the monitor already showed a map that displayed the likely whereabouts of Shell.

03

Shell arrived at the hotel room that Boiled had told him to come to. He sat down on the bed, and the first thing he thought was Now I can become a different person again.

He was even prepared. Thoroughly. Or so Shell thought, at least.

He had his overnight Boston bag on his lap, and he pulled out a bottle of Heroic Pills from inside his jacket pocket and washed them down one by one, chugging a bottle of scotch as he did so. The Blue Diamonds on the seven rings on his hands shone brilliantly.

The lenses on his Chameleon Sunglasses were a fawn color.

Before long the bottle of pills dropped out of his hand, and the bottle of scotch tipped over onto the floor, its contents seeping into the carpet.

Why am I here? The question arose as Shell’s mind passed into an increasingly euphoric state. Is it a good or bad thing that I’m here? Bad, if you consider that I’ve lost the battle that I’ve been fighting for the last few months. But also good—that having lost the battle, I’m still here now, safe and sound.

He’d managed to run away. He had left the horrors firmly behind him and was now in a safe place.

The slate would be wiped clean. The past, so disagreeable—all that would be washed away. There were no cracks in his shell—only the contents had been removed.

Shell hugged his Boston bag tight as he was filled with desire for his new life.

What good friends he had! That burly friend of his had proven himself indispensable in helping him to acquire another one of these. Helping him turn that crazy woman into another one of these. While Shell was strangling the woman in the bath, his burly friend had taken care of all the details. It was wonderful. That other girl might still be chasing after him, but now he would always be able to repel her, destroy her, subsume all thoughts of her.

Shell opened up his bag at one end and stuck a hand inside to feel its contents—newly minted bills. He flipped through a wad of notes, and as the bills brushed against his fingertips he muttered. You like that, don’t you, my little ones? You want some more, don’t you? Then he stopped suddenly and withdrew his hand in haste. The corners of the bills had given him a number of paper cuts on his fingertips, and blood was welling up.

Shell put his bleeding finger in his mouth and sucked away. The taste of his own blood spread to the corners of his mouth. The taste brought to mind vestiges of an old memory. A memory that should have been long since erased, but that clung tenaciously to the void of his inner mind nonetheless.