Mardock Scramble

It was true that both Boiled and Balot existed somewhere between human and machine. But Boiled was one step farther down the line—his heart was like a machine too, cold and unfeeling in the face of death. No, that wasn’t quite true—it killed in anticipation of some sort of feeling. That was what made him the monster.

Balot forced herself to keep her rhythm, taking deep, deliberate breaths. Her body was hot, her heart aflame.

She was so hot she wouldn’t have been surprised if the magazine she ejected from her gun glowed a bright red.

She took her right hand off her gun and made her right glove turn into another gun.

She held both guns up and concentrated on Boiled’s current position.

Balot knew a second before he moved that Boiled was about to break into a run. This time, she was considering not only the best position for her but the position that Boiled would be looking for too. This would be the key to how they maneuvered in their deadly dance.

A number of gunshots were fired almost simultaneously—they echoed as one. Boiled’s shot, Balot’s many.

She was using the gun in her right hand now. The gun in her left hand was her bankroll—her reserve, for when she needed it the most.

Bullets met in midair; they clashed, crumbled, ricocheted. The remainder of Balot’s volley of bullets was deflected harmlessly.

They both ran, circling round, trying to outflank each other.

Balot activated her snarc, and Boiled kicked hard against the ground. His massive frame flew up an incredible distance, landing on the wall of the building behind her.

Balot knew what position he was heading for even before he got there. She had readied her gun to fire long before he landed and was moving much faster now. She fired.

Boiled didn’t return fire. Instead, his right hand pulled something out of his pocket.

“Faceman was right about you. Every time you experience combat, your abilities develop in all sorts of unpredictable ways,” Boiled muttered. He was acknowledging Balot’s ever-increasing abilities, as if he could keep them in check by the mere act of recognizing them.

Or it could have been something else, something simpler. Perhaps this was the only situation in which Boiled was ever able to speak to anyone in a friendly manner. He could only experience intimacy when earnestly trying to take the life of another, when under attack himself.

“I’m going to have to contain those abilities.”

He tossed the object in his hand to the ground. For a moment, Balot thought he had simply discarded a spent magazine.

Boiled’s tactics were so perfect that he even anticipated Balot’s momentary error. He was a flawless strategist, and the implication of this was that his actions were constantly calculated to put Balot at the maximum disadvantage.

Reflexively, Balot shot at the object—a black sphere the size of a man’s fist.

If it were a grenade or something similar then Oeufcoque would have no trouble protecting her from its effects.

But the object didn’t shatter and didn’t explode. It just landed quietly on the street and rolled toward Balot until it was only a few meters away from her. Then it released something—something invisible to the naked eye.

Balot suddenly felt the whole of her skin turning itchy. But only for a moment. The sensation quickly changed into something much worse: she was hit by severe pain in her back and stomach and arms and legs and face. It felt like her skin was peeling off of its own accord.

Balot staggered backward. The pain made her dizzy, and she almost lost consciousness. She lost all sense of precision and could no longer feel her surroundings. She was terrified.

“An Area Defense Weapon!” Oeufcoque said. The black sphere wasn’t an explosive—it was something far worse than that to Balot. “A nonlethal weapon; it emits electromagnetic waves that cause terrible pain in all exposed areas.”

Balot couldn’t even respond—it was all she could do to shake her head.

“He’s coming! He’s right above us!”

Balot’s arms shot up. She was completely following Oeufcoque’s lead now. Boiled fired a shot, and his bullet scored a direct hit on Balot, slamming into her arms. Balot was enveloped by a wave of pain. It was like she had been slashed with razors all over and had hooks inserted into the thousands of cuts, and then had her whole skin ripped off her in one hideous flash.

“You need to snarc your bodily senses back into place! Balot—” Oeufcoque cried. Even as he did so, he covered her whole body in a defensive wall.

Balot wrenched her consciousness into action and snarced her own body. Thinking I might try and experience some pain for a change—who was it that had said that?

Balot snarced her feelings in order to erase them. To send them into space. Just like she had always done in the past.