Mardock Scramble

The warm glow he first felt when he’d held the golden mouse. The last fragment of his soul.

But all he could remember was the feeling of the mouse having been there. The warmth that he had once felt eluded him even now.

Boiled pulled the cold trigger, squeezing gently—and there was the sound of gunfire.

There was a wailing sound. Almost like a prayer shouted out loud at the top of your voice.

Balot’s eyes opened even wider.

The bullet that Boiled had fired had missed her by a considerable margin. It smashed into the wall far above her head.

Had he really missed? Boiled? For a moment, Balot thought he really might have. But then she soon realized the truth. In a daze, she checked the weapon she held in her right hand.

A giant gun with a huge muzzle. The weapon that had up until a moment ago been a magnetized knife had responded to Balot’s will and turned.

“Oeufcoque…” Boiled called out. That name so full of warmth and kindness.

Then Boiled started to lower his arm. As if to say that his thick, sturdy arm could no longer support the weight of a single gun. He let go of the gun even before his arm was fully lowered, and it clattered across the sidewalk.

Right arm still holding the gun, Balot watched with wide eyes as Boiled disintegrated before her eyes.

Boiled’s hand clutched at his chest. She realized by his actions that there was a large hole there. And that something was flowing out of it.

His life, Balot’s heart murmured.

The PGF that had been acting as a substitute left leg disappeared. The giant figure that had once exuded such awesome pressure now crumpled to the ground in a heap. It was such a pathetic sight that it was almost comical. Before long, the wounds where his arm and leg had been severed spewed forth blood like water from a garden hose. His chest and back also overflowed with fresh blood, pumping out with an audible gurgle. Balot listened to the sound of a life pouring out, down the drain. Into the gutter. Of all the sounds that Balot had heard so far, this was the most wretched and most dreadful.

She stumbled toward Boiled to try and put an end to that awful sound.

Boiled slowly turned his head up to Balot. For a moment, she thought he was asking for her help.

But he was doing no such thing. Boiled merely gazed at Balot and said something to her. Scarcely audible.

Balot nodded. She wanted to show him that she had understood. She didn’t know what else she could do.

Boiled’s eyes moved, and he looked down at the blackness pouring out of his body.

His lips moved again. Then he closed his eyes—and Boiled moved no more.

Balot held her breath. Suddenly her right glove slipped off her hand and fell to the ground, along with the gun it had held. She heard the clang as it hit the sidewalk repeating over and over in her mind, and she felt such sorrow she was amazed she wasn’t crying. She lost all her fighting spirit the moment the gun hit the ground.

–Oeufcoque?

She snarced her bodysuit, but there was no reply. This time it really was an empty shell.

Balot scrambled to pick up the gun. The muzzle was still red-hot.

–Oeufcoque?

She called him again and again. She wanted him to tell her what she should do. Suddenly, she realized something, and she stared at the gun. It revealed something about Oeufcoque’s actions—his will—that caused her to be filled with such sorrow she thought her heart would never recover.

The gun had no trigger.

The pain that had once left Balot’s body was now returning.

05

The wound to her temple throbbed. All her muscles screamed with pain.

The pain still remained even after the emergency services had given her first aid and the effects of Boiled’s Area Device Weapon had been deactivated. Balot had taken it upon herself to feel the pain. It felt like it was the only thing she could do.

Oeufcoque remained a gun, utterly unresponsive.

Balot sat in the front passenger seat of the red convertible, cradling the gun in her lap, facing down the pain that racked her body. Without her realizing it, that rhyming ditty had somehow returned again.

–Dish, wash, brush, flush…

The fire brigade, clad in red, sprayed fire-retardant foam here and there from atop their fire engines that were themselves the color of the fires they were dispatched to put out. Residents emerged with their claims for compensation and insurance, and their details were taken down by world-weary city officials.

–Wash, crush, brush, hash…

The police had cordoned off the area and had located Shell’s body—it had been safely deposited in some landfill, and he was now being stretchered away. The media were out in force, their cameras snatching what they could before they were pushed back behind the police line.

–Bash, rush, trash, ash…