Mardock Scramble

I thought that the Hunter would whistle again, but he didn’t say anything.

When he first met me the Hunter said that he had daughters. Two of them. The elder already at high school. The younger the same age as you, he said. As if to say, Don’t worry, you can talk to me. So I tried asking him this question.

“Have you ever wanted to touch your daughters, sir? Have you thought about sleeping with them?”

I was just wondering if everyone was like that. But theHunter said, “You’re crazy. What a ridiculous idea. Such a thing!”

I didn’t understand why it was such a thing, and it hurt me when he said I was crazy. And the Hunter’s expression—as if he were staring at a crazy woman. I couldn’t understand anything. Only that the Hunter wasn’t a friend of mine, like everyone else.

Soon after that I met Shell. He came to meet me, saying he was a fan of mine. He’d once come to me as a client. He promised me everything. Said he’d reinvent me completely. I asked if that meant he loved me. He said, “That’s exactly right.” Then I got in his car.

And then:

–Oeufcoque, are you going to tell the Doctor all this?

“No, I’ll lock everything you’ve just told me away inside myself. Only you can decode it.”

–And what do you think? Do you think I’m crazy?

“Hmm… I wouldn’t know. After all, I’m just a mouse with his intelligence amplified to human levels for the sake of research. I’m not even a mouse anymore, just something that looks like a mouse. There are people who say that my very existence is crazy.”

–You? Why?

“Who knows. From their perspective I suppose I am crazy. I’ve been trying to pin down exactly what I am ever since being born, but in the end I still have no idea. As I’m originally based on a male mouse, I’ve studied the human male psyche, trying to act like one, but I don’t even know if that’s right.”

–What exactly are you? Why were you born?

“There were these people who commissioned some researchers to come up with the ultimate tool,” said Oeufcoque. “The commission came from the army. A few prototypes were manufactured, and I’m one of those. But the research project itself was halted, and I was about to be disposed of as something that had never existed in the first place.”

–You were almost thrown away? Why?

“It became politically expedient in the postwar era. Was it people that were evil or their tools? This was the political hot potato that emerged not long after the peace treaty between the Commonwealth and the Continent was signed.”

–Were people evil or their tools?

“Let’s say there’s a gun crime. Is it the person who used the gun who is at fault? Or is the gun evil for existing in the first place? Well, postwar politics repudiated the gun and exonerated the person. The very fact that weapons of war existed at all was considered the root of the evil. As a result the regulation of weapons—and all technology related to them—became the subject of intense debate. In order to protect people.”

–So you were abandoned too?

“That’s right. I was born for political, military reasons, and for the same reasons I was about to be eliminated. Had the Scramble 09 bill not gone through I would have been disposed of for sure. My existence depends on continually proving my usefulness to society.”

–Is that why you’re helping me?

Oeufcoque seemed about to answer, but then suddenly went silent.

–What’s the matter?

“A strange smell. Plural. A strong sense of duty, systematic movement. Hostility.”

Balot was about to reflexively stop in her tracks when Oeufcoque gave a sharp order.

“Carry on walking. Don’t stop.”

Balot did as he said. Unconsciously she started picking up the pace.