Mardock Scramble

Balot snarced the throat of her suit, producing a crystalline sound.

–Looks like everyone’s an artist.

She looked around at the machinery, somewhat nonplussed.

“It’s important to be artistic now and then if you’re going to enjoy your life—the trick is to stop just before you end up on the wrong side of autistic.” The Doctor was in his element, able to fiddle with his machines to his heart’s content. “Are those clothes Oeufcoque?”

“That’s right, Doc. And I was told off by Balot for not being artistic enough in my own designs,” said Oeufcoque.

The Doctor nodded in agreement. “Get her to teach you some style, then. Now, Balot, I’m going to stick these on you, okay?”

The Doctor showed her some circular stickers. Balot nodded, and the Doctor started placing them all over her—knees, elbows, back.

–What are these things?

“Designed to send your biorhythmic data straight to this machine. They’ll capture your movements with a margin of error of less than 0.1 millimeters. Now, could you move around a bit? Do some stretches, that sort of thing.”

The Doctor took a seat in a pipe chair and balanced a laptop on his knees. Multicolored cords extended from the back of the monitor and plugged into the sprawling machinery.

Balot moved as requested. Some warm-ups. She snarced the suit here and there as she limbered up. A few patterns started appearing on the suit and eventually formed themselves into what could be described as a rough design, complete with colors.

Balot still didn’t seem satisfied, exactly, but at least she was getting there.

“You’re pretty limber,” Oeufcoque said as Balot performed a split, backside now on the floor. He seemed impressed.

Balot smiled and, from the same position on the floor, leaned forward until her chest touched the ground. From that position she spread her arms toward her feet, deftly touching the tips of her toes.

“Well, that’s one skill I don’t have. We have ourselves a bona fide gymnast!”

–I just like physical activity. It makes me feel like I’m in charge of my body.

She spoke without the electronic voice box, communicating with Oeufcoque directly.

“The Doctor calls me unfit because I can’t run twenty meters in less than a minute.”

Balot chuckled as she got back up.

–Would you like me to keep moving around?

The Doctor shook his head as he pounded on the keys, relentlessly entering new data. “No, we’re okay. Now, could you just stand on that platform there? Yeah, the one in front of those contraptions.”

Balot did as she was asked and stepped up onto the silver platform.

It too had a number of wires running from it. It turned out it was some sort of scale. A small display on one of the corners of the platform revealed some numbers, with the numerals to the right of the decimal blinking and changing rapidly.

A number of other displays could be seen, each flashing up different sets of numerals.

Balot looked somewhat sullen and turned to the Doctor with a puzzled scowl.

“I’ve taken some scales that they use to weigh baggage in an airport and modified them so that they can display biorhythmic indices as well. This thing’s accurate down to the last milligram and can pick up everything from your circulation to body fat percentages.”

–That’s the sort of thing you should have told me before I got on!

“Huh?”

–It’s indecent.

The Doctor looked suitably chastened.

Oeufcoque’s laughter could be heard emanating from Balot’s left hand.

“Don’t be like that, please. Any sort of proper training needs an observer on the sidelines to measure the progress.”

–In that case, Doctor, I’ll just have to think of you as part of the furniture.

“That’s not much better…” the Doctor grumbled.

–Very nice furniture, of course.

Balot was teasing him now.

–I’ll let you tell me whatever you need to say.

The Doctor shrugged his shoulders, but Balot could tell he was playing along now. She laughed and looked at the numbers on the indices.

The numbers to the right of the decimals whirled around when she shifted her balance from foot to foot. When she stabilized, the numbers started changing much more slowly, but she still couldn’t get them to stand completely still.

“Ahem,” the Doctor coughed, ready to start. “Your skin was originally developed to withstand the weightlessness of space vacuum, to allow you to move freely without losing your equilibrioception.”

Balot nodded and watched the figures on the displays.