Mardock Scramble

“I’m not talking about the seasoning.”

Balot placed the bottle down and leaned her head toward him.

“There’s a smell of carnival. A group of people rejoicing, about to go to a party, or a festival…or maybe to war.” Oeufcoque spoke and sniffed the air again. “There’s also the faint, bitter smell of fear. As if someone has been killed.”

Oeufcoque looked at Balot, apprehensive. But Balot was no longer afraid of this sort of thing. She turned the heat down and entwined Oeufcoque around her fingers.

–Enemies?

“Probably. Check communication lines with the outside world, will you?”

Balot put Oeufcoque on top of her right hand and touched the intercom on the wall with her left hand as he’d requested.

She snarced the receiver without lifting it, putting a call out to the police escort that was staked out in the neighborhood.

–The lines are all ringing, but nobody’s answering.

“What, all three of the bases? What about headquarters? And try the Doctor too.”

–I’m not getting anything.

Balot tapped the receiver with her fingers.

–Something doesn’t feel right. It’s coming up that the lines are engaged, but it’s weird. It feels like I’m contacting somewhere entirely different.

A claustrophobic, urgent atmosphere pressed in on them from all sides.

Balot took her hand off the intercom and turned the stove off completely, and then she took her apron off and threw it over a chair. She headed toward her room, Oeufcoque still on her hand.

–They’re coming, aren’t they? The people who rubbed out our police guard. Coming here to assassinate us too.

“Highly probable.”

–I want to get ready. Will you give me five minutes? “What are you planning to do?”

–Take a shower.

She spoke as if she were talking about tending to her firearms.

Oeufcoque nodded. “But be quick.”

Dish, wash, brush…she felt the ditty spinning around the back of her mind as she savored the hot water. Dash, crush, rush, flush…

She knew that having dirt and grime on her skin weakened her natural abilities. So, whenever she was due to wear Oeufcoque she needed to make doubly sure she was clean. To scrub herself up spick and span, polish herself up like a stainless steel knife.

As she washed she started to feel that she might be able to grasp each individual droplet of hot water as it fell from above, down to the finest of movements. She probably could have. Even the destination of the water. She could almost imagine the whole world flowing through her skin.

Under her control.

My body is my own.

The seed of resolve was planted firmly in the back of her mind.

She wasn’t going to hand it over to anyone else ever again.

She would protect it—and fight.

Why me? The eternal question was about to deliver up an answer that she had never even dreamed of. Or not an answer, to be precise, but a reversal, turning the question inside out, just like Oeufcoque.

Whoever it is who’s targeting me—I’ll make sure they get their just rewards.

That was the answer she had to the question of why everything had to happen to her; she would take the question—Why me?—and shove it right back in her enemies’ faces.

Dish, wash, crush, mash…

She turned the shower off. She snarced the TowelJet without touching it, and strong warm gusts of air blew from all directions, drying her body.

She rubbed oil on herself, luxuriating under the warm breeze.

She was now the perfect blade, or so she felt. A blade so sharp it would even cut through its own sheath. She was a sharp sword who had the right to choose what she would have wrapped around her.

And, of course, she had already chosen. Her one and only scabbard—and weapon.

Goodish, fresh, wish…

Balot left the bathroom. She stood in front of the desk, not a stitch on her body.

She reached out her hand toward the mouse that was standing on the desk and sniffing his surroundings with a pointy nose.

Oeufcoque jumped onto her hand. “Good to go?”

Balot nodded, wrapped Oeufcoque around her fingers.

–All set.

She imagined a dress, an impregnable iron fortress that would wrap her up completely.

Working with this vague image, she snarced Oeufcoque, running through his various programs and adapting them one by one.

–Hug my body. Tight.

Oeufcoque turned with a squish.

Into the dress chosen—singled out—by his one and only.

The night melted like chocolate and seeped into the town.