Mardock Scramble - Volume 3 - Chapter 12

Chapter 12
NAVIGATION
01
“Why am I here?” Shell repeated the words to himself over and over, muttering in a state of near
delirium.
Boiled watched with steely eyes as Shell sat there on the bench, head in his hands. The two of them
were the only ones currently in the Broilerhouse waiting room. Shell removed his Chameleon Sunglasses.
Holding the deep violet sunglasses in his hand, he turned to Boiled, his voice a pitiful mess of selfrecrimination.
He should have worked it out long ago.
“If only I’d told you everything right from the beginning, none of this would have happened… I was a
fool to imagine that it would be easy to kill the girl.”
Boiled sat there. He didn’t make a sound; his expression remained constant. He didn’t nod and he
didn’t shake his head.
“I can change. I can become anyone you want me to be. I can clean up any dirt. I’ll make the best of
any situation. So, please, just get me out of here,” Shell continued.
Boiled crossed his legs and met Shell’s gaze. Still he said nothing.
“I’m frightened, Boiled, and I have absolutely no idea what it is that frightens me so. That’s the worst
part of it.” Shell sounded as if he were about to burst, his innards ready to spill out of himat any moment.
“I’ll make everything disappear,” Boiled replied, his voice soft.
Shell’s eyes, so full of pain and distress, opened up ever so slightly.
“It’s time to talk to your lawyers,” Boiled continued and started to rise, when Shell clamped his hand
on Boiled’s arm.
“I’mbegging you… Help me… Help me become a different person again.”
Boiled nodded.
≡
“So it was a matricide, after all…” the Doctor said. His face was calm, almost respectful. “That must
have been the root of all his deviant behavior. Despite losing his memories—no, because he’s lost his
memories—he was left with no other way to control his emotions, to keep his urges in check.”
–Why?
Balot snarced the words through the choker on her neck, Oeufcoque.
“Imagine that you’re experiencing constant feelings of terrible fear and anger and have absolutely no
idea how to deal with those emotions—you have no idea what will help you calmdown. Then you’ll get a
sense of what it is to be Shell. Wouldn’t you do whatever you could to try and stop the terrifying feelings
that are gnawing away at your mind? Sure, you’d be fine so long as you could find a way to successfully
sublimate those feelings—in your professional and social ambitions, maybe—but what happens when
you’re no longer able to sublimate the urges? Self-restraint goes out the window.”
“And as Shell grew used to the whole process, he became inured to it and started to believe that what
he was doing was entirely normal,” added Oeufcoque, now taking the shape of a geometric pattern inside
the crystal pendant on the choker. “It was probably a self-defense mechanism against his memory loss. He
was afraid of the spirit of his dead mother coming back to haunt him, but even stronger than that was the
feeling that he was responsible for the girls’ deaths, that their sacrifice was all his fault.”
–Because his first lover died, I think.
Balot found herself contributing to the conversation.
–The girl that Shell really did love. It was a real shock to him to find out that she had an abusive
past, similar to his. A shock to discover that they might have chosen one another because of their
similar histories.
Balot felt a pang of sadness in her chest. Sure, she felt uncomfortable and irritated too, but the feeling
of sorrow was winning out over all other emotions. She hadn’t imagined for a moment that Shell had lived
through experiences similar to her own. On the contrary, Shell had always looked for such girls in order
to convert theminto that which was beautiful to him—Blue Diamonds, money, the stairway to success.
I’m going to make you clean. I’m going to clean you up. When Shell had first yelled this out, it was
as a lonely soul, but also as a kindred spirit. Burnt out and wanting others to join him.
“Empathy, eh? Well, people do indeed actively seek out people like themselves—birds of a
feather…” the Doctor murmured. Then he coughed, conscious that the mood had been brought down
somewhat. “Anyhow, all the memories we copied from the chips have already been submitted to the
Broilerhouse as evidence. All we have to do now is wait for the DA to start moving, and then we hit them
with a chronological simulation of Shell’s memories. It’ll be just like fingerprinting him. Our aim for
today’s trial is to get official recognition that this will serve as proof of Shell’s crimes.”
–What’s myrole in all this?
“You’re here as a preemptive gag, as it were, to stop Shell from speaking too much and trying to deny
everything. Don’t worry, this trial won’t be anything like the last one. The only person who needs to
worry is Shell—he may have been laughing last time, but he’s certainly not going to see the funny side of
this one. Not only will his past be dragged up for all to see and judge, he won’t even remember it for
himself.”
–Not even the memory of killing his own mother?
“He was only about eighteen years old at the time, and we know that he killed his mother in cold
blood, with half an eye toward her life insurance policy. He systematically cut the brake pads. The whole
incident would have thrown his moral perspective askew, and the stress from that would have been
enormous. And then there were his sexual relations with his mother…”
The Doctor trailed off at this point, searching for a new, slightly more comfortable, tangent. “Also,
Shell’s mother was, in her own right, no stranger to the law. We ran a search on the old records at the
DA’s office and discovered that she’d been arrested for insurance fraud, and not just once either.
Furthermore, her husband was dead, and she was even suspected of murdering him in order to get her
hands on his insurance, although nothing was ever proven. There’s every chance that Shell knew all about
this and decided to do the same thing for himself. The mother had assaulted him, effectively, and what
better way for Shell to repay his misadventure of birth than with her death by misadventure?”
The Doctor laughed in a somewhat forced manner at his own somewhat forced joke. Balot didn’t
respond.
“You might want to work on that one, Doc,” said Oeufcoque, speaking for Balot as well.
The Doctor shrugged. “I’m just trying to get in the mood. Shell’s past may be somewhat useful as
concrete evidence in the courtroom, but more importantly, it’s going to pique the curiosity of the jury. The
more detailed and salacious the better, even if it does come in the form of a bad pun, as you so helpfully
pointed out, thank you, Oeufcoque. The DA is certainly delighted with this new turn of events, anyway.
He’s now confident that we’ll nail the case.”
The Doctor’s voice was steeped in cynicism, just as the whole situation was steeped in irony—
indeed, there was no greater irony for Balot. At the previous trial, she’d found herself on the receiving
end of the most thorough and gut-wrenching attack imaginable, all on account of her own history. As a
result, she was forced to repudiate her past, cut it off and cast it away, or else her heart would have died
fromthe pain.
And now Shell would find himself in exactly the same position. The difference was that Shell had
already repudiated his past and cast it away. All he had left was lingering trauma.
“This is not about revenge, Doctor. Tell the DA to make sure he sticks to the relevant facts and doesn’t
waste any time on unnecessary distractions,” Oeufcoque said, again seemingly speaking for Balot by
proxy. “We’ve already filed papers for the next case, the one that this all leads to. Let’s make sure we
don’t lose sight of the biggest fish of all.”
“Sure, sure. I know full well that it’s not our job to fan the flames of curiosity for the jurors and the
media—they’re perfectly capable of doing that for themselves.”
–Thank you.
“Having said that, there are no guarantees, I’mafraid,” the Doctor continued, somewhat apologetically
now. “The counsel for the defense is quite a lawyer. I wouldn’t put it past Shell to stir up the hornets’ nest
either. If that happens, it’ll be hard for me to hold the DA back fromlaying it on thick…”
Then the Doctor’s tone changed abruptly, and he turned to look at Balot, his eyes sincere. “It’s just—
well, this is only a theory, but hear me out. You can shave away the memory, but the shape of the memory
still remains. All you need to do is apply emphasis—stress—to the outlines of that memory, and
everything in your mind is thrown up in the air. Your moral compass goes haywire. What better proof do
we need than the living example of Shell to show firsthand the sort of damage to society that’s being
caused by OctoberCorp’s irresponsible, gung-ho technology?”
–Do you think Shell would stop killing people if he had his memories returned to him?
Balot asked the question out of a simple desire to know the answer.
Oeufcoque fielded this one. “Well, there’s absolutely no doubt that Shell’s missing memories are
exacerbating his urges. If all his memories were to be returned to him then his desire to rape and murder
would certainly diminish, possibly even fade away completely. But Shell wouldn’t want this for himself.”
–Well, I wouldn’t want his past either.
After she spoke, Balot hung her head in contemplation. The Doctor and Oeufcoque left her in peace for
a moment. After a suitable pause Oeufcoque continued gently, “The past is nothing more than a fossil. To
think that the past always has to determine the future is to doom yourself into becoming no more than a
fossil yourself. Shell made the wrong choice, that’s all.”
–Wrong choice?
“At the very least, we can say that he didn’t endure, didn’t resist, unlike you. He just thought to
console himself with the sacrifices of others.
Balot thought about this for a while, then touched Oeufcoque.
–It was you two who saved me. Thank you.
The Doctor threw his arms up in the air and grinned, a twinkle in his eye. “I hope you got that on tape,
Oeufcoque! There’s the proof of our usefulness for the Broilerhouse! What better words of validation
could there be for Mardock Scramble 09?”
“Doc, you know as well as I do that there’s no way I’d do such a thing without Balot’s permission.”
“Hmmph. Shame…”
Balot laughed in spite of herself.
The atmosphere in the room—so heavily laden with the pressure of having all their lives so
inextricably linked—lifted, just a little.
≡
The trial began half an hour later.
As ever, the proceedings moved along at a sluggish pace, but at least Shell’s lawyer could see which
way the wind was blowing, and he put up no more than token, ineffectual resistance. Rather than fighting
the case, the defense attorney seemed almost to withdraw from the scene, looking for an escape route that
would—as much as possible—allow him to keep both his dignity and career intact. As a result, Shell’s
memories were shielded from the worst excesses of scurrilous gossip that usually came with the public
dissection of juicy secrets—though Shell didn’t seem the least bit grateful that, in this respect at least, he
had escaped the worst.
The trial was over by 16:45, four hours after it had begun.
Shell was taken to prison.
02
There was a sudden ping—a message had arrived.
The Doctor looked suspiciously at his PDA after fishing it out of his jacket pocket.
They were in the middle of an early dinner at one of the fancy restaurants in the neighborhood of the
Broilerhouse.
It was the sort of place lawyers went to celebrate a victory or victims went to celebrate after being
awarded a windfall compensation. Balot, the Doctor, and Oeufcoque were celebrating there too, although
it wasn’t so much in order to enjoy a gourmet meal as to take a much-needed pause before the case was
finally wrapped up. A pause to mark the end of one chapter in Balot’s life, to celebrate all she had
achieved and to prepare her to embark upon a new chapter. Oeufcoque and the Doctor felt she needed a
little treat.
“It’s from the DA. Apparently the other side wants to talk, and they’re putting in their offer to us
immediately.” The Doctor looked away from his PDA and toward Oeufcoque, who was still in the form
of a choker. “The person offering the settlement isn’t even directly related to this case—he’s stepped in to
try and broker a settlement.”
“Who is it?”
“The director of OctoberCorp. Shell’s boss—and putative father-in-law.”
–What’s going on? I don’t understand.
Sensing that Balot was concerned, the Doctor smiled in order to try and calm her down. Behind his
spectacles though, his eyes weren’t smiling. Rather they were set in steely resolution.
“You remember the man standing beside Shell at the Casino. Cleanwill John October. Well, he’s
proposing a negotiation.”
–To negotiate what?
“The second case, as it were. The one that will implicate all OctoberCorp officials for more or less
ordering Shell to commit his crime spree. You see, we intend to use your case as a vein and continue
digging till we find the mother lode—it’s not just Shell that we’re after. That’s what they’re afraid of, so
they’re asking for certain facts to be made public…”
–Use mycase?
Balot frowned a little.
The Doctor hastily covered his tracks. “Not in a bad way. I just mean that the chips you won give us a
lot of power and leverage.”
–So, to put it in blackjack terms, what we’re doing is instead of staying, we’re hitting in order to
try and draw out some more criminals?
“Well, in the end, Shell’s just as much a victim of OctoberCorp as anyone else is. You’ve seen his
memories firsthand, so I’msure you understand that.”
Balot nodded. Oeufcoque remained silent.
The Doctor continued. “The brain surgery Shell received as a child, the A10 operation, that was
OctoberCorp’s handiwork. It’s entirely possible to believe that this is what made him slavishly follow
OctoberCorp’s orders.”
–You mean theymessed around with his head and made him their slave?
“Not in the sense of controlling his thought processes directly, but I’d say there was a good chance
they were artificially stimulating his pleasure centers, making it far more likely for him to follow orders
with blind devotion.”
–How?
“Well, for example, they could make it so that every time he hears the OctoberCorp name or sees its
symbol, a dopamine shot is released inside his brain, and he feels just that little bit better. Reinforced
tens, hundreds of times, it becomes an unbreakable habit, absolute.”
–I think that all Shell really wanted to do was escape. From his own life.
Oeufcoque interjected for the first time in the conversation. “And what OctoberCorp did was provide
himwith an escape route. The ultimate inducement into temptation.”
Balot nodded. She started to remember what it felt like when she was watching Shell’s memories.
–Shell seemed to think that working for OctoberCorp was just like a fish returning upstream to
spawn. He considered himself as no more than a little fish, placed deliberatelyin the river.
Then Balot turned straight to the Doctor to look at himand ask hima question.
–The case that they want to try and settle—is it mycase too?
The Doctor was about to nod, but Oeufcoque interrupted him. “You’ve already solved your own case.
There’s no need for you to put yourself in danger’s way anymore.”
“Hey, wait a minute, Oeufcoque. Her case leads to the mother lode. All that’s happened so far is that
Shell has temporarily lost his liberty. As yet, OctoberCorp is still untouched and untroubled. In any case,
she’s already been officially recognized as a co-opted civilian aide to this case. As your user, we do
really need her.”
Oeufcoque was unconvinced—and not only that, he was now uncharacteristically raising his voice.
“Are you saying that we are the ones who get to choose whether Balot gets burnt out in the process?”
The Doctor appeared to falter, but he had a rejoinder. “I don’t know if you noticed, but at the trial just
now, Balot’s Life Preservation Program was extended indefinitely. You know why, don’t you? Because
the Broilerhouse recognizes that she’s still in danger. We don’t know what Boiled’s got up his sleeve,
and depending on how these negotiations go, we may find that both Shell and Balot end up targets of
OctoberCorp…”
–Half-baked little Oeufcoque…
Balot spoke quietly. The Doctor swallowed his words. Oeufcoque also was silent.
–Thank you so much for trying to protect me from ending up even more burnt out.
Just as Oeufcoque could now sniff out Balot’s innermost feelings, Balot was attuned to Oeufcoque’s
emotional state. She knew full well that he blamed himself for not being able to protect her fromthe worst
excesses of Shell’s corrupted memories while she was in her dreamstate.
–This is what I’ve chosen, though. I want to use you constructively. If you want to protect me, the
best wayto do that is to guide me.
“Even if, as a result, you end up facing something deeply unpleasant?”
–Bell Wing called you my guardian angel. Guardian angels are strict but kind. If I run away
from everything that’s unpleasant, I’ll end up just like Shell messing with his own mind in order to
try and find peace.
Why me? She still wanted more answers to this question. She was the Concerned Party in this case,
and she wanted to find out what that really meant…
She wanted to determine with her own eyes what exactly it was that lay beyond the depths that she and
Shell had fallen into.
She wanted to be able to feel with conviction that her own life was somehow meaningful.
She touched the choker on her neck, gently transmitting these feelings to Oeufcoque, like a prayer.
–This is our case. Yours and mine. All three of us. Won’t you please show me your way of
resolving it?
Oeufcoque stayed silent for a while. Then, wordlessly, he agreed to bring Balot out. To take her away
fromher safe place and into the maelstrom.
“We need to solve the second case, and as such I’d like Balot to use me,” Oeufcoque said eventually.
The Doctor breathed a sigh of relief. “I have absolutely no aptitude for this sort of thing myself, you
see. Gunfights aren’t my scene. Preparation and maintenance—now, you can rely on me for those—but if
things start getting violent it’s Balot who will to need to protect me.”
Balot nodded. As long as she had Oeufcoque by her side she was confident she could do anything.
“Looks like we’re on the road to victory, then. Come on, let’s go. Time for us to solve our case.”
≡
Balot went to sort out her outfit in the bathroomwhile the Doctor settled the bill.
She rolled up the long skirt that she had worn for the trial and took her underwear off and placed it on
top of the toilet.
She took off her shoes and socks, placing her socks next to her underwear. Then she reached around
and unzipped her dress, unhooked her bra, and loosened the belts that ran up and down her body.
She focused her mind on the precise image of the new outfit—a new shell—that she wanted.
–I’m ready.
She touched her choker to transmit the image to Oeufcoque.
Oeufcoque’s turn was quick and thorough. A skintight bodysuit spread out fromunderneath the choker,
sliding neatly between Balot’s body and the clothes she still had on. It enveloped Balot swiftly fromtip to
toe. Power flowed through her.
Balot adjusted her clothes, put her shoes and socks back on, and left the bathroom. She glanced at
herself in the mirror on the way out and subtly altered the design and color of the bodysuit so that it
matched the rest of her clothes.
She returned to the restaurant and joined the Doctor to head out to the parking lot.
The red convertible was as good as new, brought back up to scratch in a week.
The car was officially registered as being made by an obscure custom car company, one that existed
more or less in name only. There was only one garage that did repairs, and they had to special-order the
parts on contract.
The parts in question were, of course, Made by Oeufcoque. Oeufcoque’s existence as a sentient being
may not have been officially acknowledged, but the parts that he made certainly were.
They climbed into the car and the Doctor inserted the key and set the controls to AutoDrive. The
steering wheel sank into the dashboard and found itself fixed in position.
“I’d be drunk driving otherwise. It’ll take us a little longer, but let’s go on auto.”
Balot fastened her seat belt, and the car moved off.
Their destination was a high-class bar on the North Side, and they had plenty of time to get there.
“Excuse me a minute,” the Doctor said as he leaned over toward the passenger seat and pressed his
fingers against the electronic fingerprint scanner. A compartment in the dashboard opened out, revealing
maps, a wallet, a small handgun, and a bottle of pills.
The Doctor placed the handgun in his jacket pocket and took the bottle in his hand.
The pills contained a potent double dose: a mixture of caffeine and enzymes that accelerated the
breakdown of alcohol. The Doctor threw a fistful of them into his mouth as if they were so much candy,
then popped the bottle back in the compartment, which he pushed back into the dashboard.
“Now, let’s see how they’re going to play this one…”
“They’re doing everything by the book so far,” Oeufcoque said, his voice emerging from the vicinity
of Balot’s left hand. The Doctor nodded as if the short conversation had settled everything.
Balot looked straight ahead at the road. She thought how there was still so much she needed to learn.
“This is not a good smell. They’re waiting for us, ready for something. We’re not talking just one or
two people there, either—there are at least five of them,” Oeufcoque said when they parked the car two
blocks away fromthe bar.
The Doctor checked something out quickly on his PDA, then shrugged. “I get it. The bar’s part of a
chain, and guess which corporation owns the chain? Not that I imagine many of their directors visit on a
regular basis, of course.”
“How convenient for them. I guess the idea is that the whole bar could disappear off the face of the
earth if need be,” said Oeufcoque.
“Uh-huh. It’s the underbelly of their empire—a place they use to conduct the shadier end of their
business transactions. Rather than bothering to go in, why don’t we just launch a rocket or two at them?
The joint’s a front, anyway—it’s not as if there’d be any innocent bystanders caught up in it.”
Balot braced herself, imagining for a moment that the Doctor was indeed about to do as he suggested.
“So we’re terrorists on top of everything else now, are we, Doc?” Oeufcoque’s sarcastic reply made
Balot realize that of course they were going to do no such thing. “They’re going through the official
channels, and as long as they stick to this, we do the same.”
“Sure, sure. Can’t say I’m wildly enthusiastic about the prospect, though. I suppose we can expect
them to suggest some sort of trade or information exchange, although I’m not quite sure what they imagine
is going to be in it for us. They must know by now that we’re not the sort to be bought off.”
“So we go in fully expecting that they’ll have other means of persuasion at their disposal,” said
Oeufcoque.
–Are we going to be using guns?
“Hmm… If it comes to it, I’ll leave that side of things to you and Oeufcoque, if that’s okay. My
speciality is really the negotiating part. If the going gets tough, I hope you won’t mind if I’m first out the
door?”
The Doctor looked so serious that Balot nodded without even thinking.
“Right, then, let’s go!” With these words the Doctor hopped out of the car and walked toward the quiet
bar on the quiet street. Balot followed, and soon they had reached the main entrance of the pub.
There were two sets of doors, and Balot realized that something was up the moment they passed
through the first set.
Someone was watching them. The Doctor had noticed it too.
They opened the second set of doors and went in. The clientele seemed at first glance to be a
surprisingly refined lot—some were smoking cigars or drinking brandy from large goblets, others were
reading newspapers or discussing the latest stock market fluctuations.
It was a veritable pocket of resistance against the recent all-pervasive trend of smoking bans.
Balot and the Doctor went up to the center of the bar and took a seat. Had they not been in the clothes
they wore for court, they would have felt terribly out of place. No one else sat at the bar; patrons lounged
on plush leather sofas or in boxes lined with red velvet curtains.
The Doctor pointed to a bottle on the counter, then went into a detailed spiel as to how exactly the
bartender was to prepare it.
The bartender—middle-aged, receding hairline—took his order with a nod, and then looked at Balot.
Balot didn’t really need anything, but she thought back to a Western she had seen in her childhood and
recalled what the hero ordered when he was in a bar.
–A glass of milk, please.
She spoke through the crystal on her choker. A funny look flickered across the bartender’s face.
Balot didn’t know whether it was her order that was at fault or whether he was just surprised by her
voice. Or it could have been that he was surprised by the very fact that someone like Balot was in this
place.
If he felt something was odd, the bartender certainly hid it well. “Would you like ice with that, miss?”
he asked.
This part wasn’t in the Western.
Balot thought for a moment, then nodded meekly.
The bartender prepared the two drinks with a precision that could only come from years of practice.
He put the bottle the Doctor pointed to on the bar so that the Doctor could check the label. Balot thought
for a moment that the bartender might do the same for her with the carton of milk, but it wasn’t to be—it
went straight back in the refrigerator.
The bartender placed the glasses on the bar, then retreated to one side.
“Hmm, maybe I should have ordered the same as you,” said the Doctor, who could barely keep the
laughter out of his voice. Balot looked at him.
“This is just some token hospitality before negotiations begin in earnest, by the way. They could well
be here already, of course, just making us wait…” The Doctor took his glass in his hand.
Suddenly, Balot’s left hand jumped up to rest on the Doctor’s shoulder—without Balot controlling it.
“There’s a fast-working sleeping draught in yours, Doc. Balot’s is clear,” whispered Oeufcoque.
The Doctor seemed more nonplussed than surprised. “So it’s Balot they’re after, is it? They’re still
hoping for the Trustees to slip up, I guess. They sure don’t give up easily.”
“All seven people in the room, including the bartender, are armed with handguns of one sort or
another,” continued Oeufcoque, before his hand moved off the Doctor’s shoulder.
The Doctor shrugged. “Not much I can do to help, then. Looks like you two are on your own, sorry
about that!” He clinked his glass with Balot’s and downed his drink. “Urgh…and I’d only taken an
antidote just before I came in too. I think I’mgoing to be sick…” The Doctor pulled a sour face, and Balot
looked on at himwith wide eyes.
The very next moment the pub entrance opened wide, and in came a well-built man, smiling broadly.
“Dr. Easter? I’mSkyscraper. I trust you received my messages?”
“You’re OctoberCorp’s legal representative?” The Doctor’s eyes were already starting to sag. Balot
couldn’t tell whether it was an act or not.
Skyscraper smiled again. “I’m one of the legal team, yes. I mainly handle criminal cases and
compensation claims. I do apologize for having kept you so long. Please, do come and take a seat over
here where it’s more comfortable.”
“Thank you,” said the Doctor, walking over to the chairs as if he were floating on clouds. Balot
followed him.
The man who called himself Skyscraper sat down last, squeezing his generous frame into the chair.
“I’ll have the same as she’s having,” Skyscraper said to the bartender when he came to bring over
Balot’s glass on a tray. “What about you, sir, are you not drinking?”
“No, I’mfine, thankshh…” The Doctor’s speech was growing suspiciously slurred.
It was pretty clear by now that the Doctor really was getting tired. Balot nudged his shoulder gently.
She was trying to tell him that he could fall asleep safely and that she had everything under control, but
Skyscraper evidently interpreted this move as concern on Balot’s part.
“You do seemto be tired, sir. We’d better get this over with as quickly as possible, then. Not to worry
about your return—we have a chauffeured car on hand to take you both back to wherever you need to go.”
“You put in your request for a pretrial settlement just this afternoon?” The Doctor yawned.
“Yes, although we’ve had all the relevant paperwork prepared for some time.”
“That’s very considerate of you.”
“Ah, yes, well, we may be on different sides, but we do have certain issues in common. Our jobs are
to safeguard the long-term interests of our respective businesses by ensuring that our people are protected
and that our businesses are allowed to develop progressively.”
“Is that right? Well, uh, I suppose that’s so, isn’t it?” said the Doctor.
“Yes, and we at OctoberCorp are most concerned about the man you brought to trial, Shell-Septinos.
We feel that his future prospects are most lamentable,” said Skyscraper.
“Well, you would, wouldn’t you, given that he seems to know everything about everything. And?”
Skyscraper’s beaming face was unflinching in the face of the Doctor’s flippant riposte. Then he
shrugged his shoulders and smiled at Balot with a concerned expression.
Balot knew all too well how quickly the smiles of these sorts of men changed.
“The crimes that the man committed are terrible, of course. There’s no denying that. But to refuse him
any possibility of rehabilitation is to refute the significance of the law. OctoberCorp’s position is that we
would like to give him the opportunity to reflect on his crimes and thereby gradually redeem himself. We
will of course, Ms. Rune-Balot, foot the bill for any portion of the compensation that you are awarded and
that he is unable to pay you out of his own assets.”
Skyscraper smiled at Balot in anticipation of her answer. This is how much I’ll pay, now will you
give me what I want? Balot had seen that inane grin too many times.
It was the Doctor who spoke next, though. “And so it came to pass that Shell lived out his days
peacefully under the thumb of his corporate masters… That’s how the story goes, is it? Presumably we get
our brown envelope under the table if—and only if—we don’t touch on any, uh, inconvenient truths
during the next trial?”
“Dear, dear, Dr. Easter! I do hope you don’t speak quite so bluntly when you’re in court!”
“Maybe not out loud, but I certainly think it. As for your answer, well, I’ll make sure that a reply is
sent to you by email through the official Broilerhouse channels. It’ll be a short reply, though. Shorter than
the password you’ll need to get into it.”
“And what sort of reply might that be?”
“‘Dear Balloon-face. Eat shit.’ ”
Skyscraper’s smile seemed to stretch even farther.
His face turned crimson, his eyes bloodshot. Yet he was still smiling. A grotesque sight.
“You see, we’re PIs, and our job is to solve this case,” said the Doctor, smiling back, a very different
sort of smile. “The courtroom antics are only a small part of that. The best thing you can do now is run
along and try and deceive the judge into believing that there are any number of holes in our case, maybe
appeal for a retrial. Won’t do you any good in the long run, though.”
With that, the Doctor toppled face-first onto the table in front of him.
Balot was visibly concerned. She was worried that the Doctor might have hurt himself.
Skyscraper thought she was worried about her own safety. “Poor little princess. Aren’t you enjoying
your milk anymore?” he said, his voice now steeped with sarcasm. “Don’t blame me, blame this idiot
here who you trusted to keep you safe.”
His dark red cheeks puffed out as he rose out of his seat toward her. He wore a whole new expression
now, one in which rage and joy intermingled in equal measure. He was practically drooling as his thick
arms reached out toward Balot to grab her, but Balot slipped to one side.
“We know you’re unarmed, we scanned you on the X-ray as you came in,” Skyscraper smirked. “The
man has a handgun in his pocket, but that’s all you have, right?”
So that explained the uneasy sensation Balot had experienced when she entered the bar.
Balot realized that the people at the other tables were now drawing in.
–Oeufcoque, these people are enemies, right?
Balot wanted to make sure she was doing the right thing before she did anything she couldn’t take
back.
“That’s right. They’re planning on holding you for ransom, and in exchange for your release they’ll try
and force us to relinquish the chips as evidence,” Oeufcoque said out loud, unconcerned as to who could
hear him.
A puzzled expression crossed Skyscraper’s face. “Who’s that speaking—”
–Am I allowed to shoot them?
“Sure, but no more than absolutely necessary. No need to stoop to their level.”
Balot’s left armwas under the table, and she felt it grow heavy with the weight of cold steel.
There was an explosion, and Skyscraper screamed and staggered backward. He’d had a lucky escape
—Balot had actually aimed for his crotch, but Oeufcoque had stayed her hand and made the bullet fly
through the top of his foot instead.
Balot lifted the table up quickly with Oeufcoque’s help—the bodysuit that was him melded with her
body, allowing her to lift the table up as if it were made of cardboard.
She threw the Doctor’s sleeping body onto the sofa to keep him out of harm’s way, scattering their
glasses across the floor as she turned the table on its side. Fragments of glass and ice shattered and flew
every which way. Balot wondered where she had seen such a scene before, and then she remembered.
The Western, of course.
“We keep the death toll to a minimum. Got it?”
–Fine.
Balot emerged from behind the plush red curtains and fired at three men in order as they attempted to
fire bullets or electronic charges at her. She hit their shoulders with pinpoint accuracy, and they fell to the
floor and rolled around in agony.
The other men were flustered now, and they fired a storm of bullets at her. The upturned table shook
from the impact. Balot stuck her arm out from behind it and fired swiftly. Not a single bullet of hers was
wasted. The first two men found their fingers blown off; Balot had targeted their guns, piercing the
cartridges and causing them to explode. The men never knew what hit them. Balot then fired a couple
more shots for good measure. The bullets thudded into their thighs, bringing themdown.
Balot jumped out of the booth, table leg under her arm.
The men looked on in disbelief as Balot advanced with the table—a lump of wood that weighed at
least as much as she did—as a shield. They gave her everything they had, firing blindly. In return Balot
fired a salvo of bullets straight into their collarbones. Not a single one of her shots missed.
Just then the bartender emerged frombehind the counter with a shotgun in his hands.
Balot didn’t even need to look at him to thrust an arm out sideways and put bullets straight through
both his shoulders. Unbelievable, his face seemed to say, as he turned a backflip into the array of bottles
that lined the bar.
The last man standing in the bar had his gun held out with a stupefied expression. Balot stuck her head
out from behind the table, and the man hastily fired off a series of shots. He was at point-blank range and
still failed to hit her, and indeed one of the flying bullets grazed his own armas it ricocheted back, making
him yelp. The bullet smashed into a large mirror at the end of the counter, and Balot expected it to shatter,
but other than the new hole adorning it, the mirror seemed fine—as it turned out, it was a fairly sturdy
specimen.
Balot brandished the table over her head and threw it at the man.
The man screamed, loud and shrill, and was thrown back into the booth along with the table.
The bar was evidently fitted with quality air conditioning, as the white smoke in the air was already
being sucked away. No one was dead, but all Balot’s assailants were thoroughly incapacitated. Balot
ejected her cartridge, reloaded it with a new one generated from within the gun, and went to sit back
down in the same booth she had been sitting at.
There, the Doctor was snuggled up against Skyscraper, the former happily snoring away while the
latter whimpered in pain and fear. Balot tapped Skyscraper on his shoulder, causing him to scream and
push his chunky frame back against the wall. He squirmed so hard, it appeared as if he hoped he might be
able to melt into the wall.
“I…I’m just a hired hand! Please…” For someone who had succeeded so far in one of the most
sought-after professions in Mardock City, the lawyer cut a pretty pathetic figure.
–What do we do now? Just go home?
“Let’s establish just who this ‘hired hand’ was hired by.” With that, Oeufcoque turned with a squelch,
and Balot’s glove became a cell phone.
Balot tossed the cell at Skyscraper’s knees.
“Call your employer. We want to speak to him directly.” Oeufcoque’s voice emerged from the cell
phone. Skyscraper, a quivering wreck, needed no additional encouragement.
He had to try the number a few times before he eventually got through. “Hello…this is Sky…
Skyscraper here. The other party in the negotiations…um…that is…they’d like to speak to you directly.
Er…yes, surely…”
He passed the phone back to Balot with a trembling hand. Balot didn’t even bother putting the earpiece
to her ear. All she needed to do was connect to the part of Oeufcoque that was inside her suit.
“Mr. Cleanwill John October? Director at OctoberCorp? This is Oeufcoque-Penteano here, PI and
Trustee for this case.” Oeufcoque spoke out loud so that Skyscraper could hear too. Balot was starting to
get fed up with Skyscraper’s miserable face, so she got up and wandered over to the bar in search of the
carton of milk.
Then they heard the sneering laughter of Cleanwill John October on the phone.
–That was quite a show you put on for us back at the casino. How did you use your last ten
thousand dollars? A fancy meal at some restaurant you couldn’t normally af ord? A holiday to take
your mind of your woes, perhaps?
“The game’s up. We’re arresting you for attempted kidnapping and blackmail.”
–Where’s your proof that I’m behind this? You have no witnesses. No one will arrest me.
Balot shrugged. Thinking how she was grateful that she didn’t have to talk directly to such a person,
she placed her gun on the counter, took a carton of milk fromthe refrigerator below the counter, picked up
one of the few glasses that remained intact, and poured herself a glass. She was effectively committing
robbery, she realized, but there wasn’t any other way she was going to get her drink.
She added a couple of ice cubes to her drink and took a seat at the bar. She stared into the mirror at the
end of the bar, repelled by the nearby phone conversation.
–More importantly, why don’t you think about settling? The trial’s going to be a washout.
“Washout? It’s too late for you to try and bring our case down by establishing a counter-case, if that’s
what you mean.”
–Not if we’ve already applied for our own case. Looks like we’ll be taking the same defendant to
court.
“The same defendant?”
–Shell-Septinos has brought about considerable damage to OctoberCorp. The man has tarnished
our good name and standing, took on fraudulent loans for his own personal advantage, and even had
the audacity to demand a share of our assets.
“How convenient for you. By assets I assume you’re referring to the dowry he would presumably have
received as a matter of course in marrying your daughter?”
–Marrying her? Ah, yes, there was such talk at one stage, wasn’t there?
John paused to laugh, a most peculiar sound.
–Ours is a family business—family is our rock and the foundation of our success. I was actually
pleased to think that I had managed to find someone suitable to take that woman of my hands.
Balot squeezed her glass tightly. Suddenly she had a feeling that she was missing something.
Something to do with the building they were in…
–Shell—I didn’t actually dislike him, truth be told. He had a good head on his shoulders and a
certain tenacity of spirit. I admire that in a man. It’s no lie to say that he had excellent prospects, and
we’re telling the truth when we say his current prospects are most lamentable.
Balot’s feeling of unease started to solidify inside her. John’s words were triggering alarm bells
somewhere deep inside her unconscious. Balot tried to put her finger on the reason.
–But our company—we’re just as much victims of Shell as you are. We could just sit here and
squabble amongst ourselves, of course, but wouldn’t it be better if we collaborated in prosecuting
Shell together? There’s plenty of scope for negotiation here, don’t you think?
“What exactly are you planning to do? Have him imprisoned and transported to a state where they
have capital punishment, so that you can have the law do away with himfor good?”
John laughed. Balot heard the laugh as if it were echoing in the room right beside her. His future
prospects are most lamentable. Someone had said something like this before. Skyscraper.
–We need not trouble ourselves right now about what may or may not happen after Shell goes to
prison. The important thing is that there is a certain someone who has been hurt deeply by Shell’s
actions—a certain someone who was hoping to marry him and has been damaged as a result of what
Shell has done. She’ll be inheriting the mantle of this case—or rather, OctoberCorp will on her behalf.
“Inheriting it…”
–Shell’s case will be closed shortly, and with it he’ll lose the right to have a PI investigate on his
behalf. We’ll simply rehire the excellent PI that he currently has in his employ and have him work for
us. The contractual negotiations are already in place.
“You’re going to have Boiled kill Shell, is that the idea? You…”
–Well, it looks like the children of Scramble 09 are going to have the opportunity to fight this one
out amongst themselves. In the meanwhile, it’ll be our own OctoberCorp that’s wholeheartedly
received by the people of Mardock City, just as the Three Magi wanted.
“You dare to invoke the Three Magi? Can you put your founding director on the line to support your
cock-and-bull story?”
–She’s a sleeping beauty who won’t be waking up anytime soon. You know as well as I do that she’s
brain-dead.
“What I do know is that OctoberCorp is taking advantage of her comatose state to abuse the technology
she gave you and make dirty money, under the pretext of ‘what the Three Magi would have wanted.’ You
know full well that none of the Three Magi really want such a thing.”
–Is that so? I can tell you that plenty of people in this city would disagree with you—they like
being “abused” by our technology, as you put it. We’re just doing our duty as a clan to develop our
inheritance—our duty to ensure the progress of OctoberCorp.
“That’s a foul deceit—trying to justify the suffering of innocent victims, hiding behind weasel words.”
–Do you know the origin of what we call the Stairway to Heaven, Mardock?
“What—”
–Mardock was the name of the son of the goddess. He killed his own mother and usurped her role
as creator, ruling in her place far more ef ectively than she ever did. In much the same way, we at
OctoberCorp are here to use the technology brought into the world by the Three Magi. The old moral
values are obsolete in the face of social progress.
“That’s just a fantasy that you guys conjured up to suit your own ends. There’s no such thing as old or
new morals, just morality.”
–I wouldn’t expect you to think anything else—a creature who narrowly escaped destruction only
by hiding behind the shield of Mardock Scramble. Your so-called Scramble 09 is nothing more than a
smokescreen whipped up by freaks such as you so that you can desperately try to justify your existence
to a society who never asked for you in the first place and doesn’t want you now. But has society ever
felt that way about OctoberCorp, the OctoberCorp that fulfills so many of its needs? I don’t think so,
somehow…
John’s voice was more sonorous than ever, and Balot honed in on the direction fromwhich it came.
“No one who refuses to acknowledge that they themselves are potentially dangerous has any right to
lecture others about morality,” Oeufcoque stated boldly. As he did so, Balot jumped into action.
With all her might she threw the glass in her hand toward the mirror at the end of the bar.
The mirror that one of the men’s stray bullets had cracked but not destroyed only a minute ago.
The glass smashed against the mirror, splashing the milk across the surface.
There was an audible gasp on the cell phone. This confirmed Balot’s suspicions, and she moved
quickly. She picked up her gun fromthe counter and unloaded it into the mirror in one swift movement.
It really was a sturdy mirror. It took over ten shots before it gave up the ghost and started to collapse.
Finally, though, it started peeling fromthe wall.
It was a one-way mirror. And the scene behind it was now revealed to all in the bar.
Balot threw her gun down and snarced the left hand of her bodysuit so that she held a brand-new one
in her grip.
Gun outthrust, she stood in front of the warped mirror.
A wave of disgust ran over her, one that made every hair on her body stand on end. Before she even
had the chance to think about what she was doing, she pulled the trigger, hard. Oeufcoque was there for
her, suppressing the bullet, stopping the action inside himself.
“Ah…you seem to have us at a disadvantage, sir. I never imagined for a moment that you would be in
such a place. Although I daresay the disadvantage is now all yours…” Unusually for Oeufcoque, his voice
dripped with sarcasm. But Oeufcoque was Oeufcoque, after all, and he could only take so much—the
whole scene was evidently getting to him. “I can’t say I think much of your hobbies, sir. By the look of it,
I can see all sorts of laws being broken…”
Beyond the mirror were five or six boys and girls in varying degrees of undress, all young. Preteen
young. In the midst of them was a giant lump of flesh—far bigger than Skyscraper—sprawled on a sofa in
a nightgown, holding a phone in his hand and looking at Balot in mute terror.
“This is private property…” the corpulent figure finally managed to spit out. It was the same man they
had seen back at the casino—none other than Cleanwill John October.
“Indeed, so we’ll refrain from actually entering unless we’re forced to. We’ll just wait here, keeping
you under guard until the police arrive. Cleanwill John October, as a PI and Trustee for this case, I invoke
my jurisdiction to arrest you on charges of attempted kidnapping, extortion, and—well, lots of other
things.”
Oeufcoque managed to stay levelheaded. The proof of this was that he kept the safety catch on the gun
firmly engaged. “Balot, call for police backup.”
Balot shook her head. She wanted to kill them—kill them all, even the young boys and girls with John.
She remembered the lecherous smirk on Skyscraper’s face, thought again about what it meant he wanted to
do to her, and felt her blood rushing around her body so quickly she thought it might start flowing
backward.
“Balot.” Oeufcoque spoke even more deliberately.
“Yaaargh!” A scream came at them from behind, though not before Balot and Oeufcoque both realized
it was coming.
Skyscraper had emerged fromthe booth and was charging toward them, gun in hand.
Balot didn’t even turn around; she merely fired off a number of shots over her own shoulder.
Both of Skyscraper’s shoulders and both his knees were pulverized in an instant. His scream rose in
pitch a few notches, and he writhed helplessly on the floor.
Balot’s eyes remained fixed on the giant figure on the other side of the mirror. After the gunshots, all
thought of resistance had been wiped from Cleanwill John October’s mind, and he blubbered, “Peace!
Let’s do this in peace!” Both his arms were raised in a wobbly surrender.
Balot would have rather seen himin pieces than in peace, but she managed to overcome this feeling to
take a step back fromthe broken mirror and snarc her cell phone to call the police.
She left the rest to Oeufcoque. It was the only way she could get through this.
She was exhausted. There was much she still had to learn. It made her head spin.
≡
Police sirens converged on the bar. Balot was in the passenger seat of the red convertible, watching
the young children as they were wrapped in blankets and escorted to safety.
John October had already been taken away in custody along with the other men in the bar.
“To think that we’d be able to catch one of OctoberCorp’s directors so easily,” said the Doctor. He
was relaxed, still a little sleepy, but was focused on the task at hand. The second case could now
progress.
Oeufcoque told him the details of his conversation with John, and the Doctor frowned. “Doesn’t that
make Boiled more or less a fully paid employee of OctoberCorp?” the Doctor asked.
“It could be that Boiled is now planning on taking Shell prisoner. I suggest we play along with
OctoberCorp for a little longer and make out that we’re interested in continuing discussions with them.
That will buy us some time.”
“OctoberCorp is more ruthless than you give them credit for, Oeufcoque. At this stage it’s do or die.
The only thing that’ll make the difference between victory and defeat is Shell and his memories. That
Shell—” At this point the Doctor and Oeufcoque fell silent.
“Where’s Shell right now?” asked Oeufcoque sharply.
The Doctor fumbled with his PDA. “He’s been released on bail pending his final trial, and he’s
permitted to travel within a two-kilometer radius of the hotel he’s staying at. There should be specialists
fromthe DA’s office tailing him, of course, but…”
“How long before Boiled hears about what’s gone down here?”
“He’s probably already heard,” said the Doctor.
“We need to hurry, then.”
Without another moment’s notice, the Doctor revved up the car, and it sped off from a standing start.
Balot, who had zoned out, was jolted back into consciousness and rushed to secure her seat belt.
–What’s the matter?
Balot spoke by snarcing the car stereo.
The Doctor shook his head. “It’s Boiled. Unless he gets an order from OctoberCorp to stop him, he
might end up killing Shell. It’d be such a shame to lose our main piece of leverage now that we have one
of OctoberCorp’s directors in the bag.”
–What are we going to do?
It was Oeufcoque who answered this. “The Doctor will head to the Broilerhouse. We’ll go to the hotel
Shell is staying at and ensure his safety.”
–I’m going to go and save Shell’s life?
This time she didn’t use the car stereo, but rather snarced Oeufcoque directly.
“That’s right.”
–How strange…
Balot was silent, thoughtful.
They arrived at the Broilerhouse, and the Doctor jumped out and rushed in without even looking back.
Balot programmed the name of Shell’s hotel into the display, and the car set off.
The car pulled into the hotel’s underground parking lot, and Oeufcoque gave Balot the latest news.
“Just in fromthe Doctor. Shell’s in room663.”
Balot took the key from the ignition and hurried toward the hotel lobby. She headed into an elevator,
then suddenly realized that the buttons stopped at the fortieth floor.
“This is an emergency. Protecting Shell takes priority over any legal niceties,” Oeufcoque said, before
Balot even had the opportunity to ask. She snarced the elevator, sending it up to the sixty-sixth floor.
There was no one else in the elevator and no sign of anyone in the corridor when Balot stepped out.
Suddenly—without Balot having to snarc anything—she felt a squish about her left hand and realized
that she was holding a gun. “Be careful.”
Balot progressed with the utmost care. She walked down the corridor with silent footfalls and stopped
right in front of the target door. She sensed what was on the other side of the door—no sign of movement.
Balot snarced the electronic door lock open, calling on help fromOeufcoque to decode it.
No sooner had she opened the door than Balot was assaulted by a lukewarmblast of air.
The air conditioner wasn’t working. Next to the door was a large dresser coated with a layer of
condensed water vapor.
There was the sound of running water; Balot headed slowly for the bathroom. An orange light was on,
and steambillowed out, filling the room.
Balot steadied her gun and entered the bathroom. She was filled with an uneasy premonition. She was
sure that there was no sign of movement frominside, and her mind couldn’t help but carry this observation
through to its logical conclusion. She walked across the polished marble floor and past a large mirror
toward the source of the steaming, bubbling water.
Balot’s feet stepped in flowing water.
She put her hand on the shower curtain and, taking a deep breath, yanked it back.
The sight that assailed her made her heart miss a beat.
A woman swayed in the water, her mouth O-shaped, as if she were screaming silently. Her head
floated but her mouth was full of splashing water, and her eyes had started to go muddy, cooked by the
near-boiling hot water.
The woman was naked, and her long blonde hair covered her body as the hot water continued to flow.
Her body was covered with black and blue bruises. Bruises that were no doubt inflicted on her when
she resisted, or perhaps bruises she received because she couldn’t resist.
Finally, Balot exhaled. A streamof cold vapor in the steamy room.
“Looks like this was Shell’s fiancée…” Oeufcoque muttered.
Balot was suddenly overtaken by an urge. She left the bathroom and headed for the living room,
positioning herself in front of the television. She snarced it to grasp its inner workings, then accessed the
Internet.
“What’s this about, Balot?” Oeufcoque seemed concerned, but Balot ignored him, turning the
television on and bringing up a map of the city. Her eyes remained wide open as she logged into a number
of servers, cracking the encrypted passwords with ease.
“Stop it, Balot! What are you trying to do—find Shell? You’re hacking into public networks, you
know! That’s a crime! There are official channels we need to go through for this sort of thing. Don’t you
start running off the rails too!”
Balot stared at the television, tears suddenly filling her eyes. Her face crumpled and she sat down. She
cried without making a sound, lifting her gun in her hand as she did so.
–Let me kill Shell.
Her face was painfully sad as she snarced Oeufcoque.
–Let me kill that man Cleanwill too.
“Balot, it’s no good thinking like—”
–Please. Let me. I don’t even care if I die afterward.
“Balot…are you angry? Or sad?”
Balot shook her head. Neither. Both. She felt her destiny swirling about her. Her terrible, terrible
destiny. Why did Shell have to kill that woman in the bathroom? I’m going to make you clean. I’m going
to clean you up. The words echoed around Balot’s mind.
–I think that woman in there was the same as me.
Balot managed to snarc the words to Oeufcoque through the terrible memories that were resurfacing
inside her.
“The same…? You mean, that is to say…” Oeufcoque started, but he didn’t need to finish. He’d
understood perfectly. The woman in the bathroom had things done to her by her father. Or perhaps other
men and women had done things to her.
–Please, let me kill them all. I don’t care if I die myself. I don’t care if I die.
“Calm down. This has nothing to do with you. Don’t get sucked in. Take a deep breath and calm
down.”
Balot held on to her gun. Her whole body shook as she cried. Quietly, her breathing a mess.
Every possible horrible fate seemed to be in this room. For the first time ever, Balot experienced the
feeling of seeing her sorrow transform not into anger but into sheer murderous intent. She wanted to kill
Shell. She wanted to kill everyone who worked for OctoberCorp. She wanted to kill the others caught up
in this case, Boiled and even the Doctor. Then, after she had done all that, she wanted to save the last
bullet for herself.
–I can’t bear it. Help me. Save me.
Balot felt a soft warmth in her left hand. She realized that Oeufcoque was trying to materialize.
Balot clasped her hands together in prayer, and Oeufcoque’s upper body emerged. She almost
smothered himcompletely, so desperate was her desire to have himcomfort her.
Oeufcoque’s piercing red eyes stared straight at her.
Tears dripped from Balot’s face and splashed onto his little head, and he lifted his head toward the
warmshower and said, “It’s a good smell.”
Balot’s eyes narrowed as she looked at the mouse, the ultimate weapon and the last word in morality.
“Your soul—it smells good. Pure. It’s telling me that if there’s one thing I should believe in, it’s you. I
want to make myself believe in you. Shell and Boiled—they can’t find it in themselves to believe in
anything, so they’re doomed to stay on the other side of the mirror forever. That place where Cleanwill
was hiding. A place with no doubts or regrets to trouble you, but no hope either. I don’t want to go to such
a place.”
Then Oeufcoque spread his arms out in a broad gesture, just like when the two of them had been
introduced. “I entrust myself to you.”
Droplets of tears welled up in Balot’s eyes. She realized that he was indeed telling the truth.
He really was trusting everything to Balot. If Balot so wanted, she would have been able to snarc
Oeufcoque away in an instant. Any abuse she wanted—she’d meet no further resistance. And yet it was
this very lack of resistance that would prove to be the final restraint. It was the very fact that Oeufcoque
was surrendering himself completely that would stop her.
Balot nodded. The sound of the water overflowing in the bathroomechoed all around.
Balot sniffed. She turned around where she sat so that she now faced in the direction of the bathroom.
As she did so, Oeufcoque turned back into a gun without saying anything.
She hadn’t promised himanything. Even so, Oeufcoque had slipped back into her palm, ready.
Balot took a deep breath so that she could feel her entire bodysuit the better—the suit Made by
Oeufcoque. Her chest swelled and she exhaled calmly. She stood up silently, went to the bathroom, and
turned off the hot water.
She turned her back to the floating corpse of the woman and headed for the underground parking lot.
She climbed into the car, snarced the monitor next to the steering wheel, and the car took off.
Outside the sun had just gone down, and a cold night was closing in.
Balot wiped the last of her tears away and focused on the road ahead. There was still a lot she had to
learn. There really was.
≡
“Don’t tell the police yet! Do you want OctoberCorp to get wind of what’s happened?” Oeufcoque
was speaking into the cell phone in Balot’s grip. “That’s right. Look up Shell’s file. Right away.”
There was a moment’s silence, then the Doctor’s voice, clearly surprised.
–Shell has a number of large outstanding debts that will be paid of by the woman’s life insurance
policy. As ever, he’s made money out of the woman. Her death certificate reads two hours ago exactly.
What sort of doctor would issue a certificate just like that?
The convertible was heading straight toward the Doctor at the Broilerhouse, but they were ready to
change their course at a second’s notice should new information arise. New information being Shell’s
whereabouts.
Balot stared ahead in a daze, thinking about the dead woman’s face.
“Cleanwill must have been expecting Shell to kill that woman. That’s what he meant by Shell losing
his rights as a Concerned Party in the case. If the murder is made public, there’s nothing to stop Boiled
fromofficially being hired as Trustee for OctoberCorp and apprehending Shell.”
–That’s incredible… Whatever else has happened, imagine sacrificing your own daughter…
“This is no time to start dissecting our opponent’s motives. It’s only a matter of time now before
OctoberCorp brings their case against Shell. We have to track him down by whatever means necessary.
Quickly and discreetly.”
–We have no idea of Boiled’s whereabouts either. What if he’s already with Shell?
“Use whatever pretext you can to track them down. The police are of no use at this stage. The one
thing we have going for us is the fact that there are still negotiations that need to take place before
OctoberCorp brings its case against Shell.”
–Are you planning on having Balot secure Shell’s person?
Balot’s eyes narrowed. Secure Shell—the words reminded Balot of something. What was it the
Doctor had said this morning, just before the trial had started?
“Once we have him in our care, use the police or special forces or whatever necessary to cordon off
the area.”
–If Shell had his memories back, Shell would stop killing people.
–Roger that. Wait, what was that? Shell’s memories? Balot, is that you speaking?
–You said so yourself before the trial started, Doctor. Shell can’t restrain his own urges because
he has no memories.
–Ah…yes, that’s right. Shell’s amnesia means that his urges grow and grow and have nowhere to
go, no escape, that’s what we were—
–Will you let me borrow something? I’ll be sure to return it safely.
–What’s that? Borrow? Are you talking about…
The Doctor gulped.
Oeufcoque took advantage of the small pause to interject. “Doctor, if Balot says she needs something,
you trust her judgment and hand it over without further ado. Got that?”
Something seemed to have got the Doctor’s tongue for a moment, but eventually he managed to speak.
–Fine, I’ll leave Shell’s security completely in your hands. The pair of you. Come over to the
Broilerhouse to—
His tone of voice changed abruptly.
–Just in! The first information disclosure on Boiled’s whereabouts. Shell called Boiled from a pay
phone on the banks of the East River. At around seventeen hundred hours. I’m going to publish the fact
that we’ve just had some negotiations with OctoberCorp ourselves, okay?
“Do it, Doctor. Force their hand, make themgive us as much information as possible.”
–There’s every chance that Shell is now hiding out somewhere in the vicinity of the phone booth.
Let’s use the pretext that he may be armed and dangerous in order to force the other side into
disclosing his exact location. I’ll get the DA to gather what information he can, top secret. So… Balot,
I’ll have what you need ready for you—just come on over to the Broilerhouse to pick it up.
–Thank you.
The phone cut off. The car sped on toward the Broilerhouse, and the monitor already showed a map
that displayed the likely whereabouts of Shell.
03
Shell arrived at the hotel room that Boiled had told him to come to. He sat down on the bed, and the
first thing he thought was Now I can become a dif erent person again.
He was even prepared. Thoroughly. Or so Shell thought, at least.
He had his overnight Boston bag on his lap, and he pulled out a bottle of Heroic Pills from inside his
jacket pocket and washed them down one by one, chugging a bottle of scotch as he did so. The Blue
Diamonds on the seven rings on his hands shone brilliantly.
The lenses on his Chameleon Sunglasses were a fawn color.
Before long the bottle of pills dropped out of his hand, and the bottle of scotch tipped over onto the
floor, its contents seeping into the carpet.
Why am I here? The question arose as Shell’s mind passed into an increasingly euphoric state. Is it a
good or bad thing that I’m here? Bad, if you consider that I’ve lost the battle that I’ve been fighting
for the last few months. But also good—that having lost the battle, I’m still here now, safe and sound.
He’d managed to run away. He had left the horrors firmly behind himand was now in a safe place.
The slate would be wiped clean. The past, so disagreeable—all that would be washed away. There
were no cracks in his shell—only the contents had been removed.
Shell hugged his Boston bag tight as he was filled with desire for his new life.
What good friends he had! That burly friend of his had proven himself indispensable in helping him to
acquire another one of these. Helping him turn that crazy woman into another one of these. While Shell
was strangling the woman in the bath, his burly friend had taken care of all the details. It was wonderful.
That other girl might still be chasing after him, but now he would always be able to repel her, destroy her,
subsume all thoughts of her.
Shell opened up his bag at one end and stuck a hand inside to feel its contents—newly minted bills. He
flipped through a wad of notes, and as the bills brushed against his fingertips he muttered. You like that,
don’t you, my little ones? You want some more, don’t you? Then he stopped suddenly and withdrew his
hand in haste. The corners of the bills had given him a number of paper cuts on his fingertips, and blood
was welling up.
Shell put his bleeding finger in his mouth and sucked away. The taste of his own blood spread to the
corners of his mouth. The taste brought to mind vestiges of an old memory. A memory that should have
been long since erased, but that clung tenaciously to the void of his inner mind nonetheless.
A giant shadow loomed over Shell as a young boy. Trace memories—all sorts of indecent things being
done to him. But he’d always managed to submerge the memories, the feelings, everything, in the girl,
whoever she was. He had repelled all, killed all, and turned everything that was dirty clean. He was
proud of this. This was his life.
He giggled out loud. Uncontrollably, as if his lungs were going into convulsions. Huhh huhh huhh. He
scrambled around for the bottle of scotch that lay on the floor. “See! That’s how I find what I’ve dropped.
I never lose anything. Shell never drops the ball. Ever.”
Gleefully, he gulped down the last of the liquid. Then he collapsed face-up on the bed and fell asleep
in his euphoric state.
In Shell’s dreams, the faces of all sorts of women appeared and disappeared.
Shell tried to remember each of their names, but the harder he tried the more elusive they became.
Eventually the girls’ faces swarmed together in a bizarre montage, and girls would appear with three
eyes or with nipples growing out of their noses. Then the melee of body parts all converged into one face.
Shell thought that he cried her name out, in his dream.
He felt an emotion welling up—love, the sort that makes you want to stick your chest out and hold your
head up high. It was for the first woman he had ever truly loved, the one he met only after he’d finally put
his mother to rest. Not so much a woman as a girl. But the girl herself had long since disappeared from
Shell’s memory, leaving only a lingering scent of her in his dreams. A scent full of sorrow. He wanted to
make everything clean. What was it that brought the two of them together, that caused their fates to be
intertwined so? The fearful, fearsome past?
Or were they simply in love? The sad smell seemed to reject every possible explanation.
A new shadow floated across—the shadow of the girl, dying and wasting away into nothingness.
Shell’s ire was turned toward the girl’s father. Shell spent many years tracking him down, and when he’d
finally found him, he killed him. But the father’s mind had been completely addled by drugs by then, and
he couldn’t even remember the things he had done to his own daughter.
His memory was gone, just as Shell’s was now. Shell had beat him to a pulp before finally snapping
his neck.
As Shell did so, he remembered his own memory disappearing. He had already forgotten what he was
doing even as he did it. I’ll make everything clean. I’m going to clean you up. All sorts of possibilities
occurred to him at that moment. He thought up a scheme to launder money. He thought of turning the girl
into a Blue Diamond. He thought of making the girl clean again.
Shell turned the desiccated remains of the girl into a Blue Diamond to wear alongside his mother, and
his mind gave up the ghost and his memories faded away completely. His mind may have been in deep
turmoil, but he knew how to use people.
By the time the diamond was ready, Shell’s mind was completely clear. He was relaxed again.
The Blue Diamonds that shone resplendent in the open air—they were Shell’s last hope.
In Shell’s dreams, the light shining off the diamonds suddenly changed.
The spirits of the girls who were to become diamonds. The ghosts of girls whose names he had long
since forgotten. Their faces were closed and expressionless, but this only made them seem more alluring
than ever. They stared down at their own laps with dark eyes, as if they were looking for a place to hide
themselves. Shell’s task was an easy one. All he had to do was give them an appropriate container, a
final resting place. He would lead the way for them, guide them.
Turn theminto the most beautiful thing in the world. But it didn’t always go according to plan.
The girl who had been engulfed by flames came back to life. It was as if she didn’t want to become
clean again.
In his dreams the girl was ablaze and walking toward Shell, step by step, until she finally grabbed
hold of him. The fire raged away, centered on the girl, and there was nowhere for Shell to run. Her
blackened fingers were around his throat, plastering it with her charred fingerprints.
Shell screamed. More flames erupted inside the girl, and she squeezed down on his throat with a grip
that was gentle but strong, so strong.
≡
Shell bounced up from the bed and realized that there was something on his neck, constricting him,
strangling him. He tried to get it off, but his actions were only making things worse.
Then he realized the truth: he was trying to strangle himself with his own hands.
His face convulsed in a bitter smile. His whole body was drenched in sweat.
He took off his Chameleon Sunglasses, now shining like moonlight, and placed his Boston bag on the
floor.
He realized that he was desperately thirsty and went into the bathroom to wash his face and drink
some water.
As he returned to the bedroom he noticed a ringing noise. Not the hotel room phone. Shell jumped for
his jacket and scrambled for his cell phone, which he found after a couple seconds’ fumbling. “Boiled?”
–Yes.
That sturdy voice. Shell smiled and put his sunglasses back on.
“I’ve just had the worst dream. Like a bad trip. A girl was on fire and she tried to strangle me,” Shell
said, relieved that help was now at hand. “Have you prepared everything as I asked you? I’m going to
head upstream into a different state. Once I’ve crossed the state borders, I’m a new person. I’ll play it
steady from now on. I’ll use my money to set up a legit business. No more gambling for me. That’s all
over.”
–I’ve received a new commission from OctoberCorp. I need to explain it to you clearly. On top of
that—
“What are you talking about, Boiled? Who cares about OctoberCorp anymore? I’m leaving this place,
saying goodbye forever to the whole damn city. I’mheading back to my roots.”
Boiled considered this in silence for a minute before answering.
–I thought that you were born in this city, on the East Side.
“What? Forget about that for now. Home is wherever I hang my hat. If I succeed there, that’s where
my roots are. I don’t know where to, but I’m heading back home now. And I’m grateful to you, Boiled, I
really am. If you hadn’t been there for me, that girl would have crushed me. Strangled me with her bare
hands. I really amgrateful. You’re a true friend.”
–Is that right?
“It is! My only real friend. You’re my rock—there’s no one I can rely on quite like you. You’ve saved
my neck so many times. Let’s stay in touch. Right, Boiled?”
–The PIs for the other side are looking for you right now. We’ve had to publish your rough
location, so they’re most probably already in your area. Try not to make yourself too conspicuous. It’s
probably best you wait until dawn—any ships leaving your area may be tailed. Everything changes if
they find you.
Shell’s brow furrowed, as if he didn’t quite understand Boiled’s meaning. “Are you saying you’ve
been feeding theminformation?”
–Information Disclosure. Unless we publicly share certain stipulated pieces of information, our
opposing case won’t be approved. I wouldn’t be able to work for you.
Shell frowned, rubbing his forehead with his other hand.
“I’ve got a bit of a headache, and I don’t think I’m following you. Here I am telling you that you’re a
valued friend to me, one I know would never betray me…”
Boiled was silent again. This time the pause was a long one. Shell thought he could hear the faintest of
murmuring from the other side of the phone, but then suddenly the line was cut off. Shell looked at his cell
phone with an uneasy expression.
The phone rang again. Surprised, Shell put it to his ear. “Boiled? What are you playing at?”
–I don’t want to die.
It was the voice of a girl. Shell stopped breathing. He felt as if the blood had frozen in his veins.
–But still you kill me.
Shell’s mouth was agape and his heart beat furiously.
The image of the girl in flames came rushing back. The girl who took his precious chips, her face
ablaze. Her name too flamed back into his mind.
There was a noise at his ear that gradually came together in the formof a man’s voice.
–Mr. Shell…
It was Boiled. Tears of relief flooded Shell’s eyes. “What was that voice just then? Was it trying to
scare me?”
–You’re listening in on this line, aren’t you, Oeufcoque? You’re near Shell right now, right?
“What? What’s that? God damn it, I’masking you a question, Boiled, answer me!”
–I’ll take care of you, Oeufcoque. Go and retrieve your bait. Then I’ll appear. That’s how we’ll do
this.
Shell shook his head. The area at the back of his head and neck throbbed with pain.
–Very well, Boiled. We’ll secure Shell’s person from our side.
A new voice echoed down the line, one that Shell had never heard before, and he was hit with another
bolt of fear. His whole body was now drenched in his own cold sweat.
–We’ve already finished evacuating the other guests from the hotel. We are going to solve this case
according to of icial procedure. In order to do so we need to ensure that Shell remains safe. We have
no desire to fight with you, Boiled.
–We are just tools, Oeufcoque, born into this world in order to create nihility. You’re a self-aware
tool, and I’m a human who wants to become a gun. Even your current user really wants to be able to
use you to kill. She just wants to do so legally, that’s all.
–Stop talking such garbage, Boiled. What are you hoping to achieve by killing Shell? What use is
there in massacring everyone in sight? What will be born of that?
Shell frowned.
–It’s not my job to be concerned about what may or may not be born, Oeufcoque.
–So you’re throwing your lot in with OctoberCorp, are you? That’s your choice, is it, Boiled?
“Boiled! Are you planning to kill me? You are, aren’t you? You’re planning to kill me!”
–Mr. Shell. I really do think we would have worked well together. We could have been far more
than just patron and client…
Shell’s face twisted. Boiled continued in his characteristic whispering tones.
–It’s a shame that circumstances have changed.
Then there was another noise—a number of sounds screeching together. The phone went dead.
≡
Shell stood rooted to the spot, the lenses in his Chameleon Sunglasses changing from pale blue to
stormy black. Everything was unreal, a dream, but then Shell snapped to and snatched up his Boston bag
and checked its side pocket for the reassuring feel of cold steel.
He pulled his automatic handgun out, not even bothering to check the magazine before pressing it down
against his leg, then hauled his bag over his shoulder. He felt more rooted, more secure.
Suddenly his cell phone started ringing again. Shell gritted his teeth and answered.
–This is Oeufcoque-Penteano here, PI and Trustee for this case. We are going to take you into our
protection. Remain there until we secure a safe route for your escape. When we arrive, we will expect
you to hand over all your weapons and come peacefully.
“Fuck off!” Shell yelled, flinging his phone to the floor and grinding it with his foot. The phone was
destroyed, the sound cut off.
Breathing roughly, his shoulders heaving up and down, Shell ran around the room quickly to turn all
the lights out.
The bedroom was on the second floor. Shell hid behind the curtains, peeking out of the window to try
and catch a glimpse of what was happening outside.
The lights in the room all flared back on. Suddenly, of their own accord. Shell watched in shock. The
night lamp was on, the bathroom light was on, and the ventilator in the bathroom was on, roaring. Shell’s
face was soaking wet—it was impossible to tell where the sweat ended and the tears started.
Then there was another sound. It was the old television, right next to Shell. There was white noise,
and then the image of a girl appeared on the screen. Her mouth opened in a round shape, and her wide
eyes and rigid fingers seemed like they were about to reach out for Shell’s throat at any moment.
–I didn’t want to die.
Shell watched in horror with bloodshot eyes as he listened to the girl’s voice.
–But I was killed byyou anyway.
Shell pointed his gun at the television and fired repeatedly. The monitor exploded, and sparks flew out
into the room. The image of the girl and her voice were wiped cleanly away. He had made everything
clean. Clean—and he felt his gut wrenching inside. His mouth was filled with the taste of sour liquid, and
he bent over double and vomited copiously.
His body heaved repeatedly, and sticky yellow liquid drooled fromhis mouth.
When he had finished, Shell stood back up and fired a shot at the ceiling light and at the bathroom
light. He put his hand to the doorknob and gripped it tight.
He was so frightened that his hair practically stood on end. There was a horrifying shade on the other
side of the door, he knew it. The thing that he had always fought to repel, to make disappear—it was
back, alive again, and standing right there.
Shell flung open the door with all his might and jumped out, brandishing his gun. He was confronted
by an empty corridor.
Shell’s last remaining shards of reason forced him to notice that something was very strange about this
whole situation.
Despite all the noise and gunfire coming from his room, there was not a single person about. There
was no sign of commotion.
He was suddenly struck by the feeling that whichever way he tried to go now, whatever he tried to do,
the outcome would be the same.
A horrible place to be. Flashbacks—his whole body convulsed at the thought that he would never,
could never, take another step again.
–Please do as I ask—it makes things so much more inconvenient otherwise.
The voice came from behind him, and Shell jumped. His whole body seemed to shriek. Shell’s eyes
darted around looking for the source of the voice as if his life depended on it.
–You see down there? Room 202? It seems that you can use one of its windows to jump across to
the next building.
The voice was coming fromthe intercomof the roomhe had just stepped out of.
He shot it, almost instinctively. Past the door and straight into the intercom. His bullets had run out
before he even knew it. Shell stuck his hand back into his bag.
Some money fell out, bills fluttering about. Shell found the spare magazine he was looking for and
reloaded his gun with a trembling hand, making for the elevator as he did so.
He had absolutely no idea what he should do next. If he saw something that moved, he planned to shoot
it. His mind couldn’t conceive of anything other than to kill.
He pressed the button and an elevator appeared almost immediately. Shell suppressed a wave of
nausea and jumped aboard. His fingers shook uncontrollably as he lifted them up to the buttons.
Eventually he managed to steady them long enough to press the button for the first floor. But the door
wouldn’t close. On the other side of the door was a wide stretch of open corridor that ran both left and
right. He felt hopelessly trapped.
–You do make us work for it, don’t you? The first floor of the hotel is closed, of -limits. The
emergency stairs, now, they would have been one thing. But I really didn’t expect you to try the
elevator.
The voice was coming from inside the elevator. Shell held his breath, and a beat later his mouth was
filled with sour liquid again. He kept it down, trying to steady his gun.
“What are you? Where are you speaking from?” Shell realized where the voice was coming from
almost immediately after he said the words—the elevator’s emergency circuits.
–I’m inside the building behind this hotel. Come over here and you’ll have any number of escape
routes.
“Who are you?”
–I’m one of the private investigators in charge of this case. A Trustee. Just think of me as someone
you want to do business with.
“A PI…” Shell took a deep breath. His forehead was pounding. He squeezed his gun tightly and asked
another question. “Are you planning to kill me?”
–On the contrary. You should think of me as your only friend for miles around.
“What sort of business are you talking about? What is it you want with me?”
–We’ll discuss that properly once you follow our escape route and make it out of there safely.
Hmm, room 202 is no good anymore. I can sense that Boiled is watching it. Anyway, all you need to
know is that I’m here to preserve your life. In return, we expect you to cooperate fully as an ef ective
witness on our side. We will expect you to pay for your own crimes in full, of course.
“What are you talking about? How are you going to get me out of here? Where are you taking me?”
–Try and stay calm. Room 207—the bathroom window there. You should be able to reach the
window of the building on the other side.
Shell’s breathing was all over the place, but he made up his mind, and with flashing eyes he stepped
out of the elevator.
He made a beeline for room207. He reached for the doorknob, and the moment before he touched it he
heard a click. The electronic lock had been lifted. Shell pushed the door with the muzzle of his gun, and it
swung lazily into the room.
There was no sign of life inside the room. No trace of a person that might have opened the lock on the
door. Shell entered the bathroomas ordered.
There was, indeed, a window there. He looked out of it, and it did seem that he might be able to cross
over to the next building. Shell shot the window frame to dislodge it, then kicked the whole window out
of the building. A musty wind blew in fromoutside.
Shell stuck his head out through the rectangular space, and, bag still on his shoulder, he maneuvered
awkwardly, stretching his leg out toward the next building, where an open window was already awaiting
him.
His outstretched leg reached the window frame, and then his gun-wielding hand. Finally, he shifted his
weight in one movement.
He was in. He dropped down from the window ledge, which was higher up relative to the floor than
he had anticipated. He landed with a thud.
His Boston bag slipped off his shoulder, and Shell thought he would collapse from the impact, but he
managed to stay upright.
There were no lights on in the room, but the natural light from the window was just about enough for
Shell to make out his new surroundings. It looked like some sort of abandoned store. It was completely
bare, with visible cracks running across the concrete walls. A number of large windows lined one of the
walls, and there was a cross marked out in tape.
Shell suddenly realized that he was standing on something soft. He looked down and noticed that
various objects were scattered across the concrete floor. He hoisted one of them up with the tip of his
gun.
It was a dull piece of cloth. He looked closer and realized that it was a skirt.
Farther along was a blouse. Even farther along—and his eyes came across a sight that made himjump.
A white coat, fluttering in the darkness.
He thrust his gun out quickly, and the skirt on its end fell to the floor.
At the end of his muzzle was a girl.
A girl encased fromtop to toe in white. She was looking his way.
“Rune-Balot…”
Shell called out the name of the girl that should have died in his dreams.
≡
Shell’s Chameleon Sunglasses were in the middle of transforming fromblue to red.
“Why, here… Why are you in a place such as this?” Shell’s inflamed red eyes stared at her in shock
frombehind the sunglasses. He kept his gun trained on her.
Without a word, Balot raised her hand for Shell to see.
In her hand was a cell phone. She tossed it over to him.
The phone bounced off his bag, and he caught it reflexively. Its monitor showed that a second had
already passed since a call had been initiated. It was on. Shell frowned, puzzled, and put the phone to his
ear.
–This is PI Oeufcoque here. Hand all your weapons over to the girl in front of you. Do so and
you’ll be recognized as a cooperating witness for our second case, and the Life Preservation Program
will take ef ect in order to protect you.
“Where are you? Why won’t you show yourself?”
–I’m near enough. Don’t trouble yourself. Or would you rather take your chances with your old
Trustee, now that your contract has been well and truly broken? He’s under a new contract with
OctoberCorp now, and I imagine he will take your life the moment he gets the opportunity.
“You say you’re ‘near enough’? Well, can you see what I’m doing now, then?” Shell’s glinting eyes
were on Balot. A crooked smile crossed his lips, and he stretched out his gun hand so that the muzzle was
pointing straight at Balot’s face.
Balot stared at Shell and his gun. She seemed, if anything, a little disappointed.
–What are you hoping to achieve by doing that? Do you really want to die? This is your last chance
to save yourself, you know.
“That’s right! This is my last chance! A woman is a gambler’s jinx!” Shell was shouting, like a
drowning man calling for help. “Oeufcoque. I remember that name. Boiled called you a talkative mouse.
Who gives a shit anymore why you don’t want to show yourself? Anyone who’s so dumb as to leave a girl
unprotected like this needs to be taught a lesson on how to negotiate.”
–You can try negotiating if you like, but you won’t get what you want, not that way. We have so
much more firepower than you.
Shell’s face warped into another sneer. He looked like he’d been hit in the face with a sledgehammer.
“Stop fucking with me! Come on out and face me like a man! Fuck me about any longer and I’ll shoot
the little bitch!”
–Oeufcoque. He’s threatening me. Mylife is in danger.
The cell phone suddenly spoke in a girl’s voice. A cold, indifferent voice.
Balot’s left hand rose up toward Shell. Her white glove squelched and became something else. It took
only a moment, and then, as if by magic, Balot was holding a gun in her hand.
Shell froze in shock. The trigger of Balot’s gun clicked into place of its own accord. That was all it
took. A shot rang out. FromShell—he couldn’t keep it in anymore.
Balot didn’t flinch. She just pulled the trigger quietly.
There was an explosion of sparks. Shell had no idea what was happening. The bullets met in a flash of
steel fragments, acrid smoke filling the surrounding space.
Balot fired again. And again. Shell managed to fire another shot back, not that it had much effect. Balot
allowed it to hit her body at the top of her shoulder, where it disintegrated into another mass of sparks. It
was as if she were deliberately showing himhow impenetrable her defense—her shell—was.
In the meantime, Balot fired coolly and repeatedly at Shell.
Shell staggered backward in a grotesque dance. His Boston bag was pierced by the bullets, but the
thick wads of notes shielded him, saving his life. His money was protecting him to the end, keeping him
out of harm’s way quite literally.
Balot fired again and again, always aiming precisely for where the bundles were the thickest.
Shell was like a sandbag now and took the volley of bullets, not even allowed to fall down.
Balot’s supply of bullets was virtually inexhaustible. Shell’s supply of banknotes was not.
Eventually, Balot brought her volley to a close. Shell collapsed backwards, and millions of tiny
fragments of what used to be his bag were scattered around the area, mixed with the confetti that moments
before had been Shell’s money.
Balot closed in slowly on Shell, now a pathetic figure on the floor taking sniveling breaths.
Suddenly Shell raised his head, gritted his teeth, and thrust his gun out again. His hands and face were
covered with scraps of banknotes, pasted to himwith his own sweat.
His trembling hand pulled the trigger, but Balot could see his movement as if it were in slow motion.
She shot the bullet down in front of her as easily as if it had been a balloon.
The bullets met, and the impact caused red and yellow sparks to fly.
Before the sparks had even finished dying down, Balot had put three bullets into Shell’s hand with
lethal accuracy: through the grip and into his index, middle, and ring fingers respectively.
The rest of the bullets in Shell’s magazine exploded, bathing the room in their incandescent white
light. His fingers were torn off, and the Blue Diamonds glistened like tears as they rolled to the floor, still
attached to their fingers.
Shell collapsed.
His Chameleon Sunglasses were a deep scarlet as they smashed against the floor, and their fragments
scattered like blood. His quivering right hand no longer had a single finger attached to it. His days as a
sharp—a professional gambler—were over. The right side of his face was shredded by steel shrapnel
fromthe explosion.
Balot stared at Shell and the state he was in.
Shell could barely breathe. The right side of his face was drenched in black and reflecting light.
Perhaps he was crying.
Balot knelt down next to himand reached out with her left hand, the one that held the gun.
Shell tried weakly to wriggle away from her. As he did so, the gun in Balot’s hand squelched and
disappeared. Something else appeared in its place.
Shell’s eyes focused on it with trepidation.
It was the thing that Balot had received from the Doctor at the Broilerhouse. Or rather, things. Four of
them. The four storage devices used in Shell’s Clapping, his memory extraction operations. The chips.
Shell’s eyes grew wider and wider.
–Here you are. I want you to have these back.
Shell’s eyes moved slowly from the chips up to Balot’s face. Balot touched Shell’s temple with her
right hand. She located the terminal. The fiberoptic circuit that connected straight to Shell’s brain.
Balot snarced.
Shell’s body bent backward and went rigid. His eyes opened so wide that it seemed as if his eyeballs
might pop out of his skull, but instead they started flickering rapidly.
Without her realizing it, Balot’s left hand had closed tightly over her four chips.
Her right hand was still pressed against his temple, and before long Balot had got the measure of the
circuits to Shell’s brain.
–Everything that you’ve lost, I’m going to give back to you.
Balot took the vast amount of information contained in her left hand and started to feed it through the
circuits and into Shell’s brain. Carefully, so as not to overload or damage anything.
At first Shell didn’t understand what was happening, but soon his face started twitching, and a crazed
voice leaked out.
“Stop it…”
His eyes rolled back in his head so that only the whites showed. An unearthly scream left his mouth. A
cry of despair. His mouth started frothing, then bubbled up, and blood poured fromhis nostrils.
Balot remained silent and continued to feed Shell’s memories back into his mind. His destroyed
gestalt was gradually reconstructed, and even his paralyzed nerve circuits were being repaired
electronically.
It wasn’t possible to manipulate his nerve cells directly, of course, but it was possible to restore the
outlines of all the events that had taken place, with details of how they all related to each other, memories
of the sights and sounds and smells and other stimuli.
Shell’s screamcontinued for a long time. This was the man who had voluntarily chosen to be an empty
husk of a man, but Balot was now forcibly pumping the rotten contents that he’d been turning away from
for so long back into him.
Eventually Shell was all screamed out, but the operation continued unabated for about thirty minutes.
Only because of Balot’s incredible aptitude was such a speed possible.
Her glove squelched and swallowed up the chips again for safekeeping.
When she was finished, Balot touched the still-unconscious Shell’s head and communicated directly
via the circuits in his brain.
–If you take good enough care of it then even a rotten egg might eventuallycome back to life.
Shell slept. Throughout the whole operation, from start to end, he hadn’t even looked at Balot once.
Just like when he’d waved goodbye to her from outside the car that trapped her. He hadn’t really been
looking at her—only his own reflection. You reap what you sow, Balot thought, and then she realized that
this applied to herself as well. She had never loved Shell and never wanted to. All she had ever wanted
was to be loved.
She felt a great void disappear—where there had been a sorrowful emptiness inside her, now she was
feeling complete again.
The very next instant she sensed something approaching the building they were in. She gulped.
It was threat personified. A cold killing machine in the shape of a giant. And it was drawing near.
“Boiled is coming…” Oeufcoque murmured, for he too had sensed the impending danger.
Balot nodded. She felt overwhelming pressure bearing in on her from all around, and she shivered.
For a moment she forgot about Shell, forgot about herself, forgot about the dead girls and their accursed
lives—everything was wiped cleanly fromher mind.
For that alone, Balot found herself feeling almost thankful.
04
–All air traf ic has been cut of ! Boiled has put in a thousand dif erent investigation requests to the
aviation authorities!
Balot heard the Doctor’s voice shouting down the cell phone in frustration. “Investigating the airways?
What’s he playing at?” asked Oeufcoque.
–It’s not the investigations themselves that are important. He’s sent in aerial camera crews,
weather balloons, that sort of thing, so as to block of all the flight paths. Humpty can’t get permission
to enter any airspace on safety grounds. I can exercise my rights as a Trustee to get them out of the
area, but it’ll take time for the messages to get through. Too much time. We’ve fallen right into his
trap. What do we do?
“We prepare to defend ourselves and try to escape. What else is there? Even if the police were to
come to our aid, there’s no guarantee that we’d be able to keep Shell to ourselves. If OctoberCorp has its
way, Shell will be shot dead on the spot. There’s nothing else to do—we have to protect Shell,”
Oeufcoque said, as businesslike as possible.
Balot could tell, though, that Oeufcoque was worried—and suffering for it. She listened to the
conversation, tuning in to Oeufcoque’s feelings as he spoke to the Doctor in the formof a cell phone in her
hands.
She sensed Boiled moving toward them somewhere outside the building. He would stop now and then
to touch the building, and every time he did so Balot felt it as keenly as if it were her own body he was
touching. He was closing in on them, like a grand master seeking out the opening that would allow him to
checkmate.
Oeufcoque and the Doctor conversed quickly now. Oeufcoque kept a level head throughout. At no
point did he even consider the possibility of giving up the case. This saved Balot—and gave her an
answer to the question What should I do?
Outside the building, Boiled was moving in a peculiar way, cutting off their escape routes as he closed
in.
There was only one of him. There should have been any number of ways they could have run. And yet
there was no escape route. It was as if they were surrounded by an army of a hundred.
This was another answer to Balot’s question.
–I’ll protect us all.
Oeufcoque and the Doctor fell silent as Balot snarced the phone.
–How long until you can get here, Doctor?
–Two hours should be—no, I’ll make it there in an hour. Believe me.
–Sure. I believe you. I won’t run away.
–No, no, if it gets too dangerous then please do run away. I’m begging you.
–All right.
–I’m trusting in you, Balot, Oeufcoque. I’ll be there to pick you up as soon I can.
The conversation ended and the display on the cell phone went blank. Balot placed it on the floor.
“What exactly are you planning?”
–Please, help me with this.
Balot snarced her bodysuit to speak to Oeufcoque.
Shell had received rudimentary first aid—he was bandaged up and laid out on the concrete floor at
Balot’s feet.
He looked almost like a mummy. He was trussed up in bandages, gauze, and ropes that bound his arms
and legs. All Made by Oeufcoque.
Perhaps due to the magnitude of the memories that had just been crammed back into his mind, Shell
showed no sign of moving or regaining consciousness.
He might have been drowning in a sea of dreams from his murky past, but his face was tranquil as he
slept. Balot felt a pang of relief—perhaps it was true. Now that he had his memories back, his murderous
urges might finally subside.
Balot knelt down to pick up Shell, who was as limp as a rolled-up carpet. Oeufcoque helped her. Here
and there her bodysuit turned into a metal exoskeleton to support Shell’s weight.
Balot propped the sleeping Shell over her shoulder and went to the garbage disposal chute in one
corner of the room. Checking first that there was no shredder or pulverizer at the other end, she lifted
Shell’s body into the opening, holding on to himby the lapel of his shirt.
“Aren’t you going to let himgo?”
–Not yet.
Oeufcoque realized immediately what Balot meant by this. He was genuinely impressed.
She was waiting for the right moment. If Boiled was trying to ensnare them, she’d ensnare him back.
Shrewd tactics—it was a gamble that relied on split-second timing.
She confirmed that Boiled was just about to enter through the front door, and she knew the moment
was right.
–Bye-bye, Shell.
Balot snarced the words into Shell’s brain and kissed himlightly on the forehead.
At the same time she let go. Shell’s body slid down the chute, making a screeching sound as it did so
before landing with a dull thud at the other end.
Boiled stopped still outside the front door. He touched the wall with his hand so that he could grasp
what was going on, and it was clear he was considering what had just happened. Boiled understood
Balot’s intentions. He also understood just how serious she was. Boiled walked closer to the front door.
Suddenly Balot’s knees started to wobble. She was gripped with the fear that came from knowing that
she had burnt her last bridge—thrown away her last chance to escape. She opened her voiceless mouth to
breathe in deeply, bringing herself back fromthe verge of panic.
Oeufcoque called out to her. “Balot.” Balot squeezed her bodysuit tight.
–There are lots of people I’ve wanted to be loved by. But you’re the only one I’ve ever wanted to
love myself.
She spoke to Oeufcoque as she sensed him covering her whole body. She showed him her will, and
her courage.
–I know the person we’re fighting now used to be a friend of yours, so I’ll do my best to stop him
without hurting him too much.
Oeufcoque seemed to be inhaling Balot’s very intentions. To face an enemy as powerful as Boiled
with the handicap of merely trying to disarm him—that was virtually suicide, a death wish. Boiled would
ruthlessly exploit any perceived weakness to drive his advantage home.
Balot hugged her bodysuit still tighter. It was the weapon that covered her. Snug and tight.
–I won’t kill him. I won’t be killed. I won’t let him kill.
This was what she had learned from Oeufcoque, after all, and it was the only answer that she could
give.
“We won’t kill. We won’t be killed. We won’t let him kill,” Oeufcoque repeated, as if it were some
sort of mantra. “That’s an extremely difficult task we’ve set ourselves. But…it’s worth trying.”
Slowly Balot took her hands away fromher shoulders and placed themback at her sides.
“I’ve got a good partner.”
With that, Balot felt Oeufcoque turn again. He wrapped Balot thoroughly, to protect her and to be her
weapon, ready to respond instantly to her snarc.
Balot snarced her left glove. A metallic mass appeared. She gripped it tightly and felt its weight
become part of her body. Balot and Oeufcoque were one.
≡
Balot remembered how it was she used to survive.
Bad customers and good customers, she used to act in the same way: she just killed her breath and
waited.
Waiting until she became used to it. Releasing herself into space. So that her heart wouldn’t be
trapped in one place. It was harrowing in the extreme. Looking back, she was amazed at herself for
putting up with so much.
It was all different now. And yet it was also the same. She had to do something. If she stopped her
own breath, she knew she would die. But if she lost her focus on her opponent, she would also die. There
was no point now in trying to escape from the reality that she was here. If she tried to box her heart up
and put it somewhere for safekeeping, it would mean she wouldn’t be able to be here right now. She just
couldn’t afford to hide her heart away.
She kept a steady rhythm, extending her consciousness, searching for a road to victory, letting go.
She took a quiet breath in. Then out. She sensed that Boiled had reached the top of the stairs. She felt
the temperature in the roomdrop. Such was the creature that now stood on the other side of the thin door.
“I’m disappointed…” A voice came from beyond the door. A thick, heavy voice—one that she could
have heard wherever she stood. “I anticipated that you would kill Shell for me.”
Something about the way Boiled spoke struck Balot as being very incongruous.
“You know the way I do things.”
The words pressed down on her now. Her breathing slipped, and she corrected herself, ensuring she
maintained her breathing rhythm at all costs. Suddenly Balot realized why Boiled’s words had struck her
as being so strange.
“Tweedledee was delighted to have found someone like you. Someone the same as him,” said Boiled.
Boiled was speaking directly to Balot, and to Balot alone. He had always spoken to Oeufcoque in
the past.
“I’mdelighted too, for the same reasons,” continued Boiled.
The air in the room went from cold to freezing. The oppressive air threatened to rob Balot of all her
senses. But Balot was prepared for this. She felt a moment’s opening within the rhythm that she had been
keeping, and she knew she had to take it. She knew that Boiled would be ready too. She had to bet
everything on that fearful moment. She steadied her gun.
Balot realized all too well that she was hoping against hope for the jackpot. Boiled’s jackpot—she
had to wait for him to make the first move. After all, she could fire as many bullets as she liked at him,
thousands, but they’d all be deflected.
Her only choice was to aim for the instant that Boiled couldn’t generate his PseudoGravitational
Float. The instant that he fired his own gun.
With those thoughts running through her head, Balot started firing. Over and over. Aiming for his gun
hand.
The fateful bullets should have flown straight toward Boiled, blowing his own bullets off course along
the way.
But Balot realized that something had gone wrong. It wasn’t only the air that felt as cold as ice—now
the cold was encroaching on her heart.
Boiled hadn’t fired. She’d fallen for his feint. A circle opened up in the door, a circumference of
bullet holes. The bullets that Balot had fired that were supposed to converge on one single point. Balot
immediately crossed her arms to protect her face. A moment later she felt the impact.
Boiled’s bullet slammed into her crossed arms.
She flew backward.
The shock pummeled her very consciousness just as much as it did her flesh.
The door flew open and Boiled piled into the room.
Balot was numb, but the impact of the giant figure entering her territory brought her abruptly back to
her senses.
She fell onto her back and rolled backward farther still to absorb the shock, then stood right back up
again. She moved like a prima ballerina, leaving everything to her body’s instincts and to the suit that
covered her. She stopped thinking with her mind and went with the flow.
She checked that both arms were still working fine, which they were. She had been far enough away.
Oeufcoque was just strong enough to protect Balot from bullets fired from a distance. It would have
been a different story at point-blank range.
Boiled moved in to close that distance. Balot’s eyes filled with the giant man advancing on her with
murderous intent.
Balot suppressed the fear and scowled. She snarced Boiled with all her might, as if she were baring
her teeth. He noticed just in time.
Boiled’s whole body jumped up, like a football, and he fell to the ceiling. He twisted his body around
so that he was just out of range of Balot’s snarc. On the ceiling. Only a few meters away.
Still, he was too far for her to try and penetrate his gravity shield and snarc the technology inside him.
At the same time, though, Boiled was too far away to be able to pierce Balot’s bodysuit with his gun.
It was a deadly standoff, and whichever one of them could get just in range in order to fire the fatal blow
just in time would emerge victorious.
Again Balot unloaded the contents of her gun at Boiled. He ran across the ceiling and hid himself
behind a pillar.
Balot fired at the pillar in a reflex reaction. No sooner had she done so did she realize that this was
Boiled’s second feint. He had already started running down the pillar, and he extended his arm and a
cacophonous roar exploded.
She may have been able to sense his location, but she couldn’t predict which way he would move in
his three-dimensional space.
Balot’s mind went blank as she sprang to the side.
The artillery-shell-like bullet grazed her shoulder. A small corner of her suit tore off and burst into
yellow flame. But Boiled’s bullet had still missed her actual body.
Balot rolled away to a safe distance, but as she did so Boiled kicked against the pillar he was
climbing down and flew sideways across the room. Or rather, he fell sideways, toward one of the walls.
Balot simply couldn’t tell what was coming next, and she hastily battled down the growing,
treacherous feelings of inadequacy that were about to erupt inside her. Immediately she reached out and
grasped the situation in the room, as if to convince herself to believe in her own abilities again.
Her opponent could move as he liked. The important thing to Balot was that she knew where she was.
Balot’s mind flipped through all the places in the room that were likely to put her at the greatest
advantage. In barely a second she had determined her spot, and she ran for it.
A battle of life and death was essentially a battle of will. If your will was taken away from you, so
was your ability to move. That’s how you became so pathetically incapable of even lifting a finger. Well,
Balot wasn’t about to let that happen to her a second time.
Balot ran, and as she did so she gave up on the idea of trying to predict Boiled’s next move. Just as
she would give up on a busted hand in blackjack and turn her mind to a new hand that she might stand a
chance of winning. Instead of trying to second-guess Boiled’s position, she would make sure that her own
position was as good as it could be. She continued toward her perfect position, the place she knew she
could use, and as she did so she fired off a number of shots at Boiled as a feint, to try and distract him
fromher maneuver.
Balot was seeking the perfect moment, a single opportunity. She needed split-second accuracy and
willpower to find the chink in Boiled’s armor, so that she could fire her arrow of Paris at his Achilles’
heel.
All while Boiled was in turn cutting off her escape routes and looking for his opening.
When Balot tried to slip behind a pillar, Boiled was one step ahead of her. He broke into a run across
the wall and jumped. He was like a giant jaguar on the trail of a fawn in the headlights. It was the danse
macabre. He landed on the ceiling and took three more leaps, as if he were moving along a carefully
choreographed path. With his final step, his upper body spun around, and he thrust out his gun in a final
pose.
With the muzzle trained on Balot’s unprotected back, he put his finger on the trigger, ready to fire.
That same instant the darkness all around flared up white, and the brightness assaulted Boiled’s eyes.
Balot had snarced one of the lights in the ceiling, judging the timing just right.
Boiled’s eyes narrowed. The light was coming from right below him, making it impossible to see
Balot in her white bodysuit.
Boiled’s eyes darted from left to right to try and locate her, his finger hovering over the trigger. Just
then he heard a loud noise somewhere overhead, on the floor.
He honed in the muzzle on the sound and fired. Then he gasped. A reflex action, without thought or
meaning behind it.
Boiled’s shot pulverized its target. Only thing was, the target was the cell phone that Balot had placed
on the floor just a moment ago. She had snarced its ringtone to play. Balot herself, of course, was
nowhere to be seen.
Boiled realized immediately that he was in a trap. He prepared to move but found his whole world
plunged into darkness again. Balot had used her snarc for the third time in quick succession, turning the
lights off again.
Boiled lost his bearings, so sudden was the darkness in which he had been engulfed.
He realized what Balot was up to.
She was right underneath him. Both arms above her head, pointing her gun right at him. She had given
up trying to anticipate his movements and in doing so had found herself the perfect position. She had
doubled down, staking everything. But even as Boiled had temporarily lost the use of his eyesight due to
the sudden light and dark, his years of training and experience as a soldier kicked in, and he was able to
anticipate Balot’s next move.
Balot fired her gun so quickly that fire seemed to dance around the muzzle. A fraction of a second
later, Boiled crouched down, activating his PGF, using it as instant body armor.
Balot’s first few shots squeezed past, just before the impenetrable shield had been fully activated.
Bullets pierced Boiled’s right arm and leg, causing fragments of material from his jacket to flutter to the
floor. But that was all. The rest of the bullets had their flight paths diverted, creating a ring of bullet holes
that encircled Boiled on the ceiling where he crouched.
Even as his body took the bullets, Boiled removed his gun from under his right arm and aimed. He
wasn’t relying on his eyes anymore, but even so he had a perfect shot at Balot’s chest. Balot sensed
Boiled looming in the darkness and shuddered.
Had the first few bullets that had slipped past the impenetrable shield managed to hit home in Boiled’s
head or heart, the outcome might have been different. Or if the bullets had been of a higher caliber,
powerful enough to blow off his arms and legs… But now was no time for excuses. The simple fact was
that the moment Boiled had worked out Balot’s position based on her actions, he’d seen through her. Her
double down had failed spectacularly. Bust.
Balot scrambled away as quickly as she could, desperately trying to put distance between herself and
her giant oppressor. She was also simultaneously snarcing her gun to make it larger, give it a bigger
aperture—all unconsciously, of course; it was a manifestation of her earlier shiver of fear.
A deadly roar assaulted her. A bullet slammed into her left breast and she went flying backward. It
was almost as if it were the noise itself that was forcing her back.
Balot was saved by her positioning. She smashed into one of the taped-up glass windows.
The window crumbled into fragments, and light scattered all around. Had it been a wall that she’d hit,
there would have been nowhere for the shock to travel, and her rib cage would have shattered. But
because the bullet threw Balot into the air and out of the building, much of the energy was dissipated and
the impact to her body was lessened.
Her bodysuit had hardened instantly to form a defensive breastplate, and this now crumbled away,
having absorbed the shock. At the same time the hems of her bodysuit spun out new material, wrapping
Balot up as she scrunched herself into a ball in midair as she fell through the window and toward the
ground below.
A giant white egg formed around her and bounced like a rubber ball against the street.
Two or three times it bounced, hitting the wall of the building on the other side of the street. A crack
appeared in the egg. The white bulletproof container opened up and Balot emerged. Her hems returned to
normal, and fragments of shock-absorbent material fell off her like powder.
She sensed Boiled pointing his gun at her from the other side of the window. In a slick, inevitable
movement, Balot fired at him. Boiled fired. The bullets clashed, and Boiled’s deflected round hurtled into
a lamppost. The lamppost toppled and smashed into the street, scattering shards of debris.
As this was happening, Balot summoned a shield. A car—headlights blazing—sped over to her to
hide her body. It took the bullets meant for her, its door smashed and hood crushed. Balot jumped out of
the way just in time to see its gas tank igniting and spewing out a tongue of fire.
Across the fire, she sensed Boiled jumping down fromthe window.
Balot summoned another car just before he landed. Not as a shield this time—the car’s lights flashed
on and off aggressively as it hurtled toward the spot Boiled was going to land on.
Boiled fired at it the moment he landed. One of the tires blew, and the car flipped onto its side and
careened into a telephone booth before slamming into the storefront of a multi-purpose building.
Hiding behind the wall of fire, Balot focused her senses on how much damage Boiled had taken.
Two bullets to his right upper arm, one to his right thigh. Blood was spilling from the wounds,
dripping down his armand leg.
Even so, the walking menace known as Boiled loomed as threatening as ever.
Voices were heard—townspeople, tentatively emerging from nearby buildings, reacting to the
commotion. Then a voice closer to home—an old man emerged from the entrance hall that had been
wrecked by the car. He was yelling something and brandishing a shotgun.
Balot stared at himin surprise, but Boiled’s left hand was casually lifted up and pointed right at him…
Balot fired as quickly as she could to stop Boiled. Boiled was forced to activate his anti-gravity
shield, which changed the flight path of his own ferocious bullet—instead of taking out the old man, the
bullet slammed into the wall of the building right next to him. The old man was thrown, and his shotgun
fired off in a random direction, smashing the shop window of a building on the other side of the street.
The old man collapsed in fright, and a couple of younger men jumped out of the building he had emerged
fromand hastily dragged himback inside.
“When monsters like us fight each other, civilians only get in the way,” Boiled muttered, and fired at
the wrecked car now embedded in the storefront. The hydrogen-powered engine, so typical in the River
Side district, didn’t stand a chance. The car flared up and the whole building trembled violently.
That was all it took for the remaining bystanders to run back into the safety of their buildings. Boiled
and Balot were the only two people left in the street on the whole block.
Boiled ejected his empty cartridge, and it clattered to the ground with a metallic ring. He used his
blood-soaked right hand to pull out a speed loader fromhis pockets and effortlessly reloaded his gun.
“As long as the gunfire continues, the police around here will keep their distance.” His voice was as
eerily calmas ever. “Let’s finish what we started.”
He shook his revolver sideways. The cylinder was now back in position.
For a moment Boiled seemed to Balot not only inhuman but something quite otherworldly. His face
was blank. His eyes were utterly ruthless, glinting with fire. His limbs were as steel, impervious to pain.
And his heart was an engine fueled by hatred and murderous intent, its only purpose to combust and
consume all in an explosion of nothingness.
Balot bit down hard on her lip. She tried desperately to avoid taking to heart the phrase Boiled had
just spoken so casually. Monsters like us.
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
himthe 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 themin 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’mgoing 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
maximumdisadvantage.
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.
She hadn’t been able to master it at first, all that time ago. With her father. The image of his bearded
face flashed up in the back of her mind…the way he undressed her, taking off her school uniform with his
hands that had lost half of their fingers. Nauseating.
Erase it all!—I’m going to make it clean! I’m going to clean you up! I’d be better of dead. The
bustle of the pleasure quarter. The noises that drifted in through the car windows. Erase the pain—
turn the switch on and the giant shredder would get rid of anyone, close family or complete stranger.
To be human is—to hurt. I just wanted to be loved. That’s the goal. That’s the trophy. I’m going to
fuck you. I’m going to fuck you up. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts!
There was the encroaching despair, and there was her heart that struggled tooth and nail to fight it off.
Her stomach cramped. Her throat undulated, her mouth was filled with bile, and vomit dribbled down her
chin. She cried. She cried as she puked. She didn’t want to die. Such was the desperate cry of one who
had never experienced unconditional love. She didn’t want to die.
–Ash, cash, trash, crush…
She didn’t want to die in this sorry state. The acrid taste of smoke was back in her mouth once more.
–Bash, rush, hash, gosh!…
She heard the nonsense rhyme spinning around. Balot’s eyes closed and she was ready to sleep.
–Dish, wash, brush, flush…
She realized that a powerful electric current was passing through Oeufcoque and stimulating her pain
receptors on her skin. She grasped the sensation, not as real pain, but as an artificially induced
phenomenon.
–Flash, flesh…
The pain grew distant, and she came to her senses. Her fetid past subsided, and only her will to live
remained.
–Wish…
Balot’s eyes snapped open.
She realized that she was lying flat. A white defensive wall like an egg protected Balot, taking the
bullets meant for her. Less than five seconds had passed since Balot had collapsed.
The pain had disappeared, but now Balot sensed the terrifying reality of her surroundings more keenly
than ever. She felt that she could now sense the movement of even the hairs on Boiled’s head as he fired
at her fromthe wall he was standing on.
She gripped both her guns tightly. In an instant it all came flooding back to her: which gun to use and at
what time. Which chip would draw out the right cards; which chip would gain that decisive victory. The
muzzle on her left gun grew larger, and the caliber of the gun increased.
Balot stood up. That same moment, her protective shell powdered to dust, because Oeufcoque had
dissolved the barrier, and because Boiled had fired another shot right into it.
Boiled stood on the wall, virtually an arm’s length away fromBalot.
His shot brushed past Balot’s right flank and thundered into the distance.
Pieces of white shock-absorbent material flew in every direction. Balot’s right arm rose up
tentatively, shaking like a newly hatched chick who had just pecked its way out of its shell, but when she
did manage to raise it her aimwas true.
Boiled’s eyes opened wide in surprise and delight.
Balot’s right hand unloaded all ten rounds in her gun in three and a half seconds flat.
At the same time, her left hand had unleashed her snarc’s fangs—she had caught Boiled’s left leg with
her snarc and was tearing into it.
The PGF wall that protected Boiled lost integrity, and a number of the bullets unleashed from Balot’s
left gun hit home, piercing his arms and shoulders. Blood and sparks gushed out of his left thigh.
Boiled’s body seemed to float in midair. Or so it seemed at first to Balot, but then she realized that he
had simply lost the strength to stay attached to the wall, and now his giant frame was falling toward her.
This was her chance. Balot prepared for the exact moment to fire her left-hand gun.
The left sleeve of her bodysuit turned with a squelch into a metal support frame to help her arm
withstand the incredible recoil that would come fromfiring such a massive weapon.
But Boiled wasn’t finished yet. Indeed, it was in just such moments that his true ferocity was revealed.
Even his apparent collapse was a feint. Without warning, he placed both feet on the wall and stood
firm. The next instant he hurled the butt of his massive metal gun straight toward Balot’s head with such
power the air howled as it parted.
Balot’s head flipped to one side to dodge. The sledgehammer blow grazed her forehead, ripping her
skin open. The searing pain should have been immense.
But Balot had decided to stop feeling pain. Even if her skull had caved in at this point, she was
moving with such sureness that she felt confident she would still finish her action.
She found the chink in Boiled’s armor and carried out her sequence of attacks.
She threw her invisible fangs, her snarc, at Boiled’s PGF wall to open up a hole.
A small opening, but it was enough. It took only one small card to spell the difference between defeat
and decisive victory. Balot’s left hand fired the gun into the opening.
The shock of the recoil caused her metal brace to shudder and fall off. Such was the caliber of the gun.
And it was the bullet fromthis gun that now bored a hole all the way through Boiled.
The bullet pierced his left femur—and with it, the core of one of the four devices implanted in his
limbs to generate his PGF.
Boiled’s left leg swelled up from the inside like a balloon—and ruptured. The leg exploded into a
mass of flesh and bone and blood, creating a shower of red and white somewhere above Balot’s head.
The very next moment, Boiled had his leg—severed from the thigh down—in his hands and was
brandishing it as a weapon.
Then some invisible force kicked Balot in the chest with tremendous power.
She flew fromthe sidewalk and her back slammed down onto the road. She jumped back up as quickly
as she could.
Her body felt no pain. Her senses were clear, her heart calm.
Even so, she was somewhat taken aback at the sight she now faced.
Boiled walked down from the wall onto the sidewalk. His left leg was missing from just above his
thigh. But this hadn’t stopped himone iota; he walked on a phantomleg in its place.
Boiled had cranked up his remaining four antigravity devices to the fullest and made a leg-shaped
PGF field where his real leg had been. He was barely bleeding, either—Balot could see that his PGF
acted as an antigravitational tourniquet to stop the flow of blood fromthe exposed arteries.
“I won’t be stopped just because I lose a limb or two, you know,” Boiled whispered in a deep voice.
Then he charged.
Balot trembled. She fired quickly with her right-hand gun. Had she been able to use her voice, she
would have screamed something between a shriek and a war cry as she fired over and over. Boiled’s
PGF was still there and it still deflected the flight paths of the bullets, but only just, and it wasn’t perfect.
Small gaps were opening up. Several bullets weaved their way through the openings and managed to skim
Boiled’s flesh.
But Boiled wouldn’t stop. He ran straight at her, bringing down his blood-soaked right arm.
The air seemed to distort, and a physical mass of antigravity bore down on Balot.
Breathtaking force descended on her fromthe left, fromthe right, fromthe front.
Boiled’s blow caused Balot’s whole body to hurtle backward. She flew across the road and through
the shop window of the building opposite. Oeufcoque covered her body as best he could, but Balot
snarced so that he focused his protection on a few vital areas. Boiled had thrown caution to the wind and
half-surrendered his shield. If she didn’t respond and do likewise, she wouldn’t be able to truly face him
down.
Balot clambered straight back up. Her surroundings were littered with broken glass from the window,
and a number of stereos and other boys’ toys were lying around on the floor.
Boiled pushed his PGF wall further in order to bring down pressure on Balot’s surroundings.
Boiled drew near, and the moment he had his gun up again and ready to strike, Balot snarced. She
turned all the building’s lights on in a flash, dazzling Boiled as he drew near.
Again, Balot was virtually invisible against the backdrop of the bright lights, and again Boiled fired at
her, not with any semblance of aimor accuracy, merely to keep shooting, to keep the pressure up. A stereo
beside her exploded, but even as Boiled fired she was running out of the shop onto the pavement, falling
to her side, and she fired at himagain and again with her right-hand gun.
Balot didn’t bother using her eyes either. She just sensed her opponent’s position—his existence. She
felt her own existence. She felt the flow of life and death that the two of themcreated by the mere virtue of
existing.
Her opponent—the other existence—jumped into space and landed on the wall just above the
shattered shop window.
Balot continued firing at him, tracking his movements accurately, and she jumped quickly to her feet.
A bullet that Boiled fired back grazed the top of her shoulder. Her bodysuit, Made by Oeufcoque, was
ripped open, and the shock-resistant material fluttered around in fiery pieces, ignited by the heat of the
terrifying bullet.
Then, without hesitation, Balot did the thing that she needed to do in order to take advantage of her
situation.
She walked straight toward Boiled, firing as she advanced.
Boiled, too, walked straight along the wall.
“Curiosity…” he murmured, releasing another howling bullet as he spoke. “I just wanted to do this
with you. With you two.” Boiled’s expression at this point could have been described as bold and daring,
were it not for the vicious smile that played across his lips.
Balot’s eyes opened wide. The right sleeve of her suit was squelching and turning into a weapon that
she hadn’t used before. A number of threads of light emerged from her right wrist and flew at Boiled. It
wasn’t until after the deadly weapon had already been released did Balot remember somewhere at the
back of her mind that such a thing had once been used on her by the assassins that attacked her. Wire
whips.
Boiled’s gravity shield managed to repulse the wires amid a mass of violent midair explosions of
sparks and fire.
As this was happening, Balot snarced one of the wires so that it went straight up and wrapped itself
around the aluminumsash window frame, the one the old man had previously fired at with his shotgun.
Sparks flew, and the metal window frame was chopped roughly in half.
The wires came speeding back in toward her, and Balot was pulled up into the air by the momentum.
Balot kicked her legs down against the wall of the building as hard as she could. She soared into the
air. She was flying.
Using her bodysuit to glide through the air, Balot felt the flow created by the two of them, the clash of
steel in this bloodthirsty and unforgiving world.
And then her feelings dissipated. It was as if her very existence was dissolving and then disappearing
completely. This was how the two of themsurvived.
Now Balot’s very feelings were the flow. Balot was the flow of battle.
One of Boiled’s bullets sped toward Balot, missing her by inches.
The next moment, Balot was on the wall next to Boiled, looking down at him.
Boiled twisted his body to look up and sensed that Balot’s next salvo was coming. Balot knew that
Boiled was about to squeeze his trigger again too—she felt it in all her cells even before Boiled started to
do it.
Fractions of a second before the trigger hit the base of the bullet, Balot’s legs kicked against the wall
again.
The white-hot bullet grazed Balot’s flank, boring through her bodysuit again. The shock-absorbent
material fell as fiery powder, and her exposed flesh was blackened where the bullet had passed by it.
Balot snarced the wires and cut themall.
Balot’s body froze in midair. That instant felt like an eternity, and that eternity was all it took for
Balot’s right hand to squelch and turn into yet another deadly weapon.
Boiled had predicted something of the sort fromBalot and aimed his gun accordingly.
Balot sped down, headfirst, practically sliding down the wall on her left shoulder, and just when she
slipped below Boiled’s feet the gun in her left hand erupted at Boiled.
The high-caliber bullet smashed into Boiled’s bullet, creating a festive explosion of sparks as the two
met and disintegrated. Amid the light show, Balot could sense the gap in Boiled’s PGF precisely. No,
more than that—she had already sensed it. She knew that a gap had to open up where it did.
As she fell, she swung the weapon in her right hand into that gap.
Balot knew full well that Boiled would do anything to protect his gun arm, even sacrifice his other
arm.
The next instant, the highly magnetized blade of Balot’s Hutchinson Knife sliced through Boiled’s right
armjust above his elbow. There was no resistance—it was like cutting through water.
Balot’s sleeve turned into a cushion the instant before she landed.
She bounced once on the sidewalk, and the cushion detached itself. Balot adjusted her cuffs and stood
on the sidewalk.
It thudded to the ground. Boiled’s lower arm, severed cleanly from the rest of him. She could see part
of Boiled’s gravity-generating device peeping fromthe stump of the arm, spurting sparks and blood.
At the very same moment the rest of Boiled came tumbling down toward her too. He had lost his PGF.
This time it was no feint, but rather Boiled’s final move, a last-gasp hit.
Boiled had now lost two out of five of his gravity-generating devices. Had he tried to keep himself up
in the air, he wouldn’t have been able to focus on his shield, leaving himvulnerable. He voluntarily threw
away the high ground to hurtle himself at Balot.
He was like an over-ripened piece of fruit that a tree branch could no longer bear—he plunged toward
the ground in order to splatter the pungent, sickly sweet flesh, to spread his lethal seed.
Balot snarced her bodysuit so that Oeufcoque covered her to protect her, and as he did, Boiled came
plowing down to her, all his PGF shield now converted to the sole purpose of smashing into Balot like a
sledgehammer.
Balot was slammed into the sidewalk by the incredible blow.
Where she hit, the concrete shattered and a large crack opened up under her back. This was an
explosion, not just a blow. Balot’s body was just the ground zero of PGF impact. The crack in the
sidewalk traveled as far as the asphalt of the road, and the shock waves from the blow caused all the
surrounding buildings to shudder, their windows smashing, and fire and smoke rose up all around.
When the dust cloud finally settled, it was down to the final hand.
Boiled, minus his right arm and left leg, was sprawled atop Balot, who was covered in a white shell.
He was watching carefully.
Balot wasn’t moving. Her face and body seemed to be covered in a cocoon, and it wasn’t even
possible to tell whether she was still breathing.
Are…you..hurt?
Suddenly a clear voice echoed around Boiled’s head.
Why…does…it…hurt…you?
And for the first time in a very long time—indeed, what seemed like the first time ever—Boiled felt
the warmglow that he’d felt when he first cradled the tiny golden creature in his hands.
Boiled wondered whether he was crying.
“No… I’mnot hurt.”
He wasn’t crying. Not a single tear flowed from his eyes. Rather, blood dripped from the wounds in
his right armand left leg, staining Balot’s white suit red.
Nice…and…warm…
A gentle voice. A voice that contained the last remaining fragment of Boiled’s soul.
Boiled lifted his remaining hand and pointed his gun at Balot’s head, and the hammer clicked into
place.
“Try and stop me…try and stop my nothingness…”
Softly, Boiled pulled the trigger.
That instant the shell flew apart. Just as Balot had aimed for, this was the one moment Boiled could no
longer move his gun and was committed. Her knife thrust forward and sliced the giant revolver in two.
The powder in the remaining bullets exploded, and the gun that had embodied such lethal force scattered
to the winds and was no more.
Balot emerged frominside her shell and stared down at Boiled.
She brought the gun in her left hand to Boiled’s throat.
–This is what yoursunnyside up is…
Balot pressed the muzzle into his neck, but her face was overcome by sorrow. It was also covered in
silvery powder. Her skin was developing. Even her black hair glittered silver.
Boiled didn’t answer. He just stared straight back at Balot’s face as he discarded the now useless half
of his gun.
“The girl did well.” The grip of the shattered gun hit the ground with a clang.
“You should be the one to finish it, Oeufcoque,” Boiled whispered. He was close enough for Balot to
hear his breathing.
Balot opened her eyes. She couldn’t help herself from yelling out. Stop it! Stop this all! But of course
no sound came out. Why would it? All that emerged was a hollow whistle of air.
“I’ve spent twenty years on the battlefield. I am…most satisfied with my life,” Boiled said. His eyes
were fixed on Balot.
“Stop it, Boiled!” It was Oeufcoque’s voice.
Boiled’s eyes flicked to the source of the voice, Balot’s left hand, and before she knew it his left hand,
the one that had discarded one gun, was now on another—the gun in her hand.
Boiled stood up. Balot felt that she was about to be pulled up to her feet with him, but then Boiled’s
PGF kicked in, and she was sent sprawling against the wall behind her.
The blow winded her. Her gloves had been ripped off. She had an uneasy feeling that something had
been taken from her—something important. There was a click, and for an instant Balot couldn’t tell what
it was.
Then she realized that it was the sound of life and death.
She realized that Boiled was holding the gun he had taken fromher and looking her way.
The high-caliber gun that she’d had Oeufcoque turn into. It was still loaded. And the click that she had
just heard was the hammer drawing back. More than that—it was Boiled’s final act of doubling down.
“Oeufcoque!” Balot tried to cry, but no words emerged.
The name of the thing she’d had taken fromher.
She was filled with raw despair. Balot had drowned in the flow and now looked into the black void
that was the muzzle of the gun in Boiled’s hand. What other way was there to make her cursed life clean
again? She’d thrown away pain—now all there was left was to throw away the rest of her life.
Balot’s eyes filled with tears.
–I don’t want to die.
She was resisting death’s sweet, seductive murmurings with a heartfelt cry that came fromall her body
and all her soul. Lost in the moment, she thrust the weapon in her right arm out. She knew full well that it
was a futile gesture. But she had to do something, to grasp at straws for the chance to find value in her
own life. It was her right to do so, her choice.
And then:
Nice…and…warm…
The gentle voice echoed around inside Boiled’s mind. I finally have it back, he thought.
The warmglow 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 himeven 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 armcould 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 armstill 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…
People in white uniforms were taking blood samples and collecting body parts—Shell’s fingers,
Boiled’s limbs—and wrapping them up in plastic bags before hauling them away. After that, the corpse
was placed in a bag. There was only one dead body. Balot watched as the heavy bag was carted away
with some difficulty.
–Flash, flesh, mash, goodish…
The Doctor was nearby, speaking to the police. Among them were some of the DAs that they had met
or seen at the trial. They smiled and cheered the Doctor, who thanked them and basked in their praise. He
was delighted.
–Rush, josh, wish, rush…
The Doctor parted fromthe police and came over to Balot.
–Finish, hush!
The ditty had now finished, and the Doctor was right there to fill the gap.
“Well, looks like this will bring your case to an end. The second case will now progress from the
preliminaries and on to the real thing.” The Doctor smiled gently. It was a smile of encouragement. It’s
only just beginning, but we’ll get through it all right, he seemed to say. Of course, the Doctor now had a
mountain of paperwork to tackle, not to mention his other tasks—his work really was just beginning.
“Anyway, you’ve been through a lot of danger to get this far. It’s fair to assume that your reward will be
accordingly high. As for any regrets, I should be telling you to blame Oeufcoque and me, but…”
The Doctor rested both his arms on the car door and looked down at the gun that Balot was hugging
close to her.
“If you wouldn’t mind, uh, I wonder if you’d stay with Oeufcoque for a while to try and give himsome
comfort. The outcome of this case…well, it’s pretty close to the bone for both me and Oeufcoque, as I’m
sure you can tell.”
–That person said the same thing to me, at the end.
Balot looked toward the dead body that was being carted away as she snarced the car stereo to speak.
–“Stay by Oeufcoque’s side for me,
” he said.
The Doctor’s face looked surprised at this unexpected news. “Boiled said that?”
Balot nodded ever so slightly. Then she asked another question.
–Do you mind if I go for a little drive? With the car on AutoDrive? Just like when I first came
here?
“Uh, aren’t you a little tired, though? You know we still have the Humpty. You could always go and
lie down there…”
–No, I’ll be okay. Anyway, there’s something I need to tell Oeufcoque. Something that man said.
“Boiled said something else?”
Balot nodded again.
–“Now I can finallysleep.”
The Doctor didn’t nod. He didn’t shake his head. He just stood there silently, as if he were waiting for
the words to fully sink in.
“I was involved in that experiment myself… I was one of the ones who made him so that he would
never need to sleep. Never be able to sleep.”
Balot’s eyes lowered.
The Doctor shook his head. “There’s still lots to do. That is, uh, there’s a lot we need to do right
now…”
–I know.
“We’re going to have to save our grieving till later.”
Balot nodded firmly. The Doctor needed someone to do that for him. The Doctor smiled, just a little,
and left the scene.
≡
Balot peeled her thick bulletproof clothing away from the bodysuit she wore underneath. It thudded to
the floor of the car.
Then she pulled her gloves off and exposed her perspiring hands to the cool air.
The red convertible avoided the early morning rush hour traffic on the main roads and wound its way
toward the coast. The car passed over a giant bridge that traversed the ocean and reached an area covered
by a concrete platform. Beyond the clean and fresh coastal region lay the industrial zone, slick with oil,
and beyond that were the multi-story apartments and public residences comingling with the graffiti of
homeless teenagers, all sleeping under the same purple sky.
Balot gazed at the banks of the city, held her gun to her chest, and cried.
As she cried, she became keenly aware of the fact that she hadn’t died. She hadn’t died and was here,
feeling pain.
She hadn’t lost her life. She hadn’t lost her body. She hadn’t lost her heart. She had been wounded,
and hurt, but that was it.
Oeufcoque had protected her from everything. Right through to the bitter end. Even at that moment
when, in order to live, she had to kill—Oeufcoque had protected Balot.
Shell’s past had finally caught up with him and pushed its way back inside his mind. Boiled had
welcomed the end to the senseless killing that he had so wanted. These were the final steps that the two
would ever take up the stairway to heaven—to Mardock.
Oeufcoque, too, had taken a step up that spiraling stairway. He had heard Balot crying out that she
didn’t want to die and accepted it. He had repudiated his former user, transcended his own existence as a
mere tool, and voluntarily taken it upon himself to kill. In order to keep Balot safe. In order to stop Boiled
fromkilling her.
In order to stop anyone fromkilling Balot.
Balot heard waves. She could smell the sea spume. The air was heavy, and she caught a whiff of all
sorts of other smells mixed in. The giant industrial machines in the factories were creaking, cradled by the
stagnant air.
The red convertible sped down Sea Street—the breakwater that the city had used to declaw the ocean,
to tame it to the city’s needs. The car moved as if it were making a dash to freedom, away from something
that wanted to press in on it and smother it.
I’m just a tool, Oeufcoque had once said. A tool designed to protect its user. And a tool that was kind
and gentle and patient and taught her so many things. Balot searched for the words that would call him
back, but they disappeared from her mind as soon as they appeared. The Doctor had asked Balot to
comfort Oeufcoque, but all she could do was what she was doing at the moment. Hold him tightly to her
chest.
Tears flowed from her eyes, dried, and then flowed again. She cried for herself, and then she cried for
someone else.
Suddenly she felt the steel in her arms grow warmer. She sensed Oeufcoque. But even though she
waited, he didn’t stir. It was as if he really had become an egg. He stayed hidden inside his metal shell.
But he was definitely there.
–Oeufcoque?
Balot called out to himquietly. There was no answer.
She unfolded her arms in order to examine the gun more closely. That was when it happened.
“Keep holding me like that,” Oeufcoque said in a little voice. “I want you to hold me for a little
longer.”
Balot felt something warmspread out within her chest.
When she held Oeufcoque, he could feel her too. Her heart pounded at the thought. Oeufcoque had
been sensing Balot all along. Her body heat, her feelings, more. Not just now, but always. This was much
more than just looking at each other fromopposite sides of the mirror, never to touch the other.
People touching her, feeling her—this had always been Balot’s curse, the bane of her life. It was the
source of all her fears. To be taken, to have done to her as others wished. In order to protect herself
against that, her only strategy had been to hide inside a shell, to look on at the world fromthe other side of
the mirror.
But now her curse was lifting. She had been cleansed. The final piece of the jigsaw puzzle in her heart
had been filled in, without her even realizing it.
I’m going to make you clean. I’m going to clean you up. The insidious whisper that had followed her
around and dogged her at every turn was now detaching its claws from her mind. Before long it became
just a set of meaningless words and disappeared into the ether.
All at once Balot’s eyes began to overflow with more tears. This time, though, they were a different
type of tear.
–Let’s crytogether, Oeufcoque. Let’s cryso that our sorrows will disappear, just a little bit.
Balot hugged the gun with no trigger.
Then, with her eyes turned up to the sky about to break dawn, Balot wondered what she could do.
What she should do. She wanted to stay embracing the half-baked little egg forever—this gun with no
trigger. She knew that this was what she wanted. However bad things got, however burnt-out her life
became, she wanted always to remain as someone who could do that. Right now, that was what she
desired. It was what she could do. And it was what she should do.
The car had finished its tour of the coastline, and before Balot knew it they were heading back in
toward the city.
The skyline was approaching, with all its tall buildings and numerous roads threading in between
them.
In the city there would be setbacks, discouragements, and the hands that emerged from dark graves to
hold people perpetually back.
The specters of the past would no doubt continue to rise up and rend the silence with clamorous
gunfire.
As she gazed at the view of the city, Balot remembered the name of the man who had died and nodded
softly.
To stay by someone’s side —to be with someone you wanted to do that with, and who wanted to do
that with you in return—that was the last bastion of hope. It made the city bearable.
In the same way that Balot now embraced Oeufcoque, the morning light of Mardock City gently
caressed Central Park—that grand junction where all paths crossed. The Spot of Spots.
Balot returned there.
To the place where she had once died.
In order to live.
FIN

Chapter 12NAVIGATION01Why am I here? Shell repeated the words to himself over and over, muttering in a state of neardelirium.Boiled watched with steely eyes as Shell sat there on the bench, head in his hands. The two of themwere the only ones currently in the Broilerhouse waiting room. Shell removed his Chameleon Sunglasses.Holding the deep violet sunglasses in his hand, he turned to Boiled, his voice a pitiful mess of selfrecrimination.He should have worked it out long ago.If only I'd told you everything right from the beginning, none of this would have happened I was afool to imagine that it would be easy to kill the girl.Boiled sat there. He didn't make a sound; his expression remained constant. He didn't nod and hedidn't shake his head.I can change. I can become anyone you want me to be. I can clean up any dirt. I'll make the best ofany situation. So, please, just get me out of here, Shell continued.Boiled crossed his legs and met Shell's gaze. Still he said nothing.I'm frightened, Boiled, and I have absolutely no idea what it is that frightens me so. That's the worstpart of it. Shell sounded as if he were about to burst, his innards ready to spill out of himat any moment.I'll make everything disappear, Boiled replied, his voice soft.Shell's eyes, so full of pain and distress, opened up ever so slightly.It's time to talk to your lawyers, Boiled continued and started to rise, when Shell clamped his handon Boiled's arm.I'mbegging you Help me Help me become a different person again.Boiled nodded.So it was a matricide, after all the Doctor said. His face was calm, almost respectful. That musthave been the root of all his deviant behavior. Despite losing his memoriesno, because he's lost hismemorieshe was left with no other way to control his emotions, to keep his urges in check.Why?Balot snarced the words through the choker on her neck, Oeufcoque.Imagine that you're experiencing constant feelings of terrible fear and anger and have absolutely noidea how to deal with those emotionsyou have no idea what will help you calmdown. Then you'll get asense of what it is to be Shell. Wouldn't you do whatever you could to try and stop the terrifying feelingsthat are gnawing away at your mind? Sure, you'd be fine so long as you could find a way to successfullysublimate those feelingsin your professional and social ambitions, maybebut what happens whenyou're no longer able to sublimate the urges? Self-restraint goes out the window.And as Shell grew used to the whole process, he became inured to it and started to believe that whathe was doing was entirely normal, added Oeufcoque, now taking the shape of a geometric pattern insidethe crystal pendant on the choker. It was probably a self-defense mechanism against his memory loss. Hewas afraid of the spirit of his dead mother coming back to haunt him, but even stronger than that was thefeeling that he was responsible for the girls' deaths, that their sacrifice was all his fault.Because his first lover died, I think.Balot found herself contributing to the conversation.The girl that Shell really did love. It was a real shock to him to find out that she had an abusivepast, similar to his. A shock to discover that they might have chosen one another because of theirsimilar histories.Balot felt a pang of sadness in her chest. Sure, she felt uncomfortable and irritated too, but the feelingof sorrow was winning out over all other emotions. She hadn't imagined for a moment that Shell had livedthrough experiences similar to her own. On the contrary, Shell had always looked for such girls in orderto convert theminto that which was beautiful to himBlue Diamonds, money, the stairway to success.I'm going to make you clean. I'm going to clean you up. When Shell had first yelled this out, it wasas a lonely soul, but also as a kindred spirit. Burnt out and wanting others to join him.Empathy, eh? Well, people do indeed actively seek out people like themselvesbirds of afeather the Doctor murmured. Then he coughed, conscious that the mood had been brought downsomewhat. Anyhow, all the memories we copied from the chips have already been submitted to theBroilerhouse as evidence. All we have to do now is wait for the DA to start moving, and then we hit themwith a chronological simulation of Shell's memories. It'll be just like fingerprinting him. Our aim fortoday's trial is to get official recognition that this will serve as proof of Shell's crimes.What's myrole in all this?You're here as a preemptive gag, as it were, to stop Shell from speaking too much and trying to denyeverything. Don't worry, this trial won't be anything like the last one. The only person who needs toworry is Shellhe may have been laughing last time, but he's certainly not going to see the funny side ofthis one. Not only will his past be dragged up for all to see and judge, he won't even remember it forhimself.Not even the memory of killing his own mother?He was only about eighteen years old at the time, and we know that he killed his mother in coldblood, with half an eye toward her life insurance policy. He systematically cut the brake pads. The wholeincident would have thrown his moral perspective askew, and the stress from that would have beenenormous. And then there were his sexual relations with his motherThe Doctor trailed off at this point, searching for a new, slightly more comfortable, tangent. Also,Shell's mother was, in her own right, no stranger to the law. We ran a search on the old records at theDA's office and discovered that she'd been arrested for insurance fraud, and not just once either.Furthermore, her husband was dead, and she was even suspected of murdering him in order to get herhands on his insurance, although nothing was ever proven. There's every chance that Shell knew all aboutthis and decided to do the same thing for himself. The mother had assaulted him, effectively, and whatbetter way for Shell to repay his misadventure of birth than with her death by misadventure?The Doctor laughed in a somewhat forced manner at his own somewhat forced joke. Balot didn'trespond.You might want to work on that one, Doc, said Oeufcoque, speaking for Balot as well.The Doctor shrugged. I'm just trying to get in the mood. Shell's past may be somewhat useful asconcrete evidence in the courtroom, but more importantly, it's going to pique the curiosity of the jury. Themore detailed and salacious the better, even if it does come in the form of a bad pun, as you so helpfullypointed out, thank you, Oeufcoque. The DA is certainly delighted with this new turn of events, anyway.He's now confident that we'll nail the case.The Doctor's voice was steeped in cynicism, just as the whole situation was steeped in ironyindeed, there was no greater irony for Balot. At the previous trial, she'd found herself on the receivingend of the most thorough and gut-wrenching attack imaginable, all on account of her own history. As aresult, she was forced to repudiate her past, cut it off and cast it away, or else her heart would have diedfromthe pain.And now Shell would find himself in exactly the same position. The difference was that Shell hadalready repudiated his past and cast it away. All he had left was lingering trauma.This is not about revenge, Doctor. Tell the DA to make sure he sticks to the relevant facts and doesn'twaste any time on unnecessary distractions, Oeufcoque said, again seemingly speaking for Balot byproxy. We've already filed papers for the next case, the one that this all leads to. Let's make sure wedon't lose sight of the biggest fish of all.Sure, sure. I know full well that it's not our job to fan the flames of curiosity for the jurors and themediathey're perfectly capable of doing that for themselves.Thank you.Having said that, there are no guarantees, I'mafraid, the Doctor continued, somewhat apologeticallynow. The counsel for the defense is quite a lawyer. I wouldn't put it past Shell to stir up the hornets' nesteither. If that happens, it'll be hard for me to hold the DA back fromlaying it on thickThen the Doctor's tone changed abruptly, and he turned to look at Balot, his eyes sincere. It's justwell, this is only a theory, but hear me out. You can shave away the memory, but the shape of the memorystill remains. All you need to do is apply emphasisstressto the outlines of that memory, andeverything in your mind is thrown up in the air. Your moral compass goes haywire. What better proof dowe need than the living example of Shell to show firsthand the sort of damage to society that's beingcaused by OctoberCorp's irresponsible, gung-ho technology?Do you think Shell would stop killing people if he had his memories returned to him?Balot asked the question out of a simple desire to know the answer.Oeufcoque fielded this one. Well, there's absolutely no doubt that Shell's missing memories areexacerbating his urges. If all his memories were to be returned to him then his desire to rape and murderwould certainly diminish, possibly even fade away completely. But Shell wouldn't want this for himself.Well, I wouldn't want his past either.After she spoke, Balot hung her head in contemplation. The Doctor and Oeufcoque left her in peace fora moment. After a suitable pause Oeufcoque continued gently, The past is nothing more than a fossil. Tothink that the past always has to determine the future is to doom yourself into becoming no more than afossil yourself. Shell made the wrong choice, that's all.Wrong choice?At the very least, we can say that he didn't endure, didn't resist, unlike you. He just thought toconsole himself with the sacrifices of others.Balot thought about this for a while, then touched Oeufcoque.It was you two who saved me. Thank you.The Doctor threw his arms up in the air and grinned, a twinkle in his eye. I hope you got that on tape,Oeufcoque! There's the proof of our usefulness for the Broilerhouse! What better words of validationcould there be for Mardock Scramble 09?Doc, you know as well as I do that there's no way I'd do such a thing without Balot's permission.Hmmph. ShameBalot laughed in spite of herself.The atmosphere in the roomso heavily laden with the pressure of having all their lives soinextricably linkedlifted, just a little.The trial began half an hour later.As ever, the proceedings moved along at a sluggish pace, but at least Shell's lawyer could see whichway the wind was blowing, and he put up no more than token, ineffectual resistance. Rather than fightingthe case, the defense attorney seemed almost to withdraw from the scene, looking for an escape route thatwouldas much as possibleallow him to keep both his dignity and career intact. As a result, Shell'smemories were shielded from the worst excesses of scurrilous gossip that usually came with the publicdissection of juicy secretsthough Shell didn't seem the least bit grateful that, in this respect at least, hehad escaped the worst.The trial was over by 16:45, four hours after it had begun.Shell was taken to prison.02There was a sudden pinga message had arrived.The Doctor looked suspiciously at his PDA after fishing it out of his jacket pocket.They were in the middle of an early dinner at one of the fancy restaurants in the neighborhood of theBroilerhouse.It was the sort of place lawyers went to celebrate a victory or victims went to celebrate after beingawarded a windfall compensation. Balot, the Doctor, and Oeufcoque were celebrating there too, althoughit wasn't so much in order to enjoy a gourmet meal as to take a much-needed pause before the case wasfinally wrapped up. A pause to mark the end of one chapter in Balot's life, to celebrate all she hadachieved and to prepare her to embark upon a new chapter. Oeufcoque and the Doctor felt she needed alittle treat.It's from the DA. Apparently the other side wants to talk, and they're putting in their offer to usimmediately. The Doctor looked away from his PDA and toward Oeufcoque, who was still in the formof a choker. The person offering the settlement isn't even directly related to this casehe's stepped in totry and broker a settlement.Who is it?The director of OctoberCorp. Shell's bossand putative father-in-law.What's going on? I don't understand.Sensing that Balot was concerned, the Doctor smiled in order to try and calm her down. Behind hisspectacles though, his eyes weren't smiling. Rather they were set in steely resolution.You remember the man standing beside Shell at the Casino. Cleanwill John October. Well, he'sproposing a negotiation.To negotiate what?The second case, as it were. The one that will implicate all OctoberCorp officials for more or lessordering Shell to commit his crime spree. You see, we intend to use your case as a vein and continuedigging till we find the mother lodeit's not just Shell that we're after. That's what they're afraid of, sothey're asking for certain facts to be made publicUse mycase?Balot frowned a little.The Doctor hastily covered his tracks. Not in a bad way. I just mean that the chips you won give us alot of power and leverage.So, to put it in blackjack terms, what we're doing is instead of staying, we're hitting in order totry and draw out some more criminals?Well, in the end, Shell's just as much a victim of OctoberCorp as anyone else is. You've seen hismemories firsthand, so I'msure you understand that.Balot nodded. Oeufcoque remained silent.The Doctor continued. The brain surgery Shell received as a child, the A10 operation, that wasOctoberCorp's handiwork. It's entirely possible to believe that this is what made him slavishly followOctoberCorp's orders.You mean theymessed around with his head and made him their slave?Not in the sense of controlling his thought processes directly, but I'd say there was a good chancethey were artificially stimulating his pleasure centers, making it far more likely for him to follow orderswith blind devotion.How?Well, for example, they could make it so that every time he hears the OctoberCorp name or sees itssymbol, a dopamine shot is released inside his brain, and he feels just that little bit better. Reinforcedtens, hundreds of times, it becomes an unbreakable habit, absolute.I think that all Shell really wanted to do was escape. From his own life.Oeufcoque interjected for the first time in the conversation. And what OctoberCorp did was providehimwith an escape route. The ultimate inducement into temptation.Balot nodded. She started to remember what it felt like when she was watching Shell's memories.Shell seemed to think that working for OctoberCorp was just like a fish returning upstream tospawn. He considered himself as no more than a little fish, placed deliberatelyin the river.Then Balot turned straight to the Doctor to look at himand ask hima question.The case that they want to try and settleis it mycase too?The Doctor was about to nod, but Oeufcoque interrupted him. You've already solved your own case.There's no need for you to put yourself in danger's way anymore.Hey, wait a minute, Oeufcoque. Her case leads to the mother lode. All that's happened so far is thatShell has temporarily lost his liberty. As yet, OctoberCorp is still untouched and untroubled. In any case,she's already been officially recognized as a co-opted civilian aide to this case. As your user, we doreally need her.Oeufcoque was unconvincedand not only that, he was now uncharacteristically raising his voice.Are you saying that we are the ones who get to choose whether Balot gets burnt out in the process?The Doctor appeared to falter, but he had a rejoinder. I don't know if you noticed, but at the trial justnow, Balot's Life Preservation Program was extended indefinitely. You know why, don't you? Becausethe Broilerhouse recognizes that she's still in danger. We don't know what Boiled's got up his sleeve,and depending on how these negotiations go, we may find that both Shell and Balot end up targets ofOctoberCorpHalf-baked little OeufcoqueBalot spoke quietly. The Doctor swallowed his words. Oeufcoque also was silent.Thank you so much for trying to protect me from ending up even more burnt out.Just as Oeufcoque could now sniff out Balot's innermost feelings, Balot was attuned to Oeufcoque'semotional state. She knew full well that he blamed himself for not being able to protect her fromthe worstexcesses of Shell's corrupted memories while she was in her dreamstate.This is what I've chosen, though. I want to use you constructively. If you want to protect me, thebest wayto do that is to guide me.Even if, as a result, you end up facing something deeply unpleasant?Bell Wing called you my guardian angel. Guardian angels are strict but kind. If I run awayfrom everything that's unpleasant, I'll end up just like Shell messing with his own mind in order totry and find peace.Why me? She still wanted more answers to this question. She was the Concerned Party in this case,and she wanted to find out what that really meantShe wanted to determine with her own eyes what exactly it was that lay beyond the depths that she andShell had fallen into.She wanted to be able to feel with conviction that her own life was somehow meaningful.She touched the choker on her neck, gently transmitting these feelings to Oeufcoque, like a prayer.This is our case. Yours and mine. All three of us. Won't you please show me your way ofresolving it?Oeufcoque stayed silent for a while. Then, wordlessly, he agreed to bring Balot out. To take her awayfromher safe place and into the maelstrom.We need to solve the second case, and as such I'd like Balot to use me, Oeufcoque said eventually.The Doctor breathed a sigh of relief. I have absolutely no aptitude for this sort of thing myself, yousee. Gunfights aren't my scene. Preparation and maintenancenow, you can rely on me for thosebut ifthings start getting violent it's Balot who will to need to protect me.Balot nodded. As long as she had Oeufcoque by her side she was confident she could do anything.Looks like we're on the road to victory, then. Come on, let's go. Time for us to solve our case.Balot went to sort out her outfit in the bathroomwhile the Doctor settled the bill.She rolled up the long skirt that she had worn for the trial and took her underwear off and placed it ontop of the toilet.She took off her shoes and socks, placing her socks next to her underwear. Then she reached aroundand unzipped her dress, unhooked her bra, and loosened the belts that ran up and down her body.She focused her mind on the precise image of the new outfita new shellthat she wanted.I'm ready.She touched her choker to transmit the image to Oeufcoque.Oeufcoque's turn was quick and thorough. A skintight bodysuit spread out fromunderneath the choker,sliding neatly between Balot's body and the clothes she still had on. It enveloped Balot swiftly fromtip totoe. Power flowed through her.Balot adjusted her clothes, put her shoes and socks back on, and left the bathroom. She glanced atherself in the mirror on the way out and subtly altered the design and color of the bodysuit so that itmatched the rest of her clothes.She returned to the restaurant and joined the Doctor to head out to the parking lot.The red convertible was as good as new, brought back up to scratch in a week.The car was officially registered as being made by an obscure custom car company, one that existedmore or less in name only. There was only one garage that did repairs, and they had to special-order theparts on contract.The parts in question were, of course, Made by Oeufcoque. Oeufcoque's existence as a sentient beingmay not have been officially acknowledged, but the parts that he made certainly were.They climbed into the car and the Doctor inserted the key and set the controls to AutoDrive. Thesteering wheel sank into the dashboard and found itself fixed in position.I'd be drunk driving otherwise. It'll take us a little longer, but let's go on auto.Balot fastened her seat belt, and the car moved off.Their destination was a high-class bar on the North Side, and they had plenty of time to get there.Excuse me a minute, the Doctor said as he leaned over toward the passenger seat and pressed hisfingers against the electronic fingerprint scanner. A compartment in the dashboard opened out, revealingmaps, a wallet, a small handgun, and a bottle of pills.The Doctor placed the handgun in his jacket pocket and took the bottle in his hand.The pills contained a potent double dose: a mixture of caffeine and enzymes that accelerated thebreakdown of alcohol. The Doctor threw a fistful of them into his mouth as if they were so much candy,then popped the bottle back in the compartment, which he pushed back into the dashboard.Now, let's see how they're going to play this oneThey're doing everything by the book so far, Oeufcoque said, his voice emerging from the vicinityof Balot's left hand. The Doctor nodded as if the short conversation had settled everything.Balot looked straight ahead at the road. She thought how there was still so much she needed to learn.This is not a good smell. They're waiting for us, ready for something. We're not talking just one ortwo people there, eitherthere are at least five of them, Oeufcoque said when they parked the car twoblocks away fromthe bar.The Doctor checked something out quickly on his PDA, then shrugged. I get it. The bar's part of achain, and guess which corporation owns the chain? Not that I imagine many of their directors visit on aregular basis, of course.How convenient for them. I guess the idea is that the whole bar could disappear off the face of theearth if need be, said Oeufcoque.Uh-huh. It's the underbelly of their empirea place they use to conduct the shadier end of theirbusiness transactions. Rather than bothering to go in, why don't we just launch a rocket or two at them?The joint's a front, anywayit's not as if there'd be any innocent bystanders caught up in it.Balot braced herself, imagining for a moment that the Doctor was indeed about to do as he suggested.So we're terrorists on top of everything else now, are we, Doc? Oeufcoque's sarcastic reply madeBalot realize that of course they were going to do no such thing. They're going through the officialchannels, and as long as they stick to this, we do the same.Sure, sure. Can't say I'm wildly enthusiastic about the prospect, though. I suppose we can expectthem to suggest some sort of trade or information exchange, although I'm not quite sure what they imagineis going to be in it for us. They must know by now that we're not the sort to be bought off.So we go in fully expecting that they'll have other means of persuasion at their disposal, saidOeufcoque.Are we going to be using guns?Hmm If it comes to it, I'll leave that side of things to you and Oeufcoque, if that's okay. Myspeciality is really the negotiating part. If the going gets tough, I hope you won't mind if I'm first out thedoor?The Doctor looked so serious that Balot nodded without even thinking.Right, then, let's go! With these words the Doctor hopped out of the car and walked toward the quietbar on the quiet street. Balot followed, and soon they had reached the main entrance of the pub.There were two sets of doors, and Balot realized that something was up the moment they passedthrough the first set.Someone was watching them. The Doctor had noticed it too.They opened the second set of doors and went in. The clientele seemed at first glance to be asurprisingly refined lotsome were smoking cigars or drinking brandy from large goblets, others werereading newspapers or discussing the latest stock market fluctuations.It was a veritable pocket of resistance against the recent all-pervasive trend of smoking bans.Balot and the Doctor went up to the center of the bar and took a seat. Had they not been in the clothesthey wore for court, they would have felt terribly out of place. No one else sat at the bar; patrons loungedon plush leather sofas or in boxes lined with red velvet curtains.The Doctor pointed to a bottle on the counter, then went into a detailed spiel as to how exactly thebartender was to prepare it.The bartendermiddle-aged, receding hairlinetook his order with a nod, and then looked at Balot.Balot didn't really need anything, but she thought back to a Western she had seen in her childhood andrecalled what the hero ordered when he was in a bar.A glass of milk, please.She spoke through the crystal on her choker. A funny look flickered across the bartender's face.Balot didn't know whether it was her order that was at fault or whether he was just surprised by hervoice. Or it could have been that he was surprised by the very fact that someone like Balot was in thisplace.If he felt something was odd, the bartender certainly hid it well. Would you like ice with that, miss?he asked.This part wasn't in the Western.Balot thought for a moment, then nodded meekly.The bartender prepared the two drinks with a precision that could only come from years of practice.He put the bottle the Doctor pointed to on the bar so that the Doctor could check the label. Balot thoughtfor a moment that the bartender might do the same for her with the carton of milk, but it wasn't to beitwent straight back in the refrigerator.The bartender placed the glasses on the bar, then retreated to one side.Hmm, maybe I should have ordered the same as you, said the Doctor, who could barely keep thelaughter out of his voice. Balot looked at him.This is just some token hospitality before negotiations begin in earnest, by the way. They could wellbe here already, of course, just making us wait The Doctor took his glass in his hand.Suddenly, Balot's left hand jumped up to rest on the Doctor's shoulderwithout Balot controlling it.There's a fast-working sleeping draught in yours, Doc. Balot's is clear, whispered Oeufcoque.The Doctor seemed more nonplussed than surprised. So it's Balot they're after, is it? They're stillhoping for the Trustees to slip up, I guess. They sure don't give up easily.All seven people in the room, including the bartender, are armed with handguns of one sort oranother, continued Oeufcoque, before his hand moved off the Doctor's shoulder.The Doctor shrugged. Not much I can do to help, then. Looks like you two are on your own, sorryabout that! He clinked his glass with Balot's and downed his drink. Urghand I'd only taken anantidote just before I came in too. I think I'mgoing to be sick The Doctor pulled a sour face, and Balotlooked on at himwith wide eyes.The very next moment the pub entrance opened wide, and in came a well-built man, smiling broadly.Dr. Easter? I'mSkyscraper. I trust you received my messages?You're OctoberCorp's legal representative? The Doctor's eyes were already starting to sag. Balotcouldn't tell whether it was an act or not.Skyscraper smiled again. I'm one of the legal team, yes. I mainly handle criminal cases andcompensation claims. I do apologize for having kept you so long. Please, do come and take a seat overhere where it's more comfortable.Thank you, said the Doctor, walking over to the chairs as if he were floating on clouds. Balotfollowed him.The man who called himself Skyscraper sat down last, squeezing his generous frame into the chair.I'll have the same as she's having, Skyscraper said to the bartender when he came to bring overBalot's glass on a tray. What about you, sir, are you not drinking?No, I'mfine, thankshh The Doctor's speech was growing suspiciously slurred.It was pretty clear by now that the Doctor really was getting tired. Balot nudged his shoulder gently.She was trying to tell him that he could fall asleep safely and that she had everything under control, butSkyscraper evidently interpreted this move as concern on Balot's part.You do seemto be tired, sir. We'd better get this over with as quickly as possible, then. Not to worryabout your returnwe have a chauffeured car on hand to take you both back to wherever you need to go.You put in your request for a pretrial settlement just this afternoon? The Doctor yawned.Yes, although we've had all the relevant paperwork prepared for some time.That's very considerate of you.Ah, yes, well, we may be on different sides, but we do have certain issues in common. Our jobs areto safeguard the long-term interests of our respective businesses by ensuring that our people are protectedand that our businesses are allowed to develop progressively.Is that right? Well, uh, I suppose that's so, isn't it? said the Doctor.Yes, and we at OctoberCorp are most concerned about the man you brought to trial, Shell-Septinos.We feel that his future prospects are most lamentable, said Skyscraper.Well, you would, wouldn't you, given that he seems to know everything about everything. And?Skyscraper's beaming face was unflinching in the face of the Doctor's flippant riposte. Then heshrugged his shoulders and smiled at Balot with a concerned expression.Balot knew all too well how quickly the smiles of these sorts of men changed.The crimes that the man committed are terrible, of course. There's no denying that. But to refuse himany possibility of rehabilitation is to refute the significance of the law. OctoberCorp's position is that wewould like to give him the opportunity to reflect on his crimes and thereby gradually redeem himself. Wewill of course, Ms. Rune-Balot, foot the bill for any portion of the compensation that you are awarded andthat he is unable to pay you out of his own assets.Skyscraper smiled at Balot in anticipation of her answer. This is how much I'll pay, now will yougive me what I want? Balot had seen that inane grin too many times.It was the Doctor who spoke next, though. And so it came to pass that Shell lived out his dayspeacefully under the thumb of his corporate masters That's how the story goes, is it? Presumably we getour brown envelope under the table ifand only ifwe don't touch on any, uh, inconvenient truthsduring the next trial?Dear, dear, Dr. Easter! I do hope you don't speak quite so bluntly when you're in court!Maybe not out loud, but I certainly think it. As for your answer, well, I'll make sure that a reply issent to you by email through the official Broilerhouse channels. It'll be a short reply, though. Shorter thanthe password you'll need to get into it.And what sort of reply might that be?Dear Balloon-face. Eat shit.' Skyscraper's smile seemed to stretch even farther.His face turned crimson, his eyes bloodshot. Yet he was still smiling. A grotesque sight.You see, we're PIs, and our job is to solve this case, said the Doctor, smiling back, a very differentsort of smile. The courtroom antics are only a small part of that. The best thing you can do now is runalong and try and deceive the judge into believing that there are any number of holes in our case, maybeappeal for a retrial. Won't do you any good in the long run, though.With that, the Doctor toppled face-first onto the table in front of him.Balot was visibly concerned. She was worried that the Doctor might have hurt himself.Skyscraper thought she was worried about her own safety. Poor little princess. Aren't you enjoyingyour milk anymore? he said, his voice now steeped with sarcasm. Don't blame me, blame this idiothere who you trusted to keep you safe.His dark red cheeks puffed out as he rose out of his seat toward her. He wore a whole new expressionnow, one in which rage and joy intermingled in equal measure. He was practically drooling as his thickarms reached out toward Balot to grab her, but Balot slipped to one side.We know you're unarmed, we scanned you on the X-ray as you came in, Skyscraper smirked. Theman has a handgun in his pocket, but that's all you have, right?So that explained the uneasy sensation Balot had experienced when she entered the bar.Balot realized that the people at the other tables were now drawing in.Oeufcoque, these people are enemies, right?Balot wanted to make sure she was doing the right thing before she did anything she couldn't takeback.That's right. They're planning on holding you for ransom, and in exchange for your release they'll tryand force us to relinquish the chips as evidence, Oeufcoque said out loud, unconcerned as to who couldhear him.A puzzled expression crossed Skyscraper's face. Who's that speakingAm I allowed to shoot them?Sure, but no more than absolutely necessary. No need to stoop to their level.Balot's left armwas under the table, and she felt it grow heavy with the weight of cold steel.There was an explosion, and Skyscraper screamed and staggered backward. He'd had a lucky escapeBalot had actually aimed for his crotch, but Oeufcoque had stayed her hand and made the bullet flythrough the top of his foot instead.Balot lifted the table up quickly with Oeufcoque's helpthe bodysuit that was him melded with herbody, allowing her to lift the table up as if it were made of cardboard.She threw the Doctor's sleeping body onto the sofa to keep him out of harm's way, scattering theirglasses across the floor as she turned the table on its side. Fragments of glass and ice shattered and flewevery which way. Balot wondered where she had seen such a scene before, and then she remembered.The Western, of course.We keep the death toll to a minimum. Got it?Fine.Balot emerged from behind the plush red curtains and fired at three men in order as they attempted tofire bullets or electronic charges at her. She hit their shoulders with pinpoint accuracy, and they fell to thefloor and rolled around in agony.The other men were flustered now, and they fired a storm of bullets at her. The upturned table shookfrom the impact. Balot stuck her arm out from behind it and fired swiftly. Not a single bullet of hers waswasted. The first two men found their fingers blown off; Balot had targeted their guns, piercing thecartridges and causing them to explode. The men never knew what hit them. Balot then fired a couplemore shots for good measure. The bullets thudded into their thighs, bringing themdown.Balot jumped out of the booth, table leg under her arm.The men looked on in disbelief as Balot advanced with the tablea lump of wood that weighed atleast as much as she didas a shield. They gave her everything they had, firing blindly. In return Balotfired a salvo of bullets straight into their collarbones. Not a single one of her shots missed.Just then the bartender emerged frombehind the counter with a shotgun in his hands.Balot didn't even need to look at him to thrust an arm out sideways and put bullets straight throughboth his shoulders. Unbelievable, his face seemed to say, as he turned a backflip into the array of bottlesthat lined the bar.The last man standing in the bar had his gun held out with a stupefied expression. Balot stuck her headout from behind the table, and the man hastily fired off a series of shots. He was at point-blank range andstill failed to hit her, and indeed one of the flying bullets grazed his own armas it ricocheted back, makinghim yelp. The bullet smashed into a large mirror at the end of the counter, and Balot expected it to shatter,but other than the new hole adorning it, the mirror seemed fineas it turned out, it was a fairly sturdyspecimen.Balot brandished the table over her head and threw it at the man.The man screamed, loud and shrill, and was thrown back into the booth along with the table.The bar was evidently fitted with quality air conditioning, as the white smoke in the air was alreadybeing sucked away. No one was dead, but all Balot's assailants were thoroughly incapacitated. Balotejected her cartridge, reloaded it with a new one generated from within the gun, and went to sit backdown in the same booth she had been sitting at.There, the Doctor was snuggled up against Skyscraper, the former happily snoring away while thelatter whimpered in pain and fear. Balot tapped Skyscraper on his shoulder, causing him to scream andpush his chunky frame back against the wall. He squirmed so hard, it appeared as if he hoped he might beable to melt into the wall.II'm just a hired hand! Please For someone who had succeeded so far in one of the mostsought-after professions in Mardock City, the lawyer cut a pretty pathetic figure.What do we do now? Just go home?Let's establish just who this hired hand' was hired by. With that, Oeufcoque turned with a squelch,and Balot's glove became a cell phone.Balot tossed the cell at Skyscraper's knees.Call your employer. We want to speak to him directly. Oeufcoque's voice emerged from the cellphone. Skyscraper, a quivering wreck, needed no additional encouragement.He had to try the number a few times before he eventually got through. Hellothis is SkySkyscraper here. The other party in the negotiationsumthat isthey'd like to speak to you directly.Eryes, surelyHe passed the phone back to Balot with a trembling hand. Balot didn't even bother putting the earpieceto her ear. All she needed to do was connect to the part of Oeufcoque that was inside her suit.Mr. Cleanwill John October? Director at OctoberCorp? This is Oeufcoque-Penteano here, PI andTrustee for this case. Oeufcoque spoke out loud so that Skyscraper could hear too. Balot was starting toget fed up with Skyscraper's miserable face, so she got up and wandered over to the bar in search of thecarton of milk.Then they heard the sneering laughter of Cleanwill John October on the phone.That was quite a show you put on for us back at the casino. How did you use your last tenthousand dollars? A fancy meal at some restaurant you couldn't normally af ord? A holiday to takeyour mind of your woes, perhaps?The game's up. We're arresting you for attempted kidnapping and blackmail.Where's your proof that I'm behind this? You have no witnesses. No one will arrest me.Balot shrugged. Thinking how she was grateful that she didn't have to talk directly to such a person,she placed her gun on the counter, took a carton of milk fromthe refrigerator below the counter, picked upone of the few glasses that remained intact, and poured herself a glass. She was effectively committingrobbery, she realized, but there wasn't any other way she was going to get her drink.She added a couple of ice cubes to her drink and took a seat at the bar. She stared into the mirror at theend of the bar, repelled by the nearby phone conversation.More importantly, why don't you think about settling? The trial's going to be a washout.Washout? It's too late for you to try and bring our case down by establishing a counter-case, if that'swhat you mean.Not if we've already applied for our own case. Looks like we'll be taking the same defendant tocourt.The same defendant?Shell-Septinos has brought about considerable damage to OctoberCorp. The man has tarnishedour good name and standing, took on fraudulent loans for his own personal advantage, and even hadthe audacity to demand a share of our assets.How convenient for you. By assets I assume you're referring to the dowry he would presumably havereceived as a matter of course in marrying your daughter?Marrying her? Ah, yes, there was such talk at one stage, wasn't there?John paused to laugh, a most peculiar sound.Ours is a family businessfamily is our rock and the foundation of our success. I was actuallypleased to think that I had managed to find someone suitable to take that woman of my hands.Balot squeezed her glass tightly. Suddenly she had a feeling that she was missing something.Something to do with the building they were inShellI didn't actually dislike him, truth be told. He had a good head on his shoulders and acertain tenacity of spirit. I admire that in a man. It's no lie to say that he had excellent prospects, andwe're telling the truth when we say his current prospects are most lamentable.Balot's feeling of unease started to solidify inside her. John's words were triggering alarm bellssomewhere deep inside her unconscious. Balot tried to put her finger on the reason.But our companywe're just as much victims of Shell as you are. We could just sit here andsquabble amongst ourselves, of course, but wouldn't it be better if we collaborated in prosecutingShell together? There's plenty of scope for negotiation here, don't you think?What exactly are you planning to do? Have him imprisoned and transported to a state where theyhave capital punishment, so that you can have the law do away with himfor good?John laughed. Balot heard the laugh as if it were echoing in the room right beside her. His futureprospects are most lamentable. Someone had said something like this before. Skyscraper.We need not trouble ourselves right now about what may or may not happen after Shell goes toprison. The important thing is that there is a certain someone who has been hurt deeply by Shell'sactionsa certain someone who was hoping to marry him and has been damaged as a result of whatShell has done. She'll be inheriting the mantle of this caseor rather, OctoberCorp will on her behalf.Inheriting itShell's case will be closed shortly, and with it he'll lose the right to have a PI investigate on hisbehalf. We'll simply rehire the excellent PI that he currently has in his employ and have him work forus. The contractual negotiations are already in place.You're going to have Boiled kill Shell, is that the idea? YouWell, it looks like the children of Scramble 09 are going to have the opportunity to fight this oneout amongst themselves. In the meanwhile, it'll be our own OctoberCorp that's wholeheartedlyreceived by the people of Mardock City, just as the Three Magi wanted.You dare to invoke the Three Magi? Can you put your founding director on the line to support yourcock-and-bull story?She's a sleeping beauty who won't be waking up anytime soon. You know as well as I do that she'sbrain-dead.What I do know is that OctoberCorp is taking advantage of her comatose state to abuse the technologyshe gave you and make dirty money, under the pretext of what the Three Magi would have wanted.' Youknow full well that none of the Three Magi really want such a thing.Is that so? I can tell you that plenty of people in this city would disagree with youthey likebeing abused by our technology, as you put it. We're just doing our duty as a clan to develop ourinheritanceour duty to ensure the progress of OctoberCorp.That's a foul deceittrying to justify the suffering of innocent victims, hiding behind weasel words.Do you know the origin of what we call the Stairway to Heaven, Mardock?WhatMardock was the name of the son of the goddess. He killed his own mother and usurped her roleas creator, ruling in her place far more ef ectively than she ever did. In much the same way, we atOctoberCorp are here to use the technology brought into the world by the Three Magi. The old moralvalues are obsolete in the face of social progress.That's just a fantasy that you guys conjured up to suit your own ends. There's no such thing as old ornew morals, just morality.I wouldn't expect you to think anything elsea creature who narrowly escaped destruction onlyby hiding behind the shield of Mardock Scramble. Your so-called Scramble 09 is nothing more than asmokescreen whipped up by freaks such as you so that you can desperately try to justify your existenceto a society who never asked for you in the first place and doesn't want you now. But has society everfelt that way about OctoberCorp, the OctoberCorp that fulfills so many of its needs? I don't think so,somehowJohn's voice was more sonorous than ever, and Balot honed in on the direction fromwhich it came.No one who refuses to acknowledge that they themselves are potentially dangerous has any right tolecture others about morality, Oeufcoque stated boldly. As he did so, Balot jumped into action.With all her might she threw the glass in her hand toward the mirror at the end of the bar.The mirror that one of the men's stray bullets had cracked but not destroyed only a minute ago.The glass smashed against the mirror, splashing the milk across the surface.There was an audible gasp on the cell phone. This confirmed Balot's suspicions, and she movedquickly. She picked up her gun fromthe counter and unloaded it into the mirror in one swift movement.It really was a sturdy mirror. It took over ten shots before it gave up the ghost and started to collapse.Finally, though, it started peeling fromthe wall.It was a one-way mirror. And the scene behind it was now revealed to all in the bar.Balot threw her gun down and snarced the left hand of her bodysuit so that she held a brand-new onein her grip.Gun outthrust, she stood in front of the warped mirror.A wave of disgust ran over her, one that made every hair on her body stand on end. Before she evenhad the chance to think about what she was doing, she pulled the trigger, hard. Oeufcoque was there forher, suppressing the bullet, stopping the action inside himself.Ahyou seem to have us at a disadvantage, sir. I never imagined for a moment that you would be insuch a place. Although I daresay the disadvantage is now all yours Unusually for Oeufcoque, his voicedripped with sarcasm. But Oeufcoque was Oeufcoque, after all, and he could only take so muchthewhole scene was evidently getting to him. I can't say I think much of your hobbies, sir. By the look of it,I can see all sorts of laws being brokenBeyond the mirror were five or six boys and girls in varying degrees of undress, all young. Preteenyoung. In the midst of them was a giant lump of fleshfar bigger than Skyscrapersprawled on a sofa ina nightgown, holding a phone in his hand and looking at Balot in mute terror.This is private property the corpulent figure finally managed to spit out. It was the same man theyhad seen back at the casinonone other than Cleanwill John October.Indeed, so we'll refrain from actually entering unless we're forced to. We'll just wait here, keepingyou under guard until the police arrive. Cleanwill John October, as a PI and Trustee for this case, I invokemy jurisdiction to arrest you on charges of attempted kidnapping, extortion, andwell, lots of otherthings.Oeufcoque managed to stay levelheaded. The proof of this was that he kept the safety catch on the gunfirmly engaged. Balot, call for police backup.Balot shook her head. She wanted to kill themkill them all, even the young boys and girls with John.She remembered the lecherous smirk on Skyscraper's face, thought again about what it meant he wanted todo to her, and felt her blood rushing around her body so quickly she thought it might start flowingbackward.Balot. Oeufcoque spoke even more deliberately.Yaaargh! A scream came at them from behind, though not before Balot and Oeufcoque both realizedit was coming.Skyscraper had emerged fromthe booth and was charging toward them, gun in hand.Balot didn't even turn around; she merely fired off a number of shots over her own shoulder.Both of Skyscraper's shoulders and both his knees were pulverized in an instant. His scream rose inpitch a few notches, and he writhed helplessly on the floor.Balot's eyes remained fixed on the giant figure on the other side of the mirror. After the gunshots, allthought of resistance had been wiped from Cleanwill John October's mind, and he blubbered, Peace!Let's do this in peace! Both his arms were raised in a wobbly surrender.Balot would have rather seen himin pieces than in peace, but she managed to overcome this feeling totake a step back fromthe broken mirror and snarc her cell phone to call the police.She left the rest to Oeufcoque. It was the only way she could get through this.She was exhausted. There was much she still had to learn. It made her head spin.Police sirens converged on the bar. Balot was in the passenger seat of the red convertible, watchingthe young children as they were wrapped in blankets and escorted to safety.John October had already been taken away in custody along with the other men in the bar.To think that we'd be able to catch one of OctoberCorp's directors so easily, said the Doctor. Hewas relaxed, still a little sleepy, but was focused on the task at hand. The second case could nowprogress.Oeufcoque told him the details of his conversation with John, and the Doctor frowned. Doesn't thatmake Boiled more or less a fully paid employee of OctoberCorp? the Doctor asked.It could be that Boiled is now planning on taking Shell prisoner. I suggest we play along withOctoberCorp for a little longer and make out that we're interested in continuing discussions with them.That will buy us some time.OctoberCorp is more ruthless than you give them credit for, Oeufcoque. At this stage it's do or die.The only thing that'll make the difference between victory and defeat is Shell and his memories. ThatShell At this point the Doctor and Oeufcoque fell silent.Where's Shell right now? asked Oeufcoque sharply.The Doctor fumbled with his PDA. He's been released on bail pending his final trial, and he'spermitted to travel within a two-kilometer radius of the hotel he's staying at. There should be specialistsfromthe DA's office tailing him, of course, butHow long before Boiled hears about what's gone down here?He's probably already heard, said the Doctor.We need to hurry, then.Without another moment's notice, the Doctor revved up the car, and it sped off from a standing start.Balot, who had zoned out, was jolted back into consciousness and rushed to secure her seat belt.What's the matter?Balot spoke by snarcing the car stereo.The Doctor shook his head. It's Boiled. Unless he gets an order from OctoberCorp to stop him, hemight end up killing Shell. It'd be such a shame to lose our main piece of leverage now that we have oneof OctoberCorp's directors in the bag.What are we going to do?It was Oeufcoque who answered this. The Doctor will head to the Broilerhouse. We'll go to the hotelShell is staying at and ensure his safety.I'm going to go and save Shell's life?This time she didn't use the car stereo, but rather snarced Oeufcoque directly.That's right.How strangeBalot was silent, thoughtful.They arrived at the Broilerhouse, and the Doctor jumped out and rushed in without even looking back.Balot programmed the name of Shell's hotel into the display, and the car set off.The car pulled into the hotel's underground parking lot, and Oeufcoque gave Balot the latest news.Just in fromthe Doctor. Shell's in room663.Balot took the key from the ignition and hurried toward the hotel lobby. She headed into an elevator,then suddenly realized that the buttons stopped at the fortieth floor.This is an emergency. Protecting Shell takes priority over any legal niceties, Oeufcoque said, beforeBalot even had the opportunity to ask. She snarced the elevator, sending it up to the sixty-sixth floor.There was no one else in the elevator and no sign of anyone in the corridor when Balot stepped out.Suddenlywithout Balot having to snarc anythingshe felt a squish about her left hand and realizedthat she was holding a gun. Be careful.Balot progressed with the utmost care. She walked down the corridor with silent footfalls and stoppedright in front of the target door. She sensed what was on the other side of the doorno sign of movement.Balot snarced the electronic door lock open, calling on help fromOeufcoque to decode it.No sooner had she opened the door than Balot was assaulted by a lukewarmblast of air.The air conditioner wasn't working. Next to the door was a large dresser coated with a layer ofcondensed water vapor.There was the sound of running water; Balot headed slowly for the bathroom. An orange light was on,and steambillowed out, filling the room.Balot steadied her gun and entered the bathroom. She was filled with an uneasy premonition. She wassure that there was no sign of movement frominside, and her mind couldn't help but carry this observationthrough to its logical conclusion. She walked across the polished marble floor and past a large mirrortoward the source of the steaming, bubbling water.Balot's feet stepped in flowing water.She put her hand on the shower curtain and, taking a deep breath, yanked it back.The sight that assailed her made her heart miss a beat.A woman swayed in the water, her mouth O-shaped, as if she were screaming silently. Her headfloated but her mouth was full of splashing water, and her eyes had started to go muddy, cooked by thenear-boiling hot water.The woman was naked, and her long blonde hair covered her body as the hot water continued to flow.Her body was covered with black and blue bruises. Bruises that were no doubt inflicted on her whenshe resisted, or perhaps bruises she received because she couldn't resist.Finally, Balot exhaled. A streamof cold vapor in the steamy room.Looks like this was Shell's fiance Oeufcoque muttered.Balot was suddenly overtaken by an urge. She left the bathroom and headed for the living room,positioning herself in front of the television. She snarced it to grasp its inner workings, then accessed theInternet.What's this about, Balot? Oeufcoque seemed concerned, but Balot ignored him, turning thetelevision on and bringing up a map of the city. Her eyes remained wide open as she logged into a numberof servers, cracking the encrypted passwords with ease.Stop it, Balot! What are you trying to dofind Shell? You're hacking into public networks, youknow! That's a crime! There are official channels we need to go through for this sort of thing. Don't youstart running off the rails too!Balot stared at the television, tears suddenly filling her eyes. Her face crumpled and she sat down. Shecried without making a sound, lifting her gun in her hand as she did so.Let me kill Shell.Her face was painfully sad as she snarced Oeufcoque.Let me kill that man Cleanwill too.Balot, it's no good thinking likePlease. Let me. I don't even care if I die afterward.Balotare you angry? Or sad?Balot shook her head. Neither. Both. She felt her destiny swirling about her. Her terrible, terribledestiny. Why did Shell have to kill that woman in the bathroom? I'm going to make you clean. I'm goingto clean you up. The words echoed around Balot's mind.I think that woman in there was the same as me.Balot managed to snarc the words to Oeufcoque through the terrible memories that were resurfacinginside her.The same? You mean, that is to say Oeufcoque started, but he didn't need to finish. He'dunderstood perfectly. The woman in the bathroom had things done to her by her father. Or perhaps othermen and women had done things to her.Please, let me kill them all. I don't care if I die myself. I don't care if I die.Calm down. This has nothing to do with you. Don't get sucked in. Take a deep breath and calmdown.Balot held on to her gun. Her whole body shook as she cried. Quietly, her breathing a mess.Every possible horrible fate seemed to be in this room. For the first time ever, Balot experienced thefeeling of seeing her sorrow transform not into anger but into sheer murderous intent. She wanted to killShell. She wanted to kill everyone who worked for OctoberCorp. She wanted to kill the others caught upin this case, Boiled and even the Doctor. Then, after she had done all that, she wanted to save the lastbullet for herself.I can't bear it. Help me. Save me.Balot felt a soft warmth in her left hand. She realized that Oeufcoque was trying to materialize.Balot clasped her hands together in prayer, and Oeufcoque's upper body emerged. She almostsmothered himcompletely, so desperate was her desire to have himcomfort her.Oeufcoque's piercing red eyes stared straight at her.Tears dripped from Balot's face and splashed onto his little head, and he lifted his head toward thewarmshower and said, It's a good smell.Balot's eyes narrowed as she looked at the mouse, the ultimate weapon and the last word in morality.Your soulit smells good. Pure. It's telling me that if there's one thing I should believe in, it's you. Iwant to make myself believe in you. Shell and Boiledthey can't find it in themselves to believe inanything, so they're doomed to stay on the other side of the mirror forever. That place where Cleanwillwas hiding. A place with no doubts or regrets to trouble you, but no hope either. I don't want to go to sucha place.Then Oeufcoque spread his arms out in a broad gesture, just like when the two of them had beenintroduced. I entrust myself to you.Droplets of tears welled up in Balot's eyes. She realized that he was indeed telling the truth.He really was trusting everything to Balot. If Balot so wanted, she would have been able to snarcOeufcoque away in an instant. Any abuse she wantedshe'd meet no further resistance. And yet it wasthis very lack of resistance that would prove to be the final restraint. It was the very fact that Oeufcoquewas surrendering himself completely that would stop her.Balot nodded. The sound of the water overflowing in the bathroomechoed all around.Balot sniffed. She turned around where she sat so that she now faced in the direction of the bathroom.As she did so, Oeufcoque turned back into a gun without saying anything.She hadn't promised himanything. Even so, Oeufcoque had slipped back into her palm, ready.Balot took a deep breath so that she could feel her entire bodysuit the betterthe suit Made byOeufcoque. Her chest swelled and she exhaled calmly. She stood up silently, went to the bathroom, andturned off the hot water.She turned her back to the floating corpse of the woman and headed for the underground parking lot.She climbed into the car, snarced the monitor next to the steering wheel, and the car took off.Outside the sun had just gone down, and a cold night was closing in.Balot wiped the last of her tears away and focused on the road ahead. There was still a lot she had tolearn. There really was.Don't tell the police yet! Do you want OctoberCorp to get wind of what's happened? Oeufcoquewas speaking into the cell phone in Balot's grip. That's right. Look up Shell's file. Right away.There was a moment's silence, then the Doctor's voice, clearly surprised.Shell has a number of large outstanding debts that will be paid of by the woman's life insurancepolicy. As ever, he's made money out of the woman. Her death certificate reads two hours ago exactly.What sort of doctor would issue a certificate just like that?The convertible was heading straight toward the Doctor at the Broilerhouse, but they were ready tochange their course at a second's notice should new information arise. New information being Shell'swhereabouts.Balot stared ahead in a daze, thinking about the dead woman's face.Cleanwill must have been expecting Shell to kill that woman. That's what he meant by Shell losinghis rights as a Concerned Party in the case. If the murder is made public, there's nothing to stop Boiledfromofficially being hired as Trustee for OctoberCorp and apprehending Shell.That's incredible Whatever else has happened, imagine sacrificing your own daughterThis is no time to start dissecting our opponent's motives. It's only a matter of time now beforeOctoberCorp brings their case against Shell. We have to track him down by whatever means necessary.Quickly and discreetly.We have no idea of Boiled's whereabouts either. What if he's already with Shell?Use whatever pretext you can to track them down. The police are of no use at this stage. The onething we have going for us is the fact that there are still negotiations that need to take place beforeOctoberCorp brings its case against Shell.Are you planning on having Balot secure Shell's person?Balot's eyes narrowed. Secure Shellthe words reminded Balot of something. What was it theDoctor had said this morning, just before the trial had started?Once we have him in our care, use the police or special forces or whatever necessary to cordon offthe area.If Shell had his memories back, Shell would stop killing people.Roger that. Wait, what was that? Shell's memories? Balot, is that you speaking?You said so yourself before the trial started, Doctor. Shell can't restrain his own urges becausehe has no memories.Ahyes, that's right. Shell's amnesia means that his urges grow and grow and have nowhere togo, no escape, that's what we wereWill you let me borrow something? I'll be sure to return it safely.What's that? Borrow? Are you talking aboutThe Doctor gulped.Oeufcoque took advantage of the small pause to interject. Doctor, if Balot says she needs something,you trust her judgment and hand it over without further ado. Got that?Something seemed to have got the Doctor's tongue for a moment, but eventually he managed to speak.Fine, I'll leave Shell's security completely in your hands. The pair of you. Come over to theBroilerhouse toHis tone of voice changed abruptly.Just in! The first information disclosure on Boiled's whereabouts. Shell called Boiled from a payphone on the banks of the East River. At around seventeen hundred hours. I'm going to publish the factthat we've just had some negotiations with OctoberCorp ourselves, okay?Do it, Doctor. Force their hand, make themgive us as much information as possible.There's every chance that Shell is now hiding out somewhere in the vicinity of the phone booth.Let's use the pretext that he may be armed and dangerous in order to force the other side intodisclosing his exact location. I'll get the DA to gather what information he can, top secret. So Balot,I'll have what you need ready for youjust come on over to the Broilerhouse to pick it up.Thank you.The phone cut off. The car sped on toward the Broilerhouse, and the monitor already showed a mapthat displayed the likely whereabouts of Shell.03Shell arrived at the hotel room that Boiled had told him to come to. He sat down on the bed, and thefirst thing he thought was Now I can become a dif erent person again.He was even prepared. Thoroughly. Or so Shell thought, at least.He had his overnight Boston bag on his lap, and he pulled out a bottle of Heroic Pills from inside hisjacket pocket and washed them down one by one, chugging a bottle of scotch as he did so. The BlueDiamonds on the seven rings on his hands shone brilliantly.The lenses on his Chameleon Sunglasses were a fawn color.Before long the bottle of pills dropped out of his hand, and the bottle of scotch tipped over onto thefloor, its contents seeping into the carpet.Why am I here? The question arose as Shell's mind passed into an increasingly euphoric state. Is it agood or bad thing that I'm here? Bad, if you consider that I've lost the battle that I've been fightingfor the last few months. But also goodthat having lost the battle, I'm still here now, safe and sound.He'd managed to run away. He had left the horrors firmly behind himand was now in a safe place.The slate would be wiped clean. The past, so disagreeableall that would be washed away. Therewere no cracks in his shellonly the contents had been removed.Shell hugged his Boston bag tight as he was filled with desire for his new life.What good friends he had! That burly friend of his had proven himself indispensable in helping him toacquire another one of these. Helping him turn that crazy woman into another one of these. While Shellwas strangling the woman in the bath, his burly friend had taken care of all the details. It was wonderful.That other girl might still be chasing after him, but now he would always be able to repel her, destroy her,subsume all thoughts of her.Shell opened up his bag at one end and stuck a hand inside to feel its contentsnewly minted bills. Heflipped through a wad of notes, and as the bills brushed against his fingertips he muttered. You like that,don't you, my little ones? You want some more, don't you? Then he stopped suddenly and withdrew hishand in haste. The corners of the bills had given him a number of paper cuts on his fingertips, and bloodwas welling up.Shell put his bleeding finger in his mouth and sucked away. The taste of his own blood spread to thecorners of his mouth. The taste brought to mind vestiges of an old memory. A memory that should havebeen long since erased, but that clung tenaciously to the void of his inner mind nonetheless.A giant shadow loomed over Shell as a young boy. Trace memoriesall sorts of indecent things beingdone to him. But he'd always managed to submerge the memories, the feelings, everything, in the girl,whoever she was. He had repelled all, killed all, and turned everything that was dirty clean. He wasproud of this. This was his life.He giggled out loud. Uncontrollably, as if his lungs were going into convulsions. Huhh huhh huhh. Hescrambled around for the bottle of scotch that lay on the floor. See! That's how I find what I've dropped.I never lose anything. Shell never drops the ball. Ever.Gleefully, he gulped down the last of the liquid. Then he collapsed face-up on the bed and fell asleepin his euphoric state.In Shell's dreams, the faces of all sorts of women appeared and disappeared.Shell tried to remember each of their names, but the harder he tried the more elusive they became.Eventually the girls' faces swarmed together in a bizarre montage, and girls would appear with threeeyes or with nipples growing out of their noses. Then the melee of body parts all converged into one face.Shell thought that he cried her name out, in his dream.He felt an emotion welling uplove, the sort that makes you want to stick your chest out and hold yourhead up high. It was for the first woman he had ever truly loved, the one he met only after he'd finally puthis mother to rest. Not so much a woman as a girl. But the girl herself had long since disappeared fromShell's memory, leaving only a lingering scent of her in his dreams. A scent full of sorrow. He wanted tomake everything clean. What was it that brought the two of them together, that caused their fates to beintertwined so? The fearful, fearsome past?Or were they simply in love? The sad smell seemed to reject every possible explanation.A new shadow floated acrossthe shadow of the girl, dying and wasting away into nothingness.Shell's ire was turned toward the girl's father. Shell spent many years tracking him down, and when he'dfinally found him, he killed him. But the father's mind had been completely addled by drugs by then, andhe couldn't even remember the things he had done to his own daughter.His memory was gone, just as Shell's was now. Shell had beat him to a pulp before finally snappinghis neck.As Shell did so, he remembered his own memory disappearing. He had already forgotten what he wasdoing even as he did it. I'll make everything clean. I'm going to clean you up. All sorts of possibilitiesoccurred to him at that moment. He thought up a scheme to launder money. He thought of turning the girlinto a Blue Diamond. He thought of making the girl clean again.Shell turned the desiccated remains of the girl into a Blue Diamond to wear alongside his mother, andhis mind gave up the ghost and his memories faded away completely. His mind may have been in deepturmoil, but he knew how to use people.By the time the diamond was ready, Shell's mind was completely clear. He was relaxed again.The Blue Diamonds that shone resplendent in the open airthey were Shell's last hope.In Shell's dreams, the light shining off the diamonds suddenly changed.The spirits of the girls who were to become diamonds. The ghosts of girls whose names he had longsince forgotten. Their faces were closed and expressionless, but this only made them seem more alluringthan ever. They stared down at their own laps with dark eyes, as if they were looking for a place to hidethemselves. Shell's task was an easy one. All he had to do was give them an appropriate container, afinal resting place. He would lead the way for them, guide them.Turn theminto the most beautiful thing in the world. But it didn't always go according to plan.The girl who had been engulfed by flames came back to life. It was as if she didn't want to becomeclean again.In his dreams the girl was ablaze and walking toward Shell, step by step, until she finally grabbedhold of him. The fire raged away, centered on the girl, and there was nowhere for Shell to run. Herblackened fingers were around his throat, plastering it with her charred fingerprints.Shell screamed. More flames erupted inside the girl, and she squeezed down on his throat with a gripthat was gentle but strong, so strong.Shell bounced up from the bed and realized that there was something on his neck, constricting him,strangling him. He tried to get it off, but his actions were only making things worse.Then he realized the truth: he was trying to strangle himself with his own hands.His face convulsed in a bitter smile. His whole body was drenched in sweat.He took off his Chameleon Sunglasses, now shining like moonlight, and placed his Boston bag on thefloor.He realized that he was desperately thirsty and went into the bathroom to wash his face and drinksome water.As he returned to the bedroom he noticed a ringing noise. Not the hotel room phone. Shell jumped forhis jacket and scrambled for his cell phone, which he found after a couple seconds' fumbling. Boiled?Yes.That sturdy voice. Shell smiled and put his sunglasses back on.I've just had the worst dream. Like a bad trip. A girl was on fire and she tried to strangle me, Shellsaid, relieved that help was now at hand. Have you prepared everything as I asked you? I'm going tohead upstream into a different state. Once I've crossed the state borders, I'm a new person. I'll play itsteady from now on. I'll use my money to set up a legit business. No more gambling for me. That's allover.I've received a new commission from OctoberCorp. I need to explain it to you clearly. On top ofthatWhat are you talking about, Boiled? Who cares about OctoberCorp anymore? I'm leaving this place,saying goodbye forever to the whole damn city. I'mheading back to my roots.Boiled considered this in silence for a minute before answering.I thought that you were born in this city, on the East Side.What? Forget about that for now. Home is wherever I hang my hat. If I succeed there, that's wheremy roots are. I don't know where to, but I'm heading back home now. And I'm grateful to you, Boiled, Ireally am. If you hadn't been there for me, that girl would have crushed me. Strangled me with her barehands. I really amgrateful. You're a true friend.Is that right?It is! My only real friend. You're my rockthere's no one I can rely on quite like you. You've savedmy neck so many times. Let's stay in touch. Right, Boiled?The PIs for the other side are looking for you right now. We've had to publish your roughlocation, so they're most probably already in your area. Try not to make yourself too conspicuous. It'sprobably best you wait until dawnany ships leaving your area may be tailed. Everything changes ifthey find you.Shell's brow furrowed, as if he didn't quite understand Boiled's meaning. Are you saying you'vebeen feeding theminformation?Information Disclosure. Unless we publicly share certain stipulated pieces of information, ouropposing case won't be approved. I wouldn't be able to work for you.Shell frowned, rubbing his forehead with his other hand.I've got a bit of a headache, and I don't think I'm following you. Here I am telling you that you're avalued friend to me, one I know would never betray meBoiled was silent again. This time the pause was a long one. Shell thought he could hear the faintest ofmurmuring from the other side of the phone, but then suddenly the line was cut off. Shell looked at his cellphone with an uneasy expression.The phone rang again. Surprised, Shell put it to his ear. Boiled? What are you playing at?I don't want to die.It was the voice of a girl. Shell stopped breathing. He felt as if the blood had frozen in his veins.But still you kill me.Shell's mouth was agape and his heart beat furiously.The image of the girl in flames came rushing back. The girl who took his precious chips, her faceablaze. Her name too flamed back into his mind.There was a noise at his ear that gradually came together in the formof a man's voice.Mr. ShellIt was Boiled. Tears of relief flooded Shell's eyes. What was that voice just then? Was it trying toscare me?You're listening in on this line, aren't you, Oeufcoque? You're near Shell right now, right?What? What's that? God damn it, I'masking you a question, Boiled, answer me!I'll take care of you, Oeufcoque. Go and retrieve your bait. Then I'll appear. That's how we'll dothis.Shell shook his head. The area at the back of his head and neck throbbed with pain.Very well, Boiled. We'll secure Shell's person from our side.A new voice echoed down the line, one that Shell had never heard before, and he was hit with anotherbolt of fear. His whole body was now drenched in his own cold sweat.We've already finished evacuating the other guests from the hotel. We are going to solve this caseaccording to of icial procedure. In order to do so we need to ensure that Shell remains safe. We haveno desire to fight with you, Boiled.We are just tools, Oeufcoque, born into this world in order to create nihility. You're a self-awaretool, and I'm a human who wants to become a gun. Even your current user really wants to be able touse you to kill. She just wants to do so legally, that's all.Stop talking such garbage, Boiled. What are you hoping to achieve by killing Shell? What use isthere in massacring everyone in sight? What will be born of that?Shell frowned.It's not my job to be concerned about what may or may not be born, Oeufcoque.So you're throwing your lot in with OctoberCorp, are you? That's your choice, is it, Boiled?Boiled! Are you planning to kill me? You are, aren't you? You're planning to kill me!Mr. Shell. I really do think we would have worked well together. We could have been far morethan just patron and clientShell's face twisted. Boiled continued in his characteristic whispering tones.It's a shame that circumstances have changed.Then there was another noisea number of sounds screeching together. The phone went dead.Shell stood rooted to the spot, the lenses in his Chameleon Sunglasses changing from pale blue tostormy black. Everything was unreal, a dream, but then Shell snapped to and snatched up his Boston bagand checked its side pocket for the reassuring feel of cold steel.He pulled his automatic handgun out, not even bothering to check the magazine before pressing it downagainst his leg, then hauled his bag over his shoulder. He felt more rooted, more secure.Suddenly his cell phone started ringing again. Shell gritted his teeth and answered.This is Oeufcoque-Penteano here, PI and Trustee for this case. We are going to take you into ourprotection. Remain there until we secure a safe route for your escape. When we arrive, we will expectyou to hand over all your weapons and come peacefully.Fuck off! Shell yelled, flinging his phone to the floor and grinding it with his foot. The phone wasdestroyed, the sound cut off.Breathing roughly, his shoulders heaving up and down, Shell ran around the room quickly to turn allthe lights out.The bedroom was on the second floor. Shell hid behind the curtains, peeking out of the window to tryand catch a glimpse of what was happening outside.The lights in the room all flared back on. Suddenly, of their own accord. Shell watched in shock. Thenight lamp was on, the bathroom light was on, and the ventilator in the bathroom was on, roaring. Shell'sface was soaking wetit was impossible to tell where the sweat ended and the tears started.Then there was another sound. It was the old television, right next to Shell. There was white noise,and then the image of a girl appeared on the screen. Her mouth opened in a round shape, and her wideeyes and rigid fingers seemed like they were about to reach out for Shell's throat at any moment.I didn't want to die.Shell watched in horror with bloodshot eyes as he listened to the girl's voice.But I was killed byyou anyway.Shell pointed his gun at the television and fired repeatedly. The monitor exploded, and sparks flew outinto the room. The image of the girl and her voice were wiped cleanly away. He had made everythingclean. Cleanand he felt his gut wrenching inside. His mouth was filled with the taste of sour liquid, andhe bent over double and vomited copiously.His body heaved repeatedly, and sticky yellow liquid drooled fromhis mouth.When he had finished, Shell stood back up and fired a shot at the ceiling light and at the bathroomlight. He put his hand to the doorknob and gripped it tight.He was so frightened that his hair practically stood on end. There was a horrifying shade on the otherside of the door, he knew it. The thing that he had always fought to repel, to make disappearit wasback, alive again, and standing right there.Shell flung open the door with all his might and jumped out, brandishing his gun. He was confrontedby an empty corridor.Shell's last remaining shards of reason forced him to notice that something was very strange about thiswhole situation.Despite all the noise and gunfire coming from his room, there was not a single person about. Therewas no sign of commotion.He was suddenly struck by the feeling that whichever way he tried to go now, whatever he tried to do,the outcome would be the same.A horrible place to be. Flashbackshis whole body convulsed at the thought that he would never,could never, take another step again.Please do as I askit makes things so much more inconvenient otherwise.The voice came from behind him, and Shell jumped. His whole body seemed to shriek. Shell's eyesdarted around looking for the source of the voice as if his life depended on it.You see down there? Room 202? It seems that you can use one of its windows to jump across tothe next building.The voice was coming fromthe intercomof the roomhe had just stepped out of.He shot it, almost instinctively. Past the door and straight into the intercom. His bullets had run outbefore he even knew it. Shell stuck his hand back into his bag.Some money fell out, bills fluttering about. Shell found the spare magazine he was looking for andreloaded his gun with a trembling hand, making for the elevator as he did so.He had absolutely no idea what he should do next. If he saw something that moved, he planned to shootit. His mind couldn't conceive of anything other than to kill.He pressed the button and an elevator appeared almost immediately. Shell suppressed a wave ofnausea and jumped aboard. His fingers shook uncontrollably as he lifted them up to the buttons.Eventually he managed to steady them long enough to press the button for the first floor. But the doorwouldn't close. On the other side of the door was a wide stretch of open corridor that ran both left andright. He felt hopelessly trapped.You do make us work for it, don't you? The first floor of the hotel is closed, of -limits. Theemergency stairs, now, they would have been one thing. But I really didn't expect you to try theelevator.The voice was coming from inside the elevator. Shell held his breath, and a beat later his mouth wasfilled with sour liquid again. He kept it down, trying to steady his gun.What are you? Where are you speaking from? Shell realized where the voice was coming fromalmost immediately after he said the wordsthe elevator's emergency circuits.I'm inside the building behind this hotel. Come over here and you'll have any number of escaperoutes.Who are you?I'm one of the private investigators in charge of this case. A Trustee. Just think of me as someoneyou want to do business with.A PI Shell took a deep breath. His forehead was pounding. He squeezed his gun tightly and askedanother question. Are you planning to kill me?On the contrary. You should think of me as your only friend for miles around.What sort of business are you talking about? What is it you want with me?We'll discuss that properly once you follow our escape route and make it out of there safely.Hmm, room 202 is no good anymore. I can sense that Boiled is watching it. Anyway, all you need toknow is that I'm here to preserve your life. In return, we expect you to cooperate fully as an ef ectivewitness on our side. We will expect you to pay for your own crimes in full, of course.What are you talking about? How are you going to get me out of here? Where are you taking me?Try and stay calm. Room 207the bathroom window there. You should be able to reach thewindow of the building on the other side.Shell's breathing was all over the place, but he made up his mind, and with flashing eyes he steppedout of the elevator.He made a beeline for room207. He reached for the doorknob, and the moment before he touched it heheard a click. The electronic lock had been lifted. Shell pushed the door with the muzzle of his gun, and itswung lazily into the room.There was no sign of life inside the room. No trace of a person that might have opened the lock on thedoor. Shell entered the bathroomas ordered.There was, indeed, a window there. He looked out of it, and it did seem that he might be able to crossover to the next building. Shell shot the window frame to dislodge it, then kicked the whole window outof the building. A musty wind blew in fromoutside.Shell stuck his head out through the rectangular space, and, bag still on his shoulder, he maneuveredawkwardly, stretching his leg out toward the next building, where an open window was already awaitinghim.His outstretched leg reached the window frame, and then his gun-wielding hand. Finally, he shifted hisweight in one movement.He was in. He dropped down from the window ledge, which was higher up relative to the floor thanhe had anticipated. He landed with a thud.His Boston bag slipped off his shoulder, and Shell thought he would collapse from the impact, but hemanaged to stay upright.There were no lights on in the room, but the natural light from the window was just about enough forShell to make out his new surroundings. It looked like some sort of abandoned store. It was completelybare, with visible cracks running across the concrete walls. A number of large windows lined one of thewalls, and there was a cross marked out in tape.Shell suddenly realized that he was standing on something soft. He looked down and noticed thatvarious objects were scattered across the concrete floor. He hoisted one of them up with the tip of hisgun.It was a dull piece of cloth. He looked closer and realized that it was a skirt.Farther along was a blouse. Even farther alongand his eyes came across a sight that made himjump.A white coat, fluttering in the darkness.He thrust his gun out quickly, and the skirt on its end fell to the floor.At the end of his muzzle was a girl.A girl encased fromtop to toe in white. She was looking his way.Rune-BalotShell called out the name of the girl that should have died in his dreams.Shell's Chameleon Sunglasses were in the middle of transforming fromblue to red.Why, here Why are you in a place such as this? Shell's inflamed red eyes stared at her in shockfrombehind the sunglasses. He kept his gun trained on her.Without a word, Balot raised her hand for Shell to see.In her hand was a cell phone. She tossed it over to him.The phone bounced off his bag, and he caught it reflexively. Its monitor showed that a second hadalready passed since a call had been initiated. It was on. Shell frowned, puzzled, and put the phone to hisear.This is PI Oeufcoque here. Hand all your weapons over to the girl in front of you. Do so andyou'll be recognized as a cooperating witness for our second case, and the Life Preservation Programwill take ef ect in order to protect you.Where are you? Why won't you show yourself?I'm near enough. Don't trouble yourself. Or would you rather take your chances with your oldTrustee, now that your contract has been well and truly broken? He's under a new contract withOctoberCorp now, and I imagine he will take your life the moment he gets the opportunity.You say you're near enough'? Well, can you see what I'm doing now, then? Shell's glinting eyeswere on Balot. A crooked smile crossed his lips, and he stretched out his gun hand so that the muzzle waspointing straight at Balot's face.Balot stared at Shell and his gun. She seemed, if anything, a little disappointed.What are you hoping to achieve by doing that? Do you really want to die? This is your last chanceto save yourself, you know.That's right! This is my last chance! A woman is a gambler's jinx! Shell was shouting, like adrowning man calling for help. Oeufcoque. I remember that name. Boiled called you a talkative mouse.Who gives a shit anymore why you don't want to show yourself? Anyone who's so dumb as to leave a girlunprotected like this needs to be taught a lesson on how to negotiate.You can try negotiating if you like, but you won't get what you want, not that way. We have somuch more firepower than you.Shell's face warped into another sneer. He looked like he'd been hit in the face with a sledgehammer.Stop fucking with me! Come on out and face me like a man! Fuck me about any longer and I'll shootthe little bitch!Oeufcoque. He's threatening me. Mylife is in danger.The cell phone suddenly spoke in a girl's voice. A cold, indifferent voice.Balot's left hand rose up toward Shell. Her white glove squelched and became something else. It tookonly a moment, and then, as if by magic, Balot was holding a gun in her hand.Shell froze in shock. The trigger of Balot's gun clicked into place of its own accord. That was all ittook. A shot rang out. FromShellhe couldn't keep it in anymore.Balot didn't flinch. She just pulled the trigger quietly.There was an explosion of sparks. Shell had no idea what was happening. The bullets met in a flash ofsteel fragments, acrid smoke filling the surrounding space.Balot fired again. And again. Shell managed to fire another shot back, not that it had much effect. Balotallowed it to hit her body at the top of her shoulder, where it disintegrated into another mass of sparks. Itwas as if she were deliberately showing himhow impenetrable her defenseher shellwas.In the meantime, Balot fired coolly and repeatedly at Shell.Shell staggered backward in a grotesque dance. His Boston bag was pierced by the bullets, but thethick wads of notes shielded him, saving his life. His money was protecting him to the end, keeping himout of harm's way quite literally.Balot fired again and again, always aiming precisely for where the bundles were the thickest.Shell was like a sandbag now and took the volley of bullets, not even allowed to fall down.Balot's supply of bullets was virtually inexhaustible. Shell's supply of banknotes was not.Eventually, Balot brought her volley to a close. Shell collapsed backwards, and millions of tinyfragments of what used to be his bag were scattered around the area, mixed with the confetti that momentsbefore had been Shell's money.Balot closed in slowly on Shell, now a pathetic figure on the floor taking sniveling breaths.Suddenly Shell raised his head, gritted his teeth, and thrust his gun out again. His hands and face werecovered with scraps of banknotes, pasted to himwith his own sweat.His trembling hand pulled the trigger, but Balot could see his movement as if it were in slow motion.She shot the bullet down in front of her as easily as if it had been a balloon.The bullets met, and the impact caused red and yellow sparks to fly.Before the sparks had even finished dying down, Balot had put three bullets into Shell's hand withlethal accuracy: through the grip and into his index, middle, and ring fingers respectively.The rest of the bullets in Shell's magazine exploded, bathing the room in their incandescent whitelight. His fingers were torn off, and the Blue Diamonds glistened like tears as they rolled to the floor, stillattached to their fingers.Shell collapsed.His Chameleon Sunglasses were a deep scarlet as they smashed against the floor, and their fragmentsscattered like blood. His quivering right hand no longer had a single finger attached to it. His days as asharpa professional gamblerwere over. The right side of his face was shredded by steel shrapnelfromthe explosion.Balot stared at Shell and the state he was in.Shell could barely breathe. The right side of his face was drenched in black and reflecting light.Perhaps he was crying.Balot knelt down next to himand reached out with her left hand, the one that held the gun.Shell tried weakly to wriggle away from her. As he did so, the gun in Balot's hand squelched anddisappeared. Something else appeared in its place.Shell's eyes focused on it with trepidation.It was the thing that Balot had received from the Doctor at the Broilerhouse. Or rather, things. Four ofthem. The four storage devices used in Shell's Clapping, his memory extraction operations. The chips.Shell's eyes grew wider and wider.Here you are. I want you to have these back.Shell's eyes moved slowly from the chips up to Balot's face. Balot touched Shell's temple with herright hand. She located the terminal. The fiberoptic circuit that connected straight to Shell's brain.Balot snarced.Shell's body bent backward and went rigid. His eyes opened so wide that it seemed as if his eyeballsmight pop out of his skull, but instead they started flickering rapidly.Without her realizing it, Balot's left hand had closed tightly over her four chips.Her right hand was still pressed against his temple, and before long Balot had got the measure of thecircuits to Shell's brain.Everything that you've lost, I'm going to give back to you.Balot took the vast amount of information contained in her left hand and started to feed it through thecircuits and into Shell's brain. Carefully, so as not to overload or damage anything.At first Shell didn't understand what was happening, but soon his face started twitching, and a crazedvoice leaked out.Stop itHis eyes rolled back in his head so that only the whites showed. An unearthly scream left his mouth. Acry of despair. His mouth started frothing, then bubbled up, and blood poured fromhis nostrils.Balot remained silent and continued to feed Shell's memories back into his mind. His destroyedgestalt was gradually reconstructed, and even his paralyzed nerve circuits were being repairedelectronically.It wasn't possible to manipulate his nerve cells directly, of course, but it was possible to restore theoutlines of all the events that had taken place, with details of how they all related to each other, memoriesof the sights and sounds and smells and other stimuli.Shell's screamcontinued for a long time. This was the man who had voluntarily chosen to be an emptyhusk of a man, but Balot was now forcibly pumping the rotten contents that he'd been turning away fromfor so long back into him.Eventually Shell was all screamed out, but the operation continued unabated for about thirty minutes.Only because of Balot's incredible aptitude was such a speed possible.Her glove squelched and swallowed up the chips again for safekeeping.When she was finished, Balot touched the still-unconscious Shell's head and communicated directlyvia the circuits in his brain.If you take good enough care of it then even a rotten egg might eventuallycome back to life.Shell slept. Throughout the whole operation, from start to end, he hadn't even looked at Balot once.Just like when he'd waved goodbye to her from outside the car that trapped her. He hadn't really beenlooking at heronly his own reflection. You reap what you sow, Balot thought, and then she realized thatthis applied to herself as well. She had never loved Shell and never wanted to. All she had ever wantedwas to be loved.She felt a great void disappearwhere there had been a sorrowful emptiness inside her, now she wasfeeling complete again.The very next instant she sensed something approaching the building they were in. She gulped.It was threat personified. A cold killing machine in the shape of a giant. And it was drawing near.Boiled is coming Oeufcoque murmured, for he too had sensed the impending danger.Balot nodded. She felt overwhelming pressure bearing in on her from all around, and she shivered.For a moment she forgot about Shell, forgot about herself, forgot about the dead girls and their accursedliveseverything was wiped cleanly fromher mind.For that alone, Balot found herself feeling almost thankful.04All air traf ic has been cut of ! Boiled has put in a thousand dif erent investigation requests to theaviation authorities!Balot heard the Doctor's voice shouting down the cell phone in frustration. Investigating the airways?What's he playing at? asked Oeufcoque.It's not the investigations themselves that are important. He's sent in aerial camera crews,weather balloons, that sort of thing, so as to block of all the flight paths. Humpty can't get permissionto enter any airspace on safety grounds. I can exercise my rights as a Trustee to get them out of thearea, but it'll take time for the messages to get through. Too much time. We've fallen right into histrap. What do we do?We prepare to defend ourselves and try to escape. What else is there? Even if the police were tocome to our aid, there's no guarantee that we'd be able to keep Shell to ourselves. If OctoberCorp has itsway, Shell will be shot dead on the spot. There's nothing else to dowe have to protect Shell,Oeufcoque said, as businesslike as possible.Balot could tell, though, that Oeufcoque was worriedand suffering for it. She listened to theconversation, tuning in to Oeufcoque's feelings as he spoke to the Doctor in the formof a cell phone in herhands.She sensed Boiled moving toward them somewhere outside the building. He would stop now and thento touch the building, and every time he did so Balot felt it as keenly as if it were her own body he wastouching. He was closing in on them, like a grand master seeking out the opening that would allow him tocheckmate.Oeufcoque and the Doctor conversed quickly now. Oeufcoque kept a level head throughout. At nopoint did he even consider the possibility of giving up the case. This saved Balotand gave her ananswer to the question What should I do?Outside the building, Boiled was moving in a peculiar way, cutting off their escape routes as he closedin.There was only one of him. There should have been any number of ways they could have run. And yetthere was no escape route. It was as if they were surrounded by an army of a hundred.This was another answer to Balot's question.I'll protect us all.Oeufcoque and the Doctor fell silent as Balot snarced the phone.How long until you can get here, Doctor?Two hours should beno, I'll make it there in an hour. Believe me.Sure. I believe you. I won't run away.No, no, if it gets too dangerous then please do run away. I'm begging you.All right.I'm trusting in you, Balot, Oeufcoque. I'll be there to pick you up as soon I can.The conversation ended and the display on the cell phone went blank. Balot placed it on the floor.What exactly are you planning?Please, help me with this.Balot snarced her bodysuit to speak to Oeufcoque.Shell had received rudimentary first aidhe was bandaged up and laid out on the concrete floor atBalot's feet.He looked almost like a mummy. He was trussed up in bandages, gauze, and ropes that bound his armsand legs. All Made by Oeufcoque.Perhaps due to the magnitude of the memories that had just been crammed back into his mind, Shellshowed no sign of moving or regaining consciousness.He might have been drowning in a sea of dreams from his murky past, but his face was tranquil as heslept. Balot felt a pang of reliefperhaps it was true. Now that he had his memories back, his murderousurges might finally subside.Balot knelt down to pick up Shell, who was as limp as a rolled-up carpet. Oeufcoque helped her. Hereand there her bodysuit turned into a metal exoskeleton to support Shell's weight.Balot propped the sleeping Shell over her shoulder and went to the garbage disposal chute in onecorner of the room. Checking first that there was no shredder or pulverizer at the other end, she liftedShell's body into the opening, holding on to himby the lapel of his shirt.Aren't you going to let himgo?Not yet.Oeufcoque realized immediately what Balot meant by this. He was genuinely impressed.She was waiting for the right moment. If Boiled was trying to ensnare them, she'd ensnare him back.Shrewd tacticsit was a gamble that relied on split-second timing.She confirmed that Boiled was just about to enter through the front door, and she knew the momentwas right.Bye-bye, Shell.Balot snarced the words into Shell's brain and kissed himlightly on the forehead.At the same time she let go. Shell's body slid down the chute, making a screeching sound as it did sobefore landing with a dull thud at the other end.Boiled stopped still outside the front door. He touched the wall with his hand so that he could graspwhat was going on, and it was clear he was considering what had just happened. Boiled understoodBalot's intentions. He also understood just how serious she was. Boiled walked closer to the front door.Suddenly Balot's knees started to wobble. She was gripped with the fear that came from knowing thatshe had burnt her last bridgethrown away her last chance to escape. She opened her voiceless mouth tobreathe in deeply, bringing herself back fromthe verge of panic.Oeufcoque called out to her. Balot. Balot squeezed her bodysuit tight.There are lots of people I've wanted to be loved by. But you're the only one I've ever wanted tolove myself.She spoke to Oeufcoque as she sensed him covering her whole body. She showed him her will, andher courage.I know the person we're fighting now used to be a friend of yours, so I'll do my best to stop himwithout hurting him too much.Oeufcoque seemed to be inhaling Balot's very intentions. To face an enemy as powerful as Boiledwith the handicap of merely trying to disarm himthat was virtually suicide, a death wish. Boiled wouldruthlessly exploit any perceived weakness to drive his advantage home.Balot hugged her bodysuit still tighter. It was the weapon that covered her. Snug and tight.I won't kill him. I won't be killed. I won't let him kill.This was what she had learned from Oeufcoque, after all, and it was the only answer that she couldgive.We won't kill. We won't be killed. We won't let him kill, Oeufcoque repeated, as if it were somesort of mantra. That's an extremely difficult task we've set ourselves. Butit's worth trying.Slowly Balot took her hands away fromher shoulders and placed themback at her sides.I've got a good partner.With that, Balot felt Oeufcoque turn again. He wrapped Balot thoroughly, to protect her and to be herweapon, ready to respond instantly to her snarc.Balot snarced her left glove. A metallic mass appeared. She gripped it tightly and felt its weightbecome part of her body. Balot and Oeufcoque were one.Balot remembered how it was she used to survive.Bad customers and good customers, she used to act in the same way: she just killed her breath andwaited.Waiting until she became used to it. Releasing herself into space. So that her heart wouldn't betrapped in one place. It was harrowing in the extreme. Looking back, she was amazed at herself forputting up with so much.It was all different now. And yet it was also the same. She had to do something. If she stopped herown breath, she knew she would die. But if she lost her focus on her opponent, she would also die. Therewas no point now in trying to escape from the reality that she was here. If she tried to box her heart upand put it somewhere for safekeeping, it would mean she wouldn't be able to be here right now. She justcouldn't afford to hide her heart away.She kept a steady rhythm, extending her consciousness, searching for a road to victory, letting go.She took a quiet breath in. Then out. She sensed that Boiled had reached the top of the stairs. She feltthe temperature in the roomdrop. Such was the creature that now stood on the other side of the thin door.I'm disappointed A voice came from beyond the door. A thick, heavy voiceone that she couldhave heard wherever she stood. I anticipated that you would kill Shell for me.Something about the way Boiled spoke struck Balot as being very incongruous.You know the way I do things.The words pressed down on her now. Her breathing slipped, and she corrected herself, ensuring shemaintained her breathing rhythm at all costs. Suddenly Balot realized why Boiled's words had struck heras being so strange.Tweedledee was delighted to have found someone like you. Someone the same as him, said Boiled.Boiled was speaking directly to Balot, and to Balot alone. He had always spoken to Oeufcoque inthe past.I'mdelighted too, for the same reasons, continued Boiled.The air in the room went from cold to freezing. The oppressive air threatened to rob Balot of all hersenses. But Balot was prepared for this. She felt a moment's opening within the rhythm that she had beenkeeping, and she knew she had to take it. She knew that Boiled would be ready too. She had to beteverything on that fearful moment. She steadied her gun.Balot realized all too well that she was hoping against hope for the jackpot. Boiled's jackpotshehad to wait for him to make the first move. After all, she could fire as many bullets as she liked at him,thousands, but they'd all be deflected.Her only choice was to aim for the instant that Boiled couldn't generate his PseudoGravitationalFloat. The instant that he fired his own gun.With those thoughts running through her head, Balot started firing. Over and over. Aiming for his gunhand.The fateful bullets should have flown straight toward Boiled, blowing his own bullets off course alongthe way.But Balot realized that something had gone wrong. It wasn't only the air that felt as cold as icenowthe cold was encroaching on her heart.Boiled hadn't fired. She'd fallen for his feint. A circle opened up in the door, a circumference ofbullet holes. The bullets that Balot had fired that were supposed to converge on one single point. Balotimmediately crossed her arms to protect her face. A moment later she felt the impact.Boiled's bullet slammed into her crossed arms.She flew backward.The shock pummeled her very consciousness just as much as it did her flesh.The door flew open and Boiled piled into the room.Balot was numb, but the impact of the giant figure entering her territory brought her abruptly back toher senses.She fell onto her back and rolled backward farther still to absorb the shock, then stood right back upagain. She moved like a prima ballerina, leaving everything to her body's instincts and to the suit thatcovered her. She stopped thinking with her mind and went with the flow.She checked that both arms were still working fine, which they were. She had been far enough away.Oeufcoque was just strong enough to protect Balot from bullets fired from a distance. It would havebeen a different story at point-blank range.Boiled moved in to close that distance. Balot's eyes filled with the giant man advancing on her withmurderous intent.Balot suppressed the fear and scowled. She snarced Boiled with all her might, as if she were baringher teeth. He noticed just in time.Boiled's whole body jumped up, like a football, and he fell to the ceiling. He twisted his body aroundso that he was just out of range of Balot's snarc. On the ceiling. Only a few meters away.Still, he was too far for her to try and penetrate his gravity shield and snarc the technology inside him.At the same time, though, Boiled was too far away to be able to pierce Balot's bodysuit with his gun.It was a deadly standoff, and whichever one of them could get just in range in order to fire the fatal blowjust in time would emerge victorious.Again Balot unloaded the contents of her gun at Boiled. He ran across the ceiling and hid himselfbehind a pillar.Balot fired at the pillar in a reflex reaction. No sooner had she done so did she realize that this wasBoiled's second feint. He had already started running down the pillar, and he extended his arm and acacophonous roar exploded.She may have been able to sense his location, but she couldn't predict which way he would move inhis three-dimensional space.Balot's mind went blank as she sprang to the side.The artillery-shell-like bullet grazed her shoulder. A small corner of her suit tore off and burst intoyellow flame. But Boiled's bullet had still missed her actual body.Balot rolled away to a safe distance, but as she did so Boiled kicked against the pillar he wasclimbing down and flew sideways across the room. Or rather, he fell sideways, toward one of the walls.Balot simply couldn't tell what was coming next, and she hastily battled down the growing,treacherous feelings of inadequacy that were about to erupt inside her. Immediately she reached out andgrasped the situation in the room, as if to convince herself to believe in her own abilities again.Her opponent could move as he liked. The important thing to Balot was that she knew where she was.Balot's mind flipped through all the places in the room that were likely to put her at the greatestadvantage. In barely a second she had determined her spot, and she ran for it.A battle of life and death was essentially a battle of will. If your will was taken away from you, sowas your ability to move. That's how you became so pathetically incapable of even lifting a finger. Well,Balot wasn't about to let that happen to her a second time.Balot ran, and as she did so she gave up on the idea of trying to predict Boiled's next move. Just asshe would give up on a busted hand in blackjack and turn her mind to a new hand that she might stand achance of winning. Instead of trying to second-guess Boiled's position, she would make sure that her ownposition was as good as it could be. She continued toward her perfect position, the place she knew shecould use, and as she did so she fired off a number of shots at Boiled as a feint, to try and distract himfromher maneuver.Balot was seeking the perfect moment, a single opportunity. She needed split-second accuracy andwillpower to find the chink in Boiled's armor, so that she could fire her arrow of Paris at his Achilles'heel.All while Boiled was in turn cutting off her escape routes and looking for his opening.When Balot tried to slip behind a pillar, Boiled was one step ahead of her. He broke into a run acrossthe wall and jumped. He was like a giant jaguar on the trail of a fawn in the headlights. It was the dansemacabre. He landed on the ceiling and took three more leaps, as if he were moving along a carefullychoreographed path. With his final step, his upper body spun around, and he thrust out his gun in a finalpose.With the muzzle trained on Balot's unprotected back, he put his finger on the trigger, ready to fire.That same instant the darkness all around flared up white, and the brightness assaulted Boiled's eyes.Balot had snarced one of the lights in the ceiling, judging the timing just right.Boiled's eyes narrowed. The light was coming from right below him, making it impossible to seeBalot in her white bodysuit.Boiled's eyes darted from left to right to try and locate her, his finger hovering over the trigger. Justthen he heard a loud noise somewhere overhead, on the floor.He honed in the muzzle on the sound and fired. Then he gasped. A reflex action, without thought ormeaning behind it.Boiled's shot pulverized its target. Only thing was, the target was the cell phone that Balot had placedon the floor just a moment ago. She had snarced its ringtone to play. Balot herself, of course, wasnowhere to be seen.Boiled realized immediately that he was in a trap. He prepared to move but found his whole worldplunged into darkness again. Balot had used her snarc for the third time in quick succession, turning thelights off again.Boiled lost his bearings, so sudden was the darkness in which he had been engulfed.He realized what Balot was up to.She was right underneath him. Both arms above her head, pointing her gun right at him. She had givenup trying to anticipate his movements and in doing so had found herself the perfect position. She haddoubled down, staking everything. But even as Boiled had temporarily lost the use of his eyesight due tothe sudden light and dark, his years of training and experience as a soldier kicked in, and he was able toanticipate Balot's next move.Balot fired her gun so quickly that fire seemed to dance around the muzzle. A fraction of a secondlater, Boiled crouched down, activating his PGF, using it as instant body armor.Balot's first few shots squeezed past, just before the impenetrable shield had been fully activated.Bullets pierced Boiled's right arm and leg, causing fragments of material from his jacket to flutter to thefloor. But that was all. The rest of the bullets had their flight paths diverted, creating a ring of bullet holesthat encircled Boiled on the ceiling where he crouched.Even as his body took the bullets, Boiled removed his gun from under his right arm and aimed. Hewasn't relying on his eyes anymore, but even so he had a perfect shot at Balot's chest. Balot sensedBoiled looming in the darkness and shuddered.Had the first few bullets that had slipped past the impenetrable shield managed to hit home in Boiled'shead or heart, the outcome might have been different. Or if the bullets had been of a higher caliber,powerful enough to blow off his arms and legs But now was no time for excuses. The simple fact wasthat the moment Boiled had worked out Balot's position based on her actions, he'd seen through her. Herdouble down had failed spectacularly. Bust.Balot scrambled away as quickly as she could, desperately trying to put distance between herself andher giant oppressor. She was also simultaneously snarcing her gun to make it larger, give it a biggerapertureall unconsciously, of course; it was a manifestation of her earlier shiver of fear.A deadly roar assaulted her. A bullet slammed into her left breast and she went flying backward. Itwas almost as if it were the noise itself that was forcing her back.Balot was saved by her positioning. She smashed into one of the taped-up glass windows.The window crumbled into fragments, and light scattered all around. Had it been a wall that she'd hit,there would have been nowhere for the shock to travel, and her rib cage would have shattered. Butbecause the bullet threw Balot into the air and out of the building, much of the energy was dissipated andthe impact to her body was lessened.Her bodysuit had hardened instantly to form a defensive breastplate, and this now crumbled away,having absorbed the shock. At the same time the hems of her bodysuit spun out new material, wrappingBalot up as she scrunched herself into a ball in midair as she fell through the window and toward theground below.A giant white egg formed around her and bounced like a rubber ball against the street.Two or three times it bounced, hitting the wall of the building on the other side of the street. A crackappeared in the egg. The white bulletproof container opened up and Balot emerged. Her hems returned tonormal, and fragments of shock-absorbent material fell off her like powder.She sensed Boiled pointing his gun at her from the other side of the window. In a slick, inevitablemovement, Balot fired at him. Boiled fired. The bullets clashed, and Boiled's deflected round hurtled intoa lamppost. The lamppost toppled and smashed into the street, scattering shards of debris.As this was happening, Balot summoned a shield. A carheadlights blazingsped over to her tohide her body. It took the bullets meant for her, its door smashed and hood crushed. Balot jumped out ofthe way just in time to see its gas tank igniting and spewing out a tongue of fire.Across the fire, she sensed Boiled jumping down fromthe window.Balot summoned another car just before he landed. Not as a shield this timethe car's lights flashedon and off aggressively as it hurtled toward the spot Boiled was going to land on.Boiled fired at it the moment he landed. One of the tires blew, and the car flipped onto its side andcareened into a telephone booth before slamming into the storefront of a multi-purpose building.Hiding behind the wall of fire, Balot focused her senses on how much damage Boiled had taken.Two bullets to his right upper arm, one to his right thigh. Blood was spilling from the wounds,dripping down his armand leg.Even so, the walking menace known as Boiled loomed as threatening as ever.Voices were heardtownspeople, tentatively emerging from nearby buildings, reacting to thecommotion. Then a voice closer to homean old man emerged from the entrance hall that had beenwrecked by the car. He was yelling something and brandishing a shotgun.Balot stared at himin surprise, but Boiled's left hand was casually lifted up and pointed right at himBalot fired as quickly as she could to stop Boiled. Boiled was forced to activate his anti-gravityshield, which changed the flight path of his own ferocious bulletinstead of taking out the old man, thebullet slammed into the wall of the building right next to him. The old man was thrown, and his shotgunfired off in a random direction, smashing the shop window of a building on the other side of the street.The old man collapsed in fright, and a couple of younger men jumped out of the building he had emergedfromand hastily dragged himback inside.When monsters like us fight each other, civilians only get in the way, Boiled muttered, and fired atthe wrecked car now embedded in the storefront. The hydrogen-powered engine, so typical in the RiverSide district, didn't stand a chance. The car flared up and the whole building trembled violently.That was all it took for the remaining bystanders to run back into the safety of their buildings. Boiledand Balot were the only two people left in the street on the whole block.Boiled ejected his empty cartridge, and it clattered to the ground with a metallic ring. He used hisblood-soaked right hand to pull out a speed loader fromhis pockets and effortlessly reloaded his gun.As long as the gunfire continues, the police around here will keep their distance. His voice was aseerily calmas ever. Let's finish what we started.He shook his revolver sideways. The cylinder was now back in position.For a moment Boiled seemed to Balot not only inhuman but something quite otherworldly. His facewas blank. His eyes were utterly ruthless, glinting with fire. His limbs were as steel, impervious to pain.And his heart was an engine fueled by hatred and murderous intent, its only purpose to combust andconsume all in an explosion of nothingness.Balot bit down hard on her lip. She tried desperately to avoid taking to heart the phrase Boiled hadjust spoken so casually. Monsters like us.It was true that both Boiled and Balot existed somewhere between human and machine. But Boiledwas one step farther down the linehis heart was like a machine too, cold and unfeeling in the face ofdeath. No, that wasn't quite trueit killed in anticipation of some sort of feeling. That was what madehimthe monster.Balot forced herself to keep her rhythm, taking deep, deliberate breaths. Her body was hot, her heartaflame.She was so hot she wouldn't have been surprised if the magazine she ejected from her gun glowed abright 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 wasconsidering not only the best position for her but the position that Boiled would be looking for too. Thiswould be the key to how they maneuvered in their deadly dance.A number of gunshots were fired almost simultaneouslythey echoed as one. Boiled's shot, Balot'smany.She was using the gun in her right hand now. The gun in her left hand was her bankrollher reserve,for when she needed it the most.Bullets met in midair; they clashed, crumbled, ricocheted. The remainder of Balot's volley of bulletswas 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 anincredible 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 firelong 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 sortsof unpredictable ways, Boiled muttered. He was acknowledging Balot's ever-increasing abilities, as ifhe could keep themin check by the mere act of recognizing them.Or it could have been something else, something simpler. Perhaps this was the only situation in whichBoiled was ever able to speak to anyone in a friendly manner. He could only experience intimacy whenearnestly trying to take the life of another, when under attack himself.I'mgoing 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 aspent magazine.Boiled's tactics were so perfect that he even anticipated Balot's momentary error. He was a flawlessstrategist, and the implication of this was that his actions were constantly calculated to put Balot at themaximumdisadvantage.Reflexively, Balot shot at the objecta 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 fromits effects.But the object didn't shatter and didn't explode. It just landed quietly on the street and rolled towardBalot until it was only a few meters away from her. Then it released somethingsomething invisible tothe naked eye.Balot suddenly felt the whole of her skin turning itchy. But only for a moment. The sensation quicklychanged into something much worse: she was hit by severe pain in her back and stomach and arms andlegs 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 allsense of precision and could no longer feel her surroundings. She was terrified.An Area Defense Weapon! Oeufcoque said. The black sphere wasn't an explosiveit wassomething far worse than that to Balot. A nonlethal weapon; it emits electromagnetic waves that causeterrible pain in all exposed areas.Balot couldn't even respondit 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, andhis bullet scored a direct hit on Balot, slamming into her arms. Balot was enveloped by a wave of pain. Itwas like she had been slashed with razors all over and had hooks inserted into the thousands of cuts, andthen 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 andexperience some pain for a changewho was it that had said that?Balot snarced her feelings in order to erase them. To send them into space. Just like she had alwaysdone in the past.She hadn't been able to master it at first, all that time ago. With her father. The image of his beardedface flashed up in the back of her mindthe way he undressed her, taking off her school uniform with hishands that had lost half of their fingers. Nauseating.Erase it all!I'm going to make it clean! I'm going to clean you up! I'd be better of dead. Thebustle of the pleasure quarter. The noises that drifted in through the car windows. Erase the painturn the switch on and the giant shredder would get rid of anyone, close family or complete stranger.To be human isto hurt. I just wanted to be loved. That's the goal. That's the trophy. I'm going tofuck you. I'm going to fuck you up. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts!There was the encroaching despair, and there was her heart that struggled tooth and nail to fight it off.Her stomach cramped. Her throat undulated, her mouth was filled with bile, and vomit dribbled down herchin. She cried. She cried as she puked. She didn't want to die. Such was the desperate cry of one whohad never experienced unconditional love. She didn't want to die.Ash, cash, trash, crushShe didn't want to die in this sorry state. The acrid taste of smoke was back in her mouth once more.Bash, rush, hash, gosh!She heard the nonsense rhyme spinning around. Balot's eyes closed and she was ready to sleep.Dish, wash, brush, flushShe realized that a powerful electric current was passing through Oeufcoque and stimulating her painreceptors on her skin. She grasped the sensation, not as real pain, but as an artificially inducedphenomenon.Flash, fleshThe pain grew distant, and she came to her senses. Her fetid past subsided, and only her will to liveremained.WishBalot's eyes snapped open.She realized that she was lying flat. A white defensive wall like an egg protected Balot, taking thebullets meant for her. Less than five seconds had passed since Balot had collapsed.The pain had disappeared, but now Balot sensed the terrifying reality of her surroundings more keenlythan ever. She felt that she could now sense the movement of even the hairs on Boiled's head as he firedat her fromthe wall he was standing on.She gripped both her guns tightly. In an instant it all came flooding back to her: which gun to use and atwhat time. Which chip would draw out the right cards; which chip would gain that decisive victory. Themuzzle on her left gun grew larger, and the caliber of the gun increased.Balot stood up. That same moment, her protective shell powdered to dust, because Oeufcoque haddissolved the barrier, and because Boiled had fired another shot right into it.Boiled stood on the wall, virtually an arm's length away fromBalot.His shot brushed past Balot's right flank and thundered into the distance.Pieces of white shock-absorbent material flew in every direction. Balot's right arm rose uptentatively, shaking like a newly hatched chick who had just pecked its way out of its shell, but when shedid manage to raise it her aimwas true.Boiled's eyes opened wide in surprise and delight.Balot's right hand unloaded all ten rounds in her gun in three and a half seconds flat.At the same time, her left hand had unleashed her snarc's fangsshe had caught Boiled's left leg withher snarc and was tearing into it.The PGF wall that protected Boiled lost integrity, and a number of the bullets unleashed from Balot'sleft gun hit home, piercing his arms and shoulders. Blood and sparks gushed out of his left thigh.Boiled's body seemed to float in midair. Or so it seemed at first to Balot, but then she realized that hehad simply lost the strength to stay attached to the wall, and now his giant frame was falling toward her.This was her chance. Balot prepared for the exact moment to fire her left-hand gun.The left sleeve of her bodysuit turned with a squelch into a metal support frame to help her armwithstand the incredible recoil that would come fromfiring such a massive weapon.But Boiled wasn't finished yet. Indeed, it was in just such moments that his true ferocity was revealed.Even his apparent collapse was a feint. Without warning, he placed both feet on the wall and stoodfirm. The next instant he hurled the butt of his massive metal gun straight toward Balot's head with suchpower the air howled as it parted.Balot's head flipped to one side to dodge. The sledgehammer blow grazed her forehead, ripping herskin open. The searing pain should have been immense.But Balot had decided to stop feeling pain. Even if her skull had caved in at this point, she wasmoving with such sureness that she felt confident she would still finish her action.She found the chink in Boiled's armor and carried out her sequence of attacks.She threw her invisible fangs, her snarc, at Boiled's PGF wall to open up a hole.A small opening, but it was enough. It took only one small card to spell the difference between defeatand decisive victory. Balot's left hand fired the gun into the opening.The shock of the recoil caused her metal brace to shudder and fall off. Such was the caliber of the gun.And it was the bullet fromthis gun that now bored a hole all the way through Boiled.The bullet pierced his left femurand with it, the core of one of the four devices implanted in hislimbs to generate his PGF.Boiled's left leg swelled up from the inside like a balloonand ruptured. The leg exploded into amass of flesh and bone and blood, creating a shower of red and white somewhere above Balot's head.The very next moment, Boiled had his legsevered from the thigh downin his hands and wasbrandishing it as a weapon.Then some invisible force kicked Balot in the chest with tremendous power.She flew fromthe sidewalk and her back slammed down onto the road. She jumped back up as quicklyas she could.Her body felt no pain. Her senses were clear, her heart calm.Even so, she was somewhat taken aback at the sight she now faced.Boiled walked down from the wall onto the sidewalk. His left leg was missing from just above histhigh. But this hadn't stopped himone iota; he walked on a phantomleg in its place.Boiled had cranked up his remaining four antigravity devices to the fullest and made a leg-shapedPGF field where his real leg had been. He was barely bleeding, eitherBalot could see that his PGFacted as an antigravitational tourniquet to stop the flow of blood fromthe exposed arteries.I won't be stopped just because I lose a limb or two, you know, Boiled whispered in a deep voice.Then he charged.Balot trembled. She fired quickly with her right-hand gun. Had she been able to use her voice, shewould have screamed something between a shriek and a war cry as she fired over and over. Boiled'sPGF was still there and it still deflected the flight paths of the bullets, but only just, and it wasn't perfect.Small gaps were opening up. Several bullets weaved their way through the openings and managed to skimBoiled's flesh.But Boiled wouldn't stop. He ran straight at her, bringing down his blood-soaked right arm.The air seemed to distort, and a physical mass of antigravity bore down on Balot.Breathtaking force descended on her fromthe left, fromthe right, fromthe front.Boiled's blow caused Balot's whole body to hurtle backward. She flew across the road and throughthe shop window of the building opposite. Oeufcoque covered her body as best he could, but Balotsnarced so that he focused his protection on a few vital areas. Boiled had thrown caution to the wind andhalf-surrendered his shield. If she didn't respond and do likewise, she wouldn't be able to truly face himdown.Balot clambered straight back up. Her surroundings were littered with broken glass from the window,and a number of stereos and other boys' toys were lying around on the floor.Boiled pushed his PGF wall further in order to bring down pressure on Balot's surroundings.Boiled drew near, and the moment he had his gun up again and ready to strike, Balot snarced. Sheturned all the building's lights on in a flash, dazzling Boiled as he drew near.Again, Balot was virtually invisible against the backdrop of the bright lights, and again Boiled fired ather, not with any semblance of aimor accuracy, merely to keep shooting, to keep the pressure up. A stereobeside her exploded, but even as Boiled fired she was running out of the shop onto the pavement, fallingto her side, and she fired at himagain and again with her right-hand gun.Balot didn't bother using her eyes either. She just sensed her opponent's positionhis existence. Shefelt her own existence. She felt the flow of life and death that the two of themcreated by the mere virtue ofexisting.Her opponentthe other existencejumped into space and landed on the wall just above theshattered shop window.Balot continued firing at him, tracking his movements accurately, and she jumped quickly to her feet.A bullet that Boiled fired back grazed the top of her shoulder. Her bodysuit, Made by Oeufcoque, wasripped open, and the shock-resistant material fluttered around in fiery pieces, ignited by the heat of theterrifying bullet.Then, without hesitation, Balot did the thing that she needed to do in order to take advantage of hersituation.She walked straight toward Boiled, firing as she advanced.Boiled, too, walked straight along the wall.Curiosity he murmured, releasing another howling bullet as he spoke. I just wanted to do thiswith you. With you two. Boiled's expression at this point could have been described as bold and daring,were it not for the vicious smile that played across his lips.Balot's eyes opened wide. The right sleeve of her suit was squelching and turning into a weapon thatshe hadn't used before. A number of threads of light emerged from her right wrist and flew at Boiled. Itwasn't until after the deadly weapon had already been released did Balot remember somewhere at theback of her mind that such a thing had once been used on her by the assassins that attacked her. Wirewhips.Boiled's gravity shield managed to repulse the wires amid a mass of violent midair explosions ofsparks and fire.As this was happening, Balot snarced one of the wires so that it went straight up and wrapped itselfaround the aluminumsash window frame, the one the old man had previously fired at with his shotgun.Sparks flew, and the metal window frame was chopped roughly in half.The wires came speeding back in toward her, and Balot was pulled up into the air by the momentum.Balot kicked her legs down against the wall of the building as hard as she could. She soared into theair. She was flying.Using her bodysuit to glide through the air, Balot felt the flow created by the two of them, the clash ofsteel in this bloodthirsty and unforgiving world.And then her feelings dissipated. It was as if her very existence was dissolving and then disappearingcompletely. This was how the two of themsurvived.Now Balot's very feelings were the flow. Balot was the flow of battle.One of Boiled's bullets sped toward Balot, missing her by inches.The next moment, Balot was on the wall next to Boiled, looking down at him.Boiled twisted his body to look up and sensed that Balot's next salvo was coming. Balot knew thatBoiled was about to squeeze his trigger again tooshe felt it in all her cells even before Boiled started todo it.Fractions of a second before the trigger hit the base of the bullet, Balot's legs kicked against the wallagain.The white-hot bullet grazed Balot's flank, boring through her bodysuit again. The shock-absorbentmaterial fell as fiery powder, and her exposed flesh was blackened where the bullet had passed by it.Balot snarced the wires and cut themall.Balot's body froze in midair. That instant felt like an eternity, and that eternity was all it took forBalot's right hand to squelch and turn into yet another deadly weapon.Boiled had predicted something of the sort fromBalot and aimed his gun accordingly.Balot sped down, headfirst, practically sliding down the wall on her left shoulder, and just when sheslipped below Boiled's feet the gun in her left hand erupted at Boiled.The high-caliber bullet smashed into Boiled's bullet, creating a festive explosion of sparks as the twomet and disintegrated. Amid the light show, Balot could sense the gap in Boiled's PGF precisely. No,more than thatshe had already sensed it. She knew that a gap had to open up where it did.As she fell, she swung the weapon in her right hand into that gap.Balot knew full well that Boiled would do anything to protect his gun arm, even sacrifice his otherarm.The next instant, the highly magnetized blade of Balot's Hutchinson Knife sliced through Boiled's rightarmjust above his elbow. There was no resistanceit was like cutting through water.Balot's sleeve turned into a cushion the instant before she landed.She bounced once on the sidewalk, and the cushion detached itself. Balot adjusted her cuffs and stoodon the sidewalk.It thudded to the ground. Boiled's lower arm, severed cleanly from the rest of him. She could see partof Boiled's gravity-generating device peeping fromthe stump of the arm, spurting sparks and blood.At the very same moment the rest of Boiled came tumbling down toward her too. He had lost his PGF.This time it was no feint, but rather Boiled's final move, a last-gasp hit.Boiled had now lost two out of five of his gravity-generating devices. Had he tried to keep himself upin the air, he wouldn't have been able to focus on his shield, leaving himvulnerable. He voluntarily threwaway the high ground to hurtle himself at Balot.He was like an over-ripened piece of fruit that a tree branch could no longer bearhe plunged towardthe ground in order to splatter the pungent, sickly sweet flesh, to spread his lethal seed.Balot snarced her bodysuit so that Oeufcoque covered her to protect her, and as he did, Boiled cameplowing down to her, all his PGF shield now converted to the sole purpose of smashing into Balot like asledgehammer.Balot was slammed into the sidewalk by the incredible blow.Where she hit, the concrete shattered and a large crack opened up under her back. This was anexplosion, not just a blow. Balot's body was just the ground zero of PGF impact. The crack in thesidewalk traveled as far as the asphalt of the road, and the shock waves from the blow caused all thesurrounding buildings to shudder, their windows smashing, and fire and smoke rose up all around.When the dust cloud finally settled, it was down to the final hand.Boiled, minus his right arm and left leg, was sprawled atop Balot, who was covered in a white shell.He was watching carefully.Balot wasn't moving. Her face and body seemed to be covered in a cocoon, and it wasn't evenpossible to tell whether she was still breathing.Areyou..hurt?Suddenly a clear voice echoed around Boiled's head.Whydoesithurtyou?And for the first time in a very long timeindeed, what seemed like the first time everBoiled feltthe warmglow that he'd felt when he first cradled the tiny golden creature in his hands.Boiled wondered whether he was crying.No I'mnot hurt.He wasn't crying. Not a single tear flowed from his eyes. Rather, blood dripped from the wounds inhis right armand left leg, staining Balot's white suit red.NiceandwarmA gentle voice. A voice that contained the last remaining fragment of Boiled's soul.Boiled lifted his remaining hand and pointed his gun at Balot's head, and the hammer clicked intoplace.Try and stop metry and stop my nothingnessSoftly, Boiled pulled the trigger.That instant the shell flew apart. Just as Balot had aimed for, this was the one moment Boiled could nolonger move his gun and was committed. Her knife thrust forward and sliced the giant revolver in two.The powder in the remaining bullets exploded, and the gun that had embodied such lethal force scatteredto the winds and was no more.Balot emerged frominside her shell and stared down at Boiled.She brought the gun in her left hand to Boiled's throat.This is what yoursunnyside up isBalot pressed the muzzle into his neck, but her face was overcome by sorrow. It was also covered insilvery powder. Her skin was developing. Even her black hair glittered silver.Boiled didn't answer. He just stared straight back at Balot's face as he discarded the now useless halfof his gun.The girl did well. The grip of the shattered gun hit the ground with a clang.You should be the one to finish it, Oeufcoque, Boiled whispered. He was close enough for Balot tohear his breathing.Balot opened her eyes. She couldn't help herself from yelling out. Stop it! Stop this all! But of courseno sound came out. Why would it? All that emerged was a hollow whistle of air.I've spent twenty years on the battlefield. I ammost satisfied with my life, Boiled said. His eyeswere fixed on Balot.Stop it, Boiled! It was Oeufcoque's voice.Boiled's eyes flicked to the source of the voice, Balot's left hand, and before she knew it his left hand,the one that had discarded one gun, was now on anotherthe gun in her hand.Boiled stood up. Balot felt that she was about to be pulled up to her feet with him, but then Boiled'sPGF kicked in, and she was sent sprawling against the wall behind her.The blow winded her. Her gloves had been ripped off. She had an uneasy feeling that something hadbeen taken from hersomething important. There was a click, and for an instant Balot couldn't tell whatit was.Then she realized that it was the sound of life and death.She realized that Boiled was holding the gun he had taken fromher and looking her way.The high-caliber gun that she'd had Oeufcoque turn into. It was still loaded. And the click that she hadjust heard was the hammer drawing back. More than thatit was Boiled's final act of doubling down.Oeufcoque! Balot tried to cry, but no words emerged.The name of the thing she'd had taken fromher.She was filled with raw despair. Balot had drowned in the flow and now looked into the black voidthat was the muzzle of the gun in Boiled's hand. What other way was there to make her cursed life cleanagain? She'd thrown away painnow all there was left was to throw away the rest of her life.Balot's eyes filled with tears.I don't want to die.She was resisting death's sweet, seductive murmurings with a heartfelt cry that came fromall her bodyand all her soul. Lost in the moment, she thrust the weapon in her right arm out. She knew full well that itwas a futile gesture. But she had to do something, to grasp at straws for the chance to find value in herown life. It was her right to do so, her choice.And then:NiceandwarmThe gentle voice echoed around inside Boiled's mind. I finally have it back, he thought.The warmglow 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 hadonce felt eluded himeven now.Boiled pulled the cold trigger, squeezing gentlyand 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 farabove her head.Had he really missed? Boiled? For a moment, Balot thought he really might have. But then she soonrealized 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 knifehad 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 armcould no longer support theweight of a single gun. He let go of the gun even before his arm was fully lowered, and it clattered acrossthe sidewalk.Right armstill 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. Andthat 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 onceexuded such awesome pressure now crumpled to the ground in a heap. It was such a pathetic sight that itwas almost comical. Before long, the wounds where his arm and leg had been severed spewed forthblood like water from a garden hose. His chest and back also overflowed with fresh blood, pumping outwith an audible gurgle. Balot listened to the sound of a life pouring out, down the drain. Into the gutter. Ofall 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. Scarcelyaudible.Balot nodded. She wanted to show him that she had understood. She didn't know what else she coulddo.Boiled's eyes moved, and he looked down at the blackness pouring out of his body.His lips moved again. Then he closed his eyesand Boiled moved no more.Balot held her breath. Suddenly her right glove slipped off her hand and fell to the ground, along withthe gun it had held. She heard the clang as it hit the sidewalk repeating over and over in her mind, and shefelt such sorrow she was amazed she wasn't crying. She lost all her fighting spirit the moment the gun hitthe 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 realizedsomething, and she stared at the gun. It revealed something about Oeufcoque's actionshis willthatcaused 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.05The 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 ofBoiled's Area Device Weapon had been deactivated. Balot had taken it upon herself to feel the pain. Itfelt 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 thepain that racked her body. Without her realizing it, that rhyming ditty had somehow returned again.Dish, wash, brush, flushThe fire brigade, clad in red, sprayed fire-retardant foam here and there from atop their fire enginesthat were themselves the color of the fires they were dispatched to put out. Residents emerged with theirclaims for compensation and insurance, and their details were taken down by world-weary city officials.Wash, crush, brush, hashThe police had cordoned off the area and had located Shell's bodyit had been safely deposited insome landfill, and he was now being stretchered away. The media were out in force, their camerassnatching what they could before they were pushed back behind the police line.Bash, rush, trash, ashPeople in white uniforms were taking blood samples and collecting body partsShell's fingers,Boiled's limbsand wrapping them up in plastic bags before hauling them away. After that, the corpsewas placed in a bag. There was only one dead body. Balot watched as the heavy bag was carted awaywith some difficulty.Flash, flesh, mash, goodishThe Doctor was nearby, speaking to the police. Among them were some of the DAs that they had metor seen at the trial. They smiled and cheered the Doctor, who thanked them and basked in their praise. Hewas delighted.Rush, josh, wish, rushThe Doctor parted fromthe police and came over to Balot.Finish, hush!The ditty had now finished, and the Doctor was right there to fill the gap.Well, looks like this will bring your case to an end. The second case will now progress from thepreliminaries and on to the real thing. The Doctor smiled gently. It was a smile of encouragement. It'sonly just beginning, but we'll get through it all right, he seemed to say. Of course, the Doctor now had amountain of paperwork to tackle, not to mention his other taskshis work really was just beginning.Anyway, you've been through a lot of danger to get this far. It's fair to assume that your reward will beaccordingly high. As for any regrets, I should be telling you to blame Oeufcoque and me, butThe Doctor rested both his arms on the car door and looked down at the gun that Balot was huggingclose to her.If you wouldn't mind, uh, I wonder if you'd stay with Oeufcoque for a while to try and give himsomecomfort. The outcome of this casewell, it's pretty close to the bone for both me and Oeufcoque, as I'msure you can tell.That person said the same thing to me, at the end.Balot looked toward the dead body that was being carted away as she snarced the car stereo to speak.Stay by Oeufcoque's side for me, he said.The Doctor's face looked surprised at this unexpected news. Boiled said that?Balot nodded ever so slightly. Then she asked another question.Do you mind if I go for a little drive? With the car on AutoDrive? Just like when I first camehere?Uh, aren't you a little tired, though? You know we still have the Humpty. You could always go andlie down thereNo, I'll be okay. Anyway, there's something I need to tell Oeufcoque. Something that man said.Boiled said something else?Balot nodded again.Now I can finallysleep.The Doctor didn't nod. He didn't shake his head. He just stood there silently, as if he were waiting forthe words to fully sink in.I was involved in that experiment myself I was one of the ones who made him so that he wouldnever need to sleep. Never be able to sleep.Balot's eyes lowered.The Doctor shook his head. There's still lots to do. That is, uh, there's a lot we need to do rightnowI know.We're going to have to save our grieving till later.Balot nodded firmly. The Doctor needed someone to do that for him. The Doctor smiled, just a little,and left the scene.Balot peeled her thick bulletproof clothing away from the bodysuit she wore underneath. It thudded tothe floor of the car.Then she pulled her gloves off and exposed her perspiring hands to the cool air.The red convertible avoided the early morning rush hour traffic on the main roads and wound its waytoward the coast. The car passed over a giant bridge that traversed the ocean and reached an area coveredby a concrete platform. Beyond the clean and fresh coastal region lay the industrial zone, slick with oil,and beyond that were the multi-story apartments and public residences comingling with the graffiti ofhomeless teenagers, all sleeping under the same purple sky.Balot gazed at the banks of the city, held her gun to her chest, and cried.As she cried, she became keenly aware of the fact that she hadn't died. She hadn't died and was here,feeling pain.She hadn't lost her life. She hadn't lost her body. She hadn't lost her heart. She had been wounded,and hurt, but that was it.Oeufcoque had protected her from everything. Right through to the bitter end. Even at that momentwhen, in order to live, she had to killOeufcoque had protected Balot.Shell's past had finally caught up with him and pushed its way back inside his mind. Boiled hadwelcomed the end to the senseless killing that he had so wanted. These were the final steps that the twowould ever take up the stairway to heavento Mardock.Oeufcoque, too, had taken a step up that spiraling stairway. He had heard Balot crying out that shedidn't want to die and accepted it. He had repudiated his former user, transcended his own existence as amere tool, and voluntarily taken it upon himself to kill. In order to keep Balot safe. In order to stop Boiledfromkilling her.In order to stop anyone fromkilling Balot.Balot heard waves. She could smell the sea spume. The air was heavy, and she caught a whiff of allsorts of other smells mixed in. The giant industrial machines in the factories were creaking, cradled by thestagnant air.The red convertible sped down Sea Streetthe breakwater that the city had used to declaw the ocean,to tame it to the city's needs. The car moved as if it were making a dash to freedom, away from somethingthat wanted to press in on it and smother it.I'm just a tool, Oeufcoque had once said. A tool designed to protect its user. And a tool that was kindand gentle and patient and taught her so many things. Balot searched for the words that would call himback, but they disappeared from her mind as soon as they appeared. The Doctor had asked Balot tocomfort Oeufcoque, but all she could do was what she was doing at the moment. Hold him tightly to herchest.Tears flowed from her eyes, dried, and then flowed again. She cried for herself, and then she cried forsomeone else.Suddenly she felt the steel in her arms grow warmer. She sensed Oeufcoque. But even though shewaited, he didn't stir. It was as if he really had become an egg. He stayed hidden inside his metal shell.But he was definitely there.Oeufcoque?Balot called out to himquietly. There was no answer.She unfolded her arms in order to examine the gun more closely. That was when it happened.Keep holding me like that, Oeufcoque said in a little voice. I want you to hold me for a littlelonger.Balot felt something warmspread out within her chest.When she held Oeufcoque, he could feel her too. Her heart pounded at the thought. Oeufcoque hadbeen sensing Balot all along. Her body heat, her feelings, more. Not just now, but always. This was muchmore than just looking at each other fromopposite sides of the mirror, never to touch the other.People touching her, feeling herthis had always been Balot's curse, the bane of her life. It was thesource of all her fears. To be taken, to have done to her as others wished. In order to protect herselfagainst that, her only strategy had been to hide inside a shell, to look on at the world fromthe other side ofthe mirror.But now her curse was lifting. She had been cleansed. The final piece of the jigsaw puzzle in her hearthad been filled in, without her even realizing it.I'm going to make you clean. I'm going to clean you up. The insidious whisper that had followed heraround and dogged her at every turn was now detaching its claws from her mind. Before long it becamejust a set of meaningless words and disappeared into the ether.All at once Balot's eyes began to overflow with more tears. This time, though, they were a differenttype of tear.Let's crytogether, Oeufcoque. Let's cryso that our sorrows will disappear, just a little bit.Balot hugged the gun with no trigger.Then, with her eyes turned up to the sky about to break dawn, Balot wondered what she could do.What she should do. She wanted to stay embracing the half-baked little egg foreverthis gun with notrigger. She knew that this was what she wanted. However bad things got, however burnt-out her lifebecame, she wanted always to remain as someone who could do that. Right now, that was what shedesired. It was what she could do. And it was what she should do.The car had finished its tour of the coastline, and before Balot knew it they were heading back intoward the city.The skyline was approaching, with all its tall buildings and numerous roads threading in betweenthem.In the city there would be setbacks, discouragements, and the hands that emerged from dark graves tohold people perpetually back.The specters of the past would no doubt continue to rise up and rend the silence with clamorousgunfire.As she gazed at the view of the city, Balot remembered the name of the man who had died and noddedsoftly.To stay by someone's side to be with someone you wanted to do that with, and who wanted to dothat with you in returnthat was the last bastion of hope. It made the city bearable.In the same way that Balot now embraced Oeufcoque, the morning light of Mardock City gentlycaressed Central Parkthat grand junction where all paths crossed. The Spot of Spots.Balot returned there.To the place where she had once died.In order to live.FIN