Book I:

THE FIRST COMPRESSION

Chapter 1

INTAKE

01

A girl murmured, in a voice that could barely be called a voice, “I’d be better off dead.”

It was the half-hearted sound of words that weren’t real, words not meant for the man next to her.

It was a sound that she thought could just be heard above the bustle of the pleasure quarter of Mardock

City, over the noises that drifted in through the car windows.

She perked up a bit after speaking the words, as if a jazzsinger had cast a spell with a song.

She was floating along in a four-ton black jewel. It was the highest cla.s.s of AirCar there was, its body

kept silently afloat by the Gravity Device Engine. All the door windows were Magic Mirrors—you

couldn’t see anything on the inside when looking in from outside. You needed special dispensation to

have this sort of window—Hunter Killers, they’re called, windows to keep the cops away. And of

course, to get that special dispensation, the city needed to consider you a person of suitable standing.

Usually there was a chauffeur a.s.signed to the car, but now it was on complete autopilot, gliding

through the city unconcerned.

Perhaps the car wasn’t so much the jewel as it was the jewel box. Perhaps it was the girl inside that

was the jewel. Certainly, that was what her appearance suggested. The shimmering lights of the city lent

her cheeks a l.u.s.trous sheen, illuminating her innocent face. It was beguiling, seductive. Her slimbody, her

piercing ebony pupils and her fawnlike eyes, her shoulder-length black hair: all there to give the client the

pleasure of an encounter with an exotic doll.

Doll was just about right. That was her status in life. She might be treated better—well, she was

considerably more expensive—than the likes of those you found in the sleazy Internet cla.s.sifieds:

Seduction by Precocious Nymphette. Milk-Colored Lollipop Girl. But human desires are what they are,

wherever you were on the social scale. Needs are needs. And anyway, she was already in a colorful

uniform of her own: gaudy striped tights that showed off her not-quite-yet-developed thighs and calves,

her skinny little a.s.s wrapped tight in white hot pants. She might as well have been advertised as s.e.xual

Innocence Available Here in one of those creepy ads.

Over her outfit she wore a trench coat that came down to her ankles. The type so beloved of the

Senorita cla.s.s of girls. It was spread open, and both her hands were stuffed deep in her coat pockets. She

was the very picture of a cute, alluring young thing who’d been transported into an adult wonderland.

It was just then, as she was thinking about herself, reacting to the bright lights of the city, that the

words were born:

“I’d be better off dead…”

She spoke the words. The spell was cast. Her thick red lipstick, heavy on her mouth, felt just that little

bit lighter.

“What is it, Balot? Did you say something?” asked the man sitting next to her in the back seat. He was

a weaselly figure, with his smooth, swarthy skin and black hair slicked back in a ponytail. He was

enrobed in a white coat and was facing the girl. His photochromatic Chameleon Sungla.s.ses, with their

shifting colors, settled on a sharp crimson tint.

“Nothing, Sh.e.l.l. I was just thinking about you at the Show earlier tonight.”

When the young girl replied, the man curled his handsome lips into a smile and stretched out his hand

toward her.

“It went well today. The deal at the Show. And it’s going to go well from now on.” As he spoke he

caressed her cheeks, rejoicing in her soft lines.

There were a number of diamond rings on the gambler’s hands. All platinum with Blue Diamonds.

They were taken off during the Shows, and one of the girl’s jobs was to look after them while he was

gambling. One of the diamonds was conspicuous, brighter than the rest, and the man called this one Fat

Mama, because, as he said, “I called in a favor from an acquaintance who works in processing to have

my dead mother’s ashes turned into a diamond.” Motherly love was eternal, so he reckoned, and brought

himgood luck to this day.

The man had a great many other rings, and the girl didn’t know whether the diamonds on them were

made fromthe ashes of people other than his mother.

“Open the fridge and make me my usual drink, will you?” In response to his request, the girl gave a

little murmur of a.s.sent, opened the door to the car refrigerator, and made a gin c.o.c.ktail. She squeezed the

lime, dribbling its juices into the drink. The surface of the beverage was absolutely still thanks to the

smooth ride that the AirCar provided, and all the while, right up until the moment that she proffered the

drink to him, the man’s hand continued stroking her chin.

“There’s a good girl.” The man took the drink, lifted up the girl’s chin, kissed it, and put the drink to

his lips.

The man, an upstart from the slums, was now one of the city’s leading Show Gamblers and also the

proprietor of many of the city’s legal casinos. The girl was an underage prost.i.tute—a Teen Harlot—

whom he’d bought, and (for the time being) she was exclusive to him, not required to service any other

customers. On the contrary, the little runaway was treated as a valuable commodity—she’d even been

given a new ident.i.ty, namely a fake citizen’s ID card.

“Everything that you’ve lost, I’m going to give back to you.” That was what he’d said to her when the

brothel that she worked in was rumbled and she had nowhere to go. The girl had often heard stories of the

authorities granting guarantees of safety—a new ident.i.ty, name, and address—to informers who had given

important information that resulted in the indictment of certain people from the city’s crime gangs. But the

girl was hardly looking for that.

“Does this mean that…you love me?” The girl asked this question, and the man narrowed his eyes and

smiled. His eyes were shining as he gazed upon her, his irises said to have been turned Emperor Green, a

color he selected when he put himself through the operation. And this was what the man said:

“You’ve asked the perfect question. That’s exactly right. The definition of love is to give. And there

are rules. Rules that the receiver of that love has to obey. As long as you abide by those rules, you’ll

continue being loved.”

The girl, in her simple way, thought that the man was kind. Sticking to the rules was nothing. She’d

lived under all sorts of rule and misrule so far. Well, apart from when she ran away from the Welfare

Inst.i.tute, unable to endure any more s.e.xual abuse. But in order to survive since then she had completely

stuck to the rules of the adult wonderland she found herself in. She’d done anything, dressed in any way

demanded of her.

Nevertheless, one lingering doubt remained: Why me?

She’d asked this question a few times—asked it of the man, asked it when no one else was around.

The question of all questions. Why is it me? Why do all the customers ask for me? Why does this man

want to give me all these things? Why, out of all the other girls just like me, am I living this sort of

life?

The girl really just wanted a simple answer. Like the sort a parent gave a child. Because I love you.

She could be loved by the man, or G.o.d, or fate. As far as she was concerned, all that mattered was to be

loved, and that would be enough to answer all questions such as Why me? That was the answer she

wanted fromthe man. But—

“Never doubt. It’s the road to ruin.”

This rule meant that the girl had to endure a different sort of ordeal from the ones she’d suffered in the

past.

“The recipient of love shouldn’t have any doubts. No need to trouble yourself with questions such as

Why me? You’re not permitted to have any doubts as to why you are who you are.”

In particular she was absolutely forbidden from touching on the details of the new citizen’s ID card

she’d been given.

The result of all this was that she had no idea even of the name under which she’d been registered

when he bought her. Not until six months had pa.s.sed—in other words, not until yesterday.

≡

Behind the high-cla.s.s AirCar that carried the man and girl through the pleasure quarter of Mardock

City was a red convertible. One glance at the convertible revealed that it came from the coastal quarter of

the city—the fact that it had tires gave it away. It might have been cheaper to buy a lifetime supply of

gasoline than to buy an AirCar (with its Gravity Device Engine that ran virtually for eternity without the

need for charging), but at least the owners of the car were able to buy gasoline. That showed that they

must’ve been at least something in the city.

“Almost at Central Park. We’re going to need to switch cars, eh?”

An easygoing voice emerged from the driver’s seat. A tall, lanky slip of a man. His hair was tie-dyed,

and his charming, reddish-brown eyes were covered by a pair of Tech Gla.s.ses of the sort that was so

popular with lab researchers.

“Let’s stop and take stock of the situation before we head into Central Park. If it turns out to be nothing

to worry about, we should withdraw.”

A rich, booming voice answered, but there was no one else in the car besides the driver.

“No way it’s going to turn out to be nothing. I’m the one who led the profiling on him, right,

Oeufcoque?” It turned out the man was speaking to the Nav, the in-car navigation system next to the

steering wheel. “That man’s been ‘looking after’ six different runaway girls. Of those, four commit

suicide. Two, n.o.body knows their whereabouts. Look at the stats from the Center for Guardianship of

Minors. It just doesn’t add up.”

The man spoke with conviction, and the Nav’s lights flashed in answer.

“On top of that there’s the little fact that all the girls died or disappeared shortly after checking their

own citizen’s ID for the first time, right, Doc? Well, I calculate there’s a less than two percent chance that

this girl has managed to access a Citizen Records Bureau. The way I figure it, all’s well and good as long

as nothing happens to the girl.”

The location, speed, and orientation of the black AirCar in front was shown in precise detail on the

Nav’s screen.

“Stop being so d.a.m.n wishy-washy. We’ve staked our lives on this work here. You don’t want to be

treated as trash, right, Oeufcoque? If we don’t get the guys who are behind that man then where’s your

usefulness? Nowhere. You’ll be useless—and the fate of useless things is to be disposed of.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I actually have to hope that something bad’s going to happen to the girl.”

“Sure. Mind you, the real question in this situation is whether the girl is going to accept you. A

Scramble 09 like you.”

Presently a blip ran across the screen of the Nav and a dark voice echoed all around.

“With humans…some live as objects, and it’s not always the case that they even want free will.”

“Hey, I’m sure she’ll understand just what a good thing you are. Her life’s in danger. That’s where we

save her. She’ll witness our usefulness firsthand, right?”

“Even if she does have her life saved, it’s not at all unlikely that she’ll reject us…”

The screen grew ever more blurred.

“Stop being such a mope. Que sera sera, right? Oi! Hey, stop hiding away.” The man banged at the

Nav with increasing urgency, and eventually the screen recovered.

“The target’s left the road. He’s faster than I thought.”

The screen showed that the blackAirCar had left the freeway and was moving directly toward Central

Park.

“It’s here! He’s changed the autopilot’s course. He’s broken the pattern set over the last forty-seven

days.”

The man was gleefully getting ready to give the steering wheel a big yank when the voice of the Nav

stopped him in his tracks. “Don’t follow straight after him, Doc. We’ll take a detour and intercept him at

his likely destination. Keep your distance.”

No sooner said than a number of possible routes came up on the screen, and before long they settled on

one of those.

“Why’ve we chosen this road, Oeufcoque?” asked the man as he turned the steering wheel again.

“ ’Cause if nothing happens we’ll be able to head home on this road without having to pa.s.s them.”

The man sighed—he should have known it—and responded, “If nothing happens, eh? Oeufcoque, my

naive little soft-boiled friend, do you really think we live in such a gentle world? When you think about it,

what is there really that divides our little patch of earth fromthe fires of h.e.l.l down below?”

≡

“Ah, yes, and we’re stopping right there beside the lake.” The man slid both his hands over the girl’s

body as he spoke.

“Don’t forget to set the timer for our rest. The pa.s.sword’s the same as before.” The man’s hands were

creeping incessantly about the girl’s body as she did as he ordered and set the course for the AirCar with

the remote. The hands that never broke into a cold sweat even when a hundred thousand dollars was at

stake, that had coolly won many a deal, the gamester’s hands that had caused so much excitement in the

Shows—these long, slender fingers had now slid into the girl’s underwear, forced her legs apart,

burrowed deeper and deeper (or so she thought), and at the same time the other hand played with the

swell of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, squeezing and gently pinching them.

Even as the man explored the girl’s body she was somewhere else—unresisting while silently

a.s.sisting him with his needs. Her coat had already been taken off, and the fingers moving about deep

inside her hot pants were getting wet. Sensing a change in her breaking, he slid his other hand under her

shirt and inside her bra. Still the girl silently continued to programthe course into the AirCar, and the man

took great pleasure in the way she let out the occasional involuntary moan.

“We’ll do it as you’re programming the remote.” The voice from the man, now behind her,

commanded, and the girl closed her eyes, obeyed the rules.

As the girl closed her eyes and slipped out of consciousness, the sensation of the man’s hand inside

her gradually diminished—all sensations isolated—and it was as if everything in the world were

happening on the other side of a thin film.

This was the girl’s talent, and indeed it was a skill that she constantly had the opportunity to polish.

Right now she was able to observe even her own reactions and physical responses from a safe place

within her heart.

Don’t stay hidden in your sh.e.l.l, someone would say.

Come on out, they would say.

That was the sort of response she’d always had fromthe myriad of people in her life—social workers,

the people fromthe inst.i.tute, pa.s.sing friends, colleagues, employers, owners, clients.

But this city had a different set of needs for the girl’s special talent.

It turned out there were quite a few clients who liked their girls to be dolls.

Clients who got off on the idea of girls who closed off their hearts, girls who acted as though they

were asleep or dead.

“Balot…” the man called into the girl’s ear. Just as many clients had called her before.

Balot. The name of that delicacy in which a chick in its egg was boiled alive and eaten straight from

the sh.e.l.l.

At first it was a nickname given to her by the mistress of the brothel, half in jest. But the name soon

stuck and became her trademark. Just as word quickly spreads of a particularly special dish at a

restaurant, the clients came searching her out, and she became popular. No one told her not to stay hidden

away in her sh.e.l.l any longer. Instead, that became her job. To continue hiding herself away in a thin husk.

A girl—boiled to death in her own sh.e.l.l by the heat of a man’s ardor—a sweet, balmy delicacy was born.

“Good girl. You’re an elegant little doll, like a figure in a painting. Now, open your eyes.” The man

spoke in feverish tones. The girl obeyed, meekly. The vision that confronted her when she lifted her

eyelids was like a world viewed fromthe bottomof a lake, shimmering away in the distance.

“Do you remember the rules, Balot? The rules you need to obey if you want to be loved?”

Caught off guard—just as when he had asked her the question in the past—the girl just nodded her

head vaguely.

“Do you know what happens to girls who forget the rules?”

The sound of the man’s voice sent a sudden chill through the girl’s heart. She was taken aback. She

realized that the glitter of the city had disappeared and that they were now surrounded by the gloomy gray

of the park.

Behind the girl the man slowly took his sungla.s.ses off.

“Sh.e.l.l…” The girl spoke as if she were swallowing her own breath. That instant the man’s large body

came down on top of hers. The glint at the back of his emerald eyes was different fromany sort she’d ever

seen before.

“You be obedient, Balot.” The girl stiffened slightly when she heard the sharp tone in his voice, but of

course, in the end she did just as the man commanded. The girl meekly serviced the man’s needs, and at

the same time the AirCar eventually came to a halt by the large lake in the park, resting still in the air.

02

Central Park was known as the Spot of Spots. It bisected the city, and it was the only place on the

circuit where different cla.s.ses of cars—which were easily identifiable according to where they were

coming fromand where they were going to—might ever cross paths.

Take the middle-cla.s.s Cheap Branchers, for example. They migrated into the city in droves, and might

drive from their homes in the purpose-built skysc.r.a.pers of the coastal district down to the pleasure

quarter, but they would never go near the high-cla.s.s Senorita district in the east, let alone the industrial

estates to the south. The slums sprawled out throughout the southern districts, kept in strict isolation from

the immaculate streets.

In other words the red convertible wouldn’t be able to park right by the lake just because the black

AirCar had done so. That would immediately arouse suspicion. So the convertible picked a riverside spot

a few hundred meters away fromthe path toward the Senorita district the AirCar would later be taking.

The night was thick and moonless. After the convertible killed its engine you could hear even the wind

beating against the leaves on the trees.

“There! There! It’s that man’s car!” Oblivious to the cold night wind of early spring hitting his halfjacket,

the driver of the convertible nudged his Tech Gla.s.ses up with his finger and said,

“Oeufcoque, time to turn.”

He grabbed the Nav with his other hand.

“Got it,” said the Nav. And then a strange thing happened. The Nav lost its shape. A squashy

distortion, and in a twinkle it was a pair of binoculars.

“Too dark to see anything, Oeufcoque.”

The man was looking over his gla.s.ses into the binoculars, a frown expressing his dissatisfaction. As

he did so the binoculars lost their shape in his hands. In less than a moment they had squidged, like

quicksilver, into a pair of night vision goggles.

“How’s that, Doc?” said the night vision goggles. The voice was identical to the Nav’s.

“G.o.d d.a.m.n, looks like that AirCar has a real expensive Gravity Device Engine,” said the man that the

goggles were speaking to—the Doctor—as the solemn sight of the black car entered his field of vision.

“I’d bet the shock absorbers on that thing are so good that a gunfight raging inside wouldn’t even register

on the outside. Let’s have a look for the pa.s.senger in question…no, Magic Mirrors. Can’t see inside, just

as I thought.”

“Save up all your requests for one go, will you, Doc? Wait a sec, I’ll change into a pair with heat

detectors.” The goggles distorted again. This time only the lenses. As this took place a kaleidoscope of

the reds and blues of human body heat unfolded before the Doctor’s eyes.

“Nice one, Oeufcoque—however tricky the request, you deal with it in a flash, the All-Purpose Tool

that you are.” The Doctor peered through the goggles, satisfied.

“They’re violently entangled. Could be engaged in hand-to-hand combat, Doc.” The goggles spoke in

a serious tone, but the Doctor just shrugged his shoulders.

“Hmm…you could say they’re engaged in hand-to-hand combat, yeah. Right in the middle of it. Man

and…woman. No one else in the car. Let’s start filming.”

“Already recording. But these images aren’t enough to determine whether we have the right man?”

“It’s Sh.e.l.l-Septinos, make no mistake. A modern-day Bluebeard. The color of sin, the death of the six

young girls—it’s flowing through his veins. I can see it.”

“Yeah, but your testimony alone isn’t going to count for much down at the Broilerhouse, Doc. With all

the fake footage about these days, recorded evidence has stopped counting for much.”

“I know. But you’ve got records of his physical characteristics, right? If we can just identify something

specific—any ailments, treatment scars—then a heat scan of his somatic cells will come in handy as

evidence.”

“According to an ailment scan we have a 72 percent chance of determining that it’s definitely him, by

my calculations.”

“What about his brain? He’s had operations there. If you can identify those.”

“The brain is difficult…48 percent chance.”

“The Broilerhouse won’t even take a second look unless we’re talking over 90 percent. What about

the girl?”

“Rune-Balot.” This time the goggles answered immediately. “We can conclude it’s her with a 96

percent certainty. She’s the underage prost.i.tute scouted by Sh.e.l.l-Septinos back when she was a kiddie

p.o.r.n star.”

“d.a.m.n it. This’d be useful evidence if she was the one we were trying to stop fromkilling him.”

“Wait…something’s odd.” A quieter voice fromthe goggles. The Doctor’s face tensed immediately.

“Odd? What’s odd, Oeufcoque?”

“The odor. I’mgetting smells fromthe car—not just pleasure, but something else mixed in there too.”

“Explain that in a way that I can relate to. You know your nose is special !”

“There’s the marked smell of…fear. They’re both afraid of something.”

“What? In the middle of doing it? Not just the girl, but the man too? Why?”

“No, it’s nerves…stress. Both people are subtly different but…similar.”

“Hone in on Sh.e.l.l, the man, a.n.a.lyze him. We might be able to work out his motives for his crimes to

date, Oeufcoque.”

“It’s almost like a death wish.”

The Doctor was visibly stunned by these words.

“What? Sh.e.l.l’s planning a suicide pact with the girl?”

“In a sense…that could indeed be the case.”

“What a perfectly crazy b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Right—mission aborted—we need some serious psychoa.n.a.lysis here.

Okay, now that we’ve come this far our next step is to pay someone off, get them to turn this footage in to

the Broilerhouse. Any charge we can make stick—breaking the protection of minors law, attempted

coercion to commit suicide—whatever! Then we take over her case, offer the girl shelter—”

“Won’t work. He’ll rid himself of all ties to her while the investigation’s under way, and you’ve got

yourself an unresolved case, never to be closed. That’s one of the things her fake ID will be there for—so

that he can cleanse himself of any ties to her in an instant if he needs to.”

“Well, what do we do then? Carry on playing Peeping Tom?”

“Hang on…something strange is happening.” The voice from the goggles was pointed, abrupt. “The

man’s odor has changed. As if it’s oozing out. No suicidal tendencies anymore. It’s definite pleasure.”

Right at that moment another AirCar was silently drawing closer fromthe other side of the park.

≡

“You’ve questioned the status that you were given.” The man murmured while holding the girl. He

laughed a sharp, hollow laugh. He stared at the girl, a decision hidden deep in his eyes.

Held by him, the girl just lay there silently. She wondered, through the thin skin that separated her from

the outside world, whether it really was such a bad thing to try and work out her own position in life. It

must be a very bad thing, surely? Part of the girl became sadder and sadder as she thought about this, but

another part—the heart fromdeep within—looked on, utterly indifferent.

“Good girls don’t break the rules. Nice dolls exist to be obedient little decorations.” The man

embraced the girl with both arms as he spoke. He wrapped himself around her tightly. This was different

from a gentle embrace. It was like he was clinging, almost as if he were about to be dragged off

somewhere but had found something to hold on to in order to stop himself frombeing pulled away.

“But it’s okay, Balot. It’s okay. It’s tough for me, but it’s tough for you too. It’s tough. I understand. So

tough I almost want to die. In fact, I am, practically, going to die. Part of my memory is going to die. But

even if it dies away, the shape of it can still remain. Just like a Blue Diamond made fromashes.”

The man thrashed around furiously now, ranting and raving. As if he were delirious with fever. As

always at these times the girl remained docile. That was her job, after all, her talent.

Eventually the man stopped moving, slowly peeled himself off the girl, and came out of her. He started

dressing himself, and she was about to get up too when the man said in an unexpectedly tender voice,

“Stay just the way you are, Balot.”

So the girl lay sprawled in her disheveled state, and all she could do was gaze absentmindedly back at

the man as he laughed his thin laugh.

“What a wonderful sight. A beautiful sight. And after this you’re going to turn into something even

more beautiful,” the man murmured as he moved farther away from the girl, pressing his back against the

car door.

“A Blue Diamond.”

A watery smile, then the man raised his right hand to show off the glittering rings.

“That’s the answer to the question ‘What becomes of children who break the rules,’ Balot.” Speaking

these words, the man suddenly opened the door and jumped out of the car.

“Sh.e.l.l…?”

Just as she was hurriedly getting up the door slammed shut with a loud bang right in front of her.

Instinctively she tried to open the door—no go. However hard she tugged at the electric inner handle

the door just wouldn’t open. The man turned to look at her. Or so she thought, but then she realized that he

was just using the Magic Mirror windows to straighten his clothes and hair and adjust his sungla.s.ses. He

wasn’t looking at her at all. The hands pulling at the door handles lost all their strength. She couldn’t even

speak. The world was distant, and she was overwhelmed by a terrible premonition.

When the headlights of the other AirCar came into view, the girl immediately understood that

everything had come to pa.s.s just as the man had planned right fromthe start.

≡

“Murder! I smell it! The girl’s going to die!”

The goggles’ outburst was shrill.

“Wait, there’s another car! Give me a head count!”

The Doctor pointed the goggles at the other AirCar. Instantly the lenses transformed with a squash, and

the body heat sensors turned back into standard night vision lenses.

“I don’t believe it… It’s Boiled,” the Doctor said in a troubled tone. “Look. The man in the driver’s

seat—it’s Boiled. To think that he’s now working for Sh.e.l.l! This isn’t good, Oeufcoque. If they’re

planning on killing the girl then any rescue attempt by us could backfire. Boiled is the sort that will shoot

her first.”

Soon the other AirCar pulled up beside the one containing the girl. The new AirCar had normal gla.s.s

in the windows, and the Doctor could see the stocky man in the driver’s seat. Short gray hair and a white

face devoid of any emotion. Boiled opened the window and spoke to Sh.e.l.l. His gray eyes flickered, and

—

“s.h.i.t! He’s looking this way!” The Doctor hastily threw himself to the car floor for cover.

“Calm down, Doc. I can’t smell any hostility coming from Boiled. Sh.e.l.l, on the other hand, is dripping

with murderous intent. It’s a very definite smell.”

“How’s he going to do it? Shoot her? Hang her? Poison her? Is the girl already dead?”

“No idea how, but it doesn’t feel like it’s happened yet. Point me at them. I’ll start recording.”

The Doctor got back up and pointed the goggles at the two AirCars by the lake. The man who’d gotten

out of the first AirCar—Sh.e.l.l—was gesturing at the car containing the girl.

“He’s waving his hand as if to say goodbye.”

“Not really enough to paint a convincing picture of a man planning on committing murder, is it?”

“Of course it’s not enough! He could give any old excuse for his actions. What the h.e.l.l is he playing

at?”

“He’s keeping her trapped in the car. s.h.i.t! His murderous intent is starting to change to relief. There’s

not a moment to lose. My nose is definitely right about this—consider this an emergency!”

“And do what?”

“Move! Save the girl!” the goggles yelled. The Doctor started the convertible as fast as he could.

Up ahead the second AirCar, now with Sh.e.l.l on board, was starting to move away.

The car with the girl in it wasn’t moving.

The tires of the convertible spun violently, letting off a piercing shriek as the car took off.

At that moment the hood of the AirCar containing the girl exploded into a million tiny pieces.

Stunned at such an incredible turn of events, the Doctor rubbed his eyes. Then more terrible,

thundering explosions. The darkness was ripped apart in an instant, the whole scene repainted with the

bright red flames of an inferno. A roaring pillar of fire erupted along with the explosions, and the shrapnel

from the car poured down in lumps of solid flame, bathing the lakesh.o.r.e with its incandescence. The

weird smell of roasting steel filled the air.

“To think he’d blow up the whole car! s.h.i.t, Boiled made me take my eye off the ball! Instant death?”

the Doctor said, despairing. Pieces of shrapnel rained down chunk by chunk on the hood and windshield.

The Doctor pressed down on the gas pedal, and in his hands the goggles changed shape with a squelch

and said:

“An explosion of the front engine. The rear of the car was ripped halfway off by the first blast.”

As soon as the goggles spoke they changed—somewhat surprisingly—into the shape of a fire

extinguisher, and said, “The car was built to disperse the effects of an explosion. There’s a good chance

that anyone in the back seat won’t have been killed by the blast.”

“What, so if she’s lucky she’s just covered in third-degree burns instead? See? What really divides

our little patch of earth from the fires of h.e.l.l down below? Why not taste the flames for yourself, Mr.

Soft-Boiled Oeufcoque!”

“I’ll quench the fires of this world before they get a chance to burn me.” The fire extinguisher’s voice

was deadly earnest. “That’s my usefulness.”

03

A number of thoughts ran through the girl’s mind just before the explosion.

You’ve questioned the status that you were given.

She’d just wanted to make sure. She’d just wanted to show her grat.i.tude for the wonderful gift that

she’d been given. That was why—just the once, she’d decided—she’d secretly accessed the city’s

personnel directory and learned who she was. She didn’t think that this was such a bad thing.

Why me? She’d just wanted to solve the mystery, learn the answer.

When the other car had arrived, she’d considered again whether it was such a bad thing.

And, of course, as it turned out it was. Without realizing it, she was trespa.s.sing onto the dangerous

territory of a dangerous man. And this was the worst thing in the world.

The man suddenly turned to look at the girl staring vacantly out of the window. Not at the window: he

was looking directly at the girl beyond it now, and clearly waving goodbye.

A Blue Diamond…something he can truly love. That’s what becomes of girls who break the rules.

She could see the glittering rings on the hand that was waving at her. A shudder tingled down her spine

amid her confusion. Synthetic diamonds made from human ashes. The rings that had been entrusted to her

to look after during every Show. There were seven of them—the man’s mother and those poor, anonymous

girls. She’d heard the rumors that he’d bought a number of girls and let them die. Those rumors were true.

And now me too—a wave of nausea welled up inside her. She felt as if something awful had seared itself

deep in her chest.

Why? Why me?

The question emerged from her mouth amid the daze. Now the question was no longer about love—it

had changed into something more sinister and disturbing. At the same time her nose sensed danger,

something burning…a disgusting smell. Sulfurous fumes filled the car, and the alarm in the driver’s seat

was beeping, as if to warn of engine trouble.

The man continued smiling and waving for a moment, then quickly turned around and jumped into the

other AirCar. Just that moment she remembered some of her fellow wh.o.r.es talking about how gangs liked

to burn their victims to death. It made it easier to process the corpses…

She heard a voice: Come on out.

Don’t shut yourself away in the sh.e.l.l of your heart. The words of the volunteer social worker from

the Welfare Inst.i.tute.

The sh.e.l.l. That was what was supposed to have protected her. But right now, she was its prisoner—

trapped by a man, the man named Sh.e.l.l-Septinos, the man who had promised to give her back everything

that she had lost.

She suddenly became aware that her hand was frantically fumbling at the door handle. For a moment,

she didn’t even realize what she was doing. But of course she was trying to save herself.

Deep inside her own heart, another girl, just awakened, looked calmly on at her floundering hands.

Indeed…

The girl murmured. So this was what it was like. To be shut away in a sh.e.l.l. The door wouldn’t open.

Her hands kept on struggling with the door handle. She wondered again whether what she had done was

really all that bad.

Balot, somebody called. Ironically. The chick was boiled to death in the sh.e.l.l before it was even

born. The clients said it was the name of a rare delicacy. The clients who favored doll-like girls. Balot

had become the pièce de résistance—no one would tell her not to stay holed away inside her sh.e.l.l

again…

Before long the other AirCar started pulling away. As it did, the man in the front pa.s.senger seat turned

back to her again and waved lightly, carefree. See you soon, he almost seemed to say.

The nausea welled up inside her again. See you soon—once you’re a dead body. Would her scorched

remains—her body turned to ashes—really be decorating this gambler’s finger as a synthetic jewel?

Her chest clenched in dread thinking about this. The body that had survived so far by meeting the

needs of others: Was this to be its fate? Was she to be used as a thing right until the end?

“Die, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Die.”

She was shouting now, as if by reflex. She clung to the window, tried to watch the AirCar as it sped

away, but soon lost sight of it and was left only with her own translucent reflection.

“You’re a s.h.i.t. You’re nothing but s.h.i.t. I hope you die, you s.h.i.t!”

And now she was directing an angry tirade at the man somewhere beyond the window: foolish, trash.

As if she were singing. Then she inhaled, choked on the acrid air. Tears welled up. Her head went hazy.

Her hands were yanking at the door as if her life depended on it. A lingering memory of the man was still

burning deep inside her body.

Foolish, trash, ash, cash.

The little ditty spun around in her head. That’s all I am. Was there a version of myself who thought

that? she wondered for an instant and looked out, but only a sad reflection stared back at her. Even now

her hands continued to grapple with the door handle.

Josh, fish, gash, hash.

A wave of despair a.s.saulted her, and the part of her that had up to that point remained hidden behind

the thin layer of skin suddenly emerged.

“No! Help me, please!”

At that moment the pressure inside the car suddenly dropped, and a high-pitched buzz sounded.

Something, somewhere, caught fire.

Flash.

The pain lasted only an instant. A terrible roar and an explosion a.s.saulted her, and her vision was

flooded with a blinding white light.

“I don’t want to die.”

That was the last sound the girl was ever to voice.

In the next instant the driver’s seat was blown backwards by the force of the blast, slamming her body

against the rear seat before the raging flames flared up and everything became a single ma.s.s of fire.

≡

“Are you in pain, Mr. Sh.e.l.l?” the man in the driver’s seat asked of the man now sprawled in the front

pa.s.senger seat.

“Just stressed.” The man—Sh.e.l.l—took his hand off his forehead and moved it to his breast pocket. He

pulled out the flask of scotch and the bottle of pills he kept inside his suit. He took a swig of scotch, put

two of the pills in his mouth, and then followed with another gulp of the whiskey, as though forcing down

something bitter.

“Heroic Pills, are they?” the driver muttered. Sh.e.l.l nodded and sighed a deep sigh. His Chameleon

Sungla.s.ses were now glinting a deep blue, almost the color of lead.

“When I was a child I had A-10 surgery on my brain,” Sh.e.l.l said. “When my stress levels rise above a

certain level, my brain automatically switches to a state of euphoria. It was one of the Social Welfare

Department’s crime prevention schemes they tried out in the slums. But when I was in my teens they

discovered a flaw and halted the scheme.”

Sh.e.l.l looked at the driver, who nodded as if to say I’m listening.

“There’s a chance your brain goes haywire. Back when I was a kid, a friend went blind the moment

his stress levels rose. The part of his brain that controlled his vision was destroyed in the chemical

reaction that induces happiness. In my case, my memory goes in a bad way. So, these pills are the backup

plan. Absolute perfection. Take these and there’s no stress, no side effects. Right?”

“Well, at least you know how to deal with misfortune. That’s what allowed you to hire me,” said the

driver. These weren’t words of consolation. His tone was devoid of sympathy. His pale, gla.s.sy skin

seemed strange on a man so solidly built. His hair was closely cropped and mostly gray. Sh.e.l.l thought of

himas a revolver.

“Exactly right, Boiled. It means that I can cope with this little ritual. And, step by step, I’m able to

climb the road to glory in Mardock City.”

Sh.e.l.l laughed. He had a simple faith in the man sitting next to him. Even better, the drugs were kicking

in. He glanced at the side mirror, noticing again how much contrast there was in the way the two of them

looked. His own dark skin, long black hair. A feeling of satisfaction was spreading throughout his body—

satisfaction that he was able to hire such a keen professional, get himto do the driving…

It gave himconfidence that his plans, his scheme for life, were all working out.

“And every time I take another step toward glory I gain another beautiful Blue Diamond.” Sh.e.l.l gazed

at his glittering rings as happiness flooded his senses.

Boiled interrupted Sh.e.l.l’s euphoria. “I’mconcerned about something.” Sh.e.l.l shrugged his shoulders.

“What?”

“Back there in the park I noticed a car that was…incongruous.”

“Incongruous?”

“There’s a big baseball game at the dome at seven tonight. It’s strange that a car with tires would be in

this park.”

“What’ve tires and baseball got to do with each other, Boiled?”

“Electromagnetic waves are blocked within the park to keep it a quiet zone, right? Their car wouldn’t

be able to pick up a radio signal. What do you think people of that cla.s.s would be doing skulking in the

shadows of the boathouse during a time they should be enjoying themselves?”

Sh.e.l.l smiled a thin smile and shook his head. “Whatever. There’s no proof of what I did today. No

memory. And even if there is any trouble, you’ll take care of it for me, Boiled. Trouble is your business,

after all.”

04

The girl was already unconscious fromthe impact of the blast before the flames enveloped her body.

This meant her lungs avoided the worst of the fiery smoke—in other words, she avoided, by the

narrowest of margins, dying of smoke inhalation. Even so, when she finally awoke in a dim haze the cells

in her mouth had been burnt through, and she was barely being kept alive by a tube that was shoved down

her throat to her respiratory organs, forcing her lungs to breathe to an automated rhythm.

A voice abruptly leapt into her still-indistinct consciousness. “She’s still alive, Doctor! The girl,

Rune-Balot, she’s alive!”

A voice as if the speaker were rejoicing from the bottom of his heart. And then, in time, a different,

more leisurely voice:

“She’ll be okay for now, Oeufcoque—her whole body’s enveloped in the protective foam. Even so,

this is horrific. She’s burnt to a crisp. Her skin’s lost, and her sense of taste and smell could go too…”

“The poor thing. Do you think she’ll resent us for rescuing her, Doc?”

“Well, humans—females in particular—are such illogical creatures. They start to lose the will to live

and hate the world the moment something affects their sense of worth. We’ll just have to try and reason

with her.”

“Will she choose the path of Scramble 09, do you think? Or will she give up on life?”

“Probably best not to let her know the latter option exists.”

The girl—Balot—felt nothing of the world, but just then she saw a curious thing emerge.

The one called the Doctor: a tall, lanky man. Splotchy hair, Tech Gla.s.ses, a reddish-brown half-coat

that covered a colorful patchwork of a doctor’s gown, with syringes, portable microscopes and all sorts

of other contraptions hanging from the chest and waist. It was as if the lead singer in a psychedelic band

had suddenly decided to say Look at me, I’m a doctor now. And then—

Even more bizarre than that. A golden mouse perched on the Doctor’s shoulder.

“Anyway, look after her, will you—she could turn out to be a new buddy.”

“Yup, though at the moment she’s more body than buddy.”

The golden mouse just looked at Balot, completely ignoring the Doctor’s reply.

The mouse’s dim red eyes seemed to contain hidden depths, as if he were a mature, older man. The

tiny pants that he was wearing as if to cover up a bulging belly—held in place by a tiny pair of suspenders

hanging off his shoulders—seemed hilarious to the girl.

Sharp, focused golden whiskers. And she could see in his solemn face a gentleness that she’d never

encountered before.

Their eyes met unexpectedly. A clear expression of concern flickered across the golden mouse’s face.

“She’s conscious. She looked at me.”

“Well, she’s drugged to the hilt with morphine, and with these burns she’s not in a state to take in

anything at the moment. Anyway, you’re going to be partners, right? You should at least be prepared for

her to see you.”

“Generally speaking women aren’t too keen on mice…” The golden mouse’s eyes were a little

downcast. The Doctor stroked his little back as if to say There, there.

Balot tried to move herself in order to see them better, but could barely lift a finger and just lay there

shaking. She realized in some faint way that she was ensconced in a large capsule. She felt a strange sense

of security, floating, surrounded by foam, steeped in liquid, in an egg-shaped portable pod designed for

intensive care. Her whole body, scorched through, in fetal position, barely able to lift a finger—floated in

that bulky egg.

Sh.e.l.l…

The word drifted through her mind, suddenly with different feelings, a.s.sociations…

And she dozed off the moment she closed her eyes, losing consciousness again.

While Balot lay half dreaming, the Doctor and the mouse held a curious conversation.

“Memory loss?” The mouse’s querulous voice chirped up. The Doctor’s voice answered. Balot

opened her eyelids a crack and looked out through the solution she was suspended in to see the back of the

Doctor’s head, covered in its tie-dyed hair.

“Yup, that’s my guess, based on the stress and pleasure levels that you sensed coming from him. The

side effects of his A-10 surgery. Whenever it feels under stress, part of the brain selectively destroys the

gestalt. A sort of suicide of the memory, so to speak. That’s Sh.e.l.l’s dirty little secret.”

“Suicide of the memory…”

“And it looks like it was triggered by the murder of the girl. There’s some connection. Each time he

kills a girl, he probably forgets that he’s done so, but then finds another similar girl and kills again. A sort

of ritual. Let’s see, something like those ancient Eastern religions that wouldn’t recognize the existence of

a widow.”

“What?”

“Widows had to be immolated along with their dead husbands. There were cases when the woman

objected and had to be doused with gasoline and burnt to death. I think this is similar to that.”

It appeared that the Doctor was now driving. From the back seat where Balot was placed she could

see the mouse perched on his shoulder nodding along to the conversation.

“So, Doc, the death wish I could smell from the man was his memories committing suicide? And the

girl was dragged along as part of a ritual designed for stress relief?”

“That fits with everything we know. We’ve never psycho-a.n.a.lyzed Sh.e.l.l directly, so we can’t know

for sure in detail. But knowing that you’re about to lose your memories—that’d be incredibly stressful.

Part of your mind is going to go. Maybe it’s not surprising he wants to drag someone along for the ride.

He probably sees it as romantic in his own way, killing a little girl along with his memory.”

That man will die too.

This was the one fact that registered in Balot’s hazy state of consciousness. My Sh.e.l.l. The man that

gave me—a Teen Harlot from the slums—an ident.i.ty, even if only for a moment. The man that was trying

to rise to the top in this city—what a pathetic way for him to die. She felt pity, which then changed into an

intoxicating thought: I’ll die with him. Her sort-of compa.s.sion.

If there were ever a moment when her compa.s.sion for others could redeemher then this was it.

“It’s hardly decent to try and explain away his actions as romantic…”

Balot’s feelings were shattered in an instant by the mouse’s words.

“Death is a solitary thing. It’s not as if someone else’s death is somehow going to add value to your

own, or even give solace to your own life.”

Balot unconsciously tried to remove the oxygen mask attached to her mouth. She wanted to say

something to the mouse. But she couldn’t even lift a finger.

In her muddy consciousness, conflicting feelings of indignation and grat.i.tude toward the mouse were

swirling around together.

“Yup, I’m with you there. And in any case, cleaning up after his romantic notions ain’t half racking up

the expenses. There’s lots of upkeep now, Oeufcoque: you, and the girl.”

Balot heard the Doctor grumbling just as she was on the verge of collapsing back into

unconsciousness.

Many times Balot’s consciousness floated back into the real world before plunging back down into the

depths of sleep. Each time Balot began to fade, she was a.s.sailed by incredible anxiety, only to be rescued

by a curious sense of relief. That relief could come in the form of the mouse’s voice, or the Doctor’s. The

prospect of death was steadily fading away. Reality was coming back into focus, and she would now have

to live.

Make your choice.

Someone spoke in a dream. It wasn’t an order. Rather, it was closer to a question.

The choice to choose your path—the choice of existence. You have that right.

Balot was dreaming. She was floating in the darkness, and another version of herself was gradually

swooping down on her fromabove. And her other self asked:

Make your choice—or would you be better of dead?

Her other self collapsed in a tangled heap, right on top of her.

She remembered the noise fromthe glitter of the city.

I’d be better of dead—the magic spell that made the heart feel lighter. The words closed in on her,

hideously familiar. Beyond the noise was a life full of sadness. I want you to die with me—the doll burnt

along with the body at a cremation. That was the last need. And she had obeyed.

But—

Why me?

The question surfaced like a bubble in the melange of her consciousness.

There was no answer. When you realized this, truly understood that there was no answer to the

question of why me, all that was left was death. Yes. That was the choice. Whether to live. Why me? Why

should I live? Such a person as me. The choice: one of two possibilities.

She felt that no one would say yes for her. The burden carried by a person who had never experienced

unconditional love. You were either crushed by that burden, or you lived in order to search for that

answer: yes. To search for the answer to the question Why me?

Balot’s heart was ripped to pieces, scattered, and sunk beneath the waves.

At length, the thing that she had been protecting—hidden away in her sh.e.l.l—started to rise up slowly

fromthe ruins of her heart.

I don’t want to die…

The moment her heart—protected in its sh.e.l.l till the very end, not yet boiled to death—murmured these

words in the faintest of whispers…

…that became Balot’s choice.

05

Josh, crush.

Balot suddenly realized that the little ditty was spinning around in her head again.

Dish, wash, brush, mash.

The awakening happened in an instant. As if the dreamstate she had experienced had never been.

Gosh!

Balot opened her eyes amid an eerie calm.

An ultraviolet lamp flickered in one corner of the ceiling. Reflective mirrors were fixed above her and

arms extended fromthe bed. It was as if she were on an operating table.

She felt something moving on her back. The bed undulated slowly from left to right in order to prevent

bedsores. When Balot moved her body to get up, the bed automatically rose with her, gently supporting

her upper body.

At the same time the lower half of the bed started to fall, so she could now bend her legs.

The bed had become an easy chair. Almost like a cradle.

Her focus now moved from the ceiling to the room itself—she was in a huge hall filled with a number

of machines. One of the contraptions was beating a pulse along with Balot’s heartbeat, and all the cords

sprouting from the devices and tubes ran along to the bed, some of which were also attached to her head

or arms. Balot looked around the room, listening to the soothing rhythm of the machines pulsing in

harmony, working just for her benefit.

The roomwas windowless, and disinfectant tiles covered the surfaces of the walls.

The dry air was suffused with a feeling of quiet madness.

And then, all of a sudden, the realization—I am alive.

She ran her hands across her body. A movement to confirmher own existence.

She wasn’t naked but wore a thin hospital gown made of insulating material. Protruding fromthe gown

were her arms and legs, spotlessly clean. Her skin was almost uncomfortably smooth.

Her hair was full of life, as if it had only just sprung up. Cut cleanly, just above shoulder-length, it was

now much shorter than it had been before.

She stretched her left arm out and slowly caressed the limb from her elbow to her wrist with her right

hand.

It felt like the white of a boiled egg, and—very faintly—there was a sort of spark.

Electricity?

There was no other way of describing it. Millions of little currents of electricity flowed down the

surface of her skin.

Not only that, they were in the shape of a complicated circuit. As if woven into an exquisite fiber.

She felt the threads of the fiber stretching out toward the air, one by one, like a spider’s web, and that

instant Balot understood why she felt so calm.

She felt no insecurity about the room she was in whatsoever. In other words she recognized every

little corner of the room, intimately.

Normally, because there were blind spots where she couldn’t see, she would have a sense of

apprehension. But now, because Balot knew the air that touched the skin, she could also feel all the

objects that the air was touching.

Even without looking, I know precisely the shapes of the things that are there.

This was because of the millions of threads, invisible to the eye, extending from her body. And all

those threads were connected to the machines in the room. Or rather coiled around them. And the bed, the

light fixtures, the thermostat, the blood pressure meter—the threads had burrowed their way in

everywhere.

Balot lifted her still-extended left hand above her head and toward the lights.

She felt the threads again, thin, unbreakable.

Quite spontaneously she pinched the threads between her fingers. An image of plucking floated into

her mind.

The world was plunged into darkness in an instant. All the lights had gone out. The electricity hadn’t

been cut. Rather, the switches had all gone off simultaneously.

Balot opened her eyes wide in the darkness, remaining absolutely still.

In the darkness she could sense the threads that extended fromher body even more vividly than before.

She plucked at the strings again. A blinding light flooded her eyes. All the lights were back on.

She let go of the threads, and this time took the ma.s.s of extending strings and stroked themgently.

It was like a kaleidoscope. A flick of her wrist and anything in sight could be changed in a million

ways.

She changed the temperature on the air conditioning. The dial moved, and the tubes fixed to her hands

and feet came loose on their own. After a while she didn’t need to check the threads anymore. Without

even having to move her hands, using willpower alone, she realized that she could operate any

electronic device without touching it.

I’ve gone mad. So she thought. I’m in a strange dream. And I’m causing the madness myself. The

very definition of a nightmare that I can’t wake up from.

The fact that she existed was proof that she had gone mad. When she opened her eyes she had become

a different creature. Or, strictly speaking, her outer layer of skin had become a different creature. And that

creature was powerful. With an as-yet-unknown, but very definite, power. Like one who, bitten by a

vampire, awakes thirsty, aware for the first time of the new self that they have been bequeathed.

And, then…

Balot discovered an old portable radio in the corner of the room. As if it were the only thing in the

roomthat was not under the control of Balot’s consciousness.

As she lifted her hand toward the radio she noticed a slight resistance from it. Balot gave a little

scowl, and just then the radio started giving off a noise.

An ear-splitting sound rent the room. A grating sound, as if a large crowd of people had all decided to

claw at chalkboards.

Balot searched for music in the air. She realized that her senses could extend beyond the confines of

the room.

Outside a mult.i.tude of radio waves were overflowing in a complex tangle of dissonance.

She plucked one of the radio waves, ran it through her body—her skin—and connected the music up

with the radio.

The light on the radio started flickering, surprised, and in an instant began broadcasting Midnight

Broadway. Balot ensnared the volume control, bringing it to just the right level.

She rested her head back in the easy chair, concentrated on the jolly music, and all of a sudden she felt

like crying. But no tears came. There was a gaping hole inside her chest, and everything inside it was all

dried out.

As the black woman on the radio—with her husky voice and distinctive accent—came to the end of

her song, Balot noticed a presence outside the room. Someone was coming. She could even tell that they

had stopped outside, pausing. One man. The electronic waves in the air gave her a clear idea not just of

his shape but even his looks.

The door opened.

“Looks like somebody’s awake.”

That instant Balot turned off all the lights and stopped the radio, as if by reflex.

The man stepped on a pedal at the entrance to the room. The wheels on Balot’s easy chair gradually

started moving away from the door. Balot waited in the corner, achingly still, where the man couldn’t

reach her.

“Uh…”

The man cleared his throat and said, “Well, let’s start with introductions. I’mDr. Easter. I’min charge

of repairing you… uh…or rather I should say I’m the physician in charge. Call me… Doctor, Doc, Duck

—as in quack—as you like, really. Basically, I’m, uh, remunerated by the city authorities for keeping you

alive, making sure your life is improved… So, erm, that’s the way it is.”

Balot kept her breathing shallow, watching to make sure that the man didn’t enter any farther into the

room.

The Doctor gave another dry cough and pushed his gla.s.ses up onto the bridge of his nose. The thin film

of numbers and displays that were up on his Tech Gla.s.ses had disappeared, and they now looked like

normal spectacles.

“Hey, take it easy. This is our little hideaway, our sh.e.l.l, or one of them, anyway. Used to be a morgue,

you know, but it was abandoned after the neighborhood objected. This very room was used for autopsies,

so it’s a perfect setup for surgery. Go down the corridor and there’s a huge room set up to store eight

hundred corpses. Amazing, huh? Eight hundred bodies, all free for me to tinker with as I please—it’s a

dream come true. But then there was an earthquake in the area, the circuits went down, total blackout for

about forty-eight hours. That’s when the good citizens started ge