Vol 1 Chapter 1 (1/2)

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 s

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 class of AirCar there was, its body

kept silently afloat by the Gravity Device Engine All the door ere Magic Mirrors—you

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

have this sort of —Hunter Killers, they’re called, s 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 assigned to the car, but noas on co

through the city unconcerned

Perhaps the car wasn’t so irl inside that

was the jewel Certainly, that hat her appearance suggested The shi+hts of the city lent

her cheeks a lustrous sheen, illu, 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 ht be treated better—well, she was

considerably more expensive—than the likes of those you found in the sleazy Internet classifieds:

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

uniforhts that showed off her not-quite-yet-developed thighs and calves,

her skinny little ass wrapped tight in white hot pants She ht as well have been advertised as sexual

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 class 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 so 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 photochrolasses, with their

shi+fting colors, settled on a sharp crimson tint

“Nothing, Shell 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 ell 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 nuambler’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

gahter than the rest, and the man called this one Fat

Mama, because, as he said, “I called in a favor fro to have

my dead mother’s ashes turned into a diaht

hiood luck to this day

The irl didn’t knohether the diamonds on them were

made fromthe ashes of people other than his mother

“Open the fridge and make me irl gave a

little erator, and in cocktail She squeezed the

li its juices into the drink The surface of the beverage was absolutely still thanks to the

sht up until the moment that she proffered the

drink to hi her chin

“There’s a good girl” The irl’s chin, kissed it, and put the drink to

his lips

The man, an upstart fro Show Gamblers and also the

proprietor of e prostitute—a Teen Harlot—

who) she was exclusive to him, not required to service any other

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

given a new identity, namely a fake citizen’s ID card

“Everything that you’ve lost, I’ive back to you” That hat he’d said to her when the

brothel that she worked in was ruirl had often heard stories of the

authorities granting guarantees of safety—a new identity, naiven

important information that resulted in the indicts But the

girl was hardly looking for that

“Does this irl asked this question, and the man narrowed his eyes and

sazed upon her, his irises said to have been turned Emperor Green, a

color he selected when he put hih the operation And this hat 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 si 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

Institute, unable to endure any more sexual 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 irls just likethis sort of

life?

The girl really just wanted a siave a child Because I love you

She could be loved by the man, or God, 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 irl 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 fro 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 naistered

when he bought her Not until six months had passed—in other words, not until yesterday

≡

Behind the high-class AirCar that carried the h 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 ht 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

in the city

“Al to need to switch cars, eh?”

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

and his char, reddish-brown eyes were covered by a pair of Tech Glasses 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, boo 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’ht,

Oeufcoque?” It turned out the ation system next to the

steering wheel “That irls Of those, four commit

suicide Two, nobody knows their whereabouts Look at the stats from the Center for Guardianshi+p of

Minors It just doesn’t add up”

The hts 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 tiht, Doc? Well, I calculate there’s a less than two percent chance that

this girl has ure 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 damn 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’tto 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’ 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 aaway” The ed 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 wasdirectly 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”

Thewheel a big yank when the voice of the Nav

stopped hiht after him, Doc We’ll take a detour and intercept him at

his likely destination Keep your distance”

No sooner said than a nu they settled on

one of those

“Why’ve we chosen this road, Oeufcoque?” asked the ain

“ ’Cause if nothing happens we’ll be able to head ho to pass them”

Thehappens, 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 hell down below?”

≡

“Ah, yes, and we’re stopping right there beside the lake” The irl’s

body as he spoke

“Don’t forget to set the timer for our rest The password’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 amester’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 breasts, squeezing and gently pinching them

Even as the irl’s body she was so while silently

assisting him with his needs Her coat had already been taken off, and the fingersabout deep

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

shi+rt 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 progra the remote” The voice from the man, now behind her,

coirl 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 di 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 shell, 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 froues, 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 irl’s ear Just as many clients had called her before

Balot The na was boiled alive and eaten straight from

the shell

At first it was a nicknaiven 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 ca her out, and she became popular No one told her not to stay hidden

away in her shell any longer Instead, that beca herself away in a thin husk

A girl—boiled to death in her own shell 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 fro 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 knohat happens to girls who forget the rules?”

The sound of the irl’s heart She was taken aback She

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

of the park

Behind the girl the lasses off

“Shell…” The girl spoke as if she were sing her own breath That instant the e body

calint 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 irl meekly serviced the man’s needs, and at

the sae 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 classes of cars—which were easily identifiable according to where they were

coht ever cross paths

Take the rated into the city in droves, and ht

drive from their homes in the purpose-built skyscrapers of the coastal district down to the pleasure

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

estates to the south The sluhout 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 ine you could hear even the wind

beating against the leaves on the trees

“There! There! It’s thathitting his halfjacket,

the driver of the convertible nudged his Tech Glasses 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 lasses into the binoculars, a frown expressing his dissatisfaction As

he did so the binoculars lost their shape in his hands In less than a ed, 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

“God damn, looks like that AirCar has a real expensive Gravity Device Engine,” said the man that the

goggles were speaking to—the Doctor—as the soleht 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 passenger 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 coles spoke in

a serious tone, but the Doctor just shrugged his shoulders

“Hed in hand-to-hand coht in the middle of it Man

and…wo”

“Already recording But these iht man?”

“It’s Shell-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 testi 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 so

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

evidence”

“According to an ail 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 tiles answered immediately “We can conclude it’s her with a 96

percent certainty She’s the underage prostitute scouted by Shell-Septinos back when she was a kiddie

porn star”

“damn it This’d be useful evidence if she was the one ere trying to stop fro him”

“Wait…soles The Doctor’s face tensed immediately

“Odd? What’s odd, Oeufcoque?”

“The odor I’ else mixed in there too”

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

“There’s the ”

“What? In the irl, but the man too? Why?”

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

“Hone in on Shell, the ht 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? Shell’s planning a suicide pact with the girl?”

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

“What a perfectly crazy bastard Right—mission aborted—we need some serious psychoanalysis here

Okay, now that we’ve coet thee in to

the Broilerhouse Any charge we canthe protection of minors law, attempted

coercion to coirl shelter—”

“Won’t work He’ll rid hiation’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…soles was pointed, abrupt “The

out No suicidal tendencies anymore It’s definite pleasure”

Right at thatcloser fromthe other side of the park

≡

“You’ve questioned the status that you were given” The irl He

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

Held by hih 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

irl becaht 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

eirl with both arhtly This was different

fro, aled off

so to hold on to in order to stop hi pulled away

“But it’s okay, Balot It’s okay It’s tough for h I understand So

tough I al to die Part ofto die But

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

TheAs if he were delirious with fever As

always at these tiirl remained docile That was her job, after all, her talent

Eventually the irl, and came out of her He started

dressing hiet 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 h

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

more beautiful,” thehis back against the

car door

“A Blue Diamond”

A watery slittering rings

“That’s the answer to the question ‘What beco

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

“Shell…?”

Just as she was hurriedly getting up the door slaht 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 ht, but then she realized that he

was just using the Magic Mirror s to straighten his clothes and hair and adjust his sunglasses 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 cairl immediately understood that

everything had coht fromthe start

≡

“Murder! I s 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 noorking for Shell! 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 norlass

in the s, and the Doctor could see the stocky ray hair and a white

face devoid of any eray eyes flickered, and

—

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

“Cal fro

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 ”

The Doctor got back up and pointed the goggles at the two AirCars by the lake The otten

out of the first AirCar—Shell—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 amurder, is it?”

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

at?”

“He’s keeping her trapped in the car shi+t! His e to relief There’s

not a ht about this—consider this an eency!”

“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, noith Shell on board, was starting to move away

The car with the girl in it wasn’t

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

At that irl 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 fla with the explosions, and the shrapnel