Vol 2 Chapter 7 (1/2)

Chapter 7

ROTOR

01

Balot was close to tears

As a result, she didn’t even notice that Oeufcoque had woken up and that his capsule was open

Such was the intensity of the Doctor’s training progra

The basics she learned froames

The eCasinos had their own individual variations on the rules, and Balot learned about the various

discrepancies Everything was reinforced further through a number of practice hands with the Doctor

Blackjack, baccarat, poker, high-ball, low-ball, high-low split On top of that, she also learned the ins and

outs of wheel of fortune, roulette, and the slot machines

So far so good But this here the Doctor’s lecture really started

“Right” The Doctor started writing on a blank for down some formulae and

drawing up a table “Let’s talk gaame it’s possible to express

everything in nor in normal-form and then

work out what sort of strategy the other players are likely to eical way to

approach things So, let’s exaame’s equilibrium

lies”

Creases appeared above Balot’s eyebrows, and she nodded The Doctor was trying to teach her

so The proble

about Still, she listened as best she could

“So, let’s express this norn the numbers 1 to n to your

various strategies, and on the other side we do the saies This e can clearly

deh the matrix how your decision influences ically, each

player should take the action that maximizes his potential payoff In other words, you can think about all

sorts of possible moves, but in the end the y This is e call

equilibriumanalysis”

As the Doctor spoke he wrote down a list of letters of the alphabet Letters with numbers beside them

The plus and h to follow But then all sorts of other symbols started

appearing, and Balot soon lost track of what theyor whether

they were code for so else…

“But what happens when the players have the opportunity to cooperate? Let’s take a look at so-called

cooperative gay will be to choose one of a number

of finite ical move that the other player is likely to make so that

they can optimize their mutual payoff”

Balot was starting to feel that the Doctor was becohtly ostentatious in his display of

knowledge But she kept at it, listening as intently as she could

“So, if we take a subset from our payoff matrix and apply this procedure to it then we can see that the

outco to be different when collusion is involved—that’s what a cooperative game means It’s

a so-called special function: you pass the variable n to the collaborator, and that special function is then

fixed on a unique value”

Balot watched the swared from the Doctor’s hand, and wondered how

much of this it would ever be possible for her to learn She hoped that she would at least be able to

understand so of his final conclusion when he did arrive at it, but at the moment she didn’t even

kno to look out for that

As this was going on, Oeufcoque was inside his capsule, waiting for the liquid to evaporate Once it

had, he turned back into his custoled his way out of the capsule

He landed on the bed and turned part of his fur inside out to make a pair of his usual pants Then he

pottered off toward the sound of conversation

Sheets of paper covered in numerical formulae were littered about the floor, and Oeufcoque stepped

over these, looking at the nu he arrived at the scene of the crime and

the source of the paper

Oeufcoque sniffed the air, as if sohed deeply He passed under the

Doctor, as in the middle of another animated explanation, and hopped onto the table via the chair

“What are you hoping to achieve by throwing a whole load of economic theory at a fifteen-year-old

girl, Doctor?” said Oeufcoque The Doctor and Balot raised their heads siht be

your field of expertise, Doc, but try not to lord it over the girl too ive her an inferiority

complex And Balot—you don’t have to put up with this, you know Don’t be a martyr What are you

trying to do—experience the prisoner’s dilemma with your own body?”

Having rebuked themboth, Oeufcoque sat down on top of the sheets of paper that covered the tabletop

“Greetings, Oeufcoque You’re awake earlier than I expected The latest technology from Paradise

seems to have come on a bit since ere last there”

Oeufcoque shrugged his shoulders “So, what’s been going on?”

The Doctor brought hi what Balot had discovered while she was at Paradise

and the conclusions that they had coh the Doctor’s exposition, Balot’s eyes were cast

down She was terribly nervous Oeufcoque was in easy reaching distance, but she couldn’t even turn to

face him

“Well, putting aside the fact that Balot is now a suspect for criainst the Commonwealth—a fact

that we’ll revisit later, Doctor, don’t think I’ that one pass—surely there’s a better way of

preparing Balot for certain victory at the ga table than to throhole load of numbers at her? Isn’t

that right, Balot?”

Balot’s body jolted

Oeufcoque and the Doctor looked at her incasual But

the words just wouldn’t come forth

Balot just sat there staring at the table, trying tointo

herself

Oeufcoque and the Doctor let her be There were no forceful reproaches, no What do you want? or If

you have so to say then say it

“I hope you’ll find it in yourself to forgive h the

worst of it, while you weredifficult choices”

Hurriedly, Balot shook her head

The Doctor asked Oeufcoque a question, as if to reassure Balot “How are you doing now,

Oeufcoque?”

“I probably shouldn’t strain orously, but if it’s just aBalot

learn to win at cards then I’mwell up for it”

Then Oeufcoque walked over to Balot so that he stood right in front of her eyes “Would you mind if I

hopped on your shoulder?”

Balot stared at Oeufcoque Her vision started to blur She nodded, and tears started to fall She

covered her face with both hands, and Oeufcoque reached out to touch her with his paw

“I’ll put the coffee on” The Doctor rose fromhis seat

Timidly, Balot opened her hands and extended one of themto Oeufcoque

–Can I touch you?

“Sure” Oeufcoque jumped onto Balot’s palainst her

face before placing himon her shoulder

–Will you stay bymyside? Just for now?

“Of course”

–I’m so sorry, Oeufcoque

“I’mfine”

There were noshe could to suppress the turbulent emotions

that were now bubbling up inside her, and she was desperately trying to stop herself from involuntarily

snarcing themto Oeufcoque

The Doctor returned and laid the cups of coffee out neatly There was even a tiny cup for Oeufcoque

The Doctor and Oeufcoque waited patiently for Balot to regain her composure

After that, theyto play what role, and how best to act

They went through every possible scenario they could ireed to synthesize it

all into one master plan

When that was over, Balot prepared dinner They all sat around the table,small talk About

what they were going to do next After this case was solved

No one said anything decisive, of course No details—just vague generalizations, half jesting They

were all getting along with each other again, on the sah for now

After dinner, the Doctor stood up with his plate in his hands “Well, it seems our preparations are

complete”

Oeufcoque smiled, but solemnly “We’ll win our case yet”

Balot wanted to add so, so she just nodded

Balot had been assigned a private room on the second floor, and as she settled into her bed there,

Oeufcoque spoke to her “Shall I stay by your side until you fall asleep?” He was hanging upside down

froht lamp

–I’ll be all right

Balot leaned over to touch Oeufcoque

–Thank you

And that was all she had to say Not only that, she realized that this was all she had wanted to say,

right fro

Oeufcoque pulled the light switch to turn the laently behind

him

In the darkness Balot cried, but just a little

As she cried, she thought About progress Oeufcoque and the Doctor both looked to the future They

stood for progress—they defined theue and equivocal values and targets

They aiible results

But Shell and Boiled were different They’ve turned their backs on progress, she thought They had

spun theh it was supposed to have been

long since dead

The past was just a skeleton, and you could do what you liked with it

That is, provided that you had coht

But even if the past were fir back up at you, and all it took

was a se in the sod and the past could thrust a half-rotten arht up toward you

And when the hand of the past grabbed hold of your leg and tried to drag you down, you could end up

losing sight of where you were even heading in the first place

When the gaze of the past boring into their backs became too much for Shell and Boiled, they turned

around to face it and were sed up by the darkness

The same darkness that Balot knew she could be sed by at any moment

Balot considered what she could do

When she left this silver egg, what exactly would she be able to do?

Eventually her tears subsided, and Balot fell asleep

≡

“Do you think we’re doing the right thing?” Oeufcoque jumped onto the chair and then up onto the

kitchen table

“What’s this, now?” The Doctor had been gleefully sorting their plans out on the table, and now he

turned to look at Oeufcoque, a little fed up

“The gifts that we gave to the girl…they’ve put her in a real dilemma”

“You mean the plan of action that she’s chosen? The plan derives from her own consciousness, you

know!”

“Yes, but you can’t say for sure that her latent desire for revenge hasn’t unduly influenced her

subconscious mind”

“Youwith the need for revenge at the moment, is it?”

asked the Doctor

“H herthis case”

“Then I think she’ll be all right Besides, if Balot hadn’t chosen the path of Scramble 09 and had just

been relying on the Ha sold off down at the

marketplace”

“Marketplace?” said Oeufcoque

“Intelligence from the police that’s just come in About the assassins Boiled hired They ell

known a the human-body-part-fetishi+st community, apparently They sold off quality body parts”

“Hmm”

“They’re the ones who deserved to be torn limb from limb I think so, anyway, and I’m sure Balot

thinks so too But Balot doesn’t consider it to be our job to do so She doesn’t have to tear them limb from

li, surely? That’s not to say I’m pleased that our

old hideaway is now in ruins, of course But even that can be fixed up one way or another with

reparations froe to solve this case properly”

“That’s true, I suppose”

“I also feel that we definitely did the right thing in strengthening the girl As per usual, someone had

been syste circuits An inside job,

htest whether the people bribing them were murderers

or fetishi+sts,” said the Doctor

“So what’s happening about the inside man?”

“The police are on the case there—it’s out of our hands You’re looking at serious money to try and

bail out so a public network I’ to their

next bonus, eager to pin down the mole”

Still, Oeufcoque didn’t see on the table

“Talk about wishy-washy, Oeufcoque Anyhat do you think?”

“About what?”

“The girl, of course”

Oeufcoque scratched his head with his small paws “I really hope that her reason and ambitions will

triuative impulses That’s her real job, to ive

her roo her to recover all her legal rights and

privileges Itfor all along”

“You see yourself as a social worker? If you can’t stand the heat you can always get out of the kitchen

Just find another line of work,” said the Doctor

“No—overdependency on social welfare can lead to lives being snuffed out in an instant The

Broilerhouse always overcos, and they will always need PIs to solve their cases, one way

or another I want to be useful as a deterrent against an everlasting cycle of violence, to protect lives

That’s what Scramble 09 is for”

“Then what exactly is your problem?”

“I’irl to use me as a weapon, even with the threat of a

clear and present danger…”

“And that’s e’re looking for a chink in the enemy’s armor—to help us solve this case in the

quietest way possible What’s wrong with that?”

“Doctor, I’ tool, and you’ll never really understand me”

“Huh?”

“I’m constantly on the lookout for a user I want soht that

I’d never again be able to entrust myself to someone else’s hand completely…”

“So?”

“I’irl wants to become a PI after we’ve solved this case”

“Well, I’lad of that” The Doctor took his eyes off Oeufcoque for ahis coffee

“What’s there to be glad about, Doctor?”

“Have you heard of the e blues, Oeufcoque?”

“No, what are they?”

“They’re when you wear yourself out worrying about so that you’ve already decided

Obsessing about things like self-centered e is

inevitable or whether it’s happenstance”

“Are you saying that I’ve got the e blues?”

“I think that would be a pretty astute diagnosis, though I do say so myself”

“What’s the cure?”

“Patience You just wait to see how events unfold”

Oeufcoque looked the other way and exhaled silently “That’s a tough one”

“Well, it’s a proble of history, so you’re in good

company Just do your best”

The Doctor poked Oeufcoque’s shoulder He wasn’t particularly encouraging

02

Daas just about to break when the giant silver egg landed on the rooftop of the Broilerhouse

Bathed in the purple glow of sunrise, the Floating Residence known as the Humpty-Dumpty stopped in

midair at a point precisely one meter above the rooftop, and a crack opened up on one side The crack

turned into a nus, and part of the shell that had opened up now

transformed into a ramp that extended down to the roof

The Doctor and Balot stepped out onto the ramp

The as strong, and the three-ply

Balot headed into the building and called up an elevator Not by snarcing it, but by pressing the call

button

The Doctor sent the Hureat strides “Right,

let’s go” He leapt into the elevator “We have to be low-profile from here on out Well, relatively

speaking”

He was in a sprightlya large trunk behind

hi fromher shoulder

“You’re in high spirits, Doc,” Oeufcoque observed, as a choker around Balot’s neck His tone of

voice was, unusually for him, relaxed—lazy, even

“Bring it on! Literally and metaphorically, I mean I’m not about to pass up the opportunity to make

so Let’s head on in with the mindset that we’re

going to break the bank”

“Sure, but our aim isn’t actually to bankrupt Shell, you know” As Oeufcoque spoke, the fabric of the

choker warped around the edges He seeave an

involuntary squirmof the shoulders

“I’s out my true nature,” Oeufcoque blurted out, and the elevator had

arrived

They were in the first-floor lobby, where they could see various justice depart

this way and that Many of theroup of people had

congregated in the cafeteria for their

through the lobby and hailed a taxi

The taxi drove off and headed uptown During the ride, the Doctor referred to his PDA incessantly,

hu a jaunty tune as he did so A list of nu across the display, and these caused

the Doctor to sures of a particularly healthy bank balance

Before long the taxi pulled up at a motel An airport motel

They entered the lobby to find that their roo

the Humpty’s NetService The Doctor and Balot went into their adjoining rooms, as if they had just

arrived by air and were about to head into the big city later Well, they had just been flying, of course, but

not in the manner that a casual observer would have assumed

Their bags contained mostly clothes Once she was in her roo

She’d had OeufcoqueShe brushed it down and

hung it up neatly on a hanger before taking so them up

on the motel desk

As she washer preparations, the choker undid itself It turned inside out in midair, then settled

on the shape of a goldenproperly

“We’ve still got plenty of ti for an answer from Balot,

Oeufcoque juht for the bed, jumped onto the pillow, and rolled over

Balot followed himto the bed and poked himin his tummy

–I’ve never seen you act so slovenly before

She snarced hihed

Oeufcoque shrugged his shoulders Whatever, he seemed to say He rolled over, face-up like a human,

crossed his ars out leisurely Before long he was snoring gently

Balot gazed at hiht that he probably did need the sleep—he hadn’t yet recovered

completely from his injuries She decided to leave him alone and took a shower Then she lay down to

study the ga she found herself feeling sleepy too The

tiled under the covers next to Oeufcoque, whom she could sense

beside her, scratching his belly She was asleep in no time

It was almost noon when she oken by a call from the Doctor Oeufcoque was already awake

and watching television On mute—picture only When she asked hi

on, he replied, “I’”

What a strange hobby, she thought for a ood

waro on,” Oeufcoque said, and he stepped down on the remote

with a tiny foot to turn the picture off

The two of them headed down to thefor them There

they had a ements They reconfirmed their next course of action Then

there was a little test Did Balot understand all the rules for all the ames? The rules themselves

were fairly siames in the first place The

proble winners and losers

–Howher Oeufcoque-choker

The Doctor pursed his lips and pushed his glasses up “We need to turn two thousand dollars into four

million”

It sounded like a wild dreaed his shoulders “Well, I think you’ll

understand once you actually start playing The question is, how to find a way of winning for sure If we

can’t work one out then we’ll have to abandon the plan”

–Do you reallythink we have a chance?

“So, uh, it’s not i to make the money All you

have to do isto the rules of the casino—do that and we’ve

won The regular punters are there to try and win themselves some money and experience the thrills of the

casino, that’s why they handle the chips What ant to handle is the golden yoke that’s hidden inside

the chips Without necessarily having to get the shell or egg white in the process…”

–How much moneyis a million dollars?

The Doctor paused to think “Let’s see…”

“Don’t think of it as money” Oeufcoque interrupted them in a small voice that only Balot and the

Doctor could hear

–What do you mean?

“Heafter just happen to be worth four million dollars, and that’s

e’re calling them, but they’re really just chips to us It’s not as if we’re actually going in there to

try and win their cash froht be able to breach their defenses, and it’s also why

I feel that I can help with this plan Also, even if our plan fails, as long as you’ve worked out the location

of the chips, we could always try stealing theures out e’re

up to we’ll struggle to find theamble before we even set

foot in the casino In other words, the time is now This is our last real chance, and also our best,” said

the Doctor

Balot looked at the Doctor’s face as she answered,

–I understand If the two of you think that we can do it, then I do too

She was speaking the truth

The Doctor set this plan on the road”

Much to Balot’s surprise he erased the memory on his PDA as he spoke It was supposed to have

contained all sorts of vital data Who worked where, what they did, how the

Balot was shocked to see that all this had now been reduced to a blank screen

“If we have all the info on us at the point that the casino starts taking an interest in us, we’d be thrown

out the moment they discovered it Not only that, they’d contact all the other casinos in the city on the spot

With our photographs We’d never be able to set foot inside a casino again” The Doctor’s face revealed

that he considered this to be a fate worse than death

–Will we be all right without it?

“If it comes to the crunch, all the data is still inside Oeufcoque There’s no cause for concern”

Suddenly the Doctor’s brow creased “By the way, have you decided what you’ll call me?” he asked

Balot looked a little troubled and shook her head

“Well, why not try so out”

–Brother?

She burst out laughing even before she finished the word

“No good, I suppose,” the Doctor said, his face most serious “How about Daddy?”

This time it was Balot who furrowed her brow

–That doesn’t feel natural No good

“Hmm”

–Uncle

“You mean…?”

–It’ll be fine I don’t thing there will be anys

“Fine Henceforth I shall be known as your Uncle Easter”

Balot couldn’t stop herself fro She saw the

Doctor looking discouraged and nodded her assent through her wordless laughter

–Uncle Easter

She repeated The Doctor nodded too

“It’s decided, then”

Balot laughed again But actually the term didn’t feel all that out of place She looked at the Doctor

andher hair down As if to say Sort yourself out

–Could you at least dye all your hair the same color?

The Doctor shrugged, but he seemed to acquiesce

–I’ve wanted to ask you for a long time, actually Why do you dye your hair like that, anyway?

“One of the Three Magi—the professor whose brainchild Mardock Scramble was—seemed to favor

that sort of hairstyle,” Oeufcoque butted in to explain

“A complex layer of different hues A hairstyle based authentically on chaos theory,” the Doctor

explained, brushi+ng his hair back

–You must have reallyrespected him

“He was the one and only nized, and he was also responsible for designing

Oeufcoque I would have liked you to meet him”

Balot gave a small nod She didn’t press them for the details of how this person that they held in such

high regard was killed by OctoberCorp It would be an impudent intrusion into a sacred place in their

hearts But so did suddenly occur to her, and she asked it

–Did your professor like to gamble?

“He was invincible!” the Doctor replied without hesitation

That’s what I thought Balot nodded

≡

After Balot returned to her rooh, shower, then dressed up

This time the choker was still a Made by Oeufcoque, but it was just an ordinary electronic voice box

Lastly, Balot took Oeufcoque in her hands and brought an iloves to cover

both my hands Oeufcoque’s body distorted with a squish, and in a flash he rapped around her

fingers The gloves extended up her arms and met behind her shoulders

A gap opened where the two gloves loves

separated neatly, and at the san rose to the fore He must have been

paying attention to the eCatalogue, as Balot only needed to make two or three minor alterations to the

design before she was satisfied with her look

She waited in the lobby for the Doctor, and when he eed he was the very embodiment of someone

who has lived in the aotten what normalcy was

He wore a long cowboy-style coat topped by a lossy silver, and it

was slicked back His heels clicked as he swaggered toward reception to deposit his key, and he really

did look as if he were ready to head on out for a proper night on the town

The two of the the limousine arrived to pick

theht on time

It was hardly her first time in a limousine, but Balot suddenly felt tense nonetheless

“Right, let’s go Balot?” The Doctor tapped her shoulder lightly It’s time to put on your act , he was

saying

–Okay

Balot nodded as she touched the electronic voice box on her choker The limousine driver had a