Vol 3 Chapter 12 (2/2)

Skyscraper evidently interpreted this move as concern on Balot’s part

“You do seeet this over with as quickly as possible, then Not to worry

about your return—we have a chauffeured car on hand to take you both back to wherever you need to go”

“You put in your request for a pretrial settlement just this afternoon?” The Doctor yawned

“Yes, although we’ve had all the relevant paperwork prepared for some time”

“That’s very considerate of you”

“Ah, yes, well, we may be on different sides, but we do have certain issues in common Our jobs are

to safeguard the long-ter that our people are protected

and that our businesses are allowed to develop progressively”

“Is that right? Well, uh, I suppose that’s so, isn’t it?” said the Doctor

“Yes, and we at OctoberCorp are ht to trial, Shell-Septinos

We feel that his future prospects are most lamentable,” said Skyscraper

“Well, you would, wouldn’t you, given that he see And?”

Skyscraper’s bea in the face of the Doctor’s flippant riposte Then he

shrugged his shoulders and smiled at Balot with a concerned expression

Balot knew all too well how quickly the sed

“The crimes that thethat But to refuse him

any possibility of rehabilitation is to refute the significance of the law OctoberCorp’s position is that we

would like to give hiradually redeem himself We

will of course, Ms Rune-Balot, foot the bill for any portion of the compensation that you are awarded and

that he is unable to pay you out of his own assets”

Skyscraper smiled at Balot in anticipation of her answer This is how much I’ll pay, noill you

give rin too many times

It was the Doctor who spoke next, though “And so it came to pass that Shell lived out his days

peacefully under the thuoes, is it? Presuet

our brown envelope under the table if—and only if—we don’t touch on any, uh, inconvenient truths

during the next trial?”

“Dear, dear, Dr Easter! I do hope you don’t speak quite so bluntly when you’re in court!”

“Maybe not out loud, but I certainly think it As for your ansell, I’ll make sure that a reply is

sent to you by eh the official Broilerhouse channels It’ll be a short reply, though Shorter than

the password you’ll need to get into it”

“And what sort of reply ht that be?”

“‘Dear Balloon-face Eat shi+t’ ”

Skyscraper’s smile seemed to stretch even farther

His face turned crirotesque sight

“You see, we’re PIs, and our job is to solve this case,” said the Doctor, s back, a very different

sort of smile “The courtroo you can do now is run

along and try and deceive the judge into believing that there are any number of holes in our case, maybe

appeal for a retrial Won’t do you any good in the long run, though”

With that, the Doctor toppled face-first onto the table in front of him

Balot was visibly concerned She orried that the Doctor ht have hurt himself

Skyscraper thought she orried about her own safety “Poor little princess Aren’t you enjoying

your milk anymore?” he said, his voice now steeped with sarcasm “Don’t blame me, blame this idiot

here who you trusted to keep you safe”

His dark red cheeks puffed out as he rose out of his seat toward her He wore a whole new expression

now, one in which rage and joy inter as his thick

arrab her, but Balot slipped to one side

“We know you’re unarmed, we scanned you on the X-ray as you came in,” Skyscraper smirked “The

ht?”

So that explained the uneasy sensation Balot had experienced when she entered the bar

Balot realized that the people at the other tables were noing in

–Oeufcoque, these people are eneht?

Balot wanted tobefore she did anything she couldn’t take

back

“That’s right They’re planning on holding you for ransoe for your release they’ll try

and force us to relinquish the chips as evidence,” Oeufcoque said out loud, unconcerned as to who could

hear him

A puzzled expression crossed Skyscraper’s face “Who’s that speaking—”

–Am I allowed to shoot them?

“Sure, but no more than absolutely necessary No need to stoop to their level”

Balot’s left arht of cold steel

There was an explosion, and Skyscraper screaered backward He’d had a lucky escape

—Balot had actually aimed for his crotch, but Oeufcoque had stayed her hand and made the bullet fly

through the top of his foot instead

Balot lifted the table up quickly with Oeufcoque’s help—the bodysuit that was him melded with her

body, allowing her to lift the table up as if it were made of cardboard

She threw the Doctor’s sleeping body onto the sofa to keep hi their

glasses across the floor as she turned the table on its side Fraglass and ice shattered and flew

every which way Balot wondered where she had seen such a scene before, and then she remembered

The Western, of course

“We keep the death toll to a minimum Got it?”

–Fine

Balot eed from behind the plush red curtains and fired at three men in order as they attempted to

fire bullets or electronic charges at her She hit their shoulders with pinpoint accuracy, and they fell to the

floor and rolled around in agony

The other men were flustered now, and they fired a storm of bullets at her The upturned table shook

from the impact Balot stuck her arle bullet of hers was

wasted The first two uns, piercing the

cartridges and causing them to explode The men never knehat hit them Balot then fired a couple

oodthemdown

Balot ju under her arm

The men looked on in disbelief as Balot advanced with the table—a luhed at

least asthey had, firing blindly In return Balot

fired a salvo of bullets straight into their collarbones Not a single one of her shots missed

Just then the bartender eun in his hands

Balot didn’t even need to look at hiht through

both his shoulders Unbelievable, his face seemed to say, as he turned a backflip into the array of bottles

that lined the bar

The last un held out with a stupefied expression Balot stuck her head

out from behind the table, and the man hastily fired off a series of shots He was at point-blank range and

still failed to hit her, and indeed one of the flying bullets grazed his own ar

hie mirror at the end of the counter, and Balot expected it to shatter,

but other than the new hole adorning it, the mirror seemed fine—as it turned out, it was a fairly sturdy

specimen

Balot brandished the table over her head and threw it at the man

The man screa with the table

The bar was evidently fitted with quality air conditioning, as the white smoke in the air was already

being sucked away No one was dead, but all Balot’s assailants were thoroughly incapacitated Balot

ejected her cartridge, reloaded it with a new one generated froun, and went to sit back

down in the sa at

There, the Doctor was snuggled up against Skyscraper, the for ahile the

latter whimpered in pain and fear Balot tapped Skyscraper on his shoulder, causing him to scream and

push his chunky fraainst the wall He squirht be

able to melt into the wall

“I…I’m just a hired hand! Please…” For someone who had succeeded so far in one of the most

sought-after professions in Mardock City, the lawyer cut a pretty pathetic figure

–What do we do now? Just go home?

“Let’s establish just who this ‘hired hand’ was hired by” With that, Oeufcoque turned with a squelch,

and Balot’s glove became a cell phone

Balot tossed the cell at Skyscraper’s knees

“Call your employer We want to speak to hied from the cell

phone Skyscraper, a quivering wreck, needed no additional encouragement

He had to try the nuh “hello…this is Sky…

Skyscraper here The other party in the negotiations…um…that is…they’d like to speak to you directly

Er…yes, surely…”

He passed the phone back to Balot with a tre the earpiece

to her ear All she needed to do was connect to the part of Oeufcoque that was inside her suit

“Mr Cleanwill John October? Director at OctoberCorp? This is Oeufcoque-Penteano here, PI and

Trustee for this case” Oeufcoque spoke out loud so that Skyscraper could hear too Balot was starting to

get fed up with Skyscraper’s ot up and wandered over to the bar in search of the

carton of milk

Then they heard the sneering laughter of Cleanwill John October on the phone

–That was quite a show you put on for us back at the casino How did you use your last ten

thousand dollars? A fancy meal at some restaurant you couldn’t normally af ord? A holiday to take

your mind of your woes, perhaps?

“The ga and blackmail”

–Where’s your proof that I’m behind this? You have no witnesses No one will arrest me

Balot shrugged Thinking how she was grateful that she didn’t have to talk directly to such a person,

she placed her gun on the counter, took a carton of erator below the counter, picked up

one of the few glasses that relass She was effectively co

robbery, she realized, but there wasn’t any other way she was going to get her drink

She added a couple of ice cubes to her drink and took a seat at the bar She stared into the mirror at the

end of the bar, repelled by the nearby phone conversation

–More ioing to be a washout

“Washout? It’s too late for you to try and bring our case down by establishi+ng a counter-case, if that’s

what you mean”

–Not if we’ve already applied for our own case Looks like we’ll be taking the same defendant to

court

“The same defendant?”

–Shell-Septinos has brought about considerable dae to OctoberCorp The man has tarnished

our good na, took on fraudulent loans for his own personal advantage, and even had

the audacity to demand a share of our assets

“How convenient for you By assets I assu to the dowry he would presumably have

received as a hter?”

–Marrying her? Ah, yes, there was such talk at one stage, wasn’t there?

John paused to laugh, a most peculiar sound

–Ours is a family business—family is our rock and the foundation of our success I was actually

pleased to think that I had ed to find someone suitable to take that woman of my hands

Balot squeezed her glass tightly Suddenly she had a feeling that she was

So they were in…

–Shell—I didn’t actually dislike hiood head on his shoulders and a

certain tenacity of spirit I admire that in a man It’s no lie to say that he had excellent prospects, and

we’re telling the truth e say his current prospects are most lamentable

Balot’s feeling of unease started to solidify inside her John’s words were triggering alarm bells

somewhere deep inside her unconscious Balot tried to put her finger on the reason

–But our company—we’re just as much victims of Shell as you are We could just sit here and

squabble ast ourselves, of course, but wouldn’t it be better if we collaborated in prosecuting

Shell together? There’s plenty of scope for negotiation here, don’t you think?

“What exactly are you planning to do? Have him imprisoned and transported to a state where they

have capital punishood?”

John laughed Balot heard the laugh as if it were echoing in the rooht beside her His future

prospects arelike this before Skyscraper

–We need not trouble ourselves right now about what oes to

prison The i is that there is a certain someone who has been hurt deeply by Shell’s

actions—a certain soed as a result of what

Shell has done She’ll be inheriting the mantle of this case—or rather, OctoberCorp will on her behalf

“Inheriting it…”

–Shell’s case will be closed shortly, and with it he’ll lose the right to have a PI investigate on his

behalf We’ll simply rehire the excellent PI that he currently has in his employ and have him work for

us The contractual negotiations are already in place

“You’re going to have Boiled kill Shell, is that the idea? You…”

–Well, it looks like the children of Scraht this one

out ast themselves In the meanwhile, it’ll be our own OctoberCorp that’s wholeheartedly

received by the people of Mardock City, just as the Three Magi wanted

“You dare to invoke the Three Magi? Can you put your founding director on the line to support your

cock-and-bull story?”

–She’s a sleeping beauty on’t be waking up anytime soon You knoell as I do that she’s

brain-dead

“What I do know is that OctoberCorp is taking advantage of her coy

she gave you and i would have wanted’ You

know full well that none of the Three Magi really want such a thing”

–Is that so? I can tell you that plenty of people in this city would disagree with you—they like

being “abused” by our technology, as you put it We’re just doing our duty as a clan to develop our

inheritance—our duty to ensure the progress of OctoberCorp

“That’s a foul deceit—trying to justify the suffering of innocent victi behind weasel words”

–Do you know the origin of e call the Stairway to Heaven, Mardock?

“What—”

–Mardock was the name of the son of the Goddess He killed his own mother and usurped her role

as creator, ruling in her place far more ef ectively than she ever did In much the same e at

OctoberCorp are here to use the technology brought into the world by the Three Magi The old moral

values are obsolete in the face of social progress

“That’s just a fantasy that you guys conjured up to suit your own ends There’s no such thing as old or

new morals, just morality”

–I wouldn’t expect you to think anything else—a creature who narrowly escaped destruction only

by hiding behind the shi+eld of Mardock Scra more than a

smokescreen whipped up by freaks such as you so that you can desperately try to justify your existence

to a society who never asked for you in the first place and doesn’t want you now But has society ever

felt that way about OctoberCorp, the OctoberCorp that fulfills so many of its needs? I don’t think so,

somehow…

John’s voice was more sonorous than ever, and Balot honed in on the direction fromwhich it came

“No one who refuses to acknowledge that they theht to

lecture others about morality,” Oeufcoque stated boldly As he did so, Balot jumped into action

With all her lass in her hand toward the mirror at the end of the bar

The mirror that one of the men’s stray bullets had cracked but not destroyed only a o

The glass s the milk across the surface

There was an audible gasp on the cell phone This confirmed Balot’s suspicions, and she moved

quickly She picked up her gun fromthe counter and unloaded it into the mirror in one swift movement

It really was a sturdy host and started to collapse

Finally, though, it started peeling fromthe wall

It was a one-way mirror And the scene behind it was now revealed to all in the bar

Balot threw her gun down and snarced the left hand of her bodysuit so that she held a brand-new one

in her grip

Gun outthrust, she stood in front of the warped mirror

A wave of disgust ran over her, one that made every hair on her body stand on end Before she even

had the chance to think about what she was doing, she pulled the trigger, hard Oeufcoque was there for

her, suppressing the bullet, stopping the action inside himself

“Ah…you seeined for a moment that you would be in

such a place Although I daresay the disadvantage is now all yours…” Unusually for Oeufcoque, his voice

dripped with sarcasm But Oeufcoque was Oeufcoque, after all, and he could only take so much—the

whole scene was evidently getting to him “I can’t say I think much of your hobbies, sir By the look of it,

I can see all sorts of laws being broken…”

Beyond the rees of undress, all young Preteen

young In the er than Skyscraper—sprawled on a sofa in

a nightgown, holding a phone in his hand and looking at Balot in mute terror

“This is private property…” the corpulent figure finally ed to spit out It was the same man they

had seen back at the casino—none other than Cleanwill John October

“Indeed, so we’ll refrain fro unless we’re forced to We’ll just wait here, keeping

you under guard until the police arrive Cleanwill John October, as a PI and Trustee for this case, I invoke

es of atte, extortion, and—well, lots of other

things”

Oeufcoque ed to stay levelheaded The proof of this was that he kept the safety catch on the gun

fired “Balot, call for police backup”

Balot shook her head She wanted to kill theirls with John

She reht again about what it meant he wanted to

do to her, and felt her blood rushi+ng around her body so quickly she thought it

backward

“Balot” Oeufcoque spoke even more deliberately

“Yaaargh!” A screah not before Balot and Oeufcoque both realized

it was co

Skyscraper had eun in hand

Balot didn’t even turn around; she merely fired off a number of shots over her own shoulder

Both of Skyscraper’s shoulders and both his knees were pulverized in an instant His scream rose in

pitch a few notches, and he writhed helplessly on the floor

Balot’s eyes reure on the other side of the unshots, all

thought of resistance had been wiped from Cleanwill John October’s mind, and he blubbered, “Peace!

Let’s do this in peace!” Both his arms were raised in a wobbly surrender

Balot would have rather seen hied to overco to

take a step back fromthe broken mirror and snarc her cell phone to call the police

She left the rest to Oeufcoque It was the only way she could get through this

She was exhausted There was much she still had to learn It made her head spin

≡

Police sirens converged on the bar Balot was in the passenger seat of the red convertible, watching

the young children as they rapped in blankets and escorted to safety

John October had already been taken away in custody along with the other men in the bar

“To think that we’d be able to catch one of OctoberCorp’s directors so easily,” said the Doctor He

was relaxed, still a little sleepy, but was focused on the task at hand The second case could now

progress

Oeufcoque told him the details of his conversation with John, and the Doctor frowned “Doesn’t that

make Boiled more or less a fully paid employee of OctoberCorp?” the Doctor asked

“It could be that Boiled is now planning on taking Shell prisoner I suggest we play along with

OctoberCorp for a little longer anddiscussions with them

That will buy us some time”

“OctoberCorp is ive thee it’s do or die

The only thing that’ll make the difference between victory and defeat is Shell and his memories That

Shell—” At this point the Doctor and Oeufcoque fell silent

“Where’s Shell right now?” asked Oeufcoque sharply

The Doctor fu his final trial, and he’s

permitted to travel within a two-kilo at There should be specialists

fro him, of course, but…”

“How long before Boiled hears about what’s gone down here?”

“He’s probably already heard,” said the Doctor

“We need to hurry, then”

Without another moment’s notice, the Doctor revved up the car, and it sped off fro start

Balot, who had zoned out, was jolted back into consciousness and rushed to secure her seat belt

–What’s the matter?

Balot spoke by snarcing the car stereo

The Doctor shook his head “It’s Boiled Unless he gets an order from OctoberCorp to stop him, he

Shell It’d be such a shae now that we have one

of OctoberCorp’s directors in the bag”

–What are we going to do?

It was Oeufcoque who answered this “The Doctor will head to the Broilerhouse We’ll go to the hotel

Shell is staying at and ensure his safety”

–I’o and save Shell’s life?

This time she didn’t use the car stereo, but rather snarced Oeufcoque directly

“That’s right”

–How strange…

Balot was silent, thoughtful

They arrived at the Broilerhouse, and the Doctor ju back

Balot programmed the name of Shell’s hotel into the display, and the car set off

The car pulled into the hotel’s underground parking lot, and Oeufcoque gave Balot the latest news

“Just in fromthe Doctor Shell’s in room663”

Balot took the key fronition and hurried toward the hotel lobby She headed into an elevator,

then suddenly realized that the buttons stopped at the fortieth floor

“This is an eal niceties,” Oeufcoque said, before

Balot even had the opportunity to ask She snarced the elevator, sending it up to the sixty-sixth floor

There was no one else in the elevator and no sign of anyone in the corridor when Balot stepped out

Suddenly—without Balot having to snarc anything—she felt a squish about her left hand and realized

that she was holding a gun “Be careful”

Balot progressed with the utmost care She walked down the corridor with silent footfalls and stopped

right in front of the target door She sensed as on the other side of the door—no sign of movement

Balot snarced the electronic door lock open, calling on help fromOeufcoque to decode it

No sooner had she opened the door than Balot was assaulted by a lukewarmblast of air

The air conditioner wasn’t working Next to the door was a large dresser coated with a layer of

condensed water vapor

There was the sound of running water; Balot headed slowly for the bathrooht was on,

and stea the room

Balot steadied her gun and entered the bathroom She was filled with an uneasy premonition She was

sure that there was no sign of movement frominside, and her mind couldn’t help but carry this observation

through to its logical conclusion She walked across the polished e mirror

toward the source of the stea water

Balot’s feet stepped in floater

She put her hand on the shower curtain and, taking a deep breath, yanked it back

The sight that assailed her made her heart miss a beat

A woman swayed in the water, hersilently Her head

floated but herwater, and her eyes had started to go muddy, cooked by the

near-boiling hot water

The wo blonde hair covered her body as the hot water continued to flow

Her body was covered with black and blue bruises Bruises that were no doubt inflicted on her when

she resisted, or perhaps bruises she received because she couldn’t resist

Finally, Balot exhaled A streamof cold vapor in the steamy room

“Looks like this was Shell’s fiancée…” Oeufcoque muttered

Balot was suddenly overtaken by an urge She left the bathroo room,

positioning herself in front of the television She snarced it to grasp its inner workings, then accessed the

Internet

“What’s this about, Balot?” Oeufcoque see the

television on and bringing up a ed into a number

of servers, cracking the encrypted passwords with ease

“Stop it, Balot! What are you trying to do—find Shell? You’re hacking into public networks, you

know! That’s a crih for this sort of thing Don’t you

start running off the rails too!”

Balot stared at the television, tears suddenly filling her eyes Her face crumpled and she sat down She

cried without un in her hand as she did so

–Let me kill Shell

Her face was painfully sad as she snarced Oeufcoque

–Let me kill that man Cleanwill too

“Balot, it’s no good thinking like—”

–Please Let me I don’t even care if I die afterward

“Balot…are you angry? Or sad?”

Balot shook her head Neither Both She felt her destiny swirling about her Her terrible, terrible

destiny Why did Shell have to kill that wo

to clean you up The words echoed around Balot’s mind

–I think that woman in there was the same as me

Balot h the terrible

inside her

“The same…? You mean, that is to say…” Oeufcoque started, but he didn’t need to finish He’d

understood perfectly The wos done to her by her father Or perhaps other

s to her

–Please, let me kill them all I don’t care if I die myself I don’t care if I die

“Calet sucked in Take a deep breath and calm

down”

Balot held on to her gun Her whole body shook as she cried Quietly, her breathing a mess

Every possible horrible fate seemed to be in this room For the first time ever, Balot experienced the

feeling of seeing her sorrow transforer but into sheer murderous intent She wanted to kill

Shell She wanted to kill everyone orked for OctoberCorp She wanted to kill the others caught up

in this case, Boiled and even the Doctor Then, after she had done all that, she wanted to save the last

bullet for herself

–I can’t bear it Help me Save me

Balot felt a soft war to materialize

Balot clasped her hands together in prayer, and Oeufcoque&rsq