Mardock Scramble Read online

  Mardock Scramble

  Ubukata, Tow

  Copyright

  Mardock Scramble

  © 2003 Tow Ubukata

  All rights reserved.

  Originally published in Japan by Hayakawa Publishing Inc.

  English translation © 2011 VIZ Media, LLC

  Cover and interior design by Sam Elzway

  No portion of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the copyright holders.

  HAIKASORU

  Published by

  VIZ Media, LLC

  295 Bay Street

  San Francisco, CA 94133

  www.haikasoru.com

  ISBN: 978-1-4215-4093-1

  Haikasoru eBook Edition

  Contents

  Copyright

  Book I: THE FIRST COMPRESSION

  Chapter 1: INTAKE

  Chapter 2: MIXTURE

  Chapter 3: CRANK-UP

  Chapter 4: SPARK

  Book II: THE SECOND COMBUSTION

  Chapter 5: PISTON

  Chapter 6: INJECTION

  Chapter 7: ROTOR

  Chapter 8: EXPLOSION

  Book III: THE THIRD EXHAUST

  Chapter 9: CRANK SHAFT

  Chapter 10: MANIFOLD

  Chapter 11: CONNECTING ROD

  Chapter 12: NAVIGATION

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  HAIKASORU

  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 jazz singer 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 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 assigned 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 lustrous sheen, illuminating her innocent face. It was beguiling, seductive. Her slim body, 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 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 uniform of her own: gaudy striped tights that showed off her not-quite-yet-developed thighs and calves, her skinny little ass wrapped tight in white hot pants. She might 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 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 Sunglasses, with their shifting 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 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 him good 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 from the 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 assent, opened the door to the car refrigerator, and made a gin cocktail. 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 prostitute—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 identity, 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 identity, 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 Insti
tute, 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 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 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 from the 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 passed—in other words, not until yesterday.

  ≡

  Behind the high-class 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 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, 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, nobody 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 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’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 black AirCar 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 pass 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 from the fires of hell 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 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 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 breasts, squeezing and gently pinching them.

  Even as the man explored the girl’s body she was somewhere else—unresisting while silently assisting 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 program the 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 shell, someone would say.

  Come on out, they would say.

  That was the sort of
response she’d always had from the myriad of people in her life—social workers, the people from the institute, passing 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 shell.

  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 shell any longer. Instead, that became her job. To continue hiding 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 from the bottom of 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 sunglasses off.