The first one he killed? The memories—no, the trace remnants, the vestiges of memory—were somehow different with this one. Because she was the first, the original?
When, exactly? It all kicked off after he’d entered the casino. He’d started to realize his talent at cards. I’d like you to come and watch me at the Show. I know there are years between us, but we’re still a proper couple, real lovers. Even if I lost all my other memories, I’d still like to remember you. I could forget everything else, but not your face. Please.
The first one I killed was different, I think. I really meant it with her.
–Your body won’t hold out much longer, Balot! It’s been over ten hours now! Your stamina—
“There’s something I want to tell you, and I want you to listen, Shell.”
That’s what the girl said. A surge of empathy welled up inside him. I won’t forget you. It’s my job to make dirty things clean again. My memories disappear. Maybe they’ll trust me to clean their money up too.
“I don’t want to lie to you. I want you to know the truth.”
If they trust me to clean up their money, it means that they trust me. Trust me!
This is where it begins, my Mardock, my stairway to heaven. I’m going to make it clean. I’m going to make everything clean. Like a blue diamond.
“I was raped by my father.”
–Balot, stay calm!
A surge of empathy welled up inside him. He was shocked. And yet his love for the girl remained the same. He loved the girl. But then there was the stress. Flashbacks.
“I’d rather go to jail than return there. Flashbacks.”
–That’s you speaking there, Balot! Doctor, we have to stop this. Doctor! Damn, Balot’s snarc is much stronger than I’d ever imagined—
Flashbacks. Memories of sounds, light, pain. Memories of anger, pleasure, conversations. These emotions cut across the scene, gradually coming back to life, and the motives and intentions of the feeler started to form distinct, tangible shapes.
“I’m going to make it all clean. Everything that is dirty, I’m going to clean.”
No. It wasn’t like that. I didn’t kill her. Not the first girl. She was already dead. Why? I’m going to make you clean. I’m going to clean you up. The whole world weeps for you. My whole world weeps for you.
Balot’s eyes overflowed with tears.
“A Blue Diamond. That’s the way to do it.”
Shell’s love was not enough. The girl died of despair. The girl had looked to Shell for salvation, she had wanted real love, but in the end she died in a state of delirium. A pathetic death. Shell was plunged into a despair of his own. Despairing at the girl’s death. Despairing at the reason behind the girl’s death.
The first one that Shell killed wasn’t the girl. It was the person who had hurt the girl so, driven her to suicidal despair. The girl’s father.
“The first one I killed—”
–We’re past the point of no return now. We’ll just have to guide Balot through to the bitter end.
The girl made Shell remember all the despair that he had once forgotten. A surge of empathy welled up inside him. “Don’t you worry, my little one. I’ll look after you. I know all about it. How much you’ve suffered.”
Stress. It’s what destroys my memories.
No, that’s wrong. The first one that Shell killed wasn’t the girl’s father.
Suddenly Balot was assaulted by flashbacks. They were inside the vast emptiness of Shell’s lost memories. Something crying out even now from the darkness.
“Why me? ”
The despair that Shell should have forgotten all about was the sparkle in the facets of the Blue Diamonds. They scintillated, radiant.
There was a hubbub all around. Balot suddenly realized where she was—at a Show, watching Shell under the spotlight.
At first Balot thought she had come back to the beginning of his memories, but then she realized that she was holding his rings in both her hands. All with Blue Diamonds set in platinum. This was Balot’s job—to look after Shell’s jewelry. One of her jobs.
One of the diamonds is conspicuous, brighter than the rest, and the man calls this one Fat Mama, because, as he says, “I called in a favor from an acquaintance who works in processing to have my dead mother’s ashes turned into a diamond.”
–We’ve reached it! Finally, we’re at the source of Shell’s trauma!
That’s right. The first one Shell killed. Shell’s own mother.
A surge of empathy welled up inside him.
The despair of the girl that Shell had loved was scattered around the world. The girl understood why Shell felt such empathy with her pain. She understood why Shell had accepted her for who she was.
Shell also understood what the girl had understood. It was a vicious circle. Empathy begat empathy. The girl couldn’t cope with it. It was the very thing she had run away from—
“Flashbacks—”
In the end, the girl realized that she was right back where she started. In the same place she had run away from—
–Why me?
Balot was frozen still, the answer finally staring her in the face.
Here was the inappropriate material that the Doctor had warned about. Image after image exploded into Balot’s mind.
–Balot, don’t respond to any of these! They have nothing at all to do with your own past…
This was it. Inside the rotten core of Shell’s memory—that pustulent, scabrous yolk—he was forced to have sexual intercourse with his own mother. It started around the time Shell hit puberty and carried on right up to the time just before he turned twenty, when, finally, unable to bear it any longer, Shell fixed the brakes in his mother’s car so that she would die and it would look like an accident and he would finally be free of her.
This was the reason Shell felt his deep surge of empathy toward all the girls he had ever killed.
It was the despair of the first girl that he had ever loved with all his heart.
This was the plain and simple answer to Balot’s question.
The answer to Why me?
≡
Balot imagined that she had screamed out loud.
In fact, her mouth had been clamped tightly shut, and all she had done was sit bolt upright and open her eyes wide.
When she came to her senses, she noticed the Doctor looking over at her, bleary eyed.
“Twenty-three hours…that’s how much time has passed since you first lay down there,” the Doctor said weakly. Bags had formed under his eyes. Balot imagined she probably had similar shadows underneath her own eyes. Then Balot checked that she had heard what she had just heard for herself, and stared at the Doctor as if she were looking to him for confirmation. Suddenly she was assaulted by a terrible chill. She felt like she was about to be sucked into the corrupted whirls of memories once again.
“Focus on your breathing, Balot. One step at a time, shallow breaths. Easy does it…” Oeufcoque said. But Balot’s mouth, clamped tightly shut as it was, showed no sign of wanting to open. Her jaws were locked tightly together, and she displayed the classic symptoms of heavy shock.
Balot shifted her body. She leaned forward in her easy chair and opened her mouth.
Before she had time to stop herself, to even realize what was going on, she plastered the floor with the contents of her stomach.