“Balot.” Oeufcoque spoke even more deliberately.
“Yaaargh!” A scream came at them from behind, though not before Balot and Oeufcoque both realized it was coming.
Skyscraper had emerged from the booth and was charging toward them, gun 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 remained fixed on the giant figure on the other side of the mirror. After the gunshots, 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 him in pieces than in peace, but she managed to overcome this feeling to take a step back from the 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 were wrapped 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 and make out that we’re interested in continuing discussions with them. That will buy us some time.”
“OctoberCorp is more ruthless than you give them credit for, Oeufcoque. At this stage 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 fumbled with his PDA. “He’s been released on bail pending his final trial, and he’s permitted to travel within a two-kilometer radius of the hotel he’s staying at. There should be specialists from the DA’s office tailing 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 from a standing 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 might end up killing Shell. It’d be such a shame to lose our main piece of leverage 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’m going to go 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 jumped out and rushed in without even looking 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 from the Doctor. Shell’s in room 663.”
Balot took the key from the ignition 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 emergency. Protecting Shell takes priority over any legal 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 what was on the other side of the door—no sign of movement.
Balot snarced the electronic door lock open, calling on help from Oeufcoque to decode it.
No sooner had she opened the door than Balot was assaulted by a lukewarm blast 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 bathroom. An orange light was on, and steam billowed out, filling 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 from inside, and her mind couldn’t help but carry this observation through to its logical conclusion. She walked across the polished marble floor and past a large mirror toward the source of the steaming, bubbling water.
Balot’s feet stepped in flowing water.
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, her mouth O-shaped, as if she were screaming silently. Her head floated but her mouth was full of splashing water, and her eyes had started to go muddy, cooked by the near-boiling hot water.
The woman was naked, and her long 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 stream of 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 bathroom and headed for the living 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 seemed concerned, but Balot ignored him, turning the television on and bringing up a map of the city. Her eyes remained wide open as she logged 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 crime! There are official channels we need to go through 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 making a sound, lifting her gun in her hand as she did so.