“Calm down, Doc. I can’t smell any hostility coming from Boiled. Shell, on the other hand, is dripping with murderous intent. It’s a very definite smell.”
“How’s he going to do it? Shoot her? Hang her? Poison her? Is the girl already dead?”
“No idea how, but it doesn’t feel like it’s happened yet. Point me at them. I’ll start recording.”
The Doctor got back up and pointed the goggles at the two AirCars by the lake. The man who’d gotten out of the first AirCar—Shell—was gesturing at the car containing the girl.
“He’s waving his hand as if to say goodbye.”
“Not really enough to paint a convincing picture of a man planning on committing murder, is it?”
“Of course it’s not enough! He could give any old excuse for his actions. What the hell is he playing at?”
“He’s keeping her trapped in the car. Shit! His murderous intent is starting to change to relief. There’s not a moment to lose. My nose is definitely right about this—consider this an emergency!”
“And do what?”
“Move! Save the girl!” the goggles yelled. The Doctor started the convertible as fast as he could.
Up ahead the second AirCar, now with Shell on board, was starting to move away.
The car with the girl in it wasn’t moving.
The tires of the convertible spun violently, letting off a piercing shriek as the car took off.
At that moment the hood of the AirCar containing the girl exploded into a million tiny pieces.
Stunned at such an incredible turn of events, the Doctor rubbed his eyes. Then more terrible, thundering explosions. The darkness was ripped apart in an instant, the whole scene repainted with the bright red flames of an inferno. A roaring pillar of fire erupted along with the explosions, and the shrapnel from the car poured down in lumps of solid flame, bathing the lakeshore with its incandescence. The weird smell of roasting steel filled the air.
“To think he’d blow up the whole car! Shit, Boiled made me take my eye off the ball! Instant death?” the Doctor said, despairing. Pieces of shrapnel rained down chunk by chunk on the hood and windshield. The Doctor pressed down on the gas pedal, and in his hands the goggles changed shape with a squelch and said:
“An explosion of the front engine. The rear of the car was ripped halfway off by the first blast.”
As soon as the goggles spoke they changed—somewhat surprisingly—into the shape of a fire extinguisher, and said, “The car was built to disperse the effects of an explosion. There’s a good chance that anyone in the back seat won’t have been killed by the blast.”
“What, so if she’s lucky she’s just covered in third-degree burns instead? See? What really divides our little patch of earth from the fires of hell down below? Why not taste the flames for yourself, Mr. Soft-Boiled Oeufcoque!”
“I’ll quench the fires of this world before they get a chance to burn me.” The fire extinguisher’s voice was deadly earnest. “That’s my usefulness.”
03
A number of thoughts ran through the girl’s mind just before the explosion.
You’ve questioned the status that you were given.
She’d just wanted to make sure. She’d just wanted to show her gratitude for the wonderful gift that she’d been given. That was why—just the once, she’d decided—she’d secretly accessed the city’s personnel directory and learned who she was. She didn’t think that this was such a bad thing.
Why me? She’d just wanted to solve the mystery, learn the answer.
When the other car had arrived, she’d considered again whether it was such a bad thing.
And, of course, as it turned out it was. Without realizing it, she was trespassing onto the dangerous territory of a dangerous man. And this was the worst thing in the world.
The man suddenly turned to look at the girl staring vacantly out of the window. Not at the window: he was looking directly at the girl beyond it now, and clearly waving goodbye.
A Blue Diamond…something he can truly love. That’s what becomes of girls who break the rules.
She could see the glittering rings on the hand that was waving at her. A shudder tingled down her spine amid her confusion. Synthetic diamonds made from human ashes. The rings that had been entrusted to her to look after during every Show. There were seven of them—the man’s mother and those poor, anonymous girls. She’d heard the rumors that he’d bought a number of girls and let them die. Those rumors were true. And now me too—a wave of nausea welled up inside her. She felt as if something awful had seared itself deep in her chest.
Why? Why me?
The question emerged from her mouth amid the daze. Now the question was no longer about love—it had changed into something more sinister and disturbing. At the same time her nose sensed danger, something burning…a disgusting smell. Sulfurous fumes filled the car, and the alarm in the driver’s seat was beeping, as if to warn of engine trouble.
The man continued smiling and waving for a moment, then quickly turned around and jumped into the other AirCar. Just that moment she remembered some of her fellow whores talking about how gangs liked to burn their victims to death. It made it easier to process the corpses…
She heard a voice: Come on out.
Don’t shut yourself away in the shell of your heart. The words of the volunteer social worker from the Welfare Institute.
The shell. That was what was supposed to have protected her. But right now, she was its prisoner—trapped by a man, the man named Shell-Septinos, the man who had promised to give her back everything that she had lost.
She suddenly became aware that her hand was frantically fumbling at the door handle. For a moment, she didn’t even realize what she was doing. But of course she was trying to save herself.
Deep inside her own heart, another girl, just awakened, looked calmly on at her floundering hands.
Indeed…
The girl murmured. So this was what it was like. To be shut away in a shell. The door wouldn’t open. Her hands kept on struggling with the door handle. She wondered again whether what she had done was really all that bad.
Balot, somebody called. Ironically. The chick was boiled to death in the shell before it was even born. The clients said it was the name of a rare delicacy. The clients who favored doll-like girls. Balot had become the pièce de résistance—no one would tell her not to stay holed away inside her shell again…
Before long the other AirCar started pulling away. As it did, the man in the front passenger seat turned back to her again and waved lightly, carefree. See you soon, he almost seemed to say.
The nausea welled up inside her again. See you soon—once you’re a dead body. Would her scorched remains—her body turned to ashes—really be decorating this gambler’s finger as a synthetic jewel?
Her chest clenched in dread thinking about this. The body that had survived so far by meeting the needs of others: Was this to be its fate? Was she to be used as a thing right until the end?
“Die, you bastard. Die.”
She was shouting now, as if by reflex. She clung to the window, tried to watch the AirCar as it sped away, but soon lost sight of it and was left only with her own translucent reflection.
“You’re a shit. You’re nothing but shit. I hope you die, you shit!”