Mardock Scramble полностью

There was a set of shutters down at the car park entrance, but nothing compared to the incredible gate he’d just come through.

The moment Welldone noticed the shutters at the end of the parking lot he stopped moving toward the meeting point and swung around, looking back at the entrance he’d come in through.

It was a completely ordinary door.

Just a normal automatic door, and it even had a transom on top—the shutters on your average twenty-four-hour convenience store were more solid.

–Our visual circuits have been hacked! Welldone yelled angrily at the back of his brain. He kicked the door in frustration. One side of the door bent with a loud crack and its hinges flew off, clattering down the corridor.

–It’s just an ordinary automatic door! I was standing there with my dick in my hands, waiting in front of a door that I could have just pushed open! Flesh, give me a reading on the others’ positions!

A click, and Welldone saw an image of three blue flashing lights converging on him.

–Flesh?

No answer.

Welldone grabbed a gun in each hand and bent down, pressing his back to the wall.

The flashing dot representing Rare was coming down the stairs behind him. The flashing dot representing Medium was in an elevator heading down to the lot. And the flashing dot representing Mincemeat came toward him from the emergency stairs on the other side of the parking lot, swaying from side to side as it descended.

“Specters, all of you…” Welldone muttered, a seething mass of indignation. “This is a disgrace! Rare! Medi! Answer me if you’re there!”

Yelling now, he jumped up and ran toward the phantom figure coming down the stairs.

He lifted his guns and fired.

The bullets sped into the darkness, embedding themselves into the walls and dislodging some plaster.

At the bottom of the staircase he spun around, firing simultaneously at the elevator and emergency stairs.

The echo of the gunshots reverberated all around, and then the crisp sound of empty cartridges clinking to the ground.

His bullets were soon spent. He slammed his back to the wall, creeping along bit by bit, expelling the guns’ magazines. He opened up his coat and, in a well-rehearsed move, shoved the bases of his guns toward the spare magazines that were clipped to his sides, pressing them into his body.

He pulled, and the magazines clicked off, making a noise like the pin on a hand grenade.

Each hand pressed a switch on the grip, the breechblock slid into place automatically, and the bullets were all ready to go.

“These babies have got your names on them! Show your asses!” he screamed, eyes scouring the darkness.

He was answered by an earsplitting noise.

The sound of a radio.

The car stereo from one of the vehicles in the corner of the parking lot blared loudly, headlights flashing. Its engine revved violently.

The blare from the radio turned into the furious drumbeat of electroclash.

The tires scorched the concrete, and the car charged toward Welldone.

Welldone jumped away from the wall.

The car plunged at him. The steering wheel spun around, cutting a tight turn, and the car bounded up and down, chasing him, suspension grating, headlights flashing ominously.

“Fuck you!” Welldone fired shot after shot. He jumped onto the oncoming car, an abnormally powerful jump, first onto the windshield and then onto the roof, shooting it to pieces before tumbling off.

The car smashed into the wall, its front half now totaled.

Welldone picked himself up and trained his guns on the driver’s seat.

But no one was inside.

Now a different car stereo came to life, headlights lighting up across the parking lot. Heavy metal this time.

The engine rumbled, and the gas-powered car started closing in.

At ridiculous speed.

Welldone spun around and fired at the driver’s seat, but this car too had no driver.

He hid himself behind a pillar just in time. The car’s right headlight smashed straight into the pillar, shattering—as if the car were trying to shave off a piece of the pillar as it pursued its prey.

Welldone took a running leap toward the next pillar, using it as a springboard to kick against and change direction.

The car plowed on into the pillar.

Concrete flew everywhere. The steel rebar reinforcing the pillar were now wrapped around the front of the car, merged into one mass.

The heavy metal stopped.

The drum and bass started.

Welldone landed on the ground and another car sped toward him.

Welldone screamed a wordless scream.

He jumped, firing at the driver’s seat again, but even as he did so the car caught his right leg, smacking into him as it passed.

Welldone’s body pirouetted through the air and slammed into the ground.

The advancing car continued on its course, slamming into the back of the car embedded in the concrete pillar.