Mardock Scramble

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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.

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