Balot nodded. She was keen to know the as-yet-undiscovered areas of the abilities she had acquired.
“Should be a piece of cake, considering the incredible aptitude you’ve shown so far.”
–What should be?
“Achieving equilibrium. You need to be able to grasp—precisely and evenly—the details of your interior workings, just as much as what’s going on outside your body. In other words, the definition of ‘training’ for you is not so much a case of building up your muscles but instead to cultivate your sense of internal balance.”
–So what is it exactly you want me to do?
“Make those scales stop still on a single number.”
Balot looked at the digits again. The numbers that were spinning round and round.
She could easily snarc them in order to give the Doctor what he asked for.
But that wasn’t quite what the Doctor was after.
“You need to let go in order to get go,” Oeufcoque interrupted. “Try and get a grasp of how your body ought to be in the context of its environment. You should be able to feel exactly what your body needs to do in order to adapt to its maximum effectiveness.”
–Is that what you do when you turn?
“Exactly. Your genetic makeup is very different from mine, but the basic principles are the same.”
–Genetic makeup?
“Look, you don’t need to think too hard about it. All you need to do is feel it.”
Balot looked away from the numbers on the scales and stared into space.
She thought about how she felt when she first woke up inside this building. How she could sleep without feeling uneasy about her surroundings for the first time ever. How that was what she wanted—what she needed—with all her heart.
Balot closed her eyes.
She focused on her consciousness—until now only ever used to explore her surroundings—and turned part of it inward.
She felt her own rhythm, the pulse running through her whole body. She felt the sensation of understanding her inner workings at the most fundamental level. This was something that didn’t belong to anyone else—it was hers.
The external and internal gently connected in her consciousness. She could feel changes in her body and changes on the weighing scales with equal precision. Through Oeufcoque she could feel the flow of the air, and she grasped the layout of the entire garage. She could feel the shapes of the parked cars, the thickness of the supporting pillars and the walls, and even the electricity in the air as it flowed through her body.
She grasped her own tiniest movements, fractions of a millimeter.
Behind Balot’s back the Doctor kept his eyes glued to the screen—and she could sense him growing more and more excited. The Doctor was astonished and delighted in equal measure.
“Amazing—how wonderful to have my own inventions brought properly to life by a genius such as you!” But even as the Doctor spoke, she sensed a faint echo of remorse.
It suddenly occurred to Balot that she had never really given much thought to the question of what all these inventions were originally intended for.
–Don’t you like wars, Doctor?
She spoke with her eyes still closed.
Behind her the Doctor lifted his head.
“Well, no, of course not… Although, ironically, we’re talking about technology that was originally developed under a remit from high command in order to help soldiers fight in space more effectively, so that they could engage in hand-to-hand combat even when they were wearing their bulky space suits.”
–So why did you make all this?
“You know, I really had convinced myself that I was contributing to human progress, even to world peace. Although my wife and relatives all just thought I was a nut job obsessed with my quest to restructure the human body…”
–But you’re going to save me.
Balot’s eyes were still shut.
The Doctor chuckled. “Let’s hope so. Now, on to the next step!”
Balot opened her eyes.
The numbers were no longer moving, not even slightly.
She could now see exactly how they did move, and what she needed to do with her body to make them move—or stay still.
She spread her legs apart.
Still the numbers stayed the same.
Balot felt confident now—if the scales were fifty meters long and she was told to run from one end to the other, she knew she’d be able to do so and the numbers would barely flicker.
“Are you right-handed?” Oeufcoque asked.
–I am now, although I was born left-handed.
And then, after answering, she snarced just to Oeufcoque:
–I was told I needed to make myself right-handed, as some customers might feel uncomfortable around a southpaw.
“So, is it safe to say you could be ambidextrous when it came to handling weapons?”
–I guess I could get used to it, after a little practice.
“Then let’s start with the left. Let’s get a gun in your hand.”
Balot snarced Oeufcoque via her left hand.
Even though she’d never handled a gun before, she could tell that Oeufcoque was turning into the ideal model for her, the one that suited her grip the best out of all the models he had programmed into him.
The fabric on her palm turned with a squelch and she felt cold steel—and gripped it.
It was heavier than she’d expected—but her body soon adjusted to the extra weight.
Oeufcoque gave her some tips. “Parts of this are made from vulcanized plastic and some electronics, but basically this is just an automatic pistol. You pull the trigger, the gunpowder explodes, and the bullet goes flying out the end at high velocity.”
Balot nodded and leveled the gun. The grip was fused into the palm of her suit.
She tried letting go, twiddling her fingers, and it still didn’t fall. It felt like it was almost a part of her.
“The target’s set up over on that wall.” The Doctor pointed at it. A black cardboard cutout, the shape of a man, about 170 centimeters in height.
“We have pressure sensors set up all around the target, so we’ll be able to tell immediately where your shots land. You watched the video on how to fire a gun? Well, go ahead and try it for yourself.”
The gun was empty of bullets. Balot snarced it. She felt a click, and she knew that the steel chamber was now loaded with a bullet. She could grasp the addition of the extra weight in the chamber, down to the last milligram.
Click, click, and one by one the magazine filled with bullets.
Eleven shots total—with an extra one in the chamber for good measure.
She thrust her left arm forward, used her right arm to steady it, and readied her gun.
She leaned in to compensate for the force, maneuvering herself into prime firing position, just as she had seen in the instructional video.
She brought her finger to rest on the trigger.