Rune Balot is an adolescent prostitute from Mardock City. Shell, an ambitious casino manager, picks her up one day and provides her everything she could want. Balot is grateful for a fake innocence, a false history, and now the false life Shell has given her. However, she can't help but be interested about why he's done so much for her, so she conducts some online research into his history. This turns out to be a huge blunder that will drastically alter her life. Shell attempts to burn her to death by blowing up her automobile when he discovers what she's done. Because of the high crime rate in Mardock, a new law known as "Scramble 09" has granted police carte blanche.