Defragmenting Daniel: The Complete Trilogy Box Set

by Jason Werbeloff

  “Missis Hampshirr, so good to see you. Longg time.”

  “Geppetto, dear man. You know I prefer to be called Elle.”

  Geppetto kissed her left cheek. Then her right.

  “Liverr givingg prroblema again, Mississ Hamphirr?”

  The ancient woman craned her neck to peer at the plastic-clad ceiling, as if the answer lay somewhere in its synthetic creases. Bags of watery skin hung from her jaundiced eyes.

  “Are you okay, Mrs. Hampshire?” asked Florenza.

  “Oh … you’re so pretty, dear. When I was young, there was a boy who would send me flowers. Daffodils and violets. They only lasted a day, but they were as pretty as you.” She blinked. Eyed the room. “Where is this place?”

  “You came here for your liver, Mrs. Hampshire. Lie back now. That’s right. We’ll have you feeling better in no time.” Florenza looked to Daniel. Shook her head and whispered, “Cirrhosis. Confuses the old ones.”

  Geppetto slid a needle into her papery wrist.

  “I was no daisy, though, mind you. Had my share of …” The old woman’s eyes rolled back in her head. Her jaw hung slack.

  “Pensioners can’t afford fresh organs,” said Florenza. “They come to us for a cheaper fix. Cybernetics.”

  Geppetto tapped the bag of anesthetic hanging from a hook beside the bed. He nodded. Selected a scalpel from the tray. “Brring rreplacement.”

  Florenza elbowed Daniel aside, and shifted apart the plastic hanging on the wall behind him. She pulled open a rusted metal closet. Extracted a metallic ball. Bullet-gray.

  “Now watch, boy. Liverr is big prroblema for Bubblerrs. Too much … how you say?” He looked to his niece, scalpel in hand. Lifted an invisible glass in his other hand, raised it to his lips, and tipped it back.

  “They drink too much,” said Florenza.

  Brown eyes, thought Daniel. Florenza has brown eyes. It only dawned on him now just how rare that was. Almost everyone at the Orphanage had green eyes. With all the organ donations and replacements, the concentration of Rejek in their blood steadily increased, until their eyes turned green.

  The thought of Florenza as pure, untouched by Rejek, sent a thrill through his chest. Into his groin. He noticed her breasts. How pert they were under her blouse. She wore that blouse on Wednesdays, he knew. For the men in the afternoon.

  “Why you looking at me like that?”

  Blood flooded Daniel’s cheeks. He swung his gaze. Found himself staring into Mrs. Hampshire’s glassy eyes. Geppetto turned the old woman’s head gently, and her tongue flopped out her mouth. Her breath was slow and wet, until Geppetto shoved a tube down her throat.

  Florenza tipped the woman to one side, so she could slip the gown from under her back. In a moment, the woman was naked. Leathery breasts hung either side of her chest. Ancient. So different from Florenza’s.

  Something chrome, something glossy, caught Daniel’s eye. It was flat and round. About the diameter of Odin’s paw. The device sat between Mrs. Hampshire’s breasts. He stepped closer. Examined the display. “1,” it read.

  “What’s that?”

  Florenza shrugged. “They call it a phase … a phase-something-or-other. She slid the device up the woman’s sternum, out of the way of Geppetto’s waiting scalpel. The underside of the machine clung to the woman’s delicate skin, lifting the epidermis as it slid. “All I know is the Bubblers don’t want us removing it. No matter what.”

  Daniel’s eyes moved down the floppery of the woman’s skin. It was thin enough for him to spot the web of blue veins beneath. He leaned closer still, fascinated by the texture of her. His eyes reached out and stroked the rubbery fronds of her stomach. An unbidden urge crept over him. He wondered how easy it would be, how it would taste, to take a chunk of that papery skin between his teeth. Rip it off. Would it tear easily? Would her blood be warm on his lips, tacky on his cheeks?

  He shook his head. Expelled the image. Gods.

  “Let us see what is inside,” said Geppetto. He lowered the blade just beneath the ancient woman’s right breast, and sliced.

  *

  Cirrhotic livers. Lungs blacker than tar. Hearts caked with fat.

  The Bubblers arrived, pensioned and frail, young and ashamed. They arrived late at night, or in the early mornings before their absence would be noticed.

  They all had two things in common. They wore the phase-something-or-other device on their chests, displaying the number ‘1’. And they all wore sunglasses, no matter the time of night.

  The Bubblers arrived, they lay upon Geppetto’s table, and they left with a smile.

  “Thank you,” they’d say. “Won’t drink anymore,” they’d say. “No more cocaine. No more smoking.”

  Geppetto nodded and wished them well. But Daniel saw in the old shopkeeper’s eye that he knew they’d be back. Many were repeat customers.

  “Bubbler life’s wild,” said Florenza. “Pleasure is tough to give up.”

  As the weeks passed, Geppetto insisted that Daniel watch all the surgeries. The boy participated in the easier transplants. “I old man,” Geppetto would say. “You young.” He’d pinch Daniel’s cheek. “Many surrgerries in you. One day, you be my hands.”

  Daniel watched. And learned.

  Odin found a new lease on life. The old cat had taken to hunting the rats in the attic. He’d deliver one on Daniel’s pillow every other day. Back arched, purring like a thing possessed, the faithful animal would meow until Daniel accepted the gift. This involved tossing it in the trash bin on the sidewalk outside.

  Friday night. The four of them were eating dinner. Florenza had just finished cooking a hunk of processed Mopane, and Odin was beside himself, swiping his tail from side to side. Geppetto read the paper in that mild, confused way that a foreigner does. And Daniel was not-watching Florenza’s ass, when the shop bell tinkled.

  Geppetto glanced up. Lowered his paper. Florenza turned off the stove, and tossed a piece of meat to Odin. Daniel opened the door.

  A young man about Daniel’s age sprawled on the sidewalk. “Heart,” he said, clutching his chest.

  His eyes were bloody, his cheeks gray. But it was his lips, blue and thin, that galvanized Daniel to place an arm under the boy’s shoulder, and help him up the staircase and onto the metal table.

  The Bubbler’s breath crackled in shallow bursts. “My parents … they, they don’t … don’t know about the coke. You … can you fix me. I have …” He spilled a handful of credit cards onto the floor. “I have money.” He coughed a bright red haze on the plastic ceiling.

  Daniel pulled off the boy’s shirt.

  “It will be alrright,” said Geppetto to the wheezing boy. He handed the wad of cards to Florenza, and pulled on his gloves. “Hearrt is no prroblema.”

  The boy offered a weak smile, and lay back against the steel. Florenza jabbed a needle in his arm, and a few seconds later, the young man was snoring.

  “Brringg hearrt,” said Geppetto. “Biggerr than kidney. No, no. Smallerr than lungg. Si. That one.”

  The metal orb was heavy in Daniel’s hands. It gleamed under the fluorescent lights, its input-output valves beckoning for connection.

  “Thomsin Sparling,” said Florenza, flipping through the Bubbler boy’s wallet. “Good-looking kid.” Jealousy punched Daniel in the gut. “Looks a lot like you.” She winked.

  Geppetto slid the phase-something-or-other device on the boy’s chest up and across to his shoulder. Now that it was out of the way, Geppetto lowered the scalpel. Traced a thin red line down the center of Thomsin’s muscled chest.

  “This one’s empty.” Florenza swiped one of the boy’s credit across her paypoint.

  Geppetto grunted, and a loud crack reverberated through the operating theatre. Thomsin’s ribs parted.

  “I’ve never seen a heart inside someone,” said Daniel, peering over the shopkeeper’s shoulder. “Lots at the Organ Farm. But they look different when they’re beating.”

  The heart was wedged between two lungs,
and covered in a layer of fat. But there it was. Pumping like its owner’s life depended on it.

  Florenza held up a second card. “Ah,” she said, “this one’s got some juice in it. Wealthy boy. What you think a heart is worth?” She typed on the keypad.

  The paypoint beeped.

  “That should do it,” she said, and stuffed the cards back into their owner’s pocket.

  “This hearrt,” said Geppetto, peering into Thomsin’s chest, “… big as horrse. No … how you say?”

  “Not enough oxygen,” said Florenza.

  “Firrst, we cut here.” Geppetto whistled a ditty as a jet of blood hit the ceiling. Thomsin’s lips purpled. “And then we …” The old man grabbed a thin tube from the tray beside the operating table. The smart connector came alive in his hand. It slithered about, probing the air for an orifice. Its head stretched in anticipation as it neared the dissected artery. A moment later, the tube and the artery were joined snugly.

  Geppetto repeated the procedure, narrating the arteries he snipped and replaced. “Aorrta.” He shoved the lungs aside to get at the other tubes. “Pulmonarry arrterry … superriorr vena cava …”

  Florenza snatched the artificial heart from Daniel’s hand and tossed it to her uncle. He connected the other side of the tube to the metallic orb. Geppetto’s whistling grew louder. He grabbed another tube from the tray, and was about to snip a vein, when a loud bang punched through the calm of the theatre.

  “Open up,” cried a muffled voice downstairs. “By order of the Bubble Guard.”

  Florenza paled. Sweat broke out among the creases of Geppetto’s brow. He snipped the last pulmonary vein. Shoved the end of a smart tube around its end. The other side of the snaking tube found the input valve of the metal heart.

  Florenza grabbed the original heart, gray and limp, and lifted it from Thomsin’s chest. Snipped arteries and veins sprung out from it like dreadlocks “He won’t be needing this no more.” She chucked the mass of meat into a blender. Poured the resulting maroon sludge down the sink.

  “Open!”

  Geppetto pulled off his gloves. “I go see what they want. Lock this doorr.” The old man shuffled down the corridor, tucking in his shirt as he hobbled along. His bronze-tipped cane knock-knock-knocked the wooden stairs on his way down. “I comingg.”

  Daniel bolted shut the operating room door.

  Florenza was a flurry of activity. She fired commands at him. “Lock the cupboard. No, wait. Put this inside first.” She thrust the tray of scalpels at Daniel, and a suction pipe into Thomsin's chest. Blood eased its way up the translucent tube, into a bucket waiting on the floor.

  “Pour that down the sink.”

  “Hold this.”

  The suction pipe gurgled in Daniel's hand. Air bubbles under the pipe's surface tickled his fingertips as they passed.

  “Sirr, we arre a shop. We do yourr laundrry. Sell you meat. Massage yourr muscells. You sirr, you look like you need massage. Tired eyes.”

  Florenza was pulling plastic off the walls. Off the floor. Shoving it into huge, black bags. “Wash away the blood. Shit, where's the key to the cupboard?”

  She fumbled to open the rusted lock. It clanged against the cupboard door.

  “What's that noise? We know just what kind of ‘shop’ this is old man. We've been tracking movements in and out of here for days now.”

  “Sirr, I assurre you. We do nothingg wrongg. Rrats, they make noise. But if you want, you can uh ... buy some rrump. We have best rrump steak this side of Main Strreet.”

  Florenza stuffed the black bags in the cupboard. Clicked closed the padlock.

  “We know you're performing black market surgeries with illegal cybernetic parts. We had a talk with Mrs. Hampshire.”

  “She good lady,” said Geppetto. “Verry sad about herr husband. She miss him so much. She uh ... how you say ... she uh … all overr in herr head afterr he died.”

  “I need the stitches to close him up,” whispered Florenza. She fumbled with the lock again.

  Footsteps up the staircase.

  Daniel jumped. An animal groan, deep and low, emanated from the operating table. “Where ... where am –” Daniel dashed over to Thomsin. Placed a hand over the boy's mouth. “Shhhh.”

  “What’s behind that door, old man?”

  “Doorr. Uh ... we do massage therre. Yourr shoulderrs, so tight, Officerr. You need massage?”

  Florenza swaddled a bandage around Thomsin’s open chest. “There’s no time to close him up. He needs to get out of here. You do too.” Florenza pointed to the window. “Now.”

  Daniel lifted the groggy boy to a sitting position.

  The Bubbler clutched the bandage over his chest. “It hurts.”

  “Step out of the way old man … You and you, kick in the door.”

  Daniel supported Thomsin to the open window. He glanced back. “Aren’t you coming?”

  Florenza was wiping down the operating table. “They can’t know what we do here. I’ll stay. Clean up before they break through.” She rinsed out the blender. “Go. It’ll take them a while to get in. Strong locks. I’ve got time.”

  An explosive bang rocked the door. Then another.

  Florenza’s cheeks were pasty. Waxen. “Go!”

  “Uh, sirr. It is nothingg behind doorr.”

  “Shutup you Gutter.” Daniel thought he heard a slap, then a weight drop to the floor.

  “Lift your leg over the windowsill,” he whispered to Thomsin. “Now the other.”

  Bang!

  Daniel peered behind him before he followed Thomsin out the window. The tongues of the top two bolts had been smashed through the doorframe, and the third looked like it was about to suffer the same fate. A large crack ran down the length of the door.

  Thomsin was unsteady on his feet as they descended the fire escape. Twice, Daniel had to brace against the boy to prevent the Bubbler from tipping over the handrail. They were almost at the bottom of the rusted staircase, when Daniel heard a noise he knew so well.

  Meow.

  Odin’s gray chin stared down at him from the window of Daniel’s room. One window away from the operating theatre. The two rooms shared access to the fire escape.

  Two flights of stairs back up to the window. Seven stairs per flight. He liked the numbers.

  Daniel’s cybernetic knee grinded as he sprung up the stairs in three-three-one’s. By the time he’d reached the top of the first flight, his heart registered the exertion, and his artificial lungs flurried to keep up.

  “Hey there little girl.”

  “Don’t touch me.”

  Daniel was at the top of the second flight, when he heard the second slap.

  “Don’t!” cried Florenza.

  “Come,” whispered Daniel. Odin looked dubiously at the fire escape. “Come, boy.”

  “We know you and your old man are trading in cybernetics,” said a deep male voice. “We know everything.”

  “Not sure about organs, but we offer an excellent laundry service. That bloodstain on your cuff, we could get that off in no time. Won’t even charge –”

  Another sharp slap pierced the air.

  Odin seemed finally to understand the urgency of the situation. He leapt onto Daniel’s shoulder.

  Daniel was about to turn around, to head back down the stairs to Thomsin, but something stopped him. Held him fast.

  “Cheeky, girl. We know what else you do here. The service you offer those men on Wednesday afternoons. Well, it is late afternoon. And it’s Wednesday. Me and my boys need servicin’. Get … on … the table … That’s better.”

  Daniel raised his eyes above the sill. Peered into the operating theatre. In the corridor, beyond the door, Geppetto lay slumped on the ground against a wall. Blood snaked down his chin. His cane, his bronze-tipped cane, was broken in two.

  And in the operating room, was Florenza. Florenza lying on the metal table. Florenza with her legs spread open. Held open. Florenza with her eyes closed, her lips pursed, her chee
ks bunched. Florenza with four men standing around her, and one on top of her. Men in black uniforms. Men with black souls.

  Daniel knew men like these. In Law and Order they worked for Internal Affairs. Or, worse, for another precinct.

  Thomsin coughed at the bottom of the fire escape.

  Daniel ducked.

  “Thought I heard something outside, Sarge.”

  “I don’t hear nothin’. Probably rats. Gutter’s full of ‘em.”

  A tear rolled down Daniel’s cheek as he descended the staircase.

  “Let’s go,” he said to Thomsin, trying to put the image of Florenza out of his mind. He shoved the boy forward. This was the Bubbler’s fault. If he hadn’t been in the operating room when the Guard had arrived, Florenza would have gotten out in time.

  The boy spluttered a mist of blood, but he stumbled ahead. “Where … where we going?”

  Florenza’s stoic face materialized behind Daniel’s eyelids when he blinked. The ravaged buildings of New Settlers Way. The bloody mattress. The words of the Holey Man sang in his ears. “Your parts are missin’,” he’d said. “You ain’t pure.”

  The Bubblers – entitled, undeserving cretins like Thomsin, waving around their credit cards, rotting their organs, soaring from one cocaine high to the next. The Orphanage. The Bubble. They’d taken everything from him. His organs. His mother. Florenza.

  It was time to get his parts back.

  “We’re going to your place,” said Daniel.

  Thomsin glanced down at the bandage around his chest. “Home.” He coughed. “Home would be good.”

  *

  “I’ll need to see his ID, man,” said the border guard around a piece of gum.

  “No need.” Thomsin rallied a mustard smile. “He’s with me.”

  The guard’s greasy blonde hair draped the shoulders of his Guard uniform. “Who is he?”

  “My cat walker.”

  “Cat walker? Dude, I ain’t never heard of a cat walker. Didn’t know you could even walk a cat.”

  Thomsin straightened himself. Broadened his shoulders. “Do you have a cat?”

  “No sir.”

  “Your feline ignorance isn’t my problem, now is it?”

  The border guard swallowed his gum.