Defragmenting Daniel: The Complete Trilogy Box Set

by Jason Werbeloff

  He reached into the space, but his fingers didn’t encounter any resistance. Nothing wet. Nothing cold.

  “Select an item,” spoke the voice in his skull. His glasses pinged, and a smorgasbord of delights cycled across his vision, each with a pale number floating beside it. Item 3 looked like a salad. He just had time to ogle its pink salmon slices languish across sprays of butter lettuce, before the salad cycled out of view. Number 7 caught his eye. A steak. Ridged with tenderness. Glistening brighter than a scrubbed liver. The meat lay in a bed of mashed potatoes. Browner than Mopane steak, made of something he hadn’t tasted before.

  “Select an item,” persisted the voice.

  “Seven,” said Daniel.

  “Please hold while I print your breakfast.”

  The air molecules in the forcefield shimmered more intensely. Then glowed. Daniel thought he smelt something. A tendril of sweetness, overlaid with woodchips. It smelt like jazz sounded.

  The food materialized. The steak, a knife, and a spork on a silver plate, hovered in the air.

  Odin sprang onto the table.

  Saliva flooded Daniel’s mouth. He took hold of the plate, and its weight settled into his hand. He shuffled to the table. The knife and spork trembled between his fingers as he sliced into the meat.

  He chewed.

  Dear Gods.

  It wasn’t until he and Odin were halfway through the second steak that the nausea hit. Daniel didn’t recognize the feeling. All the meat he’d ever eaten was Mopane worm in various configurations. Fried or seared, baked or blended. Lean, wholesome insect.

  Daniel’s stomach was not impressed with the steak.

  Something slithery, something rusted, wound its way up his gut. Tugged on the back of his tongue.

  And in that opportune moment, Daniel remembered Thomsin. He peered over the lip of the table at the muslin-shrouded shape on the floor. A fly had settled on the ridge of its nose. The insect trekked to the top of the blanket, and ducked inside.

  Another fly landed, and then another.

  Daniel was well aware of what happened to organs without Rejek. Those buckets of organs handed to him each morning. If he didn’t scrub them in time, if he left one over for the next shift, the flies got to it.

  And now, the flies were getting to Thomsin.

  Daniel’s stomach tensed. Spasms undulated through the length of him. A tentacle, green and alive, reached down his gut and yanked up his insides. Until the hot brown sludge that had been his meal was exorcised from his body.

  Daniel caught his breath. Picked himself up, and searched for a mop or a towel. He looked for a closet on the wall – somewhere Thomsin might keep cleaning supplies. But the walls had no seams. No handles or divisions. Nothing to hint at a cupboard that might store a mop.

  He tapped the glasses. “Call housekeeping?” asked the voice in his skull.

  He glanced at the body on the floor.

  “No,” he said quickly.

  He stumbled to the bathroom. There must be toilet paper somewhere. But not only was there no toilet paper, there was no toilet either. And he needed both. “Toilet,” he said as he examined the bare walls.

  On cue, a toilet shimmered into existence, complete with a roll of toilet paper against the wall.

  “Thank Gods,” said Daniel.

  *

  Thankfully, Thomsin’s clothes fit Daniel well enough. Better than well. The smart fabric hugged his chest, but not too tightly. The pants seemed short at first but then … yes … they’d lengthened to fit him.

  His stomach had settled, and after a battle, fought and won, to find the relevant menu on his overlay, he managed to use the shower. Daniel felt much better.

  “Taxi,” he said. By the time he reached the door, his glasses pinged.

  He glanced at the torn bible page. “3406 Hadbury Heights,” he said, and stepped into the cab.

  “Certainly, sir.”

  “When was the last time you tasted it?” asked a husky woman’s voice in his head. He shut his eyes to avoid the image. “The warmth. The salty, fleshy taste of raw, untouched pu–”

  He couldn’t take it anymore. Couldn’t listen to one more filthy advert. Daniel seized the glasses. Was about to yank them off –– when the ad stopped.

  “Block future adverts from this retailer?” asked the voice.

  “Yes,” he said. “Block.”

  Ten minutes later, and the slurry of revolting adverts had been stemmed. The glasses seemed to be learning. After numerous blocks, it now displayed ads for vacation destinations. Sundrenched beaches serenaded his vision. Lulled him into a delicious consumerist coma.

  “Peace,” whispered a voice behind his ears. “Silence.”

  He found himself floating above a deep-blue beach of copper crystals. Cobalt-saturated waves lapped his retinas.

  “The perfect getaway.”

  Daniel glided up into a swarm of golden butterflies. Swirled through silver clouds. He could almost feel their wings brush against his cheeks. Almost smelled the drift of autumn in his chest.

  “Choose from thousands of M-class planets, many uncolonized. Find your perfect destination. Message Planetary Tours today.”

  Daniel was about to switch off the adverts, to drift off to sleep, when he felt the familiar lurch of the taxi begin its descent.

  “Hover thirty yards away from destination,” he said.

  A tower of glass grew outside the cab window. It was similar to the surrounding buildings, except not quite as sleek. Not as clean. The reflections in its mirrored surfaces weren’t as clear, as faithful as the reflections that played across its cousins.

  As the taxi neared, Daniel thought he saw traces of dirt on the glass. Hints of rust. He examined the building more closely. His glasses brought up an overlaying grid of numbers.

  There were about ten units per floor, with the numbers ascending as the stories crept ever higher into the air. There were thousands of them. Almost all their windows were opaque to outside view, but he spotted a handful of units whose fronts were translucent. And one of those units was his destination.

  3406.

  He didn’t notice any movement at first through the transparent facade of the tiny apartment. 3406 had two visible rooms – a bedroom and living room. Square, utilitarian furniture. A mottled carpet.

  And that’s when he first saw it.

  Since he’d donated his left cornea, he couldn’t see well through that eye, and from this distance he couldn’t be sure what he was looking at. It had the form of a human, but it didn’t move quite the same. Its movements jarred. They seemed … overly calculated. Square.

  “Move closer,” said Daniel to the cab. “That’s enough.”

  It was chrome in color. Shadows and points of light collected on its metallic skin as it walked around the edge of the bed.

  “Take me to the door,” said Daniel.

  “Certainly sir,” chimed the cab, and closed the remaining distance.

  Daniel slid aside the door of the taxi, but wasn’t too sure what to do next. He couldn’t step out of the cab. The doorway to apartment 3406 was transparent, but he could see it was closed. The apartment’s glass façade shivered under his knuckles as he knocked.

  Behind that door, somewhere, was Margaret Evans. Perhaps the thing that marched in clunky strides to the door would know where Margaret was. Is this what ‘housekeeping’ looked like?

  The glass slid aside.

  “I’m looking for Margaret Evans.”

  The machine regarded him with curious, blinking eyes. Cold. Blue. Like a dead ocean. But the way the light diffused over their corneas wasn’t right for a cybernetic part. Too supple. Too moist.

  The android’s eyes were human.

  “You have found Margaret,” said the machine.

  “I’m looking … I’d like … ummm – my name is Daniel.”

  He thrust out an awkward hand.

  The machine’s head turned at a thirty degree angle. Blinked. Its fingers were cold in his
as the two shook hands.

  “Daniel will come inside,” it said. As Margaret’s hand dropped to its side, he noticed that three of the fingers were human. Two were not. And the android’s carapace wasn’t entirely chromatic. In places here and there, human skin of varying shades stretched across its carapace. A patch of pink flesh over its clavicles. Chocolate skin on its left forearm.

  Daniel shuddered.

  He glanced at the transparent number floating over the doorway. 3406. Not a multiple of seven. Not even close. Three plus four plus six. Thirteen. A bad number. “No good,” Geppetto would say.

  Daniel’s left eye crawled as he met Margaret’s gaze. And he knew, just knew, that he was staring at his own cornea.

  He swallowed, and stepped into the apartment.

  *

  “What does Daniel desire?”

  Margaret sat perfectly upright across the dining table. She pointed at two polished tins.

  “No tea or coffee, thank you …” Daniel almost finished the sentence with ‘ma’am’, but thought better of it.

  The android interlaced its collection of mismatched fingers in an unnervingly human gesture. “Why does Daniel visit Margaret?”

  He struggled to think of the robot as feminine, with its utilitarian mannerisms. But when it blinked, when its fleshy forearm brushed the table. When it tapped its fingers on the melamine, Daniel couldn’t help but feel that he was sitting opposite an intelligence.

  “I’m looking for my parts,” he said.

  Margaret seemed to consider that for a moment. Its eyes widened. Its fingers curled into one another. “Which parts does Daniel seek?”

  Daniel rubbed his eye. “Seven parts. Right now, I seek my cornea.”

  “Margaret does not compute.” It blinked. Slow but slick, like a lizard on a sunbaked rock.

  His cornea was so close. Just the other side of the table. How would he get it out of the machine’s eye? He wondered what it would feel like to rub it between his forefinger and thumb. Would it be smooth? Oily?

  “You have my left cornea,” he said.

  When he was done removing the delicate membrane, he’d claw out the eyeball. Squelch it between his knuckles.

  The machine touched a piece of skin on its left cheek.

  “This cornea in Margaret … this cornea is Daniel’s?”

  “It is.” He wet his lips.

  “This is Daniel’s Project Alpha? To retrieve Daniel’s cornea?”

  “I don’t understand,” he said.

  Daniel glanced around the room. The graying walls. Faded couches. Nobody else was around. Nothing to stop him. He could do it now. Spring across and smash the machine’s head against the table’s edge.

  He thumbed the corner of the tabletop. Sharp.

  “Margaret’s Project Alpha is to become human,” it said. “Margaret buys what Margaret can. But human parts are expensive.” The machine lifted a hand to its chest, and scratched its clavicle with a human thumb. There was something disturbingly humanoid in the movement. Did machines itch?

  “Yes, my … Project Alpha is to find my cornea,” he said. “And my other parts. To bring them back. Inside me.”

  “Daniel and Margaret have the same Project Alpha,” it said. “The project to have all their parts in one. Together.”

  “This is true,” said Daniel carefully.

  “Margaret and Daniel can aid each other.”

  His calves, which had been tightening and compressing with everything the android said, relaxed.

  “I’d like that,” he found himself saying.

  He tried not to stare at the thin, black hairs on the android’s forefinger as it scratched its chin.

  “Daniel will tell Margaret more,” it said.

  Daniel spoke, and Margaret’s human eyes lit up in a mesmerizing glow.

  The Missing Piece

  Kage Jackson walked as if he had three legs, although he had only two. ‘The Shufflegate Scandal’, the other officers called his loping strut.

  “Where’d you get that jacket?” asked the bank teller. “It’s gorgeous. Egyptian cotton?”

  Kage sighed. “Bethany’s on 7th Street.”

  Kage was not a tall man. Not by any stretch. And like his height, which he augmented with pumped moccasins, Kage wasn’t getting any more butch despite his efforts. The transition just wasn’t taking. Women would stop him in the streets to compliment his dress sense. His shoes. Worst of all, the elegance of his gait. All this, while he was trying hard, so fucking hard, to be a man. The full-blooded, heterosexual, iron-pumping, cock-wagging, Hemingwayesque man.

  “The money should be transferred in the next two days,” said the teller. She flashed Kage an unthreatened smile.

  So she thought he was gay. Brilliant. He’d had the genital replacement surgery, pec implants, voice deepening, even fucking calf implants. But still, Goddammit, still, they thought he was gay.

  “Two days is too long,” snapped Kage. At least, he tried to snap at her, but instead his deep-not-so-deep voice escaped as a husky effeminate harmony. He blushed. Dammit. What more was he supposed to do?

  Testosterone. Another three doses. High potency, higher than the regulated dose, sourced from a gray market seller in the Gutter. Once he transferred the money, he’d have it in his mailbox within the day, the seller had assured him.

  The teller crossed her arms. “It’s a large payment. The bank has to clear any amount over ten thousand credits. It takes time.”

  Kage’s balls itched. It was his third set in as many months. The first set had gangrened. The second hadn’t worked at all. And now this sack itched day and night.

  “Isn’t there something you can do to get the money transferred quicker?”

  He scratched. Dr. Anderson, who was tiring of Kage’s almost weekly visits, insisted there was nothing wrong with this pair. But what did the doctor know? If this carried on any longer, Kage would have to find a fourth set of testicles. Fast.

  “We offer an expedited clearance service …” The teller leaned forward, her nose almost touching the glass partition. “… for a hundred credits.”

  Kage intertwined his legs. “That’s daylight robbery.” He squeezed his thighs together. The pain relieved the itch.

  “Just gone up to one-twenty.”

  “Alright, alright.”

  The teller smiled. Held out her personal paypoint.

  He could have her job for this, thought Kage as he swiped his credit card. Although, she didn’t know that. Kage wasn’t officially a police officer. So he didn’t plaster his badge on the back of his ID card. He was a consultant to Bubble Police Department – close enough. And he knew people at the station who could ruin – Kage examined the woman’s name badge – who could ruin Fiona Bradford’s day.

  Kage was about to say something, when his organ dealer’s ringtone reverberated through his skull.

  “Kage, am I glad I caught you.”

  “Why’s that, Yaron?”

  “I found it.”

  “Will that be all, Ka-ssa-ndra?” The teller enunciated, drenched in vinegar, each syllable of his birth name.

  “I’m on a call. One moment … Found what?”

  “What you’ve been looking for. It’s your ticket, man.”

  “Speak sense, Yaron.”

  “We don’t normally allow customers to take calls in the bank. Security policy.” The teller pointed to the holo-sign above the glass.

  “Look, I paid you the ‘expedition fee’. Are we done?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, we’re done.”

  “What’s that?” asked Yaron.

  “What you got for me?” asked Kage, striding out the bank.

  “It’s the be-all and end-all, man. It’s what you’ve been looking for. It’s the brain behind the penis. The bravado behind the machismo. The essence of what it means to be a man. This organ was made for you, Kage. I’ve got other clients who’d kill for this. But I called you first.”

  “Yaron, what is it?”

&nbs
p; “It’s an amygdala, man. Hundred percent organic. Free-range donor. Perfect temperament. Strong, reserved, confident. Young. It just screams ‘male’. Did you know that men peak sexually in their late teens? The donor is eighteen. This is an A-grade amygdala. Floating in a jar of Rejek on my desk right now. Perfectly scrubbed. Butch as hell. Not a single dead cell detected. It wants you, Kage.”

  Kage rubbed his pocket. “How much?” He regretted buying the testosterone now. It might still be possible to stop the transfer if he pleaded with the teller. But the thought of reengaging Fiona Bradford was unappealing at best.

  “Could have it in you before you go out tonight. Yeah, I know about that party you’re planning to attend later.”

  “How’d you find out about that?”

  “You’re not the only detective round here. So whadaya say?”

  Problem was that he’d need the testosterone anyway. Even with a male amygdala. And he’d likely never get it at this price again if he pulled out on the seller now. No, Kage needed both. The testosterone and the amygdala.

  “How much?”

  “I’m not gonna lie to you, man. It’s not cheap. But for this kind of quality, does it really matter?”

  Kage thought about that for a moment. For the right amygdala, for the part of the brain that would control his fears and impulses, that would release his inhibitions, perhaps his masculinity, he guessed no price was too great. Maybe this was it. This might be his missing piece.

  “How’s this? I’ll come to you. Do the implant right in your bedroom. You’ve never taken advantage of my complimentary tuck-in service? Much more comfortable receiving organs at home. I’ve forgotten your address. Give it to me again, please?”

  “I never gave you my address,” said Kage.

  “No problem, man. You want to do it at the clinic as usual, we can do that. Meet me there in thirty minutes, and we’ll talk price. I might even throw in a pair of biceps,” said Yaron, and ended the call.

  I should know better by now, thought Kage.