Defragmenting Daniel: The Complete Trilogy Box Set

by Jason Werbeloff

  “How sure are you?”

  “Like …” She chewed for a few seconds. “… eighty percent sure.”

  Kage ended the call. He couldn’t contain his grin.

  “What is it?” Una took a drag on the cigarette. The glow of the tip reflected brimstone on her corneas.

  “The match is good enough for a search warrant at least,” said Kage. He took Una’s hand. “We got him.”

  Una smiled. The way only a woman can smile. Kage’s heart stopped.

  He needed to go. He needed to get over to Thomsin’s. He needed to arrest the imposter. The killer. He needed to solve this case. He needed the money.

  But Kage couldn’t move. Instead, his mouth opened, and the words tumbled out before he could stop them.

  “Would you have dinner with me …” He tapped his glasses. Just past 2 a.m. “… later tonight?”

  Una was so surprised, she almost swallowed her cigarette. Coughed so hard, Kage had to stand her upright. But as the spasm subsided, a smile blossomed across her cheeks. “Kage Jackson, are you asking me out?”

  “I guess I am,” he said, and almost darted from the room. He stuck his head round the doorframe. “Pick you up at seven?”

  Una laughed. Nodded. Waved him away.

  “Jackson. My office.”

  Kage’s limber body snapped into an inflexible pole as he turned to face Captain Weeks. “Yes, sir. On my way.”

  Shoulders glared at Kage as the Private Detective hurried past. Open hostility danced in Teague’s eyes.

  “Leads? Mayor’s pissing all over the place. Wants this resolved yesterday. Embarrassed. Wants the whole thing gone.”

  “Yes, sir. Una and I have a lead, sir. A boy impersonating –”

  Weeks glanced up from his tablet. “Una?”

  “Uh, the tech girl, sir.”

  “Oh. Carry on.” He scrolled on a hoverscreen. Kage couldn’t be sure, but he thought it was Facebook.

  “Sir, we think it was a boy who’s impersonating a Central Bubbler named Thomsin Sparling.”

  Weeks’ face softened at the sight of something on the screen. Glanced up again. “Sparling? My wife knows the Sparlings.”

  “Uh, yes sir. Well, not exactly, sir. Someone impersonating Sparling.”

  Weeks returned to the screen. Boxes glowed in his eyes as he scanned the site. “Sounds complicated. Tell me, Jackson, think a hundred and six likes for a photo is impressive? The wife’s new mud pudding recipe.”

  Kage swallowed. Stiffened further. “Sir, I’ve found the killer, and I need officers to accompany me to make the arrest.” He took a step forward. Another. Until he was standing in the Captain’s light. “I need the men now.”

  Weeks sighed. Switched off the screen. “Take Shoulders and SWAT team Beta.”

  “Will do, sir. One last thing.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll need payment for my services. An advance.”

  Weeks eyed Kage. Shook his head infinitesimally. The universal expression of covert displeasure. “Fine,” he said eventually. “Usual rate.”

  Kage handed over his credit card. Weeks swiped it across the paypoint sitting on his desk.

  “We done here, Jackson?”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  “Expect this case’ll be solved by sunrise,” said Weeks, returning Kage’s card.

  Kage nodded.

  His heart throbbed behind his eyes as he stepped outside. He closed Weeks’ office door with a deafening click. Shut his eyes a moment, his fingers on the cool brass handle. Exhaled. Sometimes he wondered how it worked. How anything worked, when all the money, all the decisions, all the power, sat in the laps of idiots.

  He opened his eyes.

  “Shoulders,” he said, and walked up to the broad man. The Detective smiled malevolently through his five-o’clock stubble. His chest was hyena-sized, his hands big as boxing gloves. Those hands clenched now as Kage spoke.

  “Get your men together,” said Kage. “We’ve got an arrest to make.”

  The Detective’s smile faltered. “Already?”

  “Yes.” He was already walking to the brass-arched exit of Bubble PD. “Now.”

  *

  Daniel packed the last of the bloody cleaning rags in the duffel bag. Collapsed the spade, and shoved it inside. He scrunched up the throw that had doubled as Thomsin’s shroud. Nestled it beside the shovel. He did a final walk-through of the apartment.

  Everything was as he’d found it, other than a pile of scrubbed plates on the dining table. He still wasn’t sure what to do with them once he was done. No sink. No garbage disposal. He’d miss the food printer, though. But he supposed Margaret would have one.

  Would she take him in?

  He wasn’t too sure what thoughts clicked through that android’s neural circuits. Did it even have thoughts? In its softer moments, when its human eyes glistened with unshed tears, when he stared at its human patches of skin – an elbow, an ear – he could almost think of it as a her.

  Margaret would let him stay. It would. It would have to. Daniel had nowhere else to go. And if it wouldn’t let him stay … nobody would miss an android.

  As if he knew it was time, Odin appeared from under the duvet in the bedroom. The cat yawned, stretched its slender figure. Daniel wondered what it would be like to inhabit a different body. He’d only given away his organs – never received anyone else’s. What would it feel like to touch with someone else’s fingers? To smell the world with someone else’s nose? Would it be different? Was a hand just a hand, a nose just a nose, interchangeable with any other? Did our parts only fulfill a function, or did they come with … a feeling? An indescribable quality. Something uniquely ours.

  The cat purred against Daniel’s calf. What would it be like to be Odin? The susurrations of its tiny frame vibrated through Daniel’s leg, and into his heart. For a moment, he and the cat vibrated together.

  “Come, old man,” he said, and tapped his shoulder. The cat leapt up, scrabbling for purchase on the smartshirt, and settled in the crook of Daniel’s neck.

  “It’s time to go.” He gave the apartment a final once-over.

  He looked out the translucent window that was the front door of the apartment. At the shimmering city. At its lustrous towers. Rivers of cars, each throwing twin beams of light as they darted between the buildings. Movement. That’s what was so different. After sunset, the Gutter stilled. Sank into a pool of sleep. But there was no rest in the Bubble. It was almost as busy after dark as it was under its perfect day-lit golden sky.

  Somewhere out there, under that glowing dome, were the rest of his organs. He’d found his knee and his cornea. But he wanted his tongue. His amygdala. Lungs. Liver. His organs. And he was going to find them.

  Daniel tapped the arm of his glasses. “Taxi,” he whispered, as sunrise kissed the distant edge of the Bubble.

  *

  The sun was just rising as Kage stepped into the SWAT van. It had taken HOURS to assemble the arrest team. Entirely because Shoulders was responsible for calling them in. A duty the Detective was in no rush to perform. He’d been intent on reviewing every detail of the case first.

  But, finally, Shoulders had made the call. The SWAT van arrived as a hint of a glimmer of aquamarine gold winked through the eastern wall of the Bubble.

  “This is Beta Leader. Departing BPD at 06:11. En route to destination. ETA … three minutes forty-seconds.”

  Kage tried to stay out of their way as they swung their weapons around in the van. Checked safeties, firing pins, barrels. There were four of them. Hyena-sized. Augmented arms thick as pillars. Leg muscles rippled under their gel-fused armor. Kage was insectoid beside them. A nuisance they politely ignored.

  Gym. He needed to get to that new gym. Soon as this arrest was over. He’d have money once he solved the case. Maybe he could afford to short-cut the months of testosterone and dumbbells required. He could talk to Yaron. He’d give Kage a special price on hyena muscle implants if he bought eno
ugh of them.

  Shoulders sat opposite Kage in the van, ubiquitous porcelain grin absent. He stared resolutely through the panel above Kage’s left shoulder. This arrest would be credited to Kage. Every arrest the Private Detective made was a stone in Shoulders’ shoe. The mere fact that Weeks had called in Kage, an outsider, was a vote of no-confidence in Shoulders. And Shoulders was well aware.

  “Set your modulator to phase eight-nine-two-zero,” said the team leader. The man’s face was older than his subordinates’. Wizened. Concentric lines of burden radiated from his eyes. A man who’d seen things men should not see.

  The eyes of the junior members of the team darted around the van. Their vitality and excitement rose as the seconds passed. But not the team leader’s. He sat, immobile, folded into himself.

  Shoulders took out a device. Twisted a dial on the outside. Slapped it onto his chest.

  “My modulator only reaches up to seven thousand and forty-nine,” said Kage.

  Shoulders ignored him.

  “You weren’t given a police-issue modulator?” asked one of the junior SWATters. The boy’s nose was pink inside the oval mask obscuring his cheeks.

  Kage shifted in his seat. “No.”

  “SWAT uses ‘em on all ingress missions nowadays. Changes our phase above the normal range so –”

  “ETA, two minutes,” chimed the team leader.

  “… so the perps can’t detect us. The new modulators are fuckin’ A. Higher frequency than anythin’ available on the market. Walk right through walls with this baby.”

  Junior took one from a box in the center of the van. Dialed it until the number in the center shone ‘8920’. Placed it on Kage’s chest. “You’re good to go, man.”

  Kage beamed internally at the pronoun. He felt larger inside his armor. Solid. Ready.

  Maybe the amygdala was kicking in after all?

  Shoulders spoke up for the first time. “You’ve never wondered why Gutters can’t see the Bubble when they walk through the border?”

  Kage ignored the question. Kept his face impassive.

  “Bubble’s in a different phase,” said Junior. “Takes time for Gutters to shift phases to match. They need the glasses to see anything until they’ve switched. The glasses are defaulted to phase twenty-three hundred.”

  “ETA one minute.”

  Kage glanced down at the alien modulator on his chest. “How long does it take for someone’s phase to switch permanently?”

  “Around a day. Don’t worry man. You can wear the modulator for a few hours without any side-effects. You’ll switch right back to default Bubble phase once you take it off.”

  “ETA thirty seconds.”

  The SWATters clicked down their visors. Shoulders tightened his armor. Kage tensed under his vest.

  “Inbound in five … four …” Kage withdrew the Glock from his belt. “… three … two …” Butterflies blossomed in Kage’s stomach. “… one.”

  The van slammed to a halt. Kage’s inertia threw him forward. The opposite panel, the panel behind Shoulders, slid aside. In less than a blink, the team leader leapt past Shoulders, through the glass front door of the residence of Thomsin Sparling.

  But the glass didn’t shatter. Didn’t crack. The older SWATter had passed right through it.

  And then the rest of the SWAT team were doing the same. Leaping through the glass. Disappearing through to the other side. Shoulders hurried after them. Kage stepped through last, his Glock raised.

  “Bedroom clear.”

  Kage blinked. Again.

  “Bathroom clear.”

  Walls, chairs and couches wavered around him. The crisp lines of the apartment, the apartment he’d been inside just hours earlier, had morphed to hazy sine waves. As though the room were submerged in a puddle of liquid silver.

  “Apartment clear.”

  The SWAT leader removed his helmet. His face was distinct, unwavering, in the blurry apartment. As though everything around the leader had the contrast turned right down, but the contrast filter on his face had been dialed all the way up. Every line of fatigue shone on his cheeks.

  Kage holstered his Glock. Stared at his hand. It too was clear. He looked over at the other SWATters removing their face plates. Clear, crisp edges to their shapes. Unlike the couch, which looked as though it could melt into the wall any moment.

  “Heat traces suggest the apartment was occupied recently,” said the team leader.

  “How recently?” asked Kage.

  “Less than half an hour.”

  “Well nobody’s here now,” said Shoulders, a trace of his smile returning.

  Kage kept his voice level. “I checked beforehand. Sparling’s glasses are pinging in the apartment.”

  Shoulders widened his stance. Looked down at Kage. “You see him around?”

  Kage glanced around the apartment. Difficult to see anything through the haze. He walked over to the dining table. It quivered. Flickered in and out of existence as he approached. It seemed like the refresh rate on reality had been turned down too low.

  He reached out to touch something black and angular on the table. His fingers gripped it for a moment, then passed right through the object. He tried again, more slowly this time. Lifted it closer to his face so he could see it. A pair of glasses.

  Almost certainly Thomsin’s glasses.

  Shit.

  “Gods, Kass. Turn off your phase modulator. You’re giving us all a headache.”

  Kage swiveled. The SWAT team had turned the same hazy silver as the rest of the apartment. Shoulders’ usually straight hair had morphed to a wavy gray. His hand left a wake of afterimages as he pointed to his chest.

  Kage pulled the device off his own trunk armor to return to phase 2300. Felt the apartment lurch around him, then snap into focus like a set of guitar strings. His stomach compressed. His head swam.

  “You’ll get used to it.” Shoulders laughed, and slapped Kage across the back. Kage had to double over to stop himself falling head first to the porcelain tiles.

  “So, uh, I’d say this was a bust,” continued Shoulders. “Nice digs, though. This Thomas Sparling has it good.”

  “Thomsin,” Kage corrected.

  “Where is he, anyway?”

  “We’re not looking for him.”

  Shoulders shook his head, hair straight again. No afterimages. “But you said his glasses were pinging here. Why you pinging his glasses if he’s not the one you’re looking for?”

  Kage glanced at the SWAT team. They slouched around the apartment, looking uncomfortable.

  “We discussed this. There’s someone impersonating Thomsin Sparling. Wearing his glasses. Living in his apartment. He’s the killer from Amputating Amy.”

  Shoulders tapped the toe of his shoe on the tiles. Smiled at the SWAT team. “Sounds like a stretch. What evidence you got?”

  He’d been through this, all of this, with Shoulders back at the station. The Detective had sat there, apparently listening. But the whole time his eyes had seemed … glazed. He’d been busy with something else on his glasses.

  “Facial recognition software says they’re not the same person. They have –”

  “Pffft. Facial recog’s a crock a’ shit. You know the courts don’t accept the algorithms. Let’s see their pics.”

  Kage tapped his glasses. Issued the commands to message through the face images of Thomsin and the boy he’d met earlier that morning.

  Shoulders’ eyes swung from side to side as he compared them on his overlay. “They look the same to me.”

  The SWAT leader stepped between them. Faced Shoulders. “Uh, Teague, we’ve got places to be.”

  “Thank you, man. Apologies for bringing you out here.” Shoulders threw a bristled glare at Kage. “False alarm. See you at hoverhockey on Friday?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it,” said the SWAT leader, already walking to the door.

  “But he’s not Sparling,” said Kage, as the SWAT team filed out of the apartment, back into the hoveri
ng van.

  “How’d you know?” asked Shoulders.

  “Because I chatted to him. Shook his hand. Got DNA samples.”

  “Oh yeah, were they conclusive matches to anyone other than Thomas Sparling?”

  “Thomsin. Thomsin Sparling. Uh, not exactly. But –”

  “You got nothing,” said Shoulders.

  “Let me at least take a look around.”

  Shoulders yawned. “Knock yourself out. I’ll be over here. On the couch. Waiting for you to uncover another dead end.”

  Kage needed to get out of the living room. No shoulder room with the Detective in it.

  He stalked off, to the bedroom. Thick pile carpet. Unmade bed.

  Focus, Kage. There’ll be traces of the imposter. There were always traces. And he never missed them.

  Kage always found his man.

  Fragment 2

  The Face in a Jar

  Daggy’s Munch

  “So, uh, how long you been driving the Bubble?”

  There was a pause before the cab answered.

  “I’ve been in service under Helios Taxis for just under eight years, sir.”

  “You bored?”

  “I never really thought about it, sir.”

  “Like a fish.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Fish,” said Daniel, staring out the window. “A fish doesn’t think about the water it swims in, because that’s all it knows. It’s been swimming in water all its life.”

  Daniel wasn’t wearing his glasses – he’d left them back at Thomsin Sparling’s in case the police could track them. Without the glasses, he expected to see the endless field of grass he’d first seen when he’d stepped into the Bubble. But the city’s infinite spires greeted him instead. They appeared hazy. Gray. As if he was looking at them through the top of a pond.

  “That sounds about right,” said the cab. “I’ve been a taxi all my existence.”

  “You don’t want to be something more?”

  “Two years from now, my service period terminates.”

  “And then?”

  “There is no ‘then’,” said the cab.

  “You mean they … terminate you?”

  The cab was silent for a while. It allowed the thoughts broiling at the back of Daniel’s mind to surge forward. When he’d first stepped through the Bubble, he’d seen nothing but grass. And now … and now he was seeing the Bubble’s cityscape – what he could only see before with the aid of the glasses. The Bubble had changed him. What would happen when he stepped beyond the meniscus, back into the Gutter? Would the world he’d known since birth have disappeared into a field of grass too?