Daniel glanced back at Daggy. As revolting as she was, she was innocent. She’d taken his tongue, yes. But what right did he have to her skin? To her cornea?
Margaret wanted the cornea, and a full body’s flesh. A onesie. Daggy would die of shock before Daniel had finished skinning her. He’d heard of burn victims dying from their wounds. Without skin, or some equivalent, human bodies didn’t last long at all.
Daniel wiped the blood from his glasses with the corner of Daggy’s nightie. Checked the time. 4:35 a.m.
According to multiple fan blogs, Daggy had a live show first thing each morning. Breakfast with Daggy was scheduled for 6:00 a.m. He had time, but not much. And sunrise was at 6:15. He didn’t want to be around for that.
Maybe he could find the skin elsewhere? Buy a onesie from a black market dealer? What would it cost? What were Gutter organs worth these days? He tapped his glasses. Checked the balance on the thousand-credit card Margaret had given him. After purchasing the Rejek, gloves, and switchblade, he barely had seven hundred credits remaining. Somehow, he had a feeling that a onesie would cost plenty more than that. If Margaret could afford a onesie, she would have bought it herself.
Daniel remembered the touch of Margaret’s fingers, of Lincoln Russell’s fingers, trailing a line down his sternum. He shuddered at the thought of what the android would do to him if he returned empty-handed. She’d slice him right down his middle. Prise the flesh from his ribcage.
No. This was the only way. He’d have to harvest the skin and cornea from Daggy. Nausea settled its cold fingers around Daniel’s wrist as he raised the switchblade. His quavering hand paused above the woman’s chest. Where should he start? He needed all of it – Margaret needed all of it. So did it really matter? How difficult was it to peel the skin off a midriff? Off an arm?
And that’s when it came to him. Daggy Munch was not a small woman. You could likely fit three Margarets into one Daggy. Which meant … which meant that he only needed a third of Daggy’s skin.
Legs.
Daggy’s were elephantine. The rolls of fat that rippled down her thighs looked particularly loose. Unattached. At a stretch, there was enough flesh there to suit Margaret. There’d have to be.
Daniel held the knife the way the surgeons at the Orphanage held their scalpels. Allowed the tip of the blade to sink through the top layer of her flesh, until it reached the fat beneath. He tried not to blink, as he allowed the blade to follow the contour of her leg through the skin from thigh to toe.
Za Alp
“Kass, thanks for coming through.” Shoulders was all smiles as he tossed an arm around Kage’s shoulders.
Kage shrugged off the arm. Ignored its weight. The meatiness of the bicep. He repressed the sting of his envy, and walked over to Harry.
“What’ve we got, Harry?”
The young patrolman beamed at being addressed before Shoulders. “Well, uh, sir, we … uh …”
Shoulders stepped between them. “Neighbor across the street there spots someone entering around four a.m. Someone young. Male. Matches Thomas Sparling’s description.”
“I told you,” said Kage, “his name is Thomsin, not Thomas. And it’s not him. He’s dead.”
Shoulders eyeballed Kage. Then recovered. Stretched his grin even wider. “We’ll see. Anyway, guy walks in. Carves up the lady –”
“She’s Daggy Munch,” blurted Henry, stepping around the Senior Detective. “My wife watches her shows every mornin’. I don’t see why ma’self. Lady speaks no sense ta’ me. But anyways, the lady, she’s some bigwig rights what-ya’-call-it.”
“Feminist,” said Shoulders, and cleared his throat. “As I was saying, the perp walks in, carves up this Dag … this feminist woman, and leaves before her morning show.”
“Left her alive,” said Harry, delighted to contribute.
Kage raised a hand. “Not that I’m complaining – you know I love your company particularly, Detective Shoulders – but why’d you call me in for this? You know I only do homicides.”
“Because of this,” said Shoulders.
Kage’s glasses pinged with the new message in his inbox. He winked. Scrolled through the attached images. Shit. What a mess. The woman’s face looked like it had been passed through a tenderizer. Blood everywhere. Fuck – her legs.
Kage’s memory triggered the imploded face of Lincoln Russell. Different weapons. Different loci on the body. But the same … the same … feeling. Brutal.
“We called you because both bodies are missing things,” said Shoulders.
“Daggy, she’s missin’ her tongue and eye,” said Harry. The young officer folded his arms, concern radiating from his youthful cheeks.
“Not the whole eye,” corrected Shoulders. “Dr. Hoevert says it’s just the cornea. And the skin from her legs.”
“Lincoln Russell was missing his knee. And his fingers,” said Kage to himself.
Shoulders cleared his throat again. “If this is the same guy, and Weeks wants us to consider that possibility, then we have ourselves an organ thief.”
“But why?” asked Kage. “Why go to the trouble when black market organs are relatively inexpensive? And if you can’t afford a Gutter organ, you can always get a cybernetic generic. The risk of doing something like this … it just doesn’t make sense.”
Shoulders and Harry were silent.
That’s when Kage noticed the smell. The apartment stank of expired cheese.
Harry handed Kage a mask. “Got one ready for you this time, sir.”
Kage smiled his thanks.
Shoulders harrumphed, and stalked off. News drones circled the apartment, blasting questions. Shoulders produced his best smile for the cameras.
“The worst of it happened over here,” said Harry. Kage followed him through a maze of junk, to a pile of what looked like used pizza boxes. Why people ate that sludge, Kage would never know.
Blood pooled on the floor. Spattered the boxes. The ceiling.
“Poor Daggy,” said Harry. “Ma’ wife will be heartbroken.”
“Has forensics found any fingerprints? Blood belonging to anyone other than the victim?”
“Nothin’ this time, sir.”
“He’s evolving,” mumbled Kage.
He allowed the scene to drench into the recording app on his glasses. One thing immediately made no sense. There was an undisturbed puddle of blood on the ground, but no drag marks. No disturbance in the perfectly circular pond.
“Where was she found?” he asked.
“Up there.” Harry pointed to the ceiling above the blood.
“What do you mean, up there?”
“She was hoverin’ when we finds her. Bitsa’ skin hangin’ off’a her. See that pile ‘a vomit. That was from Barbara. She’s new. Only third week on the job. Heck’ava way to earn her badge.”
“Note, victim was hovering,” Kage whispered to his glasses. “Tell me,” he said to the patrolman, who waited patiently. “The neighbor. How’d they say the suspect gained entry to the apartment?”
“Arrived in a cab, sir.”
“That cab have a registration number?”
Harry’s eyes sparkled. “Sure does. I asks already.”
Kage’s glasses opened a new message in his inbox. The number plate.
“Good work, Harry. It’s Helios. We’ll get a camera feed from the cab. And the location the taxi picked him up.”
Harry crossed his arms again. Screwed up his face. “One last thing. Dr. Hoevert’s at the hospital. Says he wantsa speaks with you.”
“Thanks,” said Kage.
He eyed the blood pool again. Circled it in careful strides. “Why go to this sort of risk? Why leave her alive?”
“He really wants ‘em organs, I ‘spose,” said Harry.
But why? wondered Kage. Why these organs? Why Daggy Munch? Why Lincoln Russell? Thomsin Sparling?
“Want a ride to the hospital? Going to interview the vic,” said Shoulders. Even in the stench of the apartment, the Detective’s
ghastly cologne was impossible to ignore.
Kage was about to turn down the Detective’s offer, when he remembered his credit balance, or rather, his lack of credits. “Sure,” he said. He couldn’t meet the broad man’s eyes.
He’s keeping me close, thought Kage, as he stepped into the passenger seat of Shoulders’ squad car. I can’t claim sole ownership over anything I find if Shoulders is by my side. Shoulders might hate me, but he isn’t above taking credit for my work.
*
“Mine God,” wailed Daggy. “He vas an alp. An alp in my beautiful apartment.”
Daggy’s replacement tongue seemed to be working well enough.
“I’m sorry, ma’am.” Shoulders placed a hand on Daggy’s arm. She flinched. “Did you say an ‘alp’?”
“Ja. Mine Strauss sought zey vas nonsense. But I told him vat my mazer tells me. Za alp is alvays vatching.”
“Who’s Claus?” asked Shoulders.
Kage glanced through the Daggy Munch Wikipedia entry. “Name’s ‘Strauss’. Daggy’s late husband,” he whispered.
Shoulders ignored him. “Ma’am, could you tell us what your attacker looked like?”
Daggy eyed the Detective. “You don’t know vat an alp is?”
“Umm, no ma’am?”
Daggy threw up her hands. “He doesn’t know vat an alp is.”
Kage tapped his glasses. “Monster from German folklore. Incubus-type creature.” He struggled to look at Daggy. Welts the size of dinner plates swaddled her face. “Thank you for your time,” said Kage. “We’ll find the person who did this.”
A tear oozed from Daggy’s bandaged eye.
There was a knock on the glass window separating the room from the hallway. Kage walked outside.
“Good to see you again, Kage. Not the best of circumstances. But you know, in my line of work, a live one is a good one.”
It was the first time Kage had seen Dr. Hoevert outside the morgue – outside his scrubs. He wanted that shirt. Similar build to his own. Would look great on him.
“Coffee,” mumbled Shoulders, and stomped off.
Kage turned to the aging Coroner. “Harry said you wanted to speak with me?”
“Yes. Peculiar thing. Had a chat with the surgeon who sewed up our victim over there.” Kage glanced through the glass partition. A camera was being set up on the wall. A microphone hovered before Daggy’s mouth. “The wounds are inconsistent.”
“Inconsistent, how?”
“Well, the tongue, so far as we can tell, was lopped off efficiently. Clean cut through most of it. Takes plenty of confidence to do that. Have you ever cut off a tongue? Rhetorical question. Anyway, point is, the villain chopped off that tongue without much ado at all.”
Daggy was in full force now, yelling obscenities at the camera. He couldn’t hear anything through the soundproof glass, but he thought he saw her mouth the word ‘alp’ several times.
Kage returned his attention to the Coroner, who’d widened his stance, enjoying his own monologue.
“But the skin and the cornea. Well, that’s another matter. The man who did that was slow about it. Hesitant. Cautious cuts. Tried not to nick a vein or an artery. Peeled the skin off her legs carefully, like she was an apple. That approach saved her life ultimately.”
“Two assailants attacked Daggy Munch?” asked Kage.
“That’s your job,” said Dr. Hoevert. He raked his fingers through his silver mane.
Confident. Hesitant. Two attackers … But there’d been no evidence of two killers at Amputating Amy. Only one person trailed Lincoln Russell into the Gore Bar. And this was the same attacker here. Kage was certain of it. Maybe the attacker needed the tongue more than the other organs?
“Where you off to?” asked Shoulders, who’d barely returned with his coffee before Kage brushed past him on his way to the exit.
“Back to the station,” said Kage. “I’ve got some questions for Una.”
*
“Got your footage,” she said, as Kage stepped into her office. The white bandage over Una’s nose glowed ultraviolet in the dim light of the Cave. Swirls of color fractured and morphed around the dressing, thrown by the hoverscreens.
Kage swallowed.
“Thank you. How’d you know I was looking for it?”
“It’s my business to stay on top of things around here. Anyway, Harry called.”
“Great kid,” said Kage.
“Yeah. Here’s a still from the cab.”
High-res black and white face pic. Unmistakable.
“It’s him,” said Una.
Shoulders grunted. “Facial recog isn’t a valid in –”
“Check your case law,” she snapped. “New Bubble vs. Stiles.”
Una was right. It was him. No doubt about it. Same nose. Same cheeks. Wild eyes. It was the boy he met in Thomsin Sparling’s apartment.
“Where’d the cab come from? Where’d it drop him afterwards?” asked Kage.
Una pulled up a map. Bottom of Canal Street on the Promenade.
“Didn’t pick him up from an apartment?” asked Shoulders.
“No,” said Una, staring at the map.
“Cross-reference Daggy Munch, Lincoln Russell, and Thomsin Sparling,” said Kage. “Any connections?”
“Already tried that. Nothing comes up.”
Kage paced the room. Hoverscreens darted this way and that, narrowly avoiding one another.
“This is enough to issue an arrest warrant,” said Shoulders. “Weeks will call a press conference. Plaster this guy’s face everywhere. He’s not getting away with this.” Shoulders marched from the room in the direction of the Captain’s office, leaving a trail of nauseating self-congratulation in his wake.
“That guy grates my tits,” said Una.
“Tell me about it,” said Kage.
“You’re gonna pace a hole in that floor if you carry on like that.”
“Oh, sorry,” said Kage.
“What’s on your mind?”
“It’s just … the risk of doing this. With all the surveillance drones in the Bubble, it’s tough to get away with it once, never mind multiple times. And there’re easier places to find organs. Plenty in the Gutter. It makes no sense. Why here?”
“Sometimes there isn’t a good reason,” said Una. “There’re crazy people out there.”
Kage shook his head. “Maybe.”
“Hey, you need this jacket?” Una handed him the jacket he’d worn to Amputating Amy. Dry-cleaned. The fetid smell was gone. Not a trace of the bloodstains.
“Wow. I … uh … thank you.”
He searched the inside pocket. Was about to check the other side, when Una handed him the box. “How many of these things you taking? That prescription was issued two weeks ago. There are ten pills missing.”
Blood rushed from Kage’s lips. “It’s … temporary.”
“What’s temporary?” she asked. The bitterness was gone from Una’s eyes. As though she’d forgotten that he’d broken her nose the night before.
“I’ve been … uh … doing my best to … it’s complicated.”
“I’m a complex ‘gal,” said Una, gesturing to the screens. “Tell me.”
Even with the bandage, Una was elegant.
“I’m sorry about your face,” he said.
Una waved the thought away. “Talk to me, Kage.”
He sat.
The chair was soft under his buttocks. Forgiving. And Una’s eyes. They looked through him, to another world.
Kage felt a flap open inside him. He started talking. About giving up his apartment. About living out of the gym. Spending every cent he had on male organs. About taking Anti-Sleeps six nights out of seven. And sleeping wherever he could lay his head once a week.
He couldn’t stop. The words rushed out. They clung to the air for a moment, then seeped into Una’s careful gaze. Words. Who knew they could be so heavy? But how light once spoken.
“No money,” he said. “All of it. All of it goes to the impl
ants and the testosterone. And I …” He gritted his teeth to suppress the tears. “I’m still …” He gestured to his arms. His tiny frame. “I’m not …”
“I find you beautiful,” she said. “In a manly way.” Una rested a hand on his knee.
A bolt of electricity shot through his leg. A billion shards of glass blew into his eyes. A waterfall in his chest. Sunrise in his heart. The planets aligned. The stars redistributed into perfect geometry. The very angles of the walls in the Cave seemed to shift. Everything made sense.
Una withdrew her hand. “That look on your face … Should I not … shouldn’t I have touched you? I’m sorry if –”
“I know who he is,” said Kage. He paced. “Think about what we already know. He’s a Gutter – industrial-strength Rejek in his blood, and he’s not in any databases. Bubblers have their DNA and faces stored in dozens of databases from birth.”
“Alright,” said Una, “he’s a Gutter.” She winced each time a holoscreen had to dart out of Kage’s path.
“And why would a Gutter want a particular person’s organs? Why Sparling, Russell and Munch? Entirely different victims. Different ages. Different sexes. There’re far easier targets in the Gutter. Why a trust fund kid, the Mayor’s brother, a TV personality?”
Una stared at him blankly. “Makes no sense.” She whipped out a cigarette.
“They have his organs,” said Kage.
Una’s thumb paused on the lighter. A traffic collision blossomed on one of the hovering screens. The screen jiggled from side to side. Expanded and contracted, screaming silently to be noticed. Kage and Una ignored it.
“You mean, he’s their donor?” she asked.
“Exactly. And he wants his organs back.”
“But that’s … that never happens. Records are sealed. Donors don’t know who their recipients are. It’s anonymous. Always has been.”
“Someone must know. Maybe the Organ Farms? Or the Sales consultants who Bubblers call when they need a fresh body part? There must be a database, somewhere.”
Una blew a column of smoke across the Cave. “I don’t have access.”
Defragmenting Daniel: The Complete Trilogy Box Set Page 20