Defragmenting Daniel: The Complete Trilogy Box Set

by Jason Werbeloff

  Daniel waved her away. Lay back. Let his eyes blur against the graying ceiling.

  Odin stretched himself out along Daniel’s shoulder. Nudged his head between his master’s chin and his sternum, and purred.

  “What the hells are we going to do, boy?” he whispered.

  The cat vibrated louder at the sound of his master’s voice. The frequency of the purrs accelerated to something approaching a hovercab.

  “I can’t hurt her,” he whispered.

  The cat burrowed deeper under Daniel’s chin.

  Sleep encircled him. He spun in a narrowing gyre around the drain of unconsciousness. Round and round and …

  *

  Daniel wasn’t sure whether he was asleep.

  The Bubble moon was a strange creature. It wasn’t like the moon that watched over the Gutter. Gutter moons cast a clear, pale light over the land. Sure, the moon might encounter a cloud or two, so the light might not be entirely uniform. But with the Gutter moon, you knew what you were in for.

  Not so with the Bubble moon.

  Whether by design or serendipity, something in the Bubble’s meniscus tinkered with the moonlight. Shifted it. Mutated it. So that by the time the light reached the ground, it hardly resembled moonlight at all.

  For one, it wasn’t white. The Bubble moon was a fluctuating display of pastels. It flickered through a spectrum of colors that any Gutter kindergarten would be thrilled to paint on its walls. When Daniel woke, it was this shifting menagerie of color, this dance of reds and blues, this waltz of greens and purples, that greeted him. It traipsed its delicate feet over the interior of Margaret’s apartment. Over Margaret herself.

  Daniel blinked, but he still could not be sure what he was seeing. From where he lay on the couch, he thought he saw Margaret sitting at the kitchen table. Or, more accurately, he could see Margaret’s head. She was hunched over something on the Formica top. Every so often, she’d raise a gleaming finger to her lips, and suckle. The rest of her, and whatever was on the table, was hidden from Daniel’s view by another couch.

  “… right lobe. Falciform ligament …”

  Margaret’s voice was low. Reverential. He lifted himself silently off the couch, so he could hear her better. The smell of iron in the apartment was so strong, he could taste it.

  “… left lobe. Margaret turns it around. Inferior vena cava. Hepatic veins –”

  “What are you doing?”

  The android didn’t look up. “Margaret is solving Daniel’s problem. How to remove the liver without harming its owner. Margaret is experimenting. The solution is to remove just one lobe.”

  Daniel donned his glasses, as if they might help him understand. He stepped forward. The stench of iron was so thick now, his eyes watered.

  Margaret turned to him just as he stepped into view of the table. In the shifting moonlight, her fingers glowed iridescent obsidian. His gaze jarred on her hands. He didn’t, couldn’t look further. Couldn’t look at the surface of the table.

  As he watched, Margaret raised a glistening finger to her lips, and licked. “Tastes … special.”

  The spectrum of moonlight shifted, so that for a moment, a clean white spear landed on Margaret’s hands. Daniel saw now that the glistening layer on her fingertips was blood.

  His eyes wouldn’t roll in his head. Couldn’t tear themselves from Margaret’s bloody hands. But then his gaze shifted. He saw the table. And on the table, the cold glint of a blade.

  “What have you done?” he asked on an inhalation. He couldn’t fill his lungs deep enough. Couldn’t let the air out either.

  “Margaret has aided Daniel in his project. Margaret …”

  It was furry. It was black. But gray in places.

  “… solved Daniel’s problem. The …”

  He allowed his eyes to take in the scene on the table. To register it. Acknowledge it.

  “… has more than one lobe. Transplant requires only one of …”

  It was the bottom of what looked like an animal’s chin. Speckled gray. But below the chin was a foreign landscape. Pink flesh. Spread wide. Blood. Organs.

  Margaret tracked Daniel’s gaze. “So hairy on the outside. But smooth on the inside.” She presented her widest catgut grin.

  He didn’t want to know. But he knew.

  It was Odin.

  Or it had been. The cat had been flayed. Its body lay supine on the Formica countertop.

  Daniel didn’t hesitate. He reached for the knife on the kitchen table. Wrapped his knuckles around the cold plastic handle. Ignored the thought that Odin’s blood and fur lined the blade. Ignored the knowledge that Margaret’s hand, Lincoln’s hand, had held the knife maybe 60 seconds earlier.

  Margaret didn’t move. Didn’t try to stop him. Her wide, blue eyes watched him. “Daniel wants to cut too?”

  With all the speed and force he could muster, Daniel plunged the knife into Margaret’s chest.

  He didn’t know what to expect when the blade encountered Margaret. Somehow, he’d assumed he’d find the soft intercostal flesh of a woman’s breast.

  That had been his mistake all along. He’d come to think of Margaret as a her, and not an it. He’d forgotten what it really looked like, what it was, under the purple-veined stretch of Daggy’s skin.

  Margaret was no woman. She had no soft intercostal spaces. Margaret had no softness at all.

  The flimsy blade of the kitchen knife struck something impenetrable, juddered painfully in Daniel’s hand, and snapped.

  The momentum of the swing carried Daniel forward, spilling him against the android. Margaret fell to the floor, Daniel following. The clang when his head cracked against the tiles stunned Daniel for a moment.

  But not Margaret.

  The android tossed him off with just one arm. The force of the movement sent him reeling across the kitchen. He rolled and bounced, smashing into two kitchen chairs as he went. With a skull-shuddering thwunk, he came to rest against the wall below the 3D printer.

  Margaret picked itself off the ground. “Daniel is no longer Margaret’s Project Beta.” It stood in a deceptively delicate stance.

  Daniel searched the floor for the knife. Even if it was broken, it was better than nothing. That’s when he realized that in his tumbling journey across the kitchen, the broken blade had embedded itself in his left biceps. The handle, shiny and black, jutted out at a right angle. How deep was it? There wasn’t much blood. Not yet.

  The android’s eyes glazed over in the shifting moonlight. “Daniel has been classified as a threat to Margaret’s Project Alpha.”

  He reached over with his right hand. Gripped the slick handle. And pulled.

  The good news was that there still wasn’t much blood. More than a trickle, but less than a stream. Which meant the knife hadn’t punctured anything too important. The reason for this became apparent soon enough. The blade was hardly an inch long.

  Margaret stepped toward him. Its padded feet slapped the bloody tiles.

  He remembered what Margaret had done to Bob Stanton. Snapped his neck like straw. The android had been strong enough to lift Ben, a good head taller than itself, clean off the trailer floor.

  He looked up. Gods, why hadn’t he thought of that before. The food printer.

  He tapped his glasses. “Steak knife,” he whispered. And it appeared a moment later. Hovering in the air above him.

  He reached up. Snatched it, slicing his index finger in the mutating moonlight.

  Margaret paused, apparently reassessing the situation.

  The knife hadn’t helped before. Not against whatever plating sheathed its chest. But he knew those eyes in its head were human. And he was betting there was something vulnerable behind them. Something a blade could penetrate.

  Maybe the android knew its vulnerability too, because it had paused its advance.

  Daniel raised himself on adrenaline knees. Drew the knife back in his best imitation of a fighter’s stance.

  Margaret’s posture widened. The machine
brought its arms up broad, as though readying to embrace him. Its fingertips, Lincoln’s fingertips, trembled.

  Daniel’s jaw clenched.

  Something in Margaret’s head clicked.

  His knees quaked with the strain he was about to place on them. He was going to strike first. Leap onto that unholy lump of metal, drive the knife into one eyeball, then claw out the other. He could almost feel the ocular fluid ooze between his fingertips. He’d taste it, he would. He’d put a finger to his lips, suck on it real slow, and say, “Tastes … special.”

  Fuck it. He was going to do it now. He –

  The doorbell rang.

  The Snake

  “I didn’t do it!” Kage shouted.

  Geppetto placed a wizened hand against the Detective’s cheek. “You okay. Everrythingg fine.”

  Florenza leaned against a steel cupboard, breasts thrust out ahead of her. “You slept longer than expected. But hey, a man’s gotta heal.”

  The anesthetic was thick and heavy at the front of his brain. Kage shook his head. Gained his bearings.

  He was in the Gutter. An operation. He’d come here to implant organs. Penis and … arms? Yes. Ben Stanton’s penis. Ben’s arm muscles.

  He glanced down. Lifted the thin surgical sheet covering his midriff.

  The penis was pink. But it was massive. It lolled against his thigh like a snake basking on a hot rock, digesting a meal. Maybe he could dye it black? He’d speak to Yaron.

  “I’ve seen worse,” said Florenza.

  “Will it work?” he asked.

  Geppetto grinned.

  Kage touched it. Spongey. Firm.

  “It doesn’t hurt at all,” said Kage, wondering why. He remembered his last operation at Vista Clinic. That hadn’t hurt much either. You’d think a new penis would at least sting.

  “The wonders of modern medicine,” said Florenza. She tightened her crossed arms. “You’ll be good to go in no time.” She cleared her throat. “Like the rest of them.”

  He reached over to his right biceps. Squeezed the arm. Bigger. The tissue was slightly tender. But larger.

  He’d done it. The months of saving. The odd jobs. The humiliation of his size. He had Ben Stanton’s legendary member. And his muscles.

  Kage was a man now, in anyone’s eyes.

  He rolled off the operating table. Floated through the passage. Down the stairs, and out of the shop, hovering on an analgesic cloud of relief.

  He’d done it.

  Only halfway up the hill, on his way back to the Bubble, did Kage register it was night. He’d been under the knife a good eighteen hours. At least. He checked his chronometer. Midnight. Fuck.

  His glasses synced with the Bubble as he passed through customs. By the time he’d flagged down a cab, message notifications were flashing on his glasses. Three from Una.

  She’d enjoyed last night.

  She hadn’t enjoyed last night – why the fuck wouldn’t he return her message?

  And the third – had he been watching his newsfeed?

  Then a message from Shoulders. He skipped that.

  A ping from Weeks.

  Before he’d had a chance to open it, his vision clouded. Morphed into a live newsfeed.

  “The deaths of Ben and Bob Stanton come as a shock to every Bubbler.” The Mayor wore his sad face. “Although these two talented young artists were not from our Bubble, we feel their loss as our own.” The Mayor hung his head. “Captain Weeks will brief you on the measures Bubble Police Department is taking to bring the person or persons responsible for this to justice.”

  Kage was in two minds about turning off the broadcast. The penis he’d just acquired was worth more than Bubble PD would pay him for this job, even if he hand-delivered Daniel Mendez to them in cuffs. Not to mention the muscle implants. Those would cost plenty on the gray market. He was well ahead financially, compared to where he stood yesterday. Did he really need to be involved with the Organ Thief investigation any longer?

  Weeks’ sleep-deprived eyes glared at the camera. “Bubble PD is following up on several promising leads. We –” He hushed a reporter. “ – no we can’t yet confirm that this was the work of the Organ Thief. No, we …”

  They’d be bumbling through this investigation for the next few days at least, before they caught wind of Daniel. The problem was, Daniel had three more targets left. Kage tapped his glasses. Brought up the list he’d retrieved from Hooplah the day before.

  Margaret Evans – left cornea. Autumn Beckett – liver. And fuck, Kassandra Jackson – right amygdala.

  Which meant … which meant that if he didn’t find Daniel soon, the boy would find him. How long would it take Daniel to figure out that Kage had been Kassandra? That might buy Kage a little time, but likely not much. Daniel had proved to be resourceful so far.

  “Please state your destination?” chimed the cab.

  That’s exactly the right question, thought Kage. Where to from here? He could make a run for it. Collect his stuff, and head off to another Bubble. The Cuban Bubble had just been established. Plenty of crime there. Plenty of work for a PI. He could be sipping a Rusty Nail on New Havana Beach by sundown this evening. No way the kid would follow him that far. He was, after all, only a Gutter.

  But then again, Kage too had been a Gutter once. And Daniel was so much more than a Gutter now. Who knew what the boy was capable of? How far would he follow Kage to retrieve his amygdala?

  The cab’s cheerful voice pierced his thoughts. “Billing has commenced. Please state your destination.”

  No. Running wasn’t ideal. Even if Daniel never found him, Kage would have to look over his shoulder indefinitely. That wasn’t a life worth living.

  That left two options. He could find somewhere secure to wait for Daniel to find him, and ambush the boy. Or he could go on the offensive. Find Daniel before Daniel found him.

  Maybe it was the new penis bulging in his now-too-tight pants. Whatever the reason, the idea of waiting around to be attacked didn’t sit well with Kage. There was also the small issue that if he did nothing, two other people would die, or at the very least be brutally attacked. Margaret Evans and Autumn Beckett. There were no reported attacks against them, so presumably Daniel hadn’t found them yet. But he would soon enough.

  No. Kage knew what he was going to do.

  His eye scanned the list of Daniel’s potential victims. He called up their locations on the dynamic map Una had sent him. Margaret was in an apartment block in the Promenade, east of Bacchus Mall. Autumn was in the area too, but west of the mall.

  Which of them would he target first? Margaret had Daniel’s cornea. Autumn, his liver. Kage flipped a mental coin. Cornea.

  He checked the map. Margaret was home right now. Excellent.

  “Destination is 3406 Hadbury Heights.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the cab.

  As the taxi shot north over Bubble Central, Kage allowed his mind to wander. Maybe he needed a vacation. The transition from Kassandra to Kage had been brutal. The operations. The gyming. The extra working hours. He’d lost his apartment. Living out of the gym was unsustainable. Now that he had the penis and the arm muscles, there was no need to keep up that pace. Once he’d found Daniel and closed the case, Captain Weeks would pay him his fee. He’d take the money some place exotic. Maybe see the Northern Lights above the Finnish Bubble? Would Una come with him?

  He could see it now. Una on a bear skin rug in an ice hotel. Fuck, she’d love that. And the new penis … she’d worship him.

  On cue, an advert for Finnish skiing hijacked his overlay. “… if you message now, we’ll include an all-expenses ice hotel package for two nights. Yup, that’s right. The hotel is fitted with translucent forcefield ceilings, so you won’t miss a moment of the northern lights.”

  A thought broke the fantasy.

  If Daniel was there, at Margaret’s apartment, he might not be alone. That other killer, the mysterious accomplice who attacked the Stantons, could very well be with him.
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br />   He checked his Glock.

  “This taxi is a gun-free zone. Kindly replace your weapon in its holster, or the authorities will be notified.”

  He checked the magazine of the pistol. Loaded. All six rounds.

  The interior of the cab turned to a red, pasty light. “The authorities have been notified. Please remain seated. Do not attem–”

  Kage flashed his PI badge. “Override that command.”

  The cab’s lighting returned to its usual muted sepia.

  “Apologies, sir. One minute, thirty-two seconds to arrival at your destination.”

  Kage balanced the weapon in his hand. Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea after all. He could still turn the cab around. Maybe book that ticket to Cuba. Or hole up at Bubble PD so Daniel couldn’t get to him. But the thought of explaining the situation to Shoulders was unbearable. The damned fool still wasn’t certain that Daniel was the Organ Thief. And Kage couldn’t sit at Bubble PD indefinitely.

  No, he had to do this.

  “You have arrived at your destination.”

  The cab door slid aside. Kage gripped the butt of his pistol, and rang the bell to Margaret Evans’ apartment.

  *

  Daniel held the steak knife, ready. He was going to gouge that bitch’s eyeballs out, if he died trying.

  Margaret’s fingers jittered with undisguised malevolence. She was a purple-veined spring, ready to snap.

  The doorbell rang.

  Margaret’s head swiveled at the sound.

  Daniel had never understood why the characters in Law and Order screamed. They tended to let out a primal howl whenever they found a body, or were about to be chopped up, or were subjected to agonizing injury. He’d been chopped up plenty of times, and chopped up others, unfortunately. But other than Daggy Munch, he hadn’t heard anyone scream like they did on Law and Order. (And Daggy Munch wasn’t exactly the benchmark of normal behavior.)

  So it came as a surprise to Daniel when that primal scream issued from his own lips. It was the death of Odin. And the loss of his face. And all his organs before that. It was the way women questioned his every move, and the inequality that flowed through the Bubble as its lifeblood. It was the murder of his mother, bleeding out on a mattress in New Settlers Way. It was the death on Florenza’s face, as the Bubbler Guard had violated her. It was Geppetto – an old, kind man, with a boot in his cheek.