Defragmenting Daniel: The Complete Trilogy Box Set

by Jason Werbeloff

  Kage winked left to ignore the call, and tucked the jar with Daniels face into his jacket pocket.

  He needed Anti-Sleeps, and something for his shoulder.

  “Phil’s Pharma,” he said to the cab that collected him a few seconds later.

  He’d find Daniel tomorrow. And if Daniel was foolish enough to attack Kage before then … Kage rested his hand on the pistol in his holster, still warm.

  Let him come.

  Kage yawned as the taxi rose into the Bubble night. He soaked into the leather seat. Allowed his spine to curve into its embrace.

  He tapped his glasses. Pulled up the recording of Pablo Neruda, and pressed “RESUME”. Thoughts of Margaret and her weeping fingers fell behind the soaring cab. He listened to Neruda’s honeyed poetry dig into a lover’s body. Plough her depths. He listened. And breathed. He imagined Una’s form, pale as sleet, lying on the sling in her bedroom.

  There.

  A tingle.

  He glanced down. Was that …? He reached for it. Wrapped his fingers around the bulge in his pants.

  Not hard. Not yet. But Ben Stanton was growing.

  Anticipation flooded his no-longer-quiescent heart. He knew where he was going after Phil’s Pharma. Not to Una’s. He needed to practice first. And he knew just the place.

  It Wasn’t Me

  Yaron Emet was having a bad day.

  They were calling him the ‘Organ Thief’ on the news. Not Yaron – but whoever that idiot was who’d stolen a bucketful of organs so far, and left a trail of bodies.

  Yaron most certainly was not the Organ Thief. He ran a respectable business, at least according to one set of his financial records. No, Yaron was an honorable man. And that damned Organ Thief, whoever he was, was ruining business for men like Yaron. Since organs had started going missing, since one of the victims had been Mayor Russell’s brother, a mountain of crap had been poured over any dealer remotely associated with organ trade.

  He’d had two visits from Bubble PD investigators, and a slimy auditor who’d accepted nothing less than twenty percent of Yaron’s previous year’s earnings in exchange for his silence.

  Pigs.

  Nothing surprised Yaron anymore. He’d been in this business a while. Sure, some years had been tough. And this year promised to be hellish. But Yaron would snake and squeeze and spit and bite his way through it one way or another. Just as he always had.

  Yes, nothing surprised Yaron anymore. At least, that’s what he thought until he stepped into Alderbury Lane, the squalid apartment building of Autumn Beckett. It wasn’t the fecal matter smeared on the walls, the blood on the banisters, or even the decomposing hand in the corner of the lobby that shocked Yaron. No. For the first time in perhaps a decade, Yaron Emet was dumbfounded, entirely speechless, when he saw what lurched down the staircase at the end of the lobby.

  He’d seen his fair share of onesies when he visited the Gutter to obtain spare organs from the Orphanage. But the notion of a human face without any skin whatsoever was far more palatable than the … thing that staggered down the stairs. Swathes of skin had been torn away in diagonal strands. Across one cheek. Under its lower lip. Below and above its right eye. As if in afterthought, thin pieces of oozing green plastic had been dabbed across the slashes.

  Yaron tightened his grip on the briefcase in his right hand. The creature, which Yaron now recognized as a man, heaved wet sighs as he stumbled down the staircase. At first, Yaron hadn’t noticed the burden in the man’s arms. In the scattered light of the lobby, it looked like the man was carrying a large dog. But a shard of moonlight caught the object as the man descended, and Yaron knew it was no pet.

  That was a person.

  Not just any person. She was someone Yaron knew. Someone he’d visited just yesterday to discuss a liver transplant. The someone he was on his way to visit right now with the organ tucked in his briefcase.

  The girl in the man’s arms was Autumn Beckett.

  Yaron was many things. Organ dealer. Conman extraordinaire. Tax magician. Father of countless Gutter children. Yaron was many things, but he was no hero.

  Without hesitation, he slunk into a dark recess. The man carrying Autumn lumbered past, and out the lobby door.

  This wasn’t good. Wasn’t good at all.

  If the police discovered foul play in her apartment, and by the look of the man carrying Autumn, her apartment would be foul indeed – then it could become evident that Yaron had visited the building not just once, but twice in the past twenty-four hours. He was under a microscope with Bubble PD as it was. He didn’t need extra attention.

  Yaron gathered himself.

  As he liked to say, it’s best to get on top of a bad situation before it gets on top of you. He couldn’t call Bubble PD – that would raise more suspicion than it would allay. He did know someone, however, that could … influence proceedings at the police department.

  He tapped his glasses. “Call Kage Jackson,” he whispered. The line went to voicemail after just two rings. “Man, it wasn’t me,” Yaron began, “but I think you should come over to …”

  *

  More than a tickle, but less than a paper cut. The pain meds Autumn had given him worked well enough. Daniel hardly felt the kitchen knife carve through the skin below his right eye. He needed to cut away just enough so he wouldn’t be recognized by the street cameras, but not so much that he’d bleed out.

  “Not too deep,” he whispered to himself as he dragged the blade through his flesh. Autumn had passed out then. It was better this way. She’d been too loud. Yelling for him to stop cutting himself. Demanding explanations. Hadn’t she seen that he didn’t have time to talk about this? If the Detective had tracked Daniel to Margaret’s apartment, he might find him in Autumn’s too. Daniel had to move. Quickly. He didn’t have a moment to explain. He’d talk with her later. She’d understand. Hooplah had always forgiven him after the fact. Autumn would too.

  The face he wore now hadn’t yet adhered fully to his underlying musculature, so it wasn’t too difficult to peel away. Sure, there was a lot of blood. But he daubed the exposed tissue with Autumn’s tub of Rejek, which seemed to stem the flow.

  It stank, though. The Rejek. Hardly smelt anything like the Rejek they’d used in the Organ Farm, or the A-grade stuff he’d purchased from Phil’s Pharma for the Stantons’ organs. It had been cut with something nasty. This Rejek wouldn’t preserve his wounds long.

  The kitchen knife was unwieldy. More like a bread knife than a steak knife. Tough to handle when cutting one’s own face. Poorly designed for the task.

  After a minute struggling to obtain a decent angle, he took to cutting a gash, then widening it with his fingernails. This face had papery skin. Didn’t take much force to tear off a sliver of flesh.

  Minutes later, his face was barely recognizable. At least an inch wide, and two inches long, the gashes slashed across his face in three places. He lathered the lacerations with more Rejek, and covered them with plastic. That would do until he made it to Hal’s.

  The Bubble PD cameras might recognize him by his underlying bone structure, but he doubted it. Already his face was swelling. By the time he’d scooped Autumn off the floor and carried her to the door, his face felt like an overinflated balloon.

  Autumn was light at first. Her spine rubbed against his hands as he carried her down the corridor and descended the stairs to the lobby. He had to get her to Hal, who’d do the organ swap – his cybernetic liver for her organic liver.

  It was almost 2 a.m., and the streets in phase 7049 were largely abandoned, other than sweepers and maintenance bots. With dim lighting and an absence of police, 7049 was probably the best phase to be in right now. But as Daniel hurried east along the putrid waters of the Promenade, Autumn’s body became heavier in his arms. Then heavier still.

  Daniel panted against the effort. His biceps spasmed. Shoulders locked. The stench of the river didn’t help matters. The putrefaction was so bad in places, it made his left eye water. For a mo
ment, he thought he still had the artificial cornea.

  He got down on his haunches. Laid Autumn’s head across his legs.

  “Hey,” he said. “You okay?”

  She moaned. Lifted her hand to her nose – it seemed the stench of the river penetrated even the unconscious. But she didn’t open her eyes, and her hand fell to her side. She snored lightly. Daniel smiled. The sounds escaped her lips as evanescent butterflies. They flitted in the air above her pale, jaundiced cheeks.

  He couldn’t carry her any further, and Autumn wasn’t walking anywhere. Which left a taxi as the only way to Hal’s. He’d avoided hailing a cab because it might alert the authorities once its cameras noticed his face. But he didn’t have an option now. He couldn’t carry Autumn any further.

  Daniel tapped his glasses. “Taxi,” he whispered.

  He waited.

  In phase 2300, a cab would arrive in seconds. In 7049, it seemed things were a little different. Did they even have taxis in 7049? He checked the status display on his overlay. “Order placed,” it read. There was nothing else to do but wait.

  He glanced east and west along Canal Street. Quiet, other than the occasional sweeper. They passed by with downcast eyes and weather-beaten hearts. Nobody paid him or Autumn any heed.

  There was one task Daniel could get out of the way while he waited for the cab. He’d been putting it off for some time. He didn’t know what he’d say to her. And it was almost too difficult to hear the reproach in her voice. The judgement. But at some point he’d have to call Hooplah to learn the final name on his organ recipient list. There was no alternative – no other way to find out who had his right amygdala.

  He tapped his glasses. It didn’t take long to be routed through to Sales, and then to Hooplah Diaz.

  Her voice barreled through the phone line. “Gods, Daniel, I’ve been worried sick. Where the hells have you been? A detective came by asking questions. He said something about an organ thief. Someone is running around taking organs, Daniel. You hear that? Taking them out of living people. He said it could be you, Daniel. Tell me he was lying. I’ve been so worried. Could hardly sleep the last few nights. Ya’know, I –”

  Daniel kept his voice level. “Who was the detective?” His heart pulsed in his tongue.

  “Weird guy. Short. Cagey eyes. He talked smooth. Like his words were coated in Mopane syrup. Ya’know, the kind they served with crumpets on Fridays at the cafeteria. I didn’t like them bu –”

  “I know,” he said softly. “You never liked the crumpets. And the syrup gave you a tummy ache.”

  The anxiety in Hooplah’s voice drained away. Tears softened her consonants.

  “I miss you.” She sniffed. “Come home.”

  Until she’d said those words, he hadn’t so much as considered returning to the Gutter. Since the moment he’d stepped into Thomsin’s apartment, from the second he’d felt the plush carpet squeeze between his toes, Daniel had known somehow that he belonged here. The Bubble was glorious. And appalling. He didn’t want to support the oppression of the Gutter. But still, it somehow made sense that he should be in the Bubble. Like the worm in the center of a sumptuous apple.

  “I can’t go back,” he said.

  Hooplah’s silence was deafening.

  “Not yet,” he added. It was only half a lie.

  Her voice cracked. “Why?”

  “Because I have one last thing I need to do.”

  “What is it?”

  “Hooplah, who has my amygdala?”

  She was quiet for a long time. It built up in his head, that static hum of nothingness. Was she still on the line? He wanted to ask, but if he punctured the silence he’d lose his power.

  He waited.

  “It is you,” she said. Her tongue sounded dry, mouthing the words carefully. “You’re the Organ Thief.”

  Daniel felt a slap across his cheek. A blow to his chest. A voice yelling in his ear, even though Autumn was still asleep on his knees. Even though nobody was nearby. “It’s you,” roared the voice. “You.”

  “It wasn’t me,” he said too quickly. “I didn’t kill the Stantons. I didn’t hurt that boy, Thomsin. I didn’t do anything I shouldn’t have done. Someone else hurt them. It wasn’t my fault.”

  “You’re different, Daniel. You’re not yourself anymore.”

  The melancholy in her voice slayed him.

  He pushed the feeling aside.

  “Please, Hooplah. Who has my amygdala?”

  “He said he’d report me to my supervisor. That I could lose my job. That my giving you the names was a crime.”

  He heard it before he saw it. The cab spluttered and choked as it descended from the sky.

  “Just one more,” said Daniel. “It’s the last organ. I swear I won’t hurt the owner. You have my word.”

  The sleek bumblebee paint job of taxis in 2300 didn’t seem popular in 7049. The body of this hovercar had rusted to a coarse burgundy.

  “I’ll give you the name. But if I give you this name, Daniel, I’m done. I don’t want anything more to do with you.”

  He knew it was a test. A last-move gambit. But he had no other way to get the name. This was Hooplah, the closest person he had to a sister. She was asking him to choose between his wholeness and his family. She was asking him to choose between his insides and outsides.

  He swallowed.

  “What’s the name?”

  Her voice was clipped. Hard. She hissed every consonant. “Ka-ssa-ndra Jack-son.”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “Goodbye, Daniel.”

  The line went dead.

  He barely had time to register what had happened, before the taxi flopped onto the street beside him and Autumn.

  “P-p-p-please state your dest-dest-destination.”

  Autumn moaned when he lifted her onto the seat, but didn’t wake. Instead of the smooth leather interior of a 2300 taxi, this cab was clad in an ancient faux suede, stubbled and sharp.

  He recited an address a block away from Hal’s building, and dropped his head against the flattened sponge headrest. Autumn slept through the trip. In a sense, so did Daniel. His mind numbed. Crystallized into two glowing kernels at the center of his brain. The words blazed scarlet in the soup of his mind.

  Kassandra. Jackson.

  A woman? It seemed odd that they would give a part of his brain to a woman. So far as he knew, the amygdalas of men and women were different.

  “You ha-ha-have arrived at your destination,” the cab sang, gravely off-key.

  Autumn woke with a start. “Wha … we … your face.” She pulled away from him. Scuttled backward into the far corner of the cab.

  “I’ll explain everything to you soon. I promise. But for now, we need to get inside.”

  “Inside where?”

  “The place I told you about. Hal is going to do the surgery.”

  Autumn’s eyes seemed to focus at a point on his forehead. The slash above his right eye. “What did you do to yourself?”

  Daniel touched the plastic covering. “It’s temporary. Come inside.”

  He slid open the door of the taxi. Stepped onto the sidewalk, and held out a hand for her. “Please.”

  Autumn followed him, but she ignored his outstretched fingers.

  “This way,” said Daniel trying not to care.

  *

  “You brought a friend!” Hal looked into the corridor over Autumn’s shoulder. “Where’s Margaret?”

  “She, uh, couldn’t come,” said Daniel.

  Autumn fired a look at him. “Who’s Margaret?”

  “Come in, dearies. Ah, now let me have a look at you.” Hal pulled back Autumn’s upper lip. “Good teeth.”

  Autumn slapped away the android’s hand.

  “Slip off your shoes so I can see those feet,” said Hal.

  “She’s not here for that,” said Daniel.

  “But you said you’d bring me feet.”

  Daniel raised his voice. “That’s not why I brought he
r.”

  Autumn retreated behind Daniel. “What’s it talking about?”

  Daniel took Autumn’s hand. Squeezed it, but kept his eyes fixed to the android’s. “We need your services.”

  A low snarl emanated from the far corner of the room. Roger was gnawing on what looked like a finger bone. Bob’s finger. The fine hairs on the back of Daniel’s neck pricked up each time the dog’s teeth grated on the bone.

  Hal’s voice was cold as her scalpel. “We had a deal, deary. You were supposed to bring me a pair of feet.”

  He couldn’t let Hal throw them out. How else was he going exchange livers with Autumn? Geppetto would have helped. But the old shopkeeper, if he was still alive, was a long way away. On the other side of the Gutter border. There was no way Daniel was getting through border control – both out of the Bubble and then back in again.

  “We had a deal,” repeated Hal. Roger growled.

  What was it Margaret had said about the liver? He tried to remember. Ignored the images that flooded his mind. Odin lying on the kitchen table. Odin nestled under his arm at night. Odin purring into his chest as they fell asleep together.

  He shunted the memories aside, and focused. The solution is to remove just one lobe, Margaret had said. Of course. She was right. His biology teacher at the Orphanage had taught them that before the days of cybernetic livers, liver donations from a living donor typically involved giving away only one lobe. The right lobe.

  “Autumn has a liver she needs replacing,” said Daniel, with as much steel in his voice as he could muster, “and I have an artificial liver she could use.”

  The fan on the top of Hal’s head spun. The android knew, as did Daniel, that livers were expensive.

  Daniel continued. “We want you to give Autumn my cybernetic liver, and give me her organic liver.”

  Daniel watched as Hal mulled it over. Her fan rotated so quickly now, he felt the breeze on his cheek.

  Hal raised a long, pale finger. “It’s a big operation.” The compartment in Hal’s abdomen slid aside, exposing the paypoint. “Two operations. The anesthesia. Life support. It’s not going to be cheap. The cost –”

  “You’re going to include the anesthesia, and you’re going to perform the operations free of charge,” said Daniel.