Defragmenting Daniel: The Complete Trilogy Box Set

by Jason Werbeloff

  Gilbert’s eyes softened. Lips raised into a pitying smile. “Mister, we’s all Kage Jackson today. All of us but you. You, mister, is Daniel Mendez, Kage Jackson’s killer.” He reached for something on the side table. Held up the mirror.

  In the silver reflection, bobbing about under Gilbert’s palsied hand, was the face Kage had come to know so well the last few days. It was the face, the original face, of Daniel. And not just his flesh. The same wild green eyes. The same mop of hair. The same sunburnt cheeks.

  “It’s best you’s straight with us, mister. Tell us what happened. Why you did it. The doc says we can take you away tonight. And once you’re in Hinterland, nobody ain’t gonna listen. Why’d you do it, Daniel?”

  “I’m not Daniel,” said Kage. “I’m not Daniel. My name is Kage. I’m not Daniel Mendez. Please. I’m not …”

  There it was again. The prick in his arm. The inevitable, unwanted caress of the fentanyl in his veins. “… Daniel Mendez,” he finished.

  *

  Kage had stopped trying to tell them he wasn’t Daniel about two months ago. “Yeah,” his cellmates would cackle each time he’d tell them the story, “and my name is Kage Jackson too.”

  He didn’t know what had happened. He remembered going to Orgia. Remembered a woman on top of him. A hand around his penis. She’d left then, although he hadn’t known why.

  After that … he’d woken up in the hospital. They’d taken him to Hinterland, the prison in phase 9000. He hadn’t even known the phase modulators could go that high. Restricted phase, he guessed. Restricted to the worst criminals in the Bubble. Rapists. Killers. Tax evaders.

  All Kage knew for sure was that he was here. And that when he stood in front of the bathroom mirror, the face that greeted him, the body with its flesh somewhere between Hispanic and Caucasian, was Daniel’s. He had Daniel’s build, and Daniel’s height. Daniel’s skin. Daniel’s arms.

  Daniel’s penis.

  It had horrified him at first. But as the days and the months sloughed by, he allowed himself to explore that body in the mirror. Its proportions. Its tone. All the parts seemed to fit together seamlessly. As though they belonged together. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to touch it … down there. Other than his daily wash, the thing dangling between his legs went ignored.

  But tonight, while the prison slept, he lay in his bunk and remembered Una. Her milky thighs. Her sling. And the feel of the leather under his buttocks that night in her apartment, an eternity ago.

  Something under the covers pulsed. Grew. Stiffened.

  Kage reached down under his prison-issue underwear, and took it in hand. Stroked the growing tumescence. Stroked.

  Tears streamed down Kage’s face as he felt the electric hum of an orgasm nearing.

  One of the prisoners in an adjacent cell woke to the moan. He heard a primal cry. Then a sigh. The prisoner grunted, and went back to sleep.

  The Boy Without a Heart

  Hooplah had often accused Daniel of ‘living in his head’. At the time, he’d considered it just another way for her to get his attention. The kind of nonsensical guilt that women spoke.

  But now Daniel had been reduced to an insensate brain, floating in a tank of nutrients on Hal’s shelf. His eyes, his ears, tongue, nose, everything but his cerebrum, had been removed and given to Kage. He was left in utter darkness. Not even the gray behind his eyelids. Not a sound, nor a scent. Not the touch of a lover’s hand. Daniel had been left with nothing but his thoughts and memories.

  He tried to look around, and couldn’t. Listened, but heard nothing. He waited, but it was impossible to measure time without sensation. Thoughts don’t tick.

  In the eternal minutes or weeks or years that he spent on that shelf, Daniel’s brain, in other words Daniel, rifled through memories in a desperate longing for stimulation. The pineapple scent of his mother. Her golden hair in the rippling sunlight. Daniel, a baby, lying in her arms under the great Birch.

  He remembered Hooplah’s excitement, and Autumn’s pastel calm. He remembered the Holey Man. Daniel was proud now that he’d unified his parts, albeit in Kage’s body. He remembered New Settlers Way, and his mother’s bloodstain on the rubbled mattress. He would never meet her. But he hoped that now there was a breathing, unified connection to her, living in the world.

  He’d never met his father. But he’d found Geppetto, the kind shopkeeper who’d taught him how to put the pieces of his body together. He remembered Florenza and her stony eyes as the Bubble guard had violated her. But more than that, he remembered the softness of her skin, as she’d put her arm around his shoulder when he’d returned from his mother’s deathbed. The warmth in her voice. The woman in her.

  There was light.

  Mere shadows and patches of contrast at first. They focused and morphed into something solid. An outline. A finger. Huge. Too close to his face.

  He remembered he didn’t have a face.

  Sound washed over the bumps and valleys of Daniel’s mind. He couldn’t recognize the components. A blur of hazed syllables and tones. More like a mash of sound than distinct speech. But then, all at once, as if on cue …

  Clarity.

  “Ah, deary, there you are. Those cameras working alright? Oh, of course, you don’t have a speaker yet. Just getting the second microphone hooked up … Aha!” The sound shifted from mono to stereo. Hal’s voice sounded tinny, though. The richness of his ears had been lost.

  “Let’s lift you … up. There you go. Isn’t that better?”

  The room shifted around him. Water cascaded over whatever he now had for eyes. The image settled. Droplets dotted his vision.

  “Let’s encase that brain of yours. That’s it. Pop in a few rivets, and … there you are. You have a skull. Now for your body. Let me see …” Daniel heard the familiar sound of Hal rummaging around in the cupboard with all its android parts. “I’ve got an almost first-hand carapace for you. And two arms. You want a third? Hmmm. Expensive. We’ll give you the standard two. And legs … I’ve got … Uhuh … Yes, two legs. Feet and hands. No problem.”

  Hammering and drilling. Snapping and clicking.

  “Let’s connect your primary and secondary sensors.”

  Cold. He flexed his fingers. The air conditioner caressed their tips. Hal’s hand brushed his chest. He felt it. Sensation.

  “There we are. Oh, yes. I forgot the speaker. Hold on a second. Let’s get into that mouth of yours. Uhuh … There. Try to speak.”

  Daniel cleared his throat. A low rumble vibrated through his frame.

  “Oh gosh, let’s reduce that volume. Try again.”

  “Thank you,” he said. The voice was deep and flat. It wasn’t his. But it would become his.

  “You’re very welcome.” Hal patted his arm. Metal clunked against metal. The plate that was now the palm of his hand wasn’t exactly polished, but it was reflective enough for him to see his new face if he held it at the right angle.

  In that sexless way that androids have, the angles of his cheeks, the broad plate of his thoughtless brow, was almost handsome.

  He looked over Hal’s shoulder. Listened to the tiny motors in his cameras loosen the focus of his lenses so he could see further.

  Kage, appearing just as Daniel had, lay on the blood-caked operating table, his chest huffing up and down with the whoosh and pull of a respirator. Intestines and kidneys and lungs and bones and brains – everything of Kage’s previous body – lay in a hillock against the Detective’s leg.

  Hal walked over to the organs. Cradled the pile in her arms, and dropped them into the tank of nutrients. She fetched a jug of Rejek from the cupboard, and poured it into the effervescent liquid. The water swirled lime green.

  The servo motors in Hal’s arms grated as she lifted the tank, and shoved it into the refrigeration unit at the bottom of the cupboard.

  She turned to Daniel. “That’s that. All done, deary.”

  Daniel nodded. Tiny motors whined in his head. His brain bobbed around inside h
is titanium skull.

  “What you going to do with him?” asked Hal. She gestured to Kage. “The anesthetic will wear off soon enough.”

  “I’ll take care of him,” said Daniel. He placed a phase modulator on Kage’s chest, and one on his own. Daniel donned his glasses, and lifted Kage in his arms. He was surprised how effortless it was to raise him off the table. Android muscles were stronger than he’d thought.

  Hal held open the back door for him. “Come again, deary.”

  *

  Daniel deposited the Detective’s naked body, together with his Glock, on the sidewalk three blocks from Hal’s. He placed the unconscious man just off the main thoroughfare of the Promenade, in phase 7049. Kage would be discovered soon enough.

  If Daniel’s mechanical body had had lips, he would have smiled. “Goodbye,” he said. He touched the Detective’s chest, what was once Daniel’s chest, and felt the gentle rhythm of his heart. There, he thought. All his parts were together now.

  With weightless strides, Daniel walked to Bacchus Mall. He didn’t look back.

  It was late afternoon, and the sun beat a soothing warmth on his back plate. The walk was shorter than last time, and before he’d had a chance to remember to test out his olfactory sensors on the river, he found himself beneath the entrance to Bacchus Mall.

  He caught a glance at Autumn through the glassless windows of the ice cream bar, but he didn’t pause on his way to the staircase at the back of the mall. He climbed the stairs in twos, and only when he’d reached the top did he realize that he’d forgotten to count them in sevens. He didn’t even know how many flights he’d climbed.

  He rested his thick, metallic arms on the balustrade, and waited.

  On the other side of the mall, the sun dipped under the eave of the roof, throwing a spear of light across Daniel’s faceplate. Dazzled, unaccustomed to the sensitivity of his cameras, he spun around to avoid the light.

  “Oh, sorry. I didn’t know someone was up here.”

  Autumn stood on the second stair from the top. One foot reached tentatively for the landing. Her words hung in the air in a minty cloud, flecked with orange doubt.

  Daniel’s pneumatic system pulsed faster at the sight of her.

  “Join me,” he said, and motioned to the railing beside him. His oversized forearm felt clunky performing the delicate movement. “There’s quite a view from here.”

  *

  Daniel lay in Autumn’s bed, listening to the midnight hum of the Bubble in phase 7049. She slept on his chest, a pillow wedged between her ear and his breast plate.

  Late at night, while she slept, he liked to watch Bubble broadcasts on his glasses. They’d been playing the same clip all day – a portion of Kage Jackson’s funeral service.

  He switched it off.

  Lying there in the shifting moonlight of the Bubble, Daniel thought about the courtship he’d offered Autumn this past month. It had taken a week, meeting her at the top of Bacchus Mall each evening, before she could wrap her head around it. He really was Daniel. He’d been flesh and blood before. But he was still himself, even in this mechanical form.

  She’d raised objections and protestations. “But you’re not …”

  “Human?” he’d asked. The word had hung on the air between them, a crimson spiky ball. She’d stared at the shape.

  Autumn’s cheeks, even in the sunset, had been pink. The jaundice she’d had when he’d last seen her, had drained from her face. The dark puddles around her eyes had faded, until all he could see was the subtle joy in her irises.

  “I’ll show you,” he’d said.

  And he had.

  He’d found work as a cleaner in the mall, working two shops down from hers, in a damp restaurant called The Regulus. But it didn’t bother him much. After a lifetime spent organ scrubbing, no work was too menial to trouble Daniel. And this new mechanical body, although large and clunky, was ideal for cleaning. He needed to recharge at a plug point each night, but he no longer felt the fatigue that had always lurked in the fibers of his human muscles. He could mop all day, and his servo motors never tired.

  Autumn shifted on his chest. Moaned something wispy and gray into the air above them. The words hung above the bed. Then rose to the ceiling until they snuggled into the geometric pattern of thoughts floating above the two lovers.

  At his back, he felt the pulse of the tubule that connected him to Autumn. He’d worried the connection he’d shared with her wouldn’t return after he’d taken on this body. But once Autumn realized Daniel was still Daniel, the tubule had re-appeared. The connection between them had been faint at first. Thin. Pale. But over the past weeks, the conduit had thickened. Grown into something tangible. Now, it glowed golden in the darkness.

  “I love you,” he whispered. He was about to deactivate his cameras and go to sleep. But just before he did, just before his vision faded away, he smelt something.

  What was that?

  It could have been a glitch in his olfactory sensor, or perhaps a misfire in his brain. He could swear he smelt something … fleshy. Rotten.

  He glanced around the room, trying not to turn his neck servos. Trying not to rustle the bedsheets. He strained his cybernetic eyes to their maximum specifications.

  There.

  A shadow stood in the doorway.

  He didn’t move. He couldn’t.

  But he had to. He had to do something.

  Daniel counted the seconds.

  1 … 2 …

  The shadow stood. Watching him. Something in him knew that if he kept perfectly still, if he made no sign that he was awake, the shadow would stay just where it was.

  3 … 4 …

  They stared at each other, Daniel and the shadow in the doorway. Locked in a battle to hide their mutual awareness.

  5 …

  Daniel flexed his mechanical fingers. Gripped the bedsheet, ready to fling it aside, and rush at the figure.

  6 …

  His pneumatic fluid pumped so hard through his titanium skull, it sounded like he’d been dunked under a waterfall.

  7.

  In one fluid motion, he kindled the beside lamp and hurled off the bedsheet, about to charge the … the thing in the doorway.

  Autumn yawned. Glanced around the room. “What is it?”

  Daniel stared at the empty spot where the shadow had been. He blinked. Shook his head. His pneumatic heart decelerated to a gallop. Slowed to a crawl.

  He placed an arm around Autumn’s shoulder. Held her to his chest.

  “It’s nobody,” said Daniel, and switched off the light.

  ###

  Want More?

  If you enjoyed Defragmenting Daniel and want to read more from the Bubble, then you’ll love The Crimson Meniscus. Want to know how Margaret came to want what Margaret wants? What was Geppetto’s fate? And just how does phase technology work?

  Grab The Crimson Meniscus, 7 mind-blowing stories from the Bubble, on Amazon here:

  http://smarturl.it/CrimsonMeniscus

  Turn the page for more book recommendations …

  Other Fiction by Jason Werbeloff

  Series

  Defragmenting Daniel

  Fragment 1: The Organ Scrubber

  Fragment 2: The Face in a Jar

  Fragment 3: The Boy Without a Heart

  The Complete Trilogy Box Set

  Novels

  The Solace Pill

  Hedon

  Anthologies

  Obsidian Worlds

  The Crimson Meniscus

  Shorts

  Solace Inc

  Your Averaged Joe

  Visiting Grandpa’s Brain

  Falling for Q46F

  The Cryo Killer

  The Photons in the Cheese Are Lost

  Dinner with Flexi

  Bleed Me Silicone

  The Time-Traveling Chicken Sexer

  The Experience Machine

  F**king Through the Apocalypse

  Manufacturing Margaret

  Inv
esting Isobella

  Oscillating Olaf

  Patenting Peter

  Severing Sidney

  Acknowledgements

  The Defragmenting Daniel trilogy is the largest fiction project I’ve completed so far. In total, it spans over 120,000 words, and took a year to write and edit. I had plenty of help along the way.

  A colossal thank you to Marc Ryan Rees. He thought up the ending of the third book in the trilogy, and came up with Kage’s character in under a minute. Marc is one of the most creative and talented human beings I know. Listen to him narrate my short stories on Sound Cloud here.

  Michael Ferguson, thank you for listening to every word of the first draft of this book. (First drafts are awful, by the way – but you stuck through it.) You were there for me throughout the process of writing this book, from offering countless suggestions, large and small, to providing massive help with writing the blurbs for these books. Michael is an excellent writer in his own right, and has written a novel that he’s releasing in regular chapters on his blog. Read it here.

  Rae Nash is my editor and mentor. Her suggestions and advice are always on-point. Always sharp. Always helpful. Rae has sculpted me into the writer I am today. I’m grateful for the input from the Sharp Pencils writing group, run by Rae.

  Thank goodness for my friend and fellow writer, Khin Kyaw! Khin is a medical doctor, and fact-checked the medical elements of this novel – of which there were plenty that needed modifying because of her suggestions. The novel wouldn’t be half as plausible without her.

  Warren Goldstuck is a close friend, superb sci-fi writer, and encouraging writing partner. Warren has sat with me countless times in coffee shops helping me hone my marketing strategies, book covers, and book blurbs.

  Finally, and perhaps most importantly, thank you to the dozens of Advance Review Readers and Newsletter Subscribers who read my books. Many of you have been faithful readers from my first book, The Solace Pill. I relish our exchanges over email and on my blog – there’s nothing more satisfying for a writer than to receive an engaging response from a reader. Your support and feedback is immensely helpful in improving my craft.