Defragmenting Daniel: The Complete Trilogy Box Set

by Jason Werbeloff

  No.

  Kage did everything short of hop up and down to get Shoulders into the mall. But the overgrown Detective wouldn’t budge. Shoulders leaned back against his squad car, tucked his thumbs into his combat pants, and winked at the occasional passerby.

  “Just doing my job, ma’am. Making the city a safer place.” he’d say. “No need to thank me.”

  Twenty minutes later, the SWAT team arrived.

  The SWAT leader looked even more tired than the last time. Kage recognized Junior, the boy-faced SWATter, through his open visor. The leader ignored Kage entirely.

  “Whata we got?” he asked Shoulders.

  “Probably a false alarm, but Weeks wants to make sure. Possible hostages inside the mall.”

  The SWATters lumbered out of the van in their combat armor. One of them yawned.

  “Right kids. Possible hostage scenario.” He turned back to Shoulders. “Anything you can tell me about the perp?”

  “Daniel Sanchez. Serial –”

  “Mendez,” Kage corrected.

  Shoulders glowered at Kage. Returned to the SWAT leader. “Serial attacker. Killed three so far. Consider him extremely dangerous.”

  Only killed two – Daggy’s not dead, Kage almost said, but thought better of it.

  “You heard him, boys. Move.”

  The SWATters assembled in diamond formation.

  “Location?”

  Shoulders swallowed. Glanced at Kage.

  “This way,” said Kage, and lead the team through the shimmering velvet curtain that was the entrance to Bacchus Mall. He felt ridiculous – a short, unvested man, armed only with a pistol, leading a SWAT team into combat. They marched in sync, titanic boots slapping the concrete. Shoulders made up the rear. Checking sight lines, or some such shit.

  Kage had been at Bacchus Mall just hours earlier, but after 3 a.m. it was a different landscape. Broken bottles, vomit, and comatose party goers littered the grounds. The space resembled a vast heroin den more than a mall.

  He consulted his map again. Now there were only two dots in the location where previously there’d been four. His heart sunk. Had he killed two of them? Destroyed their glasses? “That way.” He pointed to the grass.

  The lead SWATter tossed Kage a combat phase modulator. “Set to assault band eight-nine-two-zero.”

  Kage placed the modulator on his chest beside his usual device. He used the interface with his glasses to hike up the frequency.

  The grass to his left and the strip of restaurants to his right shifted to gray stuttering shapes.

  “The assault band gives us access to all phases. Fuckin’ neat, huh?” said Junior.

  “Thanks,” said Kage.

  The shifting lines of grass culminated in what looked like a stage in the distance. “That way,” said Kage.

  The SWAT leader overtook him. Marched his team directly through a group of half-conscious teenagers sprawled on the lawn.

  “With our modulators, they can’t see us, but we can see them,” said the young SWATter.

  “Radio silence,” barked the leader. The team snapped down their visors. Continued forward.

  The stage was just fifty yards from them now. Even through the distorted phase differential, Kage could see the platform was clear. He checked the map again – the only undistorted image in his vision. The two dots were close now. Ben and Bob Stanton. Maybe a hundred yards away, on the other side of the platform.

  The phalanx of men ascended the stage stairs. Kage wondered for a moment why the SWATters didn’t just sink through the wood – the same way they’d passed through the glass front door of Sparling’s apartment, or the way they walked through the gaggle of drunk teenagers on the grass. He pushed the thought out of his mind. Maybe he’d ask Junior later.

  There. About forty yards away. Thirty now. A trailer. The door was closed. Windows frosted over.

  The SWAT team spread out in a V formation, encircling the vehicle in seconds. The team leader removed something from his back pocket. Placed it on the trailer wall. The device looked like an insect.

  Kage’s glasses pinged. “Accept live feed from Service Provider, Bubble SWAT?”

  “Yes,” whispered Kage.

  Kage watched the feed on his overlay. Tried to make sense of it. Streaks of crimson distorted into a circular point at the center of the image.

  “Elevate to status red,” said the team leader’s voice in his skull. “Breach in three … two … one.”

  The SWAT team sprung forward, each from a different side of the trailer. They passed clean through the trailer’s sides.

  “Fuck me,” said a voice over the com. A young voice. Junior.

  “Clear,” grunted the team leader.

  The door of the trailer was now translucent. Kage stepped inside. Disabled the combat phase modulator. Shoulders wasn’t far behind.

  “Looks like two victims,” said the SWAT leader. “Although hard to say from the amount of blood. You’ll need forensics to separate out the mess.”

  Shoulders’ cheeks greened. He hurried outside.

  “Looks like we were late to the party,” said the team leader.

  Kage lowered himself onto his haunches near the closest body. Allowed the application on his glasses to do its work. “Not by much,” he said. The body’s temperature was barely lower than a living body’s.

  Ben Stanton was naked. The glasses picked up it was Ben right away – facial recognition was easy enough. At least for Ben. A large chunk of Bob Stanton’s face was missing. His lips had been torn off.

  “What should I tell Weeks?” asked Shoulders from the doorway. Kage turned to answer him, but Shoulders lumbered away again to throw up.

  “You need us for anything else?” asked the SWAT leader.

  Kage called up the map Una had sent him. The Stanton brothers had been accounted for. He had to zoom out on the map to locate Margaret Evans and Autumn Beckett. Both were still in the Promenade, but a fair distance from here. He could ask the SWAT team to check up on them. To ensure Daniel wasn’t with them.

  But he knew well enough that babysitting wasn’t their job. SWAT dealt with confirmed threats. Not a hunch.

  “Done for now,” said Kage.

  “Good working with you, sir,” said the SWAT leader. He tipped his helmet at Kage.

  Kage felt more masculine than he had in days.

  “You too, Sergeant.”

  The SWAT team was gone a moment later, filing off toward the stage, and then down onto the grass. Out of the mall.

  A strange calm settled over the bloody trailer. Two bodies. Both mutilated, although in different ways. Both naked. Both died horrific deaths, by the looks of it. The gaping wounds around Bob Stanton’s lips had bled profusely – he’d been alive when they’d been torn off. And the gash in Ben Stanton’s midriff had bruised edges. He’d been alive when his organs were removed.

  Kage shuddered.

  Shoulders stuck his head through the trailer door. “Forensics will be here in the next hour. The scene is secure. I’m going to …” He looked up at the ceiling. Seemed to notice the blood spatter. Shut his eyes. “It’s late. I’m going home.”

  Kage didn’t bother responding. This would be the last time he’d call Shoulders to aid in an arrest.

  The crunch of Shoulders’ footsteps on the grass faded as he stalked off toward the stage, leaving Kage alone with the remains of the Stanton brothers.

  “Why did you do this?” he whispered to the room. The lips. They weren’t on Daniel’s transplant list. The holes in Ben Stanton’s sides. A quick online search revealed that was where the kidneys were located. Or had been.

  In all the gore, he’d almost failed to notice that Bob Stanton was missing his arms. His arms? They weren’t on Daniel’s organ donation list either. It made no sense.

  Kage’s eye snagged on Ben Stanton’s pubic hair. His penis stretched across his stomach, tumescent.

  A section of a Wikipedia article floated across Kage’s vision.

&nb
sp; Ben Stanton is known for his sexual prowess. Unconfirmed rumours place his number of partners in the upper triple figures. Perhaps higher.

  Kage couldn’t look away. Even in death the organ was enormous. It lay there, engorged. Undisturbed by its owner’s demise. Unperturbed by the gaping wound in its owner’s side.

  The memory of Keki’s tits fondled Kage’s mind – the blonde he’d picked up at Phaseball. Despite the lusciousness of her golden orbs, his crotch had been soft as a heated marshmallow. And it had been no stiffer with Una. Sure, he may have been intimidated. But he was certain that if the penis he was using now was working properly, he’d have impaled Una on that sling.

  Yaron, that slimy organ dealer, had sold him a dud. The fucker.

  Kage slipped on a pair of gloves. Reached down. Gripped Ben Stanton’s sizeable member. Now that was a penis. And his balls – Kage was sure there were grapefruit smaller. If only, he thought, and rose to his feet. If only …

  Shoulders was long gone. And he’d said an hour until Forensics arrived. But with the considerable efficiency of Bubble PD, Kage had little hope of seeing them before sunrise. A good … he checked his chronometer … two hours from now.

  He sat outside the trailer on the grass. Waited. Where did things stand now with Una? He’d left under less than perfect circumstances. Could he, without a working penis, ever find a partner? And could he afford a replacement organ? A penis from a legitimate source would set him back – well, it would set him back more than he could afford. Unless he solved this case. Weeks might be generous. Daniel Mendez was now undoubtedly a serial killer, and serials brought in significant commissions when caught by a PI.

  He stood, re-entered the trailer. He searched for more clues as to what had happened here. But he was unfocused. Distracted. He remembered the disappointment in Una’s eyes when she’d reached down to touch him. The boredom on Keki’s face.

  And there it was. Ben Stanton. Still hard and hot as a fire iron.

  Kage examined the bodies more carefully. He noticed now it wasn’t just Bob’s arms and lips, and Ben’s kidneys, that were missing. Each of the bodies had a coin-sized hole in its chest, above its right nipple. The wounds had been easy to miss, what with the gore splattered across their torsos. Blood. There was so much blood on their bodies. Reams of it. Half-dried in places. Coagulating in small pools on Ben’s stomach.

  But there they were. Coin-sized, circular holes in the brothers’ pectorals. And inside those holes … Kage tapped his glasses. Shone a spotlight on Ben’s wound.

  A tube?

  Kage remembered the Wikipedia article. He’d scrolled past a picture of Ben Stanton. He called up the picture on his overlay now. Of course. He’d heard about the Stantons – now he remembered. The two of them were musicians. The Stanton Brothers. And their signature? They wore lungs exposed on their chests. An extra lung each. The additional organ helped Ben belt out his songs. Allowed Bob to play a mean didgeridoo.

  So, where were the lungs?

  Kage recalled the list of organs Daniel was missing. Of course. The Stantons each had one of his lungs. Or at least, they had until Daniel had removed them.

  But why the kidneys? Bob’s lips and arms?

  And how did Daniel overpower two men? They were taller than Daniel by a head at least. Perhaps not powerfully built, but then neither was Daniel. He’d overpowered both of them simultaneously.

  Ben’s eyes had hemorrhaged. Tiny red dots on the irises. He’d been strangled. And that made sense. For Ben to die with an erection, he’d need to have been strangled vertically for the pons to activate. And, sure enough, there were fingermarks on the neck. Odd color though. Brown? He touched one of the marks. It was almost … tacky? “Note,” he said to his glasses, “brown residue on strangulation marks.”

  He recalled the boy he’d met in Thomsin’s apartment. Daniel hadn’t been taller than 5”11, but Ben Stanton was at least 2 inches taller than that. And heavier. Daniel couldn’t have been that strong. Ben had been lifted by his neck. Strangled by someone with considerable strength.

  He checked Bob’s eyes. Almost no petechial hemorrhaging. He shouldn’t be doing this before Forensics arrived. But they’d never know. Gently, he fingered Bob’s neck along the spine. The head was turned to one side, but even so, the spine felt irregular. One of the vertebrae jutted out so harshly, it almost breached the skin.

  Bob’s neck had been snapped.

  Kage stood. Paced, away from the blood.

  Two men. Larger than Daniel. One strangled – lifted off the ground. The other’s neck snapped. Could Daniel have done that alone? And consider that organs other than Daniel’s had been taken. No, Daniel wasn’t alone when he did this. There was another killer. And that killer could have taken any number of organs, including …

  Kage glanced again at Ben’s penis. What a waste to leave that glorious member to be buried or cremated with its owner.

  Kage would find Daniel. He’d catch him. He would. But right now, Kage had something more important to do.

  Vista Clinic wasn’t ten minutes from here by taxi. He checked their website. Closed. No matter. He’d find someone else to do the transplant. The police database was full of black market surgeons.

  Kage searched until he found a dirty paring knife in the kitchen sink. Rinsed the granadilla pips off its blade, and returned to the body.

  He kneeled over Ben Stanton.

  Was he really going to do this?

  Kage inhaled. Again. Ignored the conscience thundering in his chest. He tried to steady his quivering hand.

  The hand that held the blade above Ben Stanton’s penis.

  Fragment 3

  The Boy Without a Heart

  Breathe

  Nobody moved.

  Bob’s eyes bulged. He gasped in slow gurgles under Margaret’s elbow.

  Daniel looked from Margaret to Ben.

  Ben’s fingers twitched. “Listen, lady. We don’t want any trouble. Let him –”

  Margaret broke the impasse. And Bob’s neck.

  She moved so quickly, Daniel heard the spine snap before he saw it happen. One moment Bob was a living, (albeit with difficulty) breathing creature. The next, he was a twisted lump of flesh on the trailer floor.

  The ending of his brother’s life registered with Ben no quicker than it had with Daniel. Ben’s mouth hung slack at the sight of Bob’s lifeless body.

  “You shouldn’t have done that!” yelled Daniel.

  He raised his knife. But he wasn’t sure who to attack. He hadn’t explicitly prohibited Margaret from killing the Stanton brothers. He’d said that he needed help subduing them, and she’d agreed. He hadn’t thought she’d actually kill Bob. It was unnecessary. He could’ve pumped Bob full of Rejek before harvesting the lung and whatever else Margaret wanted. It would’ve kept him alive.

  But before Daniel had a chance to do anything, like a thing possessed, which is exactly what Margaret was, the android leapt at Ben. Ben didn’t have a chance to close his gaping mouth before she was upon him.

  Margaret took him by the throat. Lifted him off the ground.

  “Get off him!” shouted Daniel.

  Daggy’s purple-veined skin hung off Margaret’s buttocks in folds, like a rabid leper’s. It jiggled as Ben thrashed in her grip.

  “Margaret wants what Margaret wants,” she said.

  The knife quavered in Daniel’s hand. Should he stop her? Stab her?

  He hadn’t known she was this strong. This dangerous. He’d thought she’d be easily dispatched should the time arrive. But now he saw differently. He imagined plunging the blade into her back, but barely penetrating the skin. Underneath, Margaret’s back was a solid carapace of some impenetrable alloy.

  “Margaret wants,” she hissed, “what Margaret wants.”

  A fluttering beat filled the trailer – Ben’s heels slapping the trailer’s drywall. His body spasmed. Wriggled one last time. Then hung limp in Margaret’s hands.

  “Margaret prefers the quiet,” sh
e said, and flung Ben’s body to the floor with a wet thlunk. Blood running from Bob’s mouth had formed a small bright pool on the linoleum. Ben’s body landed dead center in the puddle.

  Margaret hummed a ditty while she adjusted their bodies. He’d heard it somewhere before. That’s right. On an ad break recorded along with a Law and Order episode. He racked his memory. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought it was the theme song to The Bold and the Beautiful.

  By the time she’d finished arranging them, the two brothers lay curled together. Two halves of a yin-yang. Side by side in a bloody circle. “Now Margaret understands why Daniel does what Daniel does. This is …” The android looked up. Seemed to search the ceiling for the word. “… fun.”

  Daniel stood in the quiet. Stunned.

  Margaret bent down. Gripped Bob’s partly torn lips, and pulled.

  The force applied to Bob’s face was enough to pop off one of Margaret’s fingernails. It tinged against a window, before coming to settle in the pool of blood on the floor.

  It wasn’t long before Margaret had ripped the lips off Bob’s face. Not a neat job either. One of his cheeks came with them.

  There were many gray areas in Daniel’s life. He was never sure whether he’d treated Hooplah right. Whether he should or shouldn’t act on an impulse. But this was clear.

  Daniel knew this wasn’t right.

  He’d killed Lincoln Russell because the man was a monster. Because he was about to murder that little girl. And Daniel had left Daggy alive. Taken only what he needed from her, and nothing more. He’d approached his journey as a holy mission. To become whole. To gather his fragments together. And although he’d performed questionable actions along the way, all of them were understandable. Forgivable.

  But Margaret had no such qualms. Margaret was a butcher in a serene field of browsing bovines. Margaret was a hyena in a pantry cupboard. Margaret was lost in the sadistic orgy of consumption.

  She tossed the lips to Daniel, who caught them without thinking. The flesh was warm. Wet and bloody in his hands. He hadn’t had a chance to put on his gloves.