Here is July's installment of The Adjusters, “Intermezzo: Daniel Malcolm”, wherein Daniel Malcolm is tested.
As usual, comments welcome.
I'll also remind you that we have a Speculation Thread available for general discussion. (A thread which I read but do not comment on.)
The Adjusters #52 - Intermezzo: Daniel Malcolm
Daniel Malcolm sat on the floor of his apartment, his back against the couch, twirling a thumb drive between his fingers. On the floor before him, his laptop stood open, awaiting the drive. The laptop was playing music, but only his subconscious registered it.
He twirled the thumb drive, the activity requiring just enough concentration to keep him from thinking too hard.
On the wall to his right, Jenn looked out over her shoulder from the poster-sized picture he hung there as constant reminder. Her smile was joyous, free, unburdened. She was happiness itself. The one memory of her he cherished and wished he could take to his grave unsullied by any other.
But then there was the thumb drive.
On that thumb drive could be found the videos that that fucker Biff had made of Jenn when he had his ugly paws on her, when he had control of her, when he twisted her mind around to turn her into his sex doll, his sex slave, his thing. Videos he had made to send to Daniel, to bait him, torture him, hurt him. Videos that thankfully Daniel had never received, and that he had never watched.
The one video he had seen, the one video that Biff had sent on a DVD soon after first abducting Jenn, the one video that had unravelled everything at Darnell University, the one video that led to the death of his friend Radhu, to the fire that destroyed the Delta Iota Kappa fraternity house killing everyone inside including Biff, to the disappearance of Jenn, to Daniel joining ADCorp at the behest of a private investigator called Sam O’Neill who volunteered to search for Jenn in exchange for Daniel spying on ADCorp looking for a group O’Neill had called The Adjusters—that one video had been terrible enough.
Continue reading...
Next month: “Intermezzo: Family Counseling Services”.
Posted quickly between two trips, so there might be a few typos that have slipped in. I'll check it more carefully over the weekend, so be indulgent if something seems to not make sense. Enjoy!
ReplyDeleteThis is simply amazing, master stroke. I couldn't sit straight when reading, got up and took a walk around the room to calm down a little)
ReplyDeleteLiked the new installment, looking forward to more.
ReplyDeleteJust one quibble regarding the triggers. I'd imagine that those triggers would have to be very specific to get the desired effect. And the code Daniel used, C012 can be pronounced differently.
There is C oh-one-two, and zero-one-two, or even zero-twelve. Just thought that maybe Daniel should have spent a second wondering which is the correct way to speak it. It's honestly not a big deal, just for some reason that part stuck out to me.
Anyway, thanks for all the work. :)
Can I just saw how sad I am that Daniel did NOT watch any videos on the thumb drive? I mean, I'm very interested in where the plot is going, don't get me wrong...
ReplyDeleteBut I'd really would've liked the twisted, dark guilty pleasure of reading more about the various things Biff subjected Jenn to.
Missing codes in the numeric sequences are also a curiosity, like c001 and c002. Wounder if they are locked for special trinket owners, or also available to general public?
ReplyDeletedanny123
ReplyDeleteFirst the only correction I could find was on my page 3, “He did not even bother looking through the people. It could only be one person…” I think you meant pep hole.
Love the idea of the test. Without the insider’s help, Daniel would have failed the test. I would think it would disturb Daniel a bit that someone inside ADCorp knows he is looking for Jenn. As far as almost everyone knows, she is dead. It will be very interesting to find out who this person is and if there is any relationship to Daniel. As most of the readers suspected Calypso has been adjusted. So Daniel now has the enviable task of having to have sex with Calypso to maintain his cover, i.e., he will have to trigger her occasionally. What one has to do while undercover. I wonder if it has occurred to Daniel that not only may his and Calypso places be bugged, but video surveillance might also be included.
An interesting question to me is, does Daniel report Frank’s triggering of Calypso to Shawbank? Also should he follow up with Frank to see where he obtained the list?
Now that Daniel knows where Jenn is,, what is his next step? Does O’Neill contact her to let her know that Daniel is trying to rescue her? At the moment her being at the Institute seems the best place for her.
Love that there is so many directions this story can go. Not sure with the next installment title saying family counseling, what that really means. Which is the way it should be.
The report at the end of the installment makes it sound like Daniel is going to have to escalate his use of Calypso if he wants to avoid ADCorp termination. This implies not only triggering her repeatedly but using more hard-core triggers and taking advantage of them more thoroughly. What happens if Daniel starts to 'become the mask', discovering that part of him actually likes owning her? And suppose that once he rescues Jenn he finds that the only way to save her is to make her like Calypso?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback, folks. (And for catching the typo, danny123—I suspect I would have glanced over that one repeatedly without “seeing” it...) I'm happy you've picked up on pretty much everything that was to be picked up in this installment.
ReplyDeleteAs for Daniel's debate on how to pronounce the triggers: he may just not have really thought of it. (He had other things on his mind, I guess.) As a matter of fact, it would not really have mattered. The way the triggers are set up, anything "reasonable" Daniel would have said would have worked. We'll learn more about that in upcoming installments.