Constraints: just after Is It College Yet?

 

Synopsis: Some asshole sneaks into Daria’s room at night intent on giving her a braincut.

 

Daria’s Braincut.

 

Content: If this doesn’t make you at least feel nauseas, you’re psychologically sub-normal. … … Or I’m just shit at horror, it’ll be one of those two.

 

In all seriousness though, this is me when I’m trying to be nasty, with other works, the story came first, this is intended to be really really sick, so be aware that this may traumatise you before you read.

 

Legal: not an actual Daria episode, just a fanwork (although you’re probably going to be questioning my fan credentials when you read this).

 

-~-

 

 

It just wasn’t natural for girls to be smart.

 

Smart girls didn’t breed, and god said “Go forth and multiply,” so it was that simple: Gods will was for girls to be stupid.

 

But god had to act through people such as Dr Kenneth Hiller.

 

He attended the school graduation ceremony as a federal agent on the look out for a terrorist recruiter, and Angela Li bought it.

 

At least he didn’t have to do any work on her.

 

But this girl Daria was in desperate need of his help, so he was going to have to find out where she lived and then form a plan of attack.

 

-~-

 

The family talked with various teachers and other parents, the Morgendorffers were obviously proud of their daughter.

 

Such a pity they were going to lose that source of their pride.

 

No point doing her mom, she’ll be dry soon.

 

He had built a lot of experience in this sort of thing, initially he shaved the girls head for better access, but that always felt wrong because girls are meant to have long hair, so he made an effort to limit the shaving as far as possible.

 

One thing he was proud of was that there was not one single fatality.

 

There’s always a danger when you’re cutting up someone’s brain that you’ll cause a fatal haemorrhage, but he had always been able to avoid that.

 

He was pleased, but was cautious about being so pleased that he’ll fuck the next operation and kill.

 

Lobotomies are never risk free, each and every one demands the utmost caution.

 

As did the break in, and the exit, and preventing any evidence being left at the scene.

 

If the state would get a clue, he wouldn’t have to go around doing this, he hated being a criminal, but this was the only way he could achieve this, so a criminal he was.

 

It was also irritating that he had to pick a city at random and go out to that each time, it wasn’t very effective, he’d rather do an entire area, but again, shitty circumstances, so, there he had it.

 

He also couldn’t do the city he was living in, he had to get a job in one city and commute to the area he picked for the operation.

 

His various jobs did bring him into contact with women who needed his help, but getting them was not an option.

 

It was infuriating, but he had to be extremely careful about this.

 

-~-

 

Detective Inspector Jarrod Foster entered the superintendent’s office and asked “you rang?”

 

“Yeah,” said Superintendent, there was a man standing next to him in civvies with an FBI warrant card hanging out his pocket, “this is Agent Keith Hodgers, he’s come across evidence that the braincutter is going to hit somewhere in this city.”

 

“Okay, can we narrow it down further so we can bust this asshole?” asked Jarrod.

 

“We have a list of addresses of high profile smart women including recent high school graduates and college students, we can cover a lot of them, but even using special constables and community support officers, we’re going to be overstretched, any crimes we need to respond to will significantly weaken our surveillance cover, if we see this guy breaking in, we’ll have minutes to respond,” said the superintendent.

 

“So, no pressure, how do we know he’s coming here?”

 

The agent produced a photograph of the individual in question and said “this man, who was asking about rattlesnake activity two weeks ago, is our chief suspect, one of the things we have not released-” started the Agent.

 

“-Is that he uses rattlesnake venom to clot the blood in the parts of the brain he wants to kill, neurosurgeons haven’t been able to replace that bloodflow in time to prevent permanent loss of those areas, so how did his travel plans come up?” asked the inspector.

 

“The park ranger struck up a conversation and managed to steer it towards his travel plans,” said the Agent.

 

“Be pretty stupid of the guy to reveal his destination knowing the significance of his interest in rattlers,” said the inspector.

 

“Yeah, well, he’s been spotted approaching the city, and he’s left his car in a long term car park at the main airport, we got spotters at car rentals and ports and bus depots and train stations that exit the city, so we see this guy mosey on out, we’ll get him. He’s here, and we’ll get him the instant he tries anything.”

 

“Okay then,” said Jason.

 

-~-

 

Daria returned home from the graduation party at the Landons feeling glad to be alone and free to pick a book and start reading.

 

“How did the party go?” asked Helen as Daria made her way through to the kitchen to grab a drink.

 

“Like a loud gathering of people with music and snacks,” said Daria.

 

“Daria, could you please try to socialise a little more? You don’t want College to be High School all over again, do you?”

 

“But I loved high school … Oh wait, no I didn’t, I couldn’t graduate fast enough,” said Daria.

 

Helen just sighed and left Daria to it.

 

Daria knew Helen had a point, but the move to Lawndale from Highland had given her more friends than she had to start off with. In fact she was starting to think that she was just in the wrong age group her entire life, she mentally was too old for the nursery school crowd, she was mentally too old for the elementary school crowd, she was mentally too old for the high school crowd, and now she was in college … … wait, what was she thinking, a lot of college students are less mature than nursery schoolers.

 

 

Aw fuck.

 

 

Well, when she’s making something of her life and her current and near future peers are selling mucus seasoned burgers at Burgerworld with no real prospects, at least the money would buy her plenty of books.

 

She chuckled.

 

She stopped.

 

She didn’t normally chuckle so hard at her own jokes, in fact she hardly chuckled at all.

 

What was with that?

 

She felt sort of high.

 

Why was she high?

 

Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh, why high, not just any old high, why high,” she said as she continued to her room.

 

-~-

 

Detective officers Jim Sidel and Nick Taylor passed the vehicle the man had rented enter the neighbourhood off to their left and they drove on past the junction parking up just beyond.

 

“Control, Sidel, contact seen entering Glenn Oaks, we’re getting out to follow on foot, we need reinforcements to silently assemble around us, over.”

 

Sidel Control, acknowledged, over.”

 

They couldn’t jump the gun, he had to be in the process of breaking into a target’s home.

 

-~-

 

Dr Hiller turned off the nitrous oxide gas and placed the scuba mouthpiece in his mouth, the Morgendorffers should now be nice an unconscious now.

 

He turned his attention to the lock on the back door.

 

It took five minutes to pick the lock and obtain access.

 

Once he was onside, he pulled a syringe and looked for the first family member to inject.

 

The effects of nitrous oxide were going to be short lived, he had to make sure they all remained asleep until he was long gone.

 

He found the mother slumped unconscious over a load of paperwork in the lounge, grinning like the joker as she chuckled in her sleep.

 

He located her carotid artery and injected her with what he guessed was enough to keep her out for two hours.

 

Guesses of bodyweight based on visual appearance were dangerous for pharmacologists to use to guide drug consumption on, but he had to move.

 

He found the father upstairs on a computer terminal with a webpage that had some recipe for something or other, the doctor got another syringe and gave him a dose too.

 

He then moved on.

 

He located the better sister.

 

No danger of brain related loneliness here.

 

He gave her a dose with a new syringe and moved onto his patient.

 

He found her on her bed with a book next to her.

 

The book was Shattered Sword, a war book.

 

He chuckled at he thought about how women and war go together like gold and argon.

 

He removed the book and got out another syringe, he injected her with enough to keep her out for what was to come.

 

-~-

 

Nick Whispered “Hey,” before indicating around the side of a house.

 

He and Jim went around either side of the house Nick had indicated, and they found a number of items stacked in order to gain access to the next property.

 

Nick went over and Jim went back into the street.

 

-~-

 

The doctor lifted Daria by her shoulders and positioned her so her head was at the foot of the bed and he moved the office chair over to the bed foot so he was comfortable and had easy access to Daria’s head.

 

He then set about dousing her scalp in disinfectants, he got a squirt gun filled with ethanol for more thorough sterilisation of entry points as he went.

 

He then pulled a tray which had a scalpel and a drill bit wrapped in a towel soaked in more ethanol that was in a zip lock bag.

 

He then pulled another bag with a ethanol soaked towel wrapped around a hand drill (alcohol vapour not being the sort of thing you want to sent electrical discharges through while you were in the same room as them, especially with nitrous oxide fumes still lingering to boost oxygen levels) and then he pulled the big syringe with the clotting agent and the book that would guide him through the operation.

 

He then started unwrapping his tools.

 

He had to move, but he also had to be damn careful.

 

-~-

 

Jim and Nick finally got to a house with an open back door.

 

Backup had arrived, and they were building up around the house.

 

-~-

 

Dr Hiller picked up the scalpel and spread the hair away from the first point on the skull.

 

He used the scalpel and shaved a 7mm triangle, and then he cut two sides of the triangle.

 

He used a pin to weigh the end of the flap so that it would remain clear as he assembled the 1.5mm bit into the drill and then he positioned the tip of the bit against the skull.

 

He turned the crank slowly, pressing gently against the skull, watching as bone swarf snaked its way out the bits flutes.

 

He imagined this would hurt a lot if the girl was awake.

 

If this were a proper operating theatre, he’d have a pneumatic turbine drill that he would prefer for this, a hand cranked drill created the risk that he would accidentally punch through the skull into the brain instead of stopping once he entered the cranium.

 

He carefully nudged the drill forwards until he finally felt the end push against nothing.

 

He was in.

 

He removed the drill and picked up the syringe, using a small alligator clip to measure the correct distance on the needle to penetrate.

 

He then lined the fine bore needle up with the hole and slowly slid it into the hole.

 

He wouldn’t feel it go through the membrane that lined her cranial cavity, but he felt increasing resistance as he got more than a few millimetres into her brain proper, this was the trickiest part of the operation, if he pushed too hard, the brain would tear and he would cause a cerebral haemorrhage instead of the cerebral vascular event he was after, so sloooowwwwwwly does it.

 

The needle slid through the delicate organ until it was where he needed it to be.

 

Being careful not to put any strain on the organ, he slowly pushed the plunger forwards, again being careful not to cause the brain tissue to tear as the venom extract clotted the blood in the targeted areas of the girls brain.

 

He slowly pulled the needle back as he kept injecting the clotting agent.

 

He had to move, but he couldn’t rush this.

 

He completed is first run.

 

He took a few seconds to relax a little before continuing.

 

-~-

 

“POLICE! STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING AND SHOW ME YOUR HANDS!”

 

The man slowly raised his hands and stepped back.

 

They cops then heard a hiss and a rattling noise.

 

“Sorry, I came to retrieve my snake, it got loose, I’m sorry,” said the man.

 

The cops surrounded him and one looked at the writhing snake which was shifting itself between a couple of sofas.

 

“Can I grab my snake please?” asked the man.

 

“Fine,” agreed Jim.

 

The man turned the bag he was carrying inside out on his hand and approached the snake, waving his other hand as he approached.

 

He had the snaked attention fixed on the waving hand.

 

The bag hand then shot out and grabbed the snake’s head, quickly turning the bag right way out again over the snake, then quickly moving to bung the rest of the snake in there and closing the bag around it.

 

“Excuse me,” called someone upstairs.

 

Three of the cops turned their guns towards the source of the noise.

 

“Is it safe for me to come downstairs now?”

 

“Who are you?” asked Jim.

 

“Fred Carver, I’m the owner, what’s going on?”

 

-~-

 

He removed the syringe and moved onto the next site.

 

He had 9 more locations to do.

 

He sowed up the first site and sealed it with Airfix glue.

 

-~-

 

“No surgical tools, no anaesthetics, just him and his damn snakes!” said Jarrod.

 

“Go ahead, say it,” said the agent.

 

“What?” asked Jarrod.

 

“Oh, the FBI fucked this one up good and proper, same old federal bureau of idiots,” said the agent, voice dripping with sarcasm.

 

“You really think I’m about to start throwing blame just because a promising lead failed to deliver?” asked Jarrod incensed.

 

“Can we please not do this?” asked the superintendent.

 

“Why not?” asked the agent.

 

“Because this guy could just as easily be a deliberate decoy than an accidental suspect, we got a couple fo days to hold him, let’s just find out what we can about him and see if we can rescue something from this, because somewhere in this country, some girl’s getting her personality erased as we speak.”

 

The Agent and the inspector grudgingly nodded and left the office.

 

The superintendent then turned to stare at the map of Los Angeles on the wall behind his desk, hoping somehow he would, like in the movies, suddenly think of something useful.

 

-~-

 

Helen awoke feeling hung over.

 

Odd.

 

She didn’t remember getting drunk last night.

 

She got up and headed to the kitchen.

 

After drinking down a glass of water, she headed upstairs.

 

She found Daria upstairs looking like she had slept in her clothes looking lost.

 

“Daria?” asked Helen.

 

Daria looked to Helen and said “Hi mommy.”

 

“You okay there?”

 

Daria staggered towards Helen saying “no, my head hurts, why does my head hurt?”

 

Helen felt alarms going off inside her, this didn’t look like Daria’s usual brand of humour.

 

“Daria … maybe we should get you to a doctor.”

 

-~-

 

Helen didn’t have to be a neurosurgeon to realise that her daughter’s brain should NOT look like that.

 

As the table continued to move her daughter through the scanner, the neurologist slumped in his chair quietly saying “ohhhhhhh, gohhhhhd.”

 

“What’s that horrible looking gunk in her frontal cortex?” asked Helen.

 

“Clotting … … and an absence of neurological activity. Too concentrated to be accidental as per a normal stroke.”

 

“What does that mean?” asked Helen, knowing the answer full well was that they had been hit by the braincutter.

 

But until the Neurologist said-

 

“Someone injected a clotting agent into the parts of her brain he or she wanted destroyed, and I’m afraid the damage is irreversible. … your daughter’s now a zombie.”

 

 

And there it was.

 

Last hope eliminated.

 

Daria was gone, the lights where home, but …

 

-~-

 

There was a knock on the superintendent’s door.

 

“Come in.”

 

The agent entered and said “We got a call from Lawndale, Connecticut, apparently a Daria Morgendorffer was stupefied last night. Looks like our guy again.”

 

“Right.”

 

The agent eventually said “I’ll get back to the snake handler now,” and left.

 

“You do that,” said the superintendent.

 

Times like this really sucked.

 

If this asshole was a deliberate decoy, there’d better be proof so they had some GODDAMN FUCKING LEVERAGE TO MAKE THIS RAT CUNT TELL THEM SOMETHING USEFUL LIKE THE BRAINCUTTER’S IDENTITY!

 

He sighed and returned to his desk to try to get some work done.

 

-~-

 

End.