The Feedback Loop (Books 4-6): Sci-fi LitRPG Series (The Feedback Loop Box Set Book 2)

by Harmon Cooper

  Evan: I’m not familiar with those works, but I will be by the next time we speak.

  Me: So this riddle, you want it line by line or all together?

  Evan: all together.

  “Frances,” I say aloud, “send me the screenshot of the riddle.”

  “Done.”

  Me: Here it is, Easy E:

  ~~Hero of Alexandria lifts his weights~~

  ~~Power is applied and direction modified~~

  ~~Three cupids pull money, two cupids are ticked~~

  ~~Resistant bodies keep dreams alive~~

  Evan: How many possible answers to this riddle would you like?

  Me: The one that’s most likely to be correct, if you could, and make it snappy, pappy.

  Evan: Your wish is my command! Starting at the top: as you know, Hero of Alexandria is considered the father of mechanical engineering.

  Me: Noted, we already got that far.

  Evan: Three of the lines of the riddle are about something mechanical. Hero of Alexandria lifts his weights; Power is applied and direction modified; and the last part about resistant bodies. That part is easy.

  Me: What about the cupid line? I don’t know if it helps, but we did encounter a Commie Cupid.

  Evan: The Cupid’s politics are irrelevant, but have no fear! The line about cupids is a play on words. The cupid lines are in reference to a human heart which it turns out, is also a hidden reference to that which Cupid seeks to affect. But back to the human heart: three cupids, tricuspid, pull money, pulmonary, are referring to valves in the right region of the human heart.

  Me: Holy crap! So three cupids pull money, two cupids are ticked is about a human heart? The entire line or just the first part?

  Evan: Holy crap indeed. The second part of the line is in reference to the mitral valve, also the known as the bicuspid valve, which is in the left region of the heart, along with the aortic valve. Do you see it now? Two cupids, bicuspids, are ticked, aortic. Three cupids pull money, two cupids are ticked. I read this as tricuspid pulmonary, bicuspid aortic. Do you see what the riddle is referring to now?

  Me: The line is about a heart and the rest of the riddle is about something mechanical, so a mechanical heart?

  Evan: I do believe that is the answer to the riddle. It was a pretty easy riddle, if you ask me, but at least it had an allegorical meaning. The final line, Resistant bodies keep dreams alive, neatly wraps up the passage, uniting man and machine in a place where neither have met before. At least that’s how I read it. But yes, I think a good answer to the riddle is a mechanical heart. If you’d like, I can try to generate more answers.

  Me: Just let me test this one first. Brilliant work, Evan! Brilliant!

  Evan: By the way, I liked it when you called me Easy E. I’ve never been given a nickname by a human before.

  Me: Easy E, sure, great work and thank you! We gotta see about getting you on the payroll here.

  ~*~

  Feedback supernova. I spawn on the other side of time, the End of Time to be precise, to find Rocket, Doc, and Gaspar seated at a green baize card table. Gaspar has a modest pile of gold and silver coins in front of him, Doc has a small handful, and Rocket sits behind a mound of coins, bills, three or four of Doc’s guns, his silver cigarette case, platinum Dalvey flask, and a beer stein made from a gold-chased orc’s skull with ruby eyes, from which Rocket sips his Bull Bean energy drink through a crazy straw.

  “Y’know, kid,” Doc observes to Rocket, “you’re doing suspiciously well for someone who said he didn’t know how to play poker.”

  “Agreed,” says Gaspar, “it is very suspicious.”

  “I didn’t say I didn’t know how, I said that I don’t play very much. Because it’s too easy. And it’s no fun when I win all the time.” His eyes spark up as soon as he catches wind of me, “Hey! It’s big daddy Q!”

  “Siddown.” The Faun O’ War tells me. “We’ll deal you in so the kid can win all your shit too.”

  Sophia is apparently above such vulgar and mundane pastimes as gambling at games of chance. Instead, she has two dozen floating books lined up in front of her. Each tome takes its turn answering the riddle, and she makes note of the answer on a more modestly sized AppleSoft™ MACSurface™ scroll.

  “Guys!” I say with just about the biggest grin I’ve mustered all day. “Looks like my FDA Monitor saves the day!”

  Frances Euphoria: Quantum made me promise not to tell you guys the answer to the riddle when he logged in. Just saying.

  “That’s right! It’s not that I want to take credit or anything … ” I strut over to Gaspar like I’m big stuff. “You ready to have your little riddle solved?”

  He lays his cards face down on the table. “Oh? Do you think you have the answer?” he asks.

  “Do I think I have the answer,” I mutter. “Get a load of this guy, fellas, and um, fella-ette,” I say especially so Sophia knows that I’m complying with the FCG guidelines on Inclusivity and Embiggenment in the Work Environment. “So, to answer everyone’s question and reveal the riddle, I’d like to start in the beginning. In the beginning there was Hero of Alexandria.”

  “Yeah,” Sophia sighs, “we’ve already been over that.”

  “The Father of Mechanics, if you will,” I tell her while simultaneously trying to keep my annoyance at her annoyance in check. “And let me finish.”

  Frances Euphoria: Just tell them already. Remember, it may not be the right answer!

  “I’m getting to it,” I tell her. “So we can pretty much assume that the first two lines – Hero of Alexandria lifts his weights, power is applied and direction modified – has something to do with mechanics. It’s my line – three cupids pull money, two cupids are ticked – that’s difficult to solve. Well, I got it.”

  Doc lays down his cards, points to his cigarette case and raises an eyebrow at Rocket, who hands it to him. “We’re all very impressed with your great big brain, Dr. Bernofsky – now get on with it!”

  “I’m getting to it! Gaspar, I have the answer to the Sage’s riddle. And since you are technically the Sage, I have the answer to your riddle.”

  Rocket jumps up from the table amidst a jingly cascade of poker winnings. “Just tell him! You’re as annoying as Soph … um … ” He sits back down and clears his throat.

  “What is your answer?”

  “I’m glad you asked, are you sure you’re ready for it?”

  “Yes.”

  “The answer is … a mechanical heart!”

  “Hmmm … ”

  I can’t say for sure, but I’m quite certain Gaspar’s eyes just flashed under his bowler hat.

  “And what makes you think that this is correct?”

  “The first line, the modified line, the resistant bodies part are all about mechanics.” I take a deep breath and explain the cupids line and how it relates to the heart.

  “Two cupids, biscuspid?” Doc asks.

  Sophia drops to the ground and paces for a moment. “It makes sense, it totally makes sense!”

  Finally, Gaspar speaks. “Interesting, and how did you solve my riddle?”

  “Through a rigorous application of my superior intellect?”

  “The probability of that being true is so infinitesimally minute as to be virtually indistinguishable from a null set.”

  “I phoned a friend.”

  “Very well, then.”

  The wind in the nethersphere, or wherever the hell we are, picks up at this answer. It whips the cards from the table and swirls glittering pixels and sharp debris around Gaspar, forcing the four of us to step back. The dark backdrop fades into a dark snowy forest. We’re arranged in a half-circle around the Sage in all his lion-face-in-the-Keebler-tree glory.

  Aiden materializes as soon as we’ve taken shape.

  “I’ll tell you everything later,” Rocket assures him; Aiden gives him a thumbs-up.

  “So we got it?” I ask His Sagetrocity, my eyes wide with excitement.

  The Sage licks his lips and the
tree branch whiskers jutting out of his muzzle flicker.

  “So we’re right, right?”

  His slow smile is all the answer I need. “Very, very impressive. Pol Pot? Pol Pot, are you here?”

  A puff of red smoke signals Pol Pot’s entrance. He’s as cranky looking as ever with his Homer muzzle and Dunlop tummy. He now sports a tattoo over his belly button which reads: Всесою́зная, which I’m betting probably doesn’t mean ‘HENCH 4 LIFE’.

  “I serve People’s Revolution, Tovarisch Komissar,” the little red bastard tells the Sage.

  “Do you recall our earlier discussion?” the Sage quietly enquires.

  “Da. I am have with.” He snaps his fingers and four medals appear.

  “What about Aiden?” I ask.

  “I already got my medal,” says The Loop’s numero uno asesino. He reaches under his shirt collar and fishes out a snazzy gold medallion hanging from a fancy red ribbon. One of my own appears around my neck before I can read Aiden’s.

  “Thank you,” Rocket says as he examines the medal. “Order of The Red Flag of The Hero of Socialist Fraternal Labor of The Peasants and Workers of The People’s Democratic Republic of Tritania – that’s some medal!”

  The medal itself is about the size of a Scooter Pie; on the front is the obligatory hammer and sickle surrounded by sheaves of stylized quadrotriticale, superimposed on a sun rising over the three floating continents. On the back, in the finest Soviet propaganda poster style pictured with arms linked are an heroic ogre, a noble elf, a determined human, and a benevolent Tritanian, all being shepherded into the glorious socialist future by a colossal Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. It’s a pretty darn impressive example of pinko agitprop that’d give any good little commie a stiffy stiffer than the stiff in Lenin’s eponymous tomb. My only complaint is that mine is engraved with мальчик пар_889, which I’m pretty sure doesn’t mean ‘Quantum Hughes’. Nevertheless, I’m proud to call it item 583.

  Pol Pot hovers in front of Sophia, narrows his eyes, and hesitates.

  “We talked about this,” the Sage reminds him.

  “Da, da – I serve People’s Revolution.” He holds the medal out to Sophia, and snatches it back when she reaches for it. “Ha-ha! Too slow, revisionist running dog intelligentzist tool of capitalizt oppressorz.”

  A red, white and blue hummingbird zooms in on Jetson wings and drives its pointy nectar siphon into Pol Pot’s pinko posterior.

  “Ne strelyai! Ya znayu sekrety!” he cries, as he clutches medal to backside. “Hokay Boss, call off Yankee Air Force; you want, I give!”

  The medal is proffered again; Sophia grabs it and starts right up. “Amazing! I’ve never seen something like this. Plus one hundred to intelligence? That’s crazy!”

  “Da, eez true,” Pol Pot say as the medal materializes around Doc’s neck, “wearing deez medal add one hundred pointz to zmartness.”

  “Ha! You can never be too smart, too rich, or too thin, comrade – spasiba!” Doc remarks.

  “Last t’ing.” With a wave of his cherubic kulak-beater, a silver tray bearing six shot glasses and a bottle of Moskovskaya floats in front of the Flying Forced Collectivizer. He shows us the label with a sommelier’s flourish, and comments, “Deez eez gute stuff, from before Second Revolution.” He pours each shot glass full, distributes them to us, and takes the last one himself.

  I go to knock mine back, but Doc catches my arm. “Patience, Grasshopper,” he advises me. “COMRADES!” Pol Pot shouts in approved parade-ground style, as he raises high his glass, “Newest holders of Order of The Red Flag of The Hero of Socialist Fraternal Labor of The Peasants and Workers of The People’s Democratic Republic of Tritania: the peasants and workers salute you! Ura! Ura!” He tosses his shot back over his tonsils and throws the shot glass to the ground; after a moment’s hesitation we all do the same. “Kharasho – Gute, gute. Now stomp, break glass. Davai! Davai!”

  We all comply, except Doc, who raises a hoof and then puts it back down. He nudges me and murmurs, “Yo, bro, howzabout you hook a caprine up?” Pol Pot frowns when I smash Doc’s glass for him, but then nods in approval as Doc taps his hoof on the broken glass.

  “Kharasho. This concludes awarding of medals. Come back anytime.” With that, he bids us farewell and says, “Struggle to establishing Dictatorship of Proletariat never do end, comrades. Do svidaniya!” A puff of red smoke engulfs him.

  “Congratulations are in order!” says the Sage as soon as he’s gone. “You have solved your individual puzzles and the riddle. For doing so, I will give you the exact coordinates of Luther Godsick. It’s real-time, so it updates as he moves.”

  A branch lowers in front of me. A large, orange leaf grows out of the end of the branch and white coordinates flash on the center of the leaf.

  Frances Euphoria: We got it! We got it!

  I turn the leaf over in my hand. A wave of blue magic travels across the top of the leaf and the numbers refresh. I’m just about to add Luther Godsick’s leaf, item 584, to my list when the Sage says, “The leaf is also his logout point.”

  “Thank you!” Sophia pirouettes into the air and settles next to me. “Thank you so much, Sage, for helping us along our journey.”

  “You’re the best Sage I’ve ever met,” Rocket chimes in.

  Doc, Rocket and Sophia gather around the leaf. “This is in the Endless Sea,” Ms. Wiz thoughtfully observes.

  The numbers flash again and the coordinates change by double digits.

  “Odd,” Rocket says, “I’ve never seen coordinates jump like that.”

  The Sage laughs. “There is no journey worth making that is easy. You now have everything you need to find Luther, but the rest is up to you. Would you like me to transport you to the Endless Sea now?”

  I look from teammate to teammate; the only one that doesn’t look beat and bedraggled is Aiden, who is good to go as always.

  Doc yawns. “Not gonna lie, I need to feed the critters and get in touch with a few friends of mine. Tomorrow morning?” he turns to me.

  “Yeah,” I tell him. We’ll get Luther first thing in the morning. Rocket can do some tracking tonight, or Sophia can, if you want a little more action.”

  “What are you going to do?” Rocket asks.

  I pat him on the shoulder. “Me? I’m going to have a beer, cook some dinner and get my mind straight for tomorrow.”

  Sophia’s elven ears twitch. “I didn’t know you could cook! And that’s a great idea; let’s have a potluck tonight to celebrate!”

  “Hold on there, Breedlove, no one said anything about a potluck,” I begin.

  Frances Euphoria: A potluck sounds like a great idea. I’ll start ordering some stuff now. Everyone log out and let’s plan this thing. We’ve definitely earned it!”

  Epilogue: Potluck

  Frances Euphoria’s pad is clean thanks to yours truly. I almost make some compliment-seeking remark as soon as I enter, but I keep my piehole firmly closed just in time. RW Quantum is trying to be a good, humble fella; it ain’t easy, but I’m turning over a new leaf, really.

  Four words to sum up tomorrow: we have Luther’s ass!

  By the time the clock strikes six, the Dream Team sans Doc have all converged on Frances’ apartment. Rocket was last to arrive and he’s in yet another ribald T-shirt which reads: Who farted? Oh, it was me, and I’m not gonna lie, it did elicit a chuckle from me as soon as I saw him in it.

  “What are you cooking?” Sophia asks. “Nice apron by the way!”

  I thumb the apron’s straps. “It’s Frances’ apron and I agree, it is nice, even though it barely covers my manly physique. Also, I would have gone for Leatherface instead of bunnies with cupcakes on the front, but that’s just me.”

  “We should go over your vitals soon.” Sophia pokes me in the rib, and that frickin’ does it. My resolution to be a kinder, gentler Quantum goes right out the window. I get right up in her face and follow her until she’s got her narrow butt up against the counter and leaning back as
I go nose-to-nose with her. “I am not your project for the junior high science fair, Sophia,” I very carefully enunciate. “You don’t know me anywhere near well enough to be putting your hands on me uninvited. Violate my personal space again and you will not like the results. Do. You. Understand?”

  She blinks and nods.

  “Say it.”

  “Uh … I … uh … understand.”

  “Good. Now apologize for your rudeness.”

  “I … um … apologize.”

  “For … ?”

  “Um … for my … for my rudeness.”

  “There. See how nice it is when we’re all polite and respectful of each other? Now smile and go make nice with Rocket.” She plasters a big fake-looking grin on her mug and edges past me and out into the living room.

  “Boo!”

  Frances materializes at my side and gives me the same willies that Aiden does when he pulls his little flashdance routine.

  “Don’t sneak up on me like that,” I tell her as she leans back against the counter. “Where’s the fish, Ish?”

  “The tilapia will be here shortly. Also, I’ve ordered a German chocolate cake.”

  “And the real meat?”

  “Fish is real meat,” she reminds me.

  “Yeah, if you’re a seagull,” I mumble sotto voce. In a brighter and more cheerful, nice guy Quantum compliant tone I say, “So tilapia with barbeque sauce? Let’s give it a fancy name, just to impress our guests. How about mesquite smoked tilapia with thyme, rosemary and basil?”

  “I thought you are just making sauce to slather on top of your tilapia.”

  “My sauce is your sauce, I mean, everyone’s sauce.”

  She cocks an eyebrow and makes with the puzzled WTF look.

  “That didn’t come out right. How’s this: you ever heard that old saying about lipstick on a pig?”

  “Can’t say that I have.”

  “Sometimes, it actually works ever … oops – s’cuse me – Doc’s on the horn.”

  Doc: You busy?

  Me: Not too. I’m making barbeque sauce for tilapia. We’re having a potluck, remember?