Proxima Riven:

by Harmon Cooper

  Proxima Riven

  The Feedback Loop Book Seven

  By Harmon Cooper

  Edited by George C. Hopkins

  Copyright © 2017 by Harmon Cooper

  Copyright © 2017 Boycott Books

  Cover by Dan Van Oss at covermint.design

  Edited by George C. Hopkins (georgechopkins@yahoo.com)

  www.harmoncooper.com

  writer.harmoncooper@gmail.com

  Twitter: @_HarmonCooper

  All rights reserved. All rights preserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Map of Steam

  Click to enlarge

  Chapter One

  Who’d a thunk an earthy-green poofter of a druid could be so muscled up under his mauve robes?

  Here I was, thinking he was some sort of fat guy, wearing his too-big robes like they’re a damn mu-mu or something. I guess that’s what I get for thinking.

  What was supposed to be a friendly arm wrestling match quickly morphed into an epic bar room brawl once Wizardous – Dirty Dave’s fantasy version of crank – was introduced to the mix. Dave’s recipe needs perfecting, or maybe it is supposed to turn people agro – no sé – all I know is that a couple of lines of that stuff will turn an already combative and obnoxious group, like the Battlin’ Brits, into a grossly obnoxious and combative group hell-bent on death and destruction.

  But that’s not exactly how the fight between Yours Truly and the stalwart stooge of a druid broke out.

  The Brits were already handing a group of mages their asses when the druid pops off with how all those immiNPCs should go back to whatever shitty world they came from, and that really ticked me off, especially when he spit on Morning Assassin’s boot. Sure, I shouldn’t be ready to throw down fisticuffs on a dime’s worth of notice, but where I’m from …

  Them’s fightin’ words!

  Except we aren’t going to duke it out as we would if we were in The Loop. Not today, junior – this turn-based brawl-a-thon is something only available in Tritania, and boy oh boy do I wish they’d update their JRPG-ish game rules and do away with turn-based battling.

  Aiden steps up to the proverbial plate.

  Swing batter, batter, swing!

  To give himself a handicap, he’s used a belt to strap his right arm to his side. With just the right amount of flare, The Loop’s numero uno asesino executes a one-armed cartwheel, and lands a double-footed kick more Jackie Chan than Bruce Lee. Still, it’s effective; the druid stumbles backwards, whistles to those smart enough to clear out of the way, and a drinking buddy joins him.

  Talk about too much time at the Fantasy Costco – his warrior compadre looks like a third string extra in his Robin Hood: Men in Tights getup that is neither ironic nor very effective. He’s got the legs of a sprinter and he’s damn proud of them as he charges at me with a dagger held over his head.

  Damn noobies.

  Everyone knows charging someone with a weapon held high is a great way to find yourself with a faceful of floor. Plus, my avatar is three times the level of his avatar; it shouldn’t take an abacus for this bozo to figure out his odds of landing a hit on me.

  Out goes my foot and straight to the floor goes Insane Bolt, his teeth shattering like a porcelain lamp falling from a window three-stories up. Legs McGee pulls himself to his feet, spits bloody tooth fragments, pulls a sword, reconsiders, and logs out like a sissy-pants in search of his mama’s titty.

  “Ha! That guy’d make a great Reaper!”

  Aiden gets it, and as long as someone gets it, my gelotologist will still write me a perfect bill of health.

  “I’ll kill you!” Stonehenge, the bindle punk druid comes in swinging at me for his attack. I equip my trashcan shield, item 14, which takes the brunt of his fist. Whammo! He catches me with a left hook that leaves me seeing tweety birds and spinning stars. I crash-land into a table, and go right through it like we were videoing an episode of WWE Monday Night Raw.

  Our turn.

  I hop back to my feet, give my list a quick scroll, and look over to Aiden as if to say, ‘how should I end this?’ He gives me the thumb-cutting-the-throat gesture, and I equip Dr. Cyclops’ shrink ray in my right and a fly swatter in my left, items 43 and 314, respectively.

  “I’ve always wanted to do this.” I take aim at that Celtic turd burglar and squeeze the trigger. A spiral-y red beam emits from the gun and shrinks the bastard down to Legoman size. He takes off, and I follow him like a bird dog, slapping my fly swatter against the floor every chance I get.

  “Just finish him off already!” Aiden calls as I scramble into a bar stool, topple it over, toss the stool off me and continue the chase.

  “There’s a madness to my method!”

  The little druid bugger and I both see a mouse hole in the wall at the same time. He makes a beeline for it, and I hurl myself at the hole in the wall to stop him. I do the official Tom and Jerry face plant into the wall and slide down as he disappears into the hole.

  “Do I have to do everything myself?”

  I look back to see Morning Assassin aiming his shooting iron at the wall.

  “That’s a killer diller weapon you got yourself there!”

  I don’t know where he picked up the prototype Smart Grenade Launcher, but boy oh boy do I wish I knew where to get me one! My M1917 doughboy helmet, item 424, materializes on my noggin. Nope, it ain’t gonna do jack diddly squat regarding our proximity to the impact point, but I’m not going for practicality here, I’m going for style.

  “Get him before he logs out!” I shout to Morning Assassin. He nods, takes a knee, clicks the safety, and KABOOMSKI!

  He skips the grenade off the floor and into the mouse hole, brings down the wall, kills the creatine-enhanced druid, and kills both of us deader’n duck dookie.

  ~*~

  “It ain’t easy being greasy,” I tell Aiden after we respawn in the OMIB yurt that Sophia set up in Three Kings Park. Orthogonal Matrix Inverse Base, OMIB – talk about a series of words that does not roll off the tongue. My ass is safe in here, oddly enough, and the wind hissing outside tells me that it would probably be smart to stay in here for the time being.

  He slugs me in the shoulder. “Greasy? What are you going on about now?”

  “Just being myself,” I tell Morning Assassin. “Besides, I wasn’t the one greased up and wrestling with the big orc palooka.”

  Aiden shrugs. “You give Scotty too much drorikh and add a half-dozen lines of Wizardous and he’ll assault the Gates of Hell with a soda syphon full of Irn Bru – you know that.” He offers me that predatory grin that I’ve come to know and love. I shouldn’t be celebrating, have nothing to celebrate – I get that – but that doesn’t mean that I can’t share a libation or two with some old pals. “Now quit yappin’, get your ass onto the gurney, and put the visor on.”

  As I lie down onto the gurney, my thoughts trail back to our night on the town. Lots of Horse Piss consumed, more orc broads than a knight can shake his lance at, a couple of gassy goblins that kept going on about a game called Natty Dread, all capped off by a battle royale after a druid drunk as a Russian grunt on Defender of the Motherland Day talked some shit to a pair of bad hombres, aka Yours Trulies.

  “Quantum, why do you have that shit-eating grin on your face?”

  “Just lost in reverie. Alrighty, where were we?”

  “I was sending you back to your … ” he thinks for a moment “I guess meatsack isn’t the right word, and metal sack sounds like something between a robot’s legs.”

  “Like I told you earlier, Humandroids don’t have balls,” I tell him, “trust me on that.”

  “Too bad. If they did, you’d be
able to … ” he snickers at his own joke.

  “You got something to say, wise guy?”

  “Just a joke about Dr. Wang and your nonexistent droid wang, but I’m above that type of locker room talk, so forget about it.” He clears his throat. “Where were we? Shut up and put this on.”

  I place the NV visor made from Chronoton metal over my head and wait for the sine waves to do their little dance thingy.

  As Aiden adjusts some dials, or does whatever it is Sophia told him to do, I get a sinking feeling in my stomach as I consider what Aiden just said – nope, I’m not going back to my meatsack, that’s for damn sure. I’ll respawn in Evan’s droid body, the Tin Man with the empty head space of the Scarecrow, my mechanical ass firmly planted on Sophia’s couch, and if there is a God, she won’t be snuggled up next to me.

  I specifically told her not to do that.

  “You ready to dive?”

  “Born ready,” I tell him.

  ~*~

  A presence registers on my droid’s iNet screen pane of vision in the form of a schematic of my body with a blinking red icon. It zooms in on Sophia, letting me know a variety of details, from the weight of my heavy-brained host to fluctuations in body heat over the last hour.

  “Sophia, you have got to go,” I say, my voice no longer mine. I lift Dr. FrankenAsian’s head from my lap and she mumbles something in Chinese and sure enough, I know exactly what she says, “Don’t go, I was just getting comfortable,” except her voice is muffled, the culprit being a turquoise night guard jammed in her kisser to keep her from grinding her teeth.

  “I told you, no funny business. I’m already up to my ass in trouble with the opposite sex. I’d like not to add another problem to my growing list.”

  Still, Mrs. Hughes’ Sweet Baby Droid isn’t as rude as I pretend to be. Like a gentledroid, I place Sophia’s head on a pillow cushion and she’s back to sleeping and drooling in no time. My iNet screen tells me that Doc’s combat protocols have finished downloading, but it will take an hour or so for them to update on my system.

  Fresh air.

  My charge is back at a hundo and it’s only now that I notice just how bright Sophia’s living room is. You could grow marijuana in here, and if she isn’t careful, an FCG drone will note the heat source and the Feds will come knocking, hopefully in the form of Special Agent Reynolds and Special Agent O’Brien, the two F-BIIGie piggies who gave me such a hard time after I recovered from my dive. I haven’t forgotten those two boneheads, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll pay them a visit in Evan’s body and raise some hell.

  I smile at the thought. Who am I kidding? Doc would have me shut down before I could hail an aerostaxi. Speaking of Doc…

  Me: Say, you up?

  Doc: One doesn’t work a farm and not wake up at the ass crack of dawn. No, I’m not up, but Arnie is, and as soon as the bacon is done sizzling, the coffee is brewed, and the eggs are poached, I’ll join him in the kitchen and start my morning routine.

  Me: Please tell me that involves a stack of pancakes.

  Doc: On weekends, yes. Did you rest well?

  Me: Is that a joke?

  Doc: I’m known as funny in some circles.

  I step out of Sophia’s apartment and take a big whiff of the Baltimore semi-haze. The sky is pink, always a good sign, and the sun is just pulling up over the horizon, a giant peach partially obscured by a frothy cloud. I’m just about to send Doc a wisenheimer remark when a message pops up.

  Strata Godsick: Quantum, we need to meet.

  I stop dead in my tracks and read the message again.

  No sensation whatsoever. Had I been in my real body and received this message, I would have lost my shit. I’m talking about heart in the throat, nerves firing, anger boiling, adrenaline pumping – nope, nada, zilch, squat. None of the anxious behaviors of your typical human having received a message from their arch nemesis is remotely evident in my demeanor, which gives me plenty of time think of what I’d like to say next.

  Me: You can go fuck yourself, Strata.

  ~*~

  I pace for a minute as I wait for a response. I fire off a copy of the message to Doc, whose mammalian instincts engage in a way mine currently cannot.

  Doc: The big bad bear has finally come out of the cave! Testicular torsion works, and this mofo really isn’t going to like what we do next.

  Me: What do I?

  I look down at my hands, look through the e-skin and the complex wiring, look down to their metal cores. A bird chirps in the tree above me and I immediately identify it as a Vesper Sparrow.

  Doc: Engage. If the bastard wants to meet, I’d say meet him. He can’t do anything to you in your current form – that’s the beauty of this! Set up the meeting for tomorrow because tonight is Operation Daughter-Nab.

  Me: You sure?

  Doc: Yes, I’m sure! I’ll alert Euphoria.

  Me: I can tell her.

  Doc: You really don’t understand how pissed she is, do you? You’d think with your advanced processing speeds that you’d know what’s going on here, but I digress, I’ll give you shit later – contact Strata now.

  I hesitate for a moment. When given a direct line to your sworn enemy, what should one say? I already said what I wanted to say, nothing new about that, and really, peace talks have never been my MO. Luckily for yours truly, Strata is the first to reply.

  Strata Godsick: I’ve been told that you were able to reach my son.

  Me: Nope. Never heard of the guy.

  Strata Godsick: You have his body, or should I say, Doc Paulin has his body. In Texas.

  Me: Nope, also not true. Also, it’s Paulson.

  Strata Godsick: It’s both. Would it be helpful if I give you a satellite view of where he’s being held?

  An image appears and with it comes a complete schematic of Doc’s farm. Something ain’t right – Doc’s shit would never be out in the open like that – and after forwarding the image to Doc, my thoughts are justified.

  Doc: Not mine. Let him think it is.

  I take a seat on the steps that lead to the apartment above Sophia’s and return my focus to the conversation with Strata.

  Me: I wouldn’t go after Doc if I were you.

  Strata Godsick: Doc went after my son.

  Me: Yeah? And you went after me, Frances, and Zedic. What goes around, comes around, and payback is a bitch.

  Strata Godsick: I want to get a message to my son.

  Me: And I want to spend the rest of my days in Margaritaville with Jimmy Buffett.

  Strata Godsick: I would like to arrange a meeting with you later today in Denver. The Revenue Corporation would pay your airfare and your accommodations.

  Me: Tomorrow, I’m busy today, and I’ll get to Denver on my own accord.

  Strata Godsick: I see. Would tomorrow work for you?

  Me: You bet your ass it would.

  Strata Godsick: Fine, tomorrow. The Revenue Corporate headquarters in Denver @ 13:00. Come alone. No lawyers.

  Chapter Two

  Come alone my ass. If Strata really thinks I’m going to show up without mi amigos, he has another think coming.

  Doc: I’ve reviewed the rest of conversation you had with him. You did good, and he’s an idiot if he thinks you’ll be going alone.

  Me: You can review my feed?

  Doc: Pfft! You act like I haven’t been hacking since the late 1990s.

  Me: I can only imagine what he wants to meet about. It’s likely a trap.

  Doc: Let it be a trap. You’ll be in a Humandroid body. There’s nothing he can do to you. About today. You’ll fly out to Cali at 10 EST, and arrive at 8:30 PST. I have you two booked on a hyperjet, by the way.

  Me: First class, right?

  Doc: Sure, keep dreaming. Get ready, and wake the good doctor up.

  The time flashes on my iNet screen. It’s barely six and I’m already up and at ‘em, sans my favorite breakfast or the warm touch of Frances Euphoria. That’s going to take some healing, but I’ll make it right, and
maybe making it right begins with manning up; not getting my ass into trouble by walking that tight line between jerk face and sardonic commentator, and keeping the references less obscure even with my advanced research abilities.

  So then, Strata finally wants to show his ugly mug. What could he possibly want to discuss? Is it strictly a trap? What could he be planning?

  For the first time in a while, my thoughts shift to Ray Steampunk.

  I don’t know if Humandroids are capable of hearing the whispers of higher consciousness, but the name rings out again and it gets me thinking – what could Ray Steampunk know? He obviously knows more about Strata than he’s letting on, but what else could he possibly know?

  ~*~

  Boy do I hate to wake a sleeping monster. Standing over Sophia now – ominously, I might add, as a vital scan displays the ups and downs of her sleep cycle – I get the notion that a sleeping Sophia is better than an awakened one and I nearly turn on my heels and take my artificial ass back outside. But time is of the essence, and I’m turning a new leaf, dammit, so I pat her on the head.

  “We gotta dive.”

  “What?” She wakes, wipes drool from her mouth, adjusts her nightie, tries to flatten her Asian fro, and finally squints at me again, as if she doesn’t recognize me.

  “Sophia. Dive. Now.”

  “Why are you up so early? I was actually, finally getting a good night’s sleep!” She drops her head back onto the armrest, which I subsequently nudge with my knee. “Come on, Sophia, get your shit together and let’s log in. Eat whatever gerbil food you’re going to eat for breakfast – we don’t have much time.”

  She yawns. “Log in? What are you talking about?”

  “You and I need to go to Steam and see our old pal Ray Steampunk.”

  Her second yawn is even larger this time. “Ray Steampunk? What are you talking about?”

  “Sophia.”

  “Carry me to my bedroom and I’ll think about it.” She lifts her arms like a toddler and holds them in the air, her eyes still closed.

  Dammit, you.