“Just … so … beautiful!”
I turn to Sophia and smile. “You want a picture?”
“You have a camera in your list?”
“Do I have a camera … ” I scroll behind my back to item 107, my Polaroid camera. “All right, Aiden, getchur ass over there and no wise guy stuff in the photo, got it?”
Top hatted Morning Assassin in his Sunday steampunk best moves to the other side of the basket and slips an arm under Sophia’s. I raise the camera, giving him enough time to make bunny ears over her head.
One click later and I’m shaking the Polaroid film, waiting for the strange, sepia image to settle.
Chapter Three
I can see the glimmer from Ray Steampunk’s golden gladrags and gilded cape long before we’re close enough to actually make out his facial features. Steam’s NVA Seed stands on the observation deck that defines the upper part of his fairytale castle, his gaze aimed at the myriad hot air balloons now floating over the busy city of Locus and the surrounding forest. He seems incredibly alone; I get the sense that Ray will be like this for all eternity. NPC, RPC, or PC – Steampunk would rather be known for his image and what he represents and remembered as such, as opposed to someone with actual feelings.
I’d be best to remind myself not to end up like him.
I give him a wave just to do something and Ray Steampunk ignores me, the cocky bastard. I remind myself of the reason I’ve come here, Strata Godsick. Right now it’s still a hunch, but I have the feeling that old Ray is holding out on me.
Our hot air balloon is suddenly suspended in air, as if trapped in the pull of a tractor beam.
It moves slowly towards the Godfather of Steam now, who doesn’t even grace us with the ‘lift of his hand to show that I’m using powers’ pose. Nope, he’s stone cold stationary as ever with no expression on his mug.
Once we’re closer, the balloon clips away, leaving the three of us and Ray’s peglegged goon looking like a bunch of idiots in a floating wicker basket.
“He’s so majestic,” I hear Sophia murmur.
“For the love of … ” I bite my tongue. I’m still learning how not to trigger Sophia; she has a ways to go to figure out how not to trigger me.
“Don’t you think?” she asks, digging the knife in and twisting. “His overall demeanor is just so … god-like. Like some Greek god, Apollo or Zeus. Everyone in Steam loves him. Everyone.”
Rocket: He’s soooooo dreamy, isn’t he? I wish I could be like Ray Steampunk and live in an airship all alone while running my almost-fascist world where I’m treated both as a god and a celebrity.
Me: Thata boy, kid. Get ‘em!
Rocket: How’s my sarcasm coming along?
Me: It needs work.
Rocket: Wait a minute … are you being sarcastic?
Me: Zing! You got me again.
Sophia lifts her nose. “You two really don’t understand what a big deal it is to meet Ray Steampunk. Most of the people down there,” she motions towards the city, “only dream of one day meeting the creator. Most never meet him.”
Rocket:
The argument is over by the time the basket lands on the observation deck. Aiden is the first out. He greets Ray with nod and takes up station at the far end of the deck. Looking like a donut with a control tower poking out of its center, the observation deck is completely stripped of all its furniture, showcasing Ray’s minimalist side. Not far from where we stand, a girning gargoyle snorts steam at irregular intervals.
I hop out of the basket and walk right up to the Big Bad Wolf of Steam, who continues to act as if we hadn’t just landed. Like always, he speaks without moving his lips. “Hello, Steamboy.”
“Heya, Rayski.”
Mr. T would be jelly if he saw the numerous golden necklaces looped around Steampunk’s neck. That and his golden suit of armor, his long flowing black hair, his all black eyes – I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t have a painted portrait of himself standing in front of a painted portrait of himself hanging over his bed.
“Mardis Gras with Midas again, eh?”
He ignores me and greets my compatriots instead. “Hello, Dr. Wang, NPC 8-10.”
“It’s Aiden,” Morning Assassin bristles.
“Glad you all could join me, and I must thank you for the fight you put up against the Reapers at the fairgrounds. I don’t expect you to fight my battles for me here in Steam ...”
I almost cough bullshit into my hand.
“... and I thank you for it. That said, the Reapers have continued to join with the Boiler Plate Army and the Marauders in Morlock, doing everything in their power to thwart the livelihood of those who choose to visit Steam.”
“You’re the NVA Seed,” I remind him. “Why don’t you just force any Reaper who logs in to instantly logout? And that’s if you’re being nice! I can think of a bazillion things I would do to extract revenge on my enemies if I were in your big, golden, Ronald McStarbucks shoes, Ray ol’ pal. From force-spawning them in the Imperium latrine to making them constantly punch themselves in the face, and that’s without getting weird, like making them spawn with the bodies inside out.”
Sophia makes an icky face.
Steampunk clasps his hands together behind his back and turns away from us. “I wouldn’t want a discriminatory lawsuit in the real world, now would I?”
“He’s right,” Dr. Brainulo says. “The Revenue Corporation could bring a lawsuit against the parent company that Mr. Steampunk set up to handle assets, both real world and here in Steam.”
Mr. Steampunk?
His clean shaven visage tightens into a grin. “Besides, and I think even you may agree with this, hunting Reapers makes a great quest for others to embark upon.”
I consider this for a moment. “Yeah, I could definitely go for a little of that.”
“What is it that you’d like to ask of me?” He looks towards the hot air balloons for a moment, the look on his face completely indecipherable.
“Right, let’s get down to business. It’s like this, Ray. We need to know whatever it is you know about Strata.”
“Oh?”
A red biplane passes above us. Aiden’s weapon comes up and he lowers it once he’s confirmed that the pilot isn’t a hostile. Sophia and Yours Truly? Not so much. I wait a moment for Ray to say something, hoping that he’ll at least throw us a bone.
Nope, nada, zilch, squat.
“All right,” I say, trying not to get snappy. “You want the lowdown on what happened today? Maybe that will inspire you to tell us something we don’t already know. It’s like this, Ray, Strata contacted me this morning, and he wants to meet tomorrow. Now before you say anything, I should also tell you that we zapped his daughter, Veenure, or Victoria, or ‘that traitorous bitch’, with a Reaper hack preventing her from logging in. And Luther? We found his tookus too, on a bizarre-ass turtle island that appears randomly in the Endless Sea.”
“Bitakh Morla,” Sophia corrects me. “That’s the Thulean word for the island.”
“That’s some narrative,” The Prophet of Steam finally says.
“And there’s more … ” I look to Sophia and she shakes her head. “I mean, that’s it, that’s the story. There isn’t any more.”
“You’re referring to Doctor Wang’s experiment and the fact that in the real world, you currently inhabit a Humandroid’s body, are you not?”
The nerve of this guy. He still has his back to us, yet his voice is loud and clear, as if he’s looking right at us. Without turning, he taps his finger against his temple. “You may recall that I’m the NVA Seed.”
“So you’re reading our minds then? And yeah, Ray, we do recall that. You’d never let us forget it, you boisterous putz.”
“Quantum!”
“What?” I shrug at Sophia.
Ray keeps his back to us as he says, “I’m not reading your minds as much as I am browsing them. And you, Dr. Wang, have accomplished something of considerable acclaim, something that would make your
colleagues green with envy. I applaud you for it.”
Her face fills with light. “Thank you, Mr. Steampunk.”
He waves her gratitude away, his back still to us. “That said, I’m afraid that what you’ve done will never reach the light of day, as they say up there.”
Sophia shoulders drop. Her goofy grin from earlier is all but wiped away by Ray’s last statement.
“You shouldn’t take it as an affront to your accomplishment; rather, you should take your successful experiment for what it is – something that could change the face of human and Humandroid kind. NPCs are … ” he pauses, letting the roar from a landing biplane to settle. “NPCs have different reasoning capabilities from Humandroids. They are much more like you than an artificial being could ever be. You may be thinking, ‘Humandroids are artificial beings’ but you are incorrect, unless you consider humans artificial beings as well. Then we are all artificial.”
“Not buying it, Ray,” I say, “and I don’t mean that disrespectfully for once. It’s like this: humans created Humandroids and NPCs and, well, you as a matter of fact as an RPC are basically a glorified NPC, hate to break it to you. The Proxima Company has servers that hold all this information, from your world to Tritania to disbanded Proxima Worlds, like The Loop.”
“Cyber Noir.”
“Tomay-toes, tomah-toes. Riddle me this: what if someone attacked the central storage, or for that matter, since the Proxima Company has storage all around the globe, all the storage places? What happens? You and this world would cease to exist. Therefore, and I’m not trying to be a dick here, you are artificial.”
He smirks. “What if NPCs with Humandroid hosts attacked the real world, every part of the real world, and killed all of humanity through, say, a biological attack? Then you and your world would cease to exist.”
“Yours would die too.”
“Not necessarily. What if these same NPCs with Humandroid hosts kept the servers and the necessary public works that power humanity going, and these Humandroids hunted down any person left alive, or perhaps kept a select group in, say, an isolated canyon just to observe them under laboratory conditions?”
“It would be artificial. All of this is hypothetical.”
“Artificiality is in the eye of the beholder, and without mentioning Schrödinger's cat – but heavily nodding towards its implications – this theoretical world, this new NPC-Humandroid world without humans, is exactly why Sophia’s discovery must never reach the light of day. It must not be published, spoken about, written about, or broadcast in any way. It must be buried.”
He lets this sink in for a moment.
“Her discovery, after you’ve returned to your body, must be completely wiped from the records of humanity.”
~*~
“All right, Ray,” I wave my hands, ready to get down to business, “you won. You’re smarter than I am.”
Rocket: I could have told you that!
I curl my fists, bite my bottom lip, grind my heel into the airship, and wait for Ray to acknowledge his intellectual superiority or walk it back. Instead, the God of Steam paces for a moment with his hands clasped behind his back.
A quick glance to Aiden and I see that The Loop’s killer diller killer has grown bored with our conversation. His eyes haven’t quite glazed over, but he does yawn, evident in the way his eyes narrow and the front of his mask stretches.
Ray finally turns to me. “I am the one who created the algorithm that trapped people in the Proxima Galaxy.”
“Come again?” I look to Sophia. “Did you just say you’re basically the one that got me trapped in The Loop?”
If I wasn’t pissed earlier, I sure as hell am now. I take a few steps closer to Ray, scrolling through my list behind my back. I don’t think I’ll be able to get a weapon up fast enough, and it likely wouldn’t help if I could, but that doesn’t mean I won’t give it a shot, and by it I mean Ray. I stop on item 331, my Zeo Blaster. What happens when the Zeo Power Rangers combine all their gear? This bad boy with no less than four muzzles.
“Quantum!” I hear Sophia hiss from behind me.
“I created an algorithm that trapped people, not the glitch,” Ray says. “Parsing matters, and you can put your Zeo Blaster away. It won’t do you any good.”
“I know, but that never stopped me from trying,” I grit.
“That’s what I’ve always liked about you, Quantum. You never were one to give up, no matter the odds.”
Ray Steampunk giving me a compliment? This HAS TO be a dream. I return my Zeo Blaster to my list and pinch myself to be sure.
Ray Steampunk’s deep voice is again in my ear. “What I was referring to is those whom you call the bleached people. What I created led to the invention of the collar that keeps them from logging out.”
“You wanted to imprison people in Steam?” I ask. Even Aiden is listening now.
“Of course not. I invented it in a failed experiment to free you. Strata reached out to me regarding your imprisonment – and I should note that at this time, no one could get into The Loop even through OMIB-porting but we knew with the right tweaks that this could change, so I went to work on creating a portable logout point by studying the glitch. It backfired and to be quite honest with you, it was my fault. I was working on a dozen things at the time and my code was just … off. It was off. I didn’t know at the time that there was an actual logout point. If you didn’t already know, the glitch only temporarily prevented you from logging out. However, this was enough time for a human body to expire in the real world, so Cyber Noir’s NVA Seed kept the logout point from you to protect you, assuming you had died up there.”
“The seed–”
“–Dolly,” says Morning Assassin.
I swallow hard. Somehow it always comes back to her.
“Dolly was operating under the impression that if she allowed you to log out, you’d die. She wasn’t able to use your mind to figure out the basics of diving to a VE dreamworld; she truly believed that letting you log out would have killed you for good, then the Dream Team showed up and here we are now.”
“That simple, huh?”
He ignores my quip. “All I knew at the time I reverse-engineered the glitch was that the portable logout point I had developed didn’t work; that it backfired, trapping a player in a world. So I scrapped the idea; Strata, seeing its potential, tweaked it a bit more and created a way to prevent a person from logging out.”
“The collar the bleachies wore!” How could I forget those mangy emaciated fiends covered in scratch marks with tufts of their hair ripped out fighting each other as they tried to overwhelm me? The dirty fiends.
“It all makes sense now,” Sophia says.
I instinctively touch my neck. “So when the Reapers first reached out to me, promising to free me, they really would have enslaved me using the same collar?”
Rocket: DUH!
“Dammit, kid,” I tell the sky. “I’m just confirming things here!”
“Precisely. You were lucky that Frances Euphoria showed up when she did.” He gives me a long, hard look. “But I think you already knew that.”
“Shit, Ray, why don’t you bust my balls a little more?” I mumble under my breath.
“So, if you’re wondering what I would tell you about Strata and your plan to meet him, I would say you are in the perfect position to do so in your Humandroid body, as long as you don’t tell him that you are again stuck in The Loop. He knows enough about military software to be familiar with InterHead. He won’t be happy, but he’ll think Doc is having you meet him in a Humandroid body. It’s ironic, really, the fact that you’re trapped in The Loop again may work to your advantage.”
Sophia relays my next thought before I can get the words out of my mouth. “Mr. Steampunk, my question is in regards to Quantum’s recent predicament. Cyber Noir’s NVA Seed–”
“–Dolly,” Aiden says again.
“…Has completely removed the logout option from Quantum’s user menu. She’s impr
isoned herself behind an anti-OMIB palisade that appears to be impenetrable. I ran a few numbers in my head, and based on what I’ve learned about alien Proxima world algorithmic receptivity, I am under the impression that the Rare Proxima Galaxy metal, Chronoton, could be crafted into a device that could cut through the A-OMIB P, if combined with another type of RPG metal. What are your thoughts on my hypothesis and what, if anything, would you do to increase the likelihood of penetrating the A-OMIB P?”
Ray Steampunk considers this for a moment. “Chronoton could be crafted into a Reality Splitter in Tritania, which would work for Tritania only. Your assumption is correct. To guarantee that the Reality Splitter works in Cyber Noir, I’d advise you to create a Chronoton and Sky Iron alloy.”
“Sky-Iron?” Sophia’s eyes flicker. “I’m sorry, but I’m unfamiliar with the metal.”
“That’s because you’ve never heard of it,” Steampunk says in an almost condescending tone. “Sky Iron is a dark RPG metal mined in a walled off prison city known as Akrasia, which is on the outskirts of Morlock. It also happens to be where the Reapers have been spawning.”
“Morlock? Isn’t that the place where we handed the Reapers and Marauders their asses not too long ago?”
Steampunk nods. “Yes, you beat them in the northwest corridor of the city known as the Rust Belt. There are other parts, and Akrasia is one of these parts.”
I smirk. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying, Ray ol’ buddy, ol’ pal, ol’ stick-in-the-mud?”
“I am unaware of how you’d like me to answer that. Do you happen to have any blacksmith friends?”
“The Knights of Non Compos Mentis has a blacksmith in the guild, a Brazilian kid named Chrono.”
“You’ll need him, too. Get the metal, and while you’re at it, take out as many Reapers as you’d like.” With that, Ray turns away from us; his golden cape blows ever-so-slightly in the breeze that picks up. “And the fun doesn’t end there.”
“What do you mean?”
“Once you cut into Dolly’s fortress, technically her A-OMIB P, you may need to kill her before she kills you.”
Proxima Riven: (Book Seven) (Sci-Fi LitRPG Series) (The Feedback Loop 7) Page 3
