The Feedback Loop (3-Book Box Set): (Scifi LitRPG Series)

by Harmon Cooper

  The room is mahoosive, practically a cathedral underground. Hanging from the walls is a vast assortment of steam-based weapons. In the center of the room is a massive exoskeleton suit, easily eighteen or twenty feet tall. It reminds me of the Comsuits the American Military has started using in Iraq back in the real world. I naturally make my way over to it.

  “This is… steam-powered?” I ask, running my hand along a piston on the back of its knee.

  “Correct! The Steamsuit EXO 76, based on the Andromeda model used in the real world but, of course, Proxima World specific. They were banned about a year ago.”

  “Does it work?”

  I look up at the thing and see the mounting ladder for the operator. The pilot’s seat is button-tufted Corinthian leather; the waldo controllers are brass and ivory, teak and polished aluminum. It’s beautifully cared for, cleaned and detailed like a 1957 Chevy Bel Air Nomad at the Museum of Classic Detroit Iron. Not bad, not bad at all.

  “Alas, that would be in direct contravention of the latest updates to the Official Steam Laws of Armed Conflict, handed down from on high, so to speak, by our wise, just, and benevolent NVA Seed,” he says as he runs his hand through his beard. “I purchased this after the most recent war from a gentleman from Babbage Town who was also not a Marauder, and only took it out to pillage and murder on Sundays.”

  I notice that he doesn’t actually say no.

  “The last war?” Frances asks. She’s standing with her hands behind her back, polite as ever.

  “The War of Northern Aggression, my pulchritudinous young non-Marauder, but don’t spare it another thought; the foes are vanquished, the honors distributed. The world looks just the same, and history ain’t changed – or something. Anyway, weapons and gear.” He turns to the wall. “Now … where is it?”

  The shop owner stomps his foot, which gets some gears cranking beneath him. The floor rises, allowing the bearded man to travel to the top of his weapon cache, leaving Frances and myself about nine feet beneath him. “Here it is!” he calls down to us, his hands cupped around his mouth.

  I give Frances a funny look and she laughs. “Just play along, unless you want to wind up as Quantum-cicle.”

  “Roger that.”

  The shop owner moves around collecting his things. He mumbles to himself, runs through some math equations aloud and claps his hands together, making a show of whatever it is he is doing. Soon his platform descends.

  “The first thing both of you need are Steam Packs. You,” he says, waving me forward. “Put this on, tough guy.”

  He tosses me a backpack, leather, with a metal canister attached by buckles to its body.

  “It’s a piston engine,” he explains, before I can ask. “The intake port is there, the exhaust port there. Air comes in and steam is produced. Exhaust exits from the pipe at the bottom of the pack. Attach the tube to the port on your arm.” My hand comes to my shoulder and I find a retractable cable. Stringing it down along my arm, I stick the nozzle in the correct port. The backpack vibrates and my life bar comes alive. “Will this keep me from dying?” I ask.

  “No, but it will keep your health status at an optimum level. For milady,” he says, turning to Frances, “I have the same thing, but slightly smaller and more feminine, suggestive even.”

  He hands her a shoulder pack with a strap that goes across her chest. She attaches the cable to her arm and the pistons start up on her back, making a sound which resembles a muffled typewriter.

  Rocket: Looks good, Frances!

  “The next thing the two of you need are some upgraded weapons! Speak softly and carry a big stick – the bigger the better!”

  “What’s wrong with my wrist gun?” I ask, looking down at it. It’s not the most powerful thing I’ve owned in a dreamworld, but it’s definitely handy.

  “That little thing?” He frowns like a petulant Chrismahanukwanzivus bringer of toys. “That’s the best you can do? A big, bad, rough, tough, smack-talking not-Marauder like you? Ha! My doo-dad is bigger than that!”

  “It’s not that bad.”

  “Pfft! Watch and learn, Young Padawan.” He brandishes a serrated sword with a five-inch shotgun barrel attached to the handle. “Add a little boom to your stab.” Like a martial arts master, he demonstrates how one would theoretically use the sword and fire the weapon. “Say one opponent is here, and the other one is on your other side. You cut right and turn your wrist back, aiming the barrel in the other direction. Two birds with one stone. It’s delightful!”

  “It’s not bad … ”

  “I call it the Slice Bang.”

  “Thank you, sensei,” I say as I take the weapon from him. The handle is gilded, adorned with the unnecessary curlicue and filigree embellishments that seem to permeate Steam. Still, it is killer-diller. A few practice swipes later and I’m ready to shiv some Reapers.

  “For the lady, a shoulder pad with an attached steam missile aka a Shoulder Rocket. It loops under your arm here and sits right over your shoulder, like this.” He waves Frances forward and attaches it to her. “Hook this portion into the gears on your left arm … ”

  Gears crank on Frances’ arms, accepting the enhancement.

  “That’s ridiculous … ”

  “No, it is world appropriate. You won’t be breaking the rules by using this. You will be breaking the rules if you whip out an RPG. Where there’s a will, there’s a way; and where there’s a way, there’s a buyer.” The shop owner makes the universal sign for money by rubbing his thumb and two fingers together. “Now then, my tooled up kameraden: from the lofty twin peaks of shooterationism and slashatization … ” he casts an appreciative look at Frances’ décolletage … ”to the more mundane but still not-too-shabby depths of compensatory remuneration.”

  “The shakedown,” I say, looking to Frances. “How much will this stuff cost us?”

  He looks at me, shakes his head, sighs. “My young friend, if I may be as so bold as to offer some free friendly advice? As difficult as it may be for you to believe, there are those who might find your constant carping, and dare I say it – pissing and moaning – just the slightest bit tedious, and in fact take umbrage at your unrelenting and unwarranted denigration of goods and services of undeniable quality, so much so, in point of fact that they would be sore tempted to put their pointy-toed size fourteen and a half elf slippers so far up your ass that you’d be tasting shoe leather for a month. Not, of course, that I would ever count myself amongst that number, but I can certainly see how some might be disposed to feel that way.”

  Frances snickers. I give her the it wasn’t me face.

  Beardy continues, “I must say, however, that as charming and salubrious as I find your company to be, circumstances require me to affix the customary fifteen per cent PUWYB surcharge to your bill.”

  ~*~

  We leave the shop broke as a joke. The Steam Pack stays on and the Slice Bang goes into my inventory list, item 565. I’m itching to use it, but the time will come and it’ll be there, waiting for me. The Shoulder Rocket perches on Frances Euphoria’s shoulder like a pirate’s avian accomplice, ready to blow something to smithereens.

  Frances reads the bill as we walk, and suddenly guffaws, “Oh this is great! The fifteen per cent PUWYB surcharge? Putting Up With Your Bullshit! That’s so funny.”

  “Yeah, a genuine hoot-fest,” I grumble.

  Rocket: Select the compass I gave you and follow the yellow line.

  Item 561 comes up and a broken yellow line appears in my display. It cuts north, left at the next alley.

  Rocket: The line leads to the entry point for Ray Steampunk’s airship. From there, you’re on your own. By foot, it will take you at least an hour. You can cut this time by running at your top speeds, which will deplete your life bars – world rules. Your new Steam Packs will keep your life bars full, so problem solved. Remember, Steam is an obstacle-free world, which means you can run without worrying about hitting something.

  “Why didn’t you tell us about t
his earlier?” I ask.

  Rocket: You didn’t have Steam Packs.

  “Why didn’t you give us Steam Packs?”

  Rocket: I spent most of the initial budget on clothing and other gear.

  “It’s fine … ” Frances Euphoria arches an eyebrow at me. I get the urge to pull her into my arms and I stuff it back down – not here, not anywhere.

  “You ready?” I drop down and stretch, just to get a rise out of Frances. “Who do you think is faster, you or me?”

  “See you there.”

  Everything blurs as we sprint at our top speed, the broken yellow compass line beckons us onward. Bursts of light and color fill my peripheral vision; the terrain blue shifts as I approach and red shifts as it recedes behind me. Frances is clearly visible out in front, her arms moving rapidly, her skirt and ponytail flying behind her, her hat still securely perched at a jaunty angle, pheasant feathers whipping in her slipstream. I increase my speed, pull up alongside her; she laughs over her shoulder, puts her head down, zooms away from me, vanishes in the distance. I’m going as fast as I can go – I don’t have any more. I follow the yellow brick road and enjoy the sensation of surrealistic super speed.

  Lightning streaks, life of the Flash. My world is distortion, a smudge of impressions that make no sense at my current pace. Wind resistance non-existent, I exist in a vacuum held together by a broken yellow line, a suture separating my new false reality from the false reality I already exist in. Laughter comes and I let it spill from my lips; for humanity, for the fact I’m doing what I’m doing in the world in which I’m doing it – this to be interpreted in any way it seems fit.

  I am the signal of a neuron travelling down an axon, gapping synaptic gaps, synapsing, releasing chemical messengers, triggering electric charges, dispersing to the other sectors of the brain, returning before the message can be processed.

  My first name almost makes sense at this speed. My last name doesn’t do me justice.

  ~*~

  We slow and the world slows with us. Faces come into view, the clinks and clangs of the city of Locus hits my ears. Metal meets metal, twists metal, boils water, releases steam, moves pistons, hisses air, toots and leaks oil. The attention to detail here is stunning.

  “Want to race back?” I ask Frances. Nothing like a little grandstanding to reset the mood.

  “You want to lose again?”

  “Ouch.”

  We’re at the base of Clockpunch Mountain now. A man hawks tickets in front of a cable car filled with people.

  “Say mister, you gonna buy a ticket or what?”

  One glance down and I see a small fry in an orange-checked sack coat and a little red bowtie. He’s got a lollipop in his mouth, but the way he rolls it around reminds me of Winston Churchill.

  “Come on, Jules,” a woman in a white top hat says. Her dress is skintight and lacy. Draped around her neck is a fox fur with the head still attached, with beady little eyes that follow me.

  “Your kid?” I say as she passes.

  “Have a problem with that, mister?” the little twerp asks.

  My hand comes up to access my inventory list and Frances pulls it down. “Remember, we’re NPCs,” she says as they pass. Besides, there’s no telling what the actual relationship is there. The woman could be a Brazilian man and the kid could be a lonely barista in Brooklyn.

  “Or it really could be her kid … ”

  “That’s possible too. Some parents spend more time with their children in Proxima Worlds than they do the real world. A recent study showed that … ”

  “I get it Frances,” I say, winking at her. A number flips down above the ticket booth, advertising that there are only six seats left. “We’d better hurry.”

  We approach the window to find an NPC steam-robot, if that’s what it could be called, selling tickets. His entire body is made of cranking gears and there is a huge mustache on his face, reminiscent of Mr. Potato Head.

  “Two tickets,” Frances says.

  I hear a compression sound as the robot springs to life, mechanically taking a ticket from a stack and slipping it through the slot separating us. He does this operation again, and it is at this point that I realize he doesn’t have legs – only a torso.

  “Four shillings,” the robot says. “Eight shillings if you would like a souvenir.”

  “What type of souvenir?” I ask.

  His head turns to me, awkward and stiff. “A postcard of your photograph in front of Mr. Steampunk’s gate mailed to your home in the real world.”

  “We don’t need that,” Frances says.

  “Okay,” I tell the robot, “one pass with the souvenir postcard and one without.”

  Frances laughs to herself as we make our way to the cable car platform.

  “What’s buzzin’ cuzzin?” I ask with a grin. A digital fog has settled, making it difficult to see the two moons that always sit over Steam.

  “A postcard?”

  “I want to remember what you look like in your steampunk gear.”

  “Stop it,” she says, pushing me playfully.

  “A picture is worth a thousand words, right?”

  Rocket: I have plenty of pictures of Frances and you in your steampunk gear. I can forward them to you if you’d like.

  “I’ll stick with the postcard.”

  Chapter Eight

  We reach the top of Clockpunch Mountain and file out.

  “Three minutes until the next departure!” The conductor shouts. The cable car to Ray Steampunk’s airship is something else entirely. The passenger compartment is a weird amalgam of classic San Francisco cable car and 1950s Greyhound bus with touches of Dr. Seuss, replete with teak and mahogany structural elements, brass and chrome fitments, and the obligatory garishly gilded golden gew-gaws, curlicues and filigrees. It sits on a frame, the rear end of which tapers upward into an Eiffel-esque open work support arm with dual pulleys that ride on the overhead cable.

  The motive engine is especially surrealistic, even for a fantasy dreamworld. At the front of the frame is a large ovoid brass pressure tank that’s decorated like a Fabergé Easter egg, only gaudier. From this protrudes an enormous pair of metallic chicken legs, complete with scaly toes and claws. The pressure egg with legs sits astride a unicycle mounted in another openwork support arm; the chicken feet curl around the pedals and firmly grip them. A painted and pinstriped chain runs from around the unicycle flywheel to drive trolley atop the cable.

  The conductor pulls over a large, ornate clutch lever and sets the catch. As he connects a hose from the steam tower to the Easter egg tank the legs begin pedaling, the flywheel rotates the chain, and all kinds of unnecessary gears in the drive trolley hum and whir.

  “Pretty, isn’t it?” Frances asks, her eyes reflecting the city below.

  Locus boasts numerous ornate smokestacks; there are airships of all descriptions in the air above the city. Buildings that resemble the homes of nineteenth century Russian oligarchs are lit by enormous gas mantle lanterns. In the distance, a structure houses a giant engine with spider-like ducts that sink into the earth. Clock towers of all sizes tick-tock in a way that would drive Captain Hook mad – Steam is otherworldly, an amalgamation of a present and a past which never existed until now, the digital future.

  “It has its charm, but it’s nothing like my old stomping grounds.”

  I recall the layout of The Loop, from The Mondegreen Hotel to Devil’s Alley, from The Pier to The Badlands – there’s no place like home, said Ms. Gale, and maybe she was right.

  “All aboard!”

  I hustle to the front of the cable car, hoping to get a view of the airship as we approach it. We haven’t really discussed what we’ll do once we get there, and I have a feeling that simply asking to speak to Ray Steampunk won’t do the trick. Fat Cats behind mahogany desks aren’t usually the most accessible people in any world – real or VE.

  The stop-gate drops into its slot, the conductor lets out the clutch and the cable car jolts forward. The la
rge metal chicken legs drive the unicycle flywheel and we move steadily towards the airship. I laugh – I can’t help myself; a gaudy brass Easter egg with metallic chicken legs pedaling a rococo fantasy cable car up to the Graf Zeppelin’s ultra-big brother is the second-craziest thing I’ve ever seen.

  People decked out in steampunk garb point and chatter and exclaim all around us; every single passenger is accessorized with some kind of heavy welding or aviator goggles and not one of them is wearing them. As you’d expect, their conversations are Steam specific, ranging from Reapers, to the best place to buy a steamcycle, to the battles taking place in Morlock against the Boilerplate Army. I catch the lil’ half pint from earlier, sitting in his lady’s lap, necking, and playing international appendages – Roman Hands and Russian Fingers. I guess he probably really isn’t a kid after all. In a different world I’d toss him out the window, use him for target practice.

  Frances squeezes my hand. “You ready?”

  “For what?” I ask.

  “Well, we may have to … break our cover to get close to Ray Steampunk.”

  “I have no problem with that,” I say, thinking of my Slice Bang.

  An ornate speaking tube in the corner of the cable car crackles into life:

  ~Your attention please! Your attention please! Reapers have been reported in the vicinity of the airship! Logout or prepare to defend yourself! Logout or prepare to defend yourself!~

  Too late.

  ~*~

  The rear end of the cable car explodes in a cloud of digital shrapnel and debris. Injured players trail plumes of steam as they spill out of the gaping rent like M&Ms dumped from a king-sized bag. The quicker players log out before they plunge to their virtual deaths; the stunned and injured splatter like algorithmic bugs on a digital windshield as they hit the ground below. I rapidly equip my Slice Bang and prepare to activate my advanced abilities bar when two Reapers sporting steam-powered jetpacks surge into the open cabin, pumping the air full of bullets.

  Frances pushes me out of the way, yells “Clear behind!” and in a whir of cogs and gears fires her Shoulder Rocket.