Dolly lies comfortably at her ease in the short-cropped grass in Pippa’s pen. She’s naked as usual, and wears a crown of wildflowers. The sheep cuddles up next to her and contentedly chews her cud while Stinkerbell performs lazy figure eights and juggles a cascade of sheep droppings almost as an afterthought.
I sigh as I remember how Dolly used to be, but at least she looks happy.
Burly nudges up next to me and gets close enough for his bristly beard to scrape against my skin. “Doctor Bloody Quymn ‘as taken it upon ‘erself to keep ‘er little ‘ouse of ‘orrors secret. It’ll be a bloody cock up if you ask me. She gave us a real bollocking last night too, a real ear-bashing.” He sighs miserably.” Believe me, mate, you should ‘ave ‘eard what she said about Rupert Tambling-Goggin’s mum. Mad as a bag of ferrets!”
“Rupert Tambling-Goggin?”
“The tall one with the bucket ‘at.”
“Oh, you mean Bucket Hat,” I tell him.
“Wankin’ Bloody Yanks and their daft nicknames.” He grinds his fist in his hand for a moment. “But there’s not much we can do about the colonies anymore, now is there?”
“Easy, big guy. If the hat fits, well, you know the rest. Say, what’s going down in that shack next to Chrono’s blacksmithery? Is that the Chef’s doing?”
Between Chrono’s place and the Brit’s castle is a beautifully restored, highly polished triple-axle Airstream travel trailer with white wall tires and deep-dish five-slot mag wheels. It glistens in the sun like one of Mirror’s Brobdingnagian silver turds, and it sports various ornate, steampunk-esque smokestacks and ventilators which emit occasional cotton candy puffs of pastel-colored mist. Jim the Doorman stands guard underneath the awning that shades the entrance. He’s outfitted with an oversized suit of armor, also highly polished, and a chaingun.
“Mr. Hughes,” he calls to me. “Would you care to step over here for just a moment?”
“It’s Quantum, Jim. What’re you doing here?”
“Of course, Mr. … er … Quantum. If you please, I have something I’ve been saving for you.”
I kick open the door and walk out into the courtyard. He brings the chaingun up and blows me into drifting vapor before I can take another step.
I respawn immediately to see Jim, Burly, Doc, and Aiden laughing like nitrous-huffing madmen. Burly wipes his eyes, bumps fists with Jim. Even Sophia seems to find it humorous.
“MOTHER PUS BUCKET, JIM! What was that all about?” I call out the window. Like hell I’m going out there again!
“Fair’s fair, Mr. Quantum. You’ve killed me five hundred and thirty-one times.”
“Five hundred and thirty-six, according to my calculations! So anyhoo,” I turn to Burly, who’s still giggling like a giddy schoolgirl, “what’s with the trailer?”
“Wizardous.”
“Say what, now?”
“Dirty Dave finally got the bleedin’ recipe right.” Burly sniffs, wipes his nose and shoots me a devilish grin. “The stuff is the mutt’s nuts for certain sure, with no ‘angover neither. You ever try that Riotous they sold between Three Kings Park and The Badlands? The pink stuff that was cut with cat salts?”
“I plead the fifth.”
He gives me a knowing grin. “We calls it ‘Right to Silence’ in Blighty, don’tcha know. Anyhoo, our old chum Dirty Dave has refined the recipe with Tritania potions and products and ‘as started making it available it at apothecaries across Polynya – Doctor Dandy Dave’s Wondrous Wacky Wizardous. Already got ‘isself a few enemies, and the authorities aren’t too keen on an immiNPC introducing an unsanctioned recreational pharmaceutical, hence Jim and ‘is shooter.”
“So, Dirty Dave has a meth lab out here.”
“Meth lab? I should bloody well ‘ope not. What sort of establishment do you think I run ‘ere? Criminals have meth labs; Dave ‘as an apothecatical manufactory. As different as chalk and cheese if you ask me, mate.”
“Well, fair enough I suppose, but do we – and by ‘we’ I mostly mean you lot – need the additional attention? And calling it ‘Wizardous’? Could he have been any more blatant?”
“Can’t ‘elp you there, mate; ‘e’s a big NPC, and we’ll ‘ave to see ‘ow Tritanian authorities, the dwarf mafia, the orc goombas, and the troll triads react. The goblins, for what it’s worth, are eating the shit up. Literally, mate. They eat it, crap it out, free-base their stools and bleedin’ well ingest it again.” Burly wipes his hands. “Right then, enough chin wagging. Time for a bit o’ fun, eh lads? ” And with that, he reappears outside in a green Tritania Immigration and Customs Enforcement jacket and an oversized butterfly net. The Battling Brits scatter, but not before Burly snags the Quiet One in his net. Burly looks up to the window, shoots me a thumbs up, and shouts, “Next time, I’ll just build a bloody wall!”
I tune back into to hear Sophia talking about a spawn point in Hyperborea that will make it easier for Mirror to pick us up. I hardly listen.
Outside, Dolly slowly makes her way towards our guild door. She glances over at me and stops dead in her tracks; I see something flash behind her eyes. She recognizes me, she really sees me, and I’m just about to call out to her when a hand grips my shoulder.
“You ready?” Doc asks.
“Yeah,” I tell him, “just having a flashback.”
“Let it go,” he sighs. “Sometimes it’s the only thing you can do.”
~*~
The Knights of Non Compos Mentis spawn several furlongs from a rustic collection of thatched cottages, cow byres, orchards and fenced pastures with geese, goats and llamas. Cumulus clouds accumulated above this scene of bucolic splendor partially screen the homes from the blazing Tritanian sun. A road surfaced in Texas-shaped yellow brick pavers leads off to the distant foothills, and I can make out a small hermit’s enclave to the northeast. I equip Mirror’s necklace, item 574, and hold it high in the air. A corona of light signals that the dragon has been summoned.
“That should do it,” I say as I lower the necklace.
“Pretty place, isn’t it?” Sophia asks.
A Proxima avatar’s face closely resembles that of the real person. The image updates with every login via the 3-D optics and advanced facial graphing software that’s built in to the NV Visor. It’s generally spot-on, unless a player decides to modify things in-game like Sophia always does. Gone are her Asian features; instead she’s chosen the large silvery-blue eyes, Spock-type ears, and white-white-white plutonium blonde hair.
“What?” she asks.
“Yeah, it’s pretty. What’s this place called?”
“It’s known as Tlapa, but the original name was Tlamo. I almost purchased a vacation home there, but I decided on my place in, ahem, Valhalla instead.”
She huffs and sighs and makes all sorts of non-verbal cues to signal that she still wants me to apologize for stiffing the Empress and taking Good King Whatzizname’s better deal. Well don’t hold your breath, Toots, because monkeys will fly out of my butt before that ever, ever happens.
Doc jumps in and shuts her off before she can expound upon how hard-done by she’s been. “Yeah, we’re all just as upset as can be about you losing the pretend villa you paid real cash for because Quantum made a command decision that benefitted the rest of the team.”
The stink-eye she gives him is easily an eight-and-a-half or nine on the ten point Acme Stink-Eye scale, but it rolls right off him. At least now she’ll keep all her ‘lost villa’ whining to herself – until the next time she has a chance to bring it up.
“Incoming! Eleven o’ clock, thirty degrees above the horizon!” Rocket points at a bright blip in the sky heading our way.
“Nice one, young Rudraksh. That’s exactly right,” observes the cloven-hoofed commando. Rocket’s grin lights up his phiz like the Fourth of July.
The mirrored dragon grows and grows until she’s hovering just above us, her shadow large, magnificent, and imposing. We get out of the way to let her land and she does so, slowly, as the wind lashes
around her. Once she’s grounded, her wings come up and to the sides.
“You called?” Mirror asks in an irritated voice.
“What? You were busy or something?” I ask.
She huffs, and a pixilated cloud of silvery smoke billows from her nostrils. “I was having drorikh with some friends.”
“Dragons drink dragon’s milk?” Sophia asks. “That’s odd.”
Mirror scowls at the Dream Team’s brainiac. “What’s odd about that? Human’s drink another animal’s milk all together. That’s flat-out gross, if you ask me.”
“Says the dragon who eats Yoshis and other varmints whole,” I say.
“There’s a difference, honey,” she tells me, “a big difference.” Mirror licks her lips. “Who’s the faun? It’s been ages since I’ve eaten cabrito, ages.”
Frances Euphoria: Uh-oh. Watch out, Doc!
Our War Faun trots over to Mirror and performs a sweeping courtier’s bow. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure of meeting such a magnificent dragon as yourself, and while I’m flattered that you think you’d find me a toothsome morsel, I’m afraid that you wouldn’t find me to your taste at all.”
“Oh? Why’s that?”
“Too old and dry and bitter. Besides, if you tried to eat me,” he equips his katana and ko-wakizashi, “I’d be likely to get stuck in your craw.”
Mirror laughs. “A feisty faun – even tastier!”
~*~
I can the cowboy act this time and let Mirror do what she does best – fly, flirt, and talk smack. She seems to like Doc, and not just as a potential Scooby snack. Much of her Finbar Saunders-like biologically unlikely innuendo and double entendres are directed at him; he, in turn, just eats it up. Sophia sits next to Rocket, and the slipstream whips her hair all around her face – and into his. Together, they regularly, almost compulsively check the coordinates of the island turtle’s spawning points against a, floating illuminated number.
“Didn’t you say something about the time?” I shout over the roaring wind.
“The turtle should appear at the coordinates in eight minutes and thirty-one seconds.” Sophia taps her finger against the illuminated coordinates – 86.753.0.9 – and a clock appears.
“You call that a clock?” I equip item 585, Flavor Flav’s embiggened timepiece. “Now this is old school!”
Sophia’s eyes go wide. “What the hell is that thing?”
“Only the most expensive timepiece ever produced.” I hold up the necklaced Graves pocket watch, which is about the size of a kettlebell. I picked it up off Nicky the Wig, the damn clown that decided to show his plug-ugly kiester in The Loop. You’d think it was made from depleted uranium or something, it’s so damn heavy.
“Aircraft dead ahead!” Doc yells, drops his dummy-corded monocular – nice to see that he’s old school too – flattens himself against Mirror’s reflective scaly hide and digs in like a tic on a fat poodle’s ass. The rest of us slack-jawed, mouth-breathing looky-loos just gawk and point and ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ as the mahoosive rococo airship wallows right into our path.
It’s an over-decorated, elongated flying sailing ship the size of the USS RICHARD M. NIXON; instead of masts and sails, intricately crafted rigging suspends the hull from an even larger gas bag of Hindenburg-like proportions. On either side of the hull proper are four rows of oars that provide its motive force, and they kick up enough rough air to make us amateur dragon riders scrabble to hang on. The tremendous flying menace to navigation sails on undisturbed, as if a dragon-load of travelers is just too inconsequential to notice.
We nearly get the Martin-Baker treatment when Mirror banks hard right, down, and half-left to avoid a mission-aborting, fiery mid-air navigational boo-boo. Mirror screeches, snorts, and struggles to stabilize herself – and more importantly, us – in the buffeting. She spits a puff of silvery upchuck, which she uses to stabilize her body in the air.
“Assholes!” she roars. “They came out of nowhere!”
“You know, Mirror,” says I, “I got one or two little somethings that are just the ticket for Tritanian Air Rage. May I suggest item 523 – the FIM 92J Stinger surface to air missile for that old-fashioned insurgency feel? Or perhaps item 100, the stylish but tasteful BFG 9000 is also always highly thought of.”
Aiden shouts, “The plasma weapon! I think that floating monument to bad taste and conspicuous consumption is much too big for the Stinger.”
“Well-reasoned advice, as always, Mr. Ten. BFG 9000 it is.” The weapon pops out of inventory and into my eager hands, and even through my armor I can feel the radiation prickle my skin as the plasma chamber charges.
Frances Euphoria: Quantum!
“Seriously?” Sophia slaps the back of my head. “Always with the bang-bang, shoot ‘em up? Destroying an airship full of innocent people and NPCs is your response to Mirror’s sub-optimal flying skills? What’s wrong with you!?”
That really, really does it, but before I can complete my turn and plasmatize Sophia’s avatar into its component atoms, Mirror roars, “Sub-optimal flying skills? Let’s see what you’ve got then!” She flaps her wings, snaps her tail like a whip and generates a standing wave up her spine that catapults Sophia and Rocket off her back.
Rocket does not shriek like a sissy as he suddenly and unexpectedly finds himself un-dragoned and subject to the full effects of gravity – and good on him. To his credit, he instead utters deep and manly screams, and with much arm flapping does his damnedest to fly. With a snap-roll and a twist of her neck, Mirror pointedly ignores Sophia, gently catches Rocket in her mouth and deposits him on her back.
Sophia floats in front of Mirror with her hair beating in the wind and three parhelia above her head. She is, to not put too fine a point on it, just a mite peeved.
“Dundrekh droga!”
She tries her floating dominance thing, but Mirror matches her step-up for step-up.
Doc chuckles most unpleasantly. “This should be the tits. Five bucks says the flying lizard takes her down in one bite. Oh, and hang on again, just in case.”
Me? I’m not so sure about Mirror handing Sophia her ass. True, it’s easy to dismiss Sophia as a pompous, ineffectual, opinionated, self-important lightweight; a Dr. Smith instead of a Dr. Lecter, but I get the feeling that in Tritania, here and now, she could open up an industrial-strength can of whoop-ass and apply it most effectively. However it plays out though, it should, as Doc observes, be the tits. I equip item 38, my self-replenishing Styrofoam cooler full of frosty-cold beer – this time it’s Lone Star – and hand them around. Rocket hesitates. “You too,” I tell him.
My XXL bucket of freshly popped cheesy garlic Alamo Drafthouse popcorn appears in my lap. “Item 44,” I tell the guys, “produce a bowl if you want some.”
As lightning strikes in the air behind Sophia, and the three parhelia above her head elongate, Rocket produces the gold-chased goblin skull beer stein he won from Doc in a poker game; Aiden has a Wedgewood Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee soup tureen; Doc produces a large silver trophy cup, the base of which proclaims ‘Overall Poultry Show Grand Champion, Blue Bonnet Classic 2048’, and the never-ending XXL popcorn bucket has enough to fill them all with plenty to spare.
We have just enough time for a handful or two of crunchy, cheesy, garlicy goodness followed by a delightful swallow of cheap beer before Doc remarks, “As tasty as this popcorn and beer is, and as much as I hate to be a party-pooper and interrupt a potentially epic cat fight, we’d best get to the coordinates, otherwise we’ll have to wait even longer.”
Frances Euphoria: I was wondering how long it’d take you two to tell them to quit horsing around!
Doc: What can I say, Frances, YOLO.
Frances Euphoria: ???
Doc stuffs another handful of popcorn in his mouth and munches it as he says, “I guess that acronym doesn’t apply to dreamworlds, come to think of it.”
“All right, already.” I pat Mirror on the back of the head. “Easy up there, petite shiny dr
agon gal, we have places to go and people to see.” To the annoying mind-mage I say, “Sophia, getcher ass over here and quit riling up the dragon!”
The parhelia above Sophia’s head dim. “The dragon and I will settle this later.” She floats to the left and Mirror follows her with her snout. She gnashes her teeth once, which sets up a discordant jingle-jangle-jingle in her scales.
“Hang on,” the still disgruntled dragon directs. “RAMMING SPEED!” and we are off like Teflon poop through a supersonic goose, tearing through wispy clouds as we arc towards the Endless Sea.
~*~
“We have three minutes before the island appears; it’ll stay appeared for twenty seconds,” Rocket reminds us, “then it’ll disappear again.”
Mirror is a little higher in the sky than I’d like her to be, but seeing as how we don’t know what the terrain on the island is like, I guess our current altitude makes sense. In-game gravity is giving me a serious case of tummy butterflies – the snappiest dragon this side of Polynya is arced forward and sailing in a tight circle, ready to dive bomb when I give the go-ahead. I check my Flavor Flav watch again and return it to my inventory list. The damn thing is giving me a crick in my neck.
Aiden makes the sign of the cross and winks at me.
“Thanks, Your Holiness!” I thumbs-up and wink back.
“Twenty seconds, right?” Mirror asks.
“No,” Rocket tells her, “now it’s two-and-a-half minutes until it appears. Twenty seconds after that it disappears. Then the cycle repeats, and we’ll have to wait thirty more minutes for it to come around again.”
“Listen up troops,” says Doc. “No telling what we’re dropping into, so guns up before we hit. Dragon’s head is twelve o’clock, right wing three, tail six, left wing nine. When we ground, run clear of the dragon, face outboard and don’t shoot unless they shoot first. I’ll take twelve, Steamboy,” he grins and I narrow my eyes at him, “you take three, Aiden six, Rocket nine. Sophia, you go high and keep an eye out. My Spidey sense is a-tingling, so have something on deck better than rust fish or Jareth’s Balls, please.”
Cyber Noir Redux: (Book Six) (The Feedback Loop 6) Page 4
