Cyber Noir Redux: (Book Six) (The Feedback Loop 6)

by Harmon Cooper

  I wipe digital spittle from my kisser and shoulder into the swinging door of The Dragon’s Tail licensed opium den. A craggy, weathered man the size of Giant Rock blocks my way into the den proper. “Quantum? Quantum Hughes?” asks stones for brains.

  “Could be. Depends on who’s askin’.” He’s blurry, slurry double trouble; his face smeary and dreary.

  “I’m Landers. Don’t you remember me? You used to come in here all the time, back before … um ... ”

  “Hold on a sec … ” The world tilts ninety degrees around me, my stomach clenches in a Gordian knot of discomfitude, my ears water and my eyes ring, my fingers dry and my mouth sweats. Landers recognizes the signs, gets me by the shirt collar and the seat of my pants and propels me back out the swinging door and into the street. I bring up breakfast, lunch, and last night’s supper into a conveniently located storm drain. I wipe my mouth on the back of my hand and make my way back in.

  “What the hell did you eat?” Landers enquires.

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Yeah, I do, so I don’t eat any! Was it something from Chinatown? The bibimbab from Kim Jong-Poon’s Kimchi Glory Hole had me running from both ends for a week! C’mon, lemme give you a hand.”

  He more than half carries me to the nearest vacant cot in a cubicle for two. Some doped-up dizzy dame squats in Lotus on the other cot. She’s rocking the slutty Pippi Longstocking look with spider bite bruises running up and down her arms.

  “Fuh-Fuh-Frances?” I ask, “is that you?”

  Nope, nada, zero, zilch, zip. The underage ginger kid puckers her chapped lips and gets to huffing on her hookah. She takes big, Caterpillar-sized puffs off the hose as she eyeballs me with glossy green peepers and does interesting and suggestive things with her lips, her tongue and hookah’s mouthpiece. She blows smoke rings; my digital ghost steps clear out of my body, shrinks and floats into the air towards the rings. It swims through the first ring, the second, does a backspin and goes through the third, lands along her arm and crawls up to her shoulder.

  She giggles, bats her big lashes at me.

  Suddenly, I’m back in my head, flat on my back and she’s astride my hips grinding herself into me. Even more suddenly, she’s all Walking Dead and I’m hours away from The Hangover reboot. Her juju eyeballs shrivel and suck back up into her head; her face melts and runs, and a grinning skull in a red pigtailed wig leans forward to thrust its festering tongue into my mouth. I scream like a sissy and she comes at me with the good ol’ fashioned chloroform soaked handkerchief routine.

  My brass knuckles, item 229, appear in my fist, and I give ZomPippi the uppercut of two lifetimes. Out of the bed I roll and I bang my noggin on the floor. The stars, planets, and tweety birds briefly entertain me with my own private plane’arium show until a rough hand shakes me, rattles me, rolls me over and forehand-backhand slaps me in the phiz.

  Mount Landers glares down at me; Pippi has magically unzombified and is slumped against the wall with her neck at an angle that just don’t look right and her glims cocked in different directions. “What did you do to her!?” he demands.

  Old habits die hard, which seems to be the TLDR story of my life. Even in my intoxicated stupor, I manage to scroll through my list behind my back and equip my Robocop Auto 9, item 304. The weapon’s holster forms on my thigh. “Out of the way, pal.”

  He pays little mind to my warning and gets three rounds in the chest. I holster the Auto 9 and push through the beaded curtain that provides the illusion of privacy and into the hallway that connects the cubicles of the opium den. Each cubicle has its own beaded illusion, and a thick layer of smoke wafts along the ceiling in cursive skywriting that I can’t seem to read. My squash pounds like Holo-ICP and robo-KISS are staging a Chainsaw Demolition Derby Thunderdome Death Match within the confines of my cranium. Tracers of light zig and zag across my viewing pane, giving fair warning that the cat salts trip is far from over.

  Through the hall I stumble, on rubbery baby legs and melting ankles I go.

  I eventually find myself in a large circular room with no furniture save a bar in the back and pillows strewn about. Cadaverous juicy girls in frou-frou Mata Hari dresses and flapper tiaras loll on the cushions, some propped up on a single elbow, others down for the count. Bunked-up grifters lie in their laps or across their lower backs as they puff on the hookahs. A Riotous mixologist stands behind the bar working up some concoction, a pair of Leaks on his head and a tight leather vest clumping his manboobs together.

  Murder was the case that they gave me. My hand hovers over the holster on my leg; it whirs, clicks and slaps the boomstick into my grip. Three shots for the mixologist and he falls backwards, his hands flailing in front of him as he reaches for support that just ain’t there.

  The lazy lulus and limp-dicked losers on the floor don’t so much as flinch at the sound of indoor gunplay; they keep on keepin’ on, puffing and wasting away, getting high with a little help from their friends, mindlessly actualizing their defeatist desires. After shambling down a short flight of stairs, I hit the crashbar on the firedoor and spill out into the alley. Right across the way is the neoned back entrance to The Bamba Club.

  What luck!

  I’m at the Bamba’s backdoor lickety split and I stumble through on fumbly feet that feel as though Nicky the Wig’s oversized stompers might be a tight fit. A gnarled hand the size of a catcher’s mitt lands on my shoulder. “Not so fast, mistah!” barks a voice from the shadows.

  I spin out of his grip and pistol-pop the pachydermatous peckerhead with the heel of my Auto 9. He wobbles, half-shakes it off and tries to land one in my beezer. Spaghetti legs drop me to one knee, and I’m under a swing that would’ve taken my head off if it had connected. Three copper-jacketed discouragements up under his pulverizing arm and the door goon goes down. I stagger to my feet and hang another one in his ear just so he don’t pearl my harbor when I turn my back.

  Again, no one says nothing, something you gotta love about The Loop.

  I re-holster my weapon and try to settle my nerves. The fact that everything keeps changing colors doesn’t help; the fact that disjointed phrases flow like an endless puke into a urinoir is discomforting; the fact that my legs are runny Play Doh and the faces of the NPCs pass are in a state of constant flux makes my trigger finger itchy.

  A penguin-suited maître d’ guides me to a booth in the back in the corner in the dark where I can case the joint and keep my eyes peeled for trouble. I’m still as jumpy as a juiced-up jivin’ jitterbug jukin’ down jabroni lane, so I equip my deck of Camel Rares, item 175, and my silver Cyber Noir lighter, item 4. I spark one up and take a long drag off the cancer stick. A pug-faced bum in a tattered trench coat slides into the booth and takes the seat in front of me. His tie is loose and there’s blood on his upper lip. I keep my bean shooter under the table, aimed right at his matzah balls.

  “Can I help you?” I take another long drag from the smoky treat and exhale through my nostrils.

  “Maybe I can help you. You lookin’ to play, buster?” He slides a finely crafted rectangular wooden box forward on the table and opens it. Surrounded by royal blue velvet is an Uberti Cattleman with a color case-hardened frame, brass back strap and trigger guard, and rich, deep charcoal-blue cylinder and barrel. It’s been heavily engraved in the oak leaf style, and is outfitted with Sambar stag grips. He lifts the revolver out of the box, clicks the ‘hammer once, twice and gives the cylinder a spin.

  “Do I get to keep the piece if you lose?” I ash my cigarette on the ground.

  He cracks a smile. “I won’t be around to say otherwise. The name is Shepard Tenpin, but you can call me Shep.”

  “Quantum, Quantum Hughes. And you can call me … anything but Steamboy.”

  “Okay, Anything But Steamboy, spin to go first.” Shep lays the piece on the table between us and sets it in motion with a twist of his wrist, like some macabre Loop version of spin the bottle. It slows and stops with the barrel pointing at me. He cla
ps his hands and rubs them together. “Batter up!” He chortles as he nudges the hog leg to me with his forefinger.

  “I’m going to be Shep with you, Frank. I may be trippin’ balls right now, but regardless of this fact, I’ve won every game of Russian Roulette I’ve ever played. Every game, bar none.”

  “So have I,” he says with a crooked grin.

  “Then this should be interesting.” I raise the shootin’ iron to my squash, cock the hammer and pull the trigger.

  CLICK!

  “Gee whiz, you got yourself a nice piece here. Nicely balanced, really crisp trigger – I can’t wait to add it to my list.”

  Shep snorts, “Ha! Says you!”

  “Says the man who’s about to put a gun to his skull.”

  “Says the man who just did.”

  I place the revolver on the table and he takes it, cocks it, presses it against the side of his noggin and squeezes the trigger.

  CLICK!

  “Looks like we’re moving along nicely.” He flashes a gap-toothed grin and places the gun on the table. A fight breaks out on the other side of the room, and we watch it escalate from pushing and shoving to knife in the gizzard, after which the commotion dies down.

  I press the business end of the revolver to my skull, cock it and press the trigger.

  CLICK!

  Luck be a lady tonight! “Seems to me like you’re running out of luck, bub.”

  “Seems like it,” he says as he lifts the revolver to his head.

  CLICK!

  “Or maybe not. It’s all you now, Anything But Steamboy.”

  “Let’s get this over with.” I place the barrel of the gun to the side of my head, take a deep breath and raise an eyebrow at him. If I have to go this way, I’d at least like to go with a cocky expression plastered across my mug.

  CLICK!

  “Well, you’ve lost, Shep. This’ll look nice in my collection,” I observe as I reach for the box to house my new gun.

  He shakes his head, makes with a sly grin and holds his hand out. “Now you know that’s not how the game is played.”

  I place the revolver on the table and turn it to him. “Your funeral, sport.”

  He lifts it to his head, grins, and then swiftly points it right between my eyes.

  “Nope – yours!”

  BLAM!

  ~*~

  The rat bastard! I respawn in Three Kings Park. This time I’m face down on a flattened cardboard box with a steaming lump of Brown 25 just upwind of my nostrils. I shake my fist at the sky, “I already know my life is shit – no reminders necessary!”

  From raised fist to logout finger, and …

  Nope, nada, zero, zilch and most definitely zip.

  Shep’s name goes right on my shit list, the cheating bastard. Yeah, I’ve got bigger rats to kill and more pressing matters to attend to, but if he thinks he’s going to weasel out of a fair bet by pokerizing me, he has another think coming. Besides, I really want that revolver. If I ever get out of here, maybe I’ll gift Doc with it as a way of saying sorry for getting stuck again. I know he’s pissed off; I can almost feel him looking down on me now like a baleful, goaty Santa Claus. I screwed the pooch big time; I threw a wrench in our plans and I’m man enough to own up to it.

  Once I’m standing, I equip my usual Loop getup: item 111, my Rick Deckard signature model trench coat and good ol’ stag-handled 33, which I strap to my leg.

  My tape recorder, item 190, appears in my hand. “Note to self,” I say into the tape recorder, “lay off the cat salts.”

  Realizing that I haven’t played with my tape recorder in some time, I rewind to the beginning and listen in for a moment.

  “Quantum here, day 37. Nothing out of the ordinary. Same assassin came at me in the morning as usual. Other assassins came too, but this guy seemed different than the rest. Yeah, I’ve said that before. Whatever. Spent the afternoon in Chinatown at the massage parlour called Peking Funk. Can’t complain. The masseuse tried to stick a poison-tipped acupuncture needle into my throat, after the happy ending, mind you, and I was lucky to escape out of there with my life. I still don’t know why she waited until after to try and stick me; it seems like it would have been less trouble just to do it before, but I do appreciate the gesture, even though I had to kill her. Shotty seemed to the do the trick. Figuring the parlor’s madam would be coming for me soon, I added a hand mirror made of ivory to my list, item 37, to mark the day. The madam came with two goombas but I was ready with shotty. Feels good to be blastin’ rather than knucklin’ up every chance I get. I need to add a few more blasty things to my list, but shotty will do for now.”

  I press the fast forward button.

  “You never know what Dirty Dave is gonna have for you. He had some Monomolecular Wire for sale and I bought it with his life. I’m sitting in The Green Midget Café near the Mondegreen Hotel. Just for the hell of it, I strung a piece of the wire across the doorway about neck height. Every time someone walks in, it takes their head right off. The waitress was pissed at having to clean up the mess each time, but I gave her a ton of credit and told her to take a shopping day, so she’s better now. Life ain’t bad, even if I’ve been stuck in The Loop for 130 days.”

  I fast forward for a final time. It’s weird hearing my voice like this; I never knew my voice was so nasally, or maybe it’s not. Dunno, hard to tell. Personally, I always thought it sounded tough and gruff.

  “I picked up a bear trap to mark the 250th day that I’ve been trapped in The Loop. I paid for it too, like a good citizen, and like a good citizen, I didn’t torture the outdoor store employee until after I completed the transaction. Life in the fast lane. Two-face Tommy has something going on tonight, has something going on tonight, and I plan to do a little party crashing just for shiggles. Sorry I haven’t updated this thing in a while. The last update was day 240, when the day I got my Maula Pistol. The Premium Fictional Weapons Department at Dirty Dave’s Mayhem Mart has had some interesting offers this week, and trust me, I check every day that I can because the weapons are about the only thing that changes in this godforsaken hellhole. There’s seems to be a bit of Dune theme going on, starting with my Maula Pistol on day 240, my Weirding Module on day 245, and my Chaumurky poison diet cherry soda in a glass bottle, which I picked up yesterday, day 249. I’m still pissed at Dave for selling me an Infinity Gauntlet on day 246, which is supposed to do anything the wearer wants, if, and that’s a BIG if, there are six soul gems in the gauntlet. Maybe I should have checked before I bought it. Buyer’s remorse, what can I say?”

  I return the tape recorder to my list; I can listen to it another time and I’m pretty sure I stopped recording completely in the early 500s of my list, an action much more prescient than I originally anticipated it to be.

  ~*~

  Damn, item 205 is a pleasure to ride. In The Loop, my red Akira motorcycle is a Loop-appropriate aeroscycle with 550 horses of V-10 excitement throbbing between my legs – talk about bang tailin’ it!. Easy to ride too with its AI controlled overdrive transmission.

  I zip through the air traffic and use my AA bar to do a few of the flashier Hell’s Angels aerial maneuvers and mock gun runs. Not that I’m a showboat or nothing; I’m a boredboat – and this is only respawn number two. I’d hate to see how nutzo I become if I get anywhere close to day 100. Well, a hyperspin never hurt nobody until it does, and the Heartbreak Hotel quickly looms large, dead ahead and twelve o’ clock low.

  I set up for a wowsie-wow wheelie landing, and come in fast – on a fiery bike with the speed of light, a cloud of dust and a hearty Hi-Yo Quantum! The Lone Haranguer! Or somebody, or nobody if I keep up the malarky.

  I bring the front wheel down and park behind what’s left of the aeroscycle I snagged earlier. The street rats have already stripped it down to the frame and torched it, the miserable little bastards. I send Red Akira back to inventory just so they don’t get a chance at this one, too.

  Dolly’s hostile hostel looks as impenetrable as ever. Got
ta get in; gotta sweet talk to her. I equip my 125th anniversary Verdun commemorative Model 16 flammenwerfer, item 83. “Dolly! I know you can hear me. We need to talk, Doll!” I lower my voice. “Really, Doll, we need to talk. Just for a minute; I think we can figure this out. I know we can.”

  A breeze picks up and a can binks and bonks its way down the street.

  I glance up at the darkened sky, sigh ‘here goes’ and give it a try. Gasoline thickened with tar jets out of the nozzle and explodes into flames against the side of the building. The blaze animates the shadows, and for just a second, I feel a faint glimmer of hope. Then the tank runs dry, the flames die down, and nothing – not even scorch marks – except on me, from the blow back.

  Talk about a metaphor.

  Item 417, my M 72 LAW materializes in my hands, and I pop the covers and extend the tube in no time. I take a knee, line up the sights and let ‘er rip against the recalcitrant testudinal bulwark. With a very satisfying flash and boom, the warhead … has no effect.

  “So much for grand-standing,” I grit. “If you don’t want to open up, I’ll have to pry you open.”

  My Bustermarm Giant Sword, item 579 appears in my hands. I cock it over my shoulder like it’s a Brooklyn Smasher and I’m Casey at the bat, and by the time I swing it, the blade is four times the length of my body.

  The blade Ka-Chunks off the barrier without so much as chipping it, and I backpedal as the rebound drags me back.

  I get a running start, do a Superman leap, activate the AA, and smash the ridiculously oversized sword against the highly resistant wall o’ frustration. It’s not often that one gets to actually experience the irresistible force/immovable object conundrum, and I’m here to tell ya that it ain’t no giggle.

  I’m stuck mid-air bearing down on the Citadel of Dolly’s Angst, trying to willpower the damn blade through the barrier. The contact point flares through red, orange, and yellow, then blue-white electricity arcs away in all directions as I still bear down. The grip of the sword throbs and pulsates in my hands, and a sparkling dark energy spirals up my arms.