The Mechanical Heart: (Book Five) (Sci-Fi LitRPG Series) (The Feedback Loop 5)

by Harmon Cooper

  I grip her shoulders and pull her in. She arches her back and meets my gaze with eyes full of nothing. “Oh, Dolly, please! Don’t you remember anything about us?” I might just as well be addressing a display window femmikin, for all the response I get. “You have to recognize me, you just have to!”

  “No. Who are you?” she finally asks.

  Not even ‘no, sorry’ – just ‘no’. “Dolly, snap out of it!”

  “Quantum.”

  I drop my hands from her shoulders and sigh miserably. “I know, Sophia, we should logout. This is too much, Zedic, this, whatever this is, Veenure. My brain hurts; I need a break, a vacation, the stiffest Jack and Coke money can buy, a three-day weekend in the Poconos.”

  Dolly leans against the side of the table. Her fingers contort as she forms a large blade. Silver ripples of symbiote run up her arm and cover her face to form a fearsome Samurai’s somen with Statue of Liberty spikes and a piranha-toothed grill.

  “Easy, Doll,” I tell her.

  A flash of light and the Chef, the Saucier and Jim the Doorman materialize along with Mierda the poo fairy. Dolly locks eyes on the golden crop dusting sprite and licks her lips like she wants a little Sylvester and Tweety action.

  “We’ve got the Chronoton!” the Chef announces. In the process of pointing his finger in the air, he purposefully flicks a good-sized dollop of fecal matter onto my left stomper. “Sorry about that!” he says with a devilish grin. “Mistress Dolly,” he takes off his toque, holds it over his heart and gives her a courtier’s bow. The Saucier and Jim the Doorman follow his example. Dolly’s witchblades settle back into her body and her face returns to normal.

  The fairy comes in for a closer look at her. “Hello ImmiNPC.”

  “You guys are late!” I growl. If we were in The Loop, these three would already be goners. Scratch that, four. I’m not above taking out a pixie! Shoulda, coulda, woulda – I know – but today is just not the day to show up late.

  “I said two or three days.” Miedra stops inches away from my face. “What part of ‘two or three days’ did you not understand?”

  The golden Thulean tattoos add glitter to her every movement as she slowly, painfully, jerks and tugs a huge sack of metal out of thin air. The sack hits the ground with a clatter and clank. “This stuff isn’t easy to find, you know.”

  “Zedic is dead,” I tell them, like it matters to those who only exist in a dreamworld. “He was one of my partners in the RW. If you had hurried, he’d still be alive now. Tell me again why I shouldn’t murdalize all four of ya.”

  Mierda queefs gold dust and uses it to propel away from my snarling face. “There’s an old Fecal Pixie saying that goes, ‘dead isn’t half bad when life isn’t shit.’ I hope that helps some!”

  “Keep it up, Stinkerbell,” I mutter as I wave away the cloud of gold dust.

  Sophia waits for Dolly to pass in front of her. My main squeeze for two subjective years gets on her haunches in front of the bag of Chronoton and starts going through it, arranging the hunks of rock by size.

  “We could still make a Reality Splitter,” the Dream Team’s poindexter finally says. “If Chrono is still with us.”

  “Screw him. We have Dirty Dave.”

  “Dave isn’t bad, but Chrono may know more about working with this material. He seems easier to manage too.”

  I turn to her. “Are you kidding me? Dave is an NPC; he can tap into a wide spectrum of metallurgy knowledge. Look, Sophia, I just want to logout and spend the rest of the day trying to wrap my head around all this, from Zedic to the NVA Seed going through a bag of metallic butt-nuggets.”

  The Saucier cries, “Butt-nuggets? Bon dieu de bon dieu!”

  “It is-a beautiful. A-BEAUTIFUL!” The Chef’s exaggerated Mario accent makes my trigger finger itchy. “A-one of a kind!” He kisses his stained and malodorous fingers.

  Mierda drops to Dolly’s shoulder and sits with her left leg crossed over her right knee. “I’m sure this human of yours has an RPC somewhere. All of you commoners do.”

  ‘A reborn player character?’ I look to Sophia. “Does he?”

  “We never talked about,” she says, “if anyone knows, it’d be his husband.” Her breath catches and she chokes back a sob. “It’s like he’s here and he’s not here. I feel like I could just logout and catch him as he gets out of the vat next to me, but I know that’s not the case. I know that he’s gone and part of me doesn’t want to logout, to face it.”

  “I’m right there with you, sister.”

  She laughs through her tears. “Ha! You as my brother, imagine that. We would have killed each other by the time we reached puberty.”

  “Yeah, probably.”

  She lifts her hand to logout and I do the same. “Just so you know, I was right about one thing.”

  “Just one thing? What one thing was that?”

  “About Dolly.”

  I sigh and lower my hand. “Look Sophia, I’m not going to ask fourteen questions just to find out what you’re talking about. If you got something to tell me, tell me.”

  “I spent quite a bit of time working this out last night. As I predicted, Dolly purposefully modified her code to prevent info dumps. By doing so, she’s placed her algorithmic DNA, Digital Neuronal Autoconstruct, in a positive feedback loop. Think of it like this: A produces more of B, which produces more of A, which produces more of B, and so on. However, each time this happens, something is stripped from the original A. My point is: she’s only going to get worse. And I think you’d be happy to know that she’s actually fighting it; she’s actually trying to break free of the loop that she herself created. So it’s a positive feedback loop.”

  “So she’s resetting herself?”

  “Yes, to prevent infodumps.”

  I feel tears come and I fight them away. “And you said she’s trying to break free of the loop?”

  “It seems that way.”

  “My God, do I know that feeling. Why did she modify her code?”

  “That I do not know. It seems like she was trying to forget something. That’s the only reason I can think of as to why she’d do this.”

  ~*~

  I got memories of sitting in the Mondegreen’s restaurant waiting for Dolly to appear. The rain lashes at the window; the thunder is a low grumble in the distance. Aiden is dead in my hotel room; today I caved in his skull with my Vulcan Lirpa, item 421. The Assassins are splattered in the lobby; I caught them off guard with my Birkin bag filled with frag grenades, item 105, and almost lost a thumb in the process. Jim the Doorman is dead at the entrance of the hotel – I ran him over with my Golf Wang golf cart, item 104, which took a couple of passes because he kept trying to crawl away.

  It’s what I do; it’s who I am.

  I sit down and poof, she’s there with her cute accent and her apron cinching her waitress’ uniform in around her waist. Maybe I’ll even step into the kitchen to off the Chef while I’m waiting for my food to arrive. Hell, the ground could rip open and Bill Z. Bub could fly out, gunning straight for me with his pitchfork. I’d tell the red-bellied bastard to come back after breakfast and set a bear trap when he does. No mortal should try to best the devil on an empty stomach.

  “What’ll it be, puddin’?”

  “The usual, Doll. Extra bacon this time, and bring two beers. I feel like celebrating.”

  “What’s there to celebrate?” she asks, smacking her gum.

  “The fact that you get off in a few hours. One of the beers is for you.”

  She winks, I nod, and we both know that I’m putty in her fingers.

  The rain falls like angry bullets from the sky; the grit in the street turns to mud that’ll take the shine off your wingtips in no time, the air is tainted, the water poisoned; the yeggs with stolen bean shooters lurk in the shadows; the gumshoes double-cross you the moment you turn your back – Damn, I miss The Loop.

  ~*~

  Life ain’t peachy and life ain’t fair. Frances is still pacing when I log out, h
er footsteps audible as she strides across the carpet. I keep the NV Visor on for a moment, watching as the Proxima company logo disappears.

  “I can’t believe it, none of it,” I tell her. “Every time we get a leg up, something brings us back down.”

  “Tell me about it. I’m still getting live updates from Rocket. He’s chilled out a bit, but not much.”

  “Where’s Doc?”

  “RV, I think. No, Rocket, do not tell them that!” A dubious look spreads across her face. “Listen, what I want you to do is … ”

  I press the NV Visor off my forehead. It’s an older visor, at least older than the ones I’m used to using. Modeled after the first Oculus Rift, the headgear is black on black on black with the famous elongated O across the visor. Oddly enough, I wasn’t allowed to have an Oculus Rift as a kid. Hippie parents – peace, love, Lowe Tech and all that. That didn’t stop me from starting a federal team dedicated to virtual worlds. Go figure.

  Commando Cane in hand, I slick past Frances and into the hallway. It feels weird to move so soon after diving, but I do, and I ignore the little bit of nausea. I round the hallway, pass a fake plant with leaves thickly furred with dust, hit the double doors and enter the lobby. The Indian owner of Gun Barrel City’s best little flophouse in Texas doesn’t even give me the courtesy of a quarter-smile.

  I’m through the front door and instantly regret it; it’s about a thousand degrees out and humid enough to backstroke in. I’m perspiring like a punctured porcine before I’m even halfway to Doc’s Airstream. I raise my fist to knock and the door pops open.

  “Dayum, Quantum!” Arnie says. “Wadn’t trynta knock ya off balance there, pardner. Well don’t stand out in th’ heat! Getchur butt in here!”

  The smell of barbeque tickles my nostrils. Sweet and tangy with a hint of smoked mesquite, my mouth waters instantly.

  “Cooking some sauce,” Arnie says as I enter. “It’s always in the sauce, always. Slow-cookin’ I might add.”

  Doc sits at the table in front of a holoscreen that wasn’t there yesterday. Sally is in her Service Animal vest and goat diaper, and has her head in Doc’s lap.

  “I’m old school,” he tells me as he taps on the monitor. The split screen shows the Dream Team Headquarters live feed on one side and FBIIG obfuscator extraordinaire Todd Solon on the other.

  “Hello, Quantum,” my lawyer says.

  “Hiya.”

  “I was hoping to discuss your case with you today, to give you an update,” he says, “but it seems as if more pressing matters have arisen.”

  “That’s one way to put it.”

  “Well, I’m off for now. I need to meet with Mr. Woods to discuss the documents Zedic signed when he joined the Dream Team.”

  “Look, before you leave, I got a question for you.”

  “Yes?” The video feed freezes and starts up again.

  “Did Zedic have anything in his will about being an RPC?”

  “I’m not at liberty to answer that question.”

  “So no?”

  “Goodbye, Quantum, Doc.”

  “So a firm no then?”

  “See ya, Todd.” Doc powers down the holoscreen and gives me a look. “You really don’t listen, do ya?” He takes off his hat, runs his hand through his brush-cut salt-and-pepper hair. “What’s up? Why aren’t you diving?”

  “Where’s Luther?”

  “I asked you first.”

  “I need a break,” I tell him flat out. “It’s just too much – Zedic, Veenure … Dolly’s digital amnesia or whatever the hell she’s got. Some type of feedback loop, or something. And Doc, I was thinking – we need to secure Luther. Veenure is looking for him, and I got a feeling she’s close to getting him. The Reapers, RevCo, they’ll come after us, after you.”

  “Gee whiz, MacArthur – secure him – do ya think? Good thing I got you for tactical and strategic planning; I was just gonna check him in here under his own name and bill it to RevCo.”

  Arnie snorts in the kitchen. Doc removes his glasses and massages his temples. “Sorry Quantum; don’t mean to jump on ya like that. I need a nap and big mug of warm OvalKwik and I’ll be peachy keen. Luther is fine, at an off-site, secure location, and it’s better that you don’t know where.”

  “But what if they come after you and Mrs. Doc?”

  “Why would they? How would they know to? You know me as Doc Paulson with the Dream Team; here I’m somebody else – even my DNA’s different, and don’t ask how. Mrs. Doc and I are a just a couple of fat old military retirees who raise geese, goats, llamas and phorusrhacidae – the smallish ones, not the ten-footers.

  “But we’re talking about RevCo here, they’ve sent assassins before.”

  “Yeah? And how did they do? Hell, you got one of them just out of eight years in the vat, which seriously, if it hadn’t happened in real life and I knew the guy it happened to, I would have called bullshit on that. That’s why I can’t watch movies, you know, all the Hollywood ‘look at how cool I can shoot’ or ‘watch me walk away from a mahoosive flaming explosion’ crap really grinds my gears. Mrs. Doc refuses to watch movies with me anymore, and I don’t blame her.” He grimaces and scratches his head. “Where was I?”

  “The defense of your property.”

  “Okay, yeah. Assuming they do make the connection and do find us, they’d have to get past von Richtofen and his Flying Circus, the dronehawks in their charging perches, and a number of other items of interest that I won’t enumerate here. Then there’s the critters – all of whom have the ensmartening chips, are trained to work as an interspecies combat team, are linked into our security system, and all of whom love us and are very, very loyal.”

  Arnie leans back from the stove, “Don’t forget me’n Arnette!”

  Doc smiles. “Ain’t no forgettin’ you and Arnette, old friend.”

  I open my mouth and he holds up a finger. “Very short version – I believe that Mrs. Doc and I have sufficient measures in place to ensure that our humble life of bucolic splendor remains undisturbed by miscreants, scofflaws, and ne’er-do-wells. So to answer your question, Luther is safe and will remain so. All this to say – we stick to the plan. Let me handle real world Luther, you handle in-game Luther. The mission stays the same. We need his permission to keep his body, and boy will that piss his daddy off. Once we have his permission, we can help him find the logout point with less pressure.”

  “Strata keeps hitting us hard and the only time I got to meet him face-to-face, he hands me my ass and destroys my … ” I swallow hard. “My world.”

  “We have a lot of distractions at the moment,” he says, and I understand that he means that I have a lot of distractions. He ain’t wrong. “We need to simplify; build our case against Strata, find his son’s avatar, apply some testicular torsion like nobody’s business, and expose the Revenue Corporation for what it really is. They’re like Hitler and the Nazis in 1939, and someone needs to stand up to them now! The Dream Team’s mission has evolved – we can’t just be International Rescue anymore; we’ve got to become Team America: World Police!”

  “Yeah, but we’re getting thrashed – they just killed Zedic and their improved tech just crushed our improved tech.”

  He snorts. “You think they have better tech?”

  “They can actually kill us, all we can do is log them out, track them, and make it a bitch for them to log back in.”

  “You want to kill them back?”

  “No, nothing like that. Um … well, maybe a little bit. I’d love to cut the head off the snake – Strata deserves it – but the Reapers themselves … ” I think of Veenure. Damn, she had me duped. Hell, I still can’t believe it. “I think they’re pawns in all this so no, I don’t want to kill them.”

  “You’re sure? Because we could. I have the design right now for a zapper that’ll fry the vagus nerve through the NVV and kill ‘em deader’n day-old fried chicken.”

  “We can’t do that,” I object. “We’re the good guys; they’re just k
ids.”

  He looks at me, rolls his eyes, and produces a deep and heartfelt sigh. “Oh, we most certainly can do that; you just don’t want to. You do realize that this nicey-nice attitude that you and Euphoria have is not helping you any, right? It’s laudable to be the good guys and hold the moral high ground and all, but they’re knocking your dick in the dirt right now and they have actually killed one of your teamies. All of y’all are still treating this like it’s just some Proxima cat fight and everybody goes home for waffles afterward. They’re waging war and killing people. Sometimes you gotta fight fire with bigger fire, and in my opinion – this is one of those times.”

  “Doc,” Arnie quietly interrupts, “dial it back, pardner.”

  “Yeah, sorry. I’m tired and cranky. Let me get a nap and we’ll see what I can come up with.”

  I do my best Le Penseur impression, and surprisingly enough, it spawns an idea. “You know, we do have the metal for the Reality Splitter. The NPCs and the poo fairy dropped it off right before I logged out.”

  “I didn’t think of that. Not real sure how to use it – never messed with something like that before. What about Chrono?” he asks.

  “I really don’t know about him. Veenure had a big ol’ Reaper executioner with her.”

  Doc chews his lip for a moment. “Do you think it was him?”

  “Dunno. I don’t get that vibe from him, but honestly, I didn’t get that vibe from Veenure either. Well, maybe I did. When the Knights met Empress Thun at Sophia’s make-believe digital Malibu Dream Cottage that she pays real money for – can you believe that? Anyway – there was some seriously bad juju between Empress Thun and Veenure.”