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

by Harmon Cooper

  “I can be friendly,” and I give her my best charming, alarming, and disarming smile.

  Rocket claps his arm around my shoulders. “I’m ready to mix and mingle as well.”

  I peel his hand off and put him in a wristlock. “Probably don’t wanna do that again, Peanut Gallery,” I say.

  Doc asks, “Aiden, anything ahead?”

  Morning Assassin disappears like a hijacker from the rear ramp of a Boeing 727 and reappears seconds later with his Swissorsword in one hand and his Slice Bang in the other. “We’ve got company; actually, we’ve got a crowd.’

  “Who?” Sophia asks.

  “Thulean hunters.”

  “I’ll handle this.”

  Before she can float forward, Rocket wedges a tree root between the toes of his tabi, stumbles forward and trips a booby trap, which whooshes us up in a whopping great cargo net.

  “Dammit, Rocket!” I shout as we’re hoisted into the trees.

  “No worries.” Aiden retrieves something from his inventory, and the net parts like it’s zipper-equipped. We all do the ‘twisty-cat, land on your feet’ thing; Doc has the hardest time landing on his hooves.

  “Invisible sword?” I ask Morning Assassin.

  “You got it.”

  “Commoners!” A band of Thulean step out of the forest. The leader has clearly spent some time at the JC Target’s Post-Zika Brazilian Jungle Department. A Native American War Bonnet with bright feather earrings extends well past his nipples, which are as purple as Grimace’s starfish. Covering his Thulean schmeckel is a loin cloth and a belt with strips of leather that hang to his knees. His buddies are all dressed in equally unlikely gladrags, all with various wowsie-wow faux native peoples’ accoutrements.

  Sophia: Thulean hunters! This is really rare!

  Rocket: @_@

  The leader of the pack fixes me with a basilisk stare; casts a hairy eyeball upon me; drills me with a gimlet glare, and several other metaphors for ‘looks at me all pissed off’. “It is you who slew Princess Renata.”

  “You who slew who now? Not gonna lie, I’ve slain a slew or two, and I kinda lose track, so you’re going to need to be a bit more specific.

  One of his scaly avocado-hued Village Person compadres mutters, “I told you the ‘slew’ thing sounded stupid.”

  Sophia: Renata was the Thulean princess you killed at the giant’s tournament!

  Me: Oh, of course she was a Thulean Princess. Everyone’s a princess, princess. They expect me to keep track of this shit?

  The lead hunter hisses over his shoulder, “Shut up, you guys,” turns back to me, clenches his fists and sabre blades extend from his gauntlets.

  I’m singularly unimpressed. “Oh, look guys – he has Wolverine claws. Ooh – I’m so very, very frightened. They’re not steam-powered, are they?”

  “You will suffer and die for your insolence,” he says, his voice rising with fury. “You will never be able to spawn on Ultima Thule again. We will hunt you and the rest of your contemptible guildmates for all eternity.”

  “Wait – you’re an RPC, correct?” I ask.

  He doesn’t answer.

  “It’s okay; you can tell me – it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

  Sophia: He’s an RPC; the others are NPCs. You can clearly see this by looking at their handles.

  Me: I was setting him up for an insult!

  Doc asks, “What was your real world name? Maybe we were acquaintances out there.”

  “I don’t recall being acquainted with a stupid-looking faun.”

  His NPC butt-buddies chortle and snort.

  “Welp, that settles it for me.” Doc presses the golden fight button like he’s launching everything from the Dakotas. The roulette wheel spins, the bouncing skull ball hops and skitters and finally lands on black, which just so happens to be my specialty.

  ~*~

  The leader is on me like nerds on the newest Thulean noun and verb declension tables.

  He lunges and I respond with three rounds from item 502, my diamond-studded Damien Hirst signature revolver with formaldehyde bullets. My reaper mask, item 551, forms on my face and my AA bar activates. I flip and twist and narrowly avoid his invisible ghost limbs. Yeah, I could go with good ol’ Bowie knife number 33 as I spiral through the air towards him. Instead, I choose my genuine, accursed, King Tut’s Escape to the House of Mummies dagger made from meteoric iron, item 287.

  Nice bit o’ gear, that accursed meteoric iron mummy dagger; just a minor slice and the head Green Meanie’s life bar drops and flashes to show he’s been poisoned.

  Rocket springboards off my shoulders and with a flashy ninja flip, plants his tootsies right in my guy’s face and takes him off his feet. Short, controlled bursts of automatic weapons fire on my left; the stupid-looking faun is ruining the day for several of the hunt pack’s spear carriers with his stupid-looking RAS47 AK Rifle – or maybe it’s a C39v2.

  Trust Doc to buy American!

  Aiden is doing things the old-fashioned way on my right, slicing and dicing like the Iron Chef’s Iron Chef. Much to my delight, he finally uses his Scissorsword as the Great Seamstress in the Sky intended. With no more effort than he’d expend to snip the bud from a rose – although with considerably more panache – he beheads at least two of the unfriendlies, and with a spritely pas de chat bounds away after a third.

  I’d never figured Aiden as a devotee of the dance.

  I’d stop to listen for the sound of the head hitting the ground, but the jefe of the Gecko Squad comes at Rocket and me bearing four blades – two in his hands and two in his ghost hands – in an attempt to blenderize us.

  Me: You wanna do this or do you want me to?

  “Ooh! Ooh! I’ve got it!” Rocket executes a move that would scare the duang off Jackie Chan. He cartwheels into the big lizardy bastard and trades strike and counter-strike with his pair of Wolverine claws – which look suspiciously like my wolverine claws, item 145. When he’s not tripping over shit, Rocket is surprisingly effective; he puts Mr. Thulean tough guy away with a flashy, decapitating strike. As the head arcs in the air, he catches it, uses his foot to roll the body over face-down, flips up the leather jockstrap and sticks the head face-first in its own ass. An hourglass appears over the Thulean’s corpse to let us know when he’ll respawn.

  Rocket bows to his audience, and I am moved to respond with the golf clap.

  Frances Euphoria: That was sweet of you to let Rocket finish him off.

  Me: I’m assuming this is a private channel.

  Frances Euphoria: :-*

  “Nice work,” I tell the group as the victory trumpet sounds. We get some loot and a few healing potions too. “Nothing like a little booty to accompany said ass-beating.”

  “I love getting booty,” Rocket smirks.

  Sophia buries her face in her hands. “Again, AGAIN, the Dream Team barges in without adhering to the rules of the world!”

  “Easy, Sophia,” Doc says. “These guys had it coming.” He stretches his arms in front of him and cracks his fingers. “Now, let’s get to Athos.”

  “Has no one read my notes? It doesn’t work like that. One doesn’t simply get to Athos. I swear, I really need to write a Tritania protocol book for all of you to read. We should have submitted to the hunters.”

  “Did you say submit?” Aiden asks.

  “Full submission is a Thulean tradition,” she explains.

  Aiden narrows his eyes on her. “If someone comes at me with a sword and an insult, the only way I’ll submit is when I’ve been properly defeated, and maybe not even then.”

  He and I fist bump.

  “I’m so sick of macho men!” She throws her hands up in the air.

  “I want to be, a macho man,” I start up. Doc gives me a look and briefly snorts his amusement.

  Rocket asks, “Should I know what that’s from?”

  Me: Yes, yes you should, young Proximawalker. Googleforce it.

  Sophia stomps her feet and lifts into the air. “I
told myself not to get angry today,” she says under her breath. Once she’s got enough height to properly look down on us non-readers of her no doubt exquisitely detailed notes, she turns to us. “Okay, team, as I’ve clearly stated in the briefing I sent you all, it isn’t easy to get a pass to Athos. Further, it is only valid for one entry and exit. We could have done things the easy way and just befriended the hunters but no-o-o-o, you guys were looking for a fight.” She huffs.

  “Weren’t you listening, Sophia?” I ask. “They were the ones looking for a fight; they started it, and the head guy was a dick, anyway.”

  “Anyway, fine, whatevs, what’s done is done. We need to get to Chachat and befriend someone, preferably an RPC. Then, and only then, can we get into Athos and from there, the Imperial Forest.”

  “Let me guess: the Sage of Gotha is a giant tree.”

  “You read the notes?” she asks me. “Great! Yes, he is a tree, the biggest Deiku tree in the world. I’ve never seen him before, although I’ve been to Athos.”

  “Do little guys bake magic cookies inside him?”

  She gives me a glare that would freeze the marrow of someone who gave a shit about her opinion; my marrow remains superlatively unfrozen.

  “Um, guys … ” Rocket says.

  Sophia ignores him. “So, we need to win over the next Thuleans we meet. It’s as simple as that. Once we’ve done so, we can get a pass to the city and meet the Sage of Gotha and he’ll let us know where Strata’s son is.”

  “No doubt that’s exactly how it’ll work out,” Doc observes.

  “We’ll probably have to do some favor or other for him, likely a quest of some sort. It shouldn’t be especially hard, if we behave ourselves.” She glares at me and Aiden – mostly me.

  “Great,” says Aiden, “another quest.”

  I nod in agreement. “So we’ll pick up the dry cleaning, mow his lawn, clean his commode, or walk his grik-dog or something. Anything else?”

  Rocket again. “Um, guys ... ”

  The ground shakes, and a critter the size of the Goat Cakes truck smashes the foliage out of its way, thundering past us like we’re not worthy of its notice. He – and I say he because he has huevos the size of basketballs bouncing in the breeze – is past us in a matter of moments, leaving torn and trampled underbrush in his wake.

  Sophia’s eyes light up. “It’s … it’s a Gunsyakhai!”

  “Gesundheit!” I tell her.

  “It looks more like a cross between a hippopotamus and a dragon,” Doc comments.

  Aiden does his flashdance thing. He’s back in a jiffy, his eyes wide under the mask covering his face.

  “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost,” I tell him.

  “We need to follow the Gesundheit; it’s about to come down hot and heavy on some Thulean hunters, two of whom are RPCs.”

  “Hot and heavy?” I ask. “You making a joke here?”

  “What – you think you’re the only one who can do word play?”

  “The Gunsyakhai breathes fire,” Sophia says. “We’d better get over there.”

  ~*~

  “Holy crossfire, Batman!”

  Robin probably had a more appropriate epithet, but as soon as I see the burning ring of fire that the Gesundheit has blazed around the hunters, it’s the only one that comes to mind. I’m just about to whistle the chorus when Sophia zips up and over the wall of flames.

  Aiden flashes and Rocket flips, leaving Doc and me outside the wall o’ fire.

  “How are we gonna do this?” I ask. The blaze reflects in Doc’s dark eyes.

  “Whatcha got in mind, Legendary Quantum Hughes?”

  “That’s Mr. Legendary Quantum Hughes, and I ain’t gonna lie, this could burn a little. It will, however, make for a great visual.”

  I equip my steam-powered jetpack, item 567, and strap it on backwards, across my chest. “Hop on.”

  “You’ve got to be shitting me,” he mumbles as he climbs onto my back.

  “One reverse steam-powered jetpack ride coming right up. Again, I’m going for the visual on this one, Doc, and I can’t shit you. Besides, Fancy Pants Wang-a-Lang and Flip-Floppin’ Rocket ain’t got nothin’ on us old dogs. Let’s show them how this is done!”

  Frances Euphoria: This one is going on next year’s calendar!

  “You vant I should blow in ear leetle beet forst, keptain?” Doc whispers in his worst Russian accent once he’s clambered aboard the USS Quantumprise. I goose the juice and up, up and away we go. And boy howdy does it burn, as superheated steam exits directly over my 100% all-beef thermometer. My life bar takes a 5% hit, but sometimes one must suffer for one’s art, and the expression on the faces of the Knights, the hunters and even the Gesundheit are worth the price of admission.

  “That’s the second coolest thing I’ve ever seen!” Rocket enthuses.

  “What was the first?” Doc grunts as he dismounts and readies his biggest crossbow.

  “You even have to ask? ME!” and he shamelessly vogues several heroic poses. I pull the jetpack from my chest, drop it, and give my meat and two veg a much needed readjustment.

  The Gesundheit rears up onto its back legs and roars. It comes down hard and dirt splashes from around its feet. “Get behind us!” Sophia calls to the Thulean hunters. She strikes a Superwoman pose with her hands on her hips and begins speaking Thulean to Huberta the Dragon Hippo.

  In the meantime, the Thulean hunters hobble over, each of their life bars less than ten percent. The middle-sized one collapses before me and I drop to give him an arm.

  “I recognize you,’ he wheezes, “you’re the one that bested Princess Renata.”

  “Darn tootin’, but let’s save that discussion for later.”

  The Gesundheit bares its teeth at the floating Sophia and just like that, the battle trumpet rings out. Cue the roulette wheel and damn if it doesn’t land on white – turn-based.

  “It’s attacking first!” Rocket shouts, demonstrating his well-developed propensity for stating the blatantly obvious.

  Sophia throws her hands to her sides. “I’ve got this.” An oversized kite shield forms, its coat of arms one of helm and griffin, proudly emblazoned with the legend SOPHIA WANG, Ph.D., M.A. in Olde English script. The Gesundheit snorts and belches forth a stream of hellfire almost solid in its intensity. It smashes into her enameled egoic escutcheon and is deflected away, but such is the ferocity of the blast that she’s forced backward.

  The flame settles and leaves small spots and patches of fire on the ground and in the surrounding trees; the magic shield is unscorched.

  Sophia: I’m not finished yet.

  The wind races towards Sophia from every pocket of the forest.

  It hits her shield and spirals around her, dust spews in the air as the wind whips itself into a frenzy. All the flames in the area are sucked into the expanding vortex, which builds and builds into a towering inferno. She holds it, lets it grow, holds it and suddenly releases it in a sun flare of a blast that renders the critter most crispy.

  ~~Carrington Flare!~~

  “See, I have an inventory list too,” she says as the victory trumpet rings out.

  “You gotta get me one of those shields,” I tell her.

  “Only if you play nice.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “I’m Red,” says the Thulean hunter. “Red Vine. This is my wife, Blue Ivy-Vine. Thanks for saving us.”

  “We really, really appreciate it,” says Blue.

  Their outfits are dark greens and browns in a Robin Hood: Men in Tights-ish fashion capped by hooded cloaks. The whole spooky effect is somewhat diluted by their branded Ünter Armor tights and zombie green and purple DisNike Skank 4:20 Synthetic Athletic Boots with buckles on the sides.

  Sophia: An RPC couple. That’s so CUTE!

  Frances Euphoria: Aw-w-w-w! It’s totally cute.

  Rocket: OMG! OMG!

  “And him?” I nod to the third guy in their little party. He’s a head taller than the couple and he spo
rts the filthy, matted, disgusting, unhygienic, looks-good-on-NOBODY turnip dreads that were, for some reason, popularized by ‘The Weeknd’ just before he disappeared into well-deserved obscurity in the late 20-teens, his resurgence in the 30s, and his re-disappearance in the 40s.

  “Tom Myspace,” says Red proudly, “our attendant.”

  Doc: NPC.

  Sophia: Definitely.

  Me: You can tell?

  Sophia: Duh, he has a handle.

  I stop myself from making a joke about how all Thuleans look alike as I’d prefer not to have Sophia start up with her whole racist-fascist-chauvinistic-disembiggening tirade this dive around. Also, I promised myself I wouldn’t get on her bad side. Any more than necessary. Unless she gives me a really good opening. Or Doc starts up first. Or I feel like it.

  Doc: Speaking of social media, does anyone else remember Tom from Myspace?

  Me: Myspace?

  Frances Euphoria: I just found his picture. He seems like a nice-looking guy in his white t-shirt and his big smile.

  Rocket: This conversation makes me feel old.

  Doc: You ain’t the only one!

  Sophia pipes up, “Just out of curiosity, did you two undergo the Koon-ut-Kal-if-fee?”

  Frances Euphoria: Thulean for ‘Ceremony of Life-Bonding One-nesshood’.

  Me: Of course it is.

  “Yes,” they say as they join hands. Blue stands on her tippy toes and gives Red a big kiss on the cheek. No, Thuleans don’t really blush, but he does give her the Aw, shucks look and digs the toe of his hideously overpriced footgear into the leaf litter.

  “It was magnificent,” Blue reminisces, “They actually threw a certified NPC virgin into the ice volcano for us. We were married out there in the other space, and thought that it was fitting and proper that do the same here as reborn player characters.”

  Frances Euphoria: That’s so-o-o-o-o cute.

  Sophia: Agreed.

  Rocket: C U T E.

  I have to know. “Which one of you croaked first? OW! DAMMIT!”

  Sophia gives me the ‘mother in the supermarket’ stealth pinch, and hard, too. “QUAN-tum,” she hisses.