Quantum,
I’ve returned for you. Meet me in Devil’s Alley as soon as you receive this.
Frances Euphoria
‘Frances Euphoria?’ I savor the name a few times, realizing that it’s likely a trap.
It can’t be a real person contacting me. Real people don’t exist in The Loop, haven’t for nearly two years. Some group of randomly-generated NPCs is out to get me. The thought of this makes me smile; at least it won’t be a boring day.
One glance at the street confirms that it is dreary outside, as is every day in The Loop. The dreamworld was developed to cater to the Cyber Noir crowd, a niche market for those who like grit and tech, extreme violence, dark corners, sleuth-work, nineteen fifties styling with futuristic weapons. Cyber Noir was a subgenre that took off in the 2040s, at a time when Humandroid androids were replacing the workforce and governments were incorporating. Virtual entertainment dreamworlds, created through neuronal algorithms by the Proxima Company, became a swell way to escape, and I would still think they were a swell way to escape if I could find a swell way to escape this one..
The wind picks up, bouncing a tin can down the street. I don’t even need to check the time. 8:17 AM, the minute of the tin can. It always stops directly in front of a vandalized trashcan, spins twice, settles.
Of course, I’ve tried a variety of different exit points from the hotel. I’ve leapt from rooftop to rooftop, sat and had coffee, slept in (after killing the morning assassin), and even gone room to room, trying to see if there were any clues that would free me from The Loop.
What I’ve discovered is this – every way out of my hotel has its own pre-determined history. If I go to the roof, lightning cracks in the sky above, connecting with an antenna on a building in the distance causing a beautiful spark. If I go room to room, I encounter a man snoring as a hooker in a garter belt steals his money. Both are NPCs, and I’ve killed them dozens of times in a variety of colorful ways.
If I have a cup of Joe and some pancakes courtesy of my main squeeze Dolly, a chef runs out of the hotel’s kitchen at exactly 8:23 with a butcher knife trying to slice and dice me. (His meat cleaver marks day 123 in my inventory – it’s great for hacking). If I sleep in, a different morning assassin comes at 9:29. If I sleep in past that, another one comes at 10:34.
And so on.
There is no escape from the repetitiveness of The Loop. This is why the message intrigues me so – it is a true break from the endlessly recurring nature of my Loop-life.
~*~
Reading the message for the seventh time doesn’t give me any more clues regarding its origin.
And why does the person named Frances say I’ve returned for you? The only people that care about my condition are the ones keeping me alive in the real world; at least I assume there’s someone keeping me alive up there. For all I know I may be nothing more than an imprint of consciousness, a ball of neuronal echoes that has outlived my human body.
My dreams say otherwise.
Almost every night I dream that someone is waking me; that someone is tending to me and taking care of me. If only this were true. If only The Loop was as forgiving as my dreams. Still, my dreams are equally suffocating. I can’t wake up from them, no matter how hard I urge myself, no matter how hard I push myself forward in hopes of tearing from the virtual dream ether.
No matter how hard.
I raise my hand to hail a taxi. There are always taxis in The Loop, all sensuous curves and gaudy chopped and channeled black-and-yellow sheet metal, the cabs you’d see cruising the streets of 1940s New York City if R. Crumb had designed their taxis – except these taxis hover, just like the aeros vehicles in the real world.
A taxi always stops if you raise your hand in The Loop. They don’t have preprogrammed histories like most of the other things that occur during my day. They only come when I want them to come. Of course, there are more interesting ways to travel in The Loop. If I wanted, I could pull an NPC driver out of their car, kill them, and take the car, but it’s generally less hassle to travel peacefully. Besides, I’d like to make it to Devil’s Alley in one piece.
A taxi lowers to the ground, its engine kicking and thumping. I get in and the driver turns to me. A huge grin nearly splits his phizog; a grimy bowler is jauntily cocked over one eye. ‘Where to, buddy?’ He smells like motor oil and tuna fish sandwiches.
‘To the bowels of the city, Mac,’ I say. ‘And don’t spare the horses.’
‘Devil’s Alley, eh? You got it.’
The engine coughs and sputters, catches, and blows fumes as we lift into the air. It doesn’t need to cough and sputter and blow fumes, but everything here is designed to look old and beat up, scratched and dented, ripped and torn, used, abused, twisted, cracked and crazed. Blemished, pockmarked, and polluted – the attributive adjectives of The Loop are endless. One glance at the seat’s worn upholstery confirms this.
‘What’s buzzin’, cousin?’ the driver asks as he speeds along, weaving around other vehicles.
‘You jivin’ me, man?’
Sometimes I don’t know if the NPC’s are screwing with me or if they really don’t know that I’ve been living the same day for nearly two years. I think Morning Assassin gets it, but the others…
‘Jivin’? What choo mean, jivin’?’ he coughs, bangs his fist against his chest. The rain picks up and he flicks on his little windshield wipers; the digital water hits the windshield only to be whipped off by tiny wipers. There’s something beautiful about it, but I’m too distracted by the driver’s blabbering to really appreciate it.
‘Hey, kid, I’m talking to you. What do you mean?’
‘I mean I live the same day every damn day. Why are we still talking?’
‘If you want another driver I can dump you out here…’ He dips into a lower airlane.
I access my inventory list and snag item number 399 – a Taser. I press the button on the grip and electricity sparks and crackles in the back seat, a counterpoint to the lightning outside.
‘Jesus!’ the driver says, nearly swerving into another aeros in the opposite airlane.
‘Goose it it and can the chatter, Jack! And keep your eyes on the skylane you son of a bitch.’
‘All right, mister, keep your hair on – Sheesh!’
I enjoy the rest of the trip to Devil’s Alley in relative silence. Once we’ve landed, I transfer credit to the driver, who is still angry I threatened him. Credit is used for most transactions in The Loop and I have an unlimited supply, pennies from heaven. No matter how much I spend, my account resets itself to the maximum amount every morning. Too bad there isn’t anything I want to buy.
Devil’s Alley is a big place, but I’m pretty sure Frances Euphoria will want to meet me at Barfly’s, the most run-down, seediest, grimiest, blood-and-sawdust-on-the-floor gin joint The Loop has to offer. As I move deeper into the slum, NPCs gravitate towards me, clad in trench coats and fedoras, hiding their faces behind dark umbrellas. A streetwalker in a shiny red bomber jacket spins her umbrella behind her head like a tragic Madame Butterfly. A tranny diddles his ding-a-ling on the fire escape overlooking the entrance to the alley, while a cat hisses and a giant rat scurries through a mound of trash. Muscled kookies mill about shadowed doorways, cruisin’ for a bruisin’.
I step into one of the alleys, over an NPC fiend shivering in the cold rain. A hand reaches out and latches onto my ankle.
‘Hey brother…’ the fiend cackles. ‘Can you spare some cred?’
I transfer him half of everything I have. ‘That should be enough to buy some Riotous.’
The lights of the alley paint harshly contrasting diagonal stripes across his sallow, grimy face as he fumbles in his pocket. ‘You mocking me, smart guy?’ he asks, pulling a switchblade. He twists the blade in the air like a drunken conductor. ‘You think you’re better’n me, think you can just throw me cred like I’m some charity case!?’
The fiends in The Loop are vicious, unpredictable rat-bastards, a class of
downgraded guttersnipes, slumdog tramps addicted to a drug known as Riotous. I press my finger into the air, accessing my inventory list. A drop-down menu appears in front of me; the bum freezes as I make my selection. Day 171’s item will do the trick nicely. A sledge hammer appears in my hands and I swing it into his chest like I’m teeing off at the Apple Grove. He slams into the wall with a satisfying crunch of bone and cartilage, and blows pixelated blood out of his mouth and nose.
‘Hey! You can’t do that!’ An even grungier fiend is on his feet, and I’m behind him before he can reach me. One swing of the sledge and he too Humpty-Dumptys into the muck and filth of the alley.
~*~
Barfly’s sign buzzes and flickers at the end of the alley, a neon floozie in a Martini glass, endlessly scissoring her legs, electric bubbles sequentially popping above her head. People move through the shadows leading up to the place, speaking in whispers behind cupped hands, breathing in each other’s cigarette smoke. Grit for breakfast, a kick in the teeth for lunch, home before dinner in a coffin carried by skeletal pallbearers, a .38 slug through your heart – welcome to my life. I’ve spent endless dismal days squatting in this dive, drinking to the point of faux-ossification and then fighting my way across The Loop, only to wake up back in the flophouse the following morning as if it had all been a dream. Being bored is an understatement.
‘Quantum.’ The doorman claps his arm across my shoulders. He is a chiseled guy, his face angular and rough like the Old Man of The Mountain’s used to be, before it collapsed. This guy would give the Old Man a run for his money in the rustic beezer department. Trust me, I know – I’ve dealt with Croc several times after things got dicey at Barfly’s.
‘I’ll behave,’ I say instead of hello.
‘You always do,’ he says with a flinty glint in his eye.
Maybe I’m spooked; maybe I’ve lived the same day so many times that there are surely things I haven’t noticed in the 545 previous iterations. It kind of makes me wonder how much I missed when the days weren’t on repeat, when The Loop (the name I’ve given it) was nothing more than the game-slash-entertainment dreamworld known as Cyber Noir.
‘You waitin’ on someone? Chippy, maybe?’ Croc asks, chewing on a toothpick.
‘You can tell? Some NPC you are…’
‘NPC?’
Non Player Characters never refer to themselves as NPCs, which only makes this place more maddening. Sometimes I think I’m the crazy one… sometimes.
‘Frail named Frances Euphoria. She here??’ I ask. A quick scan across the bar tells me the usual suspects are present – drunks and divas, lounge lizards and booze hounds, gamblers, grifters and bunco artists – no matter what the clock reads. Getting soused is the name of the game.
‘Frances Euphoria...’
‘Well, Croc?’
‘Don’t know the broad. Pull up a pew and maybe she’ll show. You never know, Daddy-O.’
The patience flows out of his face and I oblige – no sense in riling this one up unnecessarily. I sit at the same barstool I always sit at, on the far left hand side of the bar, facing the door so I can see who comes in. One can only have a pool cue upside the noggin but so many times before one realizes that it may be time to change seats.
Cid the bartender is a grizzled old bastard in a white shirt, black bow tie, and none-too-clean apron, with a sawed off, lead-loaded baseball bat behind the bar. He pulls me a pint in a none-too-clean mug and slides it to me. I catch it before it sails off the end, and the exquisitely rendered foam slops over my hand. I savor the first swallow. It’s cold-ish, and tastes sort of beer-ish, and if I pour enough down my piehole it’ll get me kind of drunk-ish.
It ain’t great, but it’ll do.
I nod my thanks, and Cid winks in return. His mono-brow dances like a caterpillar on a hot plate.
A dame walks in, and she’s the cat’s meow – stacked like pancakes, with cleavage down to there and gams up to here, and a tight black dress that looks like it came out of a spray can. Her hair is devil red, her skin whiter than the finest blow, and the triangular icon over her head is blue sky blue, cornflower blue, blue the color of life blue. She’s an actual person, not an NPC, and I’m not going to lie – I’m simply mesmerized by the color. Almost two years…
‘Frances Euphoria?’ I wipe the beer foam off my lips.
‘Three Kings Park, seven o’clock tomorrow night.’
She turns slightly and she’s all of a sudden sporting a Rambo knife with a wicked saw tooth spine. I’ve got one just like it – item number 4 in my inventory. She strikes like a cobra and slams the blade into my chest.
I’m dead before my pint hits the floor.
To kill is to be part of The Loop – the name of the game is maim.
Quantum Hughes' life is stuck on repeat.
While trapped in The Loop, a virtual entertainment dreamworld, he struggles to free himself from a glitch that forces him to re-live the same day over and over. Everything changes after Quantum receives a mysterious message from a woman named Frances Euphoria, the first human player he has made contact with in years.
Once Frances appears, members of the Reapers, a murder guild, begin surfacing in The Loop, hoping to capture Quantum, or worse - kill him. To further complicate matters, The Loop itself is doing everything it can to stop Quantum from escaping.
With time running out, will Quantum break free from The Loop before he's captured or killed by the Reapers? Who is Frances Euphoria, and what does she actually know about how long Quantum has been trapped in the virtual dreamworld?
The thin line between dream and reality is pixilated.
Two sample chapters on the next page. Available on Amazon here.
Table of Contents
Pedo Drew
Go Home Student Loans, You’re Drunk
DEAR NSA
Pay to Play
Tips for a DEA Sex Party
The Gastronomics of Brotherhood
Feeding Governor Christie: A Love Story
The Internet Kill Switch Fiasco
Rest Assured: I Didn’t Sleep with your Mother
From My Cold Dead Hands
Back of the book shit
(Sample) Life is a Beautiful Thing
(Sample) The Feedback Loop
Table of Contents
* * *
[1] I was actually blessed by Drukpa Kunley’s wooden penis in Bhutan in 2010. It was supposed to improve my fertility, but I’ve yet to see any effects nor do I plan to procreate. TLDR: A Buddhist monk placed a replica of a madman’s penis on my head and said a Buddhist blessing. I attribute my bizarre writings to this blessing as well as my ability to levitate. – Harmon Cooper
[2] The link checks out. Let’s get sucking! –Harmon Cooper
[3] Sorry Baby Boomers! Remember, I didn’t write this. –HC
[4] I’m also addicted to coffee. Bob Timothy has a point. – Harmon Cooper
[5] From what I can uncover, this actually checks out. Nelnet and other entities like it can’t garnish your wages if you’re paid somewhere other than the States. This will change if America gets more control than they (we?) already have over the global banking system. – Harmon Cooper
[6] Not-so-fun fact: A single cruise missile costs upwards of $1.5 million and have been routinely used to destroy single-family homes in Iraq and other warzones. For more information, read Generation Kill by Evan Wright. –HC
[7] I don’t know how successful a Korean restaurant chain would be in America. They would definitely have to change the name samgyeopsal in the Bible Belt. I can’t imagine that word being pronounced in Alabama or South Carolina. No offense, people of the South. I’m only trying to help here. –HC
[8] Fun fact: I know a guy who did his stint for Teach for America in Hawaii. It sounded great until he was placed at the worst school on the mainland. One of his students tried to commit suicide in class by jumping out the window. Luckily for her, my teacher friend was next to the window and was able to grab her mid-air,
thus saving her life. For saving her life he received a $25 gift certificate to Applebee’s. I guess there are additional perks to joining Teach for America not mentioned in Bob Timothy’s memo. –Harmon Cooper
[9] Chuck checks out. He has worked at AT&T for six years now. His student loan debt still hasn’t been paid off, but he’s on the twenty-five year plan and he barely makes over minimum wage, so he’s not too worried about it. I suppose one way to stick it to the government is to remain below the poverty line. – Harmon Cooper
[10] Is a congregation of dicks the same thing as a fraternity? Zing! –Harmon Cooper (Seriously though, this Bob Timothy is a tad too political for my tastes. He has, however, raised some good points, especially about siphoning gas to save cash. Just think of the money we’ll save!)
[11] You could also buy a cackle of cacti, which is what I’ve done. – HC
[12] I didn’t write this, Dr. Dre, so don’t kick my ass. Also, great work on your duet with Kendrick Lamar on the song ‘The Recipe.’ Did Kendrick really ghostwrite your parts for that song? Anyhow, send me an email if you’re ever free, Dre or K-Dot ([email protected]). The life of a writer can be lonely…
[13] ICP= Insane Clown Posse. I think Jack Black recently produced a song for them. I’m afraid to look this up as I have some respect for the famous guitar twiddler. – Harmon Cooper
[14] I want to talk to Sampson! –Harmon Cooper (I hope this reference reaches some of you.)
[15] This story was inspired by the tragic story about a 73-year-old ‘Pay to Play’ volunteer cop killing a black man in Oklahoma. (Read about it on the Guardian here). In a country that already has enough issues with firearms, it seems absolutely counterproductive to allow older members of society to join police forces as volunteers (who have made large donations FYI) and give them guns. Upon reading this news article, I decided to flesh out a story about a company that actually specialized in matching volunteer officers with police units.
Dear NSA: A Collection of Politically Incorrect Short Stories Page 15