Proxima Riven:

by Harmon Cooper

  Or they are lovers, I think after the geezer cups his big bio-mechanical hand around her ass and squeezes.

  Frances Euphoria: This just got awkward really quickly!

  Doc: No comment.

  Sophia: Ewwww – they’re kissing now.

  Me: I’m trying to think of an ‘apple doesn’t fall far from the tree’ joke here but I can’t swing it.

  “You four!” The Steam Breed Patriarch says after a little heavy petting and some more smooching, “I can never thank you enough for bringing my lovely Samantha back to me.” He pats her on the ass again. “She has been thoroughly missed!”

  The Steam Breeds cheer and clap their big hands together.

  I step forward. “Look, pops, as much as we’d like to stand around and watch you fondle your, um, daughter, as I told her, we have places to go and people to see. So go ahead and tell us how to turn the tripwire off or better, have one of these clanky goombas do it for you.”

  “Of course,” he claps his hands together and a few of the Steam Breeds leave. “I am a Breed of my word. It won’t take them long to reboot the tripwire, but you’ll have to finish your survey rather quickly. Once the tripwire is rebooted, it doesn’t power on for two minutes.”

  “So we have two minutes.”

  “Yes.”

  Me: Sophia, fly back to the contraband shop and make sure Joel is ready to bring the other two walls down.

  Sophia: Will do.

  The Dream Team’s biggest brain does a double backflip into the air and zips away.

  “How long will it take them to do the reboot?” Doc asks. “How long do we have before the timer actually starts?”

  “About five minutes.”

  “Got it.” Doc lifts into the air. “Let’s get to the wall.”

  Me: So five minutes to get the reboot going, and two minutes once it is going. Got that, Sophia?

  Sophia: Got it. I’ll be at the contraband shop in just a sec.

  ~*~

  The clock counting down on my viewing pane tells me that we have thirty seconds until the tripwire is officially down. Doc, Aiden, and I stand before it in our Steamsuits, ready to zip across to the other side and bring it down.

  There are a good dozen ways I could come up with to bring down that wall and I’d like to explore all of them in a fireside chat one day, but now ain’t the time. As much as it pains me to say it, there is no time to get creative.

  The clock is ticking, literally, and there’s still a lot to be done including getting my ass out of The Loop and Rocket’s ass out of Strata’s OMIB space.

  “Doc, you got a better idea about how we’re going to do this?” I ask as the timer gets to zero. “I mean, I got ideas, but they’re a bit on the creative side.”

  “Aiden and I already discussed it. Get ready to link up.”

  “Wait, again?”

  The words type out across my viewing pane.

  [Link sequence initiating … ]

  [Initiated.]

  Before I can protest, the top half of my body bends forward and my arms shoot forward. Something smacks again the front and back of me.

  “This better not be a Human Centipede!”

  I hear a locking mechanism twist and crank above me as the sound of chains grinding echo through the cabin of my Steamsuit.

  [Steamgun system check commencing … ]

  [Steamgun system operational.]

  More clinks, clanks, clunks and a few clonks and I’ve had it up to here – wherever here is because I currently have no sense of equilibrium – with the Voltron treatment.

  It’s only after Frances provides a bird’s eye view that I see what the hell is going on.

  The three of us have lifted into the air and together, we’ve created a particle gun with the barrel the length of the Reaper short bus. I’m the base and pintle, Doc is the receiver and Aiden is the barrel.

  “I’m throwing the BS towel in,” I say aloud, especially because of the fact that I have again found myself in a position as far away from the action as possible.

  Why the hell is it that I have to be the base again? I get no respect.

  “Time’s a tickin’, boys!” Doc says, no doubt with a smokable in his mouth.

  [Ammunition at 13% capacity.]

  “Got it!” he cries out. “Aiden, you ready?”

  “I want to fire the gun!” I whine.

  “You just hold us nice and steady!” Aiden says through the intercom system.

  Ray Steampunk. I got the feeling that the golden poster child of Steampunk has a hand in this. First, I’m the leg, now I’m the pedestal.

  “Laugh it up, Ray,” I mutter as the weapon charges. “Laugh it up.”

  The lights cutting through the slits around me dim. A blast that could be used as stock footage the next time the History Channel does a doc on Operation Crossroads plays out on my lower portion of my viewing pane.

  Against all the laws of physics, our limo-length shooting iron holds its position in the sky. Even as debris litters down upon us, screams ring out from the city on the other side, and the shock wave reverberates in our chest cavities.

  Me: Sophia, Wall Rose is down. Status on the other walls.

  Sophia: Wall Titan and Wall Maria are down. I repeat, all walls are down!

  Chapter Sixteen

  We don’t stick around for much longer after the walls come tumbling down.

  The three of us zip up about as high as we can without breaking the hazy celestial dome. Sophia is already up there in her Steamsuit and for once I’m happy to see her, after all, I can’t see her; rather, I see her Steamsuit and not much else.

  My breath of fresh air is cut short by a series of explosions below.

  A war has already broken out down there, and I’d like not to be the one that lets God sort out the losers this time. Fiery explosions shake the ground. Buildings are bombarded with bullets, weapons clank together as the Boilerplate Army tries to keep things under control, Marauders go crazy, and prisoners escape and kill anyone trying to stop them.

  “What did Joel say?” I ask Sophia over the comms system.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I am assuming you asked him to meet us somewhere after the walls were taken down. Not gonna lie here, but I’ve sized up a lot of jabronies in my two subjective years trapped in The Loop – that twerp is the type of hombre that won’t be down there on the front lines.”

  “Agreed,” Doc says.

  Sophia’s Steamsuit actually nods. “Oh, are you asking where he said to meet us after we took down the wall?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I’m asking.”

  “He … um … He didn’t say about that.”

  Frances Euphoria: I’m getting a reading on some new activity below!

  A portal opens up in the sky and Reapers on steamcycles spill out.

  Nothing atypical about this lot of Steampunked, skull-masked, trouble boys and girls with bulging muscles, world-inappropriate shooting irons, and enough leather to outfit every B&D fetishist in the Tri-State area.

  I make a beeline for the Reapers before anyone can stop me.

  ~*~

  I give the first Reaper the Cuisinart treatment.

  He’s Kibbles ‘n Bits by the time I’m done scissoring past him, steam from his deflating muscles whistling in the air. Another jets up to meet me and I cut her in half before she can get her mutant hack ax up, and both sides of her body spin away, propelled by steam.

  “Quantum!” Sophia shouts. “We have other things to do!”

  Doc this time. “Five minutes, tops, and nobody die!”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see the Steam Team’s deadliest faun twist in the air towards a gaggle of Reapers. He lays into the biggest of the bunch with his fist while shooting at others with his Gatling gun.

  Damn these Steamsuits sure get the job done!

  I swear I’m having deja vu as a battle not unlike my first big battle in Steam plays out before my very eyes. A witch whooshes through the air, al
chemical magic rippling around her arm as she attacks a Boilerplate Air Enforcer. The enforcer has large pipes sticking out of the back of his suit which are spewing a foamy green substance. As soon the stuff touches her skin, the witch writhes and burns as she spirals towards the battle below.

  Aiden lands on the ground and clotheslines a Reaper on a steamcycle.

  Damn, that’s gotta hurt!

  Dust, explosions, steam, debris, rubble – the Shock and Awe Campaign has landed in Akrasia.

  On the other side of the now crumbled wall, SRT Mondoshawans waddle towards the battle with boxy weapons. A group of prisoners in orange jumpsuits have taken them up on their offer. They wield whatever they can find, and it ain’t long before the biggest prison riot since the Carandiru Massacre is well underway.

  No time to soak in the mayhem – Gatling gun fire dings against the front of my suit. I find the culprit, a Reaper in a rusted AT-ST on the ground below, and I advance towards him. We collide and my life bar takes a bit of a dip as the Walker flat out explodes.

  On the ground now, a Steam Breed rushes towards me with a dragoon’s lance. I swipe the lance away with the big blade on my left and follow up with my right. The slice across his chest draws a thick cloud of white steam. I zip around him using the boosters and finish the job.

  Aiden flies past, crash-lands into a building, and blasts off. Above me, Doc is firing short bursts at anything remotely hostile. Sophia floats above him, her arms crossed over her chest.

  Frances Euphoria: Incoming!

  Another portal in the sky opens up and I brace for more Reapers.

  I’m taken off guard when I see Ray Steampunk in all his golden boy glory float out, his shimmery cape beating behind him.

  Steampunk is in a polished golden cuirass with an offset flame on the chest and a pair of pearl white epaulets with matching gold tassels. His legs are protected by gold and silver cuisses and his tootsies are enshrined in a pair of sabatons with elaborately decorated ankle plates joined by buckled straps.

  “Enough.”

  The word echoes from the godfather of Steam in the form of a sine wave. As it balloons in size, everything the glittering wave touches returns to its original shape.

  The bricks of Wall Rose, Wall Maria, and Wall Titan swirl in the air as they rebuild themselves.

  The lifeless, deflated bodies on the ground regain their shape and re-attach to any appendages they may be missing. The windows of the contraband shops, the bail bond shops, the hat shops, the shiv shops, the umbrella shops, the ironic tabard shops, and the stained glass of the cathedrals swirl in the air as they rebuild.

  Ray Steampunk lifts his hand in the air and all the Reapers rise from the crowd. About three dozen skull-masked Juggaloes squirm, struggle and kick as they try to logout.

  Some cry like sissies once they realize their logout buttons are missing; those less cowardly take to their weapons. They fire upon the crowds only to see the bullets and blasts from their hack arms dissipate in front of them.

  Doc lands his Steamsuit next to me. The front of the suit splits open and he hops out.

  “I’ve got it from here, Ray,” says the Faun of Steam as he equips his souped up golden goosinator hack. The hack boils saffron as it moves up his arm to his shoulder, as its symbioses spreads across his chest and latches to his other shoulder as a colossal three-barreled mutant hack takes shape.

  Using his other hand to steady the weapon, Doc aims it at the Reapers.

  ZOT!

  His first three blasts take the goombas at the front of the pack. They’re forced to log out and will only be able to log into the OMIB going forward.

  “Hey, I want in on the fun! How do I open this thing?”

  “It should just open upon command,” Sophia’s voice says in my ear.

  “Open up!”

  [I’m sorry, I am unable to interpret your command.]

  “Ah, come on … ” Doc fires on another pair of sitting Reaper ducks as jealousy and anger spread through me. “Cut the crap, Ray, open up this dammed suit!”

  [I’m sorry, Steamboy_889, your suit has been placed in sudden lockdown mode.]

  “Reboot the system, let me out of here!”

  [System reboot? Please confirm.]

  “For the love of … ” I shake my head. “Yes, affirmative, reboot.”

  In the time it has taken me to manually get hold of my Steamsuit, Doc has taken another two sets of Reapers.

  [System rebooting … ]

  Suddenly my pod opens up. I leap out, land, roll, and equip my 571, my Golden Goosinator hack. It spreads up my arm and I join Doc in blasting the hell out of the semi-frozen Reapers.

  “What took you so long?” Doc asks. “I thought you lived for this stuff.”

  “Technical issues.”

  I take out the final row of Reaper whack-a-moles and lower my hack.

  ~*~

  “Glad to see you turned a new leaf and are finally ready to help us,” I tell the God Emperor of Steam as soon as we’re done checking the Reapers’ candyasses into the Smack Down hotel.

  My hack is warm to the touch, but at least he isn’t buzzin’ in my ear like Hackie. I return it to my list as the thought strikes me. “Wait a damn minute, why the hell did you have us destroy the wall only to rebuild it?”

  Faster than a flasher can whip open his trench coat and waggle his willy, Aiden, Doc, Sophia, Steampunk and Yours Truly are in the Lost Pines in front of Bjurstrom. The rogue steam mech is still in the crater that was opened up earlier, and while four of us normal folk are Steamsuit-less on the ground, Ray has maintained his holier-than-thou position in a golden bubble that floats three feet off the ground.

  “Good,” I say, getting the hint for once. “So you’re finally willing to help us speed this along. The next step in the ‘Bring Ray Down to Earth’ intervention will be to get you to lower to the ground and talk to us mano y mano.”

  Sophia: Quantum, he helped us!

  “And I’m simply trying to help him. Everyone needs a life coach.”

  Much to my surprise, Ray’s sphere lowers to the ground and pixelates away. “You are correct,” he says without moving his lips, “I have decided to help you.”

  “Well, it’s about time, Ray.”

  “I realize that you have limited time.”

  “Correct, we gotta get Rocket out of Strata’s storage space before tomorrow. Twenty-four hours, now twenty-three, no twenty-one. No less than that. I’m terrible with Proxima time. Point is – we gotta hurry.”

  Ray nods, his eyes black as ever. “And Chrono? Is he ready to forge the weapon?”

  “He sure is, um, right Doc?”

  Doc nods. “Chrono is standing by in Tritania.”

  “Good, and you will free Quantum from The Loop first, then Rudraksh, I presume?”

  I glance downward. I don’t like Doc’s plan one bit in that regard. Sure, who wouldn’t want to wake up from his second digital coma? That said, Rocket doesn’t deserve the dish he’s been served and if I had to choose between getting him out and getting me out, I’d choose him. He deserves it more than me.

  “There’s nothing to feel guilty about,” Ray Steampunk says as Joel’s form materializes. “You should test the weapon before you try to use it to rescue Rudraksh.”

  “Not feeling guilty,” I mutter.

  “Ray Steampunk?” Joel drops to his knees. “I didn’t think … I didn’t know!”

  “Relax, Bjurstrom,” Ray tells the sniveling grease monkey. “I understand why you did what you did.”

  “Wait, so he’s Bjurstrom?” I ask Sophia.

  “I thought we went over this,” she says, “he’s an extension of Bjurstrom’s D-Nas.”

  “Why didn’t we just call him by his real name then?”

  She shrugs and I tune back to the conversation at hand.

  “Why … why did you stop it?” Bjurstrom, or perhaps Joel, or maybe Joe L., asks. “Why did you stop the destruction of Morlock?”

  Ray Steampunk consider
s his answer for a moment and finally says, “Morlock and its Marauders and the Boilerplate Army keep the world of Steam in balance. This is not the real world, and the forces of evil can actually exist with little to no repercussions. This keeps this world sane, it makes the adventures treacherous and raises the stakes – all things necessary for those living and existing in a video game to continue to enjoy themselves. Virtual Entertainment Dreamworld, VE Dreamworld, that is what the Proxima Company specializes in.”

  “Then why did you let us fry the Reapers?” I ask.

  “I didn’t let you, they let you.”

  “What are you going on about now, Ray?”

  “If you have a moment, watch any feed from the battle that took place in Akrasia. All perspectives show a battle between you and the Reapers and your team, The Dream Team.”

  “Steam Team,” I correct him.

  “That’s a stupid name and you know it. Anyway, all the feeds show your team beating them.”

  Sophia’s eyes grow wide. “So you can’t be implicated!”

  “Exactly.”

  “Even the Reapers’ own feeds?” Doc asks.

  “I am the NVA Seed,” he reminds the Faun of Steam.

  “Okay, so why are you going GoogleFace incognito then? Why not just come out with it?” I ask.

  “Legal reasons, as I’m sure you can figure out on your own. I’ll be much more useful to you if the Reapers do not know we’re working together. Now, let’s get to the cliffs outside Steam City. It is time to get the Sky Iron.”

  A golden sphere forms around each of us and the rogue steam mech. A blinding bar of pixilated light extends from Ray Steampunk and connects to the spheres around us. As if someone has just sucked us all through a straw, our bodies compress and our forms mesh together as we’re zipped away.

  ~*~

  The four of us take shape on the side of a high escarpment. The rogue steam mech forms below and immediately begins drilling at a rapid rate, spewing dust, rock, and debris into the orange dusk. Rock meets metal and metal wins, cracking and stripping at the stone as it makes its way to that big juicy vein of Sky Iron.