“Sorry about your arm … ”
I turn to find light spiraling around Frances’ arm. The light is white on top, rainbow-colored on bottom, where it currently reforms her wrist.
“You can regenerate?”
“My avatar regenerates on her own,” she says. “None of the weapons here can do much damage to me.”
“What about the Reapers?”
“They have different weapons, ones that aren’t available in this world.”
“Come, let’s keep exploring.” Frances’ atlas sphere floats in the air next to her. It begins zipping around, scanning areas with a red beam.
“Activate yours as well,” she says. “It will make this much easier.”
~*~
We search for hours after her arm has healed. Occasionally we encounter overly aggressive bums tweaked up on Riotous, but none as vicious as the strange carnie that attacked us earlier. According to Frances, nearly anything can be the logout point, as long as it is stationary.
The logout point must be stationary.
The sun sets (or at least it’s the time that it should start setting – cloud coverage has made it nearly impossible to tell). At any rate, I’ve lived in The Loop long enough to know that night is a bad time to be in The Badlands. The number of hostile NPCs multiplies at night, which will make our search just that much harder. True, it doesn’t really matter if I die or not, but every once in a while I like to actually make it through the day and go to sleep on my own. From what I can remember, the last day I lived through entirely was day 381, which coincides with the M-1 Garand that I picked up at The Pier. Nothing like eight rounds of .30-06 and a sixteen-inch bayonet to take out a few jobbies.
“We’d better take a powder,” I suggest.
“Pardon?”
“Leave, we should leave.”
“That’s fine.” Frances Euphoria’s atlas sphere whirls around her head for a moment before materializing. “I need to log out anyway, eat some dinner. It’s been a long day.”
An incomprehensible sense of longing balloons within me.
“What?” she asks, noticing the half-frown on my face.
“Log out. I can’t imagine what it would be like to actually log out, or to eat actual food for that matter. Do you … ” I eye her wearily. “Do you know what has happened to me back in the real world? Have you … seen me?”
“I have, Quantum.” She takes a step closer to me. “I see you every day.”
“Really?”
A flare gun appears in Frances’ hand, which is helpful for flagging down taxis in remote areas. She fires a round and within seconds, a taxi lowers itself to the ground.
“Where you heading?” the cabbie asks through the crack in his window.
“Mondegreen Hotel,” I say.
“I wasn’t going in that direction, but I guess I’ll take you there.”
I open the back door and slide in. “Well, excuse the Hell out of me for asking you to do your job,” I say under my breath.
“A wise guy, eh?” His dark eyes size me up through the rearview mirror.
“Why don’t you goose it and mind your own damn business.”
“Quantum,” Frances whispers as she scoots in next to me, “Manners.”
“I hear you there, lady,” the cabbie says as his taxi lifts into the air. “Kids these days get a kick out of being punks. Kind of shows you where the world is going.”
“What was that?” I ask.
“Cool it, Quantum.”
~*~
The Mondegreen Hotel is a somber affair, a grungy place with a chipped exterior and a few broken windows on the lower floors. Not exactly the Trump Taj Mahal.
The hotel has six stories if you don’t count the basement, which used to be a bar. The entrance to the dreary hotel is marked by a few steps and a couple of dead bushes chock full of paper bags used to hold forties, condom wrappers, discarded weapons (I found item 266 in those very bushes – a burlap sack full of door knobs) and the occasional body part.
“Home sweet home,” I say as the taxi lowers itself to the street.
I wanted to speak to Frances about my body in the real world, but I had decided to keep my mouth shut during the ride back to the hotel. The cabbie could have overhead us, which wouldn’t have mattered to me in the past. Things have changed now that I know The Loop is trying to prevent me from logging out.
“Let’s go to my room,” I say as soon as the taxi lifts into the air. “Hey … ”
“Yes?” Frances asks. Her hands are on her hips, parked just over her belt. There’s something gorgeous about her, something overly familiar. I still can’t place my finger on it.
“What did you mean when you said earlier that you saw my body every day?”
“I meant exactly what I said.”
“What do I look like … in the real world?”
I’ve imagined what I look like countless times since being trapped here. There’s no telling.
“Thin,” she says, turning away from me. “You are very thin, Quantum, a shadow of your former self.” A can lifts out of a trashcan and hurls itself at her. She brushes it away and it clinks onto the ground.
Her statement bothers me even though I’ve known for a while that this was likely the condition of my body in the real world. “You know, you haven’t really told me why you are here to rescue me.”
“It’s a long story … ”
“Yeah, you keep saying that too. Get on with it, doll face. Also, why do you see me every day? You stalking me or something?” I ask with a nervous grin on my face.
“Stalking? Hardly.” Frances is facing me again, her red hair framing her face. “You really can’t remember, can you?”
“Clue me in,” I say. “I’m sick of being stuck in the dark here.”
We enter the lobby of the hotel. The chandelier is half-lit as it always is, the carpets red and elaborate. The place is more or less spick and span; there’s no evidence that we battled a load of Reapers in here for breakfast.
“Quantum … ” Frances stops dead in her tracks, her arms at her side with her palms open. My eyes fall upon a package on the receptionist’s desk. “Run!”
Too late is an understatement.
The lobby walls last just long enough for the shockwave to splat us like roaches before they balloon outward ahead of the flame front. I never hear the façade of the hotel collapse into the street.
Day 550
Feedback like banshees entombed in my skull. Feedback, my Judas, my arch nemesis, my antagonist. My dreams are bitter tears, cries from the nucleus of a lost valley filled with murky characters and dagger-eyed snakes. I dreamt that I was in a vat of liquid being turned by a soft pair of hands. I dreamt that the hands moved up and down my body, massaging my nonexistent muscles. I dreamt of Frances and a time when she was younger, a time when we had reversed roles.
Loop dreams about a faux Loop-life while hoping to awake someplace else, someplace that isn’t a digital cell, an algorithmic jail tied to an excruciating urge to awaken, to break myself free of the dream that I am prisoner to.
I can almost force myself awake in my dreams, almost separate myself from my avatar and travel upwards, towards the place we all must one day go. If only I could pry myself free of this body, peel my skin off and twist into the air, the wind trailing behind me as I spiral upwards towards a pair of eyes in the sky, my eyes in the real world, eyes that must be pressed before they can open in a different place.
A place that isn’t The Loop.
I roll to my side wishing I were dead. My head aches, or at least I imagine it aching or at least it should be aching considering I’ve just woken after being killed by an explosion. I cast my qualms aside – Morning Assassin will be here any moment and I’d better be ready for him.
8:03 AM.
I scroll through my inventory list looking for the perfect way to defeat my opponent. He didn’t come the previous morning, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t seconds away from breaking through my
window ready to rumble. Feeling creative, I select a clothes iron which is always piping hot (item 93), and a trashcan lid (item 14), which makes a swell shield due to its thickness. My door springs open.
“There you are, you bastard!” I say waving my hot iron at … “Frances?”
“I thought I’d surprise you.” She stands just beneath the door frame, wearing the same clothes she wore yesterday.
“Why didn’t you just knock?”
“Why are you holding a trashcan lid and a clothes iron?”
“Because they won’t hold themselves, Sugar Baby.”
I press the button on the iron releasing a cloud of steam. The cloud quickly dissipates.
Frances’ face twists into a disbelieving grin. “Quantum … you really have lost it in here, haven’t you?”
“What?” I start laughing, and press the steam button again. “You should have knocked. I thought … I thought Morning Assassin was coming.”
“Who?”
“My 8:05…”
“Oh, that’s right. I keep forgetting you’ve been in here for eight years.”
“Two years.”
“Got it.”
She walks over to my window, staring out at the city. I can see the slightest outline of her reflection in the glass.
“I have tons of questions,” I say. Her visage morphs from light-hearted to serious. “First, regarding what we were talking about before we were blown to smithereens yesterday, I need you to be clear with me, Frances. I need you to be perfectly honest with me.”
She turns to me. “Sit.”
I relax back onto my bed.
“When one dives into a Proxima World, one does so unconsciously, essentially entering a prefab dreamworld that has been constructed using advanced neuronal algorithms.”
“Which is why my real body is in what is known as a digital coma. I get it. Why are you telling me all this?” I ask.
“As I said yesterday, there are other people trapped in the various worlds of the Proxima Galaxy. And the Reapers hunt them down and kill them, for profit. Wherever the forces of evil attempt to extend their dominion, there is a counterforce that strives to oppose them. Just as SkyNet has John Connor, just as the Monarch has Brock Samson, the Reapers have me! I work for the FCG–”
“You’re with the Feds?”
“Yes, I’m with the Federal Corporate Government.” She clears her throat.
“I don’t see you as a back-office bureaucrat, somehow.”
“I’m part of a special division that locates and frees users who’ve been trapped inside Proxima Worlds.”
“The FCG has a division for that? Who’d a thunk it?”
“They set it up in 2048 and you’re one of the founders.”
“Me?”
“You and one other guy ... ”
“Tell it to the Marines, sister.”
“Huh? What Marines? Wait. Ummmm … I’m not kidding, Quantum. You’re one of the founders and the first member of the team to successfully affect a rescue, back in 2050. There have been about a thousand other rescues since, but you were the first one to successfully go in, find a stranded user, locate the manual logout point, and bring them back.”
“And I got stuck?”
“And you got stuck because of the glitch.”
“And you’re here to rescue me?”
“Bingo.”
“Why did it take you so long to find me?”
“There is no way to tell which Proxima World a person is stuck in and there are tens of thousands of worlds – new worlds are created daily, as the Proxima Galaxy expands. As soon as someone loses the ability to log out, the system erases their data. I’ve been searching for you for the last four years. In fact, searching for you allowed me to save a few others.”
“So people are still getting trapped?”
“No, not anymore. They eradicated the glitch 2055, after a massive overhaul of the code. However, there are still people trapped from before the glitch was fixed.”
“How many?”
“Over a hundred.”
“What about my partner, the other founder of this task force that searches for trapped players? What happened to–”
“–He’s no longer with us,” she says shortly.
“Okay, well what’s the name of the task force anyway?”
“The Dream Team.”
I snort through my nose at that.
“It used to be called the Dream Task Force, but people started referring to us as the Dream Team after the president gave a speech about us. Besides, the word dream is actually an acronym. It stands for Dream Recovery Extraction and Management. Most people just call us the Dream Team, though.”
“Seriously? Wow! On a scale of one through ten on the Acme Relative Lameness Index, that’s like an eleven. What wet end came up with that?”
“That wet end would be you, Mr. Hughes.”
“Well, that explains some. I can be ironic at times.” I smile at Frances but it seems to have no effect. “So what happens if I log out?”
“That’s really up to you.”
“And the bomb at the desk last night? Who planted that?”
“It was randomly generated. As I said earlier, the NVA Seed isn’t happy.”
~*~
I lead Frances downstairs (no assassins) and into the dining area. I figure a day of searching for a hidden logout point will require a big breakfast.
“Wait here a moment,” I say after she sits. I whisk past Dolly, who is in the process of bringing us menus. I’m still kicking myself for killing her a couple days back – I feel guilty even though it had to be done, even though she came at me first.
“I’ll be back in a moment, Doll,” I say as I slip into the kitchen.
I kick the revolving door open and step in. A large meat cleaver zips past my face and lodges in the wall inches away from my shoulder.
“There you are!” I say to the chef with a grin on my face.
“Quantum!” I hear Frances call out from the dining room.
“Busy!” I yell back. My inventory list appears and I select a golf club – item 333 – and my metal trashcan lid (item 14).
The chef, a blubbery man with a handlebar mustache and a white chef’s hat laughs. “Ha! You come at me with this?” he asks. “Pathetic!”
“It’s been a few days you bastard,” I say, baring my teeth.
He thrusts at me with an oversized carving knife. I deflect his attack with my shield and I nail him in the nuts with my nine-iron.
“OOooOOF!” His eyes bulge, his dentures fly out of his mouth, skip across the utility island and land in the Fry-O-Lator – I do believe I’ll pass on the fries today. His face purples as he bends forward, clutches his groin, and falls face-first into the salad prep station.
“I got you now, foul filet defiler,” I shout, the bloodlust upon me.
“Sez you!” He whirls and flings a handful of chopped onion in my eyes, follows it with a sweet left hook – right cross combo. I back-pedal across the greasy floor, lose my footing and land flat on my back. The golf club flies from my grip and the trash can lid clangs away out of reach. A sack of flour hits me in the face, followed by a canister of sugar, a flat of eggs, and a gallon jug of cow juice. I hope there’s enough left for pancakes when I’m done in here.
The kitchen door swings open. Frances Euphoria points her own .500 magnum at the chef. “Don’t move and nobody gets hurt,” she advises him. He slams on the brakes and freezes in place, an extra-large rolling pin cocked over his shoulder like a Louisville Slugger. With a roll of her eyes and an exasperated sigh she queries, “Seriously Quantum? This is something you had to do? You can’t just leave him alone?”
“He’s my … ” I look at my nonexistent watch. “Well, he used to be my 8:23 but I’m a little early. I thought maybe you’d like an uninterrupted breakfast.”
The door swings closed and Mr. Chef leaps for me. I roll out of his way and he face-plants in the impromptu pancake batter.
&
nbsp; I access my inventory list before he can reorient himself and come after me again. A dart gun – item 78 – appears in my hand. I fire a poison dart right into his neck; his hand flies to the dart as toxic yellow foam boils out of his nose and mouth. He twitches his faux life away and makes a pancake batter angel on the tiles as he does so.
I pick up the chef’s rolling pin and add it to my inventory, item 550.
~*~
“Really, Quantum,” Frances Euphoria says after I’ve returned to the dining area. “You are like a man-child in here, like … like … like an ape gone ape.”
“Relaxitrate, Frances, I was just having a little fun. Besides, that chef has tried to kill me … well I don’t know how many times.” I think for a moment. “At least a hundred times, at least.”
“What’ll it be?” Dolly appears with the menus in her hands and a pained expression on her face.
“Hiya Dolly,” I say with a nervous grin. “Sorry about the other day …”
“Which other day?” she asks, cocking her head to the right. “What would you like to eat this morning?”
Really? Nothing.
“I’ll have the usual.”
“Eggs over easy, three pieces of toast, bacon and a beer?”
“Add some pancakes too. Three, no make it four, extra butter.”
There’s something different about Dolly’s makeup today. It’s more elaborate than usual, especially around her eyes. Her lips aren’t blood red as they normally are; instead they’re pink, a faint color closer to orange sherbet than pink in the traditional sense. Her apron is different and reveals more cleavage.
“Will there be anything else, Mr. Hughes?”
Mr. Hughes? She’s never called me that before. I put the pieces together, glancing from Dolly to Frances.
“She’s just a friend,” I say, nodding at Frances.
Dolly’s cheeks redden. “What would you like, Quantum’s friend?”
The Feedback Loop (3-Book Box Set): (Scifi LitRPG Series) Page 7