“You can … freeze time?” I ask.
“I’m not done talking to you and I won’t be interrupted – this is important… “
The Reaper moves and time freezes again.
“You tried … you tried to kill me!” I say, remembering what happened a few Loop days back. “What was that all about?”
“I didn’t want you to go.”
“Dolly, I am human and you are … you are artificial intelligence. You aren’t real! You’re a character in a virtual dreamworld!”
Time speeds up and freezes again. Dolly curls onto my lap, sobbing with her entire body. “Please don’t leave me, Quantum. Please.”
“Dolly, get off me. I need to handle this,” I say, choking back tears myself. My inventory list comes up; my Reaper mask appears on my face and my golden ax in my hand. It begins its magical weaponization.
“Please, Quantum, don’t leave me. You’re … you’re all I have.”
I push her off and stand, pointing my weapon at the Reaper. Time speeds up and slows down again in a maddening way.
“Stop playing with time and stop playing with my life, Dolly.”
With that she disappears, fragmenting into a million pixels.
Time immediately returns to its normal pace. I blast the Reaper before he can even get his weapon up. A different window shatters and another Reaper crashes on the table with two of the Battling Brits wrapped around his arms, repeatedly hacking him with their tactical knives.
I aim my mutant hack and an enormous burst of energy mulches the Reaper.
“How many are there?” I ask one of the assassins, whom I recognize as Short Irish.
“All of them, I think!” He leaps into the air and out the window. A titanic gout of energy blasts in from outside, washing over the assassin with the bucket hat. His skeleton is visible as he flares orange-yellow-white and drops to ash; the wall behind him blows out.
Aiden leaps through the blown out window, shoulder rolls, lobs two grenades and empties his drum in a long, barrel-melting burst.
“Aiden!”
“There are too many, Quantum!” He glances around, changes drums, loads another grenade.
“Is Rollins out there?”
“They’re all out there. All of them!”
I take a step closer to the blown out window.
“Don’t, they’ll kill you and you’ll die in the real world. Kill yourself instead.” A thrown grenade bounces through the opening, hits the wall, skitters across the floor. Aiden leaps for it, screams, “Kill yourself, Quantum!” A muffled blast, and then he’s mostly gone. Bits and pieces of him gently patter down around me.
“Quantum, honey.”
A delicate hand with candy apple red nails touches my shoulder and gently pulls me around. Dolly smiles at me, ineffable sadness in her eyes as she jams inventory item 33, stag-handled bowie knife with brass cross guard straight into my heart and gives it a half-twist. In slow motion, I fall to the floor; in slow motion Dolly wipes away her tears as she steps over me; in slow motion she picks up Aiden’s AK and steps through the window in a crescendo of automatic weapons fire.
As I fade to black, I think, “I really, really hate that damn knife!”
Day 556
Feedback, a yard of white-hot sword in my gut, searing its way through to my heart. Feedback, a siren song beckoning to me over an astringent sea of bitter breakers. Feedback, a foul miasma rising from a swamp of despair, choking me from within. Feedback my only friend, my companion, my curse among curses.
I turn and the blanket slips off my body. My finger comes up, my inventory list scrolls; the golden ax appears in my hand and morphs into a nightmare weapon; the stag-handled Bowie appears in my other hand; I’m very much in the mood to use it. “Bastards … ” I say waiting for something, anything to happen.
The memory of Dolly’s confession comes to me. She’s only trying to help, I tell myself, but that doesn’t make me any less hurt, any less angry. She hid the logout point from me.
WHOOM!
An explosion rocks the room and a Reaper rappels in. I flambé her before she can do more than snarl, and she lands in a smoking heap on the floor; I hobble over to her and press the point of Mr. Stabby hard up under the ruins of her chin.
“Where’s Rollins?” I scream into her face.
“That’s for me to know and you to find out,” she hisses and logs out before I can finish her.
The door kicks open and Aiden steps in, around the bushel-basket sized hole, his AK up and ready.
“Are you all right?” he asks.
“That’s an interesting question. Dolly stabbed me in the heart, both literally and figuratively.”
“She saved you Quantum.”
“How do you figure?”
“The Reapers overran us less than a minute after she killed you. They killed everybody – everybody – and burned the place down. They would have got you, Quantum.”
“But they didn’t and here I am,” I say.
“She was helping you.”
“By killing me … ” I clear my throat. Aiden is right; still, I’m a little contentious due to Dolly’s revelations in the dining area. I can’t help but feeling lied to, can’t help but feeling like I’ve been a pawn the entire time. She could have told me!
Aiden sighs. “Okay, Quantum. Please understand that I mean this in the nicest, least judgmental, most non-denigrating way possible, but you need to put on your best big-boy zoot suit, man up and get over it. Focus on your now problem: we need to find the logout point; we need to get you out of here. The Reapers will not stop coming after you.”
“Dolly said it was in The Badlands that surround Devil’s Alley, but Frances and I already checked that area.”
“Hey Mister … ”
Aiden and I both look through the hole the Reaper blew in my floor. The kid from the room below me is looking up at us, clutching his pillow as if it were a teddy. His eyes are big and shiny, his frame incredibly small. I remember the kid from a few days back – his mom is down the hall getting paid to bump uglies with some fat cab driver.
“We’re kind of busy, kid,” I call down to him.
He says, “I heard you talking about The Badlands, about Devil’s Alley. What are you looking for?”
I turn to the door. “We don’t have time for this kid.”
“My uncle knows everything about Devil’s Alley,” the kid says.
“Your uncle?”
Aiden shrugs. “You got any better leads? Let’s see what he has to say ... ”
Both of us hop through the hole to the room below. The floor is crunchy with debris; wooden slats jut out of the ceiling above.
I turn to the rug rat. He’s famine-thin, skin and bones and sinew – no body fat at all. His shoulders remind me of door knobs. “All right, kid, you better make this quick. We are sort of being hunted at the moment.”
“Take me to Devil’s Alley with you.”
“Just tell us where your uncle is and we’ll find him.”
There is a twinkle behind the kid’s eyes, something that reminds me of Dolly. “My uncle isn’t like the others.”
The image of the bum Frances Euphoria and I met in The Badlands comes to me, the one who bit the shit out of her. The carnie. “Is your uncle hunched over, kind of crazy? Wears a little top hat?”
“He’s not like the others,” the kid says again, “and he won’t listen to anyone but my mom and me.”
“What do you think?” I ask Aiden. “Should we take him with us?”
“It couldn’t hurt,” he says, “but we need to go now if we’re going to do it. More Reapers will be here any minute.”
~*~
“Let’s hail a taxi from the rooftop,” Aiden suggests.
“Good idea. We can avoid the six assassins, Jim and whatever else waits for us in the lobby. Come on, kid.” I turn to the front door of the boy’s hotel room.
“My name is Picasso.”
“That isn’t your name,” I tell hi
m.
“Is too!”
“And you’re a painter?”
“I’m a ten-year-old.”
Aiden says, “You can play twenty questions with him later. Let’s go!”
We hit the hallway and from there, the stairwell. Moving as fast as possible, we make our way to the rooftop. The door springs open and we’re greeted by a stupid amount of rain, rain coming down in pitchforks and hammer handles, a real frog-choker of a downpour. Thunder wallops in the air, wind twists and whips around us, lightning cracks across the sky like a wet towel. My hand goes up and a taxi immediately lowers, one of the advantages of having airborne vehicles.
Picasso and I get in the back, Aiden in the front.
“The Badlands near Devil’s Alley,” I tell the driver, “pronto.”
“Devil’s Alley … ” the driver grunts as his vehicle lifts in the air. “Piece of cake.”
Our vehicle barrels through the air as rain pelts and spatters against the windshield; the tiny windshield wipers work frantically to sweep away the digital raindrops; bits of hail plink against the hood of the cab. We zoom past a transport truck with the back slightly open and a tarp flapping in the wind.
Not much is said.
My mind races like a gerbil up a celebutard’s butt. There is no telling where I’ll end up next – my life has spun out of my control and this just reinforces my need to find the logout point. I don’t want to end up as someone else’s avatar, a pawn in their games here in the Proxima Galaxy and in the real world ... up there.
Devil’s Alley looms in the distance, an island of ultra-neon illuminated pollute haze above the ground level trenches, rat-runs, and hidey-holes. Bauhaus buildings jut into the sky, ready to deflate any sense of hope one may experience upon entering this back door to Hell.
“There’s Barfly’s. I could really use a shot ‘n’ a beer. We got time for a quick one?” I deadpan.
Aiden snorts, “There are no quick ones at Barfly’s, you know that. We get this Reaper thing resolved and the first round’s on me, but right now they’re dead on your ass and breathing down your neck. We just had a great big shoot ‘em up at the hotel not two hours ago.”
“Two hours ago?”
“Yes, you haven’t been asleep for long. The NVA Seed … ”
“Dolly.”
“Dolly made sure of it.”
“Just like the day before?”
“Just like the day before. She really is doing everything she can, Quantum.” He turns to me, looks me dead in the eye. “For you.”
The taxi lowers towards a forgotten Ferris wheel. In front of the Ferris wheel is an old Merry-go-round with half the plastic horses missing. A funhouse with a psycho killer clown face and a toppled ticket booth filled with vintage garbage complete the scene of sheer abandonment.
We hover. “Is this all right?” the taxi driver asks.
I glance to Picasso.
“It’s fine,” he says, “My uncle is always around here somewhere.”
The taxi lands. I transfer some credit to the driver with a generous tip for not being nosy, and we hop out.
“What is it you’re looking for exactly?” Picasso asks. “You never told me.”
“We’re looking for a logout point. It should be around here somewhere, stationary.”
The kid scratches the back of his head in a way that suggests teeny-weeny livestock. Despite this, he somehow reminds me of myself as a child, blond hair, innocent. This gets me thinking more about Picasso – he didn’t appear in my life until almost ten days ago. There was never anyone in the room below mine until … day 548 or something. I’m about to say something to him about it when he says, “Follow me!”
The kid takes off like a greased weasel in a downhill Teflon chute, and ducks through a hole in the rusty chain link.
“Watch my back, please,” I tell Aiden, “You know, just in case.”
“I’m on it.”
A Barrett M-82 .50 caliber rifle with a whopping big suppressor appears in his hands.
“Element of surprise – whispering death,” he says as his body starts to pixilate.
“Good, keep in the shadows. If anyone comes, fill ‘em full of daylight.”
He disappears and I ease my way in through the hole in the fence; I wouldn’t want to cut my avatar and get digital tetanus.
“Wait up, Picasso,” I call after the scrawny ankle-biter.
He slides to a halt in front of the overturned ticket booth. Large rats scurry away carrying strips of flesh in their mouths. I see movement in the distance – a fiend calling it a night at the start of the day by covering himself with a cardboard blanket. He coughs, hacks, vomits something up, examines it, shrugs.
“Uncle!” the kid calls out.
“Does he have a name?”
“I just call him Uncle.”
“Okay, I’ll help then. Uncle!”
“Uncle!”
“Uncle!” I cup my hands around my mouth. “UNCLE!”
Debris slides and scrapes, broken glass clinks and tinkles on the asphalt as a man emerges from a heap of splintered wood adjacent to the Merry-go-round.
“I should have known … ”
~*~
“Nothing to be afraid of NOTHING to be afraid … to be …”
His crooked little top hat with the peacock feather confirms it – this is the carnie Frances and I met a few days back, the one who took a bite out of crime and skedaddled with Frances’ arm.
“PICASSO!” His hands – claw-like and mangled – come out and he sweeps the boy in his arms. “Always something getting in my way … LIFE who knew where I’d end up … Throw up SEW UP call up maul me balmy Sundays. BLOODY Sundays!”
“Let’s make this quick,” I tell Picasso. I don’t trust Uncle Carnie as far as I can throw him; the man would be better off in a kennel than a Proxima World. One arm smaller than the other, neck-less, stumpy little legs, a face a mother would love to bash – Uncle Carnie redefines hideous.
“Uncle we’re looking for the logout point.”
“LOG OUT!” he leaps into the air, clawing at my chest. “LOG OUT!” he screams in a hoarse voice. I pull my fist back, ready to add a little flavor to his busted grill.
“Don’t,” Picasso says, “just relax around him.”
Uncle Carnie is on the ground around my feet, sniffing at my legs. I suppress my desire to give him a good knee to the face. “Logout point,” I say calmly, “Logout point. Focus, Uncle.”
“LOG OUT!” he cries, biting at my shoe now, slobbering on the leather, wiping snot onto my pant legs.
Picasso crouches in front of the disturbed man. “Uncle,” he says in a voice not his own, a female voice that I recognize, “I need you to help my friend Quantum here.”
“Dolly?”
Picasso looks up at me and his eyes flicker. “Who?” he asks, in his normal little kid voice.
“Nothing, nobody – just talk to your uncle.”
Now Uncle Carnie is on his back, kicking his feet in the air. The soles of his boots have been completely worn away revealing his blackened feet. One of his toes is hanging out of the front of his shoe, the nail curled and yellow, thick like a ram’s horn. “I just WANT to go home!” he screams. “HOME! Let me go home let me go home let me … go … HOME! Ah!” He bangs his fists against the ground until they are bloody. “HOME! Ah!”
Picasso says, “It’s okay, Uncle. We’ll take you home soon but first, I need you to show me where the logout point is.”
Dolly’s voice again, I’m certain of it.
“Log out?” Tears appear on Uncle Carnie’s face. “YOU CAN’T LOG OUT!”
“We need your help, Uncle … ”
Uncle Carnie rolls to his side, waddles to his feet. He grabs the front of my shirt and begins screaming. “LOG OUT! LOG OUT!” His eyes are bulging out of his face, his breath foul, his tongue covered in sores, his gums oozing pus, his teeth fuzzy and yellow.
Please,” I say, “please help us … help me … ”
I am suddenly overcome with emotion. To think that this algorithmic mishap stands between me and logging out is hard to process.
Picasso’s hand comes up, resting on his uncle’s back. “Please uncle,” he says, “Quantum needs our help.”
Uncle Carnie spins around, spins back to me, spins around again. His top hat comes off and he holds it in front of him. “LOG OUT!” he screams into the opening of his hat, “LOG OUT!”
He twists his hat around, smacks the top and an origami star falls out.
“What’s that?” I ask.
Picasso picks it up. “It’s the logout point.”
“But I thought it had to be stationary … ”
“It is stationery.”
I take the star-shaped piece of paper from Uncle Carnie, examine it. Stationery. This was why Frances and I couldn’t find the logout point. Naturally, I add it to my inventory list – item 555 (due to the fact I didn’t add anything yesterday). It appears in my hand moments later, a small blue indicator floating above it. A banner emerges from the indicator that reads:
Hi, Quantum Hughes. Would you like to log out?
Freedom. Freedom! Freedom!
“Thank you … ” I say, my hand hovering over the logout button, my fingers twitching. Then the thought comes to me. “Aiden.”
Morning Assassin appears behind my shoulder, lowers his weapon. “Congratulations, Quantum. You found it.”
“I’m not finished yet,” I tell him, returning the star-shaped stationery to my inventory list. “I need to go back to the hotel.”
“Why?”
“I want to thank Dolly. Come on kid,” I say to Picasso over my shoulder.
“He’s already gone, Quantum,” Aiden says.
~*~
There is nothing but debris and amusement park wreckage where Picasso and Uncle Carnie were just standing. A cat-sized rat near the ticket booth rummages through a trashcan; a fiend scratches at his crotch in the shadow of a kiddie ride – this is The Loop. I hear a howl in the distance, and I can’t tell if it’s human or animal. Doesn’t matter now.
“I need to return to the hotel …” I tell him. “One last time.”
The Feedback Loop (3-Book Box Set): (Scifi LitRPG Series) Page 13