The Feedback Loop (3-Book Box Set): (Scifi LitRPG Series)

by Harmon Cooper

  And I wish Dolly could bring it to me.

  The alarm and the red strobes cut off, and the house lights come up bright, a bright that burns into my brain, even with my eyes closed. Loud voices shout back and forth: “Clear!” and “Clear!” and “One hostile down over here!” and “Clear!”

  A man with a gun – big gun – reaches over the edge of the vat and feels Number Three’s neck for a pulse, then feels for mine. He puts his finger to his ear. “Hughes is still alive, second hostile down. Say again, Hughes is alive, second hostile down.”

  Epilogue

  June 20th 2058.

  A wheelchair – how retro. They offered me a powered exoskeleton that would let me walk immediately, engage in daily activities of living as they euphemistically put it, and perform my physical therapy all at the same time.

  No. Thank. You.

  Granted, it’s a powered AI wheelchair and I steer it with finger flicks when some Humandroid attendant isn’t pushing, but still it’s better than walking around like a Series 800 Model 101. But despite the pain, despite the injuries, despite the physical limitations, I’ve never felt better, I’ve never felt more alive.

  Freedom is the smell of grass in the morning. Freedom is the sound of crickets chirping in the evening. Freedom is the ability to wake up and fall back to sleep; to awaken without worrying about where the next ambush will be, wondering who’s going to try to kill you this time.

  Freedom is color, rich, vibrant color.

  True – I’m still having problems adjusting to color. True – keeping my eyes open during the botched extraction has distorted my vision, something that will also require surgery or a pair of good Leaks, which apparently have improved while I was stuck in The Loop. Still, freedom is color.

  The parade of humanity goes past my window every day, even though humanity is mostly just the pair of Humandroids who manage the hospital’s landscaping. Watching them gives me a sense of delight greater than sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, money, or anything else that tickles the “ol dopamine receptors. I’m in constant-smile mode, no matter how painful things are or how tired I am of being fed through a tube.

  It’s been said before and I’ll say it again: life is a beautiful thing.

  A nurse peeks in. “You have a visitor, Quantum,” she says.

  “Who is it this time? Cop, lawyer, insurance adjuster?”

  “A young lady.”

  Frances Euphoria.

  I know it’s her without the nurse having to say another word. Frances has been in D.C. dealing with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Intelligence Gathering’s inquiry into the attempted assault and kidnapping of Mrs. Hughes’ eldest unmarried son by alleged Industrial Espionage Operatives, and not Reapers – who don’t exist according to the F-BIIG. Two of the four not-Reapers survived and lawyered up immediately.

  Still, an investigation is probably imminent.

  “Send her in.”

  This is the first time Frances and I will meet in the real world, and I’m a little nervous about it. I raise my hand to brush my hair out of my eyes, and the IV line pulls and I remember I don’t have long hair in the real world; nothing to sweep aside. My hands come down and I smooth the front of my stylish hospital bathrobe.

  Frances enters, and she looks nothing like her avatar. She has dark brown eyes and short black hair cut in a military high-and-tight. She’s thin, but still fills her blouse nicely, if you know what I mean, and she holds herself in an assertive, no BS manner. I imagine that I don’t look much like my avatar, either. Eight years in the vat have probably not added a beach-boy tan or given me a gym-rat physique, and really I don’t want to know just how much ground I’ve lost. Seeing my arms and legs is bad enough; a mirror would probably finish me.

  Frances closes the door, sits in front of me and immediately turns on the waterworks.

  “Really? Am I that bad?”

  “No, no … it’s not that. I just can’t believe I’m seeing you alive,” she says. “It still … gets to me.”

  “Not much to look at.” I run my hand across my shaved head, pinch my earlobe.

  “You’ll gain color again and weight, regain muscle tone,” she assures me.

  “Yeah, in that order.”

  “So, do you remember me now?” she asks.

  “Should I? What do you mean?”

  “We never talked about why I came for you in The Loop.”

  “That’s what you do, isn’t it?”

  “It is, but … ” She smiles through her tears. “You’re the one who gave me this job.”

  “Me?”

  She nods. “I was trapped in a Proxima World called Arrakis, a desert planet taken from the Dune series. You rescued me, back in 2049, when I was sixteen years old. At the time, you and your partner, Strata Godsick, had just gotten federal funding from the FCG to perform your first rescue. I was that rescue.”

  “And I hired you?”

  “No, but you inspired me to join as soon as I turned eighteen, after hearing that you yourself were trapped in an unknown Proxima World yourself.”

  My eyes dart to the window, where I catch an actual breeze rustling through the trees. Knowing that it isn’t digital, that it isn’t some clever algorithm, makes me incredibly grateful, grateful for Frances for freeing me. “Thank you,” I say, “Thank you for coming after me even though I was basically forgotten.”

  “It was an honor and a privilege, Quantum. I’d gladly do it again,” she says.

  Silence settles in the air between us. Someone pushes a gurney through the hallway outside of the door, its wheels loud and squeaky. The Rehab Facility smells of disinfectant, plastic, ozone.

  Frances is the first to speak. “I have a personal favor to ask of you.”

  “Go on.”

  “I wanted to ask you if you’re willing to join the Dream Team once you recover. After all, you are one of its founders …”

  I almost laugh at her proposition. There is no way I’m going to subject myself to a VE dreamworld again, even if it’s essentially the same as dreaming. Even if Dolly’s there…

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I finally tell her.

  “But Quantum … ” she bites her lip. “There are others like me, like you, people who are trapped and whom the Reapers are killing for profit. Developers and regular users.”

  “The Reapers.” Just saying the word puts a bad taste in my mouth.

  “We’d be able to fight them as a team,” she says, “and now that you’re out here, we’ll get you enhanced weapons for your next visit.”

  “How enhanced?” I’m not thinking of re-upping, I’m just idly curious, that’s all. Just curious.

  “We have a coder and a former military cyber-warfare operative on our team responsible for weapons development. They’ve reverse engineered most of the new mutant hacks the Reapers use, and have developed several really nasty ones that the Reapers don’t have. These are game-changers; these are war-winners.” She becomes fiercely intense, “We can take the fight to them, make them fight on our terms, put them on the defensive.”

  “That’s great and all, Frances, but there is no way I’m going back into the Proxima Galaxy. Not even for … ”

  I think of Dolly, her bob haircut, her ruby red lips, our relationship that spanned eight years.

  “Even for what?”

  “Nothing.”

  She stands, runs her hands along her outfit, which is black, collarless, and cut in a military style. “Think about it, will you? I have to get going.”

  “I will, but I can tell you now that the answer will still be no.” I look back out the window. Never mind virtual reality – actual reality is where it’s at, pussycat.

  That’s why, Frances, that’s why.

  She bends forward and kisses me on the cheek. “It was nice seeing you, seeing that you are recovering.”

  “Thanks for all you’ve done,” I say, looking her eye to eye.

  “Thank you as well, Quantum.”

  F
rances is almost at the door when I ask, “Whatever happened to my partner, the one who started the Dream Team with me? You never told me about him.”

  “You still don’t know, do you?”

  “No,” I admit. ‘my memory has been … fuzzy.”

  “Your former partner, Strata Godsick, is the one who started the Revenue Corporation. He is the leader of the Reapers.”

  My throat tightens. “Strata Godsick?”

  Images materialize in my mind’s eye at the sound of his name. I can see Godsick now in his Dream Team uniform, can see us shaking hands, can see the Reaper skull mask, can see Rollins pointing his nightmare weapons at me, can feel the bleachies grabbing at my legs.

  “He’s the one who started the Reapers?”

  “Yes, he’s the head of their murder guild.”

  “He put a hit out on me … ”

  “Yes,” Frances says, “and he has killed plenty of others. We calculate he’s been directly or indirectly responsible for the death of more than five hundred people. These are just the confirmed deaths – there may be two or three times as many more that we can’t confirm. And that doesn’t take into account the users he’s enslaved.”

  “The bleached people.”

  “Yes,” she says.

  “C’mere.” I reach my out, with the arm that doesn’t have all the tubes in it.

  She takes my hand, gently squeezes my arm, waits, says nothing.

  I look up at her and muster the biggest smile I can possibly muster. “I’ll do it. I’ll come back. Somebody needs to stop these cyber-Nazis, these bullies, these corporate greed-heads. So yeah, I’ll do it. I’m in. Where do I sign up?”

  “You will?” She mostly contains her excitement, mostly. But there is a happy dance just below the surface that’s going to bubble out as soon as she’s alone.

  “But first … ”

  “Yes! Anything!”

  “But first, I want to get better, and then I want you to take me out for a beer and some pancakes. I’m sick of being fed through a tube.”

  She laughs. “Anything you want, Quantum, anything.”

  Outside the sun shines brightly and birds spiral to heights unknown. The clouds have all but disappeared; the day is clear, calm. Everyone deserves to see this; everyone deserves to bear witness to a beautiful summer day in the real world. No one deserves to be trapped in a VE dreamworld, stripped of their hope and humanity, their deaths or entrapment used to increase the profit margin of some evil corporate entity.

  A fire burns in my belly. I will recover and then I will come for you, Strata Godsick. I will defeat you, here and in the Proxima Galaxy.

  The End

  Steampunk is Dead

  The Feedback Loop BOOK TWO

  Harmon Cooper

  Edited by George C. Hopkins

  Chapter One

  I try in vain to access my inventory list. My finger taps against thin air, waiting for my inventory list to appear. Come on you bastard …

  Another kick to the stomach reminds me of where I am, lying in a dirty, greasy, urine-soaked alley, watching the stars and planets whirl about in my own private planetarium and feeling genuine, full-body pain the likes of which I haven’t felt in years. Blood on my lips, blood on my chin, blood on the pavement. The fight already lost, the white flag tattered.

  “Come on,” I say tapping my finger in the air. “Come on … ”

  Another kick reminds me of how real the real world is, how stupid I must look trying to access my inventory list. From trouble boys and trigger men to snowed up shitbirds – the story of my life.

  Pathetic, Quantum.

  My eyes blur as I take in the man’s stompers, oversized things that make him look like a toddler in his dad’s sneakers.

  “Ya got something else to say, ya bastid?” my assailant asks. He is East Coast to the core – that accent we’ve come to love and despise coupled with muscles and grease. No ducktail, but definitely slicked back. The type of palooka I shouldn’t have messed with, the type of jasper who gets high off pollutes and assaults a feeble guy like me, a man with a cane. Maybe I should have opted for cyborg replacements or an exoskeletal suit. What can I say? A man has his convictions.

  A kick to my thigh this time.

  “C’mon – is that all you got? My sistuh hits hahduh than you! Stand up, ya pussy! Fight me like a man!”

  “Leave him alone, Jimmy, he ain’t shit.”

  You are not in The Loop.

  The reminder has little or no effect. Still trying to access my list, still trying to choose a weapon – anything – to handle the wise guy who’s kicking me like I’m a recalcitrant Harley. What I wouldn’t give to access my vintage stag-handled Bowie knife – item 33 – and slice him into greaser jerky, hang his carcass up to dry. What I wouldn’t give to activate my advanced abilities bar, spring into the air and land behind him and crack the back of his neck over my shoulder. Send Mr. Tough guy to the morgue before he can utter another word. Make sure the only thing he can do for the next week is eat out of a tube.

  I suppose the name of the game is maim, even in the real world. Another kick and I spit blood. Real blood, my blood, no digital sap allowed.

  “Youah wimpy and weak!” The man bends over and socks me in the face. “Ya heah me? Weak!”

  If only we could have met somewhere else…

  A final kiss from his big boot sends a sharp pain ballooning through my body. My finger comes up to access my inventory list and I hear laughter.

  “Let’s get out of heah, Jimmy,” the man’s friend says as a police siren knifes the air. “This guy’s a real freak.”

  Welcome to the real world, Quantum.

  ~*~

  “State your name for the record please, this Field Interview is being recorded.” the police officer says. The walls of the alley strobe red-blue-blue-red; red-blue-blue-red with sufficient intensity to induce an epileptic seizure. I sit with my back against a dumpster, clutch my cane, and try to make sense of what’s just gone down.

  “Quantum Hughes,” I mumble.

  His pupils dilate and completely occlude the iris as he scans me – okay, this one’s not human, then. No, he’s part of a new Humandroid Police Program, something I would not have believed eight years ago, when I first got stuck in The Loop. There were Humandroids before I got trapped in The Loop, but they weren’t as advanced as they are now. Definitely not advanced enough for law enforcement. Now here’s Homo Machina Lex Congendi Officiariis, genuine Mechanica Porcum Americanus if you will, in the artificial flesh. Next it’ll be ED-209s on every street corner. Who’d have thought it’d come to this? Mechanical fuzz? Goodbye civil liberties and our rapidly eroding constitutional guarantees.

  “Look, RoboCop, I want to speak to a real person,” I say, ignoring the pain in my jaw every time I flap my gums.

  “You require medical treatment,” the Humandroid tells me. “You have a fractured rib and cranio-facial injuries indicative of potential traumatic brain injury.”

  “Who are you? Dr. McCoy? Dr. Spock? Dr. Seuss? How do you know?” I ask, as the planet rotates around me.

  “I’ve scanned your vitals twice now.”

  “Dammit droid, I want to speak to someone who can help me find the scum who did this to me.”

  “I understand, Mr. Hughes.”

  “Quantum, call me Quantum, and quit giving me the third degree!”

  “I understand, Mr. Quantum. A human police officer is on the way. In the meantime, please tell me what happened in your own words.”

  “You want to know what happened?” I look up at the Humandroid. If I hadn’t seen his pupils dilate, I would have assumed he was as human as me.

  “Please, in detail. The video from the surveillance equipment in this alley will help us to positively identify the alleged perpetrators.”

  “Surveillance equipment? Wait a minute – alleged perpetrators?”

  “Yes sir. Unless and until the individuals in question are apprehended, processed, tried, and convi
cted they are the alleged perpetrators. In accordance with the Watch Our Own People Act of 2036, surveillance equipment has been installed in all public spaces, particularly those where statistical probability indicates criminal activity is likely to transpire.”

  I sigh. “Listen, droid ... ”

  His voice goes flat and not-quite-menacing, “Mr. Hughes, my official designation is Mark9 Patrol Officer, Unit 2315. You may address me by some variation thereof. Do not address me as droid again. This is your first, last, and only warning.”

  “Mark9 Patrol Officer? Do you know my buddy Mark8? He and I go way back … ” I say with a blood dappled grin. I’ve been back in the real world for nearly a month now – giving droids hell is something I’ve come to enjoy.

  “Very humorous, Mr. Quantum. I’ll be sure to recount it to the other Mark9s at the precinct who will without doubt enjoy it as much as I have. Now then Mr. Quantum, in detail, what happened?”

  “All right, Marky Mark all right. So I stepped into the bar … ”

  “Paddy’s Pub.”

  “Sure, whatever. Anyways, I sit down and have a beer. Then I have another beer. Then I have another, ‘nother beer.”

  “Three beers.”

  “You got a calculator app, too? Listen, Ro-Man, I wasn’t going over the edge with the rams or anything – got it? I was just having a few cold ones. Nothing wrong with that. This is still a free-ish country, dammit.”

  “Indeed sir. Is this your blood on the ground here?”

  “Well, let’s see, Marlowe. That’s the spot I was lying in when you showed up, I’m the only one here that’s bleeding. So yeah, there’s a statistical probability that it’s my blood.” I can talk like a tight-ass too.

  “Yes, sir. Is this your blood; please answer yes or no.”

  “Yes, yes – it’s my blood. What, are you the Blood Police? You gonna charge me with littering for getting my blood all over this nice clean alley?