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

by Harmon Cooper

  I click yes and her message appears.

  Frances: Don’t call me on the phone anymore. This is how you should reach me.

  “How do I type back?”

  “This is the crazy part,” she says, “you simply think what you want to say and the words appear. You also have to think ‘send’ at the end of whatever you type. This prevents unwanted thoughts from being sent. You’ll get used to it.”

  “How is that even possible?”

  Frances: Neuroscience. Black Magic. Voodoo. I can send you links on the subject if you’d like.

  Me: I’ll pass. Say, what’s buzzin’ cuzzin?

  Frances: That’s your very first iNet message?☺

  Me: It’s the first thing that came to my mind. That and I want some pancakes. Can we get some damn pancakes or what? I’m starving over here.

  Frances’ hand drops onto mine. “Open your eyes.”

  I open them to find her smiling, closer to me than before. “We don’t have to talk on iNet if we are together in person; however, it can be useful if we need to communicate in a tight situation.”

  I blink again and iNet appears. “How do I get it to stay off?”

  “It fades after a few moments; you’ll get used to it. You never told me how your trip to your parents” house went. How were they?”

  “My mom died two weeks before I came out of my digital coma,” I tell her.

  “That’s horrible!”

  “Tell me about it … ”

  The room seems smaller all the sudden, darker. “I wish I could have seen her one last time.”

  ~*~

  Baltimore twinkles as we zip through the air in Frances Euphoria’s aeros. It’s hard to imagine that the 2050s are almost over, that in a year and a half it will be 2060. Look how far humanity has come and at the same time, how we’ve regressed. The new fashions, the new intoxicants, the new beings called Humandroids, the new restrictive measures such as life chips – this is us.

  “Goose it, Frances,” I say. “I’m starving over here.”

  “You and your Loop slang … ”

  “Old habits die hard I guess. Savvy?”

  She shakes her head. “Are you ready to start tomorrow?”

  “I thought I was starting on Wednesday … ”

  “In the morning you’ll meet two F-BIIG special agents to give witness testimony about the attack in the digital coma ward. I’ve contacted the Dream Team’s lawyer.”

  “No lawyers.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not a big fan. They just want a statement, right?”

  “Yes, but you should have a lawyer present anyway.”

  “Look, Frances, I’ll give them what they want – a statement – and then they’ll be on their merry little way. Easy.”

  “If you say so … ” Her eyes dart from the vehicle gauges back to the windshield. “After you meet the agents, we’ll get started on our next assignment.”

  A question I’ve been meaning to ask comes to me. “Who’s our boss, exactly?”

  “We are partially funded through the Department of State as well as the Digital Homeland Security Program. I suppose they are our bosses … ”

  “What about our immediate boss? Who do I report to?”

  “You report to … you,” she says. “Hi, Chief.”

  “I’m the boss?”

  “You are the most experienced member of the team. We have people we answer to, but to be quite honest with you, most people in the FCG don’t understand what it is we do. Hell, they still use laptops with keyboards at the White House! There’s been a divide between the people who run the government and the technocrats that run the people that run the government for sixty years now, maybe longer. On one hand, we have the most advanced tech in the world; on the other hand, we still have people in high positions using the same tech my grandma used.”

  Light flashes across the inside of the aeros. I turn in time to see another vehicle with blacked-out windows drop into the airlane next to us. The vehicle swerves, sideswipes us. “Shit!” Frances says, losing control of the yoke. “Auto drive evasive!”

  ~~Automatic driving mode evasive maneuvering activated.~~

  The aeros tries again. We jink out of the way and an umbrella on the dashboard rattles and bangs as it bounces off the windshield. A box filled with files bounces open in the backseat, tossing paper to the floorboard.

  “Reapers?” I ask, raising my hand to access my inventory list.

  Frances has both hands lightly back on the yoke, feet off the rudder pedals as the aeros maneuvers to avoid further collision. To me she says, “Strap in!”; to the aeros, “Sea Whiz Weapons Free El El!”

  ~Confirm Close In Weapons Systems, Weapons Free, Less Lethal.~

  “What are you doing? What should I do!?”

  “Watch. Strap in. Shut up.” A section of the rear deck splits longitudinally, folds in, and a shoulder fired weapon in a remote mount rises clear and tracks the kamikaze.

  I glance right and see the vehicle coming in for another pass at us. We narrowly evade it; this forces us into the next airlane and throws me against the harness. My back and ribs ain’t happy with this, but I’m too engaged with the action to focus on the pain.

  “Be careful!”

  An aerosSUV deploys airbrakes and drogue spoiler and barely drops out of our way.

  “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” Frances mutters. Our weapon tracks, locks, and fires a tremendous zombie-green ZAP-ZAP-ZAP!

  “Ha! My AI can kick your AI’s ass!” she shouts as we watch the other aero falter, stall and fall out of the sky.

  “Holy Simoleons, Napoleon!”

  “Confirm no other hostiles in immediate defensive bubble.”

  ~Confirmed.~

  Frances nods. “Sea Whiz to standby, resume manual control.”

  ~Close In Weapons Systems to standby, returning manual control in three, two, one – now.~

  “Jeez Louise that was intense! What in the blue-eyed world did you just do?”

  She resumes flying the aeros. “Relax. I disabled their higher-function AI. That puts the vehicle in safe mode and forces them to ground and shut down. The vehicle won’t restart until it has a hard reboot.”

  I turn – which hurts! – to get a look at her high-speed, low-drag patented aeros disabler, but it’s already back in the trunk.

  “I’m pretty sure that a magic green zapper wasn’t available as a standard option in the 2050 models; looks like they’re really offering more for your money nowadays.”

  Her eyes are bright, she’s bouncy, still full of nervous excitement. She giggles, “Isn’t it cool? They’re not available in this year’s models either, and I’m not really supposed to have one – nobody is – or the Metal Storm pods either. The magic green zapper is a TEMP Generator – Targeted Electromagnetic Pulse – that specifically disrupts AI. They’re graytech – not supposed to exist, the whole concept violates Hindenburg’s uncertainty and some of the laws of thermodynamics … ”

  “Heisenberg.”

  “ … Huh?”

  “Heisenberg, not Hindenburg.”

  “ … Who? Whatevs. Long story short – several of the people I rescued from a Zompoc World are very well connected and arranged the installation as a personal thank-you. I can even take it out of the remote mount and carry it if I need to. I like it because it’s not as lethal as the Metal Storm pods. Those are … are … just awful. Very effective, but just awful; they put out a flying wall of depleted uranium and don’t leave anything – anything!”

  She shivers. I decide that I’ve got to get me some of that Metal Storm.

  “The Feds fund us, although not very well, and not for anything like this. We have enemies in the FCG who keep trying to cut our budget – who cares about a bunch of gamers stuck in some stupid game, am I right? And Revenue Corporation buys politicians like they’re on sale on EBAYmazon with free same day shipping. My point is – we sometimes meet interesting people and pick up some cool stuff every now and then
, which is possibly one of the biggest perks of the job.” She grins at me.

  “Well, sign me up for one of those Metal Storm guns.”

  “Please, you hardly need something like that.”

  “How about for my inventory list then?” I glance out the window and watch my reflection yawn back at me. Boy, am I pooped. “There isn’t a place where I can catch a little shuteye, is there? Broom closet or under a desk – just about anything will do.”

  “You’re tired after what just happened?”

  “Honestly Frances, I don’t know what to think anymore. One minute I’m hungry, the next I’m ready to catch some Zs. One minute I’m getting my ass handed to me outside a bar, the next I’m whipping through the air watching you take potshots with a green laser at another aeros. Life’s coming at me quick – the perfect time to rest my head.”

  Chapter Three

  Feedback dreams of taxis plummeting and weapons firing and bleached people screaming as explosions light up the sky. The Pier, The Badlands, Chinatown, Barfly’s, Three Kings Park, my hotel. Dolly moves towards me with praying mantis arms jutting out her back holding a man in a skull mask, a Reaper. White hands covered in veins tug at my feet as my mom’s voice screams, “Quantum, wake up! Quantum, wake up!” inside my skull.

  Not gonna happen.

  Feedback nightmares feedback life – life of the unholy, of the digital, of the suppressed and depressed, of the trapped and sapped, zipped and zapped. Stripped from my skin on a whim I drop into a hole in my hotel room to find Picasso, the boy with a crazed uncle. A shit-eating grin on his face reminds me of the madhouse from whence he came. The same place I feel most at home.

  Inventory list. Reaper’s skull, item 551. I stare at it like Hamlet, squeeze it, place it on my face. Alas, poor Quantum, I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy … The architectural layout of the room appears, displayed in a grid of blue lines. I marvel at my hand, the digital outline indicating I’m human. In the real world I’m nothing more than a crippled cynosure, hidebound by the rules of gravity and men.

  Break free.

  Running towards the window screaming at the top of my lungs is my comfort zone. My body hits the glass and I sail out, gridlines of The Loop twisting all around me, surrounded by a halo of glass, surrounded by sneering gargoyles, surrounded by the smog of the miserable city. The wind beats against my face like a pack of angry stepdads; the rain cold and unforgiving.

  Don’t wake up!

  The desire to hit the pavement swells within me.

  Finish the job!

  My arms spread wide as I expose my neck, as my spine curves back, as my heart slams against the inside of my teeth. This is where we meet, Fate, this is where you defeat me. The big sleep imminent.

  “Quantum, are you okay? Wake up!”

  ~*~

  My eyes blur into focus, adjust to the cold light of the room. Some frou-frou melon scented candle in the corner hints at a woman’s touch.

  “What happened?” I ask Frances Euphoria, who is kneeling by my side.

  Morning Assassin will be here any minute.

  My finger comes up to access my inventory list. Start my day with war; end my day with suffering – life in The Loop.

  “You can’t do that here,” she reminds me softly as she lowers my hand.

  “Where … am I?” I ask through parched lips.

  “My office … ”

  I look down to see my feet hanging off her couch, partially covered by a blanket.

  “You were dreaming.”

  “Shit …” I press my palms against my eyes, hoping to rub the sleep out. “Did I say anything?”

  “Dolly,” she says. “You kept calling her name. You should visit sometime. She’d be happy to see you.”

  “I need some Joe, some grub,” I say.

  When in doubt, change the subject.

  Frances is in a black uniform with a straight collar. A classy chassis, a hotbody, smoking, the bee’s knees – all describe the woman in front of me. It’s hard to imagine I rescued her from a Proxima World based on Arrakis when she was just sixteen. Time flies like mosquitos, sucking the life out of everything.

  “The agents are in the Conference Room,” she tells me. “I’ll make a quick cup of coffee. For now, here’s a Soylent bar.”

  “The dicks are here?”

  “You shouldn’t call them that.”

  “Different meaning,” I say, yawning. “Well, same meaning, in my case.”

  “You need to be on best behavior,” she says as she hands me a rectangular bar wrapped in plastic, “unless you want trouble.”

  “My middle name is Trouble,” I say with a smirk.

  “Shut up and eat.”

  “A candy bar?”

  “It’s not candy. It is made from soy butter, asparagus, pine nuts, coconut, spinach, raisins and fiber.”

  “Sounds like squirrel food.”

  “I practically live off these things. They’ll give you energy.”

  I dangle the package by its tip above the floor.

  “Come on, just eat it. I’ll have breakfast delivered as soon as the agents leave. Deal?”

  “Deal. Bacon, eggs over easy, three slices of toast, pancakes, syrup, extra butter and beer. We good here?”

  “Fine, but only one beer, and a small one at that. You really shouldn’t be drinking.”

  “Frances.”

  “Quantum, eat.”

  I sit up, wincing at the reminders of the last forty-eight hours’ festivities. One look around her office tells me that the Dream Team is indeed underfunded. Everything is old, beat-up, cast-off, third hand. The metal desk is scratched and dented and rusty in spots; no two of the mismatched file cabinets are the same size or color. The desk chair was old and beat-up when I went into the dive vat; its torn vynylhyde upholstery is a mystery color that does not occur in nature. There’s a makeup bag sitting on the desk, a knock off glossy as a fiend’s eyes. It reminds me of the Loop; I feel right at home.

  “Say, how were you able to put me up in such a swanky hotel?” I ask her. “No offense Frances, but this place would give shitholes a bad name.”

  “Thanks. The Federal Corporate Government has a contract with the hotel. That’s how. Now eat.”

  “The FCG is fronting the bill? In that case, we should order some Room Service tonight!”

  “Maybe.” She nods at a dry cleaning bag hanging from her coatrack. “Put that on; it’s your uniform. The agents are in the Conference Room, two doors down on the left. I’ll brew you some coffee.”

  “Got it.” I stuff the Soylent bar in my mouth.

  “And remember to mind your manners.”

  “I always do,” I say, speaking with my mouthful.

  “One more thing,” she says.

  “What’s that?”

  “Keep last night’s air rage incident to yourself, okay? We have to be careful who we speak too, at least right now.”

  “Why right now?” I ask.

  “Just trust me. There are bigger forces in play than just the RevCo and Reapers.”

  ~*~

  “Let’s get this over with.”

  I’m sitting across from Jake and the Fatman now, trying to work the Soylent crap out of my teeth. The Conference Room has enough room for an oval table and half-a-dozen mismatched chairs. Metal blinds separate it from the rest of the Dream Team office space. There’s a diagram of an NV Visor on the wall behind the table and a single fluorescent light above us. Other than that, the room is empty.

  “Mr. Hughes,” the first agent says, “I’m Special Agent Reynolds and this is Special Agent O’Brian. We’re with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Intelligence Gathering.”

  “F-BIIGies. Got it.”

  Agent O’Brian is the older of the two, a fat man with a floral necktie, frayed collar, and food stains on his rumpled, two-sizes-too-small sport jacket. His cheeks are littered with pockmarks and his nose would give Rudolf a run for his money. His body s
howcases the cumulative effects of long hours, bad nutrition, too much booze and not enough exercise, like he’s the display in the show window at WalMacy’s during national Don’t Do This To Yourself Awareness Month. If Bollywood central casting had set out to produce a compendium of every stereotypical fat, surly, burned-out, disheveled, inept, corrupt American flatfoot, Agent O’Brian would be that result down to four decimal places.

  I instantly don’t like him.

  “Lovely. Let’s see some ID, Special Agents.” They roll their eyes, grunt, sigh, and work in as many other non-verbal demonstrations of annoyance and put-outed-ness as they can at the temerity of a citizen exercising his lawful right to require a law enforcement officer not in uniform to provide proof of identity. They take out their leather badge and ID holders, flip ‘em open, flip ‘em closed and put them away. I wait for them to get comfortably settled.

  “Sorry, Special Agents. That was too fast. Take ‘em back out, lay ‘em on the table and let me get a good look at them.” I wait for them to just start to bristle before I add “Please.”

  They repeat the whole Theater of the Annoyed performance as they re-dig out their IDs and lay them on the table. Agent O’Brian seethes with barely controlled fury as I read every word on his ID card and badge out loud, slowly and carefully, mispronouncing as many words as possible. Agent Reynolds twitches the corner of his mouth up at some inner amusement, gives me a slight nod and raise of the eyebrow as I repeat the performance with his.

  “Alrighty then, Special Agents – I’m willing to concede that you’re probably who you say you are. How can I help you gents?” I ask, clasping my hands together on the table.

  “Are you okay?” Agent Reynolds asks. The younger of the two, probably not yet corrupt. Movie star features with green eyes, tan, buff, fit – he’s in the wrong field. It’s not often I use the term handsome man.

  “Okay in terms of what?”

  “In terms of your face. Have a difference of opinion with someone?”

  “Slipped in the shower. Cut myself shaving. Walked into a door. Woke up on the wrong side of the bed – something like that. Now, is this what you’re here about, or can we move this little affair forward?”