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

by Harmon Cooper

  “My parents are divorced, of course. My father is in Quebec running a head shop. My mother is – has been – in India for the last six or seven years at an ashram starving herself and meditating, funding some guru’s gropy exploits using my inheritance. We don’t talk much.”

  “I’ve heard of Karma Cola, but I didn’t think that stuff still happened. Surely, Westerners are smart enough by the mid-twenty-first century not to fall for some Indian guru nonsense.”

  “You’d think!” she says, laughing. “I think people get stupider every generation.”

  “Now that’s not true,” I say. “Or is it?”

  We both laugh.

  “I guess you’re right, Frances, we won’t be solving humanity’s stupidity anytime soon. Hell, the Humandroids will take over before we ever get to the bottom of who’s been right this whole time and who’s been wrong. The point I was trying to make before tangents galore – Zedic and I got Steam Enforcers.”

  She giggles. “Is that the point?”

  “Hell yes it is. We took out some Wellsian Tripods with those things. In exchange, the good ol’ golden boy himself gave us the enforcers. He also, in a roundabout way, gave us a dragon.”

  “A dragon?” Her face lights up. “That’s awesome!”

  “We still have to slay a few orcs to get it, but how hard could that be?”

  “It depends on the orc,” she says. “I once rescued someone from a Tolkien Proxima World. Those orcs were a surly bunch, smart and tough to kill.”

  “Surly they weren’t,” I tell her with a grin.

  Frances laughs way too hard at my lame joke. “You’re too much sometimes,” she says.

  “I try to be whatever I need to be wherever I am.”

  Chapter Seven

  I don’t need the rumble of thunder and the flash of lightning across the windowpane to remind me of where I’ve just spawned. I stretch my fingers in front of my body, admiring my ghastly reflection in the window. The Mondegreen Hotel is two parts shit and two parts home, the best flophouse in the vice-ridden netherworld that is The Loop.

  “Oi! If it idn’t the ol’ govna ‘imself!” I turn to my bed to find Burly lying in it with an NPC hooker. Rows of Riotous are lined up like soldiers on my nightstand.

  “Do I even need to ask?” My hand instinctively comes behind my back to access my inventory list. Old habits die hard – and if I didn’t like Burly, he’d be dying hard right about now. McClane always trumps Gruber, and I’m not yippee ki-yaying about finding the British mercenary in my room with enough drugs to make Officer Friendly defecate in his McGruff costume.

  “Should I go?” the woman of the night asks.

  “You stay right where you are, love. I’ll only be a minute.” Burly rolls out of bed, giving me the misfortune of seeing the battling Brit in his birthday suit. “You seen me trousers?” he asks.

  The door opens.

  “Quantum.” Aiden stands in the doorway in full assassin regalia. Everything below his nose is covered in black and his eyes are piercingly hollow.

  “Can you please explain to me what is going on here?” I ask him.

  “We were waiting for you.”

  “Don’t get your knickers in a knot. We ‘ad no bloody ideer of when you’d come back ‘ere. Can’t be sitting around all day twiddling our thumbs now, can we?” Burly steps into his trousers and his retro Soviet Army brass belt buckle bangs against the side of my bed. The hooker is up and cuts her mascaraed eyes from me to the lines of Riotous on the nightstand. She makes no effort to cover her grosse Brüste, hits each nostril hard, swallows, falls back onto the bed with glossy eyes. She couldn’t care less that there are two other people in the room now.

  “We were waiting for you,” Aiden says as I move past him. One foot into the hallway and instinct takes over. I glance up at the dangling light to see if it flickers – it doesn’t. The Loop is broken.

  “Dirty Dave still in the freezer?”

  “Yeah, and our little interaction with the grocery store cashier has soured things a bit,” say Aiden.

  “What do you mean?”

  Burly steps into the hallway with his shirt off. He runs his hand through his beard, grins at me. His stomach is well-muscled with an insulating layer of fat, like a pro-wrestler from the 1980s. “Pip ‘as been scoping the market. Three more cashiers turned up after you left; Scarface Charlie probably sent them.”

  “And?”

  “They turned up with swords and weapons.”

  “So they’re anticipating an attack?” I ask Aiden.

  He nods.

  “Well what are we waiting for?” I ask. “Besides, I wanted to pay Dolly a surprise visit in Chinatown anyway.”

  “Right!” Burly burps with his mouth shut. “Sorry, been holding that little bugger in for the last thirty minutes.”

  “Also,” I give the Brit my fiercest stink eye. “I want the chippy out. There are plenty of rooms in the hotel; I can’t see why you chose mine.”

  “Easy, mate!” he says as he rubs his hands together. “We were just ‘aving a bit of fun. No ‘arm done!”

  ~*~

  Aiden uses his repopulate ability to teleport us to the rooftop across from the Chinese supermarket. The sky is Basin City dark; the stars have moved on to better places and give the strung out moon some room to breathe. Aside from a few rickshaws, the streets of Chinatown are more or less quiet, which triggers a funny feeling in me – I’ve been in The Loop long enough to know when something ain’t right.

  “Awfully quiet,” I say.

  “Agreed.” Burly’s still shirtless, his almost-girth almost hanging over his belt. Covering his face is a balaclava, which is at odds with the fact that his skin is whiter than a cave-dwelling albino vampire’s.

  “You against shirts or something?” I ask him.

  “Just airing it out.”

  Aiden crouches and a pair of high tech binoculars with green lenses appears in his hands. He scans the market, left and right. His fingers come up and he says, “Four confirmed.”

  “Say, where are the other assassins?”

  Burly whistles, two fingers in his mouth and I see a lighter flicker on the Chinese grocery’s rooftop. The brief flash of fire reveals the other UK Assassins, Doorman Jim, Chef and the Saucier, all of them wearing rugby shirts and cricket helmets, and sporting polo mallets – except Bucket Hat, whose squash is ensconced in his eponymous head gear, which he doffs to me before the fire winks out.

  “What’s this, a tribute to British sports that everybody else in the world is better at than the Brits?” I ask.

  Burly gives me a pained look and the two finger salute.

  Aiden turns his guffaw into a cough, then explains “They were inspired by our recent making war with non-warlike weapons rule,” Aiden explains.

  The lighter flickers again to reveal two of the assassins holding up Scotty’s kilt.

  “The bloody wankers,” Burly seethes. He stands and shakes his fist at the other rooftop. “You five ‘ave a lotta bottle showing me your bum! If ya got something to say, mates, go ahead and say it! Ya sodding, bladdered–”

  Machine gun fire erupts all around us.

  “Hit the deck!”

  Aiden and I drop as bullets send debris and clumps of rooftop swirling in the air around us.

  “Ambush!” Burly cries as a bullet hits him in his shoulder. He falls and body armor appears on his body before he hits the rooftop. “Bollocks!”

  Aiden says, “Let me use your katana! I’ll go left!”

  My inventory list comes up and I equip my katana, item 155 and my mutant hack, item 554. With my AA bar activated, I hand the katana to Aiden who immediately disappears. I quickly scroll to item 80, my frag grenade. Red and green tracers come flying at us in slow motion and I can see where the enemy fire is coming from.

  I pull the pin and toss the grenade to the roof on my right and use another couple seconds of my advanced ability bar to morph my hack ax into two barrels of frosty, icicle-making good
ness.

  Thank you …

  Time speeds up. The frag does its thing; the survivors stagger away and screech in Mandarin.

  Panicked screaming on the rooftop to my left signals that Morning Assassin has officially arrived. Meanwhile, the battling Brits and the Mondegreen’s staff have dropped the sports gear act and are suited up with modern armor and weaponry, hopping around like frijoles saltarines on the opposite roof, waging war on the mobsters – when they’re not squabbling amongst themselves, as usual.

  AA bar to the streets below.

  I blast a rickshaw out of the way and jump to avoid Pip and Bucket Hat, who seem to be having a bit of a tiff.

  “You cack-handed, no-shooting Nancy-boy! You trying to bloody kill me, mate!?” Bucket Hat screams with his hands around Pip’s throat.

  “Gordon Bennett!” Pip responds with a series of elbows that sends Bucket Hat’s trademark chapeau twisting in the air like Elvis’ UFO escaping from Area 51.

  No time to sort out the scrap between the two British assassins. The market window smashes in and sprays glass, oriental canned goods, bamboo fans, paper dragons and an astonishing array of fireworks across the inside as Burly jets into the building using his steam-powered jet pack.

  Well that’s one way to do it, I say to myself as I advance towards the front door. I’m inside a second later, watching an Asian woman run up and down the aisles holding Burly by his ankles, literally mopping the floor with the killer Limey’s face.

  An explosion sends ramen containers, rice packets, bottles of red sauce and other instant Chinese food into the air. The market fills with dark smoke, making it damn near impossible to see anything. My finger comes up and my Reaper mask, item 551, appears on my skull. Gridlines cut through the smoke, showing me the layout of the market. The freezer is at the back.

  ~*~

  “Quantum.”

  Aiden steps out of the smoke; his stats appear on my mask’s display screen and I ignore them. “We’ve got to get to Dirty Dave before the shit gets too hinky.”

  “Tony Clifton’s men are here.”

  “Great.”

  “The Brits and the hotel staff are handling them.” He flicks the end of the katana, sending a splash of digital blood to the ground.

  “Last I saw they were handling each other.”

  The smoke clears and two women step out of the shadows. Each has a blade in one hand and an automatic weapon in the other. Aiden is on the deets before I can ask. “SAR 21, bullpup assault rifles from Singapore equipped with RFC modules.”

  “Hiya,” I tell the two twisted sisters. “We’re here for our friend Dirty Dave. Now we can turn this into a … ”

  One of the women fires her weapon at the floor directly in front of us. The cashier from the other day appears, equally decked out with killer gear. Two is company, but three’s a party.

  “Red Wedding it is.” AA bar activated, I fire two icy shots at the three murderous broads. I hit Dame One and she’s frozen solid before she can get a shot off. Aiden appears next to the woman; his katana a blur of light as he gives her the ol’ Robespierre.

  Time speeds up as my life bar drops by half.

  The bloody business end of a katana sprouts from my chest. Good and Quantum-kabobbed, I throw my elbow back, trying to get a hit in edgewise before the woman can rearrange my insides. Gunfire erupts as Aiden takes on the other killer broad somewhere in front of me.

  I’ll handle this.

  “Who … ?”

  Before the words can leave my lips, my shoulder bulges and a backward facing barrel forms. The barrel goes FOOM! and most of my assailant splashes on the wall behind me.

  “Thanks?”

  No reply.

  I reach back to get a grip on the handle of the katana. It ain’t easy, but at the expense of my life bar, I’m able to pull the blade out. I drop it to the floor and point my mutant hack at the pair of shapely, high-heeled, disembodied legs on the floor behind me.

  ~*~

  The woman’s SAR 21 is still clenched in her fist, which is just about all that’s left of her arm. I stand on the stub, pry the gun from her warm, dead hand and add it to my list - item 570. There’s only one cashier left, Chun-Li, the same gal who killed me the last time we tried to rescue Dirty Dave.

  “Did you see where she went?” I ask Aiden. He’s standing next to me now, nursing a small wound on his arm.

  “She pulled the same stunt I’ve pulled multiple times – a full stop disappear.”

  “Dirty Dave?”

  “That’s where I’d go if I were her.”

  I take the lead and Aiden falls in behind me, providing rear security. We hurry through the aisle, beelining towards the back of the market. As we stop in front of the freezer, some movement near a toppled stack of canned squid catches my eye. Aiden’s already lowering his weapon by the time I spin around.

  “She didn’t stand a bloody chance … ” Burly says. The Wicked Witch of the East he was taking on earlier has suffered an equally suitable death – her exposed feet stick out from beneath his big body. “Well, she did stand a chance, but I gave her a belly flop and that’s that. No ifs ands or buts about it.”

  “You need some help up?” I ask.

  “I think I’ll lie here for a while,” he says. “It’s been a long night.”

  Aiden lifts the katana into the ready position, the blade at an angle over his head. The freezer door is twice the size of a normal door, metal with an aluminum handle.

  “How should we do this?” I ask.

  “Open the door, I’ll go high right, you go low left.”

  “Got it.”

  Aiden takes his place next to the door. I drop my fist on the handle and the door springs open. Morning Assassin scissors in and I follow. The lights are off in the freezer, triggering the night vision feature of my Reaper mask. The freezer is larger than I expected and packed to the ceiling with iced-over shipping containers.

  I hear the sound of metal on metal and spin around. Aiden and Chun-Li are sword and sword, trying to overpower one another. Chun-Li’s stats appear on my Reaper mask’s display screen and a green reticle handshakes with my mutant hack. One blast later – directly over Aiden’s shoulder, mind you. Chun-Li ices up and Aiden gives her the Winged Victory of Samothrace treatment.

  ~*~

  “Too bad,” Aiden says, looking down at Chun-Li’s decapitated head. “I was starting to like her.”

  “Maybe she’ll respawn.”

  “Maybe.”

  “I can put a word in with Dolly, if it’ll help.”

  “Forget it,” he says as he steps over her frozen body.

  Tired of the infrared, I equip my Pixar lamp, item 286 and press my Reaper mask to the top of my skull. The light comes on adding a cone of visibility to the substantial freezer.

  “Dirty Dave, your friends are here,” I call out.

  “F-F-Friends?”

  The raspy voice comes from the far corner. Aiden and I move towards the sound, the lamp creating a circle of light around our feet. We find Dirty Dave impaled through the shoulder, hanging from a meat hook.

  “Damn, they got you up there pretty good. Care to tell us why Tony decided to treat you like a choice cut?” I ask.

  “Forgot a payment. I had the credit, I swear! I just needed … just needed a few more days.”

  “Don’t we all.”

  Aiden tries to move Dirty Dave, and the best weapons dealer after Nicholas Cage cries out. “Careful! It really … really hurts, dammit!”

  “Well, at least you sound sober … ” My inventory list appears and I find my folding chair, item 11. It materializes before me and I pop it open. Aiden steps up, using his new leverage to get a better grip on Dirty Dave.

  “Stop!” he yelps. “It hurts too much!”

  “The only way to get you down will be to unhook you,” Aiden says.

  “Please,” he whimpers, his voice like paper tearing in an empty room.

  “Relax, Davey boy,” I say. “What
would make it hurt less?”

  “Riotous.”

  “Do you have any in your inventory list?” Aiden asks me. “I don’t.”

  “As a matter of fact … ” My hand comes up and I lower it. “Wait a damn minute! I’m not about to help you fall off the wagon again, Dave! I don’t want that on my conscience.”

  “Please, Quantum! P-P-Please!”

  “Not gonna happen, Dave, I can, however, give you a swig of Macallan 1946. Before you say no, you should know that this stuff was made right after World War II from peated malt because of sky high coal prices. It has a unique, strong, slightly nutty flavor – so I’m told – and costs about two hundred thousand dollars a bottle. What I’m trying to say here, Dave, is that most people will never have the pleasure of even being in the same room as Macallan 1946.”

  “I’ll have a swig of that,” Aiden says as he steps down from the chair. “If you don’t mind.”

  “Aiden, you know I love you like a brother in a rugged, manly and not at all poofy or embarrassing way, but this is the one item in my inventory list that doesn’t replenish itself. Now, I’m not trying to say that you don’t deserve a swig, but you aren’t the one hanging from a meat hook in a freezer in Chinatown.”

  Dirty Dave says, “Give him a swig of the whiskey and give me a bump of Riotous. F-F-Fair? That’ll give me the courage to be ripped from this meat hook and it’ll give Aiden… ummmm… ”

  “It’ll give me the strength to rip him from that meat hook. Fluidly.”

  “You two are lucky that I’m a nice guy.” I return my mutant hack to my list and select the Macallan 1946, item 168. The bottle is in a wooden case, which flashes into ash after I’ve taken the bottle out.

  Where’d you get this anyway?”

  “Barfly’s, a game of winner takes all pool with Cid. I put my BFG 9000 up and he put up his only bottle of Macallan. Good juju that night.”

  Aiden produces a shot glass from his own inventory list and I fill ‘er up nice and slow.