Cyber Noir Redux: (Book Six) (The Feedback Loop 6)

by Harmon Cooper

  “OMIB-porting?” Rocket nearly falls out of his inviso-chair. Sophia lifts her hand to create her magic AppleSoft SurfaceMac to take notes, thinks otherwise and lowers it.

  “For sure,” he says, “it’s a great way to log into one world and instantly transport to another. Dad is pretty good at it too. You have to know the basic Proxima source code and be able to manipulate it in real time to do so. This means that you’ll need to spawn in the OMIB and know the coordinates of the place that you want to go to. World coordinates are long and tedious, plus you have like no-time to key them in, so I usually just memorized them and there’s more to it than that, but in a nutshell: I came here and he didn’t know.”

  “So you faked being stranded here?” I ask.

  “Well, yeah – to sort of protest of what I saw him doing.” His eyes narrow as he revisits the memory. “At first, I wanted Dad to come and find me, to struggle, to see what it was like to lose someone in a Proxima world. I was younger then, and I really don’t know what my thought processes were or how I formalized these thoughts at the time, but I did, and it’s what happened. Soon, I began to meet others who had lost loved ones in the Proxima Galaxy through a cross-world murder guild known as the Reapers. I kept hearing about Reapers and I didn’t want to believe it was true, but … I knew it was true. I knew my dad created them.”

  Doc is the first to speak. “I got about a million questions right about now, but I want to start with this one, are all of the Lost Boys trapped?”

  “None of us are trapped,” he assures us, “we’ve all chosen to remain here and never go back. We keep track of who’s stayed in the longest. Humboldt here is number two. All of us have been hurt somehow by the Reapers. So to answer your question, no, we’re all here by choice.”

  “Well, that’s not tactically unsound per se, but there are real world consequences to what you are doing,” Doc tells them. A few of the Littluns above us laugh. I give them another one of my ‘shut your pie hole’ looks and they skitter off.

  “Are there?” Luther asks, with a studied non-concern.

  “What about their families? And who is taking care of the RW bodies?”

  “I don’t think you heard me correctly, only Chip and Dale up in the tree there still have families left, at least as far as they know. As for our RW bodies, well, most developed countries have government programs for that. Look, we can get into the moral and philosophical implications inherent in what we’ve done – and I get a lot of time to read here on this island, so I can dig pretty deep – but that’s not why I’ve invited you here. I’ve invited you here to give you the key to my father’s empire.”

  “Say what now? The key?” and Doc digs a little finger into his ear just to ensure that there’s no waxy yellow build-up distorting Luther’s statement.

  “The key to the Revenue Corporation’s digital assets.”

  ~*~

  One of the Littluns zips down from a tree with a briefcase made of de-extincted phorusrhacid hide. He hands it to Humboldt, who ostentatiously turns away from us as he fumbles with the combination dial. The briefcase pops open and a single file – an actual physical file folder shaped just like the old pre-AppleSoft Windows desktop icon – floats into the air before Luther. Once it opens, documents, disclaimers, and releases appear in the air. With a stroke of his finger, Luther signs each one.

  “I’d say about 80% of the Revenue Corporation’s wealth is held in digital assets, most of which are in his storage world, and I know where all of this stuff is because I can OMIB-port everywhere he goes. I’ve hacked everything I could find and have given myself executive access and unrestricted power of attorney. So,” he grins at us, “I’m transferring ownership of all the assets in my father’s storage world to the Dream Team, with each of you as agents of same.”

  “Hot damn!” Doc pumps his fist in the air. “Talk about testicular torsion!”

  “The files in this folder are linked to a print and ship company in Colorado. You should have the physical signed copies within one-quarter business day, delivered by FedUPS directly to the Dream Team headquarters. But the transfer of ownership documents are in effect as soon as I sign them, meaning you can logout once I’ve finished and get to work.”

  “Holy bankruptcy!” exclaims the Dream Team’s own Boy Wonder.

  Sophia nods with barely contained enthusiasm. “This is going to be a huge blow to the company.”

  “So the Dream Team owns all this stuff outright now, and we can do with it as we see fit?” says Doc.

  “Full. Ownership.” Luther very precisely enunciates. “Yours to do whatever you want with.”

  Frances Euphoria: Just in time – Solon is on the horn.

  Me: Very first thing I wanna do is buy Sophia a brand-new Malibu Dream McMansion in one of the ritziest, glitziest hoods in Tritania!

  Sophia: Really? You’d do that for me? That’s so thoughtful – I didn’t think you cared about that!

  I don’t tell her that it’s so she’ll STFU about the old one in Valhalla, once and for all. Doc tilts his head at me, taps the side of his WWI German helmet, nods and winks.

  Rocket: We can live like DJs!

  Doc: I’ll get with him as soon as I get out of here. I don’t want this to take weeks; I want to get started today.

  “There.” Luther finishes signing the last document and the file folder returns to the briefcase, which floats over to Doc. “I’m assuming you’re the one this should go to.”

  “That’ll be fine.” The Dream Team’s Mr. Tumnus-on-guns-and-steroids hops out of his chair. “Rocket, you and I are outta here.”

  “You got it, Doc. To hack or not to hack … ” Rocket rubs his hands together. “This is going to be fun, hella fun!” Rocket raises his finger and logs out. Doc follows, and flashes me a ‘wrap it up’ sign before he completely de-materializes.

  ~*~

  “So we’re going to be busy little beavers for the foreseeable future,” I tell Luther, “and I won’t pretend that I’m not anxious to stick it in and snap it off in your dad ... ”

  “Yuck.” Sophia comments, in an undertone just sufficiently loud enough to almost be heard, but not quite loud enough to be called on.

  “… but I got a few more questions before we bail. Also, I have a small request, but we can get to that later. Sophia, you got any questions?”

  “Mine are mostly about OMIB-porting.”

  “We’ll deal with OMIB-porting later.” Luther returns his focus to me. “My guess is that Quantum here isn’t too interested in the mathematical part.”

  Aiden chuckles.

  “Whose side are you on anyway, bub?” I grumble. Aiden flashes me the universal sign for money.

  The rain picks up. The Littluns do their umbrella thingy again and we’re back to the gentle serenade of the pattering raindrops.

  “You had questions, Quantum?”

  “Tons, but I’ll make this quick. There are bunches and bunches of dive vats in your daddy’s basement bunker, including yours. Who are the others? Are they all Reapers?”

  Humboldt approaches Luther and whispers something in his ear again. Luther listens and once he’s finished, he responds. “To be honest with you, I really don’t know who the others are. I faked my imprisonment while we still lived in Baltimore. I haven’t actually been, well consciously been, to the new place in Colorado. I know of it, however.”

  “How long since you last spoke to him?” Sophia asks.

  “2052, over six years now.”

  “And you’re ready to see him go to the Hoosegow, the Pokey, the Big House, the Slam, the Crowbar Hotel?” I ask. “Because that’s what we’re working on here. We’ve been building a case on your papa, RevCo, and the Reapers for years. It’ll be a big, big deal back in the RW. I just want you to understand that’s where this is heading.”

  “I wouldn’t give you the documents if I weren’t aware of this,” he says coolly – almost too coolly, if you ask me.

  “Just making sure that you know.”r />
  The Wangster pipes up with, “Will you log back out? Like after he’s been sentenced to prison?”

  “I’ve already taken the necessary steps to become an RPC once my real world avatar dies. I have nothing to lose and nothing to go back to; this world is more real to me than the RW ever was. So no, I will never log back out.”

  The boys in the trees hoot and holler. He lets them cheer for a moment and quiets them down with a wave of his hand.

  “But don’t you miss food? Real food? Pancakes, barbeque, beer?” I look to Sophia, who makes an icky face.

  Frances Euphoria: Beer isn’t food.

  Me: It has calories, carbohydrates, bubbles, and alcohol! Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy!

  “This was something I was aware of when I chose self-imposed exile,” he says.

  “You were ten at the time, right?”

  “Going on eleven,” he tells me. “With OMIB-porting, I can travel to any Proxima world I see fit. I have everything I want here in the Proxima Galaxy. In my opinion, this is the only form of immortality humankind will ever be granted.” He takes a deep breath and says, “So no, I won’t be logging back out ever again.”

  Doc: Hey, we need Luther to sign permission for us to take legal guardianship of his RW body. Frances, send the paperwork. Whoo-boy! Talk about throwing sand in Big Daddy Godsick’s Vaseline!

  Frances Euphoria: Transmitting.

  A scroll rimmed in gold takes shape in front of us. “I need you to sign this,” I tell Luther, “it gives the Dream Team legal guardianship over your body while we, um, try to help you find a logout point.”

  The scroll floats over to him. He reads it and passes it via a flick of his wrist to Humboldt. The kid pulls his Leaks down and examines it too.

  “Jeez, no need to bust our balls over here,” I tell Humboldt, “it’s a fairly straight forward document.”

  Humboldt gives me the gimlet eye. “Don’t never sign nuthin’ on some yahoo’s say-so; not never, not no how. Also don’t never sign nuthin’ without readin’ it neither,” he remarks as he passes it back to Luther and hands him a feather-tipped ink pen. Without breaking eye contact with me, Luther signs it.

  Me: We got it, Doc. Time to take the trash out for good.

  Rocket: Crushin’ guts and bustin’ nuts!

  Doc: Dammit, son, that is not at all what that means.

  Rocket: Crushin’ nuts and bustin’ guts?

  Me: That’s more like it.

  Chapter Seven

  There’s no time for celebration. As soon as Sophia and I are logged out, and we’ve cleaned the dive vat gunk off our bods, Sophia slips into her white coat and moves to her office. Rocket is too distracted assisting Doc to even notice that we’ve left the dive room, which really needs an official sounding name, now that I think about it.

  “This,” Sophia says once Frances and I have stepped into her office, “is Lopsod 8675. The previous torso, Lopsod 309 … um … malfunctioned when I downloaded the preliminary data package and, um ... ” She lifts her eyes to the ceiling to a black crater rimmed in brown residue. “It was pretty bad.”

  “Shit, when did you do that?” I ask.

  “Last night.”

  “So, have you tested this one yet?” Frances asks.

  “It’ll work,” she assures us.

  “That’s not what she asked.” I mutter under my breath.

  An armless, legless Humandroid torso is strapped upright in a medevac gurney opposite Sophia’s desk. It looks like Twilight Vampire Ken, with ghost-white skin and a fiber optic cable bundle plugged into the back of its skull. With the possible exception of Nicky the Wig and Frances’ landlord, this torso is the creepiest shit I’ve seen all month.

  “I don’t know how you do it,” I tell Sophia, “playing with this thing alone in this room all night.”

  The lifeless, androgynous Humandroid face gives me the creepy-crawly heebie-jeebies, especially when it suddenly bursts into totally unexpected animation and greets me with an excessively cheery HE-e-e-l-l-lo Steamboy!

  “Holy CRAP!” I jump back and almost download a data package of my own into my retro Star Trek underoos. Sophia has a hearty snicker for herself; Frances covers her smile and fakes an unconvincing wa-choo behind her hand.

  “I told it to do that,” Sophia finally admits. “See? I can be funny! I don’t know how many gelatologists agree, but there must be a few.”

  “I figured that much,” I say as my sphincter unclenches. “Why is the droid alive anyway?”

  She stifles a laugh. “It isn’t alive, as you call it; I have it set to con-com mode – conversation and comprehension – just to keep me company.”

  “And I am good company, aren’t I?” the droid asks her.

  “Great company,” she says as she busies herself adjusting some restraints bolted to the bottom portion of its torso.

  Its eyes dilate as it takes in Frances. “And how are you, Ms. Euphoria?”

  “Fine, Lopsod, was it?”

  The droid breaks into a wistful grin. “Yes. I like your haircut. I wish I had hair instead of cables!”

  Sophia huffs, “That’s enough of you. Switch to transmit.”

  The Humandroid lowers its head and powers down. Sophia points to a chair with a NV Visor and haptic gloves resting on it. “Frances, I need you to make sure Aiden is hooked up correctly at the guild. I trained one of the Lobby Assassins to help – whoever the one with the sheep is, that one – he seemed the least unreliable.”

  “That’s Pip, and his sheep’s name is Pippa,” I inform her.

  “Well, whatevs. I trained him completely – completely – and then he spills a mug of Horse Piss onto the control console which fried the Humandroid torso here and wasted a ton of my time and flushed a suitcase-full of cash down the drain. Thankfully, Doc’s connections got me a couple of these surplused torsos the government was planning to scrap. All this to say: the sheep-boy is out and Frances is in. Also, Chrono will help.”

  “Got it,” Our Lady of the GuadaLoop says as soon as she’s seated. Sophia places the visor over Frances’ head and instructs her to relax into the chair and place the haptic gloves on.

  “Hold up.”

  Sophia hastily moves to her desk and angles one of the three holoscreens, showing us an image of Aiden lying on a table in a room lit with hovering magical lamps appears. Chrono the blacksmith helps him secure his hands in a pair of gunmetal gray gloves that are connected through a series of cords to something that resembles a skipbox.

  I blink my eyes shut to see the time. Crap, already almost five; it’s really hard to judge time passage in a Proxima world, but I don’t remember it passing this quickly in Tritania. Weirdness. Probably something to do with Turtle Island. “Hungry for lunch,” I say, “quickly followed by supper.”

  “You’ll exceed your recommended daily caloric intake,” Sophia reminds me as she fiddles with one of the Humandroid’s cables. On the table next to the torso is a thin tablet with a plethora of radio buttons and slider bars displayed on the touch screen. She makes several adjustments, consider the results, and makes several more.

  “Yo, Dr. Z – howzabout giving me the lowdown on what’s supposed to happen here.”

  She responds with her patented sigh of exasperation. “Okay,” she says, “in its simplest terms … ” and again I see her mouth open and hear sound come out, and again I know she’s using real words, but none of it registers – she might just as well be speaking ancient Thulean.

  With eyes wide and mouth open, I raise a finger to snag her attention.

  “ … yes? Question?”

  “Jeez, Sophia – you’re not defending your PhD thesis to Einstein, Hawking, and Bernofsky; you’re explaining this to me. Short aerosbus version, please.”

  “Sorry, I forget sometimes. I’ll put it in the simplest terms possible: Aiden is coming here. Okay, Frances, I’m sending you in.”

  ~*~

  I watch as logged in Frances give the thumbs up vi
a the holoscreen on Sophia’s desk. Aiden has removed his ninja mask and replaced it with an oddly steampunkish-looking metallic NV Visor that somehow doesn’t seem to be completely in focus.

  I blink and squint, rub my eyes and blink again – no help. Everything else is sharply focused, but not the visor. “What’s up Aiden’s NVV? Are my glims going haywire or is it really out of focus?”

  “I don’t know about your … um … glims, but the visor should look out of focus,” Sophia replies. “It’s mostly made of chronoton, the metal that Stinkerbell picked up with the other CN NPCs. It’s slightly out of phase with its surroundings, which is what makes it so useful for this procedure.”

  “I thought Chrono was saving that to make a Reality Splitter.”

  “He is, but he’s run into a few snags and this was much easier to make.”

  I look back to the holoscreen. Chrono stands in the far corner clipboard in hand. He checks dials and gauges on equipment that looks suspiciously like it was hijacked from Steam. He gives Frances a nod and it’s off to the races we go.

  “This part of the rig is easy,” Sophia explains as she makes another adjustment on her equipment. “What took the research was how to make this work within the Proxima Galaxy, which makes it more of an output/input thing and required some pretty intense calculations on my part. All right,” she tells Frances, “I’m adjusting nuerontricity levels on my end.”

  “Neurontricity?”

  “What? I thought you’d like that one.” She gives me a rare smile. “Coining words is why I do this.”

  “I thought you did it for the drugs and the groupies and the fame.”

  “Hardly,” she says as a wavelength appears on her tablet, “the only guys into this kind of stuff at the academic level are a bunch of Ken Bones with worse sweaters.”