He’s the only one laughing, and I let the silence between us remind him of that.
“Oh, I see what you’re asking, what do I want.” More saliva drips from his chin as he says, “I’ll cut right to the chase.”
“Does ‘cut right to the chase’ include cutting these chains off?” I glare up at the clown. What I wouldn’t give to jam item 348, the turkey baster full of Chernobyl reactor melt up his white grease-painted schnozzola and give him a snootful of vintage Soviet fissile unhappiness.
Nicky the Wig chuckles at the thought. “Right, like I’m going to leave the Legendary Quantum Hughes unshackled while I try to negotiate with him.”
“Negotiate? And that’s … ”
“Mr. Legendary Quantum Hughes. I’m aware.” He maneuvers himself into a cross-legged sitting position right in front of me, giving me an up close and personal look at his mahoosive swim fin-sized brogans. “Let me turn that question around on you: What is it that you want?”
“Well for one, I want a steak – a real steak, from a real cow, medium-rare. And a beer. That’s what I want, clown boy.”
He snaps his fingers and a silver covered serving dish appears. Next to it is a crystal stein filled to the lid with a yellow, foamy liquid.
“Bon apetit,” he grins as he whisks the cover away to reveal a putrescent T-bone steak squirming with maggots; the stein contains horse piss – not the real ale brewed in Tritania, but real urine brewed in a real horse.
“All right, Chuckles, I think we’re done here.” I lift my finger to logout and …
Uh-oh.
“Where is it?”
Handcuffed shouldn’t be a show-stopper; as long as I have one finger free I should be able to log out. Panic clutches at me with icy claws; suddenly I’m twittering my fingers like a turbocharged Jerry Lee Lewis on a white-hot keyboard, desperate for the screen to appear. “No, no, no, no, NO!”
“Did I forget to mention what my special restraints prevent?” He gives me another grin that would keep a kid in therapy for years. “I’ll tell you what – you do me a solid and I’ll let you go back to your little play world.”
I grit, “Just tell me what you want already!”
“Simple, I want Dolly’s seed.”
Another sliver disappears from my life bar. “Her NVA Seed? What the hell are you going to do with that?”
“Bring her back,” he says with a hint of melancholy in his voice, “this place isn’t the same without her.”
Damn! What I wouldn’t give to shove a live grenade down his throat. “How would you even know? I’ve been here a lot longer than you, bub, and I can first off confirm that this place has always been dim, grim, gritty, shitty, and not especially pretty – hardly the type of place anyone in their right mind would want to call home.”
“You seem to enjoy it.”
“I enjoy killing clowns too, but that doesn’t mean I want to take long hot showers with them.”
He uncurls yogi-like, stands and kicks the maggot steak at my face. “Now then,” he tells me, “give me the seed or I will force you to hand it over!”
I feel my fingers twitch.
“Now,” Nicky says, “where is it?”
If it was located in your evacuation cavity you would be aware. Sure, it’d be sweet to say it, but right now I’m putting every last erg of brainpower into fighting off Nicky’s control.
Everything I’ve got ain’t good enough; despite my best effort, my favorite nose-picking finger comes up and my list appears.
Resistance is futile, and it ain’t long before I arrive at item 556, Dolly’s NVA Seed.
“Shall we dance?” he asks as he forces me to equip the seed. It floats between us, wreathed in a halo of light.
The pretentious pretender hops from foot to foot in anticipation, claps his hands and squeals, “Oh, it’s be-yoo-tee-full! Gimme, gimme, gimme!”
A witchblade tears out of the bottom of the seed and stabs into the ground.
The seed pulses and writhes as a bulbous tumor covered in veins appears on its side. An effervescent liquid, orange and rimmed in light, spirals down the witchblade. Once the liquid reaches the floor, the bulbous tumor slowly changes into clear sack of flesh holding the naked body of a woman.
“Doll!”
Using a witchbladed finger, Dolly cuts through the sack of flesh and pulls herself to her feet. She scoops a dollop of orange placenta from her face and flicks it to the dirty floor.
“It worked! It worked!” Nicky the Wig claps his hands together.
He never sees Dolly’s witchblades come for him. They burst from her back, travel over her body at a blistering speed and pin Nicky to the wall. A twisted frown forms on his face. “What are you doing?” he bellows as the blades start to expand. “I was going to let you rule this world with me!”
Dolly’s eyes narrow, flash orange, and with the speed and ferocity of a praying mantis her witchblades eviscerate Nicky the Wig into pile of a tattered flesh and a mist of blood. A red seed forms in the air and waves of energy spiral around it as Nicky’s remains are sucked away. The seed floats over to Dolly and lands in her palm.
Dolly looks at the seed for a moment, and I swear I hear a final lament from Nicky as she swallows the seed whole.
She turns to me.
~*~
“Easy, Doll,” I say, “it’s Quantum, you know who I am.”
Her witchblades are now inches from my face; I don’t know what murdalizing me will do in my current, un-logout-able state, but my guess is it ain’t pretty. Even worse, I’m still immobile, chained up like Marley’s ghost.
She’s suddenly in her red Jessica Rabbit off the shoulder dress. Her hair changes colors until it settles on jet black; her classic bob forms as soon as the color is set and the last thing to appear is the diamond necklace I gave her.
“Doll?” My heart swells and the chains turn to ash. I spring to my feet and reach my arms out for her.
She hesitates.
“Doll, it’s me, Quantum!” I beckon her forward. “It’s me,” I whisper.
She drops her arms around my neck and looks at me intently. The logout buttons appears to my right and my hand moves to it.
“I’m not ready to logout,” I tell her. “Please, just … give me a minute to see you!”
“Shhhh …” She lifts a finger to my lips.
“You’re back, aren’t you?”
Try as I might, my finger is going to hit the logout button in a matter of moments. I look her over once more and the memories hit me like a ton of bricks. “Say something to me, Doll, anything, just tell me something.”
A soft smile forms on her face. “Come back and visit me tomorrow.”
Chapter Ten
The wave lengths on my NV Visor slow to a crawl; I’ve already tried logging back in, I’m kicked out every time I accept the coordinates. Did not know an NVA Seed could do that, but there’s a lot I don’t know. Sure, I could swallow my pride and ask someone who does know, like Sophia, the self-appointed knower of all things Proxima, or I could just wallow in my prideful ignorance indefinitely. So I do that, accepting the fact that I’ll be on pins and needles until the same time tomorrow night in anticipation of seeing the real Dolly again.
My back muscles scream in pain as I stand.
“Too fast, too fast.”
Story of my life.
I’m usually not this much of a gimp, especially after I’ve warmed up and stretched out some, but after sitting for a good spell my muscles lock up tighter than the other half of RevCo’s assets. Life ain’t fair, but mine ain’t bad, even with my gimpiness. With this in mind, I make my way to Frances’ bedroom without the usage of my commando cane.
The Big Euphoria is out cold, sleeping on her stomach this time. I’ve caught her doing that a few times now and I have no idea how she pulls it off. Odd bird. I sit onto the bed as gently as my crippled, gimpy ass will allow, and slide under the covers. The fan spinning overhead makes a soft clicking sound with each rotation. I
listen to the ambient noise as I recall what has just happened. Dolly in all her glory in the place back in The Loop. Can’t beat that. Don’t know what to make of it either, and I should probably just keep out of The Loop altogether but …
This gets me thinking: If Dolly is in The Loop, is she still in Tritania?
There’s only one way to find out.
I slowly ease my body out of the bed and return to the living room, baby steps, just like Bill Murray said. Once I’m back on her couch I place the NV Visor on – no need to use the gloves ‘cause I ain’t staying for long.
After the Brian Eno tone has played and the wavelengths have started, I select our guild’s coordinates. Down the rabbit hole I go and on the other side of time I awake.
Things are more or less the same in the guild. The Brit Assassins are still at work on Castle Anthrax. They’ve installed oversized decorative shields between the highest windows and are painting them with various coats of arms and heraldic devices, all of which have phallic symbols within them.
Rather than scaffolding and safety harnesses, they’ve got two forklifts at full extension with a plank slung between both sets of forks. Pip and Scotty are painting, and in a fine example of Chuck Jones Physics, Pip steps backwards off the plank and out onto thin air to examine his handiwork. Satisfied, he steps back onto the plank, just as Scotty gestures with his paintbrush and spatters paint onto the shield Pip’s just finished.
Pip dips his paintbrush into a bucket of vermillion and slaps Scotty across the face with it, only for Scotty to pick up a bucket of cerulean blue and pour it down the front of Pip’s pants. Burly is on the ground between the forklifts, checking items off on a clipboard. Without looking up, he produces a golf umbrella, opens it and continues to work on his clipboard.
The shitshow continues. Pip heaves a bucket of chartreuse onto Scotty; Scotty replies with the burnt umber, and kicks a pail arctic white off the plank and onto the Quiet One’s head, who’s dozing in the driver’s seat of the forklift on the left. He startles awake, knocks his forklift into reverse, and backs over the edge and into the moat. This brings everyone down and after more paint tossing and a couple of low blows, all of them end up in the moat with the Quiet One.
Burly walks over to the edge, looks in, shakes his head and stalks off with clipboard and umbrella just as Irish Shorty ambles up with a tray of mugs, cookies, and tea things and a megaphone decorated with a shamrock, football, and IRFU.
“OI, YOU LOT O’ POOFS!” he announces at ear-splitting volume. “TEA BREAK!” and he tosses the tray, mugs, cookies and tea things into the moat.
“Not why I’m here,” I remind myself. A faint light flashes behind me and I turn to find Mierda, the poo pixie. “Have you seen Dolly?”
“Dolly?” she squeaks. “Dolly who?”
“Don’t give me that crap. You know, the tall dame that keeps forgetting things. Had red hair at once. Sometimes goes around naked.”
“Sorry, she disappeared.” Stinkerbell performs a salchow, queefing pixie dust along the way.
“Why didn’t you just say that to begin with? Aiden?” I throw an elbow behind me and Aiden catches my arm. Up and over I go as he flips me onto my back and grinds his boot on my throat.
Just like old times; just like coming home, and I go for it. AA bar activated, I grab his foot and twist; he counters slow-mo into a spinning something-or-other that makes him look like a kung-fu salad spinner. I equip my M41A Pulse Rifle, item 128, but by the time I level it at him, Aiden has equipped a backpack mounted Gluon Gun.
“Okay, yours is bigger.” I lower my weapon.
“You’re getting rusty,” he says, “Loop Quantum would have had me twenty seconds ago.”
Loop Quantum. If Aiden only knew what I’d been up to.
“I’m still the same old Quantum, just a bit house-trained.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah,” I nod, “now where’s Dolly?”
Aiden shrugs. “I’ve been out; haven’t seen her.”
“Where have you been?”
“What I do off the clock is my business.” He pulls his collar down and shows me a hickey that looks more like Kraken’s revenge.
“Shit, pal, whatever is sucking on you, it ain’t human.”
“Exactly.”
I wink at him. “Well, it’s getting late out in the RW and I really don’t want to have to deal with the Lobby Boys right now, so can you whiz-bang out there and ask ‘em for me? Ask Pippa too – that sheep knows more than she lets on.”
Aiden steps in and out of reality. “They said she disappeared.”
“What do you mean?”
“She was hanging with the sheep and then she just, like pixilated.”
“And no one said nothing?”
“To who? About what? They were busy.”
“What about you, Mierda?”
Stinkerbell hovers over our heads like a glittery, feculent EBAYmazon drone, and shakes her moneymaker, releasing a golden shower of glitter.
“Is that your way of saying no?”
“It’s not my way of saying ‘yes!’” with that, she buzzes towards the window and smashes through one of the panes.
“Damn pixie. I really don’t remember how or why she ended up here but someone should probably call pest control and soon, before others show up.” I turn back to Aiden. “Well, I’m going to logout. I’m sure Dolly will show up at some point.”
Aiden shrugs. “She’s left and come back before.”
“Before or after her digital coma?”
“Both.”
“Well, ahem, keep an eye out for her.” I raise my finger to log out. “About some of your jokes in the real world today, how about you lighten up on my relationship with Frances? You were really busting my balls out there! The last thing I need is Sophia sniffing around.”
“She seemed congested.”
“Dammit, Aiden, you know what I mean. But other than that,” I give him my most sincere, bromantic smile, “it was hella nice seeing you out there. I can’t wait for us to go clear out a bar once you dive into a Humandroid’s body. That’ll be oh-so-nice.”
His eyes light up. “I can’t wait to go back. It’s different than here, different than anything in the Proxima Galaxy. Of course, there will be some restraints, I won’t be able to eat or taste food, for example, but that’s not that big of a deal.”
“Do you taste food here?” I ask. “I never thought about that.”
“Yeah, and it tastes great, well some of the restaurants in Tritania, anyway. Cid’s bar in Aramis has started serving some pretty good food. The Chef and the Saucier have really kicked it up a notch in the kitchen. Their hachis parmentier is the stuff of legends. But to be honest, I prefered Cyber Noir, but what can you do? That world is kaputz. But damn man, that Chinese restaurant in Chinatown.”
I lick my lips. “Which one?”
“Panda Buffet. They never seemed to have any actual panda on the menu, but their Kung Pao Chicken was to die for! Just kidding, actually, Hu Jintao’s Pu-Pu Dumpling Express.” He sighs deeply. “I’d kill to visit that place again and get some muffle Trumplings.”
“My favorite one was Peking Funk.”
“That’s a massage parlor,” he reminds me.
“Yeah? I meant what I said. Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I raise my hand and slap my finger onto the logout button. Damn, it feels good to do that.
~*~
On the other side of time I awake, ready to hit the hay and fast forward to tomorrow. The anticipation is killing me; I’m like a spoiled kid on Chrismahanukwanzivus morning. You should be ashamed of yourself, says the little angel on my right shoulder. I’ll tell you where you can stick your guilt, says the little devil on my left. Easy guys, says I, let’s just see where this goes.
So that’s what I do. As we humans are programmed to do, I mosey to Frances bedroom and into her little bathroom, where I give my teeth a quick once-over, which mostly consists of a mouthful of List
erCope Arctic Mega Mint Tsunami Blast. Wouldn’t you know it, the frickin’ bottle syncs with my iNet feed and offers me e-coupons and discounts on about fourteen different oral hygiene products I’ll probably never use. Their chosen huckster, one of the vacuous, over-breasted Kardashian spokes-clones gushes that the exclusive use of these products will make insanely attractive members of one’s preferred sexual orientation flock to one’s door for reproductive activities.
Yeah, sure they will.
Once the frickin’ ads finally finish, I fall onto the bed with my arms spread a la Cristo Redentor. I kid, I kid, actually, I get in bed as carefully as possible as not to wake Sleeping Euphoria. To La-La Land I go, and I get all of five hours of restless sleep – anticipation will do that to you – and it’s at some point in the wee hours of the morning, I start feeling guilty about my relationship with Frances and how I feel about Dolly. Look at me, my mind is bouncing around like a Chihuahua after a Kellogg’s caffeine enema.
What can I say? I can’t wait to log in and catch up with Dolly, whatever that may entail.
My damn real life versus my damn digital life dilemma.
One real, one almost real, but real enough. Ha! I could just become an RPC and spend the rest of eternity in The Loop murdalizing and taking names, or not taking names but still murdalizing, jacking hoopties and firing my tommy gun out the window as I make my way to Devil’s Alley.
Knowing my luck, someone will fudge up my final request and I’ll be stuck casting spells, beer-bonging drorikh, and checking stats in Ultima Thule. Maybe I’ll even get a place next to the Ivys and get my own Tom Myspace to buttle for me.
Not.
God forbid I have to live out the rest of eternity in Tritania! I don’t know how Luther Godsick does it – well, OMIB-porting surely helps – and I definitely wouldn’t want to be stuck on a cramped turtle island with a bunch of eternally teenage riff raff. But I guess that’s the beauty in digital dreamworlds: one can choose where one goes and stay there indefinitely.
Cyber Noir Redux: (Book Six) (The Feedback Loop 6) Page 10