Sophia kicks her legs off me and pulls a blanket over her body. “Doc! Please warn me before you do that! Please!”
“Keep your pants on Dr. Wang, and you,” he laughs. “You going for the bopnik look or something?”
“It was the coolest shirt at the thrift store,” I tell him. “Trust me on that.”
He chuckles. “You should have gone to WalMacy’s. They’ve always got something for today’s fashionable almost forty-year-old. Where do you think I got this?” He perches a too-small straw fedora on his squash. “Just kidding, this is Arnie’s. He wants to look cool since we’re heading to the coast.”
I hear Arnie the Humandroid’s voice in the background. “Howdy, Quantum! Nice to see y’all up in your new body. Whoo-boy! I betcha that there is a change of pace for you, partner. Anyway, lookin’ good, amigo. Welcome to the fam!”
“So let’s get down to business,” Doc says. “As you can tell, I’m in the RV.”
“Goin’ to the beach!” Arnie calls out.
“I’ll cut right to the chase: We’re going to get Veenure and we’re short one Humandroid.” He holds up a brisket-loaded plastic fork and stops me before I can volunteer for the position. “I’m probably going to regret this, in that you’re not demonstrating any more self-control, restraint, or good judgement in your borrowed Humandroid body than you do in the meat sack you fell out of your mother in, but you are in the perfect position to be just the solution we need.”
“What about Arnette?”
“What about Arnette? I need her back at the farm. Which leaves me with a couple of friends, Arnie, and me. Now, I’m not opposed to going in with Arnie, but as Mrs. Doc has pointed out on more than one occasion recently, I ain’t as young, skinny, or fast as I used to was. I could maybe borrow a combat droid and tele-operate it via InterHead software, but that’s another favor I’d have to call in that I’d prefer not to use up just yet, and another party I’d have to involve. So, I need another droid, and talk about luck, you’re another droid. Ah, geez – just thinking about it makes my asshole pucker – why do I get the feeling that I’m so going to regret this?”
“You won’t, Doc! You got my full commitment here.”
“Imagine how reassured I am. Tonight while you’re recharging, Evan’s operating system will update with a clone of Arnie’s combat software. You’ll meet us in California tomorrow afternoon. Arnie’ll get us airborne tonight, while I’m sleeping.”
“We’re practically bubbas now!” Arnie calls out.
The blare of an air horn makes Doc jump and curse; the holoscreen view shifts like the bridge of the Enterprise during evasive maneuvers.
“Dammit, Arnie, I almost spilled my beer!”
Arnie chuckles. “At ease, Hondo, jist another fat-ass, needle-dick, ape-drape wearin’ Texas knucklehead in his oversize pickup hurryin’ home on the highway ta Hell!”
Doc holds up his fork, still loaded with brisket and gives it a predatory smile. He shovels the forkful in, and follows it up with pickle, onion, and slaw. A moment or two of thoughtful mastication, a hearty gulp of brewski and he continues. “So anyhoo – tonight you’ll get the Texas Edition combat software package – the one that the International War Crimes Tribunal has such a sense of humor failure about.”
“What about Walliburton? Won’t they know?”
“Oh, would that be bad? Do ya think maybe we ought not to tell them, then? I swear, it’s like you’re reading from Quantum’s Big Book O’ Stupid Questions sometimes. Of course they won’t know. Since when have I not covered all of our bases? So get some rest – ha! – you’re going to need it.” Doc forks up some potato salad. “And Dr. Wang … ”
“Yes?”
“Put on a bathrobe.”
The holoscreen flickers and the rainforest scene returns.
Sophia looks at me sheepishly. “Do you mind if I keep my legs up for another few minutes?”
“Go ahead, Sophia, but don’t get used to it.”
Epilogue
The first thing I do after my consciousness arrives in the parasitic OMIB space is equip Captain Koons’ watch, item 151. Sure, it smells like ass, but it’s the best timekeeper I’ve got, much more accurate than my Flavor Flav Clock or the diamond studded Rolex I picked off Two-Faced Tommy, items 585 and 225, respectively. While Aiden busies himself doing whatever it is Sophia has instructed him to do, I glance at the digital timer on the wall and set the captain’s watch.
“There, that does it.”
Once he’s finished, Morning Assassin returns to his leather sofa chair. He kicks the foot support out, and a dog-eared hardback titled Dating in Fantasy Worlds: Dos and Don’ts by Peter Wolfbanger appears in his hands.
“Care to tag along? I got revenge on my plate for tonight.” I stretch my fingers out in front of me. This still isn’t my body, but at least it is only once removed, rather than twice. I still feel like all of this is Deus ex Machina on fleek, but who am I to complain? At least I’m allowed to halfway function in the RW now.
“Sophia didn’t say anything about me going out there.” He nods to the front door of the little dive yurt. “Let’s go to Tritania instead,” he suggests. “The Lobby Chaps have cornered the disco market in Aramis after unloading a ton of shit from Strata’s storage world. We’d be first class guests there. Orc chippies would be throwing themselves at us, Horse Piss showers all around, and enough Wizardous to resurrect Judy Garland’s ghost and then kill her again – you get the picture.”
I consider his offer for a moment. He ain’t fibbing – that does sound like a man-sized giggle-fest, all right. “So, I take it that you’re enjoying Tritania?”
“What’s not to like? There’s plenty of action, lots to see and do, and three continents to cause trouble on. Plus, it doesn’t rain Every. God. Damn. Day. You know – well, maybe you don’t – but my hair gets really frizzy and hard to manage when it’s humid. And I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to not be in Condition Orange all the damn time. Every corner in Tritania doesn’t come looped with possible death, if you get my drift.”
“And here you were earlier telling me I was the one who has gotten soft.”
“What can I say? I joined the club and it ain’t half bad.” He shakes his book at me.
I imagine a cold breeze blowing outside the door of the dive yurt. I know that as soon as I exit, the darkness of The Loop will envelop me and I’ll be back to my old self again. I’m defined by my surroundings, whether I care to admit it or not. This gets me thinking. “And what should I do if Dolly doesn’t let me come back here?”
“Good question. I almost forgot to give you this.” A pendant on a thin silver chain dangles from his fingers. “It’s a respawn pendant. If you die out there while wearing this, your avatar will respawn in here. Sophia crafted it, just in case Dolly tries to keep you from returning here.”
“That was … prescient of her.” I take the pendant from Aiden and examine it for a moment. It is a simple pendant with a Chinese character on the front. Without my advance AI, I’ve got no earthly idea what the character means. It could mean foreign devil for all I know. I’m just about to place it in my inventory list when the necklace lifts over my head, quickly melting into my skin. “Whoa! Why’d it do that?” I touch the spot where the pendant once existed; nothing but skin now.
“So you’ll always have it equipped, and so Dolly can’t rip it off your body.” Aiden looks back to his dating guide.
“You sure you don’t want to tag along? It’s gonna be a real good time.” I crack my knuckles for emphasis. “Real good.”
“Someone has to hold down the yurt. What about Tritania later? You game?”
“I’m game. I just need to take care of a little business before we go. Give me about an hour or so. How’s that?”
He looks at me over the top of his book. His mask covers the lower half of his mouth, which seems a bit unnecessary given our current location. “That’s fine. I just got to a chapter about druidettes and if you didn’t
already know, they much more difficult to land than you’d think. Where you headin’?”
“First to Devil’s Alley, after that, Chinatown.”
His eyes light up. “Say, could you pick me up some muffle Trumplings?”
I sigh. “Sure, pal, you got it.”
~*~
“We three kings of Orient are, tried to smoke a rubber cigar, it was loaded, it exploded, that’s how we traveled so far.” With that, I use item 108, my PHASR, to zap the three twerps huddled around the trashcan. They, snap, crackle, and burst like hobo kielbasa left too long in Satan’s microwave.
Zeus makes his presence known in the sky above as I scroll through my list behind my back, old school, and stop on my red Akira motorcycle, item 205. Sure, I could flag a cab or hijack a citizen, but I got places to go and people to kill, which would be as a great title for the autobiography I plan to write about being stuck in The Loop for two subjective years.
Place to Go and People to Kill. Ha! I’d write it, but I don’t know who’d read it. Just for shiggles,
“To infinity and beyond!”
I’m airborne moments later, the rain plinking against my trench coat as a new ear worm takes refuge inside my troubled skull. And the thunder rolls, and the lightning strikes, another love grows cold, on a sleepless night. The death of country music will never come, but if it does, I’ll be the first to celebrate. Still, the line fits, and if the shoe fits wear it and if the gambler betrays you, zotz the good for nothing scumbag.
I’m practically a upstanding citizen as I follow most of the traffic laws on my way towards Devil’s Alley. I never go more than five miles above the speed limit, I use my turn signals whenever necessary, and I only shoot at a few of the taxi drivers. Hell, I even give myself a handicap by shooting at them with my AMT automag II, item 118, with its jamming problems and god-awful recoil. Doc would be proud: I manage to get a direct headshot, which must be some sort of record. I can no shootz bad.
And just like that, a ‘Happy Toyz’ aeros transport vehicle cuts in front of me and takes up the entire airlane. I keep trying to zip around him, but every time I do, the bottom feeder aggressively skids left or right, preventing my circumvention. No dice. With no other choice, I take my hands off the grips and use my legs to keep my motorcycle steady.
Item 263, my MIB Noisy Cricket, takes shape in my hands. I hold the tiny gun steady for a moment in anticipation of the substantial recoil.
C’est la vie.
The blast shreds the aeros transport from the ‘B’ pillar back; I’m suddenly awash in burning Trump Ducks, Jailbird Hillarys, Dingbat Bernies, and other Inaugural 45 novelty stuffed waterfowl. Just as well, the recoil kept me back out of most of it.
Regaining control, I slow down and get back into the appropriate skylane. I’m surprised that Johnny Law hasn’t come sniffing on my tail yet; the only thing I’ve encountered so far are the usual verminous cabbies in their jaunty jalopies, road raging delivery drivers, and over-tasked soccer moms in their mom-mobile kamikazes. “Ha! The good old days!” I say aloud as thunder rumbles and the cloudburst kicks it up a notch.
I’m drenched by the time I land on the rooftop of the opium den. It’s not that there isn’t an available lamppost to park my motorcycle next to; it’s mainly the fact that I don’t have time for the crooked palooka leaning against the lamppost and picking his teeth with a switchblade.
I equip item 37, my hand mirror with an ivory handle.
I’m looking to blend in, so I go with a sort of face that makes you realize that God indeed has a sense of humor. I start with black raccoon eyes, spaced far apart, no, too close together, and a bulbous nose large enough to land a Cessna. Next up are thick muttonchops and a scar shaped like the state of Florida across my forehead. For my neck, I choose a California Redwood as my inspiration, thickening it to the point where I no longer have a chin. Finally, to really make me blend in with the crowd, I shorten myself by a foot and increase my weight by a hundred pounds.
“Simply raffish, if you ask me.” I roll my happy stout ass over to the fire escape and begin my descent. It’ll take a bit of time getting used to the weight, but I plan to shed the pounds faster than someone on the Karen Carpenter Paleo Atkins South Beach Diet plan once I take care of business at hand.
~*~
The entrance to the Bamba Club ain’t nothing to write home about. You could slap a giant sticker that reads Barfly’s over the neon sign and no one would know the difference. Huddling outside the club are clusters of chumps and whatever frills they can afford to get for arm candy tonight. Some are a walking testimonial to the inadvisability of pernicious chronic inbreeding; others are just sniffing around for a good time, and if that doesn’t pan out, a good brawl and possibly a near death experience. Everyone needs a water cooler story, even if the well was poisoned long ago.
One last thing – I equip my IOF .32 S&W Revolver and ease it into the pocket of my trench coat. After stepping around a pair future hatebirds scooping out key bump of Riotous, I take my place in line. A door goomba the size of a semi TSAs me, tells me to unequip my gun, which I do, and which I subsequently re-equip after he has let me in. This place could really use a Croc. Nothing got past the doorman at Barfly’s.
The choons kick up as soon as I’m in the club proper. Fluffs in nude leggings and see-through skirts shake their cottage cheese tushies to the sound of a hypnotic beat. The bartender, a Cid clone with a face like a lemon-sucking badger busies himself by pouring out a series of shots from a single bottle of hooch. He turns, showing everyone the fineness of his ducktail, and returns to the shots with a lighter. The shots are lit, and the gathered maenads ooh and ahh like a collective orgasm choir.
I see the booth I’m look for and make my way through the crowd.
A pick-up with legs for days and a ponytail to her ass brushes past and lightly blasts my shoulder with her busty gazongas. She feigns embarrassment, then asks me point blank if I’d care to make feet for children’s socks. By the time I get the gist of what she’s saying, the broad has already moved on to another gee in a zoot suit and popped collar. You win some you lose some. Or is it, you winsome loose one?
No matter.
I’m a man with a plan, Dr. Kevorkian with a license to thrill. I take my seat in the booth at the back of the room and like clockwork, the man named Shep takes a seat in front of me, his face all pug, wrinkled and fugly.
“I heard you wuz da guy playin’ da big boy gamez,” I tell the bum in the gruffest voice my thick neck will allow.
“You heard right, Ace.” Shep keeps his wooden box on his lap.
“Do ya care ta play wit’ me?”
“You jivin’ me? You some kind of poofter or something?” he asks.
“Poofter? You’ll be playin’ a different game if ya keep de insults comin’. I’m just a man lookin’ ta play.”
“In that case … ” He pops open his gun box. Same as roscoe before: an Uberti Cattleman charcoal blue, brass back and trigger guard, and a cylinder engraved oak leaf style. And damn, those Sambar stag grips. What a beaut!
“Say, dat’s some beanshooter ya got der,” I tell him, “but I’d ratha play wit’ what I gotz.”
“Oh yeah?” he asks.
I equip item 310, my eXistenZ Gristle Gun. Made of cartilage, the gun is a pretty close cousin to the exterior wall around Dolly’s Fortress of Anti-Quantum-tude.
“Go ahead, take a looksee.” I place the boomstick on the table.
“Not bad.” He turns the weapon over in his hand, lightly running his finger along the stock. “Really, not bad.”
“So den we playin’ or what?” I ask.
“Yeah, we’re playing.”
The .32 doesn’t make much noise. Shep slides to the floor with a handful of small-caliber perforations in his gut and a tummy ache that no amount of Pepto can cure. I return my Gristle Gun and the IOF revolver I had in my pocket to my inventory list. Shooting under the table is a dirty move, but if Han can shoot first, then I can too.
Careful not to step in the blood pooling around him, I squat down in front of Shep and my disguise melts away.
“Remember me, pal?” I ask.
“You … tricked me!” He tries to spit in my face but only manages a bloody splutter. “You … you … low-down, no good for nothing lollipop!”
“Lollipop, huh?” I say as I unbox his bang stick and load the cylinder full. “Whynchoo suck on this, then?” In one fluid move, I point, cock, and ventilate his glabella for him. “Good luck attuning to the vibrations of the universe with that third eye, chump!”
With that, his Uberti Cattleman revolver goes in my list, item 590, and I turn to the exit.
It’s time for the second act.
~*~
Lightning flashes in the graphite sky. I check my Captain Koons watch after landing on a rooftop that conveniently overlooks the front of Scarface Charlie’s restaurant in Chinatown. I told Aiden an hour or so, and I need to move this along if I want time for a night out in Aramis with Morning Assassin and the Lobby Boys.
I’m not going for the ‘make a grand entrance’ or my patented ‘Quantum rushes in’ approach. This time around, I equip my Storm PSR, item 92. I extend the bipod legs, have a look-see through the optics and get to sniping Charlie’s Angels. There are four guarding Hu Jintao’s Pu-Pu Dumpling Express this time around, and I down three before the last one takes to the shadows and appears on the rooftop behind me.
Kaylani Lei charges me with her katana.
I shoot from the hip and get her high center of mass; the impact sends her blade spinning away and she hits the rooftop like a ninety-pound sack of rice. Two more in the chest, one in the head just to make sure she don’t go all Walking Dead on my ass, and I set up the UA571-C Remote Sentry Weapon System, item 238, to cover the restaurant entrance.
Cyber Noir Redux: (Book Six) (The Feedback Loop 6) Page 22