Boy versus Self: (A Psychological Thriller)
Page 36
I transfer him half of everything I have. ‘That should be enough to buy some Riotous.’
The lights of the alley paint harshly contrasting diagonal stripes across his sallow, grimy face as he fumbles in his pocket. ‘You mocking me, smart guy?’ he asks, pulling a switchblade. He twists the blade in the air like a drunken conductor. ‘You think you’re better’n me, think you can just throw me cred like I’m some charity case!?’
The fiends in The Loop are vicious, unpredictable rat-bastards, a class of downgraded guttersnipes, slumdog tramps addicted to a drug known as Riotous. I press my finger into the air, accessing my inventory list. A drop-down menu appears in front of me; the bum freezes as I make my selection. Day 171’s item will do the trick nicely. A sledge hammer appears in my hands and I swing it into his chest like I’m teeing off at the Apple Grove. He slams into the wall with a satisfying crunch of bone and cartilage, and blows pixelated blood out of his mouth and nose.
‘Hey! You can’t do that!’ An even grungier fiend is on his feet, and I’m behind him before he can reach me. One swing of the sledge and he too Humpty-Dumptys into the muck and filth of the alley.
~*~
Barfly’s sign buzzes and flickers at the end of the alley, a neon floozie in a Martini glass, endlessly scissoring her legs, electric bubbles sequentially popping above her head. People move through the shadows leading up to the place, speaking in whispers behind cupped hands, breathing in each other’s cigarette smoke. Grit for breakfast, a kick in the teeth for lunch, home before dinner in a coffin carried by skeletal pallbearers, a .38 slug through your heart – welcome to my life. I’ve spent endless dismal days squatting in this dive, drinking to the point of faux-ossification and then fighting my way across The Loop, only to wake up back in the flophouse the following morning as if it had all been a dream. Being bored is an understatement.
‘Quantum.’ The doorman claps his arm across my shoulders. He is a chiseled guy, his face angular and rough like the Old Man of The Mountain’s used to be, before it collapsed. This guy would give the Old Man a run for his money in the rustic beezer department. Trust me, I know – I’ve dealt with Croc several times after things got dicey at Barfly’s.
‘I’ll behave,’ I say instead of hello.
‘You always do,’ he says with a flinty glint in his eye.
Maybe I’m spooked; maybe I’ve lived the same day so many times that there are surely things I haven’t noticed in the 545 previous iterations. It kind of makes me wonder how much I missed when the days weren’t on repeat, when The Loop (the name I’ve given it) was nothing more than the game-slash-entertainment dreamworld known as Cyber Noir.
‘You waitin’ on someone? Chippy, maybe?’ Croc asks, chewing on a toothpick.
‘You can tell? Some NPC you are…’
‘NPC?’
Non Player Characters never refer to themselves as NPCs, which only makes this place more maddening. Sometimes I think I’m the crazy one… sometimes.
‘Frail named Frances Euphoria. She here??’ I ask. A quick scan across the bar tells me the usual suspects are present – drunks and divas, lounge lizards and booze hounds, gamblers, grifters and bunco artists – no matter what the clock reads. Getting soused is the name of the game.
‘Frances Euphoria...’
‘Well, Croc?’
‘Don’t know the broad. Pull up a pew and maybe she’ll show. You never know, Daddy-O.’
The patience flows out of his face and I oblige – no sense in riling this one up unnecessarily. I sit at the same barstool I always sit at, on the far left hand side of the bar, facing the door so I can see who comes in. One can only have a pool cue upside the noggin but so many times before one realizes that it may be time to change seats.
Cid the bartender is a grizzled old bastard in a white shirt, black bow tie, and none-too-clean apron, with a sawed off, lead-loaded baseball bat behind the bar. He pulls me a pint in a none-too-clean mug and slides it to me. I catch it before it sails off the end, and the exquisitely rendered foam slops over my hand. I savor the first swallow. It’s cold-ish, and tastes sort of beer-ish, and if I pour enough down my piehole it’ll get me kind of drunk-ish.
It ain’t great, but it’ll do.
I nod my thanks, and Cid winks in return. His mono-brow dances like a caterpillar on a hot plate.
A dame walks in, and she’s the cat’s meow – stacked like pancakes, with cleavage down to there and gams up to here, and a tight black dress that looks like it came out of a spray can. Her hair is devil red, her skin whiter than the finest blow, and the triangular icon over her head is blue sky blue, cornflower blue, blue the color of life blue. She’s an actual person, not an NPC, and I’m not going to lie – I’m simply mesmerized by the color. Almost two years…
‘Frances Euphoria?’ I wipe the beer foam off my lips.
‘Three Kings Park, seven o’clock tomorrow night.’
She turns slightly and she’s all of a sudden sporting a Rambo knife with a wicked saw tooth spine. I’ve got one just like it – item number 4 in my inventory. She strikes like a cobra and slams the blade into my chest.
I’m dead before my pint hits the floor.
Reader,
The Feedback Loop is out now and available for .99 cents on Amazon here. Get it and get started on the series now!
Also by Harmon Cooper
Science fiction/ techno thriller:
Life is a Beautiful Thing Series: Hallucinatory cyberpunk. Meta sci-fi satire. The future is futile. Part techno thriller, part literary science fiction, Life is a Beautiful Thing is a series that questions what it means to be human, a book that offers a shocking glimpse into a dystopian future fueled by corporate deceit, bawdy sex and high-end intoxicants.
The Feedback Loop Series: Pulp cyberpunk. Set in the 2050s in the same world as the Life is a Beautiful Thing series, The Feedback Loop follows the journey of a man named Quantum Hughes who is stuck in a gritty virtual entertainment dreamworld called The Loop. Available on Amazon here.
The Zero Patient Trilogy: Coming Spring 2016.
Digital Short Story Collections:
Dear NSA: A collection of politically incorrect stories about the troubled times we share. Available on Amazon.
Zombie Lolita A short collection of satire that explores the depths of human delusion. Available on Amazon.
Tokyo Stirs: A collection of shorts that take place in India, Japan, Korea, Mongolia and Nepal. Available on Amazon.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Glass Halfie
Chapter 2: Ghosts and STDs
Chapter 3: Santiago Escapes the Sharks
Chapter 4: Black Olive Eyes
Chapter 5: Outside Over There Mexico
Chapter 6: Sri, Sri, Sri
Chapter 7: Salome
Chapter 8: Maeve
Chapter 9: New York Flowering
Chapter 10: New York, New Studio
Chapter 11: The Lost Years are like Sandwich Cookies
Chapter 12: Japan
Chapter 13: Aftermath
Back of the book shit
(Sample) Life is a Beautiful Thing
(Sample) The Feedback Loop
Also by Harmon Cooper
Table of Contents