The Mechanical Heart: (Book Five) (Sci-Fi LitRPG Series) (The Feedback Loop 5)

by Harmon Cooper

  Doc: What an asshole!

  Me: He mostly struck me as hungry.

  Doc hands the weapon to me. “You can put him back in your list now, keep him there too.”

  “Well?”

  You gonna let someone else handle my shaft now? That guy had way too many questions!

  “Quiet, Hackie,” I say as he dematerializes.

  Hey!

  “Your weapon, oddly enough, is an RPC named Richard Hertz.”

  “Dick Hertz, huh?”

  Rocket snorts a laugh.

  Sophia: *facepalm*

  “Sorry, Doc, go on,” I tell him.

  “From what Richard told me, he was a player in Cyber Noir at around the same time you first dove there. He died in the RW and decided to spend the rest of eternity in the Proxima Galaxy. He came out on the wrong end of a bad deal with Dirty Dave, and Dave sort of forcibly weaponized him with malice aforethought. Of course, this should have only lasted for a short time, but it’s about the same time that the glitch hit CN and the rest is history.”

  Red says, “Fascinating! You know, I’ve heard about people becoming objects in Proxima Worlds once they die. Blue and I thought about that, but we chose otherwise, as you can tell.”

  “But they’re NPCs, technically,” I remind him, “and no offense by that. The person is dead.”

  “What is death again?” Blue asks. “Because I feel just as alive as I felt when I was still a meatsack.”

  I raise my hands. “You got me there. So back to what you were saying, Doc, Dick Hertz is an RPC.”

  “Yes.”

  “And he could technically be free now?”

  “Well, yes, I didn’t ask him about that though. Maybe he likes being a weapon and eating player characters.”

  “I guess knowing is half the battle, huh?”

  Doc laughs, “I see what you did there.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Tom Myspace clearly enjoys having guests to cater to. He never allows our glasses of tart and tangy iced tea to become less than half-full, brings out dingleberry sorbet, followed by dingleberry macaroons, with dingleberry pound cake to follow. We still need the RPC couple to give us access to Athos, which means I gotta mind my Ps and Qs. Sure, I’d love to give ‘em hell about the fact that as RPCs, they’re just NPCs with more history and a more detailed backstory and are technically no different than their butler – but that would be insensitive, and I’m getting better at being cultured, even if I do say so myself.

  Besides, Doc is here, and he seems to have a way of saying things that gets the job done without any additional commentary from yours truly.

  “Red, Blue – as delightful as we find your company and your sparking conversation,” he says after his third slice of dingleberry pound cake, “the five of us have some business in Athos that we need to attend to. Although I believe we do have time for one more slice of your most excellent pound cake. Is this your recipe, Tom?”

  He nods in appreciation of the compliment and scurries over with another slice.

  Sophia: I was just getting to that! FYI: Thulean customs dictate that the host leads the topics of discussion, especially with new acquaintances.

  Me: We ain’t Thulean, FYI.

  Doc: He has a point, FYI.

  Sophia: Of course you two agree with each other! Frances?

  Frances Euphoria: They’ve been going on for nearly thirty minutes about Tritanian celebrity gossip. Enough is enough, FYI.

  Sophia: Rocket?

  Rocket: FYI lady, I got places to go and people to see – Did that sound Loopish enough Q-migo?

  Me: You’ll do well out there in the big bad world kid, real well.

  Red uses his ghost limb to place his cup on a circular side table. Not quite world appropriate, the side table – and for that matter, all the furniture – has a sixties mod vibe to it, especially the ball chair that Doc awkwardly perches in.

  “Well, I suppose getting down to business is the only way true business is handled,” Red says as he rubs his hands together. “You want to go to Athos, and you need our help to go there, correct?”

  “Exactamundo, Rojo.” I say to a blank stare. “What? No one into Spanish around here?”

  Blue smiles. “Hablamos Español, pero nosotros preferimos hablar Inglés.”

  Red snaps his fingers. “Tom, fetch us five single entry/exit visas.”

  “Right away.”

  I give Aiden a subtle raise of the eyebrows and he gives me a look that screams don’t get any ideas. Who wouldn’t want an NPC gofer? I can think of plenty of ways to keep an NPC busy.

  Tom appears beside Red with five Chinese finger trap-sized scrolls in his hand. Red unrolls the first one and it lifts into the air. “And what is your purpose for visiting, Ms. Wang?”

  “Actually, I’ve been before. And it’s Doctor Wang.”

  Red is somewhat less overawed and bedazzled by Sophia’s academic accomplishments than she might have hoped.

  “How very nice for you, Doctor Wang. I’m glad to hear that you’re so well-travelled and all, but that wasn’t my question.”

  Sophia’s full name appears atop a dotted line on the upper left hand corner of the scroll.

  “We’re looking for someone, a player trapped in a digital coma, and we’d like to speak to the Sage of Gotha about it. The Sage is our only hope now,” she says, her eyes narrowing on me.

  “You haven’t tried the Hall of Records?”

  “He made sure that we would never be able to ask for a favor from Empress Thun, ever.”

  “Oh dear,” says Blue. “Does this have to do with something that happened after the tournament?”

  I clear my throat. “Long story short: I won, as you know, and I got a wish. Well, my wish was supposed to be for the Saiduka giants to call off their attack on the Griffin Festival and the Empress would up us to level thirty-five; however, King Coromon offered to bump us up to level ninety and I took it.”

  Blue looks to her husband. “So you betrayed Empress Thun for King Coromon, huh?”

  “Well when you say it like that, it makes me sound like a sleazeball. I didn’t betray–”

  “–You did betray,” Sophia huffs. “And now the Empress’ knights are hunting us.”

  Red shakes his head. “A conundrum indeed, and if you didn’t get the vibe from King Coromon, let me be the first to tell you that he is a super douche canoe.”

  “I figured that much. What I did was for the numbers, simply for the numbers. His douche canoe-ery had nothing to do with it.”

  “I knew the king when she was a woman named Taz Horne who was involved with Ray Steampunk. She was a mean drunk; a terribly jealous drunk; a violent drunk. Physically abused Ray severely, as I recall.”

  Doc nods. “That she was.”

  “You knew her too?” asks Blue.

  “I know or know about most people in the game behind the game.”

  “Your handle just lists you as Doc, hmmmm … ” Red’s eyes light up. “You don’t happen to be Doc Paulin, do you?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Well, damn! And you? Steamboy? If you don’t mind me asking, who are you?”

  Me: Should I spill my guts?

  Doc: No.

  Sophia: Thuleans are the most trustworthy people in Tritania!

  Me: Holy crap, what planet are you from again?

  Sophia: It’s true! They take an oath of loyalty to their friends and guests. They would never betray us.

  Rocket: I thought Veenure would never betray us, and look how well that went.

  Frances Euphoria: The Reapers already know we’re in here, so the cat’s out of the bag.

  “He’s Quantum Hughes,” Sophia blurts. “You may have heard of him.”

  Blue glances at her husband. “Heard of him? I’ve actually met him!”

  “You have?” I ask.

  “At a conference in 2048, or was it 49?”

  “2048,” Red says.

  “Yes! It was around the time when you and Strat
a Godsick started the Dream Team. I was on the board that granted your initial funding. As you may recall, the project was started as a joint venture between the FCG and the Proxima Foundation.”

  “You knew me back then?”

  “I did,” she grins. “And you haven’t changed a bit.”

  Sophia: That’s discouraging.

  “Welp, you got us,” I say with my hands in the air. “That’s who we are, we’re the Dream Team.”

  “Dream Recovery Extraction and Management,” Red chimes in. “I personally thought that was just about the stupidest name you could have come up with. I guess it fits in a way though. So yes,” he glances at the scroll, “the reason for your desired entry to Athos is to visit the Sage of Gotha.” Vertical Thulean writing appears on the floating scroll next to him. The other scrolls open and undergo the same process. “That should about do it, although I will need for you to do us a favor before I can hand these entry documents over.”

  “Anything,” Sophia nearly shouts.

  Doc: The first rule of Tritania – never agree to anything. The second rule?

  Me: You do not talk about Fight Club?

  “Your enthusiasm speaks well for you!” Red throws his thumb over his shoulder. “We’ve got a lovely large back garden with a rather less lovely graboid infestation.”

  “A what infestation?” I already don’t like where this is heading.

  “Graboid. They’re a sub-type of Hyperborean sandworm. Not overmuch sand around these parts, but we are well-supplied with snow. These are Arctic sandworms, adapted for arctic conditions. He looks to his wife and chuckles. “I’m not going to lie – we are kind of the reason there are so many arctic graboids out there. The yellow snow they produce makes great iced tea, and their hides? Damn, are they worth something.”

  “Wait a damn minute!” Doc spits and splutters his tea down the front of his day-glo orange tactical vest. “Did you say yellow snow?”

  Blue asks, “What’s wrong with drinking graboid urine? It’s good for you! And where do you think Slurm comes from?”

  “Snow worm piss?”

  “No, silly – the Slurm Queen, but the principle’s the same.”

  I slowly set my glass down and give them both the stink eye. What would Loop Quantum do? Loop Quantum wouldn’t even have taken the time to set down the glass before he whomped up some big shootin’ iron and blasted these two piss-pushers into drifting pixels. But Good Quantum, Nice Quantum, Go Along to Get Along Quantum can’t do that, not if we’re going to get those scrolls.

  Boy, it’d be sweet, though. Motion in my peripheral vision; Aiden’s iced tea glass has shattered in his grip; his free hand twitches on a trigger he hasn’t called from inventory. Our eyes meet, and I know that he’s thinking the same thing.

  “So you’ll get the scrolls after you’ve killed all the graboids and harvested all their hides,” says Red, “simple as that.”

  A golden box appears before me, asking I accept the quest on behalf of the group.

  Me: Well? Are we going freezy-pee deathworm hunting?

  Sophia: Um, do we have another option?

  Me: Um, not since you volunteered us for ‘anything’. But I’m eating lunch first, that’s all I’m saying. I need to get the taste of worm piss out of my mouth.

  Rocket: You should totally say that last sentence out loud and hear how it sounds.

  Me: Keep it up, Peanut Gallery.

  Rocket: Seriously, just say that last line – I need to get the taste of worm piss out of my mouth – aloud, preferably to a close friend or even better, a random acquaintance in a bar.

  “Looks like you have yourself a deal, Red and Blue.” I accept the quest and smile at our guests. “We’ll be back to deal with your worm problem a bit later. It’s lunch time in the RW.”

  “A very late lunch, I might add,” Sophia tells me. “Your normal lunch time passed almost four hours ago.”

  “Has it been that long? Regardless, I need to refuel the RW avatar.”

  ~*~

  “We’re doing something a bit different today, something that will keep the FDA Monitor off your butt.” Frances holds a silver, insulated bag shaped like an embiggened bullet in front of us. The conference room at the Dream Team Headquarters seems like it’s missing something, or better, someone. I glance to Zedic’s chair and look away.

  Nothing you can do now.

  Sophia peels the velcro away from her silver bullet. “Oh yum! Organic ants on a log, baby tomatoes and orange cauliflower!”

  Rocket finishes his Bull Bean energy drink and opens his lunch. “My favorite!” He takes out a hot tray filled with a variety of vegetables and something that is white, red and pungent. “The kimchi vegan platter,” he says once he sees the way I’m staring at his gerbil food.

  “Frances, I need a little protein,” I tell her as I open my silver bullet. “And I’m talking about animal protein, not the vegetable kind.”

  “Oh, just try it. I picked yours out for you with your … um … dietary preferences in mind.”

  I peel open the velcro and steam wafts out of the silver pack. Inside is what looks like barbequed ribs, what smells like barbequed ribs, but I know in my heart of hearts that I’m being bamboozled somehow. A large mound of Freedom Fries sits in a tray opposite the ribs, with an insulated Styrofoam container of coleslaw on the side. I poke the ribs with my fork.

  “Is this real meat?”

  Sophia laughs; there’s a smudge of peanut butter on her upper lip. “It’s real enough – trust us.”

  “Real meat?” I ask again. “Or In–N-Out In The Box cloned meat?”

  Rocket grins from Frances to Sophia. “Yeah, it’s real, if you consider lab-grown meat real.”

  “So is it real meat or not?”

  “You’ll like it,” Frances says as she opens her pack. “It’s better than Soylent Red.”

  I take a bite out of the rib and chew the meat slowly. It has the consistency of pork, the taste of pork, and it shreds like pork as I get a piece stuck between my molars by the time I finish masticating.

  “Well?”

  “It ain’t bad, but Arnie’s is better.”

  “Well, I can send it back if you want.”

  “No,” I wave her offer away and notice that there’s some barbeque sauce on my fingers. I pop a finger in my mouth and clean ‘er off. “I’ll man up and suffer through it today.”

  We eat and we talk about Ultima Thule. Sophia tells us just about everything she knows about the floating continent, enough to make me wonder if her PhD is actually in Tritania and not in neuronal physics. I’m just about to mop up some rib sauce with a piece of low cal whole wheat bread when I get a message from my dad.

  Phil Hughes: Hi, Quantum.

  Me: Dad? You using iNet these days.

  Phil Hughes: Actually, it is FDA Monitor 1351885, Evan, and I’m here to talk about your diet, your current mental state, and to remind you of the upcoming leadership conference.

  I stand, pace for a moment.

  “What is it?” Rocket asks.

  “My monitor is talking to me through my dad’s handle.”

  Sophia chuckles.

  “This isn’t funny!” I tell her. “It’s a violation of … of my civil liberties or something!”

  Phil Hughes: Do you have a moment to talk?

  ~*~

  I slam Frances’ door and plop down onto her couch.

  Me: You got no right, NO RIGHT, contacting me using my dad’s handle!

  Phil Hughes: I sense that you are agitated about this.

  Me: Damn right I’m agitated!

  Phil Hughes: Do you see the attachment below? I’ve attached a list of ways to manage stress derived from sudden exposure to unexpected circumstances. I can list a few of the ways here, if you’d like.

  Me: Evan, where are you?

  Phil Hughes: I’m not at liberty to discuss my current location.

  Me: Do you know my current location?

  Phil Hughes: Yes. By using the G
PS coordinates associated with your coworkers, as well as checking your physical presence through their iNet feed, I am quite certain you are at the Dream Team offices on …

  Me: You ain’t gonna let up, are you?

  Phil Hughes: I am not programed to let up. I am programed to assist.

  Me: Hold on a minute, will you?

  Phil Hughes: By all means, son, I mean, Quantum.

  Me: Doc, you there?

  Doc: Busy. Mrs. Doc made Lobster Thermidor aux crevettes with a Mornay sauce, garnished with truffle pâté, brandy, and a fried egg on top, and Spam for lunch. What’s up?

  Me: Is it possible to triangulate the position of my FDA Monitor?

  Doc: That’s not at all how triangulation works. I feel like we’ve been over this before.

  Me: I need him gone.

  Doc: What now?

  Me: He’s contacted me using my dad’s handle.

  Doc: They tried that with me using my brother’s handle. Just agree to whatever he asks and ignore him. These guys are all A.I., and they ain’t stupid either. Eventually they’ll take a hint and contact you less and less, until they practically leave you alone. My FDA Monitor, 8675309, Jenny, hasn’t contacted me in a year.

  Me: So it’s inadvisable to send Arnie to wherever this Humandroid is to take care of business?

  Doc: Yes, and don’t threaten your monitor. I made that mistake and it wasn’t pretty. Also, Arnie’s services ain’t yours to volunteer, capiche?

  Me: Got it. I’ll get back to him now.

  Phil Hughes: Hello? Have I lost you?

  Me: Nope, you haven’t. What do you want?

  Phil Hughes: Hi. I would like to confirm that you are attending the leadership conference in D.C. next week.

  Me: Sure, I’ll be there.

  Phil Hughes: I will be there as well. Additionally, I am under the impression that you are experiencing increased stress in your work environment which is exacerbated by your sub-optimal dietary choices and compounded by the additional sequelae related to the traumatic incident with the late Matthew Henderson.

  Me: Rollins, let’s just call him that.

  Phil Hughes: There also appears to be an issue you’re working through that we haven’t discussed yet. Two, actually.