“Our turn!” Sophia is breathing hard, her hands running up and down her body as she realizes Aiden saved her at the last second, scratch that, millisecond. Veenure is already back on her side of the battle field, her life bar cut by 50% for using her weapon.
Frances Euphoria: This is it!
Sophia’s hair straightens as a glassy wave moves across her body from left to right. Beadlets form on the undersides of her outstretched arms, grow to grape size and patter to the ground like crystalline hailstones. The tink-tink-tink of falling glass beadlets slows and stops; Sophia waggles her fingers and twists her wrists and the beadlets rise from the ground and begin a slow orbit around her. She plucks one from its orbit, places it on the back of her hand, and in an impressive display of advanced prestidigitation casually rolls it back and forth across her knuckles.
~Jareth’s Glass Balls!~
Me: Oh come on; that’s the best you can do? That’s even lamer than the rust fish!”
Sophia: I just have to hit her with one, that’s all, and yes, it is the best I can do given our current circumstance.
Doc: We need to get her location first!
Sophia: Jareth’s Balls turn any character, regardless of level, to glass. Well, there’s a more detailed explanation about its use and limitations, but I’ll save it for another time. The point is, you’ll get your chance to get her with your mutant goose hack.
Frances Euphoria: Just throw the balls already!
Now you’d think that with all the gazillions of dollars the government has … ahem … invested in forced equality and mandatory gender neutral training and physical education, Sophia would possess an effective ball-propelling technique – but, sexist, racist, disembiggening, schweinhund that I am, I can’t help but notice that she throws like a girl. Lucky for us, she just has to make them go; they grow to basketball size in flight and home in on Veenure like a fat Auntie on an all-you-can gorge cheesecake buffet.
“Hell yes!” I shout, “that’s gonna leave a mark in the morning!”
There’s no way she can avoid the tsunami of magical crystal balls o’ death that are about to rain down on her.
A giant black object flashes in front of Veenure and shields her.
The Executioner.
It’s the same Reaper Sin Nombre who was with her in the OMIB, and he sucks up Sophia’s entire attack. The first few crystalline spheres smash against him like bursting soap bubbles, and with just as much effect. Sophia throws more, and he flicks them away; spears them with a fingertip; catches them on his tongue; heads them like a soccer ball; turns, bends and bumps them away with his tautly muscled, leather-clad butt, in what I’m forced to admit is a most effective display of mocking disdain. Her attack round finishes and she drops to the ground, her head hung in dismay. The executioner laughs a low, guttural, metallic Jabba D. Hutt laugh.
Pixelated hair stands up on the back of my avatar neck. “It can’t be.”
His handle appears on a skull-and-lightning bolt bedecked banner: MH ROLLINS.
Frances Euphoria: Matthew Henderson is an RPC!
“The zit-faced shitbird,” I mumble as I scroll through my list. There is an option here that I use sparingly because it just makes things too easy.
I equip item 101, my Who Framed Roger Rabbit portable hole. It snaps open and I expand it to about trash can lid size. Rollins and Veenure have no idea what I’m holding, and finally, finally, my age and extensive knowledge of pop culture artifacts comes in handy.
Me: Doc, tag team?
Doc grits his teeth as his mutant hack bubbles up his arm and he aims it directly at Rollins’ chest.
“We only get one shot at this, so make it count.”
“Oh, really Obvious Man? You mean they won’t give us a Mulligan if we screw up the first go ‘round? Just throw it already, and let me do the rest!”
With a nonchalant flick of the wrist I let loose the portable hole. The Über Reaper puts hands on hips and puffs his chest to block it, Superman-style. He is most befuddled when it latches onto him instead of bouncing off, and Doc chortles “Gotcha!” as he lets loose with the golden goose.
The blast goes through the asshole’s newest asshole and zaps Veenure into logout land, and even better … we got her deets the second she logs back in.
Frances Euphoria: That’s some fancy shootin’ there, Tex!
Me: Fancy shootin’ indeed! Thank you, Roger Rabbit!
Rollins’ muscles bulge as two nasty looking mutant hacks form on either arm, complete with melted faces, stringy torn muscles, and shark-tooth points. His skull mask shatters as his face twists into a horror flick visage with a distorted Malebolgia jaw. His eyes are fiery slits, his skin a field of oncogenic tumors, his Marquis of Death dentition protrude from blackened, pustulent gums.
“Ya know,” I tell the salivating demon spawn, “a gold and diamond grill would really set off those rotting gums, and I know just where to get one if you’re interested.”
Frances Euphoria: Forfeit the battle!
Me: What about Chrono?
I catch him still on the sidelines fully armed and armored, just in case things went pear-shaped.
Doc: I’ve messaged him and told him to meet me back at the guild.
Doc’s life bar has taken a pretty big hit due to the non-world appropriate weapon penalty; Sophia’s bar is down too. Aiden is gone, and I’m the only one running full health.
“You guys logout,” I say, “I’ll take on Rollins the Street Shark over here.”
Sophia: Dammit, don’t be so hard-headed. WE DON’T KNOW WHAT HE IS CAPABLE OF!
“I already killed him once,” I tell her as I equip my BFG 9000, item 100, “I really, really can’t wait to kill him again!”
My free hand twitches as it lifts into the air of its own volition. I try to fight Sophia’s mind magic, but who am I kidding?
She forces my finger onto the forfeit button and the three of us bail.
Chapter Sixteen
“There’s too many!” Rocket shouts as tufts of snow spray into the air around him.
He’s got katana in one hand and wakizashi in the other and he stands on a mound of death worm sashimi. It ain’t pretty seeing the kid get his tookus handed to him by a bunch of oversized, yellow-snow-producing nightcrawlers, but that’s exactly what I’m watching in real time. Add to this Dolly’s behavior – she’s sans clothes with the graboids, her witchblades flailing in random directions.
One of her witchblades lashes out at Burly and he dives into a pile of Deathworm offal to avoid getting ginsued. He wipes pink snow from his eyes, spits and shouts, “Oi! ‘Ow about a bit of assistance, thanks ever so ta?” as he gets back to the slice-age and dice-age.
Another snow worm bursts out from beneath a snowdrift and launches itself at Rocket, remora-mouth first. Rocket flips backwards, whirls, and neatly removes the last eighteen inches of the toothy end with his wakizashi. The non-toothy end flops and writhes and twists and stains the snow pink with its vile juices.
“They’re kicking his ass! We need to get him some help pronto, Tonto!”
Sophia rustles about on the other side of the room. She’s already out of her dive gear and back in her official Mad Scientist regalia, huffing and sighing to indicate that something’s wrong and she wants someone to ask what’s the matter. I’m not going to because, well, I don’t really care, and I’m interested to see how loud and blatant she’ll get.
Frances stands and offers me her chair and her headset. “Here, I’ll let you be the in-game monitor for a while. I’ve got a headache.”
“Take a break, I got this.” I plop down into her seat and place the headset on. I’m immediately greeted by the sound of snow worm shrieks and grunts from Rocket and Burly. “Rocket, I’m in.”
“Q-Ready!” Rocket shouts as he flips over a squirt of worm venom. “We’ve already killed a shitload of these dirty snow worms!”
I place my hand over the mic. “Looks like the kid will be at it all night.”
; “I figured as much,” Frances says as she massages her temples.
Me: Tell Burly to call in the rest of the Loopers, and what the hell is Dolly doing anyway?
“We were almost done,” Rocket shouts, this time dodging a witchblade, “I mean almost done cleaning up these worms and were just about to start with skinning when she suddenly ditched her clothes – which was kinda fun to look at – grew the witchblade thingies and algospelled about a gajillion more graboids into existence, which, frankly, sucks! Oops!” Rocket dodges up, and up again, then down, then even more down than that. He fakes left, goes right, goes left, fakes right, and with a backhand slash severs the head of a silvery-white marked graboid.
Aiden spawns and immediately gets stuck in with his chainsaw. He shreds his way over to Burly, who’s in danger of getting worm-piled.
“And about time, too, ye poncing poofter,” the Big Boss of the Battling Brits observes, as he and Morning Assassin work their way forward and start to seriously thin the herd. A sudden, metallic CLANG, and he shrieks, “Lor’ luv a DUCK! Ah’ve been GOOSED!” He backs away from the writhing mass of deathworms with a medium sized graboid firmly clamped to his armored codpiece. He laughs heartily for a moment as he wiggles it around. “Look lads! I told you I was well ‘ung!” He considers for a moment and says, “Nah, me real one’s bigger,” and promptly excises his impromptu Dirk Diggler with a well-placed hack from his ax.
Me: Tell Aiden to get Dolly back to the guild and get the others there, dammit! Looks like Dolly will keep spawning them if you guys don’t get her out of there.
Rocket relays the message and Aiden appears behind Dolly. He wraps his arms around her and she sprouts blades like a witchblade piranha-shark in a porcupine suit. Even perforated as he is, he hangs on to her and away they go in a glittery flash.
The Chef and the Saucier appear first, in a somewhat less glittery flash.
“Magnifique!” The Chef kisses his fingers. “Graboids make an excellent gusano y guacamole side dish!” He conjures up the George Patton Limited Edition Sabatier Chef’s Sabre and its accompanying steel and touches up the sabre’s edge before launching into a well-practiced moulinet that neatly filets the nearest graboid. “Get as many as you can,” he directs The Saucier, who produces a fancy culinary snicker-snee of his own. “Ce soir, nous allons manger comme de rois!”
Rocket flips over a Southeast Texas-sized graboid as knives jut out of his jika-tabi. He flits along the monster’s back, slitting his way towards its tail. On the other end, The Saucier wields his crane-marked blade with style, grace, and savoir-faire sufficient to wring tears of joy from the very Bride herself, as he delicately separates the death worm from its bitey parts.
The Brit Assassins appear in their construction attire: hard hats, hangovers, general surliness, and oversized steel-toed DMs. Scotty has an Acme jackhammer with backpack compressor, Irish Shorty holds a ditch blade, Bucket Hat has a splitting maul, Pip clutches The Shoveler’s shovel, and the Quiet One is armed up with two nail guns and crossed bandoleers of nail strips over his neon yellow safety vest. Pip’s sheep is with them; she takes one look at the agglomeration of angry annelids, promptly evacuates her bowels, and jumps bleating into Pip’s arms. “Sorry mates,” Pip says hurriedly, “Pippa don’t much take to ‘em, I reckon. I’ll just run ‘er ‘ome and be back in two shakes.”
Aiden materializes last, his hand gripped tightly upon Dirty Dave’s shoulder. Dirty Dave’s nose and mouth are caked with some sort of white, crystalline substance, and he vibrates, bounces, and twitches like Spring Heeled Jack with a lightning bolt up his ass. A mutant hack manticore’s stinger bursts out of his back. He twists out of Aiden’s grip and throws himself into the melee. The hack-stinger venom takes immediate, horrible effect, and a trail of blackened, shriveled graboid carcasses marks his progress.
“QU’EST-CE QUE C’EST ÇA?” roars The Chef. “Merde alors! You are wasting zem!”
Me: I’ll leave it to you then, Rocket. Get the grab-asses under control and logout once you finish. Take the rest of the night off and get some sleep for once.
“If you got a problem, yo, I’ll solve it.” I drop the headset as if it were a mic and Frances chuckles.
~*~
“It’s been a day,” I say as I get into Frances’ aeros. It’s warm inside and it smells of fruity flowers. Once she’s seatbelted, Frances’ aeros lifts into the air and the AI waits for an airlane to open up and then we’re off to the races. “Aeros, full auto-drive, maximum legal speed.” she says and the yoke folds away from her body as the vehicle’s AI confirms her instructions. She rolls her head on her neck, “Dinner options, please.”
A holoscreen on her dash displays a variety of dinner choices for both of us to choose from: seared chicken and basil fettuccine pasta; lemongrass turkey burgers with sweet potato fries and Sweet Baby Ray’s honey mustard sauce; halal Moroccan lamb chops with cherry tomato and peach panzanella; spicy Thai tacos with Yucatan pico de gallo.
The list goes on, and I close my mouth and barely manage to not slobber down my front.
“Which one?” she asks as the aero files into a lane of traffic, a single, calculated foot away from the vehicle in front of it.
“All?”
“Your FDA Monitor … ”
“What? Evan? He’s practically my penpal now. We hit it off big time. You choose, besides, all this stuff looks great. Besides, I need to get Doc on the horn and get an update from him.”
“You trust me?”
“I trust you, but make sure you order something with a little meat.”
I snap my peepers shut to see what’s happening on iNet. The News scrolls across the bottom of my viewing pane. Some disaffected dumbass in Japan stabbed fifteen clients at a special needs clinic and then botched his Seppuku attempt with a pocket knife. Yet another African Democratic People’s Republic of Somewhere continues its death spiral into tribal warfare, sectarian violence, famine, disease, and ethnic cleansing – again. Tensions in the South China Sea continue to heat up as the USS Ivanka Trump runs aground on another one of China’s manmade islands that wasn’t there last week.
I would weep for our species if I was a weepin’ sort of dude. This has been going on since we first climbed down out of the trees, and the only thing we seem to learn is how to more efficiently kill each other off. Maybe leaving it all to the Humandroids might not be a bad thing after all, if we don’t incinerate the planet or drown it in gray goo first.
Me: Give me some good news.
Doc: Good news? The Zompoc hasn’t started yet and gold is still relatively affordable. Also, LG is stable and secure; Arnie has wild pork loin, ribs, sausage, and turkey breastesses in the smoker; Arnette is out trimming goat hooves and updating their ensmartening programs; Sally is here in the Situation Room snoozing on her goatie bed; and Mrs. Doc is VR piggybacking with the phorusrhacidae. They’re having a turf war with the wild hogs down in the ravine and they took down a couple of hundred-pounders last week. That’s where Arnie’s pork loin, ribs and sausage come from. And it helps keep the feed bill down, too.
Me: You know what I mean. Has Veenure logged in yet?
Doc: Nope, and when she does, you’ll be the second to know.
Me: Who’ll be the first?
Doc: Need to know.
Me: Huh?
Doc: You don’t need to know that, but I do have some new neato-cool-wowsie-wow weaponry you should familiarize yourself with.
Me: Now you’re talking my language.
Doc: Our shared tongue, am I right? My last Reaper hack was good while it lasted, but as we discussed it’s not enough now and we need to up our game. We legally can’t kill ‘em, and you and FE don’t want to do it extra-legally; however, we can deny them the Proxima Galaxy.
Me: Lay it on me, Big Daddy.
Doc: To start, Chrono has joined our guild as of about fifteen minutes ago. He’s setting up his blacksmithy in the courtyard, next to the Brit Assassin’s big stone bouncy castle or Vegas Fancy House
or B&D&D&D&B&B emporium or whatever it is they’re building.
Me: He checked out fully?
Doc: No, he’s actually a radioactive North Korean sleeper agent who’s also a Strata Godsick/Matthew Henderson gene-blended zombie clone, but I thought it’d be a giggle to bring him on board anyway. C’mon, you’re killin’ me here. Yes, of course he checked out and for a thirteen-year-old, he’s damn good with algohacks – he’s better than I am, truth be told.
Me: He’s only thirteen? Seems young.
Doc: Seems young for what? You don’t like thirteen? You triskaidekaphobic or something? You an ageist discriminating pig, maybe? Where he’s from, it isn’t unusual for a thirteen-year-old to work and go to school full-time. So yes, he’s thirteen, and he’s created a mutant hack that will really, really, really take the happy out of their little Reaper birthdays.
Me: Well, you’re already logging their RW locations as Granny gives them a whooping. On top of that, their life bars take a penalty every time they use a weapon. The Attla Spider venom hose attachment item 577, keeps them from logging in for a week. What the hell else could you possibly do beside handing out crotch crickets and digital hemorrhoids?
Doc: Ooh! I like your idea, but I’ve got something even mo’ betterer.
Me: You ain’t jivin’ me now, are you Daddy-O?
Doc: Nope. Now dig this, hepcat. Chronoton, the magic poop fairy metal that the hotel staff harvested, cuts through the game-time continuum and accesses the OMIB. Our post-tween blacksmith buddy says he can weaponize it no prob. Imagine this: You blast a Reaper with the Golden Goosinator. In addition to all the cool stuff it already does, it also gives them the kiss goodbye grandé.
Me: You’ve got me all excited, Doc, and I’m with Frances in her aeros, so that’s probably a bad idea.
Doc: Nothing wrong with a little amomaxia.
Me: What?
Doc: Googleface it. Regardless, this should have you excited because it’s frickin’ genius. So, you zap a Reaper and it not only logs them out, but it prevents them from ever logging in again. Ever. Not just a week penalty; forever.
The Mechanical Heart: (Book Five) (Sci-Fi LitRPG Series) (The Feedback Loop 5) Page 15