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

by Harmon Cooper

  Oh, Waiter? I’ll have my banquet gathering well-perforated, please.

  The bullets tear through the crowd in a long, angry, barrel-melting burst of sustained fire. Rosie the Thulean Aggravator lands in front of me in the approved graphic novel hero three-point landing. I didn’t see her jump in the first place, and it’s big surprise number two when she hacks straight through gun and arm, cleaving them both in twain.

  I’m like a blood-soaked homecoming queen at the Ewen Consolidated High’s Senior prom, and I’m down to 15% and dropping fast. I activate my AA bar while I still can and jump into my Ong-Bak Thai knee attack.

  Big surprise number three; I never even see the blade, just my lower half spinning away from my upper half.

  The screen fades to black.

  ~*~

  “Well that wasn’t especially efficacious,” chortles the Sage of Gotha.

  We’re not in the OMIB per se, but this certainly has that OMIBish feel to it. The crowd is still visible, frozen all around us and we’re in the center of it all, the tree with the lion’s face and yours truly. It’s like we’ve been superimposed on the image of a crowd; as if the people themselves are the floor, wall and background. Add some twinkly stars and a gravel-voiced host with a Chesterfield in his fist and you got yourself a genuine period mood piece.

  Frances Euphoria: I thought I told you not to die!

  Me: I thought I had her. How are the others?

  Frances Euphoria: Everyone has died at least once now. No one seems to like this puzzle.

  Me: The others have the same puzzles?

  Frances Euphoria: Not exactly. Doc was told to prevent a zombie invasion of Valhalla. He went big with the guns and ammo solution and he lasted about four times longer than you did.

  Me: Hey! I was just getting started.

  Frances Euphoria: He thinks the solution to his puzzle is to wipe out the source of infection. He’s still working on it.

  Me: And Sophia?

  Frances Euphoria: She’s committed suicide twice now by casting Choke on herself, which isn’t what it sounds like. The spell drops a sixteen-ton version of some book called Choke onto the castee’s head.

  Me: First, what the hell? Second, why does she keep offing herself?

  Frances Euphoria: She’s overwhelmed. Her avatar is in the Goblin Riviera and she has to babysit twenty incontinent special needs goblin children in a beat up single-wide with a broken toilet. To make matters worse, they speak some dialect of Thulean she’s never heard of before, and she can’t communicate with them.

  Me: Ha! I’d pay good money to see that! And Rocket?

  Frances Euphoria: He’s died once already from exhaustion.

  Me: I thought he was at a brothel.

  Frances Euphoria: He is …

  Me: And he’s supposed to do what?

  Frances Euphoria: What do you think?

  Me: And he furgled himself to death? What is wrong with kids these days? This ain’t the America I grew up in! If it were me, I would have already solved that puzzle!

  Frances Euphoria: No doubt, Trigger. Keep telling yourself that.

  Me: Trigger? What’s that supposed to mean?

  Frances Euphoria: It means that the ‘shoot everything’ solution isn’t always the solution. Why, what did you think it means?

  Me: I thought you were comparing … um … no, how about, Rocket’s a teenage boy and I’m … um … not a teenage boy, and … ah, crap. I thought you were implying that I can’t last as long as he can because I’m not a kid anymore.

  Frances Euphoria: Let’s just say that for an old … um … older guy you do just fine, but this probably isn’t the time to get into that right now. Also, I do believe that Rocket may have been a virgin, both in the RW and the PG.

  Me: Older guy and I do just fine? Never mind, we’ll come back to that. So our boy has become a man and he dies of exhaustion in the process?

  Frances Euphoria: Yes. He’s starting again now. He seems to be doing better this time, but honestly, I’ve turned his feed off. There’s a lot going on at that brothel, but his puzzle centers around an orgy with a unicorn-centaur, an orc, a three-breasted elf, a tardigrade, a poo pixie, a Thulean ladyboy, and Pip and Pippa.

  Me: Screenshots.

  Frances Euphoria: I’ll spare you, and I’ll spare him too, when he gets out.

  Me: What kind of in-game monitor are you? Take some screenshots, just in case we ever need to blackmail him. Or maybe for the Dream Team Chrismahanukwanzivus card this year – that’d be a scream!

  Frances Euphoria: I’ll think about it.

  “I have to hand it to you, Your Sageocity.” I give the tree a big thumbs up. “You’ve really got us all by the huevos here. That being said, how about you just give us the details we need and all of us can be on our merry little ways? This is fun and all, but as you know, we are actually trying to do something for the betterment of the people in my world, the world that created this world.”

  He laughs heartily. “Every world has its creator; every creator has its creator. Better luck this time, Steamboy.”

  ~*~

  Crowd again. I’m smack dab in the middle, back to where I started. My guess is to get to the front and see what’s happening up there. After all, the people gathered here are waiting for something. I don’t like the fact that the Knights in White Satin showed up last time, but if I mind my manners, maybe I’ll be able to slip past them.

  “Beverage, sir?” asks a good lookin’ gal in a tightly-bodiced Beer Maiden Baby outfit.

  “Don’t mind if I do,” and I snag an Oktoberfest-sized stein of Horse Piss from her tray, and pause just long enough to get an eyeful of her artfully presented sugarpillows.

  I see the man trying to impress the fair maiden with the card trick and I pass by them. Voicing my opinion last time got me the brass fist to the kisser – I still don’t know who walloped me – and my subsequent stumble backwards is what got the Thulean warrior gal all revved up.

  I sip my beer like a gentleman, pinkie raised and I’m just about to make it to another buffet table with a stuffed Gesundheit in the center when I feel a tap on my shoulder.

  “Don’t I know you?” the Thulean broad asks. She’s all muscles and tattoos with a neck like a rugby player’s thigh and bulging biceps like cantaloupes.

  “Never seen you before in my life, Miss.” I tell her as I turn back to the front. “Enjoy the party.”

  “Wait a minute.”

  This time she forcibly spins me around.

  “You’re the one who killed Princess Renata!” Her faces goes through all seven stages of pissed off as her nostrils flare, her bi-hawk bristles and her eyes spit flames at me.

  “So what if I am?” I ask her, my hand behind my back scrolling through my list. If it’s a fight she wants, this time I plan to pearl her harbor. Item 554, Hackie, appears in my hand as an ax. Then …

  … nothing happens.

  Hackie doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t spread up my arm and form a weapon. He remains in his ax form, and like anybody with a malfunctioning device, I tap it, shake it, hold it up to my ear and then shake it again.

  “You dare challenge me?” the Thulean roars. The people around us have already spread out and formed a circle by this point.

  “Hold onto your ghost limbs, lady, I’m working on something.” I flick the switch from ICE to NORM a couple of times – no joy.

  “Doka duchaka!”

  “Dora the Explorer!” Suddenly I’ve got express elevator tummy, everything looks smaller than it was before, and the big green meanie is using my face to pound the dust out of the tapestries with the old invisible ghost limbs routine.

  While Hackie’s Dick Hertz component may be on the fritz, it is still a really spiffy example of the ax maker’s art, and I frickin’ hew through her ghost limbs with a single manly sweep of my mighty blade. Twisting in midair, I activate my AA bar, and with cat-like grace affect a superhero three-point landing of my own. She’s not at all pleased with my cle
ver riposte, but is temporarily occupied with her own spirited rendition of the Thulean Owie-Owie Dance – the Thulean name for which translates as ‘jacked with the wrong guy’, I’ll bet. I scroll to item 239, my Minions™ Lava-Lamp Gun.

  AA bar juicing again, I jump towards the fleeing crowd and River Dance along their shoulders as I fire yellow-white lava at the bad-tempered bee-yotch. It’s tough on the crowd; those it doesn’t incinerate are instead covered in rapidly congealing molten rock. The weapon recoils considerably more than I’d expected and throws me back into the far wall, but with the AA time dilation still going on, I get my legs under me and kick off it in a swimmer’s tumble turn.

  I go for her with everything I have left, and my AA bar winks out just as I reach her. She’s AAed too, dodged my lava attack, and vaults into a perfect arc over me with her sword extended.

  I spin into a table and go to grab it with the arm that all of sudden isn’t there anymore. The ground comes up to meet me and I go down hard; the warrior woman lands, straddles me, and raises high her serrated snicker-snee.

  I’m able to stare at my now-headless corpse for just a few seconds after I’ve been decapitated.

  ~*~

  Frances Euphoria: What part of ‘Don’t die’ is giving you problems?

  Me: The ‘Don’t die’ part, mostly.

  Frances Euphoria: You can’t beat her! Try something else.

  Me: Pfft! Well, I’m sure not gonna join her! Frances, Proxima combat is an art, and you can’t rush art.

  Frances Euphoria: You’re so hard-headed! Try something else because seriously, the bang-bang shoot ‘em up is not working, and you don’t know how many tries you’ll get or how long this puzzle is good for.

  “Do you wish to begin again?” asks his Sageliness. He’s before me in all his magnificence, his leonine visage without expression.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I tell him. “Let’s get this party started.”

  “It’s a banquet,” he reminds me as everything fades to black.

  ~*~

  Man showing the woman a card trick? Check. Warlocks warlocking? Also check. Thulean battle babe tapping on my shoulder …

  “Don’t I know you?”

  “I get that a lot,” I tell her with a smile.

  “Your handle, Steamboy_889, where have I seen you?”

  “I’ll tell you where you haven’t seen me; you haven’t seen me at Good King Coromon’s Tournament.”

  Frances Euphoria: Oh come on, seriously?

  Me: What? It’s a new strategy!

  The scaly dragon dame won’t let it go, and turns her smile upside down. “You … you’re the one who killed Princess Renata!”

  “Who?” I ask. “Like I said, I wasn’t at the tournament, honest.”

  “I remember you! Your face, your armor.”

  “This armor?” I adjust my spaulder and flick away a speck of imaginary dust. “I just picked this up this afternoon at the Knight’s Wearhouse. The saleswench guaranteed that I’d like the way I look, but I just don’t know. Do you think the culets make my ass look fat?”

  “You’ll not distract me with your fashion talk, and yes, your ass does look fat!” She unsheathes her blade and hisses “Now stand and fight, coward,” through gritted fangs. The crowd forms a circle around us, and I see rupees exchange hands.

  “Whoa, amiga, let’s put the blade away. No sense in resorting to senseless violence.”

  Frances Euphoria: You’re smooth-talking isn’t working!

  “It is you,” she growls, “I knew it! Hello, Steamboy. My name is Sligo Toyota. You killed my princess. Prepare to die!”

  I put both hands in the air. “I don’t know what your problem is, miss, but I got no beef with you. I’ll tell you what, I got a nice bunch of dingleberries I’d love to share with you, if you’d only give me half a chance.”

  From behind me comes the smug, self-satisfied voice that only a public safety official who enjoys the backing of the full weight of the judicial system and at least a dozen heavily armed compadres can possess. “You! Thulean Warrior! Drop your weapon!”

  A quick glance over my shoulder and I catch the Knights in White Satin pushing through the crowd.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Officers, arrest this woman!” I shout like an innocent and aggrieved tax-paying citizen, although this probably isn’t the best way to handle the aggressive blade brandishing bimbo, especially after the Empress’ goon squad instantly recognizes me.

  “Steamboy!” the lead knight draws his sword, and his posse follows suit. I’m pretty sure he’s the same guy who accosted us in Ultima Thule, but there’s no way to tell because all these knights look the same, from their Roman head gear to their flowing capes.

  “Fellas,” I say with my hands up. “Let’s discuss this like reasonable entities.”

  Like any sane mortal who prefers to have his corpus remain unpunctured, I’m not especially keen on being the center of an unfriendly ring o’ steel. As I put my hands in the air, I equip my Mega Man buster, item 390, just in case. I’m sure a few notice what looks like a vase on my hand, but that’s a risk I’m going to have to take.

  The lead knight approaches me and stops inches away from my face. To spit or not to spit? That is the question.

  Frances Euphoria: Don’t even think about it!

  She now officially reads minds, apparently.

  He gets right in my face with his gloved finger. “You have some nerve showing your filthy, ugly, nasty, bilaterally asymmetrical, traitorous face at the Empress’ Griffin Day Banquet!”

  “Is that what this is? And here I thought the griffin theme was simply Tritanian canon.”

  “He’s a rat bastard murdering cheat!” says my statuesque non-admirer. There’s no quit in this big green gal; she comes at me but the knights hold her back. Can’t tell if she’s that strong or they’re just a bunch of parade ground POGs, but it takes six of them to keep her at bay.

  “You kiss your mother with that mouth?” I call over to her.

  She bellows something in Thulean and I respond with my own quip in a foreign language, “¡Me cago en todo lo que se menea!”

  Frances Euphoria: Well, this is the longest you’ve been not-dead so far, but your deescalation technique could sure use some work

  Me: I’ve accepted the fact that I’m going to have to die a few times before I’m even close to solving the Sage’s ‘puzzle’. I fail to see the puzzle part of it yet, but maybe that’s just me.

  The ‘roided up Thulean wonder wench is really peeved; she snorts and huffs and puffs and seethes, practically steams at the ears. The six be-caped poncy poofters can barely hold her in check, and two more pile in to help.

  “Enough! We’ll let the magistrate sort this out. Both of you are coming with us,” Mr. Head Knight guy says, his eyes locked on mine.

  “Sorry, bub, I got other plans.”

  AA bar activated, I charge my Mega Man Buster just long enough to give the ceiling a good blast. Stage right I go to avoid the incoming debris. I springboard off a side table full of fancy finger food – the breen look especially good – execute a flashy midair turn and give the knights and the Thulean another blistering blast from my Mega Man Buster.

  Frances Euphoria: While you’re horsing around, the others are actually solving their puzzles. In fact, I think Rocket will solve it this time around.

  “Ouch!” Of course, the old ‘arrow in butt’ ploy, my personal favorite.

  I land off balance, fall, and snap the arrow shaft off as I roll on it. Should have stayed down; I gain my feet just in time for another arrow to take my glim out.

  My life bar is at half-mast by this point, my vision pane is blurred and I can’t blink it clear. The arrow got me at an angle so it didn’t kill me outright, and I can actually see the fletching with my other peeper.

  Frances Euphoria: Snap it off and pull it out! Pull it out now!

  Some things are apparently hard-wired into the male psyche right down at the DNA level, because ev
en though I’m as busy as a two-peckered Billy goat during mating season in my attempt to avoid the incoming slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, I still have time to think “Heh – that’s what she said.”

  Arrows from two or three directions pincushion my ass, my AA bar cuts out and I smash-land through a banquet table full of oversized mugs of Horse Piss Ale. The Mega Man Buster gets heavier and heavier; I can’t see much of anything now but it doesn’t matter – I’m just shooting to shoot.

  The Chief White Knight bellows the command “LOOSE!”, and a flurry of arrows rain down on me. One gets me right in the throat, and ...

  … Harald Hardrada beckons me on.

  Fade to black.

  ~*~

  “Are you ready to admit defeat?” The Sage of Gotha’s booming voice fills my headspace. Just like the last time I died, the people of the banquet hall are frozen in place, oblivious to the giant tree that has sprouted out of the center of the room.

  “Giving up isn’t really in my repertoire.”

  He chuckles. “So I have observed. Do you find the puzzle more challenging than you’d anticipated, or is it that the challenge is more puzzling, Steamboy?”

  “Is it really a puzzle though?” I ask. “It seems like more of an endurance challenge.”

  His form wavers, reminding me of static on an old television.

  “You could make this easy, you know!” I call after him but he’s gone by this point, and I’m once again surrounded by the crowd. There’s the amateur magician trying to hook up with some slightly sozzled chickie with the ‘pick a card, any card’ routine, the warlocks are ceremoniously snorting pixie dust through a short length of unicorn horn, and the centaurs are sniggering over some equine in-joke or something.

  Frances Euphoria: Rocket solved his puzzle!

  Me: Solved? You said he was in some type of phantasmagorical medieval orgy. How’d he solve it?

  Frances Euphoria: From what he said – remember, I turned his feed off – he did what he had to do.