The Feedback Loop (3-Book Box Set): (Scifi LitRPG Series) Read online

  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 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 mug 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 feels sort of beer-ish over my tongue, 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 Crocodile Dundee-sized Bowie knife with a brass cross-guard and stag scales. It’s a well-crafted piece of steel, and I’ve got one just like it – item number 33 – in my inventory. She strikes like a cobra and slams the blade into my chest.

  I’m dead before my pint hits the floor.

  Day 547

  Feedback sounds off in my skull. Digital Niagara, Rome as it falls. The sun fingers my eyelids as I swivel to the side, kicking my dirty blankets off. Ninjitsu disembark, no light before the dark.

  The next day has come after being stabbed by Frances Euphoria at Barfly’s.

  My eyes trace across the walls of my not-so-ritzy hotel room. They are the color of earwax, stained from water damage, peppered with curious marks. A single painting depicting a sailboat fighting against a great storm hangs over my bed.

  “Three Kings Park…” I mumble hoarsely.

  My instinct tells me I have exactly four minutes until Morning Assassin’s attack. I sit up, trying to recall the blue glow above Frances’ head, the glow that indicated she was an actual person. Imagine that. Yesterday, I was killed by an actual person and just saying these words fill me with hope I haven’t felt in ages. There are still other people, people who aren’t controlled by algorithms. I would rejoice if there was time for celebration.

  I access my inventory list midair, scrolling through my options. I have many ways in which to extinguish life, but I’m not feeling very creative today so I select a sawed-off shotgun, item 21. I lay in my bed, facing the window that Morning Assassin always bursts through. I’m surprised when I hear a knock-knock at my door at exactly 8:05.

  “Who’s there?” I ask, aiming my shotgun at the door.

  “It’s me.”

  “It’s me who?”

  The voice sounds familiar.

  “Seriously? You’re going to do this? It’s me!”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want to talk to you – just talk.”

  “Jim?” It can’t be the doorman, but there is no one else who would show up at this time aside from Morning Assassin.

  “No, it’s Aiden. C’mon, let me in. It’s not like I don’t already have a key anyway… “

  Curiosity kills the avatar. “Okey-dokey, Smokey, but grab some air and keep ‘em there.”

  The door opens and Morning Assassin strolls in like he owns the joint.

  “Be cool. One false move and I’ll ventilate ya,” I say as I raise the shotgun.

  He keeps his hands up. There is something different about him this morning, a strange melancholy I’ve never seen before. This tall drink of water is acting like he’d bet the farm on the trifecta and lost his winning ticket, Still, I smell a rat – he’s been busting through the window for nearly two years trying to punch my ticket and now he just wants to chit-chat and chew the fat? Something ain’t copacetic.

  “Quantum.” He nods his greeting. He’s in a black jacket and big black kicks, like always. His black balaclava is shoved in his front pocket.

  “Morning Assassin. You all of a sudden out of the morning assassin business or something?”

  “I have a handle, you know.”

  “So does a toilet. What’s your point?”

  He rolls his eyes and makes the exasperated noise.

  “Oh all right. What is it?”

  “Aiden.”

  “I’ll stick with Morning Assassin.”

  “Whatever floats your boat. It d
oesn’t matter at this point anyway.”

  The way he says this makes me even more skeptical. “What’s with the not breaking through the window like always?” I ask. “I was itching to murdalize you quickly this morning. Now you’ve come in here like a civilized NPC… tell me one reason why I shouldn’t let daylight into your guts. One reason.”

  “I have a message for you.”

  I brandish my shooter and ready myself for his attack. “Go on… and keep ‘em up, blockhead.”

  “Frances is dangerous… ”

  “France is dangerous? Maybe if you’re a snail, but otherwise I don’t see it.”

  He makes the noise of exasperation again. “No, Frances is dangerous; the broad – Frances Euphoria.”

  “Frances Euphoria?” I lower my weapon. “How do you know about her?”

  “She’s dangerous, Quantum.”

  And then he changes.

  Before I can react, he’s all over me like a cheap suit, both fists come from over his head straight into my neck muscles, elbow in my schnozz, fist in my breadbasket, knee in my nuts. His surprise assault sweeps me backwards; I stumble like a rummy with a skin full of Sterno and my finger convulses against the trigger. Pain explodes in my groin; the front of my trousers is mass of bloody, ragged flesh. The only upside is that Morning Assassin caught a piece of it too, but not as bad – I don’t think I’ve managed to shoot his dick off. Simulated shock and sudden blood loss grip me in an iron fist. The shottie slips from my grasp; the smell of burned gunpowder assails my nostrils like Satan’s Burma Shave.

  The Loop designers use a blurred, red-tinted viewing feed and the inability to access a new weapon from one’s inventory list to indicate injury. The NV Visor I’m wearing in the real world – the world that I haven’t seen in nearly two years – also triggers pain receptors through neuronal discharges. Things still hurt in The Loop, just not as bad as in real life, but the blurred vision and the inability to access one’s inventory creates a horrifying sense of claustrophobia, as if one is truly trapped.

  It’s a question of whether or not I’ll bleed out before Morning Assassin pounds me into smithereens. The smart money is betting on M.A. – he’s got my empty shotgun now and he’s wailing on me like I’m a red-headed step-child on a rented mule holding a piñata full of M&Ms at a fat kid’s birthday party. M.A. knows what he’s doing, so it doesn’t last long – but it lasts long enough, and it hurts like hell. Finally, mercifully, at long last the lights grow dim, the fat lady belts one out.

  “Hello darkness, my old friend, I’ve come to talk with you again… ”

  Day 548

  Feedback until my eyes pry open. Feedback reverse lullaby, klaxon alarm clock cranial drone. My first thought upon opening my glims this morning is that I need to add an item to my inventory list to mark the passing of day 547. My next thought is I need to kill the shit out of the Morning Assassin for making me shoot myself and then beating me to death yesterday morning.

  Baby steps to the violence.

  Accessing my inventory list, I scroll as I decide the best way to get my revenge. Morning Assassin really did a number on me the previous day and I plan to do a number back. And what was with the warning about Frances Euphoria? What does M.A. actually know about her? I quickly make the decision to kill today and question tomorrow. Besides, I still need to meet her at seven o’clock tonight (I hope she’s still there).

  8:05 AM swings around and Morning Assassin shoulder- rolls into the room wielding a pair of nun chucks.

  I’m still in bed, the blanket tastefully draped over me, my Chicago typewriter – item 247 – in my hands. I give him the Saint Valentine’s Day treatment and he treats me to a Saint Vitus dance before he runs out of steam and hits the floor.

  I kick the blanket off me and keep him covered as I add his nun chucks to my inventory list to mark the passing of day 547. Morning Assassin turns, groans, spits blood and tries to pull himself to his hands and knees.

  I sneer as I deliver a .45 caliber love letter or three right in his ear. His lights go out like a candle in the wind, and he’s thoroughly and completely dead – at least for today. The Thompson submachine gun – ain’t nothing like it. I am trigger happy, hear me roar.

  The 8:08 AM crow lands outside my window, watching me curiously. A dark cloud appears in the sky, covering the morning sun. Stepping over Morning Assassin’s body, I stop in front of where the mirror used to be, which is now liberally sprinkled with bullet holes. I pick up the biggest piece of seven years” bad luck from the floor and look at myself. Geez Louise, my hollow eyes, my blondish-brown hair slicked over to the side, my pale skin; what do I look like in the real world now? I assume I’m in a dive vat in some digital coma ward somewhere, but there is really no telling.

  My facial features morph as I scroll through a few avatar skins, eventually choosing blue eyes and a healthier complexion. Goodbye Goth, hello weekend on the boardwalk. I adjust the beard stubble to give me a stylishly hip five o’clock shadow. A zoot suit wraps me in its embrace: a killer-diller coat with a drape shape, reet pleats and shoulders padded like a lunatic’s cell. Polished Italian leather dress shoes envelop my dogs. I button one of the buttons and smooth the front of the jacket with my hand as I admire the long gold watch chain.

  I’d like to make a good impression before I kill Frances Euphoria later tonight.

  ~*~

  Ten past eight.

  I slip into the hallway outside my room and the lights flicker once, twice, three times. Every morning six assassins come to the hotel and every morning six assassins go home in algorithmic body bags. I select a flame thrower from my inventory – item number 83, an oldie but goodie – and strut to the stairwell ready to roast me some NPCs.

  I slide down the railing just to be an asshole, just to make a grand entrance.

  As soon as I hit the lobby, hellfire spews from the nozzle of my flame thrower, consuming the six droppers as I laugh maniacally for dramatic effect. Their limbs thrash and flail as their skin scorches, flesh flambés, and their brains broil. The smell of napalm in the morning tickles my nose but the smell of burning flesh is nonexistent – the designers didn’t want to make it too real.

  By 8:13, all that is left of the six assassins is a greasy pile of char and some scorch marks on the wall. I feel good today, suave in my suit and proud of my epic grandstanding. I turn to Jim the Doorman and bow.

  “G-g-good… good morning, Mr. Hughes.”

  “Call me Quantum,” I tell him.

  “Right, Mr. Quantum.”

  “Any messages?”

  “Ummmm… ”

  “Is that a yes or no, Jim?”

  “There may be a message… but…”

  “But what?”

  Jim’s eyes flicker red and his arm morphs into an enormous scythe blade.

  “Yowza! Where did you get a mutant hack?”

  I’m more curious than I am afraid. In the early years of Cyber Noir – The Loop – unscrupulous players developed mutant hacks to give them an unfair advantage in combat. They were quickly banned.

  Before I can say anything else, Jim is on me like a pair of tighty whities. He almost separates me from my proboscis with his first swing of the scythe-arm.

  “What gives?” I shout as I dodge his next attack. His peepers are the red of red hot chili peppers, his gob contorts in a grimacing downturned rictus. His movements are stiff, jerky – as if he’s being controlled against his will. I can almost smell the fear radiating off him.

  He comes at me again on the backswing, and I duck like Daffy. As soon as his scythe-arm passes, I access my inventory.

  Accessing one’s inventory is the best way to freeze a battle. It gives the player a moment to assess the situation, to quickly find a weapon to respond with. At least with NPCs it always has.

  I can’t give Jim a dirt nap; he’s never attacked me before, which means something definitely isn’t on the up-and-up. I’ll need to deal with the big shiv before I can give him the third degree, so
I select a chainsaw, item 112. The inventory screen disappears and Jim swings for the fence again.

  “Do… not… meet… Frances… Euphoria!”

  Each word escapes from his mouth as if it were forced, pushed from behind through his clenched teeth. His blade comes in low and I bend backwards at the knees, my upper body parallel to the ground. It whooshes by and clips the button from my coat. I bounce forward using my advanced abilities bar, and yank the cord on my chainsaw. It erupts into life on the first pull; the chain blurs into invisibility as the engine revs up.

  Digital blood sprays onto my suit as I take his arm off at the shoulder. His scythe-arm hits the floor with a clang, twitches, lies still.

  ~*~

  “Care to tell me what that was all about, Jim?” I ask the crawling doorman, who’s leaving a calligraphic trail of blood behind him.

  His head turns to me. “Don’t … don’t … ”

  “Jim, I consider you a friend, really I do, but you need to explain to me why you just tried to ice me with a mutant hack…”

  His eyes dilate, become red again. He bares his teeth in a wolfman snarl as he says, “Do not meet Frances Euphoria.” His voice drops an octave. “DO NOT MEET FRANCES EUPHORIA!”

  “Well, Jim, I’m afraid that’s what’s on the agenda for today, and I’ll be damned if I let an NPC doorman tell me what to do – it sets a bad precedent.”

  I quickly finish the job with my Kalashnikov, item 422, which I picked up at an off-the-books arms dealer over in The Pier.

  With Jim dead and almost eleven hours to kill, I decide to have breakfast.

  The chef will attack me at 8:23, so I dip into the kitchen and shoot the mustachioed little butterball with my Kalashnikov, a pre-emptive strike if there ever was one. I return to the dining area and Dolly the waitress appears. Her jet-black hair is bobbed and shiny, her eye-liner and mascara a la Cleopatra, her nails and lipstick stop sign red. She’s in a black apron and a white blouse, a hotbody, fit and slender.