Reapers and Repercussions: (Book Four) (Sci-Fi LitRPG Series) (The Feedback Loop 4) Read online

  “Maaaaa,” says his service goat, and tugs at his pant leg with her teeth. She’s an all-white critter except for the black patch of fur over each eye, and stands about two feet tall. Her bright red vest proclaims her to be a SERVICE ANIMAL, and her tail protrudes from an actual goat diaper. He scratches her between the eyes, asks “Who’s a good goat? Who’s a good goat?”, and produces some sort of goat treat from one of the many pockets on his vest.

  She crunches it up with considerable relish, lays down at his feet, cocks her head and looks at me with those ghastly goat eyes with the elongated pupils.

  “So to refresh you all – because even I can’t keep up with this shit sometimes – Quantum zapped Strata Godsick with my Golden Goosinator, the mutant hack I created that, amongst other cool things lets me pinpoint a person’s real-life diving location.”

  “We know, Doc.” I tell him.

  “Well, not everyone knows. I’m sure Frances didn’t know.”

  “She knows.”

  “I know,” says the purtiest gal this side of the Proxima Universe. Frances has changed out of her dive bikini into her Dream Team uniform.

  “Well, maybe Rocket doesn’t know.”

  Rocket grins. “I know what happened, Doc. I was there.”

  “Sophia?”

  “I read the notes and watched the feeds.”

  “Well then, it’s a genuine pleasure to brief such a well-informed bunch,” he rumbles, in a tone that indicates that that’s probably not strictly true. “As you all clearly already know, Rocket and I have been working on a strategy to inconvenience the shit out of Monsieur Godsick at his quaint little vacation hideaway in Boulder, Colorado, because you never know how a pig’s gonna squeal until you stick it, right? Yeah, quit giving me the you already said this before look and let me go ahead and say it again: we’re going to recover his Strata’s son, Luther Godsick, in the same way we’d recover anyone stuck in a Proxima World. We’ll then have fifteen days by law to keep him in our care and tie up any loose strings.”

  Doc’s goat stands and tugs at his pant leg again. “Not now, sweetie,” he tells her. “Lie down like a good girl.” Much to my surprise, she does.

  “Does the goat go everywhere with you?” I ask.

  “Sally? She sure does,” he says. “She’s clean, friendly, loyal, and had the ensmartening chip done. I enjoy her company more than I do that of most people. She keeps me calm and helps keep my blood pressure down. And she’s not the only thing that goes everywhere with me. There’s von Richtofen there.” He nods at the B-drone hovering over his shoulder. “And that’s not all.” Doc taps on his vest to indicate that it’s more than just a fashion statement. “Mrs. Doc insists that I accouter myself with various high-speed, low-drag bad guy discommoders and various other bits of spiffy gear when I’m out in Indian Country.”

  Rocket looks puzzled. “Indian Country? Where’s that, Doc?”

  “Everywhere, young Rocket Man, everywhere.”

  “Why your own B-drone?”

  “My grandmother is the only person I ever knew with eyes in the back of her head. The Red Baron covers my six and surveils in places I can’t – great for checking out mysterious rashes and bug bites too.”

  Me: I can’t tell if I like him or if I’m afraid of him.

  Frances Euphoria: Nuance is key.

  Me: You are a real cutie pie, you know that?

  Frances Euphoria: Pay attention to Doc! And pies are fattening, btw!

  The Dream Team’s CWO cracks his knuckles. “The plan is as follows: over the next two days, Frances, Sophia and I are driving to Colorado in my RV. Quantum, due to your recent dust-up and subsequent traumatic brain injury, you’ll be coming with us. I know I told you before that you weren’t invited, but hell, it looks like Sally, von Richtofen and I are about the only people that can keep you safe.”

  “Thanks?”

  “Rocket, you’re staying here now. You can do things remotely to help me.”

  “I thought we were flying there.” Sophia gives Doc a sour look.

  “Nope, no one is flying, not while I’m here at least. I didn’t drive all the way out here to have you guys fly out to meet me.”

  “Why did you drive all the way here, then?” I ask.

  “Consider it a team-building exercise. I may be old school, but I believe there is always an opportunity to create unity between team members, and I’m not talking about bumping nasties or some Kumbaya My Lord Commie pinko reach-around shenanigans.” He looks from Frances to me. The B-drone moves forward a bit; its lens zooms in, turns slightly and locks into place. “Besides, there are a couple of things that must be in place before we attempt our rescue.”

  “Are you telling me I’m going to be stuck in an RV with three people and a goat for the next few days?” I ask.

  “No, three people and a goat are going to be stuck in an RV with your whiny ass for the next three days, so deal with it.” says Doc, “And this isn’t your ordinary RV, it’s what I like to call my Proxima Airstream. If you haven’t checked outside yet, now would be a good time to do so. Go on, I’ll wait.”

  No one moves.

  “Anyone ever heard of Pimp my Ride?” he asks.

  Rocket cracks open a can of Bull Bean 2.0 HyperBOOST and finishes it in one prolonged gulp.

  “Just you four wait. There’s nothing like getting old and using references that no one gets.” Doc paces back and forth for a moment, looking for the right way to show his disdain for either our generation – he’s a millennial – the fact that no one rushed to the window to see his RV. He claps his hands together, rubs them for a moment. “Out there is a state-of-the art Type A Motorhome that has been converted into a roving Dream Team field office aka my Proxima Airstream with four dive stations that double as beds, a fully functional kitchen with a Humandroid chef that I programed myself to keep the FDA off my back. Yup, grease and grits and everything in between, Arnie can cook it.”

  “Arnie is your Humandroid Chef?” Sophia asks.

  Doc continues, “He’s an entity of many talents, a charmer if you will, and he’ll be helping us once we arrive on scene. Meanwhile, as we make our way there, Rocket and I will work on our entry strategy into Strata’s home, where he keeps his son, Luther.”

  Luther Godsick. A memory flashes of a scrawny kid with a mane of black hair. At least this is what I’m assuming he looks like. The only photo we have on file is from years ago.

  “Strategy is this: we fly an Ebaymazon drone into his back-up generator. The generator calls for repairs and alongside the repair drones comes a software update that’ll let the weasels into the henhouse. We cut his lights a few times, and eventually, Strata will be forced to call for an actual repairman, which’ll be Arnie.”

  “And then we’re in?”

  “That’s right, Quantum. We can disable just about everything we need to with true access and put a bunch of spiders in the system to crawl through any information he’s storing on his own servers – we won’t be able to do much to anything that he’s put in the cloud because it’ll be über-encrypted, but I have a feeling he’s probably got something juicy on his own servers. That same evening, we’ll send Arnie and Frances in to extract his son during Strata’s peak diving time.”

  Rocket smiles like a proud papa. “Meanwhile, the Knights will be trying to locate his son in Tritania, thus getting him from both sides.”

  Doc shoots him the thumbs up. “Bingo. Apply a little testicular torsion and see what makes Strata squeal. We take little Luther and that torsion is full throttle.”

  “Isn’t it technically illegal for us to enter someone’s home without their permission to retrieve someone who is stuck in a Proxima World?” Sophia asks. “Not technically, completely.”

  “Solon has already figured some way around it. He’s a damn good lawyer. The best in the business, in my book.”

  “Also, we don’t want to unplug the kid while he’s stuck in a Proxima World,” Frances adds, “which is why we’ll need to ta
ke an NV Visor with a skip box. That is, unless we want him to be a vegetable for the rest of his life.”

  “Skip box?” I ask.

  Rocket explains. “It plugs into the dive vat or whatever mainframe is hosting the user. We switch the feed from the vat to the skip box and take him with us. He’ll keep the same NV Visor on, but that’s portable anyway and yeah, he’ll be gooey, but that’s to be expected. The guys who were trying to get you from your dive vat also had a skip box. Once things went south for them, they stupidly tried to pull you out, which would have been pretty bad if they had succeeded.” He makes a tough guy face as he crushes the energy drink in his hand. “Real bad, actually.”

  I quickly recall pony-tailed McAfee trying to get me out of the vat. I’m lucky that I woke up in time to pull him under. “I would have been a vegetable.”

  Doc says, “You’d have been worse than that. And to address your legal concern, Sophia, it is part of the Dream Team’s overall mission to go after and secure people that are trapped in a Proxima World, is it not?”

  We all nod.

  “Because we operate in two worlds, there is a clause in the virtual entertainment legislation passed in 2042 that allows federal agents to obtain a person’s body, if they have discovered the Proxima World in which the person is trapped. To do so, they have to get that person’s permission in the digital world.”

  “I’m aware of this.”

  “Yeah, but have you thought about it?” he asks Sophia. “Really think about it. Awareness is useless without forethought.”

  She glances down to her lap, keeping her head bowed slightly in Doc’s direction.

  “So we have to get his son’s permission?” I ask.

  “Bingo, Ringo. We have to get Luther’s permission in the Proxima World. And the good news is, we still have a fifteen-day window after taking his physical body to get his permission. The federal law counts the fifteen-day window as buffer zone.”

  “Will that hold up?” asks Sophia.

  “It has happened before,” Doc says. “Do a search for Dragon Sphincter.”

  “Do I really want to do that?”

  “If you want to read about a case where this legal loophole was tested, search for Dragon Sphincter, which was the name of the guild. If you’re afraid of what the iNet may reveal to you – and you should be, we all should be – take my word for it.”

  “And what happens if we don’t get his permission within those fifteen days?” I ask.

  Doc shrugs. “Then we have to return the body. Strange law.”

  Sally the goat looks up at her owner, yawns, lays her head back down on the floor.

  Sophia says, “Well, this definitely puts some added pressure on us to find his son in Tritania.”

  “That it does,” says Doc, “but it’s going to take us a few days to get to Colorado and get everything set up anyway, which gives us little time to ramp up the search in Tritania. I’m assuming you spoke with Empress Thun?”

  “Yes, and I’ve forwarded you the feed.”

  “Good,” Doc tells her, “I’ll check it out later.”

  “But we won’t be able to get to Ultima Thule until after we’ve completed the Empress’ mission,” she says. “And doing so will also put us in her favor.”

  “So our new mission is twofold: rescue his son in the real world and simultaneously try to find him in Tritania,” I say.

  “You catch on quick.”

  “And that ain’t the half of it,” I remind all of them. “Even if we find Luther, we’ll still have to find the logout point.”

  Frances Euphoria point to the other room. “We have gear for that; the same stuff we used in The Loop to find your logout point.”

  “And mine turned out to be no better than a play on words,” I remind her. “Tritania is about a thousand times the size of The Loop.”

  “As I said before, Empress Thun will help,” says Sophia, “or the Sage of Gotha will. This is why we need to be on her good side.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure. NPCs can be a fickle bunch.”

  “So can humans,” says Doc, “which is why I stick with goats and Humandroids.”

  ~*~

  After checking in with Zedic to see how he was faring in Polynya, Sophia, Frances and I head outside to be greeted by a warm, muggy early afternoon sans Rocket, who has taken it upon himself to stay and monitor Zedic’s process and presumably, to break the bad news to his main squeeze that he’s about to be working some serious overtime.

  Doc places his hands on his hips, takes a big breath and coughs. “That’s some air you guys have up here,” he says, scowling at the surrounding offices. “Smells like the inside of a boot after a couple of weeks in the field. Nothing like rural Texas, I’ll tell you that much.”

  Doc’s RV is a force to be reckoned with. Easily thirty-five feet long, his Dream Team Mystery Machine is modeled after an antique Airstream Class A motorhome, polished to a mirror sheen, with a lingerie-clad Miss Sally Jupiter depicted in WWII nose art style. I know a humdinger when I see one; I’ve never driven a bus before, in the real world at least, but in The Loop I carjacked enough of them to definitely qualify for a CDL license.

  The RV door flies open and Arnie, Doc’s Humandroid chef and personal security guard, steps out with a metal tray loaded with shish kebobs and ribs. The droid has white hair and a beard, and looks ready for the rodeo in his pearl snap cowboy shirt and camouflage apron.

  “Grub’s up. Y’all ready to eat sumthin’?” he asks.

  Sophia is the first to speak to the Humandroid. “You’re Arnie, I presume?”

  “You prazoomed correct li’l lady.”

  Me: A robot with a Texas accent? Only in America.

  Frances Euphoria: He’s a Humandroid. Don’t call him a robot to his face.

  Me: Duly noted.

  Doc lifts the front of his cap, wipes a bit of sweat from his brow. “Hey there, Arnie. I thought you’d have the tables set up by now.”

  “Dayum! I knew I was fergettin’ sumphin’. Hell, I was in there heatin’ up the ribs and it must’ve slipped my mind. Say,” he glances quickly from Frances to me, “Quantum, hold onto this here for a second and I’ll get to it. Won’t take but a minute.”

  He deposits the tray full of slow-cooked barbeque in my open arms. Not gonna lie – it’s looking real good right about now, especially the ribs, which are glazed to perfection with just the right amount of sauce to make my mouth water. The shish kebobs don’t look half bad either – red bell pepper slices followed by onion, bacon, yellow squash, cherry tomatoes and cubed hunks of steak. “Are there any sides?” I ask almost instinctively.

  Arnie grins. “You betcher ass there are. I got Lonestar beans simmerin’ on the stove and tater salad right there in the fridge. But hold yer horses while I set these here tables up.”

  “I’ll help you,” says Sophia, whose interest has peaked in the presence of the droid.

  Me: The food I can do with. The Southern hospitality not so much.

  Frances Euphoria: That’s how Arnie’s been programed.

  Me: Kind of reminds me of a skinny Larry the Cable Guy. Sounds like him, too.

  Frances Euphoria: Who?

  Me: Googleface him next time you’re on the can.

  Arnie retrieves collapsible tables from a hidden side compartment on the RV, follows up with folding chairs. Sophia tries to help, but she only gets in the way, nearly colliding head-on with Arnie as he runs into the RV and returns with a simmering pot of beans and a stack of plates.

  Me: How long have you had Humandroid help?

  Doc: About two years. My Domestic Supervisor insisted that I get some help and back up – she said something about someone she knows getting older, slower and fatter. Dragged my feet at first, but then I heard about this particular model of Humandroid being surplussed out through some DLA Disposition Services buddies that I served within a variety of the FCG’s down-range shitholes. They were offering them to retired military, and they let us do just about as m
uch customizing as we wanted.

  Me: It looks like you’ve definitely given him a Texas-sized helping of Southern Charm.

  Doc: That was all him. I was sort of holding out for Patrick Warburton, Brent Spiner, or Douglas Rain for the voice, but Arnie went for Texas Redneck, big time. Sometimes I regret letting him take the Southern Hospitality notch to eleven, at other times I find it comforting and slightly hilarious. And he’s happy with it, which is important.

  Arnie steps out of the RV again with the potato salad in a big plastic bowl. “All right e’rybody, it’s time to quit yer yappin’, getchur butt off iNet and start to eatin’!”

  Doc raises his hand in the air and his B-drone approaches him. The small helicopter-like blades fold upwards. The wings shift down, pivot, and fold in like a teeny-tiny aircraft carrier fighter plane as it lands in his palm. “Can’t have my FDA Monitor watching me through my drone’s feed.”

  “What about your iNet feed?”

  “There’s a hack for that,” he tells me with a wink.

  “Seriously?”

  “We’ll see to it later.”

  Chapter Eight

  On the road again sans Willie Nelson, who is doing a holo-concert in Nashville tomorrow night according to an advertisement I’ve just heard on the radio. Yup, Doc has a radio, or at least it’s an old school Sirius iNet radio, tuned to classic country hits from the 2000s. They are oh-so-bad, but they’re oh-so-good when compared to the current, 2058 state of country music which has somehow merged with rap, rock, pop and dance beats to create something akin to ear cancer. Speaking of ol’ Willie, I have his guitar in my inventory list, item 420, perfect for smashing over someone’s skull. Its name is Trigger.

  The inside layout of Doc’s RV is cozy, yet still spacious. Two plush chairs up front and a bench chair pressed against the door side of the interior wall provide adequate seating. Across from the bench is a small dining table with an additional chair. From there, the cabin expands into a kitchen and a bathroom and like a tour bus for bands; there are four slots in the back, packed into the wall with curtains to keep the light out – our new dive vats for the next several days.