The Perfect Run

They once called it the city of canals. They said it was the most beautiful city in the world, with tourists coming all the way from China to visit it.

That was before the Wars.

More than a decade after, Venezia had become an open grave, a poisonous marsh whose canals overflowed with toxic plants and dark mud. Some islands had sunk, their supports destroyed by Mechron's drone bombardments. Most houses had fallen into disrepair, invaded by worms and insects, their rooms full of old human bones; meanwhile, the city's outskirts had been taken over by raiders, who used boats to attack coastal communities.

At least, they did until yesterday. Until Ryan’s group arrived.

It wasn’t the teen’s choice though. Len’s dad basically dragged them there from the city of Rubano, when he heard the local raiders had Genomes among their number. That maniac could never resist the lure of easy targets, leaving the rest of them to salvage stuff while he went hunting.

The wiser bandits had fled without looking back; the others had perished, their exsanguinated corpses tossed into the waters. Genomes and normies both. Nobody could defeat Len’s dad. Nobody. Except maybe Augustus or Leo Hargraves, but so far they hadn’t met.

His face covered by a scarf to protect him from the foul air, Ryan chased away these dark thoughts and glanced at the stone house in front of him. Dusty, half-rotten books were piled up in its courtyard, forming a strange staircase to climb above the walls nearby.

“Riri!” Len called him from within. “Come! I’ve found a treasure!”

Curious, the sixteen-year old teenager stepped inside the house while whistling. As expected, it was some kind of library, albeit one unlike anything Ryan had ever seen. Piled up books formed a true labyrinth of walls and twisting turns, to the point they could probably crush him dead if they ever collapsed. Unlike other areas of the city, vegetation hadn’t taken over, and marauders had clearly ignored the building; nobody respected culture nowadays.

He found Len on a boat. Literally. The owners had moved a gondola inside the library before filling it with books. His best friend laid on her back atop a pile, reading something.

“Heya, Shortie.” A tomboyish girl his age, Len was a tiny bit smaller than Ryan and disliked being called out on it; so of course, he teased her mercilessly. “You’re reading Gulliver's Travels?”

“I’m not short, I’m growing!” Len complained, interrupting her lecture to glare at him with her beautiful blue eyes. Ryan often thought he could see the sea she loved so much in them. Her skin was pale, her raven hair reaching her shoulders. Truly a modern Snow White, although she dressed in brown travel clothes rather than noble gowns. “Now come over here before I throw a dictionary at your face.”

Ryan laid next to his best friend, their shoulders touching, and peeked at the cover. While ancient and yellowed by age, the book seemed relatively well-preserved. “Vingt Mille Lieues sous les mers, écrit par Jules Verne.”

“Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, written by Jules Verne, French edition,” Len translated, her eyes all but shining. She already had two copies of that book, but none in the original language. “You can’t imagine how long I’ve been looking for it. The translations are terrible.”

“I thought you couldn’t read French, mais non?” Ryan mocked her, Len pinching his arm in response. “Ouch.”

“You deserve it, Riri,” she replied. “Et j’apprend la français, merci bien beaucoup.”

“Le français,” Ryan corrected her. “And you can remove the bien.”

She sighed. “Just take a book and shut up. I think they have ‘How to win friends and influence people’, which you really need to read.”

“I like reading, but not as much as eating,” Ryan said. Len had filled her supply bag to the brim with books, and nothing else. “Unless you want to make me eat your Communist Manifesto?”

“If you do that, I will eat you, Riri. With a fork.” She waved a hand at the library. “This place wouldn’t have become a toxic dump, had the communist revolution happened.”

“Maybe it would have been a gulag instead,” Ryan replied, delighting at teasing her beliefs.

“People messed it up, but the concept is right,” Len protested, closing her book and putting it on her chest. “Is it wrong to think everyone should be equal?”

“No, just naive.”

“It could still happen,” Len insisted with cheerful optimism. “Everything has been rebooted back to zero. The world has changed.”

“Yes, but not human nature.”

“You’re too cynical for your own good, Riri.” She closed her book and put it in her travel bag, behind the gondola. “When do you think Dad will come back?”

Once he ran out of victims. “I don't know.”

She looked at him in silence, their eyes locking. They rarely had moments of privacy, where they could breathe without her father looking. Ryan looked at eyes, then at her lips…

Do it, do it, do it.

But he chickened out.

Her face unreadable, Len let out a sigh. Ryan wasn’t sure if it was out of relief or disappointment. “Can you help me remove the books from that boat?” she asked. “We could make it a bed.”

it. The wood was so damaged, it

I always wanted to have my own ship. Do you know more than eighty percent of the

want to sleep in the gondola

said, daydreaming. “A real ship. Or make one. Sail away like the explorers

or without your dad?”

and started removing the books with Ryan’s help. Once they were done, Len examined the boat’s bottom, her eyebrows narrowing. “Uh,” she said, thoughtful. “Could

“What?”

Len said, “Do you know what it

a

Len knocked at a spot at the gondola’s back end.

“Nothing?”

Len said triumphantly. “This type of boat often has a hidden compartment. They carried messages,

would think marauders already

it. All ship geeks know that!”

they removed the book, nobody had touched the gondola in years. Pillagers must have examined the checkout and other obvious spots without looking too much

wooden plank,” Len pointed at a spot.

why me?” Ryan

work division,” she replied with a bright smile. “I think,

it’s work, that means I’m getting

will let you sleep in the gondola,” Len winked at

things he did for

so damaged by time and termites, Ryan had no problem removing the planks with his bare hands. And as she thought, the boat did have

helix-shaped lock. The two teens could only

widened in shock. “Is

the Alchemist to the first Genomes. The devices which started the Last Easter tragedy and the Genome Wars that followed. Ryan had

well-preserved letter and three syringes full of swirling liquid. One blue, one violet, and one red. Each bore

Elixirs.

the letter, Len peeking at the content over his shoulder. The paper

“Congratulations, Mr. Rossi.

to participate in a grand socio-genetic experiment of my design. You do not know me, but I know you, Mr. Rossi. I believe that you are a fine specimen of the Homo Sapiens species, possessing the necessary skills, intelligence, and genes

you

random among a selection of over ten million distributed around the globe. You must have heard

Green: Life.

Blue: Information.

Violet: Spacetime.

Red: Energy.

Orange: Matter.

Yellow: Abstract.

White: Meta-power.

testing in the field. I would advise not to drink more

your eyes next morning, the world you lived in will have ended; instead, you will wake up in a world where mankind’s potential is no longer constrained

no idea how this divine experiment will turn out… but I can’t wait

you for advancing the cause

Best of luck,

The Alchemist."

never opened the box,”

could,” Ryan replied. “He probably hid the box before

Blue one can make you

Genomes, usually Blue ones,

the most famous one. His self-replicating robot army had swept Eurasia until some countries pushed their big red button before they could fall next. Nobody remembered who

city wasn’t irradiated, unlike

to take?” Ryan

drink this,” she hissed. “Dad will know. He can sense it

our

Len replied with a glare. “He’s going to get better,

Augustus had put a bounty on his head, he had to fend off hunters semi-regularly. “Before he was just crazy and violent, but now he’s violent and paranoid. He’s never going to heal, and I think

always did when stressed and sad. “He’s still my dad,” she said, with a hint of