The Perfect Run

Ryan thought his life was a role-playing game.

“Kill them all!” a druggie shouted from atop a roof, hitting Ryan’s car with a submachine gun, the bullets unable to pierce the shielding. Everywhere, the courier heard the sound of bullets flying. “Kill them all!”

But somewhere along the line, it had turned into a FPS.

Hiding behind his car with an earplug in his right ear, Ryan reloaded his pistol while mourning the Plymouth Fury’s paint job; at his side, Fortuna fired over her shoulder with a pistol with one hand, and texted on a phone with the other. She didn’t even aim, and her bullets always resulted in a headshot. At least she had taken to wearing a white, streamlined armor to protect herself.

Seriously, one bad haircut, and suddenly the world wasn’t safe anymore?

In total, twelve people, Ryan and Fortuna included, hid behind the cover of half a dozen cars and SUVs. Most were henchmen wearing riot gear and carrying powerful firearms, with one exception: a woman in a suit of heavy, red padded advanced armor whose design reminded Ryan of steampunk comics. That Genome had drunk the Firebrand knock-off Elixir, and as promised by Vulcan, her armor boosted her pyrokinesis. Sometimes, she looked over her cover to throw a car-sized fireball at the enemy.

“You know texting while fighting is the first cause of bullet accidents?” Ryan asked Fortuna, as one of his car’s windows exploded, shattered by a 20mm round.

“I’m texting my brother,” she replied dismissively, barely paying attention to the battle. The lucky Genome didn’t even bother to protect herself, the snipers having a clear line of fire to hit her head. Yet so far, every bullet had narrowly missed her helmet.

“Felix the Atom Cat?”

“You know that?” Fortuna groaned. “I’m in the middle of a firefight and he won’t answer his big sister!”

Having reloaded, Ryan froze time for ten seconds and peeked over his car. Beyond the protective vehicle line, the welcoming committee had taken refuge inside two half-demolished apartment buildings, surrounding the main road leading to the Junkyard. Most of the walls had fallen, but the remains provided snipers with enough protection. As for the road itself, the Meta’s men had blocked it with a trash barricade, leaving only small openings to allow their machine guns to fire through. The Augusti’s Firebrand Genome had managed to set the road on fire though, forcing the defenders to flee or die in the flames.

However, it didn’t look like the snipers would run out of ammo anytime soon. Ryan shot two of them, before taking cover as time unfroze. Far in the distance, west of his position, he noticed crimson beams piercing through Rust Town's polluted clouds. Sparrow’s doing, probably.

In total, Vulcan had deployed three hundred soldiers to retake Rust Town, divided in groups all across the district. Most of them were non-superhuman paramilitary. Others were Genomes having drunk a knock-off Elixir; people like Ryan or the Killer Seven, with original powers, were a minority in the squad.

The Private Security had watched the squadron move inside Rust Town without reacting, perhaps hoping the Augusti and Meta would slaughter one another. Vulcan then deployed her forces all around the Junkyard, where the Meta had established their headquarters.

Unfortunately, as soon as Ryan’s group approached the area’s outskirts, they found themselves welcomed by armed men.

“Vulcan here,” Ryan heard through his earplug. “How’s the situation?”

“It’s a camper contest here,” the courier replied. “It’s the bad days of Quake all over again! But my car is alright!”

“Yes, that’s the important thing,” Fortuna replied with a sassy tone. “If someone could help us, that would be great. I’ve got a date tonight.”

“You will wait,” Vulcan replied, although she sounded quite blase. “Cancel and Sparrow are busy dealing with Gemini and Sarin, and I’m fully occupied dealing with cannon fodder. It’s such a drag, pursuing them house to house.”

“No sign of Acid Rain or Adam?” the courier asked. The Meta’s leader was their main target, as Vulcan believed he alone held his group together; if he died, the Psychos would splinter and become manageable.

“Scared?” Fortuna taunted him, putting her cell phone back into one of her armor’s pockets.

“Frankly, I could do without Acid Rain,” Ryan replied, being in no hurry to die to her again. “Our powers interfere with one another. She can predict my shifts and counter them.”

“Then Fortuna will stay with you,” Vulcan declared. Wise choice. No matter how powerful she was, Acid Rain needed guns, knives, and weapons to kill. And Fortuna’s cheat code of a superpower allowed her to neutralize them. “And no, no sign of either yet. Nor of any of the big guns, oddly.”

“Why do I have to stay with that maniac?” Fortuna complained, as their fire Genome set a building floor on fire with a well-placed fireball. “Can’t you send me with Greta?”

“You will stay with Quicksave because I say so, brat.”

“I’m older than you!”

“Don’t waste my patience, Fortuna. Clearing out the outskirts is already more exhausting than I expected, so I’m not in the mood to hear your whining.”

Clearly, Vulcan didn’t think the battle would last for so long. The Meta had a lot more foot soldiers than anticipated.

Ryan briefly froze time and glanced over his cover to survey the situation. Much to his horror, a new, scrawny sniper had appeared inside the left building, rejoining two other men with what appeared to be an archaic rocket launcher.

“Uh, oh, rocket launcher to the left!” Ryan shouted a warning as time resumed. How did the Meta-Gang recruit so many mooks?!

“On it,” a voice echoed through the earplug.

Mortimer suddenly phased through a wall behind the sniper nest in the left building, taking them by surprise. Mortimer was the only member of his hit squad who went into the field without armor, perhaps because it interfered with his power. From what Ryan had seen, the killer could phase through surfaces, from cinder block walls to the earthly ground.

In any case, Mortimer slaughtered the mooks with a submachine gun, then phased through the ground within the blink of an eye. The man with the rocket launcher fell through a destroyed wall, falling on the ground below.

“Thirteen,” Mortimer gloated through the earplug. “I’m leading.”

“Not for long, Morty!”

Fortuna fired one bullet.

fell from the

to participate in the kill contest when the reality

two people

people with one

…

work?” Ryan asked.

by his confusion. “The world simply bends to

to puzzle it out. Did the bullet bounce back on one sniper's skull and killed a second? When he realized he had no logical explanation, he turned toward Fortuna as time

“What? Why?”

a rabbit’s, I want some of

BLEEP yourself, you crazy… homeless…

attempt at improvisation, shaking his head. “You're

let out an angry snarl, rose up from behind the car, and unleashed a volley of bullets at the defenders. When she emptied her magazine, the

the Augusti. They only faced

coming out of her

call hax,” Mortimer complained. “You

fifty people in total, and lost only one henchman, shot at the beginning of the firefight. Such was the gap between normal human beings and

the area until I give new instructions,” Vulcan ordered. “I’ll be

spread over the perimeter, but Ryan didn’t join them. Instead, he

His Plymouth Fury.

The protective alloys had held against the gunfire. “I will have

mused through the intercom. “Does your car have a heart, on top of the

cars have a heart, but

on Vulcan’s side, and then nothing. She must have

retreated,” Sparrow replied, ever the professional. “We

losers about it,” Mortimer said, his voice turning

noticing acidic clouds spread above the

Acid Rain.

clouds moved to the west, so she was Sparrow and Cancel’s

hitters,” Vulcan guessed. “But

Ryan replied. The courier was quite optimistic though. If the Meta struggled to mount a defense, it meant the

Vulcan muttered. “Now that we have control over the roads, he won’t be able to resupply and we’ll call in reinforcements. How does he expect

camper,” Ryan said. “It’s not about winning,

I only see mountains of trash from my rookery,” Mortimer said.

we advance?” Sparrow asked. “We could take them

by and do some recon first. Hold the road,

left building’s roof, watching the road like a hawk, while Fortuna had again

the Dynamis logo on quite a few. It made sense since the company

oddly familiar. As if someone had pointed it at him not so

doubt crossed the courier’s mind, as he turned the dead sniper’s body on his back, to get a good look

“Paulie?” Ryan said, astonished.

looking away from

mechanic,” the courier replied. “But that makes no sense, he hated

the pompous woman replied, her voice softening. “My

I threatened to throw

texting and did her best to ignore Ryan’s

turned from surprised to

asked, putting her cell phone

have Mechron

sound of an explosion, both in the

the

welcome in Rust Town. He sensed hundreds, thousands of invisible eyes gazing at him in judgment; the courier’s body

and suddenly collapsing to her knees. A cloud of yellow energy flared around her body, an ethereal field surrounding her. An invisible force pushed it back inside the Genome, compressing

quake. Ryan struggled to stand on his feet, as

the intercom. Before he could say more, the building he stood on collapsed due to the earthquake, the hitman phasing

learned about her during the attack’s debriefing. That Psycho could fuse with an area, melding her body into it and

over Rust Town, collapsing every building in sight in a catastrophic domino effect and blowing dust across

them. The Augusti ran in all directions, Ryan included, but some

as the golden cloud around her started getting thinner and thinner, threatening to disappear entirely. Debris that passed through the yellow aura miraculously missed the Genome, but those that avoided it hit her armor just