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.”

sleep there?” Ryan balked at it. The wood was

ship. Do you know more

to sleep in the gondola

daydreaming. “A real ship.

your dad?” Ryan asked the

on her feet and started removing the books with Ryan’s help. Once they were done, Len examined the boat’s bottom, her

“What?”

type of gondola,” Len said, “Do you know what it

not a ship geek like

a spot at

“Nothing?”

type of boat often has a hidden compartment. They carried messages, money, or

already found it,”

it. All ship geeks know that!” She could be so smug sometimes. “Also,

Ryan doubted many locals had visited the library, and considering the dust raised when they removed the book, nobody had touched the

at a

me?”

replied with a bright smile. “I think,

work, that means

sleep in the gondola,” Len

he did

planks with his bare hands. And as she thought, the boat did have a compartment… with one

box, with a helix-shaped lock. The two teens could only hold

eyes widened in shock. “Is that what

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

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

Elixirs.

peeking at the content over his shoulder.

“Congratulations, Mr. Rossi.

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

grant you a

box contains three Elixirs, selected at random among a selection of over ten million distributed around the globe. You must have heard about

Green: Life.

Blue: Information.

Violet: Spacetime.

Red: Energy.

Orange: Matter.

Yellow: Abstract.

White: Meta-power.

use and testing in the field. I would advise not to drink more than one, but the data gathered should be interesting

that you are far from the only person to have received this gift. When you open 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 by the petty rules of reality.

will turn out… but I can’t wait to see

you for advancing the cause

Best of luck,

The Alchemist."

opened the box,” Len

he died before he could,” Ryan replied. “He

Blue one can make you a

Blue ones, with the ability to create advanced

had swept Eurasia until some countries pushed their big red button before they could fall next.

this city wasn’t irradiated, unlike

want to take?” Ryan

can’t drink this,” she hissed. “Dad

our only

glare. “He’s going

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

my dad,” she said, with a hint of resignation in the