The Perfect Run

“This is stupid!”

“Lanka…” Jamie trailed off at the back of the car. “Calm down.”

Ryan listened to their bickering while peeking through his car’s window. Dynamis’ Star Studios—which won a prize for name originality—spanned roughly two and a half square kilometers of surface, located east of New Rome. They had an entire open park dedicated to them and roughly seven warehouses. From afar, Ryan noticed the staff moving cardboard cutouts, interns carrying coffee to their superiors, and stuntmen prepping themselves. The studios only had one checkpoint entrance, and few guards; they clearly didn’t expect an attack.

Still, the group had parked outside the studio’s confines, unable to find a path inside without security cameras in the way. Ki-jung napped with her head against her boyfriend’s shoulder, her eyes closed. While the group remained at safe distance from the studios, she had sent her rats to do scouting work.

From what Ryan understood, Chitter’s enhanced rat family acted as relays, allowing her to control a swarm of vermin over a large area. Ryan suspected that instead of true telepathy, which was a Blue power, Chitter physically modified her rats into an extension of her own nervous system. On one hand, it meant destroying her main rats would cancel her power for a time, but on the other hand, her vermin familiars could act independently without her direct input.

“I mean, why would we risk ourselves fighting Wyvern, aka the dragon shapeshifter who can take on the Boss, so he,” Lanka pointed an accusing finger at Ryan, who made an offended pose, “can earn himself a personal favor?”

“Because Vulcan wants it, and she’s one of the Capos,” Jamie replied, “and with luck, we won’t have to face her. I doubt she has time for actor work.”

“What happens if you’re wrong? None of us can take her on!”

Thing was, Ryan had a bad feeling too.

He couldn’t explain it, but the courier had developed a strong intuition over his various loops. And right now, his sixth sense warned him of danger, of someone watching him. Yet their current location should be a blind spot for the security cameras.

He should install a radar in his car.

A bit distraught, Ryan put on the radio and activated the special feature, hoping to find good old-school music to drown out the noise. “—in other news, the Roman Republic is still under curfew, after Gaius Julius Caesar’s assassination—”

Again with Caesar? It had been two thousand years! “What news channel is that?” Jamie asked, curious. “I don’t recognize the speaker.”

“It’s my Chronoradio,” Ryan explained, changing the channel. “It listens to channels across space and time. But for some reason, it usually defaults to the Roman Republic era.”

“You should work on your stories, blabbermouth,” Lanka taunted him. “They didn’t have radios two thousand years ago.”

“In one version of the past, they did.”

“You can’t have multiple versions of the past.”

Ryan looked at her with a deadpan look. It was wasted effort with his mask on, but still. “That’s not how time works,” he said, with the same tone as an adult talking to a petulant child.

“Fuck you, Einstein.”

“Whenever you want,” Ryan replied, before finally finding the Post-Apocalyptic Blues channel. Ki-jung chose this moment to wake up.

“So?” Jamie asked her.

“Wyvern isn’t present,” she said, scratching her neck. “Someone’s filling in for her.”

“See, I knew she didn’t do her own stunts,” Jamie told Lanka, vindicated. “She’s probably too busy with fieldwork.”

“There’s no guarantee she won’t fly in after somebody calls the alarm,” she replied, opening the window and lighting a cigarette.

“The bad news, however, is that Wardrobe replaces her for the stunts,” Ki-jung continued, “and Atom Cat is there too.”

Jamie didn’t sound concerned about Wardrobe, but instantly bristled when she mentioned the other Genome. “Wardrobe gains power based on her costume, right?” Ryan asked, trying to stir up his memory.

“If she dresses as a vampire she drinks blood and burns in the sun, if she dresses as Wyvern, then she can fly.” Ki-jung nodded. “It’s a very weak version of the real thing, so even if she dresses like Augustus you can still hurt her, and the effect lasts only as long as her clothes are relatively intact.”

“Yellow Genomes are bullshit,” Lanka complained.

“I can understand Wardrobe's presence, but Atom Cat?” Jamie asked his girlfriend.

movie,” she

turned his head around. “Why abort?

was, one of us,” Jamie

a spy?” Ryan asked.

words. “He’s having a teenage rebellion phase, but he’ll come back into the fold, eventually. His

let him touch you, blabbermouth,” Lanka said, “or

but only with direct skin contact,”

Ryan lied, before asking the really important question

“They use CGI.”

courier put his head on the steering wheel, mourning the

go in gun blazing,

we’ll do. You flood the studios with rats from afar, make a ruckus, then

understood the obvious flaw in this plan. “Wait,

“No.”

a finger at Jamie. “You can’t do this

you get in a firefight with Atom Cat, Quicksave,” Jamie replied. “I’m sorry,

Genome sighing in defeat. “You’re killing me,

it.” The swordsman shrugged, before turning to Ki-jung.

said, falling asleep. Ryan turned to Lanka for support, but she simply looked out of the window, finishing her cigarette.

minutes passed, Ryan noticed agitation near the studio.

Then they came crawling.

of thousands of black and brown rats. They escaped from the warehouses, breaking windows under their sheer weight. There were so many of them, that the rodents had to climb on

trainees, confronted with this terror while they toiled without any hope for a paycheck. Obviously, panic spread all around the area, the staff fleeing in all

Ryan whistled. “This city has a rat

“Now, let’s go home

especially

to the group’s shared house, he almost hoped for Wyvern to come from the skies, or Atom Cat to track them down on a motorcycle for an epic car chase. Or even the Meta

returned home without

the courier. Perhaps Leo Hargraves' Carnival had given Ryan a false image of what superheroes should be, since they were

him, finishing her smoke and throwing it out of the window. Ryan stopped time, caught the smoke, and put it in

expected a road bump of some kind,” Ryan replied when time resumed. His gut may have been mistaken. “This is

see your

she like?”

admit, he started to like this group. He wouldn’t get too attached nor make the effort to know them better since they

in front of the house, Ryan let the others climb down but didn’t follow yet. “I’ll just listen to the radio for a

it’s movie night. Robocop or

since he liked movies with stop motion; even if he had seen both films countless times already. He was busy trying to find

she was within an inch of the door handle. Ryan lowered his car window. “What’s

left at home,” the

off?” Jamie

head. “I explicitly told them to stay and watch the

her face. Ki-jung took a step back, while her female friend put a hand on the door

Click.

heard that

the world turned purple, his power freezing everything in place, the house had already transformed into a giant burst of flames and debris; the inferno swallowed both Lanka and Ki-jung whole and incinerated them instantly. The blast had somehow caused all his car’s reinforced windows

grazing his skin, Ryan emerged from his car and rushed at Jamie’s side, making

time resumed, he received a mouthful of dust, ashes, and stones for his trouble, the entire house having been vaporized. Jamie, thanks to his armor, was more

Emotionally though...

“KI-JUNG!”

swordsman rushed to his girlfriend’s side, but even with her Genome durability, the blast had killed the young woman instantly. Her flesh

responsible. No one in sight, although he couldn’t distinguish things clearly through the smoke. “I didn’t expect that

Jamie muttered while holding his girlfriend in his arms, his horrified eyes then wandering to Lanka’s body. He then turned

medicine enough to know they lacked either the tools or the time to make a difference, “They’re dead. You

since he met him, Jamie looked at Ryan with a new emotion: pure, undiluted