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.

from the right

when the reality of the situation

people with one

killed two people

…

Ryan asked.

by

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 resumed. “Can

“What? Why?”

it’s anything like a rabbit’s, I want

fact, go BLEEP yourself, you crazy…

pitiful attempt at

and unleashed a volley of bullets at

the Augusti. They only faced corpses with

smoke coming out of her gun's barrel.

hax,” Mortimer

fifty people in total, and lost only one henchman, shot at the beginning of the firefight. Such was the

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

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

His Plymouth Fury.

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

your car have a heart, on top

have a heart, but not everyone

then nothing. She must have gone Michael B. on

and Gemini retreated,” Sparrow replied, ever the professional.

it,” Mortimer said, his voice turning raspy as he cleared his throat. “Look at the

above the Junkyard,

Acid Rain.

moved to the west, so she was

counterattack with their heavy hitters,” Vulcan guessed. “But I

optimistic though. If the Meta struggled to mount a defense, it meant the attack

won’t be able to resupply and we’ll call in

Ryan said. “It’s not about winning,

I only see mountains of trash from my rookery,” Mortimer said. “It looks like

could take them in

fly by and do some recon first. Hold the road, there’s definitely something fishy

an official order to laze off, Ryan whistled to himself, waltzing through the battlefield with his gun. Mortimer stood on the left building’s roof, watching the road like a

on quite a few. It made

it oddly familiar.

courier’s mind, as he turned the dead sniper’s body on his back,

“Paulie?” Ryan said, astonished.

away from her cell

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

pompous woman replied, her voice softening. “My condolences. You

to throw a plushie at

her texting and did her

the—” Vulcan’s voice turned from surprised to panicked. “All units,

asked, putting her cell phone away.

have

both in the distance

without warning, the

but he felt no longer welcome in Rust Town. He sensed hundreds, thousands of invisible eyes gazing at him in judgment; the courier’s body entered a fight-or-flight response, his muscles tensing in

the Augusti, Fortuna dropping her phone 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

escalating into a full-blown quake. Ryan struggled to stand on his feet, as some of the

the building he stood on collapsed due to the earthquake, the hitman phasing through the falling cinder

body into it and gaining psychic control over a certain territory. Add geokinesis

tremors spread all over Rust Town, collapsing every building

Augusti ran in all directions, Ryan included, but some

Fortuna panicked, 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,