The Perfect Run

Ryan had had many awkward elevator moments in his life, but this one trumped them all.

“Is your life always like this?” Hazmat Girl asked Ryan, as they climbed multiple floors towards the bunker’s recreational area. They shared their lift with four plushies out for blood, with Sarin wisely looking away from the fluffy abominations.

“Do you know where they put my A-bomb?” the handsome courier answered with another question, holding a laser gun in one hand and a Bliss inhaler in the other.

Sarin looked at him in embarrassed silence, and then focused back on the elevator’s doors. Come to think of it, this run was a complete inversion of Ryan’s suicide run. Instead of fighting his way inside Mechron’s bunker, he murdered his way out. The circle was complete.

As the elevator doors opened and revealed a well-lit atrium, the group faced a scene of utter devastation. Frank had reached the recreational areas first, and gone on a rampage that eclipsed even Ryan’s suicide run.

The giant fought a dozen Dynamis thralls firing at him with laser weapons, none capable of harming the enraged Psycho. Psyshock stood at the other end of the atrium, desperately trying to figure a way out of this mess, while other members of the Meta-Gang had taken cover wherever they could.

“Frank, calm yourself!” Mosquito shouted, fearfully hiding behind a broken pool table with Rakshasa. The tigerlike Psycho had summoned hordes of gremlins, with the tiny creatures trying to climb on Frank’s back. “You’re going to bring down the whole place on us!”

“I knew McCarthy didn’t go far enough!” Frank shouted, before grabbing a Street Fighters arcade game and throwing it at the thralls. The projectile immediately killed three people in a devastating impact. “The red menace contaminated our precious bodily fluids!”

“No, not Capcom!” Ryan protested at the horrifying sight. He couldn’t care less about the pool table or the bar, but destroying an arcade game? It was sacrilege!

Sarin, the uncultured bore, had the exact opposite reaction. “Argh, the pool table! Frank, what the hell, we’ve only got one of those!”

“Sarin?” Rakshasa glanced back at Hazmat Girl and her partner. “What are you doing with the prisoner? What the hell is going on?”

“President Adam is dead, and we’re taking over,” Ryan explained, laser gun raised. “Democratically.”

“Let’s play!” the plushies said, before rushing into the melee. The gremlins assaulting Frank immediately recognized the fluffy creatures and fled in terror at their approach. Unfortunately for them, the possessed toys seemed to find as much joy in chasing them as attacking humans.

A woman made of ink, which Ryan recognized as Ink Machine, peeked over a bar counter’s ruins. “Adam’s dead?”

“They are the enemy!” Psyshock shouted, running out of cannon fodder to throw at Frank. “Mosquito, Ink Machine, get out of your hiding hole and capture them!”

“You betrayed democracy!” Frank snarled back.

“Choose your side, guys,” Sarin said, raising her hands at Psyshock to blast him. “We’ve got Frank and the juice. Get in line.”

Psypsy immediately realized the danger of a mutiny. “Only I have the Elixir connection!” he snarled, before lowering himself to avoid Frank throwing one of his thralls at him. “You will run out of knockoffs without me!”

“And you’ll run out of life first!” Sarin made a terrible wordplay as she blasted the brainjacker. He dodged the attack with a leap, the compressed air hitting a wall and causing the bunker to shake.

When the Psychos present hesitated, Ryan pointed at his boxers and threatened to unleash his ultimate weapon. “Don’t force me to flash you. You shall not survive.”

After a short glance at each other, Mosquito and Rakshasa immediately left their hideout... and charged at Psyshock, much to his anger. “Traitors!”

“Sorry, Psyshock, but I would rather be on your bad side than Frank’s!” Mosquito apologized before lunging at the brainjacker, while Rakshasa tackled a thrall. Inky Winky emerged from her hiding hole too and wisely joined the winning side. “At least we can kill you!”

Thank goodness, it wasn’t loyalty that bound the Meta-Gang together.

Raising a tentacle, Psyshock managed to throw Mosquito off him and fled out of the room. Leaving his minions to take care of the remaining mooks, Ryan immediately gave pursuit. After escaping the atrium, Psyshock reached a corridor with reinforced glass windows on both sides, shattering one and jumping through the hole.

The hangars below the junkyard were no more peaceful than the atrium, for the Black Elixir had managed to invade them; perhaps another elevator connected the lower levels to this floor. The creature rampaged in the hangar holding the Meta’s submarine with the technicians fleeing in panic. The giant slime had grown with each victim, now reaching five meters across in size.

Most importantly, Ryan noticed his Plymouth Fury near the submarine, its engine removed from the husk. “Shortie?” The courier muttered to himself, remembering that Psyshock sent Len to work among the thralls. Yet only the screams of the enslaved answered him.

Ryan glanced at the other hangar within reach, the one where Psyshock had fled. The nerve squid was making a desperate dash towards Mechron’s scorpion mech.

time resumed, blowing a hole in his brain. Unfortunately, the engineer closest to

Rain had climbed down inside alongside two hound drones. “I knew

her with his gun. Even though she couldn’t summon her poisonous downpour underground, Acid Rain still had sharp reflexes and managed to

the time-traveler jumped through the broken window to escape and landed inside the mech’s hangar a few meters below. Two thralls guarding the area immediately fell upon him like a pack of hyenas; the blisters on their skin informed the courier they were Bliss addicts, abducted off the

in New Rome? Every hour wasted on a run increased his

to destroy the brainjacker as early as possible in his Perfect Run, Ryan regretfully opened fire back, though non-lethally. His weapon’s rays hit the addicts’ hands, forcing them to drop their guns, and

a blast of compressed air for her trouble. The powerful attack threw the teleporter through the glass window, and she crashed on the ground unconscious only a few steps away

the recreational area, and quickly blasted the hound drones before they could retaliate. “Get Psyshock,

he charged after Psyshock’s newest host. A thrall with a laser rifle attempted to intercept him, but the courier’s backup propelled him backward with a blast. Though Sarin couldn’t take a hit,

reached Mechron’s mech right as Psyshock had started climbing its metal hide. He probably intended to use it against Frank, even at the

had one last thrall emerge from below the mech and stand in Ryan’s way. The courier instantly froze in place, when he

Len.

wielded a small drill in her hands. Her beautiful eyes were devoid

the brainjacker warned, as Len put her drill against her left temple, “or

“I can bring her back,” he said, raising his laser

will see that moment flashing back before your eyes. The sight of her brain spilling out on the floor, because you wouldn’t

was right. The memory would

couldn’t look

The courier froze time before Shortie could activate the drill, and rushed at her while the universe turned purple. Ryan felt sick in his stomach,

raised his free hand, joined his fingers, and quickly hit her multiple times in the carotid and aorta. It was

The strikes had temporarily blocked the blood influx to the brain, causing unconsciousness and making her drop the drill. Ryan carefully caught his

Psyshock used the opportunity to launch a tentacle

seconds. Leaving Len on

should have seen it coming from Shortie’s memories. I’ve been in this city for months, and yet you have never managed to possess me.” Ryan dodged the tentacle when time resumed, grabbed it with his free hand, and quickly pulled the metal squid down to earth. “Do you know why? Because for all of your

a tentacled whip, but the

and applied the inhaler

a full dose of Bliss to the

especially vulnerable to brain-altering chemicals. Psyshock gasped and wriggled

be sure he wouldn’t get up again, and then focused on Len. Thankfully, his friend was still breathing. She would need quick medical attention, but

holding her close to his chest. The battle raged around them, plushies escaping into the bunker while Frank smashed a

He always did.

eventually won the Meta-Gang’s civil war.

no match for the terrible host assembled before them. Unfortunately, while Ryan reined in the violence whenever he could, neither the plushies nor the Meta showed any mercy. Even if they

about plushies and mutants when a giant monstrous slime

end, once the dust settled down, the bunker belonged to

the transition from the previous administration has been difficult.” Standing atop Mechron’s mech with his hands behind his back, the courier looked over his audience of Psychos, orphaned children, plushies, and one slimy abomination. Though Psyshock did get rid of Ryan’s suit, he had found a black turtleneck and pants to wear.

Frank the Mad nodded to himself, never losing sight

and the unlimited emergency powers that come with it. Powers that I promise to give up once the crisis is over.” Ryan winked

either because they wisely sided with the winning side or outright surrendered. Ryan recognized most of them, from the Land to Mongrel, though not all. He

be his new minions,

for the plushies, they had each bonded to an orphan, keeping watch over them like jealous pets. They had also enslaved Rakshasa’s gremlins, forcing them to fawn over the children by whipping them with harvested intestines. Ryan had the Psycho summoner teleport

pecking order

seemed a few

this rebel scum. “What’s your name, my scaled friend? The

“The Reptilian.”

is a democracy: one

can’t be president,” Frank agreed, Sarin

you’re skeptical about election results, let’s settle this.” The courier glanced at the audience. “If you want me in charge, raise your hand, or

a tiny paw, cautiously imitated by the frightened orphans; Sarin, Frank, and the wiser Psychos imitated them as well. Eventually, the Black Elixir formed a

once he had secured