The Perfect Run

• April 2017, France, Village of La Turbie.

It was a sunny day in Monaco. Flowers were blooming, birds were singing, and Simon rolled a boulder in hell.

How many times had Ryan looked at Monaco from this promontory? He had spent one year’s worth of loops trying to figure out this place’s ‘rules,’ and today would just be another attempt.

It took him a while, but he had found an old, pre-war UAV drone in an abandoned military base near Istres; a stealth, tactical reconnaissance device which Dassault built for the French Air Force. Ryan had modified it into a purple-painted quadcopter, and outfitted it with a submachine gun.

Controlling the device with a remote control, the courier received a constant video-feed as he directed the drone towards Monaco. His quadcopter flew through empty streets, and broke through windows to enter deserted houses. All buildings looked the same from the inside.

The whole city was a prop.

At least Ryan now confirmed the teleportation effect didn’t apply to machines, once the drone passed the two-hour time limit. The casino’s propaganda about fighting back Mechron was just as baseless as its tales of Andorran invasions.

As the sun fell behind the horizon, Ryan directed the drone to the Monte-Carlo casino. The quadcopter moved inside after blasting the doors with the submachine gun, and no clown came to stop it.

The real Monte-Carlo casino looked similar to the hellish dimension Ryan had spent a lifetime trapped inside, but it was neither infinite nor abnormal. The rooms were in their place, and the drone couldn’t find anyone within its walls.

When the drone prepared to leave the casino to resupply, the doors had repaired themselves. Ryan had the machine blast them again, fly through, and then turn around again. The doors had recovered the second they had been left out of sight.

Well, time to bring out the big guns then.

Ryan spent three months’ worth of loops mapping out the casino and its surroundings with the drone, down to the sewers. In the end, he had to face the obvious.

He couldn’t find any entrance into the pocket dimension.

“An ‘invitation only’ kind of place, eh?” Ryan said, as he put on sunglasses. Having taken offense at the situation, he had strapped a small nuke to his drone; thank the French for their pre-war nuclear arsenal. “You don’t say no to me.”

Sitting on a longchair on the coast of Cap-Ferrat, almost fifteen kilometers from Monaco, Ryan directed the drone to the Monte-Carlo with his remote control. He had to repurpose a local radio station to control his toy from so far away, but his work would pay dividends.

“After the shrimp,” the courier said while pressing the big red button, “the mushrooms!”

The video feed stopped functioning, as a bright sphere of light consumed Monaco. Everything within Ryan’s line of sight caught fire, from forests to the ruins of French ports along the Mediterranean coast. Colossal waves rose around the detonation point, and spread for miles. The ground trembled as far as Cap-Ferrat, a massive fiery mushroom rising up in the skies.

Ryan watched the cursed microstate go down in flames with a deep sense of satisfaction… at least, until the shockwave reached him and a powerful gust tossed his sunglasses off his face.

“Independence for Andorra!” the courier shouted in the microstate’s direction, as the mushroom cloud slowly died out.

A few hours later, Ryan strode through the burning ruins of Monaco in a reinforced hazmat suit, braving the firestorms, the ashes, and the irradiated dust falling from the skies. Every building had collapsed from the blast, and the roads were blocked by debris. The courier almost considered this experience a hiking trip.

“I will be the very best,” Ryan hummed to himself, as he reached the blast’s epicenter. Of the Monte-Carlo casino, only a crater remained. Whatever force allowed the place to rebuild itself, it couldn’t undo such devastation. “Like no one ever was...”

A flash of yellow and violet swallowed him whole, followed by the sight of a familiar marble hallway.

Damn it!

When he woke up again on the Tête de Chien promontory on April 1st, Ryan let out a scream of frustration.

Even nuking the whole place couldn’t dispel the effect!

He should have expected something like this. While the real Monte-Carlo served as the phenomenon’s anchor on Earth, the true maze existed in a separate reality. As far as Ryan could tell, the mysterious controller, ‘Jean-Stéphanie,’ lived inside his pocket dimension.

Or most probably, he had become the maze.

Ryan sighed, sat on the promontory’s edge, and considered what he had learned over his various experiments.

The effect activated whenever someone crossed into Monaco’s boundaries, as described by international law. This included the airspace, but not the territorial waters; Ryan assumed it had something to do with the old Franco-Monégasque treaties, with Jean-Stéphanie’s power unable to recognize the waters as ‘fully’ Monaco’s.

A victim was teleported inside the maze if they approached the Monte-Carlo, or stayed more than two hours inside the city’s limits. If they had crossed the frontier and left, they would be trapped the moment they fell asleep. It didn’t matter if they had stayed in Monaco for less than a minute, or spent three days fleeing across Europe before falling asleep from exhaustion. Ryan had checked both possibilities, to his dismay.

Once you entered Monaco, it never let you go. Ever.

The effect also applied to animals, except unlike humans, they were immediately teleported to the maze’s kitchens instead of the relatively safe marble hallway. Ryan had sent countless puppies to their death over the course of his research, and didn’t regret any of it.

He was, after all, a cat person.

At one point, he had even strapped the same nuke to a lamb, wiring it to detonate inside the pocket dimension. Since the sacrificial animal had teleported inside the kitchen, the resulting explosion spared Suitestown and blasted a large part of the maze to kingdom come. Ryan had personally entered the pocket dimension afterward to observe the results.

The damage lasted for twenty-four hours, until new rooms replaced the destroyed ones.

Since the teleportation always involved a flash of violet and yellow light, Ryan suspected the controller was a Psycho associated with these colors. It would explain the spacetime anomaly and all the weird, conceptual rules.

This meant only a powerful Yellow or Violet could permanently destroy the maze, if at all. So far, Ryan hadn’t located anyone capable of such a feat.

“Do I truly need to destroy this place though?” Ryan pondered out loud, as he observed Monaco from afar. The city was mocking him with its very existence. “I mean, it’s static and doesn’t spread. A fence would keep it contained, at least until I find a way to terminate it.”

His Perfect Run demanded that he free the people trapped inside Monaco, first and foremost.

According to his research, he could remain outside Monaco until April 28th, after which Martine would die in a shrimp supply run gone wrong. The lights would die out, and the clowns would tear her apart before Simon could rescue her.

Ryan had to find an exit within that timespan, but where? This place didn’t have a door in or out, and nobody could interact with the outside world once trapped inside!

… no one but Ryan himself.

“I am an exit,” the courier realized.

From what he understood of his power, the courier existed in two places at once: some kind of dimension beyond space and time, and Earth. The connection remained even within Monaco, though whatever power ruled the maze prevented his two selves from fusing.

It didn’t cancel the convergence entirely, it simply pushed back.

outside, it wasn’t an inviolate frontier. If Ryan could push the underlying principle of his power

crossed his

Five years.

loops to master particle physics, find a Genius capable of helping him with his problem, and raid enough laboratories to gather the equipment he

now, on this sunny day of April 27th, Ryan stood atop the promontory

something nice for this historical day. A purple shirt and blue pants, black gloves, and boots, and most importantly, a classic trench coat. He kept an MP3 device around his belt, alongside a Japanese katana he ‘borrowed’ from a

the clowns shrugged off most firearms,

brought with him two cube-shaped devices forty centimeters in diameter. These steel-plated machines each had a

The Resonators.

similar to the courier’s own power.

could use that technology to build an interdimensional

a travel bag and drove down towards Monaco with his trusty motorcycle. He crossed the microstate’s official frontier, ignoring the anti-Andorran propaganda signs on his way

stopped in front of the casino, stepped away from his vehicle,

a flash of yellow

many times he had lived through this moment, but hopefully, this would be the last. He took a deep breath, basking in the conditioned air flowing through this dreadful prison,

gold-faced clown immediately welcomed the intruder, as he walked out of the marble hallway and into the main lobby.

casually beheaded him with his katana, the creature’s warm blood spraying the carpet. The courier

guest, we must warn you that violence is forbidden during opening hours!” one of them addressed Ryan with an obsequious tone. “If you insist on misbehaving, we will have to

called the elevator, and hit the fourth floor button. “Pick the place,” Ryan told the clowns, as the doors closed behind

kept grinning, but behind the empty

few minutes later, Ryan had

Room 44,

outfitted for combat, his leather armor still white with the

versé,’” Ryan replied in French. “‘Le schleu est

for a split second, before asking with

l’ai laissé en Alsace,’”

his weapon, astonished. “How do

Foreign Legion,” Ryan lied for simplicity’s sake, “I came to save you. According to my timing, everyone should be

do you know that? Is this a commando operation? I thought

ominously before moving inside the suite. Simon was too confused to protest, as the courier quickly moved in front of his

digging. Technically, the device would

with a tone Ryan never heard him use before. The emotion in the old man’s voice was one he had given

Hope.

and activated

warped around this energy stream, warping Simon’s hole into a

as

light seemed to stabilize around the particle stream. Though he couldn’t see anything beyond the threshold, the courier sensed a

Wind.

helmet, unable to trust his own senses. His eyes had widened,

activated his power, an opposing force pushing

yet Monaco

breached

are you?” Simon asked when time resumed, unable to

Ryan, think of

Ryan declared confidently. “The boulder who

that sounded way better

“Dear guests.”

familiar voice echoed through the floor’s loudspeakers, a promise of

border, the Monte-Carlo will permanently close until further notice.” Far from professional, the voice sounded downright passive-aggressive this time around. “Please exit

Click.

heart to skip a beat, as he

the suites’ doors had snapped open, people looking through their thresholds in confusion. Ryan recognized so many faces, from Martine, to Jean, and Geoff, and Sally. The illusion of safety had been stripped

wouldn’t let them escape without

inside his bag: a metal mask with two rounded glasses for eyes, custom-made

and activated the night vision mode. “Simon, evacuate everyone through the portal. I’ll take care of the comedy

protested, clocking his shotgun. “You’re mad, I’m coming

blown it up if he didn’t know the place

his MP3 and put on a cheerful song. “Nobody but me…” Ryan

the lobby, and

around their neck. Ryan could scarcely see the giant roulette in the middle of the room, and the ceiling’s candelabras had all been

sushi knives; and even a few nightsticks. Their metallic masks kept smiling,

only person standing between them

Ryan raised his katana, and uttered his

horde charged at him like a screaming

of blood and fury, as Ryan cut through the creatures like butter. His sword’s

to drop their weapons. When a clown attempted to

the loudspeakers, as a berserk Ryan killed clowns left and right. “Pledge your life to Monaco! Glory to Jean-Stéphanie! The Monte-Carlo shall stand

winnings?!” Ryan snarled as he smashed a clown’s head against the floor, his face smearing the giant roulette

tickling.

had the time to blink, before the

Time and again.

Ryan dodged the plate, grabbed it in midair, and threw it back at

club’s swing, then another swing. His foe’s short game was good, but the courier cut his hands off with a stroke of his own. He leaped around, dodging strikes and swings, countering, killing, swirling.

him by surprise and threw him to the ground, as a fourth

fell with one swing, and the fourth’s legs were sliced clean. His own token crushed him, and Ryan stomped on the

lifetime of suffering he avenged. Backs were smashed against pillars, shrimps force-fed down a throat. Wine bottles flew, and plates shattered. His fury

and yet

sex. Each strike carried the weight of a century of pain, the exaltation of a performance rehearsed for years. The

An endless tide of

entertainers from the International Circus Festival of Monte-Carlo!” The loudspeaker’s voice said

leaped amidst the carnage, clown faces atop black bodysuits. They wielded swords, and into the fray, they charged. They threw shurikens at Ryan’s face, and with his blade

on one he

sword swing he dodged, and

parried, dodged, and struggled. They pushed him back, back against the wall.