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.

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

crossed his

Five years.

his problem, and raid enough laboratories to gather the equipment he needed. He had to

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

and most importantly, a classic trench coat. He kept an MP3 device around his belt,

off most firearms,

the courier had brought with him two cube-shaped devices forty centimeters in diameter. These steel-plated machines each had a hand-sized hole on one side, the ‘mouth’ of

The Resonators.

‘convergence’ similar to the courier’s own power. Particles would travel

to build an interdimensional

it to activate within two hours, Ryan put the other in 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

of the casino, stepped away from his vehicle, and moved towards the doors

plaza vanished in a flash

lost count of how 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,

intruder, as he walked out of the marble hallway and into the main lobby. “Welcome to Monaco!

warm blood spraying the carpet. The courier didn’t even wait for the head

warn you that violence is forbidden during

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

kept grinning, but behind the empty

minutes later, Ryan had

Room 44, and knocked on the metal

raised at Ryan’s face. Simon was outfitted for combat, his leather armor still white with the alien blood of murdered

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

for a split second, before asking

l’ai laissé en Alsace,’” Ryan

his weapon, astonished. “How do you know that password,

of yours in the French Foreign Legion,” Ryan lied for simplicity’s

that? Is this a commando operation? I thought the French government

suite. Simon was too confused to protest, as the courier quickly moved

digging. Technically, the device would have worked anywhere inside the pocket dimension, but

Simon asked with a tone Ryan never heard him use before. The emotion

Hope.

the Resonator’s control panel and activated the device,

up inside the cube’s hole, projecting a stream of light into the tunnel. Space itself warped around this energy stream, warping

as

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

Wind.

removed his helmet, unable to trust his own senses. His eyes had widened, and tears of relief formed at the edge of them. “Fresh

activated his power, an opposing force pushing

yet Monaco

breached

unable to take his eyes off the

think of a clever

Quicksave,” Ryan declared confidently. “The

way better

“Dear guests.”

through the floor’s loudspeakers, a promise of deadly

border, the Monte-Carlo will permanently close until further notice.” Far from professional, the voice sounded downright passive-aggressive

Click.

opening caused Ryan’s heart to skip a beat, as

through their thresholds in confusion. Ryan recognized so many faces, from Martine, to

them

his bag: a metal mask with two rounded glasses for

courier said, as he put on the mask and activated the night vision mode. “Simon, evacuate everyone

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

for a weapon. He would have blown

courier activated his MP3 and put on a cheerful song. “Nobody but me…” Ryan hummed to himself, as the elevator’s doors opened. He

and faced an army

had crawled out of the shadows, and into the casino’s main lobby; all carrying napkins around their neck. Ryan could scarcely see the giant roulette in the middle of the room, and the ceiling’s candelabras had all

clubs; sushi knives; and even a few nightsticks. Their metallic masks kept smiling, though their grins

between them and Suitestown, was one

katana, and uttered his war cry.

horde charged at him

and fury, as Ryan cut through the creatures like butter. His sword’s edge disemboweled five clowns in a single strike, thick white blood flowing

impaling the two in a single strike and causing them to drop their weapons. When a clown attempted to bypass him and reach the elevator, Ryan grabbed the knife and threw

berserk Ryan killed clowns left and right. “Pledge your life to Monaco!

a clown’s head against the floor, his face

tickling. One platinum-faced clown had thrown a silver plate at the courier like a frisbee, with enough force to turn it into a

the projectile hit his neck and sliced it

Time and again.

it in midair, and threw it back at the sender. The improvised frisbee snapped the

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. His

him to the ground, as

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

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

bloody floor turned slippery, and yet Ryan kept going with

of pain, the exaltation of a performance rehearsed for years. The hyenas that

clowns, but more took their place. An endless tide of death,

of introducing veteran entertainers from the International Circus Festival of Monte-Carlo!” The loudspeaker’s voice said with fear,

and into the fray, they charged. They threw shurikens at Ryan’s face, and with his blade

on

dodged, and a

he parried, dodged, and struggled. They pushed