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.

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

idea crossed his

Five years.

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

of April 27th, Ryan stood atop the promontory

shirt and blue pants, black gloves, and boots, and most importantly, a classic trench coat. He kept an

off most firearms, he would make sushi out

forty centimeters in diameter. These steel-plated machines each had a

The Resonators.

a science Ryan himself barely understood, should create a ‘convergence’ similar to the courier’s own power. Particles would travel from one

technology to build an interdimensional radio one day. That would be

two hours, Ryan put the other in a travel bag and drove down towards Monaco with his

from

flash of yellow

through this moment, but hopefully, this would be the last. He took a deep breath, basking in the conditioned air flowing through

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

carpet. The courier didn’t even

behind the lobby’s marble pillars, carrying silver plates, refreshments, and appetizers. “Dear 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

the fourth floor button. “Pick the place,” Ryan told the clowns, as the doors closed behind him. “It’s

monsters kept grinning, but behind

later, Ryan

towards Room 44, and knocked on the metal door. “Simon!” he shouted, “Simon! I have a hamburger, and I’m not

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

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

second, before asking with

l’ai laissé en Alsace,’” Ryan

sheriff lowered his weapon, astonished. “How do you

Ryan lied for simplicity’s sake, “I came to save

Is this a commando operation? I thought

before moving inside the suite. Simon was too confused to protest, as

of the hole Simon had spent his life digging. Technically, the device would have worked anywhere inside the pocket dimension, but the courier thought this particular location

use before. The emotion in the old man’s voice was one he had

Hope.

Resonator’s control panel and activated the device,

inside the cube’s hole, projecting a stream of light into the tunnel. Space itself warped around this energy stream, warping Simon’s hole into a shining hallway. Tension rose in

as a good

around the particle stream. Though he couldn’t see anything beyond the threshold, the courier sensed a faint, pleasant gust brush against

Wind.

own senses. His eyes had widened, and

activated his power, an opposing

yet Monaco

had breached

asked when time resumed, unable to take

think of

Ryan declared confidently. “The boulder

way

“Dear guests.”

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

current Andorran invasion threatening our border, the Monte-Carlo will permanently close until further notice.” Far

Click.

to skip a beat, as he rushed outside

recognized so many faces, from Martine, to Jean, and Geoff, and Sally. The

let them escape

inside his bag: a metal mask with two rounded glasses

the night

his shotgun. “You’re mad, I’m coming

said, as he moved towards the elevator with only his katana for a weapon. He would have blown it up if

climbed down the floors towards the final showdown, the courier activated his MP3 and put on a cheerful song. “Nobody but me…” Ryan hummed to himself, as the elevator’s doors opened. He disliked that show, but it had an

entered the lobby, and faced an army 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

weapons they could find. Silver cutlery; golf clubs; sushi knives; and even a few nightsticks. Their metallic masks kept smiling, though their

person standing between them and Suitestown, was one handsome

his war

horde charged at him

like butter. His sword’s edge disemboweled five clowns in a single strike, thick white blood flowing from their wounds like a wine

knife, the other with a fork. He threw one into the other, impaling the two in a single strike and causing them to drop their

through the loudspeakers, as a berserk Ryan killed clowns left and right. “Pledge your

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

something coming from his left when the clock resumed tickling. One platinum-faced clown had thrown a silver plate at the courier like a frisbee, with enough force to turn it into a

blink, before the projectile hit his

Time and again.

grabbed it in midair, and threw it back at the

his hands off with a stroke of his own. He leaped around, dodging strikes and swings, countering, killing, swirling. His sword was one with his body, his focus

him by surprise and threw him to the ground, as a fourth crushed his head with a

one swing, and the fourth’s legs were sliced clean. His own token crushed

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

and yet Ryan kept

weight of a century of pain, the exaltation of a performance rehearsed for years. The hyenas that hounded him for decades

endless tide of death, but

entertainers from the International Circus Festival of Monte-Carlo!” The

shadows leaped amidst the carnage, clown faces atop black bodysuits. They wielded swords, and into the fray, they charged. They

on one

sword swing he dodged,

dodged, and