The Perfect Run

Snow. Snow, everywhere.

Antarctica was a land of ice without end, a white expanse of glaciers, frozen mountains, and plains so white that sunlight made them almost blinding to look at. It was utterly silent too. The few penguins and wildlife living on the continent nested along the coasts, and left the continent’s interior utterly lifeless.

Clad in the Saturn Armor, Ryan flew above the frozen wasteland with only Leo Hargraves for company. The courier remembered making a stop in Scandinavia and later Greenland during one of his lengthiest fetch quests, but the south pole remained a mystery to him.

“Have you found anything?” Len asked him through the telecom.

“Winter is coming,” Ryan replied ominously, as he and Sunshine flew over a tall glacier.

“Riri, you have been repeating that each time I call you.”

“Because people must know!” Ryan replied playfully. “I mostly see snow, but on the plus side, I haven’t seen any mosquitoes. Well, except the one we keep in storage.”

No wonder he never visited this place, there was nothing to do!

“I am highly disappointed.” The courier shrugged off a layer of frost forming on his armored arms. “I expected an ancient civilization buried beneath the snow, or maybe a mad scientist’s base.”

“What about the armor’s readings?”

“It actually picked up a spatial anomaly, but the signals are faint.” Truth be told, the entire region reeked of them. Whatever happened here had permanently damaged the space-time continuum in the area. “Sunshine and I are trying to narrow down the source.”

“I… finally.” It had been three days since they reached the continent, and quite a few members of the expedition had grown irritated with the lack of progress. “Don’t do anything rash.”

“Shortie, Rash is my middle name,” Ryan replied happily, “between Dashing and Immortal!”

Sunshine must have heard him, because the living sun looked over his shoulder. “Witty comes to mind too,“ he said.

“Witty is my son, Amusing my daughter,” Ryan replied, as he turned left after his armor picked up a stronger signal. Leo Hargraves quickly followed. “By the way, Sunshine, how is it you’re not melting the whole place with your mere presence?”

“I can control my own gravity and heat.” The superhero observed Ryan closely, his shining gaze both warm and intimidating.

“Do you want to shed light on some unresolved issues, my stargazing friend?” Though they had traveled together for a few days, the Carnival leader had remained surprisingly quiet so far. The courier had seen him gazing at Len while she didn’t notice, and his best friend had done her best to avoid the Living Sun. “Bloody issues?”

The Living Sun looked away, glancing at frozen mountains in the distance. “Is Len Sabino listening?”

Ryan had guessed right. “Shortie, the sun wants to dial you.”

“I’m listening,” she replied after a brief and tense silence, with Ryan putting on the loudspeaker.

“I wish to apologize on my team’s behalf,” Sunshine said. “To the both of you. What happened four years ago…”

“Wasn’t your brightest day?” Ryan sighed. “Believe me, it could have gone a lot worse, and you apologized already. At least to me.”

“In a previous loop?” Hargraves asked.

“So you believe us?” Ryan asked. The Living Sun hadn’t broached the subject since they set off from Monaco.

“I admit I find Shroud’s story difficult to believe, but I have seen many things in my life that I once thought impossible.” Leo Hargraves’ light seemed to dim for a brief instant. “You are within your right to hate us, and I would perfectly understand. I want to say that my teammates only followed my directions, and that I made the call that day. If you wish to blame someone, it is I.”

Len let the words sink in for a moment before answering. “Did you know who he used to be? That we were with him?”

“Yes,” Sunshine admitted. “I know Freddie Sabino was a good man, and that he traveled with his children.”

“Then why?” she asked, though her voice didn’t break. Ryan could tell that the subject remained painful for her, but not as much as it used to be. “Why did you come after him? Why didn’t you try to heal him? Your Genius… your Genius could have helped. Or at least tried.”

“We didn’t think curing him was even possible,” Sunshine admitted. “And time was not in our favor.”

“You predicted that he would cause a disaster,” Ryan said, remembering his conversation with Shroud at the loop’s beginning.

“Yes.” Sunshine seemed to hesitate about saying something, but eventually mustered the courage to. “And we had reason to think that he would kill you both, if we didn’t take action quickly.”

Ryan could almost see Len meditating on these words, reading between the lines. If let loose, Bloodstream would have killed his own daughter no matter what, and the Carnival saved her life.

On some level, she probably knew all along.

“I… I don’t know.” Len took a long deep breath. “I… I understand why you... why you tried to kill Dad. I do not support it, but… I understand. I’m… I’m not sure my father is even there anymore.”

“If we can cure him, we will,” Sunshine swore. “We made a decision based on the information we had available, but now… now I doubt we made the right one.”

“Hindsight is twenty-twenty,” Ryan replied. If anything, after seeing Bloodstream destroy New Rome in the previous loop, the courier thought that the Carnival hadn’t been thorough enough in stamping him out.

suddenly picked up an electromagnetic reading near an icy rift below

of the line. “Whatever happens, it will be my

near the rift. Snow melted beneath the Living Sun’s heels, forcing him to float above the ground not to fall. “However, you must understand that if there is a risk that Bloodstream might escape and threaten millions, I will

Len didn’t say anything.

find it,” Leo Hargraves swore, ever the shining knight. “What Dynamis did was… inhuman. If we had

I don’t want to talk about

sorry

scratched the surface.” Ryan glanced into the rift, dark and foreboding. The crack spread on for miles, an ice canyon so deep that he needed to

found

but not a natural one,” Ryan replied, as

do you mean?”

Natural Thin Places, like the one where he had his fateful date with Livia, often opened during rare cosmic or electromagnetic conjunctions. But not this one. “It

short, it was a

quickly caught on to the implications. “She is keeping prisoners,” he guessed.

did Ryan. Bacchus had told him that the Alchemist often set up illegal labs to test Elixirs. The courier guessed she probably did the same

us inside?” Len

brought these devices with him on a trip, in case he ever found a way to commit Clown genocide. “This will create a pathway in and out of the pocket dimension, and allow us to

remain behind on the other side of the portal, just in case,” Leo Hargraves said, immediately making plans. “The rest of us can look at what’s inside. If the Alchemist is smart, she

don’t want to try talking

superhero asked. “But I have the feeling it

to track her,” the courier said. “And she didn’t mind ending the world as an experiment.

tell everyone to

alongside Sunshine. “Perhaps we should have brought a robot army. They make everything

Sunshine replied. “When you make battles costless for those who order them, the results are always terrible. War should not be a computer

soon after ordering the hit on Felix, trying to figure out what happened to the Meta-Gang. The risk of the Augusti finding out about Mechron’s armory had been too great,

Shroudy Matty called him for reinforcements. With half of the Carnival deployed in

understood, only the bunker in New Rome had been focusing on R&D. The others were standard armed robot production facilities, and

then Mechron’s legacy would

admit, I’m a bit surprised you agreed to join this side-quest,” Ryan told

“A cure for Psychos would make the world a better place, and to be

Pink Elixir’s

want to

to ask the

an hour south of the rift’s location, where a steel facility waited half-buried amidst a desert of ice and snow. The modular base consisted of two

Ryan’s group to find the lost Station Orpheon. The French government had stripped the research station clean after abandoning it, but left enough stuff for the team’s Geniuses to restore it to half capacity. Ryan guessed the military intended to reactivate the site at one point, but

Wave and the the only members of the team capable of surviving the terribly low temperature without special equipment, had made a campfire outside. And even then, Mr. Wave had to trade his fabulous

were powerful enough to survive in Antarctica without power armor. Their

Ryan had checked.

Mr. Wave turned up the heat,” the superhero told the as the manbear gorged himself

had given him a great deal of insight, he still had the adorable tendency of believing everything his

never lies, he enlightens,” the superhero replied, as

Sunshine lights the way,” Ryan

the dark,” Mr.

at the “How is the

head to avoid meeting Sunshine’s gaze, all but putting his nose in his milk. Unfortunately, the frost was such that the boiling

looked a bit uncomfortable. “Yes,

at the sun too long,” Ryan said. “My pandawan is only

he still looking?” The asked, too afraid

on movement,” Ryan added. “You should

but this reaction is

said the as he took a deep, chilly breath. “I have a poster of

to invite you to the Carnival.

hyperventilate, falling to his back and rolling in the snow. Then he let out a squeal so powerful, that Ryan

pandacide,” Mr.

eyes; somehow it allowed him to see anyway. From what Ryan understood, the protection was made of trillions of bacteria adapted to the cold. Shroud, meanwhile, had thickened his suit with additional layers of reinforced glass to keep the heat inside, turning his costume into a heavy and nigh-impenetrable armor. Stitch closed the march, carrying heavy insulation clothing over his plague doctor

to face great danger. If the Alchemist truly makes her lair in this region, then she

at Ryan and Mathias. “And I have

snickered. “I can tell there’s stuff you’re keeping for yourselves. Like a secret nerd

is in the henhouse,”

at him. “I didn’t

as the Psycho raised

arms. “Livia would never cooperate with the

change,” Shroud replied

“Somehow,