The Perfect Run

It was May 8th 2020 for the fifth time, and Ghoul once again had a car accident.
As he climbed down from his Plymouth Fury after hitting his favored undead
maniac, Ryan took the time to look at his beautiful partner. The car he had rebuilt
from the husk he had found in the ruins of Florence, all by himself; over the
years, Ryan had customized it into a marvel of technology that would make most
Geniuses envious. The courier had drifted for years at the driver's seat, survived
countless explosions, rode over so many old people! Ah, the memories...
Allin all, his Plymouth was the one constant in his life, the thing most important
to him after Len. The partner he could never find in any human being since they
couldn't remember him from restart to restart.
“I swear, I won't let anyone hurt you again,” Ryan whispered to his car while
stroking the hood, like a cat. “The bad Psycho is gone.”
“Are you talking to your car?” Renesco asked from behind the bar counter.
“I'm not the one judging you on your current company!” Ryan replied, opening the
car's back. Once again, he decided to do something new and interesting for this
restart. A method to avenge his car’s death upon the Meta-Gang once more.
“I know this sounds cliche,” Ryan told Ghoul, raising the jumper cables while
doing his best German accent. “But we have ways of making you talk!”
After delivering a shocked Ghoul to the Private Security, finishing his delivery,
and paying everyone off, the courier thought about his next course of action.
Intending to return to the Augusti Path—without screwing it up this time—Ryan
returned to the first hotel he had booked in the city center instead of the southern
district. He met Wyvern, warned her of Ghoul's escape, and received her
business card.
This time, Vulcan contacted him as normal.
He went to the Bakuto, met Zanbato, and received his mission. The day
afterward, before he left the hotel, he hid a small remote camera in the room.
Ryan had already booked a place somewhere else to avoid the assassination
attempt, but he also wanted to catch a glimpse of the killer.
This time, Sarin showed up alone at the delivery. It appeared Ghoul remained in
custody, and the Meta couldn't spare anyone else as backup. Ryan would have
wanted to say it had been a hard, tough fight. That he struggled for his life, and
that Sarin proved herself a welcome challenge.
Instead, the battle lasted ten seconds.
He punched her in the face in the stopped time with Fisty; gas came out of the
Psycho's mask, and she crashed on the supertanker like before. She could dish
out a lot of damage, but couldn't take it.
They hadn't even destroyed the Old Harbor this time!
“I'm bored,” Quicksave complained, while the Augusti finished putting crates in
the bathyspheres. The Private Security hadn't even shown up!
“Good,” Zanbato replied calmly. “That means things are running smoothly. I
would rather have boring efficiency every day than chaotic excitement.”
“That's what she said,” Ryan replied, drawing a cell phone out of his pocket. It
was an old pre-war Samsung he had tinkered with, enhancing its performance to
match newer devices. With it, he could observe through his bedroom’s camera
from afar.
The camera didn't notice anything strange. According to the thermal sensors
though, someone had flown close to the window, peeked through, and then left.
Considering his room was on the tenth floor... definitively a Genome.
Now that he thought of it, he had glimpsed a flying hero during his first battle with
Ghoul and Sarin. Could it be the same person?
“Does anybody know a flying invisible man or woman around here?” Ryan asked.
“Asking for a friend.”
“Anybody with 100k in their account can buy an Invisibility Elixir at Dynamis,”
Luigi replied, closing the bathyspheres after putting the last crates inside. He
typed on his phone and the submarines vanished beneath the waves, carrying
their supplies elsewhere. “For flight though...”
“The only fliers in town I know of are Wyvern, Geist, Vulcan, Devilry, Wardrobe,
Mosquito, and Sarin,” Zanbato said. “Among them, only Geist can turn invisible.”
“Does he spy on people at night by peeping through their window?” Ryan asked.
What confused him was that the mysterious visitor didn’t enter the room nor
leave a bomb behind during this iteration. Did they detect the camera from afar
and decided to avoid detection?
“No, he’s bound to one place outside town and can't leave it at all,” the Augusti
enforcer replied. “He's a Yellow whose powers activated post-mortem, binding
him to his grave.”
Ah yes, Yellow Elixirs. The potions granting “conceptual’ powers, from astral
projection to bad luck. Ryan liked them, mostly because you never knew what to
expect with them. Even by Genomes standards, their abilities were downright
bizarre with weird limitations.
“Why the question?” Luigi asked, suspicious, Ryan feeling his truth-telling power
activate.
“Someone like that blew up my bedroom a few days ago,” Ryan replied, which
was technically true. The power forced him to be honest, but he could phrase his
sentence to mislead. “As if that was original!”
“You certainly make enemies quickly,” Luigi noted, frowning. “How do you feel
about that?”
Ryan prepared to tell a joke, but he felt an alien force take over his mind and
change his words. “Nothing particular,” he admitted. “It helps fill the void.”
The Augusti present glanced at him strangely. “The void?” Luigi repeated,
confused.
“I guess I feel empty, alone, and directionless inside.” Ryan shrugged his mind
now on autopilot. “Like my brain is a bottomless well I try to fill with dopamine
and endorphins. So the more trouble I have, the greater the rush and the happier
I am. Truthfully, boredom is my natural state.”
An awkward silence followed.
“But on the bright side, I look fabulous on the outside!” Quicksave added to
lighten the mood, before turning to Luigi, unable not to be truthful, “Can you
remove that bullshit filter? It's uncomfortable and it makes me want to kill you.”
“I have to be sure about something,” Luigi said, unsympathetic. “Are you a snitch
or a double agent?”
“No, I'm on my own side only, and I have no cause at all!” Ryan replied, but
couldn’t stop himself; his voice changed from happy to apathetic on its own. “To
be honest guys, I'm only using you to find my old pal Len because I'm lonely and
I don't feel close to anyone else.”
“Man, you have serious issues,” one of the grunt guards said. “You should see a
therapist.”
“I did, but I broke him first!” However, this was getting tiresome, and Ryan's wits
were at an end. He didn’t want to talk about his emotional hang-ups, let alone
with strangers who wouldn't remember anything soon.
“Now, Luigi,” the courier said, tensing like a lynx switching from being playful to
threatened. “There is only one place where I don’t want anyone inside, and that's
my mind. If you continue, my knife will find its way to your back and nobody will
save you.”
There, he wanted the truth, he had it. Thankfully, the privacy invader took the
threat seriously. “Sorry for the probing,” Luigi apologized, Ryan sensing the effect
lifted. “I had to be sure you weren't pulling a fast one on us.”
The courier simply looked at his face without emotion nor a word, making the
truth-teller uncomfortable. Damn it, he hated mind-readers and their cousins. No
respect for privacy!
“I guess it's time to split up and go on our merry way,” Ryan said, turning to
Zanbato and eager to gather his thoughts alone. “I give you a lift this time?”
“No,” Zanbato said. “Change of plans. You're going to my place.”
His place? “Shouldn't you take me to dinner first?” Ryan mocked.
“Yes, of course, that's the plan,” Zanbato replied, much to the courier’s surprise.
“Do you like pizza? I cook it like no one else.”
Wait, he was serious? “My hotel is—"
“You're going to stay at my place tonight,” Zanbato insisted, with the same tone
as a big brother scolding his younger sibling. “What you need is a friendly, warm
environment.”
“But I must catch my secret nemesis!”
“They will wait.”
“Give up, man,” Luigi told Ryan, clearly amused. “Zan is like cream. Sweet and it
sticks to you when you get too close.”
“Is it vanilla ice cream?” Ryan asked innocently. “I love vanilla.”
“You should try chocolate,” Zanbato suggested. “It's good for depression.”
What followed was one of the strangest moments of Ryan's life. Being led at
knifepoint to a dinner party was certainly a first.
Well, not literally at knifepoint, but metaphorically so. Zanbato simply stepped into
Ryan's Plymouth and refused to exit until the courier agreed to come home with
him. Passive-aggressiveness at its finest.
In the end, with the mysterious assassin having backed down for now, Ryan
couldn't refuse a free meal.
Zanbato lived in a modern house north of Mount Augustus. The area was
definitely higher-income than Little Maghreb nearby; local houses were large,
modern, and built on steep hills overseeing the poorer districts below. Class
stratification had never been made clearer.
His host's home was a modern, two-floor house with an incredible view of New
Rome and an infinity pool built next to the hill's edge. Colored in rich warm brown
and white tones, the place seemed both modest and fashionable. Clearly, mafia
work paid well.
The garage opened on its own, Ryan parking his car between a Lexus ES and a
heavily customized Harley Davidson sportster. Zanbato took the opportunity to
remove his power armor, showing no apprehension at revealing his face to Ryan.
The courier had to admit, the Japanese counterfeit was quite handsome, with a
perfect jawline, buff muscles, and a three-day beard. Ryan would peg him
somewhere around his mid-thirties.
“Jamie Cutter.” Zanbato shook Ryan's hand. “No masks inside though.”
“You want to know my secret identity?” Ryan replied. “I must warn you, many
have gone insane from hearing my true name.”
“Ryan Romano,” Jamie chuckled, the courier crossing his arms at his thunder
being stolen, “To your credit, that's pretty much all I know. My bosses couldn't
find much about you.”
“Really?” Ryan complained as he removed his mask, hat, and trench coat,
tossing them into the car’s back. “But I'm unforgettable!”
“Not much before you went out in costume and started blowing stuff up,” Jamie
clarified, opening the garage’s door and inviting his fellow Genome inside his
home. The door led to a large living area that could probably fit a two-room
apartment inside, including the kitchen, a sofa with a big plasma screen, and
stairs to rooms above. Huge picture windows gave a marvelous sight of the city
below, and the deco involved a lot of Asian art. A katana hanging on a wall, a
Korean flag on the balcony, a statue of the buddha next to the TV...
Two people were already present. A dark-brown woman drank a soda can near
the balcony, while an Asian girl sliced tomatoes behind the kitchen counter.
But Ryan didn’t pay them much attention, his gaze focused on something else.
Namely, the enormous rat on the kitchen counter, looking at Ryan with curiosity.
The courier waved a hand at it, and the critter raised its tiny forelegs in response.
Aww...
“Hi, honey.” Jamie kissed the girl in the kitchen on the mouth, while she put her
knife and dinner aside. Probably his girlfriend. “I brought a new guest.”
“Hyun Ki-jung.” She nodded politely at Ryan, showing him a friendly smile. As
skinny as her boyfriend was muscled, she kept her black hair short, dressed
modestly, and wore discreet, yet elegant glasses. Ryan would have considered
her pretty if she hadn't suffered from weight loss and sore scars on the skin; the
courier immediately identified her as a recovering addict.
“Waza?” Ryan answered.
“Waza?” Ki-jung replied with the right tone.
Ryan gasped in realization, having finally met someone who understood.
“Wazaa!” both shouted at the same time. This startled the rat a bit, who tilted his
head to the side. The dark-brown haired woman looked at them as if they had
gone utterly mad, while Jamie remained simply puzzled.
“It's, it's a very obscure reference,” Ki-jung reassured him. “You have to know the
private joke to understand.”
“To be initiated in this brotherhood is the pinnacle of culture,” Ryan said, politely
introducing himself to this delicate woman. “Ryan “Quicksave’ Romano. I'm
immortal, but don’t tell anyone.”
“You say that to everyone,” Jamie pointed out, lovingly putting his arms around
his girlfriend.
“Because nobody remembers!” Ryan glanced around and realized the kitchen's
rat had brought his entire family. Three of his kindred watched a documentary on
the tv, another slept on the balcony, and another leaped on Ki-jung’s shoulder like
a Pikachu. They looked extraordinarily clean though, more pampered pets than
pests.
“I control them,” Ki-jung told Ryan, petting the kitchen rat from behind his ears.
“Somewhat. I telepathically connect with them, which increases their
intelligence.”
“Blue or Green?" Ryan asked.
“Green,” she replied, meaning her power affected biology rather than mere
rodent telepathy. “I'm Chitter.”
She probably thought Ryan would recognize the name, but he didn’t.
Finally having enough of the racket, or perhaps curious, the balcony girl decided
to join the kitchen and socialize. Although rock-disaster would have been a better
name. Ryan had never met someone with more tattoos on their arms and
shoulders; she even bore a bird symbol below her right eye, although it was hard
to notice due to her stained glasses. The woman dressed like a biker girl, with a
white sleeveless shirt, blue pants, black boots, and a cross pendant around her
neck. She kept her dark hair in shoulder-long dreadlocks, and unlike Ki-jung, she
clearly exercised a lot.
“Who is that, Zan?" she asked bluntly upon eyeing Ryan. “A new hobo you found
on the road?”
“Lanka!” Jamie chastised her.
“I prefer the term murderhobo,” Ryan replied, his pride wounded. “I don’t have
any home, but I love stealing them.”
“Oh, really?” she didn’t sound impressed, trading her soda can for a smoke. She
offered everyone one, including Ryan, but nobody took her up on it. “You don't
look like the killer type.”
“My costume is in the garage,” Ryan deadpanned, the woman snorting.
“He beat up Sarin so fast I couldn't see it,” Jamie said, making Ryan swoon in
pride. “Don't push it, Lanka.”
“Ah, new muscle?” She played with her cigarette. “About time. Can't ride near
Rust Town without those Psychos ambushing me, and half our normies don’t
wanna sell Bliss there anymore.”
“Can we talk business some other night?” Ki-jung asked, clapping her hand to
get everyone's attention. The rats gathered in a line on the kitchen counter, as if
expecting a cheese delivery. “Can you help set the gambling table while we
prepare the pizzas?”
“Do you like poker?” Jamie asked. “Entry fee is one hundred.”
“I don't like poker, but I like winning,” Ryan joked, most smiling in response. Well,
everyone except Lanka, who took it as a challenge. “Are you a team? Is this a
Cosa Nostra reunion?”
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I
We are all Made Men and Women,
” .
yes, and we work together,” Jamie
said, flinching at the Cosa Nostra
@nl
comment, We also)éHale this flat for
oRdficaNnd rposes. Since a few
rooms are available, I wanted to
invite you to crash for a few days
: : 5 )
until our business is done. It won't
cost you anything, and you will like it
” :
more than a hotel.” The content is on
Novelxo.org! Read the latest
chapter there!
“Zan owns the place, and he can't help but invite strangers in need,” Lanka said,
“Like that hobo.”
“You will never let me live that down, will you?" Jamie sighed, his girlfriend
chuckling. “It was only two weeks until he found a job.”
“I appreciate the offer to spy on me, but I prefer my privacy,” Ryan replied.
“This is a friendly proposal with no hidden strings,” Jamie insisted, and much to
the courier’s confusion, he sounded genuine. Weird guy. “Although I do think you
would have much to gain by joining our big family, personally and professionally.”
“I'm just looking for Len,” Ryan replied, uninterested. “Black hair, blue eyes,
Underdiver?”
“Underdiver?” This time, the name seemed familiar to Jamie. “I've heard that
name somewhere.”
“The power plant incident earlier this year,” Ki-jung said. “That was him.”
“Her,” Ryan said, much to his hosts’ surprise.
“Ah yes, I remember.” Jamie nodded. “The Private Security caught her, and
Vulcan wanted to break her out for recruitment. I'm not sure if the weapons
division followed through with it however.”
“You don’t work for Vulcan?" Ryan asked, confused.
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« . Phir
Our capo is called Mercury,” Ki-jung
ATG Noa
told Ryan. “His division oversees
gambling and Oe
- fF . ¢ .
SeepR pane side, while
0)
Vtlcan's group controls the weapon
trade. Our bosses cooperate
sometimes, but usually, every group
. . » 5
does their own thing.” The content is
on Novelxo.org! Read the latest
chapter there!
Gosh, they sounded more like a twisted bureaucracy than a criminal syndicate.
“Wait, why did Vulcan send me to you rather than recruit me herself?”
“I'm one of the Augusti’s primary recruiters,” Jamie explained. “The capos trust
me to evaluate potential new recruits for a first check.”
“If you're here rather than in a trash can, that means you passed,” Lanka said,
finishing her cigarette and starting a new one.
“I will introduce you to Vulcan tomorrow, even if you don’t want to join,” Jamie
promised Ryan. “That should solve your problem neatly. Until then, you're
welcome to live with us. So... what do you say?”
Ryan considered the proposal. Truth be told, a lot of Genomes in the same place
should discourage the mysterious assassin from bothering him again, and except
Lanka they seemed like nice people in spite of their criminal background. It could
be fun.
However, Ryan was leery to join communities, since he died often and they
always forgot him afterward. Getting to know people only for them to treat you as
a stranger afterward was just painful; only his friendship with Len predated his
time-manipulation power.
Mmm... the courier could always bolt away when he felt too attached.
“I say four cheese,” Ryan replied, the others taking it as a yes.
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“ . :
Alright, ground rules, no Bliss
allowed under this roof, no cats or
: 7
pest control, no 0 peyafterctent’t
ali seen adiating some
= ¢ “
kind of dad energy. “Everybody
cleans up their shit, tinkering is in the
garage, you warn us the day before if
»
you want to host a party—" The
content is on Novelxo.org! Read
the latest chapter there!
Ryan listened in silence as if he would dutifully follow the rules.
Clearly, Jamie didn’t know him well yet.