The Perfect Run

Weeds had overtaken the ship like an abandoned garden.
As Ryan's group advanced into the metal bowels of the Alchemist's base, they
ran into more and more alien plant life. Greenish slime leaked from the walls,
while snakelike red roots and fanged purple flowers dug holes into the floor.
Eventually, the corridors became so overwhelmed by vegetation that Sunshine
moved at the front to torch a path ahead.
Often, they would find the broken remains of armored aliens, their helmets
melted by lasers, their shielding pierced by powerful rounded projectiles. Yet they
never found any trace of what killed them.
Their slayers didn’t leave corpses behind when they died.
“So if I follow correctly,” Shroud said, after Ryan had finished briefing his team.
“This is an alien spaceship from a long-lost imperialistic civilization, and the
creature we fought was one of its soldiers. The Alchemist pillaged their
technology, but accidentally woke up the remaining troops left in stasis and now
they're fighting her for control of the facility. And an alien deity gave you a divine
mandate to destroy this place before the prisoners can escape.”
“Pretty much, yeah,” Ryan replied, while Len checked out the data the had
harvested from the Alchemist's computers. The manbear himself advanced on all
fours, an ear against the walls.
Mr. See-Through snickered, unconvinced. “Should I call you Joan of Arc? You did
hear voices.”
“God loves the reptilians too,” Ryan preached, “so long as they stay in reptiland.”
“Why?” Unlike Shroudy Matty, who remained in denial, Sarin had listened to the
explanations with solemn silence. “Why?”
Why did Eva Fabre make Genomes and Psychos possible? “I guess... I guess
she wanted to protect us?” the suggested, trying to be charitable. “To give us
powers, so we could defend ourselves?”
“What good could have come from empowering people like Mechron and
Augustus?” Leo Hargraves asked at the front, skeptical. “The former alone killed
more people than both world wars combined.”
“Though Mr. Wave is thankful that she graced the universe with the brilliance of...
Mr. Wave.” The boastful Genome paused briefly. “Mr. Wave didn’t find a way to
avoid the repetition. Still, he agrees with the rising sun. The walk doesn’t match
the talk.”
“The aliens aren't coming either.” Ryan shrugged, as his armor picked up
vibrations. “Well, except those inside this place.”
“And how do you figure we destroy this ship in the first place?” Shroud kept
nagging him.
“I thought we might have a last minute desperate escape, with a digital
countdown. Maybe a round number.”
“I would rather avoid that,” Shroud replied dryly, arms crossed. “Besides our own
lives, if Elixirs are truly sapient, helpful beings, then blowing up the ship would kill
them too.”
“Human life isn't the only kind with value,” Sunshine agreed, having now
destroyed the plant growth with his shining light. “I agree we cannot let the
horrors of this ship escape into the wider world, Quicksave, but blowing it up
should be a last resort.”
Truth be told, Ryan kinda hoped that reaching the ship's control center would
provide an alternative solution too. Nice Guy might have been grating, but
Shroud was correct that it deserved to live.
However, the courier suspected his mere presence might cause the ship to
collapse anyway.
Ryan's Black power was a paradox, destabilizing reality with its very existence.
The courier guessed that Earth’s dimension was “solid’ enough to absorb the
damage, but the spaceship’s thin place was a small, artificial construct. Ryan
degraded it a little further with each time-stop. Eventually, it might even collapse
on itself.
Had the Violet Ultimate One foreseen this possibility? That Illuminati creature
could control all of space and time, if Darkling was to be believed. It might very
well be omniscient.
The raised a paw. “Sifu, I'm hearing something through the metal!”
“My armor is picking up vibrations too,” Ryan said, analyzing the readings.
“Where do they come from, my young pandawan?”
“The left,” his sidekick replied, using his sensitive bear ears to pick up sound.
“Explosions.”
“They must be pretty powerful for their noise to go through the ship's shielding,”
Leo Hargraves said. “Considering the increasing number of corpses, we must be
approaching the site of a battle. Can you offer more details?”
“I-1, I will try!” The took a deep breath, intimidated by Sunshine. “I hear... I hear
something big and heavy moving, and impacts.”
“From the form of the ship, and the way we moved inside so far, the left should
lead us to the front,” Shroud pointed out. “If the architecture is anything like
Earth's aircrafts—"
“Then it should be where the command center is located,” Leo Hargraves
guessed with a nod. “Timmy, can you bring us as close to the sound's source as
possible?”
“Yes, sir!” the raised a paw to his forehead in a military salute. “Of course, sir!"
“The rest of you, stay on guard,” Sunshine said. “Neither side of this war is an
ally.”
And so the took the lead, an ear against the ground. As they took twists and
turns, Ryan's armor picked up more and more vibrations and other Flux energy
activities. The very fabric of reality seemed to weaken the further they
progressed.
“Riri, I finished analyzing the data,” Len said, as the group left the cramped
corridor for the remains of a large hangar the size of an airport. The metal walls
had been melted away, and Ryan could see the scrapped remains of robots and
vehicles everywhere he looked. Clearly, a battle had taken place here. “It's... it's
all we need.”
Sarin’s head snapped in her direction. “For me? You could make a cure?”
“Yes,” Len replied, before hesitating and avoiding Miss Chernobyl's gaze.
She wouldn't like what came next.
The Psycho in the group clenched her fists. “Go on, Nemo. Don’t sugarcoat it.”
“The Alchemist...” Len took a long deep breath. “The Alchemist already has a
cure. Had it from the start.”
Sarin abruptly froze in place, causing Shroud to bump into her back.
“Repeat that,” the Psycho said. But now her armored gauntlets had clenched so
tightly, that Ryan worried she might break them.
“It's, uh...” Sarin’s heavy gaze troubled Len. “I should start at the beginning. If I
understand the data collected... Elixirs come from the White World, but can
naturally move from one colored dimension to another and immediately adapt to
their new home's Flux energy.”
“And they use this “Flux’ to communicate?” Shroud asked, trying to understand.
“Yes,” Shortie confirmed with a nod. “The Alchemist decoded the Elixirs’ language
with the aliens’ technology, and with it, she can... how to say that... “educate’
them? Tell them how to recognize DNA, which species to bond with... If we
associate gene therapy with the right Flux message—"
“We teach the Elixirs to patch out the bugs,” Ryan finished.
“It could... it could even work for you,” Len explained to Sarin. “Or Frank. It's all
about the right signal.”
Ryan had expected Miss Gasshole to be overjoyed. After all, she had spent a
decade and a half as a cloud trapped in a suit. The possibility of becoming
human again was a dream come true, and her previous self had been willing to
consider murdering Ryan when she thought he wouldn't deliver.
However, Sarin had picked up on a worrying detail and wouldn't let it go.
“She had a cure,” she said, her voice low and furious. “That bitch had a cure-all
along, but didn't release it?”
Psychos weren't a bug, but a feature.
Even Mr. Wave had turned serious. “Why would she do that? Why would anyone
do that?”
“I... I cannot say,” Len replied. “All Psychos are sterile due to their unstable
genetic code, so... so they can’t replace mankind the way Genomes will.”
“But what about the children of two Genomes?” Leo Hargraves asked at the
front. “I only know a few who were born after one or both parents consumed an
Elixir, Narcinia included.”
If a Genome was above fifteen years of age, they could only have earned their
power from an Elixir. Even Fortuna and Felix had taken Elixirs, unlike their
adoptive sister.
“If the creation of Psychos was intentional, do children of Genomes risk mutating
too?” Sunshine asked, clearly worried for innocent lives.
“I've seen a few Genome children in my life, and all of them turned out fine,”
Ryan said. “Also, in cases of one parent having powers and the other not, the
child inherited a variant of the parent's abilities. I couldn't really figure out why
exactly though.”
“It's because Elixirs use asexual reproduction, Riri,” Len said. “Like jellyfish. But
they can also alter their double’s make up during the duplication.”
Ryan blinked behind his helmet, as the truth dawned on him. “Wait, so if I had a
child with a normie, my Elixir would duplicate and pass on to the kid?"
To his horror, Len confirmed the theory with a nod. “If one parent is a Genome
and the other is not... the Elixir duplicates, fuses with the fetus, and slightly
adapts the power to the new host.”
The thought of Ryan's children inheriting his power chilled him to the bone, and
made him thankful that he had taken precautions against having a descendance.
His power in itself was both a blessing and a curse, but in the hands of a child...
It would make for nightmarish teenage years.
“If the parents are both Genomes...” Len cleared her throat. “If both parents are
Genomes, the Elixirs communicate during conception to avoid the pitfalls of the
Psycho condition. Instead of competing for a host, only one of the Elixirs
duplicates, but takes some information from the other. Since the child doesn't yet
have dreams and desires yet, the child's Elixir creates a power based on the two
“parents.”
“So, to take Narcinia’s example,” Leo Hargraves asked, “she was born a Green
Genome, but with her power also being influenced by her father’s Yellow ability?”
“Her mother could alter life, and her father could cut through anything,” Shroud
said. “She can create life by cutting herself. Definitively Green, but with some
Yellow inspiration.”
And since the children of Genomes were always stable Genomes, no matter the
parents’ nature, their numbers would only increase with time.
Homo Novus would phase out Homo Sapiens, the way they did with the
Neanderthals.
“Then what if...” Shroud crossed his arms. “And this is terrible to say it, but what
if Psychos were meant to kill as many normal people as possible? If the
Alchemist’s plan is to make Genomes supplant normal humans—"
“Psychos by nature target other Genomes first, Matty,” Ryan reminded him. And
the random nature of powers meant creatures with world-ending powers like
Bloodstream could arise. “It can't be the only goal.”
While they had been arguing, the had reached the northwestern corner of the
hangar. “Sifu, we're close!” He raised a paw at the wall. “I can hear the source in
this direction!”
“Mmm, we might have to take a detour,” Leo Hargraves said, not finding any
door. “Mr. Wave, could you quickly tour the room and—"
Sarin furiously raised a fist at the wall, and unleashed a fearsome shockwave at
it.
The black steel, brittle and weakened, cracked and collapsed before Miss
Chernobyl's onslaught. A terrible noise echoed through the hangar, followed by a
cloud of green and dark dust as the attack revealed a path into a new, gigantic
corridor. The courier heard the sound of lasers, explosions, and most importantly,
voices coming from it.
“I forgot to explain rule number four.” Ryan glared at Sarin, hands on his waist.
“Avoid making too much noise!”
“Too late, nerd,” the furious Psycho replied before stepping through the hole, her
hands shaking in anger. Now she didn’t want answers, but revenge. “When I find
her there will be blood, and it won't be my own.”
Ryan didn't have the heart to deny her wish, the rest of the group cautiously
following her. The courier closed the march with Len. “Shortie, would that cure
work on You-Know-Who?"
Shortie looked down at the metal floor. “Past a certain point, if a Psycho couldn't
stabilize their genetic code... the damage becomes so extensive that not even
Elixirs can correct it. She...” She breathed long and deep. “The Alchemist has...
she has others in storage.”
Other Bloodstreams. Psychos who had degraded to the point they had become
an entirely different form of life. The more he learned about this place, the more
Ryan was convinced it had to go by whatever means necessary.
The group followed the noise of battles all the way to a spotless, well-lit chamber
deeper into the complex. All blast doors on the way had been torn apart, and
Ryan had to leap over the wreckage.
The next room was a fortified security checkpoint, with more than two dozen
troopers in futuristic, sleek blue bodysuits firing at a giant monster over
improvised barricades of scrapped metal. Behind them stood a damaged blue
gate nine meters in height, which unlike the rest of the facility looked relatively
intact.
Some of the defenders wore helmets, others did not, but they all shared the
same facial features. Short black hair, blue eyes, plain features, and a
determined expression. Their weapons included rifles unleashing familiar red
lasers, organic cannons identical to the ones used by E.T, and stranger devices
looking like purple rods.
On the other side of the chamber, closer to Ryan's team, an orange portal had
opened in the very fabric of space, letting a colossal creature step halfway
through. The entity reminded Ryan of a concrete cube more than eight meters in
diameter, except with six tiny golden legs to carry it.
Lasers inflicted no damage to the creature, and it smashed one of the barricades
with a leg. The blow sent scraps and troopers flying, the soldiers collapsing into
blue particles when they hit the gate behind them. The survivors with rods used
them to unleash violet projectiles tearing space apart. Ryan identified these
weapons as focused Violet Flux, and unlike his Black particles, reality absorbed
the damage they caused after a while.
When they hit the concrete creature though, the projectiles tore through its body
as if it were made of clay. The barrage pushed the creature through the portal
and it vanished into the Orange Flux rift, at least for now.
With the threat dealt with for now, the troops peeked over the improvised
fortifications to observe the newcomers. Ryan's group moved between the
barricade and the portal, careful not to be close to any of them.
“Eva Fabre, I suppose?” the courier asked. “You have a lot of twins.”
“You are clones,” Len whispered.
“Quantum duplicates,” a trooper said. Since the doubles collapsed into Blue Flux,
Ryan guessed that the Alchemist's power followed the same rules as Livia's. She
created simulations indistinguishable from the real thing.
“Quicksave,” another Eva Fabre said, recognizing Ryan. “Living Sun.”
The time-traveler bristled, as his team took a fighting formation. Len and Ryan
stayed at the back, the Sunshine, and Shroud in the middle, and a furious Sarin
at the front with Mr. Wave.
“You know us?” Leo Hargraves asked, while keeping an eye on the portal as if
expecting the creature to crawl out of it again.
“We have been watching you for a while, ever since you defeated Case-BiH-006
in Sarajevo,” a trooper replied.
BiH. Bosnia-Herzegovina.
They were talking about Mechron.
“Your power is of the highest interest to us,” another said, looking at Ryan. “Your
time anomaly’s ability to affect our entire reality was deemed a milestone in our
chronotech research.”
“We made plans to safeguard your genetic data for future storekeeping, but other
projects demanded our full attention.”
“We saw you on security cameras, but the situation here is critical.”
“We would be happy to discuss that, after reasserting direct control,” a clone
finished. “Will you help us?”
“Hell no!” Sarin took a heavy step forward. “Why?”
The Eva clones all raised an eyebrow at the same time, some exchanging
glances. “Why should you help us?” one of them asked. “This facility is under
attack by hostile extraterrestrial entities, that must be eradicated for the sake of
the human ra—"
“Why the fuck?!” Sarin snarled, hands raised at the doubles. “Why the fuck did
you turn me into this?”
“Who is she again?” one Eva Fabre asked her doubles.
“One of the mutants working with Case-USA-3682,” another trooper answered.
“Codename “Adam the Ogre.”
“Oh yes, I remember. But I don’t think we gave that one a case file.”
“Don't think so either.”
Sarin could clearly barely restrain herself from murdering them all where they
stood. “You don't even know my name.”
“We didn’t need to,” an Eva shrugged, uncaring.
“We didn’t force you to take two Elixirs, if that is your question,” another had the
gall to say. “If you experience discomfort, blame your greed.”
Sarin raised her gauntlets to blast them, but Mr. Wave quickly moved in the way
to stop her. Leo Hargraves still had questions, though his radiance had turned
into a more scarlet shade of crimson than usual. His body language radiated
restrained anger.
“Why make it possible to create Psychos in the first place?” the Carnival leader
asked, while Ryan observed the troopers. Something bothered him about them,
but he couldn't explain why. “Why all this sorrow?”
“For mankind to take their rightful place as masters of the universe,” one of the
Evas answered calmly.
“As for Psychos, if by that term you refer to bicolored mutants, we wished to
understand how Flux abilities from different colored dimensions would interact
together,” another clone added. “We thought the potential synergies would
greatly surpass monocolored powers, perhaps even lead to a Genome capable
of overwriting reality itself.”
“But we couldn't test the theory on a small sample of people. We needed
something larger.”
“We... we were were lab rats to you?” the asked, his cute bearlike face morphing
into a horrified expression. “But you... you could have destroyed the world!”
“She did,” Mr. Wave replied, clearly not amused. “And she left it for Mr. Wave to
piece it back together.”
“Do you think we are so careless?” One Eva asked, completely oblivious to her
own hypocrisy. “The ecosystem damage was taken into account.”
“We had enough genetic samples to clone a human sustainable population if the
worst came to pass, and projects for Martian colonies.”
“The chances of Earth's destruction were considered slim.”
“Almost negligible.”
“An acceptable loss, if the worst came to pass.”
“Less drastic alternatives might have failed to establish a suitable Homo Novus
population.”
“Mass release guaranteed Homo Sapiens’ decline within two hundred years,
according to our projections.”
“You ruined this planet, you insane sociopath!” Shroud snapped. “You killed
billions!”
The outburst didn’t even phase them. “Yes, a patient often experiences
significant pain when a shock treatment is used, but in the end, what matters is
that the cure works. Mankind’s temporary discomfort will be quickly forgotten in
the next age, when we establish colonies in the solar system and expand—"
“You don't care about mankind,” Sarin snapped. “You pay lip service to it, but
deep down you don’t give a shit.” Energy built up in her gauntlets. “You're just like
Adam.”
“We don't eat people,” a clone replied, completely missing the point. “Now, if you
are done with your childish tantrum, we would be happy to teach you why this
was necessary after we retake the facility.”
“Do you...” Though he couldn't see her face beneath the armor, Ryan recognized
the anger in Len’s voice. She hadn't sounded this angry since she learned of how
Dynamis turned Bloodstream into a product. “You killed billions... ruined my
father’s life... all this despair and destruction... Do you feel any regret?"
The response was swift and chilling.
“No,” all the Evas answered at once.
“No, of course not,” one said, as if it had been a stupid question. “Imagine a time
when humans will reshape the very fabric of reality, like painters with a canvas?”
“The universe is a dangerous place,” continued another. “A stress test was
necessary to prepare mankind for the dangers ahead.”
And then came the coup de grace.
“We did what was necessary.” One shrugged. “It was a dirty job, but someone
had to do it. One day, you will understand.”
Ryan had met many monsters and megalomaniacs in his life. Bombastic
Psychos, fanatical Genome warlords, god-wannabes. He thought he had heard it
all.
But that woman's voice... that complete, clinical disregard for human life... even
Big Fat Adam and Augustus showed more emotion, even if it was cruelty. But the
Alchemist didn't feel even that.
Eva Fabre had destroyed the world for the sake of a pipe dream, and gave
absolutely zero fucks.
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I , s
You've seen what those lizards were
” . . et
up to,” Ryan said, reaching a terrifying
. “
realization. “l wondered why you
never even consi dered Thatiollow ng
inctheir Fdtdteps was a terrible idea,
but now I understand. Elixirs grant
people their dearest wishes, and
yours was to have an army of copies
telling you how great you are. You
turned this spaceship into an echo
" .
chamber!” The content is on
Novelxo.org! Read the latest
chapter there!
“We considered that possibility and dismissed it,” the Evas all answered at once.
“We all are simulations from different universes.”
“But you're still somehow all Eva Fabre,” Ryan pointed out. “Don't you get it? You
may have different experiences, but there are enough similarities that you still
count as the same person! Enough that you can complete each other's
sentences!”
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If she truly created different
simulations, then some would have
protested against this horrifying
course of action. But EneGfhem)
7
dic @f ddursehe dn’
id-Qf. € her power wouldn't
summon copies that could oppose
her, and whatever good intentions
she might have had, years with only
slavish clones for company had
' hs
slowly erroded Eva Fabre's critical
thinking. The content is on
Novelxo.org! Read the latest
chapter there!
She was even more narcissistic than Augustus!
“I have heard enough.”
Sunshine floated above the ground, no longer a warm morning sun, but a
vengeful fireball.
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« . . »
Carnival, arrest this woman,” he
ordered. Shroud turned invisible, Mr.
Wave cracked his knuckles and
wi >
stepped out of Sarin’s Bis len
even the jogkectfidy “Len herself
pFepared her water cannons,
: “
thoroughly done with words. “Eva
Fabre, you are under arrest for
genocide, human experimentations,
and crimes against humanity. If you
surrender, you will be granted a fair
trial before a citizen jury. Resistance
. : "
will be met with lethal force.” The
content is on Novelxo.org! Read
the latest chapter there!
“You want to arrest us?” an Eva asked. The worst part, she sounded genuinely
surprised. Years spent with only her clones for company had eroded all potential
for self-reflection, to the point that she had expected the other Genomes to fall in
line on principle. “We made you into gods!”
“Then you shall be smote!” Mr. Wave replied while turning into a laser, and
charging straight at the barricades.
The Evas answered with a volley of lasers, and Ryan froze time while his team
prepared to charge. The courier looked up at the orange portal still fluctuating in
the frozen time, and then at the giant gate behind the Alchemists, as blue as the
sea.
Beyond this door was the starship’s command center. He could feel it in his gut.
Now?
Now, he just had to fight his way inside.