Chapter 69: Limited Time (1/2)

Ryan’s vision blurred. It was hard to focus; darkness lurked at the edge of his vision, and his strength left him. He couldn’t even feel his legs, and his whole body felt cold.

Maybe it was the loss of blood, or the leftover damage he suffered from the battle with Pluto. Or perhaps it was Eugène-Henry’s doing, as the cat teleported right in front of Ryan. The feline looked down on the trapped Genome without a sound, like a guide to the underworld.

“Fortuna!”

Above the waterfall, a horrified Atom Cat held his sister in his arms, blood flowing from her chest. Pluto’s corpse fell down the waterfall, a hole in her forehead. The river pulled the Underboss downstream to her last abode; her curse had been canceled and the woods returned to normal, though it came with a cost.

Fortuna had made a lucky shot… but even luck couldn’t cheat death from her due.

“Fortuna!” Felix shouted, trying to cover his sister’s wound with his hand and prevent her from bleeding out. Ryan knew enough about medicine to know it was useless. If he had the tools and the energy, he might have saved her.

He would save her still. He would save them all the next time around.

In the end, only Ryan was cursed with immortality. Only he could carry that burden.

As he started to lose consciousness, Ryan noticed a metal shadow moving upstream. A mermaid in power armor crossing the river to rescue him.

“Riri!” Len shouted in horror while rushing at his side, immediately pushing away the debris keeping him down. “I’m here! I’m here!”

Len…

Always there to save him when all was lost.

“I must go now.”

For a moment, the courier thought he had spoken out loud, until he realized where the disembodied voice came from.

Something spoke through Eugène-Henry, using Ryan’s own voice.

“The rest,” the cat looked into the courier’s eyes, his feline gaze shining purple with the wisdom of the stars, “is up to you.”

A flash of violet light overwhelmed Ryan, and he lost consciousness.

When Ryan opened his eyes, it was to the tune of The International.

The ceiling was crimson red, and he faced a portrait of Marx and Engel. An intravenous device pumped his right arm with anesthesia, right next to a steampunk wheelchair of leather and tin.

Damn it, had he woken in a hidden Soviet lab again? Once had been enough!

Ryan’s eyes wandered around himself, his body feeling heavy; he had trouble breathing correctly, and his chest itched. Most importantly, he couldn’t feel anything below his waist, including his most dangerous weapon. Even Vamp died in an attempt to claim it for herself.

He was in a hospital bed, with a TV and a window leading into a dark undersea abyss. Sitting on a chair right in front of him, Little Sarah read Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne. She hadn’t noticed him waking up.

Ryan turned his head, glancing at another bed near his own. Atom Cat laid half-hidden beneath the bed sheet, watching the ceiling with empty eyes. Bandages covered his torso, and he had an intravenous system of his own.

“Felix?” Ryan’s voice startled Sarah, who hastily closed her book. “Kitten?”

Nothing.

Atom Cat didn’t even respond. His gaze was a blank, empty abyss of nothingness, a thousand-yard stare.

“He has been like that since Ma brought you in,” Little Sarah said with a frown. “He doesn’t respond when people call him. I’ve seen that gaze before in Rust Town. He’s broken inside, and he’s not coming back.”

“He will.” Ryan knew that from experience. “Eventually, when it’s done chewing on you, the abyss spits you back.”

Of course, the courier would probably turn back time before Atom Cat finished that healing process. Even if she annoyed him, he couldn’t let Fortuna stay dead. Not after she gave her life to save her brother.

“Now you’re awake, get your ass out of bed,” Little Sarah said, before realizing the obvious. “Figuratively, I mean. How do you feel?”

“Without my legs, like Christopher Reeves.”

“I don’t know who that is.”

“And that’s why I can’t stand you.”

“At least I still have le—” Little Sarah suddenly stopped, as she put the two and two together. “Oh wait, I get the joke! Can’t stand!”

“Now, if you can bring me the wheelchair,” Ryan said, glancing at his new Plymouth Fury. “I will let you push me around a bit, but please don’t talk behind my back.”

“Do you want me to find you a parking lot?” Little Sarah replied, as she put her book aside and helped Ryan get into the wheelchair. As he expected, the rest of the courier’s body hadn’t been spared either. He had almost as many bandages as an Egyptian mummy.

“It’s a start, but you need training in pun-fu,” Ryan said. “How long was I out?”

“Ma brought you in yesterday night,” she replied, grabbing the pole holding the intravenous system and attaching it to the wheelchair. “The other orphans made bets about your death. Most said you wouldn’t make it.”

“I hope you bet on me.”

If he could trust her smile, she did. “Yeah, you’re too mean to die, and Ma… it would have hurt Ma, if you didn’t wake up.” Sarah glared at the courier. “She was in tears when she brought you here.”

“I didn’t plan on it,” Ryan said with a sigh. “Can you bring me to her?”

“Sure.” Sarah pushed the wheelchair towards the ‘hospital’s’ door, while Ryan sent one last glance to Atom Cat. Felix had stopped looking at the ceiling, and now glanced at the undersea abyss outside the habitat with a blank face.

Ryan couldn’t blame him. His own parents had signed his death warrant, and a sister he left behind died for him. It would shake anyone. “Felix…”

“I don’t want to talk,” Kitten said suddenly, his voice emotionless.

Now wasn’t the time. Maybe never.

Sarah pushed the wheelchair through a steel corridor, and eventually, to Len’s workshop. Ryan found his best friend tinkering on her diving armor, which she had linked to the Chronoradio and Dynamis’ brain-tech with cables. Some of the suit’s parts had been replaced with copies of Jasmine’s design, including the helmet. It seemed Len had decided to repurpose her existing equipment rather than make something new, perhaps due to lack of resources.

And Eugène-Henry stood atop a server, like a sphinx.

“Riri…” The sheer relief on Len’s face was almost palpable. “You’ve woken up.”

“Did you ever doubt?” he joked.

When the Genius winced, Ryan realized he should have kept his mouth shut. “Yes, I did,” she said with a frown. For the first time, he noticed the red shade around Len’s eyes, as if she had repeatedly wiped away tears. “I thought… I thought I was too late…”

“You’re an ass,” Sarah told Ryan with a glare. “I would kick you in the leg, if it wasn’t useless.”

“You can still pinch me in the arm if you want,” Ryan replied, and she did. “Ouch!”

“You deserve worse,” Sarah said, before looking at Len with concern. “Ma, you should rest. I can bring you a warm hot chocolate.”

“No, it’s okay. Thanks, sweetie.” Len forced herself to smile at Sarah. “Can you… leave us for a moment?”

The little girl clearly didn’t want to obey, but did so anyway. The workshop’s door closed behind her, leaving Len and Ryan alone.

“I’m sorry,” Ryan said immediately.

Len looked away. “I couldn’t save her. The girl. She was already drowning in her own blood when… when I...”

“She was dead before you even arrived.” Ryan moved the wheelchair forward, putting a hand on Len’s arm. To his surprise, she didn’t immediately back away from the physical contact. “Shortie, it’s not your fault.”

She pushed his hand away. “If I had arrived earlier...”

“You would have died,” Ryan said. “Who told you where we were?”

“I…” Her expression turned from saddened to embarrassed. “I hacked your phone. After you turned it off, I had to search for you on foot.”

He should be mad at her for this, but the NSA did it first. Ryan glanced at the device, and then at Eugène-Henry. The cat seemed delighted to see his master again, but his gaze had returned to its natural blue. “Did you finish the consciousness-transfer device?”

“I think so,“ Len declared with a frown. “But it’s gone.”

“What’s gone?” Ryan asked with a frown.

“Your cat’s energy readings. They’re gone. He’s a normal cat now.” Len shook her head, while Eugène-Henry showed them his royal ass. “Whatever caused his teleportation jumps before, it stopped.”

A Purple World entity had possessed Eugène-Henry like the plushie, and then left the building.

Why? Why did it act this way? What was the point? Ryan couldn’t figure it out, but he would in time. “How are things on the surface?”

Len instantly winced. Clearly, things had only changed for the worse. “Riri, you really want to know? You just woke up.”

“Yes, I want to.”

Len slowly moved towards a computer hooked to the servers, typed on the keyboard, and showed him the screen.

Droplets covered the camera recording the image, so Ryan assumed it came from a sea-based probe. But the quality was enough for the courier to see the disaster in all its glory. An awfully familiar disaster.

New Rome had turned into a warzone, with Augusti Genomes and Dynamis forces openly warring in the streets. The Private Security’s helicopters rained bullets on superpowered gangsters, who retaliated with fireballs. Flames consumed buildings, including the Il Migliore HQ, which Vulcan and an armored squadron bombarded with missiles. A horde of cybernetically enhanced dinosaurs soon emerged from the Dynamis tower, engaging the attackers in melee. The Panda led the charge.

Wyvern had been pinned to a building by countless spears and sharp weapons, while Mars dueled a colossal plant monster over the rooftops. Spatial tears opened around the centurion wannabe, raining swords and spears upon the vegetal abomination. Yet the creature retaliated with vines as thick as trucks, and pollen capable of melting steel. As Wyvern freed herself, Mars jumped from one rooftop to the other by materializing shields beneath his feet to escape her.

The strip had been flooded by a tidal wave, and corpses washed up on an artificial shore, only to rise up again to attack Dynamis facilities. Neptune himself rampaged across Rust Town, having shaped an astronomical quantity of water into the shape of a colossal squid. A living laser cut one of its tentacles, and was soon joined by Devilry. But in spite of their best efforts, the liquid elemental quickly pulled itself back together and continued its deadly march towards the junkyard.

The villa atop Mount Augustus had transformed into a fuming crater, over which two lights dueled to the death; a raging sun, and a crimson lightning bolt. Their fight was by far the most fearsome, both moving so fast even the camera had troubles following them. Mighty thunderbolts and plasma blasts rained down from the heavens, devastating the district around the mountain.

The camera provided a panoramic view of the disaster, eventually reaching the harbor. Mortimer, Lanka, and other Genomes fired at will against an unseen form, which almost gave Ryan a headache simply showing up on screen. A horrifying eldritch mascot with swirling tentacles for a beard, great dark wings, and webbed hands; a terrifying mix between a squid and a human, worn by a foolish Genome unable to control its public domain-powered darkness. The abomination let out a scream, whose garbled words Ryan’s maddened mind managed to understand.

“CTHULHU FHTAGN!”