Chapter 70: Gotcha (1/2)

Sometimes, Ryan wondered if fate existed.

He had seen it across many loops. While they didn’t exactly repeat, events often echoed one another even after he interfered. Though the circumstances were wildly different, this loop would end similarly to the previous one; with New Rome burning, Ryan trapped in a suit of mechanical armor, and a Genius trying to transfer her consciousness through time.

It made sense. Ryan was only one person at the end of the day, a stone thrown into a river; until he mastered a loop enough to maximize his impact and send it off-the-rails, the sequence of events was tempted to reassert itself. The courier literally fought against the whole universe, and the rule of causality.

But even if it cost him a great many things, Ryan always prevailed in the end. He never gave up on his hope that things would be different, because each loop was a little better than the previous one. His life was a process, each iteration optimizing the final run.

And if the courier succeeded in ferrying more people across time, he could do more than just throw pebbles in the river. He could throw it off-course with a landslide.

“I will need you to activate your power when I ask,” Len said, as she put the modified armor’s helmet on Ryan’s face and hooked the courier to her machinery. “From what I gathered, the Violet Flux should build up, reach critical mass before… before you approach the ten seconds mark.”

“Good, I would rather avoid making a new save point.” Ryan looked through the helmet’s lens, though no data showed up on them. Unlike Jasmine’s armor, Len’s design was cruder, experimental. It would serve as a fulcrum for his power, but her computer would run the actual computations. “So, how should it go?”

“I will send the memory map to my… my previous self.” Len sat behind her computer. “My current memories should overwrite the old ones. Hopefully. Maybe.”

“It will work,” Ryan said, both for her sake and his own. “It has to. Everything is in place for it to work.”

“We can’t be sure…” Len shook her head. “I… I hope it will work, Riri. But I can’t promise anything.”

The workshop’s door opened, interrupting the discussion. A bandaged Felix walked inside the room, his gaze switching from Len to Ryan. The courier could see the disbelief in his eyes, and then the quiet acceptance.

He had been standing behind the door for a while.

“How long… how long have you been listening?” Len asked with a worried frown.

“Long enough,” Felix replied as he sat on a workbench in front of Ryan. “Nice armor, but I prefer the cashmere suit.”

“One day, I’ll make a cashmere power armor,” Ryan joked.

“I guess you’ve got all the time in the world needed, when you can turn it back?” Felix marked a short pause, his eyes focusing on his former teammate. “Time-travel. It’s crazy, but it explains a great many things. How long have you been at it? How far can you go?”

“Honestly, I don’t know how old I am,” Ryan admitted, before remembering one of his early encounters with Pluto. “Between five hundred and one thousand, give it or take. As for how far I can turn the clock, right before my arrival in New Rome.”

“You’ve been at this for almost a millennia.” Felix shook his head in disbelief. “That’s crazy.”

“Did… did Livia tell you?” Len asked with a frown.

“No, but I was starting to wonder. When you’ve eliminated the impossible, what remains must be the truth, no matter how improbable.” Felix shook his head. “I stayed around Wardrobe for too long.”

“You’ve made peace with Livia?” Ryan asked. It was one of the hopes he set for himself during his loop, and it would probably carry over to his perfect run.

“I wouldn’t go so far, but… I think she understands why I left now. It took a war, but her faith in her father is finally shaken. Still too little, too late.” Felix clenched his fists. “You can save my sister?”

“Yes,” Ryan said. “I will.”

“Thanks.” The hero let out a sigh of relief, but his face remained full of concern. “Can’t you bring me in for the ride too? You’ll need help.”

“No, sorry,” Ryan said. The machine could only host one brainmap. “Believe me, I would if I could.”

“We’re…” Len cleared her throat. “We’re not even sure I can make it at all.”

Felix took it well, all things considered. Or more likely, all that he went through lately had numbed his emotional reaction. “I see. And once you go back, we all die?”

“You will forget,” Ryan reassured him. “Like amnesia.”

“Amnesia... I suppose that’s one way to see it. Did…” Atom Kitten’s eyes squinted at Ryan. “Did you fuck me before?”

“No,” Ryan replied, much to his Kitten’s disbelief. Of all things, that was the bit he worried about? “I have a whole ‘Fuck, Marry, Kill’ list to fulfill before my perfect run. Marry Jamie, marry Yuki, fuck the Vamp, kill Psypsy...”

Len rolled her eyes, while Atom Cat crossed his arms. “I don’t know why I’m not even surprised,” he said, before falling silent. Clearly, he had a lot to process.

“Kitten?”

“I didn’t understand how much she loved me,” Felix said, looking at the floor. “Fortuna. I thought she would choose our parents over me, but I was wrong. I was wrong about her, and about Livia too. There’s still hope for them. I… I never appreciated my sister, Ryan. I see that now. My own parents signed off my death warrant, but Fortuna… she chose me over them. When her back was against the wall, she did the right thing.”

Neither Ryan nor Len said anything. Both understood that the hero spoke with his heart, and needed to get a truth off his chest.

“And when you turn back time, Ryan, I’ll forget that. I’ll be angry and bitter at her, all over again. Her death will mean nothing.”

“No, because I will remember,” Ryan reassured Felix. His opinion of Lucky Girl hadn’t been the best, but after seeing her sacrifice, it had greatly improved. She would make it through his perfect run, one way or another.

“Can I ask a favor, Quickie? Make sure I…” Atom Cat gathered his breath. “Make sure I understand that by the time you’re done, and without her dying. I… I don’t think I will ever make up with Fortuna, if you don’t interfere.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll find a way.” Most likely, he would kidnap them both and bring them to family therapy. Even if he had to turn one of them into a pickle.

“Thanks.” A genuine smile spread on Felix’s face. “I had fun working with you, Ryan. You’re a good friend.”

“Damn it, Shortie, you should start the process before I die of diabetes.” Ryan looked away from Felix, as his Genius friend typed on her keyboard. “We never got around to doing a training montage with the Panda.”

“Yeah, I’ll carry that regret to my grave,” Felix mused. “Would have been fun.”

A terrible alarm echoed through the underwater base, interrupting the happy moment.

Ryan turned his head at Len, his heavy helmet slowly moving with his skull. A picture of the abyss outside appeared on her computer’s screen, alongside the shape of an enormous submarine. Projectors from Len’s base cast light on its hull, and the logo painted on its steel shell.

Dynamis.

The computer bleeped, as someone tried to establish contact. Len cautiously answered with a frown, a new video feed forming on the screen. A ghoulish, shining skull looked at the Genomes in the workshop.

“So you lived, Atom Cat.” There was no relief in Alphonse Manada’s voice, only a hint of curiosity. “I was wondering where you had run off to.”

“Fallout?” Felix said as he climbed down from the workbench and approached Len’s computer. “What is the meaning of this? Aren’t you in New Rome?”

“I was, but we are moving our HQ and laboratories out of the city. Augustus destroyed our previous installations.” The Dynamis CEO glanced at Len. “And we will pick up Miss Sabino along the way.”

Len bristled in dread, much to Ryan’s frustration. “Et tu, Nagasaki?” he taunted the nuclear cyborg.

“Is that you inside that armor, Quicksave?” Fallout replied with a scoff. “Good, you’re coming too. I will give you ten minutes to get out of this underwater hole and join us onboard our submarine. We are on a tight schedule, and Vulcan might give pursuit soon.”

“No,” Len protested, shaking her head.

“We politely deny your request,” Ryan said. “Don’t force us to raise a new Berlin Wall.”

“I don’t think you understand.” Alphonse focused on Len, his shining gaze without emotion. “We need her, dead or alive. If you don’t surrender now, we’ll flood this entire complex and harvest the corpse’s genetic material.”

Shortie’s face lost all color. “There are children inside!”

“We helped you against the Meta,” Ryan pointed out, deciding to add this man to his kill list. “You have an odd view of long-term partnerships.”

“I knew of your dealings with Livia Augusti, Quicksave. You betrayed us first.” Alphonse grunted, ignoring Len’s comment. “It doesn’t matter. If you want to spare lives, you’ll join us.”

Felix didn’t hide his fury and disappointment. “I thought you were one of the good ones.”