David Jackson
Stories
6
Chapters
2,231
Words
2.1 M
Comments
0
Reading
7 d, 3 h
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And so, Vulcan’s biblical judgment was passed upon the heathens at Dynamis. Wyvern’s movie ended in rats and pestilence, like the previous Augusti loop. It saddened Ryan to ruin Atom Cat’s first movie appearance, especially after befriending him earlier. His adorable feline sidekick hated these commercial ventures though, so no harm done. They would make up later. When the Made Men returned to the house in his beautiful car, the courier almost expected Shroud to blow up the place again. Ryan had…-
106 •
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All was well so far on the Augusti Path. Ryan had met Zanbato as expected, beat up Sarin at the harbor, and now repeated the exact same conversation which would lead him to crash at Jamie’s house. All was well and good, to the sound of crashing waves against the piers... “I have to be sure about something,” Luigi asked the courier. “Are you a snitch or a double agent?” “Well, I’m not really on anyone’s side,” Ryan replied, but then his mouth acted on its own, “But I’m a Carnival…
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106 •
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Len Sabino woke up on a mattress, the room cold, and chill. Water leaked from the wood ceiling, rain hitting the window. Thunder echoed in the distance, the storm getting closer. In spite of the noise, Ryan was soundly asleep next to her, snoring almost as loud as the lightning. “Hey, Riri, you’re sleeping?” she whispered, but the boy didn’t offer any response. Ryan was kind of cute when he slept, and completely in denial about the snoring. Len remembered the day she and her dad had found him,…
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106 •
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What a bright day. As Ryan drove towards the ship graveyard and Shroud’s warehouse, he felt utterly happy with himself. The courier had the intuition that everything would turn out well for him this time around. “I feel like you’re my lucky charm, my friend,” Ryan told Ghoul. “Like a rabbit’s foot, or a four-leaf clover. I should have kept you ages ago.” The Psycho’s bodiless skull glared at him, hung on the rear mirror by a rope. Surprisingly, it had cost Ryan less money to convince the…
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106 •
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Ryan dived towards the servers, dodging flailing wires while the glass windows shattered around him. Outside, someone had opened fire on the garage, bullets piercing through the walls and damaging the computers inside. “If it’s the paparazzi,” the courier complained, raising his coil gun at the ceiling, “here’s my autograph!” He opened fire, projectiles going through the roof while glass shards formed flying walls to cover the holes in the ceiling. However, the acid rain quickly corroded…
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106 •
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“It can’t be them.” Ryan searched inside his car’s trunk, finally putting his hands on his secret weapons: his coil gun, and a bag of flour. “What do you know of Leo Hargraves’ Carnival, my feline friend?” “That they’re wandering heroes fighting marauders, warlords, dangerous Genomes, and Psychos,” Atom Cat replied, his back against the car. “They help communities pro bono, then move on. They’re modern knight errant, not assassins.” “That’s true,” Ryan conceded. Which was…
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106 •
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Ryan hated hospital rooms. Even if useful for sanitization purposes, the constant whiteness made him feel sick and isolated. Hours had gone by since the orphanage battle, its occupants evacuated by Dynamis and moved to one of the company’s hospitals. Psyshock’s victim had been put in an artificial slumber, laying on a warm bed with a respirator and brain scanning devices near her. Wyvern stood near the window, clearly struggling against the urge to sleep. “Will she be okay?” Ryan asked Wyvern,…
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106 •
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Ryan had been shot at more times than he could count. Unlike Psychos or special cases like Augustus, all of the courier’s abilities, from his save point to the time stop, derived from a single unifying power. It was only through training and experimentation that Ryan discovered its multiple applications. In particular, it took him The more he experienced a situation, the better Ryan became at predicting and reacting to it. If someone used a martial arts move once, he would subtly anticipate it next…
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106 •
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No matter how many times he would visit it, Ryan would never get used to Rust Town. The whole place reeked of misery and despair. Atom Cat seemed to share his sentiment, as both drove through the slums with the Plymouth's windows closed and the air cleaner on. “It’s even worse than I thought,” he said, looking at a streetlight hanging by its cable, threatening to fall on the road at any moment. “Way worse.” “You never went mice hunting here?” “No, my family lives in the wealthy Patrician…
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106 •
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Hell existed, and it was a corporate seminar. Ryan had thought his first day on the job as a Little League member would involve superhero training, maybe a routine patrol with Wyvern. Something practical. Instead, the courier received an assignment to a boring, weeks-long corporate internship. He simply had to look at the day’s planning to wish for a restart. Coffee breakfast, first meeting—with half an hour delay because of the aforementioned coffee break—then lunch, then second meeting, then the…
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