RAINBOW RUN

by John F. Carr

  ONLY THE STRONG SURVIVE

  RAINBOW RUN is a novel of the far future, detailing a world where the normal rules have been turned over, and upside down. When one of its denizens awakens from a stupor, he discovers he’s in the Rainbow Room, a triangular room filled with pitfalls where the first misstep will be the last. He quickly discovers that his memory has been stripped away, and he’s left with no knowledge of himself or the world he finds himself inhabiting.

  With the help of Errox, a mysterious and malevolent stranger, who names him Rathe, he manages to escape the Color Wheel, only to discover that the danger outside in the urbodes is omnipresent and difficult to evade. Everywhere Rathe turns, everyone he meets is only interested in using him for their own advancement in the war of shades. In a world where the color of your wristlock determines your fate, Rathe is a lost soul desperately trying to learn the rules of a game that has no rules.

  Meanwhile, Rathe is on a quest to find out his true identity and why he was brain-wiped. The answers are everywhere and nowhere. Most of the people he meets are so busy playing the Color Game they have little or awareness of the larger world they inhabit. In this world, only those wearing the rainbow wristlocks have universal access and immortality. Not only does he have to figure out who he is, but how to survive in the midst of growing chaos….

  RAINBOW RUN

  A Pequod Press Speculative Fiction Novel

  All Rights Reserved

  Copyright © 2012 by John F. Carr

  Original Cover Art—Copyright © 2012 by Alan Gutierrez

  This book may not be reproduced or transmitted in whole or in part, in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, scanning, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the author.

  First Edition

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Printing 2012

  V 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  ISBN: 978-0-937912-24-9

  On the cover: Alan Gutierrez, Rainbow Run

  (www.alangutierrez.com)

  Pequod Press

  P.O. Box 80

  Boalsburg, PA 16827

  www.PequodPress.com

  NOVELS BY JOHN F. CARR

  Rainbow Run (with Camden Benares)

  Gunpowder God

  Space Viking’s Throne (with Mike Robertson)

  The Last Space Viking (with Mike Robertson)

  Time Crime (with H. Beam Piper)

  The Fireseed Wars

  War World: The Battle of Sauron (with Don Hawthorne)

  Siege of Tarr-Hostigos

  Kalvan Kingmaker

  Great Kings’ War (with Roland Green)

  Carnifex Mardi Gras

  Pain Gain

  The Ophidian Conspiracy

  DEDICATION

  To the memory of my best friend and brother-in-spirit, Camden Benares. R.I.P.

  ONE

  "Wake up or die!"

  Those words hammered inside my skull, bounced back and forth, destroyed a fuzzy oblivion, and brought a reluctant return to consciousness.

  Awareness came with a rush of pain—pounding head, burning stomach, aching muscles and stiff joints. I wasn’t ready to open my eyes yet; all my energy was focused on holding still in an effort to minimize pain. I made an anguished attempt to recall what had happened to make me feel as if I were dying. I couldn’t remember anything, not where I was—not even my name.

  "Wake up or die!"

  The shout hurt my ears. I opened my eyes. I was lying face down on a ledge that was higher than the tiled floor before me. I felt movement behind me—so slow and steady that I hadn't noticed it before. The wall behind me was moving, pushing me slowly toward the tiled floor. My left hand was hanging over the edge of the ledge, resting on one of the floor tiles.

  Abruptly that tile dropped as if it had been held in place by an electronic magnet that lost power. My hand fell into the hole where the tile had been. I felt a pain in my palm as it touched the edge of a tile next to the hole. I yanked back my hand and saw a thin line of blood. The tile edges were razor sharp. I looked across the tiled floor and saw a lot of holes, all potential sources of dangerous cuts.

  The only other person around was a woman, dressed like me in a brown tunic and sandals in the middle of the room, who was jumping from tile to tile to avoid the holes.

  I cried out, "Thanks for the warning."

  She glanced at me. Her face was unfamiliar.

  She yelled, "Don’t talk! Watch the tiles. Find the pattern. Get the rhythm. Get to that door and jump through it when it opens. It’s the only way out. I’ll see you in the winner’s circle."

  I looked at the door she had pointed to. Next to it was a display like an electronic scoreboard that showed a rainbow with some numbers beneath it:

  The numbers glowed. The door opened. The violet and orange tiles disappeared. By the time I'd taken several long, deep breaths the door had closed, the numbers on the display had changed, the missing tiles snapped back into position, and two more colors of tiles disappeared.

  I could feel the wall behind me as it kept up its slow forward movement that was going to push me off the ledge and onto the tiles. I followed the woman’s advice. I watched the tiles and looked for patterns. I looked at the numbers on the display. The three numbers in the first row hadn’t changed but the two pairs of numbers in the other two rows were now different.

  There were seven numbers. I counted the number of different colors among the tiles. There were seven: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet—the colors of the rainbow. Could there be one number for each color? Was that the significance of the numbers?

  There was a pattern to what was happening. Momentarily all the tiles would be in place and the door would open. Right after that, the numbers on the display would change and all the tiles of two colors would drop away. Within a short period of time the door would close and the tiles would reappear. Then the process would repeat.

  I watched the woman hop forward, getting closer to the door. She put her right foot on a blue tile. The tile collapsed. Her leg disappeared into the hole, all the way up to her thigh. Before she could scramble out, the tiles closed again. Her leg was amputated; blood was spurting from the stump with every beat of her heart. She had severed her femoral artery and was bleeding to death.

  I yelled, "Press down on your thigh! Stop the blood flow!"

  I don’t know if she heard me. She moaned as she crawled toward the door, bleeding profusely over the tiles.

  All the tiles were back in place now. I wanted to help her. She had warned me, possibly saved my life. I didn’t know if there would be time for me to get to her before the next two colors of tiles collapsed. I called out, "Use your hands to stop the blood flow."

  I moved forward, but stopped suddenly when six tiles in front of me collapsed creating a hole the size of a grave. There was no way I could advance without falling in.

  The moaning stopped. The woman was no longer crawling. She lay flat on the tiles that were as bloody as her tunic. No blood pulsed from her leg now; her heart had stopped. I couldn’t save her now—no one could. It was too late.

  I cautiously made my way back to the safety of the ledge. The wall was still moving forward, shrinking the size of the ledge. Soon there wouldn't be enough room to stand and I'd be forced back onto the dangerous tiles. I had to find the relationship between the numbers on the display and the disappearing tiles. If I didn’t, I'd die here in this nightmare room. I looked at the display:

  The top three numbers hadn’t changed. The other two pairs of numbers must identify what two colors of tiles that would collapse next. I added each of the pairs together, hoping the sums wou
ld identify the colors of the collapsing tiles. When that didn't work, I tried adding them in different combinations that led me nowhere. I tried subtraction. When I had subtracted and added every possible combination of both pairs and the three constant numbers in the display, I turned to multiplication and division but I found no meaningful results.

  The numbers could represent an equation. The top three numbers were always constant. If they were the equation—probably a degree two equation with one number constant and the other two coefficients—then the lower pairs would be the variables. If I could determine the right equation and if each tile color was represented by only one number, I could solve the equation twice—once for each pair of numbers—and determine which two tile colors would drop out next. Then I could move toward the door and escape.

  I studied the display:

  There had to be a clue somewhere. I read aloud the first row of unchanging numbers: one, two, seven. One to seven! That could be the clue; each color was represented by a number from one through seven. But how could I determine those numbers? The rainbow on the display gave me a possible answer. Seven colors and seven numbers in order from the red on the outside curve of the rainbow to violet on the inside curve. If I was right, then red equaled one, orange equaled two, yellow equaled three, green equaled four, blue equaled five, indigo equaled six, and violet equaled seven.

  Whatever the equation was, the solution had to be a number more than zero and less than eight if I was right. I was trying to figure out the equation when a stocky man with close-cut gray hair came through the door. He quickly fell flat on the floor and spread out his arms and legs to minimize the danger of the holes. He looked at me and, pointing to the dead woman, asked, "What is she to you?"

  "A stranger. I think she’s dead. I've almost figured out the equation that determines which tiles collapse next. Do you know it?"

  He said, "No," as he crawled to the woman, avoiding the holes in a practiced way that showed he was familiar with the tiles. When he reached the woman’s side, he lifted her right wrist with his left hand. I thought he was checking for a pulse until his right hand came out of his waist pouch with a knife.

  I watched in horror as he pressed his knife against her wrist just below an emerald green bracelet she wore. I turned away as he began a sawing motion with the knife. I pressed my hands against my ears to block out the screech as the knife cut through bone and gristle.

  When the noise stopped, I looked at him as he removed the green bracelet from her severed wrist. He put both bracelet and knife back in his waist pouch. I saw that he wore a gray bracelet of the same kind on his right wrist.

  There was no longer room for me to stand on the ledge. The moving wall was pushing me onto the tiles. I jumped down to my knees, avoiding the open holes. Then I quickly imitated the stranger’s spread eagle position, carefully avoiding the holes and slowly moving toward the door. The stranger said, "Move quickly, blanc, if you’re going to get out before the drains open."

  I looked at the display and read the numbers:

  As fast as I could think I tried finding an equation that would give me answers from one through seven. On the third try I got one that worked. The first number in the first row was multiplied by the first number of a pair. The second number in the first row was the power to which the second number of the pair was raised. The third number was added to the sum of the first two calculations.

  I mentally plugged the numbers into the equation and got the answers, six and five which meant the colors indigo and blue. I looked around and saw that the indigo and blue tiles had collapsed. I’d done it. I’d figured it out!

  As I moved toward the door, the display changed to read:

  I solved the equation twice and got the answers orange and green. I got up from my prone position and began running toward the door. The stranger was ahead of me. I shouted, "The orange and green tiles are going to disappear. Watch out!"

  By the time the orange and green tiles had collapsed, the stranger and I both made it through the door.

  He looked at me in awe, saying, "You did it! You figured it out."

  The door shut. I looked around. To the right was an open portal marked by a circle around a rainbow. That must be the winner’s circle that the woman told me about. I started toward it.

  The stranger grabbed me by the wrist and said, "Don't go in there or you’ll be punished. The winner’s circle is for players with wristlocks, not blancs."

  He pointed to the gray bracelet on his wrist. "Where’s yours?"

  My right wrist was naked. I shook my head. "If I'm not a player, what am I?"

  "You’re a blanc. Do you remember anything that happened before you found yourself in the room with the colored tiles?"

  "No. Nothing, nothing at all. Do you know me? Do you know my name?"

  He shook his head no. "If you need a name, why don’t you call yourself Rathe?"

  I tried the name by saying it aloud. It sounded all right but what name wouldn’t to a person with no past and no memory. "Thanks, I’ll be Rathe. What’s your name?"

  "Errox."

  It was completely unfamiliar. "If I can't go to the winner's circle, where do I go?"

  Errox said, "Follow me, if you want to get out of here alive."

  I followed him to the left into a small passageway that sloped down. I pondered just what he’d meant by his comment about getting out alive—we had already survived the room of collapsing tiles. What other dangers were there inside this labyrinth.

  Errox's manner was brusque and didn’t invite questions. We walked through the passageway, made another turn until we reached a solid wall with a metal panel. Errox bent down and opened the access panel, pushing it to the side. He stooped down and entered, while I followed. We emerged in a room full of spheroid machinery.

  "Errox, I need your help! I can’t remember anything. I don't know who I am or where we are."

  He motioned for me to be quiet. I listened hard and heard a faint noise coming through the walls. It sounded like the distant murmur of conversation but I couldn’t make out any words. Errox appeared to know where he was going and led me to another access panel. He opened it, using his still bloody knife, and we entered a room with a wide sloping chute at one end. I heard the sound of running water.

  "Get ready to swim," he said. Water poured into the room. Soon it was up to my waist. Something jostled me—a dead body! It wasn’t the dead woman I’d watched die in the first room. The body was male, its mouth and eyes wide-open; it looked like the personification of death. The hair on the back of my neck rose and my skin prickled. Errox studied the body. When he removed the knife from his waist pouch I turned my head so I wouldn’t have to watch him mutilate another corpse for its wristband.

  Errox cursed loudly as he wrestled with the body in the water that had now become level with my chest. He was having trouble severing the corpse’s wrist. He took hold of the hand and ripped it off the partially severed wrist. As soon as he removed the band and let go of the mutilated corpse, it quickly swirled away in the rising water.

  I saw other bodies and body parts floating into the chamber. The water level kept rising. Now it was up to my shoulders. Errox was no longer trying to salvage the colored wristbands from corpses. He was bobbing up and down in the water.

  The water level rose and swept me off my feet. I tried to regain my footing and failed. I didn’t know how to swim!

  My mouth filled with water and I sank like a stone.

  Choking and sputtering, I fought my way to the surface. Something bumped me and I opened my eyes; I was face-to-face with the body of the woman who died in the first room! I tried to scream and swallowed more water in the attempt. I went under again with my heart beating like a drum. My lungs cried out for air. I was drowning!

  Something or someone grabbed my tunic at the back of my head and pulled me to the surface. I gulped huge mouthfuls of air, coughing and sputtering as I bobbed up and down in the water. Only Errox’s firm grip kept me fro
m drowning.

  "Take a deep breath."

  I filled my burning lungs with air just as the wall at the narrow end of the room swung up out of sight. I felt the swift current as the water flowed toward the opening. Just as I started to go under again, I heard Errox cry out. "Don’t fight it!"

  I closed my eyes to keep out the water and something slammed hard into my face, loosening my teeth and turning everything into a whirling black vortex.

  TWO

  I came to coughing and sputtering. I felt a hand lift me out of the water. My gradual return to consciousness was accompanied by a burning soreness in my throat and a throbbing pain in my left hip. Someone was pounding me on the back and shoulders.

  "Breathe, damn you! Get up!"

  Nausea shook my stomach as I stumbled to my feet. Errox stopped thumping my back and pushed me toward a small stream of water running in the center of a wide channel. I would have drowned if he hadn’t helped me. I fell to my knees and felt the hard pressure in my stomach erupt through my throat and out my mouth. The stream carried the vomit away.

  When the spasms stopped, I cleaned my face and mouth with the fresh smelling water. I only drank several mouthfuls, but something warned me against quickly filling my stomach. It was obvious I knew things; what I didn’t know was my identity or where I was now.

  I tried to organize my thoughts, but my memory was like an almost empty bottle holding only the recent horrors. I turned away from the stream and saw the oval face of Errox with high cheekbones, yellowish skin and eyes like black pools, so dark that there appeared to be no separation between pupil and iris.

  "Thank you, Errox! You saved my life."

  Errox eyed me like a diner examining an unidentified morsel, not sure that it was worth eating. "What do you remember?"

  "I don’t remember anything before waking up in the room with the colored tiles. Can you tell me anything? Who I am or why I was there?"