Chromatophobia

by W D County

  “There’ll be time to question Dr. Harrison later,” Kingpin said. “In the dining room, in an hour. Right now, suit up so we can meet the patient.”

  “One at a time,” said Doc. “He’s depressed and I don’t want to make it worse with all of you crowding in and pointing like he’s a sideshow exhibit.”

  Kingpin glanced at the clock. “Dinner in two hours, then. Nathan, you go first. The rest of us will observe from here. Everyone put on a name tag.” He handed out gray metal tags engraved with our names in black. The magnetic tags were designed to stick to a small steel chest plate embedded inside each coverall. “The tags emit an RFID signal picked up by a reader inside the vault. It logs your entry and exit automatically.”

  “Keep an eye on your stickies,” Doc said, pointing to a tray filled with packets of 3M Post-it Notes. “Take a packet, one packet only, any color, and put a few tabs on your sleeve. When the tabs turn gray, you get out of the vault. Got it?”

  “How much time?” asked Slick.

  “Varies. A couple minutes if you’re standing near the patient.”

  Slick looked hesitant. I couldn’t blame him, but sooner started, sooner finished, so I gave a word of encouragement. “Cover up and you’ll be fine. Nothing’s happened to me in over half a dozen entries.” Doc or Kingpin would’ve told me if it had. Probably.

  Slick said, “I’m not afraid, just focused. Special clothing and shifting colors are typical distractions used by illusionists.”

  Brainiac snorted.

  Mopes said, “Doctor, is Mr. Fletcher on medication for depression?”

  “You must be the psychiatrist,” Doc said. “We’ll talk about antidepressants after you see him, but I expect to have a vaccine developed before psychotropics would reach therapeutic levels.” He headed for the exit. All eyes followed him, no doubt wondering about premature graying.

  Kingpin said, “Listen up, people. The cabinet to the right contains items you may find useful for conducting tests on the patient. If there’s something you need that isn’t there, let me know and we’ll have it delivered.”

  Slick rummaged through the cabinet and finally extracted a can of laser visualizer spray. He said to Gordon, “I’ll need a couple decks of Zener cards for tomorrow.”

  Kingpin raised a brow.

  “For testing ESP. Twenty-five cards in a deck, five sets of five different patterns.”

  Kingpin said, “Are they colored?”

  “Of course.” Slick smiled. “Hey, Zener cards have been around since the 1930s.”

  Kingpin pursed his lips in thought. “How close to the patient do you need to be to run this test?”

  “Not very.” Slick’s cocky grin seemed to annoy Kingpin as much as it did me.

  “Fine,” he said. “Finish suiting up.”

  Kingpin sat at the main console, which included a camera and microphone. He pressed the talk icon on the control panel. “Good afternoon, Barry. I’ve brought you some visitors.”

  Choirboy sat up and looked at the front camera. “I hope one of them is my lawyer.”

  “First will be Nathan Lee. These are short, get acquainted meetings. Tomorrow we’ll start a serious investigation into what’s happening to you.” Kingpin pressed mute and motioned for everyone to gather round.

  Steampunk said, “He isn’t gray! He’s covered with color! Are they tattoos? No, they’re too bright and too detailed. The patterns are, oh, I understand now, it’s absorbing color from his surroundings, just like the tesseract. Right?”

  Kingpin nodded. “Everything inside is black, white, or shades of gray. The absorption phenomenon doesn’t extend beyond the opaque confinement area.”

  Mopes said, “How are the colors being absorbed?”

  “That’s what we’re going to find out.” Kingpin pressed talk again. “When Mr. Lee finishes his visit, there are three more people who need time with you.” He gestured to the women behind him, although the protective clothing made them appear as sexless clones. “Zita Ferrari, Laura Dubov, and Sonja Kapoor.”

  “What’s happening to me? Why won’t you let me go? What have I done to deserve this fucking hell?”

  “Watch your language. Ladies are present.”

  “Sirens or hags, it doesn’t matter. I want out of here.”

  Steampunk said, “That poor man.” Mopes said, “Yes.”

  Kingpin frowned. “We’re trying to help you, Barry.”

  “Right.” The sarcasm contained in that single word told me he had a clear grasp of the situation. He was a bug under a microscope. I almost felt sympathetic as I finished strapping on my gun belt.

  Chapter 6

  Dressed in colorless coveralls and other protective garb, Nathan climbed the three steps to the airlock platform and waited while Miles punched in the access code. When the door clicked, Nathan pulled it open and then paused to bow to the rest of the team before ducking inside. He hadn’t lied about not being afraid, but his pulse raced from sheer excitement. This phenomenon had the potential to prove the existence of paranormal forces. If not, then it might well be the most elaborate hoax ever concocted. Either way, he intended to discover the truth and incorporate it into his act. He’d end up more famous than Houdini.

  Miles followed him inside. Nathan ignored the jarhead and proceeded to tap and probe the airlock’s walls, ceiling, and floor. He jumped as the outer hatch closed with a disturbing clunk. After a slow breath to calm down, he noticed two gray video cameras and a matching speaker bolted to the ceiling. One camera faced him, but the other focused on three adhesive strips on the wall—the only hint of color in the tight space. He pointed to the red, green, and blue strips. “What are these?”

  Miles said, “Alarms sound if any color fades more than ten percent from digital true.”

  He considered covering the strips with his glove to test the alarm, but the hulking presence of the Marine argued against it. “No hollow spaces or hidden projectors,” he said for the benefit of those observing on the monitors. He turned to the black and white numeric keypad mounted on the inner hatch. “What’s the code?”

  “Fat chance,” said Miles, who brushed past to block Nathan’s view of the panel.

  Gordon’s voice boomed from the overhead speaker. “I’ll open it from here.”

  A click sounded, followed by a brief whirring noise. Nathan pushed the inner hatch open, noting it was much thicker than the outer one. He stepped through and watched the door swing shut with a thud that reverberated through the metal floor. Heavy, spring-loaded latches slammed into place securing the door. A keypad identical to the others hung on this side, and he wondered if the code might be guessed from the wear pattern on the keys. No luck. The keys were pristine.

  The patient sat on the bed, dressed in a gray hospital gown and white socks. A maelstrom of different colors covered the left side of his face and scalp, all his neck, and all his right forearm. Tattoos? No, the coloration displayed a vibrancy and fluidity that no tattoo could match. A film perhaps? Or a laser projection?

  “Hello, Barry. I’m Nathan Lee.”

  “I’ve heard of you. The magician.”

  “And paranormal investigator.” He extended a gloved hand.

  Barry stared at it, then tilted his head to the ceiling camera. “First a doctor, then a soldier, a spy, now a wizard. Who else is in line for the freak show?”

  Gordon’s voice emerged at normal volume from a ceiling-mounted speaker. “We have a physicist and a psychiatrist on the team.”

  “What a delightful montage. None of you have the slightest inkling of what’s happened to me.”

  “Patience,” Nathan said. “We’ll soon unlock the mystery of your condition.” His gaze pivoted methodically across the room, scrutinizing the surroundings. “I’ll need to go over the room in detail to make sure it’s clean.” He moved farther into the room, examining everything.

  Gordon’s disembodied voice expressed irritation. “The room is antiseptic.”

  Nathan sprayed the contents of
his smoke can at various locations. It dissipated without revealing any anomalies. “No lasers. No mirrors, no projectors, no hidden chambers. No sign of the tools and props needed to pull off an illusion like this.”

  Barry sprang to his feet. “You think I’m faking this?” He ripped open the top of the gown. “You moron! I’m infected with it. I need to be cured.” The rash covered his shoulders and upper right chest above the nipple. The colors swirled like confetti in a tornado.

  Gordon said, “I’m sending Miles in.”

  “No, I got this.” Nathan raised both arms, palms up and open. “Barry, I’m good at what I do. The best, in fact. If you give me a moment to assure the team that no special effects or trickery is involved, then all of us can concentrate on helping you.”

  Gordon added, “Mr. Fletcher, I know you feel like a prisoner. That is not our intention, but until we understand the nature of your condition and can prevent its spread, you’ll remain in isolation. Hopefully that will only be a few more days.”

  Barry flipped a finger at the nearest camera before flopping onto the bed. “Lies.” He looked at Nathan. “The military will never let me go. I’m a guinea pig for whatever they’re testing.” His eyes took on a pleading expression. “Can you get me a lawyer? A call to my family? Give me a ‘get out of jail free’ card?”

  Barry’s voice held no trace of duplicity to suggest perpetuation of a hoax. Nathan responded with a sympathetic smile, then realized Barry couldn’t see it through the facemask and hood. “The sooner we find out what this thing is, the sooner you go home. Have you ever been tested for paranormal abilities?”

  Barry grimaced. “Such powers belong only to God and his messengers.”

  “Mainstream Christianity has often been at odds with both science and mysticism, yet religion ultimately embraces the knowledge and benefits those other avenues provide.”

  Barry snorted.

  Nathan continued, “Tomorrow we’ll conduct a standardized test for extrasensory perception, but for now we’ll try an impromptu trial.” He reached into the pocket of the coveralls and pulled out four pads of Post-it Notes, each a different color. “I’m going to turn away from you and hold up one at a time. You tell me what color it is.”

  “You think I can read minds.”

  “Let’s find out.” Nathan turned and held up one tab such that only he and one camera could see it.

  “Red,” Barry said.

  “Good.” Nathan held up several more in sequence.

  “Blue. Red. Green. Yellow. Yellow again. Green.”

  “Not bad,” said Nathan, trying to contain his excitement. He tried ten more tabs at random. Barry’s score was perfect.

  Gordon’s voice boomed from the speakers. “Enough tests, Nathan. Look at the tabs.”

  The colors had faded to gray, while the mysterious colored rash had expanded to cover the patient’s nose.

  ***

  Sonja knew Nathan’s efforts were a waste of time. It didn’t matter that Barry scored well on that guessing game—she’d seen the same thing happen in countless Las Vegas acts. Once a performer, always a performer. Only science could provide genuine, reproducible results. The availability of colored tabs suggested an interesting experiment.

  Once inside the vault, she pulled two colored tabs from her pocket and stuck them on the wall near the airlock. Speaking to the cameras, she said, “I suspect the rate of absorption depends on the distance from the patient. These are approximately nine feet from the patient. The next set will be at three feet. Then at one. Finally, at contact.”

  “Hey! Lady!” complained Barry. “Don’t ignore me.”

  Sonja gave a start as Gordon’s voice poured from a speaker next to her head. “No more than ten colored tabs in total, Sonja.”

  “Why?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? To limit the spread of the... whatever it is.”

  Barry said, “It won’t matter. God’s will be done.”

  She noticed then the colors on his bald head, shoulders, and a portion of his bare chest. The affected areas appeared bright and clear even from several feet away. “Hello, Mr. Fletcher. I’m Dr. Kapoor. I’m going to conduct some simple, non-invasive experiments.” She positioned colored tabs on the wall every few feet as she approached the patient. When she reached his bed, she looked back toward the hatch.

  “Notice how the strips farthest away fade slowest. I’m confident that the timing will reveal an inverse-square relationship, characteristic of many natural forces in the universe.” Her voice wavered with excitement. The optical phenomenon could be a manifestation of an entirely new force more exotic than dark energy. Its study could lead to a Nobel prize in physics.

  She stuck a blue tab on the patient’s colorized wrist and then pulled a digital camera from her coveralls pocket.

  “Doc doesn’t have much of a bedside manner, but you’re downright rude.”

  She snapped a picture of his hand. “Sorry. But this is more important than niceties. You know that, right?” She took a shot of his face.

  Barry sighed. “That’s a Nikon D90. Yours, or government issue?”

  “Uncle Sam’s.” She focused on the colored fractal patterns on the patient’s skin, then frowned. The camera showed only gray. “Gordon, the camera is malfunctioning. Have Miles fetch another one for me.”

  “Nikons never gave me any trouble,” Barry said. “Maybe—”

  “This one’s broken,” she complained.

  A minute passed in silence, and then the hatch opened. Miles handed her a new camera and took away the old. The door closed again with a heavy thud.

  “That’s a Sony a6000,” Barry said.

  Sonja knew much about optics, little about cameras. She focused on his colorized hand and zoomed in. This camera worked properly. The phenomenon exhibited a clearly fractal pattern, the Mandelbrot set, but with each bud in a different color. She moved the focus to a new position, and was surprised that this area displayed a different fractal design, a Pythagoras Tree, with each iteration in a different color.

  “They took my camera, a D3s,” Barry said wistfully. “Cost over five grand.”

  She moved back to the first location—and found the Mandelbrot fractals had morphed into a pattern called the Sierpinski Carpet. Amazing.

  “Do you do much photography, Sonja? Or do you prefer Ms. Kapoor?”

  She could understand processes that produced one type of fractal pattern; snowflakes, for example, while not identical to one another, still followed a common underlying formula. But Barry had multiple fractal patterns, and moreover, those patterns changed. She could think of no natural processes with that ability. But then, fractals weren’t her specialty. Further research was in order.

  “Some people are so pulled into their work that the rest of the world ceases to exist. Is that what you want?” Barry asked.

  Perhaps clues to this bizarre behavior could be found at the boundary of the coloration. She zoomed in with the camera, but the edge remained blurred even at maximum magnification. The patterns even covered the patient’s hairs. Presumably, the colorized pattern extended to the cellular level, or even the molecular. Regardless of the fuzziness and internal morphing, the surface area of the coloration was fixed. The boundary grew only when exposed to an external color source. She estimated that sixty percent of his visible body retained normal skin coloration.

  Barry’s voice rose in pitch and volume. “Do you see me? I’m here, I exist.”

  “Uh-huh.” She pointed the camera at his face. No whites remained in his left eye, only sparkling colors orbiting a black pupil. The area around his mouth was normal. “Say ‘ah.’”

  Barry pushed the camera away. “I could rip your glasses off. Your eyes would turn gray. Or maybe they’d become orbs of stained glass, as befits windows to the soul.”

  Sonja felt captured by his gaze. Whirlpools of color orbited black holes. She tried to swallow, but all moisture had evaporated along with the capacity for rational thought.

  Go
rdon said, “Fletcher! Another word and I’ll have you put in restraints.”

  Barry closed his eyes and lifted his head toward the ceiling. “God grant me the serenity...”

  Sonja recovered her composure as Barry recited the prayer in a soft voice. “P-Prayers are g-good,” she stammered. Science was better, of course. Facts trump placebos. By the time Barry finished his prayer, her mind was back on track. “Open wide, please. I’m trying to understand what this is. So I can help you.”

  “Right.” He opened his mouth, revealing color patterns on the teeth and tongue.

  She snapped a photo, but without a flash she couldn’t tell for certain if the color pattern covered his inner cheeks and palate. She reached into her pocket and retrieved a small mirror. “Again, please.”

  She angled the mirror and caught a reflection of Barry’s face. The image showed neither normal nor colorized skin—his face looked entirely gray, just like the doctor’s. She jerked back in surprise, dropping the mirror. It broke with a sharp crack against the floor.

  Barry stared at her. “God already knows what this is, and if He wants you to know, you will.” He closed his eyes again, and Sonja supposed he was silently praying. How could rational people could embrace such nonsense?

  The mirror lay on the floor in pieces. Her superstitious mother would have wailed at the impending seven years of bad luck. She picked up the largest piece with her left hand and angled it to stare again at Barry’s reflection.

  The reflection showed his entire body in grayscale: no colors, no natural skin tone anywhere. Peculiar and, for the moment, inexplicable. She angled the mirror toward a video camera, trying to show the anomalous reflection to the team.

  Gordon’s voice boomed. “You’re cut.”

  A thin red line traced its way down her glove. As she watched, the red turned gray.

  “I—I have to go.” She shoved the hand into a pocket and rushed to the airlock.

  Chapter 7

  Kingpin called for Doc over the PA system while I punched in the code for the inner door. Brainiac practically leaped into the airlock, her right hand grabbing my coveralls to steady herself.