Chromatophobia

by W D County

  I couldn’t believe Kingpin’s words. “He was feeding color to the patient!”

  “Are you sure? You can’t see color, right?”

  “When he pulls a bunch of stickies from his pocket and puts them next to the patient, it’s kind of obvious what’s going on.”

  Kingpin huffed. “Even so, no harm was done. The taint still covers less than sixty percent of his body.”

  “The amount isn’t the point. Nathan’s violating standing orders, and he’s been doing it from the start.”

  Kingpin looked at the Asian handcuffed to the railing outside the airlock. “Fine. I’ll talk to him.”

  “Talk? For something this serious? Confine him to his room. No patient visits without escort.” A suspicion nagged at me. “Who let him in, anyway? He must have an accomplice. Or someone gave him the code.”

  “We all have a job to do. There’s no time for playing games over arbitrary requirements.”

  “I can’t do my job if everyone thinks it’s a joke. The access code needs to be changed, and Mr. Lee needs to be disciplined.”

  “Don’t you get it, Reardon? No one here is the enemy. Not even Barry. We’re studying something brand new, earth-shattering. I’m not changing the code or anything else to make this team’s work more difficult.”

  “At least confine him to his room for twenty-four hours.”

  Kingpin’s face darkened as his eyes narrowed to little more than slits. “The only reason you’re here is to placate the DoD because Hauser got his feathers ruffled. You understand? As long as I’m here, this is my base, my team, my rules. If you don’t like it, you can be replaced.”

  A ticket out of this mess! I considered accepting the offer by telling Kingpin to fuck himself; sure, the insubordination wouldn’t look good on my record, and I’d probably get busted to corporal—but what kept my mouth shut and fist lowered was the simple fact that the taint was dangerous—a fact Gordon couldn’t see.

  Chapter 19

  I stretched out on my bunk and stared at the ceiling to let my temper cool down from the talk with Kingpin and the recklessness of Slick. The two of them together reminded me of a newbie lieutenant who ordered a squad to take down an enemy bunker, not taking into consideration that his men were outnumbered, lacked air support, and would be approaching in daylight over a field devoid of cover. The lieutenant learned that bravery and stupidity don’t mix. His men didn’t live long enough to learn anything.

  A knock on the door threatened to rouse me from moody reverie. “Unless it’s an emergency, go away.”

  “It’s Laura. I need to talk with you.”

  Huh? I got off my duff and opened the door. Mopes stepped inside, glancing over her shoulder before easing the door closed. She scanned the room as if expecting an ambush.

  “No land mines. No booby-traps. Just me.” I tried a smile on for size.

  Sometimes anxiety will trigger fleeting nervous smiles. Not Mopes. Her face defined the word distraught. “I’m sorry for disturbing you, but no one else can help me.” She eyed the straight-back chair next to the dresser. “May I?”

  “Sure.”

  She took the seat and stared at me. My smile didn’t fit so I dropped it. “What’s wrong?”

  “Miles, have you had unusual dreams since recently? Any unexplained visions?”

  Tricky question coming from a shrink. “Visions? Like seeing things that aren’t there? Nope. Never.” Had that prick Kingpin sent her to declare me mentally unfit?

  “That’s why I came to see you.”

  That pulled me up short. “You lost me.”

  “I fear the taint is distorting reality, and I think you’re immune because you can’t see color. It can’t hypnotize you.”

  “Ms. Dubov—Laura—I still don’t have a clue what you’re getting at.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m probably overreacting. The others have perfectly plausible theories.” She stood, took a step toward the door, and stopped. Her face took on a deer-in-the-headlights look. “But I’m the only one with a Pavlok. John had to be an illusion.”

  “Laura, if you’re aware of some danger to the team, you have to let me know.”

  She sat down again. “When I was in the vault, talking with Barry, something happened that could not have happened. My husband appeared.”

  “I remember what you said at dinner.” I kept the criticism out of my voice. “You think we’re all having hallucinations.”

  “Except you. No one else should go into the vault without a shock watch. You have to stop all visitations until the Pavloks are delivered.”

  “That’s Gordon’s call.” Kingpin wouldn’t do shit. He proved that with Slick. I might be able to go around him through Colonel Hauser if Mopes had some ammunition for me. “But if you have proof...”

  Mopes fidgeted in the chair and fingered her watch. “I have an idea for getting proof. But there’s something I need to do first.”

  “What?”

  “I want to look at the video,” she said. “The one that shows John in there with me.”

  I started to agree, then remembered Steampunk’s warning about viewing anything showing the taint. “It might not be a good idea.”

  “I have to see it.” She shuddered. “At dinner, something Nathan said. About what if John wasn’t an illusion.”

  “Nathan says a lot of things, most of it bullshit.”

  “I have to know.” Her pleading eyes wouldn’t let me go. Neither would the desperate tone of her voice. “I need to see it. Just to be sure.”

  Maybe seeing the recording would put her mind at ease, confirming that she’d imagined the return of her husband. “Okay. Do you mind if Zita comes along?”

  She shook her head emphatically. “Absolutely not.”

  “Moral support and another set of eyes, especially those able to see color...”

  She pursed her lips. “Doctor Tom can come.”

  I called Doc and he met us at the security office. Zita would have been a better pick, but Mopes insisted that no one else learn how badly Slick’s offhand comment bothered her. Slick was a prick, although she was far too nice to say that aloud.

  I led them inside and cued the vault’s surveillance records to the right time.

  Bingo. The videos showed Laura facing away from Barry and talking to empty air. Then she gave a start, ran to the airlock, and yelled for help. She hit the alarm. About half a minute later Nathan’s voice asked if she was all right. Another minute passed before the inner door opened and Laura rushed from the vault.

  I turned off the monitor. “You were right. Just a hallucination.”

  Mopes didn’t answer. She and Doc stared at one another.

  “What?” I asked.

  Mopes’s face scrunched like a squeezed sponge and tears started to fall. Doc hugged her as she began to shake.

  “What?” I repeated, though I had a damn good idea already.

  Doc looked at me with annoyance. “You didn’t see him?”

  Mopes’s chest heaved, the tears turning to sobs. She pushed Doc away and stumbled to the door, leaning against it until I eased around her to open it. She rushed from the room. Doc followed. I stayed to watch the video again. Still nothing. Great. Not only couldn’t I see the taint, now I couldn’t see ghosts.

  I caught up with them in the corridor. “We have to tell Gordon.”

  Doc said, “Tell him what? That you found yet another reason to kill my patient? Give it a rest. Give this woman a rest.”

  “He needs to know that I didn’t see the ... her husband. So it definitely is an illusion.”

  “Rubbish! I saw John, Miles, and I’m not hallucinating.”

  “Gordon needs to know,” I insisted. Ignoring their protests, I marched to the boss’s office.

  Chapter 20

  Not only did Kingpin downplay my concerns, he gave me permanent KP duty, ostensibly to provide the “valuable” team members more time to do productive work. I slammed the door on my way out and ran headlong into Steampunk. />
  “Sorry,” I mumbled, extricating myself from a vertical full-body press.

  “My fault,” she said. “I was standing too close to the door.”

  “Eavesdropping?”

  She grinned. “Gordon’s an ass. We should take turns on KP duty. That’s what it’s called, right? You take breakfast tomorrow and we can alternate until Gordon comes to his senses.”

  The offer surprised me. “Thanks, but I’ll handle it. It’s not like I’m running experiments or analyzing data.”

  “The screen shots I took earlier are still in the security office and I need them to complete the drawings of the taint if I’m to learn its language.”

  “Okay.” We headed to the office, Steampunk providing a steady stream of chatter.

  “Everyone has a different but reasonably plausible explanation for the taint which is unusual I wonder if it’s also significant kind of like being all things to all people but in a real not metaphorical sense.”

  I gave a noncommittal grunt, since I had no idea what she meant.

  “If the taint does exhibit multiple simultaneous distinct states, the boundaries are most likely under the greater existential stress and therefore most likely to reveal a common underlying principle.”

  “Uh-huh.” I pressed my thumb to the reader and then tapped in the code. I waited by the door as she gathered her printouts, but she didn’t rejoin me.

  She flashed one of her cute smiles. “I’d like to see the video you showed to Laura and the doctor.”

  “You were eavesdropping.” I tried to project a stern appearance. “You should respect people’s privacy. Besides, you said no one should look at the videos.”

  She put on a little girl “pretty please” face. “You didn’t see John, and that’s significant. I need to find out if I can see him.”

  She had a point. With a sense of déjà vu, I cued up the recording. Nothing had changed—Mopes’s deceased husband still didn’t show up for me.

  Zita said, “You’re sure that’s the right spot?”

  “Yeah. What do you see?”

  “Barry and Laura, with her talking to a ghost.”

  “What?” If she saw ghosts she must be as spooked as me.

  “A faint gray outline of a person. Almost transparent.”

  “But not John,” I said. “Good. We’re sane, and Doc, Laura, and Nathan are imagining things. She’s gone paranoid and taking others with her.”

  “Not exactly. I think the taint is tuning in to our minds and creating realistic illusions. It can’t read you at all, and it hasn’t figured out my exact frequency.”

  Sure, and maybe we’d end up wearing tin foil hats to keep the alien brain waves away. The idea would’ve made me smile, if it weren’t so damn serious. “I’m calling Colonel Hauser.”

  I put him on speakerphone and motioned for Zita to stay quiet.

  “Good evening, Sergeant. What is it?” He sounded tired.

  “Sir, there is some seriously weird shit happening here.” I decided to fess up about seeing the glass shard go through Choirboy’s arm without leaving a wound. When the colonel didn’t chastise me for leaving that detail out of yesterday’s report, I launched into the next topic, the supposed appearance of Dubov’s deceased husband.

  “Hold on,” Hauser said. “Others could see him, but you couldn’t?”

  “That’s right, sir.”

  “Then there certainly is a problem. Because I just finished watching that video, and John Dubov was visible, plain as shit on a shingle. Could be you’re the one with the problem.”

  My gut twisted. “Sir, the taint may be affecting people’s perception.”

  “Well, I haven’t been exposed to the taint. I’ve watched all the surveillance videos, and what I saw matches what the rest of the team saw. You’re the only outlier.”

  Zita could back me up, but I didn’t want to drag her into the argument. Not yet, anyway. Civilians weren’t allowed in the security office. “John Dubov couldn’t simply appear and disappear. He had to be an illusion.”

  Hauser grunted. “That would imply the taint holds far greater hypnotic power than we suspect and represents a weapon more insidious and destructive than anything ever conceived.”

  “That’s my fear as well, sir.”

  “What’s more likely, Sergeant? That I and half a dozen professional investigators are seeing things, or that one color-blind, fish-out-of-water soldier is delusional?”

  I didn’t answer. This was an argument I couldn’t win.

  Hauser sighed. “Reardon, I may have erred in giving you this assignment.” A long pause followed. “I can replace you. No mark on your service record.”

  A ticket out of here! But damn it, these people were in danger, whether they knew it or not. “Sir, I’d rather stay.” An idea popped into my head. “Colonel, it might be a good idea to order a Pavlok for yourself. No harm in doing a test on yourself when watching a video.”

  “The shock watches requisitioned by Dubov? They’re arriving tonight, but frankly speaking, what good are they going to do? The taint can’t overwrite video recordings.” His tone carried an air of finality. “Anything else, soldier?”

  I bristled at the slight, though he probably didn’t intend it. “Marine, sir, not soldier. And yes, there’s something else and it’s potentially the most serious issue of the day.”

  “Go on.” He sounded less than happy.

  “Mr. Lee has been feeding color to the taint, even after I caught him and warned him to stop.”

  “I heard. Maxwell thinks you’ve gotten a bit gung-ho with security concerns. Thinks you should lighten up and let the others do their jobs without feeling threatened. Yes, maybe you’re suited more to a sniper outpost in Afghanistan than a security detail in the States.”

  A needle seemed to prick my skin. A droplet formed and trickled down my spine. Probably sweat, but it felt like blood. Or condensed fear. I turned to Zita, who mouthed, Don’t back down.

  Why am I drawing courage from her when I’m supposed to be the tough guy? “Colonel, preventing infractions like this is the reason you put me here. If you let Maxwell overrule enforcement of security protocols, then yes, you might as well pull me out of here. But don’t bother replacing me, because no one is going to be able to enforce your rules with that pompous shithead in charge.”

  The silence stretched so long that I thought he’d hung up on me. He hadn’t. “Point taken, Reardon. Carry on.” He hung up.

  Zita smiled and snapped off a salute. “Impressive, Marine.” Then she pursed her lips and knitted her brows in concentration. “The videos are probably infectious. We need to make sure no one else sees any video of the taint.”

  “That’s up to Gordon and Hauser.”

  “They’re compromised by the taint. We’ll do it ourselves. Delete all copies of every video file that shows the taint.”

  My chest tightened. “That’s sabotage.”

  She nodded. “It’s the only way.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “No one knows anything! The taint could be harmless. It could be extremely dangerous. We need to be prudent and take the safest path until we know its intentions.”

  I agreed with her, but a Marine has an obligation to follow orders. “Forget it, Zita. We are not going to destroy top secret records.”

  I could almost see the cogs and wheels turning inside her brain. “You’re right, Miles. Besides, I don’t know the first thing about how these computers are encrypted and firewalled.”

  She was lying, and it pained me deeply. She clutched the printouts as I took her arm and marched her out the door. She didn’t resist, but she stayed uncharacteristically closemouthed.

  ***

  Zita put on her most charming smile as she approached Nathan. She considered batting her eyes but decided that would be overdoing it. She did add a touch of high regard to her voice. High enough to border on veneration.

  “Nathan, as a stage magician, I suppose you can break out of handcu
ffs, straitjackets, safes, practically anything.”

  He smiled. “That’s right. You want a demonstration? I have a pair of cuffs we can practice with.”

  She added a dash of coy to her inflection and expression. “Can you break into things as well?”

  “That depends.” His smile shifted a few degrees toward lecherous. “What am I being challenged to break into?”

  “Actually, I was hoping to get into the security office.”

  His smile faded. “Whatever for?”

  “I need to look at the archived surveillance videos and Miles is being pissy.” This time she did bat her eyes. “Can you help?” Given the size of his ego and the potential reward for helping an attractive woman, she felt confident that he would accept the challenge.

  “For a damsel in distress, how could a gentleman refuse?” He gave a sweeping bow. “And afterward, perhaps you would do me a small favor.”

  Zita forced her smile to remain in place. “A small favor? What, pray tell, might that be?” She had a pretty good idea, given the way fawning groupies and half-naked stage assistants normally surrounded the famous magician.

  “Take the Zener card test for me.”

  Her smile broadened. “Certainly.” She had already formulated a few plans to avoid having a sexual fling with him, but each one ran the risk of incurring his enmity. Cards were harmless, at least most of the time, although not for Wild Bill Hickok when he was shot dead in his chair while holding black aces and black eights. Of course, this might still be a ploy by Nathan to get into her pants, but she’d take that chance.

  ***

  Unlike the other doors of the facility, which required key card and numeric code, the security room required finger or thumb print identification with the code. Zita’s lack of both presented significant problems, but when she voiced her concern, Nathan grinned.

  She pointed to a surveillance camera mounted high on the wall. “What about that?”

  “We’ll make sure to erase that video and disable the camera before we leave.” He pulled a yellow Post-it Note from his pocket and pointed out a piece of transparent adhesive tape laid across its surface. The tape held the faint image of a thumbprint. “Soldier boy’s. Clear as crystal on his drinking glass. But before we test it, let’s examine the number pad.” He slipped the fingerprint back into his pocket.