Chromatophobia

by W D County

  “Zita! Where?”

  “Can’t see yet.”

  I prayed her night vision came fast. Three flashlight beams cut through the dark. Two illuminated Choirboy. The third settled on Old Glory, which extended from its staff as if held by invisible hands.

  “Take out the camera first,” Zita said. “It’s on a short tripod, dead ahead.”

  Arguing would only prolong the delay. BANG! Three shots left. I decided to spend one on the built-in surveillance camera, but my gun wouldn’t point in that direction. Fuck.

  Brainiac declared, “The flag is fading.”

  Doc said, “Taint at ninety-nine percent. Christ, how’d it get so high?”

  I couldn’t verify the changes in the flag or the taint but believed their words. With some urgency, I pointed the gun at Choirboy’s center of mass and called out again. “Zita! Now.”

  “Use this.” She pressed something against the back of my hands.

  I switched to a one-handed grip, freeing my left hand to take the object. I glanced down at a goddamn colorimeter. “Fuck that. Tell me where to aim.”

  “It’ll let you see far more clearly than I can describe.”

  “You promised, God dammit!” The venom in my voice shocked us both. She stepped away without showing remorse. I faced Choirboy again, jaw clenched. My only chance was to put the last three slugs into his chest and hope one of them hit untainted flesh.

  “I’ll help,” said Revenant. “Fifteen inches above his navel—”

  “Stop!” screamed Mopes. She grabbed her husband’s shoulder and spun him around. “Don’t do this!”

  He pushed her away, but she charged back, swinging wildly and sobbing miserably.

  Her arm froze in midair as if caught in a vise. Her eyes widened. “No. No!” She skidded backward, hit the wall, and remained pinned there by invisible bonds.

  John turned from the scene to regard me with sorrowful eyes before pivoting toward Choirboy. “Then three inches to your right. Puts you at the midpoint of a two-by-four-inch vertical patch of clear skin.”

  Mopes begged, “John, don’t do this. Think of us. Barry, stop him! Nathan, stop him!”

  No one tried to stop me. I let Zita’s colorimeter fall to the floor, resumed my two-handed firing stance, and took aim on the designated spot. Barry... Choirboy... smiled and lifted both arms toward heaven.

  Zita retrieved the meter. “Miles, you have to trust me. Use this.”

  I slowly squeezed the trigger. She stepped in front of the gun.

  “Jesus Christ, Zita. Move!”

  Zita slid out of the way, her shoes dragging sideways across the carpeted floor. She frowned and then spoke in a calm voice. “Nathan, I am now immune to your telekinesis.” She stopped sliding.

  Slick cursed and sent the zombies at her. She wasn’t immune to their brute force, although she managed to take one down with a judo throw and a second one down with a foot sweep. The third one knocked her to the floor and the other two piled on. They didn’t attack me, and I didn’t try to defend her. The mission came first, though I’d rather have cut off my left testicle than let her suffer. I took aim at the specified point.

  Zita’s muffled voice called out, “Trust me, Miles. Don’t. Kill. Barry.”

  Trust. Why did she want Barry to live? Had she been corrupted by the taint, or did she see something that I didn’t? Shit, what a stupid question. She seemed to know everything.

  “Shoot,” demanded Kingpin, as if still in a position to issue orders.

  “Shoot him, kill him,” murmured several voices.

  John said, “Set us free, Miles. I want to go home.”

  If Barry and most of his converts wanted me to kill him, shouldn’t I do the opposite? I tried to lower the gun. It wouldn’t move. I felt pressure on my index finger. Slick grinned. My finger tightened on the trigger like a python coiling around its prey. I strained to stop it.

  “The colorimeter,” Zita shouted from beneath the bodies.

  I tried to pick it up with my left hand but couldn’t reach it, not with my other hand glued to my gun and the gun clamped in place by Slick’s psychic vise.

  “Shoot, shoot, shoot,” chanted the team. The pressure on my finger intensified. Sweat beaded on my forehead and I struggled against the cramping finger. The trigger pull on this gun was set at five pounds. Ten thousand rounds of experience said my finger exerted four pounds, five ounces. Six. Seven.

  I nudged the colorimeter closer with my foot and managed to scoop it up. I fumbled to work the controls with one hand while my other held the .45 in a death grip. The pressure intensified. Four pounds, nine ounces. Ten.

  The colorimeter beeped and I pointed the sensor at Barry.

  The screen came alive. Unlike my old device, this one didn’t provide graphs showing brightness and color saturation. Instead, it displayed an ultra-high definition image in a thousand shades of gray. I saw a pulsing, swirling mass of interlocking shapes that enveloped most of Barry’s body. A tiny patch of non-shimmering skin remained on his chest. An urgent desire to place a bullet in the center of that spot formed in my brain, the urge doubling and redoubling each second.

  Slick laughed and a part of me wanted to surrender, wanted this to end, even if it ended badly. Four pounds, thirteen ounces. Fourteen.

  The pattern on the screen offered solace. Time slowed as the taint lured me into its hypnotic embrace. This is the genie. What should I wish for?

  I took my cue from Zita. “I’m now immune to Nathan’s powers.”

  The pressure on my finger ceased. So did Slick’s laugh. The chanting stopped as well.

  Barry’s voice rang out into the eerily silent room. “Pull the trigger, Miles. You only have a few seconds before it will be too late.”

  Zita crawled out from beneath the zombies, who no longer opposed her escape. “Miles, there is a third option.”

  He kept his eyes on me. “A world of peace and love. Kill me and make it real. Behold.”

  Reality became fluid. Sanity retreated from an onslaught of incoherent creation. Futures unfolded in my mind, ephemeral as dreams but originating outside myself, as if watching multiple movies in a theater in the round. If I chose one, the others would vanish and sanity would return. I needed sanity more than a fish needs water.

  Time stopped.

  Nothing moves or can move. I am aware but outside my body, existing as a disembodied entity in a room that seems more like a holographic image.

  Barry’s presence takes on a ghostly form. I hear his words as plainly as if he’s speaking aloud. “Hello, Miles. Spectacular, isn’t it, to stand outside creation and realize you can shape it to your will?”

  I, too, am a ghost and I don’t care for it. “Where... what is this place?”

  “A neutral zone where we can parlay without the inconvenience of time.”

  “I’ve decided not to kill you.” I do trust Zita, even if I don’t understand her.

  “Then I must convince you to change your mind.”

  With a casual wave of his hand, Choirboy brings one of the potential realities into prominence. Like a double image coming into focus, it merges with the current reality of the room and begins to animate.

  In that future I pull the trigger. The bullet enters his chest through a quarter-size circle of clear skin. The impact knocks Choirboy off balance; he falls face-up on the table. A wellspring of blood feeds the taint as it reaches totality. He cries out in joy and pain, “It is finished.”

  A flash of brilliant light blinds everyone in the room. When it fades, the colorimeter shows that the taint is gone, although Barry remains. His naked body glows with an inner radiance. A hole from his chest to his back gives evidence of the gunshot, but no blood comes from the wound.

  The vision of that future expands. I see Hauser release the surveillance video of the final moments of the taint and the resurrection of the messiah. The video goes viral, and everyone who sees it knows it to be true. They enter the reality where they can feel Barry’s divin
ity like the warmth of a bonfire. It banishes the darkness of their lives and ignites a religious fervor that compels absolute belief and obedience.

  Within three days every person on the planet has seen it. Barry steps out of the underground facility as if leaving the tomb to begin a sovereign rule over all the nations of the earth that will last for thousands of years.

  That future stops and fades back into the crowd of possibilities.

  Choirboy seems joyous. “Is this not a bright and compassionate future? You’ve wanted to kill me since our first meeting. You’re destined to kill me. Go ahead. Do it. Do your part to usher in a future of love and peace.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  With another wave of his hand, Choirboy brings a different future into focus.

  In that future I lower my gun without pulling the trigger. Nathan and the zombies try to compensate by taking aim at Barry and emptying their magazines into his chest. The taint swallows every bullet, and the shrinking patch of normal skin at last surrenders to the taint’s advance.

  I expect another bright flash, but it doesn’t come. The Barry of the future stares at me and says, “The taint wants to leave, but it cannot. It is bound to me and will remain so for as long as I live. Forever, since now I cannot be killed. You haven’t stopped my quest to save the world from its sins. You’ve only made it much more difficult.”

  The government does its best to suppress release of the surveillance video, but copies are smuggled out as watchers discover that repeated viewing lets them miraculously acquire whatever skill or object they most desire. A worldwide pogrom ensues to combat the proliferation of the video. Billions of people are killed or brainwashed unless they embrace Barry’s authority.

  The second future stops flowing and fades like the first into the many possible outcomes of our current reality.

  Choirboy seems pensive. “If I didn’t take such harsh steps, the proliferation of wishes leads to dichotomies and paradoxes that penetrate to the quantum level. Billions of people will simply wink out of existence as their reality collapses. I would remain, of course, protected by the taint. Those who follow my teachings would also survive, and together we’d establish a religious utopia.

  “Both futures lead to utopia, but shooting me saves billions of lives.”

  Barry is right. Zita is wrong. Killing him is the better option.

  Barry nods. “I think we’re done here.”

  Time resumed.

  The gun was rock-steady in my hand, sights aligned with the fast-shrinking target, the trigger a hair’s breadth from the break point.

  Yes, no. Black, white. Live, die. My choices are always dichotomies.

  Then why did Zita say there were three? And then I knew.

  “I’m not afraid anymore.”

  Choirboy must have seen the realization on my face, the surprise at finding an unexpected path. Suddenly we were locked in a battle of wills over my own thoughts. He flooded me with images of the miracles he would perform, the peace and prosperity of a world united under one religion, the end of fear, the growth of hope. Why would I oppose utopia?

  The guilt trip didn’t work. Early in my sniper career, I’d learned to lock emotions away in the dungeons of my subconscious. I shoved Barry’s images there now, along with any feelings of doubt and remorse. My mind cleared and focused on the mission, immune to distraction. Barry’s onslaught became snowflakes attacking a granite mountain.

  This moment normally preceded pulling the trigger, but my goal had changed. I eased my finger off the trigger, swept the safety on, and lowered the gun. Barry had only shown futures of this world. Thanks to John, I knew other worlds existed. An infinity of worlds. I remembered one from a dream and opened a window to it.

  “Barry, you should go where the need is greatest.”

  We looked on the world I’d seen in a dream, where people lived in fear, pain, and poverty. A world where life was cheap and killers commonplace. A world where parents smothered newborns to spare the children pain of starvation and disease. Where the elderly hid in caves and cellars hoping to escape similar fates. Where rulers took slaves if taxes could not be paid in food or gold. A world where hope had died and its memory faded to gray. A world in desperate need of a messiah.

  Unlike the futures Barry had shown, which may or may not come to pass, the world I displayed existed right now on some distant plane. I wanted to harden my heart to that world and forced myself not to. “Barry...” My voice cracked. “Help them.”

  He stared at that world. Emotions ravaged his face, swirling like the patterns of the taint. Shock. Sadness. Anger. Guilt. Resolve. Tears fell from his anguished eyes. “And the blind shall see.”

  The colorimeter beeped as the taint reach totality. Barry vanished in a silent explosion of blinding light. Throbbing pain filled my head. Flashlights thudded to the floor and darkness rushed in from every direction.

  Chapter 53

  I ached inside and out, reminiscent of waking up with a massive hangover after picking a bar fight with a squad of army grunts. I shook it off and checked the conference room. Barry was gone without a trace. John had vanished as well. Zita crawled out from the pile of bodies and favored me with a smile. “You did it.”

  “Figured it out with your help.” I knelt beside her. The three explorers were dead. Everyone else was unconscious.

  I collected the guns from the deceased men and Nathan. I also took the master keycard. Zita followed me out of the room and I locked the door. “I’m going to turn on the lights and check the monitors. Want to come with me?”

  She shook her head. “I need to prepare things before Hauser sends down his people.”

  Hauser. Yes, he’d finally send in troops, but not as reinforcements. The government needed a fall guy, and I was low man on the totem pole.

  I gave her a gun and a flashlight before heading to the security office. Stepping from the dim corridor into the bright office, I blinked and shook my head. My vision felt off. Felt odd. The shapes were right; I could recognize objects, but everything looked different. New. Coated with something.

  Color.

  “Holy shit.” I grabbed my old colorimeter from the desk and started putting names to what I saw. My hands—flesh tones. My fatigues—camo pattern, overall color not much different from the drab green walls. A white calendar and some old directives were tacked to a brown corkboard hanging on the wall. My visual acuity hadn’t diminished. I still could read the fine print from across the room.

  The failsafe buttons on the console were colored red. Vibrant! I scanned the surveillance monitors, but the cameras didn’t pick up much with only dim emergency lights illuminating rooms and corridors. I scurried to the electric panel (light gray—no change there) and flipped on the breakers, then took another look at the monitors.

  The base was intact and empty except for Zita, me, and the people locked in the conference room. The yellow warning stripes painted on the floor next to the elevator caught my attention. Hauser would be mobilizing his people. I better get moving.

  Zita waited for me outside the conference room. I stared at her, then at the colorimeter, then back at her. Hair spilled out from beneath her brown leather top hat. “Your hair is blue. Like your eyes.” I felt like a teenager on his first date.

  “You knew that.”

  “But I didn’t know what it meant.”

  Her glossy pink lips formed a puzzled frown on her tanned face. Then she broke into a bright white smile. “You see color.”

  I smiled back, feeling suddenly self-conscious. “You’re... ah, your hair. It’s beautiful.”

  “Later, Marine. We have work to do.” She carried the missing box of Pavloks in one hand and a handful of syringes in the other.

  “Not more codeine, I hope.”

  The earlier smile didn’t return. “Memerase. We need to hurry. The crisis isn’t over.”

  She refused to elaborate. I opened the conference room and turned on the lights. She injected each person with a dose o
f the drug, and then tucked an envelope inside Gordon’s suit. We put a Pavlok on each team member and set the alarms for mild jolts every five minutes.

  “They’ll be out for at least an hour,” she said. “When they wake up, if I got the dose right, no one will remember anything of the last five days.”

  “How’s that going to help?”

  “No time to explain. Help me move the dead bodies to the observation room.”

  A utility cart from the kitchen made it easier to lug around the dead weight. We stacked the bodies on top and headed to the observation room. Along the way we confiscated the remaining tubs of gray goo from Doc’s office, and Zita grabbed a stuffed animal from her room. The overloaded cart squealed as we walked like the thoughts in my head. “Mind telling me why we’re doing this?”

  “Eliminating loose ends,” she snapped. From irritation? No, anxiety. Why?

  We entered the observation room. Zita said, “Put one body at the console. The other two midway to the vault.” After that we dismantled Sonya’s permeation machine and scattered the parts. About ten minutes had passed since I’d faced down Fletcher.

  “Miles, do you trust me?”

  “Totally.” The question bothered me. “Why?”

  “We can’t allow any physical evidence of the taint and its effects to remain here. No witnesses, either.”

  “Okay,” I said, still not sure what she was getting at. My cell buzzed. “Elevator’s coming down. You should wait inside the conference room with the others. You don’t want to stay with me. I’ll probably be court-martialed.”

  She shook her head. “You don’t understand. We can’t be here. My plan requires a clean slate.” She paused and looked deeply into my eyes.

  “Miles! Activate the self-destruct for the observation room. Incinerate everything.”

  I frowned, not wanting to believe my ears. She wanted to die. I didn’t. “No.”

  She clutched my hand. “There’s no other way. We’re out of time and options.”