Year of the Black Rainbow

by Claudio Sanchez

  “Pearl, don’t you think that—“

  She whirled on him. “Where was He for my son!? Where was that cosmic motherfucker when my son’s life was spilling out onto the street? Where was He then!? When Ryan launched his crusade and thousands upon thousands died, where the hell was he? I’ll tell you where he was, Leonard. He never was! Or if he ever was, then he is long dead now and no longer a consideration. That,” and she pointed toward the Black Rainbow, “is nothing more than a trick conjured up by Wilhelm Ryan to celebrate his own greatness, and to scare the crap out of people, and if you think I’m going to be one of those terrified masses who looks up at it and trembles in fear of the Almighty Ryan or even the Almighty Himself, then you can just forget it! You know why? I don’t have any fear anymore! I’ve got nothing except my hatred for Wilhelm Ryan and for every weak-willed, softheaded, incompetent Mage who wasn’t able to stop that freak in his tracks! And if you don’t look up and see anything except the ‘Supreme Tri-Mage’ laughing down at you, then you are quite simply not the intelligent man I thought you were, and no different than any of those other powerless assholes who did nothing to stop him!’

  She stood there, her fists balled, her body trembling. Then, her rage seemingly spent, she turned from him and stormed away into the green house. He heard the door bang behind him. There was the shattering of glass, followed by a loud, “Goddammit!”

  “Do you want me to—?” he started to offer tentatively.

  “Leave it alone! Leave me alone! Just…” Her voice trailed off, punctuated by a broken sob.

  Hohenberger covered his face. He wanted to cry or scream or react in some manner, but he couldn’t. He felt drained of emotion. He kept telling himself that eventually the full impact of the past days would fully sink in and that he would be able to release his pent-up frustrations. But part of him wondered if he wasn’t just kidding himself. If he was, in fact, dead inside, thanks to all that had happened, and that this…this emptiness…was all he was ever going to feel, ever again. Hell, what if everything Pearl said turned out to be right? Of course, proving a negative was always problematic, so it was hard to believe that establishing once and for all that there was no God could ever be done definitively. But if it were possible…would Leonard even mind at this point? Would he truly care if he and Pearl—if Man—meant nothing in the scheme of the universe?

  He needed to get out. He needed to get away from his home, his lab, the green house, and this…this clearly insane creature who had taken up residence in his wife’s body. He needed to regain control over something, anything at this point.

  There was only one place for him to go.

  He fled the house and ran, and then walked, a mile to the glade. The glade wasn’t particularly distinctive; there were any number of spots like it in the forest. But Joseph had always been fond of that one place, saying that the particular way that the light filtered through the branches was unique. Plus there was a sizable rock, a boulder that he liked to sit on and just daydream. He called the glade “inspiration hideout,” claiming that he had his best ideas there.

  It was where Leonard and Pearl had laid their son to rest.

  Typically this was not something that local officials would have approved of, but there was so much going on in the world that it simply wasn’t the sort of thing they had time to worry about. Besides, Hohenberger certainly had enough—as he liked to call them—high friends in low places. His reputation as a scientist was formidable enough, and the money he had made from various medical breakthroughs which were now in common usage throughout Heaven’s Fence had earned him both money and the right to be left to his own devices whenever possible.

  What that boiled down to was: It was his son and he could bury him wherever the hell he saw fit.

  No headstone had been necessary. Instead he had carved Joseph’s name into the boulder that he had so enjoyed sitting upon.

  Leonard sat perched upon the rock, running his fingers gently over the indentation that was his son’s name. “Hey, Joey,” he said softly. It was what he had called him when he was a little boy. When he reached the ripe old age of eight he had loudly declared that “Joey” was a baby name and henceforth he would be addressed as “Joseph.” His parents had exchanged patient glances, shrugged in unison, and had called him that from then on, with the occasional slip receiving a scowl and a remonstration from their very determined youngster.

  “I, uhm…” He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I don’t know what to do, Joey. Your mom…she’s hurting so much, and I don’t have the words to help her or make her feel better. Maybe I should just back off and let time do the job. Except if you build something from clay and just leave it out in the heat, it becomes hardened. And I’m worried that your mother…that she’s going to become permanently what she is right now. That the fire of her anger is just going to bake her into something hard. The whole world’s gone crazy, Joey. It killed you, and it’s killing your mom, and I don’t have any answers.”

  He flopped backwards on the rock, his arms splayed to either side. His eyes were dams, a few blinks away from overflowing. He stared heavenward, stared up at the Black Rainbow, wondering if it was God, or Ryan, or something else entirely, and came to realize that he didn’t care. His son was dead; that was all that mattered. His son was dead, and whether the Rainbow was God’s disapproval or Ryan’s symbol of triumph, that was irrelevant. His son was still dead, and Wilhelm Ryan was responsible for it.

  “And the most terrifying thing,” he said as if still talking to his son, “is that we might take solace in the idea that this is the end of it. Now that he’s won, it’s all over. Except this is probably just the beginning. All of this was just a warm up for wherever Ryan’s schemes take him next. A man like Ryan…he doesn’t conquer just for its own sake. He is always looking to the next level. And it’s horrifying to think what the next level is going to be, considering what he’s done so far. I fear that…” He hesitated, trying to steady his voice. It was a sign of how much Hohenberger felt the need to be in control that he actually stopped and composed himself even though there was no one else around. “I’m afraid of what is to come. I am afraid what is going to happen to Pearl. I am afraid of what is going to happen to the world…to the worlds. And more than anything, I’m afraid that I’m going to spend the rest of my life feeling like this…of feeling helpless and—“

  “Fear not. Your time for fear is done.”

  Hohenberger was so startled that he twisted around to see the source of the voice and tumbled off the rock. He hit the ground, lying on the plot of dirt under which his son was lying. Leonard wasn’t thinking about that, though, because the voice was nothing like anything he’d ever heard. It was like the jingling of bells, of a thousand chimes, yet as ephemeral as the rustling of a butterfly’s wings.

  On the ground, he raised his eyes toward the speaker and instantly he covered them again.

  “Why are you doing that?” There was the faintest hint of amused curiosity in the voice.

  “I’ve—” His throat was constricting as if it had too much blood in it. “I’ve heard that to…to look upon…upon—”

  “To see our face is to die?”

  “Yes.”

  “You are a scientist. Are you going to take the word of others when personal discovery beckons?”

  Slowly, very slowly, Hohenberger looked up toward the being who had appeared from nowhere before him.

  It was a Prise, exactly as they had been described in all the literature. She floated there, unconcerned about her nakedness, suffused in a soft blue glow. Her wings were gently beating, keeping her elevated. The only thing approaching a garment was a tiara upon her head that glittered in the light.

  “Is my face that terrifying a thing to behold, that you are going to die as a result?”

  “I…that is to say…” He paused and then said, “No. No, it’s not. It’s…it is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”

  “I imagine it is. You have b
een chosen, Leonard Hohenberger.”

  “For…what?”

  ‘To stand against Wilhelm Ryan.”

  “Isn’t it…and I say this with all respect…” He was having trouble keeping his gaze focused upon her face. His eyes wanted to take in all of her beautiful body, and it was with conscious effort that he resisted. “Isn’t it a little late for that?”

  “It is never too late to do what is right.”

  “But he’s won! Ryan has won! He’s conquered the Mages! He has taken control of all twelve sectors! What else is there for him to accomplish that he can be stopped at?”

  “Do you truly wish to do nothing and thus learn the answer to that question?”

  He considered that, looking inward rather than at her. “No. My God, no.” Sparked by the mention of the name, he looked back up at her. “Is God responsible for the Black Rainbow?”

  “That is yet another question to which you do not truly wish to learn the answer. Now: Ask of me the only question that matters.”

  He was afraid to, and he knew why. She represented hope, something that was in short supply these days. Between the death of his son, and the rage against Ryan that was devouring his wife, he desperately wanted to believe that the Prise represented a means of rising up against him. But what if that was false hope? How much more disappointment could he endure before it crushed him completely. And yet he asked the question: “What can I do? I’m just one man.”

  “That is more than sufficient if the one man is the right man.”

  “And that’s me?” Despite the confidence in the Prise’s voice, and the glory of her presence, he was still dubious. “I’m the right man?”

  “You are the only man.”

  “And…what am I supposed to do?”

  “You will create a ground force. A force of such overwhelming strength that it will stop Wilhelm Ryan in his tracks.”

  “Really.” It was an understatement to say that Leonard was skeptical of the concept.

  “Yes. Really. And it is to be done in absolute secrecy. Ryan must not know this is being done, or he will stop the project before it can come to fruition.”

  “And how precisely am I going to accomplish this project? Am I going to pull one hundred thousand men out of my…” Suddenly he looked down, embarrassed, not wanting to finish the sentence out of respect for the celestial creature that had appeared before him.

  “Ass? Is that the word you were searching for?” He thought he heard a slight increase in the tinkling sound that might very well have been barely restrained laughter. Then it faded. “You will find that quality trumps quantity. You will not require one hundred thousand men to accomplish this goal.”

  “How many, then?”

  “Three.”

  “Th—?” He had to choke back a laugh, utterly convinced she had to be joking. “Three. Three against Ryan’s hordes?”

  “Yes. But they will not be any ordinary three. You will create them, and they will possess abilities beyond human ken. Beyond even the ken of Wilhelm Ryan.”

  “Create them?” Leonard could scarcely contemplate what she was suggesting. “Are you talking about ACG…Artificial Cellular Generation? With all respect, Miss…do you have a name?”

  “Yes. But it is not for you to speak.”

  “All…all right. Miss…Prise…look, yes, I’ve done things with ACG. More than anyone else, I’ve used it to grow skin grafts, organ replacements. And fractures...I’ve improved the healing time of sustained fractures. Small things, that have been boons to medical science and improved the overall quality of life. But you’re talking about…I don’t know, about growing human beings from scratch. And presumably imbuing them with abilities that will make them formidable enough to take down Wilhelm Ryan.”

  “That is correct.”

  “With all possible respect, Miss Prise, that is beyond my abilities. Even if I could fashion clones, or splice enough genes, to fashion a human being, it would take as much time to grow such a…a creature…as any other human being. Unless you’re suggesting we wait twenty, thirty years…”

  “You do not have that sort of time. You will have to expedite the growth process.”

  “But I don’t know how!”

  “Yes. You do. All you require is the creative spark.”

  “I…I don’t…”

  She glided forward, and Hohenberger wanted to fall back, to scramble away from her, to run as fast as possible. Instead he was paralyzed on the ground, and he could not determine for the life of him whether she was somehow holding him there with the power of her mind, or if he was simply too terrified to move.

  The Prise reached down toward him, extending her index finger, and she touched his forehead. A jolt, like a burst of electricity, leaped from her finger to his temple. He cried out, which immediately shamed him. To the best of his knowledge, this was the first time in recent history—perhaps in any history—where a member of the Prise had interacted in this manner with a mere human. And rather than embrace the moment, he had cried out in terror. What sort of sense of discovery was that?

  “Think of it as a divine spark,” she said gently.

  And suddenly, just like that, all fears and doubt went away.

  Formulae leaped into his head, and it wasn’t as if the Prise had placed them there. She had been correct about that; they had been present the entire time. They had simply been floating around in different parts of his brain and he had never made the connections before. It was like having several different destinations in mind and he had just been handed a roadmap so that he knew how to travel from one point to the other.

  “Of course,” he whispered. “Oh my God, of course. I’ve been an idiot. A complete idiot. How could I not have seen it? How…?”

  “It is clear now?”

  “Of course it’s clear.” He wasn’t bothering to look at her; he was too absorbed with the concepts thundering through him. “It’s all in the TP523. The synthetic 23-amino acid peptide I developed for fracture healing. I can use the TP523 to modulate expression levels of proteins that are primarily involved in the functional categories of cell growth. It would be a sort of an anti-cancer, except it would involve healthy cells instead of cancerous ones. The TP523 could hyper-accelerate the cell growth. Not only that, but the resulting creations would be functionally indestructible. Their cell replacement velocity would be so rapid that they could overcome any injury short of decapitation. But speed…speed of their creation will still be an issue. Perhaps an artificial bone structure…yes. Yes, that could make blood distribution even more efficient, especially if I could craft a techno-organic metal that…”

  Abruptly he remembered that he was not alone.

  Except he was. There was no sign of the Prise. Leonard was even beginning to wonder if she had, in fact, ever been there in the first place.

  It didn’t matter. He had other things on his mind.

  He burst into his home and Pearl was waiting for him. She was standing there in the middle of the living room, like a statue, and he had no idea how long she had been there waiting for him.

  He felt as if he needed to say something. Anything.

  “Pearl…every night I pray to God that you can rest. Seeing what this has done to you….it hurts me more than any man can bear. I’d give you anything—everything—if only I knew you’d take it.”

  She walked slowly toward him and he braced himself for more anger or accusations, or to have the words he’d just spoken thrown back in his face. Instead she took his hand, and he trembled and let out a sigh as she did so.

  “I hate everything I am becoming,” she said. “This hand,” and she squeezed his, “this hurt, my…my heart. I’m flirting with disaster. Please, let’s just take it a second at a time.”

  He did as she asked, then, holding her tightly, so hard that he had to back off lest he break her. Then he looked down at her and said, “You were right. Ryan has to be taken down, and I’m the one who’s going to do it.” He then gently set her aside. Even so s
he almost lost her footing and caught herself against the wall at the last moment. She watched him head toward his laboratory and wondered what the hell had just happened. Her husband would have been in no position to tell her. By the end of the day, the presence of the Prise would be little more than a distant memory for him. By the following morning, even that would be gone, and he would only know that while he had been in Joseph’s thoughtful place, inspiration had struck.

  And now he was preparing to strike as well.

  Chapter 8

  A Wretched Design

  While Hohenberger worked, the ebony stripe in the sky was changing Heaven’s Fence. There were incessant disputes as to the significance of the Black Rainbow; what it meant for the present, and what it portended for the future. Entire cults arose centered on either worshipping or disparaging the Black Rainbow. The reactions were typically extreme, divided between those who saw it as a sign that supported the rule of Wilhelm Ryan, and those who saw it as a condemnation of Wilhelm Ryan. Either way, how it related to Ryan was at the center of all such disagreements, and that suited Wilhelm Ryan just fine.

  The normally bright days that graced the Fence were now dingy and gray. Reports of respiratory infections increased tenfold; emergency clinics were filled with wheezing children and worried adults. Cases of depression became more widespread, bordering on the epidemic. The suicide rate began to rise, as did the homicide rate. Enthusiasts described the era as the “Year of the Black Rainbow.”

  And social scientists came to the conclusion that all that death was actually misdirected anger.

  The real target was Ryan. But, at least at first, people felt that Ryan was untouchable, unassailable, too well protected, and too powerful. So they channeled their rage and frustration at each other or even themselves.