Colour Kid's Arc

Chapter 3 of 11

Colour Kid stepped away from the cracked ground with the warm orb cupped in both hands. The light inside it pulsed slow, like a small heart. Something pale and thin was crouched over the orb when he turned — a shape made of static and teeth, lapping at the captured hum. A small device blinked beside it on the dirt, stuck there like a flag. Lines of ink danced behind its glass, pink and yellow and blue, sending out a steady beat. Hexa Vire's pulse meter. She had left it. And it was singing to the whole city. From the far slope, lanterns moved between the trees. From the low road, a cold blue glow climbed the hill. One faction had set up a field station down there — a folding table covered in dotted, branching maps that twitched whenever the meter pulsed. Both sides were coming. Same coordinates. Same minute. Colour Kid knelt. The creature hissed and kept feeding. He looked at the meter and let colour pour out of his eyes. Pink soaked the casing. Yellow flooded the screen. The ink inside froze mid-dance, locked into one bright, stupid rainbow. The signal flatlined. The creature snapped its head up, robbed of its meal, and slithered back into the crack in the ground. The lanterns stopped. The blue glow stopped. Both factions stood on the hill, staring at each other across a silent, painted device — and at the boy between them. Elder Bright stepped out from behind a stone, hood down, eyes tired. "You just introduced them," he said. "They will not forget your face." Colour Kid looked at the two groups, then at the sealed shelter, then at the orb still warm in his hand. He had killed the signal. He had started something worse.