I am the rainbow

  The sudden darkness gave way to blinding white light, and a pure humming tohat had the feeling of crystal. Slowly, both faded and Gradie found himself in a hexagonal room with colored mirror walls and a circur table at the ter.

  “Oh man, this map!” Nova said, enthusiastically. “I haven’t seen this p years!”

  “Probably because we haven’t taken anyone brand new since Marcus,” Angel said, ione of someoalking in a church.

  “Wele to Colors,” a voice said from everywhere, reverbing off the gss like a tuning fork. It was a different voice then the o the entrao Gunmaze, and Gradie assumed it was one of the makers of this pce.

  “Use the mirrors to choose a color. Select a on at the ter table. You may ge both color and on during the game. Death results in a duel. Viay select respawn location based on color or prism, if one has been attuned. Have fun.”

  Half a sed ter, the same voice started up again, as if from a different audio file.

  “The game type is deathmatch. The goal is to score the highest Kill to pyer ratio. Good luck.”

  “Kill to pyer?” Gradie asked.

  “Yeah, so like the average kd ratio of any given party. It’s to baeams of different sizes,” Nova said, already at the table. Like Gradie, he and the other two were solid white, as if some big model maker in the sky had fotten to paint any of them.

  “So if a team of five gets five kills, that’s oo P, so a solo pyer would only have to get one kill to be even with them. Which on do you want? We’ll let you have first pick.”

  Nova motioo the hexagonal table, where Gradie found four ons.

  “Assault rifle, sniper, grenade uncher, shotgun.”

  Gradie picked up the assault rifle, a solid white hunk of what felt like an impossible blend of pstid metal formed into something halfway between an AR and AK ptform, with a top-mounted carrying handle and drastiana clip.

  Angel grabbed the shotgun and tossed Nova the sniper while Luke shouldered the grenade uncher. From the silent and immediate way they distributed the ons, Gradie detected a synergy he was still unfortably outside of.

  Nova waved at the mirror walls.

  “All right bro, now pick a color. Just shoot one.”

  The mirrors were red, green, blue, yellow, e, and purple. Gradie aimed down the iron sights, a three quarters ring with a post in the ter, and shot the red mirror. The gun kicked lightly and fshed with a big four-poiar of muzzle burst. The sound was muffled and he didn’t eve in his teeth. pared to the memory sims of the Vault, it stisation. pared to the gunfire in the Hardworlds, he almost ughed out loud.

  The red mirror vibrated from the bullet impad when it stopped shaking, the Gradie reflected in it was a much darker red. He looked down at his forearm and found it a deep scarlet. There were more pstic sounds around him as the twins shot other mirrors and Luke punched his.

  “Real quick, let me give you a crash course,” Nova said, now a solid e. “Your color effects a lot of things. Like you do more damage to materials and pyers of your opposite color, which for red is blue, but also you take more damage from yellow. I’m e, so I’m weak to purple but strong against green. It’s like two rock paper scissames, got it?”

  “And keep in mind you ge colors while you’re out there if we need a tactical advantage.” Angel had picked green.

  “And if you get all the colors in one game, something magical happens,” Luke said with mock drama, his smiling face a monoe blue.

  “Don’t spoil it, bro!” Nova said, like witnessing a sacrilege. Given the fact that he and the rest of them looked like freshly mioys in a crayon box, Gradie found his distress hirious.

  “Match starts in thirty seds,” the voice said.

  “All right, form up,” Luke said, sounding suddenly serious. The twins deferred to his ands, which Gradie found surprising given the obvious gap in experieh Gunmaze, and the formation ended up with Luke in the front, the twins staggered at his fnks, and Gradie iween them, but also staggered so he wouldn’t fg them.

  Suddenly, all the crete ands Philip had shouted in the clubhouse echoed through the child’s toy box surroundings, g strangely. Gradie went from feeling like the brging along to the professional QB asked to py a scrimmage at the local Y.

  “Ten,”

  Standing amidst his friends, holding a on, about to be dropped into an unfamiliar game where, as far as he knew, anything ossible, ected to an unknown but surely massive number of other pyers, and finally, at st, fident in his ability to do something other than embarrass himself, Gradie felt that hummiric, adrenaliasting feeling of excitement flow through him.

  Here was something he had dreamed about since he was a child. Here, maybe, at st, was the Otherworld equivalent of what the Hardworlds offered. A freedom to explore. A freedom to test himself.

  “One, Fight!”

  There was a fsh ht light, and Gradie khey had all been turned into a rainbow and beamed down to the map below. Suddenly, they were in a sunken room with multicolored walls, standing on a rge ft ptform of solid green material that felt like somethiween pstid felt beh his feet. The sky above was a simple light blue gradient, and shapes of rainbow floated u, like ks of legos stuck together.

  Angel pointed up at the sky. His voice came over the s.

  “Our best move would be to get up to one of those orbitals and attuo its crystal. We o find a reflector.”

  “Right here.” Nova pointed, and Gradie noticed a faint rainbow beam ing from somewhere oher side of the far wall up towards a top-shaped k of rainbow blocks hanging in the sky.

  Angel nodded.

  “Right. Let’s go for it. Gradie, remember, attack blue, avoid yellow.”

  They moved in formation through the tall regle cut into the far wall and found themselves in a downward sloping wide hallway that ended in a slice of quasi sunlight illuminating what at this distance Gradie could only guess was some kind of multicolored crater. As they moved fradie noticed openings to other tunnels and passageways in the sides of the hall, and even pits and shafts. There was very little gradieo anything, every shadow was a solid quadriteral or rhombus, every surface was oo made the recesses of his ons and his allies stand out starkly, and he guessed that was the point.

  For the first time, he noticed the weight of his Avatar, like a thin yer of wet cloth spread tightly over him, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that his motions were somewhat deyed, though when he swiped the rifle in front of his face, it seemed to move iime. With every step, the sensation lessened, and he wasn’t sure if that was due to him getting used to the feeling, or the Avatar “learning” how he moved. He hope it was the former. The st thing he wanted art of this pce learning how he did anything.

  Just before they got to the end of the passage, a solid yellow ser beam bisected the opening from the tht to the bottom left, then vanished as the gunshot echoed down the hall.

  “Shit! Hug the walls,” Luke hissed on the unicator and fanned one hand backward.

  They lined up on the right wall with Gradie at the rear and stalked towards the opening. Something exploded and more ser guh a faster ce echoed from the shaft just outside the opening, which grade could now see was ringed by balies and ptforms and riddled with shadowed openings. Just outside their own hallway, the baly snted up to the left and down to the right.

  “All right bros, eyes open. I’m gonna try a a shot.” Nova moved up with his sniper shouldered.

  “Watch the rear.” Luke remihem, while stepping across the hallway to the other wall, where he took aim at the left side of the baly. Angel aimed at the right side and Gradie aimed back dowhey had e from.

  Just dim hallway and the shadows of the various offshoots. Laser sounds and dull explosions and other sounds he didn’t reize echoed out of some of them. He could hear Nova stepping up to the gap slowly, his footsteps sounding like stooise that Gradie knew lified by the game.

  “Shit!” Nova hissed in shock, his voice breaking out into the air and eg with the unicatradie turned back to the front and saw movement out in the shaft and brought his gun around in an instinct. By the time he realized what it was, Nova and Luke were already ughing.

  “It’s just a block. Rex.” Angel’s voice was solely on the s, but his ugh echoed in the hall. The solid yellow block floated zily up the shaft and disappeared past the top of the opening.

  Gradie aimed back down the hall, a something strange.

  Nostalgia. Déjà vu. He guessed it was because this all felt like the archetype of an online shooter, and that the map had some resembo one he had pyed long ago when games came on cartridges and dial up still lingered, but the expnation was g. There was something else about it. Like he had dreamed it and fot.

  “All right, we’re clear,” Nova said.

  “Ok. block that es up, we should be on it,” Angel said.

  “tact right.” Luke’s voice, even eg dreamily in the s, was like a live current jumping from Gradie’s ear to his nervous system. His training moved him before his mind could catch up, and he swiveled back to the front in time to see Luke fire a greh a cobalt hued fsh and puff of smoke. Half a sed ter, the explosion echoed out in the shaft.

  “Got that mother fucker. Oh shit, hello!”

  Luke pivoted in a way that reminded Gradie of his gunfights in the Hardworlds, but the movement was more twitchy here, as if gravity and Luke’s muscle speed were farther out of whack from their Real terparts.

  Another burst of blue smoke.

  “tact! Two floors down!”

  A rainbow of projectiles soared through the opening, and only about half of them came from below. Luke stepped backward firing and glided over the ground.

  “And every fug where else too!”

  He side-stepped and got ready to charge the opening again, but Nova stopped him.

  “One sec, making some cover.” He shot the ground with his sniper and the yellow beam took a man-sized k out of the green material in a burst like a monoed glitter bomb.

  “Hell yeah. Hey, shht here!” Luke poio the ceiling ten yards from the opening.

  “Get me like an angle.” He made a motion with his hand and Nova nodded with a smile.

  “I got you bro, I got it.” He shot five times in a slow semi auto til a jagged tunnel broke out into the shaft at an angle.

  “Fuck yeah!” Luke aimed up into the new hole and stepped bad forth until he had a bead on something and fired.

  “Shit. They scattered. you make me one in the floor too?”

  “They’re thinning out,” Angel said, peeking around the er. Out in the shaft, the rainbow storm of beams and bombs that had been crosshatg the open space had died down.

  Angel looked up in the air then down as far as he could without stig his head out.

  “Another block should be ing up. We should go for it.”

  Luke abahe fresh el Nova had carved in the floor and crept towards the edge of the hallway.

  “Shit, all right yall, serpentine. Don’t make it easy on em. Gradie, Get up here.”

  “Hit it with your bomb when it’s about two levels down,” Angel said. “That will be nal.”

  “Ok bros here it es,” Nova said, looking through the hole in the ground.

  Angel and Luke were hugging both walls, peeking into the shaft. Nova slinked up behind his brother with his sniper raised.

  “Here we go,” Luke said, and his grenade uncher went off with a ‘k’, and an instant ter an explosion fshed in the ter of the open space, blue fme sending yellow shards flying off of something out of sight.

  “Cover me!” Angel said, at about the same time as a red bomb, responding to Lukes shot, exploded on the wall outside the opening.

  “Bro wait,” Nova yelled, but Angel was already sprinting out into the shaft. He shot the ground at his feet with his shotgun, which to Gradie’s surprise, shot him up into a high jump.

  “What the fuck!” Luke said, ughing, as he unched gre seemingly random pces.

  “Cover him! Cover him!” Nova screamed, firing his sniper as fast as he could, which was not very fast. Gradie, trigger fig from the sounds of shooting eg down the hall for the past five minutes, sprinted up to the opening and aimed out at the three walls that he could see.

  He was just in time to watgel nd dead ter i Luke’s bomb had carved out of the ter of the rising yellow block, fire another round at his feet, and unch himself at a purple k of wall directly across from them. He fired again while still in the air, bsting a man-sized pit in the wall, and nded i, pressing himself as ft as he could, looking like a green stain on the purple square. Projectiles of all colors followed him the entire way.

  “Go! Go!” Nova yelled, still firing, but Luke was already sailing out towards the rising block. He had shot a bomb at his feet, and it had unched him about triple the height that Angel’s shotgun had, and as he arced through the air, he fired ahree bombs before he nded on the block, and the rain of colored death lessened signifitly.

  But as Luke settled on the rising block, the formerly haphazard sprays of fire verged on him. He gnced up at the opening and caught Gradie’s eye, (or so it seemed in his mirrored shades) just for a moment, and that was all it took.

  Gradie stepped up to the opening and y into everything with his pstic AR, and immediately felt anaping differeween Gunmaze and the Hardworlds. The experience urely analog, hollow, unresponsive somehow. At first, feeling fused him, but as he squeezed the trigger over and over, it clicked. In the Hardworlds, and even in the Vault sims meant to simute them, there had been a responsiveness in his gunfire beyond the physical iioween flesh aal. Though he hadn’t ever noticed it at the time, he was now sure that his Spirit had been subtly pushing on the Hardworlds with every shot, alteriy just slightly. Here in Guhe game wasn’t up for debate.

  Another more minor difference, was that the sound was anemic, the feeling impotent, pared to the echoes of gunfire and whispers of recoil in his head, and for a moment he was sure the enemies would ugh and gun him down, but instead he got ooy soldier looking mother fucker with a full burst of maroon tracers and his rainbow colored friends disappeared behind the baly.

  It took a moment, by which time Gradie had already moved on t at other barely visible targets, for him to notice that the guy he had shot had turned white and disied in a burst of white light.

  “Jump bro!” It was Nova, who at some point had made it onto the rising block, where Luke and Angel squatted and fired as fast as their triggers would let them.

  As colored things of all kinds whizzed by around him and broke aparpt pieces of the hallway like gss, Gradie took a few steps backwards, then stomped forward in a rushed sprint and jumped out the opening, his leap taking him much farther and straighter than any long jump in the real world ever could, as if this pces gravity had sensed his iion and suddenly loosened up.

  As he sailed through the air, he realized the battle raging in the shaft was much rger than he had expected. Rather than there being only a few other levels above and below them, each holding about five or so erying to shoot them, as he had imagihere were at least ten levels iher dire, fading into soft blue light above and dark shadow below, each belg colored beams and bursts and bsts everywhere. He stared at it all, open mouthed, until something whizzed by his head. A burst e gunfire.

  Another side effect of the game’s flexible physics was that he could easily turn and fire as he sailed through the air. He held dowrigger and fahe baly across from him, where another AR gunner and a sniper were trying to track his flight, but weren’t quite leading him enough. He sprayed their alcove and they dove to cover. A blue bomb sailed past him and exploded two levels up, sending a green body flying that disied midair.

  Holy shit, this is awesome.

  He turned back to ptform and nded in a bat roll o Luke. For a split sed, they smiled at each other.

  “This shit is…” Gradie started, but was cut off by a solid yellow beam that bloomed out of his upper left peripherals and glowed just under his .

  The world froze, then turned pletely bd white, and he fell right through it at near instantaneous speed. He zipped down through the ptform and everything else in a fra of a sed, his body glowing and blinding him, like he had been turned into light and bounced off a mirror.

  Thehing was silent, and he was standing in a solid white room, with just enough shadow over everything to give him a general idea of the forms. His hands still clutched his rifle, though he was now in a standing position, and the rifle and his arms were now the same white as everything else.

  “Fight!” a voice said from the ceiling, and something moved on the edge of the room.

  Wele to Gunmaze. ime, 1v1 me bro! episode, duel.