The streets of Chromapolis were still alight with colours, when Graydon left Chromadyne. It was late afternoon and the autumn sky still provided daylight. Soon it would shift to a curated purple lavender dusk.
With all the light panels, glowing storefronts and neon signage, to Graydon the current brightness felt sharp.
The afternoon crowd was on their way home or heading towards the many bars, restaurants or leisure centres Chromapolis had to offer. The city was always teeming with life.
Graydon knew it was silly, but the events at the office had put him on edge and somehow he felt like he was being watched. Instead of heading home straight away, he asked his wristband for a more toned down detour which took him down a side street, away from the main thoroughfare and into a narrow alley where the light was dimmed. The walls were covered in washed-out graffiti, only half erased by Chromapolis’ maintenance bots, the City Weavers. They kept the city clean, maintained the lighting panels, removed impurities and were so subtle about it that you hardly ever saw them. In fact, there was a saying that you could consider yourself lucky, if you spotted one. Most people only ever saw them at the monthly City Weaver Dance Performance the council put on mainly for image reasons and as a popular event for tourists to the rainbow city, as was Chromapolis unofficial name.
Apparently, the graffiti here in the alley had been redone so many times it could no longer be wholly erased, despite the automated maintenance crew. In a way, Graydon thought this was comforting and he took a moment to contemplate, why he felt that way.
A faint irregular crackling noise caught his attention. It sounded like a broken light unit. Something he hadn’t heard in ages. “Find the cracks,” he mumbled, repeating the words from the message that tasted foreign on his tongue. Had it been a prank? A joke? Or, indeed, something serious? He turned his head slowly, scanning the alley to find the origin of the noise. His eyes landed on a small, battered holo-projector mounted above a door. It‘s projection was flickering, shifting erratically between static and faint geometric patterns. Another thing that had slipped past the City Weavers maintenance routine.
Graydon stepped closer. The shapes on the projector coalesced into a symbol he didn’t recognize: a jagged circle surrounded by triangles like that of an historical compass and some curved lines like rays. Bits and pieces were torn from them. It looked like a fractured sun. Beneath it, a single word appeared:
“Entropy.”
His breath caught.
Before he could react, the door beneath the projector swung open, revealing a dim staircase that descended into darkness.
Graydon hesitated. This wasn’t sus at all, he thought to himself ironically.
Clearly, he should just walk away, forget the cryptic message and carry on with the monotony that was his life. But something deeper, an instinct he couldn’t explain, compelled him forward.
He stepped inside. The door closed behind him with a soft click. He was plunged into shadow and instantly felt trapped. His heart was racing, so he took a moment to calm himself, taking a deep inhale, and immediately regretted it. The air was cool, but tasted stale and metallic. He stood perfectly still. His eyes were slowly adjusting to the pale sickly green emergency light at the bottom of a narrow staircase that lay ahead of him. Had he not stopped, he might well have tripped and taken the express route down. He guessed he was probably in the maintenance or storage space of some obscure store.
This was absurd. He should turn around, push the door back open, and walk away. Whatever this was, it wasn’t a place for him to be.
And yet, it aligned too well with the message, the file, the fractured colour wheel. The message had mentioned entropy and said for him to look for cracks that where supposedly everywhere. He figured that here was as good enough a place to start as anywhere else. And it did feel connected, though he couldn’t yet explain how and why he had come here, of all places.
The stairs led to a long, low corridor lined with exposed pipes that glistened faintly in the greenish light. Graydon thought he could hear the periphery of Chomapolis‘ tech, whirring and buzzing rhythmically like a heartbeat. Down here, the walls were covered in faded posters and more graffiti, most of it illegible or obscured due to the various layers.
But here and there, patterns emerged. The same jagged circle he’d seen on the holo-projector appeared scrawled in chalk or scratched into the walls. All of this was accompanied by cryptic phrases:
“The Spectrum Lies.”
“Truth is in the Shadows.”
“Entropy Calls.”
“Freedom’s a Scream”
Graydon ran his fingers over one of the symbols, the paint rough against his skin. Whoever had scrawled these messages had been desperate. Or mad.
At the far end of the corridor was a battered door. It was unremarkable; its probably once-bright surface now dulled by time and grime. The jagged sun symbol from the holo-projector was carved faintly into its surface, nearly obscured by years of wear.
Graydon hesitated for a moment. Then he reached for the handle, his hand trembling slightly. It was cold to the touch, and for a moment, he thought it wouldn’t budge. But then, with a soft creak, the door swung inward, revealing a room bathed in more pale green lights.
The space was cluttered with mismatched furniture: an old sofa patched up with duct tape, a table stacked with flickering monitors, and a tangle of cables snaking across the floor. At the far end of the room stood a figure, half-hidden in shadow, cloaked in a patchwork of greys, its face obscured by a makeshift mask that resembled broken shards of glass arranged into an approximation of a human visage. Then, the person moved and there was something precise and methodical about the movements. Graydon realised that whoever it was, was adjusting some sort of dials on an ancient-looking control panel.
Graydon cleared his throat.
The figure ignored him at first, finishing whatever adjustment it was making before slowly facing him. When the person spoke, the voice was calm, almost casual.
“Good. You came.”
Graydon hesitated. “You sent the message?”, he exclaimed with surprise.
The figure tilted its head slightly. “No, the message found you. That’s how it works, Graydon Pallor,” the voice low and gravelly.
Graydon froze. “How do you know my name?”
The figure stepped into the light, revealing a wiry man. Up close, his clothes looked as though he’d scavenged them from a dozen different eras. Around his neck hung a silver pendant with the fractured sun symbol etched into it. Above the mask his hair was a sandy blond mane streaked with gray, with some straight lengths falling over the mask. Graydon tried to focus on the eyes staring through the outlook of the mask. From what he could tell the man‘s eyes were dark, but in the dim light, the pupils were dilated making them seem almost black.
“You’ve been walking in grayscale your whole life,” the man said, his tone strangely reverent. “That makes you one of us, whether you realise it or not.”
Graydon frowned. “One of who?”
“The Spectrumless.” The man replied.
Graydon blinked. The word sounded absurd, like something out of a bad novel. “Listen, I don’t know what you think you know about me, but—”
The man raised a hand, cutting him off. “You’ve felt it, haven’t you? The cracks. The fractures in the perfect, endless rainbow city. The things that don’t quite fit.“
“What does that mean?” Graydon asked, his voice sharper than he’d intended. “What is this place?”
The figure moved closer. “This is where the truth begins, where the lies unravel. You see the city as they want you to see it,” the figure continued. “But the cracks are spreading. And soon, even they won’t be able to hide what’s underneath.”
Graydon stepped closer, his eyes fixed on the mask, trying to see through it. “Who are you?”
The figure’s head tilted again, the shards of the mask catching the green light. “A friend. For now.”
“And what do you want from me?”
The figure was silent for a long moment before responding. “We need someone who can see the cracks for what they are. Someone who was raised and equipped to step outside the spectrum.”
Graydon frowned. “I don’t even know what that means.”
“You will,” the figure said simply.
Graydon hesitated. He thought of the colour wheel with missing colours, the message that had vanished without a trace, and a sudden sense of wrongness that had he now realised had been gnawing at him all day.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, though the words felt hollow.
The man chuckled, a dry, humourless sound. “You will. You wouldn’t have come down here if you didn’t.”
Before Graydon could respond, an almost deafening throbbing noise sounded and the room was plunged into darkness.
“Stay still,” the man whispered urgently.
Graydon froze. The air seemed to thrum with energy, and in the darkness, faint shapes began to form. Cracks in the air, like lightning, only made of pure black darkness that cut through the green glow like fractures in glass, that reminded Graydon of the strange figures’mask.
“They want you to see,” the man’s voice came from somewhere beside him, low and trembling. “And now you can no longer look away.”
Graydon stared at the cracks, the jagged black lines trembling against the green haze. They looked impossible. It was as though the fabric of reality had been torn open, exposing something darker, colder, and vast beyond comprehension. Graydon reached out to touch the cracks, but they had already vanished.
“What… what are they?” he asked.
“The truth,” the man replied. His tone now reverent, almost worshipful. “This city, this world? It’s built on colour and light, but they don’t tell you how fragile it is. The cracks are the spaces in between. Where the light dies. Where the Spectrum lies.”
Graydon blinked, trying to make sense of the man’s cryptic words. “I don’t understand. What does this have to do with me?”
The man turned to him. Graydon was accustomed to all kind of eccentricities people in Chromapolis wore, but this man’s mask truly creeped him out.
“You’ve always seen differently“ , the man remarked, and as if responding to Graydon’s reaction, he took off the mask. His face was younger than Graydon had expected, maybe mid-fourties, The skin was pale, almost like porcelain which stood in strong contrast to the sharply carved cheekbones and thin lips. He looked down at the mask in his left hand. „A rejuvenation mask, that protects the skin from random light projections“, the man remarked thoughtfully. he returned his gaze to Graydon. „Like me, you reject their colours, their distractions. That makes you both a threat and an opportunity. They don’t know it yet, but you’ve already started to unravel their system.”
“‘They’? Who are you talking about?”
The man tilted his head as though the answer should have been obvious. “Chromadyne. The Spectrumists. The ones who built this prison of light and colour. But we” he gestured to the empty room around him, “We are the Spectrumless. And we’re here to bring it all down.”
Graydon stepped back instinctively, his hand brushing against the edge of the table. “You’re insane. This is insane.”
“Insanity is just clarity that doesn’t fit the frame,” the man replied calmly.
The room shuddered again. This time, the cracks pulsated faintly before fading back into the shadows. The man stepped forward, extending his right hand.
“You can walk away from this, Graydon. Pretend you never saw it; return to your grayscale life. But you know you’ll never forget. Or, you can stay, and I’ll show you just how deep the cracks go.”
Graydon hesitated. The part of him that craved safety, routine, and invisibility screamed at him to leave, to run back to the polished sterility of Chromadyne and bury himself in the comfort of meaningless work. But another part, the part that had driven him to open that message, to follow the jagged circle into these shadows, knew he couldn’t.
He reached out and shook the man’s hand.
The man introduced himself as Jenson Kale, a former Chromadyne engineer turned Spectrumless leader. Over the next few hours, Jenson explained the movement’s philosophy, their theories about the Spectrum, and their belief that Chromapolis was more than just a carefully engineered and augmented city.
“We call it The Chroma Veil,” Jenson said, pacing in front of the monitors. “A system that overlays the world with colour and light, manipulating everything from mood to memory. It’s why you can’t see the cracks unless you reject the Spectrum. Once you step outside their prism, the fractures become obvious.”
Graydon settled onto the fraying sofa, unsure if sitting down in this strange underground lair meant agreeing to something he didn’t yet understand. Jenson Kale was pacing before him, his fingers twitched as if invisible strings were tugging at him. When he spoke he gestured as if he were pulling ideas from the air and weaving them into his words.
“You think you work for them, Pallor?” Jenson barked, his voice careening between amusement and anger. “No, no, no. You don’t work for Chromadyne. Nobody works for Chromadyne. You breathe Chromadyne. You drink Chromadyne. You are Chromadyne. Every thought you have, every smile, every tear. It’s all curated, filtered, adjusted, until it’s not even yours anymore!”
Graydon frowned, unsure whether to respond. Sure, the many filters made you look better and yes, probably even your tears. That didn’t mean they were no longer yours. Graydon disagreed, but Jenson didn’t seem to pick up on it and saw Graydon’s contemplative silence as encouragement.
“They’ve built a rainbow cage,” he continued, gesturing wildly. “A perfect, shimmering prison made of colours so bright, so pleasant, that you don’t even realize the bars are there. They don’t dominate you, no, that’s old-fashioned. They seduce you. They spoon-feed you happiness, productivity, and connection. And you eat it up because you think you’re choosing it. You’re not. It’s choosing you.”
“Okay, but why?” Graydon now asked hesitantly. “What’s the point of all this… manipulation?”
Jensen stopped mid-stride, his eyes narrowing with a feverish intensity. “Because it’s easier than letting you see the truth. Easier than letting you notice that the world outside this painted illusion is rotting. Progress has stalled. The oceans are rising, the cities are crumbling, and nobody cares because Chromadyne’s apps tell them they’re happy. And when everyone’s happy, who needs questions? Who needs answers?”
Jenson let his rhetorical questions hang in the air, but the silence was broken by his shallow and erratic breath. The man was panting as if he’d just run a marathon of thought.
“You sound like you’ve put a lot of thought into this,” Graydon said carefully, unsure if he was placating a genius or indulging a lunatic.
Jenson chuckled , then plopped into a battered chair across from him. “I used to build it, Pallor. The Chroma Veil. I designed the algorithms that link colours to your emotions. Blue for calm, yellow for focus, orange for creativity, amber for connection, red for passion, green for rejuvenation. Need I go on? It’s brilliant. Elegant. And utterly terrifying once you realize what it’s doing.”
Graydon leaned forward. “So why did you leave?”
Jensen laughed, the sound sharp and brittle. “Leave? They kicked me out when I started asking the wrong questions. When I started seeing things I wasn’t supposed to see.”
Before Graydon could press further, a soft, sing-song voice interrupted them.
“Jenson, darling, you’re scaring the poor boy.”
Graydon turned to see a middle-aged woman emerging from the shadows, also draped in swaths of mismatched fabric that looked like they’d been dipped in ash. Her blond hair was in a wild tangle intertwined with silver and gold threads. Some were beaded, some streaked with smears of what might have been paint, and her eyes glittered with an unsettling mix of brilliance and madness.
“Marigold Crayona, but everyone calls me Goldie,” she announced with a dramatic bow. “Artist, visionary, and occasional prophet . Welcome to our grayscale underground, Mr. Pallor.”
Graydon stared, unsure whether to laugh or back away.
Goldie grinned. “Oh, don’t look so worried. We won’t make you drink the Kool-Aid. Though, if you’re curious, I have a few experimental blends…”
“Goldie,” Jensen snapped, his tone tinged with impatience.
She waved him off, plopping onto the sofa beside Graydon with the ease of someone who had no respect for personal space. “Ignore him. He’s always so dramatic. Now, tell me, have you ever seen the Shadow Spectrum?”
“The what?” Graydon asked, bewildered.
Goldie’s eyes widened as she leaned in conspiratorially. “The colours beyond colour, darling. Frequencies of light that don’t register to the human eye but leave a trace in the mind. Shadows that aren’t shadows. I’ve seen them, felt them, on the verge of sleep. Shadows like men with hats that hide in the cracks, in the places where the veil starts to fray.”
Graydon glanced at Jenson, expecting him to dismiss Goldie’s rambling, but he simply nodded as if this were entirely reasonable.
“She’s not wrong,” Jenson said. “The shadow people are a common phenomenon of sleep paralysis and the cracks in the Spectrum are real, you’ve seen them yourself. If Goldie says she’s seen what’s beyond them, I believe her.”
Goldie beamed. “Thank you, darling. At least someone appreciates my genius.”
Graydon shifted uncomfortably. “And how does this… Shadow Spectrum help us?”
Jenson shrugged helplessly, but Goldie tapped her temple. “It’s a map, sweetie. A map to the truth. To the core of reality. But maps are tricky things. You need the right tools to read them.” She reached into the folds of her chaotic outfit and pulled out a battered notebook, thrusting it into Graydon’s hands.
“Take this,” she said. “It’ll lead you to the Spectral Library. Seek out Professor Tilda Umber. Umber is clever and knows things.
Graydon hesitated, flipping through the notebook. It was filled with sketches of shapes and symbols, scribbled notes, and bizarre diagrams that made no immediate sense.
“Why me?” he asked.
Goldie tilted her head, her grin softening into something almost gentle. “Because you’re already halfway there, darling. You’ve see the cracks, you’ve probably even seen them before even if you hadn’t realized it.“
Jenson now stood, his intensity returning „Once you’ve seen them, there’s no unseeing”, he added. „There is no coming back from this, Graydon. Seek the Spectral Library, seek Umber,“
Graydon looked between the two of them, the notebook in his hands.
He really wanted to leave now, he clutched the notebook and feigned coming to a resolution, hoping it would do the trick.
“I’ll go,” he said.
[1]Your right, it is and Crayon is too, whereas crayon (not capital C isn’t) I think a merge of it will work and will go for Crayona.