Thursday Taster 10: Rainbow Catcher

Hello and Welcome to Thursday Taster again. Talented writers from all over the blogosphere gather together to give readers tasty parts of their work in progress, you can find the list here. 

This week I had some bad critique about a little part I added to chapter 1 so I'm asking you if you like it or not, and if there is anything about it that I should change. 

But first, the cover! How do you like it?  

(I should get different versions as soon as possible) 

 

This is supposed to explain how Jason found the fat man in the first place: 

He had had a long discussion with the doctor about the rainbow and the surgery. He didn’t want to alarm Clarissa so he never told her what came out of it, but she was getting worse, more quickly than ever. She needed the rainbow and fast. This time, he didn’t care about the means, so he went to the black market. It was illegal and considered stealing as the rainbow didn’t go through the general government taxation process, but emergencies required emergency measures. 

There was a bar in the darkest street of the city, a street where nobody bothered to change the broken lights anymore. Jason turned the handle to the right twice, then once to the left. The door whistled and steam rushed underneath before the door moved up. Jason waited for it to be high enough to enter. Once he had passed the entrance, the door sank to the floor with a loud noise that startled him. The bar was barely more lit than the street. Jason swallowed and walked to the center. An handimate was mechanically cleaning glasses with a dirty towel. Jason thought better than to talk to the robot, there could be recording devices on it for all he knew. He took a sit on a high stool on the side of the counter and waited, looking at the red light at the back of the room. A man placed a drink in front of him, something he didn't ask for, but he played along, turning the liquid in the glass, looking at the yellow reflection in it. The red light went off. 

"Your turn," the handimate said. 

Jason looked at it and at the man who raised a questioning eyebrow without a word, as if he was stranger to anything happening here. 

Jason shrugged and abandoned the didn't taste on the counter. He walked to the back of the room, to where the red light had been. A man hidden in a large grey cloak crossed his path. Jason couldn't see his face and the anonymity made him shiver, maybe he should have hidden his face too. 

The door was the same model as the one at the entrance. Jason turned the handle twice to the left and then once to the right in the opposite motion. The door didn't whistle this time but the steam still game out at the bottom. The vapor was thicker, as if to hide the inside from sight. Jason didn't wait for the door to be fully opened. He lowered his head and bent to enter. Once again, the door sank to the floor behind him. 

He was in a cabinet, not much larger than a broom closet. There was a small round table in the center and seats with green cushions on both sides. In between them, a shelve with a few books. Jason slid himself to sit on the left, his knees touching the seat on the other side. He took the third book from his side and opened it to page 217. The note served as a bookmark, just as expected. 

"We have a contact for you. Monday, same place, same time, put a red rose on your table." 

There was one more paper, an advertisement, folded in 4. Jason opened it: a black market seller of incredibly cheap rainbows, something, Jason could afford. He folded the ad and placed it in his jeans back pocket. He read the bookmark again, to make sure to memorise it, then, placed it at the center of the table. Blue fire appeared and Jason watched it burn. No traces left, a trap opened to swallow the ashes. The plan was in motion... Almost. Jason left the bar, trying not to feel happy or relieved, there was still things needing to be done. 

The man Jason had met that Monday was not the kind of man you could find in the phone book.

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