The Primary Protocol: A Cyberpunk Espionage Tale of Eldritch Horror (The Dossiers of Asset 108 Book 2)

by JM Guillen

  From the Book

  “Fuck!” Caprice screamed in pain as the projectile caught her in the shoulder, spraying blood. The shot tore through her and knocked her back. One of the pistols, my Glock, clattered to the floor.

  I dove for Caprice.

  “Michael!” She pumped her legs, trying to back-scrabble away from the man, her eyes wide. “You have to—!”

  “Bishop!” The man who had shot her took cover behind one of the pillars. “You are adrift! We are here on recovery! Override code initiating. Clearance level Alpha, code zero, two—”

  “No!” The snarl on Caprice’s face turned to pure hatred. She lurched sideways, so that she could have a line on the man calling out the numbers and fired and fired and fired.

  The man’s voice cut off with a wet, choking gasp.

  Caprice collapsed on the floor, limp and lifeless.

  “Caprice!” Seeing her fall felt like taking a hit in the gut with a sledgehammer. I stood there, stunned at this turn of events.

  “Bishop.” The speaker was the man with the Alabama drawl.

  I turned toward the singing flame, tears of rage running down my face. As I looked through it, I could see Gideon’s face, furious and stricken. Behind him, another man stepped forward into view.

  I knew that man.

  “That’s some horseshit right there, Hoss.”

  The Paean of Sundered Dreams

  Rationality Zero

  The Herald of Autumn

  Collateral Damage

  Handmaiden’s Fury

  On the Matter of the Red Hand

  The Primary Protocol

  Regarding Oaths and the Whispering Flame

  Slave of the Sky Captain

  Wormwood Event

  Aberrant Vectors (pre-release)

  A Myriad of Worlds…

  This story is the second in its series, the Dossiers of Asset 108, regarding the continuing adventures and trials of Michael Bishop, a man who does not even remember his own name. It is a story of a shadowed world, a world where creatures of outer darkness are hunted by a faceless organization, the Facility.

  This series is itself a strand in The Paean of Sundered Dreams, a multi-genre, universe-spanning array of tales with Lovecraftian themes.

  Some of the strands of this work are science fiction, some fantasy, and some steampunk, but they share the same horrific universe. They weft and weave together, each leaving breadcrumbs of clues for the next story.

  Each tale echoes a beating heart of darkness, cackling quietly in the shadows of existence.

  These stories may be enjoyed as individual series or as part of the Paean in its proper order. If you are a reader who is only interested in Michael Bishop and his adventures, that series may be found here.

  If, on the other hand, you are the kind of reader who cannot rest until every secret is found, for whom genre is unimportant, and who will travel a wide and vast multiverse to learn things man was not meant to know…

  Welcome, wayward wanderer.

  This was written for you.

  The Primary Protocol

  Novel two in the Dossiers of Asset 108

  A tale in the Paean of Sundered Dreams

  JM Guillen

  Irrational Worlds

  BA-DOOM! The sound rumbled like angry thunder. The room shook, and the lights flickered. I blinked, trying to focus on where I was.

  I’m forgetting something. An odd, persistent buzz clawed in the back of my mind, making it hard to think.

  “What’s that sound?” I looked at the beautiful woman who was buttoning my shirt, trying to place her. She had long, dark hair, and her skin looked creamy, soft. As I gazed at her, she reached for a suit jacket and handed it to me.

  I know her. Her name hung just at the edge of my mind, and I felt embarrassed that I couldn’t immediately call it forth.

  “I’ve already told you. Twice.” Her slightly accented voice sounded distracted as she finished with my shirt. She took a step back and looked me up and down. “You’ve forgotten both times, Michael. Going over it again is a waste of our time.”

  I blinked, trying to push away the incessant buzzing sensation. My tongue felt thick, and my mouth tasted absolutely foul. I looked around, hoping to find anything that would clear my head.

  I sat on the edge of a metal table in a dingy room that was relatively large, just over a hundred square meters. The ceiling hung oddly low, and cabinets and a rack of medical equipment lined the wall nearest me. The chart of human physiology on the wall looked well over ten years old. Dingy, cracked tile, once probably white, covered the floor and walls. Four separate doors broke the monotony of the tile, two pairs on opposite sides of one another.

  The room had an earthy, visceral smell that reminded me of being sick after a night of cheap whiskey.

  “It smells awful, whatever we are.” I wrinkled my nose against the scent, trying to identify it.

  “We can leave as soon as you can walk.” The woman eyed me, her face lighting up with a warm smile as she tugged my vest into place.

  When she turned for my jacket, I looked around again. As I slipped my arms into the expensive suit jacket, she opened up one of the cabinets, and reached inside. Across the way stood a series of large, silvery canisters lining the walls with cables and tubes running like wet, almost organic tendrils into a misshapen lump of what looked like a vivisected lung.

  What? I squinted at the odd, pink mass. Was it pulsing?

  “I seem to remember…” I trailed off as I tried to push through the muddy sludge in my mind. Helplessly struggling to recall anything useful, I watched at her, hoping she would say something that brought it all back.

  “Your memory will return. I hope.” Her smile turned sweet, affectionate smile. “I’m focused on getting us out of here currently.”

  “Right.” I smiled too when her name drifted back to me. “Caprice.”

  Remembering her name was like the sun dawning in my mind. I didn’t know how it couldn’t have been apparent before. She was beautiful as always, with her long hair cascading around her shoulders in sultry waves. Just the way she looked at me with those dark, curious eyes made me happy.

  “Yes.” Her smile grew wider. “I’m glad to see that I am memorable, at least.”

  “I don’t understand what’s happening.” I leaned forward on the metal table and studied her intently, feeling ten-thousand things, important things, caper at the edges of my mind.

  “I know you don’t.” She lifted one hand to the side of my face, caressing me gently. “I’ve explained things several times, Michael.” She sighed softly. “It’s useless. You keep forgetting. I don’t know why.”

  “Do you know where we are?” I scanned the room to see if I could find more clues.

  “I know my way around a bit but not where we are exactly.” She bit her lip in a way I had always found endearing. “There are dangerous men here, but I don’t know who they are or what they want.”

  “Dangerous men?” The thought seemed foreign, almost alien.

  She sighed. She seemed sad, as if she had lost something.

  “Anything I say, you’re going to forget all over again.” She held my gaze. “I can’t stop and explain every little thing. I’m afraid it comes down to one thing.”

  “What thing?” I held my breath waiting for whatever awful news she had. The buzzing in my mind grew physically painful.

  “It comes down to trust. Do you trust me, Michael?” Her voice was like liquid
caramel, but it was difficult to focus on.

  “I do.”

  She smiled brilliantly at me and gave me a brief kiss, a fleeting taste of heaven, gone all too soon. Her eyes turned serious as she gazed at me.

  “Then you must do as I say. You mustn’t question every little thing, yes? Just trust me and do as I tell you. Can you do that?”

  I wanted to hesitate, to think, but the inside of my head buzzed as if I’d touched a live wire to my tongue. Still, Caprice made sense. I nodded slowly.

  “There’s my guy. Don’t worry, you’re just a little bleary. You’ll get back to being yourself in a few moments.”

  Being myself? Something about the tone of her voice, combined with those specific words seemed to snag in my mind. Who am I supposed to be?

  The grating buzz in my head immediately drowned out the thought. I held one hand to my temple, blinking madly as I tried to clear my mind.

  “We need to hurry.” She glanced over her shoulder, at the clock on the concrete wall. In the distance I heard the thunder again, only this time I realized what it was.

  Explosions. It seemed like an alien thought, but I absolutely knew it was true. Large ones. Getting closer.

  “Can you stand?” She put her hands on my shoulders, as if to steady me.

  “Um.” I felt tired. I tried to shift myself off the table. “Maybe in a moment. My legs are numb.”

  “We don’t have very much time.” She sounded anxious. “Can you hold yourself steady if I step away for a second?”

  “Yes, I think so.” I nodded slowly as my eyes drifted closed. The buzz in my mind was an almost tangible thing. It wrapped around my skull like a crown of angry bees. I lifted one hand to the back of my head, half-expecting to feel something there.

  Nothing.

  Caprice stepped away from me and walked toward one of the cabinets. I blinked my eyes, trying to clear the sludge from my mind and track what was happening. Reaching for my memories, I grasped only mist, until a single memory surfaced. Caprice and I out on the town…

  Had we gone on a date?

  “We went to dinner.” The moment I said the words I knew that they were true. “Lobster. That’s the last thing I remember.”

  “That was weeks ago, Michael.” Caprice turned back from the cabinet, holding a black duffel bag in hand. “A lot has happened since then.”

  I furrowed my brow, demanding that my memory give up its secrets. No matter how I tried, the restaurant was the last thing I could remember. Caprice had been in rare form, all sparkle and sultry prowl, and I remembered we had shared more than one bottle of wine.

  Then we had left the restaurant—

  The entire room shook again as another of the explosions thundered through the walls. This was much closer, something I felt in my bones not just heard in the distance. The lights flickered again and died.

  Emergency lights at the corners of the room stuttered to life and cast an eerie, yellow glow across everything. They gave the vile room a sickly pallor.

  “We need to get out of here.” Panic edged Caprice’s voice. “Can you stand?”

  Slowly, I edged off the side of the table, feeling millions of tiny prickles in my legs. I hissed at the sensation and held myself as steady as I could.

  “Seems as if my status is green.” I smiled up at her, clenching my feet and moving my legs as I did. “I should be good.”

  “Your status is green?” Caprice slowly turned to me inquisitively. I couldn’t see the entirety of the sharp question that burned in her eyes. “That seems like an odd thing to say.”

  “I’m just ready; that’s all.” I stamped my right leg in an attempt to drive out the needles. “You’re the one who’s in a hurry.”

  “Well, we have to be as quick as we can.” Her tone grew quiet, cautious. She took a step toward me. “I need to know that you’re stable, feeling rational.” Caprice peered at me as if trying to make a decision. She hefted the black duffle bag into her left hand.

  “Well, if you’re good to go, so am I.” I took a few steps to show her I was fine.

  “Okay.” Her relief showed in her face. “Let’s move then.”

  “Sounds good.” I took a couple more steps forward, a little clumsily, but I could feel my reflexes returning.

  “I have him.” Caprice spoke into a small walkie-talkie. Someone on the other end responded, but I couldn’t hear clearly. Satisfied, she put the device into a pocket.

  “Sounds serious.” I gave her a flippant smile.

  “Friends.” She returned the grin. “They have a way out.”

  “That sounds helpful.”

  “We need all the help we can get.”

  “Do you know which way we should go to find them?”

  No sooner were the words out of my mouth than another explosion shattered its way through the walls. This time, we both stumbled from the concussive force, which threw Caprice into me. Reflexively I caught her, wrapping my arms around her.

  “We should get away from that.” Her beautiful eyes gazed into mine, shining. She kissed my lips softly. “As far away as we can get.”

  A door on the far side of the room burst open. A man stood there in a tactical vest worn over dark clothing. He had an odd headset, a silver device with several small lights on one side. He wore dark gloves, which had small lights blinking on the palms.

  “Remain where you are!” The man took two quick steps into the room holding an odd device toward us. The air seemed to ripple around him, and I felt warmth drift through my muscles.

  “No.” Caprice took two steps backward. I thought she might drop the duffel bag.

  The man cocked his head and regarded me as if he were about to say something. As he did, my world tilted sideways. The buzz in my head intensified to the point of pain.

  Adrift…

  One word among many, the only one not garbled, it punched its way into my mind and sent me reeling. The force of it stunned me.

  For a long moment, the stranger stared into me as if he could somehow grasp me with little more than his gaze.

  The odd, swimming sensation of his inspection made me forget to breathe.

  “Get back!”

  I heard the fury in Caprice’s voice and turned to her. My every motion had slowed, as if I were dreaming.

  She held a nasty-looking handgun and pointed it straight at our new friend. I thought she must have pulled it from her bag.

  Beretta. I had no idea where the thought came from, as I never had any real interest in guns. An M9.

  Before I could wonder at the knowledge, the man lunged toward us.

  He was fast, faster than any person could be. He didn’t leap at Caprice, however, but jumped to the side of me. He hooked one arm around my shoulder and brought me between him and Caprice.

  As he touched me, the buzzing sensation grew painful again, and a fresh storm of odd words drifted through my mind.

  Asset 108… access code blocked… highly volatile… sub-rational…

  The words stunned me and, for a moment, the world seemed dim. Vaguely, I saw Caprice bring up her pistol.

  “Caprice?” I struggled to track the action around me.

  Then I heard the gun bark mechanically as Caprice shot the man in the face. My ears rang from the proximity and warm blood sprayed over me.

  I cried out in horror. Immediately the buzzing in my head quieted to an angry murmur.

  The man’s body slumped to the floor.

  “You—!” I was stunned, my eyes wide at the corpse on the floor. “You shot him!”

  “Yes, I did.” She didn’t even seem upset about it.

  “You could have hit me!”

  “But I didn’t,” she countered.

  “You didn’t know you wouldn’t!” I couldn’t believe she would risk my life like that.

  “I had no choice, Michael. That’s the only thing I know for certain. They die or we do.” She spun away from the downed man. “We need to go.”

  With that, Caprice took my han
d. She led me from the room through a thick metal door on the far side. The entire way, my eyes remained glued to the corpse on the floor.

  Who was he? What had he possibly done to deserve a bullet to the head?

  I trust her. I do. I didn’t know what was going on, but I knew that Caprice was on my side. We’d dated for months; if she had been out to get me for some reason, I would have known it before now.

  As Caprice pulled me through the far door, I glimpsed more of the men stepping into the room. Each of them seemed dangerous in his own way, heavily armed and equipped with fantastical gear.

  Then she pulled me into darkness. The world was wrapped in shadows and the distant thunder of explosions.

  We ran.

  2

  I was completely lost inside of two minutes, not that I had any idea of where I was to begin with.

  Caprice led me down dark and twisted passageways with occasional, almost random branches. I had to give it to her; she seemed to know exactly where she was going. Given the awfulness of our situation, that didn’t comfort me as much as it might.

  It had apparently been a strange few weeks.

  Caprice was a San Francisco socialite, a pretty, slender woman, squeamish when choosing a live lobster in a restaurant. The capable, focused young lady whom I had just seen execute a stranger was a distant cry from the charming woman I knew.

  “Wait.” She stopped, putting a hand in the center of my chest. She peered down the dimly lit passageway and canted her head to the side. “Did you hear that?”

  “No.” I tried listening, but the odd buzzing in my head made it difficult to focus on anything else.

  “I think there are more of them.” She turned to me, her face silhouetted by the dim green light that filtered down the passageway. “Ahead of us, I mean.”

  “I know there are more of us behind.” I jerked my head backward. “I saw them as we left the room.”

  “Them.” I could hear the irritation in her voice. “There are more of them.”

  “Isn’t that what I said?” I massaged my temple with my left hand, trying to push back the headache. “You know what I meant.”