The Verse of Sibilant Shadows: A set of tales from the Irrational Worlds

by JM Guillen

  A Myriad of Worlds…

  This collection is a wild, meandering series of series, stories where the tiniest details have long shadows and bent connections. The entirety of it is named The Paean of Sundered Dreams and is 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 overarching story.

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

  Herein lies the first tales in several of these strands, various winding gateways into realms of twisting madness. Rest assured, gentle reader—there are many gates into these worlds, and there are many paths that wind inward.

  Yet wandering outward proves difficult.

  Many secrets hide in these worlds—a few of which I will shine light on in the notes contained within. I am aware, however, that finding secrets is a great joy for some, and so I leave most of these untouched.

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

  Welcome, wayward wanderer.

  This was written for you.

  Table of Contents

  Rationality Zero

  Herald of Autumn

  Collateral Damage

  Handmaiden’s Fury

  On the Matter of the Red Hand

  Slave of the Sky Captain

  The Wormwood Event

  June 21, 1998

  San Francisco, California

  “Michael? Are you ok?”

  I smiled and hooked my arm with hers. “Of course, sweetling,” I gave her a teasing glance. “I get to spend the night with you on my arm.”

  I was forgetting something. It nagged at the edge of my mind.

  She gave me a wry look. “Flatterer. You seemed distant there for a moment.”

  I kissed her forehead. “Sorry. I’m a bit sleepy. I’ll get with it.”

  Something. Was it an appointment? It felt like I was supposed to meet someone.

  She wrinkled her nose at me. “You’d better. I need you to be ‘not sleepy’ later on.”

  I gave her a wicked grin, and she leaned her head on my shoulder.

  The night was a living thing.

  People milled about the streets; cars drove by, brilliant with color and sound. Amidst it all, as the city pulsed around us, we were alone. Just me and a woman so lovely that heads turned as we walked.

  Caprice.

  She was Italian, with long dark hair that the wind loved to dance in. Her eyes were like midnight, but when she looked at me, they seemed to glow. She chatted happily along, our conversation wending and winding as if we were the only people on earth.

  “It’s a surprise.” Her gentle accent curled the edge of her words. I couldn’t stop watching her teeth and the way she nibbled on her bottom lip.

  “Perhaps I don’t like surprises.” I smiled at her.

  She leaned in closely. Her breath tickled my ear. “You’ll love my surprise, Michael. It’s something special.”

  This was our third date. Caprice wasn’t the only woman I was seeing, but she was easily the most fun. Every time I saw her, it was a different restaurant, a different bottle of wine, and a different adventure. Tonight’s adventure led us to Nob Hill, to a small bar that didn’t seem special in any way. The sign at the door read Spoilz.

  I gave her an odd look. “Looks like just a bar.”

  She grinned at me and then turned to talk to a large, midnight-skinned man at the door. He looked like he could break me in two.

  “Not hardly.” She glanced at me over a perfect shoulder. “Come on in, Michael. Come and see.”

  I did, trying to forget that I seemed to be forgetting something. She led me to the door, all sweet, mysterious smile and enticing curve.

  The moment we stepped inside, I saw the truth. There were dancing women, low lights, and well-dressed men. There were private alcoves where couples could go to be out of sight.

  Although some of them didn’t seem to mind voyeurs.

  It was not “just” a bar.

  Caprice led me through the flickering candlelight to a private booth in the back. Soft red curtains hung around us, and the entire place smelled like jasmine and musk.

  Someone was playing a violin, but I couldn’t locate the musician.

  “You will sit.” Caprice was quite matter of fact. She put a hand on my chest and pushed me backward onto the velvet seat.

  “I will?” I grinned at her. Was it a person I was forgetting? It seemed very important.

  “Tonight, we are going to have an adventure.”

  Then, I forgot worrying. Her mouth was on mine, all pink sweetness. She was sitting on my lap, pressed up against me. My hands found the curve of her hips, and I could feel her softness beneath the short dress.

  She tasted like fire and secrets. Her hair drifted around me like wisps of midnight, and I drifted in her scent.

  Caprice was a whirlwind in my life, but as I said, every moment was a surprise with her. Tonight’s surprise was a blonde woman, all curve and leg, holding a bottle of very expensive rum.

  “You started without me.” I looked up to see the woman eyeing us with a smirk like a knife’s edge.

  “I couldn’t resist.” Caprice smiled at her. “He’s delicious.”

  It was a person. A blonde woman. She didn’t look like this one however. Was I supposed to meet her? Something about her fingers…

  “Is he?” The woman’s grin widened. “You’ll have to let me try sometime.” She sat down next to me and traced a lacquered nail through my dark hair. “Surely there’s enough to share.”

  “You don’t think I’m going to share you with him, do you?” Caprice grinned wickedly and then reached over to her friend’s face, running a finger along her jawline. “You’re delicious too.”

  “Always so selfish.” The blonde woman smiled playfully and then looked from Caprice to me.

  Yes, Caprice was often one for surprises.

  Then, cold quicksilver ran through my brain. For a moment, everything was brighter. The candles stopped flickering and gleamed, just for a moment.

  Oh. Of course. Obviously.

  My memories didn’t rush back exactly. It was as if I hadn’t even noticed that they were missing. The entire world shifted and changed in a moment. For a brief span of time, color faded into tones of grey, and then burned back into my mind brilliantly.

  The ladies continued their flirtatious banter, as if the entire world hadn’t just shifted beneath our feet. I watched for a moment, enjoying the way Caprice’s hips felt against mine.

  Sigh. There was no time for this.

  “As much as I want to never move from this spot, I need to step away for a moment, ladies.”

  Caprice turned back to me, her lips pouting. “I can’t believe you, Michael. I worked hard to surprise you.”

  “You did surprise me.” I kissed her cheek. “Will you ladies promise to be good until I return?”

  “No.” The blonde woman’s voice was husky, tinged with shadows. Her eyes were hungry.

  “I won’t be gone long.”

  “Hurry back, Michael. I won’t wait forever.”

  I kissed her cheek. “Don’t worry, love. I couldn’t possibly stay away long.” I slid up out of the seat and walked away.

  I could feel
her eyes on me as I walked.

  I would probably never see her again.

  2

  I practically stumbled as I left. My mind was a thunderstorm of confused memory. I wobbled a bit as I meandered toward an alleyway next to the bar. I had to rest my hand against the wall.

  Steady, Bishop. I reached into my jacket pocket to see if I had a cigarette. Unsurprisingly, I did not.

  As I leaned on the wall, I felt the data singing into my mind, the intel packets booting up as I established a connection. Forgotten vistas opened before me, like a blind man who could suddenly see.

  Focus. I took a deep breath and tried to ignore the dizziness. As always, my boot packet connected to the Lattice and ran its initial processes, and I could feel the preliminary systems whirring in my skull.

  Now preparing preselected introduction protocols. The voice was cool in my mind, like a fresh spring. Initiating playback in three… two…

  Moments later, I could hear the smoky words of Gideon DuMarque, the Asset who had assisted in my early missions, as if he were standing right next to me. It was a word-by-word recall of one of his early lessons with my responses included. The man was gruff, like an old war veteran, but he had a mind like a keen blade.

  I had heard his explanations a thousand times. Honestly, however, it felt closer to a million. Still, should my memory fail to boot so that I needed the intel, I would be glad for it.

  I let the words wash through me, waiting for my favorite bit. It was always his descriptions of the nanosecond of syncing that made me smile:

  “In high school, everyone learned about graphs: X, Y, and Z. X was left and right, Y was up and down, and Z was near and far. With me?”

  “Yeah. With you.”

  “Well, some day you’ll be prancing along, happily listening to whatever ridiculous sound track you play in that pretty head of yours, and they’ll patch you in. Suddenly, with no warning. In the instant you connect to the Lattice, you’ll stop being concerned with whatever idiocy you’ve gotten into, because it will be as if the world clumsily took a step in the direction of W. In that moment, you will see everything from a totally different angle.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “That’s because you’re stupid. You can’t get it; that’s the point. W exists outside your regular frame. But when it happens, all kinds of tiny mysteries will click; everything will make sense.”

  “Like what?”

  “Things like, ‘Where do I keep getting these cuts and bruises?’ or ‘Where was I last Tuesday night ’round eight?’”

  “Won’t I wonder those things before, like when I’m inactive?”

  “You won’t. You’ll make up stupid excuses. Or they’ll be made up for you; I can’t tell the difference. Either way, you will instantly come to remember who and, more importantly, what you are.”

  “Bishop, Michael.” I muttered into the cool brick of the wall. “Asset 108. Authorization code 020798361.System green.”

  Welcome Asset. The system greeting was like ice water in my mind. Packet specs incoming.

  “Acknowledged.” I ran my fingers along the side of my head, imagining that I could feel the thin band of technology implanted in my skull.

  I couldn’t. The Crown was perfectly fit to my body.

  I was trembling.

  It might be some time before I got my first update, so I decided that I needed to be somewhere else, not hanging out with my forehead against an alleyway wall. I needed to get moving.

  I needed a smoke.

  Like a man coming off a four-day bender, I wandered into the shadows, trying to remember everything I had forgotten. I chuckled, looking for all the world like a crazy person, as memories began to fit together in my mind like a mad jigsaw puzzle.

  As disconcerting as it was to remember that I’d forgotten half my life, it was an important protocol. Once I did remember, it was suddenly clear why, most of the time, I shouldn’t.

  God, no.

  Most of the time, things were simple. I lived a perfect life. I didn’t work; I didn’t have to. I got a wire into my account every two weeks. It varied, but it was more than some people made in six months. I didn’t know where it came from; it was always some vague name like VRS Solutions or Apex Enterprises, some throwaway company that probably disappeared the next week.

  I knew I sounded spoiled. It got better though.

  I drove a new sports car.

  My apartment in San Francisco was four-thousand square feet. That was without my personal white room.

  Oh. And there were girls. There were always girls.

  I had a different beautiful woman in my bed every night if I wanted. Or two. I simply went to the right clubs, wore the right clothes. It was easy, most men’s fantasy.

  There was more though, odd things:

  I never got ill. Never.

  I never remembered my dreams.

  I never worked out. I ate whatever I pleased and remained incredibly fit.

  I had never done taxes in any country. A notation on all deposits read: tax paid.

  I had no account with any public utility or phone company, yet I owned a phone and had electricity.

  I never bought my clothes or books or diversions. There was a metallic white board on my fridge. When I wanted something, I wrote it on the board. It appeared hours later, usually as soon as I left. I never saw anyone come into my place.

  When ‘asleep’ I had no curiosity about any of this. They took care of everything. When I was asleep, I lived what some would consider the perfect life.

  When activated, I was a tool in the hand of the most powerful organization on Earth. I had access to devices and technology that literally shaped reality as we knew it by the alteration of laws that we termed ‘axioms’. In actuality, axioms were an analogy for the various laws of physics, some of which were yet to be discovered by mankind.

  To Assets such as myself, the axioms of physics were weaponry. They might be bent or altogether broken while on assignment.

  Naturally our assignments required such complex technology.

  A good example of this was an assignment I’d had last year. It came like most of them, simply a slow realization, like smoke in my mind. Then, like thunder, I remembered who I was.

  What I was.

  The assignments always varied but were never simple matters. That one was taking a boy.

  An innocent fucking kid.

  I said innocent, but in that case, the boy was an Irrat—our shorthand for “Irrational.” He might have been innocent when the Facility identified him, but that probably wouldn’t last. No, unfortunately for him and his family, the boy was a devastating time bomb just ticking away.

  He was slated for re-education, and it was my assignment to acquire him.

  So, yes, he was an innocent kid. But he was also an Irrat kid.

  A dangerous kid.

  His name was Bill Iverson. I followed his family for a week, just to make certain.

  When I got to close to him, the Designate who was coordinating my team assigned me a Preceptor, and we confirmed his abnormality. It was small— only three points below baseline Rationality, but it was enough.

  The boy was dangerous.

  Perhaps not yet, but soon he would accidentally do something, twist reality in some small, strange way. Maybe the family would think it was a haunting in their home, or maybe he would gain the ability to mentally push people just a little. Really the iterations were endless, although the endings were typically the same. Somehow, the boy would learn that he had the power to bend the world just a touch.

  When that happened, it would begin.

  Other things, monstrosities hidden behind the world, would notice him. These abominations would be drawn to him as if he were beckoning them. Every time he used his power to shape the Rational world, it would be like a candle in the infinite darkness, and their ancient eyes would turn to him.

  Perhaps they would grant him artifacts of distant worlds or the talent to break the minds of
men. Perhaps they would merely whisper to him in his dreams and show him shadows of the infinite future.

  Or perhaps they would rend the veil and pour into our world, like burning maggots and shadowed carrion crows. Perhaps everyone who looked into his eyes would become blighted and insane.

  I had seen how this could go. More than once, the Facility had sent me to deal with an adult who’d started life just like Billy.

  That was the stuff of nightmares.

  One day, his mom took him to the park. I watched, waiting for my moment. Eventually she was chatting up some other mothers, not paying attention. I engaged some of the tech I had docked into my Crown and completely faded from the sight of anyone near.

  I scooped the boy up, gave him an injection so that he would lose consciousness, and disappeared with him.

  I was like a ghost.

  I hated that I had to inject him, but that didn’t change the Facility’s standards. Secrecy was the primary protocol. I had to haul him away before his mother saw and before he got the chance to pull some Irrational stunt.

  It could be my life if I made a misstep. That or worse.

  Most Irrats first “awakened” under stress; that was a well-documented fact. This made extractions all the more difficult. There were hundreds of accounts of botched missions where the Assets believed themselves to be in the clear, only to find that things were spiraling far, far out of their control.

  Little could be worse than an Asset believing he had some kid prepped to take in when suddenly the kid started speaking words that made his mind melt, sounds that ripped into him like talons of blood and darkness. It could happen—that and far more.

  Our protocols were in place for just that reason.

  I’d ruined his parents’ lives forever. I couldn’t help them, but I checked up on them anyway. Eventually, they got divorced. The mother attempted suicide twice.

  Of course, they’d never seen their son again. That door was shut forever. The boy they remembered was lost the moment I took him.

  I took him to his handler, who was waiting for me in a fucking black van. How cliché was that?