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

by JM Guillen

  They weren’t actually criminals but dangerous nonetheless.

  But nigh-terminal Irrationality? Hidden in the desert? That was foreboding.

  Where will the conduit insertion point be, that far in the desert? That was something I hadn’t considered. Teams typically shaped physics for our transport, which took time. Wyatt always teased about the sheer amount of time and planning it took to create wormholes, as if the team were baking a cake.

  You will be flying. We were completely unprepared for this eventuality, and we don’t have any available conduits to the area.

  That spoke volumes. I didn’t remember a single mission where a transport conduit had not been arranged. The idea that the Facility was flying by the seat of their pants generated discomfort.

  When will I join the rest of my cadre?

  Preceptor Petrova has already departed Facility 17 and is well apprised of the situation. She will meet you at the airport. Asset Guthrie is already on the ground. You must leave immediately.

  I frowned at that. All of my gear was in my white room. I knew I would be outfitted, but my personalized stuff, the gear that had seen me through, was at my apartment. Some of my gear had specific alterations to work more efficiently with me. However, immediate departure precluded the time to run home.

  Your cadre will equip on-site in Las Vegas.

  Understood, Designate. The packet still wasn’t fully sorted in my head. Will this be simple reconnaissance? Or are we expected to pull an incursion?

  Your primary objective is to accompany Preceptor Petrova. She will gather further readings on the levels of ambient Rationality and seek the cause of this event. The Designate paused. Expect Designate support on-site so that objectives may adjust to mission requirements.

  That too was unusual. We only had on-site support from a Designate for solo missions.

  The bus slowed to turn into the airport. With a dawning comprehension, I realized this was my stop.

  All pertinent details are in your Crown. Review the dossier during your short flight.

  I will, Designate. I stood, grabbing at the handhold. I will be prepared by the time I touch down.

  She smiled at me. I’m certain you will be, 108. As I walked away, I heard her one last time.

  As always, Asset, we wish you well in the days ahead.

  5

  Of course, airport security didn’t apply to me. Within the hour, I was seated in first class.

  Still, just the fact that I had to fly irked me.

  Typically, conduits were set up far before the Asset was even tapped, and they were one of the first points of the dossier. They were odd little locations like “the second story exit of the abandoned mattress warehouse on Fifth and Powell, from 11:38 PM to 11:40 PM.” Conduit creation bent Rationality far beyond its typical parameters, hence the short window for their usages.

  As long as an Asset was on time, all was well. I’d step into a sphere of twisted light and find myself along a short path, or hallway, or moonlit road. Conduits were rarely a long trek, but the far end might be thousands of miles away or across the ocean or in the white room at one of the Facilities.

  I didn’t understand the process that was used to create the instantaneous transportation, but it was apparently a tricky thing. Only certain times and only certain places were appropriate, and their use could be difficult on the Asset’s Crown at times.

  Still, a commercial flight felt almost barbaric in comparison.

  However, flying gave me time to peruse my dossier. I settled into my chair, waited for take-off, and then opened the packet.

  It was extensive.

  My Solomon’s Crown was an impressive piece of technology. It lined the inside of my skull and remained constantly connected with the Lattice, the worldwide information network used by the Facility. The Crown could hold a vast amount of data in addition to holding open ports for packets and neural software. It was a seamless technology, something I used as effortlessly as my hand, with no pointer or key input. It presented what I wanted, how I wanted it, faster than I could possibly give voice to the desire.

  The packet opened as a visual overlay. I preferred sensory input when opening a packet. I could port the data into my memory, but the large dossier packets created a jarring sensation.

  With adequate time, I could afford to absorb it slowly.

  I felt the smooth vibration in my head as the Crown meshed with several areas of my cerebral cortex. I relaxed my gaze, looking only at the back of the seat in front of me.

  Welcome, Asset. The familiar voice was soothing.

  I watched as the packet’s visual interface opened before me, a series of colored spheres that only I could see.

  I mentally sought out the one marked Overview. I didn’t even have to think to select the sphere. The Crown knew what I wanted the instant I chose.

  Approximately twenty-three hours ago, Assets training in the Death Valley region noticed several sharp spikes of near-terminal grade Irrationality. These spikes were at the edge of their data range but were still significant. This report lead to Facility 17 doing axiomatic telemetry scans on the area as part of new protocols.

  The interface resolved to a map of the American southwest, superimposed over my vision, a shift similar to moving focus from far to near allowed me to still see the plane’s cabin, of course.

  As the map clarified, I could see the team’s location, the readouts on their gear, and the Irrational spikes.

  Something’s wrong.

  An Asset spoke while scanning the area, but his Veracitor-class neuralware glitched in time with the spikes. “I think my gear is mis-queueing.”

  As I watched both the gear readouts and the spiking levels of Irrationality, the two seemed intimately connected. The spikes were incredibly focused, intensely powerful, and only occurred in extremely short bursts.

  Wait. What was—?

  The bursts were nanoseconds, in some cases picoseconds, long but spread over the course of an hour and twenty minutes, with no discernible patter—

  I stopped the playback of the data and stepped it back a few seconds. In 1/10000 time frame, I watched as the bursts occurred in the middle of the desert. It was odd, both in how high the Irrationality spiked and in how it did not ripple throughout the area. It did cause small anomalies, but it surprisingly didn’t echo, creating other, smaller spikes.

  Strong and localized. It had almost been enough to rip through the fragile veil of reality, almost enough to expose us to whatever was on the other side. This was a Class IX in the making. I rubbed my sweating palms on my slacks.

  No single Irrat could cause bursts that large. Furthermore, spikes less than a tenth of that size cascaded and rippled. Something of this strength should have created other bursts that spread across the Mojave Desert, leaving inhuman aberrations and small rifts in its wake.

  This had not. It was controlled. By someone.

  Facility 17 and Facility 6 have both monitored ambient Rationality in the area since this second set of spikes, but there have been no further aberrations.

  As the voice spoke, I scrolled through the dossier until I found satellite pictures of the location. It only took a few moments to enhance the photos to the point that I could see there was an old structure, almost hidden in the shadow of a cliff.

  A missile silo? Perhaps.

  “Would you like something to drink?” I was moving on to the next part of the dossier when the young woman startled me.

  “Oh.” I looked up at her. The stewardess was cute. A touch young for me, but I loved red hair.

  “Need anything?” she asked. I found her eyes fascinating.

  “Not just now.” I smiled at her. “Could I get something later?” My smile became a sharp grin. “If there’s something I want?”

  She smiled back, nuanced with meaning. “I’ll be around.”

  I sighed as she walked away.

  Not now.

  Full profiles on Anya and Wyatt were present in the dossier, but I did
n’t need them. Of more interest however…

  There. The third sphere: Known Irrationals and Their Locations.

  No Irrationals are known in the selected area. Would you like to expand?

  Still looking at the missile silo, the program had only searched that region. Unsurprisingly there were no known Irrats sighted in that small area. I re-selected Las Vegas:

  The listing of known and wanted Irrationals seen in the Las Vegas area in the last month include:

  Clyde D. Gordon- Irrational 1854

  Harij Nasan- Irrational 1458

  Thomas LeManns- Irrational 7704

  William Eidon- Irrational 0081

  Leticia Del Toro- Irrational 6723

  Unnamed Crimson Dedicant- Irrational 1108

  Earl Princely “The Masque”- Irrational 3420

  Rebecca Thorne- Irrational 9108

  Rudolfo Firenzei- Irrational 2187

  Aberration 51894

  “The Gaunt Man”- Aberration 13563

  Hmm. A lot of data. The Facility certainly had a ton of info on each of them, and I had no way of knowing if any of them were even involved.

  Almost randomly, I expanded the final selection:

  Aberration 13563, the Gaunt Man, has been frequently reported since 1974, although it may have existed longer. Basically humanoid in appearance, it is unnaturally slender. It wears a grey suit that is several years out of date and can easily pass for an older man by any who do not pay him special heed.

  Aberration 13563 is a collector, both of rare items and creatures. He was first encountered by Asset 71, Leo Telesco, in Romania in March of 1974. The aberration was pursuing a trader who had found an item of particular rarity, a small statuette of unknown origins that possesses an affinity for Type L astral aberrations. As a result of this—

  I scrolled down, letting my vision drift across the page as I attempted to surmise how much information was available. After learning about the Gaunt Man’s tendencies toward flight rather than confrontation and perusing Leo Telesco’s accounts of The Menagerie, an extra dimensional realm where the Gaunt Man kept living prisoners. I frowned.

  It was too much.

  I briefly thought again about simply porting the packet to my Crown’s memory so that I could draw on it as simply as I could any other recollections. It was what Wyatt would have done, probably Gideon too, but…

  But it was a lot of space to take up, space I might need for other neuralware.

  I needed to keep things simple.

  I closed the Irrat data and went back to look at those spikes, overlaying the map. It was incredible how tight they were. That much Irrationality should have had some effect. I dug deeper into my Crown’s database and looked at the telemetry data.

  There have been no further reported Irrational readings as a result of the events of June 21.

  That was just strange.

  Once I had been on the trail of an Irrat in Saskatchewan, an aberration, a creature of the astral tides that had somehow slipped through. In the distant wilds of Canada, I had spoken to native Inuit who believed the creature to be a Wendigo, a ravenous, cannibalistic spirit.

  Of course, that was horseshit. Entire mythologies were built by people who told stories to make sense of what they had seen.

  By the time I found the creature, she had a small village in her thrall. She was drinking life and sanity from them and had grown into a creature capable of creating small Irrational spikes similar to these—but nothing near so large, of course. Still, the aftereffects and echoes of those spikes were causing “hauntings” and weird occurrences months after I destroyed her.

  Irrationality worked like a cancer in the world. It spread. The fact this enormous surge had caused nothing was troubling to say the least.

  It seemed like someone was hiding… something.

  I flagged the cute stewardess only a few rows up from me.

  “Could I get that drink now?” I gave her my most charming smile.

  The stewardess smiled back and poured for me.

  I took a sip and settled in, preparing for a long trawl through my dossier.

  6

  By first light, we touched down and were ready to disembark.

  “Nothing.” I was certain that if anyone had been looking, I would have seemed cracked. I was staring intently at the back of the seat in front of me, muttering my dismay under my breath.

  Yes, completely normal.

  I was more than a little frustrated. My Crown was wonder of modern technology, but I felt awfully limited by the quality of available intel. Data was plentiful, but none seemed useful.

  I had pulled up topographic maps of the area and looked around in three dimensions. That confirmed, yes, the small structure was an abandoned missile silo but nothing more. I viewed ambient Rationality, currently well in the green. No problem there.

  I combed the profiles of every Irrat sighted locally, but none were higher than a Class III, thus unable to create spikes like this even if they had all worked together. The precision and the speed at which the absolutely monstrous spikes had occurred remained impossible to comprehend.

  I didn’t think this was an Irrat at all. My mind drifted to the aberration I had destroyed, the Wendigo.

  We hadn’t come close to classifying all the abominations of the astral tides. Could it be something behind the veil? Something trying to punch through?

  I closed the dossier. Conjecture from the current info was pointless. Hopefully, Anya or Wyatt would know something I didn’t.

  The cute stewardess glanced at me as I made my way off the plane. I smiled at her, wistfully wishing that I wasn’t on assignment.

  Perhaps there would be time later.

  Of course, later my Crown would be in torpor mode, and I wouldn’t remember who I was, much less the stewardess. Too bad. Some small part of me enjoyed women more when I was awake and online, when I was fully myself, fully in control of my debonair charm.

  Seduction felt like just part of my Crown architecture when I was offline, requiring no skill since I had nothing to lose.

  She smiled back and continued her duties.

  No time.

  I made my way into the airport. Everything checked out, as it always did for Assets, and I was moved along smoothly. I had no bags, so I didn’t need to—

  Bishop, we have a small concern. It was Anya.

  You sound worried, Preceptor. I just made it off the plane. Happy to hear from her, I smiled, knowing that my emotion would transmit through the Crown. What’s going on? Is Wyatt in the airport bar?

  Nothing so simple, Michael. Even though she knew me well, Anya’s tone contained no true warmth. This was typical of Preceptors. They were all female, and all seemed to have their emotions subdued.

  Wyatt called her the ice princess behind her back.

  I sighed. This was going to be all about work. Fine. Apprise me, Anya.

  Her tone softened a touch. Michael, there is an aberration of an unknown type within two hundred meters of your current position. It has been motionless for at least the past half hour.

  An aberration, here in the airport? Suddenly, I was pleased that she was in work mode. Unknown type?

  I have been running it through the systems. No known classification.

  That’s fucking brilliant. I am completely zero-geared, Anya. I don’t suppose Wyatt chose to come with you?

  Asset Guthrie is not present, Michael. We are to meet him at a different location.

  I had known that was the plan, but I had held onto hope. Can you put in a request for tech disbursement? Otherwise, we really aren’t equipped.

  That request has been filed and approved, Michael. She seemed pleased with herself.

  That’s something at least. Where do I need to go?

  Ahead you should see the airport bookstore. There is a small restaurant next to it.

  I see it. I smiled at a young girl who was looking at me as I passed.

  Between the two of them is a grey access door. It is marke
d Janitorial. You will find it unlocked.

  Perfect. What’s my time frame?

  The emergency conduit will be available for the next four minutes and thirteen seconds. I would advise—

  Got it. Thanks, Anya. I broke into a run. People around me gaped as I suddenly sprinted with no apparent cause.

  I didn’t have time to worry about them.

  Four minutes, Michael.

  I got it, Anya. Thanks. I reached for the handle. Of course, it wasn’t locked.

  For just a moment, I wondered how many times this location had been used. Conduits typically only existed between previously established locations.

  Then, I opened the door.

  I felt the subtle click in my Crown as it opened. Nothing else. No great flash of light or dimension-rending sound; simply the click of my Crown acknowledging the conduit. It was only coded to me of course.

  Then I stepped into the white room.

  It was always difficult to ascertain exactly how large the white rooms were. Wyatt claimed that they weren’t in any of the Facilities but that they actually existed in some kind of non-Euclidian space, which accounted for the odd sense of distortion one always had while within them.

  It looked like every white room I had ever seen, a lab with white tile on the floor, white walls, and stainless metal tables and counters. Several different workstations held various pieces of equipment that presaged humanity’s scientific knowledge by decades.

  There was no light source, yet the room was brilliant.

  I had never determined exactly what the white rooms smelled like. They smelled clean but not harsh like disinfectant. The scent was comforting, almost calming.

  That was probably by design.

  The couple of weapon cabinets normally housed menacing, black firearms. Another cabinet typically held bits of body armor and various tools. A couple of duffel bags hung on the wall with some luggage and briefcases on the shelf beneath.