by JM Guillen
From the Book
That water appeared greasy, brackish, under the eldritch glow. Even with the optics setting of my Crown, I couldn’t see within it. Uncanny colors glinted on its surface, a small pond filmed over with a darkling rainbow of unnatural oils.
I winced against the onslaught of agonizing color.
The thing that had caught Wyatt’s attention had powerful, sinewy arms that dragged its body forth from the pool.
Its inhuman limbs scrabbled against the floor stones and pulled a flabby mass from the murky pool. A faint, sickly-green tint colored much of its skin, although its underside glinted, sickly pale. The amphibious flesh appeared as if it had never seen the light of the sun.
Flat black, alien eyes stared up at me. That emotionless, uncanny gaze had seen things no human had ever beheld.
What the fuck? Wyatt’s link came as a mixture of awe and disgust. Look at its back!
I paid him no attention. I did not peer at the creature or try to figure out the unholy biology of the thing.
I’d already seen it. Gideon and I had fought one in Washington, where it had attempted to spread pestilence through its poisonous ichor.
I whirled both disruptor pistols toward the amphibian, firing on the move.
“Yeeerrrrup!” It croaked and leaped at me with impossible speed.
My shots tore into the water it’d just left, and before I knew it, the monstrosity had borne me to the ground.
Shit! The impossibility of the situation dawned on me as I dropped my guns.
Even though I’d been cloaked beneath the Wraith, Froggy here had somehow known exactly where I stood.
Clawed, webbed fingers reached for my throat.
Table of Contents
Want Free Books?
A Myriad of Worlds
Cascading Error: Critical
Of Nothing and of Nine
The Darkened Road
Obsidian, Wind, and Ictithia
Machinations
The Citadel
The Necropolis
Catacombs
A Variance in Rationality
The Crow of the West
The Unfathomable Mask
The Temple City of M’elphodor
The Road Unseen
The Dirge of Brine and Salt
Eldritch Emanations
Followed Into Hell
A Name of Lamentation
Death is but a Doorway
Assets of the Citadel
Taking Shots
Would You Leave a Review?
More From This Author
About The Author
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Rationality Zero, book one of this series!
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A Myriad of Worlds…
This story regards the continuing adventures and trials of Michael Bishop, a man who knows what it is to stand against the incomprehensible. It is a story of a shadowed world, a world where creatures of outer darkness are hunted by a faceless organization, the Facility.
This story 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 technothrillers, some dark fantasy, and some Lovecraftian steampunk, but they share the same horrific universe. They weft and weave together, leaving breadcrumbs of clues for the next story.
Each tale echoes a beating heart of darkness, cackling quietly in the shadows of existence.
If 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.
Cascading Error: Critical
Novel Four in the Dossiers of Asset 108
JM Guillen
Irrational Worlds
January 6, 2001
Istanbul, Turkey
Earth
I am in position, I linked to Gideon as I crouched in the alleyway. I am prepared to murder the target to death.
Understood, Bishop. Gideon’s typical gruffness bled through the link. Remember, we need information on what he’s doing here. Hold off on the righteous slaughter.
Oh, it’ll be righteous. I slipped a smirk through the link.
Maybe after we find out where he’s headed, he linked.
Fine then. I sighed. It’s not as if I haven’t killed him before. I shook my head at the unlikeliness of it all.
Amir Cadavas. Here. It boggled the mind.
Accidentally locating Irrational 3302 had to be the most unlikely outcome of our little trip to Turkey. We’d hunted this particular motherfucker for the better part of five and a half years, and now that we were on separate business…
Here he was.
Gideon and I happened to be slumming in Istanbul due to a minorly inconvenient virulent plague that hit the University of Washington in Seattle. Within three days, fifteen students sought treatment for wild hallucinations and seizures. Two weeks later, health officials had found no cause. Facility personnel stepped in after the first student, babbling in an unknown tongue and slaughtering everything in his path, had to be killed.
The young man’s DNA contained more reptile and amphibian markers than human. The Designates felt certain this could only be the work of some aberration or cult. An Asset insertion had become inevitable.
Gideon and I had tracked those students to a single weekend frat party. That led to the discovery of a shattered amphora. The elegant, two-handled vase had been covered with blasphemous, mind-shattering runes, of course.
We’d also found an amphibian monstrosity looking to breed.
The entire event, even by Facility standards, had been approximately no fun at all.
Weirdness stacking upon weirdness, the creature had been bound by a very specific ritual which made use of the inscribed stones on that amphora. The stones were a very specific type: Turkish Purple Jade.
It could only be sourced from one country on Earth.
As always, an Asset went wherever the assignment led him, so I abruptly found myself in Istanbul. We’d found a small-time Irrat fence who dealt in illegal reagents. A visit to Facility Prime provided the gentleman with the proper encouragement to be forthcoming with details.
Hours later, the Designate informed us that the inscribed jade had been purchased three months before. The fence didn’t recall what the customer had looked like, only that the man wore a robe and had a beard.
In Istanbul.
We did learn that the purchase had been in bulk—over a ton of the stone—and the payment had been in cash, but…
After that, the trail had dried the fuck up.
We’d investigated for another few days, mostly remaining hidden beneath the Wraith like bad-ass superspies. After heroically finding nothing, over and over, the Designates ordered our extraction.
The possibility that we would stumble upon one of the most notorious Rationality terrorists on the planet had never occurred to any of us.
Amir Cadavas was a Class I motherfucker, at least as far as I reasoned. The man held a lot of sway within a doomsday cult that had royally ruined my day back in the mid-nineties.
This group, the Darkened or Hidden Road, remained one of the most dangerous cabals I had ever dealt with.
&n
bsp; Remain there. I am coordinating with the Designate, and we are getting things into position.
Copy that.
Cold winter wind whipped around me, strong enough to cut through my thick coat. I didn’t love cold weather; wintery temperatures weren’t something I dealt with much on the west coast.
But today, the weather was the last thing on my mind.
Target sighted, I reported as a slender, middle-aged man stepped out of an antique shop. The moment I saw him, my sarcasm fell aside. I put my game face on.
He looked so… young. Way younger than he had when I’d killed him. Still, I had no doubt.
Confirm that?
ID Positive. I kept my gaze riveted on the city square before me and focused on the Irrat as he slipped past dozens of other people going about their business. Several snippets of Turkish and Arabic filtered their way through my Crown.
I’m in position, Bishop. Gideon’s eagerness wefted through the link. We were finally close to catching this asshole, and he knew it.
I knew it too and practically shook with anticipation.
Calm your jets, Rachel linked. Adrenaline is spiking. Pulse is abnormal. It also says here that your snark factor is up by 2.5%.
It does? I grinned.
Well, close enough, she teased. Cool off, cowboy. I’d hate to have to waste my time modulating your mecha.
Copy that, Caduceus.
I had reason to be nervous. Amir was a zealous, demented fuck nougat wrapped in a creamy, lunatic coating. One hundred percent of the time I had dealt with him, Assets had ended up dead.
Yet, this could be a huge win.
I’m engaging the Wraith now. A veil of trickling cold drizzled across my skin as I slipped into invisibility. Well, technically it wasn’t true invisibility. I simply couldn’t interact with light, which amounted to the same thing in a practical sense. Quite frankly, the idea that I couldn’t interact with light but could still see made me suspect I wouldn’t comprehend the science anyway.
Understood.
It’s a shame really—I’m never in this part of the world. Now not one of these people will see how handsome I am.
Gideon ignored the horrific thought of people never experiencing my face. Rachel, keep your eye on Bishop’s neurochemistry. This would be a bad time to for him to have… company.
Really? I sighed. Guys, I had one bad day in Japan. I don’t think I need a babysitter.
No. You need several, Rachel grumbled. It’s a full time job to watch your holotecture when the thing starts poking its way into your head.
Anya added, Rationality also undergoes signature changes, which I am tasked with recording. It is quite obvious when this specific aberration makes an incursion, and the Facility wishes to be able to predict them.
Maybe so. I frowned. But I have it under control. I still don’t need a nanny. I looked to Anya. Or two.
Rachel snickered. This is what you get when you skulk around in the bedrooms of Japanese Irrats, Bishop.
Michael was not “skulking,” Anya primly linked. As an Asset onsite, I can confirm that 108 had been appropriately tasked during that dossier.
He accidentally fed his own blood to a four-armed wolfish horror of the astral tides! Rachel chided. That can’t have been part of the mission!
I do not skulk. I linked the words with every bit as much prim-nicity as Anya. Although, the bestial aberration did bond to me harder than Wyatt Guthrie bonds to a plate of biscuits and gravy.
Wolf-boy, Rachel linked, good news is I’ve been working on my script for An American Werewolf in Istanbul. Want to audition? I felt the little quirk at the edge of Rachel’s lips.
I actually saw An American Werewolf in London. So you’re not going to get me with that one. I stepped out of the alleyway into the drizzling mist, intent upon my target.
Pity, she linked playfully. Although I have been a little bit worried about the name. Istanbul doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.
Yeah? I slipped through the crowd, doing my best to keep my eyes on the target.
I prefer Constantinople. Long time gone though. She sighed. Why they changed it, I can’t say.
Children. Gideon’s growl grumbled in my mind. Focus.
Copy that.
In the street, Amir Cadavas wove his way through the crowd with the certainty of a city native.
I followed, taking care to not bowl over anyone who might get upset by being knocked flat by an invisible man.
If Amir suspected he had a tail, he showed no sign.
Target is the focal point of a negative point seven fluctuation in baseline Rationality, Anya inserted coolly. There is also a secondary signature with him, which shows a negative four point fluctuation. She paused. Alpha, I believe this secondary signature may be the relic mentioned in his personal record.
He has that fucking book! Gideon’s fierce glee surged through the link. Right now! He has the relic on him right now!
Well. What are the odds of that? The Liber Noctiis had also made an appearance during our dossier within the Yucatán. The tome had been the centerpiece of the Darkened Road’s cosmology, an Irrational artifact every bit as dangerous as the cultists themselves.
If we can get our hands on the Liber Noctiis, that’s a win. Gideon’s elation burned in his link. The Designates have classified it as a priority one item.
Should I engage? I quickened my step and reached inside my coat for a disruptor pistol. As Amir turned a corner, I performed the mental twitch that engaged the Adept packet.
Like a river of sunlight, warmth and grace coursed through my muscles.
Negative. Gideon paused. We may have been after other fish, but this takes priority. The Designates want that book, but we want his cronies as well.
Good thing you geared the Huntsman.
We had no way to know it would come in this handy, Gideon shrugged. Still, it should be remarkably easy to follow him if I can just get the asshole tagged. Then, perhaps, we can take down the whole cult.
Will comply.
Amir turned down a narrow alleyway, and I slowed my approach. Last thing I wanted was for him to duck into some hidey-hole.
Anya, may I have a reticule for the fluctuation in Rationality?
Of course, Michael. A brilliant-green indicator settled over my vision. Beneath it, the distance indicator read 13m.
I’m on the move as well. Gideon sent. Perhaps give each of us a locale on the other? A secondary, sky blue icon appeared off to my left, approximately twenty-six meters away—perhaps a street or so over.
I couldn’t help but grin. We finally had the asshole.
There was nowhere he could go.
Of Nothing and of Nine
July 9, 1995- Six Years Ago
Facility Prime, Location Unknown
Earth
“We finally got him!” I lurched up in the med bay, my eyes wild. “There’s nowhere he can go!”
Bishop. That single word made no sense, felt like garbled sound in my mind. I blinked against the brilliant white light.
Bishop. That was me. Michael Bishop, Asset 108.
An older man wearing utilitarian blue and white clothing stared down at me. He gave me a kind smile. 108, we need you to confirm you are with us. What is your auth code?
“Authorization code 020798361,” I rattled off. I blinked at the man and glanced blearily around. “Why are my legs strapped down?”
You’re at Facility Prime in Asset Emergency Services. There was an irregularity with your most recent dossier.
Yes. I shook my head and tried to remember. I could only recall scattered bits of what had happened in the Yucatán, but nothing solid, nothing specific. As I stared up at the older man, I recognized him as a Caduceus-class Asset. “I don’t remember much of anything.” I felt panic begin to claw at my throat. “Why can’t I remember?”
You were on dossier in the Yucatán. Your cadre encountered a Variance in Rationality. As a result, many of your Crown systems became damaged, including phane
ric memory.
“A Variance?” I felt panic slip through my veins. Literally nothing within Rationality held a more dangerous classification.
Do you remember anything?
“Yes.” My heart continued to pound in my chest as I struggled to remember. “We were in the jungle… No.” I frowned. “We were underground.”
Asset 108, it is vitally important to Facility intelligence that we understand what happened in the Yucatán. For this reason, since you returned from dossier twenty-seven hours ago, you have been undergoing synaptic replication.
“You scraped my Crown?” I felt a little violated. I’d heard about the process, but as far as I knew, I’d never had the Facility manually replicate my memories.
We’re attempting to, the man clarified. Your Crown suffered significant pattern loss while in the presence of the Variance. We’ve made several passes so far, but we found it impossible to keep you unconscious during the process. That’s the reason for the restraints.
“How long do synaptic replications typically take?”
Usually around four hours. The Caduceus turned to a table next to my bay and picked up an injector. As I said, the situation is highly irregular.
“Twenty-seven hours?” That made no sense. “And you have no idea why it’s taking so long?”
You continually regain consciousness partway through the process. As a result, we get only clipped memories, fragments. He shrugged. I’ve explained these things to you five times now.
“What about Gideon?” My eyes widened as I had another thought. “Elle? What about Elle?”
We’re trying to learn everything we can, the man linked cryptically. For now, the most important thing is for you to rest. We need to initiate again.
As he spoke, he pressed the injector against my right bicep. I felt the initial cold of its sterilization sequence, followed by the tiniest pinprick. It hissed.
“Okay.” I blinked and instantly felt drowsiness settle thickly in my veins. “Rest.”
This may prove difficult. Because you’re not responding entirely to the disassociation sequences as you would in torpor, you may find the process of synaptic replication somewhat uncomfortable. The Caduceus tapped at the interface he held, a slight frown on his face.