Cascading Error:Critical: A Lovecraftian Technothriller (The Dossiers of Asset 108 Book 4)

by JM Guillen

  No. Anya interjected as she kicked one of the toads in the face. My research has shown that most of Michael’s dates have more tentacles.

  WHAT? I turned toward Anya in disbelief. Et tu, Petrova?

  Now that’s funny. Wyatt chuckled and sealed another rift with a WHUF!

  Apparently, the creature that ran from me wasn’t alone in its concerns. Several of the freakish things apparently decided against further engagement. As Anya shot them dead, one after another, Sofia teleported others to God knew where.

  Wyatt closed the pools that led back to their homes, and I methodically wandered among their dead and slaughtered their children.

  That couldn’t be good for their morale.

  “GRooooak!” The last toad gurgled, circling around the table and the corpse of the old man. It made a leap for the last of those darkling pools.

  WHUF! Wyatt sealed that path with a single shot.

  Sofia loosed a final quarrel, and Croaker vanished with one last gurgle. “And done.”

  Within a matter of minutes of the cadre reuniting, the aberrations had been either slain or driven back to their watery homes. Their sickening spry had been reduced to a fine but disgusting, goo.

  There. Wyatt gave me the biggest smile he could. What would you do without us, Bishop?

  Save on therapy bills? I chuckled as I responded.

  Babysitting little Froggy is more like it. Sofia wrinkled her nose at me.

  Inside his sinuses, my Alabamian friend chuckled.

  “I suppose that’s fair.” I glanced around the room. “There were quite a few of them. Where did you send them?” I turned to Delacruz.

  Remember the hallway where Rachel got shot? Bubba here left two stasis fields there, one on either end.

  “Did he?” I shook my head. “I wondered if you’d just left those Irrats there to starve.”

  “I might have let ’em out.” He considered. “After a day or two.”

  Well, I still had a quarrel there. I couldn’t create any new apertures, not with aberrant vectors flung all over the place. So, I simply linked to that quarrel and sent the Irrats some pets.

  “Did you?” I laughed. “That seems mighty generous.”

  I didn’t want them to get lonely.

  “To be fair,” Wyatt interjected, “it was entirely her idea. I did not in any way recommend she trap savage aberrant creatures in with those poor Irrats.”

  “No, I see what you were working on.” I glanced around. I didn’t think I’d ever seen so many stasis fields in one place. Each of them shone silver, and seemed as if they might remain in place until the Earth itself was swallowed by the sun.

  They’ve got good color. I raised one eyebrow at Wyatt. Not experimenting with other hues again, I hope?

  That was crazy. He shook his head. I’ve never in life seen remainders like— Mid-link, Wyatt simply stopped.

  I stared at him, expecting him to continue, yet he just stared back, his eyes wide and confused.

  What is it? I started to link, but I couldn’t get past Wh before my Crown froze.

  It whirred then, and I felt my system lock. For an instant, I couldn’t move a muscle. I could still see Wyatt, though, and Delacruz behind him, similarly locked in place.

  Standby for vital updates. The prompt seemed distant, and significantly more mechanical than usual.

  After a moment I felt the whirring sensation again. Warmth, like melted caramel, washed through my veins. My shoulders drooped, relaxed. Then I could move again.

  What? Sofia gasped. Did they just put us on lockdown?

  I am receiving an urgent patch. Anya’s head twitched and then twitched again. Pardon me for a moment while I attend to system issues.

  Issues? Wyatt rubbed the side of his head as if he had a headache.

  My telemetric variables are being updated. Anya glanced at me, and I saw a touch of nervousness in her eyes. I’m detecting Rationality variances, and I need to peruse the axiomatic weave for a moment.

  “Well.” I glanced at the others. “I don’t like the sound—”

  As if someone had physically taken my head and twisted it, I twitched, violently.

  I opened my mouth to complain, and the same thing happened again, only to all of us.

  Our heads spasmed simultaneously.

  Sovereign prerogative alpha-nine engaged. The system prompt sounded heavy in my mind, much like the secondary comm. Initiating now.

  “What?” Sofia turned to me then Wyatt, eyes wide.

  “There must be some mistake.” I shook my head. Sovereign prerogatives were the ultimate expression of a Designate’s authority. Used only in the most dire of situations, they included orders that literally could not be disobeyed

  The thought terrified me.

  Bishop, Michael. Alpha of the Citadel. Engaged.

  Petrova, Anya. Preceptor second tier. Engaged.

  Guthrie, Wyatt. Artisan of the Citadel. Engaged.

  Delacruz, Sofia. Gatekeeper of the Citadel. Engaged.

  Which of the sovereign prerogatives have been put into play? Anya made certain to include all of us in her link. As was often the case, her words sounded almost sterile, yet I knew the truth.

  Her wide, frightened eyes told me everything.

  A Variance in Rationality has been detected. Standard protocols are being initiated.

  “A Variance?” Sofia brought one hand up to her mouth. “Honestly? I’ve never encountered a Variance.”

  “I have.” I practically spat the word. “Once.”

  “Fuck. Me,” Wyatt muttered.

  I have it now. Anya’s fingers trembled, and I thought it might actually be due to nervousness rather than her interface.

  “How bad?” I asked.

  Super-Rational. Her eyes flicked from side to side as her fingers twitched. Michael, it is at one hundred seventy-eight point four.

  “Please tell me you misplaced the point in your analysis?” Wyatt asked hopefully.

  The Variance occurred less than two minutes ago. All local Irrational signatures have vanished. The system paused for just a moment. A second Variance occurred upon the Isle of Malta, within .0036 seconds with the first. This took place 1049 kilometers away.

  The system is correct. Anya turned to stare at me. The Irrats no longer show upon my telemetry. The rift has vanished.

  “Amir!” I cursed the name.

  He has vanished as well.

  “I knew he was up to something.” I kicked at the ground, furious.

  You are to immediately return to the Corvus. You are to immediately set course for the coordinates that we will provide. Your Designate will be in touch with you shortly.

  “Oh, I bet she will,” Wyatt snorted. “Now, at least.”

  “Dammit!” I slammed my fist against the table. We’d been so close. We never should have chased after all of these stupid fucking rifts…

  Michael. Anya’s link only came to me. We need to go.

  As if to emphasize her words, the system prompt came again.

  You are to immediately return to the Corvus. You are to immediately set course for the coordinates that we will provide. Your Designate will be in touch with you once you arrive in Malta.

  I took a breath and let it out slowly. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, not really, yet I couldn’t help but feel as if something had been taken from me.

  So. Close.

  “I have the aperture ready, Alpha.” My brash and confident Gatekeeper seemed subdued. “I will ignite on your mark.”

  “Mark.” I smiled in an attempt to reassure her. However, no matter how I tried, I couldn’t ignore the terrifying system announcement.

  A Variance in Rationality has been detected.

  The last time I’d experienced a Variance, most of my cadre had died. I remembered the way they’d screamed in the darkness of the jungle, deep beneath the Earth. We’d lost a Designate. Our Gatekeeper had gone mad.

  Gideon, my Alpha, had to carry me out, rambling and raving.

  Th
is time wouldn’t be any better. Gideon DuMarque was dead. Our Designates were out of touch.

  I was the Alpha.

  This time, there wouldn’t be anyone to carry me out.

  A Variance in Rationality

  The moment we stepped through the aperture, a cheery, if somewhat tired, voice greeted us.

  “Good evening!” Rachel sat in the same seat she’d arrived in and pored busily through a small container of viral mecha. Apparently, she’d had time to change into another set of Caduceus white and blues.

  I couldn’t say the same. My suit reeked with frog vomit.

  “Well hello, Caduceus!” I gave her the jauntiest smile I could muster. “Did you have some new lungs whipped up?”

  “I didn’t need new lungs.” She blew a strand of hair out of her face. “Just had to get these patched. Some jerk decided to try to ventilate them.”

  “Hey there, Rachel.” Wyatt gave her a somewhat weary smile. “Glad to see the robots got you all fixed up.”

  “I’m not exactly what I would consider ‘system green.’” She shrugged. “But I’m conscious, capable of doing my job, and not in any pain. I imagine that if I release myself, my Alpha might do his best to keep me out of harm’s way.”

  “I’d always keep you out of harm’s way if I could,” I mumbled. “Unfortunately, seems like harm is pretty intent on chasing us down.”

  “I noticed.” Rachel gave a somewhat wan smile. “The moment I queued myself back into the cadre, I received the notification.”

  “You didn’t happen to bring any dampener grenades, did you?” Wyatt teased. “Our Alpha here forgot his today, and as a result I’ve had to use Rosie to shut down all of those rifts.”

  “I didn’t.” She raised one eyebrow. “Not that I ever gear dampening grenades.”

  “Maybe I should just go get some now,” I mused. “I could have my Gatekeeper send me back to the Citadel to refit, while you take this baby back through the Maelstrom.”

  “Urk.” Delacruz wrinkled her nose. “Are we really going through that thing every time we fly anywhere?” She sat down and glanced at me over her seat. “Can I come with you?”

  “It’s practically instantaneous.” Wyatt offered her a sideward grin. “Don’t worry, Sofia, you’ll definitely get used to it.”

  I sighed, full of the knowledge that she would never, in any way, get used to it.

  “We’ll receive an update from our Designate when we arrive in Malta.” Rachel gave a small, almost apologetic shrug. “I don’t think we have time to refit.”

  I hated that she was right.

  “Well enough.” I turned and gazed at the rest of my cadre. “Are we ready to go?”

  “No.” Delacruz stoically sat strapped in, though already she appeared a touch green.

  Yes, Michael. Anya fastened her restraints and made certain her weapons were appropriately holstered.

  “Nobody asked if the pilot’s ready,” Wyatt grumbled. He made his way to the front of the craft and began to strap himself in. “Haven’t even received coordinates.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your Alpha speaking,” I teased and turned around. “Our Artisan will be flying us around the horrific, mind-bending gloaming until he receives our proper coordinates.”

  How would the Designates transmit coordinates into the Maelstrom, Michael? Anya gave a tiny shake of her head. Are you even thinking?

  “Ha!” Rachel laughed and then snorted.

  “Thanks for trying, Mike.” Delacruz closed her eyes.

  “I have coordinates,” Wyatt informed us. “Just received a packet.”

  “Good.” I nodded. “Just what I wanted to hear.”

  That wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear. Punching back through the Maelstrom didn’t exactly excite me. Nevertheless, I leaned back into my chair, took a deep breath, and tried to relax.

  The Corvus would make it. I knew that. Aside from issues with falling out of the sky, Wyatt handled the craft with the same assurance he did the tangler.

  It truly wasn’t the gloaming darkness I worried about.

  I worried about what we’d find on the other side.

  2

  With an explosion of impossible color and immeasurable sound, we burst into the skies over Malta.

  And came to a dead stop.

  Every one of us jerked forward in our seats, and the Corvus hung perfectly still.

  If I didn’t know better, I’d believed Wyatt Guthrie hummed ‘Little Red Corvette.’

  “I’m going to initiate the Wraith.” Wyatt glanced over his shoulder. “That way we’re not an unidentified flying object hanging here in Maltese airspace.”

  “Brilliant!” I coughed; my seat strap had caught me in the neck. “Do that.”

  “That was your chance.” Rachel shook her head sadly. “You could have said ‘Make it so.’”

  “What?” I shook my head.

  “I’ve been waiting all day for you to use that one.” Rachel lamented.

  Incoming packet, a system voice informed us. Available via recorded stream only.

  “And here I actually have room to port it to memory!” I sighed.

  Packet will engage the phaneric nodes of:

  Bishop, Michael, 108

  Petrova, Anya, 171

  Guthrie, Wyatt, 423

  Gardener, Rachel, 135

  Delacruz, Sofia, 217

  Stone, Demetrius, 702

  I gave Wyatt a sideward glance at the last, and rolled my eyes the tiniest bit.

  He chuckled.

  A syrupy warmth coated the back left side of my skull as the system engaged my phaneric node. The overt manipulation of that system surprised me a touch. We used the phaneric node on every dossier, but typically it remained in the background.

  I’d never actively felt the node engage.

  The phaneric technology had been named after the Greek concept of ‘phaneron.’ Simply, one’s phaneron comprises what an individual can experience with their senses.

  The phaneric node stimulated the parts of the brain that dealt with perceptual input. This technology enabled the Facility to place tokens over our visual field, create markers that showed spikes or desirable locales, and place various readouts, like ambient Rationality numerics.

  Wyatt liked to say that we had no way to know what we actually saw. According to him, all of our sensory input might have been augmented by the Facility. For all we knew, he said, we might all be floating in a vat of protoplasm somewhere.

  Playback has been initiated simultaneously to all affected Crowns. This information stream has not been stored in any packet or in any Facility system. Should it be deleted from an Asset’s Crown for any reason, the Asset will lose access permanently. Due to the nature of the Lattice membrane and memory storage, once an Asset has lost access to a memory of this type, the Asset will be unaware of the loss, and unable to seek out this intel.

  Take care with this packet.

  “So you can’t remember what you’ve forgotten,” Wyatt muttered.

  He and I exchanged worried glances. In all the time I’d been an Asset, I’d never experienced information exchanged in this way.

  Furthermore, you will find it impossible to create a packet with this data. While you may discuss this information among yourselves, you’ll find it quite impossible to communicate this data to any other Asset or individual.

  “Wow.” Rachel sounded a bit taken aback. “Do you know what they would have had to do to accomplish that?”

  “No. I don’t.” Wyatt leaned closer to her. “Save it.”

  An image of our Designate resolved in front of us. Just as every time I saw her, her professional dress remained meticulous, perfect. Her black hair had been coiled on top of her head, and she wore her glasses, the ones that made her Mandarin eyes seem just a touch too focused.

  The tiniest bit of static flickered through her form.

  That concerned me as well. I’d never once seen an imperfection in a phaneric transmission.

&
nbsp; I must apologize for my absence; however we have had a significant issue take place at Facility Prime. This missive is specifically intended for the members of the Citadel Initiative. The nature of this excursion will not be relayed to any other Assets.

  I shifted in my seat. The more I heard, the less I liked.

  On 6 January, Michael Bishop and Gideon DuMarque found themselves in pursuit of a known reality terrorist and wanted individual, Amir Cadavas, Irrational 3302. These Assets had not expected to encounter 3302 or his Cabal and therefore were not prepared for the forces they found themselves arrayed against.

  I sat back in my chair and didn’t meet anyone’s eyes.

  The image flickered again.

  Gideon DuMarque is presumed lost from that encounter. However Michael Bishop, Asset 108 managed to procure portions of an item of great worth to 3302 and his cabal.

  A second image resolved itself, next to her: the red leather of the bookbinding I’d destroyed while in the cistern beneath Istanbul. Also arrayed were the many loose pages I’d picked up after my conflict with Amir.

  “The Liber Noctiis.” Wyatt nodded. “Gideon used to talk about this thing.”

  This book, entitled the Liber Noctiis, has been classified as Irrational Relic # 0918. It remains a priority one item. It contains secret lore from worlds beyond Rationality, and possesses a consciousness of its own. This book is keyed to the actions of ‘The Darkened Road,’ and we have only recently begun to understand why.

  “You only got part of it?” Wyatt stage whispered to me.

  “Yeah. A few dozen pages.” I eyed him as the image crackled a bit, and the next few words warbled.

  Something significant was wrong.

  Upon his return to Facility Prime, 108 immediately status-requisitioned to AES. There, he received some of the alterations and upgrades that he would require as Alpha of the Citadel.

  Like the fourth port. I nodded to myself.

  The Liber Noctiis was classified and stored, as all such items are. A specific Designate task force assembled in order to study the relic. The Designate paused for a moment, as if uncertain how to continue. The outcome of this study was unforeseen and catastrophic.

  Several images resolved around her, showing different scenes. For a moment, two flickered and wavered as if they might not appear at all.