The Enigma Protocol Chapter One

The Enigma Protocol

Chapter One

In which our heroine infodumps the premise.

    Stop me if you've read this one before...

    There is a secret world of gods and monsters living alongside our own, consisting of supernatural races both familiar and bizarre, who have remained hidden from a blind humanity.

    I know, I know, but there's a catch.

    It's one thing to be a semi-immortal predator of humanity when your name is whispered around campfires and in smoky taverns in tones of dread, or even better in a world that insists on believing only in science and rationality and doesn't even think you ever insisted.

    It's quite another thing to live in a world where the secrets men had died to protect in ages past are broadcast weekly on television, vampires are expected to either sparkle or leap around rooftops in corsets and black leather trenchcoats, and teenagers claim to be reincarnated werewolves trapped in human form. Quite frankly, it's just embarassing.

    Most of the Hidden (the only name they can agree on) are now terrified that they'll be mobbed, not by villagers with torches and pitchforks, but by lonely wannabes and lovesick fanfiction authors if they're discovered. The internet itself was both the catalyst for the Great Truce of Y2K, and the means by which it had been arranged. The long-unspoken first commandment of the Hidden had been agreed on by everybody: Be cool and just Keep Your Head Down!

    Of course, nothing is ever that simple, and the deeply-held grudges of centuries were just too important to some people for any kind of meaningful cooperation to occur, no matter how much sense it would make for them to get their act together to avoid detection.

    That's when the Order of Ptolemy (more on them later) decided to change their ancient policies of observation and non-interference and take a more proactive role in keeping things under control by creating the post of Ambassador. The Ambassadors were supposed to be neutral parties, go-betweens to handle the Hidden's dealings so nobody did anything stupid. (Put more than two vampires in a room and someone usually ended up Really Dead because of a snide remark made at a tea party a hundred years ago, for example.)

    The Order's active eyes and ears, their secondary purpose was the same as the Order's original reason for existing: to gather information and try to find out what was really going on at any given time. That made them both dangerous assets and astonishingly short-lived. It wasn't long before their ranks were depleted and experienced supernatural historians and investigators were replaced by a wide assortment of field recruits with little or no organization, from conspiracy nuts who had found out just a little too much to random bystanders who were snapping pictures with their smartphone in the wrong place at the wrong time.

    Of course, some of us did actually know what we were doing and had the skills to survive. That's where I come in. A long time ago I managed to uncover the Order's first meager computer networks and hacked my way in, using my access to keep tabs on their world from a distance.

    Eventually I got bored listening in and decided to get involved. Call it a mid-life crisis. I showed up on their doorstep, literally, and blackmailed my way into a position as an Ambassador as soon as I heard they were starting to get short-handed. Never underestimate the power of being in the right place at the right time. Turns out I had a knack for it and I began to produce results that surprised everybody. For one thing, I managed to survive long enough to get a reputation as somebody who kept her word.

    That probably explains why one of the oldest beings to walk the earth took a liking to me and tried to hire me to be its personal secretary and mole in the Order. I valued my independence too much, more than my life it seems, and in a fit of integrity (more like insanity) told it, him, no. He laughed.

    I'm not really sure why I'm still alive, but having the Dragon on my speed dial has made me pretty popular with the rest of the Hidden, let me tell you. (Why is there no sarcasm font?)

    All of which is just a long-winded setup to explain why I was, sigh, running across the rooftops in a corset and a black leather trenchcoat with a wooden box under one arm, being chased by something that no folklorist in their right mind would put down on paper, and screaming into my cellphone.

    "LEFT SIDE OF THE BUILDING! NOW!!!"

    It looks cool in the movies, yeah, but there's nothing cool about the feeling in the pit of your stomach when your feet launch you off the edge of a building into empty air and you see the pavement coming up at you entirely too quickly. My parkour skills were a little rusty.

    Fortunately my self-appointed sidekick and chauffer was sharper than he looks and had anticipated something like this. I don't want to know where he got the mattress. "DRIVE YOU IDIOT!" I thumped the pickup truck's back window with one hand and held on with the other as he shot out into traffic, where the sheer number of witnesses would keep us safe. Assuming we didn't plow into anything, that is. There was a faint roar in the distance as the sentry, psychically tethered to its building, vented its frustration at being unable to follow.

    "Barry?"

    "Yeah boss?" his voiced squeaked from the cellphone as I lay in the bed and watched streetlights flash by overhead.

    "Where the hell did we get a pickup truck from?"

The Enigma Protocol

So I wrote something recently... Possibly the start of a series. Working on a name for it.

The Enigma Protocol

Prologue

 The Dragon rarely called himself that, of course. In another tongue his name was old and reptillian and never meant to be pronounced by a human throat.

 He walked in the shape of a man, with the only the occasional flicker of air around him to suggest that he was anything else. No one was truly observant enough to see the signs of one of the Old Ones among them like a wolf among the flock.

 Well, almost no one. Some people were hypersensitive to the Other in the world, being Other themselves.

 The werewolf (small w) and the tall dark-haired woman exchanged looks over their coffee cups as the door to Median opened with a jingling bell. The werewolf ("therianthrope," as he constantly corrected people) was thin, with stringy blond hair, entirely too much scraggly beard, and the mannerisms of a nervous rabbit, ironically enough. She was tall, her eyes heavily made up in a rock video sort of way, with unusually thick hair and a jaw that said entirely too much about her past.

 Something that had once laid waste to the gates of Babylon loomed over them, stylishly attired in an Italian suit that cost more than a small car.

 "Is this seat taken?" he rumbled in a voice that had scales in it.

 "No, help yourself," she replied, casually tapping the pendant at her throat with one hand.

 He nodded understandingly. "Well met."

 "Well met yourself," she replied.

 The werewolf looked like he was going to faint as the Dragon seated himself and ordered a simple black coffee.

 The two of them promptly ignored him as they sized one another up.

 After a moment, the Dragon nodded. "You're looking well these days. It's agreeing with you. The voice still needs a little work, though."

 "Says the man who triggers panicked racial memories when he orders his steak rare."

 "Touche. We all play our parts as best we can. Do you like the new look?" he preened.

 "You look vaguely like a young Sean Connery. The receding hairline is a nice touch. Gives you a slight flaw. Makes it believable."

 "Well, shapeshifting has its advantages. It's too bad yours has to be so awkward and... chemical."

 She glared. The werewolf stared down into his empty cup and began praying silently as a bead of sweat rolled down his neck despite the coffee house's near-arctic air conditioning.

 "Are we done being cryptic and clever?" she said curtly.

 The Dragon rolled his eyes. "You're no fun ever since you decided to become a woman. Always so Serious and Politically Correct. Very well, what's the problem?" He sipped his coffee nonchalantly, the mood having been broken. 

 "Half the psychics in the city have been having nightmares. Real end-of-the-world stuff. Wanda at the Black Crystal thinks something's up. What have you heard?"

 He scoffed. "Wanda sells Harry Potter trinkets to tourists and drinks too much. Not every disturbance in the Aether is a sign of impending doom or the return of Cthulhu, you know that as well as I. Things are quiet as far as I know."

 "Almost... TOO quiet?"

 "You did not just say that."

 She smiled. "Considering the last time this many people with Talent had sleepless nights was just before Hurricane Katrina laid waste to New Orleans, I tend to err on the side of caution nowdays. Keep an ear out, will you?"

 "Very well. You'll owe me the usual price if I have any information, then?"

 She rose to her feet, towering over him. "As I recall, you still owe me for that leather jacket you ruined last winter. And the coffee's on you today. That should make us even."

 He smiled. "All right. I'll email you if I hear anything. Take care, Lorelai."

 She nodded to the forgotten third person at the table, who scrambled to his feet and was out the door before she had finished shrugging into her oversized coat.

 "Thank you for that," she said under her breath.

 "I'm not a *total* bastard, you know. Now go collect your delicious-looking bodyguard before he has a heart attack out there."

 "My, but you have eclectic tastes in men. Some bodyguard. He's not even a real werewolf, he just believes a lot of nonsense from the internet."

 "Ah, but aren't we all just making ourselves up as we go along? I'd think you'd appreciate that considering you're..." His voice trailed off significantly.

 "It would be SO nice if people didn't feel the need to mention it every thirty goddamn minutes."

 "It's still new. Give them time. I remember when *color* TV was all anyone could talk about."

 She rolled her eyes. "I see what you did there."

 "Do you really? It took days to come up with that one."

 Outside the air was crisp and the streetlights were just starting to come on. She found him perched on the trunk of the car, sniffing the evening air and scratching behind one ear absent-mindedly, and had to admit that at times he did indeed seem to act just like a dog in a human suit.

 "The Dragon does email?!?" he said. "You could have just texted him?!? Why did we have to do this?!?"

 "Calm down, Barry. You don't survive god-only-knows-how-long like he has without being able to adapt to technology. I wanted to be sure he was being truthful. You can't read an aura through a computer screen, after all."

 "You are going to be the death of me, Lorelai, I just know it."

 "Just don't wear any red shirts. Now get in the car and drive us back to the safehouse. I can't afford to be late for my first day at a new job, can I?"