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?"