A living weapon. An attack on the laws of reality. One chance to save the world.
Welcome to one of the many stops on the book blitz for Rationality Zero by J.M. Guillen with XPresso Book Tours. Look for others participating in this blitz across social media and on your favourite bookish blogs April 28 – May 2, and don’t forget to enter the giveaway! More on that at the end of this post.
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About the Book
Rationality Zero
The Archon Conundrum Book One
by J.M. Guillen
Published 28 April 2022
Imperishable Press
Genre: Science Fiction
Page Count: 559
Add it to your Goodreads TBR!
A living weapon. An attack on the laws of reality. One chance to save the world.
Michael Bishop is a man who never dreams, who never gets ill. He lives his entire life oblivious to the truths hidden from him.
He is a tool in the hand of the most powerful organization on Earth.
Michael’s world transforms when They bring him online- when They activate the mysterious technology buried within his skull.
Then, the lies fall away. He becomes Asset 108. Using intricate technology, he defends humanity from the gibbering, tentacled horrors that haunt our world.
When mysterious renegades fracture the very laws of nature, Asset 108 is put into position. As the world begins to unravel, a cabal of madmen with physics shattering powers hunt 108 and his cadre, driving them into an alternate reality— a realm filled with inhuman horror.
Between otherworldly arachnids, muscled brutes infected with psionic parasites, and depraved cultists, grisly deaths lurk behind Michael’s every choice.
Yet all too soon, things become far, far, worse.
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Excerpt
I stumbled through the door. My poor mind felt savaged by a maelstrom of tangled memory and odd snippets of recollection. I wobbled a bit, meandering toward an alleyway next to the bar and rested my hand against the wall.
Steady, Bishop. I reached into my jacket pocket, my fingers trembling. More than anything, I wanted a cigarette—
But no. Of course I didn’t have one.
In my “normal” life, I didn’t smoke.
I leaned against the cool wall, data singing electronic warbles into my mind as the intel packets blipped and booted, establishing a connection to Facility networks. Forgotten vistas opened before me, like a blind man suddenly granted sight.
Focus. I took a deep breath and tried to ignore the dizziness. With a subtle click, my boot packet connected to the Lattice and ran its initial processes. The preliminary systems whirred in my skull.
When the greeting came, it resonated within my own thoughts, a whisper softly singing.
Welcome, Asset. The system prompt felt like sunlight after long darkness. Bishop, Michael, Asset 108. It has been three months and six days since you were last activated. Do you require full initialization protocols?
“No.” I spoke out loud before realizing I looked like a crazy person talking to myself in an alley. No,I linked. Please play only my selected data stream.
I’d heard the thing so often I had it memorized, but the system preferred a booting Asset perform at least a modicum of initialization.
Will comply. The system clicked in my mind. Now preparing preselected introduction protocols. The cool voice felt like a fresh breeze. Initiating playback in three… two…
Moments later, the smoky words of Gideon DuMarque, the Asset who had trained me for my early missions, grumbled into my mind. It felt as if he stood right next to me.
“It’s always the same,” Gideon growled. “You won’t remember when you’re in torpor. You’ll just prance along like an idiot, living whatever life they give you.”
“Why can’t I just be active all the time? Or remember? Cops remember. Security agents and espionage agents remember their regular lives, and they go to work.”
“Their work is nothing like ours,” Gideon replied. “Their work won’t shatter a mind, won’t leave a person depraved and raving. It’s better that we forget.”
Gideon’s career left him gruff as an old war veteran, yet his mind still sliced like a keen blade. This word-by-word recall, with my responses included, had been one of his earliest lessons.
I’d heard his explanations a thousand times. Honestly, it felt closer to a million. Still, should my memory fail to boot so that I needed the intel, I would be glad for it.
I let the words wash through me and waited for my favorite bit. I always enjoyed his description of the nanosecond of syncing:
“In high school, everyone learned about graphs: X represented left and right, Y showed up and down, and Z reflected near and far. With me?”
“Yeah. With you.”
“Well, someday you’ll be prancing along, happily listening to whatever ridiculous sound-track you play in that pretty head of yours, and they’ll patch you in. It’ll be sudden, with no warning. In the instant you connect to the Lattice, you’ll stop being concerned with whatever idiocy you’ve gotten into, because it will be as if the world took a step in the direction of W. In that moment, you will see everything from a totally different angle.”
“I just won’t care about whatever is happening?”
“Fact. You could be in the middle of the world’s best steak dinner, eating with the Hollywood starlet of your choice, and it just won’t matter. You’ll stand up and you’ll leave.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Well, that’s because you’re stupid. You can’t get it; that’s the point. W exists outside your regular frame. But when it happens, all kinds of tiny mysteries will click; everything will make sense.”
“Like what?”
“Things like, ‘Why do I keep getting these cuts and bruises?’ or ‘What happened last Tuesday night ’round eight?’”
“Won’t I wonder that before, like when I’m inactive?”
“Negative. You’ll make up stupid excuses. Or they’ll be made up for you; I can’t tell the difference. Either way, you will instantly come to remember who and, more importantly, what you are.”
The system carried on, informing me of current axiomatic readings in my area and reminding me of the nature of the Primary Protocol. Eventually, it came to a prompt.
Please acknowledge receipt of all data, Asset.
“Acknowledged.” I paused. “Bishop, Michael,” I muttered into the cool brick of the wall. “Asset 108. Authorization code 020798361. System green.”
About the Author
JM Guillen was your average, everyday awesome writer just trying to make it in this modern, awful corporate dystopia. He knew he wanted to make wonderful, bizarre things, but how could he afford to make that happen? Every day, he sat about crying and drinking, trying to figure out what he could do.
THEN A RADIOACTIVE METEOR CRASHED INTO HIS BACKYARD! FROM OUTER SPACE!
While examining the fuming interstellar rock, unknowable emanations radiated into the very center of his being. These unearthly energies changed the very depths of him, granting him powers that no man can name, and no god could ever master.
Reeling from the influx of spectral energies, he stumbled back into his home, his eyes open. Now, an entire universe unfolded before him. Now, he saw the way.
HE STARTED HIS OWN EVIL PUBLISHING COMPANY!
Now, JM Guillen begins to meet AWESOME people who supported his INSANE plans. Fiendishly, he scrawls story after story, writing steampunk, dark fantasy and eldritch horror…
Reality will never be the same.
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