Protocol M10:34: Chapter 3 – 19 8 1 4 15 23 0 1 14 7 5 12

Chapter 3 – 19 8 1 4 15 23 0 1 14 7 5 12

Another year of Protocol M10:34 has passed, and progress is monotonous, with highs and lows, yet steady. Because President Campione can’t officially support us, he’s sent United Chimaera States forces against the groups we secretly support. Several people with the M on the palms of their hands have been either killed or jailed, some of whom were actual extremists or agents of the protocol. President Campione hasn’t been sending many agents to give us a heads-up about raids on our allies and hideouts, so we have to be ready for them to give the appearance that we’re apart from our own country. As for us, Bezalel and Garnet have had more emotional outbursts, so to keep the mental training holding on in their minds, I’ve had protocol agents come to help them, under the guise of therapy and medical care.

This year, we’re helping a revolution brew in Frankreich. It’s been occupied for a long time and was one of the first countries in Proavus to fall to Adler and the Imperium. Now, we have to make sure the Imperium’s forces are weakened here, especially since it’s one of the planned invasion sites for the coming renewal of the Second Great War. Given the importance of this task, we have multiple agents working in the area and are supposed to get more help today because of a secret weapon we found. A series of knocks on our hideout door gets my attention. After going to it and quietly asking for the code phrase, I’m given the correct response, and I open the door to see that it’s one of the heads of the SIB, Donnie Parlarono.

After letting him in, Garnet, Bezalel, and I greet him. I say, “It’s a surprise to see you out here, sir.”

Donnie is the spitting image of a normal person with brown hair, brown eyes, and the dull colored fedora and suit of a common worker, and this is the appearance he usually has to hide how powerful a man he actually is.

Taking off his fedora, Donnie smiles at us and says, “Ah, that’s the point. Aha, I’m just glad to be out of the States. To be honest, it’s better being out here than there because I have to work with agents of the Imperium to fight my own people. It’s emasculating.”

“Tell me about it. It felt emasculating helping Ruthenia get back on its feet to fight back against Adler,” Bezalel says.

“Good work on that, by the way. Ruthenia was absolutely key in restarting the Second Great War, and with them now able to fight back against their occupiers on their own in Eastern Proavus, we can focus more on Western Proavus. So, tell me about this secret weapon here in Frankreich.”

Sitting down with Donnie and giving him a cup of coffee, I show him pictures of the labs we’ve infiltrated and documents we’ve copied.

“This weapon we’ve discovered is a variation on the gas-based weapons used in the First Great War, except this one is supposed to make others hallucinate,” I say.

“Who in the Imperium made them?” Donnie asks.

“No one did. This is an independent Frankreich resistance movement, comprised of extremist citizens and the remnants of their army, who want to take their country back at all costs,” Garnet explains.

“What of the resistance movement you’re leading? Do they have anything to do with them?”

“No, they’re a separate movement, who are in conflict with the actual extremists.”

“I think this opposition is a government plant,” Bezalel suggests. “How else could they be so well armed and get the materials they needed for the kind of weapon they have?”

The thought of one government-backed revolutionary movement fighting another is so funny to me that I can’t help but laugh a little.

“Whatever the case is, these actual extremists can’t be allowed to use their weapon. Do you know where it’s being kept?” Donnie asks.

“Yes. We have our people watching the area and sending us updates,” I say.

“Tell them we’re going to move in today to end this threat.”

We do as Donnie says and get ready. Donnie has brought a few more Protocol M10:34 agents with him as backup for this attack on the extremists’ hideout, along with a case full of agent tools, including lock-picking devices, electronics jammers, gas masks, and tools that make people easier to interrogate. Heading out to the town, all the agents and allies we have in the area surround the target building, then go inside. From the outside and inside, it looks like a normal home converted into a bakery, but in the basement, behind a hidden door, it's a research facility. Our small infiltration group spreads out throughout the facility to cover more ground, plant explosives to blow this place up, and secure the secret weapon. While sneaking around, we use our knives to silently kill and get them out of our way before hiding their body in dark corners of the facility, lockers, and boxes that shouldn’t be discovered until we leave.

As I set the explosives, I peek into one of the rooms to see how the weapon is being made and the gas being tested on Adler soldiers. The soldiers go insane, yelling, screaming, and crying, with some even killing one another or themselves with their bare hands, and as this is happening, the observers are laughing and joking about it. Additionally, people in black robes in the room are performing some sort of occult ritual. Before I can move on, I hear gunshots and the alarm ringing. All the doors in the rooms lock, the lights go out, and the gas used on the test subjects starts leaking throughout the facility.

I put my mask on, and yet I can still smell the gas and start feeling affected by it. My head feels light, and my body feels weightless, as if I’m moving in a dream. Everything around me blurs together like a swirl, and I start hearing more sounds of screaming, fighting, crying, and gunshots. I try to find a way out of the facility, but every hallway looks the same, and the facility looks like it goes on forever.

“You threw yourself into danger for the sake of others, but now, you throw the innocent into danger for the sake of your country,” I hear a dark voice say.

A door in the hallway opens. Going through it, I find myself back in the City of Angels in a burning ship. The criminal scum in it start shooting at me, and the sounds of screaming and crying children and innocent adults push me to recklessly shoot and run through the criminals to get to them. While running through the ship, I see the innocent killing themselves by hanging or shooting themselves in the head because of what they’ve been through and done against their will. Reaching the source of the crying and screaming, I see them burning alive in a cage that I’m unable to unlock.

“No! It didn’t happen this way! I did save some of them from this ship!” I say out loud.

A door in the cage opens to a hallway in a rundown apartment. I go through it as a dark voice says, “No, but you still didn’t save all of them like you wanted to, just like how you didn’t save other innocents during your time as an officer.”

Knowing what’s through the door, I refuse to go through it, instead going through the door back where I came, and somehow, I find myself in the apartment.

“I tried my best. I was still a beginner! I learned from my mistake!” I say.

I do my best to run out of the apartment, but I keep ending up on the same floor and closer and closer to the door I dread going through.

“You failed. You still hold onto it, despite not wanting to. The memory is permanently seared into the back of your mind, like a constant motive and reminder never to fail again,” the dark voice says.

I exit at the bottom of the staircase and find myself in a room with a young girl holding a gun to her head. No matter how much I struggle, I feel helpless, unable to do anything but watch her cry and take her own life. The floor beneath me cracks and then falls apart. Now I’m back in the Middle East, backed by Adler soldiers and facing the Cult of the Pale Green Horse. We ruthlessly execute the people we once helped as we make our way through a palace decorated with the bodies of other soldiers and civilians.

My mind remembers that it’s in the present, so I thankfully switch to non-lethal rounds to knock out the child brides of the Middle Eastern leaders and kid soldiers they force into service. Still, the Adler soldiers shoot and kill them. I lift my gun to shoot them back, but I can’t.

“Complete your assignment, agent. Don’t be compromised. Think of the greater good,” a dark voice says.

My arms lower my gun, and I go back to clearing the palace until the Adler soldiers and I leave it and enter the streets of Ruthengrad when it was under the control of the Slav Federation. Garnet actively argues with the Adler officers to spare civilians and injured soldiers, while Bezalel helps the soldiers and then stays on the sidelines with me when the Adler soldiers start dividing the people into those who will be spared and those who will be killed or shipped off to death camps.

“You stood by and helped your enemies do evil. Do you think you’re justified in doing so because you were facing another evil enemy?” the dark voice asks.

“I pray every day to know and do better,” I say.

“You don’t do enough. You say you pray, but you don’t do enough. You’ve always been under a puppet master's influence. You’ve never needed their brainwashing to do their bidding.”

Visions of what I’ve been doing during Protocol M10:34 blur together and push me through the events all at once, as if the whole world and time are converging together around me. I kill my own countrymen, torture people for information, stab and shoot a countless number of foreigners, blow up various city and town buildings, and walk away from helping extremists who shoot anyone they want to. Taking the advice of the dark voice, I pray harder until the visions stop one after the other, and I find myself back in the facility I was in. I slap myself a few times to make sure I’m truly awake and in reality, and thinking that I am, I use my radio to call my fellow agents.

“Donnie, Garnet, Bezalel?” I say into the radio.

Around the facility, I see signs of a gunfight, dozens of dead bodies, and blown-open doors and cages. I hit my head a few times to make sure the gas isn’t affecting me, then I start hearing someone moving around.

“Hello? Is anyone there?” I say with my pistol up.

Thanks be to God, Bezalel and Garnet appear from around the corner. They’re bruised, bloodied, and their clothes and armor are in tatters, but they’re fine. I run over to hug them, and they hug me back.

“What did you think, we died?” Bezalel asks.

“Did you have those strange, realistic nightmares too, Draco?” Garnet asks.

I let go of them and say, “Yes, I did, and it was horrible. I still feel the effect of it in my head.”

“You too? I’m remembering things that I thought were bad dreams.”

“What exactly are you remembering?” I ask.

“Shooting civilians, killing our own police officers and soldiers, and torturing people who didn’t deserve it,” Garnet says.

“Don’t believe it, Garnet. You’ve seen the occult stuff that they were doing here. I have to see a priest on our next day of rest,” Bezalel says.

“He’s right. We all need a day off and a blessing from a priest after this,” Donnie says as he appears from behind us with his accompanying agents, who are holding heavy bags.

“Sir! I’m relieved to see you’re okay,” I say.

“I can say the same about you. Let’s all get out of here before the authorities arrive.”

Garnet, Bezalel, and I agree; however, before we go, Donnie puts his hand on my shoulder.

He whispers in my ear, “That gas might’ve compromised Garnet and Bezalel’s mental training. Keep a closer eye on them.”

Looking in Donnie’s eyes, I see the dead serious eyes of a man who’s ready to kill, so I nod in agreement and hope that it doesn’t come to that, and yet, those hopes start to fade immediately when Garnet and Bezalel voice their concerns to Donnie about him and his agents retrieving research and materials that were used to make the gas. Donnie explains that he’s taking it back home so that our scientists can study it to find a way to counter it, an explanation Garnet and Bezalel find unsatisfactory.

Again, Donnie looks at me, so I agree with him, saying, “If our scientists research a way to counter the gas, then fewer people can be hurt by it in the future.”

“Well, there’s no arguing with official orders on an unofficial operation. I hope both of you are right in what you’re doing,” Bezalel says.

I hope so, too.