The Collective Protocol

The Collective

Protocol

a novel by

Brian Parker

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Notice: The views expressed herein are NOT endorsed by the United States Government, Department of Defense or Department of the Army; they are the views of the author.

The Collective Protocol

All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2014 by Brian Parker

Edited by Aurora Dewater

Cover art designed by Nicole Anderson www.anobrainart.com

This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.

Works available by Brian Parker

A Path of Ashes,
book 1
~
www.amazon.com/dp/B00XATPU9E

Fireside,
book 2 of the
Path of Ashes
~
www.amazon.com/dp/B015ONZOU8

Enduring Armageddon
~
www.amazon.com/dp/B00XZA2UQY

Origins of the Outbreak
~
www.amazon.com/dp/B00MN7UFBW

The Collective Protocol
~
www.amazon.com/dp/B00KUZDY4O

Battle Damage Assessment
~
www.amazon.com/dp/B00PCND2RI

Zombie in the Basement
~
www.amazon.com/dp/B00H6DUXY2

Guild
~
www.amazon.com/dp/B00UIUEM8I

Self-Publishing the Hard Way
~
www.amazon.com/dp/B00HNQCZ9I

Upcoming Novels by Brian Parker

Washington, Dead City
series from Permuted Press:

GNASH
, coming Feb 2016

REND
, coming Mar 2016

SEVER
, coming Apr 2016

Dark Embers
, book 3 of the
Path of Ashes

From the Author

Thank you to my family for traveling this crazy road, dreaming with me and allowing me to have the time to write. Without your support, none of this would have been possible. As I look back, it’s amazing that I now have a publishing contract through Permuted Press, the undisputed champion in apocalyptic and horror fiction. I’m still speechless.

I’d also like to thank my editor, Aurora Dewater. She’s such a gracious person who is concerned with advancing our art and ensuring that the stories are told in the best possible manner. Finally, thank you to my new go-to beta reader, Andrea Goergen. She’s caught several critical slips in the storyline—both for The Collective Protocol and in other books that she’s helped me with. Without her catches, people in D.C. might have ended up in Oregon…

ONE

“Hey, Slade. Let me in.”

The minder peered at her through the small slit in the door. “What do you want, Amethyst?” he asked.

“I’m here to party. Jerome said it’s cool.”

“Jerome, huh? Want me to call him and check out your story?”

“Go ahead, man. He’ll tell you to let me in the club.” She looked around the darkened alley and noticed a few shadows shifting. Were her eyes playing tricks on her or were some of the bums taking notice? She dug into her clutch and pulled out the mace that her father had given her as a sixteenth birthday present a few years before.

Slade’s dark eyes stared daggers into the teenage girl before he finally relented and opened the door. She stepped inside and he quickly secured it behind her. Amethyst stared at the blanket-covered walls of the dimly lit entry foyer while the bouncer went about his job.

“You know I gotta check you,” he stated.

“Yeah, I get it. I’ll save you the trouble, my camera is in my pocket,” she replied while she motioned towards her back pocket.

“You know that people don’t like you filming in here.”

“Yes, they do. Everyone wants to be a star. Anyways, I always blur out faces and only post interviews when someone has given me express permission to do so.”

Slade stared blankly at her thick mascara-laden eyes. “I won’t post the interview unless the person says it’s cool,” she amended so that he’d understand.

“Hmpf,” the doorman grunted. “If Jerome said its fine, then it ain’t my job to tell him different.” He reached out and patted her tank top lightly and then had her turn around while he frisked her legs.

“You done feelin’ me up yet, Slade?”

“Almost. Gotta stamp your hands and then you’re good.”

He pulled out a stamp and rolled it deeply in the permanent ink of the stamp pad. “Give ‘em here,” he motioned for her to present her hands for marking.

Slade stamped the backs of both her hands and she held them up to the light. “Nice. Did you come up with this or was it Jerome?” she asked.

“We wanted to make sure that folks knew who could and couldn’t drink
.
”

She held up her hands and thrust them in Slade’s face. “Don’t you think this is a little excessive?” she asked about the cartoon monopoly figure behind bars and the words, “Buy Me A Drink - Go Directly To Jail - Do Not Pass Go” printed on three sides of the square image.

“What? We thought it was witty.”

“Yeah, whatever. It’s better than your last stamp attempt.”

“Oh, we still have those for the under eighteen crowd,” Slade rebutted as he pulled out a stamp that said, “JAILBAIT!” in a large font.

“That’s the one,” she said as she pointed towards the offending stamp.

“Hey, we can’t afford to get shut down by the cops,” Slade answered with a shrug. “We try to keep it fun, y’know?”

“Whatever, man. Am I good to go inside?”

“Sure thing, Amethyst,” he responded and opened the inner stairwell door. The sound of music exploded into the tight area from the basement and the doorman had to shout to be heard, “Keep the filming to a minimum!”

“Yeah, okay!” she yelled back at him and stepped over the threshold while he closed the door behind her. The dude was a total sleazeball, but he was alright—for a bouncer. He usually gave her a little bit of grief, but she knew that he’d be there if she needed him.

The girl smirked at the thought of Slade sitting in the foyer. Her real name wasn’t even Amethyst. That was just her online handle, but that’s how most people identified her. Her parents and a few real life friends knew her as Reagan Lockhart, a video blogger looking to find the next big story and finally make a name for herself.

Reagan pulled the small camera from her back pocket and attached it around her non-dominant arm with the lens facing forward. That way it would record everything she saw for her blog and the end of term research project about clubbing in D.C. She’d experimented with various positions of the camera over the years and liked this one the best. Wearing it on her forehead like some jack-hole sports jock wasn’t an option and she didn’t like putting it on her chest because people continually grabbed at it while she walked through the club. Of course it was always an
accident
when someone missed the camera and grabbed her boob by mistake.

After several of those
accidental gropings
she determined that she needed to make a change in wardrobe and in camera location. During her first few video tours of D.C.’s underground club scene she’d worn her typical club attire of a revealing corset, a vinyl or leather skirt and knee-high boots, but she decided that if people were going to accept her as a serious reporter, then she needed to not blend in to the crowd so much, but not be a standout that others would avoid. Hence the jeans and tank top that she wore when on assignment. Plus, keeping it clean was a lot easier.

She stepped off the landing and pressed record before descending into the darkness. The music throbbed so loudly that her heart began to skip beats and aligned itself with the thump of the bass. The stairs were longer than she'd expected, but given the building's location on the hill near her university, she wasn't surprised. The water table was so high in the city that most of the basements were really only half underground anyways. Up here, though, they'd been able to dig deeply into the rock and create a real underground setting.

The bass continued to assail her senses so she gently pushed the sound-dampening earplugs into place deep in her ear canal. She was a clubber, but there was no sense in losing her hearing for the rest of her life. The devices served their purpose and she could once again hear herself think. The first thing on her agenda was to get several full shots of the crowd dancing and having a good time. After that, she'd dance with a few people and then move into her interviews that she'd prepared.

She slid her way through the crowd to the side wall and then searched for something to stand on that would allow her to get the camera above the crowd. After several minutes of futility she identified a husky boy nearby facing the stage and strode up to him purposefully.

While he may have been oblivious of her approach, his friends were definitely not and they ogled her with unmasked desire. Reagan tapped him on the shoulder and shouted, “Hey!”

He turned slowly while his friends laughed and pointed. Clearly they thought that he’d offended her somehow. “Yeah?”

“Hey, I think you’re hot,” she lied. “Wanna go dance?”

“Oh, holy crap!” exclaimed one of the boys in the group. “Hey, Craig don’t dance, but I’ll dance with you, baby.”

“Get a life. I’m interested in… Craig,” she replied harshly. “Is that true? You don’t dance?”

“Nah, not really. I’m big and clumsy, you know?”

She reached out and took his hand to pull him over towards the side away from his friends who watched in disbelief. “You look perfect to me, Craig.”

“Aww, thank you. What’s your name?”

“Amethyst. I love this DJ!”

“Oh yeah, she’s crazy good. I saw her last week at the Acid Rain.”

“Hey, I was at Acid Rain last week.” That one was only a little lie. She had been in the club, but it wasn’t for a rave. She’d gone there to interview the manager for her website.

“Wow, maybe we ran into each other tonight because we missed our opportunity last weekend,” Craig hypothesized.

Hook, line and sinker
, she said to herself using her dad’s old fishing analogy which meant he’d taken all the bait. “Maybe. That’s cool… Wow, I
really
like this DJ,” she shouted close to his ear. “Too bad I can’t see her.”

“Yeah, this is a really big club.”

“You think you could lift me up so I can see?”

The teenage boy eyed her buxom body and said, “Sure, I can pick you up. Easy.”

“Awesome! Here, let me get on your shoulders so I can see the DJ.”

He licked his lips nervously and said, “Okay. I’ve… I’ve never had a girl sit on my shoulders before. What do I need to do?”

She rolled her eyes on the inside but her face remained a mask of adoration on the outside. “You ever chicken-fight with your friends in the pool?”

“Yeah, all the time!”

“It’s just like that.”

He nodded his head in understanding and crouched down while she clambered up on his shoulders. Several white cellphone camera flashes from where his buddies still stood in shock indicated that they’d noticed her straddling their friend’s neck as well.

It worked perfectly. From the top of Craig’s shoulders she was able to get a shot of the entire club, including the bar in the back and the stage up front where the mediocre DJ spun her records. She turned slowly a few times to take the entire scene in before she felt the boy’s chubby hands caressing her calf muscle through her jeans.

Reagan shook her leg in annoyance but he continued to paw at her. “Hey, I’m gonna get down now,” she shouted.

He crouched to allow her to slide off and then asked, “Did I do something wrong?”

She thought carefully about what to say. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but she had an agenda to follow through with. “No, I just saw all that I wanted to see, Craig. Thank you.” To prove that he was alright, she leaned in and kissed him on the cheek and then slipped into the writhing mass of dancing people.

She felt badly about using the kid, but rationalized with herself that it probably made his night to have her legs wrapped around him. She sidestepped a girl flailing her arms like one of those blow-up dancing men that places used to catch motorists’ attention. When she did, she bumped right into a hulking giant of a man who whirled around with his fist drawn back.

Regan threw her hands in front of her face and screamed. The man realized that he had his fist up and that everyone around him was watching so he lowered it and offered her a hand up.

“You better watch yourself. I coulda busted your face,” he said as a way of an apology.

“Yeah, I’m sorry that I bumped into you. IN THE CLUB. Jerk. Why don’t you go inject some more steroids in your butt, your ‘roid rage is wearing off.”

“Hey, you little snot-nosed brat. Don’t talk to me like that.”

She let her finger talk as she slithered past the oblivious dancing girl deeper into the crowd.
What a jerk! It’s a nightclub. People are gonna bump into you.
Behind her she heard the offensive guy yelling and then several people began to shout.

The muscle-bound idiot had punched the people around him for no reason and it created a domino effect in the club. Fights erupted all around her like a bar fight in an old Western movie. Someone kicked her in the stomach and she doubled over in pain. Through her squinted eyes she saw a figure leap in front of her and begin punching the man who’d kicked her.

Craig’s black and white shirt glowed neon in the black light and he was wailing on the dude. The offender’s nose shattered and blood ran freely down his face into his mouth. He caught her savior’s hand and bit down hard onto his knuckles while Craig punched at the side of his head with his other fist.

Blood oozed out of the clubber’s mouth as he continued to grind his teeth into Craig’s hand. Reagan stood rooted in horror at the scene playing out in front of her. He seemed to be possessed and Craig wasn’t reacting to his injury or even trying to pull his hand away from the guy’s mouth. They just continued to attack each other. Finally, the weirdo pulled away and then launched himself at the young man.

The two of them fell in a heap while they continued to kick, bite and punch at each other. Reagan stepped back from them and then realized that while she’d been focused on the altercation immediately in front of her everyone else in the entire club was tearing into each other.

Everywhere she looked, people were fighting. Men beat the hell out of women. Women chewed on the faces of men. It was sheer pandemonium. She ran towards the back of the club where the stairs led to the safety of the streets above. As she ran it seemed like the beat of the music became more intense.

The fighting took on an increased intensity as well. She watched in horror as a woman pulled off her shoe and stabbed a man through the eye with the stiletto heel. Blood spurted outwards and across Reagan’s face. He bellowed in rage and wrapped his hands around the shoeless woman’s neck. The veins in his forearm popped to the surface as he squeezed tightly and choked the life out of her.

Reagan rushed over to try and pull his hands from around her neck but his grip was too tight and she couldn’t make his fingers budge. The woman she was trying to help lashed out and scratched her fingernails raggedly down the blogger’s face.

“What the hell?” she screamed and staggered backwards holding a hand against her bleeding cheek.

Through the tears in her eyes she saw the man with the shoe protruding from his eye socket drop the dead woman and turn towards her. He stumbled across her body and temporarily lost his footing, which gave Reagan her opening and she ran with everything she had towards the outside.

Her mind raced faster than her feet. Was there some kind of drug that everyone had been exposed to? Maybe the drinks had been laced with something. Or even an aerosol spray across the crowd before she’d arrived. It just didn’t make any sense that hundreds of people would attack each other—kill each other!