Helix Protocol

by T.J. Swift

A Midnight Burn Prequel

Jace Mercer doesn’t trust anything with a corporate logo.
Not systems. Not data. Definitely not people.

A former black-ops infiltrator turned precision data operative, Jace lives in the shadows—off-grid, off-record, and always one step ahead. His closest ally is Sage, a razor-sharp AI he built from old code and instinct. Together, they specialize in extraction and exposure. No names. No loose ends.

But a new job cuts deeper.

A whistleblower on the edge.
A pharmaceutical giant with blood in its balance sheets.
And a locked tower hiding more than just secrets.

What begins as a surgical infiltration turns into something else—a breach that threatens to surface everything Jace thought he’d buried.

Set in the neon glare of a near-future New Jersey soaked in corruption and surveillance, Helix Protocol is a cyberpunk technothriller about control, conspiracy, and the price of pulling the wrong thread.

Before Midnight Burn, there was Helix.

Genres: Short Stories, Action

46 pages, ebook

Published May 26, 2025

About the author

T.J. Swift writes thrillers where the edges are sharp, the stakes are personal, and the truth is never what it seems. His debut, Midnight Burn, fuses noir, AI, and raw emotion into a story about trust, betrayal, and the ghosts we carry.

He builds characters the way he rebuilds machines—bolt by bolt, scar by scar—until they roar to life. When he’s not writing, he’s deep in code, chasing storms, or restoring his '69 Barracuda one wire at a time.

If you're into tech-laced conspiracies, haunted hearts, and stories that hit like a punch and linger like a promise, you’re in the right place.

Reviews

[BookishDramas · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars for me.
I read this book as a free review copy and this is my honest feedback based on my completing the book.

This is a pocket sized thriller and less than an hours reading. A techno-action thriller that just does not stop.
At its heart it harbours secret experiments, wrongful exploitation of terminal humans for experimentation and in plain parlance it shows when commercials render human life invalid and features big money with people who don't give a ....
The story is breakneck and once you start you cannot stop. I like Swift's style of writing and would like to read more of his books.

[Lisa Wood · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recently read Midnight Burn and although I enjoyed it (and am looking forward to reading the next book in the series), I was left with so many questions as to why the MC’s were in the bar/why they collided together as they did? It felt like part of the sorry was missing. This book answers most of my questions and I recommend anyone who hasn’t read Midnight Burn yet to definitely read Helix Protocol first. It’s a short novella so was really easy to read in just one sitting, this was helped by the fact that I wanted to know what happened next.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a short, fast-paced prequel to “Midnight Burn” and filled in some of the gaps from that book. You get a better understanding for the main character Jace. And there’s more explanation for why Jace is taking on the trouble he deals with in “Midnight Burn”. I do wish there had been some reference to when exactly the story was taking place though. The author’s writing has echoes of hard boiled crime novels of the 1940s and 50s, which gives the novella a nice punch of tone.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 rounded up. My first read by this author. The story needs more editing - several instances of repeated paragraphs and a few extra words here and there.
I do enjoy military-type action and good-guys-fight-evil-corporations stories, but the writing style didn't do it for me.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Jeanette Gilbes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fast paced. Swift’s vivid writing had me immersed in the story following the trail of corporate greed and big Pharma.