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The Protocol: The First Vessel
“Pulse‐pounding, provocative, and chilling…”
In a world that feels all too familiar... an imposing research complex hidden in remote wilderness; a gifted young woman named Zaria Wells who arrives expecting only routine scans; a brilliant data‐minder, Mason Vale, convinced he’s seen it all; and a lead scientist, Dr. Vale, whose carefully constructed system of “consent” masks something far more insidious, there emerges a fracture in the very definition of humanity.
When Zaria steps onto the scanning table, even the softest whisper of the system’s hum sends tremors through her body. Her reflexes outpace every protocol designed to measure her. Mason watches in disbelief as Zaria’s silent resistance begins to rewrite the data, activating a ghostly legacy of someone called Aurelia, a woman whose hidden traces stir in the facility’s veins. As Dr. Vale pushes her experiments farther, the carefully calibrated machine that was meant to control flesh and mind instead ignites a chain reaction. Now, Zaria’s every heartbeat becomes a battlefield, and Mason must choose whether to shield her or surrender to the architects of a protocol that has shaped his identity long before he ever knew it existed.
“The Protocol is immersive, electric, and utterly relentless… Every page kept me on edge.”
In this fierce exploration of power, memory, and the dark frontier of human engineering, The Protocol plunges us into a world where data is life and consent is a performance. As alliances crumble and the line between observer and subject shatters, the question becomes when control over flesh becomes possible, what does it mean to be truly free?
In a world that feels all too familiar... an imposing research complex hidden in remote wilderness; a gifted young woman named Zaria Wells who arrives expecting only routine scans; a brilliant data‐minder, Mason Vale, convinced he’s seen it all; and a lead scientist, Dr. Vale, whose carefully constructed system of “consent” masks something far more insidious, there emerges a fracture in the very definition of humanity.
When Zaria steps onto the scanning table, even the softest whisper of the system’s hum sends tremors through her body. Her reflexes outpace every protocol designed to measure her. Mason watches in disbelief as Zaria’s silent resistance begins to rewrite the data, activating a ghostly legacy of someone called Aurelia, a woman whose hidden traces stir in the facility’s veins. As Dr. Vale pushes her experiments farther, the carefully calibrated machine that was meant to control flesh and mind instead ignites a chain reaction. Now, Zaria’s every heartbeat becomes a battlefield, and Mason must choose whether to shield her or surrender to the architects of a protocol that has shaped his identity long before he ever knew it existed.
“The Protocol is immersive, electric, and utterly relentless… Every page kept me on edge.”
In this fierce exploration of power, memory, and the dark frontier of human engineering, The Protocol plunges us into a world where data is life and consent is a performance. As alliances crumble and the line between observer and subject shatters, the question becomes when control over flesh becomes possible, what does it mean to be truly free?
202 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 5, 2025
About the author
Jon Cabrera
20 books26 followersI write whenever inspiration hits. Usually it's at 12 midnight or when I wake up at 3:33 AM.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
September 9, 2025
Engineered by humans, The Protocol is a world where memory, feelings and autonomy, the very things that make us human, are stolen for the purposes of experiments in control, leaving only 'vessels' to be used at its will. It's aim is frighteningly much more though. The end game is not simply to develop an order of compliance, but a world in which vessels become more than their original selves, united, re-awakened as someone other.
Governed totally by The Protocol it takes strength, foresight and determination to outwit what it becomes. Efforts to close it down, to oppose its will, forces The Protocol into something unforseen. It makes its own decisions. It reinvents itself.
You may have noticed that I've not mentioned characters, storyline, or anything that might be looked for in a book review. That's because this is not, for me at least, a far off dystopian world, but one which is here of our own making and one in which the outcome is more important. The characters and plot are just the 'vessels' for Jon Cabrera's message.
Read it. Enjoy it. Think about it, especially if you live in a culture where 'men don't cry'. It's a great novel from a mind far greater than mine.
Governed totally by The Protocol it takes strength, foresight and determination to outwit what it becomes. Efforts to close it down, to oppose its will, forces The Protocol into something unforseen. It makes its own decisions. It reinvents itself.
You may have noticed that I've not mentioned characters, storyline, or anything that might be looked for in a book review. That's because this is not, for me at least, a far off dystopian world, but one which is here of our own making and one in which the outcome is more important. The characters and plot are just the 'vessels' for Jon Cabrera's message.
Read it. Enjoy it. Think about it, especially if you live in a culture where 'men don't cry'. It's a great novel from a mind far greater than mine.
Displaying 1 of 1 review