I’m thrilled to finally pull back the curtain on a project that has occupied my creative world for the past year. I’m excited to officially announce the title of my debut fiction novel-in-stories: The Janus Protocol.
What is The Janus Protocol?
Set over a single, tense 24-hour period on the eve of Veterans Day, “The Janus Protocol” plunges into the heart of a massive and complex American institution: the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The story begins with a series of seemingly random, unrelated system failures. A VA medical appointment scheduling system for Veterans in West Virginia begins to stutter. An elevator in the VA D.C. Medical Center goes offline. Pharmacy orders lag. To the dedicated staff on the ground, it’s another day of frustrating glitches in an aging system. But as the day unfolds, it becomes terrifyingly clear that this is no ordinary system crash. A ghost is in the machine, and its actions are deliberate, coordinated, and escalating.
A Novel Told in Stories
“The Janus Protocol” is told as a “novel-in-stories,” a mosaic of interconnected narratives from a diverse ensemble of characters caught in the crisis. Each chapter is a self-contained story, focusing on a single character’s unique battle on this chaotic day, including:
- The Nurse at the VA Geriatrics Clinic, holding the line of care together with sheer force of will when the technology fails.
- The Vietnam Veteran, a proud but weary warrior trapped in a waiting room, who becomes the human face of the system’s failure.
- The Greedy Contractor, a master of the D.C. game who sees the crisis as a golden opportunity for profit.
- The Cybersecurity Expert, a brilliant but cynical prodigy pulled from his vacation to hunt a ghost in a machine he doesn’t understand.
Through their eyes, the pieces of the puzzle slowly come together, revealing that the day’s chaos is not just a threat to the system, but a direct and personal threat to the veterans themselves.
What Lies at the Heart of the Story
At its core, “The Janus Protocol” is a techno-thriller about the systems—of technology, power, and bureaucracy—that shape our lives. But it’s also a deeply human story about the quiet heroes who fight to keep the threads of care from unraveling in the face of overwhelming odds. It explores the nature of service, the weight of the promises we make, and the ghosts of the past that haunt our most critical institutions.
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Bill James
