Delta Green - All Part of the Job

The Bedford Project - Session 4g

Only, Atwood hadn’t made it out. The FBI profiler was struggling to stay awake while the Thing-That-Had-Been-Dunn towered over him. Without bending, it reached down to him. Its arm elongated impossibly, and just before it grabbed Atwood … eight … nine … ten!

Dempsey’s “Irish Coffee” bomb splattered the creature to all corners of the room. That was it. Even the shrapnel and acid weren’t enough to keep Atwood awake. In his final moment of consciousness, he could just barely hear Dr. Cherry laughing through the ringing in his ears, and he could taste metal.

The concrete tunnel was about 150 yards of acidic air and flickering florescent lighting. About halfway down the tunnel was another breached security checkpoint complete with unhinged and rusting doors, scattered rust and oxidized copper, and two blueish-skinned corpses. At the end of the tunnel were two more dead security guards with the usual signs of a failed gunfight. The bodies were slumped against the wall opposite a rusted mine shaft elevator. It was in rough shape, but it appeared operational.

Dempsey had a few reservations about using what was essentially just a rusted grate, corroded cables, and a pulley. Porter had even stronger reservations about heading back the way they came, so up they went. The elevator control was nothing more than three buttons on a box; one for each direction and one to stop.

The elevator creaked, and the gears ground, but it was apparent whoever had it installed wanted the best quality. Despite the sounds and a few stuttered jerks, the elevator ride was otherwise smooth. It came to a halt at the top to reveal an eight-foot square hole in the landing where a grated floor had rusted away. A steel door had been ripped from its hinges, and it bridged the gap. On the other side of the door-covered hole, the floor was concrete, and there were two more corpses who appeared to have been taken completely by surprise.

The air at the top was fresh, and the night sky could be seen through the open doorway. The storm clouds had dispersed. The small concrete building leading to the elevator was surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with razor wire, but a sizable hole had rusted away.

Porter and Dempsey paused for a moment and took deep breaths to clear their lungs and nasal passages. The Irishman looked back toward the elevator, but he didn’t have to speak. Porter was thinking the same thing. Atwood wasn’t going to make it. If they made it out of this town alive, they’d have a drink or two in his honor and then another drink or two for good measure.

The men could hear the sounds of whistles and cheering in the distance. That was a good sign, right? That meant the thing hadn’t collected its payment yet. All the same, Porter wasn’t confident, and his words implied as much.

“You know we can’t take that thing, right?”

“Aye. But we can’t just not try.”

“Maybe – and hear me out on this ‘cause I hate myself for thinking it – maybe we can just not try. Not saying those people don’t deserve to be saved, but there’s nothing we can do besides throwing ourselves at it.”

The Irishman frowned, but he nodded in agreement. Porter swallowed hard before he continued. Yeah, he didn’t like what he was thinking.

“It’ll probably all be over before we get there anyway. Maybe we just … you know, maybe we go the other way. We grab that chemical truck and ride it on the rims nice and slow. Not our fault we didn’t make it in time, right? Hell, we tried our best.”

Dempsey was quiet and solemn. He didn’t like the plan, but it made sense. And the NSA spook had an air of experience about him that lent strength to the idea. The agents headed around the HelpLink building to Porter’s rental car.

They sat in silence all the way out IA-2 until they reached the Brewster Pesticide truck. Both men knew the play, and neither felt particularly like discussing it until they had to. Dempsey would take the truck, and Porter would follow at a safe distance.

The pesticide truck’s engine fired right up, but rolling on six flat tires slowed things down. The Irishman didn’t particularly care about ruining the wheels or the road, but the last thing he wanted was a rollover in a 500-gallon chemical weapon. Still, if he had to go out, there were probably worse ways. Hell, for all he knew, this might be his origin story, and he could come out of the rollover with super powers.

The Bedford Project - Session 4h

The drive back to Bedford was tense for both agents. While saving an entire town would be great, neither man wanted to get to the game too early.

As they reached town and neared the school, signs of the creature’s passing became more evident. All along Taylor Street leading toward the school, the creature had left a trail of incidental destruction. Cars had partially rusted, and in some cases, this had resulted in tires rolling away like tumbleweeds and gasoline leaking into the gutter. The street was mostly dark; the only light was coming from the moon, the stadium lights of the football field in the distance, and a few fallen street lights which were still operational but shining at odd angles.

Though he was pale even for an Irishman, and he was driving slowly, Dempsey’s knuckles were whiter than usual as he gripped the steering wheel tighter than his last bottle of Bushmills. It was difficult enough to drive a truck with no tires and full of deadly chemicals in the direction of the last place he wanted to be. Now he had to drive it through an obstacle course.

As Dempsey carefully navigated the debris scattered across Taylor Street, the stadium lights were a beacon in the relative darkness of Bedford. Just across the street from the school, a jet of water was shooting into the air where a fire hydrant used to be. Whatever Dunn had called down, it had made it at least as far as the high school parking lot. Several light posts in the parking lot had fallen, and many cars had been heavily rusted.

The Taylor County Corn Huskers team bus suffered worse than the other vehicles in the parking lot. To initial observation, it appeared the middle of the bus rusted away leaving two halves. The rear half of the bus had tipped forward leaving the rear emergency exit up in the air. The front half of the bus had done the same thanks to the weight of the massive engine.

No loud sounds were coming from the stadium; no cheering, no collisions, no whistles, no announcer … no screaming. Maybe it was all over? But the scoreboard indicated the Bedford Bulldogs were leading the visiting team by a score of 77 – 3 with 3:13 still left to play in the 4th quarter.

Porter pulled his rental car up next to the truck. The trail of rust and corrosion led straight to the stadium, and the turnstiles had rusted away, but there didn’t appear to be any bodies in the parking lot. Dempsey thought maybe that meant the thing had hit fast and taken everyone by surprise, but Porter pointed out the kid checking tickets at the gate and the people running the concession stand were gone. There didn’t appear to be anyone up in the announcer’s booth either.

The bee girl, then? Cherry had mentioned she could influence and direct everyone in town. Maybe she called everyone together and had them sit quietly while the thing ate? The thought sent shivers down their spines, but they agreed it was likely. Well, just as long as it was gone …

The parking lot side of the field was lined with a concrete structure for the home team’s fans. It was this structure which, until the turnstiles had rusted and corroded away, had guarded the entrance to the stadium. Metal bleachers for the visiting team’s fans lined the other side. Behind the west end zone was the field house with the announcer’s booth above it, and beyond that was the rest of the Bedford High School campus. Beyond the east end zone was a grass field and Madison Street. The entire stadium was enclosed by a chain-link fence.

Now came the tricky part. The truck had to get on the field. The only way that was going to happen was for Dempsey to take it around to Madison Street, and then drive it through the field and the fence. While he was getting into position, Porter would enter on foot. He didn’t want to be anywhere near the stadium, but someone had to be there in case the Irishman couldn’t finish the job.

Both men nodded respectfully at each other, and Dempsey threw the truck in gear. The wheels cried under the strain as he moved into position.

Porter crossed the parking lot quickly until he reached the turnstiles. No bodies, no sounds. As he moved slowly out of the tunnel and onto the track around the field, he became aware of a crunching sound under his feet. There were no cheerleaders in front of the stands, but right where they should have been were hundreds of dead bees; maybe even thousands. The NSA spook turned quickly on his heel - grinding a dozen or so bees to a pulp in the process - and aimed his gun up into the concrete structure. He didn’t bother to count the blue-skinned bodies littering the stands, but if it turned out to be the same number as the population the “Welcome to Bedford” sign boasted, he wouldn’t be surprised. It sure as hell looked like it could be 1,406.

The Bedford Project - Session 4i

Porter gave a beckoning wave, and Dempsey threw the truck in drive. He managed to gain enough momentum through the field to roll over the thin metal fence surrounding the stadium, and he was able to maintain it enough to get through the other fence around the field.

The Irishman let the truck come to a rest at midfield on the home team side. To his right, he could see a pile of blue-skinned athletes and referees, and beyond that, metal bleachers with more bodies draped about. To his left, he could see the bodies in the stands of the concrete structure and Porter waving. Between Porter and the stands, he could also make out what seemed to be a dense, roiling fog of pale yellowish-pink seeping out of the stands and staying low to the ground. He jumped out of the truck and shouted for Porter to run.

That was the last thought he could spare for the NSA man for now. He had a job to do. Running around to the back of the truck, Dempsey began disabling all the fail-safes and planting explosive charges. They couldn’t kill whatever that thing was, but if all went according to plan, they could at least make it look like domestic terrorism rather than cosmic horror.

Porter didn’t even bother to look. He just ran. He ran out onto the field toward the truck and met up with Dempsey. Then both men ran toward the visiting team’s bleachers. The idea was to keep the truck between them and the thing. Then, when the creature was close enough to the truck, Dempsey would hit the button on the remote detonator. The explosives would open the tank and release the chemicals which the agents hoped would at least make the thing think better of remaining in Bedford.

They made it to the visiting team’s sideline and turned to wait. They could see the fog rolling onto the field. They watched as it closed in on the truck. Dempsey hit the button.

Nothing. He hit the button again, and still nothing. He hit it frantically several more times and still nothing.

Porter closed his eyes and took a deep, slow breath. He knew what he had to do. He knew he had to be the one. Of the two remaining agents, he was the older man, and he was the American. He loved his country as much as he hated his job. There was only one way this ended.

He gave the Irishman a nod and a tired smile before running full speed back to the truck. Back to the thing that killed Bedford. Dempsey let him go. Porter was a good man. He’d be sure to drink twice as much in his memory as he would in Atwood’s.

Dunn’s creature roiled beneath the truck as it seemed to wait for the fresh soul. It was futile, he knew, but Porter instinctively took a deep breath and covered his face with his shirt as he reached the truck. The thick fog seeped out and engulfed his feet. He felt the burn, and even though he held his breath, Porter felt the sting in his eyes and nasal passages. He felt his throat tighten around his swelling tongue. Any moment now, his stomach would turn black and force its contents up that tightened throat, but there would be nowhere for it to go. He would choke as the stomach acid forced its way up and out anywhere it could – eyes, ears, nose, mouth; he could feel it happening already. It would come out with explosive force, so he had to move fast.

Through blurred and stinging vision, he found the detonator. His knees were giving out, and he thought briefly that he could feel his soul being drawn out through his pores. He wanted to give Dempsey one final salute, but his knees buckled. On his way down, he slapped desperately for the button. A series of small detonations told him he had succeeded. He never felt his blue-skinned head hit the grass.

Dempsey saw the truck blow, and then he ran. He wasn’t much for quantum physics, but he’d heard of a guy and his cat. If he never turned to look, he’d never have to know. As he ran north down Madison Street, he heard the horn from the stadium indicating time had expired. Only in America could the home team be outscored by more than 1,400 and still call it a win.

Update: The Roll20 group has been assembled! Actually, it's been cobbled together from the remnants of my Alaska and Kentucky tabletop groups. Still, the result is the same.

Character creation and schedule arrangement will get rolling soon, and the first Roll20 session is set for two weeks from now, Sunday, August 26th. That means updates to this Story Hour will begin shortly thereafter.

Excellent! I cannot wait to see what sort of terrible things happen to your player characters.

Not bad! Will read on weekend.

Gotta love scheduling difficulties before the first game with new players. We managed to put a session together Sunday with two of the new players; one character started as Delta Green, and the other did not. Dempsey's player was on a fishing vacation, but he should be back next session.

Let's Learn Aklo - Session 1a

According to numerous studies, speaking two languages fluently has a profoundly positive effect on cognitive skills and health. How much smarter and healthier, then, might someone be if he or she spoke several languages fluently? If Dolf de Jaager is any indication, the answer is simple: Very. The Dutch American linguist was a software engineer for the U.S. State Department who not only spoke several languages fluently but also designed translation software. He was also an extraordinarily brilliant man by all accounts. Even the other members of The Collar Club, a group of people who call themselves furries and wear anthropomorphic animal costumes, would unanimously agree, Dolf was by far the smartest of their number.

Dolf was intensely curious and inquisitive by nature. He was never one to let a mystery go unsolved, and the FedEx package he found on his doorstep one Saturday morning in December provided exactly such a mystery. The sender’s address indicated, in his own handwriting, that he had sent it from the Old First Ward Community Center in Buffalo, NY. That was plausible since he lived in Lewiston, about a half-hour drive north of Buffalo, but he had no recollection of having sent the package or ever going to the Community Center. Neither did Leah, his significant other.

As it was a weekend, and this was an unusual occurrence, to say the least, Dolf brought the package inside and took it upstairs to his home office. He opened the box with a pocket knife from a desk drawer. The contents only served to encourage his curiosity. He found five rewritable compact discs in jewel cases marked sequentially in Sharpie, and the numbers were just as he would write them.

Below the CDs, he found a steno pad with notes in his own handwriting; notes he had no memory of having taken. The written notes appeared to be the sort which a person learning a new language might take; an English phrase on one side and (presumably) the translation on the other side. The notes identified the language as Aklo, but he had never heard of it despite his many years of language studies. He was able to identify specific grammatical patterns, and he felt sure that, given enough time, he could learn to read and write Aklo. As for speaking it … well, maybe that’s what the CDs were for.

Dolf popped the first CD into the optical drive of his computer. The disc contained a single 74-minute .mp3 file which he played. As he suspected, the recording was done in the same format as the written notes; English phrase, translated phrase. It was his voice speaking the words, but he was no longer surprised. He may have had no memory of taking these notes, making these recordings, or mailing this package, but he had had a long night of drinking a few days ago, so … maybe? He didn’t sound drunk on the recording though.

There was an intense blue flash from the tree line outside his office window, but when he looked, he saw nothing. Dolf let the CD play as he retrieved binoculars and his shotgun from the far side of the office. The gun was loaded with birdshot, so it was unlikely to be of much use against anything so far away, but he still felt better with it nearby.

He scanned the trees again, this time with magnification. Still nothing. Whatever it was had gone. He leaned the shotgun against the wall next to the window and returned to his computer. He flipped through the steno pad again. There was a web address written on the last page. It was for a company he’d heard of but never thought much about. The Modern Languages School of America (MLSA) was a correspondence school which taught foreign languages by CD, textbook, and postal exam.

There was no mention of Aklo anywhere in their catalog, but less than an hour ago, someone had started a thread for it on the MLSA forum. The user, MightySkag, posed a question in his initial post: “Anybody else out there interested in learning Aklo?” In the signature portion of his post, MightySkag indicated he also went by the name Heir of Tarzan, and he claimed to have been raised by apes to be the new lord of the jungle. It also stated his location as Buffalo, New York. Dolf created an account and posted a response. He told MightySkag that he, too, was interested in learning Aklo.

Over the next several weeks, Dolf and MightySkag made frequent posts, and a few others joined the thread. They were a varied group, and the only common threads seemed to be that they all lived in or around Buffalo and had received a package from themselves. Only Dolf and MightySkag seemed concerned about that fact. The rest were far too excited about learning this exotic new language.

Dolf had asked a few of his colleagues to look into the identity and background of MightySkag, but it turned out to be unnecessary. One of his coworkers was a big wrestling fan, and he immediately recognized the name. Charlie Skaggs was a professional wrestler based in Buffalo who went by the stage name of the Heir of Tarzan, and he had a match against “Savage” Sammy Sutton coming up. Dolf decided to attend.

Let's Learn Aklo - Session 1b

The fans were rabid in their excitement, but Dolf paid no attention to them. He was there for Charlie Skaggs. It was easy to see how Skaggs could use a ring name like the Heir of Tarzan. The man was big and built, he was of mixed white and African American descent, and when he climbed the turnbuckle, he could almost fly.

The match didn’t last long. After a brief back and forth to work the crowd up, the Heir of Tarzan sent “Savage” Sammy Sutton running across the ring. As Sammy rebounded and ran back, the Heir of Tarzan had made his ascent. He dove at his opponent, and his shoulder made solid contact. Sammy’s head whipped back. The man was unconscious, but it took a moment for his legs to get the message. The Heir of Tarzan took a knee in a prelude to the pin.

Dolf shouted “Go, Charlie” in Aklo, and that got the wrestler’s attention. The Heir of Tarzan pointed straight at him with a grin and a wink before pinning the comatose Sammy. The next match was between a 700-pound giant named Girth and a much smaller man in a gimp mask known as King Pain. Dolf wasn’t interested, but he held his position.

Once Charlie had cleaned up, he made his way through the crowd to where Dolf was waiting. The two men discussed Aklo briefly, and Charlie admitted he had seen a blue flash as well. They exchanged phone numbers and addresses, and then Dolf squeezed through the crowd on his way out.

The next six weeks passed about the same as the previous five had. The Aklo group on the AMLA forum was up to eight members, and they were all quite active. What the group lacked in numbers, they made up for with enthusiasm.

Winter was coming to an end, and the early-March weather promised great things for the spring. For the Aklo group, these great things were also heralded by a call to meet. Group member Willie Adams, a widower who had retired from both the Air Force and his own small business, proposed the idea on the forum. He would reserve a conference room at the Old First Ward Community Center in Buffalo, NY, and they could practice speaking for a bit before recording themselves for their postal exam. The other members thought that sounded delightful. Only Charlie and Dolf seemed to notice that was the same community center from which they had mailed themselves the packages in the first place, but even they weren’t deterred. This new language was far too fascinating.

Dolf had shared very little new information with the group over the past eleven months; he instead pretended to participate by parroting ideas others had previously put forth. He had noticed language markers linking Aklo to many otherwise-unrelated languages, and he guessed it must be some sort of precursor; an ancient ancestor of most – if not all – other languages. If he was correct, Aklo could provide the U.S. with something similar to a universal communicator.

Of course, he had another theory: It was possibly a nearly-impenetrable code, and this was all a test being administered by the Illuminati. If that was the case, he wanted to be the one to crack it. He wanted to be the first kid to decipher the Ovaltine Message of the Week with his decoder ring. When the doors to the chocolate factory were opened, he wanted to be sure he had his golden ticket. No way in Heaven or Hell was someone going to learn this Aklo stuff before he did.

There was more Dolf hadn’t shared with the group. He had written a program to search the internet for any mention of Aklo. Despite the fact he routed his encrypted signal through several proxy servers around the world, this immediately tripped several red flags in Delta Green computers and put him on a watch list, but he had no way of knowing that.

The program also turned up just what he was looking for. One particular website dedicated to Asian pornography had several mentions of the language in a members-only VIP section, but they were all old enough to have been archived. No way was he putting membership on his credit card, so he bought a refillable gift card.

Once he had access, he found every instance of the word. In every case, it was associated with some combination of the same twelve actors and actresses. They were some type of Asian, he was sure, but just specific ethnicity, Dolf had no idea. From the context, Aklo seemed to be their language, or at least, one of them. One of the actors had an Aklo phrase tattooed on his upper arm. It said, “Go, Bulls!”

Let's Learn Aklo - Session 1c

Dolf packed up his laptop and the package he’d mailed himself, and he set out for Buffalo. He wanted to arrive early so he could have time to get coffee somewhere in case none was provided. He was the first to arrive, but the room was already prepared. Several folding tables were arranged in a horseshoe shape, and Dolf chose a spot on one end with his back to the entrance. He would still be able to see the entire room thanks to a large mirror directly opposite his seat.

Charlie was the next to arrive, Dolf greeted him. As others began to file in, Dolf saw the blue flash again. This time, he got a good look. It was bright, but it was vaguely humanoid. It was on the roof of the office supply store across the street. Rather than call attention, he excused himself and made his way to the store. The employees were busy preparing to close, so they paid him little attention. No one seemed to notice as he slipped through the door to the stairwell at the back. He headed up the stairs and out onto the roof.

Nothing. Just an empty roof, a low wall around the perimeter, and an industrial air conditioning unit … which was just large enough for a person to use as cover. He readied his camera to capture video, snuck quietly toward the air conditioner, hit record, and whipped around. Dolf came face to (probably) face with what appeared to be a crouching man, except the man was made of bright, blue light.

In fact, he could see through the man if he tried, but it hurt his eyes to look directly at the man for too long. Not that the man gave him much chance. The blue figure was utterly motionless for a full ten seconds or so after Dolf popped around the corner, and then, in what seemed to be a much-delayed reaction, it ran for the wall. Tracers created a disorienting effect on Dolf, but he watched as the thing jumped from the roof to a tree much farther away than the software engineer would be comfortable jumping to.

Instead, he made his way back down the stairs, into the store, and then out of the store as quickly and inconspicuously as he could. Once outside, he was unable to locate the figure. He returned to the conference room to find the rest of the group enthusiastically making their recordings on their laptop computers.

Dolf took his seat and watched the video on his phone in slow motion. There were a few frames where the features of the blue figure were clear enough to make out. It bore a strong resemblance to one of the group members across from him; a former Navy SEAL named Anthony Hash. Dolf suppressed a shudder and emailed the video to his work address before deleting it from his phone. He then began his recordings for the postal exam.

It wasn’t long, however, before he saw the blue figure again. This time, he saw the reflection in the large mirror as the figure passed by the open doorway. The rest of the group was too engrossed in their work to notice anything else. The software engineer paused his recording and went to the lobby. There was no sign of the blue figure, but Dolf was sure it couldn’t have gone far.

As the software engineer nosed around the lobby and other two conference rooms, he heard a crash of glass followed by shouts coming from the direction of the Aklo group’s room. He rushed to see what the commotion was all about, and he was horrified to find out. Tables were overturned, laptops where smashed, and the big mirror on the far wall had shattered. Worse still, a few of the group members had retrieved particularly jagged shards of the mirror and appeared to be engaging in a rumble like something straight out of the West Side Story. Fortunately, there was a little less dancing.

Charlie Skaggs held his arms high over his head and roared at Lois, a 15-year-old Hmong girl who had been the last to join the group. Lois was frothing at the mouth and making threatening gestures with a shard of the mirror. The Heir of Tarzan grabbed another group member, Buffalo University Linguistics Professor Mabel Lively by the bun of her hair and yanked her back. He then lifted the woman effortlessly over his head and tossed her at the Hmong girl. Professor Lively was impaled on the mirror shard, and the girl was knocked unconscious. Another quick motion and Skaggs had snapped the girl’s neck.

Dolf fled outside and called the police. The local first-responders arrived a few minutes later, but by that time, there was no one left alive in the conference room. The only survivors were Dolf and a security guard who had put Charlie down. It also appeared the former Navy SEAL, Hash, had disappeared. Dolf gave his statement to the police, and they asked him not to leave the scene for the time being.