Delta Green - All Part of the Job

Sufficient Unto the Day - Session 4a

Agent REDLIGHT made it to the road in front of the flat and promptly changed his mind. If ROSE had called the police, the flat would be the first place they’d look. He instead slipped quietly into the place where Sienkiewicz had been staying and called Brigadier General Justin Drake who seemed none too happy to be getting a call at 9 o’clock at night.

“Sir, this is Captain Gump. I need to ask a favor.”

“Gump? This had better be good. Do you have any idea what time it is?”

“I do, sir, and I apologize. I’m in Plymouth, UK on a Delta Green Operation, and things have gone really wrong.”

There was a moment of silence, and when the general spoke, he emphasized nearly every syllable with a strong southern accent.

“You have got to be kidding me, Gump!”

“No, sir. You see …”

“Captain, do you mean to tell me you’re across a damned ocean on a Delta Green Operation you can’t handle, and you think I should give a damn?”

Agent REDLIGHT explained to the general how he had been framed for murder, his cell leader wanted him arrested or dead, and a cult was going to end the world. For his part, General Drake listened in agitated silence until the end. He then let REDLIGHT have it, and he was merciless. He didn’t care one way or another if Delta Green couldn’t handle field operations. He was a general in the United States Army, and he was unwilling to commit resources to extract a single asset from an allied country. He finished with a piece of advice:

“Calm yourself, and think about what you’re saying. An evil cult is going to end the world tonight, and you need help running from it? You need some rest, Captain, and I do, too. Don’t do anything stupid, and talk to me when you can make some damned sense, boy!”

Agent RICHARD answered his phone, and ROSE told him about recent events from her point of view. REDLIGHT was compromised. He was in some kind of cult, and he’d just killed the man they were assigned to watch, nailed him to a wall upside down, and cut off his head. She had last seen him heading toward the flat, and she wanted RICHARD to be prepared.

Agent RICHARD was unsure of what to do, but he thanked ROSE for the heads-up. The door to the flat had just opened, so he told her he thought REDLIGHT was there. She told him to take care and hung up the phone.

While the general was yelling at REDLIGHT, the agent noticed three robed individuals across the street entering his flat. As soon as the general was finished, he apologized and quickly hung up to call RICHARD. There was no answer, so he took a deep breath and looked around the room.

Sienkiewicz hadn’t left much. There was a bedroll, a backpack, a can of beans, and a bible with a bookmark. There was also the thick, comb-bound book of printer paper Sienkiewicz had said contained the counter-ritual.

The book was printed single-sided, and it was pretty thick as a result. The cover page listed the title as The Book of the Damned, by Karaj Heinz Vogel. The agent skimmed several pages here and a few pages there trying to get an idea of the content. It contained a treatise on ‘Sleeping Places’, several genealogies, and many pages in a strange language which the hand-written annotations suggested was an incantation of some sort.

This had to be the counter-ritual Sienkiewicz had mentioned. Not trusting himself to remember the words or to be able to read them when the time came, Agent REDLIGHT took out the microcassette recorder which had belonged to the dead CIA man and recorded himself reading the words several times in several different ways hoping that one of them would be right.

A police car pulled up in the snow where Agent ROSE was waiting. Two officers got out and approached her. One took her statement while the other examined the interior of the house. ROSE told the officer she and her partner were independent private investigators working a job for the U.S. Embassy in London. They were instructed to keep an eye on an American named David Benjamin Sienkiewicz, but her partner had apparently snapped. She had found him kneeling in front of the body hanging on the wall inside with bloody hands and a sword.

The second officer confirmed that there was a headless body nailed to the wall and a sword on the floor. He called for a homicide detective, preferably one with a specialty in occult crimes. The officers offered to take ROSE into protective custody, but she declined politely. Her other partner was still at their flat, and he was likely in danger.

The officers called in to report and then gave ROSE a ride two blocks over to the flat. Agent REDLIGHT watched her enter with the police officers while he cleaned his prints from the gun. The door to the flat was open, and ROSE could smell the familiar rusty odor of blood. She entered with the officers behind her, and found what she had feared. Agent RICHARD had been decapitated and nailed to the wall upside down to the points of a pentagram. The head was missing.

Agent REDLIGHT could hear his cell leader’s scream from across the street, and he knew what had happened. He also knew who would catch the blame, so he slipped outside. After a quick scan to make sure no one was watching, he carefully set the revolver on the hood of the police vehicle and headed off to the north. As REDLIGHT turned the corner onto snow-covered Drake Park Road, he stopped short. There was a large gathering of robed people. He estimated there must be at least a hundred. Time to find a better plan.

Sufficient Unto the Day - Session 4b

Once Agent ROSE managed to calm down, she excused herself and went to the bedroom to check her luggage. Her bags had been dumped on the floor. The book was there, but the statuette was gone. She had a little trouble breathing. The Dark Man wouldn’t be too happy about this turn of events, but maybe there was a way to salvage the situation. Maybe there was another one? Maybe the one she’d taken had been returned? She decided to check the library again. As she turned to leave the bedroom, she glanced at the clock. It said the time was 4:33 AM. There was no way four hours had gone by. She checked her phone: 4:33 AM. Whatever. She had work to do.

With a sigh, she exited the flat, passing homicide detectives and paramedics on her way. She slipped into Sienkiewicz’s hideout and gave it a cursory examination on her way through. Nothing jumped out at her, and so out the back door she went. Agent ROSE saw the gathering down at the end of the road, but they didn’t seem to notice her through the falling snow. She found the house with the toppled bookshelf and the tunnel of a library. It was just as she’d left it with the exception that the layer of mucous left by the toad-thing had dried into a greenish film.

ROSE frowned as she crawled back into the tunnel, but she was relieved to find the Vaeyen exactly where she’d found it before. She was leaving no room for error this time. She took up the statuette and smashed it into a hundred pieces. The tunnel shook and groaned, but that was all coincidence, right? The agent crawled back to the end of the tunnel and peeked out. There was the toad-like thing - the Nagaäe, or whatever – but it didn’t seem to notice her.

She gripped the handle of her sword tightly as she slipped out of the tunnel and out the front door into … sunlight? She didn’t have time to worry about how time seemed to be flying by. That was someone else’s problem at the moment.

ROSE called the embassy and prayed that Ms. Bower would answer. The CIA woman did indeed answer, and Agent ROSE explained just how sideways their assignment had gone. Ms. Bower was obviously displeased. The police weren’t likely to allow her to leave, but Ms. Bower offered ROSE a safe place at the embassy until things could be straightened out. Reaching the parking lot behind the flat, ROSE fired up the engine of the Nissan Micra and headed off in the direction of London.

Agent REDLIGHT headed back down the road that led past his flat. The police were gone, and the street was deserted. The sun was near the middle of the sky now, but he didn’t have time to wonder how it took eight hours to walk up and down the street once. In fact, if time was moving that quickly, midnight would be here soon, and he’d have to be in position by then.

REDLIGHT cautiously snuck into the flat and looked around. There was no body, but it was obvious that there had been one recently. He checked the refrigerator finding only the remains of his failed attempt at haggis, and the six-pack of beer ROSE had brought back. Something told him he’d be needing that. He downed one bottle in a single chug and opened another for the road. Armed with nothing but a backpack on his shoulder, a bottle of beer in one hand, and four more in the other, Agent REDLIGHT stepped out to save the world.

Before he could save the world, he needed one last piece to his puzzle. There was a mechanic’s garage across the street to the south, and they appeared to be closed. If they had a car, he’d be set. Peeking inside, REDLIGHT saw a blue Mini Cooper on a hydraulic jack. The locked door gave his lock picks little trouble. Once inside, he found the controls for the jack, and lowered it. The keys were on a hook behind the counter.

Microcassette recorder with counter-ritual recorded, check. Transportation, check. Four … make that three beers, check. Oh, what the hell. REDLIGHT downed the remaining bottles of alcohol, turned the key in the ignition, and sped off in the direction of the ritual as the full moon shined. The radio quite fittingly blared a song by R.E.M.

This was it. This was the moment he was born to live. This was the night he would save the world. There was just one thing. He had forgotten the snow.

The Mini Cooper took a hard left and crashed into the first house on Drake Park Road. The alcohol helped cushion the impact. At the far end of the road, the cultists formed a horseshoe shape with two robed figures in the center.

REDLIGHT turned up the radio as far as it would allow before stepping out of the car. It was not as graceful as he would have liked, but at least he had the right soundtrack. As he stomped north through three feet of snow, he held the microcassette recorder high and pressed play. The words of the counter-ritual flowed from it and blended with the music from the car radio. REDLIGHT spoke the words of the song to himself as he moved closer.

“It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.”

Sufficient Unto the Day - Session 4c

One of the two robed figures in the center of the horseshoe dropped her robe and laid down naked in the snow. The other took something out of a bag and held it high. It was a head; Sienkiewicz’s head by the look of it. The pale green light of the full moon lit the entire scene with an eerie glow.

The robed figure cut into the head with a knife letting blood and bits of brain fall onto the woman in the snow. He then lifted a second head. This one had belonged to Agent RICHARD, and the odds were good that he wouldn’t approve of its intended use. Brain and blood fell again upon the woman in the snow, and she remained still.

The cult leader’s words weren’t clear, and they sounded like gibberish, but the gathering repeated them exactly. The counter-ritual on the recorder completed just as Agent REDLIGHT got close. Without warning, chunks of tar, asphalt, and cement were sent toward the sky as the snow and earth melted away in a purple-black foam between the cult and the agent.

Countless dark tentacles shot from the hole and grabbed any living thing within reach. Bodies were slammed to the earth. Cultists were thrown to the sky. One robed figure tried to run, but a quick flick of a tentacle left behind no more than a smear.

There were screams everywhere mixed with the singular sounds of human bodies dissolving and popping, splattering and crunching. All the while, the radio could be heard.

It’s the end of the world as we know it.

Agent REDLIGHT looked up to see the clouds part for the green moon, and then he watched the sky behind the moon do the same. The moon seemed to blink, and then it became clear in all its terrible glory. It was no moon. It was an eye. It was the eye. It was none other than Cyäegha, the Waiting Dark, the Principle of Hate, the Whistler from the Stars, and the Eater of Dimensions.

It’s the end of the world …

Dark, impossibly large tentacles pried the rift in the sky wider, and REDLIGHT ran. He ran the best he could through three feet of snow. He ran as if he could actually escape.

Agent ROSE was half-way to London when she saw it in the rearview mirror; the hole in the sky, the hole in the earth. Only two short years ago, she’d seen the mushroom cloud of a nuclear blast in the rearview mirror, and she had been sure that was the worst thing she could have seen. Now that belief was being dashed.

She drove faster, but the earth and sky melted away. She drove as fast as her little car could go. She drove as if she could actually escape.

A tentacle shot from the sky and pierced REDLIGHT’s back pinning him face down in the snow. The last sounds he heard were the low guttural snarl of the Nagaäe, and the fading music of R.E.M.

It’s the end …

Eventually the darkness melted away, and they were back where they’d started the night. Everything seemed normal. REDLIGHT and Sienkiewicz were sitting on a bench in Rosy Cross Park, and Agent ROSE watched them from a distance. Her phone said the time was midnight, but if the date was correct, that entire night never happened. Only … she remembered it. She remembered every single moment.

Apparently, Sienkiewicz did, too. He stood up quickly, looked to the sky, and let out a blood-curdling scream before drawing his revolver and erasing the top half of his head with a single shot. It was all REDLIGHT could do to get out of range of the fallout.

ROSE ran over, and she and REDLIGHT both moved away from the body. Neither agent could explain what was happening, but after a brief talk, it seemed that their confusion stemmed from different sources. Agent ROSE was unsure how the world was eaten, and then everything was back to the way it was before. Agent REDLIGHT didn’t remember any of what ROSE described, however.

There was no Drake Park Road in REDLIGHT’s account, nor were there any toads or tentacles. One moment, Sienkiewicz was sitting next to him on the bench waiting for midnight, and the next … scream, bang, splat.

Agent ROSE called the police to report a suicide in the park, and then both agents walked back to the flat. ROSE was quiet, but REDLIGHT was absent-mindedly humming a tune he had stuck in his head. They returned to find Agent RICHARD still watching television. Agent ROSE was relieved to find the book from the library still in her luggage. Everything was the same as they’d left it, but REDLIGHT noted one small difference. There was a scar running all the way around Agent RICHARD’s neck, and he could swear it wasn’t there before.

The rest of the night was spent packing and preparing to leave the UK. The agents reported the death of David Benjamin Sienkiewicz to the CIA, and then they were off to Heathrow. Agent RICHARD flew home relieved that his first Opera was a relatively tame one, and Agents ROSE and REDLIGHT flew to New York City.

They went to see Graham Dworkin’s band play, but they were a little disturbed to find that Graham had never returned from Plymouth, and he was no longer answering calls. In fact, the band was already planning auditions for someone to take over playing the bongos.

After the show, REDLIGHT caught the next flight home to Alabama while ROSE waited for Monday. That morning at precisely 8:36 AM, she placed the little, black octavo on a shelf in the Religion section of the first Barnes & Noble she found. Without waiting around, she headed straight for the airport, and a few hours later, she was once again safe at home.

Hearken to the Wild - Introduction

R-Cell
Agent REAPER - Master Sergeant Jack Jack, Delta Force Operator
Agent REDLIGHT – Captain Cramer Gump, INSCOM “Black” Ops (formerly Agent SID)
Agent RICHARD – Major James McGinnis, AMEDD General Surgeon
Agent ROSE – Gia Jones, FinCEN Investigator, Leader of R-Cell – Computer crimes specialist (formerly Agent SAM)

Former Agents
Agent RASPUTIN (retired) – Gregori Ruspokov, CDC Researcher
Agent RAPUNZEL (deceased) – Yuki Anderson, FBI Forensic Pathologist
Agent ROBIN (deceased) – Chika Takahashi, EPA Biologist and Environmental Scientist
Agent RAPSCALLION (deceased) – Tatom Merzos – U.S. Marshall’s office, Special Operations
Agent RUBY (retired) – Amelia Larce, DoE Nuclear Emergency Support Team
Agent SÁBADO (deceased) – Marcus Hernandez, IRS Investigator – Computer crimes specialist
Agent SERGE (missing) – Ferdinand Bazinet, Federal Research Division, French-language occult documents specialist
Agent SETH (reassigned) – Ian Trotter, INSCOM Special Agent – Army Intelligence criminal psychologist
Agent SLEEPLESS (deceased) – Reginald Longbottom, NSA Cult Infiltration Specialist

After the previous Operation, I solicited requests from the players, and they asked for something in Alaska. This past week has been pretty busy, but I managed to get some research and writing done. The end result, at least for the first session, is about 30% improvisation on my part. We are also adding a new player. This Opera begins in the middle of January, 2012.

“Have you known the Great White Silence, not a snow-gemmed twig aquiver?
(Eternal truths that shame our soothing lies.)
Have you broken trail on snowshoes? mushed your huskies up the river,
Dared the unknown, led the way, and clutched the prize?
Have you marked the map's void spaces, mingled with the mongrel races,
Felt the savage strength of brute in every thew?
And though grim as hell the worst is, can you round it off with curses?
Then hearken to the Wild -- it's wanting you.”

~ Robert Service, The Call of the Wild

Click to expand...

Hearken to the Wild - Session 1a

The holiday season had come and gone. Thanksgiving seemed somehow hollow and mocking. Sure, there was so much to be thankful for, but when the universe has tossed you around like a broken toy seemingly on a whim, it can leave you to wonder just how much any of it matters. When you’ve seen the world itself devoured, all the turkey and stuffing in that same world can’t satisfy. What does it matter if you eat until you pop? What does it matter if you starve? When the sky can open up and swallow the Earth, how much does anything really matter?

One holiday down; on to Christmas. This year, R-cell received a brand new member. The Delta Force operator code named REAPER was a full-blooded Navajo who went by the name Jack Jack. ROSE met with him briefly to get acquainted as she felt it was better than meeting just as the curtain rose on the next Opera.

New Year’s Day. If you believe the people who misinterpret the Mayans, this was to be the last year. The end of the world would arrive in less than a year. How much worse could things really get? ROSE wasn’t particularly anxious to find out.

About two weeks later, her phone rang. The voice on the other end was female, and it was one she hadn’t heard before.

“ROSE?”

“Yeah. This is ROSE.”

“QUINN.”

“Err … Hello, QUINN. What can I do for you?”

“Passing on an invitation from a friend, PETRA. O is tied up, and to be honest, Q needs rest. Is R up for an Opera?”

There was a moment of silence before ROSE responded. She tried to sound cheerful when she said her cell was always up for an Opera. Agent QUINN told her to be at the Broad Street Starbucks in Bozeman, Montana at 10:00 AM the next morning. She’d tell PETRA to be expecting her. With that, the line went dead.

ROSE relayed the invitation to the other members of her cell and started packing. She hated packing, and she resolved then and there to always have a bag already packed for occasions such as this.

The next day was a Sunday, and Agent ROSE arrived at the designated meeting place an hour early. REAPER rolled in fifteen minutes later and took a seat next to her. REDLIGHT went to Dunkin Donuts.

His flight had landed in the early morning hours, but he didn’t notice the clock on his phone had already updated itself for the change in time zone. He had manually set it back another hour, and as a result, he incorrectly thought he had plenty of time before the meeting.

At 9:59 AM, a woman entered, ordered a plain drip coffee, and gave her name as PETRA. She was young, soft-spoken, and neatly dressed in blue with a knee-length skirt. Her dark hair was held in place by a pair of crossed chopsticks.

Agent ROSE approached and introduced herself. PETRA seemed nervous, but she smiled politely and took a seat next to REAPER. Agent ROSE explained that RICHARD’s flight had been snowed in, but he’d be on his way as soon as possible, and REDLIGHT was in town, but he was probably being intentionally late. As half the cell was in attendance, and one of them was the cell leader, it was decided that the meeting could start. The others could be caught up later.

PETRA slid a manila envelope across the table. ROSE opened it to find several black and white 8x10 photographs of what looked like plane wreckage in a snowy field. Whoever had taken the photographs had done a very good job of capturing the detail, but there were no objects added to show scale.

ROSE examined the photographs one by one, sliding them to REAPER when she had finished. One of the photos showed the plane’s call numbers on the tail; N4313G. REAPER saw five parallel gashes on either side of the fuselage running nearly the entire length. To him, they were claw marks, but ROSE couldn’t see it.

There were symbols painted on the wings which ROSE thought represented a wind spirit or elemental of some sort. When REAPER saw them, his eyes widened a bit, and he slid back from the table with a single whispered word.

“Wendigo.”

Hearken to the Wild - Session 1b

Agent REDLIGHT walked in just at that moment and took a seat at the table. He finished the last bite of his donut as ROSE informed him he was nearly a half hour late. REDLIGHT looked from his phone to the clock on the wall to ROSE, and he shrugged. He asked what he missed, and ROSE filled him in. REDLIGHT nodded. He had just one question.

“The hell’s a wendigo?”

ROSE explained what she knew, and then REAPER gave the version he’d heard from his grandfather. The two stories were similar but they didn’t completely agree. In ROSE’s version, the wendigo was a creature that was associated with the cold north wind. It would ambush lost or unwary travelers and eat them. Sometimes it would toy with them for a while, terrifying its victims and driving them insane.

REAPER’s version was more detailed. His grandfather had described the creature as a skin-walker; a monster that could appear human just as easily as take the form of a wolf or other animal. In all its forms, it had golden eyes. The wendigo would torment lost travelers and feed on the strength of their negative emotions. Their fear, their anger, and their despair would all make the thing stronger until it tired of the game. The wendigo would strike so quickly the victim would never know, and by that point, they were usually begging to die. It would eat only the heart, leaving the rest to the cold wastes.

REDLIGHT nodded. Okay, so they have some kind of evil, cannibal werewolf that can look like anyone or anything, and it could kill in an instant. Assuming that had anything whatsoever to do with what looked to him like random squiggles on a crashed plane, what did it have to do with them? How was this an Opera?

PETRA conceded that it was possible it might not amount to an Opera, but her contact – the one who’d provided the photographs – thought there was something worth checking out. That’s why she’d asked for help.

The agents decided to check the crash site, and so PETRA led them to a spot near Wheeler Mountain south of Bozeman. Either the name failed to conjure memories of the entity in the Spooner Avenue investigation, or REDLIGHT and ROSE had made a point to ignore the coincidence.

On the way, ROSE searched the FAA website for the plane’s call numbers. They identified the plane as a 1961 Cessna 172B registered to the National Park Service in Coldfoot, Alaska before the registration expired in 1972. The plane had not passed an airworthiness certification since 1967. She called the FAA and got the same information, but she was also able to learn that this particular aircraft hadn’t filed a flight plan in over forty years.

The crash site was small but easily spotted. The land for miles around was covered in a thin layer of frost, but there was a small oval-shaped area roughly sixty yards long and twenty yards wide which was covered in ice and snow at least a foot deep. There were a few small trees which appeared to have been bent away from the crash with great force and then flash-frozen. PETRA explained that the wreckage had been taken to a hangar at Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport, and she could get them access if they wanted to see it. There was one body recovered, and it was taken to Bozeman Deaconess Hospital for autopsy. The agents decided to break for lunch, and then PETRA would take REDLIGHT to examine the wreckage while ROSE and REAPER would talk to the Medical Examiner.

At the airport, PETRA didn’t so much flash a badge as hold up a wallet and smile, but it managed to clear all barriers for them. The hangar was dark everywhere except where the floodlights shined on tables blanketed with twisted metal. There was one man here inspecting the wreckage, and his cap identified him as an employee of the FAA.

Agent REDLIGHT poked around a little, and he took pictures of anything and everything he found interesting. The glyphs were flaking away, but they appeared to be long-dried blood. The inspector said that if he didn’t know this crash happened within the past thirty-six hours, he’d never believe it. The engine was little more than a chunk of rust, and in the inspector’s estimation, it couldn’t possibly have been operational for at least twenty years. Same with the fuel tank. It was rusted completely through in several places, and there wasn’t a trace of fuel.

ROSE took a taxi, and REAPER drove his car, but they arrived at the hospital at the same time. Over the past few years, ROSE had become intimately familiar with the general layout of the average hospital, and so it took them no time at all to find the morgue.

She flashed her FinCEN credentials and explained to the Medical Examiner that she’d like to see the body recently recovered from the plane wreckage. She and her partner were investigating him for suspicion of money laundering.

The Medical Examiner was happy to assist, and she pulled out the drawer they were after. She did confess that other than a cursory examination Friday night when he was brought in, she had been putting off the autopsy. Something about this body gave her an odd feeling.

The agents took a look. The body was male with short brown hair and about a week’s worth of facial hair. The skin was pale, the eyes were sunken, and the chest cavity had been ripped open. True to REAPER’s prediction, the heart was missing.

There was some bruising all over the body. The Medical Examiner explained she couldn’t be 100% certain until she’d performed the autopsy, but at a glance, she’d say the impact wasn’t what killed the victim. It appeared he had survived the crash only to die when his chest was opened and his heart taken. Obviously, that didn’t make sense, and she really did intend to perform the autopsy once she could bring herself to do it.

ROSE asked if the body had been identified, and she was given a bag of personal effects containing the victim’s wallet. The driver’s license identified him as James Spaulding, 33, from Portland, Oregon. The agents thanked the doctor and took their leave just as REDLIGHT texted his photos to ROSE. They decided to meet up and do some planning, and PETRA left them to it. She had her normal job duties, but she exchanged numbers with ROSE to keep tabs on the Opera.

Hearken to the Wild - Session 1c

While the agents discussed possible courses of action, ROSE searched online for information about James Spaulding. It’s not an uncommon name, but she quickly narrowed it down. She discovered that Mr. Spaulding was a freelance writer, and he wrote an outdoorsman blog. According to the blog and Mr. Spaulding’s Facebook page, he and three friends were planning an off-season trip to Gates of the Arctic National Park about 250 miles north of Fairbanks, Alaska. The group would consist of Spaulding, Jennifer Montgomery, and Tavis Green from Portland, and Melissa Martin from Salem.

Cross-country skiing, snowmobiling, and dog sledding were all on the menu, as were hunting, camping, and gold panning. This was to be an epic adventure for the group spanning the entire month of January. They would ring in the new year in the park. Hunting permits were already purchased for all the caribou they could eat, plus a few moose, Dall sheep, and one black bear. An entire month’s worth of supplementary provisions had been procured and were to be waiting at Porcupine Creek Airport for their arrival.

The Opera appeared to be set in Alaska, and so the agents made travel arrangements. ROSE and REAPER drove to Seattle, and then to Bellingham, Washington to take the ferry to Alaska. This was the only way they could think of to take what they felt they’d need to hunt a wendigo. REDLIGHT wasn’t about to sit on a boat for days on end, and so he flew. On a layover in Anchorage, he did some shopping for cold-weather gear, and he arrived in the tiny town of Coldfoot, Alaska four days before the others.

The scenery was at once beautiful and dreary. There were maybe thirty houses in the whole town, and they were pretty well spaced. There weren’t many buildings which didn’t appear to be homes. There was a very large gas station. Then there was the airport which was really little more than a dirt and gravel runway with a hangar. The Arctic Interagency Visitor Center was the only architecturally interesting building in the town with its split-layered roof. A sign on the door indicated that the Visitor Center would be closed for the months of October through April. The other two buildings were a bar and a small hotel.

The sky was bright blue because it was just too cold for clouds. Agent REDLIGHT’s body could probably stand the cold better than most, but his lungs and eyes were still human, and that meant they could freeze. One local happened to pass by, giving the agent a strange and mistrustful look. REDLIGHT stopped him and asked about the Visitor’s Center. The man just shook his head and said it was closed. If he wanted in, he’d have to talk to Samantha Wendell who operated the center during the warmer months. He pointed her house out, and REDLIGHT thanked him.

The agent then headed toward the hotel. The building only had about ten rooms, a lobby, and a small dining area, but a travel brochure might say it had a certain rustic charm. Agent REDLIGHT had to ring the bell a few times before he got service, and then he was told the cost of a room was $175 per night.

He started to argue, but the clerk reminded him he was welcome to rent a tent from Mrs. Wendell if he’d rather. REDLIGHT handed over his credit card with a slight sneer. There was an upside to the extortion, however. Food was included in the cost of the room. He could have anything he wanted as long as they had it, and he could have as much as he could eat. The clerk explained that at the moment, they were a bit low on vegetables, but they had plenty of meat.

REDLIGHT took his room key, signed the guestbook, and went to his room to get settled. Shortly thereafter, he headed to the dining area and ordered right off the menu: Meat Stew. He was told that for tonight, the role of ‘meat’ would be played by caribou. Over the next few days, the meat changed a few times, but it was always very well prepared and well worth the price he paid.

The day ROSE and REAPER were due to arrive turned out to be far warmer than the others. The thermometer pushed as high as fifteen degrees above zero. REDLIGHT took that as a sign that he should do all his outdoor activity, and so he headed down the frozen dirt road toward Samantha Wendell’s house.

Mrs. Wendell was quite tall, about 6’3” or so, thin but athletic, with long, light blonde hair. Her eyes were a pale blue, and they appeared slightly sunken and dark as if she hadn’t slept well in a while. For all that, she seemed friendly enough. She was certainly friendlier than some locals REDLIGHT had met.

She told REDLIGHT she’d be happy to provide him with a map from the Visitor Center, and if he needed a snowmobile, dog sled, skis, tent, guide, whatever … he just needed to ask. Well, ask and hand over a modest amount of money. She was in the rental business after all. He thanked her for her time and said he’d be in touch once his friends arrived.

An hour or so later, ROSE and REAPER completed their journey arriving in Coldfoot in the early evening just as things really started to cool off. ROSE went to the bar and had a drink before calling REDLIGHT to let him know she was in town. REAPER stopped by the hotel to check in.

By the end of the day, the three agents occupied three rooms in a hotel of ten, and they still had one agent on the way. The Opera would be a costly one already if not for the magic of fake credit cards. At least the Meat Stew was complimentary.

Hearken to the Wild - Session 2a

Four days snowed in at Logan International Airport in Boston had left Agent RICHARD weary of travel, and he hadn’t moved. When he was finally able to fly out, he really just wanted to go home. His connection in Seattle didn’t help matters. The next flight north didn’t leave for almost six hours.

Upon reaching Fairbanks, he found that there was one plane leaving for Coldfoot, but it was leaving in about ten minutes. It would only hold four, and it had been chartered by a trio from California. RICHARD grumbled, but he put on his best smile and tried to charm his way on the flight. The Californians weren’t particularly interested in squeezing in next to him for the next two and a half hours, but RICHARD’s smile managed to win them over, being accompanied as it was by many smiles from Benjamin Franklin. The doctor wasn’t happy about handing over $500, but at least he was on his way.

Agent REAPER wasn’t about to let a skin-walker get the jump on him. That’s why he’d insisted on driving rather than flying. There was no way any plane would let him bring toys like the ones he’d packed. In these days of heightened airport security, the bed of a truck was the only reliable way to transport M18A1 Claymore mines and an M79 grenade launcher. Had Agent ROSE known what was in the back, she would likely have questioned the need for such firepower.

This was her first Opera with REAPER, so she was still a little wary. At least he seemed to know what he was doing. Besides … Delta Force. There were only like 300 of these guys, right? They had to be the best of the best. She had done her research when she’d learned about the new cell member. She also learned there was a movie about Delta Force starring Chuck Norris and Lee Marvin. Lee Marvin was okay, but damn, she hated Chuck Norris.

They were in the center of Alaska in the middle of winter, and they were hunting a wendigo. REAPER’s grandfather had told him the skin-walkers were dangerous during the day, but they were nearly un-killable at night. Well, at least night only lasted 22 hours each day at this time of year. That would give them easily an hour and a half or so each day before things got really dangerous. Claymore on this window, Claymore on that window, Claymore on the door to his room … REAPER was ready for the night.

Agent ROSE relaxed in her room oblivious to the demolitions work in progress just next door. She turned her phone into a mobile hotspot and did a little more research on her laptop. Coldfoot was the last truck stop on the Dalton Highway until Prudhoe Bay about 250 miles north. It had apparently been featured on a few episodes of a show called Ice Road Truckers, but there was very little information beyond that.

Conventional research seemed to be failing. At best, it was as slow as the internet connection. ROSE knew an easier way, but there didn’t seem to be many people in town who could disappear without being noticed. She didn’t remember many people on the drive from Fairbanks either. Could she make it to Fairbanks and back before anyone knew she was gone? The drive had taken almost eight hours, but REAPER drove like an old lady.

She hadn’t seen any State Troopers, so there wouldn’t be any need to obey speed limits. Even if she did get pulled over, she was FinCEN. She was even FBI or CDC if she wanted, but more than that, she was hot. She’d been stopped for speeding in nearly every state in the union, and never once had she actually been ticketed.

Okay, so Fairbanks it was. Now all she needed was transportation. There was only one vehicle parked out front; REAPER’s 2007 Ford F-150. That should be fine. If she could make the trip there and back in under ten hours, he’d never know it was gone.

Agent ROSE managed to get the truck hotwired just before her feet froze, and if you don’t count the near-head on with a moose (which she didn’t), the journey was fast and easy. Her first target was a young female in her early 20s, but the girl politely refused the offer of a ride. She was only walking a short way to her boyfriend’s house.

The girl was young, and she had a boyfriend. ROSE decided to pick another target. After all, she was no monster. A few minutes of driving, and she found another. This one was a man in his fifties on his way out of a bar. ROSE convinced him of the dangers of drunk driving, and offered him a ride back to his car in the morning. The wink sealed the deal, and the man hopped in.

There were so many bad motels to choose from. Agent ROSE found a suitable one, checked in under a fake name, and led the man to the room. It was only a few minutes before she had her opportunity. Bronze knife, throat, blood, bowl, place a call to the Dark Man … The process was becoming second nature.

Hearken to the Wild - Session 2b

The Dark Man appeared a minute later and towered over her in the small room. He was silent and imposing, but Agent ROSE had seen it all before.

“I’ve called you because I’m on an Operation in Alaska, and I’m stuck. I need to know exactly what I’m hunting and how best to find it. In exchange, as usual, ask anything you like.”

The Dark Man leaned forward under the low ceiling, and ROSE felt a slight chill. He demanded that she tell him everything she knew about what she was hunting, and then he would fulfil her request. She ran down the list: glyphs on the plane, localized ice and snow, missing heart …

The Dark Man nodded, and when he did so, the smooth horn which served as his otherwise-featureless face ripped sections of the ceiling away.

“You hunt a wendigo, Gia Jones; a Child of Ithaqua. The best way to find it is to bring it to you. Give it what it seeks. I shall be watching you, Gia Jones. I will call on you soon with my demand, and you will obey.”

With that, the Dark Man was gone, and ROSE snapped into action. She cleaned up all evidence of her presence, and shut the door behind her. On her way out of town, she dropped the room key in a mailbox. To paraphrase the creed of the U.S. Postal Service, “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift return of your motel key.”

By 5:00 AM, ROSE was back in Coldfoot. She repaired the damage done by hotwiring, and she even filled the gas tank on the truck. She had probably two or three hours before the rest of the cell would expect her to be awake, so she slipped back to her room and immediately fell asleep.

Through the entire flight, the Californians never once acknowledged RICHARD. They were entirely too absorbed in their own worlds. Two and a half hours of listening to Antonio, Lisa, and Craig going on and on about how “totally awesome” and “hella sweet, fer sure” this trip was going to be made RICHARD wish he was still snowed in back in Boston. At one point, Lisa decided that since carpool lanes worked so well, there should be planepool lanes, too. Agent RICHARD contained himself, and Lisa managed to not be thrown from the plane.

It was still as dark as night when the little plane touched down in Coldfoot right around breakfast time. Agent RICHARD couldn’t get out of the plane fast enough for his taste. He pulled his coat tightly around himself as he took up his bags and trudged off toward the hotel with deliberate steps. On his way to the front desk, the doctor noticed ROSE and REDLIGHT in the dining area with someone else. He’d been told there was a new cell member, so that must be him.

RICHARD checked in and met up with his cell. After a few clarifications about the menu, he ordered the Meat Burger which he’d been assured was Dall sheep today. REDLIGHT had the Three Egg, Two Meat Omelette. Agent REAPER just didn’t feel right about the presentation of the menu, and so he ordered eggs - lots of eggs – and no meat. For the duration of this Opera, he was a vegetarian unless he shot and killed the food himself.

Everyone filled RICHARD in on Act I of the Opera, and from the sound of it, he’d be lucky if it turned out not to be a tragedy. He had to be corrected a few times when he would call the wendigo a werewolf. REAPER and ROSE assured him it was not a werewolf, but he didn’t see the distinction. Claws and fangs, check. Lives in the cold-assed wilderness, check. More dangerous at night, check. Can change its shape, check. How was this not a werewolf? Well, you see, it eats hearts, and it can look like anything – not just wolves. Nope. RICHARD was going to call it a werewolf.

REAPER explained that the wendigo was attracted to pain and suffering. ROSE’s plan to draw it out would require a volunteer to experience those two particular emotions, and the stronger, the better. Unfortunately for R-cell, it looked like it would have to be one of them to volunteer. REAPER and ROSE thought that maybe REDLIGHT should be the one to volunteer. After all, he was always eating all the Aleve, Advil, Tylenol, and any other painkillers that he could. He even carried morphine patches. He was obviously already in a lot of pain, and he’d just have to stop taking the pills.

REDLIGHT offered a counter-proposal. REAPER could take his rifle and shove it somewhere sure to bring him pain and suffering. Agent RICHARD calmed things down before they went further. His suggestion was to find its lair. That would likely involve heading out into the wilderness, but with any luck, there wouldn’t be any pain or suffering. ROSE and REAPER shot that plan down before it could get off the ground. They were going to draw it out, and that was that.

Hearken to the Wild - Session 2c

There was a lively discussion about just who should volunteer, but ultimately it was ROSE who put an end to it. If none of the men were man enough to volunteer, she would do it. She left the table and went up to her room. REAPER followed while the other two finished their breakfast.

ROSE opened the window to her room and leaned out. The air outside was cold, and she could immediately feel her eyes and nose start to freeze. She could reach the roof from her window, and she was sure she could climb up. She looked to REAPER, but he made no move to talk her out of whatever she was planning. She made an awkward lunge in a few directions at once, but she managed to get a grip and pull herself up onto the roof.

The ground was only about 25 feet or so down, but the snow and darkness made it difficult to judge. The ground was frozen solid, so ROSE focused on a snowbank, took a deep, cold breath, and jumped for it. She slipped a bit just at the end, and it threw off her entire trajectory. REAPER’s eyes widened as he saw his cell leader fall past the window.

“No freakin’ way! She did it!”

He moved to the window and nearly winced at what he saw. Agent ROSE looked somewhat like a cold, red pretzel. Her right leg was going in all the wrong directions, and it had to be broken in at least three places. She was obviously barely containing her screams.

REAPER rushed downstairs and outside, and the other two followed. RICHARD immediately started fumbling in his bag for a morphine patch, but REAPER placed a hand on his chest and pushed him back.

“No morphine for her.”

“Are you crazy?! Look at her. She needs it before the shock wears off. I’m going to need to set that leg right away, and we’ll need to cauter-“

“No. Morphine.”

Agent REAPER let the doctor know in no uncertain terms that ROSE put herself in this situation to draw out the wendigo, and to kill the pain would be to waste her effort. ROSE nodded weakly through teary eyes.

“Alright then. You want pain? This might help.”

RICHARD handed her a stick and told her to bite down. He then made some sickening sounding motions to re-set her bones. REAPER was happy to burn the wound for them. REDLIGHT shook his head and headed over to Samantha Wendell’s house while the other two helped ROSE to the hotel lobby.

There was no one around, so REAPER grabbed a few Claymore mines from his room and hid them in strategic places. If a wendigo came for them, it would get hit by hundreds of chunks of metal from all angles. He handed the detonator to ROSE who took them without really comprehending the entire situation due to the lack of sleep and the shock of the fall. REAPER took up a position in the shadows of the hallway. RICHARD sat in the lobby with ROSE and debated on giving her the morphine anyway.

When Mrs. Wendell answered the door, Agent REDLIGHT asked her if she would be willing to rent him a snowmobile and a few heavy blankets. She was quite happy to do so, and she walked with him across the creek to Porcupine Creek Airport about a mile and a half away where she kept the snowmobiles, dog sleds, and camping equipment.

While she was preparing the two-seat snowmobile, REDLIGHT looked around. The airport was hardly more than a very short dirt and gravel runway. The only hangar was probably barely large enough to hold a small plane, but it was empty at the moment.

Mrs. Wendell and Agent REDLIGHT rode back to the town and parked the snowmobile in front of the hotel. Mrs. Wendell went home, and REDLIGHT carried the blankets up onto her roof. His alien-engineered body was rather resistant to the cold, but even he would freeze to death uncovered. Buried in blankets on the side of Mrs. Wendell’s roof which faced the hotel, Agent REDLIGHT waited and watched.

Three hours went by, and nothing came to eat ROSE’s heart. RICHARD did his best to keep her from passing out or getting infected, but with REAPER watching them both, he didn’t dare try to ease her pain.

“Oh, my gosh. It’s, like, still hella dark out.”

“Yeah, Lisa. We’re at the top of the world. The sun only comes out on weekends.”

“Shut up, Craig! I’m not that dumb.”

The Californians were coming down the hall, still loud, still self-absorbed. REAPER gritted his teeth and rested his hand on his pistol. Now these were the people to use as bait. Who would care if they were in pain? He watched them make their way to the dining area, and he even mimed taking a few shots at Craig.

When they had finished their lunch, the Californians made their way outside and over to Samantha Wendell’s house. They were entirely too focused on themselves to notice the bundle of blankets on the roof. They made a deal to rent two teams of dogs and sleds for the day, and Mrs. Wendell walked them over to the airport. REDLIGHT watched them as they prepared the sleds, and the cold morning air carried sounds of “giddyup” and “yaw, mule!”