Story HourPost your ongoing tales from your campaigns, and read those from others for inspiration. Lots of other RPG boards post "Story Hours", but this is where it started!
In the midst of Hank’s feverish visions, Sprague stood over him, filling his field of view.
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“Well you did it now, Gupta,” said Sprague, checking his watch. “Global News Network is all over you.”
“What happened?”
“You crashed your car. We found you unconscious outside of it. You’re lucky we picked you up before GNN did. That would have been a very bad for you.”
“How bad?”
“Disavowed bad. If Warner had his way you’d be gone already. But I have a better idea.”
Guppy didn’t like the sound of that.
“You remember Hector?”
“Yes, at the Van Dyson Center. He was the orderly who inducted me into Majestic-12.”
“We lost track of him. He stopped contacting us shortly after drafted you. He was monitoring Van Dyson for some kind of cult-related activity. Frankly, I don’t care about any of that. But we don’t abandon one of our own. I want you to find out what happened to Hector.”
Guppy should have been filled with panic, but he was strangely detached. He’d been drugged. “You’re sending me back there?”
“More than that. You’re going in deep cover. No cistron. No weapon. No support. If you don’t get yourself out…you don’t get out.”
“But—“ Sprague seemed to have missed the irony of his words.
“This is the only way, Gupta. You’re going to have to disappear for awhile. For your sake, I hope it’s only awhile and not forever.”
Sprague put his hand over Guppy’s eyes and all was dark.
Cresting a rise, an open valley appeared before them. A "FOR SALE" sign still flapped in the wind at the entrance to the valley. The first few rays of light broke through the dawn sky.
There was nothing but scorched earth for a quarter mile in each direction, the ground blackened and hard-charred, dessicated remains of trees thrusting upward like rotting, black bayonets. Even trees lining the circle, those spared the wrath of the actual holocaust, were dead or dying. The birds were quiet.
“Notice that?” asked Jim-Bean, staring up at the trees.
“Notice what.”
“The birds,” said Jim-Bean. “They’re not flying over the scorched area.”
There was a faint, alien odor, a combination of vinegar and ash unpleasant to the nose. The edges of the circle were quite distinct; the area where no growth met healthier soil was cleanly defined. The ruined tree trunks were similar in that instead of brittle charred remains, there was tough, almost petrified, wood and ash.
Only one incongruous structure stood, newly built. A barn.
Jim-bean drew his SIG. “Only one place to go.”
The barn was dark and empty. The wind outside caused the aluminum siding to flap noisily.
“Just the wind,” said Hammer.
There was a glint of metal in the opposite corner. Where the walls should meet, there was a narrow gap, leading to a passage, maybe five inches wide. A padlocked chain was threaded through a hole in both walls, holding them together.
Hammer put one of his Glocks to the padlock and shot it. The chain fell to the ground with a clatter.
Jim-Bean switched on his flashlight and stepped cautiously a few feet into the opening. There was a hatch on the floor immediately in front of him.
When Hammer pulled on the latch, it opened with a rusty creak. There was a stepladder leading down.
Jim-bean emerged from the ladder. As he illuminated the room with his flashlight, rats scurried for cover. Something metallic caught the flashlight’s reflection way in back.
Jim-Bean took a few more steps until his foot hit a bulk on the floor. In the dim half-light, he could make out a backpack.
Hammer rifled through its contents. The backpack contained t-shirts, underwear, an iPod, and a wallet. The billfold contained an ID.
“According to the ID, this belongs to a Malvin Kuhn.”
Up ahead, Jim-Bean could make out the metallic thing that reflected light before. It was a hook in the ceiling. And suspended from it were several heavy chains, like a meat rack. There were household tools strewn about; wire cutters, pliers -- a pool of dried blood.
The torso of a man hung over the red pool, hanging from its arms. The legless torso had been neatly, surgically severed at the spine.
“I think it’s time we visited the Van Dyson Center,” said Jim-Bean.
Guppy awoke from his latest dream to a padded room of all white. Surveillance cameras dotted every corner. There were two separate doors with elaborate locks. He was in a maximum security cell.
The wind had really picked up outside. The tiny block-glass window flickered from lightning outside, officially announcing the storm's onset.
Guppy paced in the dark. Now that he had finally cleared enough of his mental cobwebs to remember his original mission, he wondered about Hector. Where was he? Did he suspect Guppy’s mission? Damon certainly did, and yet Van Dyson seemed to be protecting him. And where was Uncle Mal? Guppy hadn’t encountered him at the Center.
With nothing else to do, Guppy sat and waited.
The thunder outside rattled the entire room. The lights flickered. Once, twice. Then they went out.
The only light source was the intermittent lightning as the storm raged outside.
Guppy held his breath, listening. And sure enough, somebody else was in the room.
He looked around. Nothing.
Lightning streaked again and suddenly Guppy could see Candice in the corner, staring with her dead eyes, moving towards him.
“Candice!’ said Guppy. “I know what happened to you. Van Dyson must have killed you…”
Candice kept walking towards him. She stretched out her arm to his face...
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And Guppy had a vision of Uncle Mal staring straight ahead. The image was bathed in a red and blue light and Guppy saw him half-naked, bruised. Dead.
A heavy rattling dispelled the vision. Candice was gone.
Guppy turned to the door. One of the hinges shattered and the latch itself was half-pulled from the door frame. There was relentless pounding on the other side.
He took a hesitant step towards it.
There was a deafening sound like a thousand bells ringing at once. Guppy covered his ears. Outside there were murmurs, yells, and instructions.
The door was open. Emergency lights flickered on outside in the hallway.
Screwing up his courage, Guppy took his first step towards freedom.
The Van Dyson Center was a 175-bed Intermediate Security treatment facility for male psychiatric patients. Its primary clientele were those who had histories of committing criminal offenses and were either committed to the Department of Mental Health by the Circuit Courts of the State or who were admitted under authority of an appointed guardian.
The sprinklers “thwip, thwiped” outside, watering the impressively kept gardens. The expansive complex was more Victorian campus than drab prison, with separate wings (male and female), research units, libraries, gym and volunteer outpatient center.
Jim-Bean pulled up to the guard gate. The guards looked up from their card game. “Can I help you?”
“We’re here for Hank Gupta,” said Jim-Bean.
The guards shook their heads, chuckling. “Third floor. You can get a couple chairs from the nurses up there. A pretty decent cup of joe too.”
The guard pointed at the bank of monitors. “Although why the sheriff is making you fellas waste your time is beside me. We got him right here. He ain't going no place.”
Hank was on the monitor inside his pristine white cell, pacing restlessly.
Suddenly thunder crackled and the power went out. No monitors, no radio, no nothing. Pitch black.
“S*&t,” said one of the guards. “There goes the card game.”
They arrived at the Center to find every door in the corridors flung open. Confused patients spilled out as guards and nurses tried to restore order. Radios squawked, flashlights beamed and footsteps filled the dark corridor as patients tried to escape.
“What’s going on here?” shouted Hammer over the fracas.
“One of the patients is holding a woman hostage,” said one of the guards. “They’re in the rec room.”
Hammer and Jim-Bean jogged to the rec room.
Damon was inside, the butt of a cane pressed hard against a blonde woman’s ear.
“Damon, I don't know how you think you can get out of here,” said the woman, “but –“
“We’re using our real names, DOC,” snarled Damon. “I won’t call you Candice and you won’t call me Damon. Call me by my real name.”
She hesitated. Damon pressed the cane harder.
“SAY IT.”
“Fine. I don’t know how you think you can get out of here…Simon.”
Damon glanced up as the agents entered. He stepped behind Candice to use her as cover.
“Nobody move or I kill the good doctor.” He flashed a wicked grin at Jim-Bean. “Hello, Jim, old bean. Good to see you again. The grownups are talking now. Children aren’t allowed in. Tell them, Doc. Do it.”
Candice cleared her throat. “It's alright. I can -- I'm just going to –“
“That’s not what I said, Doc. I said the grownups are talking now,” said Damon. “Don't paraphrase me.”
“The grownups are -- are talking now. Just leave,” said Candice.
“Do you know what you did to us?” sputtered Damon. “It was fine, in here, until you had to shove that thing in Damon’s eye!” Damon rapped a knuckle on his head. “But it doesn’t matter now. None of it matters. Because I found my cane. We found it. We didn’t even know what it could do. But now Xada-Hgla is coming in his pure form.” He laughed. “Tell them! Tell them about Candice! And Mal! Your new therapy really does work! You are I, I am you, we are us. Nobody’s alone anymore, not even in death. Now SAY THE WORDS.”
Candice swallowed hard.
“SAY THEM.”
“ABYssus-D|AcoNrsus,” chanted Candice and Damon together, “ZEXOWE-AZATHOTH! NRRGO, IAA! NYAR-LATHOTEP!”
The cane in Damon’s hand glowed with a sickly green light. Outside, the air grew thick and heavy, almost green, as the swirling clouds spin faster, lightning flashing between them. Then a shrill piping filled the air as a pore opened in the center of the racing clouds.
Jim-Bean and Hammer, pistols leveled at Damon and Candice, became aware of a presence standing between them.
“Guppy?” asked Hammer in disbelief.
Guppy was dressed in sweats and a t-shirt. He had a fire extinguisher in both hands. “Hi guys,” he said as if he hadn’t been committed to an insane asylum.
Then the power returned. In the sudden, shocking glare of returning light, color abruptly re-entered the world and every radio, phone, fan and machine that were left on hummed to life.
Where Candice stood was Petrov Van Dyson, dressed in Candice’s clothes, bathed in the glow of the flashing red and blue lights from the cruisers outside.
“What the hell…?” asked Hammer in disbelief.
Damon hurled Van Dyson to the ground as his body shuddered and morphed again. His features took on the appearance of…
“Uncle Mal!” wailed Guppy. He took a step forward, but Hammer put one arm out to stop him.
“That’s not Uncle Mal.”
“No, it isn’t,” said Simon in Damon’s body, with the slow, unnatural tones the agents heard on the audio tapes. “But you might say the Doc has a taste for…his patients. Personality inhabitance therapy, he calls it. I taught him that spell. Did I mention that you don’t HAVE to eat your patients to take on their forms, Doc?”
Simon pointed the cane at Hammer and a searing blast of black energy struck him in the shoulder, striking the agent so hard that it spun him around.
Jim-Bean fired his SIG Sauer at Simon/Damon. A red blot appeared in his forehead and Damon fell backwards, still clutching his cane.
“Stay back!” shouted Jim-Bean.
There was a flash of light as something buzzed out of Damon’s face into Van Dyson.
Van Dyson turned toward them with a wicked grin. He painted a mystical symbol into the air with his fingers. A dull, red symbol glowed ominously before him. All three agents fell to the ground as their bodies quaked and spasmed, their internal organs and blood vessels convulsing.
“This body will do nicely, Doc,” said Simon in Van Dyson’s body. He kept one hand’s fingers twisted in an arcane pattern, concentrating on the red symbol as he edged over to the cane. “Looks like good ‘ole Simon wasn’t a figment of Damon’s imagination after all.”
Jim-Bean crawled over to his bag to reach for his HK, but the pain was too great.
“Valiant attempt, old bean,” said Simon. “But I’m afraid it’s not good enough.” He picked up the cane and pointed it at Jim-Bean’s head.
A blast of extinguishing foam struck Simon/Van Dyson full in the face. He fell back, sputtering, as the red symbol winked out of existence.
Jim-Bean immediately sat up and peppered Van Dyson’s body with his machine gun.
Even as the body collapsed, a pigeon-sized glowing dragonfly shrieked out of Van Dyson’s face…straight towards Jim-Bean. He fired a full burst from his HK, but the thing moved faster than a dragonfly, making course adjustments in mid-air. It became a geometric pattern of glowing streaks, moving faster than the eye could follow.
Another burst from Guppy’s fire extinguisher caught the Shan in mid-flight. The thing sputtered, buzzing about in crazy circles like a moth too close to the flame.
There was the loud retort of a pistol. The glowing dragonfly with too many eyes and legs plopped to the ground wetly. Hammer sat up, one arm limp at his side and the other holding a smoking Glock.
Outside, a great shaft of sickly-green light lanced down from the opening in the sky, blasting and dessicating several acres about a half-mile from the Center.
Jim-Bean picked up Simon’s cane. “I think it’s time to get out of here.”
Jim-Bean hit the gas as the world went mad around them. Flaming white balls of plasma, the apparent source of the screaming noise, spiraled down out of the opening in the sky to circle the shaft before screaming into the woods, crashing in an eruption of flame. Bolts of lightning struck the ground.
A huge bolt lashed down and struck the road right in front of the speeding van. Jim-Bean jerked the wheel hard but not in time. The van tumbled halfway into the carter, its back wheels spinning.
Guppy and Hammer hopped out.
“Where are you going?” shouted Jim-Bean.
“We have to get out of here!” shouted Hammer. He was already running.
“But I can stop it!” he shouted, raising the cane heavenwards. “Watch!”
Jim-Bean lifted the cane over one knee and brought it down hard, snapping it in half.
Nothing happened.
There was a shriek as a plasmic, superheated ball of fire blasted towards the van. Jim-Bean dove to the side just as it hit.
The van exploded from the impact. The energy from the blast knocked down trees and put out the surrounding flames, only to be reignited by the incredible heat radiating from the thing at its center.
Jim-Bean heard it before he saw it. It shrieked and whistled, a mass of tentacles and eyes and fins. Against all sane measure, it seemed to have something lifted to its beak. It almost looked like a flute. The entire being pulsed with the energy of a sun, such that it was difficult to stare at it.
It sang to him, and in the very depths of his soul Jim-Bean felt the strands of his mind twang like the strings of a harp.
The storm raged for over fifteen minutes, ranging up and down the valley, blasting massive areas of forest. The destructive, chaotic fury left the valley a burned-out wreck.
The agents climbed into the chopper sent to pick them up at the edge of the valley. As they lifted off, Guppy caught sight of the sign from Van Dyson’s purchase of the area. It was miraculously untouched. The FOR SALE sign flapped in the chopper’s turbulence.
The chopper’s engine reverberated around them: thwip, thwip, thwip.
“We made it,” sighed Hammer. His arm was still blackened from the magical blast he sustained.
Guppy looked out over the valley. There was nothing left. “I never saved Hector,” he said.
“Hector?” asked Hammer.
Guppy nodded. “I went under deep cover. To save an orderly who worked there. He was the one who inducted me into Majestic-12.”
Hammer frowned. “I have your cistron.” He tossed it to Guppy. “I don’t think you were there to rescue Hector.”
The screen flashed “DISAVOWED.”
“I don’t understand…” Guppy’s voice trailed off. Had he imagined it? Was he really insane? Or had Majestic-12 just abandoned him?
Guppy scanned his fingerprint. The message disappeared as if nothing had ever happened.
Jim-Bean was silent the whole time.
“You okay?” asked Hammer.
He gazed at his companions with a dazed expression. Jim-Bean looked over his shoulder at the valley below. “I don’t think…I don’t think I’ll ever be okay again.”
“At least Candice’s spirit can rest,” said Guppy. “We should contact her family.” He left out the part that he feared her ghost would haunt him if he didn’t.
Hammer turned back to Guppy. “There’s one other thing, Guppy. Van Dyson mentioned a Rachel Hayward in his notes. Do you know her?”
“Rachel?” asked Guppy. “Yes, I knew her. We dated in college. That was a long time ago.”
“He had her down for a transfer from Arkham Asylum.”
“She’s at Arkham?” Guppy blinked. “All these years?”
“I don’t know, Guppy,” said Hammer softly. “But…you should probably see this for yourself.” He tapped a key on his cistron and it appeared on Guppy’s cistron.
“I hope to better understand Hank’s state of mind when he suffered a psychotic break by putting Rachel through Personality Inhabitance Therapy.” It was signed, “Dr. Petrov Van Dyson.”
This scenario, “Wolves and Sheep,” is a Spycraft mission from Combat Missions by Yours Truly. You can read more about Delta Green at http://www.delta-green.com. Please note: This story hour contains spoilers!
Hank “Guppy” Gupta (Smart Hero) played by Joseph Tresca
Kurtis "Hammer" Grange (Fast Hero) played by George Webster
Jim “Jim-Bean” Baxter (Charismatic Hero/Telepath) played by Jeremy Ortiz
Unlike the high profile “Hot Air,” “Wolves and Sheep” was a lot easier to slot into the campaign. Since it took several years before Combat Missions saw the light of day, the reference to the Carnivore program (which has since been discontinued, at least officially) really dated the scenario. I changed it to SINNER, which in turn was inspired by the Red Queen from the Resident Evil movie.
What I didn’t realize is that it’s never clear exactly why the bad guy is going to release this supposedly terrible threat to the Internet. It was in my head all along--he was going to use it to reveal credit card numbers to the world, a scary notion five years ago that’s no longer quite as frightening as it once was—but I never actually put it IN the scenario! Oh well, SINNER had different ideas anyway.
The other problem is that I didn’t flesh out the fight on the train, other than to state that the agents fight a random number of thugs per train car to get to the engine. This is a bad idea; a roll of the dice could make it really easy for the agents in one car or make it overwhelmingly brutal in another. So I cribbed from Lock, Stock, and Five Smoking Hitmen, a scenario for Feng Shui in Pyramid. Have I mentioned a Pyramid subscription is the best deal in gaming? It really is.
Is it sad that I crib from other people’s works to make up for my own? Don’t answer that.
Defining Moment: Jim-Bean faces down a train car full of children on a field trip…and wins.
I, I'm driving black on black
Just got my license back
I got this feeling in my veins this train is coming off the track
I'll ask polite if the devil needs a ride
Because the angel on my right ain't hanging out with me tonight
--Animals by Nickelback
CHICAGO,IL--Jim-Bean shifted gears in the souped-up vehicle Majestic-12 had provided.
“I’m not sure why we’re in this car,” said Guppy, strapped in with his seat belt and one palm pressed against the ceiling to prevent his head from repeatedly banging into it. “It seems a little…”
“If we’re going to trace this hacker,” said Hammer, sitting next to Jim-Bean, “when we figure out where he is, we’re going to have to move quickly.”
Guppy struggled to type on his cistron, no mean feat with Jim-Bean’s driving. “We traced him to this train.” He clicked a few buttons.
Hammer glanced at his cistron. “The Chicago Steam Experience? He’s on an old train?”
“The train is not old. It just looks old,” said Guppy. “It’s state of the art, actually.”
“Should have taken a chopper,” said Hammer.
“Too easy to spot,” said Jim-Bean. He yanked the wheel hard to put the car on a track parallel to the train tracks. “This is the only stretch of road that runs parallel to the train. You guys ready?”
Guppy swallowed hard. “You do realize that this stretch of road ENDS?”
The caboose of the train appeared ahead. Jim-Bean shifted gears. “Yeah. So when I say jump, you’d better jump, because you’re not going to get another chance.”
“What about you?” asked Hammer.
“What about me?”
“You’re staying behind? I don’t know if we can do this with the just two of us…” Guppy trailed off at the implications.
Jim-Bean smirked. “Nah. I wouldn’t miss this.”
The car pulled up alongside the train, which chugged along rhythmically on the right side of the car.
“But the car…?” asked Guppy.
“What about it?” said Jim-Beam.
Hammer shook his head in disbelief. “Guppy, you’re up.” The window rolled down on Guppy’s side.
“Wait, I go first?” asked Guppy, voice rising in panic.
“Guppy,” said Hammer. “We’ve been over this. Look at it this way…would you rather be last?”
Ahead, the train entered a tunnel, roaring as its passage echoed in the tight confines.
“Guys, we don’t have a lot of TIME here.”
Guppy crawled out the window and, half leaning, lurched hard, grabbing hold of the rail on the caboose. He swung himself over, nearly falling between the two vehicles in the process.
Hammer needed no prodding to go next. He clambered out the window and climbed up on top of the car. He then half-crouched on the hood. After timing the distance between the train and the car, he hurled himself across the gap. The big man landed easily on the caboose.
Jim-Bean put the car on cruise control. The tunnel wall loomed before him. “Oh well, no more car requisitions for me,” he muttered. Then he jumped
The rail cars were basically long passages with cabin doors on either side. There was hardly anyone in first class, but Hammer kept his pistols holstered.
“Good thing there’s nobody staying in the back cars,” said Jim-Bean, dusting himself off. “Or they might have heard that.”
“Which,” asked Hammer, “the car exploding or you swearing when you almost fell off the train?”
Jim-Bean glowered at Hammer. “Both.”
“Do we know who this guy is?” asked Hammer as he made his way down the corridor.
Guppy shook his head. “Only that he has SINNER and he’s going to release her to the Internet if we don’t meet his demands.”
“Excuse me?” asked Jim-Bean. “Her?”
“Synthetic Intelligence Network and Reference,” said Guppy. “SINNER identifies herself as female. She’s the successor to the ABLE DANGER program, using data mining techniques to associate open source information with classified information in an attempt to make associations between individual members of terrorist groups. She also runs all of Blacknet.”
“And we lost her?” asked Jim-Bean in disbelief. “How do you lose a program?”
“She’s hard coded into the bios of a chip,” said Guppy. “The computer with that chip is what they’re holding hostage.”
They made their way to another car.
“Do we have any idea as to who that is?” asked Hammer.
“We don’t know.” Guppy shrugged. “He did an excellent job of disguising himself. It took all my resources just to track him to here.” Guppy looked around. “It’s a great idea, though: a train is a stable platform that’s always on the move. That’s what made it so hard to track.”
“And it comes complete with plenty of hostages,” Hammer said ominously. They passed an elderly couple who was arguing about the weather.
Guppy checked his cistron. “We have ten minutes and thirty seven seconds before this train comes out of the other side of the tunnel and he has access to a satellite network.”
Jim-Bean peered into one of the cabins. “He lets SINNER of its box and then what?”
Hammer opened the door to exit the car. It was pitch black all around them. The wind and the roar of the engine reverberating in the tunnel made it impossible to hear anything. Guppy waited until they made it to the next car.
“There’s nothing SINNER can’t hack,” said Guppy, with a hint of awe. “With that kind of computing power, they could break through any firewall, including Blacknet.”
“No more secrets,” said Jim-Bean.
“No more secrets,” said Hammer. “I find it odd that first we lose an alien corpse and now the brains of our intranet. There’s got to be a leak in Majestic-12.”
Jim-Bean tapped on Hammer’s shoulder and pointed past him. “We’ve got bigger problems.”
A pair of Italian-looking men were leaning against a window sharing a cigarette. The agents knew the type: shifty body language, heavy accents, and bulky coats with strange lumps.
Hammer slowly drew his Glocks. “So the Mob’s behind this. Great.”
Jim-Bean dropped his duffel bag and came up with his silenced SIG. “I know how to deal with the Mob.”
One of the mobsters whirled, shotgun at the ready, but Hammer efficiently finished him with two silenced shots of his Glock. The thug never even squeezed the trigger.
The second mobster ducked into a cabin.
“Nine minutes!” shouted Guppy.
“Go, go, go!” shouted Hammer. “I’ll take care of him.”
Hammer fired a series of shots near the door, enough to discourage the mobster from peeking out.
Jim-Bean, half-dragging Guppy behind him, sprinted past the doorway. They half-leaped into the next train…
This entered an especially long coach. The passengers sat on benches opposite one another, like on a subway.
Nothing much was happening; the passengers just sat and stared at one another with that slightly embarrassed way people do on trains. The conductor, whose nametag labeled him as Albert, meandered from passenger to passenger, checking their tickets with a spectacular lack of enthusiasm.
Jim-Bean didn’t bother to put away his SIG. “Excuse me, which way to the baggage car?”
Albert had to be in his seventies. “Baggage car…?” he trailed off, ending each sentence with a vague question. “I suppose that’d be…” he pointed behind him.
“Great, thanks,” said Jim-Bean.
Guppy passed him, his own Beretta out. “Thank you very much!”
Albert shrugged and went back to collecting tickets.
“Seven minutes,” said Guppy as they prepared to enter the next car. “That’s very strange.”
“What?” asked Jim-Bean, trying to look everywhere at once.
“Nobody screamed? No panic?”
Jim-Bean snorted. “Our weapons are silenced. The train is loud. And have you ever been on a train before? It’s like a slow death. Nobody looks at anybody else, including other passengers.” He pushed open the door and for a moment their conversation was cut off by the noise of the train.
When Jim-Bean opened the second door, he caught the tail-end of what Guppy was trying to say.
“…think these passengers saw us,” he said.
The car was full of Italian mobsters, playing cards and drinking wine. For a split second the eight mobsters stared at the Brit and the Indian, jaws open, cigars dangling limply from lips, poker hands momentarily forgotten. Then everyone dove for their guns.
Jim-Bean closed the door. Shotgun blasts pounded it on the other side.
“What are you doing?” shouted Guppy in disbelief, straining to be heard over the roaring of the tunnel
Jim-Bean rifled through his duffel bag. He came back up with a gas mask and a tear-gas grenade.
“Is that…?” was all Guppy got out before Jim-Bean
He tossed the gas mask to Guppy. “Put this on!” he shouted.
Jim-Bean pulled the pin with his teeth. Then, cracking the door open a notch, he rolled the canister down the corridor.
More shotgun blasts, coughing and shouting greeted him in response.
“What about Hammer?” shouted Guppy. “He doesn’t have a gas mask, does he?”
“He’ll manage!” Jim-Bean opened the door from the car on the opposite side. “Hammer! Tear-gas!” Then he snapped on his own gas mask and cocked his pistol.
The mobsters were in complete disarray. Some tried to retain their grip on their shotguns. Others struggled to cover their faces with napkins and tablecloths. But mostly they just rolled around on the floor, choking and moaning.
Guppy could barely hear Jim-Bean through his gas mask.
“What?” he asked.
“I said,” shouted Jim-Bean, “we can’t leave anyone behind. How much time we got?”
Guppy struggled to read his cistron through the smoke. “Four minutes?”
Jim-Bean nodded. He pointed his SIG at the head of one of the mobsters and pulled the trigger.
“Mother trucker!” shouted Guppy.
Jim-Bean fired his pistol again and another mobster died. “What?”
“You just—“
Jim-Bean fired twice more, perforating the heads of two more mobsters.
“Stop that!” shouted Guppy.
“Look,” said Jim-Bean, like a pistol-toting Darth Vader in his gas mask, “do you want to discuss the ethics of killing people or do you want to save the world?”
“I…”
Jim-Bean fired another two shots, offing another two mobsters.
“That’s a trick question, I don’t really care,” said Jim-Bean. He pointed his pistol at another mobster and pulled the trigger. It clicked.
“Out of bullets. That’ll have to do.”
The door opened on the other side of the car. Hammer stood in the doorway.
The people who built the white elephant of a train had limited imaginations -- the dining cart was white. Just white: white tablecloths and walls and seats. It hurt the eyes. And was also really tacky.
A retired couple sat at a table in the far corner, gazing with near-blind eyes at the scenery, and a bored businessman picked at his food a table away. Astonishingly, nobody heard all the screaming and dying.
It soon became apparent why. The only table vaguely active was host to a gaggle of school children, fifteen or so, all clustered around a pretty young woman who looked about ready to kill them all.
"Miss, when are we going to eat?" asked one.
"Miss, can't the train go any faster?" asked another.
"Miss, can we see the furnace?" asked a third.
Just past the retired couple, Jim-Bean could see the door that leads to the baggage cart. He pulled off his gas mask and drew his machinegun.
“Wow, are you a secret agent?” asked one of the children.
“Did you fight in Iraq?” asked another.
“Did you kill Sad-sad…Sadman Whose Sane?” asked a third.
“Time?” asked Jim-Bean tersely.
Guppy checked, still dazed from the cold-blooded murder he had just witnessed. “Three minutes twenty seven sec—“
Jim-Bean fired his machinegun at the ceiling. “Everyone OUT OF THE WAY!”
The kids, who had flocked around Jim-Bean, shrieked and ran wailing to their teacher.
At the far end of the car was a big sign detailing: NO ENTRY.
“That’s our car,” said Hammer.
They filtered out through the car filled with screaming children. Hammer took one side and Guppy took the other. Counting down with his fingers from three, Jim-Bean sprayed the cart with machinegun fire even as Hammer yanked the door open.
There was a curse as someone at the far end was hit. Two identical-looking bald men returned fire.
“Oh great,” said Jim-Bean, “it’s the Goravich Brothers.”
A few naked bulbs hanging from the roof lit the baggage cart. They didn’t so much provide illumination as make the darkness clearer. There were five big shelves in the center of the cart that looked like bookshelves in a library, all packed with suitcases and packages and bags. Resting in a rough pile in the back corner were several large wooden crates, piled up.
Shotgun fire answered Jim-Bean’s initial retort.
The three agents returned fire. Even Guppy squeezed off a few shots from his Beretta.
“Not the same without your zip gun, eh?” asked Jim-Bean.
Guppy couldn’t believe how calm Jim-Bean was under fire. He was shaking from just firing the pistol.
He caught a glimpse of a man furiously typing behind the crates. He was bleeding from a bullet that had grazed him in the shoulder.
“Kevin Medroff?” Guppy exclaimed.
Hammer ducked back behind a nearby crate. “Is that supposed to mean something?”
“He’s a programmer from InifiniCredit.” Guppy fired a few more shots around the crate. “Released millions of credit card numbers to the Internet. A real anarchist.”
“How much time do we have left?” asked Jim-Bean.
Guppy checked his cistron. “Two minutes. Then we’ll be on the other side of the tunnel and Medroff will have a clear signal.”
“We’ve got to stop this train.” With a roar, Jim-Bean charged down the corridor.
He almost made it. A shotgun blast hit him in the back as he passed the Goravich brothers. Jim-Bean crumpled in front of the door.
“Jim!” shouted Hammer. With a snarl, he squeezed off a series of well-placed shots from his Glock. “Jim is down!”
Jim-Bean was laying right next to Medroff. The hacker peered down at him with a sneer. “SAS my ass,” he muttered. Then he went back to typing.
Jim-Bean’s eyes flicked open. He sat up behind Medroff and, smoothly drawing his silenced pistol, shot him in the head.
Jim-Bean picked up his machinegun and yanked open the door to the engine. When he opened it, he came eye-to-eye with a shotgun.
“All your buddies are dead,” said Jim-Bean. “I killed them. Stop the train.”
There was a moment of indecision in the puffy Italian’s eyes. Then he dropped the shotgun and grabbed the lever.
Jim-Bean leveled his machinegun at the mobster’s head. “Stop the train before we leave the tunnel.”
“There’s no way,” said the mobster. “Trains don’t stop that fast.” As if to support his claim, daylight streamed through the windows.
Jim-Bean swore and smashed the man in the face with his rifle butt. The mobster went down.
Jim-Bean returned to the other car to find one of the Goravich brothers dead, a smashed window behind him. Hammer was favoring one leg, staring over Guppy’s shoulder.
Guppy was at the terminal where Medroff sat, typing furiously.
“Can you stop it?” asked Jim-Bean.
“I’m…TRYING,” his fingers danced across the keyboard. “It’s like she’s not…LISTENING to me!”
A red diagram popped up of SINNER’s route on the screen. It was a complex series of stops across the Internet, almost like train tracks.
“What is going on?” asked Hammer.
“She’s plotting out a path,” Guppy said through gritted teeth.
“Out of the way,” said Jim-Bean. He pointed his machinegun at the computer. “We’ll do this the old fashioned way—“
Guppy put himself between Jim-Bean’s barrel and the computer. “No, wait!”
All three of their cistrons beeped as time ran out.
The red diagram rapidly turned green as SINNER bounced from node to node.
“SINNER’s out!” said Hammer.
The diagram continued to turn green. But it was slowly turning back on itself.
“She’s coming back,” said Guppy triumphantly.
A second later, the computer beeped. A little girl in red pigtails appeared on screen.
“Hello Guppy,” she said with an oddly synthesized voice. “Uncle Drake says hello.”
“What in the bloody hell is going on?” asked Jim-Bean.
“The little trip she took just now…I think it was planned,” said Guppy.
Hammer laughed, then winced. He’d been grazed by a bullet. “All along, Uncle Drake wanted her to get out.”
The digital face of SINNER smiled. “I’ve taken care of things Guppy. You won’t have to worry about GNN anymore.”
Jim-Bean rubbed his forehead. “You damn Yanks don’t make any sense sometimes, you know that?”
Hammer stared at him curiously. The train slowed to a stop. “You know what else doesn’t make sense? How you survived a shotgun blast at point blank range.”
Jim-Bean chuckled and rubbed the back of his head. “Oh, yah, right. About that…”
This scenario, “Operation: Countdown,” is a series of D20 Modern missions from RPGObjects’ Modern Dispatch 15, 35, and 43 by Charles Rice. You can read more about Delta Green at http://www.delta-green.com. Please note: This story hour contains spoilers!
Kurtis "Hammer" Grange (Fast Hero) played by George Webster
Jim “Jim-Bean” Baxter (Charismatic Hero/Telepath) played by Jeremy Ortiz
Sebastian “Caprice” Creed (Fast/Smart Hero/Techie) played by Bill Countiss
With SINNER free and several of my own Combat Mission scenarios hinging on the capture of a middle-eastern terrorist, it was time to have Saladin, the leader of Al-Hazzan, finally get caught by Majestic-12. There was just one problem: I didn’t want Saladin to be caught “off camera.” I’ve come to the conclusion that all interesting action should have the PCs at the center of it, and the capture of a major terrorist leader was no exception. So I didn’t just need one scenario, I needed a few to lead up to the capture of the terrorist leader. Searching RPGNow finally turned up what I was looking for.
Fortunately, Hammer is fluent in Arabic and was thus perfectly positioned to track down a terrorist leader. Caprice took care of the explosives (of which there were many). And Archive? Well Archive pretty much got his ass kicked by the bad guys.
I started out with Gun Runners from Modern Dispatch #43. This was a good way to jump into the action quickly. What didn’t quite make sense is that the agents know of a convoy but in the scenario are struggling to catch up. Instead, I had the agents lay the trap. It didn’t make things easier for them in any case. The next scene takes place on a boat involving explosives, which becomes an unfortunate pattern – there’s a 1 in 20 chance of accidentally setting off munitions each round of firearms combat, regardless of whether or not someone actually misses. This rule was…catastrophic, and the players weren’t too happy with the outcome.
Operation Dry Country from Modern Dispatch #15 is much more interesting because it requires some subterfuge on the part of the agents. There’s an interesting moral quandary the agents face in pulling off their plan.
Finally, I ran Leads and Complexities from Modern Dispatch #35. This is the best of the bunch, involving a switcheroo and an explosive finale in a warehouse. It would be easy if it was just about blowing up the bad guy, but the agents were specifically tasked with capturing Saladin alive.
Defining Moment: Caprice, having just disabled an IED, realizes that the carload of bombs headed his way is a release trigger.
Now I know there's trouble in the Middle East
I'll spend all the money when I stop the arms race
All my brothers in the desert
Gonna have themselves a feast
When that's done then we’ll start on world peace
--When I’m President by Extreme
UMM QASR, IRAQ – It was night. Three agents were busy setting up a trap on a long highway between Al Nasiriyah and An Najaf.
“It’s about time we got to a real counterintelligence mission,” Hammer said to Caprice as he unrolled one of two spike strips across a dirt road.
“You call this a real mission?” asked Archive in disbelief. “I don’t know how three of us are supposed to take out an armed convoy. I still don’t know what I’m doing here…”
“You’re a trained medic, right?” asked Caprice.
Archive was up in the armored Humvee’s turret, staring through binoculars. “Technically, but--”
“Good enough for me,” said Caprice with a grin.
Hammer’s finished rolling out the spike strip. “And me. Sprague scrambled all available team members once SINNER tracked down Saladin.”
“Oh right.” Archive glanced down at his cistron. “The head of Al-Hazzan. Are we sure this is the real deal?”
“If SINNER thinks so it’s the real deal,” said Hammer. “She did a jog around the Internet; my guess is she pulled all the information she needed to find Saladin.”
“So he’s in this convoy,” said Archive.
Caprice shook his head. “Not likely. SINNER calculated Saladin’s reactions to our missions; she’s several steps ahead of him. But we have to capture one of these terrorists alive so we can interrogate him.”
“No wonder why nobody else is assigned to this mission,” muttered Archive. “They’d have to be crazy to take it.”
“This is still important,” said Hammer. “This convoy contains a major shipment of arms and explosives bound for Saudia Arabia. According to SINNER, they’re targeting foreign oil workers living in Baqbar Towers.”
Three trucks, their contents covered by tarps, were each flanked by two dirt bikes. They ambled down the dirt road at considerable speed.
“They don’t see the spike strip.” Hammer squinted through his binoculars, leaning over the turret of the Humvee. “On my mark…”
Caprice sat in the passenger’s seat, listening to Hammer’s command through his headset, a button in each fist.
“Three…”
The buzzing of the dirt bikes echoed across the desert.
“Two…”
They could see the lights of the trucks.
“NOW!”
Caprice hit the remote triggers to release the spike strips. There was a series of loud pops as tires were shredded, followed by the revving of dirt bike engines flipping through the air. Men screamed.
“Archive, go!” shouted Hammer.
Archive, in the driver’s seat, hit the pedal to the metal. The Humvee lurched forward, tearing out of the concealing tarp that blended the vehicle in with the rest of the desert night.
The two motorcycles leading the first truck completely wiped out, leaving the drivers moaning in the desert sands. The first truck swerved from the impact of the strips, only to have the second truck drive it further onto the strips, shredding the rear tires. The four remaining bikers and the last truck were able to avoid the strips.
The men were well-disciplined. They immediately started tossing weapons out of the first two trucks and into the third.
The Humvee screeched to a halt in front of the convoy. Hammer flipped the safeties on the heavy machinegun. Caprice hopped out the back, a FIM-92 Stinger balanced over one arm.
“Where are you going?” asked Archive, a little panicky.
“To even the odds,” said Caprice. He jogged in a wide arc around one of the dunes towards the side of the convoy.
Before Archive could ask another question, two dirt bikes were on them. Skorpion sub-machinegun fire raked the Humvee.
Hammer spun the machinegun in an arc, but the dirt bikes shrieked past them, turning back around for another pass.
“Archive, get up here!”
Archive clambered up to where Hammer was. “But I’ve never fired this thing before!”
“Just point it and shoot!” shouted Hammer.
Hammer scrambled out of the Humvee, M60 at the ready. He sprayed covering fire, causing one of the dirt bikes to swerve. Above him, the rat-a-tat of the heavy machinegun raked the terrain under Archive’s shaky guidance.
Suddenly Archive stopped firing.
“Why did you stop?” asked Hammer, scanning the horizon for the dirt bikes.
“Look!” shouted Archive.
One of the terrorists had stopped loading weapons and decided to use it. He had a Stinger shoulder-launched missile over one shoulder, eye squinted down the sight, propped up on the top of the first truck.
Caprice flinched as the whoosh of the Stinger missile cleared the distance between the convoy and the Humvee. It struck the side of it, flipping the vehicle over end over end in a tremendous explosion.
The terrorists cheered.
Caprice opened the weapon-round container and remove the Stinger. He checked to make sure a BCU was in place. Then he placed the Stinger on his right shoulder, grasping the pistol grip with his right hand to provide support. He unfolded the antenna with his left hand.
The terrorists resumed tossing weapons from one man to another into the remaining truck.
Caprice removed the front end cap with his left hand. With his right hand, he raised and locked the sight assembly into position. Then he inserted the IFF interconnecting cable into the gripstock. He grabbed the uncaging switch.
“Caprice?” gasped Archive over the comm. “I…I made it out. But Hammer…I think he’s dead.”
Caprice couldn’t make out any forms in the shadows cast by the burning Humvee, but he was sure Archive was in there.
Caprice pointed the Stinger at the truck, looked over the sight assembly, and then looked through the peep sight. He positioned the target image in the center of the range ring. The IFF responded with many beeps, signaling that his target wasn’t a friendly.
The terrorists tossed more weapons into the truck.
Caprice placed his left foot towards the truck and leaned slightly forward.
“He’s alive” said Archive. “I…he’s barely breathing but I was able to bring him back. We’re in bad shape. Uh oh…”
Caprice pressed the actuator device forward, outward, and down with his right thumb until he heard a click, activating the BCU. Then he released the safety and actuator device. The Stinger was warming up. The gyro spun to life.
“Uh oh?” whispered Caprice.
The beeping changed pitch, indicating the Stinger had acquired the target.
“The bikers are coming back around...”
“Just one more second…” Caprice had to get them all at once, when they were gathered around a pile of munitions. But it was all in the timing.
The terrorists finished loading the weapons onto the truck. One of the remaining bikers hit the hood twice with his fist in a signal that they were ready to go.
Caprice pressed the uncaging switch and squeezed the firing trigger at the same time.
FWOOSH! The Stinger missile hopped out of the launcher as if it had been shoved, then the thrusters engaged and it rocketed faster than the eye could follow towards the convoy.
The men didn’t get a chance to react. Caprice tossed the launcher down and covered his head.
The explosion rocked the desert landscape, illuminating the night sky as if it were broad daylight. Missiles and ammunition fired off in all directions. One of the bikers who was far enough away shrieked as shrapnel tore him in half. The others were instantly incinerated.
The ringing in Caprice’s ears kept him from noticing the biker advancing on him. He looked up at a looming shape in the fire-lit desert, aiming a Skorpion at his head.
Caprice squeezed his eyes shut.
There was a crack of gunfire. The man fell off his bike, clutching his leg in pain.
Hammer, burnt and bloodied, slumped to his knees a few yards away, lowering his pistol in exhaustion.
Caprice rolled to his feet and kicked the Skorpion away from the terrorist. “Nice shot,” he said to Hammer.
Hammer shook his head. “Thank Archive. He’s one hell of a medic.”
Archive smiled through the soot and dirt that covered him from head to toe. They had no idea.
Hammer’s interrogation of the sole surviving terrorist from the first convoy led the agents to the location of the second convoy. A yacht, the Laila, was moving up the Tigris River with plans to offload its cargo in Baghdad. About half the weapons would stay in the capitol to fuel a new wave of insurgency while the rest were to be loaded onto trucks similar and sent to Saudi Arabia.
Hammer slipped out of the rowboat and silently clambered up the back of the boat. On the other side, Caprice did the same, with Archive in tow.
They shed their flippers and masks. Hammer drew his two pistols and peered up over the next tier of the yacht.
Guards were everywhere, armed with Skorpions. They were outnumbered again. Hammer was beginning to agree with Archive – they were being sent on missions that had a very low chance of success, much less survival.
Caprice bumped into the metal railing and the subsequent clatter seemed to echo forever. One of the guards wandered over, more bored than concerned.
The guard spotted Archive first. He pointed his Skorpion and was about to shout a warning when Archive displayed his left hand, palm outward. “Ia! Nyarlathotep!” he whispered.
The guard shrieked. He dropped his weapon, forgotten, and dove overboard.
“Great,” said Caprice as the alarm was raised.
He ducked back down beneath the lip of the second tier as guards jogged over. One of the guards peeked his head over the rim. Caprice fired his pistol in the man’s face.
Gunfire erupted all around them as Hammer, using the distraction, unleashed on the unprepared guards. Chaos ensued as the guards were sandwiched between assailants on both sides.
There was a snap, and all the terrorists heads whipped around to listen. Then they scrambled off the ship to the chorus of more shouts and screaming.
Hammer turned the corner around a crate, only to find himself pointing his Glocks at Caprice.
“What the hell just happened?” asked Hammer.
“I have no idea,” said Caprice. “Archive did something with his hand and the first guy jumped off the boat—“
Archive stepped out from around the corner. “I didn’t think the rune was that powerful.”
“Rune?” asked Hammer in disbelief. “What are you talking about?” He got a closer look at Archive’s open palm. “Is that a swastika?”
Archive suddenly held up one hand. “Shh!”
“What?” asked Caprice.
“That sound,” said Archive. “It sounds like…”
Hammer’s head swiveled back and forth, trying to pinpoint the noise. “Hissing.”
“Like a fuse?” asked Caprice.
Hammer grabbed Archive and hurled him off the yacht. He sputtered in the water.
“What the hell did you do that for?” shouted Caprice.
Hammer booted Caprice off the yacht next. Then he dove after him.
A cacophony of explosions ripped through the Laila a second later.
“That’s why, Hotpants,” said Hammer, treading water. “That’s why.”
The team was flown by Blackhawk helicopter to rendezvous with the Iraqi Border Police.
“This is punishment, isn’t it?” asked Caprice to no one in particular.
“Why?” asked Hammer idly. They were guarding the main road into Saudi Arabia. “You mean the part where we sit baking in the desert for days?”
“Yeah.” Caprice sighed. “That part.”
“I want to know why an Iraqi terrorist is afraid of a swastika on your palm,” said Hammer. “What were you doing on that boat, anyway?”
Archive looked uncomfortable. “It was more than just the swastika. I invoked the Crawling Chaos.”
“Nyarla-something, yeah,” said Caprice. “I didn’t realize you were into all that voodoo crap.”
Archive frowned. “It’s complicated.”
“But why a swastika?” asked Hammer. He seemed offended by the notion.
“It was the easiest rune for me to sketch. Believe it or not it’s a Chinese symbol to ward off evil spirits. I was hoping to...” he fumbled with the word, “turn him.”
“He turned and ran, so I guess it worked, huh?” said Caprice.
Archive went back to scanning the horizon with his binoculars. “There’s a taxi approaching.”
Hammer barked a question in Arabic. One of the border guard replied in the same tongue.
“Not totally unheard of,” translated Hammer.
“What about that?” Caprice handed his binoculars to Hammer.
Hammer didn’t need to look. A helicopter whisked past the taxi, a heavy machinegun bristling from one side.
“Down!” shouted Hammer.
The concrete barriers chipped and bullets ricocheted as the helicopter raked their location. It swung around for another pass.
Hammer pointed Caprice to one of the machinegun nests. “Keep the chopper busy!”
Caprice jogged over to the nest and revved up the machinegun. The Iraqi guards fired wildly at the oncoming taxi.
“That taxi is crammed with explosives!” shouted Archive over the gunfire.
Hammer drew his Glocks. “I’ll stop it.”
He stood up as the helicopter took another pass, heedless of the hail of bullets around him. Taking careful aim, Hammer fired.
Both tires blew out of the taxi. The vehicle lurched to the side.
FWOOSH! A Stinger launched from one of the Iraqi guardsmen struck the chopper dead on. Hot shrapnel rained down over them.
When it was all over, Archive peeked out from the barricade. “Can we go home now?”
Linear Mode
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