Delta Green - All Part of the Job

[Audrik]

The Bedford Project - Session 3e

Despite the distractions created by the lights, music, and chanting, the agents were quick to notice the Taylor County school bus with the Taylor County Cornhuskers logo emblazoned on the side. A stocky man leaned against the large front tire next to the door. His face was shrouded by the bill of his trucker hat, but the orange dot of a cigarette shined out from the shadow. On the bus and near the back seats, another man seemed to be yelling angrily into a cellphone and pacing very tight circles in the aisle. The only available parking space within a half-mile happened to be right next to the bus.

Dempsey pulled into that spot while the other two circled the lot and headed off to find somewhere else to park. The smoking man put out his cigarette and approached Dempsey’s car waving his hands in a shooing motion, but the man on the bus calls to him from a window.

"Don't worry about it, Jim. Let him park there. Coach Anderson's not gonna make it anyway. Neither is Cody."

Jim just shrugged and headed back to the front of the bus as the other man stepped out into the parking lot. The Irishman thanked Jim in a tone that was smart-assed even for him, but Jim just narrowed his eyes, spit, and lit another cigarette. The man who had been on the phone continued talking to the smoking man.

"Damnit, Jim. What the hell am I supposed to do now? Kickoff is in twenty minutes. Somebody knifes Cody's tires and keys his car, so he catches a ride with Coach Anderson. Then the coach ties his car around a tree. Now I gotta go out there and coach this team on my own without a damned quarterback? Damn! I hate this town."

Jim just listened along and made small grunts of agreement. It sounded to Dempsey like the smart money was on the Bulldogs, and maybe someone had made a point of ensuring that. Once Porter and Atwood walked up, the Irishman joined them, and the three headed toward the stadium entrance.

The stands on both sides of the field were packed with supporters of each team. A quarter-mile track of asphalt divided into six lanes encircled the chain link fence containing the football field. The teams were warming up at opposite sides of the field, and each school's cheerleaders were bouncing, swishing, kicking, and cartwheeling on the track in front of their respective team's stands.

A cheerful young man with thick glasses and a Bedford High School Academic Team sweater passed their tickets below a scanner which beeped happily. Just on their left as they entered was a concession stand selling hamburgers, hot dogs, pretzels, nachos, and sodas of all sizes. Atwood took the tickets and dumped them in a trash can, and after Dempsey finished buying a pretzel and a Dr. Pepper, the agents walked back out to the parking lot. The kid in the glasses and sweater called after them as they exited.

"Make sure you have your tickets with you so you can get back in!"

While the parking lot was full of vehicles, it seemed to be devoid of life. It was an odd realization, but it was one that couldn’t be denied. There were no people or animals anywhere around, the trees had all long since lost their leaves, and the agents were alone in the middle of it all. Everyone in town seemed to be packed into the stadium.

The wind picked up even more in a sort of escort as they made their way back to their vehicles. It looked like storm clouds were still rolling in at a frantic pace, packing them more and more densely together. They were churning and swirling directly over the HelpLink building. In fact, as they pulled their respective vehicles into the HelpLink parking lot, they could see a vortex directly above the building. The only electrical activity in the sky was around the vortex, and it caused the dark clouds to light up periodically. Between those times, the agents could make out a clear, starry sky in the eye of the maelstrom of roiling clouds.

As the agents got out of their vehicles, the lightning flashed around the vortex again, and all three agents had their eyes drawn to the sky. As the clouds lit up, they could make out the contrast of something – a ball, a meteor, a van … Something big and dark streaked from the stars directly through the hole in the clouds and into the HelpLink roof. They didn’t have time to comprehend what they’d seen much less take action before it hit.

The sheer force of the impact knocked them flat on their backs from 50 yards away, and it shattered the glass doors and windows of the building. It took a minute or two before the agents could regain their senses and stand up. By that time, everything was quiet again. All that could be heard was the wind and a football game in the distance.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

I have not read the new installment yet, but I wanted to stop in quickly and say that I am so glad that there are further updates. This Story Hour has been very cool

 

[Audrik]

Thanks! Once you have read it, please do feel free to let me know what you think.

We've had numerous scheduling conflicts and random occurrences recently, so the next installment may be the last for a while. We fully intend to continue with the game, and I'll definitely write up every session, but we need to iron out scheduling and venue. It's looking like taking the game to Roll20 is going to be the most likely result. One player is deciding whether he's going to stay in town (and if so, where) or find another place in Alaska where he can put his education to use. My wife and I are also discussing moving back to the Lower-48 possibly as soon as this Fall.

I've definitely got plans for the game though. I have two solid Ops worked out at least 80% or so, and a million other ideas as usual. Roll20 might provide a wider pool of players, too. My city has about 30,000 people or so, and I can almost guarantee I'm the only person here ever to run Delta Green. Still, I've [-]subjected[/-] brought the wonders of Delta Green to ... 20 people, I think.

 

[Audrik]

It's the end of the fiscal year here in Alaska, and that means as a governmental accountant, it's by far the busiest time of the year for me. Add to that the fact that my step-kids are visiting for the summer, and it adds up to almost no free time for me. That alone should be enough of an excuse for taking so long to post the finale to the Opera, but wait! There's more! The write-up is about twice as long as my standard session write-up, so ... well, there's that.

Unfortunately, this represents the last installment until we manage to get schedules worked out again, and that may be after summer. Still, we do plan to continue.

 

[Audrik]

The Bedford Project - Session 4a

As the agents regained their senses and rose to their feet, it was Atwood who broke the silence.

“The hell was that? A meteor?”

Dempsey was staring wide-eyed with a grin. At times like this, when he was truly and entirely enthralled, his accent could become heavy and thick.

“Oi don't nu, but if i'd 'av 'ad wan, oi might not 'av 'ad ter leave Éire.”

Atwood blinked at the Irishman for a moment, and his blank expression gradually became one of contempt. When he replied, he lingered on the initial ‘W’ and dragged it out.

“What?”

Dempsey had either not heard the FBI profiler, or he was ignoring him. Porter clarified the Irishman’s words for Atwood as he started covering the ground to the building.

“He said he doesn’t know, but if he’d had one, he might not have had to leave Éire – Ireland. For the record, I have no idea what the hell that was either, but I don’t hear alarms or sirens.”

No alarms or sirens. Porter saw it as an opportunity. Dempsey saw it as an invitation. Atwood was sure it was a trap. Regardless, they were all sure there were answers somewhere in that building, and now there was an easy way in. The Irishman jogged to catch up with Porter, and Atwood followed but lagged behind. All three agents drew their guns.

The three stepped through the shattered glass doors. The building was eerily quiet. They could hear dripping water and a dull wind near the center of the large room, but the only light came from the light posts in the parking lot and the sliver of moonlight filtering through a large crack in the ceiling.

All three agents lit their flashlights, and each had a different way of holding it with his gun. Porter held his with his thumb closest to the lens and just below the grip of his pistol. Atwood held his with his pinky closest to the lens and to the side of his pistol with his wrists touching. Dempsey held his out to one side and pointed his gun in the other direction.

Beyond the reception area with brochures, newspapers, magazines, and teal couches, the room was essentially just a large secretarial pool. Ceiling tiles in the center of the room had either fallen or were hanging precariously. The crack in the roof had to have been almost 100 feet long, and the satellite dish was hanging inward on a sagging section of roof.

A door on the far wall was labeled ‘Training Evaluation Office,’ and not far from that was the steel door of an elevator. Closer to the agents, another door was labeled ‘Stair Access to Roof and Basement.’ Dempsey and Atwood were about to head up to the roof when Porter stopped them. He said they needed to clear the ground floor first before heading off. Besides, there was something off about that Training Office. For all the security in this town, why did this one door have a standard mechanical lock and no electronics?

Porter led the way, and the other two followed. The NSA spook was the only one trained in this sort of thing, and whatever fell from the sky would probably still be on the roof when they cleared this floor. The door was unlocked, and Porter stood to one side and pushed it open. When nothing exploded, screamed, or shot at them, he whipped around and pointed his gun at the room in general.

Power seemed to be out to the rest of the building, but this room had three computer workstations running at full power. It was difficult to tell at a glance just what the computers were doing, but it was obviously not “training evaluation.” Each computer had three monitors, and each monitor displayed continuously updating graphs, charts, and lists. One monitor also had an open window cycling through live-streaming video from traffic cameras in Bedford. Each workstation had thick cables running through holes in the floor, and Porter said they were likely connected to a mainframe on a lower level.

The three workstations had various personal touches of the workers who manned them; pictures of family members, Bedford Bulldogs Football bobblehead, birthday cards, Bedford High School desk calendar with "Homecoming game and pageant!!" written in red ink on today's date, etc ... The room looked like the typical IT office, just with overly-expensive computer equipment. There was nothing to imply an evacuation any more hurried than your usual end-of-the-workday exodus, but Atwood still didn’t like the feeling he was getting.

Other than the door through which the agents entered, there were two other exits; a concrete-walled stairway in the opposite wall leading up and down and a door to their left with a mechanical lock and a plaque identifying it as the office of a Dr. Clark.

The door to Dr. Clark’s office was unlocked and opened easily to reveal a small, windowless office containing a desk, computer with a single monitor, and a modular shelving unit. Several computer printouts were stacked neatly on the desk, and Dempsey flipped through them. They contained a wide variety of charts, graphs, and lists ranging from a complete traffic-flow map of Bedford to the likelihood of Bedford residents to call phone-sex lines broken down by demographic subcategories. Porter and Atwood would have found all of that quite interesting and important, but the Irishman just yawned and failed to mention it.

 

[Audrik]

The Bedford Project - Session 4b

Atwood checked the drawers of the desk. In one, he found two brown folders. One was packed with what appeared to be blackmail evidence on Sheriff Taylor; pictures of him and various official-looking people exchanging briefcases and folders for thick envelopes, two years of his bank statements showing countless large cash deposits, and an envelope with a lock of brown hair and a small glass jar of what was probably blood. The second folder contained several printouts of emails between Dr. Clark and people from various .gov addresses and a company called Brewster Holdings. One email from Kellan Dunn marked Top Secret mentioned DARPA projects called Mind's Eye (to develop visual intelligence in machines) and CTS - Combat Zones That See (to "track everything that moves" in a city by linking up a massive network of surveillance cameras to a centralized computer system). Another email mentioned a late-September visit to inspect progress and to meet with someone named Dr. Cherry regarding his research.

Before the agents could discuss the implications, the relative silence was broken by the sound of twisting or snapping steel from somewhere down below and off in the direction of the elevator followed immediately by a crash. Porter spoke in a hushed growl.

“Put it all back. We need to move, and we can come back for it later if we need it.”

The sound came from below, and that’s where Porter wanted to go, but Atwood and Dempsey wanted to check the roof first. Atwood thought it would be good to clear the building systematically from top to bottom; he also didn’t want anything to do with the sound of ripping steel. Dempsey just wanted to see what hit the roof and find out if he could make one. It was two against one, and none of the agents wanted to be the one to go off alone, so the roof it was.

The concrete-walled stairwell from the Training Evaluation Office led up to a heavy steel door. Porter tested the handle and found that it was unlocked on the inside, but pushing it open, he saw that it would lock behind them with an RFID keycard lock if they let it close. Dempsey propped the door open with his flashlight, and the agents stepped out to examine the roof. The wind was starting to settle, and the vortex of clouds directly above the building seemed to be dissipating.

There was a three-foot wall around the perimeter of the roof to prevent accidental falls, and while the HelpLink building was only one story above ground, the entire town of Bedford could be seen from their vantage. The town was dark as far as the eye could see - everywhere except the Bedford High School football field. It appeared for all the world that literally the entire town was there. The wind carried the faint sounds of a marching band which seemed to indicate halftime.

The industrial air conditioning unit was even more imposing up close. It was most definitely too large for a building the size of the HelpLink Training Facility. The satellite dish hung at a precarious angle as it dipped down into the building through the long gash in the roof. Something large hit at an angle very close to the dish and came to a skidding and bouncing halt after almost 100 feet. Whatever it was, it likely weighed at least 500 pounds, and it was probably closer to 1,000. It was also probably a little smaller than a Volkswagen Beetle. A meteor that size would have devastated the town, and besides, it hadn't been glowing; it had been black against the electric glow of the storm.

Following the path of the object's landing led the agents' eyes to the other hole. There had been a second roof-access door near the front of the building where the other stairwell was, but the twisted sheet of steel and electronics which had once served as that door now laid discarded several feet away. Dempsey's assessment was the object had to have come to a stop at least 50 feet away from the stairwell so the impact couldn't have destroyed the door, never mind that it had been ripped outward rather than pushed inward. Either the door had already been in this condition, or something had demolished it. A shiver went down their spines at that assessment. Porter frowned.

“It look like something landed on the roof, picked itself up, and demolished that big-assed steel door to anyone else?”

Atwood nodded slowly with a gulp. Dempsey just looked down at his pistol and sighed.

There were no scorch marks visible anywhere on the roof which lent further doubt to the meteor possibility. The concrete of the roof access appeared to have been toppled backward away from the door while the door itself was pulled in the other direction. Exactly how it happened might have been a mystery, but it would have taken something with the size and strength of a construction vehicle to yank the door free, and whatever did it had left patches of a sticky black residue like battery acid.

 

[Audrik]

The Bedford Project - Session 4c

Looking down the stairwell illuminated by flashlights and emergency lighting, Atwood spotted a mangled security camera. Dempsey’s quick scan of the roof access through which they'd emerged revealed another well-hidden and intact camera. Given the lack of a door on the other stairwell, the Irishman decided it was safe to retrieve his flashlight.

With Atwood in the lead, the agents carefully descended the concrete stairs. The metal handrails had been severely corroded in many places, and so they were less than useless. They gave the impression that if someone were to put a little weight on them, collapse would be imminent.

The door to the HelpLink lobby from the ground floor stairwell landing was in bad shape as well. The handle, hinges, and other metal components were so severely corroded that they'd likely never work as intended again, though they'd been so weakened that a good kick would probably bring the door crashing down.

From this landing, Atwood could see a body slumped against the wall on the next flight down. The body was easily identifiable as private security by his body armor and other gear. Like the rails and door, everything metal on the guard's person seemed corroded and useless. The handgun in his hand, a Glock 36, looked like it might still be in working order. Once the agents made it down to the body, a closer look revealed brown and black streaks around his mouth. His skin had a slightly bluish tinge, the tongue was swollen and black, and he was covered in brownish-black vomit. The man’s skin was dry, tight, and flaky as if he’d experienced rapid dehydration. Porter was no doctor, but he was a chemist. He gave his diagnosis in a grim tone.

“Call me crazy, but this looks like the fatal side of sulfuric acid poisoning. That would explain the corrosion on all the metal, too.”

Well, yeah. It would explain the corrosion, but Atwood wanted to know just what the hell explained the sulfuric acid in the first place. There wasn’t an explanation for that unless they wanted to go with the “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang goes rogue” angle. Dempsey joked that Dick Van Dyke had some explaining to do, but he was met with glares from the other two, so he just shrugged.

Disney-based explanations aside, the evidence seemed to support Porter’s theory. Atwood suggested they all put on gloves just in case, but the other two held up their already-gloved hands. Well, Dempsey held up an already-gloved middle finger, but the message was the same; you don’t raid the enemy stronghold in an overly-secure town under cover of darkness without gloves. Then again, as Dempsey pointed out, it wasn’t like Atwood was going to get added to Sheriff Taylor’s kill list a second time, though he might move up a spot or two.

The initial shock and witty banter out of the way, Dempsey studied the landing. The body was slumped against the wall at the mid-floor landing. He had apparently been running up the stairs from the room below when he turned back toward the room and fired several rounds.

The air down at this level irritated the agents’ eyes and nasal passages. The heavy steel door at the bottom of the stairs had been ripped from its frame with the digital keypad lock still in place. The room beyond was well-lit and apparently running on generator power rather than emergency power like the ground floor and stairwells. There were white flashing lights near the ceiling at regular intervals which appeared to be some sort of silent alarm.

Only a few feet inside the doorway were six lumps of copper with a thick turquoise patina and a scattering of rust. So, whatever they were following could not only dehydrate a man and turn him blue, but it also worked fast enough to rust and corrode bullets. Fantastic.

Several racks of computer equipment lined the walls of the room. It appeared to be a server room with expensive equipment. None of it seemed to have been touched. The only other exits from the room were the other stairwell leading to the Training Evaluation Office and an open elevator shaft. The elevator doors had been removed and cast aside much like the other stairwell doors.

Dempsey questioned whether Bedford really deserved their help. After all, no one in this town had proven themselves to be worth helping. Plus, nothing good went down that open elevator shaft, so nothing good was likely to come back out. It’s not like there was a surprise party at the bottom with birthday hats, Guinness, and Pin the Beard on the Leprechaun. No. There was an evil, flying Disney car armed with acid and who-knows-what-else. Screw Bedford. Screw Iowa.

 

[Audrik]

The Bedford Project - Session 4d

That last bit got no argument from the other two, but all the same, this was their job. This was small-town America. That alone meant Bedford deserved their help. Dempsey wasn’t so sure.

The Irishman inched up to the elevator shaft and slowly peeked down. The corroded ends of what used to be elevator cables hung in the shaft, and he could see the mangled remains of the elevator car about 30 feet down where the elevator doors to the sublevel had been ripped away. This seemed like the only way down to the sublevel, but no amount of button mashing or security badge scanning would bring that elevator car back up. There were iron ladder rungs driven into the walls of the shaft for maintenance and emergencies, and the ones Dempsey could see clearly looked only slightly corroded.

He sighed and started carefully descending the shaft. He was careful to test every rung before putting his full weight on it. Seeing the Irishman disappear into the depths, Porter followed, and Atwood brought up the rear. The FBI profiler grumbled something about being seriously pissed off if he died in Iowa.

Most of the rungs were still relatively safe, and after a minute or so, all three agents stepped over the landing and out of the shaft on the sublevel. Like the stairwell outside the room above, the air on the sublevel stung their eyes and nasal passages. Beyond the elevator shaft was a wide hallway extending about 200 feet. The concrete floor was littered with the same copper lumps with the same turquoise-patina as they’d found on the floor above, and it looked as if handfuls of rust had been scattered about.

A large steel door at the end of the hall was closed and fully intact. Two bodies were slumped below it. They seemed to have suffered the same fate as the man in the stairwell. A camera in the ceiling at the end of the hall was positioned to capture anything that occurred between the elevator and the door. There was also a panel and computer screen to each side of the door. Porter said they were designed for synchronized handprint and iris scans.

Dempsey gave the camera the same single-fingered salute he’d given Atwood earlier when he had a terrifying realization. Apparently, Porter had had the same realization, because the NSA man spoke barely above a whisper.

“Anything seem off about this door to you two?”

The Irishman nodded.

“You mean the fact that it’s still intact? Yeah. But how?”

Atwood gave voice to the suspicions the other two had already formed. Someone on the other side had let it through.

Dempsey shivered. He then glared at the camera before picking up one of the blue-skinned corpses.

“Right. I’ll get Brainy, here. Atwood, you get Jokey. Let’s muppet these bastards and get the door open. Then we can execute Papa Smurf and get the hell out of here.”

Atwood lifted the other corpse while Porter aimed his gun at the door. Sulfuric acid poisoning, or whatever, at least their hands and eyes still worked. The steel doors slid open. The room on the other side was an odd mix of chemistry lab and surgery room. In the center was a wooden podium with a scroll of some sort clipped to the flat surface and blood-covered pottery shards littering the base.

On the right-hand side of the room, a large black man – Kellan Dunn – lied face down on a steel operating table. His wrists and ankles were held by steel restraining cuffs, and he was naked from the waist up. The flesh of his back had been peeled open, and his spine was visible. He was conscious and not sedated, but he was handling the pain remarkably well. A middle-aged man in a white lab coat stood over Mr. Dunn, and he had just finished injecting something into the man's spine with a nasty-looking syringe.

The only other exit from the room was a single steel door to the left-hand side. It had been ripped from its frame in the same manner as the others, and the agents could see a long, dimly lit tunnel beyond.

Porter stepped into the room with his gun pointed directly at the doctor’s face. Dempsey followed next and aimed his weapon at the man on the table. Atwood stepped in last, dropped his gun, and turned to vomit.

The doctor dropped the syringe and raised his hands.

“Wait, wait! Don’t shoot! It’s not us you should be worried about.”

Kellan Dunn lifted his head enough to scan the room with glazed over eyes that didn't seem to focus before he dropped it back to the steel operating table. Porter growled. He wanted to shoot someone, but now he got to sit through the whole “villain giving away the evil plan because the heroes are too late” cliché instead. At least it would buy time for Atwood to recover. Dunn was strapped down with his spine showing, but they just might need all three guns for this.

 

[Audrik]

The Bedford Project - Session 4e

“I’m guessing you’re Dr. Brian Cherry? Okay, doc. What should we be worried about instead?”

Dr. Cherry’s leisurely speaking pace contrasted sharply with the urgency of his words. He nodded his head toward the tunnel.

"What you should be worried about went that way. The tunnel lets out on the far side of the HelpLink parking lot."

“Yeah? And we should believe you … why? Tell me why you’re not blue, doc.”

“You’re down here, so you must have some idea why. My associate here needs me, so that thing he called – the thing you should be worried about – let me be.”

Atwood, who had recovered, felt Dr. Cherry's blasé demeanor despite the guns and the open-back surgery in progress indicated a psychological blockage, as though the doctor was suppressing recent trauma or stress by being overly-cold and logical. Much like Atwood himself was doing, actually. Doctor Cherry continued in his same calm tone and leisurely pace.

"You should take a look at the scroll on the podium. It's fascinating reading ... not that there's anything you can do to stop the thing now. It's discharged its duty, and now it collects payment."

Whatever that meant, it sounded bad. Porter was about to press for more details when Dempsey let loose a string of expletives in a heavy Irish brogue. The other two agents jumped at the sudden outburst, but Dr. Cherry hardly blinked.

The Irishman called attention to Dunn and the operating table. The surgical steel restraints and operating table were rusting. Surgical steel was extremely resistant to corrosion and rust, and yet they were rusting. The source seemed to be the man on the operating table, the man whose opened back and exposed spine were healing.

Dempsey fired two rounds, and almost immediately, half of the back of Dunn's head exploded like an egg with a spongy black yolk. The agents froze momentarily. Two rounds from Dempsey’s gun should have killed Dunn, but they shouldn’t have caused his head to explode. Ignoring that fact for the moment, Dunn’s brain should most definitely not have been a spongy black.

As the chunks of brain-mass spattered across Dr. Cherry's face, he hit the ground with a blood-curdling scream. The man frantically clawed at his face in a futile attempt to clear it. That wasn’t quite good enough for Porter. The NSA spook kept his gun trained on the fallen doctor.

Dunn's body went limp and motionless on the still-rusting table. His restraints were now little more than red dust. His wounds still seemed to be healing slowly, so Dempsey took the opportunity to toss one of his special explosive “Irish Coffee” devices into the opening in Dunn’s back before it healed completely. There’s no way that body should be healing like that, and he was sure there was no way it would heal completely … or so he told himself. All the same, it was far better to be safe.

While the Irishman handled Dunn and Porter had Cherry covered, Atwood stepped forward to interrogate the doctor. First, he dropped a towel on Cherry’s head and set a gallon jug of distilled water next to him. It could be tough to get anything useful out of a man whose face was literally melting. Doctor Cherry furiously mopped the black brain-mass from his face and took slow deep breaths to calm himself. Though he’d never say it, Porter admired the man’s ability to withstand pain and remain in control.

Once his face was relatively clear of the acid, Dr. Cherry looked up from the floor and spoke between gasping breaths.

"Look ... I don't know who you are ... or what you want, but ... you just cost me one hell of a steady paycheck. You let me gather my research, and cover me while I get to my car, and I can promise you I'll make it worth your while. I have a few off-shore accounts. How does $5 million each sound? Just to walk away from this. I'll disappear again. Win-win, right?"

Despite the gravity of his situation, the doctor honestly seemed to believe he had the upper hand. Atwood laughed, but the other two agents appeared to consider the offer. Porter was close to retirement anyway; he had another year or two left with the NSA at most, and he wanted to be done with this sort of work for good. And Dempsey … hell, give the Irishman $5 million, and he might almost be willing to trade his Bushmills for Jack Daniels for life. Well, ten years. Actually, make that a year, minus special occasions like his birthday, his mother’s birthday, St. Patrick’s Day, Tuesday, and Christmas. Okay, never mind all that. Give him the $5 million, and he’d have a shot of Jack as long as no one was looking.

 

[Audrik]

The Bedford Project - Session 4f

“You guys can’t seriously be considering …”

Atwood was in disbelief which was odd because he was a professionally trained psychologist. It must have been his young idealism or the fact that no one in the FBI had cause to throw him under the bus for purely selfish or political reasons yet. Either way, both men answered his unfinished question with shrugs. Atwood growled, and Porter rolled his eyes.

“Okay. Fine, kid, but you owe me $5 million. And him, too.”

The Irishman shrugged again and turned his gun on Dr. Cherry who snarled in disgust as he stood up slowly to keep his knees from shaking.

“If you're going after that thing Dunn called down, you can shoot me now. Whatever your plan is, you'll only piss it off. You'd need a bomb capable of leveling a building to have a chance. You might as well let it collect its payment and leave. The beast did its job, and Dunn offered it the town of Bedford; 1,500 souls. You'd be fools to step in the way of that."

He collected a black leather briefcase from a cabinet beneath one of the counters, carefully skirted the black foam on the floor, and headed toward the podium. Porter stopped him with a shout.

“You’d best stop, doc. If I’m not getting my $5 million, you’re not getting to keep that scroll or that briefcase. If you want out of here alive, tell me just what the hell you’re doing in this town.”

Cherry sighed and turned back to face the agents. His eyes darted toward the body on the rusting steel table and back, but if any of the agents noticed, they didn’t turn to look. His voice was still warm, proud, and even excited. He hardly even seemed to notice the deep burns on his face.

"My research has made great strides in recent years. I've been able to cause beneficial genetic mutations with a series of ten weekly injections. One young lady, I injected with a mutagen derived from various bee species, and the results were better than I could have hoped! She can influence and direct everyone in this town! It's exactly what Dunn wanted, and DARPA was paying handsomely for the process. Can you imagine the battlefield potential? Soldiers silently following wordless orders? Covert agents leaving invisible trails and messages? It's pure genius if I do say so myself!”

Porter made a hand gesture indicating the doctor should wrap it up. What he had to say was important, but at the moment, there was supposedly a creature from some deep ring of Hell heading out to catch the tail end of the Bulldogs’ homecoming game.

"Well, anyway ... Dunn wanted to test my research for himself, and he said he had access to a creature of unbelievable power and ability. The only catch was that he wouldn't be available for ten weekly injections; it had to come all at once. That meant the injection had to go directly into his spine, and it had to be pure. The thing he called was terrible, but it obeyed him. He got the material I needed, and he sent it to collect its payment while I prepared the injection."

Porter wanted to pull the trigger, but two things stopped him. First, Atwood stepped in the way and began handcuffing the doctor, and second, there was another string of expletives in Irish brogue which culminated in a single word: “Run!”

The Irishman fled down the hall toward the exit Dr. Cherry had mentioned, and when Porter saw why Dempsey had shouted, he fled, too. Atwood was a little preoccupied, and he was really tiring of Dempsey. It wasn’t until the shadow settled over him and Dr. Cherry laughed manically that Atwood knew it was too late. The table had utterly rusted, Dunn’s wounds had healed, and he was different. His eyes were a shiny black, and his skin was somehow even darker. Even worse, an irritating and acidic aura seemed to radiate from him.

Atwood’s eyes watered and his nasal passages burned. He wanted to run, but he was dizzy. Anything more than the slightest and slowest twitch might cause him to vomit or lose his balance. His knees were weakening, and Dr. Cherry’s coughing laughter sounded miles away. The FBI profiler was starting to lose consciousness. He fell to his knees and then slumped onto his side on the cold concrete. He wanted to run, but he couldn’t even crawl. He wanted to scream, but he couldn’t even whimper.

As Porter and Dempsey ran, the Irishman counted. After a ten-count, he pressed the little red button in his hand. Neither man broke stride, instead following the words of the angel to Lot as he fled Sodom: “Escape for thy life; look not behind thee.” They prayed Atwood had made it out.