Doctor Kilroy is absolutely not an Agent for an agency that doesn't exist named Delta Green, one of many such phantoms defending the world against things that shouldn't exist.
Episode 2: Spring 2005
We're called by the burner phones.... for a day at the range.
We arrive at a private gun range, with an array of legitimately-acquired guns.
Operative Emily handily taps the target. Operative Maxwell shows off his military training. I settle for a solid hit. Zark... Zark can't hit the broad side of the barn. He's not allowed to have a gun.
We get our hands on automatic weapons, and learn about just how deadly they can be. I don't want to be standing out in the open if I'm on the business end of one...
We get our brief as well -- we're headed for Hellbend, that town I learned of in our previous op. Our cover credentials are FBI, I'm going in as a forensics / pathology expert.
Our handler for this mission is one Agent Ethan. He looks veteran. He warns us to keep it quiet. Our IDs aren't bulletproof, it's a small town, and Bakersfield's got an FBI office about 4 and a half hours away.
My research's turned up some interesting results; Clifford Potter and Lucille Mayer
We stop in Independence to pay the Coroner and the Sherriff who found the body. Coroner first.
We arrive at the Hospital to find the Coroner, Doctor White. I bluff my way to him, and we ask about our victims. The coroner reckons there's no connection, per the opinion of the cops, but I disagree.
Clifford Potter "died from being run over by his Bobcat" less than 2 weeks ago -- we believe this to be unlikely, at best -- unless there's a man with a magic ghost called "The World" running about, he shouldn't be able to run himself over, and there's no indication he was torn in half by the Bobcat by a third-party.
Lucille Mayer is a stranger story. She went missing in 2004, not 2005 -- her corpse has been found only within the last week or so, and the age of the corpse naturally makes it hard to identify the cause of death. Zark asks if there's any parts missing, and I see that it looks like bones and parts have been sheared clean off.
Something's definitely up. We thank Doctor White for his time, and move on.
We pay the local cop shop a visit, and meet the middle-aged Sherriff Alfred Mann -- Maxwell takes the lead on this. Deputy Androzi was the one who actually found the body, so he might know more, but he can talk a bit about the victims. Mayer's effects went back to her partner, but Potter was a loner and didn't have anyone to survive him. His things are pretty typical, nothing unusual.
Androzi, a young man in his mid-20s, is in. We ask him about the two cases; he's apprehensive about Maxwell and the word "FBI", but does his best to swallow his pride. He was first on the scene for Potter and handled the entire case solo. He also found Mayer's body from the buzzards overhead while on patrol. She appears to have fallen, busted her leg, and just died from exposure, unable to get to safety.
I ask if he had any hunches or wild theories. He reckons Emily, Lucille's partner, had a brother called Christopher's done time, after having an argument about a year back from being between jobs. He got a bit of time for this, but seems to have
Regarding Potter, the "new kid" at the Gas 'n' Sip found him first. Not much else to say about the case, reckons Potter managed to get stoned or something and get himself caught under the wheels.
Emily asks him about how he searched Potter's house. Nothing particularly "interesting", just old people stuff and cassette tapes. He offers to show us to the house, if we want, and we take him up on the offer.
We're headed for Old Man Potter's house, just outside of Hellbend. We're joined by Operative Magnus, whose flight was delayed, and we recap. Emily notes that the Deputy is unusually well armed for showing out-of-state FBI agents.
We arrive, and the house is... odd. The vegetation around the house is dead... but just around the house. It's not the heat.
Androzi lets us in. His house is super clean and tidy, millitary style, except for the Kitchen, which is super cluttered and in stark contrast to the rest of the house. The tapes we're looking for are there, along
The tapes are numbered and faintly labelled, Monty Int, 1 through 24. There's a top-down map of roads. I search the bedroom, nothing but old man clothes, clothes of a dead man. I check under the bed, and there's nothing but boots waiting for me.
The tapes are played, an interview between Clifford and Montgomery Green, father of the "New kid", Jarvis Green. (Hence "Monty Interview") They talk about talking about Hunt. Hunt was working on interesting things below his plant... but never left his office, the "Bathysphere". Air tight. Not a little expense. Hot and contained.
Green got an insight into what Hunt did, and it was weird. Hunt would just draw blueprints out of his head in a foreign language, and translate them to English when he was done. Apparently he spoke 12 languages. Barely slept. Hardcore vegeterian, specially prepared. Needed to be washed by hand. Eccentric in the extreme. Never a kind word for everyone, but despite that, he was a good boss and rewarded obedience and consistiency. Green ticked all his boxes, but was only ever tolerated at best. Hunt didn't like outside light much, wore bakelite goggles with blackout lenses whenever he was out. Really didn't like blood. Green suspects he could *smell* that blood.
Zark checks out the basement. Nothing down there, according to the Deputy. Zark looks anyway, it's a dirt floor, and the place looks recently excavated. There's a rake. Zark looks at the ground and it looks specially raked... and he ruins it by walking on it. He tries to re-rake it back into shape. He spends some time doing this, but he needs a shovel or something. He comes back upstairs, and spots some gloves.
He tries to pick them up, and finds them unusually heavy. Lead lined. Then he notices the books. Radiology books. He asks if anyone has a Geiger counter. This raises a few alarms, and we quickly talk the Deputy out of phoning it in. Zark and Emily go back downstairs; as Zark messes with the centre of the "garden", he finds something buried there.
Upstairs, we're bagging up tapes when we realize they've been down there for a while. We look, and see Zark casually leaning against the wall, and he's got something in his pocket. I leave immediately to try and split the Deputy's attention.
There's nothing else for us here, so we move on; the Deputy locks up, and we part ways with him. In the car, Zark shows us what he found -- a gold cube, about 6.904cm cubed, with markings on each side. Buried deep in the middle of the garden. Definitely weird.
We're going to head into town to the Gas 'N' Sip, but Emily notices we've got a tail... the Deputy. We decide to head about 2.3k out to Hunt Electrodynamics, instead. Busted, the Deputy flashes his lights at us.
We arrive at HE Plant 004; the place is filled with rubble, but there's a mysteriously cleared patch of ground. Covered in tracks, garbage, and bootprints. Reddish dirt, the same as what was on the gloves Zark found.
The Deputy shows up behind us, and pops his spotlights. We knee-jerk response, and we can't see what the Deputy's doing. We're all preparing to draw down, when some of us notice something.
Zark hits the dirt, and something bipedal rushes past; 2m tall, 5m long, feathers. The "Bobcat" we've been joking about. A fucking DINOSAUR.
Deputy Androzi goes for his car's trunk. He's going to need a bigger gun. Maxwell goes for our Trunk as well. Zark runs for it, but freaks out and trips. He dodges the dinosaur. Androzi opens up with an assault rifle in panic fire. It doesn't falter much, but Zark...
Emily and Maxwell take shots at it, but it takes minimal damage. It shrieks in pain, and books it. We all take one last shot, but it's no good.
Zark's down, and Androzi realizes what he's done. I get everyone to hold Androzi off while I do doctor things and stabilize Zark.
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