1998, the world thought it was breathing easy post-Cold War.
Well, sometimes those shadows just change shape, while the headlines keep folks looking the other way.
Out on the buzzing new worldwide web, some crank named Arthur Finch started spilling secrets from his GeoCities.
He was shacked up in Jerome, Arizona, a copper ghost town playing tourist trap in a mountainside.
This wasn't just UFO nonsense.
Finch was dropping terms and descriptions.
Well, things that lit up red flags in deep dark rooms.
The program heard these echoes and the call went out.
Two agents called in from Virginia, Phoenix bound.
Their job?
Find Finch.
Find a source?
Shut it down.
oh
before whatever nightmare Finch stumbled upon crawls its way out of a deep dark cave into the harsh desert light.
Welcome to the Dead Letter Bureau.
Hello, I'm Nick Sayers and I am the handler of this Delta Green campaign set in Jerome, Arizona in 1998.
I am Christina and I am playing the role of Agent Ryan.
Jordan and I'll be playing agent Dale Sandusky.
I'm here with Agent Ryan and Agent Dell, kicking off our first Delta Green actual play.
Thank you for listening.
Agents, let's start with a straightforward question.
What are you doing at home right now?
uh
I'd probably be out in my small greenhouse watering some plants.
Yeah, I reckon I'd probably be whittling a little bit with like a lawn chair up on my roof so I could see the sunrise.
Okay.
So this means you guys are off work.
Some of you might be retired, but you are not working right now, so you're at home.
You're in your sunroom watering plants, and from inside you have your computer speakers turned up and you hear a...
sound.
definitely my Toshiba satellite.
I would know that sound anywhere.
Yeah, it's a ICQ message and it's from an unknown contact.
So I'm a little wary, but I open it.
You open it and at first you're extremely confused because it says, come enjoy a night at the opera in Phoenix, Arizona.
And it has the time of 10 a.m.
the next day.
But as you...
take a second with it, you realize that someone at the FBI told you you might be getting an invitation to the opera and it was a secret operation that they would want you to go
on.
Okay, yeah, I normally probably wouldn't accept an invitation to the opera, but since somebody gave me a heads up.
And you would know that you're going to Phoenix, Arizona to probably end up at the FBI field office based on what this other contact said.
But you know nothing of the operation or the team that would be inviting you.
But how, you know, how would you get there by 10 a.m.
the next day?
where do I live?
I probably live on the East coast somewhere.
mm hmm.
Yeah.
So I think I would try to book a red eye flight.
I'll call my travel agent and see if they can help.
Yeah, that's really smart because the FBI did say any type of accommodations for this would be reimbursed, but not through the agency.
So doing it on a personal level and not through the agency is what is recommended.
Okay, I'll call up Debbie, my travel agent.
Yeah, Debbie's able to get you on a red eye straight into Phoenix and book you a hotel.
Three stars, but what can you get at last minute, right?
All right, Dell, you're whittling, watching the sunset.
You probably don't have a computer.
Do you have a computer?
No, they are not allowed like within five miles of my property.
Yeah, yeah, I figured that.
So what you get or hear is just a from under your door behind you, just a sound of a swishing sound.
That better not be you again, Rufus.
And I'll just like swivel around, grab the shotgun from underneath my Whitland chair.
Yeah, you swivel around and it is indeed not Rufus.
You are used to getting strange communications at strange times.
It doesn't do well for your paranoia, but you see a very familiar envelope sitting under your door.
Then what do they want again?
Yeah, you open it up, same invitation.
You are invited to the opera in Phoenix, Arizona, AKA the field office there to meet with presumably the handler you've been working with.
His name is Agent Butterfield and he's usually the one who pulls you into these external operations.
Yeah, all right.
Same tight time frame here.
same timeframe.
Okay, well I'm gonna saddle up my motorbike, little road pack, and I'm gonna hitch ride down to the local Greyhound station.
Got like $4 in my back pocket, and I'll take a bus from Santa Fe over to Phoenix.
All right, a quick ride and a beautiful ride.
So you both end up in Phoenix in the middle of the night, pretty dead place at night.
It's still like 80 degrees out.
You're a little bit used to that Dell, but agent Ryan, that is way too hot for the fall.
So you're already sweating.
Your pits are...
getting wet and you get to your nice air conditioned hotel and relax.
Del, what type of accommodations would you be booking for yourself, if any at all?
a motel with the bed far out of town.
They probably have a pool, but it's like brown and milky and it hasn't been used in who knows how long.
Yeah, there are pink flamingos painted along the walls as well.
And it's a triple decker, not just a double decker.
So it goes three stories up.
You're able to get on the third story and a corner one.
So there are no windows and you just have one doorway to protect.
Does that suit you?
you guys is fancy around here.
Yeah.
And the soda machine right outside your door, it's some nice white noise and you get a good night's rest.
All right.
Morning comes and you just gonna roll into the field office?
I don't roll into just anywhere.
So I wake up very early to get ready for the day.
Make sure I iron my t-shirt, get it nice and tucked in.
Yeah, yeah, you're all set.
Del, you dressing up for this occasion?
Whatever that means, yeah, I mean, I got like a couple layers on, inadvisable in the heat, but they're just kind of like, you know, long and flowing like a desert bedouin that
shopped at Goodwill.
And I'll go ahead and post up at like whatever place might be across the way from the field office for maybe a good two hours before call time.
And I'll wander, you know, maybe five minutes late.
Yeah, go ahead and roll me alertness.
Yeah.
of us.
Yeah.
Oh, that is triple zeros.
All right.
You know, you stand across the street, one of the busiest bus stations downtown, and there are just buses constantly driving in front of you.
You don't catch much.
Agent Ryan, what do you, when you're approaching the field office, are you sitting around early kind of scoping it out as well?
No, I arrive very punctual and walk right in.
All right, what was your alertness roll?
Okay, yeah.
Yeah, you don't pick up anything either.
you know, Agent Dell, you do see...
Agent Ryan walk in, you're not sure you're gonna be paired up, but it looks like a little bit anachronistic for this desert heat, wearing very thick jeans, has a t-shirt, looks
kinda sweaty, not accustomed to this heat.
But you roll in, are you both going straight to the briefing room?
I assume there's a lady named Peg working at a desk somewhere.
I'll probably say hi and grab a little styrofoam cup of coffee before we go.
Yeah, yeah, there's a little waiting area.
And you you've never been to this field office.
You both have credentials.
You flash them.
And Peggy says, well, hello, y'all.
Go ahead, grab yourselves a cup of coffee.
And you know, there are only Styrofoam cups and you're able to get some coffee and cream and sugar if you choose.
And she pulls up something on a
to your modernized archaic monitor and kind of like cocks her eyebrows and looks at both of you and then looks back to the screen and she says, you're in one of the special
briefing rooms today, I suppose.
And then she makes a quick phone call and you hear her talking under her breath.
And then she stands up and she says, well, y'all ready?
Will Butterball see us now?
think you mean Butterfield.
He doesn't take kindly to being called anything but Butterfield.
I do find that funny though.
She...
you know, walks quickly.
She has that, you know, pace of like a retail store worker shuffling you to the right department just to leave you in an empty aisle and opens a door and you get into a...
dimly lit small conference room, you see the portrait of Bill Clinton on the wall.
And next to that is Janet Reno, the attorney general, and you see a few chairs and there is a, on the middle of the conference table, there's just a CRT monitor with a tower
computer there, but no handler.
You know how to work one of these things.
I'm kind of scoping it out.
Never actually had my hands on one, but I definitely know about them.
And I just stand up quietly and kind of walk around the table and look at the computer.
Yeah, as you're doing that, can you both describe yourselves to each other?
Yeah, I'm Ryan Dwyer, Agent Ryan.
My physical description is I'm dorky, I'm balding, I have glasses, I'm 35.
I'm pretty pale because I don't go outside very often.
I wear my typical attire is cargo pants, tuck in my t-shirts, and white big-soled Nike shoes.
uh
I am motivated by always doing the right thing.
I always follow the rules and I like to prove myself against all odds.
So I like to be challenged to prove that I can do challenging things.
What, you just tell that to everybody you meet?
Yes, that's how I describe myself.
It's very factual.
Yeah, well, I mean, I'm glad you wear it on those short little sleeves of yours.
Yeah, Agent Del Sandusky.
Agent Sandusky is preferred.
He's an older white man, probably in his late 50s, early 60s.
He's about 5'11", about 130 pounds.
His clothes look like they fit him about 50 pounds ago.
And that's probably the last time they was washed too.
They kinda got creases in them that...
has dirt that kind of makes him look like more more statuesque than the than folded Cloth he's got a thin and gray hair on a heavily wrinkled face.
That's you know likely expressing some some sort of thinly veiled distrust through his dirty spectacles and and he's definitely got like a You know the the qualities of a
suspicious underground rodent
about him, but there's something like soft and small town about his nature as well.
Incredible.
As you two have sized each other up and looked at each other, a familiar face to you, Dell, comes in.
Handler Butterfield.
Yeah, Handler Butterfield walks in.
He is in a black suit, gray shirt under it, black tie.
He looks a little disheveled, pretty typical for a handler working with Delta Green.
But he walks in and immediately says, all right, settle in.
We wouldn't be meeting in the sweat box if it wasn't important.
And he points to some chairs.
Yeah, I'll pull the pair out.
Yeah, you have a seat.
He kind of like cracks his back and he says, well, this came across ASail's desk about 48 hours ago.
He goes over to the computer, types in a DOS command to boot up Windows and waits for it to load and then brings up Netscape Navigator.
And he mumbles under his breath.
He's like, I thought they started this up already.
And he brings up a website.
He says, Truth Beyond the Veil, hosted on GeoCities, run by a man who we presume is named is Arthur Finch.
He clears his throat.
Finch is a resident of Jerome, Arizona, this old mining town turned tourist trap up north.
He fancies himself a investigative journalist, a UFO-ologist maybe, that's what his website says about him.
Mostly a harmless crank.
But recently, his posts or web pages came across the program.
And they're hitting on things that they shouldn't.
He pulls up a web page and at the top of the web page you see the text operation cowboy and then He points at that he says I know that both of you haven't been Doing much for the
program in the past but operation cowboy was a very top-secret Delta green op and
the fact that anybody knows this operation would be one hell of a coincidence.
So it definitely started flagging some indicators on the radar for us.
And he pulls up another page.
He said, one hit is one thing.
We can write that off as a coincidence, even if it is using Operation Cowboy, but two is another thing.
And this page talks about, you see it talks about Bill Clinton not being briefed on Area 51, but previous presidents, George H.W.
Bush and Reagan specifically being briefed in depth on it.
And you both would know that.
Delta Green had gone under the radar in the Clinton years most recently, but was, I mean, it wasn't above the radar, but the presidents knew about it before Clinton.
And so that is another curious coincidence.
And he says, well, we don't know how he knows.
And again, with this new,
World Wide Web or Information Superhighway, whatever they've started calling it.
Could it be a lucky guess?
Is it signal to noise?
I don't know, but I do know that the signal to noise ratio is suddenly a little too high for my comfort.
Any questions thus far, agents?
I mean, would you consider him a significant presence in his discipline prior to this?
Do people take him seriously?
When people speak, when he speaks, who listens?
He scrolls down on the GeoCities webpage to the visitor count.
It says overall visitors, 23 million.
And current site visitors is at 5,000.
Meaningless to you probably, Dell, but Agent Ryan, you know that is a huge amount of web traffic.
He says.
Well, we are concerned with his popularity among normal people.
And if he were to continue to leak these informations, we're afraid of any other party, external government agency.
The Russians are still in play.
I might remind you that.
m Being putting too many of the puzzle pieces together and finding out that Delta Green is still operating.
But.
There is a third concerning thing is where is he getting this information?
that is certainly concerning.
Are there any active operations or agents anywhere in the area that he might be latching onto?
Or do we think this is all over this invisible web?
Agent Dell, I don't know if you've been briefed on Majestic, but we believe that the only other organization that would have this information is Majestic.
They were intimately involved with the Roswell incident and were involved with any unidentified flying object incidents after that.
So the only thing I could think of is either a leak from Delta Green, which
I trust my agents, none of my cells would be leaking this information or Majestic would be involved in some way.
I don't know about you, Agent Ryan, but that don't ring a bell to me.
Nope, never heard of Majestic.
what are you asking of us to do with this information?
I know you're new, Agent Ryan.
So I'll tell you this once.
Typically in these situations, the first objective is to get eyes on the prize, which would be Arthur Finch.
Two, determine the source and extent of his knowledge.
Is he talking to somebody?
Did he find something?
How much does he actually understand?
Three, assess the risk.
And then four is containment.
So we need to make this stop.
The information flow must stop now and here.
If he's just some misguided fool who got lucky, scare him straight, dismantle his platform.
If he's compromised, if he's willing to leak or risk exposure, well, you need to sanitize the situation immediately.
Now, Agent Ryan, being that you're new, I will tell you specifically why we brought you on.
Your computer engineering skills would be an asset on this.
We need you to take and acquire any of his hard drives, analyze them, and figure out where he's getting this information and...
We would love it if you were able to figure out a way to crack his GeoCities account and remove the website from the web.
oh
you know what that means because that didn't mean diddly squat.
yeah, it makes sense to me.
On it.
And I know that teams of two are considered bad luck in Delta Green, but I have nothing but confidence in you.
My A cell in the area was held up, so I know that coming here on such short notice might have been a bother to you, and I very much appreciate you doing that.
So you will be compensated well after this operation completes.
was feeling pretty lucky until you said that.
Well, Del, I again have nothing but faith in you.
Any questions, agents?
It's drone nice this time of year.
Yes, Agent Dell, I'm assuming you brought your gear with you.
Yeah, yeah definitely.
Don't leave home without it.
Great.
Ryan, you brought a laptop computer, I'm assuming.
Never leave my house without my Toshiba satellite.
Great.
I am happy to hear that you are both prepared.
I have arranged for a car for you in the basement of the field office and you can make your way to Jerome presently.
Thank you.
Never been to Jerome.
Del will do kind of like a snappy caricature salute.
Like, it's definitely not what's called for and he probably did it wrong, but like, you know, he assumes that Agent Butterfield knows that.
Yeah, Agent Butterfield shakes his head.
Both of you roll a human int for me.
It's human intelligence.
60.
Yeah.
Is that a failure?
Okay.
Butterfield kind of smirks at the joke.
You don't glean anything else from his body language or how he reacts.
And he holds the off button on the PC and it powers down.
And he pulls out car keys and throws them to you.
You'll need the keys to the car.
Obviously off the record, but don't get pulled over in it.
What kind of car is it?
it's a nice one.
And he winks at you guys and walks out.
You
Yeah, what do you guys do while you're in the room?
Anything you want to discuss about the case?
Yeah, what should our plan be?
Yeah, I mean, I probably need a map of the area.
I don't feel inclined to go rolling straight into Jerome proper.
It sounds like a one-road town by the name of it.
And I'd rather not be seen if we don't want to be.
look, there's a Thomas guide on the table right here that we can use.
Yeah, go ahead and roll your luck.
You
Agent Ryan specific.
21.
All right, yeah.
you, as Dell is saying that you do kind of look at some just copy paper, you know, the like old fax machine paper with the...
um
the little, yeah, the ridges and the circles.
Under that, there is a map of Jerome that Handler Butterfield forgot to tell you about.
And yeah, you see that it's a pretty straight shot from Phoenix.
and you'll pass through Sedona on the way.
And then it's up some switchbacks that almost look like a spiral up a mountain.
And then at the top is the town of Jerome.
Okay, well I mean, does it have any sort of population count mentioned on there?
How big does it look?
Yeah, you're looking at probably in the area, the wider area of Jerome, probably around 7,000 people.
So quite small.
Hey, if there's nothing weird going on there, it's just some man who loves twiddling his fingers on the internet, might be a nice place to settle down.
Sounds quiet.
Yeah, there's definitely some primo trailer parks there that attract a lot of transplants to Arizona.
I've never been to such a town, so this should be interesting.
Yeah, I I figure we start walking on down towards the garage, but where do you call home, Agent Ryan, if this ain't exactly your cup of tea?
I live in Langley, Virginia, so a pretty big city.
I used to live in DC, so yeah, only really big cities.
Other than my visits to China, where I had to drive through some small towns and things like that, but for the most part, I'm just used to living in the city, city life.
Well, you lost me a little bit there, but we started on a good foot.
I'm from Virginia too, though there weren't no town name where I come from.
So this should be up your alley.
Yeah, well, it might be.
They're either real good or real bad from my experience.
You
you make your way down and in the garage you see a dust slash desert colored Volvo wagon
The Volvo wagon is, it's seen better days, but you know that they usually have diesel engines and can, you can put probably 500,000 miles on one of these things.
It's bit of a workhorse.
Airball's a funny one.
At least he thinks he is.
Who's driving?
Yeah, I think I probably sussed you out when he tossed you the keys.
I was looking to see how you felt about catching him.
Yeah, I've not driven a car very much.
I assume you have given that you live in small town.
I think I'd feel more comfortable with somebody else driving.
I prefer two wheels over four, but I think I'd prefer that as well.
you get in the car, turn it on, radio's on, like, know, stuff that's on today and some top 40 stuff.
You pull out of the FBI field office, any conversation for the hour plus drive.
What would you try to glean or work out as you're getting on?
Yeah, when I loaded my bag into the ample trunk space here, you heard several big old heavy c-thunks.
What could I gather from your gear?
Yeah, so I wasn't sure what to bring, but I kind of tossed in everything I thought that my skills might be useful for.
So of course I have my laptop.
I have my lockpick kit.
So just in case we need to use that.
I have a medical kit.
I'm pretty savvy.
If anybody gets hurt, I have a bug detector so I can scan some technology to see if it might be bugged.
Walkie talkies that might be useful for us in the future.
Binoculars when we have a break, I like to bird watch.
m So I have a flashlight.
I have some.
your life story while you're at it, please.
Yeah, yeah.
Camping gear, just in case we do need to do some camping.
And a forensics kit.
and my Glock and my knife, of course, just in case.
Okay yeah, those usually come at the beginning of my list, but I can see where your priorities are.
You got a toothbrush and a soft pill to go night night?
Of course, and some floss as well.
Never leave home without it.
Before you get into too much conversation, you're driving and it's pretty flat at this point.
You haven't hit the red rocks in the Sedona area quite yet.
You are going and then on the radio you hear, and Polical's Where Have All The Cowboys Gone comes on and starts playing in about...
minute into the song, can both of you make a willpower roll?
No, fail with an 83.
I ain't succeeded a roll yet.
I rolled 59, so under 80.
Ryan, the song is playing, Paula Cole's vocals aren't.
You're more into Hootie and the Blowfish.
But you see Del tearing up, uh you know, as Paula Cole's saying, you go have a beer.
uh
you see a tear start running down his face unable to keep his cool while listening to the song but luckily it ends quickly and Del you know are you wiping your tears away or
I mean, that's a beautiful song.
I got plenty of things to be ashamed about in my life and that ain't one.
I thought that we needed to change the song.
I thought that you didn't like it.
no, that's what we call quiet reverence.
Have you heard of Hootie and the Blowfish?
I don't want to hear a
they're so amazing.
They're so amazing.
It was like a life-changing experience when I saw them live the five times I've seen them.
Jesus Christ.
I mean, I thought the bare naked ladies was bad, but whatever you just said sounds three times worse.
Well, don't knock it till you try it.
You
Okay.
All right, and this will be the period where if you want to work out anything on the case, go ahead and chat about it now or uh like where are you going first type of stuff?
We should probably come up with a story as to why we're in Jerome as well.
Yeah, I mean, If someone was, you know, running a nefarious website you didn't like, what are all the ways you might go about putting down that activity?
Well, I need a login or I need to get on their device.
So.
Well, I mean, that does seem right on the micro level, but like, there has to be, like the internet doesn't just, you know, come out of the air, right?
Don't you have to be like, connected wire-wise or something like that?
Yes, an ethernet cable.
Okay, well so like supposing we just wanted to stop any future leaking from happening, right?
We got kind of like a manual off switch somewhere.
for the whole internet.
Well, okay.
I'm dumb, but I ain't that dumb.
This man, he needs to plug his fingers in somewhere, do a little tapping, and that info has to flow through the wires, but supposing there weren't no wire there...
Yes, the website would still be up.
So we do have to take that content down.
And in order to do that, we have to log in either on his device or with some sort of log in with his credentials so that we can get it shut down.
Okay, yeah, I mean that definitely sounds like an important piece of the pie.
Well, if you're not a small town person, what's your excuse for being here?
I was kind of working the cable company route, if maybe we had to be from the phone corporation or whatnot, but...
I mean, that sounds good to me.
I can be somebody who just moved to the area and started this job.
Okay, yeah absolutely.
I look like the type, don't I?
I think I got wire strippers in my back pocket just for occasion like this.
Yeah, so maybe we're trying to put in some new installations for an up-and-coming development in the area.
Just gotta do some service while we're out there.
Mm-hmm.
Okay, I feel like that affords us the right to go knocking door to door.
Other than waltzing right up to this man's front door, who might be of interest, do you think?
Like what other stops do we have in a little nothing town like this?
Sometimes you can interface with local law enforcement, get information from them if you wanna use your real badges.
I was going to say being that this guy's local, I his content's pretty popular in this town.
So we could go sit in a coffee shop and mention it and see what others have to say.
Yeah, like maybe pick up a little reading material.
Just see whose eyes we catch.
Okay.
So maybe we're into this as well.
Perhaps we're glad we got a sign to Jerome.
Get a little brush with Celebrity maybe.
Okay.
I'm liking that.
Maybe, you I heard there's a bunch of kooks in Sedona.
Maybe we could stop there, pick up some coveralls, and maybe they got a little, you know, reading material of their own.
do it.
Yeah, you grab the National Enquirer.
Nothing local at the Kmart.
You could stop in the town if you wanted to look for something like that.
I mean, I feel like we're waving the freak flag with this, if you think there's any more intel to be gathered, I got no agenda.
Sounds good to me.
All right, you're back on the road.
You get up there, you're starting to see the red rocks and those red rocks slowly start to turn into the same color as your car.
It turns into a very dusty, deep.
yellow and brown, scrub brush starts to appear less green and more tan.
And you see a sign that shoots you off the main highway to Jerome, Arizona.
And when you look that way, you just see a long straight road and then just a giant mountainside.
And up at the top of it,
a few streets of houses just in the distance.
Alright, yeah.
I think I'm probably looking to just like kind of peruse the perimeter.
Get an idea of what the neighborhoods are like around here.
I don't want to go down any streets twice.
But just trying to get a layout of things.
Yeah, I'm fine with that.
And I need a little bit of extra time in the car to apply some sunscreen anyways.
So looks pretty sunny here.
don't...
Yeah, I wouldn't want that to burn.
I just like lay it on thick, with a white nose and everything.
Yeah, it's on thick, there's sunscreen on your collar.
um And yeah, you start to drive up this switch back.
It's a little dizzying as you get going up it.
feels like, I don't know, it's turning your stomach a little bit as you like have to take these sharp turns and then are climbing an elevation quickly.
And maybe the window is down a little bit.
It does get cooler as you also start driving up.
The first signs of civilization on this mountainside are a trailer park and then some houses.
And as you get closer to the top, the houses get nicer.
And then you see the beginnings of what looks to be like what
Handler Butterfield was saying, almost like a tourist trap town.
You see a sign for ghost tours and you see a candy shop and then you go around the corner and then there's just a line of different restaurants past those restaurants, way up in
the mountaintop is a giant hotel.
But between that hotel and the trailer park,
there are just kind of knickknack shops and different things.
Do you think you guys have Finch's address based on the information given at the briefing?
I didn't guess so.
Do you think we could stop by a phone booth?
Maybe there's a phone book somewhere where his name would be.
Yeah, that sounds perfect.
also, while we're there, want to take a look for who's operating, what telecom company is operating out this way so we can get our story straight.
Yeah, yeah.
You stop at the phone booth.
It's just a Bell phone booth, but you see it's underwritten by Arizona Tell.
And you start looking through the phone book and you see an Arthur Finch.
Mm-hmm.
And then across it is a address with an apartment number on it.
There is only one road through here.
It would be pretty easy to find.
I just rip the page of that phone book out and take it with me.
Yeah.
And you fold it up, put it in your pocket this phone booth is honest.
busy street, cars are coming by and there is people walking up and down the shops.
Most things close around five, it's about three there now so people are kind of getting their last minute shopping in before dinner or going back to this giant hotel but you
notice the view out is magnificent.
Like you're looking down into that um
beautiful serene landscape that you drove through earlier, but from this vantage point, it's incredible.
And you see the remnants of an old ore processing plant, some factories way down further, and there is a sheen of hot dust throughout that entire valley that just kind of hovers
there.
I think I almost took some psychic damage from just like imagining that I was the person that we were hunting for a minute.
Like could you imagine if you walked into a phone booth and you opened up that phone book and your address was tore out?
Like, fuck with my head a little bit.
Once I recover from that, I think I'm gonna go back into the car and we'll grab my like just a little humble toolbox.
and take a little ball peen hammer out, find that like embossed logo of the AZ Tail Company.
I'm gonna just gingerly hammer it in so that it kind of like presses into my tool kit so I look like I'm the real deal.
Yeah, yeah, comes off without a hitch.
Able to do it, no problem.
Ace.
You're a bird watcher.
This man's got a bird name.
How funny is that?
Meant to be maybe that's why I was chosen
Yeah, well hope that ain't your only qualification, but I don't think it is.
I'm good at finding finches, so.
Yeah, probably not too many out here, but there are more people than I expected.
Do you think maybe something's going on?
Like, why here, why now?
What is it with Jerome?
Yeah, I mean, know just from my little research of the town that it's a town that draws, you know, strange people.
So I can understand how somebody like him would be successful in a town like this.
Yeah, I suppose so.
Well, I'd like to maybe go and check in with some of the people just hanging at the hotel, but maybe best to use daylight while we got it.
across the street there is a diner called the Palace Restaurant and it seems pretty busy.
People are in and out even for this happy hour time frame.
If you wanted to stop in there, you definitely could.
But yeah, you wouldn't have to go back down the mountain a little bit to get to the apartment that you've found that Arthur Finch lives in.
I mean, I assume he's there most any time.
You don't look like you leave your house often based on your unfamiliarity with the sun.
Yeah, so I imagine we could probably find him there most any time.
Yeah, you feeling hungry?
Yeah, let's go eat.
Yeah, you open.
All right.
I think that's a pretty safe bet.
Um, hey, I know your name, but what do call you out here?
Agent Ryan is fine.
Or you can just call me...
Ryan.
a little bold to go by your real name out, you got no issues being ID'd.
You can call me Dwight.
That's why I'm surprised your mama didn't.
No, that was my dad's name, so.
I I feel like I could have been a Jameson.
We'll go with that.
you
Dwight and Jameson.
You walk over to the palace.
There's a small wait.
You check in with the person at the door and they tell you that for two you could sit at the bar or you could wait 20 minutes for a table.
Spar look pretty busy, people around, bar ideas.
Bart is.
Yeah, you are led over to the bar.
There is two bartenders.
It's one of those circle around horseshoe type bars.
You sit down on one side of it and above the bar are pole tab gambling things that the bartenders just pulling down and giving to people when they pay them a nickel.
he comes over to you says, you guys want a menu?
Hope it got beans on it.
Do you have beans?
Yeah, we got beans, we got refried beans, we got some black beans too.
But we don't have a whole meal of beans, so, but you can get a side.
that's great.
I just wanted some beans, so that sounds great.
Okay.
I don't know what I want yet.
I'd love a menu, thank you.
Yeah, hands over a menu.
Looks like it's mostly Southwestern food, a little bit of mix of Mexican and diner food.
Looks pretty good as you see the plates passing you by.
You see a giant wet burrito that's about as big as an infant across your path.
what are you doing while you're looking at the menu?
Just kind of scoping the room out a little bit, looking at the locals in the bar area.
Yeah, you see a
wide variety of characters.
A lot of working class people at the bar and then the tourists look like they are taking up the tables.
So you see some people that are definitely city slickers.
But at the bar area, yeah, it sounds like they're from their locals.
You hear the bartender stopping by and having lots of side conversations with them and laughing as they say things as he passes.
And he stops by with some waters.
and says what will it be?
All these look the same, honestly.
Just give me something where you're gonna tell me it's a hot plate when it comes out.
Alright, feed as it is.
Sizzling hot.
Yeah.
I don't usually like a spectacle, but that sounds nice.
You
When we're seeing this separation between locals and tourists, can we pick up any on the looks that the locals give?
Is there any animosity, disdain, any such and such?
Yeah, go ahead and roll a human int.
It's a 50, which is a fail, but could I maybe have a minus 41 on account of I know what small town looks look like when people aren't wanted?
Yeah, you can't, but if you want, you can go ahead and, do you have good search?
no, no, no.
all right.
Yeah, you're not picking on any picking up on any animosity.
Agent Ryan slash Dwight, what are you looking for?
Or are you looking at all?
Yeah, I I rolled this the same thing and unfortunately was over as well, but I hit it on search.
Okay, yeah, yeah.
As you're looking around, there's no animosity that you can tell just from this restaurant, but you do see that there's definitely a separation, right?
Like it is a cast.
The tourists who are here seem like they are well...
off how they're dressed but the what seemingly locals at the bar area not so much so
Okay, well I'm gonna probably mosey on over to the restroom and kind of just like take a leisurely path through a bunch of the tables, see if I can't see what any of them are
reading or hear any topics of conversation repeated.
The sizzling fajitas come out while you're in the bathroom.
They sizzle by you, Agent Ryan.
Ryan, you have a plate of refried beans and a bowl of black beans in front of you as well.
Okay, and a glass of milk.
And that's disgusting, but.
um
the one who went to the bathroom.
Yeah.
So the bartender drops off all the stuff, asks you if you need anything else.
just a couple handfuls of those and I'll point up to the pull tabs.
Yeah, yeah, he pulls out some you give him what four or five nickels Yeah, yeah pulls him out Go ahead and roll luck roll twice
Nah, I'm a high roller today, but not in the right kind of way.
you lose on the poll tabs.
So there's no cash prize coming your way or free meal.
Yeah, the bartender, Mosey's over by and who might you to be?
Well, we're with AZ Telco company.
We're just dropping in some new lines.
But while we're out here, I always like to check and see if people have been having any disruptions or if your service is pretty regular.
our phone service?
Yeah, anything that the AZ Telco service is.
I mean, yeah, it's been fine for us and every once in a while our credit card machine gets a little finicky But we just kind of give it a little knock and then Kind of sorts itself
out But you know Compu cafe I heard them complaining about Their yeah, they got on this new thing.
I don't know if it's through a Z tail but
It be, but it's on something called DSL.
But yeah, newer business.
But I'm friends with the owner, Darryl, and he was complaining about it being slow for his customers.
Well, sometimes it's hard to argue with the tried and true, but everybody likes testing out these newfangled technologies.
We'll go pay Darrell a visit, see if he can't, you know, knock on his DSL, you said, so to speak.
Yeah, that's it, DSL.
So I think it's a type of phone line.
Um...
Yeah, hey, I noticed your traffic around here seems pretty heavy given the size of this place.
Is this the busy season or something?
Well yeah, the fall is busy because of all the ghost tours in town.
get all the quacky city slickers coming out and going on ghost tours and feeding the business.
It's nice.
The hotel up there puts on a haunted house all through the fall, even in uh November.
People come out for that too.
But yeah, mean, it's definitely a busy season.
You don't want to come here during summer.
It's hot as hell.
be sure to be out of town by then.
Yeah, I thank you.
Darryl is your friend's name, but I didn't catch yours.
Hello, I'm James.
James.
Jamie's son.
Should be easy to remember.
look at that um your friend here he's not very talkative is he kind of smiles at you Dwight
slurping at the last of my milk from the cup.
And I'm like, hi.
Hi, I'm Dwight.
Yeah, I'm new to this job.
So I'm just learning from Jameson here.
He's teaching me everything I need to know.
okay.
Did you enjoy your beans?
I did.
Yeah, thank you.
Thank you.
Really hit the the bean spot for me.
Okay, bean spot.
just kind of like, you know, like give a little mouth, mouth silent word to James there.
I don't think he's going to make it.
And I don't I don't notice I'm just in my own little world.
I imagine like the first time you tried to like open your mouth to talk, it was just like clomped up with with beans on both sides.
yeah.
incredible um James says well you know if you need anything else or you know come on by you can always chat me up but here's your ticket and he pulls out the check handwritten
sets it down it's about six dollars for both meals
Yeah, I appreciate that.
I'm sure I'll be back to lose a couple more nickels your way.
Say, no luck with the tabs, huh?
No, won't stop me from playing.
And then I'm like, I never gamble and this is why.
Well, you can't win if you don't play.
Yeah, but I could lose a lot of money playing and that's just not a gamble I'm willing to take.
Alright yeah, mean, any of these There certainly are a lot of characters around, any of them catch your attention?
We should definitely go talk to Daryl.
Sure.
at this CompU Cafe.
Yeah, there are a too many fanny packs in here for my liking.
You strike me as a fanny pack wearer, Zach.
Yeah, I thought you might.
Where do you think I keep my lockpick?
My binoculars.
perhaps the most surprising thing I heard about you so far.
Where'd you where'd you pick that up from?
Oh, my grandpa taught me when I was really young and I just really got into it and I just got all different kinds of locks and I just took them apart, put them back together.
I mean, there's no lock that I can't get through.
It's starting to make more sense now.
Yeah, that is...
It's rewarding to work with your hands sometimes, isn't it?
It is, yeah.
I enjoy it.
That's cool.
I probably enjoy watching you work.
Thank you.
Nobody's ever said anything nice to me like that before, so I appreciate it.
Well, I'm sorry if I've been hard on you before this, but I'll try and sling a few more your way.
Thank you.
And I'm like all uncomfortable, like looking away.
Belly's full, ready.
All right, yeah, Compu Cafe is just down the street.
It is next to what looks to be like, it's closed right now, but a old mining museum.
the...
front of it is more modern there's posters of recent games you see games like Diablo 1, Warcraft 2, Command and Conquer posters of that nature you go in and it's there's a little
thing as you go in but the no one's using the computers right now no no gamers but you do see a man behind the desk
seem like your people.
Yeah, Agent Ryan, you've been into a computer cafe before.
Very cool.
This setup is a little podunk, but...
exactly what I think when I walk in this place.
Yeah, the man behind the counter says, well, it's about three cents a minute unless you want to buy a day pass.
I can get you set up on any of the computers.
well, we're actually not here to use your computers.
We work for Arizona Tell and we were just looking to upgrade some lines in the area.
I wanted to know if you were having any issues.
Easy tell huh?
Well You know I've been on the phone with you guys a lot ever since I got on this DSL It has been dropping out been having a lot of disconnects So I appreciate them sending
somebody out
Well, yeah, we can.
mean, unfortunately, don't, Maine Dispatch doesn't really talk to these Roman service teams, and so we're kind of on a different wavelength, but that's why we ask around.
They didn't tell us that we're not here for you, and I'm sorry about that, but we could take a look while we're in the neighborhood.
Well, my box is back here.
If you want to come look at it.
show.
Yeah, he walks back.
He's kind of a gruff old man.
You know, there used to be a saying in the 90s for the type of guy this is, it's a high tech redneck.
Like he very computer savvy, but also looks like he knows his way around a shotgun.
He goes in the back.
There's a small office and some storage.
and a small fridge with balls energy drink in it.
And he says, well, here it is.
he unscrews a thing and pulls open a plastic box.
And inside, you see the cables all wiring up.
And then his what looks to be router slash ethernet switch that is running to all the separate PCs.
Well, you take the problems here.
I'm gonna feign like I know what I'm looking at and I'm gonna wait for Dwight to kind of, you know, it's gonna be like a I'm shadowing you doing the things that you trained
recently to do.
like, you know, impress me.
I pull out some fancy looking thing from my fanny pack that I brought with me and start to hook it up to the lines.
I'm also not actually doing this job, so I'm just pretending at this.
But he doesn't know what this thing is that I have, hopefully.
So yeah.
called SIGINT, that's signal intelligence, like how well you can work with that.
And then, so you can roll that or you could roll, you'll, okay.
85.
Alright, yeah.
If you're trying to deceive him...
Well, I was definitely giving him kind of like a get a load of this when, you know, like a small town camaraderie at the big city fella to try and maybe like distract a little bit
of the attention from the details.
Yeah, you give me a persuade with 40 % on top of it.
25, that's a success.
All right, that probably would have been it.
Where your per se is probably 20, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So yeah, you're able to pull his attention.
You don't know what you're doing.
You don't know what the hell this is.
This is, know, networking is not electrician work.
So you could run the wire, but you don't know what's going on inside the wire.
but you're able to mess with enough and then come up with a plausible explanation.
Be like, I think it's something further back in the line or something that headquarters needs to do.
And you're able to convince him as agent Dell is distracting him.
Does seem like there's anything else of interest in this backroom area here?
Yeah, there is stacks of hard drives hooked to different wires that look like they're rated together into like a large PC.
It looks like there's internet servers as well.
I want to ask him, just tell him, you know, I'm really into computers too and I'm really impressed by the setup you have here.
Tell me how you decided to open a business like this.
Yeah, well, I I don't I went back to community college and got a networking degree and figured the internet was the future.
Al Gore, he, you know, goes on the TV talking about the World Wide Web and it's getting more common out there.
And, you know, before I knew it, people were asking, how do we get on the web?
And so I figured, yeah, open up a little place where people can access the Internet if they don't have their own computer.
Yeah, just a business idea I had.
That's really cool.
What kind of business do you get here?
He kind of motions, well, you don't strike me as blind, but it's empty right now.
So not a lot, but come off season, the locals have more time and not catering to the tourists.
They drop in from time to time.
I think my problem is just cutting them deals because they're, you I know everybody.
So.
cut them too many deals, I don't make as much money.
So I gotta knock that off, but it's good enough.
Yeah, do you have mostly locals just kind of coming in?
Mostly locals,
It seems like you got kind of the fantasy type thing going, but maybe you need more sci-fi in your catalog.
It seems like maybe just a different clientele in town, different interests, you know what I mean?
Well, yeah, mean, there's plenty of wackos, know, so a lot of sci-fi types, a of horror types.
You know, we got the Bigfoot folk saying that Bigfoot's out in Sedona.
We got the haunted mansion folk for the hotels.
And then, you know, we got the crazy alien folk.
I mean, we got all flavors, so.
Shoot, I bet you got all kinds of stories.
I'm afraid we ain't got time for all of them, but could you humor me with like, I don't know, most outlandish tourists you had come through here.
Outlandish tourists well, I mean every once in a while we get people that are Either journalists or sometimes feds coming through About two months ago.
We had some federal agents coming around They didn't really ask about anything they just were nosing around kind of was the talk of the town a little bit, but Yeah
That does sound like how you feed the furnace, right?
Like why would they come poking around if there weren't nothing to see?
That is true.
That's why they became the talk of the town, but they just kind of disappeared.
Yeah, just slip into the night kinda tight.
Hey, is there anybody who kinda like, I don't know, props up circles like that, keeps the rumor mill going, so to speak?
Well, of course, yeah, I mean, it's good for business.
all of our haunted house owners and haunted tours, they tend to try to sensationalize any story that comes across as a ghost.
We got the UFO people also always stirring up stuff around town.
Yeah, to be honest, it's not really my bag, but it does feel like this is more UFO country than like haunted mansion country.
Who has a real mansion out in Jerome is all I'm asking.
Oh, well, we don't have any mansions around here, but he takes you quite literally at it.
he says, but you know, we got the people, you know, made websites about UFOs and ghost stories.
So it's a, you know, it's a, yeah, words definitely getting out.
So.
Well alright Darrell, we'll go and see if we can't fix this upstream at the service station, check a couple transforms, see what needs to be done.
And if not, we'll put in a work order, get somebody else out here as quick as we can.
Like I said, headquarters sometimes just takes forever on things like this.
Alright, well I really appreciate you coming out and looking and sorry that your home dispatch or whatever you called it doesn't communicate too much with you.
It would have been nice if you just came out and knew how to fix it but you're a nice enough guy.
Alright, get to getting.
Yeah, he shakes your hand, Del.
Agent Ryan, he goes out to shake your hand.
You shake his hand?
Yeah, but like very lightly.
Yeah, it's like a limp handshake.
yeah.
You come out.
Looks like most of the shops are starting to close up as it's about five o'clock.
Where do you think you're headed next, agents?
I mean, I say we go towards Ryan's, or Ryan's, Arthur's house.
Yeah, you want to get a look at the property?
Yeah, might as well scope it out.
I am curious where, like, the bulk of foot traffic is headed now that most of the shops are closing.
Yeah, as you look around, a lot of them are going into restaurants.
So the place behind you at the palace is quite busy.
You see people walking up the hill to the large hotel.
there's another saloon that's on the other side of the Internet Cafe and Mining Museum.
And further down, there's a large Mexican restaurant that you hear La Banda music like blaring out of.
And there's a lot of people headed that way.
They have a patio, looks like they have margaritas the size of three men's head.
Well, who would have known?
It's a party out here in the desert.
Alright, yeah, let's get to getting.
The address is our descending, just like the spiral down off the mountain.
And you walk down just one more switch back and there is a small candy store that closed at four.
And above it are apartments.
And this is where the address is.
There are some steep stairs that go up to the second floor.
And on that second floor looks to be where the units are.
you
Alright, yeah, I mean, I feel we look official enough to just go wandering around, but do you want to check in anywhere?
think we should just wander and kind of get our bearings a little bit.
Yeah, fair.
I'll follow your lead.
So I just walk to like the back of the building.
So walking around it a little bit, checking it out.
of checking it out.
Even looking up, like at the apartment and things.
Yeah, both of you roll a search.
there.
fail.
Yeah, nothing from down here is apparent You are looking around and it just kind of looks like the side of a building.
You know, the thing you can glean from it is that at one point this was probably some sort of saloon at the bottom that has been turned into different smaller businesses.
And the people used to live who run the shops used to live above it, but now it's apartments above.
what economic status of people does it feel like live here?
You look around, this is the nicer part, the more touristy part, but the apartments, looks like the paint on this whole building is pretty worn out.
They look pretty small too, so your guess is that there's not like a, they're not well to do, the people who live here.
Say, if you got eyes on Fincher's unit, do you see any identifying marks, anything that would broadcast who's home it is?
Does feel like he keeps maybe a low profile?
Definitely low profile.
Are the shops open or are they closed now?
They've closed down.
Should we knock?
What's our...
Yeah, our alibi.
upgrading lines and Don't want to cause a disruption to Any activity that might be happening on the internet lines?
So just want to check in with the residents first
So like maybe there's some sort of update that's going to be coming out soon and we want to make sure to ensure continuity that there's not going to be a disruption.
Love that.
Mm-hmm.
Or try to understand what use of the internet lines are happening and when.
You alright?
So you take these stairs up to the second level.
There's just like a small hallway and it's three units up there.
You find unit B, which is Arthur's.
It is on the end and there is a just a small little eye hole on the door.
No other markings other than the unit number.
Okay, I'm gonna knock on the door.
You wait and wait and wait and no one comes.
There seem to be any other egresses, windows, anything like that.
Nothing from this hallway.
You saw balconies from the outside.
Okay, you want me to wait over here?
You think you could maybe find a vantage point and use those peepers ears to check up on inside the other side?
Sure, yeah, I will.
Are the balconies on like the other side of the apartment?
So I have to go back down and around.
Okay.
you look and you spend some time with your binoculars.
It looks pretty dark in there.
There's no lights on, no movement, nothing.
Okay.
Have we seen any other traffic or eyes through this hallway?
Nothing.
It's pretty dead.
I'd love to see you work and I'll just kind of like stand up and make a little body shield if you want to try and get on through this door.
Yeah, I just want to try the door first to see if it's even locked.
It is locked, yes.
All right, well, open up the fanny pack, pull out the old lock pit kit.
Let's go.
So you have a 40 in locksmithing.
Your specific tools give you a number, another 20%, under 60.
I got two zeros and a six.
That's just six.
six, hell yeah.
Yeah, Del, you see Agent Ryan get down and...
You don't know where this is coming from, but you haven't seen this man have a confident bone in his body since you've picked him up at the agency field office.
And as soon as those lock picks come out, you're seeing a master at work.
This guy is so honed in and focused.
He uses that pick kit like a key.
It's not even, he's not fudging with it at all.
Just clicks open, the door goes.
slightly in as you have picked the lock.
Blink and you'll miss it.
I love locks.
But you got one of them special brains, don't you?
That's what my mama said.
Lox, lox and beans.
Now, yeah, we will shuffle on in quickly and gingerly close the door behind.
very quietly because we have a neighbor close by.
Very quiet.
you're able to get in and what you see is a very disheveled, almost destroyed room.
There are books, newspaper printouts that look like they were once in folders are strung about.
There's maps pinned to the wall.
There's some blinds, but they're pulled all the way up and loosely like, you know, like they're cockeyed or whatever that Appalachian word is.
They're cygoggle right there in front of you.
The air is stale.
You see a PC and a monitor on a desk, a bed.
that the mattress is leaning up against the wall like somebody was looking under it.
most concerning is the window to out of the side of the building has a perfect oval cut into the glass and you feel the wind coming in.
Hmm, this is strange.
I wonder what happened here.
yeah, how big is that opening?
You might be able to fit through it, Dell.
Agent Ryan could not,
Not meant for a human.
It's strange.
It's out of place.
They're say it is.
I open up my fanny pack again and put some gloves on and immediately go over to the computer and start powering it on.
It powers on and the BIOS flash, which means it's trying to boot on, but the hard drive has been removed.
So there's no operating system to boot.
Okay, is there a floppy disk that is in the disk drive?
Both of you go ahead and roll search or forensics.
Yeah, a four on forensics.
Let's go.
Same, I got forensics as well.
this is agent Ryan, you don't find any disks or floppy disks or any other things that would have data on it.
But what you do find is a ticket for the internet cafe that you were in.
that has a hardware restoration date on it.
This hard drive was supposed to be picked up two days ago and presumably this ticket was supposed to be presented when it was to be picked up.
So it was getting some work done on it at CompuCafe.
Yes, that's what it looks like.
You also, as you're looking around, there is a big map of all of the mines in the area.
It looks like a historical map, and in fact it says Jerome Historical Society in the corner, but...
there is a large section in the middle bottom that looks like it's been cut out with scissors and pulled off.
You see the town of Jerome and then you see this section that's cut out is about three miles away.
Did it look like it had part of this like mine network extending into it or was it, is it possible to tell what was there?
Yeah, there's no underground tunnels.
They're just entrances on the map to different mines.
Most of them look like copper.
And the area that's cut out, you can't see that.
But the other ones are circled.
And there are handwritten notes, presumably Arthur's handwritten notes on each of them, saying, nothing found.
suspicious activity on one and then it's crossed out and then below it says unconfirmed nothing found it looks like he was searching through different areas and looking for mines
Is there a way that we can capture a picture of this?
Yeah, you guys can both roll lock to see if you brought a disposable camera with you.
What is the luck?
uh OK.
Uh-uh, of course.
All right, let's see.
I got 44.
Hell yeah.
Yeah, you in this fanny pack of holding, you have a disposable camera.
as a super fanny pack item to have.
I love it.
Okay, so I, yeah, take a picture of it.
All right, you snap a picture, you'll have to get it developed later.
There's just four pins in the map too.
If you wanted to take it, you could.
But there is things all around with your search in forensic rules.
You find a lot of newspaper clippings.
You find old screen printings from the library of the Roswell incident.
You also see that there've been some UFO sightings in Jerome too.
1980, yeah, yeah, there's some Jerome ones.
There is an incident in 1958, which was about 10 years after Roswell, and one in 1988 recently,
and he has all of these clipped and they are in a stack in yearly descending order with the most recent on top.
And the most recent one is from 1988.
Does the spacing of the events seem to have any sort of particular cadence to it?
Like that last one was 10 years ago.
Yeah, and the one before that was 58, so Roswell was 47, but at least around here it looks like they're on the eights.
But from this map, does it look like the mine entrances are accessible via road or are they like a day hike out?
do you have a navigation score?
Yeah, give me a navigation rule.
Yeah, 16, that's a success.
You look at the map and just are able to see that the roads kind of end and there might be access roads that are unmarked, but this map has other access roads that are marked, but
it looks like there are no roads going into the area that is ripped off that you can tell.
So it would probably be a hike out.
you see the in the distance, the giant old ore processing plant.
your guess is that it is about 10 miles beyond that.
You could probably drive out to where that ore processing plant is, park around there, and then you'd have to hike.
Is there any pictures of Arthur in here so that we know what he looks like?
he's a little younger in the picture and it looks like he, you know, is by himself in front of the Roswell New Mexico tour shop.
really interesting.
Within this forensics investigation, is there any indication of who or how many people were rifling through this area?
Does seem like it was Finch looking for something or somebody after Finch?
I guess like what I was looking for mostly is like tells of kind of like how widespread or focused the disheveled upturned nature of this is.
Like was somebody looking through specific places or were they just throwing shit everywhere from everywhere?
Or was it just like Arthur doing it?
Right, right, yeah.
Yeah, it looks like somebody was looking around, mostly around the computer where all the files are spread and thrown about.
And then, you know, there's some, the mattress was moved.
They're probably like searching for other things.
It does not look like Finch did this.
So, but as a part of your earlier search, you find a draft internet article that was not on the website that is handwritten.
that is about a specific mine in the area.
They called the Sundowner Mine, which was abandoned in 1959.
And at the time,
you know, disappeared off the radar.
But he's writing that he's witnessed.
what he thinks are potentially federal agents or another agency in that area.
You also see a strange word.
The strange word is, just says Mee-go.
And then below it, it says insect?
alien?
And that's it.
Well, I mean, there's one potential source of intel, but it doesn't sound like he's in cahoots with them.
Agents-wise, I mean.
Sounds like he's just creeping on them.
I want to walk over to this window with the oval cut out and kind of start to inspect that because that's super weird and I'm curious about it.
This would be a good thing for your forensic kit.
Okay, I open up my fanny pack as I do.
Yeah.
You really like zipping that thing.
I have a giant key chain that dangles off of it to make it easier to open and close.
Yeah, Dell all you hear over and over again is like you pull out your forensics kit.
You're going to get plus 10 on your forensic rolls with that out.
Go ahead and give it a shot.
See what you can come up with.
Oh, plus 10.
Wow.
Yes, 62, which the plus 10 means I got it.
You look at this oval facing out on town and it is just so symmetrical.
It's right in the middle.
You pick up fingerprints.
And as you're looking at them, they all probably like Finch's fingerprints.
They're all the same, but you don't see any fingerprints, like nothing grabbed on and stepped through this oval.
It's just there.
The forensics kit mostly confirms that if somebody did climb in through here, they must've been floating.
Okay.
Interesting.
Does it, when looking at the edge of the oval in the glass, does it look like it was cut by like a glass cutting tool or is it kind of serrated or is it smooth?
extremely smooth.
Ooh, well, ain't an easy shape to cut.
Circle is one thing.
Hmm.
very strange.
Hey, if you were a paranoid dweeb, I know you're just the dweeb part and I'm the paranoid part, that's why I'm trying to put these brains together.
If you as a paranoid dweeb, and the most important things to you was on that little hard drive of yours, would you only have one of them?
And if you only have one of them, would you give it to someone else to hang on to for a while?
only if I trusted them really well.
That's a good point.
Did we see the hours on that internet cafe when we was leaving?
Yes you did.
Looks like he's trying to attract the gamers.
So it is open till midnight.
Did we happen to see anything that looked like a security system in there?
Absolutely not.
Yeah.
Not in this town.
When say, a little past sundown, we go and pay them a visit.
before that, I mean, look, you got anything else you want to look around here, I support it.
Otherwise, I'm kind of inclined to, you know, talk to some of them freaks up at the hotel, but I don't have any grand ideas about what I'm about to find.
I definitely want to snap a photo of this oval window.
And that's it for me.
Yeah, you snap a photo of the oval window.
Go ahead and roll your sanity.
68.
Agent Ryan, you're able to hold it together for now.
But an overwhelming sense of dread enters your body.
Goosebumps crawl across your arms and back.
What the hell are you doing here?
This glass looks like it was cut at the molecular level.
You've just taken a picture of it.
Paranoia enters your brain.
Should you be here?
Should you have taken that picture?
What is this organization that recruited you?
All these questions start flooding your mind and you almost lose it.
But you breathe through it.
You rewind your camera
You turn around and see Agent Dell.
It doesn't look like he's noticed anything happened to you at all.
You breathe even easier, but there's a creeping suspicion that you are way the fuck out of your element.
Hi, this is Nick, the handler for this actual play.
I just wanted to pop in at the end of the first episode here and thank you for listening.
I appreciate you spending the time and getting through the whole episode with us.
Next time, we will wrap up this small one-shot with an action-packed and very bloody conclusion.
Thank you again.