you
We're gonna cut over to Del as a cow.
Del, you are out at pasture under the hot Texas sun.
It's been about a year maybe.
I don't know.
Could be longer.
It's hard to tell time in this state.
And there is a new guy on the farm.
He's a little different than the other two that you've seen, which is a woman and a man.
And he seems nicer.
He...
communicates a lot with the cows, comes up by and talks, he doesn't expect you to talk back.
You know, he just kinda shoots the shit with you.
He seems to know what's going on here.
One day though, a few days after he arrives, he brings out a massive 8x4 piece of plywood and he has it on his back and he's kinda looking over his shoulder, just seeing if the
other farmers are about.
And he catches you behind one of the barns and sets it down.
And in front of you, you have a, for lack of a better description, an Ouija board on plywood.
And he comes over and pats you on the head, scratches behind your ear.
He says,
Hey buddy, my name is Ben.
Ben Kirk.
And I think I know what's going on here.
I know you're not just livestock.
I made this so we don't have to guess.
So first question, who are you?
You
Del has never had to come clean about being anything other than what he was before.
So he pauses for just a second before revealing that he is in fact something other than what he appears.
And he will start to spell out, Del.
On account of that is what he was first and foremost.
Okay, okay, now listen, I don't know how much time we have.
Is there anyone out there?
Anyone you want me to send a message to?
then he will begin to spell out Abigail.
Abigail.
Last name?
Abigail Clemens.
Got it.
Alright, I can find a phone book when I get out of here.
I can find her.
What's the message?
He will pause for a moment thinking about what words to write, especially considering how goddamn long it takes to write one.
I will type out, not gone, on hold.
That's my whole message.
Not gone.
On hold.
I'll get that to her.
I promise.
He walks over pats you on the head and he says
I'm gonna try to get out of here.
Soon.
I don't know what happens when I make a run for it, but I can't stay.
I've been telling the others.
I told them to run when I run.
I hope you're coming too.
Yeah, there's kind of like a, you know, resolute head nodding, the tail gives us a swish that thwacks a fly away, and there's a, you know, like an agreeing snort, and then he'll
type out they, question mark.
You mean who did this?
Who put us here?
I...
I don't really know, Del.
I was just...
I was in a place, you know, one place, one time, and then I lost time, and now I'm here.
Aliens, Del.
I think we were taken by aliens.
We were looking into flying saucers before I...
you know, ended up here.
Now I just want to get home to my wife.
Alright.
Be ready.
He taps you on your side, picks up the plywood, walks over to another group of cows.
All right, Agent Ryan, you are in the storage unit.
It smells of stale air and dust, and there's a coppery tinge to everything.
Arthur Finch is sitting across from you, and Handler Butterfield is cross-armed over in the corner.
Alright, what do you...
What?
What do you want from me?
I want you to teach Finch everything you know.
Finch looks up at you and has a strange, almost psychotic-looking smile with anticipation.
Mmm, I remember that face.
Brings chills down my spine.
Not a face I thought I'd ever see again or really wanted to see again.
Yeah, Butterfield walks over and gets low and says, well, if you and Dell had taken care of the problem, then we would be having a different conversation.
But we use what we have in front of us, and that thing is Finch.
Well, it seems like we're not the only ones that didn't take care of a problem.
Butterfield, I am happy to oblige.
However, there's something I might want in exchange before I share my knowledge.
And the thing that I desire the most is having more knowledge.
And so I want you to tell me what you know.
I know you know more than you've told us up to this point.
And you know, I know
that your ties to this probably go back pretty far and pretty deep.
And yeah, so I want you to tell me what you know.
Butterfield looks at you quizzically.
You see a flash of anger across his eyes, maybe even, and then it relaxes.
And he even touches his gun on his hip out of a habit, maybe.
And then he pulls up a box that's there, screeches across the floor, sits down at the table with you and Finch, and then he motions to Agent Johnson.
who also called himself Agent Smith, so who knows what his real name is, who brings over another set of earphones and puts them on Finch, and Finch just looks at you like a dumb
dog.
You want to know everything I know?
Yeah.
Well, I guess the biggest thing I can tell you is that somebody in the organization I used to work for made a deal with whatever you called in.
We used to call them the grays.
We thought they were these strange organisms that had a little bit of human DNA in them.
We weren't sure what to make of them, but they brought flying saucers and technology, which we were willing to trade our own population for.
Mmm.
Okay, what are you expecting that will happen if I share this information with Finch?
Like, why do you want me to do that?
Well, Ryan, you were recruited for a very specific reason, and he motions for agent Smith Johnson to give him a folder.
And he pulls out a folder, opens it up, and it is your name on it.
And he flips through it.
There's your psyche val, things like that.
And then he gets to a page where there was looks like an MRI or an X-ray and on it, he just points below one of your molars.
which looks to have some sort of alien implant in it.
Says, well, Ryan, you were marked by them, which is why I pulled you in before Majestic could.
Now, the reason we brought you in on my behalf is personal, but you are an asset that I would like to preserve, even if you've gotten a little squirrely with the team and maybe
even tried to leak some information that you shouldn't be, which I'm willing to forgive because of your
It's special nature, and he points down at the implant again.
We have no idea what this is, but we do know it's gray technology that they put in you.
So we brought you in to experiment with you, I guess you could say.
And part of that experiment turned into getting this song that Finch was onto and Karas was trying to cultivate.
And it looks like you've put it together.
What?
Who that you know made a deal and what was that deal?
I don't know who made the deal.
I know one of the people who must have been at the table during the Reagan administration, and I've been looking for him.
His name's Forrest Rall, and that son of a bitch is on my target list.
And I've been trying to hunt him down, which is one of the reasons I want to talk to these alien bastards so I can figure out where he is and put a bullet in his fucking head.
Okay.
Now, the personal element is, when I was a child, these things took my sister.
And I spent my entire life getting closer and closer to the answer to that question and thought that I was working for a team that was going to help me find those answers.
Instead, I found out that they betrayed the American people and put her at risk.
And they're the reason she was taken.
They traded our people for the technology and knowledge that these aliens could provide them.
So what I need from you is to teach Finch.
the chant because I don't want it to kill you if you do it again.
And then I want him to bring them in and I want to have a conversation with them and then they can go on their merry way or we can destroy them.
You want to destroy them?
It depends on what they have to say, Ryan.
Okay, I will share the information that I have.
Shumball along!
kidding.
Give it to him like that.
Yeah, and Agent Smith in the corner who already had earphones on, pulls him open and kind of like notices that the conversation's over.
And then Butterfield scoots back and he's like, Ryan, is there anything else you want to talk about before we get this done?
will I be present for this ritual?
I don't, I feel like I really don't have a choice, but also, uh, want to help, but also have a lot of curiosity about this.
yeah, I will, I will share what I have with Finch if you think that he can understand it.
Yeah, his understanding is far beyond ours at this point.
He's a raving madman, but I do know that he is expectant of whatever we're about to bring here.
I'll just like talk about like the arranging the symbols, right?
And then hand him like a transcript of the chan...
or maybe is that something I even have at this point?
Yeah, you've written it all down and the symbols so you can give it to him.
And in fact, it's emblazoned in your mind.
Like you don't know if you could even forget it at this point.
Okay, you don't want me to like, say the chant though.
No, no, no, it's fine.
So, but yeah, as you're doing it, his eyes are wide and he is trying to take it all in.
The capillaries in his eyes seem like they're widening and they get redder and redder.
And he starts to claw at the paper that you're um supplying him.
And he kind of starts tearing some of it and tearing out around the symbols and then holding out small little ripped up pieces of paper of the symbols and arranging them.
in strange ways in front of you.
You don't even understand what he's doing with it, but he seems to be trying to process it in some way.
And as you teach him more and more, it seems to escalate and he starts to cackle strangely as he's understanding this more and more.
He doesn't speak in any sense of English or any other language you've ever heard, but he's whispering something under his breath.
that is strange, and he starts to seize almost and sticks his hands on the table and you see some of his fingernails pushing down into the table and they start to bleed around uh
the fingertips and he starts tearing and one of his nails flips off from the pressure he's putting on it and he starts to scream extremely loud.
uh Agent Smith, who
has been sitting in the corner, walks over to restrain him, and he holds him back and holds his head back because it looks like he's about to bite his own tongue.
And he Smith sticks a small piece of wood nearby in his mouth and he has a seizure.
And then as he's seizing, Smith zip ties his hands and he looks at you and says, don't worry, this happens.
Yes, I'm fondly aware.
And yeah, sitting in front of you now is Finch slightly seizing here and there and flopping around on the ground and the file that Butterfield left there.
And Butterfield has long since gone.
Who knows what he's doing?
Probably preparing something for later.
um What do you do in your last night before you meet your maker?
No, Finch and Agent Smith are with you.
really like some food.
It's been a long time since I've eaten.
I also am looking around and don't see a comfortable place to sleep.
So I need something set up.
Yeah, Agent Smith, I'm assuming you're requesting this from him.
Yeah, he pulls out a military-style cot and unfolds it, and there's a simple blanket on it.
It's fall, but inside of here, it's gotten hot with three bodies inside the storage unit.
And he asks, what type of food do you want?
Beans and milk.
I'm just kidding.
It means a milk it is.
So, yeah.
Okay.
He's like, yeah, no problem.
And he um looks over to Finch.
He's like, don't cut his zip tie.
If he wakes up and speaks to you, try not to listen closely.
um And he opens a storage unit, closes it, and you hear it lock from the outside.
Okay.
You wait.
Do you do anything with Finch there or?
think I'm just kind of like sitting up on the cot and just like staring at him.
And like kind of feeling bad for him.
Kind of wondering if Del and I should have killed him.
um But also like scared slash excited about what might happen tomorrow.
Yeah, he kind of lays there muttering.
You do hear some English and it's like, it doesn't make any sense.
He says, they put a seed in you, I can hear it sing.
They put a seed in you, I can hear it sing.
You put the seed in me, it is singing.
And just muttering things like that over and over again.
You hear him talk about the angels in the sky and the...
creatures in space and he talks about Pluto, all just nonsense.
um And you, you know, yeah, you do feel a sense of pity and you do wonder like what black site was he put in after you gave him to Butterfield and what means of interrogation that
Butterfield uh exude on him because, you know, he was crazy when you met him, but this seems another level of insanity.
Yeah, and I feel kind of guilty, I'm making him even more insane with some very serious potential consequences tomorrow.
Yeah.
Agent Smith Johnson returns.
You hear unlock, comes in, a pizza slides under before him and he ducks down under the storage unit, gets in and hands you that.
There's a small styrofoam container that has some black beans that are spiced in it.
he...
Yeah, ranch, ranch style.
And he sets down and...
let you eat.
um Yeah, do you, you you, you fall asleep after a good meal and you do sleep lightly and don't feel necessarily rested when you get up.
Morning comes, your alarm goes off, Barone.
Caroline, I imagine, wakes up naturally.
She does.
a logistical question.
Was that perhaps a helplessness, Sanla?
That's okay, but that would be my third.
So have you hit your breaking point?
Okay, so you can be adapted to helplessness in the future then.
uh
Okay, um, alright, simple as that.
Um...
Yeah, the day is ahead of you.
Do you meet up in one of the rooms?
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, in fact, em I think I am up early, right?
Perhaps, you know, still trying to go to sleep.
And it's about an hour and a half before I had intended to get up and I'm tired of tossing and turning.
So I will be on the road.
I am going to stop by lovely store downtown and pick up the freshly baked blueberry muffins and some coffees.
And we are going to start this day right.
I'll be rolling back towards
Barone's place with some pastries, and I'll just be collecting my thoughts until she stirs.
you
You set out a spread, wait for Barone to come a-knocking.
Barone, what is waking up for you this morning?
Yeah, I think the mind shift over to I Am A Science Experiment now and you know having you know these experiences with Karas and how scientists studied stuff and realized how much
pen to paper you know means in tracking and recording.
I think my you know morning experiment of like trying to get the day going is just recounting all of the notes and starting her scientific method.
on herself of having an hypothesis and testing and this and that and you know, thinking it a little bit more critically.
So I think her, her morning, you know, is, is rollover checker pulse.
Thank God she's not dead.
Remember about her shoulder mentally spiral for a little bit, come out of it and start writing.
So she'll, she'll jot her notes down and everything she could think of to what she's things happening in the time of things, how, when she got shot, how long until she noticed
the
bullet in the coagulation of whatever this is around it and you know kind of writing those down with timestamps and then get dressed for the for the day and grab a shitty cup of
coffee made in the corner of this of this place and head over to Caroline's room and do little little knock knock.
Pleased to have you in, throw that shit away.
Come and get one of these.
The fresh one, piping hot.
Come, sit, sit.
thank God.
I'll pop the top on this and just pour it on the ground, kind of right outside the front door.
And there's usually a trash can right inside the front door, so I'll toss it in the trash can and like, oh, thank God, you got that black bean stuff.
This was hardcore trash.
And then I will tap that Joe and slap that slop right in my cup.
Yeah, you have coffee.
Go ahead, Caroline.
I was just gonna say, you know how uh Pringles are not allowed to call themselves chips?
They have to call them potato crisps, right?
I imagine that that's the coffee equivalent of what you were drinking.
Couldn't actually call itself coffee, it's just close enough.
It's burnt bean liquid and you're like, yeah, fuck it, man.
realize, same, same, whatever, that works.
We get to the point where you're planning this cover-up or what to do next together and you have some ideas.
It's time to discuss those ideas and I'll throw some rolls your way.
Great.
Alright, so what I'm understanding is that we have a swatch of land out in the middle of nowhere that we need to cover up and or deter people from rediscovering.
Does that sound right to you?
Yeah, definitely.
with...
I go ahead and I tell her all about the Verdant Path and the experiments and like, I'm not, you know, holding any, any, you know, not putting any bars on any information as far
as, you know, getting her up to speed with, hey, this is what is there.
This is what needs to be solved.
I want to survive and I know she does.
So I'm going to kind of lay out the Verdant Path.
There's this many, you know, bodies of the old kind of the Verdant Path that are out there.
I don't think I will get to like, Mikhail here in a second, but I think I, you know, say house exploded, this is how big it was.
And I bring her up to date with, you know, how infectious the swamp is.
And that's if people go into those swamp, they are infected now and you flag, you know, the biohazard as well.
Okay, I will be taking notes and I will certainly prod to ask more about the level of danger assessment because I am trying to think about how to appropriately expose people to
this environment without putting them in an obvious harms way.
And I will certainly be extra quizzical about the entity that you describe, the algae that is kind of like seeming to cause this infection.
On account of that seems to be kind of like
an untapped lead that we might be able to explore for Butterfield.
And so I'm curious about that.
I think a lot of these things have kind of like intermingling, woven ties, but just to kind of get the ball rolling, perhaps we just pitch what we do isolated with the cabin and
start from there, see how it kind of flows out.
What I had been thinking, I have, well, a man who is very well connected and he happens to know many people who are in the landscaping business, if you know what I mean.
I think that he could get some of his folks to bring in almost like field tilling supplies, a mulcher and a tiller, and we are simply going to till that ground to high
heaven.
We're gonna grind stumps down and we're going to basically recycle that site into a protected wildlife preserve, a wetland, uh something that is flagged with red tape on all
sides.
It doesn't actually have to be, but the...
Curious thing about wetlands, suppose, is that, you know, once you make that assertion, someone better be awful, awful sure that it is not before they go stepping over any
boundaries.
Otherwise they are going to be in all kinds of hot water.
Yeah, no, right.
Okay, yeah.
uh Okay, connection lady.
I'm into this.
Yeah, let's bury that up in red tape all around.
Give me a criminology plus 20.
Alright, yeah.
Yeah, okay, 46.
Great, you make some calls and it's all set.
That's all you know.
That's all you need to know, right?
Like these people aren't the ones who are gonna sit there and plan over the phone with you.
They say they can do it.
You're gonna have to get some funds together for them.
Hmm.
I understand.
Nothing comes for free.
And I will, yeah, just kind of like on my side of things, the preparatory work is procuring the barriers, right?
Not real barriers, but like the whatever signage would be used to keep people off so that they don't even get within like eyesight of the actual place where this all went down.
It's absolutely no problem.
Okay.
Yeah.
Well, on the order of magnitude of the funds that we are talking about, how serious are we dealing with?
You know, for a one-time thing, it's about a thousand bucks.
Consistent, checking in on it, making sure people aren't going in and out, you're looking at 5K for a year.
Okay, 1K seems like a good starting point and that will kind of be what I will put myself down for, I suppose, right?
Pencil me in for the light treatment.
Okay, yeah, no problem.
Barone, you hope to never go out there again?
Are you sending Caroline herself?
Are you going?
Yeah, man, fuck this place.
um But no, I would not send Carolyn alone.
I think as a uh supporting stent of a human, knowing what did transpire here and when and how, I think I'm serving as a spirit guide, if you will.
So I'm very much not letting her go alone and walking her through this and that and where the cabin is and where the splinters happened and refresh my memory.
But we took
bodies of Dell and Mikhail and put them down in the bunker before we had a heck of a time trying to blow that, right?
Yeah, you put all the bodies across as well.
it's just this cabin is like a pile of stuff, right?
Yep.
And the crater where you blew up is just collapsed into like that like tunnel system and it's just covered in dirt.
Awesome.
Great.
I'll kind of point that out then.
The Barone, you walk out from the swampy trees and their low hanging leaves.
You can still smell the smoke from the explosion and whatever was left of out there burning.
And you get to the clearing where the cabin sat on the swamp, right?
And there it is.
That's a pile of sticks, untouched.
There is a red-bellied woodpecker sitting on one of those sticks that is high up perched off, and when you enter, it flaps off into the distance.
Almost a testament to the one you lost out here.
And you see the small pit where the ground has started to sink in, where the explosion was when you tried to cover up the violence that happened here.
Alright Caroline, well you're learning quite violently and quickly what all is wrapped up in a job like this.
I may have mentioned it before, but a very short time ago, a matter of hours by this point in time, there actually used to be three of us down below here and I kind of head nod over
to where the ground divots end, is one of my dear compatriots who lost their life to the cause.
He's...
What a sweet friend.
I'm terribly sorry for your loss.
I didn't realize there were more of you at the outset.
Um, in total, how many bodies are we dealing with?
Is it just the one?
No, no, it's not actually.
Let's see.
There's, uh there's Karas, who was the original person we uh came out here to talk to and glean information from.
There's Del, and I'm reaching out a real macabre olive branch here for this one.
But I mean, I'm sure you know in the past 72 hours you have had as many guns pointed at you as I've had pointed at me.
and you haven't actually been shot by any and so you understand full well how deadly this scenario and the people involved in all of this could be.
That's true.
You are winding me up for something fierce.
I am indeed, and I am ashamed to say that sometimes some of the people who die may not have deserved it and is more of a wrong place, wrong time scenario.
Your dearest compatriot ranger, Mikael, also is down there.
It was a scenario of him versus us and somebody does not get to survive.
I am enlightened to say I am not uh the human being who
Took him out of this world and um served up a death sentence to somebody who didn't necessarily deserve it.
As you may have well learned, teammate Ryan there seemed to take a couple things into his own hands, and that unfortunately was one of them.
Roll sanity for violence.
Right, right, right, right.
82, fail.
Okay, give me a d6.
Woof.
Yeah, four.
Are you going to project?
No, I think this one just kind of comes out of nowhere.
I think it catches me out of left field because I'm in kind of like, I'm in a different mode.
I am handling things.
I am taking notes of items and to-dos and well, we got to handle that.
And then this one just kind of derails me for a second.
As I realized that like the adrenaline has pushed me through a lot of these things that like maybe should have been painful, right?
Like things that should have maybe given me pause.
that I just put the blinders on and over the last six hours have just blazed my way through and I am being forced to slow way the hell down in this moment and I do not like
So you see Caroline's whole demeanor shift and slacken almost and turns pensive.
Maybe there's tears coming to Caroline's eyes.
Is Caroline the type?
think, yeah, she was absolutely touched by him in a way that, like, he wasn't playing the same game that we were, right?
Nor did he really know that that's a game that was being played and where it doesn't seem right for it to have been incidental like that.
Yeah, it almost sounds casual, right?
Even Barone adding weight to it.
Like, you know he came out here because he didn't want to lose his job, right?
And if he didn't lose his job, he lost his entire life.
Yeah, and I think there is a moment of like, well, we split these responsibilities right down the middle.
And so like, perhaps there was a, I prescribed this in some way.
I dispatched him to his own demise, but I quickly wiped that away on account of this weren't my fault.
Yeah, you didn't pull the trigger, right?
Yeah, think, Barone had, had been kind of like kneeled down hands in the dirt, um, ish and you, you could see her form is, is slumped and decidedly defeated.
This isn't like a, overcame an obstacle.
is very much something weighing, weighing heavy on her, on her soul, both the, the coming to an end of, of an innocent life and, you know, her teammate as well.
You know, both of them, neither of them, you know, should necessarily have, have been in the ground in her mind.
With that realization, Barone, and kind of making meaning out of this a little bit and finding an emotional catharsis, roll me a d4 and gain that back insanity.
Oh, I'm so blessed.
No, and it's a healthy four.
I will absolutely take that.
There you go.
Are you able to cover up this scene, Caroline, or is this too much for you?
I mean, I think it is fully within my intent for the the landscapers to be able to handle this.
This is the site that we were after.
Right.
And so the general tact, I suppose it's easy that since we have a divot in the ground already.
Right.
Most things are going to be scraped into that.
The bodies in particular will, like I said, be put through some sort of mulcher.
They will be turned into smaller particulates.
And then that holding pond of human fluid.
will be filled with sewage so as to expedite the bacterial uh decomposition process.
We will then be upturning all the earth in a large area, uh probably like 30 feet radius beyond the confines of the cabin itself.
then, yeah, like I said, maybe it's fertilizer, maybe it's just other sewage that makes that kind of like, everybody is going to know that before they get to the barrier, they do
not want to be walking that
way.
Nice.
Yeah, you take all these notes down to pass on to your crew and you're ready.
Maybe this is the last time you get to be out here, Bron.
Yeah, definitely.
Hmm, I mean, I know I still have the head to deal with, but I think that's maybe a violence that she doesn't want to necessarily deal with right now, especially out here in
the middle of the daylight.
I think that might be one of her home scenes is going out into nature and figuring out how to deal with that.
So I think I will leave it as is and not, you know, force any more violence onto this new potential teammate, Caroline.
So you both get back to the hotel or are you going somewhere else after a long day's work?
you get back to the hotel and both of you roll up.
SISTI on the dot.
to 66 crit-
Caroline, you get to your door and there's just a small cardboard box sitting in front of it.
Yeah, um, I will look at it for any sort of markings that might indicate that it came through normal post or anything like that.
No, just a box.
Tape shut with scotch tape.
Okay, I will push open my door and I will shove it in with my foot and I will set to inspecting it.
for own key role alertness as you're going back up there.
Sure.
Alertness 81.
18 success.
As Caroline kicks the box in and goes into her room, a Corolla with a single driver, can't see them in the silhouette of the night, drives by, but you do recognize the car.
uh
was gonna say same Corolla from the other night then.
So maybe this is information or next steps or anything like that.
Okay, great.
I think I will head up to Caroline's room and do just a little light knock as well.
Yeah, in the box you both open it together or Caroline keeping this to herself, no?
Yeah, sure.
In the box is a piece of paper that says put everything here and then there's an address and then there is a small key that is one of those circular keys with the little pin in
the middle of it that you would find on a lock box.
Great, I think that's the drop spot for delivery of all the materials we have collected.
So I think that might be for me more than us collectively.
Well, or us collectively,
It's all you.
If you know what to do with it, then I'll put you in charge.
Alright, sounds good.
Um, I don't think so.
think, I think she knows this is the last time her hands are going to be on this and she needs as much more info.
So like before, when she was looking, she was looking for bio weapons and answers to questions that, you know, somebody else needed for her to get.
I think this is her opportunity to sleuth out any more information that she could use personally to start her, you know, shift to.
you know, science and uh discovering what's in herself.
So I think it's not necessarily expected.
Do this now.
It did not say when to do this.
And it is, you know, later in the night, it is dark.
is the middle of the night.
I think if she wants to be inconspicuous, she'd probably just drop it in a daytime, like act like you're supposed to be there and people question you less type thing.
So I think she would take the night to uh peruse Carras' stuff or anything pertaining more to herself and
learning.
Like we've learned quite a bit and I had the ability to ask Keras a lot of things on my own and have all that written down.
But it's an extra thing to get her going on her next step of learning.
Yeah, so you bring up the paperwork, you have the rod thing with you.
Caroline, what are you doing?
Are you gonna look through it too?
Are you gonna allow that, Barone?
Or are you going to just do something else or head off to bed?
I don't give an opening as though I am asking for permission.
Brunon, you can stop me, but I am acting as though I belong.
No, absolutely.
I think Barone's just happy not to be alone and have an assignment with somebody else to lean on.
I don't think she's going to build a wall and stop any information.
If this person is helping me and we're making information trade, this person needs to know what I know.
She hasn't choked on all this information yet or had a panic attack or lost her shit.
So I think there's a little bit of trust being built up decidedly quickly here.
You start sifting through it.
What s- What would your eye be looking for?
You said more medical stuff.
Do you have any medicine, Barone?
I don't think I do.
I know the type of stuff that I wouldn't know and I know the type of stuff.
I guess that's the biggest thing.
I know what I don't know so that anything that would be along the lines of seeming medical enough and having to do with him studying this or if he had a personal journal of his
notes and experiences himself that he had logged, that's more what I'm looking for.
Okay.
It's all personal and all fragmented, right?
There are some research studies and stuff, but it's all over the place.
He wasn't organizing it very well.
Go ahead and just give me an intelligence times five.
uh it's up.
That's why.
uh Cool.
I'm looking for 65.
Lots of rolling.
65 on the dot.
Get out.
Okay, you're digging through and you were skeptical of the sodium bicarbonate thing, but it does seem like if you were actually trying to give you that, which maybe he wasn't,
that a blood transfusion in combination with a healthy dose of sodium bicarbonate would cure this.
You're not sure what the timeline is on that.
Does it need to be now?
Does it, you don't need to be, can it be a year from now?
So there's no nothing on that.
But if you were to get a blood transfusion with a strict regimen of that, you could probably get this out of you.
uh The thing that also comes up is his dreams getting progressively stranger and stranger to the point where he believes he's on some astral plane in the middle of outer space,
vibing with fungal
frequencies in the stars and non-Euclidean fractals of light and different colors he's never recognized giving him an immense amount of peace.
Okay, so very clearly slowly circling the drain of insanity.
Like this isn't good, something to keep in you that you're gonna have a peaceful thing with.
Like it's gonna eat you alive mentally and physically if it stays in you too long type thing.
Yeah, that could be a good assumption.
Caroline, as you're looking through this, me bureaucracy.
I have 80, no good.
Writings of a madman, right?
Like, you can't make any sense of it, but you will have to give me a sanity roll because this is quite unnatural.
Create Success.
Alright, you don't lose any, but you also don't gain any on natural.
Yeah.
See, I keep going back to this idea that like she doesn't actually believe in anything supernatural because it's all just got explanations, like bad explanations if you weren't
very scientifically literate or something like that.
Totally.
Yeah, That's perfect.
Barone.
Yeah, that's what you can glean from it with a night looking at it.
Man, great.
No, that's awesome.
That's way more than I thought I would get out of this, so I'm chuffed.
Carolyn, anything else you would do looking at this?
Like I kind of forced a bureaucracy, but I'll give you another pass at how you would be thinking on this.
Yeah, I don't know that I have a whole lot that I am poised to do.
I think I'm really trying to get an understanding of what the, maybe the theme of the operation is, right?
Like I jumped in at a very strange point and we had like an instantaneous velocity, but it wasn't necessarily congruent with the whole trajectory that we've been on.
And so I'm trying to just understand where this little facet fits into the whole broader scheme.
Yeah, would you ask Barone that?
Yeah, sure, think in an effort not to be like, annoying, like, you know, please tell me the whole history of this, but like, you're just trying to naturally prod at details as,
you know, unusual this and that's come up in the paperwork.
No, yeah, I got it.
Know where we've been to figure out where we're going type thing.
No worries.
So if you start over here, so this is probably pertaining to, then I kind of walk through the steps of the things we realized and found out and what we were originally tasked with
and what we completed and where we failed type stuff.
Any of the gory, more fucked details, I don't think, but as much information as I can.
pass across to get this person up to date to where if I need something specific, they at least know what I'm talking about and so far so forth.
Do you tell her about the aliens?
you
shit, do I tell her about the aliens?
I, I think I probably, um, shoot.
I think, I think I kind of brush over that with there were additional encounters.
Um, I know that, you know, that like she said, this whole thing jump started into a chaos shotgun to the face.
Um, I think I kind of brush over that.
And if she wants to ask more.
you know, about more specificity with it, I think I will, but I think I just kind of leave it as, and then there, you know, was a back and forth and something happened and, you
know, leave it as an encounter rather.
Yeah.
And I think I ascertain that perhaps you are circling around something that you are intentionally being vague with, but you haven't done that with very many things.
And so I'm gonna let you keep that for now.
Both of you, can you make an int times five?
Sure.
I got a 78 failure.
Perun, why did Butterfield send you out here?
The official reason was to silence Karas or get him to turn to our side so that he leaked no more information either to the public or, um, you know, back to, um, this is going to
make me sound like an idiot.
Majestic, my God, back to back to majestic or to the public.
So silence a leak was the official reason.
What the real reason was beyond that.
You know, Barona's still piecing together, I guess.
Yeah, Caroline, with that little bit of intent for Butterfield and the initial conversation you had about, know, hey, we need to look into this guy, like we need to be a
step ahead of him if that possible.
You know, you have, you know, this, this is strange.
It's in the middle of nowhere.
There's a guy in a swamp and you get three professionals, you know, from what you've seen sent out here just for him.
He's kind of minding his own business from what you can glean from the operation, dealing with stuff that you don't believe in, right?
That, you know, so it's like, why not just let this old crazy guy be old and crazy out there?
So the whole thing is like a strange amalgamation of details to you.
Enough so that I have to simply assume that we aren't told anything meaningful, I guess.
Right?
Like, there is enough fog of war that I understand that we are not in a decision-making kind of position.
Right?
I I just interpret it through that lens, my interactions with Butterfield thereafter.
Yeah, one thing that does, based on your interaction with him and how he approached you and his, you know, his, the ability that he has to think on his feet and utilize you,
tells you that he is intelligent and that there's something else going on.
There's something personal, right, about this for him.
Like this, this guy, Karas, like this whole thing doesn't seem tactically sound.
So there has to be some other personal angle.
And do you have any accounting at all?
You have none?
attend the base 10.
Knowing that, give me the base 10 plus 20.
Okay, yeah, you can't make any connections here, so it's really, really tough to glean anything from this, you know.
Yeah, understood.
I think that's fine.
I think just getting an understanding of what questions are acceptable to ask and what information are we provided with and how much knowing do are we really supposed to do is
kind of what I am trying to level set.
Yeah, seems like you're on your way to level set that, so...
Yeah, you hear a car pull up on the outside and Agent Smith opens it up and you get in and it's you and Butterfield in one car and it looks like Smith and Finch in another.
One's a Crown Vic, the other is a Corolla and drive out and the car rides kind of a blur.
Just the flat lands and some swampy bogs as you pass through.
And about an hour later you stop and a
tops of trees and you see a large clearing that stretches out before you.
Butterfield and Finch get out of the car behind you.
Finch looks calm, looks extremely calm, almost looks like he's lobotomized on an invisible leash being pulled by Butterfield.
And Smith, you know, gets out of the car and stands next to it and says, sit tight.
In the car, you want me to sit tight?
You can get out if you want, but I wouldn't recommend it.
going over there.
I'll sit tight.
So can I see where they are going from where I am in the car?
Go ahead and roll a...
alertness.
I am looking for 46 and I did not get it at exactly 50.
Yeah, so you watch them walk out and they stop.
Butterfield, you notice him kind of looking around and pointing.
You don't really see who he's motioning to.
Maybe it's Agent Smith.
um But Finch goes down and sits down and Butterfield hands him just a stack of the small pieces of paper he was ripping up with you.
And Finch grabs them and starts arranging them around him in the dirt.
And you can see this, it's about 30 feet away, so it's pretty close still.
And you see him just arranging the symbols.
Can you roll Sanity real quick?
Mm-hmm.
Looking for...
53...
61...
Yeah, so you lose one sanity as you see him getting ready to bring these monsters back, the ones who you made a pact with and killed your friend, Del.
But yeah, out in the field, he raises his arms and he starts to chant.
In the daytime, it does remind you of K'ras.
It doesn't feel like it should be done during the day, but it is happening right here, right now.
And it's about 11 a.m.
And your jaw explodes in a hot white pain.
Like you felt this before in your whole body, but it is pinpointed to where that implant was.
Maybe you're just aware of it now that you know it's there, but you feel it and it's just like a hot red needle poking you almost like you're getting a shot at the dentist.
And your ears feel with a, your ears fill with a vibration.
Hmm, can I hear anything or am I only hearing vibration at this point?
Yeah, vibration, and you notice that Agent Smith isn't responding to anything, so it feels like maybe only you can.
You look at Butterfield and he's standing calmly, but Finch, his hands are raised and he's shaking, almost seizing as he's singing the song you know all too well.
But then through the windshield and through the side window, you see the slits in the sky open, that purplish glow being...
Accented by the sunlight, almost looks more of a pink in daytime, and you feel the air around you turn cold.
Then two shapes descend and you know them.
They're the massive fleshes of alien thing that came down.
Before there were three, but now there's only two.
And you see pink, purplish fungus, and the buzzing starts to...
happen over the radio of the car.
It's just like I...
You
And it's ever-present.
You see Agent Smith check his own sanity.
Agent Smith starts to shake in front of you.
You feel him pushing on the car and the car is getting lower as he's kind of sitting on it.
Obviously not keeping his cool and losing his grip out there.
And Butterfield looks calmly as he seems to send down onto Finch.
Do you do anything from in the car?
You're just watching.
I'm just watching and all my jaw is hurting and um just trying to keep it together and really don't care to interact with these things at this time.
So just trying to lay low.
Yeah, you hear Butterfield's walkie-talkie come to life and he holds it up to the large figure descending.
The second one hangs back and he holds it to his ear.
You think that they're speaking together through that and you start to hear on the radio snippets of frequencies um as this thing is trying to tune in to be able to converse with
Butterfield.
You do notice that Finch is screaming in ecstasy as this thing has descended upon him and the creature is holding in one of its tentacly crab-like octopi arms the all too familiar
cylinder that you assume Del was, um I guess, extracted in and this one is empty.
And Butterfield, as he's talking, he looks back and points to you.
and and you
Is it coming closer?
Still staying.
Yeah, it's still staying there conversing with Butterfield and you see him look back to the alien and continue to talk to it and then he just points to Finch and Finch is sitting
there in this elated position and almost in a snap of a finger the strange blade these things hold comes out and it starts to carve into Finch's skull.
Right down the middle, you see his face slacken, his two eyeballs fall out of his head as his brain is extracted with ease.
Anesturgical precision unlike anything you've seen on Earth.
Give me another sand roll.
Poof.
Poor Finch.
40...
40.
Exactly.
Wait.
Yeah.
Pass.
You still lose one from seeing this.
And yeah, since you're able to hold it together, you see Butterfield backing away a little faster.
And he has a hand behind his back that's a fist like this as he's talking to this thing and he's nodding his head.
And then you see the fist open up.
and then he takes a big step backwards and you see him fall into the earth through some sort of trap that was dug here.
It looked like it had dirt on it, but it was obviously fake because he just falls into what looks to be like a little grave and disappears.
And then the tree line beside you erupts in gunfire.
So I just duck because I'm like, I don't want any stray bullets coming my way.
It's like pop, pop, pop, pop.
You see tracers flying through the air.
looks like since you're ducked, you're not sure, but it sounds like there's three to four large guns, probably machine guns, firing and 50 cal rounds are shredding the air.
And before you are able to duck, you see them honing in on what looks to be the two alien things floating in the air.
And it starts tearing one of them apart, the one closest to you.
And then you lose sight as you get down, but you hear just a tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch t
Yeah, I'm like, what the fuck is going on?
And I look back, you know, to see if yeah, just looking back to see what's going on.
Yeah, you look back and you see one of the Migos, the closest one, has slopped onto the ground into a pile of sludge.
The second one is getting hit and then you just see it phase out of nowhere.
And go ahead and roll an alertness again.
for 46 and of course not 65 again
It's chaos, right?
You're seeing tracers fly out of the forest.
You don't know what's going on.
You see that thing disappear and blink out of existence and then all the bullets stop and it goes quiet.
And the car slows down and Smith turns to you, like, is that it?
It looks like we got him.
And he starts crawling and looking behind him as well.
And you see in the tree line, one of the...
Soldiers who was in there come out, looks like standard military apparel, and holding a large gun, you have no idea what type of gun it is with your firearms, but it's huge.
And out of nowhere, he just gets ripped up into the sky.
And Smith is like, oh, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, and hits the gas again.
Shit, drive fast, get out of here.
Must go faster, must go faster.
um You look in the mirror maybe and objects appear closer than they seem and you see a T-Rex coming down.
No, what you do see is the light bending around the sky, much like the strange ship figure you saw in the swamp during the um swamp monster's strange ritual fly over you being the
only one who saw it.
You now see it hovering above the forest and you see another soldier being plucked from out of the trees straight up into the air and disappearing into the bottom of it.
As it flickers and you see it is a silver, strange saucer shape.
Smith is crying.
He's not sobbing, but you notice that there tears coming from his eyes and he is terrified, but still driving.
Yeah man, hold it together.
Just keep driving.
Yeah, he's trying and he'll roll sand and he rolled an 80.
Damn, these rolls.
He is trying to keep it together.
The tears are welling up.
He's scared.
He's starting to tremble.
And out of nowhere, he hits something.
Maybe it's a stump, maybe it's a ditch, but the car goes flying up and starts to turn over.
Can you roll me con times five?
So looking for 6, dude.
And I got an 18, finally.
Okay, success.
You don't pass out, but you are thrown down and you didn't have a seatbelt on and are laying on the top of the car in the interior.
You hear the wheels on the outside continuing to spin.
as maybe his foot is still stuck or wedged on the gas, um, roll an alertness for me.
Again, looking for a 46 and nope, 80 exactly.
Wow.
Alright, good session.
uh So, yeah, you are just stuck in this car.
You start to feel warm, stuff all dripping down from the, well, it would be the bottom of the car usually, but it's the top of the car now.
It's blood coming from Agent Smith.
The windows are smashed out.
Do you crawl out of the car?
Is he alive?
What kind of condition is he in?
Yeah, if you want to take a second, you can look up at him and then you would notice that he's just bleeding a lot from the top of his head and he put his seatbelt on quickly and
is just hanging there above you um and blood's coming out of where his blood's coming from out of his hairline.
Is he alert?
Is he conscious?
Okay.
Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna crawl out of this car.
Yeah, you crawl out, give me an athletics.
Looking for 30.
And I got a 49.
46.
Okay.
Yeah, it's really hard to get out.
Your leg feels jammed in there.
You're about halfway out um and the car kind of slumps over under your weight trying to get out and pinches your leg even more.
Can you give me a dex times five?
Looking at 55 and I got a 52.
oh Let's go.
All right.
Yeah, before there's any damage done to your ankle, you are able to wiggle it out and um you hear Agent Smith cough up blood and say, fuck.
And he coughs up some gurgly mess in there and he kind of like looks out towards you as you're crawling out and passes back out.
Jeez.
What do do?
I'm looking around.
Are these things nearby?
What is it calm outside?
What's going on?
Yeah, there's this surreal calmness to everything as you look around.
And the only thing you hear is the car tire continuing to spin as it's flipped over.
You're surprised it hasn't stalled out being upside down, but it really has only been like five seconds since you crashed probably.
And yeah, the surreal calmness is all you really feel.
And when you go to try to move again, you wonder if your back's broken, but you're standing up, but you can't move.
I'm standing up and I'm paralyzed.
Yeah, you can't move.
can't walk.
can't move my hands, anything.
Yeah, you try to blink even and your eyes are stuck open.
ah Go ahead and give me a pow times five.
I'm for 80 and I got a six, double six.
Yeah, so you're able to stay conscious, but you are still paralyzed.
And as you're like, what do I see?
Like, what am I looking for?
Why can't I move?
You can move your eyes and you realize when you move your eyes, you look down, you are starting to float into the sky.
No.
Not again.
You're the Earth and are slowly floating up.
It seems slow to you, but how you saw the soldiers being jerked up in the sky is your guess.
Your brain is playing a trick on you.
Can you roll me San?
Where is sanity?
Oh yeah.
51.
69, dude.
Okay, yeah, give me a D6 for sand loss.
Okay, three.
Do you want to project any of that or are you just gonna take it?
I mean, at this fucking point, I'll just take it.
I'd rather just go insane.
Yeah, you're not to that point yet, but as you're being pulled up into this flying saucer, you realize you're being abducted by aliens.
And, you know, that seeps in.
You know, what are the last few thoughts as you're trying to hold it together and can't hold it together that Ryan has before he's pulled into an alien spacecraft?
ah Well, I'm still alive.
seem to, my brain still seems to be attached to my body anyway.
um So there's a little bit of relief in that, but I'm thoroughly freaked out.
I also am just like surrendering to the experience at this point, just out of there's nothing I can do about it.
I can't even move my hands.
So.
there's a little bit of surrender and peace in that as well.
Yeah, I imagine a sense of awe too, where these forces and things are so beyond you that, you know, it almost feels like a surrender that is welcome.
Yeah.
Absolutely, especially after everything I've been through up to this point.
Yeah, you lose consciousness and are pulled into the deep dark recesses of an alien spacecraft.
And that's where we'll leave Ryan for now.
In the morning, do you drive over to this address?
Yeah, I think after getting what we can and, you know, a bit of a sleepless night digging through papers, obviously she had to go to sleep at one point, but she's feeling a bit
better than the previous evening going to sleep.
think it is time to make the drop and check the box of I am a team member, you know, playing ball to give myself more time and kind of move forward and find what's next.
Yeah, you pull up a map and look and find out where this address goes to.
It goes to what looks to be a mall, which is strange.
And you drive up and you see the sign that says Great Plains Regional Mall, and it sits on a highway.
It looks kind of like a beached whale there, concrete skin peeling away.
And this looks like it was built in the boom of the 80s.
a monument to consumerism and prosperity that never reached Oklahoma fully.
And the parking lot is just vast and cracked asphalt that has weeds coming out.
This mall is abandoned and shut down.
And you see some plywood covering an east entrance and it has a big ol' split in the bottom you can get in, just poppin' on in.
Yeah, yep, definitely.
don't think there's necessarily any reason for red flags.
And like, there's no other cars here.
There's literally nothing.
It's just a banded ass,
Yeah, yeah, you get in and there's an old atrium that's more like a tomb now and the tiles are checkered pink and teal and you know, there's no light.
You're dealing with the sunlight coming in through the atrium top and you see chalk arrows just pointing different ways.
You're assuming you follow those?
Yep, Nick, I sure do.
I follow the creepy arrows in the abandoned mall out here by myself in my lonesome in the dark.
Yep, I do that.
Yeah, you walk through and it does get darker and darker as you get into the cavernous part of the mall and you see a, used to be a KB toys, the K is missing and the arrows
point inside of there.
There's like a trampled Power Rangers poster on the ground and it's just empty shelves and there's an arrow that points around into a torrid door that looks behind.
used to be behind cash registers, back.
Do you just pop on into that door?
Yeah, I think I'll just take a quick um glance around and do a slight hearing check to see if she hears anything, you know, stranger out of the ordinary.
then, yeah, I think she kind of just wants to get rid of this now, man.
She wants to the relief of not having this on her conscience anymore and on her person.
Yeah, you walk through and open the door and it's a small little room.
Looks like an accounting room.
Probably there was a table there.
There's no chairs, very strangely laid out.
And there is a massive door that's been unhinged from somewhere else leaning against the wall.
And behind it, you see a large gun safe.
uh...
Well, did not expect you here, okay.
And then I'll, open the gun safe.
You have the key for it, the lock, and it pops open.
And the only gun in there is an old shotgun, just sitting there.
And you're assuming this is where you deposit everything.
Okay great, is there anything that says, hey take the shotgun, Barone, this is for you.
what's your firearm skill at?
Uh, my firearms is at 59.
Okay, yeah, you pull it up, it's a pistol grip tactical Benelli shotgun, but there's something engraved on the barrel.
Okay, I will roll it over in my hand, check if it's loaded, then uh look at the barrel.
It's not loaded.
Yeah, you looked down the barrel.
I just looked down the barrel.
Gotta make sure this trigger works.
Alright, well, Barone's dead.
Next character.
Dying during downtime would be crazy.
Yeah, right.
Yeah, on the barrel, the engraving reads, this machine will always bring death.
I chuckled myself a little bit.
Funny story, sometimes being a death dealer is more deserved, guess.
Fuck me.
And I'll grab it, roll it over, and I guess I will make the swap and put the files in there, take the shotgun, and close it up.
So do you put the, you have a leftover brain jar, you have your rod, you have uh other, you have piece of the Torah still, I think.
no, the Torah was taken away already.
Was?
Yeah, so just the brain jar really, and then the physical evidence that you collected plus the rod.
Yeah, I didn't actually tell him about the rod.
um So he doesn't know it exists.
Did I see any mention of the rod in the papers that I found?
There was mention of the rod and of him building it.
think he's just using it a power source and talking about how to convert it to, you know, from the inherent energy that it holds to power his, like, lab and cabin.
But if you wanted to keep it, easy enough to say that you detonated that little laboratory before you found it, and was just, you know, a scrap heap after.
I didn't realize you followed me in here, okay?
Alright?
I thought I was listening super well and I was not in any capacity whatsoever.
Apparently I was just on the mission.
It was you, I'm not there, it's all you.
You hear Caroline's voice in your head.
Yeah!
Yeah, right.
I'm like, man, I am going crazy.
dip.
He didn't ask about it because he didn't know about it.
I didn't tell him about it.
You put all the stuff in there and I presume you're keeping the rod for yourself or are you putting it in there?
I think I've fight with it for a second.
But knowing that what's inside me has some reaction to this thing and that there may be some codependency or some answer there, I think that's something she is definitely gonna
sneaky, for sure.
Great.
Yeah, you leave and do you go home?
Do you wait to see if Butterfield contacts you?
Your guess was the last contact based on the note.
Your job is done.
Yeah, yeah.
And I think, I think, um, I think Barona is ready for space and dropping off all of that is, is literally getting rid of that weight from her physical back, but also getting a
little bit of that weight off of her soul.
And you know, she's happy to get it a bit behind her and she knows that there's plenty of stuff to choke down in front of her about herself.
And she also knows that, you know, if, if Delta green has something for you, they're going to find you.
So I think she, she,
more or less washes her hand and counts her blessing that she's still alive.
And I think now is the time to, you know, start her, start her trek on home.
Yeah.
Caroline, are you...
What's home to you at this point?
Where do you go?
em
Well, mean, home is somewhere between Alabama and Louisiana.
But I do think checking in with family in Louisiana is what's called for.
Tends to be a quieter time making the rounds down there.
Perhaps though, with the...
We were doing a little bit of Butterfield went off to do whatever it is that he intended to do.
I don't have a number for him.
Is there any way that I might be able to run a call?
uh through my connections and see if I couldn't find a way to get a letter to Butterfield.
I would like to deliver him like a written recap uh of this message delivered to his door where he wasn't expecting.
Yeah, that would probably be home scene territory to unravel that bureaucracy.
Okay.
One thing you could do quickly is leave it with the stuff that Barone is dropping off.
Like shove it in there.
m
I'll pass it to Barone as she is heading off for career duties.
Yeah, makes sense.
What's your letter say?
uh It is very professional.
is an itemized yet vague em detailed list of the outstanding loose ends.
you writing him a cover letter and expousing your expertise during this and taking credit where credit was due.
Just uh shine a light on the things that deserve to.
Beautiful.
And then, do you head home home Alabama?
Do you stay in a toka?
Yeah, I'm heading home, home.
Definitely back down to the south.
We've got a fab bit of time, is that right?
Yeah, you're not sure how much time?
Really, Bob?
Mexico?
Yeah, I hear the humidity in Huacos is dreadful this time of year.
Though I suppose the Federales ask fewer questions than the FBI.
How'd you find me, Gavin?
I'm the director of Project Garnet.
I hold the receipts for the satellite you're currently bouncing off of.
Five people, Bob.
You left five people dead or disappeared in the Oklahoma dirt.
And for what?
To set a trap for entities that fold space-time using a half-blinded cell of rogue agents and a sidekick on a leash?
You don't dynamite a pond to catch a leviathan, Bob.
You just scare off the big fish and cover yourself in mud.
You fucking underestimated them.
I got their attention.
Yeah, you certainly did.
But congratulations on breathing, I guess.
Not many men walk away with their
pulse intact in those situations.
I lost $20 to a colleague because I bet you'd be vivisected by Dawn.
Give it a rest Ross.
She's alive.
Gavin, she's alive.
Bob, don't do this.
I felt it out there.
They fucking told me when they came down.
The language transmission or whatever it was, it wasn't just a noise, it was a ledger.
They keep them, Gavin.
They don't just harvest them and throw them away.
She's out there.
My sister's out there.
And I'm not gonna stop until I tear their sky down and find her.
That's touching, really.
A modern day Orpheus.
But if you keep thrashing around like this, Croft and the steering committee are gonna have NRO Delta put a bullet in your head before you ever get off the fucking dock!
Let them try.
Croft is a fucking coward.
Before I go looking for Sarah...
I'm gonna clean house down here anyway.
I'm taking Forestrol off the board.
You gave me one of the names of the men who sold us out.
And now I'm gonna make him pay for the ink he used on the accord.
You're wading into the surf of a shotgun, Bob.
You shoot Forestrol, you're just going to make a splash, and only a splash.
Then what the fuck are you doing, Gavin?
Sitting on a shoreline, reading your reports in an air-conditioned office while they gut us, while they take us, and tear us to pieces?
I'm chumming up the deep water.
You want to snag the man who signed the paper.
I want to drag the whole fucking boat down.
There are men inside who see the truth.
Men who realize this isn't a treaty.
It's a goddamn trot line and we're all the bait.
I'm quietly gathering them.
I'm finding their grievances.
I'm setting the hooks because humanity always comes first.
Aku, you're planting mutiny inside of the organization?
I'm planning a catch, but I need time and I need the steering committee to look the other way.
you
So, go ahead.
Stay across the border.
Go after Forestroll.
Thrash in the shallows.
Exert your petty vengeance.
It'll keep Croft and his lapdogs busy chasing the ripples of Delta Green while I set the real trap.
So be the bait, Bob.
Just do me one favor.
What's that, Ross?
Don't get netted.
Because if they drag you into a black site and start peeling off your fingernails, don't mention my fucking name.
Because if you do, I won't just kill you.
I'll make sure you end up exactly where your sister is.
Something in the desert sky Lost time and I don't know why
American Conspiracy
Dead
you
Dead letter