Operation Final Spiral - Chapter Four
Getting Briefed by the Brass in the Delta Green RPG, using mythic 2e
Published by arrangement with the Delta Green Partnership. The intellectual property known as Delta Green is a trademark and copyright owned by the Delta Green Partnership, who has licensed its use here. The contents of this document are ©SolumProtocol, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property.
Photo by Bob Price : https://www.pexels.com/photo/brown-ashtray-with-cigarette-casting-smoke-on-table-764883/
Memphis Nights Motel, Memphis, 11PM
The highway was clear when I returned with the March Team and normal traffic had resumed. Reeves loaded their new ‘subject’ into the back of their car and peeled away with a wave and an assurance we would see each other again, which I fervently hoped was not going to be the case. The whole thing left me feeling unclean. The temptation to kill the unnatural woman had been pretty strong, but ultimately, she wasn’t my problem, even if vengeance would have given me a small spark of happiness. I unloaded my rifle and placed it back in the trunk of the Jetta and I made a beeline for the closest motel, half an hour back towards Memphis. The Sheriff had a left a voicemail with the drop off details, and said that Jo had been ‘really well behaved’ which was something, at least. I pinched the bridge of my nose. What the fuck was going on here?
Jo answered the door to room 213 and let out a long, relieved sigh.
“You took your time.” She said petulantly.
“Not now kid.” I said, depositing my bag in a chair and placing my cell on the table. “I need a shower, then we debrief, got it?”1
“Who were those guys? The ones you went off with?” Jo asked, following me to the bathroom. I closed the door in her face, but she still kept trying to talk to me as I stripped my clothes off, hanging my shoulder holster on the towel rack so the knife was still in easy grasp, just in case. “Katherine? Can you hear me?” Jo said, asking her questions again.
“They work with my boss.” I said, turning the water on. “Anything more than that, you probably know as much as I do, Kid.”
“Well that isn’t good, because I don’t know anything about them.” Jo said worriedly.2 She stopped talking, and I washed the dirt of the road of my skin before pulling into a spare change of clothes. I didn’t have any clean sets left, so I needed to look up if this place had a cleaning service, but I stopped when I went into the bedroom and saw Jo curled up on the bed with a battered, silver laptop in her lap. I knew that laptop.
“Please, Jo, for the love of fucking God, tell me you did not swipe that from the highway?”
“Ok.” Jo said brightly, returning her gaze to the laptop. When it became clear she wasn’t going to reassure me, I pinched the bridge of my nose, again.
“Why?” I asked, my voice pained.
“I didn’t want to have to use the one from the library, and this one has a satellite connection.” She said, her voice distracted.3
“And why do you need a computer?” I asked, settling down and rummaging in my bag for my smokes.
“I want to be helpful, believe it or not.” She said. “You said this group was called March Technologies?”
“Correct.” I said, pulling out the pack and a lighter. Jo hummed, and I went to take my bag of laundry to the front desk. They didn’t have a laundry service, but there was a laundromat just down the way, and I could use the time alone. I plugged in a headphone and listened to music while dissociating under the fluorescent lights for an hour. I didn’t have a lot of clothes, so a quick wash and dry was enough, as long as I hung my pants up to finish drying back in my room. I stubbed out another smoke on the walk back to the motel, and was surprised to see Jo still awake, clicking away on Candela’s laptop.
“Get some sleep, Jo.” I said.4 I itched to call the team, but Oakes had text me earlier with a single line.
Good Work. Lay low, we’ll connect tomorrow. - O
Irritating, but not unexpected. Jo had ignored me as I prepared for bed, but when I switched off the light, she cleared her throat.
“Katherine, I’ve discovered a connection that might be interesting to you.” She said gravely. Knowing her, it could be anything form the coming apocalypse to a Diet Coke shortage.
“Hit me.” I said, lying in the other bed and propping my head up with a shitty motel pillow. She turned the laptop around, revealing five or six windows all open and taking up a portion of the screen. I frowned at the clutter. “It’s late Jo, can you just give me the fucking cliff notes?” She pointed at one, a News Article showing the ruins of a building somewhere in the countryside.
“This is the ruins of Mercury Aeronautics. According to the metadata in this laptop, your team had been investigating them.” She said.
“The Sheriff said something about that, yeah.” I said, feeling sleep threatening to descend
“Well, here is a news article from the Wall Street Journal dated September 2008 about a potential merger/acquisition of Mercury Aeronautics by March Technology. It fell through, supposedly because Mercury secured funding form elsewhere. There is no information about this last minute funding, but there is a lot of market speculation. A few months later, this plant was destroyed.” I sat up and looked over at Jo.
“That is quite auspicious timing.” I said gravely.
“Yes. Once the Iuka plant burned down, Mercury went bankrupt, and March picked up the other factories. This article said it was an almost obscenely low amount for such a large acquisition.”
“You seem surprisingly well versed in the activities of the Market.”
“Human business practices are comically simple, Katherine.” She said laughing lightly before adding in a quieter, les smug voice. “Also I’m mostly just quoting the article.”5
“I don’t like this. I don’t really give a shit about what corporations get up to, but I don’t like that March is here getting involved in this investigation. Let me know if you turn up anything else.”
“Will do, Katherine.” Jo said, closing the laptop and curling into her bed. She was asleep in moments, but sleep didn’t come so easily for me. I had a very bad feeling about this whole shit show. 6
Memphis Nights Motel, Memphis, April 4th 7AM
I always dreamt of the plains now, of running through the long grass in search of something to eat. It had been my new normal for so long, that it hardly even registered.7 I woke up the next morning mostly well rested and shook off the last parts of my blood soaked dreams. There was a knock as I washed my face, and I moved to answer the door, my hand on the knife in my holster.8 Oakes’ severe expression looked back at me through the peephole, and so I opened the door and guided her in. Landry and Nate filed in afterwards and I felt my shoulder’s tense.
“Your fellow agents are getting coffee.” Oakes said, placing some folders on the cheap linoleum table and folding herself into a chair. The exhaustion came off her in waves, and Landry and Nate weren’t looking much better.
“You guys look like shit.” I said lightly, clicking the door closed and bolting the door.9 Jo had shown her survival instincts and made herself scarce before I woke up, so I had to trust she would steer clear until we were good to go. I didn’t really know what to do with the child, but I couldn’t bring myself to throw her out on her ass. I looked at Landry and Nate, who leaned against the wall with a practiced casualness that indicated they were both moments away from sleep.
“You three had a rough night?” I asked, pulling my duffle bag from below the bed and beginning a quick inventory.
“That team you met with last night? From March?” Oakes said. “Something hit them last night. We’ve been trying to put out fires since then.”10
“They dead?” I asked. Landry made an unpleasant sound, and Oakes shot him a glare before responding.
“No.” Was all she said.
“Look.” I said, too low on caffeine to be in the mood for this song and dance. “I get that compartmentalization is a big thing for us, but half our team is dead. More than half, by my estimation. Can we just get all the intel before moving forward? Before we all end up dead?”11
“It’s not my decision, Agent Jones.” Okies said, pulling out a long cigarette and a portable ashtray. “March Technologies is, unfortunately, wrapped up in all this and the less we interact with them, the better. Let’s leave it at that.”
“Fine.” I said tightly. “What hit them?”
“Our last target.” Oakes said, flipping open the folder. “You don’t need to know the full extent of Task Force Viridian, but Nolan and Nathan’s teams have been assigned the Order of Midnight problem. The last holdout is their last Triarch, Violet McCown.” She pointed at a picture of a woman seemingly in her early 40s.12 She had a slight frame, slim shoulders and delicate, elfin features with a smart bob of hair and stylish glasses. For all that, something about her gaze made her picture seem almost alive.
“I know that name.” I said softly, feeling my pulse quicken.
“Of course you do.” Oakes said with a sigh. “Look, Jones. You gave us Iuka. Your ‘gift’ last month broke months of stonewalled investigations but it also exposed the investigation to parts of the Program I have no control over.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” I asked in disbelief.
“It means there are a lot of eyes on us, kid.” Nate said gruffly. “More than any of us are comfortable with.”
“What does that have to do with March?” I asked.13 Nobody answered, but I was starting to get the idea. “They have people in the Program, right? They have government contracts.” It seemed obvious, now that I thought about it. Funding was always tight, according to Landry, but the money had to come from somewhere, and I doubted there was an expense file for Cultist Murder somewhere in the Pentagon.
“Stop thinking so much, Jones.” Oakes said sharply. “None of this is relevant to the investigation.”
“The fuck it isn’t?” I said in disbelief. “They were on sight, they ‘secured’ something that should have been burned.”
“And then they lost it.” Landry mumbled earning another textbook Oakes glare that he seemed too tired to notice.
“Exactly!” I said.
“This isn't a debate, Jones, this is a briefing, so either shut the fuck up and do your job, or you can turn your ass around and go back to Seattle.” She snapped. My mouth clicked shut, but I still stewed in anger. This was bullshit, and whoever was fucking around with this stuff was waiting for it to blow up in their faces. But it was clear that everyone in the room knew that already.
“Fine, Sir. I’m ready for the brief.” I said, forcing myself to be still, my arms at my sides.14
“The Order has been funding Mercury Aeronautics for a few years now. We knew they had an interest in tech, seemingly trying to find ways to use it in conjunction with their usual practices, but we didn’t know where or who until recently, and by the time we found out, the Iuka facility was already bust. We have no idea what they did there, or why. You, Westbrook and Castor will find out what and why and report it directly to me, do you understand?”
“Perfectly clear.” I said
“Good.” She said, snapping the folder shut and passing it to me. “We have a basic floorplan, although the destruction was extensive. Other than that, we don’t have access to what they were working on.”
“Didn’t March acquire the company as a whole?” I asked
“They did.” Oakes said.15 “They’ve shared what they know with us, which if the are being honest, is nothing out of the usual. Iuka was their top of the line facility, very hush hush, and most of the people involved died in the accident.”16
“The accident was a while ago, over 6 months. Shouldn’t someone have already done a sweep?” I asked.
“No. March tried to get in as soon as possible, but there’s been a lot of controversy, and the sight is currently considered extremely hazardous.”17
“How? Is it radioactive? Structurally unsound? Filled with monsters?” I asked sarcastically.
“Yes.” Was all Oakes said, and I had to take a beat to figure out what she meant.
“Are you serious?”
“Whatever the Order was working on it is extremely dangerous. Over a hundred people have died since the accident, scavengers, retrieval teams and quite a few of March’s acquisition squads. They all disappear and wash up down river a few weeks later, seemingly a different cause of death each time.”
“And you want the three of us to go in and just, what, not die?” I asked with a scoff.18
“Whatever is left of the Order goes in and out of there without issue. As well as a number of the locals in Iuka.” Oakes said. “They aren’t done with the place, and we think they’ve been fabricating the danger to keep people away until they can finish whatever they needed the place for in the first place.”
“Must be pretty important.” I said. “Given that most of them are dead.”
“You understand.”
“Wouldn’t it be more prudent to try to focus on McCown?” I asked. “If she’s the last Triarch member, she’s the one to eliminate.”
“Unless you feel like cozying up to Reeve’s and his kill team, I would put that on the back burner.” Landry said. “They’re pissed, and they want their ‘Sample’. The last vestiges of professional pride are the only reason we haven’t been wrangled into their revenge scheme.”
“So this is a undercover infiltration?” I said wryly.
“The undercover part is less important than speed. I want you and the rest of the team on the road before the end of the hour, and I want you back out of that place ASAP. You take too long, I can’t cover for you with March, and they’ll want that intel.”
“If they ask for it?” I asked, although I already knew the answer.
“If you’re in that situation, Jones, then you’re already fucked.” 19
I really wanted to swim in the fiction for this finale, establish all of the threats and stakes, even if it took me four chapters to get there, it felt right. March Tech, The Order of Midnight and The Program, with Kat, Jasper and Tracy in the middle of the chaos. And Jo, at least for now! This can only end well. Thanks for reading!
Oracle: Does Jo know about March? 50/50 82 No.
Oracle: Did she swipe Candela’s computer? 50/50 05 Extreme yes.
Oracle: Does she find anything related to March? 50/50 34 Yes. (Story Clue - Faction connected to a rumor or scandal)
Oracle: Anything on my phone? 50/50 17 yes. Oakes
Oracle: Did Candela knew about this? Likely- 82 No
End scene - Chaos factor 5 Test Scene - 3 Altered Scene - Reduce Activity (Travel - Team meets me. All Team? 21 Yes.)
Oracle: Dream the same as usual? 50/50 - 22 Yes - Random Event NPC negative - Choose(Rerolled and got March Kill Team) - SF Oracles ‘Attack-Revenge’
Oracle: Oakes? 50/50 43 Yes She alone? 50/50 84 No - Whole team? 50/50 20 Yes.
Oracle: Jo gone? Likely - 40 Yes
Oracle: Dead? 50/50 97 Extreme no. Another plant monster? 50/50 97 Extreme no The Order? Likely - 05 Extreme yes
Oracle: Does they tell me? 50/50 56 No.
Descriptors: Imposing - Simple and Small
Oracle: Anyone tell me? Unlikely - 36 No. INT X 5 to get it together - 43/55
Oracle: First priority getting into the facility? 50/50 40 Yes What’s the connection? Summon Dream (Azathoth vibes)
Oracle: Any intel on the facility itself? 50/50 60 No Are March sharing intel? 50/50 75 No
Oracle: March stopping people form going in? 50/50 67 No.
Oracle: Radioactive? 50/50 83 No. Rolled on SF Derelicts table - Mechanical
Oracle: Members of the order gone in and out? Likely - 44 Yes - Random Event - Remote Event - Manipulate Community
End Scene. Chaos factor 5. Test Scene - Interrupt Scene - NPC Action - 8 Choose - Combat Action - Cause unnecessary damage (March Kill Team? Yes)
Cool layer of corporate dread added to the cosmic horror!
Dang, I'm living the layers of conspiracy!