Operation Winter Strain: Chapter Two

Heading out to the Desert 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.

Thumbnail photo by SplitShire, with edits: https://www.pexels.com/photo/animal-dog-pet-dangerous-2238/

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Note: Kat’s Sanity has been wrong a few times, but I should have fixed it now! Her Sanity is 50 at the start of this Chapter, and her next breaking point is 39.

CDC Pop-up Lab 3PM

Jasper left to grab his fellow agent while I waited outside, the firearms in the gym bag on my back feeling like a dead weight. There was a lot of strange shit going on here, not just the blue corpses. I would have to grill Landry about whatever the hell N-Cell was when we were in private. Jasper and Joe squeezed passed the two grown men glaring at each other in the doorway and then guided me across the street to another portable cabin, this one with a small generator on the outside and a trio of hazmat suits hanging on a railing on the outside.

“You ever used one of these before?” The other agent, Joe, asked cheerfully.

“No. Why, are they complicated?” I answered. Joe and Jasper shared a look, and then began helping me into a suit, which was, in fact, very complicated.

“Have you ever read the descriptions of what it’s like to walk on the moon in a space suit?” Joe asked.

“What? Why?”

“Because these suits are very similar. They don’t let anything in, which is great when dealing with an unknown and possibly paranormal strain of flu.”

“But you’ll feel like the galaxy’s clumsiest spaceman while you’re in it.” Jasper said as he zipped me up. They were still talking to me but they sounded extremely muffled. Something about flexing my fingers. I flexed, and felt the stiff gloves move reluctantly. The other two pulled on their suits, and then a voice rang out clear through a speaker I hadn’t noticed.

“Squeeze your left hand any time you want to talk.” Jasper's voice said calmly. I squeezed, and the microphone crackled.

“How the fuck do you expect me to do a forensic examination in this get up?” I asked.

“Carefully” Joe said. He opened the door and led the way inside. There were three bodies in the cooler, two blue and one wrapped and covered off to the side. They were less horrifying, now that I was used to the swollen grotesque faces and the vibrant blue coloration. “I’ve taken samples from both corpses, and run tests. Both are positive for the virulent strain the first team isolated in the first spate of deaths. The bacteria is dead. If this was normal flu, I would feel confident sticking to surgical gloves and face coverings, but after Grant got sick out of nowhere, it's best we don’t take chances.” He pointed to a kit on a metallic table. It was a forensic kit, identical to the one I used in my day job. I looked at the small piece of kit and the clumsy thickness of my gloves and gave it a miss for now. I looked over both bodies through the thick screen of the suit. Anthony Walker had been cut out of his hazmat suit so the bulk of his body was out in the open, the tattered remnants of the suit on his arms and legs were cut and torn, in line with Jasper’s assumption of a knife or blade attack.¹ I couldn’t see anything of note glancing over the body.² There was gravel in the boots, and blood on the tears, but nothing that would be useful. I moved over to Agent Grant. The agents had unzipped some of his suit and removed his head covering. His left eye was a mess where a single low caliber bullet had taken him in the head. Death would have been instant.³ The flesh around the wound had turned blue, and I felt another twinge in my stomach. The body had been rigid a moment before, but it suddenly went slack, its head falling to the side and its single eye flailing on Jasper. I couldn’t see his reaction through the suit, but his voice sounded shaky as he said.

“Well that was creepy.”⁴

“There are no tears in the suit.” I said. “None that I can see, anyway.”⁵ Apart from the blue skin and the hole in his head, Agent Grant was clean. “Any idea how or when he would have gotten sick?” I asked.

“Grant and Snaez canvassed the infected neighborhood.” Jasper said. “It was the only time we split up since arriving. If he didn’t catch it from the body, that is the only place I can think of.”

“Anyone been sick since the last death?”⁶

“The state trooper that found the body.” Joe said.⁷ “Walker was screaming when they found him. One trooper ran to help and they quarantined him, but he passed away in the night. No other cases.” I spent the next half hour combing over the bodies, looking for any sign of something off, but I couldn’t see any clues as to how the Agent Grant had been infected, and no amount of poking and prodding would prove otherwise.

“I don’t think there’s much more to learn here.” I said, frustrated.

“We suspected as much.” Joe said tiredly. Jasper nudged his arm and he held up a stiffed gloved hand. “Not a criticism.” He added belatedly.

“It's fine. How have we been disposing of bodies?”⁸

“Initial CDC team convinced the county to let them burn them, once the samples had been taken.” Jasper said.⁹ “There was a bit of pushback, half of the bodies were grandparents or uncles or somebody's family. But then another few people died, and they erred on the side of caution.”

“Has anyone opened a body for an autopsy?”¹⁰

“We did.” Joe said. “The organs matched the flu diagnosis.” He paused for a moment. “Although apart from the damage to the lungs, the swelling and the blueness, they were all a picture of good health. Which considering the average age of the victims was a surprise.”

“Is there anything there, do you think?” I asked, clutching at straws.

“I have no idea. We would need more information to even hazard a guess.”

“Can we get the deceased's medical records?”¹¹

“Its all locked down. Our orders are to keep this as a case of flu. If we start digging up medical records of the deceased and badgering the living relatives, people are going to want to know why.”

“Did Grant have any life long medical conditions?” I asked¹²

“None that he shared with the team.” Jasper said softly. I realized I may have overstepped my bounds, and let the conversation end. We’d learned nothing of use, and I felt pretty fucking useless as we left the cooler.¹³

---

Maricopa Case Grande Highway 4PM

Landry had left, taking the SUV with him. Nathan, or Nate as his team called him, grumbled that they both needed to ‘cool off’ before he closed the door in my face.

“I’d like to say he’s normally more charming than this, but I would be lying.” Jasper said apologetically.¹⁴ I turned my head to smile ruefully at him when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. Passed the pop up lab, where the flat concrete of the site met the residential street, was a man. Tall, dressed in a tan trench coat and with a wide brimmed hat slid low to hide his features. Even with his face covered, I was sure they were watching us. Jasper had frozen next to me. He took a long breath through his nose and let it out through his mouth, squaring his shoulders. He walked towards the figure, a set look on his face and I followed but the figure turned to leave and Jasper broke into a run. I ran alongside him¹⁵, keeping pace with him as the man turned down a side alley.¹⁶ When we arrived, he was gone. Jasper clicked his tongue loudly and glared at the empty street.

“Fucker’s been all over town,” He growled. “He’s always gone when you try to catch him.”

“Who is he? Any idea?” Jasper rubbed his nose, as though it was bothering him. I wondered if he had a coke habit. It would be on brand for the CIA, from what the other Special Agents had told me. I felt guilty for thinking it when he sneezed a moment later and muttered about the cold. As we walked back to join Joe at the car Jasper looked at me with a conspiratorial side eye and murmured.

“What is he, is the more relevant question. He sure as shit ain’t human.”

---

We still had an hour left of daylight when we parked at the side of the Maricopa Casa Grande Highway. A token effort had been made to keep the site of Anthony Walker's body clear, but even with my limited survival skills, I could see that there had been a certain amount of foot traffic. Fortunately, Arizona was dry, even in the winter.¹⁷ We walked a perimeter of the location and after a brief search, I found where Walker’s body fell, indicated by an indent in the dust. And there, under the brush, was a handle. A long knife with an extremely narrow, double edged blade had been hidden amongst the dead grass.¹⁸ I pointed it out to the other agents, noting the slight spatter of blood before I bagged it. There had been no rain, and while it had been exposed to the elements, there was a good chance it had something on it I could lift with a forensic kit. I raised a hand to shade my eyes from the sun and looked around the area.¹⁹

“Any idea what that is?” I asked, pointing to a small, barely perceptible structure in the distance.²⁰

“According to the old map of the area, the only thing out here are the old warehouses used for industrial storage.” Joe said, squinting towards the setting sun. “I thought they had been demolished though.” He added.

“Logically, if Walker was running from an attacker or some form of danger, there is only so far he could have gone in a suit like the one he was found in. I think I would struggle to run any great distance in it, especially with all this brush, and uneven ground.”

“Agreed.” Jasper said, looking at the warehouse in the distance.

“Bares investigating, I suppose.” Joe said nervously. “Should I bring the car around?”²¹

---

Abandoned Warehouse 5PM

The other two left to bring the car around, leaving me to do a final scan of the scene, but I realized pretty quickly that there was little else to find. I squinted at the warehouse and frowned. With the sun low, the small box in the distance was hazy. We would be approaching after sundown which was good news if there was somebody there with ill intentions but I still didn’t like it. I froze as I felt something moving at my feet. Glancing down, I let out a sharp breath and a laugh. That damn same Collie was lounging across my feet, making itself at home with its head resting on its paws and it’s tail wagging lazily. I hadn’t seen it up close since Knight’s Lake, but there was no denying it. This was the same dog. I crouched down and rubbed her ears.

“What are you doing here girl?” I asked her softly. The dog’s leg kicked as I scratched her ears and I made vague cooing noises, much to the dogs delight. In the back of my mind, I could acknowledge that it was extremely fucking strange that this dog seemed to have followed me from Summercrest to Seattle and then inexplicably all the way to Arizona, but I felt the same sense of kinship with the dog that I felt when I first saw her barking up at Sheriff Bosworth. A kindred spirit. She looked up at me, and my hand froze in place as the dog's eyes met mine. Gone were the large, doe like brown orbs that I had seen before. Sharp, golden eyes stared back at me, the pupils narrow slits as they focused on me. I couldn't move. The air around me was still as the the dog bared her teeth in a wide, feral grin, before she lunged at me. Her jaws snapped around my forearm, the teeth breaking through the thin fabric of my parka and sinking into the flesh beneath as she bowled into me, knocking me on my ass. The pain snapped me to action, and I sank my boot into the dog's ribs with a rage induced scream.²² My kick threw it back, and I clutched my arm to chest, more from reflex than actual pain and scrambled to my feet. I felt the anger like a palpable tension in my jaw and chest and a different, unfamiliar feeling that I had trouble putting a name to. It came to me when I looked at the unapologetic, bloody maw of the Collie. Betrayal. It looked at me with it’s golden eyes and blood dripping from its mouth and rage filled me, sudden and fierce. I stepped forward, and the dog let out a whine, retreating.

“Jones?” A voice called from behind me. My head snapped around. Jasper stood at the edge of the brush, the stock of a Remington shotgun slung over his shoulder. He stopped in his tracks as his eyes took in the blood on my arm “Everything ok?” He asked. I ignored him, and turned back to the dog. She was gone.

---

I sat in the back of the car as Jasper drove, looking sullenly out of the window at the fading light. Joe was poking at my arm²³ with a first aid kit, but the bleeding had already stopped before I got into the car.

“You said a dog did this?” He asked. I grunted an affirmative, my eyes still locked on the passing desert scenery. “The wound isn’t deep.” he continued, “But it’s all jagged. Did you notice anything wrong with it’s mouth?”

“Like what?” I said absently.

“Dental hygiene, for a start.” He muttered. “It looks like its teeth were all jagged. This might scar, is all I’m saying.” I glanced down at my arm. I had removed my parka, although even with the heat blasting from the front of the car, I was still feeling the chill. An angry patchwork of cuts and the beginning of a nasty bruise took up the majority of my forearm. I clenched my fingers, and the skin strained, leaking a single bead of blood. It still hurt, but it looked like surface damage.

“Its not my first scar, and it probably wont be the last.” I said absently. Jasper’s eyes met mine through the rearview mirror and he shrugged, his jaw tense, the silvery line of his own scar flexing in his reflection.

“Very stoic.” Joe said jovially. “Keep it clean. Hopefully it wasn’t rabid”

We reached the old warehouse a little after sundown, around 5 PM. I loaded the MP5 and slid the suppressor onto the end before strapping the Bobcat to the back of my jeans. Jasper eyes both weapons keenly.

“Do you have a license for those ma’am?” he asked with a smile. I pointed to the pair of shotguns he and Joe were loading.

“Do you have one for those?” I asked with a wry smile. There was a little bit of wolf in the grin he shared with Joe.

“As far as anyone knows, these two are still with their shipment and are on their way to an undisclosed paramilitary organization with distinctly democratic and Pro-America intentions.” He racked the shotgun and held it low, in a ready position. “Let's get moving.”²⁴ There was a light at the back of the warehouse, faint but visible through the cracked wood and boarded windows. We needed to find a way in, so we skirted around the edge.²⁵ There was an entrance on the 2nd story, a fire door at the top of a rickety old staircase. The front entrance was large enough for a vehicle, but was boarded up and the side door on the ground floor was much too close to the light for comfort.

“Someone’s home.” Jasper said softly. I felt a thrum in my pocket and glanced down. I nodded over to the bushes nearby and Jasper gave me a quizzical look. I gave him a wave, and then ducked back to the car. It was Landry, which was unsurprising, given he should be the only person with my burner number. I answered and my eyes narrowed at his tone of voice.

“Where are you?” He said curtly. The sound of rustling paper was in the background, along with a murmuring voice that I couldn’t make it out. I filled him in briefly in the warehouse.²⁶ “Fuck.” He said. The phone line rustled for a moment, followed by a loud burst of static. “Look, Jones, Something is outside the cabin. Nathan and I are packed up, and we are going to make a break for the car and get out of here.”

“What?” I hissed. “What is it? Something unnatural?” I asked, stressing the word.²⁷

“I have no idea, but it keeps trying to smash the door in and all the tech has gone bananas, so I’m going to assume it's nothing good. Finish up what you're doing and head to the secondary rendezvous location. Got it?”

“What fucking secondary rendezvous location?” I asked urgently, but he had already hung up. “Fuck!”

---

A few threads I had been stewing on are going to start coming up now. I wasn’t sure how I wanted to do an overarching plot, and I wasn’t sure if Kat would even survive long enough to get there, but she’s a straight shooter, so here we are. I’m ending mid-scene due to the length, so next chapter will continue straight on from here. One note moving forward - Kat is now ‘Adapted’ to violence. this is because she has lost Sanity 3 times from violence without hitting her breaking point or going temporarily insane. I could have projected that 1 Sanity loss from the dog, but narratively, I think it works pretty well. This has one pretty cool perk, at least from the Solo perspective; Kat now automatically passes all Sanity tests related to violence, as she is so used to violence that it doesn’t bother her (much). Unfortunately, this means she looses 1d6 Charisma as her ability to empathize takes a hit, as well as the same amount from all of her bonds. I rolled a 2, which is very lucky, dropping her down to 13 Charisma. Most of her bonds are doing ok, but her relationship with her mother is now in dire straits at a 3. I’ll try to work this all in moving forward!

1. Skill: Forensics -20%(Hazmat Suit) 65/41

2. Skill: Search -20%(Hazmat Suit) 67/57

3. Oracle: Have they cut him out? 50/50 55 - Yes and Random event (Ambiguous event - Triumph of peace.)

4. Skill: Search -20%(Hazmat Suit) 80/57 Tears or holes in hazmat suits? Unlikely 46 - No.

5. Skill: Forensics -20% (Hazmat Suit) 63/43 Failure.

6. Oracle: Any more sickness? Impossible 14 Yes - Deaths? Yes. People that found the body? Yes.

7. Oracle: Walker Alive when found? 50/50 24 - Yes

8. Oracle: Are they burning the bodies? 50/50 56 - Yes.

9. Oracle: Are all the people loners/outsiders? Likely 85 - No.

10. Oracle: Autopsy? 50/50 26 - Yes. Find anything? Unlikely - 34 Yes. Bigger organs? - 75 No. Increased Health? Likely - 13 Yes.

11. Oracle: Access to the deceased medical records? Unlikely - 68 No.

12. Oracle: The team aware of any medical conditions for Agent Grant? 50/50 - 71 No.

13. End Scene. Chaos Factor 7. Test Scene - 8. Scene as Expected.

14. Skill: Alertness 33/68.

15. Skill: Athletics 47/56

16. Oracle: Is he there? Impossible - 96 Extreme no

17. Skill: Search 11/80 What do I find? ‘Delayed object’ Weapon? - 26 yes. Does it indicate a location? - 76 No. Weapon distinctive? 50/50 - 06 Extreme yes.

18. Skill: Occult 72/27

19. Oracle: Are there any visible structures? 50/50 71 - yes. Small? 50/50 - 03 Extreme yes

20. Oracle: Does anyone know what it is? Very Unlikely - 29 Yes.

21. End Scene Chaos Factor - 6 Test Scene - 6 - Interrupt scene - NPC Action - Dog.

22. Sanity: (Violence) 93/50 -1 Sanity. -1 HP Kat is now Adapted to violence. You may notice her act a little differently. I’ll explain adaption at the end!

23. Oracle: First aid kit? Likely 14 Yes. NPC Skill: First Aid: 64/70

24. Oracle: Any lights? Unlikely 15 - Yes. 1st floor? 50/50 - 62 Yes.

25. Skill: Search 39/80. Entrance near the light? Unlikely - 66 - No. Remote Event - Overthrow Work. Something happened to Landry and Nathan. Do they call? 50/50 08 Extreme yes.

26. Oracle: Currently Under attack? 50/50 23 Yes.

27. Oracle: Does he know? Unlikely - 95 Extreme no.