Jonah got back in the car, closing the door.
“What now, Jason?”
“Now we’ll get some first aid kits at the chemist and some painkillers for them, then we take a break and drop the package off in Chicago, as discussed…”
He looked in the mirror, locking eyes with Shackleton on the backseat. This should have been an easy one, just a quick drop-off to ease the new guys into Delta Green…
January 1997, 12 hours earlier
“What are you doing with my car?”
Jason got up and look behind him, where the voice came from
“Knight. They got you on this babysit job… hang on. They said I’d meet Jules here, did you…”
“Yeah, they transferred me to J-cell”
He nodded and started going through the trunk. Mexican money, clown masks, a shotgun, red toolbox containing… teeth… Yeah, looked like someone had fun at an Opera. They cleaned up the back seat which was full of rubbish, and hid the loaded shotgun under a blanket.
Jules emptied a bottle of vodka that he had found over the spot where an old burger had gone rancid and moldy, which annoyed Jason. Waste of vodka, even if it’s a cheap one, is still a waste…
“So, what’s the job, Jason?”
“Got to follow two Mules, Jonah and Joseph. Guess they’re the new additions to J-cell now…” Jason almost added something, but didn’t and lit a cigarette instead, inhaling deeply.
“They’re picking up a package at 1900, then head to a drop-off point. We’re here to eyeball them, just make sure the job gets done. Easy. Right?”
He got behind the wheel and took off, giving Knight-Jules the address of the pick-up point, and also the coordinates of the eventual destination, which turned out to be somewhere near Chicago.
Jules grabbed a box that he had brought from the backseat, and opened it, revealing a bottle of more than decent single malt and two glasses. He poured a decent measure in them and handed one to Jason.
“To Jude and Jasper”
It took a second for Jason to process this. The two previous members had been gone for close to six months now. Other things had happened. Trying to get things sorted at work, get back in the good books. The call from Sue, telling him she couldn’t handle their daughter anymore, and that she had decided it was time for Jason to take care of her. Cleaning out the house, so there wasn’t anything for his daughter to find. The surprise he got when he found her reading through some of his occult books. A visit to the doctor, giving him the Bad News (“Don’t worry we caught it early, you should be OK”). Chemo. Pills. No Ops.
“Yeah… to Jude and Jasper…”
It didn’t take them long to reach their first destination and Jason slowly drove past the pick-up point, turned the car and parked, taking his time to observe the other cars and area. All seemed quiet.
About fifteen minutes later, another car turned the corner and pulled up at the location. Jason handed his binoculars to Jules, who had a good look.
“Two guys, one is going to the door, another guy handed him something, looks like some kind of cylinder. There’s another guy, he… well hello…”
“What?”
“Nothing. Just that I’ve seen this guy before, on my last Op.”
Jason waited until the other car had left and turned the corner, then lit up another cigarette and followed them, checking the GPS which showed a blinking light.
“Looks like the tracker is working”
They had followed them for a few hours now. They were making good progress, the guy driving the other car pushing it a bit, going just over the speed limit. Not enough to get fined, but enough for a patrol car to notice. Jason made a note to fill them in on that. Apart from that they seemed to do well, Jules had checked regularly, confirming the two FNG’s were doing OK. They had pulled over at a petrol station, one of them had gone in, Jules as well, then back on the road.
“Did you see that guy?”
“What guy?”
“The one in the car that just overtook us. He looked… strange…”
Jason could still see the guys taillights in front of him, going fast. Way too fast. He picked up speed himself, closing the distance to the other DG car. A few moments later the other car barreled into a vehicle, coming to a stand-still.
“Here we go”Jason hit the brakes and Jules was out of the vehicle before it had come to a full stand-still, running towards the other DG vehicle. Jason saw movement, two guys getting out of the wrecked car, another guy heading towards them. He accelerated but missed the attacker. He turned the car and got out, taking the shotgun and aiming it at the attacker while moving closer. He was fighting one of the FNGs, the other he had seen running off. Jules was going around the car and had grabbed something of the backseat. The guy fighting the assailant had made a move, giving Jason a clear line of fire. He pulled the trigger, blasting the guy’s head apart… it split… the leftovers of the head turned grey… as well as part of his clothes. Something was wrong. Something looked familiar. Groversville… the thing in the bathroom… he saw the split head move, parts reconnecting.
“Fuck…”
He saw the new guy take off, running back towards the car. Good. He had the right reflex. Alphonse’s Axiom nr 13: If you're attacked, break contact. Do not stand and fight when the opposition has the initiative. Retreat, regroup at the rally point, go back later and kill them in their sleep.
Jason turned and moved as quick a he could back to the car. Newbie had taken the driver’s seat, and he saw the other new guy jump in the back and Jules in the passenger seat. He opened the backdoor and threw himself in, just as the new guy took off. A container was strapped in the middle of the backseat. They took off at speed.
A few minutes later, he told the driver to slow down a bit, stay just under the maximum speed. Next to Jason, Shackleton lit a cigarette. Hang on… there were only 4 of them in the car before. Now five. The guy was sitting in the middle, holding the container. Beefy guy, crew cut, older suit. Looked like a typical Fed. Jason was sure that there were only four of them when they left, and now there were five. The others didn’t seem to find this odd. He looked at Jules, signalling to Shackleton with his eyes, but Jules didn’t react. How did he even know he guy’s name?
“Right, so who’s Joseph?”
The driver put his hand up. He had recognized Jules as well, and they had been talking for a moment. Jason hadn’t paid attention, instead looking at the guy at the other side of the backseat.
“So you’re Jonah”
A nod.
“Either of you got combat experience or can handle firearms?”
Joseph confirmed, Jonah shook his head
“So, what’s your expertise, Jonah?”
“History, archaeology, anthr…”
“OK, that’s enough for now.”
Alright. A cop or a fed and an academic. That shifted the balance a bit more from Cowboys to where Jason liked it to be. He started putting a text message together for A-cell.
*Kaleidoscope compromised
*Package secure
*MULES secure, continuing in single vehicle
*MULES attacked by entity: human-sized, made up from similar substance as
entity encountered in motel bathroom (Operation: Magenta).
* Entity immune to kinetic damage, regenerates VERY fast
*Entity lost means of transport
*J-Cell continuing to coordinates unless instructed differently.
*Joined by Agent Shackleton
*Awaiting further instructions
*Deliver package.
*Eliminate vector.
*Shackleton?
*Jonah, Joseph and third agent in car. Shackleton. Experienced.
* Negative
*Crew cut, light brown hair, heavy set, approx.. 6ft.
Late 30s, early 40s, green eyes, dated suit
* NegativeSo A-cell didn’t know this guy.
“We can either go to the destination or take a stop at the green-box in Kansas city. It’s not really a detour, and it might give us an edge of that thing catches up with us. Downside: stopping at the green-box will reduce the head start we have on it. Thoughts?”
He listened to what they thought about it. Opinions were divided, but Shackleton kept budding in, pushing to know where they were going, getting more anxious as time went past, started mentioning Sky Devils. Majestic-12. Really didn’t want to go wherever we were heading.
Sky Devils. Jason had heard that before. Seen it somewhere… in some notes or something…. At Clive Baughman’s place, that’s right. He couldn’t remember the exact details though.
“Jonah, get some shut-eye, Jules, you keep your eyes open while Joseph drives. We’re continuing to our destination. No stop at the green-box.”
Jason closed his eyes, looking as if he went to sleep. He kept listening for a bit as Shackleton kept trying to convince the others of not doing this, but to go somewhere else, to a guy he knew.
Jason woke up, cursing himself for falling asleep. The car had made a sudden movement and Joseph was muttering something about having taken an exit where he shouldn’t. Jason looked at Shackleton, who was smoking and looking ahead of him. Jason sighed and lit a cigarette up himself.
“Don’t worry about it. Set up the GPS for the green-box, we’re bound to head there anyway, and I don’t want any accidents to happen…”
They made their way to the self-storage facility and Jason had taken both the new guys in, shown them the green-box and explained how these worked. They had grabbed all the firearms (AKs and handguns) they could find as well as an axe and an entrenching tool. He had a word in private with both of them in regards to Shackleton. Jonah said he met him at the airport, but then got confused, and couldn’t really remember exactly where and when they met. He said that Shackleton had been with them all along. From what Jason and Jules had observed, there had only been 2 people in the other car up to the point where they all had jumped in the same car. That’s when he had seen Shackleton the first time.As they returned, it was clear the Shackleton had been working on the others, setting them up against Jason. In how far it had worked, Jason had no clue.
After about half an hour, they realized they wouldn’t find a chemist in the area and returned to the motel. Jason pulled over and gave Jonah a nod.
“Take the first aid kid from the glove box, and there should be another one in the room. Jules has some kind of first aid training, I think, he’ll sort it out. I’ll go and park the car.”
Jonah reached over to the container
“Leave it, Jonah, I’ll bring it with me in a second.”
He watched the newcomer leave, then looked in the rear-view mirror at the three people on the backseat, lit a cigarette and drove around the corner.
Two hours earlier
Jason and Jonah swapped seats with Joseph and Jules, and Jason continued driving on the highway towards Chicago, all the while being nagged by Shackleton. All of the sudden, there was a flash in the sky that moved forward at great speed. Next, headlights flared up behind their car. Jason accelerated and kept to the middle of the road, while the others opened their windows and grabbed AKs and the shotgun.
“Right… light the fucker up”
They didn’t react immediately and Jason looked in the mirror. Clearly, they tried to make sure this was the thing that was after them and not some innocent bystander. Someone fired a warning shot.
Jason was annoyed, Axiom 17 automatically popping into his head: Give no "fair warnings." Surprise is the only advantage you have then focused on the road as Joseph opened full auto on the vehicle behind them, while Jules blasted away with the shotgun. They must have been pretty accurate because within a matter of seconds, he could see the headlights behind him go in all directions as their pursuer lost control of the vehicle.
Then, a white flash. Their own car out of control. Flipping over. Screeching. Sparks. Bright stars flashing before him. The car came to a standstill.
“Everyone out! Get the package!”
They all got out, Jason and Joseph able to grab an AK and started aiming at the other vehicle, where that Thing was also coming out of. Jonah crawled out of the same side, dragging the package and was about to take off when Jason called him to stay near. There was no way he was going to be able to find Jonah in the fields, if he took of like he had done previously. Then, bursts were fired at the thing. Jules had grabbed the shotgun and let off a few shots too. He was hurt, but not as badly as Joseph, whose arm was bleeding badly. They had shot the thing up pretty well, but somehow the damage did not stop or slow it down. Then, Joseph and Jason saw something in the air. Something Jason had seen before, at Groversville. Some wasp-like creature, human sized, perhaps even bigger, with large wings and strange appendages.
Jason felt some bile rise up in the back of his throat, but he kept it together. He glanced over at Joseph, who had a strange glimmer in his eyes, and opened up fully automatic. He hit the thing mid-center, a perfect shot. It turned and pointed some strange implement at Joseph, that same kind of thing that the creature in Groversville had pointed at Jules. A massive discharge burst through the air, narrowly missing Joseph and creating a crater in the tarmac behind them. Jason opened up and was sure that he had hit the thing… but it wasn’t there anymore, it had somehow shifted a few meters. Further up, Jules fired his shotgun at the humanoid, while it was struggling with Jonah to get the container.
Joseph opened up again, emptying his clip into the flying thing, hitting it again, and shredding it. It fell down, and immediately the effect was visible on the humanoid attacker. It didn’t regenerate as quickly, and Jules was able to dispatch it quickly.
He doused it in single malt and lit it up, while Jonah kept close to Jason, who pulled the turtleneck of his shirt in front of his mouth and put the hoodie up. Joseph had run up to the other vehicle and was trying to change the tire that he had shot a minute ago. Jason signaled a car to stop, keeping the AK aimed at the chauffeur, who looked like a truck driver. The man stopped, kept his hands visible and got out of the car. Jason got Jonah to check if the man was armed. Jonah shook his head, all clear.
“I’m sorry, but we need your vehicle. Keep running the way you came from and don’t stop”. The truck driver blinked a few times, then turned and ran off.
They all got in the car and continued the trip. Shackleton became more and more agitated. He kept going on that they were going to deliver the package to Majestic-12, that he didn’t want to go back, that it was a set-up.
He wanted them to take the parcel to a friend, an old cell mate called Simon. Jason asked him where he could find Simon, to shut him up. Jason had a good think and realized he had lost track of Shackleton during the fight. He hadn’t seen the man come out of the car or get to the commandeered vehicle. He had just been there on the back seat, all of the sudden.
Jason blinked. Jonah was looking at him, and so where the others on the back seat.
“What?”
They looked at him as if he had been in the middle of a conversation he had no recollection of.
“What???”
“You just totally changed your mind, you asked where to go to to find this Agent Simon…”
“Screw this, none of this rubbish anymore, we’re delivering this package in Chicago, and that’s it. If I change my mind again, it’s him messing with me, OK?”
Jason accelerated and turned the radio up, to tune the conversation on the back seat out. He still caught snippets, Shackleton droning on and on about Sky Devils. The man seemed to be getting more worked up, to the point of desperate.Jason looked across the barrel of his silenced gun, which was aimed at Jules’ face. He took a long, deep breath.
“OK… what happened, Jules?”
“You pulled over, and told Jonah to take the container and run with it…”
Jason reversed the gun and gave it to Jules.
“Hang on to my gun, this is getting ridiculous.”
He looked at Shackleton, and lit a cigarette.
“Right… you got my attention good and proper now. What do you want?”
Shackleton repeated the same over again, this time a bit more coherent. How he had fought against the Sky Devils with his cell. How something had happened, and he had no recollection of a long time, how he was sure we were going to deliver him back to Majestic-12, not Delta Green. How those wasp-like creatures were after him and wanted to take him home (he looked up into the sky). How they had experimented on him.
Jason tuned the others out and started thinking, looking for solutions. something wasn't right about this. There was no Shackleton. He was sure of that. There had been 2 guys in the car at the facility, the same two guys at the petrol station. Joseph and Jonah. When they took off in the car together there had been another guy. Out of the blue. Jules hadn't reacted to it or thought it odd. But Jason knew the guy wasn't there when he got in and ... then he was. He had given him his shotgun to reload. Shackleton hadn't. They had gotten into another fight and again, no Shackleton to be seen until they got back in the car. Shackleton had to be linked to the package, that cylinder. Some kind of mind control. It had done it to Joseph first, forcing him off the road, then twice to Jason, when he didn't want to go along with this Agent Simon business. Whatever it was, the entity knew a lot of DG protocols. About Majestic-12. Sky-devils.
"Alright, Shackleton, tell me about Agent Simon."
"Ok. He's a cell-mate. I shouldn't tell you this, but his name is Clive Baughman and he..."
Jason stopped hearing the rest. Baughman. Operation Lazarus. He didn't exactly remember all of the details, but the guy had been very busy, more than ten Ops in about ten years. and he had gone inactive in the late 60s. And been dead for over a year.
"Baughman is dead, Shackleton..."
Shackleton fell silent. Jason observed him in the mirror, seeing confusion in the man's... thing's.. whatever... eyes.
"Then... you got to let me go."
Jason thought things over while driving. Sky-devils. They clearly were the wasp-like creatures. He let his mind wander over Magenta. Those things had been there. Together with other things. Greys. Experimenting on people. That is what happened to Shackleton. And they had locked him up. Done something to him that was linked to that cylinder. Somehow it was able to influence them, communicate with them. The mission was to drop the parcel of in Chicago.
He looked in the rear view mirror again, casting his eyes over J-cell. Jules. The guy had seen stuff. He had been there at Magenta. And Iago. He might understand and agree what the right thing to do was in this case. The others, clearly new to this. The whole Shackleton thing already shook them, as he had clearly seen in Jonah's eyes in the Green Box. They didn't need this. First mission, and going against the rules, not following orders. Ignorance is bliss. Jules would probably suspect something. The guy wasn't stupid.
"Sounds like you've had a rough time, Shackleton. We've been up against those things before, and the stuff that has happened to you could have happened to us as well. Could have happened to Jasper too for all we know."
Jason made eye contact with Jules.
"How bout we get to a motel first, and see about getting these guys patched up and then we'll have a think about how to sort this...?"
Jason turned the corner and sped up, leaving the motel. Jonah, Joseph and Jules behind him.
"Where do you want to go, Shackleton?"
"Just end it, I don't care about anything else"
Jason looked in the mirror, and saw Shackleton sitting there, sagging shoulders, flanked by Nancy who was fidgeting with something and Norman, who was staring out of the window.
Now
"There you go, Jason, your first failed Op."
"I didn't fail the Op, Norman. In my books Kaleidoscope was a success."
Steam was coming from the bonnet, and the front of the car was crumpled where it had hit the concrete wall, somewhere on an industrial estate. Jason folded his knife and put it away
He looked at the dented cylinder next to him, and the fluid that slowly leaked out of it.
Agent Shackleton. Missing in Action: date unknown. Retired: 1997.
He picked up the phone and dialed the number.
"A-cell? This is Jason. Kaleidoscope compromised. Package destroyed..."
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