Operation Goldilocks

 April 12th, 199_
Jason dropped his bag on the bed of the Mayfield Heights Comfort Inn, located a few miles east of the PD. As tiring as he was and as inviting as the bed looked, he sat down at the small desk area, pulled the file our of his case and connected and booted the laptop.

He rubbed his eyes, and he filled a glass with two of the small bottles of Scotch from the bar fridge and opened the folder. He glanced over some of the papers inside, while taking his pen and new notepad. Realizing he had forgotten something, he got up, winced, and limped to the nightstand, returning with the King James bible in his hand, looking up Exodus. Sipping from the Scotch, he read through the passage. 

He took a deep breath and started typing out a field report to A-Cell:

• Information gathered by FBI
• No information yet that GL could be part of an organization. 
• So far no indication why the girl was abducted
• Steps taken
• House GL has been investigated with Agent Herschel. No links found that tie GL to DG. Agent Jonah found a book and some notes pertinent to Op: Goldilocks, was able to hide them without knowledge of Agent Herschel.
• Book contains excerpts of Exodus, as well as a chapter called Kenyan Revelations, written by Balfour. He met a “wise prophet” there. Last chapter includes Enochian drawings, thaumathurgical triangles, mathematical formulas without explanation. Possibility of hypergeometry being a factor in this case.
• Suggested to Agent Herschel he follows up on any further information gathered on GL and possible further info on the Church of the Passover Angel, while we take care of the routine follow up, such as talking to GL’s daughter and ex-wife. As no intel was found in GL’s house, there may be the possibility that he stashed info with them.
• To consider:
• Possible coincidence but have witnessed a number of things that match up with Plagues of Egypt (Flies in interview room, large amount of frogs in GL garden, GL’s cat covered in boils). Raises suspicion that hypergeometry being a factor in this case, and that something is already set in motion. 
• In my opinion, GL was still on the job. He found something out about the Church of the Passover Angel and tried to infiltrate in the last 3 years (known to the Balfours as Zac Nowinski.
• Clearly his aim was to isolate the girl, not to eliminate. He has enough opportunity to do this, but chose to get her away with his accomplice, while returning inside Wallmart, making sure all attention was on him and that SWAT team went for him, rather than attention being on the car.
• Leads to believe that Regina is instrumental in what is coming (Sacrifice? Vessel?).
• Church of Passover Angel needs to be investigated. J-Cell insufficient, will have to include Herschel, possible he will want to include local PD backup.
• Notes found by Jonah include underlined passages (red ink) and letters marked with a green triangle (A-H)
• Could be GL leaving intel to be found by us in case something went wrong. No SIGINT skills in J-Cell atm. Can fax a copy, recommend getting this checked ASAP.

He hit the SEND button and turned the laptop off, then took his notebook, walked into the bathroom and burnt it in the sink. He looked in the mirror and went over the other events. Knight is gone. Or soon will be. Joseph wasn’t cut out for the job. Apart from Jonah, there was no J-Cell. He remembered the conversation in the car, cursing the E-cell agent for bringing the others up. “Fuck you, Eve…”

Jonah… Jason sighed. Jonah seemed to be ok. Observant. But clearly totally out of his depth, didn't even have an idea what the Organization was about. The only advantage with Jonah was that he seemed to know a bit about the esoteric part, from an academic point of view. That may be an advantage once it showed him that there is more to the rituals than what he had learnt over the years, and as a result make him a more reliable asset than … well, it wasn’t like there was anyone else out here to help.
Jason made a note to check with Jonah what the dates for Passover were this year, it felt like they may be on a timed schedule if this was some kind of ritual. 

If this is going to be anything like that, the FNG would have to grow up fast. There was no way he could do another ritual like that by himself, he never recovered what he lost there, in that dark room. Agent Herschel seemed to be on top of things, at least on the surface. Jason knew the type. Young, competent, motivated and with an intent to climb the ladder as quickly as possible. Herschel had the look of one of those ambitious agents. 
He hated involving outsiders, but this Opera may need more than just him and Jonah. He just wasn’t sure Herschel would be easily convinced. If this was anything like Iago, circumstances could make Herschel realize he wasn’t in Kansas anymore… 

An unease took hold of Jason, which he tried to wash down with another double Scotch.

He dropped his glass, spilling the liquid all over the grey carpet.
In that room in Meadowbrook, the Black Man… The Thing just stood there, holding out its ebony matte hands, warning him not to do it. 

But it never tried to stop him. 

And when he had uttered those last words, just before it disappeared, it had laughed, like it knew something Jason didn't…

Operation Kaleidoscope

Jason watched Agents Joseph and Jules walk into the motel room that Jonah had booked minutes ago. They both seemed a bit worse for wear but would be OK in the next few days or weeks.
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

*Affirmative.
*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

* Negative

So 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..."

Epilogue Operation Magenta (Agent Jason)

October 6th, 1996, 10:32pm

 Jason sat in front of the fireplace, staring into the flames. On the coffee table lay a letter sized envelope, as well as a small cardboard shoe-box.

“Well fuck me sideways, you did it again! That’s twice now, pal!” 

Norman exclaimed while looking at one of the paintings on the wall of the cabin’s living area.

“Your whole fucking cell gone, yet you still stand. How the fuck do you pull that off, you cripple?” 

He chuckled and leaned in closer to the canvas, squinting at the painted deer, surrounded by the hunting dogs.

“That one’s a goner… Did Jude have the same startled look in his eyes?”

Nancy walked over from the kitchen area, carrying two glasses and sat down on the lounge next to Jason. She poured two vodkas, one for Norman, one for herself. Jason’s glass was still full. She looked over at him, with a slight sad smile, but couldn’t hide the worried look in her eyes.

“Are you ok? You seem more… together… than last time”

She looked around the cabin. Jason had taken the time over the last few days to give the place a thorough clean. After his extended period of self-pity, he had decided it was time to get thing back on track. Getting rid of all the rubbish and scrubbing the floors felt like a good place to start.

He nodded.

“Yeah, I’m ok. It… doesn’t really affect me, to be honest. Jude and Jasper had been overstretched for a while now. I knew it during Monolith, Jude tried to shoot me after he lost it, and after killing Joshua I think he would never recover. Jasper…” 

Jason picked up his glass and looked at the ice-cubes clinking together.

“I have no clue where Jasper is, but I have indicated to A-cell to burn any links tying us to Jasper and clear all Green Boxes known to him. Those guys may have killed him, but at the same time they may have brainwashed him, and plan to use him against us.”

He drank a good measure of the Smirnoff.

“Anyway… I had given both of them an out, they didn’t want to take it. I was willing to give Jasper a bit of a break, he wasn’t as far gone as Jude…”

“…And he WAS right about the water…” Norman snorted

“Yes, that he was…” A slight smile appeared on Jason’s lips, but disappeared quickly, to be replaced by a frown.

“Both of them were cowboys. Jude going against the rules each and every time, taking his own gun and vest all the time, risking exposure. Jasper pulling Bill in like that…” Jason shook his head.

“So… what happened with Bill?” Nancy asked.

“The usual. I took him for a drive, gave him the basic drill, telling him to keep his mouth shut, you know how it works when Friendlies get pulled in. I passed his details on to A-cell, they’re checking the guy out. He’s seen more than enough to rope him in, and was reliable under fire, facing the shit we were up against. I think he’d be a good asset.”

“Would have been kinder to retire them in the back of the car, but you’re right, we’re always short of meat for the grinder.” Norman leaned forward to pick up his drink and tapped on the envelope and box. “What’s this?”

Jason looked at the items, then back to the fire.

“I had decided to retire Jude after this Op. He was deadest to continue in the field, not in the slightest interested in taking a tutorial role and being reassigned to Friendly level. He wanted “a Last Op” as he put it. I tried to shield him during Magenta, not for his own benefit, but for the safety of the rest of the team. Last thing I needed was for him to go berserk and take one of us out. Then, at the barn I decided it would be best to use him… rather than risk Knight. Or Jasper.”

“Yeah, and the only reason you didn’t volunteer for the job is because you probably couldn’t even get on that ladder with your gimpy leg…” Norman grinned.

Jason ignored him and continued, looking at the box and envelope

“I had already planned an option in case he would survive Magenta. A-cell has this philosophy about keeping agents as long as possible in the field, because of lack on manpower, but at the same time they lose people just because of that. Bit of a catch-22 that I decided to break before it broke J-cell.”

He slid the items across the table to Norman, who opened the envelope first. From it, he pulled a number of faxed sheets that he laid out on the table. They looked like an FBI case file, supplemented with autopsy pictures.

Jason got up and stretched, his hand on the solid oak mantelpiece.

“You may remember me telling you way back about what happened during Sanctum? How Jude came back and gave me a mouthful? How he all but said he’d have killed me if I had taken out those kids? How he drugged them and we drove them back to Boston, then left them sleeping in the van so a different cell could sort the aftermath out? I never had any illusions as what would happen in the end.”

He nodded at the envelope’s contents

“Turns out I was wrong. It wasn’t a clean-up crew that disposed of the kids. Just over a week or so after Sanctum I got a call from Jagger. All edgy, needed to talk. He told me how he had been contacted by A-cell for another Op, right after Sanctum.” Jason bent over and pulled a single sheet from the others, so Norman and Nancy could read it.

After a few moments, giving them time to read the briefing, he continued.

“So… Jagger did the autopsies, and, as you can see in the copies of the official reports, he reported smoke inhalation. The kids had been dropped off back to the orphanage by the other cell and were found by the authorities. Case closed, kids died in the fire, nothing to see here. But that’s not what had happened. Jagger told me what he actually had found. The five bodies were malnourished and all had minor, old to recent, non-lethal, torture wounds. They ranged in age from 3 to 5 years old. Jagger said they had traces of Acepromazine still present in their system that would have credited to their deaths.  They just never woke up.”

In the silence, the only thing that could be heard was the ticking of the old clock and the crackling of the fire.

“So… Jude had insisted on drugging them, using the stuff we had planned to use on the dog, and had overdone it. Killed 5 kids. I told Jagger to keep it quiet and not mention it to anyone else. There would be a time and place for this. So, after I saw him back on the Magenta Op, and noticed that the break hadn’t had a positive effect on him to recover, I decided to use it as backup after the Op.”

Nancy raised an eyebrow, not sure what he meant. Jason nodded to the small box, which Norman was just about to open. Inside was a .38 revolver.

“In case the Op was a success, and Jude was still alive, I planned to find a secluded spot and send Jude unarmed into the woods with the envelope and the box. The gun only has one bullet in it. I expected the contents would have sent him over the edge, perhaps killing himself, perhaps going berserk again and coming for me or the other. I would have made sur that the others would be notified that I expected Jude to lose it and come back, trying to kill us, and that they should prepare to take him out.”

Noticing Nancy’s incredulous look, he emptied his glass.

“Like I said, Jude made it clear to me he would have killed me if I harmed those kids. Only seemed fitting he would reserve the same judgement for himself…”

Norman gathered the papers and put them back in the envelope, then got up with a wide grin and looked at Nancy.
“Kids… they grow up so quickly!”

He handed the envelope to Jason, who chucked it into the fireplace, no longer in need of the contents. As Nancy and Norman left, he washed his glass in the sink, looking outside into the darkness of the night. Now, there was one other thing to take care of…

Once the embers in the fire had gone out, he closed and locked the door and left the empty hunting lodge, in the middle of nowhere.

***

Jason dialed the number on the landline, listening to the ring tone at the other end. After about 5 rings, someone at the other side picked up.

“Sue? I need you to listen and pay attention, so don’t hang up. I have thought about our last conversation, and how you wanted me to sign the papers giving you full custody of Emily… Yes, hang on and hear me out. It’s not going to happen…” 

He stopped for a second, listening to the barrage of abuse that was thrown at him.

“Okay… here’s the story. You’re an accomplice in a federal crime. If you open your mouth, I’ll drag you down with me. If it doesn’t result in jail time for you, it will at least damage your reputation, and you’ll be able to forget about the rest of your career when this hits the papers, and believe me, I'll make sure it does... I don’t think any of this will be of benefit to our daughter. And think what it will do to the old man, he thinks the world of you…”

He stopped for a moment to let it sink in with his ex-wife

“So… we’ll keep things as they are, and there will be no more mention of this in the future. You only have yourself to blame for this, I wouldn’t have resorted to it if you didn’t try to blackmail me with custody. Goodnight.”

He hung up and looked around as he put his coat on and took his keys. Now it was time to make some changes at work. Get back in the good books. While waiting for the next Op.

Operation Magenta (Session 12, Agent Jason)

Tuesday, October 2^nd, 1996, 08:23am

“If you want to shoot him, go ahead, but realize that you’ll be calling down the local cops on us. Even though we will probably get away by shooting a way out of here, there’s no way we’ll be able to finish this Op and put an end to what’s going on here…”

Jason looked at Jasper, who held a raised gun at Jude and seemed less than a second away from shooting the Agent. His knuckles turned white on the grip. Something in Jason’s voice must have reached Jasper, because he blinked a few times and slowly moved the finger away from the trigger, but kept it aimed at Jude’s head.

Monday October 1^st, 1996

Jason finished his cigarette while looking out of the window of the motel room. He saw Knight walk back and a bit further away Jude was blowing the horn repeatedly. After a few moments Jasper walked out of the reception area and got in the car. They drove off, heading to the agreed meeting place out of town.

Jason took his time, driving to the diner with Knight, picking up some coffees and taking the time for a quick chat with the waitress they met yesterday. Then they headed west as well.

They found the others shortly after and told them to drive on and take the first road or driveway on the left. Once they were out of sight of the main road, they pulled over. It didn’t take long to get to the point. Jasper and Jude realized that their time in town was running out. Jason had given them a page out of his notepad with things he wanted them to do. They agreed to call in every 2 hours and keep each other up to date if new developments would arise.

Knight and Jason drove back into town, straight to the Sheriff’s office. They were told Sheriff Oakley was looking for them and were led into his office. He started straight away about the two DEA agents, and came across defensive, to the point of aggressive. Jason had expected this and played to it, apologizing for the behavior of the two, telling the sheriff he knew all two well how they could behave, that he and Knight had been on the receiving end of it themselves. This seemed to work, as Oakley relaxed a bit and told them that he only wanted for his town to be left in peace.

He then proceeded on telling them he had been contacted by Mrs Allen, and that she had informed him about what had happened at her house. Jason felt Oakley was about to get all uppity again and blocked it off by explaining that the woman had no idea where her daughter was, this only a week or so after the boyfriend had disappeared. The Sheriff seemed a bit more understanding but asked them to tread lightly.

Oakley told them that Deputy Glenn Patterson would show them the way to the Spivey’s, making it clear that they would be observed in how they acted. At the home of Billy Ray things seemed normal. The mother, Angel Spivey, was grieving, as was to be expected, and was comforted by her sister Amy and brother in law, Joe Crista. No new information was gained and nothing in Billy Ray’s bedroom seemed to be out of the ordinary.

They said their goodbyes and drove over to the house of Doctor Simms. Again, very little could be discovered. The only additional information that was able to give to them, was that there were more people who had lost memory of a period of time. He reluctantly gave the names and addresses of Bud Aldrich and Louisa May.

From there, they decided it was time to tackle Alderman Allen. They made their way to the town hall, and decided to split up, in case whomever spoke to the alderman would somehow be “affected” like Mrs Allen was. Knight had a close look at the car of alderman Steve Allen and noticed it clearly had been parked there for quite a while. Jason spoke to one of the employees behind the counter but was told there was no way to see the Alderman until 10am the next day. He tried to push a bit, making clear this was an FBI case and that it couldn’t wait, but that didn’t help. He tried to ring the office of the Alderman twice, but both times the phone rang out. Discussing the matter with Knight, they decided to see the Sheriff, and see if he could make an earlier appointment.

After a short while the Sheriff contacted them again, full of himself and let them know he had been able to secure a meeting for them, for the next day at 10am...

He drove over to the diner with Knight to get a quick lunch and made his way to the bathroom, as his partner was chatting to the waitress. After checking if the cubicles were empty, he called Jasper. Filling the other part of J-cell in didn’t take long. Jasper had some new info to share. According to the guy at the St Claire petrol station, there had been some kind of UFO nutter in to talk to him. Jasper and Jude had been able to get a business card and were heading out to search his home. On the card, however, the guy had written “Room 9, Merle’s Shut-Eye Motel”. With a bit of luck, he was still there…

He returned to his table and quietly discussed this with Knight. They finished their food and got back in the car. First port of call this afternoon was Bud Aldrich. They could have saved themselves the trouble. As soon as they broached the subject of him blacking out and missing a period of time, the old man’s jaw clenched, and no information was to be gained from him. They left before he got too agitated and made their way to Louisa May. They could have saved themselves the trouble, as the result was identical. It felt to Jason that the woman was embarrassed and would not open up to outsiders.

They returned to the Shut-Eye Motel. Knight said he had some skill in opening locks, so Jason had a quick think about a way to distract the woman behind the reception desk. He went inside, blocking as good as possible her view on the door of room 9, while Knight went to work. He told the woman he needed to receive a fax and needed a large envelope. While she went inside the office to find one, He took his DG mobile and keyed in the number to Agent Jagger.

Cutting the Englishman straight off from asking any questions, he told him what he wanted and that he needed it immediately, then hung up. He sent the receptionist back, this time for a small box. By the time she returned, the fax machine started to vomit out the first sheets of paper. Jason looked back and saw Knight walking to their room, shaking his head. He made his way behind the counter, cutting off the receptionist’s objections with a sharp “Sorry ma’am, government paperwork, can only be handled by Federal agents,” and took the stack of papers Jagger had faxed.

An hour later they tried swapping roles, but it was clear the woman was not going to be distracted as easily. They gave up and went back to their room, waiting for a call from the others.

It didn’t take long for Jasper to ring them. They were unsure what to do, as they were dug in on the hillside and were sure they’d lose reception when they hiked up higher. The day seemed to have yielded little information.  Jason conferred with Knight for a moment, they were going to have another go at the lock of room 9. Knight put the idea forward to have Jude and Jasper go in and interrogate Bud Aldrich; see if a tougher approach would result in answers.

Jason thought about this for a second. He didn’t like it, as there was the risk that the old man would go and talk to someone, perhaps even the sheriff, about some guys roughing him up asking the same questions those Feds had asked only hours earlier. He made a decision and told Jude the address, that the man has lost time and that they needed any info out of him that he could be hiding. To finish off, he told Jude to take care of things and make sure it looked like an accident. He looked over at Knight, gauging his reaction to the last instruction. The agent didn’t object, but something in his eye made clear cold-blooded murder wasn’t something he fully agreed with. Good. At least one person on this team wasn’t a full-blown psycho…

After midnight, they changed into their dark clothes and snuck out. Knight, using Jason’s lock picks, opened the lock in record time. Jason slipped in, gun drawn and lit his flashlight. The smell of a dead body was unmistakable. Quickly scanning the room, he only noticed clothes, some stacked tidily, others chucked all over the floor, or stacked against the window or door, as if to block something from entering. It looked like the warmest clothing had been discarded, whereas the thinner items were still folded. Jason decided to leave the bathroom, where the smell came from, for what it was for the moment and searched the rest of the motel room with Knight. From behind the door they could hear a steadily dripping sound. The only item that was of interest was the laptop that was plugged into the wall. They disconnected it and set it aside. That’s when they heard a much louder sound from the bathroom, as if something had fallen into the water. It was time to check the bathroom.

Jason opened the door and shone the flashlight in. The body of Scott Adams was visible, in the bathtub, a pool of blood on the floor underneath his limp arm, bled out from where he slit his wrists. No movement, no sound, apart from the dripping of the tap. Knight pointed out a pale lump on the man’s forehead. Jason aimed the flashlight at it, it looked like he had bumped his head. As they were about to return to the room, Jason made one last sweep. The bump was gone. There was a sound of something rippling through the water. He told Knight to leave and closed the door behind him.

He called Jude to check in on them. They had been unable to get more information out of Bud and the issue had been handled. They organised to meet up and made their way back to the motel. Jasper handed over a disk with an audio file. They hadn’t found much more than that at Adams’ apartment in Knoxville, which made sense, as he had his laptop with him in the motel.  Jasper and Jason began to try to get past the password while the others got some sleep.

After a while they finally were able to get into the files. They found a few documents relating to events in Groversville and were able to play the audio file. It sounded garbled, but after a bit of tinkering with it, they were able to increase the speed of the file and heard a voice saying “...dealing with. Has been a long time and we have many things to do and you are not sure what you are doing. Stop now. Stop now.”

The other document seemed to be a list of strange events in the area and a couple of paragraphs that didn’t make sense. As it was very different in style to the other documents, it looked like there could be some coded message in it.

Tuesday, October 2^nd, 1996

Jason put it aside as his phone rang. Alphonse. The Old Man told Jason that he should expect a parcel in the next few hours. Once it had arrived, he had to call Alphonse back. Jasper and Jason caught a few hours of sleep, cut short by a knock on the door. A man, clearly a federal agent, handed Jason a box and left.

They opened it, finding six spray bottles in the box together with a note. After reading the note, Jason called Alphonse back. They quickly discussed the contents and Alphonse made it clear that it would reveal the presence of the proto-tissue. It wouldn’t harm anyone infected though, so it wasn’t a weapon. How to proceed was left vague, Alphonse parting words being “You know what to do, Jason”.

He thought for a second. The only venue left to investigate was town hall. The document mentioned what they already suspected: the aldermen never left. The last thing he wanted was to go in, guns blazing, only to come out and get into a firefight with the Sheriff and Deputy. If there was any information to be found there, they had to be able to act upon it. A shoot-out would not help with that. He was about to tell the others to get a few hours more sleep, when a thought struck him.

“Let’s get this out of the road. Everyone strip and get sprayed, so we at least can confirm we’re all ok.”

Knight compelled first, under scrutiny of the others, who observed with drawn weapons. As Jason sprayed a fine mist of the liquid a couple of tiny motes in the air became visible, revealed as a blueish purple colour. But the spray didn’t reveal anything on Knight's skin and he quickly showered to get the chemicals off. Then Jasper. Same story. Jason undressed and was given the treatment, revealing the massive scars on his back and leg, burns and severe cuts, where someone of something had hacked at him, the reminders of a different story. He showered and dressed, picking up his gun and turning to Jude.

08:12am

 “Let’s get it over with, Jude”

As the spray hit Jude, nothing showed. At first. The moment he turned around, an area around the kidneys lit up blueish purple. The weapons all raised immediately, ready to be fired. This was not what Jason had expected. He sprayed the area again. Minute scars crisscrossed Jude’s lower abddomen. He slowly backed away.

“Don’t move!” Jasper called. Jason looked over and saw the look in Jasper’s eyes. The guy was close to the edge, seconds away from blowing his teammate away.

“If you want to shoot him, go ahead, but realize that you’ll be calling down the local cops on us. Even though we will probably get away by shooting a way out of here, there’s no way we’ll be able to finish this Op and put an end to what’s going on here…”

Jason looked at Jasper, who held a raised gun at Jude and seemed less than a second away from shooting the Agent. His knuckles turned white on the grip. Something in Jason’s voice must have reached Jasper, because he blinked a few times and slowly moved the finger away from the trigger, but kept it aimed at Jude’s head.

“It’s starting to burn, guys…”

Jason nodded, the gun trained on Jude’s torso.

“Slowly move to the shower. Keep your hands where I can see them”

They all moved into the bathroom which was too small for this kind of scene. Jason’s mind was racing. When had this happened? What had happened? Did he get in contact with something up in the hills?

Jude turned the water on, and as it hit the chemicals that covered his body, the water turned purple. All of it. Jason raised the spray bottle and squirted it at the stream of clear water that came from the shower head. Purple.

“It’s in the water…”

Jasper almost lost it.

“I TOLD YOU! I FUCKING TOLD YOU BACK IN MEADOWBROOK!!! IT’S IN THE WATER!!!!”

Operation Magenta (Session 11, Agent Jason)

Jason closed the door of the bathroom before he turned the light on. Knight was sound asleep in the bedroom and he didn’t want to wake him. He had a look around. Being on an Op under a fake government cover did have its advantages. They didn’t have to bunk in the scummiest motel they could find. Not that they had any choice really… Merle’s Shut-Eye Motel was the only place in Groversville….
He closed the lid of the toilet, opened the bottle of vodka and poured himself a decent measure into a glass. After lighting a cigarette, he laid out his notes, maps and other bits and pieces of paperwork. He checked his watch and rubbed his eyes. Close to 1pm. He wanted to have a quick think and make some notes before going to sleep. He had told Knight to be up by 8am, so they could all have a quick breakfast and hit the road. There was quite a bit of ground to cover in the morning.

Looking around at his notes, he realized this was the first proper investigation he did with J-Cell. Knight seemed to be worth his salt and had almost intuitively alternately taken lead and stepped back during their visit at the Allen’s Place. He wished he could say the same about the others. To be fair, he hadn’t been there during the apparent altercation with the sheriff, but the fact that there HAD been an altercation was enough to annoy him. Jude was clearly out of it. That much was clear when they met at the airport and during their visit at the FBI building. There was something in his eyes, he clearly was on some kind of medication, looking jittery. Same could be said of Jasper. Whereas before he had been talking about something in the water during their Iago Op, it seemed he was serious now.
Jason took a deep breath. He wasn’t going to let them fuck this one up. He wished they could be put on non-active for a while, spend some time with a guy like Sinclair to straighten them out. He chuckled. If Norman had been here, he probably would have said it wouldn’t be a bad idea for them to join Sinclair.
He coughed and look back at the paperwork. Right, back to it then… He went over the initial notes.

• Operation Magenta.
• Meet SAC James Derringer at Knoxville Tennessee.
• Matter of a join kid, Billy Ray Spivey (Spivvey?), 16 year old.
• Went on rampage.
• Meeting Derringer and checking the footage showed that the kid had superhuman strength.
• Spivey had disappeared on September 22nd, approx. 9pm, after leaving his girlfriend Jane Allen.
• Re-appeared on September 24th, round 8.30pm, clearly in pain.
• Doctor Maurice Simms is contacted. Follow up!
• Spivey is extremely hungry (increased metabolism), doesn’t defecate or piss.
• November 26th. Spivey has a fit and kills his father with a single blow. Punching his fist through the man’s rib cage. Flees town after raiding the St Clair Gas Station, stealing aspirin, cash and a car
• Continues his rampage, following the same lines: painkillers, cash are stolen during robberies at gas stations.
• Ends in a hold up of an Alabama gas station where Spivey hits a cashier’s head with his hand, decapitating the man.
• Police stop Spivey, he gets shot 4 (FOUR) times and is taken in.
• Medical examination shows that the boy has undergone extensive surgery. Muscle tissues have been entirely replaced by NON- HUMAN tissue

Groversville, TN

Jason lit another cigarette and finished the vodka, pouring himself a second glass. He rubbed his eyes again. SAC Derringer had been a great help. He had organised fake FBI and DEA id’s for the 4 of them. Jason and Knight had gone for the FBI ones, the others DEA. The drive down to Groversville didn’t take too long and they met the Sheriff, to sort out the usual territorial pissing.
The man seems friendly enough, typical redneck. No drug issues in his town, no sirree! No probs with Spivey earlier, just the usual bored teenager stuff. They had booked into the local motel and split up, Jude and Jasper doing an initial tactical scouting of the area around the Allen’s place.
Knight and Jason had met the mother, and from the get-go things were odd. The daughter, Spivey’s girlfriend, was absent. Mrs Allen had no clue. When we raised the question if she shouldn’t know where her daughter was, after the boyfriend had disappeared for a few days, returning in an unexplained state 2 days later, she just shrugged. Same when questioned about the whereabout of her husband. Jason thought it was hard to explain. Sinclair would probably have had a 90 min dissertation on what was going on with her, but to keep it short, it felt like she was hypnotised. No matter what he or Knight said, she was convinced everything was ok with her daughter and husband.

Allen's place

Jason had contacted Jasper, told him to check the grounds with Jude while he and Knight cleared out the inside. Nothing was found, and the Allen woman became annoyed by it all. He had decided to push his luck a bit and checked the basement. Nothing. But something felt very wrong here. He was sure that Spivey had disappeared from here, not picked up on the way home. Whomever had grabbed the boy had given this woman some kind of procedure as well.
He decided to keep an eye on the place for a while, sending Jasper and Jude to check on the husband, who was one of the Aldermen of the town. Things had gone wrong there, apparently the 2 agents were caught by the Sheriff, who had gone of his nut when they weren’t able to explain what they were doing sneaking around town hall. Well, a least the hadn’t shot him…
On top of it all, Knight said he had seen a cluster of lights in the sky, moving fast. The place had the reputation of being a UFO sighting and cattle mutilation hotspot…
He tore a new page out of the notebook and made a to-do list, dividing the page in two columns. On the left, he wrote

• “Knight-Jason”
• Visit Spivey’s place. Interrogate mother
• See Maurice Simms, Spivey’s GP
• Visit town hall, Alderman Allen (What’s the bet he hasn’t been there for a few days?)
• Contact Sherriff Oakley. Try to smoothen DEA issue out. Check if there’s something suspicious with him, as Jasper said (or is he just paranoid?)
• The surgery on Spivey was extensive. Needs a professional set-up. Somewhere remote, out of sight. Check with Derringer, see if there are medical facilities that are out of the way.

On the right-hand side:

• “Jude-Jasper”
• St Clair Gas Station. Recover footage if any.
• Expand perimeter around the Allen Place, focus on hills.
• Do same around Spivey house. Focus on area between 2 houses.
• Get low-light goggles and stake out the area at night.
• GTE & County Gas, Light and Water. Check if anything has been going on. Power outages.
• Find local UFO nut, perhaps through local waitress at diner/tavern? Get Knight in touch with him, see if there is a mention of identical sightings as Knight witnessed.

He crushed the cigarette into the ashtray and gathered the notes that were laying around him on the floor into a folder. Time to call it a night. Tomorrow’s gonna be a busy day…

Session 10 (Agent Jason)

Tuesday, July 2nd 1996, 8;05pm

"Well... that escalated quickly..."

With a chuckle Norman closed the door to the computer lab as Jason dragged the limp body of Joshua in, laying him next to David Hua's corpse. Jason muttered something as he stood up, stretching to ease a pain in his back. He lit a cigarette and looked around, quietly making a quick count. 

"Campbell...  Gonzales and Henson... Tsang... Black... Kozak and Takagawa... David and Joshua. Klinger imploded. That's all of them."

He walked over to Jude, checking his breathing and covered him up with a jacket, then pulled some gloves on. Not that it mattered, the place would go up in a blaze soon enough. 
Nancy walked into the room, touching Jason on the shoulder.

"It's ok, I'll sit with him and keep an eye on him, you do what needs to be done."

Jason nodded and got up, walking over to the broken black obelisk, stuffing it into one of the bags he had retrieved from the van, making sure to include any leads that had been hooked up to it before David broke the damn thing. 

"So... wanna talk me through it, pal?"

Jason turned and looked at Norman.

"Not sure I can quite explain... fully."

He walked into Campbell's office, followed by his former Team Leader.

"We got a call. No... first we all were screaming. I vaguely remember a flash of me on the phone calling something in to A-Cell. Then I was laying flat on the ground under the hatch to my attic. It felt like a flash back. But I didn't remember doing it. It's hard to explain... Then we got the call, we had to come to Chicago. Met up with Agent Eve and David, a Friendly. Joshua and Jude had also had a similar experience, screaming like madmen, at the same time I did.  Eve was vague about it, but said there had been a report of kind of unnatural incursion. This team of scientists at the Olympian Holobeam Array had fired a laser into space. We had to recover any technology and stop the incursion from happening."

Jason rifled through the papers in Black's desk, pulling everything that even remotely looked occult out of the sheaves of paper and put it in a separate bag. From a drawer in Campbell's desk he took a large envelope.

"We were given DoE covers, sent here on an inspection. Security was very high, and Campbell did not want us to roam around. Which was exactly what I wanted to do. We started acting up, spouting the usual bureaucratic bullshit to get on her nerves. Anyway, we found a heap of weird behavior from everyone who worked here, one of their team was in some kind of catatonia, and noone in here seemed to be fazed by that. Which lead us to believe they were either lying, hypnotized or under some kind of outer influence. In the end Jude and I overpowered the guards and rounded everyone up in the waiting area, tied down. Everyone apart from Klenger that is... She... flashed... into existence, looking mad, with blind eyes. Joshua was able to reason with her for a bit, but most of what she said was gibberish, didn't make sense. Talking about massive black chaos, that lives outside of space and time. That there was music out there. That she had seen the throne of God. At least not at that stage. I told Joshua to zip-tie her. It got to a fight between her and him, and in the end she killed Joshua. Jude took over and got severely wounded and she disappeared. I told Jude to keep an eye on the others and sent David to look into the computer as to what was going on. Apparently he disconnected it and eventually David and I were able to kill her outside, after which she imploded and... everything went black."

He stood for a few moment, gathering his thoughts.

"And then I was back in Campbell's office. Screaming. This is the bit where it gets very strange."

Jason sat against the corner of the desk and put the butt of his cigarette into a little container of a film roll, lighting up another one straight away. He inhaled deeply and thought for a second.

"I know it doesn't make sense. Let's just say we all were stuck in a time loop and we just couldn't figure out what was going on or how to stop it. Joshua was back alive, and we were able to do things differently, but it went really pear-shaped quickly with Campbell calling in security and it escalated into a firefight. Look, I'm not going to go over every detail, or it will make me go insane. It suffices to say that from what Helen said at the end of the second re-run, the incursion became stronger because of us. The ones observing the whole thing. That's why she killed Joshua the previous time. She was trying to kill everyone, so they'd stop observing... and in that way stop the incursion from happening. When I realized that, we were already in the third... I don't know what you call it... iteration? I told Joshua and Jude we had to kill everyone, and went outside. Joshua had done his best. He had used his skills to try and break through whatever barrier had been erected around these people, he had been able to reason with Klinger for a while, and I think he even broke through Karen Henson. But there just wasn't enough time to keep trying over and over."

Jason dragged the bag back into the computer lab, and started going through the pockets of the corpses, pulling out their wallets from which he removed all the money, stuffing it into the envelope.

"I didn't want them to have to pull any triggers, Joshua was too new to this and Jude... He had broken when Joshua died, before. So I shot Campbell and Tsang before they realized what went on. Black and Kozak ran and I chased them. I think Jude killed the guards inside as well as Takagama. I don't know where Joshua was at the time. David had destroyed the black obelisk he had found in the server cabinet. That was the thing that seemed to have made contact with this... entity. Helen called it a god. Remember last time, in the cabin? I asked you if Dostoyevski ever considered that some malevolent being might actually be looking down upon us from between the stars, when he wrote his rubbish? I think this is it. Something is up there, looking down at us. They activated this laserbeam and made contact. We looked up... and it stared right back."

He rubbed his eyes.

"Every time I shot one of them, I could feel this kind of pressure being taken off me. When we were all together outside before, there was this noise. This humming. Flutes. I don't know. But there was something there and it was connected to that thing trying to come across into our reality. And it lessened as I shot them."

"We killed Kozak and Black outside. Then there were just the four of us. Jude, Joshua, David and me. And we felt it. It was still there. I was convinced we all had to go. That it would reset itself, like it did before and hopefully we'd all wake up not remembering anything. David realized what had to happen and panicked. I gave Jude a nod and I shot David, hitting him in the stomach. He fell down, begging me. Jude turned and shot Joshua. He went straight down. As I looked at Jude I saw something had snapped. Again. He turned and opened up on David, missing him as he walked after him. It just gave me enough time to put a bullet in his back. It didn't take him out, and he shot David again, killing him this time, and turned towards me. I had just enough time to put him down before he shot me. And it was gone. The feeling. It looks like we didn't all have to die."

He checked his watch and nodded at Jude.

"That being said, if I feel this droning again around 10pm, I'm putting a round in his brain and mine."

"Norman"

"Well I'll be fucked, Jason, but that's some heavy shit. I'm not sure if you're for real or if you totally lost the plot this time but heh... you're the last one standing again..."

Jason picked up a jerrycan and poured petrol over the bodies of the scientists and guards, then walked over to Nancy and Jude. She gave him a nod.

"He's still alive. He needs a doctor though..."

Jason nodded, thinking. Then he looked at the bodies of David Hua and John Sinclair. Joshua...

"You know, Norman, I was going to have a chat to him after this. Prepping him as my replacement, to lead J-cell. I gave Jude the sign to shoot him because I worried he would try to take us out before we finished with the clean-up. He was clever. Very clever. Perhaps even a genius. But he didn't have the experience yet how to do a clean-up like this. We didn't hit it off properly. He... had this way of talking on and on. And you just phased out after a while. I wanted to tell him that he needed to work on that. That Jude and Jasper wouldn't respond to that, he needed to find that level at which he could engage them into thinking before they act. I'm sure he would have understood what I mean. Could have been a great guy to lead a cell. Just needed some time..."

"Yeah well, we'll never know, will we, Jase? One thing's for sure, his Astral Walking didn't save him. Now get back to the job!"

Jason stood there for a moment, taking a deep breath and chewing his lip. He got down on his knees and started to undress David and Sinclair's bodies.

"Nancy"

"What are you doing, Jason?", Nancy asked, alarmed. Norman told her to be quiet. "Jason knows what needs to be done. Leave him to it. Keep an eye on the lunatic."

Jason inspected the bodies, looking for tattoos or distinguishing marks, but found none. He walked to the toolkit and pulled some pliers and a hammer out of it, as well as a pair of bolt cutters. 
He handed a large plastic zip-lock bag to Norman. 

"Can you hold this for me?" 
"Sure thing, pal..."

Tuesday, July 2nd 1996, 9:40pm

He had made one last round of the premises. The security areas were ready to go, all of the tapes with footage of the last 48 hours scratched, broken, and tossed on a pile doused in petrol and ready to go up in flames. The main building was covered in it as well, petrol cans spread out all over the computer lab to make sure it would burn as fiercely as possible. Jude was laying on the backseat, under a blanket. The van was inside the workshop and all the DoE and security guns were in the boot of the car, together with the pieces of the broken Obelisk, their DoE badges and a bag full of fingertips and teeth.

Norman looked through the windscreen at the backseat.

"I think you need to take him out, pal. He snapped under pressure. Twice. He tried to kill you in the corridor and would have killed you outside. He's a risk you can't take. He's gone. There's no way for him to get back from this. He's seen and done things no-one can know about, so you'd do the Group a favour by plugging him."

"I know, Norman. But I need to talk to him first."

Nancy walked up to them as Jason took out a pen and wrote in big capital letter FOR HANNAH on the envelope. Nancy gave him a wry smile when she saw it. He tossed it in the boot on top of the other things.

"Sorry Nance, it's been a while since the last one. Things are different at work nowadays..."

He pulled a flask out of his pocket and took a decent swig, passing it to Norman.

"To another Opera successfully concluded..."
"That's right, pal. And in the end, that's the only thing that matters..."

Tuesday, July 2nd 1996, 9:45pm

As he pulled out of the driveway, he could see the flames roar behind him. Within a few seconds, the buildings were out of sight but it didn't take long before he heard a massive explosion and saw the sky lit up in his rear-view mirror.

Jude moaned as Jason hit a pothole.

"Nothing I can do about it, Jude. We're getting out of here..."

From the back, he could hear Jude repeat something, over and over. "Doctor"

"I know... we're going home."