The New Age

Part 2: Dawn of the New Age

Spoiler Warning: This scenario is taken from the Delta Green rule book. If you are a Delta Green player you may wish to ask your Keeper if they intend to run any scenarios in that book before reading this write-up, as pertinent scenario information will be revealed.

Monday, June 20, 2005, 3:55 p.m. EDT

La Quinta Inn, Tulsa, Oklahoma

Agent MAYA considered their options. Agent MORGAN was infected by the Mi-Go substance they were calling "neotissue". He was compromised, and was now a danger to their operation. "Shooting him isn't going to do any good," she concluded.

MORGAN, who was standing nearby, visibly relaxed.

"What do you mean, shooting him isn't going to do any good?" cried MALCOLM.

"How do you kill these things?" she asked, rhetorically. She knew from experience that shooting people infected by neotissue wasn't productive.

"You have to destroy the Mi-Go control center," said MORGAN. "We have to blow up the pyramid," he added, referring to the pyramidal structure at the Enolsis Foundation headquarters.

MALCOLM scowled at MORGAN. "How can we trust what you say? You're infected."

"Until A Cell calls I am still the leader, infected or not!"

They spent the next few minutes discussing their options. They didn't know whether to end their mission or to proceed as if MORGAN wasn't infected. That seemed like a dangerous move to MALCOLM, and he said so.

MORGAN pointed a finger at MALCOLM. "You, yourself, said that we" — meaning Delta Green and the Mi-Go — "may be working toward the same goal!"

"Don't listen to me! I had my brain removed!"

"When they removed our brains and determined I was the leader..."

"...They learned they had nothing to fear from us!" interrupted MALCOLM.

The discussion took a less antagonistic tone when MAYA and MORGAN went over their past experiences with the neotissue. When they destroyed the Mi-Go control center in Groversville, Tennessee, the neotissue infestation in the town ceased. MORGAN said this was why he suggested destroying the pyramid at the Enolsis foundation. The others agreed that this was probably their best course of action.

Now what should they do with with MORGAN? Should he accompany them or should he be left behind. MORGAN argued that if he was left behind the Mi-Go would just activate him anyway.

MALCOLM shook his head. "I don't know why I allowed myself to be re-activated. I feel like I'm on a sinking ocean liner, and I'm running up to the bridge to find that the captain, is... oh, never mind."

"Captain Morgan!" added MAYA.

"Would you feel better if a strapped remotely detonated C4 on my chest, and hand the controller to MAYA?" asked MORGAN.

"Well, I'd feel better if I had the controller, but... yes!"

"That's why I'm not handing it to you!"

The discussion heated up. Before he lost his temper, MORGAN stormed out of the hotel room. It was hard for him to accept the fact that the others distrusted him. In his own mind he was operating with all of his faculties. His body may have been invaded by the Mi-Go but his mind was his own, at least for now.

MAYA told MALCOLM that they had to treat MORGAN with kid gloves and at least a modicum of respect. He was still the cell leader, after all. Instead of sniping at one another, they needed to be civil. MALCOLM nodded in agreement. He went into the hall to get MORGAN so that they could include him in their plans, but MORGAN wasn't there. MAYA called MORGAN on his cell phone. The cell leader was pacing outside the hotel. She asked him to come back to his room, that she would meet him there. MORGAN said he would do that, and hung up.

MAYA told MALCOLM that she would meet MORGAN at his room. MALCOLM was to wait there, in her room. MALCOLM nodded. MAYA walked out of the room and down the hall. A short time later, MORGAN met her there.

MAYA told MORGAN that they wanted him to be an active part of the cell. She also said that she was not comfortable with him being armed, so she would not be returning his gun. She added that they would continue to follow him as long as his orders were not detrimental to the mission.

"Just one thing," said MORGAN. "MAYA, if something does turn me into a homicidal maniac, I want you to be the one to kill me."

"That's not a problem," said MAYA, somberly. "I can do that. And without a smile on my face, or cackles of glee."

They left the room and walked back to MAYA's room. MORGAN walked in first. MAYA giggled and and shuffled into the room behind him, pretending to be a zombie.

"Now I need to see you in private," said MORGAN in a falsely ominous tone, and with a hint of a smile.

"Just a moment," replied MALCOLM. He picked up a spray bottle of leucopararosaniline and sprayed MAYA. MALCOLM nodded and said, "So what is it that you want to say in private that you can't say to me in front of MAYA?"

"So, did they surgically remove your sense of humour at birth, or did you choose to have it removed?"

MALCOLM started to say something sarcastic, when MAYA stopped him. "Now, now. What happened to our conversation about being civil and getting along?"

"We had it," answered MALCOLM.

"Can we remember it?" asked MAYA.

"I remember the conversation."

MAYA threw up her hands. "I'm going back to New Orleans, where it's nice and safe!" She stomped out of the room. Part way down the hall she remembered something. She returned. "This is my room!" she said. "Why do I have to leave?"

As the others looked at her, she glanced at her watch. "Is there something we should be doing? There's a planet hurtling toward us. Are we planning to do anything before it hits?"

MORGAN said, "Look, I know somebody wants to... okay, it's me... why don't we just go ahead and call it the Death Star."

MAYA shook her head. "Help me, Obi Wan."

"Hey," said MALCOLM, "I thought I was the geek here?"

"The geek here, I thought I was!" replied MORGAN in a gravelly Yoda voice.

All three cell members laughed simultaneously for the first time since MALCOLM joined.

A minute later, the conversation became serious once more. MALCOLM believed the cell needed to return to Enolsis. "This time we need to keep our brains in our skulls. We need lots of acid and flares."

"And duct tape wrapped around our heads!" added MAYA.

"MAYA, are you sure they put yours back in right?" asked MORGAN.

"Mine's in backwards," she replied.

MORGAN looked through his manpurse for anything that might help. He pulled out a syringe and the remaining bottle of their blue fluid solution, the stuff they stole from Majestic-12. He chuckled a little and mimed injecting himself. He wanted to forget the last several hours of his life.

"Is that what I think it is?" asked MALCOLM. MALCOLM had read the cell's case files.

"Yeah," said MAYA. "It's the 'blue fluid'."

MORGAN raised an eyebrow as an idea struck him. He pulled a small amount of the blue fluid into the syringe. "I'm going to forget the last 15 minutes of this conversation," he said. He injected himself.

Nothing happened at first. Then, after a minute elapsed, MORGAN started to shake. Suddenly he fell to the floor and started to convulse. MAYA rushed over to him. MALCOLM, looking on, said, "There must have been some sort of interaction between the blue fluid and the neotissue!"

MAYA tried to keep MORGAN away from objects that could hurt him. "If he survives this, we may have to give him a full dose!"

MORGAN flopped around for a couple of minutes. The convulsions stopped as quickly as they had begun. MORGAN lay still on the floor. As his mouth hung open slack-jawed, drool ran down his cheek. Along with the drool flowed a flesh-colored substance the consistency of thick mucus.

MAYA pulled MORGAN away from the drool while MALCOLM grabbed a flask of acid from the manpurse. MAYA took the acid and poured it on the substance. It sizzled and smoked as the acid hit it, eventually dissolving into nothing but a white mark on the carpet. MALCOLM squirted leucopararosaniline on MORGAN. The liquid turned purple, but it took longer to change color and it was not as deep a purple as it was less than an hour ago.

"He still has more of it in him," said MAYA. "We have to inject him with more of the fluid."

"Don't you think that might kill him?" asked MALCOLM.

"Well... no," said MAYA, without conviction.

"You're right! Give him the rest. When he's done we can give him a V8 and some vitamins, and he'll be okay!"

MAYA stabbed the syringe into the bottle and drew half the remaining fluid into it. She thought better of injecting all of the stuff at once. She picked up MORGAN's arm and slid the needle into a vein. The injection site bruised as she squeezed the fluid into his blood system. MORGAN convulsed again. This time he thrashed around for a full five minutes. When he was done his head plopped to the side and more flesh-colored matter drooled from his mouth. They followed the same procedure as last time: they dragged MORGAN away from it, they sprayed the stuff with acid and then sprayed MORGAN with leucopararosaniline. The liquid took on a faint purple tinge when it hit his skin.

MAYA injected the remainder of the blue fluid — the last of what they managed to conceal from Delta Green — into MORGAN. This time she hit a vein perfectly. MORGAN went into convulsions, but they lasted less than a minute. After the stuff oozed out of his mouth, the agents poured acid on the stuff and sprayed MORGAN with the neotissue detecting liquid. The liquid took a couple of minutes to turn only the faintest shade of purple.

"There's still some purple!" said MALCOLM.

"He'll be okay. It will fade away. That's just some residue, not infection."

They lifted MORGAN and shifted him to the bed. As the stood over the comatose cell leader, MAYA wondered aloud at what, if anything, MORGAN would remember of the last few days.

"If he doesn't remember me, I'll try what you said," stated MALCOLM.

"What, be nice? It's worth a shot!"

Monday, June 20, 2005, 5:37 p.m. EDT

La Quinta Inn, Tulsa, Oklahoma

MORGAN woke up. He looked down at himself and then over to MAYA. He then stared at MALCOLM.

"How do you feel?" asked MAYA.

"Tired," said MORGAN, as he continued to stare at MALCOLM.

"What's the last thing you remember?" she asked.

"We discussed going to see the senator."

"Uh, oh dear."

"How much does he remember?" whispered MALCOLM.

"That was before the 'accident'," whispered MAYA.

MAYA explained to MORGAN that he wasn't remembering everything that happened to them. She told him how they went to see the senator and were attacked by the "neotissue bitch" on the highway.

Before she could continue, he said, "Where's MICHAEL? And who's he?"

"That's Agent MALCOLM. MICHAEL's... dead?"

"Wha...?"

MAYA told him about the fight with Valiant, MICHAEL's death, and the appearance of Agent MALCOLM. She deliberately left out any mention of animosity between MALCOLM and MORGAN. She did not leave out the part about them having their brains removed. She pulled back her hair. "We have scars. See?!?"

MORGAN was confused and disoriented. He looked at his watch and saw the date and time. He didn't want to believe MAYA's story, but after she gave him some of his notes to read — notes written in his own handwriting — he was forced to accept it.

MALCOLM walked over to MORGAN and extended his hand. As MORGAN shook it, MALCOLM said, "Hi. I know we haven't been introduced yet. My condolences on your loss. My name is Gabriel Dodge. I work for NASA, the LINEAR project." MALCOLM gave MORGAN a second to absorb that, then said, "I was sent here to brief Agent MICHAEL on the planet he had this vision of. Since my former cell is... missing in action, I was activated as MICHAEL's replacement."

Behind them MAYA muttered, "See how much easier it would have been if you had done this in the beginning."

The male agents spent some time getting to know each other. Unlike the first time, there was no animosity. When it was apparent that MORGAN was no longer infected and no longer a threat, they handed him his gun.

The discussion turned to Enolsis. MAYA wanted an air strike on the Enolsis campus. MALCOLM suggested that MORGAN contact A Cell for suggestions. He could also tell them that the blue fluid kills neotissue, and to ask them if they had managed to successfully replicate the liquid.

"Do you think I should call A Cell and not just e-mail them?" asked MORGAN.

"I'm abstaining from this decision," said MALCOLM.

"I am not abstaining," said MAYA. "I believe in participation. Call!"

MORGAN called. Instead of ALPHONSE answering, he got Agent ADAM. MORGAN brought ADAM up to date. He requested aid, and even mentioned MAYA's suggestion of an air strike. If ADAM was mad that they had pilfered some of the blue fluid, there was no hint of it in his voice.

ADAM asked if they had a legal justification for a law enforcement raid on the Enolsis compound. MORGAN replied that they would consider that option and get back to them with what the team needed. ADAM told MORGAN to e-mail him with their requirements unless time was a critical factor. MORGAN hung up.

The team discussed what they knew about the Mi-Go and Enolsis. MORGAN surmised that the Mi-Go could have human-like motivations where some of them are good and some are bad. He felt that the Mi-Go working with Enolsis were bad because they were involved with the neotissue. MAYA mentioned Valiant's DVD, where he railed against Enolsis. She remembered the neotissue woman who joined the fight against Valiant. This suggested that they were in the middle of some sort of civil war, with Valiant and one of the neotissue creatures on one side and the head of Enolsis and another (perhaps several?) neotissue creatures on the other side.

They pulled out Valiant's DVD and played it on MORGAN's laptop. After the rant ended, they sat in silence for a moment. MALCOLM said, "Maybe you shouldn't have killed Valiant. Maybe he was right."

The more they thought about it, the more they were convinced that Valiant's central theme — that Enolsis had to be taken down — was correct. With the goal of destroying Enolsis in mind, they talked about the best method of attaining that goal. The key seemed to be the pyramid. The team's recovered memories showed that they were captured while trying to break into the pyramid. The pyramid was the home of The Living Power. MALCOLM observed a transport truck making a delivery to the pyramid. They agreed that it had to be destroyed.

They were pretty sure that they couldn't handle the job by themselves. They needed a strike team. A strike team with explosives.

The truck that made the delivery was from the Yellow transport company. They would have to hijack a Yellow truck and use it to get past security. They would need to break into Yellow's database and schedule a shipment to Enolsis.

MALCOLM wondered aloud at the progress of the "Death Star". He went online and checked on the object's progress. It was on a strange trajectory that would bring it into the inner solar system. The calculations were not complete, but there was a good chance the object would pass close to the Earth.

MALCOLM had hacking tools on his laptop. He connected to the MyYellow domain, but in spite of the hacking tools he was unable to get into their servers.

MORGAN had a different set of tools on his laptop. He took over with a packet sniffer and some other programs. He discovered that one of their databases ran on a Windows Server 2000 platform that didn't have the latest security patches. A couple of hours of intense work later, MORGAN had succeeded in logging into their system as an administrator.

When he checked their shipment database he found that five trucks had made deliveries to Enolsis in the past week. Another shipment was scheduled to arrive tomorrow, but that was the last shipment scheduled for at least a week.

MALCOLM was looking over MORGAN's shoulder. "Good work," he said as he clapped MORGAN on the shoulder.

"That was easy. You should try sending an e-mail to someone at the CDC."

MORGAN brought up a screen with the truck's bill of lading. The truck would be delivering a couple of dozen of crates. The contents of the crates were not specifically listed, but they were flagged as non-flammable and non-volatile, but fragile. The truck was scheduled to leave the next morning at 6 a.m. from the Yellow facility in Kansas City. It would take four and a half to five hours to arrive at Tulsa.

He also learned that Enolsis had received shipments out of Yellow's Kansas City depot once every couple of days for the last few weeks. Digging deeper he discovered that this was their last scheduled shipment for at least a month. MALCOLM guessed that whatever they were planning was close to fruition.

Their plan took form. They wanted a semi-trailer filled with explosives painted in Yellow livery. Along with the trailer, they needed a strike team of three, one of whom has to be able to drive a tractor-trailer. They needed someone to play the part of a police officer. MORGAN immediately thought of FBI Special Agent Louis Gaston. The police officer would pull the truck off the highway. The truck's driver would be sedated. The team would swap trailers and drive to the Enolsis campus while the police officer — Gaston, if he was available — would keep the driver sedated. They would break into the pyramid, plant the explosives, get out, blow up the pyramid, blow up the strange fountain outside the pyramid, and then escape back to the rendezvous point. They pulled up a map online and selected a rendezvous point a few miles from Enolsis.

MORGAN phoned Agent ADAM. ADAM seemed peeved at being interrupted, but his tone changed when MORGAN explained the plan. ADAM thought the plan was a bit extreme, but agreed with their conclusions with regard to the Mi-Go. ADAM's main fear was visibility. A commando attack on Enolsis was not something they could easily hide. MORGAN hoped that, if they slipped in unexpectedly, they could destroy the pyramid with a minimum of collateral damage. Enolsis would not want an obtrusive investigation. With luck, the attack would be put down as some sort of accident. If Enolsis did go to the media with the story of a commando raid, Enolsis would probably blame the government, who in turn would likely blame terrorists. ADAM asked if they needed uniforms. MORGAN said that they would go in wearing plain clothes. MORGAN asked for additional equipment: acid and something to dispense it, or something to dispense flame, and white phosphorus grenades. MORGAN finished by giving ADAM the location of the rendezvous point. ADAM said he'd see what he could do. He would be in touch.

Next, MORGAN called Gaston. The FBI agent seemed glad to hear from MORGAN. MORGAN asked Gaston to join them in Tulsa as soon as physically possible. Gaston asked if this had anything to do with the St. Louis investigation. MORGAN said that it did. In the background MALCOLM yelled, "Tell him it's a matter of planetary security!"

"Do you want me to come alone?" asked Gaston.

"Do you have anyone you can trust with 'extra-legal activity'?"

"I have someone in mind." Gaston said he would be leaving right away. He had to get some stuff, but it would only take five or six hours to drive to Tulsa.

MALCOLM thanked Gaston. They hung up.

The team went out to eat at Denny's. They spent the rest of the evening in MORGAN's room finalizing their plans. ADAM had called to tell them that the mission was a go. Another cell would be waiting for them at the rendezvous point at 8:30 a.m. The agents went to bed around 10 p.m., with MALCOLM crashing on the second double bed in MORGAN's room.