With Matiopia busy doing things with her family and Winkdeath busy doing...something, I was left with only one player, Blue. Fortunately, when I suggested a solo session she jumped at the chance. I deliberated between running mellonbread's Rehab or ChiefMcClane's Now You See Me with some additions from Br1t15h. I'd run both scenarios before and both as solo ops (as the latter was initially playtested with three players) but opted to go for the latter, as Agent Leonard's skills were better suited to finding its clues.
SESSION THIRTEEN
My goal with this scenario was to get the player to use a spell or read a spooky book. So I worked with Br1t15h to write up some spooky "books" with spells to seed among the deceased agent Merrick's belongings. Two of the three spells can solve the scenario and would theoretically be useful in later operations. Sadie met with GERARD in a nondescript conference room in Baltimore, received a briefing, and got the key to the local Green Box. She stopped at the storage container, borrowed one of the drop pieces, and scrubbed some mold off of one of the walls. Then she headed to William Stafford's house.
The forensic techs were cataloguing the last bits of information, so the detective ended up tagging along behind Sadie. She was able to get him off her back for long enough to go poking around in the study. However, just as she started opening the locked drawers, Detective Marshall stuck his nose back in the case. Finding a bundle of notebooks and papers filled with physics equations in the first drawer, Sadie realized she needed to get rid of the detective. She gave him three fingerprints she'd collected and used her Bureaucracy to convince him he needed to take them down to the station for processing. Without him looking over her shoulder, she cracked open the other two drawers to find a three-ring binder stuffed full of medical notes and a notebook filled with nigh-illegible scrawl and sketches of whales. Upon finding the latter tome and rolling Survival to specifically identify them as belugas, Blue just gave me a look as I tried not to laugh. The group had played through Dreams in the Fish House, but now there weren't any Agents left who could remember its events.
After reading Merrick's summary of the bundle of scientific papers (seems like an algorithm for powerful destructive energy, need to ask a proper physicist) she rifled through his Rolodex to find the business card of an astrophysicist at the University of Baltimore. He remembered speaking with Dr. Stafford, but it was clear he never got a chance to learn anything unnatural. Sadie threw each of Merrick's "tomes" into a suitcase and headed down to the garage for the final sweep. She snuck a lockbox containing some fake police IDs and a glock off the property and phoned GERARD to tell him the house was clean. The drop piece went back to the Green Box but the suitcase full of spookiness came home with her. Success!
I had planned to run her all the way through the scenario, but by the time she'd finished investigating Merrick's suicide, I was exhausted. Fortunately for me, this was an excellent stopping point so we said our goodbyes and I passed out in my bed.
SESSION FOURTEEN
Matiopia needed a new character, so I figured now was the time to run mellonbread's The Pink Men Made Him Do It with some more additional content from Br1t15h because that's how I roll. The scenario's gimmick is that any new characters created for it are protomatter simulacra. It's a bit boring if no one's a clone, and if you run it at a con, then everyone's a clone and the real Delta Green agents are on their way. I felt a twinge of guilt at the possibility of saddling Matiopia with another bonkers character concept, but screw it. Half an hour later and she had a character...whose name I can't even remember, but I do remember that she created a tactical medic.
They puzzled over the grammar of the instructions while I buried my face in my hands. Even after feeding them clues through Matiopia's character's Medicine, they still didn't totally understand what the deal was with the spray bottle or their mission. But they assumed they'd figure it out as they went and maybe that final envelope labeled "IN EVENT OF POSITIVE TEST" would explain things. Ren and the medic donned a pair of freshly bought scrubs and infiltrated the hospital while Sadie drove off to talk to Bergstrom's wife.
The disguised duo found Mr. Bergstrom in the critical care ward, barely conscious. They posed as a pair of nurses here to ask him to repeat his story yet another time. He was annoyed, but saw no reason not to. In a horrible violation of HIPAA regulations, Matiopia's character skimmed his medical charts with Medicine. It looked like his leukemia had manifested, worsened, and then vanished for a few years only to reappear as if it had been getting worse the whole time. Finally, something Delta Green related! Anyone can vomit up pink goo, but this, this was special.
Meanwhile, Sadie visited Mrs. Bergstrom at her house. She claimed to be investigating her husband's fate on the behalf of the National Parks Service. Helga raised an eyebrow at the FBI badge when she asked for some sort of credentials and let her in. Then in true Delta Green agent style, Sadie asked to use the bathroom and took the opportunity to snoop around the house. After she finished faking washing her hands, she was ambushed by Mrs. Bergstrom who had succeeded her INTx5 test and demanded to know what the fuck was going on. Sadie placated her with a befuddling combination of Bureaucracy and Persuade and told her that she had multiple intersecting cases she was working on. This sparked something in Helga's mind, "This doesn't have to do anything with that...New-Life Temple group does it?" Sadie tried to conceal her sudden interest, "Maaaaybe, can you tell me anything about them?" And so Helga told her the story of how her husband took communion and was miraculously healed, but then the cult's demands for donations grew outrageous and they began to make...impolite requests. Agent Leonard dutifully jotted all the information and asked where she might find the Temple. "Oh, I think they're based out of some radio station outside Redwig, thataway." At the mention of a radio station, the whole group groaned, as they didn't exactly have a great track record with them (see Mi-Go Killed the Radio Star).
The team reconvened headed off to the DMV, no, excuse me, the MVD (this caused no small amount of confusion on their part). Sadie headed for the dumpsters around back, eager to use her jacked Forensics and Search to locate the mysterious bag of goop. Meanwhile, Ren noticed someone had been following him. It wasn't that hard to tell, as his tail was wearing a bright pink shirt. This was Fox Tox, FBI agent and protomatter Delta Green lady. She and Ren chatted while waiting in line, before she asked if he would save her spot while she used the bathroom. Instead, she snuck off to talk to the janitor out back. Sadie hid behind a dumpster and eavesdropped on their conversation and watched Fox Tox rummage through the dumpster to no avail.
By this point, they'd pieced together that something really weird was going on. They hadn't met with GERARD, they'd gotten a bunch of weird and mysterious instructions, and now someone was following them and investigating the same thing they were. A series of pager beeps and text messages sent them all back to Matiopia's Range Rover. They double-bagged the bag of goop while debating what to do next and we called the session there.
I honestly have no clue how this is going to play out. The whole group theoretically knows about the Program–Outlaws split since they transitioned from one to the other as they moved out of the 90s and into the early 2000s. Sadie's player, Blue, has read the Handler's Guide but I have no idea how much of it she remembers. Also, Matiopia has been really playing up how much of a horrible person her new character is, so they might actually kill her. One way or the other, I think they're going to be meeting with someone higher up the ladder than GERARD after this mission.
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