Mayday Plays - Doomed to Repeat Ep. 10 - "Doomed to Repeat"

Episode Date: December 25, 2020

In the final episode of this arc: Operation PERENNIAL takes flight into the unnatural, and the agents must fight for their lives. A rendezvous with CORAL NOMAD does not go as planned, and new revelations threaten to split the agents just as they were finding cohesion. Once in New York, the team stays with Samael and gets a peek into his “normal” life. Hyde uncovers what Dr. Thornbill wanted her to read, and Boomer gains a new “friend.” This is not the end of our story, just a pause. Stay tuned for a summer 2021 release of Arc 2 of Doomed To Repeat. In the interim, we will be releasing a DnD campaign titled “Precious Cargo” in the Spring of 2021. We also plan to start streaming games @ Twitch.tv/maydayroleplay7, so stay tuned for a lot more! If you’ve enjoyed the show, please consider supporting us by subscribing @ patreon.com/maydayrp. Thanks again to all our listeners for their support of Mayday’s first campaign! This episode contains profanity, violence, and references to drug/alcohol use. It also contains the topic of Covid-19. Published by arrangement with the Delta Green Partnership. The intellectual property known as Delta Green is a trademark and copyright owned by the Delta Green Partnership, who has licensed its use here. The contents of this podcast are © Mayday Roleplay, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property. CAST OF CHARACTERS • Aaron - Agent Samael, Exorcist/Occult expert • Allegra - Agent Tuck, FBI • Amanda - Agent Boomer, Electronics/Programming Specialist • Caleb - Agent Merit, FBI • Eli - Agent Hyde, Pilot for CORAL NOMAD • Zakiya - Agent Warp, NCTC researcher • Sergio - The Handler MUSIC & SOUND EFFECTS • Post Sound Supervision: Sergio Crego, Eli Hauschel • Mixed: Eli Hauschel • Original Music: Aaron Pabst • Soundstripe (soundstripe.com) DELTA GREEN LINKS • Delta Green (http://deltagreen.com/) MAYDAY ROLEPLAY LINKS • Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/maydayrp/) • Twitter (https://twitter.com/maydayroleplay7) • Mayday website (https://www.maydayroleplay.com/) • Patreon (patreon.com/maydayrp/)

Doom to Repeat is a Delta Green Actual Play podcast with violent themes and adult language. This episode contains the topic of COVID-19. Listener discretion is advised. Welcome to Episode 10 of Doom to Repeat. I'm Sergio, your handler. I'm Erin A. Papps, and I'm Agent Samuel. I'm Allegra, I'm Agent Tuck. I'm Amanda Dominic, and I'm Agent Boomer.

I'm Caleb, and I'll be playing Agent Merritt. I'm Eli, and I'll be playing Agent Hyde. I'm Zekia, and I'll be playing Agent Warp. Before we get into our regularly scheduled announcements, the cast here at Mayday would love to extend a warm shout-out to Sergio, our handler. Sergio took on the daunting task of being our first DM here at Mayday and has done an absolutely stellar job with Doom to Repeat, spending countless hours both on editorial and other logistical stuff to help keep us moving along.

And for that, we can only say thank you so much, man, for all of your hard work and effort. Thank you so much, Sergio. Thank you, Sergio. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Sergio. For our final show, the first arc of Doom to Repeat, I've reserved our final thank you for someone who has earned a special place in the heart of each Mayday role-player. Vince of Black Project Gaming has been a champion for us from our release, and we are truly humbled by the charity and kindness he has shown to us and our show. We aim to pay it forward to other podcasts the way he has for us. Vince is one member of a fantastic group of role-players known as Black Project Gaming. Their Night at the Opera campaign makes for an excellent companion to ours, and I've

been very vocal about the fact that their playthrough of Music from a Darkened Room was the original inspiration for me to run Mayday's first Delta Green game. Like us, they're expanding and running other games like Curse of Strahd and Dragon Heist. We can't wait to see what else Vince and the gang have planned, so be sure to check them out. A final special thank you to all our Patrons who have supported us through this release. AJ, Chief McClain, He Who Wants Jeans, Trogbren, Vince, Sick Daniel, Chrissy Jordan, Triple T, and Case Officer Malaga.

We wouldn't be here without you. Stay tuned as this isn't the end of our story, but just a pause. You can expect a summer 2021 release of Doom to Repeat, Arc 2. And in the interim, we'll be releasing an original D&D campaign ran by our own Eli. We look forward to interacting with you on Discord, our social media, and future livestreams. If you'd like to support us, make sure to visit patreon.com forward slash Mayday role-play 7. Until next time, it's been a pleasure having you be a part of our conspiracy.

Father God, have mercy on me and your humble servant in this, the last moments of my time in this world. Bride sinned against you, this day and on every day. Walk with those that I'm leaving behind, protect them, keep them safe. Let this be my sacrifice alone. May my blood alone satiate this monster's thirst. Never mind me. I'll start with those immediately around me.

And Warp, I know she's on the edge, because I've seen that look in others before. That thousand-yard stare, she's about to tip and fall into the dark. She's had a complete and total breakdown lost touch with reality, started spouting something. Actually reminded me of a girl that got brought to me once, you remember the one. Now that girl turned out to just be schizophrenic, I made her parents take her to a real doctor, but I doubt Warp is going to get off that easy. That mantra she was reciting. It's from no religious tradition that I've ever studied, and I've studied a lot.

That can't mean anything good. I fear she's thrown herself in with our enemies, someone like that dark man from the Files. I pray that someone else on the team has the good sense to at least raise the issue with Mallory and, if you're willing, real Warp back into the light. Whatever that means. Lord, please, walk with Agent Merritt. He doesn't know what he's doing.

But I guess he means well, and really, that's enough. Forgive me for my disdain for him. I know that's not how you'd have him behave. I guess I just have a problem with kids insisting that they've seen more of reality than I have. He got up and gave us all a nice little annoying speech today, trying to convince us that he's nothing like that old man from the Detroit Files. Of course, he's wrong. If he didn't see the similarities, he'd have never felt the need to speak up in the

first place. He knows what he's becoming, and it scares the hell out of him. I'd ask that you'd spare him this fate, but I know from experience that you probably won't. I can only ask, though, when he does set off, that you limit the number of souls he takes to a minimum. Boomer. I'm afraid it's only a matter of time before she implodes too, in her own way.

She's angry, and not just at me. Add everything, really, but she seems to be blaming it all on me. And that's okay. I don't really mind. Sure, I had nothing to do with that neighbor of Bowman's, but I think it makes it easier for her to put the heat on me. Maybe it distracts her from the guilt, the shame. If that's the case, I'm happy to take the blame.

I can handle being a punching bag. It occurs to me that no one bothered to check on her after all that. I guess I offered, but I hope someone thinks to force a little help down her throat. Tuck, maybe. But I do ask that you remove her from this organization and return her to her fiancee before she really goes over the edge. It's clearly all she wants, and I don't think she's going to have much waiting for her at home if she sticks around here.

Hide. Tuck. They've both got good heads on. They're both going to be fine. At least physically. But please, Lord, they'll be the only ones left with even a shred of sanity, and they deserve to keep it. Let them.

Finally, Lord, thank you that Ruth never really knew me. I can't imagine how terrible her life would have been with me, especially after this. May she never find out the truth about where she came from, and may she grow up to be nothing like me and her mother. I also ask that you deliver the holy name congregation from the ravages of this virus and the things that will inevitably follow it. I don't know what story they're going to be told about me, but I ask that no one has to shed a tear over my loss.

Better for them to think that I simply strayed away, lost faith. As for me, I've been ready for this for a long time. There's nothing left for me here anymore. Take me, Lord. I guess in a way, I'm about to be made a martyr. It's kind of cool. I doubt the cover story they'll come up with will be anywhere near good enough to make me a saint, though.

Oh well. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Agent Samael, one minute you are on the plane with your other colleagues, and the next minute you look to your left and you see a black void as far as your eyes can detect. There is a single glimmer of light, and then another, and another, and before you know it, something large and massive and powerful is hurtling towards you. You think you know what it is.

What are you doing? I rise from the chairs quickly as I can, and having been spending the last several hours trying to study the Elder Sign, I will attempt to cast the spell. It is your first time, but you know that it is now or never. You begin drawing the sigil that you have memorized in the air as this thing hurtles towards you closer and closer. You can hear now the shifting. It sounds like hundreds of bags of glass just kind of rolling and rolling towards you.

It's becoming louder and louder. But as you begin to draw the sigil, there's a delayed effect. But sure enough, there is this glimmer of light like a trace of light that begins to be drawn in the air as you draw this sign, and you feel more and more confident that something is happening. The sigil is growing, and then it forms to this fully formed thing just as this massive wave of shimmering reality strikes at you. You see it in its full glory.

I need you to make a sanity check. Fail. Oh fuck. Please roll a d20. That's okay. It's the first, like, three minutes. 13. Holy shit.

Shit. It is terrifying to behold, but the sigil seems to float in the air in front of you, and the moment the thing is about to strike at you, it suddenly splits in half and raps itself around you. You are protected by this kind of invisible barrier, but your heart is beating so hard you think it's about to burst out of your chest, and that's when you wake up. You snap to reality. The other agents in the plane, you see Agent Samuel suddenly snap out of a daydream that

he was having, and he is screaming at the top of his lungs. What's going on? What happened? What did it do? Well, you take a breath, though you lost 13 sanity, it was a dream, and I need you to make one more sanity test for it. That's worse than it being on the plane. It's kind of coming to New York with us.

Success. Okay. With a 24. I am going to reduce the amount of sanity in half, which is 7, which means I'm going to ask that you roll a D6, and that is how much sanity you are going to lose. 6. Oh. If you want, you can project onto a bond.

I'm going to do that because otherwise I'm going to lose my shit. Roll a D4 and let me know which bond you subtracted from. So I roll a 3, which puts me at a 49, so 2 above the breaking point, and I am going to project onto my congregation. Agents of Operation Parental, you see Samuel snap awake, he kind of screams. You all are kind of noticing this, and he just starts taking deep breaths and sits back in his chair and seems to be calming down, he gets a hold of himself. And as I start coming back down, I'll take a pen out, and I will start writing everything

down in my notes. Samuel? Yeah. You okay? Yeah, just a really weird dream. What's going on back there? Samuel had a really weird dream. Just a really bad dream, I'm fine.

Have any relevance with everything we've experienced thus far? No, just a really bad dream. Do I believe him? Yeah. Do we believe him? I mean, how often do you see someone screaming out of their sleep? Yeah, we don't buy that shit. This drum, mixed bag, half and half.

Knowing myself. As you're all discussing this, Agent Samuel is trying to write down some notes. Agent Samuel, your hand is shaking, and there's this pain in your wrist, and that's when you realize there's this feeling, there's this nagging feeling in the back of your head that it's seen you, and what's worse, you think it's inside you. I am going to think about as many spheres as I possibly can imagine. Agent Samuel drops his pen and just kind of closes his eyes, and he seems to be focusing on something.

Clearly, whatever is going on with him, he's kind of playing coy. But that's when Agent Merritt, you notice, you know, the hand that he was writing with, it's kind of in the air, and it's shaking, and that's when you notice between his middle and index finger, something glimmers between the corners. And it's as if a droplet of water is beginning to emanate out from it. The entire plane suddenly begins to shake violently, and Agent Hyde, I need you to make a pilot's check. What?

I've never hated something so much. Oh, perfect. It's a two. Yeah! Okay. The sudden shaking of the ship, you grab the wheel and start controlling it, and although the plane seems to want to drop, you're able to fight it and maintain some height. What's going on, guys?

Hyde, you can even look back and see what's happening. The rest of the agents, you all notice something is emerging from Samuel's fingertips that is causing all of this shakiness. I need you all in this moment as you begin to realize what is happening. I need you all to make power rolls, including Samuel, including Hyde. On top of that, I need you to privately message me what it is your agent is thinking about in this moment. Guys, thank you for flying perennial airlines.

Seatbelt buttons are fucking on, so... In case of emergency, do not break glass. So Merritt, you were a success. What was the number that you rolled? I rolled a 37. Okay. And then, Tuck, what did you roll? I rolled a 45 under 70.

Okay. Samuel, what did you roll? Success on a 56. Six. Hyde, what was your roll? Success with a 35. It's great that we succeeded. Boomer, what is your roll?

Success with a 35. Okay. And then Warp. Failure with a 41. No! Oh, bloody! No! No!

We can't lose her. Yes. Unfortunately, had you all been thinking of a circle or something cylindrical, I would have chosen the highest success as your number, but unfortunately, the agents are distracted or just kind of not ready for the suddenness of this. The preta also had to roll a power roll, and it rolled really high. It rolled, like, a 78. Okay.

You all are watching as this is happening, and some of you are closing your eyes trying to concentrate, but this enormous mass of twisting and turning what look to be shards of reality erupt into the cabin, and all hell breaks loose. There is some kind of turbulent wind as if coming out of nowhere, and any loose papers and items begin just kind of flying around in the cabin. The turbulence hide is nonstop now. You're having to fight so hard to keep the plane from suddenly falling out of control. At the top of the initiative, this swirling mass seems to kind of floating in the air

inches from everyone, seems to form a kind of vaguely quadrupedal creature, and you can hear the glass kind of tingling together, and it sounds like it's like a primal growl. It takes in the area, and it goes straight for merit. Of course it does. It just suddenly looks directly in the direction of merit, and just suddenly swarms him. It's always Caleb. It surrounds merit, and you all witness merit desperately trying to run to grab his weapon or to do some kind of defensive stance, and you literally watch his flesh render from

his body. He takes 37 points of damage, and is eviscerated. The creature, as it eviscerates him, suddenly leaps towards the corner of one of the parts of the cabin, and it disappears with him, and you are left alone. I have fell below 11 points. I'm dead. Holy fuck. At the top of the initiative, it is Asian hide.

What are you doing? Fuck if I know. Keep us in the air, dude. Yeah, I'm going to keep us going, but I'm looking back and going, like, what the fuck is going on? I'm like, now look back. I need everyone to make sanity checks, as you've just witnessed one of your partners disappear. Thank god, I succeeded.

Success. Success. Somehow. Yes. That's a failure. Oh fuck. Okay, you're all still going to lose a point of sanity? That's okay.

Warb, are you doing anything? Oh. Thinking of domes now. Okay. Oh shit. Yeah, I'm just going to find a... I'm just going to press up against the wall and probably sink down to the ground and cover my ears and think of domes.

Boomer, what are you doing? Uh, I was about to say, since I failed, I only lost one point of sanity. Actually, I'll say it's a D6. I'll take that. Okay. Uh, three. Agent Tup, what are you doing? You just witnessed Merit disappear.

Uh, I'm going to yell at Boomer to go in the cockpit with Hyde, and I'm going to go over to Warp, and I'm going to pull her hand away from her ear. I'm going to say, get in the cockpit right now. And I'm just going to wait until they're both in there and stand in front of Warp and think about all the circles I can, all the domes, every sphere, yurts, globes, all of them. Semi-L, you are on the verge of having a nervous breakdown. You've just witnessed Merit disappear. This creature has come out of you.

It's real. It's happening right now. What are you doing? Where am I in relation to everyone else on the planet? You're basically in the middle of the cabin. And so, am I between the monster and everybody else? The preta has disappeared into a corner. Gotcha.

Um, I am going to, um, mutter to myself, God save us, and I'm going to cast the elder sign again. I will say that you have had sufficient time, and as you do it, it feels like the pressure in the room changes. Please remove two willpower, remove one sanity. Do you not hit your breaking point at this point? I do hit my breaking point. Oh, shit. Fuck. I'm going to say that you either freeze, fight, uh, what's the other one?

Flee. I will freeze. At the top of the initiative, erupting out of the corner where Warp has placed herself is this shard of, uh, of, of, of reality, and it comes for her. It's going to make a strike at her. Even though I'm sitting in front of her? You're, you're, you're, if you want to be part of it too, you can. No.

I was meaning to protect her, that was my plan. It succeeds, and the problem is, is that it just erupts right where she is standing and just begins to swirl around her. She also begins to tear apart, but the problem is that it deals 67 damage, and that translates to the ship as well. The entire part of the ship is suddenly covered in hundreds of tiny little dagger marks, and suddenly the hull, the cabin of the ship begins to lose pressure in incredible rate. All of these alarms begin sounding, and the ship begins violently shaking another pilot roll by Hyde as needed. I'm going to lay the thing right, girl. Please don't make a view. I succeed.

You're going to be too stupid. Mugger. You're, you're, you're still, you're still holding on to the ship even though it's really wants to drop and it's completely out of control. You're just barely keeping the thing in the air, but Warp has just disappeared into this mass of reality. And now this thing is remaining inside the cabin of the ship. It is tux, it is boomer, if you want to do anything, and Hyde. I feel like I should radio for help and try to land. I'll have a this.

Focus on landing, all radio, like emergency landing, all that, like to whatever. You don't know the call signs. Tell me, I'll hold the damn thing to her face or something. It's not enough time. All right, so the two of you are working on trying to radio for help. You're trying to emergency landing. Tuck, this thing is swirling right in front of you. What are you doing?

Can you use my movement? I'm going to run. I'm going to slam the cockpit door shut and try and keep it in here with me. And then I'm going to sit down in front of it and think about domes and circles and spheres. And that's the only thing we've heard about that'll help. So I'm just going to keep at it. Let me ask everyone to make sanity checks one more time since warp is now dead. I succeed.

I don't know why. I also did. I failed. No, I lied. I failed. I was looking at the wrong number. I definitely failed. If you fail, roll a D6.

If you succeed, you just lose one sanity. I'm just slowly losing my sanity. One by fucking one. I'm still keeping it together, though. I'm still keeping it really together. Samuel, though you have hit your breaking point, you have lost even more sanity, but you have done the elder sign and you feel this pressure against this creature that is in the cabin.

And you can tell as you're watching it, one by one, these little shards are just slowly kind of dissipating and fading away. It's happening real slow, but there does seem to be some kind of effect holding this creature back. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on.

Come on. Come on. The creature seems repelled by you, Agent Samuel. But, almost in a, in a kind of like, fuck you, it turns its back to you and just begins eviscerating the inside of the ship. Like a saw! All of a sudden, the entire back of the plane is just torn apart. And in a violent whiff of wind and noise, the entire plane is rendered in half.

I need everyone to make dexterity times 5 rolls. Fuck. Fuck. I succeed. Oh, we're falling over in three turns. Holy shit, I succeed. Taka also succeeds. Somehow, Samuel succeeds.

The ship is literally torn apart and that feeling in your stomach of falling hits immediately as the ship begins to fly out of control towards the ground. You all somehow manage to grab onto a part of the ship and you don't fly out of the plane immediately, but you're desperately hanging on. You're all free falling and this thing now has disappeared somewhere up into the air. You are left alone to die just the sound of the wind and the plane crashing the sounds of emergency noises. Agents of Operation Perennial, you are all sitting on the Challenger 605.

It's about 30 minutes before landing and Agent Samuel erupts from a nightmare. I hate it. Screaming and kicking at the top of his lungs. Holy shit. I hate it. Stop. I need a second. Any of the agents that have lost sanity or their lives, you are okay.

You may return your sanity to what it was at the beginning of the session. Fuck you. I'm amazing, but fuck you. Except Agent Samuel. In total, it sounds like you lost sick sanity. If you would like, you can project onto a bond once again and push it a little farther and hopefully get under five and not I will project onto my daughter. No.

Oh no, Ruth. Three. Agent Samuel wakes up from this dream screaming and kicking. Agent Samuel, I will say that you are now temporarily insane. Are you going to fight, flee or freeze? Freeze. He's just literally standing in the middle of the cabin screaming his lungs off. It almost looks like he's about to pull his hair out.

What is everyone doing? What the fuck is going on? I'm going to, I'm going to wave Merit over to like deal with him and I'm going to kind of shepherd a warp and boomer away just in case. I'm before like I get pulled away. I'm making sure I have the bag that has my laptop and I'm going to see if I can try to get Samuel's laptop. Okay, so you run over and grab his things and kind of back away from him.

Merit, what are you doing? I'm going to go up to him and I'm going to gently take his wrist and then I'm going to press it onto his like little pad of notes in front of him. I'm going to try and make direct eye contact. Merit's going to look at him and say, let's try some de-escalation. I want you to try and help me make that sign you've been practicing, yes? And I start moving his hands in that, in that same pattern. I haven't done it, but I know he has.

I'm hoping he's going to guide me. Merit, go ahead and give me a psychotherapy roll. I succeed with a 24. Over the course of a couple of minutes, everyone kind of tentatively watching. Agent Samuel goes from an almost kind of catatonic frozen in fear state to his hands are moving. He seems to be drawing something in the air and he calms down. And Agent Samuel, you regain the semblance of your conscious mind. You are calming down.

Your breathing is returning to normal. I'm going to ask Agent Samuel, give me one more sanity check. Crazy breachers. For reals. Fail with a 60. What happens is, this is a mechanical thing. You have just experienced a rather traumatic experience. You have hit your breaking point, but you were with your allies.

You were with your colleagues. This failure means that what I would like you to do is add every single member of this team to your bonds. You are going to make your charisma. You're going to split your charisma in half score. And that is the bond number that you will be able to add to every one of these people. Mechanically speaking, as you come out of this, you realize everyone is around you. You're just suddenly so happy to see these people that at one point you were on the verge of thinking that they were all assholes. But what also happens is you must roll a d4 and you must remove that from some other bond.

Which bond would you like to subtract that from? I'm going to kick the strip club down so it's in line with everything else. I'm going to ask that Warp make this same roll since you also hit your breaking point earlier. So roll a sanity test. That's the failure with a 31. Okay, the same thing happens with you. This is obviously a little retroactive. But please roll a d4 and subtract that from one of your current bonds. Let's do the therapist.

You said you lost three? Yes. So in a way, you have bought a little bit of extended life insurance on your sanity as these are all people with whom you could project your insanity onto. And stave it off for a little bit longer. Nice. It's exactly like we talked about in the car. So agent Samuel seems to be kind of putting himself back together. Merit, you're sitting next to him kind of talking him through this.

The rest of the team is realizing things are kind of calming down. Are we good? Everything all good back there? I can't see what's going on. Just fine. Just fine. That's good. Well, we're getting pretty close. So maybe sit down. Great piloting. I'm going to kind of like tentatively while he goes and like sits.

I'm going to be like as far away as possible keeping my eye as I'm going to go back to cataloging our stuff on the laptops. I'm using Samuel's laptop at the same time to kind of like kill two birds one stone type thing. Don't check the search history on that laptop. Merit goes immediately back to his seat. He fastens his seat belt like 30 times and then sits perfectly still. It's almost like he's sad the seat belt button didn't go off. Samuel, you're breathing. You look out the window. You look around. Things feel normal and that feeling that nagging feeling that something was watching you and inside you.

It's not there anymore. The plane begins its descent into a municipal airport known as Morristown in Newark just outside of New York. Plane lands. It's about 9.30 in the evening and without issue you manage to land. As you are descending you can see the New York skyline in the east of you. But hide you are directed to park near a helipad on one side of the airport. Once you've parked and shut down the engines, you know that you are scheduled to meet with your team to recover an asset that you have found. Okay. Once we park and stuff like that, that little photograph that I have, I'm going to like take it, pocket it, and then I'm going to walk out and I said ask. So I have somebody coming to pick up the crystal. What else artifact wise do we want to pass over?

Everything. The reverb. We don't have to. We definitely have to. Yeah, it's not coming with us past this point. Hell no. I mean they're going to toilet it or we're going to fucking pass it along. I don't think toiletting is a good idea. No, I don't think so either.

Remember guys, let's go back to the basics. What are we here for? Catalog, upload, not here to hold shit. Yeah. With that in mind, maybe we should follow Mallory's directive hide and we should pass off what we're giving over to your contact and then we can burn out the corkboard. Okay. But we have pictures of the corkboard, right? Take out my cell phone and start taking pictures of everything really quickly. Thank you.

I also want to keep the VHS. Oh, that's right. We haven't seen what's on it. Okay. I might have a lead to something else. Anything from Baumann's cabin we want to get rid of? Not everything from Baumann's cabin was looked at digitized. Gotcha.

So there are still a handful of things that maybe you've put into a separate box or something, but the FBI tapes, the I believe there was a glass bead. I want to keep those. Oh yeah, we still have Sky Devils somewhere. So this is what we can do. I will take pictures of the actual items just so I can at least have like photographic evidence and I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to let everyone else decide what they're going to do with that. I'm going to take photos and I'm going to just only focus right now on uploading and getting this stuff up to the server. That's my goal. Let's consider anything that we've actively looked at something we can hand over to this contact for the rest we can keep the corkboard is a special exception.

By order of Mallory. We can keep, I think we need to keep the tapes, as we said, Sky Devils. Well, we've read through Sky Devils, we really need to keep it. I think it'd be good to have them on hand. Okay. They come in handy if we decide we are off to Wyoming. I always like to read things twice. Especially if it has correlation with 1984.

We never looked at that gun coffin. That's right, we did not. Yeah. Go on to that if you'd like, Hyde. Sure, yeah. I also think if we could get a copy or at least a picture boomer, especially of Meadowbrook, since that's so close to where we are now, it might be worth looking into. It should be on the server. It is.

So we're keeping the VHS, the reel to reel, the knife, the bead, and Sky Devils. Oh. And the gun coffin. The shoebox with the pills and syringes. I'm pretty sure Warp still has that. So it sounds like you are handing over the crystal. And the reverb, yeah. Yeah, just like all the, all the information, all the like paper information other than.

I see. So the physical copy of the case file. Yeah. Since Mallory said to keep some of it. As you're kind of finishing up your discussion about what to take, what to leave behind, you can hear the sound of a helicopter. And you look out and you can see some of you recognize it, some of you don't. But there is a Sikorsky MH-60 J-Hawk. It's rather a large helicopter, kind of like a reconnaissance helicopter often used for more medium to long range missions.

It seems to be white and orange in the colors of the Coast Guard. You see it begin to land on the helipad. And Agent Hyde, you have a sneaking suspicion that this is probably your contact. Cool. That's my guy. Pass up the crystal and let's get this over with. I'll pass up the crystal. Thank you.

Because I have the reverb. I'll go out of the plane. Is it still on? Is it still going or is it like turning? Are they powering down? The helicopter maintains its rotation. It is kind of in a stasis mode as it's still working. But you can see that a woman is jumping out of it and kind of walking towards to meet you at the halfway point.

Okay. I approach her. You open the door to the cockpit. It's a little warmer here in Newark. It's about 65 degrees and you step out into the night. This portion of the airport is decently lit. It's quite bright. And as you go to meet this person halfway, you do recognize it.

It is Dr. Thornbill, the woman that you called to speak to. And as you come halfway, she nods and she says, hello, Jamie Wilson. And kind of smiles at you as she reads your CDC badge. Do you know you made house calls, Doc? Well, I happened to be in D.C. when you called. So lucky me, I get to do the pickup. Oh, beautiful. Well, I present her the crystal and the baggie of reverb.

She looks at the baggie and kind of looks at it. Interesting. And she looks at the little box you're holding and she says, is it dangerous to look at? It's dangerous to touch, for sure. It's very influential. The drugs too. I see. It's a combination and she opens it and she looks at it.

Those on the Challenger 605, are you guys watching what's going on? Yeah. Yeah. I'm mourning the loss of both the crack rock and the drugs. I am not. I am focused. What you guys see is a thin dark skinned woman who's about 5'8", about as tall as Hyde is. She seems to be born of North Indian descent.

She wears her hair in a straight back ponytail and she wears a green jumper that seems to kind of fit with the Air Force motif. You can't see from this distance, but Hyde, you can see she has these pale blue eyes that give off an air of intelligence. She really doesn't seem to miss anything. She's looking at the crystal and she says to you, what does it do? It makes you feel really good. Like you got some energy. I don't know quite entirely, but I touched it. It feels cold, but you know.

Have you tried holding it with gloves? No. No. No. No, we haven't tried it without gloves. She pulls out a pair of plastic gloves and puts it on. You'll realize right in front of you, she's already doing experiments to understand it. You know that this is the doctor's job with this group.

She pulls it out, holding the glove, and sure enough, it doesn't seem to be having any effect on her. She looks at it and she kind of seems to be weighing it. She says, alright, seems safe enough. I'll take it. She puts it back in, closes the lid, takes the case files from you, and she turns back to the plane, or excuse me, to the helicopter, and kind of signals someone over. Another woman dressed in kind of scientist smock, like a white scientist smock, but they have this helicopter helmet on with the visor down. They jump out and they start walking towards you guys. She turns back to you and she says, I'm sorry if you aren't having a good time.

At least I got that impression from your phone call. I just was surprised that you would recommend me for something. I usually fly pretty under radar, you know, never seemed very ambitious, you know. It's weird that I would get this from you. What if I told you I recommended you for this project for a reason? I would love to know the reason. I want you to understand, but I need you to see it for yourself first here, and she hands you from her back pocket. She hands you this beat-up old book.

It seems like it's quite well-worn, and the cover reads, Invisible Horizons, True Mysteries of the Sea. And she says, read it over. I've highlighted the important parts. Get back to me and I'll tell you more. You got it, Doc. She nods her head thanking you, and that's about the time that this other person comes up and begins kind of grabbing some of the objects. As they approach, they begin taking off their helmet, and Dr. Thornbill says, Agent Wilson, this is Dr. Hooks. She's new. She's been working with me in one of the black sites researching this kind of stuff.

And the woman takes her helmet off, and Agent Hyde, what you see is a black woman with short thick hair. She's wearing like a turtleneck under her white scientist garb. And the most notable aspect about her is that she has these burns across her face and her neck that almost kind of resemble like the shadow of hands blocking, as if she had put her hands up at some point, and now there were these marks on her face. It's kind of unusual. Can I extend my hand to her and shake it? Absolutely. With a firm grasp? She introduces herself as Dr. Hooks and has a pleasant smile.

Wilson. Agent Tuck, you are watching this exchange from the plane, and all of a sudden it dawns on you that this new person that has just walked up is familiar. And you suddenly realize, oh my god, that's her. That's the woman that's Agent Halo. The woman who signed the book in Meadowbrook. Agent Tuck, I'm going to ask that you make a sanity check. No way. Fucking fucker, you fucker. Shit.

I was fucking Zakiya's face because she turned away when you were talking about the burns, and I was like, oh. And then you're talking about it a little more, and she like kept making like little faces, and I was like fuck, that was something. I knew something was Zakiya, because I saw that face too. I saw that face too. Fall the fuck up. I need to scream, this is disrespectful. I know, I know. Shit. Roll a d6. I think you need to roll a d6. This is intense enough.

I am so glad I was not really paying attention, as like boomer, boomer wasn't. Just one. Okay, if you like you can project that, otherwise you only lose one sanity. Everyone on the plane, you hear Tuck audibly gasp. You good? I will look up at this point. I'll just kind of nudge her and head toward the, or like nod my head toward the, toward the woman. Okay, and I will look.

Well, boomer will look. Boomer, give me a sanity check, as you realize a woman, not more than maybe 50 feet away from you, it is the same woman that disappeared at Meadowbrook. Success. Okay, I'll say that you lose one sanity, as you are also struck by the incredible unlikeliness of this person just being another random woman with these very specific burns. Agent Hyde, you finish your interaction. Dr. Thornbill says, we'll be in touch, Agent, take it easy.

Thank you, fly safe. They turn and they begin returning to the helicopter and you return to the challenge. Can I, can I come out and, oh, I'm going out, I'm going out and I'm going to call Agent Halo. I'm going to run after her. Agent Hyde, you see Agent Tuck run out of the plane and is kind of walking towards you and she screams out, Agent Halo. What the fuck are you doing? Hold on.

Bring me hold on, whoa. Fuck, wait just a second Hyde. Whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you doing? I'm going to bring out a door like, hide, hide, just like try to get hide away from Tuck. No, no, no, what are you doing? Halo. You scream it out once more and both Thornbill and this woman kind of turn to notice that someone is yelling towards them and Thornbill is kind of putting her ear up like she doesn't understand what's happening.

I'm going to go closer. Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, no, no, no, no. We think we know her. That's when we're like, I don't think I know her, I know her. Oh, I'm telling that to Hyde. That's not my problem. Hey, hey, I'm going, I'm fucking going. I'm taller.

Okay, so please I'm going to ask that both Tuck and Hyde make power, excuse me, athletics checks. I succeed with a 13. Oh fuck. Come on. I succeed with a 16. The higher role wins. Agent Tuck manages to brush you off Hyde and she is just be lining it towards these individuals. I'll say you get about 15 feet before Hyde, I assume you are keeping up with her.

Yeah. At this point, Thornbill and the other woman can see that there is some kind of argument going on and you see Thornbill kind of reach for a weapon that is on her holster and she sort of puts Dr. Hooks behind her and they are both kind of quickly backing up to... I'll put my hands up. I get in between Tuck and Thornbill and the helicopter and like look her in the eye and I said, I don't know what the fuck you're doing but you need to fucking stop right now. I'm not fucking stopping.

That woman, that woman signed the book. It doesn't matter. It absolutely matters. This has to do with our case. This is the case we were just... Tuck. We're not here for it. I'm here to find information about the people that are...

And you will get shot and you will get shot for it. Well, I'll get shot for talking to a woman? Yes. They'll shoot a federal agent for talking to a woman, really. I'm gonna try and move past her. I'm gonna stop her. Please give me another round of athletics checks. Oh lord.

I succeed with a 29 fail. Hi, you are finally able to get a hold of her and she is struggling to fight you off but you managed to kind of put her in a, you know, kind of not a headlock but something where she's just not able to break out of your grasp. You're practically wrapping your whole self around her. And that's when the two individuals hop onto the J-Hawk and just as quickly as it arrived, it begins to take off and slowly ascend into the air.

Agent Tuck, you are watching as this doctor that Hyde was speaking to watches you and the same woman who was introduced to Agent Hyde as Dr. Hooks also watches you and you swear there's the slightest bit of a smile on her face. Fuck. And the helicopter flies off. I finally let her go. I'm gonna punch her. Damn.

Okay, make that attack. Oh, that's a success. Okay. Hyde, you can choose to dodge if you want to. I will dodge. The audacity. Fuck. I failed with a 54.

Okay, so go ahead and roll a d4 minus one. Okay. And Merit, what were you gonna say? He's coming out on the tarmac now that they're wrestling and I mean he was already out there but now he's rushing for the seven. Elk tries to grab him by the shoulders like whoa, whoa, whoa. You can't stop women from fighting. Shut the fuck up.

You can't stop. Boomer's gonna like grab my alleyway and I'm gonna push him. Boomer's gonna push that guy away just like Merit and Boomer gonna run out. She takes two. Okay, Agent Hyde, you're gonna take two damages. You're just clocked on the chin.

I will say that Agent Merit is able to reach you guys before a full blown fight breaks out. You hit like a bitch. Do you want to fucking go? Yes, go. We'll go. Excuse me. There was information there.

Excuse me. It doesn't matter. It absolutely matters. That's the entire point of this goddamn operation that's pulled us out from hell. But you're fucking with something that you don't fucking understand, so fuck off. We're all fucking with something

we don't understand. Are you kidding me? Do you know what this job entails? All right, enough. Yes, I know what this job entails, you ass. Enough. I thought we just had a discussion not a few days ago about not going off half-cocked

without informing the rest of the team. Can we, can we revisit that idea? Yeah, it was time-sensitive. If I'd stopped her and had a chance to talk to her, I would have included everyone in that conversation, but someone decided that that was unimportant. You would have been shot. I'm not gonna.

You know our directive, and you know the price, and you know what happened. We're the people that are supposed to know this information. Yes, and we're supposed to protect it at all costs. What do you think I'm doing by learning more? We need to take a breath. I'm gonna walk off. Fuck this.

There's a few employees at the airport that are kind of doing some maintenance that have noticed the loud yelling between the three of you. I'm gonna reach into my coat, and I'll just flash my FBI badge. And you know, everything's safe over here. We had a disagreement.

We'll get things situated. Sorry. They wave at you and just kind of wander off to give you your privacy. I'm gonna approach Tuck, and I'm gonna kind of like pull her back towards the plane to just like kind of calm her down. Like, let's walk it off.

Let's walk it off. Fine. It's a fucking halo. I know. I saw it too. She disappeared. She signed the book. She fucking disappeared.

And now she's fucking in a plane. She can fly now? Could she fly before? I don't know if she could fly before. Did you know if she could fly? I don't even know. Not fly, fly, but like fly a plane or a helicopter. I got that.

Don't worry. I know. I know. Unfortunately, that is not our priority, but I know, I know, I know that sounds like an ass thing. I know, I know. But right now, I don't know what, you know what's gonna happen.

Let's just calm down and get the fuck back together because we can't have Hyde in you going off like that. We already got Samuel down. We can't have any more Splintered. Let's just take a breath. Come on, breathe with me. Let's just fuck her. You got her really good.

You got a good pop. Isn't that good? It was good. It was pretty good. It was a nice shot. And I'm just gonna kind of walk her back into the plane. I'm gonna go hunt down Hyde. I'm in a cockpit.

Slam the door. Oh, okay, cool. I'll go up to the threshold and I'll knock at it, shave in a haircut. What? What? I'd like to decompress. I open the door and I look at him and I'm like, what?

I take the opportunity to walk myself into the cabin. I shut the door behind me. Yesterday, you gave me an opportunity. Like an opportunity. Now tell me what just happened. What just happened? I had somebody on our team fuck up something. That's like really important.

That's a little bit more deeper than just what we're fucking doing. You know? I completely agree. What was it that she called him? Called her Agent Halo? Yeah, I don't know who Agent Halo is. That was not the introduction I got. But there's a protocol on how things work around here.

And Tuck was about to get herself killed for over it. I completely agree. This is something we visited just a few days ago. How do you want to proceed? I don't know. Tell Tuck to settle the fuck down maybe to start and like stay out of my business. You could call a meeting?

We need to park this plane in whatever hangar we have and we need to move on because it's what, like 10. And now it's late. I'm tired. I flew for two hours. I'd like to move on with my night. Then you and me are both agreeing that this is something we can overlook for now.

For now? As long as Tuck doesn't swing at me again or she swings at me again, I'm going to beat her ass. I think we both know you can take a punch. I could try. Yeah. But nobody swings on me and doesn't get dropped. I think we both know who would win in that fight.

Absolutely. So let's make a decision that we all do our best to be the better person in these situations like you were for me. Fine. Fine. Meanwhile, sitting back on the plane, the Sama El and Agent Warp are kind of just awkwardly

stuck in there by themselves. And after a certain period of silence, Sama El would be like, you know, if you ever want to borrow this, you're welcome. Just, I heard what you said the other day and you know, if you ever are missing one, you can borrow it for a bit. And you're holding up your Bible.

Is that what it is? Yeah. I appreciate that. To be honest, I don't think we serve the same God, if that makes sense. That's cool. No, that's cool. But thank you.

And she takes out her spindle and just goes off. Everywhere. And then Sama El just bury his own face in the Bible to distract himself from the awkwardness. It's late in the evening, the dust has settled and the decision needs to be made about what's next. Most of you have not showered in two days, much less slept in a bed.

I think it's time we discussed accommodations. Yeah, I know where I'm going. You can follow me if you want to. That was an option we could separate. Demi-El, I'm open to the idea, but I'm going to need some more details than we can follow you. That's all there is to it.

I got a place to stay. You can come with me if you want. There are ample room for everyone and their gear? Sure. I got an air mattress. Oh, God. An air mattress. I have to admit it, be so good for the budget.

And after everything we lost in the extra room, I think we could pick up some speed here. There's a hotel around the corner too, if you want. I'm not comfortable with us separating. Okay, well, then follow me. What did we just do? What did we just do? Did we agree to this?

We didn't agree. We submitted to it. I just hope to God. I hope to God it's a church. I hope to please be a church because anything else, I'm not sleeping in a strip club. Okay, so it sounds like everyone is agreeing to go along and to follow Samuel.

Surrendering is the idea. You do have to rent a car or maybe you just rent a cab, but either way, it might make more sense if you rent it if you're going to be here for a few days. What airport will we be at? You're in an airport called Morristown Municipal Airport in Newark. Okay, so is that like a hop a ferry over

and then get on the subway kind of situation? If you wanted to not rent a car, yes. Let's rent a car. We're renting a car. We're at an airport. They usually have car rentals. Have you ever tried to drive in Manhattan? It is jarring if you've never done it before. Listen, I know how the talk to the people on the subway will be fine.

Besides, it'll give you a unique opportunity to get to know New York's locals. They're almost as terrifying as everything we read in that case file. Warp pulls her sleeves down and fishes some extra gloves from her bag and puts them on her hands. That's smart. Anybody else want some?

Please, COVID is rampant. Yeah. I'm going to put my mask back on. Distributes the gloves. Are the subways even running right now? They are for essential personnel and trips. I would call this as essential of a trip as any. I'll put our CDC badges front and center kids.

Surprisingly, they're cleaning them too. Oh, wow. It's a revelation. It's new. I'm not sure how I feel about it. As we're leaving, I'm going to slightly take out my cell phone and I'm going to text my fiance that I am in New York trying to get out to get home.

As you remember to go and text her, you notice a text already seems to have gone through while you were flying and you did not have any service. It just says, sorry, ER got busy. I miss you. Get home soon. Oh, God. Thank you.

I'm going to be like, all right, I'm going to be hella romantic, see if I can just smooth this out. I love miss you. I can't wait to make more pancakes for you soon. We'll discuss. I have some ideas for flower arrangements. FYI, XOXO, just know I am in New York trying

to get home to you as fast as possible. So I'm going to reveal my location. OK. Upon looking at all the shit we have, including a gun case, I'm going to bring up this isn't discreet or... Have you been on the subway before? No. Well, yes, I have.

But the gun case is a little much. We're trying to keep a cover intact, and this is not going to do that. So no matter what, how drawing the drive might be, I think a car rental might be our best option. I will also say that this plane is effectively yours. It is parked. You could lock up the plane and leave whatever you wanted off the plane.

That might be smarter for the evidence. Do we need to look at the gun case like anytime soon? I don't think so. What we should do is find a green box and drop all this shit off so it's extra safe. Well, tell you what, it's late. We can rent a car tomorrow and loop back for stuff. But for now, I think the best thing is to just get everyone

settled in for the night. Yeah, I suppose we're not going to do any research tonight. Yeah, let's just grab the essential, very light bags. I'll take the laptop bags and let's just leave the gun. Let's just lock up the plane with the big stuff. Well, if we're here, we might as well burn the corkboard now. You want to burn the corkboard on an airplane tarmac? It would be maybe the less conspicuous thing we've done all weekend.

We can take apart the board and then burn it later. Perfect. Boom, you have a picture of it, right? In the order it was in. Click, click, click, click, click. Yes, I do. Great. Then let's take it apart.

You begin taking the many pieces that are put together on the board, including the string that is connecting different pieces, put it all together, put it in like a plastic bag, and now you have a little plastic bag and you have a like 18 by 24 corkboard. Yeah, we'll leave it on the plane. All right, so it sounds like you guys are going to commit to taking some kind of public transportation to get to semiles.

You make your way first. You take a taxi into town or to the nearest subway station and you do find that the subway station is being manned by police and there's some National Guard presence as well. And you do have to present your IDs and they allow you through. The subway system is almost completely unmanned and there's barely anyone in it. It's quite strange having the entire subway system to yourself

and maybe a few government personnel, but you hop on and you get into New York City using the subway system. You get out at the right stop. It's only a couple of blocks before you see a beautiful, large Catholic church on the corner of a street and Samuel points out that this is where he typically works. Now listen, if anyone asks you who you are, you aren't CDC agents.

You are visiting students from Harvard Divinity School. That'll get you more cover here than the CDC. Now, Samuel, are you going to take them to your apartment or are you going to drop them off at the church? I am going to. I will take them to my apartment, but I will see if I can wrangle a couple of cards in the basement for them at the church as well.

I think that's easy enough for you to do. You are a key member of the church. I think that's totally possible. I assume that the other agents would follow you in. You guys are waiting for a few minutes in the interior of this beautiful church, and after a few minutes, Samuel does return with cuts and the necessary things to house you in his apartment.

You all share the load, take these things, and he leads you about a block away from the church to a high-rise apartment that is obviously where he lives. You go inside, you go up the elevator, and you are led to Agent Samuel's apartment. Agent Samuel, why don't you describe what this apartment looks like? It's a large one-bedroom. It's on the nicer side of apartments in Manhattan.

It's not like a luxury apartment or anything, but it's okay. You step in through the door, and the first thing you notice is the stacks and stacks and stacks of paper. He has the whole Amazon rainforests worth of notes and books just piled up everywhere. It seems like this place is more of his study than his home. It's a little bit messy.

There are takeout containers piled up in the kitchen from before he left. There's beer bottles and liquor bottles strewn around. There's just a whole big fat bag of weed on the counter, as well. He's shuffling you in. I'll just say, make yourselves comfortable. All of these notes, you can push,

push them up against the wall, set the cots out wherever. I have an extra key somewhere. Boomer's going to go to the bag of weed and lift it up and be like... Help yourself. Gladly. How important are these unfinished bottles to you? How do those work? What do you mean?

Do they need to be here? Is it important that they're here? I'll pull a trash bag out. They just kind of start putting things into the trash bag. I have to ask. Sam, I don't... How can you afford this place? I have a PhD and I'm one of the most respected theologians in the country.

It pays a little bit better than you might think. Oh, so you're really a priest? Boomer laughs. Yes, does that surprise you? Okay. There are so many things about you that add up to nothing, and then divide that nothing by zero. And every time I think I have a handle on who you might be,

you wriggle out of my hands like you're greased in oil. That's very specific. That was very specific. But congratulations, this is incredible. It's not bad. If you don't want to stay here, I can let you into the basement over in the church. It gets a little cold down there,

but no one's going to bat an eye if you sleep down there as well. I might take you up on that offer because this is stressful. Yeah, I get it. Just keep in mind it is a church. I'm not sure if that... What you're saying is if you're in there, control yourself. That's all I'm saying. I'm sorry, what did you just say?

I know how to act accordingly. If I can behave myself in there, anyone can. I mean, there's no farmers darted nearby, so... What does that mean? I like smack Boomer on the arm. Sabah El chooses to not engage. I think I can maintain sheep farm decorum, absolutely. Sheep farm decorum.

I'm going to hide really quick to come over here. But I'm laughing at you. And I'm going to whisper in her ear, you got a blow job from the farmer starter at that one sheep farm. You did what? I'm just going to laugh as I roll up a joint. Oh, there's also a VHS player over there. Great.

I think part of tomorrow could be fruitfully spent listening to both the FBI tapes as well as this VHS. I agree. Also find the location of this club. Let me know exactly where it is. It's in Brooklyn. Have you been there? I've heard of it. I've never been.

Well, that's where the network is, so it's worth checking out. Yeah, can't wait. Okay, I'm going to crash. Hide, this is the key to the basement. You can go ahead and just let yourself in. Nice, another key to my collection. If you want to play the organ, you can. Just don't get too loud.

I'm not going to do that, Sam. It's everybody. Everybody wants to. That's why I mentioned it. I don't want to. Anyone else staying in the church? Well, I mean, outside of us, are there any civilians we should be aware of inside of the church? Oh, inside? No, since lockdown.

It's just during the day. It's just me and a couple of the other fathers, but the night no one else is going to be there. I don't like the idea of us being alone. No one else goes with hide. I'll stay with hide. Cool. Hide, deuces. So Agent Hyde and Agent Merritt say their goodbyes

and they head out of the apartment. Hyde and Merritt, you are able to enter the church where you were instructed by Samuel to and you find just kind of an open basement that you can set your cots down and go to sleep. Hyde, before you go to sleep, I was wondering, I had a question. Sure, what's up?

Play Hearts. Did I play what? Picks out a little playing card deck from his duffel bag and he puts it out in front of me. Hearts. Um, no, I don't think I have. Like to learn? Sure.

I'll spend the night playing Hearts with Hyde as long as she'd like to, just dealing out two player hearts. Some of the cards are gone, altered, but going through the motions of teaching, hide how to play Hearts. It's very long-winded. He explains the rules 50 more times than he should, but that's his goal for the night.

Back at the, at Samuel's apartment, Warp has set everything out that she wants to like where her things are and where she's sleeping. It's very neat, but she's disinfecting everything that they've touched since they've got in here. The doorknob, the lights, we're disinfecting the top, everything that she's going to interact with in this apartment has been, um, Clorox.

I'm going to ask my elf, he has like a very, very like long T-shirt or something I can use as a night TV and I'm going to go quick. And remember, I'm kind of drunk in stone, take a really weird like just long shower and then try to just like go to bed. For some of you, it's not till about 2 a.m.

such as Warp making sure everything that she is near is clean, that you guys go to sleep. But eventually you all find rest and it is so nice to not be in an air-conditionless hangar or sleeping on a plane, sleeping upright. Uh, it is as quiet as New York City can be late in the evening,

but you guys are used to the city noises and it's kind of relaxing and it's comforting and you all manage to have a pretty decent amount of sleep. Agent Samuel, let me ask you and I'm going to ask Agent Warp as well to make sanity checks. That's fair.

Barely squeak out of success. Roll a 45, half a 45. Fail. Agent Samuel, you manage to push the very vivid and intense dreams that you had this evening to the side and you fall asleep and you get some rest.

Agent Warp, you have a little bit of a harder time. You can't get the thoughts of why am I here in this dirty ass apartment? You know, I have no idea if this man, where he has been and you are thinking about all the things that you have learned over the last couple of days. You're having trouble falling asleep.

You could, if you wanted to, attempt to look through Samuel's drawers and try to find a sedative of some kind to help you. Got lots of options there. Fucking candy store. Okay. Okay, she's going to try to

follow her instincts and spend a little bit longer and once that doesn't work, she's going to speed up and start going through a shit. Okay, you can and Samuel, tell me if I'm wrong. I'm sure you can find something

relaxing a Xanax or some kind of pill like that. If you want a fucking Ambien, he's probably got it. Yeah, I take whatever the recommended dosages and then I keep a couple in the little front pocket of the overalls. Okay, give me another sanity check.

You will have plus 20 to that roll now that you have taken something. Okay. That is a fail. 86. And you're on Ambien too. That's a bug. That's a miracle.

You're going to have difficulty sleeping. It's enough to kind of make you not get up the rest of the evening, but your mind is racing and tossing and turning and the mix of the Ambien just has very weird thoughts creeping in and out.

I'm going to say that unfortunately, you're going to wake up tomorrow with a level of exhaustion, but eventually the morning comes. It's about eight when everyone kind of begins to get up. We'll say that. Can I say I get up a little earlier?

Sure. And I want to take boomers, her research laptop, not her personal laptop, obviously, but I want to take the research laptop and I want to get out, get into the server and just read over the Meadowbrook case again

and like look for like anything that she or I said about warp and just like the warp and the man, the like the dark man with the book just kind of rehash all of it. So it's a little more at the forefront of my mind. Yeah, so that you get up early,

you grab the laptop and the fob, you plug it in, you follow all the steps to get onto the server. You get onto the server and you see that there are many folders. One of them has recently been uploaded and it is labeled however you guys decided to label it probably Detroit 1984 case file.

You know, there's some kind of description of that folder while all of the other folders are just literally folders with a sequence of 12 numbers in no particular order. I'm going to ask that you make a search role and I'll give you plus 20% to that search role because you know exactly

what you are looking for and it might be a little bit easier if you just kind of randomly start clicking through some of these. That is a success. It takes a few minutes but sure enough you start, you open up one of the folders and you start noticing words, metal broke, New Jersey, the time frame,

the date, the people involved and you realize this is the case that you were involved in in 2017. You begin reading through it. It's very thorough. It has the debriefings from the only survivors of that event that was you and Agent Boomer.

What is it in particular that you're looking for? Any information that there is about Agent Halo. Any information that there is that we found about the Darkman. Those are the main two things I'm looking at because I want to find connections between the Detroit case and I want to fucking find out what the fuck is up with Warp. Halo, I meant Halo, not Warp, Halo.

Sorry, it's cute. There is not a lot of information on Agent Halo. There is a description of her from you and Boomer that perfectly matches the person that you saw on the runway last night. It seems that she was an anthropologist of some kind and there isn't much else about her as you all were somewhat in the dark

about who the fellow agents were. But reviewing the information, you are reminded of what happened and what you learned that there was a house that had been in the early 1900s consecrated to a deity known as the Darkman who you later came to learn had an alternate name of Nearlathotep.

You recall that in your research, the little that you did, there was mention that the Darkman was a kind of pagan god from Italian origin and that there was a motif of deception and masks and trickery. I'll tell you what, the description of that last night when you performed the ritual with Agent Halo

and the other agents almost perfectly matches the description that Rose Alvarado read in the journal of Ishmael Muhammad, the man who had witnessed some kind of ritual in which what he described was a dark man emerging from the shadows and again the same thing about someone signing a book. Only in your case, the person that signed the book

disappeared with the Darkman while in 1984 there seemed to be it seemed to be part of some kind of ritual to sanctify the flesh of people who were joining this group, this cult, this network. But I think you have a high enough human intelligence to tell that there are reoccurring themes between the Darkman and Shukaran and Nearlathotep

and you're starting to wonder, is this the same person? Is this all part of the same thing? That was what I was going to ask. Okay, having read that, can Tuck also search in the server to see if it goes back to 1997? As you do, you're having a hard time because it's literally having to open one of these folders

and kind of see the first date that you can. And I will say at this point, pretty much everyone else in the apartment is waking up. Boomer, you are waking up and you are probably visibly noticing that Tuck has one of the laptops and seems to be kind of buried in it. But Agents, Tuck,

you're not really able to find anything before 2003. Dammit. Ah, fuck. Okay, I'm going to kind of roll over and be like, what are you doing? Rehashing Meadowbrook. That wakes me up real quick. First off, why?

We saw Halo yesterday. Why the fuck do you think? No, I got that. But like, why are you going? And I kind of get the laptop off her. We're like, did you move anything? Did you fiddle with anything? No, I just looked.

I swear it in. I wouldn't fuck with your computer, Boomer. Okay, it's just that be careful because a lot of these things may not make sense and I don't want anything to get deleted because once it's deleted, it doesn't come back. I promise. I'm not touching.

I'm touching nothing. What's going on out here? I'm going to stay quiet and just kind of like, I'll let Tech answer that. Just some research. Extra research that might be important to the case. Anything I need to know about? You're a theologian, right?

Do you need anything about an Italian pagan god? I know Italian pagan god. There's, do you mean like a Roman god? Etruscan, Anatolian. Luomeneto, Luomeneto. That one I haven't heard of. It's not, and that's saying something. That's definitely not any kind of Roman

or Etruscan god that I've ever heard of. It doesn't even sound Greek to me. If it has some sort of cult following or like inspired some sort of violence, is this something that Warp would know about? There does seem to be themes that you are picking up on. There have been cults in the past. Some stemming from North Africa and Egypt.

Some appearing in America. But you do recall reading themes of the dark man and you think you may have even come up. That name very familiar to you and you're not quite exactly sure able to know where exactly it comes from but it feels like you've read it before. So you said it was Italian, right?

In one form, yeah, but I think it's crossing cultural borders, if you know what I mean. Does that make sense? Well, most gods do have counterparts in other regions of the world. If it's something you want to know more about, I'll at least know who to ask. It fits the bill that they would have so many names at all.

I mean, we can track Njarlithotep to South Italy easily. I mean, the Moors would take this kind of thing with them in the first place, but I don't think it's unique to a specific location. Well, it's been a running theme in three cases now, so. Well, I'll see what I can find out. I appreciate it. Let's cut to Meredith Hyde.

You guys are waking up in a very cold basement. What are you doing? I'm going to see if I can find a shower or something around this church. I'm going to shower after Hyde. Yeah, I think if you look long enough, you could probably find a shower to use. Okay.

Yeah, I'm just going to shower, get ready for the day and then come back to the basement because I assume everybody's coming over here. And then I'd like to look at that book that I was given. Okay, so we'll say that there's probably going to be a half hour or so as everyone is getting ready and they start making their way over to the church. We'll say that you all agreed to meet there.

Agent Hyde, you look at this book pretty worn. It looks like it was, you know, printed in the maybe 80s and it's just been handed over and over to different people. It's very yellowed. There are dog-eared pages that Thornbill would have pointed out she had marked for you. Are you going to read the whole book or are you just going to read the sections that she...

I like to, I want to go to the sections that she specifically noted. The book is by a man named Vincent Gaddis. You go to the section and it seems to be a book of a collection of strange stories on the sea, different experiences from people. And the dog-eared section is about a situation that happened in the 50s.

It takes a moment to kind of understand what's happening but you realize that the author is recounting a story that came from an author named Morris K. Jessup. Morris K. Jessup was most known for writing a book called The Case for the UFO. And as you would assume, it is a book about UFOs and how they might propel themselves and a lot of kind of weird theories.

But the author points out that this man, Morris K. Jessup, received a correspondence from someone who identified themselves as Carl M, middle name M, Allen, A-L-L-E-N. And in this correspondence, this person claimed to have been a part of and witnessed a secret World War II experiment at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. In this experiment, Allen claims that a destroyer named the USS Eldridge was rendered invisible,

teleported to New York, teleported to another dimension where encountered aliens and then teleported through time, resulting in the deaths of several sailors, some of whom were fused to the ship's hull. Morris Jessup, the author, dismisses this as a crackpot situation but what your book that you are reading reveals is that Jessup in 1957 received a series of letters from people who only called themselves Mr. A and Mr. B.

They sent Jessup a copy of his book that had several annotations by them that clarified and made changes about this story that was told to Jessup. And the chapter kind of ends with Gaddis unsure if this is true or not giving evidence about how it might be true and evidence about how it might not be true. And there's nothing else in the book about this. There's no other dog-eared pages.

As you look through the rest of the pages, it's just more weird naval stories, supernatural stories. Can I look up the USS Eldridge? You Google it on your phone and sure enough, there's a Wikipedia that opens up about the USS Eldridge. It talks about its service. There's a photo of it from 1944. It was a cannon class destroyer escort.

And there is mention of the Philadelphia experiment at the bottom about a supposed thing that happened in the 50s, but most sources have already dismissed it as a legend. Does it have a decommission date on it? Yes, it is actually decommissioned in a Philadelphia shipyard. What part of the world did the Eldridge voyage? It went to a couple of different places. It was kind of normally on the US coast,

but it went out to the Mediterranean Sea. It was in North Africa. It was in Europe for a little while. It definitely saw some action. Hi, give me an intelligence times five role. Oh, I succeed with a 13. Nice. You are just kind of perusing and you see the ship's designation D173.

And you just start kind of looking through the facts about it. You see a bunch of dates. You just start kind of thinking something puts it together in your mind about numbers. And you remember Boomer talking about the folders in the server being broken up in 12 random 12 digits within the file name. But it's around that time that the other agents all show up at the church. So I'll say that everyone is now together.

Let's grab a VHS player and crowd into my office where it's a little bit more quiet. Why are you grown? Are you scared of my office? No, I'm scared of what's on the tape. You should be scared of my office. I'll lead them upstairs. I feel like this is that you guys can handle this.

I'm going to go ahead and focus in uploading and cataloging what is remaining. If he has an office, if there's a reception desk or something, I just don't want to be in that room. I'm going to hang back with Boomer. You guys are guests of Dr. Jones. Dr. Jones, Indiana. What are we, divination students again? What was that?

Divinity. Thank you, Harvard Divinity School. So those of you who want to watch the tape, you head upstairs to Samuel's office. It's just as cluttered and messy as his apartment, I assume? It's just as bad. It's worse, actually. Just a lot less illicit things in it?

Exactly. The television with a VHS underneath it and you put it in? You hit play? Yes. The VHS begins to play and it's an old tape. It's trying to do its thing to try to clean up the tracking. But what you see is a series of video cameras. This VHS is recording some kind of loop.

And the quality is awful because we're talking about first generation VHS camcorders. But the first angle is looking outside like a window. And you can see the streets of Detroit. After about 10 or so seconds, the angle shifts, and you are looking in what looks to be the lobby of the Leland Hotel that you know Spider-Jay was staying at. And it seems like this camera was somehow maneuvered in a place that was a high angle, but no one seems to really notice it.

It was secretly put there. You notice the doors of the Leland Hotel open, and the lobby is full of people. There are bellboys, there are associates behind the counter, there are people who are staying at the hotel. And two individuals step through. One is a tall man, six foot, wearing an impeccably tailored black suit, brown, graying hair.

And you see a hunched over 17 year old kid wearing a gremlins mask walk into the hotel lobby. And what is strange is that they make their way to the elevator, but not a single person acknowledges them. Not a single bellboy says hello, not a single person behind the counter asks if they can help them. It's as if they are invisible. The camera cuts again, and you are now seeing down a dark hallway.

An elevator door opens and outsteps those two individuals. They walk right up to the camera, turn, and knock on a door. And once they knock on the door, the boy wearing the gremlins mask just slowly turns and looks dead at the camera. Fuck, Emmanuel. The image shifts again, and now you are inside the hotel room of Spider-J. This camera is kind of back in the furthest reach, so it kind of sees the entire space. And you see a woman that fits the description of Tanika Tillerson.

She walks up to the front door, opens it, and the two men walk in. As the two men walk in, Spider-J, or a man that fits the description of Spider-J, comes out of the kitchen, and he has some, like, a bowl of food, and he notices them, and he drops the bowl of food. There is no audio, but it's very clear that he becomes agitated, and he kind of walks towards them, and is kind of aggressive at them. And you see the man that you know is the Lord of Thought wave his hands over Spider-J, and Spider-J just kind of suddenly relaxes.

He turns around, he walks directly to the couch. There's a small, love-seat leather couch. He sits down, he pulls out a bag of white powder, he pulls out a cracked pipe, and he begins packing the pipe. He smokes it all, and then he packs it again. And he smokes it all, and then he packs it again. And as he continues to do this over the course of a couple of minutes, the Lord of Thought stands completely still, staring at Tanika,

and Tanika seems to be having a one-way conversation with him. Meanwhile, the man or the boy that you have come to know as Emmanuel, like a feral dog is kind of walking around the apartment, and he finds a corner, and you can tell that he's like peeing in the corner. After a few minutes of this one-sided conversation, the Lord of Thought snaps his finger, and Emmanuel responds by returning to him. They both walk out the door, and Tanika closes the door. The whole time Spider-J is in the background, smoking and smoking and smoking.

Tanika paces back and forth, she seems like she's deep in thought, and then she looks at the VHS deck, walks over to it, and hits stop, and that's when the VHS stops. That was less than I expected. I have to say I agree, actually. But we saw Tanika and the man in the suit talking, but we didn't see his mouth move, right? You did not.

Hmm. Did we hear what Tanika said? Unfortunately, there was no audio on the VHS. Do we know anyone that can read lips? Might be worth a shot, if we... I would be very interested to know what she said to him. That may be something to bring Mallory in on. I don't think we want to pull a random lip reader. There's no way that we can take this to anyone other than Mallory

if we want to see what was said. I suppose the content of the conversation might be a concern. If we're interested in it, it's definitely a concern. It isn't unlikely to assume that there is probably someone within the program that might have a friendly or they themselves might be able to assist with this. I have to keep in mind that while we may not think this is very enlightening to our case,

this is something that breaks a very fabric of the universe as we know it, should notify our case handler immediately. Agent Boomer and Agent Hyde, you guys are outside. You can see that there is staff that is coming in, but you're still in the main area of Semi-L's office, so you're not really being bothered by anybody, but you see the occasional body moving around. Agent Boomer, you said you're working on the computer?

Yeah, I'm being the nerd and cataloging as fast as I can. Is there anything in particular that you start with? I'm going to go ahead with the images that I collected on my phone, and I'm going to, with that upload, I want to start on the images and writing up the documents on the court board and putting that stuff. As you are uploading these images and kind of writing descriptions about them, maybe there's a glitch or something,

but like the next time you look at the server, all the photos you posted and all the documents you've been creating are gone, like if they were deleted suddenly. And just as you're starting to try to diagnose what's going on, the black screen of a command prompt appears on your desktop, just opens. It's blank, except for a single blinking text prompt. And before you can type or investigate what's going on, words begin to appear within the prompt.

And it says, hello, Agent Boomer, period. Oh, no. I will type hello. There's a moment, and then it responds with good work with the latest upload. This information is invaluable to us, period. But let's keep this latest stuff off the server, period. And I will just write, copy that, period. There's another moment, and then another line appears.

I get the impression you aren't a fan, period. Not at all, period. There's another moment, and then it says, if you had the chance to leave it behind, would you take it, question mark? Absolutely, period. Excellent. I can help you with that. But first, I need a favor, period. Let's hear it, period.

You were given a name, Daniel Fries, period. Follow this lead and upload everything you find, period. We'll talk again once you've made some progress, period. Acknowledge, period, done, period. Oh, comma. And let's keep this interaction between us friends only, okay, question mark? Sure. Conversation between friends, period. The final line reads, where are my manners, question mark?

You can call me Mr. Pleasant, period. Happy to meet you, Mr. Pleasant. And with that, the command prompt suddenly closes, and you have control of your laptop again. Oh, fuck. Okay. You saw the board. You saw the board. Great, great. I'm going to...

Hey, could you look up something for me on your little on the server? Hyde is literally like across a table from you with her feet up, just kind of, you know, checking her phone or waiting around. Oh, yeah. Sure. What do you need? I'm looking at something about like a World War II Philadelphia experiment with a ship called the USS Eldridge. I'm going to hesitate when she said the location, but I will go ahead and USS, would you say USS what?

Eldridge. Eldridge. Yeah. I'll say that the two of you are working together to find this. I think maybe either a signal intelligence or a forensics. I have nothing in forensics. I'll allow one of you to have plus 20% because you are working together. Okay. I have a signal of 40, so I can do that plus 20. Okay. Oh, 15. Nice. You start kind of looking through the folders and again,

it's just a series of 12 numbers on every folder and you're thinking, all right, well, if there is something in here, I mean, we're going to have to either do it manually or maybe there's some connection here and how you've been thinking earlier about the server and about these numbers that you're seeing and you just kind of start throwing numbers out there. You throw out, you know, the day that the Eldridge was commissioned, the day that it was decommissioned and just looking for any kind of clue.

Eventually, Agent Hyde, you recognize a series of numbers that matches what Hyde is saying. There is a folder whose number sequence is 281019434173 and as you are correlating all of these, you realize 173, the Eldridge was 173. D is the fourth letter in the alphabet. 1943, 1943, that's when the ship was commissioned and completed in 1943 on the date of October 28th

and you realize, holy shit, there is some kind of connection. You open the folder up, you begin reading it and you suspect that there is, it's not immediately apparent but there seems to be some kind of connection. There's a big heading on it that says Operation Tel, T-E-L-L. It's around that time as you've gotten this close that the other agents are finishing up their conversation on the VHS. We'll make that a priority today then, getting this to Mallory.

In fact, does somebody just want to call her right now? I could give her a call and let her know if you're all comfortable unless someone else would like to do it. I don't, but if someone else does. Go ahead, Merritt. Okay, so I'll get up and then I'll go take a call to Mallory. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, no, no, no, no, not outside, in here. Okay.

All right, so you are standing in the room with Boomer and Hyde as they are both kind of huddled over her computer, seemingly going over something. But you make the call and after a ring, you hear the familiar voice of Mallory. Hello, Casehandler Mallory. Hello, Agent Merritt. How are you doing? I'm doing well. How about yourself?

Can't complain. I heard that our reconnaissance team was able to pick up an item you found. Yes, we actually just turned in the crystal related to our case we were investigating through Detroit 1984. We have additional information that's coming from that case that I thought pertinent enough to provide to you immediately if you're ready to hear the information. Are you in a safe place?

I am. Go ahead. We have just found a VHS tape that confirms that whatever entities these were they have an attachment to time and space that we can't fully understand. It seems that they are aware of our modern investigation in 1984. The VHS tape confirmed that we were watching them as they were watching us. This is also related to some sort of God or cultish symbol that we've come to understand is referred to as the dark man. Interesting. You're sure of this?

Positive. What is the evidence that these folks are aware of you? They had looked directly at the camera as we were watching as we were investigating and this also corroborates a piece of information given through the case by an informant witness, Spider J, who informed the 1984 team of us in flesh. I see. Do you think it's important enough to get this VHS to our research team or should you just destroy it?

I think this is exactly the sort of thing that Operation Perennial was put together to put forth to you. If you're comfortable, I can deliver this to you. That's fine. You should have handed it over with the team that showed up last night, but that's fine. Had it yet investigated. This is our first watch. I understand. This might be a little bit too much of a requisition to ask that they return to you. If you think it's that important, I can give you the address of a facility in Washington, D.C. that you would need to deliver this tape to. It gives you an address and says let me know if you're on your way as I'll want to meet you there.

Of course. I'll be in contact. How's everything else going? Things are going well altogether. We think we made a break in the portion that regards to Meadowbrook, that situation in New Jersey. Before I thought it had nothing to do with Operation Perennial, but now that I've seen that this dark man has been involved in all three cases, I think it's a lead that may prove fruitful. I did have a situation on the tarmac when we met with your contact, but since then we've dealt with it.

I haven't had a chance to review your case file, but I've all received it in a few hours. Let me read it over and if there's anything that takes off my alarm bells, I'll get back to you. I have a feeling this was a little bit before my time, but I'm feeling that there was a resolution to this organization that shows up in the case file. I understand. I had one more question for you, Mallory, if you're available. We're looking into a case here in New York that's related to 1984. There was an agent that was attached to the aftermath of 1984, Agent Charlie. I was wondering if you had any idea, any correlation between him, anything we should know in investigating.

There's a long silence. Agent Mallory responds and says, Agent Charlie is no longer an asset of the program. I don't suggest pursuing that lead, as I don't think it's going to take you anywhere relevant. I understand. I'll communicate this to the rest of the team and we'll see what else we can find in New York. Maybe we can look into Meadowbrook directly then, with that out of the way. Good work so far, Agent Merritt. The DO is happy. Oh, that's so great to hear. When I spoke with Hyde earlier, she didn't give me a status report exactly on how we've been doing, but it's good to finally hear some feedback. I'm glad you're impressed. Do I hear him saying that?

Oh yeah, you absolutely hear him. I pick myself up from the laptop. I'm really glad to hear that we're doing well. Mallory, if you need anything else from us, don't hesitate. Goodbye, Agent Merritt. See you, Case Handler. Well, good news. We're doing well. In addition, we should stop pursuing Charnell Dreams. Unfortunately, Agent Charlie is a former agent of Delta Green, not an active one, and we were told by Case Handler Mallory that we should avoid that thread of questioning.

She seemed to agree with myself that Meadowbrook may be the better option. Why would you say that to Mallory? Because it's part of our investigation. I don't understand. Why would you tell Mallory that I didn't give anybody a status report? Oh no, no. I was just referring that we didn't get any feedback on how well we were doing, not that you didn't, that they didn't. It was good to hear that we're doing well. That's the same thing, though. You talked about the tarmac, too. What the fuck? That did happen, correct?

It did, but it doesn't have to go in the report. And we agreed on the plane that there's going to be full transparency moving forward as a team? With each other. Agent Mallory is as much a part of this team as we are. We need to start understanding that she is a part of us and she is an asset. She is somebody that helps us get the things we need to do done, but we don't have to tell her every single thing that needs to go that happens. We don't need to give her a play-by-play detail with the fuck. I'm sorry, but how else are we expecting to get out of situations like this?

How are we going to call for help the next time when we have these things surprising her on her desk? She ought to know when we do things like this, because if not, that doctor of yours would be the first one to tell her, and then we're in even more trouble. You ever hear of micro-management? Yes, I have. We didn't tell her about the debacle at the fucking hotel between you and Sam Mellon. You poured out drugs in the middle of the whole thing. We didn't.

We didn't talk about half of the shit. No, we didn't tell her. We should have. Fuck, why would I know? Why? Why? Because in what world are we going to allow them to find out first? And what world does it matter that that happened? Did you read 1984?

If we are planning on surviving through this mission, I implore all of you to be transparent with these people. If not, they are going to take active measures against us. They'll find agents who are. Agent Merritt, Mallory is well aware of who I am. The issue with them was they weren't transparent with each other, not with the group at large. The group didn't contact them past the point of swapping the briefcases. They were on their own the entire time. It was interpersonal.

Look, if you don't want me to give this information to Mallory in the future, I won't. If we're agreeing to do something we're keeping from them, that's fine. But understand that the last time we discussed something and I told you we were the right way to go, and we went the other way, I lost a neck. Okay. I'm just saying. But the program does not need to know the small. Why?

Why are you in the program if you do not want the program to know? There's a knock at the door and you all kind of look around and there's a. Relax, relax. There's a friendly looking plumpy woman wearing a mask and says, Oh, Father Jones, I see you have some company and that you're back. Hi, how are you? Yeah, I'm good. How have you been?

How have every, how has everything been here? I was sorry that I had to leave so suddenly. It's been okay. It's been a little hard to feed the homeless and do our usual programs, but we're getting by. I'm glad to see you're here. Are you staying for a little while? At least for a couple of days. Yes.

Oh, wonderful. Is there anything that I can do to help while I'm here? Well, I was going to say there are some folks that want to have confession if you want to. Of course. Absolutely. Are they here, I assume, on Zoom? Yes. Yes.

There's a setup for you to have one. Of course. Yeah, just tell them to call me. Okay, sure. I'm going to be in my office if you need me. Hi, everyone. I'm Nancy. Hi.

Nice to meet you, Nancy. She's the choir director. She's very good. Thank you. Sorry to interrupt, but I'll be in my office if you need me. It's all set up for you, Father Jones. Okay. Thank you, Nancy.

Bye-bye. I'll be back later. She wanders off. That is the least leasiest I've ever seen you act. It's pleasant. What did you expect? What we have gotten for the last few days. Well, see, that's the difference.

That's what you guys get versus what these guys get. Oh, well, much appreciated. Look, I understand I may have made a misstep here. Our conflicting opinions, that might be getting in the way, but consider this my correction. I will keep information from Mallory in the future. If we agree that it's the best. You just need to give her what she wants.

It's not about keeping information from Mallory. Mallory is going to find out everything in the end. What it's about is us doing our jobs in the way that we were assigned to do them. We're supposed to be operating with some autonomy here. Think about it. If you're the boss, you don't want your subordinate coming to you with every little thing throughout the day.

You want them to have some autonomy and run on their own. You want people to self-manage. Just think of it like we're self-managing. I agree with that. But I think if we consider every fist fight on a tarmac to be a little thing, we may be entering into some dangerous territory. It wasn't even a fist fight. I socked her in the face and that was it.

One punch does not create a fight merit. Yes. And one body does not make a cannibal, right? Oh, my God. All of this aside, did you get information about where we can take the tape? Yes, I did. I have an address in Washington, DC, so I'm thinking two of us

should make the drive up. Great. Let's go. Do you want to leave the whole team on three nerds and one security? I was the one that made the call. She expected me, but I'm willing to wait as long as we have some divination, as long as we have some divide, two people going. I'm okay with staying in the church with my weed as I upload.

Warp, you want to go on a field trip? Sure. Warp, the implication is obvious. These folks are going to something that is referred to as a research facility. Who knows what is there and what is waiting to see? Yes. Yes.

That's true. Right. All right. I'm going to stay in New York. Okay. Merit, tuck and warp. Let's assume you rent a car since it's going to be about a four and a half hour drive to DC, you do that, you jump in, you get on your way.

Who's driving? I am. You say your goodbyes to the other team, you head out. Samuel, you head to the room that you know has been set up for a confessional and Boomer, you continue to upload and get right to work while Agent Hyde, you sit and kind of join Hyde and see if you can convince her to help you to continue the research that was asked of you by Dr. Thornbill. Boomer, what was in the folder?

I'll check this out. I think I got something for you and I think this is Operation Tell. What exactly is revealed to me in the folder? So we'll find out what is in that folder the next time we play. Oh, fuck. And I think that's also going to be a wrap on our first arc of Doom to Repeat. Congratulations.

Oh my god, shit. So many questions. Oh god, this is like the cliffhanger of cliffhangers. Fuck, I fucked up. So many questions. Hey, I got to keep you guys wanting coming back, right? Fuck. So I want to thank you guys as players.

It's been an absolute blast running this game for you. And I want to thank all of the listeners. I hope that you guys have enjoyed yourselves as much as we've enjoyed running the game. If you want to send us a comment, if you want to give us your thoughts, please do go to MaydayRolePlay.com. You can find us on Instagram at MaydayRP and you can message us on Twitter at MaydayRolePlay.

Thank you so much. Thank you players. And I look forward to the next time we can run Doom to Repeat. Thank you Sergio. Sergio. That's fantastic. There we go. Amazing.

The CRT monitor of an ancient desktop computer displays several web pages. The first site, an FBI listing of personal records, has the name Haley Moore typed into the search field. Another site is open to the bio of Father Blake Jones, lead exorcist at New York's first congregation Catholic church. Still another displays the National Archives and the name Kona Morales in the search field. Finally, a new tab is opened to the NCTC,

National Counterterrorism Center and the name Joyful Gaze is typed out. As the computer loads the internet search, Evelyn Janowitz scribbles something into a notepad beside her. She ignores the discarded corpse of Kendall, who lies covered in air fresheners and a white sheet on the floor. There's a knock at the front door and with an unnatural speed, Ms. Janowitz leaps from her seat, closes the bedroom door behind her and skitters to the front door.

Who is it? She asks. A muffled voice on the other side responds. Ms. Janowitz, my name is Detective Emile Brown. I'm here to follow up regarding your call to the police a few days ago about Mr. Clyde Bowman. You said you had information on strangers you saw in Clyde's apartment. Is that right?

The apartment door creaks open and Ms. Janowitz's smiling face is revealed. Yes, I remember. I'm not a snoop or nothing, but there were some strangers. The detective's eyes light up at her admission. Could you describe them? Well, it's been over a week now and my mind don't work like it used to, but... Ms. Janowitz looks the investigator up and down as if probing him with her eyes. She glances down the hall and can see that his partner is distracted, questioning another neighbor.

Say, aren't you Linda's grandson? Grandma Linda? You knew my grandmother? We went to the same church for years. I recognize you. I've got some coffee brewing. How about you come in, Emile Brown? We can talk more about her.

It's against protocol, but... I guess I can wear my mask. Sure, I'd love to hear a story about my grandmother. As Emile steps in, he remarks, You look keeping it cold in here, huh, Ms. Janowitz? Ms. Janowitz only replies by closing and locking the door behind her. Thank you.