Report: Operation SIAM SAM - Part Two.

 Part 2 - "Controlled Environment"

Ambience

7:00 PM - 19 April 1999

MONTY returns from the library after having done some research on The Damascus Syndrome, discovering it to be an internet chatroom and forum focused on discussing the topic of nuclear disarmament, with no discernible connection to Majestic, Delta Green, or the operation at hand. While MIRIAM and MORGAN sleep, MARCUS and MONTY go to watch the skies, believing they'll spot Grey spacecraft, or perhaps a Majestic stealth helicopter. They spot no such craft. A quarter-mile away, some townsfolk gather in a backyard for a fire, music, and beer, enjoying the first night of decent weather since the start of Spring. MONTY and MARCUS' attention is then directed an armored truck coming down a service road. Through his binoculars, MONTY spies a U.S Department of Energy logo on one side.  The truck stops underneath a telephone pole and the back door opens. Three men, two in jumpsuits and a third in a shirt and tie, exit. The men in jumpsuits raise a ladder and climb it to one of the black boxes the cell spied earlier on the telephone poles. They open it and seem to read out something to the man in the shirt, who takes it down on a clipboard. Afterwards, the descend the ladder, packing it into the truck. The man in the shirt checks his watch and says something to the crew. He and the other crewmen produce cigarettes, another man produces a bagged lunch, they take their break. A fourth man exits the back of the car, unslinging an assault rifle and removing a strange, metal helmet (similar to the "JERICHO" helmets M-Cell saw the Operation BLUE FLY soldiers wearing, of which M-Cell stole two). He spies small devices attached to the personnel at the hip. Small black boxes with wires that trail up their person and under their clothes. He speculates them to maybe be defibrillators of some sort.

The men take their break, then pack up and move on. M-Cell spies a fifth man in the back, another armed guard. The truck seems to drive around and stop at various black boxes across Monument in a pattern that seems routine. M-Cell spots a resident of Monument walking home in the wee hours of the morning from the aforementioned fire. The resident walks past the men in the armored truck as they do their measurements (the armed guards remaining inside their truck) and waves. It appears the "DoE" men aren't seen as strange to the locals. Eventually, the truck goes back up the service road to parts unknown. MONTY and MARCUS retire for the night, their rest unperturbed. 

7:00 AM - 20 April 1999

In the morning, the party eats breakfast at the inn and Morgan walks to the gas station for some dinner and drinks for later. She asks the attendant about the boxes, who isn't sure what they're actually for, but states they're some equipment belonging to the NNSA (National Nuclear Safety Administration) (a group he seemingly knows little about, as he has to ask a coworker just for their acronym). Monty takes a map of the area and wanders about, scouting for preferable routes of egress should things go poorly. He decides that an offroad vehicle is best, and begins to contemplate a way of acquiring one. He decides to "procure" a few, with the help of his Sign of Forgetting (a pin he created, and embued with a hypergeometric effect that can erase memory when looked at, either to make it so someone does not remember specifics of MONTY, or even remembers the interaction ever took place). He locates an isolated home, where an old man repaits an ATV. He threatens the old man with a gun into giving up the keys to the ATV, and for the location of the keys to the man's dirtbike. He steals the keys, then leaves, with the intent that should things go wrong, he can run to the man's house and start up the vehicles there. As the pin leaves the old man's line of sight, he asks if MONTY was looking for anything, having completely forgotten that MONTY just robbed him. MONTY claims to be looking for spark plugs, having heard from somewhere he can't remember that the man sold some. He buys spark plugs off the man and leaves. On the return home, he spies the trio of gamblers sitting in an old pontiac, arguing with each other. On his way in, he spies an old man mounting a poster on the corkboard in the lobby of the Cheyenne Inn, replacing an older, similar poster. The poster reads: "BINGO NIGHT. WEDNESDAYS 4:30-6:30 16+, 6:30-8:30 21+. Cards and dotters sold at Errol's gas and the Cheyenne Inn". The timing of the bingo night, the night the dead drop is set to occur, makes MONTY wonder if they'll be connected.

After returning to their room, MONTY prepares to use a hypergeometric technique he learned in Vermont. He closes the blinds to the room, turns on the TV and tunes it to a dead channel, then lights a candle and takes LSD. The rest of M-Cell watch him, and standby as he performs it, in case anything goes wrong. MONTY stares at the candle, the static playing lowly, he then lies back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. 

He sees a man in a flak vest with an M16 guarding a gate. Signs along the roadside read "GOVERNMENT PROPERTY, DO NOT ENTER" and similar messages. The one by the gate reads "NOW ENTERING MARCH TECHNOLOGIES FACILITY 12, HAVE ID READY TO PRESENT". The complex is massive. Monty spies two BLUE FLY stealth helicopters, their crews and support personnel going about their duties and running drills. Throughout the whole facility, he estimates the NRO DELTA security detail to number around 30-40. He spies a detachment of NRO DELTA killers being drilled on using the hip-mounted devices he spied earlier, which he hears the instructor call the "CANARY-1 Personal Detection and Degaussing System".

He peers further into the base, eventually coming to an enourmous room, gold panels along the walls and a central, enourmous black metal monolith in the center, with dozens of cables and wires running from it to floor panels, likely connecting to control panels in the adjoining observation rooms. Small lettering near the base of the monolith reads "Project PLUTO Subproject TELL, Subproject WELLS. T.R.3". In an adjoining room, scientists prepare for an experiment. One of them, a black man whose head is covered in burn scars, seems to be running the show. His nametag identifies him only as "TELL-1", though his colleagues known him as "Dr. Tapham". Diagnostics on "The Concern" are complete, reports one scientist. A pair of men in advanced looking hazmat suits wheel in what looks like a giant buoy. A metal pylon covered in instrumentations on a cement base. They deposit the pylon and leave the chamber. 

"Alright gentlemen, let's give it some gas". The "Concern" is activated. A hum fills the chamber. Blue light emanates from its pinnacle, as it does, things materialize in the room. They are strange, alien, looking like deep sea monsters, seemingly swimming through the air. A black hole forms at the tip of the monolith, crowned in the bright blue light. He expands to encompass the top half of the monolith. As it touches the pylon, the pylon is seemingly lifted up and dragged into the centre of the blackness. MONTY, though his third eye, peers inside. In the dim blackness of that space, he thinks he sees a battleship. It closes. An NRO DELTA security officer approaches Dr. Tapham "Doctor, report from Adak, no activity". 

"Good" Dr. Tapham replies, "No complications. We didn't end the world, again." MONTY can't tell if the doctor is joking or not. 

"We've gotten a response from the pylon, sir" speaks another scientist. There is celebration. Clearly, some great achievement was just made. Monty spies one of the scientists move to a clock on the backwall whose arms don't move, and sees the scientist turn the hour hand back an hour. A doomsday clock, he thinks. He sees someone he recognizes. Stingray. He nametag reads "Security Officer CASTER". He learns she's escorting a scientist, Postlethwaite, to Billings, Montana on Wednesday, to be then taken to Malmstrom AFB and flown to a Majestic facility in Alaska. He hears another NRO DELTA officer call her by her first name, "Gwen". He takes a few moments to survey the interior of NRO DELTA's security centre before returning to his body. 

Monty rises and begins to babble what he saw. Morgan gives him water. He debriefs the group, then strips naked and showers for an hour, obviously still high on LSD. As he leaves, the power goes out. A brief panic ensues, M-Cell is eventually able to calm MONTY. They look outside in time to see the power coming back on across town. Dogs are barking, but nothing else. No rumbling of explosions. No smoke. No screams. Quiet. Morgan leaves.

Outside, Morgan lights a cigarette before performing a series of quiet mantras and hand gestures - what she has learned to call "The Second Sight", referred to in some texts as the Voorish Sign. She uses it to double-check that nothing alien has arrived, or is arriving. Indeed, nothing peculiar is revealed when she looks back at Monument. Then she turns to face the river. She spies small motes of light dancing around a house across the highway, near the river, before the motes of light wink out of existence. She returns to the hotel room and tells the others what she saw. They arm themselves with pistols (except for MONTY, still waiting off the effects of LSD, sitting lotus-style on the bed, naked with an M16, watching CBC) and set out across the road to investigate.

As they approach, they see someone exit the house and climb into an Oldsmobile, fitting the description of the one they saw the Damascus Syndrome guy driving, its driver appears to be a blonde woman, who parks it at the Cheyenne Inn. They spy the pontiac that was being driven by the gamblers on the way to the house, abandoned by the road. They enter the house, finding the door ajar. On the television, a scene from a movie. Paul Newman cracks wise and plays poker with Robert Shaw. In the kitchen, a man lies on his back, dead as a stone, an upset pot of half-boiled macaroni on the floor, a beretta in his hand. They recognize him as the driver of the Oldsmobile with the Damascus Syndrome stickers on the bumper. His T-shirt depicts a hangman's knot, the hoop made to resemble a nuclear bomb. A caption reads "DEFY THE GLOBAL SUICIDE DRIVE". Upstairs, a note printed on accordion paper reads: 

"THREE INTERLOPERS AT THE CHEYENNE INN IN MONUMENT MONTANA, SEE THEY ARE WATCHED. DO NOT ALLOW THEM TO INTERFERE WITH THE CONSTRUCT. MISSION CRITICAL. THIS COMES FROM THE TOP. 

HAIL. 

-O."

A note, written in pencil on the back, reads "Mary B., Sylvia P., Viktor M. Under aliases?"

Going downstairs, they find cardboard boxes full of computers, televisions, toasters, alarm clocks, hair dryers. All in various states of disassembly and destruction. A note on a table in the centre of the room catches their attention. "ROOM 11. THE BLONDE GAMBLER. THIS IS OF GREAT INTEREST TO YOU. COME IN PEACE. I AM ONE OF YOU.". MORGAN, MIRIAM, and MARCUS race back to the Cheyenne and inform MONTY, who has begun to come down from the LSD, finally. He dresses himself and they approach Room 11 armed with pistols. It's unlocked. They enter and see various machines, some plugged into the wall outlets, all across the room. They appear to be made from the tortured innards of the machines from the house, though it's impossible to guess at their function. In the corner of the room, staring blankly, is a blonde woman. They recognize her as the blonde gambler. She holds out her hands, notes in precise handwriting in permanent marker on them read "DO NOT SHOOT. THIS IS AN AGENT OF DELTA GREEN. POSSESSES DEGAUSSING FACTOR." They hold her at gunpoint and demand an answer. The woman flatly speaks.

"This vessel is Mary Bryant, she works under the alias of IRENA of Delta Green. Her vessel is here, but she is not. She is elsewhere. "You know about TELL?" MONTY asks. "Yes. I can offer you help". She (it?) replies. "Alright. Start Talking" says MORGAN. 

"Very well, then let's begin."