REPORT: Operation ALICE - Part Two
VICTOR froze, then ran. Barreling down the stairs from the impossible fourth floor of the Macallister building, Carl right behind him. On the way down he gets VERDANCE, who was attempting to question Michelle Vanfitz about the King in Yellow.
Through the door VERDANCE hears radio chatter and a man's voice, muffled and distant. "Griffith, we gotta torch this fucking place come on". Thinking it's the Basilisk Group, she gives the door the boot and enters. Vanfitz's room is now bigger than it was. Impossibly so. Corridors lined with bookshelves stretching down long, yellow hallways.
VICTOR rounds the door frame and sees the impossible room. They quickly enter and search for the play, the King in Yellow. VICTOR finds a dictionary, The English-Tartessian Dictionary, on Vanfitz's bed, VERDANCE finds the play on a coffee table. As she picks it up, books tumble out of a nearby bookcase and a gloved hand reaches out, grasping the books and pulling. A man in a trenchcoat and fedora wearing a gas mask crawls from the bookcase, squeezing out a shotgun that tumbles to the floor. His radio equipment sputtering frantic gibberish. He sees the agents.
"Ah fuck, we're back here again".
VERDANCE draws her guns and shoots to cover her retreat. V-Cell and Carl scramble out of the Macallister building and drive back to their safehouse as quickly as they can. They ponder their options. VICTOR decides to make an initial report to VIRGIL and A-Cell. They meet him at the restaurant and tell him, which he seems to take gravely, additionally requesting WOLFGANG of W-Cell for its demolitions experience. Returning home, VERDANCE reads the auspicious play. The play tells the tale of Yhtill in far Carcosa, a land beset by war and famine and death. Unbothered, the royal family holds a masquerade ball with song and dance and food, though an atmosphere of fear pervades the entire affair. A man in a yellow cloak and a mask enters, he is listed as "THE PHANTOM". At midnight, the ballgoers remove their masks save for the Phantom. When demanded to by the Princess, Cassilda, he replies "I wear no mask!". To which Cassilda replies "No Mask? No Mask!". The statement sends the ball into a panic, with many believing the Phantom comes to herald the end of the world, which he does.
VERDANCE, sensing something profound about the play, disallows VICTOR from reading it. In her sleep, VICTOR steals the book and reads it.
In the morning the group are ordered to an "Emergency Briefing". A man in black asks them if they have read the King in Yellow, to which both deny (falsely). VERDANCE and VICTOR A-Cell instructs them that they are under "STATIC Protocol", and that they are not to attempt to contact A-Cell, contact their cross-cell contacts, and to write or draw as little as possible. They are told that a second team has been mustered to New Orleans to shadow them, and are informed that the King in Yellow is to be destroyed. The play is to be burned, any pieces of art or writing influenced by it are to be destroyed, any places under its influence are to be demolished. Persons who have been "infected" by the play are to be terminated with extreme prejudice. They're given a list of names to keep in mind, with orders to kill any of them if encountered.
- Emmett Moseby
- Gary Topchick
- Virgil Griffiths
- Eric K. Carter
- Ronald Burbach
- Frederick Colwell
WOLFGANG is brought along to help in "demolishing" the Macallister building. V-Cell return immediately to their abode and destroy the King in Yellow manuscript immediately.
VICTOR pursues some final leads to determine the extent of the infection. He speaks with Carmen Wagner, the publisher of Roger Carun, a writer staying at the Macallister Building. He listens to the bizarre voicemail left by Carun for Wagner. As an aside, Wagner mentions other strange voicemails received since Carun's containing a list of names.
- Peter Devoras
- Jackson Thomas
- Wendel Grant
- Isaac LeChance
VICTOR listens and records the number of the caller. He learns the number is from Dorchester House, a psychiatric hospital in Boston, Massachussetts. After briefly inspecting the building, WOLFGANG determines that Thomas Manuel's drums of linseed oil could be spilled into the walls and used as an accelerant to burn the building down, while on the roof of the building, VERDANCE finds a movie ticket for the Grenada Theatre in Chicago, Illinois. She thinks little of it and pockets the artifact.
Later, VICTOR speaks to Cynthia LeChance, the owner of Artlife and the Macallister's defacto manager. LeChance's surname matches that of Isaac LeChance, one of the names mentioned in the odd voicemails received by Wagner. VICTOR questions Cynthia about it, earning a strange answer: Isaac was the name of Cynthia's kid brother when she lived in New York City. He was a singer and a dancer who performed for the NBC Philco playhouse. He was murdered in 1955 by Gary Topchick along with three other children affiliated with the production a cancelled television play. VICTOR recalls Topchick's name. Later, he investigates the names. He learns that Isaac LeChance and Wendel Grant are among three of the boys murdered in 1955 by Gary Topchick, while Peter Devoras and Jackson Thomas were victims of Asa Daribondi, an architect who lived in New Orleans in the 1920s until the 1940s, and who was believed to have murdered upwards of eighteen children by drowning.
VICTOR obsesses over the connections, but is unable to deduce their meaning. He and the others resolve that the only surefire way to contain the madness is to demolish the Macallister Building.
V-Cell arms itself and raids the building. VICTOR, VERDANCE, and WOLFGANG enter, with Carl acting as their getaway driver. They climb the stairs and find the linseed oil. WOLFGANG uses a halligan to punch into the wall and pours a bucket of oil down into the wall, then crosses the building and does so again on another wall. VERDANCE watches the stairs. VICTOR watches above. As they work, they hear noises. Conversation and the thrum of a diesel engine and the squealing of tank treads.
"Wir werden hier aufgebohrt, bring das verdammte Ding in Bewegung".
VICTOR's curiosity gets the better of him. He opens the door to the roof access, knowing it opens to the impossible fourth floor. Expecting to be greeted by a tank, he instead sees the Smoking Lounge, muddy tank treads marring the floor. His attention is drawn to a dying man slumped against a far wall at the mouth of a hallway. His bomber jacket bears the insignia of the Basilisk Group, in his arms, a manilla folder marked DELTA GREEN // EYES ONLY. VICTOR enters and seizes the folder. Down the hallway, he hears a voice.
"HEY!"
He looks and sees, through double-doors at the end of the hallway, a skinhead of the Basilisk Group approaching, brandishing a shotgun. He walks through a television set of a castle.
"HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM, MOTHERFU-"
A shotgun blast cuts the skinhead short, the skinhead stumbles back, blood seeping from his chest, smoke rising from where hot lead pellets have ripped apart his shirt. A second blast destroys most of his head and he folds limp to the floor. A man in gas mask crosses the stage and confirms the kill, then turns back
"GRIFFITH WE GOTTA TORCH THIS FUCKING PLACE COME ON"
A second gas-masked man crosses the stage and produces a molotov cocktail from a courier's bag. He lights it and hurls it at the stage, setting it aflame. VICTOR takes the folder and runs to the doors and rusn back to the Macallister building.
VERDANCE and WOLFGANG are, by this point, about to go downstairs with the remaining buckets of linseed oil to saturate the rest of the building. VICTOR follows. They head down to the second floor and run into Thomas Manuel, who appears furious.
"Those aren't for you! What are you doing?"
VICTOR levels his rifle and shoots Manuel point black in the chest. He falls back, sputtering and gasping. VERDANCE finishes the job with her handgun. Shaken, WOLFGANG nervously pours linseed oil across the floor as Manuel's body cools and his blood pools into the cracks between the hardwood floor. Once the job is done, they head to the ground floor.
They descend the staircase, and end up back on the second floor, they curse and keep going.
They descend the staircase, and end up back on the second floor. The linseed oil catches fire. They ascend the stairs and are met with the door to the Roof Access and the smoking lounge. A man chews a cigar and says "getting stuffy in here, ain't it?". They enter, there is smoke, but the fire isn't here, on the impossible floor, the floor that should be the third floor but isn't. "What way to Abby's room?" VICTOR asks. The man points down a hallway, from which rock music can be faintly heard. They run, encountering a box with a silver plastic robe and a copy of the Ars Goetia. After narrowly avoiding an encounter with the Basilisk Group (still alive?) they arrive at a staircase with a velvet carpet going down. The rock music gets louder until they're in a theatre. They round the corner and see the interior of a movie theatre from a balcony seat. A film plays on the screen, it contains the Yellow Sign.
A man in a suit walks onstage, as men enter the projection booth and arrest the projectionist and destroy the projector. "Federal Agents, there is a threat against the Grenada Theatre, we need everyone to please leave the building immediately, use emergency exits. Leave carefully and calmly." The agents leave the balcony and run down a staircase. They enter to the movie theatre, now empty, anti-burglary bars blocking the exits. VERDANCE spots a crack in the floor of the women's washroom, looking through it, they can see it leads to the interior of Abigail Wright's apartment's bathroom. VICTOR orders WOLFGANG to break through with the Halligan. As WOLFGANG tunnels through the tile floor, VICTOR spies a figure in the empty movie theatre. Watching.
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