BACKGROUND[]
In the wake of the Delta Green takeover of MJ-12 assets, the Program found itself in possession of a document listing locations designated “T-Sites” — places associated with the research career of Crawford Tillinghast prior to his creation of the Tillinghast Resonator. While all of these places have long since been sifted by Project TELL for any information helpful in closing the Loop, a few were found to retain certain anomalous phenomena and flagged for ongoing attention.
T-Site 2 is Packard Hall at the University of Rhode Island, Built in 1892 and located on the central quad, it housed a laboratory use by the young Dr. Tillinghast from 1910 to 1914. Project TELL investigators discovered subtle T-radiation indications in the basement laboratory area in 2010, and closed the building under the pretext of radioactive contamination. No follow-up was conducted, due to the focus on Project WELLS at the time.
The University has recently obtained Nuclear Regulatory Commission authorization to demolish the building. The Program has reluctantly permitted this to proceed, seeing little remaining importance for the site after the success of Project WELLS. But it has dispatched a team of Program scientists to be present at the demolition (undercover as NRC observers) in case things go wrong.
Things will go very wrong. The demolition will destabilize T-radiation wave-forms in the building’s structure, releasing unpredictable time-space anomalies. As the Agents pick through the rubble, they will find themselves hurtling through significant moments in the site’s timeline — the 2010 TELL investigation, strange eons of pre-human history as the Great Race tests dangerous technology, a future earth devastated by an unknown apocalypse, and 1912 as a young researcher performs his first experiments with a new form of radiation.
Their only hope of return will be to find a way to communicate with a young Dr. Crawford Tillinghast and help him improve his prototype Resonator, and survive the attention of Those Beyond long enough to navigate back to 2019.
PERSONNEL AND PREPARATION[]
All Agents should be scientists, preferably physicists or chemists. At least one of them should be read in on Project TELL and WELLS. The mission will be handled directly by Dr. Gregory Tapham, the Program’s Director of Research. While he does not expect anything important to be discovered, he wishes for any findings to be reported directly to him.
Agents will be provided with basic low-level hazmat gear, radiation exposure badges, Geiger counters, sampling gear, and earpiece communicators. They will also be given special T-Radiation detectors and N-Space survival suits just in case, with instructions not to wear the suits unless strictly necessary. No weapons will be provided.
INITIAL INVESTIGATION[]
The Agents will meet Andrew Wattenberg, URI's Buildings and Grounds manager, and Jose Villareal, the contractor in charge of the demolition. Both will happily obey the Agents’ directives so long as they plausibly follow NRC protocols and don’t impose extreme costs or delays on the demolition.
The basement contains four labs, including LAB 3, where Tillinghast performed his experiments back in 1910-14. It is currently full of 2012-era lab equipment, abandoned in place when the building was closed. Preliminary scanning will reveal no significant levels of T-radiation, just a few slight readings with no discernible pattern that quickly fade. An Agent who fails a SAN roll in the basement may experience a strong sense of deja vu, but zero lost points of SAN.
The demolition process goes according to plan, except that the exterior door to the basement laboratories is unexpectedly intact. When the Agents or any other personnel descend into the remnants of the basement laboratories, things get weird.
RECENT PASTS[]
The Agents will suddenly find themselves in the intact basement, surrounded by dark and empty shuttered labs. This is November 19, 2012, the date of the Loop’s closure. Their cell phones will auto-update to the new date, and likely begin malfunctioning due to software glitches. Emerging from the basement at this point will return them to the present day, though with noticeable levels of T-Radiation exposure.
Remaining in the 2012 basement for more than 15 minutes or physically touching any object within LAB 3 will move them to February 14, 2010. They will see two Delta Green Agents from Project TELL — Patrick Smith and Chris Kelly — picking through the labs and finding little of interest. The TELL agents cannot perceive or interact with the current Agents in any way. The TELL Agents will detect minor, unidentifiable temporal anomalies, and agree that the site should probably be closed.
DEEP TIME[]
There is no way back to the present day from 2010. Leaving the basement will transport the Agents to 280 million years BCE. They will find themselves on a black basalt platform atop a subterranean bunker. They will see large cone-shaped beings, clustered around some incomprehensible machinery. The Great Race are testing temporal defense countermeasures against the Hounds of the Angles. The Agents, unnoticed by the Yithians, will witness two cone-beings being devoured by a horrifying angled monstrosity while a third one, holding a small metallic disc, is undetected by them. The Agents had better grab discs for themselves quickly, because the Hound can see them and will rapidly attack.
Obtaining the discs and fleeing from the Hound will move them into the post-human future, in which great indescribable shapes move upon the distant horizon over a blasted apocalyptic landscape. They had better scamper back into the basement ruins of a barely-recognizable structure before the Great Old Ones notice them.
THE YOUNG TILLINGHAST[]
When they enter the door, the Agents will find themselves back in the laboratory basement, now buzzing with complex electrical equipment and bustling with students and researchers who cannot perceive the Agents (if any Agents have died already, their players can play some of the lab assistants). It is 1912, and Crawford Tillinghast has just activated the first prototype of his resonator device. It is a large, awkward assemblage of wires and tubes, at which the young scientist tweaks and fiddles. It emits a hum that varies in pitch as he adjusts the machinery.
As he does so, the Agents will become slightly visible to the people in the lab. Verbal communication will remain impossible. The Agents cannot touch or move any objects or people, their bodies passing through them like water. However, their metallic discs can interact more strongly with the physical plane of 1912, and could perhaps be used to tap out morse code or draw shapes in dust. The Agents must find some way to communicate to Tillinghast that he should adjust the machine’s frequency to the range that Project TELL notes as the one the original Resonator used to generate its field.
Once he does, the Agents (as well as the lab occupants) will begin to see (and be seen by) Those Beyond. The Agents will also become fully material within the lab. If the Agents can then successfully exit the resonator field and leave the basement (evading Those Beyond), they will find themselves back outside in the present time, moments after they left the basement, as though nothing happened. But unless the Agents had the presence of mind to wear their survival suits, the physical effects of their exposure to the resonator’s field may be quite severe.
SOLUTIONS[]
Collapsing the remaining temporal anomaly field will require requisitioning a small Tillinghast Resonator from the Program. Fortunately Dr. Tapham will bring one to them if they can convince him that their experiences within the site were real. Creating a cover story for the demolition crew and university authorities is another task.
To resolve the anomaly, the resonator must be taken back inside the field and switched on. One or more of the Agents will be tasked with doing this. It is essentially a suicide mission. When the field collapses, there will be no trace left of any Agents who were inside it. Their fate is left to the imagination.
FURTHER PLOT SEEDS[]
Surviving Agents may find themselves addicted to Tillinghast radiation, developing strange paranormal powers such as metal repulsion or precognition, or merely dying from severe radiation exposure. The Program may be interested in the metal discs they acquired in the distant past, which seem to be useful in hiding from temporal predators (and the Great Race may launch its own investigation into the disappearance of its technology).
And there are still several other T-Sites in need of further examination.
Credits[]
T-Site 2 was written by Ethan Cordray for the 2019 shotgun scenario contest.
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 document are © Ethan Cordray, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property.
T-Site 2 is not available here under CC-BY-SA.