Project Echo

Project Echo was the first assignment for agents Applewhite, Bug and Frost to work together. The three were summoned to Chicago and told that Greta Martin had reported her husband FBI agent Frank Martin, missing. A cursory inquiry by the agency showed his usual partners, Arthur Donnelly and Grace Oberly, were also out of contact. Martin's team was not on assignment so the local friendly, SAC Helen Bettany, did not know to cover for him. Since his wife filed an official missing persons report, the agency sent the new team to attempt to discover if their disappearance was agency-related before the report was sent through the normal channels.

## Project Echo

### Locations

Chicago, IL
Arlington Heights, IL
Knopf House
Long Grove, IL

### People Involved

Applewhite
Bug
Frost
Agent Amarna
SAC Helen Bettany
Marshal Grace Oberly
FBI Agent Arthur Donnelley
FBI Agent Francis "Frank" Martin
Greta Martin
Lucas Martin
Asa Darabondi
Phillip Knopf

## Summary & Events

**October 25**

After meeting with SAC Bettany, the team posed as FBI agents investigating the disappearance of Agent Francis Martin. SAC Bettany provided the team with temp IDs and vehicles for use in the investigation.

Greta Martin and son, Lucas, cooperated fully with the team, telling them that Francis Martin has been acting a bit "sad" before his disappearance and said he was working on a big case. Greta Martin seemed both worried and angry/sad/disappointed to discover her husband had been lying to her. Lucas seemed resolved to hearing the worst about his father's fate. The team discovered Lucas has been in a crippling accident six months early that severed the spine between the C6 and C7 vertebrae.

Upon investigation, the team found Lucas had a miraculous recovery one month earlier and was about to be released from physical therapy. A subsequent search of the house also found Frank Martin had a hidden panic room in the basement which contained emergency gear for his family, including go bags and keys to a vehicle not on site and another house. The team also found a key to a storage unit.

**October 26**

After a bit of research, the team found the storage facility in Arlington Heights where Frank Martin had a unit. Inside the unit, the team found evidence that Martin, Donnelly, and Oberly had used the unit as a bolt hole and meeting place. It was stocked with MREs, bottled water, ammunition and weapons, a camera, a lockbox with several identical house keys, and a computer with a military-grade encrypted thumb drive. Notes left on the table indicated they were investigating something called the Knopf House. They said they were likely dead, the house was evil -- especially after dark -- and that we should fake their deaths so their families got survivor benefits and pin the crime on Donnelly.

The team did a cursory investigation into the Knopf House, discovering it was built for politician Phillip Knopf by architect Asa Darabondi. After looking briefly at Martin's other house on Wilcox St., the team determined they stood out too much in that neighborhood and decided to check out the Knopf House in daylight.

The house was creepy, surrounded by a well-tended wrought iron fence. The vegetation inside the year looks to be dead/dying more so than is appropriate for October. The gardener Ted tells the team tours are arranged through the Long Grove Historic Society. Long Grove proves to be a town forced into bucolic perfection. At the historic society, Applewhite arranges to have a tour the following day with historic society president Betty Lankhorn.

The team returns to the hotel and does extensive research into the Thought Houses and disappearances that have occurred there over the years, including the disappearance almost exactly one year earlier of a team from Phenomenom-X led by producer Stephen Wilson.

**October 27**

After hearing a bit about the team's interests, Betty turns them over to adjunct University of Illinois Professor Harold Krenshaw who is more versed on the "more sordid" history of the house. Harold shows the team the areas of the house that are open to public viewing. The historic society has painstakingly furnished with period appropriate clothing, furniture and accoutrements. As the team examines this area, they see glimpses of the previous tenants and tragedies surrounding the house reflected in the mirrored surfaces. Harold tells the team the truly creepy stuff sees to be centered on the bonus room so they bribe him to let them see it.

The room is off-putting and creepy with light bending in a way that is nauseating. And it holds the bodies of the missing team -- Donnelly, Oberly and Martin. Harold Breaks a bit at the sight of the three agents, their bodies in folding chairs in a triangle and arcane sigils on the carpet and the mirrors behind them. Next to each agent is the straight razor they used to kill themselves, replicas of the period pieces from downstairs. The wounds are self-inflicted, but with hesitation. These people committed suicide together, but unwillingly. Looking in the mirrors, the agents see more clear memories of things that happened here before.

The new team decides that they need to prevent the sigils from being discovered, so they use bleach and other cleaning chemicals from the house's maintenance closet to distort/destroy the evidence and hide the bodies in the garage downstairs, intending to return after nightfall and remove them from the house. Then, perhaps in an effort to prevent Harold from being blamed for the vandalism, they encourage him to report it to Betty.

They notice that Donnelly has a small green triangle tattooed behind his ear. The team takes some of the missing agents' vehicles with them to the hotel and tries again to decrypt the one character password for the thumb drive. Frost decides to try the green delta triangle. The password works and reveals the confession of Arthur Donnelly.

Donnelly's wife had early onset Alzheimer's Disease and he found as they were investigating the house that one of the entities there was offering him a solution: pay the price and the wife is healed. The price? Three people needed to willingly die to open the door for the entity. Donnelly decides that his wife is worth it and instead of just asking other people to go along with his insanity, he makes sure the same deal will apply to them and that three deaths will save three people. Then, he inflicts Martin and Oberly with the same sort of horrible choice he had -- kill yourself to save your loved ones? He infected Oberly's wife with mad cow disease and hit Martin's son with his car, then severed the boy's spinal cord with a scalpel.

Once they were all miserable with the potential loss of their loved ones, he sprang the trap, offered them the deal he had gotten. The entity making the deal gave them all a taste of the possible healing to seal the deal and they all agreed to save their families, though they were more reticent than he had been. In his guilt, he drank himself silly, chasing away his own family.

After reading the confession, the team realizes that are at least 3 people at the house that it is going to claim when night falls. They convince Harold to leave the house, saving him, but arrive too late to save Betty, the police chief and Ted. The team decides to repeat the ritual to close the door even if it means they die doing it.

## Important Terms

Thought Houses

J-cell