Operation BETTER ANGELS

Buried in the forested Allagheny Mountains – within the National Radio Quiet Zone – is Brinton, WV. A God-fearing community of 347 souls, yesterday it suffered its first murder since 1967. Little Tommy Gibbons was found in the woods behind his home, beaten, drowned in a creek. His body was covered with bite marks. Human bite marks.

## TRUTH

Last month an extraterrestrial craft was intercepted by the USAF and fell near Brinton. Air Force policed the site, recovered the UFO and blamed it on a hush-hush drone crash.

But the pilot – scared and injured – survived. Found by Eli Ammerman, 11-year-old son of the town’s preacher, the alien’s psychic distress signal accidentally blasted the boy. Raised with the rod and the Good Book, inundated with unnatural knowledge, Eli believes the creature a Biblical “angel.” Gathering friends and locking it in a barn, he claims himself God’s intercessionary.

When Tommy refused to go along with this, Eli had some schoolmates kill him, drowning him in a perversion of baptism. Their interpretation of the Biblical line “whoso eat of my flesh and take of my blood” led them to gnaw on his body.

The kids believe the angel will fulfill their prayers – endless ice-cream, no homework forever, or dominion over adults. Eli has his own plan: talking to God directly…

## BRINTON

The town and surrounding forest has no cellphone reception, relies on dial-up and has only sporadic radio due to its position in the National Radio Quiet Zone – a huge swathe of land where wireless and electromagnetic radiation are strictly controlled. At its center is the enormous Green Bank radio telescope (45 minutes drive away). It listens to the Heavens.

**Reed Notley** heads the town’s three-man PD. A single father with a surly 12-year-old daughter, Sara (a member of Eli’s cult), he’s an honest cop out of his depth and grateful the Agents are here to help – at least until Sara gets accused, at which point he isn’t so friendly.

**Pastor Emery Ammerman**, an old-school “spare the rod, spoil the child” preacher. His happy family facade hides the fact his wife hates him and his son Eli wishes he’d die. He honestly cares about his parishioners and isn’t blind to (or forgiving of) evil. Ammerman may prove the only one who believes the Agents – interpreting it in his own religious way.

**Byron Braine** is an eccentric mountain man, like many Quiet Zone residents he believes he suffers from electromagnetic hypersensitivity. Nottley thinks him harmless but if townsfolk found Tommy was murdered they’d visit Braine with pitchforks. They’d best be careful though; he’s an expert trapper and hunter, with a neat line in lethal *Home Alone* style traps.

Braine saw the UFO crash and something eject into the woods. He knows the kids regularly visit the forest to sing, bow to Eli and act crazy. He also knows their favorite haunts, including the barn.

## TOMMY GIBBONS

No one beside the cops and county coroner knows Tommy was murdered – most think a bear or coyote did it. They’d be horrified to know the truth.

The corpse has been autopsied and is at nearby Steuben (which has cell reception). **Dorothy Pinder**, county coroner, has taken casts of the bite marks, which match other Brinton children if compared. She knows Tommy will uphold the animal attack story if cops seem to be looking for a culprit. Otherwise she leaks the postmortem to the public.

Agents find Tommy’s parents – Kurt and Iris – heartbroken, faith in tatters. Their home abuts the forest that surrounds the town. Tommy often played in it, alone or with friends. Nothing hints at the Unnatural; Tommy was a normal kid – until he fell out with his friends two weeks ago. No one knows why. He begged off church the Sunday he died.

During the Agents’ visit a neighbor and her daughter arrive to offer condolence cookies. The girl is churlish, snapping: “Tommy’s parents don’t deserve cookies. Tommy’s in Hell because he wouldn’t play. He should’ve gone to church.” The mother drags her away.

## CHILDREN

There are 42 children aged between 5 and 12 in Brinton. All worship the fallen angel or, if too young to visit it themselves, have been inducted by friends and siblings.

**Eli Ammerman**, self-professed messiah, was once the town bully. His sudden popularity hasn’t gone unnoticed but parents think it’s some new game or due to Tommy’s passing. As outsiders, Agents readily notice the kids’ weirdness. They treat Eli with the reverence reserved for pontiffs, singing psalms, doodling Heaven, God and angels. They treat grown-ups with withering scorn.

Talking to them is difficult; they brook no mockery or condescension. Respect gets them to confess their religiosity is “special” and fun because it’s about Heaven, like at church, and has angels who help you. Friendly Agents are told they’ll be looked after “when God comes.”

Older children are smart enough to evade questions about Tommy’s death but younger kids admit he was bad and didn’t want to play. Bad people cannot go to Heaven. **Psychoanalysis** is needed to find out what happened in the woods, but parents are loathe to allow it. Insinuating their children played a role in Tommy’s death is a good way of turning the town against the Agents.

Agents requesting state child protection services to deal with the kids should expect strong push-back plus media involvement. Eli accelerates his End Game.

## CRASH SITE

Agents hear about last month’s “plane crash.” It’s not a secret but likely only comes up when they ask when the kids started acting kooky.

Locals (but not children, who claim ignorance) point Agents to Big Coal Hill, overlooking a scar in the valley. The site’s been picked clean by USAF, who carted what remained to Langley AFB, but **Military Science** deduces this was no normal crash; the site, the way it was policed, the explosions: something was shot down.

**Search** recovers fragments of unidentifiable, super-malleable metal alloy; **Survival** or **Navigate** find something fled into the woods, leaving a trail of greenish, copper-based blood. How Delta Green reacts to the USAF having a UFO is the Handler’s prerogative.

## ALIEN

First to the crash, Eli bore the brunt of the ejected pilot’s psychic signal – a burst meant to call a rescue ship but instead imprinting data upon him like a message from God. Having chained the “angel” to heavy, rusting farmyard equipment in an abandoned barn, the kids visit it to “pray.”

Dying, unable to understand the children or their rituals, the alien desires only death. When the other kids aren’t around, Eli visits to talk at it and offer gifts, then gets disgruntled and violent, only to beg forgiveness. Soon – either from its wounds or Eli – it dies. The children wait for a resurrection that never occurs.

Visiting the barn while the kids are there finds them chanting and singing, recreating Christian rituals with crosses and gifts. If spotted, they scatter home and pretend nothing happened or accuse Agents of impropriety. If anyone “steals” their angel the kids plan vengeance; what this might be depends how “evil” you want them to be.

Rescued, the frail alien tries to psychically give name, rank and serial number, then conserves its energy for one last communique to its people. Attempts to help it are pointless – it dies four days after Agents arrive in town, likely kickstarting Eli’s plan to call more angels.

## END GAME

Eli plans to go deep into the Radio Quiet Zone and use the Green Bank radio telescope to demand Heaven’s boons. This occurs when the alien dies or the Agents get close to the truth. Anyone in Eli’s way faces the wrath of his Children’s Army.

Stealing guns and a school bus, the kids drive for the radio telescope. Law enforcement is unsure what to do – and thanks to the Zone they’re almost blind, cops forced to play cat-and-mouse as Eli and company split into groups, hijacking cars, evading roadblocks and masquerading as innocents.

If they can access the array’s control room (and they’ll use any means), Eli beams messages imprinted on his brain into space, where they’re received by an alien rescue-ship. What happens next is up to the Handler: do the aliens abduct the children? Do they conclude Earth is dangerous and obliterate Brinton or elsewhere? Handing over the shot-down pilot might forestall vengeance – but whatever happens, Agents will have a lot of explaining to do…

## STATISTICS

Brintons’ kids use the Child and Youth stats in Handler’s Guide.

### Eli Ammerman

A blond, corn-scrubbed All-American kid. He loves climbing trees, watching cartoons and bullying other children. The Pilot has bestowed him Unnatural knowledge.

**STR** 7, **CON** 7, **DEX** 7, **INT** 7, **POW** 9, **CHA** 7

**HP** 7, **WP** 9, **SAN** 37, **Breaking Point** 36

**SKILLS:** Craft (Electronics) 65%, Craft (Microelectronics) 60%, SIGINT 60%, Unnatural 7%

**ATTACKS:** Unarmed 25%, 1D4-2

Knife 25%, 1D4, 3 AP

Firearm 20%

**INSANITY:** Messiah-complex. If driven to break-point, institutes his “God-Communication” plan immediately

### Alien Pilot

Beautiful, bipedal, birdlike, brittle-boned – iridescent membranous wings unfurl, each flap trilling with the song of the cosmos. But Earth’s air burns its pneuma-sacs, skin-scales slough like dandruff. Its right-handed chiral amino acids cannot gain nutrients from our food. These stats are for a healthy Pilot – the one in the barn can barely breathe, let alone use skills.

**STR** 8, **CON** 9, **DEX** 20, **INT** 17, **POW** 18

**HP** 7, **WP** 18

**SKILLS:** Athletics 50%, Craft (Electronics) 80%, Craft (Microelectronics) 70%, Flight 50%, Pilot (UFO) 80%, Unnatural 10%

**ARMOR:** 2-points of alien flight-suit

**ATTACKS:** Unarmed 40%, 1D4-1

Phase Rifle 55%, Lethality 20%

**FLIGHT:** in Earth’s atmosphere Pilots’ wings allow them to glide, but not fly, like a hangglider

**PSIONIC COMMUNICATION:** Pilots communicate via psychic thought – a human receiving a message (which is otherwise unintelligible) is a one-off 1D3 SAN loss with equal gain in Unnatural.

**DISTRESS SIGNAL:** A blast into space costing all the Pilot’s POW. Humans within the area must succeed an opposed POW 18 roll or suffer 1D12 SAN loss with equal gain in Unnatural.

## Credits

Operation BETTER ANGELS was written by Agent Obtuse 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 © Agent Obtuse, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property.

Operation BETTER ANGELS is not available here under CC-BY-SA.