Under New Management

A call in the dead of night to go to an office park a two-hour drive away. It is an emergency. When the team assembles, a woman who smells of smoke and death, hastily tells them the job.

“We need you to pose as the new management team of the local office of McPherson Logistics Solutions, which as far as anyone knows, is an international shipping company. They were led by a group of hostiles. They’re gone now, thanks to us. Cover story is the local managers were embezzling money, FBI talked to them and they all fled to parts unknown. You don’t have to worry about the home office – it doesn’t exist. Problem is, we can’t burn the office down and we need to keep it under our control. They also have employees. You have to be there at the office, tell the workers to go home and wait for your call before they can come back to work. We have someone cleaning it up right now. Help him with whatever he needs. After he’s done, you need to lock down the office and keep it under our control. There’s a basement. It is dangerous. It must be secured. We have a keycard that works for the front door. That’s all we can offer.”

## Background

McPherson is a front company controlled by March Technologies. A particular experiment in hypergeometry needed a steady supply of human victims and a ‘clever’ manager created McPherson Logistics Solutions as a solution. It is not a business, so much as a way to hire out-of-town temp workers who can go missing without being tied to McPherson. It hires and fires 30 workers for every sacrificial victim it takes. Employees only stay long enough to be evaluated for the likelihood they will be noticed if they go missing. However, the experiment required more victims than management could cover up, so Delta Green found out about it.

Two agents went undercover into McPherson and quickly realized what was happening. Last night, the entire team moved in to shut McPherson down. They got to the basement and discovered a lab used to summon extra-dimensional entities. An experiment was in progress and the team opened fire, killing three scientists. The firefight went into the upstairs office, causing a bit of a mess. The creature grabbed one agent before disappearing. The surviving agents knew where the managers lived and called them into the office, posing as one of the scientists. All but one manager arrived and were promptly executed by the agents. They went to the house of the last manager, Steve Breish, who was packing his car to leave town. They shot him in the driveway and fled before the police could arrive. When they returned to the office, they realized the lab was still active, emitting bizarre space-time anomalies and had no way to shut it down. At this point, the agents contacted A Cell for backup. The players were activated shortly thereafter.

## Cleanup

Agent Graham is still at the office, digging bullets out of walls and wiping up blood as fast as he can. When the players arrive, he will put them to work cleaning up the site. Players can ask Graham what happened and he will be honest but he doesn’t remember exactly what happened in the lab. He blacked out and apparently shot two of the people down there. Cleaning the office takes an hour and by that time it is almost dawn. He says now it’s time to move the bodies. He sighs and gives a player the key to the basement.

## The Basement

It is unnaturally cold and the light is weird – green and purple tints, seemingly coming from the corners, not from the overhead lights. Perceptions of distance are off, causing people to stub their toes, fail to pick up objects the first time and so forth. SAN 0/1. A server farm is here, shot up. The ceiling and walls are soundproofed. A section is partitioned off with bulletproof glass. A strange machine is inside the partition, damaged and covered in blood and ichor. Two corpses, a man and woman, both shot multiple times. San O/1d4 for moving the bodies and putting them in the trunk of Graham’s car. He leaves to dispose of them. He will not return.

The anomalies in the basement will change and become more hazardous. The Handler may come up with any number of encounters or threats. Within a day, the creature may manifest and look for more victims. It is an unstable area and cannot be safely contained.

## The creature

Use the dimensional shamble stats. It is hungry for human flesh.

## Workers

By 7 AM, the first workers show up. They have not been told anything, so the players must convince them to leave without incident. Clever characters who make bureaucracy or accounting skill checks can access payroll data from the office computers (mostly still intact) to bribe them and provide a convincing cover story. Clever agents may embezzle McPherson’s resources for themselves or Delta Green. The computers have minimal security and it is possible to find $1.2 million in various accounts still accessible to agents who steal the identities of the dead managers. Some of the account information is kept in an office safe, which is locked.

There are 15 workers altogether, none of whom suspect anything was unusual at McPherson. Even if they fail multiple skill checks, the workers are unlikely to call the police, unless they are threatened with violence. However, some may linger in the parking lot to call their temp agency for further instructions or to check up on McPherson. They may also take photos or videos of the agents.

## The Murder Investigation

At some point, two local detectives will visit McPherson’s office to ask them about Steve Breish. The dead manager did not leave many clues leading back to his place of employment, but eventually the detectives will realize that Breish stopped at the office. How much they know about Breish is left up to the Handler, but they will have a photo of him and ask the players about him. Whether or not the players even know who Steve is should be based on how carefully the players interviewed Agent Graham before he left. Unless the characters are extremely good at deflecting attention away from them, the detectives will become suspicious about the office and the players. It will not take them long to find former workers of McPherson and interview them, which will only further intensify their suspicions. They will seek a search warrant on the office at that point. Do not let the players know unless they take extreme measures to monitor local law enforcement agencies.

## Resolving the Scenario

The agents’ handler (Agent Gloria, who briefed them) is desperately trying to find a way to dispel the space-time anomalies in the basement. In 2d6 (or Handler’s choice) days, she will find an artifact in a nearby greenbox, a cubic stone container holding an unusual gray-green powder. She will drop it off at a nearby dead drop and ask the players to dump the powder over the machine in the partitioned area. If this is done, the creature will immediately manifest and attempt to slay all nearby humans. The basement begins to vibrate as well. In 2d10 rounds, the entire basement is sucked into a micro-singularity, killing any human inside the building.

Proactive players may attempt to simply demolish the building. This may or may not succeed. If the detectives are on stakeout, they will call in the SWAT team after the powder is used (it creates visual phenomenon outside the building). The local police will attempt to arrest anyone fleeing the building.  If the creature is not slain, it will remain alive for 1d100 hours before dying from being outside its native dimension, as it loses the ability to phase shift after the anomaly is destroyed via the powder. It will kill as many humans as possible.

## Aftermath

Reward 1d10 sanity to players who destroy the anomaly. Reward another 1d6 for slaying the creature. Players who arrested but reveal nothing incriminating will be discharged but may suffer professional consequences, depending on their conduct. This incident may leak to conspiracy theorists who may then stalk the agents, if their identities are compromised.

## Credits

Under New Management was written by Ross Payton for the 2017  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 © Ross Payton, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property.

Under New Management is not available here under CC-BY-SA.