Juan Estevez - DEA Agent and former Undercover Cop
Victor Blue - FBI Intelligence Analyst and Hacker
14/08/19 Late Night Chat
In the early hours of the morning, Victor's phone rang somewhere in his mom's basement. Fortunately, he was awake. Unfortunately, he was mid-raid in World of Warcraft. Upon seeing the caller ID light up as Monique Hawkins, a doctor from El Paso he'd met on another Delta Green op, and known friendly of the "program", he muted his in-game mic and answered the phone. For a moment there was only heavy breathing, then a woman's frantic voice starting ranting about a girl dressed in flowing white, followed by sobbing.
Victor was stunned, and Monique continued; the girl was around whenever she closed her eyes and haunted her dreams. Victor tried to reassure her, but Monique cut him off, hissing "I think she's listening!", followed by a crack, a thud, and then the line went dead. Victor apologized to his guild and logged off, then took a look at Monique's social media to see if she'd been going crazy for a long time. It all looked normal, but she hadn't posted anything in the last several days.
He picked his phone up again and informed the rest of the team that they had a job to do, and bought a ticket for a flight to El Paso, first thing tomorrow. Err, today.
Excuses
Juan Estevez asked for "stress leave", which was granted due to the firefight on a cartel bust last week. As he was already in San Antonio, he got in his SUV and started the long drive to El Paso.
David Trentmen claimed to be going to a "dentistry convention" in Texas, and booked a quick flight. His boss seemed to buy it.
Victor Blue was "called in" to "fix" a busted server in El Paso, and got on the plane.
15/08/19 El Paso
The party grouped up at the airport, piled into Juan's standard-issue black government SUV, and drove to the Nouveau Place Apartments, where Victor recalled Monique lived. Luckily, the door to the building where she lived had been propped open, and they walked right in and up to her apartment. Juan knocked on the door, and after 10 seconds, they heard a groan and then shuffling from inside.
Monique, looking exhausted (though not insane, David's Psychology figured), opened the door, and asked Victor what he was doing there with two other guys. Juan was able to talk their way inside, claiming they were just here to help, and they moved into her (not crazily dishevelled) apartment. Apparently Monique hand't slept in three days, and wasn't sure if she'd been awake when she'd called Victor. Three days ago, she'd started seeing a girl in flowing white robes out of the corner of her vision, and more recently, whenever she closed her eyes.
Other than long black hair that hid the girl's face and a feeling of terror, Monique wasn't able to recall any other details about the "ghost" that had been following her. After the party declined an offer of tea, she opened a bottle of wine, to "help" her headache. The only other possible lead they got out of Monique was that three days ago, an unconscious, latino man in his early 30s had been brought into the ER at her hospital, guarded by two guys in suits that she pegged as "police", and then quickly escorted to a private, guarded room.
David tried to jog her memory about anything strange with the patient, and she recalled that he'd been suffering from heart palpitations, which was strange for someone of his age and fitness level. While this was going on, Victor snuck off to take a picture of Monique's hospital ID for possible forgery in the future (disregarding that nobody in the party has the Forgery skill).
Before they left, Monique asked them to take a look at her phone and the breaker panel. Both seemed to have blown after the latest ghostly appearance, which had been what caused her to drop the phone during the call to Victor last night. Every breaker in the apartment had blown, but reset normally, and the phone's battery had failed, but Victor always has a spare. The agents said their goodbyes, and, after canvassing the other residents of the Nouveau Place Apartments unsuccessfully (it was during the workday) headed to the hospital.
Juan figured that the suspect at the hospital probably belonged to the Monterrero Organization, a mexican criminal organization that had been making in-roads to El Paso. In the car, Victor made a "conspiracy mind map" about Monique and all of her acquaintances, and then went through her phone looking for clues. During his search, he stumbled upon a video of the ghost appearing midair, taken accidentally during the call with Victor (triggering the first Fright Check of the game). The ghost matched Monique's description: pale white robes, black hair hiding the face, looked caucasian ("So The Ring, but white").
Providence Hospital Memorial Campus
After discarding the ideas of "shoot David in the arm" or "run over Victor 'a little bit'" to get into the ER, the agents just walked into the main lobby. Juan flashed his badge at the guy working the front desk for the room the suspect had been placed in, and any other info they could give; Angel Galvez had been admitted three days ago for heart palpitations and given a private room on the third floor, so the agents headed there.
Victor ran Angel Galvez through the "cop-ternet", and found that he was under witness protection for participating in an ongoing investigation into the Monterrero Organization, but no other criminal record (though this was probably just due to poor international cooperation). Angel had been involved at an "incident" at Carrizal (a town in Mexico) immediately prior to being brought in by the FBI.
Juan and David headed up to the room, and found it guarded by someone whose mannerisms gave them away as a fed. Meanwhile, Victor, not wanting to blow his cover, went back to the SUV, got out his laptop, and waited. Juan tried to use his DEA credentials to talk his way past the FBI agent guarding the room, but rolled a sub-10 Reaction and crit-failed his Savoir-Faire (Police) roll, and was told to get out of his face. David was forced to call in a Favour he had with Director Skinner, a higher up in the agency, and a short while later the guard agent got a phone call, then waved them through.
"Mexican Fear Ghost Totem"
Angel wasn't pleased to have to talk to "more cops", but Juan was able to direct the conversation effectively with Interrogation. He'd first had chest pain and a feeling of being hunted before collapsing while eating lunch, and the symptoms had continued for three days. Juan got the impression that he wasn't leaving out anything, so no ghost girl, unlike Monique. David scanned Angel's charts, and found that his life signs were slowly falling, and he die within weeks.
Victor finished hacking his way into the hospital's security systems and went through security camera recordings of Angel's room; Angel seemed to be having nightmares, and when he did, the lights flickered. Using witness protection as leverage, Juan was able to Intimidate Angel into talking about the "incident" at Carrizal. He was only a grunt, but as he understood it, it had been a meeting between the Monterrero Organization and some "archaeologists" who had been trying to sell some sort of ancient knickknack to one of the higher-ups.
Though everybody in the room missed it, Victor saw a "spooky-looking totem" on the bedside table and told the others to investigate it over their earpieces. Up close (and not over 10-year-old cameras), the wooden totem looked to depict an anthropomorphic, indistinguishable being making a plaintive gesture. Juan took photos while David scooped it up with Forensics, making careful not to touch the "Mexican Fear Ghost Totem", which was clearly contagious. Unfortunately, even with the photos, Victor was unable to place anything about the totem with Occultism.
The agents left Angel, and Victor called Dewey Dorksen, an old friend and conspiracy nut, to take look into the photos. David refused to seduce hot nurses for more intel, so Juan was forced to step in, and learned that people were fearing anxious near Angel's room (Juan: "It's a fear ghost, I told you"), and that the lights kept flickering (Juan: "It's an electric fear ghost, I told you"). They checked into a small local hotel ("Do you not remember what happened last time?" "Yeah, so now we're ready for it!"). As they were checking in, Dorksen called back with an update: the "Mexican" fear totem was actually from South America, and it attracted an "unpleasant" spirit known as Tintiasay.
Notes:
We never did end up using the Monique conspiracy mind map yet.
There was a conversation about whether to go flashing our badges around willy nilly or trying to be covert. I personally believe that the tactic of "willy nilly and electrical fires" has never failed us.
We discussed a rather novel tactic when confronting the FBI agent at the hospital: offensive insanity. What if we took the pictures of the ghost and surprised the guard with them? Sadly, the GM said this probably wouldn't work. Guess we just need something more spooky.
The GM had the idea to give us Favours as ways to cover our (many) weak points.
Though Victor has so far failed just about every Occultism roll (nobody else has it), we have some clues as to what the "Ghost" is:
-It causes electrical interference when it shows up
-It shows up in (digital) video recordings
-It's "attracted" to the
-The South American Fear Totem came from an "archaeological dig" in South America
-Once attached to a "host" it doesn't leave-It drains "life force" from its victims
Rules question that came up during the "David seduces everyone with Very Handsome + Sex Appeal" segment: how would you cost an Affliction to turn somebody gay? It's a 0-point feature like race or gender, but I feel like it should cost more to change it.
Juan wants to burn the fear totem; the others are opposed because they think it can be used to catch the "fear ghost".
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