I’ll Take a Publicity Shit-Storm To Go Please….

“I hate Mickey-D’s.” Specialist Cromwell complained. “It no longer even rates with the chow hall.”

“So you signed up ‘cuz you were afraid of the special sauce?” Sgt. Murphy Inquired. “We’re supposed to get the layout of the place. Major’s orders.”

“ Why get the layout of a McDonalds? To the left are your surly cashiers, in the middle are the artery-clogging entrees and on the right are the filthy, unsanitary toilets.” Cromwell dead-panned. “What have I missed?”

“The Antietam folder, Specialist. Major Jackson says it WILL be found.”

Cromwell shrugged and followed his NCOIC out of the office in Building 4618. It was like most of the buildings on the arsenal. It was built around 435AD and had been used ever since. When broken down, the Army Corps of Engineers just slapped another piece of siding over the wound.

Given new cardboard boxes, homeless people built better shelters. It looked far to run-down for anyone or anything important. Naturally, Delta-Green glommed onto it as a front office.

The McDonalds in question sat across the street from a night club called Rocky O’Hare’s that catered to the enlisted population on post and spewed drunken customers over to the restaurant at 2AM every Friday and Saturday night. The restaurant and the night club operated as symbiotic parasites at feed upon the soldiers of Cape Hill Arsenal. The only building missing was a pay day loan office.

The soldiers had spent the morning reading and discussing their latest assignment. They were to case a restaurant where a set of Ultra-Secret documents had been dumped into a restaurant survey box. The documents had been code-named The Antietam Folder in homage to the battle plans a careless Confederate Staffer had dropped on the ground in a previous century.

“They never tell us what’s really going on.” Cromwell remarked.

“When you’re too smart to want to know, it’ll be time to make you Sergeant.” Murphy replied.

“You picked VCU for The Sweet Sixteen? You Fuck-Tard.” Arman declared.

“Hey, UCLA barely got away from them.” Chew shot back. At least I didn’t pick Wake Forest and Florida State.”
“Whatever. Bailey didn’t come in this morning to relieve Hal.” Armen remarked. “Hal’s been a pisser today. Stay clear of him.”

“Thanks man. Mop the floor, clean the sundae machine and say ‘Please’, and I’ll let your sorry ass leave.” Chew remarked as he loudly smacked the chewing gum from whence his nickname derived.

“What’s up suckas?” Marcus remarked as he sauntered towards the register that let employees punch the clock. “Ty says Bailey got transferred.”

“His girl’l be pissed.” Chew remarked.

“Yeah. We’re getting a new shift manager. Real nerdy guy.”

“Good, maybe he’ll go in the office and read porno while I run the store.” Chew speculated.

“Time to go eat at Hardees’.” Shot back Marcus. “You polished that sundae-maker, Arman? I like it all shiny like my chrome.”

“The chrome in your mouth is all green. Bush was still President the last time you brushed it off.” Armen replied.

The new guy was about what Marcus promised. He stood maybe 5’8” and wore wire-rimmed glasses. His hair, untended and weedy, was long and hung flaccid about his shoulders and face. His frame was depleted of musculature. “Are you guys the shift?” He asked in an uncertain voice.

“That’s us. Just let us handle and you go chill.” Chew remarked with bravado. “I got you covered.”

“I’m Tim Grady, and I’m here until they replace Jon Bailey.” The new supervisor remarked. “If you see anyone unusual or need help, come get me.”

“You see him?” Chew said while pointing at Marcus. “That boy’s unusual. I got him in hand though, you don’t need to help.”

“That’s what your momma says. ‘I got Marcus in hand, yo.’” Marcus replied.

Tim Grady walked towards the manager’s office. It seemed he would just go hide there and let his shift expire. Marcus and Chew loved the type of manager who stayed away from the operation unless the store caught fire. So did Chew’s handler Coy Lawless.

“Bailey got fired ‘cuz of that stuff in the comment box.” Marcus said in a low whisper. “Hal didn’t like seeing that at all.”

“I don’t know ‘bout that stuff, Man.” Chew lied. “I here he boffed that nabby-ass morning cashier in the restroom and the suits downtown got pissed.”

“The suits downtown probably hit that too.” Marcus replied. “Them papers were stuff from the arsenal. Stuff that wasn’t supposed to be here.”

“Yeah?” Chew lied again. “They’ll get to where they belong. We got customers coming for dinner and Armen still hasn’t polished my shoes for me…”

“You chew something other than your gum.” Armen remarked while waving to Chew with fewer than five fingers and walking out of the restaurant.

Lawless read the paperwork and fed it page by page into the scanner. “My, my, my…” He chortled. ‘What a shame, what a shame, what a shame…”

The list-serve had hosted numerous Delta-Green rumors before, but none this detailed. Lawless didn’t know Doug Rollins or Dre “Poker” Watts from the man on the moon. However, he was sure happy not to after reading their dossiers.

‘The US Gubbermint Vs. The Sleepers? That’s good ‘nuff for pay-per-view.” Lawless remarked. He felt conflicted at this point. He hated The Sleepers out of Adept Etiquette. He felt obligated to root against both Rollins and “Poker” Watts.

Lawless considered The Sleepers the Occult equivalent of the KKK. Yet they were targeted for rubbing out by Delta Green. Delta Green worked for The Taxman. Big Brother ran their sorry asses. Delta Green enforced for George Orwell’s Ingsoc.

It seemed that two members of a Delta Green Homeland Security Team had gotten KIA’d in a mojo fight with some bent cops in Lost Wages. The Forsythe Brotherhood Cabal had infiltrated the LVPD and had discovered Delta Green’s Operation Casino Watch.

Casino Watch had been intended to find and eliminate Hakim Al-Sheddah. Al-Sheddah practiced Entropomancy and had tried to bankroll suicide bombers on The Gaza Strip by running the tables at various Indian Gaming Resorts. His last mistake had been to go to Vegas in search of bigger fish to catch.

The Green Machine, as the list serve called Delta Green derisively, had set up a hit on Al-Sheddah that got messy. Namely, rounds were fired at Al-Sheddah in a parking garage and the silencer on one of the weapons failed.

To make matters worse, Hakim reenacted the helipad scene from The Matrix and dodged a few of the rounds until he ran out of mojo. The DGs kept pumping until they got him and the LVPD could smell the cordite several bocks before they arrived on scene. A cacophonous symphony of car alarms sounded and not all the witnesses who saw gun play had been drunk.
“Poker” Watts through a fit and told Rollins he expected Delta Green corpses within 48 hours. Rollins found a disgruntled SF guy with mojo who arranged the requisite training accidents for four of the soldiers involved in the hit on Al-Sheddah. Two survided, the aforementioned KIAs did not.

King Faud of Arabia, Senator Pisswick, and a host of local and state Panjandrums from Lost Wasted, Nevada demanded explanations. CNN, Fox News and all the other networks had crews in the area. The picture of the tacky, fake sphinx with its nose shot off was an internet classic.

An unknown organization within Delta Green called UOCOM (Unnatural Occurrences Command) wanted the event “sealed.” An entity described only as Lucifuge had been rumored to have been “perturbed” by the actions of Dre “Poker” Watts. If Watts was lucky, DG would seal him before Lucifuge invited him over to the office for a get-together.

Stuff like this made the Internet a wonderful invention. From Coy Lawless’ perspective, this was stuff that every America had a right to know. He had started Grimoire Blog just for that very purpose. Routed through at least two international servers, it would be widely read and hard to trace back to the source. It was time for Mak Attax Region 212 to make a few bones…..

(To be Continued….)