Black Lantern Document Review - Sat, Jul 18, 2020

The session opened with a recap of the final operation undertaken by Working Group MASTICATE in October 2019.

• MASTICATE had entered Wesley Cole’s high tower after passing through a membrane separating realities.

• Philomena crossed the membrane first and found Matthew McCarter already moving through the carnage outside the tower.

• Franklin Booth followed Philomena through the membrane, leaving their original reality behind.

• Justin Smith remained concealed above them in Cole’s lavish living quarters until the surviving agents reunited in the office at the tower’s summit.

• Inside the office, the agents discovered the Xantheraphone, a coffin-sized machine constructed from bronze, crystal, and circuitry that did not conform to ordinary physical principles.

• Beside the machine were Eric Zahn’s operating manual and Wesley Cole’s manifesto, Meaning Without Master.

  • The manifesto discussed Picky Eater.
  • It argued that reality was false.
  • It described the creation or construction of worlds through thought.

• The agents attempted several methods of destroying or disabling the Xantheraphone.

  • They cut its power.
  • They fired the lightning gun into it.
  • They shot it with a Glock.
  • They threw the machine from the tower.
  • They detonated multiple grenades against it.
  • Cole’s followers attempted to protect the machine by throwing themselves across it as human shields.

• The machine’s outer components were destroyed, but its central crystal prism remained intact.

• After several days of study, Justin reproduced the tones of the aetherophone electronically.

• The surviving crystal responded by producing what appeared to be the music of creation.

• The sound drew the agents through the crystal and transported them into a place of alien stone, mist, and impossible light.

• In that other place, they found Wesley Cole stranded beside another aetherophone.

• Cole was waiting for Tawil al-Ur, described as the All-Is-One, the Gate, and the Key.

• A hooded entity arrived and questioned the gathered humans about:

  • Truth.
  • Reality.
  • Good and evil.
  • Madness.
  • The threshold.

• Wesley Cole vanished first.

• Philomena sought the threshold and was consumed by the revelation she received.

• Franklin surrendered himself and dissolved into the surrounding mist.

• Justin willingly crossed the threshold and lost everything that had made him Justin Smith.

• Matthew was judged to be a creature of truth.

• Matthew begged to be returned to the other world.

• Matthew subsequently awoke alone and exhausted in an alley near the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

• His memories of the other members of MASTICATE were already fading.

• The pressure that had existed between the two realities was gone.

• Nine months later, the Program was still attempting to understand what had happened to MASTICATE and whether the power that had loomed over the working group remained a threat.

The new operation began in July 2020, during the stay-at-home restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Each of four Program personnel received an activation notice through the expected channel from their individual handler.

• The four personnel had not previously worked together and did not know one another.

• Each was ordered to travel to Baltimore and report at 8:00 a.m. on Saturday, July 18, 2020.

• The meeting location was a specific numbered pillar in the parking garage beneath the Calvert Exchange, an office building in downtown Baltimore.

• The agents were given a prearranged code-phrase exchange for identifying the person who would brief them.

  • The precise phrases consisted of apparently random groups of words.
  • The actual words were not specified during the session.

At the designated parking-garage pillar, the agents encountered Malcolm Rinnick.

• Rinnick was an African American man who appeared to be in his mid-fifties.
• He was more than six feet tall and heavyset.
• He wore a dark suit.
• A faded scar crossed his left eyebrow.
• Rinnick correctly supplied the expected response to each agent’s code phrase, confirming that he was their contact.

The four newly assembled operatives introduced themselves or were identified as follows:

• Andy Banks arrived first.

  • Banks was a white man approximately twenty-eight years old.
  • He was clean-cut.
  • His left ear was visibly scarred, suggesting that he had previously seen action.
  • Although only twenty-eight, accumulated strain made him look closer to thirty-eight.
  • He was an agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration.

• Dr. Louis Ming arrived second.

  • Ming appeared to be in his mid-thirties.
  • He wore glasses.
  • He was clean-cut and professionally dressed.
  • Although not entirely relaxed, he appeared noticeably calmer than many people involved in Delta Green operations.
  • He was a neuroscientist.

• Ernst “Ernie” Baldkar arrived third.

  • Baldkar was approximately sixty years old.
  • He was a computer scientist and senior analyst employed by the RAND Corporation.
  • He stood just under six feet tall.
  • He had brown hair with some gray, brown eyes, and glasses.
  • His appearance suggested an older generation of professional computer specialist who had been working in the field before it became culturally fashionable.
  • He also appeared relatively calm.

• Reverend Jeremiah “Jerry” Arnoldson arrived last.

  • Arnoldson was tall and notably handsome.
  • He appeared to be of Scandinavian descent and had striking eyes.
  • His brown hair was beginning to show gray.
  • He was not wearing a clerical collar.
  • He wore a cross on a short chain around his neck.
  • He was dressed somewhat more casually than the other agents.
  • He had a naturally calming presence.
  • When the group later exchanged occupations, Arnoldson said that he worked for the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
  • He did not initially identify himself to the others as a reverend or clergyman.
  • He had traveled from Indiana and had apparently faced the most difficult last-minute journey to Baltimore.

Once all four agents had been authenticated, Rinnick led them from the parking garage to a bank of elevators.

• He used a WeWork access card to operate the elevator.

• The elevator carried the group to a WeWork office floor.

• Because it was early on a Saturday morning during the pandemic, the building was almost completely deserted.

• The office floor was dark and silent except for the lights in the area being used by the group.

• The floor contained the usual shared-office facilities, including:

  • A communal kitchen.
  • Meeting rooms and small office pods.
  • General shared work areas.

• Rinnick led the agents into a larger conference room.

• The conference room had glass walls, but an opaque film had been placed over the glass to block outside observation.

• The room had been converted into an improvised Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility.

• Security and support equipment in the room included:

  • A white-noise machine.
  • An industrial paper shredder.
  • Several flats of bottled water.
  • Bankers’ boxes filled with documents.
  • Workstations.
  • New Lenovo laptops that were still boxed.

• The agents were permitted to retain their mobile phones.

• They were not asked to place the phones in a Faraday container, although they were expected not to photograph or transmit any of the materials.

Rinnick formally introduced himself and the organization for which he was acting.

• He identified himself as an FBI agent.
• He was also the Glass Meridian case officer assigned to manage the operation.
• He explained that the organization commonly called “the Program” changed names regularly and was, in practice, nearly nameless.
• “Glass Meridian” was the current designation.
• Even the Glass Meridian name was highly classified.
• All four agents had already been read into Glass Meridian before receiving the assignment.

Rinnick gave the agents their initial mission briefing.

• They had been assigned to analyze a large cache of documents.

• The cache contained:

  • Open-source intelligence.
  • Department of Justice records.
  • FBI records.
  • Evidence seized during the arrest of Lee Jarnigan.

• Lee Jarnigan also used the online name “ScribeLife420.”

• Jarnigan operated as an online essay farmer, producing academic work for customers.

• Jarnigan had connections to previous Glass Meridian operations.

• On July 1, 2020, an alert had been triggered in an NSA system called Magenta Gambler.

  • Magenta Gambler monitored activity in various federal computer systems.
  • Among its functions, it searched for particular keywords of interest to the Program.

• The alert concerned an anonymous tip submitted to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, commonly abbreviated IC3.

• The tip contained multiple keywords that were significant to Glass Meridian.

• Investigators traced the anonymous report to Lee Jarnigan.

• At the Program’s direction, the FBI was instructed to:

  • Arrest Jarnigan.
  • Confiscate his computers and related equipment as evidence.

• During his FBI interrogation, Jarnigan provided information concerning a person called “Conradin.”

• Conradin was already a person or name of interest to the Program.

Rinnick explained the compartmentalized security arrangements for the investigation.

• In less than ten minutes, the agents would receive temporary access to a compartment called Black Lantern.

• Their Black Lantern access was strictly limited to this review.

• Paper Crown was the compartmented subject associated with the material.

• Nothing bearing either the Black Lantern or Paper Crown designation was permitted to leave the room.

• Black Lantern was not merely a general secrecy level.

  • It was the internal project designation covering MASTICATE and the intelligence associated with the working group’s operations.

• The Black Lantern material represented intelligence generated internally by Glass Meridian.

• Rinnick himself had not been read into Black Lantern.

• At that point, he knew no more about the underlying material than the four analysts did.

Rinnick defined the questions the group had to answer.

• They were to determine the identity of Conradin.

• They were to determine whether Conradin had any relationship to Paper Crown.

• They were to determine whether the Program should consider Conradin a threat.

• The group was required to prepare a report containing:

  • Their conclusions.
  • A recommended course of action.

• Any Black Lantern information had to be removed or redacted from the version presented to Rinnick.

• Rinnick would then send the resulting assessment up the Program’s chain of command.

Rinnick explained the practical restrictions imposed on the agents.

• They had use of the office until 8:00 a.m. on Monday morning.

• The classified documents could not leave the building.

• The materials could not be left unattended.

• Consequently, the four agents were expected to remain in the office for the duration of the review.

• A nearby area had been supplied with:

  • Four folding cots.
  • Four boxed sleeping bags.

• The communal kitchen had been stocked with food and drinks, much of it purchased from Costco.

• Available provisions included:

  • Cold cuts and sandwich ingredients.
  • Frozen meals.
  • Pot stickers.
  • Udon.
  • Bottled water.
  • Soda.
  • Boxes of snack food.

• The office also appeared to retain a WeWork beer dispenser or kegerator, although the condition of its contents was uncertain.

• The agents were given a secure telephone line.

  • They could leave an encrypted message for Rinnick.
  • Rinnick would return their call.
  • He did not promise immediate responsiveness.

A second man arrived by elevator shortly after the briefing.

• He was another nondescript white man wearing a dark suit.

• He brought a heavy, ruggedized roller case.

• The case had a keycard reader and keypad.

• Rinnick inserted a card into the case.

• The second man obtained a code from his phone and entered it.

• A panel opened to reveal a secure paper feed.

• The device began printing the Black Lantern report one page at a time.

• The full report took approximately twenty minutes to print.

• The agents were instructed to destroy the Black Lantern report after completing their work.

  • The pages were to be shredded.
  • The shredded material was to be placed in opaque secure-disposal bags.
  • Rinnick would collect the sealed bags when he returned.

The Program’s known and unknown information about MASTICATE was clarified before the review began.

• The Black Lantern file contained the Program’s reconstruction of MASTICATE’s personnel and operations.

• The Program’s picture was generally accurate, in part because Matthew McCarter had spoken extensively about MASTICATE’s field operations while confined at Blackwood.

• McCarter’s statements had generated numerous detailed reports.

• The Program did not know about the approximately seventeen million dollars recovered from Avalon Gardens and distributed off the books by Franklin Booth.

  • A passage suggesting that the Program knew about Booth’s off-book disbursements was identified as an error and removed from consideration.

• Graham Drummond had been reported killed in action following Avalon Gardens.

  • The Program had never recovered or positively identified his body.
  • His death was therefore regarded as unconfirmed despite the official KIA designation.

• The Program possessed less complete information concerning the final Picky Eater operation and what had happened to MASTICATE during it.

Rinnick departed at approximately 8:30 a.m., leaving the four agents alone with the evidence.

• Andy Banks took an organizational role at the beginning of the review.

• He divided stacks of material among the group.

• He suggested that each person begin reading and call attention to anything that appeared relevant.

• The agents briefly introduced themselves by occupation:

  • Ernie Baldkar identified himself as an analyst.
  • Dr. Ming identified himself as a neuroscientist.
  • Andy Banks identified himself as DEA.
  • Jerry Arnoldson stated that he worked for the Bureau of Prisons.

• They then began sorting the records into material that was:

  • Clearly relevant.
  • Possibly significant.
  • Irrelevant to the assignment.

Andy began by reviewing the Black Lantern case history of MASTICATE.

• The report provided an operational chronology of the working group.

• It covered MASTICATE’s origins in the aftermath of the Cornucopia House operation.

• It described several later operations, including:

  • Sugar Ride.
  • Archer Spark.
  • Fife Lift.
  • The later Picky Eater affair.

• It recorded the members of MASTICATE, including those who had died or disappeared.

• It assessed the group’s unusual behavior and its repeated exposure to Paper Crown-related phenomena.

The Black Lantern report presented Paper Crown as a recurring pattern or process rather than a conventional organization.

• The proposed cycle began with abused or confined children generating some form of signal.

• Predators gathered around or were drawn to those children.

• Avengers or “teeth” were then selected.

• Those avengers attacked the predators.

• Survivors of one iteration of the cycle could become the predators or avengers involved in a later iteration.

• The process therefore appeared capable of perpetuating itself across generations.

• The Cornucopia House incident exhibited the major markers associated with Paper Crown:

  • Children held in confinement.
  • Systematic or ritualized abuse.
  • Adult caretakers acting as predators.
  • Occult practices.
  • Animalistic expressions of pain or violence.
  • Transmission of the phenomenon through surviving children.

• The report also discussed a proposed “cornucopion” or Cornucopia particle associated with the physics of the phenomenon.

• The agents understood that these were retrospective Program theories rather than conclusions MASTICATE had possessed during its earliest operations.

• The report assigned varying levels of confidence to its theories rather than presenting every point as established fact.

The Black Lantern analysts believed that Paper Crown could use animals and humans in several ways.

• Animals could serve as:

  • Sensory extensions.
  • Weapons.
  • Symbols.
  • Behavioral templates.

• Humans could also become susceptible to Paper Crown’s influence.

• Children and heavily damaged adults were considered especially vulnerable.

• The report suggested that the members of MASTICATE might themselves have become agents or instruments of Paper Crown by participating in the cycle.

The report distinguished Picky Eater from Paper Crown.

• Picky Eater was not considered identical to Paper Crown.
• The relationship between the two remained uncertain.
• The Black Lantern analysts proposed several theories but did not establish a definitive connection.

Andy found a significant warning in Appendix B of the report.

• The analyst’s note advised senior reviewers that Glass Meridian had not been studying Paper Crown solely from outside the phenomenon.
• It stated that Glass Meridian was already inside Paper Crown.
• It warned that the Program had to assume it had been observed.

Jerry questioned how the extensive MASTICATE history related to the assigned subjects, Conradin and ScribeLife420.

• The agents located an earlier connection in the records of Operation Fife Lift.

• Fife Lift involved MASTICATE’s efforts to conceal or clean up remaining evidence connected to Cornucopia House.

• During that operation, the team tracked down Antonia Chilikov.

  • Chilikov was one of the former Cornucopia House children.
  • She was working at King Torino.

• Chilikov had hired ScribeLife420 to transform her notes into thesis material.

• An associated communication from ScribeLife420 stated that Conradin had said Chilikov might need help.

• This established that ScribeLife420 and someone using the name Conradin had already been connected to a former Cornucopia House resident.

The Black Lantern records included a list of children associated with Cornucopia House.

• Most of the children were deceased by 2020.
• A small number, including Antonia Chilikov, were still alive.
• Those surviving individuals were being monitored but were not currently classified as threats.
• Only one child on the list had a completely unknown status: Conrad Hopko.
• The similarity between “Conrad” Hopko and the later name “Conradin” immediately became significant to the investigation.

Ernie reviewed the FBI interviews with Lee Jarnigan.

• Jarnigan had initially worked for Conradin in his capacity as an essay farmer.

• He helped Conradin complete academic assignments and studies.

• Their relationship developed beyond a purely commercial arrangement into something Jarnigan considered a friendship.

• Jarnigan learned that Conradin had used at least two legal or personal names:

  • Jacob Tillman.
  • Esau Tillman.

• Records identified Eli Tillman as Jacob’s father.

• The emerging identity chain was therefore:

  • Conrad Hopko.
  • Conradin.
  • Jacob Tillman.
  • Esau Tillman.

• The group had not yet established every step of that identity chain with equal certainty, but the records strongly connected the names.

Jarnigan had also assisted Tillman with an application to join Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

• The application process occurred in or around 2016.
• Jarnigan’s assistance apparently helped Tillman obtain employment with ICE.
• Tillman contacted Jarnigan again several years later.
• The initial discussion placed this renewed contact in early 2020, only a short time before the anonymous IC3 report.

Dr. Ming questioned why the FBI’s dossier treated Jarnigan’s essay-writing operation with such seriousness.

• Academic plagiarism could destroy a student’s or professional’s career, but it did not initially seem to justify the intensity of the arrest.

• Review of the Department of Justice material showed several potential criminal charges unrelated to plagiarism alone:

  • Wire fraud.
  • Tax evasion.
  • Money laundering.

• Jarnigan had attempted to conceal his essay-writing income by reporting it as gambling winnings.

• His attempts at operational security and financial concealment were described as amateurish.

• The severity and speed of the arrest nevertheless resulted primarily from Glass Meridian’s intervention after the Magenta Gambler alert.

The anonymous IC3 tip was itself part of Jarnigan’s attempt to warn federal authorities about Tillman.

• Jarnigan had become alarmed after Tillman asked him to prepare applications for two of Tillman’s associates.
• The requested applications were intended to help those associates enter ICE or related federal employment.
• Jarnigan believed the two applicants were dangerous.
• In his warning, he stated that the men Tillman was attempting to place would make the objectionable personnel already inside ICE look like “Mr. Rogers.”
• This request appears to have been the immediate cause of Jarnigan’s decision to report Tillman.
• The Program’s monitoring systems detected the report because it contained terms linked to earlier Glass Meridian operations.

Ernie noted several aspects of Jarnigan’s description of Tillman’s communication style.

• Tillman’s ideas were intellectually complicated.

• His written sentences nevertheless resembled those of a child.

• His writing included:

  • Poor spelling.
  • Incorrect grammatical agreement.
  • Mixed verb tenses.
  • Missing articles.
  • Excessive articles where only one or none was needed.

• Jarnigan had asked whether the problems resulted from:

  • A brain injury.
  • Dyslexia.
  • Poor education.

• Tillman would only say that the problem was “from the past.”

Jarnigan summarized his relationship with Tillman by saying that he had once believed he was helping Tillman become a person.

• Jarnigan later concluded that he might only have taught Tillman how to sound like one.
• This statement suggested that Jarnigan had come to doubt whether Tillman’s apparently human manner reflected genuine human emotional or social development.

The group returned to the Paper Crown assessment and the role of Agent Clove.

• Agent Clove had ordered the original Delta Green cell to kill the Cornucopia House children.

• The retrospective report proposed several possible explanations for that order:

  • Clove believed the children were contaminated vectors who would spread the phenomenon.
  • Clove was acting on behalf of an opposing or compromised agenda.
  • Clove understood that allowing the children to survive would preserve the Paper Crown cycle and was trying to break it.
  • Clove’s order was itself created or influenced by Paper Crown to draw D-cell into the cycle.

• The Program had not determined which interpretation was correct.

• All of the proposed interpretations treated Clove’s order as an important point in Paper Crown’s propagation.

The agents examined what Clove had known before the Cornucopia House operation.

• Matthew McCarter had read Clove’s journal.

• His account of the journal had subsequently entered the Black Lantern record.

• Clove’s real identity had been concealed behind the alias Crystal Killian.

• Clove had originally been a member of C-cell.

• C-cell had been investigating an occult-artifact smuggling operation.

• That investigation led the cell to:

  • The Skoptsi in Moscow.
  • Skoptsi activity in the Chesapeake region.
  • Cornucopia House.

• The journal indicated that the discovery of Cornucopia House was not C-cell’s original objective.

• Nothing in the journal established that Clove had prior knowledge of earlier Paper Crown cycles.

• The report therefore could not determine whether she recognized the larger pattern before encountering Cornucopia House.

Jerry found a possible connection between Clove and the history of Jacob Tillman.

• Eli Tillman’s memoir claimed that he had hired a woman named Clovis to serve as Jacob’s nanny and tutor.
• Clovis supposedly traveled around the country with Eli and Jacob in a recreational vehicle.
• Eli’s account also mentioned a driver named Clark.
• This arrangement appears to have begun around 2004.
• The similarity between the names “Clove” and “Clovis” attracted Jerry’s attention, although the records did not yet establish that they were the same person.

Jerry summarized Jacob Tillman’s childhood as described in Eli Tillman’s memoirs.

• Jacob was abducted as an infant from a Walmart parking lot in 1994.

• He remained missing for approximately seven years.

• He was found in North Carolina in March 2001, shortly after the Cornucopia House raid.

• Eli reclaimed him.

• At seven years old, Jacob was unable to speak.

• Multiple psychiatrists, pediatricians, and other professionals reportedly believed that a child who had failed to acquire language by that age would never develop normal speech.

• Eli rejected those conclusions.

• He decided to educate and rehabilitate Jacob himself.

• Eli claimed that he:

  • Homeschooled Jacob.
  • Taught him to speak.
  • Taught him about the world largely by watching movies with him.

• Eli later wrote about this educational method.

• He took Jacob on a national book tour while promoting his memoirs and related ideas.

The agents found an obscure critical work written by a professor of educational psychology.

• The FBI characterized the work as a pop-academic attack on Eli Tillman’s memoirs.

• The author argued that Eli’s account of Jacob’s language development was neurologically and educationally implausible.

• The author also disputed the existence of both Clovis and Clark.

• According to this competing account, Eli frequently left Jacob at various institutions while Eli toured or wrote.

• Those institutions allegedly included:

  • Teen boot camps.
  • Christian reeducation camps.
  • Experimental boarding schools.
  • Detention centers.

• The records therefore contained two sharply conflicting versions of Jacob’s upbringing:

  • Eli’s account of personal education, travel, movies, and attentive tutors.
  • The critic’s account of repeated confinement in punitive or experimental facilities.

Jerry and Dr. Ming evaluated Eli’s claims from psychological and neurological perspectives.

• Jerry attempted both a Search check and a Psychotherapy check.

  • His Search check failed.
  • His Psychotherapy check succeeded.

• Dr. Ming also succeeded on a Psychotherapy check.

• Based on their knowledge, they agreed that a child who had genuinely failed to acquire any understanding of language by age seven would not simply learn normal speech by watching films.

• Eli’s explanation did not adequately account for Jacob’s apparent later ability to communicate.

• The conclusion strengthened the possibility that:

  • Eli’s memoir was inaccurate.
  • Jacob had possessed some earlier language development.
  • Jacob’s later speech had developed through an abnormal process.

• The available evidence did not establish which explanation was correct.

After approximately four or five hours of reading, the agents paused only enough to obtain food.

• They continued working while eating rather than taking a formal break.
• The office supplies allowed them to prepare sandwiches or microwave frozen food.
• The classified material remained under observation throughout the working lunch.
• The agents retained possession of their phones.
• After reading about Picky Eater, Andy checked his phone to see whether the application had appeared.
• He did not find Picky Eater installed or otherwise present.

Dr. Ming then focused on messages in which Conradin discussed split-brain syndrome.

• Split-brain syndrome results when the corpus callosum, the thick band of nerve fibers connecting the brain’s two hemispheres, is severed or fails to function.

• The condition prevents ordinary communication between the left and right hemispheres.

• The two hemispheres can consequently operate with a degree of independence.

• This can produce unusual perceptual and behavioral symptoms.

• Known causes can include:

  • Deliberate surgery, particularly procedures historically used to treat otherwise uncontrollable epilepsy.
  • Severe physical trauma.
  • Certain developmental abnormalities or birth defects.

• Conradin’s references were self-descriptions rather than medical records.

• The available messages did not provide enough information to diagnose him.

• Conradin did not describe the physical injury, surgery, or congenital condition that would normally explain an actual severing of the hemispheres.

• Alcohol poisoning would not ordinarily produce the anatomical separation associated with split-brain syndrome.

• Dr. Ming attempted a Biology check to assess the account more precisely.

  • The check failed.
  • He could therefore identify the basic medical inconsistency but could not reach a firm diagnosis from the records.

Additional review clarified the timing of Jarnigan’s warning.

• One document dated the anonymous tip to January 7, 2020.
• Another relevant communication was dated April 7, 2020.
• The January date was determined to be an error in the material.
• The anonymous IC3 tip should be treated as having been submitted on April 7, 2020, around the same time as the associated thank-you message.
• This corrected chronology placed Tillman’s renewed contact with Jarnigan shortly before April 2020.
• It also placed Jarnigan’s arrest and the July Magenta Gambler briefing within a coherent sequence.

Andy found another anomaly concerning Matthew McCarter in the Black Lantern material.

• Glass Meridian had recovered a body identified as McCarter after he was violently killed and left on a road.

• The body entered the morgue approximately twenty-four to forty-eight hours before later security footage was recorded at MIT.

• Facial-recognition analysis of the MIT footage nevertheless identified McCarter moving with active MASTICATE personnel.

• The Program therefore possessed:

  • A body positively associated with Matthew McCarter.
  • Later surveillance footage apparently showing Matthew McCarter alive.

• Glass Meridian had not resolved the contradiction.

• The anomaly had effectively been categorized as another inexplicable consequence of the field operation.

• The analysts discussed recommending that the Program verify whether the body remained in secure custody or had been disposed of.

By the end of the session, the new team had established several important connections but had not yet formed a complete assessment.

• Conradin was strongly associated with the missing Cornucopia House child Conrad Hopko.

• Conradin had also operated under the names Jacob Tillman and Esau Tillman.

• Jacob’s recovery in March 2001 occurred shortly after the Cornucopia House operation.

• He had returned unable to speak and later developed an unusual, incomplete command of language.

• His father’s public account of his education was contradicted by an educational psychologist’s investigation.

• Jacob’s alleged travels with a tutor named Clovis created a possible connection to Agent Clove.

• Conradin had been connected to at least one other Cornucopia House survivor through ScribeLife420.

• ScribeLife420 had helped Conradin enter ICE in 2016.

• Conradin later attempted to use ScribeLife420 to place two additional, apparently dangerous associates inside ICE.

• Jarnigan’s concern about those applicants caused him to submit the anonymous warning detected by Magenta Gambler.

• The Black Lantern report suggested that Paper Crown was an ongoing cycle involving abused children, predators, avengers, animals, and damaged adults.

• The report further suggested that Glass Meridian and MASTICATE were not neutral observers but had already become participants in that cycle.

• The group still needed to determine:

  • Conradin’s exact identity and history.
  • Whether his activities represented a continuation of Paper Crown.
  • The significance of his ICE employment and the two additional applicants.
  • Whether Clovis and Agent Clove were connected.
  • Whether Conradin’s neurological claims reflected an actual condition, an unnatural process, or deliberate deception.
  • What threat level to assign him.
  • What course of action to recommend to Glass Meridian.

• The four agents remained inside the secured WeWork office with the full document cache available for continued review.

• Their redacted report and recommendations were due when Malcolm Rinnick returned at 8:00 a.m. Monday.