Tillman Surveillance and Investigation - Fri, Jul 24, 2020

The session resumed with the group recapping the previous day’s surveillance and infiltration of the detention facility.

• Andy Banks had previously entered the facility using DEA credentials while ostensibly searching for a suspect connected to a DEA investigation.
• Facility personnel checked Andy’s badge before allowing him through security.
• During the visit, Andy had attempted to insert a USB device into one of the facility computers while in sight of the facility’s IT employee.
• The IT employee noticed what Andy was doing and questioned him.
• Andy successfully talked his way out of the situation without apparently generating significant suspicion.
• Andy had planted additional USB devices during his visit.
• The team hoped those devices might eventually provide remote access to the facility’s systems, particularly its cameras or computer network.
• Andy received a tour of much of the facility and interviewed detainees while pretending to search for his DEA suspect.
• The facility’s records appeared to be poorly maintained.
• Its security also appeared relatively weak for a detention facility.
• Adult detainees generally seemed to move through the facility relatively quickly.
• Children tended to remain for longer periods, ostensibly while waiting for attorneys.
• Andy did not see children in the age range associated with Cornucopia House and the Paper Crown material among the ordinary detainee population.
• Several detainees told him that they had younger siblings in the age range the team was concerned about.
• Those younger siblings had been taken away and had not returned.
• The detainees did not know where those younger children had gone.
• There was a restricted area of the facility that Andy had not been allowed to enter.
• Personnel did not seem to know, or were not willing to explain, what occurred inside that restricted area.
• The ordinary detainees reported hearing strange noises from that part of the building.
• Men associated with that area sometimes emerged and watched detainees being threatened or terrorized by ICE tactical or security personnel.
• The group concluded that, at a minimum, the facility was participating in the mundane exploitation of detained children for government-contract money by keeping them confined for unnecessarily long periods.
• Andy had briefly encountered Esau Tillman during the infiltration.
• Tillman had asked Andy if he could move ahead of him in line.
• After Andy passed through security, he did not see Tillman again.
• Andy had seen most areas of the facility but had not entered the restricted rear area or the office belonging to the facility’s senior corrections official.

The team reviewed its prior efforts to determine where Esau Tillman lived.

• Ernie had researched Tillman’s residence.
• Andy had run Tillman’s vehicle plates through DMV records.
• The search produced the address of a small apartment complex in El Paso.
• The records did not provide a specific apartment number.
• The facility was approximately 10 kilometers north of El Paso, making Tillman’s apparent residence only about a 20-to-30-minute drive away.
• The group had previously spent much of the day watching the facility.
• By the end of that surveillance period, the facility had effectively closed for the day.
• Tillman’s vehicle remained outside.
• The team had not seen Tillman leave.
• The agents considered the possibility that Tillman remained somewhere inside the facility.

The agents discussed who should investigate Tillman’s apartment.

• Andy pointed out that appearing at Tillman’s residence shortly after personally encountering him at the detention facility could be suspicious.
• If Tillman saw Andy there, Andy would need a plausible explanation for why the same DEA agent had appeared both at his workplace and his home.
• Andy stated that he had decent Search but was not stealthy.
• The team reviewed its available capabilities and acknowledged that several members were better at talking or investigating than sneaking.
• Ernie had surveillance capabilities and some ability with firearms.
• Andy had useful interpersonal, investigative, and firearms skills.
• The group ultimately settled on Andy and Ernie as the pair who would go to Tillman’s listed residence.

Before leaving, the group also discussed another suspect, Terry Smedley.

• The agents had previously identified Smedley as another person of interest.
• The Handler confirmed that the team could also have obtained an address for Smedley.
• The possibility of investigating Smedley separately remained open.

Andy and Ernie drove from the surveillance position to Tillman’s listed address in El Paso.

• They used the rental SUV.
• The apartment complex was small, consisting of approximately six units.
• It stood in a visibly run-down neighborhood.
• Many nearby buildings showed signs of decay.
• Some surrounding structures appeared abandoned or possibly occupied by squatters.
• The apartment windows were largely blocked by old air-conditioning units.
• The exterior doors had metal security grates and locking gates.

Andy examined the location using his Criminology skill.

• He rolled 31 and succeeded.
• From the general condition of the area, Andy concluded that it was not the sort of neighborhood where residents were likely to immediately call police over suspicious activity.
• He also noticed that there were no cars parked at the apartment complex.
• The lack of vehicles and the weeds in the parking area suggested that few, if any, people regularly lived in the building.

The agents tried to determine which apartment belonged to Tillman.

• They examined the building’s electric meters.
• Of the six meters, only one appeared to be actively drawing power.
• The active meter corresponded to the center unit on the first floor.
• Its usage was relatively low but clearly present.
• Because of Andy’s successful Criminology check, he also recognized that the physical security on the apartment was rudimentary.
• The lock did not require sophisticated lockpicking and could be bypassed relatively easily.

Andy and Ernie first attempted a normal approach.

• They knocked on the door.
• No one answered.
• The apartment remained silent.
• The sun was beginning to set.
• No lights were visible inside.

Andy bypassed the security gate and door and entered the apartment.

• The apartment consisted primarily of a single combined living and sleeping area.
• A mattress lay directly on the floor.
• There was almost no furniture.
• A folded pile of clothing sat near one corner.
• A small kitchenette occupied the rear portion of the apartment.
• The kitchenette was clean.
• There was a small refrigerator.
• The refrigerator was empty.
• There was a small bathroom area containing a shower and toilet.
• The bathroom appeared clean but little-used.
• A towel inside was completely dry and stiff.
• The overall air in the apartment was stale and musty.
• The condition of the residence suggested that it was not frequently occupied.

Two items immediately stood out in the otherwise nearly empty apartment.

• A laptop was sitting on the mattress and plugged into a wall outlet.
• A small journal or notebook with a pen lying across it was also on the mattress.

Ernie examined the laptop.

• The machine was an older model, approximately a decade old.
• It was running Windows.
• It displayed a Windows login or welcome screen.
• There was effectively no password protection.
• Ernie simply proceeded past the screen.
• The laptop had no active Wi-Fi connection.
• It appeared to operate offline at the apartment.
• Because Ernie had Computer Science at approximately 80%, he did not need to roll to systematically inspect the computer.
• The device had essentially no meaningful security or encryption.
• Its files were stored plainly and could be accessed directly.
• A Tor browser was installed.

Ernie examined the Tor browser and its browsing history.

• The browser history showed recent visits to extremely disturbing parts of the dark web.
• Tillman had been browsing forums used by child pornographers.
• He had also visited material related to sex trafficking.
• He regularly accessed hate sites.
• He was browsing county sex-offender registries.
• Much of this browsing was extremely recent, including activity from approximately the previous night.
• Ernie made a SAN check for helplessness after examining the material.
• He succeeded.
• He lost no SAN from that exposure.

The agents discovered a spreadsheet on Tillman’s desktop.

• It contained numerous names and aliases.
• Several columns were color-coded.
• One specific color-coded column was labeled “Trust.”
• Values in the Trust column were green, yellow, or red.
• The exact meaning of the other color coding was not immediately clear.
• Ernie cross-referenced some of the names with the sex-offender registries and other sites in Tillman’s browser history.
• He found matches.
• This strongly indicated that Tillman was compiling a personal list of predatory or otherwise dangerous individuals from the sources he was researching.
• The Handler characterized the laptop as being used to construct a personal “shopping list of monsters.”

The spreadsheet included people already known to the agents.

• Alan Rapp appeared in older rows.
• Terry Smedley also appeared in older rows.
• The team had previously conducted only ordinary public-record searches on Rapp and Smedley.
• Their appearance in Tillman’s spreadsheet did not necessarily mean they were registered sex offenders.
• Tillman appeared to be searching more broadly than official sex-offender registries.
• His browser history also included extreme churches and their online message boards.
• The agents concluded that Tillman was casting a wide net while seeking people he considered suitable for whatever purpose the list served.

Ernie took steps to preserve and exploit the laptop.

• He copied the spreadsheet.
• The group also intended to preserve relevant browser history and other accessible files.
• Ernie installed or attempted to install a backdoor on the laptop using one of his USB devices.
• The laptop was currently offline, but the agents reasoned that Tillman must eventually connect it to a network somewhere in order to use Tor and update his material.
• The backdoor therefore might become useful when Tillman next connected the machine to the internet.
• The agents discussed using the compromised laptop for future surveillance or deception.
• One proposed possibility was creating false information that might lure Tillman into contacting a burner phone, though the team did not immediately implement that idea.

The agents examined the spreadsheet’s maintenance pattern.

• New names appeared to have been added sequentially to the end.
• Tillman periodically removed older names in batches.
• These pruning events appeared to occur every three or four weeks.
• Some entries had contact information or addresses, but others did not.
• The information was inconsistent.
• There were entries located in Texas.
• One address the agents could identify was in Houston rather than El Paso.
• The team did not establish from the spreadsheet alone whether Tillman was distributing children to the listed people, providing them with illicit material, recruiting them, or using them for some other purpose.

Andy examined the journal, beginning with the most recent entries.

• The first written page he encountered was dated the previous day.
• It contained the message: “They are coming. You are here.”
• “You are here” was underlined.
• Andy made a SAN check for helplessness.
• He rolled 97 and failed.
• He lost 1 SAN.
• Upon reading the message, Andy immediately experienced the sensation that the words were directed specifically at him.
• He felt as though the journal was talking to him personally.

Andy continued examining Tillman’s recent journal entries.

• The recent writing focused on attempts to use federal resources to hunt for something Tillman called “Teeth.”
• Tillman consistently capitalized the word “Teeth,” indicating that he regarded it as a specific and important category or identity rather than merely ordinary teeth.
• The journal did not provide a simple definition of what the Teeth were.
• The agents recognized that “teeth” had also appeared in the Paper Crown material they had previously studied.

The journal included names directly connected to the prior MASTICATE operation.

• David Cortez was named.
• Steele Monroe was named.
• Graham Drummond was named.
• Matthew McCarter was named.
• Tillman appeared to have been searching for them or attempting to determine what had happened to them.
• He had discovered evidence that some had died and that others had disappeared.
• His writing showed increasing despair at the possibility that all of them might be gone.
• He wrote in a way suggesting that he believed they could not all be gone and that at least some of them must still exist somewhere.
• There was no specific additional revelation about McCarter beyond his inclusion among the people Tillman was trying to find.

Farther into the journal, the writing became increasingly difficult to interpret.

• The middle portion resembled an unusual manifesto.
• Tillman wrote about some form of power that drove him.
• He described a “nameless hunger.”
• The subject matter was highly abnormal.
• The writing itself was difficult to follow.
• Sentences were poorly constructed.
• Tillman’s handwriting was difficult to read.
• Fully understanding the journal would require sustained study rather than simply flipping through it.

Several printed documents had been folded and inserted between pages of the journal.

• Some were partial pages from neurological research papers.
• The material concerned brain development, brain damage, and related medical or neurological topics.
• The printed pages were incomplete excerpts from multiple papers rather than complete studies.
• They were medically technical.
• Another insert was a copy of the short story “Sredni Vashtar.”

Andy became increasingly concerned about the relationship between Tillman, the Teeth, and the violent cycle described in the Paper Crown and Black Lantern material.

• Andy stated that he did not want to become one of the Teeth.
• He focused on the pattern described in prior materials in which abused or tortured children eventually killed those responsible for their suffering.
• The killers were then elevated in the eyes of Bast or became some form of supernatural servants.
• Andy wanted to avoid simply repeating the prior pattern of violence.
• He began advocating for having Tillman arrested through ordinary law-enforcement processes instead of personally killing him.
• His reasoning was that subjecting Tillman to normal justice might interrupt the supernatural cycle rather than perpetuate it.

Andy proposed using Tillman’s apparent criminal activity to trigger an ordinary police investigation.

• He suggested reporting Tillman for child pornography, trafficking, or related crimes.
• The agents could leave the laptop in place so local law enforcement would find and seize it during a search.
• Police could then discover the spreadsheet and investigate the people listed on it.
• The team hoped this might remove Tillman from the detention facility without the agents personally killing him.
• The group acknowledged that this would at least put a dangerous person in jail if successful.
• However, they were uncertain whether simply arresting Tillman would solve the underlying unnatural problem.

Andy and Ernie decided to take the journal but leave the laptop in the apartment.

• The journal contained information directly related to the Teeth, the missing MASTICATE personnel, and the unnatural investigation.
• Leaving the laptop behind would preserve it as evidence that ordinary law enforcement might later seize.
• The agents did not want the journal’s bizarre contents to distract or confuse an ordinary investigation focused on Tillman’s mundane crimes.

Before leaving, Andy and Ernie searched more of the apartment complex.

• They opened one or two additional apartments using the same simple bypass techniques.
• Those apartments were empty.
• They were in severe disrepair and infested with roaches.
• The agents found no imprisoned children or other hidden occupants.
• Nothing suggested that the other units were being used for Tillman’s operations.

The agents discussed what Tillman might actually be doing with the children.

• One possibility was that he was using the spreadsheet to identify people to whom children could be delivered.
• This would explain why younger children entered the detention system and then disappeared from the ordinary holding area.
• Another possibility was that the spreadsheet identified consumers of child sexual-abuse material rather than recipients of children.
• The group noted that distributing children individually would differ from the historical Cornucopia House pattern.
• In the historical pattern, children were concentrated in one location where they were imprisoned, abused, and tortured.
• That concentrated suffering culminated in a violent moment in which the abusers were killed.
• If the children were simply scattered among unrelated offenders, that specific cycle would be harder to reproduce consistently.

The Handler allowed the team to consider their prior extensive study of the Black Lantern material.

• A failed Occult check led one agent toward the mistaken belief that Tillman might simply be innovating on the old pattern.
• However, the larger discussion brought the group back to the importance of the concentration of suffering in the previous cycle.
• The agents therefore considered it more likely that some form of “Cornucopia House version 2” existed.
• The unexplored restricted area at the detention facility became the most likely immediate location for such an operation.
• The team suspected that the hidden area could be serving as a new incubator or concentration point for the same pattern of abuse.

Andy and Ernie returned toward the detention facility and rejoined the others.

• Louis and Jerry had remained on the hill observing the site.
• During the intervening hours, the facility gates had closed for the day.
• No notable traffic entered or exited.
• Tillman still did not leave.
• His vehicle remained there.
• This reinforced the possibility that he was still somewhere inside the building.

The agents reconsidered their broader objective.

• The team was operating without a normal Delta Green handler.
• They described themselves as effectively off the reservation or rogue.
• They had no established official support structure for resolving the situation.
• The agents agreed that they still needed to determine what was happening in the restricted area.
• Several characters experienced a growing sense that every minute spent waiting might mean additional harm was being done to children inside.

The group reviewed the staffing and defenses of the detention facility.

• Andy’s prior tour suggested that there were relatively few personnel on-site.
• The number appeared to be under ten.
• Several Life Force security personnel had been present in the detainee area.
• The facility had an armory.
• The armory contained tactical armor and a rack of shotguns.
• Most of the ammunition and equipment used in normal operations was less-lethal.
• The facility had rubber bullets, beanbag rounds, flashbangs, and similar equipment.
• There was some live ammunition, but it was locked away separately.
• Ordinary guards were not normally carrying firearms.
• The personnel Andy saw carried weapons such as batons, pepper spray, and tasers.
• The agents therefore reasoned that a sudden armed entry at night might temporarily give them a firearms advantage, particularly if they could reach the armory before the facility personnel did.
• At the same time, several team members emphasized that none of them were true special operators and that a direct assault could easily turn disastrous.

Dr. Ming considered making thermite as a method for defeating locks.

• He had Chemistry 40.
• He rolled 23 and succeeded.
• Based on that success, he knew how to assemble a small batch of thermite.
• The materials could be acquired by visiting several ordinary stores.
• The team could use the camper as a makeshift workspace for preparing it.
• The agents discussed using thermite to destroy locks or other metal security hardware.

The team also considered the limitations of thermite.

• Burning through a substantial amount of metal could take approximately 20 seconds to a minute.
• Even then, the thermite might not completely sever the target.
• The damaged lock or barrier might still require physical force, such as a hammer or sledgehammer, to finish breaking it.
• The process would also produce obvious sparks and activity.
• It therefore was not automatically a fast or discreet breaching method.

Andy again warned the group about the supernatural consequences of simply attacking and killing the facility personnel.

• He remained focused on the cycle described in the Paper Crown material.
• He believed that violence by the agents could help perpetuate the same process that had ensnared MASTICATE.
• He wanted to find a way to resolve the situation without reproducing the pattern of torturers being violently slain by the people or forces associated with the abused children.
• Other agents noted the inconsistency between Andy’s current caution and earlier discussions in which he had entertained killing the children as a possible solution.
• Andy clarified that killing the children had originally been Clove’s proposed solution and that he had only regarded it as one possible option.
• His current priority was explicitly to avoid doing the same thing MASTICATE had done.

The agents discussed whether ordinary law enforcement could realistically act against Tillman.

• They recognized that an anonymous report about child pornography on a laptop in a run-down apartment might not produce an immediate response.
• They also doubted that El Paso police would rapidly raid an ICE-linked detention site based solely on such a tip.
• This made arresting Tillman through normal channels potentially too slow for children who might currently be in danger.

The group considered framing Tillman for a more immediately actionable crime.

• Andy’s DEA connection might allow him to obtain a significant quantity of drugs by bending rules.
• The agents discussed planting drugs in Tillman’s apartment or otherwise creating evidence that would generate a faster law-enforcement response.
• The idea was to use a drug bust to get authorities into the apartment, where they would then discover the laptop and its evidence of sexual crimes.
• The mundane investigation could then expand into Tillman’s contacts and activities.
• The agents regarded this as potentially more effective than relying solely on an anonymous pornography tip.
• No final implementation occurred during the session.

The Handler asked all four agents for INT × 5 checks.

• Dr. Ming failed with a 93 against 85.
• Other agents succeeded.
• The successful agents recognized that the team had been concentrating heavily on what to do about Tillman while neglecting the practical problem of the detained children.
• If they freed the children, they needed to consider where those children would go.
• The group did not currently know where many of their parents were.
• Any raid or escape plan therefore required an extraction or post-release plan, not merely opening doors.

The team considered using media exposure.

• Andy had taken photographs while inside the facility.
• The group discussed sending evidence to news organizations.
• The idea was to expose the mundane abuses at the facility even if the supernatural component could not be revealed.

Andy made a Law check concerning the legal status of the detainees.

• He was not particularly strong in Law but rolled a critical success.
• Because of that success, the Handler established that Andy had recently sat through briefings concerning precisely this type of detention.
• Courts had pushed back against many of the policies under which ICE had originally detained people in these circumstances.
• Current detention practices had become more legally constrained.
• The legal situation was more complicated for people who were already in custody.
• However, if detainees were officially released or escaped, ICE could not necessarily simply arrest them again.
• Authorities would have to justify the original grounds for detention.
• Many of these particular detainees had been arrested under false pretenses or under legal precedents that had subsequently been overturned on appeal.
• Their records had often been deliberately misfiled or badly processed in order to conceal the arrests from oversight.
• Those same defective records would make it difficult for ICE to reproduce or justify the arrests later.
• The agents therefore realized that simply getting detainees physically out of the facility could significantly improve their legal position and make immediate re-arrest more difficult.

The group continued considering a nighttime intervention.

• They believed fewer employees would be present after hours.
• The ordinary personnel would not normally be carrying lethal weapons.
• If the agents could enter armed and prevent staff from reaching the armory, they could potentially hold a tactical advantage.
• The team nevertheless remained concerned about the lack of a trained assault specialist.
• Ernie in particular was reluctant to participate in a direct gunfight.
• He was a surveillance specialist rather than an assault operator.
• Although capable of firing a weapon, he was older and had a wife and child he wanted to return to.
• He was attracted to the idea of rescuing the children but did not want to rush into a suicidal assault.

Dr. Ming decided to study the neurological material inserted in Tillman’s journal.

• Dr. Ming was a neuroscientist and considered the material directly relevant to his specialty.
• He rolled Neuroscience against a skill of 72.
• He rolled 77, resulting in a critical failure.
• The collection consisted of disconnected pages from several separate scientific papers.
• Without the full papers or proper context, he had difficulty immediately determining their significance.
• Tillman’s accompanying notes were also difficult to understand.
• Because of the critical failure, Dr. Ming would need to spend the entire night carefully reading the material.
• If he did so, the Handler said that by morning he should have a much better understanding of it.
• The subject appeared to be physiological rather than psychological.
• The papers concerned the actual physical structure and functioning of the brain.
• They appeared related to split-brain phenomena.
• The discussion emphasized that emotional trauma alone does not physically split the brain.
• Producing such a separation would require some form of physical neurological trauma.
• Dr. Ming elected to continue studying the papers overnight because the topic fell directly within his expertise.

The agents debated whether to remain at their desert surveillance position for another night.

• Their original reasons for staying there had been to study movement patterns at the facility and intercept cellular activity.
• They had already gathered much of that information.
• Some agents wanted to move to an air-conditioned hotel or otherwise leave the campsite.
• Others argued that they should remain close to the facility until they had a concrete plan, particularly because taking Tillman’s journal meant that they were now on a clock.
• The journal’s most recent entry had been written the previous day, indicating that Tillman did visit the apartment at least occasionally.
• Once he returned and discovered the notebook missing, he would know someone had entered his residence.
• The team did not know when he would next return home.
• For the moment, Tillman still appeared to be inside the detention facility.

The group discussed the number of detainees they might need to extract.

• Based on what Andy had seen, the general detainee population was approximately 60 to 70 people.
• This was far more than the agents could transport in their existing vehicle.
• The group joked about packing people into the vehicle but recognized that a proper extraction would require substantially more transportation.
• They considered renting a U-Haul or some other large vehicle.
• The possibility of using the camper also arose.
• No transportation plan was finalized.

The agents distinguished between the ordinary detainees and the unknown number of younger children who might be in the restricted area.

• They did not know how many young children were hidden there.
• They also did not know whether all 60 to 70 ordinary detainees were directly threatened by the unnatural activity.
• The team increasingly focused on first discovering what was actually behind the restricted door before attempting a full rescue.

The agents discussed the possibility that only a few facility employees were actively participating in Tillman’s hidden operation.

• They did not assume that every ordinary guard or employee was part of the unnatural conspiracy.
• One possibility was that Tillman and perhaps a few selected ICE personnel were using the restricted area while the rest of the staff simply ignored suspicious activity.
• This strengthened the argument for reconnaissance rather than immediately treating every person in the facility as an enemy.

The team remembered that they had a surveillance drone.

• They decided to use it to inspect the rear of the facility.
• The drone was a relatively expensive model for the year 2020.
• It had low-light or night-vision capability.
• At night it would be difficult to see and would likely only be detected if someone happened to be outside and close enough to hear it.
• From their hilltop position, the agents had sufficient range to fly around the building.

The drone surveyed the back of the detention facility.

• At the rear corner of the building, facing toward the desert, the agents identified a roll-up garage door.
• The door was closed.
• There was no obvious access road leading to it.
• It did not look as though the door was used frequently.
• Its location corresponded to the part of the building that Andy had not been allowed to enter.
• Andy confirmed that the garage door was positioned behind the restricted section.
• The only other significant area Andy had not inspected was the senior corrections official’s office.

The drone also revealed the physical surroundings behind the facility.

• A chain-link perimeter fence separated the facility and water-reclamation property from the open desert.
• There was approximately 30 to 40 feet of open ground between the building and the fence.
• The rear garage door was broadly similar to the roll-up garage door near the building’s main entrance.
• The team now had a plausible external access point into the restricted section.

The agents considered using explosives or thermite on the rear garage door.

• They possessed an old Vietnam-era hand grenade.
• One suggestion was using the drone and grenade to destroy or breach the door.
• The agents recognized that this would be extremely conspicuous.
• They compared an explosive breach with thermite, noting that thermite would be slower while an explosion would immediately alert everyone.
• No explosive breach was attempted.

The group revisited Ernie’s electronic-surveillance capabilities.

• Ernie had been using a Stingray-type cellular interception system.
• The team knew he could interfere with or monitor cellular communications around the facility.
• They considered blocking cell-phone calls during an entry.
• However, the facility also had landline telephone service.
• The telephone lines ran along utility poles near the road, below the power lines.
• Ernie could identify which lines were telephone lines.
• The agents discussed physically cutting the phone lines to prevent staff from calling for help.
• They recognized that they would only want to do this immediately before an actual operation rather than prematurely revealing that someone was tampering with the site.

Ernie made another relevant SIGINT assessment.

• His SIGINT skill was approximately 67.
• Based on the type of locks Andy had described inside the facility, Ernie recognized them as basic magnetic card-reader systems.
• If the agents could obtain an employee access card for approximately 10 to 15 minutes, Ernie could clone it.
• Once he had the data, he could produce multiple copies.
• This offered a much quieter method of gaining access than thermite or explosives.

The agents considered how to acquire an access card.

• Esau Tillman presumably had one.
• Terry Smedley might also possess one.
• The group preferred not to target Tillman directly at first because of his obvious connection to the unnatural phenomenon.
• Smedley seemed potentially easier and safer to isolate.

The group reviewed Smedley’s schedule.

• On the previous night, Smedley had stayed at the facility overnight.
• He had gone home in the morning.
• He then returned in the late afternoon.
• He was again at the facility that night.
• The agents had not yet identified Alan Rapp’s vehicle or confirmed whether Rapp was present.

The group discussed intercepting Smedley when he next left.

• They knew what vehicle he drove.
• One proposal was to engineer a minor traffic collision with him.
• Andy, who had a comparatively good Drive skill, could make the collision look accidental.
• The agents could then approach under the normal pretext of exchanging insurance information.
• Once close enough, they could overpower Smedley at gunpoint.
• They could take his access card, clone it, and decide how to handle him afterward.
• The proposal remained hypothetical.
• The group did not execute it during the session.

Dr. Ming suggested that, if the team was ultimately going to kill the people involved, it might be tactically easier to remove one of them before attacking the main facility.

• The agents again returned to the problem of whether killing participants would reproduce the cycle associated with the Teeth.
• Andy remained opposed to casually killing suspects for that reason.

The team considered whether the agents could simply bluff their way into the facility instead of breaching it.

• Andy had already successfully entered using legitimate-looking DEA credentials.
• Facility security had verified his badge but had otherwise been relatively permissive.
• The detention center was not a maximum-security prison.
• Its main security challenge was keeping detained children confined, not defending against a sophisticated armed intrusion.
• The group acknowledged that interpersonal and deception skills were among the team’s stronger collective capabilities.
• One idea was for Andy to return claiming that he had brought additional members of his DEA team.
• The agents even considered concealing some members in the camper and relying on the facility’s weak vehicle screening.
• No specific bluff was finalized.

The team ended the session without committing to a final entry plan.

• Their general objective had shifted toward finding a discreet way into the restricted rear area.
• Possible methods included:
  • Obtaining and cloning an employee key card.
  • Bluffing their way back through the front entrance.
  • Entering through or breaching the rear garage door.
  • Cutting or disabling communications immediately before entry.
  • Using the Stingray to interfere with cellular calls.
  • Using thermite against locks or barriers.
  • Using drugs or other planted evidence to provoke an outside law-enforcement intervention.
  • Exposing the facility’s mundane crimes to police or the media.
• The group had not resolved how to transport or protect the detained children if they succeeded in freeing them.
• They had not resolved how to deal with Tillman, Smedley, or the other people on Tillman’s spreadsheet.
• They had not established exactly what was inside the restricted area.
• Tillman remained at the detention facility as far as the team could determine.
• His journal had been removed from his apartment, meaning that the team expected their intrusion to eventually be discovered.
• Ernie’s backdoor remained installed on the laptop in the hope that it would become useful the next time the machine connected to a network.
• Dr. Ming intended to spend the night studying the neurological papers and Tillman’s associated writings.
• The Handler indicated that the next session would resume from essentially this point.
• The Handler also intended to begin the next session with the information Dr. Ming learned from his overnight study.