Special Agent Field Reports: December 2020

Secret Agent Avia Jiutai witnessed the resurrection of the Mothman. Having been slain last year, a feather from Mothman was kept in SIU storage, mainly as a reference point for cryptobiologists. This month, strange energy readings were detected from its storage container and, upon opening up storage, an egg was found in place of the feather. In the presence of Agent Jiutai, and several other agents, the egg then hatched into a "new Mothman", which quickly grew to adolescence in the course of 48 hours. When tasked with interviewing the new Mothman, Jiutai instead found himself being asked a series of probing questions by the regrown Mothman: these questions were on several classified, ongoing topics, including the agent's relationship with certain sentient trees and his involvement with a sentient stealth aircraft. Agent Jiutai has determined that Mothman's memories have mostly returned unaltered and, after a thorough (but frustratingly useless) medical examination, the Mothman's wife was called to take him home. Before leaving, he inquired if Jiutai was aware of"the ritual" yet; the meaning of this enigmatic question remains unseen, but that has been somewhat par for the course for SIU interactions with Mothman.

A mysterious series of house fires in an Irish suburb required the investigative talents of Senior Special Agent Gedat Rakkin. Agent Rakkin began to suspect an odd 19th century house was somehow involved, after noticing some apparent irregularities with its architecture. This house sat between three of the victims on the same street, but was itself untouched by any damage. As no blueprints were available, Rakkin examined the large home from within, with the owner's permission. Based on Rakkin's studies, it seems that the home itself may have been designed as a weapon that had turned on its neighbors: a special, custom-built furnace in the basement appears to funnel heat through a complex series of air ducts in the twisting hallways, to create a focused beam of heat, which may be capable of burning down other buildings. The home owner, an elderly widow with no engineering knowledge, denies involvement with, or knowledge of, this feature, and Rakkin reasons that the old, hand-built furnace may have malfunctioned and activated the weaponized architecture by accident. Neighbors, and the homeowner, have been temporarily relocated while the house receives a more thorough examination: hopes are that the weaponized heat gun will be easily disarmed, and some clue as to the architect may be found in the details of the design.

Senior Special Agent Fenix Blackpaw was present for the next chord in the world's longest musical performance. Written and designed in 1991, a pipe organ in a French church has mechanically performed one long, ever-changing melody since 2004; playing continuous chords on the heavily modified instrument for the past 34 years, using tension springs set by the creator. The score itself has remained a closely-guarded secret by the composer's family, who have only hinted at the duration, and issue press conferences for upcoming changes in the melody that have been set in motion for decades. With a small crowd of dedicated fans gathered, the composer's family was there to oversee the automated organ's shift to the next stage of the composition. The crowd, including Agent Blackpaw, was met with thunderous, low-frequency sound: walls shook from the vibrations, windows broke, and many in the crowd experienced severe internal pain and fled the area as the organ continued to play devastatingly loud, low-pitched chord. Agent Blackpaw tracked down the family after the crowd dispersed, talking to them half a mile away, where the music was quieter/: they expressed surprise that the instrument became so painful and damaging, explaining that they were merely following instructions by the deceased inventor. No criminal intent or negligence was found in the family, though experts have not been able to confirm if this new attack was planned or a mistake by the creator, or how to mute the organ without potentially damaging the long-lived art project. The surrounding area has been evacuated until the next chord,in 14 years.

In other musical news, Special Agent Neoprocured recordings of unusual, AI-generated music for investigation. An online audio stream has been running for over ten years by using a somewhat antiquated AI algorithm to generate new music. The stream specifically focuses on the electronic genres, although the AI generation often results in incoherent noise or random sounds. Some time early last year, rumors began in online circles that the stream was broadcasting stranger songs than usual. Agent Neo was able to negotiate with the project's niche community of collectors and enthusiasts to obtain a rare recording of the stream kept by the fan archivists. The audio, independently verified as having not been modified after broadcast, intersperses generated samples over a techno beat and synth sounds and, while AI-generated lyrics are not uncommon, in this particular recording a sample of man's voice is heard reading obituaries. In one song, four people were mentioned, including names, cause of death, and dates of death. All four of these figures were real people, who could be found in obituaries the month prior to the song's creation; the true mystery began when another four people were listed in the next song, the first two of which were accurate readings of obituaries that would not be published until weeks afterthe broadcast, featuring a traffic accident and a fatal robbery. The third person was someone who would die months later, falling to the exact fate as described in the song. The fourth person listed, thought to still be alive, is the subject of a discrete world-wide search in the unlikely event that their death, predicted to happen next week, may indeed happen as the AI composer said. No other broadcasts like this have been found, following the original incident, but the SIU has now set up a department to continuously monitor the stream, and all other AI and randomly generated information streams.

A fire in northern Italy revealed the ruins of what may be a heretofore undiscovered ancient building, Special Agent Kouroth reported. The tower, long believed to simply be the steeple of an abandoned (and now destroyed) church to the Farmer King, was revealed to have dark, ancient stone beneath the wooden facade, when efforts were made to tear down the burnt church. According to studies, the stones may predate any known civilization in the area and might have been carried as far as three hundred miles. Upon examining the tower, Agent Kouroth discovered extremely small runic writing across the entire surface of the tall structure. Its text, which may be an ancestor to ancient Venetic script, has yet to be deciphered but, as more of the bricks are uncovered from the wreckage, the scale of the find may be immense: the collective text from each brick may add up to thousands of lines of writing. When Agent Kouroth carefully removed a small section of brick, hefound that the tower was hollow, with an internal network of tunnels, which contained traces of ancient blood. The surrounding area has been sealed off to allow space for the excavation and research into the language, in the hopes of learning the tower's purpose.

While on vacation, Special Agent Chaz Gates uncovered what she described as a "crab conspiracy". Visiting a beach on Christmas Island, she was witness to the yearly red crab migration, in which hundreds of millions of land crabs migrate to the ocean to lay their eggs. Agent Gates claims that, this year, the crab's migration was unusually destructive to the local city, in particular its sea-facing barricades and many of the island's vehicles, which she described as being deliberately disabled to prevent escape. Gates insists that this was an intentional sabotage of local infrastructure, either by the crabs themselves or whoever may be directing them (a so-called "crabmancer, intent on controlling the island's population via a crab army", to quote the agent). Her attempted search for a culprit proved fruitless, and her superiors believe this to be nothing but paranoia, or an addiction to work, that is causing Agent Gates to see conspiracies where there are none. The SIU has reminded Agent Gates that she can be madeto relax if she does not comply with her assigned vacation after recent traumatic events on duty.

Special Agent Erik Fischer traveled to Canada to investigate the landfall of a mysterious satellite. The small satellite was detected a month prior and monitored as its orbit around Earth decayed; the object was directed into a safe trajectory using special emitters on other commercial satellites, and fell as expected into a patch of uninhabited land far north. Safely found in a snowy forest, Fischer reports that the satellite, which was a rather simple metal cylinder with antennae, was very weathered and damaged by impacts with orbital debris. Chinese inscriptions on the metal plates gave a clue as to its origin: Fischer, fluent in Chinese as most SIU agents are, determined from the barely-legible print that the satellite was launched in 1951. This puts its launch several years prior to the first known artificial satellite, despite there being no record of such a launch, nor any record of a Chinese space program at that time. The satellite, and the strange clockwork machinery inside it, is currently being housed in an SIU facility for study. The Chinese government has claimed no responsibility, and has refused to investigate or lay any claim to the satellite themselves.Exactly what the satellite was supposed to do is an open question among experts.

Reports of attacks by a wild animal brought Special Agent Cat Zirkato the capital of Sudan. Security footage showed a large, unknown species of quadrupedal canine attacking people at night, seriously injuring many of its victims and killing at least two. Forensic examination of the victims uncovered an inconsistent mix of genetic evidence, pointing to various different extant canid species. The presence of certain chemicals used in the medical field led Agent Zirka to the conclusion that the creature was not naturally occurring: either being a carefully cultivated hybrid, or possibly a surgical chimera. With attacks still being reported, Zirka was racing against the clock to complete an investigation into local medical supply chains, and she was eventually able to track down the probable source of the creature. In the basement of an abandoned school, Agent Zirka discovered a make-shift laboratory full of stolen surgical equipment. While trying to confirm that this was thegenesis for the attacks, the creature itself, described as a patchwork of different animal furs and skins, attacked her. In the process, the agent was able to injure the creature, but was stopped by a woman before she could kill it. Defending the creature, while held at gun point, the woman confessed that the creature was her husband: a normal anthropoid person, who had collaborated with his wife to transform himself into a feral beast. The two refused to surrender into custody and were sadly slain by the agent when they attempted to kill her and escape. The SIU have been left to comb through the disparate notes and failed experiments in the lab to glean any insight into the remarkable surgery and behavioral modifications that turned the mundane man into a feral killer.