Woops, this never got posted... Here's what our Special Agents were busy with in August. To get included in stories like this, check out my Patreon![hr]Secret Agent Avia Jiutai was asked to help sort through the expansive archives of a now deceased audio collector. Among a multitude of rare and vintage vinyl records, and unique bootleg recordings of concerts, Agent Jiutai found several tape recordings of radio broadcasts: one of which was labeled an "outake" from the 1935 live broadcast of Manuel Kerrigan's 'Invaders from Behind the Sun'. The broadcast adapted the original novel into a radio drama disguised as a news program, and allegedly caused localized panic upon airing. The outtake appears mostly identical to known recordings of the night, until the final half hour in which the main reporter's narrow escape is instead replaced by an apparently brutal death which the agent described as featuring the sound of struggling and gurgling blood and the apparent total lack of narration. The finale of the original story is then lost, as barely audible death and destruction is heard in the background. Digital enhancement reveals the sound of radio staff calling for a stop to recording before appearing to be attacked. After more cacophonous violence, the recording features several minutes of mostly dead air and ambient noise before ending. No written record of this version can be found anywhere; it's origins and authenticity cannot be ascertained, although the state of the physical recording does not betray is alleged age.
Through mechanics not yet understood, Secret Agent Gedat Rakkin has been shrunk down to approximately five inches in height. The accident appears to have involved an experimental gamma imaging telescope, an overheating supercomputer, and an antique coffee maker. The agent was forced to survive for three days in an abandoned science facility, before another agents were sent for retrieval and discovered Agent Rakkin battling a scorpion. Rakkin reportedly survived on scavenged MREs from the building's basement and claims to have tamed several ants as his pets. The agent is now receiving a medical examination in a hope of discovering a cure, while other (full-sized) agents examine the equipment in the building to ascertain the cause. As Rakkin maintains full brain power despite the reduced brain size and can breathe and eat as normal, SIU researchers are keenly interested in the potential of this miniaturization technology.
Secret Agent Cat Zirka was assigned to explore a reportedly haunted apartment in Thailand. The roomy Bangkok apartment, featuring a scenic view of the Gulf of Thailand, has been the site of 11 suicides over the past 20 years. The agent reports that energy readings did not reveal anything out of the ordinary; there was no suspicious mold or bacteria present, and a thorough examination of the property revealed no hidden entrances or rooms. In staying the night, however, Agent Zirka claims to have spotted movement in some of the paintings that decorated the apartment. Most of the paintings were abstract or featured landscapes, but photography shows that the subtle details of the paintings seemed to change over the course of the night. By morning, the agent became convinced that blurred, shadowy figures were slowly moving about in the abstract fields of impasto colors. When one shadowy figured seemed to be slowly 'leaking' beyond the frame of the painting and became a vague shadow on the wall, Agent Zirka decided to leave the scene. The paintings have been collected and are being safely stored within the SIU HQ for further examination.
Senior Agent Wheaton Adams was asked by an anonymous diplomat to investigate certain government officials in Paraguay. The diplomat told Agent Adams that these officials had been disappearing for long periods of time without warning or explanation, that strange smells were coming from their offices, and some had developed a habit of needing new suits or clothes throughout the day. When infiltrating these offices, Adams found mysterious claw marks and samples of long, coarse fur. A stake‑out occurred with Adams hiding in the building; he found that some of the politicians locked themselves into the sound‑proofed offices at night and, in a violent but apparently "ecstatic" transformation, became giant, lumbering wolf-like creatures. Adams was literally sniffed out of hiding by one of the massive werewolves, but claims to have escaped harm by throwing a tennis ball he had found in the office earlier, tempering the creature's voracious attitude and tiring it out with a game of fetch. Covert contact has been made with the politicians in hopes of safely studying their condition.
Special Agent Chaz Gates has been investigating mysterious people from the internet. Online message boards, popular in the 2010s, contain a vast array of unsolved mysteries archived by internet historians; one in particular concerns a man known as Yosef, who is believed to have puppeted nearly 200 different accounts, many of which he reportedly used to argue with or have discussions with his own accounts, although nearly all of the posts from these accounts were a rambling nonsense of repeated phrases taken from 1990s advertisements. Numerous theories persisted: rogue AI, multiple personalities, drug use, etc. Classified government monitoring on username Yosef allowed Agent Gates to track down potential locations and identities of the operators of many of these accounts. To her surprise, one location was still posting content (it you could call it that). Declining online contact, Gates decided to travel to the location in person, in a small Canadian town far north. The location was an abandoned warehouse on government land, untouched even by squatters. Sneaking inside, Chaz discovered a computer, still operational after almost 30 years of “shitposting”: its ancient keyboard was exposed to the elements and Agent Chaz reports that local wildlife, rain and debris seemed to, at random, trigger a series of complicated keyboard macros and shortcuts that created the illusion of almost‑human thought when it posted to the internet on a barely functioning browser. In fear of disturbing this remarkably unlikely situation, Agent Gates and the SIU are contacting the Canadian government in hopes of helping preserve and monitor the computer and maintain its internet connection; negotiation is underway as to who will pay the debt from almost 30 years of power bills.
A photograph of the French countryside is said to have been the world's first photograph in 1822, but Special Agent Arukino may have been present for the discovery of a photograph predating this by almost 10 years. He was sent to witness the unveiling of a time capsule recently rediscovered in Munich, Germany; buried under concrete in 1815, records of it were lost and the site was buried under buildings during war reconstruction. Now, over 100 years after its scheduled opening, the large chest was opened and among the journals and newspapers was a metal plate wrapped in cloth, upon which were the telltale patterns and markings of the first techniques ever used in photography. This implies that photography may have been invented in Munich first, not in France. The only evidence of this invention is within the time capsule itself, as one newspaper within contains an interview with August Schmid, a local inventor, who makes mention of “capturing a still image permanently”. No other records exist of this man, or the details of his invention, so its authenticity is still under question. Another curiosity is the content of this photograph itself: details are extremely blurry and of low resolution, but Agent Arukino describes the image as featuring a deep, black pit at the edge of a mountain, perhaps a cave or a sink hole. Why a photograph would have been taken of a cave has yet to be determined, as are the claims from other onlookers that they see faces or figures in the grain of the photograph. Great care is being taken in the examination of what could potentially be the oldest photograph ever taken.
Rumors and legends surround an ancient suit of armor held in a British museum, and Special Agent Kouroth was sent to investigate after the most recent accident surrounding the suit. A museum janitor's injury near the armor is the latest in a long history of illnesses, freak accidents, and deaths surrounding the armor of Marquee du Pont: a set of heavy metal combat armor decorated in ivory and pearl. The armor was removed from display and presented to Agent Kouroth for detailed examination and energy readings, but any attempts to dissect the armor was met with increasingly hostile accidents: pipes burst, electrical fires began at random, and a tall stack of shelves fell and nearly crushed him. Further into the investigation, the agent claims to have blacked out and woke up partially inside the armor, as if he had put it on and forgotten (digital recordings of the incident were corrupted during the fire in the examination room). He claims the armor refused to budge under his own movement, and that it began to move on its own with him inside, finishing donning itself and placing its helmet over his head. The museum operators describe the night as a "rampage" as Kouroth, still verbally protesting from within the armor, stole du Pont's battle axe and attacked the staff of the museum, grievously injuring one and destroying several works of art in the process. Luckily, antique metal armor serves as little protection against modern tasers, and Agent Kouroth was subdued. Some of the armor has been removed, but SIU medical staff claim that much of the plate mail seems to have dug itself into the agent's skin, the ivory having apparently fused itself to his bones. The agent remains under close watch as further attempts are made to free him from the armor.
Special Agent Neo was sent to Sheffield, England, at request of local police to help investigate a series of robberies and reports of intruders in an apartment building. Several inhabitants had used webcams or other consumer security devices to record footage of scaled hands reaching out from cabinets, closets, and air ducts to steal food and water during the night. The timing of these incidents being reported across different apartments suggested to the agent that there were several assailants, perhaps a family living within the air conditioning ducts of the building. Agent Neo made his way into the inner workings of the modern apartment building by entering in through the rather large air ducts, and discovered that all intruders were the same, incredibly long person: a snake-like creature estimated at 50 meters in length with multiple pairs of arms, capable of invading multiple apartments at once. When Neo finally located the head of the creature, he managed to communicate with it, despite its limited English; it claimed to have lived there long before the apartment building was constructed, and that she awoke beneath it and had to sneak into the building to forage for food. The creature declined offers of relocation, and Agent Neo has begun negotiations with the property owner and its inhabitants for a potential co-existence.
