UNOFFICIAL NOTES

Compiled independently by field personnel. Human detail preserved at request for internal morale-stabilisation. Not submitted for organisational distribution.

An Early Wake-Up Call

Malcolm is awoken by Special Agent Cainer keen to compare notes.

Cainer confirms that Gant is already at Columbia University, interviewing both Molly Frank and Billy Desjardin.

His own contact list for Wei has grown to include Frank, Desjardin, Professor Wilcox (now formally recalled from her trip) and Wei's out-of-state family, who will be approached by a local officer.

One lead stands out - an uncle recently added to Wei's dormitory visiting record.

A separate line of inquiry, an interview with the 24th Precinct officer who oversaw the firearm on the day it disappeared, was cut short when the officer was abruptly pulled from the conversation.

Malcolm admits their own investigation has converged on the same evidence, and quietly walks back the earlier national security framing in favour of a simpler explanation: Wei, cracking under academic pressure.

Cainer leaves with plans to reconvene later in the day.

Going It Alone

Thomas slips out that morning without alerting anyone.

The cab drops him outside a housing estate - boarded windows, a burnt-out car a few doors down, the house itself barely standing. Before approaching, he sends the address to Marcus by text.

The front door creaks open on its own push. Inside, it's dark enough that Thomas relies on his night vision goggles to make anything out - family photographs on the wall, an old man scowling beside a bundle of balloons, an older woman surrounded by children.

Further in, a closed envelope sits on the coffee table. As Thomas reaches for it, a hand closes over his mouth and neck.

Agents Assemble

Marcus and Jackie, midway through hotel breakfast, receive Thomas's text. They forward it to Malcolm along with a shared suspicion that Thomas has done something unwise, then suit up and head for the address.

Marcus and Jackie arrive first, beating Malcolm by roughly half an hour.

Marcus scouts the rear approach on his phone before checking the back alley in person, noticing scattered garbage bags and general debris.

Deeper Into the Darkness

Jackie and Malcolm approach the front door together. Her tactical light sweeps the interior as she moves in swift and quiet, clearing the first room - nothing amiss beyond a single envelope on a side table, oddly clean against the surrounding grime. She pockets it.

Through the fogged glass of an adjoining door, she makes out the seated silhouette of a person at a table. She signals Malcolm.

Outside, Marcus finds nothing at the back door suggesting recent entry or exit - no drag marks, no disturbed debris.

Lights Out

Malcolm opens the connecting door for Jackie, who plants herself in the frame ready for whatever's inside.

A blinding light floods the doorway. In the instant before it overwhelms them, Malcolm catches a glimpse of Thomas bound to a chair, a large floodlight rigged on the floor behind him. Jackie fires at the light and misses.

Outside, Marcus hears the shot, draws his weapon, spots a junction box on the exterior wall, and puts a round through it. The house goes dark - trading one blindness for another.

Out of the darkness, in a thick Russian accent: "Hello, my friends."

The Man Only Known as Maksim

"FBI, identify yourself," Malcolm calls.

"I am Maksim, and you are not FBI."

"I am FBI."

"Not here you're not. Put down your weapons. I have Mr Anderson."

Maksim confides that he has a large-calibre weapon against the base of Thomas's skull and no hesitation about using it. Asked for proof of life, he simply asks to be trusted.

Marcus, working his way toward a window, hears the exchange continue - Malcolm confirms that Maksim's name means nothing to any of them, before Jackiementions the "present" left at the Newark house. Maksimseems almost offended it isn't seen as a gift.

Marcus lets himself in the back, quietly - or so he thinks.

"Welcome, Marcus."

Maksim is seated near Thomas, gun in his left hand, and directs Marcus'sattention to his right - where a second device sits, a dead man's switch.

He asks, politely, that everyone lower their weapons so they might talk "like friends."

Terms of Friendship

Neither Marcus nor Malcolm complies immediately. Maksim explains his methods as a matter of necessity; safe contact with agents of "your organisation" is difficult, and this was the safest option he could devise. He claims to want nothing more than friendship, and information to offer in return.

Jackie, asked directly, admits she doesn't have many friends. Maksim offers to be her first, and confirms - when she demands reassurance - that Thomas has only been choked unconscious, his pulse recently checked. She agrees to friendship on the condition the gun comes down. He obliges.

Marcus wants answers before any pledges of friendship. Maksim obliges with a claim that reframes the entire operation: Delta Green, he says, is not one organisation but several, "a many-headed hydra", all operating under the same name.

The woman found dead in the Newark safehouse, Delliah Serren, belonged to two of these factions and had marked Marcus for death. Maksim claims credit for saving his life and is now owed a debt of friendship. Marcus asks for proof. Maksim asks, again, for trust.

What You Know Is Not Truth

Maksim shares what he calls the relevant intelligence: the Organisation the agents serve has been infiltrated by outside interests - actors uninterested in America, or in protecting anyone.

The team has already brushed against a front for this infiltration: La Estancia. Maksim's people believe Michael Wei's exposure to the Laqueus sequence was no accident, but a deliberate field test of a weapon, with La Estancia feeding him the material to observe its effect.

Maksimwarns them, whatever they report back to their handler could be compromised, feeding directly into further testing. He isn't asking them to distrust their Organisation entirely - only to withhold anything touching La Estancia specifically.

Prior intelligence assets investigating the group, he adds, have already been "shut down and terminated very effectively."

Malcolm can't resist noting the irony of a Russian agent professing love for American ideals while holding a federal officer hostage. Maksim offers that harder things than that exist to be believed.

The Sequence as Weapon

Pressed further, Maksim confirms the hypergeometric sequence has surfaced before, years earlier. Its effect is subtler: infiltration of the mind, ongoing and compounding in anyone exposed.

Where past attempts by his employers had failed to make it function, Wei succeeded, unknowingly perfecting the weapon.

When asked how exposure actually occurs, Maksimtells the agents that it's their job to work that out - simple exposure to the numbers isn't sufficient; some further process is required.

Gone in the Wind

Maksim announces his intention to leave and be in contact again later, asking that this meeting go unreported to Delta Green.

Pressed one final time on his motives, he repeats only that he wanted to share what he knows, that he'll reach out again when he needs help, and that the investigation itself is "an inside job" - what they do with that is their own decision.

He exits through the back door. Nobody stops him.

Surely Time To Debrief

Thomas remains unconscious. Malcolm checks on him while Jackie and Marcus secure the property.

When Malcolm rouses him, Thomas's first question is whether he did a good job. Malcolm declines to debrief him until later and walks him out to the car, Jackie carrying his abandoned duffel bag.

Before leaving, Malcolm takes a final look through the house - clearly the long-vacated home of an elderly couple, with no connection to Maksim beyond serving as his stage.

The agents do not yet discuss what occurred.

En Route to the Diner

Car 1: Marcus and Thomas

Driving to a diner, Marcus pointedly silent toward Thomas the whole way.

The car radio tunes to Channel 6's broadcast with Enrico Save , openly naming Michael Wei as the shooter and building a character profile around his mathematics background - "The Killer of Mathematics Strikes."

A request to reveal the recovered number is refused on grounds of national security. A caller named Sandra phones in, recognising Wei'sphoto from the site - he had told her that she'd win the Powerball.

Car 2: Jackie and Malcolm

Jackie explains to Malcolm how she already knew the name Maksim before this morning, walking him through the note and staged scene at the Newark safehouse.

Malcolm questions why Marcus was at that property to begin with. Jackie has no answer for him.

A Reprimand with Pancakes

Thomas presses for details on who Maksim actually is. Malcolmturns the question back on him, demanding to know how he'd found the address at all - Thomas lays out the full chain, back to Marcus's request that he research the name.

The conversation sours quickly. The team collectively rebukes Thomas for walking into an unsecured location alone. Thomassnaps back that he's the only one still actively pushing the investigation forward.

The agents drop him at the New York Public Library ahead of his appointment and regroup elsewhere to talk without him.

What Stays Buried

Marcus finally lays out the full picture of the Newark house - the dead handler, the body, all of it still unreported to Linus, who had originally sent him there simply to "deal with" whoever was inside.

The team agrees, for now, that this morning stays between them. Malcolm raises the name La Estancia again, and Marcus confirms the connection: Elaine Wilcox once worked there.

None of them can yet explain why Delta Green was sent after this case at all.