Background
The original Henry Nelson had an outstanding career in the US army's special forces before volunteering as a research subject for a classified MAJESTIC-12 project in 1983: Project Merkhet.
The project was one of MAJESTIC’s lesser experimental forays into the field of Tillinghast radiation, using an experimental device called the Westerberg-Alternator. The actual purpose of the experiment was never revealed to Mr. Nelson, but when he was exposed to the Alternator, it caused a chronological anomaly. Slivers of his future self were removed from their original place, 46 seconds into the future, and reinserted at the same chronological spot in the timeline as the original Henry Nelson (see Non-euclidian Chronology below). The experiment itself incurred the wrath of the Hounds of the Angles which arrived shortly after the activation of the Alternator. In this turmoil the two Henrys escaped, but when they tried to contact MAJESTIC personnel, they tried to neutralize him/them, for fear that he was the cause of the Hounds’ appearance.
Using the future versions' precognitive memory, the Henrys managed to escape into the wilderness. There they have led an isolated existence, trying to keep their presence secret from the rest of humanity in the Cascade mountains for fear of MAJESTIC and the Hounds.
Non-euclidian chronology
Trying to understand the structure and workings of this non-eucludian time fuckup is almost impossible for the human mind. For an outsider however it seemed like Henry Nelson suddenly became two identical clones, whereas the future clone has the power of precognition 46 seconds into the future (in his perspective this is his short term memory). What is even more sanity wrenching is that while the future clone can act independently of the original Henry, its body is affected by the same things that affect the original with a sort of backwards causality. But since it is a preview of the original henry, it is functionally impervious to harm. Basically if the clone is decapitated, it resets back to a non-decapitated version in 46 seconds. If the original Henry is decapitated however, the future version also becomes decapitated in 46 seconds. The original Henry is not affected by things targeting the future clone.
While the nature of Henry's two-bodied condition is very obvious to other humans, it is but a small ripple on the flows of time for the Hounds of the Angles. During the experiment, they were instead drawn to the Westerberg-Alternator which holds the power of a tidal wave by comparison. A Hound in physical proximity of Henry would however detect him hungerly.
Setup
June 1992. A 46-year old courier, Mathilda Jacobs and her van delivering goods to Ripplebrook, Oregon never reaches her destination. The car is found on June 12th, crashed into the side of the road. The body of Mathilda Jacobs is found next to it, impaled to a tree with a crude wooden spear. The police officer who discovers the scene also finds an unexplainable sequence of events on the vans dash cam.
The screen shows the van driving at night. Suddenly a human shape is visible in the middle of the road. The car lurches and then another human shape dressed in furs throws itself in front of the car, causing it to crash into a tree at the side of the road, the human shape pinned to the hood. The pinned figure's face is bloody and deformed by the crash, clearly dead. As the driver comes to and in a panic rushes out to help, another fur clad human shape steps into view, holding a wooden spear. A strange distortion flickers across the screen and the body on the hood vanishes. Instead, the fur clad man appears to have gained a twin, standing beside him with a spear. As the driver freaks out and tries to run, the second spear wielder attacks her forcefully and brutally impales her to a tree. Both men leave and the video ends.
The briefing
The Agents are contacted in the usual way by their cells’ handler. Their meeting place is a shoddy cabin at the Stagecoach Inn in Estacada, Oregon. The Agents are given budget flight tickets and are ordered to arrive ASAP, with little time to pack or prepare cover stories. They are shown the dash cam tape and asked to investigate and stop any potential vectors concerning the incident, as well as pin the murder on something more mundane. The body of Mathilda Jacobs has already been autopsied and destroyed, bearing no signs of supernatural taint. The Agents are then given a rented Toyota Land Cruiser and directions to Ripplebrook.
Ripplebrook, Oregon
It's a 40-mile ride south from Estacada to Ripplebrook though vast pine forests. The small community consists of several US Forest Service compounds as well as a handful of houses inhabited by the personnel and their families. In the way of goods and services there is a small store and a camping facility. The weather is hot, dry and cloudy. Five miles down the road into the community lies the crash site.
If the agents arrive in Ripplebrook, the inhabitants know little about the accident or any supernatural occurrences. Several people do however mention that the area is historically plagued by animals that irregularly steal food or supplies. There is little else of interest in the community.
The crash site
The crash site bears few signs of the murder. The car has been towed and the body removed. Several broken trees mark it at the side of the road. A big dried blood stain marks the murder. Searching the area reveals that there are footprints of five individuals in the dry grass, three of identical size. One pair seems to appear out of nowhere in the middle of an area of high grass. The tracks go into the wilderness and lead the Agents to the house of Nelsons.
The motives of Henry Nelson
The original Henry has come to understand that he is perpetually linked to his future preview of himself. He has tried to both separate and kill it, but it always reappears within 46 seconds. On some level he has also come to understand the non-euclidian chronology that affects him, and as such he is quite disassociated from mundane humans. Fearful of MAJESTIC, he wishes to live alone. If possible he tries to avoid bloodshed, but mostly out of practicality.
The future version of Henry is more peculiar. Being a sliver of the original Henry's future, stuck in its past, it has stopped interacting with its surroundings more than necessary. It is quite insane from this situation, as well as from the fact that it has “died” several times, but is always reset after 46 seconds. The future version rarely speaks, instead relying on the Original Henry's memory to understand situations. The exception is threats to the original Henry. Having understood that the only way to suffer permanent harm is if Original Henry is harmed or killed, it brutally sacrifices itself and others to save him. After all, it is “reborn” within seconds of such sacrifices.
The house of Nelsons
The house of the Nelsons is a strange, large makeshift hut. It is hidden from view in a rocky crevice up a mountainside, eight miles west of Ripplebrook. The inside has a small anteroom with a cooking fire and basic camping gear. The rest of the hut is dominated by the sleeping dome, which is a weird, spherical space constructed of junk and refuse, roughly 10 feet in diameter. The original Henry made it to keep the nightmares away, as he is plagued by nightmares of fiendish, otherworldly beasts.
The Henrys are currently hiding in a small shelter a bit up on the ridge, overlooking the house, trying to ambush anyone following their tracks.
MAJESTIC’s arrival
A team of MAJESTIC agents is sent to Ripplebrook with a copy of the Westerberg-Alternator to try and destroy the Henrys. They are a five-manned team of faceless, smartly dressed, and ruthless soldiers. With them is a physicist, Dahlia Torres, to control the Alternator. The Alternator itself is a large ceramic machine fitted into a small van.
Once there, they search the area under the pretense that they are hunting for escaped convicts from the nearby Deer Ridge Correctional Institution. They do not cooperate with the Agents and act with extreme prejudices if they are to suspect that Delta Green is involved.
Endgame
The only way to stop the situation of the double Henrys is either to manage to kill the original Henry, or expose them both to MAJESTIC’s Alternator.
MAJESTIC’s team tries to force or lure the Henrys closer to the nearest road where the van is parked and then activate the Alternator. On activation, the machine disintegrates both the original and future Henrys in a spectacular light show. Shortly after this, a swarm of 1d4+3 Hounds descend on the area, bent on destroying the Alternator and ending everyone exposed to it.
STATS
Original Henry Nelson, age 46
STR 17 CON 18 DEX 14 INT 14 POW 12 CHA 8
HP 18 WP 12 SAN 18 BREAKING POINT 12
SKILLS: Alertness 50 %, Athletics 50 %, Firearms 50 %, HUMINT 30 %, Law 30 %, Navigate 50 %, Search 40 %, Survival 30 %, Unarmed Combat 50 %.
ATTACKS: Wooden spear 50 %, damage 1D10.
Future Henry Nelson, age 46 seconds
STR 17 CON 18 DEX 18 INT 14 POW 12 CHA 12
HP 18 WP 12 SAN - BREAKING POINT -
SKILLS: Alertness 90 %, Athletics 80 %, Firearms 90 %, HUMINT 60 %, Law 30 %, Navigate 70 %, Search 70 %, Survival 70 %, Unarmed Combat 90 %.
ATTACKS: Wooden spear 90 %, damage 1D10.
MAJESTIC killers x 5
STR 16 CON 16 DEX 15 INT 14 POW 10 CHA 11
HP 16 WP 10 SAN 38 BREAKING POINT 32
ARMOR: Light kevlar vest (Armor 3).
SKILLS: Alertness 60 %, Athletics 60 %, Firearms 70 %, HUMINT 30 %, Law 20 %, Navigate 50 %, Search 50 %, Survival 50 %, Unarmed Combat 60 %.
ATTACKS: SIG Sauer P228 pistol 70 %, damage 1D10.
FN M16A2 rifle 50 %, damage 1D12, Armor Piercing 3. Unarmed 50 %, damage 1D4−1.
Dahlia Torres, MAJESTIC physicist
STR 10 CON 10 DEX 12 INT 10 POW 10 CHA 13
HP 10 WP 10 SAN 25, BREAKING POINT 20
SKILLS: Alertness 30 %, 40 %, Athletics 40 %, Computer science 50 %, HUMINT 30 %, Science (physics) 70 %.
ATTACKS: Unarmed 30 %, damage 1D4−1.
Hounds of the angles
See page 205 of the Handlers guide.
Credits
46 second preview was written by Erik Ahlin for the 2023 Shotgun Scenario contest.
Source: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10wPpPnQ-RZgQu10w1O8qYqCo0IPehRRZVIyk7cyYl5Y/edit