Package Tango Zulu

a solo prep delivery for a Handler

This package is a gift. Within is a key to unlock your imagination. Open it, or throw it in the trash — I’m not your boss. Not really. Perhaps in a certain light.

This scenario does not hand you a set of railroad tracks to lay for your agents. Instead, it gives you a series of seeming unrelated objects in one box to inspire you and put together your own scenario to run between other missions. It is best used with other shotgun scenarios; please see the Fairfield Project for the complete list.

Please read and follow along. Answer underlined questions as they arise.

The time is now. The character is your agents’ case officer, working late with blurry eyes and a half-drained glass of something. Perhaps they’re in a nice office, or perhaps they’re in the one green box where they can get enough privacy. Either way, they’re in the zone.

Why is this place so comforting for you?

Earlier in the day, they received a package at their residential address. It came in a USPS flat rate box, interior dimensions 23 11/16″ x 11 ¾″ x 3″. The return address is in King of Prussia; googling it reveals an abandoned Ikea administrative office occasionally used as an emergency training hub.

What followup do you do on this address?

How do you open the package? Do you instead make your agents open it?

The package contains the following:

• The following three images, all printed and blown up to 8x10 color glossy photographs.
• A hardcover copy of the 1882 book Atlantis: The Antediluvian World by Ignatius L. Donelly. The front cover bears no words, just a crushed velvet image of a ruined temple. A careful examination reveals this 516 page book has been bound by hand.
• A 18x12 solid wood Ouija board. The back has been covered in a fractal painting that might be horns, or tentacles, or holly branches. The planchette is missing. A sticky note attached says “love is over, needs more plinths”
• One IPX5-rated flashlight for each agent at the table.
• Five empty hollow point casings etched with profanities and what appear to be inside jokes. Which ones do you recognize?
• A collection of origami animals folded out of defaced $20 bills.
• A smattering of loose, dried, coral-like growths or stones.
• A quart-sized mason jar full of honey. Several different types of flowers are suspended, perfectly preserved, within the honey. Which ones mean something to your agents or their bonds?
• An ornate, embossed leather belt.
• Chapter 23 from the extended edition of The Stand by Stephen King, laboriously torn from a hardcover and hand-sewn back together. What seemingly unimportant words are highlighted and underlined?
• A handwritten copy of “The Rose of Battle” by W.B. Yeats on baking parchment.
• A small box of honey pistachio baklava studded with gold and malachite. It is otherwise edible.

You’re meeting with your agents tomorrow.

Will you show them the contents of the box? All of them? If not, which will you show them?

What three to five items do you believe are the most important in the box?

How will you write up the contents of the box? Which Unnatural entity or practice do you believe them to belong to? Does this lead to a night at the opera?

Are you concerned for the safety of your agent or their bonds?

What are your personal reflections on the box?

Make sure all of your answers are written down so you can reference them later. Ideally, make sure they are written in the voice of your character, the case officer, so the agents can discover them diegetically.

We zoom out now from the case officer opening their package, back through an uncaring sky, back into a universe in which our spectacular consciousness amounts to little more than the motions of ants on a rock. What wonders lay out there, as yet undiscovered and catalogued by the surveillance teams of Delta Green? Why are they sending you this package, and why now? Are you so important that you are worthy of that — or is it just another gift from a little ant with their face turned to the stars?

Credits

Package Tango Zulu was written by Jax Romana for the 2025 Shotgun Scenario contest.
Source: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dVlzlwU7EY2GjaaFdTjRHoadntC4n1lFQQV3G3NeQ_g/edit