Early Comes the Fall

Beginning in 2003 farmers in McClean County in Illinois began receiving requests asking for permission to measure wind currents and speeds from the local university. Soon local coffee shops and co-op stores were a buzz as vans with esoteric measuring equipment began crisscrossing roads from Anchor to Gibson City, pausing for hours in some locations, minutes in others. When pressed for information regarding the reason for all of the measurements the university cited a corporate interest for the information that came with money to cover the expenses and salaries of the students involved but was also wrapped in a non-disclosure agreement.

As the summer wound down and students flocked into Bloomington-Normal, residents began receiving letters requesting meetings regarding long term leases for a proposed wind farm throughout the county. Lease rates were highly competitive for traditional farm use and the size and scope of the proposed wind farm would be a significant financial boon to both residents and county services.

Within a year leases were negotiated and signed, regulatory issues were resolved and soon the two lane roads that crisscrossed the gently rolling land saw the arrival of million dollar windmills, the equipment necessary to install them and the power lines to carry their electricity to the Northern suburbs of Chicago.

There was pushback from farmers outside the construction zone, suburban residents of Bloomington who complained of the “visual polution” and citizens concerns for the possible impact on migratory birds. (An argument that seemingly collapsed when a deceased bird, supposedly struck by a windmill and brought to a town meeting as evidence, upon examination was determined to be instead the remains of a beaver.) This effort was, ultimately, unsuccessful.

Over 200+ windmills, each generating over 1 and a half megawatts, were constructed with each windmill bringing between $5-7000 a year for 30 years to the people who had leased the land. The county was now seeing an additional $300,000 – $400,000 a year in additional tax revenue and further expansion of the windfarm was being discussed.

The original builder, a Wall Street investment firm known internationally for it’s staid business model, had run into trouble during the start of the financial crisis for “unforseen” shortages of currency. Pressed for cash they sold the windfarm to a Brasilian hedge fund who, with far more business acumen than their New York counterparts, turned around and sold the asset to a Swedish/Danish energy consortium for twice what they paid for it. Unforseen issues between the Danes and the Swedes then saw the partnership dissolve and again the windfarm came up for sale, albiet at a considerably lower price due to the overall devaluation of the green energy market in light of United States domestic scandals regarding green energy. Only three bids were received.

One bid came from a group of Chinese investors in Hong Kong who felt the time was right. The second bid, higher than the Chinese, was from the same company in Brasil that had already owned the windfarm previously. (If they could make money from it once then surely they could make money from it twice.) The third bid, more than both of the other bids combined, was from an Albertan energy firm looking to diversify it’s shale oil holdings. The Arrowpoint Windfarm now became a part of Almont Enterprises.

In the last 3 months there has been a series of incidents that have left the small towns outside of Bloomington deeply shaken. A well respected local family in Bellflower was murdered and their house set afire with no suspects. A well respected life long resident of Colfax committed suicide by driving his scooter directly into the path of an oncoming school bus. One of the windfarm technicians died performing routine maintance on a windmill close to Route 9. (Due to the resulting fire his body was unable to be removed from sight for almost a day.) Additional homicides, missing persons reports and strange vandalism are all creating a climate of suspicion and fear.

All of this has recently come to the attention of Delta Green agents for one reason: Methuselah. The anarchist internet collective recently had a member living in Calgary who discovered that a recent upgrade in Almont’s server farm had left their email servers vulnerable. Sensing an opportunity to embarass executives, Methuselah member “Hammerfall” downloaded the most recent 3 years worth of email and began distributing it through the Methuselah collective.

Within 24 hours “Hammerfall”, a Canadian civil service worker, was dead and his wife and children missing. Within 72 hours Methuselah members across North America were being arrested by R.C.M.P. and FBI officers as members desperately tried to go to ground to no avail. Seven days after the upload of the file to the Methuselah network any website that had hosted the Almont file was gone. Everyone who had attempted to distribute the Almont file was either under arrest or had vanished with only a single exception. That exception, recognizing the danger faster than others, had copied the archive to a USB hard drive and sent it to a Delta Green agent who had been a good friend long ago in high school. After that last act she had vanished of her own free will.

The Almont file includes in excess of 160,000 messages, mostly mundane and trivial insights into the work of a modern energy corporation that harbor nothing suspicious. At the highest levels though are messages that reference other things: Secrets, long laid plans and slow fruition. Winter’s chill is moving further and further towards the heartland at the design of men and monsters and things best never named.

Early comes the fall….

(By Jim Kitchen, © 2012. Let me know if you would like more.)