DELTA GREEN // FRAMEWORK RAINBOW 5

Author: Susan Fields (AGENT HARKONNEN)

Classification: DeltaGreen NY

June 14th, 20:00

I arrived back at the university where the others were finishing up going through Dr Bonn’s lab notes. It was quite apparent that none of us had any knowledge of entomology, so they didn’t provide much information that we could understand. There was no evidence though that his information had been shared publicly, even for review, which would make clean up that much easier. What little we did uncover was that:

• The spider is native to Columbia.
• They bite, and inject a paralysing venom that is fatal to humans in large doses
• The brain and ‘heart’ of these particular specimens is slightly larger than normal
• Dr Bonn has been bitten twice – once in Columbia, and once here in the lab
• His notes show some signs of him becoming unstable recently

Agent Fox received a call from our bibliological expert about the photocopy that Michael Wei had made of the Book of Many Wonders. He had identified it as being published by a company named Educational Studies, which operated between 1939 and 1944 in England. They specialised in books on maths and cryptography, and given the sensitivity of the subject at that time, their books had quite a limited circulation, probably mostly within government agencies.

This particular version had been translated by Maurice Ester, from the original Libri Plures Admiratio. He was a former mathematician at Brussel’s University who was resident in the UK at the time.

Going through the local library records, it seems that Columbia University Maths Library has a copy of the book.

After we discuss our options for the way forward, it is decided that though we think the spider infestation at Riverbank State Park needs to be dealt with, we don’t really have enough information about the spiders to deal with them safely. So I contact Special Agent Marcus Neil to fill him in on where we are, what we think the risks are and where we have gaps in our knowledge. He says he’ll get back to us with some aid.

Around midnight he calls back with the details of a spider professor down in Florida. I put together a quick email and go back to sleep.

June 15th, 0900

Though it is a Saturday and the Maths library is closed, we decide to pay a visit, and through some fast talking Agent Heffalump is able to get us access inside. Our cover for this is that though the Michael Wei murders is resolved, we are concerned about the whereabouts of Dr Bonn, and are investigating that.

My attempts to find the book lead me to the wrong part of the library, where I happen to find a section on old film posters, including one on a Spanish film named Los filmentos de la locura – “Webs of Insanity”, a 1999 horror film about giant spiders based on a Columbian legend.

Agent Fox is more successful and locates the copy of “The Book of Many Wonders”, and secretes it about her person.

Shortly afterwards, I receive an email response back from our Professor of spiders in Florida, who is interested in helping, but needs some specimens. He asks for some to be sent to him in a killing jar. After looking up what is meant by a ‘killing jar’, we head back to Dr Bonn’s lab.

Fortunately a lab assistant is working there, and I ask him nicely to obtain us a few spiders from the spider tank. He does this, and puts them in a killing jar for us, wrapping them up in packaging suitable for fast overnight delivery, and posting it down to Florida.

The lab assistant is willing to talk to us about Dr Bonn, and confirms that his behaviour had changed for the worse recently. He had been cheerful and friendly, but had started avoiding people. The few people he spoke to were some suits from the Grant Foundation. He often drew freaky diagrams and numbers on the whiteboards, and was very secretive about his work.

He doesn’t know why he had an altercation with Dr Tish, and it is during this discussion that I realise that the ‘heroine’ in the movie poster looked somewhat similar to Dr Tish.

After a lot of digging, we manage to locate a video tape copy of the film and sit down to watch it. It is truly bad, and seems to involve people from the city going off into the jungle, losing their clothes and suffering death by spider after having sex. Those bitten by spiders seem to go mad and become obsessed with patterns.

The ‘locals’ seem to worship large purple rubber spiders, and the main weapon that the heroine uses at the end to kill the giant rubber spider is a ceremonial fly whisk of quetzal feathers, which could be considered a bit like the mop that Dr Bonn used to attack Dr Tish with.

At this stage we’re not certain whether the similarities between the film and reality is coincidence or something else.