Operative 6210,
The following information is confidential. It would cause exceptionally grave damage if publicized, and must be promptly destroyed after access.
In the early summer of 20XX, most likely the first week of June, a phenomenon of an unknown nature began manifesting on the outskirts of XXXXX.
The initial event consisted of a string of inexplicable suicides which were reported among the local population, generally among well-adjusted individuals with no prior history of psychopathology or other causally relevant factors. The incidence of suicides then intensified at a rate exceeding average levels by several orders of magnitude, which prompted the rapid initialization of media contingency protocols, eliminating all current and future public reporting of X-classed events related to the region of XXXXXXXXX, and thereby also of any and all future events pertaining to the phenomenon, enabling effective narrative control.
The suicides were explained, which was later corroborated by fabricated evidence, as overdose-related deaths among immigrants and lower-income segments of the population due to an unprecedented influx of experimental synthetic opioids, orchestrated by organized crime and implicitly related to XXXXXX. This narrative effectively combined several stereotypes and thereby discouraged further investigations.
Coincidentally, within a timespan of two weeks, the abnormal suicides then levelled out and rapidly ceased.
Upon this, however, the properly anomalous events commenced, which escalated until the quarantine and evacuation of boundary areas, i.e. the "dead zone", were enacted, officially due to the Marburg virus-outbreak purportedly originating with a Congolese citizen, which was later cemented as the mainstream narrative.
Local reports of said anomalous events are conflicting, bizarre and often incoherent, but three main features of the situation can be discerned from the noise:
1. The unknown phenomenon or set of phenomena entails a distortion of fundamental physical processes as well as their biological and neurological superstructures. Studies of recovered cadavers, both human and animal, show evidence of extensive DNA damage and rapid alterations of soft tissue, chiefly but not exclusively in regard to the nervous system. Electronic, especially optoelectronic, and computerized equipment, is influenced as well, performing erratically and rendering unreliable results.
2. These effects are still confined to the affected areas and such populations which have been in direct contact with the areas and/or the relevant events, which is to say that the quarantine has so far been successful.
3. Evacuated population previously in proximity to the anomalous events to an exceptionally high degree exhibits ostensibly psychosis-like traits and types of behaviour, notably severe interpersonal aggression, and what has been reported as an “acute existential horror”.
During late summer after the evacuation was finalized and the quarantined zone established, the area, measuring 407.40 square miles in total, was initially probed by teams of three to five individuals, supported by aerial reconnaissance. Three such teams were dispatched, from the second week of August onwards. The first two were incapacitated due to what is colloquially known as murder-suicide incidents, providing little data other than garbled communications. Two operatives from the first teams are missing, the others confirmed KIA.
The third team, entering the zone in late November 20XX, consisted of four O-class specialists, equipped with fully analog, closed rebreather units, providing their communications in Morse code transmitted via maser to a stationary high-altitude drone. The team met with some success, and was on their first forays able to recover the body of one of the preceding operatives, one distorted cadaver of initially unknown origin, and provided two reels of film, some of which could later be developed. However, on the third day of operations, the team was incapacitated for the same reason as the preceding groups, with one survivor being able to evacuate the quarantined zone, and another MIA.
The evacuated agent is by all accounts severely psychotic, with fluctuating symptoms mimicking those of acute schizophrenia and late-stage dementia, yet with recurrent periods of relative lucidity. From these intermittent moments of clarity, we have been able to glean some crucial information regarding the dynamics of the teams’ incapacitation, which has enabled certain important precautions engendering our confidence in the probable success of your own undertaking. A chemical compound -
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