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Tex Murphy Journal Entry 5: “Apart from brief visits to Smiley Monroe (who told me where I could find Aaron Sternwood) and J. Saint Gideon (man that guy is old, and filthy rich!), a lot of today was spent combing through Cal Davis’ home. I nearly spent the day in a prison cell though, after setting Cal’s alarm off while entering the building. Thankfully I managed to turn off the surveillance equipment before the ten minutes ran out, giving me the chance to explore the room as long as I needed. What I uncovered there was horrifying to say the least! If I’m right, Cal Davis strapped Carl Linsky down, drilled into his head, and inserted a microchip in an attempt to control his actions. This could explain everything, but I’m going to need more proof! It is possible that Cals role only went as far as experimenting on apes. Speaking of apes, I wasn’t able to get into the computer to find out more information, and I suspect the passcard is in the metal box guarded by an angry ape in a cage. I’m not even going to consider going in there though until I have a way to deal with that thing!”


What will today’s Mean Streets session contain? No doubt I will be travelling from location to location in my speeder, but will I be investigating locations in true adventure style or will I be questioning leads systematically in an attempt to get even more leads? Well, the next lead to visit was Detective Smiley Monroe, who could be found at NC 3614. As soon as I saw him I knew he was a jerk! He had that car salesman look, with a grin that suggested he had anything but my best intentions in mind. This first impression turned out to be bang on the money, and money was exactly what Mr. Monroe was after! There were literally only two names that he seemed to know anything about, and for both of them he responded with “My memory is a little hazy. Maybe a consulting fee would clear my head.”


Thankfully the $700 I bribed him with was enough to get both pieces of information out of him. Firstly, he informed me that I would find Aaron Sternwood (the guy that found Cal Davis’ body after he drank cyanide) at the beach of Santa Barbara (NC 0439). Secondly, he gave me some detail about Cal Davis’ death: “The investigation verified that Cal Davis accidentally killed himself, with a hazardous chemical. It appears that instead of drinking his Coke he took a mouthful of cyanide 631. The emergency call came in from an Aaron Sternwood, a friend of the victim. Sternwood said he mumbled something about chess and then died. When I found him, his face had the distinct bluish tinge of cyanosis. There was no evidence of foul play.” That didn’t really tell me anything I didn’t already know, although I personally doubted accidental suicide was the real cause of Cal’s death.


Speaking of Cal, it was now time to pay a visit to his home in Santa Barbara. I was given a brief description of his house which ended with the following surprise: “As I enter the room, the burglar alarm sounds, and I have about 10 minutes to shut it off before the police get here...” I hadn’t been successful in shutting the alarm off in Carl Linsky’s apartment after attempting to steal an ancient fruitcake, but this time I had no choice! I pretty much gave up on the idea of switching it off within the allotted ten minutes, and instead took my time as I explored the room. When it ran out, I would simply restore and continue from where I left off, therefore negating the feeling of panic. I began in the top left corner of the room, where I found a desk, a computer, a chair, a light switch, and a wall cabinet. The desk contained a locked drawer, for which I didn’t currently have a key, and the fax machine had no messages to read. The computer was also unusable because I didn’t have the required passcard. This wasn’t going to be straightforward!


Nothing I tried with the chair seemed to do anything, and turning the light on and off also appeared a futile exercise. The wall cabinet was also locked, and once again I didn’t have the required key, meaning the exploration of this part of the room turned up absolutely nothing. I moved to the large table in the centre of the room where I came across some micro chip equipment, a micro chip tray, and a table lamp. Looking at the equipment revealed an on/off switch, but I was told it was broken when I tried to use it. I thought I’d be able to pick up individual microchips from the tray on the table, but I was only able to pick up the entire tray. Strangely, switching on the light revealed a key, which I can only imagine was sitting in the darkness beneath it. I picked it up, and then made my way towards the cell at the back of the room. Here I found a workbench, a switch, and the barred cage.


Looking at the workbench revealed a drawer, a sink, some chemicals, a test tube, and a diet coke can. I found a memo in the drawer that read “To: Cal Davis. Subject: Nexus September password. Coded Word: EHCCETAMK.” It didn’t take much thought to decode these letters to form yet another chess related word, CHECKMATE! I picked up the memo then tried to use the sink. I could turn it on and off (which actually made water run out of it visually), but couldn’t find any use for it. I was intrigued by the chemicals and the test tubes, and since my ten minutes were quickly running out, I decided to tempt fate. I opened the test tube and then used the “taste” action, which unsurprisingly gave me cyanide poisoning and killed me. After restoring, I quickly repeated all the success I’d had in the room so far, and then picked up the chemicals, the test tube, and the diet coke can. They’re unlikely to have any use (theyre more likely there to reinforce the cause of Cal’s death), but I couldn’t be certain.


While the previous death was intentional, the next one wasn’t. When I looked at the cage, I was told that it was made of iron bars, and that “two eyes stare ominously at you from behind the bars.” I could then interact with either the creature or a box that was also within the cell. A closer look at the creature revealed that “an oversized ape with wild eyes stares through the bars at you.” I tried to pick up the small metal box, only to be told that “you move close to the cage and suddenly feel the vice-grip strength of the ape’s hands around your throat. He violently shakes the life out of you... – The End.” I restored and tried a couple of other options (get creature, move box, open box etc.), but they all ended the same way. Using the switch on the wall also opened the cage door, which unsurprisingly resulted in the ape using me “like a rubber ball, throwing me to and fro about the room.” I figured I must need an item to subdue or keep at bay the ape, and moved on.


In the top right corner of the room there was a file cabinet, some rat cages, a cigarette, a camera, and some broken glass. I opened a drawer in the file cabinet (I assumed I used the file cabinet key that I found under the lamp to open it, but the game made no mention of it) and inside was an “invoice dated two days before Cal Davis died. Precious Metal Inc. Galium arsenide bar...2000 dollars.” Inside the rat cages was a slot screwdriver, which I happily picked up. Tex had mentioned that he could have switched off the magnetic fields securing the antique fruitcake back in Linsky’s apartment if only he’d had a slot screwdriver, so it appeared as though that cake was finally going to be mine! I picked up the cigarette that was sitting on the ground outside the cages, but wasn’t able to reach the camera or do anything with the broken glass. Meanwhile, the alarm was still going off, and the time was still ticking down.

There was one more section in the room to investigate, and that was the table in the bottom right corner. There I could check out the table itself, a drill, and a book. The table had six straps attached to it, but I wasn’t able to do anything with any of it. I was however able to turn the drill on and off, but that was about it. As I watched the drill piece spin round and round, it suddenly dawned on me that at some stage Carl Linsky may have been strapped to this table! Could this be where the surgery was performed on him that caused the small burr hole in the back of his skull! What did they do to him??? Picking up the book gave me an answer. It may even be THE answer! The book was titled “Control of Primate Behavior through Microchip Technology” and it had been written by none other than Cal Davis himself! Had Cal inserted a microchip into Carl Linsky’s head and caused him to kill himself? It sure would be cleaner that murdering him on the table in the lab! I looked at the book, but was informed that “no clues are gathered”.


So, I’d completed my sweep of the room, yet the alarm was still going off, I had no passcard to the computer, I hadn’t recovered the small box from the creature, and I hadn’t managed to unlock either the drawer in the desk or the wall cabinet. I moved from section to section, trying to get, move, open, and turn on / off everything I could. Eventually I stumbled on something, which was that I could move the rat cages! This revealed a circuit box, which when opened revealed a switch and a key. Using the switch turned off the surveillance equipment, shutting the alarm off and stopping the time from ticking down. Now I wouldn’t have to restore all the time and could really take my time. I then picked up the key and made my way back to the top left corner of the room. I still wasn’t able to open the desk, but I could now open the wall cabinet. Inside were the Galium Arsenide bars that were listed on the invoice, which I was informed held a street value of $2000. It looked as though I’d discovered an item I could pawn for cash, but nothing that would help me solve my case.


I swept the room again, but eventually had to admit defeat. Either I was outright missing something in the room, or I was going to need an item found elsewhere to solve anything further in Cal’s house. My biggest fear was that I’d picked up some sort of container without opening it, and therefore lost the chance to collect a certain required item inside (Ilmari suggested this is possible in the game). I resolved to move on, and checked my spreadsheet to find out what the next location would be. It was J. Saint Gideon’s house, so I hopped back in the speeder and made my way to NC 3891. It was clearly apparent on arrival that this guy was rich. Filthy stinking rich! His thirty room mansion in Beverly Hills looked more like a castle than a standard home. I was ushered into his den, where I found Mr. Gideon studying a chess board. Tex describes the man as ancient, and the image of him that appeared on the screen made me think that description was an understatement! I very much enjoyed one of the comments in the description though: “He must be a big wheel, because there’s a picture on the wall of him receiving an award from President Michael J. Fox.”


Gideon answered all of my questions, but I can’t say I got anything out of him that seemed very important. He was particularly cranky about the fact that Frank Schimming forced him out of his own company, and seemed to want revenge one day. His background was interesting enough to mention: “Before I was in the business world, I was head of British intelligence. After that I founded Gideon and developed new ways of helping the government. Schimming sees Gideon as just a business. I looked at the company as an institution, protecting our way of life.” Finally, he mentioned that he’d “heard there is something unusual going on at MTC. If there is, I’m sure Schimming is behind it. That man is dangerous.” All interesting stuff, but I received no leads from Gideon, so I therefore turned to my spreadsheet to find out who I should visit next. It looks like the reporter, Wanda Peck, is my next target. She seems to be the person to see to get the scoop on Robert Knott and Law and Order in general. Onwards we go!


Session Time: 1 hours 15 minutes
Total Time: 6 hours 00 minutes

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: Ive written a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, Ive not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!

Sonny Bonds Journal Entry 3: “It seems my day from hell has ended in the most unexpected way. I, Sonny Bonds, have taken out Jessie Bains (aka The Death Angel)! Not without a fair share of drama I’ll add, which when combined would probably be enough to write a book about one day. At the end of my last entry, I was trying to find a way to make sure Jason Taselli stayed behind bars. After trying and failing to figure out how to use the station printer, I ended up ripping off the FBI Most Wanted List I’d seen on the narcotics clipboard, hoping it would be enough to convince Judge Palmer. It was! With Taselli behind bars, Laura and I responded to a drug deal tipoff in the city park. It was a pretty nerve-wracking experience, but we arrested the dealer that’s been causing so much trouble at the local High School, along with some stupid kid that will probably get a slap on the wrist. It’s at this point where my day took a dramatic turn for the worse!

Manhunter Journal Entry 3: "I know who the killer is! My third day on the job has been just as action packed as the first two, starting with a visit to Greenwood Cemetery where I discovered a murdered orb. I tracked the suspect firstly to the Times Square Cinema where I found a locked safe, and then later to Abduls Pawn Shop. I managed to gain entrance to the underground from the shop, where I passed numerous tests and discovered yet another body with a P carved into its forehead. Fortunately I was able to get a name for the victim this time, which was Harry, and using information gathered from the cinema and the cemetery, was also able to figure out that his surname was Jones. Before I could go to Harrys address, I was confronted by the murderer himself and forced to fight one on one. I managed to get in a good hit, which forced him to flee, leaving behind the code I needed to open the safe in the cinema. Opening the safe gave me another code, while searching Harrys house revealed another module. I ended the day by going over all the information Ive collected in the last three days, and finally finding the answer Ive been looking for all along. The murderers name in Phil Cook! I quickly searched his house and used his computer, before the orbs sent me home to await further instructions."


Once again, day three started with me waking up and being given an incident to investigate. An orb had been found dead in Greenwood Cemetery. Watching the tracker revealed that whoever killed the orb then made their way to Times Square Cinema for a brief stop before visiting a pawn shop where they disappeared. I closed the MAD and went straight to the cemetery to check out the gory scene. The orb had been skewered on a large metal spike, but despite some significant pixel hunting, I couldn’t find anything at the scene to investigate. I thought perhaps the names on the gravestones might be important, but when I looked up Tim Jones, Joe Green and Olive Cole on the MAD, they all came back with nothing. I decided to move onto the suspect’s next location, the Times Square Cinema.


The cinema also didn’t bring much in the way of information or items. I could see from the tracker recording that the suspect entered an office and stood in front of a particular part of the room, before leaving. That particular part of the room turned out to be a safe hidden behind a painting on the wall, but since I didn’t have any idea what the code might be to open it, I stored it to memory to come back to later. It was at this point that I remembered the tattoo I witnessed at the end of day two that clearly represented the candles in the church I visited on day one. I decided my next location would be the church, where I would finally find out what the fifteen candle setup was all about. Who knows, perhaps I would retrieve the safe code from there somehow?


I made my way over to the Trinity Church, lit the three candles as represented on the dead man’s tattoo, and was rewarded with a small compartment opening up. This revealed Module A, which I immediately added to my inventory (I’d already recovered Module B from the National Museum). At this point I had no idea what the modules might be for, and since they were unlikely to help me open the safe in the cinema, I located and travelled to Abdul’s Pawn Shop, the third and last place the suspect visited before somehow avoiding the tracker’s radar. It’s here things got a little strange for me, and I have to admit that the pawn shop represents the part of the game where I started to solve puzzles through trial and error rather than actual logic.


Abdul displayed a board containing numerous badges, many of which took on fairly recognisable shapes and symbols. At first I wasn’t sure whether he was trying to sell me something, which would have been awkward since I had no money, or whether it was some sort of test. The latter turned out to be true, as choosing the incorrect symbol resulted in Abdul pulling out a sword and cutting my head off! The handy thing was that if I selected a wrong badge, I was immediately decapitated, meaning I could easily figure out which of the three badges I was supposed to choose through trial and error. I guessed the first two very quickly, as they were both religious symbols (the cross and the pentagram), but the third one took a few goes. Later on when looking at screenshots, I noticed two of the correct symbols above the candles in the church, so I’d like to think that I might have found this clue if guessing hadn’t been so straight forward.


Once I’d chosen the correct badges, I was allowed access to an underground area. Down there I found a sign saying “Danger is here, death is near. The buttons to choose? It’s easy to lose. The picture will tell, if you check it well.” Next to this sign were a locked door and a picture with ten numerical buttons at the bottom. It was pretty clear that I would need to figure out which numbers to press by studying the picture, which would in turn unlock the door. As soon as I looked at the picture, I saw an upside down four in the shadows. Taking this as a cue, I looked at the rest of the shadows and found what could be a considered to be a one. I pressed the number 1 button, as that was the first of the two shadows, only to have a large rock crush me and the Murry family tell me that obviously wasn’t the right button. I tried again, this time pressing the 4 button. Nothing happened, so I figured that must be correct. I then pressed the 1 button, and the door opened!


Through the door was an identical scenario, but with a different picture. This time it was a witch with skulls, spiders and other creepy Halloween stuff. I looked and looked, but couldn’t find any numbers anywhere in the picture, nor could I see any sort of patterns that might assist. I therefore set about clicking buttons from left to right, figuring it would only be a matter of time before I got the combination. Many, many deaths occurred, but I eventually unlocked the door with the numbers 1031. In hindsight, this is obviously a reference to the date of Halloween, being the 31st of October. Unfortunately, over here in Australia, we don’t use that date format and instead would represent this as 3110, so it’s not surprising that I didn’t clue on to the answer after the first couple of numbers. I wasn’t at all surprised to find yet another room with a locked door and picture on the other side!


This third picture seemed to be a mathematical equation of sorts. Given that maths is something I pride myself on, I was determined to try to figure this one out before playing the trial and error game. I tried. I really did! I could see that there were two threes on the screen and that the crucifix symbol behind them could function as a minus and plus sign. Yet somehow, despite seeing that, I couldn’t find anything that worked. In the end I had to resort to trial and error, and the result was 264. Straight away I can see that this number is made up of 2 (3-1), 6 (3+3) and 4 (3+1), but I still can’t see how anyone could deduce that from the picture. I’ll give 10 CAPs to anyone that can explain to me how you get 264 from that picture.


There was yet another picture in another identical room once I got past the maths equation. This fourth picture was a vase containing a plant. To be honest, given my failure to figure out the last two pictures, I didn’t even try on the fourth one. I now know the answer is 425 through trial and error, but can’t see an obvious way to get that number. Thankfully, this was the last of the picture tests, and through the door was another dead body with a P engraved into its head. There was one difference with this body though. His cloak had the word Harry written on it. Just around the corner from dead Harry I was confronted by a man with a knife. I assume this is the guy that killed the suspect along with the others that I’ve come across so far. He immediately attacked me and I was forced to duck and jump his attacks, similar to the knife throwing gang members in the alley behind the nightclub. This time however I only had to successfully punch him once to win the fight. I succeeded on my second try, which caused him to run away, leaving an item behind. Picking it up, I was excited to find that it was a code!


There was only one place where I knew I needed a code. The safe in the cinema! I raced back there and entered the code, fully expecting that whatever I found there would open up the second half of day three. Inside the safe was…another code. UCUCC. What the hell was I supposed to do with that? I wracked my brain, but couldn’t come up with anywhere else that UCUCC might be useful. I watched the tracker recording over and over, but couldn’t come up with any other leads at all. It suddenly dawned on me that the name Harry must be somehow involved in my next step. Just like when I figured out the Anna Osborne name on day two, there must somewhere be a hint that would let me know what Harry’s surname was. But where? I revisited several locations but came up empty handed. Eventually I was forced to put in a Request For Assistance for the first time while playing Manhunter.


As is often the case, it was Lars-Erik that responded to my request. His first hint was “where have you been that may contain names?” I looked over all of the locations on the map and the most obvious place was the cemetery. I paid it another visit to see if I missed something the first time around. There were three names there, all of which I’d looked up previously on the MAD with no results. Tim Jones, Joe Green and Olive Cole. For the first time I noticed that the orb on a stick was actually stuck directly into the grave of Tim Jones, a detail that had avoided me previously. I had no idea why it would work, but I tried typing Harry Jones into the MAD. It did work, and I was given an address to visit! Confused, I tried to make sense of it. “Here lies Tim Jones, 1988 – 2004, he died for his father” Hang on a second…what were those photos in the cinema all about? They were described as “a picture of a boy dated 1988” and “a picture of a 14 year old boy dated 2004”. So Tim Jones was Harry Jones’ son!


In hindsight I can see what I was supposed to think here. I was supposed to make the connection between Harry collecting something from the safe in the cinema to the photos on the wall. Then I was supposed deduce that Harry had killed the orb out of revenge and stuck it on a spit right in front of his dead son’s grave. I totally get it, but man, that’s not very obvious when you dont already know it, especially when you consider that it’s not certain that Harry was the man that left the murder scene and went to the cinema in the first place. How are we to know that it wasn’t the murderer himself? I think the main reason I’d started to have trouble at this point of the game was because I hadn’t really understood the motives of any of the characters so far. There had often been multiple figures showing up on the tracker and it wasn’t always clear which one it was that ended up dead. Was it the suspect I was following that ended up dead, or did they commit another crime during their escape? I was starting to figure out that the suspects were indeed rebels against the orbs, and they were being picked off one by one by a human murderer.


So…if the human murderer was working with the orbs, perhaps the message I received on the data stick earlier in the game might be the key to figuring out his identity! I re-read the message from the stick: “Phil is trouble, he’s a double. He’s an eye, that’s no lie!” Is the murderer’s name Phil? If so, what’s his last name? Now that I had the address of Harry Jones, I figured the answer to the question might very well be at his house. I made my way there, but was surprised to find the only item in the room I could investigate was a radio. Turning the radio on very cutely played the Manhunter theme song, but I figured there must be more to it than that! I looked at my inventory and thought I would just try using the crowbar on it. It worked! Feeling pretty happy with myself, I eagerly picked up the item hidden within the radio. Unfortunately, it was just another module!


So now I had modules A,B and C in my inventory, but I had no idea what they were for. I also had no further leads, so was forced to hunt through screenshots to try to figure out what the last name of Phil might be. I did notice the screenshot where the dead man had written the word “cool” on the rock, but when Phil Cool didn’t come back with anything on the MAD, I let it go. I already knew from the comments on my last post that Charles had majorly struggled to complete day three, and I assumed I was now at the exact same point he was when he requested assistance. I dejectedly decided to read the hints that he used. One of Ilmari’s hints was “the guy has "signed" his victims with the letter P. Have you seen any names beginning with P?” So I knew I was on the right track, but I needed more than that. One of his other hints was “it is a common trope to write the name of your killer with your blood. Could the last letter be somehow incomplete?”


This was all I needed to figure out the answer. In fact the first name I tried was Phil Cook and it was successful. But…well…does anyone else think that’s ridiculously difficult? From what I understand (and correct me if I’m wrong Charles), but both Charles and I failed to figure this out. If the word on the rock hadn’t actually formed a word, it might have been more obvious that it was simply incomplete. Since it was not certain that the game could only be progressed at this stage by figuring out the murderer’s full name, the fact that I was even trying to was lucky in itself. I’ve since read Ilmari’s spoiler which mentions a comment made by the Murry’s as the player arrives at Prospect Park (“dont get your goose cooked”), but surely that’s not enough for anyone to figure it out by that alone. Anyway, I’m sure I’ll talk more about this after I complete the game, so I’ll move on for now.


With Phil’s address discovered, I travelled there with great anticipation. I already knew the game would go into a fourth day, but surely I was close to finding out something important. It turned out that Phil lives in the Empire State Building. He wasn’t home, but I was able to use his computer to connect to several sites in the city. From there I could turn on or off certain security measures, but since I didn’t recognise the majority of the images, I really wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be doing. One thing I did recognise is the guard droid in the hospital, which I could force to go elsewhere. That would allow me to access more of the hospital, so that seemed to be my next location. It was here though that the orbs once again intervened and demanded that I go back to my apartment and await further instructions. They also asked me for a name again and this time I was able to give them Phil Cook. No idea what that achieved, but I guess I’ll find out on day four!