Part 22: Escape Your Trap

When we last saw our heroes...



...Uh, yeah, that happened.



Oh, Ed, really? We're gonna do the location thing now?

Look! It's his spacesuit!
His head's been cut off, just like our figures!
Something's written on the Pioneer plaque.
Ditto for the suit.

Look; Suit

There's writing on the chest.
"Drop the case, Policenauts!"
Subtle. Come on....
What are you doing down there?
Just checking something.

Look; Plaque



It's pointing to the solar system. It's gotta be a message.
Something to do with Jupiter?
That hologram in the back has a model of the solar system.
That's it! Let's check it out!

Look; Hologram

Something's not right.
What is it?
There's an extra planet here. I count 10 planets.
An extra planet?



Hell if I know.

Click here to find out who Nine Stars really was! (it's below too)













It's actually a ball of massquitos. They disperse and reveal the identity of Nine Stars.







Hey! Look at the planets! They're arranged like Ishida's family crest from above. "Nine Stars" came from Ishida's crest. It was also his employee code. I get it. So that was the mark on Hojo's whiteboard.
We do have other things to think about, Jonathan. Like, I dunno... the massquitoes? They're gonna be coming for us now!
Shit!



The massquitoes are onto us! Shoot! They'll suck us dry if we don't do something!





Ah shit, massquitos! What to do!

Well, you fire wildly. You can actually lose this scene if you don't do anything or fire too slowly, but all you have to really do is empty a few clips into the cloud of massquitos.

There's just no end to them!
Let's get away from here for now!



And aw shit! Your life bar stays onscreen during the normal adventure game sections because the massquitos are draining your blood this whole time! ...They're pretty slow, actually, so you do have a pretty big buffer. That said, you do have to save some life meter, so let's use this opportunity to escape!

Move; Coral Hall



No, we can't let a single one loose!
We can't just stay here all night!
There's gotta be a way. Come on, think. Think!
What are their sensors like?
Pretty basic. They're programmed to home in on any CO₂, just like real mosquitoes.
So if we had something with a lot of CO₂ in it....
We should be able to distract them.
Where would we find something like that? I remember you mentioning CO₂ when we were here before.
CO₂, CO₂.... Some dry ice would be perfect.
Yeah, I'm sure they'll have plenty.
Look for something with CO₂ in it!



We're at the Moon Corner.



Suddenly, the astronaut shoots at us!

Shit! Shoot!





This is a fairly annoying fight. See in the previous picture, how he's hiding behind the ladder? The game decides at this point the astronaut is completely covered and unhittable. Yeah, it's unfortunate, that.

Even worse, the astronaut's smart - he'll stay there until you move your aiming reticle away, then he comes back up to shoot. Lock on locks on a little below him, so your strategy with a controller is to move the cursor away from him, wait for him to stand up to take a shot, lock on, adjust, and shoot him.

Get him enough...



Looks dead to me. Let's move! The massquitoes will be coming!
How's that trigger finger doing?
Sorry, Jonathan. I can't help you.

Wait, before we go, what's that on the wall?



Look; Fire Extinguisher

What about this? Any CO₂ in this?
That won't be any help. Keep looking!
Wait, this is a fire extinguisher. A soda-acid extinguisher.
That'll give off CO₂.
You're right. We might be able to fool 'em with it.
Alright, stand back. Let's try this baby out. We just turn it over, and.... Nothing's happening.
There's a crack in it! We can't use this. Look, all the sodium bicarbonate's leaked out. Must've been one of your bullets.
Perfect, just perfect.

If you hang around any of the rooms at AMM too long, then the massquito cloud returns. Jonathan has unlimited ammo to drive them away, but not unlimited health, so let's book it before that happens.

Move; Coral Hall



Look; Coral

What about the coral? It's calcareous.
Hey, you're right! Coral absorbs large amounts of CO₂.
It'll release a ton more than a fire extinguisher.
We'll have to dissolve it. That should do the trick.
How?
We'll need some kinda acid.
Where we gonna find that?
Acid? I know where there's some.
Where?
The fire extinguisher at the Moon Corner. It's a soda-acid extinguisher. It contains a vial of sulfuric acid.
But it was damaged, remember?
No, only the sodium bicarbonate had leaked out. The acid should be fine. It works off a reaction between the sodium bicarbonate and the sulfuric acid. We can use that.

Well, that is way more chemistry knowledge than I'd have given our heroes credit for. So let's go back to the Moon Corner...

Here's the fire extinguisher.
This is definitely a soda-acid extinguisher.
It'll have sulfuric acid inside. There's a crack in the cylinder, but the acid's still intact.



So we do.



Sounds like a deal.

This is actually done for you; the player doesn't have to shoot anything.





The massquitos swarm to the coral.



Now's our chance! We'll seal the fuckers in!



That was closer than I'd hoped. I better call this in. They'll need to do something about the massquitoes. All hell would break loose if they got out.
So if I'm reading this right... Ishida coaxed Hojo into selling Narc on their own?
Seems that way. Let's run over what we know.



Sure, there'd be money involved, but he also had a score to settle.
He knew plenty about the K Series, and eventually started selling K-9 samples through BCCH's pharmacy. All behind Tokugawa's back.



If Narc were getting out he'd know all about it. Same goes for the guys lining up to do business with him.
You can bet they'd wanna get rid of any competition pronto.
So Ishida and Hojo were up against both Tokugawa and the Mafia.



Hojo disappears, and Ishida, fearing for his life, comes to us for help.
It's a miracle the poor bastard lasted as long as he did.
We were his ticket off Beyond. So he hoped, anyway. I'm just surprised we didn't recognize his voice. Then you have the whole accent thing.
Accent?
Meryl said the person she spoke to had a Home accent.
But?
Ishida was a Beyond. He didn't have a Home accent. That's what threw me off.
Meaning Ishida tricked us?
Obviously not everyone. Still, something doesn't add up.



Breaking the law AND giving the finger to Tokugawa and the Mafia.
That's probably why he met up incognito.
Whole lot of good it did him.



Well, the headless body was definitely inside the same suit the informant was wearing.
Yeah?
I put a mark on it when we met him before.
Like what?
Burned it with my cigarette.
I'll be damned. That thing actually did something. That's what you were looking for? So was it there?
Yeah, it was there alright. We don't know if it was Ishida inside, but it's the same suit for sure.
I think we can assume for now it was Ishida.



So the runner goes missing, and now the dealer's wasted.
What about the "they" Ishida mentioned?
I figure Tokugawa or the Mafia. Maybe both.



More than likely we're looking at a hitman. These guys don't get their hands dirty.



There's still the supposed woman's voice to-
Jonathan....
What?
Somebody's playing mechanic with the car. Hey, you! What do you think you're doing?!

Someone gets up from under the car and runs off.









It's him!





Coming up: We get car chases, space colony style.