Part 6: Photodoc Frustration!

– Photodoc Frustration!

Last time, we sent the Feds chasing after Ying at her D.C. apartment. Also, we’re trying to track down the mole that leaked info about the P.E.G.

First, as always, we check out incoming communications.





Got word on the bust. Ying was tipped off just as the Feds got there. She killed an agent, got away clean. They’re putting the intel from the scene together right now. I’ll have it sent to your office.

Damn bumbling Feds. That little revelation prompts a few more messages.



Colby has some insights on our mole hunt.



There are several reason people betray their country. Some of them are better than others. I’d look for certain personality traits when I was recruiting.

People looking to upgrade their lifestyles are always a risk. They’ll take money, sex, and whatever else you can give them. But usually they’ll leave a trail, and get caught. Ames was an upgrader, and we caught him.

That’s why I always look for the ideologues. They’re the gems. They truly believe they’re doing the right thing. And if they’re good, their motivations are personal, and invisible.



The Eclipse tool will let us break down who had access to the information that was leaked. At this point, the only data point is the PEG. As we progress, it’ll be updated with other information. The mole hunt runs concurrently with our other missions.







We can drill down through the highlighted categories to see who had access to the PEG.





201 files are available for characters we haven’t met yet.







We know all these guys. That doesn’t mean one of them couldn’t be our mole.









We investigated most of these people last time.



Back to our communications.



Thorn, we need to track down Ying. Now I’m getting buried here, and it’s a big planet we live on, so I’m hoping you can turn up some clues. But tonight I’ve got a private life to attend to.



Hi, Thorn. DDO asked me to tell you the stuff from Rockland is in your office. It looks like Ying was passing codes, probably Beales. I’ll send you some cypher tools and a brief synopsis on codes.



One more thing to catch up on: reports from the other agents.



Asai here. As you know, I arrived at Ying Chungwang’s Rockland address at dawn with a strike team at the ready. Apparently, she was warned. She killed one of the team as she escaped. I collected evidence at the site; Thorn will get it after FBI counterintelligence looks it over. Asai out.



This is Asai. I’m in London now but, of course, if I find Ying here I am taking her down. She got away once. Once.

Ahh, our old desk. But this time, there are some new items to explore. This stuff was all found during the bust on Ying’s place.





We’ll play this later.



Kind of like a mid-90’s Kindle. We’ll poke around in there for a minute.













It’s nice having a fat expense account.







Makes sense. Her partner is named Grendel.



Happier times.



This appears to be a code. We can drag it over to the computer for analysis.







Time to use the Cypher tool to make sense of the code we found at Ying’s place.



First, we have some information to wade through about codes. These are all types of cyphers that the computer can decrypt, given the right key.





















Now that we’ve absorbed that, we can try to decrypt Ying’s note.



This is the decryption tool.



We can try any of the code types on the left on the encrypted text.



Jaimie already gave away the code type, but we’ll try a few just for fun. Standard transcription yields nothing, unless Ying wrote in Hungarian.



Ditto for State Dept DES. Let’s stop screwing around and get to it.



We know it’s a Beale code, and the only book found in the place was Beowulf.



Bingo.



We report that Ying can be found in Moscow. Also important to note is Grendel’s location in Istanbul.







Got a present for you. We have confirmed that Ying is in Moscow. Asai is heading up a team to take her down. Max Foster will be calling you to let you know how it goes. But just in case, I’m going to send you some tools for planning interrogation. We may want to leverage her relationship with Grendel to get her to talk.



That didn’t take long.



Just to refresh our memories, let’s take a look at Foster. She heads up the Moscow Station.





Thorn, I’m Max Foster. I run the safe house here in Moscow. I’ve got Ying. Come deal with her soon. I have to ship her back to the States.

She didn’t get away that time. Looks like we’ll be heading to Moscow soon.





Hey, Kid! Heard you snatched the PEG thief. There’s something in the Moscow safe house that you should know about. It’s an interrogation device left over from the Cold War. They’ve got it stored in a place they call the Bullpen. You won’t like it much, but it gets the job done. Most people survive the ordeal.











It’s Warhurst. Listen, I know Milkovsky may have recommended some – how can put this? – extreme measures to get information from Ying. There’s something called the Geneva Convention, Thorn, and we’d like to abide by it. Simply put, what you’re considering is illegal, and I don’t want the deal mixed up in it. Let’s not get dirty on this one.



Again, the weblink content is sadly not available.

So here we go. If you’ve been stuck in this game, the photo doctoring puzzle is probably where it happened. It’s not really all that bad, but there are some tricks.





We have to make use of all the information we have about Grendel.



There are three types of objects, and they have to be inserted into the photo in a realistic way. We can screw it up by picking the wrong object, placing it in the wrong place, or scaling it to the wrong size.



Here’s an example of how it looks when it’s wrong. The head is the wrong size, the newspaper is the wrong language, and the lighting and scale are off on the other objects.





So let’s do it right. We know from the Beale-encoded message that Grendel is in Istanbul. So we need a Turkish newspaper.



We know from Grendel’s FBI file that he smoked Emperor Filterless. The pack will have to be scaled down to a reasonable size.








Now, we paste the head on. This one best meets the body posture and fits the single light source. It does have to be scaled down.





And that’s really all there is to it. Ying probably won’t look that closely anyway.





So all the pieces are in place. It’s time to head to Moscow and interrogate Ying.





Safely in Moscow, we check for incoming messages.







Just pulled Harmonica’s passport from U.K. Immigration. Harmonica’s in Moscow. Watch your back.





There are a couple of news broadcasts here that flesh out the plot.


http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xo...news_videogames


http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xo...ws-2_videogames

Yeah, we’re not wandering down a Moscow alley for no reason. Let’s head to the safe house.



We finally meet Max Foster in person.

Hi, I’m Max Foster. We have Ying in the interrogation chamber downstairs. She’s waiting for you.



So what’ll it be? I said in the OP that there will be a few instances for audience interaction, and this is as good a time as any.

Good cop or bad cop?