Virus – Guide and Walkthrough
Saturn
Guide and Walkthrough by foleyartist1
Version: 1.1 | Updated: 03/08/2012
Virus Walkthrough
Sarah Alys Lindholm
yugoislove@gmail.com
Version 1.1, March 2012
(replaces 1.01 from October 2006)
This is a walkthrough of the game VIRUS, a Japanese release for Sega Saturn
copyright Hudson Soft 1997. It’s my first walkthrough, but after finishing
this game I'd enjoyed it so much that it awakened my Translation Instinct
(which is very easy to awaken), and also made me want to help make it possible
for the one or two people who might be interested to experience the game.
I assume in my walkthrough that you understand a certain very-bare-minimum
amount of Japanese--essentially enough to guess which item from a short list to
pick if I tell you "pick this one." If you have absolutely NO Japanese
knowledge, it may be harder to enjoy the game. However, I’m going to
try to make the game accessible to those who aren’t necessarily rocket
scientists in Japanese through this walkthrough. I will translate or summarize
all key points, which will make it easier. I will also try not to spoil any
events before they happen. Partly for this reason, I will not always be
giving you step-by-step which-button-to-press-when directions during every
phase of play, but during many (most?) phases I WILL be doing just that.
Please keep in mind that my walkthrough is not the bare-bones fastest way to
get through Virus, but neither will it take you through every little thing you
could possibly experience during the game. There are many non-essential
things you can do in almost every scene which will give you scraps of dialogue,
etc. you wouldn’t otherwise see. So if you understand the Japanese, keep
looking, touching, and talking whenever you’re really curious about something.
A final note: Virus is a MULTI-ENDING GAME. Not only that, there are several
points in the game where the story diverges depending on choices you make.
The general plot is usually the same, but the path you take to get where you’re
going may not be. So that’s something to keep in mind. (I found Virus to have
replay value for this reason.)
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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0) Version History
1) Credits
2) Background Information
3) General Notes on Gameplay
4) Glossary of Terms
5) List of What's Sold in Shop Orgel
6) Phone Number List
7) Walkthrough
8) Miscellaneous
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0 - VERSION HISTORY
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Version 1.1 - Correction as to which ending has a secret movie.
Version 1.01 - Minor changes made to copyright.
Version 1.0 - Initial version.
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1 - CREDITS
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1. When I first played Virus I did at several very key points receive important
help from both of the other walkthroughs on GameFAQs (I mainly used ADK's and
occasionally consulted NMetatron's), and their assistance was greatly
appreciated. I could not have gotten through the game or written this
walkthrough without them. However, neither previous walkthrough was written by
someone fluent in Japanese, and so critical aspects of the game were not
represented in English. No English-language walkthrough was complete in showing
all the side avenues and mini-games, either. Therefore I thought there might
be a place for a new, more complete walkthrough by someone accustomed to
working in Japanese.
2. Another important source for me as I played was this Japanese site:
http://riesuke.com/oldgm/advent/virus.php , which I found to be the best
Japanese-language Virus resource on the web (and Riesuke, its owner, kindly
responded to several inquiries, with the results of my inquiries added to
the walkthrough on her own site). If you speak very fluent Japanese, you may
well be able to get through the game using only that resource. The bulk of
this walkthrough's phone number list, most of the information about completing
STAND registration, the locations of the mini-games (but not my directions on
how to play them), and some information about the "battle helpers" is
translated or paraphrased from that site and/or my conversations with Riesuke.
3. I borrowed many of my ideas re: how to organize this walkthrough from
Brian P. Sulpher (see the Megamania walkthrough) because of his exceptional
clarity of form.
4. Thanks to MANDANGA from Spain, who played through the game using this FAQ
and then took the time to email me to report that the extra cut scene I put
with ending #1 actually belongs to ending #2.
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2 - BACKGROUND INFORMATION (Discovered in the Prologue)
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It is the 22nd century. Through the course of its wars, mankind has destroyed
Earth’s environment beyond any hope of salvaging. They’ve abandoned their
planet for space in search of a new home. A lunar base and various space
colonies have been established, and a large-scale terraforming project is in
progress on Mars. At the same time, humans have developed a sort of
large-scale virtual reality world called "Processing Alive," within which they
are freed from the bonds of the real physical world. People can access
Processing Alive through using terminals called "Transers"; their psyche and
physique are transformed into data and essentially uploaded onto the net.
In this way they can interact with other people without having to make any
physical contact or reveal their true locations, making the net theoretically
safer than reality--but humans could not escape crime and danger even in
Processing Alive.
The most recent and terrible threat facing those who use Processing Alive is
the cyber virus. Those infected with the virus while in Processing Alive turn
into monsters and attack everyone around them before dying themselves. Their
consciousnesses never return to their bodies in "Real Alive" (the term for the
physical world).
+----------------------------------------------+
| MORE ON THE CYBER NETWORK |
| (Learned in the play manual and game itself) |
+----------------------------------------------+
The cyber network is an electronic virtual reality accessed through a Transer
after a computer scans your body on the genetic level. Even your senses are
digitized when a computer interprets the minute changes in electrical potential
caused by your sensory responses. While you’re accessing the net you’re asleep
inside the Transer, your consciousness submerged. For this reason accessing the
net through a Transer is called "diving." And reawakening and returning to
reality is called "rising." There are many different networks that make up the
greater network of Processing Alive, and these individual networks have many
different functions: public nets managed by the government, business and
recreational nets run by companies, and illegal "underground" nets.
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3 - GENERAL NOTES ON GAMEPLAY
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1. For the greater part of the game the possible controls you can use will be
displayed at the bottom of the screen in English for your convenience.
2. For those of you who are familiar with gaming, you likely already know this.
If you’re like me and not a frequent gamer, this will save you a lot of time:
there are almost always multiple people or things on a given screen that you
can look at/touch/talk to. It is possible to get to these things by moving the
cursor around, but that’s the slow way. Say you want to look at all the things
on the screen which can possibly be looked at. Simply keep pressing the "look"
button. Pressing it once will show you the first thing you can look at,
pressing it again will show you the second, and you can just keep pressing it
until you’re back at the first thing again. Whenever you decide to look at one
of these things, just hit "OK." Similarly, when you press
"move," you can keep pressing it to see your options for possible places to go.
Sometimes you’ll only be able to move in one direction, and sometimes you’ll
have many options. Sometimes you’ll be locked in a scene until you complete
all your tasks, at which point you’re able to move. Note: There are some
exceptions to the "just push the button" rule. There’s nothing plot-important
that the buttons don’t link to. However, particularly in the shops, there are
sometimes things in a room which can be looked at but aren’t one of the
push-the-button options. So if you’re in a room filled with a lot of things you
can hit the "look" (or "touch") button and simply move the cursor around the
screen manually until you see an eye/hand symbol over something. These are
just little bonuses and are rarely very involved or informative. None have
been included in the walkthrough except for a hidden minigame.
3. One of the annoying things about this game is that you can look at,
touch/use, or talk to most anybody and anything, but often to get the
information you need, you have to do these things multiple times. Usually just
looking once or just talking once will only give you a snippet of the whole
picture, so that you have to keep on looking at or talking to the same
person/thing until they start to get repetitive in order to make sure you got
all the info. Note: In several places, you actually can’t leave until you’ve
finished talking about all the relevant points with the people on that screen.
So if you’re discovering you can’t leave or the game isn’t progressing, it’s a
good bet you haven’t talked enough yet.
4. There are very few save points during some phases of the game. Sometimes
there will be two save points within 15 minutes, and sometimes it will seem
like you’ve been playing all day and you haven’t reached a save point--
particularly in the first half of the game.
5. If you’re in a "dungeon" or otherwise navigable environment, pressing the
Start button will show you your location on a map, which can be very useful
sometimes. If you’re in a normal scene, pressing the Start button will allow
you to see how much money you have, as well as (1) change weapons, (2) change
ammo, (3) see what’s in your item box, (4) change the speed at which text
scrolls, and (5) change your cursor speed.
6. THE BATTLE SCREEN: when you’re fighting enemies you have a different set
of commands at the bottom of the screen. You also have a continuum that shows
you your Hit Points and Action Points. Hit points are just normal hit points;
when you lose them all you die. Action points get used up every time you
perform a significant action. When you don’t have enough action points, you
can’t do anything anymore until you regain some (they replenish--slowly--as
time passes). You can perform the following commands: the left ("Move")
button lets you run away from the fight. This won’t always work.
X lets you change weapons (it costs 3 AP). Y lets you change ammo (it costs
3 AP). Hint: When you’re not in battle mode or in a place where the Start
button is a map, you can change your weapon and ammo from the Start menu for
free. Z lets you put up a shield that will block one enemy attack (it costs
4 AP). A lets you access your item box to use one of your special items
(it costs 5 AP). B is the cancel button. C is the "shoot" button (or the
"ok" button if you’re on a submenu of something). Shooting one round costs
3 AP. Right is the Analyzer.
**Fun thing about the Analyzer! Besides giving you sporadically-useful advice
during your boss fights, the Analyzer also does something fun during the
run-of-the-mill fights: it shows you the names of each type of monster in
English.
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4 - SHORT GLOSSARY OF THE MOST IMPORTANT TERMS
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Accela 25/Accela 100: Accela products restore action points (or to be more
accurate they increase the speed at which action points are restored to you;
the Accela 100 does restore lost points as well).
AIS: Short for "Artificial Intelligence Soldier."
Blue Metal Squad: An independent commando unit of the Universal Federation
Army (the army of the real physical world) specializing in close-quarters
combat. Composed of highly-decorated, highly-skilled soldiers. The squad was
wiped out in the first major confrontation with the virus.
Cardiogrammer: Most people accessing Processing Alive are required to have
one of these. It’s a device that forces you to autorise when you’ve reached
your limit of psychical exhaustion. STAND agents sometimes have theirs
disabled.
Clusters: The money of this world. It’s actually handled in terms of
mega-Clusters. In addition to the kind used for currency, each creature in
Processing Alive also has a personal Cluster; it’s part of the structural data
of any object/being.
Dive: Enter Processing Alive.
Existent Order: The fundamental stipulations of the Processing Alive
environment as a whole. Everything that exists within the net must conform to
this invariable principle.
ITERID Effect (Increased The Entropy Resulting In Disorganization Effect):
The effect when increased entropy causes something’s organization to collapse
and the physical data to crash. The data of a diver who’s been in Processing
Alive too long or an object in Processing Alive which has been destroyed will
decay, eventually vanishing without a trace.
Jump: Move from one net to another without rising.
Master A.I.: Also called a "Net Master." This is the host A.I. of a certain
net who manages entrances and exits to and from it. Concrete form is not
necessary for its job, so it generally has no concrete visible form.
Nuclear Format: Nuclear formatting resets an entire network by deleting all
data within it. "Nuking" a particular thing or person can refer to the same
concept specialized to a specific area surrounding that thing or person.
Parity Check: This check occurs when your physical body in Real Alive is
encoded as your virtual body for Processing Alive. Everything matches 1:1,
and changes to parts of your body during the scanning and building process are
prevented. A second Parity Check is performed when you rise; by checking that
everything is as it was when you dove, the computer judges whether you are the
same person that dove originally. Because of this, if your virtual body is
altered while in Processing Alive and you’re unable to restore it to its
original state, you can’t rise. Your autorise function is halted too, and the
task manager that tracks your movements etc. while you’re in Processing Alive
eventually runs out of memory, at which point your I.D. disintegrates.
Reform 25/Reform 100: Reform products restore hit points.
Rise: Return to Real Alive.
STAND (Squad Team for Alert to Network Destruction): According to the play
manual, this is the department of the Federation government which investigates
cyber crimes. Its duty is to stop anything destructive to the cyber net.
However, despite its affiliation with the government, STAND is a freestanding
organization which merely has a freelance contract with the government. STAND’s
Net Agents--the people who do the investigating--have the right to do many
things, like carry weapons, question witnesses, etc.
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5 - LIST OF WHAT'S SOLD IN SHOP ORGEL
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Since this is just meant as a "boost" to those with little to no Japanese,
this only covers one store, Shop Orgel. Shop Orgel is a fairly comprehensive
store, so it should have what you need. If you have this list you and you’re
willing to spend the time to compare and reason things out, you can probably
figure out the other stores’ product lists too, since they will mostly overlap.
Here’s the list in order:
Reform 25
Reform 100
Accela 25
Accela 100
Vaccine Bullets
Magnum Bullets
Buckshot
Slug
Piercing Bullets
Net Bomb
Crusher Bomb (Crasher Bomb?)
Net Flash
Kida Stock (Kida is a parody on Honda)
Applay Stock (a parody on Apple)
Ravex Stock (a parody on Avex)
Macrosoft Stock (duh)
Ronami Stock (a parody on Konami)
SOMY Stock (duh)
Sqare Stock (a parody on Square)
Zahinell Stock
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6 - PHONE NUMBER LIST
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+--------------------------------------------+
| STORES |
|--------------------------------------------|
|Blademan Support | 9009 |
| | |
|Inter Library | 1106 |
| | |
|Pet Farm | 3300 |
| | |
|Shop Orgel | 4147 |
|--------------------------------------------|
| PLACES, ETC. |
|--------------------------------------------|
|Cyber Jail | 6440 |
| | |
|STAND Headquarters | 0110 |
| | |
|STAND Jargon Lookup System | 0104 |
| | |
|Zahinell Co. | 2100 |
| | |
|--------------------------------------------|
| PEOPLE |
|--------------------------------------------|
|Business Net Manager | 3769 |
| | |
|Culture Net Manager | 9458 |
| | |
|Sherry | 4411 |
| | |
|II-10 Kirk | 2109 |
| | |
|Your personal number | 0111 |
| | |
|--------------------------------------------|
| HIDDEN NUMBERS |
|--------------------------------------------|
|Amuru | 4150 |
| | |
|Bee on the Net | 4622 |
| | |
|Bomberman | 8080 |
| | |
|Cyber Rescue | 0119 |
| | |
|Dark | 9999 |
| | |
|G-G | 4141 |
+--------------------------------------------+
**The numbers for the Net Managers and Blademan Support will not work during
the initial phases of the game.
**Bee on the Net is a hidden store, the only one which sells SAGE stock.
Interestingly, its sign says "Net on the Bee."
**Some phone messages only occur randomly when you dial wrong numbers
(STAND Support, girl who just fought with her boyfriend, prostitute, etc.).
I once got the Shark asking me if this was a prank call and making an Otocky
joke.
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7 - WALKTHROUGH
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+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+ +
+ INFECTION #01: BLUE METAL +
+ +
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
(Serge’s Quarters--STAND’s Mars Base)
You, Serge Shadix, wake up from a nightmare. You’ve been reliving in your
dreams the events of three months ago, when the Blue Metal unit lost a horrible
battle with an unknown enemy during its first foray into cyberspace. You
survived, but just barely. Many did not. Some of your comrades are MIA, though,
and may still be out there somewhere. You’ve finally recovered from your
injuries and you’ve vowed to go back. Two days ago you were granted special
permission to leave the army in recognition of your distinguished service, and
you became a STAND agent. You heard that STAND agents had a lot of special
rights and privileges, like being able to carry weapons and interrogate people,
and you figure if your goal is to get back to the part of the net where Blue
Metal lost its battle, this is the way to do it. STAND let you in on the
strength of your Blue Metal record, but your field of expertise is real-world
combat and STAND is a cyber-combat organization. You’re a newbie here; as such
you’ve been told you’ll be assigned an assistant/partner for the foreseeable
future. Now your orders are to wait for your boss to contact you.
-->Although you don’t have to look at and touch every single little thing,
I recommend you explore thoroughly and see what there is to see. Point: There
are two rooms in Serge’s quarters, and you will need to perform at least a few
tasks in both of them before you can leave.
-->No matter what else you skip, you will need to look at the items on the
desk, and you will need to pick up the photo disks (the pile of blue ones).
They contain holographic photos of the Blue Metal squad which you illegally
filched as mementos. When you pick them up, they go in your item box. Now
take each disk in turn from your item box and insert it into the holograph
player to view it.
Disk #1--Second-Lieutenant Leon Shadix, your older brother and the commander
of the Blue Metal Squad. In the midst of the squad’s horrible battle, Leon
forced you and the other wounded to retreat, but you have no idea what happened
to him after that. Leon’s body is alive but his consciousness hasn’t come back
to Real Alive. His net address has been altered somehow, so STAND can’t force
him to rise, but his consciousness has been separated from his body so long
that if he doesn’t rise soon, he’ll suffer brain death. He’ll be declared
officially dead by the army in two weeks. The rest of the living squad members
are in the same condition.
Disk #2--Leon with his girlfriend Helen, the single female member of Blue
Metal. She was a communications and explosives expert, and before they sortied
into Processing Alive, she designed a net-use Nuke Bomb that freezes an area,
preventing those within from jumping or rising, and then nukes all the data
within it. ----Internal monologues about the battle: Blue Metal was suddenly
called in by the Mars government to deal with the first major virus outbreak.
They shouldn’t have been called in on a Processing Alive mission because they
had almost no diving experience, but they were the only unit on Mars at the
time. Their first Processing Alive battle ended in the deaths of Helen and
several other squad members. Leon took the Nuke Bomb from Helen’s corpse and
then forced the surviving members of the squad to rise, taking on the virus
monsters himself.
Disk #3--A photo of the main people on the Blue Metal squad. Leon (You hear a
bit about his weapon, the Electromagnetic Piercing Gun. It’s a cyber weapon
Leon deliberately removed all the automation from so he could aim etc. manually
based on his own battle instincts.) --> "Smiley," the new guy of the squad. An
arrogant fucker but very skilled. Lost an arm in the battle and still MIA. -->
Serge --> Aaron, the mama’s boy --> Rick, the confident one --> Matthew, the
boring but dependable guy
--> After you’ve used the videophone to talk to SCOW (your boss, whose acronym
stands for Stand Commander and Overseer Will), you can futz around until you
pick up your ID card. Then the doorbell will ring. When you check who it is
though the interphone, you’ll meet Erika Cresfield, your new partner. You
mistake her for a random teenager at first....
--> Now you can talk to her. Before you go too far you’ll need to confirm her
identity with the identity-confirmation button on your interphone, because you
just won’t trust her till then. After that you can talk some more if you want.
Let her in when you’re ready.
After you’ve let Erika in and talked to her some more, the two of you
watch a news broadcast together (you’ll have to turn on the TV). A girl has
gone missing in Fantasy Net, and her consciousness can’t be recalled to her
body. According to the jacket in the case containing the game discs, the
girls’ name is Luna Month. It’s been 2 weeks since she initially dived. If
she’s not found within 30 days of her dive, she’ll be declared brain dead.
Only STAND or military-level Transers allow you to stay under for more than
that. The Zahinell Company, which owns Fantasy Net, declares that this
disappearance has nothing to do with the virus.
When you further talk to Erika you discover that nobody has any idea what
causes the virus. It’s too deadly, too complicated, and too quickly-evolving
to be some hacker’s hobby; no terrorist organization has claimed
responsibility; and there’s no evidence it’s weapons testing. There’s no
evidence of anything.
--> Erika tells you you’ll receive your orders at the diveport (the entrance
to STAND headquarters). Point: You’re a forgetful person and you have to try
to leave without your uniform before you can go back and get your stuff.
(Diveport)
Erika tells you that your orders are to get used to diving. After you’ve dived
into STAND headquarters and completed simulation training to get you up to
speed on the cyber environment, you’ll be given your first mission.
--> Whenever you get into a Transer you’ll be asked for your I.D. card.
Don’t forget, it’s in your item box.
(STAND Headquarters)
At STAND headquarters you meet Melody, the STAND A.I. She explains the various
registration tasks you need to complete and tells you’ll be doing a simulation
battle to determine your rank (in reality no matter how "well" or "poorly" you
do, you’re given a rank of Level 1 at the end no matter what). If you need to
stop playing soon, stop playing now. It will be a long time before the first
save point and coming up Melody will time you on how quickly you complete the
tasks she assigns you. You can leave the game paused here (hit the start
button) and turn your TV off until you have time to resume play.
--> NOTE: After you’ve looked and talked for a while (make sure to look in
your pocket), the only way to get anywhere is, for some incomprehensible
reason, to press "A." This causes you to look at the funky bracelet on your
wrist, which is your item box. Since virtual items take up no real space,
everything fits in there. When you select something as necessary, it will
materialize.
--> After you’ve gone through the dialogue about your bracelet, use it.
Melody will show you your videophone and give you STAND’s phone number. Tell
her yes, you’ve memorized it. Melody will then tell you how to use the
videophone (hit "Call," dial the numbers, hit the arrow at the bottom).
Tell her yes, you understand. She’ll further explain speed dial. Forget about
it, it’s not important. Tell her yes, you understand.
Eventually Melody gives you your instructions: go to the Information Grid and
complete your registration, go to the Laboratory and collect your weapons, and
then come back to her and she’ll begin the simulation battle. She gives you
the time that she wants you to be back by, based on the current time on your
Saturn internal clock.
--> Go to the Information Grid to complete your registration. To do so:
(1) Talk once with Erika. She tells you that you can pick whichever operator
you like to be the one in charge of you.
(2) Look at one of the operators.
(3) Look at the other operator.
(4) Pick which one you like best (Marie is on the left and Kelly is on the
right), and look at that one.
(5) Talk to your operator.
(6) Talk about STAND twice.
(7) Talk about the A.I. once.
(8) Talk about the virus once.
(9) Look once each at the operator’s head, her clothes, the monitor, and her
hands/laptop.
(10) The monitor is your Jargon Lookup System. It contains data on all the
terms and people you’ve come across so far. It will auto-update with each new
thing you learn. So if you ever forget an important term, person, phone
number, etc., you can call this system from your videophone or view it in the
information grid. You need to use this system and look through each entry on
each menu and submenu.
(11) Talk to your operator.
(12) Exit.
(13) Exit the Information Grid.
--> Go to the Laboratory and talk to Ash (short for Ashkenazy). He’s an
extremely accomplished scientist and did much of the work putting together
Melody, though the main programming was done by his former teacher. He
doesn’t like you. Talk to him and look at the monitor when he asks you to.
Receive a Blaster gun. He tells you to come back and get more stuff from him
when you’re done with your simulation battle.
--> Go back to where Melody is. She will talk you through the simulation
battle. There are four groups of enemies you have to kill.
(Simulation Battle)
Any ammo you use up in any simulation battle will be restored to you after the
battle is over. However, you CAN run out of ammo during the simulation battle.
Fortunately, there’s no need to worry. At least in this level, you can defeat
all your enemies with your knife.
--> You’re sent into a dungeon. You can move with the arrow keys; move around
until you encounter enemies and the screen commands will automatically change
to battle mode. There are four sets of enemies to defeat, all of which can be
defeated with your knife.
--> Melody will ask you if you want to end your simulation battles. If you
chose "no," you can immediately do another battle and rise up another rank.
This is convenient because the higher your rank, the less money everything
costs. However, don’t worry: if you choose not to do it now, you can do it
in the future. The monitor to the left above Melody’s head is the simulation
battle monitor; this is what you use to get to simulation battles. There are
five ranks in total, including the one you just finished; the first two are
relatively easy to beat--however, I do recommend at least temporarily saying
"no" and purchasing ammo first, as level 2 is harder to beat with just the
knife. Note that if you die during the second simulation battle, you do not
have to go back and re-defeat the enemies you’ve already beaten. I have never
attempted levels three through five, but if you’re interested the Japanese
website I mention at the beginning of this walkthrough has tactics for beating
them.
HOW TO PURCHASE AMMO: As soon as you receive your Rank 1 from STAND, you start
having money. After this point, any time you’re able to use the videophone
you simply need to call one of the stores (see phone number list). You can
buy or sell (when you first call/enter a store, you have 3 options: buy, sell,
or leave the store), and each place sells weapons, life-saving protective
devices, and company stocks. Make sure you buy the right kind of ammo for the
gun you’re using. When an item is selected, its description will appear in
the lower left-hand corner. If it’s ammo specific to a certain gun, that
information will be in the description.
(STAND Headquarters)
--> Go back and visit the lab again like Ash told you to. If you look at the
monitor when he tells you to, he will give you a Reform 25 (see glossary).
--> Look at the monitor again. He gives you your battle shield. Then he tells
you you have to buy anything else you want yourself. He gives you the number
of Inter Library, STAND’s recommended store.
--> Talk to Ash about everything. He’s totally non-informational on the
subject of STAND. Ask about Melody. You say Ash should have made her more
human-like. Ash says he only inputted the subprograms. The one who created her
main system is Dr. McNaughton, the expert on Processing Alive. She’s a
high-rank A.I. with lots of capabilities, and he suspects that Melody herself
is the one who believes that emotions are unnecessary to her STAND duties and
therefore doesn’t engage them. You protest that this is sad. Ash reminds you
that A.I.s don’t actually have emotions, and you can consider Melody’s
expressionlessness to come from her rejection of the emotion-simulation
program. You ask if Melody would smile if Ash tinkered with her. He says it’s
taboo for an A.I.’s creator to alter her main programming after her identity
has been formed and her "life" begun. Only the A.I. herself has the right to
further form her identity, and if you violated that right she might
self-destruct. It’s rare but A.I.s have been known to destroy themselves
because of internal contradictions in their identities. Ash says A.I. emotions
are simulated, but some high-rank A.I.s have been known to do things which
surpass the bounds of their programming, and it may not be safe to call all
A.I. emotions "true" or "false." When you talk to Ash about the Net he’ll
tell you that the Master A.I.s for each net act in a way dictated by Existent
Order (see glossary). Basically they live in the mother computer of that net
and carry out/interpret orders given by the computer. There’s more details,
but you (Serge) don’t understand them.
--> After you’ve talked about the Net, ask Ash about A.I.s again. You ask if
the Master A.I.s could develop feelings and run wild. Ash says you can safely
say the virus isn’t happening because of that, because the computers can’t
give A.I.s the kind of fuzzy decisions that would activate emotions. A third
party would have to artificially control the Net OS before you could have
those kinds of problems.
--> Go back to Information.
--> Ask your operator for info on the virus. You’ll talk to her about the
virus a good bunch of times, though after the parity check part or so it stops
being informative and you can stop. She’ll inform you that the reason most of
Blue Metal’s weapons weren’t effective against virus monsters was because the
bullets didn’t contain any vaccine. Virus-infected people who’ve already
become full-blown monsters can’t rise because they fail the parity check (see
glossary). Nothing else of particular interest is said.
--> Ask her about STAND. She says there used to be over 50 agents, but due to
the series of virus outbreaks there are much fewer now. Your operator
whispers to you in an aside that Erika is sensitive about this because she
blames herself for her former partner’s death.
--> Look at the monitor. During this cut scene your operator tells you they
collected and analyzed data from your battle. That’s how they developed the
vaccine. Ash was a key part of the development team, risking infection to
develop the vaccine.
--> Talk to your operator about the vaccine.
--> Talk to her about STAND. She tells you you’re the only two people on the
virus case. The other team died yesterday.
--> Talk to her about the Net twice more. Blue Metal fought in History Net and
only five people rose. Three of those five later suffered brain death. Eleven
more soldiers are MIA in Processing Alive. The net is currently sealed off and
no one is allowed in. The surrounding nets have suffered increasing virus
problems and the lesser nets are essentially closed. You wonder if this isn’t
some big corporation’s attempt at a monopoly. Your operator responds that
Zahinell already has a monopoly. It’s questionable whether they would gain
anything from the outbreaks.
SCOW calls, and you can have a conversation with her. She gives you your STAND
Agent I.D. pass and 600 mega-Clusters. You’ll note that she explains that the
way you "get paid" to kill virus monsters is that you get to take their
internal Clusters once they’re dead. When you talk to her about the Net you
ask for permission to enter History Net. You can do so by jumping in Melody’s
area.
Erika thinks you’re crazy to want to do this because History Net is too
dangerous. You try to leave her behind. It doesn’t work so well.
--> Talk to Erika, she’s forcing you to.
--> Talk to your operator, and she’ll tell you she detects someone in History
Net who’s been there since Blue Metal and seems to still be alive. Now Erika
agrees to you with you because you’re hell-bent on it.
--> Go jump into History Net.
(History Net)
Here you will encounter a lot of minor enemies who will not be hard to take
down (in many cases you can use the knife). They’re basically to earn you
money. Every enemy you beat in the game earns you money. However, you do need
to buy ammo at some point down here, because the boss for this level is in
History Net and you’ll need ammo to beat it (an Accela 25 can’t hurt either).
Note that you can only use your videophone from certain places in History Net;
the area right by the info desk is one of them. You can generally also call
from any of the rooms.
--> First turn around and investigate the info desk behind you. Go towards it
and you’ll discover a destroyed A.I. (it was destroyed rather than infected
because, according to Erika, the virus only infects the data of living
things). Look at it and Erika will tell you to use your analyzer on it. Every
time you use an analyzer on something the info is automatically sent to STAND.
When you try to leave, Erika will prompt you to call Melody (i.e., STAND
headquarters). Melody will unlock all the places you’ll need to go within
History Net and explain to you that whenever you want to jump or rise out of a
particular net, you do so at the information desk for that net.
--> Now it’s time to wander around exploring History Net. Go for it. Keep in
mind that sometimes because of the way it wants the plot to work, the game
won’t let you analyze something until you’ve looked at it. A note: sometimes
you’ll find bombs. Erika will warn you not to analyze them or touch them or
whatever, but if you insist on trying to use them, she’ll investigate them for
you and find out that they’re not dangerous. At this point you can pick them
up. Plot note: as you’re analyzing the various virus-infected corpses hanging
out in History Net, you’ll remind yourself that while they look familiar,
they’re minion monsters, basically. The monster that took out Blue Metal was
a huge red one. You may very well not need further instructions for this level.
If you think you’ve done everything you can and you can’t get the plot to
advance, scroll down.
--------
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Tip if you think you’ve tried everything and the plot won’t advance: there is
one room you will need to explore twice. As for which room it is:
--------
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In the Greek part (the corridor on your right facing away from the info desk),
you’ll hit an intersection where you can go three ways (plus backwards). Go
left first and explore that room. This is the only room in History Net that
you will explore twice. Go everywhere else you want to go before coming back
here, but come back here after you’re finished.
--> When you get to the boss for this level, flip open the play manual. All
bosses have moving weak points which move in order. You can tell when the weak
point has moved because when it moves, the boss character will have an
animation which is neither an attack nor a parry. This boss’s weak points are
written, in order, in the play manual. If you hit a Game Over, don’t worry;
hitting "yes" will allow you to pick up the game again right before the boss
fight.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+ +
+ INFECTION #02: ZAHINELL +
+ +
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
(STAND Headquarters)
Here you are back at STAND headquarters. From now on, when you net jump
(which you can almost always do at any point while you’re in STAND
headquarters, and sometimes at other times) you’ll usually have the option of
going to History Net. You’ve finished the plot there, but the random enemies
will still continuously appear, and you can use it as a place to earn money to
buy more stuff.
Now you have a choice of going to the Lab then the Info Grid, or just straight
to the Info Grid. If you go to the Lab first you and Erika and Ash will talk
briefly and Erika will whisper to you that Ash hates soldiers (that’s why he
doesn’t like you), so but he doesn’t actually mean any arm when he speaks
unkindly to you. She asks you to forgive Ash for his prejudice because
apparently Ash’s family died when they got mixed up in a military coup d’etat.
When you go to the Information Grid, after you’ve spoken with your operator
for a while you will get a mysterious call from someone calling him/herself
"Violet." Violet tells you that there has been a virus outbreak in a Zahinell
net. Zahinell is the big company in Mars’ Processing Alive world. Their
master computer runs almost everything. Even though the company denied on the
news program you saw earlier that the missing-person case had anything to do
with the virus, Violet claims it actually has everything to do with the virus.
Then after hacking into STAND and giving you this anonymous ("Violet" is
obviously not his/hear real name) tip, s/he suddenly hangs up. As you talk
with your operator (and Erika, who’s in on the conversation), it evolves that
Luna Month went missing in Fantasy Net, one of Zahinell’s main nets. You
suggest going to Fantasy Net, but it’s closed for maintenance. Your operator
informs you that the company president still personally supervises the
networks, so he’s the person to get entrance permission from. You determine
to call up Zahinell and head over there.
--> After you’ve talked with your operator for a while, you’ll have the option
of talking about Zahinell (it will be a new option at the very bottom of the
list). Talk about Zahinell for a while and your operator will give you a phone
number. You can now call up the company and arrange a visit to its president.
--> Go to where Melody is and rise. You and Erika will drive to Zahinell.
(Zahinell Co., Ltd.)
The important thing to get out of this first cut scene is that Serge’s brother
Leon was not part of the Blue Metal virus monster. The rest of it is basically
Serge pondering how they lost their battle because in that unfamiliar
environment they deferred to other people’s way of doing things (i.e., they
used weapons they were given by net experts for a net battle), when they
should have done things their own way. The only weapons they brought that had
any effect were the electromagnetic piercing gun Leon had brought and
customized himself, and the Nuke Bomb Helen designed.
Then you arrive at Zahinell.
--> After you talk to the receptionist you’ll give her your I.D. card. She
won’t give it back to you until you’ve tooled around for a while looking at
things etc., so go ahead and do that. Then she’ll thank you for waiting and
tell you the elevators are to your left.
Note: You have the option to go right instead of left. If you do you hit the
break room, where you can optionally play a card game with a robot. Then when
you’re done, you go to the elevator as normal. The card game is all that’s
here, and you have the opportunity to play it later in a different context if
you want to, so you can take it or leave it.
--> Card game rules: The robot asks if you want it to explain the rules:
press C for "yes" and B for "no." The game is like Memory, the game kids play
where you turn over a card and then try to turn over one that looks exactly
the same--except that in this version, you’re trying to get a card in the same
suit. If you can successfully pick out two that are the same suit, you get to
keep them and go again. If not, it’s the other player’s turn. You get points
based on the numerical value of the cards (Ace = 1). Whoever gets the most
points wins. However, there are special cards: a Joker, which makes the next
card negative; a Double Up Card, which makes the next card double; a Double
Joker Card, which makes the next card double and negative; and a Shuffle Card,
which shuffles all the cards.
And so to the elevator.
--> In the elevator, you touch the elevator control pad and discover that you
need to go to "Floor F," but the keypad only accepts numbers. You can enter
the correct number right away, or you can enter random numbers the first
couple of times you’re given the keypad and Erika will suddenly get an idea
and start giving you hints. The answer is:
--------
--------
--------
--------
--------
--------
--------
--------
Zahinell is a computer company; they’re talking about hexadecimal numbers. So
you need to enter the hexadecimal number for "F." In the hexadecimal system
A = 10, B = 11, etc. So the number to enter for "F" is 15.
--> Once upstairs in the Secretary’s room (go forward from the elevator), you
meet Zahinell’s personal secretary (later said to be named "Sharn State";
perhaps they meant "Sharon"). First give her your ID card. Then she’ll talk
to you, but old man Zahinell isn’t free yet, so you’ll have to tool around
doing stuff for a while. In the process you discover (1) that you’re a
pervert, and (2) that she likes having her hair touched.
--> Finally in the President Room you meet Zahinell himself. Don’t forget to
show him your ID card. Then you’ll need to talk to him multiple times about
everything, particularly when new options appear onscreen, as after talking
about some new things, some of the old options will yield more information.
He tells you there are three Zahinell-controlled nets: Business Net, Culture
Net, and Fantasy Net. All Mars nets are run by their mother computer,
NOA9000, which Zahinell claims is "perfect" and the best in existence. It
has antivirus protection and Zahinell claims none of his nets could possibly
be infected. Luna must have just screwed up somehow; there is nothing wrong
with Fantasy Net. But you have permission to question his staff and to visit
Fantasy Net. His explanation for History Net is the army had assumed control
of it before it went bad, and thus the fact that it’s infected has nothing to
do with Zahinell. He gives you a list of people in his company you can
question and tells you the secretary will tell you how to find them. When
you’ve said all you need to he’ll turn around and face the butterfly again.
Go back to the secretary.
The secretary tells you Howard, the technician, is on Floor 6. When you
further talk to her and ask to look at any message the missing diver left
before she dived, the secretary tells you to ask Murphy in the Transpod room
on Floor C. When you go back to the elevator, you can visit each of these
places.
Howard tells you a little about NOA9000, the way Zahinell works, etc. The cut
scene is just his explanation of their virus protection system. Essentially,
when someone is infected with the virus they begin to transform into monsters,
but before they can do that a lot of back-and-forth of data has to happen with
the mother computer. So the mother computer is alerted to every sudden spike
in data access and (says Howard) freezes off the relevant area of the net
before the infected person goes monster. After you’ve spoken to him until he
gets repetitive, go back to the elevator and go to the Transpod room.
Murphy tells you the reason Luna went missing is probably because she was
using an off-brand Transer that she’d customized herself. Zahinell Transers
are "perfectly safe." She opens the Transer for you so you can see the girl
(her mind is missing, not her body). At this point you have the option of
looking, touching, and talking as usual. However, if you try to touch the
panel that will show you the diver’s last message, Murphy will tell you not to
touch it because she thinks you’re incompetent. Yet when you talk to Murphy
about the missing person (the top option on the menu), she’ll tell you to use
the panel to replay the message. Then you can touch it and it will replay.
It’s stupid, but there you go. Talk once before you touch. You see the
missing girl order "a story with a forest and a lake, where the main character
is a girl swordfighter." You and Erika decide to go back to STAND
headquarters and dive to find the girl.
(STAND Headquarters)
Fantasy Net is still sealed off and it will take a little more time before you
can go into it. You can choose to investigate either Business Net or Culture
Net instead. Ultimately you’ll investigate both of them, but if you pick
Business Net first you’ll play the card minigame as well (with the Net Manager
of Culture Net). So if you’re the type who wants to see every little bit of
dialogue, don’t save over your last save point.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CHOICE #1 -- Business Net
(Business Net)
You can explore the Business Net rooms in your own order. I’m just going to
list the rooms in the order that I visited them. The information booth is
directly behind you.
There’s Presentation Room A, where Zahinell employees are presenting an
expensive new antivirus suit and "Conductor." They plan to sell these to the
terrified masses. But when you try on the antivirus suit, you discover it’s
so heavy you can barely walk in it. The presenter tells everyone you’re joking
when you announce this fact. The Conductor is the hand-held device. Its
function is to increase the Recover Rate of someone injured in Processing
Alive. Your Recover Rate is basically the health/stability of your mind--
the part of you that’s in Processing Alive.
Then there’s Presentation Room B, where a fashion show is going on. When you
go to meet the redhead, she’s a mysterious model who can’t really tell you
anything (other than that she likes swimming and dislikes Mr. Zahinell), but
she seems somehow familiar to you. Then on the left-hand side of the room you
meet another model who can’t tell you anything, but hits on you. Erika vetos
going on a date with her. When you go to the right, there’s another model.
She doesn’t even want to talk to you, and unlike the other models, she punches
you when you cop a feel. That’s pretty much it for this room.
Next you have Meeting Room B. They’re having a meeting about the virus, and
one scientist comments that one of the keys to avoiding infection is the
stability of your mind, i.e. your Recover Rate. Therefore with the Conductor
you can prevent someone in danger from being infected, or heal someone who’s
only just been infected before it’s too late. However, one woman at the
meeting asks if the Conductor has ever actually been tested on an infected
person--and if not, is it really responsible to begin selling it on the market?
Now for Meeting Room A. They’re having a meeting about the Mars Terraforming
Project. It’s totally unimportant.
Next the Information Booth. As with any grid, the info A.I. is where you can
rise or jump. Other than that, the A.I. merely tells you that the Net Manager
is in the Service Booth, but that she’s busy and can’t talk right now. The
A.I. will let you know when the Net Manager is ready, so Erika suggests
checking out more rooms until that happens.
Next the Guest Room, where you meet a fat rich guy and his bodyguard. They’re
not too excited about talking with you. Eventually the VIP bitches about how
all STAND agents are the same: the one that just came by was bossing him
around. You ask Erika "Aren’t we the only STAND agents on the parasite virus
case?" She doesn’t know who it could have been; perhaps only someone posing
as STAND.
And finally the Office. You’re turned away and told they aren’t ready for you
yet.
--> Go back to the Information Booth. When you get there, the A.I. will tell
you the Office is ready for you. Go back to the Office and interview the Net
Manager. She unseals Fantasy Net for you. However, she can’t set your
destination for you because each Zahinell A.I. is only given a small amount of
information for security reasons. She’s in charge of the seal on Fantasy Net,
but the Culture Net A.I. is the one who can actually point you in the right
direction.
Note: It’s not really important, but if you look at the info screen behind
the Net Manager enough times, it will give you a Pet Farm advertisement. You
can call the phone number if you feel like it (you don’t have to). If you
call, you win a prize for being the 10,000th caller. They give you one of
their most popular pets, the Lavics. They’ll keep your Lavic for you and they
give you a Beast Whistle you can use to call it any time you want. Lavics
live on Clusters (money), and you can chose to feed it if you want. After a
total of 70,000 mega-Clusters (which you can feed it whenever you want), Lavic
will turn into Laviina. Either Lavic or Laviina can be called on during
fights to make an attack for you. 70,000 mega-Clusters is a frickin’ lot of
Clusters, and there is absolutely no reason to even try for Laviina unless you
either have the infinite-money hack (see the other GameFAQs walkthroughs) or
really want to see what she looks like.
LAVIC IS THE FIRST OF SEVERAL POSSIBLE "BATTLE HELPERS." There’s a certain way
to get each "helper," a certain way to call on him/her/it during a battle, and
a certain amount of mega-Clusters it will cost you (automatically deducted
from your account). In some cases, like Lavic’s, you have to restore the
helper’s energy with Clusters; in other cases they demand payment. You can
only use each helper once per battle and you can’t use the helper unless you
have enough mega-Clusters in your account. Either Lavic or Laviina will cost
you 3,000 mega-Clusters for each use.
When you go back to the Information Booth, you can jump to Culture Net.
(Culture Net)
FYI, the Information A.I. is in the painting behind you as you first get in.
The three places you can go in Culture Net (other than the A.I.) are the three
books. You can check them all out if you want to, in whatever order you feel
like. However, you’re mainly looking for the Net Manager. There’s nothing
much in the dinosaur book on the left, but the policewoman in the middle book
will tell you that a strange, pretentious man in a really passé suit came by
the other day looking for a "red guy." The green book on the right is
basically a movie room, and contains the Assistant Net Manager. She’ll
confirm who you are (via your ID card) and send STAND the phone number of the
Net Manager so that you can ask her for the Fantasy Net address. When you
leave the Net Manager, your operator will call you. Pick up the phone and
your STAND operator will give you the info.
--> Call the Net Manager. She is on break and doesn’t want to talk to you.
She likes playing cards, though, and agrees to talk to you if you play a card
game with her. She asks you if you’ll play. Say YES.
--> Then she asks if you want her to explain the rules: press C for "yes" and
B for "no." I explained the rules in the Zahinell office above.
After you’ve done the card game thing (you may need to win; I haven’t lost so
I don’t know), she’ll tell you the last known grid number of the missing girl
in Fantasy Net. Now Fantasy Net has become available to you (the number is
automatically inputted; you don’t need to remember it). The last known
location of the girl is the shore of the "Sacred Lake." When you’re done
talking with the Net Manager, you’re ready to jump to Fantasy Net.
--> Jump to Fantasy Net.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CHOICE #2 -- Culture Net
(Culture Net)
FYI, the Information A.I. is in the painting behind you as you first
get in. The three places you can go in Culture Net (other than the
A.I.) are the three books. You can check them all out if you want to,
in whatever order you feel like. However, you’re mainly looking for
the Net Manager. There’s nothing much in the dinosaur book on the
left, but the policewoman in the middle book will tell you that a
strange, pretentious man in a really passé suit came by the other day
looking for a "red guy." The green book on the right is basically a
movie room, and contains the Net Manager. She’ll confirm who you are
(via your ID card) and then you can ask her questions. She can tell
you where Luna went missing, but can’t grant you access to Fantasy Net
because each Zahinell A.I. is only given a small amount of
information/control for security reasons. The Business Net manager
can grant your access. The last known location of the girl is the
shore of the "Sacred Lake."
(Business Net)
You can explore the Business Net rooms in your own order. I’m just
going to list the rooms in the order that I visited them. The
information booth is directly behind you.
There’s Presentation Room A, where Zahinell employees are presenting
an expensive new antivirus suit and "Conductor." They plan to sell
these to the terrified masses. But when you try on the antivirus
suit, you discover it’s so heavy you can barely walk in it. The
presenter tells everyone you’re joking when you announce this fact.
The Conductor is the hand-held device. Its function is to increase
the Recover Rate of someone injured in Processing Alive. Your Recover
Rate is basically the health/stability of your mind--the part of you
that’s in Processing Alive.
Then there’s Presentation Room B, where a fashion show is going on.
When you go to meet the redhead, she’s a mysterious model who can’t
really tell you anything (other than that she likes swimming and
dislikes Mr. Zahinell), but she seems somehow familiar to you. Then
on the left-hand side of the room you meet another model who can’t
tell you anything, but hits on you. Erika vetoes going on a date
with her. When you go to the right, there’s another model. She
doesn’t even want to talk to you, and unlike the other models, she
punches you when you cop a feel. That’s pretty much it for this
room.
Next you have Meeting Room B. They’re having a meeting about the
virus, and one scientist comments that one of the keys to avoiding
infection is the stability of your mind, i.e. your Recover Rate.
Therefore with the Conductor you can prevent someone in danger from
being infected, or heal someone who’s only just been infected before
it’s too late. However, one woman at the meeting asks if the
Conductor has ever actually been tested on an infected person--and if
not, is it really responsible to begin selling it on the market?
Now for Meeting Room A. They’re having a meeting about the Mars
Terraforming Project. It’s totally unimportant. But you still have
to muck around a bit before you can leave.
Next the Information Booth. As with any grid, the info A.I. is where
you can rise or jump. Other than that, the A.I. merely tells you
that the Net Manager is in the Service Booth, but that she’s busy and
can’t talk right now. The A.I. will let you know when the Net
Manager is ready, so Erika suggests checking out more rooms until
that happens.
Next the Guest Room, where you meet a fat rich guy and his bodyguard.
They’re not too excited about talking with you. Eventually the VIP
bitches about how all STAND agents are the same: the one that just
came by was bossing him around. You ask Erika "Aren’t we the only
STAND agents on the parasite virus case?" She doesn’t know who it
could have been; perhaps only someone posing as STAND.
And finally the Office. You’re turned away and told they aren’t
ready for you yet.
--> Go back to the Information Booth. When you get there, the A.I.
will tell you the Office is ready for you. Go back to the Office
and interview the Assistant Net Manager. She says the Net Manager
has risen because her shift ended. Upon further questioning she’ll
offer to give you the Net Manager’s cell number if you’ll verify
your I.D. She sends STAND the phone number because it’s a safer
protocol. Your operator will call you. Pick up the phone and your
STAND operator will give you the info.
--> Call the Net Manager. Her name turns out to be Schieffer (?!),
and she’s apparently practicing some kind of dance training routine.
She unseals Fantasy Net for you.
--> Talk to the Assistant Net Manager again about the Net and she’ll
give Erika a map of Fantasy Net.
Note: It’s not really important, but if you look at the info screen
behind the Net Manager enough times, it will give you a Pet Farm
advertisement. You can call the phone number if you feel like it
(you don’t have to). If you call, you win a prize for being the
10,000th caller. They give you one of their most popular pets, the
Lavics. They’ll keep your Lavic for you and they give you a Beast
Whistle you can use to call it any time you want. Lavics live on
Clusters (money), and you can chose to feed it if you want. After a
total of 70,000 mega-Clusters (which you can feed it whenever you
want), Lavic will turn into Laviina. Either Lavic or Laviina can be
called on during fights to make an attack for you. 70,000
mega-Clusters is a frickin’ lot of Clusters, and there is absolutely
no reason to even try for Laviina unless you either have the
infinite-money hack (see the other GameFAQs walkthroughs) or really
want to see what she looks like.
LAVIC IS THE FIRST OF SEVERAL POSSIBLE "BATTLE HELPERS." There’s a
certain way to get each "helper," a certain way to call on
him/her/it during a battle, and a certain amount of mega-Clusters
it will cost you (automatically deducted from your account). In some
cases, like Lavic’s, you have to restore the helper’s energy with
Clusters; in other cases they demand payment. You can only use each
helper once per battle and you can’t use the helper unless you have
enough mega-Clusters in your account. Either Lavic or Laviina will
cost you 3,000 mega-Clusters for each use.
--> Jump to Fantasy Net.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~This is where the divergent paths reconverge.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(Fantasy Net)
Unless you do it in exactly the right order, Fantasy Net is a pain in the ass.
--> TALK TO ERIKA FIRST. The first place you want to go is the little tunnel
you see in the middle of the waterfall. However, it’s not available for you
to go into until you and Erika discuss whether you see a cave there or not.
If you don’t do this middle tunnel first you will waste a lot of time in
Fantasy Net and many events will not make sense. So follow these steps:
(1) TALK TO ERIKA. Do this a couple of times for safety. (2) LOOK AT THE
TUNNEL IN THE WATERFALL. *****YOU CAN’T GO TO ANY CAVE OR UP THE STAIRS
UNLESS YOU LOOK AT THOSE PLACES FIRST.***** Looking at the waterfall cave will
prompt a conversation with Erika where she will say she detects something back
there. You’ll decide to go check it out. (3) PRESS THE ‘MOVE’ BUTTON UNTIL
IT LANDS ON THE TUNNEL IN THE WATERFALL. Go into the waterfall.
--> You’re in a little room with a voice you can’t identify. Keep looking
around, talking occasionally, until you find the frog. (She’s called Ganran,
or "Wise Dragon," but she looks like a frog. Serge will comment on this.)
Talk to her a bunch of times about various things. She tells you that the
visiting swordfighter was cursed. She doesn’t know what kind of curse or if
there’s a cure. She also tells you not to go near the Sacred Lake, because
it’s cursed. Now go back.
If you go up the stairs, you’ll see the Sacred Lake. However, you’ll find it
impossible to swim in. It always feels like something is pulling you up. You
cannot go into the Sacred Lake without special equipment. Abandon it for now
and explore the other caves.
--> First, look at the other two caves (you can’t go there until you look at
them). GO TO THE CAVE ON THE RIGHT FIRST.
--> A note on walking through these caves: Often in order to get where you
want to go you need to turn around first. After leaving each room you’re
pointed towards the exit, so you need to turn around in order to get back to
your original crossroads and chose another direction.
--> From the entrance to the right-hand cave, go straight until you hit a door.
Look at the floating tablet and you discover a prophecy on it. It says when
the Child of the Sun, the Tears of the Land, and the Silver Stage all come
together, the Messenger from the Moon will come. Erika postulates that the
first two are items and the Silver Stage is a place. Serge bitches that if he
has to go looking for items and places he might as well be playing a virtual
RPG.
--> Now leave the room. Go straight, turn around, and then go left twice.
You’ll enter a room with a green flame. You’ll need to look at it first. When
you touch it, it’s not hot. You decide it’s probably the Child of the Sun,
and take some of it with you.
--> Leave that room. Go straight, turn around, straight, then left. You
enter a room where you meet a sneezing turtle named Senkyuu. Talk to him
until you get a list of options, then talk through the list of options. He
tells you that Ganran can solve any worry for you. You deduce that Ganran is
Fantasy Net’s Master A.I. Senkyuu explains that Ganran has gotten weird
lately because her daughter Mirei is missing after diving into the Sacred Lake.
Mirei used to sing beautifully, and all the residents of Fantasy Net have been
wonky lately because her song used to calm them and give them peace, but now
they never hear it anymore. Then he says that the Messenger from the Moon
grants dreams. He doesn’t know anything about the missing girl you’re looking
for, but he thinks the Messenger might know about both Mirei and the missing
girl. He’s pretty sure Ganran knows what’s up with the Sacred Lake, but she
won’t be able to talk about it unless something can calm her down.
--> Now look at Senkyuu until he explains to you that Amuru has taken his
shell. That’s why he’s sneezing; he’s cold. Talk to him again and he’ll tell
you that Amuru has gotten totally out of hand since Mirei left. Then he asks
you if you’ll do him a favor. Say YES. He asks you to get his shell back
from Amuru for him. You agree, and he promises to give you the ocarina Mirei
gave him when you give him the shell back. But he cautions you that Amuru is
more dangerous than she looks, because she’s controlling the local god.
--> Leave this room. Go straight, turn around, then go straight twice. You’ll
enter a door to a new cave. Go straight twice, then left. You enter a new
room.
By looking around you figure out that the lake is the "Tears of the Land,"
since it springs up from the ground. The "Silver Stage" occurs when the full
moon is up. You use the fire in your item box and cast it onto the lake.
You still have a little bit left after doing this. The Messenger appears.
Talk to her (the Messenger’s gender is unknown, but I’ll designate her as
female). She doesn’t know what happened to Mirei or the missing girl, and she
doesn’t know what’s in the Sacred Lake, but after Mirei’s disappearance nobody
goes there anymore. She does know that normal humans can’t swim in the Sacred
Lake without equipment, and explains that since Mirei was always swimming
there, Ganran must know what equipment is necessary. She gives you a musical
note, explaining that when you put musical notes into the ocarina it will play
Mirei’s song. Then she says her goodbyes, saying you can ask those from the
"high plateau" for further information.
--> When you’re done with the above, leave this room. Go straight, turn
around, right, straight. You’ll find Amuru there with Senkyuu’s shell. Look
at everything, use your analyzer on everything you can, then use everything.
Talk to her until she gets repetitive. Looking at her chest again will cause
Erika to try to reason with her. You discover she stole the shell because she
was pissed off at Senkyuu for not giving her the ocarina. She’d found a
musical note and wanted to use it to hear Mirei’s song, but Senkyuu wouldn’t
give her the instrument, so she stole his shell.
--> Eventually Amuru challenges you to a duel. First she gives you a logic
problem. The answer is 2. Say NO, you don’t want to hear it again. Then
enter 2 on the keypad.
--> When fighting Amuru, use the knife. It saves ammo. You’re going lose
this fight anyway, because she sics a god on you. It’s okay. You decide to go
straighten out this god business and come back to get Amuru later.
--> Leave this room and exit this cave back into the original cave (if
necessary use the map to find your way). It looks like there are more rooms in
here but you can’t actually go anywhere else.
--> Exit the cave completely to stand outside with Erika again.
--> Now enter the cave on the left. Go straight, then right. You enter a room
with a sleeping tree spirit. You can look around etc. if you want to.
Otherwise take my path: look at the spirit, talk to the spirit, then try to
use the fire on him. Erika will stop you. Try to shake him awake. It doesn’t
work. Now threaten him with the fire. He wakes up. Ask him questions--he
mumbles unhelpful answers. Threaten him with the fire again. He says rumor
has it there’s some kind of unknown but terrible thing in the lake. That’s
probably what got Mirei. He wishes he could see Mirei again. He gives you a
musical note. You have now used up all the fire.
--> Talk to the spirit again. You ask him about the god Amuru’s got on her
side and he tells you it’s the protector god A.I. for Fantasy Net. Amuru is
using a copy of this god’s controller to make him do her bidding. If you get
the original controller, you’ll be able to call on the god for help (though he
uses Clusters for energy, so it will cost you Clusters to use him) and the
original controller will always beat the copy. The god is a little insane,
according to the spirit, but you just say "yes" to whatever he asks you.
--> Talk to the spirit one last time. He tells you you can get the controller
by going to the floating stones in the sky and chanting a spell. The spirit
tells you the spell, but don’t worry. You’ll forget it, but it won’t matter.
--> Leave this room. Go straight, turn around, then go straight. Enter the
room with the protector god. Answer "yes" to all his questions. Look at/use
one of the flying stones, I believe the one on the right, to discover a scroll
which will help you control the god. (You forgot the spell but accidentally
say it in conversation with Erika, so all is well.) NOTE: THIS GOD IS THE
SECOND "BATTLE HELPER." You can use this magical document to call on him
during battles. He will cost 1000 mega-Clusters per use.
--> Leave the room and the cave to stand outside with Erika again.
--> Enter the right-hand tunnel. Go back and fight Amuru. You can beat her
with the knife this time. Once you’ve beaten her, get the shell back. Then
you’ll automatically ask her for her musical note, promising to play Mirei’s
song for her.
--> Go back to the turtle and give him his shell back. He gives you the
ocarina, explaining that when you put the musical notes into it in the right
order, it automatically plays Mirei’s melody. Ganran has the last musical
note.
--> Leave the cave to go stand outside with Erika again.
--> Return to Ganran. When you ask her for the musical note, she gives it to
you.
--> Play the ocarina. The melody it plays changes depending on the order you
put the notes in. Mirei’s melody is: red, pink, blue, purple.
--> Talk to Ganran. She says now she can once again use her knowledge to help
people. Ganran explains that while she referred to it as a curse, actually
what got the "girl swordfighter" was the monster in the Sacred Lake. It ate
her, and Mirei as well. It’s a monster that changes its form. You and Erika
conclude that it must be a virus monster. When you ask her about the Sacred
Lake, she gives you Dragon Oxygen Tanks that will allow you to breathe
underwater and will also enable you to swim without floating to the top.
The tanks will automatically refill as soon as you surface and can be used an
infinite number of times. Each tank has a different number of minutes’ worth
of oxygen in it. There is a complex network of caves and tunnels below the
surface of the lake and they each take a different length of time to get to.
You can only equip yourself with a tank in a place where the air pressure is
stable, which basically means you need a room, not a passageway (naturally you
can always equip when you’re above the surface).
--> Leave Ganran and climb the stairs.
Now it’s finally time to go swimming in the Sacred Lake! Much like the rest
of Fantasy Net, you have to do everything in order or it’s a colossal pain in
the ass. When you climb the stairs to the lake, Erika tells you there’s only
enough oxygen for one person to make a thorough investigation, and you’re
elected. She’ll stay here and do the intelligence-and-support role. You’ll
encounter various low-level enemies while underwater, all of which can be
defeated with your knife (or escaped, if you just don’t feel like dealing).
They make you money.
--> Arm yourself with the 16-minute tank. Dive into the water by using it.
Endure a talk with Amuru and you’re ready to go. Your first goal is a sunken
ship. Go straight, straight, right, straight.
--> Go into the ship’s control room so you can equip yourself with the next
tank. You can look around the room and all if you want, but this ship is just
a jumping-off point, so to speak. Equip yourself with the 17-minute tank,
then exit the room and the ship.
--> You want to go to a cave on your right (you can check it out on the map),
but the way you get there is counterintuitive. First go left, then turn
around. Now go straight three times. Once you’re in the cave, explore.
You’ll find one locked room and one room with a key in it (unhappily, it
doesn’t fit the lock).
--> Get the key in the unlocked room and then net jump back to where you were
(choose Fantasy Network), since you don’t have enough oxygen to return
yourself. Once you’re above water, all your tanks refill. Equip yourself
with the 11-minute tank.
--> Dive into the water and go straight, then left, then straight. Now you’re
in a different cave. You find a locked door, but automatically try the key,
which opens it. Inside you find another key, which you (correctly) assume is
for the locked room in the other cave. Note: There is another room in the
cave, but it doesn’t really contain anything (it’s there so you can re-equip
or jump if you go to this cave first and therefore don’t yet have the key).
--> In one of the rooms in this cave, equip yourself with the 17-minute tank.
Then swim to the sunken ship. This will require turning around once you get
all the way out of the cave (you go straight for a bit first), then everything
is as before.
--> Go to the control room, arm yourself with the 16-minute tank, then swim
back to the cave with the remaining locked door.
Boss fight: If you use the Analyzer, it will tell you that this monster’s
level of viral infection is actually not too advanced. There is some chance
for recovery. It then tells you that attacking the infected parts (i.e., the
transformed parts) will get you the best results--this concept generally
applies to all boss characters. If you want to be told the weak points, scroll
down a little.
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1 - Fin, 2 - Fish’s mouth, 3 - The spiky fin on the fish’s head.
Finish the fight, then read below.
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You ask Erika if the girl can be saved, and Erika says if you perform first
aid and then take her back to headquarters, she’ll be just fine. Cut scene.
Contents of cut scene: just as you are about to call headquarters, the Net
Army comes and deletes the girl’s data, causing brain death--killing her.
The commander of the army, Colonel Gary, explains that she couldn’t be left
alive in case the infection was greater than analyzed, so he killed her as a
precaution.
Serge and Erika completely freak out at him, because killing her was totally
unnecessary. Then Melody comes to tell the commander that what he has done is
against Mars law. He and Melody basically have a pissing match, citing law at
each other. The position of the Net Army is that the virus outbreak situation
qualifies as the type of emergency situation that invokes martial law,
effectively allowing the Net Army to do whatever the hell they want to re:
the outbreak until it’s contained. The army leaves, but Melody is extremely
upset. She assumes it’s a bug in her programming, but Serge tells her it
means she’s becoming more human.
Finally, Melody tells Erika and Serge that STAND has just received a report of
a virus outbreak in Business Net. They are both to report to Business Net
immediately.
--> Talk to Melody. Currently Net Army A.I. soldiers are controlling the area
and no communications are going in or out. A new type of virus monster has
infiltrated the Information Grid, and all people who were using Business Net
at the time and are not injured are being held in Presentation Room A. The
injured are being held elsewhere until the army confirms to what degree
they’re infected.
You are automatically transferred to Business Net by Melody. When you get
there, you decide to take stock of the situation by checking out all of the
rooms.
(Business Net)
--> Check out all of the rooms. Do so in whatever order best pleases your
soul, I guess, but I’ll take you through in my order if you need summaries of
what’s going on. Note: An army robot is guarding each room. In many cases you
have to talk to him before you can actually investigate anything.
First I went to Presentation Room A. That’s where the Net Army is keeping all
the uninjured people. A model tells you that it was a red monster who did all
this. He just suddenly attacked, then suddenly left. Further interrogation
of the people there yields confirmation that it was the red monster as well as
the fact that one man saw a strange guy in a really passé suit before the
incident. He disappeared around the same time as the monster. He was black.
Then I went to Presentation Room B. Inside an army AIS tells you that there
are several corpses and they’re holding one injured person. You ask why the
hell they aren’t getting her treatment, and he responds that the Net Army has
decided not to let any injured persons move from secured locations until the
incident has been fully investigated. Injured people are more susceptible to
viral infection, so they’re taking precautions. This pisses you off in a big
way, because the injured person could die before the investigation is finished.
Note: You don’t get to question the injured model until you’ve looked at and
analyzed the dead one. You talk to the wounded model and promise to come back
and help her.
Then for a change I went to the Office. You meet an AIS there who explains
that the Office was not attacked. He explains this many, many times, in fact.
He tells you over and over "this room does not require investigation."
Next I went to the Guest Room. The rich guy is injured and his bodyguard is
dead. You look around and see bullet marks on the floor...that look just like
the ones made by your brother’s electromagnetic piercing gun. As an aside,
you ask Erika why the dead bodies are floating. She says it’s a complicated
question, but the simple answer is that their gravity parameters are broken.
You have to basically bribe the rich guy into talking with you by letting him
believe you’ll get him out of here if he cooperates with the investigation,
which is awesome because you don’t actually have the right to override the
Net Army in this case. He’ll be pissed off when he finds out. For now, you
find out that the virus monster was an overwhelmingly powerful one: a red
monster with a huge claw for a left hand. He didn’t have a weapon; he just
fired bullets from his own mouth.
Okay, time for the Information Booth. Absolutely nothing of interest here.
Then I went to Meeting Room A. Nothing particularly interesting here, but you
have to look around some before you can leave.
Last but not least, Meeting Room B. They have one injured person, a scientist.
He knows the name of the monster: Red Claw. Red Claw is known to be
ridiculously stronger than all other known virus monsters. The scientist
thinks if he had the Conductor he could be healed, since he hasn’t yet been
infected by the virus.
Now you hear an announcement that the Recover Rate of the grid as a whole is
dangerously unstable because of the presence of virus monsters combined with
the presence of people who are injured and therefore susceptible to infection.
Everyone is ordered to evacuate immediately. If the Recover Rates of the grid
and the injured people aren’t raised, they might turn into virus monsters.
You decide that you have no choice but to find the army commander and try to
talk to him.
--> Go to Presentation Room B; that’s where Col. Gary is. He’s getting ready
to nuke format the entire grid, which would kill the injured people that can’t
rise. Col. Gary’s theory is that this is safer than letting them get
infected, and he has the Master A.I. to back him on this, although the Master
A.I. would be satisfied merely with nuking the active threat in the grid.
You, Serge, are extremely pissed off. Then the Master A.I. orders evacuation
again, saying the danger has become even greater.
--> Talk to Gary. Colonel Gary tells you you have half an hour to do whatever
you want, but if you’re not gone by then you’ll get nuked along with
everything else.
--> Talk to Erika. Erika points out that it takes a little time to prepare to
nuke format something--if you can restore stability to the net and therefore
turn off the system alarm that’s currently sounding, the Master A.I. (which is
objective and impartial) will rescind the nuke format order and forbid it from
being carried out. Erika says there are two things setting off the system
alarm (the presence of a virus monster and the presence of injured people), so
you need to take care of both of those issues and then the alarm will stop
sounding. First you’ll heal the injured; if you get the conductor and return
to STAND with it, Ash can fix it.
--> Grab the Conductor. However, it turns out when you grab it that the
Conductor is totally irreparable. You begin looking for another one.
--> Talk to the presenter first. She will tell you that yes, there is another
one. Then look at the antivirus suit, then use the antivirus suit. If you
try to just look and use, it won’t work. It’s stupid, but there you have it.
Now you have a conductor.
--> Go to each injured person and heal them. You do this by using the
Conductor on them. Erika will ask you whether you want to hear the directions;
press C for yes and B for no. Directions: The Conductor automatically scans
and diagnoses the patient. On the monitor you see a representation of the
person’s body. The red part is the unstable/injured part, which will crash if
you leave it alone. The machine has red, green, and blue medicines. Above
the image of the body is the combination of medicines the patient needs,
represented as a color. You’re also told how much medicine the patient
requires. What you have to do is combine the red, green, and blue medicines
to create the RGB color represented, and then fill the syringe-style meter
with the correct number of ccs. If you then press the button underneath the
monitor, the Conductor will inject the medicine into the patient. If you did
it right, boom, cured. If you screwed up, you made them more unstable and you
have to give them a different dosage of medicine. Note: The rich guy doesn’t
trust you. After trying to heal him you’re rebuffed; you have to talk him
into it. Then you can heal him.
Now you’ve healed all the injured people. All you have left is killing the
rest of the virus monsters. But Erika says she’s no longer detecting any
virus monsters in Business Net. You decide to tell Col. Gary you’ve fixed the
problem and get him to abort the nuke.
However, when you do so Col. Gary points out that it’s very nice and all, but
the overall instability of the grid remains, and the alarm hasn’t stopped.
He gives you until a [a deadline determined by your Saturn Internal Clock] to
get your shit together, or he’ll nuke the whole place as planned. Erika
suggests that you recheck each part of the grid looking for something you must
have missed. You can do so if you like and discover things on your own (don’t
worry, you probably have quite enough time), or read on below.
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Go back to the Office. That AIS from before was suspicious. When you get
back there, he yells at you that no investigation is necessary. It’s weird
that he’s guarding the room if nothing is there. Question him further. He
starts making weird answers, as if he’s got wires crossed and can’t quite talk
right. Take this opportunity to look at and use everything in the room
multiple times. You don’t find anything. Start looking and poking at the
AIS. He’s acting weirder and weirder. Keep looking, touching, and talking
until you actually hear your voice talking to him; that’s the signal that
you’re close. You ask him if he’s broken. He tries answer you but he’s
obviously gone berserk.
Erika tells you to destroy his internal logic-circuit module. It’s inside his
helmet. If you shoot him anywhere else he will transform and kill you.
You manage to take the robot down but haven’t actually killed it. Suddenly,
Smiley appears (remember him? He’s one of your former Blue Metal comrades,
whom you saw in the holograph picture) and kills it before it can kill you.
You’re shocked to see him alive. He tells you he’s joined STAND. He’s
realized that being in a stupid battle corps like Blue Metal was his mistake,
and he’s joined STAND so that he can operate as a lone wolf. With no one to
get in his way or drag him down, he’s going to take down Red Claw by himself.
You tell him that his pride will one day be his downfall. He insults you for
a while (after all, you almost let that AIS kill you), and then leaves. You
go to tell Col. Gary that the threat has been neutralized.
Col. Gary doesn’t believe you and tells you you’re wasting your time trying to
trick him. Erika begs him to actually investigate. He refuses, but just then
the Master A.I. comes over the loudspeaker and announces that the Recover Rate
of the grid has been stabilized, then aborts the nuke format.
Naturally the Colonel is less than pleased that you were right and he wrong.
When you tell him one of his own AISes was a cause of the instability, he’s
even more nonplussed. He takes his men and leaves.
Erika is worried because although the AIS’s behavior pattern suggested
infection with the virus, her analysis shows that it wasn’t infected.
She concludes that there must have been some kind of bug in his programming.
But for various reasons it doesn’t make sense that it’s a bug endemic to AIS
programming, so someone must have artificially injected the bug, so to speak.
Perhaps Red Claw did it. But was his motivation to challenge the Net Army?
Or strike a blow against the Zahinell Co.? You need to go back to headquarters
and think this over.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+ +
+ INFECTION #03: VIOLET +
+ +
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
(STAND Headquarters)
In the Information Grid, your operator tells you that Zahinell Co. has made no
formal statement about the Business Net fiasco and in fact still doesn’t
acknowledge anything that happened to the girl killed by the Net Army. You
ask her about Smiley and it turns out his personal record was apparently
altered to make him officially MIA in order to protect his identity. He’s been
working for STAND for a while in the Vicious Criminals division and has caught
some dangerous most-wanted criminals. Erika says that he’s after Red Claw,
but should his work really have anything to do with the virus case? Your
operator responds that Red Claw is special. Unlike all the rest of the virus
monsters, it works to achieve specific goals. Therefore it’s been put on the
Vicious Criminals list.
Your operator also tells you one Net Agent has theorized that Red Claw is
behind the whole virus outbreak. When you ask her who, she hems and haws, and
Erika cuts in, saying it was her former partner. Then you ask more questions
about Red Claw and his weapons. The only data we have on Red Claw seems to
indicate his weapon is a lot like the electromagnetic piercing gun Leon used.
You wonder if he stole it from Leon.
Erika speculates that Red Claw could be like SCOW: a Recallid, a bodiless
consciousness who lives all the time in Processing Alive without ever rising.
In other words, they may have form in Processing Alive, but they have no
physical bodies in the real world. Basically they’re living clumps of data.
In order to become such a being, you generally need a cyber operation where
you get a Recallid Body; this body protects you against crashing from the
ITERID Effect. Alternatively, someone with a native ability, a strong psyche,
can become a Recallid merely by willing it. That’s the kind SCOW is. That
type doesn’t even need physical data in Processing Alive, so they have no form
at all, not even a Recallid Body. But only a very few people have this native
ability. You wonder if your brother could have become a Recallid.
--> At some point in the conversation people notice you look and feel a
little sick, and you get sent to see Ash in case you’ve been infected.
You have no choice, so just go. It turns out you just have Netsickness, which
happens when people with little diving experience are under for too long.
After obsessively wondering why Melody and Ash are together, you talk to Ash
about various things, including the incidents in Fantasy Net. The virus
monster must have been hiding in the Sacred Lake for some time. Zahinell’s
virus detection program didn’t detect the virus because of a fatal flaw:
there is a spike in data access just before you turn into a monster, but after
a little while it normalizes. So if the original monster-transformation
happened in another net, you could let a stabilized monster into your net, and
your antivirus system would be useless.
When you talk to him about the vaccine, Ash gives you a shotgun. This is a
better gun than the blaster, so love it. But remember it uses different ammo.
If you go back to the Information Grid after this conversation, SCOW calls you.
You’re told to find Violet, but when you talk to your operator she says nobody
in the information trade goes by that name. You have her investigate the
symbol, but nothing comes of it.
Another message from Violet comes through. It says that a key figure in the
virus case is Dr. McNaughton.
--> If you talk about Violet’s symbol again, your operator will help you
figure out what Violet’s real voice sounds like by removing the noise and the
filters Violet is using. It’s a mini-game. You figure out what filters to
remove in order to listen to her actual voice. It’s random, so you’re on your
own. Once you’re done with that there’s a little noise left on the recording,
and Erika and your operator deduce the likely location from that: the
satellite colony LEMURIA. That’s also where Dr. McNaughton is being held.
He’s a genius scientist who’s an expert in Processing Alive, artificial
intelligence, and genetic construction as well as Mars’ best-known criminal.
His greatest achievement was the development of the COLDIAK Theory, which
extended the amount of time humans could spend in Processing Alive. He was
arrested a year ago and is still in jail. When you ask about McNaughton a
couple of times, your operator checks with Ash, since Ash said he’d look into
setting up an appointment with an expert on the virus. Erika correctly
predicts that this "expert" is Dr. McNaughton.
You need to wait for permission to interview him to come through, but in the
course of your conversation you decide to go to LEMURIA and wait there so that
you’ll be on hand.
(LEMURIA)
When you get there you receive permission for your interview.
--> Talk to Erika and discover there are two areas to the colony, Alpha and
Beta. Beta Area is closed off right now; you make a note to yourself to find
a way in later. You’ll conduct your interview in the special diveport in
Alpha Area. Now you go to the elevator (it’s the only place you CAN go).
--> Talk to Erika. You’ll discover that Dr. McNaughton is famous as the world
expert on artificial intelligence. She also says that he seems to research
purely for his own intellectual enjoyment, not to better humanity or anything.
--> Take the elevator to the Alpha Area (second floor).
If you go straight from the elevator, you’re in the center of Alpha Area.
There are some living quarters to the left and everything else is to the right.
You want to hit everywhere eventually, but you need to start with your
interview. You can’t go anywhere else successfully until after you’ve
interviewed Dr. McNaughton.
--> Go right, then straight. You meet the man who oversees the diveports.
He thinks you’re there for fun, so show him your I.D. to tell him who you are.
--> Before you’re allowed into the special diveport for your interview you’ll
need to pass a fingerprint and retina scan. That should be pretty
self-explanatory.
--> Go left to get to the special booth.
--> Touch the flashing screen.
--> When the other screen flashes, look at it. Now you have both Ash and
Dr. McNaughton in front of you.
McNaughton turns out to be a sort of sane mad scientist who enjoys jail
because it’s the best place to think quietly. You talk to him as often as you
can about as many things as you can. First, you ask him about the virus. He
claims he’s never created a virus, and then when Ash reminds him of some that
he’s reported to have created, he says he didn’t create them; they infected
his systems and they were so pathetic he merely leveled them up a little.
Then he goes on to explain to you why the virus can’t have been born and bred
in Processing Alive--a program like that would require such high-level
processing that within the structure of the net, only something along the
lines of a Master A.I. could carry it out. But a Master A.I. would never
allow a system that could version up (in other words, something essentially
self-aware) other than itself to exist in the net. And even if such a thing
could exist, the Master A.I. wouldn’t be passive enough to sit back and let it
function like the virus has been. However, it doesn’t make sense that someone
brought the virus into Processing Alive, because there are strict checks done
on the data brought there.
Then you ask him about Melody, and he confirms that he created her main system.
You object to how unemotional she is. He says computers don’t need emotions;
it’s either 0 or 1 with them. He goes on to explain that each A.I. needs a
sense of purpose. Since they have no self-preservation instincts, if A.I.s
lose their purpose or if the demands made of them are absurd, their sense of
self may collapse and they run the risk of completely falling apart (dying, if
you will). So Serge shouldn’t ask her to try to understand the ridiculous
emotional needs of humans who want her to spout jokes on the battlefield; he
should just let her do her job. You can give an A.I. memories, but you can’t
input emotions into her--although with time, she may change on her own.
When you ask him about Violet, he tells you he doesn’t know anything, but that
if she was talking about him she was probably someone from an underground net.
There’s an illegal diveport somewhere in this colony that connects to an
underground net.
Now the interview is over, and you can leave the special diveport. If you go
right, you’ll hit normal diveports. However, nothing interesting will happen
there.
When you exit, you’re taken back to the elevators. You want to explore all of
Alpha Area. You can do so on your own, or you can follow the steps I took:
--> Turn around. Go right, then left, then straight. This is the maintenance
area; you meet the Old Man. When you look around the room you see he has a
bunch of Transers, but he insists they’re other things (like space toilets),
so he’s obviously hiding something. He claims to know everything about
everything, but when you ask him about the underground net he’s suddenly deaf.
When you ask him about Beta Area, after a bunch of runaround tells you the
password to get there is 5621.
--> Leave the room, turn around, and go left. You meet the guy in charge of
the storage area. He doesn’t want to talk to you.
--> Go straight, turn around, and go right. You meet the cop. He tells you
Beta Area is closed off, but he’d consider letting you in for 100 Mars dollars.
You don’t have any Mars dollars. :P You ask him about the underground net,
Violet, and the virus, but he claims no knowledge.
--> Leave the room and go straight. Turn around, then go left to the living
area. Note about the living area: you can explore on your own in any order
you want. There are only 2 rooms you must hit, and they are always accessible.
However, who’s home in the "optional" rooms seems to depend on whom you
have/haven’t already visited (at least, I’m pretty sure that’s how it
works...). So depending on which order you visit people in you have different
experiences.
Here’s one way:
--> Go left, then left. Enter the first room to find a sleepy guy and his
cat. Nothing interesting happens.
--> Leave the room. Go straight, turn around, straight, left. There’s no one
home.
--> Turn around and go straight, turn around, right.
--> Enter a room with a bear. The bear’s not going to move right now. But
when you look at the monitor you see it says "Playnet Heaven."
--> Leave the room and go straight twice, then left. You’re back where you
started. This time go up the stairs. Then go right, straight, right.
Nobody’s home.
--> Turn around, go right, turn around, left.
--> Enter the room to find a woman with a monkey. On interrogation, she calls
the bear "Nora’s panda" and says if you leave it alone it’ll eventually go
away.
--> Leave the room and go left, straight, straight.
--> Enter the room and meet a shopwoman. Talk to her. She’ll recommend
against using the illegal diveport, because it’s the most dangerous place in
this dangerous colony. When you say you have no choice, she gives you a blank
disk and tells you to take it with you. She’s not going to give you any more
info or stuff for free, so scram. But she’s getting ready to open for
business, so if you come back later you can buy from her store.
Completion check: Before you leave Alpha Area, (1) do you have a disk?
(2) have you seen the bear?
--> Go back downstairs and back to the elevator.
Once at the elevator, if you enter the password you got from the Old Man
you’ll get to Beta Area (though if you talk to Erika first you’ll hit on her
and she’ll sort of respond...vaguely...kind of...). You discover Beta Area is
a disco. At this point there are two choices you can make. On the right-hand
side of the screen is a woman you can pump for information; her name is Linda
and she’s sitting on the couch. If you turn to your left you’ll hit a
bathroom, where there’s another woman named Sheena whom you can pump for
information. If you choose Sheena things take longer. However, I think your
dealings with Linda are out of character, so I prefer Sheena. Another thing
to note is, a plot point will be different later on because of this choice.
If you pick Linda, you will go to Relive Net before Resort Net. If you pick
Sheena, it will be the other way around.
FOR LINDA: You’ll need to give her your gun (your real gun, remember, this is
the real world) before she’ll tell you anything. This is why I think she’s
less in-character for you than Sheena, because you care about your gun. Then
she’ll give you info: ask the punk in charge of the storage area. He’s a
former hacker and he knows where the illegal diveport is.
FOR SHEENA: She’ll only talk to you if you give her a pearl (and it’s now
illegal to ship pearls from Earth, so they’re not easy to get). In order to
get one, you have to go back to Alpha Area to get it. First, go visit the
Old Man. When you tell him Beta Area is a disco, he says "What?! I want to go
too!" Then you have the opportunity to talk to him about lots of things.
He won’t be useful in any way except that he’ll tell you he thinks he saw a
pearl in the Junk Shop. You go back to visit the shopwoman. She’ll still
tell you she’s not open for business yet, but if you look at her necklace, you
see it’s a pearl necklace. You must look at the necklace before doing
anything else. Now talk to her, and she’ll tell you the necklace is precious
to her, and it’s a long story. Choose YES, you want to hear it. Eight years
ago she left her beloved Earth for Mars because it was becoming impossible to
live there. Then she wonders if she’s told you some of the background info
yet, and she hasn’t. Choose NO. She’ll tell you she had a husband. He didn’t
want to come to space with her. Choose NO again because she’s skipped
something else. Oh right, he stopped emailing. Then three years ago out of
the blue she got a package with nothing inside but that necklace. After she’s
finished telling you this story, she feels better about life and gives you the
necklace. Your thought is, whatever. Go back to the disco and give it to
Sheena, and she’ll give you the info. She tells you to ask the cop and he’ll
show you the way. He’s obsessed with money and if you pay him a fee, he’ll
tell you how to get to the illegal diveport.
--> Once you’ve taken care of one of the disco girls, go back to Alpha Area
and visit whichever man you got told to visit. Bully him into giving you the
info, which is that the illegal diveport is in the abandoned apartment in the
residential area (i.e. the one with the bear).
--> Go to the residential area. Note: If you want to buy something, the
shopwoman in the Junk Shop is now open for business. Otherwise, go back to
the room with the bear.
--> The bear is gone. Go into the room beyond. You talk to the punks and
butt heads for a while. They’re bouncers, and they charge you 10% of your
Clusters on hand--payable when you dive--to get into the net.
--> The man sitting on the right needs to be shaken awake, but once you do
that he’ll sell Erika a piece of paper that’s supposed to come in handy later.
--> Look at and then use the little shuttered-up window. You tell the robot
you want to dive and she assigns you Transers 2 and 3. However, she says you
need a registration disk before you can dive, which you acquire in the scanning
suite.
--> Go to the "S" door (the scanning suite) and ask the blue-haired chick to
register you to dive. She says you need to get "permission" first before you
can get scanned in and dive. So you have to leave.
--> Go into the room marked "T." Inside you’ll find either the punk or the
cop. Butt heads until Sherry comes to break it up. She’s an old friend of
Erika’s. She’ll make a deal with the punk/cop to basically go on a date with
him if he tells the scanning chick to let you dive.
--> Now go get yourself scanned in the scanning suite. You’ll need to give
her your blank disk.
--> Finally you can go back to the "T" room and use the Transer to actually
dive to the illegal net. Do so.
--> Talk to Erika. You and Erika decide that Erika will stay behind and guard
your body, since if you both dive both of your real-world bodies will be
vulnerable. Dive.
--> In addition to your I.D. you’ll need to insert your registration disk.
Then go to Resort Network or Relive Network, whichever shows on the screen
(this is determined by your choice of Linda or Sheena).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CHOICE SHEENA: Resort Network
(Resort Network)
Erika tells you you’re in a place with 3 available grids, but that she can’t
figure out how to get to any of them, except that there may be invisible
stairways. In fact, she is correct. If you bring up the map you’ll see that
there are three invisible stairways. In general, the way to climb one is to
stand directly facing one of the statues and walk towards the statue. The
statue usually marks a turning point in the invisible stairway.
--> First go to the Bar (it’s called Waihaa, which is basically a play on
"Hawaii"). You reach it via the stairway marked by the statue which is stands
a ways apart from the other two areas.
In the Bar area, there are a wealth of people you can talk to, notably two
junkies, the Owner, a waitress named Cisco, and a Bartender. I’ll explain the
general results of this investigation below in a couple of summary paragraphs.
--> Go to the male junkie. Look his cocktail glass and then analyze it to get
data for Ash.
--> Talk to him.
--> Talk to the female junkie.
--> Go right and talk to the Owner.
You ask everyone about Violet and Recallids, and you learn that there’s a
Recallid who’s a frequent patron of the bar, but not much else. You do,
however, learn a bit about Merry Coke. It’s a cyber drug that people like to
mix into their cocktails. It’s the most popular drug in Processing Alive
right now, and is said to be a combination of various other drugs. There’s a
rumor that the owner of this bar is key player in the drug trade.
Fun tidbit: the owner is drinking "Romanée-Conta," a blatant riff on the
legendary wine Romanée-Conti.
--> Leave the Owner, go left, and talk to Cisco.
--> Leave her and go left.
The Recallid who’s a frequent customer is there; he’s the fat man with the
weird mechanical arm. He’s sweating and in pain. You ask him what’s wrong,
and he explains that his wiring is messed up and he’s being fried by electric
shocks as a result. You enter a minigame. You have to connect the wire to
the red plug in the upper-right. You need to string it through nodes to get
it there, but the nodes are all oriented differently and you can only string
the wire through openings (yellow tube-like ones). When you complete this he
thanks you and introduces himself as II-10 Kirk (pronounced "Two-Ten Kirk").
Talk to him some more. He says there’s also another Recallid in Resort Net,
in the "maze grid." If you tell this man you know II-10 Kirk, he’ll help you
out.
--> Go talk to the bartender. Talk to him at least twice about the information
broker you’re looking for (it’s the top thing on the talk menu). He tells you
a beautiful woman comes by sometimes, although he doesn’t know if she’s an
information broker or not.
--> Leave the bar and go to the Blue Oyster. Getting there is a little
different in that there’s no statue. You just have to find the foot of the
invisible staircase (hint: it’ll involve starting from a green square).
Remember there’s a turn in the stair as well, and then you’re there. If you
don’t feel like going to the Blue Oyster during this stage of the game you can
put off the below trip for another time. Actually you don’t technically have
to do it at all; it’s just an interesting and potentially useful side point.
As it turns out, the maze-like Blue Oyster is a gay dance club. Note:
beware--you don’t always exit a room from the same door you entered. In one
of the rooms is a very butch man you call "big brother." When he hears you’re
a friend of II-10 Kirk, he decides you need his help and he should give it to
you! But he only lends a hand to those he respects, so he asks you a series
of questions about the true nature of manhood to ascertain whether you have
the proper understanding. The answers are NO, YES, YES, YES, NO. He accepts
you as a comrade and gives you a spiked armband. When you use it, he’ll come
to your aid--but he’ll charge you Clusters for it. BIG BROTHER IS THE THIRD
"BATTLE HELPER." You call him via the armband; he costs 5000 mega-Clusters per
use.
Also fun, though completely uninformative, is the "Mistress" of the club.
When you’ve had your fill of the Blue Oyster, go back to the Bar. If this is
the "Resort Net first" option, nobody’s at the Dream Beach yet, so there’s no
point in going there now. If you do so, the beautiful woman the bartender
mentioned is at the bar.
--> Go to the bar. The woman’s name is Mirai K. Kaku. You ask her if she’s
recently sent a voice-disguised "love message" to someone. She basically
tells you absolutely nothing. Turns out she’s not the right woman.
--> Now go to the Dream Beach. When you enter the store (Shop Orgel), you’ll
meet the Shark. You tell him you haven’t discovered anything and he tells you
to try a different underground net. He’ll give you the passcode to Relive Net,
where Orgel as a sister shop called the Adjuster Shop. You can buy stuff from
him or not. He’s a store, but he also runs a net-jump service.
--> There’s a hidden minigame here you can play if you want to. Just by
pushing the "look" button you can’t see it, but if you push the "look" button
and then manually move the cursor over the menu to the left of the Shark, you
can click on it. (Thanks to Riesuke for this information!) The "use" button
also works. Basically one of the things on this store’s "menu" is you can play
cards with the shark. (Get it? Card shark. Ha ha ha.) It’s the same cardgame
I’ve already explained. Hit C to hear the rules, B to skip the rules. Then
the Shark explains that you bet 50 mega-Clusters on every game. However, if
you beat him, he’ll shell out 100. At the beginning of the game he takes your
50.
--> Jump. You can go to History Net and make money if you need to; otherwise
go to Relive Net.
(Relieve Net)
You got here using an illegal passcode, so the security system is forcing you
to essentially provide an additional password, which you do by pushing those
colored buttons in order. The slip of paper the man at the diveport gave you
is the clue. Press B to see it. It says "When you dissolve perseverance and
passion in tears of mercy, it will bring good fortune and peace of mind."
If you want to figure this out on your own, go ahead. I personally think it’s
ridiculously obscure. Answer below.
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--> Theoretically you’re supposed to press the colors of the jewels that stand
for the various concepts in the saying. Press the colors in this order:
orange, red, blue, brown, green, indigo.
Now you’re in Relive Net. You can pretty much explore on your own at first,
as long as you’re thorough. I myself don’t really know the absolute fastest
way to get through this part of the game, since I’ve only played through it
once, without a guide. So. Some general pointers for stuff that may be
unclear:
1. The hospital. Note: From the window, going left = leaving, and going
right = going further into the hospital. It’s a Cyber Sanatorium where all
kinds of cyber surgeries are performed, notably the construction of Recallid
bodies. When you talk to the receptionist, you find out that Father Gilles
owns Relive Net. He’s a wonderful person and nobody will speak ill of him.
When you go further into the hospital there are 3 wings to explore, so hit all
of them. The one patient, an information broker going by the name "George
Smith," doesn’t tell you anything useful except (1) how cool Father Gilles is,
and (2) that an information broker he didn’t know visited him several times in
the hospital--but he was blind and deaf at the time due to his illness and
can’t tell you anything about her. If you go back and interrogate the nurse
again, she tells you that "George’s" visitor was a young woman in her 20s, and
that he seems to recall seeing her in the sports club just a little while ago
as he was using the swimming pool to check out chicks. Note: Don’t forget to
hit the operating room and the examining room. You need to be sure to look
around the examining room in addition to interrogating the doctor (otherwise
you can’t leave).
2. The shop. When you get into the shop, look at everything. You’ll find the
Blademan Support phone number, but you don’t actually need this until you need
a blade fixed, which won’t be for a while yet, so whatever. Now touch
everything. The skeleton is actually the store owner. It’s a store and a
net-jump service. However, the lizard is the store employee and you do all
your business through him. (You can buy stuff from him whenever you want.)
The disc is the password to Resort Net, but that’s where you came from so you
don’t need it. Buy the sniper rifle. However, his initial offer is 300
mega-Clusters. You can bargain him down each time you say "no" until you say
"yes" to accept his offer (or just keep saying no until it’s free).
3. The church. Contains a nun, and until you’ve been to the hospital, nothing
else.
4. The sports club. Is absolutely pointless until you’ve gone to the hospital.
--> After you’ve been to the hospital, you can visit Father Gilles in church.
He’s by the altar. He doesn’t really give you any information; he’s just
charismatic at you. You display no signs of converting and becoming a good
person. He doesn’t want you to touch his book.
--> Go to the sports club and talk to the receptionist. You tell her that
you’re looking for a friend. You tell her what little you know about the
information broker, and she says there are three people currently in the
facility who fit that description. You ask to see the files on the three of
them. Chick #1 just left. Chick #2 is on the dance floor. Chick #3 is in the
swimming pool. You recognize her, because she’s the model who was injured in
the Business Net incident. The receptionist gives you permission to visit the
dance floor and the swimming pool.
--> Touch the second panel from the right to get to the dance floor. You
interview Chick #2 and determine that she’s not the one. You hit on her,
perhaps for form’s sake, and are rejected.
--> Touch the panel on the far right to get to the pool.
Here she is. This is the woman. Interesting side note: unlike every other
woman ever, for some reason you’re too nervous to grope this woman. Even you
think that’s out of character for you, and say so. She thanks you for saving
her back in Business Net, and you finally exchange introductions. Her name is
Donna.
When you question her, Donna denies being Violet or knowing anything about
Violet. Eventually she says she’s starting to feel netsick, and you can’t
bring yourself to question her any further.
--> Leave Donna. Go back to the store.
There will be an option to go to your left and look at a new part of the room.
Take this option.
--> Look around thoroughly and talk. This part of the shop contains all kinds
of Recallid body parts and a bottle of booze which, when you look at it,
prompts Smiley to mockingly sneer that only weak people need booze. Basically
this entire conversation is just two elk butting antlers.
--> Leave the store.
Once you’re out of the store, Erika contacts you. She says that the model in
the sports club has been kidnapped by someone. Erika feels her voice was
similar to Violet’s, so the theory is that someone else figured out Violet’s
identity and kidnapped her for it. Erika traces her and determines that she’s
in Resort Net somewhere.
--> Go back into the store and jump to Resort Net.
(Resort Net)
Erika figures out that Donna is near water, and not in a place with other
people around, which excludes the Bar. She must be at the Dream Beach.
--> Go to the Dream Beach and then go to the pier (to the left of Shop Orgel).
You can see the whole beach from there. When you look right, you can see her.
She’s about to be shot by a masked man. You have to save her somehow, but
your position is unstable, the target is moving, and you’re at a distance.
The only weapon you have that’s practical for taking the guy down is the
sniper rifle. You only get one shot--if you fire and miss, the bad guy will
notice you and kill you. So make it count. Shoot him in the head.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CHOICE LINDA: Relive Network
(Relive Net)
Now you’re in Relive Net.
--> Go to the shop (it’s 7-Bs). When you get into the shop, look at
everything. Now touch everything. The skeleton is actually the store
owner. It’s a store and a net-jump service. However, the lizard is
the store employee and you do all your business through him. (You can
buy stuff from him whenever you want.) When you get to the disc, you
learn it’s the password to Resort Net, but the lizard doesn’t want to
give it to you for free. Touch it again (you tell the lizard that the
monitor says it’s free, and he gives it to you begrudgingly, reminding
you to stop by their sister store in the Dream Beach in Resort Net).
Buy the sniper rifle when you touch it. However, his initial offer is
300 mega-Clusters; he lets you say YES or NO to this. You can bargain
him down each time you say "no" until you say "yes" to accept his
offer--or you can just keep saying "no" until he gives it to you for
free. ^_^
--> Go to the hospital (it’s got the red cross on it). Note: From
the window, going left = leaving, and going right = going further
into the hospital. It’s a Cyber Sanatorium where all kinds of cyber
surgeries are performed, notably the construction of Recallid bodies.
When you talk to the receptionist, you find out that Father Gilles
owns Relive Net. He’s a wonderful person and nobody will speak ill
of him. When you go further into the hospital there are 3 wings to
explore, so hit all of them.
--> First go to the patient rooms. Interrogate the nurse and hit the
patients’ rooms. The one patient, an information broker going by the
name "George Smith," tells you (1) how cool Father Gilles is, and
(2) that an information broker he didn’t know visited him several
times in the hospital--but he was blind and deaf at the time due to
his illness and can’t tell you anything about her, but (3) she did
say she went swimming whenever she finished a job. He mentions that
although there’s a pool at the sports club, there’s also a beach in
Resort Net. Go back and interrogate the nurse again. She tells you
that "George’s" visitor was a sexy young woman in her 20s.
--> Hit the operating room and the examining room. Note: You need
to be sure to look around the examining room in addition to
interrogating the doctor (otherwise you can’t leave).
--> After you’ve been to the hospital, you can visit Father Gilles
in church. He’s by the altar. He doesn’t really give you any
information; he’s just charismatic at you. You display no signs of
converting and becoming a good person. He doesn’t want you to touch
his book.
--> Go back to the store. There will be an option to go to your left
and look at a new part of the room. Take this option.
--> Look around thoroughly and talk. This part of the shop contains
all kinds of Recallid body parts and a bottle of booze which, when
you look at it, prompts Smiley to mockingly sneer that only weak
people need booze. Basically this entire conversation is just two
elk butting antlers.
--> Jump to Resort Net.
(Resort Net)
You got here using a stolen passcode, so the security system is
forcing you to essentially provide an additional password, which you
do by pushing those colored buttons in order. The slip of paper the
man at the diveport gave you is the clue. Press B to see it. It
says "Connect the bridge to the sun with a violet."
If you want to figure this out on your own, go ahead. Erika will
think of more hints every time you screw up. Answer below.
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--> Basically the "bridge to the sun" is a rainbow, and "a violet"
must refer to the color violet, but the buttons are one color short,
and don’t include violet--which means you start at the top part of
the rainbow and go in order until you get to where violet would be at
the bottom. Press the colors in this order: red, orange, yellow,
green, blue, indigo.
Erika tells you you’re in a place with 3 available grids, but that
she can’t figure out how to get to any of them, except that there
may be invisible stairways. In fact, she is correct. If you bring
up the map you’ll see that there are three invisible stairways.
In general, the way to climb one is to stand directly facing one of
the statues and walk towards the statue. The statue usually marks a
turning point in the invisible stairway.
--> First go to the Bar (it’s called Waihaa, which is basically a
play on "Hawaii"). You reach it via the stairway marked by the
statue which is stands a ways apart from the other two areas.
In the Bar area, there are a wealth of people you can talk to,
notably two junkies, the Owner, a waitress named Cisco, and a
Bartender. I’ll explain the general results of this investigation
below in a couple of summary paragraphs.
--> Go to the male junkie. Look at his cocktail glass and then
analyze it to get data for Ash.
--> Talk to him.
--> Talk to the female junkie.
--> Go right and talk to the Owner.
You ask everyone about Violet and Recallids, and you learn that
there’s a Recallid who’s a frequent patron of the bar, but not much
else. You do, however, learn a bit about Merry Coke. It’s a cyber
drug that people like to mix into their cocktails. It’s the most
popular drug in Processing Alive right now, and is said to be a
combination of various other drugs. There’s a rumor that the
owner of this bar is key player in the drug trade.
Fun tidbit: the owner is drinking "Romanée-Conta," a blatant riff
on the legendary wine Romanée-Conti.
--> Leave the Owner, go left, and talk to Cisco.
--> Leave her and go left.
--> Go talk to the bartender. Talk to him at least twice about the
information broker you’re looking for (it’s the top thing on the
talk menu). He tells you a beautiful woman comes by sometimes,
although he doesn’t know if she’s an information broker or not.
The Recallid who’s a frequent customer is there; he’s the fat man
with the weird mechanical arm. He’s sweating and in pain. You ask
him what’s wrong, and he explains that his wiring is messed up and
he’s being fried by electric shocks as a result. You enter a
minigame. You have to connect the wire to the red plug in the
upper-right. You need to string it through nodes to get it there,
but the nodes are all oriented differently and you can only string
the wire through openings (yellow tube-like ones). When you complete
this he thanks you and introduces himself as II-10 Kirk (pronounced
"Two-Ten Kirk"). Talk to him some more. He says there’s also another
Recallid in Resort Net, in the "maze grid." If you tell this man you
know II-10 Kirk, he’ll help you out.
--> Leave the bar and go to the Blue Oyster. Getting there is a
little different in that there’s no statue. You just have to find
the foot of the invisible staircase (hint: it’ll involve starting
from a green square). Remember there’s a turn in the stair as well,
and then you’re there. If you don’t feel like going to the Blue
Oyster during this stage of the game you can put off the below trip
for another time. Actually you don’t technically have to do it at
all; it’s just an interesting and potentially useful side point.
As it turns out, the maze-like Blue Oyster is a gay dance club.
Note: beware--you don’t always exit a room from the same door you
entered. In one of the rooms is a very butch man you call "big
brother." When he hears you’re a friend of II-10 Kirk, he decides
you need his help and he should give it to you! But he only lends a
hand to those he respects, so he asks you a series of questions about
the true nature of manhood to ascertain whether you have the proper
understanding. The answers are NO, YES, YES, YES, NO. He accepts
you as a comrade and gives you a spiked armband. When you use it,
he’ll come to your aid--but he’ll charge you Clusters for it.
BIG BROTHER IS THE THIRD "BATTLE HELPER." You call him via the
armband; he costs 5000 mega-Clusters per use.
Also fun, though completely uninformative, is the "Mistress" of the
club, who hangs out in one of the other rooms.
When you’ve had your fill of the Blue Oyster, you can optionally go
back to the Bar. If you do so, the beautiful woman the bartender
mentioned is at the bar.
--> Go to the bar. The woman’s name is Mirai K. Kaku. You ask her
if she’s recently sent a voice-disguised "love message" to someone.
She basically tells you absolutely nothing. Turns out she’s not the
right woman. If you look at her or touch her, she gets really upset.
--> Go to the Dream Beach. When you enter the store (Shop Orgel),
you’ll meet the Shark.
--> Talk to him. You comment on how empty the beach is. When you
describe the woman you’re looking for he offers to transfer you to
the beach where she is. When you leave the store you’ll be there.
--> There’s a hidden minigame here you can play if you want to. Just
by pushing the "look" button you can’t see it, but if you push the
"look" button and then manually move the cursor over the menu to the
left of the Shark, you can click on it. (Thanks to Riesuke for this
information!) The "use" button also works. Basically one of the
things on this store’s "menu" is you can play cards with the shark.
(Get it? Card shark. Ha ha ha.) It’s the same cardgame I’ve already
explained. Hit C to hear the rules, B to skip the rules. Then the
Shark explains that you bet 50 mega-Clusters on every game. At the
beginning of the game he takes your 50. if you beat him, he’ll
shell out 100.
--> Leave the shop.
--> Look down at the parasol on the beach.
--> Turn around. Now you’re back on the beach.
--> Go left.
--> Go to the woman on the beach.
Here she is. This is the woman.
--> Look at everything.
--> Talk to her. She thanks you for saving her back in Business
Net, and you finally exchange introductions. Her name is Donna.
She’s forgotten to buy sunscreen, and she asks you to get some for
her. You agree.
--> Go to the store.
--> Talk to the shark. He’ll give you sunscreen.
--> Go back to Donna.
--> Look at Donna’s glass.
--> Look at the ground. They’re not Donna’s footprints, because
Donna was barefoot.
--> Look at the sparkly.
--> Pick up the sparkly.
Erika says there’s no record that anyone’s left the Dream Beach
grid.
--> Go to the pier so you can look around. You can see the whole
beach from there. When you look right, you can see her. She’s
about to be shot by a masked man. You have to save her somehow,
but your position is unstable, the target is moving, and you’re at
a distance. The only weapon you have that’s practical for taking
the guy down is the sniper rifle. You only get one shot--if you
fire and miss, the bad guy will notice you and kill you. So make
it count. Shoot him in the head.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~This is where the divergent paths reconverge.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When you talk to Donna, she finally admits that she is Violet and the assassin
was sent after her because she was getting involved with the virus case.
She doesn’t trust STAND or the Net Army, which is why she always communicates
incognito. You are different. You are the only one she trusts.
Donna claims to be working on the virus problem because the virus killed her
family. She says there’s a high probability that the virus is a bug in the
network’s basic net-control system. She thinks the source of the bug is in
the NOA9000 itself. NOA9000 only controls Mars nets, and the virus has only
appeared in Mars nets. She also mentions an incident in the past--the
Nuremberg Incident.
Just as Donna starts to talk about the Nuremberg Incident, though, Melody
interrupts with an emergency call. A Transer in the colony’s legal diveport
is acting strangely. You’re to investigate this right away. She agrees to
have the Information Grid research the Nuremberg Incident, and tells you
she’ll perform a forced rise on you in a moment.
Before that happens, Donna gives you a tracer so you can get in touch with her
when she’s in Processing Alive. It also functions as an emergency call if
something happens to her.
(LEMURIA)
Erika is waiting for you in Playnet Heaven.
--> Talk to her. Apparently a trap has been set in the legal diveport.
However, it’s a pretty long way to the diveport from here. She recommends you
look for a shortcut, since the cop/punk must have taken one to beat you to
Playnet Heaven.
--> Find the shortcut. I think you can do this on your own. You can also forgo
the shortcut and go the long way, but the results will be less than positive.
When you get to the diveport, the man in charge will tell you that he noticed
the person using the Transer was exhibiting brainwave abnormality, yet the
auto-rise function wasn’t working. When he investigated, he discovered a
"trap." Then he says he’s going to beat it now that you’re here to take care
of the situation. This seems a little suspicious to you.
--> Shake him. He says the motherboard of the Transer’s main CPU has an
explosive on it. The motherboard appears to be located inside a sort of
compartment within the Transer’s main door--i.e., it’s not inside the part of
the Transer where the diver is, but it’s not on the outside of the machine
either; there’s a "round door" through which you access it. Erika asks where
the special plug key that will open the Transer’s round door is. The guy
gives you his plug keys and runs away.
--> Look for the bomb. Don’t touch anything--there’s a bomb in the room, for
God’s sake! If you look around you’ll find it. It’s a high-grade plastic
explosive. You ponder whether to call in an expert, but you don’t know when
the bomb is set to go off so you don’t know if you have time. The scene cuts
to the door, which you want to open with the plug key.
Now you’re in a mini-game. You have 3 plug keys, and there are 3 locks to get
through--the last one being the kill switch to the motherboard; you can use
the last plug key to cut the power. You have five minutes to figure this all
out before the bomb goes off. Each of the three keys fits into one of the
locks. You select a key with the C button, then use the directional buttons
to rotate it until it fits into its door. I found the first of the three to
be the difficult one. Try it with no hints, or use the hint below.
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The order of the keys is: right, left, middle. As for rotating them into
position, you have to do that yourself.
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--> Open up the Transer.
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--> Look at the body carefully. He’s been dead for a while; he’s practically
a mummy. You can’t imagine he just let himself die here; he must have been
prevented from seeking help somehow. Because he’s not physically restrained,
he probably wasn’t trapped in the Transer--he was forced to dive and his mind
was trapped in Processing Alive.
--> Use the touch panel to look at his dive record. It says he’s still
diving! But he’s not alive, so that’s impossible. And Erika can’t trace his
current location. She sends his dive records to STAND headquarters.
--> Look at the body again. You see no signs of injury.
--> Look at the monitor. It’s using a special chip that’s not in standard
Transers. None of the other Transers in this room have it, so whoever put the
diver in here must have set it up.
Headquarters contacts you through the Transer’s monitor, which you can answer
by touching it. Ash says the diver has been dead for at least two months. He
dived to Relive Net. Normally you couldn’t get to an underground net from a
legal diveport, so that must be what the custom chip was for.
--> Look at the body again. There’s no identification on him.
--> Talk to Erika. You think that in terms of Relive Net, the Cyber
Sanatorium is the most suspicious place, because it might have a morgue.
Erika points out that the ITERID Effect would have caused the data of a dead
person to crash by now.
--> Look at the monitor again. The records of when he initially dived have
been erased. You say he looks to you like he died about three to four months
ago. Erika, surprised, says that’s exactly when the virus outbreak started.
Now you get an emergency call on the Transer’s monitor. It’s your operator
telling you another virus monster has been reported. It’s in Relive Net. But
it can’t be this guy, because he’s braindead. It’s someone else--but the
timing is too good to be true. It might be a trap.
You decide to use one of these Transers to dive to Relive Net (it’ll work
because the custom chip has connected this room with Playnet Heaven).
--> Do it.
(Relive Net)
--> Go to the hospital. Question the guy at the window. He says the virus
monster just burst in all of a sudden, and seemed as if it were looking for
something. It was a red monster with a huge claw on its left hand. You know
that monster immediately--it’s Red Claw.
--> Keep questioning the guy. He insists he doesn’t know anything, but
eventually says he thinks Father Gilles was there around the same time as the
monster, and didn’t look too good.
--> Go further into the hospital. Check the patient rooms. No real leads,
although the one patient does say he saw Father Gilles in the examination room
looking very pale. You wonder if Father Gilles knows something about the body
in the Transer, and Red Claw is here to silence him.
--> Go to the examination room. Nothing. You must have missed him.
--> Go to the surgery room. Nothing.
--> Go to the church. No one is around, and you decide to search for Father
Gilles.
--> Look around. After you look beyond the altar, you have the option of
going up there for a closer look. Do so.
--> Touch everything once.
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--> Fight Red Claw. Note: He’s not a difficult opponent here, since
essentially you’re just making him go away. You just need to hammer his first
weak point and then he’ll leave. For that weak point, see below.
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As you’re looking at him, you see a little round area between his breastplate
and the clock-like thing on his arm. That’s the weak area.
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You decide Red Claw’s presence here means he was looking for Father Gilles.
So you start looking for Father Gilles.
--> Go up the stairs to check the balcony. You see a little alcove with a
book in it.
--> Look around and the grab the book. Doing so causes a secret staircase to
appear and take you to another floor.
--> Check out the far room. It has an old piano in it.
--> Check out the near room, looking at and touching stuff. There are two
important areas : (1) On the desk is an empty picture holder. If you press
the button in the lower right corner, the picture will display itself. It
contains two people, Darius Rimsky and Patricia Verner. Darius is the dead
man in the Transer. Erika copies the photo to send to headquarters. (2) If
you go to your right, there’s you see a bed. Look at it and the boarded-up
window. The bed is weird because you can’t sleep in Processing Alive--you’ll
autorise. Now touch the bed and the window. After you’ve gotten a peep at
Erika’s panties, touch the window again and discover it’s got a strong lock on
it, with a trap built in. If you touch it a third time, Erika will say she
suspects an opening mechanism to be hidden in the room somewhere.
--> From the bed, go back left. Look at the bookshelf. You see a sheet of
paper stuck between two books. Grab it, and you see it’s sheet music.
--> Leave this room and go back to the piano. Touch the piano.
The sheet music is insane; it’s obviously some kind of code instead of normal
musical notation. If you’d like to try to figure it out yourself with the
hints Erika comes up with every time you lose, go ahead. If you just want me
to tell you the trick, read below.
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In each measure, there are a certain number of notes. The number of notes in
that measure corresponds to which key you should play on the piano. Imagine
that the piano keys are numbered 1-12 from left to right. In the first
measure there are two notes, so you hit the second key. (C#, for those with
musical leanings.) Hit each note only once, then move on to the next measure.
When you successfully play the melody, you hear a sound in the next room.
--> Go back and check it out.
--> Go up the stairs.
--> When you’ve checked out the stone and learned nothing of interest, turn
around and go to your right. You see something on top of the bookshelf in the
room. Look at it and discover it’s a holograph projector.
--> Go back into the room. Look above the bookshelf.
--> Operate the holograph projector. Note: There are multiple different files
in the projector. Only two of them are relevant. The first relevant one is,
of course, Darius Rimsky’s file. It says he’s a Zahinell system programmer.
Then there’s another system programmer, Patricia Verner. The files say these
two are being held in Operating Room #2 at the Cyber Sanatorium.
You can find Operating Room #2 yourself, or look below for a hint.
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--> Go to the Cyber Sanatorium and head to the surgery room you already know.
Look for a secret door.
--> When you find the secret door, go on down.
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--> Go ahead and look around.
It’s a Recallid operating room. Inside you find all kinds of
Recallid-creation equipment, as well as two people you confirm via your
analyzer are Darius and Patricia. They have life-support equipment hooked up
to them.
When you’ve seen what there is to see, it’s time for the boss fight. Hints are
below.
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1 - Face or left breastplate (his left, not your left), 2 - neck, 3 - book.
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The book apologizes to you. Father Gilles is a Recallid and has compressed
his Recallid body into the book, within which he normally resides. He had
only just been infected with the virus and it seems your attacks blasted the
virus badly enough that he’s more or less all right. However, he’s not sure
if he’s temporarily or permanently all right. He asks you to kill him if he
goes berserk again.
--> Talk to the book and ask it to explain the two people being held captive
in here. He explains that in order to run Relive Net, he had to borrow money.
He ended up agreeing to hold these people here in return for funding. He
doesn’t know anything about this OR or who built it; his job was merely to
guard the two bodies. He feels deeply sorry for what he has done, and begs
you to call on him to help fight the virus. You agree to do so and to pay him
a decent fee for his help. He gives you the book to open whenever you need
him, and transfers himself to the book in the church. FATHER GILLES IS THE
FOURTH "BATTLE HELPER." You call on him using the book; he costs 2000
mega-Clusters per use.
--> Talk to Erika. You go back to headquarters.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+ +
+ INFECTION #04: NUREMBERG INCIDENT +
+ +
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
(Mars Base)
On the way back to Mars, you ponder the fact that Red Claw moves just like
Leon does. But you know Leon and Red Claw can’t be one and the same, because
it doesn’t make sense, and plus Leon was fighting Red Claw during Blue Metal’s
last stand. You saw them both at the same time.
--> Dive to headquarters.
(STAND Headquarters)
--> Visit the information booth and Ash, in whichever order. Talk to
everybody about everything. Your operator will eventually ask you for the
photograph you got from Father Gilles, so give it to her.
You find out various things:
(1)The reason Darius was recorded as alive even though he was dead is because
a special cyber-medicine was being injected into the two bodies:
Memoriruminator. It causes a person’s memory data to repeat on endless loop.
It’s used in cyber operations, where it’s necessary to separate the physical
data from the consciousness data, but you don’t want the physical data to
crash. Basically you copy a part of a person’s consciousness and hook it up
with the physical data Thus even when Darius and Patricia died there was
"active memory" to fool the Transers into thinking they were still in surgery,
as opposed to dead.
(2)Merry Coke’s effect is to materialize stress into something that can be
easily eliminated by the stressed individual from his own system. It doesn’t
seem to have anything to do with the virus.
(3)Merry Coke is a new net plant, not a synthesis of preexisting species.
Combining it with various different drugs produces various different effects.
Smiley insists that he doesn’t need drugs because "only weak people rely on
drugs."
(4)Patricia’s body was found in the Transer next to Darius’ body.
(5)Right after the virus outbreak, both programmers left Zahinell.
(6)They were Dr. McNaughton’s replacements. Their job was development of
NOA9000 and program maintenance.
(7)No file on Donna exists anywhere. However this is not unusual for hackers
and information brokers.
(8)You ask about the Nuremberg Incident and are shown a Zahinell press release
about it. Zahinell was performing a Processing Alive experiment aboard the
spaceship Nuremberg when there was some kind of accident. 78 people died, and
the company said it was due to an issue with a subroutine in NOA8000 that was
installed without the company’s consent. The company accused Dr. McNaughton
of intentionally installing this subroutine in violation of policy, and
Dr. McNaughton admitted as much.
(9)After the N.I., Dr. McNaughton fell into a life of crime.
You need to interview Dr. McNaughton again and get the scoop on the Nuremberg
Incident.
--> From the Information Grid, call the Cyber Jail for an appointment. The
A.I. will call you when permission is granted.
SCOW calls you in the Information Grid. She tells you to investigate the N.I.
thoroughly. When this phone call is over you receive your permission to go
back to the Cyber Jail and interview Dr. McNaughton again.
--> Jump to Justice Net.
(Justice Net)
This time you’re going to have a face-to-face interview.
--> Go to the desk on the left. Give the chick your I.D. and let her check
your retina and fingerprints, then you’re clear.
--> Go down the stairway to her left.
Dr. McNaughton doesn’t notice you at first because he’s closed his mind and is
thinking about something.
--> Call Melody and ask her to use her abilities to wake up McNaughton. In
the meantime, stare at him for a while.
When Melody’s woken him up you can ask him questions. You find out that
NOA9000 was completed almost immediately after the Nuremberg Incident.
McNaughton says that although his subroutine is supposed to have been the
cause of the Nuremberg Incident, that’s a big mistake--his program was
perfect. The problem was with the NOA series’ basic system, starting with
8000. 9000’s basic programming can’t be much different, so the issue must
still be there. McNaughton had recommended the experiment be halted because
of a problem he saw in the basic system. But the experiment wasn’t cancelled,
so he installed the subroutine as a safety mechanism. Zahinell did the basic
programming on NOA8000 himself, so when the Incident happened he framed
McNaughton. He hints heavily that the virus was involved in the Incident.
You decide you need to interview Zahinell again.
--> Go to the middle desk.
--> Call Zahinell and make an appointment.
--> Rise.
(Zahinell Co., Ltd.)
I’m sure you can get to the president’s office on your own by now. He’s doing
his stock trading. He tells you you can get the records from the Nuremberg
Incident from Howard. He denies that there could be any flaw in the basic
programming of NOA9000. He tells you that the "virus monsters" you think you
saw in Fantasy Net were probably just some Fantasy Net image characters you
mistook for monsters. He further points out that according to the Army’s
official report, the Business Net incident didn’t have anything to do with the
virus.
You can get to Howard on your own too. He’ll give you their computer records
of the Nuremberg Incident. He also gives you the name of the person who was
looking into the N.I. on the air traffic side (since it happened on a ship):
Arbo Tsuunegunde.
--> Give Howard the incident-record back and he’ll play it for you so you can
see it.
Then Howard receives a call for you from STAND. You can take it through the
main control panel in front of you. Melody tells you STAND has received a
signal from Violet’s call sign.
--> Talk to Erika. You decide to use the tracer to go to Donna, while Erika
goes after Arbo. You both return to headquarters.
(STAND Headquarters)
After you get in your Transer and input your I.D., the Transer will locate the
signal from Donna’s tracer. It’s Resort Network.
(Resort Network)
The tracer doesn’t give Donna’s precise location, so you have to go around
questioning people.
--> Go to the Bar. If you ask II-10 Kirk, he’ll tell you a hot chick named
Donna bought a grid in the Dream Beach, and if you go to the store there you
can get transferred to her private grid. He’ll talk to the Shark for you.
The shark will point you in the direction of Donna’s place. It’s behind the
waterfall. But you have to catch the lizard to show you the way there. He
tells you the entrance is through the waterfall.
--> Go into the waterfall.
--> Find Donna.
Here you are with Donna. Do what comes naturally. Notes:
(1)If you touch her necklace she’ll tell you it’s a memento of her younger
sister.
(2)She asks you whether you got the records of the N.I., and when you tell her
how easily you got them, she thinks it’s pretty suspicious and suggests you
investigate the data carefully.
(3)She asks you whether you got Dr. McNaughton’s take on the matter, and you
report that you did, but it was completely different than the Zahinell
official info.
(4)She originally said she had something to talk to you about, but she never
gets around to saying it. Instead she vaguely hits on you.
--> When her speech gets repetitive, look at her head to start up a new
conversational thread. She’ll tell you that since Business Net she hasn’t
felt herself, and she’s started to hate being alone--but that’s your fault.
You tell her that maybe she needs to find another job, another way of living,
a life for herself as a woman. Donna’s not sure what value her "self as a
woman" has. You tell her of course it means something; we’re not just
machines that do nothing but deal with problems handed to us. You have to let
go of the sad things or you can’t be happy, and then life’s meaningless.
Donna asks you if you know the meaning of life.
--> Answer yes or no. If you pick "yes," you really tell her more that you
aren’t sure because you’re more the type to push along forward rather than
getting stuck pondering.
Eventually Donna asks you to stay a little longer. You wake up to find her
gone. What you did in the meantime, unclear--we’ll leave it up to your
imagination.
(STAND Headquarters)
--> Go to Information and talk to Erika. Apparently Arbo died in an accident
immediately after procuring the video data on the Nuremberg incident. It
wasn’t a wasted trip, because at least Erika grabbed the air traffic people’s
version of the data. You can compare the two.
--> Give your operator the data so she can perform the comparison. They’re
exactly the same, and if they’ve been edited it was by someone really good.
You’d need a l33t hacker or Replacer to tell. Replacers are like hackers;
they’re criminals who specialize in information manipulation. The difference
is that Replacers dive, but hackers don’t. It evolves that Sherry is a
Replacer.
--> Call Sherry. When she hears it’s the virus case she agrees to work for
free. Your operator will show her to the Laboratory when she gets here.
--> Go to the Laboratory. Ash is extremely nonplussed that you’re bringing a
Replacer in here. Erika convinces him.
--> When Sherry shows up, give her the data so she can analyze it. Erika will
hand over her copy too. For some ungodly reason Sherry makes you do it, so a
minigame begins. She shows you a device that breaks down all the information
she can detect from the video into series of numbers. Erika’s video data is
on the left and yours on the right. She’ll play yours normally and use
"scratch scanning" as she plays Erika’s at the exact same time. If nobody’s
ever edited either video, all the numbers should be the same all the time.
You need to flag each position in which the sequence of numbers doesn’t match
up. There will be four in total. Then press the "okay" button.
Shelly tells you now you’ve proven that the data has been edited. She can
even tell you the name of the editor, because a compression rate was used that
only one person ever uses. That person is a former Replacer and the boss of
an underground net called Terraless Night. Shelly will warn him you’re coming
and help you and Erika jump there.
(Terraless Night)
Here you are in the underground net, with a bad riff on "Gangster’s Paradise"
for the BGM. You see the same junkie you met in the Bar and some other
gangsters. They pick a fight with you.
But then! In the nick of time, II-10 Kirk comes and says you’re there to see
him. Yep, he’s the boss of this net. In fact, he’s the boss of the Mars
Mafia.
--> Go straight to his room.
--> Look at the panel on the left side of the room which is displaying the
gun. He says that gun is currently in development and is not for sale.
(I also touched the panel, but I don’t think that’s necessary.)
--> Question him. One of the things his group does is develop and sell
weapons. He asks you if you have any unusual weapons; he’ll pay you
handsomely for them. You have two choices here. If you just continue to chat
with him and play as, the game continues. Everything is fine. There’s no real
disadvantage to doing this. However, your other choice is to show him the
sniper rifle. It’s a rare model, and he offers to trade it for one of his new
guns (the kind he wouldn’t sell you before). If you decide to do this
(there’s a YES or NO screen), you will receive an electromagnetic piercing
gun. (Remember at some point you’ll have to buy piercing bullets or you can’t
use it.)
--> Question him. He says he doesn’t know anything about the virus or
Zahinell. You ask him about the Nuremberg Incident. He denies knowing
anything.
--> Ask him again. He denies everything again, and then there’s a crashing
noise. II-10 says "It’s him! He’s here!" When you ask him who, he says "the
red virus monster." He wants you to go check it out.
--> Turn around and go back to II-10 Kirk’s room. He’ll give you a bomb to
help you out. He really wants you to take care of Red Claw for him.
--> Turn around and go back to II-10 Kirk’s room again. He’ll give you
vaccine bullets. However, if you go back again after this, all you get is an
electric razor you throw away because it’s useless.
--> Go to the other room to see what all the commotion is.
--> Touch the blood-splattered cards and papers (the last thing the "use"
symbol lands on). As you root through them, you find a stock certificate.
You can sell it later if you get into a financial pinch.
--> Investigate the rest of this mess however you want. There’s more evidence
of piercing bullets. Eventually after you’ve investigated for a while,
Red Claw will show up in person. Fight him. If you want hints, see below.
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1 - The little round area between his breastplate and the clock-like thing on
his arm. 2 - his head, 3 - the clocklike thing on his arm (the nearest arm to
you).
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Now you’ve shot off one of Red Claw’s arms and he’s slunk off to regenerate
it. You can keep looking around if you want. Note: Now there are two places
you can go. If you choose the "turn around" option, you go check out a back
alley; I think this is actually where you and Erika jumped into. As far as I
can tell, all that happens is that you get to fight a couple of virus monsters
during and/or on your way back from this fruitless expedition, which earns you
some money. It seems like there should be something else out there, but I
certainly didn’t find it. You get to come back and choose the other option, so
you’re not really losing anything.
When you choose the "go up the stairs" option, you go back to II-10 Kirk’s
room. Now that he’s gotten the fear of God put into him, if you interrogate
him he’ll crack and talk.
He says he feels sorry for Sherry because her boyfriend, a STAND agent, was
killed by the virus. So that’s why she’s working for you for free.
II-10 Kirk will mention that he’s in the process of getting a "full tune-up"
of his Recallid body, after which he will be much stronger. He asks you if
you’ll lend him money to do this. Keep in mind that he will continue to ask
for money every time you talk to him. If you eventually give him enough money
to get the tune-up, you’ll be able to use him in boss fights. If you don’t,
you won’t. You don’t NEED him, so it’s your choice. Either way, he gives you
his phone number and says he’ll help you out if you need him. NOTE: WHEN FULLY
TUNED-UP, II-10 KIRK BECOMES A "BATTLE HELPER." You can call him in by using
the videophone and he costs 5000 mega-Clusters per use.
The Nuremberg Incident data was his last job as a Replacer. He got a pretty
good fee for it, but ever since then assassins have been after him. All he
knows about the part he erased is that it apparently was the part where the
"PP Vaccine" was functioning. When you ask him if he still has the original
data, he says yes, and he gives you a copy.
The PP Vaccine is supposed to be an antivirus. He’s heard that it’s not in
NOA9000, though, because it was a flop. You ask if he’s talking about the
subroutine, and he says yes, that’s right. Then he says he remembers the face
of the person who hired him (she was wearing a mask but he saw through it with
his l33t skillz).
--> Now you’re in a minigame. You have to manipulate the parts of the face in
this montage program until II-10 Kirk recognizes the face. After each time
you click "ok" and II-10 will tell you whether it’s right. He’ll also tell
you when you’re getting close. Hint: This will be a face you’ve seen several
times before. If you want to know whose face to build, read below.
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You want Mr. Zahinell’s personal secretary. She has the medium-length nose
and straight eyebrows; the rest you can remember for yourself, I think. Once
you’ve identified her you go back to headquarters.
(STAND Headquarters)
--> Give your operator the data you got from II-10 Kirk. You get to watch the
actual footage of the incident.
If you talk to Erika and your operator afterwards, you realize that not only
was the virus monster’s appearance covered up--also covered up was the fact
that the PP Vaccine successfully neutralized the monster but the whole net got
nuked anyway. It wasn’t the system itself that nuked the net; some person
ordered the net to be nuked. The person with the authority to do that is
Mr. Zahinell.
Erika and your operator confirm that the PP Vaccine is the subroutine that
McNaughton wrote. It was a system-resident vaccine designed to attack
viruses.
You conclude that this may mean McNaughton was telling the truth, in which
case the two system programmers may have caught on to the flaw in NOA9000 and
been disposed of by Zahinell. About six months ago there were large deposits
into their bank accounts, suggesting that they were blackmailing Zahinell.
A good motive for murder.... It seems they were kept in that sort of semi-dead
state in Processing Alive in order to extract knowledge from their memory data.
Basically what you get from all this is that at the time of the Incident,
Mr. Zahinell concluded the virus sprang from a flaw in the system he’d
written, and he nuked the Nuremberg net in order to cover up the outbreak
there--effectively murdering 78 people. Then he blamed McNaughton for the
incident.
The problem here is that there’s no proof this data is valid, and during the
trial the lawyers will tear it to pieces because of where it came from.
SCOW calls you. She speaks English. Yay.
--> Call Zahinell Co. You tell Zahinell’s secretary that a warrant for his
arrest has been issued. She says he’s in a meeting in Business Net and can’t
be reached by phone, so you’ll have to go pick him up there. You tell her to
turn herself in to STAND as a material witness.
--> Jump to Business Net.
(Business Net)
--> Go to either the Office or the Information Booth and get someone to tell
you where Zahinell is. After that you can find the company president and tell
him he’s under arrest on your own.
--> When he asks for proof of your accusations, get it from your item box and
show it to him. Follow through with the rest of the conversation.
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1 - chest, 2 - maggot part of his arm, 3 - red eye on his left shoulder (his
left, not yours).
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Treat her with the Conductor, but she’ll need to be treated further at
headquarters before she can rise.
--> Call headquarters and get Melody to transfer Erika back to STAND.
Melody tells you that someone has just accessed the room you’re in.
--> If you’ve got Zahinell stock, I recommend selling it now before word gets
out how the company president died. :P
--> Look around the room a bit, and you’ll see who was accessing this place.
He tells you your work here is done. All the scene-of-the-crime investigation
and cleanup will be done by the Net Army. STAND is no longer to get involved
in the virus case. The virus case has been solved now; the source of the
virus problems was a bug in NOA9000.
--> When you’re all talked out, leave. Before you go Gary asks your name, and
you tell him.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+ +
+ INFECTION #05: NET ARMY +
+ +
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
(STAND Headquarters)
Ash says Erika’s condition is stable. She’ll be fine, but she needs time to
recover. If you keep talking you’ll see Erika and ruminate that even though
the case is solved, you still haven’t found your brother, so it’s not over.
Plus, your sixth sense tells you there’s still something else going on.
In your further conversation with Ash he’ll ask you whether you remember the
first time you met with McNaughton, when he said the Master A.I. would never
allow the virus outbreak to begin within the net. So if the cause of the
virus was a bug in NOA9000, why would the Master A.I. allow the outbreak?
You decide to continue the investigation, no matter what anyone says.
--> Go to the information grid. SCOW will call you.
--> Talk to your operator. Eventually you ask for a list of all the victims
of the Nuremberg Incident. She doesn’t think it’ll be much use, but then she
finds someone who looks almost exactly like "Violet." She was a media person
named Mathilde Silverburn. There’s nothing suspicious about her personally,
but all the data concerning who her family is has been erased.
--> Talk some more about the Nuremberg Incident. You ask your operator to try
to figure out which person aboard was taken over by the virus. She
investigates. She finds something strange: immediately before the Nuremberg
Incident, the number of users on the experimental net increased by one. It
looks like he was the one who turned into the virus monster. But there are no
records on him, and he shouldn’t have been able to access the experimental net
in the first place. In order to guess who he is, you’ll have to comb through
all the personal data files for everyone in existence. Which is a mini-game.
First of all, your operator is able to piece together a fragment of his I.D.,
which narrows your field of suspects to 63,815. You pick limiting conditions
to narrow down the pool based on inferences you draw about (from top to
bottom): his age, his gender, his race, the address to which his death notice
was sent to, the date of his death notice, and whether he has diving
experience. One of your inferences is incorrect, meaning that if you use all
of them as conditions you’ll end up with zero valid people. You need to draw
all but one of these inferences. When you draw the wrong ones, there are too
many people left over for you to practically investigate. When you’ve done it
correctly, you’ll only have three people left. If you need help with this see
below.
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The date of the death notice inference is the bad one.
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--> Look at the data from each of the three men. They are Jack Garius, who
died in the Einshock Case; Robert Caesar, who was murdered on Mars; and Ein
Brookwell, who died of an infectious disease.
--> Pick which one you think did it.
--> Ask your operator about the Einshock Case. The incident, which happened
six months before the Nuremberg Incident, was a terrorist act perpetrated by
extremist group MMM (pronounced "M-three"). The terrorists infiltrated
Business Net and deleted data as well as killing any one who resisted them.
The Net Army intervened and all the terrorists were killed. MMM never claimed
responsibility for the incident.
--> Ask her again. Pretty much all info on the entire thing is classified by
the military. She can’t find any further info about it except who was present
at the military tribunal on the case. Present on that day were: Mr. Zahinell,
Dr. McNaughton, Colonel Gary, and Lieutenant Jeffery Han, a researcher with a
degree in medicine.
--> Ask her about Han a few more times. He reported directly to Col. Gary.
He left the Army right after the trial and his current whereabouts are
unknown. However, he apparently entrusted something to his attorney before
leaving. In order to view the item, you need to present proof that you’re
there representing him. None of his personal files are accessible except by
illegal (i.e. hacker/replacer means).
Now you’re in a situation where Dr. McNaughton may know a lot more about the
Einshock case, and you also want to talk to Lt. Han.
--> Call the Cyber Jail and make another appointment to see Dr. McNaughton.
--> You know two Replacers. Call each of them for info on Han. When you call
Sherry, you tell her that Erika has been injured, and you say "She told me she
got hit by a stray bullet, which is an obvious lie. She was absorbing the
damage I took as I fought." So in other words, Erika was helping you survive
the fight. Sherry says that Erika’s last partner died doing the same thing
for Erika.
You receive permission to visit the cyber jail. Go for it.
(Justice Network)
You know what to do to get to Dr. McNaughton, so go ahead. He congratulates
you on resolving the case. He says he’s never even spoken to Lt. Han.
He further speculates that perhaps the Einshock Case was actually the first
virus outbreak. Portions of the terrorists’ bodies were horribly transformed,
and they showed symptoms very similar to infection from the virus you’ve been
fighting. You ask him whether the terrorists developed a virus and infected
themselves with it to attack Business Net, and he says he doesn’t know. He
testified at the trial, but was never told the result. He doesn’t even know
why a military tribunal was held on the matter. He and Zahinell were asked
whether their then-current mother system, NOA7000, was the cause of the
terrorists’ transformation. It obviously wasn’t, and all they had to do was
present the findings of their own research, which proved NOA7000 innocent.
You ask him whether it’s possible that those terrorists were infected with the
same virus we know now. McNaughton merely says that he based his PP Vaccine
on the data from the Einshock Case, and it froze the virus monster in the
Nuremberg Incident.
He suggests that even though the report is that all the terrorists died in the
Einshock Case, it might be profitable to assume that one or more of them
survived, but you’d have to look for them in a military facility or military
net, which is essentially impossible. You’ll have to think of a different
approach.
Zahinell upgraded the basic system between NOA7000 and NOA8000 to prevent
another Einshock from happening. That wasn’t enough, which was why he created
the PP Vaccine.
You wonder why so much information on the Einshock incident was covered up if
it was a simple terrorist case. Perhaps the Net Army developed the virus as a
biological weapon?
--> Call Sherry and find out what she’s discovered (if you call II-10 Kirk, he
just tells you to call back later). Shelly says there’s an encrypted file
relating to the Einshock Case in Col. Gary’s personal databank. She didn’t
find anything on Han, though. She’ll keep following Col. Gary and keep tabs
on him.
You receive a signal on the tracer.
--> Use the tracer.
(Culture Net)
--> Search for Donna.
--> You discover one of the grids is closed. Get the Net Manager to open it
for you.
--> Go back to the closed grid. The car has materialized; it’s not a
holograph anymore. If you look at it, you see someone inside.
--> Pound on the car and then open it.
--> Touch Donna.
Whoops, it was a trap. You pass out for a little while. Now you’re locked
in the car.
--> Mess around for a while. When you’ve done that, Melody will contact you.
She’s concerned because you passed out but didn’t autorise. You tell her
you’re trapped in a car in Culture Net. Plus, you hear a ticking that’s
probably a bomb.
--> Follow Melody’s instructions, if any, regarding which buttons to press
(you may have accidentally already pressed some of them, thus I can’t tell you
what she’ll say).
Now the car is running a check of any abnormalities. Most of them are
irrelevant and you ignore them. Finally, you see the bomb. It has three
bulbs. If you cut them off in the right order the bomb will be defused.
The order is:
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Blue, yellow, red.
Melody succeeds in unlocking the doors to the car. If you look at her, you
see that she seems upset. When you talk to her she tells you this trap was
probably a warning from the criminal(s). After you talk for a bit, you assert
that you’ll help Donna no matter what the danger may be, whenever she’s in
trouble. Melody tells you you should focus on your mission instead. You’re
shaping up for a fight when II-10 Kirk calls.
II-10 has found info on Lt. Han. He’s been seen in both Relive Network and
Resort Network. II-10 has also gotten wind that the Net Army is out to kill
you--they’ll physically kill you during a dive. He recommends you switch
Transers. He’ll loan you his; it’s hidden on LEMURIA with the Old Man.
--> Go to the Information A.I. You have the option of jumping or rising.
If you jump, you die. Rise.
From the Mars Base, you sneak off to LEMURIA without telling anyone.
(LEMURIA)
Here you are with the Old Man again. If you talk to him he’ll take you to the
hidden Transer.
--> Try to get in the Transer. The canopy won’t open. The Old Man forgot to
disable the function that kept it restricted to II-10’s use. You need to
break the circuit to the sensor that tells the Transer who’s using it. It’s
a mini-game.
In this mini-game you have to cut the red line in the upper left corner.
The little grey guy with the scissor-mouth in the lower right corner does
this. But you have to program when he should go left, when he should go
right, when he should wait (so he doesn’t get hit by an electric pulse), when
he should cut--you have to do this all before you hit the "run" button to see
if it actually worked. THIS GAME IS A PAIN IN THE ASS. I will take you
through it below.
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Okay. Here’s the correct program: first push the "left" button on the little
onscreen console, then hit 6. Then up, 4. Then wait, 5 ("wait" is the one
that looks like a pause button). Then up, 3. Then left, 1. Then wait, 2.
Then left, 3. Then "cut." That’s the whole program. Now push the A button to
run the program.
Now everything is golden.
--> Get in the Transer.
--> Press the touch panel to take the incoming call. Note: if you give II-10
money, he asks you to call him later. Make sure to do so, so you can receive
the news that his tune-up is complete.
--> Touch the middle panel to dive.
You’re shown two choices for where to start your investigations: Relive
Network or Resort Network. Your choice will change the story, but only
slightly.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CHOICE #1: Relive Network
(Relive Network)
Time to go around questioning people. In reality, only the hospital will be
useful. Go ahead and interrogate the hospital people about Han and Donna.
You find out:
(1)Jeffery Han was just released from the Sanatorium last month.
(2)Nobody’s seen Donna recently.
(3)Lt. Han was here for personality-switch surgery. He’s a completely
different man now, down to his way of talking.
(4)"George Smith" met Lt. Han at the Bar in Resort Net, where he was a regular
customer.
--> Go to the shop and jump to Resort Net.
(Resort Net)
--> Go to the Bar.
--> Talk to the bartender. He tells you if you want to know about a frequent
customer, you’ll have to ask Cisco. She’s in the wine cellar getting wine for
the Owner.
--> Go to the wine cellar--it’s behind the bartender (you have to leave the
bar area first).
--> The penguin is guarding the wine and doesn’t want to let you in. Talk to
him twice. He tells you there’s no way he’ll let you in, except...he’s really
hungry.
--> Look up into the tree. The penguin comments that those coconuts look
delicious.
--> Try to grab them. You’ll climb the tree and get the fruit.
--> Talk to the penguin again. He says you can go in if you give him the
goods.
--> Give him the goods and go in.
You find Cisco, but she refuses to talk to you. The Owner has a guest and
will get mad if she’s late bringing his wine. She promises to talk to you
later.
--> Leave and go to the Owner’s place.
--> Look around. Cisco will show up.
--> Talk to Cisco and she agrees to come back and visit with you after she’s
taken the wine up.
Cisco rings the doorbell, but the Owner doesn’t let her in. It’s weird. When
you talk to Cisco she wants you to check it out. But in order to use the
elevator you need a code.
--> Call Melody. You apologize to her for your fight last time.
--> Look around to get info for Melody, so she can give you directions.
--> Look at the wine bottle. The owner orders Cisco to get him a new bottle
of wine and put it on that table every day. You’re not supposed to move it,
either. You point out that the bottle changes every day, and the security
code changes every day. There must be a connection.
--> Look at the wine bottle again. It seems the wine is always the same kind,
but Melody points out that the date on the bottle must change. The date on
this one is 1999.2.30, which has to be fictional since February never has 30
days.
--> Look at the bottle again. The word CAFE is written on a tag. Even though
Cisco changes the bottle every day she always puts the tag on it.
You decide that the word on the tag is the real clue, not the date on the
bottle.
--> Touch the keypad and enter "CAFE" in hexadecimal numbers.
Now you’re in the Owner’s apartment.
--> Go further in.
--> Talk to the Owner. He mumbles about a traitor.
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You ponder the situation and from the placement and appearance of the wounds
conclude it’s straight out of an army assassination textbook.
--> Look around the room, analyze stuff.
--> Open the desk drawer. His weapons and papers are still inside, so the
criminal’s motive must have been purely assassination. Melody sends the
documents to headquarters and says she’ll call you with info on them.
--> Leave to look at the antechamber.
--> Look at everything, touch everything. You can’t break the aquarium glass,
so use your analyzer to investigate the syringe instead.
It’s Merry Coke. You ponder that net drugs are the Net Army’s domain, and
that everything about the assassination screams "army" to you. Melody calls
back to say none of the files had any clues in them.
--> Leave.
--> Question Cisco about Lt. Han. She says he came around but was very
scared, and must be in hiding at the Blue Oyster right now, since he told her
the mistress of the dance club was his last hope.
--> Go to visit the Mistress of the Blue Oyster.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CHOICE #2: Resort Network
(Resort Network)
--> Go to the Bar.
--> Talk to the bartender. He says he only knows Lt. Han’s name, not
anything about him really. He asks you if you’re the one who drove
the virus monster out of Relive Net. If so, the Owner wants to talk
to you. The Owner might know Han. It can’t hurt to ask, right? The
bartender will take you there.
The bartender takes you to the Owner’s place. But the Owner doesn’t
answer his doorbell, which is strange. Fun aside: if you try to
grab the wine bottle, you’ll hear Erika’s voice berating you in your
mind.
--> Talk to the bartender. He’ll try to ring the Owner again.
--> Talk again. The bartender asks you to check out the Owner’s
place. But in order to use the elevator you need a code.
--> Call Melody. You apologize to her for your fight last time.
--> Look around to get info for Melody, so she can give you
directions.
--> Look at the wine bottle. The owner orders a new bottle of wine
to be put on that table every day. You’re not supposed to move it,
either. You point out that the bottle changes every day, and the
security code changes every day. There must be a connection.
--> Look at the wine bottle again. It seems the wine is always the
same kind, but Melody points out that the date on the bottle must
change. The date on this one is 1999.2.30, which has to be fictional
since February never has 30 days.
--> Look at the bottle again. The word DEAD is written on a tag.
Even though Cisco changes the bottle every day she always puts the
tag on it.
You decide that the word on the tag is the real clue, not the date on
the bottle.
--> Touch the keypad and enter "DEAD" in hexadecimal numbers.
Now you’re in the Owner’s apartment.
--> Go further in.
--> Talk to the Owner. He mumbles about a traitor.
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Because the Owner mentioned a traitor, you deduce that he knew his
killer. You ponder the situation and from the placement and
appearance of the wounds conclude it’s straight out of an army
assassination textbook.
--> Look around the room, analyze stuff.
--> Open the desk drawer. His weapons and papers are still inside,
so the criminal’s motive must have been purely assassination. Melody
sends the documents to headquarters and says she’ll call you with
info on them.
--> Leave to look at the antechamber.
--> Look at everything, touch everything. You can’t break the
aquarium glass, so use your analyzer to investigate the syringe
instead.
It’s Merry Coke. You ponder that net drugs are the Net Army’s
domain, and that everything about the assassination screams "army"
to you. Melody calls back to say none of the files had any clues
in them.
--> Leave.
--> Question the bartender about Lt. Han. He says that if you want
to know about customers, you should ask Cisco. She’ll be here soon.
In the meantime, forget everything about what just happened, he says.
(That’s what’s in the Bar Waihaa emergency manual: if something
horrible happens, forget you ever saw anything.)
--> Leave the owner’s place.
--> Cisco is in the bar; talk to her. When you ask her about Lt.
Han, she remembers that he was saying he was going to check into a
sort of hospital in an underground net.
--> Go to the Dream Beach and use the shop to jump to Relive Net.
(Relive Net)
--> Go to the Cyber Sanatorium.
--> Interrogate receptionist and the nurse about Han and Donna.
You find out:
(1)Jeffery Han was just released from the Sanatorium last month.
(2)Nobody’s seen Donna recently.
(3)"George Smith" probably knows something.
--> Go visit "George Smith."
He isn’t in his room!
--> Go to the operating room.
--> Talk to the patient. You ask him about "George Smith." He
says George was in the examination room.
--> Go the examination room. The doctor says "George" just left.
He said he’d be swinging by the nurse’s center.
--> Go back to the nurse’s center. The nurse says "George" just
left for the OR.
--> Go to the OR. Once again the patient says "George" is in the
examining room.
Now you see a pattern. You’ll never catch the old man if you just
follow everyone’s directions, but now you’ve come full circle and
know what route he’s following. Go one ahead of him on the route
and you’ll find him.
--> Go to the nurse’s center. The old man explains that he’s
"taking a walk."
--> Talk to him and ask him about Lt. Han. He tells you that Lt.
Han was here for personality-switch surgery. He’s a completely
different man now, down to his way of talking. Upon further
questioning he reveals that the Mistress of the Blue Oyster is
probably the one who would know more.
--> Go to the shop and jump to Resort Net.
(Resort Net)
--> Go visit the Mistress of the Blue Oyster.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~This is where the divergent paths reconverge.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When you ask her, the Mistress tells you that Lt. Han has been murdered.
You’re too late. But then you remember that thing he left with his lawyer.
You need some proof that you’re his representative.
--> Ask the Mistress if you can have what Lt. Han left behind. He denies that
Han left anything behind. You trick him into admitting there is something.
--> You have to physically frisk him for the item. Touch him repeatedly.
He shows you a ring and makes you promise to give it back when you’re done.
--> Look at and analyze the ring, then take it.
--> Go to the Dream Beach.
--> Go to the store and get the shark to jump you to Justice Network.
(Justice Network)
--> Go to the desk on the right.
--> Talk to the A.I. You get permission to see Han’s lawyer, after proving
who you are in the usual ways.
--> The phone rings, so answer it. Your operator tells you that your Transer
has been sabotaged, so it’s lucky you weren’t in it. She also says the Net
Army has issued a warrant for your arrest. They’re blaming you for what
happened to the girl who went missing in Fantasy Net and for Zahinell’s death.
Then the phone call is suddenly cut off.
--> Call Melody. She says something has gone wrong with the operators’
Transers and they’re no longer able to continue working. Ash has set things
up so that the same thing shouldn’t happen to him or Erika. You ask Melody if
you’ll be able to continue investigating within Justice Net now that you’re a
wanted man. She says she’s manipulating information such that they shouldn’t
find out about your warrant for a little while.
--> Go up the right-hand stairway to visit the lawyer.
--> Show her the ring. She gives you the goods. First a disk, then a box.
The box is locked. You can’t open it without the code, which the lawyer says
you’re supposed to have. But you don’t know anything about the code for the
box. Yet, the word "box" sets off something in your memory....
--> Take out the ring. Mini-game to figure out the code to unlock the box.
In this minigame the A button switches whether the box or the ring is in the
magnified view. You look for clues this way; you can also flip the
orientation of the items with the directional buttons. The C button lets you
input a number to try for the code. I’ll give you a hint below.
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Hint: the ring really is the key to the puzzle; try reorienting it such that
BOXSIZE is upside down. For the answer, see below.
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Answer: 25720. Because 3215 x 08 = 25720.
The box opens and you see a sheet of paper.
--> Look at, touch, and analyze it. The analyzer picks up a comment embedded
in the data indicating that it’s a military lock keyword. Perhaps it’s the
keyword that will unlock the Army’s Einshock Case records.
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Explanation of cut scene and stuff that led up to it: you let the lawyer keep
the ring since you don’t have time to give it back. Many AIS robots attack.
Melody comes and tells you your enemies are all over the building and they’ve
placed the net under a special alert so you can’t autorise. You’re trapped in
Justice Net. You power up; now you have many more hit points than you did
before. Eventually the cut scene ends and you have to move forward through
the hallways. AIS robots will shoot at you. Don’t get killed; it’s a pain in
the ass how far back the game continue takes you. I agree with the Japanese
website mentioned above: the shotgun really is a good weapon for this part.
However, you can do this with any of your standard weapons, even the knife.
They’re weak opponents; it’s just catching them that’s the hard part.
When you get to the end of the hallway, there’s a boss fight. Yep, it’s him.
Hints below.
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1 - The shoulder of the arm that’s turned into a gun, 2 - the gun part of that
same arm, 3 - his face.
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Melody says the special alert has been terminated in the Red Claw confusion;
you can escape now if you hurry. But you’re still wanted by the Net Army, so
you’ll have to rise to keep away from them. Melody says no, Ash has taken
steps so that you can hide in STAND headquarters.
What happens next will be obvious to you.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+ +
+ INFECTION #06: CYBER DRUG +
+ +
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
(STAND Headquarters)
You talk to SCOW. Ash has healed you; your wound wasn’t too serious. After
you’re finished talking to the boss, you wait for the new operator to show up
and you greet her.
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Erika says she’s good to be the new operator because even though one of her
hands isn’t working so well yet, Ash built her an artificial hand to use for
now.
--> Give Erika the sheet of paper. You ponder how "VIRuS" must be the keyword
to the files on the Einshock Case, but it needs to be converted into numbers.
You’re given the opportunity to make two basically random guesses, then you
remember where you’ve seen capital letters mixed with lower-case letters
before--the examination room in the hospital where the doctor had all those
bottles with elements in them. All the elements of the periodic table are
associated with a number; you just need to enter the numbers of the relevant
elements in order.
You’re taken to a screen with the bottles on it so you can look at the numbers.
If you need a closeup of a bottle, move the cursor over it and press C. When
you’ve figured out what to type, press A to get the keypad up.
Erika mumbles to herself for a while as she opens files and does stuff. You
compliment her on her Replacer-like skills and she says actually she used to
be one. Sherry taught her.
--> Give her the disk. It appears to contain a key that will decrypt an
encrypted file. You remember that there’s an encrypted file in Col. Gary’s
personal databank. Erika opens and decrypts it but it’s full of scientific
jargon she doesn’t understand. She tells you to go ask Ash about it when
you’re finished here.
--> Talk to her about the Einshock Case a couple of times, and then about the
Virus.
Apparently behind the Einshock Case lies the leak of a military secret. The
military secret in question is the Megadevice Development Plan. The
Megadevice is a cyber drug the Net Army was covertly researching. Apparently
the terrorists got hold of the information, and used the drug during Einshock.
The record says Lt. Han was threatened by the terrorists until he gave it to
them. It looks like in order to protect himself from the terrorists after
admitting this he joined the Witness Protection Program and went into hiding
as a completely different person. Col. Gary was never really blamed because
he "didn’t know anything about what was happening at the time." The
Megadevice Development Plan was called off.
You ponder the relationship between the Megadevice and the Virus.
--> Go see Ash in the laboratory and ask him about the file Erika sent over.
It’s a record of the Megadevice development. I can’t hear the dialogue in the
cut scene very well, but it sounds like the Megadevice is what you’d expect;
it temporarily makes you much stronger, but it also makes you go kinda crazy
and also changes not only your mental data but your physical data, just like
the virus monster. The Army held countless experiments trying to minimize
these negative effects, but after Einshock the plan was called off.
--> Talk to Ash some more.
You say that the Nuremberg Incident must have been caused by a surviving
terrorist whose physical data had changed as a side effect of the Megadevice.
Ash says sure, of course, but there’s likely more going on here. He shows you
the results of his latest research on the virus. He explains a lot about how
he did his research and made his conclusion, but what you need to get out of
this is that he’s discovered that the virus is somehow connected to Merry Coke.
And yet when you talk to him about Merry Coke, Ash says he’s run countless
experiments where he gives A.I.s Merry Coke, and nothing happens. You wonder
if the virus is a combination of the Megadevice and Merry Coke. Ash reminds
you of what Dr. McNaughton said: if you combine things that were made in the
net to create a virus, the A.I. won’t allow the synthesis to work. Both the
Megadevice and Merry Coke were created in Processing Alive, so the answer is
no. Ash’s current theory is that the virus is a combination of things, Merry
Coke which was created in Processing Alive and stuff originating in Real
Alive--all things that were legal and harmless on their own so that they could
be easily transported into Processing Alive.
Smiley calls you up. He says he’s located Red Claw in Relive Net, and will
defeat him by the time you get there. He sounds tipsy, and you ask him if
he’s been drinking. He says just one drink to celebrate his impending
victory. He hangs up, and Ash says the call was placed from the Bar in Resort
Net. This is bad because it means there was probably Merry Coke in his drink.
Sherry calls you up. Col. Gary has taken his AIS robots and gone into Fantasy
Net. She’s following them as they swim through the Sacred Lake right now.
Ash has researched the oxygen tanks and copied one for you. He gives you
another 16-minute tank. He also gives you a new build suit that’s more
powerful at resisting enemy attack.
--> Go to Melody’s area. Note: This is the last level of the game. There’s
going to be a lot of fighting up ahead, so now might be a good time to buy
stuff.
--> You don’t have to go talk to Melody at this point, but if you do look at,
talk to, and touch her it’s kind of interesting because she seems more human
to you, and talks about maybe changing her clothes.
--> Net jump. NOTE: YOUR CHOICE OF JUMP DESTINATIONS WILL DETERMINE THE
ENDING OF THE GAME. I like one ending substantially better than the other.
The ending I like is the Relive Network one, but I’ll walk you through both.
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+
| ENDING CHOICE #1 - Relive Network |
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+
(Relive Network)
Erika tells you that Dr. McNaughton has escaped from jail. Not his physical
body; his Processing Alive body has escaped the Cyber Jail. He’s going to try
to become a Recallid.
--> Go to the hospital.
--> Go to the OR.
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Look at the wound and question him. He drank Merry Coke. Red Claw is down
the stairs. He doesn’t acknowledge that he’s in no condition to fight, and
insists that he’ll take down Red Claw himself. You tell him he needs
treatment. He says he’s fine. He doesn’t have to listen to you. No siree.
--> Call headquarters and send the bastard back.
--> Go down to OR #2. On the way you wonder what Red Claw is doing there.
You know what Dr. McNaughton wants--a Recallid body--but what does that have
to do with Red Claw? Are they in league?
--> Look at the transfer control center (the eighth thing you can look at).
You see that the transfer machine is running. McNaughton must be transferring
himself into a Recallid body. But where is the man himself?
--> Touch the keyboard. You see a video message from Mathilde to her father
just as she is about to board the Nuremberg. You wonder what the hell this is
doing here.
McNaughton says they have different last names, but she’s his daughter.
--> Talk to McNaughton repeatedly. You ask him if Donna is his daughter as
well. He says yes, although Donna is an A.I. He tells you if you hadn’t
noticed that, you probably hadn’t realized she was using you, either.
He explains to you that he was able to leave jail after Donna created him an
escape route based on tracing the very Tracer you’ve been carrying. Those
images you often see when you initially dive are images Donna sent to your
subconscious in order to make contact with you. And she was the one who
locked you in that car in Culture Net.
You yell that he’s the one who ordered her to do those things. He says sure,
he programmed her with that general purpose, but she couldn’t contact him
while he was in jail, so the specific crimes she committed were planned by her
alone.
"Crimes"?, you ask. Yes, she created Merry Coke. Donna is no mere A.I.; he
used a part of his daughter to create her. She did pretty well for herself,
though she did have the Megadevice as a model to work from. Merry Coke
becomes the virus upon interaction with an unstable human psyche. In other
words, only those with human feelings become virus monsters. That’s why the
A.I.s in Ash’s experiments didn’t transform.
The virus is an instrument of natural selection. In the new era, only those
with strong psyches are necessary. You ask how the virus kept mutating. It
changed versions depending on the other drugs mixed with it.
You ask him if he created Donna to get revenge for losing his daughter and
being framed for the incident that killed her. The answer is obviously yes,
but it’s pushed McNaughton over the edge. He says the problem isn’t just with
Zahinell or the Net Army; the human mind is selfish, childish, and foolish.
He’s going to pass judgment on the human race. He’ll execute you first. He
calls in Red Claw to do the job.
After Red Claw beats you up a bit, Dr. McNaughton says he’ll tell you one last
thing: Red Claw is your brother Leon. You tell him to cut the crap; Red Claw
fought Blue Metal. He says yes, but afterwards Donna transferred Leon’s
consciousness into Red Claw’s body to create a stronger war machine.
This is the final Red Claw fight. For help, see below.
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1 - the gun you see in his left hand (his left, not yours), but the Blaster
will not be effective on it. Use the Shotgun instead, or use bombs or other
non-gun attacks to get past the first weak point. 2 - his head, 3 - the
square-shaped gun mouth on his right hand. It’s a little hard to see but it’s
right below the two round gun mouths.
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Erika calls in to say she’s received an SOS from Sherry. She transfers you
directly to Fantasy Net.
(Fantasy Net)
Here you are in Fantasy Net. Once you get to the entrance, there’s basically
nothing for you to do but dive into the Sacred Lake (which, since you’re
following Sherry, is your goal anyway).
--> Equip yourself with a 16-minute tank.
--> Swim to the boat, then use the control room to equip with the other
16-minute tank.
--> Swim to the cave where you had the Fantasy Net boss fight. Remember, it’s
left, turn, and straight as many times as necessary from there.
--> Go into an empty room and equip yourself with the 17-minute tank.
--> Swim to a third cave you’ve never been to before. After you go out the
door to this cave, it’s straight, turn around, right, straight.
--> Once inside the cave, you can take your choice which door you go in first.
The door to your right takes you to an abandoned ship.
--> Go to the door all the way at the end of the hallway first. Go ahead and
look at all the random ancient Japanese relics inside if you want to (Serge’s
theory is that the captain of this ship had a samurai mania or something).
Note that you can go right to get further inside this room.
--> Analyze stuff. One of the things you analyze is a Japanese Sword, which
pops out and shows you a picture of itself. Serge remarks that it’s classified
as "art data" rather than "weapons data," probably because the captain had it
for display purposes.
--> Look at the Japanese Sword. You conclude that it may be classified as art
data, but it could actually be usable as a weapon.
--> Grab it. It’s all rusted and beaten-up, making it useless. You put it back
in disgust.
--> Grab it again. You reconsider and decide to take it with you, since you
never know what may happen. Plus, if you could just take care of the rust it
would make a decent weapon.
--> Now go ahead and check out the other rooms in the abandoned ship. One is
the control room, where you can find a stash of weapons in the lockers. You
grab a mini-revolver out of it. The other room is private quarters. On the
right-hand desk is a book on famous swords. It has a section on Japanese
blades, and the phone number of a sword-repair shop called Blademan Support.
If you call Blademan Support they’ll fix up your sword.
The door straight ahead as you enter the cave takes you to an AIS standing
guard over an entrance. You conclude Col. Gary must be on the other side.
However, you’re a wanted man. If you just waltz up to the AIS he’ll delete you.
--> Look at the AIS. You reason that in his place, you’d first confirm your ID
and then strip you of your weapons, so you need to circumvent those things
somehow.
If you want to figure out on your own how to beat this AIS, go ahead.
Otherwise see below.
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You can’t change your ID by yourself, so call STAND. Erika sends the AIS a
false report that you’ve been captured by someone else. Then she futzes with
your ID so that the AIS won’t be able to properly confirm your identity. Now
the ID issue is taken care of. Then you realize you have a weapon that isn’t
weapon data, so there is a way to take down the robot.
--> Go talk to the AIS. He confirms that your ID doesn’t match anyone on the
wanted list. Then he asks you to surrender your weapons. He will give you two
chances. If you refuse, he’ll delete you.
--> Say YES. He takes all your weapons and tells you to follow him.
--> When his back is turned, use your sword on him.
--> Go through the tunnel.
--> After you’ve talked to Sherry you’ll need to call STAND. Before Erika
hangs up she’ll give you’re her cash on hand, which is 5000 mega-Clusters.
See below after you’ve found Col. Gary and looked at everyone with him:
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What he was saying to Donna was essentially "So this is your flower garden!
I see, these purple flowers are what you’ve been making Merry Coke out of." He
prepares to have her killed.
--> Talk. You scream at Col. Gary that Donna is an A.I. She herself hasn’t
committed any crime because everything is Dr. McNaughton’s responsibility. He
says he knows that, and the deletion of a criminal A.I. is right and proper.
But he thanks you for coming. He messed up Sherry just to get you here.
Now he’s going to execute you and Donna both.
Melody tells Col. Gary that he’s been proven to have given the president of
Zahinell dangerous drugs and to have murdered the Owner of Bar Waihaa. The
Net Army itself has stripped him of authority and issued a warrant for his
arrest. Melody personally investigated and discovered that the "meeting"
Zahinell was having before his death was with Col. Gary. She also has
evidence that Gary gave Zahinell Merry Coke during the meeting.
Col. Gary tells the AISes to ignore Melody and continue to obey his orders.
You see what happens next.
Col. Gary admits to all his crimes. He killed Zahinell so nobody who knew the
truth of the Nuremberg Incident would be left alive. He explains everything.
The Einshock Case didn’t happen because of an information leak. It was part of
their experimentation on the Megadevice, and everything was planned from the
beginning. They kept the surviving terrorist in the Army net as a lab rat and
continued their experiments. However, the test subject escaped into the
Nuremberg and turned into a monster. Zahinell didn’t know about this and
thought the virus monster was the result of an error in NOA8000’s basic
programming, so he ordered the nuke to protect his own ass.
Col. Gary realized what Zahinell had done and went to blackmail him about it.
He told Zahinell the truth of what had happened and he and Zahinell entered an
arrangement where they helped each other cover up their respective lies.
However, Zahinell had ceased to be valuable and his death might make you think
you’d resolved the virus case.
Col. Gary had Lt. Han make a false confession of leaking info. They continued
work on the Megadevice, but its unexpected side effects prevented it from
being completed. Eventually Han freaked out about what he’d done and ran away.
However, the Army didn’t kill him--because he’d taken the encryption key to
the Megadevice files with him as insurance, and so they couldn’t touch him.
His death was an accident.
In order to perfect the Megadevice the Army needed more data, so they
deliberately let the virus run amok even after they figured out Merry Coke was
they key factor in stopping it. They made a deal with Donna to overlook the
virus as long as she gave them information. Donna’s goal was the destruction
of the nets.
Col. Gary asserts that if they let weak and stupid people breed on Mars, Mars
will eventually end up like Earth. Both in and out of Processing Alive, they
need to weed the undeserving out of the population.
As for why Gary started going around killing anyone who had to do with the
Megadevice...the reason is that it’s complete now.
When you’ve talked Gary through all this, you see him shoot up with the
Megadevice. Take the jacked-up Col. Gary down yourself, or see below for
instructions.
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1 - the mouth of either of the arm-guns, 2 - his face, 3 - his chest.
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At the end of the Col. Gary fight there’s a long cut-scene. Watch the cut
scene and then if you need to, read the explanation below.
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I’m going to summarize. Basically, Col. Gary set the net to nuke and then was
about to rise to escape the consequences. However, Melody melded with him and
prevented him from rising. She told him she was going to get him killed to
remove a threat from the Net, just like he explained his killing of Luna
before. If Col. Gary dies, the nuke order dies with him and Fantasy Net
(along with Serge, etc.) is safe. Melody begged you to shoot them, saying
this was a logical decision and there was no room for emotional responses...
but then said "Because I met you, I...."
However, in the end Donna nuked them before you had made up your mind.
--> Talk to Donna repeatedly.
She says she nuked those two because you were taking too long about things.
Col. Gary thought he could rule Processing Alive forever if he became Recallid
and continuously used the Megadevice. You say okay, Col. Gary is one thing,
but Melody was her younger sister (because McNaughton did her main
programming). She points out that you killed your sibling, too.
Dr. McNaughton may be dead, but her memories and so much else are Mathilde’s.
She’s herself, yet not herself. But she’s got a purpose that Mathilde didn’t
have: to carry out McNaughton’s wishes after his death. As long as she has
that raison d’être, she’s not a copy of Mathilde; she’s her own person, Donna.
She’s a super-high rank A.I., more powerful than the others. She can take
over this net and become the god of this world.
You tell her you won’t let McNaughton’s ambitions be realized, even if that
means you have to defeat her. She warns you that weapons are powerless against
her.
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She has a gajillion hit points. Also she only has 2 weak points: 1 - her claw,
2 - the place where the virus arm connects with her shoulder.
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You beg her to return to her old self and she refuses. She admits that her
heart was almost moved by your feelings. But she’s still going to kill you....
Cut scene.
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Red Claw’s mind control has lifted because of McNaughton’s death. He seizes
Donna and she sees he intends to self-destruct and take her with him (he has
the Nuke Bomb). She screams that he’ll kill Serge too, so he should stop and
let her go. You beg him not to use the nuke--not because you don’t want to
die, but because you can’t stand to lose him again.
--> Switch to Disc 1 when you’re told to do so.
(LEMURIA)
Erika and Sherry managed to force-rise you before the nuke. You wake up in
your Transer.
--> Answer the call on your panel. Erika makes sure you’re okay. She also
tells you that she and Sherry were able to get to you because just before the
nuke, your brother sent them your net address. She tells you to rest. She’ll
make the report to SCOW.
--> Leave the Transer.
The Old Man welcomes you back and says that the yellow Transer behind him has
been making a funny noise for a while. It can be manually opened, but he
doesn’t have the muscles. He wonders if you’ll open it.
--> Go to the right. Now you can see what the hell Transer he’s talking about.
--> Open the Transer.
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--> Look at the person inside and you see a nametag with the inscription "Here
my beloved daughter, Mathilde McNaughton, dreams on forever...."
It’s Mathilde--but it’s also Donna. Dr. McNaughton actually modified
Mathilde’s body to create Donna. Donna’s an A.I. based on the body and mind
of an actual person. Whether this was the act of a mad scientist or a loving
father, no one knows. You wonder what Donna thought of this crazy creation
that was herself. It seems to you that near the end, both she and Melody were
starting to grope toward having hearts. You wish you could see her and try
touching her heart again.
Suddenly you see a video Donna has left for you. She tells you of how at
first she was only using you to forward Dr. McNaughton’s goals, but gradually
she became fascinated by you and started to wonder what it felt like to feel
and be human. It seems clear that she was starting to love you as a human but
as an A.I. was ultimately unable to change her destiny. She wishes she could
life freely, and of her own will.
You feel you’ve finally been released from the nightmare of Blue Metal’s
defeat, but you won’t soon forget the two sad A.I.s who rejected yet longed
for human imperfections.
Right after the conclusion of the virus case, someone destroyed NOA9000. The
final screen before the credits fades too fast for me to read it all, but it
talks about the damage sustained by Mars’ nets and I think it ends with
something along the lines of "but Processing Alive exists on Mars to this day,
sprung from the underground nets" or something. Again, I’m not very sure,
because it flies by faster than I read. Sorry. :(
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+
| ENDING CHOICE #2 - Fantasy Net |
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+
(Fantasy Net)
Here you are in Fantasy Net. Once you get to the entrance, there’s basically
nothing for you to do but dive into the Sacred Lake (which, since you’re
following Sherry, is your goal anyway).
--> Equip yourself with a 16-minute tank.
--> Swim to the boat, then use the control room to equip with the other
16-minute tank.
--> Swim to the cave where you had the Fantasy Net boss fight. Remember, it’s
left, turn, and straight as many times as necessary from there.
--> Go into an empty room and equip yourself with the 17-minute tank.
--> Swim to a third cave you’ve never been to before. After you get out the
door to this cave, it’s straight, turn around, right, straight.
--> Once inside the cave, you can take your choice which door you go in first.
The door to your right takes you to an abandoned ship.
--> Go to the door all the way at the end of the hallway first. Go ahead and
look at all the random ancient Japanese relics inside if you want to (Serge’s
theory is that the captain of this ship had a samurai mania or something).
Note that you can go right to get further inside this room.
--> Analyze everything you can. One of the things you analyze is a Japanese
Sword, which pops out and shows you a picture of itself. Serge remarks that
it’s classified as "art data" rather than "weapons data," probably because the
captain had it for display purposes.
--> Look at the Japanese Sword. You conclude that it may be classified as art
data, but it could actually be usable as a weapon.
--> Grab it. It’s all rusted and beaten-up, making it useless. You put it back
in disgust.
--> Grab it again. You reconsider and decide to take it with you, since you
never know what may happen. Plus, if you could just take care of the rust it
would make a decent weapon.
--> Now go ahead and check out the other rooms in the abandoned ship. One is
the control room, where you can find a stash of weapons in the lockers. You
grab a mini-revolver out of it. I think you may get it this weapon for the
express purpose of having it taken from you later. Anyway, the other room is
private quarters. On the right-hand desk is a book on famous swords. It has a
section on Japanese blades, and the phone number of a sword-repair shop called
Blademan Support. If you call Blademan Support they’ll fix up your sword.
The door straight ahead as you enter the cave takes you to an AIS standing
guard over an entrance to somewhere. You conclude Col. Gary must be on the
other side. However, you’re a wanted man. If you just waltz up to the AIS
he’ll delete you.
-->Look at the AIS. You reason that in his place, you’d first confirm your ID
and then strip you of your weapons.
If you want to figure out on your own how to beat this AIS, go ahead.
Otherwise see below.
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You can’t change your ID by yourself, so call STAND. Erika sends the AIS a
false report that you’ve been captured by someone else. Then she futzes with
your ID so that the AIS won’t be able to properly confirm your identity. Now
the ID issue is taken care of. Then you realize you have a weapon that isn’t
weapon data, so there is a way to take down the robot.
--> Go talk to the AIS. He confirms that your ID doesn’t match anyone on the
wanted list. Then he asks you to surrender your weapons. He will give you two
chances. If you refuse, he’ll delete you.
--> Say YES. He takes all your weapons and tells you to follow him.
--> When his back is turned, use your sword on him.
--> Go through the tunnel.
--> After you’ve talked to Sherry you’ll need to call STAND. Before Erika
hangs up she’ll give you’re her cash on hand, which is 5000 mega-Clusters.
See below after you’ve found Col. Gary and looked at everyone with him:
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What he was saying to Donna was essentially "So this is your flower garden! I
see, these purple flowers are what you’ve been making Merry Coke out of."
He prepares to have her killed.
--> Talk. You scream at Col. Gary that Donna has human rights no matter what
she’s done. He says "Oh, here you are." He messed up Sherry just to get you
here. He tells you it’s amazing you go so far to protect Donna when Donna
lured you into that car and tried to kill you. For his finishing blow,
Col. Gary tells you that Donna is an A.I. Anyway, now he’s going to execute
you both.
Melody tells Col. Gary that he’s been proven to have given the president of
Zahinell dangerous drugs and to have murdered the Owner of Bar Waihaa. The
Net Army itself has stripped him of authority and issued a warrant for his
arrest. Melody personally investigated and discovered that the "meeting"
Zahinell was having before his death was with Col. Gary. She also has
evidence that Gary gave Zahinell Merry Coke during the meeeting.
Col. Gary tells the AISes to ignore Melody and continue to obey his orders.
You see what happens next.
Col. Gary admits to all his crimes. He killed Zahinell so nobody who knew the
truth of the Nuremberg Incident would be left alive. He explains everything.
The Einshock Case didn’t happen because of an information leak. It was part of
their experimentation on the Megadevice, and everything was planned from the
beginning. They kept the surviving terrorist in the Army net as a lab rat and
continued their experiments. However, the test subject escaped into the
Nuremberg and turned into a monster. Zahinell didn’t know about this and
thought the virus monster was the result of an error in NOA8000’s basic
programming, so he ordered the nuke to protect his own ass.
Col. Gary realized what Zahinell had done and went to blackmail him about it.
He told Zahinell the truth of what had happened and he and Zahinell entered an
arrangement where they helped each other cover up their respective lies.
However, Zahinell had ceased to be valuable and his death might make you think
you’d resolved the virus case.
Col. Gary had Lt. Han make a false confession of leaking info. They continued
work on the Megadevice, but its unexpected side effects prevented it from
being completed. Eventually Han freaked out about what he’d done and ran away.
However, the Army didn’t kill him--because he’d taken the encryption key to the
Megadevice files with him as insurance, and so they couldn’t touch him.
His death was an accident.
In order to perfect the Megadevice the Army needed more data, so they
deliberately let the virus run amok even after they figured out Merry Coke was
they key factor in stopping it. They made a deal with Donna to overlook the
virus as long as she gave them information. Donna’s goal was the destruction
of the nets.
Merry Coke was the virus, and it changed versions depending on the other drugs
mixed with it. You protest that in STAND’s experiments Merry Coke didn’t
cause infection. He said that’s because STAND didn’t perform human
experiments--Merry Coke doesn’t cause infection in A.I.s because it only
operates on those with psychological instability, i.e., those with human
feeling.
Col. Gary asserts that if they let weak and stupid people breed on Mars, Mars
will eventually end up like Earth. Both in and out of Processing Alive, they
need to weed the undeserving out of the population.
As for why Gary started going around killing anyone who had to do with the
Megadevice... the reason is that it’s complete now.
When you’ve talked Gary through all this, you see him shoot up with the
Megadevice. Take the jacked-up Col. Gary down yourself, or see below for
instructions.
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1 - the mouth of either of the arm-guns, 2 - his face, 3 - his chest.
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At the end of the Col. Gary fight there’s a long cut-scene. Watch the cut
scene and then if you need to, read the explanation below.
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I’m going to summarize. Basically, Col. Gary set the net to nuke and then was
about to rise to escape the consequences. However, Melody melded with him and
prevented him from rising. She told him she was going to get him killed to
remove a threat from the Net, just like he explained his killing of Luna
before. If Col. Gary dies, the nuke order dies with him and Fantasy Net
(along with Serge, etc.) is safe. Melody begged you to shoot them, saying
this was a logical decision and there was no room for emotional responses...
but then said "Because I met you, I...."
However, in the end they disappeared before you had made up your mind.
--> Talk to Donna repeatedly.
She says it serves Gary right if he was nuked. He thought he could rule
Processing Alive forever if he became Recallid and continuously used the
Megadevice. When you ask her why she created the virus, she asks if you want
to help her too, just like your brother. Red Claw is your brother Leon; it’s
Leon’s consciousness data inside that Recallid body.
You tell her to cut the crap; Red Claw fought Blue Metal. She says yes, and
after you rose Leon took down Red Claw. But he was gravely injured at the
same time. She saved him and brainwashed him, then transferred his data into
Red Claw’s body to create a stronger war machine. You demand that she return
Leon to normal, and she tells you it’s too late.
Everything she’s done has been on orders from Dr. McNaughton, her creator who
programmed her entire life purpose. What’s more, her memories are copies of
his daughter’s memories. She’s herself, yet not herself. She’s merely a tool
for his revenge. She can’t go in a different direction because A.I.s are
unable to change their raisons d’être. She knows she’ll die if she succeeds
in her purpose, but if she can’t do this, her existence is meaningless.
What’s more, an A.I. that contradicts her own purpose dies. So either way,
there’s no chance of her survival.
When she sees that you’re not going to help her, she decides to kill you.
For help, see below.
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She has a gajillion hit points. Also she only has 2 weak points: 1 - her claw,
2 - the place where the virus arm connects with her shoulder.
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She says you’ve defeated her in the sense that you’ve blasted off the infected
parts of her body, but she’s been programmed such that weapons have no effect
on her, so you can’t kill her core body. You recall a previous time when
weapons didn’t work but you found a way anyway....
--> Use your sword on Donna.
You decide that you’re going to take down that McNaughton bastard if it’s the
last thing you ever do.
You receive a phone call. Erika tells you that Dr. McNaughton has escaped
from jail. Not his physical body; his Processing Alive body has escaped the
Cyber Jail. He’s going to try to become a Recallid.
Erika transfers you to Relive Net.
(Relive Net)
Now would be a good time to buy more stuff if you’re running low on anything.
--> Go to the hospital.
--> Go to the OR.
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Look at the wound and question him. He drank Merry Coke. Red Claw is down
the stairs. He doesn’t acknowledge that he’s in no condition to fight, and
insists that he’ll take down Red Claw himself. You tell him if he’s not
healed quickly he’ll turn into a full-blown virus monster. He says he’s fine.
He won’t go back to headquarters. No siree.
--> Call headquarters and send the bastard back.
--> Go down to OR #2.
--> Look at the Recallid control center (the eighth thing you can look at).
You see that the transfer machine is running. McNaughton must be transferring
himself into a Recallid body.
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This is the final Red Claw fight. For help, see below.
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1 - the gun you see in his left hand (his left, not yours), but the Blaster
will not be effective on this. Use the Shotgun instead, or use bombs or other
non-gun attacks to get past the first weak point. 2 - his head, 3 - the
square-shaped gun mouth on his right hand. It’s a little hard to see but it’s
right below the two round gun mouths.
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Leon was carrying Helen’s bomb with him all along. Now he’s left it for you.
--> Use the keyboard. You see a video of the Mathilde about to board the
Nuremberg. Her last name wasn’t "McNaughton" in her data file, but you reason
that maybe she’s his daughter.
And then McNaughton confirms it.
--> Talk to McNaughton. You ask him if he’s satisfied with his revenge for
losing his daughter and then being framed for the very incident that caused
her death. I’ll paraphrase: he says the problem isn’t just with Zahinell or
the Net Army; the human mind is selfish, childish, and foolish. The human
race should be exterminated. However, he’ll let it live if it makes him its
supreme ruler.
He explains to you that he was able to leave jail after Donna created him an
escape route based on tracing the very Tracer you’ve been carrying. Those
images you often see when you initially dive are images Donna sent to your
subconscious in order to make contact with you.
Furthermore, he was the one who nuked Gary and Melody. He didn’t plan on
Donna going crazy, though.
--> Look at McNaughton, then at the monitors. McNaughton’s eyes are hollow; he
must be looking at you through one of the monitors. If you break the right
one, he won’t be able to attack you.
Erika calls and says you can screw up monitors with magnetism. If you point at
the one you want her to mess with, she’ll take care of it. Note: McNaughton
only attacks when he can see. However, each time after a little while he’ll
repair his monitors, so you’ll be doing this several times. Every time WHICH
monitor is serving as his eye is random. If you hit the wrong monitor, he’ll
attack you. You can only withstand ten attacks before game over. DO NOT
ATTACK HIS BODY ITSELF.
--> Make guesses at which monitor is the right one until you take out his eye.
Erika says you need to use the computers in this room to figure out
McNaughton’s weak point. The best way I know through this is to do the below
in the exact order I describe. I am indebted to Riesuke for getting me through
this fight, although there are a couple of steps in which my instructions
differ from hers. EVERY ACTION YOU TAKE BRINGS YOU CLOSER TO MCNAUGHTON’S NEXT
REVIVAL, SO BE CAREFUL NOT TO WASTE ACTIONS. It’s not a time limit per se;
it’s an action-limit.
Note: The basic point is that you and Erika are looking for a way to cut the
power supply. It’s a logic puzzle, more or less. I’m not going to bother to
explain the exact logic of what’s going on during each step of your computer
odyssey here. Sorry.
1 - Use the keyboard.
2 - Look at the first monitor.
3 - Look once each at any two things on this screen, other than the little
map-like thing.
4 - Look at any monitor.
5 - Look at the second monitor.
6 - Look at each of the red dots on this screen once.
7 - Look at the third monitor.
8 - Look at the yellow box twice and then look at the white box three times.
9 - Look at the fourth monitor.
10 - Look at the red and green box twice.
11 - Use the keyboard.
12 - Look at the fifth monitor.
13 - Look at the yellow bracket twice, the blue dot once (it’s the only blue
dot you get to look at), and the red dot two times.
14 - Look at the third monitor.
15 - Look at the yellow box.
16 - Look at the fifth monitor.
17 - Look at three random things in the room OTHER than the monitors, the
keyboard, or McNaughton.
18 - Look at the third monitor.
19 - Look at the second monitor.
20 - Look at the leftmost red dot on the screen. It represents the main
switchboard.
21 - Go to your left.
22 - Look at the 9th possible thing (it should be the little machine on the
wall to your left, under the light). This is the switchboard.
23 - Touch the machine. It’s no good. It’s being guarded by a shielding system.
24 - Look at the third monitor.
25 - Look at the white box twice.
26 - Look at the second monitor.
27 - Look at the rightmost red dot.
28 - Move back to the right.
29 - Look at item #9; should be a switch on the right side of the room.
30 - You should be looking at a white glowing button. Push the button. Now
you’ve cut the power on the system that shields the switchboard.
31 - Go back to the left.
32 - Look at the switchboard.
You need to turn off the switchboard to stop McNaughton’s Recallid surgery,
but you realize it can’t be turned off. You need to destroy it. However, you
can’t use your Blaster or your Shotgun because McNaughton’s set up the room so
that you can’t use any recorded weapons you have on your person. But you have
an unrecorded weapon--the Nuke Bomb.
Erika warns you not to use it because you’ll be killed too. But if you can
take McNaughton down with you, you’re fine with that.
--> Use the Nuke Bomb.
--> Switch to Disc 1.
(LEMURIA)
Erika and Sherry managed to force-rise you before the nuke. You wake up in
your Transer.
--> Answer the call on your panel. Erika makes sure you’re okay. SCOW’s
ordered you to attend the coroner’s examination of Dr. McNaughton’s body. You
agree.
The medical examiner verifies that McNaughton is dead. Cause of death was
braindeath. However, he was in poor enough health to have died soon anyway.
You ponder that though he was an unforgivable criminal, at the same time
McNaughton was also a victim, and in an insane twisted way he did kind of want
to save humanity. However, you feel no regrets about your actions. The
generation to come will decide whether what you did was right or not.
At your brother’s funeral, you comment that now Blue Metal’s battle is
finally over.
Right after the conclusion of the virus case, someone destroyed NOA9000. The
final screen before the credits fades too fast for me to read it all, but it
talks about the damage sustained by Mars’ nets and I think it ends with
something along the lines of "but Processing Alive exists on Mars to this day,
sprung from the underground nets" or something. BUT--
STAY THROUGH THE CREDITS. You will see an extra cut scene. (At least, I think
this is the ending where you see the extra cut scene.)
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You see another part of Mathilde’s message. She’s telling her father that as
a surprise, she’s brought her little sister Saria along....
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8 - MISCELLANEOUS
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-There is at least one cheat for this game. Please refer to the "cheats"
section of this game's page on GameFAQs.
-On the basic Sega menu where you can play CDs or start up game discs, if you
try to play Virus like a CD you will hear a message from Melody about it with
a commentary from Serge.
-The playbook tantalizes you by hinting that you may be able to do something
with stocks other than play the stock market with them, but I was never able
to find any alternative use for them and for all I know the playbook was just
screwing with us. :P
THIS WALKTHROUGH IS COPYRIGHT SARAH ALYS LINDHOLM, 2006. The only persons,
websites, or entities other than Sarah Alys Lindholm granted access to it
are www.gamefaqs.com and www.neoseeker.com. Partial or full posting or
distribution of this walkthrough without explicit written permission from
the copyright holder is a copyright violation.
Virus, Sega, Hudson, and all trademarks are property of their
respective owners.
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns please email
yugoislove@gmail.com.
Hope you enjoyed!
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