Date Played: ?? December 2001
Game Date: Saturday, 02 December 2000
Charles received a call from a contact in the morgue about an unusual body which turned up overnight. On examining the corpse, the victim of a murder and arson attempt, Charles discovers that it has no navel, or, rather, a navel on the back of its neck than in the normal position. Of course, Charles, as Chief of the New York office of the CDC, took control of the autopsy under a vague pretense and phoned Decklan and Isaiah to remove the body. Disguised as ambulance drivers, Decklan and Isaiah take the body to the Funeral Home where Charles conducts the autopsy.
The autopsy reveals nothing unusual except that the residual tissue around a normal person's navel is found around the corpse's neck. Also, the corpse has a tattoo on his shoulder with the motto "The Eagles" and a bar code tattooed on his neck labeled 415-0065947.
The local police records of the murder told the team that the corpse, George Roxio, was shot twice at close range then the body was covered in ethanol and set alight. The location of the arson is the office of Dr Adam Lowenstein, a geneticist working at Cornell University. Lowenstein is missing and wanted by the police for the crime.
Looking into Lowenstein's background discovered that he was working with elements of cloning technology in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Then he disappears completely from all academic records -- no publications, no tenure, and no references. Then, four years ago, he turns up with secure and lifelong tenure at Cornell University lecturing first-year biology classes.
The team are suspicious. Charles sequences DNA recovered from the Roxio corpse and discovers, in place of the Fibonacci sequence found in human DNA, a repeating sequence spelling out 415-0065947.
To track down Lowenstein, Isaiah attempts to remote view his home. Lowenstein is not there but not only does the remote viewing give Isaiah the layout of the building, he receives a strong impression from the house that Lowenstein feels trapped, cornered, boxed in.
Lara, Maria and Decklan check out the house. After successfully breaking in, Maria trips the alarm system. Rushing now, Lara rushes up stairs and discovers a hidden safe in Lowenstein's bedroom. Maria finds a key taped under a drawer in the kitchen. Decklan stands watch. The key opens the safe and the team escapes with a collection of CD-ROMs, a video, the video player and a computer base. As they drive away, they hear the sounds of approaching sirens.
Back at the Funeral Home, the team examines the CD-ROMs, which contain a huge amount of genetic monitoring and medical records for 26 individuals who DNA is identical except for the DNA sequence representing the bar code. Each individual is named after a letter of the alphabet.
Checking with the police reveals that a number of Roxios have records for violent crime. Boris Roxio was executed in Florida three years ago for multiple murder. Luke Roxio hospitalized four truck drivers in an Oregon bar fight said to have lasted merely 14 seconds. Oscar Roxio was arrested for assault in Connecticut but was bailed out by his twin brother some hours later.
The video tape shows the Roxios' early life. It shows a room of two dozen or so very similar young men being told that they have been alive for eight months as of 1 January 1996 and being drilled in how to kill aliens and Aegis operatives.
The HERMES database shows that Aegis believes that the Black Book's project MKOMEGA was a disinformation campaign that put out the story that the Black Book is cloning psychic voids and training them to protect the planet from the Greys. Aegis argues that given the Black Book's alliance with the aliens, this proposition is obviously false.
Tracking down references to "the eagles" proves fruitless. The team can find no record of a military unit with this name, nor any monument or Indian reservation. With no other option, Lara, Decklan and Maria decide to ransack Lowenstein's house for more clues.
Game Date: Sunday, 03 December 2000
The team decides to go back to Lowenstein's house to check it thoroughly. However, this time they surprise two Black Book agents with the same idea. They die in a hail of bullets and the team escapes once more as the sirens approach. This tells them that Black Book has no idea where Lowenstein is, either.
George Roxio's apartment is next on the to-do list. Once through the police crime scene tape, they discover that the place has been ransacked, torn apart by professionals looking for something. Black Book? Probably but the team is not sure. Maria finds that Roxio had an obsession with the lyrics of John Lennon's song "A Day in the Life" and a love of family photography. She discovers several photo albums filled with photos of the clone-brothers from all over the country. The team takes the earliest album and leaves.
The earliest photos appear to the team to follow a pattern. They show a group of clones traveling through the scenic, tourist areas of upstate New York and in to Vermont. Maria finds the town names in the photographs on a map of the state and, tracing the clones' journey backwards, finds an old estate named "The Eagles." Now they have a target, the team readies their weapons and heads out.
The team arrives at "The Eagles" estate in time to spy on three platoons of Black Book agents assaulting the main house. Four hours later, the Black Book agents remove from the house the body of a Roxio and an older man, presumably Lowenstein. Also, five Black Book agents are dead and seven more wounded.
In another hour, the Black Book company has packed up and left. The team investigates the house. They find the room the saw on the video. It was here that the deduce Roxio killed Lowenstein and was, in turn, gunned down by the Black Book agents. Searching further, the discover an elevator to the underground lab where the clones were manufactured. The experience of this lab has an unnerving effect on Isaiah who flees the house.
After satisfying themselves that there is nothing more to learn here, they leave for home.
Unanswered Questions and Mysteries To Be Solved