unforum

[Crane]

[SPEC] The Mystery of the theft ...?

[ProfMoriarty]

I'm confused. Hadn't we confirmed that "The Advisor" had been hired to steal the cube by same ancient, evil organization?

[Crane]

And who is "The Advisor"?

[Leeravitz]

Gee, I hate to say it again, but I wrote up a substantial portion of the background to all this stuff about a month ago, and hoped it would get posted somewhere on the Wiki. I left it in Seej's capable hands, and then, I've no idea what happened to it all after that.

If you can stand to read through it in a mail in entirety (!), here it is for completeness sake:

THE ORGANISATION

From remarks made by The Advisor to Pietro Salk, we can deduce that there was a dedicated team engaged in the Cube theft. This team was apparently four strong, which agrees with a security analysis developed by the head of Academy Security, Henrik Tanner, who opined that a four - person team would have been needed to orchestrate the theft. Although we are aware that each of the four would have brought a differing skill to the team (Tanner's report mentioned that the theft would have had to require the skills of both a 'hardware' and a 'software' expert, for instance), we have only been made aware of one particular specialty – one of the four (code – name C) was 'some kind of software genius'. Given that Bernardo Holyoke [see below] is, however, associated with the team, and known to have both fenced and jury – rigged stolen items of Academy tech, it may be fair to suppose that he was the 'hardware genius'.

The precise functions of the other two members of the team remain open to speculation. The four – person team were, according to The Advisor, not known to each other before they were assembled, and, in fact, great pains were taken by their sponsors to transfer payment for the theft to them anonymously etc. They addressed one another using code – names: Q, C, K and V. We remain uncertain as to whether these initials stood for a longer title. In one case, we already know that this was so: Q stood for Quercus – given that this is a Latin word referring to the oak tree, it has been assumed that Q, therefore, has to have been Holyoke (The Advisor's comment on the title was 'I guess it's sort of clever'). Less clever would seem to have been the adoption of C – we know, at least, that this associate was a woman, but that the initial was slightly ill chosen (Advisor's comment – 'I think C. was the initial of her real surname'). The Advisor herself (and all the circumstantial evidence in the Salk logs would seem to point to her being a woman) took the identity K. Finally, the group was masterminded by V, who the Advisor told Salk was a 'dangerous…true believer', and the only member of the group who knew all the other members before they were recruited.


THE THEFT

Let's now consider again the actual night of the Cube theft (our date: Jan. 16th, 2004).

On Ball Night, when Academy security is frequently stretched to its limit (as is well – known), the team struck. Police Chief Eoin Morgan recognised that the group would have to have been 'highly organised and technologically sophisticated' in order to pull off the theft. It was recognised immediately by the Academy that portions of the security system had been reprogrammed in order to allow the theft to take place, and that three different systems had, in fact, been disabled without causing alarms to trip.

Security guard, Fran Mendling, was murdered the same night, apparently because she chanced across the theft (although it remains an outside possibility that she may have been allied to the team, and aided their entry). Fran was murdered with a neuro – suppressant, which appears to have killed her instantly. This could have been a knee – jerk response to the team's discovery, but use of a neuro – suppressant may have actually been quite deliberate, inasmuch as it effectively masked Fran's time of death, and thus gave the thieves more cover for their activities. V may have been the killer, given the 'dangerous' reputation. It is also interesting that The Advisor at one point told Salk that she feared V because she had 'seen V work.' (perhaps Fran's killing was the occasion). Fellow members of the security team later discovered Fran's body at 2 a.m. when she failed to check in for a shift change. By that time, the Cube and the thieves would appear to have been long gone.

Some have supposed that escape was made by way of the Catacombs, which are known to run much of the length of the City, all the way from the Old Town (Holyoke's base of operations) to the Academy, and further out, towards the harbour/dock regions of the City.

THE PIETRO SALK LOGS

Pietro's lengthy correspondence with The Advisor has gone some considerable way towards deepening our understanding of developments post – theft. The basic pattern of this correspondence has been pieced together, and the association would appear to have run along the following lines:

1. The Advisor contacts Pietro anonymously on (our time) 6th May 2005. She appeals to his better nature, by reminding him of the conspicuous record he holds as a champion of the underdog, and his drive to expose corruption within the workings of the City. ('I can promise you the biggest scoop of your life'). The Advisor demands that Pietro secure confidentiality for her, and immunity from prosecution, given that she is prepared to act as whistleblower upon her own team operation. She assumes that, as Pietro has important journalistic contacts with the police, he should be able to engineer this.
2. The Advisor throws Pietro a bone in order to demonstrate that she is operating in good faith. She leads him towards investigating Holyoke's fencing ring, run from the Five of Cups tavern in the Old Town. The police, given Salk's tip – off, uncover an operation jury – rigging stolen security devices, most of which appear to have come from the Academy. Pietro gains the byline for the story in The Sentinel.
3. Benardo Holyoke is killed. The investigating officer is Helena Frye, identified as Pietro's police contact, and Salk again covers the story. According to Frye, it appeared to the police as if the murder had occurred during the course of a 'bungled robbery'. However, it would seem that Holyoke knew his killer (or had at least seen fit to allow them to enter the pub, and remain after closing hours) because his alarm system had not been set up for the night, and there was no evidence of its having been triggered by breaking and entering. It looks as if a ransacking of the establishment had then been undertaken, in search of something. Given that one must assume that the police had already confiscated the jury – rigged goods previously uncovered, one must assume that the burglar was attempting to find something that the police had missed.
4. The Advisor's take on this situation was to imply to Salk that Holyoke had been murdered by an associate (most likely V, or one of V's supporters), possibly because of her actions in leading Salk to investigate the Five of Cups in the first instance.
5. On the 15th May, 2005, we have the first reference by The Advisor to the effect that she is going to communicate with Salk via a secure channel. They appear to have arranged a meeting via this channel. In actual fact, later correspondence seems to indicate that the pair did not come face to face until as late as mid – June. What, therefore, looks to have been arranged here is some kind of drop – off at a pre – selected location. What may have been dropped off is certain information outlining the links of the theft to the shadowy group that I refer to as 'the conspiracy'. Later, The Advisor will refer to Salk following 'a lead' she has offered him. The Advisor would seem to have 'turned up' to this meet, inasmuch as she 'turned up' at all, without formally identifying herself to Salk.('You will not recognise me. I will find you.')
6. For a short time, Salk appears to have looked into Reconstructionist activities in the belief that they were somehow involved in the theft. This may have been partly inspired by his realisation that Holyoke's wife had converted to Reconstructionism. However, no useful further information is turned up on this trail. The Advisor lays emphasis on the fact that Salk is looking in the wrong direction. Eventually, Salk talks to Jessica Holyoke, and realises she knows nothing about the situation. He is also unable to reconcile the Reconstructionist's spiritual values with the fact that the team that stole the cube were hired to do so.
7. By 20th May, 2005, Pietro appears to have realised that he is getting in deep. He feels unable to talk to his police contacts about his investigations, although this is slightly odd: The Advisor merely asked that she keep her name out of reference to the investigation, not that Pietro should talk to nobody about it (at least, if she meant what she said about offering him a 'scoop', we must assume that the intention would be to publish the information eventually).
8. Pietro then starts to pursue research in the Academy Library, hoping to find out more about 'the conspiracy' from ancient texts. He canvasses the idea on 25th May. We must assume that he then proceeded to do this research at intervals. By 13th June, he mentions, elliptically, what he has found out.
9. During this time period, The Advisor is holed up in her apartment in Ascendancy Point, presumably in hiding.
10. On June 1st, Helena Frye gives Pietro more information on the continuing investigation into the Five of Cups operation. The police have now discovered several pieces of tech that were missed on the earliest sweeps – these are a Reynolds ioniser and three Klebold plates. None of these items have a security application. They appear to have been stolen after January 1st, 2005. This would imply that these pieces of tech could not have been involved in the theft effort per se. However, it is a strong likelihood that what the 'mysterious assailant' who murdered Holyoke was looking for were these pieces of tech, and that, for some reason, it was necessary to any 'clean – up' operation that these pieces *not* be found. It would appear, however, that Holyoke had hidden them away too well, possibly even as insurance should the deal turn sour. Salk's opinion on these pieces was that Holyoke was unlikely to have obtained them himself; presumably they had been handed over into his care, perhaps with the initial desire that he would alter them, and then fence them on. Attitudes appear to have hardened between January and June as the investigative net tightened.
11. June 1st is also the day that Salk realises that The Advisor has been 'spying' on his domestic arrangements. Aggrieved by this, he appears to have downed contact for several days.
12. On 4th June, the correspondence resumes. The Advisor apologises for spying, but claims that she had to be certain that Salk was fully trustworthy.
13. On 13th June, Salk finally broaches the notion that the pair should meet.
14. By 16th June, this meeting has taken place. It has sometimes been assumed that Salk was unfaithful to his wife during these three days. Perhaps. But it doesn't necessarily follow that a brief affair developed. Rather, Salk, with his highly developed sense of injustice, appears to be feeling guilty that he is meeting (and thinking about) any woman clandestinely, regardless of why this meeting is taking place.
15. On the 16th, The Advisor does not meet with Salk, even though both of them turn up to their 'agreed meeting place'. She gets cold feet, because she is aware of someone else present who looks as if he's trailing Salk. Salk maintains that this individual is nothing to do with him. The figure is dark – skinned, reads a newspaper, and The Advisor rates him as 'another professional'. Interestingly, he is said to have sat in a leather armchair whilst he observed, which implies that the meet was taking place indoors, rather than outside, although the man is also said to have sat in the shade of a cluster of birch trees (some interior hydroponics?). The Advisor says of this man that he 'looked like he could handle himself' and later Salk will compare him to a 'fitness instructor'. This implies that he was bulky and well – muscled. The theory that the observer may have been Garnet Reed, a member of the Academy Cube Retrieval Project, on secondment from the Perplexian defence forces, appears to be pretty convincing.
16. Later on the 16th, The Advisor goes for a walk. By this point, she is refusing to take her key with her, for the sake of security.
17. On 17th June, Salk returns to his contention that the Reconstructionists may have been involved. By now, this smacks of justifying his theories to himself. However, he may have been confused by the accusations being levelled against Aiko Entrescore at the time. Interestingly, it was Salk who reported on Aiko's indicting for the Sentinel.
18. On 19th June, Salk determines that he and The Advisor must jointly go to the police with the evidence they possess. This would appear to go against the initial basis of their agreement. The Advisor sidesteps agreement, and asks that they reconvene at Ascendancy Point on Solstice Day (June 21st).
19. By 20th June, Salk has been got to, and found comatose. Apparently, this occurred relatively suddenly, and when his wife Sylvia returned to their apartment, she discovered the door hanging open. The latter fact is probably not significant, although it may indicate that, in haste, the assailant failed to close the door behind them as they fled. Another possibility is that Salk's condition, which by the 23rd June, is clearly diagnosed as a degenerative neurological one had lain dormant in his system for some little while (how it would have been transferred to him remains a mystery), and that he was being visited by someone he knew (perhaps the Advisor) when he collapsed suddenly, and they fled in dismay. It does not seem to be the case that the door was broken in from the outside.
20. Salk proceeded to encode as much information as he could within his key, under cover of a maze - generating programme, when he emerged for a time from his coma, and before death claimed him on the 27th. It is at least suggestive that the theft team murdered Fran Mendling via use of a neuro – suppressant, and that Salk, too, was disposed of with a neurological tool.

'THE CONSPIRACY'

Inasmuch as we know anything about 'the Conspiracy', we can note that the correspondence between Salk and The Advisor indicates:

a) One group taking on a 'conspiratorial' identity are believed to have 'died out decades ago, if they ever existed'; in Salk's opinion, they had adopted a name and a symbol that were significant, apparently as a deliberate provocation, in memory of something that had gone before. The Advisor appeared to contradict this, suggesting that, rather than such a group having been a 'throwback', they were a continuation.
b) In more general terms, it would seem that the conspiracy as a whole is reputed to have been operating since ancient times. The group to which Salk referred (within living memory) must have been a momentary surfacing of one facet of the (much) longer – lived conspiracy. When Salk talked to The Advisor about the originators of the mysterious symbol, he claimed that they 'had been gone so long', he found it hard to credit their continued existence. This would appear to have been a reference to the ancient founders of the conspiracy, rather than any more recent recrudescence, unless Salk genuinely felt the passing of 'several decades' to be equivalent to an extremely 'long' period of time, in which case he might have been referring to the modern arm of the conspiracy.
c) The suggestion that the conspiracy are 'ruthless true believers' is a recurrent refrain. Salk finds it hard to credit that they would not act spontaneously, but if the conspiracy has been in existence for several hundred, even a thousand, years, then the fact that they are 'playing the long game' might not actually be difficult to accept.
d) The members of the conspiracy are said to be deployed everywhere – this implies that, whatever it is, the conspiracy is a multi – headed hydra and has infiltrated into the ranks of many Perplexian organisations.
e) It would appear that V was the theft team liaison with the conspiracy (a 'true believer'). The other members of the team appear to have been freelancers, who did the job for the money. The conspiracy presumably arranged for the theft to take place, with V orchestrating proceedings on their behalf. V may be a minor cog in a much bigger machine, therefore.

THE DISPERSAL OF THE CUBE THEFT TEAM

It is very difficult to be precise about the current situations of members of the Cube theft team.

Holyoke (who was probably Q) is dead, perhaps murdered by V.

The Advisor (K) is presumably in hiding, although one must be left to wonder. If 'the conspiracy' have become aware of Salk's activities, then they may have also become aware of those of The Advisor. On the other hand, her circumspection throughout proceedings may well have enabled her to remain undetected for the time being.

The identity of C remains unknown. Given that we know she is a female software genius whose surname also begins with C, there have been some sensible guesses as to her identity. One possibility is the PCAG wunderkind, Myra Champaigne. Another is Sarah Covington, who, right at the outset of our investigations, was mentioned in conjunction with the Academy's Gatehouse Error Logs. It is perhaps worth recalling the brief excerpts of conversation recorded between Lyssa Ling and Sarah Covington at this juncture: Covington mentions feeling distracted because she is thinking about a mysterious 'them'.

V also remains unknown. We have no information on what sex they are.

It appears unlikely that any of the team code letters relate to their everyday surnames. If this were the case, it would be rather surprising that The Advisor singles out C's action as 'foolish', in choosing a code that resonated with the first letter of her actual name.

The undated advice contained on Salk's log 'You must find her before it's too late. You must find out what she knows' is ambiguous. It has been plausibly suggested that it could have been advice given to Salk by The Advisor, directing him to locate C before she, too, was murdered. However, it could equally plausibly have been a plea written by Salk himself to those who would decode his logs (namely, us), and asking that we locate The Advisor before it is too late. If the latter is the case, then there is no reason that C may not have been disposed of at any time between the theft and the present, although one wonders if the deaths connected to the case thus far are reactive attempts to cover up when inquiry gets too close, rather than a systematic drive to 'clean up' in the wake of the theft.


THE IDENTITY OF 'CONSPIRACY' OPERATIVES

We have virtually no idea of what 'the conspiracy' stands for, what organisations it has infiltrated etc.

We have no clear idea of what they want to do with the Cube.

The only suggestive piece of information thus far is that the 'mysterious stranger' trailing Salk and The Advisor may have been working for the Conspiracy (and might have been the assassin who took out Salk). This figure, as has been pointed out, sounds rather like Garnet Reed. If Reed is working for the Conspiracy, then that implies not only that it has infiltrated the Academy, but perhaps, also the Defence Forces and/or the City Council, with which Reed is associated.

Interestingly, his presence (if correctly identified) appears to indicate that The Advisor is unlikely to be an Academy staff member or student, as she did not recognise the 'stranger' when he was observing Salk. Equally, unless this was all some elaborate double – bluff, it is unlikely for the same reasons that the 'stranger' is V. That in itself is suggestive, because it may indicate either a) that, if the 'stranger' dealt with Salk, then perhaps he 'dealt with' Holyoke also, and that would indicate that it is not V who is organising a 'clean up' or b) that V was the person who got to Salk, but the 'stranger' was observing on behalf of a separate wing of the conspiracy, and/or independently!!

[tanner]

sorry Leeravitz -- can you precis that???

[Leeravitz]

Well, the original point of it was, precisely, that it details as much as I thought was relevant referring back to what we know of surrounding the theft. As it was really meant for the Wiki, I accept that it may be too much to digest within the forums - I'm just not sure what happened to the idea that it would get posted on the Wiki.

There is very little of it that should wrong - foot anyone, as it's pretty much a summing - up of things we've been told - I tried to avoid too much speculation, and so, if you've paid attention to the Salk Logs etc., you'll recall most of what I'm saying.

But, just for you, Tanner, I'll come up with a quick guide:

1. The first section is simply devoted to considering a few of the details that we know about the make - up of the team that stole the Cube: that there were four of them, each was probably a specialist etc.; they adopted code - names; were brought together by a single individual who knew them all, although none of the others knew one another etc. Much of this is taken from what Salk got from the Advisor in the Logs, although Henrik Tanner had earlier suggested in a report to the Sentinel that the likely set - up was of this nature.

2. In the second section, I simply revisited the very first details we were ever given (courtesy of the Sentinel) of the circumstances surrounding the theft: it took place on Ball Night; the Cube was lifted from the Museum; Fran Mendling was killed, presumably by the thieves en route to a shift change, through utilisation of a neuro - suppressant; at least three different types of security system were disabled to allow the theft to take place etc. The possibility that the Cube was taken away via the Catacomb system is also raised.

3. This extensive section was my attempt to map the chronological development of the Salk - Advisor contact. To cut this long story short, it appeared to me that the pattern proceeded in the following manner: TA contacts Salk because she knows he has a reputation for expose, and can be trusted; she initially throws him a bone leading him to Holyoke's fencing operations to prove her trustworthiness; Holyoke is then killed by persons unknown, following the raid organised by Salk's tip - off to the police, and probably because of this; TA steps up her security measures for corresponding with Salk (secure channels etc.) - she speaks to him about how payment was given over to the theft team, and she seems to agree to drop off information for him at a mutually agreed meeting place (although it appears they did not actually meet in person at this stage); Pietro investigates various leads - he is warned off investigating the Recons by TA, and starts going to the Academy Library to investigate ancient Cubist sects; some new technological devices are found hidden away in Holyoke's bolthole - but they don't appear to have been used in the theft, although they *do* appear to have been hidden for some reason - it is possible that Holyoke's killer was looking for them; Pietro falls out with TA for a few days as he discovers that she has been 'spying' on his domestic affairs (again indicating that they've not yet met in person); TA and Pietro then arrange a face - to - face meeting for the first time - it has been suggested that the pair have a whirlwind affair during the next few days. Perhaps, but maybe nothing so intimate actually occurred - Pietro may have simply felt guilty about clandestine meetings with another woman; Then, at a further meeting to which Pietro turns up, TA hides - this is because she feels he is being trailed by another man who looks like 'a professional' and who Pietro later confirms has nothing to do with the Sentinel - this meeting appears, from circumstantial evidence, to have taken place indoors; they arrange yet another meeting for Solstice Day, to meet at TA's flat in Ascendancy Point; but, before this can happen, Pietro succumbs to his coma - evidence suggests that he was 'got to' early on the morning of his initial collapse, but given the degenerative quality of the 'disease' he fell victim to, perhaps Pietro was 'infected' some days earlier. Given that Pietro was found by his wife, Sylvia, with the door to his home left wide open, we must assume he met someone on the morning before he fell into the coma - his assassin, or somebody else?

4. My fourth section refers to the mysterious 'Conspiracy' that TA frequently told Salk was responsible for the originating plan behind the theft: What we know of this group is taken from TA's comments. Salient facts include: that they have ancient roots, although they may have had supporters regrouping in more recent times; they use a recognisable identificatory symbol; they are ruthless 'true believers'; the last visible emergence of 'conspiracy activities' appears to have 'dies out years ago'; they have contacts, associates and supporters 'everywhere'; the leader of the Theft Team ( Code - name 'V') was *probably* the liason between thieves and the wider 'Conspiracy'.

5. My fifth section speculates on what has happened to the members of the Cube Theft Team. Holyoke (probably 'Q') is dead; TA ('K') is likely to be in hiding; the mysterious female software expert 'C' is known to have a surname beginning with that initial - we remain uncertain as to either who she is, or whether she is still alive; the leader 'V' (who may have orchestrated the killings of other members of the team?) remains utterly unknown.

6. My sixth, and final section, discusses what we may speculate about the putative 'Conspiracy'. I conclude that we know (technically) nothing of its aims, nor why it would wish to see the Cube stolen. Have we been able to identify any operatives for this group? I return here to the 'professional' who tracked Salk and TA - the logical inference here would be that, perhaps, this man was the assassin, and was responsible for the death of Salk and (maybe) Holyoke. Circumstantial evidence has allowed us to identify him with Garnet Reed of the Academy Cube Retrieval Team. Garnet is known to have military and governmental connections.

Interestingly, however, TA claimed to Salk that she did not recognise this man. Assuming she told the truth, we are left to conclude two facts: 1) It's unlikely TA has Academy connections if the man is Garnet - she would probably otherwise have recognised him. 2) This appears to presuppose that TA never worked with this 'professional' - in that case, he can't be'V' - so, if 'V' is murdering those who might give the 'Conspiracy's' game away, then he's doing it through the uses of proxy agents. Another possibility is that 'the professional' *wasn't* the assassin, or wasn't working for the 'Conspiracy' at all.

It's all a very tangled web! Since writing this, I don't think any drastic new revelations have come to light, although it's been hypothesised that the 'conspiracy' are a group called 'The Third Power', mentioned on the Brotherhood of the Six website, because we detected a symbol, rather like a '3', within Pietro's maze coding.

Could Sente still be behind it all? Maybe, but I'm thinking it all sounds a lot more interesting than that.

[tanner]

thanks

[Leeravitz]

Seriously, I hope it was helpful. Admittedly, it's only moderately shorter than the last one

[Scott]

I'll post this wiki-wise a little later when i have more time to wade through it and add, you know, links, fFormats, stuff.

[Mikeyj]

/me applauds.

That's really useful...absolutely great

I've got two points that I want to mention, the first is that I think we should be slightly cautious at making links between the manner of deaths of Fran Mendling and Pietro Salk, although both were apparently killed by neurological means, the action of agents was quite different. Given the prevalence of mind-bending agents in PxC I think they would be the weapon of choice for any PxC assassin. Not that I'm saying there isn't a link, just that I think there are differences in the MO. If it was the same person then the differences express the effects desired by the two murders. Fran is in the way and needs to be got rid of quickly, Pietro is made an example of with his slow demise...loss of higher brain function in a society that puts such store in intelligence is particularly gruesome. Maybe a warning to the Advisor (if so why are they reluctant to bump her off as well?), suggesting to me that she is still alive.

The second point is to do with Garnet Reed being the leather-armchair occupying voyeur (that description was a little more S&M than intended). I think it likely that he and the other members of the Academy's cube team would be minor celebrities and fairly well known faces. It is possible to speculate that the Advisor has been avoiding using her key and would not recognise him, but I'm not sure.

I've got a head full of conspiracy theories now...

[perplexed]

hey, i hope you dont mind me butting in, but im one of those people who dont believe that things happen randomly; everything happens for a reason. I therefore wonder, does this mind bending neuro-killing stuff have anything to do with the as yet unexplored cognivia site?

http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=11778

They're into mind bending drugs, also does K have something to do with latin, like Q?

[perplexed]

sorry, nother quick thought before i go and do some decorating |-) ummm read this:

[Leeravitz]

I totally agree with the notion that Cognivia may be suspect in some way - the question is: what way? At one level, I think we simply have reason to wonder at precisely how 'ethical' their working methods are - there is enough of a suggestion within the (carefully delicate) wording of the website to indicate that there may be military interest expressed in their work (possibly even military sponsorship), and that any 'black market' in enhancers that may exist is tacitly condoned (even initiated) by the big conglomerates like Cognivia. This is all immediately questionable.

Whether this has anything to do with the Cube theft is another question. Maybe Cognivia would be a logical base of operations for 'Conspiracy' operatives, and company policy might have been shaped by such agents. Perhaps, if Cognivia have been working on methods to combat senescence and brain tissue degeneration, then their technology can equally be utilised to engineer the reverse. But, if so, maybe that only presupposes a 'cell' member working as a minor level functionary at Cognivia, who has the ability to lift tech on the 'Conspiracy's' behalf, rather than an entire operation in hock to the 'Conspiracy'. It's hard to know. We've had no indication from Cognivia that they have suffered recent thefts or the like, or expressed a wish to, for instance, dissociate themselves from Salk's cause of death, or the inability to treat it - maybe they're aiming for plausible deniability??

As to the code - name of the theft team. All we know for certain is that 'Q' = 'Quercus', because TA told Salk that. Using a lateral thinking Latin filter, we deduced that 'Quercus' is a word meaning Oak, and as Holyoke was said to be a member of the team, it's easy to put two and two together. 'K' *might* have a Latin word behind it, but I remain uncertain. I guess it's possible: the 'C' situation appears to contradict the notion that the team chose code - names on the same principles, simply because TA makes it sound as if 'C' chose a code - name that was rooted in a basis relating to her *actual* surname. But I suppose this could still be interpreted as 'C' choosing, say, a Latin code name that just happened to coincide with the first letter of her actual surname, and TA feared this was a dead giveaway. On the other hand, TA's comment to the effect that she supposed Holyoke utilising 'Quercus' was 'kind of clever' seems to indicate that neither she, nor her compatriots, chose code - names that were designed as intellectual jokes in the same way. That might not rule out a central basis for choosing the names (e.g. all of them being Latin terms), but it does seem to make it appear more doubtful.

The final matter that I remain intrigued by re: 'conspiracy' is the possibility that was broached that the Djinn virus etc. may have had something to do with the Perplexian military trying to introduce 'backdoor codes' into key technology. It shouldn't be forgotten that Djinn does seem to have hacked the Academy security systems and downloaded relevant data or schematics to somebody, and that, even in the card set, the fact that Garnet is approached (in the Five of Cups, no less) by someone who wishes to help him crackdown on the Djinn hacker, stands out as a fact of unusual relevance. But whether any of this is truly significant is much harder to confirm at this time. It just seems suspiciously 'black ops' related to me.

As I suggested in the summaries above, it's quite possible that we may be dealing with several covert groups/organisations attempting to get one over on the other here - I wouldn't be at all surprised if a number of inteeligence agencies are hard at work attempting to investigate the loss of the Cube...without anyone having been officially told as much.

[DM]

I actually get the feeling that it was Sente that stole the cube, and when we prove that he is the theif and he is being dragged away by the PPCPD, he'll call us "those meddling kids."

[perplexed]

right, thanks for that very detailed summary, ur defo right. However, I thought that sylvia might want to know about cognivia as they may be able, from what i read of their article, to help get pietro out of his coma. Hopefully this will be a way to breach through the annoying auto message, i am therefore gonna send my cognivia idea to sylvia an hopefully she will reply/give some clues... good idea?