July 16 >>

A Strange Package
Down the Rabbithole
Dana's Blog
Weird Happenings
The Corrupted Pictures
The Widow's Story
The MAYDAY Texts
The "Computer" Texts
ILB Technical Information

Thoughts on August 24th
#beekeepers and #ilovebees
Strange Email from ladybee777
The Halo Connection
odd behavior cry for help
Invasion!
July 27 >>

July 27th
Phase 1 Complete
Hidden Links
Killer.JPG
The Links Puzzle
The Operator's Monologue
Dana Freaks Out
Dana Is Gone

The History of Dana
Persuaded to Come Back

Phase 2 Complete
The New Wavs
Operator's Monologue Part 2
The Spider and the Flea
The Cylinder Artifact & Virus
GPS Coordinates
The Princess' Secret

New GPS Coordinates
The Princess 404
Go Hot
Dana's Request
August 24 >>

Sleepy and Intangible
Wide Awake and Physical
The Flea Is Chatty
The Princess' Riddle
The Extraordinary
Successful Transmission Threshold Reached
Axon Cancelled
Media Coverage
Spying on the Queen
The Princess' Axons
Troy Goes Hot!
Hello Goes Hot!

Early, Early Update
The Looking Glass
Eavesdropping
The Hivekuts Wavs
Wandering_Angela is the winner!
Day 50

Fable Axons
Gretel
Key Lime and Candidate
Six Degrees of
The Clockwork Rat
Recipe 3 - Take 3
Is a phone ringing near you?

The Comatas Axons
SP's Hidden Message
No New Riddles?
The Fable Wavs
Found and Lost
Whew! THAT was exciting.
The London Axon
The Comatas Wavs
  September 21 >>  

Recipe 1 Axons
The Riddle Wavs - Take 2
777 Axons!
Axon Spike Rendezvous
Axons Cancelled & Recipe 1 Wavs
Cranky_Old_Man Changed
Sometimes a mistake is the last thing you make
Cranky Old Man Has a Name
Email from the Flea

Recipe 2 Axons
Freeing the Princess
Rogue Process Wild
Perdita's Story - Proper Ending
Recipe 2 wavs
Success
Recipe4 Axons
I'm feeling betrayed
!transmit durga
Astald - Creepy

Jan's Going to Have a Bad Day?
The Truth
Pending Relay Code Completion
Recipe4 Wavs
hide and
Recipe5 Axons
What Is Your Version Number!
13 out of 14 wavs (No Prepositions)


October 12 >>

October 31 >>


Week 10 - Phase 5
September 21st and Onwards

Recipe 1 Axons

03:00 EDT comes and brings with it over 400 more axons to recipe1.html - and we only need 30 axons to hit 777. If we don't manage to hit the magic number today, I will sacrifice my ferrets to the Axon Gods to make the madness stop.

There is something odd on the Recipe 1 page, however. There are six codeblocks at the top of page, but instead of having a GPS and time associated with them, they just say SEEKING. Could this be a hint of what comes after we hit 777? More freaking axons?!?! These wavs had better be amazing if that is the case.

The Princess has also updated her Humpty Dumpty page to add the completed Fable wavs. § Still no new corruptions in the pictures. My bet is that they will update around Noon EDT.

At around 09:00 EDT, we get our first reports of what the question is this week:

Question: Whats my favorite game?
Answer: Hide & Seek
So if you are near a phone, make sure you know this answer so we can hit 777 as soon as possible!

The Riddle Wavs - Take 2

The Princess comes through for us and gives us some more riddles/puzzles to figure out at Noon EDT.

old_maid.wav §

a_cow.wav §
light_a_candle.wav §
tomcatting_around.wav §
riled_up.wav §
watch_your_pins.wav §
no_evacuation.wav §
upright_and_locked.wav §
reach_is_gone.wav §
cemetery.wav §
grass_stains.wav §

More wavs about Rani. She's off to Kentucky to attend her cousin Sarah-John's wedding, or maybe not since the groom has come down with a case of cold feet. While talking with her boss back in Boston, we find out that the call from the old man looking for his family papers from Troy was fake - but we still don't know why he was looking for Corporal Adams. And while Rani's boss insists that Troy was never evacuated, Rani believes that it was, and tries to track down corroborating evidence until her boss shuts her down. One more thing of note: during the rehearsal dinner, the people in attendance get a piece of very bad news. Reach has fallen and has been glassed by the Covenant. §

777 Axons!

We did it! We finally hit 777 axons. Once we hit the magic number, a new message appears where the status bar used to be.
Critical threshold achieved. Authorized personnel be ready for axon spike rendezvous.
Now maybe we will find out what the SEEKING axons are. And a few minutes later we do. On_reach goes live, and we find out this is called an Axon Spike The interesting thing is, where it would normally say Connected, a familiar name appears: xnbomb, Col. Xnbomb?! Does this mean that Melissa knew who she was speaking with? Yes! As it turns out, the call that xnbomb answered had a live "person" at the other end, rather than just a recording. Melissa asked him a few questions to make sure that he was not a recording, the asked him for his name, rank, and a number where she could reach him at. How cool is that? Several other people were able to get a live phonecall, and Melissa put five more names up on Axon Spikes: MikeWas, Cmdr., mann alive, Sgt., weephun, Lt., Chappy, Mstr. Chf., and Shad0, Lt. Cmdr. Reports also come in to UF of other live calls that do not make it onto the page, including krystyn, Ens. and Dragonrider, Ens. Way to go guys!

Axon Spike Rendezvous

Dana has heard about Melissa's live calls and wants to know all the nitty-gritty details - as do the rest of us! §

Axons Cancelled & Recipe 1 Wavs

With the possibility of actually getting to speak to Melissa rather than a recording, beekeepers everywhere went out to their axons, and as a result, we were able to unlock 21 out of 27 wavs on Recipe 1. Way to go! And so people didn't keep going out to axons that were no longer needed, Melissa archived the unlocked codegroups and cancelled all the axons for the archived wavs. By 3pm PDT, the rest of the codegroups were unlocked, so we could listen to this week's Jersey/Jan/Kamal saga.

Emotions are running high since most everyone was affected by Reach's fall. Jersey is extremely worried about his Dad and asks Durga to do something about it - and is not pleased with the results of that request. Jan goes out with her father to meet more of his old buddies, and learns more about his past and hers. Meanwhile, Kamal finishes up his casino job and earns the respect, and a little more, from Mr. F. §

Cranky_Old_Man Changed

Finally, someone has taken the hint and changed the cranky_old_man coordinate after two weeks of it being cold. It now resides at 43.893420 -103.425130 near Keystone, SD, at 12:41 PDT. With any luck, someone in South Dakota will reach out and touch the axon and let us get to listen to it.

Sometimes a mistake is the last thing you make

After getting all 777 axons completed this week, we've been on a high. There are no more axons to answer (except for those few holdouts on Recipe 3) and life is good. As high as we were on Tuesday, we are just as low today on Friday. The first reason is that, Recipe 2 has a list of yet more axons with the message "Confidence threshold achieved. Authorized personnel may preview transmission schedule commencing 9/28." What is it with Melissa and axons? Isn't there any other way for her to get us this info. There are also four more axons on Recipe 3: odd_duck, wetwork, dangerous_devices and a_schoolgirl. The phonecalls are Never Going To End. The only bright spot on the axon horizon is that some of Melissa's crew have their names listed amongst the axon times, so it seems that they will get calls at the number they provided to Melissa. No more payphones for them - lucky bastards.

The worst thing about today, however, has to be what appeared on the 404 page. Instead of seeing the Princess' cheerful green writing, we end up seeing a horrible (for fans of the Princess) message from Melissa saying that she has captured the Princess with the help of one of her new crew members. Melissa has locked the Princess up so tight that even the Flea cannot find her. §

The wavs that she has linked to are parts of the actual conversations that she has had with her crew - so we can hear the stories, the jokes (good or bad) and the singing that Melissa heard. §

Cranky Old Man Has a Name

The a_schoolgirl.wav has finally answered a question that has been in the back of our minds for the past five weeks: What is the name of the Cranky Old Man? And the answer is Herzog. The only bad news is that we only managed to unlock wetwork and a_schoolgirl today. Hopefully we'll get odd_duck and dangerous_devices soon as well.

Update: It only took over a week but dangerous_devices unlocked on October 3rd. Now if we could only get odd_duck. §

Email from the Flea

Later Friday evening, various beekeepers started getting an email of the Princess' last conversation with the Flea and capture by Melissa. Since the Princess is out of commission and Melissa wouldn't want us to know how to help her, that must mean that the Flea is the one sending us the email. But why? Why does he want the Princess freed so badly? Is it just because he wishes to take her over, or is there something more going on that we can't see? §

The Princess says we must call her name whenever she falls apart. This must be when Melissa starts going into her "I love bees" routine. So we need to call her name (Sleeping Princess? Something else?) and hopefully we'll be able to get to free her.


Week 11 - Phase 5
September 28th and Onwards

Recipe 2 Axons

Melissa has a new question for us today:
Question: What is my favorite song?
Answer: Stormy Weather
Luckily, for those who got a live call and who don't know the answer, Melissa sings you the first couple of lines so that you can get it, since it is a fairly obscure answer - Stormy Weather was only mentioned during the second monologue and then only in passing. Melissa has music on the brain this week (thank krystyn for singing last week) and in most of the live calls, she asks you to sing for her.

She has also updated hives.html with a mention of Durga. She has a tenuous connection with Durga in the future, but Durga does not understand Melissa's Truth and must not be allowed to interfere with it. §

Freeing the Princess

If you were lucky enough to get a live call with Melissa and were able to convince her that you are a real person, you can then try to make Melissa breakdown. A couple of ways are to mention death, being alone, hurt or frightened. Once you start talking like this, Melissa starts sobbing "I love bees" and if you call out "Sleeping Princess" at this point, you are rewarded by getting to talk to the Princess.

The Princess is very frightened. It seems that not only is she locked up in the glass coffin, but that she is locked in a version of her Perdita story. She sees us as having metal ears, eyes, hands, etc. and is at first quite scared of us. Once she is calmed down, she starts talking about her surroundings and the fact that she sees balloons. If you can convince her to follow the balloons, she eventually comes to a place where there are three paths to choose from - all marked by balloons. One path is marked "Holy Truths", one is marked "Faithful Apostles" and the last is "Deadly Sins". If you choose the wrong path, she lets out a scream and Melissa comes back on the line, wanting to know if anything happened in the past few minutes. Oops! If you manage to choose the correct path, the Princess will continue her journey until she finds another set of paths where you must choose correctly again. §

Once the Princess was walked down the Two Cows path by hmrpita, she found her parents and rushed off to join them. Melissa came back on the line and started screaming "Warning! Warning! Core Module Hemmorage! Security Failure! This System Has Been Breeched!" She's not exactly happy that the Princess is freed, but we sure are!

Rogue Process Wild

Oops! It seems Melissa is now aware that the Princess has been freed, and she doesn't seem exactly happy about it. Instead of the normal "Error 404 - Not Found" message at the top of the 404 page, she has put up "SECURITY BREACH - Rogue Process Wild". I hope she doesn't find out it was hrmpita who let her go - cause we all know Melissa can hold a grudge.

Perdita's Story - Proper Ending

Well, Melissa may be ticked that the Princess has escaped, but the Princess is quite happy she's out of her coffin. Wary about who to trust - but happy enough to celebrate by giving us a better ending on onceuponatime to Perdita's Story - a happier ending. § The Princess is even grateful to the Flea. It seems he can help her evade Melissa so that she won't be captured again - although he is still trying to attach himself to her. What is up with that? §

Recipe 2 wavs

In our most sucessful day yet, we managed to get all but one wav unlocked today. Woohoo! Amazing how many people visit payphones in the hope that they will be able to join the crew.

We finally get to meet Jersey's mother, Bonita, whom Jersey confronts about about her affair with Simon. Jan finds out even more about her past - especially the reasons for all of the moves she has had to endure over the years. We even get a surprise visit from someone that Melissa is quite familiar with. And Kamal starts to celebrate his new found wealth with his friends when some bad news comes to Sophia. §

Success

Dana is happy we rescused the Princess, considering it's the one AI that's not out to destroy her. She even understands why some of us felt the need to turn the Princess into Melissa, even if it wouldn't have been Dana's choice. But as she says, we're still a team trying to figure out why Melissa is in 2004 and trying to save the world in the future.

In other news, it seems that Melissa may have cancelled Dana's ATM cards. Things were working fine for her until the clock struck twelve and (oops!) no more money. I hate it when I have no cash on me around town. I can't imagine what it's like to be in a foreign country with no money whatsoever. §

Recipe4 Axons

Ahh, Friday updates. These are beginning to be almost as much work as Tuesday updates. At least more people can participate than those lucky enough to have an axon (or ten) close by. And without the Friday updates, we wouldn't know where to go for Tuesday. This week her preview axons are on recipe4.html. That's not to say she doesn't know about recipe3.html. She's keeping that a Herzog page, but has decided to keep the files confidential due to the recent escape by the Princess. Maybe there is another way we can get them without answering the phones. §

Melissa is quite pleased though with her crew members. She has updated her 404 page, this time to thank Lt. Adam for his work in tracking down Dana. §

I'm feeling betrayed

The Princess is such a trooper. Even after we get her locked up by Melissa, she still is able to get us new Rani wavs - even if she is a little miffed.
All right, I've found you some more goodies. I hope it helps, but I'm not
I don't feel as safe with you as I did before. To be turned in by those I thought were my friends
this is what I do when I'm feeling betrayed :S
smoker.jpg

space_elevators.wav §

sounds_dreamy.wav §
athena.wav §
boston_emergency.wav §
his_skull.wav §
feel_faint.wav §
jumper.wav §
face_first.wav §
spooky.wav §
hard_sound_rifle.wav §

Poor Rani. She's having a very bad night. First she cries after hearing from Nick. Then she keeps hitting dead ends on trying to find out who the "cranky old man" is. Then somebody falls off her roof. Face first. Of course, Rani doesn't believe that he fell, which can make for a very sleepless night. §

!transmit durga

The Flea has kept his word in keeping the Princess safe since her escape. But it seems that the time she spent locked up wasn't wasted. § She's learned that Melissa has kept certain things hidden from Durga - the fact that Durga has been following Herzog, but doesn't know about it. The Princess wants to try to let Durga know, by transmitting the information to her. But first she needs to find the recordings and then have the Flea transmit them to Durga.

So how do we figure out the names of the files? We know the name of the wav file is said within the wav itself, maybe that is what is blocked out when Melissa screams. A bunch of guesses later, and our theory is proven correct when we find all three wav names: termination.wav, assassin.wav, and my_conscience.wav.

Herzog is quite upset that Standish ordered an assassin to take out Rani from her rooftop. So I guess Rani wasn't paranoid after all. At least the Admiral agrees with Herzog, but Standish does not sound happy about it. §


So now that we know the names of the files, how do we get them to the Princess? The Flea tells us we must send the files (maybe just the names of the files?) to the Princess and to use the codeword "Creepy" so that the Flea knows it is from us. Then the Flea will transmit them to Durga so she can behold the truth.

It would be nice if this was the new way to get the Herzog wavs since we still haven't been able to unlock the_labyrinth, odd_duck, and dangerous_devices yet. With any luck we'll get them soon so we can fill in the gaps to Herzog's story.

Astald - Creepy

It seems that Astald took the Princess' and the Flea's advice and emailed them the names of the confidential wavs. We can now access them directly on recipe3. Notice that instead of the usual "Data Archived Axon Success" message it now says "Astald Creepy". Way to go Astald!


Week 12 - Phase 5
October 5th and Onwards

Jan's Going to Have a Bad Day?

Melissa updated recipe4 page pretty early with the code groups for this weeks calls, and some of the file names are pretty disturbing. But it is possible that they are just misleading us into thinking something bad is going to happen. Right?

In other news, humptydumpty has been updated with the newest combined wavs sets.

The Truth

The Beekeepers who have braved the morning axons have once again reported in with Melissa's new question and answer for this week.
Q: What must we reveal?
A: The Truth.

Pending Relay Code Completion

It seems there is a new twist on the seeking axons this week. Around 11:30 EDT, the first seeking axon has the message "Cmdr. ermac ... PENDING RELAY CODE COMPLETION". Huh? What on earth does that mean? Ermac was nice enough to give us the heads up when he got back from his call. It seems Melissa asked him for seven words to describe how he was feeling and Ermac answered "I am feeling very ecstatic and elated." He was then told that this was a new relay code and he must give it to other crew members to be used within the hour. Oh boy, this is going to be a nightma...err, lots of fun, I can tell. A little while later, and we see another seeking axon with a pending relay code: Lt. Cmdr girlinfocus ... PENDING RELAY CODE COMPLETION, which we later find out is "I love haiku so I write it". So now we have two pending codes, but we haven't figured out how to give them to Melissa.

After about an hour, the first code expires (Cmdr. ermac ... RELAY CODE EXPIRED), but then we see a message that the second has been given by Mr. Beefy: "Lt. Cmdr girlinfocus, Rear Admiral Mr. Beefy ... RELAY CODE COMPLETE". Woohoo! He later explained he was asked "to complete a relay, and did he have the code?" Mr. Beefy gave the Ermac's code, but was told it was expired and did he have any others. Once he gave the haiku code, the seeking axon went hot.

We even have hope for the first missed seeking axon. It seems that when Melissa gets to the end of the list, she just starts back over again with a new relay code. So we basically get as many chances as it takes, so long as we finish by the end of today (since she only makes live calls once a week). In the end, it only took 12 relay codes to unlock the 5 wavs. Not too bad over all, I guess. §

Recipe4 Wavs

I never thought I would say this, but today is one day that I wish we didn't get all the wavs unlocked. Technically, we got all but 1 wav today, but I honestly wish we had not gotten any of them. The reason for this: the wavs are heartbreaking. Awful, disturbing, sad, mean, and gut-wrenching. I mean it. You need to be prepared for when you listen to them, since those of us that heard them without knowing were just stunned.

All that being said, I'm changing the order in which I normally present the wavs. This time around it's Kamal, then Jersey, and finally Jan. This way the wavs go from bad to worst and you can prepare yourself for what is to come. §

hide and

Dana has updated her blog and seems pretty upset with Adam for selling her out. I can't blame her. I would be ticked off too. It also seems that Melissa has taken over her voice mail and email, so I guess this means we aren't emailing Dana anymore. §

Recipe5 Axons

You know, with the same thing happening each week, it's becoming harder and harder to think up an original transition into the Friday updates. So: whee! It's Friday! There are new axons on Recipe5. Ahh, what fun. It does seem that this next week will be interesting though. Melissa gives us an assignment: Recruits should assemble and arrive at these axons with digital imaging capability. Digital cameras at the payphones? What on earth are we going to have to take pictures of?

At least she is pleased from the way last weeks code relay progressed. She even singled out the Boise Squad and FluffyJester 310 for their ideas regarding Dana. Do I really want to know what someone named FluffyJester 310 came up with to track down Dana? Probably not. §

Melissa has also put up three new confidential files on Recipe3. Let's hope the Princess got to sneak a peek at them again.

What Is Your Version Number!

Of course, you just know she has. Otherwise, how would we ever get to listen to what's happening with Herzog? We'll just ignore that fact we are still missing labyrinth and odd_duck. §

So it seems that the Princess wants us to send her messages in the pictures that we send to Melissa, a secret sign to let her know we are still her friends. Red balloons maybe? I wonder what the Queen is going to do when she gets 500 pictures of balloons?

Now onto the main show: the new wavs. Not a lot to explain how the names were obtained. Just a bunch of guessing based on the context of the sentences. Once all the guesses were done, we were left with transfer.wav, moles.wav, you_alive.wav. It now seems that Herzog has a soft spot for his Lieutenant (whom some people are now calling Smithers for lack of a better name), and is having him transferred out to protect his life. Section Three must not be messing around with word getting out about the Artifact. §

13 out of 14 wavs (No Prepositions)

By now you should know the drill. Find the 25 corrupted pictures, pull out the embedded text, gifs, or wavs, then figure out the answer to the riddles.

no_no_no.wav §

dress_uniform.wav §
last_week §
divorced_bureaucrat.wav §
old_washington.wav §
little_brave.wav §
coney_island.wav §
have_some_laughs.wav §
sunday_school.wav §
separated.wav §
merciful.wav §
tearful_goodbye §
last_stop.wav §

Unfortunately, the above solves do not include all of the riddles. See, the PMs got clever this week and have stuck us with one puzzle that we cannot figure out. Even after 24 hours we are still no closer to solving this than we were when we first found it. For lack of a better name, we've been calling this 41 Prepositions or just "that-stupid-freaking-prepositions-puzzle". Now we can only hope that if we do not figure this out by Tuesday (or gasp! next Friday) we will get another clue.

41 prepositions §

Even without this wav, we still have a good idea of what is going on with Rani. She finally meets Herzog who offers her a job (doing exactly what is unknown since it seems to be in the one wav we can't get). Then on her train ride home, she meets a Helljumper who has lost a lot in life, but willing to show Rani that not everything is lost. Note: Now that we have finally figured out the prepositions puzzle, I've added the added the transcript. §

October 12th and Onwards >>