Previously on Nancy Drew: The Silent Spy: We landed in Scotland to investigate the mystery of Kate Drew’s death, and immediately found out that ~*~nothing is what it seems~*~. We met a clingy Scottish chick who might be up to something, a particularly good finder who is definitely up to something, some old lady who got kidnapped for like five minutes but I guess she’s fine, and a dude who’s supposed to be protecting our life but mostly whines about how he wishes he had a cooler code name instead. Yeah. Scotland is screwed.
Now that we’ve finally met Ewan and figured out — kind of — what we’re doing here in Scotland, we can explore the secret spy base. It’s super dark, and full of Stereotypical Spy Shit (TM) — fake wigs and glasses, big computer screens that just have maps of the world on them, blah blah Secret Agent Barbie pulled off the spy angle better than this blah.
(I’m not joking. Secret Agent Barbie is an excellent game.)
So we can access a bit of information that Cathedral has on us. We find out that Kate’s code name was “Harrier” (Carson is “Condor” and Nancy is “Kestrel”, and I will not be using any of these names because they are confusing and dumb), and she requested that Carson be allowed some access, and Nancy none at all. In fairness, Nancy was like eight when she died.
We find the file on us, going on about our mad detective skillz and “uncanny interrogation abilities.” Do they mean that we like to yell at our suspects and shame them with guilt until they crack? Because we’re really good at that. The most recent update is from Kyoto — an informant named “L.M.” has told Cathedral about Nancy’s weird obsession with nosing into Mama Shimizu’s death, and Cathedral muses that Nancy can be easily manipulated by dead family members.
So the informant is someone from Shadow at the Water’s Edge, and the only person in that game whose name starts with an L was Logan. This right here was the exact moment I lost my ability to suspend disbelief. Fucking Logan was a spy this whole time? My suspension of disbelief is SNAPPING. Like the T-Pain song.
We find files on Nancy’s friends — Bess, George, and Ned’s are fairly boring, but the Hardy Boys’ are mostly blacked out, and they imply that the Hardys are ~*~involved~*~ in some way. Whatever. The Hardy Boys can’t even sneak into an office without getting beaten up, and you’re trying to tell me they might be involved in international spy shit? I’d let Bess steal secrets for me before I asked the Hardy Boys.
We also find notes on the Colony Operation and this note in code. We’ll come back to this stuff in a bit.
Let’s go back to Ewan and talk about all the stuff we’ve found. We ask for more information about the Colony operation, and he tells us that the idea was to use a biological weapon to incapacitate the city, then sweep in and take over all the positions of authority. Nancy wonders why the Colony operation looks be starting up again — it is? — and Ewan’s like, “IDK, bro.” He muses that it’s part of Revenant’s long game, but what that game is, he’s not sure yet.
Except he does kind of know, because when we ask what Revenant wants, he says that they want to rewrite the rules of the world, and make it in their image. I don’t know why they have to be so cryptic about this. That…is what all coups, dictatorships, and revolutions are about. Shit, that’s what elections are about. I mean, maybe not so much with the “forcibly rewriting the rules of the world” idea, but they’re basically using a lot of fancy words to be like, “Revenant doesn’t like the way Scotland is being run right now, and they want to change it.” Revenant voted for Brexit, didn’t they?
Anyway, he tells us that Revenant is probably working on an approximation of the virus, so we want to be on the lookout for anything that might lead us to a lab.
We can go over to the server room, where I’m sure lots of secret stuff is stored. Some of the aisles are blocked off, so we’ll have to solve a puzzle to get to those. There’s a thermostat that’s currently set at 69 degrees (lol), that we’ll have to mess with later. Wait, that’s 60 Fahrenheit, right? 69 Celsius seems like it would be…a problem.
Back at our room, Carson’s sent us Kate’s copy of the Jabberwocky poem. Wow, that was fast.
We get another phone call from Revenant, asking us to cut the lines on the trash compactor at the train station. Well, actually, they just say “the station.” Because there are so few of those in Glasgow. Anyway, if we do it, we’ll be rewarded. Nancy’s like, “Sure, I guess,” because here she is, getting peer pressured by a terrorist group.
Anyway, the real reason we came up here is because Ewan gave us a zip line, which we can use to zip over to Bridget’s room. You also need a bow and arrow to launch the line and then slide down it, so the bow and arrow that we won at the safe house comes in handy.
We want to hit the little circle right at the top of the window. The circle will start flipping when we draw our arrow back, for some reason, so we want to shoot when it’s either still or slowing down.
Once we strike the circle, we’ll automatically zip line over to Bridget’s room. OH NO, I AM AFRAID OF HEIGHTS 🙁 And somehow, no one notices this random girl flying across the courtyard over their heads.
The first thing we find in Bridget’s room is her notebook. It looks like she’s been keeping tabs on Nancy — God, be less stalkery, Bridget — and it also looks like she knows about Cathedral! Bridget’s ~*~not what she seems~*~, dudes! Let’s also note the word she scribbled up there on the side: “MacLorthen.”
We also find her phone, but it’s locked. Luckily — and conveniently — for us, it’s locked by a puzzle involving Scottish kilt tartans, which we happen to have been learning all about! We actually don’t even have to look up what the MacLorthen tartan looks like; it’ll appear in the corner and we just have to copy it. It’s similar to the stained glass puzzle in The Captive Curse, where you have to properly copy the design with everything layered in the right order.
Once we do that, we find a bunch of text messages on Bridget’s phone, between her and someone with a bird’s eye for their picture. They’re discussing a dead drop of payment for her, and Bridget’s contact tells her to “look behind Burns.” That’s clearly a reference to the Robert Burns poems on the benches outside. Another text exchange is just Bridget sending outgoing texts to someone — saying, “She should be putting the pieces together from the book,” and “If they want to use her, let them. It might show their hand.” Being that Bridget was the one who gave us the book on Scotland that we’ve been using, it sounds like she’s talking about us. Man, everyone in this game is so cool with Nancy getting murdered in the name of espionage 🙁
That’s all we can really look at in here, so let’s just waltz out the door. I mean, we know the way to Nancy’s room, so we should just be able to leave that way, right?
No, of course not. We gotta zipline our ass all the way back to Nancy’s room.
Let’s go outside and talk to Bridget. She must have some kind of sixth sense, because she immediately freaks out on us that she’s been robbed. Bridget, you haven’t left this damn courtyard in like three days!
Bridget wails that they stole her money, and Nancy says, “Just your money?” “What kind of question is that?” Bridget shrieks. Hee! Sorry, Nancy is confused about the importance of money, because she usually just trades her labor for food, board, and information when she’s on a trip.
Since we have her here, let’s ask if she’s ever heard of Revenant. We’re on to you and your shady ways, Bridget! She’s like, “That’s a weird question,” but agreeably tells us that they’re a terrorist organization that stopped being active about ten years ago. Anyone who still cares about them in this day and age are probably psychos. Rude 🙁
Now to get Bridget away from the courtyard so we can check out the Robert Burns bench. We tell her that we saw a bunch of dudes in suits walking towards her room. “They looked like spies!” Nancy derps. “WHAT?” Bridget shrieks. I realize it’s only one word, but it sounds like she loses her Scottish accent a bit when she says it. This will come up later.
Bridget skedaddles, and we can check out the Robert Burns bench. We pull the plaque off of the bench, where we can see this puzzle. The goal is to drag the latches across that circular piece in the middle. When the latch is over the piece, it can be rotated. We want to get all the latches to be facing in the same direction, so they have to be rotated in the right order. When they’re facing the same way, they can be pulled back and we can find a message in the bench. It says to fill a blue bag with 35 pounds and put it in the trash can next to the bench. Then whatever we’re paying for will be put in the trash can for us to find. Presumably we’re hoping no one takes the trash out between now and then.
So we gotta find 35 pounds and put it in a blue bag. Man, I don’t gotta have that kind of money. Okay, let’s make some cookies to get some cash. Have I explained the cookie-making yet? You have to basically just copy the cookie order pictured to the side, and be careful to put all the colors/decorations on in the right order. This takes some squinting depending on how much stuff is piled on top, but it’s not too hard.
And then, after we step back from the cookie stall, Revenant calls! They’re like, “You fail!” and tells us that, since we didn’t fuck up the trash compactor at the train station, now we’ll never know whatever mysterious thing they were going to tell us. Sorry, dudes, I was totally getting to it in a minute. This is my fault for choosing cookies over terrorism 🙁 If you did finish the sidequest, Revenant would have sent us another recording of Kate, saying she wants a message sent to her family. It cuts off before it actually gets to the message of course, so it’s kind of worthless. Cookies were definitely the better choice.
So we have the money, so let’s go buy the bag at the train station. We want to buy this bag with the Scottish flag on it (not to be confused with the Oklahoma license plate). After we pick that up, we can see that Alec’s back, so let’s see what he’s up to. We thank him for finding our suitcase, and he asks, “If you’re so attached to your mom’s jeans, why did you take them on an international flight?” Heh. This line is somehow even funnier in the year of our lord 2018, where we’ve come full circle and mom jeans — like, real mom jeans, the ones that are high-waisted AND baggy — are back in fashion now. I don’t know what to do in a world where Nancy Drew is a fashionista.
We ask if Alec happened to see the poem that was very much in our bag before he got his hands on it, but he says there was no poem there. HMMM.
We also get a text from Bridget saying, “I have hilarious tales! Come listen!” Tales about WHAT? Wacky shit she’s seen from the courtyard of the hotel, where she hasn’t moved from in like three days? But okay, we’re done with the station for now, so let’s go back. Bridget says that her boyfriend dumped her, so she needs to borrow Nancy’s phone to leave him a not at all crazy message. Okay, Bridget. We hand our phone over, and she turns around to do something not at all suspicious with it.
Now! I have been failing to do this, because I am the worst and so is Bridget, but if you choose to talk to Bridget more often than I did, you’ll start to notice that she opens every conversation with nosing into Nancy’s life. She’s constantly asking a ton of questions about what Nancy does and where she’s going, and — I mean, she’s pretty stalky even without that, but the next bit makes a lot more sense if you talk to her more often.
So with that in mind: Bridget, j’accuse! Of not really being a socially awkward Scottish chick, and of actually being someone else! Someone not even named Bridget! Bridget’s all, “No, YOUR name isn’t Bridget.” That’s a terrible comeback for A) the level of accusations we hit her with and B) an international spy. Bridget would never last under advanced interrogation.
Nancy is undeterred, and finally Bridget groans, in an American accent, “Thank you! I am so sick of that accent, and I am so sick of YOU.” Hey, fuck you, Bridget! I am a DELIGHT! Bridget snaps at us to go back to River Heights, because we stick around, we gon’ die. Yawn. This is the same death threat that shows up midway through all the games, and I am not impressed.
So after Not-Bridget tells us that we’re definitely going to die if we keep nosing into this spy shit, let’s…keep nosing into this spy shit. Sorry, Bridget, I just can’t respect you after you decided that “thirsty Scottish girl desperate to be friends with an American tourist in a horse T-shirt” was a good cover. After she storms off and leaves us alone in the courtyard, we drop the bag with the cash into the trash can. And now we wait.
Let’s go visit Ewan, shall we? I bet he’s lonely. He tells us that he finished investigating Alec, but hasn’t found anything interesting on him. Well, he’s definitely a thief of teenage girl’s sentimental personal items related to their dead moms, so there’s that.
Okay, that took all of five minutes. Is the drop done yet? Yes, yes it is. So now we have these cool spy glasses, which are for a “Zoe Wolfe.” Hmm, who could that be?
We immediately go hand them off to Ewan, because what the hell else am I going to do with them. He gushes that these are super cool, and says he’ll examine them for us. Then Ewan’s like, “You’re kind of a klepto, my dude,” and Nancy blusters that she’s just investigating. Ewan: “Just avoid ‘investigating’ any big-ticket items during your visit. I really hate the embassy people.” Heh.
Let’s ask Ewan if we can get into all the cool spy shit around here. Ewan says that the lock to the wig-and-glasses case is “half broken” (how is it only half broken?), and he just doesn’t know how to fix it. Of course he doesn’t. I bet Nancy Drew, an 18-year-old who just fell into the world of spying, will figure it out.
When we go back to the hotel, Bridget’s no longer at her post by the bench, but we see this goth chick hanging out by the welcome sign. We approach her, and she snaps at us that she knows that we stole her glasses. Oh snap, this is Zoe Wolfe! Good to know that she has enough time between spy jobs to layer on the eyeliner. Nancy’s like, “Why didn’t you say they were missing?” and Zoe/Bridget/ZoSaffBridge is like, “Would that have made it more fulfilling for you? You have a problem, my friend.” HA! She tells us to keep them, as she’s already remote-wiped the drive, and we can go play spy and pretend that we never met her. Nancy’s like, “Or I could really loudly broadcast to everyone that you’re a spy and you’ve been stalking me.”
Zoe agrees to tell us what she knows, on the condition that we trust only her. I mean, our pickings are pretty slim in this game, so why not. She adds that we can’t even trust Carson. Nancy’s like, “OMG, why?” and Zoe’s like, “Because literally every other time you’ve been in trouble, he’s just sat on his ass in Australia and did nothing?” Just kidding. She says that Revenant might contact Carson and convince him to lie to Nancy to keep her safe — she knows that someone is already talking to him. Spooky!
So we can try to get more information out of Zoe, but it’s mostly a variation on “LEAVE NOW OR YOU’LL DIE.” Whatever, Zoe! We’ve heard this one before! We keep pestering her, but she won’t say anything and will eventually peace out. “Don’t call,” she snipes. Nancy: “I…don’t have your number.” Heh.
Let’s go back to the station, for…reasons. We immediately trip over this convenient paper, telling someone to look underneath the occupied seat cushion, which is only to be used as a last resort, “in case I am caught by th–“
We also get a text from Ned: “For the duration of your trip, please read my texts in a Scottish accent.” Ned, we’re in the middle of an international spy ring here. Can you read the room.
Well, okay, let’s look under the cushion. We find a bizarro color-coded lock, and Nancy will note that if she can get all of the colors into the circle in the middle, it’ll unlock. How the hell do you know that, Nancy? Whatever.
So basically you just gotta spin the circles around until all three colors are in the middle circle and are also lined up with the colors on the sides. That’s it. It seems like a shoddy security system, considering that inside the cushion is a freaking DEATH THREAT. For Alec? The note says that they’re wathcing the station, and for him to stand by for their call — “Her life depends on it.” ~*~SPOOKY~*~
“Who is this note about?” Nancy wonders. Wait, are you telling me it’s not about Nancy? Is there someone else in this game who matters more than Nancy Drew? Say it ain’t so!
Let’s call Carson, because why not. He tells us that he can’t come to Scotland and help us out, as his passport’s been revoked. Oh snap! Nancy’s like, “So, when were you going to tell me about my mom being an international spy?” and Carson’s all, “Cut me a break, the writers only just made that up for this game.” Just kidding. He gives in and agrees to help us out instead of trying to protect us. Nancy’s like, “Also, you were really mean to Ned.” “It’s the first time he’s stood up to me like that,” Carson says. HEE! Anyway, he tells us about Kate Drew: she really was a journalist, and she used to go out and solve mysteries and then I guess write articles about them. She decided to get involved with the whole Cathedral/Revenant mystery, which of course led to her untimely death. At the time of her death, she was working on getting the scientist who developed the Colony bioweapon into protective custody. Carson thinks she pulled it off, but doesn’t know for sure.
He tells us that a lot of people have come nosing around and asking about Kate’s involvement in the operation — one woman in particular was “very persistent” and wanted all of Kate’s notes. Carson sighs that he should’ve just given them to her, and then maybe Nancy wouldn’t be involved in all this. Oh sure, just let the terrorists win, Carson.
Nancy asks why Carson never told her any of this, again, some more. Carson says he didn’t want to upset her, and Nancy says she never brings up her mom because she doesn’t want to upset HIM. Aw. They promise to talk when Nancy gets back home.
Then we ask about Zoe, and Carson says that his “sources” think that she’s a real spy. Man, the hell kind of sources does a small-town lawyer have? These games always act like Carson’s job involves some international mystery shit instead of like, petty theft.
Let’s call Ned. His texts are making me feel really bad for him. We tell him about meeting Ewan and getting involved with Cathedral, and Ned’s like, “I don’t really know what to say about all this because I’m not equipped to deal with my girlfriend being a pawn in an international espionage game, so…cool.” We also tell him about ZoSaffBridge, and Ned’s like, “So you have an ally,” and Nancy’s like, “No.” Ned: “So you have an enemy?” Nancy: “No.” Ned: “So you have a casual acquaintance?” Heh. Oh, Ned. He tells us to be careful with her. No fucking duh, Ned.
Nancy asks if Ned still has access to the database at “the paper.” Book!Ned has held a lot of jobs, depending on what was period appropriate — I think in the OG 1930s books, he sold insurance or some shit, and in the 1950s he was like, an entry-level employee learning the vague field of “business”. Later books, I think in an effort to make him more involved with the mysteries, have him working at a newspaper, usually in River Heights. Why would a small local paper have a database about international spy shit? Whatever. Ned promises to find out whatever he can.
Since we’re already at the train station, let’s go visit Moira and see how she’s doing, post-kidnapping. We can just waltz into her house, because I guess being abducted didn’t make her want to lock her door or anything.
We ask about the safe house she sent us to, and she says that Cathedral made it for her and Kate when they were investigating the Colony operation. Nobody else knows the location, and Nancy shouldn’t go blabbing it to anyone. But I want to brag to everyone about staying in a spy cabin, Moira 🙁
Then Nancy asks what happened to her while she was kidnapped, and Moira gets real upset and snaps that she doesn’t want to talk about it. Yikes! But also, she was kidnapped for like five minutes, what could have even happened to her?
We can ask about Kate’s involvement in the Colony operation, again, some more. Moira tells us that Kate did stop it. The operation needed three things: someone to develop a bioweapon, someone to make it in a large quantity, and someone to distribute it. Kate broke that chain somehow, which fucked up the whole operation. Moira mentions that Kate had some wacky theories about what the operation was all about, and hands us Kate’s old case book. We’ll look through this in a bit.
We ask about the song Kate is always playing in our flashbacks, and Moira said she really loved that song, and it was probably significant, but she doesn’t know how. Thanks, Moira. We can also ask about her turntable because it’s 2013 and everyone was obsessed with dubstep. Moira tells us that she DJs sometimes, and Nancy’s all like, “Old people have hobbies?” HEE! Moira gets all snarky like, “Is this better? It belongs to the nice young man who brings my meals. He even helps me dig my own grave in the back garden.” Okay, heh. But also…you do make people bring you food, Moira. Like, in this very game, even. Then Moira makes a crack that next she’ll say something racist and Nancy will just have to deal with it because Moira’s old. That feels like kind of a jarring statement for these games, but okay.
Moira tells us that someone is trying to start up the Colony operation again. “Your mother’s death wasn’t an accident,” she tells us. Nancy’s like, “Fucking duh, Moira.” We figured that out ages ago, keep up. Moira says that the people who killed Kate are the ones who lured Nancy here, because they think Nancy has information about the Colony operation. Nancy’s like, “I thought my mom died in a car accident for the past 80 years of canon, so…no.” Moira says that when you love someone, you show your secrets without meaning to. Then we ask what the “silent spy” means, and Moira tells us about the saying that “the only silent spy is a dead one.” Creepy!
Dang, this conversation has a lot of trees. Okay, let’s ask Moira about her backstory. Moira tells us that she and Kate met at journalism school, and then they both became spies somehow. They worked at the same newspaper — and Moira is still a reporter, by the by. “Well, a blogger.” Heh. But she’s not a spy anymore — much — and she doesn’t have access to Cathedral anymore. She doesn’t know anything about Ewan.
Anyway, Nancy’s like, “I don’t understand what this all means,” for the 10-year-olds playing this game who can’t follow a plot about espionage. Shit, I don’t really get what’s going on in this game. Moira explains that someone was using Glasgow as their lab, and doing experiments on…coups? Whatever. Anyway, they investigated, and they got really close to Revenant, but then they didn’t. What? I don’t know.
Nancy notes that Carson told us not to trust Moira, even though Moira was Kate’s bestie. So what is the truth? Moira confesses that Carson hates her because Moira lured Kate to Scotland and got her killed by Revenant: Cathedral asked Kate to come back to keep investigating, but Kate refused because she didn’t want to leave Carson and Nancy. Moira lied to Kate and told her that she would have protection from the MI5 while she was in Scotland. “There was no one watching her, was there,” Nancy says. Moira’s like, “Nope.” So Kate was killed by Revenant, and it’s kind of Moira’s fault. Moira’s all like, “I’m not sorry that I lied. I’m sorry that I have to tell you about it.” Jesus, Moira, that’s cold. Then, weirdly, she says, “Forgive me.” Well, how am I gonna do that, Moira, if you’re not sorry? Anyway, she tells us to go home, like everyone else in this game has been doing so far.
So you know how some games will have like, convenient diaries that have clues for all the puzzles we’ll encounter? This is the one for this game.
That finally ends our conversation with Moira. We can look through the book that she gave us now, and see all of the clues Kate left behind. We finally get a solid example of what Revenant was up to: a bunch of bizarro flash mobs were popping up around Glasgow, except this was the ’90s and nobody knew what a flash mob was yet. They also weren’t doing anything wacky like dancing, they would just assemble in weird places and disperse without doing anything, and none of them seemed to be entirely in their right minds. Kate notes that Revenant might have been experimenting with psych drugs or mind control. How very MKUltra of them. But then she says that they also might want to seize control of Glasgow by releasing a huge virus and making everyone really sick, and then installing “emergency” services during the crisis. Uh, which is it? Are they gonna mind control everyone to vote for Revenant or are they going to stage a coup? Doing both seems a little wasteful.
That’s finally it for Moira’s house. We have to go investigate more shit at the safe house, so we get on the train to Loch Lomond. On the way there, Nancy has another childhood flashback of Kate telling her that she’s leaving for Scotland. Baby Nancy’s like, “But why?” and Kate says she can’t tell her. It’s all sad and shit, I guess.
Remember that safe in the fireplace at the safe house? I know, me either. It’s finally time to see what’s inside! Kate’s book lists clues: basically the letters A through J (except I) and the numbers 1 to 9 have to be entered according to the clues in the book, which will give hints to where the letters and numbers go. Some of them will give away where they are, and the rest have to be filled in by process of elimination.
Ned texts us, telling us to have fun. NED, WE JUST OPENED A SAFE BELONGING TO OUR DEAD MOTHER. READ THE ROOM.
We find this cipher wheel, but it’s missing a disk. Obviously we’ll have to find that before we can solve it.
We also find a bug, which we’ll be using in a bit.
We also find Kate’s diary. The first few pages are Kate and Moira’s wacky stakeout hijinks. Then we get an entry from Moira, presumably after Kate came back before her death, assuring her that MI5 is totally watching over her. The next page is a torn letter from Kate to Nancy, saying that she shouldn’t have come here. And then after that is a bunch of emo entries from Moira about how guilty she feels. “It’s fall again. I’m not dead, I guess they knew the weight of my own thoughts.” Yeesh. That’s dark.
So, uh…anyway, lets’ go back to the station. Alec’s not there, but his bag is! Let’s look through it, and maybe steal things!
Man, maybe Zoe is right. I do have a problem 🙁
So we want to put the bug from the safe in Alec’s bag, so we can listen to whatever shady things he’s up to. After we put the bug in, we gotta haul ass aaaaall the way back to Loch Lomond to listen to the bug from the computer. So let’s just turn around and take the train back.
Conveniently, Alec makes his mysterious call right away, and we don’t have to sit around being bored and writing diary entries like our mom before us. It sounds like Revenant is holding a mysterious “her” hostage in order to make Alec do stuff for them. Alec agrees to do a dead drop by the lockers for them.
We can listen for a little while longer, if you want to hear Alec do thrilling stuff like count trains and try to make small talk with passersby. Alec, if you want to make friends, maybe don’t hang out in a place that literally just exists for people to pass through.
Let’s go confront Alec in person about everything we heard. Hey, it’ll give him someone to talk to! We’re doing him a favor! He asks why we want our mom’s janky copy of Jabberwocky back so bad, and Nancy’s like, “Because my mom was murdered when I was little and I hardly have any of her possessions, you jerk.” Just kidding. We tell Alec that we were hoping to decipher the notes she left on the poem. Alec thinks that Nancy is so thirsty for information about her mom that she’s reading too much into her mom’s notes, but he says it more nicely than that.
We then hit him with the truth: we know he’s talking about us behind our backs! Nancy demands to know why he sold her out, and Alec’s like, “I met you like two days ago, so like…I’m not that loyal to you, you feel?” He tells us that Revenant has his sister, but he won’t tell us anything more about what they want or what else he does on the side. Are you saying no to Nancy Drew, Alec? I’m gonna let you think on that one for a bit, and then we’ll be back.
We can chat with Zoe a little more, and ask her to let us join her spy club. She refuses, Nancy presses, Zoe threatens to have us kidnapped unless we leave her alone. And that’s the end of that conversation tree!
In the safe, we also found an MP3 player, but the battery is dead, of course. We take it up to our room to charge it, but it won’t charge. Weird! When we pull back the socket, Nancy notices that there’s a bug attached to the wiring. Someone’s been spying on us! I’m gonna take a stab in the dark and say that it’s the actual spy, Zoe. “Also, note to self: do less thinking aloud,” Nancy says. Heh. Whatever, we were barely in this room, anyway. I mean, unless Zoe wanted to listen in on us humor Ned while he tells us to have fun while we investigate our mom’s death.
The bug self-destructs because it’s some real spy shit. Nancy’s bummed that her evidence is gone, but now that the bug’s not attached to the socket anymore, the MP3 player will charge. We can play Kate’s voice memos, and she’ll say some stuff about following “the raven” to the archives, and how “the vaccinated” will arrive while everyone else is asleep.
Down in the basement, Ewan will give us Zoe’s glasses. The drive has been wiped, but the glasses are still functional, so now we have spy glasses. Sweet. Nancy tells Ewan that we think Zoe is an American spy, and Ewan’s like, “Okay, we’re cool with the Americans, but not so cool that we want them nosing around in our shit.” He tells us that he’s going to up the security level of the Cathedral base, so we’ll have to find a new way down here now. Thanks for ever telling us what it is, Ewan.
We also tell him about Moira — he confirms that she got fired from Cathedral — and Alec. Ewan says he’ll look into Revenant kidnapping Alec’s sister.
Back to Zoe. We accuse her of bugging our room, and she finally tells us why she’s so into us: “We believe that the operation your mom knocked offline involved a biological attack against Glasgow.” WOW, ZOE, LITERALLY EVERYONE WE’VE MET SO FAR HAS TOLD US THAT. THIS IS BRAND NEW INFORMATION. Zoe adds that Kate intercepted a delivery meant for Revenant, and the theory in spy circles is that Nancy knows where it is. Are you telling me Kate got her hands on a bioweapon and didn’t destroy it? Spy more better, Kate. Nancy points out that she didn’t even know her mom was a spy until like two days ago, and Zoe says that nobody thinks that Nancy knows that she has important information, they just think she’ll unwittingly lead them to the bioweapon. I mean, Nancy’s never even been to Scotland before. They might’ve had better luck descending on River Heights, although Zoe’s edgy #look would get her run out of town by all the judgy townspeople in half a minute.
Hmm, let’s have some important conversations with Ned and Carson before we wrap this part up. We call Carson to tell him that Moira totally ‘fessed up to getting Kate killed but like, she feels really bad about it. Nancy thinks Carson and Moira should talk it out, and Carson’s like, “Aw, hell no.”
Okay, so Carson and Moira won’t be hanging out anytime soon. Let’s check in with Ned and see what he’s learned about Revenant. Ned’s done some serious Googling and tells us that Revenant is some kind of bizarre agent of chaos and/or neutrality — like, they don’t always do weird coup shit, sometimes they’re helpful. Ned notes that some people view them as a humanitarian group, not terrorists. I mean…your terrorists are our freedom fighters and all that, I guess. Ned says that Revenant is trying to remake the world in their image; whether or not you think they have good intentions is up to you. This is some deep shit for Nancy Drew.
Up next: You might have noticed that this section of the game is actually pretty light on puzzles! That’s because they’re all loaded into the last third of the game, every damn one of them. Oh, and there’s the reveal of the culprit and everything. That happens too.
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