Well, apparently Stone’s team has one more member than I originally thought. Another reader, who asked to remain anonymous, just sent me the following access code for the Wildfire site:

WE LIE LIKE MAN

It’s a strange development, given the existing conflicts between Stone and Keene. The file makes it clear that Stone didn’t request Keene for inclusion in the Wildfire Project, and that he’s there to keep an eye on Stone.. but why? Stone is the whole reason the project exists. Perhaps someone farther up the ladder felt that Keene would keep Stone in check if he headed in the wrong direction?

And I can’t help but wonder, even though this code is an obvious anagram for WILLIAM KEENE, whether it’s supposed to have some other significance…

Thanks to everyone who passed along the correct access code for opening Dr. Tsi Chou’s file in the comments on the last post: that didn’t take long at all, and now we have more information on Dr. Tsi Chou. Even better, this time it’s all in English.

See for yourself; go to the Wildfire site and use access code:

HI SCOUT

It looks like our government knew exactly why Dr. Chou defected from his work with the Chinese military, and were able to use that information to convince him to lend his services. It makes me wonder, though: Stone knew Noyce, and Noyce knew Barton, which explains why Stone suggested both of them for inclusion on the Wildfire team. But what connection, if any, did Stone have to Chou?

Not sure what else we should be looking for, but I still feel certain there’s something else Wheezer intended for me to find on the Wildfire intranet. I’m thinking there might be more files related to Major William Keene… anyone got suggestions for that access code?

Found another new access code for the Wildfire intranet… and this one unlocks the file on Dr. Stone himself:

JEST OR ENEMY

Most of this information was already available on his website, but it’s interesting all the same. It’s also interesting that the government knew about the ill will between Stone and Keene, though I’m not sure why they’d make a specific note of that in the Wildfire files. Unless, of course, Keene is also involved in this somehow.

Based on this access code, it also seems clear that the personnel files, at least, are protected with anagrams… so the next thing is to figure out possible access codes for the file on Tsi Chou, the only remaining scientist on the team. Suggestions?

Several people sent messages encouraging me to keep looking for a link that connected Dr. Stone to Major Keene… and after two days of digging through the library archives, this is the only thing that has turned up. I’m assuming this is what they wanted me to find:

(view larger)

So Major Keene is not only the hero of the Houston incident, but a distinguished scientist. I’ve never even heard of the virus discussed in this article, but apparently it’s important in the scientific world, and the source of a bitter dispute between Keene and Stone. But I was reluctant to post this, because even if it does show that there’s a history between the two of them, I have no idea what this has to do with Piedmont. Are Stone and Keene both involved, somehow?

I’m getting more and more worried that I’ve been wasting time following dead ends. I don’t see how knowing any of this is going to help me figure out what happened in Piedmont, or what happened to my family.

I don’t know where this stuff is coming from, but I woke up this morning to find that three of you had sent me another classified document. This one’s a little harder to make sense of than the transcript I received earlier this week:

(view as PDF)

It’s a leaked military doc, highly confidential. Some of the words are coded/covered up, but it looks like an internal report about some thwarted bioterrorism attack that took place near Houston a couple years ago.

Whatever happened, it sounds like this would have turned into a catastrophic event if it weren’t for “Major W. Keene.” (Another name that means nothing to me.) What I can’t figure out is how this relates to Piedmont. Did something get into the water?