What Happened In Piedmont

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This whole thing is turning out to be more complicated than I thought, and I’m getting a lot of questions from people who haven’t seen the earlier entries. To make it easier, I’ll try to keep this page updated every day or so with a summary of what has been going on.

April 16	Started this blog three days after receiving an unsettling voicemail message from my younger sister, Sam. When I tried to call her back, I couldn’t reach her… or a single other person in our hometown of Piedmont, Utah. The voicemail recording is included in the entry.
April 17	Waiting for news. Wasn’t sure what else to do, so I wrote more about Piedmont, and then later on, about my family.
April 18	Found word online about a chemical spill closing down a major road that leads into Piedmont.
April 19	Got tired of waiting and decided I would attempt to hitch a ride home with a friend and check things out for myself. But when I called my friend to meet him, he told me he was already on the road, and that he’d call to fill me in as soon as he got back.
April 20	Word from my friend: when he got near Piedmont, he was stopped by a military blockade. He gave me more details, and sent along a photo he was able to take, but it’s still not clear what’s going on.
April 21	A possible breakthrough? Was checking the NNT Morning News when I caught this broadcast from investigative reporter Jack Nash. Sent him a message. We’ll see if he gets back to me.
April 22	No word from Nash yet. Did a little background research on the Utah State military, but nothing that helped explain what’s going on.
April 24	Received part of a hacked video feed from a source named Wheezer, which seems to indicate that my town is full of dead bodies, and that the military might not have been expecting that.
April 27	Received a photo depicting some kind of bright unidentified falling object in the sky somewhere near Piedmont the night before this all began.
April 29	Wheezer sent the second half of the transmission he intercepted, but only as audio. A lot of uncomfortable screaming, followed by silence, and then an order to get someone named “General Mancheck.”
April 30	Couldn’t find much on Mancheck, but this article indicated that in 2004, he was working for the Military Office of Biodefense, and overseeing some new project involving defense satellites.
May 1	Received another video from Wheezer, this one of a violent act of suicide in Piedmont. I was so shocked that I considered shutting down this blog.
May 2	Following suggestions from Wheezer and others, I dug into Mancheck’s involvement in Iraq during Desert Storm, and found an article about a bombing operation quoting Mancheck.
May 3	The first good news I’ve had since this whole thing started: Wheezer’s digging turned up a set of thermal scans that seem to indicate at least one person - my Uncle Kyle - is still alive! That means there could be others.
May 5	While I know there’s reason to be suspicious, I’m choosing to trust Wheezer and his motives. And another major lead arrived, in the form of a sealed Congressional transcript, in which Dr. Jeremy Stone made several accusations again General Mancheck.
May 6	No luck getting in touch with Stone, but a note on his web site helped me track down his son, Lance, through Facebook. Also, a reader found a private directory on Jack Nash’s website, but not the password that unlocks it.
May 7	Several people managed to find Nash’s password, which provided access to several pages of handwritten notes documenting Nash’s investigation into Desert Storm and Mancheck’s involvement.
May 9	Another confidential document arrived through email, detailing “the Houston incident”, a failed bioattack from several years ago. I was also able to get Lance Stone to talk on IM, and found out that his father, Dr. Stone, is not on vacation. But where is he…?
May 11	Found a recent article establishing a connection between Keene and Stone, but can’t see what it has to do with Piedmont. Starting to get worried I’m following dead ends.
May 12	Received an alarming voicemail from Frohz3n, a friend of Wheezer’s, which indicates that something bad may have happened to Wheezer in the last few days. He also passed along a classified letter from Jeremy Stone to President Scott, which outlined Stone’s recommendation for assembling a team of scientists and an underground lab for dealing with high-level bioterror threats.
May 13	Frohz3n passed along one final lead from Wheezer: an encrypted audio file containing some sort of important hidden message. No idea how to get to it, though.
May 14	No luck decoding Wheezer’s hidden message yet, but I did find two articles with information about Dr. Charlene Barton. She seems competent, but like Stone, she’s been missing since this whole thing began.
May 15	A reader named MrToasty was able to decipher Wheezer’s hidden message, which confirmed that Dr. Stone’s team of scientists has been gathered to combat a threat called “andromeda,” that the entire project is referred to as “the Wildfire protocol,” and that I’ll be able to find answers if I can access the project intranet.
May 16	A reader named MrToasty was able to decipher Wheezer’s hidden message, which confirmed that Dr. Stone’s team of scientists has been gathered to combat a threat called “andromeda,” that the entire project is referred to as “the Wildfire protocol,” and that I’ll be able to find answers if I can access the project intranet. Also received a scientific abstract linking Barton and Noyce.
May 17	A few of you managed to locate the access point for the Wildfire intranet at www.wildfireprotocol.us. And within a few hours, dozens of you discovered the first working access code needed to view classified documents: andromeda. Each file in the system has a different code, though, so now I need to figure out the rest of them.
May 18	Access code “CANYON EAGLE” provides access to the Wildfire Personnel Report on Dr. Angela Noyce.
May 19	Another access code unlocks an undated article that appears to be about Dr. Tsi Chou… but it’s in Chinese, so I can’t read it without some help. Also, Frohz3n passed along an intercepted voicemail and some photos that he picked up as the last transmission from Jack Nash’s cell phone.
May 20	With some help from “Dawn P”, I was able to get a rough translation of the Chinese article from the Wildfire intranet, which was about Dr. Chou’s previous work in bioengineering and biodefense for the Chinese military. And another working access code turned up, which opened the personnel file on Dr. Charlene Barton. Looks like at least some of the Wildfire access codes are anagrams…
May 21	Another access code unlocked Dr. Stone’s personnel file from the Wildfire intranet.
May 22	Another access code. This time it’s Dr. Chou’s personnel file.
May 23	A new access code led to the revelation that there’s a fifth scientist on the Wildfire team: Major William Keene, hero of the Houston incident, who seems to be on hand to make sure Stone stays in line. A second access code also unlocked some unsettling new video footage, which seems to indicate that Andromeda also affects birds.
May 24	Yet another access code, this time unlocking a highly classified report on something called the Odd Man Hypothesis. Looks like Major Keene has been selected as the most competent person to make difficult decisions… but what kind of difficult decisions are they expecting him to make?
May 25	Two additional incident reports turned up in the Wildfire Intranet today. The first showed an upsetting pair of satellite images which reveal that the government has been monitoring an unspecified area near Piedmont where grass is suddenly beginning to decay. (Could Andromeda be capable of infecting plants as well?) The second was even worse: a flagged article from a newswire about a triple homicide and suicide in a diner near Millstown.
May 27	A set of three new access codes arrived via email, unlocking a series of reports and schematics about the Wildfire lab facilities. Later in the evening, a final set of codes arrived from an anonymous source, and unlocked a series of diagnostic screens analyzing the Andromeda Strain. Don’t know what to make of them, but it doesn’t look good.
May 28	Everything seems to have fallen into place. We all know what happened in Piedmont, and Jack Nash got an exclusive interview with Dr. Stone about the Wildfire team’s efforts to prevent Andromeda from spreading. Still waiting to hear when I’ll get to see Uncle Kyle.

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