Impossible Mission II

Scenario

COBRA BLUE CLASSIFICATION ULTRA

DISTRIBUTION

Field Operations Assets, (Need to Know basis only) Field Operations Control, Langley Electronic Intelligence Operations, Ft. Meade Joint Chiefs of Staff, Pentagon Commmander, Strategic Air Command, Omaha (EYES ONLY) Commander, Submarines Pacific, Honolulu (EYES ONLY) Commander, Submarines Atlantic, Norfolk (EYES ONLY)

1. OVERVIEW: Cobra Blue is a top secret surveillance and counter-terrorist operation directed against Professor Elvin Atombender by Field Operations Agent Bravo 29. Elvin, a known psychotic genius, is one of the world’s leading experts on robotics, computers, and codes. Elvin is believed to have collected a personal fortune by raiding the computer systems of several of the World’s leading financial institutions and transferring funds to his personal bank accounts. Elvin lives at the top of an immense eight-tower complex constructed with his personal funds in northwest Los Angeles near the UCLA campus. Elvin’s complex is believed to be staffed entirely by robots built to his design. He receives no visitors and, so far, his complex has proven to be nearly impossible to enter by agents of this and other police and intelligence agencies.

2. COBRA BLUE PHASE I: Elvin’s tower complex is under constant watch. All activity between his complex and other computers around the world are constantly monitored. Random attempts to break into the tower complex were made by our field agents to gather information about the complex’s structure and contents. Intelligence reports indicate that Elvin has spent the past four years trying to electronically break into military computer installations around the world, and he may be close to succeeding. In addition, it is believed that Elvin is becoming increasingly mentally unstable. He has been monitored muttering threats about destroying himself and the world. If he is detected to begin carrying out these threats, field agents will be alerted to implement Phase II through a Flash Alpha One message from Field Operations Control, Langley.

3. COBRA BLUE PHASE II: Field agents assigned to Cobra Blue Phase II will immediately penetrate Elvin’s complex, arrest Elvin if possible or kill him if he resists, and neutralise his computer system. THIS MUST BE DONE WITHIN 8 HOURS.

Elvin is believed to live and work in the control center of his complex located in the penthouse of the central tower. He is guarded by highly sophisticated security systems which include mobile robots of several types, locking passageways between towers and musical sequences.

The field agent assigned to penetrate this complex will be assisted by a personal pocket computer which he will be able to use only in the complex’s hallways. This computer will track the operative’s location, help him determine if he has completed the proper combination for access to another tower, and help him to link together the musical sequences needed to enter Elvin’s central tower.

08/04/88 0122 ZULU COPY 01 OF 01 CLASSIFICATION ULTRA CODE GROUP THETA PRIORITY FLASH ALPHA ONE TO: FIELD AGENT BRAVO 29 FROM: FIELD OPERATIONS CONTROL, LANGLEY RE: COBRA BLUE

COBRA BLUE ALERT BREAK IMPERATIVE REPEAT IMPERATIVE ELVIN BE NEUTRALIZED WITHIN 8 HOURS ELSE LAUNCH CODES WILL BE BROKEN AND MISSILES LAUNCHED BREAK CONSULT COBRA BLUE PHASE II OPERATIONS ORDER FOR FURTHER DETAILS RE ELVIN AND TOWER COMPLEX BREAK EXECUTE COBRA BLUE PHASE II IMMEDIATELY BREAK GOOD LUCK AND GO GET HIM

BREAK END

LANGLEY

PAGE ONE OF ONE

DESTROY AFTER READING

08/04/88 0123 ZULU

APPENDIX A

ELVIN’S TOWER COMPLEX

Elvin’s tower complex is located in the Sawtelle District of Los Angeles on the grounds of the former Veteran’s Administration Hospital five miles west of UCLA. Elvin purchased the grounds five years ago from the U.S. Government during an attempt by the government to balance the federal budget.

He has constructed a nine-tower complex consisting of eight towers surrounding a core tower. Each tower includes from four to six rooms, and each has a special function. These functions include parking for Elvin’s vast fleet of motor vehicles, living quarters (Elvin reportedly never sleeps in the same room two nights in a row and likes a lot of space), food service including automated kitchens (Elvin considers himself a gourmet although his tastes run toward M&Ms and Fruit Loops), sports and exercise areas, warehousing, executive office suites, and of course massive comply mr systems. There are believed to be up to 64 different rooms in the eight surrounding towers.

The core tower includes the heart of Elvin’s computer system and his control center located in the tower’s penthouse. There is a flat roof area outside the penthouse where an operative could arrange for an emergency helicopter pickup.

High speed elevators run up the sides of each tower except the core tower. They open on to hallways leading to the towers’ rooms. Each tower is linked to its two neighboring towers with both underground passageways and aerial hallways connecting at the upper levels. Security doors prevent access between towers unless you have the proper passcode.

The central tower’s control room is reached with a high speed express elevator. Doors to this elevator are located in both the underground tunnels and the aerial hallways between towers midway between the inter-tower security doors. The penthouse control room is the only room in the central tower accessible to outsiders. The balance of the structure is packed with Elvin’s mainframe computer system.

Three computer terminals are located in the center of the penthouse control room. One of these controls Elvin’s main code-cracking computer where he will attempt to access the world’s missile launch control codes and annihilate the planet. This terminal must be reached and deactivated by you to prevent missile launches. The other two are dummies hotwired to 2,200 volts. Any agent touching these dummies will be killed instantly. Intelligence reports have NOT, repeat NOT been able to determine which terminal is real and which are the deadly dummies. Good luck!

APPENDIX B

ROBOTS

Elvin’s robots are a major component of his security system. There are six different types you will find roaming the rooms in his stronghold. They include:

1. The basic security sentrybot. These are the most common and the most deadly if you get close. Sentrybots may be found in any room. They are each approximately 1.5 meters high and are armed with a high voltage plasma gun. The sentrybots use infrared photocell sensors to detect human body heat even in darkened rooms anywhere to the robot’s front. Sound and motion sensors also enable the robot to home in on a human whether the robot can “see” the target with his infrared sensors or not.

A sentrybot will fire its plasma gun anytime it detects a human within six feet. Sentrybots never miss at that short range and humans always die from the weapon’s massive electrical discharge.

Fortunately, a human has one major advantage over any robot–mobility. Sentrybots are propelled by linear induction magnetic transport systems embedded in the floors and platforms of each room. Sentrybots, therefore, usually cannot leave their assigned floors or platforms. They also generally move more slowly than a man and can be dodged with a well-timed somersault.

2. Minebots. These are small robots encountered in rooms in any Tower. They crawl around rooms and lay mines at random. The mines are visible and easily avoided. Unlike the mines a player can lay, they have no effect on the floor.

3. Pestbots. These are relatively harmless but annoying small robots that may be encountered in any tower. They constantly ride the lift platforms and mess up a player’s lift platform strategy. They are not dangerous.

4. Squatbot. May be encountered in any tower. Squatbots are small robots that squat on the floor like a turtle. With good timing, an agent can step on a squatbot and use it as a stepping stone to leap higher in the air. However, every few seconds, the squatbot is activated and will rise up. (If the agent isn’t careful, he may be smashed against a ceiling.

5. Bashbot. This is the second most common robot type and is found in all towers. Shaped like a miniature bulldozer, the bashbot detects a human intruder and instead of zapping him with an electrical charge, it attempts to shove the intruder off the edge of the nearest platform or into a nearby wall. Sometimes when a bashbot is encountered near a door into a room, the bashbot will shove the human intruder back into the adjacent hallway.

6. Suicidebot. These may be found in any tower. A suicidebot senses when a man is near and leaps to its death trying to take the man with him.

APPENDIX C

ELVIN’S PSYCHIATRIC PROFILE

Subject: Elvin Atombender Sex: Male Age: 62** Height: 5'4" Weight: 120 lbs. Hair: No Eyes: Watery blue, wears wire rim glasses Distinguishing Traits: Elvin has developed into a high tech hermit who hates people and animals and can only relate to M&Ms and Fruit Loops, anchovy pizzas, Diet Pepsi, and computers.

Childhood background: Elvin was a Momma’s boy. His mother loved him and believed he could do no wrong. He was a skinny, sickly little kid who loathed sports but loved mathematics. He seldom caused any problems and spent most of his time at home gaping into his computer screen. He occasionally caused trouble with his modem, such as the time he broke into the school district’s mainframe and raised his P.E. grade to an “A”, and the time he broke into the phone company’s billing computer and charged his parents with a five-hour call to Afghanistan (because his mother mistakenly served him Diet Coke instead of Diet Pepsi during a midnight pizza feed). His parents, however, were tolerant. They were sure he would eventually grow out of messing with other people’s computers. They were wrong. Elvin had only just begun.

Turning Point: Elvin survived high school despite encounters with numberous bullies. He entered the complter science school of a prestigious West Coast university and immediately immersed himself in the computer lab where he began building Elvin, Jr., a self-teaching, self-replicating artificial intelligence program. Junior was his child and his passion. He spent so much time in the computer lab that he barely earned his undergraduate degree. Only when he realized that he had to go on to graduate school if he were to keep working on Junior, did he reluctantly spend time on elective courses such as The Economics of Broccoli Farming and Intermediate Urdu.

One night, after nearly eight years in the university’s computer lab, Elvin had almost finished building Junior. He only had ten more lines of code to write, and only two more bugs to shake out of the program, and his child would come to life to dominate the university’s entire computer system. Then the lights literally went out as the power failed. Elvin’s computer crashed, and his program vaporized into nothing. Elvin had made one fatal mistake–he never backed up his programs, saying that floppy disks were for wimps. All he had left was some hard copy. Elvin’s mind snapped. He vowed he would complete his doctorate, someday rebuild his program on a grander scale than ever, and take over the computers of the world. Then he would have his revenge, especially against the electric utility companies. The world would repay him for his lost child.

Like many people with a grand obsession, Elvin was able to bide his time. He received his doctorate, became a distinguished professor and a renowned expert in computers and robotics, and then disappeared.

He has now resurfaced after five years of living in his fortress-like tower complex built with funds plundered from the international financial computer network. He is believed to be extremely paranoid and dangerous and may be on the verge of becoming the world’s first large scale computer terrorist. He should be approached with extreme caution.

Playing the Game

To succeed at IMPOSSIBLE MISSION II and to prevent the world from being destroyed, you as the Agency’s Field Agent must reach several objectives.

First, you must assemble the three-digit security comnbination for each tower. At the same time avoid and fend off Elvin’s robots, using his own security system to help you.

Second, you must locate and open Elvin’s safes, and recover the musical sequences locked inside. There are six unique pieces of music and two duplicate pieces.

Third, you must tie together these musical sequences into a full melody that will open the express elevator doors to Elvin’s central tower control room.

Finally, you must find the correct computer terminal in Elvin’s control room that will disarm the missile lauch codes before they destroy you and the world.

You score points by entering towers, exploring rooms, finding passcode numbers, and reaching the central control room. The sooner you reach the control room, the more points you earn.

You will see your agent inside an elevator in a random tower of the stronghold. The display on the bottom of the screen is your pocket computer.

As you explore Elvin’s tower complex, you can check your location and the rooms you have explored with your pocket computer. The pocket computer’s display appears at the bottom of your screen anytime your agent is in a corridor or elevator. A map of the current tower and connections to two neighboring towers shows in the center of the display. A dot of light shows your location in the tower. Any room you have entered appears in black. An overhead view of the tower complex appears to the left of the map display on the pocket computer. It too, has a light showing your location as well as a lighted display of your current tower number.

Searching for Codes

Search as many objects in each room as possible. These objects range from automobiles in Elvin’s garage tower to athletic equipment and lockers in his gymnasium tower. Don’t overlook house plants and pictures on the wall either. Search each object by standing directly in front of it and pushing the joystick UP/forward.

The word “Searching” will appear in a box near your agent’s shoulder. You will also see a horizontal time line indicating how long the search will take. You must continue to hold the joystick UP/forward until the time line disappears. If your search is interrupted for any reason (usually a robot bearing down on you), you can go back to the object and resume searching where you left off. Each object disappears after it is searched.

One of four things will appear above your agent’s shoulder when he’s finished searching an object:

• The word “Nothing”, indicating you’ve drawn a blank
• A passcode number
• A security terminal command icon
• An extension of time.

Using Security Terminals

You can use the security terminal commands you have collected at any security terminal in Elivin’s complex. These terminals are usually located near the entrance inside each room. They look like television sets with darkened screens facing toward you.

To use a security terminal, move directly in front of it and push the joystick UP/forward. The security terminal screen will fill your display. Security terminal command icons and the number you have available appear on the screen.

Push the joystick LEFT or RIGHT to move among the command icons and press the FIRE button to select whichever one you want to use.

Time Bombs

Pull DOWN/back on the joystick and press FIRE to place the bomb. The bomb explodes a few seconds after it is placed allowing the agent to go back to the safe and search for pieces of music.

Mines Mine explodes whenever anyone including field agent makes contact with it. It blows a large hole in the floor that the agent can only cross with a leaping somersault.

POCKET COMPUTER

Your pocket computer is an amazing device that not only locates you in Elvin’s complex, it also helps you assemble the passcode that lets you move from tower to tower. With its built-in tape recorder, you put together the musical sequence you need to get into Elvin’s central tower. Your computer also shows you how much time you have left before Elvin destroys the world.

To activate these last two functions, you must stand in a corridor or elevator and press the FIRE button.

NOTE: You can’t use the pocket computer in any of the rooms. Pressing the FIRE button in a room will make you do a somersault.

When you activate the functions, a hand appears near three buttons at the bottom right of the screen. The right button has three numbers on its surface. The centre button has the drawing of a tape cassette deck. The left button has the word “OFF” written on it. Above these buttons you will see three sets of up and down arrow buttons.

You can move the hand with the joystick. To select a button, move the hand on top of it and press the FIRE button. When you select the number button, the tower complex map disappears and three windows appear in its place. This is where the three-digit passcode to enter the neighbouring towers is assembled. The numbers are in three different colours and each colour appears in its own window. Move the hand to the up and down arrow keys and select one with the FIRE button. Numbers you have found in the tower appear in the windows to the left. There may be duplicates. When you find a correct number, the “Found” indicator below the windows will light up. When all three numbers for the passcode are found, the “Complete” indicator below the windows will light up. You can now move through the security access doors into a tower next door.

When you have collected one or more musical sequences from Elvin’s safes, you can play them on your pocket computer. Move the hand over the cassette button and press the FIRE button. A tape cassette deck complete with standard play, fast forward and rewind controls appears in the centre of your pocket computer. Rewind, then press play, and any musical sequences you have collected will play. Listen to them carefully because there may be duplicates. A digital tape counter helps you keep track of where you begin a musical sequence. Use this readout to help you record a new sequence over a duplicate piece of music. When you collect and play six non-duplicate musical sequences linked together on your tape recorder as a song, you can enter the express elevator to Elvin’s control room.

You must record a musical sequence before you leave a tower because you can’t return to a tower once you’ve left it. If you forget to record the music in each tower’s safe, you can’t win the game. However, you might get really lucky and still win the game if the music you forgot in a tower’s safe is a duplicate.

Elvin’s Express Elevator

You can find doors to Elvin’s express elevator between the inter-tower security doors in either the underground passageways or the aerial hallways. Stop in front of the express elevator and push your joystick UP/forward. You will enter the elevator and reappear in Elvin’s control room.

Elvin’s Control Room

This is an extremely complex room filed with robots. It has security terminals so you can use your collected security commands to help you. Notice the three terminals in the center of the room. One of these can be used to deactivate the missile launch control codes and save the world. The other two will kill you. Select a terminal, stand in front of it, and push your joystick UP/forward. If you are lucky, you will deactivate the control codes and confront Elvin.

Scoring

A scoreboard will appear if you successfully end the game, if you die too many times while you are in Elvin’s control room, or if time runs out. You earn points for entering each room, collecting objects and numbers, entering each tower, and for completing the mission.

Controls

In the elevators

Push the joystick UP/forward or DOWN/back to go up or down. Push the joystick RIGHT or LEFT to enter a corridor.

In the corridors

Push the joystick LEFT or RIGHT to move along a corridor. Running off the edge of the screen will take you into a room or another section of corridor.

In the rooms

Push the joystick LEFT or RIGHT to move in either direction. If you press the FIRE button, your agent will do a forward flip useful for leaping over robots, jumping up to higher levels, and somersaulting over gaps in the floor and over low walls. Pulling the joystick DOWN/back will put your agent in a crouching position. He needs to be in this position to lay a time-bomb or mine.

On lifting and sliding platforms:

If you are standing on a striped lifting platform (you can see the vertical track in the wall), push the joystick UP/forward or DOWN/back to go up or down. If you are standing on a striped sliding platform (you can see the horizontal track in the wall) push the joystick UP/forward or DOWN/back followed by LEFT or RIGHT to move the platform.

Credits

PROGRAMMER: Novotrade