Mystery Trackers: The Four Aces

**Mystery Trackers: The Four Aces** is the fourth installment in the *Mystery Trackers* series by Elephant Games.

## Plot

As the game opens, following narration about scientific experiments which merged people with animals, Amber and Elf are having a calm night when a news bulletin comes on the television about the evacuation of the town of Brightfield. The community has been besieged recently by unusual animal attacks, and the evacuation procedures are being hindered by extreme cold and heavy snow. After checking in with headquarters, the duo hops a plane and heads for Brightfield. Upon arrival, Amber finds a young woman, Kelly Aster, locked behind a gate; she has somehow been overlooked in the evacuation. Kelly tosses a key to Amber which will let her open the gate, but before Kelly can escape, a strange winged creature dive-bombs the scene and chases after the girl. As she works to get to Kelly and keep her safe, the detective finds a newspaper article about a local philanthropist, Archibald Karr, who had promised to aid with the evacuations and solve the mystery of the weird animals.

Entering a side alley, Amber sees a large bipedal creature walking away with the unconscious Kelly slung over its shoulder. Before she can pursue, her way is blocked by a large pile of snow; looking up, she sees that it's been deliberately shoveled off of a roof by a figure in a white robe with a red heart on their back. Amber is angry, because the snow very nearly buried poor little Elf. She finds Kelly's dropped purse, which contains a letter from her sweetheart, James; he's frustrated because his wealthy uncle forbids James to be with Kelly, whom he calls "a mere nurse." James promises that he will find a way for them to be together.

Outside of the alley, Amber investigates a parked car which seems to contain some potential clues. Before she can get inside, another white-robed figure - this one emblazoned with a red diamond - fires a gun at the car, causing it to explode. Having narrowly avoided death, she heads down a dead-end street, where Kelly throws a dagger from a balcony and calls out for help before being dragged back inside. After finding a grappling hook, she's able to climb up to the room where Kelly had been, only to find her gone; looking outside, Amber sees Kelly running with the beast in pursuit, and a third white-garbed figure (this one marked with a spade emblem) watches. In the room, Amber finds a locket belonging to Kelly's boyfriend James, and realizes that James's wealthy uncle is Archibald Karr. She next gets into the town post office, where she finds information about a string of recent heists. They've all been tied to a group known as the Four Aces; at each crime scene, the perpetrators left a sigil of the four suits from a deck of playing cards, just like the symbols on the white-garbed figures who have been trying to impede her investigation.

Outside the church, Amber finds the beast standing over an unconscious Kelly. She's able to drive off the beast long enough to revive Kelly, but it quickly returns and knocks Amber out. She wakes in time to hear Archibald Karr and one of the Four Aces deciding that they don't need to worry about her because she's likely to freeze to death. Instead, she gets up once they leave and manages to get into the chapel corridor, where she finds the Ace of Spades burning evidence. It turns out this is Archibald Karr, and he is running the Four Aces; he runs away when he realizes she's there. The evidence he abandons reveals to Amber that the beast is James Karr, and his uncle Archibald was the one who turned him into the hairy creature; the beast isn't trying to hurt Kelly at all.

Continuing the investigation, Amber puts things together. The Four Aces have been performing terrible experiments to splice the DNA of animals with one another, and also with humans. The "Beta" subject, which was James merged with a lion, escaped after his animal instincts became too strong. She finally gets into the church, where Kelly and a now-placid James-beast are waiting, and Kelly reveals that she heard the Aces talking about destroying the entire town as well as killing the three of them. The church has a radio, so if Amber can get it working, they can call for help. There's more evidence to be found here, revealing that the Aces will next proceed to their Gamma Project, "King of Elements," which will have worldwide consequences.

Amber fixes the radio, but before she can contact Mystery Trackers HQ, the Ace of Diamonds appears and fires a crossbow. James leaps in front of her and Kelly and takes the bolt himself, and Amber must find first aid equipment; since Kelly is a nurse, she's able to use what Amber finds to save James. He and Kelly go to find a place to hide, providing Amber with a videophone to call them if she needs help, and she continues tracking down the Aces. Down in the catacombs, she finds a giant bat sleeping near the corpse of another experiment gone wrong. Continuing the investigation leads her into an office at the dinosaur museum, where she makes the shocking discovery that the Ace of Spades has murdered the Ace of Diamonds, and used acid to disfigure the corpse. As he escapes in a helicopter, Archibald Karr throws a bomb to destroy the office, and Amber just barely escapes.

In another lab, Amber discovers the Ace of Hearts, who is trapped in a walk-in freezer and has died. Video footage shows that, once again, it was the Ace of Spades behind the murder. Back in the office, she finds a special collar meant to control the giant bat she found earlier, and she uses it to have the beast fly her and Elf to Archibald Karr's remote cabin. Karr is not in evidence, although his helicopter is. Inside she finds the body of the Ace of Clubs, which like the Ace of Diamonds has been disfigured by acid. Entering the cabin's secret bunker, Amber arrives in time to see Karr entering the chamber where experiments are created; when he emerges, he's combined himself with a black bear, and she uses a tranquilizer gun to take him down. James and Kelly arrive and James enters the chamber, and with Amber's help, he reverses the procedure that was done to him and becomes fully human again. Karr revives long enough to hit the building's self-destruct button, but Amber, James, and Kelly are able to flee before it explodes.

### Bonus Chapter

Following the main game's events, Amber receives a video message from Archibald Karr, which notes that if she's watching it, he's dead - but death will not stop the Gamma Project, "King of Elements," from destroying the world. The four elements will be combined to create "a chaos you have never imagined." He says that, among other things, hearts will literally turn to stone. She returns to Brightfield, and a recording from the Mystery Trackers tells her that the city has been evacuated again due to a strange substance being found, but four people are missing and need to be rescued. After getting some instructions on a transmitter, she sees a black-garbed agent come out of the post office, and follows him to the church. Not far away she finds one of the missing people, and to her shock, he has been turned to stone just as Karr predicted.

Amber and Elf continue exploring. The second victim is found in the fire station, the victim of an uncontrollable fire; the third is in town's airplane hangar, bafflingly suspended over a plane. When she finally gets into the church, she finds the black-garbed agent extracting a strange glowing object. He fires a gun at her twice and misses, then flees in the church's elevator. As the investigation continues, she finds the fourth victim frozen solid inside the post office, and observes that the ice is not normal. However, she realizes that none of the victims are actually dead, and she heads for the church elevator to find that agent. This takes her to his lair, where she's able to create chemical solutions that fully revive the four victims and return them to life. They are left unconscious but unharmed, and from each of them she takes a key. The four keys allow her to unlock a cabinet and retrieve a stun gun, with which she captures the agent in his lair. The chapter ends with another transmission, advising her that the prisoner is refusing to talk but seems to be part of a larger plot against the Mystery Trackers.

## Characters

* Amber and Elf: A Mystery Trackers field agent and her companion animal.
* Kelly Aster: A young woman who lives in Brightfield and was accidentally left behind during the evacuation.
* James Karr: Kelly's sweetheart, who is missing. It turns out that he was forced into a scientific experiment by his uncle and transfigured into a beast.
* Archibald Karr: A local philanthropist, James's uncle. He turns out to be the Ace of Spades, leader of the Four Aces.
* The Ace of Hearts, the Ace of Diamonds, and the Ace of Clubs: Archibald Karr's co-conspirators, who worked with him to commit many crimes and cross-breed animals and humans into dangerous creatures.
* The agent: An unidentified man in the bonus chapter, whose motives and mission are unclear.

## Connections

* The game's bonus material includes a short trailer for the next game in the series, *Silent Hollow.*
* The Mystery Trackers agent providing the transmissions at the beginning and end of the bonus chapter is Agent Brown, first introduced in *Raincliff*. This isn't confirmed by either the game itself or the end credits, but the design of the character makes his identity clear to longtime players.
* Though not outright stated, the transmission at the end of the bonus chapter seems to imply that this may actually be the Mystery Trackers' first run-in with the Dark Trackers Agency.
* The later game *Queen of Hearts* is a direct sequel to this one.

## Trivia

* Throughout the game, the player can find casino chips, which can then be used to purchase gifts for Elf in a special shop.
* Archibald Karr is voiced by Tim Simmons, who provides the voice of the Commander of the Mystery Trackers in several other installments.

## External Links

* *The Four Aces* at the Elephant Games website
* *Mystery Trackers* at TV Tropes
* Elephant Games on Facebook