Mystery Trackers: Queen of Hearts

**Mystery Trackers: Queen of Hearts** is the twelfth installment in the *Mystery Trackers* series by Elephant Games.

## Plot

The game opens with news reports that trouble is once again stirring in the town of Brightfield. It's been some time since the Four Aces forcibly cross-bred humans with animals, but now something else is causing the same result - people are being afflicted with a strange illness that causes them to mutate and attack other people. The healthy citizens are evacuating as fast as possible. Amber and Elf are dispatched to find out what's going on, and the Commander tells her to find Agent Stone, who is already on the scene and has information for her.

The helicopter touches down to leave them in the town square; both Amber and Elf wear protective gear to keep them from contracting the illness. Almost immediately she witnesses a car crash, and a humanoid beast attacks the car. After driving it off, she gets the car open and revives the driver to reveal that it's Agent Stone. He thanks her and explains that an old hospital is the source of the infection, so she needs to get there. He believes it's the work of a dangerous scientist named Henry Baumsteiner, alias Doctor Cyanide. Unfortunately, during the course of his investigation, Agent Stone was exposed to the poisoned air which causes the infection, so he urges Amber to leave him since he will soon become a monster. To prevent himself from hurting anyone, he handcuffs himself to a lamppost, and as the transformation begins, he begs her to save the people of Brightfield.

Using the dynamite Agent Stone gives her, Amber blasts open the locked hospital gates and starts working to find a way inside. After restoring the controls to the small bridge connecting the hospital to the rest of Brightfield, she sees figures moving around inside the building. Breaking in, she narrowly avoids being spotted by Doctor Cyanide, but he returns to his lab without noticing her. She makes her way inside and sees Doctor Cyanide and another person identified as Professor Green having a video conference with a blonde woman, who tells them to continue with the experiment and reminds Professor Green that "I have your daughter." She ends the call and Doctor Cyanide proposes that they go get lunch, leaving his dog Fluffy to keep an eye on things while their machine continues dispersing the poison gas. Fluffy is not happy to see Amber, but poses no overt threat as she starts snooping through the doctor's notes. He reveals that he's working for the Queen of Hearts, the woman in the video, and that he's using the same practices once implemented by the Four Aces, but the formula was unstable so not everyone afflicted looks like a monster. He also observes that Professor Green's involvement has improved things, and Amber wonders if Green could be a potential ally.

Continuing the investigation, Amber manages to disable the machine which is spewing the poison gas into the air. Almost as soon as she does, however, Doctor Cyanide returns and knocks her out with a punch. She wakes a little while later, strapped to an operating table, and he chastises her for sticking her nose where it didn't belong; he also tells her that not many people know about his other nickname, "Doctor Ripper." He brandishes a saw, but before he can harm Amber, Professor Green runs in and uses a taser on him. Green releases Amber from the table and carries her to safety. He explains that the Queen of Hearts and Doctor Cyanide are plotting to turn the entire population of the world into animal hybrids, and he only agreed to help because the Queen kidnapped his daughter Felicia. He begs Amber to go to the abandoned prison and rescue Felicia so the Queen loses her leverage.

Exiting the hospital through a rear door, Amber can easily see the island prison where Felicia is being held. Commandeering an old hovercraft, she crosses the water and starts searching for the villains' base. As she enters the compound, she sees Felicia in an upstairs window under heavy guard. Finding a ladder, she reaches a window in time to hear the Queen of Hearts giving directions to a guard, and learns where Felicia is being held. Making her way down to that level, however, she finds herself facing Doctor Cyanide with a gun. Behind him, the Queen of Hearts has Felicia. The Queen explains that her brother was one of the Four Aces, and that she and her allies are superhuman; they have a special vaccine which allows them to continue to look human, and when the rest of the world is turned into animals, they will rule everything. Cyanide knocks Amber out once again, and she and Felicia are both thrown into prison cells. Cyanide takes Elf and leaves with the Queen.

Luckily, Amber's prison cell still has quite a number of items in it from when the prison was in use, and she's able to find things to help her escape. Unfortunately, the Queen took Felicia's gas mask before throwing her into the other cell, and the child is already starting to transform into a lizard. Amber promises to find her an antidote, then goes to eavesdrop on a meeting the Queen is holding with her allies. The Queen, calling her group "the chosen ones," says that she is almost ready to deploy the worldwide gas that will turn everyone but them into animals, so Amber knows she has to act fast. She finds Elf, thankfully unharmed, in a pet crate, waiting to be the subject of an experiment, and locates the key to release him. In a conference room, guarded by Fluffy, she finds a note making reference to a "secret ally" of the Queen. A canister of sleeping gas in the storage closet makes it easy for her to neutralize all of the Queen's allies at once, just as the gas is about to be deployed. Finding the antidote, Amber cures Felicia, who thanks her. She writes down an access code which she saw the Queen enter; Amber uses the code to shut down the system and prevent the worldwide catastrophe. The game ends with Professor Green, Felicia, and a recovered Agent Stone watching the news with Amber as the Queen and Cyanide are shown going to prison.

### Bonus Chapter

Amber goes to the heavy security prison where Doctor Cyanide is being held, to interrogate him about a possible accomplice who is still on the loose. She meets with Agent Winston, who is there to assist, and Cyanide is brought into the room. He admits that he and the Queen do indeed have another accomplice - the secret ally mentioned in the note Amber found during the main adventure - and then reveals that it's actually Agent Winston. Winston apologizes before shooting Amber, and as she hits the floor, she sees the two men leave the room. Fortunately, she then stands up and opens her jacket; she's wearing a bulletproof vest, and she confirms that it saved her life. Angry at Winston's betrayal of the Order, she scoops up Elf and starts looking for a way to stop them from whatever they're about to do.

Escaping into the next room, Amber discovers that Winston and Cyanide have sparked a prison riot and tied up several guards in order to cover their own movements. She tends to the wounded guard sitting there, and he explains that some new guards who came on duty the previous day must have been in league with Winston; they're the ones who unlocked the cells and released the prisoners. She finally gets out into the prison proper and finds that Winston and Cyanide have killed a guard; she just catches sight of them leaving the area. Giving chase, she finds them leaving in a helicopter, and just manages to jump into the open back of the transport before it takes off. She soon realizes that they've flown back to the island prison where the Queen and Cyanide were arrested, but she doesn't know why.

She finds out once she reaches the second floor, where the Queen of Hearts is waiting. The Queen congratulates Cyanide on the flawless escapes they've both made; she then adds that he nearly ruined everything and she's happy to be able to kill him in person. She shoots Cyanide, but quickly realizes that someone has come to stop them, so she and Winston flee. Cyanide, close to death, complains bitterly to Amber about how his sincere loyalty to the Queen has been so poorly repaid. He gives her a key to open "a hiding place with something very important inside," and asks her with his final breath to make sure that the Queen gets justice. Amber retrieves a net gun from the hiding place and then goes after the other two.

When Amber catches up with the Queen and Winston, she's lucky in that the Queen's gun jams. Winston comes at her with a cane, but she manages to fight him off, knocking them both to the floor and then using the net gun to trap them. The game ends with Agent Stone reading a newspaper article about the events and congratulating Amber on her success.

## Characters

* Amber and Elf: A Mystery Trackers field agent and her companion animal.
* Agent Stone: Another Mystery Trackers field agent, who has been doing recon in Brightfield before Amber's arrival.
* The Queen of Hearts: A superhuman woman bent on world conquest.
* Doctor Cyanide: An evil physician helping the Queen of Hearts turn the world's population into mindless beasts.
* Professor Green: A kindly scientist who is forced to help the Queen and Cyanide because the Queen kidnaps his daughter.
* Felicia Green: The professor's daughter, who is about twelve years old.
* Agent Winston: In the bonus chapter, a rogue Mystery Trackers agent who turns out to be the secret ally of the Queen of Hearts.

## Connections

* This game is a direct sequel to *Mystery Trackers: The Four Aces.* The Queen of Hearts is the sister of the Ace of Hearts, who was one of the villains, and the game contains several references to the work done by the Aces.
* Agent Stone was originally introduced in *Silent Hollow*, and appeared again in *Paxton Creek Avenger*.

## Trivia

* This game has an optional "gas mask mode," in which Amber's protective gear periodically needs to be maintained. The quality of her gas mask is measured by a meter on the left side of the screen. Players can turn it off if they prefer not to worry about that.
* Agent Stone wore glasses in his two previous appearances, but here he no longer has them. Either he no longer needs them, he now wears contact lenses, or he just couldn't wear them with his gas mask (and that's why he crashed the car).
* Gale Van Cott, who voices the title character, is a regular at Elephant Games. She also provides the voices of Agent Rayne in *Silent Hollow*, Martha in *Mist Over Blackhill*, and Josephine in *Haunted Hotel: Lost Time*.

## External Links

* *Queen of Hearts* at the Elephant Games website
* *Mystery Trackers* at TV Tropes
* Elephant Games on Facebook