Case Summary
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Episode 1After a disturbing run-in with his ex-wife Lucy, private eye Mace Broade went to comfort himself at his favorite diner, Maxwell's. A crying woman, Mrs. Meadows, sat down next to him at the counter. Her teen-age daughter, Kylie, had run away from their home in Tucson, Arizona, and Meadows does not know where she is. Sylvia, the waitress who is also Mace's off-and-on girlfriend, suggested that Meadows hire Mace. He begrudgingly gave Meadows his business card and told her to come by his office that afternoon.
Mrs. Meadows showed up Mace's office and asked for his help. She told Mace the details of Kylie's disappearance and gave him her photograph. She revealed that when she last heard from Kylie, Kylie was at the Santa Monica Pier. Mace made plans to begin his investigation there.
At the Pier, a vendor recognized Kylie's photo and told Mace that she had been there handing out flyers, "same as that kid over there." Mace took one of the flyers which promoted a website called The Sanctuary. A bum told Mace that he had seen Kylie drive away with a guy in a red Camaro. The bum gave Mace a piece of paper with the car's license plate written on it unintelligibly.
Back at his office, Mace called his computer-savvy friend, Tommy, to come over and help him get onto the web. Tommy taught Mace how to use the Internet. Mace used his newly learned knowledge to visit The Sanctuary website: http://www.raygun.com/sanctuary.
Mace discovered that The Sanctuary is a new-age group promoting "peace of mind" through "Spiritual Waves" in cyberspace. Mace entered The Sanctuary's chat room, The Living Room, and asked the people he met there if they knew Kylie. No one did, but Mace discovered that The Sanctuary is run by "The Guru." Everyone in the Living Room anxiously waits for the chance to be invited into The Guru's private chat room.
Mace wanted to ask The Guru about Kylie, but did not know how to get access to him. Mace went to his favorite bar, the Town House, where he ran into his friend Tommy.
Tommy told Mace about a woman who might be able to help him break into The Guru's private chat room. The catch is--Mace can never meet her or speak with her in person because she works in a top-secret government job. He can communicate with her only by visiting her high-tech chat room--The Barca Lounge.
Mace contacted the nameless woman by e-mail and received a reply to go to the Barca Lounge at 4AM. Mace begrudgingly woke up at 4 and went to the Barca Lounge, only to be greeted by a black screen.
Mace arrived at the Barca Lounge where he was greeted by a Leopard, the avatar assumed by the mysterious computer hacker Tommy recommended to Mace. He explained to the Leopard that he wants to get access to the Guru. She agreed to help and said it will take about a day. Mace asked what he should call her. She replied, "Agent 99," and disappeared without saying goodbye.
Mace narrowed down three Camaro owners who possibly had contact with Kylie to a Rikk Martinez working at No Life Records. He called Mrs. Meadow's hotel to give her an update on his progress. The hotel did not have her listed so he called the Tucson telephone number she had given him. It turned out to be the number for the construction office of Su Casa Estates.
Mace called the hotel again and got through this time. He told Meadows that Kylie may be involved with an on-line cult, The Sanctuary. Mace received an e-mail: "Barca Lounge. 10 PM."
Mace went to the Barca Lounge to meet "Agent 99" who appeared in the guise of a laughing Buddha. 99 set up a surveillance system so that she and Mace could eavesdrop on the Inner Sanctum, the Guru's private chat room. They overheard several Sanctuary followers in the Inner Sanctum asking The Guru for advice. Each believed that he or she was alone with Him.
Mace asked 99 if he could talk to the Guru, but when she tried to patch him in, the surveillance system failed. She promised to have it fixed by 10 the following night.
Mace went to No Life Records to talk to Rikk Martinez, who had been seen at the pier with Kylie. After thwarting a shoplifter, Mace met Rikk and his pet snake Satan.
Rikk told Mace that he had spent a few days with Kylie...until she split with his expensive tape deck. He'd had no contact with her since. Mace left No Life disappointed that he was no closer to finding Kylie. He went across the street to console himself with a Sanka at the Formosa Cafe...and to kill time until his rendezvous that night with 99 at the Barca Lounge.
99 greeted Mace in the Barca Lounge with a bright red screen, and pictures from Mission Control. She and Mace returned to the Inner Sanctum where she promised that this time, he'd be able to talk to The Guru. It didn't work. Mace could eavesdrop on the conversation, but couldn't participate.
Just as Mace was ready to give up, a "Rienen" entered the Sanctum and insisted on talking to the Guru alone. After the Guru cleared everyone out, Rienen demanded: I WANT MY MONEY.
Mace and 99 continued to listen in on Rienen's conversation with the Guru. Rienen threatened she'd go to the police if the Guru didn't give her money. Mace wondered if Rienen might help him solve his case. 99 offered to set up a surveillance bug in the Inner Sanctum which would sound an alert when Rienen was present.
99 summoned Mace back to the Barca Lounge to report that she had discovered Rienen often logs on from Cyber Java, an Internet cafe in Venice. Mace decided to visit the cafe to try to find Rienen, hoping she might provide insight into the Guru.
Mace went to Cyber Java expecting to find Rienen but was surprised when Kylie Meadows walked in. Before he could nab her, Agent 99 appeared on a computer screen in the cafe in the guise of a gargoyle, asking for Mr. Broade. Mace went over to the computer and typed "Not now!!!". When he turned around, Kylie had fled. He ran outside to chase after her, but she had disappeared.
Frustrated and angry, Mace sent 99 an e-mail telling her that she caused him to lose Kylie and that he no longer needed her help on the case. As he left the cafe, an idea struck him. He returned and discovered that, a few minutes before, Rienen had signed the log book to use a computer. Mace realized: Rienen is Kylie.
Back in his office, Mace devised a plan to pose as the Guru in order to catch Rienen / Kylie. He knew he would need 99's help, so he e-mailed her an apology. 99 used a Domino's Pizza delivery man to tell Mace to meet her in the Barca Lounge at 4:15 AM. She appeared there as a priest.
After forcing Mace to atone for his Cyber Java e-mail, the two exchanged information. 99 told Mace that she had broken into the Sanctuary's accounting system and found huge amounts of money flowing in and out of the organization. Mace told 99 that Kylie is Rienen, and asked for help with his plan. 99 was excited by the intrigue, and agreed to cooperate.
Mace followed 99's instructions and looked at the Sanctuary's profit and loss statement. It showed several million dollars flowing in, millions flowing out, and a tidy profit left over.
Mace spoke with Mrs. Meadows and told her to come to Rancho Park on Sunday evening. He promised he'd have her daughter for her then. All the pieces of his plan seemed to be in place.
Dressed as the Guru's chaffeur, Mace picked up Kylie and drove her to Rancho Park. Taken in by Mace's ruse that she would be getting her money from the Guru, Kylie was upset when Mrs. Meadows showed up instead. A male nurse hired by Mrs. Meadows carried off the kicking and screaming Kylie. Meadows paid Mace for his services and thanked him for his excellent work.
As Mace headed back to his car, a Chevy pickup truck appeared out of nowhere and tried to run him over. He jumped out of the way, just barely escaping with his life. A bum standing nearby reported that he had seen the pickup's license plates. Unfortunately, they had been taped over.
Mace returned the Infiniti to Alvin and told him about the near miss in Rancho Park. Alvin suggested that the culprit might be Wendell the Wallflower, a convict that Mace had once apprehended who had recently been paroled. After returning home and reporting to 99 about the day's events, Mace made a dinner date with Sylvia. Over the next couple of days, he looked unsucessfully for Wendell.
Mace received an e-mail from 99 warning him not to look at the Sanctuary's profit and loss spreadsheet if he hadn't done so already. Then an e-mail arrived from Kylie: She had seen the driver of the pickup truck, and would meet Mace the next day at the Big Cup Cafe to tell him all about it.
Mace joined a subdued, distracted Kylie at the Big Cup Cafe. When he reached for some sugar for his coffee, Kylie grabbed his arm. She looked directly into his eyes, whispered something unintelligible, and slipped him a packet of Sweet 'n Low with dots drawn on. As Mace started to take a sip of the coffee, Kylie knocked it out of his hand and screamed, "Don't! They put something in it."
Suddenly, three waiters surrounded Mace. He fought with two of them, and the third chased a fleeing Kylie. As he drove away, he realized that the waiters were from the Sanctuary. Mace returned to his office to discover that it had been ransacked. Mace was mulling over the meaing of the dots on the Sweet 'n Low packet, when he heard footsteps coming down the hall.
The footsteps Mace heard coming down the hall turned out to be Alvin's. He brought Mace a postcard, addressed to Kylie, that he found while cleaning the Infiniti. Mace received an e-mail from 99. She needed to see him immediately and gave him a password to get by the guards she set up at the Barca Lounge's entrance.
Mace passed by the guards and found 99 in another room, hiding behind various masks. She had put in place the extra security because someone from the Sanctuary had infiltrated the Barca Lounge. Evidently, they had figured out who had been poking around their accounting system. Mace told 99 about the musical notes on the Sweet'n Low packet. 99 didn't recognize the tune, but thought that one of the musicians in her R & B band might.
While Sylvia was helping Mace clean up his office, Mace received a phone call from Marvin summoning him to the Barca Lounge. Sylvia left in a jealous huff when she saw 99 dressed as a sexy genie. 99 informed Mace that the notes on the Sweet'n Low were the beginning of the Morrissey song "Ouija Board."
Mace and 99 speculated that Kylie might have hidden more clues on the Internet. They searched WebCrawler for "ouija board" and started checking out some of the fifty-two sites they found. They knew they'd hit pay dirt at a site called The Ouija Board is My Home when they saw "Ask the Ouija Board for the Key to the Sanctuary" written at the top of the web page. The site asked them for a password to access its secrets.
Mace and 99 struggled with the password for the Ouija Board. Mace glanced up at Kylie's postcard tacked to his bulletin board. He realized that "Gaborone" was the word Kylie had whispered at the Big Cup Cafe. 99 and Mace entered GABORONE into the Ouija Board. It revealed a gateway to the Sanctuary Accounting System and two spreadsheets which showed that the Sanctuary was running a successful money laundering operation.
Mrs. Meadows called to tell Mace that Kylie had run away again. He agreed to meet Meadows Saturday at Typhoon Restaurant at the Santa Monica Airport.
Later, out of sugar for his Sanka, Mace opened the Sweet'n Low packet Kylie had given him. Inside he found a grain of rice with tiny letters and numbers written on it.
Mace solves the case. The entire free world can now sleep a little easier.