Flood Control

"Flood Control" is the second episode of the Halo 3 Alternate reality game Iris.

Overview

The second episode of Iris began with mysterious postings on several job listing sites and MSN, leading to the discovery that a group named Flood Containment Control was hiding data about something on several kiosks behind a "false menu item". The information on these kiosks led to the discovery of a report named "Report 206" which assisted people finding the second server. The second server detailed the Flood, revealing information about the initial thoughts the Forerunners had about them.

Summary

July 2007

Flood Containment Control

On July 6 nattyhaze on arg.bungie.org discovered via Google numerous classified postings for a company called Flood Containment Control (text displayed on the Slide_Ref070107.jpg), containing an image with the original 'closed' version of the glyph. The ads contain the phone number, (888) 778-5672, which has an interesting recording.

On July 7, the message on the Flood Containment Control call number has changed to a conversation between two men. Of note is a reference to "402-K-07-002". suitedjock Googled the number, which lead to an EPA webpage referring to a booklet "EPA 402-K-07-002", Flood Cleanup and the Air in Your Home. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (or NIOSH) is the United States federal agency responsible for conducting research and making recommendations for the prevention of work-related injury and illness. NIOSH is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) within the US Department of Health and Human Services. The new recording says this:

Op (British Female): (echoed by two different calls) Welcome to the {garbled, possibly "Server" or "Strema"} Conferencing center. Please enter pin number followed by the pound sign. Caller: #### (201#?) Op: Password accepted. Now accessing conference archive number 16180, participant 1-2. Man 1: ...isn't necessary, and neither is the doc download. Man 2: I agree. This isn't going to be a public resource. Uh, pass on the document number so I can delete it. (pause, three seconds) Man 1: There's no way to tell yet, {"Jamie" or "Jim"} is looking into the records to find out how many {"closed" or "cloned"} sites there are, but as for active clean up, somewhere around three-four thousand. Oh here it is. Uh, hold on. 402-K-07-002 and in terms of numbers most of these are past the {"50b"} stage. (pause, four seconds) Man 2: With a few exceptions: site 34. . . . (3 + 4 = 7) Op: --Thank you for calling. Goodbye.

On July 8, the recording changed, and the following was recorded:

Man 2: ...site 4, 107 and 37. (pause, 1.5 seconds) Man 2: The center usually goes in before we do, that's been my experience. Man 1: By the time we have the site clean, they've moved on to more pressing needs...after all, we've had some extremely unpredictable seasons lately. (pause, four seconds) Man 2: ...no need, their rep is available anytime we need her. (pause, four seconds) Man 1: ...on everything we still need to look into. (pause, three seconds) Man 2: Eh, we're working on it. For the moment now we're simply hiding the data behind a false menu item. Man 1: Security will be updated before the next system approaches. (pause - 15 seconds, interlaced with one of the men coughing) Man 2: Okay, great. Bye, (Mel or Bill). Man 1: Thanks. Op: -- Thank you for calling. Goodbye.

Server 2

On July 10, Episode 2 opens at Halo3.com. The "Servers" have been renamed to "Episodes". One of the files that you can download from episode 02 is a .wav file entitled 719 Hz. The sound file contains garbled noise, but if you run it through a program called Spectogram, then it creates a picture of what appears to be a melting and misshapen clock. The image can also be attributed to look like a blurry version of "The Device", which can be accessed through the Halo 3 website. It is hidden inside the concept art section, which could be the reference to being "hidden behind a false menu item" from the Flood Containment Control call number. http://img27.picoodle.com/img/img27/9/8/24/t_719HzImagem_f7c4488.jpg Image