Walkthroughs: Black Mirror II

Side Street

When Darren returns to the photo shop after completion of the delivery and pick-up errand, he runs into Angelina again. She’ll complain of being groped by Fuller and the two make arrangements to have Darren deliver the photos to Angelina’s hotel . She takes off down the hill to the promenade and Mr. Mascara emerges from the alley beside the shop and sets out in pursuit.

You can’t pursue the pursuer. Fuller emerges to summon Darren back to work and, inside, takes delivery of the parcel and assigns a raft of domestic tasks. However, if you look in your diary, you’ll see only one of them achieves “task” status: the one we anticipated earlier about collecting the photo paper from the post office.

Odds & ends: You can bounce a lot of topics off Fuller now without getting much in return beyond defensiveness and aggression. The only thing he’ll actually tell you is that the letter to Mrs. Biba was a “bill.”

It’s almost the truth.

Photo Shop

However,  you can’t leave the shop until Darren calls his Mom with the reminder of her appointment at the diner. There’s a phone on the desk in Fuller’s office (through the middle of the three exits at the back). Simply left-click on it. Darren gets a busy signal and, after a to-do with Fuller (in which Darren learns his mother had called earlier about “Adrian” and a “mirror” -- anticipating events in chapters V and VI), he sets out to his Mom’s house automatically.

Mom's House

Darren  finds his mother unconscious on the floor by the telephone. Use the phone on the table to call an ambulance and note the three-part task supplied by the doctor afterward.  Darren needs to find all his Mom’s medicine, her medical history and her insurance card.

The card is easy: It’s in a pillow-like blue handbag on the flowered chair in the living room. The pill dispenser left of the tea cup covers most of the medicine and the rest comes with a left-click on the medicine cabinet in the bathroom to the left.

That leaves just the medical history. Darren doesn’t recall the name of his mother’s doctor (as you’ll learn if he tries to use the phone again at this stage) but it has to be around here somewhere. Best bet: the address book in the bottom drawer of the commode beside the bed. (Note that you have to open the top drawer first. Try a second time to open the bottom one.)

Alas, like every address book in every adventure game ever, it is locked. The key is beneath the flower pot on the bedroom windowsill. Use it on the address book to open it, right-click on the open address book to identify Mom’s old doctor as Dr. Wakefield and use the phone in the living room to arrange for her records to be sent to the hospital. Darren can then set out for the hospital.

Odds & ends: The painting to the left of the bathroom door is the ruined lighthouse at Sharp Edge from the original The Black Mirror. It’ll turn up again in the dream sequence at the end of the chapter and you’ll visit the location in Chapter IV.

Hospital

Darren automatically turns over the medicine and insurance card to the nurse at the front desk and, after a prolonged, non-interactive wait, gets a new task: sorting out his mother’s insurance.

Evidently she either didn’t initiate the last payment, the bank didn’t make the transfer or the payment somehow didn’t register with the insurance company.  You need to bring documentation for the transfer to the nurse and she’ll take care of it for you. (There is no special urgency about this, but the task has to be completed to finish Chapter I. You’ll get a reminder about it if you haven’t taken care of the insurance issue before delivering the pictures to Angelina.)

Darren then automatically enters his mother’s room and learns she’s in a coma. He blames Fuller over the missed message. (This is rather strange. Darren learned from the doctor before speaking to Fuller that his mother was late for an appointment, so if anyone’s due a share of the blame, it’s Darren himself.)

Leave the room. You’ll find Mr. Mascara talking to the nurse at the desk. He gets one look at Darren and is off like a shot.

You don’t have to follow him now -- events will wait on your arrival back at Fuller’s shop -- but that’s one of two tasks you can perform at this point. Either order will do.

Odds & ends:  You can take the stethoscope at the foot of the bed and the laxative in the bedstand. The former comes into play later in the chapter and the latter in Chapter II.

Talk to Darren’s mother  twice and she’ll grab Darren’s wrist and say: “Mirror. Don’t go through the mirror!”

I: Following Mr. Mascara

Outside the hospital, this strange man will cross the square and vanish into the side street leading to the shops. (You’ll have to be quick to see him do this, as this section of the game is in real-time.)

You’ll seem lose him as soon as you enter that screen.

Or have you? Try to enter the photo shop via the front door and Darren sees Mr. Mascara inside talking to Fuller. It’d be nice to hear what he’s saying. (It’s required before you do anything else in this thread.) The front door is too obvious an approach and the back door turns out to be locked with a hook-and-eye arrangement. But the window above the door is open. If Darren could lower a hook of his own through the gap, he’d be able to lift the latch.

Sure enough, the fishing line from the tool shed at the rear combines nicely with the broken-off handle of the rusted bucket to the left of the back door. Slip this “fishing line with hook” through the window and the latch lifts. Step inside to learn only that Mr. Mascara seems interested in Angelina and Darren both and Darren decides to followup with Angelina. But that’s still a ways down the road.

(When you’re in Fuller’s back yard, take a picture of the spin dryer  to the left of the shed. This unlocks picture #21.)

Odds & ends: Actually, Darren can cobble together the hooked line as early in the game as the start of the post office/diner errands. He just can’t use it. And there’s an interesting logical snarl if he tries to use it after wrapping up business at his mother’s house. (The game can’t decide if the door’s unlocked or not!)

Confronting Fuller

You can’t continue the surveillance -- Mr. Mascara is gone by the time Darren reaches the street -- but Darren can now venture inside and confront Fuller. (Again, this can wait on other tasks. And, honestly, it may seem counter-intuitive, as Darren would have easier access to Fuller’s photos and dark room without this nasty exchange.) Reenter the shop to find Fuller has vanished. Descend to the cellar to find the photo screen has been raised to expose a door. Fiddle either with the control ropes at the upper left or the door itself and Fuller emerges. A to-do quickly develops and Darren ends up jobless on the sidewalk out front, ruminating about how to lure Fuller out of the shop so he can develop Angelina’s pictures.

Odds & ends: You can now report your firing to Mrs. Biba by talking to her about “Fuller’s store.” She’ll end the conversation, but you can take it up again and ask about “Biddeford” to get a (sour) taste of her marriage.

II: Find Proof of Mom’s Insurance Payment

You probably already have an idea of the target: the previously untouchable “bureau” (i.e. roll-top desk) in Mom’s bedroom.

It’s locked, and the lock is a puzzle. The 4 x 4 panel is scrambled randomly each time you play, so there’s no way to give a blow-by-blow account, but the basic trick to all sliding block puzzles is to first see the big picture in your head. (This will be easier for folks who have played the original The Black Mirror: It’s the Warmhill church. This does not appear in Black Mirror II but will turn up again in the finale.) Another is to work through the puzzle in stages -- say, from top to bottom or left to right.

Here’s the assembled picture:

The open desk yields three items: an odd jewel box or “casket” that can’t be opened at present (you’ll have to pick this up first to get at the other stuff); the bank book (which shows with a right-click that Darren’s mother did make the insurance payment); and, inside the bank book, a letter from a unidentified “C” that refers to payments (monthly $1,500 transfers from a bank in Willow Creek in England that run counter to Mom’s stories about her income) and seemingly to Darren (“even if he has now left home”).

After extracting the letter, bring the bank book to the nurse at the hospital desk and you’re good.

If you haven’t yet followed Mr. Mascara from the hospital to Fuller’s shop, head there now and see the entry above. If you have, drop down to the one below.