Dark City Detective - Deep State

Dark City Detective - Deep state

Deep State is a text-based interactive noir in five acts. You collect evidence, follow leads, and make choices that determine what you know - and what you're willing to do with it. There are no simple answers and no clean endings.

The Story

Two years after NeuroGen collapsed, Nathaniel Voss is back to cheap cases and cheaper whiskey. Then a dead woman lands on the sidewalk outside his office - former CIA, hit-and-run, driver found dead of cardiac arrest three hours later.

She left him documents pointing toward a conspiracy bigger than anything he's seen before. The problem: someone wanted him to have them.

Key Characters

Nathaniel Voss - Private investigator. Former police. Four years into a career he chose because it was simpler than what came before — and hasn't been simple since. Works with Kerr, drinks at Cresto, writes things down in a notebook when something doesn't add up. Has been part of three investigations that should have broken him. Hasn't broken yet.

Ethan Kerr - Voss's partner. Swore he'd never touch a computer after Project Fenris. Then NeuroGen happened. Now he runs the technical side of everything and doesn't talk about the contradiction. Protective of the people he works with in ways he'd never describe as protective.

Dr. Susan Chen - Chemist. Former NeuroGen researcher who turned state's evidence and disappeared after the trial. Left a storage unit in Van Nuys with three external drives and a note that said don't come looking. Voss and Kerr looked anyway.

James Whitfield - Chief Science Officer, Helix Pharma. Built something he believes in and is no longer certain he controls. Meets Voss twice - the second time in a library, with his back to the wall and both exits in view.

Director Harlan Cole - Retired CIA. His name appeared in fabricated documents pointing toward a conspiracy he knew nothing about. Has spent three months investigating his own framing. Knows who used him. Doesn't know what they built.

Logan Pierce - Detective. Under IA review. Still calls from payphones. Has seen enough to know what Voss is looking at and isn't certain stopping it is the right move - which is the most honest and most troubling thing anyone says in the entire investigation.