Update: Bat­sean has been to the bak­ery to get his cake…

The note says:

“Wow, you really took the cake! Now, put the icing on it: call (phone num­ber) imme­di­ately from this phone and THIS PHONE ONLY. Do NOT give this phone num­ber to any­one else.

Let’s hope your fel­low goons come through as well as you. Once all the lay­ers are in place, you’ll all get your just desserts. I’m a man of my word”

Step Right Up

The count­down on the lat­est why so seri­ous viral mar­ket­ing puz­zle has come to an end, and revealed the final challenge.

www​.whysose​ri​ous​.com/​s​t​e​p​r​i​g​h​t​up/

Hang­ing from the stall in front of you are, as of now, 6 cud­dly toys, although not at all cute. Each of them has a loca­tion pinned on, a loca­tion that, by instruc­tion, you must travel to and not call.

The instruc­tions also ask you to go under the name “Robin Banks” (aka Rob­bing Banks) at each of these places, with “One per loca­tion, first come, first served”. It seems that each of these is a bak­ery store, with the prize being some­sort of bak­ery delight with an attached phone num­ber. Some of the bears are already start­ing to dis­ap­pear, and with each new dis­cov­ery the mal­let on the left hits a lit­tle harder.

Hit­ting the base of the machine used to invoke a pathet­i­cally small rise of the weight, not even enough to light the first level.

EDIT: Chal­lenge unveiled.

Via Hol­ly­wood Chicago:

humanresources@​whysoserious.​com has sent out a new WhySoSe​ri​ous​.com
mes­sage and code for “The Dark Knight” viral marketing:

Heads up, clown! Tomor­row means that there’s one last shifty step left in the inter­view process: Arwoeuf­gryo

By mov­ing each let­ter one to the right on a QWERTY key­board, the word “steprightup” is spelled.

This led to a new WhySoSe​ri​ous​.com page at the URL www​.whysose​ri​ous​.com/​s​t​e​p​r​i​g​h​tup with a count­down to 12 p.m. EST on Dec. 4 along with a stuffed mon­key with an exposed stom­ach.

These pro­mo­tional pic­tures come via Uru­loki which is get­ting pretty ham­mered at the moment. After all that viral mar­ket­ing we get some­thing truly reward­ing via some­thing com­pletely unre­lated… not sure if these promo pics were leaked early or not, though they come at a time when lots of pub­li­ca­tions are get­ting their Joker fix on. These are spread­ing like wild­fire, as fast as those other con­tro­ver­sially leaked screen cap images we briefly saw a few months back.

With­out fur­ther adieu, here are Bat­man and The Joker, pos­ing beau­ti­fully for you:

EDIT: Sorry folks, looks like the images are being pulled down! Hence they are gone from here too.

EDIT: The feed is now up (pass­word and login details below), with a two minute audio clip from inside Betty’s Pie House. This is a must listen.

As we turn the cor­ner into the cold and bit­ter Decem­ber the night was once again a flurry of Dark Knight viral puzzles.

First up, solv­ing the per­fect get­away. Given the com­bined map of Gotham City from all the viral web­sites, and using a con­nect the dots method, a mes­sage stat­ing “Out of Time” was spelled out across the map, this led to the new Why So Seri­ous page:

www​.whysose​ri​ous​.com/​o​u​t​o​f​t​i​me/

“My Kind of Clown! You’re obvi­ously cen­ter ring mate­r­ial, unlike some poor goons who can’t com­plete one sim­ple task. Watch the funny papers in a few days for your final step in the process

The name on the tag is Alder Fred­er­ick, with a date of death 30th Novem­ber, caused by Asphyxia.(www​.whysose​ri​ous​.com/​o​u​t​o​f​t​i​m​e​/​a​l​d​e​r​.​htm)

A GPDiad email was also dis­cov­ered, glenn.​barhyte@​gpdiad.​com, which spewed out some inter­est­ing responses to queries about doc­u­ment LC6551. As a result this login form was discovered,

GPD Login Form. For which you can use the name and password:

Name: Bre­itup­Karl
Pass­word: 21485

Log­ging in and doing a file search for LC6551 yeilds the doc­u­ment,
Doc­u­ment LC6551, it is titled “Upswing in Extor­tions and Chechen Gang Activity”.

Some of the email responses from Glenn included:

“With all due respect, like I’ve told your friends, I just can’t dis­cuss
LC6551, or IA8214299 for that mat­ter. I don’t know who’s leak­ing
these, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m just not at lib­erty to
dis­cuss sen­si­tive information.

Glenn”

“[Karl Bre­itup] will meet some­one at Betty’s Pie Shop tomor­row. I can give you more infor­ma­tion, but you will need to coöper­ate with me for that.“

To access the sec­ond ref­er­enced doc­u­ment you need a login with higher author­ity, this is Glenn Barhyte’s account:

Name: Barhyte­Glenn
Pass­word: tevre­den­heid (sat­is­fac­tion in dutch, given via the clues for his favourite song by the Rolling Stones and in com­bi­na­tion with the file stat­ing he lived in Utrecht for 9 years — see The Gotham Times)

IA8214299 is a clear­ance request dis­cussing the sur­veil­lance of Betty’s House of Pies — six offi­cers, no uni­forms, lis­ten­ing van, equip­ment for recording.

Fur­ther details of this stake­out can be found in a memo (memo.jpg)

Most impor­tantly, 15:00 Betty’s Pie Shop. Using Glenn’s login details a live audio feed will be played here. Get your record­ing equip­ment ready. (direct link to flash)

And the third of the sea­sonal Why So Seri­ous chal­lenges is upon us, as was to be expected given the flurry of activ­ity this Friday.

The new site revolves around a per­fect get­away, ulti­mately using the maps spread across the var­i­ous Gotham Sites. www​.whysose​ri​ous​.com/​t​h​e​p​e​r​f​e​c​t​g​e​t​a​way (found via Page 4 of The Ha Ha Times)

Here are the plans:

For dis­cus­sion I rec­om­mend this thread.

More Devel­op­ments elsewhere…

Other big events today include threat­en­ing phones calls made to peo­ple that sub­mit­ted details to We are the Answer, Toas­t­er­Devil has kindly recorded this and placed it up on YouTube:

“We heard about the mes­sage you left at the DA’s office. I know you have some big ideas about being a good cit­i­zen. No one likes a squeeler. You know noth­ing.They’re out there putting their lives on the line so you can sleep OK … and you’re lay­ing in your bed. Let’s see what hap­pens the next time you need some­one in blue.

Think about who they are. Check doc­u­ment LC6551. You know where to look.”

We are the Answer also have a new email response:

Thank you for your infor­ma­tion on sus­pi­cious activ­ity regard­ing a police offi­cer. Your infor­ma­tion appears to pos­si­bly be very impor­tant in an open inves­ti­ga­tion regard­ing the officer(s) involved. It is impos­si­ble to dis­close any spe­cific infor­ma­tion on the inves­ti­ga­tion, but be assured that the infor­ma­tion you have pro­vided is being han­dled with the utmost seri­ous­ness and confidentiality.

If you have any fur­ther infor­ma­tion about crim­i­nal activ­ity that the officer(s) have or will be engag­ing in, you are encour­aged to use the tip-line form as an ongo­ing resource.

Please keep this email and the infor­ma­tion you have pro­vided us con­fi­den­tial. Your infor­ma­tion is part of an ongo­ing police inves­ti­ga­tion and is there­fore sub­ject to all laws gov­ern­ing an inves­ti­ga­tion. Pre­ma­ture dis­clo­sure of infor­ma­tion could com­pro­mise the investigation.

Again, thank you for your assis­tance. We rely on your help. Together, we are mak­ing Gotham City bet­ter, safer, stronger. Together, We Are the Answer.

So we will be able to turn some­one else in soon. We just need a time and location…wait!

These viral sites keep get­ting churned out by the dozen now, three more today.

First up is Betty’s House of Pies, www​.bet​tyshouse​of​pies​.com

“$8.00
Betty’s Clas­sic Apple — Sliced apples with plenty of cin­na­mon Try it with ice cream; you won’t be sorry! Dutch-Apple — Betty’s clas­sic apple fill­ing baked with raisins, fresh cream, and topped with streusel crunch.”

The site con­tains an email address for reser­va­tions — reservations@​bettyshouseofpies.​com and a tele­phone num­ber — 1866–237-6152. The house itself is based off Mal­oney Street in down­town Gotham, if you’re ever there and fancy pop­ping in for a bite. The email reser­va­tion gives this response,

“We don’t take reser­va­tions from e-mail any­more because nobody ever checked and peo­ple just got mad.”

Next comes Saint Swith­uns Catholic Church, www​.saintswith​un​schurch​.org,

“St. Swith­uns is the old­est Catholic Church in Gotham. Built by Ital­ian and Greek immi­grants, it has fine exam­ples of Old World stone­ma­sonary, plas­ter­work, and car­pen­try. But this tra­di­tional set­ting is the foun­da­tion of a vibrant, ser­vice and com­mu­nity ori­ented ministry. ”

This page has a records search located here. Enter­ing the name Sal­va­tor Maroni works and brings up a mar­riage cer­tifi­cate which he was wit­ness to. The bride in the cer­tifi­cate, Anna Marie Loverso, also brings up a cer­tifi­cate of Baptism:

You can also find them at the cor­ner of South Drive and Hat­ters Avenue, in Har­row, Gotham, or call them via 1866–237-6339:

Thirdly, there is an inter­nal affairs divi­sion of the Gotham Police Depart­ment, located at www​.gpdiad​.com:

“If the cit­i­zens of Gotham are to have the trust and con­fi­dence in the police, the Gotham Police Depart­ment must to fos­ter a good rela­tion­ship with its cit­i­zenry. This means some­one must take the respon­si­bil­ity of polic­ing the police.

Police offi­cers face sit­u­a­tions call­ing for imme­di­ate assess­ment and swift action, and must be free to exer­cise their best judg­ment and to ini­ti­ate action in a rea­son­able, law­ful, and impar­tial man­ner with­out fear of reprisal. At the same time, they must observe the rights of all peo­ple. Cit­i­zens must feel free to ques­tion police con­duct which they feel is improper.”

Some­thing else to take note of, on the Gotham USD web­site has updated and now men­tions by name the man pic­tured in the Evi­dence Fault from the last Why So Seri­ous challenge,

“11/30
Con­grat­u­la­tions go out to the fol­low­ing 30-year GUSD veterans:

[…]

Jake Kar­nass­ian: Mgr. Build­ings an Grounds (on hia­tus)”

Yet another Bat­man viral site has been dis­cov­ered, this time it is the GVAFoun­da­tion, or Gotham Vic­tims Advo­cate Foun­da­tion, which can be found at this address: www​.gvafoun​da​tion​.org

In other news, Empire fin­ished reveal­ing the Joker (offi­cially this time). They also removed the click-able links to the very high res­o­lu­tion seg­ments, much to my dis­may. If any­one has man­aged to grab a high res­o­lu­tion ver­sion of that Joker grin I would be most happy to see it, as I am sure oth­ers will be too!

EDIT: Look­ing for the “It’s all part of the plan” safe codes? Check our cov­er­age here: “It’s all part of the plan — Why So Seri­ous”

EDIT 2: Now a new site has been revealed, http://​www​.gothamusd​.net/ — The Gotham Uni­fied School District

EDIT: OPENED…

It’s a vault! Why So Seri­ous has a sec­ond secret stage dis­cov­ered in the per­son­al­ity pro­file… http://​www​.whysose​ri​ous​.com/​m​a​u​s​o​l​e​um/ Thanks to Hol­ly­wood Chicago for the heads up!

The secret itself was found by look­ing at the let­ters in the var­i­ous lev­els you could achieve on the pro­filer, it was found that tak­ing one let­ter from each could spell mau­soleum and hence gen­er­ate the next fas­ci­nat­ing URL.

This is the email that was sent out:

If you’ve fin­ished my quiz, then it’s time for the next step in the inter­view process, some­thing to test your apti­tude. Spaces count:

* Eighth
* Sixth
* Eighth
* Ninth
* Ninth
* Sec­ond
* Fourth
* Sec­ond
* Third

The text on the note reads:

” You surely know how to put a smile on a guys face ! Now your task is simple.

Your job is to find a way into the evi­dence vault.

Our fine friends in blue have col­lected some­thing that surely dosn’t belong to them.”

UPDATE:From the blood­ied let­ters you can get the ana­gram, “TIME FOR TAFFY” — refer­ring to The Gotham Times, Johnny “Taffy­face” Linata died at 7:38am. There is a clock with­out any view­able hands to the left of the safe.

UPDATE: There seems to be a new secu­rity related Gotham web­site, http://​acmese​cu​ri​tysys​tems​.com/

“ACME Busi­ness Secu­rity pro­vides reli­able secu­rity sys­tems for busi­nesses through­out Gotham City. We pro­vide a range of ser­vices, from pas­sive alarm to con­stant video surveillance.

We spe­cial­ize in ware­house and com­mer­cial real estate secu­rity with flex­i­ble plans—allowing you secu­rity when you need it, for as long as you need it.”

There is also yet another Gotham City based web­site, this time its Gotham Cabs at http://​www​.gotham​cab​.com/