Deus Ex Diaries Part Seventy-Two (Mankind Divided)

This is my ongoing exploration of the Deus Ex Universe, in release order. Whether you’re a newcomer or an old-goer, I hope to make this something you can read along with and enjoy. This time I continue Deus Ex: Mankind Divided.

Having just finished up more or less everything distracting me in Prague, I was on my way to see Jim Miller…

It appeared as though Chikane and Miller had just landed, so I approached the pair on the landing pad. Miller was angry that I had been sticking my nose into Duncan MacReady’s investigation, but I explained that someone clearly wanted us investigating that as cover for something else. Moreover, I needed to get to this GARM facility in the Swiss Alps.

Miller asked if I’d done anything he’d asked, like meeting with Daniel Fletcher to go over the evidence from the train station bombing? Going with the “hedge” option, I told him that I did, but then followed my gut instead. Miller was somewhat placated by that, I clearly wasn’t going completely rogue, so asked how I found out about GARM. Hedging again, I explained that nothing was sitting right with me, so I did my research. Miller didn’t really buy it, and due to the Rucker situation he couldn’t afford to send a team in.

Arguing that I could do this solo, apart from needing Chikane to fly me there, Miller relented, so long as I kept him in the loop. Hopping aboard the aircraft, we flew the 450+ miles to Switzerland and Chikane dropped me off close to the facility, not wanting to land the aircraft. Hurrying down to the locked door, I hacked it open, only for it to slam open in my face, throwing me back!

Viktor Marhenko taunted me as he walked over and injected me with something, one of the gold-masked people with him asking why there wasn’t more blood, like when Rucker died. Clearly I’d just been injected with Orchid, but luckily I had grabbed the counter-agent from the vault earlier! Not that Jensen made any effort to use it, letting Marchenko carry me inside before leaving me to two underlings to dispose of. As he walked, Marchenko told them to dispose of the people from ARC that had accompanied him, and to use the Orchid to do it. He, however, was heading to Prague to get the Dvali to clear his “shipment”.

Waking in daylight, having been dumped outside in the snow, I got up and tried contacting Chikane, who didn’t respond. So, I called Alex Vega instead of Miller, as someone had warned them that I was on my way to the facility. She told me to find an exit and get out while they worked on a plan to get me.

Deactivating a fan, I regained access to the inside of the facility. Nobody had taken my stuff, and I’d apparently just shrugged off the Orchid, so I didn’t have to be too cautious, but I did want to avoid setting off any alarms. Climbing a ladder into a control room, I hacked a computer to find some emails written in French. One was complaining about ceiling panels being removed and the noise, while the other warned that the cylinder for the drill wasn’t the right size, and could cause damage. Also, that only those licensed to use the equipment should do so, so I inserted a power cell into a nearby console and activated the crane, moving some massive piece of machinery. It didn’t go unnoticed, as someone called up to the room to ask what I was doing. Since my CASIE augmentation flashed that they were an Omega, I scolded them and explained that a ton of ice had almost killed someone because of whoever used the crane before me.

Moving the machinery from the right side hole to the middle one, I shrugged and left the control room, avoiding a camera and knocking out the sentry outside. This drew the attention of another one just down some stairs, so I knocked him out too. Cautiously making my way downstairs, I moved a crate to get inside a ventilation shaft and into a storage room. There was another shaft in the floor, so I dropped down and slipped inside, moving through the shaft to avoid some more guards.

 

At the far end I stayed out of sight and activated a forklift to access yet another shaft, taking me most of the way across the large room. One person patrolled, one complained, and a third was on top of some machinery as a sniper, so I stunned them all without incident. Another guard patrolled at the far end of the room, so I knocked him out too, then slipped inside of an office and hacked a computer. It gave me the code 6653 which was apparently for a laser grid, but the rest of the room was unimportant. Above the room next door I stunned another sniper, then slipped into the room below through a window and knocked out the person inside. Turned out to be pointless, so I went back the way I had come and hacked open a large door.

Punching a vent through, I was able to turn off a breaker which I’m unsure what it did. There was a large pipe, presumably the breaker was something to do with that, so I climbed inside and followed it past an exit and some electrical surges. The pipe let out into a small room with guards and a camera outside, so I snuck into the machine shop to my left. Seeing no way past the three people guarding it, I cloaked and hurried through the door to the right. There were some crates in front of an elevator, so I shifted the larger one and pressed the button to call it down, remaining cloaked as I climbed inside and hit the button to go up.

At the top was another control room, but the panels had been smashed. There was a series of adjoining rooms in which I found some supplies, as well as the corpses of the ARC members. One of whom had a pocket secretary on them, with an email from my old buddy Tibor Sokol warning about this “Stormsurge” excursion that Marchenko was taking this guy on. There were three people in another room which I easily managed to knock out one after the other. On a pocket secretary I found the password BaconChipsDonut, which allowed me to access the computer in yet another room, but it only had an email confirming they wanted the ARC people dead. It did confirm, however, that it was deadly if ingested, say drinking it in alcohol, suggesting that was how Talos Rucker was murdered. Hacking a security terminal behind me, I deactivated the camera — so that was another waste of time — then I got inside the elevator that was in the room.

As I hit the button to go up, I tried calling Chikane again. He finally responded, saying that he had been trying to reach me for hours. Since I had contacted Vega with no trouble, I suspected the accuracy of that claim. Had he slipped away to Zurich like that pocket secretary in his safe had told him to?

Before exiting the building I called Vega to say that I didn’t need a lift anymore, and she told me to let her know when I was back in Prague. Outside, Chikane’s aircraft waited for me on a landing pad, and I climbed aboard, though had no idea what awaited me when we arrived, no thanks to Vega for the heads up…

Arriving after dark the streets of Prague were empty, except for the police out in force. The riots in Golem City had spread to Prague, and the police were shooting people. As it turned out not even just augmented people, as I witnessed them shoot “a citizen” who wasn’t augmented. I left Chikane ostensibly to go and meet Miller, but I called Vega and told her to meet me at the L.I.M.B. clinic nearby. She somehow beat me there, and I handed over the container of Orchid that I had been injected with, asking her to get it analysed.

During the discussion, Nathaniel Brown’s name came up, the CEO of Santeau Group which built Golem City and was finishing construction on Rabi’ah. Vega mentioned that Brown was going to be in London doing media appearances ahead of the UN anti-aug legislation. She doubted that Brown would attack himself if he was behind all of this, and told me to be careful when I went to meet Miller. GARM was an ambush, so she still suspected him.

With that, she cloaked and left, and I had to get around a heavy police presence without being spotted…