Deus Ex Diaries Part Eighty-Three (Jensen’s Stories)

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 — A Criminal Past.

With stealth and a whole metric ton of luck, I had cleared the way to reach Agent Guerrero but had also just found evidence that he murdered another inmate…

With everything cleaned out, I entered solitary confinement. Despite being only made up of six cells, it was its own entire wing of the prison. The lower level had turret cameras and a laser grid, so I climbed a ladder at the end and dropped down into a cable duct on the left. This led me beneath the cells, with another ladder leading further down. I ignored that for now, however, and followed the passage where I overheard Agent Guerrero shouting at Stenger — or rather trying to, as nobody else was there.

Another duct led me into an office which connected to another room being watched by a camera, and it had a ladder going up. Shooting the camera, I went through the room into the next one, locating an Emergency Override System, which was a puzzle to reboot since the poster had been ripped. It took me a couple of minutes, but I did it and headed up the ladder into the security office.

A pocket secretary mentioned that cell 06 had been “a revolving door lately”, and the guard who put Guerrero in cell 04 was in trouble for not putting him there; this flagged up a waypoint for me to check it out. The security terminal was also live, allowing me to disable the cameras and unlock the doors. Before I let Guerrero out, however, I double-checked to see if I’d missed anything, and that included going down that ladder I’d skipped earlier. It led to a passage beneath everything that had a gated area seemingly set up as a “clean room” because it had plastic sheets taped all around. Off to one side sat one of Wörthmüller’s stuffed foxes, and on the table in the centre was Wilburg’s augmented heart!

Further down the passage was a door that led outside, though, I decided to ignore that for now and returned to Guerrero and the other cells. One had a Praxis Kit inside, but the others were empty, apart from a grate over a long drop down in the floor of cell 06. Activating the window, rather than opening the door, I had a little chat with Guerrero, who filled me in on what “operation” the Junkyard gang was carrying out in the prison. Inmates were being killed legally thanks to the law written on a sheet in every single cell, and their components harvested (less legally) by Wörthmüller under orders from Stenger. The head of security wasn’t actually a part of Junkyard but seemingly felt that having Guerrero out of the picture would give him an in.

Oh, and Guerrero had killed Wilburg to maintain his cover, which I felt was weird. How did Wilburg even discover that Guerrero was Interpol? I had questions that I wasn’t allowed to ask, as I just let him out of the cell. We agreed that he would set the prison aircraft course; all I had to do was disable the automated defences and tracking system by accessing the warden’s office. He cloaked and left, so I went back down to the passageway to find out where that door went.

While it led outside, I was surprised to see how it was unguarded. Okay, that might have had something to do with the mine I spotted and the two disabled drones, but still, no guards was a plus. There was a door that let me into a maintenance tunnel and a secret door that gave me access to the infirmary through the side room. After selling a few things to Wörthmüller’s teddy (he had nothing to say to me), I left the infirmary and headed down the hallway towards my objective marker, finding the corridor electrified.

Entering the closest room on my left, I crawled through a hole between the rooms, pressing a breaker to deactivate the electricity, though, I did get shocked in the process. The next room had a multi-tool hidden behind a box and some ammo in the lockers. The doors at the end of the hall led to a door to my left, and what was either prisoner’s property or contraband storage, so I looted what I could from the boxes. Neuropozyne, biocells, ammo, health items… There was quite a lot of alcohol and some sellable bits, too, but I didn’t have the space in my pockets to hold everything.

 

Back at the door, I overheard three guards talking about an inmate near the Warden’s office, wanting to get themself on TV or something. As they moved away, I opened the door to attract their attention, and one came to investigate, allowing me to knock them out.

This is where Deus Ex: Mankind Divided - Criminal Past crashed a lot. Worse, there was nothing that I could find to prevent it; it occurred at random while I was walking, looking, reading emails… And it only began in this section, carrying on through the final hour or so. What helped to mitigate it, however, was turning my graphics settings way down and VSync off. I had been playing with the settings way up, so it was noticeable… But from here on, it’s a summary of what happened through multiple reloads and a heck of a lot of save scumming.

Sneaking through the hallway ahead of me, I nipped into an office on my left. The computers didn’t hold anything of much interest, but using a piece of furniture, I managed to get onto the false ceiling! I tried to play it safe and use my sniper rifle to tranquilise some guards, but a camera spotted me, so I ran for the elevator, quickly hitting the button for the Management level.

Two inmates were guarding the entrance, one of whom was in a suit of powered armour. I checked in the offices for loot before entering the warden’s office, where I found Flossy talking on his internal phone. Clearly, he was the one who wanted a press interview. He was understandably happy about how things had turned out in his favour, and definitely my fan after delivering the altered biocell to Red Shoes. Telling him that I didn’t really care what he did, I went on to say I needed to disable the aircraft tracking system, and he gave me his blessing.

The warden’s desk had a security terminal as well as a computer, so I disabled the cameras and opened the panic room door. There was a safe on the floor with a biocell and some Neuropozyne, as well as a Praxis Kit. When I hacked and disabled the Transport Tracking System, I was treated to a security feed of inmate Peter Wörthmüller and security head Thomas Stenger at the infirmary. Their conversation implied that Guerrero was there too, followed by the muted sound of a gunshot as the doors closed and hid them, so I decided to go and check it out. Unfortunately, that meant heading over to the other wing again, so I had to go back down the way I’d come or jump over the balcony, which might hurt.

Deciding to check out the balcony, I tranqued two guards, which made a third, who was in powered armour, start looking around. As they approached the wall below me, I shot them with an EMP round, then dropped on them and knocked them out, a manoeuvre that greatly impressed myself. There was no time to get a pat on the back, however, as there was at least one turret, and I barely managed to get out of its sight as it turned to face the guard. While it was looking away, I slipped back inside the processing centre, being greeted by gunfire. The guards had stormed the place, and the inmates were losing…