Deus Ex Diaries Part Fifteen

This is my ongoing exploration of the Deus Ex Universe, in preparation for when Mankind Divided arrives later this year. Whether you’re a newcomer or an old-goer, I hope to make this something you can read along with and enjoy. We continue on with Deus Ex.

Nicolette had been left far behind, and I had broken into the Majestic 12 mainframe and given Morgan Everett the key to curing the Grey Death. Escaping intact, and Gunther Hermann less so, I was drugged by Morgan’s associate and taken to his apartment…

Morgan’s associate greeted me as I woke, and told me that Morgan had already developed a cure, and that I should go and meet with him. Not wanting to miss an opportunity to snoop, I did so. I found a key to an aquarium hatch and frowned, not seeing an aquarium, so I went downstairs. And passed the aquarium. With a grin and a prance, I headed around and into Morgan’s lab. Deciding I didn’t want to speak to him yet, I resumed my snooping.

For some reason, Alex keeps beating me everywhere...

I discovered Alex Jacobson, last seen in Hong Kong working with Tracer Tong. He had been sent by Tracer to keep an eye on Morgan, under the cover of ‘helping with decryption’. He also mentioned that Tracer had gone to San Francisco. He promised to keep me informed, though I was trusting the guy who had developed a cure for this thing before it became a pandemic. The only safe haven would have been Madagascar, if we were lucky…

Pandemic 2 proves how water-tight that country is...

I went back, finding nothing of use around Alex, and spoke to Morgan. He explained that, although the cure was ready, to create the amount we needed would require a universal constructor. That’s right, like the Majestic 12’s one I destroyed not too long ago in Hong Kong… But there was another one, and in the same facility I could connect to the military network and save Daedalus.

Apparently, Morgan had developed Daedalus to work against terrorist organisations. The NSF, Silhouette, Majestic 12 -- it also identified the Illuminati as such. However, the Illuminati were willing to aid Daedalus, as it was against the MJ12. The downside was, that as the other AI Icarus had been unleashed, it was degrading Daedalus.

Just... Tell me who to kill!

Morgan told me to meet Jock on the roof -- which would have been much easier than drugging me in the metro and dragging me there in the first place -- but I had vowed to get into his fish tank. I found the vent covering which the key unlocked, and jumped inside. Going through, the only thing of note was a rebreather.

Back out of the tank, I headed for the roof. As the door opened, I noticed a dead mechanic. Not something people usually keep in their indoor helipads… Jock sounded off as he told me to get in, too. I walked over to the other mechanic and he was quite shifty -- insisting he had checked the helicopter and refueled it, despite not being asked either of those things. So I grabbed my laser sword and cut him down.

I went to the chopper and Jock asked why I did that, and JC told him that the mechanic was acting strangely. This made him check what the guy had actually done and find a bomb -- because getting refueled and having a bomb installed takes less than ten minutes, apparently…

He defused it and assured me it was now safe, so I climbed aboard and we went to Vandenberg Airforce Base. It’s strange that it doesn’t have any runways, nor any of the rocket launch pads it should have, but that’s neither here nor there… I met with a scientist who told me that the base had been taken over by Majestic 12 and the only thing that could help was activating the base defence mechs, to take out the four MJ12 mechs. I had to activate two override panels so I could get into the building which housed them.

At least nobody claimed it was a secret air base

As Jock had landed me on the roof, I had to work my way down as I didn’t see the door I would later find from the inside… I dropped down and managed to avoid being seen as I activated the first override panel behind the building. I made my way sneakily around and was instantly spotted and two troopers opened fire on me, so I ran. They didn’t give chase, so the heat soon wore off.

Around the building, I finally saw the mechs I had been warned of. Two huge ones with a few smaller ones wandering about. I took out a smaller one, but due to the amount of ammunition that begun flying at me, I had to duck into the main building. Sadly there were cameras in the reception area, so I still wasn’t free -- and some more troopers were actually following me. I went into the next room quickly, free of cameras, but with a nice big hologram of the Earth in the middle of the table. I had to wonder if MJ12 installed it, or whether it was there from when the air force ran the place…

There were actually a couple of these...

Once I killed the troopers, the robots were unable to come after me, so I was free to explore. So long as I kept away from the auto-turrets, linked to the cameras… Luckily I’d recently picked up an augmentation to keep me invisible to cameras, so used that to my advantage.

In the next section, I snuck around where two MJ12 had their backs to me. I stabbed them both with my laser sword, which startled the scientist they were with. She ran -- and died by lethal overdose of laser sword. Upon inspection, she was simply running, and not trying to activate an alarm… Live and learn?

I went into the next room and hopped over the electrified-water, disabling the security cameras before jumping back and unlocking the only door left unopened. Inside was a scientist, who I spoke to and he gave me the login information for the tunnels beneath the facility. Not that I needed them -- by now I had found that hacking was much easier than remembering capitals, underscores and spellings.

I went back through the building to the elevators, encountering plenty of troopers and a Man in Black. After a prolonged -- actually, I just shot once to get their attention, then they ran towards a TNT crate and I blew them up before throwing a LAM at the MiB. Simple and effective.

However, as I went upstairs, it seemed that their colleagues hadn’t heard the multiple explosions and dozens of gunshots, as they were surprised by me running at them with a laser sword. I took some hits, but once more I was free to roam, and I didn’t even have to murder the innocent scientist in the process, who was just chilling near the control centre. Which unfortunately was locked, requiring a key. I went exploring and found the second override panel (remember I was looking for those? I hadn’t!) and activated it before heading outside.

I crossed the concourse and entered the building, activating the mechs with two simple switches. I followed them outside and watched them blasting the remaining mechs, from a safe distance.

"I'm helping!"

Once they had been destroyed, Jock radioed to tell me that the comm centre should be unlocked, and that he had gone to San Francisco where Tracer Tong had also gone, according to Alex earlier. Thinking nothing of it, I went to the comm centre and went inside, to be greeted with frightened scientists who told me that they had sent someone out with their only key to gain access to the control room. So down the nearby hatch I went.

I encountered a couple of spiders and an easily bypassed camera and auto-turret, heading into a flooded corridor. I explored a little, but would have had to use too many multitools to gain access to the next area, with limited oxygen, so I went back to the surface. I followed the hallway around and through a door to find some radiation-filled barrels covering a room, so I quickly went through.

There was another spider on the bottom level below me, so I EMP-grenaded it and went down, fiddling with the controls to make the platform go to the upper level. Up some stairs, I crossed it to find another spider and a dead scientist.

Through the next door Icarus, the evil AI, contacted me once more with some taunts. He was quite good at those, I had noticed… I came out in the main building with the control room on the upper floor, so I went up in the elevator and inside.

Inside was a reception desk and some stairs. Upstairs was nothing but some servers, so I went downstairs. There, I was greeted by Sam Carter, the quartermaster from UNATCO! Still didn’t seem inclined to acknowledge my desire for a GEP gun… He had been let go from his old job and decided to go to Vandenberg for whatever reason, and JC took it in stride.

"So I looked on Monster and found this job!"

I went down to chat with lead scientist Gary Savage, who told me that he would use his universal constructor to create the virus, and allow me access to the military network to help Daedalus. All I had to do was go into the main computer room and risk deadly electrocution to reboot the system, which had been damaged during the initial raid. But as soon as his daughter came back from the undersea lab (wherever that was) with a required part, we were good.

"You know, THE ocean lab."

Once more doing what was asked of me, I headed back up past Sam and into the computer room. I managed to avoid the deadly part, and the computer was soon rebooted. Daedalus came through on my comms, sounding weird. Then he merged with Icarus to become Helios!

Unlike in Transformers, I doubted that good programming would triumph over evil, and evil was now in fact much more powerful…

Bob Page, former Illuminati member, current head of Majestic 12, came through on my communicator and told me that I had, in fact, helped him out in uploading Daedalus to the military network. Also, I should go down to Gary…

I went to Gary, who was stood in front of a hologram communicator, and Bob popped up. He gloated that he had kidnapped Gary’s daughter from the undersea base and that Gary should send someone with the parts MJ12 required to rebuild their universal constructor. And no funny business, or the girl gets it, see?

Bob, seen here without his trilby hat, cigar or tommy gun

As soon as he hung up, JC offered to go on a murder spree to get the girl back. Gary wasn’t so enthusiastic, but acquiesced in the end. And so I went off to find Jock at the main gate -- because parking in front of the building would have been convenient…

When I arrived, I was met by Tracer, who had conducted one experiment too many and contracted the Grey Death. He had made Jock transport him from San Fran, as there was Ambrosia, the temporary cure, available on the base. With that, I got aboard the chopper and we flew off to the abandoned gas station not too far away...