Deus Ex Diaries Part Forty-Seven (Human Revolution)

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. I continue Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

I had left Hengsha on a ship going to places unknown, only to be found and interrogated before someone helped me to escape — only to be trapped in a biometric scanner…

Because I wasn’t a recognised member of the crew, the scanner locked me inside, but my friend on the inside "no1" managed to hack it remotely to let me out. They told me to get to a maintenance tunnel in loading bay one through a floor panel, which was presumably where they were since they told me not to kill the person inside. The door opened, permitting me to leave the ship. Following the hallway around, I pulled a lever which opened the ship’s cargo doors.

I could hear two men talking on the dock, so I hid behind a shipping container to see what they did. As I’d hoped, they split up, allowing me to knock out one of them then shoot the other before he could raise the alarm. A camera watched the main entrance, but I easily snuck below it, only to hear the tell-tale sound of a security bot patrolling. I took it out with an EMP grenade, but of course that alerted the guards in the area. There were only a few of them, so were easily dispatched.

A security office at the top of a ladder had a computer inside with some emails, one of which illustrated exactly how awful Belltower was. It was part of a back-and-forth between two people called Nigel and Jackson, suggesting that some of the women being held here would go on to be forced into prostitution upon release. Nigel, however, was replying to tell Jackson that he should “convince Burke to let you do a little shopping here”.

There was another email from Chaplain Rose offering non-denominational religious services, which was interesting to read through. Mainly because it had a list of religions which could have individual services catered towards them. It had the usual Judaic, Christian, and Islamic denominations, but it also included Vodoun (AKA Voodoo), Neopagan, and Ancient Egyptian. Rose also offered impromptu jam sessions because he claimed to play a mean sax.

Outside of the office, I tried to hack a security rating five door into the admin sector, but since I didn’t have my 20-or-so door hacking devices from Hengsha, I was unable to. However, looking around the area, I found a ventilation shaft that allowed me to bypass a door blocked by a laser grid. In the hallways beyond there were a couple of green lights on the floor that seemed like I should be wary of them, but they did nothing.

A door opened into another warehouse area full of shipping containers and guards. Sneaking around past some movable crates, I was spotted but managed to get out of sight to entice the guard around. I doubled back and knocked him out, doing the same to a second man standing nearby. Unfortunately, I was spotted by someone from the other side of the warehouse and the alarm went off.

I shot the three men who were coming towards me, but it sounded like there were two more somewhere that I couldn’t quite get an angle on. While readjusting my position, I found a ventilation shaft and went through it, though all that did was reward me with a credit chip and help me avoid a turret placed above a door. Nonetheless, I slipped past it and through said door, finding myself on maintenance level -1.

While exploring the new area, I hid from a security camera by hacking my way into a door marked Special Operations. There wasn’t much inside, but a helpful ventilation shaft let out into the office across from me. I hacked a computer and read an email from Chaplain Rose, expressing concern about the number of “unprivileged belligerents” being brought to the base. It hinted at what Nigel and Jackson’s emails had — Belltower personnel were taking liberties with detainees.

The room also had a map on a board showing the Spratly Islands area of the South China Sea. Since I knew that Belltower had ongoing operations in Australia due to various other emails mentioning it, I had to wonder if they were operating in the area, or looking to do so. An area labelled Christmas Island had a red square drawn around it, which I figured I should note.

Leaving the office, I snuck around the corner by going underneath the camera. I found a sealed floor panel and a terminal above it that I hacked, allowing me to open the cable access duct. Before going inside, however, I checked around the corner and saw a couple of guards and some laser grids, so I happily went into the crawl space. The duct exited into a room with two bottles of beer, a terminal to deactivate the lasers, and a security computer. After deactivating the lasers and security cameras, I left via another duct which let me out into Burke’s office!

Burke’s computer had four emails on it. The first one immediately got my attention, as it detailed an office safe having been installed; it was hidden somewhere. A second email was from the co-managing director, it congratulated Burke saying that he would be “properly rewarded”. The third email came from a James Mandibar, and talked about “mind crashes” that some special ops augmentations were causing. The final one was a chat log between Burke and “Silver”, talking about how one of “those 5 scientists” had “an attachment problem”, and that problem “has a hero complex”. As a result, Silver thought that “the ranch” might be vulnerable, giving gave me a clear target to aim for — once I worked out what and where the ranch was…

The button to open Burke’s safe was under his desk, and inside was a revolver, some ammo, and credits. I swapped the revolver I had in my inventory for it, figuring that something gold called “Burke’s Revolver” would be useful for killing Burke.

I exited the office and knocked out the two guards. However, some people on the level below heard me running around, so came to investigate, requiring a bullet to their heads, along with a third man further away. With the coast clear, I explored the area and tried to gain access to Keitner’s office. I failed the hack, so disabled the alarm and upgraded my Hacking Stealth to level two.

However, upon returning to the door, I heard someone exclaim near Burke’s office. I quickly went over and took him out before hacking Keitner’s door open. The office was pretty empty of loot but, like Burke’s, the computer had four emails on it. The first was a messenger log where she ordered some troop reassignments, and told the person to inform her if Burke asked them to do anything. The second concerned some stasis pods that had been moved under Burke’s orders without the proper papers, and the ID numbers had been removed from the system. The third and fourth emails seemed related, with one from the personnel department regarding Keitner seemingly trying to go over Burke’s head, and the other from Burke warning her about trying to go over his head. Needless to say, Burke did not sound happy.

Now actually lost, I found my way into a security office and grabbed a data storage device which was just sitting on a table, and some ammo from a cabinet. Checking in my inventory, the storage device was labelled “OCM/Panchaea 1 thru 5”, which just raised further questions as that facility was in the Arctic…

While heading in the general direction of my objective marker, I spotted a ventilation shaft and crawled inside. I found myself in some kind of air filtration gap, so I climbed down to the lower level and jumped across to grab a beer and a weapon damage upgrade. Once I had attached it to my 10mm, I left the area through a ventilation shaft on the bottom level. I found myself in the hallway next to what I assumed was a store. It had a computer in front of a glass window, though nobody was manning the store.

Using the elevator at the end of the hallway, I went back upstairs to try and locate where my objective was. As it turned out, it was in the second warehouse, and I’d completely missed it when I was escaping from the guards. There was still an active turret and two men, so I had to sneak over to the hole in the floor and drop down inside.

As I’d suspected, “no1” was inside, though I was surprised to discover that it was actually Keitner! She held me at stun gunpoint, and told me to stay right where I was. I accused her of using me as a punching bag before, but she argued that it was for Burke’s benefit. Given her emails, I could see that. She was unhappy that I had been killing Belltower people, though it wasn’t as if I had been given many options. With my augmentations reset by the EMP chair, the first few at least had to die for expediency sake.

Keitner was working with Interpol, and had worked out who I was, and that I was here because I suspected Belltower of kidnapping Megan Reed. She couldn’t confirm that they hadn’t done so, but had seen two Black Hawk helicopters drop off five covered stretchers, guarded by a heavily augmented team. Luckily for me, she had no idea what was going on in the detention camp and wanted to know, so she set me up with fake biometric credentials. When I questioned her, she seemed to think that the scientists had been shipped back out, but in stasis pods.

Keitner gave me the biometric data logging me as Corporal Alan Tyler and told me to upload it into the security mainframe. She told me that I could only use it in this sector because she had “seen how bloodthirsty you can be”. I could get into the detention camp, but I needed to get into the interrogation wing. Luckily, I could just upload it into the mainframe in the detention camp’s central command tower. First, however, she suggested that I go and meet Quinn who ran a sideline in “procurement”, and could get me some weapons. Since I already knew where that was, I decided to head there, after using Keitner’s security computer to deactivate the turret. I had to upgrade my hacking with Turret Domination to do it, though…

Since the turret was disabled, I decided to head up a ladder to the upper level and knock out the two guards. As it turned out, one of them was Nigel, as there was another email from Jackson who joked that he could buy a couple of the detainees to do some cooking and cleaning. After all, it was “better than where they’re headed”.

Going back down to the “store”, I spoke to Garvin Quinn. He immediately begged for his life, as my modus operandi of “shoot everyone in the head” had half the garrison afraid to go on patrol. I reassured him that I wasn’t there to hurt him, just get some ammo — which Keitner had already informed him of. Quinn mentioned my act of kindness in fixing the stasis pod earlier, so offered me a discount on his wares. He also asked me to retrieve some rocket launcher parts as it had been disassembled and spread across the base in return for something special. As it turned out, I’d already come across the scope assembly in my travels — two parts remained.

I sold Quinn a mine template and some ammo, then bought a Praxis Kit and some ammo that would be useful to me, before leaving via the elevator. I headed to the detention block, stepping into the biometric security scanner. As Keitner had promised, “Alan Tyler” was allowed through, and all I had to do was climb the tower in the centre…