Deus Ex Diaries Part Forty-Six (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.

Having tracked one of the missing scientists to Hengsha, I was now heading for a boat to parts unknown…

As I walked along the road, I saw a gate with a couple of men chatting behind it, so I steered clear and went to a building opposite where I had entered. It had a computer and a security terminal, as well as a breaker box, presumably to electrify some water. The emails on the computer confirmed that the ship was leaving tonight, and had “life pods” aboard. The security terminal allowed me to deactivate a camera and turn a robot against the hostiles. While that distracting them, I slipped past a crate blocking a hole in the fence, and into the first building I came across. Another computer confirmed that Tracer Tong had been lost, but the shipment would still go ahead — and a security terminal allowed me to turn the turrets against my enemies.

Remembering that I had some Praxis kits, I installed the Run Silently, Sprint Silently, and Jump/Land Silently augmentations. I had spotted at least one guard still alive, and an active camera. The building that the camera was attached to had yet another two computers inside, allowing me to disable two more cameras. The emails suggested that the “life pods” would be in warehouse A, which was a little annoying as I had picked up a pocket secretary with a code allowing me access to warehouse B.

A sniper spotted me from his perch but as I dove for cover my robot pal shot him. With the coast now clear, I headed for the building which Tong had told me about and hacked the door. As I went in I found that the window would also have opened, as well as there being the option of a manhole, and a punchable wall. This was the easiest room to enter in the entire game, it seemed. The lone locker in the room contained Tong’s explosive “package”, so I grabbed it.

Tong called to tell me where to plant the bomb, in Administrator Wang’s office. The resulting explosion would distract everyone from me hopping into a cargo pod to get aboard the freighter. The office was inside the main building, so I went over and jumped up to the roof via a truck thanks to my jump height augmentation. Looking in through the skylight, I could see a number of hostiles; I marked the ones that I could before entering through a door on the balcony below me using the code 6555.

As I was sneaking over to knock out a guy on the upper level, a security bot dropped in through the skylight! Since my 10mm pistol was heavily upgraded by that point, I decided to snipe at some of the guards from safety. This went wrong when I shot the second man only for a third to spot the body. The alert went out and the bot opened fire while the other men repositioned. Some came upstairs after me, allowing me to shoot them quite easily. I took a chance to throw an EMP grenade from the upper level which succeeded in disabling the bot!

From there it was a simple matter to take out the final couple of guards before looting the bodies for credits and ammo. Jumping up on some boxes, I noticed a security turret, so I grabbed it from behind and faced it against a wall. A quick look in the room beneath let me deactivate it on a security computer, but I didn’t want to take chances. The door into the administrative offices was locked, but I’d found the code on a pocket secretary: 3295. A computer had an email talking about being a whistleblower, and a second one had an email complaining about malfunctioning pods. I accessed Wang’s computer with the password “mainman” which had three emails. One warned about Tracer Tong potentially trying to escape Hengsha by boat, one thanked Wang for taking a stand against Belltower, and the third was from Tong warning that something was going to happen. Obviously, the “thing” was the bomb in my pocket.

I set the bomb on a table, rather than the desk I had been told to, and activated it. 10 seconds came up on the timer, an expletive escaped Jensen’s mouth and he managed to smash through a window the moment the explosion went off! As he limped to the nearby shipping containers, he spotted Tracer running to a boat (named The Tracer) and making his escape. Jensen opened a shipping container and climbed into a life support pod. He reported in to Pritchard to say that he was going off the grid “for a while”, with no idea where he was going…

Missing a no doubt heroic escape effort, I next saw Jensen being beaten as he sat in an EMP chair. Two Belltower members — Burke and Keitner — were interrogating him, asking how he got on the ship and took out “a number” of their people. The ship was on its way to a Belltower naval base, Rifleman Bank Station, used for confining and interrogating “unprivileged belligerents”. They both left, leaving me with two guards in the hallway outside my cell.

Moments later, the security camera turned off and the chair let me go. It had reset my augmentations so I had none of my mods, including my upgraded hacking abilities. However, a hatch let me get out of the cell, moving under the floor. Unfortunately, there were no weapons. I opened a door that made someone come to investigate, so I knocked him out and grabbed his gun. The alarm now blaring, I had to use very limited ammo and a punch to take out three more men.

I avoided a security camera by nipping inside a door, then went through a ventilation shaft which bridged two rooms. Following the corridor, I unlocked a door with the code 3713 and climbed a ladder cautiously, as my jumping was overheard by another man. Luckily, he had his back to me and I knocked him out before dragging him out of the way of a camera. I attempted to sneak by some men by climbing into a ventilation grate above some pipes, but was spotted the moment I got near the first man. Thankfully, my shotgun was more than a match for them both. A nearby room had some grenades and mine templates, so I grabbed those before dropping into a ventilation shaft. I popped up in a room with a security console, so I hacked it to disable the cameras. Unfortunately, I was spotted just as I disconnected, and was shot before I could kill him and his friend.

A room just around the corner had another ventilation shaft in the floor, but it was sparking with electricity. A switch on the wall allowed me to put a stop to that, and I dropped inside. Upon exiting, I found a pocket secretary placed in a very obvious spot, so I grabbed it. It was from “no1” addressed to “no12”, but actually written for me. Apparently, my equipment and some Praxis kits were nearby, but they apologised for the lack of ammo aboard the ship.

I hopped over some crates to find my stuff, so I dressed and grabbed my things. Unfortunately, there wasn’t space for most of it, so I had to use most of the Praxis kits to get myself a bit more “normal”. Carrying Capacity 1-3, Move/Throw Heavy Objects, and Hacking Capture 2 & 3. I didn’t want to use up all of my Praxis kits until I knew what I was facing.

The so-called “no1” contacted me over a scrambled connection, telling me that a door was now unlocked and that I had to find the CIC. Outside the previously-locked door, I followed my waypoints to an office above the cargo hold. An automated message kept stating that a stasis pod was about to fail, and needed to be manually reinitialised. A computer had an automated email stating basically the same thing. A second computer had an email about me, and how everyone else aboard now had to meet in the mess hall with their papers, as well as a saved chat log talking about the EMP chair.

Exiting the office through the window, I went down to see if I could repair the stasis pod. The connected computer bank had been hit by a falling shipping container and, from what I could tell, it needed a new power core. I found one in a nearby store room next to a reload speed weapons mod. Once I repaired the pod, I headed up some ladders to a shipping container attached to a winch. I moved it over to a gantry and hopped over, climbing down a ladder to Deck 01. It was more shipping containers, of course, so I looked around and found some stolen credit chips — a pocket secretary said that they had been “acquired” from the people in the pods.

I climbed a ladder to the main deck, knocking out a lone guard. Heading towards my waypoint, I shot two men who were chatting and took a look at where we were heading. We were almost there, and it looked like it wouldn’t be fun.

Entering a door, I shot a camera which set off the alarm and made three men exit the sleeping quarters next to me. I shot them and grabbed a pocket secretary with the bridge crew quarters door code on it: 6782. Following the hallway, I found said quarters and went inside, getting a weapon damage upgrade, which I attached to my 10mm. Another pocket secretary told me that the code for the laser grid outside the CIC was 8790, which came in handy as I went upstairs to find said laser grid!

Rather than use the door, I opted for a nearby ventilation shaft to gain entry to the CIC. The room was deserted, but once I hopped over a console the mysterious “no1” contacted me. Apparently, they were upset that I caused such a ruckus getting here, but they would still help me. I had to get to the sally port in the aft cargo bay, and remain undetected for as long as possible.

While I hacked the security terminal, a guard came in and somehow didn’t spot me. I knocked him out, but another man spotted me as I tried to hack a computer. He set off the alarm and I shot him whilst looking for a second hostile — who wasn’t there. It seemed that this guy saw me not only through a wall, but from the next room over.

An email on a computer nearby asked for assistance and a response said that they had a team ready to assist. I could only assume that this meant things wouldn’t be fun for me. There was another computer with an email thanking whomever fixed the damaged stasis pod and asking when repairs on the ship would be made.

Exiting the CIC, I foolishly ignored a ladder leading down, and instead took the stairs. I spent the next several minutes killing Belltower members as I went down a couple of levels, though at least I had my heavily-upgraded 10mm. A security computer let me see that some gas, as well as more men, blocked my way.

I shot the two men on my level then climbed a ladder to turn off the gas with the valve I had spotted on the cameras. I went back down and followed the hallway to a ladder shaft without a ladder, though I had to move a heavy crate first. I upgraded myself with the Icarus Landing System, then dropped down the shaft, landing safely. I heard people talking, having heard me either running around or just landing, but I was hidden behind a wall via a crawlspace. Exiting the space, I quietly shot all of the people in the room, humoured by the fact that some of them were facing the main entry point, in the opposite direction.

With the way clear, I exited into a hallway and hacked the door into an armoury to obtain a heavy rifle and some ammo. Finally, I entered a biometric security scanner — which detected that I shouldn’t be aboard…!