Deus Ex Diaries Part Seventy-Five (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.

With my business in Překážka concluded, I needed to get back to the Dvali Theater in the Red Light District…

Leaving the sewers, I headed right over, and, thanks to my earlier visit, managed to get to the back alley fairly unimpeded. However, what had prevented me from hitting the theatre earlier was the weight of enemy forces. So, I stole around to the left and climbed up a scaffold, using a roof to access the theatre rooftop, and stunned the sniper. On the opposite side of the dome, which made up most of the roof, was another Dvali thug and a camera. Carefully, I timed it so that I could stun him and let him fall behind cover without the camera spotting the body. Using my silent leg augmentation, I cloaked and dropped down near the entrance, ducking inside and managing to remain cloaked past lasers, cameras and thugs in the foyer until I was safely hidden behind a door.

Miller called and suggested I check out Radich Nikoladze’s office, wherever that was, for evidence of the deal Viktor Marhenko had made with them. Using my cloak on and off, and a load of biocells to keep it charged, I went down the hallway to the left and upstairs, encountering no resistance. I could see a lot of activity on my mini-map and wanted a good look at the main room before I made a move, so I took a good look when I got to the top floor.

As the mini-map suggested, there were a number of people, as well as cameras to deal with. I figured that the projection room to my right might house some security controls, so I went down a level and cloaked as I hopped over the edge of the box and hurried over to it. As I had suspected, there was a security console, as well as some ammo, hacking software, and the usual loot. Hacking into it, I disabled the cameras and security robots, as I didn’t want to raise any alarms at all if I could help it. Leaving through the other door, I was annoyed to find a camera which wasn’t on the network I had just hacked, so I had to cloak to get past it and made my way down towards the stage.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to go onto the actual stage; I found a door in the hallway which I hacked to give me access to the bowels of the building. I was almost spotted going downstairs, as I hadn’t expected anyone to be watching them, so I cloaked and avoided the card game that the guards were playing. Moving down a hallway to the right, I stumbled across Nikoladze’s office, where he and his right-hand man Otar Botkoveli were discussing the very thing I wanted to overhear.

Nikoladze wanted triple the agreed-upon payment, but Botkoveli wasn’t happy about that, thinking it worked against them. And they didn’t even know what the Orchid was going to do at the Safe Harbour Convention! Nikoladze told him to get lost, and I quickly cloaked as he walked out. Despite the people right there, I called Jim Miller and told him what I’d just learned. He confirmed that he would warn London and get Duncan MacReady working on a mobilisation plan. I had to go home and wait… So I called Alex Vega, telling her what I said to Miller, and told her to get to my place so that we could talk.

Rather than go out the way I had come in, I decided to take a look around; that included sneaking into Nikoladze’s office and clocking him one. He had a pocket secretary on him, which, luckily for me, had his password in it, thanks to an intercepted email from someone checking up on Botkoveli for him. So, I accessed his computer where an email stated that the Orchid was being delivered as scheduled. There were a few other crime-family-related emails, but nothing of any use to me. However, the security terminal in the room connected to his office was! It allowed me to open the vault door and disable the camera watching it, which became my escape route, taking me into the sewers.

Along the tunnel was an armoury, so I hacked my way into it and stocked up, then turned off an electrified floor before climbing a ladder. It took me straight to the train platform, so I hopped on the train tracks to walk back once more to Překážka.

Before going to the apartment, I sold a bunch of stuff to the merchant who lived in the building — ammo, booze, weapons I didn’t use, the usual stuff. Once back in my apartment, Vega was waiting for me. Apparently, Nathaniel Brown stood to lose money if the Human Restoration Act passed, not make it like we suspected. The city of Rabi’ah was smoke and mirrors, so augs would have nowhere to go. What’s more, the Orchid hadn’t been designed as a bioweapon; it was supposed to target the gene that caused augmentation rejection and replace it. In its current form, it simply altered it. That explained how I had survived because I didn’t have that gene, one of a handful on the planet.

Calling Miller to explain what I’d discovered, he told me instead to get to TF29’s airfield. Though to get there, first I had to get to Chikane’s landing pad so that he could take me. So once more, I had to walk through the metro to get to Dávný District, but at least I didn’t have to cloak far to get to Chikane. No sooner had I arrived than we were going.

Two days later, a small handful of aircraft were flying over London. MacReady was to take his team and secure the perimeter while Miller and I landed on the roof. As we landed, we were met by Brown, who would have been happier if we’d ignored the threat. The place had been swept for bombs, the food and drink had all been replaced, and extra guards had been brought in. I tried to educate him, explain things clearly, which seemed to give Brown pause for thought. In the end, though, he argued that this had to go ahead so that he could convince members of the UN Security Council to not pass the Human Restoration Act.

I was told to meet Liam Slater in the central security office while Miller followed Brown to the conference room. Before getting on the elevator, however, I couldn’t help but notice the two buildings on the roof, so I hacked the door on the right-hand one, finding the floor electrified. The breaker to turn it off was above me, so I jumped up and did that, getting only slightly electrocuted in the process. There was some loot in the lockers but not much of it, so I punched out a grate and hacked the next door. As before, there was minimal loot, but a false ceiling with a hatch in it did net me a multi-tool.

Getting on the elevator, I called Vega only to be interrupted by her “boss” Janus, the leader of the Juggernaut Collective. While this mission probably warranted it, it did make me wonder how much they had been spying on me. They wanted to make sure I understood just how important it was that I stop this plot and save the UN Security Council.

Exiting the elevator, my mini-map showed that the area which I was in was the only place not coloured red. Worse, one of the guards literally said, “You can trust us sir”, in a British accent, which immediately made me even more suspicious! I could see a security terminal through the conference room window, so I knew that I had to get in there. Since the door was being watched and had a camera on it, hacking in wasn’t the solution. However, around the corner were some vending machines, so I moved one and found exactly what I was looking for: a ventilation shaft.

Climbing through the shaft, I missed my turning into the conference room and went further than I intended. MacReady called through to ask why his team had been locked out, and Miller was concerned that I hadn’t spoken to Slater yet and told me to get on it. As the exit for the shaft was into the restricted zone and there were guards, I backtracked to the conference room and cloaked to escape detection until I could activate the blacked-out windows. A pocket secretary on the table had an email telling the recipient to log into the central security office systems so they could access them remotely…

Using a multi-tool to hack the security terminal, not wanting to risk detection, I deactivated the cameras, robots, laser grids, and alarm panels before returning to the vending machines. Opposite was the door into the security office, so I waited for the coast to be clear and hacked it open. Stepping inside, I overheard the patrolling guard outside say, “They never expected the ambush”, in an accent that was decidedly not British. Worse, I found bullet holes and a whole lot of blood in the rest area at the rear…