Deus Ex Diaries Part Seventy (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.

Having just broken into the bank and escaped with minimal fuss, I was on my way to explain my findings to Jim Miller…

As I navigated the streets, Vaclav Koller called me to ask if I finally wanted that neuroplasticity calibrator installed, which I had stolen at the start of all of this. I jumped on the metro and headed over to Překážka, and the instant I left the station I was contacted by fellow agent Aria Argento. She was concerned when she heard that someone had been attacked outside my apartment building, and their implants forcibly removed. As soon as she mentioned this not being the first such case, I remembered seeing a story in the Picus Daily Standard about a reporter being mutilated. Right next to a story about me attacking the police at Ruzicka Station, calling it “a bloodbath” despite me not killing anyone…

Approaching the crime scene I overheard Detective Karl Montag telling a police officer that they should at least find evidence before arresting “Johnny”, which the officer was displeased about. Montag took one look at me and said that Daria knew something but wouldn’t talk to the police, so I stepped over and spoke to her. She was quite forthcoming with me when I told her that I wasn’t a cop, hoping that I would do something where the police would not, since the victim was an augmented individual.

Leaving Daria I went over to Montag who didn’t seem surprised that she had spoken to me, but was eager to hear what she said. I told him that I could relate in hopes that he would ignore his orders and actually investigate. Once he knew that I was with Interpol he confided that he had been ordered to “forgo any unnecessary investigation” and arrest the victim’s husband Johnny Gunn. However, he suggested that Interpol might want to conduct a parallel investigation and indicated the crime scene, as well as giving me Gunn’s home address.

Examining the body I found a needle, bruises, a partial fingerprint, and some ancillary stuff. Then I spoke to Daria again, where she revealed that Montag was a desk jockey she had met before, not a “serious crime” investigator. She went on to explain that she had seen a man in black or dark blue, but had no description. They called it “cutting the evil out” as they committed the act, she said, as well as “It’s time to make you whole again.”

As I left the crime scene I spotted an advertisement board glitching to my left, and went over to have a look at it. It was flashing images of a person, the Panchaea installation, and the room where I’d fought Zhao Yun Ru in the bowels of the facility… A voice said that it had found me, and now I had to find it, and showed me a map of the local area with the word “HELP” in red text.

Deciding the murder investigation could wait, I went to the store indicated on the map, the door unlocking for me as I approached. The voice told me that there wasn’t much time and the door to the basement unlocked, so I went down to find a bank of unlocked computers. The store manager’s account logged in and I accessed the messenger app, bringing up the image of a white-masked person called Helle. I reassured them that nobody had followed me, and they asked me to find some missing data. I asked how they knew me and what they meant by calling the data “memories”, but they seemed unfocused in their replies, not giving a clear response.

Agreeing to find their data, I left with instructions to find a tourism centre that they provided the code for: 1591. However, that was in the opposite direction and I had come to visit Koller, so I decided to go there first, but I was stopped by a security checkpoint that I had thus far avoided. The police officer told me to go and see his friend to obtain the right permits to pass through and I played along, not wanting a firefight with even corrupt police officers. Once I knew who I had to speak to, I backtracked to Koller’s workshop and spoke to him.

Koller wasn’t too upset about Rucker being dead, becoming a martyr for augmented rights. After sitting in his chair, I was soon up and about and now able to activate some of my more powerful augmentations without consequences. Since I had been ignoring them until now, I had a quick look at what was available and used some of my 11 Praxis points to purchase the Icarus Dash and its Charged Dash, so that I could get around a bit faster.

For my next stop I went to find Helle’s missing data, accessing the tourism centre by punching in a grate and climbing through a vent. There were three people already inside, but with my stun gun and a well placed punch I took them all down easily. Helle activated a door lock that the people had been trying to turn on, and I entered the code that I had been given. Inside the room were some televisions that began playing an old news broadcast, as well as the Memory Disk. Helle called and pointed me towards a store called Future-Past Antiký, where I would find a reader compatible with the disk. When I left the building she warned that the men were hired by Picus to recover the disk, implying that there would be more.

Since the store was in the other part of Prague and required a metro ride, I instead went to see a man about a permit which was actually in this district. The “document agent” told me that if I paid him 35,000 credits it would get me a permit made by someone upstairs named Milena by next week. Even with my, shall we say, frugal nature I didn’t have 35k, so told the guy that the fake cop had said it was free to me. The agent didn’t buy it, telling me to give him what I had, so I gave him 35 credits. The agent was upset by this, so I decided to go over his head. Literally, as I was able to jump up to the overhang above him, and from that get past the one inept guard at the gate.

Using my Icarus Dash to get to the rooftop across from me, I dropped down to the ground level and entered the building. There were lasers blocking the way, but thanks to my cloak I got past them and went upstairs, knocking out the guard at the top. They had a pocket secretary on them with the security hub code 1980, so after I got my cloaked self through the next room to the security computer I used that code to access it. I turned off the cameras and laser grids, then opened the vault door hidden in a wall, and entered the hidden room.

It transpired that Milena, the sole occupant of the room, was a gifted forger who was making permits for the gang. However, it was under duress as she feared for her life if she didn’t make them, even though she knew that augmented people were being scammed out of thousands of credits. I reassured her that I was happy to help if she explained it all to me, and so at the end of the conversation she asked me to get rid of the guy in charge somehow. Whether through violence or an arrest, she didn’t care, but it would free her as nobody else would take charge. Milena also asked me to deliver the two final permits that she had crafted, but I would need to activate them or a scan would indicate that they were fakes. The two were Edward Brod and Irenka Bauer, and luckily they were local.

Leaving the area unnoticed via the balcony and rooftop — which would have been an easier access point — I overheard the police just down the street chatting. One was saying how the checkpoint appeared legitimate, but the other wasn’t interested. Figuring that this was the officer that Milena had mentioned, I spoke to them and was proven correct, and telling her about Milena’s kidnapping convinced her to order an assault. When the dust settled, I went to see Irenka Bauer in the building behind me.

Irenka was rehearsing a play by herself in front of some plushies. For most of the conversation she replied as a robot named Helena, but was happy to receive the permit. A short distance away, the store that Edward Brod owned was being robbed and he was being held at gunpoint, so I stunned the gunman while his accomplices ran away. I handed him the permit and he offered money which I turned down, surprising myself.

Since everything else required me to take the metro, I nipped to the merchant who lived in my building and sold ammo, alcohol, and a sniper rifle that I had been schlepping around for ages. I then bought two Praxis Kits and some stun gun ammo before leaving for the metro and Čistá Čtvrť…