Deus Ex Diaries Part Seventy-Three (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.

After somehow surviving being injected with the killer agent Orchid, I had returned to Prague under Martial Law…

As I exited the L.I.M.B. clinic, my comm fritzed, a message popping up from Samizdat asking for help. Although I really needed to get to Miller, I decided to sneak down into the metro to head for the sewer coordinates I’d been given, which were in the Překážka district. Cloaked, I slipped past the police and laser grid, stopping just beside the ticket office to recharge my bio energy. It was a good thing, too, as I realised that there was a turret right in front of me, though it couldn’t see me as I was crouched.

Moving quickly when it wasn’t looking my way, I picked it up and aimed it towards a wall so that I could safely ignore it from now on. As I might never have the chance, I took the opportunity to hack into the nearby offices, finding a few goodies, before noticing a ventilation shaft. Climbing in, it led me to an apartment building where everyone was congregated on the ground level. Taking shelter inside one of the storage lockers was an information broker who accepted Neuropozyne for intel, so I paid for all three, which all turned out to be mostly garbled emails on pocket secretaries. An employee of Picus ordered a burger meal delivery, a Dvali thug taunted someone and gave their door code, and a police password for Pilgrim Station “AUGBUSTER001”.

I decided to check out all of the apartments in the building, so I broke in everywhere and looted everything, with the bonus that the Picus employee was in the building. Then, I finally headed for Překážka, entering the metro via the ventilation shaft, and as the trains weren’t running, I had to walk…

Like with the previous station, Čapek Fountain Station had a laser grid, but in place of a turret was a police officer. Deciding to break into everything here too, I did so before cloaking to hurry past the lasers and cop. Once at street level I climbed up a billboard ladder to my right, and jumped across to a balcony before entering the apartment. The computer had two emails, both about the owner joining the Santeau Group, so pretty unimportant to me.

Unfortunately, when jumping down to the street I was spotted, so had to run from the police. I took refuge in the sewers, using a manhole that was next to my apartment building. As the Samizdat coordinates were in the sewer, it actually worked out well for me, and I was soon at the area which had been set up as, I would soon learn, an underground railroad. Spotting the forger Milena working away at a computer, I spoke to her first and she explained that she was still forging documents for people leaving Prague, as that was something of a universal need.

Next, I spoke to Little K — now going by K as the other K had been arrested. She asked me to free him and their colleague Bones from custody, give them some forged passes, and get them to a safehouse for extraction outside of the city. Meanwhile, K would keep working to help people gather in the sewer and get out of the city.

Before leaving, I spotted Edward Brod, who I had given an activated permit to. He was here because he reasoned that, since the police were just shooting anyone, he had better odds getting out of here. On the gantry above was Viznik, one of the first people I had met in Prague back when I dismantled the cult that he belonged to! He didn’t really have anything to say to me, though.

Returning to the surface, I went into my apartment building and started breaking into people's homes after selling my alcohol and unused weapons. Oh, I had also bought biocells, ammo, and a Praxis Kit. In the process of breaking & entering, I looked in my own apartment and found things in disarray, as well as the disk reader missing from my coffee table. Clearly Everett’s men still wanted Helle, but now they could never obtain her.

The only notable apartment was the one which had references to a Machine God and art painted on the walls, as well as a huge schematic for some kind of machine in the bedroom. One of the storage lockers had similar art, and loads of leaflets about it. There was also the fact that Daria, who was witness to the murder earlier, had a telescope aimed at my apartment, that was kinda weird.

Upon leaving the apartment I went to the nearby bar and down into the basement. I knew there was a way into the hidden room, and finally found it behind some boxes: a button. Grabbing everything from a box at one end, I shifted another box and dropped down a hole into the sewer, figuring that it would be a great way to evade the police. It was actually a waste of time, and soon I was cloaking my way back into the metro to walk back to Dávný District, so that I could check out the Dvali lead that I’d paid for.

Sneaking past the police and entering the red light district, I was contacted by Eliza Cassan — the good one, not the one currently on the news. She told me that I shouldn’t be doing this, I should be keeping my head down, especially since my way was being barred by a police blockade. Saying that she didn’t want to lose me again, she somehow caused a turret to explode. Using the distraction, I made a run for it but was spotted. I thought the explosion was enough, but clearly I should have activated my cloak…

Luckily, there were only a few police, so easily knocked out or stunned, and I was able to enter the Red Queen which was still somehow open despite Martial Law. As my entry into Dvali territory was blocked by a gate that required a keycard, I clearly needed to chat someone up to steal one. The bartender didn’t offer any solutions, so I went upstairs where I overheard someone say that their friend had a keycard. As another Dvali went into one of the private rooms, I stunned him and as luck would have it I found a keycard on him!

Jumping off of the upstairs balcony, as the Red Queen held nothing else for me, I went through the alleyway and through the gate. Ahead of me was a theatre with a sniper atop, as well as some guards and a security bot patrolling the street. I decided to cloak and just run for the apartment building to my right, which was my destination anyway, and I took my time stunning or knocking out the handful of thugs. Once the area was clear I started rooting through all of the apartments and computers, though even the apartment whose door code I had was pretty much useless in the grand scheme of things.

Hopping off of a balcony, I went back through the alleyway and through the streets, cloaking to remain hidden from the police. Going past Future-Past Antiký and around the corner, I found a security bot simply looking at its own charging station, with the doors open so that I could see the terminal controlling it. So, I hacked it as quickly as I could and disabled the bot an instant before it began to shoot me! Then, I turned it friendly, though ultimately it would be no use whatsoever…

After weighing up my options to access the police station holding former-K, I followed the street around, then hopped off of a roof noiselessly thanks to one of my augmentations. Stunning two police officers, the way was free for our escape in a few moments. I went down into the basement and hacked a console to unlock the cells, then spoke to former-K. He mouthed off at me for a couple of minutes before I told him to play it cool: put on some police uniforms and casually walk to the safehouse.

It was only as we were making our escape, me using my cloak and the others not drawing attention, that I noticed former-K and Bones had a cellmate: Irenka Bauer! I’d wondered why she wasn’t in the sewer like Edward Brod, clearly her unauthenticated permit had fouled her up somewhere…

Once in the safehouse, I gave former-K his documents and he told me that he was heading to Paris. I then checked in with Irenka, who was happy to have some company that wasn’t her “robot” Helena personality, as she knew she needed people around her.

Now, I was finally ready to go and meet Miller, as I’ve said several times over the past half dozen diary entries…