Deus Ex Diaries Part Twenty (Invisible War)

This is my ongoing exploration of the Deus Ex Universe, in preparation for when Mankind Divided arrives. Whether you’re a newcomer or an old-goer, I hope to make this something you can read along with and enjoy. I continue with Deus Ex: Invisible War.

The Order had mounted an attack on the Seattle Tarsus facility, “freeing” the trainees who had been staying there after a terrorist decimated Chicago. Alex D. had been given two choices: follow orders and meet up with the World Trade Organisation, or meet Lin-Mei Chen of The Order, in Lower Seattle...

In the last game, I played the good soldier. So, I decided to play against type in this one, and head for the church in Lower Seattle. But first, a nose around the place! Billie Adams came through on my comm and implored me to search Leila Nassif's apartment in the I found Pequod’s coffee shop, a nightclub called Club Vox, the metro and an area with a public holographic broadcast. The broadcast was by politician Chad Dumier, explaining how the current state of the economy wasn’t his administration’s fault, it was because of the previous one -- JC Denton. Of course, his was less of an administration, than an enforced return to the dark ages, when he destroyed the Aquias router and merged with Helios, so-called The Great Collapse. Not what had happened in my playthrough, but this before Telltale games, and Mass Effect carried on our saves...

On the way to the giant elevator, called the inclinator, were a trio of thugs who I bribed to tell me why they were there, which apparently was to keep watch for some guy who was being broken out of prison. Apparently none of my business, I headed into the facility housing the giant elevator which led down to Lower Seattle.

Before I could use the inclinator, I had to reactivate a nanoformer cleaning robot as the area had somehow been flooded with radioactive waste. Because trusting a perfect stranger to fix the things your employees aren't willing to risk their lives to do, is the only smart thing you can do in a post-Great Collapse world...

The one problem came from the fact that the WTO had already placed a couple of security bots in the next hallway, which the nearby soldier told me couldn’t be reprogrammed now. With a sigh, I ducked into the grate behind him and snuck through, having to destroy one of the bots when it spotted me. In ran through the radiation and found the guy who had the code for the repair bot cupboard. More radiation later, it was up and running, and I was allowed to finally head to Lower Seattle.

I met Mack and Lo-Town Lucy, who surprisingly were not a pimp and his ho. They theorised that people who weren’t from Upper Seattle were basically stuck there, adding to the growing list of conspiracy theories. They also gave me directions to The Order’s church, which I quickly forgot and wandered straight past it.

"Meh, close enough..."

As I entered the next section Heron’s Loft, Lin-Mei told me that I should have been to see her, but that whilst I was there I could do a little job for her and murder the hell out of Miss Sak, who was holding Sid Black’s jet due to unpaid monies owed. The bloke guarding downstairs let me in without a fuss so long as I agreed to not go up to the helipad, so I headed up and threatened Miss Sak. Unsurprisingly, she wasn’t too happy about that and told her men to kill me -- so I capped them all and headed into the helipad.

I tried sneaking about, but only wound up going in front of one of the guards, so I had to expend more ammo as I took them out before looting the place.

On the way out of Heron’s Loft, I bumped into the owner of QueeQueg's coffee shop in Lower Seattle. He asked me to hack into the zoning database, so he could open a property in Upper Seattle. I also swiped his keys.

Back in the main section, I went in search of the church. It was opposite the QueeQueg’s, which I broke into and swiped some credits. Inside the church were a bunch of Seekers, one of whom began chatting to a hologram of Her Holiness, the one who ran The Order. Well, more like listened as she ranted -- but I interrupted that by approaching to hear better. Her Holiness tried to explain why The Order was amazing and I should thank them for freeing me, then sent me into the back room to speak to Lin-Mei on another hologram. After how rare these were in Deus Ex, it’s weird to see them all over the place…

I swiped some credits from the podium behind the hologram, then went to chat to Lin-Mei whom explained that the Captain in charge of the Seekers that attacked Tarsus, had gone rogue before disappearing. However, I should totally check out the inclinator where she had just heard the Captain was meeting with a member of the Knights Templar.

The last I had heard, the Knights Templar had been wiped out by Majestic 12. Their former base was where JC Denton took down Gunther Hermann in Part Fourteen of these Diaries.

I looted a crate and left the church, heading the short way back to the inclinator, I found three people trying to kill me. In the office above, with a window overlooking the platform, were the Captain and Templar. I went up and tried to overhear them -- but accidentally opened fire upon them. Speaking of fire: the Templar was armed with a flamethrower. Quickly taking them down, I checked a datapad on the desk which had incriminating evidence on, then had to head back to the church.

However, as I was already in Upper Seattle, I instead decided to go and see Sid who I had been told was at ‘the bar’: I assumed that meant Club Vox.

"Should have made that left turn at Albuquerque..."

I got lost on the way and wound up in the Metro. I was asked for money by the “Nervous Attendant”, for a ticket. I declined and instead went around the back through a vent, as the fact that he was nervous and there was a guy literally called Thug out front, I figured something was up. In the back I easily found a corpse, so quickly took down the three with a club to the noggin.

I didn’t investigate further, deciding to come back in a few minutes -- I didn’t want to trigger meeting up with the WTO by accident, whilst I still had stuff to do!

I wandered past the Emerald Suites, and realised I’d been told to go there and do something. I checked my quest log and saw that yes indeed, Billie had told me to go there to check out Leila’s apartment. Putting off my visit to Club Vox even further, I headed inside.

As a high-class apartment complex, it boasted security guards and a janitor. I bribed the latter for his master key, then went exploring. Someone from the WTO came over my comms and complained that I hadn’t met up with them as ordered. However, whilst I was in the Emerald Suites, I should totally do a mission for them and break into the penthouse, where the Culture Minister lived. They suspected him for some wrongdoings or something, and I should find his hidden vault.

I broke into all of the apartments and found the one Billie wanted me to. For some reason, Alex decided to use the hologram communicator on the table to discuss the plan with Billie and complain that she joined The Order. Sounding a little hypocritical, since I’d already killed for them…

I found a datapad in the next room, learning that the Culture Minister was working with Leila to hide some kind of shipment… So it only made sense that my next stop should be the penthouse...