Deus Ex Diaries Part Twenty-One (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.

After infiltrating the Emerald Suites at the behest of Alex D.’s friend Billie, I was making my way up to the Culture Minister’s penthouse to find out what he had been up to in secret…

There was nothing out of sorts from the looks of things just inside the penthouse. Until I went into the next hallway and found it checkerboarded with laser wires, and a turret sitting pretty on the wall nearby. I explored what I could, but after finding a datapad containing a picture of where the safe was, I had to head upstairs -- via the lasers. I tried my best, but set one off and had to leg it upstairs. Luckily, once I was in the bedroom, the turret stopped firing and the camera forgot about me.

"Lasers... Why did it have to be lasers?"

Around the room were some glass cases, one of which contained an energy blade! I swapped my baton for the sword and smashed the rest of the cases because I could. I quickly found a datapad saying that there was going to be a delivery of a weapon called a Mag Rail, to Mako Ballistics. The WTO commander came over my comm and told me to report to the air terminal to discuss what was going to happen next.

So, of course, I went to the Pequod’s coffee shop and chatted to the owner. Apparently he wanted Queequeg's out of business -- just like they wanted him out of business. However, Pequod’s wanted me to simply burn all of Queequeg’s stock, not hack anything. I was headed that way, to report to Lin-Mei Chen of The Order, so figured what they hey. However, I’d been asked to get a scan from the body down in the cellar of Club Vox, and was originally headed there to talk to pilot Sid Black when I got sidetracked. So I headed there instead.

I grudgingly paid the 100 credits cover charge and went on inside. With very few people there, I was confused how such an obviously expensive club was staying in business. However, I headed upstairs where I had been told the owner was, and spoke to him. He wanted someone in Emerald Suites assassinated, and would pay me 300 credits to do it. I figured I’d probably do it if I headed that way again, but doubted it.

Only so many hours in the day, though...

I then spoke to a hologramatic version of NG Resonance, a popstar from what I gathered. I was unsure why I had the option to speak to her, but I did it anyway before heading upstairs into the VIP area. It involved using a multitool on the door and murdering a guard inside, but I did it.

The one who had asked me to obtain a scan was a member of the group called Omar. They used biomods to the extreme, and as such barely looked human -- and didn’t sound much like one either. There was another member of the Omar in the VIP lounge, as that appeared to be where people went to buy weapons: the Omar speciality in trade. The guy reiterated that, as I was an ordinary customer, I had to pay full price. A discount was to be my prize for retrieving the biological scan data.

I went back downstairs and used a key I took from the owner’s office, to break into the basement. There were lasers in the way, and a small grate containing a robotic spider, so I picked up a bin and threw it through the lasers. The spider came out and I blew it away before it knew I was there with an EMP-modded SMG. On the other side of the grate was a door, behind which was a crate containing the body of a Grey -- one of the clone aliens JC Denton had slaughtered during his adventures twenty years previously.

I grabbed the data and left the nightclub, having found no sign of Sid the pilot. In Lower Seattle, I chucked Queequeg’s boxes of coffee onto a flaming barrel, then returned to the church and reported my progress. Lin-Mei told me that I had to head out to Mako Ballistics as soon as possible, and should enlist the aid of Sid Black, to assassinate the scientist in charge of the Mag Rail. Sid was currently in the Greasel Pit, which I had mistaken to be a place to go and fight Greasels.

Reputable establishment...

It turned out that it actually was, but was also a bar. I nosed around a bit and came across a hologram communicator, where Ava Johnson came through to beg me for help. She would then fly me anywhere I wanted, for free, so long as I helped her escape the WTO at the air terminal. Back to Sid, I told him that I had liberated his jet, and he said I could get a ride anywhere, for 400 credits. As I had to go to the air terminal anyway, I figured I would give Ava a try.

I went back to Upper Seattle and swung by Pequod’s to get my reward for slight arson. Then back to the metro, where I chucked the still-unconscious thugs into a storage closet for good measure, before heading to the air terminal.

I was greeted by a WTO commander, who told me to report to the manager’s office for debrief. Ava contacted me over my comm to tell me she was in the lower levels, so I went to explore the upper level first. There was a Pequod’s coffee shop in the terminal at one end, and Klara Sparks in the office at the other end. Klara explained that she had gone straight to the terminal as ordered, but was pissed that she was the only one. Alex explained that she had spoken to Billie, but didn’t know where Leo Jankowski could be. Then I went down in the nearby elevator, completely ignoring the fact I should have reported to Donna Morgan: person in charge.

Nobody stopped me...

As I technically wasn’t supposed to be down there, I had to avoid people -- but I chucked an EMP grenade at a mech nearby for good measure. I snuck about and deactivated two missile batteries with another two EMP grenades. Then Ava told me to activate the pilot beacon, which would let Ava’s helicopter take off. Seeing a woman walking over to the helicopter, I figured it was her as I equipped my boltcaster -- a non-lethal weapon (no need to piss them off more than ignoring direct orders…).

It wasn’t her, requiring a couple of shots to the head to knock her out. Ava was already in the chopper, and she told me that if we left now she would never come back. I figured that was fine -- and off we went to Mako Ballistics...