Deus Ex Diaries Part Twenty-Seven (Invisible War)

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. I continue with Deus Ex: Invisible War.

My time in Germany had been packed, but now it was time to pack my bags and head to - well, another part of Germany, because I needed a teleporter component from Rauchstadt…

I quickly returned to the inn and contacted Ava Johnson via the holocomm. She landed on a nearby rooftop, where I met her and she took me to my destination. Chad Dumier contacted me over my comm and told me to speak to the locals. As luck would have it, Crazy Wendy was right in front of me, so I spoke to her.

Crazy Wendy explained, in her way, that the Templars had set up in the cathedral and kicked her out. They were using the canal as a factory of some sort, so I figured that was my way in.

No, I didn't name her Crazy Wendy

Wanting to explore a little, I wandered off - and right into the eyeline of a Templar. I shot him with my boltcaster, then dumped his body in a skip before moving off down the other alleyway instead. A kid next to another skip, Billy, asked if I worked at the factory, and said that he wanted a job. Instead, Alex D. pumped him for information and left him without any money. Nice girl, our clone here…

Since I could hear a camera nearby, I hopped up on the skip and jumped to the next level, figuring I was bypassing some fighting. Instead, I came face-to-face with a flamethrower turret, and had to use my mods to dominate it, and deactivate it. On the plus side, it did allow me to sneak up behind two Templars who were on the high ground, and hit them with my boltcaster. With them both down, I shot a third templar who was on a lower level.

At the canal, I threw a grenade to kill a templar, then avoided a patrolling drone to sneak into the factory. It had a handful of machines that were very unimpressive, and I had to wonder what exactly they were supposed to be making in this factory. I dispatched two more Templars before making my way to the elevator and into the church.

Pictured: me, safe

At the top, I had to avoid a camera until I could deactivate it. Thanks to my eye mods, I could see the three Templars patrolling inside the church, and sniped one with my boltcaster. Unfortunately, one dart didn’t knock him out. However, for some reason the rocket turret that was in the middle of the Templars - which I hadn’t spotted - began firing at them! Once they were gone, I approached with my Mag Rail ready. The alternate fire shot EMPs, so a couple of those took the turret out, and I was free to explore.

At the back of the church was a holocomm which burst to life as I approached. Luminon Saman gloated that he’d sent Billie through the teleporter three hours ago, so I was too far behind to cause his plans any issues. So far behind, in fact, that he had sent reinforcements already, who were almost assuredly set up and prepared for me to attack.

After exploring a locked staircase, I went into Saman’s room in the main church. He had messages on a holocomm which were from people who had been keeping an eye on Klara, Leo and Alex, to see if they were a fit to be Templars. From a terminal on the wall, I somehow got the part that I required and headed back to the staircase. There was a broken window, so I could go out that way instead of the way I had come, or by wasting multitools on the gold laser grid that blocked the front door.

Once outside, with the lone sentry shot full of toxin and deposited in a skip, I went to see what the drone was doing in front of the church. Unfortunately, it spotted me and came after me, so I had to shoot it with the Mag Rail to take it down.

As it turned out, the way back was a route that I had cleared on my way here, so I headed back to Crazy Wendy, where Ava had the helicopter. However, Klara Sparks was waiting for me. She had just been told about the Illuminati, and was vexed that she was the last to know. Alex asked her to come to Antarctica with her, but Klara declined, saying that she had to secure the church that I had just secured.

Ava warned me about Saman, somewhat needlessly, before returning me to the Black Gate. Tracer Tong begged me to come by the tavern first, so that he could tell me something about JC’s condition, so I went. Well, before I could make more than three steps in that direction, Lin-May Chen, who I hadn’t spoken to in a while, stopped me. She was outside the SSC building, and begged to know the truth about what was going on with Her Holiness.

Wanting to cut this short, I lied and said that the WTO and Her Holiness weren’t working together, honest guv. She let me be on my way, so I headed straight to Tracer. He said that he shared some of the blame for The Collapse, because he convinced JC to merge with the Helios AI. My job was to do what Paul was supposed to, transfer my biomod architecture to JC which would revive him from his coma.

Yes, that’s Paul as in Paul Denton, JC’s brother and super agent working for UNATCO. Who was murdered by Men in Black in New York, back in Part Five… Apparently, he wasn’t quite “ready” yet, and had been kept in cryogenic suspension. With this information under my belt, I returned to the facility beneath the Black Gate.

Since I had already reactivated the generator in the loft space, I just had to access the control room to activate the teleporter. Annoyingly, nobody had unlocked it while I was away, so I had to waste a multitool on that. Worse, there was a Templar inside who I needed to shoot.

I used the terminal inside to reinstall the missing module, then went down to the teleporter and hopped in. On the other side, I was greeted by two Greys. They were a little worried that I was there to mistreat them, as Billie and the Templars had been doing in the four-ish hour headstart they had. They were also annoyed that I wasn’t Paul, as it appeared that they knew the plan Tracer had mentioned. JC had apparently taken care of the Greys, and in return they had maintained the place while JC slept and awaited Paul and the key. Billie and Alex were two keys, but there was no Paul.

The Grey asked me to save their friend who had been captured, but otherwise proved that they would be useless to me, so I left the cave. As I was about to go into the open, where a mech was patrolling, Billie came through my comm. She asked me to go to Tent 04, and she would contact me there. Avoiding the penguins that were here for some reason, I dominated the mech and used its rockets to kill and blow up as much stuff as possible. In the act, I freed the Grey and a greasel that was in a neighbouring container.

Deciding to check out Tent 04, I looked through the door. I saw someone that was most definitely not Billie, so found a ladder and climbed onto the roof, wanting to get the drop on them. A ventilation shaft dropped me into the bedroom, and Billie began speaking on the holocomm. She reiterated that reviving JC was foolish, and that she was going to repurpose Helios for “more beneficial purposes”. She hung up, and I sniped the two Templars from the doorway with my boltcaster. The camera above the door tried to alert, I dunno, itself? After cleaning the place out, I headed down the closest tunnel.

It opened to a large area, and JC came over my comm telling me that this was the right direction. For someone in a coma, he was certainly aware of things… Unfortunately, blocking my way was a Templar in a suit of armour - the exoskeleton that I had found plans for in Cairo. I was aware of a triangular weakness in the back, but since I only had a scope on my boltcaster, I had little hope of hitting it. As it was, he took three shots from my Mag Rail, and exploded.

Between myself and some kind of advanced console were three more Templars in the same exoskeletons, and they took a few more shots to kill. Luckily, none of them managed to hit me when they returned fire, as I wasn’t looking forward to seeing what being on the receiving end of a Mag Rail felt like.

With the area clear, I decided to check out the other tunnel, back near Tent 04. It turned out to lead to the helipad that I presumed I would need to use to escape once JC had been dealt with one way or the other. I shot the two Templars in front of me, then crept around the largest building to deal with another one.

Exploring around, I came across some greasels and avoided them. In the connecting building I deactivated a laser grid so that a turret wouldn’t shoot me, and stood at the bottom of a staircase. My mods told me that there were greasels upstairs, so I lobbed a couple of grenades up, killing them. At the top, I found that it led out onto the helipad. Nothing worth worrying about yet, clearly, so I raided some stuff out of an office before making my way to the other greasels and grenading them, too.

Not realising that I’d missed a door yet, my continued exploration and looting led me back to the helipad, but on the ground level. It turned out that I’d not only missed a Templar, but there was a turret ready to blast me. I ran back up to the helipad, but the Templar had gone back down the stairs - which were near the turret. I shot him, then EMP-blasted the turret to clear the way into the room below the helipad - not that it held much of interest.

Retracing my steps, I located the door that I hadn’t used yet - and had ironically already shot the Templar inside earlier. After a bit of a nose around, I went downstairs to restore power, with the recorded warning from the Versalife scientists of “it’s getting bigger”...