Deus Ex Diaries Part Twenty-Six (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.

I had finally found and spoken to Leila Nassif in Cairo, and she had sent me to Trier, Germany - I was looking for JC Denton AKA daddy…

As luck would have it, as I arrived in Trier there was a curfew in effect. The Order had tried to shut down Panzerwerks, and it had caused a bit of a kerfuffle. What’s more, there was a summit happening between Her Holiness, Luminon Saman and JC Denton’s buddy Chad Dumier, who was now in charge of the World Trade Organisation.

The closest Standard Security Corporation guards told me that I had to get authorisation from the SSC office across the plaza if I wanted to explore, but I decided not to go there straight away. Instead, I went exploring. I found two factory workers complaining about Panzerwerks being shut down, two Order weekers complaining that things went violent, and two more factory workers trying to kill an Order seeker. I shot them with my Boltcaster, but couldn’t find the seeker to speak to them.

Instead, I went to the QueeQuegs coffee house. As with all of these places so far, the manager was complaining about a Pequod - but in this case they were advertising directly across from QueeQuegs despite there not being a Pequod in Trier! The manager had submitted complaints to the Order and the WTO, but heard nothing. They suggested that they’d pay someone to get the file from the SSC station’s evidence room, so I made a note of that.

Having noticed that there was an NG Resonance hologram here, I went to chat to it. It complained that I had left Cairo without watching NG’s concert, so I apologised before leaving the coffee house.

Heading back to where the two seekers were, I went inside the Nine Worlds Tavern. The upstairs was locked behind a door that required three multitools, so I decided to leave it alone for now. Rather than heading for the bar, I explored the other rooms, stumbling across a holo projector which Ava Johnson used to speak with me. She said that she felt that she was close to her passenger, but wouldn’t tell me what their name was - which Alex D. complained about, despite refusing to tell Ava who she was looking for back in Cairo.

After signing off with Ava, I turned my attention to the person in the room - Tracer Tong, last seen in Part 18 telling JC to destroy Majestic 12. Tong explained that the only way to reach JC was to use a teleporter to his secret base in Antarctica. The only people who could use it were those who shared DNA with JC, and the portal was beneath the ruins of the Black Gate, or to give it it’s real world name, Porta Nigra.

Unfortunately, the facility was under Templar control, and it was possible that they had already convinced “one of you” to go and murder JC - suggesting that I was not the only clone currently in play. Tong gave me a code for a secret entrance, and told me that Her Holiness was being held by the Templars inside the facility. With that, I left and continued exploring the rest of the tavern. I spoke to a seeker named Monica Platz (none of the others had names so far), and also met Sid Black (who I’d met in Seattle), who offered to take me anywhere for a bunch of credits.

As I left the tavern, Chad Dumier contacted me and told me to meet him in the SSC offices. Since I had to go there anyway, I headed straight there and met Vera Maxwell, the executive commander for the entire SSC. She told me that this summit was super serious, and told me to go and see Chad upstairs in the interrogation room.

On my way, I broke into the evidence lock-up after disabling the cameras, and took the evidence that the manager at QueeQuegs wanted. When I went into the interrogation room, I was treated to Chad chatting to Luminon Saman about the missing Her Holiness. When they were done, Chad told me to meet him at visitation, down the hall. It seemed that he wanted me to not murder him, so was remaining behind glass in safety.

Once in the other room, Chad had me reiterate what Tracer had talked to me about, and gave me a biomod canister. He was hesitant to believe that Tracer revealed the location of Her Holiness out of the goodness of his heart, believing him to have ulterior motives. When he was finished warning me, I left - and upgraded all of my biomods. I was now silent when moving, and had the ability to take over any security or robot - I’d been saving up my biomod containers.

My first stop, however, was to QueeQuegs, where I told the manager that his biggest competitor was actually owned by the same company as QueeQuegs. He was unimpressed, and I advised him to sue. I was probably going to die in Antarctica, it didn’t matter what happened to him.

From there I went straight to the Black Gate. An SSC guard was there, and warned me that she’d called for backup as there was a military bot around the corner. However, if I was happy to take it on, I was free to go. Obviously, I had to go now that she was daring me.

As I approached the corner, there was an explosion. As I peeked around, an SSC guard was laying with his head now a part of the closest wall, and the robot was stomping around the plaza. Spotting a Templar on the far side, I shot them with my boltcaster and hid while the toxin knocked them out. The robot spotted the body and announced that it was going over to check things out, so I used this opportunity to hide behind some large squares. They may have been crates or some sort, but they could equally have been decorative…

From my new vantage point, I shot a second Templar, and crept up behind the robot as it stomped past. Using a mod, I took control of it and unleashed rocket-based hell on the Templars above, as well as the few that were still ground-level. When all was done, things looked clear, so I headed inside a door where a camera spotted me and began blaring a siren. I dodged a turret, then swiftly went up a ladder, activating my eye mod to see through walls. Above me were two Templars, so I waited for them to move away before going to the top of the ladder.

Quickly hiding underneath the nearby staircase, I shot both men with my boltcaster, waiting for them to be knocked out before heading outside. There was another Templar, who I shot, but other than her there wasn’t anything of note. Thankfully, I remembered what Tracer Tong had said, and went back the way I had come. After looking for a stack of boxes, I moved them and used the keypad behind them to unlock the hidden door, and went inside the hidden laboratory.

Just inside the lab was a control room, and one guard. Waiting for him to wander off, I quickly used a multitool to unlock the door, and hacked the security console. I deactivated the drone, and went inside the grate that I found next to me. With some exploring the ventilation system, and avoiding guards thanks to my eye mod, I soon found a way to shoot all of the guards without them noticing me. When they were dealt with, I began exploring the rest of the facility.

Making my way into the upper levels, I found a reactor that was sparking electricity all over the place. With a multitool, I deactivated it before using another one to open a door. Inside was a repair droid, which refilled my biomod energy, and at the far end of the area was another reactor. Upon activating it, Chad came over my comm to congratulate me on restoring power to the teleporter below - which I had come across in my exploration - but that I’d have to come back later to finish bringing it online.

With only one route unexplored, I went back downstairs and headed to what appeared to be a detention block. Inside the cell were Her Holiness, and Donna Morgan, who I had previously ignored continuously in Seattle. As they both talked, it transpired that the WTO and The Order weren’t opposing factions at all, they were both part of the Illuminati. This was made clear when it transpired that Her Holiness’ real name was Nicolette DuClare - who JC had left in Paris back in Part 14 of these diaries.

However, the threat posed by the Templars was real. Luminon Saman was working with them, and had orchestrated the kidnapping of DuClare. What’s more, the teleporter was non-functional, as Saman had stolen a component and taken it to his church in Rauchstadt. Behind the cell was a console to hack, which let me open the “cell”, which was actually a radiation chamber. I had the option to flood it with radiation, but chose not to.

In the next room, I found a Grey in another radiation chamber. I spoke to it, and it said that Billie Adams had used the teleporter, so that answered who else might use it… The Grey implored me to head to Antarctica to save JC, and also mentioned that the Greys were a Versalife experiment, not extraterrestrial.

It finally clicked to me that I had seen Billie and Saman back in Cairo. They were in the mosque together, so clearly they were working together. So, the math wasn’t difficult to work out that Billie was now a Templar.

After opening the Grey’s chamber, I returned to DuClare, who was now joined by an Illuminati Elite Trooper. It told me that I could go, which was nice, but first I spoke to both women. They basically both said that the Illuminati was a force for good, and they were happy to be part of it.

With a shrug, I left the laboratory, heading back to the tavern - I had a helicopter to catch…