Mission 9:
The Missing Link
Adam's sleep onboard the Hei Zhen Zhu freighter is interrupted when a group of assailants forces the stasis pod open. He is eventually overwhelmed and hauled out for questioning.
In a interrogation room, Pieter Burke, the commander of Rifleman Bank Station, beats Adam and tries to find out what he's doing on the freighter. When he doesn't answer, Burke leaves the room and has his lieutenant, Netanya Keitner, continue the questioning. She reveals that Adam is in an EMP-rigged chair that has disabled his augs and that the freighter is heading to a prison camp called Rifleman Bank Station.
She finishes her questioning and leaves the room. After she's gone, Adam tries to contact Pritchard but gets no response. Suddenly, the power fails and Adam is able to escape the chair. He makes his way out of the interrogation room and dispatches several guards on his way to a neighbouring room. Once there, he finds his combat suit and a handful of Praxis kits.
A mysterious voice is heard over the radio telling him to head to the freighter's command center. On his way there, Adam happens upon a malfunctioning stasis pod, and he briefly detours to replace its power cell and save the life of the person inside.
At the CIC, the voice tells Adam that Pritchard won't be able to help because they're near a jamming array. It tells him to get to the aft cargo bay and enter the port from there. Adam slips past more guards and reaches the port, where he undergoes a security scan and the system locks him out. The voice congratulates him on getting there and tells him to continue through a maintenance tunnel in the loading bay. The security system suddenly glitches and allows Adam through.
He continues through the checkpoint and emerges at the entrance to Rifleman Bank. Following the maintenance tunnel, he emerges in a small room with... Keitner. She holds him at gunpoint while telling him that it wasn't her choice to release him, but that she needs his help. She tells him that Rifleman Bank is the center for Belltower's special operations, and that Megan and the kidnapped Sarif scientists were originally transported there before being shipped off again and that Burke is conducting an unknown operation in the lower levels. She asks Adam to investigate the base and find out what Burke is doing in the detention camp before sending him on his way. She also warns him that, while she's given him partial access to the Rifleman Bank facilities, he'll need to manually update the detention camp's security mainframe in order to reach the lower levels and find out what Burke's up to.
Once Jensen reaches the mainframe, Keitner calls and tells him to get to the interrogation wing. There he finds a female prisoner who reveals that other prisoners have been disappearing, and the guards have been raping the women. Adam tells her that he can't help her right now, because there are still guards who will catch an escaped prisoner, but to sit tight and he'll be back to get her out as soon as he can.
Down the hall, Adam eavesdrops on a conversation between Burke and a pair of young scientists, Tiffany Kavanagh and Gary Savage. The discussion revolves around some sort of unspecified medical experiments being performed on the captives; it's obvious that Kavanagh in particular is deeply uncomfortable with the project, to which Burke responds by warning Savage, her lover, that if she doesn't settle down, she'll go from carrying out the experiments to undergoing them herself. The three of them then head down to the secret lab via an elevator which can only be opened by Burke's retinal scan. Adam relays this information to Keitner, and she suggests breaking into Burke's office and finding a new set of augmented eyes that were shipped in for him. Once he has them, she says, he can take them to Quinn, a mechanic with a shop in the station's basement, who will rig one of them so that it'll fool the retinal scanner into thinking it's connected to an optic nerve.
While Adam is on his way down to the lab, Keitner calls and tells him that she needs proof of Belltower's atrocities to take to Interpol. Such proof is in ample supply in the lab, which contains one test subject undergoing spinal replacement surgery, and another who appears to have been through many procedures and is just barely coherent enough to express her wish to die, which Adam fulfills by means of a lethal morphine dose. The lab also contains Tiffany Kavanagh, who in a confrontation with Jensen reveals that the secret Hyron Project is a way of wiring human brains into a computer faster and more powerful than anything on the planet. Unfortunately, most of the women they try to convert for use with Hyron die in the process, and even those who make it through the conversion surgeries suffer horribly while connected to the computer and survive for no more than a year.
It also comes out that Kavanagh is horrified and disgusted by both the project and her fear-driven collaboration with it; she didn't know what she was getting into until she arrived, and at that point it was far too late to back out. Jensen asks her to help him shut down the project and reveal it to the world, and she reluctantly agrees; they work out a plan by which he'll unlock a submersible from the camp control center, and once he's done so, she'll take it and all the evidence she can carry to rendezvous with Interpol.
On the way back up, Jensen calls Keitner and asks her to set up the rendezvous. She agrees, and a moment later, the elevator stops short; Keitner warns Jensen that Burke has tapped their comms and discovered his location. Jensen uses the elevator's escape ladder and climbs up the shaft, only to find that Keitner was mortally wounded after taking out a group of Burke's men sent to kill her. She tells him that Burke is cleaning house, part of which involves flooding the prisoner cells and the lab with a deadly neurotoxin. Before Keitner dies, she implores Jensen to help Kavanagh escape and reach the rendezvous with Interpol.
Adam makes it to the detention center, where there's a computer terminal set up to redirect the flow of gas into either the prisoner cells or the lab, rather than both. On the one hand, the people in those cells are innocent and don't deserve to die; on the other, gassing the lab means Kavanagh doesn't make it out with the evidence of what Belltower has been doing. Fortunately, a little creative exploration turns up the equipment being used to distribute the gas, and a well-placed bullet destroys it and saves both Kavanagh and the prisoners. Jensen unlocks the sub, Kavanagh makes her escape, and the same mysterious voice who's been guiding Jensen's actions all along calls and sends him after Burke.
Burke radios Adam and reveals that he's discovered his true identity. He goads Jensen with Keitner's death and dares him to attack. Quinn then calls to reveal that Burke has had enough and is out to kill Jensen no matter what it takes, and Quinn himself is getting out of the way so as not to be caught in the crossfire. He's sufficiently impressed by Jensen's actions, particularly saving everyone, to leave some things in his shop that Jensen might find useful, assuming he can make it there — no small consideration, since Burke has posted guards at almost every intersection and corridor in the base. Jensen makes it past them, though, to reach the loading bay where Burke's holed up; once there, he takes out everyone in the room.
The mysterious voice tells him to return to Docking Bay 2; when Jensen objects because of all the soldiers between him and it, the response is that "Burke" ordered them away. There's another boat getting ready to leave; it'll be heading for the location where Megan was sent, and Adam just has time to stow away aboard it if he hurries. When Adam reaches the bay, he finds his anonymous benefactor awaiting him there — the man he'd known as Garvin Quinn, the mechanic who helped him out with Burke's eye. "Quinn", it turns out, was just an alias for a man who infiltrated Rifleman Bank long ago; he's been trying to expose their activities for a while, and played the part of Interpol to manipulate Keitner into helping him. After complimenting Jensen on his efforts, "Quinn" explains that Belltower is shipping a consignment of detainees to another black ops site where Megan is likely to be, and that while the ship has already sailed, he's arranged for Jensen to be carried there by helicopter inside another stasis pod.
As the helicopter delivers the stasis pod to the departing ship, Quinn and a mysterious voice (referred to as Janus) have a conversation about Adam's actions. They consider his value for the "oncoming storm", and Janus says that they will know how to find him if he followed Quinn's instructions...
Tropes:
- Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder: One of the emails on Burke's computer (a conversation with "silver", more-or-less stated to be Namir) mentions that Megan is still longing for Adam after several months of captivity.
- Bling-Bling-BANG!: Burke has a custom-designed revolver with a gold finish and all mods attached, which is admired by other operatives on the ship. The player can steal this weapon during the mission.
- Blood from the Mouth: Keitner, just before she dies.
- Brought Down to Normal: Adam's augmentations are rendered useless by the EMP and he is forced to relearn his skills and abilities, with Keitner commenting immediately afterwards that "right now, your augs are dead metal".
- *Click* Hello: Keitner does this when Adam emerges from the maintenance tunnel.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Quinn (initially) comes across as this, having cultivated his cover identity onboard the Hei Zhen Zhu. He is a quirky Irish mechanic who is somewhat flippant about his job, having gone several times to try fishing from a moving cargo ship, he thinks very little of Adam because he's too busy "trying to keep the ship together", and his (initial) shop inventory is full of a surprising number of beers. It isn't until Adam starts questioning him about his technical proficiency reconfiguring Burke's spare optical eye for use in the retinal scanner that it becomes clear he has Hidden Depths.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Keitner's troops wear green, while Burke's group wear red-and-black uniforms.
- Continuity Nod: One of the cryopods found onboard the Hei Zhen Zhu is a detainee who was captured during the attack on the Alice Garden Pods in Hengsha (who may or may not be the Sole Survivor, depending on whether Van Bruggen was given a weapon).
- Cutting the Knot: In an attempt to erase any existence of Rifleman Bank's activities, Burke attempts to gas the prisoners along with a scientist who threatened to reveal the whole operation to the public, forcing Adam to make a Sadistic Choice (or Take a Third Option).
- Developer's Foresight:
- It is possible to sneak down to Quinn's store before Keitner asks you to head there (mostly by hacking a high-level door), but the developers accounted for this by having the shop be empty with a sign ("Gone Fishin') on the front, which isn't seen again after Quinn appears.
- You can also pick up all three components for the rocket launcher before Quinn gives you the sidequest for it (the "special offer") proper, leading him to react in surprise.
- Keitner acknowledges your actions throughout the Hei Zhen Zhu. If you ran around indiscriminately killing every soldier, she'll chew you out for killing her men. If you preferred non-lethal takedowns, she complains about you putting "contractors in comas", and if you went 100% Ghost, she is impressed.
- The Dog Was the Mastermind: "Quinn" (Keitner's informant) turns out to be the supposed connection to Interpol responsible for Adam being set free, and by the end of the DLC, he has more-or-less achieved everything he set out to do, short of fully bringing Adam onboard with the Juggernaut Collective.
- Downloadable Content: Eventually averted by the Director's Cut, which puts this mission in its proper place as part of the game's main storyline.
- The Dreaded: Several of the soldiers on the freighter and in the base can be heard talking about how dangerous Adam is, including one who expresses disbelief that he knocked out eight soldiers when they pulled him out of the stasis pod.
- Dungeon Shop: Quinn's store, which is smack-dab in the middle of Rifleman Bank.
- Dynamic Difficulty: Depending on the player's Ghost rating, Rifleman Bank is either easier or harder. If the player maintains a Ghost run through the Hei Zhen Zhu, several soldiers, mines and a robot won't be deployed and Quinn will remark on the player doing a good job keeping a low profile.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Not just for the original game, but also Human Revolutions sequel:
- Gary Savage appears for a single scene as a researcher.
- This is the first time in the series that the "Singularity Church of the Machinegod" is referenced, via a marketing email that can be found in Loading Bay 2 at the station. The Church would be further explored in Mankind Divided.
- Enemy Mine: Keitner does this with Adam so she can help him bring evidence of Belltower's corruption to light.
- Exact Time to Failure: A countdown clock can be seen in the detention centre that tells how much time there is until the gas fully floods both areas.
- Hidden Supplies: The "Back Stage Pass" achievement involves searching Quinn's workshop for a hidden switch, which opens a secret cache that has another computer (different from the one publicly displayed in his shop) that more-or-less gives away his true identity, as well as a pair of weapon upgrades.
- Interface Spoiler: You've given a full 10 minutes to take down a few mooks and resolve a Sadistic Choice. A skilled player can take down the thugs in less than half of that, and since A) the timer doesn't jump forward once you reach the decision, and B) you can actually back off from the decision after it's given to you, it's pretty obvious that there's a hidden way to save everyone.
- Interservice Rivalry: Between Burke's heavily augmented spec-ops troops, and Keitner's rank-and-file soldiers. The former are arrogant; the latter, resentful. Burke and Keitner themselves don't get along very well, either.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Quinn, who's initially flippant with Adam, but becomes nicer after Keitner's death (or beforehand, if the stasis pod was powered back up).
- Lampshaded Double Entendre: Two of the soldiers in the base mention this verbatim in regards to the Hung Hua Hotel in Hengsha, which offers "full-service girls...if you know what I mean."
- Last Stand: When you find Keitner, she's been left bleeding out, having just gunned down the soldiers who were sent to execute her. She barely hangs on long enough to give Adam details about what Burke is planning to do to the prisoners before finally succumbing to her wounds.
- Level Drain: Done via EMP, which renders Adam's augmentations useless and forces him to upgrade all over again (if he wants to, that is).
- Mercy Kill: The player can choose to do this to a Hyron drone in Kavanaugh's lab, by giving her a fatal dose of morphine. Interestingly, this doesn't count against the Pacifist achievement.
- Monty Haul: When played in the Director's Cut, it's possible to walk out of the DLC with more gear than you can carry, especially if you've been diligent with what you brought into the mission. Not only are exploration bonuses handed out like candy for doing straightforward things like stacking a couple boxes to jump into a container, but you can pick up two expensive weapons (Burke's custom revolver and a fully-upgraded rocket launcher), a boatload of ammunition and multiple Praxis Kits (16 in total, found through level exploration or via Quinn's shop).
- No Hero Discount:
- Lampshaded by Quinn when Jensen expresses outrage that he has to pay for his purchases. As Quinn points out, he's not a quartermaster with a guaranteed supply of gear, and he's taking a real risk just by dealing with Jensen at all.
- This can also be averted depending on the player's actions. If the stasis pod was repaired, Quinn gives an automatic 25% discount, and if one of the CASIE options (Omega) is chosen, he gives a further 25% discount, making his shop the cheapest place to buy a Praxis Kit (2500 each) in the entire game.
- No-Sell: Subverted; attempting to use the CASIE aug on Quinn simply won't work (as he reveals to you later), as he has advanced augments of his own that counter the influence. His "persuade" discounts (either lowering the price of his goods by 25%, or opening up his "special stock" for you to buy) is only done because he's decided to humor Adam's attempt at persuasion.
- One-Man Army: The Belltower operatives onboard consider Adam to be this, regardless of whether he is using lethal or non-lethal tactics.
- Pacifist Run: It's possible, with sufficient inventiveness, to complete this mission without killing anyone or upgrading your augs.
- Prison Rape: The soldiers in Rifleman Bank have been subjecting the detainees to this. An email from Burke reveals that he's ordered a stop to it — not because it's an unconscionable abuse or destructive of military discipline, but because the resulting trauma may make its victims slightly less likely to survive the Hyron conversion.
- Sacrificial Lion: Keitner always dies to demonstrate just how far Burke will go to protect Belltower's secrets.
- Sadistic Choice: Subverted. The game tries to force the player into a situation where you can only save either Tiffany or the imprisoned women. However, there is a third (and more difficult) route that allows you to save both if you do so quickly enough.
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: Burke's rant to Adam can be interrupted by knocking him out or killing him. (Although if he's partway through a sentence when you take him down, he'll finish it even as he hits the floor.)
- Space Base: One of the data storage devices that can be plugged into the consoles at Kavanaugh's lab shows a place called "Moon Base Omega".
- Title Drop: If the CASIE aug is used in the final conversation with Quinn, he references the ongoing "invisible war" that is being played out across the world.
- Totally Radical: Played With. The mysterious voice refers to Adam as "bratan" and "chuvak", the Russian slang words for "bro" and "dude" respectively.
- Unwitting Pawn: Discussed by Adam and Quinn in the last mission cutscene.Adam: So we were both pawns. Except she's dead, and I'm not. Where does that leave me in your grand design?Quinn: We're all pawns in someone's grand design, Mr. Jensen.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Gary Savage believes that Bob Page will put an end to the human experimentation in Rifleman Bank Station when he hears about it. He doesn't know, or even suspect, that Page is the mastermind behind the whole project.
- Wall Slump: Keitner, just before she dies.
- What Measure Is a Mook?: An email can be found from the base chaplain, which reveals that many rank-and-file troopers have been coming to him with ethical concerns about what they've seen and done.
- With This Herring: Played with.
- Original (Standalone) Version: Though your mysterious contact gets your default body armor back when you start the mission, you're still far short of the Praxis Kits you need to do the job, and you'll likely have to scavenge weapons and gear until the end of the mission.
- The Director's Cut lessens the blow by making it so that your modded weapons can be acquired as soon as you find your gear — though it doesn't bring over your ammo or mines (until the end of the mission, again), making it so that you'll have to scavenge or buy some from Quinn. More notably, you're likely carrying around high-end weapons (like the Grenade Launcher or Laser Rifle) that you can't get ammo for until the end of the mission.
- Depending on your actions and whether or not you have the CASIE, you can also convince Quinn to give you up to a maximum 50% discount on his wares and open his "special stock" of goods.
- You Bastard!: In the event that you go nonlethal onboard the Hei Zhen Zhu but knock out most of the combatants, Keitner (in a moment of Unexpectedly Realistic Gameplay) will call you out on the act, asking if you enjoyed putting most of her contractors into comas.
