Deus Ex: Enigma

TWO

The two men must have hired some backup personnel, he figured; the facility was scattered with snipers and thugs itching to get into a firefight. But that wasn't the plan.

"Pritchard, you there?" he mouthed, subvocalizing every sentence so only the man on the other end of his infolink connection could hear him.

"What do you think?" snarled the hacker. "I've got a digital blueprint of the FEMA facility's layout in front of me. It's the same as before, but they've improved their security protocols."

"That's odd," Jensen replied. "Most of the 'guards' seem to be MCB thugs."

"That may be true, Jensen, but understand this: Darrow and Taggart are extremely wealthy men. With the amount of money they have, there's no telling what kind of training they were able to afford for these people. For all we know, they could have the skill comparable to a SWAT officer!"

"Christ, Pritchard, don't ruin this for me. You're taking the fun out of it."

The hacker ignored Jensen's comment. "There's a point of entry on the roof. Unless you want to have a run-in with one of our little 'friends' down there, I suggest you get moving."

As he looked into the building from the roof above, he watched as a thug - probably in his early twenties - pick up a crate and carry it to the other end of the room. His cyberoptics enhancements automatically adjusted themselves, zooming in and focusing explicitly on the insignia printed on the crate. "TYM," he said to himself, silently. The thug picked out what Jensen could only assume was a cybernetic arm, and he guessed that it had been smuggled across the border from China. He grabbed a Zenith semi-automatic handgun from his coat pocket and pulled back the slide to make sure it was loaded; it was. He was also carrying electromagnetic and armor-piercing rounds, so he wouldn't have any issues with getting by turrets and cameras. Of course, he thought, getting past the artificial security wasn't a problem; the real problem was the hired security. While he would probably have little to no trouble maneuvering the entire premises undetected, there was always the slight chance that he'd make a sudden wrong move, and the whole thing would be compromised.

***

"See? What did I tell you, Mr. Darrow?" The politician spread his hands and grinned. "We have absolutely nothing to worry about."

Hugh Darrow sat down in a chair and lay his cane across his lap. "I wouldn't say we were successful just yet, William. Somebody may already know that we're alive, and there could be people searching for us. Interpol, the FBI, the Juggernaut Collective..." He trailed off. "And that damned Task Force 29. They could be right outside this complex!"

The other man pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "I assure you, we are perfectly fine. Here - let me show you." He reached into his pocket and pulled out an eBook. Although the text was backwards from Darrow's perspective (all eBooks had a translucent body), he was able to make out the title of a document, "DETROIT PD Case #7495."

William Taggart cleared his throat. "According to this police report, the alarms sounded off at around 3:47 PM on Wednesday, August 8, 2027. At approximately 4:54 PM that same day, police say you and I were both killed in the destruction of the Panchaea installation facilities. The report also says they were 'unable to locate the bodies of a Mr. William Taggart and a Mr. Hugh Darrow.'" He paused. "You see? Nothing to worry about. Everyone thinks we're dead."

Darrow was silent. Perhaps he's right, he thought. There was no evidence to support the idea that they could still be alive - that they could have survived Panchaea's destruction and escaped. But then again, there wasn't any evidence that they were dead, either.