Chapter Text
“Pritchard, I know you have your hands busy, but could you send someone to watch over someone. Michelle Walthers. I’m sending you her address now.”
Adam had just left the apartment of the old woman. He was still shaken by what he had learned. If what she had said was true, he was the product of some sort of genetic experimentation. He wondered if this was all part of some bogger plan, a plan where he was no more than a pawn. There was an eerie possibility that someone had planned it all from the start, someone had wanted him to become the one-man army he was today. And if there were more like him, men and women who no longer needed drugs to accept augmentations, soldiers that could turn invisible, fire typhoon grenades, take five shots to the head at point blank and still stand … The possibilities were too numerous, and too grim.
“Jensen, in case you haven’t noticed, we’re on the verge of a civil war,” Frank Pritchard’s annoyed voice came though the com device embedded in Adam’s head. “If Sarif Industries is still standing by tomorrow morning-”
“Please Pritchard, she’s family.”
An annoyed sigh came though the com.
“Alright Jensen. But just this one time. We are having a bit of a situation in the main building here.”
Adam had just made his way outside of the building. The augmented man had an uneasy feeling in his chest. He wasn’t sure if it was because of what Michelle had told him, or the hostile ambiance of the streets. Between street thugs running around with Molotov cocktails in hand, fanatics preaching from their pedestals of burning barrels and dumpsters, or the cops that seemed to operate under the misconception that they were paid per protestant arrested, this district of Detroit was rolling downhill.
“Jensen, one more thing,” Frank interrupted Adam’s depressing train of thought. “You wouldn’t have happened to have caught a glimpse, or video footage, or where your boss went after he left your suite?”
Adam stopped in his tracks towards the Convention Center. That wasn’t what he had expected to hear.
“Sarif went missing?”
“It seems like it. Vanished of the grid. Last time he was caught on camera was when he walked out of your house. Which in itself is strange since he had a chopper waiting for him on the roof.”
“I can confirm,” a female voice, belonging to none other than Malik, interjected. “He told me to stand by and wait for him to finish his business with you. The strange thing is-”
“We went over this Malik, my report said your eye-implants malfunctioned. He did not get into that helicopter-”
“Wait.” Adam interrupted his colleagues before they could start their bickering. “If Sarif is indeed missing, why am I only learning about it now?”
For a few long seconds, the only thing Adam heard was the noise of protestors and cops going at each other behing the safety wall that blocked access to the Sarif HQ.
“We had our hands busy Jensen. It is painfully obvious that you’re not the one on the receiving end of those violent ‘protests’.” Pritchard finally spoke.
Somehow Adam got the feeling that those words were only an excuse. It felt more as if Frank didn’t want to get him involved, which seemed strange after this whole wild goose chase that the chief of digital security had sent him on.
“I’m going after him.” Adam finally decided. Sarif wasn’t only his boss, he was also a very secretive man who owed him a lot of answers.
“Jensen-” Pritchard began.
“Out with it Pritchard. What is it you’re not telling me?” Adam asked as he began to jog back towards his apartment building.
“Your augs might malfunction.” Malik was the one to answer. “I don’t want to play into this whole conspiracy theory, and illuminati nonsense, but I know what I saw. I saw David Sarif get into my helicopter. I heard him talk to me. But once we left Detroit-”
“She contacted me and I have been working on it since.” Pritchard finished.
Adam crawled out of an underground tunnel he had taken as a shortcut.
“Got it.” He said. “Id there any way to turn off my sensory augs remotely? I’d rather go in blind than get my senses all twisted.”
“There’s a code. I’m sending it over now. You can use it to reset your cranium augs. That means no hacking, no looking through walls, and no resistance to flare grenades.”
Adam nodded, he was about to open the file Pritchard had sent him, but the other man interrupted.
“Oh and Adam, you’ll need a computer terminal if or when you’d want to unlock your augs again. So I suggest you pick up an automated unlocking device.”
“Already have one.”
Adam had made his way to his apartment complex and was looking around for any clues as to where Sarif could have gone. He noticed that a metal fence at the end of his street was left unlocked. He had lived here for years now, and he knew that the fenced-off area used to be a park, until it was deemed unsafe by local authorities due to the high number of junkies gathering there during the night. There was no way that his fancy-ass boss would have gone there.
However, when he approached the scene, he noticed that the heavy padlock that had kept it off-limits had been crushed into tiny bits. It was clearly the work of someone with an augment. Perhaps a certain CEO with a prosthetic arm.
“Pritchard, I’m going in.”
“Good luck Jensen. Once you turn your augs off, you’ll be on your own. So try not get killed, alright?” The other man attempted a joke. But his voice was audibly nervous and he failed at sounding either funny or encouraging.
Adam proceeded to open the digital file he’d been sent. For a few seconds, his vision filled with rows of code that shifted into strings of ones and zeros. He felt a sudden pain at the back of his head, and stumbled backwards, hitting a nearby tree. When Adam opened his eyes, he saw the same rusty fence that he had seen so many times before. Behind it, leafless tress failed to hide benches covered in graffiti’s. Everything looked the same, except that now Adam could no longer see the position of enemies and civilians around him. His health and battery indicator had also vanished. He tried turning on his vision enhancements, with no success. As much as he hated to admit it, Pritchard was good at what he did.
“You better be there Sarif,” Adam said to himself as he entered the deserted park. He looked around for any clues of the man’s presence.
He noticed a crumpled up necktie, black with golden stripes, laying on the ground. This started to look a lot like a trap, but Adam wasn’t too worried. Whoever kidnapped Sarif, if the man had even gotten kidnapped, had gotten themselves in over their head. The CEO of Sarif Industries was a pain in the butt in more ways than one. And if this was another plot of the illuminati, well Adam had just under a dozen typhoon charges on him, so they better be ready.