Part 39: Hurrying Slowly
Part 39 - Hurrying Slowly
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Continuing our efforts to get Blitz off the meat hook, we next find ourselves in the dilapidated bank's main lobby. You'd think they at least had cameras or something in a place like this, but maybe they got stolen or something. Or the boss pocketed the security budget.
There's a tantalizing crate visible behind the glass in the center of the room, but we can't reach it from here as breaking the glass to grab the goodies is sadly no more an option for us than it was back in the prologue.
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Someone else has tried to though, by the looks of those windows. The giant chasm on the floor is a nice touch too, must be one of those pitfalls of investment banking you always hear about.
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Since the main doors are locked (and it's not like we broke in just so that we could immediately leave anyway) we'll instead try this one decorated with a dragon ornament that feels really out of place amid its decrepit surroundings. Between that, the marble floors and these pools with their fancy railings, it's easy to imagine this building having been quite impressive back in its heyday.
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Yeah yeah, breaking our leg here would make this take even longer, we know.
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Now then, time to continue our desk inspection tour.
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[He glances at the chronometer on his PDA.]
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Grandpa clearly forgot to take his chill pills this morning, that's the dangers of old age for you.
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If we were your daughter we'd dump you in a retirement home at the earliest opportunity and never come visit.
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Unfortunately getting this stubborn drawer open requires 4 Strength and Hasenkamp is obviously not up for it, meaning we miss out on the 100-200 nuyen credstick within. Oh well.
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Hasenkamp can whine all he wants, but you can bet your ass we're also gonna dig through the contents of this computer terminal in the corner. At this point it's really a matter of principle.
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Perhaps this Albert is the juice-providing "A" mentioned earlier in one of the notes?
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It's kind of ironic that Blitz's personal mission is one of the few where we have nobody to help us pass these damn Decking checks. The correct password is also not written down anywhere, so guessing is the only non-Decking way through this thing.
What could it be?
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Just call us Master Hacker Rosa from now on.
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Can't say it's a particularly hard thing to imagine either.
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And we do just that, heading through the room's northern door which leads to a long hallway with so many inaccessible doors that it's only one haunted wheelchair away from qualifying as a Silent Hill cameo.
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The one room we are able to access isn't very exciting either. We do pocket some Cram, but the only other thing here is a vent which would require a drone to get through. Despite Hasenkamp's obvious fondness for both venting and droning on about us taking too long, stuffing the man into the duct is regrettably not an option.
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We've now looked through everything we have access to, so we reluctantly return to the path of actual mission progress which can be found through the door north from where we initially entered the building.
The door to the right here leads to the behind-counter section of the main lobby where we saw that crate earlier, but we have no way through at the moment.
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Let's try the one on the opposite instead, at least this one has a console attached.
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We obviously don't have a key card and bypassing the 4-digit keycode requires Decking 5 (or a really good guess but I don't think this one's meant to be guessable), so we have no choice but to try the commlink.
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...Blitz did have some kind of a backup plan in the really rather foreseeable case that we'd end up locked out of the computer we needed to access, right?
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The icon here is reused from the Brotherhood security system from DMS and there presumably isn't an actual camera attached.
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[The voice calms. Goes soft. Somehow, it isn't an improvement.]
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Bergfalk, this charmer is the juice connoisseur who wrote those notes we found. This is a bit of an awkward situation what with us being here to rob the place and all, but we've talked ourselves through worse.
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[There is a long pause, then the voice warbles out again.]
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[Wariness creeps into the voice on the other side of the speaker.]
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Normally this'd be a dead end for this conversation, but we know a little something about this guy and his buddy Albert thanks to our sharply-honed garbage digging skills.
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That was definitely easier than it had any right to be.
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Shhhh, Jon, shhh. It's late you know, just go lie down while we do our thing.
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Our target is in sight, but looting always comes first.
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The server room connects to the hallway from earlier, and this particular keycard opens up the room there which we could've sent a drone in had we had one.
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No treasure here other than the satisfaction of getting to search through another desk.
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Well, these sure are familiar names.
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It's awfully tempting to tell him that we're in too much of a hurry and simply have to move on right away, but somebody has to be the adult in the room.
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[The accountant frowns, staring at the paper printouts in front of him.]
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Guess Blitz wasn't wrong, the plot does seem to be growing thicker like a chunk of pig's head cheese.
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But what it all means will have to wait until later. This ended up being a lot of sidetracking, but maybe next time we'll finally roll up our sleeves and get to work proper.
Until then.
***
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While we managed to slip under Jon Bergfalk's less than watchful eye smoothly thanks to our thorough investigating and charisma, there's a bunch of alternate dialogue here which I figured would better fit into its own section. Oh and incidentally, the correct code for the door is 8814.
First of all, you can opt to simply not say anything after using the comm.
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[After a pregnant pause, you hear the voice again.]
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Alternatively you can respond to him once and then fall silent when he asks for your identity a second time:
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[After a pregnant pause, you hear the voice again.]
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Either way, if you buzz him yet again:
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Third time's the charm, bzzzzz!
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Staying quiet now causes him to charge out, so let's instead answer the guy.
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[There is a burst of static as he coughs into the microphone.]
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And now you can mention the bottle of goods in your bag if you know about it. Or...
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And then not-albert proceeds to promptly murder his face, though at least this way it was technically in self-defense.
So whenever you think you're having the absolute worst day at work, remember the fate of poor Jon Bergfalk.