Okay guys. New Deus Ex fanfic, not sure how long it'll be going for but I got this idea and just couldn't let it go. This is set between Human Revolution and Mankind Divided, and assumes an un doctored truth ending combined with a rigged self-destruct. Basically I've decided that no matter which button Adam pressed the whole thing was gonna go down. You should be able to read this on its own, but reading my other fics will help-especially the Rescue of Icarus. There are small things like bonus augments and things that I established there that I mention here. This fic also assumes that David, Pritchard, Malik, and Adam are all alive and relatively well at the end of Human Revolution.

Ransom for Justice

The Sentinel RX Health System is a combination implant that uses electro-cardio action, adrenal stimuli, and protein therapy to fight infection and injury through a limited 'regenerative' capacity. While it is no replacement for proper medical care, it can keep a user alive in the most critical of circumstances.

A decentralized augmentation made up of several smaller units; the primary components are a series of hair-fine sensor probes connected to all the vital organs, providing real-time biomedical data to a central health monitor unit.

This unit tracks the medical condition of the user and triggers secondary modules when it registers the incidence of critical damage through internal or external trauma; these modules are implanted in heart tissue, the lymphatic system and adrenal glands, and utilize micro-electric charges and phased-released chemicals to stimulate the human body's healing reaction.

The Sentinel RX Health System comes fitted as standard with an Implanted Cardioverter Defibrillator capable of restarting a human heart up to eighty times without requiring a recharge.

-Deus Ex Wiki

The lights in the low room were harsh, flooding the subject and throwing everything else into deep shadow. Two figures stood in the room, one operating a camera, the other holding the wrapped end of a shard of metal. The prongs at its end sparked aggressively, reflecting like an electronic specter in the black glass of the welder's mask he wore.

The camera was trained on a figure lying strapped to an inclined table, and the cameraman was panning in close on the victim's bloodied face. The man was conscious, but only just, his one visible eye spitting as much venom as possible at his captors. He refused to look into the camera. Blood flowed slowly from the seam under his optical augment, the fragments of his broken lens jutting out like teeth. His other eye was obscured completely by the cracked surface of yellow-glossed glass.

"This is what happens, when you strip away inhibitions," the man with the taser said, his voice sharp, his Chinese reverberating in the small room and causing his victim to flinch. "I hope your revenge was worth it. Worth your peace. Worth this man's life," he said, pointing. "Because his blood, his needless death, is on your hands, Faridah Malik."

He turned jabbing the taser sharply into Adam's side, amping up the voltage as the cyborg arched against his bonds, the metal scraping against his augments making a horrible sound. He clenched his teeth and refused to scream. Every fiber in his body pulled taught, electricity arching between the ports in his chest, running down his arms. It laced his fingers like living creatures, causing his augments to spasm. The torturer looked into the camera and flipped a switch on the taser, driving it harshly into Adam's sternum. His force was so sudden Adam couldn't arch against it and in seconds the tension left his body as the line ran flat on the vital monitor behind his head.

The cameraman panned in closer, fixing his film on the blank stare of Adam's open eye where the lenses were shifting spasmodically, thrown into a dead chaos by the residual electricity.

Two Days Earlier

"I've re-encoded your passport so we should be good to go. Just double check with Malik while I crosscheck these files," David said, turning in his chair and tapping away at his keyboard.

Adam glanced down at the modified passport, turning it in the light and watching the metallic LAI flash. LAI. As in "Legally Augmented Individual." He almost snorted, the glint of his newly machined skin competing with the garish stamp. He doubted that even half of his experimental implants were actually or would ever be legal. His prosthetics had taken more than a few hits on Panchaea, and David had insisted on company dollar to get Adam almost completely worked over. He wasn't sure how he felt about the high-gloss look, but there were new laws emerging that made things like matte skin for augmentations borderline illegal. Apparently the matte qualities of some augmentations were being seen as "weapon concealment" by some individuals.

For Adam, his augments were classified on the straining edge of the law, and that was only after a lot of documentation modification and encoding by Pritchard. Adam was under strict orders from Sarif not to use the Typhoon or cloak unless he absolutely had to and was sure he wouldn't be seen. The cloak in conjunction with Adam's weaponry had become illegal in twelve countries, and the Typhoon had been flat out banned by the few who knew about it in higher government. Adam couldn't even have the Typhoon removed at that point—no-one qualified to would touch him. David had helped Pritchard forge documentation and even footage that made it look like Adam's illegal augments had been shut down, but everything was still very, very intact. To help him compensate in the field, David had invented, drawn up, machined, and then installed several new "borderline" augments. Only Adam, Pritchard, and David knew he had them.

"Think of it this way," David had said, bending over Adam's deactivated hand. He had the plating on the back splayed open like living skin and he was wiring stun circuitry into the knuckles. "There's a lot of grey area in the law concerning weaponized augmentation right now. We need to outfit you with everything possible before the grey area becomes black and white. Once you have it the laws ordering you to get rid of it are going to be much harder to make and enforce. Especially when they're classified non-lethal. As long as you stay at this company I'll be able to offer you an extra layer of legal protection."

Adam had only nodded, watching as his boss poked around between mechanical tendons, soldering tiny lines of wire and code together. He hadn't taken David's comment about working for him as a threat because he knew it wasn't one. They'd made peace with each other after Panchaea, and though Adam hadn't done what David wanted and spun the news, David still seemed fond of him. He was saying what he did as a genuine offer, the concern for Adam showing between his brows as he concentrated on his work. David was facing immense heat for being the head of an implant company, but Adam faced the more brutal, physical side of it every time he left the building.

Sometimes it was easy to forget how much David knew about the augmentations Adam lived with. He'd designed half of them himself, and as David had once pointed out it was impossible to upgrade a system until you understood the system perfectly. David had several degrees in medicine to top off his engineering and business degrees, which meant that he was more qualified than most LIMB clinic doctors to work on Adam's prosthetics and even what was left of Adam himself.

Along with the knuckle tasers and a new set of charges in his lower spine to aid his Icarus augment, David had fixed the bugs with his Siren Lock. "Just in case. Heaven forbid you ever need it again, but just in case," he'd said, gently inserting a calibration needle into the Siren Lock's main processor, located just below Adam's voice box. He grit his teeth and closed his fist, just wanting the procedure over with.

He strode down the halls of Sarif industries, his new coat unfamiliar and snug on his shoulders. His old one had burned when the VTOL had gone down in Hengsha, and though Adam hadn't cared at all about the coat over his relief that Malik was alive, Malik had felt so badly about it she'd bought him a new one. It had been custom made for him, hooks in the sleeves sensing the movements of his augments and adjusting to give him easy access to several of their features.

He rolled his shoulders and tried not to dwell on the fact that he had an empty building to worry about. Most of the scientists were still there, as they didn't have anywhere else and David had promised to hold onto the company no matter what. Sarif was the most stable job for augmentation scientists in the world at the moment. Private security however, was in high demand all over. People afraid of augmented citizens, augmented citizens afraid of people—everyone had suddenly scraped together extra cash for private bodyguards and extra security locks. Pritchard had upgraded Adam's hacking software in response, but that didn't stop half of his security force from bailing on Sarif for more promising prospects.

He sighed. At least he knew the remaining guys were loyal. The problem was he still had over two-hundred elite scientists and David to protect, not to mention clerical staff, maintenance, engineering, and basic manufacturing personnel. He was good but he was still only one man. He needed more guys, and those who were applying defined shady.

He retracted his glasses, rubbing at his eyes as he waited for the elevator to ding. It was almost good that they had a meeting with Tai Young in upper Hengsha. It gave him something else to focus on, something simpler than worrying over application emails. It was supposed to be low-profile, a courtesy visit from one CEO to another to show good will in the augmentation world. David was going to scope out his new competition since a young woman named Lin Xu had taken over after the previous CEO had declared ties with the Illuminati and gone down with Panchaea. There wasn't much left of Tai Young, but David wanted to keep an eye on them anyway.

He went through the doors and past the empty cafeteria, heading for the helipad where Malik was underneath her VTOL. He crouched, balancing his forearms on his knees and cocking his head so he could look at her better.

"Boss wanted me to check in. Everything ready?"

Malik wiped her forehead with the back of her sleeve and slammed a maintenance hatch shut, wriggling out from under the aircraft and sitting up. She looked tired, and Adam couldn't blame her. Ever since the boss had announced a return to Hengsha he'd been on edge to the point of nightmares. He imagined Malik had it even worse. After all, he wasn't the one who'd nearly died. Not that time at least.

"I can hire another pilot," David had insisted, standing with Malik in her office, Jensen close at his side. "Just temporarily of course, you'll be my first choice always."

"No way." Malik shook her head, her arms crossed resolutely. Adam could see the fear in her tension, but he knew this was not up to him. "I'm the best you've got and you know it. They didn't get me last time, and they won't get me this time. I'm not bailing on this company, David. I'm here as long as you want me."

Jensen read "as long as you want me" as "as long as the company is here", but David had only graced her with a rare soft smile and had hugged her. His boss wasn't always so affectionate, but David did try to run Sarif like a family and lately everyone was walking out. He could only guess at how important it was to the CEO that he, Malik, and Pritchard were still there. Aside from his sister, Adam didn't think David had a family anymore.

"Yeah." She tucked a rag into her pocket and reached a hand up. Adam grasped it and helped her to her feet. "We should be good to go. I have that EMP shield all wired up, just in case." She stood to the side, gesturing to the VTOL. "You mind testing it for me?"

"My new hardware isn't as powerful as what brought us down last time, Malik," Adam said softly. "It couldn't be or I'd risk frying my own systems. My electric shielding is good, but it only goes so far."

She shrugged. "Give it your best shot. Make me feel better. I know what you have can take down a box droid, so that at least has to give this shield a run for its money."

Adam shrugged, adjusting his stance and raising both fists, the charges popping up from each knuckle, crackling eagerly. He mentally commanded the charge to be lethal and fired it off. Two balls of blue lightning spiraled together and hit the VTOL near one of the command boards. The lights on the plane flickered briefly, but the electricity dispersed and everything remained brightly lit. Malik nodded, her smile not quite as sure as Adam wanted it to be.

"See?" she knocked his shoulder lightly with hers. "Just fine. Tell the boss if he keeps worrying like this he's going to have to invent an augment that stitches up ulcers."

"He probably already has one," Adam said, adjusting his supply pack and mentally going through what he had and what was hidden. When they declared at Tai Young it would be important for him to remember to mention his tranq gun and flash grenades, but not his two-pack of Typhoon ammo. His heart was beating too fast and he swallowed, turning as he heard his boss approach. He had a bad feeling about all of this—a feeling he hadn't experienced since the alarms had gone off a good year and a half prior when Namir and his terrorists had changed everything. It was difficult to imagine a trip back to Hengsha that wasn't destined to go south. So very much had tanked before, and there were people worse than Belltower on those streets this time. He was grateful they'd be spending minimal time in lower Hengsha. At least in the upper city they tried to keep the hostility under the rug.

"Ready to go?" David said, his voice chipper like they were headed for vacation. Adam tried to ignore the lines of the bullet-proof vest under David's shirt and only nodded.

"Malik says we're good to go."

"Fantastic. Let's fire her up."

The ride to Hengsha was supposed to be a chance for Adam and David to get some sleep. Neither one did. They spent the ride in silence, Adam playing and re-playing the plans in his head over a billion times.

Tai Young was supposed to meet them at the helipad with their own security escort. Malik was supposed to take half of said escort to get fuel for the VTOL and then lock herself back inside it, trusting the patrol to stand guard as long as the meeting lasted. Adam and David would be taken to Tai Young's main building where they'd be escorted into upper Hengsha to the penthouse that Adam seriously hoped the new CEO had re-decorated. If he never saw those red sculptures and haughty doors it'd be too soon. He re-played the layout of the penthouse in his head, using his eidetic memory and ignoring the prompt on his HUD offering an actual visual. It wasn't that he didn't trust the schematics that Pritchard had uploaded, it was just that he wanted to keep his memory eidetic and he was pretty sure there were a few escape routes he'd discovered that Pritchard hadn't. After all, Pritchard hadn't known about the bloody panic room last time and look where that had gotten him.

He sat back, chewing on the bland piece of a Cyberboost bar, flicking up his diagnostics screen like a nervous green thumb on his first mission, checking and re-checking that his batteries were holding charge properly and that his new augments were humming and ready in the background.

"Approaching location gentlemen, buckle up," Malik said cheerfully, though Adam could hear the wariness in her tone. It was subtle, barely there, but he knew her too well. He leaned back and blinked away his diagnostic hub, clicking his glasses closed and resting his hands in his lap where he could feel one of the flash grenades in his pocket. He glanced across at David, but the CEO wasn't paying attention. He was leaning towards the window, staring out at the layered city with a critical eye, like he was sizing it up.

The first part of things went as planned. Tai Young was on time. Malik took three guards towards the maintenance station to retrieve things for the VTOL, and Adam reluctantly left her with them, following David off the helipad. David was in full charismatic mode, chatting and even joking with the escort in fluent Chinese. Adam didn't try to hide his suspicion. He merely walked a pace behind David, glasses drawn, body tensed up for anything.

The penthouse hadn't been changed, and Adam glared around at the scenery from behind his shades. That was the last thing he needed. Flashbacks to that Illuminati snake all over him. He was still pissed that he hadn't seen the panic room coming. What exactly was his CASIE mod good for anyway?

The conversation between David and Lin Xu went smoothly, and the two corporate giants bowed and shook hands before parting. Adam could tell from the bounce in his boss' step that compared to Tai Young, Sarif was in its golden age. He almost felt sorry for the doomed woman.

The escort back was when it all went apart. One second they were fine, heading down one of the back-alleys unfortunately needed to get to their checkpoint, the next every single Tai Young officer just dropped. Adam froze, sleeves retracting as he moved to stand in front of David, trying to suss out what had just happened. The heavy smell and low-pitched tone of a massive EMP field hit Adam's senses and he felt the augmented shielding in his body push back against it. Out of the entire escort he and David were the only ones protected.

He felt David's hand on his shoulder but before the CEO could say anything five heavily augmented men appeared out of the air, their cloaks pixelating away with an electronic buzzing. Adam immediately drew his flash grenade, but one of the men got close to him and knocked it out of his hand. Adam grit his teeth and fought back, blocking the attack and ducking down before swinging a powerful kick into the man's ribs. He went down hard and a notification on Adam's HUD informed him that the man was out cold.

Adam spun, watching as David ducked to give his security chief more room to move. He wasn't idle though, he'd thrown a lightning punch into the knee of the nearest attacker with his augmented arm and a satisfying crunch accompanied the fall. Just when Adam though he'd made progress, more men melted out of the shadows, and it was with a start that Adam realized they were focused on him, not David. They were trying to use lethal force towards David, but non-lethal towards him. Their goal was not the head of Sarif at all.

"Get down," Adam commanded, straightening up and throwing his arms out, directing the force in his Icarus' core out through his limbs. In a blast of golden light the energy discharged, throwing several men against the wall, but not before a heavy tranq dart buried itself into Adam's exposed neck. He felt the heat of the suppressant burn through his throat and up into his head, and he knew they'd hit his carotid. There was no way his Sentinel system could clear it out and keep him awake, not with his pounding heart and raging adrenaline to spike it all through his limited body. He knew with a drop of ice in his gut that they were going to be captured.

Turning to David, Adam braced his hand against the CEO's shoulder. "Sorry, boss," he said, throwing a measured punch into David's face. He bent over the fallen body, his implants scanning frantically for damage. David was alive, knocked out, and had a broken nose and fractured eye-socket. Everything else seemed intact. Adam scrambled to David's side, ripping up Sarif's sleeve and unsheathing one of his arm blades, raising it with careful precision over David's silver arm. With a quick, downward plunge he severed the glittering metal in one blow, throwing the arm off towards a pile of trash where it sunk into the refuse. His vision was swimming by the time he finished, the tranquilizer winning out against his adrenaline. His heart had turned to heavy, uneven thuds in his breast, and he lost the strength and will to hold himself upright. He slumped across David's body, the unpleasant shocks of his Sentinel system arching through his ribs in an effort to keep his heart steady.

Whatever they'd tranqued him with, it certainly wasn't legal and they'd probably assumed he had more flesh than he actually did to distribute it. The last thing he heard before blacking out completely was the muttered discussion from a few of their attackers about what to do with David.