CHAPTER 01 . TRIAL RUN
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Syndicate Warehouse
We next see her outside an unnamed warehouse. Her superior, Commander Griffin, and one Dr. Kerr, argue about whether Konoko is ready for the challenge. Griffin commands her to find Chung, a TCTF agent who infiltrated the warehouse to find ties to the Syndicate. If she can find Chung or the evidence she needs, Griffin can shut the warehouse down or she can shut it down herself. She confirms her readiness, and Shinatama reports a normal spike in adrenaline.
Konoko ventures into the warehouse and finds the TCTF's mole, Chung, lying dead out in the open. Beside him is a pad with notes documenting a tie between the small-time warehouse and Musashi Manufacturing. Meanwhile, Syndicate troops are moving some contraband into an armored truck to get it out of the warehouse. Konoko stops them by commandeering a crane/forklift and flipping the truck on its side. She then demands that Griffin let her investigate the lead Chung's pad gave her, since Musashi is owned by BGI, and Griffin has reported in the past that BGI may be in league with the Syndicate. Shinatama warns that Konoko is de-stabilizing as they argue, so Griffin lets her go.
Added Value
- This is the only chapter in the game where you can fail other than by getting yourself killed (i.e. by letting the timer reach zero). At that moment, the success of the mission depends not only on your survival: if the evidence leaves the warehouse, there's "no future". That's not too logical, since Chung's datapad allows for the hunt to move on to Musashi Manufacturing, whether the truck is intercepted or not. Perhaps Konoko's failure gets her in trouble with Griffin, thus why she doesn't get any more missions. :-)
- Although we've just met Dr. Kerr in the opening cutscene, he's clearly being set up to be a sympathetic character, as he argues with Griffin out of concern for Konoko's safety.
- Although Griffin merely has suspicions about the warehouse being involved with the bad guys, clearly it has already been overrun by the Syndicate by the time Konoko arrives, as Chung is lying right out in the open, and troops are running all over the place. The terse conversation between Konoko and Griffin when Chung's body is reported gives us a glimpse of how cold Griffin can be. Griffin is not just some desk jockey who politicked his way to his current position, he's a former Elite soldier, and as such, has probably been hardened to steel by his life experiences.
- Most interestingly, the pad Chung "dropped" is right there for anyone to see, and it implicates the warehouse in its dealings with Musashi. Wouldn't whoever killed him have cleaned that up at the very least, lest they get their warehouse shut down? Well, we later find out that the lead on Musashi is nothing more than a decoy, so we could assume that the Syndicate probably just worked that pad up themselves (and with the warehouse being overrun by the Syndicate, that "scene" was probably forced to stay as it is, despite what anyone working in league with the Syndicate at the warehouse might have wanted).
But wait a minute: Musashi really is in with the bad guys; they're not innocent by any means. Of course, that means that they make the best kind of decoy; if they were totally clean they wouldn't throw the TCTF off for very long. So did Muro throw them to the wolves just to buy himself a little time? Short answer is yes. Either they did something to displease him or he simply had no need for their services anymore.
Nevertheless, the personal style in which it is written (asking whoever from the TCTF finds it to save the warehouse manager, etc.) sounds like something Chung might actually have written. So rather than it being manufactured data, we could theorize that Chung's easily-discovered body and notes were planted. Someone (maybe Muro) found him out, had him killed, and then read his report and specifically decided to let the TCTF find it so the Syndicate could move on Vago while the TCTF moved on Musashi. "Smart" indeed.