Update 2: Social Engineering for Fun and Profit
Now that we know where Matthius lives, it’s time for us to take a walk down to Hibiscus Highrise and find him.
First, though, we should stop and give Gerard his ID card back. Unlike a lot of adventure game protagonists, Azriel isn’t necessarily a selfish asshole - though if you try and walk past this screen without giving the shopkeeper his card back, he’ll ask you for it before you leave (the scene is otherwise the same as if you just give it to him.) Strangely, however, the dialogue remains the same regardless of whether you look at the map on the terminal or not.
: “Glad to be of help.”
: “Do you know what street this is?”
: “Brookview Avenue.”
: “Alright, thanks.”
: “If you’re gonna be walking the streets, you’d better watch yourself.”
: “The Boryokudan doesn’t take too kindly to cops, especially ones from outside the system, if you know what I mean.”
: “Understood.”
There are a couple of screens between the shop and Matthius’s apartment.
We can’t do anything on either of these screens right now. The second screen, with building 4388, is actually the headquarters for the Boryokudan. The guy on the left will complain at Azriel for not lighting his cigarette as we walk by.
One screen to the right of the Boryokudan HQ is number 4390 - the apartment building we’re looking for. Remember last update when I said the game rewards attention to detail? We’re about to witness the first instance of that happening in just a minute.
This is the first puzzle of the game. We know that Matthius lives here, but we don’t know his room number, so we’ll need to get it out of the receptionist. There are two ways to do it - one if you paid attention to Matthius’s profile on the terminal, and a second if you didn’t. I’ll do the second way first.
Here, we get four options. For reference, I selected the top one, though the first three options all lead to having to do the longer “puzzle” to get the room number.
…wow, what an asshole! We’re clearly not going to get anything out of the receptionist. Maybe Kane has some ideas.
Selecting Kane’s number will cause Azriel to walk off into the corner, which is actually kind of a nice touch.
: “Kane here.”
: “I located the building Matthius is in but I can’t get the room number out of the receptionist.”
: “You could always use the old torture method.”
I should mention here, briefly, that Kane is voiced by Abe Goldfarb, who pretty much does the same deadpan role in every game he’s in. I think it’s a curse or something.
: “I’m trying to be reasonable.”
: “Hmm… what’s the number for the apartment building?”
: “What do you have in mind?”
: “I could try calling him and see if I can get the number.”
: “I’ll see if I can find the number around here somewhere.”
Fortunately, we’re in luck. There’s a stack of business cards on the reception desk with the reception phone number on them.
Now we can call Kane back.
: “Kane here.”
: “Kane, the number for the apartment is 170-3532.”
: “…3532… Alright, give me a second.”
That’s the harder way to do that. Let’s go back to the first conversation option we had with the receptionist when we first walked in, and try the fourth option.
This is where things get tricky. Matthius’s job was listed on his terminal entry - he’s a “PH Engineer”… but the game doesn’t expect that Azriel remembered that.
This method is much faster, and it’s the one I’m going with for purposes of the “canon” save file - not that it makes a difference. You also might notice that there’s an elevator in the back: we could go that way, but there’s also a set of stairs behind that door near where Azriel was on the phone with Kane. There’s actually an achievement for taking the stairs to the fourth floor.. and there’s something else we can find there later. Let’s take the stairs.
Once we reach the fourth floor, Matthias’s room is off to the right. I think the room numbers on the doors were a little easier to read in 640x480, but I remember them still being kinda illegible even at that resolution.
Knocking on the door is right out. We can try opening it, but the door is locked. Even if we try using Azriel’s lockpicks..
The solution may not be readily obvious, but if you remember pretty much any spy movie ever, they always do that thing where they get into the room next door and then jump from window to window, right? Let’s give that a shot. Room 4C next door is locked, but it’s got a mechanical lock that Azriel can pick.
Azriel is a man who is very attached to his lockpicks. Let’s just hope that 4C and 4E have an adjacent window or this whole thing is gonna go to hell real fast.
Inside Room 4C, the first thing we’re going to want to do is shut the door. This isn’t strictly necessary (as the reason we’re closing it would require the player to be psychic) but it makes sense to do.
The glass door leads out onto the fire escape, but something is blocking it from opening. This is kind of a dumb “puzzle”, but the reason it’s blocked is that there’s a stick wedged in the door.
We can take that stick and then proceed out onto the fire escape.. which at first seems kind of annoying.
You have to use the hand icon four times here - once to climb the ladder from 4C to the balcony above..
A second time to climb over the railing onto the narrow ledge outside…
A third time to climb over the railing on the other side…
And finally a fourth to climb down the ladder to room 4E. Again, this might seem superfluous, but bear with me here. Once we get down to the glass door to 4E, Azriel quickly finds out that it’s locked. For some reason (likely so he doesn’t damage it), Azriel refuses to use the butt of his gun to smash the glass. Instead, we have to use the stick, only…
Liberal use of the foot icon will cause Azriel to kick the stick through the glass and create a hole that he can use to unlock the door from the inside.
Uh-oh.. as soon we enter Matthius’s apartment, the ominous Autosaving icon appears. The game autosaves before any point at which Azriel can die - which means we’re in a heap of trouble.
Oh look, it’s the local Boryokudan goons come to pay Matthius a visit. While you would think that the logical thing to do would be for Azriel to go all Counterstrike and start firing his gun at the door, we need to escape apartment 4E as quickly as possible. This means another trip through the fire escape - only this time, we’re timed on it.
Azriel is safe as soon as he hits the ledge. If you wait here, you’ll eventually hear the Boryokudan goons come in, see the hole in the glass and assume that Matthius left that way. If you’re really fast (or know that this is coming), you can actually catch them on their way out by circling back into 4C and opening the door.
We could go right back into Matthius’s apartment - the Boryokudan guys kicked the door down while we were busy running away - but there’s a kind of dickish easter egg (and related achievement) that we can find right now. By right now, I literally mean right now: going back into Matthias’s apartment is a point of no return in terms of finding it. The easter egg is located all the way back where we started the game.
Walking past the Boryokudan HQ, we can see that the goons aren’t out front anymore. It’s kind of a nice touch in terms of attention to detail.
Way back at the bus station is.. wait.. is that..
I didn’t get this achievement the first time I played through the game (because I believe missing this specific easter egg locks out the other three). Yes, that is Spike Spiegel, protagonist of Cowboy Bebop. All of the major characters from that show are hidden in Gemini Rue, and are all tied to being at a very specific point event flag-wise and going to a location you have otherwise no reason to visit.
With that over (I actually did this again after the following events for the “canon” save file), we can go back to Matthias’s apartment. Kane will call us as soon as the Boryokudan goons leave.
: “Kane. Looks like the Boryokudan knew about our extraction. They just cleared out Matthius’s apartment.”
: “Check the communication codes for my current location. Got anything?”
: “Got something. Yep… it looks like the Boryokudan, but I’m not sure.”
: “What’s going on here?”
: “I don’t know, but it looks like Matthius left here a long time ago.”
: “I’ll try to contact him and see if they’re still in the city.”
: “So are we still doing this extraction or not?”
: “I’ll get back to you.”
: “Matthius has to have some kind of contact information in there somewhere..”
: “I’ve got to call him and find out where he is.”
The answer to this is actually really simple. Matthius has a terminal just past the door to his room.
Unlike the public terminal, this one has Matthius’s phone number on it. Once you’ve entered Matthius’s room for the second time, Azriel will refuse to leave until he has called Matthius - hence why we had to see Spike before coming back in here.
: “Matthius?”
: “Hello? …Who is this?”
: “It’s Azriel. What happened to our meeting?”
: “Azriel? How’d you get this number?”
: “What happened? You didn’t show.”
: “Azriel, I don’t have time. If I don’t get out of the city-”
: “Where are you?”
: “I’m–”
: “…Do you remember where we were stationed during the war?”
: “What?”
: “The Winchester building, do you remember it?”
: “It’s been ten years. No, I don’t remember it.”
: “Meet me behind it in ten minutes.”
: “What about my brother? Where is he?”
: “Matthius?”
: “The Winchester building. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
: “Matthius…”
: “…Kane?”
: “Still here.”
: “I need directions to the Winchester building.”
: “What’s going on?”
: “I’ve got thirty minutes. I’ll see you then. Azriel out.”
Okay, time to go chase down Matthius, and..
The screen fades to white.
Next time, we’ll meet back up with Delta Six and see what he’s up to.