Your mission is to reactivate a bank of four fans in a hardware simulation of the cooling system, which should just mean pressing a button. But, as in Cannabis, even if the mission is simple, leaving the sector will not be. The Firm has evidence that the McGyver virus trying to trap you here is a deputy of a more powerful virus, the Joker.
This is a fun little level with a nice mix of open-room, corridor, and close-quarters fighting and a multipart puzzle to escape.
Transfer tower[edit]
You begin in a triangular transfer tower facing a spiked virus to the northeast and surrounded by a number of items. The heavy-item-transfer relay behind you, an "interim teleport", is ready for a transfer, but you don't have anything suitable to put in it yet, so the button does nothing. Leave the items for later, destroy the super-inattentive virus, and ride the lift down to the fan room.
Fan room[edit]
The fan room has a bank of four fans facing a Matma-flooded portico out into space. About halfway through your ride down the lift, you'll surprise a high-altitude spiked virus on hard, but if you're ready for it, you won't even have to pitch your weapon. Ignore the fan power button at the bottom for now (you'll be back later and don't need the airflow messing with your driving), strafe right to catch one or two more spiked viruses off guard, and eliminate the barnacle in the middle of the room. Then, if not playing on easy, use your ledge-peering skills to locate and shoot down a similar team in the Matma trench comprising a spiked virus on medium or one barnacle and two spiked viruses on hard.
When the room is safe, skip recharging unless you're really low on energy, and head northwest toward the motion-sensitive portcullis that guards the stairs.
Stairs and corridor[edit]
The stone stairs lead up from a semicircular room with teal floors and tapestries to an "L"-shaped corridor with animated guidelights. As you open the portcullis on the south side, zero, one, or two spiked viruses will be waiting, and usually their plan is to jump to your sides and flank you from outside your field of view. Knock out whichever is closer, spin to fell the second, and then turn back to face the door since, on hard, a third spiked virus from farther back has probably also noticed you by now. Destroy the obvious barnacle left of center if not playing on easy.
Now there's a trap here, and while it's easy to circumvent, it's actually to your advantage to trip it. Check your HUD map to see how the room is supported by mirrored pairs of square columns and how the walls that join with the nearest pair are false. Then line yourself up with the room's centerline, spin to face west (from which the danger could be greater), and strafe north. By passing through the middle of the floor at the foot of the stairs, you'll trigger those false walls to open, unleashing one, three, or four spiked viruses from in front of you and one, two, or three from the behind. Gun your way into the west side passage (if you're lucky, the virus in the back might still be sleeping), and when that's clear, use turbo to spin around so that everything is coming at your from the same direction. After the fight is over, you'll have lots of options to refresh and recharge, including a double-eraser with 200 energy.
Climb the stairs to the corridor, which has a spiked virus, a barnacle with +25% health, and, on hard, another spiked virus floating among its items. Take the 90° turn with a strafe so that you don't get barnacled by surprise. At the end of the corridor, you'll reach the nexus.
Nexus[edit]
The nexus is the main hub of the level, with six exits in all directions plus some high arched windows to the northeast. As you approach to enter, be prepared for possibly one, two, or three spiked viruses to peek out from the door's sides or from above it. Also take out the barnacle that you can see by the eastern lift on hard and keep an eye out to your left on medium and hard since a barnacle from the pool will probably join the fray. Last, if you can shoot down any of the two, three, or four spiked viruses through the windows, now's the time to do that.
When the nexus is clear, turn your attention to the red-and-white door in the west wall to your left, the door to the pool.
Pool[edit]
Very much designed like a wading pool, this room provides the only green liquid in the level, so barnacles guard it zealously. The nearest have a height advantage, so draw the one or two at the front into the nexus for an easier fight. The others are waiting down by the pool: one to the southwest on hard, one to the north at all difficulties, and a duo or trio in the middle on medium and hard, respectively. Defeat them in that order, which goes from most dangerous to least, taking advantage of the fact that every time you hit them, they rise in the air and into your sights, so now the high ground favors you. Circle the room's outer ledge counterclockwise to confirm that you got everyone, and then hop in the pool so that you can safely climb back out via the stairs.
Take this opportunity to backtrack for items and refill to full energy. Then drive across the nexus to the east side and enter the lift holding a breakpoint. It will rise to the transfer room.
Transfer room[edit]
The transfer room is an upper-story room shaped like a rounded rectangle with a divider down the middle. It has teal floors and stone walls, and the north half overlooks the nexus to which it connects by a lift. Ostensibly you have no reason to know what this room is for until you visit the weights room, but it's faster to start the puzzle here.
Though things seem safe when you get to the top, as many as four spiked viruses have set an ambush after hearing the lift, two from either side on hard, two from just the left on medium, and a lone enemy on easy. Check your HUD map to see if you can detect any of them, then strafe turn to shut the ambush down on the left side, and whip around to catch the followup from the other direction. After that, drive north to make sure there aren't any other spiked viruses that survived your window-sniping from the nexus. There's a receiving area at the north end, but it's empty.
In the southeast corner of the northern half of the room, you should spy a silver bug that you cannot reach through the narrow opening, but if you drive behind the pillar in the southwest, the differently-colored section of wall will rise to let you through. Though the terrain feels dangerous, there are no viruses back here—not yet. Curve around to where you saw the silver bug and squash it by backing over it while facing south-southwest. One, two, or three spiked viruses will spawn in your view; eliminate them. Use the refreshes if you need them.
In the south end, pick up the heavy weight marked "5", the missing piece of the puzzle in the weights room. It's "too much luggage" for you to squeeze through the secret door with, but you can put it in the heavy-item-transfer device and press the button to send it to the relay in the tower. Make your way all the way back to the tower to press its button, depositing the weight in the north end of this room. As you return here to pick it up, press the fan button to complete your nominal mission objective and then also stock up on energy.
With the "5" weight in your inventory, ride the lift down to the nexus, turn right, and drive to the north door to the weights room.
Weights room[edit]
The weights room is a mostly rectangular space broken up by quite a few irregular walls, walls whose similar appearance can make the room layout seem more complicated than it is. In actuality, the weights room is just five branches built around a five-way intersection in the upper center of the map, by the tail of the backwards "S":
- The south branch opens up into the widest space. That space surrounds, from west to east, a puzzle in red, a west-facing repair station, and a stone pillar. Balcony #1 is off the west side, and a recharging station is off the east.
- The west branch deadends at just a sixpack.
- The north branch curls around an reverse-"S"-shaped wall to visit Balcony #2.
- The more northern of the two east branches leads to a silver bug.
- The more southern of the east branches is signposted by a blue spark gap (a good landmark to orient yourself by) and splits into a left path to Balconies #3 and #5 and a right path to Balcony #4.
You'll be driving into the open southern area first. The door from the nexus requires you to get terribly close before it will open; that's so that one spiked virus, two spiked viruses, or as many as five spiked viruses and two barnacles that will have crowded right behind it can jump you. So be ready to back up and gun down any enemies that make it out. Use the recharges left of the door to keep your ammo topped off. When no more spiked viruses are waiting for you, perforate the remaining barnacles. Your immediate reward is a breakpoint and a protector, the latter being some nice insurance against getting barnacled further in.
Before coming out of the tunnel into the open, strafe until you can see the barnacle past the right side of the red pillars, and bring it down from afar. At higher difficulties there is a second one in the same area, so wait to see if anything else comes out. Double-check your HUD map for motion even if you can't spot anything visually. Head east and back into the recharging station to reload.
You'll want to clear out the whole space before working on the puzzle, since the viruses here are inquisitive and may come to visit even if you're not in their designated area. Unfortunately, that also makes a catalog of their location less useful. Take this list as only a rough guide, understanding that your enemies might move around:
- In this southern area, besides the barnacle(s) you already took care of, there's just one spiked virus waiting inside the repair station and one behind the pillar east of it, and that's only if you're not playing on easy. Unfortunately, getting to where you can shoot them will probably also draw viruses from the main intersection.
- The five-way intersection is defended by one barnacle and two, three, or four errant spiked viruses. The best way to take them is to circle clockwise around the puzzle in red so that you're sighting northeast down the left-hand side of the repair station.
- The west branch has no viruses besides those it contributes to intersection defense.
- The north branch has perhaps three spiked viruses that will try hitting you from the left as soon as the path curls south.
- The northern east branch has a lone barnacle. You can squash the silver bug while you're there—it's not trapped or anything.
- The southern east branch leads to as many as two spiked viruses and a barnacle on each side, though the right branch is short a couple of spiked viruses on medium, and the barnacles are also absent on easy.
Be very cautious rounding corners anywhere that a barnacle might lurk—don't let yourself get blinded because you were careless.
When you've done a full sweep, head back to the puzzle in the southwest and view it facing south. There are five spring-loaded platforms for counterweights, which you can use to raise the steps behind. You need the highest step on the right from this perspective, so tap that platform to place your "5" weight. Go retrieve the other weights from the balconies with the same numbers, and order them similarly, from "1" on the left to "4" on the right, next to the "5" you just put down. If you misplace a weight, you can always tap the platform again to pick it up or exchange it with a different weight you are carrying.
Climb the staircase you created to collect the chip, replenish your resources at the stations only if you're quite low (otherwise don't bother), and head back to the south end of the nexus. The tunnel to the right, the one not blocked with force beams, leads to the socket.
Socket[edit]
Follow the short tunnel back, collecting any items you need, and place the chip in the empty socket. The force beams in the adjacent corridor will drop, releasing the one or two spiked viruses they held back. Return to the nexus prepared to strafe-turn to fight them and then take that passage to the outer ring's doors.
Outer ring[edit]
The outer ring is a stone corridor decorated with gray wallpaper with red stripes and sconces; it encircles the inner ring in teal, which encircles the ziggurat.
As with the weights room opposite, you must get pretty close before the doors to the ring open, and the reason is the same: while the defenses begin the level well-distributed, by this point you can expect up to 18 spiked viruses lying in wait, depending on your difficulty level and how much attention you've managed to attract. Backpedal to keep your distance as you gun them down. Fortunately, the hall is crowded, so, like you learned way back in Michelangelo, provoking lateral movement from the foremost will bottleneck the others. There are items within, but after breaching such a defense, it might not hurt to stop by some stations for a full tune-up.
Once through the doors, turn east and watch for any spiked viruses that didn't already welcome you to float in from the north. Ignore the path suggested by the recharge placement and run the ring counterclockwise. Along the south side you'll find maybe one barnacle (on medium and hard) and one spiked virus (on hard) still at their posts. When you turn north, you'll start to see windows on your left looking in to the inner ring. Search each one thoroughly and gun down anything you see; you should be able to clear that whole area of its up to four barnacles and three spiked viruses from relative safety. (But remember that barnacles pop up when shot, which can put them at the perfect altitude to fly at you through a window.) At the northeast corner, press the button to bridge the Matma surrounding the ziggurat. At the northwest corner, make sure that the west side of the outer ring is empty and then enter the inner ring.
Inner ring[edit]
The inner ring is like the outer ring, just smaller and in teal. If you've done your job shooting through windows, it should be empty by now, so proceed to the middle of the east side. The opening leads in toward the ziggurat.
Ziggurat[edit]
The ziggurat is a plus-shaped pyramid with stairs up its south face and untraversable ramps on the other sides. It is initially surrounded by Matma, but the button from the outer ring removes that danger. In its center is the level's escape shaft.
There are zero, one, or two barnacles to the south to worry about unless you've already sniped them from the outer ring's windows. If not, take them out from the gray outermost platform.
Make sure that you've collected any last items you want and then head to the ziggurat's north end and squash the golden bug. Once you're in the teal area, you won't be able to climb back out. Drive around to the south end, face north, and climb the stairs to the escape shaft.