So, as luck would have it, entering the Land of the Mole People requires me pass through a disused and no-doubt filthy public restroom in the subway station. This means I’m already in a bad mood when I enter the Mole People’s tunnel complex and am greeted by the sight of an NSF goon standing across the tracks with his back to me. For some reason, murdering him in cold blood doesn’t do anything to make me feel cleaner.

Clearing out the NSF is an interesting challenge. There are plenty of pillars, crates, and other obstructions which I can use to hide myself from sight. Unfortunately, these tunnels are where the Mole People live, so there are lots of noncombatants around, including several children. When I start shooting terrorists, they all freak out and start running around. While they generally move away from the firefight, they do tend to running into the crossfire while doing so. Luckily, I manage to avoid getting anybody killed while I clear the tunnels of bad guys.

One particularly chatty civilian seems to be in charge. I forget his name, so let’s call him King Mole. King Mole tells me about a secret room (accessed by pressing a switch cleverly disguised as a brick, no less!) where the NSF commander is hiding. I find the place and barge in ready for a fight. Instead I’m greeted by a most stirring speech:

“Don’t shoot! I surrender! I’m an accountant, not a soldier. I know the body armor looks intimidating, but I’m just a part-timer. . . like a reservist.”

In all fairness, the NSF uniform does look sort of intimidating.

 I accept the guy’s surrender, and search his office to find the key I need to continue my trip to LaGuardia. Naturally, this requires me to trek through yet another grody bathroom. If I ever meet the dude who designed this level, I have some very pointed questions to ask, although I doubt I’ll like the answers.

The next stretch of tunnel has only a few human guards, but relies heavily on electronic defenses. Most of this section is smooth sailing for me. This is where techinical skills come in handy; I might not be terribly effective in a straight-up firefight, but once I can get my hands on a security computer, it’s trivially easy to disable just about any automated security system. Typically, each security computer controls up to three different locations, and allows you to control cameras, doors, and turrets in those locations.

The one curveball I encounter in this section is a pair of commercial security droids, which are pretty scary. Military droids are even scarier, but they’re only available to government agencies or intergovernmental organizations like UNATCO, which means that whenver I see one, it’ll be on my side. Luckily, the droids are disabled by a couple of EMP grenades I’ve been saving for just such an occasion.

It’s probably worth noting that robots are more or less impervious to small arms fire; at least, I’ve never been able to destroy a robot with bullets before it killed me. The easiest ways to disable them are with EMP grenades or with explosives, neither of which particularly care about the robots’ armor. Since EMP grenades aren’t exactly common, and explosives have uses other than robot demolition, it’s often a good idea to avoid robots whenever possible.

One thing I haven’t really touched on yet is datacubes. These are essentially little messages, much like the recordings you can find in the System Shock games. Often they contain useful information (like computer passwords), plot development, or both. Some of the datacubes and emails I find during this mission are correspondence involving two NSF members called Decker and Erin. Their communications with each other, and with other NSF soldiers, contain useful information about the security setup around LaGuardia, but also make it pretty clear that there’s something going on between them. It’s all very cute, right up until the moment I realize that as one of the commanders on the scene, Decker probably doesn’t have much longer to live, assuming I haven’t killed him already.