I Walk the Line

I Walk the Line is a main job in.

Walkthrough
Placide's sentries, who meet you near the mall, direct you to enter the mall via the garage entry. There may be other usable entrances but this is unknown at the time of writing.

Approach
First, use Breach Protocol on something in the mall complex - the abandoned cars in the garage entry will do - and at least Disable Cameras. All the cameras in the Grand Imperial Mall seem to be on the same net; if you disable cameras here you will not have issues with cameras on the route described here.

The Garage
There are about six members of the Animals standing sentry in the garage entry. They are not particularly wary. It's pretty easy to stealth this by starting down the right hand side of the ramp, hopping over the low wall bordering the ramp, and then keeping as close as possible to the building until you reach the open loading door.

Once inside the garage there are again about six Animals members here. There's plenty of cover, and stealth should be possible here too. If stealth fails, it's not an impossibly hard fight. Once through the garage there is a brief section to the upper floor on which no enemies were observed.

The Atrium
Placide will warn you before you enter the atrium. You cannot save from the point where you enter the atrium until after the fight with Sasquatch, so take heed of this warning!

The atrium is a large open space on lower level, with a gallery surrounding it on the upper level. There are about six Animals members in the gallery, but again they're not particularly wary and stealth is relatively easy. However, there are twelve to eighteen of them on the lower floor, and also at least one turret; furthermore, several of those on the lower floor are armed with grenades which are one-hit kills.

It may be possible to stealth across the lower floor, but that has not been verified. It may be possible to fight across the lower floor, but it would be an extremely hard fight.

You enter the atrium in one corner of the gallery. The van (camionette) which is your objective is parked roughly in the middle of the far side, on the lower floor. Immediately in front of you as you enter are a pair of escalators down to the lower floor, and the route shown on your minimap takes you down this escalator. Do not walk the line!

Side-room escalator route
A route which has proved successful is to stealth round the gallery to the far side. Here there is a side room in which there is another escalator down which is not visible from the lower floor. There are two people in the side room on the gallery level but they are not wary and it is easy to stealth down this elevator.

This takes you to a side room on the lower level. If you exit this side room and stealth to your right in reasonably good cover you soon reach another side room which you can enter. In this room is a Connection Machine CM1 which is connected by a thick cable to the van, which is parked just outside another entrance to this room.

There are three Animals members standing immediately outside this second entrance, by the van, and they are very alert.

Sneak carefully around this room to the corner immediately behind this van. Through a glass window here, you can actually see the left hand side of the van where you need to jack in, but no way was found of breaking the glass in this window without attracting attention. It may be possible to climb over the van to the left hand side without attracting attention, but this is not verified.

Toss a grenade out through the doorway to land as near to the three sentries as possible without exposing yourself, and then retreat back into the same corner.

Wait.

It's likely that some enemies (four to six, depending on how many were killed by your grenade) will rush the entry; these can be dealt with with melee weapons. Remain in the corner and do not expose yourself to fire from the main atrium.

You can shoot out through the window by the van with a sniper rifle: for some reason incoming enemy fire through that window does not seem to be a problem. In this way you can deal with about eight other enemies. This will still leave at least one turret and at least several enemies still active on the main floor.

Staying in cover in the side room, try to locate and to shoot out the turret with your sniper rifle. If you can shoot any other opponents from this position, so much the better. Eventually, however, you will have to go out onto the floor, and you will have to clean up any remaining opponents there before you jack into the van.

Hypothetical far-corner route
This is not verified, but seems the most likely route for successful stealth.

From your entry into the gallery at the beginning of the atrium section, stealth clockwise around the gallery to the corner diagonally opposite the corner where you entered. If there is a side-room escalator there, use it; otherwise, use the main escalator in that corner nearest the wall. You are now on the atrium floor facing the side of the van to which you can jack in. It is possible that you can approach the van stealthily from this side and jack in without raising the alert.

The Van
When you jack into the computer system in the van, you will discover that the Netwatch agent is in the cinema, on the upper level. Unfortunately, he will also become aware of you. Whether or not he will alert the Animals members in the atrium, if any survive, is unkown.

The Cinema
You now proceed up to the cinema. If you have had a fight in the atrium, Placide will open a route to it. It is unknown at the time of writing what would happen if you had been successful in stealthing this far. Following Placide's route, there is one opponent at the top of the escalator you go up. You then go round a corner and face Sasquatch.

Sasquatch is not as hard a boss fight as she has been presented as. She has very fast rushes and can one-hit you, but she's not nimble and does not recover fast after a strike. Think of her as being like the Arishok in Dragon Age 2.

Once you've defeated her, you find the Netwatch agent in the projection room. He will tell you that the Voodoo Boys are double crossing you; you can choose either to side with him (and thus prevent the breach of the Black Wall) or against him, in which case the virus which Placide uploaded to you earlier will wipe out many Netwatch facilities across the continent.

Epilogue
Leaving the mall was straightforward. You again meet Placide's sentries. It's clear that they did not expect you to leave the building alive.

Journal Entry

 * I'm sick of this Placide motherfucker as much as you, but at least the fog has lifted, the goal is clear. You find a netrunner in the GIM and the Voodoo goons will set up a meet-n-greet with their queen. Pros? Maybe I'll actually get to see a legit netrunner, 'cause it's sure starting to feel like an extinct species these days. Someone who's got the guts to square off against the Voodoos has given me some hope, at least. But the cons? Damn near any minute your brain could start dripping out your ears. Afraid we won't have time to make pilgrimmages to the monuments of Pacifica's Golden Age.

Objectives

 * Meet with Placide's people
 * Enter the Grand Imperial Mall
 * Find the van in the lobby
 * Defeat Sasquatch (optional if sneaking)
 * Find and confront the Netwatch agent

Trivia

 * The title of the job comes from the Johnny Cash song, I Walk the Line.
 * The movie projected on the screen in the cinema where you confront the NetWatch agent is One-Eyed Jacks, a western from 1961.

I Walk The Line