A Desperate City

*❝ A desperate city looking for long-awaited expansion, and here it was.❞*
―Commissioner Pete
**A Desperate City** is the 38th story mission of *Shattered 2*, and the first mission of Chapter IV. It can be started by either protagonist.

## Plot

### Prepping the Parade

By the Steel Pier, there are many large parade floats lined up and down the Boardwalk, and thousands of people are there. Chris and James meet the group there, and they are honored that the city is throwing them a huge parade for defeating Father Time and saving humanity. James tells the group that the reason Father Time had a VX-308 File Eraser in his lair was because he tried to use the old one to wipe his name off the criminal databases, but it failed, and the one in his lair was an unfinished prototype.

The parade, which will be led by Commissioner Pete, will begin soon. Pete announces that he is retiring and Lieutenant Vanessa Dauson will be taking his place. James winces when he hears her name because it reminds him of Vanessa LeBlanx, his girlfriend who died in The BioLynk Incident. However, he gets over this and the parade begins. Pete walks on stages and addresses the crowd, and the millions watching on television, recapping the events which have plagued the world for the past few years (The BioLynk Incident, James's development of powers, his defeat of Erik, etc.). James gets on stage and takes it from there, explaining everything about Father Time, his origins, his plans to turn everyone in the city into evil Time Minions, and his defeat.

### A Terrible Turn of Events

Pete then announces that the parade will commence, and the crowd cheers. James and Chris get on their float, the largest of them all, and Pete gets on another ACPD float. The group (Joey, Melanie, Charles, and Lori) board another float. The parade is going well when all of a sudden, a few minutes in, a bomb planted inside Chris and James' float explodes, sending everyone into a frenzy. Chris and James obviously survive, since they have powers, but in the distance, a second bomb goes off, inside the ACPD float. Chris and James rush over there and most of the cops on the float were killed, but Pete is severely injured.

Chris rushes Pete to the Atlantic Medical Center while James finds that G Gang thugs have overtaken the area, opening fire on civilians. James takes them out and then uses his Vicinity View power to track down more groups of thugs across the area, and take them out. When the player takes them all out, Chris calls James and tells him that Pete is at the hospital. James tells Chris that they have to find who did this, but Chris says that this "hero-ing" stuff is getting tiring, and that he wishes he was a normal person again. However, James tells him that he has powers now and that he must embrace it.

## Trivia

* The entire sequence, from the beginning of the mission, through the entire speeches and parade, and until the bombing, was originally supposed to be one long cutscene. However, interactive elements were added in to break up the length, as it is over seven minutes long.
* Commissioner Pete reveals in this mission that Atlantic City saw a population increase after people fled Interface City for Atlantic City, following The BioLynk Incident. Atlantic City's population increased to 430,000.
	+ Assuming that the population prior to 2015, the year of The BioLynk Incident, was its real-life population of 39,558, this would mean that in the span of three years, over 390,442 people moved to the city, a 987% increase.
* In this mission, Chris starts to show the first signs of him not wanting powers anymore, which leads to the events to come later in the Chapter.