Adam Jensen

"I never asked for this."

- Adam Jensen

Adam Jensen is the mechanically augmented protagonist of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, where he works as the Chief of Security for the biotechnology company Sarif Industries, and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, in which he joins forces with Task Force 29 aiming to hunt down and capture augmented terrorists.

Early life
Adam Jensen was born on March 9, 1993. At a very young age he was one of a group of infants subjected to experimental genetic therapy treatments by White Helix Labs, a subsidiary of VersaLife. All of the children, aside from Jensen, died as a result of the treatments. Two scientists in charge of Adam found out they had succeeded with him, but had grown too attached to let VersaLife continue experimenting on him. Also, not wanting any more children to undergo the same treatments, they burned down the facility where the experiments had taken place. They were murdered by the Illuminati and later reported as fire casualties, but their plan worked and infant Jensen was rescued by a kind-hearted facility worker named Michelle Walthers. Walthers eventually met a couple who desired a child and at age five he was unofficially adopted by loving parents, Arthur and Margie Jensen.

With his adopted parents Jensen was raised in a blue-collar neighborhood in Detroit and was a B-average student with no notable youthful indiscretion. He grew up unaware of his origins, and believing that his adopted parents were his birth parents. His relationship with his parents and adopted family appears to have been very good as, in Jensen's apartment in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, a photograph of either his parents or other older relatives is seen hanging in the living room. While Jensen does not speak often of his parents, he does mention that his mother often kept him waiting, and would not want to see him in a brothel.

While Jensen had escaped White Helix Labs, however, its legacy had altered his life forever. Unbeknownst to Walthers, Jensen, or anyone else, the White Helix gene therapy had permanently altered Jensen's biochemistry. His body would not reject PEDOT electrodes with glial tissue buildup; if anything, the bond between tissue and electrode would strengthen with time, possibly without limit. If he were to be augmented, he would not require Neuropozyne. For the thirty years that followed the White Helix experiment, Jensen would unknowingly carry the secret of universal augmentation in his DNA.

Police career
As a young man, Jensen earned a Bachelor's Degree of Criminal Justice from Phoenix University and Ferris College, according to the framed degrees in his office. At the age of 21 he joined the Detroit Police Department. He graduated in the top ten percent of his Police Academy class. In 2018 he joined the Department's SWAT unit and was accepted under the command of Quincy Durant, becoming the leader of Team Two.

In 2020, Jensen and Durant confronted Tyrell Banks, an augmented murderer, who severely injured Durant before being killed by Jensen. Durant was saved by augmentation surgery, something he did not agree with philosophically. In the following years, Jensen witnessed and grew concerned with Durant's increasing aggression and corruption growing with his new powers.

Jensen rose quickly through the ranks as part of SWAT Team Two, eventually becoming the commander, but his police career came to an end during an incident known as the Mexicantown Massacre. A young augmented boy was identified as dangerous, and Jensen was given the order to shoot to kill. He refused that order, and it was passed on to another member of Jensen's team, Wayne Haas. It appears that Durant was somehow involved in the incident, as Jensen confronted him just as the riots were calming down. He defeated Durant with an EMP grenade and a bullet in the head, and quit the force soon after. Haas was then promoted into Jensen's vacant slot, though didn't last long under the pressure of guilt concerning the shooting.

At the time that he left the police force, Jensen was in a relationship with Sarif Industries neurologist Megan Reed. During their relationship, Reed discovered his unique genetic traits, and advised her employer, David Sarif, to hire Jensen in order to ensure access to Jensen's genetic material.

Sarif Industries
Jensen joined Sarif Industries as Head of Security. However, the founder of Sarif Industries, David Sarif, being a cautious individual, decided to hire a private investigator called Brent Radford to investigate Jensen's past. Radford discovered Jensen's role in the White Helix experiment and the fate of his biological parents. Sarif chose to not tell Jensen, believing that knowledge of his origins as a human test subject would be harmful to him.

Although Sarif was impressed with Jensen's loyalty and skills, Jensen was unwittingly even more important to the company as "Patient X" in Reed's research. If Jensen's genetic quirk could be directly integrated into a new generation of biochips, then rejection would be eliminated entirely and augmentation would become as simple as plastic surgery - ushering in a new age of human enhancement and destroying VersaLife's Neuropozyne market. Megan Reed's research was completed in early 2027. On the eve of a series of high-profile augmentation hearings in Washington DC, Illuminatus Bob Page responded to Sarif Industries' announcement of a Neuropozyne alternative by ordering the Tyrants, an augmented Black Ops team, to attack the SI laboratories. Megan Reed and four other key researchers were apparently killed in the attack.

The Tyrants copied and destroyed all data pertaining to the breakthrough, but as the attackers were unaware that Jensen was the source of the announced research breakthrough, they did not realize he was as important as the five key researchers. However, Jensen sustained life-threatening injuries attempting to repel the attack, culminating in being shot in the head with a .357 Magnum at point-blank range by Jaron Namir.

Augmentation
Jensen sustained fatal injuries; however, David Sarif took advantage of Jensen's genetic condition, and a clause in his employment contract, to augment Jensen to an extent which would have been impossible for any other individual. Jensen received the most advanced augmentation that Sarif Industries could produce. The result was, at that time, probably the single most extensive cybernetic modification that had ever been performed outside the Illuminati's Tyrants. However, the extent of Jensen's injuries meant that most of the augmentations had to be left initially inactive. Jensen was sent home to recuperate, but subsequently struggled to come to terms with his body's fusion with machines - and ended up smashing his bathroom mirror the first time he saw himself in it.

Returning to work at Sarif Industries
About six months later, Jensen was taken off sick leave by David Sarif, in order to infiltrate the compromised SI manufacturing plant in Milwaukee Junction, to secure a prototype Typhoon Explosive System augmentation, and release hostages captured by a pro-human purist organization known as Purity First, led by Zeke Sanders. Making his way through the plant, Jensen located the Typhoon data- though he also discovered an augmented hacker, with the appearance of a member of Purity First, attempting to steal the data. The hacker urged Jensen to help him, but then immediately committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. Jensen secured the Typhoon data and proceeded through the plant - on Sarif's orders - and confronted Zeke Sanders, who had taken the plant manager Josie Thorpe hostage. Jensen attempted to discern who was behind the attacks on SI, but became aware that Sanders and his subordinates were simply pawns, being used by a real mastermind who had been controlling the augmented hacker.

Investigation of the attacks
Jensen returned to Sarif Industries HQ in Detroit and undertook an illegal mission to retrieve the dead hacker's Neural Hub from the Detroit Police Department morgue. Inside the morgue, Jensen discovered that the hacker's Hub had been modified with a wetdrive, and took the Hub back to his apartment to allow Frank Pritchard to examine it remotely. Pritchard found out that the modification had turned the hacker into a 'human proxy', allowing someone else to hack through him. The hacking attempt had originated in an abandoned factory complex in Highland Park. Pritchard also informed Jensen that a transmitter in Detroit's Derelict Row was maintaining a constant "backdoor" into the Sarif Industries network. Jensen went to Derelict Row and shut the transmitter down. Faridah Malik airlifted Jensen to the Highland Park warehouse, where Jensen witnessed the arrival of two members of the Tyrants, Lawrence Barrett and Yelena Fedorova, as well as another appearance of their leader, Jaron Namir. Barrett said their operation was compromised, and that they have failed to retrieve the Neural Hub, despite the fact the Police Station was on lockdown by the orders of Joseph Manderley. Following the Tyrants, Jensen discovered that the warehouse was a front, and that the lower levels housed a FEMA internment camp. Jensen stumbled upon Namir and Fedorova as they were preparing to leave, but was briefly incapacitated by Barrett before he could stop them. Namir ordered Barrett to get rid of Jensen, then departed with Fedorova. Barrett engaged Jensen in combat, and lost.

Jensen conducted a brief interrogation of the wounded Barrett, in which Barrett indicated that Sarif Industries was not being targeted by FEMA, but by someone else, and that Jensen should go to Hengsha in order to find out who. Barrett then set off the grenades strapped to his chest, intending to kill both of them. Jensen stabs him with his combat blade and barely escapes the explosion, he then made his way back to the surface and Malik took him back to Sarif Industries to report on the situation. Pritchard told Jensen about tunnels in the SI network that Sarif had apparently created before Jensen was hired, and that had been hidden even from Pritchard. Jensen crossed paths with William Taggart and Isaias Sandoval in the Sarif Industries penthouse, just as they were leaving a meeting with Sarif. Jensen and Sarif discussed Sarif's secret data-stream. Sarif indicated to Jensen - somewhat cryptically - that Megan Reed and her team were not killed because of their involvement in the Typhoon or other military augmentations, but rather because of their research that would redefine human evolution into a self-controlled process. Following the conversation, Jensen was immediately ordered to Hengsha. En-route, Jensen was at the last moment diverted to Juarez to save Sarif's niece from pro-augmentation cartel captors. Her mother was a high-ranking official of the Humanity Front. After the rescue was a success, a terrorist attack against a Humanity Front rally sent Jensen on a hunt for his former SWAT commander Quincy Durant and his pro-augmentation terrorist group. During this ordeal, Jensen befriends and becomes intimately involved with Katrina Sutherland, who sacrificed herself to save him, just as he was about to take his own life in a hopeless attempt to save her from Durant. Her death deeply affected Jensen, who continued his original mission, heading for Hengsha.

In Hengsha, Jensen was directed by Malik to the Youzhao district, the location of the Hengsha Court Gardens apartments. However, the building was under a lockdown by Belltower Associates, a privately-contracted security force operating through Hengsha. Jensen got through the lockdown and found the apartment from which the real hacker, Arie van Bruggen, had operated. Van Bruggen was not there, having gone on the run. Malik suggested that Jensen speak with Tong Si Hung, owner of The Hive nightclub, as he may have information on the hacker's whereabouts. After some negotiation, Jensen was able to speak privately with Tong, who told him that van Bruggen was hiding in the Alice Garden Pods motel.

Jensen tracks down van Bruggen at the motel, but he insists that he was simply a middleman, hired by Zhao Yun Ru to lay the groundwork for a hostile takeover of Sarif Industries by Zhao's own corporation, Tai Yong Medical. Van Bruggen also says that he stashed his evidence of this in the TYM tower in Upper Hengsha. He encodes a TYM employee card with Jensen's biometrics in order to allow Jensen to access the tower. However, Jensen's conversation with van Bruggen is cut short by the arrival of a large number of Belltower soldiers led by Narhari Kahn. The soldiers have been tasked with killing van Bruggen. The hacker pleads with Jensen to give him a weapon, and opts to attempt to escape the attack on his own. Jensen escapes from the building and takes a TYM shuttle up into the Pangu, the artificial structure between Lower and Upper Hengsha. Jensen makes his way up through the Pangu and into the Tai Yong Medical tower, where he finds van Bruggen's recording from six months earlier - which shows Zhao speaking with Namir in advance of the attack on Sarif Industries. The recording revealed that Megan Reed and her team were not killed by the Tyrants, but merely kidnapped and taken to an unknown location, and that Picus TV newsreader Eliza Cassan was involved.

Search for kidnapped SI scientists
Jensen informed David Sarif of what he had discovered and headed to Zhao's office to get answers about the kidnapping. Zhao briefly played the victim, telling him that she had no choice in her actions - but as soon as Jensen let his guard down, she locked herself in a panic room and triggered an alarm, forcing Jensen to flee to the tower's helipad. From there, Malik flew Jensen to Montreal, to confront Eliza Cassan.

Jensen found the Picus TV building to be entirely devoid of people, having been evacuated and sealed by fire alarm protocols. Pritchard confirmed that the alarms had been silenced after the lockdown. Jensen made his way to Room 404 and had a brief conversation with Eliza. Eliza said that she had been observing Jensen since an occasion six months ago on which she had been ordered to temporarily disrupt satellites over Detroit - an action that effectively jammed the G-P-L implants in the kidnapped Sarif Industries scientists, creating the appearance that the scientists were dead. Jensen attempted to take Eliza away with him, but discovered that he had been speaking to a holographic projection. A large number of Belltower soldiers began searching the building for him.

During Jensen's escape through the Picus offices, Pritchard contacted him, saying that the projection of the hologram had been accompanied by a massive power spike originating from a sub-basement connected to the main building by a funicular elevator. Jensen descended to the sub-basement, where he found an entire suite of offices dedicated to altering, censoring, and manipulating information on a global scale. In room 802-11, he discovered that Eliza Cassan herself was actually a massive, sophisticated computer intelligence, programmed to monitor communications and data streams worldwide. Eliza's purpose was to find out what people were talking about and - if necessary - reshape the message in line with the designs of a powerful faction that she was physically unable to name. Following Eliza's conversation with Jensen, the Tyrant Fedorova appeared and engaged Jensen in combat, and lost. After Fedorova's defeat, Eliza presented Jensen with a recording that showed Sandoval and Namir discussing the removal of the G-P-L implants from the Sarif Industries scientists. Jensen deduced that the scientists would have been taken to the FEMA internment camp after the kidnapping, as the facility had the operating suite that would be required for such surgery. Eliza stated that Sarif would know why the scientists were kidnapped in the first place, but warned Jensen that everybody lies. Malik - responding to a signal from Eliza - picked up Jensen from a nearby Picus helipad and flew him back to Detroit.

Following Picus TV's release of footage that showed biotechnology companies engaged in augmented supersoldier experiments, Detroit - like many other major cities around the world - was the scene of extensive anti-augmentation riots. Sarif came to Jensen's apartment at the Chiron Building, where Jensen confronted him about the reason for the kidnappings. Sarif made vague allusions to the power of the unnamed group behind it all - and Jensen (somewhat incredulously) described them as the Illuminati. Sarif said that Megan Reed had been on the verge of a historic breakthrough - one that would have made augmentations safe and available for everyone. Jensen mentioned Sandoval's involvement, and Sarif provided an invitation to Taggart's speech at the Detroit Convention Center - but urged caution and delicacy, as Taggart's motives were questionable. At the Convention Center, Jensen discovered that Sandoval was not attending the speech, and proceeded to Sandoval's apartment. There, Jensen discovered a hidden passage into the sewers, and confronted Sandoval in a secret room guarded by members of Purity First.

Following Taggart's speech, which shifted all the blame on to him, Sandoval became suicidal. Jensen nevertheless learned that Sandoval's involvement with the kidnapping had ended after he had failed to remove the kidnapped scientists' G-P-Ls - he had only been able to change the G-P-L frequencies to one so low that nobody would think to look for it. Pritchard told Jensen to return to Sarif Industries and report, and that he would look into tracking the adjusted frequencies. At Sarif's office, Jensen was met not by Sarif but by Hugh Darrow, the creator of mechanical augmentations. Darrow said that Sarif had urged him to invite delegates from the United Nations to Panchaea and persuade them that regulation of the augmentation industry was unnecessary. Following this conversation, Sarif appeared and told Jensen privately that Pritchard had tracked Vasili Sevchenko's G-P-L to Hengsha. Sarif indicated that he had called in a favor from the Defense Department in order to do this, meaning that the conspirators would expect Jensen's arrival.

On the approach to Hengsha, Malik's VTOL was diverted by flight control, and subsequently disabled by an EMP missile fired by a Belltower operative. Malik made an emergency landing in a suburban area near the Alice Garden Pods. Escaping from the ensuing Belltower ambush, Jensen took an elevator to street level, where he suddenly experienced a painful glitch in his augmentations. Everyone else with augmentation was similarly affected at the same moment. The World Health Organization announced a problem with a faulty biochip, and issued a mass recall, advising every augmented person worldwide to visit their nearest LIMB clinic for a replacement.

Jensen followed Sevchenko's G-P-L signal to the Harvester hideout in Youzhao district. Inside, he once again met Tong, who was wearing Sevchenko's scavenged cybernetic arm. Sevchenko himself was already dead; his corpse had been given to the Harvesters by Belltower a few weeks earlier. Tong had claimed that he didn't know about the other four Sarif employees - but would now tell Jensen more, if Jensen agreed to rescue Tong's son, who had been captured by Belltower. Jensen accomplished the rescue, but learned from Tong Jr. that the capture had been deliberately orchestrated. Tong Jr. wanted to leave Hengsha because he did not share his father's love of augmentations, and he felt that his family shouldn't put so much trust in the technology. Tong Jr. then departed with the aid of a personal cloaking device.

In exchange for the rescue, Tong Sr. told Jensen to look for clues at the Belltower dock, where several ships seemed to be loaded at night and dispatched to unknown destination. At the dock, Jensen was told by Tong to pick up a parcel containing a bomb, and detonate it in the shipping company's offices. The bomb turned out to have been set with an extremely short countdown, presumably with the intention that Jensen himself would die. Jensen escaped the blast by jumping out of a window, and in the resulting chaos he was able to sneak into a shipping crate and conceal himself in an empty cryo-pod, while Tong's son snuck aboard a ship for Hong Kong.

Rifleman Bank Station episode

 * For a more detailed account of Adam Jensen's story during The Missing Link, see The Missing Link.

Jensen is found hiding aboard Hei Zhen Zhu and takes out multiple Belltower troopers before he is subdued, put into an EMP chair and brutally interrogated by Pieter Burke and Netanya Keitner. Unexpectedly the chair is deactivated and he escapes the brig and is soon contacted by a mysterious hacker, advising him to get out of the ship and meet with a contact, which turns out to be Netanya Keitner, on RBS, who also assisted in Jensen's escape as it seemed her the best chance to get someone to find proof, that Belltower is associated with something illegal.

Eventually with assistance of Keitner and a Belltower engineer Garvin Quinn, Jensen accesses the seafloor laboratories from the prison wing to findout that the prisoners are turned into parts of Organic Computational Matrix computers. Jensen urges Tiffany Kavanagh her to get the incriminating evidence on Belltower and to escape with it after he orders a submersible.

As Jensen gets back to the station, his elevator is stuck halfway through and Keitner informs Burke has found out what they have been doing and climbs his way to the top. He finds Keitner fatally wounded, who got the submersible for Kavanagh before Burke locked down the station and started to fill the prisons and the laboratory with toxic gas, which will kill the prisoners and Kavanagh unless Jensen does something about it. The lockdown is eventually lifted and Jensen takes out Burke and the team guarding him. The mystery hacker then contacts Jensen to inform him, that the way is clear for him to get back to the ship, that could take him to Reed. Quinn reveals himself to be the hacker and tells it will be only a matter of time before the black station makes to the international headlines. He also gets Jensen a helicopter to take him to the ship inside a cryo-pod as the ship already managed to leave.

Back on track
Several days later, Jensen awoke and emerged from the cryo-pod in an unknown location. Upon re-establishing contact with Pritchard, Jensen discovered that he was at the Omega Ranch biotech lab facility in Singapore.

On Pritchard's instructions, Jensen disabled a nearby signal-jammer, allowing location of the G-P-Ls of the remaining scientists. Jensen spoke to each scientist inside the ranch facility and recruited them into an escape plan that entailed infecting the ranch's computers with a virus that Sevchenko created before his death, then staging three simultaneous serious incidents in the laboratories themselves. The virus prevented the scientists' G-P-L signals from being tracked while they escaped. Jensen proceeded to the secure wing of the facility to locate Megan Reed, but crossed paths with Zhao and Namir once again. He confronted Zhao about the biochip upgrades being another plot by the Illuminati - a killswitch intended to limit the abilities of augmented people so that they could easily be controlled. Zhao tried to use the killswitch to incapacitate Jensen, but Jensen was nevertheless able to defeat Namir in combat. Zhao escaped.

Jensen discovered Megan Reed, alive, in a secure suite nearby. Reed said that Darrow knew what the Illuminati were planning, and had tasked her with making modifications to the biochip before mass production began, which would prevent the chips being used as a killswitch. Immediately after this conversation, however, a broadcast from Panchaea revealed Darrow's true intention - he had altered the killswitch signal to enable him to project terrible hallucinations into the minds of augmented people. He activated the signal, driving all augmented people throughout the world to violent insanity.

Role in the Aug Incident
Reed urged Jensen to try to shut down the signal. Jensen agreed. The four scientists escaped in a VTOL while Jensen took Darrow's sub-orbital shuttle to Panchaea.

Most people at Panchaea had either been driven insane by the signal or been killed by those who had been. Jensen made his way to the control room and confronted Darrow. Darrow insisted that humanity had taken his gift of augmentation technology and twisted it, and he had altered the biochip signal as a way of showing that the technology was dangerous and that mankind needed to evolve without it. Darrow urged Jensen to allow his message to the world to expose the Illuminati and everything that had happened. After hearing Darrow's arguments, Jensen descended to the lowest levels of the facility to shut down the insanity signal.

At the very bottom of the facility, Jensen found the Hyron Core, a quantum computer that used human drones as living processors. Zhao appeared and connected herself to the Hyron system, intent on altering Darrow's signal for the Illuminati's benefit. However, the system rejected her biochip, and in an attempt to gain control, Zhao activated the core's defenses, turning them on Jensen. Jensen was forced to destroy the human drones and kill Zhao. With Zhao gone, Jensen accessed the broadcast control room.

Here, Jensen was contacted by Eliza Cassan, who gave him the option of sending Darrow's recorded confession - warning the public of the potential danger of transhuman augmentations; Edit it, according to Sarif's suggestion, and blame the Humanity Front for their collaboration in producing the biochip - denouncing the anti-augmentation movement to the public; Edit it, according to Taggart's suggestion, and blame the chaos on contaminated Neuropozyne from VersaLife, erasing any information about the Illuminati - urging the public to demand regulation on augmentation research; Or destroy Panchaea by turning off its water pressure control system, killing everyone on the base and destroying all information - leaving the public unaware of any truth. Due to Jensen's intervention, Panchaea is destroyed and he is plunged into the Arctic Ocean with only his Sentinel RX Health System to keep him alive.

After the Aug Incident
Jensen's body was recovered from the wreckage of Panchaea by an Illuminati-controlled recovery team, and secretly sent to a facility in the Baltic Sea, but the events that transpired there are unclear. During this time, a full set of cutting-edge experimental augs were installed in Jensen by Vadim Orlov, and it is further suggested this his memories were altered in some way by the Illuminati.

Deus Ex: Black Light

 * For a more detailed account of this part of Adam Jensen's story, see the main article for Deus Ex: Black Light.

One year after the Aug Incident, Jensen awakens from a coma to find himself in Facility 451 in Alaska, a processing clinic for augmented people set up by the World Health Organization. With the help of Stacks, Jensen escapes the facility. He then contacts Pritchard, who helps Jensen and Stacks return to Detroit. In Detroit, Jensen finds that the city has now become much more discriminatory towards augs due to the Aug Incident, with "naturals only" signs being posted on train carriages and at the Chiron Building, the building of Jensen's former apartment. Together with Pritchard and Stacks, Jensen visits the Sarif Industries' former headquarters, now abandoned after Sarif was bought out by Tai Yong Medical.

Jensen and Stacks investigate Sarif Industry's now-abandoned Milwaukee Junction manufacturing plant. There, they discover that the Motor City Bangers are looting military-grade augmentations from the plant. Jensen and Stacks manage to destroy the Junction to prevent further looting, although a sizable amount of military-grade augmentations have already been looted. It is later revealed that the Illuminati intend to use the augmentations for operations in Europe. In order to extract the augmentations out of Detroit, the Illuminati plan to have the arms dealer Sheppard air-lift the augmentations out of the city by a cargo jet. Meanwhile, a unit from the North American Division of Interpol's Task Force 29 is in Detroit to track down Sheppard's illegal weapons trafficking. Jensen helps TF29 stop Sheppard from air-lifting the augmentations out of the city. The TF29 commander, Christian Jarreau, is impressed with how Jensen handled himself and offers him a position in his force, but Jensen is not yet ready to commit.

In Detroit, Jensen is also approached by Juggernaut Collective members Garvin Quinn and Alex Vega, who want to recruit Jensen. The Juggernaut Collective assists Jensen in locating a train, carrying the augmentations seized from Sheppard by TF29, that is about to be attacked by an Illuminati strike force tasked with seizing the augmentations for themselves. Alex flies Jensen to the train.

Jensen battles the Illuminati strike team sent to hijack the train, including Gunther Hermann. While TF29's team is killed in the assault, Jensen is successful in fighting off the Illuminati team and causing the train to run off the track with assistance of TF29 agent Raye Vande, thereby destroying the augmentations and preventing their capture. Jarreau then arrives. Jensen, who had just witnessed the deaths of TF29 members on the train, presumably takes up on Jarreau's offer of recruiting Jensen into TF29. Jensen also decides to join the Collective, telling Quinn and Alex that he has had enough of how the Illuminati has caused the deaths of so many innocent lives, including those of Keitner and Sevchenko.

Juggernaut leader Janus has determined that TF29 has been compromised by the Illuminati and that Eastern Europe is the heart of the Illuminati's infiltration of the task force. Janus wants to deploy Jensen to TF29's Central European Division based in Prague to investigate Illuminati activity there.

First mission for TF29 and subsequent transfer to Prague
After the events of Black Light, Jensen begins work for TF29's North American Division. In Jensen's first mission for TF29, he is sent to an aug-only super-max prison known as the "Pent House" to make contact with Hector Guerrero, a deep-undercover Interpol agent who has gone dark.

Jensen does not stay with the North American Division for long. Shortly afterwards, Jensen is transferred to the Prague-based Central European Division. Jensen's arrival in Prague thus fulfills Janus' objective of deploying Jensen to Prague. However, it is later revealed in Mankind Divided that Joseph Manderley, the director of TF29 and an Illuminati member, signed Jensen into TF29's Prague-based division, indicating that the Illuminati purposely allowed him to join.

Deus Ex Universe: Children's Crusade

 * For a more detailed account of Adam Jensen's story during Deus Ex Universe: Children's Crusade, see the main article for Deus Ex Universe: Children's Crusade.

Shortly after Jensen joins TF29's Prague-based Central European Division, the team is sent to rescue kidnapped children but the team leader, Duncan MacReady, leaves Jensen at the VTOL while the rest storm the building. Hearing that the fight is getting bad, Jensen rushes in, ignoring Miller's orders to stay, and saves the team from the augmented terrorists. However, one of them gets away before Jensen can pursue while the rest of the team finds the children and start to evacuate them. Jensen runs back up to the roof to find the escaped aug, only to see him escape down an alley. Jensen starts to pursue, but Miller tells him to stand down. However, Titus King, a Picus News reporter with anti-aug sentiments, corners Jensen and Miller orders Jensen to only say "no comment" unless he wants to be kicked off the team. Agent Jana Niemi gets Jensen back inside the warehouse before they and MacReady find a suspiciously locked door and find a natural woman, Helena, and an augmented boy, Marek, handcuffed inside. Another terrorist appears and Jensen follows him to the warehouse floor, where another agent knocks him out. Helena reveals the terrorist's name is Bruno before MacReady asks why she is there. She explains she is being forced to look after the children as her own daughter, Emilia, is being held hostage in Glasshütte, an aug ghetto in Dresden. Bruno comes around and draws their attention to Marek before MacReady punches Bruno, only for the terrorist to repeat an obvious kill phrase that makes Marek turn red before the warehouse explodes, killing Marek, Bruno, and Niemi.

The team sends samples from the warehouse back to their HQ for Smiley to look over while Miller hands Helena off to Prague's police. Jensen tries to say they need to get Emilia, but Miller refuses until Chang informs them one of the samples matches a breakout from Glasshütte and Jensen confirms the pictures are of the escaped aug, sending the team to Dresden. Jensen is sent in alone into Glasshütte and finds the escaped aug, Sebastian, with a stockpile of weapons. Another aug informs Sebastian that a mole inside the local police knows Interpol is coming but Jensen attacks before they can move. However, Sebastian orders another to kill the girl, so Jensen knocks him out and chases after the messenger. With Alex Vega's help, he finds the room and kills the guards and rescues Emilia.

Sebastian escaped, so the team returns to Prague with Emilia and discuss what happened before Miller tasks Jensen with talking to the girl to try and get more information. However, the girl, seeing King's latest anti-aug broadcast, is upset and starts to become angry and Alex calls Jensen to let him know someone within TF29 knew Marek was going to blow himself up. Miller then informs Jensen he just got orders that the girl and her mother are to be taken to a safehouse. Smiley interrupts to give Jensen important information: one of the samples he ran came back as being related to Titus King. Miler then tells Jensen the car is ready, with the route already programmed into it.

Jensen retrieves mother and daughter and starts to drive them to the safehouse when someone shoots Helena in the head and an explosion goes off on the car, throwing Jensen out of the vehicle and knocking him out. A vehicle pulls up, retrieves an unconscious Emilia, and leaves. As TF29 check out the crash scene, Jensen comments that the bomb on the car was just big enough to get him out of the way but keep Emilia alive, and asks how it got on one of their vehicles, to which Miller points out it was not theirs but one from Interpol itself before sending Jensen home for rest. However, Alex tells Jensen there is a link between the Illuminati and Titus King, so he decides to check out the reporter's studio while the reporter is still outside Glasshütte's walls, broadcasting his hate-mongering alongside Pavel Mikulski, an anti-aug politician. Unknown to them, Sebastian leads a group of children soldiers through the ghetto and gives them weapons before placing a bomb. Jensen, meanwhile, finds King's servers and learns that Sebastian is Titus King's son and was augmented to save his life, but during the Aug Incident, he accidentally killed his mother.

An explosion goes off on Glasshütte's border and terrorists pour out, grab and knock out Titus King, and drag him into the ghetto. TF29 goes mobile and Miller tells Jensen to join them, so he gets a ride from Alex. En route, he learns that Emilia is among the children soldiers, shooting at the police. In Dresden, the Collective tell Jensen of Sebastian's real plan: to reveal he is King's son before blowing them both up on a live broadcast, but they have a non-violent way to end it. Jensen convinces Miller to let him go in solo, and the Collective block all of Sebastian's feeds, ending the broadcast after he reveals the family ties. Not deterred, Sebastian hugs on his father, making hints that he is about to set off the bombs when an unknown person gives a command to another agent, Vasquez, to take the shot if he has it, and he does.

Afterwards, Miller tells Jensen that Sebastian was too high of a risk to let live and keeping him in the dark was necessary, but Jensen inwardly thinks how they still do not know where the weapons and bombs came from. He is then approached by Emilia, who is angry at him for saving Titus King before she is taken away with the other aug children. Miller privately approaches Vasquez to ask who gave him the order, but the latter confusingly responds he thought it was Miller. King, meanwhile, gets back to his studio to play up on the events, using it as an excuse as to why no one should be augmented and that in wars, sons will die.

Elsewhere, Mikulski attends an Illuminati meeting, who say they supplied enough weapons to Sebastian to light the fuse and now they just need to control the timing of the explosion. They then discuss whether to announce their initiative, which they have named the Human Restoration Act.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

 * For a more detailed account of Adam Jensen's story during Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, see Deus Ex: Mankind Divided storyline.

In 2029, six months after Jensen has joined TF29, his team is given a last minute assignment in Dubai to break up an illegal arms deal between Sheppard and the Jinn. All appears to be going according to plan, until a group of gold-masked mercenaries ambush the weapons deal. Once back in Prague, Jensen speculates to Alex Vega, a Juggernaut Collective member, that his team was sent to Dubai intentionally by the Illuminati in order to officially "witness" something before the station they are in, Růžička Station, blows up from a terrorist attack.

Back at TF29, Jensen is assigned to investigate the Růžička Station bombing. However, Jensen is also conducting a parallel investigation with the Collective to uncover the true reason behind the bombing and the Dubai ambush. He learns that the Augmented Rights Coalition are being framed for a number of attacks, including the ones in Dubai and Růžička Station.

He is sent into Golem City to retrieve ARC's leader, Talos Rucker, but Rucker dies while talking to Jensen, forcing him to return home empty-handed. He learns from Smiley that the evidence he collected from Růžička Station links to a locally made wristwatch by Nomad Staněk. Jensen learns Nomad's daughter, Allison Staněk, is most likely the bomb-maker. Also taking the time while his boss is away, Jensen investigates Miller and sees the other half of the conversation he missed, implicating 2 others in Rucker's death. Following the clues, Jensen learns he needs to investigate a facility in the Swiss Alps known as G.A.R.M..

Jensen, suspecting G.A.R.M. is harboring the true terrorists responsible for the attacks, goes there only for one of the terrorist leaders, Viktor Marchenko, to attempt to kill him with a chemical substance called the Orchid, which in its current state is lethal. However, due to the way the Orchid works and Adam's unique DNA, he survives. Following this visit, it becomes apparent to him that another attack is being planned, involving the Orchid. Jensen convinces Jim Miller of this impending threat, which is set to take place at the Apex Centre, London during a conference set up by Nathaniel Brown of the Santeau Group. Prague's TF29 Division travels to London to attempt to prevent the attack, but their success is down to the actions of Jensen. He can choose to either stop Viktor Marchenko from detonating bombs in a nearby residential building, or prevent Nathaniel Brown and his delegates from being poisoned by the Orchid. Despite the outcome of this attack, Jensen and the Juggernaut Collective are now a step closer to bringing down the Illuminati. He has the names of two conspirators involved in organizing the attacks and framing ARC, Bob Page and Joseph Manderley, and he plans to bring them to justice. Adam is also interested in uncovering the identity of Janus, the anonymous leader of the Collective, but who refuses to meet other members in person.

Personality
The personality that Jensen exhibits during Deus Ex: Human Revolution is fixed in many ways, but the player has the ability to shape it in various others. The game provides continuous opportunities for the player to decide Jensen's ethical/moral stance towards social behavior and the use of violence. The player can also shape Jensen's evaluation of his own role in events that have already taken place by the time the story begins - such as the Mexicantown Massacre.

The most prominent fixed element of Jensen's personality is that he is a loner. He undertakes missions exclusively alone and rarely displays strong emotion even towards close acquaintances. He's also stoic and maybe even a bit melancholic when expressing himself, rarely showing any emotion, be it happiness, joy, sadness or anger when speaking to others. However, a few people in Jensen's life do provoke him to more emotional reactions and his inner thoughts and monologues are highly emotional, but he keeps those emotions to himself. He retains strong affection for his ex-girlfriend Megan Reed. He nearly commits suicide in an attempt to save his new friend and lover, Katrina Sutherland. Although he has a general distrust of authority - perhaps as a consequence of his experiences in law enforcement - Jensen respects and trusts his employer, David Sarif, and reacts badly when that trust is not reciprocated. He shows antipathy towards his colleague Frank Pritchard, who regards him with disdain in return - although their dislike of each other appears to be fairly superficial.

By Jensen's own admission he becomes "bore-sighted" on goals, focusing on a target to the exclusion of everything else. Jensen considers this "not one of my better qualities."

When first facing Zhao Yun Ru, Jensen hesitates and is easily distracted when Zhao pretends to be a victim. It slightly suggests something about Adam's personality, possibly that he has a soft spot for women in distress, although the reaction could have easily been manipulated by a CASIE augmentation.

Many of the fixed events in the game, and especially in the comic series, describe Jensen as a professional operative with a high regard for innocent civilians in danger.

Furthermore, Adam is both a smoker and a drinker. Adam, before he is augmented, is able to cope with a lot of things, as he takes his separation from Megan Reed in stride. Thus, we see little evidence to provoke his indulgence in vices. However, after the attack, he loses everything that matters to him: his humanity, his lover, and his dog, among other things. The result of this pushed Adam into a depression (he smashed his fist into his mirror), driving him to smoke and drink. We can draw from this that, regardless of the choices the player makes in the game to indicate otherwise, Adam Jensen is often given choices to perform actions that tend to his soul.

Human Revolution's gameplay does not usually force the player to commit to a particular personality, or at least not completely. The player has freedom to be inconsistent. It is possible for the player's actions to result in the implication that Jensen is extremely manipulative, to the point of being sociopathic. Practical consequences from the game world and story are mostly determined by what happens, rather than by an assessment of why the player did it, so Jensen's motivations are largely open to the player's interpretation.

Augmentations
 Alongside Jaron Namir, Adam Jensen is likely the most augmented character in the game, with forty to fifty percent of his body replaced with augmentation. All of his augmentations are produced by Sarif Industries, and were given to him as a result of the incident with the Tyrants. While Namir seems to have his head and spine implemented into a robotic body, Jensen's augmentations appear to be grafted into his organic torso and skin.

All of Adam Jensen's limbs have been completely replaced: his arms include a nanoceramic blade that can be released at either the wrist or elbow for close quarters combat, a function that enables him to punch through walls by opening a section of his forearm, and the ability to dislocate his fingers (which he uses when grabbing a guard's helmet and spinning him in midair, causing massive spinal trauma). Other augmentations include firing stability, lifting heavy weights, and firing accuracy while running.

Jensen's legs are not visible, as he wears pants and combat boots to cover them; however, they have various abilities, with no working parts shown to move. It is revealed in the comic that his legs are mechanical from just above the knee down. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided corroborates this early in the game when Jensen is first seen in his apartment.

His torso appears to be biological, but is covered in dermal armor, along with bolt ports from the bar placed within his chest to support said augments. Underneath he has a variety of cardiovascular and muscular augmentations, such as an internal rebreather, a health system, an internal battery, and the Typhoon Explosive System.

Jensen has two augmentations attached to his spinal column: a reflex booster and the Icarus Landing System (although the effects of the landing system appear to originate from anywhere in his body).

Jensen uses the Glass-Shield cloaking system, which classes as a skin augmentation. The origin of the mechanism is still indeterminate.

Jensen's head has a plethora of augmentations, most noticeably his variety of hacking tools and C.A.S.I.E. Module (allowing him to see personality traits and emotional reactions of those he converses with). Jensen bears a hexagonal scar on the left side of his forehead. The scar may be the result of the insertion of the Infolink augment, the C.A.S.I.E. module, hacking tools, or even related to treatment of the gunshot wound inflicted by Namir. He also has a cochlear implant within his ear cavity. Jensen's eyes have notably been replaced with cybernetic eyes with gold irises that display various information about the environment and can be used to record and view video. Additionally he has an unspecified implant that allows him to cover his eyes in eye-shield lenses hidden in black comma-shaped augments around his eyes, an augmentation he shares with Ben Saxon. NPCs occasionally refer to this augment as "mirrorshades." Jensen almost always keeps the lenses activated, appearing to only retract them when sleeping, showering, or engaging in important conversations or interaction.

Adam is the only known Neuropozyne-independent augmentee, the result of experiments performed upon him as an infant at White Helix Labs. However, his augmentations post-surgery are for the most part immediately "locked", to prevent overexertion on his brain. Over time (or with the use of Praxis kits), Jensen learns to use his augmentations effectively, one at a time.

Notes & Trivia

 * Jensen's famous quote, "I never asked for this," is only said once in Human Revolution.
 * Jensen's blood type is O Negative.
 * Jensen's weight is 182 lbs.
 * Jensen was likely inspired by the character Alex Murphy, or better known as . Both are from Detroit, both served as members of the police, and both were severely injured to the point of near (Jensen) or clinical (Murphy) death in the line of duty, only to be saved via cybernetic technology.
 * Jensen's character design resembles a composite of the three Denton brothers: he wears a longcoat and sunglasses at all times, speaks in a nearly emotionally-detached accent similar to that of JC Denton, his goatee resembles that of Paul Denton, and he wears his hair in a spiky hairdo akin to that of Alex Denton.
 * Jensen received a tattoo of a rifle sight on his right bicep when he joined Detroit SWAT, along with the other members, as a gesture of camaraderie.
 * He is voiced and performance captured by actor Elias Toufexis, the husband of Michelle Boback, who voices Megan Reed.
 * According to this video, Elias and Michelle got into an argument on the day they were supposed to record the lines for Adam and Megan at Omega Ranch, causing them to be genuinely angry during the scene.
 * Elias Toufexis also voiced Gabriel Nowak in Rainbow Six: Vegas 2. Similar to Jensen, Gabriel was disgraced after a sniper situation caused a bad situation to turn worse. But whereas Gabriel provoked the situation, Jensen walked away.


 * In Mankind Divided, Jensen's skin color appears paler, and his hair a darker black-brown compared to his appearance in Human Revolution due to the removal of the gold-yellow graphic filter used in said game.
 * Jensen wears his eye-shields most of the time, even at night. In Human Revolution, he covers them the moment he steps into Sarif Industries and retracts them only once: when talking to Megan Reed in Singapore.
 * Jensen's eye-shields are presumably not tinted in the conventional sense, as they do not seem to affect his perception of light levels. However, since Jensen never removes them during gameplay, it is hard to be sure of this as the whole game has a gold tint. As this tint is apparent even before Jensen receives his augmentations though, it is more likely that the eye-shields are not tinted. There is also no tint in Mankind Divided.
 * In Mankind Divided, Jensen tends to retract his eye-shields more often, like during personal conversations.
 * The Eidos logo can be seen on the frames of his eye-shields in artwork and the trailers of Human Revolution. In Mankind Divided, his eye-shields are styled after the Eidos logo, as well as having the logo printed on them.
 * His original set of eye-shields from Human Revolution were heavily damaged during the events of Black Light, being replaced by the set he wears in Mankind Divded.
 * If the player chooses to have Adam get the new biochip (that allows Zhou to temporarily shut down his augs), Megan Reed will inject him with a nano-augmentation that shields his biochip from the Illuminati's signal. This would make him the second character in Deus Ex to have both mechanical augmentations and nano-augmentations at the same time.
 * An e-mail discussing Jensen's DNA reveals that his biological mother did not share the mutation that allows him to tolerate mechanical augmentations.
 * As of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Jensen has known Megan Reed for ten years.
 * Jensen has various vices shown throughout the game. Bottles of whiskey and packs of cigarettes are strewn around his apartment and office and in the cinematic trailers, he drinks and smokes during his recovery. It is revealed in the Human Revolution comics that he took up smoking again after Megan Reed was presumed dead, yet due to his Sentinel RX Health system the negative health impacts of smoking do not affect him.
 * While the player can consume alcohol within gameplay, the player has no opportunity to smoke tobacco.
 * He still smokes as of Mankind Divided, his favorite brand apparently being Royal Hellhounds.


 * Jensen enjoys baseball, as demonstrated by the baseball bat in his Detroit apartment and the autographed baseball in his Prague apartment, as well as his watching a Detroit baseball game in the opening scene of the System Rift DLC.
 * Jensen's pantry selection reveals surprisingly large quantities of sugary breakfast cereals, hinting at a personal preference for sweet food. However, seeing as his augmentations are supposed to draw bioenergy from his systems to function, the strong preference for sugary food might have been a way to adapt to his body's increased energy demands.
 * Jensen's trench coat is tailor-made to have custom Typhoon ports and blade slits that are magnetically attached to his body to allow him to perform Typhoon blasts or lethal takedowns without having to worry about the condition of his suit. These blade slits are much more noticeable in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, due to the higher detail in the coat's design and rendering.
 * ACRONYM, a real-life apparel brand, collaborated with Mankind Divided artists to create a real, working version of Jensen's trench coat.


 * In Jensen's office, there are three diplomas from three different universities for the same degree: B.S. in Criminal Justice from Ferris College, Phoenix University, and a third school whose name is illegible.
 * In Jensen's apartment and office, there are several whiteboards with mathematical writings and mechanical schematics and an eBook in his apartment tells the story of the first mechanical clock. All this suggests that he has an interest in mechanical theory, though he also used clock-making as a method to learn to control his artificial arms during the 6 months he spent recovering.
 * In Mankind Divided, he still enjoys clock-making as he has a work table dedicated to the hobby and he visits Nomad Staněk's watch shop often enough for the owner to comment on it when being interrogated.
 * Initially the developers intended Jensen's clock-making to indicate that he had always been a collector and simply enjoyed taking devices apart out of curiosity. However during playtesting the testers perceived Jensen's crafting to be his way to learn about his augmented body rather than his being a collector. The developers preferred this interpretation to the original idea and it became canon, so much so that in Deus Ex: Black Light Jensen notes that building model clocks was part of his physical rehabilitation.
 * He is ambidextrous, although this is for gameplay reasons. Various weapons and objects in the game required Jensen's animations to use both hands.


 * His first name may be a direct reference to Adam, described in the Bible as being the first man created by God. This would fit with JC Denton's first initials possibly being an allusion to Jesus Christ.
 * Jensen's first name may be intended to imply a parallel with Frankenstein's monster, which is also compared to the Biblical Adam. Human Revolution includes a number of other allusions to Frankenstein, particularly in reference to Hugh Darrow and the technologies he has created, but couldn't control.
 * In the Human Revolution comics, it states that over 50% of Jensen's body has been replaced. It also shows only the bottom half of his legs have been replaced. However in the comic his eyes are blue rather than yellow.
 * The comics are further contradicted in Mankind Divided when its shown that Jensen's leg augments go all the way up to his hips, instead of half-way down his thighs.
 * Jensen's apparel also appear as promotional content in various other video games. His augmentations, combat armor and Zenith pistol are available as DLC for Hitman: Absolution. His augmentations, combat armor, and the FR-27 SFR are featured in Sleeping Dogs. His eye-shields, cybernetic arm, and Diamondback .357 revolver appear as promotional miscellaneous items in Team Fortress 2.
 * Jensen is available as a map commentator in DotA 2, for those who purchase Mankind Divided on Steam.
 * In a low temperature container on one side of the VersaLife Vault in the Palisade Corporate Vaults is the head and torso of a human being, who looks nearly identical to Jensen. This unknown being even shares Adam's facial hair, scars on his cheek, and scar over his eye. The only noticeable difference is that he lacks Jensen's full hair model and the eye cover (eye shield/sunglasses) augmentation (however, he has a faint scar at the locations flanking the eyes where the eye cover aug would be mounted). By using third-party tools to see through the entire container, the torso's shoulder area shows indentations corresponding to the parts of Jensen's cybernetic arms that extend onto the torso around the shoulder socket.
 * During Steam's Summer 2017 sale, a sticker book was added for the event and Jensen was included in one of the pages.