Paul Denton

Paul Denton is the older brother of JC and Alex Denton.

2052
"Paul Denton was the first UNATCO agent to receive the high-tech nano-augmentations. He's the first of the next generation — fast, tough, and as deadly as they come — and unlike the previous super-agents, he doesn't have a shelf-date. What's more, he's smarter than your average enthusiastic patriot, and can recognize propaganda and outright lies when he hears them. Some of these "mixed signals" he's been getting from UNATCO have made him wary about resorting to "permanent" measures when confronting his assigned targets. Plus, he just plain finds killing people distasteful.

He's also your brother. It's more than just looking alike: since the car accident that killed your parents, he's the only family you have left. You know him better than anyone else knows him; you know him better than you know anyone else. He's focused, analytical and loyal. You trusts his judgment, but whether you trust him to never make an honest mistake is another matter."

- description of Paul Denton to the player Paul starts as a seemingly pro-UNATCO character who appears frequently, giving JC his UNATCO mission objectives. When JC reaches Hell's kitchen, for the first time he discovers that Paul has been issuing tear gas to the troops instead of ammo; to compound this strange behaviour, when JC returns to UNATCO HQ, he realises that Paul had failed the raid on the NSF warehouse and he is fired.

Further on in the game at Juan Lebedev's private hangar, JC finds out that Paul works for the NSF and the latter attempts to persuade JC to join, but UNATCO discovers Paul's treachery through JC's infolink, as Alex explains. MJ12/UNATCO activates Paul's killswitch which after a few hours renders him unable to move, so Paul returns to his apartment in Hell's kitchen and is forced to remain there in pain. The (former) UNATCO pilot, Jock, is told to take JC to Hell's kitchen, as Paul needs JC's help. Once there, Paul tells JC to send a distress signal to the Silhouette member, Chad Dumier, and other NSF bases, in addition to pointing out that there is evidence of the conspiracy between UNATCO and MJ12 stored on a datacube nestled in the NSF HQ; when JC sends the signal, Walton Simons tells the troops to kill JC.



Once JC returns to the apartment to take Paul to Tracer Tong in Hong Kong to deactivate the killswitch, the MJ12 and UNATCO goons attack the apartment, which leads to Paul's death if JC escapes out the window; if, however, JC decides to stay at the apartment and fight his way out of the 'Ton, Paul won't die; in fact, he remains invincible, as with the rest of the game (the way important characters are invincible in the gameplay, but not in the story).

As JC moves through the MJ12 complex beneath UNATCO HQ, where he was held prisoner, he encounters Paul in the medical lab of the complex. Here, Paul tells JC about the explosive killswitch of mechanically-augmented soldiers like Anna Navarre and Gunther Hermann, which is activated by uttering a single phrase (killphrase). It is revealed that Smuggler helps Paul to get to Hong Kong.

When JC gets to Hong Kong and into Tong's base after destroying the Universal Constructor at VersaLife, if you help Paul, you will encounter Paul sitting at a desk in Tong's lab, and he will say that he is recovering, but due to his present state, he cannot help JC.

Later on in the game, at Area 51, Paul communicates with JC through both the Infolink and the holocomm. In both cases, Paul encourages JC to trust his conscience and make his own choice as to who he should follow in the endgame.

2072
"Like his brother JC, Paul was a modified agent for the United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition (UNATCO). Though he was the one who convinced JC that UNATCO was the pawn of a global network of conspirators, he has been reluctant to accept the decisions of his brother that led to the conspiracy’s demise and, with it, the Great Collapse of civilization. He is more inclined to blame people rather than systems for society’s troubles, yet gradually he has come to support a new vision for society which JC has been working on in isolation for twenty years. He even volunteered for what should have been the final test of the technology key to JC’s plan, with disastrous results. His current fate is unknown, but the rumor is that he is in a comatose state, awaiting a medical technology that can revive him."

- Deus Ex: Invisible War description

In the events of Invisible War, Paul is revealed to have been the founder of ApostleCorp, the organization centered around the ideals of the merged JC/Helios, in other words, the biomodification of mankind. ApostleCorp developed biomod infusions, enhancements akin to augmentations, and planned to distribute these infusions worldwide, enhancing people without them knowing it. These infusions were tested on Paul, but Paul's body violently rejected the infusion, so he had to be cryogenically frozen to avoid dying. At some point, Paul was abducted by the Templars during a raid on the ApostleCorp's Cairo facility. If the player (Alex Denton) chooses to side with the Templars in the second Cairo mission, Paul will be detained at the Statue of Liberty in the final mission. If the player sides with the Illuminati, the player is ordered to kill Paul by cutting off his life support. Otherwise, Paul can be revived.

The player encounters Paul again in Liberty Island. If he is detained, you have the option of rescuing him. Otherwise, you will find him in the Statue base with JC. He, along with JC, tries to convince Alex to send the Aquinas Hub protocol hidden in the UNATCO HQ ruins (the computer protocol used for global communications at Area 51 in the first game, and now necessary for nanite distribution worldwide) to ApostleCorp, and if the player agrees, Paul and JC then ask Alex to step into their infusion chamber at their home-base in the rebuilt Statue so that Alex's nanites (now perfected) can be distributed globally. If the player refuses, Paul and JC try to kill Alex.

Quotes

 * "This isn't a training exercise, JC. Your targets will be human beings. Keep that in mind."
 * "I wish I could have come. At the time I could have cared less that Mom and Dad came to mine, but it was a good thing. The U.N. threw a dinner in honor of me, the first nano-augmented agent."
 * "You can relax, JC. I told the troops to stand down."
 * "I wish I had an answer for you, but you'll have to decide for yourself who you can trust."
 * "Quit screwing around!"
 * "Enough! You have a job to do."
 * "I'm afraid that's classified."

Paul Denton