Best choices, Flathead outcomes, Meredith romance & Brick rescue
Quest Details
Mission Type: Main Job
Act: 1
Area: Watson – All Foods Plant
Quest Giver: Dex DeShawn
Requirement: Complete The Ride
Rewards (depending on choices):
- XP & Street Cred
- Flathead bot (story item)
- Chaos iconic pistol (if you kill Royce)
- Spiked Maelstrom Short-Sleeve Jacket (from Royce)
- Meredith Stout romance possibility (if handled correctly)
- Optional: Brick’s gratitude later
TL;DR – Best Outcomes (If You Don’t Want to Read the Whole Wall)
If you want:
❤️ Meredith Romance Route (Recommended “fun” outcome)
Do this:
- Call Meredith when prompted (optional in the journal, but do it).
- Meet her and accept the Militech credchip.
- Do NOT crack / hack the chip. Leave it infected.
- Go see Maelstrom → meet Royce.
- During negotiation, either:
- Pay with the untouched Militech chip, or
- Pull a gun / takedown Royce during the talk (Body check or shoot).
- Fight your way out while Militech storms All Foods.
- Outside, Meredith shows up, still in power, and you can agree to “work again later” → romance unlocks later.
You still get loot, XP, and a nice spicy Corpo–gang clusterfuck.
😬 “Peaceful” Route (No Meredith romance, low drama)
- Ignore Meredith, or decline the chip.
- Bring 10,000 eddies of your own money.
- Pay Royce with your own cash during the meeting.
- Leave All Foods peacefully.
- Later: Gilchrist wins inside Militech, Meredith is done, no romance, boring outcome.
🧨 Total Chaos Route (Attack Maelstrom)
- Attack Maelstrom early or during talks.
- Kill everyone, grab the Flathead from a side room.
- Fight your way out.
- Meredith usually gets shafted, Gilchrist shows up later.
Good for pure violence, bad for romance.
Alright, now the full walkthrough.
🟧 1. Meet Jackie
From your journal, track The Pickup and head to the marker.
Jackie is waiting outside All Foods on his bike. Before you walk up, you can decide whether you want to involve Militech or not.
🟦 2. [Optional] Call Meredith Stout (Militech Agent)
Open your phone and call Meredith Stout.
This sets up the corpo side of the job and is required if you want her romance scene later.
She’s paranoid, tense, and assumes you’re involved in a Militech screw-up. You get dragged into her little “internal audit.”
Key points:
- Admit you’re here about the Flathead bot.
- Offer to cut a deal: “You want info, I want the bot.”
- Eventually she offers you a Militech credchip.
Important choice here:
- [Take credchip] “We got a deal.”
- ✅ Enables romance route
- ✅ Lets you pay Royce with Militech’s money
- ⚠ Chip is infected unless hacked manually
- [Refuse credchip] “No way, not happening.”
- ❌ No Militech leverage
- ❌ Locks you out of the best Meredith outcomes
- ⚠ You’ll need 10,000 eddies of your own money to pay Royce if you want peace
If you take the chip, you can go into the Shards → Militech Credchip in your menu and crack it (remove the virus)… but that changes the outcome later.
💡 For Meredith romance, the cleanest route is:
Take the chip and DO NOT crack it.
After the meeting, head back to All Foods to meet Jackie.
🟧 3. Talk to Jackie at All Foods
Jackie is chilling outside the gate.
He’ll ask how you want to handle the deal:
- Use Meredith’s chip
- Pay 10,000 eddies of your own
- Or “we’ll see” and wing it
These dialogue lines don’t lock you in yet – the real decision happens upstairs with Royce.
When you’re ready, move to the gate.
🟥 4. Enter All Foods – Intercom & Factory Interior
Use the intercom at the front gate and tell them Dex sent you.
Inside, you’ll pass:
- Turrets
- Maelstrom goons
- Some loot lying around (grab what you like – they don’t care)
⚠ If you shoot anyone or hack turrets aggressively early, negotiations are over. You’ll go full combat route and lose some outcomes.
Enter the elevator when prompted.
🟦 5. Meeting Dum Dum & Royce
At the top, you’re greeted by Dum Dum.
Tell him you’re there for the Flathead. He takes you to a “negotiation” room with a couch.
Sit down. Jackie gets antsy, and you get a timed dialogue to calm him:
- “Jackie, sit down.” → keeps things peaceful
- If you ignore it, he draws, things escalate into a firefight
Dum Dum also offers you a hit of Black Lace. If you’re a Streetkid and play along, he can later give you his inhaler as a consumable. Not crucial, but flavor.
Eventually, Royce shows up with the Flathead.
This is where the mission branches hard.
🟩 6. MAIN BRANCH POINT – How You Pay for the Flathead
You must deal with Royce over the cost of the bot. Three broad ways:
🟢 A. Meredith Romance Route (Recommended)
Requirements:
- You accepted Meredith’s credchip earlier
- You did not hack the chip OR you attack/kill Royce
When he demands payment:
You can:
- Pay with the un-hacked Militech chip
- Royce plugs it in
- Virus activates
- Militech storms the building
- Maelstrom + you vs Militech
OR
- Pull a weapon / Body check / kill Royce during negotiation
- The room erupts
- You fight your way out
- Militech still moves on Maelstrom later
Either way, you end up:
- Getting the Flathead
- Fighting through All Foods
- And most importantly:
Meredith wins the internal Militech power struggle and can meet you after.
This keeps her alive and sets up her romance.
You’ll also get a chance to loot Royce’s:
- Chaos iconic pistol
- Spiked Maelstrom Jacket
Good loot + romance. Win–win.
🟡 B. “Nice” Peaceful Deal Route (No Romance)
If you want a no-drama, no-Militech fight outcome:
- Don’t take Meredith’s chip, or
- Take it but choose to pay with your own money instead
In the dialogue with Royce:
- Choose options that lead to paying 10,000 eddies of your own
- Avoid pulling a weapon
- Avoid using the Militech chip
Result:
- Royce is satisfied
- You take the Flathead
- Dum Dum escorts you out
- No major firefight
- Later: Anthony Gilchrist wins in Militech, Meredith is removed
Peaceful but honestly kind of lame compared to the spicy chaos routes.
🔴 C. Attack Maelstrom / Screw Everyone Route
At any point:
- Shoot a Maelstrom member early
- Fail to calm Jackie
- Choose the [Draw weapon] option and kill Royce
- Or trigger combat intentionally
You’ll:
- Fight Maelstrom all through All Foods
- Still get the Flathead from a side room or box
- Later meet Anthony Gilchrist outside
- Meredith loses, romance gone
Fun for a “V doesn’t give a shit” playthrough.
🟫 7. Getting the Flathead
Depending on how things played out:
- If the deal went through →
Flathead is in a crate on the table – loot it. - If you went loud early →
You’ll find the case in a side room off the first combat zone upstairs.
Either way: do not leave All Foods without the Flathead. This is the entire point of the mission.
🟥 8. Escaping All Foods (Shared Path)
After you’ve got the bot, your escape path is mostly the same:
- Climb up to the maintenance tunnel
- Use a switch to activate the production line and open the way
- Move room-to-room fighting either Maelstrom or Militech, depending on choices
- Deal with cameras and possible enemy netrunner hacks (overheat/burn effects)
This is also the section where you can deal with Brick.
🟦 9. Optional: Freeing Brick
In one of the large rooms:
- Look for two smaller side rooms with glass windows.
- Between them is a locked door with Brick behind it.
You can:
- Hack the keypad (if you have the right skill), or
- Read emails on the nearby computer to get the code.
💡 Door Code: 9691
Inside, Brick is strapped with a mine trap.
You can:
- Hack the mine directly, or
- Find the detonator back in the control room near the laptop and use the option to safely disarm it.
Once freed, you can talk to Brick:
- He can’t help you immediately
- But he promises to remember this favor later
Not mandatory, but very “RPG brain” satisfying.
🟥 10. Final Combat Room (Royce / Militech / Regular Gangoons)
The last big room changes depending on what you did:
- If you allied with Maelstrom vs Militech →
Royce is in a mech suit helping you kill Militech mechs & troops. - If you fought your way against Maelstrom and killed Royce earlier →
Just a small group of Maelstrom enemies here. Clear them and leave. - If Royce is still alive and hostile →
You get a proper boss fight.
🧠 Royce Boss Fight Tips
Royce uses a powered exoskeleton with:
- Big shield
- Gun arm
- Rear power core (battery)
You can handle him two ways:
1. Stealth / Takedown method
- Clear his buddy first quietly.
- Use Disable Optics or break line of sight behind boxes.
- Get behind him and do a stealth takedown.
- This rips off his battery and chunks a large portion of his HP.
- Reset line-of-sight and repeat once more to finish him.
2. Gunfight method
- Focus fire on the battery on his back to remove his shield.
- Use cover – his shots hit mainly chest-height.
- Aim for weak spots once the shield is gone.
- Use grenades and quickhacks if you have them.
Once he’s dead, loot him:
- Chaos iconic pistol
- Jacket
- Other goodies
Then hit the exit.
🟧 11. Mission End – Meredith vs Gilchrist vs Nobody
When you step out of All Foods, you’ll get one of three outcomes:
✅ Outcome A – Meredith Stout Shows Up (Romance Route)
Conditions (simplified):
- You called Meredith
- You took her credchip
- You either:
- Gave Royce the infected, un-hacked chip, or
- Sided effectively with her plan by removing Royce
Meredith arrives, still in charge.
You can:
- Confront her
- Or play it cool and say you’re open to more work
Pick the positive response (basically “Yeah, maybe / we can work together again”) to keep her as a future… “friend”.
⚠ Outcome B – Anthony Gilchrist Shows Up
If you:
- Refused the chip
- Hacked it and turned it into a safe payment
- Paid with your own money
- Randomly ruined Militech’s plan
Then Gilchrist is waiting instead.
He explains:
- Meredith lost the internal war
- She’s “no longer with Militech”
- He’s taken over
Result:
No romance. Meredith is gone this playthrough.
😐 Outcome C – Nobody of Importance
If you never contacted Meredith at all, you may simply walk out and move on, no Militech story branch fired.
🟦 12. Talk to Jackie & Call Dex
After dealing with Meredith/Gilchrist (or no one), talk to Jackie outside.
Then V automatically calls Dex to report in.
Once that conversation finishes:
🎯 The Pickup is complete.
If you’ve also finished The Information, the next Main Job The Heist becomes available.
