Sadie's Story

Sadie's Story is a meta-game, developed by Fourth Wall Studios with images produced by Ashley Wood, for Halo 3: ODST. It consists of Audio Logs, sound files found at various types of data terminals in New Mombasa. Each log is accompanied by a slideshow of still images.

The logs tell the story of a Kenyan girl named Sadie Endesha during the invasion of Earth in October 20, 2552. The meta-game serves as a companion to the main narrative of the game and includes an entirely new cast (except for Vergil).

Plot Summary
On October 20, 2552, 19-year old Sadie Endesha was leaving New Mombasa by train to enlist in the UNSC. To her dismay, she was caught by Vergil, a sub-routine of the New Mombasa Superintendent written by her father, Dr. Endesha, to monitor and take care of her. As soon as Sadie convinced Vergil to let her go, the Covenant arrived in New Mombasa.

Sadie contacted Dr. Endesha at the Superintendent's data hive, who tried to tell her about a discovery made the previous day (The Portal). Sadie cut him off and (over his protest) stated her intent to go downtown and save him from the Covenant.

As Sadie cut off contact with her father, NMPD Commissioner Kinsler and NMPD officer Mike Branley arrived in a HuCiv Genet car modified for use by the NMPD, and Kinsler offered to pick her up. She accepted, only to be told that Kinsler was abducting her to rape her. When Mike heard this, he stopped the car and kicked Kinsler out of it, leaving him on the street. He refused, however, to bring her to the war zone in the city center. After a brief argument, Sadie told him to stop the car so that she could go look for her father on foot, to which he obliged, leaving her in the market district.

Sadie continued toward the city center on foot, talking to her father on her Chatter. He told her that the Covenant only came to New Mombasa, presumably for Vergil's discovery. Before he could continue, Sadie interrupted the conversation to meet Jonas, an 800lb butcher who was giving out free kebabs to the fleeing refugees. While expressing her gratitude for his admirable efforts in helping the city's populace, Sadie urged the man to flee from the Covenant with the rest of the refugees. Jonas condescendingly informed her that, due to his massive size and weight, he was unable to keep up with the boisterous mob around him, and accepted the fact that he was going to die. Sadie still persistently pleaded with him, telling him that she would try to find a forklift or a garbage truck that she could use to transport him, to which he made repulsive and sarcastic remarks to her efforts, calling her his "brave warrior princess" coming to rescue him while riding "her mighty forklift". Unable to get through to him, Sadie accepts Jonas' final offering of two kebabs and continues her journey, now leading into the casino district.

Sadie tried to resume her conversation with her father in the casino district, but wide-spread looting had ruined all of the ATMs. She found one that was operational, but a looter (referred to in the audio logs as the Crone) forced her away with a shotgun. Sadie hid behind a dumpster while a pack of Brutes ripped the ATM from the wall and threw it on top of the Crone before killing her with Maulers. Sadie remained silent whilst hiding in the dumpster, but she was discovered by the alien patrol after her father contacted her on her Chatter. Before the Brutes could kill Sadie, Mike returned, running them over with his police car. Sadie then explained who Vergil was to Mike while he followed her over the bridge leading to the main island of New Mombasa.

As they crossed a bridge, Kinsler, who was now armed with a SMG, arrived in a modified Pelican Dropship decked in police livery and forced Mike to throw his holstered service pistol off the edge. Just before Mike and Sadie boarded his Pelican, Vergil saved them, crashing an Olifant into the Pelican and emptying its contents onto the Commissioner. Sadie then opted to use the garbage truck to continue across the bridge toward the city.

Once Sadie got inside the Olifant, she continued talking to her father. While traversing the war-torn megalopolis, Sadie and Mike met Tom Uberti, a salesman who had hitched a ride on the Olifant. Dr. Endesha told her that seven Engineers were trying to repair the Superintendent before they attempted to escape their Covenant captors, and then that six of the Engineers sacrificed themselves for their brother, the seventh. Tom, overreacting to the news that Covenant were trying to help the Superintendent, eagerly opened the Olifant's top hatch, then looked around and shouted to grab the attention of any nearby Covenant so that he could "negotiate" with them. There was a Wraith patrolling which, until now, ignored the garbage truck because it was an automated machine controlled by the city's AI. The Wraith soon noticed Tom's shouting and responded to his offerings of peace with a mortar shell. Mike and Sadie narrowly escaped out of the machine's rear just before it was obliterated.

After Sadie tried to contact her father again, Kinsler shut down the Superintendent. Mike told Sadie that Vergil could be re-activated at the NMPD Headquarters. Upon entering the structure's lobby, the two were immediately taken hostage by Marshall Glick, an unstable ex-cop who had apparently had a run-in with Mike earlier in his career. During the encounter a man named Jim Odingo entered the lobby via elevator. Glick promptly killed him, his justification being that Jim regularly used his half-and-half despite Glick's many requests for him not to. Shortly afterward, a SWAT team stormed the lobby with a flashbang grenade and finally managed to kill him after losing a couple of men in the preceding firefight. The two then continued to the Communications Headquarters, where Sadie borrowed a stapler, concealed it in her pocket, and attempted to persuade the on-duty officer "at gun-point" to turn Vergil back on. The officer, wanting to get back to her work, "gave in" to the two's demands and reactivated the AI sub-routine.

Throughout their travels, Mike had been hearing numerous propaganda messages, and he was getting tired of them. Realizing that they were being broadcast from inside the building, he confronted Stephen, the announcer, about the propaganda-induced lies. Stephen said that the only people listening were frightened citizens hiding from the Covenant, and told Mike that the lies gave them hope before death. When they went back on the air, Mike, under the name "Harris 'Two Shot' Kibaki", tried to tell the truth, only to find himself telling the same kinds of lies the announcer had told.

Kinsler overheard the broadcast, and contacted the propaganda station, telling Sadie that her father was being held hostage in the data center. He instructed her to meet him at a train station -- alone. Sadie and Mike arrived at the train station and found Kinsler's private train car, which was guarded by corrupt officers firing into the crowd of refugees trying to leave the city. Once Sadie was on board, Kinsler told her that he had killed Dr. Endesha, and that he was planning on capturing the stray Engineer and becoming a war hero. Mike then rallied the refugees to storm the corrupt cops, and Sadie told Vergil to open the doors to the train for them. When the mob got to Kinsler, it tore him to pieces.

Sadie wanted to go and save the Engineer, but Vergil, using pre-recorded dialogue from the Superintendent, Mike, Jonas, the Duty Officer, Stephen, Sadie, and Dr. Endesha, told her that the ONI would come get it and urged her to leave the city, telling her in her father's voice that it was "very, very proud [of her]". Sadie pleaded with Vergil to let her stay, acknowledging that it was all that she had left of Mombasa and of her father, but Vergil refused to do so. Finally Vergil, with the help of Mike, convinced Sadie to stay on the train. It then pulled out of New Mombasa, en route to "Makupa, Nairobi Road, Hope Station... And beyond."