Arie van Bruggen, also known as Windmill or just The Dutchman, is a highly skilled freelance hacker in Deus Ex: Human Revolution encountered in the mission Hunting the Hacker.
Background
The hacker known mostly as Windmill is one of the most infamous and skilled hackers in the world, with a reputation for being brilliant but high-strung. He does freelance work for the highest bidder, and many could use work of his level in the world of corporate warfare.
Jensen confronted the hacker Yune, but the augmented mole chose - or was forced - to kill himself rather than be taken alive. After recovering the dead man's neural hub, Jensen learns that the man was being remote accessed and was only the tip of the iceberg as far as enemies of Sarif Industries were concerned.
Jensen next learns from Lawrence Barrett that the true culprit he seeks can be found in Hengsha, but when he arrives, it appears Belltower is one step ahead of him, and his man is already on the run. Jensen finds out that his man is being hidden by the Triads, and next needs to learn his location from the Triad boss, Tong Si Hung, at the Hive. He finally learns that this man, Windmill, is being hidden at the Alice Garden Pods.
Though it's true Arie van Bruggen, aka Windmill, was hacking Sarif Industries remotely via Yune, he was only a hired hand and has no idea what is really going on. He tells Jensen to go after his employer instead - Zhao Yun Ru, of Tai Yong Medical. Being a cautious man, van Bruggen secretly recorded and hid a video of Zhao to use as an insurance policy, but unfortunately, Zhao decided to tie the loose ends before van Bruggen could get away.
The evidence is still at Tai Yong Medical, but van Bruggen assures Jensen that it has the information he is looking for. He even creates a fake ID for Jensen to infiltrate the facility, but before he and Jensen can part ways, Belltower troopers arrive at the Pods, looking for van Bruggen. The frightened hacker then asks Jensen for a weapon before hiding.
If Jensen gave van Bruggen a weapon as requested, the hacker survives the attack and later contacts Jensen at Tai Yong Medical. As a sign of his gratitude, van Bruggen hacks and adds 2000 credits to Jensen's bank account.
If Jensen refused to give away a weapon, van Bruggen curses Jensen and runs back in to hide in his pod. Even if Jensen were to safely take out all the guards in the Alice Garden Pods, he cannot interact with van Bruggen's pod and does not hear from him the rest of the game. If the player is fast enough, they can kill or knock out van Bruggen and take 500 credits from his body. It is later revealed by Tong Si Hung that van Bruggen was killed by Belltower.
Behind the scenes
- The handle "Windmill" is an obvious joke about his Dutch nationality.
- The hidden room in his apartment is festooned with many, many strange notes to himself. Examples include "Buy broccoli and lube", "Call mom" and notes written in 8-bit binary code. There are also some notes with the "Forever Alone" face drawn on them, along with the name Rachel and a phone number starting in 555.
- He has augmentation marks on his forehead, hinting that he has cerebral implants.
- If the Alice Garden Pods manager's computer is hacked, an e-mail from Tong Si Hung titled "Pod 301" says to give the resident anything he wants as he is running a hack job for Tong.
- A pocket secretary hidden under the same hotel manager's computer suggests van Bruggen broke through the hotel firewall essentially for fun, and proves this by listing the computer user and password.
- Hacking TYM computers and reading e-mails reveals that Arie was the head of a team of cyber specialists whom he constantly harassed for fun by hacking into their accounts, informing them of it, and in one occasion sending an employee's stash of pornography to all of their contacts, including family. That same employee sends an e-mail to another one, complaining about how he was supposed to solve the "problem" when his boss was the problem.
- One of the e-mails in TYM computers near the Data Core room suggests that van Bruggen and famous real-world hacker Kevin Mitnick are familiar and work with each other.
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