Back and Forth

Notes: I don't know.

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The media blackout about Manhattan is extreme and frustratingly complete.

Shaun is both impressed by and infuriated by it. They've lost all contact with the few people they had on the island, and every attempt made to circumvent or infiltrate the military enforced quarantine has failed. The last attempt had left an entire team almost too wounded to escape.

All Shaun has to go on is what the media is being allowed to put out, and the fact that a nuclear bomb was involved somehow. It bothers Shaun that he knows nothing about the incident happening. All he can tell is that something big is happening. Abstergo fingerprints are all over the operation. Lucy agrees with his assessment, and for a while they discussed sending Desmond in there for his first non-Animus run mission.

It was vetoed the second the first team was chased off. Lucy is nothing less than a clucking mother hen when it comes to Desmond's safety. Despite the fact that the man has more combat knowledge than all three of them combined, and hadn't exactly been leading the easy life before falling into Abstego hands.

Shaun hadn't protested though. For all the skills Desmond has gotten through the Animus, they're all gained through Ezio and Altair. Two men who didn't know the meaning of the words subtle or gentle. Which is what all this mission calls for.

In the end they'd settled on a minor mission out West. A month long hacking job with a side of breaking and entering of Abstergo warehouses. Plenty to keep the couch potato busy, and maybe even enough activity to help him lose those extra pounds he's gained.

Shaun had opted out of it and headed East.

The situation in Manhattan has settled, the reigning chaos of the first few days dying down. There's now order to the movements on the docks Shaun walks through. An order that breeds complacency as the documents he waves around are barely glanced at by the Marines and he's waved onto a ferry. His team follow him, chatting and joking with the troops they settle near. Their medical bags and lack of heavy weapons proof enough that they're what they say they are. More medics for the field, always welcome company for soldiers.

Shaun finds out a whole lot of nothing on the trip over. Rumors and hearsay, and a lot of blank looks at the question, "Why?"

His team is immediately taken into one of the few safe areas in the city upon landing -and Shaun nearly gapes at the map he gets a glimpse of, of how very few areas are circled in green- and are immediately thrust into work. Shaun learns almost everything he needs to know then as the wounded roll in.

Marines come in bloody and mangled. Ripped apart, bitten, slashed, beaten. They're conscious if they're unlucky, and men in black body armor stand over them as they're being operated on. Uncaring of the pain caused as they deny anesthesia in order to extract information from them. Numbers, types, and locations. All relayed to the special compounds that Shaun hears muttered rumors of as he draws stale bags of rations to eat between waves.

Rumors run rampant through the building converted into a miserable, temporary hospital. Blackwatch figures strongly in them, and Shaun wonders how much he hears about the callous group is true and how much isn't. Given the fact that, despite being in the middle of a viral outbreak, Shaun has yet to see one person infected come through he thinks the rumors might be understating things.

After a week of stitching and pressure bandages, listening to soldiers screams and babbling, Shaun has a horrifying theory on what is happening. Biological weapons are nothing more than a nightmare, ones that come with intelligence are something else altogether.

There's zero contact with the people they had stationed in Manhattan, and Shaun doesn't think they're going to find them at all at this point. His team is stubborn and holds out hope. Slipping away when they can to look for signs, going to the different compounds they can get access to. All with negative results they report to him with growing frustration until Shaun decides to call the mission off. They've lost their people and staying much longer is only going to lose them more.

Just after one last thing.

He slips out of the compound that night for the last time. Carefully skirting infected areas and patrol routes as he heads for the source of this outbreak. The office building is unmarked and abandoned. He almost passes it by entirely. He bypasses the broken front doors entirely and finds a plain door set back in the alley.

Slipping back into fieldwork -the short time he'd been allowed it anyway- has been surprisingly easy. It helps that the mission is almost infuriatingly easy. Shaun eases the door open and walks in confidently. As if he belongs there, as if he hadn't just picked the lock. As if people are actually around to see him. Who knows, power is still flowing through parts of the city. There could be surveillance still set up here. Especially if it's another Templar front like he strongly thinks it is.

Shaun tugs the helmet he can't wait to be rid of as low as it will go. It doesn't cover too much, but ought to be enough to make identifying him hard. The building is filled with windows on the exterior, but the most interesting parts of it are on the interior. There's power in some of them, but it seems mostly diverted to the equipment and computers. Not the lights.

His light -conveniently attached to the helmet, wonderful invention- flashes over offices and labs. Standard equipment and banks of shelving that is suspiciously empty. The higher he goes the more interesting it all looks. Shaun doesn't bother with any of the computers just yet. They'll all be under too much security to bother dealing without something to indicate which ones will have the information he needs.

He's nearing the end of his search when one of the doors opens up on a room filled with filing cabinets. "Ah, perfect."

It's mind boggling how in this age of electronics and cloud storage, people still insist on keeping paper trails. It makes things easier on him though so he can't really complain too much. Though if Lucy tries to print off parts of his database one more time he's going to have to put together that PowerPoint about information security he's been threatening for so long.

A lot of the drawers he opens are personnel files. Shaun skims them but none jump out, and he really doesn't have the time to comb through them like he wants. He goes through the banks of files, opening them at random to pinpoint where he is in their organization. Personnel files gives way to finance and then internal memos which are far more interesting to him. Especially the ones that come from security.

Shaun's reading a frankly terrifying report on containment measures for one subject. It even lists the failures which Shaun's pretty sure would be enough to contain ten men. He's debating folding the papers up and taking them with him when he hears something. A low scrape, shoe tread on the floor that's been dusted with the dust -powdered concrete and drywall- that seems to cover everything.

Twisting away, he reaches for the single gun that is all that medics are expected to carry. All that he needs to carry because he's not an idiot who thinks standing his ground against biologically designed weapons is better than running.

He doesn't even get to touch the release on the holster before he's grabbed from behind.

Shaun grunts as he's slammed into the hard wall between two rows of cabinets. The motion rattling his teeth and he's kind of thankful for the helmet now as it cracks off the wall with a loud noise that he's sure would have done a lot worse to his unprotected skull. The light from his helmet glares off the very human face of his attacker.

"I've been watching you and your men. Who the hell are you?" Cold blue eyes stare at him from under a hood and Shaun realizes with a sinking feeling that he knows that face. It's the one being broadcasted all over the media as the man responsible for the whole incident, and now Shaun really wishes he'd paid more attention to the PR spin job done about Alex Mercer instead of outright dismissing it all. The few briefings he's managed to crash in on have told him plenty about the man's capabilities, but not much about the man himself.

"I don't care what uniform you all wear. You're not part of the military," Mercer growls lowly as he fists both hands in Shaun's uniform and grinds him into the wall. "So, who are you and why are you here?"

Fuck. Shaun takes a breath, pitching his voice higher for that obnoxious American accent he's been using all week, "I'm, Bra-"

Shaun chokes as his throat is abruptly crushed. Something thin and agile winding around it dragging across his skin. Mercer's hands both still grip his shoulders keeping him pressed against the wall. His lungs burn as they try futilely to draw in air. Just as spots begin to cloud his vision the weight is gone and Shaun chokes as he gasps. Coughing, he draws in great gasping breaths of oxygen that rushes straight to his head making it spin.

"Don't," Mercer's voice is low and dangerous, unnaturally pale eyes swimming back into focus first. Surrounded by dark skin that looks almost like sickly bags set in his pale face, but Mercer is as far from sickly as one can get. "Don't lie to me. You won't like what I do to get the truth from you."

Something dark curls out and up from Shaun's arms and shoulders. The feeling against his throat retreats and Shaun sees it. Black with veins of red, they're flexible and curl like there's no bone in them. Tentacles. Terror and an absurd sense of hilarity shoot through him and Shaun bites back several really inappropriate responses because the feeling always makes him mouth off in the worst ways possible.

Good lord, if Shaun makes it out of this he's going to take every single one of those Japanese cartoon DVDs Rebecca has forced him to watch and shove them down her throat.

Mercer growls and his eyes get lighter, no, they're glowing just a bit. Shaun drops his act because he's no use to anyone dead. "Fuck, no I'm not with the military!"

"Who then?" Mercer demands immediately.

"No one here," Shaun's arms are free, his right hand brushes against the cold metal of his gun, but the failed containment measures are still fresh in his mind. The screams and confused rambling from wounded Marines about glowing eyes making a lot more sense now. He ignores the urge to draw and fire, he already knows that's a useless gesture. "I had people here before the outbreak, they went quiet, we came to see if they were still alive. This mess you caused wasn't anything we ever planned for."

"I didn't do it!" Mercer shouts, fingers curling in tight enough to make Shaun flinch back in pain. "It's Gentek. They did this! To me, to the city."

"Why?" Shaun whimpers from the pain. Hating himself for the tone but unable to stop it because Mercer isn't letting up at all as he has this little mental breakdown.

"I don't know," Mercer says, pale eyes losing focus and his fingers finally let up. Just enough that Shaun doesn't fear he's going to lose necessary parts of his anatomy.

Shaun shudders in relief, stifling a moan as feeling rushes back into his tingling arms, gone slightly numb from the constriction of the uniform and the pressure of Mercer's hands. His mind racing even as the dangerous man keeps his threatening grip. The why is obvious, if Gentek is another Templar front. Biochemical weapons have always been one of their favorite pet projects. The little he's seen of this, of Mercer, makes it very clear to Shaun why this happened.

"Well, it tends to all boil down to two things," Mercer's eyes focus on him again, and Shaun nearly hits himself as he feels five sharp pricks through the thick material of his top where fingers should be. Claw tips, or something, he doesn't look because he'll lose his thought if he does. He'd just sewed up a drooling man not an hour ago with five deep slashes in his chest. Spaced out like a hand made them, something out of a cheap horror movie. "Money or power. Not all that sure what your Gentek were after. My people didn't get a chance to report back on them before they went silent."

"You investigated them," Mercer doesn't let up but he leans forward, one of the tentacles lifting the helmet. His eyes flicker and focus on his face intently. "Hastings," he draws the name out slowly and something like recognition crosses his face. "Oh, I see."

"You, you see. What do you see?" Shaun doesn't like the sudden turn in the conversation. From threatening to clinically detached in a split second. "And just how the hell do you know my name?"

Mercer backs off. Lets Shaun go, and Shaun doesn't even realize he was pushed up off the ground until he falls back onto his feet. "That doesn't matter, Assassin," Mercer smirks and Shaun wonders how much shit he's just gotten himself into. "What matters is how you're going to help me."

"Fuck," Shaun swears sharply and the curse makes the man's smirk turn sharper.

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