Finally met some girls from Illinois. So bubbly. So kind. One day drive to Omaha. Another to Chicago. Then, somewhere, someone said to me…
"If you got nothing, you go to New York. That way, if you leave with nothing, people don't ask why. And if you leave with something, you are one lucky son of a gun."
So that's where I went. New York City. Into skyscrapers and subways. Into filth and folly. Into the maddening crowds.
By the time New York City welcomed Desmond, the American mafia had been confined into only that city, and its Families had been forced to get along in a space very small compared to the entire Northeast they used to dominate. There were five mafia Families in total, and all were powerful in their own right to have survived to the twenty-first century where other Families had gone extinct, but the five of them had come to frustratingly acknowledge the power of the federal government.
Desmond found himself somehow unsurprised when there was speculation that Abstergo Industries had provided its services and technologies to help the government arrest or kill mafia left, right, and centre. The rumours were only given base when mafiosi didn't — or couldn't — hit major Abstergo structures, the security being too tight or — if one would believe it — secret, certain, convincing threats having been sent beforehand. Maybe Abstergo Industries — with fingers in every pie — had some internal corruption or had somewhat corrupted the government; it didn't mean the Brotherhood was correct in that their (fairy-tale of a history's) sworn enemy, the Templars, still existed, right? Desmond at least thought so; he wasn't seeing any Abstergo employees killing Assassins on sight. But of course, he wasn't seeing any Assassins, either.
Enough Italians were around in New York City, so Desmond chose a fitting name: Devon Miceli. He preferred going by Dev. The apartment he got was old, cheap, and didn't ask for many papers or identification, even though Desmond had both, however fake. The deal sounded too good to be true, but the apartment was also in a sketchy area. Desmond didn't have anything worth stealing, so it didn't matter. One time, he would come back to find his lock had been broken, but nothing inside stolen. He would get a better lock, if only to know if an Assassin broke in (just in case), because he could identify a professional break in when he'd see it. No professional burglar would bother breaking in the cheap apartment building for cash or jewellery; it would be like selling themselves short.
Living in New York City may have sounded miserable, if Desmond had not discovered bartending before he arrived. It was an art. Making a drink was a performance. Delivering it demanded elegance. Desmond had seen expert bartenders pour port wine so thin it looked like a thread, break the fall with a spoon, and then allow it to float atop the rest of the drink in a cocktail glass. The drink's surface would blossom into a dazzling red, and the bartender would slide the glass forward with a smile and introduce the cocktail drink, the "American Beauty," named after a flower. Women melted at a good drink and a good bartender. Desmond did, too. The bars in the city promised more ingredients than Desmond could access in past places of employment, and he planned to enjoy bartending in NYC as much as he could.
The bar he tended at, Bad Weather, was a subway's ride away from the apartment, and Desmond loved it, for a while. The staff warmed up to him quickly — all except apparently the boss — and Desmond was able to connect with a few customers. Overall, it was as if he was always there; even bar regulars didn't bat an eye at his presence behind the counter, as if he naturally belonged wherever he was. (And, in a roomful of people, sixteen years of training would whisper in his ears, 'Hide in plain sight.') Old habits were hard to break. Especially of the Assassin kind.
Desmond's boss at Bad Weather observed "Devon Miceli" more than most — this action driven by gut feeling or by logic, not even the boss could understand or explain himself. From what he saw, Devon Miceli drank in all he could of the city and its people without attracting too much attention to himself. Whatever rock from which he came out from under made the city new and flashy to him, and this somewhat stunted exposure to the world occupied Miceli with rushing to learn about it instead of revolutionising it. He was like a sheltered boy discovering the world for the first time.
But.
Beneath his boyish exterior was something trained since birth to be that shadow at the corner of one's eye, the hairs standing on the back of one's neck — the something that stole in the night. That was why Desmond's boss in Bad Weather would put him on busy shifts — he wanted to keep a close eye on him.
That was why Desmond's boss wasn't the only one.
Hi. Hello there. You've completed an introduction into my life in New York, and have gotten insight to what others have sensed from me. See, this isn't a journal written by me, though there are some of my personal thoughts in it quickly scribbled at the top or bottom of a page, and I apologise for the laughable handwriting.
This is a collaboration of accounts — both mine and others' — of my years away from the Farm. This has been edited so that you can see things from the outside with a glimpse of the within. Everything is here: my greatest regrets, my occasional triumphs, my moments of pain. This is my life's story. So please honour it:
By reading.
— D.M.
A/N: I've had this idea since January, but after seeing the AC Unity trailer, I got pumped up to refocus on Assassin's Creed!