Author's Note: I just finished Assassin's Creed II, and the whole plot of the series is still very shaky for me, so forgive me if the details and characterization are a bit shaky. OTL;; I am very interested in the character of Shaun Hastings, who offers help throughout the game and is seen in a few cutscenes in the modern segments of the game. He is very humorous, and I hope to capture even just a little of him in this story. It takes place right after the end of the second game. Wish me luck!
Transporting the Goods
They'd been driving for hours now, switching "shifts" between the three of them periodically. Desmond might have had a turn as well, but he wasn't currently with them- in mind, at least. He was still encased in his own little world, in Italy circa 1490. Shaun knew he ought to be asleep, but he couldn't help but watch the newest member of their team work his magic on Rebecca's innocuous contraption. It looked like a lounge chair, with soft red cushions, but Desmond was as still as a corpse on an autopsy table. Only it wasn't his body they were probing, it was his mind, his genes, his very existence- because the fate of the world depended on the secrets locked away inside him.
Shaun briefly wondered if he should be concerned that Desmond hadn't stirred yet- one of the signs that the Animus session should end soon- but he hardly understood the "risks" that the Animus entailed. To him, all he saw was a man in a recliner reliving a few memories to no danger of his own life, while countless others- in real life- risked their lives to keep him safe in his little fantasy simulation. Shaun was relatively new to all this Assassin business compared to the others, and even if he had been working with Rebecca for years now, he still had no clearer idea of how the Animus actually functioned. He was the researcher, the historian, the one who kept all the facts in check. Let the girls play with their toys.
Still, he could not shake the unsettling feeling he got around the Animus. He'd never been a man of religion, but the thing gave off an almost unholy aura. The theory of it seemed simple enough, but Shaun felt like they were playing God in someway, tampering with the very building blocks of life. He knew from years of study what happened to men who had the power of gods in their hands; he can still remember finding Desmond passed out in the hall like some discarded rag doll after his first session in the Animus 2.0, remembers the dazed, feverish look in his eyes just hours ago as he demanded to be put back under, refusing to be separated from his memories. Perhaps the Animus was more taxing than he once thought; maybe Desmond was more dedicated to their cause than he realized....
Yet as Shaun watched Desmond's peaceful face in the dim twilight sun, it only looked like the man was sleeping. Such a fool. He disregarded all previous, newfound respect towards the man as mere sleep-deprived musings and layed down on his cot instead, letting the turbulence of the rocky hillside beneath the wheels of the truck lull him to sleep.