Part Twenty-Five: Death of an Abstergo Agent
God, Connor's life sucked and sucked balls. Desmond squeezed his eyes shut, taking the time to close the partition, closing the sense of betrayal from Washington and the cold, the unending hatred of Charles Lee, the bitter gordian knot known as Haytham Kenway. He sat up slowly, rubbing at his lids, before looking up to the pinched face of Rebecca. She looked about how Connor felt ninety-nine percent of the time, and he felt a pit form in his stomach.
"Something's happened, Desmond," she said slowly, painfully. "Abstergo has your dad."
Ice.
Stones in his stomach.
Then action. He smoothly rose to his feet, a soft, "Where?" escaping his lips.
Shaun answered, lowering the lid on his laptop. "Italy. Same place they were holding you."
Irony only registered briefly before he powered his way to the front of the cave, pausing only to turn and see if he was being followed. He wasn't. Confusion. Anger. "What are you two waiting for?" he demanded. "Let's go."
Rebecca looked like she would bolt if someone so much as breathed on her. "There's more," she said, her voice almost ready to break.
Desmond backtracked to the computer. Shaun was looking away, glasses off and rubbing his eyes as Rebecca cued up a video, clicking fullscreen. Black background, strong overhead light, like some kind of bad cop or spy movie. At its center was William, arms behind him, probably tied, dark shadows playing on his face because of the harsh light. And calmly strolling behind him was the white lab coat, the grizzled features, the person who personified Abstergo in Desmond's mind. The snide sneer, the oily voice, the arrogant tone. Warden Vidick. Desmond's captor, Lucy's captain, the source of all his pain.
"Hello again, Mister Miles," Vidic said, smoothly polite and arrogant and threatening all at once. "I hope this message finds you well - or as well as it can, all things considered." Desmond leaned in, blood pumping in his ears, making it hard to hear as he stared at the screen. "It appears we now each have something the other desires. I propose a trade. Bring me the Apple and I'll return your father to you no worse for the wear. Should you refuse, he will still be returned, albeit much worse for the wear. I assume you'd like to avoid an unpleasant outcome."
Bastard. Fucking bastard.
Atenenyarhu. This was the Stone Coat that Ratonhnhaké:ton spent his life fighting, a man perfectly satisfied to eat everything in his path, damn the consequences because he was above it all. Fucking bastard. He looked to Rebecca, trembling in her seat, and Shaun, grim set to his jaw. They all nodded, and without a word they began their work. Rebecca went up to the van to do last minute security checks and make sure no one would detect them. Shaun began packing rough supplies, spare clothes, bottled water. For the first time Desmond saw a gun, ammunition, and Shaun put it in the small of his back as he opened up a metal box. Desmond, well, he went to the Apple. It responded happily to his touch, and he thought of Altair and his studies, knowing there were basic instructions it carried out.
"Not now," he said quietly, "I'll need you later. Sleep just a little longer."
The little metal ball giggled and quieted, and he zipped it up in his courier bag. He wondered if Abstergo really knew what was about to happen to them when he got there. He wondered if Abstergo even knew what was about to happen… And had this been a part of their plan all along? Maybe they wanted the world to end. To see it all burned away. Then they'd have their new world - ripe for the reshaping...
"I suppose it's not worth even asking about the probability of this being a giant trap?" Shaun asked, pulling the gun out and storing it, locking it away and pocketing the key. "We all know what they want: the Apple and your DNA. Losing you loses all chance of opening that gate over there," he jabbed his thumb to the ethereal cyan glow at the back of the cave, "and thereby all chance of saving the world. Perhaps another power source would be a better idea?"
"That's probably what he'd want," Desmond said, knowing his father too well. "For us to finish the mission. The greater good comes first and damn the cost of reaching it. But I can't."
He looked Shaun hard in the eye, jaw set.
"I can't," he repeated. "It's hard enough taking a life - but letting one be taken... Knowing there was something I can do about it. Not a chance. Might be I'm risking my life - risking all our lives to save an asshole. But what else am I supposed to do? That asshole is my dad. I'm an Assassin, and I'm going to follow the Creed. No harm to the innocent."
"Bill's a lot of things, but he's not exactly innocent, Desmond," Shaun said gently.
"No, he's not, but he's not a bloodthirsty savage like other people out there. He's only just an asshole."
Shaun nodded, and they moved to the van.
It was December eleventh, only ten days before the end of the world, and that belied any chance of doing this subtly. They knew they were coming, regardless, there was no point driving up to Canada to mask their movements. They simply drove to JFK, booking a private plane and charting it straight to Rome.
It was an eight and a half hour flight, flying into the night and crossing six time zones and spanning God knew how many miles. They left at ten a night and arrived at 12:30 the next morning, screwing with Desmond's internal clock. The flight was mostly quiet, everyone too tense to really say anything into the heavy air that surrounded them. Rebecca poured over the laptop, having a dozen different windows and tabs and programs running to try and prepare for the assault they were about to lay. Shaun sent word out to the other teams before trying to poke around the Abstergo servers. They hadn't back-traced him yet, he wanted to get as much information as possible and relay it to Rebecca, the default strategist as she tried to metaphorically shove as much information into her mind as possible to figure out the best way in.
Desmond had little to do, no laptop to play with, and no brain power to distract himself. It wasn't that he hadn't tried, he paced the tiny cabin of the plane, tried to exercise, tried to sleep, tried to anything, but his mind had only one thing to consume itself:
Abstergo had his dad.
Abstergo had his dad.
He always knew it would come to this, a final confrontation between him and Vidic, a clash of ideals and principles and raw hatred. Just... not so soon. After, he had always thought, getting Vidic would always come after. After they opened the gate. After they got over Lucy. After they fixed Rebecca. After he'd talked to his dad. After, after, after... But like so much in his life, the world decided screw you and your plans and dumped it on his lap now. Don't freak out about the world ending in ten days, do this now. Don't worry about escape, do this now. Don't worry about mending the broken relationship with your dad, don't worry about grieving over Lucy, don't worry about wondering about your mom, don't worry about Juno and her fucked up games, don't worry about anything but saving the asshole and making all of this worth something, because if he just left his old man to kick the bucket, then he was no better than the fucking Templars.
It had to matter. He'd told Clay that, and it still held true. What they did mattered, and the people who did it couldn't be whittled down to nothing, just footnotes in the grand scheme of deeds done under the title of following the Assassin's Creed. Holding the world so far away, like William did, like Haytham did, it was little more than hiding from the pain – and it wasn't like hiding from the pain was justified, true – but it hid away from the rest of life, too, and Desmond would be damned if he acted like that. Not after seeing the love Altair and Maria shared, not after rekindling a broken relationship with Claudia, not after learning about strength from Ellen and Prudence and Achilles and Lyle. The people mattered. They had to matter.
Even his asshole prick of an old man.
That was his interpretation of the Creed. That was the conclusion he had come to.
Growling, he pulled out his phone, wondering if there were any games on them. He needed to distract-
New Message (1).
What?
He had a message? Since when? He fiddled with the buttons until he opened up the text.
They're going to be here soon. Trapped me in this damn museum. Should've taken more precautions... I'm sorry, son. It wasn't fair of me to come down on you the way I did. You never asked for any of this, and I should have been more understanding. I hope you can forgive me. I love you.
… Jesus Christ.
Desmond's grip on the phone was so tight he thought he would crack the screen, he was shaking with... with... there were too many emotions to name, and he chucked the offending object across the cabin, growling low in his throat and startling his two companions before he darted to the lav and hurled.
In five simple sentences William Miles had said everything he had ever wanted to hear, smoothed over so many of the rough patches of their relationship. Fuck, he admitted he was wrong. All in a fucking text message. What was he supposed to do with that? Knowing that William was being held hostage? Knowing the old man would rail at him for coming after him? What the fuck was he supposed to feel with that.
He looked up in the mirror, saw a haggard face look back at him, grim, determined, and with the faintest hint of relief.
I love you.
"... I love you too, Dad," he whispered.
They landed a half past midnight and disembarked by one. Leonardo da Vinci International. Jesus, Ezio's best friend would be amused to have an airport named after him. Desmond watched Shaun ask about hotels in Italian – the language was different than what he was used to, less flowery, more modern, but he had the core of it down in the span of the conversation. He glanced at Rebecca, dark circles under her eyes. When had she last slept? "Is Isola Tiberina..." he started to ask. "I mean, it's been hundreds of years, but..."
"Sort of," Rebecca said, turning red eyes to him. "Modern construction has affected a lot of it, it doesn't look like it did for Ezio, but it's still there. I don't know if Abstergo knows about it, though."
"They do not," Shaun said softly, rejoining the group as they left the airport. Desmond had his hood up, Rebecca with a hat pulled down low and a blond wig, while Shaun had transformed himself from collegiate hipster to an out-of-date version of Dr. Who. "It's just over a half hour from here, barring traffic at this time of night, and one of the teams is dusting it off now as we speak. Hasn't been used in just over a hundred years, it'll be long forgotten in history."
"Good," Rebecca said. "We can set up, get a few hours shut eye, and then plan the assault."
The car drive was cramped and disconcerting. Desmond kept expecting to see horses and frocks instead of cars and highways. They took A91, following the Tevere into Trastevere and to Ponte Cestio. The warehouse of old was of course nowhere to be seen, the skyline was all wrong, and they parked in a lot with a building of a design unfamiliar to Desmond. Was this always here? He touched Ezio's partition, trying to figure it out as Shaun started talking.
"San Bartolomeo all'Isola," he said by way of introduction. "Built some time in the tenth century atop and old temple of Aesculapius by Holy Roman Emperor Otto III. Supposedly it holds the relics of St. Bartholomew the Apostle. Did Ezio ever visit?"
"... I don't know," Desmond said. "He knew the island very well, but he didn't really care about the places so much as the people. Ancient Roman ruins weren't much of a thing for him."
"Of course not," Shaun said easily, "He was Italian. Saw them all the time."
"Where's the entrance?" Rebecca said quietly. "I don't like being above ground for so long."
Shaun jutted his head to one side, gesturing with his chin to follow him, and they moved around the structure. The island was tiny, even to Ezio's memories, though probably that was because of the drastically different skyline. There weren't skyscrapers, towering modern constructions the way New York was continually transformed, but rather a building here, a power line there, antenna and satellite dishes and... Desmond shook his head. He couldn't open Ezio's partition here, no good would come of his Italian ancestor going nuts over the changes of his beloved city. He wondered dimly how Jerusalem and Masyaf looked now, in modern times, and dreaded the thought of Altair looking on those cities. Was there anything left of Damascus with the civil war in Syria? He didn't dare think about it.
At the base of the tower of San Bartolomeo was a nondescript crevice, and an Italian in dark wash jeans and windbreaker leaned against it. "Ciao," she said lightly.
"Ehi, bella," Desmond said politely, "Cosa ci fai qui?"
The woman smirked. "What any woman would be doing here at two in the morning," she answered, "waiting for him," she jutted an accusatory finger at Shaun. "A little advance warning would have been nice, coglione, I almost didn't find what we wanted in our archives."
"Help for the girl who doesn't speak Italian?" Rebecca asked lightly, tugging at her wig and cap.
"Nothing important," Shaun said smoothly, before turning to the woman. "You were saying?"
"Entrance is this way, asino, you owe me big."
"Naturalmente," Desmond said. "We're grateful for the help."
The woman looked at him, eyes hard and penetrating. "William saved our unit once," she said. "We're the ones who are grateful to repay the debt. Get him back safely." The Assassin turned and pulled away, revealing that she had been blocking a narrow entrance lost in the shadows of the crevice. "Goes down about thirty feet, below all the infrastructure. Whoever built it did a good job, most of it's still intact."
And just a little bit of Ezio bled through, curving on his lips and offering an ironic grin. "Parole gentili da una bella donna ."
"What are you, Florentine?"
Desmond chuckled and followed Shaun and Rebecca down the entrance, a sharp set of circular stairs leading down to the ancient passages Ezio had used so frequently. Desmond closed his eyes for a moment, making sure his partition was closed firmly, not wanting more of his ancestor to bleed through. He shouldn't have touched the partition earlier. By the time it was locked in place they were in the underground section of the old warehouse, where the induction so often happened. The rich reds of fabric were gone, the brazier long since disappeared, the cavernous room littered with decrepit boxes and refuse of age. Desmond felt a prick of sadness to see the epicenter of the Renaissance fallen so far, but his father was priority and he set his jaw, focusing on the task at hand.
Rebecca was immediately setting up her computers and pulling up her headphones. "Coffee," she mumbled. "Soon as the shops open. Lots of it."
"What, more?" Shaun said, incredulous. "You haven't slept-"
"Coffee," she insisted, and then shut out the world as she stared at her screen.
Desmond and Shaun shared a helpless look before getting to work setting up the place for a camp. It was dawn when they were finally settled, and Shaun disappeared to get the coffee and other foodstuffs from a nearby eatery. Exhaustion claimed Desmond eventually, and he woke hours later to see Rebecca still at it, hunched over nearly into a ball as she tapped and clicked and scrolled through her windows. A dozen pieces of paper were printed out somehow, pen marks and bits of words littering them as their technician became a master of the building they were about to assault. Shaun was looking over the work as well, the decryption master occasionally saying something or flipping open a map. Without William, it was up to those two to come up with the best course of action, be most aware of the pitfalls and dangers they faced. Desmond had been in the building previously, but that did not account for the two and a half months since his escape.
"How's it looking?" he asked.
"Just a bit more," Rebecca said, her voice hoarse and tired and barely audible. A breeze would knock her over.
"Not particularly," Shaun corrected, giving her a firm look. "We have all the information we need, it's just a matter of choosing the best path." The gun was out again, sitting idly on a table; two more had joined it from somewhere.
"All things considered," Desmond said, "The path is pretty obvious. I go in with the Apple."
Rebecca shook her head. "Give me a little more time, I can-"
"No, Rebecca," Desmond said firmly but gently. "You can't. Vidic already knows that we're coming, he's already planning to make all of this go south on us as fast as possible. There is no finesse here, just blueprints and directions from you over the comm, Shaun at the wheel to get us out of here."
The Brit looked up. "Just a minute," he said, "Are really suggesting what I think you are? That you go in alone, guns blazing, like some kind of mad video game power fantasy?"
"Not like that, no," Desmond said, "but yeah. I go in alone."
All hell broke loose after that.
"What the hell are you thinking?"
"Just how do you expected to get in with no back up?"
"No, you don't understand, I'm-"
"What was all that work we just did-"
"What happens if things go sideways-"
"I need to do this-"
"Bloody American-"
"I don't want to lose anyone else!"
Rebecca's shriek echoed over the excellent acoustics of the initiation chamber of the hideout, silencing Desmond and Shaun as they stared at her. Rebecca was trembling visibly, being up over twenty-four hours and who knew how much before that, struggling to assimilate everything she needed for the mission and still broken over the loss of Lucy. Her eyes were wide, slightly wild, as she looked back and forth between the two and taking a shaky breath, turning and moving to the other and of the chamber without so much as a sound. Shaun immediately moved to go after her, and Desmond didn't know what to do.
It was all so fucked up. All of it. Vidic, his dad, Lucy, the end of the world, there was no way to deal with this and still be sane. The pressure was getting to all of them. He looked around the initiation chamber, and growled in his throat, suddenly feeling claustrophobic. He needed to get out of here, put his head on straight, figure out something. Anything. Everything.
Hood up, he exited the hideout, crossing the Ponte Fabricio and hopping on the first mass transit he could find, a fucking tour bus of all things, and sat in the cab, staring at the text from his father and trying to figure out what to do. He must have ridden for over an hour, stopping at random points for tourists to get off or get on, before the press of the people was too much for him. He pounded the streets, listening to the Italian and wondering what Ezio would do in this situation. Or Altair. Or Connor. Well, Connor was still figuring out that the fuck to feel about his father, so maybe not him. And Altair never really knew his father, so nix that. Ezio? With Giovanni on the line, what would Ezio do? Would family trump the Templars?
Hell yes. Ezio had committed bloody slaughter to save Claudia, and he would die a thousand times for Flavia and Marcello and Federica. But would he give up the Apple, knowing what it could do? Knowing what the Templars would do?
Answers eluded him, and he didn't dare open Ezio's partition to find out. Not in Roma and not with so much still to do.
He had entered a park without really noticing it at first, he just looked up suddenly and saw greenery instead of alleys and buildings. He slowed to a stop, trying to figure out where he was. He asked a family passing by, passing off as being the sad lost tourist. Villa Borghese, they said, the third largest park in Rome, large enough for a zoo and other amenities, the Italian version of Central Park in New York. It was a bright, sunny afternoon, and even so deep into December people were everywhere, enjoying the intricate gardens and paths, the architecture of the villa and the wintering birds that were flittering this way and that, happy to be fed by tourists and natives alike.
Desmond sat at a bench, watching the people go by, so similar and so different to Central Park. Kids were running around, shrieking happily and oblivious to the danger his father was in. A part of him was resentful even as another was grateful that the little brats were so happily ignorant of the world around them. So many things were firing back and forth in his head, the winter sun beating down on his back, warming him slightly against the chill. He stared at his phone, at his text.
The old man deserved a reply.
"Hey Dad," he said to the recording. "Ah... you know it's uh... it's funny. I-" God, where did he start? How did he try to break down his thoughts?
"I have this memory of you," he said, "one I keep coming back to... and... I- I always think about it when I'm working, or just before going to bed. Because it..." He thought about it while captured at Abstergo, he thought about it when he was training with Lucy, he thought about it constantly at Bad Weather. It was that one crystallizing moment of his childhood, that one moment that said everything about his feelings about his father, that was a touchstone of teen angst. And later, when he was older it... "Uh... sort of... calms me, I guess."
When he was older, and he looked back...
"Um," he fumbled, the memory coming alive in his mind, well-traveled and all the details perfectly memorized. "I- I was fourteen, I think and uh, and you were trying to teach me how to walk with a light step. Remember that? How to be mindful of how much noise I made when I moved around... simple stuff.
"Stuff I understand now," he said, rueful smile crossing his scarred mouth, "but back then... I- uh... I gotta tell you, I thought you were just being an asshole." Just pushing and pushing, being difficult for the sake of being difficult, being cruel just because he could. It was the sum total of his training, things Desmond couldn't understand because of his sheltered life on the farm, things he would have to learn the hard way just like everyone else in history. Something so simple to understand and so fucking hard to execute. "So... uh, you told me you were gonna go up to your room, and sit with your back to the door, and read a book... and you wanted me to wait at least fifteen minutes, and then sneak up there to tap you on the shoulder without you knowing." All the details were there, the color of his sweater, the worn feeling of the rug on bare feet, the scent of candlelight. "I- I even remember the book you were reading at the time, the one by Captain Johnson... and you warned me, that if you caught me we'd have to start all over... then you went upstairs... and I waited..."
God. He was so damn determined. He was so pissed off that William had even set up this stunt, so determined to prove the old fart wrong, to hand out comeuppance, to prove to the world that he was good at something damn it, something as simple as surprising his stupid fucking prick of on old man. "I waited and I waited and I waited... I waited four hours before deciding to go up." So stubborn, so goddamned stubborn that he was going to get this right. Desmond smiled, had been smiling, even all these years later, even with all the stress and madness and chaos, even now it still brought a smile to his face, this memory. "And even then, it took me twenty minutes to get to the foot of the stairs. And another thirty to get up them. And then to get down the hall, and there I was at the door... and I peeked into your room... and I was- I was so hoping that you'd be asleep. But no. No you... you were still reading. And I just about shit myself."
So fucking stubborn to prove that he was right, so fucking determined to prove himself to the world, so desperately determined to wait until the old man was asleep. But it was like the old black and white fifties sitcom – Father Knows Best. No matter how much the kid thought he knew, the old man always knew a little bit more. Energy and determination and brash reckless attitude didn't mean shit against tempered experience and strategy. Desmond would never be better than his father because he just lacked experience. And fourteen year old Desmond refused to admit it.
"But ten minutes later I was just five feet away from you. And that's when I remember setting my foot down... and you flinched... ever so slightly... you- you flinched. I thought maybe I'd imagined it." Every rationale under the sun, every possible excuse for the truth to not be true, but... "But I knew you'd heard me... you- you didn't say anything. You just checked your watch, you reached for your drink, you took a sip, and then you kept reading. But I knew I'd failed."
He looked down at his phone, barely seeing it for the memory flooding his brain. Fourteen year old Desmond didn't understand. He had failed. He was nothing compared to his dad. The shame of it was overwhelming, the disappointment, the burning desire for it to not be true. He waited for William to say something, to have that uppity lecture on why his lessons were so important, the "I told you so" sense of superiority. But... "But you didn't say anything," Desmond muttered, reliving the confusion, the anger. "I- I- I didn't understand why. Then I lunged and tapped you on the shoulder. And you turned around. And 'Oh! Fantastic!' you said, and you scooped me up and gave me a big hug. And I didn't say anything. But Dad...
"Dad, I was so pissed off," Desmond muttered, remembering the tight embrace no fourteen year old would ever live down. "I wanted to scream at you... I- I had failed and you knew it. But you said nothing. And I stayed mad. For weeks I thought you were... you were patronizing me. I thought maybe you decided right there that I was never going to be the man you wanted me to be..." The teenage mind could come to no other conclusion, had no other way to justify the quintessential training god of an old man would actually let a failure like that slide; the only possible option was "humoring" the wayward son, letting him think he had made Daddy proud.
"But I realized just a few years ago that... you checking your watch... that was the clue, wasn't it? You let me win because... I'd been so patient... and I guess that impressed you." He may have failed the test of the light step, but he had won at something else, something maybe even bigger: patience. "You know," he said, soft grin on his face, "maybe at that moment, you thought it might be better to be my Dad instead of my mentor. I... I don't really know... maybe for you, they're... they're one and the same... you know, either way, I'm happy to know that both my mentor and my Dad were looking out for me that day. I didn't even understand that then... I think I do now."
That moment, it was the best memory he had of his dad being... his dad. It was the one moment he could look back on and say that, that was the kind of man his father was like. His other ancestors, they didn't have that, not even Ezio, who didn't learn what his father was like until after his death. That memory was why he had to do this, why it had to be his way. Realizing that made him feel... not better, but more settled, affirmed. He knew what lay ahead of him, and now he just had to convince Shaun and Rebecca.
Back at the hideout, he moved immediately to Rebecca.
"I understand," he said, leaning over and touching her arm and meeting her gaze. "This isn't a suicide run, I'm not about to sacrifice myself for anything. I promise I have a plan, and I need your help for it to work."
Two hours later they all agreed – even Rebecca – and they moved in. Shaun and Rebecca were, perhaps not anonymous, but not the eyes-everywhere-world-terrorist target the Desmond Miles was. The longer they stayed hidden the better, and while Rebecca best served in the van monitoring Desmond's moves, digital chatter, and hacking the building security systems to have even the tiniest inch of an edge, Shaun was the best acclimated to European driving and knew all the back roads of Rome far better than the Americans. Inside, well, inside wasn't going to be about brains, it was going to be about brawn, and Desmond was more than ready to follow the Creed. As they packed up Shaun put the gun in the small of his back again, handing Rebecca a tiny 9mm, and offered a gun to Desmond.
He shook his head.
Shaun pushed his point. "You're going into the mouth of the dragon," he said in quiet tones, respectful of Rebecca as she packed up her things. "Abstergo will be armed to the teeth, you can't go in unarmed."
"I'm not," Desmond replied. With a flick of the wrist he unsheathed his hidden blade, and tucked into his belt was a combat knife.
Shaun made the smallest of faces. "This isn't the Middle Ages," he said, weight in his voice.
"No, it's not," Desmond agreed. "But this is how I was trained. Connor almost never used his gun, and I understand why, there are better methods to fighting then just pointing and shooting. They'll never get the chance to shoot at me. Besides, I was always terrible shot."
"I don't want to bury you, mate," Shaun said, stepping into Desmond's circle, eyes intense behind his glasses. "Lucy was more than enough. And you need to think about Rebecca."
"I am. She can't take much more death – and that includes the guards in the building. Shaun, stop being a prick for two seconds and let me do this."
Tension rippled through the two of them, months of jabbing at each other coming almost to a head, neither of them willing to back down, both of them seeing the world differently, having different strengths and weaknesses that did not accent each other at all, both trying to will the other to see their point of view.
And then the moment was gone, just like that, as Rebecca said the van was loaded and it was time to go.
Desmond never took the gun.
The drive to Abstergo took less than twenty minutes. Desmond could feel the Apple in his courier sack, probably knowing what was coming and happy to play a part. He ignored the voices with the practiced ease of Altair and Ezio, knowing it was only going to be used for one thing. He tugged at the tips of his sleeves, hiding the straps of his hidden blade and nervous energy building in him. Connor felt this anxiety every day, and Desmond practiced the stillness his ancestor could never master. He closed his eyes, reaching to the black island in his mind, touching the partitions, asking for strength, before locking them away. Bleeding was not an option for this op.
They parked at a sports club, at the Parco de Medici. There was, after all, a certain irony in that. The triangular shaped building at Via Viola Cesare Giulio, 68, seemed so like the triangular symbol that Abstergo used, and Desmond mused at the similarities as he studied the building. With a deep breath, Desmond checked his hoodie and got out, closing his eyes.
This was it.
Moment of truth.
If nothing else, he would certainly have a light step.
The thought made him smile, and he simply walked into the building.
"They're probably holding your father on the upper levels. Same place they kept you. There's an elevator bank down the hall. Try not to let them see you."
Desmond muttered a reply. "They know I'm here, Rebecca. There's no way they don't." Hands in his pockets, head down, he saw dozens of feet in the main lobby: high heels, loafers, shiny high end business shoes that spoke of wealth and status. Lab coats, desks, computers, contemporary glass and pristine floors. Everything about this place screamed elite. Desmond in his skinny jeans and hoodie and sneakers stuck out more than if he had gone in guns blazing, and he watched as stances shifted, feet turned, the hushed sound of work dimmed. Not even four steps and he had been made. But, then, he knew that was going to happen.
"This," Shaun said, voice tense, "this was a bad idea."
Desmond walked down the hall to the elevator bank, just as Rebecca suggested. He saw two security guards at the end, shoulders straight, the bulk of kevlar under their shirts, waiting for his approach.
"Hand over your weapons and come with me, sir."
Desmond couldn't quite hold back the New York snark. "I can show myself in," he said calmly, just a hint of wry in his voice, "but thanks for the offer."
And then, from speakers somewhere, "I'd rather this not turn ugly, Mister Miles."
Fucking bastard watching from his office. Dick. Memories of his capture bled through his eyes, listening to the chaos of a team trying to break him free, Vidic at a comm, giving orders like a god. Anger pulsed bright in the back of his nerves, but he pushed it aside as best he could, looking up to the ceiling and calling on his lame forensic eagle, eyes picking out the camera. Chew on that, asshole, chew on how he knew where the camera was.
"If you really want this simple," he said, voice carrying out over the entire lobby, "then let me through. I don't want this to be ugly either. Just bring out my dad and we can leave, no harm done. This is your chance, Vidic. This is your chance to prove that Abstergo, that Templars can really be the good shepherds you always claim to be, this is your chance to prove you're worthy of the position you've put yourselves in."
Desmond sensed more than saw people glancing back and forth, curious frowns, several backing up as they realized something Desmond already knew. The smart ones started to get away.
Then,
"Subdue the subject, please."
Fucking dick bastard.
The two guards pulled out fancy looking batons, and with a click of a button Desmond could see that they held charges. He spread his feet, adjusting his stance easily and raising his hands. "I do not want to hurt you," Desmond said, perhaps louder than necessary. "I don't want to spill innocent blood. Just let me through and nothing bad will happen."
Neither listened.
"Desmond?!" That was Shaun, but the first guard already moved in. His form was good but not great, sliding in and swinging his baton with a small measure of precision. Desmond was not about to be shocked by that thing, however, and side-stepped the strike grabbing the wrist and extending his hidden blade, stabbing in the shoulder, below the collar bone and above the lung, a nonfatal strike. He twisted, ensuring the guy wouldn't get up again, and retracted his blade quickly and shoving the guard aside before stepping into the circle of the second, too shocked at seeing his partner taken down in less than three seconds to recognize the danger. Desmond grabbed at his face, and placed his feet, hooking it around and yanking a leg out from under the guard, letting the guy fall backwards and using his grip to add more force to the fall. The guard landed on his head, and Desmond got up and walked calmly to the elevators, two men down but not dead. He hoped that would send a message to the other security people.
Rebecca told him fourth floor and he pushed the button mindlessly, all his energy focused on his task. He felt the hum and shift of the pulleys begin their work. Adrenaline was starting to pump into his system, more than he was already flooded with, and he knew his eyes were dilated, his body humming with energy.
The elevator suddenly cut off on the second floor, jolting Desmond. Vidic's voice permeated the small box.
"Well, I see you've learned absolutely nothing since you left us. Walking into an elevator in the middle of a hostile environment. Really?"
The hatred Desmond felt in that moment rivaled only Ratonhnhaké:ton's hatred for Charles Lee.
"Where's my father?" he asked rather than spouting vitriol. He couldn't let his anger to the talking, that would be giving Vidic what he wanted.
His answer was a dry, smarmy laugh. "You'll see him soon enough. Now be a good boy and wait for security to fetch you."
Well fuck that idea. He glanced around the elevator, considering his options, when he saw an access grate in the ceiling. It was too perfect to ignore, and he pulled it open and hoisted himself up. If Vidic wanted to play, then so could he. He glanced at the array of cubicles in the lobby, the bird's eye view impressive but not a blip on his radar. The mechanics of the shaft gave him a laundry list of handholds and he easily made his way up. The fourth floor door was open and he could make out voices from above, more Abstergo agents.
"He's headed up the elevator shaft! Send someone in!"
"Need eyes on him!"
"He can't be far."
"Where the hell is he...?"
Three guards. Good. Desmond inched his way up to the open door, sticking to shadows at first. He would have to time this right. He saw a silhouette peak out over the edge, looking for him, before turning back. Perfect! He launched himself up three feet, reaching up and grabbing the belt of the guard, who gave a startled cry as he pitched violently backward and fell down the shaft. "It's only two stories," Desmond muttered to himself, "you'll live."
"What happened? Did he fall?"
A second guard came, just as Desmond was hoping, and he managed to pull the stunt a second time, pitching the guy down the shaft before hoisting himself into the hall. The third guard was ready, but Desmond was faster, ducking under a swipe and stabbing his hidden blade into the soft tissues of the guys abdomen, right above the hip. Serious but not fatal, that's what he was going for.
Rebecca's voice crackled in his ear. "Your dad could be anywhere, Desmond. I'm sorry but I just don't know where he is."
"That's okay," Desmond replied softly. "I do..."
Vidic was nothing without a sense of sick, twisted irony. He knew exactly where his father was, and he knew how to get there, too. Lucy filled his mind, her soft looks and quiet words, feeding him, leaving him just enough information, letting him feel the need to leave the building. Templar she may have been, but some of those emotions were real, painfully real, and he hated Vidic even more for using that to his advantage. He powered down the hall, bursting into a conference room and seeing all the lab coats of worker bees scramble to get out of his way.
"Let's make this clear," he said, his voice carrying. "I will hurt no one, absolutely no one, if I just go where I need to go. Nobody's died yet, and I'd rather keep it that way."
Four security guards came in.
Right.
Desmond ducked under two swings, giving a bladed punch to one of the guys and sending blood spurting everywhere. Finally forced to pull out his combat knife he used it to catch a strike from the charged batons and shoved it aside, his hidden blade extracted and flying about the fight. It was over in three minutes, and Desmond barely felt winded, too much adrenaline in his brain for him to notice if he was pushing himself or not. He exited onto a series of catwalks above something, trees growing up from below, and he immediately took to them, using their foliage and shadows as cover. He hopped from one tree to the next, eyes always on security as they moved up and down the catwalks, trying to figure out where he had disappeared to, trying to guess where he would show next.
He looped around them, landing in a tight roll on the far landing and stepping through a door to another hallway.
Hallway...
Desmond shakily staggered after Lucy, the door that she and Vidic always left through opening and for the first time since his captivity he went through those damnable doors. Beyond the cyan blue lighting was... a hall. A painfully drab, normal, unassuming hall.
"... We're really getting out of here, huh.
"Abstergo's got some fucked up interior decorators," he quipped, passing by an innocuous plant. It was all so barrenly normal, he couldn't stand it.
They navigated the maze of halls and closed doors before Lucy slowed at a corner. "Stay close," she murmured; not that Desmond needed to be told twice as he pressed up behind her.
He shook his head to the memory, closing it and exhaling a hot, painful breath. Vidic was going to pay for this. All of this.
That was all the inattention he needed, he brazenly walked into the room he had known so intimately for a week and did not realize another person was there until he heard the click of a safety. His head snapped to the side to find Cross pointing a gun at him. Shit. Shit.
"Give me the Apple," the man said.
Blood pumped him to dive for cover as an entire fucking clip was emptied out. He jumped over the Animus, so integral to defining who he was now, and crouching behind it, pressed against the glass and metal, heartrate finally up and in his throat. Maybe Shaun was right, maybe he needed a gun. Fuck.
"Let's not draw this out," Cross said, the sounds of changing his clip sprinkling in Desmond's ear. "You've got nowhere to go and I've got a gun. Speaking of which... It's the twenty-first century and you're still running around with only a tiny knife for protection? It's stupid. Alright Desmond. Game's over."
He was close now, looming over the table. Cross was inside the reaction radius again, but Desmond didn't have the right angle, he was low, and Cross would know better than to repeat that mistake. What could he do, what could he do? Was there any way out of this, out of the mess he'd just put himself in? Fucked. He was so, totally, fucked.
Then,
"Not now... Not...now..."
… What? Desmond risked looking up, the hum of the Animus loud in his ears as he peaked over the table to see Cross staggering back, hands reaching vaguely to his head—shit, his temples, his temples were glowing gold. Was that...? His First Civ blood? Desmond's veins had glowed when he first got out of his coma, reacting to the Apple. Was this...? He put a hand to his courier pack, but the Apple was quiet. No, this was something else. This was the Bleeding Effect, at its terrible conclusion.
"По-прежнему не," Cross grunted. Russian? "Nyet! Get out!"
A long, guttural cry rang out, painful and aggressive and not the least bit sane, and Cross bolted.
"What the hell is going on down there?!"
Desmond ignored Vidic, realizing the danger. If Cross was having an episode, then no one was safe, he would react to any blind stimulus he could perceive. Malik talked about it, about when Altair studied the Apple for too long, the fevered reaction to what the Levantine Mentor saw. The first tenet of the Creed forced Desmond to follow, to prevent casualties.
"Get out!" Cross was shouting. "Get ouut! Get ouuuut!"
"It's Cross!" one of the guards said. "What's wrong with him?"
"Did the subject do that? What the hell?"
Cross ran blindly down the hallway, waving his gun around, bowling over security and the few labcoats left on the floor. Twice he shot wildly, shrieking in broken English and Russian. Nothing hit – yet – but Desmond knew it was only a matter of time, and he raced after him. Cross was a kindred spirit, in some way, locked up in the Animus, reliving lives, knowing what it was like to have multiple personalities running around in his head. Unlike Clay, however, he didn't go in knowing what could happen. Unlike Desmond, he never learned how to control the Bleeding Effect. Cross had nothing, not even support, only the lies of the Templars. He had to figure it out himself, pull himself together by any means necessary, and Desmond couldn't feel anything but pity.
A stray bullet broke through tempered glass, and Cross blindly dove through it, falling twelve feet into a cubicle barnyard. If he took any injuries he didn't feel them, getting right up and staggering down the artificial hall.
"Cross!" Desmond shouted from above, leaping down and giving chase. "Cross! Calm down! The Bleeding Effect will settle if you only calm down! I'm trying to help you!"
"Get out!"
"They won't get out until you can learn how to close the partitions!" Desmond shouted. "I know what I'm talking about!"
"На прошлой неделе!"
Half blind with madness, Cross was no match for Desmond in the speed department – especially after living the lives of Connor and Ezio, the fastest ancestors he'd ever seen. Not even Altair was that fast. He tackled the crazy man to the ground, a tumble of limbs and appendages, Cross shrieking and screaming and firing up in the air, bullets breaking hanging lights or embedding in ceilings. Desmond grappled, pulling and grasping until he had the grip he wanted. He was surprised to see Cross crying, gold still in his temples.
"Мы потеряли ребенка ..." he moaned, finally beginning to still. "We lost the child, I lost my family, I lost everything. I'm a Серьезные разбойником, I've been used... I'm so... Устали ..." His entire body stiffened, Desmond held his grip against another wild assault, but Cross' eyes cleared, slightly, and he looked around. "Fuck, not again," he muttered. "It doesn't help any more. It doesn't stop it. Warren, please... make it stop... I can't take much more of this."
His voice was hoarse from screaming, raw and broken and full of pain. Desmond could only do one thing.
"Then don't," he whispered softly. "This is the only mercy I can give you."
Cross stiffened at the foreign voice, but it was too late. Desmond shoved his hidden blade into the back, up and with a twist, a near bloodless death. Cross gurgled, trying piteously to shove himself away. Desmond loosened his grip, watched his fellow Subject try to get away.
"Fuuuuuck," Cross cursed. "This isn't how I wanted to go..."
"Nobody wants to go like this," Desmond said, sitting still, watching. "Nobody wants to... go, really, but this way you can go as yourself."
"Fuck you, Miles," Cross spat, blood ejecting from his mouth. "Fuck you and fuck the Assassins and fuck Orleov and fuck..." Energy bled out of him, literally, and he sagged to the floor.
"There's a way to create partitions in your mind," Desmond said, watching Cross's face slack, wide eyes darting to the Assassin. "Clay, Subject Sixteen, showed me how. It was almost too late, then, but let me show you now." Desmond got up slowly, moving forward in the most visible and nonthreatening way possible, and reached out and touched Cross's gold temples. He asked the Apple for a touch of help, and he felt the pulse, felt himself go to his island, the black skies of lacquered stone, the gates and shafts of light, and the code required, the commands that went into the different DNA. The island dimmed and he looked down to see Cross wide eyes, tears streaming down his face, and a smile on his lips before he died.
"... Rest in peace," Desmond said.
He got up and turned to see half a dozen security guards, guns drawn, gaping at the scene.
"Did you see that?"
"That glow... what the hell was that?"
"His temples, they were gold and then they were blue and..."
"Fuck this, I'm not paid enough for this shit!"
And, because the bastard just wouldn't shut up, Vidic.
"You... You killed him!" his voice shouted over the intercom. Desmond ignored the old fart and made his way back to the elevator. "Daniel was like a son to me, a sickly son, perhaps... But one full of promise. He accomplished so much... and so well. And now you've taken him from me! From us! Like the Apple. Like Lucy. We want to help the world, Desmond. To save it from itself! But you keep getting in the way. All our hard work, ruined. You're a fanatic. All your kind. Maintaining the erroneous belief that we are evil. That the work we do is wrong. We enrich lives here. We save and transform them. But you... You just keep taking and taking what isn't yours! Enough is enough Mister Miles. I invited you here in the spirit of cooperation. But you've responded to my hospitality with only violence. I had hoped we might preserve you and further study your memories. But you're not worth the trouble. I hereby authorize the use of deadly force. Kill the bastard! And then bring me the Apple!"
"Yeah, good luck getting your goons to follow those orders," Desmond said, glaring up at the camera. He got in the elevator and closed the door. "In case you haven't noticed, you don't pay them enough. Or maybe you don't teach them enough, seeing as how they had no idea about the Bleeding Effect, or Those Who Came Before, or anything that would have remotely prepared them for this confrontation. That's your problem, Vidic, you can't even trust the people you command."
There was no immediate response, and he took a breath, letting Cross' death wash over him, absorbing what he had done and acknowledging it. "Where's Vidic?" he asked quietly.
"Fifth floor," Rebecca said, something in her voice. "Desmond, what you did..."
"Save it for after," he said quickly, "I can't really process it now."
There was nobody on the fifth floor, the ruckus down below giving everyone more than enough time to hide, or evacuate. The labcoats were all gone, security was nowhere to be seen. That was a trick, though, Desmond knew. Not all of the goons would be chased away by him killing the favored child. There was going to be a trap, he knew it. This whole building was one giant trap, and he had an ace in the hole for just this occasion.
One single, terrified secretary was cowering behind the desk.
"Ti prego! Non capisco l'inglese! Non uccidermi!" she cried.
Desmond switched to Italian. "I have no intention of killing anyone," he said gently. "I just have to talk to Vidic. Could you please open the door?"
The secretary pressed the appropriate button repeatedly, shaking before cowering under her desk.
"Grazie mille," Desmond said softly, knowing the woman would be traumatized for life, that nothing he said would change her from seeing him as anything other than a monster. He sighed and stood, leaving her alone. A pair of giant Abstergo doors slid open, through a hall to a grandiose office. Further details disappeared as his vision pinpointed to his father, and he moved towards him with heavy, purposeful steps.
"Dad," he said softly. William looked up, a flick of the eyes and little more, unwilling to give anything away in the presence of the enemy.
"Not so fast, Mister Miles."
The room snapped back to focus; Desmond saw four burly guards in kevlar, guns hanging loosely in their hands. Vidic was behind his desk, still smarmy, still oily. All four guns lifted as one to point at him. "In case you hadn't noticed," Vidic said, "I'm the one calling the shots. Now give me the Apple."
This was it then, the last play. Desmond reached into his pack and pulled out the Piece of Eden. Its voices were whispering all across the chambers in his mind, telling him that these four were Vidics personal guards, not paid flunkies but true believers in the cause, guards that would chase him to the ends of the earth. Not innocent, no tenet.
That was all Desmond needed to know.
"You want it?" Desmond asked, cold. "Fine. Here it is."
And he cast the geas.
Light poured from the Apple, thin bands of light flickering in and out as it took hold of the four minds in the room, all the guns moving jerkily to point, not at Desmond, but to Vidic. Faces twisted in shock, terror, not the least of which was the old fart himself. "Wait," he shouted, "No...!"
But Desmond knew what to do. Altair had studied it all his life to learn its secrets. Ezio had it reach into his very DNA to pass on instructions. Minerva and Tinia both wanted him to live through this moment, and while Desmond might have shown mercy to Cross, he had no mercy for Vidic and the torture he had put him through, put Cross through, put Lucy and Clay and god knew who else through. No, there would be no mercy for this scum, only the luxury of a quick death.
He glared at Vidic, thinking about everything that had brought him to this point: the kidnapping, the imprisonment, the emotional manipulation, the snide overbearing attitude, the mind-fuck done to Lucy, Clay's torture, Cross' torture, the blind ambition, the domineering arrogance. Vidic was the atenenyarhu that Connor imagined his enemies to be, he was the Al Mualim that Altair fought against, he was the Cesare Borgia that had stolen so much from Ezio. Warren Vidic was evil in the classic sense of the word. There was no need to waver, there was no need for indecision. There was only one thing to do.
Four guns fired, and blood splattered everywhere as the godawful mess of Vidic's head exploded, the corpse falling to the ground in a streak of blood, bone, and brain matter. The guards, loyal Templars and no innocents, were next, guns to their mouths and firing. It was a mess, but Desmond couldn't allow himself to register the slaughter he had just committed, instead putting the Apple away and moving to his dad.
"You never should have come here. You put everything on the line - for, what? So you could rescue your father?"
Asshole.
Desmond cut him free and helped his old man to his feet. "... Yeah." he said softly. "Rescue my father."
William looked at his son, his face was still closed off – probably always would be – but Desmond stepped closer and they hugged, a quick, tight, heavy embrace that said everything they needed to after a decade apart.
William stepped over the blood and reached out to the desk, grabbing the cubical key, and the two men moved out of the hallway.
Everyone was massed in the main lobby, security and workers both. They seriously hadn't evacuated yet? Desmond felt the burn of the Apple in his hand, and he gave it a soft, simple instruction: sleep. Let them think this was a dream, let them have the hope of being healthy and whole after this. Let them believe... whatever they wanted to believe. Just... sleep.
There was a massive pulse of light, and everyone fell, fainted, in one awe-inspiring tidal wave of gravity. Outside, the entire block was asleep as well, everyone down on the ground, and Desmond walked his father calmly to the van, getting inside as Shaun immediately gassed the engine and drove out.
Desmond kept the Apple active, asking it to distract anyone who looked their way, making escape as clean as they could. Rebecca was already messaging the Italian from the night of their arrival, passing on the news and asking for help getting out of the country. A plane was already idling back at Leonardo International, expecting this, and word was slowly passed to the other teams about what happened. It was a straight shot to the airport, and Desmond released the hold on the Apple, exhausted.
They loaded onto the plane, the woman from before there and wishing them well, bowing her head to William and saying something Desmond chose not to catch before getting on the plane. Once they were in the air, everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief.
"I've been poking around a bit," Shaun said in a deliberately light tone, crossing his legs and adjusting his glasses. "Did you know that there are machines down there that make... well, manna."
Rebecca rolled her eyes. "Wizard manna or Biblical manna?"
A scoff was her response. "What do you think? Biblical of course. The Greeks called it ambrosia. The Indians, Amrit or Soma. Most cultures around the world refer to a divine food, though I'd say its taste is anything but."
William was incredulous. "You ate something that came out of a seventy five thousand year old machine?"
"And I lived to tell the tale!"
Desmond played along, happy for light topics. "So... what did it taste like?"
"Cardboard," Shaun deadpanned. "The taste of cardboard. Hardly the stuff of legends... Though I wonder if the first civilization didn't taste differently than we do."
"Maybe the flavorizer broke," Rebecca offered.
"Flavorizer? You've certainly got a way with words, Rebecca."
They couldn't maintain it after that, all three of them broke into hysterics. Even William had a wry grin on his face as everyone came down from the high of the mission. It wasn't a particularly funny exchange of words, but all the stress just bled out of them as they laughed and laughed and laughed. Eventually it died down, someone got a bottle of wine, and they all cheesily toasted to their success. Rebecca fell asleep after only a few sips, having been up the longest, and Shaun gently guided her to a pillow on his lap, letting her catch up on her sleep before he, too, finally succumbed to exhaustion.
Desmond knew it would be hours yet before his endorphin's finally normalized, and he shifted repeatedly in his seat, still vibrating with energy. He glanced at his father, touchscreen out and once again plugging along with work. Who cared that he spent days captured? Even now the mission came first.
"Hey," he said softly, mindful of their sleeping companions. "You think killing Vidic set Abstergo back?"
"I doubt it. Sure, he pioneered the Animus, but they've had the technology for decades now. Plenty of other people can take his place."
"And Cross?"
"He was a loose cannon – I doubt anyone's mourning his death. I think these days he was more a symbol than an asset."
Desmond felt disappointment, humming in his throat. Did he do any good whatsoever?
William saw the look and lowered his pad. "Sorry," he said quickly. "I don't mean to dismiss what you did. But it's going to take a lot more than a couple of deaths to stop the Templars."
"I know, Dad, I know. Sorry."
"No, I'm sorry."
They shared a wan smile, before Desmond asked the question he really wanted to know. "Did Vidic put you in an Animus when you were at Abstergo? They'd be able to search your memories and track you back here."
"Oh they definitely tried," William said with a wave of his hand. "But I made things difficult for them. You can resist, you can cloud up the transmission or just refuse to move. Eventually they would have gotten what they needed but still it would have taken them weeks."
… Good to know...? Would have been nice to know when he was captured, but then... "Vidic threatened to put me in a coma once."
William made the faintest of faces, distaste at the tactic. "It would have made you more pliable," he said, "But if the user isn't engaged, it's a mess. I know they've been working on ways to extract memories and let others sift through those memories. Maybe they're even analyzing mine right now. Maybe they'll find us, I don't know... What I do know is that we've got to get through that door."
Right. Mission first. Some things never changed.
Still, Desmond felt good, better than good, and he thought that maybe the hard part was over. Vidic... his threat had been looming over everyone for three months, and now he was gone. Cross was gone. It wasn't a major blow, not like he had hoped, but the pressure was lifted. One of the catastrophes hanging over everyone's shoulders was gone. All that was left was the key. And he was close... It was almost over.
God, what would he do once it was all over?
He snorted. That answer was obvious. But was it possible? After everything that happened?
He looked to his dad.
"Hey...so, uh," he stuttered. Great start Desmond, try that again. He cleared his throat. "When this is over… And assuming it all works out… I was hoping I could... you know... come home?" Yeah, that didn't sound terrible.
But William smiled, a bright, soft, gentle smile. "I'd like nothing more."
Hm. Good.
He fell asleep with a smile.
Six hours into the flight back he woke up, rested and relaxed. Stopping off at the bathroom and cleaning up, he saw his father was finally asleep and Shaun's lap suspiciously empty. He saw Rebecca behind a seat, curled around a laptop again, poking around something. Desmond sat crosslegged next to her. "Hey," he said softly, "I wanted to thank you. You looked up all that information to try and help me out, and you had my back. I didn't mean to scare you back there."
"I know," she said softly, hunching forward and stretching her back muscles before arcing the other way. She rubbed her eyes and yawned, still not totally caught up on sleep. "God, jet lag is gonna kill us for this," she muttered, rolling her shoulders and hunching again. She cast a sideways glance at him, face changing a little, before she lowered the lid on her laptop. Her headphones were on for the first time in weeks, music barely audible filtering out.
"So, what was it like being back at Abstergo?" she asked, trying to reach for something.
Desmond looked down at his hands, the weight of the last few hours reasserting itself. "For all the bluster, I didn't expect to get out of there alive. I know what I said," he added quickly, "and I figured with the Apple it would go the way I wanted but... It was fucking Abstergo, they held me hostage for a week in that place, and those feelings... they don't just go away. Once I was in the building... there was all this tension. I could handle it because of all the time with my ancestors, they're much better at dealing with stress than me, but I was sure that something would fuck up. And it did. Cross had me dead to rights, there was no way I could get out of that. It's a good thing that Cross broke down the way he did. If he wasn't losing his mind, I'd probably be dead."
Her eyes darkened, and she looked away. "I guess he never really recovered," she murmured, more to herself than anyone else.
…?
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Hannah," she said, so softly as to almost be inaudible. "She was the one who found him, drunk in a bar and accusing people of being Templars. When he first came to us, he was exhibiting symptoms of the Bleeding Effect. It was real bad. He'd just go in and out at a moment's notice - no Animus required. Got a little violent too, sometimes. None of us knew what was wrong with him at first, not until we figured out he was reliving Tunguska. He was on meds to stop the hallucinations, but he never took them, I guess. It was because of him that we started looking into the Animus Project at Abstergo. It took a while and a bunch of therapy, but we thought we had it under control. Then... then he killed the Mentor and..." her voice disappeared, lost in the emotional trauma of the event. Had she been there? Desmond could only imagine the havoc the event would have caused, the power vacuum, trying to figure out what happened and why and how. He gave her time, and eventually she came back. "Once he went back over to Abstergo, though... who knows what they did to him."
"I still worry about that happening to me," Desmond confessed. "I mean, Clay taught me how to make partitions in my head, I can open and close them all I want, but... I know it's been six weeks for you guys but it feels like only a couple days for me. I'm not sure I'll always have control over it, you know? What if I start Bleeding again...?"
Rebecca shook her head, eyes bright and determined. "He was raised in an Animus, Desmond. There's overexposure and then, there's... Daniel. Poor guy. That could never happen to you. We won't let it."
Desmond reached out and put a hand on her knee. "I know," he said with a smile, and she smiled back.
"Lady and gentlemen," Shaun said brightly, rousing voice even calling William up from the dead of sleep. Desmond stood and moved back to his seat. "I have the dubious privilege of relaying the standard Good news/Bad news. Which would you like first?"
"Not really the time for this..." William muttered.
Shaun was affronted. "Okay, okay. Sorry. So much for injecting a little pre-Christmas cheer into these otherwise dour proceedings. The good news is that, far as I can tell, the Eye-Abstergo launch has been postponed – permanently. With Vidic dead thanks to dear Desmond and the Apple of Eden still safely in our possession, there's no way they'll make their date. I suppose there's always the chance they'll manage to retrieve another Apple and start the whole process over – but all of our intel says they've got no leads. We're safe from that particular threat – at least for now. The bad news we've got less than ten days to open the temple doors. Whatever's meant to happen on the twenty-first – and it's likely a whole lot worse than Eye-Abstergo – I think we'd all very much like to ensure that it doesn't." His face sobered. "Things are getting worse outside."
Desmond frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Every day for the past two weeks the sun has been throwing off larger and larger flares. Older satellites are starting to malfunction, I hear rumblings of recalling the crew on the international space station. There's already work being done as well to shield power stations and transformers on the ground. Not that any of it matters. This goes far beyond some brownouts... We all saw what's actually coming."
"Do you know how it works?" William asked.
Shaun shook his head. "Look, I'm no physicist, but it's, it's something to do with the Earth's magnetic field. The flares and mass ejections disturb it, which appears to trigger seismic events. I've tried reaching out to people who might know better, but they all insist it's bunk. And I don't blame them. It sounds ridiculous..."
"I wish it was," Desmond muttered.
But Rebecca would not let the good mood Shaun had started with be deterred. "When this is all over, we should take a trip somewhere. Celebratory vacation!"
Desmond smirked. "Yeah," he said, "that sounds nice."
Shaun had the audacity to look annoyed. "Listen to you," he said, gesturing vaguely to the plane they were on. "Italy, Brazil, and the United States - all in the span of a few weeks - and you're complaining about not getting out enough?"
"Seriously, Shaun?" Desmond asked.
"No, not seriously," Shaun said with full on sarcasm. "Are you mad? Trust me - no one wants time off more than I do, right. Do you have any idea how hard it is to crank those database entries out as fast as I do?"
"Not hard at all," Desmond countered perfectly, "given you have enough time to put in all the snarky side comments all the time."
Rebecca burst out laughing at the comeback, Shaun shocked at the overreaction, and Desmond quickly pulled out his phone, trying to remember the menus. He wanted a picture of this, to preserve seeing Rebecca this happy, remind her that it was possible when times got tough. Her eyes were closed, headphones still on as she contained her guffaws before settling into a serene smile, listening to her music and content down to her bones. Desmond snapped the picture, Rebecca heedless of the sound over her music, and showed the picture to Shaun. The Brit smiled, gesturing to his own phone, and Desmond bluetoothed the pic over.
They landed just over two hours later in Boston, and Desmond was shocked to see it was midmorning. Forget jet lag, it would take him forever to figure out what time zone he was in. Shaking his head, he kept his hood way down as William and Rebecca procured a truck instead of a van, and they began the five hour drive to Turin. Shaun kept to the back roads, Rebecca catching up on her sleep again and William permanently attached to his touchscreen. Desmond took the passenger seat, Apple at the small of his back and watching as the houses drifted by. His mind lost focus, drifting from one thought to the next, one memory to the next, content with the presence of his father behind him. In the blink of an eye it seemed they were in the Appalachian mountains, surrounded by towering pines, and it was midafternoon. No one had stopped for food; now that they were state-side everyone just wanted to get to the Temple as fast as possible. The sooner they got to Connor and the key, the sooner it would all be done, and even after their victory, everyone just wanted this done.
Shaun was intent on the road as he was intent on everything else, and Desmond couldn't quite help snapping another picture, thinking he'd bluetooth it to Rebecca if she was interested.
It was supper hour when they finally stopped at the entrance of the Temple, and everyone ducked quickly into the cave, following the now well-travelled path to the gate.
"Hey, Desmond," Rebecca said, "Didn't Subject Sixteen's-"
"His name was Clay," he interjected automatically. Clay would never be called Sixteen in his presence, any more than he would be called Seventeen.
"Sorry," Rebecca said quickly. "I was just thinking. Didn't Clay say Washington was a Templar?"
"No," Shaun corrected before anyone could say different, "No, he indicated that Washington came into contact with an Apple of Eden. But beyond that, it's all speculation. Furthermore, judging from the portrait referenced by Clay, the event occurred much later in Washington's life. Perhaps Connor wasn't even involved. It's very hard to know for sure. We'll just have to wait and see what - if anything – happens. We can all assume Washington at least hid it away, we hardly remember the tyranny of King Washington, do we?" Shaun said in full sarcasm. "Not like the supposed tyranny of King Obama."
"Shaun, don't be an ass!" Rebecca hissed, and it was so much like the old them that Desmond could only smile and let them fight about rhetoric.
William pulled his son aside. "I'd get that power source hooked up before heading back into the Animus - but it's your call."
It was the largest concession ever; giving Desmond the choice of the objective, and the Assassin smiled at the gesture.
"Power source first," he said. He took the key and put it in his pack, going up the steps to the right of the central hall they were camped in. The path was broken away, leaving Desmond to crawl along the ceiling via exposed rebar – or whatever the First Civ version of rebar was – and landing at the other end of the landing, following the path to a room with funky looking recliners.
Juno was there, filling the room with gold light, and golden holograms appeared at one of the recliners.
"A new world approached," she said. "One that was dark and cold. It would consume us. For we were flesh and flesh is frail. Though suits and shields might offer comfort – such adornments would not suffice... Not to save us all... So we sought to change what we were. In this manner we might thrive in a world made poisonous..."
Juno watched as a copy of herself and a man moved to the recliner. The two touched each others arms, an intimate gesture that said more than Desmond ever wanted to know about the First Civ ghost, before the man took the seat. Juno kneeled next to her lover. "It was Aita who volunteered to see if it might be done. Aita, my husband, my love." And then, all at once, the guy, Aita, started bucking in the recliner, arms and legs jolting this way and that as the Juno hologram looked on in horror. "In the end it changed him. Ruined him. He was made a prisoner of the machines. The body might survive – but his mind became brittle to the touch..." The seizures seemed to last forever, Desmond watched as copy Juno became more and more distraught, even as her ghost's voice became more and more flat. "He begged me for release. For days – for weeks – for months." A weak hand struggled to rise, copy Juno taking it before placing her distraught face onto the chest of her lover, listening to his heartbeat. "I pleaded with him to give us more time to find another way. But there wasn't one. Not for him. Not for us..."
And then a knife was lifted, and Juno killed Aita in one sacrificial act of mercy.
The image faded, Juno offering no other comment, letting the moment hang, pregnant, in the air. Desmond began to understand the source of her hatred, her scorn. He had killed Lucy... the thought still brought agony to his mind, and he more than understood the temptation of succumbing to all those negative feelings – hell, he fell into a fucking coma because he couldn't deal with it. Sympathy was the last thing he wanted to feel, and he left the room in haste, trying to put the new information aside.
The room was a dead end, but there was a level above, and Desmond climbed the orange pillars – so different than the normal cyan of the architecture here – and pulling himself around and finally up. The upper level was an observation deck of some kind, watching the room he was just in and then looking out over another. More orange features were there, and Desmond gauged the distance before leaping to them. Climbing it led to a third level, and he followed a narrow path to yet another room.
"What is consciousness but a series of electrical impulses?" Juno asked, her hologram reappearing again, walking down the hall and into the room, touching the walls intimately. "And the body a vessel to hold these sparks. But it is weak. In time, it decays and crumbles into dust." She disappeared to emphasize her point, visually displaying the impermanence of life. "We asked ourselves, then: what if it might be replaced – with something stronger. Something better. So we forged a new vessel. One that might endure." She reappeared again, looking at the orange fea—shit, the orange banks, they were the machine Juno was talking about, the thing to store minds in. Fuck.
"It proved easy enough to enter," Juno said. "But to leave... To leave required something more. Something wrong... And so this too they abandoned."
She disappeared again, only to reappear at the center of room, her face fixed with a curious expression. "I wondered, though," she said, "were they right to turn away..."
"Did you guys see all that?" he asked.
"Yeah," Rebecca said. "Fuck."
"Well, now we know that she's not a ghost," William said. "She's been locked down here. Not only are we powering up the gate, we're likely waking her up, piece by piece."
"All the more reason to be careful," Desmond said as he exited the room. He climbed around more of the computer banks, disgusted with what they were, and finally landed on concrete. He was at the terminal, and he put the power cell in without comment, watching as a massive, incomprehensible bridge extended out from the shadows to connect to the gate. The path was laid before them, literally, and now they just needed to open the door.
When he got back to the camp, Shaun was lamenting. "I regret not asking you to hack into the Abstergo servers while you were there. A couple of well-placed relays and we'd be swimming in information."
Desmond shook his head. "We have everything we need."
"Yeah," the acerbic Brit retorted, "except the key!"
"We're close."
Shaun was skeptical. "How do you know?"
The question made Desmond frown, pausing to think why he had said it so confidently. "I just... do," he said lamely.
Rebecca was less confident. "I'm scared," she muttered, booting up the Animus. "What if we don't find the key? What if we do, but run out of time? What if whatever's down here doesn't work? I mean, what's changed? The First Civ tried to save themselves and failed. And this place is shut down and sealed up... Doesn't really feel like the sort of place we're going to find the answers to all our problems. Doesn't help that the people who brought us here are missing..."
Wait, what?
"I'm just worried this isn't going to work," she finished. "I don't want to die."
"Who's missing?"
"The team that set us up here during Sandy," Shaun replied. "We just got word. They disappeared."
Fuck. Fuck. One step forward. Two steps back.
He looked at William, seeing the blank face, completely closed off. His way of coping.
They ate a cold supper, and Desmond moved back to the Animus, sitting in and laying back.
William was there, leaning over, face slightly more expressive than normal. He reached out, putting a hand on Desmond's shoulder. "Home stretch, Desmond," he said. "I can feel it."
Encouragement? From his father?
Desmond at fourteen flooded his brain, being a father instead of a mentor, and he smiled. Closing his eyes and sinking into his ancestor.
Author's Notes: Hello Badass Desmond; did you enjoy your Crowning Moment of Awesome?
Though, technically, the climax of his story is the next time he's out of the Animus, really, this is what the game was building to. Take a character that can only walk around in AC1 and make him bulldoze his way through an infested Abstergo vicinity without even a scratch and bodies at his feet. Obviously, given his character arc, we didn't make him kill too many people, but he was just amazing for the last twenty pages: from fixing Cross' Bleeding Effect to showing up Vidic to announcing his intentions and then carrying them through to quietly preserving a moment when Rebecca was finally herself. There really isn't much to say, the chapter basically writes itself.
Next chapter: Connor's life continues to spiral: the Sullivan Expedition.