Note ~ Holy crap! She's back! Somebody get the shotgun! XD It's been forever, I know! My idiotic decision to take AP English this year was...well, idiotic. I am having to seriously manage my time, which has never been one of my strong points. But anyway, I'm hoping I'll be able to continue this more regularly from here on out. For those of you who even remotely remember this silly little story of mine, I love you with the fire of a thousand suns! Yeah, there are galaxies in my closet. Onwards to majorly delayed review responses!
FFNaru134 ~ Thankies for the fave! FINALLY, the next chapter has arrived! ;D *hands cookie*
3LWood ~ I am seriously honored that you spent so much time reading this! I really, really appreciate it and I grinned like such a little girl when I read your review. Thank you so much!
Dolphin2ii ~ Yays! And not exactly...If you're still around these parts, Ubisoft's role will be explained soon enough. ;)
JowenoftheRogue ~ Let me just say outright that your avatar is SEXY. Ehem...And you're review was beautiful. Thank you soooooooo much for taking the time to write it. I hope you're still there to read this chapter! xD
RadiantStarlight ~ Thank you so much! And no, I wasn't planning on including Desmond in this montage of peeps...But you know what? Now you've got my brain goin...Keep an eye out. :D
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
It is a cold thing to awaken with less than oneself in the air, the dark metallic atmosphere of a lab. Heavy splotches of nausea attached themselves to his sight, blinding him for a handful of bloated minutes. But in his lonely realm of darkness he could still see the blood that stained his blade and fingertips, the blood of she who was now so vulnerable to the truth. It was the blood of codes and coordinates, lost in the overloading circuitry of a suffering prototype.
"-taïr…ake up…think he's gone into a…don't…"
Altaïr held on to the voices that wafted in and out of consciousness, determined to pull himself from whatever pit he had fallen into. His eyelids slid groggily apart with no real reward of vision, but the small movement was enough to make a ripple in the voices, a reaction.
Gloved hands touched his face, traced long trails down his arms and legs. Tiny speckles of fluorescent pressed against his eyes and an aching numbness lifted from his limbs. Suddenly, the stinging of independent breath burned in his lungs and set his entire body aflame. His senses came crashing forward, though somewhat dulled by a damaged piece of himself.
Light exploded in his vision and the voices that had been so pale and far away stabbed in his ears like a thousand tiny needles. How long had it been since he had felt so alive, so agonizingly real? "Altaïr! You have to breathe!" There were new hands on his chest and throat, busy with strange mechanisms and tubes. He tried to do as they instructed; he tried to breathe, but to no avail. Gradually, the lights began to dim back to their dormant cavernous hue, and Altaïr could feel himself sliding back with them.
"Altaïr, just listen to the sound of my voice. You're going to-"
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
I could feel the goosebumps spread across my skin. I could feel them. There was light searing through the thin flesh of my eyelids, but it brought no warmth. This was not death. This was something…somewhere else.
Metal pressed against my bare spine, edged with thin trails of blazing heat that ran all the way down to my ankles. But how was I able to feel so distinctly when I could not bring myself to see or move? And what was that persistent noise?
I reached through my looping consciousness until the rushing of my blood gave way to a chorus of frenzied voices.
"I can't keep this door closed for long, Dunney!"
"Just a little longer! Please, Sarah," the voice became desperate, strained. "Open your eyes."
The synapses in my brain yawned and stretched, simultaneously blinking to life at the sound of that name, my name. My blood became heavy, my heartbeat rapid. But I was too exhausted. Opening my eyes seemed impossible.
The voice rang again, pleading. It was so familiar, like I had heard it countless times before…
"I'm still developing an implant to reverse brain deterioration and automatically pull her from the machine is she is killed in there..."
"Oh, don't tell me you're having second thoughts. We've put too much into this to back out now."
"Yeah, but…Did you hear the news this morning? They're looking for her."
"An independent brain? But that would mean…"
"We have to pull her out before it's too late."
My eyes flew open as the sound of gunfire enveloped the air. There was a dark, distorted shape looming over me, but all else was just one glaring luminescence. I blinked frantically, trying to focus on something, anything.
"The door!" someone shouted from behind me. "Dunney!"
The shape stared down at me for a moment, then ducked out of my sight, leaving only a hazy smear of light in its wake. I tried to make a movement, the smallest that I could think of. If I could just lift my finger a fraction of an inch…No success.
Trapped in my solitary realm of bewilderment, I just barely caught the sound of new voices wafting overhead. A parade of clucking feet simmered down to a halt, signifying the presence of a large group, but only one man spoke.
"I will not waste our time with idle chatter." His voice was resonant with almost cooing authority, like a singing general. "You will surrender yourselves peacefully. This warehouse has been expropriated in all legal terms."
Expropriated? Was I really in a warehouse?
"What?" the voice from earlier shrieked. "You can't do that!"
"Doctor Stevv, Doctor Millchase." The shape beside me stiffened. "I will say this once more: Surrender yourselves peacefully."
I squeezed my eyes shut as all sounds were swallowed by the pounding of my own heartbeat in my ears. A sudden rush of cold tingled in my head. This was all a dream. All of it. I was sure of it this time. It was one of those dreams within a dream situations. I mean, how much trauma can someone experience in one day? It just wasn't real. I would have smiled with relief had I been able to move; it would all be over soon.
-Crash!-
"Now, Dunney!"
A stream of gunshots seemed to spring from the walls, much louder than the firsts. And this time, they actually seemed to have an impact…
"Rorrick!" the looming shape above me cried, voice cracking with terror.
"Hold your fire! Damn it! I said hold your fire!"
But the bullets continued to spray around the room for an extra few seconds, whatever kind of room it was. Amidst the shattering glass and exploding barrels, I barely heard the muffled thump of a body colliding with the floor. Its landing was shared by that of countless discarded shells.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
He was sitting up now, staring lopsidedly at the floor.
"Altaïr…Altaïr, can you hear me?"
A dull beam of gold was shone into each of his eyes. He blinked, trying to focus on the jittering inconsistency of his body's most basic functions.
"No, no, no…" a familiar voice sounded.
"We didn't have a choice. He knew going in to this that he wouldn't come out of it the same, if at all. It's a miracle he's even breathing."
"What's the extent of the neurological damage?"
"I don't know. We won't be able to properly treat him until we've done a thorough scan of his brain, but I don't want to send him into another machine right now. Anyway, he can hear us, and his vision appears to be returning at a steady rate. If we're lucky, maybe he got away with some minor longterm memory loss."
"Luck is seldom a breeze that blows our way."
"Well let's hope the old girl is feeling generous today. What's the status on the team?"
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
"You killed him!" the shape shrieked. "You bastards! H-He's dead! Oh God, Rorrick!"
"Stay where you are, Doctor Millchase. I will not repeat myself a third time. Step away from that machine."
I cringed inwardly. When would I learn? Why did everything have to seem so damned real? The shape returned to my vision, staring down at me intently. I wanted to say something, to ask where I was, what day it was, where Altair was…But I would get no such opportunity.
"I'm so sorry," I heard the shape whisper.
"What are you doing? I said step away from the-"
Faintly, I picked up on the almost squealing sound of computer wheezing out its last breath. Gradually, the noise elevated until it was throbbing against my eardrum like the climax of a violent orchestra. Every cell in my body seemed to sink, gravitating towards whatever it was I was lying atop of. My lungs seized up as I tried to scream. Somebody needed to tell me what was going on, fast.
"Damn it! We didn't want to do this the hard way, Millchase! Restrain him!"
The parade of bootsteps from earlier hustled closer to me until there was not one, but several shapes looming above my head. My vision was still hazy, but I could just make out thin outlines of what looked like reinforced police helmets. They converged around the original silhouette with choppy, urgent movements, yanking him from my sight.
"What has he done to the system?" the singing general demanded.
Above the bustle of moving bodies sprang forth a meager, croaking voice. "Sir, he's wiped all system data!"
A throaty huff of exasperation floated through the stale air. "I want that data recovered! NOW! We didn't come here just to pick up a pesky scientist! Damn it! Take them to the trucks! I want our technicians in here asap!
Grated velcro scraped against my thigh, which I soon noticed was bare, as a sizable hand encased it. Another hand accompanied the first, pressing beneath the middle of my back until I felt myself heaved into a pair of phantom arms. The absence of uniform pressure against my spine made it seem as though I weighed nothing in the arms of the shape that now held me. Anything connecting me to my previous location clung to me like seaweed as I was pulled further and further away. Eventually, it snapped. I gagged as I felt foreign paraphernalia yanking out of my skin and falling back to its source. I was free, but from what? And why?
Amidst the inky confusion and rushing streaks of noise, there was nothing loud enough to distract me from a clear recollection of my own demise. I had been killed, right? Right? But then…maybe I hadn't. Maybe Altair had never existed. I wanted so badly to rip this unforgiving world to shreds. I had so many questions and there seemed to be no place left to look for answers. It was so unfair! And now some person I didn't even know was carrying me somewhere in some warehouse under the command of someman.
And that's when it hit me. I could feel my bare skin against every armored piece of my carrier's chest and arms. I was totally bare. The item that had stalked my presence for the past millennia was gone. My ipod was gone. Had I been able to move, I might have panicked, or at least made some motion to cover myself in my indecent state. But I was a rag-doll, completely at the mercy of my preposterous situation.
Suddenly, a massive sheet of light ruptured my nebulous sphere of sight, blinding me with painful accuracy. The putrid stench of gasoline tingled in my nostrils, coupled with the chugging of an industrial engine. Were we…outside?
"Open up," my carrier ordered hoarsely.
"Oh come on," someone mocked. "She doesn't look that heavy."
"It's not her. I've carried books heavier than this. It's the captain. He's ordered all technicians into the lab. Apparently one of the scientists wiped the project memory on the machine."
"What? Oh shit…"
"Tell me about it. We're gonna be here for the long haul."
"Hold on. That's my radio…Burns here. Yeah, we've got her…Roger that."
"Was that him?"
"Little girly here needs to get loaded immediately."
"That's what I've been sayin'!"
"Alright, alright. I'll open the- guh!"
My carrier jumped backwards, clutching me tightly to his chest. "H-Hey! Don't come near me! You'll hurt the girl!"
A flower of bittersweet joy bloomed in my stomach. Was I being saved? Or was this something else? Honestly enough, I found myself slipping into a placid mindset, a sort of neutral acceptance of whatever was going on. I was done trying to figure it out…at least for the moment. The feeling of nothing around me actually existing didn't contribute to my concern much either. I felt utterly transparent.
A cloud of organic shadow shrouded the daylight that burned my eyes. Someone was standing beside my carrier, noticed too late by his fearful senses. He let out a twisting yelp, which was promptly muffled by the hand of his attacker, and released his death grip on my bare frame. But rather than falling to the ground as I was expecting, I was caught by a smoother, less armored pair of arms.
"Get that door open!" someone yelled.
"Somebody get these bodies in the truck!" my new carrier ordered, a woman by the trilling tone of her voice.
The brightness was quashed and the temperature seemed to dissipate as I was moved into what I assumed to be the back of a transport truck. Why in the world was I suddenly so damn important? For a moment, I considered how much nicer it would be to be dead, sleeping peacefully in an undisturbed slumber…But to die by Altair's hand, that was something else entirely, something far from peaceful.
"..rah….ear me?"
I snapped out of my pondering and blinked at the faceless voice above my head.
"Can you hear me, Sarah?" she asked again.
I blinked again, unable to do anything else, but the small movement seemed to be enough.
"We're here to help you, okay? But in order to do that we need to calm down."
Calm down? What was she talking about? I was plenty calm.
A man's voice echoed against the murky walls of the truck's interior. "I think she might be in shock."
"Thanks, Sherlock."
"I'm just sayin'. No amount of sweet talking is gonna help us here. We need to be creative."
My carrier sighed. "Sarah," she began urgently. "I know you're scared and probably really damn confused, but please just try to work with me here. Breathe as deeply as you can. Try to imagine a serene field of…"
"Lavender. With fluffy bunny rabbits tickling against your feet."
"Yeah. Adorable little white rabbits."
A gloved hand brushed a tousle of hair from my face. For the first time since…since all of this began, I felt my lungs release in a series of breaths as deep as the sea. I did as I was told, imaging myself in a flourishing land of rabbits and lavender, and slowly became aware of exactly how stressed I really was.
"It's working! Her veins are subsiding."
"Check her heart rate."
The hand on my face lowered to my chest, pressing against it gently to pick up on the thump of my slowing heart. "Oh thank God. Get that syringe ready."
Sluggishly, the prick of a needle in my arm coaxed me away from my flowering field. My brain relaxed into a totally silent realm of sedation and…
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
"We just got an update from the team. They've commandeered the transport. Sarah's on her way."
"Really? She's safe? Oh my God. I can't believe it."
"Now all we have left is to pray that they get here safely."
"Altair. Altair, do you remember Sarah?"
The light was shone in his eyes again. He blinked. Sarah…Shabah…His eyes widened. "Shabah!" he croaked.
"We have her, Altair. She's safe." A reassuring hand pressed against his shoulder. "You did well."