Part Three: Trying to Synch
Desmond blinked at the white fog area with the strange floating symbols. "Whoa," he whispered.
His previous times "waking up" had been when he'd been pulled out of the Animus and it had been disorienting and jarring. Here, surrounded by fog, he was at least able to come back to himself.
"Just a moment and we'll pull you out, Desmond."
He nodded, taking a moment to look at the hidden blade on his wrist and the sword at his hip. The sword that had just slain Masun. He shuddered. This was... bizarre. He was still dressed as that arrogant ancestor of his and, idly, he wondered if the Animus would ever show him dressed as who he really was.
... Probably too much effort for the old codger with the god-complex to program.
There was a distinct pulse at the base of his skull before Desmond was looking up at the white ceiling of the Animus room. He moved his head from side to side, shocked that he wasn't as disoriented as he was previously. Sitting up still proved he wasn't on steady legs yet, however, as he slumped forward enough to put his head into his hands.
"I must say," the oily voice of Warden stated, "you're adoption rate has far exceeded our expectations."
"Gee, thanks," Desmond grumbled, rubbing his temples. Beneath him, the Animus was still warm, but it seemed that some of its lights had gone dark.
The old bastard continued, undaunted. "I mean it. Previous subjects have not been able to adapt as swiftly as you have. Very impressive, Mr. Miles."
Desmond turned to glare at the high-and-mighty, sitting at his raised throne. Then what he said caught up to him and his blood chilled. "Previous subjects?"
Lucy moved a food cart into his line of vision, a clear message to start eating lunch.
"Yes, Mr. Miles. Surely you don't think you're all that special, now do you?"
He didn't even dignify that with a response, instead getting up and walking on steadier legs to his room and back to the bathroom. Part of it was a need to relieve himself, but mostly the information that Warden had just gloated at him had rocked his little world.
Desmond might not be alone. Other people might be here and in need of escape. They had spoken of being able to induce a coma and that it would make the process slower, but Desmond hadn't quite put two and two together to equate other subjects. He'd thought it was theory or experimenting on volunteers, if he'd even thought about it.
But damn, if they'd grabbed him, didn't that mean that previous subjects were no longer usable? Were they even still around to be saved?
He washed his face and took a deep breath. He couldn't do anything now. Nothing. And that was so frustrating. All he could do was think and plan. Ergh. He needed more information. Working with nothing well and truly sucked.
Deep breath.
He walked back to the main room and ignored the gloating look on Dr. Dickhead's face.
"So, I'm apparently good at this," he said nonchalantly, though there was still the slightest of quivers in his voice.
"Eat up, Desmond. We estimate that full meals will help you go through these memories faster."
"Yeah, I'll bet," he mumbled, picking up the sandwich from the tray. "Don't suppose I could order a Downhome Ditch Digger?"
"A... what?" Lucy asked, her brows raising in confusion.
"Four parts vodka, six parts Jack Daniels, nine parts tequila, and a few drops of lemon and Tabasco sauce. In a shot-glass of course."
"Oh... Um..."
"You strike me as a Sand-Grown-Un."
"Mr. Miles, you're wasting time," Warden growled.
"I can't say you're as classy for a drink," Desmond replied with a faint smile. "I think a simple Boiler Maker. I don't even have to mix that."
"Mr. Miles!"
Desmond bit into his sandwich to hide a smile. Right, cavalier got under the old goat's skin.
"Okay, maybe not a Boiler Maker. Maybe a Macaco-Loco."
"Mr. Miles!"
"Fine, fine. A Mad Cow then."
His warden finally turned around, red in the cheeks and muttering. Desmond chanced a glance at Lucy to find her hiding a smile behind her hand and attempting to focus on the screen.
With everyone officially distracted, Desmond took a moment to study the room again since he'd missed his chance the previous day. Most of the wall that had the observation window was lined with servers and computer banks, each with glowing green lights flickering with processing. It explained why the room was always so cold. So many units needed a lot of air conditioning to avoid overheating.
...And Desmond didn't dare pick apart any of them because he would lay money down that all those servers were powering through their processors for the Animus. The ceiling in here was even higher than his room, no doubt part of Warden's god-complex. The Animus, and everything associated with it, was far too complicated for Desmond to try and tackle. A loose wire might mess him up, and he doubted he'd be able to figure it out, even with a manual and diagrams.
His best bet at getting information was the two computers. The one at Dr. Dickhead's desk and the one at the Animus.
Hacking them would be difficult though. Granted, Desmond had a fair bit of skill at the basics, as evidenced by hiding for so long under assumed names and fake ids. But hacking required his own system, his own set up. A program to crack passwords or a keylogger that he could embed into another system. He didn't have any of that. He would be left guessing passwords manually or he'd just have to pray that someone forgot to log off.
Desmond glanced at Lucy over his cup of water. She was his best bet at somehow sweet-talking into staying logged on or giving a password.
Of course, Desmond needed to be able to even leave his room in order to do anything.
One step at a time.
"If you're quite finished, Mr. Miles," the old codger said sourly.
"Just a sec, doc," Desmond replied flippantly. He returned to the bathroom, if for not other reason to ensure that a quick need for a rest stop after his next session in the Animus didn't become an opportunity to lock him in his room. He'd stay out and about as long as he could once he was himself again.
Desmond stepped out of the beeping door again and hid a grin at seeing the old bastard turned away from the Animus. Lucy looked up as he entered. "Let's resume," she said gently.
He tried not to show hesitation on getting onto that machine again. He wasn't sure how successful he was but he just let out a silent sigh and leaned back, watching the visor come up with the strange triangle/A symbol. The machine started to warm and there was pressure along the back of his skull.
Desmond looked around waiting area. Loading again, he thought to himself.
With a sigh, he looked at the hidden blade, fiddling his wrist around to figure out the trigger until he caught the hang of it. He rhythmically sheathed and unsheathed it, set to a beat of a song he'd liked but not heard in years.
It was something to do.
"Desmond. We seem to be having a problem."
Well isn't that a crying shame.
"Problem?"
"We can't load you right to Damascus. You'll have to get there on your own."
"... All this expensive machinery and technology and you can't just drop me off where you need me to? Isn't that a waste of time that's distinctly not my fault?"
"Don't be so coy, Mr. Miles. While the Animus is the crowning achievement of my research, it is not a God that can magically create a world with the wave a finger."
No, but that's what you want it to be.
Desmond smiled, but decided not to comment. He'd poked enough for now. Best not to aggravate his captor any more. Time to go back to being a good little prisoner.
"So where will I be?"
"Masyaf," Lucy replied.
He nodded as the white fog cleared, plunking him back in the library where his ancestor had just gotten orders to go off and kill people.
Right. Where were the stables again? "So," he asked, the scholars bustling around the shelves ignoring him, "how do I know where the stables are?"
"Ah, we haven't explained that yet, have we?" Lucy's disembodied voice said. "Say 'Map,' and then 'Masyaf,' and you'll have it in your pack."
"Right." This didn't feel silly. Nope, not at all. "Map, Masyaf." He heard a faint rustle and reached into the pack strapped to the back of his belts and pulled out a small scroll. It was indeed a map. He recognized the stage area where his many-greats-grandfather had found Masun and the small market area at the base of the mountain. In fact, there was even a clear marker of pen, not quill, that pointed out where the stables where.
"Well okay then."
Desmond descended the stairs to the main entranceway, not liking how the assassin guards just looked hollowly at him. He exited the fortress without any complications or any memories triggering, but he could only hope that that would happen when he got to the stables. Masyaf had pretty much one road down the mountain, and the stables appeared to be outside the gates, at least from what he remembered of when Altair had ridden up from Solomon's Temple. So he put the map back in his pouch and walked with the crowds down the mountain. He navigated the crowd easily, never bumping into anyone, but he had to admit to be a little freaked out at all the blank looks.
Halfway down the mountain, Desmond decided to do something crazy. He walked up to a guard who was just randomly standing by the sheer face of a mountain, and waved his arm in front of him.
The guard didn't even blink.
"This is just a construct, Desmond," Lucy's voice filtered down. "Unless you interact directly, pushing someone or attacking, nobody will really pay any attention since they aren't really there. It's just an approximation that the Animus puts together."
"So I'm in a video game filled with NPCs. Gotta say, doc, I didn't picture you as a gamer."
"That's enough, Mr. Miles. Get back to work."
"Yeah, yeah," he muttered, turning to the road once more.
Once he got to the base of the mountain, he walked through the gates to find the small stables. There were only three horses available and Desmond hesitated. He hadn't ridden a horse since he was a kid and, construct or not, a horse was a big and powerful animal to be treated with respect. The horses were all calm, tails and ears flicking occasionally. Looking between the three, he chose the white one on some hazy feeling that this was the horse for Damascus. Not that he understood that feeling in the slightest.
He gave a quick brushing and tied on the saddle, checking all the clasps and buckles to make sure they were snug. He led the horse out and glanced around.
"Come on, shouldn't this be triggering something?"
But nothing happened. Desmond didn't feel himself fall in synch with an ancestor many times removed and just... fade. He was still wandering around.
So Project Wander Aimlessly would be continued.
Of all the stupid...
He mounted slowly, but as glad to see his body still remembered from back when he was on the farm. He and the white Arabian, good to hide in the rich Damascus, broke into an easy trot and Desmond was glad to feel the wind on his face. It wasn't his motorcycle, but it was good nonetheless. He saw almost no one as he traveled down the valley aside from a random traveler that he easily avoided.
Oh, there were some downed palm trees. Desmond leaned forward, kicking his heels sharply and the horse took off at a fast gallop, easily clearling the fallen tree.
Ahhh, that felt good. He let the horse fall back to a trot as he passed under ancient, dilapidated arches. For the briefest of moments, Desmond thought he saw the white fog with symbols of the waiting area swirl around him, but a blink later he was back in the valley. There were some assassin flags marking on either side, and guards staying at attention.
Desmond shrugged. He continued riding down the valley, amazed at all the detail the Animus could project. Even on his horse, he could feel a breeze, though in a strange disconnect, he could also not feel a breeze, since he wasn't really here.
He passed some strange sort of watch tower that appeared useless, given how the cliffs of Masyaf's mountain were still too tall to see by and exited the valley. Looking ahead, he paused as there were two paths he could chose from. One to the left, one to the right.
The horse shook its head and then lowered it to nibble on what little growth there was in the hot summer.
"Uh, Map... where am I again?"
"The Kingdom, Mr. Miles. I would have thought that obvious."
"Fine, which kingdom?"
"Tut, tut, Mr. Miles. You clearly don't know your history."
Desmond bit back a growl.
"You're in the Third Crusade," Lucy explained, ever helpful and infinitely nicer. "That was when King Richard tried to take the Holy Land from the ruler Saladin."
"All one kingdom," Desmond muttered. Salah ad-Din, leader of the Saracens. "Map, Kingdom."
There was a rustle in one of his packs and he pulled out the map.
Desmond looked at the map. Really looked at the map. Then he looked to the sky. "Are you kidding me? It's a blurry mess!"
There was a moment of silence.
"It appears, Mr. Miles, you don't synch as well with your ancestor as I thought."
"Oh, so this is my fault?"
"I'm working on it, Desmond. But you should have some basics from this map, right?"
Desmond scowled at the sky. "Yeah, basics that are wrong. Masyaf is in Syria, right? Damascus is most certainly not to the east, Jerusalem is not parallel to Acre, hell, Arsuf is closer to Jerusalem than Acre. You're map is totally wrong!"
There was another heavy pause.
"And how do you know this, Mr. Miles? Are you synchronizing already?"
Desmond rolled his eyes. "What do you take me for, some self-absorbed idiot? Tell me, where were all of you when Egypt had its peaceful revolution last year? I can't tell you how many customers were cheering for Egypt, worrying about what Egypt's policy on Israel would be with new leadership, hoping that the revolution would spread to other middle-eastern countries, worrying how it would affect the goddamn oil prices, and so on and so forth. God, the place was packed when Mubarak finally resigned, lots of celebration. The news had maps up of the area and I did a little research on my own time." He narrowed his eyes. "I say again, your map is wrong."
Apparently they weren't expecting him to keep up on world events if the stunned silence was anything to go by.
"Fine. East it is." He turned his horse and started to trot again, hoping somewhere along the way he would do this synch-thing they wanted and go back to being a watcher. He still kept an eye on his map, blurred as it was, since the pen mark of his location was always clear. That way at least, he knew if he'd get of course.
Riding uphill, Desmond reigned in his horse and stared at a stone signpost.
"English," he muttered, "the signs in the Arabic world are in English. Sure they are."
"It was the best I could do with the map being so blurry, Desmond," Lucy's voice replied.
... Well, that had to count as something.
With a sigh Desmond took off again at a mile-eating trot. This may be a construct, but he knew better than to force a horse to do nothing but gallop. Who knew what this programmed beast could do? Besides, Desmond reasoned, if he did things the way a normal person did, maybe he'd randomly synch.
The trail was mostly dirt. He couldn't label it entirely as sand, though the summer heat might turn it into such by the end of the season. The mountainous region had a way of just holding the heat down and the fact that it was mid-afternoon, the hottest part of the day, wasn't helping. More than once, Desmond reached for his water-skin, though he knew it wasn't real, for no other reason that to trick his body into thinking that he was getting relief from the damned heat. Lunch in that frozen air-conditioned room seemed like a lifetime ago as he passed heat-wilting trees. Any shrubs were low-lying and even their greens were starting to dull.
Desmond found another watchtower, this one guarded as well. He reigned in his horse again.
It wasn't the white or gray turbans of the assassins, like he'd seen at Masyaf. Nor was it chain-mail and armor like he'd expect of the Crusaders. The brown leathers and dark turbans marked them as the only other force Desmond could expect in the area. Saracen. Lucy and Warden had mentioned that if he interacted with anything directly he might be able to trigger a memory.
Desmond hesitated. Deliberately starting a fight with guards hardly seemed like a bright idea. Plus, he knew how to fist-fight. Not sword-fight. And those guys had some sharp-looking swords.
He still remembered getting stabbed by Al Mualim, thank you. He didn't care to repeat the process.
So Desmond kept a safe distance, after checking his blurred map, decided to go down into the town below. It was a small village, even smaller than what he'd seen of Masyaf. There was a line of merchant stands with carts behind them that held the wares. Desmond paused by the well to get a bucket of water for his horse. But to his surprise, it didn't seem to work.
"You're here to synchronize, Mr. Miles. Not waste time."
Desmond glanced at the sky, but said nothing. This was a construct. It wasn't real.
... It could sure feel real though. His horse gave a small neigh but just stood there patiently.
Desmond mounted again and decided to wander around the town. Who knows, maybe his ancestor had spent the night here or something and he could synchronize that way.
He had explored almost every nook and cranny and was about to give up when there was a loud shout in something that sounded distinctly like German. Desmond turned around to see what was going on, since most of the people he saw were silent, when something grabbed his foot and dragged him off his horse. The mount neighed loudly and took off away from the fight as Desmond tried to orient himself and see past such a damn low hood.
"What the hell?" he shouted.
More German was thrown viciously in his direction. He barely pushed his hood back enough to see when a massive sword came plummeting towards him.
"Ack!" Desmond rolled away and onto his feet, looking at a tall, tall man in chain mail, a white smock and red helmet. "What'd I do?" he demanded, backing up as the sword swung at him again.
Above him, Warden only chuckled.
Bastard.
People around them that had been vacant before started screaming and running back. Desmond took a moment to think between swings and reacting on pure adrenaline. Like it or not, he did know how to fight. Aside from what he had learned growing up, Desmond had been a bouncer briefly before getting his bartending license. He'd had to break up scuffles before. Including thugs who got their hands on some kind of weapon.
It's just a broom, just a broom, just a broom, he thought to himself, trying to visualize something other than a big, armored, armed, experienced knight trying to kill him.
He dodged again, trying to get to a side, but the sword came at him again and this Templar was far too stubborn. He pulled out his sword, held it up in a firm block, and as the blade slid easily away from him, he twisted into the Templar's guard and thrust his hand forward, letting the hidden blade easily slide between the gaps of armor and burying it into the heart.
Desmond gasped as the people still nearby screamed and ran away.
He pulled away quickly, looking down at his hands. His hands that had an unsheathed hidden blade and a naked sword.
"What... the... hell?" he shuddered. "Jesus fuckin' Christ, what the hell just happened?"
He... he... he had just killed someone. Something he'd sworn he'd never do. And he wasn't even sure how the hell he did it... and his hands weren't even covered in blood.
"Not real, not real, not real," he muttered to himself. "Didn't just kill a guy, didn't just kill a guy, dear God I just killed someone..."
"Oh, do calm down Mr. Miles. This is what you do as an assassin, isn't it?"
"I am not an assassin," Desmond growled back. He sat down, shaking and holding himself.
"It's okay, Desmond," Lucy's voice was softer and more understanding. "I understand that someone's first kill is the most difficult. But until you synch with your ancestor, you may need to kill more of these 'NPC's as you call them. They're not real. You're not harming anyone."
"You think that fucking matters?" he shouted. "I may be in a machine, but this is real to me. It's not me mashing buttons on a controller or waving my arms for motion-control. This is me, in my body, with my own consciousness, taking a life. And no matter how you rationalize it, that's wrong."
Desmond didn't hold a higher moral ground. But killing people was a fruitless endeavor. He'd left because he didn't want to kill anyone. Take down one sicko and there was always another to take his place. And he'd seen what happened to the people who actually went out and killed. They were hardened. Cold. A part of them was trapped in stone because every time they killed someone, a piece of that person died as well.
No matter how rationalized or "just" murder was, it still was murder.
And Desmond had somehow, instinctually, no less, taken a life.
Real or not.
You're a prisoner, you idiot. Knowledge. Keep it together, you moron.
"Oh my, who could have done this?" Desmond looked up. The people - the NPCs - had returned to their basic routines. Despite having just seen him kill the knight, Templar, they didn't recognize him. The person who had spoken was a woman, sent to collect water from the jar she held on her head.
Desmond held back a soft sigh, shaking himself.
Later. He could deal with everything later.
It had to be later.
His horse had come up to him again, and was nibbling at the end of his coattails.
He patted the nose and ran a hand along the cheek, letting the big animal butt his head gently against Desmond's torso.
"We're waiting, Mr. Miles."
Desmond didn't reply. He just stood up and got back on the horse.
The rhythmic riding helped Desmond clear his head as he pushed his horse from an easy trot to a fast gallop, as he did when he was troubled as a kid.
It felt like ages before he'd cleared the town and was back on a pass going uphill.
He was sweating. The heat of the day was bearing down heavily and Desmond was surprised that his ancestor's robes weren't getting damp with sweat. He passed another crossroads with signs in English and let himself chuckle as a distraction.
The road curved above a small lake and Desmond stopped for a moment to look at the small settlement. He still avoided all the guards, even more adamantly now. In a narrow pass between another watchtower and a cliff, he slowed his horse to a walk and leaned forward, keeping his head down. The pass held several Saracen guards standing formally and facing each other. He didn't want any part of that. It was better to stay on the road than wander into the town. He didn't want to end up in another fight again.
Desmond stuck to the road that seemed to be heading north by his blurred map. It lead to another watchtower overlooking not a settlement, but an army encampment. The tents and cookfires all seemed to belong to the Saracen troops lining the area. Desmond rode very quietly, staying close to the stream and even stopping to let his horse water itself. Not that it did.
After easing through the camp, he kept following the stream until he saw broken down stone arches similar to what he saw at the entrance of Masyaf.
Passing through them, Desmond once again saw the white fog swirl before blinking. He crested a hill and held back a gasp.
The city below him was massive.
"That's... Damascus?"
"Yes."
The walls themselves were towering, yet beyond them he could see even taller structures and he had no clue what was even there. He just sat there in awe.
"And I have to wander in that huge place?"
"Indeed. Chop, chop, Mr. Miles."
"Riiight." Shaking his head, Desmond turned and continued down the hillside's winding path. As he headed toward the nearby gate, he heard something amongst the palm trees.
"Don't hurt me, please!"
Desmond hesitated. After that horrible experience of killing someone, he didn't want any more trouble.
"You spread your lies, filth, and blasphemy!"
"Please, you're hurting me!"
Desmond sighed. He dismounted and walked through the lower greenery to find Saracen guards jostling an old man around.
This was the first real conversation he'd heard since entering the Animus, so this might be important. A way to synchronize.
... He really didn't want to fight.
"Somebody, help me!"
... Nor could he leave someone in trouble like that. Not really.
He pounded his fists together. If he could catch them by surprise, he wouldn't have to hurt anyone.
The fight wasn't quite the same as the brawls he'd participated in. But he was able to disarm them easily and leave it to just fists, which was much easier. These Saracen guards didn't seem as swift as the previous knight had been, giving Desmond plenty of opportunity to get in jabs and punches before each went down. None of them even laid a hand on him once they were disarmed. That was... surprisingly simple after the fight with the knight.
"Is that the last of them?" The old man wheezed. Desmond helped him up. "I hope so."
Desmond nodded. "Hey, you wouldn't happen to know what's been going on lately, do you?"
The old man stared vacantly at him. "Still, best not to take any chances. I'll hurry home."
"I asked you a question."
"Don't think I'll leave it again any time soon either. You've done me a kindness young man. Be assured, I won't forget it."
Desmond sighed. NPCs and scripted dialogue.
The white fog swirled, however, and instead of an old man, there were a long line of scholars, all dressed in white, some of them hooded, walking by and heading into town.
"Well, I guess that will work," Desmond muttered, joining the crowd.
Once he passed the gates, Desmond just took a moment to openly stare. He was in a massive square; wooden stalls with people selling wares, clay buildings. Frocks, turbans, bare feet and sandals, giant clay jars that balanced on women's heads, wood scaffolding and crates, chicken coops, dogs barking and dissonant voices that didn't quite make sense.
"This..." Desmond muttered, "This is one hell of a 'construct.' "
"We don't have time to be impressed, Mr. Miles; just trigger the next memory."
Control freak.
There were two major roads, one to his left and one to his right. Picking one at random, he went right, wondering what he was supposed to do. The vacant eyed NPCs milled and walked and marched. Guards passed on patrols in tight formation, hands perpetually on the hilts of their swords. Beggars with diseased hands and feet flitted from one person to the next begging for some money. Merchants tried to catch people's attention with loud, smooth, welcoming voices.
Suddenly entering shade, Desmond looked up to see that wooden boards had been dropped randomly over the street he was on, resting on the upper roofs of the buildings. The natural shade made it seem perhaps slightly cooler, he wasn't sure; the street was packed with people and merchants, and the body heat - or his mind creating body heat - made the temperature hard to determine. Leaving the market, he entered another square, sided with a river dotted with boats and wooden platforms that acted as docks. Desmond looked out, trying to remember last year when he was wandering the internet during Egypt's protests. What was the name of this river? He doubted he knew but it was the Barada River controlled by the who? Frowning, Desmond followed the river, crossing a bridge and seeing a smattering of houses butted up against the city walls.
He walked some more, trying to figure out how to trigger a memory. The city was so alien to him, the architecture was so old and primitive, there was just so much wood and clay, and yet there were some finely crafted arched windows and glass - which he thought was a commodity for the rich in ye olden times - but then this was the desert, they probably had the right kind of sand for blowing glass right under his feet. He looked down, suddenly curious, and crouched down. His hand swept over the pounded dirt at his feet, but none of it clung to his fingers. Rubbing them, he could sense no grit between his pads. Frowning again, he righted himself and rubbed his feet along the earth, and dust swirled.
It reminded him, once again, that he was in a machine-generated construct wired into his own mind. This was screwed up.
Muttering under his breath he started to backtrack to the bridge to cross it. A swarm of guards, however, was on it patrolling, and Desmond was still not keen about starting another fight. He didn't want to kill anyone, imaginary or not. He left the assassins for a reason. Grunting, he saw a platform dock across the river and decided to just swim for it. He hopped easily over the safety rail (did they call them safety rails back then?) and dived into the water.
And was promptly surrounded by white fog.
"Huh?"
"Sorry about that," Lucy said, "The Animus isn't perfect. The subroutines for swimming still haven't been properly beta-ed."
"So I can't freaking swim here? What a piece of crap! Just how is this realistic?"
"Just focus on finding the memory, Mr. Miles," Dr. Dick said.
Control freak! God complex!
Cursing colorfully, Desmond found himself back on the dirt street he was on before he had jumped. Stomping like a child, he shoved his way through the crowd, heedless of their catcalls and admonishments as he marched back to the bridge to cross it. That proved to be a mistake, because one of the people he pushed was a guard, and suddenly the group he'd been trying to avoid was turning their full attention to him.
"Infidel die!"
"Aw, come on!" and Desmond turned and ran.
He had no idea what he was doing, of course, only that he had to get away. He never really had to run before; well, not with people literally at his heels, and he was ducking left and right into alleys and streets to get away.
"You cannot run forever!"
Shit he was not having a good day. Not a good day at all! He took a sharp right followed almost immediately by another and found himself in another square. He sat hurriedly on a bench and put his head down, staring at his feet and pulling his stupid hood as far forward as it could go. He was panting. He dared not look up as he heard a dozen pounding footfalls rush past him coupled with vicious epitaphs. Heart pounding, he looked up to the sky.
"You forget to program swimming but you remember to program how to piss off guards? You got some screwed up priorities, doc!"
"All in the name of science," Warden said in his smarmy voice, "Which would an assassin likely do? Swim in a desert or provoke the peacekeepers?"
Piece of shit.
Now even more pissed off, Desmond finally deemed safe to look up.
He had no idea where he was.
He spent the next five minutes using every curse word he knew.
Still grumbling, he closed his eyes to the idiocy and said, "Map, Damascus," and quickly ripped out the paper to see what the hell he was supposed to do.
It was blank.
"Alright, now what the hell am I supposed to do?" he demanded. "I don't know the city, and the stupid map doesn't either!"
"The memory, Mr. Miles. You're so easily distracted."
"Fuck you," he muttered under his breath.
"I heard that."
Outright growling now, Desmond stomped off, trying to find a familiar landmark or building that gave him a clue where he was. The river, the marketplace, something. Twenty minutes later he was still lost and he'd long since learned to ignore Dr. Dickhead's less that polite prodding. He was starting to get lost in his own thoughts, and there were a lot of them.
He had no idea how many "subjects" there were before him, but there had to have been quite a few for the construct to be this detailed. He imagined there must have been a lot of trial and error to see what triggered genetic memory and what didn't, and also trial and error over the whole coma schtick... the thought made him shiver in the midafternoon heat-that-wasn't-heat. He rubbed his forehead. Were any of them still alive? Or was it a "replace when expired" deal? How could he factor that into his escape? Also, just how many scrapes was he going to get into in this stupid machine, he wasn't comfortable in the slightest at the idea of killing people. Even imaginary ones. He was supposed to be digging around here for information and he hadn't really learned a lot. Moreover, he didn't know how much of this was private, was there anything he did in the Animus that his captors didn't see? Well, other than his thoughts at any rate. He still didn't know how Lucy factored in, other than sympathetic, and he hadn't really had the chance to play up on that. He hoped she wasn't attached to Warren at the hip. The idea of a hot blonde with the grizzly old fart did not help his mental state, and he growled again.
Throwing his hands up he decided to stop wandering aimlessly. He obviously wasn't going to trigger any memories this way, and he decided it would be better if he just started at the beginning. He had to find the city gate, and to do that he needed to get high enough to find a city wall and follow it.
Looking up, he saw a spire of some kind shooting high above all the other buildings around him. He looked around for a ladder of some kind but found none in any immediate sight. He didn't want to get lost again (or at least, lost relative to the helpful looking spire) and so he grit his teeth and took a running leap up the side of a one story building, his hands just reaching the roofline, and hoisted himself up. He hopped up a crate to another story and turned around. Orienting himself, he could see the city wall was about as far away from him as he could get, and the gate even father. He couldn't see the streets well enough, however, to plot a route to the gate.
Spire it was, then.
A wooden platform was hanging off a support beam, perhaps for construction, and Desmond backed up slightly before taking a running start. The platform didn't sway under his feet like he was expecting - another failing of the construct no doubt - and he stumbled and nearly missed the jump necessary to get to the spire. As it was, he missed his original handhold he was aiming for and smacked the corner of the roof with his abdomen. Air rushed out of his lungs and he coughed, desperate for oxygen, before getting a leg up and pulling himself onto the roof.
"I have to go through this shit nine times before we get to the locked memory?" he muttered. "Oh, yeah, this is going to be a walk in the freakin' park."
Taking a deep breath he looked at the spire, his eyes trailing up. He circled it once, looking for what the best handholds would be. The first part was going to be the hardest, that was a sheer face and he only hoped he could leap up enough to reach that one decorative stone poking out. If he could...
He took another running leap and managed to get his handhold. It was, well, not simple, but manageable after that. He wasn't a great climber, but he was passable. Hell, since this was taking place all in his head he was probably a great climber, and he eventually was able to ascend the spire. An eagle was circling around it, and, working around, he saw a beam of wood sticking out. Getting a grip, he hoisted himself up.
All at once, something felt...
He had done this before. Not him, but the other guy, his ancestor, had sat on this spire. The view was panoramic, impressive. He could see the narrow street that served as the marketplace, the wooden planks visible from here. There was a massive structure with an arched roof, another huge building with domes sticking out of its roof. The other guy had sat here, he was sitting here now; Desmond could almost see him crouched at the end of the beam. There was a parallel sense of someone else being there, thinking, contemplating.
This was where Malik was apprenticed, what was the rafiq like? Was it here that he changed?
And then, just like that, the guy, Altair, he leapt off the beam.
Desmond stared, started to follow, but at the last second that he realized what he was doing and there was no way in hell he was going to deliberately jump to his death. He stopped himself, loosing his balance and forcing him to grip the beam with both hands. He cursed, suddenly breathing hard. "What the hell was that?" he muttered.
"Desmond? Did something happen? Your synch ratio changed."
"I... I don't know," Desmond answered. "I felt this really strong déjà vu, I think that guy sat here once, or something." He looked out over the city, and he found a long string of low-rise houses butted up against each other towards the center of the city. It had, instead of a clay dome, a metal one - brass maybe. "There," he whispered, and he looked down, down dozens of feet to the haystack below.
"Like hell," he muttered, and he began the laborious task of working his way down.
He stuck to the rooftops after that. He could keep the arched building and the giant domed one in his sites and helped give him reference to where he was going. He could also catch sight of the metal dome he was heading for. He was certain he was right as he heard wind chimes. It was cinched when Desmond saw the symbol on the roof. Hopping down, he circled the building, looking for a door.
He found none.
"Seriously?" he demanded. "I finally get here and I can't even get in?"
"Assassin Bureaus have their entrances on the roof," Lucy said, trying to be helpful.
Riiiight, because that made perfect sense. Huffing, Desmond looked for a ladder and climbed back up, marching over to the bottomless triangle. The latticework only covered part of an indoor courtyard, and Desmond eyed it slowly. There was a fountain - probably a luxury - and several decorative pillows and a carpet. He shrugged his shoulders. "What the hell," he said, and hopped into the Bureau.
Author's Notes: While we don't spend a lot of time with Desmond just wandering around the Animus (certainly not as much time as we as gamers make him :D), we did want to take some time. How many of us, when we first played the game, just wandered around, examining every nook and cranny and just seeing how alien and visually fascinating it was? Er, and we at least still do...
We also wanted to take the time to note the differences between the Animus and the limits the machine has. Even Rebecca in ACII can't put in everything, and we thought it was worthy of note.
And we like yanking Desmond's chain. Potty mouth aside (which we hate writing) he gets some funny reactions.
The stop off for lunch we felt was necessary. He never eats in the game, only sleeps, and we just didn't have it in us to starve the poor man...
As always, let us know what you think!