Eye Abstergo - Year One Implementation
The following is a record of the guidelines set and agreed upon at the meeting of the Inner Sanctum of the Templar Order, on November 3rd 2012. These guidelines will be reassessed at three-, six- and nine-month intervals dating from the launch of the Eye Abstergo project and any amendments deemed necessary will be made at those times. Emergency amendments may be made at the discretion of Alan Rikkin in his authority as Grand Master of the Templar Order.
Key goals
- Population control and resource management.
- Disease control.
- Elimination of unauthorised crime.
- Thought monitoring and structuring.
- Expansion in the fields of science and technology
- Resistance control.
- Solar event.
Population Control And Resource Management
Our statisticians have projected that the current expansion of the human race will become unmanageable to a damaging degree in even developed nations within the next fifty years. Considering the changes that will now inevitably take place within that timeframe, we have deemed it necessary to reduce the human population of the planet to a manageable degree (target goal is a reduction of one billion people within 25 years).
The primary method of achieving this will be to plant mental correctives to prevent any unauthorised engagement in unprotected sex. In nations where possible we shall ensure that all sexual encounters - save for the small percentage designated as necessary for stabilising the population decline - will involve at least two forms of contraception. We shall also plant a corrective ensuring that, in the case of both contraceptive methods failing, the foetus will be immediately aborted. Where pregnancy is permitted, it will be restricted to the rate of one child per female in order to ensure proper individual care for each new infant.
In nations where contraception is not yet widely available we will eliminate the sexual urges of the population entirely during Year One, to make time for better resources to be provided.
Disease Control
Since Eye Abstergo admits us unlimited control over global birth rates, we have agreed that disease is an unnecessary factor in population management, and runs contrary to our goal of extending the average human life. Therefore, we have organised a staggered dissolution of all major fast food and snack food companies, accompanied by an implanted corrective in the population to eliminate the desire for unhealthy quantities of carbohydrates, salt and fatty foods. This should greatly reduce the rate of death by heart disease, which is the leading cause of mortality in middle- and high-income nations.
Our other key target is the elimination of carcinogenic substances in all cases where this is possible. The global tobacco industry will be dissolved and a corrective barrier will be placed against nicotine addiction (along with all other forms of drug addiction).
A detailed list of corrective disease control measures has been compiled and attached to this file. For our plans related to controlling sexually transmitted diseases, see the above section on population control.
Elimination of Unauthorised Crime
Crime has long been a chaotic and frustrating disruptor of the Templar cause. In the past it has been necessary for us to insert our agents into various worldwide criminal organisations in order to monitor them and direct a modest flow of criminal economy into our own endeavours. The fact remains, however, that the majority of crime in our modern world is disorganised and unpredictable. There is nothing to be gained from the feckless drug addict who steals televisions from the rich to fund his habit, nor the woman who stabs her husband in a fit of passion, nor the paedophile who rapes his nieces and nephews. These acts are pointless and they only serve to break apart society and perpetuate a threat of total anarchism.
We may deem it fit, in the future, to reintroduce a measured level of crime into society (using a small, disposable nation as the petri dish for such an experiment). For the duration of Year One, however, we will place a corrective measure to suspend all impulses towards criminal activity - be it violence, theft or fraud.
Wars - both international and civil - will also be temporarily suspended as we reorganise world leadership. A meeting will be held on the anniversary of the Eye Abstergo launch to ascertain the worth of reintroducing controlled military disputes.
Thought Monitoring and Structuring
The limits placed upon our control are limited only to the extent that we wish to limit them. However, we have judged that an excessive manipulation of the human mind is counterproductive to fostering creative and progressive thought.
Because of this, thought monitoring and structuring shall primarily be restricted to creating a collective lack of inquisitiveness regarding the massive global changes taking place. The measures we have taken will be alluded to in news media, but met without question or interest by the public. In this way, the transition will appear seamless to all but ourselves.
Expansion in the Fields of Science and Technology
Purpose. This has long been one of the key tenets of the Templar Order. We have always sought power, yes, but with unlimited power at our hands we will find ourselves free to pursue our true goal. We seek knowledge. We seek greater understanding of the universe that we inhabit. We seek to reach out into this universe and find fresh knowledge and purpose. Perhaps, in our search for knowledge and purpose, we will find opportunities to gain greater power.
The human race is magnificent, but it lacks cohesion, efficiency and focus. For centuries we have seen our potential squandered on petty infighting and the fear of moving forward. Having crafted a greater and more purposeful species, we will cast our funding into researching the technology left by Those Who Came Before, as well as creating our own technology and perfecting our knowledge of the sciences. Before we have merely stood counting grains of sand on the beach, but now we will venture forth into the great ocean of knowledge.
A comprehensive list of scientific and academic programs that will be launched after the advent of Year One have been attached to this file.
Resistance control
Lengthy discussion was devoted to the topic of our opposition - specifically the anarcho-political movement known as the Assassins. Several of our members were in favour of exterminating the group altogether, but it was ultimately decided that such an action would be pointless and wasteful.
The Assassin brotherhood will be dissolved. Novice members will be reintegrated into regular society, while medium-level and senior members will be merged into the Templar Order, that we might benefit from their knowledge, expertise, resources and DNA. The majority of those recruited will be placed inside Animi for efficient cataloguing of their memories - both personal and ancestral. Highly skilled Assassins will undergo retraining in the hope that they might one day become active and powerful members of the Templar Order.
We have few concerns in terms of resistance, save for the undergoing investigation into the possible existence of "hybrid" humans, who are theoretically capable of resisting the Pieces of Eden. We have already assessed this potential threat based on past encounters with rumoured hybrids, and consider the danger to be negligible and easily managed.
Solar Event
It was recently brought to our attention that a significant body of solar flares are predicted to impact the planet at the end of 2012. We have incorporated mechanisms into Eye Abstergo that our science teams assure us will safely repel any danger from the solar flares, along with all other forms of extraterrestrial threat.
These guidelines will be put into effect immediately after the launch and activation of Eye Abstergo, which is scheduled to enter regular orbit at 5AM on November 21st 2012.
By the authority of:
Alan Rikkin
Grand Master Templar
CEO Abstergo Industries
Witnessed by:
Laetitia England
Master Templar
Abstergo Operations
Dr. Warren Vidic
Master Templar
Abstergo Research (Animus Project)
Dr. Mitsuko Makamura
Master Templar
Abstergo Research (Lineage and Acquisition)
Dr. Alvaro Gramatica
Master Templar
Abstergo Research (Future Technology)
Daniel Cross
Master Templar
Abstergo Operations
Isabelle Ardant
Master Templar
Abstergo Operations (Historical Research)
Otto Schmidt
Master Templar
Abstergo Operations (Lineage and Acquisition)
They stopped at 6AM when Clay needed to - in his own words - "see a man about a horse". They both jumped out of the van and Clay licked his finger and held it up the wind with an expression of intense concentration
'East,' he said authoritatively, keeping his index finger outstretched and using it to point at the barely-visible smudge of sun on the horizon. 'You're going to want to piss to the East.'
'You're a font of wisdom, you know that?' Desmond said, deadpan, as he moved around the side of the vehicle for a measure of privacy. He unzipped and they relieved themselves quietly in the grey beginnings of dawn, the long highway stretching out before them.
They didn't know where they were heading, not really. They hadn't had time to formulate a plan - hadn't expected the news of the satellite launch so soon. While the other Assassins had panicked and prayed and yelled into cell phones, Desmond and Clay had thrown all the supplies that they could find into the back of their old van (Rebecca's bloodstain was still faintly visible on the floor) and fled for the city borders. Once Eye Abstergo was activated, the Assassins could no longer be relied upon as allies, for they would surely be Abstergo's first target.
As he zipped and buckled, Desmond reiterated the hollow self-reassurance that the Templars would not simply kill the remaining Assassins. Why kill them, when they already had complete control of their minds? His father, Rebecca, Shaun - they might be questioned, put inside Abstergo Animi, or even recruited, but they would live. That was all that mattered.
He climbed back into the driver's seat and glanced over in time to see Clay shake himself off and tuck himself away before tugging his door open to retake his place in the passenger seat. Desmond did not start the engine. He stared up through the windshield at the solid, pale grey murk of the sky.
After a pause he said, 'So that's it? The satellite's up now?'
'Were you expecting an ominous crack of thunder or something?'
Desmond considered this for a moment, and wondered if there was some truth to it. Perhaps he had been expecting some kind of physical sign of the Templar takeover. It seemed odd that it should have happened so quietly. He wondered whether the symptoms were already starting to manifest.
He grasped the steering wheel until the knuckles on both hands went white. Then he used the leverage to slam his head forward violently into the centre of the wheel.
The van's horn blared, shockingly loud in the still air.
After a second or so of that painfully satisfying sound, Desmond relaxed the muscles in his neck and eased the pressure enough that the horn bleated away into silence, though he left his head and hands where they were for a moment.
'Feel better?' Clay inquired casually.
'Actually, yeah.' Desmond pushed himself back into his seat, eyes only half-open, a painful throbbing in his forehead where it had impacted against the steering wheel. He would probably end up with a lump there, and a nasty bruise to match it, but it was worth it for the temporary novocaine of the endorphin rush. 'It's over, isn't it?' he stated dully. 'The Templars won. We lost. It's all done.'
'That's a pretty defeatist attitude.'
A hollow, ugly laugh burst shortly out of Desmond without his permission. 'We are defeated. That's what this is, Clay. This is about as defeated as it's possible to get.' He swiped a hand over his aching forehead and hot face, and found that his fingers were shaking.
'Cheer up,' Clay said. 'Things couldn't possibly be any worse.'
A short silence followed the statement. Desmond turned his head slowly and pinned Clay down with a mix of frustration and disbelief.
'What?' Clay asked innocently.
'I think you got that platitude wrong.'
'Who said anything about a platitude? We're royally fucked from all sides. The Assassins are gone, the world is being controlled by a pack of twisted megalomaniacs, we only have enough food and gas to get us through a week or two at most and after that we're going to have to start scrounging around Templartopia to survive. At which point we'll almost certainly end up getting caught and put inside an Animus chamber at Abstergo for the rest of our natural lives.'
Desmond stared at him open-mouthed for a moment, and then scowled. 'You think we can't survive this? You think those years of training were all for nothing?'
Clay shrugged. 'I...'
'I don't know about you, Clay, but I'm not going to be a fucking pushover. If Abstergo want me they're going to have to make me sit still first.' He sat forward in the seat and turned the keys in the ignition with a jerk, starting the engine. 'And I don't plan on sitting still.'
He glared straight ahead as he pulled out onto the highway again, but out of the corner of his eye he caught Clay's slight grin as the other Assassin murmured, 'That's the spirit,' and couldn't help but wonder if he'd just been thoroughly manipulated into having a positive outlook.
Desmond kept his expression moody for a few moments, but quickly remembered that there was rarely any point in getting annoyed with Clay, who seemed to be impervious to even the harshest criticism. Besides, they were all that each other had now. Desmond had had friends in New York, but not the kind of friends that he could go to when he was on the run, and the only family he had left were probably both now prisoners of Abstergo. He chewed anxiously on the inside of the cheek, and tensed as a car approached them from the other direction. A family: sleepy-looking couple in the front and a trio of fighting children in the back seats, none of them looking like they were slaves of an evil corporation. What had changed, in the scant few hours since Eye Abstergo had begun working its influence?
'Could you turn the radio on?' he asked Clay.
He did so, and they were met with the morning weather report from a local news station. It was going to be cloudy with occasional showers of rain. Clay twiddled with the dial and after a few seconds of scratchy static a pop song bloomed into clarity. Desmond recognised the singer, but not that song. In his bartender days (they seemed an age away now, they in reality it had only been a couple of months since his last shift at Bad Weather) he had always known the lyrics to each now popular song within days of it being released, and would croon the tunes under his breath whilst casting slow glances at the flirtatious women who populated the bar stools. Not so long ago he had begun to feel restless in his work, but now he wished to have those simpler days back. Mixing a Bloody Mary might not be fulfilling work, but it was something that he knew he was good at. Saving the world? Sort of outside his skill set.
The song ended and the DJ cut in, cheery and obviously pepped up on coffee, his speech bearing all the rhythms of a carnival patter. He didn't sound like someone who had been enslaved and brainwashed. At least, now more than radio DJs usually did.
Clay fiddled with the dial again, taking them to a country music station. He pulled a face and twiddled again, finding more pop music. He kept turning the dial and seemed to catch a hint of a station he liked, spending a good few minutes filling the van with the grating sound of static again before finally giving up and continuing on his journey through the wavelengths. The next station was playing a classic rock song, which Clay listened to dutifully until it ended, before reaching for the dial again.
'Oh my God,' Desmond groaned, pulling a face.
'What?'
'You're one of those people.'
'What people?'
'Station hoppers. Just pick a damn radio station and leave it.'
'But then we might not be getting the best music.'
'I think we have bigger problems right now, Clay!'
'Fine,' Clay said, leaning back in his seat and folding his arms with an air of petulance.
They listened to a triple-bill of Journey songs before a commercial break came on. Desmond was searching the passing road signs for the next exit, trying to look for destinations that might offer a suitable place for them to stop running and recollect themselves, when Clay checked his watch and said, 'I think you should let me drive for a bit.'
'Huh?' Desmond confusedly tried to work out what had brought this suggestion on. 'I've only been driving for a few hours, I'm fine to carry on.'
'You're really not,' Clay said mysteriously.
'Are you disrespecting my driving skills?'
'Desmond...'
'I'm a good driver, and it's not like there's a lot of stuff to crash into out here...'
'Desmond, stop the fucking van.'
The sharp, almost panicky tone to Clay's voice made Desmond slam the breaks on automatically, the lurch of the sudden stop throwing them both forwards a little. 'What's wrong with you?' Desmond demanded angrily.
'I want to drive.'
Desmond hesitated, but realised that there was no tactical way to phrase his next words. 'Pardon me if I don't think that's a good idea, Mr Psychotic Episode.'
Clay smiled briefly, seemingly more relaxed now that they were no longer in motion. 'I'm fine. The pills are working, and I can keep the bleeding effect under control so long as I stay on them. If I really feel like I'm about to lose it, I'll put on the brakes and you can take over again.'
'OK,' Desmond said slowly. 'But that doesn't explain why you want to drive so badly.'
Deeply confused, he stared into Clay's face for clues, and Clay looked back at him searchingly, his blue eyes seeming to penetrate Desmond's very skin. They had lost the edge of madness that Desmond had first seen in them back at the hospital in Italy, but their intensity had not died away, and matching Clay's gaze remained a somewhat unnerving experience.
'You've forgotten, haven't you?' Clay concluded at last. 'Understandable. Might even be for the best.'
'What are you talking about?'
'Listen to me, Desmond.' Clay laid his hand gently on Desmond's arm, the one that was hovering over the gear stick, and looked at him with uncharacteristic sincerity. 'The rest of the Assassins are gone, it's just the two of us. You're all that I've got left, and I'm all that you've got left, and between us we're the only hope that humanity has left. We need to trust each other or we're not going to make it, OK?' He took a deep breath before continuing. 'So. Do you trust me, Desmond?'
It was the wrong time to ask such a question, since it seemed obvious that Clay was holding back some kind of information. And yet ... Clay had gone with Desmond to the temple beneath the Winter Palace, and had ventured beneath the floors despite his obvious fear, and had helped Desmond in the battle with Daniel Cross. If it wasn't for Clay, Desmond would never have known about Juno's plans, and they would have gone on to Turin with no idea that they were walking into a trap. Clay had helped Desmond make the hardest decision of his life, had been his sole confidant for the agony of that decision, and had taken the burden of breaking the news to the others. Now that all the other Assassins were gone, Clay was still here, and Desmond realised that he hadn't trusted anyone this implicitly since...
As he failed to respond, Desmond saw a profound sadness flicker in Clay's eyes. 'You're thinking about Lucy, aren't you?' he observed.
There was little point in denying it. 'Depending on other people hasn't always worked out well for me.'
'She betrayed me as well, Desmond. Oh, it killed her to do it, but she did it anyway.'
'Then why are you so eager to trust me?' Desmond asked, desperately confused.
Clay shrugged and gave a small, pained smile. 'It's easy when there's nothing at stake. What more could you do to me, that hasn't been done already?'
Desmond let the awfulness of that sink in for a moment. Then he nodded, briskly, and opened his door, hearing Clay doing the same on the other side. They both walked around the front of the van and switched places, Clay climbing into the driver's seat.
'Don't worry,' he reassured, putting on his seatbelt. 'I used to drive this exact same model when I worked for my Dad. I'll probably get us there faster.'
'Get us where?'
'Hey, you're in the navigator's seat.'
Desmond grinned despite himself, despite everything, and pointed at the nearest road sign. 'There's a small town about twenty miles off the next exit. We can set up camp in the woods nearby and try to watch for a bit, see how the new regime affects people's behaviour, maybe steal a newspaper.' When Clay looked underwhelmed by this plan, Desmond shrugged defensively. 'If you've got a better plan then let's hear it.'
'No, your plan is fine. We hole up outside Hicksville. Nice and low-key. Twenty miles, you say?'
'Yeah.'
Clay nodded, an odd expression on his face, and gripped the wheel. Desmond had to admit that Clay seemed a lot more comfortable with the van than he himself had been, and they journeyed smoothly for several minutes, taking the exit in the direction of the small town. AC/DC belted out at them from the radio, and Clay started humming along absent-mindedly.
'So,' Desmond said carefully. 'Are you going to tell me why you wanted to take the wheel?'
'No,' Clay replied. His gaze kept occasionally flicking to something on the dashboard. Desmond wondered if he was worried about the fuel situation, but when he looked himself he saw that the gas tank was still over halfway full. Besides, they had quite a few spare cans in the back.
'Why not?'
'It's better if you don't know. The anticipation will just make it worse.'
'What do you mean, anticip-?'
That was when it happened. AC/DC screamed out their chorus and something huge and terrible stabbed through Desmond's body, setting every nerve ending alive and on fire, even his fingertips convulsing and burning, his limbs out of his control, his head thrown back and the tendons in his neck standing out as he tried and failed to draw breath; his very lungs betraying him and spasming and his heart feeling as though it would explode through his chest.
Then, quite suddenly, it all stopped. The pain was gone. Desmond could not even feel the seat beneath him, nor hear his heart beating, nor feel the rush of air into his body as he finally drew breath. His body had become a separate entity and his mind drifted away from it - blissfully empty and unanchored by pain or worry. He could hear Clay speaking, but Desmond's eyes drifted shut of their own accord and then there was nothing. No sight, nor sound, nor feeling. Nothing left at all.