Shaking the remaining snowflakes from his heavy winter coat as he walked into Abstergo Entertainment, Jack looked around and knew something was off. Really off. The guards, who were normally chatting amongst themselves, were silent, their eyes watching everything and everyone that entered. It Was as if the winds of change had shifted, and not for the better. A chill ran up his spine, and not from the cold. Were they getting wise on his 'side' activities? Did John let something slip, or not cover something up the way he promised he would?
He had been hearing things from around the Sample 17 floor. Things about hackers, and how security was trying to find them. It had been putting him on edge, and honestly, affecting his sync with Edward Kenway's memories. Two days before, he had been booted from the Animus because he just couldn't sync with the memory, and it wasn't like it was a complex one at that. Just some talking, and not much else of anything. After a cup of highly caffeinated coffee, and a small walk, Jack finally found himself able to better concentrate on the task at hand.
Once he made it to his cubicle, and hung up his coat, he took a seat at his terminal. With a few keystrokes, he pulled up the Kenway file, finding the spot he had left off at. It seemed he would be doing some fighting today, and that brought a small smile to his long face. These were the memories that he liked. Feeling the determination from the other man was, well lack of a better term, exhilarating. That was the only thing he looked forward to when he came into work. Edward knew what he wanted, and never stopped until he got it. Jack, on the other hand, was the quiet type, and had let so many prime opportunities slip past him in his life.
Picking up the visor, taking a deep breath, he slipped it onto his head, and let himself be taken away into the world he could only dream about. A world where he was someone, and not a no one. Somewhere that his actions actually could change the course of events. A world that was so far removed from his own life that he could dive in, and be thankful for the opportunity.
But when the session was over, and he came out feeling like there were more questions than he had answers for, the first thing that hit him was he was not in his cubicle. Second, Melanie was sitting there, her normal smile was gone, and a frown replaced it. "Please don't panic." She spoke calmly.
"Panic? Where am I?" He asked, moving the chair around to look at the room he was now in.
"You are in a holding room." She informed him. "With the recent hackings, we are taking precautions. You won't be here long, and we have seen to any comforts that you might need. A bed," gesturing to the queen sized one in the corner, "a shower, and a few changes of clothes."
"Melanie, you can't hold me here. I have a life outside of this place." Jack could feel a panic attack coming on. They were going to find out about him, and he was never going to get out of the building. He was going to die in the depths of this place, never to see the light of day once more.
She shook her head. "I assure you, this is just to protect you and the work you are doing. Until this mess has been cleared up, you need to stay here."
Bolting to his feet quickly, the chair rolled backwards, banging into the desk that he had abandoned. "But what's so damned important about this? I thought it was about a movie!" He panted, but he knew so much more than that.
Standing, Melanie tapped a few things into her tablet, then looked back up at him. "It is, and you are doing fantastic work, but we just need you to stay with it just a little longer." Turning towards the door, her heels clicked on the metal floor. "Someone will be by to check on you later." And the door opened, letting her out, but once it closed, he heard the telltale click of an electronic lock. They were holding him there, and he was going to never get out.
'Chin up, Jack. You look like you're about to head to funeral.' John's cackle came over the earpiece.
"Yeah, my own." He sighed. "Thought you were going to protect me from all of this?"
'And that's what I'm gonna do. All I need for you to do it hack the cloud server. All your activity has been stored there, and with a few keystrokes from my end, it will all go bye-bye. You will come out of this smelling like a rose.'
"Uh huh. You said that before I even started this that nothing was going to happen. Nothing was going to come back on me. Well hey, asshole, look where I'm at now!" He practically yelled, hands beginning to shake from the anger that now flooded his body.
John just merely laughed. 'Uh oh, I think someone has been spending too much time as Captain Kenway. That anger almost sounded like it came from him. Little Jack is developing a backbone! It's so wonderful to see that. Truly it is.'
"Get me out of here." Jack growled, clinching his hands, trying to control the rage that boiled inside of him.
'Fine, you want out, I get that, but you have one more thing to do before you are in the home stretch. Hack the cloud, and you are free. Simple as that.'
"Nothing is that simple." He spoke out loud, but he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and mentally counted to ten, then released it. "Fine, direct me."
'Now there's a good boy.' And he was given the directions on what to do.
It wasn't hard to get where he had to go. The basement of the place wasn't like the labyrinth he thought it was going to be, but more like a few dimly lit corridors, and a storage area with a few holding cells. Now the sever room was different. It was brightly lit, almost too bright from what he was used to. The dim lighting in the taverns Edward usually found himself in. The night time in the Caribbean, with its inky skies, and mounds of stars. Everything so dark, but in the same breath, beautiful.
'That console in front of you. That's what you need, and like a said, a few keystrokes, it will all be over.' John spoke once more, and letting out a sigh, Jack did as he was instructed.
But what followed next was something he was not prepared for. The face of a woman, pixilated and distorted began to form. He listened in wrapped fascination to what she was saying, but none of it made sense. It was as if she was trying to tell him something, but he had not a damn clue as to make of it.
When she faded and everything was the way it once was, he could hear John screaming. 'No, no, no! It wasn't supposed to be like this! It was supposed to be glorious!' Then his composure came back. 'You're finished here. Head back to your room, and it will all be over soon.'
He wasn't sure he liked the sound of that, but words often had double meanings, and since his life was in John's hand at that particular moment in time, he thought it wise to do what the man told him to do.
*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*
Tori felt something. She didn't know what the feeling was, but it stirred something deep in her soul, running like ice water through her already chilled body. The dream, or was it a vision, riled up old and dead memories that she would have rather stayed that way. Her mother, long dead and in the frozen ground, was there. Those all-knowing eyes of hers, watching her from across a chasm that was far too wide to cross. Miranda's gaze was one she had seen before, every time her father would leave for a mission. One that shone disappointment. Tori diverted her eyes from the form that was once her mother.
But she could feel it. Feel the shame that was there in those Caribbean blue eyes, and it was not directed at her father this time, but at her. Probably about what she had become. Cold, unfeeling, a robot was what Seth had called her.
"Stop staring at me!" She screamed and listened to the shrill sound echo around the rocks of the canyon. "What do you want from me?"
No answer was received, just the cold intense gaze. She knew it was a dream, but it still chilled her to no end. Her eyes watched the phantom for a time more, but the mist began to cloud the area, casting shadows where there should not be.
Then the voices came, echoing around the canyon in a medley of disembodied souls wanting nothing more than to drive her over the edge. Covering her ears with her hands, trying in vain to block them out, she dropped to her knees, curling up as tight as she could, her eyes tightly shut, not listening to their words.
"Jump."
"Fly."
"Join."
"Die."
The last word was repeated more so than the others. Cackles followed every time it as spoken, and Tori pushed her hands tighter around her ears, desperately trying to rid herself of the spectral voices, but to no avail. They would not leave her be.
"Get away from me! Leave me alone!" She screamed, and felt tears running down her face. "Leave me be!"
But they just got louder. Swirling in her head like a storm. Trying to drive her to the brink, and it was working. She knew if she was to jump into the chasm, giving them what they wanted, they would stop, but a voice called louder than the rest.
"Tori!"
Her eyes shot open, her breath ragged gasps. Where was she?
"Tori!"
Her name was called again, but this time she could hear it just to her left. It was softer this time, holding concern for her, and not calling for her death. Other sensations began to come back to her. There was a hand resting on her arm. Not a harmful touch, but someone trying to get her attention. So, turning her head slowly, she looked into the deep green eyes of Seth Bellucci.
"You were having a nightmare." He said matter of fact, and stood up, taking his touch with him. The area where his hand once was began to cool rapidly from the loss of heat that his hand once provided.
"I…I was?" she asked, trying to play stupid, but from the quirk of his eyebrow, and the 'don't bullshit me' look he had on his face, she knew she couldn't hide it from him. "I dreamed of my mother." And she looked down at her hands. The hands of a killer, a disappointment in the eyes of her mother.
"Oh." Seth knew about her mother, and what the woman had meant to her. Losing her as young as she did had really impacted on how she had been brought up. "Wanna talk about it?"
Tori shook her hand no, because at that particular moment in time, she didn't trust her voice to not break, nor did she want to relive the horrid moments again.
"Okay." She heard him begin to head out the door.
"Seth." Calling out his name caused him to stop, and she looked at his back. "Do you… do you think I've disappointed my mother? Becoming what I am today?"
Not knowing if it was the tremble in her voice, the softness of her words, or the doubt in that could clearly be heard, but it caused him to turn, and look at her. "Maybe, but I didn't know the woman, so honestly, I couldn't tell you. Maybe that's something you have to figure out for yourself." And then he took himself from the small room.
His words caused something to stir inside her once more. Long abandoned feeling, and for the first time, openly, she let her head fall into her hands, and she wept.
*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*
Something had shifted. Some power that only he could feel had coursed through him like a jolt of electricity, jarring him awake from the sleep that he finally managed. Desmond's eyes flew open, and he stared at the stucco ceiling of Isabella's bedroom for a time, trying to figure out what had just happened. What caused him to awaken the way that he had.
Isabella was asleep next to him, her even breathing telling him that she was in deep sleep, so it hadn't been her that woke him. It was as if he had touched a live wire ever so slightly, only getting a small shock from the current. Something was wrong. Really, really wrong, and it was only going to get worse.
Quietly as he could, he slipped from the bed, and held his breath as Isabella shifted, sighed, and pulled the cover back over her as she slept on. A few snorts she emitted caused him to chuckle quietly. Padding over to the window, he watched the tree outside the window sway in the light breeze, moonlight illuminating the street.
"You felt it too." Ezio's voice caused him to turn his head slightly. The Italian master stood only a few inches from him, arms crossed over the chest plate, brown eyes watching out the window as well. "This is the calm before the storm, Desmond. A safe harbor for your soul to rest and gather strength for the battle to come."
"What's going to happen is what worries me the most. I'm going to have to confront Juno, and soon, but will I come out on top, or will she get her wish with my death?" That thought had been rolling around in his mind for weeks now. He knew what was going to have to be done, and no amount of wanting to stick his head in a sandbox and wish it away was going to help.
"Only you can determine the outcome of the coming battle. Either you will lose or you will be victorious. No one can tell you what will happen. You just have to prepare for both aspects of it." Ezio finally looked at him, and his gaze softened. "We are here to guide you, and help you, but we cannot tell you what to do. Only you can decide your fate."
Leaning his head against the window, his breath fogging up the glass pane, Desmond let his eyes close for a moment. Faces passed and blurred, but he knew all of them. Rebecca, Shaun, Dad, Mom, Isabella, Collin, Ezio, Altair, Connor, and everyone else that he knew would have his back. Then the faces of the ones that he and the others had lost. Maria, Sef, Kadar, Malik, Giovanni, Ezio's mother Maria, Mario, Achilles, Haytham, and then Lucy. People that impacted their lives, or his life, and had changed it with their presence. They were as much a part of him as they were a part of the people that knew them well.
"How did you keep going when you had reached that breaking point? When you hit the wall of self-doubt in your own abilities?" Desmond was there now. He knew why he was fighting, and what he had to do, but fear of failing held him back, weakened him, and he didn't know how to push through.
An audible sigh, and the clink of the assassin's armor told him that Ezio had let his arms fall. "I guess I knew what I had to do. I had a goal, and would not rest until that goal was finished. But a man cannot go on that alone. There were a few times that my resolve was tested and I felt the urge to stop, but I knew if I did not continue, my family would not get the retribution they so righteously deserved."
Desmond knew that. That was what kept Ezio going for the first part of his journey, but it was the quest to find out about the Order was what kept him going the second time. Turning his head, but leaving his forehead rested against the window, Desmond looked at the man he once called friend. "I have so much riding on my shoulders that I feel that if I shift it too much to one side, I'm going to collapse under the weight of it all."
Chuckling, Ezio leaned his shoulder against the wall. "I have felt that feeling before, my friend. You must find a way to balance it all so you do not get crushed. We all have been there before. Myself, Altair, Connor, Clay. We have all carried great burdens, but the only one that fell to them was Clay, and you see what happened there."
Giving a full body shutter, he knew he didn't want to end up like the man in question. Clay, from what he had found out from his dad, was at one time a great man, sharp mind and even sharper wit. Then Abstergo happened. Clay went in to find out more about the project, and Lucy was supposed to help get him out, but that didn't happen. He then gave up his life to pass on messages to the one that would follow, and had the sight to see what he had left. A trail of breadcrumbs inside and outside the Animus. A trail to one of the biggest finds in human history. The escape of Adam and Eve from Eden.
"No one said this was going to be easy, Desmond." Connor spoke up, causing Desmond to lift his head and turn. The Mohawk sat on the floor, looking up at him. "As Ezio said, we cannot tell you what you have to do, we can only guide you."
"You are in control of your own destiny. You are in control of you." Altair leaned against the closed door, standing the same fashion he always was. "No one can make you do something you do not want to do. That is the true meaning of free will. The one thing we have strove for all these years to protect."
"Just don't turn into a madman like me. I hold that title and proud of it." Clay smirked from his place on the dresser.
"See? You are not alone in this fight. You have your friends, and you have your family." Ezio pushed off the wall, and stood next to him.
And for the first time, Desmond began to feel hopeful of the future. That maybe, just maybe, he might come out of this alive. For once.
*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*
John paced his office, growling and grumbling. "Something went wrong. Something's not right. She was supposed to come back to me. We were supposed to be together again. What… when… wrong?"
Juno's return was supposed to be glorious indeed, but something fell apart. She wasn't strong enough, or Jack's will was too strong. He knew he should have put all of this into motion the moment he found out about that Miles kid releasing Juno. How he would have loved to be there to see him drop and her ascend, but that was not to be. He was just the instrument of her return. To see her take back her rightful place from these… these humans! They were not worthy to walk on this planet. It was his people after all that created them. Molded them into what they are now. And how were they thanked, by betrayal that's what.
The first two revolutionaries, he sneered at the thought. Oh what the hell were their names? John wracked his brain for a moment, and then remembered. Adam and Eve, or at least that was what history had called them. They were the first two to openly defy their creators, and spirit the Apple away.
Now, it was their descendants that tried to stop Juno from returning. That Miles kid was one of them, but the second, the daughter of Eve, had yet to be located. Once she was, well, let's say bad things were going to happen to her. Cackling, John knew that the world was going to go through a glorious change. His beloved was going to bring back the era of peace that he once knew. Peace through control. He would stand at her side once more, but first, he reached over and grabbed the hyperemic needle, he had to pay someone a visit.