Edward's in a tavern in Kingston, sharing a drink with Ade and Kidd (a rare interlude from the chaos of their lives recently), when he sees Altair appear unexpectedly appear at his shoulder. Edward grins at him- Altair continues to look grim, but Edward doesn't let it bother him at all- and raises a glass in his general direction.
"What are you looking at?" Kidd demands, and Edward abruptly remembers that he's the only one that can see Altair. In fairness, up until now he hasn't been able to see Altair either. Not until he gave in and agreed to let him into his head. Since then, there's been time travel, and finding himself in someone else's head, and now Altair showing up like a ghost at the table next to him.
"Nothing," he says to Kidd, because he's not going to explain Altair right now.
"You have an audience," Altair tells him, and Edward can't stop himself from shifting a little uncomfortably. It's one thing to have Altair in his head, because he knows he's there and anyway he can see into his head too, so it at least seems fair. It's very definitely not okay with him to know there's a whole group of people following him around that he doesn't know anything about. Even the assurance that Altair's the only one that can actually get to his thoughts or inside his head doesn't help much.
At least he gets to mess with them a little. Edward isn't completely sure he understands what's going on with Desmond, or what that has to do with stealing a body, but he's perfectly happy with his part of the plan as long as it means he can make life a little more difficult for the brain invaders.
"Hey, Ade," Edward says suddenly, trying to make it sound like the question's just occurred to him. "Do you ever feel like somebody's watching you?"
"Sometimes," Ade says. "Why?"
"I always feel like there's someone watching me," Edward grumbles. "Right now I feel like there's…"
He glances at Altair, who provides, "Seventeen."
"Seventeen people watching me." Seventeen, seriously? Kind of a lot.
"Alright," Kidd says, reaching for his own drink. "You're feeling paranoid today, Kenway."
"It's not paranoid if they're really out there," Edward says.
"How much have you been drinking?" Kidd laughs. "Why would people care about watching you?"
"Okay," Edward says. "Hear me out." He pauses, and leans forward slightly, dropping his voice so that the other two have to lean forward as well. "What if somebody, someday in the future, figures out how to look at peoples' memories? Even people that have been dead for centuries?"
He half glances at Altair, who's turned away from him, listening to whatever's happening on the other side of the animus. Edward can't hear what's going on- obviously, it's happening three hundred years in the future- but Altair's satisfied expression tells him that it's working.
Kidd gives him a look. "Alright," he says. "Let's hear this fantasy of yours."
"Well," Edward says. "Obviously this is the best time in human history to be alive."
"Clearly," Ade says dryly. Behind them, a man with one eye smashes a bottle over the head of a friend that smells like he's been sleeping in a pile of garbage. "We're living in a golden age."
"It's not that bad," Edward says. "And I mean it has to be better than…" he hesitates, because there was a whole list of words he was supposed to memorize for this part, words that will catch the attention of anyone listening in from an animus, but all of them sound strange to him, and he feels more than a little stupid just throwing them out. "…than global warming, or reality TV, or microwave dinners-"
"What are you talking about?" Kidd interrupts. He stares at Edward like he's just grown a second head, but Edward doesn't let it bother him. The point here isn't to convince Kidd and Ade that he's sane. They're pirates. If they were sane, they'd find a less deadly line of work.
No. The point of all this is to get the attention of anyone at Abstergo that happens to be listening in- and hopefully, the attention of anyone that might otherwise be interested in someone stealing a body.
"And…" Altair glances over Edward's shoulder at something he can't see, something happening three centuries in the future and hundreds of miles away. "Nobody's going to be paying much attention to anything else today. You have officially turned this place into a madhouse."
Edward can picture the scene- dozens of people running around, trying to figure out where he learned any of those words, or how he managed to describe the animus. He smiles into his drink. Chaos is kind of his specialty.
-/-
Step 1 of the steal a body plan- Edward is a distraction.
Steps 2+ coming soon, along with more explanations about why Abstergo is keeping bodies in their basement. Or wherever. Probably a basement. I haven't decided that part yet, but where else are you going to hide a body?