Desmond was looking at the creature for a few seconds when he realized it was looking back at him. Despite being told it wasn't human, it looked pretty much like a regular human to him. It occurred to Desmond that she could be a member of the First Civilization. It would certainly make some ounce of sense, after all. Not to mention the fact that they were incredibly powerful beings, but then again, weren't they all dead? Well, mostly dead…
Desmond found some stairs leading from the catwalk to the ground floor, and he walked down them, never taking his eyes off the creature. Likewise, the creature never took her eyes off of him.
When he got to the bottom he hesitated before continuing. After about twenty paces, he was right in front of the creature. He could feel the power emanating from it, and it felt… Pure.
"Um, hi…?" Desmond timidly asked her.
"Hello… And who are you?" she responded curiously with.
"I'm Desmond. Desmond Miles. Oh, and, uh, who are you? And what are you? Are you a member of the First Civilization?"
"It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Desmond Miles. My name… Well, you may call me Laylah. I'm not a member of the First Civilization, but if I told you what I am, I'm afraid you wouldn't believe me."
"Oh really? Try me." Desmond said, crossing his arms and chuckling. But, as she opened her mouth, several heavily armed guards, practically soldiers, burst through a set of doors.
"Get down on the ground! Drop your weapons!" They shouted at Desmond, as he ran behind the siphon to take cover from them.
"Desmond, I think these people are upset with you." Laylah nonchalantly said.
"Yeah, I kinda figured that out already!" Desmond shouted at her as the guards took potshots at him and took some back at them.
"I can aid you if you free me. I'm sure you can hack the siphon using your phone."
Desmond looked at her, then pulled out his phone and pointed it at the siphon. He pushed the 'override' button on it and ran to the other side of the room, dodging bullets so he could take cover. The siphon started making a loud humming noise, then dazzling electricity shot between the drums on the walls, hitting a few guards in the process, before shooting into Laylah. The machine turned off, and Laylah staggered a few steps forward before looking around. The remaining guards all stopped firing and looked around in terror.
Laylah smiled at them.
Then she vanished.
Shit, Desmond thought.
But then, she appeared behind one of them, a small blade in hand, identical to the one that the torturer had been using on Aiden.
Then she stabbed him. He let out a scream as where he was stabbed glowed with a golden flickering light, then he fell to the ground. Laylah vanished again, and reappeared between a pair of guards, stabbing one through the heart and placing her hand on the other's face. Her hand seemed to glow before the guard screamed and fell to the ground.
Desmond watched, amazed, as she took out the remaining guards in a similar process. She was shot multiple times, but the bullets didn't seem to be doing anything to them, her wounds healed the second they were formed.
Once all of the guards were dead, Laylah sighed and started walking towards the door they came through. Desmond jumped out from behind his cover and ran over to her.
"What the hell was that?! Did you teleport!? Where did you get the knife? The torturer had one just like it! And how did you kill them just by placing your hand on them?!"
"Desmond, slow down."
"Slow down? Slow down!? You just killed like a dozen guards, all while they were shooting and you, and you want to me to slow down? Seriously, what are you?!"
"Well, Desmond. Now that I've been freed, I can show you my power."
"Your power? W-what-" but he was cut off by her placing her hand on his face.
Eons of memories shot through Desmond, nearly all of history, and then some, was played back to him in a matter of seconds, he saw unimaginable things, the birth of stars, the creation of the Earth, and… Heaven and Hell? No, it couldn't be. He saw…"
She took her hand off his face.
"Now do understand, Desmond?"
Desmond was speechless. All he was able to do was nod.
Rebecca sat in silence, watching Aiden play NVZN on his phone, the augmented-reality game where you shoot aliens off people's heads. Since Rebecca was the only other person around, so the game generated digital humans for Aiden to rescue from the alien invasion. After some time of doing this, Aiden's face light up, Rebecca could tell he had had an idea.
"Hey, wait a minute! Desmond said this place was like a holodeck, right? Well, if it has anything related to technology and is connected via wifi, I should be able to hack it…"
As he said this, he stood up and began looking around for an access point. Rebecca stood up and pulled out her phone, and began looking, too.
"Hey, Aiden, I think I found somewhere." she said, breaching the system. "Hey, shouldn't their system be way more difficult to get into?"
"You would think so, but the system that the hacks run off of was recently upgraded, and now pretty much nothing is safe from being hacked by someone using this tech." Aiden said as he walked over and connected to the access point.
"Alright, now let's see how we get out of here…" Aiden saw that they were indeed in a holodeck-like room, with cameras placed on nearly every surface. The cameras, or at least the one he was controlling, did not show the artificial structures. There appeared to be a designated path on the floor that lead to doors. Aiden started to follow it and realized it went straight through the walls. But, he soon discovered that the walls weren't solid where the path went, so he motioned for Rebecca to follow him, and they made it to the exit shortly.
"Damn, I really wish you had thought of that earlier." Rebecca said, glad that they would be getting out finally.
"Yeah, me too. I wonder why it didn't occur to me earlier."
"Whatever, let's just leave. Let's look for Desmond and the Apple and get outta here once and for all." Rebecca said, pushing open the door to leave the hall that they had been trapped in. She peered around the door to make sure the coast was clear, but stuck her head back in immediately when she saw the multiple guards blocking her way. She thought about trying to find a way to get around them, but she was really frustrated at this point, so she motioned for Aiden to wait there, and she crept up behind them, then kicked on in the back of their knee and punched the other one in the neck. The one who she kicked crumpled to the ground, and the other one grabbed his throat and fell over. She punched one in the face, knocking him out, and kicked the other one in the head, knocking them out, too.
"Aiden, you can come out now."
Aiden looked around the door and saw the unconscious guards. The one who Rebecca knockout-punched's nose was bleeding pretty bad.
"Wow, what did you do?"
"Basic Assassin training, I'm not in the mood to go into details right now." Rebecca said, turning around and walking away.
"Rebecca, aren't you forgetting something?" Aiden asked her.
"No? What?" she asked, confused.
"We have no idea where to go."
"Oh, right. Well, use your phone, ride the cameras, find out where we should be going, where Desmond is, where they're keeping the Apple; anything useful, basically."
"Yep, will do." Aiden said, as he started to hop from camera to camera, looking for anything of use.
A few minutes had passed before Aiden had found anything.
"Oh, yes! Hey, what wears a white hoodie and has a hidden blade?" Aiden asked Rebecca.
"Desmond? Oh! Did you find him?" Rebecca asked, confused, then glad, before walking over to Aiden to see his phone.
"But this is weird, he's with some girl… She doesn't look any older than a teenager, what's she doing here, who is she?" Aiden asked, zooming in to get a better look.
"Shouldn't the profiler give some information on her?"
"Well, yeah. But have a look." Aiden said, showing her the info the system had on the girl.
Name: N̪͈͈̖̫̥̫ͮ̈́̀ͦ͌̐̈́ͯ́̚ơ̴̭̳̠̮̝͂̃x̼͍̥̤̥ͪ̐̒͋̋ͨ
Occupation: D̙͙̻̲̒̍̚͟͠a̵̱̜͓͕ͤ͒͘ŗ̣̥̱͒̽̆̈̅̅͘k͖̗̪̯̻ͬ͌͌̈̓ͤ͠͝n̙͕̻̰̬̬͔ͫͭ̆ͯ̎͛ͮ͠ẹ̷̱̩͖̮̻̟́̕s̷̨̪̖̩̭̘̖̼̔̓̽̀s̢͎̼͉͒̓͗̾̈́̇ͧ̀
Age: =̧̬̥͈̮͑̓̚/ͥ̓̚҉̨͓͉̟̮͙̰≠̛͇͕̱̪̘̺͎̉̔͛͂̽ ̰̼̜͉̱͓̭̱͉̿̍̂ͥ̀̿̊̚̕∞̴̮̬̤̜ͫͬ̉̎̇̕
M̨̰͔̦͕̲͚͕ͥͥ̈́̚̕I̛̬̼ͮͨͥ̑̽̒͡Ş͎̥̪̗̺̜̞͔̓̎ͬ͛̓̌́ͣ̓̀S͔͖͇͖̣̐̆ͨ̽ͪ̐͋͠I̘͓͌̅ͅN̸ͪ̔̌̎̎̇҉̢̰̜̟͈̝ͅG̢͖͍̯̳͖͓͍ͮͨ̅ ̴̦̦͚̪̠͎̃̐ͮͯ͗̿̓́̚D̞̩̄ͤ̿̍ͪ̑̍͜A̽ͦ̆ͮ͆̀҉̛͎͖͓̪̗̮͚͕T̮̩̮͙͓͖̗͌ͪͦ̄̋̈́͟A̷̻̝̦͍̬͓ͩ̓̎ͧ̿͛ͫ
"Uh, what the fuck is that…" Rebecca asked.
"You tell me… But hey, they're not too far away, let's go meet up with them."
"Aiden, are you sure about this…?"
"No, not really, to be honest. But what else are we supposed to do?"
Rebecca sighed.
"You have a point. Alright, let's go, which way are they?" Rebecca said after thinking for a few moments.
"Down this corridor, I think."
I walked down the corridor in silence with Desmond. We didn't pass any more guards, I knew they wouldn't be a bother for some time, but Desmond was still on edge. It was understandable, he's much more vulnerable and susceptible to damage than I am, but still, it was bothersome how he would stop at every corner and insist that we wait until 'the coast was clear'. But, that wasn't all, something else seemed to be troubling him.
"Desmond, you seem to be troubled by something. What is it?" I asked him.
"Well, it's just that I'm worried. DedSec has waaay more resources than I anticipated they would, and now I'm worried that my worst fears might be true."
"And what are those? Don't worry, they don't have a nuke." I said in an attempt to lighten his mood.
He chuckled. It would do for now.
"I came after them to get their Apple of Eden, and now I'm worried that they might have my dad." he said, looking more worried than ever.
'Desmond, don't worry, I know they don't have your dad. And how are you sure that the Apple of Eden will lead you to him?"
"The Pieces have unimaginable power contained in them, I figured some of it could most likely be used to locate someone based on a small sample of their DNA."
"Clever. I think I'm going to like you, Desmond."
"Gee, thanks."
He smiled at me.
I smiled back.
The duo I later learned are Rebecca and Aiden burst through the door and ran towards us.
"Desmond, are you okay?!" Rebecca asked him.
"Careful, we can't get any usable information on her, she could be incredibly dangerous." Aiden said, eyeing her and looking for any weapons.
"Hey, wait a minute, where'd you get that knife?" Aiden suspiciously asked me.
"It's my knife." I replied.
"Oh, really? Well, I was recently being tortured with one identical to it."
"Oh, that's what they were using it for… Um, I'm terribly sorry, here, let me heal you." I said, putting my middle and pointer finger on his forehead.
"Hey, what are yo-" he was cut off with a gasp as his wounds healed.
"H-how did you-?"
"She's extremely powerful; she's the creature that DedSec was siphoning for energy." Desmond said.
Rebecca and Aiden got quiet at this.
"Oh…"
"So then you're not…?"
"No, I'm not human." I said.
"So then what are-"
"She said her name is Laylah. Oh, and these two are Rebecca and Aiden, by the way." Desmond said, introducing us.
"Sorry, but listen. We don't have a lot of time, we kind of need to stop the Apple from destroying the DedSec members, I think there should still be time." I said.
"Wait, what? What do you mean destroying them?" Aiden asked.
"What I mean is, the Pieces work by destroying pieces of the human brain that allows for influence of others to leak in, make them more susceptible to outside influence of many kinds. I won't get into them right now, because we really need to hurry, but I can assure you, if a Piece of Eden fully eats away at critical sections of the brain… Other things can get inside. Bad things."
The trio were silent now.
"This sounds bad."
"Shit, we should probably get going."
"Yeah, seriously, no kidding." They all said.
"Alright, I can feel the power emanating from it, I think it's this way…" I said, leading them down another corridor, blade in hand.
As we got down to the end of the corridor, I kept following the energy I could feel being emitted by the Apple, and continued to let it lead me until I got to a door that I was sure had the Piece contained behind it.
"What's wrong, why did we stop?" Aiden asked.
"It's behind this door. It's all about to end, one way or another." I said, pushing the doors open and walking into the room.