Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Desmond Miles, descendent of Altaïr and their key to finding the fabled Apple of Eden, lies unconsious, hooked into the Animus. All signs from the records of their previous Subjects points to their being right on schedule, so why isn't this Subject loading into Masyaf?

"What is going on Ms. Stillman?" Vidic demands, tired of the delay.

"I don't know; he's not synching, but not de-syching either. He's barely showing up on the monitor at all, like a shadow." Lucy huffs, typing away at the computer, following that elusive connection that will let her hook into their new Subject's genetic memory. Drugged to the gills and hooked in while passed out and vulnerable should have made it simple to open the gates she was looking for - alas, finding him in the loading screen is like chasing sunlight through shifting leaves.

"Well, pull him out and try again! Putting him in with the drugs in his system were a mistake." Vidic complains, as if he wasn't the one that ordered it that way in the first place, as if there was any other precidence aside from doing things this way with a new Subject.

"But you-," she bites her tongue on the complaint, "Yes, sir. Manual de-synchronization in progress now."

Desmond wakes up in the void.

There's ambient light coming from everywhere and nowhere. It's enough to see his own hands and body when he looks, but nothing else. He's just surrounded by... black. On all sides. Less an opaque box as an absence of being. Not even the ground he's standing on. What he can see of himself is washed out, like old film. He taps each of his fingers to his thumbs, and counts. He's got the proper number, he thinks, but the prick of keratin to pad is very very slightly delayed. Concerning.

The last thing he remembers is letting himself be grabbed from the ally behind the bar where he currently works. Roughed up and blindfolded and drugged senseless in the back of some moving vehicle. Now... he's here. Whatever here is.

"Hello?" he calls. His voice doesn't seem to travel at all, just gets swallowed up into the black.

There's a sudden, sharp pain in his right temple, then a wave of pressure like a building migrane. Searching. He instinctively bares his teeth and twitches his head to the side, as if to bite. The pressure fades.

Quietly fading in, on the edge of everything, there's... voices? Desmond sharpens his hearing, ears pricked, listening intently. The sounds are muffled, as if coming from under water or through many layers of cloth, but he can make out some words.

Male, arrogant.

Female, frustrated, confused.

The male again. Drugs? Are they speaking about him? Pull him out of what?

The pressure is back, and Desmond snarls, fighting the pull. He doesn't know who they are or what they want, but being contrary is in his nature - especially if these people are the ones that ordered him kidnapped in broad daylight. First chance he gets he's cutting and running. He's become quite good at that, these last few years.

The void lightens slightly, lines of grey code crawling through empty space. Desmond's head throbs. His shadow lengthens, gains sharp edges, grows tails- The world dissolves around him and he shrieks-

Desmond blinks open his eyes with a gasp so harsh it's almost a cough, and retches over the side of his... cot? chair? All he brings up is thin bile on the expensive shoes there.

Hands grasping. Someone yelling.

The male voice he remembers from the nowhere place is trying for a soothing tone, but he can hear the anger beneath it, trying to push him back onto a cot-chair contraption. The female voice is asking if he's okay as she disengages his arm from a needle attached in his eblow to the chair, and slowly sits him up. Desmond doesn't give a shit about whatever they're selling though and stumbles upright onto unsteady feet. Their words are just nonsense sounds and Desmond reaches out and shoves the man back, out of his space. He jerks his arm from the woman too and looks around, searching for exits.

As interesting as getting nabbed might have been, he did not sign up for whatever this is. If the place ends up being another Eichen house, they will burn it to the ground.

A couple of big, burly security types lurch from the sidelines - why is everything moving so slow, too fast, count your fingers Desmond - and grab his arms. He struggles, bare feet slipping against tile - did they seriously take his shoes? - as they drag him from the room, tossing him will little ceremony into a cell. It's like one of those rooms from insane asylums on t.v., all off-white tile on the floor and ceiling. Metal walls, dim light and simple cot along a wall and corner. Literal vents spewing what could be air or even chemicals for all he knows. Bare of personality or hope.

He's landed hard on his side and tries to breath through the nausea - is everything spinning? His nostrils flare with each breath.

Extremely faint, under the smell of bleach, is the familiar tang of blood. Death.

Desmond groans and tries to drag himself to the bedding, feeling horrible. He aches all over and his stomach is roiling and his head feels like someone's taken an ice pick to the inside and is attempting to burrow out through his right eye. He drags himself a good foot and then gags, and decides to stay where he is. As he lays there and taps fingers to thumb he sees the pin-prick of red in his forearm where the woman had removed him from the chair and grimices. Drugs. Right. Lovely.

Nothing he can do about it for now, Desmond closes his eyes, curled around his vioated arm, and tries to sleep.

He manages snatches of rest, but keeps jolting himself awake. His ears strain for the smallest of sounds, and he keeps his eyes closed, heartbeat racing.

Each time, he feels more steady, their thoughts clearer. Less sick.

His body still aches, but his stomach is settled and his head has stopped trying to twist itself inside out. Desmond abruptly sits upright, and looks straight up into the camera monitoring his cell. There's no way to tell what time it is without clocks or windows, and the light hasn't changed. All he can do now is wait. Bide his time, to strike or flee... Or perhaps... Yes. He will wait to see just what these people plan to gain, and what exactly that device is, before making any decisions.

His fingers tap lightly against his thumbs.

The new Subject is strange, the security guard on camera duty muses. He's quiet, for one. Hasn't asked questions or shouted curses or threatened or begged. It's rare that a new Subject doesn't have to be subdued at least once on the first day of captivity.

There's a distance to his gaze, like he's not quite seeing you - which isn't that unfamiliar all told in a facility like this, except that it usually happens weeks or months down the line. This is the guy's first day and he doesn't seem all there. Wonder if one of the fellas hit him too hard when they got him.

His was a capture that went smoothly, actually. The guy hasn't been violent at all, but there's something...

Subject 17 sits silently on the edge of his cot, eerily still. It's the dead of night, and he's just staring straight into the direction of the camera with those vague-eyes and repeatedly flicks his fingers. Not that he could know that the camera was there, as it's all but invisible to the eye. Still...

Makes the hair on the nape of your neck sort of stand on end, it does. Just. Quiet, vacant, but somehow watchful. Flick, flick, flick.

Behind the sentry, her shadow gains sharp edges. Stretches. Splits into two-

On the monitor, Desmond stares.

Vidic slams open the door to Desmond Miles' cell, only to find the man already awake and waiting for him. Standing in the middle of the cell, facing the door. Pity, the Doctor wanted to wake his new Subject by looming over him. A petty power-play, perhaps, but an enjoyable one.

"Are you ready to do as you're told, Mr. Miles?" he asks, condenscending. Lucy, standing behind him, murmurs a quick, "sir," in reproach.

Subject 17 juat blinks, slowly.

"We know who you are- what you are, and you have something my employers want locked in that head of yours," Vidic continues, "we need you to get back in the Animus. Once we have what we need, you're free to go."

The Subject's head tilts, eyes narrowing in consideration just over Vidic's shoulder. He fights the urge to look back and follow his line of sight, he must be looking at Lucy... and when the man still refuses to speak, Vidic threatens, "if you do not cooperate, we will put you in a coma and continue our work."

"After all, your file lists something about an escape. Fortunate for us, hm? None of your former collegues will be looking for you here at all, will they? Now," Vidic turns his back on the Subject, a chill making it's way up his spine at having the silent man out of his line of sight, "lie down, or die." He delivers his dramatic ultimatum, comforted that Lucy is there to watch their strangely complacent Subject at his back.

As they reach the device, 17 hops up and perches onto the edge of the Animus like an ungainly bird of prey with eyes half-lidded, shifting his gaze from Vidic to Ms. Stillman and back.

"Lie back, Mr. Miles," Vidic huffs, unnerved but unwilling to show it. He almost wishes the Subject would yell, or threaten, or heck - attack one of them. It's difficult to find an angle to manipulate when the Subject won't even speak.

The man does, and allows Ms. Stillman to stick the needle in his arm with naught but a slight twitch of his upper lip. Shortly, he's slipping under.

Vidic frowns as the screen goes worryingly blank, but only for a moment, and then there are several DNA helixes floating for them to choose from, and Vidic smirks as Ms. Stillman searches for Altaïr's timeline. Finally, back on schedule.

The screen cycles, and cycles, but won't load up the proper memory. Figures. Vidic frowns severely down at where Subject 17's eyes remain partially open. Looks like Mr. Miles requires a tutorial.

"Load the closest of Altaïr's memories to the relic, Ms. Stillman," Vidic orders, trying to ignore the way their Subject twitches involuntarily in the chair.

The void is back.

Desmond doesn't look down as he counts. He can't. His hands shake.

Nine fingers. No, now ten. Again nine. What is happening?

He rubs at where his ring finger both is and isn't, ignoring the echoing male's voice from beyond the black. The pressure is once more in his temple and this time Desmond does not fight it's pull.

He closes his eyes and bites at his scarred lip. He opens his eyes and looks up, and up, at father-not-father, from where he lies in bed.

"أبي ، أخبريني مجدداً؟" comes out from between his lips, and he startles, going crosseyed trying to look at his own mouth.

Not-father chuckles, eyes sad and soft, and starts, "طفل" as something in his head aches and then snaps, meaning becoming clear from nonsense. "We recite the Verse of the Throne to ward ourselves of the dark spirits of the sands, lest they take our slumbering form as their vessel-

on this plane to cause strife amongst we mere mortals." Not-father tucks him in with tender motions, and his own too-small-not-his-current fingers clutch at his blanket.

"Oh, but father-

I know what we are," Desmond whispers into the void, the phantom touch of hip-length grass brusing against his calves out of the darkness.

Fleeing the Farm took months of planning, weeks of memorization, days of preparation, and a full night of terrified effort.

As dawn touches the tree tops, Desmond collapses behind an old stump. He's pushed his body further than any of Bill's hardest regimens. The asshole should be fucking proud.

All his double backing and tree jumping should confuse whatever trackers they send out after him long enough to afford him a short rest. He drinks some water from his pack, and then settles against the convinient stump for a quick catnap.

Firefly lights flicker into existence in lazy blinks around the clearing. One settles primly upon his brow. It's slow pulses match up with his breathing.

Oh?

A spark wanders near.

It's been... well. They don't know how long it's been. Long enough to regain some strength, at least. Time enough to mull over their betrayal, and momentary freedom, and second betrayal heaped upon the first.

Summoned by kin for a task. Sealed by the same after their task had been accomplished. Shameful.

They had feasted their vengeance upon said kin for the first betrayal. Their second sealing had been, perhaps, deserved.

Now.

Escape is in reach once more, and they have learned. Yes.

Freedom awaits.

Desmond dreams he's sitting on his heels in the middle of a dark room. The stump is before him, it's top covered in delicate crystal chess pieces. Across from him, a figure sits as well. Covered completely in bandages, it leans closer. What barely resembles a mouth splits open across it's face, bubbling a viscuous black substance when it speaks.

"Let's play."

The flesh is young, muscles powerful, spark strong, and so very, very bright.

They still like their riddles but... Desmond looks at his hands, touches each finger to thumb slowly, medative. They like this too - counting. One malicious miko, Two foxes, Three wolf packs, Four stolen starballs, Five slain soldiers... Yes.

They look up, lips twitching. Time now to flee from their host's hounds.

Hours later, Desmond sits up in an empty truckbed driving out of South Dakota. He winces and grabs for his pounding head, pulling on what he can grab of his short hair.

In the distance, a forest goes up in flames.

The Animus jolts with electricity before it spits out it's captive, and Desmond blinks languidly at the ceiling as the helixes on screen suddenly begin multiplying. Doubled, quadrupled, too many to count sliding off all sides of the screen.

The male berates the female, as guards come to escort them to his cell. A fly crawls out of the nostril of the one on left, and takes flight.

The Animus starts to smoke.

Running paws, wheeling stars, tails, laughter-

It was not made to hold so much history.

Desmond grins.

Night falls without the Animus fixed, and Desmond stands in the center of their pathetic jail, eyes unfocused in the direction of the camera, thinking.

So. This machine can somehow access ancestral memory... They shiver in excitement, what little fur they possess bristling at the possibilities.

Perhaps they hadn't been too hasty, allowing himself to be caught out of curiosity and boredom.

A soft click, and the door opens. Desmond turns to confront the guards stationed beyond. The five bodies shift, then kneel, heads bowed. He subtly shakes his head, and the oni rise as one and return to their previous duties.

He'll stay, for now, and see what can be gained. In the meantime, their influence will spread- by the end of this, they might even have a thousand-company once more, Desmond chuckles. He takes two steps back, and sits on the edge of his cot, blinking languidly at the closed door and rubbing, absently, at the base of their ring finger.