Watchful Eyes

[madimpossibledreamer]

(I didn’t actually make a note of what he got from the ‘Dumpster Diver’, sorry.)

Main Points:
Assassin's Creed/The Secret World
Summary: Desmond talks to the Sheriff and agrees to help out, making an unpleasant discovery along the way.
Word Count: 1180
Rating: Teen

        Either getting distracted easily is a genetic thing, or Desmond’s picked up even more stuff from his ancestors. Seeing or feeling gold things mentally feels like this nagging feeling that won’t go away until you actually go check it out, so maybe that’s part of it, the whole Eagle Vision thing. You can ignore it with practice, but it’s difficult. Desmond hadn’t really had to deal with it until he’d gotten shoved into the Animus and that unlocked his Eagle Vision, and even then he’d considered so little relevant to him that most things weren’t highlighted unless it was, like, cameras or objectives when he was out on the missions trying to make the Grand Temple work . (Shaun would make snide comments about ‘pointless detours’ until it was something he was interested in, and Desmond almost makes a mental note to explain his theory until he remembers the Shaun of this world has no idea what Eagle Vision is and probably still is thinking Desmond hates him, even if Rebecca says otherwise. He’ll send a text eventually. Probably when he figures out what to say.)
        Fortunately, the Sheriff doesn’t seem to mind at all, because when he actually wanders over to her desk, she greets him with a cheerful “Well hey!”
        She also immediately launches into something about not knowing where “you folks” all keep coming from, which is interesting because what with the whole zombie apocalypse stuff out there, you’d think she’d be pulled into a secret society, willing or unwilling, but apparently not. (Apparently, Rebecca tells him later, this particular island in Maine is completely cut off. A couple boats have tried to come out here, only to never be seen again.) She also asks him to leave if he has “something in his past that colours him sourly to a badge”, which...given that he’s needed here and as far as he can tell, the version of him from this world still missing doesn’t have anything, and his whole ‘wanted’ thing was mostly just Abstergo and the Templars being assholes anyway...he’s not going to bring any of it up. Might feel a little uncomfortable about it, like he’s lying by omission, but he’s not bringing it up.
        She pauses briefly, like she knows, but shrugs it off pretty quickly and introduces herself as Sheriff Bannerman. Apparently the town was weird before, so there’s probably some historical stuff to go digging into, maybe even clues as to the hows and whys of all this. Maybe even that they brought this on themselves (do the artifacts work like Pieces of Eden? Was someone messing around with stuff they shouldn’t have?), but that most of the people who died were almost certainly innocent, which is a point of view Desmond can get behind. She’s also being very practical about him being armed, pointing out that during a zombie apocalypse everyone probably should be armed.
        Her request, which is probably the reason she’s gold other than maybe her being an important figure here in town, starts out easy, asking him to retrieve a few cameras from around town so they have advance warning for attacks.  It’ll be a break from her Jeopardy reruns, she says, and the doc (Bannerman too; probably related given how they interact) and the wounded guy on the cot groan, so they’re on board with the plan, too. Given that there’s only about nine people actually here, which isn't much in the way of manpower, that makes sense. Desmond’s seen the power of information firsthand, both with the PoE and the fact that both Shaun and Rebecca basically run on it. Hell, it’s something every single one of his ancestors learned, the power knowledge has, particularly when you’re low on people. Usually Desmond’s pretty anti-surveillance, because hey, people deserve some privacy, but these days he’s not sure how many actual people there are to spy on around here, and this is basically the battlefront. It’s also a good opportunity to wander around and get the lay of the land and maybe find the tallest building and climb it.
        At least, that’s his intention. He kinda gets sidetracked. For one thing, the zombies are still irritatingly able to sense him, even when he tries to stealth, even when he tries to use the Calculations stealth —he’s not sure if they’re just using some kind of senses he doesn’t know how to block yet or if he’s getting a little weak because he’s putting in so much work to not zombify that he’s running out of the juice to do anything else. It’s been a relief, too, to be out of the fog, but he’s hit with it again, the second he steps back outside, and then he has to make his way around the barricade and through the yard when waves of zombies keep coming, the defenders keep shooting, and it’s a bit of a tight squeeze past some zombies. For another, well. There’s actually two things that feel gold near the gas station, one near the front and one near the back. He’s pretty sure he’s going to have to go to the back to climb the dumpster and get on the roof anyway, so he might as well check the one in the back, so he goes to do just that, and—
        The hell. Okay, the tabloids in London never said anything about this.
        He makes the mistake of trying to see what the hulking humanoid figure (kinda like the huge zombie, but...infected, somehow?) looks like in Eagle Vision. Where Agartha had been gold so bright he almost couldn’t see, this is almost the opposite—just the pure absence of color that almost makes him think the moon or whatever’s giving kind of atmospheric lighting to the clawing fog just winked out of existence. Like a hole in the world, just sucking everything in and never letting go. It’s the roar and thundering footsteps running in his direction that make his eyesight go back to normal, and then, okay, yeah, he’d done that, better not do that again without thinking, and he has to fight for his life. Again. Zombies are a pain. This is worse. He’s visualizing the Anima Well in his mind’s eye the entire time, just in case he needs to be somewhere else quickly, but it turns out his healing’s barely enough if he just keeps doing that in between shots.
        And then, just to make things weirder, his backpack feels heavier again, and this time it’s this clunky watch. And then he gets another text. This time, Rebecca’s explaining some kind of fusion thing to upgrade his weapons and talismans, invoking the phrases ‘like calls to like’ and ‘transforming matter into energy’ like they should mean something to him. Desmond’s having a hard time keeping up, but at this point, he really doesn’t feel like a lecture or the faces he knows the two Templars will be making about ‘the state of his education’ and he manages to make it work somehow given the description anyway, so he figures it’s fine.