While We Sleep

[madimpossibledreamer]

Desmond really didn’t trust this guy. he decided taking out the gun behind the guy while I was gone was necessary. To be fair, the first conversation you have while he’s being vaguely friendly he threatens you indirectly at least 3 times during the conversation, so. (I cut out one of them. It’s a little too obvious. And it’s not like Desmond needs the help when he has Eagle Vision.) I’ve paraphrased all of his dialogue, though.

Main Points:
Assassin's Creed/The Secret World
Summary: Unexpected discoveries are made at the airport.
Word Count: 2466
Rating: Teen

 

         Everyone’s on edge, and Desmond can’t really joke around to lighten things up, because he’s a little concerned, too. It’s probably going to be fine. No eagles screeching in warning, and in any case Beaumont had written that the airport was useless, so it’s not likely he’d come back. But they’re not in the middle of the Orochi camp, which might have kept him away. The Orochi don’t even glance toward them as long as they don’t get too near the barriers, and they retreat quickly enough that they apparently don’t raise any alarms. They seem pretty preoccupied with fixing the damage, anyway—they’ve put up more barricades on one side, they’re removing the broken plane with the kind of care that suggests Rukh blew up something hazardous, and they’re having to deal with wave after wave of Draug attacking, which is the kind of persistence from them that they’ve only seen in the sewer, so. It’s weird and interesting and they’re kind of busy, which works out just fine in Desmond’s opinion.
         They do manage to find the hangar with the small plane that Beaumont had been using. It looks like the room has been turned upside down. Desmond manages, using Eagle Vision, to find a little logbook of the pilot’s trips tucked away where the metal of the wall started warping—mostly overcharging tourists, it looks like, though at least that’s better than some of the guys Desmond’s heard about in the area. He’s not reporting all of his income for taxes, either. Or at least, he hadn’t been. He’d been all excited about Beaumont and charged him extra, but the bloodstain Lydia points out just peeking out from under one of the shelves says that maybe Beaumont promised payment and then just killed the guy. Or he did pay and then took it back after killing him. One of the two.
         That’s the only stuff they find directly relating to Beaumont, though. The guy is kinda professional and did take notes about some of the coordinates Beaumont wanted him to try, so Desmond takes a picture and sends that on, too, and surprisingly gets a thumbs-up from Rebecca. Seems like whatever she was up to wrapped up.
         And then he sees movement, not toward the area of the Orochi camp, but in a building further away, toward the normal entrance. Same way the trail of blood is going. It doesn’t feel like Beaumont, but he’s not sure why anyone else would be here, so they’re going to check it out. Carefully.
         “Head’s up, we’re not alone. Everyone be quiet,” he warns them, and Lydia looks excited, Chelsea’s equal parts nervous and keyed up on adrenaline, and Nate just gets ready. Rukh sits, still and silent, like he was born to do this and he’s showing the rest how it’s done.
         They peek around the corner, and the guy’s in a mechanic’s outfit, which is...odd. Probably means he isn’t a Bee, though Desmond’s seen them in all kinds of outfits, at this point. Lydia gets a little too enthusiastic in trying to lean past Chelsea to see, though, and the guy whips around, gun in hand. “Show yourself,” he demands, and Desmond steps forward carefully, hands up, because he’s the leader, here. There’s nowhere to dive for cover. Just like the other warehouses, it’s pretty empty in the middle, and mostly bare shelves along the walls don’t do much for stopping bullets, either.
         “Didn’t mean to scare you; I just tend to be quiet,” he offers—it’s the truth, he’s quiet out of habit, even when he’s not concerned about possibly plotting sorcerors, but it doesn’t help.
         “Shouldn’t creep up on a man, not with what’s going on out there, between those people in uniforms swarming like a kicked ant’s nest and the monsters, out there in the dark. Someone could get shot,” he insists, putting the gun away, but that doesn’t mean much because he’s still red even though he’s acting like he’d only been at risk of shooting them on accident. “Ellis Hill. Mechanic at this fine little airport. It ain’t much, but it’s ours.” The guy holds his hand out for a handshake, but Desmond’s so focused on keeping track of the threat so he kind of forgets to move. Rukh seems just as paralyzed, other than his talons digging into Desmond’s shoulder. Ellis doesn’t appear to take offense, going into this weird rant about how a handshake is a key that unlocks a man’s soul so of course you have to protect it, like that makes any kind of sense. He might be acting friendly, but he’s still unwaveringly red.
         Although—actually, he might be onto something, because he shows his hands like it’s going to prove his point, calling them mechanic’s hands, and they’re not. Those calluses aren’t from holding a wrench or strumming some chords. Those calluses are from the gun he’d just been pointing at them, because they match perfectly.
         “I’m Chelsea, and this is Desmond, Nate, and Lydia. We were just wondering if you needed any help to evacuate to town or make this place safer, sir,” Chelsea speaks up, and the man relaxes, just a little. Still red, but he’s not going to shoot them for the moment, anyway. He’s wondering if we know, but—what the hell does that mean? Know what? Okay, the answer is probably something about his identity, but all Desmond knows is that he’s lying.
         “Generators. Lights keep the critters at bay, keep you from shooting friendlies in the dark.” That’s...a threat. Isn’t it? He’s pretty sure that’s a threat.
         “Where are they?” Nate asks, and the man nods.
         “Good question. I like a man that’s paying attention; means I don’t have to repeat myself. Inconvenient setup, but the entrance is in the maintenance tunnels. Couple of them you can reach from the airfield, but some sort of collapse cut off the rest. Gotta go outside the fence to get there. Luckily not the ones the private little army took over; bet they wouldn’t let you inside. I tried to dig a little tunnel out, make it easier to reach, but these hands are made for wrenches and saws, not shovels.” He nods at the dirty shovel next to him.
         On one hand, it’s dangerous, asking the question, but on the other hand even if he misses it he’s pretty sure Nate will get it, so questioning the guy it is. “What happened to the pilot?”
         And, if anything, he relaxes further. Desmond’s pretty sure the puzzled look on his face is genuine. “No clue. Went to the house to get supplies, and he was just gone when I got back.” Honestly? Given that he’s probably not actually the mechanic, that’s probably a lie. He could be left behind, just in case there was something Desmond’s personally chosen target missed in the little flybys. He’d probably know when and how the pilot died, in that case. But also, he might not be working with Beaumont. Maybe there’s someone else on the sorceror’s tail. Or maybe he’s spying on the Orochi, with the cover as a good way to wander around the airport without being flagged as a potential threat even if he ends up getting a little too close to the tech fence. Either way...either way, he very well might’ve noticed the commotion they caused, and is studying them just as much as he’s being studied, trying to work out who they are and what they want. One of the other factions, maybe. Man, this sucks. He actually kinda misses the simplicity of the old Templars, warped as that is. Shaun had been boasting, yeah, but he hadn’t been wrong, either. Not that he usually was, honestly. This is all so much more complicated than it needs to be.
         “Well, we probably should do that before it gets dark,” Desmond manages. He also manages not to make a run for it even though he sure as hell feels like it.
         The quickest way, it turns out, would just be to climb the fence, but he’s not sure he wants to make Chelsea do that just yet. She probably deserves a break. Nate speaks up before he comes to a conclusion, though. “You were being weird about that guy, boss, what’s up?”
         “And after you lectured me about how everyone deserves protection—” Chelsea starts, and wow okay, she misread that entirely.
         “He was lying about his name and being the mechanic. I don’t have a clue who he is or why he’s lying, but if we figure out who he is or if he decides it’s worth it, he won’t hesitate to shoot and bury us all,” he interrupts, voice low, because at least Nate had the sense to ask when they were further away and to keep his voice down.
         “Third Eye again? That’s really handy.” Lydia sounds a little jealous.
         “You think he shot and buried the original mechanic,” his Agent realizes, and—actually, okay, yeah, he hadn’t put that together yet but absolutely that’s what he thinks.
         And Chelsea glances between them and adjusts her grip on the hammer. “I could see if I could find any tracks. If there’s a body, that would answer that, right?”
         Damn. Novices grow up so fast.
         “Yeah, but you should bring Nate with you. He might be associated with Beaumont.” Because Beaumont probably killed the pilot, and ‘Ellis’ isn’t Orochi. It doesn’t hurt to be extra careful. He’d think about going himself, but he definitely doesn’t want to leave Lydia, the one who barely knows how to fight, on her own, and it’s probably easier for them to climb the fence than it would be for the other two. Okay...mostly Chelsea, but still. At some point Lydia and Chelsea need to learn to work together, but they probably need a little more training before they’re ready for that. “The second anything looks off, anything at all, you teleport out of there, okay? We can meet you at another anima well, if we have to.”
         “We’ll stay in touch,” Nate promises, and they start walking back toward the entrance and haphazardly parked car and hopefully they’re going to be just fine.
         The first couple generators—okay, the first couple are a pain. Rukh volunteers—again—to go for the one where its malfunctioning has electrified the water.
         “You sure, buddy?” Rukh leans in, and then he’s off, and it goes fine, but man, that had been nerve-wracking, watching as Rukh carefully manipulated the buttons with his beak, because he’s really not sure how supernatural Rukh is or if he could save him if something went wrong. Jumping over what looks like poison or acidic contamination was so much easier, honestly. He’s halfway through a discussion with Lydia about how to work on her balance when the raven takes off again, probably scouting. When he glances back at Lydia she’s already at the top of the fence.
         Fortunately, when he takes a running leap and launches himself upward, it goes smoothly, which is something.
         “Wicked. Guess you had a lot of practice too, huh?” She’s trying not to sound impressed, but she’s impressed.
         “You could say that.” He’s tempted to just leave it at that, but—he shouldn’t. He has to demonstrate trust to earn it, and at some point, he’s going to have to get used to this. Because sure, he might be able to go back, but he doesn’t even want to think about the price, and for better or worse this is his life, now. It’s not the first time he’s had to adapt. He just...he’s gotta remember again. Like taking a Leap of Faith. “We did a lot of stuff like this, as kids.”
         She sits, hooking her feet and generally getting herself as secure sitting at the top as she can, and then holds out a hand. Which he takes, but he doesn’t put too much of his weight on her, because she’s still pretty young and doesn’t even have Chelsea’s muscle, for Christ’s sake. “With the cult?”
         “Yeah. Climbing, walking, lots of stuff.” It’s...hard. To get into specifics.
         She eyes him for a moment. Maybe he is getting through to her, a little, because he’s getting the feeling she’s using this as an excuse to catch her breath. “I wanna say that sounds awesome, but...it wasn’t, was it?”
         He wants to say that it had been fine, but the words catch in his throat and he can’t quite say them. He’d been looking back, after Abstergo, realizing that they’d been right, that maybe he’d been too harsh, so it feels like they’re things he should be able to say, but—he can’t. He can’t. “Given how much you’ve tried to avoid fighting, you’d probably hate it,” is what he finally manages, and that makes her snort and look away.
         “I know I should be better about all of this. I just...I have a thing about blood, okay? I’m cool with most things. Snakes are the coolest. I talk to spiders. And this shit makes it harder for the whole witchcraft side of things, too, but, ugh.” She pauses, and then adds, “And of course Miss High and Mighty doesn’t even think about taking a sledgehammer to somebody’s face, not if the Cross tells her to.”
         “Hey,” he warns her and starts climbing down the other side because seriously this is getting uncomfortable to keep sitting here. “We’re working on that. What about magic?”
         “Have you smelled flesh sizzling?” she responds flatly, and yeah, blood magic is probably also a no-go. Chaos magic might be a good fit for her, but then, she probably wouldn’t be interested in the ‘summon weapons’ part of it which honestly is most of what Desmond actually remembers. “Witchcraft doesn’t particularly do too much in combat, unless you go for hexes.”
         “Then go for hexes,” he advises practically, and she manages a slight smile now that they’re back on solid ground.
         “Maybe I will,” she agrees, not argumentative for once, and then they have to go in and try to fix the rest of the generators. Rukh leads them there very quietly, keeping a concerned eye on the beach (which feels like a massive warzone, so yeah, they’re going to avoid that if they can help it) and the area inside the collapsed tunnel pretty equally. Why quickly becomes clear as a pile of metal scraps in the collapsed rock manifests into a golem (seriously, they’re getting to be a pain, too) and trying to saw them in half. Fortunately, Lydia’s magic is useful for keeping it from being completely in control or in one piece, which gives him the opening he needs to do enough damage for it to stay down.