Chapter Text
"... stable…"
"... vitals levelling out…"
"... brain activity? Isn't he supposed to… "
"... to worry about, just synapses firing randomly…"
"... really looks a lot like him."
"... do you expect? He's a clone. Sort of. Now hand me that …"
"... good work, doctor. Now if something happens, we'll have a spare…"
"... without the right memories…"
"... now, what about Shepard?"
"... right this way…"
"... mission …"
"... soon…"
…
There's light, blinding, in his left eye. It moves in and out of his vision - a pen light, testing his pupil response.
"... obviously the match wasn't perfect," a male voice says. "Though the family likeness is pretty close, with five generations in between the genetic variance is unavoidable - hence the eyes."
"I wasn't criticising, Wilson," a female voice answers. "Just making an observation. Shepard is pretty known for his big blue eyes."
"If necessary, a simple transplant will fix the issue," Wilson answers. "Or just an eye implant. Not that it's his looks that are the issue here. With none of the original Shepard's brain matter, this clone will be nothing like the Commander. As it is, we'll be extremely lucky if Shepard himself will turn out like… well, himself."
"And here I thought you were perfectly confident in your ability to bring him back." There's sharpness to the woman's voice.
"I said I can bring him back to life, Miranda, that's not even the issue. But the man was floating in the vacuum of space long enough for cell deterioration and death, never mind brain failure."
"He's got synaptic activity. Even the clone has synaptic activity, and his brain has freezer burn."
"Yeah, yeah, I got his heart beating and his synapses firing - but even I can't grow destroyed brain cells with the right connections out of thin air. You can do a lot with the Lazarus Project's budget - but we're still working with the limitations of reality, we're not doing actual miracles here."
"Mn, indeed. This whole project is one hell of a leap of faith." The woman sighs. "Well, at least we'll have some spare parts if any of Shepard's organs give in."
The light shifts, and for a moment the speakers come into view, the man and the woman standing over him, looking down at him. The woman looks vaguely curious in a cold way, a bland smile fixed on her face like an artful mask, the man beside her looking mostly irritated and frustrated as he turns away.
"He's ready for storage," the man says, taking off his gloves. "Jacob, take him to cell 17."
"Not the cryonics lab?" a new voice asks from out of view, accompanied by footsteps.
"Not this soon, the strain on the system would undo all our hard work. Just put him in a cell," Wilson says dismissively and then, with a sigh, "It's fine, Jacob - this one doesn't have the capacity for the sort of feats Commander Shepard is known for. He has neither the skills, the knowledge - nor the intellect - to cause any sort of harm. Really, he's no better than a comatose patient at this point."
A new figure steps in view, a dark-skinned man with a dubious expression. "I don't know, doc, it kinda looks like he's watching us," he says.
"Reflexes and automatic responses to stimuli, nothing more. Now, get him out of here. We have work to get to," Wilson says and then adds under his breath, "What a waste of money. Could've done so much more with it than revive a damn vegetable."
Overhead the ceiling begins moving while below him the bed rattles - Jacob begins rolling his gurney out of the room.
"The oldest viable cryogenic revival is not good enough for you, Wilson?" Miranda asks, amused. "We beat Doctor Hannock's record by more than thirty years."
"Sure, if you can call that viable… and it's not like any of this will ever go on record anywhere. The man's a disgustingly expensive curiosity. I really don't know what the Illusive Man is thinking…"
"It's his money - and it's not your job to question…
Their voices fade into echoes as he's rolled into a corridor. The way to his cell isn't long - three doors on his left and two on his right, left hand turn, down four doors on right and five on left, and then the gurney is pushed into a small room, judging by the small square of the ceiling. The gurney rolls gently to a stall.
Jacob sighs, looks over him, shakes his head at some thought, and then turns away. An automatic sliding door hisses shut, and there's an electronic noise of some kind of lock. Everything goes quiet.
For a while longer he stares up at the ceiling, uncomprehending. The lights overhead are neither fluorescent or LED. He's got no idea what they are. It looks like fluid in a tube. The air smells mechanical. Neither the lights nor the air-conditioning makes a noise. His slow, even breaths seem loud.
It's like he's floating, nothing in his head, just vague confusion and feeling of… misplacement.
Slowly, he falls asleep.
His sleeping mind is more active than his waking one, it turns out, because he dreams. He dreams a lot and vividly.
Of a bar counter where he knew every groove and scratch, and how they always arranged the stationary so that it hides the J+S someone had scratched into the more than 100 year old maghony.
The way foreign thoughts felt curling through his own, their memories under his skin - himself, embodying the memories of another. The smell of times long gone, the feel of sunlight centuries old on skin that must've turned to dust long ago. How it felt to kill a man who's been dead for generations. What it felt like to so deeply love people who'd never known him.
The feeling of the backrest of a chair that was too comfortable while being the least comfortable chair he'd ever sat on. It came with needles and electrodes around his head, their blue glow hot and invasive. The needle marks in his arm, nearly permanent, bruised and ugly. The buildup of electrical hum as the Animus powered up.
The burning in his veins and the flickers in his skin, how the heat built inside him like pressure, like it wanted to escape. His eyes, gleaming in the mirror like a cat's in the night. The restless urge to blow up. The Apple like a release valve in his hand, giving him an outlet. It shouldn't feel like relief to crush people down with your mind.
The cave, the Temple. The Device, under his hand and inside him, through him… using him.
Burning him up.
Desmond wakes up knowing his name, but everything else is still a scattered mess in his head, thoughts and memories and concepts fluttering around in his skull like distressed butterflies. He can't grab a single one firmly enough to figure them out.
He knows something is wrong though.
He's still in the cell, and that's something of a relief. Not the cell exactly, but that this is the same cell he remembers, that there's something he remembers at all. The three people, Wilson, Miranda and Jacob.
What… what had they spoken about? Desmond can't remember more than snippets, but something about it struck him as wrong. Maybe all of it. Did they… call him a clone? There was something about cryogenics too - that's that whole thing about freezing people for future revival, right?
He can't figure it out exactly, but it makes him want to check his face for some reason. Just to - to check. That it is his face.
His hands feel heavy, weighed down. Like moving through molasses. Desmond has no idea what molasses even are - but his face feels familiar, he thinks. There's his nose. His lips. His cheekbones. But where…?
Running a finger down the side of his mouth, he misses... someone. The scar on his face was theirs. His and theirs, and it belonged to all of them - and it's not there anymore.
Clone, huh?
Lowering his hands to lay at his sides, Desmond stares up at the ceiling for a long moment, until the thought of looking around comes to him. There's not much to look at, though. Three metal walls, a metal sink and toilet, a bunk bed with mattresses and pillows, but no sheets. One wall of the cell is an energy barrier, glowing faintly red. Just by looking at it Desmond can tell - touching it would hurt. A prison cell, clearly.
Then there's his gurney, left in the middle of the cell. He's got an IV full of green-tinted liquid that feels nice and cool going in. No catheter or a feeding tube, though, he definitely would've noticed those.
Guess the whole not really needing to eat stuff is still a thing, then. Cool. Only not really. Creepy, actually.
Desmond turns the thought over in his head, baffled by the shape of it. It brings back an echo from the back of his head, a memory.
"I think what's happening to you, what the Apple did to you, it's… changing you. Most of what humans eat is used for energy, to keep our bodies moving and working. I guess... you draw that energy from a different source now."
Yeah. Creepy.
Setting that confusing and frankly concerning notion aside, Desmond turns his attention to the IV solution, trying to figure out what they're giving him. 0.7% Medi-gel in saline, apparently. It tells him… almost nothing, except that he'd being given something other than just fluids.
Turning his eyes back to the ceiling, Desmond considers trying to get up. His… everything is itching, and he should probably get up and stretch or something. He should take a better look around, see what's outside his cell. He should be proactive about his apparent imprisonment.
He falls back asleep before he can put the thought into action.
Desmond dreams about his first kidnapping. The Abstergo Tower in Rome. They'd grabbed him from the back of his workplace in New York just as he was about to head home, shoved a bag over his head and shipped him across the Atlantic. Hell of an effort, to nap a random bartender. Because that's what he was, then - just a bartender. Whatever he'd been before, well, nine years of avoiding conflict and exercise took care of it. He couldn't learn new skills or develop muscle mass just from memories back then, so by all accounts he should've been… no one.
But of course it wasn't really him they wanted. It was his ancestors and what they knew. What they'd seen. What they'd hidden. What Abstergo and the Templar Order might benefit from.
Lucy Stillman and Warren Vidic, poking and prodding at his genetic memories until they found what they were looking for. Good cop, bad cop, one with a scalpel, the other with soft-spoken reassurances. Come on, Mr. Miles. Come on, Desmond.
Desmond had been pretty passive about that kidnapping too. Partly because Vidic had threatened to put him in a coma if he didn't cooperate and Lucy seemed really sorry about the whole thing… and partly because he's a big believer in not pissing off people with big guns. That probably should've tipped him off to Lucy, really - no big guns in the way when they'd eventually made their harrowing escape. No guns at all. He didn't even do anything during that escape. It was all her. Would he have escaped, if it wasn't for her?
Did he ever really escape?
He'd gone from one Animus to another Animus afterwards, acting as the server where his ancestral memories were housed. From Vidic and Lucy; to Lucy, Shaun and Rebecca; to Shaun, Rebecca and Bill. From Altaïr to Ezio to Connor. It was always so important. There was always something new they needed to find. No point in arguing about it, Desmond had figured.
In hindsight, he's not that sure he had a choice, after all.
Important.
Blinking himself awake, Desmond automatically turns his head towards the thing suddenly pounding against his senses. Somewhere far to the left of him, in this facility but at a distance, there's… something. Maybe someone. He can feel it like the warmth of the sun through closed eyelids. Golden, important.
Eagle Vision is coming back, then.
Blinking, Desmond lets his eyes fall out of your usual visual light and into that other register that Eagle Vision can see, until everything goes dark. Still can't see the Important Thing, but he can see the power wires in the walls, the water pipes that run into the toilet and the sink. None of it is very helpful - though he can see where the wires to the energy barrier wall run, they're behind an inch of metal. No way can he get to them.
But it's still something. Eagle Vision coming back is a good sign. Though is it coming back or is it just… coming to him? To this body. Which is maybe a clone. Whatever.
The important thing takes precedence.
Slowly Desmond tests his arms, getting an elbow under himself to push himself into a seated position. It takes effort - whatever it is that charges his power cells, so to speak,it isn't fully there yet, it seems. He feels a little less exhausted, but still a bit like death warmed over. Heh.
Desmond smothers a groan, his arms shaking a little as he leans on them, and then looks over his shoulder at the energy barrier. A blank, empty corridor behind it. He can see another cell though, and the locking mechanism. Whatever powers and controls these barriers, it has neither a keypad nor a keyhole. But going by the arrangement on the opposite cell, he now knows where the control to his cell is.
He doesn't have much to work with, but he has the gurney and the IV stand, which is basically just a metal rod. Maybe he could ram the gurney into the barrier, maybe he could use the IV stand to break through the wall, maybe… maybe if he had Connor's physical prowess, yeah, but he has to do something.
Come on, Desmond, get up.
Desmond strains against gravity, only half clear on what he's trying to do aside from getting up. Every inch is a struggle, and he can feel how unused his muscles are, weak as those of a newborn kitten. Definitely no convenient Animus upgrades have been had here.
Huffing for a breath, Desmond struggles to get his feet from under the duvet in order to swing his legs over the side and to the floor, and then…
The urgent sensation of the important thing this way sputters out, disappearing as soon as it had appeared.
Relieved, Desmond collapses back into the bed and straight into exhausted sleep.
"It's basically mind over matter," Rebecca's voice echoes from somewhere far away. "The way the Animus works on Desmond is a bit more involved than just dreaming. The things he's doing in his ancestors' memories, on some level, they're also happening to his body. Maybe he's activating the same muscles as he does in the memories, maybe it's just his brain convincing him he's doing that, I don't know. But - yeah. Desmond is somehow getting physically stronger by… sleeping."
"Figures," Shaun's voice, sounding disgusted. "Some of us have to work for this stuff, but Desmond Miles gets all the advantages handed to him on a silver platter. Let's see what he will do with this sudden chance - I'm betting on nothing."
"Shaun," Rebecca says, exasperated. "Anyway, I think I can put together a training program to take full advantage of this, let Desmond try his paces against his ancestor's enemies. It's a little less involved than full memories - and a whole lot more efficient."
City guards from Jerusalem. Pazzi soldiers from Florence and Borgia guards from Rome. Various redcoats from Connor's time.
Desmond looks down at himself. He has Altaïr's robes, Ezio's armour and Connor's weapons. Seems about right.
Drawing his sword with one hand and knife with the other, Desmond takes a deep breath. "Alright. Bring it."
He's taken most of his fighting style from Ezio, a side effect of having lived his life the longest, for decades. Ezio honed himself into a perfect tool of assassination, unbeatable and insurmountable, skilfully using his opponents' strenght and attacks against them. There's a slight issue with this, which is mainly that Desmond is both taller and lighter than Ezio. Ezio was very top heavy too, wide around the shoulders. Some of the moves Ezio could pull off with ease, using brute strength to his advantage, well… they would just knock Desmond off his feet.
"Again," Ezio barks at him. "Keep your guard up, don't give your enemy an opening - not until you're ready and certain you can take him down."
Altaïr was closer to his body type. Altaïr was also shorter, though, lighter. Altaïr's type of fighting was fast and agile, darting in and out and making his exit quick and smooth. Desmond, a bit more gangly and nowhere near as nimble, can't manage his style very well. When he throws knives, though, that's all Altaïr. Altaïr was very good at distance fighting. He even went and invented a revolver several centuries too early, so, yeah. Efficiency, thy name is Altaïr.
"Do not hesitate," Altaïr instructs. "But do not hasten either. Speed and stillness are both tools in your arsenal, know when to use them efficiently. No mistakes."
Connor is closer to Desmond's height, actually a few inches taller. His style of fighting relies on that, reach and strength. Desmond doesn't think he could ever manage the stuff Connor could do, not without several months in a gym and a couple of buckets of steroids, but the way Connor used his strength, that's useful. As is the silent hunter part of Connor, stalking prey in noisy, alert forests in ways that could've put Altaïr's stalking skills to shame.
"You cannot know how a battle will go," Connor says. "Men are unpredictable and battle even more so. Learn what you can, from whoever you can, from friends and from enemies… and adapt."
They all have something to teach. And at this point, Desmond is a star pupil of their skills.
In his dreams, he fights. First one guard, then three, then half a dozen. First in open fields, then in crowded streets, then on rooftops, on swaying ships' decks. Desmond spills the imaginary blood of thousands of imaginary enemies, and re-familiarizes himself with his ancestors' skills. His skills. Because at this point, they damn well better be his, too.
It's good. It's great.
"You think that's good enough to take down a krogan? You wouldn't ever be able to take down a flailing salarian, never mind a krogan."
That's… him?
His own reflection, wearing a dark armour that looks like something out of a sci-fi movie with space marines or something. He waves at Desmond, and then smirks. "Come on, soldier, meet me at the shooting range. I'll show you how it's really done."
Desmond wakes up to a thunderous boom in the distance and the sound of blasting alarms. The lights switch to the red flashing of what has to be a warning of some kind. Probably because of the big thunderous boom.
The important thing is back, and the building is shuddering. Desmond sits up, barely registering how easy it is now, how much better he feels, as he twists to look behind himself, at the energy barrier.
It's powered down.
"Well, that's just bad prison design," Desmond comments and then winces as another explosion makes the building tremble. Somewhere, something just got very broken. It sounded pretty expensive.
Not looking a gift horse in the mouth, Desmond eases the IV line off his arm with the long practice given to him by the Animus IVs, and then stands up. Thank God for nice kidnappers/cloners, making sure he was wearing some clothes - he would've hated to do this butt naked.
There's the pinprick red sensation of enemies and danger, and somewhere in this place the important thing is moving.
Desmond turns to the open corridor, and grabs the IV stand on his way out.