sixthiterationlogs | i'm done being a pawn

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i'm done being a pawn

WHO: Desmond Miles
WHERE: Fountain; around the village,
WHEN: 12/3
OPEN TO: Anyone!
WARNINGS: Swearing for sure

Fountain arrival; ota

His hand was going in slow motion as it reached for the key to saving humanity and releasing Juno. Despite knowing it was right, despite saying goodbye to the remaining people in his life, he was afraid as he took a deep breath and prepared for the end. His eyes closed ... and then suddenly he was opening his eyes surrounded by water. Desmond flailed, shocked and horrified, this was not the way he expected Juno to take him, and was he supposed to just wait until he drowned? No, this can't be right. His feet kicked and he broke the water into air, gasping and scrambling for the side of ... what the hell was this? His eyes hurt from the water and he dragged himself out, immediately shocked by the cold of the air around him. It hadn't been cold before, why was it cold?

Desmond shakily tried to stand but collapsed hard onto his knees, his hands catching his weight. He should be dead. Maybe he was dead. Or maybe this was something else. He sat back on his haunches, breathing unsteadily, and dropping this strange pack from his back to toss it aside. Who put that on him? Juno's face hazily appeared in his mind's eye, and his confusion turned into rage. Maybe he failed. Maybe this was Minerva, furious that he disobeyed. Frustrated, he did something very stupid and dove right back into the water, going as far as he could. He had to finish this. He couldn't thwart fate. He reached around of any sign of what to do, but it was dark and he sprang out of the water again, colder and more exhausted than before.

"Juno!" He yelled, searching the sky. "Minerva! Which one of you bitches did this?" Desmond spit out water, shaking from cold or shock. "Juno! Goddamnit."

Around the village the next few days, OTA

Desmond was unnerved by everything so far and deeply suspicious. It was an elaborate lie, it had to be. A trick. He went to the inn just because there was no where else to stop freezing and not starve as far as he could tell. He sat by himself in the furthest corner away from others, making certain nothing was at his back but the wall in case of stabbing. Occasionally he ventured up to the records there, reading it but skeptical.

Later on he can be seen in the bunker trying to make sense of what was down there and if his hacking had any use. He was wandering around the village, admittedly being a little creepy as he glanced at the houses and cased the joints. Eventually he claimed House 46 and sat outside, staring off into the distance, scowling.

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Desmond was too used to everyone being a threat lately. There was a time, crazily enough, where he attempted to have a normal life. A bartender might not be glamorous, but he had a job and his own place and it wasn't so bad. He got a few years of that before it all went to shit. Maybe eventually that part of him would kick in again, when he was anxious about this insane situation, but some traumas never went away entirely. The last he can do is try not to be as much a dick to people (maybe hallucinations?) in the meantime.

"The power for sure. We are little rats to them. Or objects to push around." He kept hearing Minerva talk about how he couldn't possibly understand her high minded explanation of why burning most of the world was the good option. They thought they were so above humans. "Their race went extinct even being all powerful and shit, you'd think they would have a little humility." Not so much. Just how it was.

Desmond listens to her explanation carefully, still not sure if this is real. It actually sounded like the kind of thing his unhinged mind would've come up with in the Animus. Another kidnapping and experimentation. Or the bitches were behind it again. Either way. He accepted Ashley was telling him the truth, or what she thought was the truth. He wasn't so great at knowing when people were lying to him though.

"This isn't my first kidnapping," he says wearily. "Or my first time as a science experiment." So more of the same. He rubs at his eyes, still freezing and coming down off of his adrenaline rush. "I'm Desmond. So wait people come in here enough you make circuits? How many people are here?" He was used to being the only subject.

"Nothing with that kind of power has humility," she says, shaking her head. "Even on lesser levels," she adds, thinking about Tesla, about Druitt taunting the police, of Watson and the Sherlock stories. Powers to do so much and so much put into their own egos. Part of why Ashley is forever glad she's not one of them, even if her mother shows their can be another side. Most of the time, though even her hubris got the better of her from time to time.

A brow arches then, chuckling even if there's no humor to it. "So we've lived the same kind of life. Not sure that's a thing to bond over, but always nice knowing you're not in that kind of thing alone. Kind of like this place.

She gives a nod of her head, gesturing to a nearby building. "Come on. There's warmth by the fireplace there, and food, sometimes alcohol," she offers. "And there's records. We all try and keep track, though if I had to guess, since I got here two months ago? At least two dozen new people, and probably at least that many here before I got here. Maybe three dozen at that point, though I think some have up and vanished as well."

Desmond grimly smiles at her and nods. "Yeah, you're right about that." Juno and Minerva were powerful, but he saw plenty of men and women go vicious with power. The Templars and Assassins both had bad instances of that. It's funny how they thought they were so above humans, but acted not too dissimilar from them in the same situations. Desmond held power in his hand once. It was an insane feeling. He managed to kill multiple people in a room without having to do anything more than will it to happen. He can see how that so easily might lead to evil. Still though. Fuck them.

"Really?" He is still on the fence about whether she's real, but he's fine talking to his hallucinations at this point. "I guess kidnapped science experiments for the win?" He offers his hand to her for a high five, which he recognizes is completely ridiculous, and the sort of thing Shaun would give him a withering look about. Desmond's humor was a hit or a miss.

He nods and heads in the direction of the building she pointed out. If she tried to take him somewhere secluded his hackles would have come up, but a public place was less of a concern. His paranoia is not something he can stop, only tolerate. "You had me at alcohol." Desmond felt saving the world made him deserving of at least one drink. He's also freezing and wet. The fire sounded great. If there are that many people ... he's thinking it's probably not in his head. That's a lot of people to create. "So any thoughts about this being purgatory? Just ... spitballing here."

The thought of such power and what it can drive a person to do is why Ashley knew she would avoid that machine in the bunker. A small taste, and you enjoy what you can do. Eventually it's all about what you can do for another. A drug on a different level, and always coming back to power.

"Well, I saw an extinct species come back to life with no humility, and I've spent most of my life avoiding kidnappings," she admits, chuckling because when you put it out that way, it sounds hilarious. Instead it was really just her life as a monster hunter.

Except she goes for it, giving him the high five. You didn't live the life she had without knowing how to laugh at it.

"Yeah, it's harder to come by here than recreational herbs," she admits. "Which would be humorous if not for the rest of this place." Ashley nearly loses a step then, glancing at him but recovering well enough. "I like thinking it's not. I knew I was alive before this, though my odds of survival had gone down greatly in those last few moments. I know someone here that I knew before me, and he thinks it's like a shadow organization or something."

Not the Cabal but like it is what she was told and is sticking too. For her own sanity.

"You believe you're dead? Others do."

"Oh you actually avoided them, I'm impressed, I keep getting caught." Desmond is surprised when she actually gives him the high five, and then he smiles for real. It doesn't remember the last time he's done that. Before Lucy's death, for sure, he's had nothing to smile back since that. It feels old and unpracticed on his face, but it's genuine because of that. He used to be able to laugh a lot more at all the craziness going on in his life. Maybe he could get in the habit again.

"Booze is harder to come by than weed? Wow. Too bad I'm not a fan of being high." Mostly he was not a fan of being drugged, since it happened one too many times. "I used to be a bartender. Guess those skills will not come at all in handy here." Too bad. That was the part he was happiest about being in his life. As pathetic as that seemed to his father.

"I am dead. There's no question about it. So this is the afterlife or I'm hallucinating or something. I'm not sure what else to call it."

"Well. I did say avoiding, but that doesn't mean I entirely succeeded, depending on your definition of kidnapping." He does return her, though not entirely because it's the right thing every time, though he did do the right thing once. Not long before she ended up here.

She glances at him, considering him for a minute. "Don't like the lack of control, or the paranoia? I live with one enough, and hate the other," she admits. "That said, I don't drink a lot either. Too much on call."

Ashley chuckles. "Don't think that will get you far, though if you know how to make it, you might get popular really quick," she admits.

That gives her pause though and she isn't sure what to say. Since she can't swear she's alive.

"I never asked anyone else about it. There's only one person from my life here, and I haven't been willing to ask him what life is like when he came here. Some say the times they came here from are different and when I came here? I might be," she admits. "Dead, that is."

"I'm already paranoid, which is what happens, when people try to kill and kidnap you a lot." Desmond didn't have problem with a lack of control, really. He was never in control of his life even when he thought he was. "I was drugged when I was kidnapped, my brain got a little scrambled, I think I'm good without more of that. Even something mild like weed." It's an understatement of how badly his mind deteriorated to the point where he's not sure he could even survive a drug intake. That's all very much a question mark, but he's been sane-ish so far.

He pauses as he thinks. "I ... know how to make ... beer. Maybe. If I have ingredients. I had brewer friends. Not sure how we'd get what we need here, but it's a thought."

Desmond listens to her and tilts his head curiously. "Do you think you haven't been willing to ask him because you think you might be?" It's somewhat of a harsh question, but they're already talking about it, and he obviously has accepted where he's at life-wise so he's fine with it. Vaguely. He might be less fine later.

She nods, approvingly though it's not her place or her worry in the long run. "I keep wondering if it's a goal to ensure we're complacent, personally, so I can completely understand. Though..."

She looks him over slowly, not wanting to offend him. Not entirely. "If you need a doctor, we have some around. Just to make you're brain is in the right place and all."

Trying to stay lighthearted, to make it a joke, though she still worries about him when he talks like that. For his own sake, and the sake of those in the village.

She doesn't hesitate though in asking that.

"Yeah, I do. Last thing I remember is being surrounded by guards for the Cabal, all armed and ready. I was with someone else that isn't here, and Druitt first time seeing me here was odd. Not that he's not entirely odd," she says, rolling her eyes. "But a different kind of odd. So yeah. I think it's a possibility."

And finding out the truth isn't going to help her much, one way or the other.

"Keeping everyone high on weed is a pretty easy way to keep people complacent, yeah. We'll spend more time eating and talking about the meaning of life than trying to get answers." However answer getting was going to happen. If at all. Probably not. He didn't get answers from Juno until right before his death, so he's accepted powerful entities will only tell you as much as they have to.

He tries not to take it personally. "Unless they have some impressive technology hidden out here, they're not going to be able to scan it for repairs, so." Desmond isn't going to pretend some of his psych problems are strictly medical; he's been through a lot. The trauma didn't help. "I can bring it up. It's probably good for doctors to know, if I fall into a coma again, so they aren't like what the fuck, it'll be more oh this shit again." He wouldn't be able to wake up again though. Not without the Animus.

"Okay, so we might be dead in those worlds, but we're alive-ish here." Wow this was a whole lot of shit to pile into his already fragile head, yep yep yep. He'd be fine eventually. "If that's the case, should we even question it? If this is a last stop option."

"And some seem fine with that," she says, trying not to sound judgmental about that. "Course, I don't know their lives, so maybe that is better. I can only guess that for some being here is better than the life they left behind."

She's not one of them, unaware that the day will come when she learns that making her life here is better than what she's returning to, but even then she'll still be eager for answers for all those that need them.

She snorts at that, giving him a look. "Please, I don't think we have even syringes here, and if we did? I can't imagine how bad it is. I mean, metal tipped syringes from the Victorian era? Yeah, no one is using that shit on me."

She shudders just thinking about it.

"Apparently? I wish I had better answers than maybes and could be," she admits. "But that seems to be about all that we have," she adds. "I do, for those that need to get back to their lives. If we find answers and I go back to being dead, so be it if it that means those that have family and things waiting for them can get back to where they should be."

"Life is better than no life, probably." Desmond had a sort of despondent end if he was going to be honest. He went into that last situation expecting to die, but he thought it would be solely for a noble end. He did know that there was yet another twist, and his decision would be tainted with something awful. The world survived but for what? For something possibly worse. It was all a wreck. He is still feeling really tired and run down from the last bitter betrayal, so a part of him isn't so sure about living being the best option. He'll be less grumpy with time.

Desmond winced. "Yeah that sounds fucking bad. Great. We'll probably all die from a common cold eventually, or something we'd have a vaccine for." He lived through the past. He knew how simple things used to be enough to wreck entire villages. "And I'm guessing no other modern tech if that's the era? Shit." He wasn't someone attached to his phone or anything, but it was still useful.

He listened to her and smiled faintly. "You a hero? You sound like a hero." Like a comic book or movie one. Someone who always did the noble thing no matter what. It was admirable, but also, kind of exhausting. He wasn't so sure he wanted to keep going anyway, so he was fine with that mentality. "I'm on board. This doesn't exactly look like a utopian heaven anyway."

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