Under the Radar (Assassin's Creed story)
| Fanfiction | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Under The Radar |
| Author(s): | Kit, with illustrations by RueLi |
| Date(s): | September 2011 |
| Length: | 2,618 words (in five sections) |
| Genre: | Victorian AU |
| Fandom: | Assassin's Creed |
| External Links: | http://ac-bigbang.livejournal.com/15951.html |
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Under The Radar is an illustrated Assassin's Creed fanfic created for round three of the Assassin's Creed Big Bang. The fic reimagines the modern-day plotline of the first two games in a Victorian England/steampunk setting.
Excerpt
It had been a dull gray night when he was largely finished substituting for the usual servant who tended bar at a certain club in London, and an obviously well-to-do gentleman with sharp eyes asked him a peculiar question.
“You see,” the gentleman said by way of apology, “We need someone to help us with some information. Natural philosophy astonishes us with every turn, but we have found a way to incorporate Nature with glorious Machinery. Will you help us?”
“I'm not a philosophizing sort,” Desmond simply said, and left it at that.
“You don't need to be.” And apparently the gentleman left it alone, and ordered a drink.
Apparently. The gentleman had not taken no for an answer.
When Desmond came to, he was in a cellar; there was a makeshift bed in the corner, one of those newfangled water closets discreetly to the side (the gentleman must have had substantial money to put one of those in the cellar, he found himself noting), and – taking up nearly all of the cellar – a mechanical contraption consisting mainly of various gears and a sort of automatic loom combined with what seemed to be a strange sort of bed.
He had heard about these sorts of things. The Queen, after all, was fond of clever artifice and the news of Babbage and Lovelace being privileged with the Queen – even with, in Lovelace's case, their already existing noble status – had spread throughout the land like village gossip.
At the foot of the bed was a brass plate, proudly bearing a maker's mark and a stamp.
ANIMUS
Desmond didn't know much Latin, but he knew the gist of it thanks to his childhood. Spirit? Soul? It was strange to name a piece of machinery that, wasn't it?
The contraption was fitted for a human to lie down in. What was it for?
More to the point, what was he doing here? The gentleman had said he would be an informant – but to what end?
So many questions.
He tried the cellar door.
It would not budge.
For the first time since childhood, Desmond Miles felt trapped.