A minute is all it takes to change a person's life forever. For me, that minute was when I met Alex this September. I'm in my sophomore year of college as a robotics major of a small school so it's not hard to pick up on new people. Especially when said new person is as panicked as her. She tried her best to hide it, and she was doing a good job. Smiling, greeting everyone with a handshake but I could just tell something was off. They way her eyes scanned the room every minute or when she would jump a little whenever anyone was behind her.
She looked pretty normal, head always jamming to whatever was coming out of her headphones, short manageable black hair and a killer sense of style. Still, seeing her so nervous and jumpy was what made me introduce myself. Making sure to approach from the front I held out my hand and said, "Hey, nice to see a new face around here. I'm Maya." She smiled taking my hand and replied.
"Nice to meet you. Cool lab you guys got here, all the latest stuff?" Waving her arm around our most state of the art lab.
"As late as it gets, lucky for us we got a huge donation of equipment from Abstergo." At this she stiffened, pulling her hand back into her coat quickly.
"Neat, but um, you wouldn't happen to have a lab that Abstergo free would you? I'm just here for the semester as a transfer to work on a project, but the organization I work for consider themselves rivals to Abstergo and I'm sure they wouldn't be to pleased with me if I used this equipment."
I could tell she was holding back from me but I didn't want to push my luck. "Sure but it's a little out dated and not really used anymore."
"That's perfect. What I'm working on isn't really for everyone to see. Lead the way."
-Assassin's Creed-
It didn't take long for us to become good friends seeing that both of us were in the same computer and mechanical engineering classes, and we ended up having our dorms next to each other. But even after two months of becoming best friends I could tell that she was still hiding a large part of herself from me. For starters she would disappear in the middle of the night for hours before coming back either covered in grease or sweat. I asked all my other friends if they knew anything, even her roommate, but none of them even realized she disappeared at night. Once I tried following her but didn't get past the outside of the dorm building before I lost her. Another time I found her in the commons sitting and typing some serious code on her computer, walking up behind her I noticed the Abstergo symbol tucked away in the corner of the screen. Unfortunately she must have heard my steps because before I could read what was on the screen she snapped it would have been fine, things staying the way they were if I hadn't seen her in the woods that time.
I stayed late that night to work on the robot in the lab but after being in the lab by myself for a couple of hours I decided to pack it up. If you have ever been out at 11 at night in the winter you know how dark it gets. Which was why when I saw Alex out walking through the woods without any form of light I shut mine off, and followed her as quietly as I could.
After a minute of walking I knew she had picked up on her tail. Her gait slowly increased and she took more complicated routes, going around trees like child's play. Soon I took to running to try and keep up. It was only then that I realized an extra set of footsteps that didn't belong to me.
A second later a figure burst out next to Alex tackling her to the ground. Metal glinted in the moonlight, as the mysterious figure raised it's arm ready to strike, With a double kick Alex pushed the figure off of her and rolled to the side, standing up. Flicking her wrist a shrink was heard as a new blade joined the fight. The figure charged again blade first, only this time metal met metal as Alex blocked with her wrist. Using her other hand she grabbed the opposing wrist and twisted it making the knife fall to the ground. Pulling the assailants arm down and around their back, she pinned the figure to the ground and said "May you find peace even in death."
Taking the blade on her wrist she plunged it into the figures neck covering his mouth to muffle the scream. "Rest in Peace." The quiet didn't last long before I heard a gasp and it was only when she looked in my direction that I realized it came from me. With another flick of the wrist the blade came back out and I turned and ran.
The person whom I had been spending all of my time with, the one I thought a friend just killed someone in cold blood and now I was next. Fear coursed through me as I ran, trying to remember which direction we had come from but it was no use, I was hopelessly lost. My breath was getting worse as I struggled to keep it while trying to maneuver the woods as best I could. Taking a look over my shoulders I saw how close she was to me, only behind by a couple of meters at most. Turning back I saw too late a log on the ground and before I could do anything my foot caught and I felt my body falling. Pain erupted on my head as I hit something on the way down. Darkness started taking over my eyes, it seeped around my vision and I had just enough time to see Alex finally reach me before I welcomed darkness embrace me one last time.
-Assassins Creed-
Of all the things I envisioned happening after I was knocked out, waking up was not one of them. The first thing I noticed was the pain on my head, probably from when I went down. I tried opening my eyes but the blinding light caused me to slam them shut. Trying once again but slower this time I was able to get them open and adjusted to the light. The sight that greeted me was my own dorm, also not what I was expecting: maybe a hospital or the bottom of a ditch but not my room. I sat up as a wave of nausea hit me.
"For someone who says they don't drink you sure know how to get drunk, hangover much." My roommate said to me seeing that I was finally awake.
Holding my head I replied, "How did I get here?"
"I don't know I went to bed before you came back and when I woke up, there you were." Slowly I stood grabbing onto the furniture to help me keep my balance.
My head finally cleared enough that my thoughts became coherent and one name popped into my head. "Hey you haven't happened to have seen Alex have you?" I asked hoping that after what she had done she would be long gone from here.
"Actually, I just saw her in class, you know the one that you slept through."
For the next three days I did my best to avoid Alex whenever I could. Taking different routes to class, sitting on the other side of the room and most importantly making sure that there was always someone with me. There was no way she could kill me if there were always witnesses around.
It was all working fine until my "witness" decided that he had to use the bathroom. Not even a minute after he left I was grabbed from behind and a blade was pressed up against my throat.
Even before she spoke I could tell it was Alex but her words only confirmed my fears. "If you make a sound or any sudden movements I will not hesitate to put my blade in you neck. Are we clear?" After shaking my head she shoved me forward. "Good now start moving."
We started walking and after a couple of turns I realized just how quiet the hallway was. Turning my head to look in the classrooms I knew why. All those people that should have been hard at work I saw just lying there lifeless on the floor. As if reading my mind Alex answered my unasked question. "There not dead, just unconscious." Somehow I found it hard to believe, call me crazy. We exited the building and kept walking across campus towards the older section, the one with no cameras. With a final shove she pushed me into the old building.
If I hadn't seen where we were going I never would have thought that it was the same lab as the one I showed her on the first day of class. The once dusty but organized room was chaos. Tools and schematics were everywhere, old equipment looking as if it had just been used. My eyes however were drawn towards the center of the room. Circled by all the tools and sketches was a machine that looked akin to a lounge chair. It was very crude and still seemed to be in it's early stages of development, wires hanging out and all of its guts exposed. Attached to it by a cable was a TV with a glowing blue screen.
"What's going on?" I dared to ask, which was a mistake.
"I'll ask the questions." She said digging the blade further into my neck causing it to bleed. "Let's start with who you work for."
"Work for, what do you mean, I haven't even gotten one job yet. Does the term full time student mean nothing to you?"
"I know you saw me in the woods the other night. Just tell me what you're looking for and I might just let you live."
I was almost in tears now, not from fear but from rage. Here she was threating my life for her screw up. Pulling my arm forward I bent it and slammed it back elbowing her in the stomach. When she doubled over I slammed the heel of my foot onto her toes, with her howling in pain I shot forward and grabbed the nearest weapon I could find, an automatic center punch and placed it on her spine.
Now I know what you're thinking and while it might now seem like a weapon in reality it is. If you push down while on a body part it has enough force to not only go through your skin but also shatter bone.
"Now it's my turn, you make one wrong move and you'll never walk again. Now listen up, whoever you think I am, I'm not. Me, in that forest the other night was purely because I was worried about you. You disappear for hours; act as if the world is going to end and the try and be my friend. However now I can tell it was all just an act."
"You're right. The part about the world ending I mean. Listen-"
"No, I'm done listening. You're name probably isn't even Alex, but after everything that has happened, I'm in control now." She laughed and before I could even realize what she was doing her hands reached over her head, grabbed my arms and pulled. I went flying over her head, landing on my back, empty handed. My only weapon was gone and so were my hopes of surviving tonight. Stars from the impact danced before my eyes as I saw Alex standing over me with her blade strapped to her arm sticking out. Her hand reached down and to my surprise the blade disappeared into her sleeve. She grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet.
A smile was on her face, different this time from all the others. No hidden emotions, no malic or fear just relief. "Finally," she said "Someone I can trust. Here let me get some chairs." My head was spinning as she walked into a nearby room. Just as I contemplated running she was back and placed the chairs near the weird machine. "Look I'm sorry about the whole threatening thing I just had to make sure that you weren't Abstergo."
"How did that prove anything and I told you I'm not working for anyone." She was crazy, a real lunatic. Any second now a switch would flip and I would become Maya on a stick.
"Right well there are two key time when people are more likely to tell the truth, when they are about to die, in fear or as a way of redemption and when they feel they are in control of a situation. Your story never changed so either you telling the truth or you're the most dedicated, backboned Templar I have ever met. Plus me personally I'm a glass half full kind of girl." My mind, blown: that actually made a lot of sense to me.
"Alright so I believe that you were just looking for the truth, but it's been days since that night in the woods, I'm obviously not telling anyone anytime soon."
"No, it not that." She paced as if wondering whether of not to continue. "I just, I need your help with something. I need you to go back in time."
-Assassin's Creed-
"Your even more nuts then I thought."
"No," she begged. "You have to listen to me. I'll make you a deal. Listen to my story and look at the evidence, if you still don't believe me or want to help I'll disappear, for good." I thought about this for a while, it was obvious she was a trained killer and if all I had to do to get away scot-free was listen then I would be stupid not to.
"Fine, make your case." So she sat and told me a tale of two groups that fought for peace, one through control and order the other through freedom.
"These groups are still at work today, one of them is called the Order of the Templar Knights or now better known as Abstergo, the other group is the Assassin Brotherhood."
"So if your part of the Templar Knights why didn't you want to use there equipment."
"Okay, this is weird, but I'm not a Templar that's why I didn't want to use that lab." My heart raced.
"You're an assassin, that's why you didn't hesitate to kill that guy."
"Look the Templars aren't the knights their namesake makes them out to be, there just as much killers as the Assassins. Besides things are getting tough I'm not just an assassin, I am one out of the only two left in the world. Thousands of my brothers and sisters are dead by the hands of a Templar, families animated without a thought. No one can know I exist or where I am otherwise it's over.
We are not the bad guys, there's a creed we follow that keeps us true to our mission. Stay your blade from the flesh of an innocent, hide in plan sight and never compromise the brotherhood. But right now the Templar Knights aren't our only issue. Long before the Templars and Assassins, there was this group call the First Civilization. They developed unbelievable technology but there came a time when a disaster threatened their existence. They tried to come up with a solution however in the end the most they were able to do is create and leave for us objects we call the Pieces of Eden. The only problem was that due to the war between the Templars and Assassins all the time that we could have spent preparing for when history was to repeat itself we spent fighting. Hundreds of years were wasted and just last year the world was almost destroyed. -"
"The solar flares, they were stopped, how?" Tears came to her eyes.
"That why I need you, I was in a temple with three other Assassins when they started. We discovered a secret chamber that held the conscious of one of the beings for the First Civilization, Juno. She was able to use her power but at a price. Desmond one of the assassins with me, sacrificed his life in exchange for Juno's and the world, but now that she's loose she is trying to rule over everyone.
"Sorry to burst your bubble but as great as a story as that was I still don't believe you."
"Look, this machine right here is a modified version of an Animus. Every person's DNA records their ancestors life and what the Animus does is locate and decode specific stands of a persons DNA and allow them to live through their ancestors lives. What I've done is modify it using one of the Pieces of Eden called the Apple. Now it will be able to transport the user back in time, it's completely safe- I hope."
"I just need roof, a single shred of evidence that your not just some lunatic with seriously cool tech." I saw her think, as if she was trying to make up another story. Then her face lit up in epiphany.
"I've got it. Remember all those people you thought were dead?" I nodded dread filling my head with memory of what I had seen. "Well it wasn't some type of gas that knocked them out it was the Apple. It has the ability to make people highly suggestible and then all I did was tell them to sleep and they followed my command."
"And just like that they were out cold." I asked in suspicion.
"Just like that," she replied.
"I'm sorry, it's just not enough."
I turned and went for the door. Behind me I could hear a racket being made and then silence. I reached for the handle- but then I heard her.
"Stop," she commanded and before I knew why my hand froze, mid-air. I tried to freak out but a feeling of serenity came over me. My tense, knotted up muscles relaxed and my mind went blank. All of my solid thoughts turned liquid and went as quickly as they came. All was silent till the most beautiful voice surrounded me and filled my head.
"Turn around and walk forward." The voice sounded so beautiful, my legs started moving of there own accord, and the world blurred by as I moved. "Good." That was nice, I liked pleasing the voice. "Now lay down on the machine." I must have done it because I heard another compliment "Good job." I smiled. Then I felt something come back to me freedom, and it was painful. The feeling of calm left me and was replaced by worry. All possible choices that I needed to make came bearing down on me, suffocating me. Sight and smells returned in nauseating volumes and tension filled my body once more. I cried, begged that whatever was happening would stop. After what felt like hours I calmed down enough that my thoughts and memories slammed back into my head all at once; growing up, school, college, Alex.
My head shot up and I saw her standing a few feet away from me holding a metal sphere and a grim expression.
"What the hell was that?" I shot out.
"That was your proof." Lifting up the metal sphere I felt the power it gave off and she continued. "This is the Apple, only one of the many Pieces of Eden. I was not only able to control you and all those people I put to sleep, but it made you want to be controlled, to have no resistance, Just look at yourself you nearly had a panic attack when I stopped, and even know your still shaking." Noticing she was right I made conscious effort to stop.
"No freewill ever again, just mindless people serving those in charge. That will be the future that awaits Earth if we don't stop Juno and the Templars." I thought about the consequences and in the end there was really no choice.
"Alright, I'm in. What's next?" She smiled in relief and headed to the door.
"Great, next step is training, right now you won't last two seconds against a Templar. But for before that lets introduce you to Shawn. Just a warning thought, he can be a prick and is a little untrusting, so don't take it personally if he doesn't like you or try to kill you.