Numbers Chapter 1: Who Am I?, an assassin's creed fanfic

Numbers, I like numbers, they make sense.

They go in an order I know that can be followed; zero is before one, and one is before two, common knowledge. Common knowledge isn't exactly my job to learn, it's the little things that matter, that's why I write everything in binary. Ones and zeros dancing around in my mind, it's calming really; despite is obvious ways of giving headaches.

No one has ever bothered to learn my real name in all my nineteen years, to everyone around me I was just Number, no one has even asked if it was my real name or not. "Hey, there's Number!" or, "So that's Number…"

No, not again, calm down, think of numbers…

01001001 00100000 01100001 01101101 00100000 01101011 01101110 01101111 01110111 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101111 01110010 01101100 01100100 00100000 01100001 01110011 00100000 01001110 01110101 01101101 01100010 01100101 01110010 00101110 00101110 00101110

I am known to the world as Number…

01001110 01101111 00100000 01101101 01100001 01110100 01110100 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110111 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01001001 00100000 01100100 01101111 00101100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01100110 01100001 01100011 01100001 01100100 01100101 00100000 01100010 01111001 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01110111 01101000 01101001 01100011 01101000 00100000 01001001 00100000 01100001 01101101 00100000 01101011 01101110 01101111 01110111 01101110 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101110 01100101 01110110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01100111 01101111 00100000 01100001 01110111 01100001 01111001 00101110 00101110 00101110 00001101 00001010

No matter what I do, that facade by that which I am known will never go away...

01000111 01101111 00100000 01100001 01110111 01100001 01111001

Go away

I am known as Number, I am nineteen years old, and my tale starts centuries ago, 1191 AD.

I was a man then, but now, in 2012, I am a women; my blood was passed down from the infamous Altaïr ibn La'Ahad, The Bird, Son of No One. It seems that even now in this day and age my family tree has caused enough grief and mayhem to last until the end of time, or at least until one side of us dies. I knew not of the things that were to come once I was curious, curious as to why my parents moved around so much, curious as to why they refused to let me live alone after I graduated. I didn't know it was involved with the past events that would mean the end of my parents' lives, I was clueless to the fact that they did all of it for me. Me.

01001001 01110100 00100000 01110111 01100001 01110011 00100000 01100001 00100000 01110000 01110010 01100101 01110011 01110011 01110101 01110010 01100101 00100000 01001001 00100000 01100011 01101111 01110101 01101100 01100100 01101110 00100111 01110100 00100000 01101000 01101111 01110000 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01100011 01100001 01110010 01110010 01111001 00100000 01101111 01101110 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01101111 01110111 01101110 00100000 01110011 01101000 01101111 01110101 01101100 01100100 01100101 01110010 01110011 00100000 01100001 01101100 01101111 01101110 01100101 00101110

It was a pressure I couldn't hope to carry on my own shoulders alone.

It was raining that morning of the incident four months ago, my birthday was the night before and I was relishing my new collections of folders, papers, and numbers; I was about to write down my first words in the new folder when my mothers' scream pierced the well-earned silence in the house. "Hide!" She shouted, the door to my room was shut, but my mother knew I was there listening, scared. "Hide and don't come out until the bell has struck twelve times!"

Twelve.

12.

One.

Two.

I swear I could hear the blade right next to me; the gurgles and choking sounds I heard were enough to make me want to scream.

But no, I listened and waited, even after the looming threat was gone I waited until the bell rang twelve times, and that was when I started to cry.

The rest of the week was hell.

The police came, asked questions.

Strange white hooded men took me away to New York,

They knew my parents, so I trusted them.

I didn't get to write any numbers until the week after.

01001001 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101111 01110101 01100111 01101000 01110100 00100000 01001001 00100000 01110111 01100001 01110011 00100000 01100111 01101111 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01100111 01101111 00100000 01101001 01101110 01110011 01100001 01101110 01100101 00101110

I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO GO INSANE.

" 1 Questo è andato avanti abbastanza a lungo!" I looked up at my Master, she was furious." 2 Si può uccidere gli assassini, ma non una ragazza di 19 anni?"

No actions were placed on Number, it would've ruined my cover, I wanted to say, but speaking against was a death wish, so keeping my mouth shut and head hung low as she continued to lash out insults like a poisonous snake, bowing as I was dismissed back into the great halls, wishing that the plan didn't matter. But it did matter, so the child had to live, and being a spy from inside the Brotherhood was bother tedious and a pain in the neck, but if the world was to finally fall to its needs, everything must go according to plan. "It will be worth it all in the end, my dear sweet Number…" I said with a sneer, mounting my horse at the dead of night in a train of thought isn't exactly the best idea, but he had to hurry back to the side city of Castellammare di Stabia and accept his mission from the Bureau:

To "protect" the girl Number and make sure she is kept under brotherhood custody.

What fools they are.

01001001 00100000 01100001 01101101 00100000 01001110 01110101 01101101 01100010 01100101 01110010 01110011 00101100 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101000 01101111 01110111 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01101010 01101111 01110101 01110010 01101110 01100101 01111001 00100000 01100010 01100101 01100111 01100001 01101110 00101110

I am Numbers, and this is how my journey began.