The night was balmy, even for Chicago, especially out on the shores of Lake Michigan. Rebecca Crane, Assassin and self-proclaimed-and-proven techwizard extraordinaire, cruised through the crowds with practiced ease, keeping her hood low over her eyes, looking out the sides for her contact.

"Damn. Where is this guy?" she muttered under her breath. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity, to get into Abstergo, fill the shoes that the bitch Lucy left, get in, maybe a station working with the contact they had already in place. Then hit the Templars from the inside out, head of the snake and all that. She huffed in frustration again and decided to check the alley near the meeting location. Hopefully he wasn't among the garbage there.

888

The night was balmy, but that was about normal for Chicago, especially this time of September. Besides, he'd been out in worse, Aiden Pearce reflected. It had been a week or so since Damien's crimes were avenged, and the whole of Chicago was still reeling. He was still reeling from Clara's death. Just when she was beginning to grow on him...

He shut those feelings and thoughts away. He was on a mission tonight. Tonight, he had to stop four or five crimes before he could sleep easy. But that was beginning to take its toll on his body. All the bruises that refused to heal, the dents in the bullet proof vest that he refused to replace. And his coat. Oh God, did that thing look tattered. He'd bought it three days ago, but then he found a new gang hideout and...things got a little out of hand. For them.

His phone chimed, and he'd heard the same chime threes time already that night. A crime in the area. He smiled and pulled up his neck warmer, which doubled as his mask and adjusted his hat before stepping out of the SUV he'd picked up from...he forgot where he got it, but he did have it, and it wasn't bugged. That was the important thing.

As he set the coordinates into his GPS app and custom his wrap-around HUD monocle, he checked his silenced 1911. Hopefully he wouldn't need to use it again. It'd seen too much use during the campaign against Damien already, but it was efficient and didn't alert the neighbors. So it was still tolerated. He then checked the backup gun. A D50. Matte black, and loud as hell. Definitely get a few people calling the police. Scare the shit out of the perp, make him back the hell down or get the hell out of town.

As he made for the darkened alleyway...yes, the alleyway, he kept his scanner on for...anything really. Money, system hacks, anything to give him the edge he needed. But, hopefully, he wouldn't need them.

888

Rebecca leaned casually against a wall in the alley, looking around. Standard alleyway, boxes, power transformers, telephone poles, circuit boxes, assorted utility vehicles, nothing out of the ordinary.

Suddenly man moved from the shadows, his dark cap shielding his face from the light she was standing under.

"Nothing is true" Rebecca gave the first part of the pass code

"Everything is permitted," the man said, still not looking directly at her. She was taller than him by an inch or two, and that damn hat kept her from seeing his face. Not a good sign. She felt the Assassin's blade against her left forearm, and told herself she could handle him.

Which was the truth. Unless you were an Assassin yourself, very few otherwise-trained people could stand up to an Assassin in a straight up fight. But Assassins hardly ever fought fair. They fought to win.

She repeated that mantra in her head a few times, as silence fell between the two. Growing agitated, she growled "Well?"

"Everything is permitted...Assassin," the short man said. The smirk in his voice was evident, and Rebecca began to look for ways to escape, but in this urban jungle, there weren't any escape routes up the sheer vertical walls, not even hand holds.

Then he pulled out a gun. And leveled it at her face.

"Oh shit"

BANG BANG

888

The Vigilante swapped his silenced pistol for the noise maker, and popped off two shots, trying to blow out his knee caps. He hit the perp's calf once, which was pretty good for him at a dead sprint at 25 meters.

But the bastard still began to take off, but the woman he was about to shoot took him down and slapped her left palm against him, after which he went limp as he came up to her, breathing hard to regain his heart rate.

"You okay miss?" he asked. She wore dark jeans and a white (though blood stained now) hooded jacket with a little emblem embroidered into the very peak of her hood, which came down to cover her eyes. She didn't look at him, but instead, went about searching the perp.

"Yes. I'm fine. I appreciate your lucky appearance though," she said.

"Yeah, luck," he snorted quietly. Then a little louder, "Do you need any more help?"

"Um, no I think...Gotcha! Yeah, I'm fine. Good night," she said.

"'Night" he replied then activated his com jammer. All in a night's work. He was glad to save her life, glad for ctOS and the idiots who made it possible for him to save her. Then some shadows moved, and he became less happy. He slipped the silenced pistol from his jacket and aimed it into the shadows.

"Who's there?" he commanded. Nothing replied. Keeping his pistol trained on the shadow, he moved to cover and repeated himself. Still nothing. Then gunfire erupted from behind him.

888

"Assassins aren't supposed to be using these damn things..." she muttered angrily as she returned fire with the fallen Templar's gun. While trained to use them, Rebecca knew it was only as a last resort that Assassins actually did use them.

The man who saved her from the Templar Assassin fired three times into the shadows behind her, dropping a Templar who had snuck up on her. Almost.

"I've got a car a little ways away!" he shouted as a Templar with an assault rifle opened up, forcing them under cover. "Head north!" He got up and opened fire, downing two more Templars before six more arrived on scene.

"We're pinned" she shouted back, "Cover me! I'll break them!"

"No! Stay down!" he shouted back, and pulled out his phone and tapped the screen a few times. Suddenly, the entire block went dark in a shower of sparks from the transformers above them exploding.

"Move!" he shouted, popping off a few more rounds as he raced along the northern alleyway, Rebecca hot on his heels, giving cover fire.

"Quit shooting! They'll follow the noise!" he hissed between breaths while they ran, "the blackout won't last much longer."

Like a prophet, his words came true not thirty seconds later. But by the time the Templars got their shit in a pile and realized their target has escaped. And by that same point in time, Rebecca was in a strange car with a strange man, something her mother warned her would happen if she went out too late at night.

"Yay for not listening," she muttered under her breath.

"You say something?" the man asked, his face hidden by a neck warmer and his long brim hat.

"My mother warned me about strange men, strange cars and the middle of the night," Rebecca said off hand, watching the streetlights go by. The man simply chuckled a little. It wasn't very natural, but more controlled and stifled than anything. "I didn't catch your name"

"Name? Hmm...the Vigilante or the Fox, depending on who you talk to," he said, his tone returning to being tightly controlled.

"Y'know what? I'll call you the Fox. La Volpe," she said, he gave her a funny look to which she responded "It's italian."

"I know that, I just realized I took a strange woman into my car and now we're driving around Chicago in the middle of the night with angry gangers-"

"-Templars," Rebecca corrected, "They're called Templars and they're more than your average ganger."

"Templars? Like the Knights Templar?" he asked. Rebecca nodded. "I thought they were the heroes of the Crusades, wrongly persecuted."

"Try something like evil sons of bitches bent on controlling the entire world by knowing everything about everyone, and making their own moves before others do. They don't care who they main, kill, bribe, anything goes. Which is why after the Templar plot was found, an order of...specalists arose to deal with them."

"And they sent you to Chicago for what reason?" The Fox asked.

"I didn't say they did send me. La Volpe," she shot back.

"You didn't need to. I saw the way you took down that perp back there. Said all I needed to know. That and I thought there was something funny about that embroidered and stylized 'A' on your hood," he said nonchalantly.

888

Aiden "The Fox/The Vigilante" Pearce drove in silence as the cult girl tried to figure out what to say next. He saw the fire in her eyes, the determination, but also the panic of not being in this situation before. Must be a little short on man power.

"You're an Assassin, aren't you?" he asked quietly. He'd run into rumors, whispers of a cult of white clad urban ninjas, practicing free running, and killing those that would take away free will. But they were just whispers, and he had a little more important things to do that hunt ghosts. But what does the ghost hunter do with a ghost in front of him?

"...How do you know what the Assassins are?" she asked quietly and coldly.

"It's my business to know these things," he replied as coldly, "But nothing concrete. Whispers, rumors. Even in the digital age, the Assassins have covered their tracks fairly well."

"Only fairly well?" she scoffed. How dare this low-level, no life even ask her-

"Yeah. My hackers are better than any others around, and especially now with this ctOS going global..."

"Yeah, that's a big problem," the girl muttered.

"Not as big as you think," he turned the SUV onto a familiar street, driving by the poor and downtrodden of Chicago. This girl needed to dissapear for a few days, and cool her heels. He knew just where to take her. "Couple weeks ago, I got a break. One of my hackers got lucky, and since then, so have I."

He activated the bridge control as they passed shanty town's center, and drove straight onto the bridge, "shutting the door" behind him. He hadn't been here for a few days, preferring his little clandestine hideouts to keep on the move from fixers who would like to see him become terminally ill.

"Where are we?" the girl asked.

"Little hideaway from when things...got nasty to say the least. If you don't know, don't ask. I'm not in a very telling mood," he growled. Taking the SUV onto the main street of the little island, he turned left, and brought it to a halt next to a muscle car that he'd collected running from Iraq's hideout shootout.

He got out, and looked for the entrance to the bunker. Very well concealed, but damn if it didn't still trip him up. After wandering around looking for the entrance for two minutes, he gave up and just pressed a button on his phone. The side of a cargo container opened.

Before he got in, he noted that the girl was still in the car. "Com'on" he called. Hesitatingly, she got out and walked into the container after him.

"Strange men, strange cars, middle of the night, strange house. Yep, going to get an ear full from mother," she muttered. The side of his face twitched in a smile, but he quickly regained control.

"There's a bunk, some MREs, a camp stove, some cook ware and $50 in food stamps," he said as the elevator came to a halt and opened for them. He didn't check if the girl was following him into the bunker, he knew she wouldn't be a threat. At this stage of the game? Hardly.

Aiden flipped the master power switch, restoring power and causing the generators beneath the river's bed to power up with a gentle rumble. The computers he had on the table in front of the monitor bank came to life, and then so did the monitors. Then came the rest of the lights.

"Woah..." the girl said, amazed. She looked just like...like Clara when he first brought her to the bunker. He remembered the way the neck line of her shirt was enough to let a little show, how her gentle smile kept him going when he was tired, wet, and shot up.

But those weren't going to happen again. He repressed those memories harshly, lest something terrible arise from his memory.

"What's this?" the girl asked, pointing to the armory's door.

"That's my old stash of guns," Aiden replied, "Take anything you want. I've got plenty more around here."

"Damn! You've got enough firepower to wage war on the whole damn city!" she cried from inside.

"Yeah..." he said half-heartedly, heard only by himself. She came out, toting his silenced AR-15 and a tactical vest filled with magazines.

"This alright if I borrow it?"

"Keep it. I can get more, I'm not exactly strapped for cash," he said, sitting himself down at the center console and logging into the ctOS system using T-Bone's credentials and Damien's backdoor.

"...wait a minute! You're inside the ctOS system? How the hell did you get in there? I tried getting in there and it didn't work!"

"That's because my hacker was better than you," he simply said, looking around the program's code for any specifics and reports about the nights shoot out, erasing what he could find.

"Was?" she asked quietly.

"Her name was Clara. Clara Lille. She died just before I took down the kingpin behind everything," he almost choked up. He hadn't gone to the funeral, instead preferring to honor her in his own way: fifteen perps had been tracked and taken down. Everyone he's ever loved, ever. Gone. Mom, Dad, Niki, Jacks, Lena. Gone. Never to return. He was alone.

"I'm sorry," she began, but he interrupted.

"I don't want sympathy. I just want her to remain buried," he said, his voice firm. It wasn't a request.

"What do you do now?" the girl asked, walking over to put herself in front of him.

"Odd jobs here and there. A fixer contract every now and again, keep the money flowing. But mostly it's patrol the city, keep my assets hidden. You offering a job?"

"Yes. I am. Perhaps you can do it while I'm cooped up here," she indicated the bunker.

"Perhaps. What do you want me to do?" he asked. Working for the Assassins. Well...there were worse ways to die he supposed.

"Delete some personal data from the system. Completely, utterly. Make them disappear wherever they go. And have forged backgrounds. All of them. Air tight," she said. He blinked.

"That's it?" she nodded, a puzzled look on her face."How many?"

"Twenty-seven."

"Give me four hours."

888

Four hours later, the man she'd taken to calling "La Volpe" was finished, true to his word. And as she reviewed the files on the multiple plasmas making up the main monitor, she was astounded. They were tighter than air tight. By taking their real past and swapping a few elements around, it was as good as a completely different person.

The names she'd given him were test "dummies". High ranking Templars in Abstergo's corporate levels. If their discovery were to go public, the pandemonium would be the perfect distraction for the Assassins to either move in for the kill or to slip back into deeper shadows.

Then she asked for a secure telephone line. At his questioning look, she simply said "Your future employment, Volpe. Give me five minutes."

He'd relented at that. "Five minutes. No more. Line goes dead in five minutes from when your friend's picked up."

She headed out onto the island to call Shaun. And was met with predictable results.

"Hastings Financial, this is Shaun, how can I help you?" It hadn't even been the first full ring. He was stressed, even if he didn't sound like it.

"Hey you big bloody brit," she said, using her own identifier.

"Holy Jesus Christ on the Cross!" he cried into the phone in shock, "Where the Bloody hell have you been? First you disappear without authorization, and the next thing we hear is that you're involved in a shooting in Chicago! You left the ship two days ago! It's a three day trip to Chicago from the fastest plane commercially! How the hell- "

"I've been good Shaun, that's nice to hear," she said with a sickly sweet voice to shut him up. "Listen, I was going to meet a friend inside of Big Brother's House, but apparently he didn't think we were friends. So I met this guy-"

"-Oh God no. You are not telling me another damn sex story!" he was exasperated. Her smirk edged from her ears and into her voice.

"And we talked and talked and guess what? Its him. It's our La Volpe."

Silence for a moment. "You do know that La Volpe's been dead for several hundred years now."

"Let me try that again. It's our La Volpe. Remember that Email that our Pirate found?"

"Which one?"

"Flowers in spring."

"Ahh yes. I remember now. Lovely time of the year, when the flowers are in full Blume."

"I agree, but then there was that guy who trampled all the flowers? Left no prints?"

"Ye- No. You found him? You seriously found him?"

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I did. "

"And?"

"He's played with a few of the locks on the house now, so we'll see if anything comes up in the next few months or so."

"How secure are the locks?"

"I checked them, and they're SWAT proof"

"...how long did it take him for all of them?"

"Four hours. Just got done."

"La Volpe, you said?" he was finally coming around.

"Yes. Said the police already coined it for him."

"Hmm... I see. Where are you at now?"

"The...um...Thieve's Guild. I'm at the Thieves Guild."

"I see. How much longer are you going to be sneaking around in the dark?"

"Three days. Then I'll come home, I promise. Mom and Dad don't need to worry."

"Good. I'll be there to welcome you home. Bye"

"Bye."

She shut down the phone and nearly jumped when La Volpe coughed.

"Well?" he asked as she handed him the phone.

"You're in. That number's in the system as your number, any changes need to be made to that, let me know before I leave. Your next assignment will be as soon as we can verify the integrity of your job."

"Fair enough. But it's time for you to get back inside. I'm going patrolling, and the last thing you need to be is seen outside, alive and well," he gently scolded.

"Fine. I'll go inside."

"I've set up a computer in there so you can monitor the city and alert me via text and GPS of crimes. Be my second pair of eyes?" he asked, the hint of a smile on his face.

"Sure. I've got nothing better to do than sit on my ass, make some popcorn and watch Templars get the shit kicked out of them."

"Good," he turned to leave, only to stop and turn around a minute later and ask "What's your name?"

"Crane. Rebecca Crane."

"Mine's-"

"La Volpe. From now on, alright?"

"Alright. And what was it that you called this place?"

"The Thieves Guild?"

"Hmm..." he looked at the surroundings and nodded approvingly "Seems fitting. I like it."

With that, La Volpe returned to the SUV that they rode in and he drove off. She was still staring after the vehicle when his voice crackled on the loudspeakers on the island.

"Com'on. We've got work to do. Three days is a lot of time."

She double timed it into the new Thieves Guild.