Escape
Desmond Miles
The Animus throws me out of the memory and I am left with more questions than answers. First and foremost, how the hell was this memory influential to anything? Honestly, it was just random acts that mean nothing to me. I am trying hard to think of some subliminal message that might be hidden in this memory, but I find nothing. The way I see it, it's just Altair bumping into some girl. If that's all of the memory, then there is nothing influential about it. There is no reason that the memory shouldn't have been cut, because it was pointless, not because it held information that Abstergo needs.
I sit up off of the Animus and swing my legs over the edge. I sit there for a while and think about what Lucy wanted me to see in this memory. After a few minutes of trying to figure out this memory, I decide to forget about it and move on. I remember Lucy once told me that if I don't go to sleep right after being in the Animus, it could lead to some serious mind problems. I walk in the room and see the symbols on the wall. With all the excitement of the hidden memory and Abstergo watching my every move, I had forgotten about the symbols on the wall. I frown at the sight of them, feeling myself instantly drain of energy. The images glow bright red and emanate the rantings of a mad man. I try again to decipher the code of what these strange symbols mean, but nothing comes to mind.
I start to move towards the wall of symbols, when I hear someone walk in. I look over to my right and see Lucy run into my room with a frantic look on her face. She tells me that we don't have much time and that we need to move fast. I don't know what's going on with Lucy, but I do notice that she has blood stained on her shirt. I wonder whose blood is all over Lucy and if she killed whoever it was. I look on her face and see that she is frantic. Her brows are pressed together and the frown line in the middle of her forehead is indented noticeably. Her eyes paint a terrified scene, and I am worried about her.
Lucy takes me to the Animus and I figure that she is going to explain the memory that I just saw. She demands that I get in, and judging by the tone in her voice, she means business. I get in the Animus and I'm thrown into another memory. I am startled when I hear the sound of a woman screaming at the top of her lungs. At first, I think she is in danger, but I later see that she is giving birth to a child. The child is born yet there is no sound of its cries. The mother and her maids fear for the young boy's life, however, the father says something in Italian to the child and it begins to move and cry.
The Animus throws me out of this short memory that I don't really understand. Everything seems to move so quickly and I am beyond confused that I don't even think a simple explanation will put my mind at ease.
"Come on, we need to go." Lucy says and runs for the door. I follow her in hopes that maybe she will take me to somewhere that leads to some explanations.
"What was up with that birthing scene?" I ask as Lucy tries to find her way around.
"I don't have time to explain, Desmond. Especially not here. When we get to our new headquarters, I'll explain everything."
"And where will that be?"
"I'm sorry, Desmond, but I can't tell you that."
Lucy and I run around the labyrinth of halls that make up Abstergo. Occasionally, we run into some guards and fight them until the coast is clear again. We go into this laboratory/warehouse room where there lay over a dozen cubicles. Inside some of them are dozens of Animi. I look inside some of these cubicles and see people watching videos of subjects in their rooms. I begin to feel nauseous, wondering if there was a man in a cubical watching me in my room 24/7.
A guard spots me and they start to chase after us. Lucy and I run towards the elevator. She tries to use her card and number but it doesn't work. She cusses under her breath as the group of guards approach us. I turn away from the guards and look at the keypad. My eagle vision suddenly kicks in and I can see four different numbers light up and I try to punch in a code. The first and second attempts don't work but on the third attempt the wonderful sound of the elevator rings in the air and the elevator opens. We rush into the elevator, feeling safe if only for a moment. The elevator goes down to the underground parking where we are welcomed by another assembly of guards. Again, we fight with them and in the midst of fighting the guards, I manage to catch a glimpse at Lucy and see that she is an extremely good fighter. I wonder why a woman in her position at this company would need to know how to fight the way she does.
Once Lucy and I have knocked out all of the guards we run to a car. Lucy opens the trunk door. "I'm sorry, Desmond but…" she looks down at the trunk.
"You have got to be kidding me!" I say reluctant to crawl into the trunk of a car.
"I'm sorry, Desmond, but you can't know where we are going." She says in a rushed tone as most likely the Templars are sending out more men.
"This is ridiculous." I say as I climb into the trunk. I look up at Lucy as soon as I am situated in the trunk, and she gives me a sympathetic/apologetic smile and then shuts the door, trapping me in the back of the cramped car.
I am in the trunk of the car for about two hours when it comes to a halt. Lucy opens up the door and I find us in some sort of warehouse. There are metallic crates everywhere and a staircase that leads up a room. I follow Lucy up the stairs and listen to her talk about how we—assassins—are losing our long-fought war against the Templars. I try to hold back my distain with the entire situation. Lucy is starting to sound like the freaks at the Farm. All the talk about the Assassins and the Templars and their long-fought war. It's starting to bring back memories that I chose to leave behind. Learning that Abstergo is a company run by the Templars kidnapping Assassins to see their memories shows me that they are just as crazed as the foil wearing conspiracy psychopaths that led the Farm. Sure, I see now that the Templars are more of a threat than I expected them to be while at the Farm, but the fact remains the same; this war is a joke, and the men and women fighting it are deranged and mad.
As Lucy continues to explain my role in this, I hold back my amusement. She actually thinks that I should enter the Animus and experience the memories of my ancestor as they learn the art of the kill in hopes that I can learn how to be an Assassin by some sort of osmosis effect. I try to hold back my skepticism with this plan, but Lucy genuinely thinks that after watching the memories of my ancestor, within days, I will be a skilled assassin, fighting against Warren, Abstergo, and any other Templar that gets in my way.
Lucy leads me to a large room where two people stay working hard behind computers. "Desmond, this is Rebecca Crane. She builds and designs Animi. She is an engineer that used to work for Abstergo." Lucy says walking up to the girl named Rebecca. I shake her hand and she tells me some information about why she left Abstergo and how she got involved with them in the first place.
"And this is Shaun Hastings. He is a historian and will give you information on the people and places that you will visit in the Animus." Shaun goes on to insult me and talks about how he is not just a historian but is more than that, and that his role in all of this is very important. I can tell now that he and I will not be the best of friends through this entire experience.
Lucy tells me to get onto the Animus which looks a lot more like a gaming chair, rather than the high-tech piece of machinery like the one at Abstergo. Rebecca tells me that this Animus is called the 'Animus 2.0', and although they don't have much money to make it look cool, they have the heart and soul to make it better than Abstergo's.
I lay down in the Animus 2.0 and though it may not look like something out of a Sci-Fi flick, it is more comfortable than the one at Abstergo. I look at Lucy, who smiles at me. "Are we going to look into that memory that you made me see?"
I see all the happiness drain and her smile is cleaned right off of her face. "You found the memory?" She asks in an astonished tone.
"Well yeah, I just logged into your email and found the one that was unopened. Then I went into the Animus and saw the memory. I don't really see how important it was. I mean, it wasn't that special. It was just Altair meeting some girl."
"What girl?" Shaun jumps in, suddenly interested in what we are discussing.
The expression on Lucy's face shows me that I shouldn't have said anything, and she looks almost angry at me for saying this in front of Rebecca and Shaun. Shaun looks at Lucy to explain and she begrudgingly does so. "I came across that memory twice in my line of work." Lucy starts to explain. "I was hoping that you wouldn't have to see it unless things went bad." I'm not sure what Lucy means by 'bad', my guess is that she means her death. "It's nothing." She says trying to brush away the subject. "Don't worry about it."
"Lucy, who was the girl that Altair met?" Shaun presses. "Was it Maria, or Adha?"
"No," I say, "It was some random girl who helped Altair kill a Templar." I look away from Shaun and look at Lucy, "I don't see what was so special about her. She just helped him kill the guard and then left. I don't see why you kept the memory from Vidic." Lucy looks at me livid at the fact that I am talking about this in front of Shaun and Rebecca. I wonder why she is so annoyed at my bringing this up, as they are her friends, and the memory meant nothing.
"I have searched all of Altair's history; he never became involved with another woman besides those two." Shaun chimes in, becoming impatient with the idea of another player on the field.
"She doesn't matter. I thought she would lead Altair to something but she didn't." Lucy says trying to shut down the argument.
"To what?" Rebecca asks.
"There was nothing special about her." I argue and look over at Shaun, "She was just some woman that knew Altair was an Assassin. She was stalking him, and in doing so, she helped him kill a Templar that got away from him."
Shaun's eyes widden with shock. "Lucy, who the hell is this girl? I have studied Altair intensively since Abstergo's fascination with him. I read nothing of a woman who knew of the Creed."
"It was just one day in the life of Altair," I try to play off. I look over at Lucy, "Honestly, what was so special about her that you made me watch the memory?"
Lucy swallows hard, then finally says, "She was in possession of four Pieces of Eden."
"Four?" Shaun exclaims loudly.
"It doesn't matter!" Lucy says before he can begin shouting at her. "She never led him to the treasure. I searched what little memories Altair had of her, and she ended up disappearing before telling anyone. Now, let's get back at the task at hand. We need to get Desmond ready." Lucy walks to her computer and throws her head in her hands.
"Oh, this is great, just great." Shaun says. "We find out that there is someone with the knowledge of the location of four Pieces of Eden, and she won't even share any of the information with us. What a great team we have here."
"Shaun! Shut up!" Rebecca says. "If she doesn't want to tell you then she won't tell you."
"How am I supposed to keep track of people and places when that very information is kept from me?"
"We aren't worrying about Altair anymore. We are moving on to Ezio now." Lucy says in a stern voice.
"Oh yes, great. Let's leave the one that knows everything about The Piece of Eden and move onto the young and ignorant one that knows nothing about them!"
Rebecca disregards Shaun's rants of anger and moves onto preparing me for my trip into the Animus. It takes longer than the one at Abstergo, but soon I am once again trapped inside the Animus.
When I am removed from the Animus, I learn that I have been watching the memories of Ezio Auditore for over three days. Lucy insists that staying inside the Animus for such a long time will not have a major effect on me. She says that unless I begin to hallucinate, I have nothing to worry about. While out of the Animus, Lucy takes me to the warehouse where I will practice what I have learned. I don't really feel any different stepping out of the Animus. I don't feel like I have any skills that I didn't have before. Lucy takes me to the warehouse where I am instructed to turn on the building's security defense alarm. I climb up the metal crates and make my way up to the red touchpad. When I enable the security, the touchpad turns green. I look over to my right when I get a flash of my eagle vision. I see a glimpse of a horse coming to a sudden halt, then the vision is over.
"Umm, Lucy," I say in a concerned tone. "I think I just hallucinated."
"Do the visions last longer than thirty seconds?" Lucy asks from the bottom of the warehouse.
"No," I say hesitantly.
"Then it's nothing to worry about." I feel like Lucy is giving this situation the cold shoulder. I don't think Lucy wants to admit to the fact that being in the Animus for such a long amount of time is affecting my mind. If being in the Animus for too long turns me into Subject 16, I don't know what I will do with myself. But Lucy says that she is being careful with me. I only hope she means it.
"Ok, Desmond, that's enough for today. You should get some rest. We will continue tomorrow." I get down and start to walk with Lucy. She walks ahead of me as I find myself slipping from this world. My eagle vision comes back, and this time it lasts longer, much longer. I see horses everywhere, all coming to an abrupt halt. I look down and see a woman on the floor reaching up to me. I try to go to her but the faster I run, the farther she disappears from me. Lucy leads me to the bed and I am fast asleep before my head can touch the pillow.
I see… Altair. A person that I thought I would never see again. He seems to be in Acre, in some sort of Templar fortress. He walks past the guards, but they don't strike. What the hell is going on? Altair looks forward to see his target. He chases his target up the ladders and roofs of this fortress. The target leads Altair up a large watchtower. Though his target is fast, Altair manages to keep up a close distance between the two. He makes it up the watchtower where the target is trapped. Altair lifts himself up over the edge and approaches his target.
The hooded target removes their hood to reveal their face to Altair, and I see that his target is a woman. And this isn't the first time Altair has encountered this woman. I remember her. She was the woman that posed as Robert de Sable when Altair was supposed to assassinate him. He spared her life because she was not his target. I remember her name was Maria. Altair moves towards her, takes her head in his hands and pressed his lips against hers. I watch as he embraces her. He lays her down and begins to undress her. Altair caresses the face of the woman that he loves, looking deeply into her golden-brown eyes. He kisses her head and lifts himself up. He walks over to the edge of the watchtower; he looks back at Maria who is laying on the ground the same way I saw in my hallucination. Altair performs a leap of faith and leaves Maria. However, when he does so, my dream does not follow Altair. I am stuck at the watch tower with Maria. My dream moves to Maria's stomach and then ends.
I find myself waking up abruptly. I look around to see Lucy, Rebecca, and Shaun all working at their desks. Shaun looks back at me and says, "Oh look who decided to wake up." He shoots sarcastically.
I disregard what Shaun says and get up to see Lucy. "We need to talk." I say in a stern voice.
"Sure." Lucy says not looking away from her computer. "After you get in the Animus."
"No." I say with such authority that it visibly disturbs Lucy. "We need to talk now."
"Fine, Desmond," Lucy says looking away from her computer and dropping everything that she was doing. "What do you want to talk about?"
"I just had a dream about Altair having sex with Maria. And before I went to bed, I hallucinated far longer than thirty seconds about Maria and horses. So, do you mind telling me why I am hallucinating about Altair, when you told me there was nothing to worry about, and my time in the Animus was not effecting me negatively."
"Well Desmond," Shaun says jumping in, "you and Ezio are the descendants of Altair. To be his descendants, Altair would have had to conceive a child, and so on."
"So, Maria was the one who gave birth to Altair's child?"
"Two sons to be exact." Shaun says. "Throughout my extensive research of Altair, I learned that Altair was involved with 2 women. Maria and Adah, well, that was until Lucy decided to tell us that there was a third woman." Shaun says giving Lucy a dirty look.
"There was nothing special about the other one. They were not romantically involved." Lucy says sternly.
"Why don't you enlighten us more about this mysterious woman?" Shaun says, "I wouldn't be interested in her if it weren't for the fact that she was in possession of four Pieces of Eden."
Lucy sighs. "I don't know anything about her." She says in a frustrated tone. "From what little knowledge I gathered, "Her name was Azalea and she was born in Jerusalem."
"Like the poisonous flower?" Rebecca asks. Lucy nods.
"Must you always put your voice into a conversation?" Shaun asks bitterly.
"Hey I'm just stating a fact." She shrugs.
"Lucy, please continue." I say.
"Well, I came across her through Lyla Rockwell."
"Who is Lyla Rockwell?" I ask.
"Lyla was an Abstergo employee in the 70s." Lucy explains, "She was involved in gathering intel on the Pieces of Eden. She worked with other scientists on gathering the whereabouts of the Pieces of Eden. When Abstergo announced they were going to initiate the Animus Project, she was one of the individuals against it. She warned that we shouldn't be searching the ancestral line for the locations of the Pieces. She left when the project began its beta stages. Unbeknownst to her, Abstergo took some of her DNA, and scanned it for potential locations of Pieces of Eden using the Project Animus. Shockingly, she only had two memories in her DNA, which is unheard of as we carry our entire ancestral line in our DNA. The memories were of an ancestor that was involved in the French Revolution. For whatever reason, when Desmond was taken into the lab, Warren asked me to cross reference her DNA with Desmond's. When the two DNA memories played together, it unlocked her entire lineage with Altair. I kept this information from Warren, knowing that there was something about her lineage that was important. When I went into his notes, I read that he believed she was in possession of four Pieces of Eden."
"How?" I ask, completely shocked that someone's DNA cross referenced with mine, opening memories in my ancestral line.
"I don't know. I wasn't able to watch the memories long enough to see her in possession of any of the Pieces."
"Well what about Azalea?" Shaun says eager to learn more. "Tell us what you do know about the woman."
"Well she was born in Jerusalem into a family that I have failed to trace back. Honestly, she is one of the hardest people I have had to trace back. Somehow Lyla only had the two memories in her DNA, so I couldn't look there for her ancestry. As you saw, Desmond, Azalea first bumps into Altair as she is about to get her hand cut off for stealing, which leads me to believe that she was born into a poor family, or her family died at a young age and left her no money. As for siblings, again, I can't trace back her family. Azalea is visibly skilled in climbing and familiar with taking a life, as you saw in the memory where she scales the wall and when she kills the Templar guard. This leads to her past, which, I don't know about." Lucy seems frustrated at the fact that she doesn't know anything about Azalea's early life. "I know that at one point, she and Altair team up in some of his missions and aids him in killing some of his targets. I don't know how, but Malik knows her from before. They both never classify to Altair how they met. She also cared a lot about horses, that's probably why you hallucinated them. As for her death, I wasn't able to cross-reference the memories long enough to see how she died and what she did with the Pieces." Lucy sighs, "I wish I knew more about her. All I know is that she had a falling out with Altair and dedicated her life to finding Piece of Eden artifacts, and destroying them. As I told you all before, she managed to locate four. That's why Abstergo wanted her, and that's why I tried desperately to keep her away from Warren."
"Well you have the code to unlock the memory," I begin, "why don't you put me in the Animus, and I'll learn more about her?"
"I don't know…" Lucy hangs on the thought.
"I think it's a great idea." Shaun says. "And I'll record all the data so we can have her stored in our research."
"I think it's cool too." Rebecca adds. "I've given Animus 2.0 an upgrade so Desmond can stay in it longer without the side effects."
"We still need to focus on Ezio." Lucy protests.
"How about this," I begin, "We work with Ezio from 8:00am until 3:00pm. Then from 3:00pm until 10:00pm, we work with Azalea and Altair. Then from 10:00pm to 8:00am we sleep." I propose.
"Sounds good with me." Shaun says.
"Me too." Rebecca shouts as she makes adjustments to the Animus.
Lucy is hesitant, but after seeing the joy that this brings us all she agrees and we begin our work. "Ok Rebecca, type in this code, 0,1,1,2,3,5,8."
"Are those the first seven numbers of the Fibonacci Sequence?" Shaun asks.
"Yeah. I always lock memories in famous sequences or equations." Lucy looks at me. "The code to the memory I sent you on my email was an equation called the Drake equation. It calculates the potential number of civilizations outside our galaxy."
"Umm… cool." I say not even remembering the first letter in that code. I get in the Animus and get ready for the Animus to send me back to Altair.
"Now, Desmond," Lucy says as I look up at her, "we are going to be talking to you during the memory. You can talk back to us without any worries. It's like you're watching a movie, they won't hear you because you don't exist."
"I know, Lucy, this isn't my first time inside the Animus." I say with a laugh, but the serious expression on Lucy's face does not change.
"It's just that I have never had a subject in the Animus actively searching for specific memories. I am worried that it might have a detrimental effect on the stability of your mind."
"That's comforting." I joke and she does not smile, "Don't worry, nothing is going to happen. I'll be safe."
"Can we get on with the memory before I begin to gag?" Shaun yells from his corner.
"Are you ready, Desmond?" Rebecca asks. I nod.
It takes a couple of seconds, but Lucy's face slowly fades from my sight, and I am in the world that the Animus has sent me in. I am in Jerusalem, and I am Altair once again.