(Events take place around the time of the Firestorm crisis of Tiberian Sun, simultaneously with the events of Syndicate in the Assassins Creed timeline. Desmond: Desmond Files (f-list))

Desmond easily made his way around the building, occasionally picking up litter or moving around some stored light bulbs in an available closet. He had to play his part and keep his head down so nobody would pay attention to him. He couldn't loop these cameras with footage, but he could make sure his face wasn't seen. He passed by a few labs and server rooms, planting a few bird-bombs as he went.

He didn't want to hurt anyone innocent with his explosives, and wondered if he should pull the fire alarm before he left the building. At the last server room, he scanned the data for anything he had missed, and was surprised to find that the oppressive feeling from before was gone. A check with Eagle Vision confirmed that the servers were white, not red. Seems like that "Cain" guy had left already; it was a bit worrisome, but if he didn't have to deal with him now then it would be helpful. He didn't like going into a fight without knowing his enemy, same as Ezio.

Making his way out, he passed by the fire alarm; leave it to Abstergo to have the latest tech. He set a small timer in it to go off soon after he passed it. It would be easy to merge with the crowd and get out before he set off the chain reaction of bombs.

Kane on the other hand had already started scouring the place. Having lifted the pod cover, he was able to walk around and feel again - it felt very nostalgic.

"No mirrors. Tch."

It looked like verifying his new identity would have to come later. He could tell he was a male, however, feeling thoroughly over himself - no belongings on him. It seems Abstergo vets their subjects well before use. Finding things like wallets or keys would again have to wait until after the debris had settled.

Almost right on cue, Kane heard the eponymous alarm sounds associated with the place (though, why did it sound familiar? He knows he didn't hear this before, so was it the new body? Was it involved with previous Abstergo alarms before taking over this body?). Stopping his search for clues, he headed for the lab's door, and then walked towards the nearest exit in the hallway. From there, he could see a crowd drifting towards what he presumed to be the building's entrance. The security at this low-level floor was relaxed, it seemed - it wasn't as heavily guarded.

"I seem to be familiar with this layout. Whoever this person was... they seem to have attempted escape. Not bad, my child, not bad at all."

This newfound knowledge of the place proved useful to Kane. That, and Desmond's innocence - Kane had guessed the alarm was his doing. All was, indeed, going according to plan.

Desmond easily mingled with the crowd and made his way out; he moved to the side of the gathering so that he wasn't in the center. Not everyone was out of the building yet. He could tell that the higher floors still had personnel and guards. If his last adventure into the building had told him anything, it was that these people were Templars by creed, not affiliation. Which means, they might die. As long as the majority of innocents got out, he'd be okay with it. None of his bombs were near support structures or the lower floors of the building, so he was certain it would be fine. He waited another minute before he set the charges off with a single thought.

The first explosion went off, causing everyone in the crowd around him to jump in surprise. Someone screamed, as the rest of the bombs went off in quick succession, and people began to move away from the building and into the street. Traffic was slowing down, as people moved in confusion to get away from the potentially dangerous building. It would take the police and fire department a good few minutes to get here and organize the crowd. By then, he would be long gone.

Making his way through the crowd he happened to bump into someone who was moving awkwardly, like they were drunk, perhaps. Keeping his face covered, Desmond quickly shot a hand out to steady the guy.

Kane was startled by this sudden encounter with Desmond. "Oh... thank you."

He did his best to sound as informal as possible. He didn't want to appear too distant from society with his mannerisms. Fortunately, the new body would help a lot with that.

Continuing to walk, he looked back behind him at the man that steadied him. He could've sworn he felt that presence very recently. He took a sharp turn away and into the nearest alley before the man could in turn see him. No chances taken.

Desmond gave the guy a sad look as the other man left; he looked at his back. He moved a bit awkwardly, like he hadn't used his legs in a long time, and was on the thin side. Most likely explanation: this guy was one of the animus 'volunteers' that Abstergo was using. The guy was free now, and hopefully wasn't bleeding too heavily from the machine and would be able to get back to life normally.

Desmond quickly made his way out of the crowd and down a different alleyway before climbing up to the roof of the building, his clothes quickly changing back to his favorite hoodie and jeans as he hit the top. It wasn't hard for him to find an open Wifi connection and get himself back onto the Net. He had a lot of data to comb through and send out, along with checking in on Rebecca to see if she had dug up any information about that Cain guy.

Kane made sure he was safe from public view. That last encounter was a close one - had he been recognized by an adversary, in this state, it would've been all over.

There wasn't enough time. He had to quickly return himself to a Tiberium-superior clone body. He had to find his way back to where it all started - Temple Prime, Sarajevo. Kane doubted any of his followers at the time survived GDI's final assault on the Temple of Nod that housed Cabal. Temple Prime was secretly built as a backup for Kane's eventual return. He had faith any splinter groups would try to move to Sarajevo.

Finding a nearby terminal, Kane was able to quickly establish contact with Temple Prime's servers. Desmond's attack served as a convenient distraction for him to get to work at a near building without being noticed. His own mission now was to verify who was still in command of NOD.

Kane was suddenly overwhelmed with revered joy, as he continued using the terminal - the NOD network was still up. CABAL was still alive, externally. It had evolved to overtake multiple devices around the world, just as he himself had taught it to do, before the end of the second Tiberium War. He didn't feel the need nor time to gloat, however - he had to ensure no infiltration by GDI had occurred.

"I'm assuming GDI would have already excavated all our belongings from the wreckage. Hopefully, CABAL encrypted everything before they soiled the floors of the Temple with their heretic feet..."

Logging into the CABAL console, the first thing Kane did at this computer was try to establish contact with the Montauk - assuming GDI hadn't collapsed NOD's global tunnel systems. He felt lucky there was no video link available for this encounter - oh, the days it would take to convince his followers he was inside another man.

Desmond logged into his hidden server - it resembled an aviary of sorts, with lots of perches and plants he had coded in to make the place look a lot less like the Animus. There was also a small living space for himself, some pieces of furniture, and a corner of really ugly looking attempts at coding. He was immediately greeted by the sound of all the birds he had made back at Abstergo. That replication command had come in really handy! He shot Rebecca another text, that he was safe outside of the systems, and that he was responsible for the current news that was being broadcast everywhere. He'd give her a call, once he was sure the data wasn't infected or tracked.

Thankfully, a quick look over with Eagle Vision showed that none of the birds had brought back the red contamination from Cain. It also pointed out a few birds that were highlighted in gold, which meant they may have trackers on them. He looked at those guys first, and quickly shred the tracking data to pieces. With that settled, he grabbed one of their chairs to sit at a table. He could decompress the data here, and organize it for the assassins to go through and decide how to use it. Some of it he would send to Bill and Becca directly, since the majority of the Brotherhood didn't even know he was still alive. It was annoying as hell, but having an alias wasn't anything new to him.

'Hey Becca, did you find out anything about that Cain guy I saw in Abstergo yet?'

Desmond had gone through a number of the digital birds now, their number decreasing with each file he checked and sorted. Several holographic screens floated around him, each one containing the organized files that were relevant and connected to each other. Shaun would have had a conniption about this way of organizing, but being able to see it in front of him was way better than trying to remember where the hell he put the files. He was surprised to get a call from Rebecca.

"What's up? Find anything?"

A screen appeared next to Desmond, with a picture of the woman grinning widely and holding the peace sign for her avatar. "Yeah, I did, and it's not good from the looks of it. I'll send you the files, once I get everything, but from what our spies in GDI say, he's supposed to be dead. So thats never a good sign. He runs a large organization called the Brotherhood of Nod - no relation to us. The guy's followers say he's immortal, and has professed the future with a vision. He'd been fighting GDI for years, and has control over several countries, so he's serious business. He was marked as KIA during a mission of theirs not to long ago. Blew his ass up along with one of his biggest strongholds, the building was supposed to house a massive AI that Nod had built. Maybe what you saw was the AI? Either way, I'll see about getting some more data from our agents, but Bill might give you the go-ahead to sneak into their systems once you sent your mission report."

Desmond sighed as he dismissed another cluster of birds, "Just when we think things will get better, then stuff like this happens. Why haven't we taken this guy down yet?"

"GDI is massively global, but so is NOD. It's more then we can handle with the current Templar war. We just don't have the resources; they are also massively public, and GDI has been doing pretty well to keep them under control... for the most part. We have some people inside GDI, but NOD is a bit trickier and we've only been able to get some low level people in. There is also the risk of our spies turning; Kane is extremely charismatic. He has to be, in order to build a following this big, but he's also supposed to be a genius, inventing new tech that hasn't been seen before."

"Could he be related to the ISU?"

"From what we can tell, some of his tech is starting to look that way. GDI is very tight-lipped about that part. I don't think they are doing much about it though, since they are able to benefit from the tech they steal and study. It's a bit of a trade-off that we don't like, but the assassins have worked with them in the past without them knowing who we are."

"Fantastic, now I won't be able to relax and take that vacation I've been hoping to go on." He was joking about the vacation, but the point about their work never being done was something all of them were frustrated with. They needed a break, but it wasn't happening anytime soon. Maybe he could convince Becca to go online with him on one of those VR games?

"I'm just about done with this, I'll head back to base to deliver everything. You need to show me that game you've been pestering me about. It was a VR thing, right?"

"Can't wait to see you, Dezy! Yeah! It's VR Chat! they've got games and stuff, but everyone uses these crazy avatars and some pretty fun stuff happens. I don't think you'll be too scared for life since you kinda live on the Internet now."

"Don't remind me. I still wish you hadn't told me about Rule 34. I'll see you soon. Later."

With the call over, the window disappeared, and Desmond started to gather the last of the files together to present.

Kane couldn't believe his eyes. He had faith, but he didn't know it would yield this much results.

"By my name... Oxanna? My child, did you truly survive...?"

He whispered to himself both his sorrows and joys. The Montauk had lost its revered leader, Anton Slavik, Commander of NOD's esteemed Black Hand. Slavik's second in command, the only other soul authorized to pilot the Montauk, was none other than Oxanna Kristos. He knew her loyalty was unparalleled among the living. But she wasn't responding yet. All he could see was that the Montauk was operational and running, halfway across the Pacific, headed towards US shores. It wouldn't be long before he could confirm its crew.

With this development, he can now put his bigger plans in motion. He already knew his cover was blown to a select few. He had foreseen how these things go - they always snowballed into major resistance, and possible failure. If he wanted to turn things around and start the Third Tiberium War, he would have to get the Montauk to his position, and take it to the wreckage of Temple Prime - where he knew his spare bodies were well hidden, deep beneath the earth, far beyond GDI's watchful eyes.

It was time.

Thank you for making it to Chapter 3! Wow, our fic baby is three chapters old... this is the longest one yet. Look forward to Chapter 4 in a bit! Tell us what you think in review - and thank you all in advance!