Chapter 5: Madness

I own nothing of the Assassins creed series. Well except for my OCs. At least I think so.

I sighed and got ready for another session. I was going to finish these memories and get those reports going.

If I could I'd try to contact Erudito again. I need to figure out what the fuck was so important that the person would hack the memories of Abstergo entertainment. I sat down and returned the headpiece to my head.

Down the rabbit hole again Alice?

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++DDS LOADED++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I am tangled in nightmares. I have never felt love. I have felt love so strongly it strangles me. I am Borgia. The Borgia are my enemies. I am Assassin. The Assassins are my enemies. Cesare is my father. Perotto is my father. Perotto. I am Perotto. I am Giovanni. I am lost.

This kid really needs a hug. Also therapy. This kid would have been a therapist's dream.

I am drowning in a sea of letters. I must write. I have not learned how. Words I cannot understand cover every surface in blood red ink. I try to write over them with my quill. The blackness of my ink is lost in the scarlet pools.

I was nowhere again. A blue void surrounded by black code running through the sky. Then in a flash Cesare appears.

Papà strikes me with his blade! Cesare stabs me in the back! I cry. I fall. I want to be free of him. I want to kill him. I will get into trouble. I will cause trouble for Lucrezia. I must run to Zia. Everything for Lucrezia.

He vanishes and Giovanni is surrounded by the hooded cultists again. They stand in a motionless circle showing no openings to escape.

Men in white hoods surround me. Am I here to teach them? How? I am a child. Are they here to teach me? My students. My executioners. My future?

I know too much but I know nothing. I am innocent, yet wracked by guilt.

Giovanni suddenly vanishes and is replaced by Perotto. He suddenly sprints after a faintly glowing object in the distance. The world cracks around us as he runs further through the memories.

Is this the animus? Is this Giovanni?

I chase an object of power. I have no faith that it will work. I know how it works. It will heal him. It will heal me. It will remake me.

My dream threatens to burst. It is too much. Will I ever wake? Will I ever sleep again?

The world erupts into white.

I am a baby again. Sick. Dying. I carry my baby. I have the Shroud. He wraps me in a blanket. The blanket hums. The Shroud hums.

YOU ARE UNDEVELOPED. Heal him! SUBJECT IS UNDEVELOPED.

Damn you! Heal him. Who is talking? Who is yelling? COME CLOSER.

It hurts! PAIN IS TEMPORARY. I do not understand. COMPREHENSION IS UNNECESSARY.

REPARATION IS POSSIBLE. DIFFICULT. Do it, then!

So warm! So cold. It draws the life from me. It makes me feel alive. Is it done? YES. Did it work? Answer me! Did it work?

Consus? Are you there, Consus? SLEEP, CHILD. FORGET THESE DREAMS.

Giovanni wakes up. I'm a bit confused since it's the middle of the day. A nap? Does it matter?

Breathing heavily he pulls himself up from the bed. Tears are running down his face. He's terrified over what just happened. He's been terrified over a lot of things. He suddenly jumps out and he mutters," I hate Papà. Nonno only cares about the Apple. Zia is always sad. I want to run away from them! I want to live somewhere else."

A pigeon flies into his room. For a second I thought the bird was for me. Another message from Erudito. But it doesn't leave a trail of red data. This is from the memory.

A pigeon flies into my room! He has a note tied to his foot! I pull it off and he flies away. I stare at the note, but I cannot read it.

A featureless gray man appears next to him. Giovanni grins at him and shows him the note.

Is that Consus?

Consus tells me what it says. It wants me to come to the fountain square. A game! I love games!

Nobody watches me. It is easy to sneak out if I am quiet.

I am given control of Giovanni. I wait for the objective to appear. It says Escape the Villa.

Great, I hated these people anyway. I ran out of his room and I take off. I sneak past "Nonno" and walk as quietly as possible down the corridor. I walk past a door and Giovanni stops. I hear faint sobbing.

Zia is crying again. She will cry more if I go see her. I walk past her room.

Damn kid. That's cold. I finally take him outside and I see multiple guards at the gate.

How did Giovanni escape in his time? Then I see a man walk towards the guards.

The guards are at their post. They are close to the gate. Somebody shouts at them and they chase after him! I run through!

Giovanni is finally free. I thought I had free reign over this part of Roma. But the minute I walked out of the golden trail to the fountain square the world would flash blue and warn me of desynch. I sighed and walked through the crowds hoping to get there quickly.

Giovanni finally reaches and I must admit, it's beautiful. There are three fountain statues of different beauty. The only one I was interested in was the one with a note in it's hand.

I run to the fountain. One of the statues has another note in his hand! I take it. It tells me to find my way. It says to use my other eyes.

My other eyes?

The note told me to use my other eyes. Sometimes I see things that are not there. Drawings, or waves. I look around the fountain for drawings. I like this game!

Then I see another prompt appear in front of me.

Press O to Activate eagle vison

I blink and press O.

The world is blue and the people walking around were a brighter version of it.

Then a man glows gold as he walks away from the square.

I look for an arrow or footprints. I do not see anything. The note did not say what to look for. There! A man who is brighter than the rest. I run after him!

I run into an alley. The man is not here. Where did he go? I look up. There! He is up there! I laugh at him. He waves at me to follow.

Giovanni runs after him as quickly as his little legs could take him. It wasn't very fast, but gold man was making sure we kept up.

He is fast! He jumps from roof to roof. I stay on the streets and try to keep up! We reach another alley. The man puts up his hand. He wants me to stop. He puts a finger to his mouth. He wants me to be quiet.

Then I realize why he wants me to stay quiet. There are two bums watching me. I try to walk by them, make it look like a rich kid has no problem being here. They don't buy it for a second.

They grab him.

One has no teeth. The other one has a knife! They ask why my clothes are so fancy. They ask if I have any coins!

They begin to shake Giovanni as hard as they can. Their acting like shaking him will make him drop coins. For a second I think this is where Giovanni dies. Then the man drops from the roof.

It is so high. I think he will hurt himself. No! He lands on the other men. He pulls away his hands. Their necks are bleeding!

Double murder in front of a kid huh? Was this just commonplace back then? Giovanni isn't even scared by this. But I guess being raised by Cesare Borgia probably desensitized the kid. Those memory nightmares probably helped too. The man walks up to me and crouches down to Giovanni's level.

He's wearing the strange hooded clothes like Perotto and the others.

He says his name is Francesco. His clothes are strange, like a magician. He says not to be scared. I am not scared. I tell him I want to go with him. He asks me about the Apple. Do I know where it is? I tell him Papà hid it from me when he found out I took it outside. They do not let me play with it anymore.

I don't remember doing that. Why wasn't I showed those memories? Whatever the Apple did was important. Why would they show those other memories, his genetic dreams, and then not show the other times he had the apple?

But this conversation is probably more important than that at the moment.

I do not know why, but I tell him I forgive him. He asks me to repeat myself. I do not remember what I said. He tells me he can take me to live with his Brothers. Only if that is what I want. It is! I ask him if he is a Sassin. He makes a funny face.

A sassin? Asassin? Assassin? Wait assassins? Like crusades assassins? These people were assassins? That order died when the Mongols attacked right? I have so much research to go over when this is over.

Francesco takes the dirty clothes from one of the men he killed. He wraps it around me.

It stinks! We walk fast through the crowd. He has a horse waiting. He helps me climb up.

We are riding fast! He wasted no time getting as far from the city as possible.

I ask Francesco if I will ever see Zia again. He tells me it is my choice, but I have to keep secrets. Big secrets.

The world freezes just as the pair passes a hill.

MEMORY PACK COMPLETE

That's it?

What happens next? Does Giovanni become an assassin? What happens now?

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++EXITING DDS+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I groaned as I removed the headpiece to its holster.

That explained nothing. Literally nothing.

What was the shroud? Consus? The fuck is Eagle vision?

But it made sense. The DDS was for snippets of memories. Not full sequences.

Those memories were probably fine and done with.

Then I heard a knocking at the door. I opened and saw nothing but a hanging flash drive on the doorknob. I picked it up and plugged it into my DDS. The screen flashed and said rebooting.

Did Gavina send me this?

Why didn't she just do this herself? Was she that worried about meeting me again?

Was I that good looking?

Then on the screen I saw a character rotating on the screen. It looked like the same man who spoke to Giovanni.

Subject: Francesco Vecellio

Location: Italy

Time Period of Memories: 1501 - 1503 CE

Huh.

Thanks Gavina.