Chapter 5 – The Hero and His Secretive Past

The following morning, at 8:00 AM, the alarm on Jake's telephone went off. Jake got up, yawned, scratched his back, turned off the alarm and got off the bed. He looked at the bed and saw that Princess Bubblegum and Marceline were holding on to the ends of the blanket sheets. He looked down at the floor as he saw that Finn was sleeping on the floor. He then bent over, and began to shake him lightly to wake him up.

"Finn, wake up." said Jake quietly.

Finn groaned, as his eyes began to open. He got up from the floor, realizing that he wasn't on the bed.

"Jake, what am I doing on the floor?" he asked, as he yawned and scratched his head.

"Well, the girls were fighting over the blankets, and in the middle of the ruckus, they probably pushed you out of the bed." explained Jake. "By the looks of it, we shouldn't wake them up."

"Well, we have to wake them up, so I can get ready for the device." said Finn.

"Shouldn't you take a shower first, man?" asked Jake. He then held his nose, as he continued saying, "Because right now, you stink like rotten eggs and flesh, and this is agonizing to my nose. I can't believe that the smell didn't wake up the girls! If you did, they'd start tearing out our throats!"

As Jake said this, Finn began to blush with embarrassment, as he protested angrily, "Shut up, man! I don't stink!"

Finn proceeded to smell himself, and as he took a whiff, he made a disgusted face.

"Oh, sick!" said Finn. "I guess I do smell a little. Is there a bathroom around here?"

"I don't know, but I think it's that door over there." said Jake, as he pointed at a closed door.

"I'll go see." said Finn.

As he walked towards the door, the door then slid open automatically. Inside, the door revealed a clean bathroom. As Finn went inside, he found the shower. The bathroom door then closed automatically.

"Ok, time to get clean." thought Finn.

He walked inside the shower. He then began to remove his clothes and turned on the water.

"This feels great." thought Finn. "I haven't taken a shower in weeks. Hopefully this will take off my body odor."

At 9:00 AM, after an hour of spending time in the shower, Finn shut off the water and walked out of the shower. He grabbed a towel and dried himself off, put his clothes back on, and walked out of the bathroom and into the bedroom. The bedroom was empty now, with the bed sheets spread all over.

"Finn!" called out Jake. "Get over here!"

"I'm coming!" said Finn, as he went out to the main room.

In the main room, Jake and Marceline were surrounding Princess Bubblegum, as she was sitting on a chair, as she is using the laptop that she grabbed yesterday from the first floor.

"What's going on, guys?" asked Finn.

"We're checking the local database for information on the device, as well as other topics." responded Princess Bubblegum. "The name of the device is the Animus. We all obviously know that now. It is a machine that plays out memories from a person's ancestors."

"That's cool." said Jake. "But how does that work? How can it read memories that we don't even know about?"

"Well, it says here that these memories are stored on the subject's DNA, and the device digs into the DNA helix so that the subject can relive them." said Princess Bubblegum. "However, the subject must be in synchronization with his or her ancestor in order to relive deeper memories. The deeper the memory, the higher amount of synchronization is required to access them."

"Hey Finn, did you see your ancestor or what?" asked Marceline.

"Oh yeah, I did." answered Finn. "I controlled him a little bit, but I guess I needed the controller to move him completely."

"What was his name?" asked Marceline.

"His name was Altaïr." said Finn. "That's a weird name, huh? And he's an assassin. So that means I must have some lineage of assassins in my family or something."

"Huh." said Marceline, as she placed her hand on her chin. "That actually sounds pretty cool. Finn the Assassin; now that's an awesome title for you."

"I got more information on Finn's ancestor." said Princess Bubblegum, as she typed in Altaïr's name. "His full name is Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad. Like Finn said, he was an Assassin, and one of the best in his class and era. He comes from the ancient city of Masyaf, Syria, and was trained to be an Assassin from the day he was born. He became a Master Assassin at the young age of 24, and two years later, became the mentor of the Syrian Assassins." As she got to the bottom of the info, she then said, "That's all there is for him."

"Is there any more information about the Animus?" asked Jake. "It's because I want to know if there's any danger or risk when using the machine."

"Well, there are only two things to note here." said Princess Bubblegum. "The Animus uses up a semi-large amount of energy to power itself, as well as overheating when used for a prolonged time. Those are the only problems that I can access and read. There is another document, but it is password-protected, so I can't open it."

"So it's mostly safe, huh?" said Finn.

"Yeah, you shouldn't have any problems." said Princess Bubblegum.

"Okay, hook me up to the Animus." said Finn.

As everyone walked towards the Animus, Finn got up on it, laid his body, and waited. The glass face cover popped up and displayed the main menu.

"We should reinitialize the tutorial, so you can get a grip on how to control your ancestor." said Princess Bubblegum.

"Okay, I'm ready." said Finn.

"Here goes nothing." said Princess Bubblegum.

She pressed a few buttons and activated the Animus. The machine took Finn back into the digital world.