Chapter 2
They approached a silver door. One of the guards entered a code into the keypad next to the door. As the door opened, Talia recognised it from Lucy's description- Desmond's room.
"Ah, Miss Hawke" Doctor Vidic approached her.
"Doctor Vidic" Talia greeted curtly.
"You two can carry on with your search for Subject 17 and Miss Stillman" he said to the two guards.
Talia kept an impassive expression on her face as he mentioned Lucy's name, but inside she felt differently. She hoped they got out safely. She hoped Lucy had not got hurt.
As the two guards exited the room Dr Vidic spoke to Talia "I am going to ask you a few questions, okay?"
Talia nodded in response.
"Do you know where Miss Stillman has gone?" he asked.
"No" she replied.
"But you two are friends, are you telling me that she didn't mention anything to you about this?"
"No she didn't, we only talked about normal stuff like how we were, family and about our work." She kept her face neutral, so Vidic wouldn't suspect anything.
The truth was that Lucy told her everything about what went on in this room, she told her about Desmond, the pieces of Eden and Altair. But she wasn't going to tell Vidic that.
"What did she say about her work" he asked.
"She mentioned a Subject 17 and using them to go back to the Third Crusade Era, but nothing too detailed."
"Is that all she mentioned" the only reply he received was a nod. "Did she tell you that she was a member of the Assassin's Creed?"
Talia feigned a shocked expression, "what? No, she can't have been, we talked about our shared passion to follow the path of the Templar Order. It's why I joined Abstergo, to join the Order" she lied with ease.
"Why would you want to join the Templars if your family are Assassins, Miss Hawke" he enquired.
"That's the reason why, they talked about freedom of choice. But they were subtly forcing me to join the Creed. I didn't want anything to do with any of this, when I realised what they were doing, I gathered enough information about the Creed and the Order to realise that I wanted to be a Templar." She fibbed.
"I am glad your loyalties are with us, Miss Hawke. Thank you, for answering my questions truthfully, you can go back to your Animus station. Carry on with your work, Miss Hawke." He said.
Talia turned and exited the room. Once out of the door, she leaned on the wall and sighed. She was grateful for the years of training in the Creed, she would not have been able to lie so easily if she hadn't have had all that training.
As she walked back to her cubicle she thought back to her first day training to lie.
She was linked to a polygraph machine. Her mentor was sat in front of her asking her questions.
"We've done the truth, now I want you to tell a lie. Talia, I want you to keep your breathing steady" her mentor told her.
"Yes, Master Banks" she replied.
"I know you're new, but you can call me Gavin."
"Okay Mas… Gavin" she said.
"I'm going to ask you the same questions as before" he informed her. "Are you a member of the Templar Order?"
"Yes I am" she hesitantly answered.
"What do you do?"
"I gather intel on known Assassins in the past and present."
The questions kept going for the next ten minutes. As the questions went on, Talia's heart began to race and her breathing got shallow. She couldn't do it, she found it very difficult to lie.
Eventually her mentor Gavin Banks stopped, "it's okay Talia, you're new at this. In time, you will have mastered this and will able to infiltrate the Templar Order."
"Okay, Master." She replied.
"What did I say about calling me Gavin, Talia?"
"Sorry!"
"Go and get some rest Talia" he told her. "One tip before you go, to successfully tell a lie, twist the truth. It will help a lot."
It took her six months to master lying successfully, she just couldn't do it successfully without causing a blip in the polygraph.