Chapter Fourteen:

With Friends Like These

2012

By the time I got back to the hideout, I was still limping, but most of my wounds were closed. I decided to take the elevator to the top floor, so as not to strain myself. I opened the door with the key I hid under the flower pot and the pocketed it, since I was pretty sure that any dim-witted Templar would probably look under there.

Rebecca saw me and embraced me quickly, trying to be careful with me. "Sam! How're you feeling? Do you need to sit down?"

I nodded. "I'll sit for a bit. Most of my wounds haven't closed."

Rebecca helped me to a chair and sat across from me. I thought I saw Desmond stir, but I wasn't entirely sure.

"Um… Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"Where's Mason?"

I bit my lip. "His girlfriend saw him and took him."

"You let him go?"

I nodded. "What was I supposed to do? He has a life, Rebecca; something that we nearly took from him, just because of our petty 'suspicions'."

Rebecca sighed and adjusted her headphones. "Well, I finally got that DNA scan done. I just glanced at the name though, since I wanted you both to get back and see it." She paused to gauge my reaction, and then continued. "Jeremy Stevens. Seems he just got confused with his ancestor, which means that he was exposed to an Animus for a long period of time, even before he came here. It's like a variation of the Bleeding Effect, where the actual person takes on their ancestor's identity. Then, everything about that person is wiped—like deleting something—and they literally become their ancestor."

"But Mason—! Er… Jeremy… was still himself, if not a little bit amnesiac!"

"That's the thing…" Rebecca grabbed a laptop and brought it over to me. "Jeremy was very close to being erased from existence. The only way he could have been exposed to an Animus was if he was taken by the Templars, since Baby and Baby 2 are the only Animi that the Assassins have right now, and we've been using them for you and Desmond. Fortunately, he didn't get too exposed to Baby while he was here. But if the Templars get him again…"

I groaned and buried my face in my hands, my fingers rubbing my eyes as the sheer exhaustion of the situation struck me.

"How do you know he wasn't a volunteer?" Shaun asked as he came into the room.

"I just can't see Jeremy volunteering for something like that," I told him. "He seems so… I dunno." I sat up in the chair. "Where's Bill?"

"Under house-arrest," Shaun said as he poured himself some coffee for the morning. "Or, rather, room-arrest. Don't worry; the Apple's safe. And you have a story to tell, I think."

I smiled. "I'll just give you the summary: I trained Bill when he was young, and we didn't get along. Then I taught Desmond and… and Lucy…" I shook my head. "They were old enough to understand me and do as I instructed, but young enough so that they wouldn't remember me."

Rebecca looked shocked. "You taught Desmond and Lucy?"

I nodded. "They were some of the quickest minds I'd ever taught. I'd told Bill to take it easy on Desmond, but… well, we can see how his amazing parenting skills turned out."

Rebecca handed me the laptop. "Here; you can check out his identity here."

I smiled weakly and nearly closed it when I saw Mason's ID picture, which had his cocky smile. I rolled my eyes, and decided it wouldn't hurt to take just a peek…

Name: Jeremy Stevens; Age: Nineteen; Gender: Male; Status: Alive; Parents: Molly Stevens (deceased) and Richard Stevens (deceased); Relationships: Single; Hair: Black; Eyes: Brown; Height: 6"2'; Nothing else of note.

I bit my lip. Something was wrong about it. I read it over again, and finally found it.

Relationships: Single.

Single.

"C'mon," Olivia had said, "we need you back!"

I sat up in alarm. "We"? I thought frantically. Who's" we"? But of course, I knew the answer: Templars! It made sense, and so that meant Jeremy was in trouble. His very identity was on the brink of annihilation!

"Son of a bitch!" I cursed as I practically threw the laptop back to Rebecca, who caught it awkwardly. "Olivia Hobbs, that tramp! I knew it!"

Shaun smiled. "Off to save another mere mortal, eh Sam?"

I glared at him, but my question went to Rebecca. "Can you pull up something on Olivia Hobbs?"

"Easily, since I have a name to go on." After a few seconds of typing, Rebecca paused. "What does she look like?"

"A blonde tramp."

"Got 'er."

Shaun snorted. "I like how you both are on the same brainwave."

"She just looks like a tramp." Rebecca showed him her picture, to which Shaun stared at and drank some of his coffee. "See? She even rendered our smart-mouth Brit to silence."

"Do shut-up, Rebecca."

"Yes sir, Simon Cowell."

I grabbed the laptop from Rebecca and checked Olivia's profile. From what Rebecca had taken off of Abstergo's "employee" server, I could see that Olivia Hobbs was, in fact, a willing Templar. Her family had been as such since the mid-eighteenth-century.

And, as an "employee" of Abstergo, her ancestor was—.

My breath caught in my throat. Diana. I knew there was something to those blonde curls that I hated!

"Che cazzo cagna traditore!" I swore in anger. It was in Italian, since I didn't want Rebecca or Shaun to know what I was on about. "Do we have a way to track Jeremy?"

"Actually, I was just checking." Rebecca smiled and pulled up another file. "From the looks of it, her last known location was Las Vegas, Nevada. I'm willing to bet my right hand that she's taking Jeremy there. A flight actually just left, and from what I can see…" Rebecca typed a while longer. "Yep. They got on the plane. It looks like Jeremy's drugged, but nothing serious enough to let anyone know that he is."

"Get me tickets online," I told her. "Use the account I have here in New York. I'm heading to Vegas."

"Just don't take too long," Shaun said as he finished his coffee. "I don't like the idea of being alone with Bill for very long."

"Here here," Rebecca acknowledged.

1511

The graveyard was small, but surrounded by trees and flowers. If anyone had passed through the graveyard, not knowing what it was, then they would only see the gravestones as undersized pillars. In the middle of the graveyard was a strong old tree, its branches reaching higher than any of the buildings surrounding it.

Here, no one would be able to find me for hours. Well, unless they asked Yusuf. But that didn't matter. I put a bouquet of flowers at the tree's base, as I usually did at Malik, Sef and Maria's graves. I lowered my hood and touched the tree, rubbing it softly as I remembered.

"Has it really been three-hundred seven years?" I asked the tree. "I am sure it has been longer. Three-hundred seven eternities, maybe." I crouched at its base and activated my hidden blade. "Pardon me, amico, but I have to leave a marking as to why I am here. I hope you will not mind."

It seemed silly to speak to a tree so, but it was important to me, so I did it. Quickly, I carved Chara's name into the tree, including her year of birth and death. I had planted that tree years ago, when we buried Chara's body in Kostantiniyye. She had told me once about how she'd wanted to be buried in ground where a tree would be grown, so that her death could bring some life.

At the time, it had seemed strange to me how someone so young and full of life could be thinking about their death. Now, I knew that she was simply cautious. Anything could happen, and the worst did.

"Ah well. I guess I should get back to Ezio. That idiota is probably flirting with Sofia… again." Despite my annoyance, the thought made me smile. "Farewell, Chara. I will see you again soon, sorella."