Note ~ I don't have much to say except that this chapter SHOULD make you slightly less confused. Or maybe it'll just bore you out of your socks. Perhaps that is my ambition after all. Maybe I just want to steal all of your socks. xD Anyway, for any Mass Effect fans, there is a moment in here that should resemble a scene we are all quite fond of. Cough cough...Liara: Oh yes! I know Ilos! Blah blah blah ILOS! Ohhh...*suddenly dizzy* Shepard: Liara, shouldn't you go see Dr. Chakwas? Tee hee hee. As always, thank you for reading!

TheHaloFreak ~ WELL, Miss QueenOfTheUniverse! xD This one's a bit longer, so there ya go! Thanks for the review! And uhh...those bunnies are all in your head.

FFNaru134 ~ Thanks for the review! Speaking of updating though, where's the next dang chapter of COLLiSiON? xD I'm kiddin. Take your time. Just don't make me call the fanfiction police for waiting a ridiculously long time to update. We all know that I've never done THAT before.

Dolphin2ii ~ Not as happy as I am to see you still here! :D And I just have to say that every time I read your name, I read it as Doll-fee-nee, which totally reminds me of the adorable little dolphin thing in Pangya. Yup. Totally off-topic, but I just had to say it.

AssassinsRogueAngel ~ Ah! Name change! I'm glad I caught it before writing this. xD And I sincerely hope that you do have one of those moments! Or at least, something remotely similar. I've actually never seen Castle, but I've heard awesome things about it. I only know him from Firefly and ODST. For me, Firefly is the only show I watch religiously. ;) Either way though, he's just downright sexy.

Alexe-audron ~ Thank you so much for the review! And I would absolutely LOVE it if you would be willing to help me with translations, for both old and newer chapters. I think it's so neat that you know it! :D So yeah, if that would be cool with you, just send me PM with how that might work with your schedule and whatnot and we can totally do that! Thank you!

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

A note, low and undulant, eclipsed into a melody against my ears. Torpid as I may have felt, no amount of fatigue could keep me detached from it - music. It was scratched and indistinct, wafting through the air as though channeled by an ancient radio, but it was there. I opened my eyes to narrow slits, surprisingly mellowed by the wavering tune.

"Hey! Looks like she's waking up."

A mop of blonde hair moved in my sight and stared down at me. I opened my eyes a little further, curious.

"Hey there, science experiment! Glad to see you conscious!"

I blinked at the voice, recognizing it as belonging to the woman who had carried me into…a transport truck. I swallowed, straining to speak.

"W-Where…-ere am I?" I was surprised by how strangled my own voice sounded. It seemed like centuries had passed sense I had used it.

Another familiar voice rang out above the music in the air. "Good God, she sounds terrible. What were they feeding her back there?"

"Hey, the girl asked us a question!" the blonde woman shook her head. "Sorry, hun. We were counting on you being confused. Come on, let me help you up."

I felt her hands on my back, suddenly aware that I was no longer unclothed. She lifted me up to a sitting position on what I deduced to be a makeshift hospital cot. It squeaked angrily as the vehicle we were in coasted over grated bumps and curves. I pressed my hand against my forehead, beginning to feel sick to my stomach. Still, it was an unfathomable relief to feel so tangible again.

"Whoa there, girly. Are you hungry?" the man on my right asked, holding his hands out cautiously.

I groaned meekly. The last thing I wanted was food. I was more concerned with answers. The woman's offer was so bright in my mind that I could hardly focus on anything else. Answers. I half-smiled just thinking about them. But…what if the answers I got were not what I wanted to hear? What if they were terrible, tragic, unbelievable? What if they were not answers at all?

"So let's start from the top," I heard the woman say. "You asked where you were."

I looked up at her groggily, seeing her face for the first time in the silhouetted light of the truck. Her eyes were dark, though indefinable in the shadows, and slanted upwards like a cat's. Almost shaggy lemon hair fell around her tanned cheeks and her wide lips were pulled into a thoughtful frown. She took my silence as grounds to continue, propping one hand on my knee as she spoke.

"Right now, you're in a transport vehicle, which is on its way to our headquarters."

"In short, we rescued you, girly," the man said shortly. I turned to look at him but his face was almost completely shrouded in grey. All I could make out was a youthful complexion of tinted ivory on his chin. It was odd to see someone so pale after being around Zafar and Faruq…I swallowed the memories that threatened to ripple in my throat. I didn't even know that they had actually existed.

"R-Rescued from what? And w-who are you?" I asked hoarsely.

"From whom would be a more appropriate way to phrase it," the woman snorted. "Sarah, you…I don't even know how to say this. You were kidnapped two weeks ago."

I stared at her emptily, unsure how to react. Kidnapped? That was ridiculous. What did that have to do with going back in time with someone who did not even…I stopped myself short, suddenly remembering what Malik had shown me.

"Ubisoft," I blurted out, unaware of its actual significance. I gazed up at the blonde woman, searching for some kind of reaction.

She smiled. "So you really did get our message. But no, it wasn't Ubisoft who kidnapped you. It was a pair of scientists."

"Surprisingly enough," the man interrupted. "They did it all on their own."

"Apparently, these two guys used to work for Ubisoft, helped 'em design their prized assassin game," the blonde continued. "Which is what started this whole conflict. God, it's a mess." She paused. "This is going to sound crazy to you, Sarah, and I'm sure that you really don't know what to believe right now but I need you to trust me. Can you do that?"

There was so much I wanted to ask. Who were these people? How did they know my name? What conflict? But I kept my tongue still, opting to nod in response.

"Okay," she sighed. "We are Assassins."

She paused for a moment, giving me a chance to mull over her statement. "Assassins?" I croaked. "I-I don't understand…Is this some kind of joke?"

"I assure you it is not. Three years ago, one of our own left the confines of our order and appealed to the budding designers in Ubisoft. He had an idea unlike any other in the entertainment industry, a game that would follow the life of an Assassin from the Crusades. It would be a beauteous hybrid of history, gore, and morality. But it was so much more than that. Everything about that game is a modified parallel of our own lives as Assassins. There are encoded scripts in its databanks detailing information about our hideouts, our activity, our numbers. Valuable information that should never be released to the public on any grounds. We are an organization of discretion." She exhaled passionately. "We were betrayed."

My head burned with the impact of her words. "B-But what does that have to do with kidnapping?" I asked warily. "Are you going to take me home?"

"One question at a time, girly," the man said calmly. "Y'see, while we were figuring out what to do about the game's widespread influence, our higher-ups got wind of some whacked out experiments being conducted behind Ubisoft walls. The scientists that took you thought they could create their own machine similar to the Animus, just like the one that 'Abstergo' has. They wanted to enhance the gaming experience, make it more profound. Thing was though, they're big dreams hinged upon human experimentation, which Ubisoft couldn't legally support. So when the crazy duo decided that they were going to do it anyway, they were forced to run from the company and set up shop in scattered warehouses across the states."

"That's where you come in." The woman released her hold on my knee to rub the back of her neck. "They were looking for a test subject, someone to use for their prototype 'Animus,' and you just happened to fit the bill. Apparently, they found you on their way to the warehouse you were just in."

"So...I was kidnapped to be a test subject? I-Is my family okay?" I looked down at my hands, startled to see them shaking. Were these really the answers I wanted?

"As far as we know, yeah. Listen, Sarah, I think this whole thing is way too complicated for us to explain in one car ride, and I don't even think we're qualified to attempt it. The main thing is you're gonna be okay now."

"But how do you even know all this stuff?" I snapped. "Are you gonna take me back to my family? A-Are they looking for me? Who broke into the warehouse and tried to run off with me? A-And if I was in some kind of ridiculous machine all this time, then why- Ohh…" A swirling dizziness tickled my head and my vision threatened to fade, pulsating with my rapid heartbeat.

"Relax, girly," I heard the man caution. "You're not doing anyone any favors overexerting yourself like that."

"He's right. I know it's hard to wrap your head around right now, but we're telling you the truth."

I blinked at the jumping metal around me. There was one question worming its way through the crowds of my mind, like an urgent mother pushing to get to the train doors before they open. Or better yet, pushing to see if they would open at all.

"Where is Altair?" I breathed out. It was a foolish question, to be sure, but it had blugeoned its way past my lips regardless.

The blonde woman only stared, seemingly at a loss for words. She shot a glance at her companion, then to the floor, then down to her lap; anywhere but at me, really. Her silence left me speculating, fearing the worst. Maybe she pitied me, knew that Altair had not actually existed and did not quite know how to break it to me. I decided to save her the trouble.

"It's okay," I whispered, though my voice must have betrayed how I really felt because she immediately locked her gaze with mine. I swallowed my daydreams and decided to focus on what mattered. I needed to stop worrying about a world that no longer existed. It was time to let go and focus on what was happening in the present. I needed to focus on answers, no matter how unbelievable they were. "I know none of it really exis-"

"No," she interrupted. "No, you're wrong. Sarah, how do you think we knew where to find you? How do you think Malik knew to give you that message?"

"What? What do you mean?" I stammered. "That message was from you?"

The man laughed bitterly. "Haven't you been listening? We were behind the whole thing!"

I glared at him. "What?"

"Not the whole thing," the blonde cut in. "As we said, it was the scientists who kidnapped you. But we couldn't let them build their Animus. We needed to stop them from finding the links to our database. So…we had to act fast."

"But if you knew I had been kidnapped, why-"

"We didn't. No one had any idea that they had themselves an actual test subject, much less where they had taken you. Our first priority was stopping Ubisoft before their industry got too out of hand, and that included stopping these scientists. So we had to gather the best in our ranks. We had to build our own Animus."

I pressed a hand unconsciously against my heart, feeling it race against my palm. "So what does that have to…do with Altair?" I already knew the answer. Well, partially anyway. And it was like the world had stopped moving for a moment, holding its breath in anticipation to the woman's response.

"Altair is…not who you think he is, Sarah."

"Don't be so sure," the man scoffed.

"But he's alive?" I nearly shouted. I could hardly believe it. If Altair was actually alive, how come no one had ever known who he was before now? And then I remembered. 'We are an organization of discretion.' Slowly, it all began to make sense.

"Yes, and no," the woman said, breaking my chain of revelation. "Altair is and always has been an Assassin, like us, but we are much different from the Assassins that you are so familiar with. Consider for a minute that the same distinction goes for Altair. He is not, nor has he ever been, the Altair that so many people claim to know so well."

I stared at her incredulously, taking in unsteady breaths, like I had forgotten what oxygen was entirely. "Then what is he? I saw him for myself. He was the Altair I know."

"But was he really?" she whispered, averting her eyes to the front of the vehicle.

Silence fell over us, leaving only the static of the radio's tune to create a melding ambience with the truck's chugging engine. I closed my eyes, remembering. Why did I care so much about whether or not Altair was the same person I knew? Did I even know him at all? She had told me that it had all really happened, that Altair existed, that he had been in an 'Animus' just as I had. But why Altair? And if the game was such a drastically different parallel to the real Assassins, why not change his name? What if his name was different?

"I really think you should…meet him," the blonde woman suggested, breaking the silence.

"What?" I choked. "But if he's so different, will he even recognize me?" The words were coming before I had a chance to hold them back. "Is his name even Altair? Is he so different that all the habits that I had become so familiar with aren't real? How would he be able to manage such a shift of personality if he was sentient inside of your machine? Wouldn't he just act the way he was? Why was he so damn similar to the Altair in the game!"

I felt a warm palm on my knee, pressing against it reassuringly. I looked up and met the shadowed gaze of the man, my head bursting with frustration. "What?" I snapped.

"Try not to think about it too much, girly. We're only here to help. Whatever you find out, know that the Altair you encountered in the Animus was the very same man that we know ourselves. His personality may have been different, but he had his reasons."

Suddenly, the truck came to a halt. Almost immediately after the engine was cut, the doors to the back were opened and daylight swallowed up my vision. I flung an arm in front of my eyes, but it was too late to stop them from burning in protest.

"Is this her?" I heard someone ask, though all noises seemed to muffle in the sudden onslaught of light.

"Yeah," the man beside me answered. It sounded like he was standing, so I pulled my arm away to observe my surroundings, blinking back the sun with violent efforts.

But I was not prepared for the sight that greeted me, not in the slightest. We were in a parking lot outside of a bank, and we were most definitely not in my hometown. A towering cityscape climbed over and around the financial center, threatening to gobble it up in its reflection. The building itself was massive, constructed to resemble the flagrance of a grasshopper's eye. The sunlight bounced against each of its countless panes, throwing itself back into my eyes as though it was trying to blind me.

I looked down, past the end of the truck, to the tired face of what I assumed to be another Assassin. He beckoned to the blonde woman with his hand, constantly throwing glances about himself. The blonde turned to look at me.

"Come on, Sarah. We're sending you in another vehicle. By the time Ubisoft finds this one, they will be too late."

I swallowed harshly. "I guess there's no sense in arguing, is there?"

She shook her head. "We're only trying to keep you safe."

"Thank you…for explaining so much to me."

"That isn't the half of it, though," she sighed. "But I guess you'll learn the rest when you get there."

I was carried, deemed too weak to walk, to an unsuspecting little car on the sidelines of the parking lot. The sun bore down on my skin, reminding me too clearly of the desert sun in Damascus. It all should have felt like a whole other life…but it didn't. It felt so vivid in my memory. Altair felt so vivid in my memory, but the most vivid feeling of them all was that of his blade in my throat. I cringed. Maybe…maybe he really wasn't who I thought he was. But he had told me he was sorry, like he never really wanted to do it. Then why did he? And how did the Assassins animate Malik the way they claimed? Even after so many answers, I was still confused.

"Are you hungry?" the man from earlier asked.

The blonde woman answered for me. "She'll need something if she's ever gonna get back on her feet. Actually, you'd better get some more rest, don't you think?"

I turned to look at her, noting how much younger she looked in the glaring light of the sun. The man who accompanied her was staring out the window anxiously, almost as though he thought we were being pursued. Maybe we were, but nobody seemed overly concerned with the possibility at the moment.

Some kind of energy bar was handed to me and I opened it in a daze. I was going along with this as though it were almost perfectly normal. Of course, I had done my fair share of freaking out beforehand. Maybe I was getting used to the absurd. I shivered at the thought. No one should ever get used to the absurd. The absurd tears you away from everything you ever knew. It strips you of your identity and hands you a new one on a tenebrous platter.

I felt tears welling up in my chest, but I was too angry to cry. I was angry at the scientists for kidnapping me, angry at the Assassins for not taking me back to my family right away, angry at Altair for not telling me what was going on the whole time we were together. But most of all, I was angry at myself. Why was I more concerned with answers and seeing Altair again than I was with my family, my school, my daily household chores? Where had that all gone?

The cityscape that had seemed so grand and dominant in the parking lot shriveled to a blur of scintillating mirrors as we sped through streets I had never seen in my life. I nibbled on my energy bar distractedly as the car was engulfed in a cautious silence. Everyone seemed to be on the lookout all of a sudden. Or maybe they always had and I was only noticing it now. I leaned my head back on the felted seat, sealing my eyes against the sun.

~.~.~.~.~

I groaned as I felt Faruq's hand nudging my shoulder, coaxing me to consciousness. I tried to brush him away, to tell him that I didn't care that the sun was rising. Only…it wasn't. My eyes flung open as I was confronted with reality. The car. The Assassins. The half-eaten energy bar that lay prostrate in my lap. It was all there, not Faruq, not the mountains or the villages, the Templars or the sand.

"We're here, Sarah," I heard the blonde woman say.

I looked through the window but there was only darkness. "Where is here?"

"You'll see." She smiled and took hold of my arm. "We're going to see if you can walk now, but don't let go of me, okay?"

I nodded sleepily and let her help me out of the car, taking the chance to get another look at our environment. But just as before, I could see only darkness, save for a single fluorescent a few feet from where we were standing. It glowed cavernously against what looked like concrete. Everything was concrete, or so it appeared. I glanced back at the direction from whence I assumed we came but there was nothing there either.

"Come on," the woman beckoned, urging me to walk towards the solitary light in front of us.

The other Assassins stayed behind, scouting around the area or something. I felt lighter than usual, like my head was barely there, but I was able to stand on my feet again. When we were practically right up against the wall, I saw that the little bluish light was not just some ordinary scone. Rather, it was some kind of device, the like of which I had never seen before. But did that surprise me? I had never imagined 'Animuses' to be possible before either.

The Assassin pressed the tip of her ring finger against it, and after a few seconds, the single light bloomed into a curved threshold luminescence. There was the sound of oxygen giving way, like some kind of decompression, and the concrete section now outlined by blue slid apart with heavy precision. Behind it was a hallway to yet another portal, only this one looked to be padded with some dull grey material. The hallway itself was scarcely lit. There were only a few lights in the walls that flickered unfaithfully as we walked past.

When we reached the padded door, the woman turned to me, one hand already propped against the handle. "Are you ready?"

I stared at her, confused. "I really think I've seen everything, now," I said blankly. "Go ahead."

"Not quite everything, Sarah. Not my a long shot."

"Aren't you going to turn the handle?" I asked when she made no effort to move.

"It's not for turning. It's for identifying."

I sighed. Of course the handle was not for turning. I should have been surprised to see all of this underground technology, shocked and amazed at such things, but none of it mattered to me. In fact, I was not entirely sure that I thought it real.

Without another moment's notice, the door before us opened and there on the other side of it was another hallway. But this one was different. It was long and looming, with yet another door at its base. What was with these people and hallways? I was about to press on to the end again when I was stopped by my crutch. She looked at me intently, shaking her head.

"We don't go any farther than this."

"What?" I choked. "W-Well, what's at the end of this hall? And why can't you come with me?"

She stared at me for a moment, considering. "This is where it is," she finally said. "This is where the Animus is."

My gaze flew to the end of the hall, to the humming metal door that stared so mysteriously. "Why do I have to-"

"Just try to trust us," she interrupted. "And believe me when I tell you there isn't a soul in this place who hasn't worked to get you here. Now go on."

She pushed my back gingerly, waited for me to get through the threshold of the padded door, and clicked it shut behind me. For the first time in what seemed like an eternity, I was alone. I swallowed my swarming thoughts and put a hand against the wall for support as I made my trek down the corridor. I did not even know why I was doing it. Sure, there seemed to be no turning back and all that, but I had to admit that a part of me was curious. I wanted to know what truly lay at the end of this hallway, the very same one that…that Altair must have walked down before he entered the machine.

After what felt like only seconds, I reached the new doorway. To my surprise, it responded immediately to my approach as a light pooled in its base and reached across its arch like water. The door breathed one quick short of life and opened, opened and opened and opened and-

"Altair!" I screamed, nearly toppling over my own feet as I bolted for his lopsided frame.