I tried to envoke an Assassin's Creed like atmosphere, I really did, but I failed.

NOTE: This doesn't take place in the Assassin's Creed Universe.

Not As It Seems

Tucker Foley was up late – again.

His life had gone uphill in the past ten years, all-in-all. A well-paying job for the CIA as a computer technician (a fancy way of saying hacker), a girlfriend and a (government-supplied) penthouse – what more could you want?

To that, the reply would be less work.

The CIA had been abuzz lately – a particular country seemed to be massing its forces on the Korean Demilitarized Zone – and as much intel on enemy plans had to be uncovered as possible.

Suppressing a yawn, Tucker gave a silent cheer as he finally managed to hack into the enemy computers – they were better then he'd thought. All their plans were before him; troop movements, domestic policies, even the dictator's daily timetable.

Reading into everything, Tucker's annoyance was raised. Apparently, they weren't planning an invasion – far from it, this was a training exercise. Typical military intelligence, thinking it was an invasion.

Exasperated, he emailed his report to his boss and prepared to shut down his computer when something caught his eye.

It was a small code on the Korean page – YTEICOSNAINNATIRB.

Dismissing it (he'd think about it tomorrow), Tucker closed the page and went for a well deserved rest.

Next morning, Tucker entered a small electronics shop on the high street – Cartwright Internet Applications – and walked beyond a door proclaiming 'Staff Only.'

This was the entrance to the secret lift, which took him to the CIA's Animatia headquarters. It wasn't much, really – just a small amount of underground offices where everyone knew each other, with a larger office/suite where the boss both lived and worked. Hardly anyone entered more then once a week.

Animatia was a larger city then Amity Park – nearly 3,000,000 lived here to Amity Park's million – and Tucker found it refreshing to work in such a small workplace. As he walked to his office, he ran into Gerald Johansson.

Gerald occupied the office across from Tucker's, and had become quite a good friend of his. Gerald was a field agent – that meant that he often got called away on assignments abroad. He had been gone for some time, so Tucker decided to catch up.

"So how was Moscow?" he asked.

"Classified," shrugged Gerald, "Apart from that, though, it was pretty good. Anyway, I just got out with the Boss – he wants to see you."

"Aw man, do I have to," sighed Tucker.

Gerald put his hand on his shoulder.

"I feel for you man," he said in a sympathetic tone.

Tucker had little time to drop his stuff before he had to be before his boss, so he dumped it all on his desk without bothering to arrange it.

Carefully, he opened the door to his boss' office. The man himself was sitting calmly at his desk, typing on his computer.

"Sit down, Mr. Foley," he said, waving his hand.

Tucker sat down, not quite sure what was going to happen.

"First of all, I'd like to thank you for your work last night," complimented the boss (Tucker could not see his face past the laptop), "You stop us from going guns blazing to Seoul, which I'm pretty sure would've been a bad thing."

"Thanks, sir," nodded Tucker.

"I'm here to talk to you about Danny Phantom."

Tucker froze.

"What did you say sir?"

"I said I'm here to talk to you about Danny Phantom," replied the boss in a hard tone, "Have you been in contact with him lately?"

"Err…a little," replied Tucker, nervously, "Why?"

The boss turned his monitor around.

A photo was displayed on screen. It pictured Danny, caught in a spotlight, with a code scrawled on a brick wall behind him.

I N E E
G S N H
H I D T

"What the heck?" Tucker breathed.

"We were hoping you'd know," replied the boss, "Phantom's been drawing these across Amity Park lately, and we've got him on watch. We believe that he could have been employed or forced to work for…"

Tucker glanced at the boss' suit, spying small writing sown on the pocket.

YTEICOSNAINNATIRB. The same code from the enemy network.

"Is there a problem, Mister Foley?" asked the boss.

"Err…nah, I'm mind, Mr…I forget again…" began Tucker.

"Tamworth, son – Sating Tansbury," replied Mr. Tansbury, "Is there a problem?"

SAting TANsbury.

"Err…may I be excused, sir, I'm pretty exhausted from last night," stammered Tucker.

"Sure, you can have the morning off," shrugged Mr. Tansbury, "But when you get back, I want you to work on Project Lucifer."

LUCIFER – SATAN.

"Y-yes sir," nodded Tucker, practically throwing himself from the room.

Tucker entered the lift, thinking it over. Why did his boss have such a…biblical name? What was with the codes? What was with…anything?"

He began to think.

He'd been taught about codes when he joined the CIA. One tactic was to read things backwards.

YTEICOSNAINNATIRB. BRITANNIANSOCIETY. BRITANNIAN SOCIETY.

One down – maybe. But what was the Britannian Society, and why would it concern Korea and America?

Leaving the building and stepping onto the street, Tucker continued to rack his brain.

He'd played a lot of video games in his time. He'd seen a code similar to Danny's in one of them. Go from the bottom right-hand corner, and read up and down.

THE END IS NIGH.

Now he was running, back to his apartment (while mentally thanking himself for having a good memory). What was this about the end?

He continued to think, and things suddenly seemed significant. His apartment building was number four on his street – four horses of the apocalypse. His area code was 666. And – no, he was getting paranoid now.

Entering the foyer of his apartment, he entered the lift. Closing the door, he looked in the mirror and tried to tell himself to relax, that it was all just a weird twist of fate.

His reflection grinned at him. Tucker was pretty sure he wasn't grinning.

"I suppose you think this is End Times," growled his reflection, "Repent you sins, all that rubbish, right?"

He laughed a harrowing, hollow laugh.

"Religion is a ruse," he snarled, "A codebook for the real history of mankind – and I will tell you that you won't expect it."

Reflection Tucker smiled, and Tucker screamed as his flesh rotted away, leaving a skeleton and a final, raspy statement.

"Run, Tucker Foley."

The door opened, and Tucker bolted for his apartment. Grabbing the phone, he dialled his girlfriend.

"Star…i-it's Tucker – look, meet me in the foyer, we have to get out of here, something is seriously wrong…"