Disclaimer: Ubisoft owns AC.
March 21nd 2008, 10:06 hrs
Location: Guelph, Ontario
"Now, coming up to the end of the Crusades, it looked as if the Holy Lands were going to be lost, and as a result of this, faith and support for the Knights Templar began to fade. As the Templars were mainly used as an elite fighting force in the Crusades, the order began to fall apart." said Mrs. Redy, as she droned on and on about the Crusades and their effect on modern society.
My phone buzzed, and I carefully pulled it out of my pocket, unlocked it and looked at the screen.
"1 New Message" it said.
I sighed and looked at Katie across the room, shooting her a dirty look. She smirked at me back, but almost immediately turned back to the front.
"And that is why, Alex, we don't text in class!" Mrs. Redy said, causing the whole class to erupt in laughter. I looked over to Katie again, who shot me a look saying, "You idiot..."
June 8th 2008, 19:26 hrs
Location: Guelph, Ontario
"Kenny, where are we even going?" I yelled, as we sped down the highway on my brother's favourite motorcycle. Normally, at such speeds, we wouldn't have been able to talk to each other, but Kenny had had one of his friends install a radio in the helmets.
"We'll get there when we get there, in the meantime, let's talk," he said, "I know you have a lot of questions-"
"Damn right I do," I said, under my breath. It'd been four hours since I'd last seen my mother alive. If time heals all wounds, it wasn't doing a very good job as my heart was shattered and felt like it would never be whole again.
"-but you have to understand generations of us have worked to keep this a secret, from not only you, but the rest of the world. One day, Dad wanted you to know. But not like this. Not in this way." I guess he wasn't completely okay, despite him trying to put on a strong face for me and concentrating on explaining to me what exactly was going on.
"Know what?"
"Alex, there was a reason he was so tough on us when we were kids. Mom would've been the same if she hadn't retired from the Order." Kenny said, swerving the motorcycle to avoid a large semi.
"Kenny, what the hell are you talking about?"
"Think about it Alex! You've been trained your whole life! " My brother's voice was full of what sounded like pride with a tinge of sorrow. I closed my eyes and thought hard. My training, the daily workouts, the extra language classes... Could they all have been for something greater? Waldorf said something about Assassins and the men were wearing Templar pins. What did it mean?
I thought back to the activities once more remembering all that my Dad made me do as a kid, and still continue with now. Kung Fu. Running. Climbing. French lessons, Mandarin lessons.
"Have you ever wondered why you could anticipate things before they happen?" Kenny said softly, "How you found me in the forest that day? "
"How-?" I stuttered.
"Because I can do the same things." Kenny said, "But you're going to be better. Hell you already are better. Better than Dad, than Mom, better than me, better than allof us combined. Alex you're a third degree black belt and you're only seventeen! You're fluent in three languages and completely understand a fourth! You can run a 100m dash in 10.05 seconds and swim 200m in under a minute and a half! But why? Because you, Alex Lee-Nakanasa, are an Assassin."
I shook my head and just asked, "Waldorf called me that earlier. What does it mean? Am I going to kill a president, or wealthy businessman?"
"It means you are one of us, whether you like it or not! For hundreds, nearly thousands of years our family has kept the peace. We protect those who are innocent, and bring justice to those who deserve it." Kenny replied, exiting the highway and entering one of the backroads.
He slowed a down a bit as the roads began to turn into gravel, and the trees began to thicken as we went deeper into a forested area and scenery gave me time to think. Contemplate on what had just transpired over the past few hours. My hands were no longer shaking, but my head was still spinning. Four hours and my mother was dead and all of a sudden I'm part of a secret organization that exists only to my family and a couple of others.
Nobody said anything until Kenny eventually stopped his bike near what looked like an old, worn down farm. It was in the middle of a large field in the hollow of the forest, surrounded by thick trees and a gravel road. The long stalks of grass waved back and forth slowly in the wind as my brother took off his helmet and got off the bike. "Follow me." he commanded, "Keep your gun ready."
I nodded, then finally spoke. "So, us... Assassins. We just go around and kill people then? Did we kill JFK? Lincoln? Thomas D'Arcy McGee? And who were the guys back at home?"
"I'm not a historian-" Kenny began, but I interrupted him with a snort and mumbled, "Sure know a lot for someone who isn't a historian..."
"-and I'm not the one who is supposed to tell you all of this. Reuben will fill you in when we get inside." Kenny finished, as we waded through the sea of grass, towards the dilapidated farmhouse.
"And that's just what you think. There's so much more to this, even I don't know. And I know everything!" He added with a nervous laugh.
I sighed and shook my head. Kenny always tried to make a joke at the completely wrong time to try to lighten up the mood. Most of the time they weren't funny, and just really awkward, but I cut him some slack. He had lost a mother too.
The field seemed to go on forever, the whole expanse was at least 200 meters long and wide, and was filled with tall brown grass. On the edges of the fields there were tall oak and birch trees in the surrounding area, where Kenny had left his bike.
The whole scene made for an incredible picture, the sun was setting at the perfect distance, the sky tinted orange with the black night creeping. The light from the setting sun cast a beautiful shadow on the farmhouse, which we continued to walk in silence towards.
Crack.
I whipped my head around towards the road which we came in and saw that Kenny's bike was gone. I thought I saw a tree branch rustle, but dismissed it as lack of sleep, and was about to turn back when suddenly a red laser appeared on my jacket, targeting my chest.
"Uh, Kenny? Your bikes gone and I think my chest is about to become a bloody canvas." I whispered, "Help me please."
"Shit." I heard him say from behind me. "They think you're the enemy. Drop your gun and hold your hands up high."
I did what he told me, and I saw his own hands fly up. But he had one finger on his wrist, the one with the knife, pressing a button that had a similar, if not the same, laser targeting system. He flashed it multiple times in a sequential order, as the one on my chest flashed along with it.
Kenny finally finished, then dropped his hands, and the light disappeared from my chest. I breathed a sigh of relief and fell to the ground panting. Images of the dead man's body and my mother's own popped into my head and I gagged, with nothing to throw up. This day couldn't get any worse.
My brother put a hand on my shoulder and helped me up. "Sorry, we have snipers posted in the trees. Now come on, we're almost here. Step exactly where I'm stepping, look at my footsteps and step directly into them."
He began to take a strange and windy path towards the farmhouse which was actually very nearby. We were in the middle of nowhere, and night was fast approaching, wolves and bears would be prowling soon enough, so getting inside was a priority.
"Instead of walking this way, why don't we just walk there?" I asked.
"We rigged the grounds so we wouldn't all get ambushed or attacked head on. Walking straight there would seem like the most obvious way to get there, the enemy wouldn't even see it coming." Kenny said, without taking his eyes off the path only he could see. "Let's see if you can figure it out little brother."
"How am I-?" I began to ask but Kenny had already ran towards the farmhouse, and before I knew it, he had disappeared into the night. "Of course you left me." In the middle of a random field, in a random forest by a random farmhouse. I looked at my arm to the bracer my mother gave me, took it off and threw it at the ground yelling. Why did this have to happen to me?
I sat down on the ground, with my head in my hands once more. At least the blood was dry. "What am I doing here?" I whispered, "This is insane..." I broke down once more crying over the loss of my mother, and the loss of the normal life that I couldn't have.
After a few moments I regained my composure. I needed to get inside that farmhouse so I could punch Kenny in the face and get some rest. I'd had enough of today.
I looked for his footsteps, but I couldn't seem to find them as I was only following where he walked, not his actual footsteps.
"I could ask the snipers for directions..." I thought to myself, but then realized that was probably not the smartest idea seeing as they had just tried to kill me a few moments ago. I looked up to the sky, the stars were just starting to peek out of the clouds, but the moon was shining brightly in the night sky.
I searched my pockets for something, anything, that I could use to help me. I found my gun and the clip that Kenny gave to me earlier. I released a bullet from the bottom and rolled it around in my hand then threw it a meter ahead of me.
The bullet landed safely on the grass several steps ahead of me.
"Huh. Maybe this will actually work. Kenny thought he'd left me behind, just wait until he gets a load of my fist in his stupid ass face."
I took a step forward, taking my eye off of the bullet when the ground erupted. The force of a landmine exploding before you for the first time can't really be expressed until after your ass has been blown a few meters from where you stood. I noticed the burned dirt searing pain into my skin, my ears ringing and my vision blurred once again. My head started to spin once more but my hands were strangely not shaking. Guess my body got used to being in shock.
"Fuck," I mumbled spitting blood out of my mouth. The mine must've malfunctioned or I would've been dead right now. That or the people inside wanted me to live.
I needed another way over. But how? I closed my eyes and concentrated, then re-opened them and activated my ability. But everything was black. There was no sign of anything that could help.
I turned it off and swore under my breath. "This is so STUPID. Why couldn't Kenny just tell me what to do? But how did he get through?"
"Because I can do the same things!" Kenny said, "But you're better. Better than Dad, than Mom, better than me, better than any of us will ever be!"
"I'm better. What if there's more to my ability?" I thought to myself. I concentrated and turned it on again, everything turning black once more. "Come on..." I said clenching my teeth. I concentrated hard on finding the bombs in the ground, "Show me a path!" I yelled in frustration, and I saw a flicker of yellow in my peripheral vision.
I concentrated harder visualizing what I wanted. My vision flickered and when I opened my eyes again, there were multiple outlines of yellow in the grass, all identical rectangular shapes. They were also roughly spaced out very evenly.
"Gotcha," I said, and began to maneuver my way around the landmines. I looked up to the trees and saw blue silhouettes of people in equally separated trees. It took my less than five minutes to get around all the mines planted in the ground, and make it to the farmhouse.
The outside had dark wooden planks on it, but through the gaps you could see metal, and with my ability, you could see invisible lasers that went off when unauthorized personnel entered the building. The building itself was rather tall, taller than an average pine tree. The door looked normal except for the keypad near the middle. Other than that though, it looked like an old abandoned farmhouse.
"What is this place?" I wondered aloud.
"That my friend, is the Farm. Canadian Branch of course. And you are lucky you're not dead, good thing the security team knew you were coming. Set the mines to a lower explosive setting." I heard a voice, with a British accent from above. I saw a hooded man sitting on top of the barn, crouching. Behind him was a wind vane in the shape of an eagle. He leaped off and landed on his feet.
"How did you do that?" I asked skeptically.
"Basic high altitude landing technique, you'll learn it soon rookie," he said, "I'm Tom. And no, I don't have a last name, and yes, I'm from England. Now let's get inside. I could never understand how you Canadian's stand the cold nights."
"Its June..." Tom shrugged and smirked. From up close, I noticed he was wearing an almost identical jacket as my brother, except the hood had blue and red stripes running down the 'beak' of the eagle. "My brother has that sweater. The colours, what do they represent?"
"Different branch. Blue and red are Britain's colours, red and white are Canada's. Brazil had green and yellow, the States blue, white and red and so on. But seriously, we gotta get inside, if you die, it's my ass on the line," Tom said, "Kenneth told me you already developed Eagle Sense. I bloody don't even have stupid powers, not enough First Civ blood in me they said. Fuckin' sucks, you're lucky."
He gestured to the keypad, but I had no idea what to do. So I just blindly sat there staring at the pad, wondering what Eagle Sense even was.
"Eagle Sense! E-a-g-l-e space S-e-n-s-e!" he said spelling it out for me, as if I was stupid. "Do you know what that is?"
I shook my head. I was ready to punch this guy in the face next, after Kenny of course.
"Oh you idiot," Tom said under his breath, "That thing where you close your eyes, and then you open it and everything is trippy? Yeah, you know what I'm talking about now don't you?"
I rolled my eyes, but realized he was right. I turned on my ability, what he called 'Eagle Sense', and looked at the number pad. Certain numbers stayed the same, but some were finger printed red, and I knew that those were the keys I had to press. But in what order?
"Yes, what order shall you take?" Tom laughed, as if he knew exactly what I was thinking.
I ignored him and punched in 1,9,0,4 but that didn't work. I tried 4,0,1,9 but that didn't work either. "Come on..." I punched in 0,9,1,4 and the number pad made a beep, and the door went click.
"Congrats, third time's the charm." Tom said, and opened the doors.
The light from inside almost blinded me, the outside being so dark. But when my eyes adjusted I saw that the inside of 'The Farm' was totally different than what the outside looked like. First of all, the wooden doors on the outside were reinforced with steel, and by the looks of it, it was pretty thick.
The inside was the designed like a small airport hangar, I had seriously misjudged it's size. The roof had a few sunroofs which were ironically letting in moonlight, but most of the blinding white light that had blinded me earlier was coming from numerous flood lights installed on the ceiling.
]The building was filled with rows of computers large desks beside them. The whole left side and right side of the room were filled with them, leaving an open walkway leading to a spiral staircase going up and down. Almost every computer was filled with a person typing furiously or talking on a bluetooth head set.
At the far end of hangar was a gigantic screen that showed a world map, the background was black with the continents outlined in green. All across the map were scattered dots, some blue, some grey and some red. The biggest blue one was in what looked like South Dakota, and there was another blue dot right were Guelph was. Another blue dot was situated in Australia, and a few others in Europe. There was one blue dot each in Africa, South America and Asia.
But the blue dots were seriously outnumbered by the red dots, which were seriously outnumbered by the grey dots.
"Those are the fallen camps, the blue ones are the remaining ones. If you look in Dubai, that's where we used to have headquarters," I heard a familiar voice say from behind me.
I turned around and saw Kenny looking up at the screen, but he wasn't the only person. Beside him was an older white man, in his early fifties, the sides of his hair was greying, but other than that he was in shape.
"You asshole!" I yelled at Kenny, "You left me out there! After all of this, you left me out there and I almost died!" I punched him in the chest, but immediately regretted it as almost a dozen red light appeared on my chest again.
The man lifted his hand, and the lights disappeared. His eyes didn't waver from the screen, nor did he even acknowledge me. Tom went over to him and whispered something in his ear, to which the man waved him off and Tom went right back outside, but not before winking to me.
Kenny just shrugged his shoulders, "I told you you could make it kid, they say the fastest way to learn is on the job." He looked exhausted, but still smiled to keep up a good image to whom I assumed was his boss. I immediately felt terrible for Kenny, realizing that I had treated him terribly. He had to go through the same ordeal I did, plus kill two men and he still put on a good face. I resolved to talk to him later.
"That's enough Kenny," the man ordered, and turned to me finally, "You must have a lot of questions, Alex. My name's Walker Abbott."
Walker's voice sounded vaguely familiar, as if I had known him in a distant past. They began walking towards the staircase and I followed suit. "D-do I know you?"
Walker chuckled, "I was around a lot when you were a kid. Your dad and I are close friends. I'm so sorry about your mother." He put a hand on my shoulder with a sympathetic look on face.
"Thanks." It was all I could muster without completely breaking down again.
"Walker's the Mentor up here. The, uh, leader of sorts. Rueben will explain everything. Except the Purge that's Walker's job," Kenny said, looking at Walker.
"December 1st 2000. The Great Purge. We lost so many, even the women and children. Many were my friends." Walker spoke with the type of sorrow I knew only came from a great tragedy. It'd be the way I'd talk about my mother from now on. "Right after we had lost our Order's Mentor, the Templars found our bases, our camps, our homes. They killed them all."
"Walker escaped by fighting his way through the Templar strike team. You're never going to find a better marksman than this guy right here," Kenny nervously laughed. "Come on, let's leave boss alone, I'm going to introduce you to a friend."
More to come next chapter. Comments are greatly appreciated.