I'm back bitches. This chapter should be quite a bit of fun as it visits one of my other characters, who is also featured in another one of my stories, Adam Cassel, who just happens to be the grandfather of our very own Alex.
Also, its nearly the three year anniversary of the story. And this is the 9th chapter. Great productivity, go me!
Disclaimer: Ubisoft owns Assassins's Creed but they don't seem to be doing a very good job with it as of late so I'm just going to assume I can use their characters.
Date: September 7th 1944, 22:16 hrs
Location: Auschwitz Concentration Camp, Poland
"Tell me about the artifact! What did you see?"
Cassel stared down the Führer with a burning hatred as his friend had a gun pointed to his head. A large crowd full of camp workers, Sonderkommandos and SS soldiers watched on behind fences. Two personal guards stood by Hitler who continued to press against Cassel with their guns.
"Tell me or he dies!"
Rochard stared and shook his head at Adam, as he watched his friend, bound and gagged.
"Verpiss dich, sie sohn von einem Weibchen," Adam spat, "You Templar filth."
Click.
The gun cocked back as Hitler pressed the gun into Rochard's head further. "Last chance, Assassin."
Adam swore in German once more and spat in the face of the world's most hated man.
BANG
Date: September 8th 2012, 01:09 hrs
Location: The Farm, Ontario
"It has the power to turn back time."
Silence filled the dusty old room, the only noise being the creaky fan that spun above the group.
Alex finally broke the silence saying one word. "How?" Walker wasn't one to joke about this type of thing. If he said it could turn back time then it could turn back time. No matter how stupidly fantastic it sounded.
"Do we know how the Apple works? Or the Crystal Skulls for that matter? All we know is that it opens a window for us," Walker replied standing up and walking over to a shelf in the back.
Despite just being a picture on a tablet, the green disk seemed to emanate an eerie aura, seemingly all knowing and all powerful. Alex noticed that there was an Abstergo Industries watermark on the bottom left corner of the picture, with a date marked October, 1943. Walker came back with a couple of file, and threw them down on the table. They were labelled Project Rainbow, and Cassel 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2.
Alex grabbed the Cassel 1.0 folder and starting flipping through the file on his now deceased grandfather. As a child, Alex never knew him; he died a few years after Alex's father was killed. Both his grandmother and his father refused to talk about him, the only thing that Alex knew was that he was an Assassin and that was only discovered after being inducted into the Brotherhood.
Walker sat back down in his seat. "The Disk itself seems to allow the user to view into the past or the future giving the sense of 'turning back time'. Different individuals react differently to it others; some may see the future, some the past."
"Wait a second, if the Templars had this disk since at least 1943," Alex pointed to the watermark, "Then how the hell do you know so much about it?"
"They didn't have the disk until late 1944. And I was on the experiment team, remember?"
"Oh yeah, I forgot you were born same time as my Grandpa. Of course, because that makes loads of sense," Tom rolled his eyes
Alex nodded in agreement, "Yeah, there's still the looming question in that how the hell is Walker so young if he was part of the experiment team in 19-fucking-43?"
"We were testing how the disk interacted with the technology aboard our ship, the Eldridge-"
Alex was getting impatient, so he just cut off Walker. "Yeah, I know the story. Apparently the ship disappeared, using cloaking technologies that didn't exist. The American military was supposed to use it to defeat the Japs in the Pacific."
"Correct. We used the Disk on board the ship, combining it with various technologies and subjecting it to various experiments that I'm not going to get into right now," Walker added the last bit when he saw Alex's mouth open about to ask another question.
"Wait, the experiment occurred in 1944, correct?" Alex asked anyways, confused. The dates didn't line up.
"Correct."
"Then how in the hell did the experiment occur in 1943?"
"The Disk responded to our meddling, but we couldn't control it. Glowing green it blasted a wave of energy that transported us into the past for a few mintues. What the public and conspiracy theorists perceived as a cloaking device was actually us disappearing from 1944 back into 1943. That's where the witnesses noticed a ship 'coming out of nowhere', we had travelled back in time exactly one year," Walker responded matter-of-factly.
"Of course we didn't stay for long, the Disk re-adjusted itself and shot us back to 1944. We came back relatively unharmed a few minutes later, and from there Abstergo shut down the project. Our trip seemed to have no residual effect."
"However, although it took some time, we all began to notice one problem; we all stopped aging. For some of us it lasted a few months, which was barely noticeable, but for most we looked the same up until the 60's or 70's. I was 24 going into the experiment and didn't start aging again until 1979, and even then at a decelerated rate. Right now, I should by 82. I still move like a 45 year old man." Walker continued, "It seems that in addition to turning back time physically, it also slows down time biologically, with prolonged use of course."
After I discovered how powerful this could be, and what the Templars had planned to do with it, the inhuman aspects of the Disk, I stole it and hid it. I lived in Northern Canada for a while, before a certain Assassin-" Walker gestured to Richard, "-who was also looking the Disk and tracked it here, found me and recruited me."
"Alright, while that's all very fine and well, why did bring the files on Alex's grandpa? He had nothing to do with the Disk!" Laurel asked.
This time it was Richard who answered as Alex reached over to the Cassel 1.2 file and began to flip through it. The cover had a grainy greyscale picture of a man of average height, with short hair and small eyes and a small, but visible scar on his left eyebrow. Beside him was a shorter man of larger build, with shoulder length hair and a scar that ran from his face to his chest.
"My father encountered the Disk shortly before it was taken by the Templars," Richard explained.
Alex dreaded the answer to the question he asked next, fearing that he already knew exactly what the answer was, "What did he see?"
Richard smiled with a twinkle in his eye, "Why not see for yourself?"
"Are you sure you can even work this thing without our full Animus team here, Dad?" Alex asked as the entire group walked into the white Animus room. The all of the equipment had a thin layer of dust on it, as if it hadn't been used in a while, with the Animus sitting in the middle of the room. A large screen lay beside it, for memory and sequence viewing.
Richard walked over and began turning on the machines, which flickered, came to life and began to make quiet, humming noises. "Like 90% sure... How hard could it be?"
Laurel sniggered, "Oh, I missed you Mr. Lee." She pushed Otto through the door and held a shotgun to his back. "Sit down."
Otto sat down in the corner, and Laurel knocked him out again with the butt of her gun.
"90 percent! Dad!" Alex protested, "Why don't you put yourself through it instead, and I can sit here on the side and watch what's going on safely like everyone else is."
"Because your father has another mission. And he's not even the one running the Animus, I am. 100%," Walker said with a wink, "Your dad knows all of this already, I briefed him before you came."
"Dad?" Laurel mumbled something under her breath about that fact that no one fun would be left in the group, but Alex ignored it. He couldn't believe his Dad was leaving again, especially in such dire times.
"Alexander, Erudito is sending me somewhere else, I'm going back to the States to work out some loose ends and figure out exactly who's helping us. And why." Richard finished booting up the machines as the Animus, "Someone has to figure out exactly what's going on here, how Abstergo found us again, who the hell Erudito is and what the Templars endgame is. Besides, at my age, using the Animus is dangerous."
Alex sighed, "Just be careful, okay?" There was no point in arguing. As much as Alex wanted his father around again, even for a moment, he knew that he had to go for the greater good of mankind. He walked up and hugged his dad, who squeezed back hard.
"I will son; I'll call you when it's safe."
Laurel walked up and hugged Richard as soon as he let go of Alex, with Tom coming to shake his hand soon after. Walker simply put a hand on his shoulder and giving him good luck as Richard walked out of the room back into the dangerous world.
Everyone stood silent for a moment before Tom broke the silence, "Right, we have work to do don't we? We haven't much time Alex, Walker said himself so let's get a move on it."
Alex nodded, taking off his hoodie so he was just in his t-shirt and laid down on the Animus chair. "Just like old times. At least I don't have to deal with screaming Native Americans and bears and hide and seek again."
Walker typed into the keyboard beside the Animus screen as Laurel sat down beside him. Tom leaned back against the wall staring at the screen.
"Alright, just making sure that we can get you configured correctly now... Alex I'm loading you in now. Ready?" Walker asked. Laurel took Alex's hand and squeezed it.
"As ready as I'm going to be."
Walker pressed enter into the keyboard as the Animus leaned back and a glass panel slid over Alex's eyes. Alex's vision blurred as he entered the virtual space and suddenly everything went black.
"Ah shit," Alex heard Walker mumble, "Sorry, a bit rusty. Let's load you into the training simulator first. It seems your body needs a bit of time to adjust to this." Alex could no longer feel his own body, but could hear furious typing.
With one last click, Alex opened his eyes to see a vast, endless grey room, with white streaks all over. "I'm in." Alex said out loud, knowing they would hear it through the monitor. He tested his hand movements, which were fine, and then began running making sure that everything was working properly.
"Vitals are holding strong, Alex. Now loading the furthest sequence in your grandfather's DNA," said Walker's ominous voice.
Alex's vision began to flicker again as he closed his eyes and breathed in slowly getting ready for his body to change into his grandfather's. "Let's do it."
Date: August 23rd 1944, 10:38 hrs
Location: Lublin, Poland
Adam Cassel looked outside the window of the relatively empty train he was on, watching as the countryside passed by quickly. He began tapping his pen on the side of the car quickly, nervous for what he would find in Ukraine.
He soon began tapping his foot on the bottom of the floor. This was a dangerous time to be travelling in Poland. With the Russians approaching from the East and the Allies slowly making their way up through the west, the Third Reich had began tightening its control everywhere trying to root out enemy spies and assassins. Whispers of uprisings by the Polish Home Army didn't help either.
Of course the entire war was a front orchestrated by the Templars, but most of the soldiers didn't know that. Adam continued with his pen and foot, watching the trees and shrubbery pass by.
"Would you fucking stop that?"
Adam looked beside to his partner, Patrick O'Leary. He was a stout man, with a large scar running from his eye to his chest accentuated by his dark beard. He had a scowl on his face, which was quite unusual for the Irishman. But then again, who wasn't scowling these days?
"Sorry."
"Hmph," O'Leary pulled out a cigarette and lit it, tucking his long hair back behind his head. He offered one to Adam who declined. "Don't worry Gryn, everything's going to be fine. These Nazi's are stupid than, uh..."
"You?" Adam chuckled. Gryn was his code name, "green" in Hebrew. The car was empty except for a family of four sitting a few rows back. Adam had already checked them and had continued to monitor them the entire train ride, but they seemed harmless. "Just call me Adam; we can drop the code names now. It's been over a week, Pat-"
"Arse."
"-and its not the getting caught I'm worried about. I know they're stupid I've been on the run from them since Valkyrie. It's what Rochard sent us after, we know nothing about it." He and O'Leary were sent on a mission to retrieve a Piece of Eden by their "team leader", Justinien Rochard, an old friend of Adam's. There were six of them, all Assassins, sent out in teams of two to retrieve PoE's before the Templars could get their hands on them. Frères de Feu they called themselves.
"I mean, everyone else is hunting Apples. We're hunting a mirror," Adam continued, "We don't even know if these Gypsy stories are true! We literally know nothing about this damned mission. "
O'Leary chuckled, "Speak for yourself mate. I know plenty about this mirror." He closed his eyes and began to go to sleep.
Adam stared at O'Leary and sighed. He was a real piece of work sometimes. "Care to share?"
Now it was Patrick's turn to sigh. He sat up straight and picked up his cigarette from the ashtray on the desk in front of them. He took a long drag then began to speak, "The Templar I talked to said that these Gypsies used this mirror to make unnatural predictions. Ones that were unnaturally truthful.
Half the time the cunts just tell you want you want to hear, you know. Anyways, he said that this mirror was first seen in Rome. You ever hear of Cassandra of Troy?"
Adam nodded. "She supposedly foresaw the fall of Troy. But that's just a myth."
"And so are the Apples of Eden. God, you're supposed to be the smart one. Anyways, it eventually found its way to Delphi where it was used by the Oracles there for years. All I know from there is that some Assassin stole it from them and it eventually found its way to the Romani, or the Gypsies as you know them."
Adam began fiddling with his pen again, and started out the window.
"Good enough for you?"
Adam nodded, "Thanks. I'll have a plan by the time we reach Kiev. We can't go rushing in like I suppose you want to do."
"Oh go fuck your-Actually... you're right. I would do it that way." O'Leary took Adam's cabbie hat and placed it over his eyes drifting back to sleep.
Knowing its history wasn't enough. In order for Adam to deal with the artifact properly, he had to know exactly how it worked and why the Romani. Why pick a nomadic people? Was it pure coincidence? Or did that Assassin give it to them? Adam began tapping his foot once more.
"Would you please for the love of everything good in this world, stop that fucking tapping!"
Date: September 8th 2012, 01:45 hrs
Location: The Farm, Ontario
Alex's vision flickered once more and he was back in the endless training room.
"Walker? What the hell, I was just getting into it!" he yelled upwards. That was the first time he had ever experienced his grandfather's memories. He had never met him of course, but it was a much stranger experience than delving into Connor's memories.
"Sequence ended. Gives us a chance to skip ahead in time..." Walker's voice emanated throughout the open space. "Ready to go back in? We're all loaded up."
Date: August 25th 1944, 16:40 hrs
Location: Kiev, Ukraine
Adam picked up his bag, and slung it over his shoulder, putting his cabby hat back on his head. His small ears nestled right back into the hat as he carefully hid his gun behind his trench coat.
"Ready."
He turned back to O'Leary who nodded as they calmly walked out of the train veering left avoiding the Soviet checkpoint, as the Red Army had 'liberated' Kiev almost a year ago. Either way, they were all Templars and he and O'Leary would rather not draw attention to themselves at the time.
They continued through the dense train station crowd, blending into their surroundings before reaching the edge of the station. A large fence surrounding the train tracks stood between them and the road past the checkpoint
Wordlessly, O'Leary ran and climbed up the fence with Adam turned to keep watch, his hand hovering by his gun. O'Leary reached the top and leaped off landing with a quiet thud. He then pulled out his own gun and kept watch over Adam while he climbed up and over, avoiding the Nazi checkpoint.
Once safely across the fence and the soldiers, kneeled down and pulled out a map, indicating the area in which the fortune telling gypsies were usually found. "The largest areas in which where people would be seem like the best bet. St. Sophia's Cathedral seems like a good as a place as any to start at," Adam began pointing to an area by a large river.
"Wait, I thought you thought out a plan? What happened to 'Let's not rush in there'!" O'Leary said with a smirk on his face.
Cassel scowled at his partner as he folded up his map and began walking off, ignoring the quip. O'Leary sighed and caught up wordlessly as they walked together into the heart of the city.
"Alright, now what?" O'Leary asked, shielding his eyes from the sun, "Say... Can I borrow your ca-"
"-No. And now, we're going to make ourselves easy pickings. We need to attract the gypsies to us and follow them back home. We'll question them there." Cassel replied, readjusting his cap to shield his eyes from the sun. The pair had now made it into the busy square outside of St. Sophia's Cathedral and were sitting on a bench watching people pass by. Despite the Soviet occupation, the square was packed full of people going about their daily business.
"Sorry, we're going to what?"
"We need them to steal from us, they'll then bring it back to wherever they set up shop and we'll check out the artifact from there. Quick give me something valuable," Cassel replied holding out his hand looking out towards the crowd.
"Hold on mate, why don't we just find them ourselves and ask them to tell us our fortune or whatever? They've been using the mirror for that anyways, we might be able to take it from them right there and then!" O'Leary threw up his hands in exasperation.
"Look, I can't make sure for certain that they'll actually give us access to the mirror upfront, it would be a hell of a lot easier catching them with it by surprise."
"Who the hell put you in charge anyways?"
Cassel turned and glared at his partner. "You have another plan that will guarantee we retrieve this mirror? Because if we fuck up, the Templar shitbags will get that mirror and do who knows what with it, so if you have something better be my guest."
O'Leary returned a hard stare back into Cassel's chocolate eyes, then started to laugh. "I like you," he chuckled, pulling off a gold ring and fastening it loosely to a string on his belt. "Let them nick this... But hey, I want that back."
Adam snorted and got up with a small smile on his face. "Lets do this then." They both got up and began walking in the crowd, with O'Leary slightly ahead of Cassel who stood back and watched the ring carefully.
It didn't take long for a hooded child to run by and bump into O'Leary, disappearing with the ring as well. O'Leary began to turn his head back but Cassel quickly shook his head. They couldn't alert any other local thieves that they knew the ring was stolen. O'Leary continued to walk with Cassel walking closely behind him.
Cassel closed his eyes concentrating hard on switching his vision and activating his ability. He found that as he got older it got easier and easier. As a child having his "eagle vision", as Rochard called it, on put a strain on his eyes that hurt so much he couldn't have it on for more than two minutes. Now, as Cassel approached his late 20s found himself able to sustain his ability for at least 30 minutes on end.
Everything went black for a split second but quickly returned with everyone being outlined in a dull white, save for O'Leary who was outlined in a light blue, a few soldiers outlines in red and a few members of the crowd outlined in yellow. A trail of small yellow footprints led east out of the downtown area.
Deciding it had been long enough that other thieves wouldn't suspect anything. "Pat, follow me," Cassel said, quickly turning away and following the path. Pushing his way through the crowd he followed the path closely, only looking up to make sure he didn't run into any lamp poles or assorted objects.
As he reached the edge of the crowd he noticed the footsteps getting more and more spaced apart, signifying that the child thief had now began running. Cassel looked around, making sure that no guards were near by, while also waiting for O'Leary who caught up panting.
"Holy shit it's hot in that crowd," he said, out of breath, "How in the hell are you not hot?" Cassel had not even broken a sweat despite the warm temperature outside combined with the additional body heat that the massive crowd was giving off.
"Born and raised in the Jerusalem my friend, you'll get used to it. Now come on, let's take to the roofs." Adam didn't bother waiting for his heavier, stockier counterpart. He could catch up, and there was a PoE to track down.
He broke into a sprint and ran up a cart jumping to a windowsill. He hung there for less than a second, beginning to climb up the side of a shop in the middle of the square. Adam had been climbing for longer than he could remember, playing hide and seek with his childhood friend and fellow Assassin, Charlie Hampton. Even as an adult he found himself climbing everywhere, because as an Assassin if there was one thing you needed to be good at, it was climbing.
Finally reaching the top he looked ahead, his Eagle Vision still activated. From high above he could see a small figure outlined in yellow running away from the city's core into the poorer areas. O'Leary caught up and pulled out a pair of binoculars. "There. That's where we need to go," Cassel pointed to an area about 200 meters away. "Podil, or Поділ, as the locals call it."
"How the bloody hell do you even know that?"
Cassel just smirked and ran off yelling, "Try and keep up!"
Click.
"Click." O'Leary said, loading a mag into his pistol and holstering it. Cassel did the same, but without the annoying spoken onomatopoeia.
"Ready?" Cassel asked. It took a little less than an hour to track down where majority of the gypsies lived within the slums of Kiev. Took even less time to track down what house held the prized Piece of Eden. Eagle Vision seemed to help narrow down the target if you knew exactly what you were looking for, but the problem was Cassel had no idea what it looked like, so Eagle Vision narrowed it down to the house that he and his partner were now standing on top of.
That wasn't the only complication they ran into. The other problem was getting the information on where exactly it was hidden, so he and O'Leary had waited it out until it started to get dark, so that they didn't attract as much attention. Interrogating in broad daylight while trying to remain anonymous was a very, very, difficult task.
"Yeah, I guess. It just doesn't feel proper to bust down some random peoples door when they're about to sleep you know?" O'Leary looked over the edge of the nearly destroyed roof, looking at the light coming out of the window below.
"Yeah, well, it also won't seem proper when Templars get the PoE and use it to, uh… To… Fuck it, I still don't really know what this thing does but they would do bad stuff to it I know! Now suck it up and let's go." Cassel moved towards the edge, pulling out his gun and jumping down with his partner following closely behind.
O'Leary stood watch, his pistol up, as Cassel picked the lock on the window. "Got it," he said, breaking the locks inner mechanisms and opening the window, "After you."
"Please, ladies first." O'Leary gestured for Cassel to move in first, which was responded with a deadly scowl.
"Fuck off, will you just go?"
O'Leary sniggered and climbed through the window. Cassel did one quick check on the streets then climbed in. The street seemed to be clear, save for a beggar across the street asleep, wrapped up in a thin blanket. The moon shone high in the clear night sky and the slum was relatively quiet despite the Soviet occupation.
Click. "Drop the gun. Move and he dies," growled a female voice. Cassel let go of his gun and looked up to see O'Leary being held by a large elderly man with a knife to his neck. Cassel's heart sank, this was entirely his fault; if he was just more careful none of this would've happened.
The woman barked out another order-like question, "How did you find us!"
Adam just stared at the man holding his partner, not daring to turn his head to see the woman who currently had a gun to his head. He did not say a word.
"Tell us now!" The man yelled, pressing the knife harder to O'Leary's throat. The British Assassin remained resilient, either he wasn't afraid or he was doing a damn good job of not showing it.
The small child from the church plaza ran over and picked up Cassel's gun and handed it to the woman. He looked to be around 9 or 10 years old, Cassel still couldn't see who the armed woman was but he was not going to take any chances. His silence continued.
"You have three seconds before I slit your friend's throat like a pig, and then my wife here will blow your brains out," the man snarled. He pressed the knife so hard to O'Leary's throat that it nicked some blood. "Three…" The knife pressed harder as the blood began to trickle out.
"Two…" O'Leary's face remained calm but his eyes told a different story. He was afraid. It was the same look that his friend Claus von Stauffenberg, now infamous for his attempt on Adolf Hitler's life, had given him before he was executed. Cassel would not stand idle and watch another good man die because of his mistakes.
"On-!"
"-Stop!" Cassel put his hands up, "Stop! Let him go, I'll tell you everything we know and how we found you. Just let him go."
Cassel found O'Leary's eyes and noticed a sense of relief but also a tinge of disappointment. They had lost. He looked to the side and finally saw the woman holding the gun to his head. She wore a headdress and had a menacing look on her face as she held a revolver to his head. The child looked back and forth between what seemed to be his grandparents, Cassel and O'Leary.
"Tell us, then I'll let him go," the man growled, loosening his hold on O'Leary, but keeping the knife pressed lightly to his neck.
"I-I have an ability that allows me to track a certain item. Something we're looking for. We don't even know if it's real, but the legends we hear about you people, the prophecies, the fortune tellers, they all lead to one item."
"You seek the mirror, don't you?" The child asked, turning his head inquisitively. His grandfather shot him a deadly look but the child remained focused on Cassel. The child reached into his pocket and pulled out a green disk shaped object. "You've come to take it from us, haven't you?"
Cassel gasped. It wasn't a mirror after all. In fact it was barely reflective in nature, but rather radiated a powerful aura with a slightly green glow to the almost jade-like substance that was made of. The child seemed to be perfectly okay with handling it, but the parents seemed afraid.
O'Leary shook his head, but it did not stop Cassel from replying, "Yes." The father shifted retightened his grip on Patrick, but now it was his turn to have fear in his eyes. "You will not take it from us!"
Cassel ignored the man and the gun barrel that was now pressed to his head. "You touch the item with your bare hands, and yet it does nothing? How is this possible? All the stories of similar items are activated by touch, but you seem fine."
The child laughed, startling Cassel. "But I am not fine my friend. I still See. I carry within my veins the power to wield the Disk of Eden, and I know you do as well."
The child's grandparents seemed more afraid than ever, as they began to back off and loosen their hold on their weapons, giving O'Leary and Cassel the opportunity they needed. Cassel swiftly unsheathed his hidden blade and stabbed the woman in the wrist, causing her to drop her gun. He moved the blade to her throat.
At the same time O'Leary kicked back on the old man's knee, causing it to buckle back and punched him in the face, knocking him out cold. He subsequently searched the man for any more weapons.
The child laughed once more. "Very good Cassel, very impressive indeed!"
Cassel was astonished. He had never once met this child and yet he knew his name. "H-how? Who are you?"
The child pulled up a chair from a nearby table and sat down, putting the Disk on the table as well. He sighed as if a great burden was being lifted from his shoulders. "My name is Antonio, my parents call me Tony. Come, sit."
"Tony no!" The old woman protested, but Cassel knocked her out as well, taking a seat across from the child.
"You wonder how I am so mature, but look so young? How my parents, so old, yet have a child as young as me?"
All Cassel could do was nod.
"The Disk keeps me younger, feeds me with the knowledge I need to help my family, my friends. It allows me to See. In mind I am 32 years old, in body I am eleven. I've used the Disk my entire life, decelerated aging is but one of its wonders, Adam Cassel." The child looked Cassel dead in the eyes.
O'Leary stared wide eyed at the child in amazement and Cassel struggled to form words. The child looked eleven but spoke like a mature adult. Could this all be a trick? He asked the first thing on his mind, "How did you know my name? How did you know I was coming?"
The child laughed again, pulling out the ring he stole earlier that day. O'Leary snatched it up and put it back on his finger. "I've been waiting for you for a while. The Disk allowed me to See this day… Come, see for yourself." Before Cassel could protest, he pushed the Disk into his hands.
Adam cried out in pain as his vision went white. Images and people flashed before his eyes. Hitler speaking to a stunt double? A gunshot. The scene changed to the first Hitler escaping by car with an Apple of Eden in his hand, driving furiously down a dirt road with a single birch tree with red leaves.
The room flashed white again as the scene changed once more to a young woman. From the muffled shouting and blurred images he could make out two things, her name and the Apple of Eden she was holding.
"Who's Rebecca?" Cassel yelled out to Antonio. No answer came, as the room flashed white again, but this time the images came with increased speed and intensity. A short Asian woman. A baby. A child named Alex. Children with implants that looked like… soldiers? Adam's head began to pound.
He screamed out in pain as he dropped the Disk back on the desk. Opening his eyes, he realized that was standing up panting.
"What the hell was that!" He yelled, "Who the fuck is Rebecca? Who is Alex? Why are there two Hitlers? Tell me!"
O'Leary was standing with his gun raised, "What the hell?"
Antonio shook his head, completely ignoring O'Leary. "The interpretation is entirely up to the one who sees the visions. I cannot help. It is your duty to interpret the visions you Saw and make decisions based on that. Think hard upon what you Saw. The visions that you first saw are the most present; they will occur soon, focus on that one. "
Adam sighed, taking off his cabby hat and sitting back down. O'Leary remained standing yelling, "Will someone please tell me what the bloody fuck is going on here? Cassel are you okay?"
"It's nothing Pat, I'm fine," Adam said, "Okay… First thing I saw was Hitler. But there were two of him, a double, followed by a gunshot then the first Hitler escaping by car."
"Okay, well it makes sense that Hitler would be running away, he's about to lose the bloody war. Or at least the Templars are making it look like that. But why have a double?" O'Leary pondered. Antonio simply smiled and continued to listen.
"Wait, he's trying to escape to join with the rest of the Templars right?" O'Leary nodded, and Cassel continued, "Okay, so if you were Hitler-"
"-Please do I look like a fascist anti-Semitic Templar fuck?"
"-how would you escape out of the public eye without causing an uproar? He's the Führer, he can't just up and go." O'Leary nodded in agreement.
"Where are you going with this, Cassel?"
"Hitler's going to fake his death using a double, then escape with the rest of the Templars and do who the hell knows what with that Apple. We have to stop him." Adam was sure of what he deduced. He just wasn't so sure about the other stuff. He resolved to put it aside and figure it out later, right now he had a target.
"Well shit." O'Leary threw up his hands in exasperation.
"Well done Cassel," Antonio congratulated the Jewish Assassin, reaching out across the table and grabbing the Disk. "Of course-!" His eyes widened in fear and he cried out in pain.
This time, both Cassel and O'Leary grabbed their guns. "What?" he asked.
"They're coming, the Temp-!" Antonio was interrupted by a gunshot, his eyes growing wide as a single bullet pierced his skull right between the eyes. He fell down dead.
"Shit!" Cassel yelled, pulling O'Leary down under the table for cover. "They're fucking here!"
He heard the door burst open and quick bursts of Russian phrases. Two men came over to the table and flipped it over, pointing their guns at the two Assassins. Another soldier, wearing gloves, picked up the Disk off of the ground which fell down unharmed, despite being thrown hard onto the ground by the table.
"Goodnight."
Everything went black as the gun hit Cassel's head.
Date: September 8th 2012, 03:24 hrs
Location: The Farm, Ontario
Alex opened his eyes slowly letting his eyes adjust to the brightly lit white room. A hand grabbed his own and squeezed it. Turning his head, he saw Laurel looking at him with a concerned smile, Tom sitting on a chair tapping his foot nervously and Walker furiously typing into an Animus computer.
"You guys saw that right?" Alex asked, "Saw what he saw, what I saw."
Laurel nodded but remained silent.
"Walker? What now?" Alex asked his Mentor.
Walker stopped typing and looked up. He looked disturbed beyond measure. "I had heard rumours of what Abstergo planned to do with all the PoEs but I thought it was just a rumour. But after seeing what your grandfather saw… I was so sure it was just a rumour."
"What exactly are you talking about? Which part?" Tom asked, "Please don't tell me Hitler is still alive somewhere."
Walker shook his head, still visibly shaken, "No, I know for a fact that Cassel took him out about a year after that incident. No… it's something far worse than Hitler being alive. There was a plan back in the 50s to have children – children with First Civ blood – to be implanted with certain PoEs, to make them into malleable soldiers. Super soldiers. Peace through fear would be achieved through their twisted need to control everything. It was part of the reason that I stole the Disk, I couldn't stand by it if it was true. I just never thought they would go through with it."
"But just because Cassel saw it doesn't mean that it will happen though, right?" Laurel asked. Walker began to respond but Alex cut him off.
"It doesn't just work like that Laurel. Cassel didn't just see the children, he saw them, he felt their pain. The vision he saw essentially sent him forward into the minds of the children in their point of view. Either way-"
"-We can't afford to let the Templars get that Disk." Walker finished. He started to pack up papers and removed a USB from the Animus hard drive.
"Hold up, where are we going? You haven't even told us where you hid it!" Alex protested. "Look, I agree we have to keep this out of Templar hands, but where the hell are we going?"
Walker stopped and typed a command into the computer, bringing up a map of the Canadian territory, Yukon. A red dot pulsed in the mountain ranges. Alex's heart sank and Laurel groaned, knowing now exactly where they had to go next.
"I hid it near the top of Mount Logan. I hope you're in good shape guys, because we're going mountain climbing."
I should have another chapter in about, I dunno, another three years?
Please review!