The Dedsec council was meeting in an abandoned warehouse in Brandon Docks. They didn't normally meet in person, they normally used their secure server to meet remotely in a simple chat room. But things were different now, they had someone new on their tail. And it certainly didn't help that the city's cops were still after them.

"You all know why we're here, so let's get down to business." The council leader said.

"The Assassin, Desmond Miles, is after us. He wants our Apple of Eden. Obviously, we cannot let him get it. And we certainly can't let him find out what we plan to do with it. I can't stress this enough, he cannot know. If he finds out that we are siphoning the Apple's power, then all of our plans can be stopped."

Someone else spoke up. "We should try to mask the energy that the siphon is giving off, if he manages to hack the CtOS satellite like Pearce did a few months ago, he'll easily be able to see where it's located from the heat signature alone."

"Although that's a good idea, but there's no way for sure we can stop him from hacking it ." The council leader said.

"Maybe we could hack the satellite and take it offline. That way, nobody will be able to see through it." another council member said. All eyes were on him.

"With the satellite down, it'll be impossible to determine the location of the siphon without already knowing where it's located." He continued.

"An excellent idea..." the council leader said. "Alright everyone, that concludes our meeting, let's get to work on hacking the satellite feed. Remember, we can't let Miles find the siphon, at all costs."

After Desmond left the park he went to a bakery to get a bagel with blueberry cream cheese on it. He loved them, they were his favorite breakfast, but it had been months since he had had one. Reliving your ancestor's memories and running from Abstergo tended to stop one from being able to openly walk into bakeries and get your favorite thing. But now he was in Chicago, not hidden away in an Italian villa or a secret warehouse, and Abstergo wouldn't dare attack him in public. Well, they had in the past, but back then he was dressed rather shadily and he was after a power source for an ancient temple. He hadn't exactly done anything bad since then, but they had come after him at the motel…

He sighed, they would probably never stop hunting him until he was dead. Although, technically hadn't he died already? Whatever, he was at the bakery now, so now he could get his bagel. It had been far too long…

"Excuse me sir, would you please consider signing a petition to get the city to stop trying to catch DedSec? I believe that they're doing actual good for the city, educating the citizens on the dangers of CtOS and revealing corruption in the government!" A man standing outside the building asked him.

"Sorry man, I'm just visiting the city, I don't really know about any of that stuff."

The man's eyes flashed golden for a moment, the sign of being controlled by a Piece of Eden. Desmond remembered what happened on the roof of the Willis Tower the day before.

"I really suggest you sign the petition." The man said, not asking this time.

"Fine, I'll sign it." Desmond said, looking around, making sure that if a fight broke out that nearby civilians wouldn't be hurt. The street was relatively clear, not making people were out right now, most of them were probably at work. He grabbed the pen the man was holding and signed it.

"Now Desmond, if I remember correctly, you were given clear instructions to back off. As was stated before, we would prefer to keep our Apple. And if we're to do that, then you need to stop trying to take it from us."

"I won't stop trying to get your Apple until I've got your Apple, and you're no longer corrupted by it." And until I've found my father, Desmond thought.

"I'm sorry to hear that, Desmond." The man said. Desmond started taking a few steps back, anticipating an attack. But before he could get out of reach, the man grabbed Desmond's arm, but that was his mistake, because it was Desmond's right arm, and he now had his hidden blade.

Desmond extended the blade, and it stabbed the man in his wrist. They both jumped back, the man in surprise, Desmond ready to attack again if need be.

"Back off, I'm actually armed this time..." Desmond said in his most commanding tone of voice.

"I'm afraid I can't do that, Mr. Miles." The man said before pulling out a gun. Why did all the civilians that DedSec was controlling always have guns on them? Desmond thought. Well whatever, he needed to attack now or get shot.

He jumped at the man, but he managed to pull off a shot before Desmond could get to him. Lucky for Desmond, the guy was either the world's worst shot or the best, because he managed to hit him right on his hidden blade, which deflected the bullet. Unfortunately, the gun wasn't silenced and the people on the street started screaming and cleared out of there, while the people in the bakery all scrambled to hide under their tables and behind counters, in fear of being shot. Desmond grabbed the gun out of the man's hand and shoved him to the ground before backing off.

"Next time you take over a civilian, make sure they can actually fight first." Desmond said before shaking his head at the man.

"This isn't over. You have one warning left before things get very ugly." The man almost shouted, obviously very pissed off, judging by the pure hatred in his tone of voice. Desmond squatted next to the man.

"See if I give a damn." Desmond whispered, secretly giving a damn but hoping that his apparent lack of giving a damn would make DedSec stop sending civilians after him. He took the bullets out of the gun before wiping it off, to make sure his fingerprints weren't on it, then tossed it next to the man.

He looked into the Panera Bread, and saw all the customers hiding under their tables, and the employees crouching behind the counter.

"Guess I'll have to get my bagel another day…" He muttered to himself, walking away from the store at a brisk pace, hearing the sounds of sirens. But he heard them getting a lot louder, and realized he wouldn't be able to get far enough away. So, he did what anyone with a few hundred years of Assassin's training would do and ran up the nearest building, grabbing onto a handhold as he did so. He kept grabbing anything in his reach, getting higher and higher up on the structure. For the first time in a good while, Desmond felt free. It had been such a long time since he had climbed up a building, not just jumping down the sides to make a quick getaway.

He felt like he was being watched, so he stopped for a moment and looked around, but the street was totally cleared. Firing guns in the middle of the day tended to that. He went back to soaring up to the top of the building.

He was almost sad when he got to the top, it was such a rush climbing it, he wanted to do it again! And the building wasn't even that tall! Well, for Chicago. But alas, when he looked out, there were already police swarming the street. It was a good thing none of them were looking up. What criminal would go up, anyway? Desmond thought to himself as he chuckled.

"What criminal, indeed?" He said out loud, to himself.

But then he felt that feeling again, the feeling that someone was watching him. He activated his eagle vision and looked around the rooftop, seeing if there were any hidden threats. None. It was a pretty boring rooftop.

But then, as he looked across the street, he saw a camera on the building across from him. And it was red in his eagle vision. A threat. He wasn't quite sure how a camera could be a threat, but he was pretty sure that it was the reason he felt like he was being watched earlier. Because somebody was watching him.

He switched his hidden blade over to the hidden gun function and made sure the silencer was attached. He didn't want to alert the horde of cops down below to his presence, after all. After checking that it was attached, and he took aim at the camera.

*click*

As he fired, he saw a pop of sparks and saw the glass crack on the camera; a hit right through the lens. Desmond wasn't surprised, he was a pretty good shot, after all. But still, who could be watching him? Abstergo, probably. But somehow, it didn't quite feel like they were watching him. He couldn't describe it, but was positive it wasn't them. Was it DedSec? It might have been, after the two incidents he had had with them now, he was sure they were keeping their eyes on him. And if it wasn't Abstergo, who else could it be?

Whatever, they weren't watching him now. But he would have to keep an eye on the cameras to make sure he wasn't being watched in the future. Which, in this city, wouldn't be easy…

Then he had an idea, remembering what Aiden told him about the CtOS. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and called Aiden.

Aiden checked the caller ID on his phone. It was Desmond.

"Crap." Aiden said to himself, answering his phone. "Hey, Des, what can I do for you?" Aiden asked, looking at the monitor that as of recently was saying SIGNAL LOST.

"Aiden, I think someone is watching me…" Well, he wasn't wrong.

"Gee, in this city, someone watching you? I dunno man, that's pretty far-fetched." Aiden said in his most sarcastic tone of voice.

"I'm being serious! There was a camera looking right at me! And I can't explain it, but I don't think it was Abstergo."

"Maybe it was Blume's security system that identifies potential criminals, were you doing anything suspicious that would pick you out of the crowd?" Aiden asked, trying to avoid sounding suspicious.

"Uh…" Desmond said, looking down at the cops below. "No, not at all. But whatever, can you do something to scramble me on the cameras? I read something about a certain vigilante doing that to hide from the automated profiling system."

"Yeah, I can probably do that. Mind you, it won't be easy, it's hard enough staying out of the system on my own, programming a whole nother person in will-"

"Aiden." Aiden stopped talking.

"Just do it, I'm not paying you for nothing." Desmond said before hanging up.
"Wait, I'm getting paid?!" Aiden surprisedly asked, but it was too late, Desmond had hung up.

Well, Aiden thought, Desmond apparently had some sort of super-sense that allowed him to identify whether he was being watched by anyone. That was annoying. He'd have to be a lot more careful with the cameras to avoid detection in the future.

Although he and Desmond were allies, and Aiden was apparently getting paid, that didn't mean Aiden couldn't find out Desmond's motives and keep an eye on him. After all, at the end of their first meeting, Desmond had said he wanted DedSec's Apple of Eden. Because based on what Aiden had read and heard about those 'Pieces of Eden', they were some pretty dangerous things that were ridiculously powerful.

Desmond seemed like a pretty good guy, and after all Abstergo had put him through; reliving his ancestor's memories, chasing him across Europe and to America, and now they were probably after him in Chicago, he would understand him wanting to get revenge on them for pretty much ruining his life. That's probably what he wanted the Apple for. Aiden hoped that was what he wanted the Apple for, at least.

He couldn't know for sure, of course, so he would have to continue to keep tabs on Desmond.

He switched over to a camera near Desmond, but he didn't focus directly on him, to avoid being spotted by him again. He was back on the street now. How could he climb so fast? It seemed almost superhuman.

There were dozens of people around him on the sidewalks. That was clever, trying to avoid the system by blending in with the average Chicagoan. It couldn't beat Aiden, of course, but still, it was clever. Aiden though, adding a red marker to Desmond's profile on his personal network, so he could see where Desmond was at any time, but other in the CtOS system wouldn't see it. He remembered what he had requested of him a few minutes ago and quickly scrambled Desmond on the CtOS's network so that he couldn't be identified to anyone on the main network, but Aiden could still see him.

"The hell are you doing?"

Aiden grabbed his silenced 1911 from his desk, standing up and spinning around in one smooth motion, aiming the gun at the man standing there.

"Jordi! What are you doing in my apartment?" Aiden shouted at him while lowering his gun.

"I came by to give you that information you wanted before I left for the month." Aiden stared at him in confusion. "Y'know, on the CtOS 2.0 capabilities, and all the people and companies involved in Blume's negotiations?" Jordi said while placing a manilla folder with 'Pearce's Blume stuff' written hastily on the front.

"Ohhhh right, I totally forgot about all that, thanks, Jordi."

"Yeah, sure, anytime." Jordi said while rubbing his hands together in anticipation.

"Jordi, why are you rubbing your hands?" Aiden asked with a pained look on his face.

"Open the folder."

"Am I gonna like what's in it?"

"You're gonna love what's in it."

Aiden sighed and shook his head, then opened the folder. He realized what he was looking at after a few moments.

"Jordi this is-"

"Top level Abstergo executives negotiating with top level Blume executives about top level security systems designed to take down DedSec and get some secret technology they've got called Eden or whatever."

"The Piece of Eden…" Aiden muttered to himself, looking through the files in the folder.

"Yeah, that's what it was called. Hey, wait, how did you know about that?"

"Lucky guess."

"No, really, how did you know that? I didn't do all this for nothing, did I?"

"Nonono, this is great. I'll transfer the money to your account."

"Aiden." Aiden looked up at Jordi. "This is some seriously powerful stuff they seemed to be negotiating here. They had guards with rocket launchers on the rooftops of the nearby buildings to the one they were negotiating in. Whatever they plan to do with the technology, it can't be good. And whatever you're onto here, it is big. You aren't going to be able to stop them by yourself."

"Well then it's a good thing I'm not by myself, right?"

"If I'm helping you with this, I want quadruple the pay."

"I'll quintuple it if I have to, and besides, I didn't mean just you, I'm actually helping someone else with this stuff. It's a bit of a funny coincidence that we happen to be working towards the same general goal."

Jordi took a deep breath before thinking for a minute. He nodded.

"Fine, I'll keep helping you. I wasn't joking about that pay raise, by the way! And I don't know why you're watching this guy on the monitors, but whoever he is, he looks pretty skilled, judging by the way he just slammed that guy against a wall. Who is he, anyway?"

Aiden spun around and looked at the monitors to see Desmond walking away from an unconscious guy with a knife next to him. The guy was still alive, Aiden could see him breathing. Judging by his appearance and profiler reading; 'wanted for petty theft', he was a mugger.

"He's on our side, that's who he is."

"Oh goodie. Well, I'm gonna go now, I've got errands to run. See you around!"

"Yeah, you too… Hey, thanks for the info!" As Jordi left as he raised his hand in acknowledgement of the thanks. Aiden began rewinding the footage to see Desmond get attacked by the man, then kick his leg so he flinched and dropped the knife, then jump behind him and slam him against the wall. And all this took less than three seconds! Desmond was the best fighter Aiden had ever seen, that's for sure. Not to mention climbing, too. He would have to get Desmond to teach him a few things…

Rebecca was sitting in her room, stretched across her couch in her luxurious hotel room, absentmindedly trying to hack past Blume's firewall to get into the CtOS. If she was going to help Desmond, she'd need full access to all the city's systems. She was doing it so absentmindedly because she was still in awe of what Desmond wanted to accomplish. He wanted to steal an Apple of Eden from a corrupt hacktivist group. Stealing anything from a major hacktivist group wasn't easy, since they always had top of the line security systems guarding their files, but this was real life.

Stealing from a group that had fully been corrupted by a Piece of Eden was no simple task. Desmond and Rebecca, being members of the Assassin Order, had been trained to resist the effects of the Pieces's mind control, but she wasn't sure about Aiden. Perhaps he could be their backup, waiting in a nearby building in case anything went wrong. But what if they had snipers and took Aiden out? Ugh, this was going to take a ridiculous amount of planning…

All of a sudden, Rebecca noticed a blip in the network. There was someone that shouldn't be in the system, in the system. Well, someone that wasn't her, at least.

"Hello Rebecca." A message popped up from them. Well, he or she proved that they could figure out her name, at least.

"Hey there, stranger." She typed back, continuing to try to bypass the firewall.

"We hear that you're trying to steal from DedSec. We can help you with that." So it was a we. Another hacktivist group, perhaps? And how did they find out they were planning to steal from DedSec? She hoped Desmond was just recruiting more people, although that seemed unlikely...

"Maybe, maybe not. How would you help…?"

"We aren't fans of DedSec they've changed quite a bit since we were with them, and we know that you don't like Abstergo either. After we take down DedSec, we were hoping to team up to stop Abstergo from spreading lies throughout their games."

Throughout their games? Hadn't that one group been doing just that…? Oh, what were they called, it was right on the tip of Rebecca's tongue!

"Erudito?"

"So you know who we are... You do understand we're taking a large risk exposing ourselves like this? We'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone."

"Don't worry, the secret's between you, me, and this firewall we're in. And I guess we could work something out. After all, I'm pretty much the best hacker there is, but a few more certainly would help."

"We're glad to hear that. We'll be in touch. You're welcome, by the way."

"For wha-" Rebecca began to type, but was cut off as they disconnected. As they did, though, the firewall went down, and she was in the network.

"Wait, what…" She muttered to herself, squinting at the screen. Then she realized what had happened.

"I'm in? I'm in! Haha!" She had never had access to an entire city before, this would be fun…

She had to make sure everything worked before putting it to use for Desmond, of course. And boy, she would make sure to test everything.

Cassandra Frost was meeting again with the same person as she had been for the past few months to negotiate the deal between Abstergo and Blume involving CtOS 2.0. It was a simple idea in concept; Abstergo would get complete access to everyone's personal information through CtOS 2.0, and in return, Blume would get access to Abstergo's genetic memories project. In concept didn't always mean that it would transition well in real life, though. And this deal had been particularly… Bumpy.

You see, Abstergo wasn't a company that was willing to sell their technology and secrets at a low cost. Or even a high cost, at that. And neither was Blume. Cassandra didn't know why Blume wanted access to their genetic memories project, but then again, they likely didn't know why Abstergo wanted everyone's personal data.

She knew why, of course. With access to everyone's data, Abstergo would be able to tell who had important bloodlines, who were likely Assassins or sympathised with them, and who knew of any possible locations for Pieces of Eden. The last one was particularly important, since there had been raids lately on various Abstergo Headquarters, and the raiders were able to get away with an Apple. It was absurd! How had security been breached to such an extent that they were able to steal one of the most valuable pieces of technology on the planet?

But with CtOS 2.0 access, Abstergo would be able to identify potential threat miles before they came anywhere near the facilities. That was the idea, at least, if Blume's system actually worked. There had been numerous reports of breaches by the vigilante, DedSec, and several other small incidents.

The Blume representative who Cassandra had been negotiating with walked in the door and sat down in front of her desk.

"Well, Ms. Frost, are you ready to seal the deal?" the man asked in an let's-do-this tone of voice.

"Oh, you have no idea how ready I am."

"Good, just sign here." the man said, laying down a paper and pen, pointing to the blank on it.

"Wait a minute, I don't want to be connected to any of this if it's revealed what we're doing."

"Don't worry, the form is disguised as a simple technology trade, there's no details about what kind of technology is being traded."

"Good." Cassandra said as she signed the deal.

"We'll send a technician over to get you hooked up to the grid. Enjoy your access, and please for the sake of both of our companies, don't misuse it."

Miss Frost chuckled.

"Oh, don't worry, that's not going to happen."

It was probably going to happen, though.

Aiden was looking through the files Jordi gave him when he saw something familiar. There was an executive of Blume that had been negotiating a deal with Abstergo for the past few months, Matthew Johnson, but he went by Matt.

Matt.

Aiden remembered the text he got after his first meeting with Desmond at his apartment. Someone had been listening in the entire time, someone who identified themselves only as Matt. Could it be the same person? It couldn't be a coincidence, it had to be the same person.

Aiden closed and put down the folder and grabbed his gun off the desk and put it in his coat pocket. He got up from his desk and walked towards his apartment door. He needed to find this guy and see what he knew, and make sure he hadn't shared that information with anyone else, although at this point it seemed like a bit of a stretch that he hadn't. He made sure his tactical baton was in his pocket, then headed out. Blume, wanting info on Desmond? Why were they getting wrapped up in this mess, too?