Chapter 6— "The Revelations of the Two Conspiracies, Part 2: The Embers of the Old World Order"
Katja Winter/ Ezio Auditore/ Altair Ibn-La'Ahad/ Desmond Miles
Katja was driving after one of the trucks carrying two of the six Masyaf Keys as dozens of Abstergo vans and police cars were pursuing her.
Katja was seeing a memory of Ezio's as he lay his ally, Yusuf Tazim, to rest after he was murdered by Templars.
"Brothers. Sisters. The whole city rises against us while Yusuf's murderer waits and watches from the arsenal, laughing. Fight with me, and show him what it means to cross the Assassins!"
In the meantime, Katja was listening to and talking on the Assassins' comms.
"This is Katja!" she yelled. "Are the others going after the other two trucks?"
"Elijah and I are going after one of them," said Callum.
"Galina and I are going after another," said Kiyoshi.
"Okay, I'm going after the third one!" said Katja. "With that said, I'm getting swarmed here… I could use some help!"
"I'm working on it," said Rebecca. "Darcy, this is Rebecca. We need your help. Can you rally DedSec's agents, give them the courage to continue the fight?"
Silence on comms for a moment.
"Darcy, I know you're still grieving over his death, but—"
"It's not because I'm grieving!" yelled Darcy. "It's because I don't have the kind of charisma he does. I don't have what it takes to inherit the pig's mask. Out of DedSec's various leaders… Aiden Pearce… Marcus Holloway… he might've been the best."
Katja said to Elijah over comms, "What are they talking about?"
Elijah said bitterly, "The leader of DedSec's London branch. He—" Elijah paused before saying, "He was killed by one of Lucas's puppets during a fight in Ravensthorpe. He may have been a friend of that damned Fourth Echelon spy, Sam Fisher… but still… He's one of the few people in the entirety of the Brotherhood and DedSec that I actually fucking admired."
"Oh. I… I'm sorry," said Katja. "Wait… Ravensthorpe? You mean… ?"
"The location of Eivor's old village, yeah."
"Lucas had me try to relive Eivor's memories…" said Katja.
"If you stick around with us long enough, we may have you try to relive her memories too."
Katja said nothing as she heard Shaun say to Darcy, "With all due respect Darcy, we're getting overwhelmed here. If you don't give us some support now, I'm likely going to get shot out of the sky. We'll be scheduled for deletion by Lucas's instruments… along with 90 percent of the populations of Jerusalem, Mecca, and Medina!"
"All right," said Darcy. "I guess it's time for a city-wide speech. Here goes nothing."
Darcy announced over a channel that reached the entirety of the local Assassin Brotherhood and DedSec sleeper cells.
"Everyone, this is Darcy Clarkson, the DedSec operative currently in charge of the London DedSec cell. I've been tasked with helping the Assassin Brotherhood stop a conspiracy happening here, perpetrated by Abstergo and the Blume corporation. At the moment… things may look bleak…"
"With all due respect, Darcy…" said Shaun, "…you need more energy than that."
Darcy sighed audibly over comms.
"Wherever you are in Istanbul… rally as many civilians as you can to break the curfew and fight against Abstergo, Blume, the local authorities…" she said. "If we fail to stop this conspiracy… tomorrow, the world may not look the way it does today."
To Katja's surprise, as the mass hack ended and the city lights started to come back on, several people stepped out of their homes.
"We've uncovered intelligence implicating that Abstergo's new leadership plans to use a globally implemented central OS, courtesy of the Blume corporation, to brainwash and decimate 90 percent of the human populations of Jerusalem, Mecca, and Medina. That will result in war across the Middle East, and eventually the entire world."
As the people looked at their smartphones and nearby TV screens that had been hacked into showing Darcy's masked face and scrambled voice, she continued. "We may be ordinary civilians, but it's up to us to stop it. The current world order is corrupt and as human beings, we cannot tolerate cruel tyranny like this. We have to create our own democracy instead of let Abstergo and the capitalist class enslave us while claiming we're free."
"There's one way to stop the conspiracy: pick up a weapon and fight. If you see someone get injured, get scared… you help them get back on their feet."
As Katja kept driving, she saw a family consisting of a father, mother, and daughter step out onto the streets near her, wielding a handgun, a wooden bat, and a yo-yo.
"The capitalist class wants to tell us what's truth and what's fiction," said Darcy. "The entirety of their forces are about to rise against us while Abstergo and its sick CEO… Alfred Porter's murderer… waits and watches from his desk somewhere in a fancy penthouse office, laughing. It's our turn to decide what's true. Fight with DedSec, and show them what it means to cross us!"
"And if you ever falter in the fight, remember these words, and let them guide you… Nothing is true, everything is permitted!"
Suddenly Katja could hear the roar of crowds in the distance as well as the sounds of gunfire and screaming, breaking out through the city.
Katja could hear those last six words being chanted all around her.
Looking at Ezio, Altair, and Desmond, who nodded at her, she nodded back at them in determination, and tightened her grip around the wheel as she continued to chase after the truck containing the Masyaf Keys, readying her pistol in one hand while steering with the other as she saw trouble ahead.
"We are close, keep steady!" Ezio yelled to Sofia as they chased after Prince Ahmet in the Turkish countryside via horse carriage.
"Well, well! You have come to see me off!" said Ahmet, the leader of the Templars in Constantinople during the early 17th century.
"Keep steady, Katja!" yelled Ezio.
"Galina and I managed to catch up to the truck containing the Masyaf Keys heading for Mecca," said Kiyoshi over comms.
"Elijah, it looks like you were right to take Sadiq at his word… what he mentioned to you about the Masyaf Keys being the actual conduits for the regional ctOS apparatus test seems to check out. We found two of the keys, and both of them seem to have been modified using the Apple to contain some sort of energy link to the Eye satellite. They're shining up into the sky toward its direction, but only we can see the light," said Galina.
"We're seeing something similar with the keys that were headed to Medina," said Callum. "We're also hearing the commands that Lucas placed into the Apple… the ones to force humanity to kill each other off. Despite that we have triple-helix DNA to help us resist its effects, it's harder to do so than we thought. It must be because some of the commands are spoken in Isu."
"Is it safe for Katja to touch those things?" said William over comms.
"Why?" said Elijah.
"Why do you think?" said William. "She's chasing after the last truck! If she fails to stop it, Jerusalem will fall and Lucas may still have a chance at starting a war across the Middle East!"
"Can we trust her, Elijah?" said Shaun.
There was silence on comms before Elijah said, "We don't have a choice."
"The Boss's grandson is right," said Rebecca. "GPS says she's nearing the outskirts of Istanbul and is heading for the countryside; she may be chasing after the last truck for the moment, but Abstergo's forces are chasing after her too!"
Can I trust you, Elijah? Katja thought as she pressed her foot against the accelerator to help close the distance between the truck she was driving and the convoy of Engineer vehicles guarding the truck containing the Masyaf Keys.
As several Engineers shot at her truck's engine on the highway, she saw that smoke was coming from the front of the truck.
Damn it, thought Katja, I have to ditch this thing, and fast!
Katja steered toward a technical shooting at her, steadied the truck with the wheel while keeping her foot on the gas, and shot the gunner with her pistol. She then opened her stolen truck's driver seat's door and the passenger door of the technical, and forced her Hidden Blade through the skull of the Engineer in the passenger seat of the technical. She then leapt from the driver's seat of the truck to the passenger's seat of the technical, pulling the Engineer's corpse out.
She then kicked the driver out his door and took his seat, then took the wheel and steered to correct the technical's course and put her foot on the gas to catch back up to the convoy.
The sun was starting to come up and illuminate the colorful autumn fields and trees of the Turkish countryside in the distance. She and the Assassins didn't have a lot of time.
As she drove toward the convoy while returning fire at its vehicles, Katja heard Elijah say to her over comms, "Katja, I don't know if you can hear me, but it's all up to you right now. The rest of us are too far away from the third convoy; at this point the majority of us are focusing on assisting DedSec with the riots and helping extract key members of DedSec and the Brotherhood from Istanbul."
"With that said, I managed to find and steal a motorcycle; I'm trying to follow after you… According to some documents DedSec managed to find and hack into at the old arsenal in Istanbul, the convoy is heading to drop off the final two Masyaf Keys at a safe house in the Turkish countryside, not far from Ankara. After that, they'll use the black helicopters stowed there to fly across the Mediterranean to Jerusalem. You have to stop them before they reach Ankara!"
"All right, I got it!" said Katja as she was rammed by another technical being driven by Engineers.
She gained control of herself, then ducked underneath the windshield as Engineers fired their rifles at her technical from all around her.
Katja quickly used evasive maneuvers to steer her stolen technical out of the way of their line of fire, then used her pistol to shoot at the wheels of the technical that had just rammed hers, all while ramming back at the technical with her own.
The technical steered out of control, and nearly crashed into Katja's, only for her to steer away from it before it flipped over and flew off of the highway.
As Katja started to catch up to the convoy again, she fired her pistol at the Engineers shooting at her from aboard the back of another truck. Some of them were heavily armored, and firing at her with heavy machine guns.
Desmond said to Katja, "You'll need to shoot their helmets off, but you're not going to be able to hit them accurately enough while driving! Hand the pistol to me!"
"What?" said Katja. "But aren't you and I the same person!"
"Just do it!" yelled Desmond.
Reluctantly, Katja handed Desmond her pistol and some spare magazines from her belt.
Desmond then shot at the Engineers shooting at them aboard the back of the truck, managing to mow them down with burst fire from the pistol. It wasn't long before the heavily-armored guards had taken a bullet to the head.
"Like playing a video game, am I right, Katja?" said Desmond with a smirk. "Funny enough, this car chase reminds me of a set-piece from a video game with a protagonist that looks and sounds a lot like me. I played it while I was a bartender in New York… What was the name of it again? Something, something 'thief's end?'"
"Pay attention, Desmond!" yelled Katja as she saw more trucks in the convoy surrounding her from the front and from behind, and shot at them as the men aboard the trucks lit several Molotov cocktails. "They're starting to toss incendiary grenades, and I can only focus on the front!"
"I've got eyes in the back of my head!" said Desmond as he shot the Engineers firing at them via the machine guns on top of their technicals behind them. "And on the sides of my head too!" he said as he shot the drivers of more trucks trying to crush the technical Katja was driving.
As Molotovs cocktails and vehicles crashed all around them, Katja said to Desmond as he reloaded, "You're a good shot."
"Yeah," said Desmond. "You think I'd be rusty with shooting guns since I haven't really seen actual combat, save for training at my father William's farm. That's where he trained me and all the other Assassins before I decided I hated it and ran away."
"But didn't you save the world from the solar flare in 2012?" said Katja. "At least that's what Elijah told me!"
"Yeah, well this version of me must not have lived through that part yet," said Desmond, "because I don't remember that. My best guess is that this version of me lived up to the point where I was in a coma after touching the Apple Ezio hid underneath the Roman Colosseum, and Juno forced me to… to…"
"You fell into a coma?" said Katja. "Desmond? Desmond!"
She turned to look at Desmond, only to find her pistol next to a flickering image of Ezio.
Grabbing the pistol again, she looked back up to find that the Engineers aboard the remaining trucks in the convoy were deploying explosive trip mines on the road.
"Damn it!" yelled Katja as she desperately steered through the mine field and various burning civilian vehicles that weren't able to avoid the mines.
"Those bastards are killing innocents just to prevent you from stopping them!" yelled Ezio.
"I know!" yelled Katja.
Ezio fired his hidden blade's pistol at the Engineers throwing the mines from the trucks.
"We need to get out of this technical; it's taking damage!" yelled Katja as she blind-fired her pistol to the right at the guards aboard another truck shooting at them from the right side of their technical.
"That gives me an idea Katja…" said Ezio as the truck steered off the road and crashed into a tree. "Remember that grappling hook that Elijah said was built into this iteration of your Hidden Blade?"
"Yeah?"
"I did something similar with a rope tethered to the back of a truck like that one ahead of us once, to chase after five of the six Masyaf Keys..."
"A rope tethered to the back of a—" Katja looked to the truck in front of her in shock. "You don't mean… ?"
Then the engine of the technical started to catch on fire, and Katja was losing control of the truck. She had no choice but to slow it down.
"NOW, KATJA!" yelled Ezio as he broke apart the crumbling windshield with his fist's metal bracer.
Katja, whose hand was now a bloody mess, quickly climbed out of the technical's windshield and fired her grappling line at the truck.
As the truck entered a muddy construction zone next to and moving below the highway, Katja was yanked into the mud as the grappling line connected with the back of the truck.
She spat out mud as it began to coat her clothes, and tried to swing out of the way of construction barriers and various unfinished structures underneath the highway.
Looking ahead, she saw several nearby Engineers planting explosives underneath a highway bridge that the construction zone moved underneath.
"New orders from Sadiq!" yelled one of them. "Blow the bridge; prevent the Assassins from catching up to the final shipment! But keep the girl alive!"
What? Why does he want me alive? Katja thought. Looking back at the bridge, her eyes went wide as the Engineers that had been underneath the bridge quickly got clear of it as they detonated the explosives.
So much for keeping me alive! Katja yelled as she then said to Ezio, "Ezio, what do we do?"
"Looks like we still both have parachutes!" said Ezio.
As the bridge crumbled ahead of Katja but was behind the truck, she could see that her grappling line would be severed.
"Quickly, Katja!" yelled Ezio as he and Katja deployed their parachutes and Katja cut the current grappling line off of her Hidden Blade while in mid-air, which helped them avoid being crushed by the debris.
Katja and Ezio then steered their parachutes to the left and then right, and Katja aimed her Hidden Blade's grappling line at the truck again as it moved back onto the highway and fired at it, managing to hit the back of it.
Now she was grappling closer toward the truck with the help of the line, but the parachute was keeping her from being ripped apart by the pavement of the road.
The Engineers' convoy steered off the highway into a small town marketplace in the countryside, where Katja had to steer her parachute to avoid crashing into several small buildings.
She saw glimpses of Ezio using his parachute to assassinate guards riding after Sofia's carriage on horseback.
"Va bene! I am all right!" said Sofia.
"Soldiers, up ahead!" yelled Ezio.
"I see them!" said Sofia.
"Are you all right, Katja!" yelled Katja.
"I'm surviving!" said Katja.
"The Engineers are deploying drones!" yelled Ezio. "Shoot them, but be careful not to hit civilians!"
Katja fired her pistol at the incoming quad-rotor drones shooting at her with one hand while doing her best to steer her parachute the other, alternating hands when necessary.
A drone shot her grappling line that was tethering her parachute to the truck.
As she managed to descend close enough to the truck to land on it with her parachute, she quickly used her Hidden Blade to cut the parachute's lines, and she rolled onto the back of the truck to break her fall.
Upon rolling back onto her feet, she fired her rifle at the remaining trucks of the convoy and the quad-rotor drones surrounding her, killing their remaining passengers with assault rifle and grenade launcher fire, save for the two more aboard the truck carrying the Masyaf Keys.
Steadying her balance as they drove up and along a set of nearby cliffs, she continued shooting at the remaining drones being deployed before they reached her and self-destructed, then shot the guard that was deploying the drones from a technical.
She managed to shoot the wheels of the truck containing the Masyaf Keys instead.
She quickly climbed into the front of the truck she was standing on and double assassinated the Engineers in the driver and passenger seat, then she gunned the engine and slammed into the truck containing the Masyaf Keys. She then steered the truck to safety as the truck containing the Masyaf Keys flipped over and ended up dangling from the edge of a cliff high up in the mountains.
Katja got out of her truck and ran to the truck on the edge of the cliff.
The driver was dead from the collision, but the man in the passenger seat had managed to stay intact out of sheer luck as the truck started to catch on fire.
Shit, thought Katja as the truck was about to fall off the edge of the cliff, I have to find the Masyaf Keys!
Katja shimmied alongside the side of the truck, climbed aboard the windshield while steadying herself to avoid falling to her doom, and smashed open a hole in the windshield with her rifle.
To her shock, the surviving passenger of the truck was a man who looked eerily like Loki—even more so than Sadiq.
Reluctantly, Katja tried to revive Loki's Sage, smacking him in the face in an attempt to help him wake up.
"Where are the Masyaf Keys!" Katja yelled.
Deciding it was better to leave the Sage for dead and look for them in the rear of the truck before it exploded, she turned around, and tried to climb back up the truck when the Sage grabbed her leg.
"You…" yelled the Sage. "You and your wretched Aesir father took away my son!"
Screaming, Katja tried to break free of the Sage as he broke out of the truck and got a further grip on her leg, only to cause them both to slip and fall off of the cliff, along with the Masyaf Keys the Sage had in his pocket.
Seconds later, the carriage plummeted after them.
Ezio managed to knock Ahmet off of his carriage, and they both fought in mid-air as they plummeted off of the cliff.
As Katja fell, she tried to grab the two Masyaf Keys.
Then the crazed Sage grabbed her and tried to beat her to death mid-air.
Covering her face, Katja parried the Sage's attacks, then wrapped her legs around him and feinted his next attack; she then flipped him around her so she was on top of him in case she needed to use him to break her fall.
She attacked him with several punches to the face, then stabbed his arm that he was blocking her punches with using her Hidden Blade.
The Sage screamed and grabbed his arm, allowing Katja to try and slash through his throat.
But Basim managed to block her at the last moment, grabbing her arm with his good one.
Before Katja could use her other Hidden Blade, she realized they were getting too close to the ground.
She kicked Loki's Sage off of her, and managed to deploy her parachute just in time as the Sage dangled from her right leg.
As they both slammed into the ground, Katja cut herself free of her parachute and grabbed the Masyaf Keys as she got up.
They were in the middle of a nearby field somewhere in the Turkish countryside.
Just as Loki's Sage managed to get up and grab his arm, the truck collided with the ground behind them and exploded.
"So what now, Ezio?" said Ahmet to Ezio as he got up. "How does this end?"
"I am wondering that myself…" said Ezio.
"What now, Baldr?" said Basim as he grabbed his arm while the field around them start to burn from the fire started by the truck explosion. "How does this end? Are you going to follow your father's bidding, help him with his two conspiracies, start the very Ragnarok he wants to prevent? Billions of people dead from his Red Mercury nukes, his Eye satellite he's using for mass genocide, all for the sake of the comfort of a few rich Templars like you?"
"Easy to say for someone who's helping him out," said Katja as she spat out blood, rubbing the bruise on her lip from where the Sage hit her in the chin.
"Speaking of which, you're not Sadiq… I thought only one of each of the Aesir's eight Sages could exist every millennium."
"That's correct," said Loki's Sage.
"Then how can there be two of you?"
"Because I am Loki's Sage from the 9th century, survived via Yggdrasil's roots and the Staff of Hermes Trismegistus," said the Sage. "I am Basim Ibn Ishaq."
"Basim? The Hidden One?" said Katja. "I thought you were an Assassin! So why are you helping out the Templars?"
"I'm not helping out Lucas… I have my own agenda," said Basim. "I was never planning to use the Masyaf Keys to fulfill Lucas's agenda, and neither was Sadiq… We were planning to give you back to Lucas in exchange for our freedom, and the freedom of our son."
"You knew the Assassins would come after you, stop the attacks from happening!" said Katja with wide eyes.
As the soldiers of the other son of Sultan Bayezid II and the father of Prince Suleiman, Selim, surrounded Ezio and his brother Ahmet as they were about to fight, Ahmet looked at him with wide eyes.
"Soldiers!" yelled Ahmet. "Selim is not your master! You serve the Sultan! You carry out his command alone! Where is he? Where is our Sultan!"
"He stands before you," said Selim. "Father made his choice."
As Selim held Ahmet over the side of a cliff in front of Ezio and Sofia, he began to choke Ahmet to death.
"Selim—stop! Please!" Ahmet said while choking and gasping for air under Selim's grip until he was thrown off the edge of the cliff to his death by Selim.
As Ezio and Altair's various alters as well as Desmond surrounded Katja and they prepared to assassinate the wounded Basim, Basim said, "You're using the Assassins in your head to help you assassinate an Assassin. How ironic… but my death doesn't matter now," said Basim. "Sadiq is on his way to kidnap you… He will carry out Loki's plans for revenge against your father."
"I wish him luck with that," said Katja as she began to choke Basim to death, holding him close to the fire coming from the truck.
As she was about to kill Basim, she saw glimpses of a terrifying memory of hers, one she'd never seen before.
"Anton, stop! Please!" screamed Katja's mother as her father threw a bottle of whiskey at her.
"Shut up, Fiona, you fucking bitch! I've made my choice," said Katja's father, who appeared to be in a drunken stupor. "I told you I never wanted a child to begin with."
"No!" cried a young Katja as he began to choke her to death.
Then Katja's mother, who was screaming and covered in burns from a fire that was caused by the whiskey knocking over a candle and igniting, slammed a chair into her father's back.
"Come, Brigith, quickly!" screamed her mother.
"Yes, mother," said Katja.
As Katja and her mother ran from her father through the snowy forest, her father chased after them, only to get eaten alive by wolves.
As the wolves started to chase after them, Katja's said to her mother, "I think I tripped on something poisonous, mother… My feet hurt… and my head is hot."
"So am I dear… I think we must've stepped on some mistletoe."
"Are we going to die?"
Looking toward the wolves in the distance as they howled, her mother said, "The town is far away, Katja… You have to make it…"
"What about you, mother?"
"I… I'm sorry, dear… Sorry for standing by and doing nothing all those years… We should've run from him sooner."
"I know," said Katja.
"Do you hate me for it?" said her mother.
"I—" said Katja. "Yes… I do. As much as father… Maybe even worse."
Her mother started to cry.
"Are you going to hit me now like father does?"
"Promise me you'll do whatever it takes to stay alive and well," said her mother.
"See that star up there?" she said to Katja as she pointed up to the skies. "Follow it north to town."
As her mother ran away from her, Katja said, "Mother, where are you going? Town is this way!"
Looking back toward her mother, she yelled, "Mother? MOTHER!"
Hearing the howls of wolves, Katja started to run for her life.
Years later, she was on the streets, sitting by a fire in she lit in a barrel while munching on some cold sandwiches she found in an abandoned store.
Some other kids were playing and laughing in a nearby park while their loving parents were watching her.
The lives those kids were living seemed alien to her.
Ignoring them, she was warming herself by the fire when the memories started coming up again of her father beating her while her mother stood in the corner and covered her face.
Trembling, she shut her eyes, and covered her ears to block out the sound of his angry voice as he yelled in her face.
The only real family she ever had were her friends that appeared in her head and all around her every now and then. Sometimes they took over her body, and all she could do was watch. Sometimes she didn't even watch… Sometimes she was just imagined herself in a room with them in her old home, playing with them and some old toys and dolls, where everything was off-puttingly serene.
There was one that talked to her father in a strange way that made him smile when he stuck his private parts inside hers. Usually she took her place, because during the times her father did this to her, it always was too painful for her to stay conscious as herself.
Then there was an imaginary friend of hers that she had only ever seen once… She was glowing and beautiful, and speaking in a strange language she didn't understand at first.
She looked similar to Katja, only she was way more taller than any adult she had ever seen, and had glowing lines on her skin… and her blonde hair was golden compared to Katja's dirty, disheveled yellow-blonde hair, her blue eyes illuminating the dark unlike Katja's cold, empty ones. Her skin was bright enough to blind her, shining a light in the snow and the darkness of the night. She had long, pointy ears.
"What are you…" said Katja as she covered her eyes.
"My name is impossible for your race to pronounce," said the being as she laughed. "I am a Ljósálfar. The Isu referred to me and my race, as well as the Dökkálfar… as Ancients."
"My mother read to me a story about the Dökkálfar and Ljósálfar once…" said Katja. "You're a light elf?"
Looking around, Katja said, "But what's an Isu? Is an Isu another one of my friends I haven't discovered yet?"
"Perhaps, living Salakar," said the strange being. "You are a reincarnation unique to the Sages produced by the Isu… You are mine."
"I don't understand anything you're saying, even though you're speaking in Swedish now…" said Katja.
"You will, once you remember this memory…" said the being. "Our calculations say that it will likely be roughly twenty revolutions of this planet around the Sun later."
"You mean… twenty years?" Katja said. "That's a long time."
"You will encounter hardships along the way, Salakar. You will suffer more than most members of your race until he arrives," said the being.
"He?"
"Once you manage to awaken the Sixth, you will either lead your race to prosperity… or lead them astray… Lead them to Catastrophe."
Katja looked at the being as she said, "I will continue working on calculating possible futures… find out how to lead you down the correct path to awakening the Seventh. Help you achieve true divination through numbers. Until then, Salakar, your task is to stay alive… whatever the cost. If you do not understand my words right now, Salakar, remember these words and these words alone… you must prevent Catastrophe!"
Katja looked at the elven being as she started to dissolve, and cried, "Wait… Please don't go! I have so many questions! What's a Salakar? Who's he? And what do I do to prevent…"
As Katja woke up, she was muttering to herself.
She had fallen asleep next to the barrel.
"…catastrophe…" she said as a man in an expensive fur coat walked toward her.
"Catastrophe…" Katja said as she got up and started sleepwalking, wide-eyed as she ran into the man.
"Hey, kid," said the man. "What's your name?"
"…Catastrophe… Catastrophe…"
"Catastrophe?" said the man. "Weird word for a kid to say, even one living on the streets… Hmmm… Catastrophe… Cat… Katja. Yeah, Katja should be a good first name for your call girl name…"
"Come with me, kid," said the man. "I've got warm food and a place to stay for ya…"
Snapping out of her trance, Katja said, "Who are you? Are you a Ljósálfar too?"
The man laughed, and said, "No kid… but I will be the light in your life you'll worship…"
Katja went with the man, too confused, tired, and hungry to say no to his offer.
She would later know him as the man who helped traffic her to Epstein's island where she was regularly used by Templars as a sex slave.
Waking up, Katja shivered and was staring through Basim with her eyes wide open.
"Catastrophe…" said Katja. "Salakar…"
"Catastrophe? The Salakar?" Basim said in confusion.
"Catastrophe!" shouted Katja.
Acting on his chance, Basim kicked Katja off of him, knocking her to the floor.
As Katja came to somewhat, she looked up at Basim as he brushed the ashes off of his Engineers uniform.
"Crazy bitch…" he said.
"Cold… so cold…" Katja muttered to herself.
"Perfect timing for your dissociation to kick in, I have to admit," said Basim with a smirk as he pulled out a stun gun and fired it at Katja's stomach, knocking her out partially.
"Gah!" screamed Katja as she clutched her stomach and sank to the floor.
"GET UP, KATJA!" screamed Ezio as he tried to help her to her feet.
Katja was the shot with another taser round, which caused Ezio to grab his side.
"This used to be so easy…" Ezio said as he fell onto his hands and knees, "I'm at death's door… again… I need medicine, Katja…"
Katja was shot with a third taser round that hit Altair.
"Strength… Katja…" said Altair as he fell over as well.
"Shit… this is a bad time for the sync nexus to start," said Desmond as he appeared in Altair and Ezio's place, falling over next to Katja as she was shot with a fourth taser round.
As the two Masyaf Keys were tossed next to her, she looked up at Basim before she passed out.
"The girl is incapacitated… We're near the safe house in Ankara. Our time is scarce before the Assassins catch up to us." Basim paused. "Copy that, I'll meet you in Cyprus."
Picking up the last two Masyaf Keys again, he said, "Painful, aren't they? The memories of our collective past… Some memories can even be lethal, as has been proven with the Animus."
"Please… don't kill me…" said Katja.
"Kill you?" Basim smirked. "Dear Baldr, killing you is the one thing I'm not planning to do to you."
"You're coming with me," he said as he knocked Katja out cold by shooting a final taser round between her eyes.
Katja woke up to hear the engines of a helicopter, the chopping sound of its rotors.
As she began to see through the blur in her vision, Katja saw that her wrists and ankles were tied to one of the seats of a black helicopter.
Next to her were the Masyaf Keys.
"Ah… you're awake, Katja," said Basim.
"Katja! It's Elijah! Where the hell are you?!" yelled Elijah over static-filled comms.
"Elijah…" said Katja.
"It's no use," said Basim. "He can't hear us… but fortunately, I can hear him and the other Assassins."
"Don't worry," said Basim, "Like I said, I don't plan on letting Jerusalem be torn apart… I switched places with Sadiq in order to ensure this. My new plan is to trade you back to Lucas, in exchange for my son."
"Look at the Masyaf Keys… Do they remind you of anything?"
Katja stared at the Masyaf Keys.
One of the keys showed her an image of Swami, one of Abbas Sofian's disciples, murdering Altair's wife, Maria, after Abbas created a schism within the Assassin Order while Altair had been gone from Masyaf. He had been busy carrying out the Assassins' cause throughout the world during the early 13th century and spending time with Maria and their children; he had been to Cyprus to try and liberate it from the Templars' control, and had assassinated Genghis Khan after a long journey across Persia, India, and eventually Mongolia.
"Strength, Altair…" Maria said to Altair as Abbas left her to die in his arms.
Her older Altair alter looked at the Masyaf Key and his image began to flicker.
"Looks like Altair has retreated to his happy place…" said Basim. "Let's see what the other Masyaf Key says then, shall we?"
"No!" yelled Katja as Basim forced her to gaze upon the last Masyaf Key, the one that Altair held with him until he died in the Masyaf Vault housing the Apple.
"And it looks like Ezio is in the process of retreating to his happy place too…" said Basim.
"Sofia… My children…" Ezio said as Katja saw glimpses of his memories of a farm in Tuscany.
"What is this, Ezio?" said Katja.
"My… my happy place…" said Ezio. "With my family."
"I remember dying on a bench in Florence, while going to town with her and my children…" said Ezio. "I do not remember how exactly I died. All I remember is a man who sat next to me in my dying moments. I do not know if he was a Templar, or if he was just a young man who seemed annoying to me at the time. He reminded me of my younger, more immature self… Then he told me to get some rest. And, seconds before the light started to fade from my eyes, I managed to make peace with the Templars, the secret, unending organization who tormented me for so long, who would live on long past me."
"Can you make peace with the Assassins, Katja, knowing what they did to you? Knowing that they are going to try and take your father from you?" said Ezio. "The fate of the world may depend on it. I know I cannot raise my hand against you… I've made peace with that… but for the sake of humanity, our fellow brothers and sisters… I urge you to try."
"No…" said Katja as she dissociated again.
… … … … …
"I write these lines with a steady hand and a light heart," Ezio wrote to his sister, Claudia. "We are in Acre now—Sofia and I—with the five Masyaf Keys in our possession, and all the time in the world. Sofia is a seasoned traveler and a fine companion to have so far from home. Tomorrow we will make our way to Masyaf, and once there, into Altair's library to fulfill our father's forgotten dream."
"Forgive the shortness of this letter, dear sister, for it is late, and we are tired. Perhaps with luck, the next words you hear from me will be in person. Con affetto (affectionately), Ezio."
"Sadiq got away with the last two Masyaf Keys!" yelled Elijah.
"You can blame your girlfriend for that, Elijah," said William.
Elijah frowned, and looked at where Katja put on her equipment when he saw the letter.
"What's this?" said Elijah as he picked up the letter.
"I write these lines with a shaking hand and a faint heart," Katja wrote to Elijah. "The Ljósálfar's calculations tell me that I will be taken to Cyprus under Sadiq's orders- Basim and I— with the last two Masyaf Keys in Loki's possession, and all my alters subdued by him for the time being."
"The Ljósálfar…" said Elijah.
"She planned this in advance?" said William.
"I don't think it was her…" said Elijah in confusion.
"Ezio and Altair say I'm pregnant with your child, Elijah," Katja wrote. "Despite the danger and damage I've suffered in combat, I think our child is okay. They're a stubborn little devil, and despite that I'm scared to be a mother… they bring me some strange sort of comfort despite being so far away from home, and from my father."
Elijah covered his mouth in shock.
"She's pregnant?" said William.
"Looks like someone should've worn a condom back in Venice…" said Galina.
"Tomorrow I will be taken to the Templars' old headquarters in Cyprus, and once there, the sync nexus will be completed… Everything my father wanted to uncover within my consciousness and more will be unlocked… thus fulfilling the objectives of my father's iteration of the Phoenix Project."
"We need to get to Cyprus," said Elijah. "Now."
"Right," said William.
"Rebecca, contact DedSec, our allies in Yara… and maybe even Fourth Echelon if we get desperate. Just that hacker, Charlie, though… I don't trust Sam Fisher to know about this. We need all the help we can get."
"Rog'," said Rebecca as she and the others moved out.
"Forgive the shortness of this letter, Elijah, for it's almost time for our mission, and I am starting to come back to my true self again. Perhaps, if the Ljósálfar's next set of calculations are right… the next words you hear from me will be in person. Despite what you and the Assassins have done to me, I still love you, Elijah. Stay vigilant. Affectionately, Katja."
Elijah looked at the letter, his gaze distant for a moment, before he put it in his Assassin hoodie's pocket along with the cross necklace she had slipped into his pocket to spy on them while she was kissing him.
In Cappadocia, a furious Lucas was yelling over the phone.
"Find Sadiq!" he yelled. "And tell him his son will die in the Selection if he doesn't give mine back!"
Lucas said as he held up his hand toward the smoke of a candle in his lodging's bedroom, "The threads of the Nornir continue to spin… Wherever you are, Katja… do whatever you have to in order to survive. Fight to break free of captivity… and when you do, my daughter, please… come to back to me."
Lucas snuffed out the candle with his fingers.
Katja woke up to find herself in a dark room, naked and restrained to a metallic chair of some kind.
"Where am I?" said Katja, looking around in the darkness.
"You're in Cyprus, Baldr," said Basim. "My other reincarnation's almost here… It's time for us to find out what's inside that head of yours."