Chapter 3— "The Renaissance of Transhumanism"
Katja Winter/ Ezio Auditore
Flashback to Before the Mission in Masyaf
Katja's mind was swirling around as she was inside the Animus.
She could see glimpses of Odin's memories with Baldr, in Asgard, during the Isu Era.
"We're not quite there… She's too traumatized," said Rebecca Crane.
"Should we start back at the beginning of her memories?" said William Miles.
"I suspect it's not that simple, William," said Elijah.
"What do you mean, grandson?"
"Elijah's right," said Shaun. "In the past, if we were having trouble accessing the memory we wanted to see, we'd have Desmond go through his ancestor's memories in linear order… The problem is more complex than that this time."
"Bear with me here, William… If I'm right based on my observations from the files we stole from the Phoenix Project back in Rome, along with her dissociative tendencies… This woman, Katja… she's able to store the consciousnesses of people whose memories and experiences she relives via the Animus inside her head… to the extent that she's almost like an Animus itself. Think of it like the Bleeding Effect, only far more intuitive and much faster… More like… bleeding identities."
"A human Animus… Fascinating. No wonder Lucas took so much interest in her."
"What do you propose we do with her, William?" said Shaun.
"Simple," said William. "We have her undergo the Bleeding Effect, and use her to turn whatever purpose Lucas had for her against him."
"But there will be some dangers to the process," said Rebecca. "She seems to have already lost a ton of her sanity as is."
"I don't care," said William. "Her sanity is collateral. We've got a war against Abstergo to win."
"But I do, grandfather…" said Elijah.
The others looked at Elijah now.
"Elijah, please don't tell me she reminds you of your girlfriend you had in grade school."
"I will neither confirm nor deny that… And let's be clear, I never let my feelings get in the way of my mission. Ever."
"Then why do you care?"
"If we alienate her by pushing her too far… She may end up destroying us instead of Lucas's schism."
"So what do you propose we do with her, Elijah?" said William.
"Give me time with her," said Elijah. "We have to ease her into the process."
Katja began to scream as she saw a memory of Baldr being kidnapped from Odin by Surtr.
"She's becoming too traumatized… We have to pull her out," said Elijah.
"You heard him, Becs," said Shaun.
"All right," said Rebecca.
As the simulation dissolved, and Katja sat up in the Animus, she looked around in horror.
She was in some sort of old abandoned building's basement, whose façade was ancient.
She recognized the man who kidnapped her with the curly black hair and heterochromic eyes. What was his name again… Elijah?
"Where am I?" said Katja.
"You're in Monteriggioni," said William. "The old headquarters of Ezio Auditore, an Assassin who lived during the Italian Renaissance era."
Panicking, Katja said, "Monteriggioni… Italy?"
William and Elijah eyed each other.
"You bastards… you kidnapped me back in Rome!" screamed Katja. "Forced me into your Animus… tried to fuck with my mind!"
"Let's be clear, Katja…" said William. "We didn't mess up your mind. That was Lucas's doing."
"It doesn't matter," said Katja. "Get me out of here!"
"Where would you want us to take you, though?" said Elijah. "It looked like you were trying to escape when I found you… I thought I was just trying to provide assistance."
Katja looked at Elijah, then looked away out of frustration.
"Elijah has a point," said Rebecca. "I managed to piggyback on the Engineers' breach of Abstergo security back in Rome. What I saw on the surveillance footage made it look like you and Lucas had a falling out of some kind."
"You're right," said Katja.
"Lucas is a psychopath with a god complex, Katja," said William.
"I know," said Katja. "He's Odin's Sage."
"Therefore you must know that he doesn't think of you as a daugh—"
"That's not true!" yelled Katja. Trying to fight back tears, she said, "He's… he's the first person in my life that treated me kindly."
"Even if he does think of you as a- a daughter… Does that excuse the things he's done, and is going to do to the rest of the world though?" said Shaun. "Does it?"
Katja looked at Shaun and looked away.
"Look. We know you've had a hard life, Katja," said Shaun. "I've done some digging into your history. Abstergo had you trafficked via their pedophile ring based in the Vatican… along with an island where the most elite Templars let businessmen come to prey on the children they smuggle there. The island was known to be owned by Jeffrey Epstein until additional information about it was leaked to the public by DedSec."
Katja started to tremble and become distant at the mention of her past.
"The details are sketchy as to whether or not Lucas was involved in the plot to kidnap you… Throw in the fact that Lucas is technically a member of the Instruments of the First Will, and not the Knights Templar, and it becomes even less clear as to what his intentions were with you… He essentially took over Abstergo as CEO after assassinating Sofia Rikkin during the Engineers' false flag terrorist attack back in Rome, whereas before he was merely on the board of directors."
Katja remembered seeing Lucas's men drag Sofia Rikkin away.
"It's hard to say, but he might have manipulated you into thinking he wasn't involved—"
"I don't believe you!" Katja's voice broke as she said this.
"Shaun's not necessarily saying Lucas manipulated you… although I wouldn't put it past him," said Elijah. Walking toward Katja, he said to her, "What matters is this: Lucas is trying to do something bad to humanity, and he needs to go down for it. Sooner or later, you're going to have to put whatever way you felt about him aside. Otherwise, everyone in the world is going to suffer for it. Even you."
"What would you have me do?" Katja looked at Elijah, then the others. "No… You're going to have me kill him, aren't you?"
"No," said Elijah. "Not you. But he does need to die. We're Assassins. We kill bad people, like him."
Katja was very distraught at the sound of this, and everything around her started to become foggy.
She remembered something Lucas told her.
"You're the key to everything, Katja… The Phoenix Project, the Seventh Solution, all of it!"
"She's dissociating again," said Elijah. "Should we put her back in the Animus?"
Then as the room became clearer again, she looked at a man wearing a hood and cape with medieval armor and weapons underneath it. The man was roughly her age, and had a charming smile.
Katja started to have visions of her time with Lucas in Abstergo's main headquarters, where the man used a set of two hidden blades that extended from the sleeves in his bracers to stab her bodyguards to death when Lucas was in the room.
"You… you were in Rome… only you were older… and you had a beard," said Katja. "Who are you?"
"My name is Ezio Auditore da Firenze," said Ezio. Looking around, Ezio's smile disappeared. "Mario's old villa?" said Ezio as he looked around Monteriggioni.
"Ezio?" said Katja.
Katja looked at Ezio as he put his hands on her shoulders. The look on his face suggested a lot of emotions; depression, trauma, and confusion. But mostly panic.
"What year is it?" said Ezio.
"2034," said Katja.
"2034?" Looking around, Ezio said, "Then that means… No…"
Ezio started to wander around the destroyed villa as Katja followed him around.
"Ezio? Ezio!"
"She's going to get away!" said Rebecca. "Elijah, go get her!"
"No," said William. "Follow her and watch her. Keep your contact lens cameras on, Elijah… I want to see this for myself."
Elijah nodded, and followed Katja.
Katja was on the roof of the Monteriggioni main villa, which had been destroyed by cannonballs and a siege several centuries earlier, gasping for breath.
"How did I get up here?" she said to Ezio.
"Mario… Mother… Claudia… Cristina… Everyone I ever loved is gone!" said Ezio. "The last thing I remember was learning of a prophecy, in Venezia, after driving the Borgia conspiracy out of the city… and being accepted into the Assassin Brotherhood by all my friends, family, and allies that had trained me throughout the years. After I took the leap of faith… I ended up here."
Ezio looked at Katja, and said, "How did I get here, Katja?"
"I don't know… I don't know what's happening to me either!"
"You climbed all the way up here?" said Elijah as he managed to pull himself up onto the roof after finishing his parkour ascent.
"I… I did?" said Katja. She looked back towards Ezio, only to be startled.
He was gone.
"That man…" said Katja, "he didn't seem like he was from this era."
"That's because he wasn't," said Elijah. "Ezio Auditore was an Assassin, like us, when he was alive during the 15th and early 16th centuries. He was one of the most infamous of us; he was unofficially known for stopping the Borgia Empire's hold on Italy back then."
"Unofficially?"
"Unofficially as in not officially acknowledged in the history books," Elijah said with a smirk. "He was the one who assassinated Cesare Borgia, and attempted to assassinate Rodrigo much earlier."
"You make it sound like you've lived his life yourself," said Katja.
"The Animus allowed us to fill in some gaps," said Elijah. "Ezio is actually an ancestor of mine."
Katja frowned. "How do I know it wasn't actually you who made me like this?"
"I know you don't trust us, Katja," said Elijah, "but we've got bigger issues to deal with." Looking out at the horizon, Elijah said, "Speaking of which… that gives me an idea as to how you might be able to see the truth."
Elijah said to Katja, "How would you like to see Lucas again, ask him as to whether or not he was responsible for trafficking you?"
Katja looked away with a distraught look on her face. "He's probably upset at me after what I did."
"All the more reason not to trust him. You deserve to know the truth about his purpose for you, Katja."
Katja asked, "Where would I meet with him?"
Elijah said, "Tuscany. At his private labyrinthine estate."
Katja gasped. She saw a glimpse of a memory.
She was inside Lucas's labyrinthine estate. She was thirteen.
"I've never seen a home this big," she said.
"It's your home now, Katja," said Lucas.
"There are so many rooms…" said Katja. "What are they all for?"
"Come with me," said Lucas with a smile. "I'll give you a tour…"
Katja appeared upset.
"I've been there before," she said. "I need to work up the courage to see him again."
"We're preparing for the mission as we speak," said Elijah. "We're heading there in three days from now. My grandfather, William, wants you to go back into the Animus, but…"
"But what?" said Katja.
Suddenly she saw Ezio appear before her.
"Perhaps Ezio and I can show you around Florence," said Elijah. "I'm sure he wants to see what it's like now that it's been over half a millennium for him."
Ezio looked at Katja, and nodded solemnly.
"All right," said Katja. "As long as it means you don't put me back in that damned Animus again…"
The next day, they were in Florence.
Katja and Elijah were both wearing white hooded sweatshirts to blend in with the crowd.
Katja was eating a gelato cone Elijah had purchased for her from a local shop when she started to dissociate again.
She was experiencing a memory of Ezio's.
He was approaching a crowd in front of a stage, where an execution was happening.
"Giovanni Auditore," said the man leading the execution. He was standing next to a man wearing a black cloak and hood that Katja recognized as Rodrigo Borgia. "You and your accomplices stand accused of the crime of treason. Have you any evidence to counter this charge?"
"I think I'm feeling sick…" she said.
Elijah looked at her. "There's a bench over there… Let's go sit down."
As Ezio tried to get closer in an attempt to save his father, Giovanni, older brother Federico, and younger brother Petruccio, the man leading the execution, Uberto Alberti, said, "In the absence of any compelling evidence to the contrary, I am bound to pronounce you guilty. You and your collaborators are hereby sentenced to death."
Katja tried to fight off the dizzy lightheaded feeling she was getting as she dropped her gelato cone and stumbled toward the bench.
As Ezio desperately pushed through the crowd, he witnessed his father and brothers being hanged by the two Templars.
"FATHER!" Ezio screamed in horror.
Katja didn't make it to the bench. She got on her hands and knees and threw up on the pavement.
Panting heavily, she looked at Ezio, who was sitting nearby her on the bench. He was looking at the very place in the Florentine town square where the execution happened, his gaze distant.
Elijah said to Katja, "You got gelato all over my sweater."
Katja cried, "I'm sorry… I'm so sorry…"
"At least it wasn't vomit…" Elijah said with a smirk. "Wait a minute… are you talking to me, or… ?"
Katja looked at Ezio as he offered her his hand.
Katja sat down on the bench as her nausea started to go away.
She said to Ezio, "You… your family was killed by Templars?"
"At least half of them, sí," said Ezio with a frown. "It's a very strange and brutally ironic twist of fate for me to exist inside the mind of a Templar now."
"I'm not a Templar," she said. "At least… after what happened between Lucas and me in Rome… I'm not sure what I am anymore."
Katja said to Ezio, "Why did the Templars execute your family?"
Ezio responded, "I didn't know at the time. I was even more confused than you were… All I knew was that my family was innocent, and that they had been framed and executed under charges of a vast conspiracy that was perpetrated by the very people that hanged them for it."
Katja looked away out of shock.
Ezio's image flickered for a moment, where he seemed at least two or three decades older now, and had a beard. This version of Ezio said to Katja, "I remember now… Katja, your father… he's more than just a Templar. As a matter of fact… he's something far worse. I couldn't put my finger on it at first… but you and him share traits that remind me of something I saw in the vault underneath the Vatican… The Ones Who Came Before…"
Ezio said to Katja, "Perhaps I could learn from you at the very least… and you can learn from me."
Katja said, "Was your father an Assassin?"
"He was," said Ezio. "I found out after his death, from my uncle Mario. That is when I started to make sense of the madness that my family got thrown into. There, in his Monteriggioni villa, and throughout Italy, he and several other members of the Assassin Brotherhood trained me to become an Assassin like them. Like how you had little say in your life, in becoming a Templar… The life of an Assassin… it chose me."
Katja said, "I see…"
"One of the Assassins that kidnapped you mentioned a name… Desmond."
"He's Elijah's father, and William's son," said Katja. "Elijah told me on the walk here that he fulfilled a prophecy to save the world from a solar flare in 2012."
Ezio laughed.
"What's so funny?"
"I think I understand something that eluded me back in the Vatican…" said Ezio. "I understand enough at least."
Getting up, Ezio said to Katja, "Katja… If you had a choice between the creed of the Templars, and the creed of the Assassins, based purely on belief… which would you choose to become?"
Katja said, "I don't know… Mainly because I don't know the Assassin's creed."
"Perhaps I'll tell you it… in time," said Ezio. "But first, I suspect that Signore William Miles has work for us to do. My younger self might be able to assist you in that."
"All right…" said Katja as the older Ezio disappeared from sight.
Elijah said to Katja as he wiped gelato off of his hoodie, "We should get back to Monteriggioni… prep for the mission. My grandfather wants to see what else you're capable of thanks to your special case of the Bleeding Effect."
Katja said to Elijah, "I don't have a choice, do I?"
Elijah said to Katja, "If you help us find your father… you'll be able to leave us after that. You can make your own life for yourself. Personally, I'd rather just let you do that now, but… I'm under pressure from the rest of the Brotherhood."
Katja said, "You're not just taking me to my father, are you? You're going on a mission to assassinate him at his private estate."
Elijah said, "He's throwing a party and holding some sort of meeting with his associates under the guise of a 'philanthropy event' at his estate. After he had Sofia Rikkin killed back in Rome and took her spot as CEO of Abstergo, I think he and the other members of the Instruments of the First Will are planning on how to take over Abstergo completely… That or something much worse."
Katja felt uneasy again.
"Did you honestly think we were just going to give you back to him?"
"Of course not," she sighed. "All right. Take me back to your hideout."
William and Elijah had put together a training course in the ruins of Monteriggioni to test whether or not Katja was capable of more than just parkour.
As Katja worked up a sweat while racing through the obstacle course as she climbed around the destroyed villa, she saw visions of Ezio racing with thieves, and flirting with courtesans, and fighting alongside several mercenaries.
As she practiced using a hidden blade on various mannequins by assassinating them by jumping on them, pulling them off ledges, and pulling them into haystacks, bushes, roof gardens, and other hiding spots, Katja saw a glimpse of Ezio undergoing another similar training course with…
Katja looked at her young Ezio alter.
"You knew Leonardo da Vinci?"
"He was a good friend of mine, sí," said Ezio. "I miss him dearly."
As Katja finished the assassination, stealth, and parkour training courses, she realized how sweaty she was, and how much her muscles ached, even though she didn't feel as tired as she typically would.
"Fascinating…" she heard William Miles say to Shaun and Rebecca at the old fighting ring at the villa's courtyard. "She's making it look like her alter is helping her learn how to gain the fighting experience of an Assassin."
Looking at Ezio, she said, "Is that true?"
Ezio said, "I suspect that we're going to be heading into danger soon, Signorina Katja. And if you die, I die. You need to be ready to fight for yourself."
Elijah tossed Ezio a sword.
Katja found that she was holding the sword she thought Elijah tossed Ezio, but Ezio was holding another sword.
"It's time I taught you how to fence, like Mario taught me how to all those years ago."
Ezio taught Katja how to parry, block, dodge, feint, and attack with melee attacks as they fought with each other in the arena ring.
"We're monitoring her senses via a token Elijah stole from Abstergo," said Rebecca.
"Abstergo must've gotten it from the Observatory," said Shaun. "We're reading her thoughts, sharing her senses… Ezio is definitely training her right now. It's a marvel of science on par with something the Isu would've been able to do."
"I wasn't aware Abstergo had access to the Observatory," said William.
"Their PMCs do have a large presence in the Caribbean… especially Yara," said Rebecca.
"We should look into that at the upcoming meeting Lucas is having with his associates," said William. "If they have access to the Observatory, then…"
"We know, boss," said Shaun. "Elijah plans to look into it."
Ezio said to Katja, "Now for ranged combat, Katja… While the majority of my ranged tools consisted of smoke bombs, throwing knives, poison darts, and crossbows… it looks like you have access to much more advanced ranged weapons in the modern day. Fortunately, Leonardo was able to decipher some schematics for my hidden blade that was left behind in a codex page… from Altair."
"Altair?" said Katja.
"An ancestor of mine," said Ezio. "He was able to create a tiny rifle built into a blade. Therefore, I have some experience with shooting."
Katja looked at Ezio as he pointed at the circular boards with targets painted on them, some of which had been placed on clotheslines and were moving around, and said, "It looks like the modern-day Assassins want you to shoot the red and gold targets while avoiding the blue ones… You'll have to line up your shots with this suppressed sniper rifle they gave you."
Katja looked at the targets. "None of them are those colors though."
"Look closer."
Katja did so; she realized soon that he meant for her to use Eagle Vision.
She lined up her shots as best as she could, and fired at the targets one by one.
"You're an even better shot than me, Katja," said Ezio.
"Lucas did take me hunting sometimes…" said Katja, scratching her head as she looked at the target boards full of holes that she fired at.
Ezio said to Katja, "You don't want Lucas to die, do you Katja?"
"I don't," said Katja. "He's… he's like a father to me."
Ezio said to Katja, "Well you won't need to worry about killing him yourself… Actually, I suspect this is just the beginning of a much longer saga. Lucas likely knows we're coming, so it won't be as easy for the Assassins as they make it seem."
Katja nodded, despite that she was still confused and upset.
Elijah approached Katja. "You're a natural fighter, Katja," he said. "We leave for Tuscany tomorrow morning."
"What happens once we get there?"
"If all goes according to plan?" said Elijah. "You'll see Lucas again."
"I assume the catch is you're going to have me try to kill him."
"Maybe not," said Elijah. "But there will be a catch."
"What's the catch?"
"We're using you as bait to infiltrate the party."
Katja was looking out the window of a limo Shaun and Rebecca managed to steal at a nearby checkpoint. She was staring at Lucas's labyrinthine estate in the middle of the vast green hills of the Tuscan countryside. Fireworks were going off in the distance in celebration of Carnevale.
She was wearing a red dress similar to the one Lucas bought her a while back, along with a golden Carnevale mask to match the party's dress code.
Ezio's image flickered for a moment. His hair became gray, his gaze was distant.
"Sofia…" he said.
"Are you okay, Ezio?" Katja said.
Ezio's image then changed back to his younger self.
Elijah then communicated with Katja via a hologram in her contact lenses, and the communicators in her golden earrings that matched her Templar cross-shaped necklace she had kept that Lucas gifted her as well.
"Are you, Shaun and Rebecca almost at the entrance?" said Elijah.
"Yes," said Katja, her hands trembling. "Where are you?"
"Close by."
"How did you manage to enter the stronghold?"
"With violence."
Katja nodded, and lowered her gaze.
Shaun was communicating with Elijah too. "Are you sure this is a good idea, boss?"
"It doesn't matter, Shaun," said Rebecca. "We're sitting ducks out here as is."
"Not on my watch," said Elijah; Katja could hear him cocking a suppressed sniper rifle over her communicator. "You're good to enter the stronghold's final checkpoint."
As they approached the guards at the gates to the estate stronghold interior, Rebecca rolled down the window to Katja's seat in the limousine.
"Name?" said the guard.
"Katja Winter," said Katja. "I'm… I'm Lucas's adopted daughter."
The guard looked up at Katja and raised his eyebrows.
Looking at the list on his tablet, the heavily armored Abstergo PMC soldier said, "You're on the list. We'll escort you inside. Unfortunately, your chauffeurs will have to wait outside. Lucas's orders."
Katja looked at Shaun and Rebecca. They nodded back.
Katja carefully stepped out of the limousine.
I always hated wearing high heels, she said as she walked with the mercenaries into the estate interior.
Katja looked around at the massive estate interior.
Velvet red carpets, Renaissance paintings on the walls, and the golden fountain carved to look like Lucas in the middle of the foyer.
It's how I remember it, said Katja.
Ezio said to Katja, "This sheer amount of wealth… it's always stolen from the people. Remember that, Katja."
Katja said nothing in response.
Katja entered the dining hall, where several party guests and accomplices of Lucas were drinking wine and eating food and cake.
Katja took some cake, and downed some wine to help herself cope.
Suddenly a familiar woman that was her age approached her.
"Katja?" said the woman.
Katja looked at the woman, and a chilling upwelling of memories reached the surface of her mind, emerged from her subconscious.
"Monique?" said Katja.
Monique was a friend Katja made when she was a teenager, as she was trafficked by the Templars' pedophile ring before Lucas rescued her… or so she thought.
Monique was wearing an outfit that looked similar to that of when the two of them were forced to be an escort for a bunch of sick rich old men.
"What are you doing here?" said Katja. "Did Lucas rescue you too?"
"Rescue me?" said Monique. "What are you talking about, Katja? I'm still being forced to sell my body."
Katja shivered.
Why would Lucas allow that to happen here… she thought.
Ezio said, "She's a courtesan… a prostitute… only she's been made one against her will..." Looking at Katja, Ezio said to her, "You were one too?"
Feeling sick, Katja said, "I have to go, Monique."
"Wait, Katja! What happened to you back when we were being punished by that client, the one who was a massive sadist? I never saw you again after that!"
A terrifying memory Katja had repressed started coming back to her as Monique said this.
"I have to go!" said Katja as tears started to cloud her sight.
Katja headed to the ballroom.
She felt sick.
"Mind sharing a dance with me?" said a familiar voice.
Katja turned around.
"Elijah?" she said.
"Shhh," he said. "We're being watched."
Elijah was wearing a tuxedo and Carnevale mask as well. She assumed he stole it from one of the mercenaries acting as Lucas's security detail for the party.
Nodding, she locked hands with Elijah as he wrapped one hand around her waist, and they danced.
Elijah whispered to Katja, "Rebecca needs you to access Lucas's personal computer in his bedroom."
Katja said to Elijah, "I can do that."
"Schematics say he has a panic room of some kind. Do you know where it is?"
"No," said Katja.
"Well, I'll try to help you find it then," said Elijah. "I'll shadow you; take out any guards that might get in your way. I'll be subtle."
Katja nodded, and they headed upstairs in the direction of Lucas's bedroom.
As they entered Lucas's bedroom, Katja looked at his massive king-sized bed.
She remembered a time she walked into his room.
"Father?" a younger Katja said.
Yawning, Lucas said, "I told you Gisela, I've had enough sex for tonight—"
"I had another nightmare."
Lucas looked over in Katja's direction as she was standing in the doorway.
"Katja?" said Lucas. Looking at one of his mistresses lying sound asleep next to him for a moment, Lucas eased himself out of bed. "Do you need me to have the butler fetch you a snack?"
"No," said Katja. "I want to sleep next to you."
"What? Why?"
"Because when I'm near you, the- the nightmares I have in the daytime go away. I figured maybe they- they'd go away at night too."
Lucas sighed, and rubbed his eyes. "All right, Katja. I'll sleep next to you in your room until you fall asleep again."
Katja said to Lucas, "You don't want to sleep in here?"
"It's probably best you don't sleep in the same bed as Gisela…" said Lucas, scratching his head as he put on a robe.
"Okay. Thank you, father," said Katja. "I love you."
Lucas smiled at Katja.
"Katja?" said Elijah.
"I love you…" she said to herself as she recalled the memory.
"You… you what?" said Elijah, blushing for a moment.
Snapping back into reality, Katja turned to look at Elijah.
Clearing his throat, Elijah said, "I need help accessing his PC… Do you have the thumb drive?"
Katja nodded, and pulled the thumb drive out from the hollow part of her cross necklace.
Looking up at Elijah, back down at her chest, and back up again, she said, "What are you looking at?"
"Nothing," said Elijah, turning away. "Hand me the drive."
Katja gave Elijah the drive, and Elijah plugged it into a USB port in Lucas's PC.
"Rebecca's hacking malware is working its magic… An app of hers is helping me skim for any relevant files… In the meantime, look around for the panic room," said Elijah.
"All right," said Katja.
Ezio said to her, "If I understand correctly, my father had something similar to a 'panic room' in my childhood home… Use your talent, Katja."
Katja used her Eagle Vision to look around for any signs of the panic room's secret entrance.
She eventually managed to see that there were several fingerprints on Lucas's bookshelf, and that one of the books had more fingerprints on it than the others.
Katja pulled said book out; behind it was a switch.
This must be it, she thought as she hit the switch.
The bookshelf moved and a vault door behind it opened to reveal a hidden stairway.
Turning to Katja, Elijah said, "You found it."
Katja nodded.
"Let's go in together," he said.
As they entered the vault and went down the stairway, Katja started to shiver as she realized they were in a sex dungeon.
The dungeon contained all sorts of sex toys, including set of hooks, restraining devices, chairs, and a wall and table covered in sex toys, including canes, whips, chains, candles and matches, cattle prods, rope, vibrators, ball gags, knives, butt plugs, and very large dildos.
Elijah looked around and raised his eyebrow in disgust. "Looks like Lucas is a sadist in more ways than one."
Lucas, were you responsible for my kidnapping? Being trafficked all those years ago? Katja thought.
"Elijah, let's get out of here. This isn't a panic room."
"Hold on a moment," said Elijah. "Look over there."
Next to a set of cages was a wall covered in chains, and Katja could see a door disguised as part of the wall with her Eagle Vision.
There was a lever on the door with a keyhole in it.
Elijah tried to open it.
Meanwhile, Katja had a vision where Ezio was entering a tomb of some kind back in Florence.
He used his hidden blade to pick the lock to the tomb's secret entrance.
"Damn, this thing won't budge—" said Elijah.
"I've got it," said Katja as she took out the hairpin holding her hair together and picked the lock.
Elijah said, "You know how to pick locks?"
"No…" she said.
Katja pushed the lever upward, then back downward again, and the hidden door opened.
The two of them then entered the real panic room.
Katja looked around the panic room; she saw several documents lying around on the walls and tables.
"What are these?" said Katja.
"They look like schematics for bombs," said Elijah. "Red Mercury."
"Red Mercury?"
"It's used to make nukes the size of baseballs."
Katja then saw glimpses of a disturbing memory of hers back in Rome, the night before Elijah and the Assassins kidnapped her.
Katja shook her head and shutting her eyes for a moment in an attempt to block the memories out.
Elijah said, "Shit… That's bad."
"What is?"
"See this map?"
Katja looked over at the document Elijah was looking at on the wall.
"What are those Xs on the map for?"
"My guess is that they're targets for the Red Mercury bombs."
Katja looked at Elijah in horror.
"Lucas wants to nuke that many targets?"
"I wouldn't put it past him…" said Elijah. "As an Isu supremacist and a member of the Instruments of the First Will, he is a lot more extreme in his views of the means to controlling humanity than the Templars are."
"No… You're wrong!" said Katja.
Elijah said, "I don't think so. Look here."
Katja looked at the document Elijah was looking at.
"It's an invoice from a manufacturing center in Hong Kong," said Elijah. "He has the means to make enough Red Mercury bombs to blow up the world several times."
"Oh my god!" Katja covered her mouth. She started to cry.
"Katja!" said Elijah as he tried to grab her shoulders to console her, but Katja pulled away.
"Don't touch me!"
"I need you to try and stay focused!" said Elijah. "We're in danger here. Both of us. We need to continue the mission."
Katja looked at Elijah, and nodded, then wiped her eyes.
Elijah looked over at a computer on a desk, and an open safe beneath it.
"Boot up that computer and plug your USB drive into it, Katja," said Elijah. "I'm going to take a look at this safe."
"All right," said Katja, as she turned on Lucas's computer and plugged in the USB drive to one of its ports.
The monitor had the Templars' cross insignia on it, as well as the Instruments of the First Will, and some words written in the Isu language on it.
Katja had a brief memory re-surface again.
Only this one occurred several millennia ago, in the realm of Helheim.
Katja was staring into the eyes of Odin.
"Father…" she said from the perspective of Baldr. "In order to survive Ragnarok, everyone must think me dead… Including you."
"There has to be another way, my son…" said Odin, who looked eerily similar to Lucas.
As the memory blurred back to the present, Elijah said while crouched over, "It looks like this safe housed the Red Mercury bomb that was strapped to Sofia Rikkin's chest back in Rome."
"What?" said Katja. "But I thought that was the Engineers' doing!"
"Lucas is probably working with them," said Elijah.
"That doesn't make sense!" she said.
"It does," said Elijah. "According to Abstergo's media subsidiaries' news reports, the Engineers were working with a rogue faction of the NSA to attempt a nuclear terrorist attack on Rome while we were there… The US government is working with them, meaning it was a false flag operation."
Katja looked around the panic room in horror when Shaun contacted them. "We've got a problem, boss…"
"Spit it out, Shaun," said Elijah.
"Multiple members of Lucas's security detail converging on your position… Along with… oh, that's not good."
"What isn't good?"
Rebecca said, "I identified a woman posing as Gisela's mistress infiltrating the party with several NSA agents… Anna Grimsdottir, a member of Fourth Echelon; they're the same group that took the fall for the attack in Rome."
"Looks like we might not be the only ones infiltrating the party," Elijah said.
"You two need to get out of there!" said Shaun.
"No," said Elijah. "I've scanned the documents, but we're still downloading the intel on Lucas's computer."
"Can't we just work with what we have?"
"After Rome, I had a hunch that this Red Mercury business wasn't Lucas's only operation meant to depopulate the world…" said Elijah to Shaun. "This computer's files might help us figure that out."
"Depopulate the world?" said Katja with a shiver.
Shaun said, "You're running out of time. Get out of there!"
"I'm still in disguise," said Elijah. "I'll do my best to distract the guards. Katja, stay here and complete the download."
Katja looked at Elijah.
"You've got this," he said.
She then looked at Ezio.
"We've got this," Ezio said to Katja.
Elijah nodded at Katja, and exited the panic room.
Katja looked around as the download completed.
Ezio said to Katja, "Lucas is a monster, Katja."
"It's still so hard to wrap my head around… The same man who raised me is trying to nuke the world, kill off billions of people?"
"Both the Templars and the Ones Who Came Before desire control of humanity," said Ezio. "Their vision of peace comes at the cost of free will, but the means of obtaining it here are much more draconian than I could ever imagine."
"Wouldn't nuking the world cause chaos though?"
"Humanity's strength against tyranny lies in its numbers, its common brotherhood," said Ezio. "It looks like Lucas wants to decrease humanity's numbers significantly."
Katja looked at the computer.
"Shaun, Rebecca, Elijah, the computer's done downloading."
"Damn it…" said Shaun. "Katja, Elijah's with several guards close to your position… He's managing to stall them, but…"
"But what?" said Katja.
"Anna Grimsdottir's outside the panic room, looking for the way in," said Shaun. "She's likely looking for what we just found. You're trapped."
"The download's done," said William. "Katja may be a lost cause, Rebecca… At least we got the intel."
Katja frowned, and looked around.
Ezio said to Katja, "I have an idea on how we can trick Anna Grimsdottir, Katja."
"What's your idea?"
"You may not like it, but… I suspect it's our only option."
"Let's hear it," Katja said.
When Ezio told her the idea, Katja's face went red.
"You'll need to be convincing," said Ezio.
"I- I know," said Katja.
"Back in the day, I knew my way around courtesans well… Perhaps I'd be good enough at imitating one myself… Do you need me to take over?"
"No," said Katja. "I've got this."
Frowning, Katja took her hidden blade strapped to her thigh, and cut some slits open in her dress.
Katja managed to disguise herself as another escort.
She was lying in one of the cages, wearing a brunette wig she found in the dungeon as a disguise, along with a blindfold and ball gag. She managed to make it look like her hands were tied behind her back.
She heard footsteps.
"It's the woman the Assassins mentioned," said Ezio. "Make this work, Katja."
Katja heard the cage door open.
Next thing she knew, she felt someone's hands unstrap the ball gag from her head and pull it out of her mouth.
Katja caught her breath, and started to act.
"Lucas? Is that you?"
"…no," said the NSA spy, Anna Grimsdottir.
"Are you another… friend of his?" Katja said, smiling and faking a giggle. "I… didn't think he'd want to do a threesome…"
"Do you know if there's a panic room in here somewhere?"
Katja decided to risk telling the spy about the panic room; hopefully this would buy her time to escape. "Well, I saw a door disguised a wall, over in the corridor to the right of the other cages; the lever to open it is hidden behind some chains. He caught me trying to open it once; he punished me twice as hard for it. I always figured it led to another playroom of his. Are you one of his slaves too?"
"Not exactly," said Grim. "Open your mouth up again."
"What? Why—mmph!" Katja said as Grim stuffed the ball gag back in her mouth again.
Katja said underneath the ball gag as she heard Grim start to walk away, "Where are you going?"
"Quiet!"
"…yes, ma'am."
Katja heard Grim open and shut the panic room door behind her.
"The coast is clear, Katja," said Ezio. "Go!"
Katja quickly took her blindfold and wig off once she pulled her hands loose from her bonds, and used her hairpin she had put on the floor nearby to get out of the cage.
Wiping the drool off her chin, she then ran out of the sex dungeon and Lucas's bedroom while no one was looking.
Katja walked through the halls of the estate; she used her hairpin to pin the slit she cut in the top of her dress together to keep it from falling off and exposing her breasts. However, the slit she cut in the bottom of her dress was exposing her legs.
Several female guests eyed her, and frowned, while several male guests raised their eyebrows and smirked.
Katja ignored them.
Ezio said to Katja as she navigated through the halls from her memories, "We should regroup with the Assassins."
"Not yet… There's something I need to confirm."
"You're not going to confront Lucas yourself, are you?"
Katja didn't respond to this.
She headed to Lucas's office in his library.
To her surprise, she saw him out on the balcony nearby.
Turning around, Lucas said, "Gisela, is that—"
Lucas looked at Katja.
"I recognize those blue eyes behind your mask…" he said. "Katja. My men said you had come to the party. I've been looking all over for you."
Katja's trembled as Lucas approached her.
Looking at her, Lucas said as he straightened out some of her hair with his hands, "Your hair's a mess… along with your dress." Frowning, he said, "Word is the Assassins are here. I'm glad they brought you back to me, but… Did they do something to you?"
Katja said to Lucas, "Were you responsible for my kidnapping, Lucas?"
Lucas's eyes went wide. "What?"
"Please, tell me the truth."
"Of course not! You know how much I care about you, Katja," Lucas said. "Have you forgotten because of your amnesia again?"
"What?"
Lucas said, "Right… I think I understand. I'll rejog your memories for you."
Lucas said to Katja as he narrated her memories, "You were just a teenager when I started to take over Abstergo, created a schism within its ranks between the Templars and my Instruments… They trafficked you into their pedophile ring while you were living on the streets."
"I was looking for the girl who was to be the key to the Phoenix Project, preventing Ragnarok. Another Norse Isu reincarnation. Then I found you that night in a brothel in Stockholm... A client of the Templars was about to kill you."
A teenage Katja was inside the brothel with Monique.
The old man from Katja's nightmare was brutally beating her from behind with a cane.
Screaming, Katja started to cry. "Enough! Please stop!"
"That's not the safe word…" said the man. "Now hold still."
Monique said, "Katja, the safe word's 'emergency', remember?"
Katja cried, "Emergency!"
This just made the old man angry though. He punched Monique, knocking her over, and grabbed Katja by the throat.
"I paid good fucking money for you," said the man. "I don't care if you're in too much pain, you bitch. You do what I tell you, when I tell you."
"No…" said Katja as the man started to choke her unconscious.
Then the man stopped as they heard gunshots and screaming coming from inside the brothel.
The man grinned, and violently threw her onto a glass table, causing her to smash through it.
"You're as good as dead," said the man. "My friends are here."
Katja groaned, and clutched some of her wounds in an attempt to stop the bleeding.
As she crawled off the wreckage of the table to try and wake up Monique, Monique whispered to her, "Play dead, Katja."
"What? Why?"
"Or you'll die for real!"
Shocked, Katja looked around as a Lucas, who was in his mid-thirties at the time, entered the room.
Lucas looked around.
"Mr. Richards?" said the old man. "A pleasure to see you, sir."
"I'm looking for a Sage," said Lucas.
"A Sage?" said the old man. "I… wasn't aware one was here."
Lucas looked around, then looked at Katja.
"That girl… Give her to me."
"What? Sir, that ain't a Sage, that's just a stupid whore—"
"Did I stutter?"
The old man looked at Katja, and yanked her to her feet by grabbing her arm.
Shaking intensely, Katja looked at Lucas in terror.
Lucas examined her neck.
"Hmmm…" said Lucas. "Bite marks on her neck are covering the usual spot… There hasn't been a female reverse-gender reincarnation since Eivor, but…"
Lucas's eyes went wide. "You're him. You have to be."
Confused, Katja didn't know what this meant at the time.
Lucas looked at Katja's body, and frowned. "You need to see a doctor. Who hurt you?"
Katja shivered, and said nothing as she began to cry again.
To her surprise though, Lucas wiped the tears from her eyes.
"Shhh… It's okay… I'm not here to hurt you. Now tell me."
Katja said, "That- that man over there."
Lucas looked at the old man.
"Is she telling the truth?"
"We were just having a bit of fun, sir," said the man. "Out of the other girls, she fucks the best."
"You raped her?"
"Raped her?" said the man. "She's a prostitute, Mr. Richards…"
"She looks like a scared teenager to me," said Lucas as he pulled out a handgun and shot the old man in the head.
Katja screamed as the man fell over dead.
"Piece of shit…" said Lucas as he wiped the man's blood off of his face.
Turning to Katja, Lucas offered his hand, "Come. I'm getting you to a nearby doctor."
Katja said, "The usual one?"
"The usual one?" said Lucas. "This doctor is mine. She's one most people on Earth can't afford."
Looking at the tattoo on her arm showing the trafficking ring she was a part of, Lucas covered his eyes with his hand and laughed. "Of course the Templars would nearly rob me of the one person I hold dear, all because of their sick cravings of the flesh…" Looking back at Katja again, Lucas said, "I assume you're talking about the doctor in leagues with the men who trafficked you. But I'm not a part of their trafficking ring."
"You're lying," said Katja. "Where are you taking me this time?"
Lucas said to Katja, "For starters, to the doctor. After that… Where would you want to go?"
Katja said to Lucas, "I—" Looking at the floor, she said, "I don't know."
"Do you want to get something to eat?"
Katja said nothing.
"There's a restaurant near Stockholm that serves some delicious waffles. Perhaps we can go there."
Katja said, "Why would you do this?"
"It's all right. I'm not one of them," said Lucas. "May I ask what your name is?"
Katja said, "Katja Winter."
"Is that your real name or your fake name you tell to clients?"
"If I have a real name, I don't remember it."
Lucas smiled. "All right, Katja. Get dressed, and I'll take you to the hospital. After that, we'll go to the restaurant I mentioned, and I'll explain everything to you."
"What do you mean everything?" said Katja.
"For starters… what your new life is going to be like."
Lucas offered his hand, and Katja reluctantly took it.
"Your triple-helix DNA, your Isu consciousness, was the key to everything, Katja," said Lucas in the present day. "You were to be the final phase of the Phoenix Project… the renaissance of transhumanism. If it weren't for your dissociative identity disorder then we likely already would've been able to uncover the truth about your Isu consciousness."
He said, "But that doesn't matter, Katja… Unlike the Assassins, I never saw you as a mere science experiment… You're my daughter."
Katja sighed, and said, "I can't remember what happened in Rome… Why I ran away from you."
"I know," said Lucas. "It's my fault. You weren't ready to know the truth."
"About what?"
"Would hearing it again turn you against me once more?" said Lucas.
"I deserve to know," said Katja.
Lucas said, "All right. It's about the nukes. About preventing Ragnarok. In order for us to survive Ragnarok, Katja, we have to do something awful to most of the rest of humanity. It's not right, but it's our responsibility in order to stop a mass extinction event due to climate change, and shortages of resources."
"You're going to nuke the world with Red Mercury, aren't you?" said Katja.
"Not the entire world," said Lucas. "Only Washington, Moscow, and Beijing, along with two other locations… The result of this will mean the deaths of roughly half the human population… The rest of my nukes will be used as deterrents. After that, no one will want to question our power."
Katja said to Lucas, "That's over three billion people!"
"I know," said Lucas. "Survival doesn't come without sacrifice, Katja. It's not right, but it's our responsibility as leaders of the world to make the sacrifice."
As Katja looked at Lucas, she became dizzy and lightheaded; she was unable to tell the two images of Lucas apart; the loving father figure who got her out of that hell, and the monster who was hellbent on killing everyone else.
Lucas said, "As for the Assassins that took you from me, only to bring you back for some reason… I assume they were the ones who told you about how the type of nuclear material I was using for said plan was Red Mercury… because I never told you that myself."
Katja looked at Lucas as he said, "I assume the Assassins are here. Mind telling me where they are?"
Katja began to snap back into reality as Ezio nudged her shoulder.
Katja looked his way briefly; he was shaking his head no.
She then looked back in Lucas's direction.
"I will, on one condition," said Katja.
"What's the condition?"
"I saw a friend of mine here from when I was a prostitute. Monique. She said she's still serving as an escort here… Are you still trafficking women and children like me when I was a sex slave?"
Lucas frowned at Katja. "Unfortunately, it's one of Abstergo's businesses, Katja. And while it is immoral, it's a necessary evil for the time being."
Katja frowned as Lucas said, "I was only there to find you that night, not dismantle Abstergo's pedophile ring from within. It would've been too much of a setback to my attempt at taking over Abstergo."
Katja said while shaking, "Dismantle the pedophile ring in the Vatican, and on that island that was run by Jeffrey Epstein before he took the fall for it and was assassinated… That's my condition."
Lucas said to Katja, "I'm… I'm afraid I can't do that, Katja. But if you want, I can free your friend Monique for you—"
Katja started to become numb, dissociating again.
Ezio began to try and stab Lucas with his Hidden Blade.
"Katja, what are you doing?" said Lucas.
"Ezio, no!" shouted Katja as she desperately tried to stop Ezio from succeeding.
Katja managed to push Ezio away, only for Ezio to drop a smoke bomb.
Katja began to cough heavily, only when the smoke cleared, she found Ezio was gone, and she had her own detached Hidden Blade strapped to her thigh pointed at Lucas's throat. Tears were in her eyes from crying rather than coughing.
"Katja?" said Lucas.
Katja tried to stop crying.
"Give me the blade, Katja."
"I'm sorry," said Katja as she put her Hidden Blade back into her sheath underneath her dress, and ran from Lucas.
"Katja? KATJA!" shouted Lucas.
He was about to chase after her when she heard his smartphone ring.
"Dr. Aswat?" he said. Frustrated, he said, "Right… The meeting. Perfect fucking timing. I'm on my way."
Katja ran through the halls on her high heels until her feet hurt.
When she stopped to catch her breath and take off her high heels, Ezio said to Katja, "Why did you stop me?"
"I'm not ready to kill him… I don't think I can!"
Ezio said, "Lucas is a madman, Katja… The kind that can't love others. You have to let him go."
Katja was about to respond when she saw guards approaching her.
"Are you ready to kill them though, Katja? Because if you don't, we die."
Katja looked at the four guards as they approached.
"Sir, I've found the girl, over. You want us to take her to the conference room? Roger that," said a guard.
Katja pulled out her Hidden Blade and stabbed the guard closest to her through the chest.
"What the hell—"
Katja managed to slit the second guard's throat, and throw the blade into the eye of the third.
The fourth guard pulled out a stun gun.
Ezio then shot the guard with his hand cannon blade.
He smiled slyly at Katja as she found herself holding her suppressed pistol she had strapped to her other thigh.
Ezio said, "We need to regroup with the others."
Katja said, "Their comms have gone dark."
"Lucas is likely deploying countermeasures of some kind now that he's onto us."
"What do we do then?"
Ezio said to Katja, "Whenever I'm outnumbered… it's always a good idea to head to the rooftops for an escape."
Katja looked at Ezio, and nodded.
She managed to run across the rooftops as several snipers guarding the rooftops fired less-than-lethal electric shock rounds at her.
She tried to duck and slide behind cover whenever she got the chance.
Upon reaching the edge of the rooftop, she stopped herself from jumping off just in time.
"That fall to the pool is too far," said Katja. "I can't jump that far by myself!"
"Then let me give you a boost—" said Ezio before a sniper shot Katja with less-than-lethal ammunition.
Katja fell backwards, unable to move for a moment.
"You have a strong will to be able to avoid losing consciousness from that much voltage," said a familiar voice through the blur of her senses. "Tell me Katja, was that you or one of your alters that took that blow?"
Katja flipped over, and screamed as she pulled the electric shock round off of her bare chest.
Breathing heavily, she got on her hands and knees.
Looking up, she saw that the man who shot her had healed his knees with a Staff of Eden at some point, as his legs looked somewhat unnatural.
Then she looked at his face, and managed to match it with his voice as the blur went away.
"Otso Berg?" said Katja.
"I wasn't invited to the party," said Otso, "and of course I would end up running into the Assassins here… as well as a Fourth Echelon agent. The latter, Isaac Briggs, almost downed me earlier… ended up causing me to miss the meeting Lucas was holding with his associates after killing Sofia Rikkin and taking over her position as CEO of Abstergo."
"What do you want?"
"You're coming with me," he said. "You're my best chance at preventing another takeover of Abstergo by the Instruments of the First Will."
"No!" yelled Katja.
She looked at Ezio behind her, who was flickering to his older self again.
"Sofia… I want to join you again, but…"
"The jump will kill you," said Otso Berg, "but I need you alive. Consider your options wisely for the split-second you have."
Katja was out of strength due to the LTL shock round she got hit with.
"Split-second's up," said Otso Berg as he picked her up and carried her on his shoulder when suddenly the lights at the mansion went out.
"What the hell?" yelled Otso Berg.
Katja then looked around as her strength started to return.
She looked behind her, and saw that Ezio's younger version was back with the help of her Eagle Vision.
He nodded to her.
Katja nodded back, then sunk her teeth into Otso's shoulder, causing him to cry out in agony, then she desperately used the rest of her strength to pull him over her by hooking her leg around his head.
Tumbling to the ground knocked the wind out of her.
Ezio said, "Now, Katja!"
Catching her breath, Katja got up and ran toward Ezio and he boosted her off the edge of the roof and she dove into the pool.
Katja came up to breathe, then dove back underwater again as bullets started to fly all around her in the water. She swam toward the edge of the pool and waited for the bullets to stop, then pulled herself out.
Her red dress was soaking wet, and the hairpin she used to close the slit in her dress was starting to come undone. Several civilians were running for their lives. The party had turned to chaos.
Looking up, she saw Otso reloading.
"KATJA!" Otso yelled.
Before he finished reloading and was able to aim at her, she ran into the guest house on the side of the pool opposite Otso and the main estate building, using the crowd as cover.
Inside the darkened rooms of the guest house, she took out several guards in the way of her toting night vision goggles in sync with Ezio by shooting her suppressed pistol at them.
They then headed into the security center nearby, and Katja used her Eagle Vision to spot the fingerprints on the correct keys on the keypad lock. Using trial and error, she eventually guessed the 4-digit code.
They broke into the security center, where a skirmish had happened, as the security center was busted up pretty bad.
Katja spoke into her necklace's communicator, "Shaun, Rebecca, come in, where are you?"
"Katja? Thank God; Elijah would've been pissed if we lost you!"
"Where is he?"
"He managed to infiltrate the meeting by delivering that NSA spy posing as Lucas's mistress to him. After that, he succeeded in slaughtering Lucas's associates at the meeting, but failed to kill Lucas. He's currently on the way to exfil via the estate's interior."
Katja said to Shaun, "Speaking of which, where's Lucas?"
"It looks like he's leaving with a chopper."
Looking outside the windows of the security center, Katja said, "Oh, shit… He's looking for me!"
Looking at the security camera feeds monitoring Lucas's nearby garden, Ezio said to Katja, "You can lose him in the hedgemaze, in the garden area, Katja."
"But that's the one part of Lucas's estate I always got lost in!"
"Then I'll stay behind and guide you via these screens."
"All right," Katja nodded, and headed out into the garden area.
As she approached the hedgemaze, she hid in a set of tall grass next to the hedgemaze entrance.
She could see Lucas looking down in her general direction from aboard his helicopter before it took off.
With guards approaching from all directions, Katja broke open the lock to the entrance gate and entered the hedgemaze.
She managed to hide behind walls and under the cover of bridges, tall grass, and small creeks as she navigated through the hedgemaze, with Ezio guiding the way to avoid her from getting seen by Lucas's guards.
"You're almost out, Katja…" said Ezio. "You just need to shoot those guards at the exit doors and make a run for it."
"But there's a guard blocking my shot!"
"You'll have to grab him and use him as a human shield!"
Katja grimaced, and grabbed the guard, stabbing him with her blade in one hand and shooting the two guards in front of the exit gates with her pistol in the other.
She then threw the guard into a set of wooden crates, crushing them and killing him.
She exited the hedgemaze, and scaled the stronghold wall.
As Ezio caught up to her, Rebecca said, "Elijah and the rest of us are at the limo in the parking lot, Katja. Are you coming with us or not?"
"I'm almost there!" yelled Katja into her communicator.
"Well hurry up; we've got to go!" yelled Shaun in return.
Katja used parkour to descend the stronghold wall once she reached the top, then made it to the parking lot, where civilians were getting in their cars and fleeing en masse.
Katja ran to the limo, and jumped in as Elijah opened the door for her.
As she got in, Elijah blushed, and looked away.
"What?"
"Your dress is falling apart."
Katja turned red, and covered her breasts.
Elijah offered his tuxedo jacket to her. "How'd you get soaking wet?"
"I took a leap of faith," Katja said, looking at Ezio in the seat across from her.
"Well good job at getting the intel for us," said Rebecca.
"Yeah," said Shaun. "We were beginning to doubt you were on our side."
Katja said nothing in response to this, and looked out the window at Lucas's chopper in the distance as they managed to escape the stronghold.
"Where do we go now?" said Katja.
"We're rendezvousing with the rest of the Brotherhood in Florence," said Elijah. "After that, we take a train through the mountains to Romagna and Forli, and after that, we take a boat to Venice, where we'll lie low while waiting for William to arrive with the Altair II."
Katja said, "Good. Take me far away from here. I… I need time to think about all this."
A week or so later, Katja was sitting on a nearby rooftop of an Assassin safe house in Venice, wearing fresh clothes, and casual ones at that.
Elijah came out to sit next to her.
"I'm sorry about all this, Katja…" said Elijah. "It must not be easy for you."
"Knowing the man who raised me is a monster?" said Katja.
"That along with being kidnapped," said Elijah.
Katja sighed, and said, "I'm starting to remember now. You didn't just kidnap me. I was trying to run away."
"Guess we did each other a favor then," said Elijah with a smirk.
Katja then kissed Elijah on the lips.
Surprised, Elijah pulled back. "What was that for?" he said.
"Sorry," Katja said while blushing. "I— I had a lot of difficult emotions and memories overcome me last night… including the time of when I was a prostitute."
"Oh," said Elijah, scratching his head and looking away. "Right… You became hypersexual to help cope."
Katja looked away too. "I found out that Lucas wasn't responsible for turning me into a slave. Actually, he saved me from that horrible life."
"What? How did you find out?"
"He told me. He helped me remember."
"I see… So that's where you went back during the party in Tuscany," said Elijah.
"I may see him as a father," said Katja, "but I also see him as a monster that's trying to enslave the world… Kill billions of people... If an atrocity like that was ever okay with me, it isn't now."
"You're a good person, Katja," said Elijah.
Looking away, he said, "If it helps, you're not the only person whose family is complicated."
"What do you mean?"
"My father, Desmond… he saved the world from a second Toba catastrophe. A solar flare in 2012. The date of the prophecied Mayan apocalypse."
"He sounds like a better man than Lucas."
"Unlike Lucas though, he was a shit father," said Elijah. "Actually, I never even knew him until I came across the Assassins."
Katja listened to him as he said, "He had sex with my mother at a party and then disappeared. My mother gave birth to me, raised me by herself. The costs of the pregnancy surgery alone put her in massive amounts of debt. The two of us lived barely above the poverty level, and only because she worked so hard to give me a good life. I thought I hated that life at the time, but now… I miss it."
Katja said, "What happened to your mother?"
Elijah frowned. "I was a troublesome child due to my nature as a Sage of Aita. I caused a lot of problems in school, fighting and maiming the school bullies. The worst one of them left a girl I was close with at the time comatose. I carved his eye out with a pen in retaliation, and it resulted in me getting expelled before I could graduate. My mother and I were left with no other option but to see a specialist regarding my 'disorder' in order to avoid me getting sent to juvie. That specialist happened to be Dr. Alvaro Gramatica."
"The Abstergo scientist that worked for the Instruments of the First Will?"
"He was looking to use me to complete the Phoenix Project. The night I came home from my first appointment with him and Violet da Costa, they…" Elijah grimaced, and Katja could hear the pain in his voice. "Their men shot her. Right in front of me. Then they said in their reports that they kidnapped me while I was asleep to make them look less reckless to their superiors."
"Did you fight back?"
Elijah said, "I wasn't strong enough. I had no other way out but to go with them."
Katja said to Elijah, "I'm sorry. I had no idea."
"Don't be," said Elijah with a smile. "We'll figure out where you can go after this business with Abstergo and the schism for control between the Templars and the Instruments is over," said Elijah.
"Where are we going next?"
"Still Nazareth," said Elijah.
"Still?" said Katja. She looked to her left, where Ezio was flickering from his young self to his middle-aged self with a beard.
Then she looked back to Elijah on her right, who said, "I told you a little about a lead we were trying to follow up on back in Rome. Regarding some mining companies Lucas owns. The meeting I eavesdropped on back at the party in Tuscany confirmed that his operations in the Middle East and the Engineers have something to do with this business regarding the Red Mercury."
Katja said, "So we're going to Nazareth to investigate his presence there."
"Yes," said Elijah, "but for now, we're waiting for my grandfather to get back with the Altair II. So, while we're waiting… do you mind telling me about your time when Lucas raised you? I'm curious to know what it was like."
Katja looked back at the adult version of Ezio, then looked toward Elijah again, then out at the canals and colorful rooftops of Venice beneath them.
"I will tell you over dinner," she said.
"Well, we are in Italy," said Elijah, "so there's plenty of good food and wine to go around…"