April 13, 2022

Edward's first day of training was with Peter. Not a bad thing at all. Edward thought the boy was funny. Spending time with him always proved to be entertaining. That day, they were to practice with long range weapons. Bows, guns, rope darts, throwing knives. Things of that nature. Edward was already familiar with most of them. The only thing that threw him off was the pistol Pete had given him to use. It was not a flintlock. But it looked easy enough to master. And much quicker to reload.

"This is a Smith and Wesson M&P 380 Shield," Pete explained, holding up a small handgun for Edward to see. "Easiest gun in the world to use. It's light, has a great grip and slides smoothly. Mom has one just like this. She loves it."

"Clair has a gun?" Edward asked with interest.

"Oh, hell, yeah. She's a damn good shot, too."

Peter handed the gun to Edward. The pirate was surprised by the low weight of the thing. He wondered how powerful such a small weapon could really be. He hefted it critically. It was much more compact than what he was used to.

"Unlike the flintlocks of your time, the barrel of that pistol has riffling. That means it fires with more accuracy. You don't have to account for deviations in trajectory when you fire. It hits whatever you point it at. As long as you're good at aiming, you'll never miss."

Not convinced, Edward told Pete to show him how to load the pistol. He followed the boy to a table. Pete opened a box, picked up one of the small bullets and showed it to him. "That one only takes .380 ammo. Hence the three-eighty in the name. All you have to do is fill the magazine. This one holds eight total." He demonstrated by putting the bullets into a small spring-loaded container. "Then you load the magazine into the gun." Without taking it from Edward, Pete slid the container into the grip of the pistol. "Then you aim and shoot."

"That simple?" Edward ask with a note of doubt to his voice.

Pete nodded. He gestured to the targets he had sat up in the distance. A line of empty Dr. Pepper cans atop a homemade wooden fence. "Try it out." Before Edward could take aim, he pointed to a little lever at the rear of the gun. "That's the thumb safety. Make sure you turn it off when you're ready to shoot. The shield also has a secondary safety on the back of the grip. Make sure you squeeze it tight when you pull the trigger."

Edward did as instructed. His first shot hit nothing.

Pete smiled at him. "You're not a gangster in a bad movie. Use both hands. And aim using the sight."

Edward took a deep breath, let it out and fired again. The first can in the line disappeared from view.

"Nice," Pete told him. "You got six shots left. Have fun."

Edward emptied the gun, then began reloading just like the boy had shown him. He noticed Pete had gotten his own pistol, and was aiming for the targets. He fired in rapid succession, his shots never missing. Edward let out a low whistle at the boy's level of skill.

"How long you been shootin'?"

Pete walked around the table toward the fence. Edward followed, helped him set some cans in place for round two. "Since I was four. The Wilkinson's have a history of being great marksmen. Dad takes that legacy seriously. He started teaching me about guns as soon as I could get my finger around a trigger."

They walked the few yards back to the table. There was a light breeze that carried the salty scent of the ocean to them from miles away. Edward loved that smell. It gave him a sense of peace like nothing else could. He missed sailing. Missed his Jackdaw. What he wouldn't give to be back on the water…

"It was Connor who recruited your ancestor into the Assassins?" he confirmed.

Pete nodded. "Yeah. According to his journal, Clipper met Connor in Boston in 1774. He was so impressed by Connor's skill that he offered to join him in his fight without hesitation. Connor took him under his wing, taught him how to fight, how to use a sword. Even taught him how to read and write. Thus, the journal."

"And Connor married your sister."

Pete gave him a dubious nod at that. "I know it's strange. I had no idea about any of that until Dad told me. He never really let Faith go when she went back into foster care. He just watched her from a distance. Keeping tabs, making sure she was alright. The first thing he did when she wound up in the psych hospital in 2012 was get access to her records. Imagine his shock when he learned she was committed for claiming to have traveled back to Colonial America and marrying an Indian who shared the same name as the man Clipper wrote about."

It wasn't that Edward didn't believe in the possibility of impossible things happening. He had seen too much in his life to think the world was normal. But that story didn't really make sense to him. Obviously, Faith and Connor were married. Connor admitted as much. But there were other explanations for Faith's tale.

"You didn't think she was making it up?" he ask Pete.

The boy shrugged. "At first, maybe. But, after listening to Dad, I couldn't explain why Clipper had mentioned a woman named Faith married to an Assassin in his journal any more than he could. It was too much of a coincidence to be false. I mean, even time travel wouldn't be impossible to those fucking spirits."

Edward had heard about the spirits, from both Desmond and Connor. Though he had never seen anything like that, the existence of the Sage spoke to greater mysteries. That was something Edward had witnessed.

He latched on to something else Pete had said as they fired off more shots. When all the cans were gone, Edward ask Pete a question.

"Connor was alive in 1774, then? What year was he born?"

"Seventeen fifty-six," Pete answered without hesitation. "April the 4th in a Mohawk town I can't pronounce, upstate New York." The boy looked at the pirate. "I tend to remember most things I read."

"That's a good skill to have."

They set up more cans and moved back into firing range. As Edward reloaded his clip, he thought about how close in history he and Connor were. It was odd that they also both had a love of the sea. Connor had spent some time talking ships with Edward. He had bragged about his captaincy of the Aquila. From the stories he told, the boy was an impressive seafarer.

If what Pete said was true, Edward would have only been sixty-three when Connor was born. He wondered if it was possible the boy was a grandson of any of the Assassins he had met on Tulum. It wasn't beyond imagination for one of them to relocate to America. Hell, even Edward had been to Florida.

"Were his parents both Indians?" he ask.

Pete shook his head. "Just his mom. His dad was British."

That made what Edward was thinking even more likely. "Do you know his father's name?"

Pete shook his head again, only this time he didn't look quite as certain as before. "No. It wasn't listed in Abstergo's database."

Edward had a feeling the boy was lying to him, but didn't press. He figured Pete had his reasons for keeping that secret. Maybe Connor didn't want his father's identity known. Still, the happenstance of it all was mind boggling.

"One more question," he said, looking at Pete. "Why is yours bigger than mine?"

Pete grinned. "Only a secure man would ask something like that."

"I was talking about the gun, mate."

"So was I," Pete lied. Edward couldn't keep from smiling. He did like this kid. "This is a nine-millimeter Glock. It holds seventeen rounds. It's got more weight to it and is a little harder to ready than the one you have."

"That's not heavy," Edward informed him. "And it sure as hell isn't hard to load."

"Well, I thought you liked easy."

Again, Edward smiled at the suggestion. "You underestimate me, Mr. Mason. I love a good challenge."

Peter ejected the clip on the Glock and held it out to Edward. The man took it, giving the boy the smaller Shield. Edward filled the magazine with new bullets and loaded it. This pistol was a bit heavier than the other one, but nothing Edward couldn't handle. He aimed and fired, knocking down all sixteen of the cans in one go.

"I like this," he admitted, eyeing the Glock.

"It's Dad's favorite. He's had it for a long time."

That brought up another point of interest for Edward. "What's the story with your parents? Why didn't they ever marry?"

Peter took a moment to disassemble the Smith and Wesson. Edward watched him carefully, memorizing what he was doing and how he was doing it. He wasn't so daft as to underestimate the upkeep of a good pistol.

"I'm not really sure," he answered after a moment, "but I think the reason Dad never married was because of Faith's mom, Laura. I think he really loved her and losing her kinda ruined him on commitment. Not that he doesn't care about Mom, he just...She deserves better."

"She is a classy lady," Edward agreed.

Peter looked at him. "Just so you know, you don't stand a chance with her."

"Is that right?"

"Oh, yeah. Like I said, she deserves better."

Edward wasn't offended. He hadn't thought he had a real shot with Clair. But he wouldn't have minded a casual one. She was beautiful. But there were other fish in the sea.

"What should we work with now?" he ask Pete.

"As soon as we've cleaned these handguns, I thought we'd see how good you are with a bow."

"You'll soon learn I'm good at everything."

"Save the bragging for the ladies," Pete told him with a grin.

"As soon as you introduce me to some."

Peter nodded. "I'll see what I can do...as soon as you get a cell phone."

Edward sighed loudly. "You've got to teach me how to use that microwave, mate."