Megiddo

by DJJD2184

A fan-fiction sequel to Conviction and Blacklist. With this Splinter Cell fanfic project, I wanted to not only explore a huge cliffhanger in Conviction that was never capitalized on in Blacklist (Megiddo), but also try to develop the existing characters and their relationships with each other more.

8. Chaos Theory, Part II: Integral

Chapter 8— "Chaos Theory, Part II: Integral"

The Rook Islands

Sarah was awake. She looked around, her breathing heavy, her heart beating fast.

There was a cloth stuffed in her mouth, and her wrists and ankles were tied to a chair inside the cell she was in. She was wearing the sweatpants and tank top she had been wearing in her apartment.

They got me while I was pretending to sleep, she thought.

She was covered in sweat; the heat was unbearable. Turning her head, she saw a window behind her with a view of what looked like some sort of jungle outside.

She then heard a male voice making grunts nearby her.

To her surprise, she wasn't the only one in the cell who was tied to a chair. She recognized him; he was the man from Paladin Nine who had been acting as her protection detail, and delivering her food while she was locked up in her apartment.

She heard a voice coming from outside the cell.

A man with a mohawk, tattoos, burns and scars all over his body was talking on a cell phone.

"You said there's a client who's willing to pay for the girl?" said the man. "That's a shame. I was hoping she and I would have a lot of fun together. It doesn't matter; we'll have enough. I'll get her ready for the client. What? What about the tough guy next to her in the cell?" The man with the mohawk grinned as he looked at the cell, and it showed a massive scar on his head that ran along his eye.

A shiver ran down Sarah's spine after seeing his face.

"I'll take care of it," said the man with the mohawk. "Of course. I know I'm on camera. Come on hermano, I'm Vaas Fucking Montenegro! I'm at my best when I'm on camera. Right. I'll make sure to put a good show for the boys. Make sure to show them all the blooper footage. Every little detail of the Vaas Cut deserves to be fucking savored. Right. I know. Bye, Hoyt. It's time I made my grand entrance."

The man, Vaas, walked into the room with a Desert Eagle in his hand, rubbing the barrel against the scar on his head.

Vaas holstered his Desert Eagle as he stood in front of Sarah, and reached into his pocket and pulled out a soggy rose.

"For you, my lovely Eileen," said Vaas with a sickening smile. He said, "Never in my life, have I met someone as fucking beautiful—and pure-hearted—as you." Scratching his head, he said, "I, uh, I'm sorry… I lost my diamond ring I got for you when I was taking a shit in a nearby stream, so I got you this rose instead. Their color reminded me of your sweet, sweet lips." Vaas smiled and said, "It's the thought that counts, right?"

Sarah was trembling; she didn't make a sound.

"Dear Eileen, Princess of Badtown… will you marry me?"

She said nothing in response.

"It's okay, I get it. You don't know how to respond. You're overwhelmed by the moment, but I know how much you love me," said Vaas. "Here, hold this for me," he said as he threw the rose on her lap. Grinning, Vaas made a loud cheering noise and clapped his hands together several times. "I can't fucking wait for our wedding, sweet Eileen! And as for the honeymoon… Oh, I'm going to make sure the Earth shakes. Fuck a Red Mercury bomb, my cock is like a whole ICBM. A Red Mercury cock… with some wide-reaching payloads."

Vaas looked at Sarah and his smile faded. "You don't want that? Why do you look so unhappy? Talk to me, Eileen. Don't you see I'm trying so fucking hard to make us work? You're not cheating on me, are you Eileen?" Looking at the Paladin Nine mercenary sitting across from her, Vaas looked back at her. "Is it with him? Really?" Vaas said, "So much for the wedding, but I don't need a wedding or a honeymoon to give you all my love, Eileen." Vaas turned to the merc and stood over him. "It's ok, I know it's true. I caught you in the act. I found you playing a song that you dedicated to her at Denny's with your little boyband, while you were buying her a Grand Slam," Vaas said to the mercenary.

The mercenary eyed Vaas angrily.

"What the fuck is up, Denny's?"

Vaas paused as the mercenary refused to respond. "You rockstars really need to learn to keep your tiny Denny's French fry-looking cocks in your fucking pants, you know hermano?" Vaas said to the merc, "The only reason I don't beat you to death right now, Denny's, is because there's a friend of my boss who's a huge fan. He wants to know the record label your band is signed on to. And you're going to tell me your record label's name. You don't want to disappoint your number one fan, Denny's… You have to fucking trust me. You really don't."

Vaas took the cloth out of the merc's mouth. "Who are you working for, Denny's?"

"Fuck you," said the merc.

"With your small fry cock?" said Vaas. "While that's tempting, I don't go both ways…. and I'm a married man now."

Looking at Sarah, Vaas said, "We're in the presence of a lady. Did you know I'm an artist too, Denny's? I want to do a little musical collaboration together, but I'm worried your vocal technique combined with my bass guitar is going to scare Eileen. Eileen's not a fan of rock, she's a fan of pop. So, we're going to go into the room next door, where my bass is set up."

Vaas pulled out his machete, and cut the ropes tying the merc's wrists and ankles to the chair.

Once he was free, the merc tried to grab Vaas's machete out of his hand. Vaas butted his head into the merc's, breaking the merc's nose, then managed to turn the merc's grip against him and stabbed through his arm with the machete, then through his shoulder.

The merc screamed in pain, and Sarah screamed in shock as Vaas then kneed the man in the groin, shoved him to the ground, and stepped on his leg, breaking it.

"You bastard…" cried the merc as Vaas grabbed him by his T-shirt. "You fucking BASTARD!"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Vaas screamed in the merc's face after he punched it several times. "Forget your fucking leg! Forget your fucking arm! Forget your fucking nose! I will break every fucking bone in your body if you don't tell me who your fucking employer is!"

"I can't!" cried the merc.

"You can, and you will, Fuckboy Denny's," said Vaas before his sadistic grin came back. "That's ironic I mentioned that, actually, because now I'm craving their chicken wings… with some extra hot sauce. I'll eat with you, Denny's… but with that said I want to make sure the hot sauce they gave me in the other room is the good shit, so you're going to test it out for me. It's from a Denny's back in America, specifically…" Vaas made a whistling noise specifically, and pointed to something in the air. "…the one in Langley. Word is their hot sauce is to fucking die for. It's so hot it'll make you start to hallucinate… Lose your mind."

"Langley?" the merc said as he looked at Vaas in horror. "MK-Ultra?"

"The food's in the next room, along with my drums, and my bass guitar, my keyboard, my microphone, my sax and violins… Once the hot sauce kicks in, we'll start our fucking collaboration… The Denny's Grand Slam. Starring Vaas Montenegro, King of Fucking Rook Island! With guest vocalist Fuckboy Denny's… the reincarnation of the Spaghetti Monster… or whatever shitty deity is waiting for you in the sauce."

Vaas grabbed the merc by his shirt and was about to drag him into the other room, when the merc screamed, "Wait, wait, stop, please stop! Don't take me in there!"

"Who's your fucking label, Denny's?"

The merc looked at Sarah and began to cry.

"Who are you working for, motherfucker!"

"Paladin Nine!" cried the merc. "I work for Paladin Nine."

Sarah looked at the merc with her mouth hanging open.

The merc whispered to Sarah, "I'm so sorry…"

Vaas said, "All right. No hot sauce for you, Denny's. More for me now, and I am fucking craving a shit ton of hot wings."

"You're talking about a brainwashing program that the CIA developed to make humans dissociate… Implant entire new identities in their heads, ones they create and control. Ingesting the drugs they use would cause you to lose more than just your mind," said the merc. "You're sick."

"You can't lose your mind if you never had it to begin with though, can you?" said Vaas as he tapped the side of his head with his Desert Eagle before he shoved the merc to the floor. Standing over him, Vaas said to the merc, "I'd tell you the definition of insanity… but I suspect I've already told you before. Several fucking times."

Vaas crouched over the merc as he lay on the ground. "What the fuck is up, Denny's?"

Vaas stood back up, pulled out his Desert Eagle, aimed it at the merc's head, and waited a split-second before pulling the trigger.

Sarah screamed.

Vaas licked some of the blood off his face from where he had headbutted the merc. "My face is covered in blood, isn't it, Eileen?" said Vaas. Turning to Sarah, he said, "Sorry you had to see that. Mind if I wipe my face?"

Vaas took the cloth out of Sarah's mouth and wiped the blood off of his face with it. Sarah tried to catch her breath and calm down as Vaas said, "Next time you go looking for love, Eileen, if you want to find the man of your dreams… a man who can actually fight to defend the people he cares about? You'll want to put on your red dress and your high heels…"

Vaas made that whistling sound and pointing gesture again, "…and head to your nearest convenient neighborhood Waffle House instead. Because if a man wants to show his face at Waffle House, he has to know how to fucking fight… That is the first and most important fucking rule of Waffle House! Whereas if he just wants to act tough and be a poser without actually proving himself, like a fuckboy… there's always a Denny's right around the corner where he can prey on beautiful young women like yourself Eileen."

Vaas grinned at Sarah, and said, "I need to make a phone call."

Vaas called his boss on his smartphone while staring into a security camera in the corner of the ceiling while he grinned with his tongue hanging out. "WOO! Did you fucking see that shit, Hoyt! I didn't even need to share the fucking hot sauce!" Vaas paused. "Uh-huh. Paladin Nine, that's right."

Sarah muttered to herself, "Damn it, Vic… he was likely making it look like he was protecting me because my dad didn't have anyone else he could trust…"

Vaas looked at Sarah and raised an eyebrow. "You're still monitoring the cameras. Did you pick that up?" he said over the phone to his boss.

Sarah froze in horror.

"I didn't know Eileen had a father. What about her father?" Vaas was silent for several seconds. Then he looked at Sarah again, and grinned.

"I'll tell her the good news."

Vaas hung up, and walked over to Sarah again.

"I didn't know your papa was a former spy… Eileen," said Vaas. "With him constantly being abroad, saving the US of Fucking 'Murica from terrors unknown, mostly people of color like me… you must not have seen him much. And now this business with the Red Mercury, and what your father almost did in Rome… After finding out he's been a terrorist all these years…"

Sarah stared at Vaas as he grinned and rested his jaws on his fists.

"You really must fucking hate him."

"My dad's not a terrorist," she said coldly.

Sarah looked at Vaas as he told her, "Sure he isn't. His actions ruined your life. You never had a normal childhood because of him. You've been kidnapped more than once because of him. Your death had to be staged, you had to be put into hiding for years, because of him. You've lost your job, your friends, and you had to be taken into the protective custody of Paladin Nine, constantly relocating, because you've been receiving death threats, all because of how much the world. Fucking. Hates. Him."

Sarah frowned.

"But now you have a chance to begin anew," said Vaas. "You can cut ties with him. Create your own destiny. Stop living as Sarah Fisher… and start living as Princess Eileen of Badtown."

Sarah said, "Where's my dad?"

"Right now? London," said Vaas. "My boss says his friend is pulling some strings. They're going to lure him into a trap in a town called Ravensthorpe. His friend Grim is gonna be the hook that carries the bait there."

"Grim?" said Sarah in surprise. "Grim would never do that!"

"She would once she's had enough hot sauce. She's likely craving some extra crispy fish right about now. But she won't need to go to Denny's to get some. All she has to do is manipulate your father just a little more, like she always has."

Sarah looked at Vaas. "Sam isn't coming for you Sarah," Vaas said to her. "The world fucking hates him, and after the shit he pulled in London, the world is hunting for him. He's not leaving that town alive." Vaas said, "Grim's going to be the one who guts the fish."

As Vaas stood up, Sarah began to cry a little while frowning. "I'll be back once I'm done preparing for the wedding and the honeymoon with my boss."

Vaas wiped some of the tears out of her eyes with his bloodstained fingers. "Shhh… Don't cry, Eileen. It's ok. Your new life is waiting for you, and it's going to be fucking great. Much better than your current life."

Vaas walked out of the room.

As Sarah was left alone in the cell, she started to cry more, until her cries turned to a scream.

"DAD!"

London, United Kingdom

Sam's eyes went wide, his breathing got heavy and his heart rate quickened.

"Sarah," said Sam.

Alfred looked at Sam. "You all right, Fisher?"

"Sarah's in trouble," said Sam.

"How do you know?" said Alfred.

"I know."

Alfred said, "We've got the file Sadiq wants. If we manage to push his buttons with it, give him only the details he needs to hear and not the ones he wants… Hopefully we'll get a more solid lead on her location. If the Rook Islands one isn't spot on."

Alfred said to Grim, "I saw you start to lose control back at MI6. You could've helped us fight Kyle; instead, Sam and I barely survived the fight, and I took a blow to the dick. I'm warning you Grim, and I'm warning you once. For your sake, don't let Freyja ruin the party."

Grim said to Alfred, "You don't need to worry about Freyja. I'm going to erase her consciousness from my mind… Whatever it takes."

Alfred frowned at Grim.

As he examined his MG42 and his ammunition pouches, Marie said to Sam, "We'll get Sarah's location out of Sadiq. We just have to get back to base alive. First things first, though… we're also going to be killing some high-value targets that DedSec and our mutual friends in the Assassin Brotherhood want dead."

"Who are they?" said Sam before turning to Alfred. "Why wasn't I told about this?"

"It's your turn to scratch DedSec's back, Sam," said Alfred, "and it doesn't matter who they are. They're derivatives. They die today."

Briggs said over comms, "I'm running out of drone ammunition. You guys are about to lose coverage."

"You're out of less-than-lethal drone ammunition, Replacement Man," said Alfred. "Replace the less-than-lethal ammo with lethal."

"I don't take orders from you, Alfred," said Briggs.

"Do what he says, Briggs," said Sam with a frown.

"You sure about this, Sam?" said Briggs. "Fourth Echelon doesn't risk killing civilians like this."

"We're rogue agents, Briggs. The world doesn't give a damn about us. All that matters is finishing the mission. That's the greater good," said Sam. "We're in the middle of a bloodbath. Rules of engagement are out the door."

Briggs frowned, and breathed heavily before saying, "Copy that… Switching to lethal drone ammunition."

Sam loaded his SC-20K.

"Are you sure you're sure about this, Sam?" said Charlie. "Because I thought I was sure earlier. After seeing how bad the riots are getting, though, I'm having second thoughts… My initial excitement from getting the chance to do a city-wide mass hack is wearing off."

"Are you doing anything right now, Charlie?" said Sam.

"I managed to gain full control of the city's OS network an hour ago with the help of the five-twelve encryption kernel I developed in collaboration with DedSec. But Alfred told me to hand over the keys to the city to Darcy, along with the Abstergo files… So no."

"Make yourself useful and find out what's on the file Sadiq wants," said Sam as he took out the computer chip that he had ripped out of Kyle's skull.

Charlie said, "I downloaded the file. It's got a voice recognition password lock. I'm going to need Grim to say the password, whatever it is… Do we know what it is?"

Sam frowned, and looked at Grim.

"Does Grim know what it is?"

"Forget it for now," said Alfred. "We'll open the file once we get b—"

Grim said a phrase in Aesir.

"Did you get that, Charlie?" said Sam.

"Uh, yeah…" said Charlie. "I caught it on your suits' built-in microphones. I'm using her voice recording sample on the lock now… With that said, I don't think that that's the… Holy shit."

"What happened?" said Sam.

"It worked," said Charlie. "How did Grim know the password?"

"She likely got it from the Abstergo files you showed her, Charlie," said Sam. "The ones that were in the Aesir dialect."

"What?" said Charlie. Charlie frowned, and started to pace around the room he was in. "That doesn't make sense."

"How so, Charlie?" said Alfred.

"That makes no sense!" said Charlie. Putting a hand to his head, Charlie sighed to collect his thoughts. "It keeps coming back to Grim… Lucas has been ahead of us every step of the way. He framed us for Rome's attacks; he knew we'd be there. Then come Tuscany and we lose Grim. Once we got her back in Micronesia… He wanted us to get Grim back, the whole business with brainwashing her as Freyja… It makes some sense, but I don't get why!"

Sam looked at Grim. "Would it make sense if I told you there were kill commands designed to activate Freyja's consciousness in the Abstergo files we took, Charlie?"

"What?" said Alfred.

"...kill commands?" said Charlie.

"Where'd you find that out, Sam?" said Briggs.

"Thor. I overheard him talking to Lucas about it on the phone while we were in MI6's headquarters," said Sam.

Charlie said, "I showed those files to her myself." Looking around, Charlie realized out loud, "Lucas was willing to risk us translating the Abstergo files and handing them over to DedSec all because of Grim!"

"We've barely begun translating them at all," said Alfred. "Translating files of that magnitude when written in a dialect of a language spoken by beings superior to humans, ones that died millennia ago, takes time for obvious reasons. This little 'quake across Europe was just a rupture in the tip of the iceberg… and it looks like we're running out of time to dig in deeper before Lucas's purpose for Fourth Echelon's former ice queen is fulfilled."

"We need what Sadiq knows, Charlie," said Sam.

Charlie said, "I'm looking at the files now."

"We're nearing the convoy of HVTs," said Marie.

"Keeping your route covered," said Briggs.

Alfred said to Sam, "You need to remove Freyja from your team, Sam, if not outright put a bullet in her."

Sam frowned.

"I know she was once your friend… but she's not anymore. She's Freyja, and she's a much bigger risk to this operation than I predicted she would be."

"Alfred, are you there?" said Darcy on comms.

"I am, Darcy," said Alfred. "What's happening?"

"Everything, all at once. Now that Charlie hacked into London's central OS, DedSec is using the surveillance footage from the city's camera grids to keep an eye on the riots, facial ID any potential allies of the HVTs from Lucas's inner circle in Abstergo that we're hunting. We're seeing hundreds of them, and they're not just Abstergo's private army basic infantry. We've ID'd several of Abstergo's main private army's most elite fighters. Picked and trained from birth and now augmented with triple-helix DNA. The best of the best."

"Bugger…" said Alfred, "…that complicates things. Do you think it was Lucas who sent them?"

"He's the CEO of Abstergo," said Darcy. "Despite that there's been an internal schism going on within the Templars for a while now, ever since the Instruments re-emerged… I think Lucas may finally have the control over Abstergo that he wanted now. But that's not all. Remnants of the Engineers are here too."

"The Engineers are still kicking, eh?" frowned Alfred. "They must be searching for Sadiq since they heard the news of his escape."

"This is getting out of hand, Alfred," said Darcy. "You know I was against us helping Fourth Echelon from the get-go… We're literally helping them help Sadiq get what he wants."

Alfred frowned, and looked at Grim.

"I know you're friends with Fisher… With Yahweh…" Darcy said to Alfred, "but do us all a solid; at the very least, make the call about Grim!"

"All the big players are here…" said Alfred as he looked at the holographic interface coming from his smartphone as it played off of the walls of the van they were in. It showed images of the riots and various sets of moving data.

"Millennia of constants and variables, converging at this point in time and space. Here and now… We're about to break open a node. We're about to drastically alter the course of history, of fate itself. After this, the possible futures will diverge… grow harder to calculate."

"Sam, I… I'm done looking at Sadiq's file," said Charlie. "You need to see this. Everyone does."

As the van started to take gunfire damage, Sam ducked.

Alfred said, "Try to keep it steady, Bruce!"

"Spaghetti is one of Bruce's aliases' middle names," said Bruce. "But Bruce is hungry for meat, not pasta."

"Restraint, caution, patience, discipline… they can mix with the more violent feelings like lust for blood and vengeance, Bruce. Like how meat mixes with pasta. We Isu know that of all the ones who could. We've been waiting in the shadows, plotting vengeance against each other—hell, some of us have been plotting against humanity in its entirety—for bloody millennia. That takes a particular strain of patience so refined that I've only seen a select few who possess it. But we're almost there, and once we arrive, you'll get your fill of bloodlust."

"On second thought, we're about to enter a warzone, Charlie. I'll call you back when we're not getting shot at—"

"No, Sam, you need to see it now, it's urgent!" yelled Charlie.

"More urgent than what's already happening?"

"That's the thing! The file is connected with everything that's unfolding right now! Sadiq, Lucas, Alfred, you… even Vic! You all share a past, and this file confirms it."

"Is Vic an Isu too?" said Sam.

"What- no, no, forget about the Isu for a second, Sam! It took place during the Gulf War!"

"The Gulf War?" said Sam.

"Remember at the very beginning of the mission, back before Rome? When I said I had been poking around MI6's servers, and found out that Sadiq had a wife that died then?"

"Yeah…" said Sam. "I do. What does she have to do with my time in Iraq, with everyone?"

"I know her cause of death, who was responsible," said Charlie.

"Who killed her?" said Sam.

"Your task force," said Charlie.

Sam's eyes went wide. "Desert Hill."

"That's the name of the operation listed on the file," said Charlie.

"Send it to my OPSAT," said Sam.

After skimming through the files for a mere moment, Sam's memories finally began to re-emerge.

Mirawa, Near the Iran-Iraq Border

The Gulf War

A younger Sam and Vic were playing poker together at a joint military base in Iraq to pass the time. They were with several other American soldiers they had fought alongside in the Gulf.

"You remember that prick you fought with in Operation Just Cause and Desert Shield?" said Vic to Sam.

"You have to be more specific," said Sam.

"Wise ass," smirked Vic. "I meant the Brit."

"Freddy Porter?"

"That's the one," said Vic.

"I remember him, but I don't like to," said Sam. "Why should I remember him now?"

"He's here," said Vic.

"At this base camp? Why?"

"Rumor is some kind of joint operation," said another soldier whom Sam would later watch get blown to bits by an IED on the Highway of Death. "Super secretive, super important."

"And he of all the people they could've picked is on it?" smirked Sam.

"I was deployed alongside his unit in Desert Shield," said another soldier who would be shot to death on the Highway of Death, leaving Sam and Vic the sole survivors of the ambush. "Manipulative doesn't begin to describe that guy. He's narcissism personified. Someone must've mistook his narcissism for confidence."

"What, like Narcissus?" said Sam.

"Who the hell's Narcissus?" said Vic. "He's not that quiet private who always goes to piss in that riverbed next to base camp, is he?"

"He's a god from Greek mythology," said Sam. "He was obsessed with his own image. You don't know the story?"

"News to me," shrugged Vic.

"Vic doesn't know the story because he doesn't know how to read, Sam," joked one of the soldiers.

"Says the guy who's readin' the cards in this poker match like the back of his hand," said Vic. "Straight," he said as he lay the cards down.

"Not a bad hand, Vic," said one of the other two soldiers.

Sam smirked at Vic.

"No," said Vic, "I don't believe you. You can't be that damn lucky. What's your hand?"

Sam put his cards down, and leaned back in his chair with a smirk. Vic's jaw dropped.

"Shit," said one of the soldiers as he raised his eyebrows. "Straight flush."

"Ordinarily I'd make a sarcastic remark about how well Vic 'read the cards'… but that's a pretty good hand."

"Honestly I don't know how on Earth you and Vic would be friends if it weren't for the fact that you've fought and bled together, Sam."

"Why do you say that?"

"You're not just inspiring… you're a born leader, Sam," said their fellow soldier. "Vic can't read."

"Give me some credit," said Vic. "I'm gettin' better at reading cards."

"That's called counting cards," said the soldier.

"You suck," said Vic.

Sam chuckled to himself at this.

"Straight flush," said a voice behind their table in their tent they were playing at. "You've always had the luck of the devil, Fisher."

The two soldiers, Sam, and Vic turned around.

"If I really was lucky Freddy," said Sam, "I wouldn't keep running into you."

Alfred said, "I've been put in charge of a team. Right now, we're recruiting Americans for the job, but no one seems interested in putting in the work."

"No one seems interested in putting in the work because they aren't interested in putting in work for a leader who's going to take all the credit for work they didn't do," said Sam.

"You haven't changed a bit, Fisher," said Alfred. "You're the same as you were in Operation Just Cause. Afraid to be a team player."

"Back when we raided Noriega's bank in Panama, you nearly triggered a security alarm that cost us the whole mission before it even began. Fortunately for your sake, I spotted it. Also, Noriega's security detail was too heavily armored to take out with the firearms we were provided… Suppressed or not, we would've gotten ourselves spotted and killed. So, I found an alternate route and got the drop on them."

Alfred frowned as Sam continued to mock him. "I think that part of being a soldier, let alone a leader, Freddy, involves assessing situations, thinking on your feet as they change, and then making and executing a decision that'll put you further ahead of the enemy, all while not endangering your allies. It also takes the emotional intelligence to admit you're wrong. Even if it upsets your team, you can't correct course without admitting you fucked up."

"I didn't fuck up," said Alfred. "You decided to hide from the rest of the team and then kill them in close quarters combat. You may think you're a team player, but you're really just a show-off."

"Hiding is key to the concept of stealth, Freddy," said Fisher. "I was right in front of you. You just needed to adjust your eyes to the darkness. Anyway, you trash-talked about me in your follow-up report on the raid. You can say this next part is a result of me having the luck of the devil. But I think differently. Someone other than me finally noticed that the accounts of what actually went down in Noriega's bank raid clashed, to the extent that it looked like one of those bad choose-your-own-adventure stories."

"It was a miracle I ever got deployed to Iraq after the bad rep you gave me. I spent most of Desert Shield trying to build back trust through camaraderie, and by proving myself on the battlefield, even though I had earned it tenfold already."

"You make it sound like I'm the source of all your problems, Fisher."

"Now that's a leap in logic that I didn't expect even you to make," said Fisher. "You may be a colossal piece of shit, Freddy, but you're not the enemy. If you were the enemy, I'd have snuck out of the nearest shadowy corner, crept behind you, and snapped your neck just when you thought you had lost me in the midst of my slaughtering your lackeys… I would have done that years ago."

Alfred frowned at Sam. Changing the subject, Alfred said, "There's a member of the US Army. A Lieutenant Colonel. Word is they're seeking to promote him to Colonel just because they like him so much and they want to keep him from going back to the NSA. He's younger than we are, just slightly. His connections in Washington and Langley are vast."

"He's the one organizing this particular operation in collaboration with MI6. Desert Hill. If you want to gain a good reputation, I'd be wise to start by impressing him. Like how I have. Anyway, it's out of my hands, but he wants you to come to the fighting ring to discuss joining the fold."

"He wants to brief me in the base camp fighting room and not the war room?" smirked Sam.

"Most of this base camp doesn't know Desert Hill is an operation at all… and if it goes well, they never will know, and neither will the rest of the world. He's trying to avoid drawing attention."

"You're talking about a black operation," said Sam.

"Again, if you think you're good enough to join the fold, find the Lieutenant Colonel at the fighting ring."

"How am I supposed to find him once I'm there, Fred?"

Alfred looked at Sam.

"Does he have a name? Or does he just go by a number like in the movies?"

"You won't find him, Fisher. He'll find you," said Alfred. "In the mean-time… enjoy your poker match." Alfred then took off with the other members of the alleged task force.

"What an edge-lord," said one of Sam's squad members. "'You won't find him, Fisher. He'll find you'!" the squad member said, imitating Fred and his accent while wagging his finger sarcastically.

Sam and the others couldn't help but snicker at this.

"Someone needed to get into voice acting instead of the military," said Sam.

"Sitting around in front of a microphone recording my voice all day?" said the soldier. "Pfft, nah. I'd bounce off the walls due to boredom. I'd rather be out here killing terrorists."

"Of course," said Sam. "There's no better alternative to treating a short attention span than a combat high."

"You're starting to make it sound like I'm as much of an idiot as Vic," said the soldier.

"Not being able to read may be embarrassing," said Sam while smirking at Vic for a moment, "but choosing not to read even though you're able to is a cardinal sin."

Vic said to their friend, "See? Sam says I'm better than you. And Sam's word is law."

"Right." The soldier said while putting his hands together in a pretend prayer while acting sarcastically in a childlike, high-pitched voice somewhat resembling Alfred's, "Forgive me, Father Fisher… for I have sinned. Instead of spending my time reading the Good Book, and books on mythology… I read Atlas Shrugged, and a bunch of shitty young adult novels and video game comic books."

Vic and the other soldier were trying to control their laughter.

Sam grinned, trying not to laugh as well. "I was going to forgive you for your cardinal sin right up until you said you read Atlas Shrugged. I don't care what your reading level is, in this economy reading that is an unforgivable sin."

The others all finally burst into laughter.

Once their laughter started to calm down, Vic said, "Are you actually considering joining that dickless Brit on his joint op, Sam?"

"His story about the Lieutenant Colonel may likely be made up, but it still intrigued me," said Sam. "Even if I'm not invited into this task force that Alfred's in… and trust me when I say I don't want to be anywhere near Alfred without a reason I consider worthwhile… I'm considering playing along."

"But you know Alfred, Sam… he's never up to anything good."

"I'm not afraid of Alfred and his tricks, Vic."

"Alfred doesn't fight fair," said one of the other soldiers. "If you're going into the fighting ring, we're going with you to keep an eye out for you."

"Fine," said Sam. "Just be careful. An eye for an eye is gonna make the higher-ups mad at us."

Sam headed to the base camp's main facility interior where the practice fighting ring was.

Sam was looking around for the mysterious Lieutenant Colonel, while occasionally glimpsing at Alfred, who was sparring in the ring with one of his fellow task force members from the SAS.

Then four more men from MI6 approached him.

"I assume you guys are with Fred—"

One of them socked Sam in the face.

Grabbing his cheek where Alfred's lackey hit him, Sam said, "You know that's a violation of protocol right, guys? What happened to respecting your fellow soldiers."

"No need to follow protocol if you're the one who's in charge of enforcing it," said Alfred.

Sam sneered at Alfred. "Of course… that sparring match looked way too fake to begin with."

"Perhaps it's time for a real one then," said Alfred.

"You want to fight me?" Sam couldn't help but laugh a little.

"Put him in the ring, men," said Alfred as the four men from MI6 grabbed Sam by his arms and dragged him into the sparring ring.

"All right, Alfred, if you think you have what takes to beat me, then tell your cronies to let go of my arms—"

Alfred punched Sam hard across the face. Sam yelled.

"And then what?" said Alfred. "How do I know Victor and the other two of your own cronies aren't planning a counterattack of some kind?"

"I count five plus you, Freddy," said Sam. "There's just one me. Bringing Victor and the others in would make it closer to a fair fight."

"I know you Sam," said Alfred. "You don't fight fair. You fight dirty."

"Well that makes two of us…"

"How do I know you won't run away and then find a way to come back and get the drop on me?" said Alfred. "You do love your damned shadows."

"We're in the middle of the desert, in broad daylight," said Sam. "Given how bright the sun is right now, you're more likely of going blind than being surrounded by darkness. You're afraid of me. The darkness that's making it hard for you to see reality… It's all in your head."

Alfred frowned, and punched Fisher again.

"Come to think of it… Reports said that there were more than just six SAS members that came to this base… where are the other six?"

"I sent them after your three lackeys… two for each of the others. Didn't want them ruining things."

Sam's three friends were dragged next to the ring as well by five more SAS members.

Sam frowned upon seeing that the SAS members had ganged up on his friends too. Vic had a nasty bruise on his cheek.

"Speak of the devil…" said Alfred. "What took you all so long?"

"Judith went AWOL. We were trying to look for her too."

Alfred said, "She always had trouble following the bloody leader."

Sam grimaced. "You can take out your frustrations on me all you want, Alfred… but when you take out your frustrations on my friends… You've crossed a line."

"Well, if no one punishes me for crossing it then am I really crossing one at all?" said Alfred. "Whether I am crossing one or not, I don't care, and I don't need to care."

Sam became furious.

"I've had enough Alfred…" said Sam.

"Giving up already, Sam?" said Alfred.

"Enough of your manipulations, enough of your abuse, enough of your misplaced sense of righteousness… Enough of your shit."

Sam managed to break free of the grips of Alfred's lackeys. Sam beat up the two holding him, then circled around the SAS task force members before they could corner him while still not running away from the fight.

Despite taking several brutal hits, Sam managed to take down Alfred's first five guards.

"Impressive," said Alfred as he frowned at Sam. "Think you can take on the remaining seven of us?"

Sam punched Alfred across the face, knocking him backwards. Alfred landed several blows to Sam's face and torso, causing some nasty bruises to form.

But then Sam managed to sock him in the jaw with a brutal left hook.

Alfred staggered backwards again. Sam switched to the offensive, and landed blow after blow on Alfred.

"You're the bloody devil!" yelled Alfred as he started to spit out a little bit of blood.

"No, you are," said Sam. "But God is tougher than the devil, Alfred. If you're the devil, then what does that make me?"

Alfred yelled, "Knights, come help me with this wanker!"

Sam continued to beat Alfred into submission.

Suddenly Sam saw Alfred start to look extremely afraid.

"Stop! Stop!"

Sam hit Alfred in the jaw with one more left hook, which knocked him off his feet and made him hit the floor of the ring.

Alfred was muttering something unintelligible.

After catching his breath and wiping the blood off of his face, Sam said, "Vic! Are you… okay?"

The six other SAS members had let Sam's three friends go. All nine of them were staring in awe of what Sam had just done.

"Good," said Sam, who sighed in relief.

Then Sam looked at Alfred, who was getting on his hands and knees and spitting out a ton of blood.

"At least half of your fellow soldiers were smart enough to silently refuse to help you take me down, Alfred," said Sam. "You've always relied on using others to advance yourself to high places, and when others refuse to help you, you blame the issues you caused on them. Without us, you're nothing."

Alfred looked up at Sam with a shocked expression, and then at the others. Looking back at Sam, Alfred said, "Yahweh…"

"Yahweh?" Sam said, looking at Alfred in confusion.

Sam then looked as a fair-haired female Israeli soldier and a black man in a gray suit and tie with a thin beard and mustache entered the room.

"Oh, Christ…" said the man in the suit as he covered his face with his hand as he looked at the members of the task force.

"This is bad," said Vic.

"Sorry sir… I can explain," said Sam.

The man in the suit looked around, then looked at Sam and said before starting to pace around, "The joint operation begins in 48 hours… We won't be able to pull it off if the task force is wounding and fighting amongst each other like this. Or worse, it's leaked to the public… Christ, what to do…"

The man looked at Sam, and stopped pacing. "This fight never happened. Don't worry about being punished for poor conduct, Fisher."

Sam asked, "Why are you helping us?"

"While looking for top talent for the op, I took a special interest in your profile and career record, Fisher. My suspicions about how your talent has been consistently underestimated are all but confirmed after watching you win a fight against six of the SAS's finest all by yourself. That along with Judith letting me know that Alfred was trying to get you in trouble here, keep you from being picked out for the task force due to his jealousy."

Sam said, "You were smart enough to not believe him." Then Sam looked at the man in surprise and realized, "You're the Lieutenant Colonel he was talking about."

"Lieutenant Colonel Irving Lambert," said the man. "It's a pleasure to meet the legendary 'shadow operative' of Operation Just Cause in the flesh."

Sam shook his hand in awe. "You're not getting me in trouble… you're inviting me into the task force."

"Better. I already knew from my judgment of Alfred's character that he wasn't fit to lead the task force. Now I have enough of an excuse to boot him from his position as his leading field operative, but not enough to boot him from the team entirely. MI6 vouches for him and the other eleven members of his unit, and the sheer amount of red tape they have wrapped around this operation is preventing me from doing so. But I'm going to need a new leader for the task force."

Sam looked at Lambert. "You're asking me to be the leader?"

"I know talent when I see it, Fisher. I knew you were too good of an opportunity to pass up."

Sam said, "I need to know more details about the task force before I'm sold… and the operation we're being sent to complete."

"Despite your antics, we seem to be under low surveillance here since this is the fighting room. For the time being. What do you want to know?"

"What is this task force's purpose?"

"It's a collaboration between the NSA, the CIA, and all of the US Military's branches…. along with several other intelligence agencies all over the world. MI6, the remnants of the KGB, the Ministry of State Security, and Shin Bet and Mossad are the other big contributors."

"America, Britain, Russia, China, and Israel… all working together?" said Sam. "Last I checked, it hasn't been very long since the Cold War ended. We just finished fighting with each other, and now we're working together?"

"It's part of the nature of the new world order President George H.W. described in his speech."

"And yet the world isn't truly united," said Sam. "What common enemy are we uniting against to hunt down?"

"After hard lessons learned in Vietnam, and now the Gulf War, the US realized that they need to find better ways to engage in asymmetrical warfare," said Lambert. "Brute force won't be enough to stop the enemy when the enemy is hiding among the crowd of the very people we're trying to fight to protect."

Sam looked at Lambert as he continued. "Task Force Integral may be ambitious, but it's merely the tip of the iceberg. The main five agencies I mentioned are working on creating new branches within their existing hierarchies to form an adequate response to this new type of enemy. Britain's branch is codenamed Monarch. The Russian Federation's branch is Voron. China's branch is Fang. Israel's branch is Megiddo."

"Judgment Day… Israel named their branch after the hill that the battle of the end of the world between the forces of good and evil was prophesied to take place on?" Sam mused, "Those spooks at Shin Bet always did have a dark sense of humor. I think they've been reading too much of the Old Testament."

"You're clearly a very well-read man to allude to classic literature like that, Sam," said Lambert.

"I tend to read a lot to help me deal with my boredom in between battles," said Sam. "What's the name of the US branch?"

"Second Echelon," said Lambert. "That's the branch I've been trusted to run. If you manage to prove yourself to be the asset I think you are in this upcoming black operation, you're welcome to join the program."

"I'm flattered, sir," said Sam, "but for now, let's take things one step at a time. First, the black operation."

"Right," said Lambert as he looked around. "Task Force Integral and the parent program backing it and its various child programs within the intelligence community were formed due to a keyword that was constantly being flagged by surveillance… I heard a whisper in the desert wind about a terrorist organization with vast connections and resources. One so ruthless that they would rather have the world burn than allow the peaceful new world order President Bush had envisioned."

"Do they have a name?"

"That's what's strange about them. Normally if you want to terrorize people, you'd come up with a name for them to associate their fears with. The keyword appears to be based on a very old Arabic dialect of some kind, so old that even the best translators and linguists working in intelligence can't make heads or tails of it. Our best attempt at a translation is 'the Builders.'"

"MI6 managed to get a man on the inside. Majid Sadiq, callsign Trickster. He supplied us with a goldmine of intel detailing the network of their various sleeper cells. But for the last several weeks, he hasn't been able to supply us with as much information, and our other intel sources make our analysts suspect that what little leads he has been giving us are red herrings. His last status report to MI6 was 72 hours ago. He's gone off the grid."

"Do you think he was turned?" said Sam.

"Hard to say, but regardless of the answer, your task force's objective is to get him back. That and eradicating the sleeper cells Majid told us about, killing their operatives, and obtaining whatever intel on the Builders you can."

"I'm in," said Sam, "on one condition."

"I'm listening," said Lambert.

"A significant portion of your task force just tried to beat me up," said Sam. "While I may forgive them in time, I need men I can trust on this task force to back me."

"You want Victor Coste and the others to join the fold as well?"

"If they don't, I don't," said Sam. "Those are my terms."

"You drive a hard bargain," said Lambert. Offering his hand, Lambert said, "I'll make it happen."

Sam shook Lambert's hand.

"Welcome to Integral," said Lambert.

… … … … …

Sam was talking with Vic and his other two squad members, along with some of the other members of Task Force Integral. All of them were aboard a military plane, talking with each other as they were converging on the desert fortress Sadiq was in.

"I love my new callsign," said the first of the other two members of Sam's squad.

"What is it?"

"Ballistics. Sounds badass, doesn't it?"

"Totally," said the second. "Mine's Minesweeper."

"Shit, you guys got all the good names," said Vic. "I got the bargain bin one."

"What is it?" said Ballistics, glimpsing back and forth between Vic and Minesweeper.

"Husky," said Vic.

Minesweeper and Ballistics snickered.

"Please don't call me that when we're not on a mission."

"Oh, we are definitely going to call you that, you old dog."

Vic smirked, before he said to Sam, "Sam, a word."

"What's up, Vic?"

"I've been keepin' an eye on Alfred for ya," said Vic. "He's been actin' sketchy since he lost that fight. Even for him. It's like he's not himself anymore."

"That's not necessarily a bad thing, Vic," said Sam. "He's a veteran like the rest of us, Vic. He may be bad at what he does, but he's still tough. I didn't hit him hard enough to traumatize him. His ego is bruised."

"You're probably right," said Vic. "Anyway, that Israeli chick Judith who snitched on him wants to talk to you."

Sam frowned, and looked in their direction.

He approached Judith along with Alfred and the other ten members of Alfred's unit in MI6.

"We're sorry for what we did to you Fisher," said one of Alfred's lackeys who had helped grab him.

"Actions speak louder than words," said Sam. "If you want my forgiveness, then you have to earn it."

"We'll give it our all," said another one of them. "It's only right."

Alfred said nothing.

Judith said to Sam, "Your fight with Alfred was incredible. I've never seen someone fight like that."

"Thanks. With that said, I'm not in the mood to brag. I never am," Sam said. "Why'd you betray your leader, Judith?"

"The other five who disobeyed his orders were always skeptical as to whether he was making the right calls. I wasn't just skeptical. I'm certain he has no idea what he's doing."

"You've got a good head on your shoulders," said Sam. "I've read what little of your profile isn't redacted. You're a loyal member of Israeli intelligence. So why are you working with MI6?"

"Same reason you are," she said. "Because of Integral. In addition to being a member of the task force, the higher-ups of the parent program running the show thought my dual British and Israeli citizenship would make me a perfect liaison between Monarch and Megiddo."

"Lambert didn't tell me the parent program's name," said Sam. "Do you know it?"

"The Well of Mirrors," said Judith.

"Weird name…" said Sam.

"They're primarily based in Norway because of their various front corporations they own there, but their reach is vast," said Judith.

"Huh. Interesting," said Sam. "I assume you have a callsign."

"I've got two," said Judith. "My Monarch callsign is Galahad. My Megiddo one is Crosshairs."

"Galahad?" said Sam. Looking at the others, Sam said, "Alfred called you Knights earlier…"

Judith smirked.

Sam couldn't help but chuckle. "Alfred's unit is named and designed after the legend of the Twelve Knights of the Round Table?"

"It wasn't his decision, if that's what you're thinking," said Judith. "After your little fight, his callsign of King Arthur's been removed."

Sam looked at Judith before another Knight said, "Crosshairs?"

"What is it, Lancelot," said Judith.

"I just got a call on my wristwatch PDA-like device, the same one we've all been issued."

"Your OPSAT?"

"Whatever," said Lancelot. "One of the members of the Well's board of directors wants to talk to Integral's newly appointed leader."

"The board of directors?" said Judith. She said to Sam, "Looks like you're finally starting to get noticed by the right people."

"Send the link to my OPSAT," said Sam.

Sam looked at his OPSAT's screen as the link activated, and Sam saw the face of Lucas, who was in his early twenties. Lucas's eyes were studying Sam intensely.

"Are you the new task force leader Lambert recruited?" said Lucas.

"I am," said Sam.

"He speaks highly of you," said Lucas.

"That's surprising given we just met," said Sam.

"I trust Lambert's intuition nearly as much as I trust my own," said Lucas. "While the decision to appoint you as leader was admittedly rushed due to the urgency of this mission, combined with the recent setbacks caused by Alfred's carelessness… Make no mistake, Sam. You were chosen to be a part of Integral for a purpose."

"I'm glad you trust me also, sir," said Sam.

Lucas smiled. "Lambert tells me you have a daughter. Her name's Sarah, right?"

"Yeah," said Sam.

"Are you proud to be her father?"

"At times," said Sam. "She's about to start elementary school. I'm somewhat relieved."

"Relieved?"

"Between fighting the War on Terror and raising a five-year-old… I don't know which is harder."

"Family is sacred, Sam," said Lucas. "Cherish your blessings while you can."

Sam said nothing for a moment.

Lucas said, "You've already been briefed that there's a treasure trove of intelligence on a server I wanted Majid Sadiq to obtain access to in Mirawa before he went dark. The Holy Grail. If you can steal it before they wipe the server, Sam, like Excalibur itself, your status as leader of Integral will be set in stone. You're the tip of the spear."

"More Arthurian legends…" said Sam to himself with a slight smile. "I'll get it done, sir."

"Good luck on your mission, Fisher," said Lucas.

"By the way," said Sam, "do you have your own callsign?"

Lucas grinned. "My callsign is a secret. Instead, you can call me Lucas Richards."

Sam said, "Pleasure to meet you, Lucas."

Lucas nodded at Sam before he disconnected.

Sam was thinking about his interaction with the mysterious Norwegian-American businessman when he heard the pilot say over the intercom, "We're nearing the drop point."

Sam said to the rest of the task force, "Listen up."

The others turned to pay attention to Sam.

"I've read your dossiers. You're the best of the best. But while we've all been through our own unique versions of hell on the battlefield already, Desert Hill is Integral's baptism of fire… and its proving grounds. We're the tip of the spear, and this baptism of fire will be what forges our destiny. We're going up against a new type of enemy, one unique to this point in time now that the Cold War is over. If we manage to pull this off, we'll be able to fight a war like none that came before it."

"On that note, I encourage you to push your differences, your rivalries, and all perceptions of your fellow teammates that don't benefit the mission aside. It doesn't matter if we've fought against each other before. We have a common enemy now. One that's a clear and present danger to the entire world. Someone has to make them afraid of the dark. That task falls on us."

Alfred looked at Sam as he said this.

"You've all been briefed on the mission. Our primary objectives are to grab Sadiq and the Holy Grail on the Builders' secure server. As for the rules of engagement, this mission is too important for us to try and be heroes. Anything and anyone that gets in the way of those two objectives are expendable."

Sam looked at everyone, and said, "Time to make history. Check your gear and ammo, and prep your chutes."

As Sam was checking his reserve ammunition supplies for his suppressed M4A1, Alfred finally worked up the courage to talk to Sam.

"Fisher…"

"Just because we have a common enemy doesn't mean I forgive you for what you did, Alfred."

"I don't deserve your forgiveness. And I know you're not going to believe me when I say I'm sorry, but saying it's an obligation," said Alfred.

"There's something you need to know about Sadiq, Sam. I've worked with Sadiq in the past a few times before he was deployed as a deep cover agent in the Middle East. But I worked with him enough to know what he is. Forget what you think I am, and forget what you know I think you are. Forget my talk about devils and their luck… Sadiq's a being that's ten times worse than a devil."

Alfred breathed heavily, and ran his hand through his hair for a second, all while sweating and trembling before he spoke again. "I'm not sure what happened to my mind in that ring when you beat me… I can't explain it. I hardly believe what I'm about to tell you myself, and if I don't then you sure as hell won't. But it's an obligation. The mission may depend on it."

Sam frowned as Alfred shook his head before he continued. "Where do I begin… There was something you said to me while you were starting to win your fight with me that triggered a… a memory of sorts. It had something to do with Sadiq, and that Norwegian bloke Lucas who's pulling our strings."

"My memory's blurry, but in it, I was on a mission in the West Bank when I entered a killzone. Terrorists had detonated IEDs, and then everything went to hell. There was fire everywhere… I witnessed the enemy slaughtering innocents… and it seemed like there were hundreds of enemies... I tried to fight them off while I could, but after running out of bullets, I had to disappear… I crawled through the streets, through piles of the bloody corpses of the people they slaughtered, some of whom were children barely old enough to walk…"

"I had to hide in an old church, and it was in that church that I saw Sadiq talking to someone about an event that would happen, years later. He mentioned your name, and while I managed to keep my mind intact in spite of all that happened then, it was the anger I could hear in his voice that finally broke me… I don't just think he's turned, Sam… He was never on our side to begin with."

Sam sighed, and put a hand to his head for his moment. "Let me get this straight… You've fought in countless battles, and it took you a few punches from me to cause you to start having some sort of PTSD episode that gave you flashbacks of a mission you had blocked from your memory… and somehow these flashbacks are related to our current mission."

"I know it sounds insane, Sam."

"Insanity isn't a strong enough word to describe the half of it," said Sam. "Sadiq knows you. He's never met me. Even if he does turn out to be insane, he can't predict the future… and neither can you. With that said, his future has me in it, so if somehow he could see his future… Well maybe then he'd have a reason to hate me so much. One that's believable at least."

The others had finished prepping their kits, and had their parachutes and oxygen tanks and masks on.

"Regardless of what our collective future holds, our mission's set in stone. We're going after Sadiq and the intel," said Sam. "And if you're too traumatized by my left hook to perform your function in the task force, do me a favor and don't bother jumping off the plane with the rest of us."

"Green light to HALO," said the intercoms as the bay doors of the plane opened, revealing the vast drop into the darkness of the night beneath them.

"All right," said Alfred. "My callsign's no longer King Arthur, it's Panther. I assume my title was given to you."

"My title isn't King Arthur," said Sam as he was putting on his gear, parachute, and oxygen tank. "Unlike you, I know I'm no king."

"What?" said Alfred. "Then what's your title?"

As the other members of the task force started to leap off the bay of the plane and begin the HALO jump, Sam said, "Panther is a fitting title for you, Alfred. Your brand of stealth is aggressive, fast, lethal, and careless. It doesn't matter to you who you end up hurting. As for me, I'm patient. Like back in Panama, I stick to the shadows. And if my mission doesn't require me to kill anyone, I don't just make sure I'm not seen. I don't use less-than-lethal weaponry. I don't lay a finger on my enemies. I don't harm them…" As Sam finished putting on his mask and strapped his trifocal goggles to his forehead, he said, "I haunt them."

Vic said to Sam, "The others have all jumped already, Sam, what are you waiting for?"

Judith said to Sam, "Ghost, Panther, let's go before we miss the drop point."

"Right behind you, Crosshairs," said Sam.

As Vic and Judith made the leap, Alfred looked at Sam. "Ghost. Your callsign fits you."

Sam looked back at Alfred, and said, "Time to face your fears, Alfred," before he flipped his trifocal goggles on to activate their night vision, turned around, ran at the edge of the plane bay and began the HALO jump.

Alfred ran at the bay, then stopped and looked down at Fisher as he fell through the sky.

Alfred then made a frown, and worked up the determination to follow after him.

London, United Kingdom

Present Day

As the van was getting shot up, Sam tried to process the implications of the memory he had just experienced.

"Sadiq… Lucas… Desert Hill… I met them both years ago, back in the Gulf War," said Sam.

Alfred looked at Sam for a moment.

"The Well of Mirrors… Task Force Integral… Lucas was responsible for creating Third Echelon and all of its sibling agencies… and one of them was Megiddo."

"Things are starting to make more sense now," said Sam. "He wanted a way to establish control of the intelligence community… The CIA and the NSA… MI6… The SVR… The MSS… Shin Bet and Mossad…" Sam said, "Lucas was growing his power through the Well of Mirrors… All this time, when I thought I was fighting for Third Echelon, I was actually just helping him further his ambitions of taking over the world!"

Sam said, "And now that he's got control of Abstergo… The Well of Mirrors is directly linked to the lead President Caldwell wanted us to chase in Hordafylke. These… Instruments of the First Will… that helped Lucas take over Abstergo? The Well of Mirrors was their front corporation."

"The Builders were the terrorists I encountered in Iceland with the stolen ICBM… right before Lambert told me the fake story about my daughter's death. They were the predecessor to the Engineers."

"Now that the child programs of the Well are unraveling… first Third Echelon, then Voron, and now Monarch… Lucas's control over the world is fading, so he's doubling down. The Red Mercury's linked to this somehow…" Sam looked up. "Lucas doesn't just want to depopulate humanity… He wants to send a message, make the people in positions of power trying to oppose him afraid…. cement his status as CEO of Abstergo… Ruler of the world."

Sam looked at Alfred. "Until now, the memories I had of that operation were blurred. All I had were bits and pieces, not enough to remember the bigger picture. Why am I just remembering all of this now?"

Alfred frowned at Sam.

"What happened in Mirawa, Alfred?"

Sam then had to duck as more bullets hit the van.

"Briggs," said Alfred, "are you covering us or not? We're getting turned into roadkill out here!"

"I'm trying!" said Briggs. "You're getting swarmed by the riots, and several of the drones have been shot down! It won't be long before I have to use my sniper rifle instead!"

"Alfred!" said Darcy. "The other DedSec members managed to force the target convoy full of Lucas's associates to divert… Looks like they're holding up in an old church near your current location. You're almost there."

"Good job Darcy," said Alfred.

"Sending the coordinates to Bruce's phone's GPS," said Darcy.

"Alfred, I need to know what happened in Mirawa!" yelled Sam.

"And right now, I need to coordinate with the rest of DedSec, Sam!" yelled Alfred.

Sam frowned at Alfred.

The van suddenly came to a screeching halt.

"Bruce, what's happening, why'd you stop!"

"Porker!" yelled Bruce. "Bruce is having trouble driving the van!"

"What?" shouted Alfred.

"Someone shot at the front of Bruce's van! Bruce is okay, but… Uh-oh…"

"Bruce's what's happening!"

"It's putting out smoke!"

"Oh shit…" said Sam.

"It just caught on fire!"

"Everyone out of the van now!" yelled Alfred.

Sam watched Grim, Marie, and Alfred quickly exit the van via its rear doors.

Sam followed them, and was climbing out of the van when it exploded.

… … … … …

A burning church.

Filled with the corpses of most of Task Force Integral's members.

The Builders lined them up and started to execute them one by one.

Alfred, Judith, and one other Knight who used a voice scrambler and hid his face with a black balaclava covered in white inkblots that resembled a Rorschach test, weren't there. The rest of the Knights were dead.

The Builders were about to execute Vic, "Ballistics", and "Minesweeper" when Sam screamed, "STOP!"

This got the attention of the lieutenant in charge of the massacre.

"I'm their leader, it's me you want!" said Sam.

The lieutenant walked toward Sam, and frowned.

He examined the birthmark on Sam's neck.

"A Sage… You?" The lieutenant said something to his men in Arabic. The Builders then grabbed Sam.

The lieutenant said to Sam, "We're going to search you."

Sam screamed as the lieutenant beat him in the face with the butt of his rifle, and the Builders restrained him and stripped him of his uniform until he was only wearing his boxers.

The lieutenant examined Sam's body.

"I thought you were going to search my uniform…" Sam said while sneering.

Upon looking at one of Sam's ribs, the lieutenant looked at Sam furiously before beating Sam in the face with his rifle again.

"It… lives…" said the lieutenant with a furious sneer.

"What?" said Sam.

"Aletheia. Her location. Tell me."

Sam looked at the lieutenant in utter confusion.

"Now!" yelled the lieutenant as he pulled out a Desert Eagle and aimed it at Vic's head.

"Wait, wait! I don't know what you're talking about!" cried Sam.

The lieutenant looked at Sam, studying him intensely again.

He spoke something in an odd language.

"I… I don't understand you," said Sam. "I'm near-fluent in Arabic… what you're saying sounds similar to Arabic, but…"

"It hasn't been awakened yet…" said the lieutenant.

The lieutenant said something to his men in Arabic, before saying to Sam, "What is the most painful experience that's ever happened to you, American?"

"Good question," said Sam as he coughed out blood. "I've gotten shot a few times. Getting shot hurts more than getting beaten."

"You don't have an answer? You don't know?" said the lieutenant. "What we're about to do to you is going to be your new most painful experience… More painful than anything you've experienced before. If you survive… you will always remember. You will know."

The Builders tied Sam to a crucifix, and raised the crucifix up using ropes as a makeshift winch. The other survivors of Integral had no choice but to watch.

The lieutenant reached for something in his pocket.

Before he could pull it out, Sam heard someone say his name.

"SAM!"

… … … … …

"Yahweh," said a familiar voice coming from above Sam.

Sam opened his eyes, and coughed out smoke. His vision was blurry, but he could tell there was fire all around him due to the brightness of it combined with the heat.

"Wake up, my love," said the voice again.

Sam looked up.

It was Marie.

"…Marie?" said Sam.

Sam saw the van he was in that had exploded not far from where he was lying on the pavement.

Marie was pulling Sam to cover with one hand while firing a MAC-11 machine pistol at incoming Abstergo troops with her other.

Alfred was firing at them with his MG42, Bruce with a SPAS-12, and Grim with a SC-400S prototype submachine gun with an internal suppressor and interchangeable underbarrel attachments similar to Sam's SC-20K assault rifle. She fired several fragmentation grenades into the swarm of troops with the launcher attachment.

Sam blinked heavily and caught his breath as he started to come back to his senses fully.

"Yahweh?"

"My name's Sam."

Marie smiled.

"Marie, watch out, they're surrounding you!" shouted Alfred.

Looking at the Abstergo troops carrying foldable staffs that were approaching her and Sam, Marie looked back at Sam and said, "Strength, Sam."

She then set him down on the pavement, pulled out what looked like half of a broken spear that was strapped to her waist with her hand, and ran at the troops while firing her MAC-11 at them. Once she reached them, she managed to parry, feint, and dodge her way through their swings before she started to pick them on with some rapid and forceful stabs and slices with the broken spear, all while still firing at them from close range with her MAC-11.

Her technique was unlike anything Sam had seen; it was like a blend of gun fu, Krav Maga, and several other advanced martial arts disciplines. On top of that, her impressive amount of physical stamina combined with her reaction speed gave her time to swap her MAC-11 and her broken spear between hands. Her technique didn't involve juggling them, but rather she made a spinning motion with her hands while wielding them that made it look like she was wielding a pair of sais or nunchucks. She seemingly managed to do this just at the right times to position herself so she could get good shots at the enemies based on their proximity and direction in relation to her instead of needing to get close to them and stab them.

As her MAC-11's current magazine ran out, she quickly bashed the guard she was about to shoot between the eyes with her MAC-11 before following up with a slice to his throat with her broken spear while simultaneously ejecting the empty magazine with one hand. She then held her broken spear with her right foot (this made Sam realize she had taken her shoes off earlier to prepare in the event that she had to do this), and managed to plunge the spear into an Abstergo soldier approaching her, stabbing him to death with a roundhouse kick to the side of his torso followed by another roundhouse kick to his neck. She did all this while reloading the MAC-11.

She then shot three of the remaining four Abstergo soldiers attacking her in a row with a set of controlled burst shots to their heads, then ducked under the last soldier's swing of his staff, and did a sweeping kick with the broken spear that sliced through his ankles.

As the soldier fumbled his spear and collapsed to his knees, Marie broke his wrist with one hand and made him drop the spear while she lifted her leg up behind her back and grabbed the broken spear with her other hand. She then took the broken spear and plunged it into the middle of the man's forehead. As the man's forehead started to gush blood all over the pavement while he gazed emptily up at Marie with his mouth open, Marie landed his knee hard into the bottom of his head to send his bleeding corpse flying backwards until it collided with the ground.

Sam watched the whole thing in awe.

Marie ran back over to Sam.

"Are you all right?"

"Please don't touch me…" said Sam as he tried to mentally process what he just witnessed while getting back on his feet. He groaned, and grabbed his torso with one of his hands as he stumbled.

"You don't sound all right."

"I may have busted a rib."

Helping Sam onto his feet, Marie said, "You're strong. You'll live."

Seeing Grim, Bruce, and Alfred had retreated into the alley near where the van had crashed and exploded, Sam and Marie went after them. Following the trail of Abstergo guards' corpses and the sound of gunfire, they found the three of them pinned down in a courtyard where Abstergo troops were shooting at them from multiple different floors in the buildings surrounding their route forward. They were hiding behind the ruins of a destroyed fountain.

"Abstergo definitely doesn't want us going after our targets," said Alfred after briefly peeking out from cover only to quickly duck down again and narrowly avoid getting shot. "The party's barely started and I'm already on my second last mag."

"Bruce is running out of shells. Bruce would've been shot back there if it weren't for Marie," said Bruce as he tossed his SPAS-12 aside.

"What about you Grim?"

"I'm out of shotgun shells and grenades for my underbarrel attachments. I still have some experimental underbarrel sniper rounds. For primary fire… I've got roughly a mag and a half before I have to switch to my sidearm."

Sam looked behind them, and said, "Marie, they're coming after us in the direction we came from."

Picking up a riot shield from a dead soldier, Marie said, "I'll cover our flank while you provide suppressing fire for the others."

While Marie was guarding herself and Sam from the incoming Abstergo troops, Sam fired his SC-20K at the guards he spotted using his goggles' sonar vision. Sam moved in sync with Marie while he was shooting to cover behind a collapsed statue in the courtyard before the Abstergo soldiers spotted him and he was shot.

"Well, aren't you two lovebirds a sight for sore eyes," said Alfred after he managed to get a few sprays of LMG fire at the Abstergo guards shooting down at them.

"You left us exposed back there, Alfred," said Marie.

"We're getting flanked by Abstergo from every direction," said Alfred. "We decided it was a good move to thin the herd coming from this one so we're not swarmed."

Marie gave Alfred an angry glare.

"I know your priority is protecting Yahweh, Marie. Yahweh is one of my priorities too but he's not my main one and right now I got a ton of 'em," said Alfred. "I know you knew the risks of carrying him out of that killzone. I also knew you could take them on, and I know you knew that."

"Fishes is still alive?" said Bruce.

"I'm here Bruce," said Sam.

Looking over toward where Sam was hiding behind cover, Bruce grinned. "Bruce likes Fishes." He then let out a terrifying roar as he turned around and blasted two entire magazines SPAS-12 rounds at five incoming Abstergo guards, knocking them over and killing them while somehow managing to reload in between mags without getting shot.

Alfred said, "Darcy, are those HVTs still in the church?"

"They are," said Darcy over comms, "but our grip on London is fading. Abstergo and Blume are launching a counter-hack to our mass hack. DedSec's agents are being hunted. The others and I had a lot of close calls… We've also had several losses on our side already."

"We'll have time to mourn them later, Darcy."

"The majority of DedSec is falling back to the base. As much as I hate to say it Alfred, if you want to survive, you may have to forget about the mission and make an exit."

Alfred frowned, his face suggesting he was considering his options in his head.

As Marie heard the hiss of gas canisters as more Abstergo troops approached, she said to Alfred, "More troops Alfred, these ones are using tear gas to draw us out."

"Bugger… I should've invested in some gas masks rather than just use my damn pig mask in retrospect," said Alfred. "Darcy, what about our drones?"

"Drones?" said Darcy. "If you're talking about the larger aerial ones, Briggs was put in charge of them… but I don't see any in the skyline on surveillance right now. They were likely shot down."

"Briggs, can you confirm that?" said Alfred. "We could use all the help we can get right now, so if you've got a drone, send it our way."

Silence on comms.

"Briggs isn't answering," said Alfred. "Do you see him, Darcy?"

"No, it's like he disappeared."

As the troops above them started to double down on their suppressing fire, Sam said, "We're pinned down, but if we don't move soon, we'll be gassed and shot to death. Briggs, do you copy?"

As the gas clouds started to approach and Abstergo troops followed underneath the veil of their fog, the others started to engage in a desperate exchange of suppressing fire with the Abstergo agents on the roof.

"Briggs, where are you?"

"Right behind you," said Briggs on comms as several sniper rounds seemingly came out of nowhere that killed the Abstergo agents flanking them.

Hearing someone climbing down from the rooftops via a set of balconies, Sam looked above and behind him.

"Brisket!" said Bruce with a grin.

"Glad I could make it to the party," said Briggs.

"Not bad, Replacement Man," said Alfred.

"I managed to keep the last few of DedSec's drones airborne long enough to realize Abstergo's deploying its own drones to take them out. Now that our aerial defenses are down… I had to make myself scarce."

"I think we all have to," said Sam as the tear gas clouds were approaching. "We need to get out of the open."

"Darcy, what's the route to the church with the least exposure?" said Alfred.

"It's through a set of apartment buildings in front of you," said Darcy, "but we'd need to hack into their security systems, and the counter-hack is starting to kick in. We can try to use other IP addresses as relays in the meantime to throw them off our trail for a little longer, but if we keep trying to out-hack Abstergo, they're going to trace the signal back to our hideout."

"Wait!" said Charlie. "I think I can buy you some time. I noticed something about the software Abstergo's using for the counter-hack in tandem with their algorithms. They're utilizing an upgraded version of the Masse kernels like we are, but I noticed an exploit involving some legacy code that Blume's developers didn't have time to adequately patch during the upgrade. They're likely overwhelmed due to pulling graveyard shifts because of the riots."

"Make it happen, Charlie," said Sam as they entered the apartments.

Charlie was initiating the mass-hack through the various apartments and killing the lights. As the group turned on their night vision while navigating through the halls, they could hear the ongoing riot outside despite that they were starting to come to an end.

As they turned a corner, an Abstergo elite troop ambushed them.

Before the troop could stab Briggs or Alfred or the two of them could react, Bruce plowed into the man with sheer brute force, knocking him through part of a wall, and dug his fingers deep into the troop's eyes before he could get up, then bashed his skull apart with several brutal punches.

"Jesus!" said Briggs.

"Bruce was hungry," Bruce said to Briggs while grinning as he wiped the blood off his face.

As Briggs recovered from his initial shock, Bruce whispered, "Is Porker okay?"

"I'm still kicking, Bruce," said Alfred with a smirk.

"Is Brisket okay?"

"I'm good, Bruce."

"Is Fishes okay?"

"I cracked a rib, but I'll live," said Sam.

"Bruce likes his ribs when they're in one piece," said Bruce. He paused before saying, "And covered in barbecue sauce. Bruce is glad Fishes is okay."

"I'm… glad you're okay too, Bruce," said Sam.

"What about Ground Beef D—"

"—I'm fine, Bruce," said Grim to cut him off.

"Bruce… sees," said Bruce, looking away from Grim awkwardly.

Sam could hear Briggs snickering under his breath.

"What about Marie?"

"You don't need to worry about me, Bruce," Marie said to Bruce with a smile.

"Marie is family," said Bruce. "Bruce worries about his family."

"Speaking of which, Bruce, you call us all by our… last names," said Sam. "Why don't you call Marie by hers?"

"Fishes doesn't already know?" said Bruce. "Marie doesn't have a sirloin name… but it doesn't matter. Bruce knows Marie is one of the tastiest beings on Earth."

Looking at Marie, Sam said, "You don't have a surname?"

"If we live through this, I'll tell you my story, Sam," said Marie.

There was silence for a moment before Briggs said, "Do you have a, uh… a sirloin name, Bruce?"

Bruce frowned. "Bruce doesn't ever say his sirloin name. Or talk about it."

"Oh," said Briggs, whose eyes went wide. He scratched his head for a moment. "Sorry I asked, Bruce."

"Brisket is okay… just like Bruce is okay," said Bruce, looking at the floor for a moment. "Brisket didn't know."

Charlie overheard this and looked at Bruce curiously for a moment via the security cameras. Looking at one of his other monitors, Charlie's eyes lit up. He said over comms, "Guys, I've got full access to the apartment complex you're in… and there's something you need to know."

"Go on, Charlie," said Alfred.

"One of the HVTs you're targeting is hiding in a panic room in the penthouse of this building."

"I thought they had all gone to the church," said Alfred.

"Well this one didn't."

"Killing this HVT should be easy if they're isolated," said Alfred.

"Not exactly…" said Charlie. "I've been tracking Abstergo's elite operatives that are hunting for us… One of them isn't hunting us, she's guarding the HVT. And it gets uglier. While the HVT's name is a variable due to how many aliases they've used, I noticed this HVT's face was in the files we managed to pull out of MI6. The ones Sadiq wanted. His fingerprints were all over the development of Task Force Integral, Desert Hill, and the various child programs the Well of Mirrors developed. This HVT was the CEO of the Well of Mirrors before Lucas took his place."

Sam frowned.

Alfred said, "Marie, do you think you can take on one of Abstergo's elite by yourself, then gut the HVT?"

"I don't think. I understand," said Marie as she moved her fingers across her broken spear.

"This HVT has secrets we could use to bringing down Abstergo. Stopping the Red Mercury plot," said Sam. "I'm going with Marie."

"No, Sam," said Alfred, "you're coming with me to the church to help kill the other derivatives. You can ask them about your bloody secrets."

"I'm not asking, Alfred," said Sam.

"And neither am I, Sam!"

Sam and Alfred glared at each other for a moment.

"Alfred."

Alfred turned to look at Marie.

"Sam's going with me," said Marie. "Killing one target and his bodyguard shouldn't take long. We'll catch up to you at the church when we're done."

Alfred frowned at Fisher for several seconds before he backed down. "Sounds like I'm outvoted. You're going to be missing out on an important lesson you've yet to learn, Sam, but it's your decision."

Turning to the others, Alfred said, "All right gang, looks like we split up here. Sam, Marie, you two love birds are headed up to the penthouse. If you both manage to get killed by one stone, I will grieve for you, but I'll also be very disappointed in you. Everyone else, on me. I'm taking you to church."

"Roger, Alfred," said Briggs.

"Charlie, I know you're good at what you do. Good enough to monitor two teams at once. Keep us in sync," said Alfred.

"No problem, I've got your guys' backs," said Charlie.

"Let's bloody rip," said Alfred as he, Grim, Bruce, and Briggs headed through the apartment buildings toward the church.

Sam and Marie headed to the nearest elevator in the building.

As Sam and Marie ascended to the penthouse, Sam looked out the window of the elevator and looked at the chaos of the riots and all the death and destruction that had been inflicted on the city and its people by DedSec.

Sam said, "This isn't just chaos theory. This is a simulation. A microcosm of the future Alfred wants for the world… This is terrifying."

"This isn't terrifying," said Marie. "Odin's vision for the future, however… It isn't just terrifying, Sam. It's catastrophic. Lucifer is a complicated being, Yahweh, but his actions are a necessary evil if we want to stop the greater one."

"I know," Sam sighed. "There's something I don't know though, and it's not about Lucifer… it's about you."

"You want to know about part of my life story now?" said Marie. Smiling, she said, "Part of why I convinced Alfred to let you come along with me was because I figured we'd have some time to talk. What part do you want to know about?"

"When you did Krav Maga training with me before we went on this mission with Alfred, I had assumed you were pretty good at it. But after seeing you slaughter over a dozen Abstergo guards all by yourself with just a machine pistol and a broken spear… It's obvious you were going easy on me while we were training, because I've never seen anyone that good. How did you learn to fight like that?"

Marie looked down at the streets with a distant look in her eyes. "My life story is complicated. My father was a French Romani orphan whose birth was illegitimate. He was a bastard child. He never knew his father, and when he found out about the things he did to his mother, he was glad. He got separated from his mother when he was very little. Every day for him was a struggle to survive. Once he got old enough to realize the life he was born into was gradually killing his spirit, he traveled all over, searching for a new one. Searching for a purpose."

"At a point in time fate led him to a small town in the Isle of Skye. My father's life story was complicated… but my mother's life story is one of the most complicated stories never told. My mother's life was pure chaos."

She looked at her broken spear and held it in her hands. "When she was able to spend time with me, she cared for me, and she taught me how to fight. When she was away, traveling across the world, I learned how to fight on my own, and developed my own techniques based on the ones she taught me."

"Your mother traveled a lot?" Sam said. "Was your mother in the military?"

"Her story is much more complicated than that," Marie said as looked at the broken spear sadly.

Sam looked at her as she held the spear. He said to her, "Bruce said you didn't have a surname. Your father must not have known his own since he was an orphan, but… couldn't you have adopted your mother's surname?"

Marie was silent, her gaze fixed on the spear.

"Who's your mother, Marie?"

"I may love you, Yahweh," said Marie while looking up at Sam, "but my mother's life story is one that isn't meant to be told. Even to you."

Sam said, "All right… I understand."

Marie just nodded, and looked up with Sam as the elevator arrived at the penthouse.

"Charlie, where's the panic room?"

"Let's see… there's the panic room schematics I pulled up. Combine those with my efforts to triangulate the location of the HVT's private server they're using via their relay IP addresses… and a little bit of hacking into penthouse security systems… Boom. The panic room entrance is in the den of the penthouse, hidden behind the bookshelf with the plasma TV."

"Good job, Charlie," said Sam as they navigated through the darkness of the penthouse. Sam took out several Abstergo troops from the shadows with some controlled bursts of SC-20K fire to the head while Marie crept up on some of the guards and stabbed them to death with her broken spear before they could react or alert each other.

Sam snuck up on the last Abstergo soldier in the penthouse with sonar goggles searching for him in the den, and pressed his Karambit to the soldier's neck.

"Hi there," said Sam. "Is there any chance you're willing to help an old fisher break into that panic room?"

"I'm not letting you in, Fisher—urrgh!"

Sam pressed the Karambit harder against the man's neck, to the extent that the knife's curved tip was so close to his Adam's apple that so much as a breath or a gulp would result in blood being drawn. "No one wants to be on the receiving end of this fisher's hook, and for those who have… Even a fish needs to breathe."

The Abstergo soldier was trembling underneath Sam's chokehold.

"Tell me how to get into the panic room, fish."

"It can only be opened by the person we've been assigned by Lucas to protect! And they're already inside!"

"Sounds like you're going to be my bait."

"Live bait, I hope?"

"You're a bodyguard, fish. Call the body you're guarding and tell them the coast is clear."

"All right," said the Abstergo soldier before a crossbow bolt pierced through their heart.

Sam quickly turned and used the soldier as a human shield as more crossbow bolts were fired toward Sam.

Sam looked for the shooter, and saw that it was a woman wearing an Abstergo uniform designed differently than those of the others.

One of Abstergo's elite.

She was firing at Sam with a crossbow in one hand while wielding an odd-looking great sword with parts of it that glowed in her other.

Just as the corpse Sam was holding was getting too heavy to use as a shield, Marie shot at the elite troop with her MAC-11 and approached her with her broken spear readied. This made the supersoldier angry, and she turned to Marie and tried to shoot her with her crossbow. The bolt the supersoldier fired knocked Marie's MAC-11 out of her hand and grazed her hand itself by inches.

Before the supersoldier could shoot another bolt at Marie, Sam fired a shotgun shell from his SC-20K's underbarrel attachment that knocked the crossbow out of the supersoldier's hand. He then hit the supersoldier with a barrage of simultaneous rapid fire from the assault rifle part of the SC-20K and semi-auto shotgun shells from its underbarrel.

But it wouldn't pierce the bulletproof armor the supersoldier was wearing.

The soldier marched toward Sam as he continued shooting her in vain, holding her great sword in one hand.

Sam was nearly caught off-guard when the supersoldier made a forceful lunge at Sam that knocked the SC-20K out of his hands and caused him to fall over.

Shit… thought Sam as he looked at the supersoldier, that's a two-handed sword, but despite its size and weight this woman managed to wield it like a one-handed one. She made it look easy, too.

As the supersoldier was approaching Sam, Marie shot at her with her MAC-11 she had picked back from the ground in another vain attempt to pierce her armor before her gun's barrel made a clicking noise.

Sam tried to get up, only for the supersoldier to stomp on his solar plexus with her boot.

Sam groaned. That knocked the wind out of him.

As Sam tried to regain his breath, he managed to sit up.

That allowed him to see the supersoldier standing over him as she raised her sword with both hands toward Sam's head.

Before she chopped open Sam's skull with it, Marie tackled the supersoldier, causing them to slam into the bookshelf that was the door to the panic room and destroy several shelves.

Marie tried to stab the supersoldier with her broken spear while she was on the ground, but it wouldn't cut through her armor.

The supersoldier slugged Marie in the stomach, then picked up her great sword and swung it at Marie. Marie managed to dodge the swing by stepping backwards. She then tried to strike the supersoldier with her broken spear, only for the supersoldier to parry with her great sword.

As Sam was starting to recover from the blow to his solar plexus, he noticed while Marie used her broken spear in a melee brawl against the supersoldier, the more she struck the great sword with her spear, the more parts of the great sword started to glow and emit rays of light, as well as what looked like static electricity.

Sam picked up his SC-20K and unleashed a barrage of suppressing fire on the supersoldier while careful not to hit Marie. As one of his bullets hit her sword, the static electricity grew into what Sam could only describe as a miniature field of lightning bolts.

Sam and Marie were both thrown backwards by the force of electricity.

Sam flew into and slammed into a small wooden chair, crushing it and tumbling over it and across the floor.

Marie got the worst of it; her body slammed into the wall, creating a large crack and breaking a painting depicting the Viking era siege of Paris on one of the walls in the room. The painting was stained with Marie's blood.

The supersoldier looked at the broken spear she had dropped.

"I've seen that spear before…" the supersoldier said underneath her helmet's voice scrambler.

Groaning, Marie clutched her stomach, and looked up at the supersoldier.

Sam was stunned somewhat by the lightning, but he managed to get back up.

That's no ordinary sword… thought Sam.

After studying Marie, the supersoldier said, "You're a descendant of the misthios."

"…what?" said Sam.

Marie looked up at the supersoldier, and grimaced. "How do you know my mother?"

"Your mother?" The supersoldier paused before saying, "Your mother was the Keeper of Memories. The Phoenix Project augmented my human DNA and consciousness with those of the Isu that forced her to carry the burden of the title."

"Aletheia?" said Marie in shock.

"Aletheia?" said Sam.

That name.

He heard it in the church.

Sam looked at Marie as she said to the supersoldier, "Aletheia isn't a Sage. Her consciousness was trapped in the Staff of Hermes Trismegistus."

"Did you ever wonder what Aletheia's motivations were for making your mother the Keeper? Why she had to carry the Staff for over two millennia?" The supersoldier looked at Sam for a moment, then back at Marie. "I don't know how much of the knowledge of the Isu your mother told you about, but the answer lies in the past. Before the Toba catastrophe. Aletheia was known to the Aesir as Angrboda."

"The Jotunn… Loki's lover," said Marie.

"Loki uploaded her consciousness to the Staff to save her life," said the supersoldier. "His two Sages have been conspiring throughout history to revive her. The Keeper of Memories passed the Staff on to the Heir so the Heir would fulfill the Prophecy."

"The Grey. One of Loki's Sages managed to preserve his body using Yggdrasil. Not long after the Keeper passed the Staff onto the Heir, the Heir discovered a message Loki left for her. It led her to the remains of that Sage's enemy. A Sage of Odin that lived during the Viking era… She was responsible for eradicating the Order of Ancients and sending its Grand Maegester, Alfred the Great, into exile. She founded a village in rural England for her fellow Vikings to live in called Ravensthorpe."

"A Sage of Odin… Ravensthorpe…" said Marie.

"After a battle between the two Sages in Hordafylke, at the site of Yggdrasil, Odin's Sage ended up forcing Loki's Sage into the machine in order to save her human self, as well as Tyr's Sage. She fell for Loki's trick. Both of Loki's Sage's selves, his human self and his Isu one, lived on because Yggdrasil preserved his body."

"The Heir relived the memories of Odin's Sage by uploading the Sage's DNA into the Animus. She did this to locate Yggdrasil and prevent another catastrophe. She entered the machine, and chose to stay in it… Her mind is still in the Grey, calculating possible futures, and trying to find one where humanity survives. But her body is gone. When the Heir entered Yggdrasil, it caused her to drop the Staff, and eject Loki's Sage. Loki's Sage landed on the Staff. The Heir's function was complete, and the Prophecy was fulfilled. Loki and Aletheia were reunited."

"What's she talking about, Marie?" yelled Sam.

"This Sage of Loki… is it Sadiq?" said Marie. The tone of her voice and furious look on her face suggested that she was beyond upset.

"No. It was another."

"What's his name?"

"Why don't you ask Alfred?"

Marie frowned at the supersoldier.

"Alfred formed an alliance between DedSec and the Assassin Brotherhood. The Sage that revived Aletheia is working for the Brotherhood. But he doesn't care about who he works for. They're a means to an end. His function was to revive me… And given Abstergo's vast resources, and the rapidly expanding Phoenix Project… It wasn't long before he started working with Abstergo simultaneously. The only reason he's working with the Assassins is so Odin doesn't gain leverage over him."

"If your mother knew Aletheia's true motivations, she would've never accepted her role as Keeper. That's why the Prophecy was continued through the Heir; if your mother lived long enough to learn about Odin and Loki's connection to Aletheia and the function Aletheia gave her as Keeper, the plan, one that took the entirety of human history to pull off, would have failed."

Marie started to tremble with rage as the supersoldier continued to taunt her. "Your mother's entire life story, her function, was to serve Aletheia. The role of the Keeper was a lie. Part of one of Loki's tricks. And yet she chose to embrace the role and all its burdens, knowing that despite all of the Isu's knowledge she would come to possess, and all the things she'd learn throughout history, she would never understand the larger purpose of her function. She lived for over two millennia, watched as the people she cared about wither away and die, experienced the worst of what humanity has to offer throughout history. She was tormented for her entire life by the true wrath of the deadliest misthios of them all… The one that's going to kill us all… Time."

Marie, whose face was red due to how much her blood was boiling, glimpsed at where her broken spear was lying for a split-second.

"Marie?" said Sam.

The supersoldier held up her great sword toward Marie. "Your mother's brother uttered a truth to her right after he slit their mother's throat right in front of her… 'The gods are cruel.' But as for the Nornir… No matter how much your mother suffered throughout history, her life story was still just a tiny strand in their grand weavings. Your mother's life story was one of the biggest jokes never told!"

"Marie!" yelled Sam.

Marie got up and ran to her broken spear and picked it up, only for her to drop it again as the supersoldier stunned her with a blast of lightning emitted from her sword.

Sam was blinded by the lightning for a moment, but when his vision cleared, he saw that Marie was standing up in a stiff manner, almost as if she was paralyzed.

Her body was surrounded by a field of lightning.

Sam looked over at his SC-20K on the ground, then back at the supersoldier.

The supersoldier did something to the sword that caused the field of lightning to intensify, inflicting some shock burns on Marie before a massive surge effect sent her body flying and crashing into the kitchen table in the adjacent room, smashing it in the process.

"MARIE!" screamed Sam.

"You're weak," said the supersoldier to Sam. "Don't try to be a hero. I'm going into the kitchen to decide the fate of the Keeper's daughter."

As the supersoldier headed toward Marie, Sam yelled, "I get it!"

The supersoldier looked at Sam.

Sam said, "You're an Isu… I'm just a man. I get it. Bullets won't pierce through your armor, and I can't beat you in a fistfight. That much is clear as day."

The supersoldier said, "You bore me."

As the supersoldier was about to exit the den, Sam said as he reached into one of the pockets of his suit, "But what isn't clear to me yet…"

The supersoldier looked at Sam, and tilted her head.

"…is whether or not your armor can withstand hellfire."

Sam then pulled out a white phosphorus grenade from his pocket and chucked it directly at the supersoldier.

The supersoldier wasn't able to raise her sword in time to block the grenade from hitting her chest and detonating on impact.

As Sam lowered his hand that he covered his eyes with, he looked at the bright blue flames lining the floors and walls of the den.

The supersoldier screamed and ran around with flailing arms as the white phosphorus was quickly burning through her armor.

To Sam's surprise, the supersoldier managed to strip off her bulletproof armor and toss it aside before she burned to death.

She was trying to pull off her helmet, but it was stuck.

Marie managed to come to, and stumbled into the den, clutching a nasty wound in her shoulder where a shard of glass from the table she collided with had pierced through.

The supersoldier finally yanked off her helmet and threw it aside, then after she stopped screaming and caught her breath, she looked up at Sam, and glared at him furiously.

Sam looked at her face in shock.

"Crosshairs…" said Sam.

"Crosshairs?" said Marie before looking at Sam. "You know her?"

Sam looked at Crosshairs, who was still staring angrily at him.

"Crosshairs, you remember me. We fought together in the Gulf War. We were a part of Task Force Integral."

Crosshairs was silent.

"What did Abstergo do to you?"

"Crosshairs…" She laughed at Sam before saying to him, "It's good that you call me Crosshairs and not Judith, because Judith is gone. Her consciousness was erased and replaced with multiple Isu ones through the Phoenix Project. The experiments that Lucas performed with Katja Winter's DNA helped the Phoenix Project immensely, and helped facilitate the birth of my Isu consciousnesses. Aletheia… Freyja… Asherah… Three different Isu all conversing inside my head, controlling my body like a puppet… An entire Triad consisting of a single being… An All-Mother."

"Which one am I talking to now?" said Sam.

"Freyja," said Crosshairs. "Aletheia needed assistance after you nearly burned her alive. As for Asherah…" Crosshairs frowned. "Her relationship to Yahweh made her weak. Lucas is keeping her dormant for now."

"All right then, Freyja," said Sam, "how did Judith's consciousness get erased?"

Crosshairs grinned.

"She was tortured, wasn't she?" said Sam with a frown. "If the CIA's MK-Ultra program can do something like that to a person, I don't want to know how bad whatever Israel's equivalent program is."

"Her consciousness may be gone, but I still have access to her memories," said Crosshairs. "As for you… Do you really not remember anything about what happened in that church?"

"Church?" said Sam. Thinking for a second, Sam's eyes went wide. "You were the one who rescued me and the remaining survivors of the ambush!"

"It was me, Alfred, and one other who managed to prevent you from burning alive on the cross," said Crosshairs. "But something happened a few seconds after we breached the room. Whatever that something was… Judith never made it out of that church because of it. Crosshairs however… lived.

"I didn't need to be tortured to be deprived of my humanity. Your failure as Integral's leader did more damage to my mind than Abstergo ever could."

Sam looked at her, and said, "What happened in the church?"

"I told you as much as I know… I don't remember anything about what happened after we breached the room."

Sam said to her, "Listen, Crosshairs, whatever happened back then—"

"—can't be reversed, Sam. It was a significant node in Nornir's weavings, and our strands diverged after that. They were never meant to be next to each other again. Just because we've met again on the battlefield doesn't mean we're equals."

Crosshairs groaned. "If I had known you were packing white phosphorus, perhaps I would've killed you first. If it weren't for my armor, it would've burnt through my bones by now. The burns you managed to inflict on me with that incendiary grenade may have destroyed my body enough to render me unable to continue to fight… but they're nothing."

Crosshairs picked up her great sword in her hand, and screamed as it burned her hand… but somehow she still managed to hold it up, in one hand. Limping toward a display cabinet showing off another great sword, Crosshairs broke through the cabinet's glass with her free hand, and held up the great sword she already had on her. The great sword glowed, and allowed her to pull the other great sword out of the slab of smooth stone it was lodged in within the display.

Crosshairs looked at Sam and Marie, and said, "I assume you're here for the Well of Mirrors' CEO whom I was hired to protect. He's a descendant of Francois-Thomas Germain, the Templar Grand Master and Sage of Aita, a silversmith who helped recreate the Templars from within after purging those who opposed his rule, all in the middle of the French Revolution. He took a revolution ordinary people started and turned it into one the Templars would finish."

"That was the point in time that the Templars switched from utilizing royalty and various government institutions to rule the world and turned to controlling the people by controlling the resources needed to survive, through the currencies needed to exchange them between parties. Once capitalism became the new model for the Templars' control, it wouldn't be long before Abstergo would become a reality."

"London itself used to be the Templars' hub they used to control the world during the peak of the Industrial Revolution, but Crawford Starrick, his own megacorporation, and his associates were eradicated by the Assassins. Yet it was just another node where strands of the Templars power waxed and waned, diverged only to converge again later on. As for Winchester, that was where the Order of the Ancients' hub was before the Vikings destroyed them and King Alfred reformed them into the Templars while in exile."

Crosshairs said as she held up the two great swords, one in each hand, "The Vikings stole Excalibur during their raids on Winchester and Hampshire. Similarly, an Assassin stole the French Sword of Eden from Germain amidst the chaos of Robespierre's Reign of Terror. And yet here they are, in the apartment of a Templar. No, someone much more important than a mere Templar."

Sam and Marie tensed themselves as Crosshairs said, "Lucas doesn't want you getting anything out of his mentor. It doesn't matter what you do. In a chaotic universe, people crave order to help maintain their sanity. And there will always be people among them like Lucas who step up to give them what they want. It will only be a matter of time until his goal of ultimate control—a new world order—is achieved."

"Lucas's goal is sick."

"It's necessary for our race's survival, for the greater good. And part of the reason why it will work is because Lucas understands that the world needs to change in order to achieve true order. What's paradoxical about it though, is that he doesn't need to fight the world to make it happen. He just needs to turn the forces of the world against each other… and the net forces will eventually cancel out."

"So tell me Sam, what do you get when you cross an unchanging order with relentless chaos?" said Crosshairs.

"Don't do this, Crosshairs!"

Crosshairs grinned as she pressed the two swords against each other, and the resulting enormous field of lightning temporarily blinded and nearly hit Sam and Marie.

"You get to rest in peace!" Crosshairs screamed as she channeled the energy coming from the swords to help her destroy the panic room and fry the HVT inside to death. Crosshairs then dropped the swords and the energy field disappeared.

Her burning corpse fell to the floor.

Looking through the destroyed panic room door, Sam said, "Shit! I was hoping to get intel out of the HVT!"

"At least he's dead. That's what Alfred wanted, after all," said Marie.

Sam looked around at the burning apartment. "We need to get out of here."

Marie nodded, and tried to walk but winced and clutched her shoulder wound instead.

"You're hurt," Sam said.

He took a first-aid kit out of one of the pouches of his suit and quickly injected medicine into Marie's wound with a syringe, then cauterized it with a match and wrapped it up with bandages.

"That should hold for now. You're strong, you can make it."

"Thank you, Sam," said Marie.

As they ran out of the crumbling apartment, Sam said, "What was Crosshairs talking about back there Marie, all that about a Staff, a Keeper and a Heir… she mentioned your mother."

"She was telling a story that isn't meant to be listened to, Sam," said Marie.

Sam saw a large window ahead.

He shot it with his Five-Seven, and then attached his fast rope to the top of it.

Looking down, he saw a construction site lining the side of the apartment building.

"We'll make it. Hold onto me," said Sam as he grabbed onto the fast rope.

Marie held onto Sam as they descended down into the construction site right before the penthouse exploded above them.

Sam's fast rope snapped midway down, and he and Marie crashed into some of the boards into the construction site, tumbling off of one, then another, and finally Sam crushed a board beneath him and landed on the ground in the alleyway beneath the penthouse.

Sam took a serious beating, and was covered in bloody lacerations due to getting cut by some of the wood in the boards. He was out of breath, but alive. Marie landed a few feet away from where a set of boards and pipes crashed next to her; she was miraculously unscathed.

Sam's vision went dark for a moment, and he remembered.

Terrorist Stronghold, Mirawa, Near the Iran-Iraq Border

The Gulf War

After shooting a set of terrorists dead next to a large, dark hole in the tunnel of the stronghold, Sam looked at the hole.

"Ghost, this is Husky," said Vic over comms. "Our sector's clear; the two clowns and I are regrouping with the rest of the unit in the fortress interior."

"Copy that, Husky," said Sam. "Integral, any sign of Trickshot in the other sectors?"

"No sign of Trickshot in the northeast sector," said Alfred.

"No sign of Trickshot in the northwest sector," said Judith.

"No sign of Trickshot in the southeast sector," said the mysterious Knight with what Sam couldn't help but call 'the Rorschach balaclava' that he saw earlier on the plane.

"What about the other teams that are hitting the other fortresses across the Middle East?"

Silence on comms.

"What's going on, Integral?"

"They've been off comms for over an hour now, Ghost," said Vic.

"All of them?"

"Yeah, not sure why," said Minesweeper.

"Could be that they're just too busy killing bad guys," said Ballistics.

"Well, whatever the reason is for their silence on comms, I'm not happy about it," said Sam. "All right. We'll regroup in the southwest sector of the fortress and search for the package there. I'll be there once I'm done checking something in the tunnels."

"Copy that."

"By the way, Percival, I have a question for you."

"Ask away, Ghost."

"Why don't you show your face?"

A pause on comms.

"That's classified, Ghost."

"Even though I'm your superior?"

"I don't just answer to you. There's a reason my identity needs to be kept a secret out here."

"Copy that," said Sam.

Sam turned off his night vision, pulled out a flare, and dropped it into the hole.

Looking down at the flare as it dropped, Sam said, "That's deep."

"What is?" said Percival.

"A hole in the tunnels running through the fortress… looks like it goes down even further into the mountains."

"How could someone carve that deep?"

"Beats me," said Sam as he hooked up his fast rope and started to descend, "but regardless, it looks like I'm about to go down this rabbit hole after the package."

"Make sure you figure out a way to come back out, Ghost," said Vic.

"You've read Alice in Wonderland, Husky? Color me shocked."

"Alice in Wonderland? Who the fuck is Alice and what does she have to do with an escape plan?"

Sam smiled. "I'll see you topside," as he began his descent.

At the bottom of the hole, Sam looked around in confusion.

The walls down here were smooth and had futuristic-looking lines of light moving along them. They were made of some sort of material he didn't recognize. He'd never seen anything like it.

Sam looked at a modern laptop that was placed on another smaller wall of metal. He went up to the laptop and booted it up.

What the hell… said Sam. This is just one laptop… but it's got the entirety of the Builders' servers' content on it. The Holy Grail.

Sam plugged his OPSAT into the laptop and began the download.

Sam was looking at some of the files when he saw that the surface the laptop was on was starting to glow.

"What the fuck?" said Sam quietly in disbelief.

Sam was contacted by Lambert. "Integral's analysts are telling me you're beginning to download the Holy Grail, Sam, but they can't get a read on your location."

"That doesn't surprise me. I'm not entirely sure where I am either… Some sort of tomb within the mountain… But it's not like any tomb I've ever seen or heard of."

"Interesting… Send me some pictures."

"You want me to take pictures of a tomb like some tourist?"

"You're no ordinary tourist, Sam… and if my hunch is right about that 'tomb' based on your description, we need to know why the Builders are using it."

"All right," said Sam, "I don't have a camera though."

"No need, Sam. The cameras in your goggles' binocular vision should do the trick."

"All right," said Sam as he began to scan the tomb with his goggles while holding up another flare to provide more light for the photos.

"Oh, damn!" said Lambert.

"What's happening, Lambert?"

"Damn, damn, damn!"

"Lambert!"

"We've been shut out of the servers… But we managed to get enough files to work with. It's a good thing you arrived when you did, Sam."

"What do the files say?" said Sam as he scanned the tomb with his goggles and flare.

"For starters, our hunch was right. Sadiq was turned a while ago… On top of that, he's fled the scene and went into hiding. As for the next part… It didn't come from the servers, it came from satellite footage of the other bases. It looks like they were rigged with explosives to go off all at once…"

Sam went wide-eyed at this revelation.

"I think your team's the only chess piece we still have left on the board, Sam."

"Damn it…" said Sam. Looking around, Sam said, "Sadiq's intel led us right into a trap!"

"The other teams and their parts of the operation have been disavowed. As for your team… well, you're still standing."

Sam looked around suspiciously. "There must've been something here that Sadiq and the Builders didn't want to risk destroying. Otherwise, we'd be dead by now like the rest of Integral… The question is, what?"

"Ghost?" said Alfred.

"What is it, Panther?"

"We're all here in the southwest sector of the fortress as you requested. We got here around the time we got the bad news about the other teams. I assume you already know."

"Yeah, I do. And forget regrouping, this operation is in jeopardy. We need to get the hell out of here—"

"Not yet, Ghost," said Alfred.

"You're questioning my orders, Panther—"

"There's something up here that you need to see, Sam."

"What?" said Sam. "What did you find?"

"It's best you see for yourself. We'll see you when you arrive at our sector."

Sam said, "All right, Panther."

Lambert said, "We've got enough of the files, Ghost. Get topside and get everyone out of there ASAP."

"On my way," said Sam as he headed back through the tomb in the direction he came from to climb up and out of the hole.

Sam regrouped with the others, some of whom were inside a small set of buildings within the fortress.

"Panther, what is it you wanted me to… see…"

Alfred, Vic, Judith, Percival, Minesweeper, and Ballistics were staring at a set of civilians who had been hiding in the buildings, one of whom was a pregnant Arab woman.

"The pregnant lady's acting as a translator, a mediator," Vic said to Sam. "She says these civvies need to be taken care of."

Sam looked at the pregnant woman.

"What's your name?" said Sam.

"Angrboda," said the pregnant woman.

"Angrboda?" Sam said. "That's an odd name for an Arabic person… All right, Angrboda. Why were the Builders keeping you and these civilians captive?"

"They weren't keeping us captive… They were keeping us safe. From you."

Sam frowned as Angrboda continued to speak.

"The Middle East, our home, is falling apart now that the Cold War is over and your countries declared a so-called 'peaceful' new world order. Majid was beginning to see this. I was the one who helped him see the truth."

"You're the one that turned him into a triple agent?"

"He already was a triple agent because your people sent him back here to spy on us," said Angrboda while she held her belly. "But I could tell he had potential. If it weren't for me, the other Builders would've had him killed."

Sam frowned, and looked at the others.

"We should take her in for interrogation," said Sam.

"The fact that you're considering interrogatin' a pregnant woman is makin' my own stomach turn, Ghost," said Vic.

"I know. I don't like it either, but she may be our best chance at finding Sadiq and I suspect she's not the one to talk about something unless she's given a reason to talk about it."

"What about the others?" said Judith. "They may be loyal to the Builders, but they're just civvies."

Sam's OPSAT was vibrating.

"Hold on… I'm getting a call from…"

It was Lucas.

Sam activated his comms.

"Sir, with all due respect, why're you calling and risking your identity being given away out here?" A pause. "You want us to do what?" Sam looked at the civilians and the pregnant with a look of horror on his face.

Grimacing, Sam said, "Copy that," and hung up.

Sam said to the others, "Our orders are to execute the civvies and take Angrboda to a nearby black site for interrogation."

"What?" shouted Judith angrily. "There are children among them!"

"Wait, is he serious?" said Minesweeper. "He can't be serious."

"I think he's being serious," said Ballistics with a frown.

"We've been ordered by the higher-ups running this operation to kill them," said Sam.

"Did they say why?" said Alfred.

"No. All he said was that Angrboda is the key to getting Sadiq back, and that she's to be used as leverage."

The others looked at Sam in horror.

"No. No! I'm not blindly following orders, especially not orders like that!" said Judith. "The soldiers who were most infamously known for following orders like that were Nazis. They were tried for crimes against humanity back at the end of World War II. They killed countless Jews; my mother was a survivor. I'm not becoming a war criminal without a good fucking reason."

"You sure you want to go through with this, Sam?" said Vic.

"They're loose ends, Husky, and if we spare them… You heard what Angrboda said. They're loyal to the Builders. Won't be long before they join their fold."

Panther frowned at Sam.

"That doesn't justify killing them!" yelled Judith.

"Nothing we do in this line of work is justified, Crosshairs," said Sam. "If you're unwilling to help us, then you're in charge of getting Angrboda to the black site, along with Panther."

"What?" said Panther. "But Sam—"

"I don't care whether you're willing to help out here or not, Panther. I don't trust you enough. You're going with Crosshairs on a convoy out of here."

"All right," said Panther with a frown.

"Ghost," said Lambert. "Reports are that several convoys of Builders are approaching your location, and setting up ambush points all over Mirawa. Hundreds of them. You're about to get swarmed."

Sam said, "Copy that, Lambert. We're going to have to make ourselves scarce. I need three others to go with Crosshairs and Panther to protect the package. Percival, you're one of them."

"Roger," said Percival.

"As for the other two… you two," said Sam, pointing to a CIA and KGB agent. "What're your callsigns?"

"Archer," said the NSA agent. "This here's Kestrel."

"You're the other two. The five of you are going to take the easy route out with Angrboda. Everyone else, including myself, is going to buy you time by heading out into the center of the ambush."

"Why are we risking our lives like this, Sam?" said Vic.

"Sadiq's officially been designated as the most dangerous man on Earth, Husky. Getting Angrboda out of here alive and into MI6 custody is the key to getting to him."

"I don't get it," said Panther. "Sadiq should've blown us up like the others by now… He's willing to risk the entire operation and the trust of the Builders, all for just one woman? Why?"

They looked at Angrboda, and then her belly.

"Oh my god…" said Judith, covering her mouth.

"I think I know why we're using her as leverage over Sadiq…" said Percival.

"I don't like this at all, Sam," said Vic.

"I don't either, Vic… but orders are orders," said Sam. "We all have our tasks. Let's get to work."

As Sam's unit walked back toward Angrboda and the civilians, Angrboda said to Sam, "His forces are approaching the fortress as we speak. If you hand us over to them, you'll be spared from his wrath."

Sam said to Angrboda with a frown, "The Builders are treating Sadiq more like a leader than a double agent sent to spy on them. Why?"

"They know what he's capable of. What he is. He's exactly what they've been waiting for. What I've been waiting for," said Angrboda.

"You're going to have to wait a little while longer before you see him," said Sam, "because we don't negotiate with terrorists."

Angrboda said to Sam while folding her arms, "What were you ordered to do with us, then? Take us captive? Lock us up in your American prisons?"

Sam grimaced as the others went to the civilians and pointed their guns at them.

Angrboda looked at the other members of Integral, and her eyes went open in horror before she turned back to look at Sam.

"No… you wouldn't…"

Sam continued to grimace.

Trembling, Angrboda sank to her knees and began to cry, "Please, American, it's me you want, not them! They deserve mercy!"

"I know," said Sam with a frown, "and I don't care."

The others trained their guns on the civilians, and the lasers from their sights were pointed at the heads of several of them, some of whom had been on this planet for less than half a decade.

London, United Kingdom

Present Day

Sam came back to as Marie plunged an adrenaline syringe into his chest.

"Are you all right, love?"

"We… We killed them… Back in Mirawa… So many innocents…" said Sam.

"We're going to be late to the rendezvous. We have to go, now. Get up."

"Rendezvous?" said Sam as Marie helped him up. "The church… Oh no…" Sam shouted to Marie, "We have to get there before Alfred does!"

Marie frowned, and just nodded silently in response.

They headed toward the church.

Alfred, Briggs, Grim, and Bruce were at the church already.

"Surveillance shows that the rest of the HVTs are still inside the church," said Charlie, "but they're hiding among a massive crowd of civilians taking refuge from the riot."

"This is going to have to get messy after all…" Alfred said while grimacing.

"Schematics show that there are two major routes in and out of the church that haven't been destroyed yet."

"We'll cut them off at both," said Alfred. "Briggs?"

"You said my actual name for once," said Briggs.

"You're with me, we're going through the back door. Grim and Bruce, you're going through the front door."

"Roger, Porker," said Bruce.

"Bruce, I need you to keep an eye on Grim for me."

"I'll make sure she doesn't leave my sight, Porker," said Bruce, looking at Grim.

"Time to split up," said Alfred. "We'll all breach the church on my go."

Alfred and Briggs went around to the back of the church. As they approached the back door, Briggs said, "So why did you keep calling me 'replacement man' before Alfred."

"Because that's what you are," said Alfred.

"I never really got the joke," said Briggs.

"It's no joke," said Alfred. "You seriously don't know, do you? I've read his files to fill in the gaps since I last saw him. After Third Echelon, Sam gave up inside on protecting his country. If it weren't for Vic he would never have become leader of Fourth Echelon. Now, he's got his eye on you to be his replacement. To him, this really is his last mission."

Briggs looked down. "I suspected as much."

"He thinks you have what it takes. I'm not convinced… but perhaps if I had fought alongside you as much as Sam has, I'd have a different judgment."

Briggs said, "I'm not exactly thrilled to be participating in the massacre of civilians."

"And that's why I'm convinced you don't have what it takes. Sometimes leaders like Sam have to make tough calls on the battlefield, ones a lot like this one. Ones whose repercussions would make an ordinary person's skin crawl."

Briggs looked at Alfred in disbelief. "Sam had to follow orders to kill civilians?"

Alfred nodded.

"That… that's not like him. He knows better than that."

"By saying that he knows 'better' implies he follows a moral code. A sense of right and wrong. The problem in that logic is that there's no such code in war, and if there is, there shouldn't be. In the end, all that matters is completing your mission, Briggs. Rules of engagement go out the door very bloody fast once the chaos ensues."

"What happened back during your time together in the Gulf War? In that file Charlie mentioned?"

"That's a story that isn't meant to be told," said Alfred, "but I will say this. The Sam you know right now was a lot different than the Sam I knew back then. He was starting to show signs of his Yahweh alter manifesting back then… The War on Terror was getting to him."

Briggs looked at Alfred as he said, "If you ask me, the Sam from back then had what it takes to beat Lucas. He fought so well, for a while it seemed to me like he didn't even feel pain. He definitely didn't feel remorse either, or worry about what he had to lose. All he cared about was killing the enemy. The Sam from right now doesn't have what it takes. And neither do you, because you're just like him."

Briggs frowned as Alfred said to Bruce, "Bruce, are you at the front door yet?"

"Bruce lost Ground Beef Done Well somewhere in the gardens surrounding the church."

"I told you to keep an eye on her, Bruce!"

"Bruce is sorry, Porker."

Briggs and Alfred frowned.

"I suspect Grim's up to no good," said Alfred.

Grim was in the gardens of the church, looking around at the various arrangements of flowers.

"Odin, my love… I don't know if you're watching us right now… but this is getting out of hand," said Grim. "I read your commands, but I'm running out of time to execute them. Loki's about to find out the truth about his… son. If you can send me a sign, tell me what to do… I'll make it happen."

Grim looked around the garden, then her eyes went wide as she looked at a white flower with very sharp thorns.

"Perfect," she said. She separated the flower from its roots with her combat knife, then started to cut off the thorns, and placed some beneath her tongue.

"Odin is with me," said Grim as she saw Bruce looking for her.

"Ground Beef Done Well!" said Bruce. "Porker's mad… he wanted me to keep an eye on you and you wandered off."

"Sorry… Bruce," said Grim with a smirk. "I won't wander off again."

"Good," said Bruce. "Let's breach the front doors in sync with Porker and Brisket."

Grim nodded, and they stacked up at the front door.

"Porker!" said Bruce. "Bruce found Ground Beef Done Well. We're at the front door now."

"That's a relief, Bruce," said Alfred, "I was beginning to get worried. Have you planted a breaching charge?"

Bruce placed a breaching charge on the door. "Charge is set," said Bruce.

"All right, I'll count to five. When I reach one, we breach."

"Bruce's watch is synchronized."

Alfred looked at Briggs, who nodded back to him.

Alfred spoke into his communicator again.

"Five…"

Sam and Marie were running toward the church, only to see it had gone up in flames.

"No…" Sam said in horror, and began to have more flashbacks from Mirawa while they ran toward the church.

Sam, Vic, Minesweeper, Ballistics, and the other members of Task Force Integral were in a convoy moving through a small village when the first truck in the line of their five-vehicle convoys exploded from an IED planted in the road in front of it.

"Four…"

They all got out of their Jeeps and started to take cover before exchanging fire with the Builders ambushing them.

Sam and Marie ran through the garden area toward the front door of the church.

"Three…"

Sam and the others were quickly overwhelmed. A Builder leading the ambush ordered his men to switch to less-than-lethal ammunition, and soon Sam was the only one left standing before a flashbang grenade detonated, blinding Sam before he was knocked out.

Sam and Marie stacked up at the front door, then entered.

"Two…"

Sam woke in that church again.

The Builder who tied him to the cross said to him, "This is the type of hero Americans worship… Killer of innocents… A blunt instrument that follows orders without remorse… A man who's willing to wrestle a pregnant woman to the ground, and choke her unconscious, to the extent that it may harm her unborn child… if it means he's willing to complete his mission… If this is the future the West promises us… Forgive me, but I'd rather see the world burn."

Sam ran into the church by himself, and looked on in shock.

"One. Breach!"

Sam bagged and tagged Angrboda as she was crying and screaming hysterically as the others started shooting the civilians in that fortress until they were all dead.

Alfred, Judith, and Percival arrived and shot the Builders holding Sam and the others hostage inside the church. After being shot, the leader dropped a glowing orb of some kind that he was using on Sam, and the glowing lines, auras, and symbols they saw floating around in the air disappeared.

As Percival cut the others free, Judith ended up falling over, and crawled into a corner in the back of the church, breathing heavily and not saying a word.

Alfred freed Sam from the cross before he burned alive on it by cutting the ropes holding it up.

"SAM!" yelled Alfred.

Sam was too shocked to speak.

Percival looked over at Judith, and said, "Crosshairs?"

Vic, Minesweeper, and Ballistics went over to Alfred and Sam.

"What the hell just happened? For a second I couldn't see or hear or—" said Minesweeper.

Looking at the orb lying next to the corpse of the leader, Alfred frowned and said, "Nothing happened. All that matters is our leader's okay."

"He looks pretty bad…" said Ballistics.

"He's a tough bastard. He'll make it."

Percival carried Judith by wrapping his arm around her shoulder.

"Is Crosshairs wounded?" said Alfred.

"It doesn't look like it," said Percival, "but she's in shock."

"Damn," said Alfred. "Did Archer and Kestrel make it out with Angrboda?"

"Calling them now," said Percival. After listening and talking quietly on comms for a second, Percival said, "They made it."

Vic looked at Sam, then Alfred, and said, "You have our thanks, Alfred."

"Don't bloody thank me yet, Husky," said Alfred as the two of them hoisted Sam up and they exited the church.

Sam just stared and stared at all of the dead civilians in the church.

"Yahweh?" said Marie as she caught up to Sam.

Then Sam saw Alfred, Briggs, Bruce, and Grim in the middle of the church. Alfred was shooting a man several times; he was one of the HVTs that had disguised himself as a priest.

After shooting the man in the head, Alfred said, "Kill confirmed. That was the other leader on the board of directors. Charlie, any remaining Well of Mirrors HVTs in the church?"

"N- no… They're- they're all dead, Alfred…" said Charlie shakily. "They're all dead."

Sam's blood started to boil. Furious, with a wild look in his eye, and heavy breathing, he stormed toward Alfred.

"Fisher," said Alfred. "You missed the pa—"

Fisher socked Alfred as hard across the face as he could, knocking him over.

Grabbing his jaw, Alfred groaned, and said, "That left hook brings back memories… but it needs work."

"We slaughtered a bunch of civilians, Alfred!" screamed Sam. "And for what?"

"Their deaths were necessary to kill the HVTs," said Alfred. "Besides, instead of coming out to participate in the riots, they were hiding from them. They were derivatives, Sam."

"Derivatives?" shouted Sam. "Your fucked up moral code doesn't give you the right to take innocent lives, Alfred!"

"Isn't it a bit ironic though, Sam?" said Alfred. "We did the same thing back in the Gulf War that we just did now… only back then, you were the one that gave the orders. My 'moral code' wasn't mine until I learned it from you and the Isu in your head!"

Sam frowned.

"Like you, I tried to suppress it. I knew you were traumatized by what happened, so I let you do it. I let you suppress your Yahweh alter. I told Vic and the others not to mention Desert Hill or Task Force Integral to you."

"You're the reason I didn't remember Integral?" said Sam. "All this time, I had all the pieces of the puzzle already. An entire part of my life was fabricated, thanks to you! Our friendship was based on a lie!"

"Because if you gave into your Yahweh alter, you wouldn't have been you anymore! You'd be a monster like me," said Alfred. "Not to mention that Lucas would've found you and had you killed, Sam… Odin hates Yahweh. And given you're his Sage, you're the number one hindrance to both his plans and his conscience."

Sam looked at Alfred. "You had a life, and a daughter to take care of. I had a family too, and because of Lucifer's voice in my head, I ended up scaring them away while we had all taken a break from our service in the Middle East to recover from the mission. I didn't want the same thing to happen to you!"

Looking around at the corpses on the floor of the church, Alfred said, "But now if you want to rescue your daughter you've got no choice. If you want to defeat Lucas, you have to become a killer again."

Sam was still very angry.

"What happened to 'don't be a dick to those who don't deserve it', Alfred?" said Briggs.

"They did deserve it, though, Replacement Man," said Alfred. "They were derivatives. As for the blokes at MI6… I knew Sam wasn't ready yet. I wanted to ease him into it. Otherwise, I would've killed my old colleagues from MI6, and I would've done it gladly."

Briggs and Sam frowned.

"The shame is that a lot of them used to work with me, or, in some cases, for me. But I suppose it worked out, given they were a part of Integral… and integral is another word for an antiderivative. But they were on the other side of the equation."

Sam said to Alfred bitterly, "We're overdue for that rematch."

"And we'll have it, Sam, provided we get back to base in one piece."

"Right," said Sam as he helped Alfred back on his feet, and they headed toward the door. "Though that'll have to be after I get what I want out of Sadiq— what the—"

Bang.

A bullet pierced through Sam's shoulder, knocking him over.

While Marie grabbed Sam, Briggs, Alfred, and Bruce pointed their guns at the shooter.

It was Grim.

"Why did you do that, Grim?" shouted Briggs.

"That's not Grim you're talking to, Briggs…" said Alfred with a frown. "Marie, restrain her."

Marie looked at Grim, and frowned. She quickly bagged and tagged Grim.

Bruce looked at Grim. "Why did Ground Beef Done Well shoot Fishes?"

"She's been brainwashed by Lucas Richards, Bruce," said Alfred.

"Lucas Rich Meat?" Bruce said, looking at Grim, and frowned. "Ground Beef Done Well's been spoiled."

Alfred and Briggs started to hoist Sam up.

"Are you all right, Sam?" said Briggs.

"I'll live," said Sam as he managed to get back on his feet himself.

"Darcy," said Alfred, "can you get us transport?"

"Not really, Alfred," said Darcy. "DedSec's digging in right now."

"Hang on," said Charlie. "It looks like the vehicles the HVTs used to get here were smart vehicles. They're still operational, enough to drive them. If you can patch me into them, I should be able to get you back to DedSec's base in one piece."

"It might work for a little bit," said Alfred. "With that said, we may have to ditch them for other cars to lose Abstergo's trail along the way."

"That shouldn't be hard," said Briggs. "I know how to hotwire a car."

"Make it happen, Charlie," said Alfred. "Let's get out of this bloody church before it burns down around us."

Undisclosed DedSec Safe House, London, United Kingdom

Sam, Alfred, Briggs, Marie, and Bruce, who was carrying Grim in the bag she had been bagged and tagged in, walked through Charlie's room.

"Hey guys, I finished analyzing the files you pulled from MI6," said Charlie.

"We'll talk later, Charlie," said Sam. "Right now, we're on the way to put Grim in a cell, and after that, we're interrogating Sadiq," said Sam.

"Well, if you're interrogating Sadiq, you need to know what the files say," said Charlie.

"Bruce's arms are hurting from carrying Ground Beef Done Well all this way," said Bruce. "Bruce needs to put her down."

"All right, do so, Bruce," said Alfred. "Charlie, make it quick."

"The files mention that Sadiq's wife died in MI6 custody over a decade ago, but she was pregnant with a child. She gave birth to Sadiq's daughter, and they used the daughter as leverage over Sadiq to bring him back to MI6, make him work with them to bring down the Builders from the inside. For a while, he complied in exchange for keeping his daughter alive… but at some point, he snapped and went rogue anyway. Given it was around the time his wife died in their custody…"

"While the timeline still has aspects of it that don't add up, I suspect he thought they were lying to him. That his daughter was never born, or had been killed just like his wife."

Sam frowned.

Briggs said, "But if he thinks his daughter's dead, then why does he want the file so bad?"

"Regardless, the file says his daughter's alive," said Charlie. "After Sadiq went rogue, she was trafficked through Rook Islands and sold to an unknown client. According to the files, the client is a 'success story' of Lucas's."

"What's that supposed to mean?" said Briggs.

"Beats me," said Charlie.

Grim managed to make a glimpse at one of Charlie's other monitors, which had the Abstergo files on it.

They were being rewritten.

Grim quickly skimmed through the part of the files on the monitor that changed.

"Ravensthorpe…" she whispered to herself.

"We may want to be cautious about how much we tell him, Sam," said Briggs.

"Agreed," said Sam. "In the meantime, it's time to ask Sadiq himself about the story behind this file."

In the makeshift prison cell area, Bruce placed Grim in another prison cell. Meanwhile, Sam stepped into Sadiq's and shut the door.

Sadiq was tied to a chair. Looking up at Sam, he smirked.

"Hello again, Yahweh," said Sadiq. "Have you got my file?"