… … … … …
The White House, Washington, DC, USA/ The Kremlin, Moscow, Russia/ The Great Hall of the People, Beijing, China
President Caldwell was in the Oval Office, preparing to head to Congress for the investigation committees to grill her about Fourth Echelon so they could impeach her when that creepy doctor working for Displace approached her office.
"You might want to take a look at the news," he said.
"What is it?" said Caldwell.
"The Selection," said the bearded man as he handed her a tablet and left.
Prick, thought Caldwell as she watched the news on the tablet. This is it, isn't it… They're going to plant the nuke at my impeachment proceeding…
In his office in the Kremlin, Russian President Treskayev was handed a tablet by his American informant, Hisham Hamza.
"Is this about the impeachment proceedings in America?" said Treskayev.
"No," said Hisham. "It's all over the news, sir… The Engineers posted another video about the Selection."
"Give it to me," said Treskayev as he looked at the tablet.
In his office in the Great Hall, Chinese Premier Long Dan was handed a tablet by the CEO of the Collective Force.
"Premier Dan, you need to look at the news," said the CEO. "It's the Engineers."
"Thank you," said Long Dan as he examined the tablet.
All around the world, people were watching the news.
"External forces have prevented the first bomb from going off. Now, the last four will go off in three days instead of seven. Bring your troops home. You cannot stop the Selection."
"The Tower… Juno's experiments… She euthanized her lover, Aita… Aita… He's the other Prophet… The Tower… You saw him there!"
"What are you trying to tell me, Yahweh?" said Sam. "And why now?"
"I need to show you, Sam! Megiddo… the Prophecy… you need to know…" said Yahweh.
Chapter 13— "Force of Nature"
The Paladin, Georgian Airspace
Sam was pacing back and forth in the Paladin's command center.
He kept thinking about what Yahweh said to him in Kyrat.
"We're nearing the safe house, Fisher," said Kobin.
Sam said, "All right, Kobin."
Sarah said to Sam, "You've been pacing like that for over an hour now, Dad. What's on your mind?"
"This business with Yahweh… The Prophecy…" said Sam. "I can't help but think he knows where the broadcast center is… but he's just so cryptic about it… It's like he's trying to tell me something, and failing to, while he's probably keeping things from me at the same time… It's driving me crazy."
"We'll figure out where it is, Dad," said Sarah. "Hopefully Vic can help with that."
"Sam," said Charlie, "we've got a problem."
"What is it, Charlie?" said Sam.
"I did some double-checking as to the location of the safe house," said Charlie.
"What did you find that was problematic?"
"Paladin Nine doesn't have a safe house anywhere near the vicinity of the coordinates Vic gave us."
"You sure he isn't just keeping one more secret from us?" said Sam.
"Positive as I can be," said Charlie. "That's why I looked into his company databases using my old clearances from when I worked for him, and then used a few workarounds with five-twelve encryption."
"Shit…" said Sam. "That doesn't make sense."
"It makes plenty of fucking sense," said Kobin. "Vic's been turned, Fisher, we're heading into a trap!"
"You might be right," said Sam, "but we need Vic for intel… and to help defuse the last bomb."
Kobin said, "You're one stubborn bastard, you know that?"
Briggs said to Sam, "Sam, maybe we should just have Kobin take care of the last bomb."
"On second thought… you're not so stubborn after all," said Kobin with a shiver. "Fuck… What do we do?"
Grim said to Sam, "What's the call, Sam?"
"We're already in Georgian airspace… There's no turning back now," Sam said with a frown.
The Paladin then started to shake a little.
"What was that?" said Charlie. "The weather was supposed to be clear tonight."
Then an explosion shook the Paladin a lot.
"That's not weather!" shouted Sarah.
"Charlie," said Sam, "download the SMI onto your laptop using that app of yours. Now."
"On it," said Charlie.
Sam rushed to the cockpit, where Marie was trying to fly the Paladin.
"What's going on, Marie?" said Sam.
"A missile struck the plane," said Marie, "and now there are tons of them coming our way! There are SAM sites all over; I'm deploying flares and evasive maneuvers!"
"Get us as far away from here as you can, Marie," said Sam.
"Are we still going to Vic's safe house?"
"No," said Sam, "we're going away from it."
Another missile struck the plane.
"Damn it!" yelled Marie. "One of the plane's engines is malfunctioning… I'm going to have to land the plane soon!"
No! Thought Sam.
A third missile struck the plane, and Sam nearly went flying across the cockpit.
"Can you get this thing steady?" said Sam.
"I'm trying!" yelled Marie. "But we're losing altitude, fast!"
Looking at the plane's controls, Sam finally realized that they had no choice but to bail.
"Marie, we need to get off the plane," said Sam.
"Leave me!" said Marie.
"Not a chance," said Sam as he carried Marie through the plane as it started to fall out of the sky.
At the command center, Sam told the others, "Everyone get to the chopper… We're going to have to take it off of the cargo bay. And get some parachutes just in case!"
The others ran toward the cargo bay, while Sarah helped Sam carry Marie to the chopper.
As they strapped into the chopper, Briggs said, "Someone's going to have to open the bay doors manually!"
"On it," said Sam as he approached the bay doors.
"Wait, Dad, you're going to get sucked out!" shouted Sarah.
"I've got a parachute," said Sam. "I'll see you on the ground. Charlie?"
"The SMI files are downloaded," said Charlie as he put his laptop in his backpack.
"Good work," said Sam as he opened the bay doors and was sucked out of the plane along with the chopper the others were in.
Sam opened his parachute just in time; the parachute got caught in some trees. Sam used his Karambit to cut himself free, and fell to the ground.
He saw the chopper make a rough landing not far from where he was.
Sam saw dozens of Abstergo troops approaching the chopper.
This was definitely an ambush, Sam thought. We're in danger.
Sam got a call from Vic on his OPSAT. He was hesitant to answer it.
"Vic?"
"Sam," said Vic with heavy breathing, "the detonation site, I know where it is!"
"You led us into a trap, Vic," said Sam as he snuck through the bushes toward the chopper's LZ as he began to hear a shootout in that direction.
"You have to listen to me, Sam," said Vic. "You may not have another opportunity to figure it out after this, and if you don't know where the detonation site is, you can't defuse the bombs!"
"Where is it?" Sam said.
"It's—" Sam then heard a gunshot and Vic's muffled screaming.
"VIC!" yelled Sam.
Then Lucas took over Vic's comms.
"Fisher," said Lucas as his face appeared on Sam's OPSAT.
"Lucas!" Sam shouted. Sam looked at Lucas's face. Something about his angry bloodshot glare, the twitch in his eyes looked… unhinged. Terrifying, even.
"Don't kill Vic, Lucas!" said Sam.
"It's not Vic I'd be worried about at this point, Fisher," said Lucas.
Looking toward the chopper, Sam hurried to save the others.
Briggs, Grim, Marie, Kobin, Sarah, and Charlie were surrounded, trying to fight off the horde of Abstergo troops with their guns while trying to head for the mountains.
Kobin was carrying Marie, while Sarah was protecting Charlie while he was typing into his computer.
"Charlie, what's going on?" said Sam.
"I'm deploying electronic countermeasures on my laptop!" said Charlie.
"Good thinking," said Sam. "Lucas might've tried to regain access to the SMI. Without it and what intel we have left, we don't stand a chance at stopping the Selection."
"What about the SMI is important in particular?" said Grim. "The Abstergo files are gone, and despite that I've memorized them, I could only translate the parts of it that Lucas wanted me to!"
"I know," said Sam as he and Briggs hailed suppressing fire on the approaching Abstergo troops, "but we may have to try to translate them again."
They neared a set of caves leading into some tunnels in the mountains, crossing a bridge over a massive drop to a river beneath.
"We'll try to lose them in there!" said Sam.
"Sarah, cover me!" said Charlie. "This set of tunnels belonged to President Nikoladze's old network of hideouts… The entrance to the tunnels has an electronic lock, I'm going to try and hack it."
"Covering you," said Sarah as she fired at the incoming Abstergo troops with the others.
Some trees and parts of the mountains exploded around them.
"There are mortars firing on our position!" said Briggs. "I think this might be it for us, Sam!"
"It can't be it, not yet!" yelled Sam. "We're so close!"
Charlie was typing into his computer.
"I would wait just a moment before you head into the tunnels, Sam," said Sadiq on a megaphone coming from somewhere above them.
Sam looked up.
"What the hell?" said Briggs. "The mortar fires have stopped… Sam?"
Briggs looked up too, along with everyone else, save for Charlie, who was typing furiously into his computer.
A chopper neared their position with Lucas, Sadiq, and some Abstergo troops holding Victor onboard, who had a gunshot wound in his shoulder, and was tied up and had duct tape covering his mouth.
Lucas said to Sam on the megaphone as he looked down at Sam furiously. "Serpent… Sadiq's son…"
Sadiq looked at Lucas.
"LUCAS!" yelled Sam.
"…told me what you are." said Lucas.
Sam froze.
"Of course my enemy, the one I've hated for millennia, would show up just in time to try and ruin my plans, my Selection."
Shaking while his face turned red, Lucas screamed, "DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG IT TOOK FOR ME TO PLAN PHASE ONE OF THE SELECTION BY ITSELF! The weak must be culled, so the strong survive, that's how history has worked time and time again, Yahweh!"
Sam yelled, "If you're so worried about the world ending, Odin, why didn't you ever stop to consider that you'd end up starting the very thing you wanted to prevent? Two billion people dead of starvation, a huge chunk of an entire continent buried under irradiated snow, and for what? But your bomb in the South Pacific… it may kill more than just two billion people long-term… Depending on how deep in the Earth's crust you place it, it may make the Earth's crust unstable… It'll kill everyone and everything!"
Grimacing furiously, Lucas ignored Sam's warning.
"My calculations are accurate, Sam… Yours aren't. This universe we were born into is cold-hearted, Yahweh," said Lucas. "There is no Valhalla, waiting for the strong at the end. All we have is this life… but what if we could have more than that?"
"You, Loki, Hyrrokin, Hel… the Muspels, and your fellow Annunak, you took my son Baldr away from me… prevented him from reincarnating. I tried to revive Baldr in the present era, and yet again, your allies took him from me!"
"I don't know what you're talking about!" shouted Sam.
"The Assassin, Elijah, has my son," said Lucas. "He was going to save everything!"
"Elijah…" said Sam. "The other prophet?"
Lucas tried to collect himself. But then he started to laugh. "You've managed to contain Yahweh's consciousness, Sam… But to beat me, you'll need to let the monster within you that you've always feared back out. You don't have what it takes."
"Your friend Vic here told me that you're short on team members, that you were going to use him to try and stop the last one of my bombs from going off." Lucas looked at Marie, and said, "And I can see why now… Asherah's too wounded to fight."
"Even if you manage to somehow find someone capable of taking on an entire unit of terrorists and defusing the final Red Mercury bomb, even if you manage to find out where my detonation broadcast site is, Sam… Do you honestly want to send your disciples, your beloved Fourth Echelon members, to four different locations across the world, while coming after me? Their blood will be on your hands when you fail to defeat me… They will die in the nuclear fallout of the Selection."
Lucas said, "I don't often show mercy, Sam… but I'm willing to leave you to die at the hands of the Georgians… While it doesn't seem like a proper ending for Yahweh, it seems poetic that his vessel dies in the place where he met his late wife, Regan, and put her life at the risk of the Russian assassin Dima Aslanov… Not to mention your countless other escapades which have produced a ton of people that can't stand you."
Sam frowned as Lucas continued speaking. "My offer still stands, Sam, but now it depends entirely on your decisions. If you turn yourself in, I'll spare Sarah. Are you really going to send your own daughter after a Red Mercury bomb?"
"I've done it once before," said Sam. "She's the one who defused the one in Kyrat… while I went after the detonator."
"Well, it seems like this is a proper family reunion after all," said Lucas. "You'll die together then… and you'll have time to mourn for your best friend."
"Wait!" said Sam.
"Hand him to me," said Lucas to Sadiq as Sadiq handed Vic to him.
"Say goodbye to each other, now," said Lucas as he ripped the tape off Vic's mouth.
"Lucas, NO!" yelled Sam.
"Sam, I'm sorry… for everything. Now listen to me, it's MEGIDDO—" yelled Vic before Lucas kicked him off the side of the helicopter.
"NO!" screamed Sam.
"You failed your mission, Fisher," said Lucas. "I look forward to seeing you end up dead."
Charlie said, "The door's unlocked, everyone get in the tunnels now!"
The others got in the tunnels, save for Sarah, who saw her father look over the side of the bridge in the river below.
"Dad, come back, we have to go!" yelled Sarah.
"Dad?" As Sarah ran over to Sam as Lucas's chopper flew away, and Sam stood still by the edge of the bridge.
Looking over the edge of the bridge at the cold, gushing rapids of the river far beneath the mountain path they were standing on, Sam looked at the place where Vic's body fell, breathing heavily and furiously.
"VIIIIIIIIIIIIICCCCCCCCCC!"
… … … … …
Underground Bunker, Near the Georgian-Azerbaijani Border
In their new hideout, Sam was pacing back and forth furiously.
"I've managed to commandeer Nikoladze's old network," said Charlie. "I've patched the SMI into it… We should be online… now."
"I can't believe Uncle Vic's gone…" said Sarah, looking away from her dad.
"We've got bigger things to worry about, though," said Briggs.
"Yeah, we're in the middle of nowhere, Georgia, and Lucas's goddamn goons are all over the fucking place!" shouted Kobin.
"Briggs meant the Selection," said Grim as she was patching up Marie's wounds again with a first-aid kit. "We know where the four bombs are going to be deployed to… Washington, Moscow, Beijing, and Lucas's lair in the South Pacific, but we don't know where the broadcast detonation site is… That's the key to defusing the bombs."
"Worse still, we only have four available people to go after the five total sites," said Marie. "My leg is in no shape for me to walk, let alone fight. What do we do, my love?"
Sam was pacing back and forth furiously.
"Lucas had us where he wanted from the very beginning. We get just a little bit ahead of him, and then he gets back ahead… He wanted us to get the Abstergo files, knowing we couldn't translate them and that he'd eventually get them back… but what if we could translate them somehow?" said Sam.
"Sam, the files are in Illuminat and Aesir dialect, not Annunak," said Grim. "Lucas wouldn't want the files coded in the language of his Isu nemesis."
"I know…" said Sam. "There has to be another way, there has to!"
"Well, it's just us," said Grim, "and again, even though I've memorized the files with the help of Freyja's photographic memory, I can't translate the parts that are in Illuminat dialect. I'm being honest."
"I know you are," said Sam.
"Then why are you obsessing over this?" said Briggs. "We're out of viable intel, out of allies, out of people who can stop the bombs or the broadcast site, and out of time! The Selection starts in nearly 48 hours!"
"I KNOW!" said Sam.
Charlie looked back and forth between the lot of them as they spoke, his hands twitching as he typed.
Sam continued pacing. "This Prophecy business is the key to everything… Somehow Vic knew about it, but I never did… It was hardly a few weeks ago where I wouldn't have believed half of what I've seen recently was anything but science fiction. Now I'm finding out at the last minute that somehow I'm at the center of the narrative. Vic was trying to tell me something… and so was Yahweh."
Briggs looked at Sam. "You're letting Yahweh out?"
"Long enough for him to tell me the truth about all this," said Sam. "It's time I fulfilled his so-called Prophecy."
Marie said, "I procured a plant in Ravensthorpe that seers used to make potions with. The potions would help produce potent visions that would help people recall their past lives… but it would also increase the chance of losing their human consciousnesses to their alternate ones. Do you want me to make it?"
"Yes," said Sam. "It's time I let the monster out all the way. No more holding back."
As Sam lay down on a cot, and drank the potion, he said to the others, "You're going to need to hold me down as I sleep… In case Yahweh manifests and becomes violent when I wake."
Sam suddenly had visions surrounding him of hellfire, and the others held him down.
"Do not be afraid… my love," said Marie as her voice became distorted and the room blurred with the terrifying visions of fire and burning skies all around him.
Sam was falling through a red mushroom cloud sky raining ash.
"Do you remember what I told you, Sam?" said Yahweh.
"I'm trying to," said Sam as he fell.
"Do you remember what I asked you?" said Yahweh.
"No," said Sam.
"Then let me help you remember," said Yahweh.
Sam was back in the Oval Office when he killed Reed…
No, wait… this is when I was hallucinating when Alfred and I fought in London… he was trying to bring Yahweh back then. He almost did, but I resisted a bit.
"Do you have what it takes to beat Lucas?" said Yahweh. "The lives of billions of your kind depend on it."
"Move, move!" yelled a familiar voice.
"Drop your weapon! On the floor, now!" yelled another familiar voice.
To Sam's shock, the soldiers that almost killed Sam while in the Oval Office had the faces of Charlie and Briggs.
"You may have to sacrifice everything to do so…" said Yahweh.
"Captain," said Sarah as she walked to Charlie, "thank you for rescuing me. Now I don't see anyone else here but us and I'm sure you don't either."
"Sarah?" said Sam.
"No, ma'am," said Charlie. "Let's get you out of here."
"Thank you," said Sarah.
Looking at Sam, Charlie said, "Oval Office is secure, we have the President. POTUS is safe and secure," before walking out with Briggs and Sarah.
"Including Sarah?" said Sam.
Looking at Grim, Sam said, "What about Grim? She's already so far gone… Do I have to sacrifice her?"
"Whatever sacrifices are necessary…" said Yahweh. "You will make them. I will guide your hand from time to time."
Staring back at Lucas, Lucas laughed at Sam.
Sam pulled the trigger, causing Lucas to fall backwards onto the Oval Office desk with a bullet hole in his forehead between his eyes.
"I believe you have what it takes, Sam," said Yahweh. "I can feel the odds getting closer to your favor for fulfilling the prophecy of Megiddo… but in my haste, I suspect I may have miscalculated while working with Minerva… As my own people were on the verge of catastrophe, the other members of the Triad and I had little time to prepare."
"Miscalculated?" said Sam.
"There are two blind spots ahead that are making the absolute outcome impossible to predict… One is in a town in rural England, called Ravensthorpe. That node is mere hours away from being reached at your point in time."
"Ravensthorpe?" said Sam. "What's the other?"
"Megiddo… The Prophecy… I need to think this over… prepare a different script for communicating between our two points in time and space," said Yahweh.
"Wait, Yahweh! What's the Prophecy and what does it have to do with Megiddo?" said Sam.
"I will be with you, Sam… in the darkest corners of your mind," said Yahweh as he disappeared.
Sam looked at Grim for a moment, then back out the door in Sarah's direction.
"You've been preparing another script this whole time," said Sam. "From beyond the grave."
"Isu technology is impossible for human minds to comprehend," said Yahweh. "We deprived you of the Sixth Sense. Knowledge… an understanding of time itself, and how to calculate it."
"Precognition," said Sam. "That's what Alfred was talking about with his chaos theory. You can predict the future?"
"We can, but it takes time," said Yahweh. "Now the second node… Megiddo… The Prophecy itself… We're two days and three hours in human time away from reaching it."
"Vic mentioned Megiddo," said Sam, "right before he died… What was he trying to tell me?"
"Focus, Sam," said Yahweh as he looked at Sam within the darkness of their shared mind.
"I'm trying," said Sam. "Elijah… You mentioned he was a second prophet of some kind… that he'd finish what I started… What did you mean by that?"
"Odin has procured more power than I would have ever thought at your point in time," said Yahweh. "You will not be able to stop Odin and his plans for the world alone… Elijah and the Assassins have what they need to pull that off, but first you must show them… show the world… the truth."
"What truth?" said Sam.
"The Tower… Juno's experiments… She euthanized her lover, Aita… Aita… He's the other Prophet… The Tower… You saw him there!"
"What are you trying to tell me, Yahweh?" said Sam. "And why now?"
"I need to show you, Sam! Megiddo… the Prophecy… you need to know…" said Yahweh.
"Aita?" said Sam. "Another Isu?"
"The seventh solution… Juno colluded with Odin against her own caste, to bring Aita back... She succeeded."
"Then… Aita's been reincarnated…" said Sam. "He's a Greco-Roman Isu… He can translate the part of the Abstergo files we need to read to stop the Red Mercury attacks! But who's the reincarnation?"
"Think, Sam…"
"I'm trying!"
"The Tower… You need to know!"
"Tower… What tower?"
Then as Sam was falling, he remembered he had a similar vision as he did the HALO jump over…
Rome.
"Rome was where we got the Abstergo files… Maybe there was another secret there that we might have missed…"
"You're on the right track…"
"Maybe Sarah saw something while she was operating as Trifocal?"
"No… Only you saw it."
"Only me?" said Sam.
Sam saw a vision of Juno and Aita passing the bridge to Asgard.
"That's… Aita…" said Sam.
Then he glimpsed Aita's eyes.
"Heterochromic eyes… Black hair…" Sam's eyes opened wide in his vision. "Wait a minute… Aita's reincarnation is…"
Then Sam remembered when he was climbing on the outside of the skybridge in Rome, on their first mission to defuse the Red Mercury bomb Abstergo and the Engineers used to frame Fourth Echelon and turn them into rogue agents.
Sam and Briggs were climbing along the sides of the slippery skybridge walls and windows with their new climbing adhesive gloves and boots that helped them attach and detach to unclimbable walls.
"Good thing Fourth Echelon invested in this new tech," said Sam.
"Don't get too comfortable with it," said Briggs, "Charlie likely 'borrowed' it from one of his friends."
Sam looked through the window in the pouring rain as the Engineer grunts were patrolling through the skybridge interior.
Then, for a second, one of Sam's gloves and both of his boots' adhesive grips malfunctioned because of nearby lightning.
If it weren't for his left glove, Sam would've fallen to his death.
"Sam!" said Briggs.
Sam struggled to regain his grip on the wall, but his other glove's adhesive controls were flashing red, indicating their batteries might've been fried.
"Shit," muttered Sam as he desperately clawed at the glass, which made a noise that attracted some heavy Engineer grunts.
"Midgard is with us," said one of them as they came closer to seeing Sam through the rain and the darkness outside the glass window, when all of a sudden a small blade of some kind pierced through one of the Engineers' necks.
What looked like a man in his early 20s with curly black hair, an impressive physique, and heterochromic eyes who was wearing a hooded white leather jacket began to slaughter the Engineers on the skybridge with just a pistol and blade attached to his wrist along with an improvised flashbang grenade.
Luckily, Sam managed to look away. His ears were still ringing though, as he looked back toward the skybridge interior.
The curly-haired man was looking right at him, along with an attractive, timid-looking blonde woman who was also likely in her early 20s.
Sam couldn't hear them talk, so all he could do was read their lips.
The blonde woman had a feverish look in her eyes. She said to the curly-haired man, kill him!
The curly-haired man's heterochromic eyes studied Sam. He then said, no, followed by do not compromise the brotherhood. We have to leave anyways. Our extraction is waiting on the roof. We have to… Then the man turned his head to the side…
…and turned it back again. …we have to follow up on that lead in Nazareth that Rebecca found out about.
… … … … …
"My god…" said Sam. "The Assassins already were already several steps ahead of us! They knew about the lead in Nazareth weeks ahead of us! The Levantine Brotherhood headquarters must've been a different plot focused on taking out them… Lucas was trying to demonize them in the eyes of the public. But the broadcast detonation center… It wasn't in Nazareth, or Syria… It was right at your old home, Yahweh!"
"My old home… Eden, the remnants of which lie underneath Tel Megiddo." Yahweh nodded his head as if they had reached an understanding.
"I know what to do," said Sam, "and I know what Vic was trying to tell me… Megiddo was never Abstergo… It was the Israeli branch of Operation Integral… An anti-Fourth Echelon. Their headquarters building was always kept a secret, until now. The site of the Prophecy must be right underneath their headquarters. I need to wake up now."
"I will contact you when you reach Megiddo," said Yahweh. "Strength, Sam."
And just like that, Sam woke up.
… … … … …
When Sam woke, he breathed heavily, and the others looked at him.
"I know what to do," said Sam. "Better yet, I can help us translate the Abstergo files."
The others' eyes went wide.
"You can?" said Grim.
"How?" said Briggs.
"Elijah's Aita's Sage… Aita's a member of the Greco-Roman Isu. I'm going to contact him."
"Wait… But doesn't he hate your guts?" said Sarah.
"He does… but I know someone he'll listen to," said Sam. "I have one more card to play. Patch me into our old friend Darcy."
"Aren't you out of wishes from Alfred?" said Charlie.
"Not all of them," said Sam, "not if I play my card right."
Charlie nodded, and called Darcy.
"Fourth Echelon," said Darcy. "You've got some nerve contacting our new sleeper cell out of the blue like this."
"Queensbury Rules, Darcy," said Sam. "I have one more wish."
"You're all out of wishes," said Darcy. "With that said, I have work to—"
"We've got the entirety of the Abstergo operations playbook, and we're willing to send it to you," said Sam. "Let DedSec blow the whistle on Abstergo."
"Bullshit," said Darcy. "Lucas erased it from your ship's servers the same time he erased it from ours. The same time your friend Grim killed Alfred and wiped out half of our cell in London! Not to mention you don't know how to decrypt the files."
"Grim's memorized Abstergo's files," said Sam. "As for translating them… That's where you come in," said Sam. "I need you to contact your friend Elijah."
Darcy's eyes went wide. "Elijah can decrypt the files… Has Grim really memorized them… and do you really trust her? She was brainwashed by Lucas!"
"I do," said Sam, "and you and I both know that this is the only way we'll get the Abstergo files back."
"You'd seriously do this for us?" said Darcy. "We're going to leak the information you're going to give us. The reaction from the public will cause riots worldwide, like the one you reluctantly took part in back in London… That's not like you."
"Desperate times call for desperate measures," said Sam. "We need all the intel we can get to bring down Lucas and his Selection. We're willing to share what we have with DedSec and the Assassin Brotherhood, as long as Elijah shares the translation with us."
Darcy rubbed her chin, and paced back and forth, then looked back at her monitor. "Give me a minute… I'm starting a three-way call with the Assassin Brotherhood."
Briggs and the others' faces lit up as Darcy called the Assassins.
"Darcy, what the bloody hell are you calling us for? You know we're in the middle of an op right now!" said Shaun.
"Hold up, is that Fourth Echelon?" said Rebecca.
"Rebecca, Shaun, I need you to get Elijah and Katja on the line with me and Sam Fisher," said Darcy.
"With you and S—are you out of your mind?" said Shaun.
"Queensbury Rules, Shaun," said Darcy.
"Fuck's sake… Elijah's gonna be pissed," said Shaun. "Get Elijah for me, Becs… I'm too afraid to get him myself."
Rebecca nodded, and soon Elijah and Katja, Odin's other Sage, appeared before the screen.
"What the hell is the meaning of all this, Darcy?" said Elijah. "We're right on Lucas's trail here in Yara, and you call us mid-op?"
"He's not in Yara, Elijah," said Sam, "he's in Israel. You were on the right track to begin with."
Elijah looked at Sam, and frowned. "Darcy, if you don't explain what's going on in a matter of seconds, we're going dark."
"Queensbury Rules, Elijah," said Darcy. "Just hear Sam out for a second."
"You're all out of wishes, Darcy."
"Haven't you and the Assassins wanted to get your hands on Lucas's operations playbook? Sam has it, and he's willing to share," said Darcy.
"Bullshit," said Elijah. "You lost it."
"Grim memorized the files," said Sam, "and she's managed to fight off Lucas's MK-Ultra programming for the time being."
Elijah grimaced at Sam.
"I'm afraid you're going to have to take me at my word, Elijah."
"There's no way in fucking hell I'm taking you at your—"
"Are you Aita's Sage, Elijah?" said Sam.
Sam's question clearly took Elijah by surprise.
"Because if you are, you're the key to unlocking the Abstergo files… They're encrypted in a Greco-Roman dialect that only you can translate."
Elijah looked at Katja, then back at Sam, and frowned. "You're serious about giving us access to the files."
"Dead serious."
"You know we'd use the information on them to tear apart Abstergo, and DedSec would expose their secrets to the public… That would throw their new world order you're so fond of into chaos… and it would directly affect the American people Fourth Echelon took a vow to protect."
"I'm no longer fond of the new world order," said Sam with a frown, "knowing how easily it can be exploited by evil men like Lucas. It's what Alfred would've wanted. And maybe Vic too, even though he never admitted it to me personally."
"You're not the blind patriot I thought you were," said Elijah. "Provided Grim can recreate them from scratch and send the copies to us, I'll translate the files for you. Send them my way, and give me a few hours to send the translations. I'm a fast reader. Aita made sure of that."
"Uh, Sam, with all due respect…" said Kobin, "I know you don't normally take advice from me, but this client I was trying to help… He has a lot of enemies. I don't actually have any connections left to give us rides to Washington, Moscow, Beijing, Peru, and the broadcast center."
Sam said to Kobin, "You were bluffing?"
"I was trying to save my own ass," said Kobin. "These DedSec and Assassin motherfuckers, along with those Golden Path guys we met in Kyrat… They could get three of us to where we need to go, while Marie and I could act as the fourth and fifth pilots."
Sam sighed, and looked to Darcy and Elijah. "I'm all out of wishes, and I know you guys don't exactly like me."
"We were already trying to multitask… Stop the Red Mercury attacks as well as Lucas's other plans related to his Selection," said Darcy.
"Yeah," said Elijah. "Sarah saw glimpses of it in Masyaf."
"What are you saying?" said Sam.
Darcy looked at Elijah, and he nodded. "We're changing tactics. Fourth Echelon may be exactly what we need to stop the imminent Red Mercury plot. We'll have you hitch a ride with us to Washington, Moscow, and Beijing. Once the Collective Force and the Engineers trigger city-wide blackouts with five-twelve encryption to mask their infiltrations, that's our window in."
Relieved, Sam said, "You have our thanks."
"And you have ours. You're considered allies of the Brotherhood and DedSec for the time being," said Darcy.
"Of course, we'll only stay allies with you over time if you prove yourselves," said Elijah. "The Brotherhood only has enough resources at the moment to send some of our Assassins to two locations…"
"Since you were investigating Masyaf and Nazareth, why don't you take me to the broadcast detonation site," said Sam. "You can also take one of us to Beijing."
"That works," said Elijah.
"And DedSec only has enough resources at the moment to send some of our vigilantes to two locations."
"Send me to Washington," said Grim. "I have a bone to pick with the man who brainwashed me into killing Alfred and trying to kill my friends."
"Then send me to Moscow," said Briggs. "Sam and I have been through Russia a time or two in the past. Word is Hisham's going to be there."
"We'll call up Ajay Ghale and his Golden Path buddies to take Sarah to Lima and then the South Pacific, where Lucas's hostages that aren't going to survive the Selection are," said Sam. "Ajay's close friend Bhadra is being held there. He'll want to."
"You're sending your own daughter to risk dying in the center of the blast radius?" said Elijah. "Even to me, that's cold."
"She has what it takes," said Sam, turning to his daughter and nodding. She nodded back. "I trust her to get the job done."
"Then… who's going to be the operative going to Beijing with my and Katja's unit?" said Elijah.
Sam looked around.
Charlie's hands were twitching again.
"Oh, don't fucking look at me like that, Fisher, I'm your pilot, nothing more!" said Kobin.
"Marie's leg looks bad," said Sam. "She's out of the fight. It has to be you."
"I don't have what it takes to do this, Sam!" said Kobin.
"And yet you were trying to from the first place for a client of yours… If that's what you were doing," said Sam.
"That's not what I–!" Kobin sighed. "Listen, I'm a pilot and a gun smuggler… I'm no good at sneaking around like a Splinter Cell."
Elijah looked at Darcy. "So, you don't have a willing fifth operative? We don't want any loose ends."
Charlie's hands' twitching was getting worse. He frowned.
"See, even they don't want me to go. Surely they can do it by themselves, right?"
"Well, then we will be doing it by ourselves—" said Elijah.
"Damn it, no!" said Charlie as he shoved his laptop aside. "Sam, Kobin isn't willing to go. It has to be me who goes to Beijing."
Now the room's eyes were on Charlie.
"Yeah, great idea. Send him instead, Sam," said Kobin with a dumb smile on his face.
"Charlie, while I was impressed with your fast work in Kyrat, you won't have Sarah to protect you this time."
"I know that!" said Charlie. "What other options do you have though?"
Looking at the others, Charlie said, "I know I don't know how to fight like the rest of you… but I'm willing to. This doesn't happen without me, I know how to defuse the Red Mercury bombs and hack into the Great Hall of the People."
"This is not exactly the type of mission we would send a rookie into," said Darcy.
"Nor us," said Elijah.
"It isn't for us either…" said Sam as he put his hand to his chin to think for a moment. "But we do need to send one of our people to keep an eye on when I disarm the detonation broadcast center. Charlie, are you sure you're up to this?"
"I don't have a choice," said Charlie. "I'm the only one who's up to this."
"Fair enough," said Sam.
Elijah put his hand to his head. "Just don't slow us down once we're in Beijing, rookie."
"I won't," said Charlie, his hands still shaking from his last encounter with death in Kyrat.
Elijah said, "All right, Fourth Echelon. I guess I'd better get to translating these files if we want to know where the broadcast center is at the very least."
"That's the thing though, I know where it is," said Sam. "Like I said, it's in Israel… Underneath Tel Megiddo. It's where Yahweh's old home was, Eden."
"Eden?" said Elijah and Katja in synchronized shock.
Darcy was equally stunned.
"How did you find out that was where Eden was?" said Elijah. "We've been trying to locate it for years."
"You're not the only one with an Isu speaking tongues in your head, Elijah," said Sam.
"Of course… You're Yahweh's Sage," said Elijah. "We're about to fulfill his Prophecy…"
"That's why it has to be me who sabotages the detonation center," said Sam. "Not to mention Lucas will be there… It's going to be the most dangerous site of the five."
Elijah nodded. "You'll need to channel all of Yahweh's strength to stand up to someone like Lucas, Sam."
"I know," said Sam. "It all comes down to this."
… … … … …
"I'm done decrypting the copies of the Abstergo files that Grim drew up for us and Charlie sent to us via your SMI," said Elijah. "This is a goldmine of intelligence. We're sending the files' translations your way… Yours as well, Darcy."
"Got it," said Darcy. "We're also releasing them to the public so they'll know Lucas is responsible for the attacks in case we fail."
Sam said, "All right. I'll contact Ajay and the Golden Path. Charlie, Sarah, Grim, Briggs… you do everything you need to prepare to deploy to your respective locations. There's no turning back after this. Kobin, once the Assassins arrive to evac us, you'll fly the helicopter with me on it to Megiddo. Marie, you'll do the same for the helicopter with Sarah on it to the South Pacific with the Golden Path."
"Of course, my love," said Marie.
"All right, Sam," said Kobin.
"We've got 48 hours left… If we screw this up, they may be our last on Earth. Make every second of time count for preparing for this," said Sam. "We're in for the fight of our lives."
… … … … …
Earth
The citizens of the world were looking at the news, still reeling from the information leaked on the Internet twelve hours before.
Washington, DC, USA
The citizens of Washington DC looked up as the lights on the buildings and traffic lights went out the night the Selection's clock hit zero. Pandemonium ensued.
President Caldwell was in the middle of her impeachment process. The Congressmen who had been lobbied by Abstergo were all sweaty nervous wrecks due to the leaks of the Abstergo files.
Then the blackout happened, and amidst the darkness, the man who had brainwashed Grim, the man in charge of the CIA's new MK-Ultra program, grabbed her, and said, "It's time we all headed for the underground bunker beneath the White House, don't you think, Madame President?"
Moscow, Russia
In the Kremlin, President Treskayev was beyond pissed.
"We're heading to the underground bunker!" yelled President Treskayev. "Where the fuck is Hisham?"
"Lucas, these leaks are pretty fucking bad…" said Hisham over his phone.
"I know," said Lucas frustratedly over the other line.
"Even if the nukes go off, the world will know it was us that did it."
"Right…" said Lucas. "No matter... I will be able to make more Red Mercury bombs in time. We just have to scare the world enough, decrease the population enough to prevent Ragnarok."
"Also, this might be worth mentioning, but my cover's about to be blown."
"Stick to the plan, Hisham," said Lucas, "and prepare to grab Treskayev and head to the underground bunker in the Kremlin once the blackout occurs and the Engineers arrive."
"It had better happen fast," said Hisham as he hung up and stuffed his phone in his pocket. Soon after the lights went out, and he entered President Treskayev's office.
"President Treskayev?" said Hisham.
"Hisham, what the hell happened to the lights?"
"It's the Selection, sir. I think it's happening," Hisham said to Treskayev in the dark. "Come with me."
Beijing, China
As Premier Long Dan and the other Chinese officials were taken hostage in a bunker underneath the Great Hall of the People, Sadiq entered the bunker using the access codes provided by the CEO of the Collective Force.
"Are the other teams in place?" said Sadiq to his lieutenant over the phone.
"Yes, sir."
"Good. I'll inform Lucas. Is this microphone on?" said Sadiq as he walked through the bunker. "Citizens of the world… We are the Engineers. We are currently holding several officials of the United States government, several officials of the Russian government, and the Chinese Communist Party hostage at their respective capital cities. Negotiations have failed. We are now going to activate the timer to the last four Red Mercury bombs, which will destroy Washington, Moscow, Beijing, and an unspecified fourth location, of which the fourth location will deal massive amounts of human deaths and irreparable damage to the environment for decades to come. Do not try to stop us."
Sadiq turned off the microphone, and took out a briefcase and planted it, revealing the glowing Red Mercury bomb to the Chinese officials in the room, who started to scream and cower.
Lucas's Private Island, Near Peru, The South Pacific
The world was in collective terror.
Deadly riots were still ongoing across the planet due to the leaks.
As Serpent stepped through the halls of several people being kept prisoner in the compound by Lucas, she stepped into a room full of prisoners eating dinner while watching the news in shock, and opened the briefcase.
"N- no!" cried a Swedish princess. "You said you'd release me if my father cooperated!"
Serpent smacked the Swedish princess in the face, and said, "Everyone return to their rooms peacefully, or else you die now."
Abstergo guards showed up to beat and herd the prisoners running freely about the compound into their rooms.
Lucas's Detonation Broadcast Center, Tel Megiddo, Israel
Deep underground within Megiddo's headquarters, Lucas looked at the counting detonator timers, and took a long drag of a cigar before looking back at the Tree of Eden within the compound.
Inhaling the smoke, Lucas said, "It looks just like Yggdrasil… but I can't access it myself. The threads of the Nornir continue to spin. The eighth solution. I wonder… what was your endgame this whole time, Yahweh?"
Blowing the smoke out, he said, "No matter… Eden shall burn once Phase Two of the Selection is over, and I'm able to leave."
Looking around, Lucas said, "Where are you, Fisher?"