Chapter 4– "The Interloper"
Abstergo Main Headquarters, Rome, Italy
Year 2034- Present Day
Katerina "Katya" Winter—Age 25
Katerina had exited her personal Animus.
She was on her way to Lucas's office on the top floor of the Abstergo skyscraper.
Entering the elevator, she looked out at the Roman skyline and sighed.
My life's changed so much ever since Lucas rescued me off the streets, she thought. Not that I'm complaining, though.
As she opened the wrapper of a chocolate bar that she got from a vending machine of the Abstergo lobby and munched on it, she thought to herself, I used to think I'd never be able to afford something like this, let alone all the things Lucas bought me.
She got out and walked in the direction of her foster father's office.
As she approached his office's waiting room, his administrative assistant, Allegra Bellucci, looked up at her from her computer screen.
"I assume you're here to see Lucas," she said.
Katerina nodded.
She pressed a button on her desk and spoke into her headset. "Katya's here to see you, sir."
As the doors to his office opened, she said, "He's too busy to acknowledge me right now, but I'm sure he won't object to seeing you. Go on in."
She walked through the doors into his massive penthouse office.
Lucas was speaking to someone via teleconference on a massive screen on the one-sided window of the conference room within his office.
"…you're saying the entire team in Hordaland was wiped out? Was it the Assassins? You don't know? What do you mean you don't know? You aren't keeping something from me, are you Sofia?" A pause. "Seriously? You say your men haven't checked the body camera footage! Well then show me!"
Sounds of fighting came from the screen for a moment.
"Stop. Scroll back a second ago… Zoom in."
Lucas then said, "There… Wait a minute… Another Sage, but… Is that who I think it is?"
As Katerina entered the conference room, she saw the face of a man with curly black hair and hetero-chromic eyes. Save for his terrifying, empty stare he gave while he was killing an Abstergo guard, he was rather attractive.
The image of the curly-haired man stuck with her.
Katerina also recognized the woman on the other end of the call. It was Sofia Rikkin, the CEO of Abstergo.
Looking back at Katerina, Lucas said to Sofia, "We'll have to resume our talk about the operation in Hordaland later, Sofia… along with this recent trend of you keeping things from the other members I appointed to your board of directors."
As Lucas ended the teleconference, he turned his swivel chair toward Katerina, got up, and smiled.
"Katya, my dear!" said Lucas as Katerina embraced him with a hug. "It's good to see you again."
"Again?" said Katerina. "I've been here the whole time."
"I know," said Lucas as they stopped hugging for a moment. "I feel bad that we haven't been able to spend enough time together lately. I've been busy dealing with..." Lucas looked at the screen before looking back at Katya and shrugging, "…well, bureaucracy."
"I heard you talking to Sofia Rikkin, but I didn't recognize the man on the screen."
"Man on the screen?" said Lucas in confusion.
"You said he was a Sage. He looked like one."
"Oh," said Lucas, looking at the screen again. "He's… an enemy of Abstergo."
"You said you might know who it is."
Lucas grinned.
"Sorry," said Katya. "I know a lot of the nature of your work is secret."
"You have nothing to be sorry about," said Lucas. "You've been curious about everything since I first found you, Katya. It's a trait I admire. And I imagine it'll only be a matter of time before you inherit my position as… as a member of Abstergo's board of directors."
Giving Katya a look at the Sage, he said, "That man is a Sage known as Elijah."
"Does he have a last name?"
"Two, actually. Whichever one is attributed to him depends on who you ask. His mother's name was Tori Chastain… but his father's name was Desmond Miles."
"Desmond Miles...?" said Katya. "Elijah's the son of the infamous Subject 17, and a Sage like I am?"
"The truth about what you are is more complicated, Katya," said Lucas. "I'm admittedly still trying to understand the nature of what you are. That's why I'm having you relive the life of Eivor Varinsdottir among others via the Animus."
"You don't think I'm an Aesir Sage, do you?" said Katya.
"It's… hard to say," said Lucas, scratching his head. "I'm afraid I'm actually being honest this time, Katya. I don't know what you are. But it's clear that you're special. You have more triple-helix DNA than any Sage I've ever come across."
"I will say this… thanks to Abstergo's research and a certain donor of genetic memories, the only Norse reincarnations known to humanity had all died by the end of the 9th century due to a flaw in Odin's plans to survive Ragnarok."
"I see," said Katya, looking down. "I'll keep using the Animus until we get a clearer answer."
"Be careful, and take your time doing so," said Lucas. "The Animus can drive some of the most mentally resilient people mad if they stay inside for too long. Needless to say I know you have a lot of trauma left over from your abusive biological parents, along with living on the streets after you ran away from them."
"You don't need to mention that," said Katya as she shivered for a moment.
Lucas smiled to try and reassure her, but then his smile started to fade as he turned to look outside the conference room.
"Walk with me back to my main office room," said Lucas.
Katerina nodded, and they headed out of the conference room.
Lucas said to Katerina, "I'm going to be hosting a philanthropy event at our estate in Tuscany next week."
Katerina sighed; she hated the parties Lucas held, mainly due to her social anxiety and fear of crowds, both of which made her dissociative tendencies act up.
"What 'philanthropic cause' are you bragging to your rich clients about this time?"
"Mainly my contributions to green technology in order to prevent global climate change from worsening, among a few other smaller charity funds… but that's not the real reason I'm hosting it," said Lucas.
"What's the real reason?" Katerina asked.
"I'm afraid I can't talk about it here," said Lucas. "I'll tell you once I get back from a business trip of mine. But I want you to tend to the guests this time."
Katya got nervous upon hearing this.
"If you're to inherit my position at Abstergo one day, Katya, you need to be able to meet the basic qualifications."
"So you want me to converse with a bunch of people I don't know?"
"That is how Abstergo's interview processes go, to be fair… at least the ones for the bureaucratic roles," said Lucas.
Katya shivered again.
Lucas stopped, and put his hands on her shoulders to comfort her. "You'll be all right, Katya. If anyone so much as upsets you, let alone harms you, they'll earn my wrath. You know that."
"All right, Lucas," said Katya. "I'll do my best."
Lucas smiled. "That's all I ask."
Katya nodded, and as Lucas sat down at his desk, she was about to head out.
Then she remembered what he said earlier and turned back around to say to him, "Wait… You're going on another business trip?"
"I am one of the most powerful men in the world, Katya… Unfortunately, I have responsibilities other than you."
Katya pouted as Lucas sipped from a coffee mug.
"Where are you going?"
"Berlin for three days, and then Cairo for four. I'm meeting in person with several higher-ups of Abstergo and Concord, including the leader of one of Abstergo's private military subsidiaries. Out of the other board members, I own the most shares of this particular PMC."
"Which one is it?"
"RavenCorp."
"You mean the PMC whose mercenaries have been augmented with triple-helix DNA from the Phoenix Project?"
"That's the one," said Lucas.
"Can I go along with you this time?"
"Katya… unlike the people you'll be seeing at the party, these people are dangerous."
"But it's like you said… if anyone tries to hurt me, you'll protect me. That and I have to learn how to take on your responsibilities as one of Abstergo's leaders… right?"
Lucas sighed and laughed. "I can't argue with you, even when I should."
"Then that's a yes?" said Katya, whose face lit up.
"I won't be able to see you as much as you're hoping for," said Lucas. "You'll have to stay with one of my bodyguards."
"It'll still be worth it," said Katya. "I've always wanted to see Cairo."
"I suppose it's also for the best that you see some more of the inner workings of Concord's headquarters in Berlin," said Lucas.
Katya was less enthusiastic about that. Despite that Concord's skyscraper in Berlin's financial district was currently the tallest building in the world–beating out the Burj Khalifa by over 150 meters and 30 floors– she'd much rather go to the Burj Khalifa than the spooky opaque-windowed building her father worked in. The building– people gave it the nickname "Etemenanki", after the ancient Mesopotamian ruin that the Tower of Babel myth was likely based on– was rumored to be the most secure building on the planet, and housed the inner workings of the global elite or whatever the conspiracy theorists were calling Concord now.
Needless to say, both rumors were true.
Katya didn't know much of the details of Concord and Abstergo's partnership. But the fact that the other board members of such a vastly influential conglomerate as Abstergo were afraid of a merger with Concord showed how much of an up-and-coming force of nature Concord was to be reckoned with.
"Of course," said Katya. "You know I'm a fast learner."
"Then it's settled!" said Lucas. "We're going to Berlin and Cairo together."
"When do we leave?"
"Tonight," said Lucas. "I'll call a cab to take you to the villa so you can pack your things."
Katya smiled, and gave Lucas a kiss.
As she headed out of Lucas's office and toward the elevator, her smile went away as she began to feel lightheaded.
Why am I dissociating? She thought. I don't feel unsafe right now!
"You are playing your part well, Interloper," said a female voice in her head, one she didn't recognize.
"Who are you?" said Katya.
"It matters not who I am," said the voice. "What matters is that you must reach the old home of the group that wears this symbol."
Katya started to hallucinate; she saw a familiar eagle-shaped symbol.
"The Assassins?" said Katya, who was growing even more dizzy and lightheaded as she stumbled into the elevator. "Why do you want me to seek them? They're one of my father's enemies!"
"Seek it… Find the human who you share the Bleeding Effect with. Your fates are intertwined. Our fates are intertwined."
Katya hallucinated again… she was seeing images from the Third Crusade. One of the images was that of an old castle.
"Masyaf?" Katya said as she nearly puked her guts up when the elevator began to descend. "That's… in Syria… My father's taking me to Cairo, not Syria!"
The female voice in her head said nothing.
"I'm not going to Masyaf!"
The female voice then laughed. "You do not yet understand how time works, child. Strands converge and diverge toward nodes. I am telling you a node, a catastrophe, is imminent… And it doesn't matter if you want to prevent it or not… It is inevitable that you will converge toward the node. I will lead the way."
"Catastrophe? What catastrophe?"
"One of humanity's own making."
Trembling while she held herself up against the elevator's railing while she hallucinated, Katya said, "I'm not a hero."
"Nor need you be," said the voice. "The other souls stored within you are starting to shut me out. I will contact you again when you reach the node."
"Other souls? Stored within me?" Katya said. "What do you mean? Wait, come back! I have so many questions!"
But the voice was gone, and just like that, Katya fell onto the floor, trembling while on her hands and knees.
"Katya," said another voice as the elevator doors opened.
She looked up.
"Take my hand, Katya," said a man in a white hood.
"Altair?" said Katya.
Very confused and disoriented, she grabbed the 12th century Assassin's hand anyway, and he hoisted her up.
If the technicians in charge of monitoring the security cameras on the office floors hadn't fallen asleep due to being overworked, they may have seen Katya walking through an office area with wide eyes, muttering something in Arabic.