Chapter 10– "An Unconventional Method of Interrogation"

Concord Medical Clinic, Florence, Italy

Year 2034- Present Day

Elijah Miles- Age 29

Elijah stared into the eyes of Juno.

She began to laugh at him.

Then as her hologram-esque image evaporated, he felt himself falling into a pit of lava as the floor gave out from under him as the world experienced Catastrophe.

And he woke up, he gasped for air.

Breathing heavily, his body trembled and struggled to move as he tried to put out the burning fires on his body with his hands, only to find his arms, torso, and legs were restrained to a hospital bed, and wires connected to his head.

"Good, you're awake," said a voice.

Elijah immediately turned his head in the voice's direction.

He looked at the man the voice belonged to.

Standing next to the man was Katya.

Elijah recognized the blonde-haired, blue-eyed, tan-skinned middle aged man from surveillance images KeepLeg and Umbra managed to find on the dark web. The man, despite being the richest on the planet, kept a low profile and avoided the media by paying them off.

The shadow leader of Concord, and a member of Abstergo's board of directors.

"Lucas Winter," said Elijah, grimacing.

Lucas grinned at him. "I admit I didn't think I'd end up meeting the illegitimate son of Desmond Miles face to face. Especially not in such extreme circumstances."

"I assure you that's the mildest of surprises I have in store."

Chuckling, Lucas said to Elijah, "As much as I look forward to discovering the rest…" he then gestured with his eyes toward Katya. "I want to start with why you tried to kill my daughter."

"Katya?" said Elijah as he looked at her. Then his face began to contort.

"Is it because she's a target?"

"Not one of the Assassins' targets," said Elijah, frowning.

"He's only telling part of the truth," said Katya.

Elijah's frown deepened as a Caucasian man with brown eyes, black hair and a mustache who was standing outside entered the room.

"Does the subject need to be injected with chemicals for an enhanced interrogation?" said the man in a Russian accent.

Elijah's frown turned to a squint as he looked at the Russian man, who smirked at him as he did this.

His eyes aren't heterochromic… but… Could he be… ?

"Not yet, Afanasy…" said Lucas, "my daughter thinks she's onto something, and based on what she told me… I'm admittedly curious."

"Afanasy… ?" said Elijah, looking at the Russian.

"Afanasy Alexeyev," said Lucas to Elijah.

The Russian man continued to wear a sickly smile in Elijah's direction.

"He's your bodyguard or something?" Elijah said, turning to Lucas.

"He's my number two," said Lucas, "and was one of the main men responsible for helping me find Katya when adopting her. Which brings me back to the point."

Lucas hovered over Elijah's hospital bed, glaring at him intensely. "So if she's not a target of the Assassins, why did you try to kill her, hmm? Who sent you to kill her?"

Elijah remained silent.

"Was it Umbra?"

"No."

"KeepLeg?"

"No…"

"Then who?" said Lucas, his voice rising.

Elijah glimpsed in Katya's direction.

Now frowning himself, Lucas said, "If that's as far as you'll go… I guess some chemical encouragement is in order after all–"

"Father, wait!" said Katya as she stopped Lucas from leaving Elijah alone with Afanasy. "I think nobody sent him to kill me. He had a reason to kill me himself."

Lucas looked at Elijah, then Katya. "How do you know?"

"I can see glimpses of his memories at times, if I try hard to concentrate on it," she said. "But there's a part that scares me too much to look."

Lucas looked at Katya, then at Elijah, then back at Katya again. "Do you think he can see yours?"

"Worth asking," said Katya. "Um… What memories do I ask him about."

"Whatever comes to mind. Definitely one of the many that wasn't with him though."

"Right…" Katya was silent for a while.

Rolling his eyes, Elijah said, "I assume you're trying to think of memories that aren't painful or repressed."

Katya frowned at Elijah before she looked at Lucas and her face lit up. "This one's not painful… just a bit personal. All right. Elijah, tell me about when Lucas bought me Belgian waffles for the first time."

Elijah laughed. "I have no idea what the fuck you're talking about."

Katya sighed. "He's telling the truth… I'm relieved."

Moving back to Lucas again, she said, "If he can't see my memories…"

"But you can see his. Sometimes, and some of them, briefly."

"I know… I'm working on determining why he's trying to kill me. He seems centered on avoiding the subject."

"Just try to work your magic, Katya, one last time," said Lucas. "I'm still curious."

"Wait…" Katya looked at Elijah, who was looking away from them.

She shivered.

"I, uh… I see a female Isu, and a male one… a scientist… talking to each other…" said Katya.

Elijah looked at Katya in fear.

"What are their caste? Do you know?" said Lucas.

"Illuminat," said Katya.

"Isu based on the Greco-Romans…" said Lucas.

"Wait, the male Isu is lying on the floor… I see… glimpses of an experiment…" said Katya. "One that went wrong…"

Elijah looked at Katya and shook his head.

"Could it be… ?" said Lucas.

"Then… the female Isu plunging a needle into the neck of the male Isu– wait a minute…"

Looking at Elijah, Katya stood back in horror.

"You… you think I'm Juno?"

Elijah said, "When I had my hands wrapped around your neck, I saw a memory… I felt her consciousness within you. You're her reincarnation, albeit a different one. One more Sage-esque. I'm certain of it."

He looked at Lucas. "Happy now?"

Lucas looked at Elijah in surprise. He then looked at Katya, and frowned.

"That can't be. My research suggested she was an Aesir Sage."

Lucas's bout of frustration admittedly took even Elijah by surprise.

"Well was your research certain–"

"It doesn't make sense that she's a Sage of Juno!" said Lucas. "Even if Juno is still in the Grey somehow, Katya looks nothing like her!"

Katya looked at Lucas in confusion as he said. "Katya, despite that you can't be Juno… it does seem like you and Elijah are linked somehow. Our technicians have been monitoring his mind with their own technology, hence the wires. They've reported some… abnormalities. Ones not seen by a Piece of Eden we've dealt with yet."

Lucas said to her, "We're bringing him back to my estate in Tuscany so we can learn more about what you really are from reading his mind."

"We're what?" said Katya.

"You're what?" said Elijah.

"Consider yourself lucky, Elijah," said Lucas as he nodded to Afanasy, who promptly left the room, "if it weren't for the need to understand what's happening to my daughter, I would've condemned you to a worse fate than Basim by now."

Standing over Elijah, Lucas said, "You're coming with me to my estate. I know you'll be… out of your element… but still… Don't misbehave, don't try anything cute. If I see you so much as lay a hand on my daughter again, I'll torture you to death myself."

Lucas then smirked as he took the wires off of Elijah's head.

A few seconds after he did this, Elijah's restraints were unlocked by a mechanism in his hospital bed. Presumably that was Afanasy's doing.

Elijah sighed, and stretched for a second before following Lucas and Katya.

As Lucas put his hand on Katya's shoulder, Katya stared back over her other shoulder at Elijah with a fearful look in her eyes.

Florence, Italy

They rode in the back of a limousine through Florence.

Katya was sipping a grape-flavored soda from the limousine's mini-cooler, the soda bottle shaking in her trembling hands as she looked at the floor; she was sitting across from Elijah.

Elijah's hands were cuffed to his seat.

To his surprise, Ezio Auditore was sitting next to him, staring out the window of the limousine.

"Is that you or me?" said Elijah to Katya.

Katya looked at Elijah confusedly.

"Him?" Elijah said, craning his head in Ezio's direction.

"I don't know," she said as she looked in the direction Ezio was looking in.

He was looking at the front of the Piazza della Signoria.

Surprising it's still intact… mused Elijah before his eyes went wide. Wait a minute… the Piazza…

Ezio was watching a memory of his.

His father, Giovanni, older brother Federico, and young brother Petruccio, stood on a platform in front of a massive crowd of citizens of Renaissance-era Italy… with nooses around their necks.

"Giovanni Auditore…" said their executioner, the traitorous Gonfaloniere Uberto Alberti, with his puppet master, the Templar Rodrigo Borgia watching closely behind on stage, "you and your accomplices stand accused of the crime of treason. Have you any evidence to counter this charge?"

"Yes!" yelled Giovanni. "The documents that were delivered to you last night!"

Their alter of Ezio Auditore's younger self, who was shaking with rage next to them in the limo, said to them, "I am admittedly still getting used to the present day… and everything new in it… but in more ways than not… Things remain the same."

Katya, Elijah, and Ezio looked over in synchronization at Lucas as he answered a phone call after typing something into his phone.

"The truth can be distorted at a whim, especially with the help of today's technology now," said Ezio.

"I'm afraid I know nothing of these documents," said Uberto, raising his arms up to signal his "innocence" to the crowd of bystanders Ezio began to helplessly wade through.

Looking at Elijah, he said, "Heroes can be made to look like villains…"

Looking at Katya and gesturing his head in the direction of Lucas, he said, "and vice versa…"

Trying to comfort Katya, Elijah said, "He's an Assassin, Katya. You don't have to listen."

Katya said nothing in response to this.

"He's lying!" Ezio yelled into the crowd in desperation. "I need to get closer…"

"Nothing is true, but that saying cuts both ways…" said Ezio. "History is written by whoever holds power. They decide for most what's true, knowing that it isn't."

"In the absence of any compelling evidence to the contrary, I am bound to pronounce you… GUILTY," shouted Uberto to Giovanni, Ezio's brothers, and the crowd.

"But if Lucas is successful with what he's planning, with those bombs… the ones called Red Mercury…"

"You and your collaborators are hereby sentenced to DEATH."

"There won't be enough people left to decide what's true for themselves. There will hardly be any people left at all," said Ezio, an insidious rage lying under the tone of his voice. His fists were curled.

"FATHER!" screamed Ezio as he ran through the crowd, pushing people over, in disbelief.

As he fought with several guards, he yelled toward Uberto, "I'll kill you for what you've done!"

"And yet here I am, trapped inside the heads of two cazzi, one of whom is the daughter of the enemy, and the other is my own descendant who is unable to accept the responsibility of his bloodline!"

Looking at Elijah, Ezio said to him, "Are you sure that Lucas is responsible for those nukes?"

"Nukes? The ones Basim had?" said Katya. "But he's an Assassin!"

"He did seem like he was going rogue to be fair…" said Elijah.

"Quiet, both of you!" said Ezio. "I can only keep us all silent outside of our minds for so long. Whatever brought me here… it's difficult to say. But Altair showed me some of the truth. I just happened to put two and two together."

"Wait, you can talk to Altair as well?" said Elijah.

"We will need to work together," said Ezio. "I suspect there is more to this meeting Lucas is holding in his estate than meets the eye. Knowing how important it is to more than just Concord, I wouldn't be surprised if your friends from KeepLeg and Umbra arrive at the party uninvited, Elijah."

"Of course," said Elijah, looking away, "you know who they are too."

"I will be hiding in plain sight of your minds at the party," said Ezio. "For the sake of the world… don't disappoint me any more than you already have."

As Ezio's alter evaporated before them, Elijah communicated to Katya through his thoughts, are you going to help me figure out the truth about Lucas?

Katya slapped Elijah across the face.

"You're a manipulative psychopath…" said Katya to Elijah. "You're trying to exploit my insecurities toward Lucas because he's mad at me right now to buy yourself a way out."

Elijah frowned at this, but he then saw Katya glimpse briefly in Lucas's direction.

Lucas looked in Katya and Elijah's direction upon her slapping Elijah in the middle of his conversation on the phone.

"But you're also going to help me understand what's going on in my head. Our, heads," said Katya to Elijah, pointing to where Ezio was as Lucas looked away from them again.

Satisfied now but also simultaneously distraught by everything that had transpired, Elijah sat back and got as comfortable as he could.

His mind was spinning.

Ezio's story was well-known within the Brotherhood and similar circles.

He lost most of his family. He also lost his lover, Cristina, years after she regretfully left him.

"Oh Ezio…" said Cristina as Ezio entered through her window.

"You're a manipulative psychopath…" said Katya after slapping Elijah.

"I wish we… could have had… a second chance…" said Cristina.

"You're a manipulative psychopath…"

"Requiescat in pace… my love…" Ezio said in shock while holding Cristina in his arms.

"Psychopath," she said as she walked away, sobbing. "Fucking psychopath!"

Elijah and Ezio were so similar. Not only did he lose the only person he considered family… his mother… but… but…