Chapter 1: Dear Desmond

Desmond Miles blinked, shook his head, and blinked again. He couldn't believe his eyes, of all the weird things in this place, this was he weirdest. For a moment he thought he had been imaging it. That maybe the week he'd just spent in the Animus was making him crazy.

But no. It hadn't, and he wasn't crazy.

There was blood on the walls.

Or at least there had been blood there before but it had been cleaned. Even though he didn't understand the Eagle Vision his ancestor had had, it seemed that other than discovering people's allegiances and uses, it also allowed him to see where blood had previously been.

As he paced back and forth across his immaculately clean and white room he once again wondered whose blood it was. He couldn't tell, but the writing itself looked Asian, but that was all he could discover from looking at it. He'd seen blood before. Having once been an assassin he had seen it a lot. But this unnerved him, maybe it was the fact that it glowed in the Eagle Vision, or maybe it was the fact that in the centre of all the writings on the wall there was what looked like a mask, almost alien and clearly the ravings of a mad man or woman.

He felt drawn to it, as though he wanted a closer look; call it instinct if you will. Before he knew it he was crawling on his bed towards it, seeing clearly the lines and texture of it in his Eagle Vision. As he finally reached the blood-drawn mask he was hit anew by its eeriness, but that didn't stop him from treating it like a mask and looking through the eyes at the wall. For a moment nothing happened, and he started to fell rather silly.

Then suddenly there was a flash of light, but he didn't blink and soon it stopped. He jerked his head back quickly, wondering what the hell had just happened. Then there was a click directly where he had just looked and to his speechless surprise he watched as the mask came out of the wall by an inch, and swung outwards like a door.

What he saw inside made him doubly surprised, and confused. There was a small lead compartment. At the back was a retina scanner, which probably explained the light he had seen, but it wasn't that which interested him most. Also inside the compartment was a 9mm Browning with a silencer already attached to it, a combat knife, a hand-held GPS device and a phone.

And resting on top of them all was a letter neatly folded with the words: To Desmond Miles. Intrigued, he took it out of the compartment, sat on the bed and read.

Dear Desmond

If you are reading this then my calculations are correct and our plans have been set in motion. Now don't sit there thinking about how it got here; just read the letter. When I first came here they had been working on the Animus for the first time and their test subject was a man, he was in the same situation that you have been in for the past week, only he had spent 2 years in the Animus and had been kept a prisoner by Abstergo. All that time spent as a prisoner, the frustration, the fear and anger all roll together until you can't distinguish one from the other.

He had cut himself, and in his moment of insanity, had set about writing in his own blood about the 'end of the world'. When I came here for at least the fourth time we found the man dead lying in a small pool of his own blood (he didn't have much left). It hadn't worried Vidic at all, he had just sighed and called for the cleaners to come in and take care of it. And when he left I cut myself and wrote the code for the office on the floor in my own blood to disguise it amongst the rest. They wouldn't check who's blood it was but assume it belonged to the man lying dead on the floor.

You will need this code to open the door and inside you are to cross to the other door and turn off all the camera monitors in there. Also in there is a vault, inside are the schematics to the Animus, don't worry about the schematics, they'll be taken care of in the rescue.

Which leads us to the phone, at the bottom of this page is a mobile number, which can only be contacted by this phone. And since only you can open this safe that makes it secure. I want you to ring it and a friend of mine will answer. The gun and knife are for obvious reasons. The GPS is for something else, but don't worry, Louis will explain all of it to you.

With the best of luck.

Lucy

07986159442

Desmond didn't know what to think. But just like his ancestor Altair he didn't wait, he acted. He took the gun and stuffed it into the waistband of his jeans as well as the combat knife. The letter he folded and put into one of the pockets, along with the hand-held GPS, the phone he held, for right now it was his most valuable weapon.

He left the room an as he did so he looked at the Animus, even though he hated every day here, he found a sense of peace escaping his own life to get immersed in someone else's. He shook the affect the machine had on him off and strode to the wall by the office where there was a lot of electrical equipment hooked up in the corner. He stood by the wall next to the office and, taking a deep breath, concentrated. He opened his eyes and there it was. An 8-digit code which he committed to memory.

12212012

He walked to the door panel and keyed it in. He waited hoping against hope that it was correct and let out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding when the light turned blue and the door opened to admit him. Inside was the comfortable office room he had seen only through the window from the outside. Ignoring the lavish office complete with magazines, TV and coffee machine, he crossed from the outer doorway to the door at the far end and opened it.

This room was like the one before except that it was smaller. Against one wall was a lever with the words above it: CCTV Camera Override. Good of them to label everything so helpfully. He walked to it and pulled it down; he looked at one of the cameras out side the office and saw that the red light had gone out. Satisfied he pulled out the phone and dialed the number Lucy had written on the letter.

After several rings there was a click and a male voice answered.

"Do I have the pleasure of speaking to Desmond Miles?" the voice asked, a heavy French accent evident.

"You do," Desmond replied.

"Very good. My name is Louis," the man explained, "I assume that Lucy has already told you that in the letter she wrote but it's still polite to introduce one's self. Now then, to the first order of business, the GPS device you have in your possession, press the red button at the top and the screen should come on."

Desmond complied and the screen turned on, then there was a small beep and the bird's eye view of a map of an island came up, and to the left of that island a red dot appeared and blinked repeatedly. It also seemed that the building he was currently in was just near the ocean.

"Ah good!" said Louis, sounding pleased. "The GPS acts as a partner to the one I hold right now, you can see where I am but more importantly I can see where you are. Right now that that is done we will be with you shortly, and I look forward to meeting you in person. If there's anything you want to do before you go I suggest you do it now. But, until that time, au revoir."

The phone cut off and Desmond put it on the table next to him, now all he had to do was wait.

Wait for a rescue for a rescue he had never thought would come, but had always secretly hoped for. He went into the office and took the liberty of making himself a cup of coffee from the machine. When it was ready he breathed its aromas in deeply and sighed. After all the water and plain food he had been given for the past week drinking this coffee would make him feel almost normal again.

He had almost finished the coffee when he heard it. The deep fluttering drone of a helicopter's rotor blades, in the enjoyment of his coffee he had completely forgotten to check the GPS device. He looked at it now and saw that the red dot was fast approaching and as he ran out of the office and looked out of the window he saw it.

He couldn't make out what type it was but didn't care; he couldn't wait to be out of this place. Suddenly the phone in his pocket started to ring and once he had taken it out he answered it.

"Hello?" he shouted over the sound of the helicopter rotor blades.

"Just rang to warn you, you may want to get out of that room entirely. Because this is going to be messy!" Louis shouted back down the phone.

"How the hell are you going to land a helicopter in here?!" Desmond asked as he backed from the room completely, and into the office.

"Oh, don't worry about that, we have a solution."

Desmond was wondering what he meant when suddenly a bright red beam of light cut through the high walls just under the ceiling. He watched, mouth agape, as it worked its way from one end of the room to another. Now the whole ceiling had been converted into a lid, and then there was the sound of groaning metal and crumbling concrete as the ceiling rose up. As it moved he saw the light of day and after a week trapped inside this place he enjoyed the warmth of the sun.

He saw the helicopter in the distance, it seemed to be using one of those car-crusher magnets to lift the ceiling, he watched as the ceiling suddenly dropped and created a violent splash in the sea below. It came back and hovered above, two ropes dropped down from it, but before he could climb one of them two men wearing black combat gear slid down them and landed on the floor with practised ease.

When they had adjusted themselves they joined Desmond in the office and closed the door, effectively cutting off the sound off the sound of the helicopter. The first man who came in took off his facemask and shook his head. He was shorter than the average man and had short yellow-blonde hair and green eyes; he smiled when he saw Desmond and approached him. The other man behind him followed and also took off his facemask, he had dark black hair and blue eyes, and his face was expressionless as he followed the other man.

"Hello there Desmond," said Louis, "you remember me from the phone? I'm Louis and this" (he jerked a thumb in the direction of his companion) "is Mark."

The man nodded to Desmond and he in turn nodded back, he somehow got the sense from this man that he didn't like him for some reason and considered him a complete waste of a good rescue. Desmond didn't know why but decided he would work his way towards it later.

Desmond was still a little stunned from the entrance they had made but tried to hide it. "How was the trip?" he asked, saying the first thing that popped into his head, not knowing what else to say.

"Short. Let us get down to work. Did you remember to turn the cameras off?" Louis asked. Desmond nodded his reply and Louis acknowledged it by pressing a finger to an earpiece Desmond hadn't noticed before. "The cameras are off so it is safe to come down." He turned around to face the helicopter and Desmond followed his gaze. From the window he saw the helicopter land and four people disembark, one of them gave Louis a thumbs up gesture, and he and the rest of his team set about cutting at the Animus with blowtorches.

Desmond was stunned and wanted to know what was going on.

"What in the hell are you doing?!" he asked Louis.

"Relax, you didn't think we'd go to all this trouble just to rescue you, did you?" he asked rhetorically, squeezing Desmond's shoulder with a grin. "Now, can you show me and my friend to the vault if you please." Desmond, by no means reassured shook his head but nonetheless gestured for them to follow. He'd ask his questions later.

They followed him and when they saw the vault Louis whistled, but Mark was by no means impressed. "It's unlike anything I've ever seen before," he said, he had an English accent, "but I'll open it." He approached the Vault and started examining it.

Whilst he did this Louis tugged on Desmond's sleeve and jerked his head in the direction of the adjacent office. "We don't need to worry about the vault, Mark knows what he is doing. I see you made yourself at home." he said, his voice took on a slightly disapproving tone when he saw the empty coffee cup Desmond had left on the table.

"Yeah well, trying spending a week in a hell hole like this and you too would be begging for a cup of hot coffee," Desmond replied, stung a little by the tone of Louis's voice.

"Don't get me wrong," said Louis defensively, spreading his hands, "I would do the same in your position. It just seems funny that you're free for about fourteen minutes and already you're taking liberties with Abstergo's coffee machines," Louis remarked, laughing softly, he walked over to the cupboard and took out another cup, refilling Desmond's before his own.

"Speaking of freedom," Desmond said, "I thought this was strictly a rescue mission, but instead it seems you plan to steal the Animus," (he pointed at the Animus through the glass window, where from his view he could see the four men at work with the machine, each of them taking a corner of the outer layer and lifting its metal shell off the reveal some complicated machinery beneath) "and take the schematics for it as well," he said, gesturing again, this time in the direction of the vault room.

Louis shrugged his shoulders slightly. "We have plans of our own," he said, although he seemed to want to say more. "We saw an opportunity and decided to take it whilst striking a blow against our enemies."

"Yeah? And who exactly is we?" Desmond asked, starting to get annoyed at all this secrecy.

Louis just shook his head. "Not now. But later, I promise. Right now we need to concentrate on defence." He drank the rest of his cup and walked back to the helicopter. Frowning, Desmond quickly drank the rest of his cup too and followed him.

By now the helicopter had powered down and there was grateful silence. Louis approached it and knocked on the door, it slid open to reveal four more men. Although unlike the technicians working on the Animus, these men were in combat gear, at the moment they were checking their gear, and strapped around their shoulders they were sporting MP5's.

"What's the situation?" asked Louis. One of the men grimaced and showed Louis a computer screen inside. Louis leaned forward and examined it, he too grimacing, curious, Desmond did so as well, ignoring the searching glances of the four men. The screen seemed to have a short-range sensor, and right now it was showing ten red dots on the screen, and they were fast approaching the main door. And at the edge of the screen more were coming.

"Well," said Louis grimly, "it was only a matter of time before they noticed the ceiling of a building being lasered off and dropped into the ocean, then a helicopter landing directly inside said building." Desmond ignored him and, stepping out of the helicopter he put his head in his hands. Louis turned round and noticed, and again squeezed his shoulder. "Don't worry," Louis said reassuringly, "we didn't come all this way for nothing, they won't get you again."

"Oh I know they won't," said Desmond malevolently, "because there is no way in hell I'm going to let them." He took the gun out of the waistband of his jeans to prove his point.

"That's the spirit," said Louis, just as they heard a sharp bang from the vault room. At once both their heads turned and they ran past the technicians taking apart the Animus, who had looks of frustration on their faces.

They entered the vault to find a triumphant Mark dusting his hands and grinning. "Told you I could do it, you get the plans while I go and collect on a little debt." He walked past them and disappeared through the door.

Louis grinned also and ran into the vault. Desmond joined him and together they began searching the many compartments that lined its walls. "Do you know which one it is?" asked Desmond. Searching through some files in a random compartment looking for the word Animus on any of the file holders.

"No. Lucy only knew that the schematics were kept in here but she was never allowed in here at all." Desmond uttered a few choice swear words but stopped suddenly. He hadn't found the schematics, instead he had found a file labelled: The Piece of Eden.

"I think I found something useful here." Desmond called. Louis came over and Desmond showed him the label.

"Great work, that'll come in handy later on," Louis said, returning to his search.

Desmond frowned. "What do you mean by later on'?" he asked, annoyed at Louis' cryptic words.

"As I said before, I will explain later. Ah hah!" He held his hand up, and in it he was clutching a large thick folder. Labelled on it was: Animus Schematics. "I'm so glad they have everything clearly labelled. It is so very helpful of them," Louis said with glee.

Together they walked out from the vault and back into the 'landing area'. As they approached they heard voices.

"I won fair and square, so pay up," said Mark's voice, sounding very agitated.

"It is not fair, breaking into a vault is much easier than disconnecting a piece of machinery as complicated as this. You knew roughly how long it would take you to open the vault, whereas I had no idea what I was getting into," said a male American voice, as angry as Mark's.

"Then you shouldn't have taken the bet then should you! But you were obviously too arrogant to deny it. I may be the same but at least I can back up my claims and hold my end of the bet!" Mark shouted just as Desmond and Louis entered.

"What are you guys playing at?!" shouted Louis, shocking everyone with a surprisingly loud and powerful voice for such a small man.

"He won't pay up Louis." Mark complained, almost whining.

Louis tuned to the American technician, angry as hell. "Listen, I was there when you took this bet. The bet was that Mark could open he vault faster than you and your team could disconnect the Animus. You accepted without thinking about it and now you have to pay the price." The technician was about o open his mouth but Louis cut him off, "No John. No more arguing, just pay him and get on with the job. By now Abstergo's guards will be discussing how to open this door and how to kill us. Now I've got you the schematics, use them and get on."

John looked sullen, and with bad grace took out a leather wallet and paid Mark the amount due. Mark had the decency not to rub it in his face but instead walked towards the helicopter and picked up one of the MP5's on the racks inside. He beckoned Desmond over and Desmond complied, watching as John took one of the files out of the Animus folder and started examining it.

"Desmond, in case you haven't heard we're soon to be assaulted, now I don't know if you've been in a fire fight before but it's best to find some cover, this helicopters got enough armour to stop a missile." he said, patting the aircraft for emphasis. "But that doesn't make you invincible to flanking. Help me gather some stuff from around here and that will help us to build some kind of cover to hide behind when the bullets start flying," he said. He then walked off before Desmond could get a word in.

Desmond shrugged, and then grinned as an idea came into his head. He walked to the large office window and gazed at the table through it, but it wouldn't do, it was made of glass. So instead he walked into the surveillance room, and dragged the large, thick wooden table from there. He dragged it into the main conference room but when he looked at the doorway he realised he wouldn't be able to fit it through. He smiled as he thought of something, he walked to the conference table and picked up the closest chair, he then proceed to walk out of the room altogether into the main lab, he didn't want the glass or the chair hitting the technicians. When he was outside he took a deep breath and with all his might through the chair at the window, it didn't shatter but held slightly, breaking with a resounding crunch.

Some of the technicians looked around to see what the commotion was but he ignored them, instead he kicked at the rest of the glass and stepped through. He grabbed the wooden table by the end and slowly, careful not to show any kind of weakness in front of these strangers, dragged the table through the now broken window. Once he had it outside he positioned it correctly and then he tipped it on its side, so the surface was facing the main entrance. He looked in Mark's direction and saw that he had had the same idea as Desmond, he had ripped Vidic's table from the floor and turned it over there.

Where he had set up his defence was the perfect position to flank the enemy when they came in. He saw what Desmond had done, and not to be outdone just because he had the smaller table he walked into the helicopter and flipped a switch. Suddenly a metal sheet came out of its right side facing the door. It was about 3cm thick and stretched down to the floor, wide enough to protect the technicians and provide cover for anyone else needing it.

With that done the men inside came out and took positions behind each of their chosen spots, one of them had a scoped MP5 and he stood with Mark as they waited.

"Remember watch out for any grenades, they may not have them but it's best to be prepared!" Mark called out. Desmond turned his head around sharply, he was worried, grenades?! Not only did he have to worry about bullets, he now had to worry about grenades as well!

Without warning the main door suddenly started to glow orange, and just as suddenly it melted. Everyone braced themselves and Desmond raised his pistol, but had removed the silencer to make the bullets faster. What came through the door was something they had least expected, a small robot wheeled into the room, about half a metre tall. No one did anything, then it started clanking and just like the helicopter it too sprouted armour like a blossoming flower providing cover for the enemy, only it did it with gaps for the men to step through.

For a moment, everything was silent.

And then the shooting started.

The first man through the door took a round from the marksman's scoped MP5 directly in the neck, and fell to the ground with a thud, his body as limp as a rag doll's. Then they came through the door in a rush, two more went down but the rest had just enough time and had taken positions. Behind the armour they fired in turns, these men weren't your run of the mill security guards; these men were trained with almost military precision, or at least some of them had experience, and others knew how to handle themselves in a fire fight.

Eventually more came in, and in no time at all there were now a dozen returning fire. It was just a shooting match, both couldn't get a bullet in edge wise and only the marksman by Mark's cover was doing any real damage. Desmond, unlike the others, was fighting ferociously, all that time fighting as Altair has sharpened his reflexes and he was taking out men like flies. But it wasn't enough. He knew that soon these men would gather enough courage to charge, no matter how many lives were lost, and Desmond knew they wouldn't be able to stop them all at once.

Suddenly he heard a clang behind him and, with his back pressed against the table looked from behind his bullet-dented table to see Louis helping the technicians load the Animus onto the helicopter using a small ramp. It was pushed to the back and Louis beckoned that every one should pull back to the helicopter.

Grateful, Desmond fired a few more rounds at the enemy and crawled towards the helicopter, careful not to show his head. The rest were doing the same and only Mark and the man next to him were still shooting. The enemy saw this and through the camera inside the helicopter Desmond could see a few of them grinning, not believing their luck. Or lack of luck as they were about to find out. Inside the helicopter Louis smiled. He flipped another switch and a small turret appeared out of nowhere on at the side of the helicopter and kept the enemy pinned down with rapid fire.

Mark and the other man ran quickly to the helicopter as its blades started rotating and building up speed. The enemy saw this and Desmond watched again on camera as one of them lunged out of his position and was immediately cut down but the turret, then suddenly six more did, the turret couldn't take them all out at once and one got through.

Just as the Helicopter was lifting off that man grabbed the end of one of the ropes that someone had forgotten to collect. The helicopter lifted off fast and they were quickly over open water. Desmond looked out over the sea through the helicopter doorway and saw the rope hadn't been collected. So did Mark, he went over to collect it but as he tugged it didn't budge, he frowned and looked downwards. And had to duck back quickly as a spray of bullets almost hit him where his head had just been.

Everyone was alert now, and they knew that somehow one of the guards had managed to get one of the ropes. Desmond went to look, he saw the man, an Uzi strapped around his shoulder. He was climbing the rope and Desmond knew that if they didn't kill him and he managed to get up then in such a closed space as the helicopters interior he would kill many of them.

Desmond took the combat knife from the waistband of his jeans and concentrated like his ancestor used to do. He had to time this carefully, because the man was swinging back and forth. With the speed and calculation of a cobra he leaned out and threw the knife at the man.

For a moment Desmond had thought he'd missed, but then he saw the blood on the man's face leaking blood from his forehead where Desmond's knife was buried in it. Mark looked surprised, and shot the dead man to get his dead, stiff fingers off the rope. The man fell with a splash in the sea. Mark collected the rope and closed the side door.

"And," he said, "you didn't even need to do something cliché like sawing the rope."

What'd you think? It's my first time writing on fanfiction for a very long time and I hope this chapter has gone down well. Just to clear a few questions up. The number is made up and I have no idea who it might belong to. The number which I said is on the floor is on the game but who knows whether or not it unlocks the office door. But I needed it to fit in my story. If you're wondering about how Lucy got that letter in all will be revealed later.

Hope you enjoyed it and feel free to offer any criticism, as long as it's constructive.