The Creed: Lives Lived
#3 of The Creed
Two Weeks Later
I steadied my phone against a gravestone and set the automatic timer.
The morning after that night so long ago, J and Purp explained just about everything I had wanted to know:
J, when he found me, had just infiltrated an Abstergo office in an attempt to find more information on the Templars, but had gotten caught and security was called on him. Those were the cops that I had seen chase him, and they weren't cops, but Abstergo Security. J had recognized my potential when I began to chase after him, and decided to test me in the form of a chase. I performed a little better than he had hoped, but I was nowhere near Assassin level; he was even starting to get out of shape. After tracking me back to my apartment, J returned to the Assassin Den and got me a room ready, complete with a computer with access to the Hephaestus Database, a wealth of information on all things Assassin and Templar.
The HDB could only be connected to by computers with certain MAC addresses and the packets sent to and from the HDB were encrypted twice: once that would be decrypted by a simple universal password, and once by an encrypted password that was stored client-side. In order to decrypt anything from the database, you would have to enter the password to prove you were an assassin, and then scan your fingerprint. Metadata in the packets gave the client the level of clearance required, and the computer matched this against the clearance level of the user whose fingerprint was scanned. Only if the clearance level of the data was equal to or lower than that of the user would the computer decrypt the data received using the encrypted password, which the user never saw in plaintext. All in all, it was a fairly secure system.
When J had picked me up from my apartment, we didn't go directly to the Den. Instead, we made several circles, simply to confuse my sense of direction. Ever since then, I had been under a rigorous training regiment: learning the basics of combat and freerunning by day and learning about the history of the ages-long struggle between the Assassins and Templars by night. Finally, today I had gotten a day off.
Between the fact that I had worn pretty much the same outfit for the past four years and the discovery of $30 in my pocket, I decided to request a day off of training to clean up my appearance. I'm sure the Brotherhood would've supplied me with a perfectly acceptable outfit, but I wanted to wear my own thing.
After a trip to the barber to cut my hair down to a cleaner length for $10, I had checked out all the thrift shops in the area until I found some better leather gloves, a nice white sportsjacket, as well as a decent red hoodie. All of that left me with $5 still in my pocket. Thrift shops are awesome.
*Click*
I walked over and pocketed my phone. *I should probably get back to the Den,* I thought, and left the cemetery to return to where I now called home. Barely 15 minutes later, I noticed the office that J had talked about: Abstergo's New Orleans branch. What if... I thought, but quickly dismissed it.
A couple of weeks passed, and I trained diligently, steadily growing stronger, faster, and deadlier. Purp even got me in touch with the Quartermaster, the mastermind behind any and all gadgets and weaponry. I commissioned a hidden chain, long and heavy enough to be lethal, but thin and concealable enough to be covert. He said he would get back to me, and that was that.
Before long the urge to act finally overcame all logic and reason. I emailed Alice that fateful night, and under the cover of darkness, I left with nothing but the clothes on my back and the cell phone in my pocket.
In the morning, when Purp came to wake me up, he found nothing but my red hoodie, which now bore a large Assassin symbol, and a note addressed to J.
At breakfast, he handed the note over and let J read it aloud:
Hey J. It's hard to explain, but I couldn't take it any longer. I HAVE to do something, ANYTHING, besides mere training to help the Assassins. It seems that except for that one time, all we ever do is sit back and wait for the Templars to attack, and never the other way around. After all, they have to attack eventually; their beloved New World can't and won't exist with us in it. That's why I've finally decided to take matters into my own hands and become a double agent. The Templars don't know my face yet; I can last a little while before I'm discovered, and until then, I'll train as a Templar, while never forgetting my Assassin brethren.
I know it's dangerous, and that's why I've contacted Alice. You don't know her, and hopefully, you never will. I've told her to find you if anything happened to me. If something does happen and I can't, then take care of her.
P.S. I still have the same phone number, and I'll contact you if we ever need to meet. Don't call me, though.
-Ty
"Aw fuck," cursed Purp.
"Yep," replied J. "It was nice knowing the kid. Pass the bacon?"