Fate of the Gods

  “A self-driving car,” Grace said, sitting next to Sean.

  “Yeah,” Sean said. Then he raised his voice slightly and said, “Victoria? Are you still there?”

  “I’m here,” Victoria said, her voice coming through the car’s speakers.

  “I have them,” Sean said.

  “Oh, thank God,” she said. “Is everyone okay? Can I speak to Griffin?”

  Sean glanced around the vehicle, as if he had only just then realized that Griffin was missing. He looked at Grace.

  She raised her voice a bit and said, “Victoria, Griffin is dead.”

  The line went quiet. “How?”

  “Isaiah’s agents,” Owen said. He looked down at his wrist. “They shot him.”

  Saying it out loud like that made it real in a way it hadn’t been just moments before. The SUV speeding them away from Isaiah was also speeding them away from Griffin’s body, which was back there in the woods next to the stream, where it would stay.

  Owen had learned a lot from Griffin. They had disagreed on things, but he respected Griffin, and even admired him. Griffin had put his own life on the line to save Owen’s several times, and he’d given up the most important thing in his life—the Brotherhood—to stop Isaiah.

  “I’m sorry,” Victoria said. “How are you all holding up? Are any of you hurt?”

  “We’re fine,” Grace said. “Just … shaken.”

  “I can only imagine.”

  “Isaiah has the third prong,” Natalya said from the far back seat.

  The line went silent again. “I’ve chartered a jet,” Victoria said. “You’re heading there now, and it will bring you back here. We need to hang up so you can take the car off-line. Otherwise, Isaiah can track you. So stay together, stay safe, and I’ll see you soon. All right?”

  “All right,” Grace said.

  “There’s one more thing,” Owen added. “I, uh, I told Isaiah that Monroe had figured out the Ascendance Event. I told him it could stop the Trident. I think Isaiah may be heading to the Aerie. I’m sorry.”

  “Then we have work to do,” Victoria said. “I’ll see you all soon. Don’t forget to go off-line. Good-bye.” The call ended.

  “Poindexter,” Sean said.

  “Yes, Sean.”

  “Take communications systems off-line.”

  The car responded to the command, and then Natalya leaned forward from the back.

  “Okay,” she said. “Now you can tell us what happened to you, and what you’re doing in this car.”

  Owen twisted around in his seat to listen.

  “Well,” Sean said, scratching his temple, “the thing is, I don’t really know. I mean, I know, but I don’t know if I can trust what I think I know, you know—?” He cut himself off and shook his head. “Okay, that sounded confusing.”

  He was behaving differently than he had back at the Aerie. He was twitchy, and seemed disoriented.

  “I spent way too much time in the Animus,” he said. “Isaiah made me do the same thing, over and over. The Bleeding Effects are bad.” He paused, nodding his head. “Really bad. And Isaiah used the Trident on me, which … made me not feel like myself.”

  “Oh, Sean.” Natalya leaned forward and put a hand on his shoulder.

  Owen tried to imagine going through something like that, but he couldn’t. “How did you escape?”

  “Isaiah left me in the Animus to go look for the third prong. Somehow I—I broke out. Then I got in Poindexter and called Victoria. She basically took care of everything after that.”

  “Well, you’re safe now,” Grace said. “You’re back.”

  “I’m coming back,” Sean said. “But I still don’t feel right. Victoria says it’ll take time, but she’ll help me.”

  Natalya gave his shoulder another squeeze from behind, and Sean smiled. The vehicle got quiet after that, and as the surprise and excitement settled, echoes of everything Isaiah had said came back and found Owen just as vulnerable to them as he was before. It was possible Isaiah had lied again. In fact, that was probably likely. But there was a doubt in Owen’s mind now that had never been there before, or at least, he’d never openly acknowledged, even to himself. But now that he knew it was there, he couldn’t ignore it. More than anything now, he wanted to get back to the Aerie. It was time for Monroe to let him learn the truth, whatever that truth might be.

  A short while later, the car pulled onto a private airfield. Owen scanned their surroundings, and saw no sign of Isaiah, or any Abstergo agents. Instead, three planes waited on the tarmac, two small propeller planes, and one larger jet. The pilot, a middle-aged woman with golden-blond hair, waited for them with two flight attendants at the foot of a mobile staircase.

  “Is it just me,” Grace said, “or are you guys suspicious of everyone now?”

  “It’s not just you,” Owen said. One of the flight attendants wore a fitted scarlet shirt with a black tie, while the woman next to him had on a navy blue skirt with a white blouse. Either of them, or even the pilot, might have been compromised by Isaiah. That was possible, and that’s all it had to be for Owen to worry.

  The car pulled up near the jet, and after it stopped to let them out, the side door opened and a ramp descended.

  “Good-bye, Sean,” the car said.

  “Good—good-bye, Poindexter,” Sean said, then quickly rolled himself down the ramp, toward the plane.

  The pilot and flight attendants greeted them, and then helped everyone on board. The cabin looked almost exactly like the private jets Owen had seen in the movies. Plush seats with plenty of room ran down each side, with a wide aisle between them. Owen wondered how much this flight had cost Abstergo, but decided he didn’t want to know. He was just grateful Victoria had arranged it. They all found seats, and a flight attendant pushed Sean’s wheelchair to the rear of the plane for storage.

  The crew brought them all Abstergo-issued changes of clothes, and shortly after that, they were airborne. Not long after that, Sean was asleep. It took longer for Owen to get to that place. His mind kept jumping back and forth between his dad and Griffin. But eventually, he grew drowsy, and he let himself close his eyes.

  Victoria was waiting for them when they landed, and Owen was glad to see her. Grace and Natalya seemed to feel the same way, and Victoria even gave Sean a brief hug. Owen guessed she probably felt a different kind of guilt over what had happened to him than she felt toward the others.

  At the bottom of the stairs, they all climbed onto a shuttle cart that rolled them across the tarmac, and soon they arrived at a helicopter pad, where a large helicopter waited for them. That was another first for Owen, and between the noise and the tighter space, he much preferred the private jet. Not that he would ever in his life have to make that choice.

  The helicopter carried them toward, and then over, the mountains, and as they came in for their landing, Owen got to see the Aerie complex from above. It sprawled over the peak, but not in an aggressive way. Instead, it seemed to have insinuated itself very subtly into the surrounding forest, its glass corridors snaking through the trees, and much of its structure in shade. Upon landing, they pushed through the strong wind stirred up by the helicopter’s blades, and entered the Aerie’s main atrium.

  Owen was surprised at how good it felt to be back, and next to him, Sean grinned as he wheeled himself across the open space. They went to the common room and were soon joined there by Monroe, Javier, and David, but Griffin’s absence kept the room somber.

  Javier and David had completed the simulation of the collective unconscious, and as far as Monroe could tell, it was basically the same simulation Owen, Grace, and Natalya had experienced. The same genetic time capsule. But Owen still didn’t see how it would help them or shield them from the Trident or anything else.

  “It didn’t protect us in Sweden,” he said.

  “Did Isaiah use the pieces of the Trident on you?” Victoria asked.

  Owen shook his head. “Not directly. But he tapped into the fears we all exp
erienced in Mongolia. He even knew what they were, and he used them against us. I didn’t feel like I had any protection from it at all. No shield.”

  Monroe turned to Grace and Natalya. “What about you two?”

  “Same,” Natalya said.

  “Pretty much,” Grace said.

  Monroe frowned, and rubbed the heel of his palm against the whiskers on his chin. “Let me take Sean through, and then we can work on figuring this out.”

  “I don’t think I can recommend that,” Victoria said. “Sean has been through a tremendous amount of psychic trauma.”

  “Then I think it’s even more important that we leave the decision to Sean,” Monroe said.

  Sean looked back and forth between them. “If it’s something everyone else has done, then I’ll do it. I’m already feeling better.”

  “Good man. I think it’s important that you experience it. All of you. It seems that’s how it was designed.”

  “Watch him closely,” Victoria said.

  Monroe gave her a thumbs-up, and then he and Sean left the common room.

  “As for the rest of you,” Victoria said. “You have a decision to make. It is very likely Isaiah is on his way here right now. The Ascendance Event was always an obsession of his, and now we know why. He will come for Monroe’s work, because he knows it poses a threat to him. The choice you have to make is whether you wish to be here when he arrives.” She set her tablet on the table and folded her hands together next to it. “Griffin’s death is a reminder of what we are dealing with. I have said this to you before, but I will say it this one last time. If any of you wish to leave, you may. I won’t force any of you to stay.”

  Owen only had to give that a moment of thought. “I think we know what we’re dealing with,” he said. “Isaiah made that pretty clear back in Sweden when he pointed a gun at us and told us he was going to eat the sun and the moon. Now that he has the complete Trident, he can call himself Fenris wolf or whatever he wants, because he’ll be unstoppable. I’m not sure what good it would do to go anywhere else. So I’m going to stay to fight him.”

  “Me too,” Natalya said.

  Grace and David looked at each other, and they seemed to be going through that same wordless tug-of-war they’d gone through since Owen had first met them. David wanted to stay and fight, and Grace wanted to protect her little brother. David refused to leave, so Grace decided she had to stay, and that was that.

  “It looks like we’re all in,” Javier said. “This is for Griffin.”

  Owen turned to his best friend. He didn’t know if now was the right time, but he also didn’t know if there ever would be a right time, with Isaiah on the way. He pulled up the sleeve of his hoodie, and he undid the straps on the hidden blade.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Javier asked.

  Owen nodded. “He wanted you to have it. He said to tell you that you’ve earned it.”

  “He did?”

  Owen slid the blade off his arm and handed it to Javier. “Those were his words.”

  Javier took it and looked hard at it, his brow deeply creased. “But I haven’t earned it. I’m not an Assassin.”

  “I’m just telling you what he said, and I’m giving you what he wanted you to have. I guess you have to decide what you’re going to do with that.”

  Javier nodded and set the blade on the table.

  Victoria raised an eyebrow at it. “I’m going to pretend I don’t see that. Instead, we need to come up with a plan.”

  Isaiah will come at us with every weapon at his disposal,” Victoria said. “Not just the Trident. He’ll bring every Templar agent he has managed to gain control over, because he’ll assume the Aerie is guarded.”

  “When, really, we’re on our own,” David said.

  Victoria sighed. “Yes, precisely.”

  “So how do we do this?” Natalya said. “We don’t really stand a chance, do we?”

  “The odds are not in our favor,” Victoria said.

  “Then let’s even the odds,” Javier said. “It’s like the battle in the Viking simulation.”

  “Right.” David had begun to nod along with him. “We just need to slow them down and take as many out as we can. Like Östen and Thorvald.”

  “How?” Grace asked.

  Javier turned to Victoria. “We already know the Aerie has some defenses. We broke in once before. So the question is, how do you think Isaiah will attack?”

  “By helicopter,” she said.

  “Then the first thing we have to do is make sure the helicopters can’t land,” Javier said.

  “Some of Isaiah’s forces will be driving up the mountain,” Victoria said.

  “Then we close the roads,” David said. “We force them to climb the mountain on foot.”

  “And we lay traps in the forest,” Javier said. “We keep as many of them as we can from reaching the top.”

  Victoria nodded, grinning. “It worked for your ancestors, I suppose.”

  “So we have a lot of work to do,” Javier said.

  The first thing they did was open up the Aerie storage and drag every heavy box and crate they could find out onto the helicopter pad. Then they stacked them up at random intervals, covering the surface with enough debris to make it impossible for any helicopter to land there. The trees that covered the rest of the mountain left no other openings large enough, which meant that if the helicopters wanted to land, they would have to do it pretty far from the facility.

  Next, they drove with Monroe down to the base of the mountain, and he used a chain saw from the Aerie’s tool supply to cut down several large trees, aiming them to fall across the road. As its deafening motor bellowed, and fragrant woodchips flew, Owen worried they wouldn’t be able to hear any approaching helicopters. But before long, they’d downed three modest trees, enough to keep any vehicle except for maybe a tank from climbing to the Aerie by road.

  That left the traps they planned to lay in the forest.

  The Aerie still had its sentry system, which had been easy enough for Griffin to bypass that Owen didn’t think it would slow down Isaiah and his team much at all. But Javier had another idea, something else he’d drawn from his experience in the memories of his Viking ancestor.

  The Aerie still had a supply of pest control devices, including M-44 cyanide bombs. When Owen saw one, he realized it wasn’t really a bomb as much as sprinkler head. Abstergo used the devices to cut down on predatory animals like coyotes and foxes around their facility. Isaiah had likely left the M-44s behind because he didn’t consider them a useful weapon. But cyanide could be very effective at slowing down or even stopping any agents trying to climb the mountain. So the last thing needed to prepare for Isaiah’s arrival was to plant the M-44s at periodic intervals in the forest, ready to poison anyone who passed by with a cloud of toxic gas.

  After that, they could do nothing but wait.

  Sean completed his time in the collective unconscious, and it actually seemed to help him recover somewhat from the abuse Isaiah had inflicted on him. But Owen assumed it would be a long time before he was really back to normal.

  With preparations complete, they all gathered in the common room to discuss additional strategies. Monroe stood at the head of the table.

  “When the helicopters aren’t able to land,” he said, “there’s a good chance any agents on board will rappel down. Those are the ones we have to worry about first. The blocked roads and the traps we set will keep the ground troops occupied.”

  “So what do we do about the ones dropping down on us like spiders?” Natalya asked.

  “We fight,” Owen said.

  “Griffin had a few weapons in his gear,” Javier said. “Some grenades. EMP devices and some sleep bombs. If we use them effectively, we could do some damage.”

  “We need to pick a central location as our fortress,” Victoria said. “I would recommend the garage below ground. There are a limited number of entrances, and no windows. With our smaller numbers, I think we need to force
the enemy into a bottleneck.”

  “Agreed,” Monroe said. “Everyone get what you’ll need, and let’s load it down there.”

  Owen didn’t have much, but upon scrounging around the Aerie, mostly in the tools, he did find some objects that he could use as weapons even more effectively than he’d wielded a shovel back in Sweden. Then he loaded it all into the garage with everything else they’d found, and they worked at barricading the doors.

  The last thing Monroe brought down was the Animus core containing all the data for the Ascendance Event. That was what Isaiah wanted, and he would have to fight for it if he hoped to claim it. After that, they gathered together once again in the common room to wait, and this time, no one spoke. Instead, everyone listened for the sounds of helicopters.

  They had done everything they could. Owen doubted it would be enough. But he was ready to face the enemy, just the same, still unsure of how Minerva’s secret package would help them.

  They waited.

  And waited.

  And eventually, they heard exactly what they had expected to hear. The distant thrum of helicopters. Isaiah had come for them.

  “Battle stations,” Monroe said.

  Without speaking, they all rose from the table and marched from the common room, out to the main atrium. A few minutes later, helicopters circled overhead, having apparently taken note of the compromised landing pad.

  “Get ready,” Victoria said.

  Owen pulled out the one EMP grenade he had, and then he remembered the first time he had encountered an Abstergo helicopter, outside Ulysses Grant’s home at Mount McGregor.

  Owen looked up at the aircraft overhead, examined the device in his hand, and glanced at Javier. “I’m going up to the roof,” he said.

  Javier looked at him a moment, and then nodded, realizing what Owen meant. “Let’s do it.”

  They took off at a run, and Monroe shouted after them, but they ignored him. They skipped the elevators and went right for the stairs, bounding up them three and four at a time, climbing each floor of the Aerie until they reached the highest balcony.