“I felt that yesterday,” Javier said. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know.”
“I was thinking of going back to the industrial park. Just to check it out a bit more in the daylight. You wanna come?”
“Right now?” Owen’s grandparents weren’t home. As long as Owen got back before his mom’s shift ended, he’d be fine. “Okay, let’s go.”
So they changed course and made for a bus stop. From there, they retraced much of the route Owen had taken a couple of nights ago, and arrived at the industrial park a short while later. The place looked a little less abandoned during the day than it had in the dark. There were a few more vehicles parked here and there, mostly utility trucks, and some of the warehouses and buildings were actually still in use, at least partially. They found the place Monroe had parked his bus, where its thick tires had flattened the weeds and left tracks in the gravel. They made a search of the area, but didn’t find any clues.
Javier kicked at the ground, scattering rocks. “What are we doing here?”
“I don’t know,” Owen said. “This was your idea.”
Javier paced a bit, kicked gravel again. “I want to go back in.”
“Into the Animus? Why?”
“To see what he did after.”
“Who?”
“Chimalpopoca. My ancestor. He just caved, man. Cortés walked in, and he just rolled over.”
“Seems like everyone did with Cortés, he—”
“No, you don’t understand.” Javier stopped pacing and punched the palm of his hand. “I was—he was full-on ready to die. He was a warrior, he was true to himself. But then he just gave up without a fight.”
Owen could tell this was pinching a nerve somewhere inside Javier, but they weren’t close-enough friends anymore for him to know what that might be. “Why are you stressing about it? That was hundreds of years ago.”
“You think I don’t know that? It doesn’t feel like hundreds of years ago. It feels like two nights ago.” Javier shook his head. “Forget about it. I’m going home.”
“Javier—”
“See you later.” He stalked away before Owen could say anything more.
Owen watched him go, took another look around the site, and then started toward his grandparents’ house. His mom wouldn’t be home for a while yet, so he decided to walk most of the way, just letting his thoughts and feet wander the streets until at one point he looked up and realized his path maybe hadn’t been as aimless as he’d thought. The bank his father had been accused of robbing was only a couple of blocks away.
Owen detoured to go see it.
He’d only been there once before, and even then, they’d just driven by it, his grandparents and his mom falling utterly silent in the car as though passing near an open grave. The building had somehow appeared sinister to Owen back then, and it still did. It was sleek and modern, all dark glass and sharp corners, taking up the ground floor of an office building, its windows printed with a deep-red MALTA BANKING CORPORATION logo and a banner advertising interest rates.
Owen walked into the lobby, with its grayish marble floors and featureless carpet, the smell of paper and gentle rush of air conditioning. Tellers worked silently behind their counter, customers waited in line. No sign at all remained of the robbery or the slaying of the guard, no echo of the gunshot. Life had simply moved on for this bank, for everyone in there and their money. They went about business depositing and withdrawing as if Owen’s life hadn’t been completely derailed by the events that had taken place there.
The lobby felt suddenly small and tight, and the cool air tasted stale. Owen turned around and went back outside, where he took a seat on a bench across the street, facing the bank. He sat there studying it, watching the people going in and out, until the bank closed and the guards locked the doors. Then it was 5:17 p.m., the time at which his father was said to have emerged from the bank restroom where he’d been hiding. Then it was 5:24 p.m., the time of the first gunshot, and then it was 5:27 p.m., when the guard died from blood loss. Owen still knew every stop along the prosecutor’s timeline, just as he could still recall each frame of the grainy black-and-white security footage of the masked robber. Owen sat there on that bench as evening turned into twilight, replaying the entire sequence of events over and over, searching through them for some discrepancy he had missed. Something the prosecutor and defense attorneys had missed. Something that would have given the jury reasonable doubt.
But he found nothing. Again.
Then it was dark, with only a trickle of foot traffic on the street, and Owen could tell it was late. He’d lost track of time, mired in his own thoughts, and realized he had to get home. He rose from the bench, took a last look at the bank, and hurried toward a bus stop, but just missed the pickup by a couple of minutes. Rather than wait for the next one, he decided to cut over one street through an alleyway and get on a different line that would still get him back to his grandparents’ house before his mom.
The side street was narrow and partially obstructed in places by piles of refuse, stacks of old wooden pallets, and bales of wire. About halfway through the alley, Owen felt that sensation of being watched return, as if someone had followed him into the alley. This time, when he turned back to look, he saw the silhouetted figure of a man moving silently toward him.
Owen thought about running. He thought about calling out to the stranger, demanding to know who he was. He thought about just hiding somewhere in the alley. But each of those choices seemed like an overreaction at that point. It was probably just somebody trying to cut over to the next street like he was. Owen decided to stay calm and keep going, but he hastened his pace to stay ahead of the figure.
Before he’d gone very far, the stranger’s footsteps quickened behind him, drawing closer, their echo crawling up his back and over his scalp. Owen broke into an instinctual jog without looking back. The drumbeat of his pursuer rose to match his rhythm, and at that point, Owen knew something was off and sprinted for it.
“Owen!” an unfamiliar voice called. “It’s okay! Owen, stop!”
Owen didn’t stop, not until he’d made it out of the alley and onto the streetlight-bathed sidewalk of the next avenue. There were several people around here; a pizza place and a liquor store were still open nearby. Owen felt safe enough to turn around and wait for his pursuer, to find out who he was and how he knew Owen’s name.
A moment later, the man emerged, wearing a gray suit that bore the smudges and stains of his trip through the dark alley. He looked young, with close-cropped brown hair and roundish features. When he made eye contact with Owen, he sighed and nodded, and then walked toward him.
“Thank you for waiting,” he said. “I—”
“Who are you?” Owen asked. “Why are you following me?”
The man looked around, but not at the level of the street. His gaze seemed to be searching above them, the rooftops and fire escapes. “How about we go somewhere and talk privately.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Fair enough,” the man said. “Then I’ll make this brief. You were recently involved with a man named Monroe, were you not?”
“Who?” Owen said, thinking maybe this had to do with Monroe’s disappearance.
“He gave you access to an Animus, correct?”
“What’s an Animus?” How the hell did this guy know so much? “Who are you anyway?”
“Monroe is in possession of stolen equipment,” the man said. “We’ve been trying to recover it. Your cooperation would be appreciated.”
Did this guy work for Abstergo? That could explain how Monroe had the Animus in the first place, but maybe it also explained why Monroe had disappeared.
“Wish I could help,” Owen said. He trusted Monroe a lot more than he trusted this guy. “Listen, I gotta go.” He turned away from the stranger. “I’m late; my mom is expecting me—”
“I saw you at the bank,” the man said, emphasizing the last word.
r /> Owen stopped and slowly turned back around.
“We could help you with your problem,” the stranger said, “if you help us with ours.”
“Oh, yeah? And what’s my problem?”
“You believe your father was innocent.”
His words shocked Owen off balance, and for a moment, he didn’t know how to respond.
“We could help you find out the truth of what happened that night,” the man said.
“What are you talking about?” Owen raised his voice and took a step toward the man. “What do you know about my dad?”
“All will be explained. But you must come with—” The man let out a little gasp. He winced and lifted his hand as if he meant to swat a fly from his face. Then he shuddered, his eyes rolled back in his head, and his body collapsed to the ground, a small dart protruding from his neck.
Owen stared at him for a few seconds in confusion, and then his eyes went wide and he looked up at the buildings around him, their innumerable darkened windows and shadowy ledges. The dart had come from somewhere up there, and Owen was torn between bending down to help the man and dodging for cover.
Just then, a motorcycle ripped around the corner, its engine roaring with an unusual, deep thrum, like a huge insect. It raced toward Owen, sleek and black, and screeched to a halt right in front of him. Then its rider lifted the visor on his helmet, revealing a familiar face.
“Monroe?” Owen said.
“Get on,” Monroe said. “Now.” He tossed a second helmet, which Owen caught in the stomach.
“But—”
“Now!”
Owen jumped onto the back of the motorcycle behind Monroe, and pulled his helmet on as Monroe hit the throttle. The bike leapt down the street, and Owen watched the buildings speed by. The helmet’s visor blinked to life with an internal overlay display showing gridlines, shifting targets, and readouts Owen didn’t understand.
Monroe’s voice sounded in Owen’s ear through an earpiece in the helmet. “Initiate blur.”
“Initiate what?” Owen asked.
Then his vision seemed to glitch as though he was back in the Animus. Successive images of the motorcycle cascaded forward ahead of them, and spread out to either side. When Owen looked behind them, he saw an image trail following them, spreading out along the road like the frames of a slowed film.
Blur initiated, said a woman’s computerized voice in Owen’s ear.
“What is that?” Owen asked.
“Holographic projection,” Monroe said, banking around a corner. “To make us harder to hit.” He throttled the bike again, and the engine’s drone rose in pitch as they shot ahead. “Scan for ghost signals,” he said.
Scanning … the computer woman said.
“Ghost signals?” Owen asked.
Ghost signal acquired.
“Resolve and sync,” Monroe said.
The overlay on Owen’s visor shifted, and he glimpsed a glowing figure moving at the periphery of his vision. He turned toward it, and saw the infrared silhouette of a man moving impossibly fast overhead against the city’s darkened backdrop. The figure leapt from rooftop to rooftop and seemed to scale sheer walls, following after them.
“How—?” Owen said. “Who is that?”
“I’ll explain later. Just keep an eye on him while I try to lose him.”
He whipped the bike around another corner, and then another, turn after turn, but the ghost signal managed to stay with them, cutting over the top of whole city blocks. At one point, the figure even somehow got a bit ahead of them, and he paused there. Owen imagined him taking aim at them with the same dart weapon he’d used to hit that Abstergo guy.
“Watch out,” he shouted to Monroe.
“I see him. Hold on.” Monroe screeched to a halt in a hard turn that almost threw Owen from the bike. Then he spun out and peeled away in the opposite direction, passing the sign for a freeway entrance.
Owen pointed at it. “Could we lose him that way?”
“Worth a shot,” Monroe said.
He took the on-ramp and then he really opened up the bike. The front wheel lifted off the ground briefly as they blazed down the road. Owen kept a backward eye on the glowing figure, which gradually fell farther and farther behind them, growing smaller until it finally winked out.
Ghost signal lost, the computer woman said.
“We got lucky,” Monroe said. “He could’ve had his own wheels.”
“Who was that guy?” Owen asked.
“I said I would explain later—”
“Explain now!” Owen shouted.
Monroe sighed. “He was an Assassin. You’re not safe anymore.”
Owen almost laughed at the thought that an assailant would be targeting him. But then he remembered the dart in that Abstergo guy’s neck.
“What about Javier?” Owen asked.
“I already got him. We’re going there now.”
“Where?”
“You’ll see.”
Owen decided to let it go for now, and instead paid attention to where they were heading. A few exits later, Monroe got on the belt route and took a wide arc around the edge of the city, and then got off the freeway near the docks. They passed a refinery, and then they entered a section of towering warehouses similar to the industrial park on the opposite side of town, except this place seemed in better repair and more frequent use. But it was deserted at this time of night.
Monroe turned off the bike’s headlights and brought them to a smaller building nestled between two larger structures, then used a remote control to open a mechanical roller door. He eased the bike through the cavernous opening and closed the door behind them, trapping them in near total darkness.
Monroe killed the bike’s engine and climbed off. “Hold tight for a sec.”
The overlay display on Owen’s visor went dead, and he waited as Monroe moved away from him out of sight. A moment later, a light switched on overhead, flooding the space around Owen with cold fluorescence. The warehouse was spacious and empty, except for the vintage bus parked nearby that held the Animus. Monroe was walking back toward the bike carrying his helmet. Owen pulled his own helmet off and climbed from the vehicle. Up close, in the light, the motorcycle looked as if it belonged in the air as much as the ground, angled and curved in a way that suggested something designed for total stealth. Owen had ridden dirt bikes with his dad, but this was something very different.
“So,” he said, “this is all pretty high-tech.” He set the helmet on the motorcycle’s seat. “I’m guessing Abstergo would have something to say about it?”
“Most likely.” Monroe dropped the keys into his helmet and set it next to Owen’s. “Come on, let’s go join the others.” Monroe moved and spoke with an intensity Owen wasn’t used to seeing in him.
“Others?”
Monroe didn’t respond to that, and instead walked away toward a narrow staircase that climbed up one wall of the warehouse to a door on the second story. Owen followed him, their footsteps clanking on the corrugated metal steps. When they reached the door, Monroe entered a key code on an electronic lock, and the door clicked open.
“This way,” he said.
They entered a hallway floored with speckled linoleum tiles, its drywall left plastered but unpainted. Monroe led Owen past a few doors to another locked by key code. When he entered the code and opened the door, Owen felt a gentle rush of cool, ozoned air, and heard the sounds of computers and voices chattering.
“Here we are,” Monroe said, stepping aside. He gestured for Owen to proceed.
Through the door, Owen entered a wide, rambling room with several lit spaces scattered through it, and patches of darkness between them. The voices Owen had heard came from a group of sofas and armchairs in formation around a wide coffee table made of black glass. A group of kids roughly Owen’s age occupied the furniture, and Javier was among them.
“Let’s introduce you,” Monroe said as he stepped around Owen and moved toward the others.
Owen followed him, and as they came into the light, the group fell silent and Javier stood.
“You made it,” he said, sounding relieved. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Owen said. “I’m okay. What is this?”
“Ask him,” Javier said, nodding toward Monroe. “It’s his.”
Monroe cleared his throat. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is Owen. Owen, you already know Javier. This is Grace and her brother, David.” He gestured toward a girl with dark brown skin and a soft smile, her curly hair pulled back, while the younger, skinny boy sitting next to her grinned beneath white-framed glasses. Both wore nice clothes, with designer jeans Owen’s mom could never afford.
“And this is Natalya,” Monroe said, pointing to a girl with olive skin and somewhat narrow eyes, her brown hair shot with bronze. She wore a plain navy hoodie over a white T-shirt, and she met Owen’s nod with a blank expression.
“And finally,” Monroe said, indicating a boy Owen had just then noticed sitting in a wheelchair, “this is Sean.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Owen,” Sean said. He had short reddish hair, pale skin with some scattered freckles, and massive shoulders and arms.
“Good to meet you, too,” Owen said. Then he turned to Monroe. “What are we all doing here? And you still haven’t told me about that Assassin.”
“Assassin?” Javier said.
Monroe held up his hands and kind of stretched his neck. “Just chill out for a minute, okay? I’ll explain everything—”
“I don’t have a minute,” Owen said. “I need to get home. I mean, is my mom in danger?”
“No,” Monroe said. “I can guarantee you that much.”
“How?” Owen asked.
“She’s an innocent,” Monroe said. “That would violate a tenet of the Creed.”
“What creed?” Javier asked.
“The Assassin’s Creed,” Monroe said. “But I’m getting ahead of myself. Please, Owen, Javier, have a seat.”
Owen and Javier looked at each other, and then slowly took one of the couches.
“Now,” Monroe said, “with the exception of Owen and Javier, and of course Grace and David, none of you know one another. You’re from different schools, different neighborhoods, different backgrounds. But you have one thing in common. Your DNA. You’ve all used my Animus, and the truth is that I’ve been looking for you.”