Not long after that, the plane dipped in its approach over the mountains, and everyone found a window from which to look out. They flew low enough, the trees appearing to look like individual, green brush strokes against a canvas of gray rock and snow. The mountain range had almost endless peaks and ridges, dips and valleys, rivers, its terrain spreading for miles in all directions.
“That is the Burkhan Khaldun.”
“Which mountain?” David asked.
“That one, there,” Yanmei said.
She pointed to one of the highest peaks. It wasn’t an Everest in size or height, but something about it struck Javier as singular, imposing, and even regal, with its crown of white ice and its throne of green.
“Look for any sign of a Templar camp,” Griffin said.
Javier strained to bring the distant ground into focus, but trees grew everywhere, and the camp would have to be pretty big to be visible from their elevation.
“Can the pilot take us down any lower?” David asked.
“Perhaps,” Yanmei said. “I can go—”
Something exploded outside the plane, and the cabin jerked hard enough to throw Javier’s face against the window, bashing his nose. He tasted blood, and his eyes watered, the ground outside the window racing closer to them.
“We’ve been hit!” Yanmei shouted.
Javier looked out a window on the other side of the jet, and saw one of the engines blown partially away, trailing a thick black smoke.
Javier felt the sudden loss of altitude pressing him into his seat, the rattling shaking the air from his lungs. They were going to crash. Javier had been training with an Assassin, he’d broken into a police warehouse, and he’d raided a Templar stronghold, and he was going to die in a plane crash.
“I’m going up front!” Yanmei shouted. She unbuckled and pulled herself out of her chair, then walked through the cabin, arms spread wide, and disappeared into the cockpit.
“Hold tight, everyone!” Griffin shouted. “We’ll make a landing. We’ve still got one engine.”
“Unless they shoot at us again!” David said.
The damage to the plane didn’t look like mechanical failure, and Yanmei had called it a hit. That had to be the Templars. They were down there, and the flyover had been a mistake. Even if they survived, the Templars now knew they were there.
Yanmei lurched back down the aisle and dove into her seat. “We’re going to make an emergency landing! The pilot spotted an open field!”
“Brace yourselves!” Griffin shouted. “Heads down and stay down!”
Javier obeyed, and then he waited, listening to the howl of the one remaining engine, and the deafening rattle of what sounded like every single part of the plane. From the corner of his eye, to the right, he could see the mountains out the window, not below them, but alongside them. The tops of the pine trees looked close enough to smell.
They were about to hit.
Grace did not like Owen’s plan.
So far, it consisted of him searching the lounge, and their dorms, and finally one of the Animus rooms, looking for things he could use to make something that resembled what he called a pain grenade.
“But you’re not making an actual grenade,” Grace said.
They sat in the bathroom of Grace’s dorm, hoping that was the one place Abstergo hadn’t installed surveillance.
“No,” Owen said. “It just has to look like one.”
He held up a canister he’d assembled from the can of an energy drink, some wires, with an outer shell of electrical tape, and that is exactly what it looked like. “You seriously think that’s going to fool anybody?”
“It’s close enough it’ll work,” Owen said. “Come on, let’s go.”
He tucked the taped-up can inside a pocket, and they left the bathroom. If someone, somewhere in the Aerie had watched them go in there together, Grace wondered about what that person would assume, and then realized she didn’t care.
They left her dorm, and went out into the hallway. It was late, well after midnight, and the hallways were deserted as they headed toward the main building. They already knew how far they could get by going in the other direction, but wondered if there could be a better way to access one of the two remaining buildings they’d hadn’t yet explored.
They reached the glass walkway and crept along it, into the large atrium, which they then crossed toward another walkway on the other side. No doorways had been locked so far, and they’d encountered no security.
“You’d think after what happened, they’d have tightened things up,” Grace said.
Owen looked over his shoulder, behind them. “Maybe they’ve all gone with Isaiah to Mongolia.”
“Maybe,” Grace said. “But still. This seems strange.”
When they reached the new walkway, they found it opened without a fingerprint or key code, and they entered it carefully, unsure of where it would lead them. The trees here grew closer to the building, and the walkway hunkered in their shadows, making the passage darker than the rest. When they reached the far side, they entered a building that seemed different than the others. There were fewer doors, with occasional windows that offered views inside large laboratories full of computers and robotics.
“This looks like the place Abstergo cooks everything up,” Owen said.
“They told Sean they could build him prosthetic legs.”
Owen scowled. “No wonder Isaiah’s got him hooked. But it’s hard to blame him for that side of it.”
“Why?”
“You don’t think you’d want to walk again?”
“Of course I would, but that’s not the problem.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“Sean needs to know that he’s fine either way. That he’s not defined by his legs or his ability to walk.”
“Did you get that from Victoria?”
“No. I got that from myself.”
They walked on in silence, through more hallways of laboratories, until they came to another glass walkway. That passage would most likely take them to the fifth building, but this door had a thumbprint scanner and required a key code.
“Does that fake pain grenade open doors?” Grace asked.
“Maybe we should search the labs for something we could use to open it.”
“You won’t find anything,” said a woman’s voice behind them.
Grace spun around, her neck on fire. A Templar agent stood behind them, cutting off their escape the way they had come.
“Cole,” Owen said.
The woman pointed a gun at them, and looking at her, Grace had no doubt she would use it. “I’ve been watching you since you left your dorm,” Cole said. “What are you doing here?”
“Just looking around,” Grace said.
“Remember me from the other night?” Owen asked.
Cole’s eyes narrowed. “You think it’s smart to remind me of that right now?”
Owen pulled out the fake pain grenade, keeping it mostly obscured in his fist. “How about I remind you of this?”
Cole stared at the grenade for a moment, and Grace waited for her reaction.
“Doesn’t look familiar,” Cole finally said. “But maybe that’s because you just made it.”
Grace wanted to swear at Owen. This whole plan had been stupid and ridiculous from the beginning, but she had gone along with it, thinking that an almost-Assassin might have learned a thing or two in the past few weeks.
Owen looked at the fake grenade, and then dropped it on the floor. “So what happens now?”
“First, pick up that trash.”
“Seriously?”
“Pick it up!”
Owen bent over and recovered the fake grenade.
“Now, you are going to march through that door, and I am going to take you to the holding cells.” She kept the gun on them and marched up to the control pad on the door, where she scanned her thumb and entered her code. The door opened.
“Move,” she said.
Owe
n led the way, and Grace marched behind him. They entered the walkway and followed its track through the woods, where it eventually followed the mountain slope downward, like the walkway to the garage on the other side of the Aerie.
“You’re going to lock us up?” Grace said to Cole.
“Keep moving.”
“Going to be hard to explain that to my dad,” Grace added.
“Not my problem,” Cole said. “We can make your dad think what we want him to think. We’ve got enough surveillance of you sneaking around, I could shoot you both and say it was self-defense.”
Grace fell silent then. The Aerie suddenly felt very isolated, the night outside very cold.
Next to her, Owen walked with his head bowed, but she could tell his mind was racing. She wanted to think of a way out of this, too, but she still wasn’t exactly sure what this was. What could the Templars really do? She knew what they’d done in the past, in New York, but she didn’t think they could get away with that in the modern world. She had also begun to trust Victoria, and wanted to believe she wouldn’t hurt any of them. But Grace didn’t know anything about Cole.
They reached the bottom of the slope, and the passage reached a door into the mountain, also secured with an electronic lock. Cole opened it, and they entered the fifth building. This part of the Aerie had a very different feel. It was colder, and had none of the touches that made the rest of the facility inviting or impressive, giving Grace the impression that this wasn’t meant to be seen by many.
“Proceed down the hall,” Cole said.
They marched past a series of secured doors until Cole ordered them to stop. Then she opened up one of the unmarked doors with her key code, and spoke to someone inside.
“It’s time,” she said.
Monroe stepped out into the hallway. “Good to see you both.”
“Monroe?” Owen moved toward him. “What—”
“Stop talking and march,” Cole said. “Straight ahead.”
Monroe nodded, made eye contact with Grace, and smiled. Then the three of them moved down the hallway and followed Cole’s orders until they reached a vaulted room that resembled a warehouse, the walls and ceiling made of rock, with tall shelves and several of the large shipping containers Grace had seen stacked on ships. Cole directed them toward one of them.
“Is everything prepared?” Monroe asked.
“Yes,” Cole said. “This unit is carrying sensitive equipment, so it’s climate-controlled and oxygenated. I made sure you have water, food, and a couple of lanterns. I’m afraid there’s only a bucket for … other things.”
Grace looked over at Owen. What the hell was going on?
“Are you sure you won’t be in danger?” Monroe asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Surveillance is deactivated, but I made it look like it was done by someone hacking into one of the Animus rooms.” She turned to Owen. “I’ll take that piece of trash now.”
Owen smiled and pulled out the fake grenade. “You’re Rothenberg.”
She took the grenade from him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
It had now become obvious to Grace that Cole was some kind of double agent, or a mole, and she was helping them escape. Grace didn’t know why, and she didn’t know who Rothenberg was, but in that moment, she didn’t care.
“Better get inside,” Cole said. “Surveillance will be coming back online, and I need to get in position. The hardest part will be convincing them that I fell for this thing.” She held up the fake grenade.
“I owe you,” Monroe said.
“Call it even,” Cole said. “Supplies in the far left corner.”
Monroe nodded and stepped inside the shipping container. Owen followed him, and then Grace took a deep breath and did the same. Then she turned around toward the opening as Cole pulled the doors closed.
“Settle in,” she told them. “It’s twenty-four hours to Mongolia.”
Then she shut the doors, causing total darkness, and Grace heard the latch engage. Then she heard the sounds of someone moving, thumping and tapping along a far corner of the container, until a light bloomed.
“There,” Monroe said, lifting a lantern onto a nearby crate.
“Is she Rothenberg?” Owen asked.
“Cole is an old friend,” Monroe said. “I helped her once, and she promised to return the favor. I called her weeks ago. If she wanted you to know more about her, she would have told you. Leave it at that, or you might put her in danger. She’s risking her life for you two.”
That statement made Grace question her assumptions about the limits of the modern Templars. She looked around for a place to sit down, and landed on a cardboard box. Then she let out a long sigh and leaned forward.
“Where have you been?” Owen asked Monroe.
“Hiding out,” he said. “Preparing. From what I saw in the garage, you and Javier obtained some training somewhere.”
Owen nodded. “We were with Griffin. The Assassins.”
“Ah.” He looked at Grace. “And the rest of you were here at the Aerie.”
Grace nodded.
“What does Isaiah know?” Monroe asked.
“He knows about the Piece of Eden in Mongolia,” Grace said. “And we just found out they think there’s another one in Scandinavia.”
Monroe sat down on a crate, the lantern lighting one half of his face. “What about the one in New York?”
“What do you mean?” Owen said. “I thought you had it.”
Grace had assumed that, too.
“No, I don’t have it,” Monroe said. “You didn’t find it?”
“We found where it was hidden,” Owen said. “But someone else had beaten everyone to it.”
“I hope that doesn’t mean there’s a third player.” Monroe tugged the ponytail out of his graying hair and scratched his head. “So that means there are still two missing prongs, assuming they eventually find this one in Mongolia.”
“We’re going to stop them, right?” Owen said.
“We’re going to try,” Monroe said. “Does Isaiah know about the Ascendance Event?”
“He mentioned it,” Grace said. “But I don’t think the Templars understand it.”
Monroe nodded. “Good.”
Grace waited a moment, and when Monroe failed to elaborate, she said, “We don’t understand it, either, by the way.”
Monroe looked into the lantern, lighting up his whole face. The glow deepened the wrinkles around his eyes, his mouth, and his forehead, making him seem older and more tired. “I’m not sure now is the time.”
“We’re going to be stuck in this thing for twenty-four hours,” Owen said. “Can you think of a better time?”
Monroe nodded. And kept nodding, as if thinking. “Okay. Okay, maybe you’re right. I wish the others were here, but … The thing you have to understand is that even though I discovered the Ascendance Event, I don’t know exactly what effect it will have. Isaiah believes it will hold great power. A weapon. But I’m not convinced. I think it’s a source of wisdom. Enlightenment.”
“But what is it?” Grace asked.
“You already know about genetic memory. I spent my time at Abstergo researching it, decoding it, taking it apart, trying to make sure we understood everything there was to know, so that we could better exploit it. But in my analysis one day, I found something unusual. A subcode in the DNA beneath the primary code. It was like a background signal buried in the main transmission.”
“What was it?” Grace asked.
“At the time, I didn’t know, but once I knew what to look for, I found more of it. In fragments. Snippets here and there. Not everyone carries it, although I suspect at one time, everyone did.”
“Did you figure out what it is?” Owen asked.
“I think so. I believe it’s the collective unconscious of the human race.”
“As in psychology?” Grace asked.
“Yes,” Monroe said. “Carl Jung coined the term. He believed that all of humanity shar
ed the same collection of fundamental images, symbols, and archetypes, passed down from the beginnings of the Homo sapiens species, during the Paleolithic era.”
“You believe that?” Owen asked.
“I think the theory has been overinterpreted,” Monroe said. “Some people see the mystical in it. They think the symbols are magical in some way, with esoteric power. But I’m a scientist. I didn’t want mysticism, I wanted to understand the mechanics of this sub-DNA. So I dug deeper, and I started running proto-simulations with it, just to see what would happen.”
“What’s a protosimulation?” Grace asked.
“In the lab we would sometimes run a kind of … simulated simulation, using a rudimentary artificial intelligence as the subject, just to see if the simulation would hold, and what it looked like. And this new sub-DNA …” He rubbed his goatee. “Are either of you afraid of spiders?”
“Not really,” Grace said.
“Yes,” Owen said. “Why?”
“That’s what the collective unconscious is like,” Monroe said. “Some people are born afraid of spiders. It’s an unconscious fear.”
“Like an instinct?” Grace asked.
“In a way, but more complex than that. Have you wondered why so many of us have that fear? I think the answer is that somewhere in our ancient past, we learned that spiders can be deadly, and that memory got passed on. It’s like a genetic memory, but it’s not specific to one lineage or one ancestor. Well, it is, but it comes from a time so far back we were barely human, so that whole notion loses meaning. But now, all these millennia later, some people have that fear of spiders, and some people have lost it.”
“So what does this have to do with the Ascendance Event?” Owen asked.
“I’m getting there.” Monroe stood up and took a few steps away from them. “I started analyzing every strand of DNA in Abstergo’s possession, looking for more fragments. It became an obsession, I admit. I wanted to re-create the entire collective unconscious sub-DNA. It would be like going back in time to the birth of humanity. But I made the mistake of telling Isaiah about it, and after that, it became his obsession, too. But like I said, he saw power in it. Something he could hopefully use in some way, not learn from.”