Tomb of the Khan

  “Oh,” Sean said.

  He’d become attached to the giant policeman in a way he never had with anyone else in his life. Sean had learned Tommy’s beat, and he’d become friends with his fellow patrolmen on the Broadway Squad. He’d been with Tommy through brawls and injuries and heartbreak. He’d retired from the force and gone to London with Tommy as a Pinkerton agent, and he’d learned about himself with and through Tommy’s strength.

  “Can I still go into Tommy’s memories? Sometimes?”

  “Perhaps,” Isaiah said. “When it doesn’t interfere with the research.”

  “We’ll notify your parents about all this, of course,” Victoria added.

  Sean didn’t really need to think about it. He would help Isaiah and Abstergo however he could. It was just hard to say good-bye to a life that felt as though it had become his own. But he finally nodded, to himself as much as Victoria and Isaiah.

  “Okay,” he said. “Then who’s next?”

  Victoria swiped her tablet. “We’re going to go back a little farther in your ancestry. Ireland, late eighteenth century.”

  “Okay,” Sean said. “Okay, let’s do it.”

  “Excellent,” Isaiah said, smiling. “You, Sean, are destined for great things. We’re going to make history, the three of us.”

  Sean was almost embarrassed how much it meant to hear that. After the accident, it didn’t seem as though anyone expected anything from him, and any achievement, no matter how small or normal for someone who could walk, made him a hero. It felt good to be valued for something real, and something only he could do.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “Thank you,” Isaiah said. “And now, I’ll leave you in Dr. Bibeau’s capable hands.” He strode across the Animus room and out the door.

  Sean adjusted himself in the harness, and waited patiently as Dr. Bibeau went about rechecking all the equipment connections. Then she returned to the computer monitors and went to work. Sean looked up at the ceiling, listening to her tapping and typing, excited by what this new simulation would be like, and what it might mean.

  “All right,” Victoria said a few minutes later. “I’m preparing to bring the Parietal Suppressor online. Are you ready?”

  “Ready,” Sean said.

  Victoria came over and placed the helmet over his head, enveloping him in a shroud of sight and sound, cutting him off from the rest of the world. Compared to Monroe’s Animus, the first time using this machine had been like stepping out of a horse and buggy and into a Ferrari.

  Can you hear me, Sean? Victoria asked.

  “Yes.”

  We’re all set out here. Are you ready?

  Sean took a deep breath. This was the only part about the Animus he didn’t like, but he closed his eyes. “Ready.”

  Try to relax. Loading the Memory Corridor now …

  Once, on vacation, when Sean was five years old, he fell into a river swollen with spring rain. The raging current swept him away before anyone could grab him. His memories of the incident came mostly from what his parents had told him later, but partly from what he actually remembered. The part he remembered wasn’t much, but it had stayed with him. A feeling of total powerlessness against this thing. This living wall of water he couldn’t fight that tumbled him and pulled him and completely overwhelmed him.

  That was what the Parietal Suppressor felt like.

  His uncle had been fishing farther downstream and managed to snatch Sean from the river. But his uncle wasn’t here now, and this wasn’t a river. The torrent was inside Sean’s own head.

  The Memory Corridor flashed into existence around him, blinding at first, but quickly settled into a formless glow, like a foggy day where you can’t find the sun.

  Parietal insertion in three, two, one …

  The wave smashed into him.

  Grace felt the same way Sean did. Or, at least, the same way she assumed he might feel. She didn’t really know, because they hadn’t exactly talked about it, but she thought he might be here at the Aerie for reasons similar to hers, even though people on the outside probably wouldn’t find their connections obvious.

  She watched him as he left the lounge, and then David started talking about his simulation in the memories of their great-grandpa, who’d served with the 302nd back when the military was still segregated, flying his P-51 Mustang.

  “They have three colored lights under the tip of the right wing, to flash code signals to the ground. Red, green, and amber.” He grinned, and then said, “the ultimate flight simulator,” for maybe the fiftieth time.

  “Red, green, and amber?” Grace said. “This isn’t some computer game. We’re not here to have fun.”

  “But it is fun,” David said. “Why do you have to ruin everything, Grace?”

  Grace was only half listening to him, thinking instead about Sean, and watching Natalya as she stared at the door, probably thinking about Sean, too. Grace didn’t know exactly what had happened between them, but Sean got fidgety and quiet whenever Natalya was around. It was obvious he liked her, but Grace couldn’t tell how Natalya felt about him. That girl kept so much to herself she was like a tortoise. You could see her head and her feet and that was about it.

  So they sat there, and Grace sipped her coffee, letting David ramble until his eggs got cold.

  “What about the racism?” Natalya finally asked him.

  David got quiet. “I get mad about that. We get harassed by some of the white fighter squadrons, even though we’re better than they are. Some of the white bomber squadrons refuse us as escorts. It doesn’t matter how well we fly, people assume we can’t be good pilots because we’re black.”

  “I’m sorry,” Natalya said.

  David just nodded.

  Grace didn’t point out that David was speaking in the present-tense “we.” That happened to all of them. It could still get confusing for her if she didn’t work hard to keep it straight. She assumed that was partly what Victoria’s weekly therapy sessions were for.

  Natalya turned to Grace. “What about your new simulation?”

  David smirked. “Grace is a gold miner.”

  Natalya eyebrows went up. “Really?”

  “A gold trader, actually,” Grace said. “He’s from West Africa in the fourteenth century. His people were important in the medieval kingdoms of Ghana and Mali. That’s what my dad says anyway.”

  “Wow,” Natalya said. “Can we trade ancestors?”

  “Sure,” Grace said. At least Natalya’s ancestor was supposed to have contact with a Piece of Eden. “I’d rather be doing what we came here to do.”

  Natalya paused. “And I’d rather not kill people.”

  Grace could see it wasn’t meant as an attack against her personally. It was true that the thought of killing people in the simulation didn’t bother Grace as much as maybe it should. But then, at least one of her ancestors, Eliza, was an Assassin. Victoria hadn’t let Grace get anywhere near those genetic memories again.

  “You really trust them?” Natalya asked.

  “Who?” Grace asked.

  “Isaiah and Victoria.”

  “I know they’re offering us the chance to do something important,” Grace said.

  “Is that why you came back?” Natalya asked.

  The answer to that question was more complicated than a simple “yes,” but that was all Grace gave her.

  In the beginning, with Monroe, Grace’s only goal had been to get her and her brother home safely. Then the Templars had caught them, or rescued them, depending on which way you looked at it. The agents had brought them to this Abstergo facility and explained everything. How the Templars has been waging a secret war with the Assassins throughout all of history. They’d explained the Templar mission to achieve a stable and peaceful world, where progress could be encouraged and driven forward.

  Of course, then Grace’s parents had come, and her dad had taken them both home immediately. David had objected, and Grace had, too, a little. But that was just how
their dad was. He was a welder, and he’d been laid off more than once. He wasn’t inclined to trust any corporation of Abstergo’s size and wealth. Right after they got home there’d been another gang shooting, this one just two blocks away. Grace’s parents did their best to keep the family safe, and Grace did her best to steer David away from trouble, but in the wrong place at the wrong time, none of that mattered. So their dad had sent them back to the security of the Aerie, and if David didn’t start taking this seriously, Grace worried Abstergo would kick them both out of the program.

  “Can we get going?” David asked, his plate empty.

  “Sure,” Grace said.

  “You coming, Natalya?” David asked.

  She shook her head. “You go on ahead.”

  So they said good-bye to her and left her in the lounge, making their way through the glass walkways to the Animus hall. She left David in his room with a tech and went to her own. A tech waited for her, too, but no Victoria.

  So Grace waited.

  And waited.

  It was some time before Victoria came in, a little out of breath.

  “So sorry, Grace. It’s been a somewhat complicated morning. Are you ready to venture to West Africa?”

  The waiting had left Grace irritable. “The Piece of Eden isn’t there.”

  “You’ve only spent a few hours in those memories,” Victoria said. “Timbuktu was a major hub of trade.”

  “It just seems like a waste of time,” Grace said.

  Victoria sighed and rubbed her forehead with her thumb and index finger. “I know you’re impatient. But there is no other way. The data we pulled from Monroe’s files is incomplete. If we had his Animus core, we would know exactly where to send you.”

  “So you haven’t found him?”

  “No.”

  “What about Owen and Javier?”

  “You would know if we had. But the information we do have leads us to conclude that some of your ancestors had contact with the prongs of the Trident. We’re doing the best we can with what we have, correlating with historical data, cross-referencing with your friends, trying to narrow it down. That all takes time.”

  Grace stepped into the ring and climbed into the harness. “I wish I could take Natalya’s place. She doesn’t even want to go. And she’s the best bet right now, isn’t she?”

  “I admit, it would be nice if we could send you into her memories. But this Animus is much faster, and more stable and reliable than using Helix.”

  “So I just have to wait and do nothing.”

  “Not nothing.”

  “If feels like nothing.”

  “Why does it feel that way?”

  Grace noticed a change in Victoria’s posture as she switched from scientist-mode to shrink-mode. The woman’s head now tilted a little, her eyes very soft and earnest. But Grace wasn’t in the mood for therapy.

  “Never mind. Let’s just do this. West Africa, it is.”

  Victoria hesitated. “Are you sure? We can talk about this.”

  “I’m good.” Grace readied herself. “Maybe I’ll find something this time.”

  “If you’re sure,” Victoria said, turning slowly toward the computers. “I’ll bring up the simulation where you left off yesterday.” Then she hooked Grace up to the exoframe and all the hardware, established her baseline vitals for the day, and placed the helmet over her head.

  Are you ready?

  “Ready.”

  Loading the Memory Corridor in three, two, one …

  Brilliant sparks flared in Grace’s mind, and in the next moment she was standing in that familiar void of misty forms that came in and out of view without ever settling on anything fully recognizable.

  How are you doing?

  “Just fine.”

  The simulation is prepared. Just say the word.

  Grace closed her eyes, waiting for the Parietal Suppressor to break through the wall around her mind like a battering ram. “Ready.”

  Parietal insertion in three, two, one …

  The battering ram hit her, and it felt as if it split her skull right open, but that feeling gradually passed, replaced by a very weird sensation of floating, of being everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It was like there wasn’t any difference between her and the world around her. The boundaries between her thoughts, her body, and the matter that made up the universe had become smudged and blurred.

  Loading genetic identity in three, two, one …

  The walls around Grace’s mind returned, and the entire weight of the world slammed back into place. She staggered a bit, and looked down at her ancestor’s body.

  Masireh was a slender man. He wore sandals, and robes, with a sash around his waist, and a dagger. A cap covered his head, and he stood outside Grace’s consciousness. She felt him waiting there, and though it was still difficult for her, she had become practiced at opening the gate to allow him into her thoughts.

  It helped that she already knew him from the day before. His wife and his children. His trade and his world. He was actually a lot like her dad.

  Take a few moments to—

  “I’m ready.”

  Okay then. Loading full simulation in three, two, one …

  The gray of the Memory Corridor became saturated with shades of tan and brown, and a breeze carried sand into Grace’s eyes and mouth. The fine grit of it collected in the creases near her eyes. Then she was standing in a street of Timbuktu.

  The buildings around her seemed to have been sculpted from the desert, their smooth walls made of mud brick and sand. Palm fronds and grasses thatched their roofs, and over the top of them, Grace could see the mosque, its tower studded with wooden beams, like the spines of a cactus. A white sun pressed down on all of it with the heat of a clothes iron, and Grace found it hard to breathe.

  A camel bellowed behind her, and she hurried out of its way. The beast carried its owner’s load of salt, which had become a very lucrative commodity, though not as lucrative as Masireh’s gold trade.

  Grace turned full access over to him, and he resumed walking toward his destination, a meeting with a merchant from Marrakech. Masireh carried with him the hope for a possible new trade relationship with this merchant. Such would give him more direct access to the Spaniards and other Kafir kingdoms to the north. There were some who opposed doing business with Jews and Christians, but Masireh tempered his own faith with pragmatism.

  Along the way, he passed through the luxury goods market and stopped to admire a bolt of fine silk from Persia. The red fabric flowed and slipped between his fingers almost like water, and he made a plan to purchase it on his way home.

  The Marrakech merchant had lodged himself in an inn at the edge of town, and while it might have been more fitting for the man to present himself at Masireh’s home, the offense was forgivable in the interest of business.

  When Masireh reached the inn, its keeper directed him around the back toward a pavilion where the merchant and several of his men had situated themselves.

  “Do you know him?” the innkeeper asked, his left eye narrowed.

  “I know of him,” Masireh said, and walked toward the meeting.

  The merchant was a solidly built man, dressed in very fine robes, with much lighter skin than Masireh’s, and a lengthy beard. “Peace,” Masireh said as he approached the pavilion.

  “Welcome, I am honored,” the merchant said, and bade Masireh to sit upon a very fine cushion. “I have heard of your high reputation, both the quality of your gold, and the integrity of your dealings.”

  “You humble me,” Masireh said.

  The merchant’s men moved to stand at the edges of the pavilion, stationed along the sides and corners, forming a circle. That didn’t seem to bother Masireh, but it gave Grace a twinge of misgiving.

  “Please,” the merchant said, pointing toward a pot upon a charcoal brazier. “Let me offer you some tea.”

  Masireh bowed his head. “I thank you.”

  The merchant poured, and Masireh dran
k, and for the next hour their conversation circled wide around the true reason for their meeting, discussing instead where the merchant had recently traveled, and how he found the journey from Marrakech. Only after they had boiled the tea leaves three times did they turn to the matter at hand.

  “You have regular buyers?” Masireh asked.

  “I do,” the merchant said. “And they are eager to make an agreement with me to obtain your gold.”

  “I am eager to do business with them,” Masireh said.

  “There is only one requirement upon which they are quite insistent.”

  Masireh leaned forward. “And what is that?”

  The merchant hesitated. “I trust you, Masireh. It pains me to even bring this matter to you, but my buyers would like assurances that your supply of gold will meet their needs. It would do them no good if your mines should fail tomorrow, leaving them to seek a new source of gold elsewhere.”

  “I take no offense,” Masireh said. “But I assure you, my mines will continue to produce gold long after I am gone, and my grandchildren are holding meetings like this one with your grandchildren.”

  “For myself, I believe you. But my buyers insist that I inspect the mines, myself.”

  Grace felt another twinge, but this time, so did Masireh. He shifted on the cushion, which had started to feel less comfortable. The pavilion had become quite hot as well, shaded though they were.

  “I’m afraid that isn’t possible,” Masireh said. “The locations of the mines of Wangara are closely guarded secrets. I believe you know that.”

  The merchant nodded. “Indeed I do. And I would not ask such a thing were my buyers at all moveable on the question.”

  “Then they will be disappointed,” Masireh said, blinking. His vision had become somewhat blurry, possibly from the brightness of the sun. Grace knew otherwise, and if she could have, she would have gotten Masireh to his feet and walked him quickly away before it was too late. But she knew doing so would change the memory, which would desynchronize her from the simulation, kicking her out. With the Parietal Suppressor bombarding her brain, desynchronization was an extremely unpleasant experience.

  “Is there nothing I can do to persuade you?” the merchant asked.