Clay Kaczmarek

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Subject 16 is an individual that Abstergo Industries kidnapped and forced in the Animus before Desmond Miles ("Subject 17") and another descendant of Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad and Ezio Auditore da Firenze. He is related to Desmond, as portions of their DNA matched in Assassin's Creed II, and it is also revealed that he had an ancestor at the Battle of Gettysburg, in the Roman forum and one connected with a Queen Isabella.

Assassin's Creed

Former Abstergo employee and researcher Lucy reveals in one of her e-mails to her supervisor, Warren Vidic, that Subject 16 has Far Eastern origins, as one of his ancestors was "involved in an important event" in said area. A different e-mail possibly indicates that his name is "Neumann". The same email also hints that former employee (now deceased) Leila Marino of Abstergo Industries may have been romantically involved with Subject 16. This suggests a romantic involvement prior to his kidnapping or that Leilia worked with Subject 16 in the same way as Lucy works with Desmond.

At Abstergo's orders, Subject 16 was kept connected to the Animus for dangerously long sessions, sometimes even days at a time. This lead to a severe and powerful "bleeding effect" as Subject 16 became more capable of revisiting these genetic memories without the use of the Animus. Due to his inability to actually control these phenomena, Subject 16 slowly spiraled into insanity, eventually culminating in suicide. Not much else is known about Subject 16.

At the end of Assassin's Creed, due to his own experience with the bleeding effect, Desmond is able to use Eagle Vision to view several cryptic messages that were drawn in blood. Subject 16 states in one message that he drained his own body to paint the figures on the floor and walls of the main room where the Animus is located. But if he had used his own blood to paint the wall mural in the sleeping room, he would have bled out — literally — before he finished his work. It is possible but not probable that some of the messages were drawn with Leila Marino's blood and, in part, the cause of her death.

The symbols painted on the walls and floors later reappear in Assassin's Creed II as glyphs, parts of encrypted files that Subject 16 added to genetic memories after he hacked the Animus.

Assassin's Creed II

Subject 16 makes his first vocal appearance in Assassin's Creed II, voicing-over twenty encrypted files that he hacked from Abstergo's main frame. After all twenty files are decrypted, they combine to form a short video which contains what Subject 16 claims to be "The Truth" about the origins of humanity. In the video, a man and a woman who refer to one another as Adam and Eve race through a modern complex, with Eve carrying "the apple" (which is, in fact, one of the Pieces of Eden). The short diatribes from these files, as well as commentary from Lucy, reveal a bit more about the extent of the madness which lead to Subject 16's death. In his final commentary in the twentieth file, Subject 16 only states, "Lucy, I can't wait any longer. I am ready to go now... She sees me raise the knife."

In the beginning of the game, Lucy searches for the closest genetic match between Subject 16 and Desmond, and the memory of Ezio's birth appears.