User:Soranin/Sandbox4

2015

• December:
  • Two months after the Incident at Buckingham Palace, the Assassins were focusing on finding the location of Álvaro Gramatica's laboratory which Bishop managed to hack in one of his camera feeds, but wasn't able to pinpoint where it was however, designating the finding of the laboratory a top priority for the Brotherhood. She used the Hephaestus network to send a message worldwide to all available cells in which she stated the instructions to follow: -Discover the lab location. -Kill Dr. Gramática. -Recover the second Shroud of Eden and any other artifacts found in the lab. -Destroy all Abstergo cloning technology that may result in a successful attempt at bringing a full on ISU back to life. With the message sent, she urged all personnel, Initiate or Assassin, to report back with any possible lead on Gramática's whereabouts.
  • Arend Schut and Harlan T. Cunningham were having a honeymoon touring in western Europe when they were interrupted by Bishop's orders to track down Álvaro Gramática. They both immediately started to look after their target, but the lab was nowhere to be found, leading them to think that it wasn't in Europe. They went to England next, but quickly figured that it was impossible to maneuver there as with the recent death of Isabelle Ardant, Historical Research was scrambling to replace her and the whole country crawled with Sigma and Delta team's operatives looking for Assassins. Arend believed however, that the reason for so much presence in London was due to a massive regrouping in order to heal the ranks rather than hiding something, so they also crossed the UK off their list of possible secret lab hideouts.Next stop was Paris, though they soon realized the city was clean, there was no Abstergo presence at all after Gavin, Shaun and Galina raided the lab back in october 2014, noting that “Even Abstergo is not dumb enough to put a new one in the same city”, however, they had noticed that Abstergo had a certain interest in the Saclay Business Cluster but, as they were in a hurry they had no time to investigate any further on that matter, so they were about to leave East to Italy hoping to find something there, highlighting how he was excited to go to Florence but that Harlan still had bad memories of what happened years ago. Arend also sent out a message to the Ninidze Brothers in Georgia to see what was the situation over there but they never responded. Their radio silence had them worried leaving them with no other alternative but to hope for the best assuming that the chaos left over by war is what kept them silent.
  • Bishop received news from Jasdip Dhami whom had been running interference among the Templars in Bangalore, India, as well as performing recon with hopes of discovering the Lab, but nothing came through. He just managed to find some still operational Abstergo subsidiaries around the city, but nothing too important besides a high concentration of soldiers making sure the Assassins could not pillage any kind of technology nor genetic memory sets from them again. He also stated his concerns about the Initiates involvement in the hunt for Álvaro and their overall conflict against Templars, thanking them for their data mining and contribution to rebuild the Hephaestus network, but that after all, they were mere civilians and as untrained civilians, it meant a liability instead of an asset, thus being in danger if in the Templar's crosshairs. This was the last update he made before he ought to go south, heading to Australia in order to investigate further in his research of Álvaro's lab.
  • According to Kiyoshi Takakura the Japanese brotherhood was stronger than ever after Gavin's help in securing Tokyo two years prior. Osoroshii Baba took the initiative of sending Assassins in the Koreas and China to help search Álvaro's Lab as Japan was clear of any important Abstergo presence. Because of that, Kiyoshi decided to go alongside his brothers to China as he was also looking forward to eating all kinds of food he had been craving to try. Kiyoshi stated that he was going to investigate the Shandong province as there were a lot of Abstergo's holdings in Hi-tech developing zones scattered through the region. After investigating the Shandong province and invigorating himself with local food, he headed to Dalian, were Abstergo exported lots of its products and technologies from, hoping that if he followed the shipment trails as Gavin did in order to find the top secret lab in Paris he would eventually stumble upon Álvaro's laboratory. However, it was a dead end, as no shipment manifests nor indications of suspect payloads destined to undisclosed locations were found by Kiyoshi and his team, leading him to the last location he'd hoped to find some sort of clue to Álvaro's Lab whereabouts, Xi'an's Hi-Tech development zone, which is able to acquire thousands of Abstergo-funded university graduates in the area as it was almost entirely owned by Abstergo Industries, Kiyoshi thought that if there was one place in China a secret complex could be hidden in, that would be the place.
  • Eric Cooper sent out his status report to Bishop. The situation wasn't really good among the Initiates. Eric was worried for their safety ever since Juhani Otso Berg uploaded Shay's video to the Assassin network, as they were forced to relocate secret hideouts and rework the majority of firewalls within the Hephaestus system to avoid any other intrusion by Abstergo. The analyst Bishop had contacted the year prior to analyze the Arno Dorian casefile at Abstergo Montreal was dead, Berg had discovered his actions and used the same feed Bishop used to communicate with him to monitor the Initiates and see where they would escape in order to send strike teams to take them out. Furthermore, the vast majority of the Initiates that made their network possible were being shut down progressively. Influential supporters such as military contacts were being discharged or transferred. Wealthy private citizens audited or bought by Abstergo and their subsidiaries and the high placed contacts among politicians had to face budget cuts and challenges to their authorities to the point of discreditation. Eric insisted that they were being targeted. Imploring for help and some course of action to avoid the death of innocent people or worse by the hands of the Templars.
  • All the available operating cells were on the move and looking for Álvaro Gramática around the globe, Bishop had received all of the reports and passed them through William Miles, and after much deliberation, he decided to enact the Garden Rooftop Protocol. As of that moment, all unnecessary communications on the Hephaestus network had to cease until further notice. Above all, the primary target remained that of finding Álvaro and his Lab. Bishop's notice instructed not to engage if either of the targets were found, but instead report to her immediately to organize a strike team. Outside of the immediate order to find Álvaro, Bishop authorized the cells to choose their targets as long as they followed the Creed, also stating that she would be in touch when necessary. She also thanked the Initiates for their help and contributions as they ended up being a great service for the Brotherhood, though she urged them to stay low for their own safety, thus, she was not going to contact them for the foreseeable future until otherwise was required.
  • The Assassins took interest in a young woman named Charlotte de la Cruz, a recurrent Helix user and worker at the Malta Banking Corporation.
  • Gavin Banks tasked three assassins: Xavier Chen, Galina Voronina and Kody Adams to look after Charlotte in California and secure her as she was the descendant of Thomas Stoddard, a 17th century Assassin that crossed paths with the first civilization entity Consus at some point in 1692 during the Salem Wtich Trials and was essential in discovering the truth about Joseph Laurier, an Assassin defector who was suspected to have been undergoing a partnership with Abstergo.
  • The Assassin Kody Adams contacted Charlotte online via the Abstergo VR headset to test her sympathy towards the brotherhood resulting in positive feedback, as she judged the Assassins to have the same philosophy as Robin Hood and the Templars being a “bunch of old white men”. Kody tried to arrange a meeting with her but she declined as she thought he was flirting with her and went offline, stating that she wasn't interested and that she had an interview to attend the next morning.
  • The next day, Charlotte attended the interview for a new job she previously applied to at the World Share San Diego, where she ought to present her theory in hopes for her admission. Charlotte stressed that the bank shouldn't lend money to countries with corrupt regimes but to fund democratic nations that ranked well with human rights instead. When the interviewer heard Charlotte's approach on the matter, she reproached her theory, citing that their system was created by people far more experienced than her, therefore, her proposal was not valid to them. Indignant, Charlotte expressed her frustration stating that they wouldn't accept her proposal because she wasn't born from a rich family and stormed out of the room assuming that the interviewer was reserving the post for her daughter, as she did not stop staring at her portrait on her desk throughout the whole interview while Charlotte was talking.
  • Later that day, Charlotte received the visit of an elderly woman at her workplace who couldn't afford to pay the bills of her daughter's treatment, at that point, Charlotte decided to do something about it as she couldn't take the unfair balance of life into account anymore. She reassured the old lady that her daughter was going to be fine, hushing her to go help her immediately as she had illegally diverted 10.000 dollars on her account in order to pay for the treatment. When her shift had ended and on her way home, she pondered about what she did for that woman and felt self accomplished, but later, fear started to settle in as she realized that she would most likely be fired for what she did, comparing herself to Robin Hood. However, her thinking was interrupted abruptly when she opened her apartment's door greeted by the sight of two strangers standing in the middle of her living room.
  • Baffled at the sight of two unknown individuals in front of her, Charlotte demanded explanations and asked them who they were. The man introduced himself as Xavier Chen and the woman Galina Voronina. Xavier proceeded to explain that they belonged to an organization called “The Brotherhood”. Immediately upon hearing that, Charlotte stated “I'm in!”, rejoicing and frantically jumping out of excitement. Galina and Xavier were staring at each other in confusion, to which Xavier cautiously asked if Charlotte knew about the Assassins. Charlotte, with a smile on her face and a bottle of wine in her hands replied that the “Brotherhood” was famous among the conspiracy theorists on the web and forums, where she had been gathering information for quite some time then, highlighting how they were supposed to be missing one finger whereas Xavier and Galina did not.
  • Sometime later after making the acquaintance of the Assassins, someone outside Charlotte's apartment knocked at her door demanding a conversation with her. Xavier and Galina became nervous and positioned themselves ready to attack. Charlotte, thinking to herself that the bank might have already discovered the transfer she illegally did earlier that day, went to open the door. To her surprise, a middle aged looking man claiming to be a member of the Help Without Frontiers wanted to apologize on behalf of the company for the inconvenience earlier that day during her interview. Charlotte was somewhat hesitant to the claims of the man but just as she was about to unlock the door a group of four individuals stormed in her apartment breaking the door, tossing Charlotte to the ground.
  • A fight quickly ensued as Xavier and Galina began eliminating them. During the fight, Charlotte was assaulted by one of the men trying to kill her, but Galina took him down with a throwing knife, splattering Charlotte's face with blood, entering in a state of shock. After assessing the threat, Galina ran for the balcony from which she jumped down a roof of a building across the street, ordering Charlotte to do the same. Though, Charlotte was still in shock and afraid of jumping from such an altitude, to which Galina reminded her that she "wanted in" the brotherhood. At that moment, Charlotte glanced back in her apartment and saw Xavier was still fighting with the last member of the attackers, then he made eye contact with her and urged her to follow Galina. Charlotte took a deep breath, started running across the room and jumped ultimately falling unconscious mid-air before she could make it to the neighbouring roof. The Assassins carried Charlotte to their hideout in the Salton Sea.
  • The next day, Charlotte abruptly woke up on a bed in a room she couldn't recognize, surrounded by shattered glass in what seemed to be an abandoned building of some sort. Scared, she glanced around the room, but was quickly greeted by a familiar voice, that of Galina Voronina and Xavier Chen. Charlotte asked them what had happened the night before when they were pursued by the Templars. Galina replied in a joyful tone that she almost made the “jump” and explained that she had been transported by them to a secret hideout located in the lake of Salton Sea, where they hid from Abstergo in the desert.
  • Xavier introduced Charlotte to Kody Adams, their tech expert who had previously been in contact with her through the Helix headset voice chat, stating that he was the one who found Charlotte's location on time. After some formalities and introductions, Xavier proceeded to explain to Charlotte about the real reason the agents went for her to her apartment, and why they got to her first in order to save her. The Templars were using Helix to gather random data for their research and acquisition of subjects against their will. After a few seconds, processing everything she'd heard, Charlotte stated that she somehow already knew that there was something suspicious about Abstergo's product line, as she also scoured through some conspiracy threads involving the company and the Templars online quite a few times before. Observing that Charlotte was more open-minded than expected, Xavier decided to get straight to the point and told her the mission at hand, the Brotherhood needed her in order to explore the genetic memories of her ancestor, but for that, she had to get used to a machine called “The Animus”.
  • Charlotte was introduced to the Animus by Xavier, explaining that the machine was capable of relieving her own ancestry line instead of someone else's unlike Helix. When Charlotte asked him about how her ancestor would come into play to help the brotherhood, he stated that one of her ancestors came in contact with a powerful artifact they described as a “Piece Of Eden” the Templars wanted to recover by abducting her and exploring her DNA, because a member of the Brotherhood, Joseph Laurier, who was thought dead, resurfaced, betraying the Assassins by going to a Templar HQ promising them to reveal the location of the artifact in question, pointing out Charlotte as a potential subject for Abstergo along the line. However, in a transmission Kody managed to decipher 12 hours earlier, there was a hidden message left by Joseph, apparently, he was being a mole within Abstergo to set a trap in order to lure an important agent in San Diego and assassinate him. But nothing was certain, hence, the reason why Xavier wanted Charlotte to use the animus to explore the matter by themselves. Xavier then asked Charlotte if she wanted to hop in the animus to run some tests to see if she was able to resist the simulation, she did not hesitated to rush over the machine, initiating synchronization and relieving the genetic memories of Tom Stoddard an Assassin that operated during the 1690's Witch Salem trials in quest of an artifact.
  • Once inside the Animus, her first memory in the simulation was that of his ancestor on a mission in the American village of Salem in 1692, where he was witnessing the public execution of a woman accused of witchcraft. Charlotte couldn't control herself before the sight of a helpless woman on the verge of being executed and lounged her ancestor's avatar at the pyre, causing a total desynchronization, and ejecting her out of the animus.
  • When out of the Animus, she quickly became sick and disoriented, Kody addressed her health while Xavier was already asking how quickly could she recover in order to get back to work, provoking an argument between him and Galina, debating the course of action Xavier was taking was not the appropriate one and it was putting at risk someone with little to no training with the animus, to what Xavier responded aggressively with threats stating that Gavin Banks was the one to have placed him in charge, therefore, she had to follow his orders or leave the cell. Charlotte had listened enough, she pulled her wits together and decided to hop back in the animus on her own volition. Surprised, Xavier thanked Charlotte telling her she made the right choice. Once again, perfectly synchronized, she went back into the sinulation.
  • Charlotte relieved once again the genetic memories of her ancestor which was looking for an artifact in 1692 Salem, Thomas attended a secret meeting in a tavern where he ought to reunite with another Assassin named Jennifer Querry, Joseph Laurier's ancestor. Charlotte eventually learned that the infamous witchcraft trials were a plot by the Templars to identify women that were “possessed” as they believed a Piece of Eden was behind it all.
  • Some hours later, Charlotte relieved the exact moment where Thomas, after threatening a young girl named Dorothy Osborne to death in order to get information about the Piece of Eden's whereabouts, sighted first handedly the “Possession” that struck her which was in fact the conscience of the ISU Consus taking over her mind and communicating through her. The overall violence against a child enraged Charlotte, pushing her to try to do something about it, provoking a seizure outside the animus as she was getting near total desynchronization.
  • The convulsions alerted Xavier, asking Kody what was happening, to which he responded that her vitals were spiking, but besides that, she was fighting to keep synchronized to her ancestor. This impressed Xavier, highlighting to Galina the great amount of courage Charlotte was demonstrating to them. Galina however was still worried and became angry, stating that Thomas Stoddard was one of the most ruthless Assassins the order has ever had in their ranks and that compared to Charlotte, she had nothing of him inside her, not convinced about her potential as an Assassin. Still, Xavier insisted on giving her the benefit of the doubt, referencing Joseph as an example.
  • Galina couldn't accept the fact that Xavier couldn't acknowledge Joseph's treason, but once again, Xavier insisted on his innocence, therefore, begging her to give him a chance to prove himself and seek out if the “Mole” story was indeed real. After a brief moment of tense silence, Galina finally let go of the conversation by treating Xavier as an idealist.
  • Suddenly, Charlotte started to have seizures again, Galina asked about her status to Kody to which he replied that she was stable but that they'd have to get her out soon, otherwise, she would have serious permanent secondary effects. Galina turned back and faced Xavier once again, asking him how long he planned on keeping Charlotte in the animus, stating that she wouldn't resist in there for much longer. Xavier grew irritated of Galina and instructed her to be optimistic and to trust Charlotte as well as Joseph, stating that they at least owed him a chance of proving the reason behind his supposed false treason, but Galina was still not over with her anger and denied having to own anything to Joseph, asking why would Xavier in return. Meanwhile, in the Animus Charlotte witnessed yet another “possession” of Dorothy Osborne, this time experiencing a direct conversation with the ISU Consus, speaking to Charlotte through her ancestor, telling her to find “Those who know everything” referencing Erudito as they had the capability to help her.
  • While Charlotte was communicating with Consus in the Animus, Xavier and Galina were interrupted by the sound of Kody storming in the room frantically calling them out. He had just intercepted another message from the Templars detailing the identity of the supposed “Important Agent” Joseph wanted to lure in. According to the message Kody managed to decipher, the individual was a man named Didier Hawking. Xavier had no idea who it was, so he asked Kody for more details. He explained that he was the man responsible for the acceleration of memory research, somehow he managed to cut the search time twenty-fold the time necessary to research through genetic data while it normally took less proficient users months or even years to find useful information. Upon hearing that, Galina saw herself forced to action on behalf of Xavier's authority. She ordered Kody to pull Charlotte out of the Animus, Xavier opposed himself on Galina's path to the Animus treating her as a lunatic, insisting that they were steps to take In order to desynchronize someone, besides the fact that if Charlotte had found something, she would have already pulled out by herself, telling everybody. However, Galina had no time to mess around and she couldn't take it anymore, she pushed Xavier out of her way and took the needle out of her forearm, abruptly ejecting Charlotte of the simulation.
  • Upon witnessing Charlotte's violent desynchronization, Xavier lounged himself over Galina grabbing her in anger, yelling that he was the one who made the decisions, therefore, it was his mission. Galina countered his grasp and threw him in the air, telling him that “his” mission had failed, and that if what Kody said about the Templar agent was true, then they had to double time their moves, and go straight to Joseph in order to kill him, so Abstergo could not get anything out of him. Xavier pulled out his gun, with a threatening gaze, ordering Kody to reinsert Charlotte back in the Animus. Galina ordered the opposite. Kody was starting to get anxious after seeing how Xavier was waving his pistol around, so he warned Galina that they should comply. Though Galina disregarded the warning, stating that he was not going to use it, suggesting that Xavier was weak.
  • During the whole scene, Charlotte had the time to stabilize and recover from the shock, telling Kody that her mission wasn't over, that Consus told her about “finding someone that knows everything”. Upon hearing the name Consus, Galina turned around with a surprised look on her face. Xavier tried once again to reason with Galina, insisting that Charlotte was gifted, therefore, capable of finding what they were looking for. However, Galina had a stubborn mind, and was focused on the only problem that mattered for her; Finding Joseph and eliminating him. She urged the team to wrap everything up for dust off, though Xavier wanted Kody to put Charlotte back in the Animus. The same argument that spanned across several hours between Galina and Xavier was about to start again when Kody decided to interrupt them and scream out loud getting their attention so they stopped wasting time.
  • The Assassins evacuated the hideout, purging the building on their way out in case Abstergo was to find their location, preventing them from following their tracks. On the way to the truck, Charlotte was still struggling to compose herself as of the brutal desynchronization caused by the ejection. However, she urged Kody to put her back as she needed to find out more about Consus and Joseph's ancestor, Jennifer. Which, in the memory she was relieving just before she was pulled out, Charlotte witnessed how the Templars managed to shoot her, while attempting to save a young boy named David, whom escaped with them from the prison they rescued Dorothy Osborne. Afterwards, her ancestor Thomas, subsequently fled the scene with Dorothy leaving Jennifer for dead, leading Charlotte to think that it was a dead end, and that indeed Joseph was actually telling the truth in his hidden message deciphered by Kody, planning to set an actual trap. Although, she knew deep down that something wasn't adding up, and that along Consus' cryptic warning was enough incentive for her wanting back into the Animus. Kody accepted to her pleas and took her to the truck. Xavier was overseeing the situation, making sure everybody evacuated, while Galina initiated the purging system to sterilize the building. Once the room was lit on fire, she turned back to face Xavier, telling him that Charlotte had all the way to San Diego in order to figure everything out, then she would personally kill Joseph, warning him not to stand in her way, stating that “His gun wouldn't save him”.
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