Last Descendants by Matthew J. Kirby
There it was. He had to strain very hard to find it, harder than Varius would have to, but it was there. A subtle hum, a kind of resonance he felt in the bones of his skull, and it was familiar to him, or at least to the part of his mind where Varius could still be found.
“This way,” he whispered, and stepped forward.
Javier and Griffin followed him from the bedroom, out into a main living room, which had been converted into a kind of museum, with plaques and pictures and display cases for several artifacts. But the dagger wasn’t in there, and Owen kept going, through another doorway, and down a hallway to another, larger bedroom. The resonance led him to a certain spot on the floor, beneath a cord rug.
“It’s here,” he said.
Owen whipped the rug back, pulled out one of his knives, and dropped to his knees. Then he used the blade to pry up a particular floorboard, but he noticed some fresh nicks in the wood, and how easily the board came up.
Beneath it he found a narrow cavity, and resting within it, a rectangular metal tin. Owen pulled it out, but knew instantly it was much too light in weight, and when he opened it, found only a tarnished medal inside, the military cross of the Aztec Club.
“It was here,” Owen said. “I can feel it.”
“The medal doesn’t leave any doubt,” Griffin said. “But someone got to it first.”
“It had to be recently,” Owen said. “These nicks are new.”
“The Templars?” Javier asked.
Griffin shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“Monroe, then?” Javier said.
Owen hoped it was Monroe. He hoped Monroe had—
A rhythmic whumping rose up, coming from outside the cottage, overhead, and Griffin looked up toward the ceiling. “Helicopters,” he said. “Several of them. Abstergo is here.”
“What should we do?” Owen asked.
“We don’t engage. You’re not trained and I can’t take them all by myself. We go back to the car, and we get out of here. Understood? Do not engage.”
Owen and Javier both nodded.
“Stay close,” Griffin said. “Let’s move.”
He raced from the bedroom, back through the cottage’s main hall, where blades of floodlight pierced the windows and sliced up the walls. They ducked back into the smaller bedroom and left through the same window.
Out on the lawn, Owen could see the black shadows of the helicopters hovering overhead, three of them, their rotors stirring up powerful gusts of wind that flattened the grass and threatened to knock Owen over. Smaller black shapes descended from the aircraft, agents sliding down ropes to the ground.
“Move!” Griffin shouted, and the three of them broke into a full sprint, scattering and dodging the roving spotlights, ropes, and the agents who had already touched down.
“Target acquired!” one of them shouted within his helmet, lifting the barrel of an assault rifle toward Javier just a few paces ahead.
Owen reached into his pocket for one of the EMP grenades, and he threw it. Nothing happened that he could detect, but the agent suddenly stopped in his tracks as if he’d gone blind, grasping at his helmet. That gave Owen another idea, and he stopped running.
“What are you doing?” Javier shouted back at him.
Owen pulled out another EMP grenade, armed it, and hurled it up at the nearest helicopter. It hit, and instantly the pilot seemed to lose control as the engines whined and the rotors slowed. The aircraft swerved through the air as if someone were shaking it, dragging all the agents still roped to it along the ground, plowing them hard into one another. The failing helicopter collided directly with another one, and with a deafening crash they both careened wildly toward the ground.
“Run!” Javier shouted.
Owen sprinted after him toward the trees just as the first helicopter hit the ground and exploded. The force of the blast threw Owen forward off his feet, face-first into the grass where he lay stunned for a moment. But then he felt someone’s hands on him, and began to thrash against them, thinking it was an agent, until he rolled over.
“Get moving!” Griffin shouted, hauling him to his feet.
A second explosion followed them into the trees, and Owen glanced back to see the other helicopter had crashed on the far side of the cottage. The three of them raced through the forest, bounding over boulders and fallen trees just as Owen had over the rooftops of New York City in the simulation, and a few minutes later, they reached their car and scrambled in.
“That was insane!” Javier said to Owen, panting hard.
“Save it for the plane!” Griffin barked, turning the key.
He whipped the car out and sped down the road, back the way they had come, his headlights off for the first few miles so they wouldn’t draw the attention of the one remaining helicopter still up there in the sky.
Once they were a safe distance away, Griffin took a deep breath and seemed to relax a little. “What were you thinking?” he asked. “I gave you a direct order. Do not engage.”
“I know,” Owen said. “But I took out two—”
“I’ll tell you what you did!” Griffin said. “You got damn lucky! You could have gotten all three of us killed with a stunt like that!”
“I’m sorry,” Owen said, even though he wasn’t sure if he meant it. “I—”
“Listen to me!” Griffin said. “And listen well. I do not give second chances. If you want my help learning anything about your father, from now on you will do exactly as I say. Do you hear me? Because I am your one shot at knowing the truth, and I will not hesitate to leave you questioning and wondering until the day you die.”
Owen closed his mouth, the adrenaline in his body finally dissipating. If Griffin had leveled any other threat against him, he would have ignored him and told him to shove it. But the truth about his father was the one thing Owen couldn’t ignore, and wouldn’t risk jeopardizing, no matter how angry or wronged he felt.
“Have I made myself clear?” Griffin asked.
“Yes,” Owen said. “Perfectly.”
“Good,” Griffin said.
“What do you mean, from now on?” Javier asked.
“I mean we’re not done,” Griffin said. “There are still three Pieces of Eden out there, one of which has already been found, and it seems Abstergo believes you and your friends are the key to finding the others.”
“Do we have a choice?” Javier asked.
“Of course you have a choice,” Griffin said. “You have your own free will, and believe it or not, I would die defending it.”
“Then maybe I want out,” Javier said, turning to Owen.
But Owen didn’t want out. Not yet. Not as long as there was a chance he could find the truth. “I need to know,” he said. “I’m all in.”
Natalya sat by herself, away from the others, looking out from their glass cage into the trees. Sean and Grace had told Isaiah everything, and there wasn’t anything she could do to stop them. Isaiah had left then, and Victoria had followed him not long after. That had been a couple of hours ago, and the four of them had been left in that room to wait since then. She’d finally let herself eat something, after realizing that refusing their food was an ineffective form of protest. But the apple and bagel hadn’t been sitting well in her stomach.
“Hey,” she heard Sean say, and through the subtle reflection in the window, she saw him wheeling over to her. “Are you okay?”
“No,” she said.
“How come?”
“I can’t believe you did that.”
“Did what?”
“Don’t act dumb,” she said. “You know exactly what I mean.”
He leaned back in his wheelchair and gripped the handrims. “It made sense to me. I think it was the right thing to do. What, you think Isaiah lied to us?”
“I don’t know.” Natalya could only shake her head. “That’s the point. I don’t know. Don’t get me wrong, Sean. I found him convincing, too. But I would never just hand everything over to him without thinkin
“You’re right.” He leaned forward in his chair, and something in his movement brought back a sudden memory of Tommy. Natalya blinked it away. “You’re right,” he said. “We should have discussed it first.”
“Doesn’t do us much good now,” she said.
He wheeled his chair a bit closer, looking over his shoulder as if to see where the other two were. “Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you—” But he didn’t finish.
She waited a few seconds. “Meaning to ask me what?”
“I just—” he said, and then his cheeks flushed.
Natalya thought she probably knew where this was going, but hoped not. “You just what?”
“I don’t know. The Animus. It’s just a weird situation. We were … you know.”
She was right; he was talking about Tommy and Adelina. Natalya didn’t want to hurt Sean’s feelings, but it seemed as though that was going to be inevitable.
“I mean,” he said, “it was them, but it was kind of us, too, and I was just—”
“Sean, it’s really not that complicated. Adelina loved him. Not you. And Adelina isn’t me.”
“I know that.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“There’s no problem,” he said. “I’m just … Never mind, forget it. I’m sorry I brought it up.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m sorry, too. I’m not trying to be rude. We just can’t let things get confused, you know? Do you remember what Monroe said? You are you. We have to keep that straight.”
“You’re right,” he said. “Totally right.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’m glad we at least agree on that.” She added that last part even though she knew they still disagreed on both counts.
He nodded once more and wheeled his chair back toward the others, his head hanging a little low. Natalya watched him go and chided herself. She could have been nicer about that, but then, she often found herself saying that. When dealing with people, her first response was usually to take the most direct route, but that wasn’t always the wisest course.
She turned to look back out into the trees.
It was too late to take back the information the others had given to Isaiah. So Natalya would go along with them for now. But in no way was she convinced of Isaiah and the good of the Templar Order. But that didn’t mean she bought into the Assassins, either. Her experience in the Animus had shown her that both sides brought nothing but destruction. Individually, but especially when they fought each other, and when they did, innocent people paid the price.
But it wouldn’t be smart to get all oppositional with a powerful entity like Abstergo. Not yet. Unlike how she’d just handled Sean, Natalya would wait patiently and watch and figure out what the best move would be. That was how her grandparents had escaped Soviet Kazakhstan, and it was how she would escape the Templars.
“Good news!” Victoria said, walking back into the room. “We’ve made contact with all your parents. We explained the situation to them, and let them know they were free to come and see you at any time. They’re on their way as we speak.”
“What did you tell them?” Natalya asked.
“We told them that a former employee at your schools, Monroe, had lured you into some unknown scheme with our stolen equipment, but that we had uncovered it and rescued you.”
Natalya thought that an expertly crafted deception, true enough it was hard to argue against it, even though she knew the whole story.
“So we can go home?” Grace asked.
“Well, that’s up to you, but there’s something we would like to offer you.”
“What?” Sean asked.
“As Isaiah mentioned, your DNA represents a singular opportunity. We would like to invite you to stay here, at the Aerie, to continue our research. We plan to discuss this very possibility with your parents when they arrive. I suspect they will be quite receptive.”
“They will?” Natalya asked. Her parents were mistrustful of most people, but especially those in power or those with money.
“Well,” Victoria said, smiling with her big teeth. “Naturally, we will offer a significant financial incentive for participation in the study.”
“So what’s the catch?” David asked.
“No catch,” Victoria said. “But we do have two more Pieces of Eden to find before Monroe does, and we could use your help. We’ve done some more digging in your DNA, and identified another place of high Memory Concordance that may represent a second prong of the Trident.” She turned to look directly at Natalya. “Have you ever wanted to experience China?”
Monroe had driven a few hundred miles since escaping the Templars, and his hands were still shaking. He gripped the steering wheel hard to control it, turning his knuckles white. His eyes had trouble focusing. He’d been up for thirty-six hours, he’d hardly eaten anything, and the road stretched on and on into the pale flat of the desert as the sun rose before him.
He hadn’t meant for any of this to happen. At least, not this way. Not like this. But he also couldn’t say exactly what he had meant to happen. His mission had begun so long ago, and taken so many turns, he sometimes felt as if he’d lost track of it. In those moments, he went back to the beginning, back to where it had started, and he remembered why he was doing all of this.
And who he was doing it for.
This Piece of Eden had been a detour from his primary purpose, but one he absolutely couldn’t ignore. He wouldn’t allow the Assassins or Templars to get their hands on another Precursor relic. There was too much at stake. The Ascendance Event had already begun, and he had no idea where the kids were now. The Templars had undoubtedly captured some of them, if not all. But it was also possible a few of them had escaped. Owen and Javier stood the best chance, but Grace would likely have some strong skills Bleeding through, too.
Monroe looked down at the passenger seat, where the Animus core rested. At least he still had that. He still had their DNA, and only he had fully decoded what it meant.
The tremors in his hands grew worse, and he realized he had to give his body some food and some rest. He just hoped he had made it far enough away that he could risk stopping.
He ended up pulling over in the next town, a desert nest with one gas station and a population of three hundred and twenty-six. There he refueled the bus, bought a burner phone, ate a shrink-wrapped turkey sandwich, and slept for three hours.
When he woke, he felt a bit more clearheaded.
Even if he had the DNA he needed, he refused to leave those kids in the hands of the Templars. It was his fault they were in danger. His blind carelessness had led the Templars right to them, and so it was his job to get them out. But he wouldn’t be able to pull it off on his own. He needed help.
Monroe pulled out the phone he’d just bought, staring at the glowing keypad for a long time before he dialed. It was a number he’d been given a long, long time ago, one he’d committed to memory without knowing if he would ever have cause to use it. He had cause now, though he wondered if it would even still work.
But then it rang.
And someone answered.
“It’s Monroe,” he said quietly. “We need to talk.”
Matthew J. Kirby, Last Descendants