Fate of the Gods Read online

David looked at Grace. There was a time that they might’ve turned this into a competition, because of course he wanted to be the one to go into the Animus. Not that long ago, he’d almost looked at this whole situation like a virtual reality game, back when his ancestor flew planes in World War II. But things had changed since then, and he knew now how important it was that they find the last Piece of Eden. If that meant Grace got to be a Viking instead of him, he was all right with that.

  “You can go first,” Grace said.

  “I was about to say the same thing.”

  “Sure you were.”

  He gave her a smile, and then Victoria asked them to follow her.

  They left Owen and Natalya in the common room with Griffin and walked with Victoria down the glass Aerie hallways to the Animus room where David had spent a lot of time in the last few weeks. The coppery scent of electricity and the subtle but insistent hum of machinery charged the air, while several computer monitors blinked from the sterile white walls. David crossed to the Animus and stepped inside the waist-high metal ring. He clipped his feet into their mobile platforms, giving his legs almost complete freedom of movement, and then Victoria helped him climb into the full body framework that supported every joint, allowing even the slightest motions. Within that ring, David could walk, run, jump, and climb as the simulation demanded, all without going anywhere.

  Victoria tightened the last of the clamps and straps. “Secure?”

  “Secure,” David said.

  “Let me double-check the calibration before we put the helmet on.” Victoria stepped away to one of the nearby computer consoles.

  “You’re going to look pretty stupid in those horns,” Grace said.

  “Vikings didn’t really have horns on their helmets,” David said. “In a real battle horns would—”

  “I know that.” Grace shook her head. “Just be careful, okay?”

  Her voice had the same tone as when she used to tell him not to talk to the gangbangers, and which streets to avoid on the way home from school. But he wasn’t that kid anymore. “You don’t have to take care of me. I’m good.”

  “Tell that to Dad. Maybe then he’ll leave me alone about you.”

  “I’ll be careful.”

  Victoria returned to the Animus. “Everything looks optimal. Are you ready?”

  David nodded, and Grace stepped back and away.

  Victoria brought the helmet down from its nest of wires above. “Okay, here we go.” She placed the helmet over David’s head, and the whole world went black. No sights. No sounds. Like getting smothered with nothing.

  Can you hear me? Victoria asked through the helmet.

  “Yes.”

  Good. We’re all set out here.

  “Whenever you’re ready.”

  Loading the Memory Corridor in three, two, one …

  A flash of light shredded the black nothing inside David’s helmet, and he closed his eyes. When he opened them, he saw gray. A shifting, billowing void of shadow and haze surrounded him. The Memory Corridor was supposed to make the transition to the full simulation smoother, and David thought it probably accomplished that, except nothing could make the next part easier.

  Parietal insertion in three, two, one …

  David took a deep breath, and then his head took an electromagnetic beating. The energy pulses were supposed to quiet the part of his brain that kept him grounded in time and space, but for several moments he couldn’t think of anything else except the hammer inside his skull.

  Loading genetic identity in three, two, one …

  The pain receded. David gave it a moment, then opened his eyes and looked down at himself, blinking away the last of his disorientation, only to feel a new type of confusion set in.

  He was a giant.

  Or as close to a giant as a man could get.

  David raised his ancestor’s hands and studied them, fascinated. It wasn’t their white skin, although that was weird, but the sheer size of them. They were somehow more than just hands, as if David were wearing leather baseball mitts. His arms and his legs were huge, too, but not like he’d been going to the gym. He didn’t look like a bodybuilder. He was just big. Tall and wide and strong.

  David? Victoria asked. How are you doing?

  “Good,” David said. “But it feels weird for you to call me that when I feel like Goliath.”

  Victoria laughed in his ear. Written records from this time period are scarce, and extremely unreliable. We know very little about who your ancestor is, or how he will be involved with the Piece of Eden. I can’t even tell you his name.

  “I should be able to figure all that out once I settle into his memories.”

  Good. But it might be a bit of a rough transition until you do.

  “If I can’t get it to work, Grace can try.”

  That’s the idea. Are you ready for me to load the full simulation?

  “Give me a second.”

  Of course.

  David turned his thoughts inward, searching for the mind of his ancestor within his own, digging deep for a voice that wasn’t his, listening closely. When he finally heard it, he engaged that voice in a conversation. Not of words, but the thoughts and memories of his ancestor, a farmer and warrior named Östen Jorundsson.

  Östen owned his own land, a modest holding at the base of a round hill not far from a lake, with pastures, a small woodland of spruce and oak, and a spring that bubbled water cold enough to crack teeth. Östen took far more pride in his land than he did his many victories in battle. He fought when called upon by his king, or when honor demanded it, but would rather be at home, sharing a warm fire next to his wife, or fishing with his son, or singing with his daughters. It was a life David could want for himself.

  “I think I’m ready,” he said.

  Excellent. Loading the full simulation in three, two, one …

  The Memory Corridor shattered into a blinding, crystalline dust, which ebbed and swirled, then gradually massed together into sturdier forms, assuming the vague shapes of buildings, trees, and ships. David’s eyes adjusted to this new reality forcing its way into his mind. But it wasn’t really a new reality. It was an old reality and an old voice speaking for the first time in centuries, and soon David stood fully in Östen’s world.

  Before him, rich green grass covered the main pasture, grazed by his twenty-six head of cattle. They were sturdy mountain stock, mostly white with black spots, and he hadn’t polled them, because horns made bears and wolves doubt themselves. The sun had begun to dip low, spreading a golden patina over his farm and the land below, all the way to the shores of Mälaren to the south.

  David knew, through Östen, that it was time to bring the herd in. So he gave Östen his voice, and then cupped his hands to his mouth. The cows looked up at his call, but went back to grazing, more interested in the summer grass at their hooves than anything he had to offer. Östen glanced down at Stone Dog, who lay at his feet, perfectly still, eager, waiting for a nod from his master to shoot him out into the field.

  David hadn’t seen Stone Dog’s breed before. He was like a cross between a stubby-legged corgi and a wolf, but he could run, and he knew just how to round up the herd, circling, barking, pressing the cattle together, and driving them toward Östen. They came mooing and bellowing, and with Stone Dog’s help, Östen pushed the herd into its fenced enclosure for the night, a small paddock near enough to keep watch against predators.

  “Well done,” Östen said once the cows had been secured.

  Stone Dog’s tongue flapped from one side of his mouth, and his eyes shone.

  “Let’s go see how Tørgils is getting on, eh?”

  Östen turned from the cattle in the paddock toward the large byre that stood next to the stable, near the hall, and on the far side of it he found his son chopping wood. At fifteen, Tørgils stood as tall as Östen had at his age, but he had his mother’s almost-black hair, the color of wet soil. Arne the Dane labored next to him in his breeches and loose-hanging tunic, and as �
�sten surveyed the results of their splitting work, an ugly awareness crept over David and then seized him by the neck.

  Arne was a slave.

  Östen used a different word in his thoughts and memories. He called Arne a thrall. But the word didn’t matter. What mattered was that David’s ancestor owned a slave.

  “Father?” Tørgils had stopped swinging his axe. “Are you well?”

  David didn’t know what to say. He felt too shocked and angry to listen to Östen’s voice. He didn’t want to hear it. To think of what slavery had done to African Americans, and to the world, only to find out that his own ancestor had enslaved someone else … David wanted to shout back at Östen, but he couldn’t, because he was supposed to be Östen.

  At his side, Stone Dog growled at him suddenly, his hackles high and head low as he backed away from the strange boy wearing his master’s body.

  “Father?” Tørgils asked again.

  Arne the Dane, slender and hard as a nail, looked at David now. “Östen?”

  David shook his head. No, he was not Östen.

  The simulation trembled, distorting the farm with ripples and seams, and the quake only worsened with each moment that David refused to synchronize.

  What’s going on? Victoria asked. You were doing great, but now we’re losing stability. Are you okay?

  “No,” David said.

  The simulation is about to collapse.

  “I know!”

  David, whatever is happening, you need to rein it in.

  His anger did not feel like something he could control.

  I can pull you out and put Grace in—

  “No.” David didn’t want that. He didn’t need Grace to protect him or rescue him anymore. Besides, she’d probably have a harder time with their slave-owning ancestor than he did. “Just hang on,” he said and took a deep breath.

  Tørgils, Arne the Dane, and Stone Dog had all been caught in the glitch storm, frozen in place. David focused on the dog first, and listened to Östen’s memory of how Stone Dog had been trampled by a two-year-old cow when he was a pup, but jumped up and shook it off as if nothing had happened. “That dog’s head must be made of stone,” Arne had said, and the name planted itself.

  David smiled at that memory, and the simulation jolted back to life, still uneven and jerky, but moving again.

  Excellent, David. Keep doing what you’re doing.

  David turned to Östen’s son next, remembering a time from his toddling when he had lost a perfectly good axe trying to hunt fish with it. The water had claimed the weapon, and Tørgils had splashed and shouted at the fish, enraged. Östen had laughed and taught his son how to use a hook and handline, and Tørgils had taken to it like an heir to the god Njörðr. Not long ago, at the age of fourteen winters, he had pulled in a salmon the length of Östen’s leg, and the pride of that moment still lingered.

  These were memories David could listen to. These were moments he could want to be a part of, and they made synchronization possible.

  You’re almost there. Simulation stabilizing …

  But when David looked at Arne, his anger flared again, and his grip on synchronization slipped. This wasn’t something he could reconcile. It wasn’t possible to identify with this. It went against everything David knew to be right.

  He remembered how many winters ago, before Tørgils was born, Östen had joined a raid against the Danes, from which he’d brought Arne back in chains as his prisoner and thrall. It didn’t matter that Östen had since removed those chains, or that he wasn’t a cruel master.

  It was still wrong.

  When David tried to convince himself it was right, or tried to see slavery how Östen saw it, his anger sent the simulation reeling again.

  We’re wasting time, Victoria said. I need to know if you can do this.

  David didn’t want to admit that he couldn’t. He just needed time and perspective to figure out a way to get his mind in agreement with Östen’s. He didn’t need Grace.

  David, the simulation is—

  “I know.” He could see for himself that he was desynchronizing. “Just wait.”

  For what?

  He didn’t know. He took one more look at Arne, and tried to force himself to believe it was right to enslave the Dane. But no amount of will could ram something into his head that wouldn’t fit.

  David—

  The world fell into a blender, taking his mind and body with it. For several moments, he felt only pain that radiated from every point in his body, all at once, as though layers of him were being sliced away, exposing nerves, until the last shred of him vanished, and only his mind remained, spinning around and around in a maelstrom, detached from any place or point in time, or even a sense of who he was.

  David.

  He heard the voice, but it wasn’t holding still, and he didn’t know where it was coming from.

  David, I’m going to take your helmet off.

  The voice sounded familiar, but before he could figure out who was speaking to him, a white-hot light burned his eyes back into his head, and then the fire raged from his mind down his spine, into his stomach and his arms and legs.

  “David, can you hear me?” the first voice asked.

  “David?” came another.

  He knew the second voice better than the first, and he opened his eyes. Grace stood in front of him. Grace, his sister. David blinked, and it all rushed back at once. Who he was. Where he was. Why he was there. Like someone had opened the floodgates, and it was enough to drown him. A swell of nausea climbed up his throat.

  “I’m gonna throw up,” he said.

  Victoria lifted a small bucket to his mouth just in time. His stomach convulsed, painfully, and he lost the food he’d eaten. Grace stood by until he was finished, and then she helped him out of the harness, and the Animus, onto his wobbly legs.

  “And that’s why you don’t desynchronize,” she said.

  “Now you tell me.”

  She put her arm around him. “What happened in there?”

  David shook his head. “Give me a minute.”

  Grace helped him over to a swivel chair, and he fell into it, hard enough to send it rolling backward a couple of feet. Victoria walked over to him, jabbing at her tablet.

  “Your neurovitals looked good during the simulation,” she said. “Elevated blood pressure, though.”

  “I was angry.”

  “Angry at what?” Grace asked.

  “Angry at him. Our ancestor.”

  Grace frowned. “Why?”

  “He—” David’s head still throbbed, making it hard to form a sentence longer than a few words, and it would take a lot of words to explain. “Can we … talk about this later?”

  Grace looked at Victoria. “Yes.”

  Victoria paused a moment, and then offered an abrupt nod. “Fine. We’ll take a break. Then we can debrief and plan the next step. Perhaps you can help prepare your sister for her attempt. In the meantime, I’m going to go check on Javier.”

  She left the room, seeming irritated, and Grace looked hard at David, not saying anything.

  “What?” he finally asked.

  “Are you okay?”

  “You don’t need to take care of me. I’m okay. I just need to rest.”

  “Fine.” Now she was the one who seemed irritated. “But then I want an explanation.”

  David nodded, hoping that Javier’s ancestor would turn out to be the one with access to the Piece of Eden. That way, it wouldn’t matter who David’s ancestor had been, or what he had done.

  Javier waited, suspended in a structural body harness as Monroe initiated the machine’s core. He had never been in an Animus like this. The previous two had kept him reclined, but this one allowed complete stationary mobility, and it felt good to think about getting back in a simulation. Javier had tried to make himself useful while Owen explored the memories of his Chinese ancestor. He’d even broken into a police warehouse and stolen the evidence used at the trial of Owen’s father.
But that wasn’t the same as chasing a Piece of Eden through history. Nothing was as important as finding the rest of the Trident before Isaiah did.

  “They’ve made some upgrades to the Parietal Suppressor,” Monroe said.

  “The what?”

  “The Parietal—never mind. It’ll take too long to explain. The point is, this will feel different than my Animus, or Griffin’s.”

  “Different how?”

  “Hard to describe.”

  “You can run it, though, right?”

  “Of course I can.” Monroe stood. “Are you ready?”

  Javier nodded. “Yes.”

  Monroe checked each of the straps, clips, and buckles one more time, making sure Javier was secure. “So are you an Assassin now, or what?” he asked almost casually as he pulled the Animus helmet down from the nest of wires overhead.

  Javier hesitated before answering. “No.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Why?”

  Monroe shrugged. “Just try to remember what I’ve told you.”

  Javier may not have become a member of the Brotherhood, but he had definitely thought about it. “I believe in free will.”

  “So do I. That’s why I don’t want to see any of you giving it over to the Templars. Or the Assassins.” He lifted the helmet. “Here we go.”

  Javier let him place the helmet over his head, surprised at the totality of the barrier it created between him and the outside world. He heard nothing and saw nothing. But then something buzzed in his ear, and Monroe spoke.

  You reading me?

  Monroe’s voice had guided him through Mexico in the sixteenth century, and New York City during the Draft Riots of 1863. “Just like old times.”

  This part won’t feel like old times. I’m going to engage the Parietal Suppressor. You’ll notice it, but it will pass quickly. Okay?

  That didn’t sound pleasant. “Okay …”

  This is it. In three, two, one …

  The Animus shoved an ice pick down through the top of Javier’s head. At least, that was how it felt. He gasped and clenched his teeth against the shock and the pain, which only got worse when someone stirred the ice pick. Javier lost track of everything except that agony.