End of Night One

Abstergo Industries Headquarters, Milan, Italy, 2012

Dr. Warren Vidic paced along the length of the meeting room, deep in thought; three researchers were sat at the oval-shaped frosted-glass table in the centre of the room, nervous eyes flicking from left to right in time with the movement of their superior. They were in trouble, it was merely a matter of moments before Vidic's reaction to their grave news became apparant.

In the early hours of the morning, while the test subjects were immersed in their training, core aspects of the Animus network began to act strangely; firstly, each machine entered a lockdown state that prevented the user from leaving the virtual world, followed by files critical to life support being deleted spontaneously.

This would have been little worry to the researchers under normal circumstances, since these things could be resolved by rebooting the network, but the fact that the administrative passwords had been changed ensured that logging in was impossible without disconnecting the network entirely, which would result in all Animi shutting down, killing the user.

It was a grave situation, and only the project leader was authorised to decide on any course of action given everything at stake; they could not afford any loss of life at this early stage. The loss of an entire day's work was trivial at this point.

Vidic stopped walking, turned to his underlings and gestured towards the two-way window that looked out over the laboratory, though words failed to escape his lips; he was unable to fathom what could be happening, but he had a feeling that the blasted Stillman girl was involved somehow, this had the handiwork of her ilk written all over it.

Without waiting for a response, Vidic left the room, hurtling down the stairs and into the nearest booth, a name plate fixed upon the glass indicating that the test subject inside had been dubbed 'Renata'; she looked peaceful, almost serene, unaware of the danger she faced from this mysterious cyber-attack.



Warren checked the curved glass panel that raised over the subject's head, but the readings made little sense; rather than detailing the usual information regarding the training period she was visiting, the screen showed several locked memory blocks. He turned to the nearby computer screen, and it quickly became apparant that, despite the critical files deleted from the network, the subject's vital signs were fine; she was trapped in the Animus for the time being, but at least she was alive.

"It's the same for every terminal, sir", came an anxious male voice from the doorway; a bespectacled researcher had entered the room behind Vidic, but the project leader made no motion to acknowledge him, his gaze focused entirely on the Animus terminal.

After a few minutes, the silence punctuated only by the gentle thrumming of the machine, Vidic spoke, his voice as gruff as usual; "we continue with the project, this is little more than a minor setback!"