SEVEN: Misunderstood


Siren must have flown day and night before she began to descend. Altair had been drifting in and out of conscious for most of the night and by the time the sun began to raise, his neck and back ached from the constant jostle from when the girl would back or increase her altitude.
The assassin looked over his shoulder as Siren lowered more and more in the sky, and noticed that were over another city. The buildings weren't as large as in New York, and the teen lightened down on one of the tallest of them. From the roof's door burst a small centaury of soldiers who were dressed in all white instead of black like the grunts back in New York.     
When Altair looked at them with his eagle vision, he saw they were members of the Templars even if they didn't have the blood red cross anywhere on their uniforms. From the middle of the formation came an elder man dressed in a lab coat and brown slacks. He wore glasses, had a beard, and displayed a calm and collected attitude.
"This is the one," Siren said as she whipped Altair in front of her for the man to observe.
"We shall see," he said pulling the assassin's hood down to get a good look at his face. "He's got the scar," he stated, "gold eyes," when he reached out and grabbed Altair's hand and saw that it only had three fingers, "Amputated ring finger."
The assassin snarled and triggered the blade, literally making the man jump in fright.
"You stupid girl!" he scolded, "You were supposed to disarm him!"
"That wasn't part of the agreement Vedic," Siren answered back coolly. She manipulated the virus to hold Altair several feet in the air. "I said I would track him and bring him here," then she held up her arms and gestured at the wristbands, "and you would take these off and let me go."
Altair was confused, was Siren a Templar prisoner as well? Was her freedom the only reason she came after him?
"You'll get your precious little Assassin AFTER you take these fucking things OFF!" She growled.
"Oh I don't think so," Vedic smirked pulling a devise from his lab coat and pressing a button. A reddish static pulsed from the girl's collar and the wristbands and roped about her body.
"ARAGH!!" She grunted falling to her knees. The shock seemed to travel up her virus strands, zapping Altair as well. He screeched in pain and Vedic disengaged the shock.
"Clever," he sneered.
"You should know you bastard," Siren growled, "I'm much older and wiser than your ass."
Altair was panting from the intense shock he had just received. But as soon as he vocalized he was in pain, the old man stopped the devised from continuing its vulgar purpose. Whatever they wanted him for, they need him unharmed and in good shape.
"Fine," Vedic said pushing another button. The metallic wristbands unlocked and fell from Siren's wrists with a metal clatter. "But you're not completely off the hook yet Siren." This seemed to make the girl only hoist Altair even higher in the air. He was never afraid of heights but he was getting a little sick of being held out of reach like some prize.
"What do you mean?" she inquired picking at the metal collar that was still bound around her neck.
"This man you have coiled up in your ever so loving grasp," his tone was sarcastic, "Is a highly trained killer and is much smarter then he looks."
"Really?" Siren mocked, "Oh yeah it's really smart to walk right into my vocal range while I'm singing."
"What?" Vedic seemed surprised at that.
"Yeah, while I was tracking him, he must have made nice-nice with the Walker Blackwatch is after," Siren explained.
"Mercer?"
"Yeah," Siren said lowering Altair a tad but still keeping him at a considerable high loft, "had to beat the living shit out of him, and even then ol' Alty walks right in expecting to save him."
"Really," Vedic wondered scratching his chin. This new information made him really question what Abstergo might find locked away in the assassin's memories. "Either way," he continued slipping his devise into his pocket, "Ibn-La Ahad will be trouble and we need some one to keep an eye on him."
Siren seemed to understand what he meant and seemed to be pissed off by the though of being his guard. She suddenly brought Altair down and unraveled him the virus. He stood there not really sure what to do. "See?" she said, "He's not going anywhere." But just as the words left her mouth, the assassin tried to make a brake for it. He threw two knifes he'd hidden in his jean pockets at the guards, killing them on impact before he ran toward the edge of the building.
Siren only rolled her eyes before whipping her arm forward and catching Altair before he managed to dive off the side.
"Smart?" she asked holding him by the leg, "strong maybe, but not that smart."
Altair glared at her. "I'm not going to be your little guard, just throw him in the cell you were some how able to hold me in."
"The excess oxygen will kill him!" Vedic said.
"Not my problem," she said unraveling the assassin once again and this time he said put.
"Then I'll make it your problem," Vedic glowered pulling out the device and hitting yet another button, but this time, it made Siren gasp and scratch at the discs that were over her ears.
"Fucking…voices!!" she groaned. She was actually in pain, and Altair wanted to help her. But before he could make a move, one of the remaining soldiers pulled out his side arm, and shot him with a tranquilizer dart.
Altair stumbled, but still tried to get to Siren's side. Her suffering at Vedic's hand made it clear that she was as much of a prisoner as he was. Forced to track him, forced to capture him, and force to hurt Alex. The soldier shot him with a second dart, making him go to the ground and his vision blur.
But before he passed out, he saw Vedic turn a knob on his remote, and Siren's scream was the last thing he heard. Everything went black.

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Alex had become so pissed off after watching Siren disappear from view over the city that it made him completely forget about saving New York from his mistake. The Big Apple was tough and it could wait.
It was just his luck that a squad of Blackwatch choppers there to leave Manhattan and he was going to steal one. The next plan was to try as best he could to track Siren's trail. An infected as strong as her would leave behind a signature trail only the other infected could detect. It was how he was able to track Green through out the city. The biggest problem with that was the fact of it didn't stay around long. The wind and elements of the earth would wipe it away in a matter of days.
So, he had to work fast.
He marched amongst a potation of the most elite soldiers after one of them made the embarrassing mistake of taking a piss in a vacant ally. They were briefed on what they were to do, but all Alex really cared about was getting into the helicopter. He had to be patient.
The commanding officer ushered them into a massive fright helicopter, and soon they were gliding over the red tented New York that was by now teaming with the less perfect of the infected. To Alex it was like looking out of a bus during a more twisted version of the African safari.
His legs pulsated up and down with anxiety unnoticed by the others in the chopper.
Finally, after what felt like hours, they were outside of New York City, and Alex struck. Bullets fired and the chopper about went down, but Alex managed to kill them all and regain control of the vehicle before it crashed into the Hudson River.
"Black Hawk? Come in Black Hawk!" Alex growled before smashing the radio with his fist and reverted back to his original state.
"Sorry," he sneered, "They're all dead." He let his infected vision take over and it didn't take long before he spotted the trial of dust that Siren had left behind. "I'd better hurry…" the shape shifter muttered out loud. "Blackwatch is bound to find these fuckers missing." He had to get as far away as possible, which was a synch.
Now it was only a matter of fallowing the bright red trail of infection dust.

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Altair slowly came to and realized that he was laying on something incredibly soft. He was on his back, and covered by something equally as soft, it was like someone had taken the wool of a sheep and sewn it tightly together.
He felt a gentle hand on his shoulder, "Easy now," said a soothing voice. The assassin's vision cleared he saw he was lying in a fairly large bed and covered up in a white blanket. The entire room was a wash white, and was decorated with random paintings of trees and birds. Besides the bed he rested upon, a desk and lone book shelf that was crammed full of worn volumes were the only furniture in the joint.
As he glanced to his side, Siren was sitting by the bed side, looking concerned? He sat up suddenly, and a sudden pain in his head made him lower his body back into the comfort of the bed.
"Whoa man I said easy," she said. Her voice was…normal. So unlike the robotic voice she had used when she fought Alex and talked to Vedic. It was just like that of a young teen ager. "Here," she prompted holding a glass of a greenish liquid out to him, "drink this. It'll bring you back to reality."
Altair shrank back, pushing the glass away and looking away from the girl. "Why are you doing this?" he asked, "Turning kind all of a sudden."
"Been a prisoner for about 5 years now," Siren said, "The tough girl act is just to scar Vedic." Altair sighed, as he looked around. The two were incased in a dome like structure that was made of glass, there were two security cameras poised on either side of the room and the light was from the sun outside. It was lower now. He must have out for hours.
"Just drink this," Siren said putting the glass in the assassin's hand, "it'll neutralize the dose of tranquilizer that's still lingering in your blood stream." Altair looked at the cup's contents with distrust.
"How can I trust you?" he asked bluntly.
She held up her hand and lowered her ring finger, "I'm going to take you to your brothers."
Altair was nothing short of shocked, "You're a-"
"Shhh!" she hissed holding her finger to her own lips. "The room is wired" Siren whispered, "I can use my powers to black whispers but that's about it."
Altair nodded in understanding. He had read a lot about wire communication on the web and how it was used by spies and even law enforcement to trap enemies and criminals.
"Why are they keeping you here?" Altair asked.
"My power," Siren shrugged, "Why they put us in the same room is a mystery to me, even though I have my theories."
"This is just glass," Altair pointed out, "can't you just break out."
"Well," She said flicking one of her arms up into the glass ceiling, "I would if I could and flipping the fucking bird as I went." The assassin's confused look told her he didn't know what the saying meant. She held up her middle finger, "you know what this means?"
"Yes unfortunately," Altair answered rolling his eyes.
"That's flipping the bird," Siren said "anyway this dome is constructed from glass that was combined with trace amounts of diamond. That means that my blades can cut through it. The only thing that can cut through that shit is a blade that's made from the same shit."
Altair took a sip of the green drink and found it bitter, but not entirely unpleasant. He drank it down in one gulp and sat the cup on the nightstand. He pulled the covers off his legs and saw that he was only wearing his t-shirt and boxers.
"Yeah that wasn't me," Siren said, "they had to make sure you didn't have any weapons what so ever." Altair cringed at the thought of being manhandled by the thugs that roamed this place, or any templar for that matter.
"Look," Siren said seriously, "They know who you are and they need me in order to keep you from escaping."
"But if can't get out of here, how could I?" Altair asked standing and stretching his legs.
"Assassins are inventive," the girl replied, "you'd find a way that a human can get out, while I only look at the ways a Walker like me could escape. I lost the last bit of my humanity a long time ago." Siren lowered her head and looked as if she was sad. "How did you happen to run into Mercer anyway is what I want to know?"
Altair sighed, "I was just trying to get a better view of my surroundings, and there he was. Waiting for me at the top of a building, and looking down at me as if he wanted to kill me."
"Sounds about right," Siren said, there was something in the assassin's tone that gave off that there was more to them then meets the eye. But she didn't say anything out of fear of offending him.
"I should have just stayed where he left me like I promised!" Altair growled, his mood taking a sudden turn, "Allah above, I'm such an idiot!" the Arab growled, pulling at his short hair. This confused Siren until she saw what looked like the beginning of a tear nip at the corner of Altair's eye before the assassin commanded it to seep back into its duct.
She didn't need anymore explanation. She didn't want to say it out loud, so she went to her desk and pulled the note pad from the drawer along with a pen. Altair saw her scribbled something down.
'You love him.' It said as she flipped it around for him to read. All Altair did was nod once.
"That's it," Siren hissed in a whisper, "We're getting out of here! Tonight!"
Altair did not know how to react to that. But this girl, this Walker seemed to just like Alex. Under the brutality that she seemed to shroud herself in, under the hard eyes and demonic voice, was a being that was just misunderstood.
Well when one was a double agent, misunderstanding was the basis of the trade, and Siren was a master!
But still, how the hell were they going to do it?
"How?" he whispered.
Siren only cocked a black brow, and began to doodle out a plan on her notepad.

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The trial had lasted long enough for Alex to track it to a smaller city just on the other side of the Canada-US border. He simply hopped out of the chopper, not caring where the fuck it crashed. Altair had told him about the Templars, and from what he could tell, they were downright brutal fuckers.
Of course he was not entirely sure if Siren was a member of the Templar Order, but he did know that he would have to perform some form of rescue. He also had quite a bone to pick with the female shape sifter.
Alex glanced up into the sky and saw that Siren's trail was still strong. Still, something seemed to hit him after all the rage and anger had gotten out. Why would Siren fly off the way she did if she knew Alex would be able to fallow her to? Maybe she thought he would never get out of NYC. "Feh!" Alex spat, "I'm smarter then I fucking look."
From the clearing he had landed in, it became difficult to track the dust trail without walking into a tree, and it took for-fucking-ever just to get out of the woods.
By the time he did make it out, the sun had already began it's decent in the sky. Now it was just a matter of fallowing the trail.
Alex wasn't sure if Blackwatch had any form of branch in Canada, but he was not taking any chances. He took on a civilian disguise, and walked down the street before he saw the infected trail lead to the top of the tallest building in the town. Sure it was nothing to compare to the skyscrapers of New York, but it could still spatter a jumper.
Now that he knew were Siren had taken Altair, it was time to play the waiting game.