[H2]Mirela Djuric - Assassin's Creed[/H2]

Poised like a gargoyle over the Renaissance era streets of Venice Mirela Djuric peered down at the milling throng of humanity.  She wasn’t Mirela, obviously, she was just using the character’s skin in multiplayer and she was just playing an immersive video game but that didn’t matter.  This recreation of Venice was astounding.  She loved the simulation.  She could hear the mongers on the wharf unloading their hauls of fish, and a pair of older women darning nets.  She could smell it too, the sweet stench of rot.
It was quite distracting.

Especially, since she was supposed to be looking for infiltrators.  The game was simple.  There were two territories, each belonging to a team.  Her team wanted the opposing team’s artifact nestled deep in enemy territory.  The problem was, if you were in enemy territory you couldn’t harm them but they could harm you.

Right now she was in her own territory, scanning the crowds, looking for the opposing team’s infiltrators.  She was close to her own artifact which dulled her ability to sense if an intruder was near but this was where she preferred to be, using her eyes to find opponents.  Just then she caught sight of one.  It was easy.  This close to the goal, anticipation pressed heavily, most started cutting corners.  This one was walking against the flow of pedestrians, cresting through the milling crowds like a shark through water.  He should have gone with the flow, allowed the rest of the crowd to lead him about in a wide circle and come at the goal again.  Now she had him.
She leaped down, grasping a cable from which someone’s laundry hung and dropped carefully onto the metal support from which hung a sign limned with a draft horse sitting upon a stool and drinking a pint of ale.  She then stepped off onto a pile of crates and made to follow her prey.  She was fast approaching when he turned and looked over his shoulder to see Mirela moving against the crowd as surely as he was.
Mirela cursed as the man began to run, shoving through the crowd and away from her.  She followed, bare feet slapping the cobblestone.  She was the faster in her own territory but he reached the building first and stepped up to a rope and tackle pulley system.  He slashed the rope, releasing the counterweight and went flying upwards, ascending to the roof in mere moments.

Scrabbling up the side of a building Mirela pursued her opponent, chasing him across a cable stretching from roof to roof across the street.  The chase went on at length, up buildings, down buildings, across cables between buildings and across buoys floating in channels of Venice.  Once even they jumped from gondola to gondola.  She almost lost him then.  Still, the distance between her and her prey diminished by the stride.  Ahead she should see him dive off the edge of a roof, arms extended as if in flight and disappear.  She reached the same ledge and dove off, emulating her opponent and landed in a cartful of hay.

Leaping out she peered about.  She was in a square.  It was too large for him to have raced across it so her prey was hiding, hiding in plain sight.  Walking about, her skirts swishing about her legs, she scoured the populace with her eyes, looking for anything out of the ordinary.  Finally, she stopped before a man seated upon a bench and flanked by two others.  His face was obscured, a hood covering his visage.  He stared down at her bare feet, up her blue skirts and finally looked her in the eye.

“You got me,” he acquiesced, spreading his hands out to his side, “Except we just crossed back into my side of the fence.”
Mirela gasped, realization dawning upon her as the Vizier lunged, plunging his dagger up under her breast and into her heart with his right hand while embracing her with his left.  She danced on the tips of her toes, suspended upon the knife tip and tried to cry out only to have her final breaths covered by her killer’s mouth and lips.  She died then, going limp in his arms and laid her head against his chest.
Carefully, the Vizier turned about, holding up Mirela’s dead body against himself, her toes slipping across the cobblestone.  Then he gently set her down in the seat he had just vacated and placed her hands in her lap.

“Excuse me,” he said to the man on the bench beside Mirela, “Could you watch out for my friend here.  She’s just ‘dead’ tired.”

[center]***[/center]

Mirela opened her eyes...