Americans could be incredibly naive sometimes—no need for elaborate schemes.
Five thousand dollars a day, two meals included.
Where else were you going to find a deal like that?
When Sam Witwicky saw that the rich kid wasn't only recruiting him but had lined up two other test subjects—one man, one woman—he realized he wasn't in any danger and immediately relaxed. He climbed into the car with a grin and followed without a second thought.
Even if the guy turned out to be some kind of sleazeball, so what? There were three of them. Could he take on all three at once? American logic really was that simple.
The other man and woman were just decoys. The rich kid drove all three to one of Weyland's research facilities in Los Angeles. When the staff asked whether they were participating voluntarily, all three said yes, signed their labor contracts, and received five thousand dollars on the spot. Grinning from ear to ear, they followed the staff into the lab.
On the far side of the facility, the rich kid presented something to Bella with both hands—a pair of old-fashioned round spectacles. "Miss, these are what you wanted."
These were the glasses once belonging to Sam Witwicky's great-grandfather. Encoded within them were the coordinates to the AllSpark's location on Earth. Not that Bella actually needed them—she already knew the AllSpark was buried beneath Hoover Dam, under heavy guard by Sector Seven. She'd only asked for the glasses in passing.
Appraisal. Universal Linguistics. She scanned the interior of the frames and detected traces of written text—Cybertronian script.
She'd already learned to read Cybertronian from Shatter. Speaking it was another matter; human vocal cords simply weren't built for those sounds. But reading and writing posed no problem.
The glasses were essentially useless to her, but buying them for thirty dollars wasn't much of a loss. She pocketed them.
"Good work, Mr. DeMarco. Your efforts are appreciated—it seems your value on land far outweighs your value aboard ship. Go enjoy your vacation."
The rich kid, having just secured himself a brand-new year off, left with a deeply satisfied smile.
As long as I'm happy. Whether anyone else lived or died was none of his concern.
With the original design blueprints in hand and the Russian Brotherhood's scaled-down Animus as a reference, the combined efforts of Weyland's and the Brotherhood's scientists had finally borne fruit. The Animus Version 1.1—a cutting-edge virtual reality machine capable of reading a user's genetic memory and projecting it as a fully realized three-dimensional world—was complete.
Rumor had it the Templar Order's Animus had already reached Version 1.28. The Brotherhood was behind, but not by much.
When it had come to hunting down treasures, the Brotherhood had led with Weyland's 006 in a supporting role. Now that the objective had shifted to locating an alien spacecraft, those roles were reversed: Weyland took the lead, the Brotherhood provided support.
Bella had spoken with several Brotherhood operatives and found that their thinking largely mirrored 006's—if an opportunity arose to claim the frontier of space, they had to take it. The Templar Order had gotten there first with the Animus project, and that head start had contributed indirectly to the Brotherhood's long decline. Space could not be so easily conceded.
As Bella saw it, they were simply too proud to back down even when the odds weren't in their favor. No resources? Fine, let it go. But the moment resources were available, they'd fight tooth and nail to come out on top.
Seeing that both Weyland and the Brotherhood shared the same ambition, and despite finding it slightly troublesome, Bella went along with the general consensus and launched a space exploration program, led publicly by Weyland Corporation.
The Brotherhood's strict rules forbade assassins from stepping into the spotlight, so Weyland handled all public-facing roles, with the Brotherhood offering financial, personnel, and intelligence support from the shadows.
William Miles was still in New York managing the distribution of the treasure haul. Gavin Banks flew in from Osaka to witness the Brotherhood's first Animus field test.
Anton Vanko and Ivan Vanko were genuinely talented. They had engineered a palm-sized Arc Reactor and completed all the mechanical components of the Animus system. The reactor was now powering the entire machine.
The Brotherhood's Animus took the form of a reclining chair. When a user sat down, they put on a head-mounted display—not unlike a VR headset. The device sealed off their vision and hearing from the outside world, then read their genetic data through the eyes, triggering a physical genetic regression to reconstruct ancestral memories.
Sam Witwicky picked up the strange headset and turned it over in his hands. He'd seen similar devices in tech magazines—same general shape, same general concept. He just hadn't expected anyone to have actually built something this advanced in the real world.
"This isn't dangerous, right?" he asked nervously as he settled into the Animus chair.
The staff—all Weyland personnel—pointedly glanced at the bulge in Sam's pocket: five thousand dollars in cash. Faced with a choice between personal safety and money, Sam Witwicky chose the money.
He clenched his jaw, planted himself in the chair, and took slow, deliberate breaths.
"It's a wonderful experience, son. You're going to love it." Dr. Jonathan Harlow—whose usual public image involved cracking open skulls and installing steel craniums in New York—now wore the gentlest expression imaginable, looking at Sam the way a father might look at his own child.
"Uh—can I ask, what kind of game is it? I've always been more into shooters and—"
"Don't worry, son. It's a little medieval Round Table simulation. A very small, very simple one..." Dr. Harlow's smile was eerily convincing.
The unsuspecting Sam Witwicky put on the headset. As his body relaxed, the chair beneath him reclined slowly to a forty-five-degree angle. Under the influence of the device, his consciousness drifted gradually into an unconscious state.
In the laboratory nearby, Weyland's and the Brotherhood's scientists worked in quiet, focused intensity.
Anton Vanko, who had originally been treating this as just another paycheck, became extremely motivated the instant the Brotherhood presented him with an entire crate of gold and silver valuables. The man had brains and talent—but an insatiable appetite for wealth. Bella's approach was simple: no cash. Cash could potentially be moved. But a crate full of gold and silver? Could he walk out from under the assassins' noses carrying that? Impossible—which meant he'd be spending the rest of his life right here.
After more than half a year of development, Weyland Corporation was no longer the hollow shell company that had once used movie special effects as its storefront.
Having acquired a substantial portion of Yashida Corporation's research assets, Weyland had become—without any exaggeration—one of the top five medical institutions in the world. (Claiming the absolute top spot would be a stretch; medicine spans too many disciplines for that.) The facility's doctors had run a full battery of examinations and treatments on Anton Vanko. Promises couldn't be made lightly, but extending his life by seven or eight years was entirely within reach.
With Anton Vanko's life on the line, Ivan Vanko wasn't going anywhere either.