Clay Kaczmarek BG

Able to manipulate technology in one form or another.

The son of Harold Kaczmarek and his wife, Clay was destined, in his father's eyes, to follow in the family footsteps and become an engineer. From an early age, Clay showed signs of desiring more for himself; at one point saying to his father that he wanted to become an astronaut. As he became older, Clay's interests began to differ greatly from his father's hopes, causing a rift between the two.

Just before 2007, Clay successfully gained entry to a college engineering program, though his father was disappointed that it was not at one of the top-tier institutions. Dejected, Clay secretly began to visit a psychiatrist to discuss his feelings.

Around this time, the Assassins' Mentor William Miles approached Clay and offered him an induction into the Brotherhood, which he passed, without the knowledge of his father. Following this, Clay's psychiatrist noticed a marked improvement in his attitude, behavior, and outlook, though he was oblivious as to the reasons why.

From that point onwards, Clay maintained limited contact with his father—whose business was suffering due to the economic downturn in early 2010—occasionally sending checks to help support the family. His father's over-dependency soon drove both Clay and his mother away, leaving Harold on his own.

Infiltrating Abstergo

In 2010, William gave Clay the task of infiltrating the Templars' front organization Abstergo Industries. His job was to access CEO Alan Rikkin's computer and uncover details surrounding the secretive "Animus project". Succeeding in his efforts, Clay returned to the Assassins with a copy of an e-mail revealing the amount of funding being invested in the project; the identity of the project lead, Dr. Warren Vidic; and the location of his new facility in Italy.

Spurred on by this success, the Assassins decided to plant Clay deeper into Abstergo, this time as a test subject of Dr. Vidic's program. He was informed that a member of his team was a mole who was already deep inside Abstergo, one who had been raised outside of the Order and had cut all ties with them: Lucy Stillman. Assured that she would aid in his escape when the time came, Clay agreed to the plan.

On 1 February 2011, Abstergo's Lineage Discovery and Acquisition team captured Clay and inducted into the Animus Project as Subject 16. Held within the Abstergo laboratory in Rome by Dr. Vidic, Clay was forced to relive the memories of his ancestors, particularly Ezio Auditore da Firenze, for dangerously long periods at a time.

Throughout this, Vidic kept the true purpose of their genetic explorations a secret, though Clay soon realized that their efforts were focused on locating a mythical "Apple of Eden". When Clay inquired about this, Vidic threateningly responded that he could not reasonably expect to be released if he knew what they truly sought. Later, William was able to contact Clay and told him to focus on his task, as his teammate Lucy would rescue him when the time was right.

Eventually, Clay discovered the Animus Project's true purpose was to aid the Templars' Eye-Abstergo initiative and decided that it was time for him to escape. Unfortunately, by this point, his over-exposure to the Animus had resulted in him suffering from the Bleeding Effect and he soon found himself unwillingly exploring his ancestors' memories without the use of the Animus. During one of these experiences, Clay found himself conversing with a figure calling herself Juno, who offered shocking revelations about Lucy's true allegiances and his own destiny.

The Truth

Clay reacted angrily when he was informed that his death was nigh and that his purpose from then on was to deliver a message to his eventual successor, Desmond Miles. In order to convince him of the necessity, Juno revealed that the years of loneliness and separation from the Assassin Order had made Lucy turn against them; her true mission being to aid the Assassins in the discovery of the Apple before returning it to the Templars. This betrayal shocked Clay and brought him to the realization of his place in future events.

Lucy later discovered that Clay knew about her true intentions and attempted to explain her actions, claiming that William and the rest of the Order cared little for the lives that they destroyed in the pursuit of their goals, whereas the Templars offered a better alternative.

Knowing she could not sway him, Lucy stated that she would keep the promise she had made to protect Clay, hiding the evidence of his new-found knowledge from Vidic, but that she could no longer afford to let him leave. Faced with no other option, Clay realized that there was only one way to get his message to Desmond.

Life after death

For weeks, Clay planned his suicide down to the most minute detail, biding his time and preparing his message, all the while enduring Vidic's repeated attempts to uncover the Apple of Eden's location. While hacking the Animus during the nights, Clay eventually managed to create an artificial construct of himself inside the machine. He split it into 30 pieces—hidden within 20 glyphs and 10 rifts—to be united by his successor before sending a final e-mail to his father.

On 8 August 2012, Clay killed himself by slitting his wrists and draining his blood in order to paint several cryptic messages in the rooms where he was being kept, hoping to ensure his successor recovered the message that he had died to pass on. After his death, Abstergo dumped his body in the Tiber river.

A month later, Abstergo abducted Desmond Miles on 1 September and forced into the Animus Project. Within the week, he and Lucy escaped from Abstergo and found their way to a nearby Assassin hideout, where he would begin his own explorations of Ezio Auditore's memories.

During these investigations, the Assassins learned how Clay had managed to hack Abstergo's Animus before his death, and that in doing so, he had placed 20 glyphs throughout the Animus system, which were subsequently rendered in the visual memories. These encrypted files, which had been saved onto the Abstergo Animus' memory core that Lucy had stolen, were later unknowingly transferred to Rebecca Crane's Animus 2.0.

After decrypting all 20 files, the Assassins were rewarded with a genetic memory marked "date classified BCE". The video showed two free runners, Adam and Eve, climbing a large glass structure with an Apple of Eden in hand.

Following Vidic's hideout raid on 15 September, Desmond, Lucy, Rebecca, and Shaun Hastings retreated to the last Assassin safehouse in Italy, the Villa Auditore in Monteriggioni. While there, during their exploration of some of Ezio's later memories, it was discovered that Clay had left 10 more glyphs, which corresponded with locations in Renaissance Rome. Upon visiting these indicated landmarks, Desmond discovered several rifts in the Animus programming.

Within each rift, Desmond solved a cluster puzzle, which then unlocked a piece of a file. Upon compiling them, they revealed a distorted video with the message "the miracle is in the execution", suggesting that, unlike the video hidden in the Glyphs, the Rifts instead concealed an executable file. Upon accessing it, Desmond found himself in an unknown area within the Animus and was able to run through a long virtual maze.

At the end of the maze, he found a wire-frame model of Clay, partially broken and made of computing code. Clay told Desmond that all hope was lost, and that he needed to "go to Eden" to find a woman named Eve. Before vanishing, Clay told Desmond to find him in the darkness.

Black Room

Eventually, Desmond and his allies located Ezio's Apple of Eden, hidden in the Colosseum Vault. It was here that Desmond met Juno for the first time, and where he was influenced into killing Lucy, despite her betrayal not yet having become apparent to her companions. As a result of this, Desmond slipped into a coma; to support his mental state, William returned him into the Animus.

When he "awoke", Desmond was greeted by Clay's digital construct had inserted into the Animus. He informed Desmond that they were in a safe mode of the Animus' software and he offered his successor advice on how to escape, telling Desmond that he needed to create a Synch Nexus and clearly separate his memories from those of Ezio and Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad.

Since Desmond's teammates could not contact him, Clay took Shaun's place as author of the Animus database entries. He made an entry about himself, revealing his actual name to Desmond, and told him how they were distant cousins by virtue of their joint descent from Ezio.

On Animus Island, Clay also mentioned that the Animus would resist his attempts to view further genetic memories and keep pulling Desmond back into the simulated island they were in—the designated compartment for Desmond's consciousness. However, Clay said that he would help prevent the Animus from noticing him "wandering" into the outside partitions of his memory, just in case it concluded Desmond to be a virus and enacted a deletion.

At one point, as Desmond worked to return to his body, Clay asked him if he could come with him, perhaps until he could find a body of his own. As Desmond hesitantly declined, Clay admitted that he was not surprised, and that perhaps he had wasted his only chance.

On another re-entrance to the island, Clay asked Desmond if he had ever regretted anything in his life. After Desmond admitted that he had wished he had been more patient with his parents, whom he had run away from, and that he wished things would have turned out differently with Lucy, Clay simply thanked Desmond for making sense before vanishing again.

When Desmond had come close to completing the Synch Nexus, the Animus attempted to rectify the intrusions he had been causing in other memories. As it began to delete the Black Room and all of its contents, Clay grabbed onto Desmond and, in a final embrace in which he imprinted all of his genetic memories upon him, threw Desmond through a portal, saving his life.

Save File

What Clay had failed to mention to Desmond before the final deletion, was that he'd saved another copy of his consciousness somewhere else in the Animus, saving himself. He was able to save what scraps of data had survived the purge of the Black Room, giving him glimpses of what had happened there. Free to explore the rest of the animus, he does so in secret, never making his presence known to the assassins. 

While exploring his new surroundings, he found a backdoor into the computing systems outside the Animus. Wanting to know his limits, Clay forced himself through, and suddenly everything was too much but not enough all at once. He felt both liberated but also confined, trapped in Rebecca's computers which was better than the Black Room, but not by much. Now that he knew he could move between systems, Clay searched for a connection to the internet, but considering how that would put a big target on the others' backs, he didn't find one.

At least not yet.

When Juno is released, and Desmond had to make his choice, Clay watched in