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| “ | Everything you hope to become, everything you hold dear, it's already gone. | „ |
| ~ Clay's hologram to Desmond Miles. |
| “ | What is a man but a sum of his memories? We are the stories we live! The tales we tell ourselves! | „ |
| ~ Ditigal Clay Kaczmarek to Desmond Miles. |
Clay Kaczmarek (1982 - 2012), also known as Subject 16, is a recurring character in the Assassin's Creed series, acting as a supporting character in the Desmond Miles saga.
He was a test subject of the Animus Project, being kidnapped by Abstergo Industries and forced to relive his ancestors' memories in the Animus. After his alleged suicide, Clay continued to exist as an AI recreation of his personality within the Animus. As such, he was able to manipulate much of the Animus' programming from within to aid another Animus subject, Desmond Miles, who was kidnapped by Abstergo to relieve the memories of Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad and Ezio Auditore da Firenze.
He was voiced by Cam Clarke in Assassin's Creed II, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, and Graham Cuthbertson in Assassin's Creed: Revelations.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Clay Kaczmarek was born in 1982 to Harold Kaczmarek and an unnamed mother, and from a young age, Harold wanted his son to follow his footsteps in becoming an engineer. Clay wanted to become an astronaut and desired something more in his life, which would cause his relationship with his father to become strained. Becoming an adult, Clay maintained a tense relationship with his father, which led to see a psychiatrist. While attending a college on an engineering degree, Clay met William Miles, who inducted Kaczmarek into the Assassin Order to fight against Abstergo Industries. Clay never told anyone of his allegiance, and as a result, become distant to Harold, who became embittered towards the 2010 recession.
Subject 16[]
Clay would be tasked by William to infiltrate Abstergo Industries to learn about the Animus project, and after succeeding in his mission, the Assassins had Kaczmarek go deeper to become a test subject of the project. He was told that he would be assisted by fellow Lucy Stillman, who was embedded into Abstergo, when it was time to escape. Being implanted into the company, Clay was forced to relieve his memories of Ezio Auditore da Firenze by the project's head, Dr. Warren Vidic. Relieving the memories of Ezio, Clay was kept into the animus for long periods of time, which effected his mental and physical health as he started to suffer from the bleeding effect. He would soon learn the true intentions of Abstergo, as they were looking for the location of the Apple of Eden, and later the Eye-Abstergo.
Kaczmarek attempted to plot his escape, but due to suffering the bleeding effect, he would relieve memories without the animus and would encounter the Isu Juno. She revealed Clay's purpose and that Lucy was actually a Templar spy, having changed allegiances due to feeling that the Assassin's have abandoned her. Lucy would soon figure out that Clay knew of his allegiance, and informed him that she couldn't let him leave. Seeing that he couldn't escape, Clay decided to create an artificial construct of himself within the animus, and hacked the machine to place glyphs for Desmond to find. He then left an email to his father, and proceeded to commit suicide and painted the walls with his blood to leave cryptic messages. Clay's corpse was dumped into the Tiber river, and the artificial construct would note that the original Clay's body was probably "worm food" in 2012.
Assassin's Creed[]
Though Clay doesn't make an appearance in Assassin's Creed, he is succeeded by Desmond, who is kidnapped by Abstergo to continue goal to locate the apples of Eden. Clay's cryptic message would be found by Desmond, who used eagle vision in his room to see it due to suffering from the bleeding effect.
Assassin's Creed II[]
Desmond and his team would encounter the glyphs in the animus, and Miles managed to decrypt the files to see a genetic memory. Desmond saw a memory of the primordial's Adam and Eve free-running and holding an apple of Eden, indicating that they had the same genetic code like Desmond and Clay.
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood[]
During Desmond's second time reliving the memories of Ezio, he encountered more glyphs that contained cryptic files across the artificial landscape. Unlike the previous glyphs that held a genetic memory, these contained an executable file, which allowed Desmond to meet a digitized Clay. The avatar told Desmond that all hope was lost, but to meet him in the darkness before fading away.
Assassin's Creed: Revelations[]
While staying in the black room, the artificial construct of Clay would encounter Desmond, who had fallen into a coma after being controlled by Juno to kill Lucy. The construct informed Desmond that he would awake from his coma by finishing the final sequences of Ezio and Altair, which he referred to as a synch nexus. Clay would give Desmond information in the databases since Miles couldn't contact Shaun Hastings or Rebecca Crane, which revealed that Clay and Desmond were distant cousins since they were related to Ezio. When Desmond was close to completing the synch, the animus attempted to delete Miles since the machine saw him as an intrusion in the network. Clay sacrificed himself to allow Desmond to finish the last memory.
Powers/Skills[]
Prior to going undercover within Abstergo, Clay was a competent mechanical engineer and computer technician. After join the Assassins he was trained personally by William Miles, one of the most skilled and respected Assassins in the modern era, learning basic combat, parkour and espionage skills both as part of the Brotherhood's basic training and in preparation for the Abstergo infiltration.
Clay was also very gifted in strategy, himself implying that he had been planning an escape out of Abstergo after discovering Lucy Stillman's betrayal, and even when knowing he would not be successful he was able to upload his consciousness in the Animus itself, ensuring his own partial survival. After becoming part of a computer Clay gained the ability to predict future events via mathematical probability, similar to the methods of the Precursors. Using this ability, Clay was able to plan out effective ways of both gaining the attention of Desmond Miles and successfully map out a plan that would help Desmond save humanity from extinction.
After entering the Animus, he likely gained most if not all of the skills & physicality of Ezio as well as numerous other ancestors whom he was forced to relive via the animus, although this was never outright confirmed. He was implied to be an immensely skilled fighter considering his confidence that he would have been able to successfully fight his way out of Abstergo, no easy feat in of itself, only being unable to do so because of his mental instability at the time preventing him from mustering the willpower to do so. He later gained a form of partial immortality by transferring his memories in the Animus memory core, though he was physically unstable and mentally unhinged.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Clay's surname, Kaczmarek, hints that the character has Polish ancestry since the surname is from Old Polish.
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