Hitman Absolution The Code Execution Cannot Proceed
Juan Navarro
His genetically-enhanced body and mind (combined with his extensive knowledge, rigorous training, and decades worth of experience as a contract killer) turned him into the world's deadliest and most efficient assassin.
A victim of illegal experimentation at the sinister "Institute for Human Betterment" in 1960s Romania, 47 is exceptionally intelligent with superior instincts and reflexes. A pattern recognition expert, master of disguises and social chameleon, he is a ghost, rarely noticed and never remembered. Discrete, precise, and endlessly inventive.
Agent 47 is a genetically enhanced human being, his DNA is the culmination of decades of secret research into gene augmentation. His creation was funded by five criminal masterminds who donated their own DNA to the project.[3]
In the 1950's, five men of various nationalities began serving in the same unit of the French Foreign Legion, namely, Otto Wolfgang Ort-Meyer, Lee Hong, Pablo Belisario Ochoa, Frantz Fuchs, and Arkadij Jegorov.[3] After finishing their service, Ort-Meyer started up a mental institution in Romania as a cover for genetic experiments, while the other four became major crime lords and terrorists. In exchange for research funding, Ort-Meyer decided to provide his former comrades with donor organs harvested from clone bodies, which could extend their longevity. Therefore, even while the terrorists were in their 60s, they looked much younger.
Dr. Ort-Meyer's goal was to create "perfect assassins" who could be as physically fit as humanly possible and were capable of obeying orders with devotion and unquestioning loyalty.[3] Dr. Ort-Meyer tried to make his discoveries public before the 47 clone was created, however, he was discredited as a scientist by his peers as they thought that Ort-Meyer's radical theories were insane.[3]
Agent 47 was created on September 5, 1964, in Ort-Meyer's asylum in Romania. He had the numbers "640509-040147" tattooed on the back of his head ("64-05-09" is the date of creation, "04" marks he is part of Series IV, "01" marks that he is the first, and "47" is to represent that he is the 47th), followed several years later by a Universal Product Code. Dr. Ort-Meyer saw 47 as his first genetically complete success and gave him slightly more attention, even though he had other specimens to consider.[4]
From ages five to seven, 47 was quiet and showed little social interaction. His only display of affection was towards a runaway laboratory rabbit he adopted on August 21, 1970, displeasing Dr. Ort-Meyer.[4] However, it died on May 2, 1972. Ort-Meyer noticed 47 crying and was surprised, as he'd never seen any of his clones do so before. Five years later, 47 also showed affection to a pet mouse. He cared for the mouse for about a month, until it was killed by a fellow clone as a cruel prank.[4]
When 47 returns to Ort-Meyer's lab in Contracts, circa 2000, five incubated clones can still be found in chambers bearing the Five Fathers' names. However, Contracts takes place in 47's memory, and other details from Contracts (such as Alvaro D'Alvade's name originally being Phillipe Berceuse) have since been retconned, casting these five clones' canon into doubt.[5]
As portrayed in the comic series Agent 47: Birth of the Hitman, 47 had formed a brotherly relationship with a clone named 6 and together they were an impressive team of assassins. Ort-Meyer would often send his clones on assassinations for extra income - 47's and 6's targets included two plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Blue Seed Pharmaceuticals, Peter and Nancy Burnwood, coincidentally the parents of 47's future ICA handler Diana Burnwood.
On March 23, 1977, 6 convinced 47 to run away from the asylum with him, and they took refuge in a small farming village before being apprehended again, everyone in the village was killed to eliminate any witnesses. They would try again many years later in 1989 - while on assignment in Berlin, they coerced a German scientist to neutralize their explosive chip implants (he was the same person to have designed them, while being employed by Ort-Meyer), after which 47 killed him against 6's intentions. When they returned to the asylum as instructed, they attempted to free the rest of the clones (killing several guards in the process) before 6 escaped and 47 was taken in by the rest of Ort-Meyer's security. 6 would go on to live in the outside world under the assumed name Lucas Grey.
47 has very different memories of a "6" clone in the novel Hitman: Enemy Within; in this version of events, 6 bullied him until 47 killed him in a bathroom stall when they were both 12 (circa 1977). 47 then achieved a daring escape from the asylum, during which he made a fiber wire out of a windowsill and broken parts of a broom, oiled squeaky door hinges to sneak out, and stashed a bow and arrow to kill a guard dog before he jumped the gate and hitchhiked into a Romanian town. He first noticed luxury clothing stores, which may have influenced his penchant for suit-and-tie apparel as an adult. Later, an asylum doctor found him at a bus stop and ironically rewarded him with a pancake breakfast. He explained to 47 that he was right to kill that series 6 clone and had done a good job of it, but should in the future only kill when instructed to do so.
When 47's memory was wiped with an experimental serum in Birth of the Hitman, Ort-Meyer convinced him of the Enemy Within version of events, making a passing reference to "how you killed your tormentor, 6, at the age of twelve." 47 insists "That's not what happened, father", to which Ort-Meyer replies "When we're done here, 47, it will be".
On September 5, 1989, Dr. Ort-Meyer went so far as to remember 47's twenty-fifth birthday in his journal, although 47 himself didn't, along with comments that he had become "mature" and stopped many of his bad habits. In 1993, he stated that 47, now almost thirty, had passed every test he can think of and is his most skilled clone.
Similar to the experimental serum that erased 47's memory of 6, additional serums were administered to all the clones to try to do away with their emotions. Birth of the Hitman recounts that in 1996, the serums made most of the clones manically depressed, some dying of starvation, dehydration and infected bedsores as a result. Ort-Meyer had made at least 81 clones by then, but they were too weak to carry out assassination contracts in the outside world. Eventually, 47 was the only clone still left at the asylum - most were dead while a rare few, such as 6 and 17, had somehow or another transitioned to living in the outside world.
Everyone backing Dr. Ort-Meyer's research, from Providence to his French Foreign Legion friends, had grown weary of funding him with little results, and relations between them soured. Dr. Ort-Meyer sometimes blatantly suggested that he would use the clones against his French Foreign Legion friends if he felt necessary. Meanwhile, Providence demanded that Dr. Ort-Meyer turn 47 over to their care, after which they would shut down his operation. In 1999, as seen at the beginning of Hitman: Codename 47, Ort-Meyer purposely created a gap in the asylum's security for 47 to escape.
The very next morning, Ort-Meyer was visited by Providence's Constant Arthur Edwards, who tells him he can resume operations to make them more clones, saying "If I were a more suspicious man, I'd say you've made yourself indispensable, at a time when you were very much disposable". It was probably after this arrangement that Ort-Meyer would produce the 48 Series, rapidly aging them to adulthood - despite the likelihood that a previous "Subject 48" died as a result of the serum, Ort-Meyer likely reused the number 48 because their design was heavily based on 47.
Birth of the Hitman portrays an incident in late 1999, when multiple contracts were out on the life of Bricolage Technology founder Franklin Marchand - publicly known as a producer of satellite technology, he had a side business producing chemical weapons in Afghanistan, and a leak at one of his secret plants killed at least 500 people in the immediate area. He was set to make a rare public appearance at Place de la Concorde in Paris to announce a relief fund for impoverished people in Afghanistan; 47's unknown client insisted that Marchand die in an apparent accident, telling him "No other circumstances tolerated. If Marchand dies any other way, he'll be propped up as a martyr." Meanwhile, someone else had hired the ICA to do away with Marchand, and they sent a four-member team to gun him down. 47 subdued the ICA team in rapid succession, then held a cab driver at gun point to make him run down Marchand with his car. Afterwards, Diana met with 47 in a bar and delivered ICA's offer to audition him, and strongly recommended to the ICA that they hire him.
The prologue of HITMAN portrays 47's audition for the ICA, conducted by training director Erich Soders and handler Diana Burnwood at a top-secret facility in a remote, snowy region. 47 went through rigorous training programs, psychological evaluations, and a thorough background check, although they found very little about 47's previous life. While Burnwood believed that 47 would be an invaluable asset to the ICA, Erich Soders was very reluctant to recruit 47 because of how little they knew about him, telling Diana, "Frankly, it's as if the earth just spat him out." Soders suspected 47 of lying about coming from a Romanian asylum, ironically because 47 covered his tracks perfectly. Soders grew displeased with this lack of information on Agent 47's background, as there was nothing from 47's past that the ICA could use as leverage against him, and administered the strictest possible tests on 47 in hopes of being able to reject him. Learning of this plot Diana also chose to "bend the rules" and helped 47 to pass his audition. 47 was then made a full agent of ICA and Diana Burnwood was assigned to him as his handler.
c80f0f1006