Nicole Horne

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Nicole Horne was a character in the game Max Payne. She was behind Project Valhalla.

A cold, ruthless, and menaceing figure; Nicole Horne was the leader of the extremely successful Aesir Corporation. During the Gulf War, Horne was involved in Project Valhalla: a black bag military experiment to create a drug to "enhance the stamina and morale of infantry troops." After the test subjects experienced addictive and hallucination related side effects from the combat drug codenamed: Valkyr, Alfred Woden and a secret society called the The Inner Circle which Horne may had been a part of cut the funding and abandoned the underground test facility. Horne and her henchmen returned to the Project Valhalla bunker and continued the production of the Valkyr drug, taking advantage of it and marketing it as a narcotic. Horne manipulated the Punchinello Syndicate and used them to sell her drugs and do her dirty work. Horne also used an army of trained mercenaries to enforce her intersts. It should also be noted that she was responsible for Max's frame up by using B.B. to eliminate Alex Balder.

Eventually horne sent a trained hit squad to storm Punchinello Manor and execute Don Angelo Punchinello in order to cover the tracks linking him to Aesir Corporation.

Three years before Max Payne took the law into his own hands, his wife (Michelle Payne) accidentally came across evidence involving Project Valhalla while working at one of the project's front companies. Horne sent test subjects driven insane by Valkyr to Max Payne's New Jersey home, resulting in the gruesome shooting deaths of his wife and infant daughter.

Max first encountered Horne at Punchinello Manor where she injected him with a syringe full of Valkyr and left him for dead. After a drug overdose induced nightmare, Max followed a trail that led him to the truth of his family's murders, the destruction of Project Valhalla, and Horne's identity which was revealed by Alfred Woden. Horne sent her mercenaries to attack the headquarters of the Inner Circle (the Asgard Building)and kill Max once ad for all. Max escaped and the only survivor of the Inner Circle was Alfred Woden. Finally Max Payne attacked the Aesir Corporation headquarters. Horne tried to escape in her helicopter but Max sent a weather mast crashing down on the mid-flight helicopter and forcing it and her into an explosive conclusion on the New York streets.

[edit] Project Valhalla

Project Valhalla is a fictional top secret project in the game which was led by Nicole Horne. The project began in 1991 with the goal of creating a chemical substance that would enhance the stamina and the morale of infantry troops of the U.S. Army. The end result was the Valkyr drug. In 1995, the results were deemed unsatisfactory, and the project was cancelled, ending government funding. However, Horne was unwilling to let it fail and continued the experiments unauthorized.