Desmond leaned his head against the cool tiles of the shower, his breath still short in his chest, and pressed hard enough to hurt. He already had a slight headache but he suspected that it was psychosomatic, and that he'd never have got it in the first place if Sixteen hadn't told him to look out for them. Desmond was keeping himself on guard for signs of madness and breakdown, and he believed he might have just found one.

The warm water sluiced the evidence from his stomach and hand, but he felt the trace of it still, an irrefutable reminder of what he had just done. Less than a day ago he had been scolding Subject Sixteen for being aroused by thoughts of violence and death, and now he was jerking off in front of Abstergo cameras with his eyes closed and images of a fall and jagged rocks flashing across his mind, reliving a sensation of being pushed at the moment of climax.

When he awoke in that state, he knew that the best course of action would be a cold shower, but it seemed the shower in his cell only had one temperature and it wasn't all that conducive to beating back arousal. He had felt a flash of anger and rebellion, which he now he realised was probably the result of another kind of frustration, and decided that if Abstergo wanted a show they were going to get one. So now Vidic had footage of him masturbating. Fantastic. Desmond wondered with a wince if Lucy would ever see it as well. Probably, knowing his luck.

He felt weak and disgusting. He turned around, keeping his head pressed against the tiles, until his back and shoulders were pressed against them too. He listened to the rhythmic banging of the pipes.

Rhythmic.

Desmond's eyes flashed open and he lifted his head, suddenly alert. He tilted his head up and looked at an exposed pipe in the wall above his head. It was making a racket, but there was something about it, something almost musical...

BANG. Clank ... clank ... clank ... clank ... clank ... clank ... BANG. BANG. BANG.

Desmond stared at the pipe and thought: no fucking way.

BANG. Clank ... clank ... clank ... clank ... clank ... clank ... BANG. BANG. BANG.

Again. How long had it been doing that without him realising it. The pattern of it was awakening something lost deep in his memory, Desmond's memory as opposed to those of his ancestors. A lesson he'd been taught on the Farm, and a sheet that he'd been given to memorise. Hours of rapping on tree trunks until his knuckles were raw and red, trying to burn the information into his head so that his father wouldn't be able to scold him for laziness.

BANG. Clank ... clank ... clank ... clank...

One.

Clank ... Clank ... BANG. BANG. BANG.

Seven.

"Seventeen," Desmond murmured to himself, then gave a shout of disbelieving laughter. "Morse-fucking-code."

His heart suddenly beating far faster than could possibly be healthy, Desmond reached up to grip the pipe, eager to acknowledge and respond to the message. He wrapped his fingers around it without a thought and would later recall that the feeling that something was wrong came before the pain itself.

"Ahhh fuck me!" he howled, ripping his hand away from the lava-hot surface of the pipe, the skin of his fingertips and palm already red and blistering. He knew he had to get it under cold water to stop the burn from penetrating further, but this fucking shower only had one temperature.

Desmond staggered across the bathroom, drops of water flying in arcs from his body and cascading onto the floor, and used his remaining hand to twist the cold tap in the sink. He plunged the burns into the stream and gave a distinctly unmasculine whimper of relief as the chilled flow of water ran over his injuries like novocaine. He was going to be in a lot of pain for a long time once he took his hand out, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to enjoy this temporary relief.

Inside the pipes, water gurgled and sounded suspiciously like laughter.


Painful as it was, Desmond kept his hand curled into a fist as he walked out of his room. Vidic, who was standing by his desk and had looked up at the opening of the door, didn't seem to notice, or give him any knowing looks, so presumably he hadn't seen the double humiliation in the bathroom. Yet.

Lucy was standing by the Animus, her brow a little furrowed with worry, but she gave him a tentative smile as he approached. Desmond was too shaken to remember that he was supposed to be angry with her, so he smiled back. The way her smile spread further with relief drew some of the poison out of Desmond's morning and he hopped up onto the Animus almost willingly.

"Not just yet, Mr Miles," Vidic called, from by the window. "I believe that you and I need to have a little chat first." He beckoned with one finger, as though Desmond were a dog.

Attempting to conceal his trepidation with an equally powerful feeling of resentment, Desmond stalked over to the desk deliberately slowly. Vidic sat down and indicated the chair on the other side of the desk. Desmond remained standing and folded his arms pointedly, enjoying the sensation of looking down on Vidic.

The doctor gave a menacing laugh. "You want me on your side, Mr Miles, trust me. Sit down."

Desmond took the luxury of a few more seconds just standing and staring defiantly, before kicking one leg of the chair to move it out and dropping into it gracelessly. "What do you want to talk about, Warren?"

"I want to ask you about Subject Sixteen."

"What a coincidence."

Vidic raised an eyebrow. "I imagine there's very little you need to ask me. You two seem to have had quite a few cosy little chats among yourselves."

Desmond tried and failed to hold back a smirk at Vidic's admittance that he'd been unable to listen in. "He's a good conversationalist."

"Oh? What kind of topics do the two of you ... touch on?"

"I don't think that's any of your business."

A pen on the desk jumped a few inches before rolling off the edge and clattering onto the floor. Desmond stared coolly at Vidic's fist, still pressing into the smooth plastic surface where he had slammed it a second before. "You listen to me very carefully, Miles," he snarled. "Everything that goes on inside that machine is my business."

"We're concerned about you, Desmond," Lucy said, approaching from behind him with her soothing voice.

Vidic gave an unattractive snort of laughter.

"I'm concerned about you," Lucy amended, coming around the side of the desk and giving Vidic a pointed look. "Desmond, Subject Sixteen has been in the program for several months already-"

"Try two years," Desmond interrupted, and then immediately cursed himself for speaking when he saw Lucy and Vidic exchange a look tinged with triumph. It had been a trick - of course it had - to determine how much Sixteen had told him.

"Well, he's been using the Animus for a long time," Lucy continued. "We think that the stress has become too much for him. He's unstable, Desmond, he's paranoid - suffering delusions and exhibiting violent behaviour."

In for a dime, in for a dollar. "Well that's not unusual for subjects in the program is it?" Desmond probed, watching Lucy's face carefully.

She looked a little confused. "Some of the other subjects suffered from insomnia, but aside from that there were no real adverse effects. Nothing long-term, anyway.

"Well it must be difficult to measure long-term adverse side effects in dead people. Aside from decomposition."

Vidic laughed condescendingly. "Oh, is that what Sixteen told you? He does love his little conspiracy theories. Sixteen thinks that we use you people up like batteries and then toss you out when you die. I suppose the idea appeals to him."

Desmond stood up abruptly and heard the chair clatter to the floor behind. "You're lying!" he exploded. "Both of you," he added, turning his head to glare into Lucy's pitying face.

"He's sick," she stated quietly. "He's a sick man, Desmond."

The words sparked a realisation in Desmond that he should have picked up on long ago in the conversation: Subject Sixteen was male. He supposed that he had come to think that way naturally, since he always spoke to Sixteen when he was wearing the guise of Malik's face, but it was strange to have it confirmed. It occurred to him that he still knew so little about the man, not even...

"What's his name?" Desmond asked, changing his tone to one that he hoped was less threatening.

Lucy pressed her lips together tensely. "We use numbers instead of names for a reason, Desmond."

Desmond recognised the irony in the sentence but decided not to point it out. "Are you going to separate us?" he asked bluntly.

"We haven't decided yet. According to what we know of Altaïr's timeline, it's a while before he and Malik saw each other again. We have time to decide what's best."

"You mean I'm on probation? I play nice and I get to talk to Sixteen again?"

"If that makes you more cooperative, then by all means look at it that way," Vidic cut in.

Desmond looked back at him and decided to test how much bargaining room he had. "I want to meet him," he said. "In real life, I mean."

"Not going to happen."

"Why not?"

Vidic's eyes flashed angrily. "You don't get to demand reasons from me, Mr Miles. Need I remind you that you're a prisoner here?"

"Need I remind you that you'll never unlock Altaïr's memories without me. You need me, Vidic. How about we all try to play nice?"

For a second, Desmond genuinely thought that Vidic was going to hit him. A look of unbridled fury flashed across the old man's face, but then with unsettling ease it melted into one of malevolent intent. "Get him into the Animus, Miss Stillman. Let's make this session a long one."


Vidic had his revenge. Desmond was kept in the Animus for so long that eventually it gave out before he did, even with the new cooling system that was supposed to prevent it from overheating. Desmond traversed hundreds of miles on horseback through the mountains, valleys and forests of the Middle East, pursued by soldiers for at least a dozen miles of his journey. He climbed dizzying heights to scout out the surrounding landscape. He beat men with his bare fists for information and felt their skin split like overripe fruit under his knuckles. He killed countless guards: with his hidden blade, with his sword, with throwing knives, by burying them under scaffolding and pushing them from the tops of buildings, and sometimes even with their own weapons.

In the hours that Desmond spent inside the Animus, he lived months of bloodshed, exhaustion and ugliness in Altaïr's shoes and wondered more than once how the Assassin had borne it without breaking down completely. He travelled between Masyaf, Damascus and Acre only, and did not see Malik or Subject Sixteen. He had no idea what Sixteen was living through in his own machine, and hoped that it was nothing so brutal as this.

It must be nightfall by now, Desmond thought wearily as Altaïr crossed the rooftops of the rich district of Damascus, silent as a ghost and invisible even in the harsh glare of the Syrian sunshine. He was waiting for Lucy to pull him out of the Animus, but Vidic had apparently elected productivity as Desmond's punishment. Perhaps after this last assassination he would be allowed to rest.

The target was Abu'l Nuqoud, a wealthy merchant guilty of stealing money from the city treasury and spending it on fripperies and fineries. Desmond slipped over a wall and into Abu'l's palace, where one of his traditional parties was taking place. Abu'l himself was on a balcony overlooking the courtyard, and Desmond saw that he was corpulent and frog-faced, dressed in alarmingly bright colours. When he began to speak, his voice was deep and had an almost bloated quality. Desmond's stomach turned in distaste, and he was unsettled to find himself looking forward to this death.

The fountain in the centre of the courtyard was running with wine instead of water, and he was tempted to take a drink of it in preparation for what he had to do. He reached for a goblet, but then immediately felt the memory fighting against his actions, his synchronisation dropping a fraction like a reprimand.

No.

Desmond realised his own stupidity and sighed internally. Altaïr hadn't taken a drink, because he must have known there was something wrong with the wine. His theory was confirmed a moment later when Nuqoud proposed a toast to the people, with an ominious wish that they receive "everything you deserve".

"Do you take me for a fool?" he rumbled, anger threading its way into his voice. "That I have not heard the words whispered behind my back? Well I have, and I fear I can never forget."

From his clothes, his mannerisms, and the way he had stroked the cheek of one of his guards earlier, Desmond guessed what kind of words had been whispered about Abu'l Nuqoud. He hazarded a guess that they were accurate ones, and doubly cruel for being so, since the penalties for living a certain lifestyle in this society must have been heavy. For the second time that day, he found his suspicions confirmed by Nuqoud's next words.

"All this suffering is born of fear and hate. It bothers you that they are different, just as it bothers you that I am different," he declared, before revealing what Desmond presumed must be a reference to his Templar allegiance. There were gasps of shock from the crowd around him, and Desmond turned his head to see a serving girl by his side, a youthful, freckled, pretty face with lips reddened from where she had illicitly taken a sip of the wine, put a hand to her mouth. Her eyes were wide with shock, and then pain. Her mouth moved to her stomach and she cried out, then reached with her other hand to grab at Altaïr's sleeve, silently pleading for help.

She's been dead for eight hundred years, Desmond reminded himself. This is just a memory. But it still hurt when he found himself shaking her loose like an inconvenience, as Altaïr endeavoured to escape the crowd and get closer to Abu'l. Without hesitation, Desmond charged up the fountain, tainted wine splashing his boots, and sprang onto a nearby balcony. Dodging the guards, he took Abu'l by surprise and slid the hidden blade up and into his ribs.

There was a strange moment where time seemed to stand still between the two of them, and Altaïr's next words took Desmond by surprise with their tenderness.

"Be at peace now. Their words can no longer do harm."

Abu'l Nuqoud died angry, spitting insults at his killer and defending his own reprehensible actions with a dismissive, gurgling laugh. His eyes fixed on Altaïr, his amphibian face uncomfortably close so that Desmond could see pain creating lines around his mouth.

"You take the lives of men and women, strong in the conviction that their deaths will improve the lots of those left behind: a minor evil for a greater good," he gasped accusingly. He reached up with one hand and caressed Altaïr's elbow. "We are the same!"

For the first time, Desmond felt a sudden and very real sense that Altaïr had been genuinely unbalanced and laid bare by the man's words. He watched his ancestor's fingers tighten in the layers of gaudy fabric swathing the man's bulky frame. "No!" he barked, his voice anguished. "We are nothing alike!"

"Ah, but I see it in your eyes. You doubt." As his heart slowed and stopped, Abu'l Naqoud was left frozen with an expression of pleased satisfaction. Altaïr shook him off in disgust, and Desmond was left to fight his way through an entire army of guards.

He staggered back to the Bureau and made his report. He was dimly aware of the HUD sliding back and Lucy's anxious face as she touched his chest, told him to take it easy, told him he would be allowed to rest. There was a terrible, pounding ache in his head.

Desmond passed out before he made it back to his room.