Altaïr's POV:
From across the room I heard Lucy gasp. I shot a glance back to see that she was staring open mouthed at that machine. She poked at the buttons on the board on the... screen, did they call it? She then dug around in her pocket to pull out that little black rectangle and began to poke at it.
"Hello? Warren? Come up here, quickly! I think you need to see this!" she said into the thing.
"What has happened?" I asked, moving over to her.
Lucy put the thing away and gestured wordlessly at the screen as I crossed to the other side of the machine, and looked at what the blonde woman was staring at so dumbfoundedly.
On screen was the image of a familiar sight. We were looking at an image of a long, rectangular covered courtyard. There were a couple of rugs on the floor, and a pile of cushions against the wall. A couple of potted plants sat on the sandy floor, and a fountain bubbled cheerfully on the other side of the room, though I could hear no sound. The Bureau. Safety. Home.
There was a man who looked eerily familiar sitting on the cushions, a partially eaten apple in one hand, the shadow of the wooden lattice above falling across his form. He reached up to take a bite of the apple as he played with a throwing knife in his other hand, twirling it around with his fingers. At that point I was beyond surprise that the image was moving. It took me a moment to realize why this man was so eerily familiar; we looked almost exactly the same. I looked at his face, drinking in his features, as I absentmindedly touched the scar on my lips, as he had the same one.
"Is that...?" I started gruffly, trailing off in wonder.
"Yes." Lucy murmured, not looking at me, her eyes still glued to the screen, "That's Desmond."
"This is..." I paused, searching for the right word. "Bizarre."
As the man on the screen, Desmond, I suppose, continued to munch silently on the apple, Doctor Vidic entered the room. He looked irritated as he strode towards us, as if his being called here had interrupted him doing something important.
"What is it, Miss Stillman? This better be important. I can't have you-" he stopped short when he saw the screen.
Now there was another familiar figure coming into view. Malik looked down at Desmond, irritated, and snapped something at him. Desmond looked up, started to say something, but before he could finish the one-armed Dai snatched the throwing knife out of his hand. Desmond rolled his eyes, and Malik scowled down at him.
"I... see." Vidic said faintly, "Is there any way to hear them?"
"I don't know yet." Lucy admitted, "This is the only progress I've made in the last week, as you very well know. I probably can, that's not that difficult..."
Lucy poked around more on the machine, undoubtedly trying to see if she could make sound come out of it as Vidic had requested. I didn't particularly care what they did; instead, I found my eyes glued to the two figures on screen.
Malik was now snapping something else at Desmond, who seemed to sigh as he got to his feet. He dusted off his trousers and took another bite of his apple, before following Malik into the back of the Bureau. The image followed them, and Malik plucked the apple from Desmond's hand, despite his protests. He placed it on a stack of crates in the back of the Bureau before moving back to Desmond, who seemed to be reproachfully asking him a question. Malik opened his mouth to reply, taking a fighting stance, the throwing knife still in his hand.
"There!" Lucy cried.
"-know how to use it."
It was Malik's voice. He was speaking in accented English, but it was undeniably his voice. I never thought I would be so happy to hear it.
On screen, Malik threw the knife at the apple, where it stuck into the core before toppling off of the crate.
"I think... I think the next step is to get in contact with Desmond to make sure that's actually him, and not just an image stimulation created by the Animus." Lucy said, biting her lip.
Vidic scratched his beard. "Fair enough. See what you can get done, Miss Stillman. There may be some hope of salvaging this after all."