May 8, 2013

"So this chunk of code here takes the signals from the efferent nerves and reformats it to translate that signal into an action within the memory. Very important that it gets properly formatted, obviously."

"Uh-huh." Desmond was hardly able to process what she was saying, partly because his stupid stretched-out skin was itching like hell and distracting him, and partly because he was thinking about something he would need her help with. If he was even sure he really wanted to do it.

"The idiots who wrote Abstergo's code were incredibly inefficient with this part. Baby's efferent action module is tons more streamlined, uses a lot less CPU, so there's way, way less overheating."

Shaun was the only guy there when I touched the Apple. It'd be so fucking weird if it was him. But who says it has to be another guy? Maybe Juno took something from Rebecca... or Lucy... Or maybe it's none of them at all. Maybe it's nobody, really; just randomly generated DNA outta nowhere. Hell, that would make as much sense as anything else!

"Then there's the afferent system, which is obviously a lot more complex, 'cuz it's gotta encode and express all of the sensory data. It's several different code modules: you got your tactile, your auditory-"

"Rebecca, I want to know who."

"Want to know what now?" She turned her attention from the screen, her string of jargon jarred to a stop by his sudden declaration.

"Stacey did a test. It said half of it is me. But..." He rubbed his arm nervously. "I think, I kinda wanna know... who the other half is."

"Ohh. You mean the father. Uh, other father. Mother?"

"Let's say 'ancestor.' You can find it out... if I go in, right?" He pointed toward the Animus, as if there was any need to specify what he meant. "Like with Subject Fifteen."

"Animus as paternity test. Huh." Rebecca pondered the suggestion for a bit. "Not exactly what it's designed for, but I suppose it could work... All right. Go ahead and hop in."

He did so. "Hey, look. I still fit just fine! It never needed any widening after all!"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"...Never mind."

"Gimme your arm, I gotta plug in the input."

He consciously made the effort not to cry out at the sharp pinprick this time. "What are you, a tiny child?" He smiled inwardly upon remembering Shaun's particular choice of insult, which was oddly ironic in the current situation.

"Well, it's not recognizing you, so your DNA definitely changed... I'm getting a bunch of errors here, of course. Bear with me."

There was a clattering of keys being pressed, and then he was back in the familiar white loading area. He called out into the void. "How come you didn't get errors when I was reliving Haytham and Connor? I've been... you know... since before then."

"Now that is a good question. Maybe your genes... I dunno, just changed really gradually over the months, not all at once right when you first touched the Apple?"

He heard a couple of beeps, and the sound of more typing. A sickening possibility occurred to Desmond. "Uh, is there any way that me being in the Animus could, like, mess him up?" He was startled to realize that he'd now begun to use the pronoun "him" rather than "it".

"I'm ninety-nine percent sure it won't. He'll just chill out as usual while you explore the past," Rebecca answered. "Baby only interfaces with your nervous system, not the kid's."

"Then how's it gonna read his genetic memories?"

"Microchimerism. It's this thing that happens to pregnant women- and apparently pregnant men, too- where fetal cells move in on the maternal side. Remember, the genetic memories are in the DNA, not the brain."

"So I have two DNAs?"

"Pretty much, yeah. Says here 'Input has detected multiple genomes'. Now we just gotta figure out which is you and which is Junior. Eenie, meenie, minie... moe!"

Desmond felt the familiar mental jolt of being thrown into someone he'd never synced before. He was suddenly dashing across rooftops, performing those well-practiced motions that uninitiated onlookers sometimes described as "una danza del diavolo" but which he knew as "freerunning".

Fuck yes! I almost forgot how awesome it feels to move like an Assassin. He threw himself into the action wholeheartedly, not even caring who or where or when this was. The ancestor turned his head back and Desmond caught a momentary glance of someone chasing him. Then he swiftly maneuvered down into a narrow alley and continued running at ground level, mud splashing with every step as he zigzagged at random through more alleyways to throw off his pursuer, before finally ducking into a small shed and hiding himself between pillars of stacked crates.

His heart pounded in his ears for a tense minute. In the dim light, Desmond could distinguish labels on some of the crates: "Guanti", "Scarpe", "Frammenti".

"Hey, what are you doing in here again?"

"Mi dispiace, signor Moretti," the ancestor said, addressing the burly man who had just entered the building. "I was being chased-"

"That's your own problem, Carlo! Don't drag me into it! I have chosen an honest line of business, and when you use my storeroom as a hiding spot, you risk ruining everything I've worked for!" He drew closer and grasped the younger man's shoulders, shaking him as he spoke. "If they find you here, I'll be implicated in whatever shady dealings you're involved with! How many times must I explain this before your feeble mind grasps the concept?"

"I..." He seemed fairly intimidated by this Signor Moretti, and couldn't manage a reply.

"Lord, just look at the mess you've made," he sighed, finally releasing him. "Clean up all this mud, and then get out of here. And do it quickly, got it?"

Carlo managed to wipe up the floor surprisingly fast. Gee, maybe I'll get some of his mad cleaning skills from this memory, Desmond thought idly.

The sun had set now, and he scuttled out into the deep darkness of the night. So, this guy's the other parent. How the hell did that happen? Was he somewhere near that church on the night of October 10? I suppose we'll never know. Ones Who Came Before work in fuckin' mysterious ways. At least it's not Shaun. Desmond exited out from the memory.

As the Animus interface melted away and was replaced by Rebecca's cluttered workroom, he saw she was giving him a quizzical look. "Why'd you exit?"

"Mission accomplished. It was some random Italian dude named Carlo."

"Hello, earth to Desmond? Didn't you notice what year that was? Carlo's not your baby daddy, unless he lived to be five hundred something years old!"

He ignored her grating usage of "baby daddy" for now. "If that wasn't the guy, why did you put me in that memory, then?"

"God, you of all people should know this!" Rebecca sounded both annoyed and amused. "It's almost never possible to just jump right into the exact memory you want! Most of them are, like, locked up, and you can't see 'em until you sync through a buncha other ones!"

Desmond facepalmed. Derrr! Just like Vidic trying to get Altaïr's map. Or us, trying to get Ezio's Apple and Connor's key.

"I couldn't get into Junior's most recent ancestor, so I scanned back through the pathways until I found one that was accessible. Which happened to be in the sixteenth century."

"Fuck. You mean I'd have to relive five hundred years of memories to find out whose kid this is?"

Rebecca tapped a command, bringing up a screen with the header "Ancestral Pathway Overview". "I'm showing sixteen generations between Carlo and the present day. You probably wouldn't have to hit every one of those, and you definitely wouldn't have to sync their whole lives, but it'd still be a lot to slog through."

"Well... it's not as if I have anything better to do these days. It'd be hella more interesting then just sitting around and gestating." Desmond infused the last word with unmistakable revulsion.

"You sure you want to? You're talking about some serious Animus time."

"I'll be fine," he replied tersely. "You said yourself my tolerance is increased after that stuff with Clay."

"Yeah, but... this might affect you differently. Since these aren't your own memories. We don't have data on this type of thing."

"Ello 'ello? Back in the Animus, are we?"

Rebecca looked up and Desmond turned his head to see Shaun.

"Thought you didn't want anything to do with that gizmo anymore."

"I'm allowed to change my mind, aren't I?"

"He's on a mission to find out whose this is," Rebecca informed him, pointing at Desmond's belly.

"Huh." Shaun didn't manage to close his mouth after this syllable. He just stood there staring at where her finger indicated.

When it became apparent that Shaun wasn't going to add anything else to the conversation, Desmond resumed his dialogue with Rebecca. "Okay, so there's no data on this. Well, here's a chance to get some data on it! Look, you can always boot me outta there if there's any trouble!"

"You're really jonesing that much to find out Junior's other half?"

"Well," Desmond hesitated momentarily. That had originally been his only purpose. But now, after this memory of Carlo... "That, and... I guess you could call it escapism. I can experience having a normal body again... experience travelling faster than two miles an hour... experience not being stared at by some British jackass! God, take a picture Shaun, it'll last longer!"

"Ah," Shaun shook himself back to life from his frozen stupor. "Sorry. It's just so bizarre."

"Thanks, Captain Obvious."

"Right, then." Rebecca said, suddenly upbeat. "Let's get back to Carlo. I'll keep an eye on the ancestral pathways as you increase your synch, and I'll let you know the minute the next branch of his family tree opens up."

Now it was Desmond who looked quizzical. "What happened to all that concern from a moment ago?"

"Oh, I wasn't all that concerned. Just, if something bad happened later I didn't want you to freak out and say that I forced you back in the Animus."

"You crafty fox."

"Guilty as charged."