Desmond sat in the pilot's seat of the numia, his legs kicked out, looking out the big front window. The Assassins were camped out away from the numia, not welcome near them and certainly not in the aircraft. Ezio had since moved Altair inside, the ancient hadn't moved when Ezio had transported him from the grass to a chair, and then sealed the numia. It had taken the Assassins about an hour to give up on trying to open the door and went to set up camp.

Desmond was watching them, fist loosely propped up against his cheek. The sun was setting, and they were giving Altair a good chance to rest. They'd also left Desmond alone when he'd come in here by himself and closed the door after him.

They shouldn't be here. They could, potentially, ruin everything. Large groups of humans were dangerous. Desmond hadn't forgotten about the Eden Eyes, devices Hawk had around his island that had the express purpose of seeing humans over vast distances and to some degree through matter. He didn't doubt the proeathans had some too. How many he didn't know. But if there were humans in large groups it meant only one thing to the proeathans: resistance. Who knew if the proeathans knew they were here, or if they would find them, but the more of them there were, the more likely that was. It was why they'd moved across the landscape with relative ease before. Desmond and his ancestors only numbered six in total. There were a few dozen Assassins out there though. A few dozen more people who could die simply by being near him.

He drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair thinking. They'd have to make a move on Mercury tonight, soon, hopefully as soon as Altair Woke. To wait was an invitation of failure, Desmond knew that.

As he sat there the dream he'd had a few nights ago leaked back into his mind. He remembered what Pluto had said. The proeathans were tracking him. Tracking him. Not Lucy, not anyone else. Him. And they were doing it in his sleep. It made him angry. As far as he knew there was nothing he could do to prevent them from tracking him. Pluto had said Altair could alter the block on his mind. But Altair was asleep and they had no workable Apple. They were helpless. He squeezed the arm of the chair.

He hated that. He hated being helpless.

The cockpit door slid open, "Little Bird," Hawk said, Desmond looked behind him, "He's awake."

"Coming," Desmond said and heaved himself out of the chair. Night had almost fallen now, the sky indigo and magenta, the sun a burnt orange fireball half covered by the trees. He walked back into the body of the numia.

Altair was sitting in a chair, awake, and rubbing the sleep from his eyes, the others were gathered around. Jake was sitting in the chair next to him, Lucy leaning on the arm of the seat on the other side of the aisle, and Hawk and Ezio were standing. Desmond joined Hawk and Ezio around Altair. "How long?" Altair yawned.

"Six hours," Ezio said.

"Good enough," Altair shook himself a little and stood, stretching. "What's the situation, and who were those people?"

"Assassins," Desmond said, "Led by my father."

"Oh goodie, Andy's here to fuck everything up yet again," Altair sighed and shook himself out. "Tell me, do I look as shitty as I feel?"

"You're covered in blood, I'd say so," Hawk said.

"Damn," he rubbed his face, which Desmond noted was clear of blood. Someone must have cleaned his face and hands. "So Assassins are here. Templars?"

"Negative," Ezio said.

"Proeathans?"

"Negative."

"Cain?"

"Negative."

"Well that's something at least."

"How'd you do it?" Desmond asked him.

"How's I do what?"

"Kill him," Desmond said. Altair looked at him and he saw what Desmond knew, what they both knew, Altair shouldn't have been able to kill Cain. He wasn't good enough, wasn't strong enough, wasn't skilled enough. "Luck," he said. "Doesn't matter how I killed him. Fuck do we have any food? I am literally starving."

"Yeah," Hawk went and found some and dropped it in Altair's lap. "How many times you go Under?"

"I don't know," Altair said. "Suffocated a few times in a row, lost track," he tore open one of the MREs Pluto had stocked them with. Food far better than they'd had in a long time, full of all the carbs, calories, and vitamins they needed for an entire day. Altair ate what looked like slices of chicken with his hands as he talked. "So what next? We have a plan of action or were you all twiddling your thumbs till I got back?"

"I examined the base of the tower," Hawk said, "there's no entrance. I think we need Desmond to look."

"So has he?" Altair looked at Desmond.

"Ezio closed the numia, no one in or out, since you got back," Desmond said.

"We didn't need a thousand stupid questions from a bunch of self important jackoffs," Ezio said.

"Fair enough," Altair moved onto the next MRE. One should have kept them fed all day, but the Waking hunger was more than hunger.

"Once you've changed, we'll see what Desmond can see," Hawk said. "Most likely its been like every other time and we need his special eyes to see whatever it is marks the entrance."

"Man you'd think you'd be sick of being a special snowflake about now, huh Des," Jake said.

"Trust me, I am," Desmond sighed and folded his arms over his chest.

"Good plan," Altair said. "What do we do about the Assassins?"

"Ignore them, like we have been the entire time," Ezio said.

"Knowing Andrew, he'll be watching us, as soon as we do something, he'll know," Altair tossed the second empty MRE away to pick up a third. "And probably try and stick his nose in our business."

"Then I'll just stick my blade up his nose," Ezio said and Altair snorted.

"Good idea," Altair grinned.

"If we go out when its dark they won't see us," Desmond said.

"True," Altair said.

"How do you feel?" Hawk asked.

"Better now," Altair had finished the third MRE in record time. "Repeated Wakings without in between seem to have no real effects on hunger. Body just recycles what's in it from the initial Waking."

"I'll add the information to what we know then," and clearly it was an ongoing experiment Hawk had been running on the nature of their immortality.

"You said you bought us time," Lucy said. "Will Cain really come back? He lost his head," she frowned.

"Once," Altair swallowed the last of the third MRE, "Ezio got into the French aristocracy in a bad way," he licked his fingers. "Around the time of the French Revolution-

"Spare them the fluff, Altair."

Altair smirked at him, "You're just embarrassed," he teased, "Story for another time. Long story short, he ended up under a guillotine for something. Head came off and he was buried. Me and Hawk dug him up and waited to see what would happen. Took like… what?" he looked at Hawk.

"I think we timed it at three months," Hawk said thoughtfully.

"Three months, but his big, empty, head-

"Altair," Ezio growled.

"Came back, fully intact. Memory was fine, motor skills worked just fine," Altair stood up with a groan and grabbed Ezio by the hair, pulling his head back. "Its the only mark I've ever seen made on an immortal that lasted," he said and pointed at Ezio's throat. Desmond squinted, but saw nothing.

"What is it?" Jake asked, "Cause all I see is Altair's dumb neck."

Ezio finally batted Altair's hand away. "There's a seem where his head got chopped off," Altair said. "Extreme injury does effect us, though not to the extent of mortals obviously. Ezio here took three months to regrow his head," he patted Ezio's shoulder. "At Cain's rate of regeneration, we might have three weeks."

"Fuck," Jake said.

"If we're lucky," Altair said. "He regenerated from having his chest blown open in three days. Its not like losing his head, but clearly his regeneration abilities are far quicker than ours," he frowned.

"So we have time," Desmond said, "And probably not enough no matter how much stress you put on the body," he frowned.

"Have you tried burning him?" Jake asked, "Like, cremated."

"Doesn't work very well," Altair said, "humans can deal with burns on their own well enough. When we go Under the body starts the healing immediately and if something is actively degrading the body you regenerate faster."

"You know this how?" Jake asked.

Ezio and Altair both looked at Hawk, "You don't want to know," Hawk said.

"Fuck apparently not," Jake said.

"Now," Altair said, "I'm going to change and then we're going to get into Mercury and, hopefully, get closer to ending this." Altair found his bag and went into the bathroom, to maybe try and get rid of some more of the blood, and to change.

"The proeathans are tracking us through my dreams," Desmond said when a brief silence fell.

Everyone turned and looked at him, "What?" Jake asked.

"Exactly what it sounds like," Desmond said. "Altair said the proeathans have to be tracking us. They are. They're tracking me, not Lucy like he thought."

"But how?" Hawk asked.

"Remember how Clay said he sometimes had dreams, of the AIs visiting him in his sleep," Hawk nodded, "Like that. Venus usually visits me, or she did," he glanced at Lucy. "A few days ago Pluto was there and he told me they're tracking me through something called 'REM interfacing', or something. He mentioned it back at the temple when he asked if I'd had any weirdness going on since my coma six years ago. He said it wasn't important."

"So he was lying," Ezio growled.

"I think more he didn't realize they could do that," Desmond frowned. "Every time Venus did it, it was contained, and restricted, I knew that. This time though… it was different. Something happened since I went to Pluto," he tugged off his glove, "Five bucks says it has to do with this shit, which- in case you were wondering- is already on my chest, spreading faster than before, and it isn't going away."

"What did Pluto do?" Hawk asked.

"Uh…" he thought a moment, "Something about… stabilizing the proteins in my body that correspond with the glyphs… or something. I'm not good at the tech stuff. But he said they were stabilized, they won't change position."

Hawk rubbed his forehead, "I have no idea," he admitted. "Honestly, a lot of this stuff is way out of my league to the point of fantasy. I fucking hate fantasy because there is no logical explanation, there is just faith, and fucking bullshit 'magic'," Hawk looked annoyed.

"Clarke's Law," Lucy said.

"Who's law?" Jake asked.

"He was a British writer, but you could apply his Laws here. His most well known is: any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. We see magic, because what we're looking at is so beyond our scope of understanding. So beyond proeathan understanding. These people are afraid of some bioluminance marks on Desmond's skin and think it heralds the end of days. Its no less than any of our religions. Magic."

"But you think this… whatever this is, has an actual scientific explanation?" Hawk asked.

"Of course," she said. "We just don't understand it. Genetic memory walks the line of science fiction and 'magic', but its real. Everyone told Vidic it was a pipe dream, impossible and unmarketable at that. But When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."

"You just quoted something did you?" Jake narrowed his eyes at her, "You have that annoying smug look you get when you quote something smart. I fucking hate it."

Lucy grinned, "Clarke's first law," she said. "Vidic was right. And Hawk you're a science guy, you saying this can't have an explanation?"

"Fucking magic," Hawk said and crossed his arms.

"Says the unexplainable immortal who has no, actual, way of dying and can regenerate infinite amount of times. Your problem isn't that, but rather my glow," Desmond snorted.

"At least my immortality is consistent and testable," Hawk said sternly, "And not a singular case. It can happen to anyone. But you… What the hell is going on at your cellular level to make you like this Little Bird? What the hell is going on?"

"Hopefully Mercury will be able to help us get answers," Altair said. He was dressed and had seemingly been standing there for a few minutes. "And if not him, then other others. Now, lets go," and he went and opened the door of the numia.