"Where is your friend, Ezio?" Leonardo called as Ezio entered the small shop. The Assassin shook his head.
"He vanished last night," Ezio answered. "I have not seen him since. He probably returned home." His expression turned sour. "And it is just as well."
"Oh," Leonardo said regretfully. "I was hoping he would be here. I need to tell both of you- aha!" he exclaimed suddenly. "Speaking of il diavolo."
Altaïr closed the door behind himself. "What were you going to say?" he asked.
Leonardo's face took on a grave expression. "I think two of you are related."
There was silence. Ezio was the first one to burst out laughing. "I admit, I almost believed you for a moment, my friend," he said between gasps of air. He finally sighed, managing to calm down enough to speak normally again. "That is very funny."
Altaïr was only staring at him. Beyond the slightly less angular contours of Ezio's face he could sense that familiarity again. He thought carefully about everything Ezio said. His father, at least, had been an Assassin for certain, even if he did little to correctly carry on the legacy. Then there was the matter of his eagle vision.
"It is not a joke," Leonardo responded curtly. "You look similar. You walk the same. You both have the sight that allows you to see people's true intentions." His face was entirely serious. He waved a hand in their direction. "Please, stop me if I say something untrue."
Altaïr and Ezio turned to look at each other. The only thought in Altaïr's mind was that he did not wish for someone such as Ezio to be related to him.
"There is something else." Leonardo turned away from them and went back to a table covered in assorted papers. He retrieved a rolled up scroll and brought it to Altaïr. "Read it."
Altaïr obliged and opened the scroll. His eyes flicked over the text with such ease that at first he did not realize he knew the language and the encryption pattern so well.
Nothing is true. Everything is permitted. Does our creed provide the answer, then? That one may be two things – opposite in every way – simultaneously? And why not? Am I not proof? We of noble intentions, possessed of barbaric means? We who celebrate the sanctity of life and then promptly take it from those we deem our enemies?
"What is this?" he said quietly as shock worked its way into his heart. The writer's tone was astoundingly similar to his own.
"A page of the Codex," Leonardo answered. "I believe you wrote it."
"I already told you," Altaïr said, finally glancing up from the scroll, "I have done no such thing."
"Perhaps not yet, but it will happen. As long as you can return to your own time, of course," said Leonardo. "Other pages speak of a prophet and a Vault." He met Ezio's disbelieving gaze. "I believe this refers to you."
"You are speaking nonsense, Leonardo." Ezio's voice was as fiery as ever, but Altaïr could hear a hint of uncertainty in his words. "None of this is possible."
"Nothing is true," Altaïr murmured, more to himself than Ezio, "and everything is permitted." He thought for a moment, then rolled up the scroll and gave it back to Leonardo. He turned and walked toward the door.
Desmond's world fizzed blue and gray. He didn't want to open his eyes and find that he wasn't really awake again. Strangely enough, though, he could see the outline of the glass visor that always covered his eyes when he was in the Animus. He simply lay still and tried to figure out what was going on.
"The glitches are getting worse," Lucy called from nearby. A blue glow passed around the edge of his vision, following the sound of her voice. "We need to take him out and reset the system or we'll lose everything we've collected so far."
"And risk losing the chance to see how Assassins act through the ages?" Vidic asked. "Of course not! He stays where he is."
"If he dies, I don't think it'll make much of a difference. The machine isn't measuring his vitals anymore. We won't know how he's doing at all." Desmond felt a pair of fingers press into his neck, just under his chin. The blue glow returned to the edge of his vision, despite the fact that his eyes remained closed. He felt overheated, but he wasn't sure if he should alert Vidic and Lucy to the fact that he was awake. Lucy let out a grim sigh. "His heart rate's way above normal."
"He'll be fine," Vidic said loosely. His arm momentarily brushed through Desmond's field of vision, lighting up red in front of his closed eyes. "Come on, get the Animus running again. I want a better look at that Codex page…"
Desmond heard the familiar whirring of computer parts as the Animus started up again. He decided he didn't want to go back just yet and opened his eyes, but by the time he did, the usual haze of sparkling pixels had whisked his mind away already.
The scene seemed to have rewound a little. Altaïr was still holding the scroll, and a faint echo ran through the room as if he had just spoken. His eyes flashed for a moment, and a flurry of red lines ran across the scroll. He couldn't completely make sense of it, but he recognized part of the Assassins' symbol near a corner of it. Right when he noticed it, the scene began to flicker before his eyes. Flashes of the white ceiling of Abstergo mingled with the dark, fire-lit room in Venice, almost having a strobe effect on him. Between the seemingly pasted-together images, Desmond could see the outline of the white bird again; this time it was flying directly at him. Snatches of conversation from both scenes fought for dominance in his ears.
"-is he going?"
"I don't-"
"-s happening?"
"The system is crash-"
"-shouldn't be so-"
"Desmond!"
His eyes finally snapped open, wider than he thought possible. His mind went silent almost too suddenly, leaving faint traces of sound swirling through his head. He tried to sit up too quickly, and his forehead slammed into the Animus's visor, splitting it cleanly down the center. He saw Lucy looking straight down at him as he fell back, and his head collided painfully with the metal surface of the Animus. He was shaking too much to sigh in frustration, though it was what he wanted to do.
"What's going on?" he asked. The visor finally rolled away, making an unpleasant crunching noise once it met the part where he had damaged it. Lucy put a hand behind his shoulders and helped him sit up.
"Are you alright?" she asked.
Desmond thought better than to shake his head. "I feel horrible…what was that? Everything was mixed up."
"It's no use," Vidic said from his place at the Animus's control panel. "I can't fix it." His tone grew angrier by the second. "This could set us back days! Even weeks!"
"Don't worry about him," Lucy said flatly, lowering her voice so only Desmond could hear. "You really need some rest."
"I'm not moving until someone tells me what I saw," Desmond said firmly, going against everything his brain and body were screaming at him. "What were those lines on the paper? And that bird?" His voice went quieter suddenly. "Why could I see things with my eyes closed?"
Lucy blinked, confused by his final question. She shook her head. "Come on. Sleep and food. Now."
"It was a map, Mr. Miles," Vidic said abruptly. "Unfortunately, you didn't let us see it long enough to make any solid conclusions about it, and now that this contraption is destroyed-" He paused long enough to give the machine a sound kick. The force resounded through its metal body, like he had hit a gong. "-we may never figure it out."
"He'll calm down once tech support looks at it," Lucy said, though she sounded unconvinced. She led Desmond to his room. "Don't mention the eagle, alright?"
"Why not? I want to know what it is," Desmond said indignantly, folding his arms. "And why it bit me," he added, looking at the place on his hand. There were no cuts or scars like he had expected, but the vision had been strange all the same.
"I can't explain it to you now, but I will. Eventually," said Lucy. "Promise."
Desmond let out a heavy sigh. "Yeah. Eventually." He slipped through the automatic door and lay down on the bed, not bothering to kick his shoes off. He thought wryly about all the times he had seen people pass out drunk with one or both shoes on and all the things their friends had done to them.
'You're past that life now,' he thought to himself as his mind dipped in and out of the welcome respite of sleep. 'Get used to it.'
His dreams that night were as confused and disjointed as the scenes in the Animus. The event kept replaying itself over and over, always from the same perspective and always telling him nothing. He finally awoke a few hours later, feeling no more rested than he had before attempting to sleep. All the while he could only think of the bird. It didn't look like any bird he had ever seen. He blindly felt one hand with the other, looking for the invisible trailing scars the bird's beak had left on his skin. He wasn't sure if he had only imagined it, or possibly dreamed it.
Desmond climbed out of bed and half-stumbled into the bathroom to splash some cold water on his face and hopefully clear his head. He wasn't exactly expecting to crash into Lucy.
"Shh," she said, clamping a hand over his mouth when he started to speak while holding a finger to her lips. "Don't say anything." Her voice was so much quieter than a whisper that at first he almost couldn't hear her.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, unable to keep his tone equally hushed. He couldn't even find the energy for one of his usual wisecracks.
"I wanted to talk to you," she answered, "and this is the only place with no cameras."
"How the hell did you get in?" Desmond wondered aloud. Lucy's eyes went up to the ceiling, and he followed her gaze to the broad air conditioning vent that was now hanging by a single screw.
"Took care of that earlier while you were in the Animus," she said. She brought her gaze back to him. "The bird you saw…what did it look like?"
"It was white," said Desmond. "Its beak was gold. It looked sorta like an eagle-"
"Not just an eagle, Desmond," said Lucy. "A harpy eagle."
"A what?" he asked blankly. If it hadn't been for the near total darkness, he would've sworn she had rolled her eyes at him.
"A harpy eagle. Harpia harpyja. That's what we named the virus."
"'We?' Who's we?"
Lucy glanced over her shoulder, more out of habit than necessity. "The Assassins. I installed the virus in the Animus so it would slow down Vidic's research and give us time to free you." She allowed herself a smile. "I ran it through his computer, so if they ever do track down the source, he'll have some explaining to do."
Desmond's eyes were huge. "You're an Assassin? Why didn't you tell me before?"
"Do you really think it's safe enough for me to do that?" she asked, hoping the answer was obvious. He didn't respond. "Anyway, it wasn't supposed to actually take the form of a bird, but I'm not the one who wrote the code, so…"
"Why did it bite me?" Desmond almost felt stupid voicing the question aloud, having asked himself the same thing many times before, but he did want to know.
"I have no idea." Lucy suddenly jumped forward and wrapped her arms around him. "I'm really glad you're alright, Desmond," she said, possibly even quieter than before. "I was worried about you."
"I'm fine."
She gave him a quick smile before climbing back up through the vent. "Put this thing back together, will you?" she called, motioning to the vent covering with her foot. She vanished down the dark tunnel seconds later.
Desmond found it much easier to sleep, having one part of the mystery cleared up. The next morning, Lucy came to wake him up, as opposed to Vidic.
"Hey, sleepyhead," she called. "I know you think you should get to sleep in today, but there are still a few things we need to talk to you about." She nudged his shoulder.
He reacted instantly, snapping out of unconsciousness to wrap his fingers tightly around her wrist. He started to bend it in a painful direction, but her reflexes went into motion too soon. She twisted around, managing to tear him from his place and hurtle him halfway across the room with a powerful sweeping motion that nearly wrenched her arm from its socket. He tried to catch himself and land on his feet, but he fell back and landed in a heap. Lucy assumed a defensive position, cautious about what was happening, but infinitely more confused.
"What's going on, Desmond?" she asked warily, eyeing his every move. He glared at her with a coldness she had never seen on his features before.
"My name is Altaïr."