Chapter Seven: Sumus Omnes Stultos
Desmond hadn't realized how long and hard he'd slept until well past when he woke up. The windows were dark and he assumed he'd woken up after only a few hours. Getting out of bed, he stretched sore muscles and wiped at the sleep in his eyes. Then he headed downstairs to where the others had already set up and were now tinkering with the Animus.
"Hey, there, Sleeping Beauty." Rebecca joked when she spotted him. "I thought you were never going to get up."
"Huh?" He looked at her stupidly. "How long was I out?"
"Long enough to drool." Shaun motioned to his mouth and Desmond swiped at his face where drool had crusted. "Just all last night and all day. It's eight now, if you're wondering. Mind helping me with this?"
Desmond came over to lift the desk up as Shaun ran some wires around it.
"When will the Animus be ready?" He asked, glancing over at Rebecca.
"Just working on some final touchy bugs and then we'll be ready." She stepped back when sparks flew. "Oops. Maybe a half hour."
"Yeah..." Desmond raised an eyebrow. "Don't plug me into that if it's going to act like that."
"I won't. I won't."
"You can set it down now." Shaun told him and he complied. "Go get something to eat. By the time you're done, the Animus should be ready if, of course, Rebecca is as good an engineer as she claims."
"This is for you." She held up her middle finger.
Shaun instantly put his hand to his chest and gasped. "Aw, I'm touched."
"In the head, maybe." She shot back.
As the two began to bicker, Desmond quietly slunk away and slid into the dining area. It was empty, much to his delight, and he hastily raided the kitchen for food. Once he'd acquired some bread and some pasta made earlier, he returned to the room.
"Where's everyone else?" He asked.
"Elena and Sergio had business to do." Shaun informed him. "Of a secretive nature. I don't know. As for the others, they're all posted around to keep us safe. One is guarding Lucy. I don't know anything else."
"Huh..." He thought about asking after Melissa, but figured Shaun would have included details on her if he knew them. "Anything I should know about the Animus?"
"Don't you know everything about it already?" Shaun quirked an eyebrow.
"I just don't know if it's the same this time around. I want to know if there is anything weird about it."
"It's touchy." Rebecca informed him, shrugging. "I had to hack into the data we got, so it got a little beat up. I don't know how this is going to affect time-travel...if you can get it to work with time-travel. I don't know."
"It should work." Desmond wasn't as sure as he kept making himself out to be, but he pretended. If it didn't work, he wasn't sure what else he was supposed to do. He needed it to work. They all needed it to work.
Forty-five minutes later found Desmond sitting in the Animus as anxious as the first time Lucy and Vidic had forced him into one. He kept blinking quickly, mouth dry and hands twitching at his sides.
"You'll be okay." Rebecca reassured him. "All right. Let's see here. Okay...and I'm hooking you in. You should enter the loading screen."
He winced when the needle pierced his arm.
"Oh, muscular." She gave his arm a teasing squeeze and he smiled.
As he watched her working, Rebecca slowly blurred out of focus before white clouded out his vision. He arrived in the Animus, feeling every bit like he was actually there.
"Okay." Rebecca sounded mystified. "Okay. You're in the Animus. Actually in the Animus! I'm syncing you up with Altair now. You should arrive there in the next few seconds. I'm going to try to keep the link up, but...who knows! I don't know how this works with time-travel!"
"I'll be okay." He reassured her, a rush of excitement coursing through his gut. "I've done this before. I know where I'm going and what to do once I get there. I'll be okay."
"You'll be landing in 1191 in Jerusalem." Shaun informed him.
"Before or after the incident in Solomon's Temple?" Desmond inquired hastily as the loading screen began to open up to a sprawling city below. "Shaun!"
"I don't know!"
Then he fell into the world.
To say he was surprised when he landed without breaking a single bone was an understatement. He was downright distraught. After a while, he figured the effects of the Animus must not have worn off yet, which was why he had survived. Otherwise, the world around him looked incredibly real and tangible. Shaun and Rebecca hadn't spoken to him either since his arrival in Jerusalem. Once oriented, he slid into a corner, accosted a man for his clothes, and returned to the sprawling city. It didn't take him long to navigate himself to the entrance of Solomon's Temple. For whatever reason, his gut instinct brought him here. He knew better. He should have immediately gone to an Assassin's Bureau and explained himself, but his fear of Al Mualim and his desire to ensure nothing as horrible as what Altair wrought in his arrogance came about pushed him to seek out the place.
It was his instinct which got him into the tunnels leading to the excavation site. It was luck that got him to the old man before the Assassins. The dark provided him with the cover he needed to approach the man undetected and then a few moments struggle to bring the man unconscious. He glanced back along the tunnel and decided it was best to hide the man lest Altair still think he needed to die. Dragging the man further along the tunnel, he carefully dropped him into a pit and pulled a rope down, so he could get himself back out when he awoke. Then he continued onward through the tunnel.
He knew he was being an idiot. To directly change the course of history was dangerous. He had no idea if he was deleting himself from existence or sending Altair onto a far worse path.
Without a chance of Robert de Sable arriving this early, Desmond made haste in ascending to the Ark. He shoved the golden treasure off of its high perch and stole the Apple within. It was then he realized he'd missed a guard earlier, whom had apparently not yet reached his post.
"Shit."
He rushed back up the way he had come and then back-peddled upon nearly running into Malik.
There was a stunned moment where they stared at each other and then the Syrian Assassin was reaching for his sword.
"No." He held up his hand, clutching the Apple closer. "Templars!"
Malik paused, surprised, then Altair shoved past him.
Desmond had never found Altair particularly intimidating in the past. Considering by the time Desmond met him in person they were good friends, he had been given no reason to be afraid of him. It was an entirely different story now. Altair strode forward with the arrogance and confidence of a man who knew exactly what he was doing and Desmond, without any form of blade, felt nearly helpless to stop him.
Altair's hidden blade flicked out and in the same instance Desmond felt infinitely more self-assured. The way Altair moved: it was novice.
The lunge was easily dodged and avoided. The swipe from Malik likewise. Desmond shoved past Kadar and raced back down the tunnel, all three Assassins in pursuit. He felt better now. They wouldn't be running into Templars as long as they were pursuing him. Out into the city light, he used every rooftop and free-running move he knew to his advantage. A glance back told him two were still in pursuit, Kadar apparently no longer following, and he continued, glad he'd grabbed their attention. Though he knew it was as foolish an idea as changing the past, Desmond rushed straight towards the Assassin's Bureau, which he was surprised he remembered the location of given he'd spent little time in Altair's age.
Down into the Bureau he dropped, rolled, and then found his feet again. Rushing past the startled rafiq, he grabbed the first sword he'd found and turned hastily with it raised as Malik and Altair came to a skidding stop in front of him. Backed into a shadowy corner, this was as far as he'd be able to run for now.
"There are two of us and only one of you." Malik huffed, sweat causing his hair to stick to his forehead.
"And I can guarantee I can best you both." Desmond panted back. "Now. I am not an enemy. I am a friend. An Assassin."
He held up his hand quickly to show the severed finger.
"If you are a friend, why did you run?" Altair snapped, venom in his voice.
"Because I needed you to chase me." Desmond replied, amazed at his calm. "Because your arrogance and quick to anger would not permit you to listen to me, Altair."
Hearing his name was enough to silence Altair, but only for a moment as he realized what Desmond had said. "What?"
"I am well-aware of what you could and would have done." Desmond informed him. "I knew of your plans to enter the Temple and I used that to my advantage. I prevented the unnecessary bloodshed of one innocent, though I know you killed a Templar guard, whom I had forgotten about. Had you managed to reach the vault in time and retrieve this treasure your Mentor has ordered for you, no doubt you would have run into more Templars and resulted in the death of your companions through your arrogance."
Altair glared fiercely at him. "How is it you know so much?"
Desmond's eyes narrowed at him. "Lower your weapons first."
"No."
"Fine." Desmond hissed. "Then I'll keep it short and simple. This right now is your present, but for me this is the past. I know my history well and I've traveled here on the bidding of the ones who came before. I am to stop a calamity in my present. Are you with me?"
"Time-travel?" Malik's brows shot up skeptically. "Are you saying you have traveled through time?"
"Yes. I am a time-traveler."
In the background, they could hear the rafiq chuckle.
"You're lying." Altair growled. "And it's not even a good lie."
Desmond rolled his eyes. "I'm not lying, Altair."
"Do not speak to me as if we are friends." Altair snarled. "We are not."
"I am your descendant." Desmond stated.
Immediately, Altair laughed, but it was a bitter sound. "You can't seriously expect me to believe you?"
"Let me step into the light." Desmond encouraged. "It was dark in the Temple. It is similarly dark here."
After a moment and a shared glance, both Assassins stepped back and Desmond carefully took the necessary steps to put his face into the light. The look of surprise to cross their faces was to be expected, though he hadn't anticipated Altair's sword to drop from his hand.
"Who...are you?" He gaped at him.
"My name is Desmond Miles."
It was this time Malik nearly dropped his own weapon. "Desmond?"
Desmond's brow flicked up. "This is not what I expected."
"I had a strange dream once as a child." Altair's sudden admission lifted Desmond's other brow. "About a Desmond who might approach me about some task."
"And we all thought you were just being a spoiled brat." Malik sheathed his sword. "Malik Al-Sayf."
"Pleasure." Desmond relaxed a fraction. "Will you be all right, Altair?"
The man blinked and then nodded as he picked up his sword to sheath it as well.
"What brings you here?"
Feeling a fraction safer, Desmond lowered his weapon.
"Well, I need your help."
Finished a chapter. :P