October 15th 2012

The receptionist looked up at Daniel as he strode past and, though she recognised him well enough not to stop him and ask why he was here, she could not help but let her mouth fall open slightly at the sight of him. She wasn't the only one. Quite a few heads turned to stare as he passed, though most of the Abstergo employees were aware of who Daniel was and were wise enough to look away immediately.

He only broke his stride upon reaching Vidic's office, when a particularly brave guard stepped into his path and began, 'Sir...'

'He's expecting me.

The guard hesitated and then stood aside, and as Daniel passed him he added, 'Sorry, sir, but did you know that you have...'

'Yes,' Daniel said, without breaking his stride.

Warren was waiting inside, sitting at his desk and scowling at his computer screen. He looked up when Daniel entered and raised his eyebrows fractionally before standing and stalking over with the air of a particularly vigilant ticket inspector. After a deliberate pause he said, 'I understand that the mission wasn't a complete success.'

Daniel clenched his jaw. 'Warren, I...'

But Vidic was in no mood for explanations. 'I should have known it was a mistake bringing you into this,' he snapped. 'Our freshest recruits would probably have done a better job. I sent you to pick up a bartender and a mentally retarded wreck, and you come back empty-handed and looking like a complete fool. My God, Daniel, I knew you were a little out of practice but I had no idea...'

'I can fix this,' Daniel interrupted sharply, unable to listen to another second of Warren Vidic scolding him like a kid with a bad report card. 'I'll track down the safe house that they're using, I'll bring you the whole team, including Bill Miles.'

'So long as you don't run into a particularly troublesome Girl Scout on the way?' Warren sneered. 'Forget it. I'm sending you back to Philadelphia.'

'You can't fucking send me anywhere, Warren,' Daniel growled, feeling the frayed rope that held back his anger starting to snap. He was better at controlling it now than he had been in his hot-headed youth, capable of storing up his rage and directing it along useful channels, but his blood was still high and his head hurting from yesterday's failure. It was taking every ounce of restraint he had to refrain from leaping onto Warren and pounding a fist into his face until he begged for mercy. 'If you don't want to give me any support then that's fine, but you can't stop me from going after Miles myself.'

'I'll go over your damn head if I have to. The last thing we need is Miles getting killed because of your childish need for revenge...'

'I don't hold grudges,' Daniel reminded him. 'You of all people should know that. I wouldn't be here right now if I did.'

Warren met his gaze and stilled for a moment, a small smile playing around his lips. Finally he said, 'Go home, Daniel. I gave you a chance to prove yourself, and you failed. There's really nothing more to say.'

Desmond clutched at his head and breathed through the pain as he sat up in the Animus. He and Rebecca were the only people in the Animus room this early in the morning, and he'd offered to try using the machine one more time.

He wasn't sure entirely why he had done so, but he suspected it had something to do with last night's ride back to the compound. After successfully escaping the hospital he'd reunited with the rest of the team - who were near frantic with worry after the long stretch of radio silence - and they'd had to half-carry Clay into the back of the van. Apparently unsettled by the change of surroundings, Clay had fallen apart once more, refusing or failing to respond to any questions and muttering to himself in a random mix of languages as his eyes flicked around wildly. He hadn't lashed out in violence, but he would occasionally twitch in an echo of movement that made Shaun visibly nervous, the historian edging further and further away so that by the time they reached the compound he was squashed up against the back of Rebecca's seat, his laptop propped in front of him like a shield.

Desmond hadn't moved away. He'd sat opposite Clay, observing the mad Assassin with a growing sense of fear and pity, putting a hand on Clay's shoulder to push him back into his seat on the occasions that he jumped to his feet with an expression of panic. A few times he'd tried to engage Clay in conversation, with little success. The next day he had woken up with a resolute certainty that he should try to save Clay from having to go back into the Animus.

'I don't suppose there's been any improvement?' he asked Rebecca, standing up shakily and rubbing his temple.

'None,' she told him. 'Don't worry about it, Desmond. Now that we have Clay back you should be able to get a bit of a break.'

'It just doesn't feel right,' he admitted. 'You saw what he's like now, Rebecca. It was the Animus that sent him off the deep end in the first place, and now my Dad's talking about putting him back into it.'

'Only as a last resort. If we can just get him talking again...'

Her train of thought was interrupted by the door opening and Bill entering, closely followed by Shaun and, between them, Clay. He had been given a fresh set of clothes but hadn't shaved since yesterday and looked no less stable. His gaze flew around the room quickly before finally coming to settle with unsettling intensity on Desmond's face. Desmond gave him a small smile of encouragement.

'Hi, Clay,' Rebecca said, standing up from her computer and walking over to him, placing a hand gently on his arm. 'Do you remember me?'

Clay didn't respond, but Desmond was intrigued by the question. 'You two know each other?'

Rebecca nodded. 'Sure. He originally joined the Assassins as a programmer, just like I did, so we worked together for a while before he was sent into Abstergo.'

'He was sent there?' Desmond echoed in confusion. He'd always assumed that Clay had been kidnapped just like he had.

It was Bill who answered. 'Yes. I sent him in. Once we found out about the Animus program and the fact that Abstergo were kidnapping the descendants of famous Assassins, I wanted to know what they were looking for. Clay went in and let himself get captured so that Lucy could report back on the memories they were making him explore.'

At the sound of Lucy's name Clay looked up at Bill sharply, suddenly focused in a way that he hadn't been since back at the mental hospital. Desmond watched him for a moment, but Clay didn't speak just yet.

'Why didn't you pull him out?' Desmond asked his father.

Bill sighed regretfully. 'We couldn't. The only way to get him out would have been to have Lucy break him out like she did with you, and that would have meant losing the best-placed source we had within Abstergo.'

At that, Clay laughed, a low, bitter chuckle. It wasn't happy or light-hearted. Frankly, it was an awful sound. Desmond waited for him to speak, but still no words were forthcoming.

'He knew the Templar as well,' he said. 'The one who was at the hospital.'

'Ah yes,' Bill said, his expression darkening at the memory. 'I want to know more about this man. Did he tell you his name?'

Before Desmond had a chance to answer, Clay said, 'Cross.'

Bill looked up sharply. 'Cross?'

'He said his name was Daniel,' Desmond added.

'Shit,' Rebecca exclaimed, looking over at Bill in alarm.

'Did you kill him?' Bill demanded harshly of Desmond. 'Is Cross dead?'

'Uh, no, Clay knocked him out...'

'He was unconscious and you just left him there?' Bill yelled disbelievingly. 'My God, Desmond, you had a chance to take out Daniel Cross and you walked away?'

'Hey, I wasn't about to kill a dude who couldn't fight back,' Desmond snapped defensively. 'Besides, I didn't just leave him there.' He couldn't help but grin to himself as he recalled his parting gift to Daniel.

'What did you do?' Rebecca asked curiously.

'Well, Clay had all these pens lying around...'

Bill had closed his eyes before Desmond had even finished speaking, and through gritted teeth he said, 'Please tell me that you did not draw a picture of genitalia on Daniel Cross' face.'

'Of course not,' Desmond retorted, feigning offence at the accusation. 'I'm not that immature.'

'Thank God.'

'I just gave him a monocle.'

Rebecca muffled a snort of laughter.

'... And a moustache.' Bill was glaring at him. 'A Hitler moustache.' Desmond shuffled his feet. 'Look, in my defence, he hit me really hard, I was just...'

'You are a complete fool,' Bill interrupted furiously. 'Daniel Cross is one of the greatest weapons that the Templars have. He practically single-handedly orchestrated the downfall of the Assassin Brotherhood in the twenty-first century. Some of our best men and women have attempted to take him down and he has slaughtered every last one of them. He's a Master Templar, Desmond, a member of the Inner Sanctum of the Templar Order, and not only did you let him live when you had the chance to kill him, you deliberately humiliated him.'

'Oh that is bloody fantastic. Just what we need, another angry Templar trying to track us down,' Shaun groaned.

'What difference does it make?' Desmond asked. 'The Templars were already looking for us...'

'Not Cross,' Rebecca explained him gently. 'As far as we can tell, he wasn't directly involved until yesterday. The Templars have had him on the bench for a few months, but now that he's after you personally we could be in big trouble.'

'Do you remember I told you about a sleeper agent, the one who murdered the Assassin Mentor?' Bill said, rubbing a hand wearily over his beard.

'Oh,' Desmond said, figuring out where this was going.

'It happened twelve years ago. After that he ran back to Abstergo and we didn't hear from him for a while. We assumed that they'd killed him once he'd served his purpose, and we were preoccupied with trying to defend ourselves against a massive Templar assault.'

'I think I remember this,' Desmond said, frowning. 'You were away from home a lot, and everyone started acting kind of scared...'

'With good reason. When the Mentor fell and there was no one to replace him, everything changed. Since then we've been losing Assassins by the hundreds. We have maybe a tenth of the numbers and power than we used to have, and Cross played a big part in all of this. He re-emerged a few years later and began leading Templar raids, massacres...' Bill shook his head at the memories. 'I've seen him work, Desmond, and he has no mercy, no conscience.'

'And now you've got his attention,' Shaun added darkly.

'Hey, I wasn't the one who got caught hacking into Abstergo's security,' Desmond said, irritated now. 'I broke into that damn hospital all alone while you jackasses waited outside, and I managed to get out of there with Clay and the file. Now you're getting pissed at me just because I refused to kill a guy while he was passed out on the floor?'

'You did a good job,' Rebecca reassured him, before either of the others had a chance to speak.

'Yeah,' Desmond said, feeling a little embarrassed now. 'Well, I wouldn't have got out of there at all if it wasn't for Clay.'

A silence fell over the room as they all turned to look at their latest 'recruit'. Clay had been holding onto his elbows and silently staring at all of them, but when the attention was turned on him he began squirming uncomfortably again and muttering to himself.

'Hey,' Desmond said, walking over to him cautiously. 'I know it's difficult, but can you try to focus for me, Clay?'

Clay broke off his muttered conversation and looked Desmond in the eye. 'It's ... hard,' he admitted. 'You have ... I can't ... it's like I'm in ten different places at once right now, there are ghosts, fucking ghosts, everywhere. I see them all the time now, they don't go away, and they're so loud...'

'Were you on medication, back at the hospital?' Desmond asked.

'They gave me blue pills, in a paper cup, I ... stai zitto! Anti-psychotics, I think. They helped, sometimes, but not at night, the dreams, Desmond ... and they didn't understand, they wouldn't listen when I told them about the Animus ... they thought I was crazy.'

'We can get medication for you,' Shaun said, his voice uncharacteristically kind. Desmond had half-expected the historian to start mocking Clay, but he looked genuinely sympathetic, even sad.

'No time, I need...' Clay lifted a hand to his head and dug his fingers viciously into his scalp, grimacing. 'There are too many fucking people in here, in my head, in this room, I can't concentrate.'

'Alright,' Bill said authoritatively, standing up from where he had been perched on the edge of a desk watching the exchange. 'The rest of you, take a break. Clay, I'm going to ask you some questions, just you and me...'

'No,' Clay interrupted, and there was something dark in his voice as he glared at Bill with undisguised anger, seeming certain for the first time since Desmond had met him. 'Not you. Let me talk to Desmond. Alone.'

The other three turned to look at Desmond in surprise, and he couldn't help but feel a thrill of smugness. Raising his eyebrows at his father he said, 'You heard the man. Run along now.'

Bill paid no attention to him. He was looking back at Clay with a troubled, hesitant expression. 'Clay, I understand that...'

'No,' Clay said again. 'You don't understand anything, but he...' He nodded at Desmond. 'He might.'

The others vacated the room reluctantly, throwing a few concerned glances backwards. Clay kept his eyes closed as they left, breathing slow and deep, his eyelids twitching occasionally, and Desmond got the very distinct impression that he was fighting some kind of hard internal battle. While he waited for Clay to speak, Desmond went over in his mind all the clues that he could remember finding inside the Animus: the memory of Adam and Eve fleeing the tyranny of Those Who Came Before, the implication of dozens or great historical figures being involved in the Templar-Assassin struggle, and the occasional sad insights into Clay's own life inside Abstergo. He had no idea where to begin with his questioning. Should he leap in immediately with question about Juno and the solar flares? That was the most pressing issue, surely.

As he pondered this Clay finally opened his eyes to look, not at Desmond, but at the Animus. 'You've been using her,' he said, the unsettling calm in his voice again.

'Yeah,' Desmond confirmed. 'I found the puzzles you left behind.'

'I knew you would. You might not know me, Desmond, but I knew that you were coming. You might be the ... chosen one, the special one, but Juno spoke to me too.' The last words were spoken almost petulantly. 'Do you know what she told me?'

Desmond shook his head, mute.

'She told me ... it was my destiny. To help you to succeed. That's my job - my role in all this: to be a rung on your stepladder to greatness.'

'Hey, I didn't ask for this!'

'Nor would you, if you knew what she meant by greatness.'

Desmond felt suddenly chilled by the way in which Clay was looking at him: not with jealousy, but with an almost pitying expression. The man didn't explain his words further, but instead pulled a pained face and raised his hands to cover his eyes temporarily.

'Are you OK?' Desmond asked.

'It's difficult to stay here,' Clay admitted. 'Concentrating on you, it's like trying to hold up a conversation with three other people screaming in my ears. I'm not alone in my head now, not really, not any more. I don't know if I ever will be ... ferme ta gueule, wychodzą!' He hissed the last words under his breath, shaking his head as though he were under attack by angry bees.

Sensing that Clay was verging on losing himself altogether, Desmond stepped forward and laid on his shoulder, shaking him a little. 'Do you remember what Juno said?' he asked urgently. 'Do you know how we're supposed to stop the solar flares?'

Clay looked at him, wide-eyed, and countered with his own question. 'Where is Lucy, Desmond?'

Desmond wasn't happy about this. He got the sense that none of them were, but after hearing what had happened to Lucy, Clay had insisted that there was "something you all need to hear". He lay back in the Animus now, and as he closed his eyes he looked more peaceful than Desmond had ever seen him before, a contented smile spreading over his face as he closed his eyes and dipped his mind into the machine.

When the memory began to play on the monitors, it took Desmond a moment to realise that Clay wasn't inside his ancestor's genetic memory, but rather was using the Animus to project his own memories. There were no images to accompany the sound, save for a faint flickering of blue and grey on the screen, but the voice was clear and distinct: Warren Vidic.

It wasn't clear at first what they were listening to. Vidic began speaking about Desmond, and about Eye Abstergo, so the memory appeared to be a recent one. It was interesting, but there was nothing particularly groundbreaking about it.

When it happened - when they first realised that Warren was talking to Lucy, instructing her to break Desmond out of Abstergo when the time was right, orchestrating a plan for her to steal the Apple - a kind of numb silence fell over the room. They each knew that nothing in the Animus could be falsified, that this was no magic trick on Clay's part. Desmond wondered if he should be feeling some kind of vindication or relief that his actions, however involuntary, must have saved them all. Instead he just felt sick. The situation had been far easier to bear when he had been the villain and Lucy the victim.

Then, at the end of it all, when all of them were wondering why, there came this: "Perhaps you might ask the Assassins why they left you alone for so many years."

The memory ended there and Clay returned to the loading screen of the Animus before shutting the machine down and opening his eyes. He sat up in the chair and waited silently, lost in his own thoughts.

Bill was the first to speak. 'Well. That explains why Juno wanted her dead.'

Desmond didn't respond to that, though he knew that it was about as close to an apology as he was ever going to get. He was running over the escape in his head. That blood on Lucy's shirt ... had she splashed that on to make the whole thing more convincing? God, why hadn't he realised how strange it was that they'd met so little resistance? Why was he so easily taken in by these people, by Lucy and Daniel? He wondered if the two of them had ever worked together, practiced the art of deception together, perhaps even been more than coworkers. He wondered whether anything Lucy said had been honest. He wondered whether she had really liked him at all, or had just been grooming him to get more information.

He glanced over at Shaun, who had his head in his hands and his face hidden. He looked at Rebecca, who simply looked deeply saddened. 'I guess this changes things,' she said at last.

'No,' Desmond said. 'It doesn't.'

Shaun finally looked up at that, surprise etched into the misery on his face.

Bill shook his head. 'Desmond, it does. You should at least take comfort in this...'

'Why?' Desmond demanded. 'Am I supposed to be glad Lucy is dead now? Am I supposed to feel good about killing her?'

'Desmond, I liked Lucy as well, but if she was a traitor...'

'Was she, though?' Desmond got to his feet and walked over to his father confrontationally. 'Sounded to me like she was pretty loyal. Just not to you.'

'Lucy was an Assassin,' Bill insisted, folding his arms. 'She was born into the Brotherhood, raised among us, taught our ways...'

'So you didn't give her a choice, either?'

'She had a choice, Desmond, and she made the wrong one!'

'You pushed her away! You pushed her away like you pushed me away! So she's a traitor and I'm a deserter, is that how it works?'

'Apparently, yes,' Bill snapped. 'Apparently that is how the world works. Most people will always choose personal gain and power over doing the right thing. Why do you think the Templars are so much stronger than us, Desmond? It's because of people like you and Lucy, people who can't see past their own selfishness!'

'Wanting to live my own life makes me selfish?'

'I'm sorry, Desmond, am I infringing upon your right to live in a shitty apartment and work a pointless job while the rest of the world goes to hell?'

'This might be hard for you to believe, Dad, but I liked my shitty apartment and my pointless job. I was happy.'

'Oh, well as long as you're happy,' Bill sneered. 'God forbid anything get in the way of your happiness.'

'Guys, stop!' Rebecca said, stepping in between them and pushing a hand into each of their chests as though worried that they were about to start taking swings at each other. She wasn't exactly being paranoid.

'Desmond's right,' said Shaun.

That stopped everyone in their tracks.

Desmond turned to stare at Shaun as though expecting to see a ventriloquist ducked down behind him. Lucy was a Templar and Shaun was agreeing with him? Had the entire world turned upside-down?

'I just mean ... what does it matter now?' Shaun clarified wearily. 'Lucy is dead. I don't care if she was a traitor or not.'

'You know what, Shaun, there is one reason that it matters.' Desmond turned back to his father resolutely. 'Take the implant out of me.'

'Desmond...'

'No, Clay just proved it! It was Juno that made me kill Lucy, not Abstergo. I don't need the implant any more, you can take it out.'

'I can promise you that I won't set it off,' Bill assured him. 'I'll put the remote buttons away, and when we have the time I'll organise the operation to have it removed.'

'"When we have the time"?' Desmond laughed humourlessly. 'When this is all over, you mean. When you don't need me any more.'

'For God's sake...'

But suddenly Desmond was sick of talking to his father and hearing excuses about why he was effectively being kept a prisoner. He deliberately showed the palm of his hand to Bill as he walked away, to crouch down in front of Clay so that they were eye-to-eye.

'Let's finish this,' he said. 'We need to find the Pieces of Eden, right? The ones that will help us to stop the solar flares. Do you know where we need to go next?'

Clay looked at him very carefully for a moment, almost as though making a difficult decision. Finally, in a slow voice, he said, 'I do.'

'Where? Where do we need to go?'

Clay smiled miserably. 'You're not going to like it.'

'Why not?'

'We need to go to Daniel's home turf. We need to go to St Petersburg.'