'Museums are dangerous.'

'Huh?' Desmond, who had been staring up at the ceiling with his mouth hanging slightly open, turned to look at Clay. He was squirming a little uncomfortably in his own skin and staring at a painting on the wall as though it was about to come to life and attack him.

'All this old stuff,' Clay explained, tearing his eyes away from the painting. 'It's going to be confusing, for people like us. People who've used the Animus. It's easier to keep a grip on reality when you're surrounded by computers and cables and iPhones, but in this place there's just thousands of years of history waiting to swallow us up, like fucking quicksand, and it's over your head before you even have time to realise that you're in trouble.'

A silence followed Clay's words. Not just Desmond's silence, but the silence of the entire tour group that they had been standing in, who were now staring at - or deliberately looking away from - the loudly ranting American in their midst. Even the tour guide seemed to have forgotten what she was supposed to be doing. Desmond flashed her his most charming smile before leaning in to mutter in Clay's ear.

'Good job, buddy. We're really blending in with the crowd right now.'

Pulling herself together, the tour guide smiled widely at all of them and announced something in Russian that presumably meant the tour was about to begin. Realising that the entrance to the temple could be anywhere, Desmond took a deep breath and closed his eyes. The Eagle Vision ... well, it was difficult to describe exactly how it worked and how he activated it. It was almost like flexing a tiny muscle inside his brain - a muscle that he had never been aware of up until a few weeks ago. He felt the switch first as a sharpening and clarifying of all the sound around him, and when he opened his eyes the world was awash in a strange blue filter.

The first thing that Desmond noted was that the stern-looking security guards were highlighted in glowing red. A little unnerving, but it would be useful when it came to giving them the slip. Clay was picked out in a reassuring blue. The only other thing that stood out was - Desmond noticed with a shudder - a splatter of glowing blood residue on one of the museum's busts, as though it had once been used to bludgeon someone to death. Hurriedly, Desmond shut down the sixth sense.

'Nothing in here,' he said softly to Clay as they began to walk with the tour group into the first of the galleries.

As they progressed through the museum, Desmond did a careful 360 degree sweep of each room with his Eagle Vision activated before shutting the extra sense down for a respite period. Leaving himself open to that much sensory input for too long gave him a headache and made him feel disoriented when he finally re-emerged. Glancing over to his left, Desmond sensed from the way in which his companion was staring that Clay was keeping his Eagle Vision open without any break, and wondered if this was such a good idea.

It was difficult to avoid being distracted by the museum and its contents. Desmond had never been all that interested in museums, and was even less enamoured by the washed up relics of civilisation that were locked away in glass cabinets now that he'd watched history unfolding before his very eyes. Shaun would probably be writhing in delight if he had come along for this tour, but Desmond glanced at most of the objects on display with only passing interest. However, the cumulative effect of the interior architecture - with the gleaming patterns of its tiled floors, elaborately designed ceilings and shining coloured walls, and the masses of golden jewellery, glinting weaponry and austere marble statues on display - was a little overwhelming.

The Roman bust wasn't the last blood-stained object that Desmond saw. With his Eagle Vision he saw slick red layers on the blades of swords, tiny drips on necklaces and rings, and small smears on statues. Apparently historians were being very literal when they spoke about humanity having a bloodstained history.

They were passing through a grand hall with twenty columns spread out in a grid pattern when Desmond saw it: a flash of gold amidst the crowds of visitors. He frowned and stopped walking, peering closely at all the walls, trying to spot a statue with a hidden lever, or perhaps a knot in the panelling that could be triggered, but there was nothing there now. Strangely, Desmond could have sworn that the golden shape - whatever it was - had been moving.

He turned with his mouth open ready to ask Clay for help, and found the other Assassin watching him with unnerving intensity.

'You saw him too, didn't you?' Clay said softly, the corners of his mouth quirking up.

'Who?'

'Cross.'

Desmond stopped walking, allowing the tour group to move away, parting around them. He stared at Clay disbelievingly. 'Cross is here?' he hissed.

'Of course. You didn't think we'd shake him that easily, did you?'

Desmond clenched his fists in frustration. 'How long ago did you spot him?'

'Just after we arrived.'

'And you didn't think it would be a good idea to mention that there's a fucking Templar following us?'

Bill's voice came in over their headsets; he had obviously been listening in. 'Desmond, keep your voice down,' he said urgently. 'Keep moving with the tour group. Under no circumstances must you alert Cross to the fact that you've seen him.'

'Shouldn't we get out of here?' Desmond asked, walking briskly until he and Clay were swallowed up by the tour group once more. He might be armed now, but he was in no hurry to go toe-to-toe with Daniel Cross again, not after what had happened the last time. He rubbed the back of his neck nervously, feeling the hairs prickling where Cross was surely watching him.

'We didn't fly all the way out here just so that you could back out at the first sign of a challenge, Desmond,' Bill replied irritably.

Rebecca's voice cut in next. 'There must be a reason he hasn't tried to nab either one of you yet. Maybe he's following you to find out what you're here for. If you try to make a run for it then he's bound to try to stop you. Keep going and you might get the chance to lose him, or even take him out.'

'Perfect.'

They came to a gallery littered with small statues, the walls lined with shining green tiles, the ceiling a series of arching blue and white canopies. The tour guide said something and Desmond heard Clay give a soft laugh beside him.

'What's so funny?'

'She just said the name of this room.'

'Yeah? What's it called?'

'The Jupiter Hall.'

The tour group came to a halt in front of the room's obvious showpiece: a larger-than-life statue of a seated man with thick curling hair and a full beard, his body in white marble and the sheet that was draped around him done in bronzed metal. He had a sceptre in his left hand and on the ground next to him was a bronze eagle that held the sceptre in its beak, as though it were attempting to wrench it from his grasp. His right hand was held out in front of him, and in it he was clutching a smaller statue, this one an angel of some kind, her body erect and graceful as if the man had just summoned her there. Desmond felt strangely uncomfortable looking at it, and couldn't shake the feeling that he had seen this piece of art somewhere else, a long time ago.

'Jupiter. He was one of Those Who Came Before, right?' he whispered to Clay, trying to move his lips as little as possible. 'They called him Tinia.'

''Look at him,' Clay breathed, by way of reply.

It took Desmond a second to realise what this meant, but with a surge of realisation he opened up his Eagle Vision and used it to look upon the statue of Jupiter.

The first thing that he saw was the glowing red graffiti scribbled all over the seemingly pure white marble, forming words in Latin that Desmond did not recognise. He wondered how they had come to be there, and guessed that this statue had once been used as some kind of sacrificial altar. He allowed his gaze to rake down over the seated figure of the man to the pedestal that he was sat upon, and that was when he saw it: a small knot of gold that called out to him; an undiscernible section of marble that would be invisible when viewed by the naked eye.

'Got it,' Desmond exclaimed quietly, shutting down his Eagle Vision once more. 'Guys, I've got it, I've found the entrance!'

'Are you sure?' Bill demanded. 'You're only going to get one shot at this, Desmond.'

'I'm as sure as I can be, unless you want me to activate it in front of all these people.'

'Alright, Desmond,' Rebecca cut in, the tapping of keyboard keys coming in beneath her voice. 'I'm going to activate an alarm on the top floor. According to security protocols, they should evacuate all the visitors and the security staff will thin out on the lower floors. You and Clay should find somewhere to hide.'

Desmond nodded and gripped Clay's arm tightly to maneouvre him a little closer to the statue. Just as the rest of the tour group turned to move away, there came the shrill sound of a bell ringing in the distance. Their guide stared up at the ceiling for a moment, open-mouthed, and Desmond took the opportunity to fist his hand into the back of Clay's shirt and drag him behind the statue and down to the cold tiles of the floor. They vanished from view just in time as the tour guide recovered from her surprise and began speaking rapidly to the tourists, gesturing for them to follow her. In a cloud of mutters and grumbles, the rest of the museum's visitors trickled out of the Jupiter Hall, their footsteps echoing as they moved.

The coast seemed to be clear when someone new entered the hall and Desmond tensed once more. Peering out from the side of the statue, he saw a lone security guard walking slowly through the room, peering into the corners in an obvious attempt to spot any stragglers.

'Oh, fuck,' Clay breathed suddenly.

'What is it?' Desmond asked, feeling Clay's limbs starting to shake next to him. The sound of his feet tapping against the floor seemed incredibly loud, and out of the corner of his eye Desmond saw the guard look up sharply.

'Nascondimi...' Clay was staring wildly at nothing, and before Desmond could stop him he suddenly scrabbled out from behind the statue and pushed himself up the wall, speaking in a panicked, pleading whisper. 'Nascondimi, per favore...'

Desmond dropped a head into his hand despairingly as he heard the security guard yell in indignation and surprise before running over to where the two of them had previously been concealed. Desmond waited until the man was very close before standing up and walking out with his arms raised.

'Hey, I think my friend is sick...' He was close enough now, and whipped out his right foot to smash into the security guard's shin, dropping the man to the floor with a cry. 'He suffers from terminal bad timing.' As the guard pulled out his baton, Desmond kicked out with his other foot to knock the weapon away. Finally he dropped down behind the guard and wrapped an arm around his throat to restrict his breathing, as he had seen Ezio do a hundred times before. He was a little nervous about doing this for real - he didn't want to kill this guard, who was just doing his job and probably had a family at home - and for a long time there was no sound in the room save for harsh choking noises as Desmond concentrated on his opponent and waited for the right moment to let go.

As soon as the guard went limp, Desmond released him and dragged the unconscious body over to the statue. When this task was accomplished he stood up and glared furiously at Clay, who was holding his head and shaking a little.

'Nice going,' he said, and immediately felt a little guilty when Clay looked up at him, his eyes like those of a hunted animal. Continuing in a slightly softer tone he asked, 'Are you OK?'

'Let's just get this over with,' Clay replied tersely, still holding on to his head as if he was afraid it might fall off.

Desmond nodded and opened up his Eagle Vision in order to find the right spot on the statue again. As he crouched down and laid his hands upon it, he felt for a moment the pupilless orbs of Jupiter's eyes watching him expectantly, and experienced a moment of extreme unease as he pressed the segment of marble and felt it give underneath his fingers.

There was a grinding sound behind him and the floor gave a slight tremor. Standing up and turning, Desmond watched the tiles of the floor dividing and then cascading down, sliding backwards - one into another - to reveal a dark hole in the centre of the hall. It was lucky that Desmond had moved the security guard, or the man would probably have dropped into the opening when the floor moved.

Approaching the lip of the hole carefully, Desmond saw that the inside was made of some manner of smooth, dark, ugly stone, and that instead of steps there was simply a steep slope that disappeared into the blackness. They'd better be able to find another way out, because this was going to be a one-way trip.

'Alright, here goes,' Desmond said, pulling a small but powerful glow stick from the pocket of his jeans and snapping it in several places to release the light. He attached it by a cord to one of his belt loops before finally looking back again. 'You coming?'

His heart sank as he saw Clay, who was backing away from the whole, wide-eyed and looking nauseous, shaking his head rapidly.

'That was a rhetorical question,' Desmond clarified firmly. 'You're coming.'

'Why?' Clay asked, his voice small and helpless, looking from the hole in the floor back up to Desmond with pleading eyes.

'Why? Because ... Look, we don't know how long this thing is going to stay open, and the security guys aren't going to stay away forever. What do you think they'll do if they find you here?'

'Why are we here, Desmond? Seriously, what are we doing here? Why do we do this?' Clay had his back to the wall now and had his fingers curled against it like he was looking for somewhere to hold on.

'Little thing called the end of the world, remember?' Desmond could have sworn there was a ticking in the air, starting slow but getting faster by the second: a countdown. In desperation, he darted over to where Clay was flattened against the wall and grabbed him by the shoulder, pushing him towards the temple entrance.

Clay was hyperventilating now, caught in the midst of some kind of panic attack. 'Don't make me go down there, Desmond,' he begged. 'I can't ... I can't...'

Desmond grabbed Clay's other shoulder and turned him around so that they were face to face, shaking him a little. 'Don't make me go down there alone,' he countered.

While he waited for an answer, Desmond pulled a second glow stick from his jeans, activated it, and attached it to a belt loop over Clay's hip. Between them, the two light sources revealed an extra foot of the temple entrance.

'Ready?' Desmond asked.

'No,' Clay replied, but before Desmond could protest he took a deep, steadying breath and added, 'Let's do it.'

They stood side-by-side on the edge, looking down into the darkness. Then they jumped.

Desmond managed to break up the impact by hitting the slope heels-first, but fell backwards immediately and felt pain radiating up through his tailbone as he landed more or less squarely on his ass. There was no time to nurse his wounds, however. The slope was a great deal steeper than it had appeared from above and Desmond was descending at an absurdly fast rate, desperately trying to slow himself down with his feet. If he collided with anything at this speed he would most likely shatter a few bones.

He slid for what felt like an age, but was probably only around thirty seconds. Clay was nowhere in sight but presumably he had to be some way ahead because Desmond heard him call out a word ... was that "jump"?

The glow stick illuminated Desmond's surroundings for about six feet feet in every direction, the pool of light moving with him so that from far above he must have looked like the beam of a laser pointer. Desmond saw the slope smoothing out to a very narrow ledge before the black granite of the ground gave way to a very different kind of blackness: a deep, empty void that made terror well up inside him as he realised that the slope did not end with a floor, but with a drop.

Jump.

A wordless cry tore its way out of his mouth as Desmond felt his feet hit the small ledge at the bottom and, without thinking, used his momentum to push off again, to leap - arms outstretched blindly - over the gaping chasm with nothing but a prayer that he would be saved.

He was. The breath was knocked out of his chest as he collided with some kind of wide beam, flat at the top and rounded underneath, which he hooked his outstretched arms over and clung to desperately, his heart pounding.

Then Clay was there, walking along the beam, crouched low. 'Hang on.'

'You think?'

Clay gave a shaky laugh, then lay down on the beam and grabbed one of Desmond's dangling legs, lifting it up and onto the narrow platform.

Desmond managed to pry his arms from around the beam, which appeared to be made out of the same smooth stone that he had seen in the temples beneath the Vatican and the Santa Maria Aracoeli. For a moment or two he and Clay simply sat there, like two children on a playground swing, staring down into the pit that had nearly claimed their lives, and Desmond felt the jitters smooth out and give way to proper anger.

'Haven't these people heard of fucking stairs?' he yelled suddenly, the furious words echoing all the way down.

Clay gave a breathless laugh beside him. 'I think it's to weed out the unworthy.'

'It's an asshole move, is what it is. How far down do you think it goes?'

'Far enough.'

'Yeah, right. Hopefully Cross will try to follow us and get caught off guard. That'll be one of our problems out of the way.'

Finally confident that his legs would be able to support him, Desmond stood up on the beam and turned away from the slope to peer at the path ahead of them. The beam was the first of many, illuminated by blue patterns scribed upon them, and they stretched out into the distance. With a sinking feeling, Desmond realised that there was still a fair bit of jumping to do.

'Well,' he said, trying to sound positive. 'That Piece of Eden isn't going to find itself. Come on.'

It was easier, now that he had time to plan the jumps. The instincts that he had learned from Ezio took over his body and guided him through the air, finding a firm landing for his feet each time. He couldn't help but feel a certain amount of anxiety for Clay, but it seemed that the other Assassin was, if anything, even more capable than Desmond himself. At one point it seemed that they had reached a dead end, with no more glowing beams extending out before them, but Clay pointed to the wall and to a series of hand- and foot-holds embedded in it. Desmond nodded and led the way for the climb, his heart pounding a little as he made the mistake of looking down into the seemingly endless nothingness below.

Finally his fingers slipped from the vertical surface onto a horizontal one, and Desmond realised that he had reached the top of the wall. With a groan of relief he pulled himself up and over and then lay sprawled on the cold ground, practically hugging the safety of it.

A few seconds later Clay followed, and Desmond heard him get to his feet and dust off his hands and knees. 'You OK there, Desmond?' he asked.

'Just give me a minute.'

Clay laughed. 'Did you get vertigo? Assassins aren't supposed to get vertigo.'

Desmond rolled over and stood up in order to better glare at Clay. 'You seemed to come down with a pretty bad case of it yourself, earlier on.' He watched the smile slide off Clay's face, but persisted. 'You want to tell me what that was all about?'

'It was nothing,' Clay replied shortly. 'Just...' He stilled for a moment and looked up and around them, at the temple walls and the odd symbols inscribed upon them. 'That's weird,' he muttered.

'What's weird?'

'It's quiet down here.'

'Well, we're about half a mile underground, so...'

'No, not out there, in my head. In my head, it's quiet.' Clay looked a little uncomfortable, as if he found the silence disturbing.

'Oh.' Desmond wasn't quite sure how to respond to this. 'Is it the drugs kicking in?'

Clay shook his head. 'No, they started working ages ago, and they've never worked this well.' He squinted into the distance. 'There.'

Desmond followed his gaze and spotted an illuminated pedestal with something resting atop it, on a platform raised and connected to where they stood by a staircase. With an increasingly uncomfortable sense of deja vu, Desmond walked slowly towards and then up the steps.

He didn't see the Piece of Eden until he was very close, for it was small and lay flat upon the top of the pedestal. It looked like a small shard of metal, made from the same material as the Apple. It was vaguely triangular, like a shark's tooth, and the top edge had been encased in a comparitively dull-looking silver in order to attach the whole thing to a slim, weathered chain. Desmond reached out a hand for it, but then hesitated.

'What's wrong?' Clay asked.

Desmond turned his hand over. Outlined beneath the material of his sleeve, he could see the hidden blade with which he had killed Lucy. He looked over at Clay, at his curious expression, at the exposed skin of his throat. What if Desmond touched the Piece of Eden and found himself powerless once more, held in the grip of a god who might decide that Clay was just another obstacle to be cast aside? What if Desmond found himself on the floor of this temple, feeling Clay's warm blood seeping into his clothes?

'Clay?' he said, turning his gaze back to the Piece of Eden. 'Did my dad give you a remote for my implant?'

'No, he didn't.' Desmond could feel Clay watching him carefully.

'Ha. Figures.' There was always the chain of the thing. So long as he didnt allow it to touch his skin, surely he would be OK? Wrapping his sleeve over his hand as an extra precaution, Desmond reached out, carefully plucked the Piece of Eden's chain between two fingers and lifted it.

It happened in the very moment that the Piece of Eden lost contact with the pedestal. There was a burst of orange light in front of them and Desmond shielded his eyes with one arm, the Piece of Eden thudding against his chest as he did so.

You have arrived.

The voice was not coming from any real source, but seemed to be underneath his very skin. Desmond lowered his arm and that was when he saw her: a woman that he had only ever glimpsed before, but whose voice still haunted his dreams. Her head was adorned with some strange form of helmet, and her eyes were severe and frightening, her hair drifting about her head as though it were independently alive.

Desmond knew her name. He was unlikely to ever forget it.

Juno.

'You!' he said, and just like that Desmond was no longer afraid. He was angry. 'You see her too, right?' he asked Clay desperately.

Clay seemed to be having trouble breathing. 'I see her.'

'That's the bitch who made me kill Lucy. Hey! Can you hear me?'

Juno's eyes seemed to smolder a little. Her mouth moved but made no sound, for once again the words were delivered directly into his brain. In the primitive sense that your understanding can grasp, yes, I hear you.

Clay groaned and clutched at his temple. 'I guess this explains why it's so quiet down here. She didn't want anyone else butting in while she's talking.'

Juno turned to him, and her very gaze seemed to light up Clay's face further. You should not be here, she said, a frown implicit in the words.

'I agree completely,' Clay gasped in response.

It matters not. Your role is played out already. She turned back to Desmond, smoothly dismissing Clay with the gesture. Now, heed my words...

'I'm not heeding your anything,' Desmond interrupted furiously. 'Last time I tried heeding you, Lucy wound up dead.'

Juno looked at him coldly. The message will be delivered, whether you wish it or not.

The thought speared Desmond's brain like something physical and he fell to his knees, crying out and clutching at his head as the information poured in. He barely saw it as it flashed past, but he saw the important parts: the Earth getting closer and closer, as though he were a meteor rushing towards it, then the vague shape of North America, getting closer still, seeking out a single location, a single spot, and he was going to crash into the ground, he was going to crash...

Desmond fell, not onto the patch of grass that he had seen in the vision, but on the cold stone floor of the temple. He lay there for a few moments, trying to catch his breath.

It is done, he felt Juno say. You now know where you must go. Your final destination. The Grand Temple. Find the key, and open the door...

'No.'

Juno fell silent, and Desmond wondered if this stored version of her did not have the programming to cope with a refusal. He climbed shakily to his feet, and Clay leaned down to grip his arm and help him up, leaning in to whisper in Desmond's ear as he did so.

'Do you know what you're doing?'

'I know what I'm not doing,' Desmond replied, glaring at the slightly transparent form of Juno. 'I'm not taking any more orders from some psychopathic ghost of a god.'

His eyes watered as Juno met his gaze. You have to...

It was Clay's turn to interrupt. 'I think he just established that he doesn't have to.'

Juno's eyes widened and she screeched at him. BE SILENT. YOU SHOULD NOT BE HERE. GET OUT.

'You don't get to decide what should and shouldn't happen,' Desmond snapped, further incensed as he saw Clay visibly buckling under the strain of Juno's onslaught. 'What gave you the right to kill Lucy?'

She stood in your path.

'And a simple "heads-up, your teammate's a Templar!" wouldn't have worked?'

You are wasting time with your petty mortal...

'Too bad, I am a petty mortal, and I'm sick of your cryptic bullshit.'

Juno stepped backwards, not taking her eyes off him, and Desmond felt a sudden awful, welling sensation that he'd just done something very, very stupid.

No matter. You may twist and whine, but you will still go to the Grand Temple. You will do this or mankind will die ... again.

She vanished.

'Hey, just because you got the last word in, doesn't mean you won the argument! ' Desmond shouted into the darkness. He waited for a few long seconds to see if he would get a reply.

Abruptly, another disembodied voice spoke, making him jump. This time, however, it was Rebecca speaking. 'Uh, OK. I only heard one side of that, but am I right in thinking that you just told Juno where to get off?'

'Oh yes.' That was Bill speaking, and he sounded distinctly unamused. 'I've been on the receiving end of one of those tantrums more times than I can remember.'

'She started it,' Desmond retorted petulantly.

'We'll discuss this when you get back.'

'Fine.'

He turned away from the pedestal, intending to start the search for a way out, and found himself looking directly down the barrel of a gun.

Desmond froze.

Daniel smiled.