The battlefield was polluted and only dimly visible. The remains of mustard gas hung oily in the air and upon the ground, and John Sargent felt his boots slipping in it as he stumbled through the trench. There were boards laid down in the mud but they were slicked over and all but useless now, the wood soaked and rotting in the moisture. He could hear the sucking footsteps of the other men behind him, but when he glanced back they were mere shadows in the dark.

'Do we still have everybody?' he called over his shoulder.

'Yes, Sergeant,' replied Private Jones from somewhere not not far behind him. There was a slight grin in the lad's voice that gave John a warming flicker of humour. The men never seemed to tire of the fact that his surname matched his rank, and he suspected that whenever they addressed him they were secretly using the former, and experiencing a small, rebellious thrill at the informality of it. John did not mind. It was his hope that he would be an officer before the year was out, should he live that long, and that he would return to his wife a decorated man. As soon as he landed on English shores he would sever all the horror that he had seen from his mind and leave it behind in France.

He raised his voice as he called back, 'Hands on shoulders, men. It's darker than Polyphemus' lair out here.'

There was a rumble of confused muttering at the reference, but presently he felt Jones' fingers fall and tighten upon his right shoulder, and he trusted that the order had been followed through. Now he was the head of a long, weary caterpillar, leading them all back to the trench that they had been forced to evacuate when the chemicals fell. Their tin cups of tea were doubtless still resting where they had been set down and knocked over, and there would be bodies to clear out before they could settle down for the night.

They had walked several miles already just to get here, but this was the final stretch. John reached the final corner and began to turn it, when suddenly Jones' fingers tightened on his shoulder and the lad stopped walking, holding John back firmly.

'What is it, Jones?' he asked.

The reply came strangely garbled, as though two people were speaking at once.

The voice that sounded most like Jones replied, 'There are people already in there, sir.'

The voice that sounded nothing like Jones said, 'Hold up, Clay, they've got guns.'

John shook his head in confusion, then leaned forward a little, enough to peer around the rough corner and along the length of the trench. Sure enough, he caught the flickering movement of dark shapes in the lingering yellow smoke and pulled his head back quickly.

'Backs against the wall, lads,' he hissed through his teeth.

Jones opened his mouth and said two things at once.

'Is it the Hun, sir?'

'Snap out of it, Clay, I need you.'

Then, suddenly, in a brief and awful flash, the trench wavered uncertainly and morphed into clean white walls and doors, with rough carpeting underfoot in the stead of mud and boards. John gritted his teeth and forcibly drove this odd vision away. Now was not the time to lose his nerve.

He heard footsteps tramping towards them and flattened further against the wall of the trench, feeling moisture soaking into the back of his jacket. Jones let loose a whispered curse beside him and gripped John's shirt, trying to pull him backwards and away from the figure hunting them down. John held his ground and tensed his muscles.

The Hun rounded the corner. He was formed from a solid, black, gaping maw of empty space and the pits of his eyes glowed yellow in his head, smoke curling out of the sockets, tinted the same sickening colour as the light behind them. He seemed to be impossibly tall, at least seven feet, and his mouth was opening, opening, ready to call to the rest of his monstrous brood and bring all hell down upon John and his men.

The part of John that longed to survive the war felt a sudden urge to run away and never look back, but the part of him that was determined to win the war reached up and caught the monster by the throat, and brought his knee up to slam brutally into the creature's groin. The Hun snarled and thrashed but John bore him to the ground and slammed his fist down upon where the nose should have been - once, twice, phantom teeth grazing his knuckles upon the third blow.

The whole world was shaking now. This was no trench that he was in. It seemed to be a thousand different places all at once, and John wondered if he had succumbed to the madness of war as he saw Jones flex his fingers oddly, a slim, shining dagger sliding down from the lad's sleeve. John snarled ferociously and yanked the Hun's head backwards by the hair, his throat open and exposed and bursting like overripe fruit as Jones sliced the blade through the taut skin. The Hun gurgled and trashed before finally falling still.

Jones fell back against the wall breathlessly, his fingers shaking, and looked up at John with wide eyes.

'I guess that works too,' he said.

Desmond slowly withdrew his blade, his bloodsoaked hand shaking a little as he kept the other hand gripped firmly on Clay's shoulder to keep him from running away. One look at his companion's face told him that Clay was clearly not completely settled in the proper reality, and Desmond couldn't help but wonder whether the anti-psychotics had actually been getting any use.

'Clay,' he said slowly. 'Have you seen Shaun or Rebecca since the attack started?'

The only response he got was a furrowed brow and a low moan of pain as Clay clutched at his head and squeezed his eyes tightly shut. Desmond tried not to let the frustration get the better of him, but the cry he had heard after the first gunshot had sounded an awful lot like Rebecca's voice. It had been followed by several more shots and a few distant yells, but in the time it had taken to secure Daniel the noise had died away and an eerie silence had been left behind.

Despite the fact that Clay was so close, Desmond felt desperately alone. Leaning over from where he was kneeling, he shook the other Assassin impatiently by the shoulder, and his next words came out as a desperate plea. 'Come on, Clay, I need you to pull it together.'

The reply came in a British accent. 'Hold the line, Jones,' Clay said insistently. 'They cannot take us all.' He shook his head violently. 'Desmond ... Jones...'

'Miles,' Desmond corrected, relief flooding him at the sound of his own name in Clay's usual voice. 'My name is Desmond Miles. And the year is 2012. There are Templars in the building and Rebecca might be hurt. Now are you going to help me, or do I have to stop them by myself?'

Clay looked up, his eyes suddenly sharp and startlingly blue. 'Rebecca?' he repeated.

'Yeah,' Desmond said quickly. 'You remember her?'

'I ... yes. From before.'

Desmond took a moment to translate this. 'Before Abstergo?'

'Yeah.'

Well, that made sense. Clay's pre-Abstergo memories were the only ones of his that were pure and untainted by the Bleeding Effect. Even mentioning Rebecca had seemed to have a grounding effect upon him, and as Clay looked around now he finally seemed to be seeing the world as it actually was.

With a start, Desmond recalled that he still had a headset in the pocket of his jeans. He was supposed to put it on whenever he was separated from the rest of the group, but he had a tendency to forget now that ... well.

It had always been Lucy who had reminded him of it.

He hurriedly extricated the device from his pocket and clipped it onto his ear, flicking a tiny switch on the side to turn it on.

'Anyone there?' he whispered.

The reply came immediately. 'Desmond?' Shaun breathed the word out almost inaudibly. 'Oh, thank God. Where the bloody hell are you?'

'Ground floor, the corridor nearest the kitchen. You?'

'First floor, the hallway cupboard.'

'Is Rebecca with you?'

Shaun didn't reply at first. Desmond felt his stomach tighten into an awful knot.

Then he heard another voice, this one weak and pained and a little groggy. 'I'm here, Des.'

Desmond felt a hand on his arm and looked up to find Clay staring at him, wide-eyed and impatient. He realised that Clay didn't have a headset and therefore had no idea what was being said, and so he nodded almost imperceptibly before continuing.

'Rebecca, you don't sound so good.'

It was Shaun who replied. 'The bloody idiot jumped in front of a bullet that was meant for me.' He was still whispering but there was an audibly pained edge to the words. 'She's been shot, Desmond. In the stomach. I'm keeping pressure on the wound but the skin around it is all dark and I think she's still bleeding inside...' His attempt at a clinical tone wavered and shook.

Desmond felt sick but he made a conscious effort to focus on the most immediate problem. 'Where are the Templars?'

'I managed to activate the security system after the first few got in. The building is locked down but there are about half a dozen Templars still in here with us. I heard them going past a while ago. I have a gun but I can't ... if they find us then...'

'It's fine, just stay there,' Desmond said firmly. 'Rebecca, where are the Pieces of Eden?' He could just as easily have asked Shaun, but Rebecca's silence was filling him with anxiety.

It took a moment for her to respond, and she sounded drugged and distant and frighteningly unlike her usual self. 'Safe in the Animus room. Combination is 4-5-1-9.'

'OK,' Desmond said. 'I'll deal with the Templars. You hold on, alright?'

She didn't reply. Desmond clenched his teeth.

'Alright, Rebecca?'

Shaun cut in. 'Go on, Desmond.' His voice was brittle, an edge of fury to it. 'Sort them out.'

Desmond nodded, even though Shaun couldn't see him, and glanced over at Clay. The man appeared to be lucid, but he looked far from settled, and Desmond knew from experience that Clay could slip over the edge at any moment. If that happened in the middle of a fight there was a good chance that he would get one or both of them killed. It was tempting to simply find another cupboard and tell Clay to wait there while Desmond dealt with the Templars on his own. Resolved that this was the best solution, Desmond stood up and pulled Clay with him.

'Clay, listen...'

'Let me help.'

Desmond opened his mouth hesitantly, uncertain of the most tactful way to do this. 'Go and find Shaun and Rebecca...'

Clay shook his head impatiently. 'I don't want to find Shaun and Rebecca. They have each other already, but you... Look. I don't want to hide. I want to fight. That's what I'm good at.'

Time to get harsh. 'I can't fight Templars and babysit you at the same time!'

Clay didn't even flinch. 'You won't have to.'

'Oh really? Because not five minutes ago you were convinced we were in a World War One trench.'

'Yeah, and I still took out that guy pretty well, didn't I?' Clay said, pointing down at the dead Templar by their feet. 'Take me with you and you'll only be half as outnumbered as you already are.'

Desmond's conviction wavered for a moment, and Clay saw it, and continued in a softer voice.

'You don't have to fight every battle on your own, you know.'

'You think I want to?' Desmond asked scornfully.

'No. Which is why you shouldn't turn down backup. Even if your backup is, you know, a little bit insane.'

Desmond sighed in frustration, but decided to give up fighting Clay on this. They needed to get rid of the Templars before Rebecca bled out, and evening the odds a little couldn't hurt. 'You got some pills with you?'

'Yeah.'

'Take them. I need you sharp if we're going to do this.'

He watched as Clay reluctantly took his medication, grimacing as he swallowed the pills dry, and then jerked his head in the direction of the Animus room that the Templar had emerged from.

Desmond heard the Templars talking amongst themselves when he was about ten feet from the door. It was still slightly ajar and there was - he realised with a lurch - a smear of blood on the frame where Rebecca and Shaun had presumably made their escape. He gestured at Clay to stay low, and then crept forward and peered through the small gap.

The Templars had found the safe. One of them was leaning against it, turning the dial with one hand and pressing the diaphragm of a stethoscope to the surface with the other, listening closely. As Desmond watched, he scowled in frustration and yanked the ear tips out, glaring at his team mates.

'Would you guys keep the noise down?' he snapped. 'I can't hear shit with you talking.'

'What the hell is taking so long?' another Abstergo agent retorted angrily.

'I'd have had it open ten minutes ago if it weren't for you jackasses. This is sort of a delicate procedure.'

The conversation meant that four of the Templars (the sixth that Shaun had mentioned must have been the one that Clay and Desmond had killed in the hallway) had their backs to the door. The fifth Templar - the one by the safe - was about to turn back to continue the job. This would probably be the best hope for an element of surprise that Desmond was going to get, and so he eased the door open and broke into a low, near-silent run.

Throwing his arm out, he sank his wrist blade into the base of the first Templar's skull, the man dying with a short grunt. Before the others had finished turning their heads, Desmond has already quickly shaken the first man off his blade and was slamming it straight into the heart of a second Templar.

The man by the safe whirled around - the diaphragm dropping to thud loosely against his chest - and his eyes widened. 'That's Miles!' he yelled. 'Kill him!'

Desmond filed that away for later consideration as the three remaining enemies drew their pistols. He whirled around and slashed one across the throat, but as he did so he saw, in his peripheral vision, the man on his right raise his gun and aim it squarely at the side of Desmond's head. A blur of terror leapt through him but, as the Templar squeezed his finger on the trigger, Clay appeared, gripping the man's wrist and whipping his arm downwards so that the Templar quite literally shot himself in the foot. He yelped in agony and dropped to the ground, and Desmond turned his head away as Clay did something unpleasant involving his fingers and the Templar's eye sockets. The screaming intensified before being cut off entirely.

It was lucky that he looked away when he did, because the Templar with the stethoscope now had a gun in his hand and was swinging it around to point at Clay. Without thinking, Desmond grabbed the man's wrist and squeezed tightly until his fingers went limp and the gun clattered to the ground. The Templar stared up at him - wide-eyed and terrified - and Desmond hesitated for a fraction of a second with his wrist blade extended and inches from his opponent's face. Then he remembered Rebecca and strengthened his resolve, slamming the blade forward and upwards swiftly so that it pierced the Templar's cheek and entered his brain. His eyes rolled up until only the whites were showing and his blood sprayed down Desmond's sleeve. Then he more or less fell off the blade and collapsed onto the ground.

Clenching his fist to prevent his fingers from trembling, Desmond turned back to Clay, who was looking at the carnage and grinning a little.

'Not bad,' he said. 'What's that, four to one? I think you're beating me.'

'It's not a game, Clay,' Desmond said severely, through the adrenaline racing through him was giving him a weird urge to start cheering.

It took a couple of minutes to get the safe open. Despite having the code, Desmond was unsure of whether to turn the dial left or right first. Finally the lock released with a satisfying clank, and the door swung open to reveal the Apple and the Shard sitting side-by-side in the small, dark space.

Desmond hesitated for a moment. He had not touched the Apple since the day he had killed Lucy, and was not looking forward to doing so now. With great reluctance, and the air of a man trying to pick up a live scorpion, he reached in and flattened his palm against the golden surface before wrapping his fingers around the sphere. A half-painful, half-pleasant sensation ran up his arm and he experienced a strange sense of someone who had opened a small trapdoor to reveal an enormous cavern beyond. Trying to ignore this, he hurriedly shoved the artefact into the pocket of his hoodie before grabbing the Shard and transferring it to the front pocket of his jeans.

'OK,' he said, closing the safe and spinning the dial before turning away from the wall. 'Now what?'

Clay was no longer standing where he had been, but was instead, staring at the small bank of monitors on the other side of the room, each of which was displaying a feed from a different security camera. 'Uh, I don't know,' he replied. 'But whatever you're going to do, you might want to do it quickly. An entire army just showed up outside our front door.'

'Shit.' Desmond hurried over to join him and swallowed hard as he saw the dozen or so trucks parked outside and the heavily armed Templar agents pouring out of them. The safe house's security systems had drawn metal sheets down over the doors and windows, but they wouldn't hold for long.

'Desmond,' Clay said, his steady voice providing a grounding place to focus amidst the panic. 'I can stay here with you or I can head upstairs and help Shaun get Rebecca to the infirmary. Last year, when I was in Abstergo, I relived the memories of a World War Two army medic. I mean, my expertise is about seventy years out of date but I know my way around a bullet wound...'

'Yes, go,' Desmond said firmly, not taking his eyes off the monitors.

Clay nodded, but didn't make any move to leave. 'You heard what that Templar said. You saw how they reacted. They're not interested in retrieving you any more, Desmond. They're just here for the Pieces of Eden. Maybe for Daniel as well.'

'I know,' Desmond said quietly. 'Go on. Help Rebecca.'

Before Clay left, he paused to regard Desmond for a moment, as though figuring something out. Then he gave a small, emotional smile of encouragement before walking briskly out of the door.

Once he was sure that he was alone, Desmond sat down heavily on the edge of a desk and dropped his head into his hands. He could hear the shouts of the Templars outside, and knew that time was short, but he took the luxury of it anyway. He waited because he knew that this was it: this was the crossroads at which he would make The Decision. It couldn't have waited much longer at any rate; if the Pieces of Eden were handed to Abstergo then their scientists would need a window in which to adapt and launch the satellite, and if the Assassins went on to Turin they would need time to figure out how to enter the Grand Temple and unlock its secrets.

Right now Desmond had more reason than ever to go with the latter option. Every time he thought of Rebecca bleeding - possibly to death - upstairs, he hated the Templars even more. But the thought of it also reminded him of the way Lucy had died, and of the abject terror Desmond had felt when Juno taken control of his body with ease: the inevitability of the disaster that followed.

This was the point at which Desmond would choose to doom humanity to slavery. That much was unavoidable. But slavery to whom? To a power-hungry, cold-blooded monolith of industry, or to an avaricious goddess of unknowable intelligence and unbound hatred?

Clay may have left the room, but his words had stayed behind. Rikkin is only human.

Daniel had succeeded in eating the sandwich - like a dog - from the floor where Desmond had dropped it, and with the renewed strength was once again attempting to free himself from his bonds. It hurt a lot more the second time around, now that he was fully conscious and the skin of his wrists and hands was already burnt and bleeding. It was almost a relief when he heard the clattering of feet on the steps and was allowed to give up the effort and make a show of lying limp upon the ground. He closed his eyes as well, and tensed the muscles in his legs. Perhaps he could sweep them around and knock Desmond off his feet once he got close enough.

The locks rattled - more hurried and panicked than before - and Daniel heard the door burst open and Desmond take a couple of steps into the room, his shoes scuffing on the floor as he came to a halt.

'Yeah, very cute. You can open your eyes now, 'cause you're definitely not fooling me.'

Daniel opened the eye on the side of his face that wasn't pressed against the dusty stone floor. 'Worth a try,' he said unapologetically.

Desmond smiled sarcastically and crouched down at a safe distance as Daniel manoeuvred himself into a sitting position. Once he was upright, the Assassin spoke again.

'Listen very carefully. I'm going to let you go.'

Daniel didn't so much as blink, but he was definitely listening.

'I know I can't trust you, so I'm going to leave the door unlocked and loosen your ropes enough that you'll be able to wriggle your way free within a few minutes.' He paused for a moment, looking pained. 'When you get to the top of the stairs, make a right. The room directly ahead of you is the Animus room. I've left ... I've left the Pieces of Eden on the seat of the Animus, along with the codes for the security system. You should be able to shut it down and meet up with your buddies out front, if they haven't already managed to bust in by then.'

Daniel took a moment to process this before opening his mouth, but Desmond raised a hand threateningly.

'I'm not done yet. You take the Pieces of Eden back to Rikkin and you make sure they both go up in the satellite, understood? I've told you what's at stake. I know you're a ... a sociopath, or whatever, but I can't believe you'd be willing to let the entire world burn.' He let the statement hang in the air, obviously waiting for a response.

Daniel let him stew for a couple of seconds, feigning thoughtfulness before shaking his head. 'No way. I hear Pennywise are planning to release a new album next year.'

Desmond grinned humourlessly. 'Good. So, it looks like Rikkin isn't too fussed about getting me back any more. The way I understand it, I was only kidnapped in the first place because Vidic needed someone to help you guys find a Piece of Eden. Once they have that, I go way down on their priorities list. So me and the rest of the team are going to make our way out of here quietly, and you get to go home. Everyone wins, right?'

One look at the kid told Daniel everything he needed to know. Desmond was pushed into a corner and was making the most difficult decision of his life. With every word he uttered he looked more and more like he was about to puke. Nonetheless, he seemed thoroughly determined. Probably knew he didn't have any other choice.

'I don't imagine your daddy's going to be very happy when he hears about this,' Daniel said, goading Desmond for the sheer fun of it.

'You let me worry about my father. Now turn around. And if you try anything funny I'll send you back with a couple of extra scars.'