Something happens at the moment Altair sees Desmond and Lucy reach their agreement. One moment he's standing nearby, half leaning against a wall, taking in his new surroundings and trying to puzzle them out. And the next, with no transition, he's back inside Desmond's head, powerless again.
Desmond shakes his head, and Lucy asks, "What's the matter?"
"Nothing," Desmond says. "Sorry, just feeling a little beat up still."
"You should get some rest," Lucy says. "We can wait until tomorrow to start working with the animus."
"I'd rather just get it over with," says Desmond. "The sooner we get started the sooner it'll be over."
"I'm really sorry," Lucy says. "I am."
"Let's just do this," Desmond says, and stands. He refuses Lucy's help when she offers it, and crosses the room under his own power, completely ignoring that only one foot can actually hold his whole weight at the moment. Altair feels briefly annoyed- he's been injured enough times to know that staying off a bad limb until its healed is the best way to make sure it heals quickly. But the annoyance fades quickly. After all, he's never followed his own advice.
The two strangers- Shaun, Rebecca- look up as Lucy leads Desmond to a red chair. "Feeling better?" Rebecca asks.
"Yea," says Desmond, but Altair can feel the lie in his mind. And he's not talking about the beating. Altair can tell that much, but he doesn't know what he is talking about. Only that there's a darkness hiding behind that word Lucy said earlier. Animus. He prods at the memory, but Desmond's mind shoves him back. This isn't a place Desmond wants to go in his own mind. It definitely isn't a place he's going to let anyone else into.
"This is it?" Desmond asks. "The same as at Abstergo?"
"More or less," says Rebecca, and launches into a cheerful burst of numbers and details that mean nothing to Altair, and little more to Desmond.
"Or we could save the technical details for later," Lucy interrupts, and Rebecca nods.
"Alright," she says. "Hey Shaun, give me a hand with the calibrations here."
"What do you need me for?" Shaun asks.
"Stop whining," Rebecca says. "I need you to help me ID the right genetic data." She turns to Desmond. "Lucy was going to do this before you left Abstergo- their animi aren't as good as baby here-" she nods at the red chair. "But they have more processing power. We can't just run through all of your DNA until we find the right ancestor. We're going to have to flip through memories until we find the right general era and go from there." She pokes Shaun teasingly in the arm. "That's why we need our historian."
"How many ancestors are you going to need to get through?" Desmond asks.
"Don't worry about it," says Rebecca. "They'll go past too quickly. You won't even have to sync with them."
"Good," says Desmond.
"Not until we find the right ancestor, anyway," says Shaun.
"Not helping," Lucy hisses.
"Let's just get started," says Desmond, and settles into the chair. He closes his eyes, and Altair wonders what's supposed to happen next."
"Alright," says Rebecca. Her voice sounds weirdly distant, and Desmond opens his eyes.
They're not in the same place. Alair can see scene after scene flicker past them- strange places he's never been. But at the same time, he can feel the chair under him, and somehow he knows they haven't actually left the room. Desmond watches in silence, but Altair can feel a rising panic. It's Desmond's fear, but Altair can feel it affecting him as well.
He forces his mind to slow down, focusing on observing so he doesn't give into the panic. At first, Desmond fights it, but Altair keeps at it. I'm here, he thinks. Whatever's going to happen, you're not going to face it alone.
He feels Desmond take a huge breath, and let it slowly back out. He isn't calm, but he doesn't seem like he's about to panic anymore. They stand together and wait for something to happen.
"There!" Shaun calls suddenly, and the shifting scenery freezes. "Italy, fifteenth century."
"Perfect," says Rebecca. "Alright Desmond, I'm just going to hook you into a memory so we'll be able to find this ancestor again."
"Sure," says Desmond, and there's a sudden flash of white, and something happens. He feels Desmond being ripped away, and it hurts. Worse than the beating from the escape. Worse than anything Altair ever felt in his own body. And they're both screaming inside their shared head...
And then everything goes black.