When Desmond comes out of the animus, he's already in a bad mood. Minerva's news has him worried, he feels bad about not taking advantage of literally the best chance he'll ever have to tell Ezio what's going on, and-
"Come on, Desmond," Lucy says, practically dragging him out of the animus. "We need to get out of here. Now."
"What?" he looks around- Shaun and Rebecca are already hurrying around, packing up computers and supplies. Altair stands on the other side of the room, looking unusually fidgety. He looks like he would rather be helping, if not for his current intangibility.
"The templars are coming," Lucy says, at the exact same moment as something thuds loudly downstairs. "And they're here."
"Abstergo tracked us?" Desmond asks. He feels like he's missed something he while he was in the animus, and glances over at Altair- his ancestor only shrugs, and Desmond realizes that of course Altair won't have any better an idea of what's going on than Desmond does, because he would have been in Masyaf until he got pulled out of the animus.
"They must have," Lucy says. "But I don't know how. Come on. Time to find out how good of a teacher Ezio is."
She leads the way downstairs, Desmond following half a second behind. He feels almost sick- he's done plenty of fighting in the animus but exactly none in his own body. Not counting the original escape from Abstergo, but that had technically been Altair. It isn't really the same.
He hears the guards before he sees them, because they're not even trying to stay quiet. They wear heavy boots that he can hear from the second floor, and their voices echo off the walls in the cavernous storage area. It's like they're not even trying to stay quiet. There's something not quite right about it, but Desmond doesn't have time to figure it out now. He finally sees one, a big guy with a gun pulled on Lucy. He hasn't seen Desmond yet, and a few seconds later Desmond manages to get behind him, and make sure he never will.
It turns out Ezio is a very good teacher.
It's not quite the same, fighting in the real world as in the animus. His brain knows what to do, but his body's been sitting in the animus for two weeks straight, and it reacts more slowly than Desmond's used to.
It's still not enough to save the guards, though. Maybe if Abstergo had sent someone that knew what they were doing it would be different. He decides to count himself lucky.
And he decides he's luckier still when the entire group is rolling out of the hideout in a van, along with all their most important equipment. He hopes it's everything important, anyway, because they're less than three blocks from the building when he hears a dull boom. A minute or so later, a firetruck screams past them, headed back the way they came.
"And that's the end of that place," Lucy sighs. "We're running out of safe places."
"I'm sorry," Desmond says.
"Don't be," says Lucy. "They're the ones that found us."
"They wouldn't have bothered if I wasn't there," says Desmond.
"Yea, they would have," Shaun calls from the front seat. "They're templars, we're assassins- have you been paying any attention at all?"
"He's right," Lucy says. "And I don't think they're too happy with me right now, either."
Desmond shrugs. He can't really help but feel like this is all his fault, somehow. "What happens next?" he asks.
"We need to find somewhere new to hide until we can get out of the country," Lucy says. "And you need to get back in the animus."
"How come?" Desmond asks. "I thought I did okay with those guards back there. Wasn't that the whole point of sticking me in the animus in the first place?"
"It was until that last memory," Lucy says. "The precursors are actually trying to talk to you through Ezio, Desmond." She leans forward in her seat a little, so close to him their faces are almost touching. It's hard not to see the excitement in her eyes. "This could be exactly what we need, and you can't just pull out now."
He can't bring himself to argue with her. He's too tired, and he's not even sure he wants to. "Alright," he grumbles. "Back into the animus, I guess."
"Great," Lucy says. "I should warn you, though, this isn't exactly a routine session- we can't set up all the equipment in the back of the van, so we won't be able to actually see anything you're experiencing in there. If anything important does happen, you need to stop right away so we can look at the memories sometime when we're more settled."
"Fine," Desmond says. Better than fine, really. This could be exactly the chance he needs to talk to Ezio without anyone listening in- after the Minerva incident, he can't keep his ancestor in the dark anymore. "But, ah-" over Lucy's shoulder, Altair's giving him a 'we need to talk' look. "I need a break first."
"Desmond-"
"Just five minutes," he says. "Then I'll get right in. Promise."
She sighs, but nods and turns her attention to the front of the van. Rebecca and Shaun are already arguing over which road to take and where they might be safe. Lucy quickly joins in. So no one hears Desmond when he looks over at Altair and asks, as quietly as he can, "What's the matte?"
"It was too easy," Altair says. "That whole attack- it felt staged."
"What?"
"Think about it," Altair snaps. "They might not know what you've learned from Ezio, but they have the records of everything you did in my memories. They know you have that map of all the apple locations, and if the apples are as important to their plans as Lucy says, they're not going to let you go easily."
Desmond wants to argue that their escape wasn't exactly easy, but then he remembers thinking how easily he could hear the men as he came downstairs, remembers thinking that they wanted to be heard. "It was a test," he breathes.
Altair nods. "They didn't want you back," he says. "They wanted to know how much you've learned."
Which sort of makes sense. But Altair was right about Desmond having information the templars want, too. There's no reason they couldn't have tested him and still managed to steal him back from the assassins. Unless...
"One of them must be a templar," he says, in a voice so quiet he's surprised Altair can even hear it. "We're not escaping at all. Abstergo has us exactly where they want us."
"Damn." Altair says, and closes his eyes. "I should have thought of that." Desmond stares at him- he can't remember hearing his ancestor ever swear before. And that, more than anything else, tells him just how much trouble they're in.
"Ready to go back in now?" Lucy asks, and Desmond jumps a little. He looks her over, but it doesn't seem like she heard any of what he said.
"Yea," he says. "Sure."
As he sits back down in the animus, he takes one last look at the three assassins at the front of the truck. One of them is a templar, and he has no idea which. Or maybe it's two of them. Or three. He glances back at Altair, who's studying all three with a golden eyed stare that Desmond recognizes as eagle vision. Desmond quickly follows his example, but sees only blue. He wonders if he's too blinded by his own opinions of them all to see the truth.
"Ready?" Lucy asks again, and Desmond realizes he's just sitting there, staring.
"Sorry," he says, and blinks the eagles away. "Let's go see Ezio."