"Desmond! Desmond, can you hear me!?"

"Ugh, yeah," a groggy Desmond Miles said, reawakening to the 21st century. A pipe, an electric light, and a ventilation duct were the sights which greeted him.

"Are you okay?" Rebecca said. "The machine's never done that before!"

"Yeah...I...I think. What just happened?"

"I don't know I...I think you just...flashed forward."

"Flashed forward?"

"Like...a flashback in your flashback. Only forward in time."

Reawakening from the animus was disorienting enough. The last thing Desmond's mind needed was to try to wrap his head around what he had just heard.

"...right. So now the machine's broken?" he said.

"No, I...I mean not necessarily. The Bleeding Effect is just...I guess you could say..."

"So I'm broken."

She was silent for a second, then she looked at her computer screen and typed something.

After another second of silence she spoke again, as if having collected herself. "Don't be so glum, Desmond. Something about Élise's memories just triggered one of your other ancestor's memories. That's all."

She continued pattering away on her keyboard. Desmond looked at her expectantly: He hoped she would give him permission to take a break.

Instead she continued, "That was interesting, though. They mentioned Tunguska." She turned away from her digital task and back to him. "Do you know what happened there?"

"No, no idea." Though the name sounded familiar. Did he read something about that back in Abstergo's custody?

"It was this huge explosion in Russia about a hundred years ago, the power of several nuclear bombs. It happened after our brotherhood launched an attack on a Templar research facility studying First Civ technology. No one survived."

Several nuclear bombs. He was surprised he had never heard about it before, even as lacking as his education had been.

"Then how am I viewing that guy's memories?"

"I don't know, maybe he wasn't there during the attack."

There was a brief silence. She looked back at her screen, typed a little more, then clicked something before turning back to him. "Anyway, I think you should take a break for the day. Lucy would understand."

"Great," Desmond said.

He swiveled and rose. But standing, that strange, barrel like object stuck in his mind.

Without turning back, he spoke. "So what was that thing they were looking at? Élise and that...Russian dude?"

"Not sure. Maybe it's whatever exploded in Tunguska. It's too bad our ancestors didn't capture the facility, we would have been able to see this 'First Civilization' first hand. We've never actually seen one of their sites."

He turned to face her again.

"I still don't get what that is, that 'First Civilization' I keep hearing about."

"We don't know much more than you, Dez. Just that they're the source of all these magical artifacts," she said.

"Magical?"

"I mean, not literally magical. Like really advanced and stuff." She looked back at her screen and started typing again.

"So they just came to Earth and just left some toys behind? If they had all these great powers, why didn't they do something with them while they were here?"

She looked back at him.

"I think they did, Dez. That might explain why human civilization has all those gods."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, like why is every culture so full of stories of super powered, human-like beings? Zeus, Poseidon, Horus, Chang-E. What purpose do they serve?"

"They...explain how we were created. Or at least how other stuff was created."

"The gods never needed an origin story, why do we?"

Desmond was silent, his head was starting to hurt. He hated philosophy.

"I'm just saying its something to think about, Dez."