When Desmond came to, Lucy was shining a flash-light in his eyes, Rebecca also looking over him. He was on a cot, somewhere dim and dingy and industrial.

"He's awake!" Lucy said.

"Oh thank God, Dez! We've been trying to reach you for hours!"

Lucy turned off her flashlight.

"You made quite a spectacle up there, Desmond," a dour Shaun said somewhere out of view. "We've been trying to keep a low profile."

"Ugh, sorry, bleeding effect."

"You were yelling some weird things, Dez," Rebecca said. "What did you see?"

"I was in the memories of some chick...Elise I think her name was."

It felt odd enough saying he was in the memories of a female, but he felt outright uncomfortable saying the next part, "Weird thing is...she was a Templar."

"A Templar?" Shaun said. "In your bloodline?"

"I mean, she was some kind of turncoat. But -"

"But somehow her DNA ended up back with us. That's strange indeed. What was the time period?"

"I think it was...the eighteen-hundreds. Maybe seventeen-hundreds. The French Revolution, maybe?"

Desmond never did well in history class.

"That's very strange. I'll have to look at our records from that time period. Although if you were willing to get back in the animus-"

"No!" Lucy said firmly, turning back to Shaun. "If Desmond is suffering the bleeding effect this severely...he needs to rest now."

Desmond was not sure whether to grateful or disappointed. He had been eager to fight the Templars, but he never disliked an opportunity to slack off.

Lucy turned her gaze back to him. "Desmond," she asked tenderly. "Do you remember anything important?"

"Yeah..." he said groggily. The experience had been so vivid. "The Templars, they had the Apple again. Or one of the Apples. And they kept bringing up...traitors. Something about 'traitors in Bavaria.'"

"My God..." Shaun said.

"What...is that important?"

"I always thought they were a scapegoat, a red herring the Templars used to distract people from the real ones pulling the strings. But if they were really ruffling the Templar's feathers that much, maybe..."

"Maybe what? Who are we talking about?"

"We're sorry, Desmond," Lucy said. "Have you ever heard of the Illuminati?"

"Not much more than the name..."

"They were a European secret society believed to be disbanded in the late eighteenth century. Maybe while you're 'resting' you could do a little light reading," Shaun said. "A man named John Robinson wrote all about them in 1797 in a book with a stupendously long title. I believe we have a copy somewhere around here."

"I'm not much of a reader," Desmond grumbled, shifting on his cot.

"Honestly you're not much of anything right now, Desmond. We can't trust you on the field with flashbacks like that, and we can't put you back in the animus, though I'd-"

"SHAUN," Lucy said sternly. "Leave it alone."

She looked back at him. "I'm sorry, Desmond. Shaun's a little testy after you called so much attention to us. He's been working to cover our tracks."

Desmond propped himself up. He was about to survey his surroundings, but the first thing which caught his attention was a fast-approaching muscular man with biceps like tree-trunks and a shaved head coming from the backside of the sanctuary. Arriving at Desmond's bedside, he shook his hand vigorously.

"Hello, Desmond," he said with a thick French accent. "It is an honor to meet the illustrious Subject 16."

"Subject 17," Desmond corrected.

"Subject 17, je suis désolé. My name is Claude Jorpin, the only survivor in the Paris cell. Cécillia, Emmanuel, Nicolas, Efau, Michèle, Ibrahmin, all our brave fellows struck down in recent months. It is nice to finally have some new friends."