When Desmond came to, finally understanding the world he was inhabiting, Lucy and Shaun were huddled around Rebecca's computer.
"There! You see? 'POLAND'."
Lucy looked over at Desmond, and in her usual business like tone, said, "Excellent work, Desmond!"
"So what do we do now?" Rebecca asked.
"Do we have any surviving cells in Poland?"
"I don't think so."
"What about Germany?"
"I haven't heard from Schultz in six months, they were -"
"Wait," Desmond interrupted. "Poland...that's what we're going to go on? Just that?"
The others looked at him and there was a brief awkward silence.
Shaun finally spoke up. "It was a miracle we found anything in your memories, Desmond. Information of this caliber is not so easily stumbled upon."
"I know but...don't you think there's...more...somewhere?" He sounded like an idiot, but could not deny the instinct to protest.
"You're telling me you want to get back in the machine?" Lucy asked.
It was odd. He was not sure what was compelling him, but in a way he did.
"I...I don't know. Maybe."
"You should rest regardless, Dez. Right Luce?"
"Right. We can discuss this tomorrow. Be proud of what you've done for us already, Desmond."
Lucy seemed patronizing now that she was out of Abstergo. Back in captivity, she seemed tender, and almost motherly sometimes. Now he had this strange suspicion that she looked down on him.
Desmond turned away and looked at his lap. How many days since he had changed those pants?
They were right, his mind was weary and he needed to rest for now at least. The others continued in the background as he zoned out.
"...crossing two borders, and either...or go through..."
"...shouldn't be too much trouble. With the Apple...border guards...except on the off chance someone is immune, and even then..."
"...be anywhere. Poland's a big country!"
"Does Abstergo have any office in Poland? Have we ever even..."
"If Claude was still alive..."
He got up to head for his cot. Two eighteenth century soldiers were standing guard at the back door. Then they vanished.
He arrived, lied down, then looked up at the ceiling.
It was a miracle they found anything in his memories, really. What were the odds Élise or Arno would be present for such a revelation. And yet he still had this nagging sensation he should go back.
Would he lose his mind at the end of this, the barrier between past and present broken? Maybe, but that hardly mattered. He needed to pour every drop of himself into preventing Abstergo's plan. If they won, the first thing they would do would be to send the world to hunt them down, surely. He had to fight at all costs, for reasons both selfless and selfish.
"...dig through all the files? All of them?"
"Yeah, all of them, but you know how it is, there was nothing but..."
"...satellites images, that's a place to start..."
"How big is Poland, though? It's got to be at least fifty-thousand square miles! And its not like images are going to be..."