[Warning! Executable: C:/Animus_2. cannot be verified. Allow system reboot, Y/N?]

The white grids and lines were flickering erratically around Desmond, and the backdrop turned an alarming shade of red after the emotionless voice of the Animus spoke. Desmond ran around for a while, but the background didn't morph into the memory he was currently trying to sync into. Worried, he called out.

"Uh, Rebecca? What's going on?"

"Sorry Desmond! It looks like some files didn't make it all the way when Lucy pulled the hard drive core from the old machine. Just sit tight for a moment and I'll pull you out."

"Yeah, great... I'll just wait. In here. Alone."

"Aw, does little Desmond want someone to hold his hand? Rebecca, would you like the honor?" Well, it certainly didn't take long for Shaun to start snarking.

"Shut up, Shaun!" That was Lucy. She sounded worried, but Desmond brushed it off. The blonde woman was always tense about something. At least he could count on her to come to his defense, though.

The red background stopped its jumping and the first remnants of a memory started to flood through, but something pulled it back and it pixilated before disappearing into the void. Was the Animus having an off day?

Not a moment later, Rebecca spoke, "Something's blocking me from accessing the rest of the memories. It looks like a new kind of code, but it could be one of 16's glyphs that were damaged during the transfer. It looks like 16 wants you to access this memory, but we can't. Well, the Animus can't, since it doesn't know how…"

While Rebecca rambled on, the background started to morph into something that definitely wasn't in Italy. The Animus dumped Desmond in the middle of a crowd of courtesans, judging from their very skimpy outfits, but they seemed to not notice they pushed around him as if he wasn't there. Tidbits of French, German, and English floated around as the Animus went overtime trying to translate all the languages at one time.

"Uh, guys?" No response. Desmond looked down at himself; he was still in his jeans and hoodie, which was very strange in a memory that did not belong to him.

The building interior was entirely wooden and the cloying scent of flowers permeated everywhere. He had materialized next to a wall, but not more than 10 feet away was a long stage that was being used by several dancing courtesans as they entertained their guests. There was a bar in a corner that was empty save for a customer and the bartender.

Great, the Animus dropped him in the middle of a French brothel.

Desmond turned on his Eagle Vision.

Great, the Animus dropped him in the middle of a French brothel that was full of Templars. Nazis, actually, at a closer look at their red armbands.

"Rebecca!" Still no response. Desmond tried again. "Lucy! Shaun! Anybody!"

It looked like he was on his own, then. Desmond looked around with his Eagle Vision, searching for a hint of gold light that would hopefully point him in the right direction. Making his way through the throngs of blue courtesans and staying far away from the large mass of red Templar-Nazis in the center of the room, Desmond caught a glimpse of gold at the bar.

Turning off his Sight, Desmond made his way over and took a seat next to the slouched man that was wearing a brown leather jacket with the collar turned up and had a satchel strapped to his side. The man, his eyes shadowed by his cap, turned slightly and motioned for the bartender to pour some more alcohol into his empty cup. As the bartender poured whiskey into the glass, he took out a pack of cigarettes and a Zippo lighter from his coat.

He lit one up and took a deep drag of the smoke. Without looking at Desmond, the man offered the pack of cigarettes to him, as if he finally acknowledged that the other had been awkwardly sitting there for the past two minutes. Surprisingly, the bartender set down a full glass of whiskey in front of Desmond, but he didn't touch it. He never drank anything that he didn't make himself. It was safer that way.

Desmond took one and lit it up; he was in the Animus, so it probably couldn't hurt if he smoked in a virtual reality, right? He took a drag of the harsh smoke, barely refraining from coughing out his lungs. Everything felt so real in this memory, probably even more so than the normal ones from Ezio that he went through.

The man set aside his cigarette and took a sip of his drink. When he spoke, it was in a hoarse Irish accent. "Don't waste that drink, boy. That whiskey costs me a good ten quid, and it doesn't look like you're the one paying for it. Times like these are hard for most of us, too."

Desmond took a sip of the amber liquid, and it burned an acidic trail all the way down his throat. Damn, this whiskey was strong, stronger than anything he had drank back in the real world.

The man's lips quirked up in a smirk at the face he probably made. He raised his head and Desmond finally could see his face in the dim light.

He didn't have the appearance of any of his ancestors of which he had apparently gotten his looks from. Actually, he looked like any other average Irish man that walked down the streets of Ireland, sans the stereotypical ginger hair.

The smirk fell and the man took a long drag of his cigarette. "Desmond Miles."

Desmond almost spit out his next sip. "How do you know my name?" This was just a memory, right?

"Some crazy blondie, the name was 16 or something, told me. He popped in sometime before you and mumbled something about saving the world and Templars before disappearing. All covered in blood too. Dressed pretty similar, now that I'm thinking of it." Desmond frowned. Subject 16?

This was getting too weird. He needed answers, and he needed them now. "Who are you?"

The man gave a dark chuckle before taking a long drink of his whiskey. "And nobody wonders why an Irishman is in France, do they?"

The man continued before he could say anything in return. "I used to be like you, y'know? Hated the family, ran away from home, hit the road in anywhere and everywhere just to get away." The man paused and turned to look at a passing group of courtesans as they mingled with the Nazis in the middle of the room.

"Then I got in way over my head in shite that didn't make much sense. The war started, people died, and here we are sitting at a bar in a room full of fucking Nazis." The last word was spit out with a level of hatred Desmond only heard coming from the mouths of seasoned killers, namely Ezio and Altaïr.

Desmond quietly took a sip of his drink. In situations like these, the bartender in him came up and he listened to the people who wanted an ear to pour their sob stories out to.

The groups of courtesans behind them started to thicken almost as if they were forming a barrier from the faceless mass of Nazis in the center of the room. The bartender emerged like a ghost and refilled their glasses before walking away without a sound.

The man took an even longer drag of his dwindling cigarette before stubbing it out on the ash tray. He picked out another stick from the nondescript pack and lit it with smooth, practiced motions. He didn't put away the lighter, instead running a calloused thumb along the worn engraving on the front. Huh, that wasn't there before.

Desmond suddenly didn't feel like smoking anymore, so he stubbed the cigarette out and took a sip of his alcohol.

"I'll get straight to the point. The world needs you, whether or not you are ready for whatever it needs you for. One moment you'll be minding your own damn business and then the next everybody will be begging for somebody, anybody, to stand up and fight for them. And do you know why, Desmond?"

The man leaned up close enough so that Desmond could see threads of his ancestors' trademark gold mixing amongst the deep green of his narrowed eyes. Desmond fought against the urge to turn on his Sight to make sure that this man was still an ally and not an enemy.

"We've started this mess, so we've got to finish it. It's what we're destined to do, no matter what you think otherwise. You WILL save the world, just like the every single one of your ancestors. As much as I hate to admit, you're special, Desmond, because every single one of us before you had been in the same position you are in now. The only difference between you and the other kids is that we survived."

The man straightened his posture and turned to look away, as if his declaration took off quite a bit of weight off his shoulders. Without the same fiery passion he had a few moments again, but rather a sober melancholy, he continued, "We survived. Every single fucking one of us survived. Our memories, our accomplishments, our minds, our skills─ all of it packed up and preserved in a neat little golden package."

The man dug around in his satchel and pulled out an Apple of Eden.

Desmond froze at the sight of the glowing object, his glass of whiskey halfway up its journey to his mouth. He dropped the golden ball onto the bar table and like that, the rest of the room froze in time except for Desmond and the man. There was no movement or sounds that had previously echoed the rowdy brothel.

It was completely and utterly silent.

The man picked up the Apple again, this time rolling it in his palm a few times, and the rest of the room returned to motion in a flurry of noise and sounds of the living. He ducked his head, his cap shadowing his half of his face, and drank the rest of his whiskey in one gulp. He slammed down the glass, the cup cracking from the force.

"If you want to even have a chance against those bastards, you have to push yourself past the limits they set for you. Don't give up, Desmond, or else you've lost before it's even started." With that, the man pushed back his stool and stood up. He tipped his hat to Desmond before making his way through the thickening crowd.

"Wait, you haven't answered my question! Who are you?" Within the crowd, the man turned his head to the side, looking back at him with his mouth open as if to answer him, but then closed his mouth and shook his head with a ghost of a smile. A courtesan walked past Desmond, but when he shoved her out of the way the man had disappeared.

The walls started to shake and popping sounds started to come from all around, but none of the people in the brothel seemed to care as they continued on their merrily drunken ways. Desmond turned around in his seat and was about to order another glass of whiskey, but the bartender was nowhere to be found.

On the bar table, there was two empty whiskey glasses, a stick of dynamite, and the Zippo lighter that the man had been using earlier. The Apple was gone, but that was to be expected. The cartoonish dynamite stick was unusual and random, so Desmond left it there for a later inspection.

Picking up the lighter, Desmond read the plain engraving on the scratched and banged up piece of metal.

To Sean Devlin

From Jules Rousseau

Then the world exploded with a blinding flash from beneath his feet.

Desmond jerked back into consciousness in Rebecca's Animus, the worried faces of Lucy and Rebecca hovering over him. It took a moment for Desmond to be able to hear the syllables coming out from their mouths. The ringing in his ears made it difficult, after all.

"..smond. Desmond! Are you alright?" Lucy looked like she was on the verge of having a panic attack. Desmond nodded, slowly, and Rebecca stepped back.

"Alright, Desmond. You mind telling us where you went? You dropped off the Animus sensors entirely with whatever memory the file pulled up." Lucy released his arm, since she had been holding it in a vice grip as if she was afraid that the moment she let go he would disappear.

Desmond sat up and scratched the back of his head. It was sort of confusing to explain. "I─ uh, apparently, had a talk with one of my ancestors…?"

The unimpressed face that Rebecca had on almost made Desmond want to elaborate, but somehow he felt that the conversation he had with the man, which he was guessing to be the Sean Devlin from the lighter, was too private to share. It felt good for once to have somebody who related with him on a personal level and not just the not-hopeless situation he had gotten himself into.

Lucy eyed him curiously like she felt something more had happened, but she dropped it and instead asked, "So you talked to them? Not living through them, but actually talking?"

Inwardly, Desmond groaned. How was he supposed to explain─ oh, wait. "It's something like what Minerva did through Ezio, but there weren't any Those Who Came Before. Or, at least I think there weren't."

Desmond hoped she dropped the subject entirely. He was not that lucky. "Did they say anything about the future or places of the remaining Apples of Eden?"

"He, um, mentioned meeting Subject 16 before. Oh, right, he had an Apple of Eden, but he left before I could ask anything. There was some good whiskey and a lot of courtesans, though, so it wasn't all that bad. He said that we were in France, but he didn't say where exactly."

Lucy gave him a look that spoke volumes of his idiocy before sighing. "Desmond, why don't you go take a walk? Rebecca will take a look at the weird file and isolate it so that this doesn't happen again. We're already too far behind in Ezio's memories, and we don't need you to go running through another ancestor's. I'm also worried about your Bleeding Effect─"

"Yeah, taking a walk sounds good." Desmond breezed past her. He really didn't want to hear her trying to guilt him into doing something. Something in him changed with the conversation he had with the ancestor that didn't have a penchant for white hoods, long cloaks, and brooding silences. It was a refreshing change to not feel as repressed and worthless as he did before.

His long walk turned into about half-an-hour of light climbing and running on the rooftops of the night-darkened city of Monterrigioni. Desmond returned to their "campsite" inside of the old Auditore villa and found everyone else hard at work at their respective computers.

"Oh, Desmond, you're back! My baby's ready to go when you are, and there shouldn't be any more weird files popping up any time soon, I hope."

Desmond took one look at the Animus and instead took a seat at his own workstation. Rebecca shrugged and went back to reviewing the old files. Shaun briefly glanced over in interest, but then turned back to his own work. Lucy ignored them all, as usual.

Accessing his account, Desmond quickly opened up the browser for the Assassins' history archives. He typed 'Sean Devlin' into the search bar and got only one match for an article stub in the World War Two section.

The article stub simply said,

Dangerous, but a confirmed ally of the French Resistance and British SOE. First came into contact with Assassins due to recommendation by Assassin Recruit Jules Rousseau in 1920-1930s. Unprecedentedly began to kill Templars after termination of Assassin Recruit Jules Rousseau in early-1940s. Unsuccessful in recruiting him into the Brotherhood. Long-range surveillance is recommended, as he prefers to use explosives. Codename assigned is The Saboteur.

There was one old and yellowed picture that had been scanned into the database. The picture had two men in it, one of them very familiar to Desmond, standing next to a bullet-shaped racecar. Underneath it, the typed caption read, "Sean Devlin (left), Jules Rousseau (right), and the Altaïr."

Desmond sat back in his chair. So, not all his ancestors had followed down the path of the Assassins, but they still were able to save the world in their own ways. Maybe, just maybe, there was hope for him yet.