Summary: Imprisoned by Eros, Damien Nazario witnesses firsthand the terrible purpose of inventions concocted by the madman that is Rowan West.
Pain… white hot pain… scraping up his spine and under his skin…. coursing through his veins is pure blinding pain….
It fills every part of his mind until he was sure that nothing else exists except for the flames that burn away at his brain… that is all that exists until…..
There is a sound… so loud it pierces through the fog that surrounds his mind, keeping it hostage… he is moving now — How is that possible? — still he can feel the unmistakable vibration of a vehicle purring beneath him… the vibrations echo through his body, giving him a better grasp of where it is and where he is.
As his brain adjusts to the notion of wakefulness, he remains still, eyes clamped shut as the neurons fire, attempting to soak up all the sensory information they can despite the agony in his head. He’s lying down on his right side, a slight movement in his arms tells him that his hands are bound together, so are his feet and his cheek brushes against the cold metal floor of a vehicle – he can’t identify it yet, not until the deeper sections of his mind decide to cooperate. The vehicle jerks suddenly and he is pitched forward his entire bodyweight coming to rest uncomfortably on his left elbow as it pokes into his side. He is about to shift when he realises someone is speaking.
‘- completely destroyed.’
Its a rough accent, with a twang he can’t quite place but before he can contemplate it further, his thoughts are interrupted by a smoother voice, careful and measured but dangerous nonetheless.
‘My instructions were simple Tomas: Grab the girl and detonate the emergency charges in the control room.’
A rougher voice – Tomas, he concludes – starts to interject. ‘But sir our men -‘
‘Are a small price to pay for what we could have achieved instead.’
Chills run down his spine as he listen to the man in authority wave away what must be dozens of lives lost so casually. He becomes more and more aware of fights the urge to shift out of the uncomfortable position he’s in – the elbow digging into his side becoming more prominent with every second but he can’t, he needs to hear as much as possible.
‘Whadda we do now?’ Tomas ventures hesitantly. There is a small pause before the unknown man – Why does his voice sound so familiar? – continues, disappointment clear in his tone.
‘Your incompetence has cost me dearly. I will have to gather as much information as possible from the one you did manage to capture.‘The implied threat is heavy in his voice now. ‘Let’s hope for your sake, he can deliver me the data I require.’
The man moves onto barking out more orders and his mind struggles to keep up but the discomfort of the position makes it hard to retain the information. Finally he can’t resist it – the pain is too much and he shifts again, the resulting movement bigger than he’d planned and it attracts the attention of a person he didn’t even register was there.
‘Boss he’s wakin’ up.’
The smoother voice cuts itself off and he holds his breath in the tiny pause before it delivers its command.
‘See to it that he doesn’t.’
Something hard connects to the side of his head and the darkness engulfs him once more.
–
Waking for the second time was more visceral than the first. There is a pain yes, but its sharper, more concentrated and he pinpoints it to be around his left temple as it flares up angrily when he moved his head. He feels a warm liquid, blood, sliding down his face as he as he fights to gain control of his mind.
It takes a few moments but as the haze fades, the consciousness itself brings about a wave of sensations so strong he can’t even begin to decipher them yet. The facility, infiltrating the secure laboratory of a matching making service, there was a fight between him and his friends and somethings that weren’t human. Names ghost through his brain, on the hinge of his consciousness, Hayden, Sloane, Steve, Alana, Nadia…
Damien!
He remembers someone yelling out to him, calling his own name above the din, over the chaos that was unfolding around them. He sees her in his mind’s eye. She had dark skin and even darker hair that whipped across her face she swung a metal tray at a guard, knocking him out cold.
Athena!
Her name echoes in his mind, snapping him back to consciousness and he instinctively gasped as the memories came flooding back to him in full clarity. His eyelids snap open and he grunts audibly as the fluorescent lights burn themselves into his unprepared retinas and he flinches in response. As they gradually grow accustomed to the sensation, his eyes wander around the room, blurry and unfocused as he scrambles to identify where he is.
His gaze is met by pristine steel walls that seem to rise high in every direction around him and on them monitors of various sizes were mounted, displaying all kinds of information and source code that he couldn’t decipher as unidentifiable figures tap away at their keyboards.
‘Hey!’ Damien calls to them. ‘Where the fuck am I? What is this place?’
They don’t seem to hear him, barely pausing in their routine as if he wasn’t even there.
‘Hey assholes,’ he yells, louder this time, meaning to move forward but he found himself strapped down by his wrists and ankles to a straight-backed metal chair. ‘I’m talking to you. Where am I?’
No sooner had the words left his mouth than an audible ding! sounds out in the room and the figures at the desks immediately cease their actions, standing up in attention as the doors of an elevator slide open to reveal a silver haired man in a well tailored suit. As he enters the room, he commands such a presence that the few closest to him almost shrink back in fear. As he strides forward, the only thing that disrupts his aura is the black eye patch over his right eye. Realisation takes only a couple of seconds to kick in but he knows without a doubt that he’s looking at none other than Rowan West, founder and CEO of Eros.
‘You son of a bitch,’ Damien snarls feeling fury rising within him. ‘What have you done?’
He attempts to lunge towards the man, muscles tensed and ready to strangle the man with his bare hands but once again the action is curbed by the metal restraints encircling his limbs. Instead the silver-haired man regards him with an amused gaze but says nothing, seeming to take delight in watching him struggle.
‘Where am I?’ Damien demands again, anger coursing through his body as he strains against the cuffs.
‘I supposed you are entitled to some answers,’ Rowan sighs almost disappointedly. When he speaks, it is in the same smooth voice that he heard in the transport vehicle.‘Very well then, you are in a secure Eros facility, Mr Nazario. The closest one to our head quarters that your friends so kindly decimated.’
‘What can I say? They’re smart people,’ He almost shrugs before fixing Rowan with a poisonous look. ‘Where are my friends? What have you done with Athena, you bastard?’
‘No need to be so touchy Mr Nazario. She’s perfectly safe. In fact she’s with you.’
Damien is puzzled to see something akin to amusement in Rowan’s gaze. ‘You’re not making any fucking sense. I’m going to ask you again. Where. Is She?
‘I suppose I was rather cryptic in my answer. So why don’t you see for yourself?’ He gestures to one of the gigantic monitors suspended from the ceiling.
The screen fizzles once before an image of a familiar raven haired woman appears. She is smiling as she looks into the camera.
Athena.
‘I bet you ten euros she’s going to ask the conceirge for sticky notes,’ she is saying with a grin. Damien’s heart lurches in his chest as he sees her. The first thought that enters his mind is that she’s alright and relief seeps through him it is quickly replaced by suspicion a man’s voice chimes in, sounding eerily familiar. ‘Double it. I call neon highlighters too.’
That voice… he knows it, almost as well as he knows his own. He can’t stop himself from frowning as he takes in the bigger picture. In the background of the shot there is a mirror and in the reflection in it he sees that himself that she is talking to. Bewilderment washes over him. But how? It is impossible, he has no memory of this taking place..
‘How-how is this possible?’ Damien stammers before his voice takes on a demanding tone. If he harmed a single hair on Athena’s head, he wouldn’t hesitate to make the older man suffer in every way he knew how. ‘What did you do? Brainwash her? Drug her and coerce her into saying this?’
Rowan shakes his head, almost disgusted now. ‘Oh no, humans like you and your precious girlfriend are terrible messy to manipulate, full of emotion and morality, two completely useless concepts for the pursuits of a man like me. What I have created is truly a miracle. Something that even no man has ever achieved before.’
Damien’s confusion only grows, as does his desperation when he realises Rowan is being purposely, infuriatingly cryptic. ‘What the fuck are you talking about, you bastard?’
Rowan ignores his question, on a completely different stream of consciousness right now.
‘You know I hadn’t meant to capture you. I was really after your precious little sweetheart. Pathetic though she may be, she was one of our most successful candidates in the Matching program. The data I could have collected on her would have advanced my work by leaps and bounds. But when my men produced you instead, I almost despaired until I realised I could use you to collect data on her. Or rather,’ he corrects himself. ‘Your android counterpart. Nevertheless you and Ms Park deserve my thanks have been instrumental in helping me achieve my goals.’
Damien recoils at the thought of doing anything remotely helpful for the madman before him, unconsciously or not.
He isn’t going to be complacent while men like Rowan West gained power by exploiting the feelings of real people like him and Athena. He wants nothing more than to wrap his hands around that pale clammy neck of Rowan’s and push down until he stopped breathing but he knows he can’t, not while he’s still in cuffs. So he tried another tactic, a tried and true device any detective worth his salt should know.
‘And what exactly are these goals you refer to?’ Damien goaded, hoping that by keeping West talking he could eventually find some weakness he could exploit.
Rowans stares at him for a long moment with cool grey eyes. ‘Total control. Supreme unchallenged authority. Ultimate access to the world’s resources. Take your pick,’ he gestures passively before continuing. ‘With the planet’s most valuable assets at my command what choice would humanity have other than to bend to my will?’
Damien fights to keep his expression neutral as realisation of what the words mean dawns upon him. Yet he cannot resist a jab. ‘World domination? What are you, some fucking textbook children’s show villain?’
The silver haired man sighs in disappointment. ‘I really do hate that term you know. World domination is so… lazy. What I have in mind is so much more than that.’
‘And what is that exactly?’ Damien spits back venomously.
Rowan opens his mouth but catches himself before the words come out. He swivels on his heels to look at him. ‘If I told you that, I’d really be a textbook villain wouldn’t I?’
Dread and anger mingle together in a tight knot behind Damien’s sternum and it must have shown on his face as Rowan’s ugly face curls into a self-satisfied smile.
‘You are good, young detective,’ he gives him an appreciative glance before his smile widens. ‘I’m just better.’
Damien lets out a roar of anger and lunges forward again, the metal of his cuffs biting painfully into his wrists and ankles. The force of his movement, drags the heavy chair a few inches forward and the guards rush to restrain him again.
Rowan however is unfazed and looks at him condescendingly. ‘It is futile to fight back Mr Nazario,’ he drawls lazily. ‘You’re a smart man. You should know that people like me always win.’
‘You are insane,’ Damien shouts after the Eros director as he walks back to the elevator. He refuses to give up fighting. He can’t… ‘You are nothing more than a madman with a seriously mistaken god complex.’
Rowan pauses in his retreat, casting a sympathetic glance over his shoulder before turning to face Damien again. ‘I suppose you meant that as an insult. But I don’t have a god complex… With the technology I’ve created, I’ve essentially been able to replicate the human soul in my matches.’ He lets out a chuckle that chills Damien to the bone. ‘I am God.’
Rowan gestures to the pair of beefy — obviously human — henchmen that lined the room and they advance on him, their purpose clear. The last thing Damien sees before he lost consciousness again is Rowan’s smug face staring down at him.