092 THE ALIEN HEART
"What did they say?" Dorin asked, her voice sharp.
"They told me Damen already left the facility," Zairgid replied, pulling up a holo-screen. "They even showed me this video."
"Let me see." Lander leaned closer, analyzing the feed.
The footage showed Damen walking casually out of the GenSyn building, waving at the gate sensors.
Lander frowned. "The video grain is too perfect. No compression noise, no shadow lag…" He zoomed in and froze a frame. "This isn't real. It's AI-generated."
Zairgid's face went pale. "What? Then—then they took him?"
He clenched his fists. "For what reason?"
After leaving GenSyn Industries, Zairgid couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. Damen had told him once: "If anything happens, find Dorin. Get the SIA involved."
Dorin and Lander were shocked when Zairgid told them Damen was being held captive in GenSyn Industries. Although there wasn't much indication or proof that Damen was actually in danger, they decided to be extra careful.
The Order of the Cockerel still had a hit contract on Damen, which meant they couldn't leave any clue to chance.
So, together they came back to confront GenSyn Industries.
Dorin stared at the towering GenSyn building, its glass walls gleaming like a cold mirror. "What the hell are they doing in there?" she muttered.
Zairgid hesitated before answering. "They're… experimenting with human and alien fusions… among other things."
Dorin's eyes widened. "That's sick."
"It's not just sick," Lander said grimly. "It's wrong on every level. But Melrose law doesn't forbid it. No one talks about it, but half the elites fund this kind of research behind closed doors."
Zairgid swallowed hard. "Then what do we do? How do we get Damen out?"
Lander thought for a moment. "First, we need access to their internal network. Every major industry here runs on isolated intranets with no external connections. If I can slip a transmitter inside, I can trace their internal systems and locate where they're keeping him."
"Let me do it," Zairgid volunteered immediately.
"But you just went in," Dorin reminded him. "Won't that look suspicious?"
He smirked. "I've got a reason to go back. I can claim I'm disputing the video—they'll have to show me proof."
Dorin frowned. "But it's dangerous?"
Lander didn't answer, his silence saying enough.
Zairgid straightened his jacket. "Don't worry. I'm the heir of Aukuoma Industries. I'll inform my father before I go in—GenSyn won't dare try anything reckless."
He turned toward the gleaming corporate tower. "Besides," he said quietly, "if Damen's still alive in there, I'm not leaving him behind."
-----
A violent surge of meta-particles coursed through Damen's veins, burning and twisting like liquid lightning. It felt almost like the time he grafted meta skills—except this time the energy was deeper, heavier.
It wasn't just rewriting his abilities.
It was rewriting him.
"I can feel it… they're changing my DNA," Damen gasped, his voice swallowed by the fluid.
His limbs floated uselessly in the thick liquid, his muscles weak and unresponsive. "Damn it… I can't even move," he muttered in his mind.
Then he remembered the IV drip they administered to him. They dosed him with some kind of sedatives.
But his hearing—his hearing was razor-sharp.
Through the distorted hum of the machines, he caught fragments of conversation outside the tank.
"Father, we've tried this procedure on dozens of subjects already," Dr. Stacy said. "Why do you think it'll work on him?"
"It's his blood," answered an older voice—calm, commanding. "His blood is a natural fusion of human and Annunakin essence. I've never seen anything like it. That means his body is receptive to a transmutation."
When Damen came to GenSyn to purchase Strength elixir, they took his blood sample immediately for comparison. Dr. Kaiser knew that Damen had fusion alien blood.
That was a godsend for the doctor. They've been experimenting on hundreds of subjects trying to fuse their blood with alien DNA with no avail.
Now they've got a fusion blood sent to them on a platter.
"How did a high school student get tainted with alien blood in the first place and survives?" Dr. Stacy asked bewildered.
There was a pause before the man continued, almost reverently. "My dear, he is god's gift to us. Only his transformed heart can save you, my dear."
Damen's thoughts reeled. "Save her? What the hell are they doing to me? And did they say use my bloody Heart? I disagree."
"Father, this is too risky," Stacy protested. "Even if it's to cure my blood mutation—"
"We've come too far to stop now," Kaiser Qiltera cut in. "If the world learns about our experiments here and about the humans, we've… disposed of—we're finished."
Stacy's voice cracked. "I didn't mean to—"
Damen could hear it in her trembling tone.
"It's not my fault, it was exposure to alien DNA caused my heart to mutate, causing madness that followed. The killings. I didn't mean to kill any of them…the scientists and the subjects", she cried.
"Don't worry Stacy, the wretched guinea pigs are not worth your life. Just let it go. I'll cure you. I've already found a way", Kaiser said.
Kaiser Qiltera had long known the cause of his daughter's illness.
Stacy's heart had been failing her since childhood; no matter how many transplants or experimental treatments they attempted, she was never meant to live past her thirtieth birthday.
That changed when they discovered the alien gene.
The gene saved Stacy's life—but it came with a price. At unpredictable moments, she would lose control, her mind consumed by violent frenzy.
Once, she slaughtered hundreds—scientists, test subjects, even guards—before they finally subdued her.
The mutation had taken root in her heart itself, warping the organ into something neither human nor alien. It was dying again, and this time, there was no cure.
To save her, Kaiser needed one thing: a new heart.
A perfect hybrid organ.
That's why they created the synth organisms in this lab—fusion constructs grown to mimic both human and alien tissue. But they were all failures.
Until they found him.
Damen Dark.
Now Damen understood. They weren't just experimenting on him. They were building his body into a fusion monster to harvest his heart.
Pain ripped through his chest. His heartbeat faltered, split, and then re-formed. His DNA was unraveling, twisting into something unrecognizable.
"They're turning me into a monster."
No. He wouldn't let them.
Damen forced his numb fingers to twitch, then curl. Energy crackled faintly around his hands.
"Come on," he thought fiercely. "This has to work."
He drew on every drop of meta energy left in him, focusing it into his core. The liquid around him began to shimmer with light.
Outside the tank, alarms blared.
The sensors detected meta energy boiling in Damen which was unexpected. It meant only one thing- he was awake and they knew it.
"Father!" Stacy cried. "There's movement in the tank—he's resisting! What if he breaks out?"