{5th December, 543 DTA}
*Buzz Buzz Buzz*
*Buzz Buzz Buzz*
Damien's eyes snapped open. His hand shot to the phone.
Just as promised, Dr. Riley had delivered the address of the medical centre... sent through the same secure channel Damien used to contact her.
After brushing his teeth and handling his morning routine, he suited up and hopped into his Ferrari SF90 XX Spider.
He typed the postcode into Maps and took off.
The facility was in one of those exclusive parts of the city where houses had actual acreage.
Coincidentally, it wasn't far from his own place, just on the other side of the district.
Still, thanks to the layout of the roads, the drive took nearly an hour.
When he finally arrived, Damien found a building that looked more like a secret research lab than a medical clinic.
Motion-tracking cameras turned toward his car as he approached the underground parking.
A three-layer security system scanned his plates and ID.
He rolled down the window and leaned toward the speaker.
"Hello, Dr. Riley. It's me... Morningstar."
The gate whined open and Damien immediately parked in one of the empty lot.
As he stepped out of his car, she was already waiting at the entrance.
"I see you're doing quite well for yourself, Mr. Damien Morningstar," she said, glancing at the Ferrari.
"Yes, I am," Damien replied. "The full name's Damien Icarus Morningstar."
"Ah yes, the fixation with 'Icarus' whenever your full name is mentioned."
Damien blinked.
'Unlike when I said it to the dark entity, this wasn't intentional…'
'Huh. Guess absorbing someone's memories really does have an effect.'
Riley stopped and turned to face him, noticing his dazed expression.
"Does my ass look that good under the lab coat, Mr. Morningstar?" she asked dryly.
Damien snapped back to the moment. "I see you've done your homework on me. What else did you find?"
He followed her through the entrance as a cold blast of sterile air greeted him.
"Nothing too shocking," she said casually. "Besides your obsession with the name 'Icarus,' your unexplained wealth, and your love of sex... not much."
Damien laughed.
"Wait... you think that's what caused the illness?" Damien asked, "If it was, I'd tell you"
"Wouldn't make sense to hide that now, would it?" He continued when she remained silent.
She thought for a moment. "Actually, I agree with you. You're not exactly... subtle about your sex life."
Their idle banter carried them into a sprawling lab filled with sleek, top-end medical tech.
A large exam bed sat in the centre.
Surrounding it were machines designed for scanning, probing, recording... each one of them was made for handling a patient in some shape or form.
"First, I need to understand your physical state," Dr. Riley said, glancing at a tablet.
"According to your file, you haven't had even a basic test done to you."
"I never needed to," Damien said with a shrug. "First time I've had a reason to step into a hospital."
"Go change," she instructed, pointing to a locker-room-style area beside the lab.
"Gear's ready. These tests will take a while."
Inside, Damien found a tight pair of pants and nothing else.
No top.
Great.
He pulled them on and stepped back into the lab shirtless.
The first test was cardio.
He got on a treadmill and wore a mask while the monitors above him tracked his vitals.
He ran while the speed steadily increased and Dr. Riley controlled the oxygen level.
Dr. Riley watched as the monitor began displaying the data.
Surprisingly, Damien stayed in the green even as the pace hit extreme levels. It only turned into yellow near the end of the test.
'Endurance is quite good. He should be able to keep a moderate pace for a few hours. He's quite fit.' Dr. Riley thought.
Then came strength testing.
It was... underwhelming.
He struggled with 10 kilograms.
'How the hell does someone with the stamina of a marathon runner and the libido of a porn-star fail at lifting 10 kg?'
Riley frowned.
Something didn't add up.
She took some blood and tissue samples and when the results came back, her eyes widened.
"These cells… they're starved. Like, dying. This is the kind of degradation you'd expect from a ninety-year-old with late-stage illness. But… you look fine."
Her curiosity spiked.
'Now that begs the question, how is his stamina high and how is he able to even walk?'
Instead of been discouraged, Dr. Riley was quite happy... It
As she ran more comparisons against medical databases, she moved Damien on to the next segment of testing.
Over the next hour, she ran a full physical evaluation, flexibility, strength, reaction time, mental strength.
"Your strength is... pathetic," she said bluntly. "Your agility's good. Mental agility is off the charts. Your reflexes, coordination... they're high for someone with no training. It's like your body sacrificed physical strength for cognitive power."
"Any correlation between the enhanced mental cognitive and dying cell?"
She glanced down at the test results again. "Your brain is running even while you're asleep. The energy drain is massive. That's what's starving your cells. But I still feel like something else is going on. This is just my best theory so far."
She stepped over to a nearby cabinet and pointed.
"But I might have something that helps."
Damien followed her gaze.
"What's in there?" he asked, though he already had a guess.
"X-enhancers," she replied. "The reason I got hired in the first place."
She walked over and opened it, revealing rows of sleek, sealed vials in refrigeration.
"They're hard to get, but I've been collecting them for a while. A few years ago, some of the world's most powerful elite families started developing enhancement serums. The less powerful family caught wind of it and suddenly it became a race."
"For war?" Damien asked.
"Yes, we were expecting a full blown war where enhanced soldiers would be the norm but apart from their personal guards and families the elites never actually used the serum in a wide spread manner so now their stock are just sitting around because nobody wants to be the one to publicize it and risk the wrath of the elites."
"So a super soldier serum created for no perceivable reason?"
"Exactly… according to the report they are still not sure why they were created in the first place… so now my job is to find ways to improve them but honestly I believe this is a bottleneck because this is the best our current technology can create."