51 Persuasion

The logo and metal sign that read 'PrimaTech Co.' stared back at me as my eyes roamed along the surface of the once-yellow but now gray tall building and the tiny-looking parking lot facing it.

The heat of the bright morning sun and the chill of the traveling wind eluded me as I calmly hovered a few meters above the building, just watching.

It was seven in the morning here in Odessa, Texas. I hadn't eaten, nor had I taken my medicine but somehow, it felt like I was brimming with boundless energy.

Energy, that would give me the strength I need to complete the task I had steeled myself to do, despite the inherent risks.

The task of invading the enemy base and killing Sylar before he fully recovered. It was risky, but it had to be done.

With my ability and my plans, I was sure and confident I would succeed before thirty minutes, the current time limit of my power.

All I had to do was be fast...

Taking a deep breath, I nodded my head and dove into the building, slipping through floors of cubicles offices until I reached underground.

A very wide, dimly lit underground storage facility littered with numerous stacks of metal beams, machinery, paper materials, etc., opened in my view.

There were people decked in overalls and worker helmets, using forklifts to ferry the tons of material either outside or to a different section of the room, filling the space with the whirring of the vehicles.

At the center of the room was a cubic-shaped dark building riddled with windowsills on its surface. The interior was lit, and from what I could see from my position, it looked like a house.

It was probably where Isaac was being kept, not that he was my problem anyway. My mission was further down, deeper than anyone could imagine...

Sparing it a final glance, I looked down and directed my body to fly into it, phasing through it easily.

Flying vertically downwards through the brightly lit metallic vertical passageway designed to be accessed by the elevator, I paused as I arrived on the first level of the underground secret base.

It was a large and long gray-colored corridor with numerous silver doors running along its surface, and at the entrance of the floor stood a security guard fitted in a blue and black uniform and cap, holding an assault rifle.

Clicks and clacks of fingers streaming through keyboards and computer beeps filled the floor, and through some of the slightly opened doors, I could see dark rooms occupied by personnel dutifully staring at large monitor screens, whose light gave the rooms a little illumination.

Weaving through some of the rooms, I saw more or less the same thing. People just sitting there, staring at their high-end computer screens, monitoring God knows what with no sign or even a clue of my target.

...Sylar wasn't here. I had to go deeper.

Descending further underground, I appeared on the second level. A short metal hallway with silver-painted walls appeared in my view.

There were two doors in the hallway, one metal and silver-colored, while the other one was large and made of thick concrete. The former was close to me on my left, while the other was close to the end of the hallway on my right.

I turned my head to my left as faint sounds of electronic beeping whispered in my ears and flew through it to enter a small surveillance room.

A stout uniformed man was seated in a black swivel chair in front of three flat-screened monitors, lying carelessly asleep as his snores echoed in the room.

I shook my head lightly at his work attitude and heaved a sigh of relief, looking at him. Thankfully, he was asleep. I didn't have to do anything to him now that would have put a sour taste in my mouth. He didn't have to be hurt...

Raising my head, my eyes fixed on the monitors and what they were displaying. A brightly lit silver metal room was shown with a dark thick concrete cell in the center of it, occupying a vast majority of the room.

In the bright cell, a bedridden man with a ventilator spread across the lower half of his face could be seen, surrounded by a lot of medical or hospital equipment designed to keep him alive.

The man's face couldn't be seen even with my squinted eyes, but a familiar sensation of hatred chilled me to my bones as I instantly recognized him, making my hands slowly clench into tight fists.

There he was. The man I had come here for. It was time to end this once and for all...

Slipping my left hand into the left pocket of my black jeans, I slid my needle-point knife out and exhaled slowly, floating through the room to the corridor.

Similarly, I phased through the large concrete door into Sylar's room, moved through the clear carbon glass surface of his cell, and hovered silently when I got to the side of his bed.

With a thought, I canceled my power and landed gently on the floor. The faint smell of medicine wafted into my nose, and my ears picked up his shallow breaths, the beeping of the monitors responding in the background.

I looked down at his comfortable face with his tightly shut eyes and frowned coldly, unable to stop the rage that boiled within me.

Maybe someone would've felt pity for him upon seeing his sorry state, but not me. I wasn't taught like that. In my family, we showed no mercy to enemies...even if they were cripples.

I twirled the knife around my fingers to hold it in a vice grip and raised it upwards, the blade hanging above Sylar's neck.

"May we never meet again," I muttered under my breath as the door to the room suddenly opened and brought it down forcefully.

"Stop!" A soft voice with a dark and eerie undertone shouted, and all of a sudden, my hand froze just as the blade was about to bite into his throat. My eyebrows rose in shock.

"Turn around," The unusual voice uttered calmly, and it was like I had lost all control of my body as it turned on its own to face the clear fiberglass panel that separated the cell from the room.

A tall and slim, beautiful young lady with black hair, almond-shaped black eyes, a pale unblemished oval face, and small pink lips was standing behind the glass panel, her face crumpled up into a frown.

She was wearing a baggy black sweater, blue denim jeans, and black sneakers. She had a calm vibe around her that, coupled with her pale skin, almost made her seem like a vampire.

Shit, I ended up meeting the one person I didn't want to meet in this place: Eden McCain, the Company Agent with the power of Persuasion. Someone who could tell you to kill yourself and you'd do it with a smile on your face.

A very dangerous superhuman...

"Xander?" she muttered, wide-eyed in shock as she stared at me with her black eyes.

"...Uhm, do I know you?" I suppressed my anger and asked in a low tone, doing my best to remain calm as I faced her, finally releasing the control that held my body.

Thankfully, I had always planned for the worst-case scenario, so I had a plan just in case this happened. It was time for plan B...

"I'm Eden, a colleague of Mr. B—nevermind," she paused her reply and shook her head. "What are you doing here, and how did you get in?" She asked sternly, her shock replaced by a cold, stoic look, her eyes gazing at me with confusion.

This time, she didn't use her power, nor did she shout for the guards or anything of that sort. This was good, no, it was perfect.

It meant she was ready to hear what I had to say. I didn't know what she knew about me, but that was okay because it had at least created a good impression for me.

And that was very important for what I was about to do...

"How I got in isn't important, Eden," I shook my head and said seriously as I stepped closer to the panel. "What's important is why that murderous psychopath is being nursed back to health and not dead yet." I pointed my finger behind me at Sylar.

"...That doesn't concern you, Xander," She said coldly after a brief pause, trying to hide her emotions, but I could still see the hatred and contempt she held for Sylar in her eyes. "I'll ask you nicely again for the last time, how did you get in here?"

"And I'll repeat it again. That doesn't matter," I remarked with the same coldness, looking dead into her eyes. "What matters is what I'm doing here. That I'll tell you. I'm here for Sylar's head."

Immediately, her brows furrowed, "...I can see that, but sorry, that just isn't happening on my watch," she stated in a tone of finality as she spared Sylar a short glance.

I clicked my teeth loudly in annoyance and took a deep breath, cooling down my anger that almost burst out of its dam.

There and then, something told me to just activate my power and knock her out and then finish the job myself. But then the little memories I had of the plot played in my head and comforted me.

She was saying this, but I knew this was just a ruse. She wanted him dead as bad as I did. In the original timeline or plot, she tried to kill him against Company orders and would've succeeded if it wasn't for the nature of Sylar's primary power that allowed him to resist her power.

This was how I knew she was just playing hard to get. If in the original timeline, she tried to kill him despite knowing the risks, then why would she stop me when there was someone willing to do the job secretly without bringing any suspicion to her?

So I knew, no, I believed Sylar would die right now. It was just a matter of whose hands were going to be bloodied...

"You can't fool me, Eden. I know how much you hate him, how much he disgusts you," I said confidently, stressing the last part, and her eyes widened slightly. "I know you don't agree with the Company keeping him alive and that given the chance you'd off him yourself. Even if it meant you'd have to die."

Her stoic mask broke apart as shock and surprise took its place, and without waiting for her to talk, I continued to drive my words into her heart.

"...Look, just think of me as your scapegoat or whatever. The bastard will die at my hands, and all you have to do is pretend you didn't see me or that you were never here.

"This way, we both win, a menace to society is put down, and we can all go on with our lives. Free from any fear of him hunting us down like dogs. Easy right?" I concluded enticingly.

She stared at me wordlessly for a while and then sighed deeply before my patience ran out, her face now blank as she looked at me pitifully with sad eyes.

"He really messed you up, didn't he?" She asked rhetorically with her soft voice, shaking her head somberly, changing the whole mood of the place.

"What do y——"

"You don't have to worry, Xander. Sylar won't live to see another day," She cut me off firmly and said. "Go home. I'll take care of him."

"...If you have it in mind to kill him yourself, then erase that thought from your mind," I frowned at her being unreasonable. "It won't work. Trust me, you'll even die before that happens." I revealed bluntly, talking as if I had seen the future, but her face didn't change.

"Maybe, but it doesn't matter. This is not your burden to take," She said nonchalantly, the corners of her lips churning up into a small smile. "And trust me also, when I say I'll take care of it. You won't have to worry about him anymore when I'm done with him. No one will..."

"You don't understa—"

"Go back home the same way you came, Xander," She cut me off again, this time her voice had that eerie undertone that seemed to cast a spell on my body. "And don't look back."

She commanded, and immediately, I felt a force in my mind compelling me to obey her, but I found myself mentally refusing her as my pushed-down emotions finally burst out, filling me with rage.

That same moment, a headache sprang up in my head as I felt my mind churning wildly, my vision slowly mixing with color and gray, forcing itself to resist her power.

"You're making a big mistake! He'll kill you!" I clenched my teeth in pain as the headache increased in intensity, and I bellowed out in anger, my body starting to shift between my transitioned and regular state intermittently.

Suddenly, I turned my head in the direction of the room's door as I heard footsteps rushing towards the room.

"...Let me worry about my mistakes. For now, stop resisting and go get some rest. I'll deal with them," She said assuredly, masking her look of surprise.

Clicking my teeth, I glanced one final time into her black eyes and allowed myself to transition as the footsteps reached the door.

"...It's alright. There's...no one here—" I managed to hear her say one last time before my body flew away.

.