Author's notes: This is a completed 9 chapter story. I'll be posting a chapter every Friday from now until the beginning of June.

A special thank you to My Beautiful Ending for beta reading the story.

Disclaimer: The Characters are not mine, I'm not making any money, disclaimer, blah blah blah.

Historian's notes: This story takes place towards the end of the first season, when we still believed that Massive Dynamic might just be evil, and Charlie was still hanging around keeping Olivia honest.

Prologue

Peter winced as a flashlight was shone in his eyes. "Who are you?" he demanded, not really expecting an answer. "What do you want?"

The privet security guards remained silent as the larger one came forward, grabbed Peter by the bicep, and hauled him out of the dark closet he'd been locked in for the past hour. The burning pain from his rib cage flared and he had to grit his teeth to keep from screaming.

"If you do not resist, there will be no reason to harm you," a man said coolly form somewhere behind him. The man had an interesting accent – distinctive. Only a half a dozen people on earth would have an accent like that. Peter had no idea who that man was, but he was sure he knew where he came from. Knowing that, however, just made the entire situation more mystifying. Why and they brought him here, to an abandoned industrial warehouse? And, what on earth did he want?

"Look, I'm not sure who you think I am," Peter said as the guards, one holding each arm, dragged him across the warehouse floor, presumably to the door on the other side that had light streaming out from the crack underneath it. "But whatever you want, I can't get it for you. I was sent down here with very limited authority. I did what I came to do, and all I want to do is leave."

"I'm sure that's true," the man replied dryly.

"The point is," Peter insisted. "I'm just a middle man, a face. If you want to send a message that someone will listen to, Hollingbrook . . ."

"Hollingbrook is a pawn," the man said with a knowing chuckle. "And you are a rook. A more valuable piece, if I am right."

For a very short moment, Peter considered attempting an escape. If this man really thought Peter was valuable, he'd order the guards not to use their old and battered AK-47s. But, Peter reasoned, the violence of his capture and the harshness of his treatment thus far indicated that they would not hesitate to hurt him. Valuable or not, sub-machine guns or not, it was still three able-bodied men against a battered one.

One of the guards opened the door and, once again, Peter winced at the sudden flood of white light. The other guard pulled him forward and, as Peter blinked, his eyes adjusting to the blazingly brightness, he could hear the door close behind them and the unmistakable thud of a deadbolt sliding into place.

The room was not unlike a dozen others he'd seen through the years – he'd even seen a few in the same incongruous setting. It was a sterile, high tech lab complete with a mess of a chemical set, an oversized computer with an oversized screen streaming information in a matrix-like flow that only a few would be able to comprehend, and most troubling of all, a collection of medical equipment. Even though Peter could name most of the stainless steel instruments, and understood what medical purpose they served, he could not help but be reminded of a medieval torture chamber.

The pudgy, gray-haired scientist in the hidden lab did not turn away from the computer screen. He said something quickly in Spanish, and before Peter could quite figure out what he said, he was ushered to a large white chair that looked like it might have come from a dentist's office – if the dentist felt the need to physically restrain his patients. One guard strapped his hands onto the chair arms with bright red nylon straps as the other one pushed a stainless steel instrument four feet high and composed entirely of insect-like arms closer to the chair. A young woman with a dark complexion, long black hair, and wearing a lab coat with yellow latex gloves approached him with alcoholic wipes and started cleaning his scalp behind his ears.

"What are you doing?" he asked in his poorly accented Spanish. "Why are you cleaning my head?" Neither the girl nor the scientist answered. But the man with the distinctive accent did, from somewhere behind the chair.

"I will not say it will not be painful," the man said. "But you won't remember the pain."

"I don't know what you think you're doing," Peter said, trying not to sound as desperate and terrified as he felt. He'd played the 'powerless' card and it hadn't worked. Perhaps if he played the 'powerful' card, he'd get results. "But I work with the American FBI. They will come looking for me. And when they find you they're going to tear this place apart."

"We're going to save the world," the man said, walking into Peter's line of vision. For the first time, Peter saw his face. As he suspected, the man had dark cinnamon colored skin, thick black hair cropped close to his head, and deep set brown eyes. He looked to be younger than Peter, but still he carried himself with authority. "And you will help us."

"My friends in America will come for me," Peter said in Spanish, hoping against hope that perhaps he could rattle the guards or the lab assistant. "They will find you and make you pay for anything you do to me."

The lab assistant looked spooked by that comment, but she did not hesitate to pick up a small, thin circular tablet, like a catholic communion wafer, and approach Peter slowly. As Peter tried to think of something else he could say, something that might make her afraid enough to leave and delay whatever procedure they intended to perform on him, and buy him just a little more time to come up with that magic threat, or bribe, or compromise that would stop the situation. But, before he could remember the Spanish he would need to offer a compelling alternative, one of the guards stooped down and punched him on his right side, shooting eye-watering pain through his entire body. If his rib had not been broken before, it surely was now.

Peter screamed; he could not help it. The other guard took that opportunity to grab Peter's jaw, holding it firmly, forcing him to keep his mouth open. Even as his head swam, Peter tried to use all his strength to free his head, and close his mouth. But his abdomen and chest were paralyzed with the pain of his broken rib, and his neck muscles were nothing compared to the strong guard's triceps. The lab assistant walked forward and placed the disk on Peter's tongue. He tried to shake it off his tongue, or scrape it off with his teeth, but it dissolved quickly and soon the guard let go of his jaw. Peter gasped for breath as tears streamed down his cheeks. His head still swam with pain but it was starting to swim with something else too. The light in the building started to feel heavy, and the noise of the ventilating fans was palpable – it tasted a little like copper. The pain in his side colored everything and ugly blackish-red, but the lab assistant was still the most beautiful nymph he'd ever seen.

"Now then," said the old scientists, whom Peter thought might possibly be his father. "Let's begin."

To be continued . . .