Antihero-Darius Simms-Portal 24

Portal 24 is a sci-fi action novel by Meredith Stroud. It focus on the life of Darius Simms as he is saved and taken in by Project Oberon, a mysterious government with the intentions of using it highly classified experiment of using a time machine. Darius was saved by one of Oberon’s agents and decided to join them for a reason he has not fully understand. He is met with a team of four other teenagers: Bianca, team captain, combat specialist and not really fond of Darius, Malik, the teams marksman and weapons specialist, Constance, the teams wheelman and engineer and Leon, the teams hacker and tech expert. As soon as Darius got a chance to meet the team, go through a brutal training session and was told how the portal worked (which was to complicated for me to explain) he is thrown right into a mission. the mission was fairly simple: prevent criminal mastermind Ludd from detonating a worldwide permanent EMP bomb, and it has to be done in twenty-four hours otherwise they will get trapped in time forever. Talk about no pressure.

I am going to focus more on Darius’ character. As soon as you start the book you are introduced to Darius, a young teenager that has a good life going with his girlfriend and a reputation of being a con-artist. Darius merely finds people with fat wallets, befriends them and tricks them into a card trick which was suppose to be a plan to get other people’s attention but resulted in Darius taking most of his ‘partner’s’ money. This shows Darius to be a deceptive teen who will befriend people only for his benefit and then leaving them. this would be a ‘keep your friends close and your enemies closer’ situation. There is another scene that shows Darius’ darker side. When at Oberon gearing up for the mission, Darius is approach by Bianca and after a little argument, bare in mind no one at Oberon explained why they recruited Darius or anything else that is going on, Darius was about to leave and when Bianca grabs him, he swings around puling a gun on her and the rest of the team. Darius does not trust everyone around so he does not like to be ordered around implying himself to the team that they need need him more than he needs them. However, this dramatic show ended when Bianca snatches the gun and puts him on the ground remarking ‘the safety was off’ leaving Darius a little humiliated. One more scene shows Darius’ using his unique ability of messing with the mind. He was educated on a previous team member that failed to return from a mission by not getting to the portal within the twenty-four hour window. He had a close personal relationship with Bianca. During a training session with her, Darius was being dropped on his but several times and he thought it would be wise to bring this fallen friend up. In an attempt to catch her at a moment of weakness, Darius was injured seriously after upsetting Bianca.

So far Darius has been shown to be deceptive and intolerable. On the other hand, there is a kindness that comes with him. Darius agreed to join and help Oberon so he can go back to his girlfriend and he when he discovered that the world is at stake, nothing got in the way of him protecting the people he cares about. In addition, Darius is a people’s person, in more ways than one, Darius became friends with his teammates (including Bianca) and has earned their trust as well as Oberon’s. He has shown to actually care about other people and he his willing to work with them. However, this does not mask the fact that Darius still does not fully trust them. He does not know why Oberon have chosen him and as i have said in the beginning, Oberon is a mysterious government meaning they could still be hiding something from him and Darius is intrigued to find out what else does he need to know.

A very common trait of an antihero is that they tend to be crazy minded like ‘running into a brick wall head first without a helmet on purpose’. Darius has been shown to be able to show some unthinkable initiative. One scene in particular that shows this is when Darius told the team his plan to storm the enemy’s headquarters using their small team and little equipment. By dropping from a plane their own weapon, which just so happens to be a rebooted, large human shape robot that is also a walking tank capable of taking on an army. Is that crazy enough for you. Darius has shown to have the light, dark and crazy traits of being an antihero, someone who will protect the ones he cares about and will bring down anyone in his way, that he has a limited amount of people he can trust and that he does not like to be left in the dark.