"Ethan cast a sideways glance at Heisenberg, with no small feeling of revulsion as he imagined the cadou writhing and pulsating in his chest where his heart should be. He didn’t know that that was necessarily how it worked, but it felt fitting somehow. No heart, only a monstrous little thing completely devoid of human decency which dared to pulsate like it understood how to play the part."
What if Ethan accepted Heisenberg’s proposition, unwilling as he was? Could the two ever cooperate in a way that’s functional? Can a family tree put down new roots?
“You and me, Ethan. Together, we go save Rose and then we can use her to grind Miranda into paste!”
Hearing his daughter's name from the mouth of this man made anger flare in Ethan's gut. Save Rose? Rose wouldn't need saving if it weren't for him. He opened and closed his mouth, floundering, speechless with rage and unable to vocalise the full extent of his disgust. Through gritted teeth, what eventually came out was simple but barbed. “My daughter is not a weapon. Fuck you.”
“Last chance…” Heisenberg drawled, a slight smile in his voice. He let Ethan fall back a little more, almost to the point of tipping. “You don’t want to find out what’s in that hole.” As if to emphasise the point, the roaring buzz of what sounded like a revving chainsaw resounded beneath them. The harsh light behind Heisenberg poured around the edges of his hat and hurt Ethan’s eyes. His very own fucked up halo.
Scowling, Ethan made to bite back a rude response and let himself fall into the abyss, ready to face whatever horrors awaited him down there – but something gave him pause. Perhaps it was fatherly intuition. Perhaps it was the knowledge that Heisenberg was likely now one of the last surviving individuals with the knowledge to help him put Rose back together… Or perhaps it was simply the very human will to live and survive, clawing up through his chest, demanding to be heard. It tried to remind him – urgently – adrenaline can only take you so far. Don’t burn out now.
It was right. As much as Ethan was loathe to admit it - and he really was - suddenly the idea of throwing himself into a gaping chasm seemed, rightfully, insane. Counterproductive, even. His fingers spasmed around the sleeve of Heisenberg's jacket as he slowly exhaled, all the vitriol that was building up to be spat into the smug man's face trickling back down his throat. He swallowed it down, saving it for another day. The feeling pained him. It felt like giving up.
No. Ethan wasn’t going to throw himself into the jaws of death, take unnecessary risks right at this last crucial juncture. There were times today where that had been necessary, truly necessary. Now, however? Now wasn’t one of those times. No matter how much he hated the man currently holding him for involving his family in this fuckery… For splintering his family tree, for trying to now rebuild something in its place as though they were partners… For acting as though he could ever trust him with anything, let alone something so important… His hand clenched, gripping Heisenberg’s forearm so hard he hoped it hurt. He swallowed again – his pride this time – as he forced himself, grudgingly, to speak.
“Sure. Whatever. Let’s… talk.” Ethan’s bitter expression did not say 'whatever', his face twisted in a deep grimace of loathing. He wondered whether Heisenberg thought it was fear. Let him think what he wants. I’m not doing this for him.
For a second, Ethan thought he saw something flicker across the other man’s face. Surprise? It was hard to tell, especially with the dark glasses obscuring Heisenberg’s eyes and the way his head was silhouetted against the naked bulb hanging overhead. There was no mistaking the emotion that followed next, though. Satisfaction. Arrogance, thought Ethan, maintaining what he presumed was steady eye contact as a grin pulled at the edges of the man’s mouth.
No sooner had Ethan said the magic words of acceptance, his arm was being near-pulled from its socket as he was dragged upright. Once on his feet again, Heisenberg immediately hauled the smaller man closer, one gloved hand still gripping Ethan's upper arm. "Ahh, I knew you'd come around.”
Ethan tried to pull away, but Heisenberg’s grip tightened. “You and me, Ethan…” he reiterated, as though all this had been simply a minor interruption to some pre-prepared speech he’d been waiting far too long to make. Ethan wondered if he sat in here, talking to himself, rehearsing it on the off-chance that somebody suitable might come along and actually humour him. Probably. Self-centred prick. Heisenberg’s grandiose tone cut across his thoughts again and he realised he was still talking. “…That bitch Miranda doesn’t stand a chance!”
“We’ll discuss plans in full tomorrow. Ah – you won’t regret this, Winters.” A wolfish grin spread across Heisenberg’s face as he spoke, and he tipped his battered hat with the kind of flourish that made the man in front of him sure that he’d been thrown a wink from behind those dark glasses.
Ethan gave a non-committal jerk of the head to acknowledge he had heard the proposal. He didn’t trust himself to be civil if he spoke.
With this self-assured declaration, Heisenberg finished his speech, letting go of Ethan’s arm and stepping back as though to get a better look at him. His new comrade. Ethan rubbed his arm where the zealous man had gripped it. Yep. Definitely going to bruise, he thought. Not like it’ll make much difference.
“Right. Good. I’m glad” Heisenberg brought his arms about in a broad sweeping motion as he dragged out the vowel theatrically “we understand one another.”
Ethan didn’t feel like he understood anything at all but nodded his head curtly nonetheless as he moved to follow the man that had already spun on his heel and begun striding with purpose to a different part of the factory. He resolved to be free of Heisenberg the moment he had Rose back in one piece. Fuck that guy’s personal issues. He would get back to the road and follow it all the way out – first chance he got – and he sure as hell wouldn't look back.
He didn’t think Heisenberg even saw his nod, simply assumed that Ethan had readily agreed to the contents of his speech. This irked him. In Ethan's head, a small tally of annoyance appeared. A new marking was dashed next to many extant ones. He was beginning to lose count. As he broke into a small jog to keep up with Heisenberg’s unnecessarily swift pace, he noted this with another addition to the tally. Why couldn’t the man move at normal speed? His disgusting experimentation on human corpses couldn’t wait? He already had hundreds of the damn things – strung up around the place, strewn in piles, or lying on cold metal tables with their insides rearranged. It wasn’t like they were going to run away, for god’s sake.
His bandaged hand throbbed at the roots of his missing fingers.
Alright, he conceded. Sometimes they ran.
“Of course,” Heisenberg’s booming voice drifted back as he strode purposefully onwards. “You do realise that you’ll be staying here?”
The ‘with me’ went unspoken, purely implicit, but seemed to ring loudest in Ethan’s ears.
“W-what!?” Ethan suddenly spluttered, childlike, the concept blindsiding him. He hung back as though recoiling from the images conjured by these words. He began dragging his feet, contemplating whether it would be possible to slip away and go back to his initial plan of searching the factory for information and then getting the hell out. He was sure he could make his way to an exit somehow, even if he had to –
“Quit your whining.” Heisenberg snapped, impatiently. “You really think you can carry on as you were? Busting through houses and popping lycans in the head? Fucking rummaging around where you don’t belong? You think that shit’s gonna go unnoticed by Miranda?”
When Ethan didn’t immediately respond, Heisenberg rounded on him. “Huh? Well?”
Ethan narrowed his eyes, meeting Heisenberg’s steely glare with a fiercely defiant one of his own. They remained like that for a long moment, locked in a standoff, until the corner of Heisenberg’s mouth twitched upwards slightly. He turned away and kept walking, making a small gesture with one gloved hand which pulled a lighter from the depths of one of his coat pockets. Thumbing it, he lit a fat cigar. Blowing smoke, he mused aloud.
“Heh. Stupid, but fiery. This is why I like you, Winters. This is why this will work.”
Ethan didn’t comment, still feeling rattled by his current predicament. It occurred to him as they twisted further into the bowels of the factory that he should probably have made some effort to take note of where they were going. Oh well. He’d figure out an escape if he had to. Somehow. He’d made it this far. The combination of the oppressive warmth, narrow winding corridors, and the heavy fog of Heisenberg’s cigar smoke was making him feel slightly woozy. Nearby, something groaned. The chilling sound reverberated off the metal walls, looping around him until he lost track of which direction it came from. Ethan hoped fervently that it was one of the machines.
By this point, light was scarce. He kept close behind Heisenberg now – purely for safety purposes – but tried very hard to look as though he wasn’t relying on him for guidance. He had a pistol, of course, but a damn lot of good that would do against getting lost in Heisenberg’s labyrinth of horrors and dying of starvation. Though, he supposed, perhaps that would be a more pleasant way to go than – his mind flitted back to the deafening roaring sound beneath him as he was held over the trapdoor. He swallowed.
Just as his feet were starting to ache, Heisenberg stopped dead without warning. Ethan managed to pull back to avoid walking right into the back of him, but still stopped uncomfortably close, swearing under his breath as he did. Heisenberg squinted down at him with a vague air of curiosity and amusement, like a wolf studying a rabbit before the inevitable snap of jaws around its neck. Seeing the smaller man looking distinctly uncomfortable, his face split into a wide grin. “Easily spooked, Winters? Make sure to stay close!” he clapped a large hand on Ethan’s shoulder, cackling as he did. Ethan scowled. “No matter, here we are!”
The metal door slid open to reveal… well. It was certainly a room. That was about all Ethan could feasibly say about it in the positive. A bare bulb hung from the ceiling, giving off only slightly more light than the corridor. The carpets were a dingy grey – or perhaps they had simply become this way through lack of cleaning. An iron-frame single bed perched in the corner, pushed right up against the wall, and a desk littered with various drawings, mechanical parts, and other miscellaneous items sat across from it. A battered peeling leather recliner sat in front of the desk, with an indentation where Heisenberg clearly spent a lot of time. There was another door in the corner. Strange machinery lined one of the walls, though it didn’t seem fully functional as parts flickered on and off.
Due to the present machinery not working as intensively as in other areas of the factory, it was noticeably cooler in here. On one of the segments of wall not occupied with whirring cogs, over by the bed, there were multiple distinct hollows where the plaster had been struck by an angry fist. As Ethan let the dismal sight of it wash over him, a worse feeling of dread began creeping up his spine. He eyed the small bed again with trepidation.
“I thought you said I was meant to be staying here?”
Heisenberg’s jovial tone upon entry dropped immediately as he snapped back at him. “Ungrateful, as expected! I will sleep here” he gestured to the recliner. “You will sleep in the bed.” He cast a glare at Ethan upon seeing the expression on his face when he mentioned the bed.
“Or the fucking floor. Be my guest. Whichever you prefer.” With a dismissive gesture, he began to settle in as normal. Heisenberg pulled off his hat and threw it onto the desk, causing a couple of scrunched up bits of paper to fall on the floor, missing the overflowing bin. He sat heavily in the recliner, kicking his feet up and just laying for a moment in silence. Ethan couldn’t tell beneath the dark glasses, but he presumed his eyes were closed.
For a few long moments, Ethan stood where he was, letting the gravity of the situation sink in. Why the fuck was he here? Where was here? He resolved not to spend much time in this section of the factory. It was somehow even more vile than the rest. How this man could play house, fixing up machines and drawing up diagrams - relaxing - while holding on to the dismembered parts of a stranger’s baby was so utterly beyond his understanding that it didn't bear thinking about.
Unsure what he was supposed to do in a situation such as this, completely ill-prepared, Ethan looked around the small room with a blank stare. Quietly, he tiptoed over to the bed. Suddenly he looked at his feet with a jolt – he still had shoes on! – before the remnant of his past life where concepts like 'shoes on the carpet' were important was pushed to the back of his mind again. How odd. That was simply a different world, now. A world where Mia was alive, a little voice in his head offered. No. He couldn't think about that. He went back to shoes, that was easier. He could handle the potential social faux-pas, could handle Heisenberg shouting at him for tracking in grease and grime. Hell, he welcomed it. He felt like he could do with a shouting match.
Besides… he didn’t feel like touching the floor with his feet, even in socks. The shoes stayed on. He sat on the bed, gingerly, and the mattress sagged under his weight. He stared at the carpet, thinning in places where he imagined Heisenberg had paced up and down many a time. Unsurprising, he thought, the man has serious issues. I’m sure there’s plenty that keeps him up at night.
After a few minutes, Heisenberg sat back up and began unrolling a diagram on his desk. Picking up a pencil, he stared at the page intently, seemingly mulling over its contents. Occasionally, he would scratch his head with the pencil, absentmindedly. Ethan watched him for what felt like long hours, but must only have been a few minutes at most. Time was going to pass very slowly here if he had to stay cooped up inside as Heisenberg had suggested. He had nothing with him to do. Nothing he could think about that wouldn’t agitate his already-wired mind, which wheezed like the wall of cogs across the room. Ethan cleared his throat. “So, uh… What’s this?” He gestured to the machinery on the wall, the lights blinking in uneven patterns as it whirred.
“Work in progress.”
“Uh… Right. I meant what’s it for?”
No response.
His mind drifted from the machinery and he pondered the creature he had seen in the jar earlier. The ’cadou’. That must have been of great assistance when building this place – the man barely had to lift his arm and all the metal in the area was spinning around his fingertips. He cast a sideways glance at Heisenberg, with no small feeling of revulsion as he imagined one of them writhing and pulsating in his chest where his heart should be. He didn’t know that that was necessarily how it worked, but it felt fitting somehow. No heart, only a monstrous little thing completely devoid of human decency which dared to pulsate like it understood how to play the part.
Feeling like he had to keep talking to stay even remotely sane, he tried again, speaking more to himself than to the man tinkering away in the corner. “So, this ‘cadou’ is like… a… parasite?”
“It is a fucking parasite” Heisenberg grunted, not bothering to look up from his work. As he spoke, he flipped a strand of hair from his eyes with an irritable jerk of the head.
Prick, thought Ethan. “Alright –” he began, getting only one word into his next sentence before the man in the corner exploded.
“Do you have to keep yapping? Jesus fuck, I’m trying to concentrate!”
Ethan muttered something unintelligible under his breath, but Heisenberg didn’t seem to notice. Either that, or he pretended not to hear which was strangely generous of him. Picking at his bandages absentmindedly, Ethan shuffled his feet and watched dust motes dance in the dull glow of one of the machines. He remembered back to a lazy Sunday afternoon at home: he sat cradling baby Rose on the sofa while Mia pottered around the house. Dust motes caught in a ray of sunlight that streamed through the window. The warmth fell gently upon Rose’s sweet little head, and he smiled at the way the sunbeam illuminated her golden hair. He could have sworn she smiled back, too, even though she shouldn’t have been old enough for that.
Well, there’s certainly no sunlight here. No Rose, either.
Rose.
His sudden overwhelming desire to gain footholds in discussing his daughter’s wellbeing overrode every survival instinct telling him not to disturb the man in the corner.
"What’s going to happen to Rose?"
A grunt of irritation, louder than before, and Ethan saw Heisenberg sweep the paper to one side, knocking yet more debris onto the floor. "Take me for a fool, Winters? Think I'm about to let you unravel all my damn secrets on your first night?" He let out a sharp bark of a laugh, still facing away from the man sitting on his bed.
Ethan’s face scrunched involuntarily at the insinuation of there being multiple nights to come.
Heisenberg continued casually giving orders, rolling his shoulders as he did so to work off the aches of sitting hunched over. "It's late. We’d better rest. You’re no good to me exhausted.”
“Rest? We’re leaving her out there?” Ethan sprung up in outrage, voice raised. “It’s – those things are out there! She’s a baby! We can’t leave her out there alone!” Upon hearing Ethan’s tone shift, voice wavering slightly in panic, Heisenberg slowly turned around.
“Those ‘things’ will be torn apart the moment they so much as look at that altar. Not that they’d bother. That bitch Miranda is who you need to be afraid of. Rose will be safe out there. The safest one in this whole fuckin’ village, in fact.” He stood up, walking over in two bold strides until he was right in front of Ethan, pushing up into his space. “You know who won’t survive that trip?” He was so close Ethan could smell him, all cigar smoke and engine grease. Hot breath fanned over Ethan’s determined face and he froze, startled. The proximity of the snarling man had Ethan momentarily stunned, and he opened and closed his mouth, grasping for words.
“That’s right.” Heisenberg growled, moving to the side to jab at the light switch. “Goodnight, Ethan Winters.”
For a split-second, the moment just before Heisenberg’s finger on the switch plunged them both into darkness, Ethan caught sight of something he had never seen before. Heisenberg’s stern expression faltered slightly, giving way to something akin to awkwardness as he seemed to contemplate the unusual intrusion on his usual routine – an intrusion that had come in the form of the defiant man now sitting on his bed. It was there so fleetingly that Ethan almost believed it was all in his head. Heisenberg flipped the light switch and wandered back over to his recliner, climbing atop it and rolling back, not bothering with any blankets or pillows.
Ethan sat back down on the bed, defeated. Ancient springs groaned in protest.
It was so bizarrely domestic. Why in the hell was Lord Heisenberg wishing him goodnight as he climbed into his bed? If Ethan had been able to tell his past-self this sequence of events, he was convinced he would punch himself in the face. He contemplated doing it now. I don’t have a choice in the matter, Ethan told himself, harshly.
“You, uh… You sleep in your clothes?” He spoke without thinking. Why the hell had he asked that? Who cares? Expecting the volatile man to react explosively, Ethan cringed in anticipation of a vicious retort. However, Heisenberg’s mouth did not twitch into a smile, nor did it open to shout obscenities. In fact, the man in the chair didn’t make any motion at all. Ethan figured he was ignoring him. Whatever. Fumbling in the dark, he pulled off his shoes and set them underneath the bed so he wouldn’t trip on them if he had to make a surprise getaway. He couldn’t hear the horrible groaning that he’d heard earlier, but was painfully aware of what patrolled the corridors. He hoped Heisenberg's sleeping quarters were decently protected, at least. Surely he couldn’t control them in his sleep… could he? He shivered.
It was only a few minutes later as Ethan gently slipped out of his jeans under the covers and folded them haphazardly by the bed – within grabbing distance as soon as he wakes up so his naked legs wouldn’t be visible – that he heard the deep breaths of the man across from him. Snoring. He was asleep already? Ethan was incredulous. Then again, it was only now that he was in a relatively safe location that a deep tiredness began really settling into his bones, too. It sat heavy in his marrow, pulling him downwards towards the pillow as if beckoning him to slumber, to rest, to survive. It felt familiar, and he chose to give in.
Shedding his jacket and flinging it atop the jeans, hoping Heisenberg wouldn’t notice the latter if he awoke before him, he curled up in the foetal position. It still hadn’t really sunk in. Any of this. He tried to process it and mull it over now, but it was as though his brain flat-out refused. No. Not now. Not yet. He sighed. Fine, then.
He tried to sleep instead, and it was only then that the noise of the factory really became noticeable. The walls themselves vibrated slightly with a mechanical whirring and humming, various fans and other machine parts, conveyor belts, god-knows-whats spun and rattled and clanked as he lay there desperately trying to pretend it didn’t bother him. He was tired. He would sleep. Hours passed this way – each longer than the last. The chill of the room had become very noticeable, and he rummaged on the floor for his jacket, pulling it back around himself for warmth. It barely helped. He rolled back and forth, trying both sides of the pillow, pulling the thin blanket up over his head. Why did the machines have to be on overnight anyway? Ethan thought in impotent anger, tears gathering at the corners of his eyes in frustration.
Fuck. He was not going to cry about noise of all things. His daughter, his beloved and only daughter lay in pieces, his wife was dead, he was sleeping in his enemy’s bed, and he was getting teary-eyed about some noise? He felt stupid. Pathetic. He buried his face hard into the flattened pillow, trying to muffle his thoughts if nothing else. Amidst the slightly oily smell where the pillow hadn’t been washed in an extended amount of time, there was another scent there. Something like pine and wood smoke. It was pleasant. Comforting, even. Tears trickled down his cheeks and wet the fabric.
Once he started, he couldn’t stop. His chest heaved with the weight of his wrenching sobs as he gasped into the pillow, his anguished cries muffled and hidden. His eyes stung fiercely, and his nose was so stuffy that between that and the pillow pressed to his face, it was difficult to breathe. Good. He cried for so long that his tears ran empty, sobs eventually dulling to tiny whimpers as he curled tightly into a ball. Face-down, the sounds died in his throat as he sunk deeper into the busted mattress, tiredness pervading so deeply that he could no longer raise his head.
It was only then that Ethan Winters, utterly exhausted and alone, finally fell into unconsciousness.
When Ethan awoke, it was still dark. For a moment, he contemplated rolling over and going back to sleep – still in dire need of a proper rest – but remembered, after groping fruitlessly for his bedside alarm, where he actually was. At the acknowledgement of that minor loss, his fingers grasping at nothing, it all came flooding back. He lay still momentarily, allowing the gravity of the situation to press upon him in the darkness. He could go back to sleep, pretend it was all a nightmare… Perhaps it was, and he just needed to press through another layer in order to awaken in his own bed next to Mia, with Rose in her crib nearby.
Rose. The thought of Rose pulled him from listless delusion. It wasn’t time to give up. Not yet. Not until she was back in his arms in one piece. Pulling himself into a sitting position against the cool iron headboard, he groaned. There was no way of telling what time it was, the little room had no clocks - no windows. Heisenberg was gone, the only reminder that he’d been here at all a few more crumpled pieces of paper littering the floor.
Is it… late? Ethan wondered, feeling around on the carpet for his jeans. He felt a pressure behind his eyes when he leaned over, his head aching as he bent down to retrieve the rumpled pile of denim. The feeling was reminiscent of a hangover – eyes sore and throat sticky with dehydration. At least Heisenberg didn’t see. Where is he, anyway? Pulling his trousers back on, he eased himself out of bed. Aside from the foggy head, he was feeling surprisingly… acceptable. Physically, anyway. The wounds he had sustained were already knitted back together, sealing themselves from within at the rapid pace he had grown accustomed to.
Feeling thirsty, he eyed the door in the corner. In any normal home layout, this would be an en-suite. In here… Ethan sighed heavily and picked up his pistol, holding it cautiously as he moved to place his hand on the doorknob. He turned it slowly, ready to back off at the slightest indication of any groaning on the other side. As he cracked the door open, he changed tactic and rammed the door abruptly with his shoulder, bursting it open to splat any creatures lurking behind. It bounced off the wall behind with a bang, revealing a small bathroom. No lycans. Relieved, Ethan approached the sink, pistol still in hand.
It wasn't as messy in here as it was in the bedroom - Ethan guessed that this was less about Heisenberg's increased interest in cleanliness and more that he didn't spend as much time in here. Still, he felt that wiping the tap might be a good idea. There was a singular towel hanging on a rail on the wall. It looked as though it had seen better days, threadbare and stringy. Ethan grimaced. Not using that. Pulling open the medicine cabinet he found nothing of use. No cleaning supplies – only a few half-used bottles of tablets, unlabelled, and a bottle of whiskey. Abandoning the idea, he reasoned with himself that he'd done far worse in the past couple of days than drink questionable water.
Turning the tap, he almost expected the water not to run clear – to instead be dark, thick with tiny wriggling versions of the cadou that would infiltrate his esophagus, his stomach, his bloodstream. From there, they’d make their way to his brain, rewiring him, replacing his functionality with something… other. His stomach turned. He squinted, peering closer at the liquid. In this lighting, he could almost convince himself that he could see their tiny appendages, ready to latch on to the membranes of his throat. They were just flecks of dirt. You’ve had worse than some dirt. Though he reminded himself of this mantra constantly – you’ve had worse – it never once became comforting.
Chancing a sip, he found the water to be free of parasites - or free of those he could feel in his mouth, at least. It tasted strangely metallic, though it was difficult to tell whether that was simply due to the scent of rust in the air. Everything here felt metallic in some sense. He grimaced. Swallowing down a few more gulps of the dubious water, just enough to keep him going, he left the bathroom.
With Heisenberg gone, Ethan’s gaze drifted to the man’s desk. Namely, to the papers and diagrams spread about over its surface. A feeling akin to hope bloomed quietly in his chest as he contemplated the possibilities. This could be it – something here has to contain information about Rose! He approached, eyes flitting between sheets in excitement. Maybe I don’t have to work with him after all. If I can just find the information myself on how to put Rose back together…
He waited for a moment, hesitating, before beginning to thumb through some of the diagrams. Most were incomprehensible, only familiar to Ethan through the scribbled annotations which occasionally turned up words he recognised. Even then, he was no mechanic. Half of the terms used were familiar in nothing more than sound. No good. He kept flipping through, eager to uncover something more.
Some of the charts were less mechanical in nature, focusing on medical ventures – Heisenberg’s experiments with the corpses, the soon-to-be ‘lycans’. Ethan ran his finger slowly down the incision line drawn on one of the anatomical diagrams. Disgusting. He grit his teeth. These were no good, either. All they did was stoke the flame in the pit of his stomach. His hatred for Heisenberg needed no further tending. Besides, there was nothing here in the collection that resembled Rose. On one hand, that was a source of great relief. On the other… He needed this information. As it stood, he was still no closer to piecing her back together.
Disappointed, he grabbed a small leatherbound book from the corner of the desk, unwinding the clasps to take a look inside. He hoped this would contain something of more use. Or, at the very least, something he could grasp. ’Work Log’… he read aloud. Hmm, not ideal. If he couldn’t comprehend the labelled diagrams, he doubted a work log would be any more accessible. Still, he pressed on, flipping through pages and skimming parts that looked to be of interest. It wasn’t long before the words ‘Ethan Winters’ jumped out at him.
A-ha! This must be the part about Rose. Peering closer, he realised it wasn’t talking about him in relation to Rose but rather referencing him in particular. More specifically, his body. ‘I find the physical attributes of his body to be quite interesting’… What the fuck is this? Face growing red, irritated, he snapped the book shut. It wasn’t a work log, it was a journal. A seemingly very personal journal. Ethan flung it down on the desk as though it had scalded him, disgusted. He had no interest in reading any of Heisenberg’s personal thoughts. Or, indeed, any of his thoughts at all. He was here to save Rose. Once that was done, he would no longer be here to entertain Heisenberg's brash commentary in any form.
Filled with frustration at having found nothing of value, he paced up and down, circling the small room like an aimless vulture poring over nothing but bones. The run-in with Heisenberg’s thoughts about his interesting body had riled Ethan up more than he'd care to admit. He immediately began pulling his shoes on, ready to pace the corridors until he found the man and then – and then what? He was overcome with a strong urge to punch him, but knew that wasn’t the brightest plan. Nevertheless, imagining it play out in his head was soothing.
He tried to sit down, to conserve his energy and convert it into brainpower instead. Perching on the edge of the bed, feet tapping, he mulled it over. Something… something in here must be of use. This is his private room and you’re telling me there’s nothing in here regarding his primary mission? As unlikely as this scenario seemed to Ethan, it appeared to be correct. Not a word of Miranda’s instruction seemed to be kept in Heisenberg’s treasure trove of papers. He supposed that there might be more in the ‘work log’, but he hadn’t seen anything specifically Rose-related and couldn’t bear to delve in further lest he waste time sifting through more of Heisenberg’s useless Miranda-related complaints.
It was no use. He couldn’t just sit here, he’d tear the place apart. He had to do something. Head brimming with all manner of half-formed plans, he eventually settled on the clear next step. Discuss the stages of re-forming Rose. That was what he came here for, after all. Everything else was secondary. Heisenberg apparently had a plan for this already, or so he’d implied yesterday evening. Ethan decided – he was going to hear this plan. Immediately. If that meant leaving this room and venturing out into the factory – well then, that’s what was to be done. He didn’t have the time to sit about. Rose didn’t have the time.
After giving one last cursory glance over the room for anything that might be able to assist him with traversing the factory – a map, some kind of access key, a remote control? No such luck – he drew back the deadbolt and pushed through the door. The moment he stepped foot outside the little room he was intimidated. From where he was standing he could see multiple branches, spindly tunnels reaching like fingers deep into the bowels of the factory. The darkness itself felt oppressive, and he wished he had a torch.
Picking what he thought was the way they came yesterday, he set out with purposeful strides. On high alert, scalp prickling with nervous tension, he swept the corridors with military precision as he walked. Well, as best he could in the low light. Peering closely at the floor as he pressed on, he searched for any indicators that Heisenberg may have gone this way – something he dropped, perhaps, or a footprint? Stray cigar ash? He found nothing of note.
Ethan sighed as he came to what resembled a crossroads. He didn’t remember this from yesterday, but it had been a stressful set of circumstances. Perhaps he had rushed through, preoccupied with Rose, mind filled with Heisenberg’s stupid rambling? He tried as hard as he could to pull something of use from his memories, but it all melded together in a tired jumble of splintering hallways, none with any distinguishing features. Damn it.
Abruptly, a loud noise started up, somewhere close. He jumped, back against the wall, glancing around with his pistol raised. The sound was unfamiliar, but his mind perceived it to be similar to some kind of engine. It didn’t sound in great order, sputtering like a cough as it whirred. Just another one of Heisenberg’s failed machines, he thought, starting to relax a little. He pressed on, pistol still held steady in front of him. Perhaps Heisenberg was there with the machine, running some tests. The thought didn’t comfort him enough to lower his weapon.
Turning the corner, the source of the sound was immediately obvious – though not so easily identified. What… what the hell is that? Ethan took a step back instinctively from the entity at the end of the corridor, half-shrouded in darkness. At first glance, it looked to be human. Ethan could pick out two legs, and the height seemed to fit. He couldn’t reconcile why anybody would be down here, though. The stature was all wrong for Heisenberg. Perhaps they were lost? “Who’s there?” Ethan called, trying to keep the tremble from his voice. Something felt off.
The noise started up again, loud and insistent. Slowly, the person turned towards Ethan, drawn by his vocalisation. There was something attached to their head, a great mass of black and silver that glinted in the dull half-light of the glowing machinery. Seeing it head-on made Ethan’s mind go utterly blank for a moment – he had absolutely no frame of reference for what he was witnessing. Eyes wide, he drank it in. The body was, indeed, human. Once. Now, however, it was simply a vessel for something else. Where there would - should - be a head, there was a propeller. It wasn’t attached overtop, like mask, it was soldered to the inside of their neck. Veins and arteries fused with wires, some of which weren’t connected properly, spitting sparks. The… creature… seemed unwieldy, dense, a design that hadn’t quite been thought out. Where their arms once were there were ragged stumps, no longer bloody but still grotesque.
“What the hell…?” Ethan managed, voice coming out as a whisper. For a second, the sound died down as it seemed to observe him, the propeller winding down until he could see through each spoke to the vast mass of engine behind it. Somewhere, the thing had sprung a leak, oil dribbling onto the floor with a drip, drip, drip. They observed each other warily until the creature cocked its head, focusing in once more as if scanning the man before him. As if analysing a human shape, satisfied with whatever it registered, it whirred back to life in excitement. It stepped forward, heavy, each step a struggle. Seeing more clearly the way the propeller moved, lopsided, it was evident how the creature had lost its arms.
“Hey… hey, I’m not here to hurt you!” Ethan called, pistol still raised. He wasn’t lying, he didn’t even know if he could hurt it. “I’m just –” his voice was cut off by an inhuman screech of machinery as it shambled towards him, drowning out his attempts at diplomacy.
It had acquired a target. It knew what to do with targets.
Ethan took a step back, still trying to reason with it, yelling to make himself heard. “Listen, I know Heisenberg, I’m allowed to be here!” His words were swallowed up in the din. He tried again, with more urgency, trying to hit upon some kind of code word that might shut it down. “I’m – uh – I’m authorised to be here! I know Lord Heisenberg! I have authorised access!” He couldn’t even hear himself, the sound was throbbing inside his skull.
Feeling another set of heavy footfalls thrumming somewhere ahead, Ethan tensed, his entire body primed for flight. Another one?
Barrelling down the corridor, hammer firmly in hand, was Heisenberg. “Motherfucker!” He bellowed, bearing down on them in a rage. The creature did not respond to the insult, and it was then that Ethan realised he was shouting at him. Face contorting in disbelief, he shouted back.
“What the fuck? How in hell is this my faul- ” The propeller tilted, twitching, as though agitated by their raised voices. The blades whirred with intensity, heightening into a mechanical scream that drowned out Ethan’s cries. Slowly, teetering on unsteady legs, it stumbled further towards the horrified man. He stepped back, all thoughts of anger dissipating in lieu of sheer terror. The corridor was small, enclosed. The creature was so top-heavy that once it had begun staggering forwards, it bowed into an unsteady run. If that thing got any closer, it would shred him into mist.
Ethan, pistol clenched in trembling hands, fired twice into where he thought its ‘face’ might be. Bullets sprayed from the whirring vortex like shrapnel and it pressed on, unfazed. He could feel the heat emanating from the engine as it roared, see the sparks spitting from its soldered joints. Sweat trickled into his eye, stinging, and he gritted his teeth.
Stepping back, he slipped, the floor slick with engine oil. Struggling to stay on his feet, he panted in fear.
He pulled the trigger again, desperate, and heard the click. Pressed it again – again, again – fuck. Oh fuck. Closing his eyes tightly, shaking violently, he held his breath.
Could… Could he survive this? If he did, what would become of him? Would he simply be sentient paste coating the filthy floor, kept alive only by the microscopic veins of mould threaded throughout his construction? He reeled, eyes still closed, trying hard not to vomit at the thought. And… and Rose – what would become of Rose? No – he couldn’t die here, he couldn’t – ”
There was a keening screech as Heisenberg, eyes blazing, jerked his head forcefully to the side. As though gripped in the hands of a god, the horrendous creature was seized by its propeller-head and thrown bodily off-course. Bouncing off the wall, it landed hard on the ground, blades denting metal surfaces as it fell. With a chugging whirr the engine sputtered out, the propeller finally grinding to a halt.
It lay still, the smell of petrol and burning flesh thick in the air. Ethan let himself slide to the floor as well, crouching with his head in his hands as he breathed shallow gasping lungfuls of oxygen. His gorge rose and he fought to keep the bile inside of him. Fought to keep any part inside of him – his mind, his will to continue, the parts that made him Ethan Winters and not just a sapient spread of mycelium. He crouched like this for what felt like hours, but must have only been mere moments before he felt a broad gloved hand clamp down on his shoulder. Fingers dug in painfully as he was brought to a standing position, face to face with Heisenberg who looked ready to commit bloody murder.
“What the fuck’re you doing out here, Winters?”
For a moment, Ethan couldn’t speak, still reeling from his near-death experience. He simply stared at Heisenberg as he was prodded to begin walking, an accusatory look in his eye. You made that thing?
As they walked, Ethan trailing behind the other man in stunned silence, he finally managed to force out a response. “I was looking for you.”
Silence.
“We need to discuss the plan.”
“Yes, Winters. I know. The plan. The plan which I was going to discuss with you once I was finished with my work, if you’d have just been patient enough to stay put. Instead, you’d apparently prefer to get shredded to bloody pieces by Sturm.”
“That thing has a name?”
“Of course.” He did not elaborate.
They walked the rest of way back in silence.
When they got back to the room, Heisenberg immediately took in the state of his desk, the crumpled papers.
“You've been enjoying rummaging around in my belongings, it seems!” Heisenberg turned, unsmiling, holding up the leatherbound journal in one grubby hand.
“It was an accident.” Ethan stated flatly, no embarrassment in his tone. He was too exhausted for pretense. How Heisenberg had even managed to notice that anything was misplaced in that jumble of papers was beyond him.
“Mm, yes, I often find myself 'accidentally' prying into other people's things when they aren't around.” Heisenberg's voice dripped with sarcasm. “It's far easier that way, after all.”
“Look - I didn't want to –” Ethan's frustrated tone was cut off by a forced guffaw, as Heisenberg shook his head slowly.
“Didn't want to? Then you shouldn't have done it! Hardly a way to build trust, now -”
“Listen to me! I didn't want to read your damn diary!” Danger flashed behind Heisenberg’s glasses at the word 'diary'. “I wanted to find information about Rose, since you haven't exactly been forthcoming.”
“It's a work log, Winters, not a fucking diary.” His face was growing red, hands twitching into fists as he raised his voice. Ethan eyed the hollow indents in the drywall. “What good is there in you fuckin' spying on me if you can't even read?”
The childishness of the insult caught Ethan off-guard. If he wasn't so irritated, he might have laughed. As it was, he ran through the 'punching Heisenberg square in the face' scene in his head a couple more times.
The atmosphere in the tiny room was fast-becoming heated, and Ethan motioned towards the bathroom to take a breather. Heisenberg made no move to stop him, simply turning his back dismissively and shrugging off his coat.
Resisting the urge to slam the door, Ethan pulled it closed with a dramatic snap and leaned against the wood, an angry exhale hissing through his teeth. It was getting too easy to rile him up – perhaps Heisenberg’s general state of irritation was rubbing off on him? Or, simply, the existence of the man himself. Everything he hated wrapped up messily in one smug package.
Glaring downwards, he took in the general state of his clothes, his body. Spattered with days-old gore and what he presumed to be some variety of engine oil, he was surprised he hadn’t left grimy footprints in his wake. May as well clean up, he thought, approaching the little sink. There was no bath or shower. Does he really use this thing to wash? Ethan grimaced at the thought, but the alternative was worse. Resolving not to breathe through his nose too much when in close proximity to Heisenberg, he began running the tap. Rolling up his sleeves, he scrubbed at his forearms as best he could with his hands, muddied water gurgling down the plughole. Watching it swirl was mesmerising, something about sloughing off the layers of the last few days made his heart feel lighter. Slowly, his anger ebbed.
A strangely familiar crackling issued from behind the door. Heisenberg was twiddling the dial of an old-fashioned radio. After some buzzing of static, the muffled sound of music began floating through.
“…You can stand me up at the gates of Hell, but I won’t back down…”
“…Gonna stand my ground, won’t be turned around…”
Peeling off his jacket, then his shirt, Ethan began splashing water against his chest. It was messy, but he couldn’t see how to improve the method considering the absolute lack of useful bathroom items at his disposal. He splashed another round from his cupped hands against his stomach. Dirty water dripped down in rivulets, soaking his waistband, his socks, the floor. Shit. He glanced at the dingy towel. He’d been hoping to avoid using it, but the thought of facing Heisenberg looking like a drowned rat was almost more embarrassing.
“…There ain’t no easy way ou- ”
The radio hissed as the dial was twisted abruptly, and Heisenberg’s voice interjected sharply. “What’re you doin’ in there? You forget how to wash your hands?”
There was silence, save for the sound of running water.
“Winters? You drowned in the sink or something?” His antagonistic laugh prodded Ethan enough to respond.
“Just getting, erm… cleaned up.” He could almost see the delighted grin on Heisenberg’s face as he readied another sarcastic bathroom joke, and quickly continued. “You know – just grubby. That’s all.”
“Uh-huh. And is there a reason you’re choosing to do this in my bathroom sink rather than the shower?”
There was another brief moment of silence and then the doorknob was swivelling and Heisenberg was standing in the doorway. Ethan yelped indignantly, trying to cover himself. Heisenberg eyed him up and down. "Oh, thank goodness you kept your jeans on this time… I could’ve caught an eyeful.” His tone was noticeably lighter than earlier, an olive branch. No more arguing. Still, Ethan caught its mocking edge and bristled, stomach dropping and face burning at the knowledge that Heisenberg had seen them by the bed this morning. He glared back.
Catching sight of the man’s undeterred wolfish smile, Ethan huffed and held his bundle of clothes to his chest tightly. “Alright. Show me where it is and how it works.” Standing there in the shadow of Heisenberg, one sock soaking in a little puddle, clutching his only change of clothes to his damp chest, his statement did not command the level of authority he was aiming for. Heisenberg, for once, did not prod further, choosing simply to comply. He grabbed the towel and strode to the room’s main door, swinging it open. Ethan hesitated for a moment, glancing at the shirt in his hands.
Heisenberg barked a laugh. “Think the soldats might be starin’?”
The tips of Ethan’s ears turned pink and he stared at the floor, hurrying to keep up with the other man who had already begun to walk out into the corridor. Once again he couldn’t keep up with the twists and turns, trailing after Heisenberg and trying in vain to commit to memory the shape of a pipe, the intersection of certain machines, the way the light filtered in through a vent. There were no signs to point their way, but before long they came to a relatively small door with caution tape around the edges.
Pushing it open, Heisenberg made a grand gesture with one arm. “Here it is – safety shower.” The surprise he felt must have registered on Ethan’s face, because Heisenberg replied to his expression. “What? I don’t seem like the type?” Ethan shrugged, sheepish. The corner of Heisenberg’s mouth twitched into a lopsided smirk, as he gestured vaguely with a gloved hand towards his face. “Gotta protect what I’ve got.”
Rolling his eyes, Ethan stepped into the dim shower cubicle. He shifted from foot to foot on the uncomfortable metal grating, holding his belongings awkwardly. When he made no move to get started, Heisenberg stepped inside, brushing past Ethan to get to the control panel. The scent of smoke and musk briefly flickered past and Ethan’s breath caught in his throat. He suddenly felt very naked. He tried to step back to create more space, but bumped into the wall.
“… And this one is ‘off’. Got it?”
“Uh… Sorry, could you repeat that?”
There was a pause.
“This one is ‘on’. This one is ‘off’.”
Once again burning, Ethan thanked Heisenberg and tried again to squirm away. The man seemed to observe his discomfort curiously for a moment, a smirk settling on his face along with what felt like understanding. Heisenberg’s eyes flickered to Ethan’s trousers. “I’m… I’m gonna keep them in here with me. They need washing too.”
Heisenberg watched Ethan stammer for a moment, amused, before he nodded. Grabbing the bundle of clothes from the other man’s hands, leather-clad fingertips ever-so-slightly brushing against his bare chest in a way that could be considered accidental, Heisenberg stepped outside. The door shut, leaving Ethan in the dim cubicle, eyes closed to will away any remnants of whatever the hell that was.
Heisenberg’s voice drifted in from outside. “There’s a handle on the inside, it should be lit up. Just pull it when you’re done and it’ll unseal. I’ll wait here, don’t need you wandering around again.” There was a short pause, before he added with an audible grin:
“Let me know if you need a hand, Winters.”
Ethan’s chest tingled where Heisenberg had touched him. Had he touched him? Was it deliberate? Why? He brought one hand up to his chest, haltingly, then dropped it. I’m probably having an allergic reaction. That’s all. Something in the engine oil. He hit the button for ‘on’ without further hesitation, letting the warmth stream over his aching body.
As soon as the water flowed over his head, his face, he felt cleansed. His thoughts no longer dwelled on Heisenberg, nor even on Rose. In that instant, he was nothing but clean, warm, relieved. Trancelike, he undid his jeans, letting them fall to the metal grating beneath in a heavy sodden pile. Closing his eyes, he tilted his face upwards, letting himself feel each droplet as it pattered over his skin. Each delicate touch purified him a little more, until he felt like things could probably be right again. Probably. He gave his head a little shake, dissuading his mind from deeper thought. He shucked off his underwear, dropping them atop his jeans with a small splash.
With the warming pitter-patter against his head, the moment of peace, his mind drifted against his will. It was but a moment of letting down his guard. A happy memory wormed its way in like a parasite. A summer’s day. Mia, pregnant, sitting at the park, plants and hedgerows in full bloom. The scene was like something out of a postcard – he certainly had the photo captured in an album somewhere. Clouds gathered above them, darkening, but still they sat. They let the warm rain fall across them – as though nothing could mar their happiness. It felt cleansing then, too. They held hands, held the look in each other’s eye. As though all their problems, their arguments, their fundamental incompatibilities, could be solved by a little warm rain and the sweet scent of flowers.
His chest felt tight all of a sudden and he opened his eyes, the water pouring into them with stinging heat. Through streaming eyes, the walls seemed far closer than he remembered. Panicking, he heaved a ragged and shallow breath, his lip trembling as he did. The feeling was fast-becoming overwhelming and he fell to his knees, the pain of the impact causing him to cry out. Mia. Mia. Mia.
“Winters? You’ve not seriously fallen in there, have you?” Distantly, echoing as though far away, down a tunnel that was growing increasingly smaller, tighter, he heard Heisenberg’s jibe. He opened his mouth to retort, but couldn’t form the words. He opened and closed his mouth, but all that came out was a hoarse wheeze. The world was ending, he was sure of it. The sky was melting, falling on him like a blood spray. It was what he deserved. It was what he deserved.
“Winters?” Annoyance. Heisenberg was annoyed now, again, but Ethan couldn’t say a word. This made him panic further, clutching at the floor, at his own face as he buried it in his knees. He rocked, as though rocking a tiny baby, as though rocking Rose, as snot pooled against his scraped flesh. Blood mixed with mucus, with tears, with water, with mycelium.
“Winters, can you hear me? If you don’t answer, I’m coming in!” At this, he let out a tiny whine. Heisenberg sounded so far away – surely he couldn’t still be just outside? No, surely he had left. He hadn’t been given an answer, and he’d left. Left Ethan Winters here, to die. As he deserved.
It should have been me.
There was a sound, a sliding whirr of a door somewhere, and a small grunt of confusion. It sounded like Heisenberg, but it couldn’t be. Heisenberg wouldn’t be in the cubicle. Not with him. He didn’t even know if he was still in the cubicle. Besides, he was too far away… Dimly, Ethan was aware of the once-comforting warmth of the shower shutting off. In the new quiet, he could hear someone sniffling, whimpering. It might have even been an animal. It sounded wounded, frightened. He didn’t think Heisenberg was there anymore. He couldn’t hear him. He could always hear Heisenberg, after all. He always had something to say.
Broad hands touched his shoulder and he flinched violently, but didn’t move, save for curling in on himself further. The gentle rubbing of a threadbare towel around his upper back, not lingering but practical, then something heavy draped across his shoulders, drawn about his body. Arms lifted out of the way, put through the same heavy fabric, then folded into his lap. It felt like he was being swaddled. Eyes still closed, muscles tightly sprung, he wanted – no, needed - to run, but his body refused to comply. All he could do was let tears leak from his eyes, hoping that whoever was here, whatever was happening, that they couldn’t see them. He was damp, uncomfortable, but the weight around him seemed to calm his mind just enough for things to start to make sense.
In a single swooping motion, he was aloft, held in strong arms. Wait… were things making sense? This certainly didn’t. Was he dead? The arms holding him were muscular, barricades, and as he shifted he found a broad chest, sturdy as concrete. He was moving – being moved – and hadn’t the strength to fight it. Letting his forehead rest against the comforting expanse, his breathing began – haltingly – to return to some sense of normalcy. Something smelled like a bonfire, a campsite in a pine forest. Lost, but for that fire. Involuntarily, some of the muscles he’d held clenched began to unfurl. Eyes still shut, he tried to bring the world back into focus. The sense of doom was falling back, replaced by a feeling that was barely any better. Still.
The sound of footsteps paused. There was a moment where he was shifted, gently, and somewhere unseen, a doorknob rattled. Both arms still cradled him, unwavering. The sound of a door swinging open. Shuffling, a slight jostling as he was adjusted, then lowered. Still wrapped in the heavy fabric, he was laid on what felt like a mattress. Springs poked at him, as if to tell him to snap out of it. The sensation of the fabric against his bare skin, coupled with the prodding of the bed beneath him made him finally crack an eye open.
Heisenberg was peering at him, an awkward distance away, gloved hands clenching and unclenching with the rhythm of Ethan’s breathing. The expression on his face was inscrutable. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to the elbow, and his coat was missing. Behind the sunglasses, it was difficult to discern what he was thinking, but he looked more dishevelled than usual. His hair was damp, little water droplets dripping to his shoulders as he moved his head.
Ethan jolted slightly at the sight, expecting… well, he wasn’t sure what he was expecting. The adrenaline spike was wearing off, and he felt sluggish. As he locked eyes with Heisenberg, the other man averted his gaze, turning to busy himself with something on his desk.
“How’re you feeling?”
The words, gruff, were not laced in the mockery that Ethan had come to expect.
Forcing his brain to form words, he responded. “I’m… I’m fine.”
All of a sudden, Ethan realised his state of being. Glancing down, he saw the fabric covering his modesty. An olive green. Heavy. Heisenberg’s jacket. Did that mean he’d seen him completely…? Reddening, he began talking again in an attempt to stave off the embarrassment that was setting in fast. “I’m fine, er… thanks to you?” His voice lilted upwards at the end, questioning. Was it really Heisenberg that had - ?
“Not a problem,” Heisenberg answered, voice breezy again. “It’s to be expected, really.” Ethan wasn’t sure what was to be expected. He hadn’t expected any of this. Not one moment of it.
Raising his hands to press against his eyes, Ethan continued.
“I thought about… It was about her. It made me think about her.”
Heisenberg was silent.
“I know it was just a damn… shower. It all just came back.” Heels of his palms still over his eyes, he continued, almost as though he couldn’t stop. “It’s… awful. It should have been me, Heisenberg. I could have survived it. I could have fucking survived it.”
Heisenberg stopped shuffling papers. Unspeaking, he turned to face the man across from him. He remained silent, seeming to sense that Ethan needed to vent, to expel some small part of what was poisoning him.
“But it wasn’t me. Was it? It should have been, but it wasn’t. It was her. It was her and it was Rose. I’m the one that just keeps fucking coming back. And it’s so confusing when it comes to her, because – because - ”
He trailed off, unwilling to complete the sentence, even to complete the thought.
They were both silent for some long minutes.
After a while, Ethan mustered the confidence to ask Heisenberg whether he had his clothes.
The moment was over.
“Your clothes are a soggy mess, they need to go on a radiator. You can borrow something of mine while they dry.” The level of domesticity was almost too much to bear, but he had no other alternative. Almost unconsciously, Ethan’s eyes ran over Heisenberg’s broad chest, his muscular arms, his larger stomach, his general physique. The question must have shown on his face, because Heisenberg chuckled. “I didn’t say they were gonna fit.”
Ethan exhaled through his nose, the closest he’d come to a laugh in a while. “Thanks. I, uh, appreciate it.” In moments, Heisenberg had seemingly materialised a new set of clothes which were dumped into Ethan’s lap. Though he knew full well Heisenberg had probably already seen everything when moving him earlier, he was still deeply hesitant at the thought of showing any more skin.
“I’m not looking. Go ahead.” Heisenberg waved his hand as he sat facing the desk and began studying something written there. One hand played with a pen, while the metallic dial of the radio began twiddling as if of its own accord, tuning in to another music station. Once Ethan was dressed, he began to arrange his things, moving a little cardboard box that he’d found next to the bed so he could place his pistol there within easy reach, without having to sleep with it. Making small adjustments to the space gave him some sense of control. It helped.
They’d both been doing their own thing for a while, Heisenberg going over diagrams, Ethan tapping and pacing, fiddling with the ends of his new long sleeves. When Ethan began circling the room, pacing around and around, Heisenberg finally spoke.
“Talk to me, Winters.” It was not the plea of a lover, nor the imperative of an enemy, but something that existed in a separate space altogether. Something that he needed. Something with a practical sort of gentleness that Ethan didn’t feel he deserved, but that he was receiving nonetheless. He didn’t need to ask what Heisenberg was referring to.
The radio accompanied his words, punctuating each silence, each break in words, with quiet music.
Ethan thought that it should have been silent, reverent, as he discussed her – but was glad it wasn’t. It made it easier, somehow.
“…The air around me still feels like a cage… and love is just a camouflage for what resembles rage again…”
As soon as he began, it was all spilling out like vomit. Purging himself of the thoughts like he was in a confessional, Ethan spoke to the man in front of him, paying no heed to the coherence of anything he put to words.
“With… her… it’s difficult. Always has been, really. That’s not to say that I didn’t – that I don’t – care about her. I do. Of course I do. It’s just… After everything that happened in Louisiana…” He trailed off, thinking of how to phrase it. He offered no context for any of the things he referenced, and Heisenberg made no moves to acquire any. Skipping from line to line, the disjointed narrative poured from him, seeping through every seam. “Even before that – we had… Well, there were… issues. Something like… resentment. Oh, I don’t know. That’s awful. That’s…”
Ethan sat on the bed, despairing.
“…Ooh, my smile was taken long ago… if I can change I hope I never know…”
Heisenberg tugged at his chair, moving now to face him.
“… I don’t know how to say it. It’s so… difficult. You know?”
Heisenberg maintained his gaze, face stoic as he held the information given. He said nothing.
“We’ve been through so much. It makes no sense for it not to work. But there’s just… I don’t know. Sometimes that just… isn’t enough. I tried. I really did try, but even with – ” His voice cracked slightly. “Even with the addition of Rose… It didn’t… work.” Each word was a struggle. Voicing each one gave them a finality that he wasn’t ready to face. Especially not here, in a dingy little room, with only the man opposite as witness. He should be unpacking something like this in therapy, but that was the kind of option that existed in a world separate from the one he was in right now.
“…I couldn't face a life without your light… but all of that was ripped apart - when you refused to fight…”
There was a moment of silence, as Ethan grappled with the real point he was trying to make to himself. “I already lost her before. It already happened. I grieved, I…” He gripped his arms tightly, folding them across his chest as if to protect it from further damage.
“…Ooh, my own was banished long ago - it took the death of hope to let you go…”
“She’s… She’s already gone. Was already gone. Back then. Now she’s really gone, and I feel… I don’t feel… I should feel…”
He shook his head slightly, drifting with the music for a second. He had almost forgotten that Heisenberg was there, looking at him in a similar way that he’d observed his limp form on the mattress earlier. Ethan felt suddenly, gruellingly, awkward, like he’d said far too much. He had no idea how he expected Heisenberg to respond to this sort of information. He wasn’t sure how much of it the man already knew, in terms of what had happened in Ethan’s past, or whether he was just spilling his guts to someone that had no backdrop upon which to move the characters. Perhaps it was better that way. Without context, maybe he doesn’t come off so cruel. Ethan began to feel less like he’d purged the evil, and more that he was manifesting it, nurturing it by giving it the time of day, moving himself as a central piece in a narrative he didn’t much like.
Still, voicing it is something. Even if it makes me sound cruel. Even if it makes me heartless.
He stared back at Heisenberg almost defiantly, feeling defensive, daring him to make a comment.
Heisenberg did no such thing, only giving a brief nod to the wounded man. A gesture of tacit understanding. He didn’t speak, didn’t pat him on the shoulder or hug him and tell him everything was going to be alright. He didn’t tell him he was a hero, that he was the perfect father and husband - ex-husband - and that he’d tried his best to salvage something that really was never meant to be built in the first place. He didn’t even tell him that his thoughts were valid, that it was okay to feel how you feel, that death and grief are always difficult in some regard, no matter what the scenario – even if his pain was now born more of survivor’s guilt than of any illusion of love persevering.
He simply nodded, and that was fine by Ethan.
There was more silence, which Heisenberg eventually broke with one of his usual comments.
“You know, Winters… I had an ulterior motive for getting you in that shower.”
Whatever Ethan was expecting him to say, it wasn’t that. He blinked, dumbfounded, as he scrutinised the other man’s face for the moment where he’d burst out laughing. When he didn’t, he furrowed his eyebrows, waiting. Picking at the duvet beneath him, he managed to offer a questioning response. “Er – right…? I mean… I don’t…” He trailed off, giving up, waiting for the other man to elaborate.
At his stumbling, the edges of Heisenberg’s mouth tugged upwards into his trademark grin. “Ha! I’m talking about the plan. What did you think I was talking about?” He leaned back slightly in the recliner, clearly feeling far more at ease when taunting the man in front of him.
Ethan pointedly ignored him, choosing not to engage. He could feel the tips of his ears going pink, and hoped Heisenberg didn’t notice in the low light. He arranged his expression in what he hoped was something suitably stoic. “The plan. Right. Let’s talk about the plan.”
Smug grin still plastered across Heisenberg’s face, he reached to sweep a couple of diagrams into his hand, then faced Ethan once more.
Finally. What he’d come here for was about to be unveiled. He would finally find out what the plan was for restoring Rose to her former self. Then he could take her away – far away – from this place.
“You’re probably not going to like this.” Heisenberg began, with no hesitancy. “It’s going to be painful – but it is you we’re talking about. You’re a tough one, ain’tcha?”
Ethan stared back, grimly. “Painful?”
“That’s right. See – I couldn’t help but notice that the baby – ”
“Rose.”
“Uh-huh – has a seemingly very similar bodily makeup to you, Winters. She can be put back together. I don’t know anybody else who can be put back together. Except you.”
“What’s your point?” Ethan replied, quick to frustration. He didn’t have time to play Heisenberg’s guessing games.
“My point is that we’ll have to do some experimentation in order to figure out how to put the b – to put Rose – back together. Luckily, I myself am very experienced in such things.” Ethan thought of the soldats, of Sturm, and recoiled. “So then, all we need is someone to test our theories on. Well. My theories.”
The look on Ethan’s face was one of apprehension. His only real experience with Heisenberg’s ‘experiments’ were the awful half-human-half-machines creeping around the factory, and the other feral lycans that riddled the area. He presumed that the testing wouldn’t go quite that far this time – but still. It didn’t fill him with confidence. Heisenberg seemed more at ease with the reimagining of corpses than with the delicate workings of living beings. He tried to imagine what this ‘testing’ would entail, but drew a blank. Heisenberg pressed on, undeterred by Ethan’s silence.
“Now you see why I needed you for this. You’re the only one it can be. You also see why I needed you to be clean. I know you can heal faster than the rest of us – but damn if getting dirt in your wounds won’t make it more difficult to measure our results.” Heisenberg flipped the papers around and presented them to Ethan. They were familiar, in an abstract sort of way. He thought he might have seen the top one before.
While looking over them, Ethan realised that the reason Heisenberg had snapped at him yesterday was because he was making finishing touches on the accompanying notes for these. He’d been trying to work it out still… focusing in on the problem so he’d have something to talk Ethan through. That’s why he was stalling instead of talking over the plan with him immediately. That’s why he made me take a nap. Alongside a surge of fury that Heisenberg hadn’t already worked it all out, a small pit of appreciation wormed its way into his chest for the dedication he was showing. He grimaced.
The drawings themselves were suitably grim. All anatomical diagrams, with various lines illustrating where to make cuts on a nondescript human male. I can handle it. I can handle a few cuts. If it’s for Rose, I can handle anything.
Heisenberg shuffled the sheets, bringing a different one to the top. In this one, the male wasn’t covered in cuts, but his leg was removed. Messy scribblings in amongst more scientific observations indicated that it was to be ‘detached’, then ‘reattached’. What!?
“Heisenberg…” Ethan began.
“Winters. I said we needed to test my theories. We need to replicate Rose’s current state, in its entirety.”
“I…” Ethan glanced down at the sheet held before him in gloved hands. He felt as though he were at a doctor’s office, being diagnosed with something truly terrible. Dread loomed as the page was flipped over.
What…?
The atmosphere in the room grew heavy, stifling. His head swam looking at the final image. While it was a simple diagram – like the rest – the effect was akin to looking plainly at gore. A chill ran down Ethan’s spine, as he processed what he was seeing. The male, all four limbs detached. Along his neck, a thin red line, with a note: only after testing.
“So, how about it, papa?”
Ethan was speechless. He couldn’t. Surely, losing his head would kill him. He was sure of it. Every cell, every spore, in his body was screaming that this was a terrible idea, that there had to be another way. Or perhaps that was simply his regular survival instinct kicking in. He was still human, after all. Brains don’t generally want to be detached.
His mind was reeling, flicking through all his past accidents like a grotesque flipbook. He’d already lost one hand very recently, that was horrendous enough. He thought back to Louisiana as well, recalling how his leg had been ‘detached’ before. Breathing shallowly, he pushed the thought away. Yes, he’d healed. He’d recovered from both of those. That didn’t dull the horror to the extent that he’d hoped it would, and he was already drowning in anxiety, in hesitant fear. It’s for Rose.. Heisenberg’s statement echoed in his head. “You’re the only one it can be.” He looked down at his bandaged hand – missing two fingers – unable to be brought back.
Heisenberg spoke before he could answer. “We can try the process without testing, but…”
“No.” Ethan interrupted. “I’ll do it. I’m not taking chances with her. She’s been through enough.”
Heisenberg gave a small nod and tilted his hat, impressed with the man’s conviction. He reshuffled the papers and placed them back on his desk, ready for later reference.
Ethan shifted on the bed, mulling over the situation at hand – and what was yet to come. Slightly irritable in his fresh nervousness, he muttered more to the air than to the other man. “This mattress is so broken, I can’t imagine how you’ve slept on it for… however long. The springs are almost aggressive. Everywhere I shift, there are five more prodding me.”
“Oh, that.” Heisenberg waved a hand dismissively. “I usually just move them out of the way. Doesn’t take much.” To demonstrate, he tilted his head slightly and Ethan felt the little coils curl aside beneath him.
“And you couldn’t have done that for me when I slept here!?”
Ethan’s incredulity seemed to tickle Heisenberg and he laughed – a sound that wasn’t arrogant, but genuine.
The jingling of a small device interrupted this strange moment of levity, causing Heisenberg to leap up. “Oh, shit.” He strode over and thumbed the button, causing a static buzzing to sound from a little speaker on the machine. When Ethan looked as though he was about to speak, Heisenberg jerked his thumb across his neck, shaking his head. Ethan obeyed, staying quiet as a cold feminine voice issued through the wall.
“Heisenberg.”
“Miranda.”
“I seem to have lost track of him. What is his status? I am presuming he is with you in the factory.”
“The little shit gave me the slip, but he’s still in the factory. He believes I have something for the restoration of his daughter. It’ll keep him busy, then I’ll end it. Or send him on his way to you – whichever you prefer.”
“Good, Heisenberg. Make sure it doesn’t go on for too long. I eagerly await her resurrection.”
“Of course.”
There was a click and the crackling stopped. Ethan raised a brow, questioning whether it was safe to speak.
“The bitch is gone. We’re gonna have to get going with this, though, as soon as possible. She’ll start to suspect before long. She knows I like to play with my food, so she’ll wait for a bit, but -” He stopped, catching Ethan’s dirty look. “Either way. We don’t have long.” Lighting a cigar and taking a long drag, he blew smoke to the ceiling.
“Better buckle up, Ethan Winters. You’re in for a hell of a ride.”
Ethan had barely registered the words out of Heisenberg’s mouth, still reeling from the dreadful images, before the other man was on his feet and rummaging through desk drawers. The eager energy on display unsettled Ethan, and he grimaced. It was only the thought of Rose, cold limbs floating quietly in their nightmare state, that stopped him growling for Heisenberg to slow the hell down.
A brisk voice issued from the other side of the room, accompanied by the jangling of various objects. With a wave of one gloved hand, multiple bolts leapt from the drawer and scattered across the desk. “First – you need to eat. Don’t need you passing out on me.” There was a brief hesitancy, as though he wanted to add ‘again’ but thought better of it. “Shame we couldn’t have a Duke specialty or two, but that might be just a little obvious.”
Heisenberg knowing of The Duke, possibly even knowing him on a personal level, was a strange concept to Ethan. Part of him half-believed that he'd hallucinated the enormous man, that he’d actually managed to sustain himself on nothing more than adrenaline and desperation, having conversations with his own subconscious as he stumbled forwards in the darkness. Voicing this thought aloud – skipping over the part about his dwindling grasp on sanity – he heard Heisenberg chuckle and turn to face him.
“Oh, sure. We go way back. Used to work in his kitchen.” Ethan gave no indication as to whether he believed this, deliberately remaining blank-faced. “Got real cramped in the back at times with the big guy, prepping all that meat.” Ethan’s mouth twitched, but he said nothing. Heisenberg took the opportunity to elaborate further, pulling a folding knife from his pocket and flicking it with a gloved thumb. The corner of his mouth pulled upwards in a lopsided grin as he pointed it at Ethan’s chest. “Always did make a damn good fillet.”
“Yeah, right,” Ethan fired back. “A real gourmet. I bet you’re just great at taking orders.” As soon as the sarcasm left his mouth, he wanted to sink deep into the ground. He settled for briefly closing his eyes, despairing at how he’d opened himself up for teasing. Ugh. Wording.
Heisenberg’s grin looked fit to burst from the confines of his face, one eyebrow arching in faux astonishment. “Ooh, you think so? Try me, then.”
Ethan sighed, not dignifying the suggestive remark with a response. He had bigger issues at hand than Heisenberg trying to push his buttons. Allowing his mind to drift back to The Duke, he pointedly looked away from the man ahead like he would an attention-seeking toddler. For a few seconds, they remained in freeze-frame. When Heisenberg realised he wasn’t going to get a rise from Ethan, he turned back to the drawer with a barely audible snort of amusement.
As appealing as a cooked meal sounded in theory, the stark reality was that Ethan likely couldn’t stomach anything larger or more flavourful than a plain slice of toast. It was already taking a great effort not to evacuate his empty stomach onto the dingy carpet, and he bent his head slightly to readjust the blood flow to his brain. He was already on edge, the deep uncertainty of the situation mingling potently with primal fear. Staring at his shoes, he did his best to empty his mind instead.
Sure, Ethan had lost limbs before. Far more than the average person, he knew that. Despite this, there was something so much worse about knowing what was to come. All those other times had been accidents, awful casualties wrought in an instant. Conscious thought, never mind the horror of contemplation, had never had a chance to come into it. It was only later, picking at his bandages, feeling the spores creep and chatter through his bloodstream, that the gravity of those occurrences weighed on him. He felt something creeping now, heavier and darker than the mould.
When Heisenberg brought over the food, he was relieved. Some kind of protein bar, which he hoped was at least in-date. It looked bland and tasteless, intended for practicality and survival rather than enjoyment. Perfect.
“Hold on. I’ll be back.” Heisenberg made a short gesture, swiveling the doorknob without touching it and stepping into the corridor outside. He was halfway out when he stopped short, popping his head back in. “Do. Not. Leave. This. Room.” Ethan glared at him, not legitimising the comment with a response. His scowling expression seemed to be enough to satisfy the other man, who left without further argument. Moments later, he reappeared, squeezing back through the door with a huge armful of plastic sheeting. It rustled threateningly as he wrestled with it, throwing it to the floor and beginning to spread it out.
“Wh… we’re doing it in here?” Ethan blurted, disbelieving.
“I’m afraid so. We can’t risk being seen, and I’m certain that bitch has eyes everywhere.” He glanced around the room, as if sweeping for cameras. “I don’t believe she has anything in the Factory – she trusts me – but with the timeframe we have, we only get one shot at this. If anything gets out before we get done… We’re fucked. She may ‘like’ me, but nobody comes before her precious daughter’s resurrection, and she will kill everybody in this damn village to make it happen.”
Ethan felt a strange flare of kinship with Miranda upon hearing this, though that was quelled instantly as he saw Heisenberg leave again, reappearing with a large metal slab. It wheeled obediently before him, hands-free, to the centre of the room. The mere appearance of it was dreadful. It was industrial, built-for-purpose, exceedingly clinical to the point of evoking cruelty. The sort of table one might use for autopsies, if it weren’t for the addition of thick leather restraints at each side. Deep metal troughs were attached below, soldered on as a convenient afterthought. Ethan looked away, wordlessly. The sight of them turned him cold.
Taking a steady breath, Ethan forced himself to continue eating. He focused thoroughly on each step. Open. Bite. Chew. Swallow. Glancing around the little room as he chewed, trying his best to avoid settling on the ominous centrepiece for too long, he couldn’t help but wonder aloud. “What are you going to… use?” Heisenberg didn’t need to ask what he meant. There was little in the way of anything that could feasibly be called a surgical instrument in the Factory. Not one that would be approved of in the context of a hospital setting, anyway. Heisenberg made do with what he had, and what he could put together. Visions of Heisenberg going to town on his limbs with a rusty hacksaw, coated in layers of dried blood from harvested corpses, flooded to the forefront of Ethan’s mind against his will.
“Got it covered.” Heisenberg replied breezily, in a response too brief not to be suspicious.
It was almost comical how easily Ethan slipped back into irritation with this man. He really put his emotional state through the wringer. Gritting his teeth to avoid raising his voice, he jabbed back. “Don’t you think I deserve to know? We’re talking about my body. This isn’t another one of your ‘soldat’ experiments – I’m alive!” In his nervous frustration, further words failing him, he gestured towards his heart as though the man before him might have forgotten it.
“Calm down, Winters. I’ll use the best tools I have at my disposal.” When Ethan looked as though he was about to interrupt again, Heisenberg shot him a look. “I’m gettin’ to it. Patience. Finish that, it’ll keep your mouth shut.” He watched as Ethan glared but complied, forcing down the rest of the bar, chewing arduously. “I’ll be using what is essentially a circular saw.” Seeing the other man’s eyes widen, he continued. “My… abilities… will allow me to spin it far faster than any machine could. The separation will be almost instantaneous.”
Swallowing hard, half-chewed lump sticking painfully in his throat, Ethan forced out a single stunted word. “…Almost?”
Ignoring this, Heisenberg continued. “This baby” Heisenberg paused to slap the wall where LEDs blinked erratically, “is going to be monitoring your every function. Vitals – heart rate, brain activity, breathing pattern… All covered.” Heisenberg’s casual usage of the word ‘covered’ again made Ethan cringe. He was about as far from confident in the man’s methods as was possible. “It will let us know what to expect when engaging in the reattachment process. It will also assist with galvanising the limbs, a preferable equivalent to keeping them on ice. Though we want it to be a fair test, we do also need a little something extra on our side. Miranda has her… potions… whatever the fuck she put in those jars. We have this machine.”
Though Ethan had once been a systems engineer, the computers he’d worked with were so far removed from the soldered mass of wires and winking lights in front of him that he couldn’t begin to comprehend how to interpret it. He felt as though he’d have as much luck trying to discern patterns in the dirt trailed throughout the factory, or in the way the snowflakes fell and settled outside. In that sense, it felt much like Heisenberg himself. Complex. Inscrutable. As Ethan thought about this, he became aware of the fact that he was staring vacantly through the man before him, who was still trying to communicate.
“Winters. We don’t have time for this.” Heisenberg was suddenly grave, his expression morphing into something Ethan didn’t recognise. “If you don’t have a preference…”
“What?” Ethan shook his head slightly, as if to recalibrate. “Sorry. What?”
“Your limbs, Winters. Which one am I starting with?”
His blood ran cold at Heisenberg’s words. His limbs, as though in preparation, felt heavy and swollen with defiant blood. With every lap it made around his body, skipping with vitality, he felt as though he was preparing to betray himself in the most primitive way. It was as though his brain couldn’t focus on the task at hand, much less comprehend it. It too was throbbing, trying to flee the confines of his skull to a place where he was not Ethan Winters, waiting to face the chopping block. He supposed it was trying to protect him. Time’s long past for that.
“My… arms. Do those first. They’re…” He struggled to get the words out, his brain fighting him every step of the way. It wasn’t often that you not only acquiesced to but gave a reasoned judgment as to which limbs were acceptable to lose. Ethan wanted to say: ‘their circumference is smaller, there’s less to cut through’. He wanted to say: ‘if you take my legs or head then I won’t be able to move at all, and I’m afraid’. He wanted to say: ‘I’ve already lost my hand this week, I’m still missing part of the other one – just do it, just do it, just do it before I lose my nerve’.
Catching the sick look in Ethan’s eyes, Heisenberg nodded.
“Alright, Winters. Shirt off.” He did not smile, the playful energy from earlier had completely dissipated. Seeing Heisenberg’s point, Ethan slid the borrowed vest up and over his head, motioning to hand it over, but Heisenberg had already disappeared to dig in a nearby cupboard. Items were being flung about inside, bouncing off the shelving. Shrugging, Ethan folded the shirt as best he could and set it on the sideboard.
Ceasing his rummaging, Heisenberg reappeared triumphantly with an object that made Ethan’s blood run cold. A chunk of wood, small enough that the intent was evident to anyone that had even the most rudimentary knowledge of early surgical practices. It was meant for him to bite down on, to muffle the agonized screams, to prevent him biting his tongue clean off. Seeing Heisenberg approach, block in hand, made him borderline hysterical. He wanted to scream, but all that came out was a hoarse whisper.
“Heisenberg… Get the hell away from me. I’m serious, get the fuck –”
One gloved hand clamped down on his shoulder with compelling force, guiding him bodily towards the table while the other wrapped across his mouth tightly.
“Cool your jets, Winters. We don’t have time for this.”
Overcome with a bone-deep hopelessness, he went limp, allowing Heisenberg to lift him atop the metal slab. Think of it like a doctor’s appointment. Let them do what they have to do. Just let it happen. As he was shifted across the surface, he noticed the drainage grooves carved into each side, running off into a trough below. Bile burned in his throat. He slid into position.
Heisenberg relinquished his grip, moving instead to tie the restraints.
“Is this really necessary?” Ethan managed to snap, no longer physically resisting but exasperated at what he perceived to be a lack of trust.
“Yes!” Heisenberg snarled, suddenly agitated. “You may think you won’t move, that you’ll be still and just allow it to happen.” He grit his teeth. “I promise you, it doesn’t turn out that way.” Heisenberg paused, as though suddenly lost in thoughts from longer ago than expected. He moved two fingers to his chest, unconsciously, tracing the line of an incision Ethan knew to be beneath. Gone was the grandiose manner of speech, that aggravating talkshow-host voice bouncing off the walls. In this fleeting moment, it was just Heisenberg. Not the Lord, but the man. The child. In the ‘work log’, it had implied that Heisenberg was only a boy when he was subjected to Miranda’s experiments. With a jolt, Ethan could see it clearly: Heisenberg, trembling in the cold shadow of a colder woman, his little arm raised ineffectually in self-defense as she dragged him onwards - to an operating table, to a future he never asked for. No hat, no dark glasses. Nothing to hide behind. Not yet. He was so small… The part of Ethan that ached for Rose, for all she’d had to endure and all that was yet to come, shifted to envelop this lost child.
The tightening of thick material around his torso pulled him from contemplation back into stark reality, where there wasn’t time to truly process or contemplate the strange and unexpectedly myriad ways that similarities branched between them, unwanted destinies, interconnecting threads of a greater whole... Ethan, Rose… Heisenberg.
Shaking his head, he refused the block of wood when Heisenberg brought it to his mouth. The whole situation was barbaric enough. Besides, if I bite my tongue off it might add to the thrill of the experiment. Sarcasm – especially the kind that only he could hear – was doing nothing to calm his nerves, but it was all he had left. When Heisenberg brought the circular blade with its jagged teeth, an implement of pure terror, he wanted to refuse that too. A drip of cold sweat trickled down the side of his neck, to his exposed chest.
Ethan’s entire head felt bloodless as he stared vacantly at the sawblade. Fuck.
As Heisenberg’s eyes fell upon its metallic surface, angling his head, it began to hover upwards from his grasp, then to spin in place. It spun slowly at first, picking up speed as he seemingly ran through calculations in his head. Lining it up with the intersection of Ethan’s shoulder, inching it slightly downwards until he found the perfect spot, Heisenberg didn’t speak. He was concentrating. The LEDs of the machine prodded at the edge of his vision, glinting fragments of colour against the razor’s edge. At first Ethan gazed, eyes wide, trying not to tremble. As it approached, he began to squint, like watching through fingers. He didn’t want to watch. He couldn’t look away.
Heisenberg was looking at the sawblade with great intention, eyes narrowed behind dark frames. At his unspoken command, the toothed wheel whirred ever-faster, heightening to a shrill scream. The sound of it made Ethan queasy – the ominous pitch reminiscent of a dental drill as it approached. Sweat pooled at his lower back, causing him to stick to the metal beneath. Fists clenched, while they were still his own, Ethan squeezed his eyes shut.
“Heisenberg…” he forced out, conscious that if he opened his mouth again he would be sick. The meaning was clear, regardless. Hurry up.
Ethan thought it would all happen at once but this was slow, so terribly slow. It felt as though his mind was somehow stretching each moment, each petrified nanosecond, to its absolute breaking point – such was its reluctance to face the horror only centimetres from his bristling flesh. Sweat stung his eyes – or was it tears? He screwed them shut even tighter. It didn’t help. Do it. DO IT.
DO IT!
Whirring. The scream of the saw. Concentration. Fear. Blinding fear.
Blinding pain.
Suddenly there was levity, lopsided otherness and a sickening thud as a heavy mass fell below. A scream, echoing along every cursed angle of the dingy little room, his tearstained body straining against the restraints. “Fuck, fuck...” Ethan mumbled incoherently. “Heis – fuck – ”
Another strike - ruthless, merciful.
This time there was a dull splash as the chunk of flesh fell into the bloody trough, spattering the cool sides with heated crimson.
All Ethan could hear was a detached ringing in his ears, vision failing as he tried to lift his head. A viscous warmth sprayed from his mutilated sockets, pooling where his arms once were, making its way to the drainage grooves where it ran like a scarlet stream. Feeling lightheaded, no longer trying to move, he listened for further instruction.
Already, he could feel the mycelium doing its work, threading its dark network through his cells, weaving into his blood to patch up what was left. What was once a fluid spray had already begun to dull to a patchy trickle. What was unbearable pain had begun to shrink, tightening, diminishing into something livable.
Laying in the sticky residue of his sweat and blood, he was suddenly deeply exhausted. Everything felt far away, and the lone bulb dangling overhead made his head hurt every time he attempted to open his eyes. Heisenberg was uncharacteristically silent, though Ethan imagined he was no stranger to the kind of brutality that he’d just wrought. He felt the pressure around his chest lessen and heard the soft thwap of the restraints coming to rest at the sides of the table. He dared not move, regardless.
Somewhere out of view, Heisenberg was knelt beside the carnage. A gentle sloshing drifted to his ears, like the lapping of waves upon a shore. He refused to oust the image, instead choosing to dwell on it with a kind of manic determination. It was only when he felt he’d garnered the strength to open his eyes that he realised he’d been screwing his face up with the force of it.
“Hm – odd. You lost these? Permanently, I mean?” Ethan could barely look, squinting towards the scene before him as though it would become easier to stomach. There was so much blood. Heisenberg was pointing at his mangled hand, bitten by the lycan, where the dirty bandages had begun to unravel with wear. The gore underneath had cleared up quickly, leaving smooth baby-pink skin, but the fact remained that two of his fingers were gone. What was once his hand was now more of a claw, changed indefinitely. He went to wiggle his remaining fingers and felt gaping nothingness flex back. Oh. Right.
Heisenberg was holding his hand. His gloved fingers brushed over the spot where Ethan’s once were. Behind his sunglasses, his eyes were narrowed in contemplation. He rotated the bloodied limb slightly at the wrist to get a better angle.
“…Yeah.” Ethan closed his eyes again, semi-resting. “A lycan bit them off. Couldn’t get them back.” Breathing slowly, prolonging the conversation so as not to think about his arms, he continued.
“Guess that’s probably the only normal part of me, now. The missing bit.”
Heisenberg did not offer an opinion, merely scrutinising the space between the remaining fingers. His face was unreadable. After a long moment, he placed the limb back into the trough with a gentleness that seemed at-odds with his usual boisterous demeanour. Ethan supposed it was so as not to disturb the flesh further, to avoid tainting the data output from their experiment. After all, that’s what I am to him. That’s all Rose is to him, too. Nothing but ‘interesting bodies’ that produce fascinating data.
On this subject, Ethan felt compelled to ask something that he’d been wondering since Heisenberg had mentioned it. “This… machine.” He went to gesture, then sighed as he remembered. “You said that you built it to monitor bodily activity… To monitor… restoration. How did you know I was going to cooperate? I could’ve said no. I could have left...” Just speaking was tiring him out, and he let his head fall back again to rest on the slab. “No offense, your plan was –”
“I didn’t build it for you.”
“Then… who did you…?”
When the answer become suddenly evident, materializing through the brain fog like a frightened ghost, a familiar little ghost with a tuft of light-blonde hair, Ethan’s expression darkened. Head lifting, he snapped in disbelief. “Rose!? You were building this for her? You’re fucking disgus–” Heisenberg wrestled him back down.
“Keep still and shut the fuck up!” he hissed. “Right now, we need to make sure this fuckin’ works. I do not need you screwing us both.” Seeing Ethan’s thunderous expression, he tossed in a gruff promise. “I’ll explain everything later. Well. What you need to know.” Seeing Ethan open his mouth to argue further, he pulled one of the leather straps across his chest. “Don’t make me do it, Winters. You know I will.”
The two glared at each other for a moment.
“Right. I wish we could wait longer to do this – we’d have a fairer test that way – but we don’t have that luxury if we want to get through the rest in time.” Ethan winced at what went unspoken, eyes still closed. “We’ll wait out most of the timing of reattaching a limb in normal circumstances. Couple of hours, I’d say, considering we aren’t doin’ anything special to them in the meantime.” Not thrilled at the prospect of lying butchered over his severed arms for any length of time, he began struggling to sit up. Heisenberg barked at him. “Stay still, damn it!” and Ethan snapped back, flat as a board. He'd turned to the machine and was already scribbling in a notebook.
Ethan lay there, gazing at the ceiling. Even that was grubby. LEDs blinked around him, communicating vital information about his body to the man before him. He couldn’t help but dwell on the strangeness of it all. Just a week ago, he’d been a regular stay-at-home father. The only thing he had to worry about was Rose. He supposed that part hadn’t changed. With Mia being so busy, it was easier to forget she… well. It was easier to forget. That seemed to be the way of things these days.
Ethan flinched as he suddenly felt the touch of metal on his ragged skin, whispers of horror chattering through each microscopic fungal thread as they recalled the tear of the sawblade mere moments before. Before he had a chance to speak, he locked eyes with Heisenberg over the top of his dark frames.
“Just wires, Winters.”
“For…?”
“Monitoring.” Heisenberg was slipping back into monosyllabic replies as he taped the exposed ends of the wire to the other man’s arm remnant, just above the stump. Ethan wanted to be irritated with him for his short answers, for daring to be so seemingly devoid of unease while working with a scene right out of a nightmare, but the truth was that he was thankful. He strangely couldn’t think of anyone he knew that would have handled it better. Images of Chris sprang to mind and he snorted involuntarily.
“Hm?”
“Nothing. Just… thinking.”
There was no response, save for a slight pinching feeling as the end of another wire was curled under to slip slightly into the frayed flesh. Once the wires were in place, Ethan could feel the light buzz of electricity agitating the wounds, allowing them to superficially draw closed but not to fully heal. The alternative to Miranda’s solution, Ethan supposed, vaguely recalling Heisenberg mention it earlier. Whatever works. If it does actually work. He felt the mycelium vibrate, the network alive with confusion as it conferred with his remaining limbs.
Perhaps born of working alone for so long, save for the cold gaze of corpses, Heisenberg clearly had difficulty focusing with other people so close. His hand slipped slightly as he finalised the placement of the cabling, eliciting gruff swearing. With his other hand, he fumbled in his deep coat pocket for a cigar out of habit. Thinking better off it, he shook his head, thinking aloud. “Nah. Don’t need any interference.”
Ethan couldn’t help but think of Rose and how much interference her tiny body had gone through as her limbs floated, suspended, waiting. He hoped fervently that this would help, that this would work, that it would be enough. Surely Miranda would have kept her well-preserved, but… The thought made a wave of nausea roil in the pit of his stomach. How could this be his reality? How could this be her reality?
“…Heisenberg?” He spoke, quietly.
“Winters?”
“We… should move on.” He tried again. The sickness made it hard to speak, so he hissed through gritted teeth. “Can we move on?” He breathed heavily through his nose, swallowing hard. “Now?” Rose swam behind his eyelids, separating along dotted lines like a paper doll, like cuts of meat. Urgency choked him and he struggled to breathe. “Now. We need to do it now… Rose…”
“Alright… God damn. Relax.” Heisenberg eyeballed him. Seeming confident that he hadn’t completely gone off the rails, he agreed. “I’m not gonna argue. The more time we make up, the better.” Without hesitation, though mindful not to pull out the wiring, Heisenberg reached for Ethan’s borrowed trousers. Though he mostly managed to keep a detached affect while undoing the man’s belt, he couldn’t resist the smirk that tugged at the corner of his mouth, exposing a canine tooth. “No sense in destroying these too, unless you want to be running around out there exposed.”
Ethan grimaced, speechless. His first instinct was to slap Heisenberg’s hand away, to take over, to do it himself – but this was not his reality. His reality was the one wherein he was laying on a slab, thoroughly helpless, severed arms twitching in a bloody trough below. Probably still trying to give Heisenberg the finger, even now. A small smile crossed his face, like a shadow. It didn’t reach his eyes. He wasn’t sure whether to let his eyelids fall closed, or whether to look. Both seemed ridiculously intimate. He fixed his stare over Heisenberg’s shoulder, burning a hole in the wall.
“Hurry. Up.” Ethan hissed, feeling the slow slide of fabric pulled below his knees. Heisenberg eased each shoe off, throwing them to the bed. With a quiet rustle that seemed appallingly loud in the silent room, his trousers were off. With a swift motion, they were haphazardly folded and thrown across to the bed as well.
Bending to pluck the sawblade from the sheeting with one leather-clad hand, Heisenberg wiped it against the plastic. “Not that it really matters.” He said what they were both thinking. “Still. Saves me scrubbing the walls.” Ethan suppressed a disbelieving look. Heisenberg cleaning… Not likely. He wanted to catch his eye but couldn’t quite look him in the face, ears still hot from the embarrassment – yes, embarrassment – of what had just occurred. Still bloodied, the metal winked knowingly at him under the harsh bulb. He looked away.
Heisenberg moved with the confidence of a practiced butcher, lining up the sawblade with the apex of Ethan’s thigh. A gloved finger ran across his flesh and he jumped a mile, growling in fear. “What’re you doing!?”
“Taking measurements. Unless you want me to miscalculate?” His words were not venomous, but they sounded in the small room like a snake’s rattle. A warning. Don’t interrupt me again. Ethan couldn’t think of a retort that didn’t make him feel foolish, so let it drop, willing himself not to move in the slightest the next time he felt a leather-clad thumb trail up his inner thigh. Heat crept up his neck and he prayed to all that might be out there that his skin wasn’t betraying him. It felt as though all the blood he’d lost had already been replenished, rushing to his face with humiliating rapidity. I don’t want to ruin the measurements, I don’t want to ruin the measurements, I don’t want to ruin the measurements he chanted inside like a litany, hoping if he repeated it enough times in his head that it would be evident to Heisenberg that this was his only concern. He let his eyes fall upon the sawblade, hoping fresh dread would cool him off.
It worked.
“Ready, Winters?”
“Sure.” He said, faking nonchalance, jaw still clenched. Heisenberg began without indication, already halfway through by the time he could draw breath to cry out.
The sawblade screamed, briefly, as it hit bone.
Only for a second, the most fleeting of moments, Ethan screamed with it – and then he was lighter, so abnormally light that it felt as though he’d died and was floating outside of his body. He fell to the side, reeling, and Heisenberg caught him with one arm. Twisting his grip, he pulled him back to receive the second blow. Blood was spraying everywhere, far too much to recover from without medical treatment, too much to heal – but it was healing. Crimson spurts turned to sluggish dark gouts that slopped from his femoral artery, thick and unnatural. They were both soaked, Heisenberg’s dark frames dripping as he bent to drive the blade through Ethan’s other thigh.
His body presented no resistance, as though the mycelium chose to part his skin for the metal this time, though this certainly was not the case. The sound of tearing flesh and rending of bone were drowned out by the rolling of the saw and the room was coated in gore afresh. Everything was red. Ethan couldn’t move. He tried to sit but could only writhe on the slab like a nascent larva, born anew. The horror was so deep that he could only sit with it, silent. Screams and tears seemed trite in the face of this. He swiveled his neck to look at Heisenberg as a scarlet droplet rolled down the bridge of his nose, tickling in a way he could no longer swipe away.
He was so itchy, his current existence a prickliness to be scratched, entirely without the means to do so. Wrinkling his nose in a snarl, he glared at the other man, for lack of any other response that seemed even close to fitting.
The two of them breathed for a moment in silent synchronicity, the only sound the gentle dripping of blood from the gurney to the trough. Despite their efforts, blood was coating every available surface. An errant thought wandered into Ethan’s head involving Heisenberg cleaning the walls, but he couldn’t remember why this was amusing.
When Ethan, at last, mustered the strength to try and look down – this could have been a minute, it could have been a week – he was unable to witness the jarring sight of his legs below; grotesque, detached, and awful. Instead he could only see Heisenberg overhead, wires in hand. He seemed to be hesitating, observing him, as though something within was at war with itself. When he noticed Ethan staring, he busied himself immediately with cables, poking the exposed wire-ends into flesh slightly harder than necessary, quickly twisting them into place. The buzz of electricity felt stronger this time, though it was likely just the way Ethan was enveloped in it, each limb coddled in a blanket of numbing static.
“Um…” Ethan felt there were words he should say, but he didn’t know how to find them. He was weary, thoughts too sluggish to make it to his lips no matter how urgent. The fizzing of the current was nice against his skin and it left him foggy-headed. The spores, however, frothed in latent irritation as they worked constantly against it, trying to find ways to arc around each volt, to repair him. This relentless expenditure of precious energy caused him to feel even more worn-out and disjointed. His body was, once again, a battleground for causes beyond his control.
Heisenberg seemed to be focusing overlong on each wire, eyes resting on the thin metal rods as though he needed to look at something he knew, at something predictable. When he eventually straightened up he began giving orders, leaving no space for discussion.
“Take a rest.” Catching Ethan’s panicked look, the way he tried feebly to shoot up into a sitting position he was unable to attain, Heisenberg doubled down. “A nap, Winters. Twenty minutes. I’m not asking you to forgo our work here.” He ignored the unbidden frown that shadowed Ethan’s face, unsure if it was a knee-jerk response to the word ‘our’ or merely general frustration. Grabbing Ethan’s shoes and jeans, proceeding without the man’s agreement, he tucked them under the bed. “We’ll proceed with testing once you’ve allowed your tissue to acclimatise to its current state. It’s absurd to jeapordise the procedure by sending your body into shock it can’t recover from in time. Catching sight of Ethan eyeballing the wires, he answered before he could speak. “The wires’ll stretch that far.”
“I...” Speaking was a chore. He tried again. “I doubt I’ll be able to… sleep… up here… anyw-”
He shut up.
For the second time in so many days, Ethan was lifted into Heisenberg’s arms. Before he could dwell on that fact, he was placed on the mattress without ceremony. Though his stump-limbs had already weaved themselves mostly closed, blood seeped into a dry patch of Heisenberg’s jacket, blossoming in little crimson blooms. Heisenberg deliberated for a moment after setting him down, glancing awkwardly at the blanket at the foot of the bed, before leaving to sink into his chair and start furiously scribbling. Convinced he wouldn’t sleep despite his fatigue, bloodstains stiffening on his skin, Ethan gazed at the ceiling and started to wait impatiently for the twenty minutes to be up. However, as he circled the various marks and scrapes, listening to the scratching of Heisenberg’s pen on paper with the drone of whirring machinery, sheer exhaustion began to set in. With heavy eyelids and phantom limbs curled by his sides, he began to fall.
As Ethan drifted off, he couldn’t help but notice that the old mattress felt a little more comfortable than the last time he’d lain here. The springs seemed to have eased off, no metal digging impertinently between his ribs as he shifted in place. Turning his head as best as he was able, he squinted at the broad back of Heisenberg who was sat in his chair, facing the desk. Though one arm moved with urgency – noting down findings, making calculations, drawing diagrams – one dangled at his side. Gloved fingers were held, unmoving, in a beckoning motion.
Was he…?
His eyes fell closed. Exhaustion took him.