Chapter Text
“September 15th, Subject 4A. Male, between 40 and 50 years old. Death appears to be due to animal attack.”
The gentle whirr of the tape recorder was barely audible over the ambient sounds of Heisenberg’s factory. Even here, locked away in what had once been a break room deep in the bowels of the structure, the distant clangs and groans from the ever-running machinery permeated the walls like the baying of hounds on the hunt. A single, fluorescent light buzzed overhead like a watchful bug, barely illuminating a third of the musty, dark space, unable to reveal the extent of the grime and moisture that clung to every neglected surface.
Two men – one living, one dead – were the only audience to the ominous cacophony, and neither seemed to be paying much attention.
It might have been maddening to someone used to relative peace and quiet in their home, this omnipresent chaos, but for the master of this particular domain it would have been more unnerving to not hear it. The noise meant the war machine was still in motion, which meant that Heisenberg was still bearing down on the quarry that had unfairly eluded him for decades.
The Lord of the factory paced slowly back and forth between the gurney where his newest experiment lay motionless and the makeshift desk he’d shoved haphazardly against the wall, covered in peeling greenish paint, and stained in unnerving splashes of dark brown and red. His canvas coat was tossed over the back of an orphaned steel chair, along with his hat, and his trademark shades sat perched atop his tangled mess of grey hair. He’d pushed his dirtied sleeves up to his elbows, as if it even mattered if any errant bodily fluids or oil ended up on his clothes at this point.
Tired. He was so, so tired. He looked exhausted at the best of times, but he was especially glad there were no reflective surfaces in the room right now. He imagined he looked even older than usual, a feat which certain siblings would have been more than happy to point out. So what if his beard was a tad overgrown and the bar of soap in the bathroom hadn’t even been unwrapped, yet – the most powerful Lord had shit to do, dammit!
Heisenberg rolled his shoulders, ignoring the painful pop. He’d been at this foul task for at least two hours longer than he’d promised, but if he didn’t at least record where he’d left off, he’d be even more behind when he eventually decided to give it another go. Production today had been on track for once, until this problem child had made itself known and thrown the whole thing out of whack. He prodded the cold exhaust port on the corpse’s chest with a gloved finger, hoping against all hope that the hit it until it works method would come through.
“Identity is unknown. No gravestone was in place at the time of acquisition, though given the outfit he was wearing and his build, I suspect he was a rancher of some sort.” Heisenberg paused. “You might say he… bought the farm.”
The dead man did not laugh.
It was a painfully succinct , detached summary of what was once a living, breathing human. It had to be. He had learned long ago not to treat the bodies like anything other than meat, lest what little remained of his conscience rise up and strike him like a viper . They were tools, a means to an end – nothing more. Whoever they’d been in life wasn’t really anything he cared about and why he even continued to document it was something he did not know – maybe it was old habit, maybe it was because it made the whole operation seem more legitimate in the event that Mother dearest came to check on him.
Heisenberg visibly gagged at the thought.
He didn’t have any guilt over the villagers or their fates. He neither enjoyed his necessary work as the local graverobber nor did he lose much sleep over it. At least, not these days. These days they were little more than skittering ants on the screens of his surveillance cameras. They were sheep, peons who blindly followed a deranged, obsessed woman who claimed to care about them like a real parent.
As if.
Unclenching the fist he hadn’t realized he’d made and gathering himself before he dove down that familiar rabbit hole, Heisenberg turned his attention back to the soldat in the center of the room, its mouth fixed in an eternal grimace. The headgear that was supposed to be stabilizing its neural activity just looked like a comically oversized pair of sunglasses while it lay useless like this.
Heisenberg cocked his head and considered his work. More wire and machine now than flesh, the body would have been unrecognizable to the people who’d called him a friend, a brother, a husband… maybe a father. The jagged and poorly stitched wound that carved a path from his jaw down to his shoulder hinted at the shadow of the beast that had snuffed out his life, teeth sunken into warm calloused skin. A rip, a pull, a burst of hot red.
Heisenberg heard the roar of something organic from beyond the door, mournful and lost. It started small and crescendoed into sharp claws at his ear before being suddenly and violently silenced.
He hoped the recording didn’t pick up the small, sharp inhale that he couldn’t quite suppress.
“…addendum, death was likely lycan—“ Heisenberg steadied himself, “—or vârcolac.”
God dammit. Please tell me it wasn’t…
He looked suspiciously at the poorly healed wound as if it might talk to him, reveal the answer to a question that he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Fortunately, for the second time that evening, the gravity of his task pulled him out of the chasm his mind had begun to peer into before anything could look back. Heisenberg cleared his throat and resumed his stalking, glaring at the soldat as if a firm look would make it rethink its actions – or, in this case, inactions.
“Subject has been exposed to the same conditions and procedures as previous successes. However, it has failed to animate. Cadou used was functional, so it remains to be seen what exactly this guy’s deal is. ”
Heisenberg snarled, frustration deepening and highlighting his crow’s feet and the lines of his forehead. He was not going to go on record as saying that he, in all likelihood, had gotten distracted and messed up. There were countless transcripts and tapes littered throughout the factory and too many already bore evidence of his many, many failures. He didn’t need to add another – not now, not when he knew the dawn was tantalizingly close to breaking.
The rattling of his nearby tools served as a warning that his irritation was starting to get the better of him. He inhaled slowly and sighed, feeling the magnetic pull dissipate along with his breath. The metal objects that had begun to shift and move fell dormant once again.
“Fucker,” he spat at the body for good measure. That’ll teach him.
He was certain that whatever he’d missed had to be something simple. He must have not paid attention and crossed a wire, used some recycled junk that wasn’t quite up to snuff. It was probably one of those situations where if he just walked away and came back in an hour or two, he’d spot the issue immediately.
Fresh eyes. He just needed to eat, take a nap and return with fresh eyes. That was all.
He shook his head, tsk-ed and whirled on his heel to close up shop before he changed his mind. He gave a dramatic flourish of his hand that sadly would be lost in the audio-only format.
“Subject shows no signs of awakening any time soon. I’m going to gather a few things and come back later at which point I will resume and fix the experiment. The time is 10:04pm. Ending recording.”
He didn’t mind staying up late. Not really. What was sleep deprivation to a body that was less his own and more a marionette for the gruesome parasite squirming in his chest? If he didn’t have a certain obligation waiting above – one that was bound to be exceedingly cranky with him already – he wouldn’t have hesitated to work through the night until the situation was resolved. Not that that’s what he wanted – but Heisenberg did everything with the end goal in mind. Sacrifice his energy, sanity and time now for a future that actually had some shred of hope in it. A massive risk, but one that had to pay off if the world had any sort of justice still floating around amidst the suffocating despair.
Or at least that’s what he told himself.
In truth, in the gap between stopping the tape and leaving the room, Heisenberg knew there was another reason that he had to walk away right now.
The roar. The roar hadn’t been real, and he knew it. It was when he started to hear things that he knew it was time. On this occasion it was an otherworldly howl, other times it was retreating footsteps on the metal walkways. It made no difference.
Because if he didn’t stop when he started hearing, he’d start seeing. And when he started seeing, the walls would come down against his will and he’d be left open, vulnerable like a pathetic, scrawny little boy cowering on a laboratory floor.
And he’s royally fucked if that happens.
Karl resituated his glasses to their rightful perch on his nose and snapped up his coat and hat, storming out of the room without a backward glance. The door slammed shut behind him, echoing up and down the central chamber and fleeing through the watery channels below. He stomped his way to the elevator, smashing the call button as if it had done something to personally offend him.
While he waited impatiently for the almost impossibly slow apparatus to descend, he glanced out into the expanse of his realm with a mixed sense of pride and disgust. No other man on earth could have done what he did, could even keep a place of this size running with a full workforce let alone by themselves. He knew every nook and cranny, knew all of the tunnels that snaked away from his ancestral home and spread to the far corners of the village and beyond like blackened veins. When he’d been young, he’d thought that maybe he could just follow one of those paths to its end – like it would be that easy to just walk away from this nightmare and go back to the home and parents whose faces he didn’t even remember.
God, he’d been stupid. Thank goodness he’d wised up before he’d gotten himself killed. The great irony was that the very pieces of himself that caused bile to back up his throat some nights were the same parts that had ensured his survival all these years.
He rocked on the balls of his feet, quietly anxious now that he’d been alone with his thoughts. He didn’t like being reminded of what he was; a monster, sure, but also a wild steed brought to heel and forced to serve and pace in its paddock day in and day out.
It was going to be worth it. When he finally got to reduce her to an unrecognizable pile of shredded meat, when he finally got his hands on the information in those files that he so desperately needed, it was going to be worth it.
The elevator’s rusty doors screeched open, merciful arms opening to bear him up and away from the darkness even if only for a time. He stepped onto the platform with a relieved sigh, only to immediately see that he had a welcoming committee.
“Duke,” he greeted, trying not to make eye contact with the normally jovial merchant. He hit the button for the top floor, suddenly very interested in a spot on the wall rather than his friendly but imposing companion. He could practically feel the eyes boring into the back of his neck. Karl put his old leather hat on, drawing the brim down just enough to hide whatever his face might betray.
“My dear Lord Heisenberg, do forgive me but I think you might be late.” The Duke’s voice carried a hint of criticism, not enough to be outright insulting but rather delicately peppered on top like a bitter garnish. He sat as usual amongst a confusing but somehow perfectly curated arrangement of wares, one that Karl swore adapted itself to whoever happened to be looking at the time.
Truthfully, The Duke was one of the only people Karl had met in this shithole that didn’t make him want to beat his head against the wall. Sure, he committed what was essentially highway robbery on him on a near daily basis, but he made up for it with his generally amicable company and by smuggling interesting things for him to use from time to time.
And, more recently and almost unbelievably, he had taken up the mantle of unconventional-but-generally-trustworthy babysitter with almost no resistance.
“One of the stiffs decided to throw a tantrum, that’s all,” Karl answered truthfully. “I’ll pay you for the extra hours, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Can’t this damn thing move any faster?
“No, not at all – in fact, we’ll consider it even as Miss Charlotte helped me organize my stores. She’s getting quite skilled at it, you know.”
The corners of Karl’s mustache twitched up in a proud smirk. “Yeah? Well, good. Was she uh,” Karl coughed, “was she mad? When she went to bed?”
“Ah, well – why don’t you ask her that yourself?”
Fuck. Of course.
Finally daring to look, Karl watched the Duke subtly gesture to the space behind his body. Karl crept closer and leaned around the his large frame until he spotted the tiny form glaring out from underneath an old rug in the back, looking for all the world like she was getting ready to unleash a profanity-laden tirade on him. The elevator lurched to a halt, but none of the three occupants made a move for what felt like an eternity. Guilt gnawed at Karl’s chest as usual – this was not, unfortunately, the first time they’d found themselves in this little standoff.
The Duke cleared his throat as if to say I can’t be here all night, do something, idiot.
Karl pinched the bridge of his nose, steeling his nerves. He wasn’t afraid of anything, most certainly not the wrath of someone who came up to his hip - when her hair was up.
“Aww, Lottie,” he spread his arms in what he hoped was a disarming gesture. “Don’t be like that. You know I gotta work late sometimes. I didn’t do it on purpose.”
The little girl leaned forward until her freckled face caught the dim light. She looked him up and down, her angry expression giving way to something more exasperated after taking in the full state of him. A long sigh escaped her at last before she met his gaze.
“…you’re an asshole, Papa.”