Schadenfreude

outskirts of Cluj-Napoca · Romania · 2015

Heisenberg hated clichés, monsters supposedly belonged in abandoned industrial complexes, in defunct factories, or deep underground among the rubble and corpses, that was precisely why he didn’t live there. People always sought out horror in the most obvious places, overlooking the very things that existed right in front of them. His estate lay outside Cluj-Napoca, hidden among forests, old vineyards, and the properties of wealthy families who valued their peace and quiet. From the outside, everything looked almost boringly luxurious., dark natural stone, tall windows, well-manicured paths, no one would have suspected that several stories beneath this peaceful idyll, generators were humming, metal was vibrating under electromagnetic tension, and biomechanical creatures were being created.

For while the world believed Karl Heisenberg had perished with the village, he had long since carried on, wise enough to learn from his own downfall.

The actual facility began deep beneath the house, there, all elegance vanished, exposed pipes, flickering lights, and the monotonous pulsing of massive machines. Electricity crept through the structures, and sometimes lamps flickered simply because Heisenberg walked past them. His body was no longer an ordinary one, the Cadou had changed him, evolved him, connected him more deeply to electricity and magnetism than Miranda had ever planned, and his greatest success was already waiting for him down there.

Damien Volker had never been meant for a second life, Men like him usually died in some mission report. He had once been an elite officer, missing in action and apparently killed in the line of duty. Another name that organizations like the BSAA buried with empty platitudes while the next recruits were already being trained. When he found Volker, his body was hanging, half-crushed between concrete slabs and bent steel beams, his spine was destroyed, several organs perforated, and yet he was still alive, weak, barely perceptible, but his heart kept beating like a defiant animal that refused to die. It was precisely people like this who interested him. The first operations lasted over twenty hours, Heisenberg worked without haste, but with a pathological mania. He opened Volker’s back along the destroyed spine, excised shredded nerve pathways, and replaced them with industrial guide structures made of magnetized metal. The mechanical spine was connected directly to the central nervous system. No anesthesia would have been enough to truly eliminate this pain, and perhaps Heisenberg didn’t even want that, pain was part of it, and pain showed you that something was still alive.

Cadou parasites crawled through open wounds, fusing flesh with steel and burrowing deep into the organism, dark, metallic branches formed beneath the skin. At first, his body rejected some of the implants, pushing them back out through muscle and skin like foreign bodies that were not allowed to exist. Heisenberg simply reinserted them, over and over, until the body finally understood that resistance was futile. Karl would never forget the sound when Strigoi stood up again for the first time, bone, metal, and muscle moved simultaneously, creating something that seemed unnatural but worked. Damien wavered only briefly back then,  after that, he just stood there, breathing heavily and looking at Heisenberg as if he had understood that he would never again be part of the normal world. And in that moment, Karl decided he would no longer create soldiers, but rather he wanted successors, guardians, servants, even friends and confidants. 

“Frankenstein’s monster.”

He always joked whenever Strigoi groaned under the burden he carried and a few memories turned into emotions. 

“I thought you’d been weaned off sentimentality back then… Elite soldiers are no different from you… you didn’t have a life before this… so you’d better be grateful… you’re freer with me than you were with them…”

Strigoi was allowed to move freely through the estate, Heisenberg recognized him, saw him as a son… as part of his “family,” and the former soldier definitely meant more to him than the creatures Miranda had created, whom Heisenberg had long had to regard as his siblings. Besides, they were dead anyway… truly dead. Vampires, werewolves... supposed gods, and now he had Frankenstein’s monster by his side... he liked these comparisons.. they seemed literarily valuable in a world that resisted everything new and different, yet craved precisely those stories.

Karl found himself in his office, old leather furniture, half-empty whiskey bottles, and heavy shelves full of file folders, hard drives, and yellowed documents. One of his informants had done a thorough job again. With an amused grin, Heisenberg pulled several photos from a folder, skimmed through reports, and suddenly began to laugh with amusement.

“Oh shit… the entire support group for traumatized bioweapon hunters…”

He tossed the documents carelessly into the air. Photos sailed through the room, fluttering across the floor, and before the first sheet could even settle, Heisenberg slowly raised his hand. Nails shot through the air like bullets, the first photo crashed against the wall.

Chris Redfield, the nail pierced right through the middle of his nose.

“Huh… Captain steroid himself, at some point, he’ll just mutate into a tank all on his own, without any virus.”

The next photo flew against the wall, this time, the nail hit the corner of the picture.

“The sister… Claire… probably the only person in this crazy family with a functioning conscience. Too bad she has the same death wish as her brother.”

Before the photo had even hung properly, his finger twitched again, and Leon Kennedy was practically slammed into the wall.

“Holy shit… there’s Mr. Depression. I swear… that guy still has that Barbie haircut even when he closes his eyes.”

The next picture whirled around, Sherry Birkin.

“Hm, well, look who’s here… the little lab rat’s still alive, too.”

Finally, the last photo remained, Jill Valentine.

“Oh, I know her, that woman has survived more viruses than anyone else. At some point, she’ll probably wake up in the morning and some new parasite will politely ask if it can move in.”

The photos now hung on the wall of his office like a grotesque trophy collection. Karl took a deep drag on his cigarette and stared at the pictures in silence, then the corner of his mouth slowly twisted into a crooked smile.

“And yet you’re all still alive... you’ve got to hand it to you.”

Heisenberg was satisfied with his life, he had made a name for himself, he was successful, he was living… and he was evolving, so he had no intention of messing with this crew, even if it would be better.. they all knew too much and continued to blindly follow their orders, clinging on for dear life and unable to see that it was too late to save the world. But of course he wouldn’t let that stop him, he was too ambitious for that. Still, looking at the files… . then everyone was scattered across the world and busy anyway. Heisenberg had often wondered why they didn’t put them all on a team more often, but they’d probably either fight over leadership the whole time, kill each other... or it would be too dangerous to lose all the good agents and soldiers at once. Well... he didn’t care... everything he found merely added to his amusement.