Chapter 91: Karl Heisenberg: Distinguished Gentleman
A dim factory space.
Ada came back to herself slowly, wrapped in nothing but a torn piece of burlap.
The moment her eyes opened, a wave of pain rolled through her head like water hitting a wall.
She lay with her brow drawn tight against it and waited.
After some time, the pain receded.
She opened her eyes again, just barely.
What she saw was the interior of a meat processing plant, abandoned long enough that everything in it had taken on the quality of something that had given up. Half-split pig carcasses still hung from hooks where they had been left. A cluster of large cutting tables sat piled in a corner, untouched for years.
Ada herself had been suspended from the ceiling at the center of the space, her body wrapped from head to foot in metal, coiled in overlapping layers like a cocoon of steel threads. She swayed faintly with each attempt to move.
She took stock of her surroundings.
The facility's identifying markings had faded past the point of reading. Wherever she was, she couldn't determine it from inside the room.
She looked down at herself.
"Oh good. You're awake."
A figure moved out of the area behind her, unhurried. His manner had the particular ease of someone who had decided in advance that nothing about this situation was especially serious.
He looked like something from the 1960s. Round black glasses on his nose. Leather jacket. A cowboy hat on his head. A massive hammer built from metal gears and mechanical components hung from one hand. A lit cigarette sat in the corner of his mouth.
He tilted his head back to look up at her.
"And how does it feel, being wrapped in metal? Are you frightened?"
Ada appeared to give this genuine consideration.
"Frightened? Not particularly. It's actually not bad." She looked at him. "Would you like to try it yourself?"
Faced with an ambush, a hundred-meter drag across asphalt, and captivity in an abandoned slaughterhouse, Ada's first response to the man who had done it was to return his question.
She had also noticed that the cigarette in his mouth appeared to be the same brand as the one that had sailed out of the tree line and lit her fuel on fire. She didn't smoke, but the look of it was distinctive.
So he was the one responsible.
Or at least one of the people responsible.
Heisenberg looked up at her turning slowly on her cables and the corner of his mouth curved.
"Ha. No need. Funny woman."
"Hungry? I've got bread. Fresh from the street."
He reached into his jacket and produced a piece of bread with the structural integrity of something that had been dry for some time. He held it up for her to see.
Ada looked at it. Under normal circumstances she would have walked past it without a second glance. Under present circumstances she gave him a small smile.
"Could I have some? And water, if there is any."
"Water?" Heisenberg was straightforward about it. "Of course."
He crooked a finger.
The metal water bottle sitting ten meters away flew across the room and landed in his palm.
Ada's focus snapped sharply into place.
In the space between seeing it move and landing, she had already put together the image of her car being folded in on itself in an instant on a dark road.
Him. It had been him.
What he did next was equally startling. He raised his hand, closed it around the metal surrounding Ada from across the air, and hauled downward.
The cables attached to her cocoon pulled taut, drawing her through the air toward him until she was at a manageable height.
"Don't worry. We're not going to hurt you." He said it with the tone of someone who might mean it. "At least not before that woman gets what she wants."
"Mind your words." Alcina's voice came from the dark somewhere behind him, unhurried and cool. "She is our mother."
Heisenberg made a sound that communicated exactly what he thought of that.
"She's your mother. Don't include me."
He set the hammer down and tore off a piece of bread for Ada.
"Does she actually acknowledge you as her children when you're not useful to her?" He looked toward Alcina without warmth.
Alcina said nothing. She produced a long, narrow pipe from somewhere, lit it, and drew on it in silence.
Heisenberg took her silence as confirmation and his expression shifted into something sharper.
"From what I've heard, the new security chief over at Umbrella is worth paying attention to. She wouldn't have brought all three of us out here otherwise."
"If your beloved mother can't win this one, I'd be curious to see how long you keep that face on."
He tore another piece of bread and brought it to Ada.
"If you want my honest read, Alcina Dimitrescu, you'd be doing yourself a favor not to put everything on a single outcome. If it goes the wrong way, you won't have anything left."
"Enough!" Alcina's voice cracked like something snapping. Her nails extended in an instant, five sharp points.
"I will not hear you speak about my mother that way." Her eyes were cold and direct. "Say anything like that again and I will kill you."
"Oh. I'm terrified."
Heisenberg's body language suggested the opposite. He twisted slightly in mock alarm, then turned back to Ada as Alcina moved away.
"For what it's worth," he said, quieter now, "I actually want your boss to come out of this alive. Come out on top, even."
"If that happens, I get to walk out from under her control and live however I want."
He looked at Ada. "But how realistic is that, do you think?"
Ada swallowed the bread she'd been given.
"If we cooperate, I'd say it's quite realistic."
"Cooperate." He gave a short laugh and dropped his voice. "Meaning you want me to let you go right now."
"What do you think?" Ada met his eyes.
Both of them turning the same question over.
After a moment, Heisenberg shrugged.
"Honestly, I agree with you."
"But I'm going to watch a little longer before I commit. Make sure I'm reading the situation correctly."
"After all, what if your boss turns out to be all surface? That's possible too, isn't it."
He paused.
"Bottom line: if things go in your favor, I'll help you. If things go in her favor, I'll help her."
He pushed the last of the bread into Ada's mouth and gave her the rest of the water.
Then he dusted the crumbs from his hands, pulled a sheet of metal from a nearby machine with a gesture, and sealed it around Ada's head, leaving two small openings for air.
Outside Ada's villa.
Miranda stood at the perimeter wall and watched the security patrol approaching from the far end of the path.
She had Ada's face. Ada's build. Every detail Ada's.
The patrol captain reached her, checked her face against what he knew, and opened the gate.
Miranda allowed herself a quiet satisfaction.
It was going smoothly.
In the days ahead she would use this appearance to move as Matthew's most trusted assistant.
She would find the right moment.
And then she would kill him.
And Ada Wong would take the blame for it.