Walter's eyes snapped open, and he found himself lying on a comfortable white bed in some kind of advanced laboratory; the kind of lab that he had become all too familiar with when he worked for Gustavo Fring.
Around him were a team of rugged-looking men and women dressed in U.S. Military uniforms and armed with various assault rifles, none of them aimed at him. At the foot of the bed was an overweight Hispanic woman dressed in a lab coat, looking back at Walter with a neutral stare.
"Welcome back to the land of the living, Mister White," the scientist said. "Or would you prefer to be called by your alias Heisenberg?"
Walter didn't reply to the woman for a moment; he took a brief look at himself, finding that he was still wearing the same clothes that he wore when he collapsed back in that superlab that Jesse had been enslaved in. He even saw that the hole in the side of his shirt, the hole where the bullet from that automatic machine gun had pierced his body, had been stitched up.
"We took the liberty of removing the bullet that would have killed you, healed your wound, and even repaired that spot on your shirt," the woman continued. "Oh, and we even eliminated your cancer."
Walter then looked back at the woman in utter surprise, as if noticing her for the first time. "Who are you?"
"I am Doctor Vierra Hernandez," the woman answered. "I am the head of the United States Military Science Division; and we brought you back because we need your help."
"Help?" Walter asked. His eyes narrowed in anger. "You want my help? Why should I possibly help you; you should have just let me fucking die! I have absolutely nothing more to live for! Everyone I ever cared about, my wife, my son, my friends and family, they all hate me now, and you think that I would be willing to go on to help you when there's absolutely no reason for me to go on?!"
"Perhaps," Hernandez continued nonchalantly. "But notwithstanding your surprising ungratefulness for us curing your cancer and offering you another chance at life-"
"Cure my cancer?!" Walter growled. "You managed to cure my cancer, and yet you never bothered to do this with me in the first place? Or anyone else in the world for that matter?"
"No one else was important enough, Mister White," Hernandez said. "Or rich enough, for that matter. And had it not been for the reveal that you were the infamous Heisenberg, the man who made the purest meth that the world had ever seen, you would have died in anonymity as someone who fluttered away his talents in chemistry as a failed high school teacher who went on to own a car wash that he had previously been fired from."
Walter was stunned silent for a moment as he stared back at Hernandez in incredulity, only to resume the dominant behaviour that he had used against Jesse, Skylar, and so many others whose lives he had ruined.
"Give me one good reason why I should continue to help you," Walter demanded.
Hernandez grinned, and then stepped out of the way, raising a remote in her hand and aiming it at the screen behind her. At the push of a button, the screen lit up, and grainy, black-and-white footage of a large, dinosaur-like monster on an empty, tropical island began playing. The monster itself was wandering around, stomping down trees in its path with abandon, and completely unaware of the camera filming it.
"This is Godzilla, Mister White," Hernandez stated. "Originally discovered back in 1954 by the Japanese, Godzilla has been a creature that we have tried to destroy with our atomic bombs." She looked back at Walter. "Did you think that those nuclear tests were just tests?" She shook her head. "We were trying to kill Godzilla. Thankfully, Godzilla hasn't come up on shore to destroy any cities yet, but in the event that he should, and since we've discovered that nukes can't kill him, we've been doing some research to find out how. And we think we may have discovered how."
Hernandez pressed another button on the remote, and the footage on the screen stopped to be replaced by a still shot of some reptilian scales. "As we had been trailing Godzilla," Hernandez continued, "we have picked up these scales that he had shed. We experimented on these scales, using multitudes of different chemicals to try to destroy them, a task that nuclear missiles had failed. Then we discovered something that could melt Godzilla's scales: methamphetamine. We had made this discovery shortly after you had become a wanted man for your activities as Heisenberg, Mister White.
"We had quite a surprisingly hard time trying to find you, but after you returned to Albuquerque, and your body was discovered by the police, we stole it away from the morgue that you had been placed in and brought you back to life."
"How long was I dead for?" Walter asked.
"A few days," Hernandez said. "Trust me, we thought the time and effort we put into you would be worth it."
"You're still not giving me why that little investment should pay off, Doctor Hernandez," Walter intoned.
"Well, think about it like this, Mister White," Hernandez said. "Should Godzilla ever attack Albuquerque, and stomp all over where your wife and children live, you'll have wasted quite a lot of time having cooked meth to make sure they had that nine billion or so dollars that you've convinced the government was donated by Elliott and Gretchen Schwartz."
Walter's eyes widened in renewed shock, and Hernandez's grin also renewed.
"Yes, we've investigated where that money came from, Mister White," Hernandez said. "Fortunately for you, we've decided not to let the Albuquerque Police Department or the DEA know of your blackmailing of the Schwartzes just for this very purpose."
Walter grimaced. "So you want me to create so much meth that it'll kill this Godzilla?"
Hernandez nodded. "And in return, I can guarantee you a pardon from the President himself for all that you've committed as Heisenberg, and you can continue on with your life."
"As if that really matters to me anymore," Walter said.
"Are you saying you're going to turn our offer down, Mister White?" Hernandez asked.
Walter raised his hands in defense. "No, no, no, I'm not, I'm not. I'll do it, if only so that you won't tell the DEA that I was the one who gave Skylar and the kids that money instead of Elliott and Gretchen!"
"Very good," Hernandez said. "Now I understand that you'll be needing a partner in this venture, Mister White. And who better than your old one?"
She then turned as the door at the other end of the room opened, and an all-too-familiar bearded twenty-something-year-old entered the room, his eyes narrowed in hatred at his former teacher and partner.
"Jesse," Walter said in weariness.
"Mister White." Jesse's tone was pure malice.
