They had moved from the room with the monitors to an area that looked like a sick bay in a war zone. Modified bodies were strewn all over tables, parts tossed into corners. Metal chest plates, scrap and wiring scattered the bare spots between them. It should have bothered her, to see these corpses juxtaposed with metal, but she felt only curiosity; too jaded to feel anything else. They sat opposite each other at a metal worktable; the heat from the casting machine causing small beads of sweat to form on the back of her neck. She watched as he pulled wiring from a brimming box of what appeared to be junk, hair and sweat falling into his face. He separated the wires and placed them neatly in piles on the table.

"...And Moreau only got worse from there. He went back to the reservoir and kept treating people with his father, but that guy was never the same. Every day, he got worse. It's like he regressed to a toddler. He never really forgot the medical stuff, which is why Miranda probably keeps him around. I won't be surprised if one day he regresses into a blob of slime."

"So what happened to the girl, the one Moreau was supposed to marry?"

Biting down on an elastic band, he responded through clenched teeth, "How the hell would I know? Probably took one sniff of the guy and ran off." Running his fingers through his hair, he laced it back and away from his face, securing it with the band. Celia tried not to stare at his jawline as the orange glow of the furnace lit the sheen of sweat there.

"What about his father, didn't he know what was going on?"

"Guy 'disappeared'...you know what that means?"

She shook her head.

"Most likely another Lycan."

"He was killed by one, or he is one?"

Karl shrugged. "Take your pick."

Celia picked up a wire from the pile he was separating to study it as she spoke. "It's like, everything they had was taken from them." She instantly regretted that she had said, 'them', as if he had not lost things dear to him.

"Yeah, starting to see the fucking trend, huh kid?" He swept a few of the wire harnesses to the ground and tossed another group over to a table loaded up with a body. She was surprised it didn't smell worse in the small, hot room. Did he treat the bodies with a chemical to stop them from breaking down?

"Are you making another one of those...things I saw down in the hallway? Sturms?"

"Ha!" He barked, rolling his shoulders as if she should have known what a silly concept that was. "No. These are a different model. Though Sturm is a goddamn powerhouse, he's completely unpredictable, a special experiment. These are my real pride and joy. Soldats. Weapons. I'm going to use them to end Miranda. I'm building an army."

The proclamation didn't offput her any more than the idea of the mutilated corpses surrounding them. She stared at the body on the adjoining table. They looked like the bodies hanging on the belts she saw on the way here. An army indeed. "So, what's up with all the conveyers. I mean...I thought this was all done automatically and some machine was just...spitting them out."

"Ha! You think a machine can do what I can?" He smirked, "Nothing on earth can replicate these fingers."

She would have blushed at that, but the heat in the room had her cheeks flushed red without the help of innuendos. "Those conveyers serve a purpose. And you're only half wrong. There's an automated component to the process – but it's for the armor and headgear and stamping of circuits. The bodies...well...that requires a more refined touch. The conveyers keep the bodies moving. It helps keep them viable."

"Do you really think it will take all of those soldiers to take out Miranda?"

"How well did it work out when you tried?"

Touche.

"So. What's a nice girl like you doing in a shithole like this, anyway?"

"Don't I have you to thank for that?" Celia cast him a smirk, which he returned with a chuckle. She continued, "Well, the assignment was to take out Miranda. We, my partner and I, were escorts for the van that Rose, Ethan and Mia were in. But, you already know all that. Why am I here? Because I was following someone. Someone I believe...believed in." She corrected herself. "I was part of a larger organization, the BSAA, basically a Bioterrorism security force. We kind of went rogue. Chris really masterminded the whole operation, so I'm not sure of all the details – our backer."

"And you think this 'backer' is funding your little exercise for the good of the world?" The implication was there, that it didn't just end with Miranda.

"Chris wouldn't be part of something that wasn't." She tried to sound convincing, but something in the back of her mind made her question just how convinced she really was. She continued. "He would never knowingly be part of something." Of that, she was sure.

He shook his head, letting out a chuckle, but didn't respond.

It didn't matter, either way.

Sensing she needed a distraction, Karl cleared his throat. "You want to make yourself useful?"

"Ok."

"See that pile of shit over there? All those parts? Grab me a few metal plates. Try to find ones on the thicker side."

She walked around the small room to the box that he had pointed out, but as she got close to the casting machine she slowed. "How does it work?"

"Don't get too close, unless you want to burn your eyebrows off."

He approached her from behind. "See that up there? It's heating the metal. It gets poured down here, into a case that holds a mold and...hold on." He turned from her and walked backed to the opposite side of the room where he dug out a metal box. "Let me show you."

Placing it in the machine, he pulled out his glasses from his shirt and pushed them over the bridge of his nose before pulling the lever. He stopped back as it groaned to life, and without warning he reached forward and grabbed her by the hips before pulling her back slightly with him. "Like I said, don't want to be too close." She waited for him to shift his body away, but it stayed tight to hers as they watched the machine sandwich the metal closed. Their faces lit amber by the glow of the heat as a cast iron pot tipped forward; filling the mold with hot, molten metal.

Celia could relate to the feeling.

After a few minutes, the process was complete. The mold was cooled and from inside the suitcase like apparatus, sat a beautifully formed relief of a horse.

"How do we remove it, do we need gloves, or – "

He laughed, breaking their contact. "Doll, please!" She watched as it rose from the mold and floated above them towards the metal table beside her. As it traveled from the case past her chest, she felt a slight, yet indescribable wave of pressure pass through her.

"Impressive." She reached her hand out to run her fingers over the details, momentarily distracted from their closeness.

"Hey! It's still warm. Watch it."

She lifted the emblem, small enough to fit in her palm.

"Can I keep it?"

"Knock yourself out."

Celia slipped it into her bag before resuming her assignment.

The box was huge, more like a crate really with the ability to hold a few of her inside. Wondering if it ever held bodies, she knelt by it, trying not to cut herself as she sifted through the scrap. Almost immediately, her fingers slid across something solid. There were 5 or 6 squares shallowly hidden by wires. Pulling them out of the fray to inspect closer, she saw that they were not smooth and bare, they resembled the lid on the flask that Karl had given her to smuggle out of the castle. There were multiples, some with missing details, some with bent or crooked edges.

"Hey. What are these symbols?"

He barely cast a glance up from the table. "Crests. Well, those were the rejects. I saw you admiring my work at the castle. Made the whole set! I didn't have a lot of time, so I fucked up a few of them. She had me make lids for each of the four flasks, the crest from every house." She heard the scrape of the chair against the floor as he made his way over to her. He stuck his arm out, palm up as if to ask her to hand it to him. "This one is Alcina's. Flowers, swords & shield. That one, the Mermaid. That's Moreau. That one gets me every time!" He laughed as he continued, "A fucking mermaid all right, half fish, half man! But Miranda forgot to specify which part!" He tossed the steel lid back into the pile and pointed to another plate. "The next one there, the sun and moon is House Beneviento. That place is pretty creepy."

From her kneeling position on the dirty floor, Celia held up the last one. A horse surrounded by a horseshoe, just like the one he had cast for her. She nodded in his direction as if to indicate the obvious, and he returned it. The details on the horse were beautiful, making her think of something untamed, powerful, and raw. "I like it. It... matches you." Was all she could think to say.

Karl folded his arms, just staring at the imperfect lid in her hand. Did he take that as a compliment or insult?

Celia studied him. His face was a mask, but his gaze over the rim of his glasses struck her. Something was bothering him. Before she could ask, he spoke. "See. I can't understand why she did what she did. Why give us each a flask? Why not keep them all? It doesn't make any sense."

It was a good point. "Maybe she wanted you to feel like you were part of the ceremony?"

"You sound as delusional as Moreau!"

"Ok, so what do you think?"

"I'd honestly feel better knowing she handed me a goddamn bomb. At least I would know her angle."

Celia rooted through the crate once again while he stood, silent. "So, you told me about the others. That just leaves you and Alcina."

"Her? That giant, stuffy, backstabbing, conceited, blood-sucking, man-hating bitch? What's there to know? She was Miranda's first pet...no brain in her head. When she's not sucking Miranda's dick, she's cutting them off men she lures into those dungeons of hers. Her, and those harpies she calls daughters. Not much else to say."

He looked disgusted, but also like he did, indeed, have more to say. Celia wanted to press him, to ask about her history...their history, but this was an obvious sore spot for him. So she moved on, changing tactics. "I guess that just leaves you." She spoke slowly, playfully, looking up at him with innocent eyes. "What's your story, Karl Heisenberg...the great iron steed?"

That caught his attention. Keeping hard eye contact and arms still crossed, he leaned forward as he spoke. "Hm. So you're saying want to know more about me?"

He took a step towards her and Celia suddenly became painfully aware of her awkward position on her knees in front of him. He rubbed his hands together; the sound of leather flexing sent a chill down her spine.

God it's really hot in here.

"Yes."

Abruptly, he took another step forward, dropping to one knee. As low as he was, his height was still imposing to her, made even more so by how close his nose came to touching hers. It set her heart ablaze in her chest as she tried to even out her breathing.

His gaze burned into her; silver steel and black. Raw. Powerful. "I guess you'll have to stick around and find out." He remained there, lips inches away.

As Celia closed her eyes, the shrill, violent sound of an alarm blasted through the quiet moment, tearing them apart.