Dr. Shepard sat in his chair in the living room of the family home, struggling to hide his nervousness. Facing him, a man dressed all in black, large closed coat, hat on his head, dark glasses and scarf hiding the lower part of his face, was seated on the sofa facing him, and behind him stood two other men, dressed in suits with stern faces and appearing to act as bodyguards. The man in the hat lit a cigarette and seemed more than confident in his attitude.

_"So Doctor Shepard? Do we have an arrangement?" he asked. "You know, my boss is not a very patient person, it would be wise to give us an answer right now."

Twisting his fingers around each other, the doctor didn't know what to do, feeling like he was trapped in a web woven from thousands of invisible but very real threads.

_"I... I'm flattered that you wanted to use my services, but I gave up..."

_"Yes, we know, doctor." the man in the hat cut him off in a falsely sympathetic tone. "We're sorry for the loss of your wife, but think of the benefits this new research will bring to us. All funding will be supported by our organization, you won't have to spend anything out of pocket. And with the reward won, you and your daughter will finally be able to get out of your... well... delicate situation, what do you think?"

Doctor Shepard swallowed, still seeming to hesitate. But steps approaching from the stairs caught his attention and as he watched he could see his daughter Emily, then 12 years old, coming from her bedroom and stopping at the entrance to the living room, seeing her father in the middle of discussion with these strangers who gave her a feeling of unease when she saw them.

_"Dad?" said Emily.

_"Ah, Emily, I didn't know you were home from school already." stammered the father rather awkwardly. "Listen, go to your room please. I have to speak with these gentlemen."

Emily chooses to obey despite noticing her father's more than obvious discomfort. She went back up the stairs and first had the idea of ​​pretending and hiding to listen, but had to give up when she saw that one of the bodyguards had come to the bottom of the stairs to make sure that she was going back to her room, which she had to do. Once Emily was out of earshot, the conversation resumed.

_"Your daughter is really charming." commented the man in the hat grimly.

_"Please leave her out of this." Shepard asked. "I will do my best to help you."

_"Good, that's what I wanted to hear, doc." replied the man. "Oh and your daughter's safety will of course depend on your silence... Alright, we will send you details of your future experience as required. Recently we met a woman named Miranda and she made us discover something... truly extraordinary, which could well revolutionize the world and everything we think we know about it."

_"And I imagine that's the thing you want me to study." Shepard said.

_"Precisely." replied the man in the hat, getting up from the sofa. "Several of our teams will study different samples of this "Mold", and one of them will see if it is compatible with the future "E-001" project. As for you, you will receive the names of your team members and your instructions in due time... Enjoy, doctor..."

But as the conversation ended, little was known to all that young Emily had sneaked out of her bedroom window, crawled along the gutter to the bottom, and come to listen while hiding under the living room window...

Emily was then pulled out of her sleep by the rather loud roar of the engine and slowly opened her eyes, to find that she was still sitting in that van, now driving down a deserted road surrounded by a sleepy pine forest as the dawn was just beginning to break. The man, Heisenberg, was still here beside her, busy driving the vehicle while silently smoking yet another cigarette. Emily rubbed her eyes, her mind still half asleep as the awakening was abrupt. She remembered that day perfectly, so many years ago now...

_"Bad dream?" asked Karl then.

_"Hum...yes and no...let's say...a memory..." answered the still confused young woman.

At least she didn't feel weakened anymore and the pain had subsided, her power finally seeming to have stabilized with her organism. The suitcase was still on her knees and the USB key was in her pocket. Her thoughts then turned to that dream or memory she had had. Why dream of this? Had his subconscious shown this following her father's death or was it just a coincidence?

_"Where are we?" Emily asked then, looking at the passing scenery outside.

_"In the middle of nowhere as you can see." replied Heisenberg. "With these guys chasing you, it's better to go through the most isolated places... I let you sleep on principle and because you really didn't look in good shape. I even thought at one point you were going to die in my seat. But hey, now that you're awake, we can talk a little."

With that, he slammed on the brake on the van, stopping it on its side and startling Emily.

_"Get out of the van." asked Karl then.

_"What?"

Heisenberg then got out first, then came to open the passenger side door and grabbed Emily by the arm rather sharply to force her out, which surprised her at the moment and compelled her to come with him to the edge of the trees.

_"Hey, what are you doing? Let go of me, you're hurting my arm!" Emily demanded.

But the man remained deaf and then pinned her against the trunk of a tree, then with his magnetism control power, took control of his knife in his belt, levitating it in the air and approaching the blade of the Emily's throat, which no longer dared move.

_"Now you are going to tell me who sent you. Is it the BSAA, is that it, or another organization?" Karl asked in a calm but menacing voice.

_"I...I don't understand..." Emily said.

_"Don't make fun of me!" replied Karl, raising his voice. "Do you think I haven't noticed that you've been following me all this time? At first I thought it was funny, but it's really starting to annoy me to feel like a fucking rabbit being followed by a fox... So now , tell me what you know about us lords and what you want from us. You have 30 seconds to tell me."

Emily swallowed, feeling the cold steel of the blade against the skin of her throat. One move and she would bleed out in seconds. She could also see in this Heisenberg's gaze that he wouldn't hesitate for a moment to carry out his threat.

_"Listen, I assure you that I know nothing at all!" Emily insisted.

_"20 seconds..." growled Heisenberg.

_"No, stop, are you deaf or what? I tell you that I don't know anything!"

_"10 seconds..."

There was nothing to be done to convince him, he was far too suspicious. Was this how she was going to die? Throat slit by a stranger with supernatural power, on a lost road in a forest? Emily then seemed resigned to her fate, showing no more fear or trembling, which disconcerted Heisenberg who then stopped counting in his head.

_"You want to kill me, so go ahead..." Emily said then, looking him in the eyes, with tears in her eyes but also with a powerful defiance. "I lost everything I had overnight. My life went up in smoke and I don't even know what I am anymore... All you will do by killing me is end my suffering."

She stayed where she was, staring at him and waiting for him to act. However, he did nothing, remaining to look at her, as destabilized. In those words and that look, he had almost recognized himself... He, who when he was an innocent child, was taken from his family by Miranda and saw everything he knew go up in smoke, like if this life had never existed... His heart of flesh and metal began to beat in his chest as this memory came back to him. Hand shaking, he cut off his power, the knife falling heavily into the snow nearby. Emily was puzzled by this change in demeanor and saw him step back, head down and upper face hidden by the hat.

_"H...Heisenberg?" said Emily.

_"No... don't say anything..." he said simply, walking back to the van, having become calm again even though Emily could sense a hint of sadness in his voice.

She watched him walk away and could see that he hadn't even picked up his knife, which she did to give it back to him despite what he had nearly done to her.

Returning to the van, she could see that he was sitting behind the wheel, but hadn't started, just staring ahead of him through the windshield, looking morose and smoking another cigarette. Emily came to sit down next to him and remained quiet at first, only the wind outside blowing through the trees. But, too eager to know more, she broke this heavy silence.

_"When I told you about those lords, and seeing how you reacted..." Emily said. "You are one of them aren't you?"

_"I told you not to say anything more." growled Heisenberg.

_"Because you think this awkward silence will be better?" Emily added.

The man sighed heavily in annoyance.

_"Yeah, I'm one of them... We were four at the start... Dimitrescu, Beneviento, Moreau and myself... All of us reigned over a village in Transylvania, under the orders of a bitch named Miranda who thought she was a god and who made us fucking monsters... But everything changed the day someone arrived in the village... A man named Mathias Derune."

At the mention of that name, Emily's eyes widened and gasped in surprise.

_"Mathias?!"

_"What? You know him?!" Heisenberg asked seeing her reaction.

_"Yes. We got to know each other through social networks thanks to our common musical and fictional tastes and we quickly became good friends." Emily told. "A few years ago, we even met for real in his native country. But since the tragic death of his mother, which he explained to me, he hasn't given any news at all, as if he had completely disappeared... I was very worried about him and I was even afraid that he had committed a horrible act towards himself... But, so you are saying that he is alive?! What happened?!"

_"Oh yes, he's alive and well..." laughed Heisenberg softly, puffing out the smoke from his cigarette. "At first he was just Lady Dimitrescu's prisoner, or the big bitch as I call her. But little by little, and I still don't know how it happened, but he and she fell in love. And yes, I'm serious! But anyway, that slut of Miranda had other plans for Mathias and took a very dim view of the birth of this relationship, because, oh revelation, it turned out that this Mathias was not that 'an ordinary human but the last living descendant of a fifth lord of the village and whose trace had been intentionally erased by Miranda to prevent us from discovering the truth about what she planned to do: to sacrifice us all in order to achieve creation the perfect body that would allow her to bring her daughter back to life. But in the end, everything turned against her and we were able to defeat this dirty bitch and send her back to hell... Since that day, Mathias has remained in the valley, with his new life and the lady of his heart."

What a most unexpected story, Emily admitted to herself, but guessed that the way Heisenberg told it was sincere and had even seen it with his own eyes. Such a scenario could have come out of the imagination of Mathias himself, knowing that he was a writer. Emily also wondered what this Lady Dimitrescu who had conquered her heart might look like. Imagining Mathias thus living a sincere love made her smile gently.

_"But what I can't understand is why you absolutely want to see us." Karl added looking at her. "Or rather, from what you said, it was your father who wanted you to find us."

_"Yes..." Emily sighed thoughtfully. "And right after that, he injected something into my body against my will... I had never had such a feeling... It was like my whole body was changing inside to become something else. Since then, I feel like I'm different, having gained something while having lost another..."

_"It's the Mold." Karl then said.

_"The what?" Emily gasped.

_"It's what gives you this electrical ability, my powers of magnetism, and the other lords all have it in their body too, even Mathias. Miranda wanted to use it to play god, and obviously others are doing the same thing but on a much larger scale."

The Mold... Emily was thoughtful at this name. She didn't say anything at first and leaned over to her father's sealed black suitcase still resting on her lap. She reached into her pocket, also smelling the flash drive. Dad, what did you want? Why all this mystery? She thought, as if half expecting an answer from him from beyond, but of course no answer came. Her throat tightened as she thought about him. Everything had gone so fast and she wanted so much...

_"And so, what is this suitcase exactly?" asked Karl, intrigued.

Brought back to reality by the man's question, Emily decided to focus on the present moment.

_"No idea." she confessed. "But apparently it looks like I should bring it to the lords, along with this USB key."

Heisenberg remained perplexed as to the importance of these objects and what could be concerning the lords of the village. It all looked like a huge twisted puzzle and he didn't like to be left in the dark. Anyway, his trip around the world was in jeopardy because now that he had come to Emily's aid, the members of this organization had him in their sights, unless they had already spotted him well before, hard to say. What a shitty situation, he thought.

_"Well, sitting here trying to figure out why and how won't get us any further." he said as he started to restart the van's engine. "These guys look like they have big resources and if we stay here they'll catch us sooner or later."

The van resumed driving on the forest road in a westerly direction.

_"But... where are we going then?" Emily asked.

Karl then showed a small corner of a smile before answering.

_"We'll get reinforcements. It's time for me to go home."

But what both of them did not know was the distant but very real presence of a spy drone flying in the immensity of the sky above the forest and which, by its high-tech camera and its integrated radar, continued to follow the van at the trace with great precision and sent the images live to a private laptop computer. Sitting in front of the screen, the hooded man hidden in the shadow of his personal office gave a most satisfied laugh and almost clapped his hands. He got up and then went to his chess set placed on a small table and moved the pawns representing the knight and the queen.

_"Wonderful. The Knight and the Queen have finally move, ready to join the King and the Rook. The game is gaining in intensity... Who will win? Who will lose? All or none? Ha ha! Let's leave the wires connecting our lives deciding it..."