Heartman is later present during Die-Hardman's presidential inauguration as the United Cities of America is formally recognized as a nation made whole, initially in a coma after a cardiac arrest, awakens when Sam leaves the room.Īfter countless trips to the Beach, he reasoned that with each person's Beach being unique, not even death would allow him to be reunited with his family, so he gave up his quest, realizing that it would change nothing. During the month in which Sam was lost, isolated, on his Beach, after preventing the Last Stranding and saying goodbye to Amelie, Heartman, with the help of Mama, searched all the Beaches for the presence of his friend, eventually found thanks to the presence of Die-Hardman's gun. Here Heartman asks Sam to return east, to rescue Amelie, kidnapped by Cliff, and taken to the Beach, but Fragile is too weak, with the Beachs too unstable for jumping, to carry him too, so he is forced to walk back. With the start of the Sixth Extinction, Fragile transports Heartman, Deadman and Lockne to Capital Knot City to come up with a plan. Not trusting Die-Hardman the conversation is not recorded.
Suggesting a possible Sixth Extinction, and the presence of umbilical cords in five undecomposed ancient entities, Heartman suspects that Bridget, and consequently Amelie as well, is an Extinction Entity, like the previous creatures.
When Sam connects his colleagues to the network, Heartman confides to Sam that Mama's dead cells were full of chiralium, and that her daughter, although a BT, was her soul, so the body does not decompose, a condition similar to Bridget. After a cardiac arrest, Heartman asks Sam to connect to the network the research centers of the scientists of the first expedition intent on studying the earth before the Death Stranding, and the secondary station near Edge Knot City.
In the laboratory Heartman tells his story to Sam, then moves on to examine Mama's body and then Bridget's umbilical cord, a cord that Heartman immediately realizes is not human but more that of a BT. When all that remains for Sam is to add his lab to the Chiral Network, Heartman requested him the Soldier's military dog tags, which Sam brought back from the Beach, Mama's body, which shows no signs of necrosis, and, in secret, President Bridget's umbilical cord. Once installed in the area north of Mountain Knot City, the team of scientists began to reveal an anomaly in the tar belt around Edge Knot City, tar that surfaced to the surface, devouring Heartma's colleagues and a secondary station, essential for expand the Chiral Network to the west thus remaining disconnected. Like all the other members, however, Heartman has never met Amelie in person, as she is part of the advanced team. Day after day, Heartman visited the Beach without ever finding them, but the repeated cardiac arrests damaged his heart, deforming it, thus acquiring the nickname of "Heartman, the Beach scientist".īecoming a Beach expert, Heartman is hired by Bridges and chosen as a member of the first expedition, led by Amelie, to connect communities to the newly Chiral Network, and study the Beach and Death Stranding. Heartman never came to terms with the loss of his family, so he began purposefully repeating that experience obsessively searching the Beach for his wife and daughter, seeking to "move on" with them, stopping his heart for three minutes.
However, the ICU's emergency generator activated, allowing the defibrillator to re-start his heart and forcibly return him to the living world. Heartman found himself on the Beach, surrounded by the souls of the newly deceased, including his family. The hospital was not directly affected, but the shock wave caused the power to fail, and with it Heartman's life support. Heartman began his studies of the Beach after losing his family in a unique manner: while he was at a hospital undergoing heart surgery, his wife and daughter returned home to retrieve something for him - only to find themselves caught in two simultaneous voidouts which left a heart-shaped crater.