Redemption

Preparations (Old Version)

I woke up at around 5:30 and got prepped for the day as usual, slipping out of bed and taking a quick shower before replacing my night gown with my regular uniform, smoothening out each wrinkle and making sure the choker collar wasn't too tight around my neck.

The sky outside was a beautiful crisp blue that descended into orange the closer it got to the sun which peaked out from behind greyed out buildings and a waving reflective ocean.

There was but a few clouds so it was looking to be another bright and productive day for the base.

Breathing in the sight before getting down to business, I walked over to the Commander's room and slowly opened the door so as not to wake him, I peeked through the open space and was surprised to see that he was not set in his bed like I would have expected him to be but was instead slumped over his cluttered desk with multiple books left lying open and a phone receiver loosely clutched in his hand, the dial tone repeating from it.

I chuckled a bit under my breath and snuck carefully over to his desk before taking the receiver and placing it back on it's hook and turning the light off on his desk, noting how his expression seemed to relax a bit as he mumbled in his sleep.

I was about to leave him but paused when I noticed the books he had open, the books themselves were fairly common but the pages he had them open to were very specific and obviously correlated, reports of government projects and missing people, ships that disappeared mysteriously and even one on the journalist, Miss Dorothy Kilgallen.

It was easy to assume that he was doing this to find out something regarding Miss Madeline but I hadn't a clue as to what that may be so instead of focusing on it, I placed that question on the backburner for now and continued with my morning tasks.

I snatched up his uniform and his shoes and headed out back the laundry room with them, the suit wasn't exactly at it's freshest but it could be worn another day so instead of wasting a wash on it, I simply steamed out the wrinkles and hung it on a hook to dry then I shined his shoes and made sure that no area went without shoe polish.

Then setting them aside for the moment I boiled up myself a pot of tea and read some of the morning newspaper to whittle away the time, at some point there was a phone call from the artists we hired to work on the Ourang Medan who stated that some drafts had been drawn up and were ready for viewing so I jotted down the meeting time in my notepad and went back to sipping my tea.

Until finally the clock chimed Eight-o-clock, from there I re-wrapped the newspaper with the rubber band it came with, grabbed his uniform and shoes from the laundry room and headed back up to his office.

He was still lying on his desk sleeping with the sunlight behind him peeking in through the shades so I hung his clothes back on the bar in his closet and placed his shoes underneath them, then walked on over to the blinds and opened them.

He immediately took notice and started to stir so I shook his shoulder to wake him the rest of the way up.

"Wha? What's happened?" He muttered, still hunched over.

"What's happened is that you decided to slave over a bunch of books making calls all night instead of getting the proper sleep you needed."

He stretched in his chair and a few loud cracks rang out, a frown on his face appearing shortly after.

He groaned, "Yeah, yeah. Certainly not looking forward to today."

"I bet. Go on and take a shower, we need to meet with a few of those artists and you'll want to be looking your freshest."

"Mmm, already? They called last night and said that they might be ready with something by today but I assumed they were exaggerating."

"Well they weren't. C'mon, I'll get breakfast ready while your in there."