Imperium

Chapter 10: Coin Toss

Colin hears the clinking of May's tools and the crackling of the wheels on her stool rolling across the somewhat gravely stone floor, but he keeps his back turned and slowly walks around, examining the shelves lining the circular room to keep his attention diverted away from Edith.

For the procedure and the sake of repairing her locked systems, May had made it clear that it's necessary to do full-on surgery on Edith, which means she had to remove her clothes so Colin has made it his top priority to not look at her. He knows that he, as CLive, has seen her undressed before, but it still feels wrong to look at her without her permission, especially now that he is kind of technically a different person.

He saw the way May analyzed the issue with Edith once she had a better understanding of what to do, so he trusts her to be able to fix her. Apparently there are five physical locks located across Edith's endoskeleton that need to be corrected. It's not the official way to unlock an SRL, but it's better than trying to ask Fritz for help.

He eyes the boxes of various equipment and blueprints, amazed how efficient this woman is with machinery, despite being what seems to be the complete opposite of Regan. While Regan is very calculated and organized, May is more loose and messy, but her work still gives astonishing results. She has blueprints for prosthetic limbs, computers, appliances, and some things that he couldn't even begin to guess what they do. For example, he found a weird metal stick with a ball on the end that vibrates when it's switched on, which he has no clue what it's for. Maybe it's a cooking thing.

"How long have you been set up here?" Colin asks as he makes his way around the edge of the workshop.

May doesn't pull her eyes off of Edith and wipes a bit of blood off her hands with a cloth that she sets back on the table beside Edith. "Do you mean here as in this place in Tratend, or here as in my underground system of workshops across the continent?" she asks and presses a button on the side of her goggles.

Colin tilts his head and eyes another box of blueprints. "Both, I guess. Seems like a tough life, living away from society and being stuck underground like this," he says.

"Ah hell no, I love it. People fucking suck. I'd much rather stick to my machines and shop. I found this old subway station when I was twelve and I managed to get the train up and running, giving me easy access to every city, minus the Bastion since the Imperium would never allow public transport to reach their precious island. This particular spot in Tratend, I set up about... ten years ago, I think. One tends to lose track of time underground," May explains and reaches for a screwdriver.

Colin cocks a brow. "Twelve? Damn. Didn't you have family?"

"Yeah. I did," she says.

He moves onto the next shelf. "What happened to them?" he asks.

"The Imperium," May deadpans.

Colin slowly nods and looks down. "I'm sorry. I know that couldn't have been easy at such a young—"

"I'mma stop you right there. Save the pity party for someone who wants it. But thanks, I guess, for having emotions or whatever," May shrugs. "After I was alone, I was recruited by a group of people I thought I could get behind called the 'Old-World Coalition'. They were against the Imperium so I joined up, but really they just reminded me of exactly why I hate people so much. Hating the Imperium is fine, but hating the existence of anything new is a bit of a dick move," she explains with an irritated frown.

Colin nods again and he keeps walking around the workshop. He's curious about this Old-World Coalition group, especially seeing as they're apparently enemies of the Imperium. But if they hate new things, he doubts they'll be all that accepting of synthetic people from an outside continent that's very existence is dedicated to the advancement of technology. Still an interesting thought though, but he opts to leave it at that. They already have an agenda, no need to get sidetracked.