Imperium

Chapter 11: Game

May checks her rusted clock made from wood and bronze gears and grumbles as she sees that another hour has gone by with no word from either Colin or J. She's gotten all five locks undone on Edith, but without the materials she needs, she can't fix her EPC. The shipyard is no more than a half hour walk from here and they took the car. Getting in and out with the supplies should be no issue with J's Hex ability, so she was expecting them back at least before dawn, but it's now 9 o'clock in the morning and there's been no word.

At 9:30, May decides to stop sitting around doing nothing but wait and returns to her workshop to see Edith still laying on her table. She walks over to a shelf and reaches into a box, pulling out a roll of duct tape and ripping off a piece, bringing it over to Edith and carefully plastering it across the crack split through the front of her glowing core.

She grabs what medical supplies she has and begins stitching up the wounds instead of just leaving her wide open longer than she has to be, and once she's gotten her closed up, she takes a clean rag, wets it from a water bottle, and starts cleaning the blood off of Edith's body.

Once she's all done fixing and cleaning her up, she goes back to her command room and waits.

Edith feels her entire body tremble as her senses slowly begin to return and she feels stiff and sore, as well as a tingle in her arms and legs. There's also a sharp pain in the center of her chest that she can't tell what it is. It doesn't burn like her EPC normally does when it's in pain, but it's like she's being stabbed in the heart with a bunch of tiny needles. It's not enough to send her into agonizing pain, but it's certainly far from any form of comfortable.

She groans frigidly as she rolls her head from side to side, getting used to the feeling of movement again before laying her head flat and blinking her eyes open, squinting and turning her head away as a bright light from a lamp fills her view.

She peers over and her eyes dodge around the room, slowly increasing the pace of her breathing and her eyes widen a bit as she realizes she isn't anywhere she recognizes and she's alone. Not just alone, but cold and laying on a wooden table surrounded by strange machines and parts. She looks down at herself to see that she is completely naked, filling her with fear and questions as to what the hell happened while she was out.

She also sees that along her body are deep cuts patched with stitches and some bandages. There are a few patches of blood here and there that it seems whoever tried to clean her missed.

She takes a few shuddering, unstable deep breaths before placing her hands flat on the table beneath her and bracing herself before using her fleeting strength to push herself to sit up, supposing she should be grateful that she wasn't strapped down at least.

At first, she would fear that maybe the Imperium caught her and they've done something to her, but from what she's seen of the Imperium, they're probably more organized than whoever lives here. She can hear machines and ticking, whirring steam through pipes in the walls.

She scans her eyes around the large circular room and is unable to locate her clothes, but she does see a rattled blanket stuffed in a box on the top level of a shelf across the room.

But before even getting up, her first priority is to place her hands against her stomach and hold her breath, fearing that something may have happened to her baby, but she allows a fraction of her tension to ease when she feels the tiny heartbeat against her palms.

She takes another reassuring deep breath and shifts her body so her legs hang off the side of the table. She carefully slides forward and lowers to the ground one foot at a time. Her feet touch the cold stone surface and the moment she lets her legs take over supporting her weight, her knees buckle and she collapses forward with a grunt and a whine.