Imperium

Chapter 15: Promise

Edith eats from her bowl of ramen vigorously, while CLive just watches her with a smile as he takes small bites from his own bowl. The benches lining the train car occasionally bump and rock, but it's tolerable enough. At least for CLive. He's fairly certain the real reason she's eating so fast is because she's trying to combat the nausea trying to surface from the unsteady motions around her. He hopes she's aware of the fact that if she's still nauseous by the time she's done eating, she is most definitely going to throw up with how much she's consuming all at once.

With the abundance of ramen packets, they were also able to locate a magical thing that Edith hasn't had for a long time, coffee. CLive has never been the biggest fan of coffee, too bitter, but that also seems to be the only thing to drink on this train. Ramen and coffee. He thinks he's starting to get a better understanding of what kind of person May McElroy is.

"Hey, doll. Sure you don't wanna slow down a bit? You know that as soon as you're done, you're going to—"

She brings her finger to his lips. "Hush! I must not show fear to the sickness, else I let it win!" she states and continues shoveling ramen into her mouth, occasionally taking a brief pause for a sip of coffee.

CLive clears his throat. "Um... I think the caffeine is gettin' to ya. I haven't seen you this energized in a long time," he says and slowly tries to pull her mug away, but she snatches it back.

"Come on, CLive! Coffee is pretty much just chocolate milk with superpowers! Let me have this!" Without waiting for any kind of response, she starts guzzling it until it empties and she slams it back down.

He sighs and shakes his head with a grin. "And this is how we die... Well, you can't be much worse than Regan the one time he had coffee," he chuckles and takes another bite of his own ramen.

Edith perks up and turns towards him with an eager gaze. "Come on, don't stop there," she nudges him as she also continues eating.

He shakes his head as he remembers. "Back in Unity, I was always the SRL 'servant' that Regan requested since he was the only one of the scientists who was actually nice to me. Well, one time he had me bring him a coffee instead of tea because he was working on something that he needed more energy for, but..." he clears his throat and slowly takes a bite of ramen.

"What happened?" Edith asks with a grin.

CLive shrugs and scratches the back of his head. "That's the funny thing... I don't know what happened exactly, but I do remember the next morning when I came back and had to help with the fire damage," he chuckles and rolls his eyes.

Edith nearly chokes over a noodle and she covers her mouth as she coughs. "What? What did he do?" she questions.

CLive shrugs again. "I dunno. According to him, it was all a blur. But from that point on, he was forbidden from having any more coffee. Probably for the best. Less collateral damage is better for everyone," he says and eats some more.

Edith laughs and shakes her head. "Holy shit, I need to hear more stories of you and Regan from Unity. So far I know you crashed a car into a duck pond and Regan apparently committed coffee-induced arson. What other chaotic bullshit did you guys do?" she asks and also keeps eating.

He sighs and shakes his head. "Sadly, not many of our Unity memories are happy ones. Most of it was hell, just with an occasional incident that could be considered comedic now that it's over. It's funny looking back at the 'coffee incident' now, but... I felt bad for Regan when he was punished for it," he looks down and stares at his mug.

Edith's face softens. "What... did Unity do to punish the scientists, actually? I know what they did to the SRL, but what about the humans?" she asks hesitantly, momentarily stopping her frenzied eating.