Fallen branches and leaves crackle beneath the tires of the Cadillac as Colin slowly maneuvers his way through the forest. They've been moving in the same direction for about an hour already, driving through nothing but an empty forest. The sun is already starting to go down, making Colin grow more anxious about getting lost in the dark.
Meanwhile J doesn't have a care in the world as she sits in the passenger seat, belting out the lyrics to 'What is Love' by Haddaway, even though the song playing on the radio is 'Why Do Fools Fall in Love' by Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers. At this point, he doesn't bother questioning her. He just wants to help Edith and be on their way.
To keep himself from getting too angry, he just tries to imagine J as Data, since they're actually kinda similar in a terrifying kind of way. That gives him some small bit of comfort, despite having never been able to hold a conversation with Data before she got him so flustered that he would ask Edith to save him. J is sort of like that, only with superpowers to make things seem real that aren't.
He scans his eyes over the forest as he keeps driving, thinking he might be getting the hang of it so long as he keeps going slow. He still sees nothing, which is probably the most irritating thing about this whole thing. J said it wouldn't take too long to get there, and yet nothing has come up since they started driving.
"Are you sure this is the way?" Colin asks, turning down the volume on the radio which doesn't get J to lower her voice one fraction of a decibel and she doesn't hear him.
He sighs and taps her shoulder. "J."
"BABY DON'T HURT ME, DON'T HURT ME! NO MORE!" she turns and sees his deadpan face, instantly shutting her mouth and tilting her head. "Huh, what?" she asks.
Colin turns his attention forward again so as to not crash because he tried to understand J while driving. "I asked if you're sure this is the right way. It seems like we're not getting anywhere and at this point, I'm starting to think you might be trying to lead me into a trap or something," he mumbles.
J laughs and pats his shoulder. "Nah, you can trust good ol' J—"
"I don't," Colin deadpans. "I'm fully expecting you to double-cross me at the end of this."
She huffs and snatches the fedora off his head, placing it atop her top hat. "Come on, I'm not a bad guy. I'm just chaotic enough to cause you trouble," she smiles sweetly and bats her eyelashes, but he just flashes her an unconvinced glare which gets her to roll her eyes. "Look, do you wanna get help for sugartits back there or not?" she crosses her arms.
Colin sighs for probably the millionth time since they started driving. "Of course I want to help Edith. Which is why I'm not sure if I should keep trusting your word about this supposed 'technician'," he states.
"Don't worry Loverboy, it's not too much farther," J says, then stops and looks out the windows. "Oh wait, I think you passed it."
Colin hits the breaks and lowers his head to rest on top of the steering wheel this time to not set off the horn and feels his will physically leave his body. He just wants to help Edith. That's all he wants. Why is he being punished?
J unbuckles herself and jumps up to perch in her seat. "We can walk to it from here! You carry 'Sleeping Computey' and I'll lead the way!" she says and rolls down the window on her side, diving out and landing on the forest floor. "Fuck, I think a rock went up my ass!" she growls and stands up.
Colin takes a deep breath in and closes his eyes, sitting up straight and letting himself relax. "Deep breath in..." he mentally counts to three, "and out..." he repeats the process until he feels calm enough to keep going. Now having a mind means he can finally use those meditation techniques that Peace was teaching CLive about.
He thinks that maybe the meditation itself doesn't help as much as the memory does. That was honestly the first time he was actually able to spend some quality time with Peace, which was quite uplifting after losing John. Even though Edith was away in Idyll at the time, he was still able to feel a sense of home.
Even when Regan and Data interrupted.
"Well, Loverboy? You comin' or what?" J pokes her head in through the window, upside down from atop the roof of the car.
Colin opens his eyes and nods, shutting off the vehicle and getting out. He retrieves Edith from the backseat and carefully lifts her into his arms, letting her head rest against his shoulder as he makes his way over to J. "Lead the way," he says.
J giggles and sidles up a little closer to him, staring at Edith with a giddy smile. "Aww, she's so cute when she's not dead! Be sure to keep 'er that way!" she snaps her fingers and the fedora on top of her top hat poofs out in a pink mist, then reappears atop Colin's head.
He sighs again and nods. "That's the plan."
J claps and steps back. She stands still for a moment, then jumps into the air with a front flip, also poofing out and when the pink smoke disperses, a small brown monkey wearing a tiny top hat is in her place and she climbs up onto Colin's head, pointing him east.
"That way, Loverboy!" she says.
He wishes he could say that's the weirdest thing he's seen her do, but earlier today he saw her disguised as a hobo pirate man who was gremlin crouched atop a jukebox that wasn't even real and she threw a wad of cash at him.
He takes one last deep breath before walking through the dusk forest.
"Here we are!" monkey J exclaims and jumps off of his hat, running forward and stopping in the middle of some trees.
Colin tilts his head and looks around as he slowly approaches, seeing nothing but trees. The walk here was much shorter than the drive. It only took about ten minutes, but he supposes it's a good thing they left the car since this part of the forest seems too dense to try maneuvering a vehicle through.
"Where is here?" he asks cautiously, trying to stay vigilant in case this turns out to be an ambush.
"Here is here! And we are here where we're near our destination!" monkey J rushes over to a large tree and climbs up the trunk, swinging from branch to branch until she vanishes into the leaves.
Colin stays standing in place, momentarily wondering if he's made good choices in his life and if this is one of them. He's starting to think not, but feeling Edith unnervingly motionless in his arms makes him set aside his doubts and allow himself to have faith that everything will be okay. If he starts being cynical about every choice he makes, they probably won't get very far. He has to stay positive.
He hears a metallic 'clink' sound come from up above, when monkey J freefalls back down, bouncing off Colin's fedora and flipping forward to land on the ground. She rushes back over to him and shoves him at his knees.
"Step back just a little bit..." she says and he complies, waiting to see what the hell is happening. He backs up until she grabs his pantleg. "Perfect! Now just stand there and don't move, trust me!"
"The amount of times you've told me to trust you isn't exactly reassuring," Colin says.
Monkey J rushes to stand a few feet behind him. "It'll be fine! You'll see!" she says and reaches for something at the base of a tree near her. She punches the trunk and a soft metal bang rings out. A small square cutout at the base of the tree flips open, revealing an array of buttons and J presses a few. "Just... hold on tight to sweetcheeks, kay? Got it? Good!" she hits another button.
Colin eyes her quizzically. "What are you—"
The ground beneath him instantly drops and his legs nearly give out, but once the initial rush settles, the motion feels a little smoother and he's able to compose himself enough to register what's happening around him. He's in an elevator of sorts with rusted metal walls and the platform beneath his feet is covered in fake grass and leaves, hiding the metal under the surface. The platform is just a little faster than a normal elevator, and a bit more rickety, making him somewhat relieved that Edith is unable to get motion sickness while locked up, and that he is physically incapable of experiencing nausea.
There's a pink puff of mist over his shoulder and when he looks over, he sees that monkey J is back. He glares at her with a frown. "I take it some warning would have killed the suspense?" he mutters.
Monkey J shrugs. "I told you to hold onto her, didn't I?"
"Well, yeah but—"
"Exactly, so quit your complaining! We're almost there!" she hops off his shoulder and poofs back into a human before her feet hit the ground, and she stands with her back straight and her head high, staring forward with a carefree smile.
Colin sighs and readjusts his hold on Edith, hoisting her up a little and also staring forward as they descend further down into the earth. "You'd better not be just wasting our time," he mumbles.
J keeps her eyes forward and her smile innocent. "If you really think about it, we're all just wasting time until the day we inevitably die," she says frankly.
Colin pauses for a moment as they stand in complete silence before just slowly looking down at her in deep contemplation but she keeps her eyes and smile forward as they reach the bottom. The platform stops and in front of them is a rusted metal elevator gate that slides open, letting them through into a long room that's been taken by the elements for what looks to be decades, if not more.
It's a stone room with two separate sides, and in the middle is a track with rusted rails that extend into the walls down tunnels that go on for miles in both directions. It's decently dark; the only lights being from dim bulbs that contain blue flames that buzz from the electric currents zipping through the wires that link them all together. There are a number of metal plated doors with gears instead of handles.
J starts walking towards the door to their right. This particular door also has a small slot at eye level. She knocks with both fists, drumming the beat to 'What is Love' and seemingly with no intention of stopping until she gets a response.
They wait for about a minute, when the slot in the door slides open to show two narrowed icy-blue eyes framed by dark toned skin cracked with a few scars. The moment the slot is open, J stops knocking and resumes her 'singing' from earlier.
"WHAT IS LOVE!" she belts out and Colin slightly winces.
"Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more," says a deadpan woman's voice that somehow sounds both spirited and yet devoid of all hope for humanity. She didn't even sing it, nor did she sound amused by J's play. "Whaddyou idiots want?" she asks.
Colin sighs, not sure how exactly to speak with this woman. "Um... J, here, says you're a mechanic. Is this true? Because quite frankly, I don't know what to believe at this point," he asks with a hint of defeat in his tone as well.
The woman's eyes reveal no reaction or expression to his words at all. "Uhhh, no. Sorry," and she closes the slot. She didn't sound all that bothered, but that seems to be this woman's 'thing' and Colin honestly wishes he had that skill. To go through life and just be 'chill'.
Before Colin is able to question J on what that was about, the slot opens back up. "Nah I'm just joking with you. Yes, I know my way around machines. Why? Got a broken laptop or somethin'?" she sounded a little less lifeless while still remaining for the most part monotone, only now with a slight husky laugh under her tone.
J giggles. "I mean, I'm sure she'd make a fantastic laptop—" Colin kicks the back of her heel. "Ow," she looks down.
The woman looks over at Colin, then slightly angles her head up to peer down through the slot so she can see Edith in his arms. She lowers back down and shakes her head. "Sorry, I'm not a doctor. I don't know how to fix broken humans," she says flatly.
"She's not human," Colin says. "Neither am I. We're—"
"Holy shit," the woman's eyes widen as she inspects his face closer. After a moment, the slot closes again and they can hear rattling from the other side. The gears on the door turn and pushes into the room, letting the woman rush out to get a closer look at Colin's face, more specifically at the wires threading in and out of his synthetic skin.
While she's examining Colin like an awry science experiment, he opts to do the same with her. As they had seen, she has dark skin and piercing ice-blue eyes. Her long black hair fades into dark purple and is styled in dreads clipped back with a silver buckle. She's wearing a baggy grey shirt that sits off one shoulder and it tucks into a leather corset around her waist and several pouches and holsters along her multitude of belts. Her pants are dark pale brown and one leg is rolled up to her thigh and clipped onto one of her belts and she has thick brown gloves that go up to her forearms. On her back, she has a wood and steel shotgun strapped over her shoulder.
When she reaches up to tug at one of the wires on his cheek, he instinctively tries to move his head away. "What are you doing?" he asks.
The woman steps back and tilts her head curiously. "I don't know what you are, but I think you're cool. Now who's this chick?" she looks over at J and she winks, flips her top hat and holds out her hand.
"The name's J, for 'J-ust what the doctor ordered', baby," she says, but the woman doesn't even look at her hand and just squints her eyes at J in a way that's still deadpan, but also painstakingly judgmental.
"You I'm indifferent about," she turns back towards Colin. "Now, who's little miss 'laptop', here?" she asks, moving closer to examine Edith next.
Colin sighs yet again, starting to think he might get why Cree never bothered with people before. He readjusts his hold on Edith again. "Her name is Edith. She's like me, a sentient machine, only she's a more 'human' type," he explains, hating that the phrase 'sentient machine' is the best way he can describe what their kind are to get people to understand.
The woman reaches over and grabs Edith's wrist, pressing hard against the back of her hand. "Hmm... Oh yeah. Definitely metal in there," she nods her head slowly, "What's wrong with, uh... Her? Is 'it' considered racist for you?" she asks.
Colin returns her deadpan expression with his own and nods once, slowly. "Yes, it is. And her system was recently locked by a Hex, and we can't bring her to a doctor nor do we have anyone who would know how to fix her, so J recommended you," he explains.
The woman looks at J again. "How the hell do you know who I am?"
J smiles sweetly. "Oh you know, fun and friendly internet stalking or sometimes just traditional stalking if I'm feelin' frisky," she winks again, this time with much more emphasis and when she thinks the woman didn't notice, she winks repeatedly, occasionally switching eyes.
The woman shows no reaction other than slightly leaning back from her and she looks at Colin again. "Can we leave her out here?"
Colin shrugs. "I mean, it's your um, house? Do you live here?" he asks.
The woman nods. "When I've made my rounds across Eutria, yeah. But fine, I'll see what I can do. I can't guarantee I'll be able to fix her and I'mma be straight with you, I'm doing this more because I'm interested in what the fuck kinda technology you two are than I am concerned with her survival or whatever," she says and steps back into the entrance, motioning him through.
Colin hesitantly enters and J goes to follow, but the woman closes the door on her face and seals the gears back up. Colin can hear her groan on the other side. "But can I come in though?" she asks.
Colin turns towards the woman and shrugs. "If you don't let her in she'll just keep annoying us until you do," he says emptily. The woman rolls her eyes and nods, letting out an overexaggerated sigh of defeat before returning to the door and turning the gears again to open it.
The woman pulls the door open, only to see that J is gone. Both she and Colin turn around to see J standing ahead of them with a cheeky grin. "Just kidding, I could get in all along!" she giggles and marches forward into the room.
The woman has renovated an entire command room into a workshop. There are a few doors that lead off from the main room, which has a wall that's lined with a console of buttons and switches. Above the console is a window that's been covered by dirty black sheets, pinned up to block the view. There are buzzing and clinking sounds coming from various pieces of machinery scattered across the large cluttered room with dim orange lights that emit a buzz of their own.
The woman starts heading straight for one of the back rooms, but Colin stops and clears his throat almost timidly. "Wait, before we start. May I ask your name, miss?" he asks.
She rolls her eyes again and shrugs. "Well you're clearly pansexual," she deadpans. "Yeah, I'm May McElroy, but you can just call me May. 'Cause that's my name."
"Can I call you Roy?" J asks and has already found a stool to start spinning on as fast as fucking possible.
May sighs. "No."
"How 'bout Big Mac?" J immediately follows up.
May pauses for a moment and squints, tilts her head, and after a moment of deep thought and contemplation, shows her a fraction of a smirk. "Only in the bedroom, hotshot," she says with her typical monotone voice. She then just turns and resumes her stride towards a door at the back of the room, nearly covered with cardboard boxes of spare parts and devices. Colin follows her with Edith still held in his arms, but both he and May look back when J jumps off the stool without waiting for it to stop spinning at terminal velocity and she gets thrown into a metal shelf stacked with an arsenal of tools. The shelf and all of its contents crash forward, ending up making a heap of metal parts, papers, schematics and cardboard boxes.
She pokes her head up from the mess and raises a finger. "What do I do?" she asks.
May points to the stool. "Sit and stay, sweetheart," and she opens the door to the room, hurrying through with Colin before J can provide any form of protest. She closes the door behind them and enters another dimly lit room, only this one is a bit larger and is circular-shaped. There are more metal shelves lining the walls, not a single inch is wasted as everything has stacks of spare parts, devices that not even Colin can begin to guess what they are, tools and blueprints, and who knows what else might be hidden away in those boxes.
The center of the room is on a lower level, fenced off with rusted metal rails. There's a light shining down on a wooden workbench that's littered with more tools and a blueprint that's being weighted down with a handgun on one corner, a bong on another, then two rocks on the other two corners.
May struts over and slides down one of the rusted rails towards the center workbench and Colin follows, eyeing the rail and briefly considering trying to be cool, but he can't with Edith in his arms. At least that's the reason he tells himself as he simply walks down the cracked stone steps and joins her by the workbench.
He eyes the blueprint and sees that it's a highly detailed drawing of a prosthetic arm, but before he can get a better look at it, May picks up the bong and swipes her arm across the table to completely clear it off and she carefully sets the bong on the closest shelf.
She pats the workbench. "Lay 'er down so I can have a look," she says and strides over to a nearby shelf and steps up on the lowest box, hoisting herself up to grab hold of a pair of bronze goggles with green lenses.
Colin carefully sets Edith on the wooden workbench, laying her arms flat at her sides. He knows she's not conscious and thus has no concept of sensitivity at the moment, but he still feels bad for not giving her a comfortable place to lay so he pulls off his jacket and folds it up, gently lifting her head and sliding it underneath to act as a cushion.
"Well that was so wholesome I kinda wanna throw up, but not in a fun 'I just had the greatest trip of all time' kinda way," May says impassively as she makes her way back over and pulls the goggles on over her eyes, hitting a button on the side and the green lenses light up. She looks Edith's entire body over a few times, taking a few minutes of just silence aside from the sound of whirring and steam puffing from pipes and occasional beeps from the numerous random gadgets this woman has laying around.
She nods in deep thought, pursing her thick red lips as she continues looking Edith over, occasionally poking at her or lifting her arms, she examines one of her eyes and just keeps examining her closely, making Colin wonder what she might be thinking and if it's something he should be concerned about.
Well, there's a lot he should be concerned about. This whole situation with Edith has caused him nothing but worry since it started, but he doesn't mind shouldering a part of that burden with her. He's not sure if he should be more worried about her current state since she is essentially safe from her emotions, at least he thinks so. It hadn't occurred to him that maybe her EPC has been taking damage this whole time but he's just not able to see it because of her being locked.
He's pulled out of his thoughts as he sees May reach her hand towards Edith's stomach. He hardly realizes what's going on when he, with lightning speed, catches her wrist before she can successfully press her hand to her stomach.
She looks at him quizzically. "What?" she asks.
Colin looks from her to Edith, then back to her. "Uh... Sorry," he hesitates before releasing her wrist. "Just... if you're going to be helping her, you should probably know that she's pregnant. So just... be care—"
"Oh I know," May says and resumes her previous action of feeling Edith's stomach. Colin had felt uneasy seeing how motionless Edith was before, but now seeing her provide no reaction to a complete stranger touching her stomach when previously she would've killed anyone who tried makes the reality of her current state hit him a bit harder.
"How do you know?" he asks, anxiously watching her as she keeps her hand on Edith's stomach, growing more and more uneasy by the second.
May taps her goggles. "These let me see thermal energies and, like, pulses and shit. I scanned you first and saw that you only have one heartbeat, so I knew it wasn't just a robot thing when I saw she had two," she explains and goes back to examining her.
Colin's heart leaps and he tries not to show it, but hearing that makes him suddenly feel a lump in the back of his throat and he smiles warmly at Edith. There's a heartbeat already. A feeling of love fills him and he has to stifle his excitement over this when he sees May push the goggles up onto her forehead and face him.
"Well?" he asks, clearing his throat and trying to sound as though he's not getting choked up. He knows that tears of joy are once again impossible for him, but he can still feel like he's getting them.
May nods. "Yeah she's pretty fucked up."
Colin's face becomes expressionless. "Really? That's it?" he questions.
She shrugs and motions to Edith. "I mean, what were you hoping I'd say? I hardly even know what the hell she is. I can see the 'locks' you were telling me about, but I'mma need more to go off than that if you want me to fix and maybe possibly study her endoskeleton and internal processing systems," she says flatly.
He narrows his eyes at her. "I never said you can study her like a science experiment. One, because she's a person and not a piece of technology. And two, she is pregnant. Meaning: if anything happens to the baby, you'll never see the light of day again."
"What makes you think I've seen the light of day in the past three years?" she asks and waves him off. "Fine, tell you what. I won't study her and I'll do my best to 'unlock' her or whatever, but in return you let me study you instead," she offers.
Colin glares at her and stiffens. "Now, when you say 'study'—"
"I mean actually study, not get it on. If I wanted to do that, I'd just ask your little friend in the other room," she nods her head towards the door they entered through.
Colin grimaces. "You know what, I didn't need to know that. But... if it means helping Edith, fine. You can study me within reason. Sound good?" he states and holds out his hand.
May just looks at his hand and then back up at him. She doesn't shake his hand and instead just places hers on top of his and lowers it before crossing her arms. "Fine. Now, lemme get to work. And it's probably smart for you to stick around to make sure I don't accidentally kill her or anything because from what I can tell, the technology used to make you people is unlike anything we've got here in Eutria. Unless the Imperium is hoarding some sick ass shit and, wait," she narrows her eyes at him. "You're not with the Imperium, are you?" she asks accusingly.
Colin holds up his hands. "Honest to Maze, if I was, I wouldn't be here asking you for help. We're trying to avoid them. It was a member of the Val'Guard that did this to her," he states.
May slowly nods and turns towards Edith. "Fine, I'll trust you for now. Only 'cause I really wanna see what the hell is in your programming," she says. "Now, is there anything important I should know before I start fixin' 'er?" she asks and cocks a brow his way.
He nods and places his hand over Edith's chest, feeling her unrhythmic heartbeat drumming against his palm. "All SRL, which is what our 'people' are called, have a power core in their chests called an EPC. If any damage at all is done to it, the data – the life – inside is permanently lost and the SRL instantly dies. So just uh... be careful, okay?" he explains.
May slowly nods her understanding and stares at Edith with as much expression of 'worry' on her face that she seems physically capable of. "Right. Okay cool. No pressure or anything," she sighs and pulls the goggles back on. She grabs some tools from a shelf and grabs the light above the workbench, moving it closer to Edith. She reaches her leg back and hooks her foot around a stool, rolling it over and plopping down in the seat as she gets to work on Edith.
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My goddess, May McElroy <3