Hospital, the feel of cheap coarse sheets against her bruised burnt skin and the lingering scent of antiseptic in the air.
Stretching and feeling her movements restricted, her right arm was cast in plaster and her lower leg was suspended from the ceiling on some sort of pulley. Forcing her eyes open May Day glared around the room unable for a moment to remember what calamity had brought her here, then like a freight train it hit her.
Mainstrike...the bomb...the feel of the wind at her face as she laughed in the face of death...and Max.
Max had betrayed her, abandoned her for dead in that god forsaken mine rather than risk any chance of his plan failing.
Gasping for breath as the pain crushed her chest May Day wanted something to hit, she wanted someone to hit until they felt as hurt as she did right now. How could anyone survive such agony and carry on living, she had loved him had tarnished her soul for him and this was how he had repaid her. This pain was why she held onto the brake lever, why she hadn't jumped when Bond had urged her to, why she had laughed in the face of certain death; death was her friend it would take the pain away.
Yet somehow she had been cheated from that relief and lay here trapped in her broken body unable to do anything but dwell on her heartache. It seemed that even death wasn't a friend after all. Yet even in her anguish certain questions plagued her thoughts, where was Max, he had been safe on his airship when she had last seen him so surely he would have fled to South America or one of their many safe havens by now?
Or had Bond gotten to him, had he been able to fulfil her last request, 'Get Zorin for me'.
Perhaps it was testament of the strength of her love for him or maybe she had picked up some brain injury along with her broken bones but the deepest part of her wanted him safe; alive and sulking, cursing his failed plans and stuck living away from the high life and intrigue that had thrilled them both.
Yes that would be a more fitting punishment but not dead...He couldn't be dead. Just the thought of that made the pain double, she could almost cope with the idea he had been using her, that despite all the little things that implied he had, that he had never truly loved her. Yet the idea of being alive in a world where he was not chilled her to the core.
The sudden sound of the door opening jarred her from such melancholy musings and the harsh glare she sent the nurse had the woman squealing in terror as she vanished as quickly as she came.
A moment later the door reopened and a Doctor entered her room swallowing nervously as he approached the bed.
"It is wonderful to see you awake Miss...Umm I'm afraid we don't have a name."
For a moment May Day considered giving a fake name, surely the moment she admitted who she was the police would arrive and she would be carted off to jail but since she had little intention of living much longer what difference did it make if she spent the remainder of her life in custody?
"May Day." She muttered softly. "I'm insured though Mc'Kinsleys policy number 0987452113." She added by rote. "How long have I been here?"
"A week." The Doctor replied noting down the information she had supplied. "You were in a bad way when you arrived, I understand from the news there was a mine collapse up that way no known survivors."
"A mine collapse...Yes." Mayday replied keeping the surprise from her voice, clearly the powers that be felt the public would be better served if the truth was twisted; after all how many scientists would sleep soundly in their Silicon Valley beds if they realised how close they had come to disaster?
"Well it wasn't until the fire department had been called to secure the site that anyone found you, they thought you were gone at first but when the ambulances came to take the bodies away the paramedics realised you were still breathing. You were a lucky one..."
"Lucky!" Mayday hissed her dark eyes narrowing in disgust at his choice of words.
Panicking under her glare the young doctor shuffled his papers awkwardly before babbling to cover his discomfort. "I wouldn't be surprised if the 25th goes down as one of the unluckiest days in San Francisco's history...First the mining collapse, over a hundred lives lost, then that Blimp accident..."
"Blimp?" Mayday interjected imperiously. "What accident?"
"Oh of course...An airship collided with the Golden Gate Bridge."
"And the survivors?" Mayday asked her heart in her throat.
"Only two, an English man, can't think of his name, and a pretty blonde... Stacy Sutton. They managed to clamber on to the bridge before the engine overloaded."
The Doctor babbled on unaware that Mayday's world was crashing down around her. "Of course the blimp colliding with the bridge was such a distraction there was a twenty car pileup on the bridge the poor emergency services had a right nightmare of it. That's why you're here at the Good Samaritan in San Jose and not in the General or Saint Francis in Frisco."
"I see."
"As for your condition. You're in surprisingly good shape considering that a week ago you almost passed for a corpse. We had to operate on your leg; the bone had been shattered so we had to implant a metal rod for support. Your arm was a simple break and will mend with time and the rest is some superficial burns and bruising which look worse than they are. All in all you are a very lucky woman."
"Lucky." Mayday muttered bitterly.
"Although there was one other thing." And here the Doctor paused awkwardly rubbing the back of his head before continuing. "We had to perform the standard battery of blood tests since we did not have any medical records and as well as the rather high dose of growth hormone or anabolic steroids we found in your system we found something else...Were you aware you are pregnant?"
"Pregnant?" Mayday gasped unable to think beyond that thought.
"About five weeks." The Doctor confirmed glancing at his chart. "I take it this wasn't a planned pregnancy?"
"No." Mayday confirmed certainly not on her part but something else struck her...
A memory of Dr. Carl Mortner, Max's oldest confident and steroid specialist, the man who had developed and monitored her drug treatment, eyeing her speculatively as he did the brood mares he chose so diligently for the stables. She had trusted him implicitly, as had Max she recalled, for her medication including her contraception. It wouldn't have taken much to substitute her normal pills for placebo's and then allow nature and Max's libido to do the rest.
Max wouldn't have known...he couldn't have otherwise he would never have encouraged her to bed Bond in a bid to keep him out of the way. Perhaps if he had known he wouldn't have flooded the mine whilst she was trapped inside. It was a slim hope and perhaps a foolish one, considering the fact she would never know the truth, but she couldn't imagine Max would murder his own child, not knowingly at any rate.
"Miss Day?"
"What?" May Day snapped her attention now back in the present and fixed upon the trembling young doctor.
"I was just wondering if there was anyone you wished us to call?"
"No." May Day replied sharply her quick mind already running over her options, with Max dead there would be confusion she had to act before MI5, the CIA or worse the KGB got their sticky little paws into his fortune, and the empire that by rights belonged to the precious little bundle of cells multiplying inside her. "Bring me a phone I will contact them myself!"
It was time for her to disappear, she had more than herself and her pain now, and eventually the name Zorin would rise again from the ashes, a glorious rebirth.
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Just a strange little thought that occurred to me whilst watching 'A View to a Kill' the other day since both May Day and Max Zorin died in ways that left no body, what if the impossible occurred and they actually survived? Review and let me know if I should continue...
I have a few ideas which might be interesting.