The warden is also busy doing her job and quite annoyed to have the Umojan scientist presented to her again. “Good news! Your prisoner is not sick. He’s just not here,” the young woman cheerfully informs her, as if this is new information.
“You have one chance to come clean with whatever it is you’re doing,” Rita snaps. “Whoever you are, you have one chance to come clean,” she reiterates, “or I can lock you up in places that don’t exist.”
“You already know who I am. You’ve already read my ID,” Imogen says coolly. “Your problems started long before I got here. Blaming me is not going to change the fact that you lost a prisoner days ago.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t lost a prisoner if I still have someone in that cell.” The Umojan cannot spread her knowledge about the breakout if she never leaves. “I could lock you up. This is a dark site; that’s its whole point. We’d just have to deal with your brawny pilot, and we only have so many cells… You know, I actually rather like that idea. It’s good for facility diversity to have an Umojan.” Unfortunately, Durian is still off searching cells, not here to have the corruption of this warden displayed plainly to him. Imogen is sure this is not the kind of place he would work if he knew what was really going on, not with the lofty ideals he has expressed for his business.
At this point, the doors leading to the stairwell burst open, and a guard comes through, dragging a badly burnt body. Lockdown seems to be more procedural than literal in this facility. With a plea to the warden of, “Let me treat that man,” Imogen dashes toward the injured guard. He may still be alive, and what she needs right now is goodwill. The warden definitely could lock Imogen up in here, and she does not want to sit around in a cell for a week waiting for Jimmy’s arrival.
The guard looks over to the warden, who nods wordlessly. He lays his comrade on the ground, and Imogen sets to work. The injured guard has gone into cardiac arrest, but she is able to get his heart pumping again. Once the patient is stabilized, she announces, “He won’t have eyebrows for a long time, but he is going to live.”
“You know, we don’t have a doctor out here,” the warden observes. “Seems like one would be mighty useful.” Imogen frowns in response. She supposes indentured servitude is better than prisoner status, but either way, it sounds like the warden is still fixated on keeping her locked up here. She wipes off her hands, packs of her medical supplies, and returns to the central dais. When she gets there, the warden addresses her more quietly. “The problem I’ve got, is that I can’t have word getting out of here that a prisoner is missing, and I just don’t know if I can trust you with that kind of information, at least not for a while. Maybe we can take some time to put together medical records showing how he passed away most unfortunately?”
“If you need no one to have witnessed this, then I can’t ever have been here,” Imogen counters. “So no court summons. The record you made that my pilot and I were here? You need to get rid of that.”
Rita shakes her head. “That doesn’t ensure you stay quiet. Now, the most obvious thing, locking you up, ensures you will,” she says, reminding the Umojan who has the upper hand here. “But I am willing to come to some arrangement,” she adds generously.
The warden wants a death certificate and silence from Imogen. Imogen just wants to get out of here. She looks up at the other woman, safely ensconced behind her high desk and holding all the cards. “There are only so many assurances people like you and I can give each other,” Imogen observes levelly, her earlier false cheer completely gone. “I think we understand the situation here.”
Rita smiles, satisfied. “I think so. And I still know who you are, so if any trouble does occur, I’ll know exactly how to deal with it. Now, if you’ll write that report, we can each be on about our business.”
Imogen begins filling out the form. The warden vetoes malnutrition as the cause of death; the facility cannot be at blame here. Imogen settles on advanced age and its associated ailments. As she finishes up, Durian emerges from the incarceration wing to deliver his findings to the warden. The other rooms were clean except for a contraband shiv and a rambling political manifesto—baloney, according to Durian.
Oh, Durian, you’re working for the wrong side, Imogen thinks. Warden Rita here is as corrupt as they come. I’m forging a document for her right now so she can cover up her failures! In an attempt to subtly draw his attention to this, she says to the warden, “So you’re only going to need one of these death certificates then? For the one prisoner who ‘didn’t make it’?”
Poor naive Durian misunderstands completely. The sorely burnt guard, while close to death, is still alive. A death certificate for him is a bit premature. “What happened out there, anyway?” Durian asks.
“Bad thruster,” replies the guard who saw the accident. “This lot are bad luck. We never should have let these fools in,” he adds, glaring at Imogen.
“Oh, there are problems with the thrusters, too? I’d better get up there,” Imogen says. Durian has not gotten her message, and she cannot risk any more for the sake of his morals. She has to get out of the facility with the intel for Raynor and Kerrigan. Imogen pushes the paper across the high desk to the warden. “I think we’re finished here, aren’t we?”
“I hope so,” Rita agrees. She waves the Umojan away and does not order any guards to accompany her to the surface.