Skeletons in the Closet; Corpses in the Basement
"It is the way of men to make monsters… and it is the nature of monsters to destroy their makers."
-Harlan Wade, F.E.A.R.
It was a cold drab April day in the alps of Switzerland. The snow was mostly melted, but the ground itself had yet to soften. The mixture of classic alpine architecture and modern construction was still dark and damp from the long winter's thaw. The forecast said that it was supposed to be a partly cloudy day, that a few yellow rays of sunlight were supposed to finally hit the Swiss countryside; however, the smoldering debris from the other side of town had blotted out the light, even a week after the unexplained explosion had left the heart and innards of the building lifeless.
Halfway across town, a young, thin woman wearing a grey trench coat walked on a wet sidewalk with a duffle bag across her shoulder. She moved at a quick tempo, eyes down, straight ahead. The occasional passersby ignored her, for although civilian casualties were nonexistent, the blast was very close-to-home for the few that were out this morning. They were all afraid, confused and tired. Her path paralleled a public park, still vacant due to the frosty weather, but eventually the park turned into a wrought iron boundary.
Hedge stones lined the grounds as the blonde woman traveled down the way. She walked past the entrance, and kept following to the private grave markers until they changed from ornate stones of different colors, to uniform standing bricks, about two feet high. She stopped and turned to face into the burial grounds to see into the center of the cemetery. There, standing out from the identical grave markers, were two outliers. Standing about a foot taller than the rest, and adorned with a star at the top, were the tombstones of the Commanders of the unit.
Like many cemeteries across Europe, this place was the sacred burial ground for the brave men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice for the good of all mankind against overwhelming evil and tyranny. Just like the final resting places for the Americans, French, English, Russians, Germans, Poles, Italians, and every other nation that had shed blood on this continent, this small piece of land was the burial grounds for United Nations Task Force 284, better known as Overwatch.
Chief Medical Officer Angela Ziegler MD PHD, looked at the remnants of her comrades, those who were waiting for her and the soft ground of those who had recently joined them. Although twenty-five years old now, the sight made her throat swell and her eyes burn. It was a reminder of a lesson she had learned only one year after earning her medical license.
You can't save all of them…
Not yet at least…
Angela stood alone at the fence line until a man walked up beside her and stood, likewise gazing out onto their troops.
"Your funeral was nice, Commander." she said.
Commander Jack Morrison, wearing jeans and a black coat, stood beside the doctor and gave a long and heavy sigh. "It's over, Angela. I'm done."
The doctor closed her eyes, she knew this was coming. The errands she had just run gave it away, but at the same time it didn't make the pain go away. "So that's it. You're just going to walk away from us all?"
"I tried my best, Lord knows I did. But I'm not commissioner Lacroix," he replied, still facing ahead. Angela had to agree.
The late Gerald Lacroix was the darling of the UN. If he could court the Prima Ballerina Assoluta of the Paris Ballet, then a couple of bureaucrats would be child's play by comparison. It was a shame what had happened to him, though; murdered by his own wife.
"But you can't be surprised," Morrison continued, "You saw what was happening, with the world, with… us…" he said, looking out at his tombstone sitting beside the marker of who he had once considered to be his best friend. "I know the UN ordered you to testify against our organization."
"So you've been reading my mail, haven't you?" she said, not in an accusatory tone, because in all actuality she had left the court order atop her desk for a reason. At the same time, dragging a dying man twice her size into her condominium didn't leave her much of an opportunity to hide her dirty laundry either.
"The writing was on the wall. We were finished. We were only going to last another three months if we were lucky," he said. Even before she had found him trapped beneath a blast-door in the rubble of their headquarters building, the doctor could see the signs that he was finished. In the months after the Commissioner's demise, the tips of the Commander Morrison's hair were starting to turn grey and recede. Lines were beginning to form on his face, and deep bags underneath his eyes were becoming a far too common occurrence whenever she went to check in on him.
Angela took a long breath and replied in an even tone, "Be that as it may. There are still people out there who need our help, whether they want us or not."
Commander Morrison sighed once more. "I was afraid you were going to say that." He turned to face her and said, "Even on the inside, we both know who saw this coming and who is still willing to fall on the sword for Overwatch. Angela, I want you to go there and put an end to all of this."
Angela looked the Commander in the eye, seeing the scorch marks in his hair, burns on his face and a large scare zagging from his temple across his nose and all the way down to his chin. It took her a moment to make sure that he was being serious, and when she realized he was being honest, demanded, "You can't be serious!"
"Angela, listen to me. You know I would fight for every last one of you, but you need to trust me. Abandon ship while you still can. You have a long life ahead of you, trying to fight the inevitable isn't worth jeopardizing your medical career. You can still help people, with or without the rest of us. "
She looked down at the sidewalk, his final orders being too much to look him in the eye. After a moment of considering how to protest, she took a breath and quietly protested "They'll hate me for this. You know that."
"I know." he replied, "But if you care for them, you'll end this before they can get into any more trouble. Blame Reyes, blame me, just try to save as many of the others as you can… starting with yourself. When the cards came down, you were the only one with a moral compass to do what was right rather than be a good soldier and follow orders. Everyone knew you objected to the more grey aspects to our organization."
"It may be, Commander. But right or wrong, I still have a duty to treat those in need of my care."
"I know, it's not going to be easy, but this is our… your only way out without having to see the inside of a cell."
Dr. Ziegler turned away once more, finding the dead to be easier to face. He was right. As much as she wanted to save it, she wanted to see it finished. Overwatch had lost its way. It had once been a beacon of hope to those caught in the robotic onslaught of the Omnic Crisis and a means for world peace. But nowadays the world looked at them as if they had turned into one of the monsters that it was made to slay. But her friends, he colleagues, her… family… She was going to be left all alone once again. The Judas. The Traitor. The one named, "Mercy", saving herself first. That is what her commander wanted her to be.
Her American coworkers would often say, "When the going got tough, the tough got going." She never really understood what the idiom meant, but it looked like it was happening before her very eyes.
Reluctantly, she nodded in agreement. "Alright, Commander. I'll do as you say."
"Thank you. You may not believe it, but you're doing the right thing."
If it was right, then why did it feel so wrong?
"What are you planning on doing now, Commander?"
Commander Morrison took the change of subject as a relief. "I'm not sure yet. I guess it's time for this soldier to finally go home. I suppose my parents are probably still alive. If not, then one of my brothers or sisters probably still owns the family farm. If that's not the case then I bet one of my old neighbors do."
His statement struck the doctor like a stake had been pounded into her heart. 'I suppose my parents are still alive?' How could someone be so casual about something like that? Angela stuck a hand into the neck of her coat, holding a golden locket and feeling the engraving fill the inside of her warm palm. Written in German were the words, "We'll always watch over you, Angela".
"How could you just say that?" she asked.
Commander Morrison quickly turned to his Chief Doctor once more, "Oh, damnit, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that… It's just… well, we've all lost too many friends over these last few years."
"Some more than others!" she snapped.
"I'm sorry, It's just… believe it or not, Gabe wasn't always like that."
Angela closed her eyes for a moment to calm down. Commander Reyes had never liked her, it seemed. Soon after joining the team he had dubbed her the "Princess". Being only seventeen and fluent- albeit unfamiliar- in English she thought of it as a compliment. After a rather tone-deaf explanation that Switzerland didn't actually have a central royal family, she learned that it wasn't. But she believed Commander Morrison, she had seen the way he was with others, heard him laugh with Morrison about old war stories when she was passing in the halls. She always thought she saw shards of Reyes that weren't just a smug abrasive demeanor when he was with young Fareeha, occasionally learning when the two would sneak into her office to steal the Doctor's supply of lollipops on rainy days.
"Yes, Commander Reyes had the heart of a good man, even if it was as cold as stone."
"I just can't believe he actually went so far to try and kill me. I just can't believe he was pushed that far over the edge. It just doesn't make sense."
"The worst betrayals are the ones we don't see coming."
"Yeah, well. He's dead now. So that's the end of that."
"Are you sure about that?" the doctor asked. "You aren't the only one with an empty grave out there."
"Yeah, I'm positive." The Commander shook his head, "Back when we were in Spec Ops we used to call him 'Smokey' because he always underestimated the blast yield of explosives. This time, I don't know if he was gambling with his luck like always, or if he really just wanted to blow us both straight to hell."
"But like I said, Jack, how are you so certain that he didn't survive?"
"Angela, back when we were trying to hold the Omnics in South America back from getting to the States, we were using a state of the art experimental munition called 'Greek Fire', It was like the Napalm used a hundred year ago in 'Nam. Big difference, though, is that Greek Fire was designed to cook the circuit board on a bot from the outside in. Once it started up, it never stopped burning. We had a reserve of it stationed in the hangar where Reyes ambushed me. A stray shot of mine hit a charge placed on the tank and I saw Gabe go up in flames. Trust me; he's dead."
"Hmm," Angela nodded, "Well if you're sure he's gone, then he can't cause us any more trouble."
Commander Morrison balled his hands up into tight fists. "It just doesn't add up. We were supposed to be above all of this petty infighting. We had the best training, best operatives, best equipment, and a mission that couldn't have been any simpler. But we still lied, stole and went behind each other's backs like thugs in the end. "
"It was inevitable." The doctor replied, "I can't say I had foreseen the conclusion, but something like this was bound to happen when my staff's focus changed from the betterment of humanity to the efficiency of Overwatch's ability to do its job. Absolute power corrupts, and the responsibilities we undertook are not meant for any mortal man." The doctor pulled on the sleeve of her trench coat to reveal an antique analog wristwatch, an anniversary Rolex of sterling silver; a gift her mother had once bought for her father years ago. It was time to go.
Angela adjusted her shoulder, causing the duffel bag to shift and make a few sounds. "I decided against trying to go to your apartment, it would have been too suspicious if I had somehow gotten caught. Instead, I bought you four changes of clothes, some over the counter pain relief and fresh dressing, some toiletries, and about 40,000 dollars in cash."
For the first that she could remember, Jack Morrison looked genuinely shocked. "Oh, geeze Angie, you didn't need-"
"Angie… that was new. Freudian slip perhaps?" she thought. She didn't give the protest a second thought as she interrupted him, "It's fine. I really have no use for it."
"But that's a lot of money…"
"It's just some cash I was holding on to from my Overwatch salary in case of an emergency. Finishing and implementing my father's research in Nanobiotics had already made me a wealthy little girl before Overwatch became interested in me, and I still have my parent's estate as well as a trust they made in my name in case anything happened to them. Believe me when I say that wealth matters little to me."
Commander Morrison slowly reached out and grabbed the bag by the handle, slowly relieving the weight off of the young woman's shoulder. It was at that moment that he finally understood the burden he had left for her. A beautiful and brilliant young woman with all of the money in the world, but nothing that she wanted, hiding herself away behind books or with her face stuffed into a computer screen to help those in need. Looking for a way to be the angel of Mercy for complete strangers with nothing to give back in return besides gratitude that, if even for a moment, would fill the emptiness in her heart.
Then, there was Jack Morrison, running away from the monster he created with his tail between his legs; leaving a woman to fight his last battle. Not against terrorists, Omnics, or bureaucrats, but the people who considered her a part of their family, her family. At that moment he almost felt the conviction to walk to Overwatch Ground Zero's relief center and turn himself in, but he knew that it would have caused far more harm than good for her.
"Well… I suppose this is goodbye then," he said, "thank you, Doctor. For everything. I'm glad that I could always trust you."
Angela Ziegler nodded, saying, "yes, yes, just another skeleton in my closet, I suppose." Yet, when she turned to leave she couldn't. Something deep within her, something she had long since forgotten about, anchored her to the spot. It was at that moment the realization that this was probably going to be the last time she ever saw Commander Morrison hit her. Being both dead and headed off to another continent nullified any chance she would have of ever getting in touch with him. Even if by some odd chance they happened to meet at a clinic or on one of the millions of street corners around the world, what would be the chance they would recognize each other?
She looked into his sad eyes and remembered something from a long time ago, a feeling that she once but written off as a foolish waste of time.
She had just become a surgeon at a hospital in Zurich, and the demands for medical aid due to the Omnic Crisis, -as well as the groundbreaking completion of her father's borderline Mad Scientist research into using Nanites to ease human suffering- had brought Angela to the forefront of the Medical world.
Universities, corporations, countries, and about every NGO had gone so far as to promise her anything that she wanted: any position; any salary; some even willing to part the sea if need be, to get her on their team. But not one out of the lot interested her more than the others. She then received an letter from a small UN based paramilitary task force that had received some publicity recently, requesting only a moment of her time to see if their organization could interest the young doctor.
She had initially scoffed at the idea of enlisting in Task Force 284. War had taken her parents away from her when she was a little girl, so why would she aid in some microscopic globalist force of thugs? Even though she had already made up her mind on the matter, she knew that the only kind thing to do would be to meet with them and let them try their best, so she did.
They say that the key to psychological warfare was to first know one's enemy. The one thing that Overwatch understood that no one else did was that at the end of the day, Dr. Angela Ziegler MD PHD was only sixteen years old.
Lieutenant Jack Morrison, former US Special Forces Operations Division, clean cut and wearing his full dress uniform, had acted as if he was the last person to shout "NOT IT!" when it had come to meeting with the doctor. He was clumsy, stumbling over the words he spoke as soon as he read them from the dossier, evidently not understanding the slightest thing about the facilities that he tried to brief her about. He let it slipped that their organization was underfunded and that a Medical Officer was the second on their priority list behind hiring a janitor. But what he lacked in presentation he made up for in heart. He was honest, he was funny -even if his attempts at humor made no sense to the Swiss doctor- he believed in the things he was saying and wanted to make a difference in the world. But most important thing she recalled from that meeting was that, wherever he was from, -Texas, Indiana, Montana, Michigan? She didn't remember- all she could think about after that meeting was how the humble farm-boy looked in that uniform.
Standing there on the sidewalk in front of the graveyard, that feeling came back to her, crying out from within her soul, telling her that if she didn't act now, she would regret it for the rest of her life.
Angela stepped forward, leaned in, closed her eyes, and let her lips meet his face. She sucked in just a tiny bit, feeling the rough skin against her tongue, and then released, making a quiet *click* sound.
His skin was cold, limp, and lifeless. Jack Morrison the Man was as dead as Jack Morrison the Legend. The feeling in her chest, the one she had ignored for years until right then and there, shriveled up and died at that moment.
The Commander reached up with his hand and felt the warmth on his cheek, a look of self-loathing in his eyes. He couldn't bring himself to look at the doctor anymore .
"Auf wiedersehen, Jack." Angela whispered while turning around and walked down the street, using her blonde bangs to cover her eyes.
Jack Morrison stood there and watched her as she hurried away, her high ponytail bobbed atop her head in rhythm with her steps. He wanted to run after her apologizing for all of the things that he had gotten her into, but why would he? He was a failure as a Commanding Officer, and at that moment; as a man in general. He turned away and shook his head, preparing to do the last decent thing that he could for her; find a nice hole to crawl into and die.
Angela took a detour and walked around the block to clear her head before finally entering her condo, only a few blocks away from the ground zero explosion at Overwatch's Headquarters. She unlocked the old wooden door, let herself in, locked it again and set her keys in the bowl that sat on a table by the entryway.
Jack had turned the lights off before he left to meet her, and due to the secret nature of her guest, all of the drapes had been closed tightly to guard against the wandering eyes of any passersby. By reflex and memory, Angela slipped her coat off and placed it on a lonely hanger sitting on the far side of the coat rack in the entry closet. As soon as her hands were free, the doctor reached down and grabbed one of the many clean white lab coats on the opposite side of the closet and slipped it on over her black turtleneck sweater.
She walked through her dark living room, the light that managed to sneak past the blocked windows provided just enough illumination so she could easily step over all of the sporadically placed medical equipment, bloody gauze, used sanitary sheets, tourniquets and bowls of water that were once warm, but now cold and stained with a faint pink hue.
Although Angela knew the things that she had been able to do with her time as a member of Overwatch had benefited humanity, she was not blind to the evils that were afoot. It all started with the first suggestion that her Nanobiotics could be used as a weapon, and as much as she protested, she knew that her father's work had begun to go down a dark path that could not be reversed. Yet, she couldn't stop, not just because she cared about the members of her team, but because of the opportunities working with the organization had brought; the new fields to be discovered and innovation to be had.
People had always told her, even from a very young age, that it was alarming how much she took after her parents. Her mother had been a surgeon, and Angela understood why she had taken up that career. She enjoyed the work as well, and according to the colleagues of her late mother, she was probably the only person that could surpass her mother in the operating room. Yet, as she had come to discover there was only so much a surgeon could do. When a bone is broken, there are only so many ways for it to heal correctly. What had intrigued her more was learning how to prevent the injury in the first place.
Once across the living room, the doctor opened a door and walked down a narrow staircase, approached the door to her laboratory and activated the keypad to the lock.
Why fix what was broken when one could prevent the malady in the first place? That is why she had committed so much time into completing and fully realizing her father's life's work, his legacy. Overwatch allowed her to be right there on the cutting edge of science and struggle, seeing the challenges facing humanity first-hand and find ways to deal with new threats accordingly rather than in a publication eight months after the fact.
She, like her mother and her father before her, were healers. And to be healed, one must first be hurt.
The electronic lock made a satisfactory chime when the correct combination was entered. Dr. Ziegler entered the laboratory and flipped a switch, lighting up the small basement and its secured and sterile quarantine room. She walked inside and stood with her hands in the pockets of her lab coat, looking into the secured chamber and the charred body that was flaking, decaying, and healing all at the same time.
"Good morning, Gabriel," she said. "It's time to wake up."