Chapter 1

It all started when the battery exploded in my face. I had done it. Years of working on a hunch and I had finally figured it out. Solid plasma. Hard light. Whatever you wanted to call it, I had created it. Sure, a ray of bright white light had punctured the car battery I was using to fuel my device, sure the battery acid stung. And boy did it scar. I had burn marks all over my face and body until she-

There I go, getting way ahead of myself. My name is Roland. They can't know I just divulged my real name online, for everyone to see. But let's keep that between us, okay? I grew up in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains in a backwoods town somewhere in Colorado. My entire life my family had had a knack for everything outdoorsy. Camping, hunting, rock climbing. Heck, if you told me my little brother could identify every native species of bird in the midwest just by their chirping, I wouldn't question it. But me, I've always been one to stay indoors. I know, I know, shut-in. Anti-social. I've heard it all. But here's the thing, I can function perfectly fine around people. But if I had to choose, I'd want to stay by myself, in my room. So, I did. For years. You see, I wasn't as... Physically inclined as my family was. I was skinny, lanky. Never any good at PE in school. I remained that way all the way through college. I moved to Los Angeles. I got a job as a nurse at a hospital. A male nurse, and yes before you say anything, I got flack for it often. I didn't care, it paid well and I enjoyed the work.

Something I carried with me all the way from childhood, though, was my love for science. I was born in 2042, and as a result my father would always complain about how "lucky" I was to have the technology I did. Something that intrigued me specifically was holograms. Or, to be more precise, hard light. Picture it. You flick on a flashlight. The ray of light shoots out the end, and collides with the wall. Now imagine being able to grab a hold of the ray of light, and move it around like it was a cardboard tube you'd find inside a roll of wrapping paper. It was a few years before college that I came up with the idea of how hard light could be plausible.

I won't get into specifics because it'd take me the rest of the day to explain it, but imagine the liquid form of light being darkness, the solid version of light being ice, and gaseous version of light being what you see when you flick the light switch. I figured out how to "freeze" the photons in the gaseous light, successfully creating hard light. It had only taken me four years. I had a little help, but I'll get to that later.

I was born into a huge international crisis. My family was very one-sided when it came to the Omnics. They taught me that they were merely machines, created to do nothing more than work for humans. And I believed them. When I was eight, the fighting stopped. Omnics began settling into everyday life just like humans. I started seeing a few here and there around town. They looked almost human. Some of them looked damaged. Dented, scraped and broken in different places. It wasn't until I was ten when I interacted with an Omnic for the first time. I was at the convenience store and approached the counter. He stood behind the counter, white and blue paint shining under the yellow light of the store.

"Hello." he said. "Just this today?" he asked as he scanned my soda.

"Yes sir." I responded. I paid, and left the store. I left a different man. We had only exchanged a few words, but I could not see any difference between the robot behind the counter and any other person I saw walking down the street. From that day on, my view changed regarding the Omnics. They were people. Just like you and me.

Fast forward again to just after college. I was working my steady job at the hospital.

"Roland. Roland!"

I snapped out of it.

"Yeah? Sorry."

"Always daydreaming," the doctor said from across the operating table "Forceps please."

"Of course." I responded, and handed the tool to the doctor.

"What's going on today?" she asked.

"Just... I got a new cool gadget at home and I can't stop thinking about it. Got my head in the clouds."

"Well, just hand me some gauze and we can be done for today."

I handed her the roll of gauze and left the sterile blue room. I pulled off my face mask and my rubber gloves, clocked out, and caught a taxi back to my apartment. It had a lovely view of a grimy dimly lit back alley. Over the past few days, I had been shaping my home made hard-light into a small cane of sorts. Different forms of hard-light had already existed for a few years now, but I was proud of mine. Light, blue and simple. You could shine the light from any source, and the beam would end wherever I would program it to. Two inches? Two feet? Two yards? Sure. The small cane I was working on was for my neighbor, Orson. He was a veteran from the Omnic crisis, who had literally lost an arm and a leg. I figured it would be a nice gift for him as a thank you for all the cabinets he had fixed and roaches he had gotten rid of since I had moved in. The sun had set behind the skyscrapers of LA, and the streetlights illuminated. I opened the door to deliver the gift when my eye caught something in the alleyway. Two silhouettes were barely illuminated in the light casted by the street lamps. Someone was on the ground, being kicked repeatedly by an assailant. A mugging? An attempted murder? I didn't have time to question myself before I was climbing down my fire escape to street level.

"What's going on?" I yelled as my feet touched the old pavement.

"Oh, hey man, you want in on this?" the assailant asked. He wore a tattered hoodie and a beanie. He smelled of cigarettes and alcohol. His victim lay twitching and sparking at his feet. An Omnic.

"No... Why are you doing this?" I asked, trying to hide my outrage.

"It's just a robot. It doesn't have feelings you idiot." he responded.

"Stop." I said.

"What was that?" he asked, feigning ignorance.

"Stop. He hasn't done anything to you."

"He? It is just a robot. You-"

The assailant turned his attention to me. He threw a punch my way, and it landed directly in my stomach. I reeled backwards and fell to the ground, my vision going spotty and red. The man turned his attention completely to me now. He have the Omnic one last kick to the head, before starting for me.

"This will teach you to side with a bunch of computers." he said. I got up onto my feet, my vision still blurry. I saw something glimmer in his left hand. A knife.

I almost ran until I remembered I had something to defend myself. I pulled the handle to the hard-light cane from my pocked, and pressed a small red button. The blue light shot out about two feet. Not long enough for a cane, I'd have to fix that later. I shook my head.

"Stay focused." I whispered to myself. He swung his knife at me and to my surprise, I stepped out of the way, swung my makeshift baton down and swept his legs. The man fell to the ground. He followed my example, and swung his knife and my legs. I moved out of the way barely to slow. He sliced one of my shins before I landed another blow to his head. He rose to his feet and swung again before our two weapons met. I mean, his weapon met my cane. I mean baton... Whatever.

I pulled the cane back and swung once more at his head. It hit, and the man immediately slumped to the ground. I wiped my brow. He was alive, but out cold. The adrenaline had me going a million miles a minute. I was halfway up my fire escape thinking "Boy, I wonder what I'll have for dinner tonight" before I remembered the Omnic. I arrived back at ground level, and rushed to him.

"Are you alright?" I asked, helping him up.

"Yes, thank you. I-I'm sorry for this t-t-trouble." he whimpered.

"We need to get you to a hospital." I said. His head was shooting sparks, and he was stuttering.

"I can't see. Wha-wha-wha-what's happening?"

"Sir, hang in there."

"You're n-not with t-them are you-you?" he asked me.

"With who?"

"O-Overwatch."

"Overwatch? That super squad? No, no Sir I am not."

"N-Not yet you a-aren't. If you were-weren't on their li-li-list before, you-you-you-you are now."

And with that, the light in his eyes went out, and he went limp.