AN: For the sake of a more coherent and structured story, I've decided to rewrite this story, now that DX:MD has been released for a short while. I've got a better idea of what I want to do with Jensen and how I want events to unfold. So just bear with me please, until I get things back up to speed.
To have Director Miller summon him into his office via intercom was an uncommon occurence, as Adam Jensen was used to receiving brief messages on his InfoLink, which was hardwired to his brain and allowed private conversations to proceed uninterrupted, at least on Adam's end. He briskly strode up the stairs, rounded the corner, rushed forward and swept into the director's office. He waited for Miller to finish up his phone call.
Miller tucked his vu-phone into the breast pocket of his suit jacket, and turned his attention to Adam. The man looked haggard. Shadows were carved under his eyes, the frown lines were permanently set, and the crowsfeet didn't hint at any mirth or joy. Even with the overtime his body was clocking, Miller still dressed impeccably. A stylish two-piece with black leather shoes was his choice of apparel, while Adam wore his usual ACRNM coat over his combat vest, with dark pants and durable boots.
Adam stood whereas his boss sat. "Agent Jensen, take a seat. We have much to discuss."
"Which would be what, exactly?" Adam remained standing. He folded his arms and shifted his weight onto one leg.
Tenting his hands, Miller stared at them. "Your transfer. You're being moved to another organization altogether. A letter came earlier today, with your name on it. It's been signed off already."
Adam raised an eyebrow. "Where am I being sent?"
Miller hesitated. "Overwatch. You're going to be rolling with the big guns. Apparently they've got a spot reserved just for you."
"Do I get a say in any of this?"
"Funnily enough, no." Adam didn't see the humour in it, his expression stoic. Though the way the corners of his mouth were hooking downwards conveyed his displeasure to Miller.
"Nothing I can do about it, Adam," Miller continued in a softer tone. He rubbed his forehead. "I didn't make the suggestion in the first place, anyway. Whoever it is that wants you moved, they've got to be pretty aware of who you are."
"And you're okay with that?" snapped Adam, letting his arms drop at his sides.
"Don't shoot the messenger, alright? I'm having a hard time as it is dealing with this major adjustment." Miller gave a grimace. He pressed his elbows on the desk, his fingers circling his temples. "Christ, I feel a migraine coming on."
Adam straightened his back and gazed down at the fortysomething Australian. "Your boss Manderley was the one who signed off the forms, right?" he hazarded.
"Our boss Manderley. Well, soon to be no longer yours," amended Miller, looking up at Jensen.
They looked at each other hopelessly. There was no avoiding the situation.
Adam cleared his throat and tore his eyes away from Miller's. "How long have I got to clear my stuff out?"
"Twenty-four hours to sort your belongings. And in fourty-eight hours' time you're expected to be on a private flight to Zürich."
Miller waited a moment to add, "I think they're onto you. Be careful out there, Adam."
Adam gave a nod. "You too. The fight isn't over, though. For either of us."
Director Miller didn't reply as Adam stepped out of the office. He didn't even get that far before he ran into the quartermaster of TF29.
"Oh, hey, Adam," said Aria, giving him a small wave. She wore her ballistic exo-suit - acidents could happen at the firing range, she'd once defended her choice. Not that any accidents had occured while Adam was around. Her cheeks were slightly rosy, and her piercing hazel eyes regarded her only augmented colleague with curiosity. "You look kind of down. Did things with Miller go over okay?"
"I just received some unexpected news," Adam explained.
"Oh? So what's happening?"
"I... am getting transferred."
"Transferred?" Shock rippled across Aria's features. "Where? Why?"
'"Where' is Overwatch. As for 'why', I'm still in the dark about that. But don't tell anyone, Aria, okay?"
"But people are still gonna find out, Adam. Did you...?"
"Apply for a position at Overwatch? No." Adam shook his head. "It came out of the blue."
"Then... you're leaving?" Aria looked crestfallen as she wrung her hands.
"I'm afraid so. But don't worry about me. I'll be fine, Aria."
"Yeah... it's just that this is so sudden..."
"I know. I'm not exactly in a position to override the request myself."
"Huh? You mean you don't get a choice?"
"None at all." That part really bothered Adam.
"That's weird. Really weird. And more than a little unfair, since it wasn't your idea to go to them in the first place. It's like your name got randomly picked out of a hat."
Adam countered, "I don't think it was random."
"Maybe Director Miller praised you in front of some people who wanted to see how good you are, Adam. Is this thing going to be permanent? I hope not," she added the last part quickly, averting her gaze.
You and me both, Aria, Adam thought. He'd grown accustomed to the way of things at TF29. Chang and his paranoia, Smiley and his ladies-man routine, Miller's no-nonsense attitude and dedication to his job.
"I don't know about much of the details. I'll have to clarify a lot of things with Miller before I leave," decided Adam.
"Should I put the word out?" offered the amiable quartermaster. "I mean, you can't just go without saying goodbye."
"Appreciate the thought, Aria, but I'd rather keep things quiet. Don't want to stir up a fuss over me leaving," Adam said. He got an unexpected embrace from Aria, who wrapped her arms around his torso, and then she walked off.
The first thing Adam did after that was head downstairs and log on to his computer. Miller had forwarded him the details of his transfer. Date, time, location, who to rendezvous with, provided accomodation. Adam saved the information to his neural drive so he could access it on a whim.
He went on to make the rounds, dropping into a few colleagues' offices to say his goodbyes. Smiley, Chang and a few others. He was clearing out his desk when Macready stomped up to him, looking quite aggrieved. The Interpol agent was glaring at him fiercely.
"Tell me that it's all bollocks." Macready almost sounded like he was pleading.
"Ah, so you got the memo." Adam shut a drawer upon emptying it of its contents - a vial of Neuropozyne, a hypotism, some painkillers.
"What exactly is going on with you, Jensen? Where are you being sent? Argento wouldn't tell me anything, and let me tell you - I don't appreciate being kept out of the loop."
"Overwatch."
"That makes no bloody sense!" shouted Macready.
Consumed by his cleaning efforts, Adam muttered, "You're telling me."
"You're an asset to the team! Miller wouldn't just roll over and let you be taken out of - "
"He didn't have a choice. His authority got overridden."
"I'm going to yell in his ear until that idiot sees sense."
"That'll just result in a bigger headache for the director. Anyway, I thought you'd be glad to be rid of me," said Adam flatly, turning towards Macready. "The special treatment definitely got on your nerves."
Macready gave a derisive snort. "Yeah, but even so, mate, you are more competent," he pointed at Adam, "than ninety percent of the active agents here. Who'll be filling your spot when you're gone?" Adam shrugged. That wasn't for him to decide.
"You could get Aria out on active duty," he spoke up.
"Argento? She won't be a replacement for you."
"She doesn't have to be." It was hard for the Englishman to read Jensen most of the time, due to his skull-mounted sunglasses. He couldn't see the emotions in the hanzer's eyes. Could optics even hint at emotions?
"Argento gets too bloody stressed. The amount of Neuropozyne that she needs - TF29 isn't able to facilitate that."
"You could, once I'm gone. Take the Neuropozyne from my prescription, and add it to hers. There. Problem solved."
"Why're you insisting so hard on this?"
"Just giving you something to think about."
"You're in high demand, man," jested Alex Vega, Adam's contact and a hacker in the Juggernaut Collective, the hacktivist group which had gotten themselves on the watchlists of many intelligence-gathering organisations. She was sitting at the table, legs crossed. Adam sat across from her, his sunglasses withdrawn and cobalt eyes betraying how weary he felt.
"Jokes aside, this situation is shit. You're gonna be in the public eye, Adam. Picus covers everything about Overwatch: from stupid gossip bullshit up to what they're meant to be doing. If you're being sent there, keeping on the down-low won't be a viable option," Vega explained as she gestured with her hands for emphasis.
"And since you'll be in Switzerland, I can't come with you. The whole point of me getting the proper paperwork to come to Prague was so that I could help you blow the cover on TF29. Can't exactly shadow you everywhere, you know."
"Yeah. But what about Janus? I haven't forgotten my promise."
Vega couldn't help the smile that came to her face. Adam was just too stubborn for his own good sometimes. "You know Janus. The guy loves his anononymity. He's not keen on getting facetime with you." Vega watched Adam carefully to gauge his reaction. So far, he wasn't giving her much of one.
Adam sat there with a pensive expression, his cyberoptics fixed on the kitchen table. "I'm patient when I have to be," he said. His gaze flickered to stare right at Alex. "I'll press him until he gives in."
"Good luck, man. I did my part, passed on the word to him. Even if you are going to Zürich, Janus'll find something for you to uncover." Alex shrugged. "He's just like that."
There were threads everythere that, if tugged on, would lead Adam ever closer to bringing down the power brokers that manipulated events from the shadows, that conducted their plottings in cyberspace.
"Janus has somebody inside Overwatch, actually. They'll be on the lookout for you."
"Right. Anybody I know?"
The smirk Vega showed him was infuriating. "You'll see."
Two days later, at Praha International, Adam made his way down to the parked VTOL, a personnel carrier that bore no windows and no visible cockpit. It was steered with the guidance of optic feeds and landscape sensors, a feat that not every pilot was capable of. Instead of the typical orange chassis, it bore white and black colours, with a cicular crest painted on the side.
A woman was leaning against the side of the aircraft, arms folded and wearing a cocky smirk. She had sunglasses on and was clad in a grey-orange fightsuit.
"Lena Oxton," she introduced herself with a two-fingered salute. "I was told to expect someone grumpy, tall and dressed in black. You fit the bill, mate. Adam Jensen, yeah?"
"That's me."
"Let's get onboard and outta here. Gotta stay on-schedule."
Adam gave a shrug. "You're the boss." They climbed aboard, and shortly the VTOL ascended, its engines roaring and its wings shifting metal to accomodate the lift-off. Inside, all Adam heard was a soft whine of the motors. Red lighting illuminated the cabin area and he eased into his seat, dozing off not long afterwards.
Sometime later, Adam awoke to the sound of yelling. "You awake back there, Jensen?" called Oxton cheerily.
He sat up straight, blinking a few times to get rid of the lingering dullness of waking up. "I am now."
"We'll be landing in ten minutes time. "Buckle up, Jensen, we're almost there." There were no windows to look out of, so Adam opted to mentally go over the information Miller had provided. He was staying in a complex close to headquarters, where supposedly many of the other employees resided. He was to report to someone named Gabriel Reyes for his briefing. Adam hadn't been assigned any specific position yet, and he reckoned his first day was to be a test of sorts.
Soon he sensed the VTOL touching down and its engines quieten. Unbuckling his seatbelt, he moved to exit the craft, walking down the ramp. "HUD off," he muttered to himself, and the displays which previously clogged up his vision vanished with a flicker.
The Landing Zone was jam-packed with helicopters, VTOLs, jets and other vehicles. It was an expansive airfield right on the territory of headquarters. Adam was standing before one of the entrances into the main building on an elevated platform.
Overwatch was rather open about its whereabouts, unshy to show the world that this was its primary base of operations. Adam thought that the huge steel structure, all sharp corners and bright surfaces, was a front, and that the actual facilites were most likely underground, like in the case of TF29.
On the walkway from the platform to the door, somebody was waiting. "Spyboy! It's been so long!" Adam froze as he was waved at.
"Malik?" His tone became noticibly warmer. "What're you doing here?"
"I work here. I pilot for Overwatch," replied Faridah Malik, approaching the augmented agent.
Adam asked, "How'd you end up in Switzerland?"
"Funny story behind that. I was trying to reach you," she pointed at him, "but our mutual friend you-know-who was kind of having a hard time getting me the documents I needed, since border control is so much stricter in Europe these days, especially for augs. But I made a friend who pilots as well, you've met her, she put in a good word for me, and then - here I am." Malik spread her arms with a smile. Looking at Malik, you wouldn't assume she had any cybernetic implants. No replacement limbs and she didn't have any neural markers going across her forehead. She only had discrete implants, to assist her with flying.
As for their 'mutual friend', that was Garvin Quinn, an agent of the Juggernaut Collective. He'd been trying to get Malik the right papers so that she could enter Prague, but now that operation was meaningless, as Adam came to her instead.
"Last I heard, you were neck-deep in TF29 stuff," continued Malik.
"I was busy in Prague." Adam gave her a significant look. It was for the best that neither of them mentioned their associates from the Collective. Not in public or where there could be eavesdroppers, at least. "But I got pulled from there when Overwatch asked for me."
"Huh. I guess they're looking for talent in all sorts of places."
"You two know each other?" interrupted Oxton, coming up behind Adam, who turned towards her.
"Hey, Lena. Yeah, me and Adam go way back. I used to ferry him around everywhere," said Malik with a laugh. "Remember Hengsha, Adam?"
"Our first visit there or the second one?"
"1st one, of course. I'm kinda embarassed that that thing with Belltower happened, but luckily you were there to pull my ass out of the fire." Malik scratched the back of her head.
"Any time, Fly girl," echoed Adam.
"C'mon, we should probably head in. The bosses are expecting you." Malik guided Adam to where he needed to go. The HQ interior had high tiled ceilings, pillars whose surfaces were formed with door-sized triangles, whitish corridors, and glass elevators.
Oxton ran off to meet up with some of her other friends, which left Adam and Malik to ride one of the elevators. "We'll catch up more later, Jensen. You got my InfoLink frequency?"
"Yeah. Maybe we could go out for a bite to eat?"
"To eat what, cereal?" She grinned, poking fun at his preferred kind of meal.
He just shook his head at the remark and stepped out of the lift. "Go down that corridor and it's the third door on your second right," Malik directed him before the elevator doors shut and she was moving again.
Adam started walking forward. "HUD on," he commanded. Information flooded his vision as various icons appeared. His internal GPS had been updated, with a layout of the HQ available to view.
He found the right door, and activated his Smart Vision. He could see two people inside, both armed with concealed sidearms. One wore an electronic monocle, and the other no distinguishing visual aids. Both were 'naturals', with no mechanical implants.
He turned the doorknob and strolled in, shutting the door behind him.
"You must be Adam Jensen," stated a chocolate-skinned man clad in black combat gear, a belt of shotgun ammunition slung across his chest. A beanie was pulled down over his hair, and a smirk lingered between his moustache and beard. His compatriot was a broad-shouldered blonde man dressed in a blue longcoat over a bulletproof vest with the Overwatch emblem. Clean-shaven and slightly pale, he carried an earnest smile as he stood to shake Adam's hand.
"Jack Morrison," he introduced himself.
"Gabriel Reyes," said the other man who'd recognised Adam.
"Welcome to the Overwatch Initiative, though we just call it Overwatch for short," Morrison said. "You've got quite the record, Mr Jensen."
Adam rolled his shoulders and tilted his head. "I've been places."
"So you have," Reyes spoke up. "The DPD, Sarif, Interpol, and now us. Why work for Overwatch?"
"Aw come on, Gabe, that's not a fair question..." protested Morrison, his hands in the air. Reyes silenced him with a swift gesture.
"Got the call. Couldn't resist."
"You move around a lot, Jensen. What would you say are your specialties?"
Morrison added, "He means what you can bring to the table."
"Infiltration and CQB, mainly."
Reyes hummed while nodding. "That so, huh... You got a lotta implants there. Sarif install your rig for you?"
The answer to that was tricky. Initially, Adam had had Sarif tech grafted into his body, but after Panchaea, his recollection of events was fuzzy, up until the moment he'd woken up in a WHO facility in Alaska which subsequently escaped from.
"Yeah, he did."
"Interesting." Morrison appeared to be uncomfortable discussing augmentations, fidgeting with his electronic monocle and changing its settings, while Reyes merely gave a smug look. "I can take him off your hands, Boy Scout." He turned his head to smirk at him. "I think he'll fit in nicely with my division."
"Uh, you go and do that, buddy. I gotta... sort out stuff with the higher-ups. Excuse me." Morrison pushed his way past Adam and out the door, leaving the aug alone with Reyes.
"Don't mind him. Boy Scout just couldn't think of a nice way to tell you he can't accept you into the main Overwatch force."
Adam gave a nod. "I was surprised when the request came down. You guys aren't renowned for employing augmented people," he responded, placing a hand on his hip.
"No, we're not. Any augs that get sent here, I take 'em in. My division specialises in covert ops. I call it Blackwatch. I'll give you the rest of the day off, to acclimatize to your surroundings. But tomorrow, you'll begin your training here."
"Copy that."