Overwatch didn't save them. The world turned their backs on Australia the second those negotiations took place.
Heck, Overwatch sent a damn rubber-stamped letter to Australia's human government saying they were legally unable to go there. Four years ago, Earth handed Australia over to the omnics.
Four years ago, most of Australia's people retreated to the sea caves. Four years ago, the Australian liberation front started its history of sabotage. Today would be the Front's last act. Mako Rutledge twisted the keys in the drill, making the machine come to life. He turned around, grinning widely to his crew. "This is it, guys!" he shouted. He turned a dial and the drilling mechanism started twisting. "We ready?"
"Aye!" The four other men said in unison. Mako chuckled, then pressed the gas pedal. The drill was already pointed for the dirt, so it started taking the dirt away with ease. On the tail of the re-purposed pickup truck, Taylor stood at the ready with a modified Bastion carcass. If any omnics followed them, it was his job to shoot as many as he could. On each side of Taylor were Thresher — who was in charge of reloading Taylor's gun — and Max — whose job was to blast the bots to kingdom come.
In the passenger seat, Jared fiddled with a drilling bot. Three more were tucked below his chair. His black hair was greasy and dishevelled, but hey. Whose wasn't? Mako couldn't see anything with the dirt in front of the windshield, so he checked the compass to see if they were headed in the proper direction. Due West. They'd go that way for a few kilometres until they were beneath the reactor.
They had to dig all the way under the omnic's city limits until they reached the omnium, an omnic factory. Luckily, it was relatively close to the edge of the city.
"You alright?" Jared asked, looking up at Mako.
Mako jerked out of his concentration. "Huh?" he asked.
"You just look a little nervous."
He bit his lip. "Aren't you?"
Jared nodded, head bobbing, then leaned up to Mako. He pecked Mako on the cheek. "To the resistance!" he shouted over the sound of dirt pummelling the windshield.
"To the resistance," Mako echoed, before checking the compass again.
"Don't worry about that," Jared said. "I've got a compass here. It also has a fairly good GPS system too. All you need to do now is follow my directions."
Mako nodded, rubbing the sweat off his forehead. "You thought of that?"
"Hun, there's a reason I'm the technician."
They drove in silence for a while. Sometimes, Mako checked to see if Jared would faint. Whenever he got too nervous, he'd just go out. But no, Jared was clenching his compass for dear life, the blue light lighting his face up. He was definitely attentive right now.
The truck's radio started playing quiet, staticky music from the ground above them. Mako got an idea, as he twisted the volume dial up. "What do you think Omnics listen to?"
"I don't know," Jared said, but twisted the tuner so that the sound was clearer. "But this is pretty gross."
The music wasn't half bad actually. There were no words though, save random beeps every few seconds or so. It almost sounded like they stole tunes from the rest of the world and translated it to their robot language. He reminded himself that they were just robots. "Gross like the rivers?" he asked, half to himself.
"After that, everything's just as gross." He looked back at the windshield, checking the compass. Again, they were headed in the right direction.
They kept going. Everything was quiet on the back-end of the truck. Maybe he didn't hear it over the steady grinding of the drill. Maybe it was the engine. He switched to a lower gear, trying to listen for Thresher, Max, and Taylor. Nope. Everyone appeared to be quiet. Mako didn't know whether to take that as a good sign or not.
After a few minutes, Jared sat straight as s stick. "Stop!" he said.
As quickly as he could, he slammed down on the brakes. "We there?"
"No, we missed it by 20 kilometres. Could ye open up the sunroof?
Mako pressed a button on the ceiling, and the glass barrier between the truck and the dirt slid open.
"Thanks." He pushed his thumb onto a bot,sending it to life. Immediately, a small drill started whirring. He pushed it against the dirt. The bot seemed to know exactly what to do. Its legs pressed against the dirt ceiling and it started crawling away above them. Jared quickly did the same with the other three. The bots were all about the size of his torso, so they could probably go quickly.
Jared grabbed the compass. "Now roll that sucker up and drive."
By the time that Mako had the sunroof, water was already pouring down on the glass. He swore beneath his breath as he turned the drill on again and started twisting the steering wheel. The turn was excruciatingly slow, and by the time they were turned around, there was a healthy downpour of water above their heads.
"The bots'll keep going until the entire floor's been demolished. Drive!" Jared hissed.
Mako gunned the gas, but the speedometer only read 40 km/h. He bit his lip and tried pressing it harder. 41 km/h.
"For Chrissakes, turn the drill off."
Mako did, and immediately, the speed went to 80. He rolled down the window and turned to the men on the back end. "Hunker down! We need to go!"
Mako changed the gear, and they were at 120.
"Keep going! We can get up to 240 with this thing?"
Mako looked at Jared. "How much did you modify this thing?"
"A lot! Now drive, drive, drive!"
Mako did as he was told, terrified of what the fallout could do to him. He was just lucky he couldn't hydroplane with this truck. He changed gears, and the engine revved louder.
Soon, they blasted themselves out of the tunnels into bright light. "How long do you think we have?" Mako asked.
"About 10 minutes until meltdown. You need to be at least 53 kilometres out."
"How far are we now?" he asked.
"About 10."
Mako looked at his speedometer: 240 kilometers an hour. "So we've got plenty of time?"
"No. Just keep going."
They drove. Mako frantically checked the rear view mirrors to see if the others had fallen off. He hoped to God they hadn't. After four years of fighting these bots, the last mission was not a time to die.
He tried to do the division in his head, but simply couldn't figure the numbers out. He turned to Jared, keeping his hand steady on the wheel. "At the speed I'm going, how long until we're out of the blast radius?"
Mako waited for a second before hearing, "6 minutes."
"Thanks," he said. He felt his heart humping in his chest. His stomach felt like he'd eaten a basket of butterflies. This was it. "So once we're out of range, can we celebrate?"
Jared didn't say anything. Instead Mako noticed his white knuckles and petrified expression.
Mako didn't talk to him either, but not out of pettiness. Jared was probably too scared to talk. He went mute like this sometimes, but only after he recovered from fainting.
Then Mako noticed it. Jared flopped against the headrest of the seat, leaning into the door. He'd fainted. Great.
Mako tried to stay calm. He tried to ignore his blood thudding through his ears or the pain in his forehead. He looked in the rear view mirror to see if they were still on. Instead, he only saw Taylor and Max. Did Thresher fall off? Mako felt sick at the thought of him lying in the desert, only to get burnt to death by the radiation.
The glass above them shattered as a fist pummelled it. A lithe, muscular shape slipped through the broken sunroof. "Lemme in," Thresher said as he pulled himself between the two seats. "We're gonna die out there."
Mako nodded, pointing to the seats behind them. They were stuffed with scrap metal and batteries, but would do.
"I don't think so," Thresher said, then opened the door that Jared was next to.
Mako tried to stop Thresher, but anything he'd do would push both him and Jared out.
Thresher laughed, and pushed Jared out of the car. "Shoulda kept the seat belts," he said, voice gravelly from years of dust.
Mako froze, every muscle in his body stiff. Already crouched in the vehicle, he felt himself shrink in his skin even more. He didn't say a word.
Thresher crawled into the passenger seat, and closed the door. "He was a coward anyways," he muttered.
Indignation surged through Mako, but he didn't — couldn't — say anything. He just kept driving, his foot cramping from pressing the gas so hard.
Next, Max went in, cussing loudly before going into the back seat.
Mako counted the seconds in his head until they'd be out of the blast radius.
The radio faded to static as they drove further and further away from the Omnic city.
"Weird, donchya think…" Thresher asked. "That the Omnics have all of Australia and don't use more than a single city?"
Mako nodded absent-mindedly. He was probably out of the blast range. He should shoot Thresher. How he wanted to.
"I thought you'd say that," Thresher said. Then, Mako felt cold metal pressed against his head. "You never were a thinker. Needed Jared to do that for you."
Mako stiffened even more. His heart thumped even louder through his ears. His body felt numb.
"Now get out of the hover."
Mako shook his head. He needed a lie. Quick. "We're not — We're not out of the blast range yet!" His grip on the steering wheel tightened.
Thresher was silent for a few seconds. Then, he started laughing. They sounded more like hoarse coughs, until Thresher was finally wheezing. "A bit of bullshit to keep you safe, eh Sharky boy?" The gun was lifted from his head. "Tell you what. You've got three minutes until I kick you out and leave you to die."
"You… can't do that," Mako said with a calmness that surprised even him.
"Don't make that two minutes."
To that, Mako shut up. He didn't move his hands or feet. His only job right now was to get himself out of the blast range before Thresher pushed him out of the vehicle. Two thoughts ran through his head in a never-ending loop.
Jared's dead, I'm dead. Jared's dead, I'm dead.
"Ten seconds, Mako. Anything to say?"
Mako, through stiff lips, asked, "Why?"
"The revolution's done and you weren't a good enough soldier to be allowed to live through it."
To that, Mako was punched in the jaw hard enough to loosen his grip on the steering wheel. On his side, the door opened. Mako felt another hard blow to his other cheek.
He fell out of the truck.
Jamie stooped over a mix of sulphur, charcoal, and dried kangaroo dung. In her hands, she held a pair of metal cups and a bowl of tree sap. At her right side, the finished results of these ingredients' combinations lay there, ready for any kind of impact to set them off.
These would scare off the kangaroos, she thought as she scooped the cups together and sealed the edges with tree saps. She rolled the ball of gunpowder in dust so it didn't stick to her arm. That'd probably be really dangerous.
Jamie turned around, checking if there was anybody in sight. Of course there wouldn't be. She'd walked five kilometres to get to the hot springs she was at, and in this heat, nobody would be walking out here.
The desert was plain and barren as always. Jamie was drenched in sweat from her forehead to the cracks between her toes. It didn't help that in an effort not to see her chest she'd worn two shirts at once. She took her top layer off, the looser one, and wrapped it over the bombs beside her.
She turned back to her new bomb and rubbed the dust off the sap to see if it dried. It did, because the dust rubbed off but the sap stayed there.
She took a deep breath and used her shirt as a sling to carry the bombs. She should probably head back. Who knew what Mum was doing?
She turned around, bombs slung over her right shoulder at waist level.
A massive cloud of dust threw itself up in the sky. Something started sounding like static in her ears. Quietly at first, until it got louder and louder until it was the only thing she could hear. She shut her eyes tightly like it would stop the sound. It stopped quickly and a small wind that was just enough to sway her sling was all she could feel. She heard the clinks of her bombs tapping each other. Her heart stopped in her chest.
Boom.
Everything hurt. Mako pulled himself up off of the ground and looked up at the sky. Dust covered everything from where the blast site was. Blazing scraps of metal clouded the sky.
He ran. Scraps fell down next to where he was at the speed of shooting stars. He wasn't a fast runner.
A scrap of burning steel cut through his shoulder. He stepped on metal. More cut through his arms, his chest, his back. Soon, his blood dripped onto the dust below his feet.
He looked around for a shelter. There wasn't any. He continued running, but ran out of breath quickly. Who was he kidding?
More metal sliced his back.
He was the muscle of the crew. He wasn't the brain. Thresher was right. He needed Jared for that.
Well, Jared wasn't here anymore.
He couldn't run for the life of him. He'd eaten too many ample meals with the Front for that kind of exercise. He wiped the tears from his eyes to see a massive sheet of steel sticking straight up in the dirt. It was only twenty metres away. He could easily make it. He kept running, trying his hardest not to fall down when burning hot metal embedded itself into his legs.
This was what it felt like to get shot with a shotgun. Multiple times.
He made it to the sheet of metal and did his best to crawl under it. The sand made his wounds burn, but at least he wasn't getting hit anymore. The smaller shards hit the top of the metal and bounced off. Mako got to work with pulling shrapnel out of his legs. His fingers got cut on the first few bullets, but the feeling of release as they were pried out of his back made up for the feeling.
He was safe, he reminded himself. Safe.