Gears creaked as the brick and mortar slid upwards before her. Amélie's eyes fixed on the patterns, watching the lines as they passed evenly before her. A single lamp flickered overhead with the unstable power being delivered. Of course with this facility's proximity to the warfront in Spain, it made complete sense. She'd been descending for just over a minute now, but she could still tell when a blast went off near a power line, or an EMP detonated. The infrastructure struggled to keep up, but this building was special; it was the Overwatch tactical headquarters for the Gibraltar region, and she was en route to deliver another briefing.
Everything was finally coming together.
In the three months since the hotel incident, the assassin's origins had been traced to Talon. Bullets from the scene had been the beginning, and it was all building to a head. Some agents had even had their memories altered to erase the information about their surveillance and investigation—so eager were they to finally root out the terror organization that they wanted there to be no indication that Overwatch knew what they did.
They wanted to catch them completely off their guard.
Arrivals to the facility had been staggered. False mission briefings had been sent. Details using the proper channels were all in place to make this operation look like it was going to be a massive support mission for the front lines of the war, when really, their target was Talon.
It had also been three months since she'd seen Gérard. He'd been working the field and gathering intel, following immediately after the assassin in a hot pursuit. His instincts had paid off, and they didn't lose the trail until Madrid. Tech analysis had been able to hone in on his destination, and he'd been pulled off the hunt, and told to report here.
That was two weeks ago.
The elevator screeched to a halt as a metallic door thankfully came into view. Amélie stepped forward, lowering the glasses from her eyes to allow a retinal scan that interrupted its smooth surface to prove that she at least had the living eyes of Amélie Lacroix.
"State your access code," a familiar computerized voice beckoned. Amélie complied, straightening herself and fixing her glasses before tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. The computer thanked her by opening the door after a series of hydraulic pressure seals were released.
This facility was off the grid and airtight. She'd only learned about its existence from a physically encrypted message from Dr. Regis. Initially, it was a further reprimand for her boorish behavior, but key phrases tipped her off. An hour of decoding later, and she had a completely different message that told her where to be and when, and specifically which stack of papers she needed to bring.
Why she was giving the briefing on a mission she'd only been marginally involved in planning was beyond her. The higher counter-terror agents had taken a divested interest here, but had left the busywork to her. Typical, she thought with a sigh.
A long concrete hallway with blue-white lighting sprawled in front of her, the fluorescent lights giving off a characteristic buzz that muted the sound of her footsteps against the floor. Another metal door was at the far end and, reaching it, she deposited her papers on a shelf before spreading her arms and legs for a body scan.
Once again, the computers responsible for security confirmed that she was who she said she was, and opened the doors, granting her access to what could be considered a surprisingly simple office. A few desks were organized together, and on her entry, the analysts there paused briefly. One or two she knew, but the rest were strangers to her. Another sigh, and she regarded the walls.
It was laid out identically to almost every other Overwatch field office she'd been to, and so she knew exactly where she needed to go. This much would have been a surprise, if she didn't know exactly how much effort the organization went through to keep these facilities a secret. A few more footsteps, and she opened the door to a large conference room. Women and men were chattering, papers scattered over the table, and a large dynamic map was projected onto one of the walls.
"Well, let's get started, then," she said, letting her eyes scan over the crowd as she made her way to the front of the room. Finding Gérard, she had a hard time finding it within herself to smile, despite the one that lit up his face when their eyes met. Papers were deposited on the table, and everyone filtered into their seats. Amélie opened her folder and set herself into the same routine she'd done countless times before. A few pages were handed to the agents directly to her left.
"As some of you may know, three months ago in Geneva, Dr. Angela Ziegler was attacked by a would-be assassin. Our intervention saved her, and Agent Lacroix followed after the assassin. Between his efforts and ballistic analysis of bullets from the scene, we were able to determine that the assassin was directly affiliated with Talon." She turned to the display and tapped a few entries on the interface, bringing up a fuzzy picture of a man in a white mask and dark jacket.
"We believe this is the man responsible for the attack, an agent from Talon who we know only as 'Reaper.' This is the first time we've been successful in repelling his attack, and we got lucky.
"Lacroix was able to pursue him on foot to Madrid, where tech was able to ascertain his destination. We have been building an attack strategy since."
Amélie paused and shifted to the map proper, and the graphics that had been prepared. As she spoke, it would follow her words and illustrate what she was trying to demonstrate.
"This warehouse in the shipping district is where we believe one of Talon's most prominent operations bases is hidden. Our intel has a few low-level offenders lurking in the vicinity, and several of the local vagrants have ties to the terror group.
"We do not have blueprints of the building, as it predates modern record-keeping practices in construction. And since it was designed as a cold storage facility, our EM scans have been fruitless in providing anything more than a rudimentary building plan. This means it's probably safe to assume the walls are lead-lined; this building might contain anything."
A few more interface buttons were tapped, and the map tilted into a three-dimensional view of the building and the surrounding rubble. A large hole had been carved into the roof of the building, whether by a bomb or by shrapnel or by some other act of providence, and the map highlighted it to their view.
"The plan is for Agent Lacroix to make his way by foot to the building, and after disabling any security measures over this breach, infiltrate the building. The key objective here is surveillance of the building. We need to know personnel, security, and any key details of the structure. After a survey, he will come out the same way he went in.
"As our ability to penetrate the building with EM signal is inhibited, there is a good chance that communications will be intermittent at best from within. If ninety minutes pass without contact, Lacroix will be considered a casualty, and the mission aborted." The last phrase caught in her throat, and her gaze fixed on her husband, looking for some confirmation that everything would be okay. But in his eyes, behind the stolid exterior he wore, she could see that same fear she held. While other missions had been dangerous, they paled in comparison. There were too many variables, and they were operating with only a fraction of the intel they usually had.
"Are there any questions?" Amélie knew there would be one or two, probably, but she wished there wouldn't be. A flurry of emotion swirled inside her; anger and hurting at Gérard for his sudden departure and silence toward her, disappointment at his recklessness, uneasiness about the mission, and fear that he wouldn't be coming back.
"Why did Talon target some doctor?" The voice was that of one of the junior analysts, and it broke the silence of waiting. For that much, she was thankful. That, and it gave her something to distract herself with. Thinking back, she managed a smile.
"I asked the same question myself immediately after the attack. Two of our agents died to protect her, taking bullets to the skull. But she brought them back with something she called 'nanobots.' Both agents made a full recovery, and were honorably discharged. I watched them die, and she brought them back. If any doctor is deserving of Talon's attention, it's Dr. Ziegler."
Gérard stood then as well, and turned to the analyst. "We also believe that it was an attempt by Talon to not only eliminate the doctor, but also to stab at Overwatch, and to make a statement that they were to be feared. But we've had them running ever since."
And that was exactly what bothered Amélie. It was too easy. Talon was never this easy, or this reckless. They'd been effective at stopping them in the past, but she wouldn't have thought them desperate enough to take a potshot at a doctor in Geneva.
"Are there any more questions?" She asked, and silence hung thick in the air.
"When do we start?"
The hours passed quickly after the briefing. Amélie spent her time as she usually did, tapping her pen against the table while copiously pouring over what intel there was. And given the high stakes and the high risk for this mission, it was completely essential for her to know every detail. Or so she reasoned. But with this there was precious little she could study. All they'd been able to ascertain was personal data on the guards and vagrant sentinels. It could easily be that this building was empty, and that tech had given chase to the red herring, but it didn't feel like that.
Perimeter scans and infrared surveillance showed tight patrols around the base, but Lacroix-no, Gérard, she mentally corrected-would be bypassing that entirely. A grappling hook and customized climbing and scaling gear gave him access where few others could go, and allowed him to move naturally along walls and rooftops. So getting over the guards' heads, literally, would not be a challenge.
No, the challenge was the roof. So as to not attract attention, they'd been forced to minimize their surveillance efforts. Some believed that Talon had some way of knowing when they were being watched. However, with a hole as substantial as what they were targeting, there was no way they didn't have some sort of security there. The question, then, was of what was there. Gérard had worked as much security detail as she had, so he knew just as much as she how many security measures they might encounter - and how to counter them. But the uncertainty was staggering, to say the least.
Usually she would be able to work through the material once, maybe twice from the briefing to the zero hour. But their intelligence on this mission was so sparse that she'd been through it all six times by now. Gérard was no doubt already suited up and en route to the district. He'd studied the maps more than anyone, besides maybe her. But then, he'd had more time with them than she.
That was another thing that bothered her. The decision to go forward with this mission had been made entirely without her say. While there was nothing procedurally wrong with it, it hadn't happened since she had taken over his missions operations. And there hadn't been any notable failures since. Nor had there been any missions grounded in so much uncertainty, and she wished she'd had the opportunity to speak against it. Never mind that he was her husband.
Perhaps that was why she'd been excluded from the decision-making process. Or perhaps Dr. Regis had done something to sabotage her. Lord knew he disliked her enough. It was infuriating that, just because he'd been sucking up to Dr. Ziegler, she was still getting heat for having done her job.
The frustration caused the pen she'd been tapping against the table to bounce free, and she watched it roll along the table and fall to the floor. Free, but lacking momentum, and it eventually fell into the grout between the tiles. Not only at a loss for its freedom, but now also stuck in a lifeless state. Her eyes fixed on it, and Amélie sighed. It was close enough to the zero hour to justify taking up her position in the ops room, so she shut the folder and rose from the table. And only a moment was taken to retrieve the pen from its resting place on the floor, and she made her way through the familiar complex.
Pressure sensors, an ultraviolet cage, and a closed-circuit camera. Those were the only security measures Gérard had encountered on his way in. By themselves, not hard to nullify, but in concert they had proved something of a challenge. It was simple, but effective, true to Talon's modus operandi. Still, Gérard was better. Pressure sensors were tricked, the camera blocked, and the cage disrupted by a series of prisms. If their system had been more up to date, they might have noticed the momentary latency that had been introduced, but fortunately the mission was able to proceed, and Gérard had disappeared inside.
That had been nearly eighty minutes ago.
As their analysis had predicted, they had lost all contact once he'd disappeared within the building, and the timer had begun. Analysts and technicians prattled, and she could hear the long distance surveillance checking in over her earpiece. If they knew he was there, none of the patrols were indicating as much.
The first thirty minutes had been expected. Amélie had taken to reviewing the extraction plan during that time, studying the holomap of the surrounding area that hovered luminously over a large table at the center of the ops room, and tracing the various routes that the asset could take.
Usually the fact that the 'asset' was her husband didn't matter, but she knew it was different this time. That single fact had her more anxious than she was comfortable admitting. Couple that with her upset at his nearly-quarter-year absence, and she reasoned it was completely rational that her nerves were betraying her.
That led to where she was now. Her mind had begun playing through all of the horrible possibilities, and she found herself grinding her teeth and pacing anxiously. Each moment that passed brought a new scenario into her mind, a new end to their happiness. She needed to focus, but it was proving exceptionally difficult. Amélie could feel her heart beating quickly, her shoulders tense with the stress as her flats tapped quietly on the floor of the low-lit room. Eyes fixed on the single building on the holomap where she knew Gérard was, and she finally recognized what she was feeling.
Helplessness.
There was nothing that she could do.
Gérard had been silent for nearly the entire mission, since announcing his entry, and the time was almost up. And there was absolutely nothing that she could do to help him. No way that she could reach him. No piece of intel that she could pass along. No clean escape she could guide him through. No, Gérard was completely on his own.
Five more minutes passed with her thinking on these things, before static finally crackled through the speaker in the room.
"Spider to Nest, do you read me? Over."
"This is Home Nest, reading you clearly, Spider," Amélie replied, masking the catch in her voice that signaled her relief. "What's your status? Over."
"In sight of the exit. Progress is slow. Internal security measures are tighter than we thought. ETA five minutes. Over."
"Roger, Spider. Be careful. Over." Her eyes had grown misty at hearing his voice, which was something she had not anticipated. Nor even wanted. She was mad at him, wasn't she? The frustration she'd felt at his silence these past weeks had built to a head, but now it was confused, and intermingled with euphoria at knowing he was okay.
"Amélie, you should see this," another voice called to her, off the com line. She turned her gaze to a bespectacled analyst who was facing her, his back turned to a computer screen. A few keys tapped on his keyboard, and a layer of colors rendered on top of the holomap. A pulsing yellow arc was growing, and was almost about to engulf the target facility.
"What are we looking at?" She asked, golden eyes flashing to him from the display.
"Intel from command suggested a new protocol had been fed to Madrid from the Atlantic Omnium - Sterilization. They've launched a few gunships, and Spain has called for a retreat. The yellow circle is their radius." Amélie swallowed hard. 'Sterilization' meant that, with enough targets in proximity, the Madrid Omnium gunship would launch either a small thermonuclear warhead or a dirty bomb. Machines didn't care about radiation, after all.
"How much time?"
"One minute to detection, three from launch to detonation." A flurry of activity erupted in the room, as the operations crew in the facility began moving towards the safe room. It would hold them over long enough to survive the fallout, but there was another concern - this operation needed to be aborted.
"Spider, this is Home Nest, do you read? Over." Another few moments of silence passed before Amélie tried again. "Gérard, do you copy? Over."
"This is Spider, read you clearly Nest. ETA to exit is still five minutes. Over." He sounded annoyed, but she didn't care.
"Negative, Spider," she called back, "you need to get as deep within that facility as possible, as quickly as possible. Do you understand? Over." A moment of silence.
"I do not copy. Come again. Over."
"Omnius has enacted a sterilization protocol. You have four minutes until impact. Get as deep into the facility as possible and hide. We will come for you once the threat is clear. Over." She felt the sadness and the helplessness begin to filter in again. Panic set in, and she prayed for his compliance.
"I copy, Home Nest. I'll be safe. I love you, Amélie. Spider over and out." And with that, his com was silent.
"I love you, too." Her voice faltered quietly, and a few of the people in the room paused, looking to her at this rare display of emotion and affection.
"Amélie, you need to get to the safe room, too." It was the analyst who'd brought the Omnius threat to light, and he spoke gently, his face full of concern. Tears had begun welling up in her eyes behind shaded glasses of her own, and she nodded once, gathering up some papers and shutting off the display of the holomap.
The next few minutes passed like a blur, until Amélie found herself in the midst of a group of other men and women, huddled in a cement room, waiting for the inevitable. All at once it struck, the room lurching back and forth, shaking violently as dust fell from the ceiling, and canned goods rattled in their cases on shelves. The lights faltered once, steadied, and then went black, and the shaking finally began to die down.
It was over.