Chapter 10: Industrial Revolution

Amos took a deep breath as he held his helmet in his hands. The day had come. It was time for the Helix Security mission. His first solo mission.

Okay…okay, I can do this, he thought as he donned his helmet, pausing to look over a rather large flash drive in his hands. Just need to get in, stick this thing in an executive computer, and get out. Simple. Except for the security. And the armored bird suits Helix's people tend to wear. And the rocket launchers said bird suits are armed with.

He shook his head.

No use dwelling on it, I guess, he thought. The dropship carrying him opened its door and a single rope dangled down into the night. Time to roll.

Amos slid down the rope and touched down in a sandy alley between the buildings. With its passenger successfully departed, the dropship left. Amos sighed; he was now alone. No one would bail him out if he made a costly mistake. Business as usual, he supposed.

He poked his head out of the alley and quickly looked around. The streets were empty, with all the citizens of Giza, Egypt having gone home. With an accepting shrug, Amos darted from one alley to another, steadily making his way towards Helix's primary building. The corporate skyscraper reached for the night sky, the glass windows covering the front—even the door—leading into faint light within.

Once again thankful for having a black uniform to wear at night, Amos dashed across the street and flattened himself against the wall of the Helix building. He inched his way over the door.

Okay, here we are, he thought. Now, how do I get in?

Seeing little else in terms of a stealthy option, he tried to open the door. Predictably, it was locked. Amos sighed and looked around, even upward, in search of a way in. He doubted he could scale the building and enter through an upper window, nor had he the means to quietly pick the lock or land on the roof. He reached a finger for his radio to call for backup, but stopped.

Widow's not going to be happy if I try to avoid doing this myself, isn't she? Amos sighed. And an unhappy Widow means a dead me. Well…here goes everything.

He walked away for a moment, then returned shortly after, dragging a large vase from the nearby bazaar with him.

"Alley-oop!" Amos grunted with a mighty heave, tossing the vase through the front window and shattering the glass, causing an alarm to immediately go off. "Totally just like a professional would."

With a way inside now available, Amos carefully entered Helix's facility, gingerly treading around the broken glass. He made his way over to a wall, flattening himself against it with his gun at the ready. Most of the lobby's area seemed to be in its height, with a large space above him seemingly filled with nothing.

Then several doors in the walls above him opened, revealing a squadron of men and women in bird-like armored suits. Most of the suits were a dirty light brown, but a few seemed to be personalized with different colors. All of them bore a large cylindrical gun loaded with massive, rocket-like bullets.

Uh-oh, Amos gulped.

Helix's security guards leapt out of the walls, the wings on their backs releasing fire as their jets lowered them safely down to the floor. Amos was quickly surrounded, with every rocket launcher trained on his person.

"Freeze!" cried one of the guards, a woman in sapphire armor who cautiously stepped forward. "You are under arrest for breaking and entering! Put your hands where we can see them!"

Amos' heart started thumping again. He could see an awful lot of rocket launchers pointing at his head. He slowly raised his hands into the air.

"Well, there's, uh…not much else I can do, is there?" Amos said with a nervous laugh. He suddenly dropped a hand into one of his pouches. "OH, WAIT, MY PHONE'S GOING OFF!"

"I said keep your hands in the—!" the guard in blue began, only to be cut off when one of Amos' sticky grenades was flung directly at her. The grenade exploded into goop, covering her rocket launcher and pinning her arms to her sides.

"Pharah!" a few of the other guards cried. Amos scrambled away, but the remaining Helix personnel took aim.

"Concussive rounds only!" Pharah ordered as she and a pair of other guards tried desperately to remove the slime from her armor. "I want minimal structural damage!"

One guard pointed his left fist at Amos, launching a small rocket that exploded behind him and tossed him forward. Another guard followed suit, this time sending a rocket that catapulted the now-screaming Amos upward into the air. The Talon soldier soon fell to earth with a thud, and Pharah got enough of the goop removed to make her arms and weapon usable again.

"Nice try," she frowned, "but we're taking you in, dead or alive."

"Oh, that sounds neighborly," Amos groaned as he tried to rise to his feet, only to have multiple rocket launchers aimed at him once again.

"Now, let's try this again," Pharah said, adding her own rocket launcher to the count. "Put your hands over your head and—"

Pharah trailed off when a rumbling sound came through the open window. She immediately glared at Amos from beneath her beak-like visor.

"What's that noise?!" she demanded, shoving the barrel of her launcher into his forehead. "What did you do?!"

"Nothing, I swear!" Amos shrieked.

"Captain, we got incoming!" one of the other guards cried.

More rockets came from outside, these quickly blowing the front doors to pieces. A trio of black-and-blue tank-like vehicles rolled in, the massive cannon on the front of each firing on every living thing in the vicinity. Helix guards were torn to shreds in the ensuing firefight, causing Pharah's eyes to go wide.

"Get back!" she cried, kicking the fallen Amos to the wall and quickly positioning herself between him and the tanks.

She opened fire, her first rocket quickly tearing through one of the tanks and giving the other two pause. The remaining tanks began to shift their bodies around, assuming the humanoid form of the Talon Omnic's personal Bastion units as they aimed their gun-hands at Pharah.

"I've lost a team once," she growled. "I will not fail again."

The Bastions opened fire, but Pharah was quicker with her shots. Her rockets decimated each Bastion in seconds, but judging by the metallic thumps that grew steadily louder, the fight was not yet over.

A hulking figure appeared in the doorway, body covered in large spikes and a cavernous gargoyle-like mouth built into its chest. The figure stepped forward, each movement producing a mechanical whir, as it gripped the long-handled axe in its massive hands. Another pair of Bastions appeared behind it, guns at the ready.

"Uh, what is that?" Amos gulped, pointing at the colossal axe-wielding machine. Pharah simply narrowed her eyes.

"Someone with a sick sense of humor," she growled, readying her rocket launcher again.

She fired off a shot, but the spike-covered figure put its left arm forward, producing a blood red barrier eerily similar to that of Reinhardt. Pharah's eyes went wide for a moment, but she recovered quickly.

"Where did you get that technology?" she demanded of the figure.

"Blackhardt here can't talk," an English accented-voice replied as the Talon Omnic stepped out from behind the behemoth, rifle in hand and Vishkar drones by his side. He now wore what seemed to be Balderich's helmet on his head, along with a green cape attached to his shoulders. "But I think even you can figure that I can."

He glanced behind her, and saw Amos staring at him.

"…really?" he sighed. "You again?"

Pharah looked to Amos with a glare. "Explain."

"Uh, long story, I'll tell you later!" Amos waved her off before looking back to the Talon Omnic. He made sure to keep speaking before Pharah could get a word in. "Okay, seriously, what the actual hell? What are you doing here? What are these—are those Omnics? What is this giant spiky thing? And—actually, what are you wearing?"

"Oh, these?" the Talon Omnic replied, gesturing to his new helmet and cape. "Found them in Germany, figured I might as well try a new look. After all," he added, snapping his fingers and prompting the Vishkar drones to hover directly above him, "I'm on my way to ruling the world."

"Uh—um…you've…you've really lost me, I'm sorry," Amos shook his head. "What?"

The Talon Omnic shook his head, but continued. "Humans have oppressed Omnics for years; I'm living proof of that. Overwatch kept up that rot about making a better world, but it's only better for them. For their precious humans. If you want something done right, you do it yourself. So, I'm going to wipe human civilization from the face of the Earth—"

Amos' eyes went wide. Pharah's jaw clenched as she aimed her gun directly at the Talon Omnic.

"—and make a new civilization where Omnics rule," the mad machine finished. "I will lead my people, my real people, into a new age. I'll be the king of all…an Omnirex."

"Wait, wait," Amos held up a hand. "A what?"

"Omnirex?" the Talon Omnic replied with an irritated sigh. "My new name? Should mean something along the lines of 'king of all'."

"I…don't think that's how Latin actually works," Amos pointed out.

"Look, I spent three hours trying to come up with a name that wasn't taken by somebody's pet project, of course I'm going to butcher things to get something good!" Omnirex snapped. "Anyway, we're getting really off-topic here! Blackhardt!"

The darkened suit of Crusader armor lumbered forth, swinging its axe horizontally in front of it. Pharah's jets carried her into the air above the behemoth, while Amos stumbled back as the blade whizzed by.

"Hey! What are you doing?!" Amos cried.

"Wiping out all humans means you need to die, too," Omnirex said flatly. "That being said, I haven't forgotten what you've done for me. I might build you a statue or something, we'll see."

He raised a hand, and the two Bastions aimed their guns, one at Amos and one at Pharah. Pharah shot first once again, but this time Blackhardt's shield protected its fellow machines from the Helix officer's assault. Amos quickly threw another one of his glue grenades at the other Bastion, only for the sphere to bounce harmlessly off of Blackhardt's barrier and onto the floor, creating a mess of goop where it landed.

"Huh," muttered Omnirex as he examined Amos' mistaken handiwork, "could use one of those."

He pointed at Pharah, and with that silent order, his Vishkar drones released their lasers in her direction. Portions of Pharah's armor became burnt and blasted, but she shot higher into the air and narrowed her eyes. Compartments began to open all over her armor, revealing all manner of missiles loaded within.

"Oh, boy," Amos whimpered as he ducked for cover. Pharah snarled down at her mechanical foes.

"JUSTICE RAINS FROM ABOVE!" she roared, firing every last one of her missiles at once. Each one slammed down upon her targets, creating a burst of smoke from the impact. Once her missiles were gone and her targets were obscured by smoke, Pharah touched back down on the ground. "Justice has been done."

But, as if on cue, Omnirex casually stepped out of the smoke without even a dent in his armor. The smoke soon cleared, revealing that his minions were also unharmed. Blackhardt's barrier was now coated in cracks, but this appeared to be the sacrifice that was made to save them.

"You," Omnirex growled, aiming his rifle at Pharah, "don't know the first thing about justice."

He fired on her, the shotgun spread scattering bullets across her armor. Pharah fell to the ground, wounded but alive.

"Oh, no! Oh, no, no, no!" Amos mumbled, rushing to Pharah's side with one of his medical wraps ready. Just before he could place one on her wounds, however, he felt something hard tap the side of his helmet.

"It's been nice knowing you, grunt," Omnirex said, setting himself up for a point-blank shot into Amos' skull. "And I've never told that to any human I've known."

Then the group heard a guttural roar.

Omnirex looked up and back to the front door, as did his robotic minions. Pharah lifted herself up, pushing Amos aside with a scowl in the process. Before anyone could make any sort of comment, a blur of blue light flashed past Omnirex's soldiers and into the air, firing a volley of blue lasers into one of the Bastions, riddling it with holes and quickly dismantling it. A massive red shape barged through the robotic blockade, knocking aside both robots and shattering the final Bastion's body. The blue blur suddenly came to a stop beside Pharah, followed shortly by the red shape.

"Cheers, love!" Tracer grinned at Pharah, the red hue of Winston's skin and fur returning as his normal grey-and-black returned. "The cavalry's here!"

No way, Amos thought as his eyes went wide. Two actual members of Overwatch had just appeared out of nowhere in front of him. Pharah looked just as surprised as he did, her jaw dropping as she pushed herself to her feet.

But Omnirex clenched his fist.

"The 'cavalry'. Because why not?" he growled. "Blackhardt!"

The last of Omnirex's present minions readied its axe and charged. Winston bared his teeth and barreled straight into the hulking machine, tackling it to the ground and wrestling with it over possession of its massive axe. Omnirex prepared to fire on the trio of humans before him, but Pharah quickly fired off a concussion rocket that sent him soaring outside.

"Nice shot!" Tracer grinned again.

"Tracer?" Pharah pulled off her helmet, revealing long black hair and an Eye of Horus tattooed over her right eye. "Is that really you?"

"Fareeha?" Tracer's eyes went wide, the rest of her body running over to the Helix officer and wrapping Pharah in a quick hug. "I should be asking you that, love! Oh, wow, that armor looks great on you! How are you doing?"

"I'm fine, but we'll need to catch up later," Pharah said, pointing to the door. "That Omnic seems like the stubborn type."

"Right!" Tracer held up her pistols. "Let's show him how we did things back in Overwatch!"

"Um, excuse me?"

Both women turned to find Amos still standing next to them.

"Er, hi, I'm, uh…just kind of, you know, 'here' at this point," Amos stammered. "Can I get out of this alive, please?"

Tracer immediately pointed her guns at him with a glare, but Pharah shook her head.

"We have bigger problems than a single Talon grunt," the Helix officer said. "Let's deal with them, first."

"You got it!" Tracer gave Pharah a quick salute before rushing to aid Winston. Blackhardt had managed to knock the ape away, but soon found Tracer a much harder target to strike with its axe. The time-hopper vanished and zipped about in flashes of blue light, confounding her larger foe and thwarting its efforts to cleave her in tow.

Meanwhile, as Pharah had predicted, Omnirex charged back into the building with an animalistic cry of rage, his Vishkar drones focusing their fire on Pharah and Amos. The Talon soldier rolled aside with a yelp, but Pharah soared into the air again and fired a shot at Omnirex's head. The megalomaniacal Omnic ducked and saved himself, but his drones were immediately blown to pieces by Pharah's rocket.

"Bah!" Omnirex grunted. "Break me and mine all you want, it won't stop me!"

With a snap of his fingers, two more drones appeared above him in a burst of red light. Meanwhile, Tracer quickly vaulted off of Blackhardt's body, firing another volley of laser shots that forced the twisted Crusader suit back as Winston slammed it into the wall. Once she had a moment, however, Tracer quickly turned her attention to Omnirex himself.

"Sounds like you need a time-out!" she quipped, preparing her guns.

"Piss off, tosser," Omnirex snarled. He fired his gun several times, but Tracer blinked away from each with ease. "Oh, come on! Enough with the blinking already!"

Tracer suddenly appeared in front of him and swiftly kicked his gun out of his hands.

"You know, you sound kind of familiar," she said. "Have we met somewhere before?"

"That doesn't matter," Omnirex growled. Then, he sighed. His voice took on a softer tone as he looked down at his metallic body. "Definitely not anymore."

Tracer froze. Her eyes bulged.

"…E-Eli? Eli Dror? Is that you?" she gasped. Omnirex simply looked at her with a blank stare. Amos couldn't help but stare in shock at her knowledge of the Talon-made Omnic's identity. "Oh my God, is—is that you, love?"

Even beneath Balderich's pilfered helmet, the lights on Omnirex's forehead could be seen flickering violently.

"You have no right to CALL ME THAT!" he roared, his Vishkar drones unleashing another beam assault. Tracer back-flipped out of the way as Omnirex scrambled for his discarded gun, pressing a button on the side and causing a compartment on the bottom to open. Something was visible in the compartment; it looked like a grenade.

Winston gasped at the sight of it, pushing Blackhardt aside and leaping to Tracer'ss side. He quickly placed one of his barrier devices on the floor, and the protective blue bubble appeared just in time. Omnirex began firing a series of grenades from the new compartment, each one exploding ferociously against the barrier.

"This will protect us!" Winston assured the group, noticing Pharah's fascinated stare and Amos' worriedly looking about. "Tracer, what's going on? Do you know that Omnic?"

"Sort of!" Tracer replied, firing more shots to keep Blackhardt at bay. "He used to be this kid from King's Row! His parents were Omnic rights activists I met at one of Mondatta's big speeches! I…I don't know what's happened, he's somehow gotten turned into an Omnic!"

Amos took a deep breath before speaking. "Yeah, um…Talon did that." He felt all the glares in the world boring into his heart, but he continued. "I know, I know! I'm the guilty party, even though no one tells the grunts anything about their big projects! Look, I don't know the details, but he said he got picked off the street by some other grunts, then got brought to the base I'm usually stationed at to have his mind pulled out of his human skull and shoved into an Omnic one."

Tracer's glare was the most intense of all, her usual smile all but gone. She reached forward and snatched Amos' collar in both her hands.

"You people are monsters, you know that?!" she spat in his helmeted face. "Why do you do all these terrible things?!"

All Amos could do was cringe and cower. He wanted to argue, to tell her how different he was. He wanted to tell her about the people he had helped, the lives he had saved. But, he thought, what good would that do? Tracer showed no signs of being receptive to anything he had to say. So he simply kept quiet. Maybe that made things worse—it certainly made her angry frown more prominent—but he could think of nothing else.

"We'll deal with him later," Pharah said to Tracer, glaring at Amos all the while. The time-hopper gave the Talon soldier one last glare before letting go.

"I second that motion, because my barrier's giving out!" Winston added. Cracks were appearing in his energy sphere, but Omnirex still had one last grenade left.

"DEATH TO ALL MEATBAGS!" Omnirex roared as the last grenade fired.

Pharah narrowed her eyes and took aim, firing a single rocket that struck the grenade. Both projectiles exploded upon contact, spraying fire and smoke throughout the room. In moments, the smoke cleared, partly due to Blackhardt's repeated swinging of its axe.

"All right! Any ideas?" Tracer asked.

Amos raised a hand.

"Winston, can you handle the Reinhardt rip-off?" Pharah asked. Amos sadly lowered his hand.

"We'll certainly find out," the gorilla replied, pushing up his glasses.

"Um, excuse me?" Amos tried again, but Tracer sent him a warning glare. He shrank back and fell silent.

"Keep an eye on our 'friend' here," she told Pharah while jabbing a thumb at Amos. "I'm gonna try something."

She blinked out of sight, leaving Pharah to put her rocket launcher to Amos' head again. As Winston and Blackhardt grappled once more, Tracer suddenly appeared out of nowhere directly in front of Omnirex, tackling him to the ground and causing him to drop his rifle again.

"Eli!" she cried. "Come on, talk to me! You recognize me, right?"

She got off of him and stood up.

"It's me, Lena!" she continued with as big a smile as she could muster. "Remember all the good times we had when you were growing up?"

"Oh…I remember you, all right," Omnirex growled as he also rose to his feet. "I remember how you made my life miserable, bit by tiny bit. And I remember how you let Mondatta die."

Tracer froze. Her energy vanished in a heartbeat as her face fell.

"You're nothing but a failure, Oxton," Omnirex snarled, waving a hand. The eyes of each of his drones took aim at Tracer's forehead "And now you'll pay the price."

Tracer vanished just as the drones fired. Omnirex's forehead lights blinked furiously again.

"God DAMMIT OXTON!" the megalomaniacal Omnic roared. "EVERY BLOODY TIME!"

Omnirex's time-hopping foe reappeared by Pharah's side with a sigh.

"Okay, that didn't work!" Tracer remarked. She glared at Amos again. "What did your people do him?!"

"I swear, I told you everything I know already!" Amos almost shrieked. "I'm just a grunt! I already said no one tells me the important things!"

"You expect us to believe that?" Tracer snorted.

"DON'T YOU IGNORE ME, OXTON!" Omnirex suddenly roared, his drones firing a cascade of beams into the group of three. Pharah shot into the air, Tracer agilely leapt aside, and Amos stumbled out of the way. "YOU'RE GOING TO DIE, YOU HEAR ME?! YOU'RE GOING TO PAY FOR YOUR FAILURES, AND FOR EVERYTHING ELSE YOU'VE DONE!"

"Eli, come on!" Tracer pleaded, still dodging the Talon Omnic's laser fire. "Whatever's happened to you, we can work this out! We're friends!"

"YOU ARE NOT MY FRIEND!" Omnirex bellowed, picking his rifle back up again and firing wildly. His foes continued to dodge as best they could as he continued raving. "YOU'VE HAD EVERYTHING BLOODY HANDED TO YOU ON A SILVER PLATTER! I'VE HAD TO WORK WITH NOTHING! YOU DON'T HAVE A BLOODY CLUE WHAT I'VE BEEN THROUGH! YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW IT FEELS TO BE COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY ALONE!"

Amos raised his hand. Omnirex stopped shooting long enough to glance at him. Winston still struggled with Blackhardt, but Pharah and Tracer had their guns at the ready.

"I do," Amos said simply. "I was, uh…under the impression we had already established that."

Tracer looked like she was about to make another bitter comment, but Omnirex spoke first.

"Yeah…we did establish that, didn't we? Back when you got me away from Talon," the Omnic said. Tracer's anger seemed to finally fade. "You've…done a lot of things you didn't have to do. You even helped me disarm that EMP back in King's Row."

Tracer's jaw dropped as she whirled on Amos. "That was you?!"

"Well, me and a couple other people, but…yeah," Amos shrugged. "It's just…what I do these days."

"That doesn't really explain anything about you," Omnirex pointed out. "How do you know what loneliness feels like? Why do you go out of your way to help others when there's nothing in it for you?"

Amos rubbed the back of his neck. "Well…it's kind of a long story. Everyone got a few minutes to not kill each other?"

A ding came from behind them, and an elevator opened. Another of Omnirex's black-and-blue Bastions stepped out, this one bearing what looked like a welder in its arm.

"Doesn't look like it, sorry," Omnirex said quickly. "Blackhardt!"

The rockets on the Crusader look-alike's back ignited, and the massive machine slammed its full body into Winston as it pushed the both of them through a wall and out of the building. Omnirex fired a few more rifle shots to further scatter his remaining enemies as his Bastion converted into tank mode and approached its master.

"I've got what I came for, and it's taking way too long to kill you all," Omnirex declared as he climbed on top of the tank Bastion. "It's time I left."

With that, he rode off, still firing shots to keep his human foes at bay.

"Eli!" Tracer yelled. She ran to the door to catch him, but his drones got there first, placing a barrier of light in the destroyed doorway. By the time the barrier faded and the drones left, not a mechanical being was in sight. Tracer frowned.

"Are you all right?" Pharah asked. Tracer sighed, but soon a smile was back on her face.

"I'll be fine," the time-hopper said. "Man, Fareeha, it's great to see you again!"

"It's Pharah, now; my new callsign with Helix's security forces," Pharah explained with a smile of her own. "But it's good to see you, too. It's been far too long. Does this mean Overwatch is back?"

Tracer shook her head. "It's just me and Winston right now, but we're working on it."

"I wish I could help you, but I can't just leave my post," Pharah sighed. The two women were focused enough on their conversation for Amos to try and sneak away. "Tracer, you're so lucky. Ever since I was a little girl, I dreamed of joining Overwatch."

Amos stopped.

"Maybe you'll still get your chance," Tracer grinned. "After all, who knows what the future holds?"

Giving his head a quick shake, Amos tried to tiptoe away again. Before he could take three steps, however, Tracer was suddenly in front of him.

"And where are you off to?" she asked with fists on hips.

"Um…I left the stove on?" Amos said with a nervous laugh. Tracer's skeptical look was enough of an answer, so he made a mad dash for the exit. Unfortunately, Pharah landed in front of him, rocket launcher at the ready.

"You're not going anywhere," the Helix officer growled.

Amos swallowed hard and took a few steps back, but then a loud thump came from just behind him.

"Sorry about that, did I miss anything?" Winston asked, Blackhardt having apparently made its own escape.

"Our Omnic got away," Pharah explained, "leaving us free to deal with our other problem."

Amos nervously reached into one of his pouches for another glue grenade.

"DROP IT!" both Pharah and Tracer snapped at the same time, weapons trained on him.

Amos went quiet again as he slowly put his grenade down into his pant pocket. But he still held his gun close to him. Winston prepared his Tesla Cannon, but he hesitated. He could hear heavy breathing, just shy of hyperventilating, coming from beneath this Talon soldier's helmet.

"Just put the gun down, nice and easy, and then put your hands into the air," Winston said as calmly as he could. "If you do that, we'll have no reason to hurt you."

"Winston, what are you…?"

The ape held up his free hand to silence Pharah.

"Listen," he said. Silence fell over the room for a moment, broken only by Amos' breathing. The grunt's hands were shaking as he feverishly looked around for an escape route that did not exist. Winston's voice softened. "He's terrified."

Pharah still looked skeptical. Tracer frowned, but there was a hint of concern in her expression. Nonetheless, both of them kept their weapons trained on Amos.

"Is there somewhere here we can hold him?" Winston asked Pharah.

"I can find us a room, yes."

"Good," Winston nodded. He looked back to Amos. "Look…just cooperate with us. We just want to ask you some questions. Please…put the gun down, and put your hands in the air."

Amos' hands still shook. His breathing was still heavy. It was all he could do to hold in his panic.

But he complied. He slowly laid his handgun onto the floor. He raised his hands above his head just as deliberately.

"All right, thank you," Winston continued. "Now…we're going to need to take some things from you. Just…sit tight while we do it. We don't want any trouble."

Amos jaw began to shake in time with his hands. He highly doubted Winston's words.

He suspected that the trouble had only just begun.