There was one blissful moment of silence where Jesse could pretend his entire life up until this point had been one massive hallucination. The gang, the bloodshed, the moody silent phase when he'd tried shaving half of his head once, the government job, the bootcamp, the AI watchdog in the middle of a literal war on machines.
The gorilla standing in the doorway.
The gorilla wearing eyeglasses and clothing standing in the doorway.
"Oh, excellent! I had hoped you'd be awake."
The gorilla wearing clothing and speaking English standing in the doorway.
Gabriel was pinching the bridge of his nose with a grimace, his files all but forgotten now as his office had quickly been occupied. It was clear that he hadn't been planning on getting sleep anytime soon, but the unexpected appearance of his two guests obviously was not factoring into his timetable. Just what that timetable entailed, however, was beyond Jesse. Reyes never spoke business to him beyond his direct commands during their training, and there had yet to have been a moment where Jesse had troubled himself enough to ask. As long as Jesse was stuck training, whatever Gabriel did in the real world mattered little to him.
"Winston," Gabriel stated cordially enough with a wave towards the gorilla that was more meant for Jesse's sake, "speak of the devil. You're our man of the hour."
"There… are a lot of things about that sentence that do not make sense," the gorilla wearing clothing and speaking English whose name was apparently Winston and was still standing in the doorway said good-naturedly, "but I'm sure you'll clarify."
Jesse didn't budge an inch in his seat as Winston maneuvered his way through the rest of the doorframe, some part of his mind making the connection as he gaped openly. This was the gorilla from the conference back at the watchpoint. The animal hadn't exactly said anything during the call, making Jesse dismiss his presence as some low-played gag despite the reassurance that yes, that was an actual gorilla in Overwatch headquarters on the call, Mr. McCree, now would you please answer the question. There had been enough faces on that screen, and the number of names tossed around had been enough to make his head spin; he couldn't remember for the life of him if "Winston" had been one of them. All the same, he'd seen the gorilla shifting about in one of the small boxes displayed from the webcams across the world and assumed someone had decided to play one really well planned joke.
But here he was.
Talking.
To Gabriel. Who was responding. Like they'd done it before. Like it was normal. Like any of this was normal.
The second Jesse could reconnect to reality here, he'd probably have plenty to say on the matter.
But for now, he was perfectly happy staying coiled in sheer disbelief in his chair, his arms stiff against the rests and his spine rigid as Winston shut the door behind him with a surprising amount of gentleness for his size. His forehead creased beneath the odd headgear encasing his hairline as his eyes landed on the shattered frame in the corner courtesy of Jesse's entrance earlier, but he did not comment on the item as his gaze settled on Jesse himself. Whether or not he could read the wide eyed, slack jawed astonishment on Jesse's face went unknown, as his face broke into a toothy grin.
"Athena mentioned I might find you here as well," he said with a warm openness. "I would have sought you out earlier, but I've only just returned myself." He extended a massive hand then, the palm open in a clear invitation for a handshake. "They call me Winston. Welcome to Overwatch, Agent McCree, I've heard a lot about you."
"Uh-huh," Jesse said flatly from his same position, refusing to move a millimeter. His eyes were still blown wide as he stared at the literal gorilla wearing eyeglasses and clothing introducing himself to him in English and no longer standing at the relatively safe distance of the doorway, his hand not making any move to meet the other's where it hovered between them. His gaze stayed firmly on the hand itself, the shape and size of it doing little to help his brain wrap around the situation as he saw Winston's expression flicker slightly in the background.
The amount of time that had passed since the hand had been offered had now long since entered the uncomfortable stage, and yet the gorilla did not move to take it back as Jesse continued to stare at it in dead silence.
Gabriel was the one to finally move things along.
"Yes, he's a gorilla, McCree. Stranger things have happened."
Jesse startled, shooting him a glance. It was clear his patience was wearing pretty thin, but Jesse barely gave the observation a second thought as his eyes snapped back to Winston, who had a somewhat droll expression on his face as the clarity of the situation undoubtedly reached him. His eyes met Gabriel's over Jesse's shoulder then, the hand still hovering expectantly.
"Didn't give him fair warning, eh?"
"Never came up," Gabriel brushed the remark off before addressing Jesse languidly. "Get over it and shake the damn hand, will you?"
Maybe, just maybe he'd actually gone insane.
At this point, he wouldn't be crass enough to write it off as an option. Maybe he was really in a ditch in New Mexico somewhere, and all of this had been some batshit crazy fever dream to pass the time until he'd up and kick the bucket already. Maybe it all was a hallucination.
He could almost get himself to believe it but for the one small, simple fact that literally nothing in his life ever gave him the pleasure of being that easy.
Jesse really hadn't gotten what he'd been hoping for yet out of Gabriel's little chat. Though really, the longer this evening went, the less he was certain of what it was he wanted to begin with. How long had he been here now, exactly? He'd come here for a reason, hadn't he? All the same, if he wanted to leave with what he wanted (there was a gorilla standing next to him), he'd have to play along with… whatever this was.
If he'd known what was best for him at the time, he should have just gone straight into his room the second the door had unlocked and knocked right out to sleep.
Clearing his throat through several lumps, his expression stayed frozen in disbelief as he lifted his own hand, a resounding to hell with it all the only thing in his head as he did so.
"All, uh… all good things y'heard, I'm sure."
Winston looked happy enough to have received an answer at all, and he laughed as he pumped Jesse's hand once enthusiastically, rattling up his arm and into his shoulder.
"Of course, of course." Winston's tone was a little too earnest, but he thankfully released Jesse's hand as he stepped back out of his space. His focus turned briefly on Gabriel as he lightly bumped the desk, who in turn could not be more obvious of the signals in his eyes if he'd up and lit them in neon. The unspoken get on with it that was there went ignored, however, as Winston turned back to Jesse, his expression pinched in a surprisingly human way that was unsettling to see on a gorilla.
"I wanted to apologize directly for the delay in adding your profile to the system. I would have fixed the discrepancy sooner had I been on the premises, but I was kept much longer than I'd anticipated in Spain."
Oh. Right. That was why he was here. Where the gorilla (Winston, just up 'n call him Winston if you're goin' along with this insanity, won't you) came into the equation, however, he couldn't be more unclear on. Aside from the fact that he was apologizing to Jesse for a problem he'd literally just had, he failed to see the other's involvement in the matter as a whole.
"Ain't nothin' to do with you," he said slowly, "supposed to be something to take up with the 'b…uh, Athena."
"Well, yes." The pride in Winston's voice was overwhelming, and Jesse almost physically recoiled from the absolute sincerity of it. "But as I was the one who brought her about in the first place, I find myself responsible for any mishaps she may not be equipped to adequately handle."
Wonders never ceased in Jesse's life. He honestly wished they would.
His eyes had practically dried by the time he graced that little atom bomb with a response. He didn't quite know why it was such a surprise. If there was anything to expect tonight, it was anything that could possibly be straight from the old soaps he'd used to watch on the dingy holo when he wouldn't feel much like sleeping and it was that unearthly time between three and four in the morning when nothing sat quite right or felt entirely real.
"You made Athena." It may have originally been meant as a question, but it came out much flatter than he'd expected it to. "The AI."
"That's correct."
"You."
Winston's brows drew together, his eyes searching Jesse's in growing confusion. "Yes?"
The gorilla.
The gorilla in the clothing speaking English was one of the "most brilliant minds on the planet" Doctor Ziegler had been referring to out in the hallway mere minutes ago. Who happened to be the one who had created and currently monitored the AI warden (and damn him if he'd call her anything else, her whole concept was off-putting). Who, by extension, was in a way the one monitoring the place in turn.
Jesse narrowed his eyes, giving a slow, sage nod as his mouth twisted into a contemplative frown.
And then he promptly dropped his forehead to smack smartly against the desk in front of him with a thud and a generous cloud of dust.
Gabriel's expression was far more dry than Winston's look of shock as they exchanged glances shortly over Jesse's slumped figure. The shared look turned quickly enough onto Jesse himself as he let his entire body weight shift forward, resting it all solely on his forehead as he let out a wheezy laugh.
"Sure. Why not."
"What's-"
"Why the hell not. Do me a favor, one of you? Wake me up when this is all over."
"I…" One thing Jesse'd already pulled from Winston was that he didn't allow for much silence to pass between bits of conversation. Now was no exception, though his voice was pitched low as he ultimately failed to mutter to Gabriel without Jesse hearing. "You do have a penchant for bringing in the, ah… troubled ones, don't you?"
"Eh." Gabriel's voice was halfway to jesting when he spoke. "I'm hoping it's a phase."
Jesse tilted his head back to glare at Gabriel from beneath the hair that had flopped unceremoniously in his face.
"I resent that."
Gabriel motioned vaguely to Winston, returning the quip with no more than a glance. Jesse tried not to feel too bitterly over the fact that the commander had somehow gleaned his own pet peeves while he'd been carefully mapping his in turn. He never took well to being outright ignored. Surprise, I'm human.
"I'm assuming you didn't just come here to be disrespected by McCree, Winston. You need something?"
"Not exactly." Winston was bulky enough as it was, but as his expression darkened and he straightened where he stood, his height was truly astounding in full. Jesse'd only seen actual gorillas outside of his early schoolbooks on one incredibly rare occasion, and compared to the hunched, blank-faced beings he'd seen back then, Winston may well have been another species. There was clearly something altered about him (did the fact he's speakin' English not give it away for you, genius?) that went beyond everything Jesse understood about the anatomy of a quadruped, let alone a biped. "It's more of an update on Gibraltar. The reason for my delay, really."
Gabriel said nothing, opting instead for taking a seat and resting his elbows on the edge of his desk as he nodded for Winston to continue. The gorilla spared Jesse a glance, but when he saw that the agent had gone ahead and planted his forehead back on the desk in lieu of actually tuning in to the conversation, he spoke in low tones.
"There's been activity they're having a difficult time explaining," the gorilla elaborated, clearly troubled. "I'll spare you the details until later, but we're concerned about the current security system. By today's standards, it's practically ancient, and we've had our first real cause for alarm over it. Entire sequences of recently outdated launch codes went missing this week-"
"They what?"
"-but returned within the day's cycle." Winston was holding up a hand, Gabriel's interruption barely phasing him. "There's no explaining where they went. I combed through everything for two days and found no trace of evidence that they'd even disappeared to begin with."
Something in the way he said it piqued Jesse's interest despite everything, and he lifted his head a millimeter to look slowly between his two companions. He was sidetracked slightly as his glance landed on Gabriel. The man's face was an absolute sight, and Jesse stared long and hard to commit the incredulous expression to memory to laugh at later when he wasn't still delirious from sleep deprivation and meeting Curious George along with Curious George's Monster.
"This happened how long ago and I'm just now hearing about it?"
"Three days, sir." Winston removed his glasses, scrubbing a corner of his shirt over them, his eyes never leaving Gabriel's. "We wanted to find something before bringing about any reason for alarm-"
"And?"
"And nothing." Winston's shrug was long and slow as he replaced his glasses, a deep, rumbling sigh leaving him. "We've triple checked, they're the same codes, and nothing's been altered. It's like they simply didn't exist for twelve hours."
Jesse assumed this was a much larger issue than he was catching drift of.
Whatever. Don't concern me none.
Gabriel sat back in his chair, clearly deep in thought. He tilted his chin up in inquiry.
"You haven't brought this to Jack?"
"Not yet, no. He's surveying the ecopoint in the south."
The smug flicker on Gabriel's face lasted a little too long to be considered unintentional.
"I want the old system swept by whoever we've got on the third floor now before they give clearance for the new one," he said, his voice shifting into that I'm the Commander and I Say So mode. "We may have a breach elsewhere we've overlooked."
Winston seemed relieved to have a course of action, and he nodded shortly.
"Luther's team is on call, I'll speak with them immediately. Thank you, sir."
"Just let me know when it's fixed. Now, I hate to put an end to all this," Gabriel switched abruptly, sounding very much the opposite, "but we're shipping out for recon on Moscow in what's now less than six hours and I have about eighty more pages to compile for the debriefing, so if you don't mind-"
Winston took the cue for what it was this time, and his eyes flickered to Jesse momentarily as the boy's head shot up off the desk.
"Of course. We'll just get out of your hair for the night, then. Good evening, commander."
Gabriel was damn underhanded when it came to trickery. There was plenty more that needed saying, and Jesse knew the briefing for the "recon" the next day was more than handled. Gabriel'd only been discussing the mission with his more seasoned agents for forever and a half when he thought Jesse wasn't listening.
Jesse was halfway to protesting the unceremonious kick-out when he felt the hand clap congenially on his shoulder, Winston's focus now lying solely on him.
"I'll walk with you to the bunks, I'm headed that direction myself."
And just like that, Jesse found himself being ushered out of his chair and into the hallway without another word between him or Gabriel as Winston gave a small salute, the commander waving lazily after them. The door didn't close fast enough to cover the growing smirk on his face.
The usual sterile silence of the corridors had given way to some odd amalgamate of awkwardness and foreboding all bundled together, and Jesse rocked back slightly on his heels as he waited for Winston to say something or at least start walking. The gorilla seemed much more tired now than he had in the office, and he rubbed at his eyes shortly beneath his glasses as a rumbling sigh reminiscent of the one he'd let out inside filled the hallway. After a short moment, his eyes drifted down to Jesse, and a small grin that didn't quite chase away the fatigue grew on his face.
"Shall we?"
Jesse opted for action over words, one foot falling after the other as Winston's steps echoed around them. The gorilla seemed happy enough with the quiet for the first time since he'd entered Gabriel's office, and Jesse was distantly grateful for the fact that he didn't attempt small talk.
They'd been halfway to Jesse's corridor when he'd spotted a light pooled beneath a single door along the line of dark, shut rooms.
A personal light left on late into the night in Deadlock signaled something was wrong. They preferred working out of darkness, the element of surprise a fast friend to their kind. It was just about all they had sometimes, when those who kept the whole gang's structure afloat were asleep and those who just had their guns and guts to their name on watch.
A light under a bedroom door at almost one in the morning was a bad sign indeed.
He'd lost himself to his musings enough to be startled by Winston's voice, and he jumped in place at the deep resonance of the gorilla's attempt at a whisper.
"Yours would be around here, yes?"
Jesse glanced at the numbers they passed shortly.
"Next hall over."
The quiet didn't last quite as long this time.
"I really do feel bad for the mishap with the system, you know." Jesse shot Winston a surprised glance, the embarrassment in the other's voice unexpected as they drew even with Jesse's door. He pulled them up short to a stop as his companion continued. "We're usually more diligent than this."
"Yeah, well." Jesse probably would have found a better way of answering, but all he could really think about now was the bed behind the door he was now in front of. He was fully planning on skipping the shower at this point. "Ain't exactly a "usual" case, am I?"
Winston actually grinned a bit at that.
"No, I suppose you're not. Still, by the time you need access tomorrow, you will be fully integrated."
Integrated.
God, he hated that word.
He wasn't so sure now why he'd put up such a fuss to begin with. This was only one more step at being sucked into the system he'd been actively avoiding.
Something dawned on Winston's face suddenly, and he ran a palm over it.
"Ah… knew I forgot something back there. I'll need to go back and get Commander Reye's papers on your transfer from Grand Mesa."
Jesse caught about every other word as the gorilla muttered more than outright spoke, but the gist of the sentence came across plenty clear. He raised an eyebrow, his nose wrinkling slightly.
"Ain't there just… I dunno, a computer or somethin' you could get 'em from? Y'all seem all about open access here, they're probably in there now."
There was an odd look on Winston's face that Jesse would later realize was some distant cousin to commiseration.
"You have had time to get acquainted with the building, yes?"
"Sure." He didn't need to know how much time he'd spent scouring the place for cracks in its armor. "Been here long enough."
"Have you noticed that he's the only one who uses paper filing?"
Jesse's brow furrowed. Now that he mentioned it, he hadn't seen a single paper file outside of Gabriel's office. There was plenty of paper, sure, but the files themselves appeared to be stored in a main database accessible from the smattering of computers found throughout the base. He'd been shooed away from one on his third day, the brisk ushering out not quite fast enough to keep his prying eyes from seeing what exactly they had been used for. But when it came to Gabriel…
He had yet to see the man file a single document to the main terminals.
"Commander Reyes is many things," Winston was continuing, taking Jesse's silence for the dawning comprehension it was. "Trusting is not one of them."
Well.
At least Jesse wasn't the only one to have noticed that little tidbit.
The gorilla extended his hand once again then, and Jesse partially blamed the fact he was distracted by his thoughts that he immediately gripped it this time.
"It was a pleasure to meet you, Agent McCree. If you ever need anything, let me know. Athena'll tell you where to find me."
"Uh…" Jesse untangled his tongue, shaking the hand lightly as his focus returned. "Right. Thanks."
It seemed good enough for Winston for now, as he nodded amiably and took his leave, a small wave over his shoulder the last he offered as he disappeared back down the way they'd just come.
Jesse's eyes remained on the corner he'd turned for far too long before he shook himself back to the present and turned to input his access code.
Beep.
The light went red.
Jesse slowly shut his eyes as his forehead came forward to plant itself firmly on the door. If anything proved this wasn't simply happening inside his head, this was the final straw. He inhaled harshly, that same mental to hell with it all echoing a little louder now.
"Uh…Athena?"
There was dead silence for just long enough that Jesse had begun his steady descent to the tile, fully prepared to sleep propped against the door as he had earlier. But then-
"Hello, Agent McCree. What appears to be the problem?"
She sounded amused.
The disembodied robot sounded amused.
"The old code ain't workin' now," he said drily, not bothering to look up from the door itself. "Wouldn't have anything to do with you, would it?"
Athena's words were accompanied by the beep of the door and the small chk-click of the lock disengaging.
"How odd. This faulty system does these locks no favors, you know. Good night, Agent McCree."
Her light tone couldn't fool Jesse in the slightest, but he grabbed for the handle and threw open the door before any more issues could crop up. The sight of his bed was sheer heaven as he shut the door behind him without another word and face planted onto the mattress, clothes and dirt and all still intact as he let his eyes finally drift shut.
It took far too long to fall asleep as the last little encounter with Athena ran mocking circles through his mind.
He'd done many stupid things in his lifetime. He'd lost count of just how many a long time ago.
The moment Jesse'd thought there wouldn't be repercussions to getting huffy about the AI that ran everything was arguably the stupidest moment of his life.
A/N: "updates may be sporadic" I say as I power out the next chapter in time to post on a regularly scheduled friday/saturday (it's 3 in the morning and I haven't slept yet so I'm counting this as still being friday friends)
I've replied privately to any comments made by reviewers with accounts, but there have been a couple by folks without, so here we go:
Dragunz: Thank you for the rec! I'll have to look it up when I have more time for reading. Your insight and feedback have been noted as well, so thank you for leaving such in depth responses! As for the box, well. Have to have a few secrets around a place like HQ, don't they?