Moonage Daydream
Years ago…
Nobody had anticipated that the Omnic crisis would actually end. But, to the rejoice of Humanity, the Omnics surrendered, and even if times were still tense, the populace was glad that nearly thirty years of warfare was finally over.
Still, that didn't mean that Overwatch was out of a job, far from it, now that open warfare was over. Their role in the world was more important than ever to control and dissolve conflicts before another great fight could begin. But, it also meant that the organization could relax for a while.
So, on October 31st of the first year after the end of the war, Overwatch's first Halloween party was held. A venue was picked, food supplied, and on the day of the event, a small pub at the base was closed to the public so that humanity's Heroes could have some well-deserved time off. The party was going off without a hitch. The pub was filled with paper bats hanging from the ceiling, cotton webs stretched across the bar, and green, purple, and orange lights were shining from the corners of the restaurant. Dr. Winston had unfortunately overindulged on candy and was forced to go home early, but besides that, things were going well.
Doctor Ziegler was in attendance at the party, her costume, consisting of her hair hanging down at her shoulders, a bonnet, an old style western dress with a rose on the side, and two toy revolvers hanging off belts along her waist, was easily recognized by her American colleagues as Annie Oakley. Besides indulging herself on a healthy dose of snacks and party favors, one thing at the venue held her attention much more than she had cared to mind.
Already an attraction to the bar, a microphone and stand was connected to a karaoke machine in the far corner of the bar. Like any other business day, the machine was available for use to the establishment's private patrons. Since she had arrived early to help prepare for the party, the machine had caught the Doctor's eye and the desire to use it began to tug at her mind. The party began, the thought to use it came back to her, but she refused to do so, being nervous what others may think about her being the first person up. Then, as the first brave (and inebriated) soul stepped up to give it a shot, a line had formed afterwards, and the doctor protested thinking that it was no use standing in line. Then, as it became shorter, she decided she would go up and give the machine a chance, but decided to not take up the space in case somebody else really wanted to use it.
Finally, as the night was winding down, the platform and stand had sat empty for the last half hour, with doctor Ziegler staring at it like a lovestruck teen as it stood there. Every time she gained the courage to shift her weight out of her seat, the more rational side of her mind held her in place.
In a flash, the seat next to her was pulled out, and like teleportation, Lena Oxton was in the seat next to her. Lena (or as her new codename went, "Tracer",) was wearing a pair of blue jeans and a plaid shirt under a jean jacket, which itself was under a puffy red vest. She had sunglasses and carried a skateboard with the wheels and axels removed wherever she went. Over all of it, though, was a bulky metal device that was strapped to her chest and back. On the face of it was a glowing blue light, a nuclear powered remedy to her chronological maladies.
"Are you havin' fun, luv?" she asked. Angela confirmed, reversing the question and getting the same response back, all the while slowly shifting her gaze away from the microphone. Lena looked around, trying to find what she was looking at, and found the machine sitting off in the corner of the room. "The Karaoke machine is open," she said, "wanna give it a go?"
Her mind was saying yes, but the sweat in her palms was saying otherwise, "Oh, no. It's quite alright. I was just thinking about it, but I shouldn't."
"Oh…" she said. She waited for a moment, then added. "I'd love to go up there, but I don't want to do it alone."
"Me too." Angela added, giving a nervous laugh to cap her statement.
"Good!" Lena exclaimed immediately, "then lets go together!" she grabbed ahold of Angela's hand, but the doctor braced herself against the table to resist.
"No, Lena, I… can't."
The brunette gave a smile, saying, "of course you can!"
Dr. Ziegler pulled her hand away, finally finding it in herself to admit the truth, "I'm… I'm nervous."
Lena sat back down, getting close to the blonde doctor and whispered, "Don't worry, luv. I'll be right there with you."
The other patrons in the bar were distracted in their own merrymaking as the two women approached the karaoke machine. Using a modified television remote, the two activated the machine and quickly began scrolling through the selection. Lena began to slowly scroll through the list of songs, sometimes to listen to the demo, others due to the delayed response from the old machine. All the while, she asked the Swiss doctor what she thought of the menu of music, and although any would do, there was one on her mind that had to be found.
Due to the order of the English alphabet, it was naturally near the bottom, but it still didn't change the doubt that Angela had lost faith that it would be there. But, causing her heart to flutter, it was there. Credited to Olivia Newton John and John Travolta, from the Soundtrack of Grease, "You're the One that I Want."
Without sampling the selection, Angela told Lena that it was the one. The pilot selected it, and the speakers in their corners of the bar activated. The song began, and two lines of lyrics, one pink and one blue, appeared on the screen. Startled, Dr. Ziegler quickly asked her friend, "oh, what line do I follow?"
To which Lena quickly responded, "Do whatever one you want."
And so, the track began. The machine mixed the audio, playing the background instrumentals, and since the song was a duet, whatever line it did not detect an input from the microphone for, it used the original voice to fill in. Even though it may have felt like a decade had passed for the young doctor, three minutes and twelve seconds later, it was over. In the bar, those who were still aware enough to understand the noise in the background turned their focus over to the women up at the mic stand and gave a round of applause as they finished. Through shaky and drunken fingers, some even whistled for the performance.
Heart racing and face red, Angela returned to her spot at the table with Lena at her side. Although adrenaline was pumping, she was happy and glad that she had finally done it. "You did great, luv!" Lena complimented the doctor. Wiping sweat from under her hat, Angela thanked her for the compliment, and returned it in kind. But, upon hearing that she had performed well in return, Lena sat back in her chair with a smirk on her face, knowing that her next words would make the combat medic become as pale as a ghost, "I don't know what you're talkin' about. I just stood next to you the whole time."
Present Day, Oasis,
After the Omnic crisis, the world was finally allowed to rebuild. Places that had been devastated took the time to clean up, start with a blank slate, and then grow to new heights. One of those places was the new citystate of Oasis. What had once been the outskirts of Baghdad, Iraq was now an intellectual powerhouse, a city made to be the cutting edge of science and ingenuity situated in the eastern hemisphere.
With the reconstruction, corporations were the ones who had the most to gain, their stores and shops sliding into place like pieces of a puzzle in the newly constructed cities. One such corporate outreach, Bee'sKnee's, a restaurant styled to look like a hometown grill, was only partially occupied on the lazy Saturday. As was corporate custom, the establishment was decorated with sports memorabilia, mainly photographs and jerseys of the Iraqi Olympic Football team, as well as those of school and other junior sports teams. The day shift was preparing for the afternoon, dishes were being washed, and servers were working to memorize the specials for the day when a troop of ten women arrived at the front door.
Quickly, the hostess had another server combine three tables together in the restaurant and seated their guests. The women, mostly middle aged and older, all wearing athletic wear, began to go over the menu and ordered cocktails. The women kept chatting to themselves, when finally one of the last two members of their party arrived.
Dr. Angela Ziegler arrived and immediately saw the group of her friends on the other end of the restaurant. She approached the table and took a seat at one of the two open chairs. The group kept conversing, waiting for the final member. The conversation mainly being about their badminton league and games they had completed previously in the league. The group was comprised of women of a certain caliber. Angela was one of two doctors, one dentist, two lawyers, three accountants, two secretary, a teacher, and one housewife. Angela was never the social type, but it was good to take time away from the hospital and laboratory to enjoy herself with likeminded people, and she never could pass up a chance to play badminton, even if she lost every game.
But then, like clockwork, she heard the same tired question she seemed to get every time she would go out with her friends.
"Dr. Ziegler, have you found yourself a man yet?"
The question was followed by a chorus of cackles. Although thirty years old, Angela was among one of the youngest at the table, and even though the answer to that question was complex -to say the least-, the lack of a ring around her finger was an invitation to ridicule.
And so, acting on auto pilot, she endured, only half listening to the women around her as they offered unwanted advances of advice as the well as the marital prospect of their sons, nephews, and stepsons. It was almost sickening, some of the most disrespectful and passive aggressive things that she had ever heard made the rounds towards her, but what truly stunned her was where it was coming from. It wasn't the cigar smoking and cognac swirling patriarch like the world had made her expect it to be, but instead from women who were supposed to be her peers. The drunken advances and hysterics of men and boys with adrenaline coursing through their veins as they were injected with 10 mg of morphine to the bloodstream were childish when compared to the loud suggestion on how to dress, what eyeshadow to wear, or when to smile ever were.
The thing that hurt the worst, though, was that they weren't necessarily wrong. Angela had made a decision a very long time ago to sacrifice her social life to further her studies, and with as far as she has gone, just trading it away wasn't an option. Unlike these women, she had seen the worst the world had to offer, it was clear that she was needed in it.
Angela slowly slid her gaze into her menu, blocking out the peanut gallery as they shifted their focus off of her and onto each other. The doctor dismissed it all with a silent chuckle, considering the hilarity of the situation. Nothing said marriage material to a multi-hundred-millionaire who held multiple doctorates and volunteered in one of the bloodiest conflicts the world had ever seen than a shy unemployed young man living in his parents' basement that relied on their mother to get them a date.
There was that word again… marriage. Like a pane of glass breaking, the mere thought of it cleared the doctor's head and brought the creeping dark back to the forefront of her mind.
It had been a while since the late night phone call with Lena that brought the inevitability of what was about to happen. After taking a while to think of it, Angela had sent the two a gift, it should have reached them by now. Still, she really should have taken the time to call Lena and hopefully clear the air between the two of them.
Lena was gay. Even before she knew it for sure, Angela had the feeling it was true. She didn't hate her for it, on the contrary, she was happy that Lena had someone to confide in. Even when she received the announcement letter of their marriage, Angela was happy for the two of them. But there was one problem brewing that would need to be addressed; Angela was a devout catholic.
Angela didn't think of it as a sin, nor that the church thought of it as such, and if they wanted to be bonded by the laws of man, then so be it, she would not stop them. But that was marriage, not a wedding. Angela may have thought of marriage as a holy union, but if they were intent of moving God out of the equation, then so be it, wouldn't mind or protest their choice. But the wedding symbolized the union of man and woman granted before God, the process meant to join the two before the Lord and receive blessing from his vessel. To take part in such a ceremony without this understanding would be sacrilegious and insult to the lord and the life Angela has followed.
She would grant them her best wishes, they could live their lives and be happy, but there was a line she would not cross. She had to stand her ground on this, all that she had sacrificed, all she had gone through, she couldn't just pick and choose what tenets she would follow. For the sake of herself, for her parents, for all of the terrible things that had happened during the Omnic Crisis, she had to believe that there was meaning behind it all. She refused to believe otherwise.
After all, this wasn't the first time she had dealt with the alphabet people. She had learned the hard way about what happens with the people who saw her faith as a target on her back. A few years ago, the Canadian women's football team was playing against the French when the star stinger for Canada, Destinee Rollins, tore her Achilles tendon. The dire nature of the injury, as well as the importance of the monumental matchup, caused the paramedics and trainers to go for the nanobiotic mister to apply aid to the player. Angela Ziegler's miracle medicine, which had revolutionized care on the battlefield and caused a dramatic decrease in casualties during the Omnic Crisis, did as it was designed and healed the debilitating injury, but that wasn't all that it had done. Nanobiotics replicate DNA to reproduce and replace damaged flesh, and biologically, Destinee Rollins was male.
The event caused controversy, and although Dr. Ziegler hadn't been aware of what had happened, she was eventually interviewed on her perspective, and more importantly, her invention. Not seeing it as much more than the previous times she had been interviewed over Nanobiotics, she answered inquires as they came using the cold detachment of medical science.
Little did she know, a rainbow colored Pandora 's Box had just been opened. Days later, the people in the medical research center that she worked were giving her funny looks and talking behind her back, it wasn't until someone finally broke the ice that she learned what had happened. Opportunists and activists had smeared her. Overnight, she had become worse than Herta Oberheuser, a transphobic Jesus Freak and Ex member of the technofascist organization that was Overwatch, calls and complaints were being made to hospitals that she had worked at in the past, petitioners were attempting to have her medical license revoked, and she had been added as a person of interest in two hate-watch groups. One frantic call to her lawyer later, and she was instructed to stay calm and wait it out. Two weeks later, the new outrage fuel was over a journalist who overheard a mechanic talking about a car engine and thought that it was a personal attack, so the swarm of vitriol around her dissipated. But, she had learned from her experiences. It was strange to think that after all she had gone though, killer robots corrupted by a Super Artificial Intelligence wasn't the only thing that she had to fear in this world. Then again, that was the way of life for the people who gave celebrity status to 20th century despots who would have probably sent them off to hard labor and reeducation camps. It made sense in their mind to demanded tolerance for themselves while denying it for anyone they disagreed with.
But, with all of that being said, Lena wasn't one of those people. Lena was a friend, and even if she didn't believe it, Angela truly wished that she was happy and understood what she was doing.
Angela was awoken from her daydream as the final member of their party arrived. A slightly portly woman took the seat on the far end of the table. Her name was Sandy Williams, the wife of a dentist in Oasis, but one look at her made the doctor second guess if that was the case anymore. While the other women around the table wore different variations of athletic wear -afterall, they had just come from their badminton league-, her top was just a simple black t-shirt. No matter what technological wonders and incredible structures were built around Oasis, nobody could ever beat the heat of the sun, which had piqued Angela's interest as to why one of the other women in their league would decide to wear something that would garner all of the sun's wrath for the hours that they were outside, but now she understood why. Sitting at attention, with her chest out while trying to act as if the posture was normal, all at the table took the time to read the words that were printed across the front.
"I'm (not) with stupid."
Immediately, someone on the opposite side of the table asked the obvious question, "Oh, did you finalize your divorce?"
"Yep," she said, eyes slightly closed as a means to hide how excited she was at all of the attention, "We signed the papers yesterday. He thinks the prenup is going to work," she said, adding a smirk, "He's got another thing coming."
Angela felt sick, but a bit of schadenfreude as well. After all, Sandy had stated once before that she had stolen her now ex-husband away from his previous wife after working as a secretary at his office. Marriage wasn't supposed to be a game, nor a fashion that people could just trade up when something better came around. The oath they made at their wedding was supposed to be eternal, their bond had meaning. Their union bringing their families together and bonding them with the purpose of creating new life. The ceremony wasn't supposed to be a personal prom nor a childish pinkyswear.
But, from Angela's perspective, this was her comeuppance. Poetic Justice as it went, that she who had stolen a man away from his wife was now being discarded for a younger version of herself. She may have claimed victory with the cheap custom shirt stretched across her fake breasts, but there was definitely envy and regret hiding within.
For ironic as it was, these two really were perfect for each other. People were truly disgusting. Angela hid the roll to her eyes as she ordered a water and let the conversations die down.
