Ghaspada Village, Kodagu District, Karnataka State, India

The first thing he felt upon waking was his muscles aching, attempting to stretch out his feet immediately hit metal. Slapping himself a few times to wake up, he realized he'd fallen asleep in the comms center with his body in an award position in the chair. Pushing himself up he did a couple quick stretches then picked his helmet off the floor and made his way to the troop bay in which half the Overwatch personnel were passed out. A few were quietly up and about, trading a few nods as he passed by while the rest awakened troops were outside conversing amongst themselves. Stopping at the bottom of the Orca's lowered ramp, he took in the scenery, it was barely morning with the sun only just beginning to creep over the horizon. A few civilians were similarly early risers, beginning to go about their day before the rest of the town was awake.

Spying Kadia stepping off the aircraft, he walked over to her, "Odd how quiet it is."

She nodded, "Though it is very peaceful."

"I suppose. Any word on what we're doing to do today?"

Giving a half-hearted shrug she replied, "More of the same I'd guess. Haven't heard anything from Vickers though he's hooping reinforcements come by the end of the day."

Adrian instinctively went for a smoke until he remembered yesterday's meeting, he groaned as he patted the pockets on his armor fruitlessly hoping for a hidden pack. Even stick his hand under his hidden chest plate stash only to come up empty handed.

Kadia chuckled as she shook her head, "Sorry I don't carry any on me."

He sighed, "It is what it is. I'm curious though, how long have you known Vickers?"

"The gunny? Years probably. I came over with him and Captain Amari; for me he was the best NCO I ever had so it was a no brainer to follow him."

"Heh, you know that's the exact same thing he said about Amari."

She shot him a grin, "What can I say, great minds think alike."

The two continued to talk until the sun fully rose past the horizon, as the final members of Overwatch began to wake and stumble out of the craft. As Vickers dished out orders, Adrian met up with Liam who filled him in on any key bits of information he'd picked up yesterday which is unsurprisingly little. The citizens knew just about as much as Overwatch, though an interesting theory Liam had heard that the accident wasn't caused by Vishkar. The details were a bit fuzzy; he wasn't sure exactly what the source was, but that was enough to perk Adrian's interest. He'd had enough odd encounters in the last few months to doubt anything as being coincidental. Still, they couldn't do anything until tonight when they'd peak around under the cover of darkness, until then he'd follow Vickers orders to help clear out a local well. Going towards the location in question, it was a sizeable stone well that looked similar to anything one might typically expect though his understanding was that it wasn't in use anymore though the massive reservoir of water underneath it was vital to plumbing around the village. The grounds tremors and destruction caused chunks of rock and stone to clog up key pipes, in essence he was to remove that blockage, nothing glamorous but easy to understand why it was necessary.

Arriving at the well, he peeked down into its inky blackness, the former cement sealing could be seen with jagged bits of concrete spiking out from the circular wall. The rest of it was down in there where the sun barely reached. Reaching into a pouch on his chest, he pulled out a long string of carbon nanofiber rope which he then proceeded to tie one end around the titanium loops in his waist and the other end he lopped around the stone well itself. After testing the integrity by pulling on it and feeling confident he wouldn't plummet to the pit of the well, he hopped over the rim, activated the light on the side of his helmet, and began to slowly descend into its murky depths.

Winston paced around his lab as Mei and Lucio studiously went over pages of notes and work, they'd been working on for the months. He could feel it in his bones, they were close, oh so close to cracking the final secrets of Adrian's travel. It had been a painstaking process but one that would not only result in being able to send Adrian and Liam back to their world but could be a magnanimous boon to society and humanity. They'd recently run into…several snags to say the least. One was the problem of materials, certain materials that were commonplace in Adrian's world simply didn't exist here or rather hadn't been created which is a problem when trying to find a way to contain the energy such a device would use. In their world slipspace drives are what allow them to travel between the very nature of reality, however the drives were encased in extremely durable material such as composite titanium layering that simply hadn't been refined to such a point in Winston's own world. The reason being that such energy output would be immense, and they needed something strong enough to contain it but is also useable on a practical level. On the topic of energy comes the second problem, something strong enough to power such a device. If his understanding was correct, UNSC and Covenant ships were massive craft and it was rare, at least for human ships, to be both small and slipspace capable. So not only did they need a viable energy source, but it needed to be compact though based on his discussion with Adrian, this issue might already be solved.

His only hesitation was that it would be a limited resource, he'd been striving to discover a way to power it that existed within their own realm but that might simply not be possible. The third and final problem, perhaps the most crucial was the destination. He'd been actively studying slipspace patterns, in truth while they were important early on, they weren't so useful in later research. There was as far as he could tell, no discernable way to trace those energy readings to their original destination, so hypothetically even if they could send Adrian and Liam back it was almost all but guaranteed to be some random void in space which would in turn doom them to a slow death. Earth's own solar system was large enough to get lost in forever, let alone an entire galaxy of emptiness; a destination was needed. He already scoured the drop pods but well, there wasn't exactly and overflowing wealth of data on a single-use item that could be analyzed by the enemy. Those were just the issues off the top of his head, the others were relatively small and he could feel a breakthrough on the horizon, but they'd practically hit a dead-end.

He sighed as he plopped down into a massive tire chair, rubbing his face with his hands he stared at the ceiling, "Does anyone have suggestions? At this point I'll gladly accept any ideas."

Mei shook her head, "I fear I have little to offer, outsourcing to people outside Overwatch is of course an option but considering the work we're dealing with…"

"Our main problems are logistical rather than theoretical," Lucio began, "What if we outsourced but under the guise of something different? It seems simple but there's no reason to have to show our hand, what we need are feats of engineering."

Winston stroked his chin, "That's a possibility. You bring up a good point Lucio, on I'll take into consideration though I worry if such an unusual request will draw attention. What we'd be requesting would rival cutting-edge military technology."

"Well, I can't make any guarantees, but I can probe around my contacts and see if something bears fruit."

"I'd appreciate that Lucio, just don't try anything that might put you at risk."

"What about Torbjorn and Bridgette? They specialize in mechanical machinations but surely they must have some insight." Mei questioned.

Winston smacked his forehead, "I can be such a fool. I've been so overwhelmed that it skipped my mind…to pay for that mistake though we'll have to wait until they return from India. They along with a handful of others will be aiding in the relief process, until they return however I want us to keep at this and Lucio, I'd like you to go ahead with your idea. Whatever it takes to break this stalemate."

With one hand pulling him up on his carbon nanofiber rope and the other wrapped around a block of broken cement, Adrian inched himself up the walls of the well before heaving the final chunk of artificial rock over the tip of the well and onto solid ground with a heavy thud. Taking a quick breath, he proceeded to pull himself out of the hole and similarly land with a thud. Briefly looking to the side, he spied the day's work piled up next to him as the final blockage was removed from the reservoir. Resting on the ground for a moment he pushed himself up as he saw a familiar set of black armor walking towards him. Waving an arm, he sat against the low wall of the well as he removed his helmet and took a swig from his canteen.

"Should I ask how your works been or skip straight to the hours of flirting?" Adrian jested.

Liam put his hands over his heart with exaggeration, "I am offended that you would even insinuate something of such nature." Taking a seat next to Adrian he removed his helmet as well, "In all seriousness though, these last couple days have reminded me such much of the corps I think I'm developing a new form of PTSD."

"On the plus side, you don't have to worry about new greenie shitheads straight out of school trying to tell us how to work."

"Eh that's fair enough. You know who I saw though? Chada and Vaswani walking down the streets in a heated conversation. Chada with his two brainless apes looked like I was the spawn of Satan-"

"Not exactly wrong."

Liam flicked the side of Adrian's head, "Though Vaswani actually gave me the time of day, probably too fed up with the other guy to care about who she talked to, and you know, I think there's a conflict in interest in Vaswani."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know how to put it exactly…it seems she does the actual work while everyone else does the scummy business. Not saying she's innocent in whatever fuckery is going on around here, she definitely knows the truth but isn't doing anything about it. Still…"

"Well, she didn't seem to care much for me yesterday, think it was my breath?"

"With how often you smoke, it might not be far off."

The two chuckled as they donned their helmets and sat there in a comfortable silence until the sun began its descent downwards, a warm reddish-purple hue filled the sky. Around them people began to file home for their daily work, Liam tapped Adrian's shoulder and the two stood up, briefly looking around for any Vishkar lackeys before heading off towards their tightly guarded secret. The area in particular was a rectangular fenced off section, around five by five meters in size. The Vishkar guards standing outside weren't visibly armed, but they could easily be concealed or have some other trick up their sleeve, plenty of people in this world has powers Adrian could never dream of.

Pretending to idle alongside a building a ways off, Adrian and Liam looked over their options, "Got any thoughts? The mayor wants it squeaky clean, doesn't even want others to know we we're even in there."

"I did a pass last night, seems the only people inside were eggheads though they only worked during the day. As for the guards, they rotate every hour or so, leaving us a window of probably a minute or two to hop the fence when they're changing." Liam outlined.

"Did all that thinking hurt your brain?"

"Just a bit."

"Heh, though that fence, seems it made from that hard light stuff. Think we'll be fine touching it?"

"It has practical uses, right? Can't be too dangerous, still I think it's best you go first. No time to argue there's are opening." Liam grinned as Adrian dashed forward across the street, swearing under his breath.

Upon reaching the perimeter, Adrian pushed off the ground reaching for the top of the hard light fencing. It's neon blue shuttered under his touch but contrary to his doubts, did not burn his hands. Crackling energy sounded off underneath as his boots scrapped against it, throwing himself he landed with a deft roll with Liam following his actions. Barbie was right, the workspace was clear now, leaving a large metallic object filling up most of the off-limits area. Carefully standing, the two of them walked over to it making sure to avoid leaving any tracks or accidently step on a piece of the large machine. The closer they got the more recognizable it became.

"Is that…a Clarion spy drone?" Liam whispered.

Adrian tilted his head a touch, "Looks like it, or most of one at the least. Take a gander up there." He pointed towards the 'top' which seemed to have a chunk taken out of it, mangled metal sprang outwards like tentacles.

"Doesn't seem like plasma. If stuff comes through slipspace portals, then I'd guess that bit was still on the outside when it closed."

"Makes sense, this would also explain the surrounding damage. Slipspace portals release energy proportional to their size, and while Clarion drones aren't huge it'd still be a hell of a blast."

"Think there's any data we can salvage from it? Maybe it's 2552, that'd fill us in on what we're missing."

"I can try." Adrian lifted his TACPAD is front of the drone, tapping a few symbols before shaking his head. "If there's any power left it's marginal. Try peeling back that panel in the center, lemme see if I can manually route information."

Liam complied, taking measured steps to the core of the drone he gently plied a small metal panel with the help of his knife revealing a mess of switches, ports, and dead lights. Completely removing the cover, he grabbed a physical cable from Adrian that connected to his TACPAD and plugged it into one of several ports in the drone.

Turning his head towards Adrian, the other ODST gave him a thumbs down, "Still nothing."

Liam sighed, "Damn…we can send it back when the reinforcements come but I'd still rather have an idea of what we're dealing with."

"Agreed."

"What if…is there any way to use the plasma battery? Take some energy from that to power the Clarion?"

"Doubt it, that shits going to have be processed and harnessed, there's not some universal port we can just hook up to something."

As Liam was about to reply, a flashing orange dot representing an unknown appeared on their radar. Before either could take any actions walls of transparent blue light rose around them leaving only one open side that was filled with the shadowy outlines of a person.

"God dammit." Adrian muttered, "Think killing them will void our work with the mayor?"

"It just might." Liam laconically responded, though despite his words both of their hands hovered over their holstered pistols.

Out from the darkness of night the figure walked the light glow of the hard light walls revealing it to be the Vishkar architect Vaswani. She was donning her typical disinterred scowl but behind the eyes Adrian could see a glimmering flurry of questions and intrigue.

"Well…this is awkward. I mean we asked for directions on how to get back to our ship and just look at where we ended up!" Adrian fibbed with a hint of humor.

"Seriously I mean we thought they're directions we're good though I have to admit I started to have my suspicions when we stumbled across this." Liam followed up.

She stared at them in silence for a moment before speaking, her voice lacking its usual confidence, "You two…you know what this is?"

The two ODSTs shared a brief glance with Adrian answering, "In a manner of speaking."

"Out of all the practical solutions to this unknown, I never would have placed in the hands of two meathead soldiers."

"Well that just seems disingenuous." Liam bit back though Vaswani ignored him.

"Then you must also know how such an object arrived here correct? What started this gradual growth of disorder."

Adrian scoffed, "Well what makes you think we'd tell you? Not like you have much to hold over us, and I have a feeling you don't want to cause any unnecessary fallout for the citizens of this town." She narrowed her eyes but didn't reply, "You want order right? Want to put everything back the way it was, organized and with a semblance of consistency. That won't happen until this," Adrian spread his arms over the drone, "Is dealt with. The easiest way for that to happen is to hand it over to us."

Now it was Vaswani's turn to scoff, "Why on Earth would we simply give it to you. For all we know we're putting a dangerous weapon in the hands of the only people that know how to use it."

"But do you want to solve its complexity or not? It stays with your scientists, and they fumble over it for years, never fully understanding it, destroying it piece by piece with every failed experiment. Or you can give it you us, to be studied meticulously by those who know how to work it. Do you live your life resigned, guaranteed to never known what it is you stumbled upon, or take a chance to understand what you so desperately desire?"

She looked at him before shaking her head, "I can't trust those odds."

The three of them fell into a tense silence as she seemed to retreat into a world of her own, her mind working overtime as went through every possible scenario. Leaving Adrian and Liam to stew in uncertainty as their hands slowly grasped the handle of their pistols. Vaswani let out a quiet chuckle that caught their attention, hesitantly looking towards her they stood with hesitance until she spoke.

"I want to study it myself."

"…"

"…"

"What?"

The warm Gibraltar sun gazed down upon the upon space upon the base, Winston calmly strode by the cliffside relishing in the crisp sea air. He had hoped that Vickers's return would herald a much-welcomed break from the blockage of current projects, but rather it only added to them. They had mentioned that some new developments had come up and he'd gladly welcome a distraction from the tedious problems overwhelming his mind, though he should've learned that rarely anything goes easy for the operation of Overwatch. Of the two new developments, both held promise in their own way though he'd wished they weren't also both tied to the damned matter of slipspace.

First off was the 'Clarion spy drone' which according to Adrian and Liam was rather aptly named. Currently it was no more than a heavy piece of scrap metal, though he'd hope Athena would have ways to power it up enough to access its internal storage. Though that was a relatively low point of current issues, one of the key issues was the plasma battery which much to his joy would be enough to power usage of the slipspace device. Based on his calculations however such a device would draw an immense amount of power, until further testing could be done, he couldn't be certain if the plasma battery could be reused or if it had a onetime use. The problem arose however in how to harness that energy, Adrian had mentioned something along those lines earlier when he'd arrived on base with the others, that foreign alien technology didn't have a universal adapter for humanity.

Circling around the aircraft bay he began to wander back to his lab in the hopes that data extraction could begin though this led to his third headache of the day. They're newest 'guest', Satya Vaswani, a Vishkar architect that had a change a heart? He huffed at the thought, Vaswani seemed agreeable enough, but he'd had reservations about admitting a character not only associated with a questionable company but so deeply involved with the corporation on a fundamental level. Adrian and Liam had been at a loss when discussing the results of their work, insisting it was the only way they would be able to leave without further damaging relations and the only way they'd be taking the drone without bloodshed. Winston appreciated their attempts a pacifistic negotiation though often the passive path led to greater work down the line. Despite that however, there were upsides.

By all accounts Vaswani wasn't exactly a fan of Vishkar's current management, growing disillusionment made it easier believe her statement on no ulterior motives though it doesn't erase the fact that she is here as a Vishkar representative. A liaison, meaning, she has no loyalty to Overwatch if or rather when, problems will arise. Those worries aside, she was exactly the sort of outside help he was looking for. Irrespective of her loyalty, she was brilliant if unusual which he supposed was perfect for the work they were doing. For now, he would keep her on the outside, passing bits of less relevant information top her to see both how she fared and if any of that information ended up on the outside. He genuinely wanted her to become a trusted member off their team, but he had to be smart about this and if that meant stressing a bit more for a potentially huge payoff, it was a struggle he was willing to bear.

Strutting into his lab past a glance towards the humongous piece of tech occupying space in the room, eventually he'd see what non-vital parts he could remove for spaces sake but for now he'd have to live with a rather cramped occupancy. Dozens of heavy cables were connected to it, pumping energy, and harvesting information though it was ag gruelingly slow process.

"Athena, any progress?"

"Only now have I begun to receive snippets of information, the damage sustained to the machine crippled it's energy supply and automatically caused advanced encryption to lock down all information. I am unsure how long this process will take."

"Alright." Winston removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes, "I'm going to take a quick nap. Unless it's life or death, let me sleep."

"Understood."

As Winston left the room, placing his glasses on an empty, Athena continued to mine the drone for information parsing out pieces of information that she thought would be vital and storing them for future reference for Winston. Millions of bits of data flowed through her system, most of it for now seemed rather menial, diagnostics, weather patterns for planets in its local area, so and on so forth. Though every now and then she would slip through the cracks of security and catch a glimpse of information that she deemed important such as a singular date, 02.10.2529.

.