"I see. That is...rather saddening to hear." Winston huffed sadly. McCree and Genji sat before him, still bloodied and beaten from the mission. And the two just informed Winston of their latest departure. "And you made sure the intel wasn't damaged."
"I assume it's intact. Athena can confirm that." McCree sat impatiently with the de facto leader of Overwatch.
"And he is correct Winston. The intel was not damaged nor tampered with. The hacker did no such damage on the drive." The gorilla turned to his keyboard and typed a few codes in. The files began to appear and the three members of Overwatch looked in extreme displeasure at the flood of information.
Genji saw images, medical documents, shipment history, etc. Though one thing was for certain, Deadlock wasn't behind this. It was way too advanced for them to mass produce, but luckily they had enough brains to become the field testers. Winston and McCree looked at the scale this was and it was huge.
"My God, that's a huge drug ring. How can that be? That drug is more dangerous than anything we've ever seen before! It would be impossible for it to remain under wraps for so long!" McCree said in disbelief.
Winston was told of their experiences with said drug and it felt frightening to hear the effects. To experience was something that made the scientist shiver. A weapons of fear, a weapon to break a man at the foundation of his core. Through psychological means rather than physical. If one were to break the inside, the outside would just be an empty shell of its former self.
"It's not a street level drug Jesse. From the chemical formulas here it seems to be a highly expensive drug. Similar to smoke bombs or tear gas, this can stored as such, but the effects can destroy the minds of hundreds maybe even thousands of people if the dosage is high enough. We need Angela back. She needs to know now. Athena!"
"I have already contact Dr. Ziegler when you asked an hour ago. She and Tracer shall arrive in fifteen minutes or so. Also and Lucio have been informed of the doctor's departure and will stay to help the survivors."
Winston nodded in approval and the three just waited. After a couple of minutes, Genji broke the silence. "This is horrifying to learn. How could such a thing come to pass?"
McCree and Winston looked at each other before shaking their heads. "We haven't been paying attention. We've been doing our best to help the world, but we couldn't have seen this coming. We just returned what, a year ago?"
The ninja didn't reply as time passed by. Winston tried to continue the small talk. "You mentioned a cure. Do you have it on you?" The two nodded no.
"Noah had the remedy for that. He only left us the intel, nothing else." The sounds of a ship entering the hangar caught their attention. Genji and McCree froze to see Angela and Tracer walking up to the lab.
"Damn, I need a drink to go through with this."
"How can we tell them?"
"I don't know Genji, but we must inform them of the bad news. We cannot hide that he's...gone." The door was opened to reveal Lena Oxton and Angela Ziegler walking in. Their attire was slightly messy with some blood on Angela's gloves and debris dust almost covering Lena's aviator jacket.
"Winston, I received your message what is…" She stopped to see McCree and Genji sitting there. Wounds and all for her to see. Lena added her two cents. "Bloody hell, what chewed you guys up and spat you out."
"My old gang." Angela moved briskly toward Genji and pulled his hand up. "My God Genji, you're missing a finger. And you're body is so damaged! How did the mission go so awry?"
Lena blinked over to McCree and noticed the limp of his leg and the pained expression of just shifting his weight. "Damn, this isn't what I expected. Hey doc, this bloke seems to be in the worst shape."
"They both are. I need you both to go to the medical ward immediately."
"Can't. We got something to show you. And to tell you both." McCree responded.
"What?" They both said.
Winston took the initiative and pulled up the files on his holo-screen. "The mission was a success. Our three agents managed to infiltrate the Deadlock gang and extract the information related to Baron's last words. Though we're given a lot, this opens new questions that I would like Dr. Ziegler to investigate."
Angela and Tracer looked at the documents and both their minds were blown. This was horrifying, intriguing, and disgusting all at the same time. Angela scooted Lena out of the way and looked at the formula notes that were present. "Oh my. This formula seems to almost exceed my knowledge on the chemistry field. The creator must be a genius to cook up something like this."
Meanwhile Lena was running something else through her mind. "Oi, McCree."
"Hm, what is it darlin'?"
"Where's Noah? Is the bloke somewhere sleeping the hours away or something like that? Is he badly hurt?!" Three out of the five agents froze at the question as Angela looked up from the intel. "Wait, Lena's right. I do hope you didn't let him roam around freely. If this is what you two are, I need to see how he is. Did you send him to the medical ward?"
Silence took over the room. The two women slowly came to realize what was going on and it hit them hard when it fully formed. "No."
"Angela, Lena listen; he helped us greatly in that mission."
"No." Lena said.
"He fought honorably and saved our lives."
Angela gritted her teeth tightly at the news. Winston noticed the seething anger almost pouring out of Lena. "You can't be serious, right? Winston tell me this is some cruel joke, Noah told you to play along with."
Her close friend took off his glasses and cleaned them nervously. "I'm afraid, it is no joke." Angela controlled her breathing, but Lena swallowed her anger hard. "Athena, pull up the camera footage from ship Beta-54-AF."
A video appeared before them, showing McCree and Genji trying their best to help Noah. The only sounds were that of muffled yelling and bullets hitting the ship. One camera zoomed in on the Noah and the bike he was riding. He seemed to have thrown something at the ship, but Lena and Angela didn't seem to care.
A bright yellow and orange explosion hit Noah and it sharply fell down the gulf. Never to be seen again. Lena couldn't believe her eyes as she kept clenching and unclenching her fists. Angela looked at the footage sadly and looked at the notes before her. "I'll get to work immediately. I'll need some help. Lena."
"..."
"Lena!"
She looked at Angela with an impassive look. "I'll do what I can." She said in a defeated tone. McCree, Genji, and Winston saw the destroyed look on her face when she looked at the video again. She followed the doctor out and everyone could see that the news was hitting them both hard.
Lena's cheery personality drained from the Brit's body as she could feel horrible for what they said to each other before leaving for their respective mission. He said he'd be careful, that dying was the last thing was on his list. The last thing they shared was a friendly hug. One that didn't feel like a goodbye, but now appears that way. Angela looked at the girl and could sympathize with her pain.
Noah's circumstance left a hole in Angela's perspective as well. The former thief would spend most of his days with in the medical bay watching over his comatose friend when he was allowed to. And helping Angela on occasions was also a normal with Angela allowing herself to speak highly of the latest strives in the field. She knew he struggled to keep up with her sometimes, but he never seemed to mind that she was happy sharing such things.
He was a great friend and the two felt horrible for his supposed death. The two really had a hard time trying to wrap around that.
Meanwhile someone else was watching the events play out. Sombra sat at her desk and gave a sad sigh. "That's a shame, he was really cute too. I really thought I found a friend in there. Oh well, back to the grind."
"Sombra." A voice called out. She rolled her eyes and turned to face Reaper. "What do you want Gabe?"
"The information from the motley crew. Did you get it?" She chuckled and pulled up the files. "Yup, though I tread carefully. Overwatch got Ziegler behind working on it." The name was rather triggering to Gabriel and Sombra loved the glare he gave her at mentioning the doctor.
"Get back to work." He grumbled. She gave a mock salute and began pulling up multiple networks that needed her attention. Typing up several pages of code and into their firewall, Sombra started to hack another government system, when the sound of ragged breathing was heard.
The hacker turned around, but saw no one else around her. "Hm." She continued to type, but the breathing continued as well. "Would anyone care to show themselves? Widowmaker is that you?"
"Widow...bitch." The sounded tired and croaky? 'The hell?'
"Hello?" She said. "I...go away...I don't want to clean my room, Leena. You first."
Sombra look dumbfounded at the voice and started to laugh slowly before letting it all out in her empty room. "Holy shit, you're still alive!"
"H-Hello?" Noah's voice was groggy on the other end and Sombra tried to get any eyes on him, but unfortunately there were no cameras nearby. "Hey, buddy. How are you?" Small talk that was a nice way to start.
"Bleeding. I think I can...stand uuAHH!" Sombra listened to several grunts and small screams of him hitting the ground. She gave an 'ooh' look at that and heard several cuss words being whispered under his breath.
"Are you ok?"
"I...wait who is this?" He choked out. Something about her voice seems surprising to him, maybe it was just how he could suddenly hear voices when he assumed it was a deadline. Sombra could share that sentiment,
"Your imaginary friend, Sombra." She chuckled. Imaginary, no. Friend, depends on the perspective. Because currently he was alone and the voice of the person who sold his team out was last person to call a friend. In her corner, she seemed intrigued by the new face, not because it was something deep or personal it's because she couldn't find anything on him for the longest fifteen minutes of her life! And someone who can hide such information from her, must be someone willing to disappear. Like her in that respect. And besides he was probably to beaten to respond back, but that wasn't the case.
"Fuck you." Now that came out of nowhere and Sombra looked at the screen surprised.
"What? That was rude." And it was, but maybe she would get something out of him. Something entertaining.
"Fuck you again." She couldn't believe this. Snark. Pure snark and total hatred at her guts. She received the disdain, but no one was loose. Unless it's Widowmaker trying her best to understand the Mexican hacker, however the efforts were valiant, but it wasn't enough.
"You would want that." She remembered Tracer looking the saddest from his so-called death. Maybe there was something going on. It wasn't out of the equation.
"Your momma." Ouch.
"My mother's dead." A true fact that she never dwelled on too often or ever.
"So's mine." Interesting. Make a note of that.
Sombra laughed at his snarky responses. It's been a while since anyone's talked to her with any sense of humor. Though from what she could tell, it was a very dry sense of humor. Eh, she'll take what she can get. "Really? Then we got something in common."
"D...Dead parents. Yeah, you must...you must be so...eh, I'm gonna die."
"Oh, that's a shame. You would leave your friend like this."
Noah chuckled darkly as Sombra could imagine him trying to stand up. "Friend's don't blow the whistle on their friends. You...fucked me over."
"Um, sorry. I didn't think they'd react that badly. To be fair I meant for it to be very ambiguous. They overreacted." Sombra replied. "If I ever see you, I'm punching you in the face."
"Ooh, are you sure about that? I'm a very pretty face." She said in a teasing voice. "I don't know. I know two women that are hard to beat. Uh, I'm thirsty." A sentence with two meanings.
Sombra laughed at the last line and couldn't help, but wipe a tear from her eye. If near death makes you funny, this guy was a great comedian. Or maybe she was surrounded by hard-asses and emotionless assassins that she was glad for someone to crack the jokes themselves.
"No seriously, I'm in the middle of nowhere. And the last drink I ever had was...awhile ago. I'm gonna die out here." Sombra gave a small 'hmph' and tracked the signal from his ear piece to her computer.
It seemed rude, but when she talked to Noah the first time, the hacker wanted the two to talk privately and switched his frequency. So even if he tried she blocked his transmission signal to reach Overwatch channels and couldn't call for help. Unless he realized the problem, but the current problem of near death seemed more precedent to him.
For a minute, she was searching a clear lock on the signal and finally found it. "Alright, don't worry pal, I got you. Ah, tere's a town 10 kilometers north of you. And luckily for you it's away from those poor bullies that got you." She faked a pout. She assumed Noah was less than amused with her jokes. Again, she'll take what she can get aside from annoying Talon's top enforcer and assassin.
"And then what?"
"Get help. Sleep in a warm bed. Find a warm body to go with it." She teased. This operative was one of the more interesting ones she's come across. "Right, right. If you don't mind I got a town to walk to. And maybe go home afterwards."
"No, no take your time, friend. I'll see you soon, try staying alive till then okay." She cut their connection and put away any holo screens. She smiled at the idea of meeting this agent. He seemed interesting.
When she returned to her work, the door behind her opened and Sombra rolled her eyes at who it's most likely to be. "Ah bonjour, mon amie. How can I help you?"
The French assassin glared at the hacker coldly before dropping a mission file on her lap. "You've been given orders to return to Dorado." Sombra looked at the assassin with a smile before picking it up. "Ah, I wouldn't mind a little vacation back home. Beats being in the dainty little prison you call a base. You know paper is just a waste of time. I know we're the bad guys and all, but can't we save a few trees."
"We don't trust even emailing you a small memo. And it's not unjust since the last time we sent you one memo on your tablet…"
"I know, I know, but I was just testing your security which by the way was incredibly shitty by the way. You're lucky I was the first one to do so, otherwise the world would very much have Talon by the hair. Right, Lacroix?"
The purple french woman's glare intensified at Sombra who was giving her a cheeky grin. "If you weren't so damn important, you'd find yourself at the end of my gun."
"Get in line Spider-woman, Gabe's got two of them pointing my way." She read the papers as she twirled around in her chair. Widowmaker briskly left the room and Sombra laughed at the french woman's back.
Returning to her work, she began pulling p files upon files of photos and transcripts from now to fifteen years ago. "You may know how to hide, but nothing can hide from me. I'll learn your little secrets and you'll become my eyes in that little mercenary force you're in."
Hacking into one file by the name of Baron, she pulled up some of the recorded camera feed on the rooftops of his little castle in the middle of the city. Sombra looked at how Tracer and him fought off the security force before vanishing into the night. "Maybe I should find something in case I need to a little pressure."
0-0-0-0-0-0
A few hours passed and with Genji and McCree sleeping peacefully in the next room, Angela was resuming her examination. She asked Winston if she was still needed in Nepal, but he said no. and Lucio called over a few favors and donated money there along with the relief support, so money and supplies are to be looked over by them alone. And even if she did leave to continue the mission, it didn't feel right to leave Lena in such a state.
Lucio or could probably help, but immediate relief would only bury and store the problem for a bigger blowup later. Anger and frustration weren't needed in the situation. Right now, her hand in the medical field was needed to figure out what this new weapon is.
"Here you go, Angie. Found yer gloves."
"Ah thank you, Lena. We better get started. Once the body leaves the preservation unit, we'll need to work fast. If this new information here is connected to this, then we have a way of finding out what it is."
"Come on doctor, you know I'm up for the speed. Let's do this." A weak smile, but a smile all the while.
"Of course you are. Hey..."
"Hm, what's up Angie?"
"Are you okay?"
"Fine. Why?" Liar. She noticed the little dart in her pupils. "It's nothing. Just don't bottle things up or else you'll just bring harm to yourself. Physical wounds can heal, but psychological wounds-"
"I get, but don't worry about me doc. I just need a little bit of time. I mean...it's a hard to accept we could die." The sad tone became evident at the end of that sentence.
"Especially since I can help with that." Angela said quietly. Though some part of her wasn't so sure. The last she helped led to two of her patients in a living hell. One managed to get over it, but the other…
She shook her head and saw Lena fiddling with a pair of prongs on her table. "Lena, I've seen and attended to the fall of many Overwatch members. We may mourn or even feel the weight on shoulders grow more heavy, but we do not let that stop us. It should in fact invigorate us to do better. To fight harder and to protect better."
Lena smiled at the speech and stood up next Angela. "You're right. I shouldn't let this stop us. I'll just have to hit harder."
"That's the spirit. Now I believe we were in the middle of something."
"Right, let's make sure Noah didn't die for nothing!" Two people were affected by that sentence. One was a man in the middle of the American desert beaten, bloodied, and now wondering if he's going crazy for someone mentioning him. Another was a patient that's been unconscious for the past month. His hand twitched again and his breathing seemed to get stronger.
And the examination soon resumed. Though much earlier than intended, Angela began poking the brain around and began looking for any signs of deformities or any sign of man made entry on the brain.
Not one thing in the world can leave without leaving a trace. True in both forensics and surgery. The body cannot hide what it isn't. Cutting down through the central crevice of the brain, Angela spread the organ to reveal anything it has to offer. Lena looked a bit squeamish at the sight and looked anywhere but there.
Angela didn't mind, she just wanted Lena to be around incase her hands were full. There was no need to look at the cerebellum when something's less fleshy is in your view. She continued to cut the brain with precision until she felt something different.
Tink. A small sound caught their attention. "Hmm." Poking in the same area with the same amount of force led to the same sound coming out. Tink. "Lena, get the table ready. Bring it here."
The Brit complied and Angela dug a little deep to dig out the little obstacle in the head. Slowly, she drew her hand out and with the scalpel came an open capsule. The size of a pen cap. "What the hell is that?"
"A capsule. It makes sense the poison would come from here, but how? I scanned his body after the body was brought here. I didn't see anything this size in his brain. Lena, plastic bag."
She grabbed a plastic bag and held it out. Placing it in the bag, Angela took off her gloves and proceeded to store the body again. It was good enough for further experimentation, but right now Angela needed to get to work.
"Lena, you can go rest. I'll call you over if I need any help." Tracer gave a small salute and blinked off. Probably to talk to Winston or to get some food. She went to her lab and soon began her forensics investigation.
0-0-0-0-0-0
The night sky was slowly changing through the hours and sore ankles were one of the many problems of the surviving agent. The ground was hard and unforgiving with only the few living things scurrying away from the beaten man. His armor more or less shredded off his body with only his kevlar gauntlets the only protection he had left. A few cuts appeared on his long blued sleeve shirt and his black pants. In his hand was the small handgun from the motorcycle and his non functioning grappling hook resting nicely in his holster on the side of his leg.
"Ok, I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm…" His foot fell into a porthole and he landed face first on the ground. He didn't bother getting up as the fatigue from the fight and the walking finally set in. With the last bit of strength, Noah looked next to him to see a road touching the side of his hand. Looking up, he noticed a massive truck at a rusty old gas station.
Noah also noticed that the end was open with an Omnic driver simply resting against the side of the big truck playing on his phone. Using the last bit of his strength left in his body, Noah got up and pushed his body through the pain of moving.
Somehow silently, Noah ran across the road, moved under the look of the Omnic driver, and jumped right into the cargo trailer of the truck. The Omnic looked behind him in curiosity and saw no one. Shrugging he closed the cargo trailer without knowing he'd be taking an extra passenger.
Noah hid behind the numerous crates between him and the opening and the little light in the room completely vanished when the door closed. Switching to night vision, Noah saw he was surrounded by fruit crates.
"Oh my God, finally something to eat." His dry throat was parched by the sweet juices of the fruit quenching it. He broke into three grates of apples and drained them to the core. He was more than happy to get something after such a long trek through the desert.
Eating his fill, Noah laid on the floor of the trailer with his eyes now heavy from fatigue. "What I wouldn't do...to be with...all of you." Images of the Overwatch members came in the order of Genji, McCree, Winston, Angela, Lena, and Burr. His closest friends, the people he could trust. Sure there were others, but those members were the ones he got to know better. He was alone at the moment. No good equipment, his earpiece wasn't working whenever he tried switching to new channels, and his communicator broke during the fall.
He pulled said communicator out of his pocket and looked at it. The Overwatch symbol was cracked with the screen shattered and the wires poking out. "I...I just wanna go home."
0-0-0-0-0-0
Please review and do whatever it is you people do. And congratulations to the end of Act 1 of Among Heroes. What will happen next? Stay tune for the next installment.