2. A medic's confession
Fiddling with a few gizmos he kept in his pockets, the engineer was anything but calm. Scout had gotten himself captured by a group of women eerily like themselves; that alone would set someone on edge. It was the insignias that tipped them off, class markings on the outside sleeves of each woman that indicated their type. It wasn't some BLU trick either because they were all wearing red somewhere on their bodies, and there were too many of them for it to be a spy. Plus, the matches for the month were over and something always sealed all the possible routes between bases after a match
He hadn't gotten a good look at his counterpart. She had been on the other side of a female heavy ( who on the grainy security footage didn't look all that different from the male heavy), and he could only really pick out a hard hat. She had seemed to be the shortest of the mercenaries however. The idea of facing himself but… not himself? It was a slippery mental slope to say the least.
What was also unsettling was that the scout seemed to be covered in blood, and since none of the women appeared hurt it was most likely his own. Either way, the situation was a loaded sentry gun waiting to shoot unmercilessly.
" So we just stand here?" He turned to the male medic who was on his right. The male spy was on his left.
" I haf told you, diplomacy is ze best way to approch zis situation. You, und myself and ze spy, will reason with ze females so zat zey let ze scout go, und explain zemselfs."
" Zee can keep le scout as I am concerned." The spy sneered.
" In zat case you are helping us talk sem into not shooting us!"
" But what if they don't listen?" The engineer probed. He was nervous, there was no denying it. None of them would respawn if diplomacy failed and it broke into fighting.
" Fear not!" The Medic exclaimed. " I haf diplomacy's greatest allies vaiting in ze vings; brute force!" He pointed toward the big double doors that lead from the caf to the main recreation area for the mercenaries.
" Clustered behind zat door, vaiting for ze sounds of gun shots und our likely screams are ze pyro, soldier, and heafy. Ze burst in, und vhen zey open fire it vill be a bloodbath beyond imagination!" He cackled to himself. The engineer had always somewhat doubted the medic's sanity, now it was blatantly apparent he had very little. The spy rolled his eyes and chimed in,
" Also, I'm sure zee uncouth rifleman has fled to his perch somewhere and will be covering us from abuv."
That was somewhat more reassuring. The sniper had nailed enough BLUs for the engineer not to doubt his accuracy.
" It seems zat zee women are outside our door." The spy said, pointing to the monitor on a far wall. " Prepare to try reason, and zen most likely resort to sheer bloodlust."
As soon as he finished speaking, the door to the caf was kicked in, and the scout thrown face first onto the tile floor. Eight women shuffled in behind him, some brandishing weapons, others just eyeing the three of them cooley.
" Aye can see they've provided es with a welcoming partey!" A Latina wearing a thick vest and skull cap quipped in a thick Irish accent. The spy sneered at her.
" It seems zee scout has gotten 'imself capture by a lot of little gerls." He said, coldly inspecting the groaning form of the scout. The engineer was personally taken aback, the Scout's nose was bent almost ninety degrees, his eyes were both black and… he was missing two fingers on his left hand.
A lanky woman, wearing the odd combination of a black evening dress and a ski mask, threw something at them and replied,
" Withouta much of a fight too. We tooka some uv his finger to make up for se disappointment." Her accent was Italian, and catching the item he saw it was a plastic bag full of melting ice and the scout's detached fingers.
" You can put them back on, right doc?" The scout moaned, not having moved from the floor.
" Like zey vere nevah gone. Und, I confess zat maybe zis entire situation is my fault."
That got everyone's attention, except the spy. He was glaring at the…other spy? The engineer didn't have time to bother with semantics, he simply turned to the medic and asked.
" What do you mean your fault?"
" Vell, technically it iz OUR fault my dear fellow. You remembah how ve vere experimenting vith ze teleportahs, jah?"
The engineer nodded. It began to dawn on him, and his heart sank into his stomach. This was beyond impossible, but here the women were.
" I believe you have some explaining to do then." A sonorous voice bursts in, the engineer turned his head slightly and saw an Indian woman wearing a lab coat and carrying a medi-gun striding towards them.
" I agree." Another with a thick New York accent joined. She had a rectangle figure, but was supported by shapely legs clearly used to doing a lot of running. Long brown hair fell in waves from under a baseball cap.
" Scout, I see you look better as a gerl than I believed possible." Spy teased. The female scout snarled.
" Me an' this guy got nothing in common, so you can drop it there frenchie. I'd sock you so hard it'd make your head spin if I didn't need ta' hear yer friend, capisce?"
" Oh, I'm so scared. Look scout, sum form of you can actually attempt to be intimidating."
The female scout would have leaped on the spy then and there if the female heavy hadn't grabbed her by the shoulders and restrained her. It didn't stop her hurling insults however.
" Scout, please, restrain yourself." The female medic sighed. Now, I believe you were continuing with your explanation?"
" Ah, yes, vell you see," The male medic started, swallowing nervously. " Ze engineer und I vere experimenting on ze teleportahs, vhen ve found something extremely interesting. Ze teleportahs seemed to vork by folding dimensions. Like ze origami, ja? It folds zem togezah, so you slip between zem und back into your own like zat." He snapped his fingers to accentuate his point. " Und I had ze thought uf, vhat if we stopped it mid fold? Vhat if we could use it to slip into ozah dimesions? Untire Universes different from our own?" He paused, his eyes sparkling like a mad man's. " Can you imagine ze possibilities?"
The engineer remembered this. They'd labored over a teleporter in the medibay, where Medic worked most of the time, rerouting circuits, testing hypothesis for weeks but…
" None of those experiments worked." He butted in. It was true, they'd never found a way to take themselves to an alternate dimension.
" Ah, mhm," The medic cleared his throat sheepishly. " You remembah zat blue vire ve couldn't understand?" The engineer nodded.
" Vell, last night aftah my bath I vas strolling back though ze medibay to feed archimedes vhen I zhought ' vell, vhat if za blue vire does not do anyzhing?' so I yanked it out and turned on ze teleportah. Lo und behold, ze teleportah begins to glow like london in ze blitzkrieg, but zen it sputtahd und died. I zhought nothing of it until scout here ran into his situation."
" What hour was this?" The female medic inquired.
" Promptly fifteen minutes aftah midnight." She nodded gravely.
" At twelve fifteen last night, we found ourselves in a basement under what appears to be your base."
" Wait, wait." The male scout sat up. " You are all saying that-"
" Zat zhey teleportah pulled ze entire red team from un alternate universe vhere each uf us iz uf ze opposite gendah!" The medic exclaimed, and then burst into another bout of his cackling, maniacal laugh.