"Where's Jesse?" Ana questioned.
"He'll be up here in a moment," Gabriel responded.
"What about Red?" Chimed in Torbjorn.
"Do you really think I'm going to get her up here?" Gabe sighed. "She never shows up to these things."
"She chooses not to be educated on important matters, and yet, you still keep her around," said Jack. He understood the Strike Commander's frustration. One was expected to attend these meetings; the members of Overwatch and its Secret Ops division weren't exactly allowed to pick and choose which to attend. However, Gabriel bailed her out each time, and each time, would stop by the lab and explain the topics discussed afterwards, much to Morrison's dismay. She was a busy woman; she was busy keeping up her end of the deal on their "agreement."
How dare he interrupt?
"What can I say? She's fed up with work."
That wasn't exactly a lie, and it wasn't exactly what Jack wanted to hear. The blonde stood from his seat, muttered a few cusses, and walked over to the coffee maker sitting on a table pressed against the dark wall of the conference room. Gabe scoffed. That man always worried about the insignificant stuff. As long as Moira had the information relayed to her, why did it matter that she were present?
Once everyone had settled down and McCree had arrived, Jack addressed the room.
"We've recently lost sight of Talon's whereabouts in Czechoslovakia, as you all know, but as of this morning, we've pinpointed what seems to be a new hotspot for those fuckers to gather."
He turned on the heel of his foot and gestured to the large, bright-blue screen, which depicted a picture of Italy and a dot located in the country with the description Venice, Italy adjacent to it.
"There have been reports of an abundance of Talon members gathering somewhere in Venice," Jack continued. "According to eye-witness accounts, there's a shitload of them. If these accounts are true, we could be onto something big."
He then turned to Gabriel. "The Overwatch Team and I are going to explore this a bit more. Once we have enough information, I'll decide whether your group should get involved. I'm almost certain you will. As for the rest of us," Morrison turned to his team, "there'll be many days where Captain Amari will fill the role as Strike Commander. I have a feeling whatever's going on over there will bust everything wide open, so I'm going to be busy snuffing out information. In that time, she'll take over. Pretty damn sure she'll be better at it than me, anyways."
The woman laughed and said sweetly, "I probably will be."
"There you have it," Jack smiled. "Any comments or concerns?"
When there were none, he warned, "Might as well start preparing, Blackwatch. I'm almost certain you're not getting out of this one. With that, everyone go back to your business. I'll keep us updated."
The room sprang to life as everyone stood from their seats and walked either to the doors or to each other. As Gabriel rose, he noticed Morrison stride over to him.
"Tell O'Deorain," he advised, "if or when your division is deployed, that it's mandatory she attends the mission."
"Understood," he affirmed.
Once the Commander walked off to speak to Amari, Gabe followed Genji and Jesse down to the Blackwatch wing of the compound.
"So what're we doing, Commander?" Jesse asked.
"We do what Morrison says:" he replied, "start preparing just in case. It's the best course of action so far."
The cowboy shrugged. "So be it."
Gabriel followed the two and spoke with McCree about nonsense (It was the cruddiest damn pub here in America) until him and the cyborg split with their commander, and he took the hallway that led to the bottom floor while his teammates continued towards the recreational area. He traversed long corridors and stairs and was stuck in an elevator for a minute-too-long while making his descent. All the while, a thought in the back of his mind told him that she wouldn't allow him to enter.
Again.
A sigh left his mouth as he approached those infamous metal doors and rang the buzzer. Shortly after, that low, feminine voice called from inside.
"Who is it?" She was muffled and only somewhat audible.
"Gabriel," he called back.
"Come in."
To his surprise, he was granted access, and punched in the amalgamation of random numbers that was the passcode. The doors slid open and shut once he stepped inside.
The room was more cluttered than when he last laid eyes upon it. Piles of papers and Styrofoam coffee cups were littered across the tables, complimented by a small stack of plates with a group of forks resting on top. There were contraptions Gabriel was uneducated on the function of on the sides of the laboratory. Connected to these were thick wires (or tubes, it was hard to distinguish at this point) that ran up the walls, to the ceiling, and into the secondary chamber, forcing the Doctor to keep the door swung open. Beyond that threshold was a machine that the wiring (or tubing, or both) led to. He didn't want to know its purpose. He studied his surroundings for a bit longer before Moira appeared from the closet, gripping her right hand in her left and stroking the knuckles with a free thumb.
"Hello, Commander," she greeted.
"Glad to see you aren't dead," he joked. "Pretty much everyone believes that."
She looked exhausted. Strands of hair were falling in her eyes, which had dark circles accompanying them. The white pants she wore had purple fingerprints and hand markings decorating the fabric, and the tie around her neck was partially undone, causing the collar of her dark button-up to fall out of place.
"You don't look good," he commented honestly.
"I was busy."
"Too busy to sleep for a few hours? You know you aren't on any time restraints here."
"I'm aware. I had to test my newest altercation's abilities, that's all."
She held her hand up for him to see, and his breath caught in his throat.
Dull magenta veins roped around violet skin and led to long, glowing nails that tapered to an elongated, needle-like point. Holy shit, was all he could think.
"I'm unable to cut these anymore," she waggled her fingers. "I'll have to figure out what to do in regards to that."
Why was she so calm about this?
"The hell'd you do to your hand?"
"I essentially took a sample of my improved nanabiotic serum and injected myself with it. Of course, after altering it a little. Otherwise, I would have died immediately."
She ran her not-fucked-up hand up and down her right arm, lifting her sleeve and exposing the intricate ways her veins wrapped around the muscles of her limb. The look in her dual-colored eyes as she inspected her work nearly frightened him; Moira was so proud of what she had done to herself.
She glanced back to him.
"Once I finalize everything, I'll be sure to inform you as soon as possible so we may get started."
"Right, right," he said hesitantly. "I won't turn purple and veiny, will I?"
"Oh, no, I've already exterminated the factors that changed the appearance of my arm. At the moment I'm changing a few things so it won't react negatively with the Soldier Enhancement serum."
Gabe nodded, still a bit uneasy at the sight.
"So now what could you do with that hand?"
The smile on the Doctor's face sent chills down his spine.
"Allow me to show you."
She walked over to the second part of the lab, Gabriel in tow, and made her way happily down the two steps and over to the six cages on the wall. He inspected the large machine in the middle of the room before hearing her coo softly the words come here, Lovely.
Moira held in her left hand a rabbit that she set down on the table underneath the mysterious apparatus.
"I'm unable to touch anything with my hand without harming it, at the moment. You don't have to worry about that, however, I've already taken away all harmful aspects of this project," she informed him, and shortly after, muttered to herself, "I need to do something to get that under control."
She brushed her hair in behind her ears and spoke a single word: "Watch."
Moira picked a scalpel out from the drawer underneath the desk and made a deep incision in the palm of her left hand. The sight caused Gabriel to wince, but the redhead was as unaffected as ever. Shortly after, she place a firm grip on the rabbit's neck and bit her lip as it began to gasp for hair and twist in pain. He has killed dozens, and yet seeing the animal's body contort in agony made his skin rise. The blackness of her nails lit up and became a vibrant purple, and he watched in astonishment as the wound that was gushing blood seconds before miraculously closed and left nothing to prove its existence. She released her grip from the now-lifeless mound of fur and held up her healthy hand for him to see.
Gabe had absolutely no words.
"This is the kind of power we can possess if not held back by morality," the Doctor lectured. "Just think of what this kind of technology could do for our soldiers out on the field. This is something Doctor Ziegler isn't willing to ponder, and it's inevitably affecting her team in a negative way, regardless of how she may try to dispute it."
Her words buzzed through his head and wouldn't leave. He respected Doctor Ziegler in ways he couldn't convey in words, and yet...
In a twisted, psychotic way, Moira was right.
From what he just witnessed, whatever this Nanobiotics 2.0 (that name was fitting, Gabriel decided) was, it surpassed the capabilities of Angela's caduceus and the Captain's bullets. All it took was a little bit of crossing the line, and the world could be blessed with something greater than its greatest.
Gabe glanced over to the lifeless rabbit laying on the stark-white table.
"You're pretty fucking brilliant," he said, and presented her with a small, toothless, lopsided grin. "A little psychotic, but brilliant."
"I'm aware of all your accusations," she smiled back. "They're appreciated anyways."
Moira ran her fingers over her decrepit hand once more.
"Now, why did you stop by?" It was just then that he remembered why he came.
"Shit, that's right! Uh, about the meeting you missed. A lot of important stuff was discussed, and Morrison wanted me to give you a message."
"Is that so?"