"Are you insane?! Are you insane you fucking retards?!" Hana exclaimed, as soon as her inner fangirl had subsided and her more logical side surfaced. "Not only did you bring an entire alien species from a freaking different dimension here, you also didn't decide to kill them as soon as you realized just what you brought in?! Oh, let me guess! You thought you could use them as weapons against the omnics or create super soldiers or what the hell do I know?! Dibs on being the first super soldier by the way." The gamer girl added the last part with a mutter, causing General Tang to facepalm. This was why he didn't like working with Gamers.
"Miss Song" it was the Prime Minister who spoke up for the first time "I can assure you we were well aware of the risks. Everyone involved in this project extensively…*ahem*...studied the history of the StarCraft universe excessively-"
"Oh yeah?!" Hana cut the man off, glaring daggers at him. "Then maybe you should know that those fuckers are unpredictable, can adapt to any kind of situation and weapon and have the tendency to eat entire planets!" she gritted her teeth and slammed her fist on the table. "Why didn't you burn them to the ground?! Did you really think you can control an alien species?!"
"Up until recently, we could."
Hana turned her head towards the general, who in return gesture towards the holo-screen. The man in charge of the remote pushed a button and the screen changed from footage of the Zerg Hive to blueprints of an apparatus that highly resembled a Hive Mind Emulator from the Wings of Liberty campaign. Nice building, but useless in the Campaign in her opinion.
"You probably recognize this from the game as well, Agent Song." The general walked in front of all the tables until he stood right next to the professor. "For everyone who doesn't know, this is called a Hive Mind Emulator. Along with the Zerg, one such device happened to fall through the portal due to circumstances unknown. We managed to retrieve the device, which luckily wasn't highly damaged. We also managed to power the device up, effectively getting every single alien under our control. Sadly, we couldn't just take it apart and study it, as it would have caused the Zerg to attack our staff once again."
"How exactly did you manage to repair such a device?" one of the other researchers asked. "It is alien after all."
"Actually, it was human made," the general explained. "The interface was in English and there was no firewall or even password protection. As such, using the device wasn't much of a problem. Recreating it, however, was impossible as I already explained."
"Still, why didn't you eradicate the aliens or at least limited their numbers to a sizable size for study?" another researcher asked. "I can understand the scientific curiosity and the once in a billion lifetime chance, but still…"
"Oh, we did limit their numbers." General Tang said, the holo-screen now showing as to what could only be explained as a slaughterhouse. Only, instead of cattle getting their heads cut off, it was the Zerg getting shot by high caliber auto-turrets. It wasn't a pleasant sight and at least two occupants of the room ran for the next best bathroom.
"I personally saw to it that the exterminations were being carried out. Sadly, those things have the nasty habit to increase in numbers, when left unchecked."
"That's what got damaged." Hana realized. "The Emulator got damaged during the fight and now the Zerg are on a rampage."
"Not only damaged, completely destroyed." The general said with a stern voice. The screen changed to a map, showcasing an underground lap and zoomed into a big room called "Contamination Room". It was showcased to be surrounded by big metal walls, however, two red "X" appeared in two places on the ground side.
"We don't know where the Zerg got the necessary materials from, but they managed to rebuild their numbers significantly. The toxic gas we prepared has proven to be useless and our researchers don't have the time to perfect the formula or reconstruct the Hive Mind Emulator."
An uneasy murmur filled the room. Many people here didn't know what the Zerg were capable of, but all of them had seen the one or other horror movie, showcasing aliens as the big antagonist, ready to wipe out humanity in some gruesome way or other.
"Time is of essence. On those two places," the general pointed to the Xs "the Zerg have begun digging tunnels. It will take some time for them to get through, but they're making way more progress than should be possible. These are reinforced alloy platings, able to resist explosions of our biggest bombs, aside from nuclear missiles. It will take them days at most to dig their way through and make their way to the outside."
Even more, murmurs filled the room.
"Let me guess." Hana sighed. "You need me and the guys to turn every single one of them into bullet sponges."
"If it were that easy, we would have already done that." The General retorted with a deadpan voice. "Currently the lab is not reachable in any way, due to the collapse of almost every passageway. Clearing a way through the rubble will take too long. Luckily some of the surveillance cameras are still working, so we have life feedback of what the Zerg are currently doing. Given all of those circumstances, there's one last thing we can do to stop a catastrophe."
"Really?"
"What is it?"
"Is it dangerous?"
Multiple questions were thrown into the room at once. The Prime Minister at that moment stood up and walked in the middle of room. Everyone went silent, as soon as the country's leader stepped forward.
"The General and I have discussed this "Last Measurement" in great detail. It is certainly not without its risks, that I cannot deny. However, it is either that or the possible total annihilation of our beloved country."
~What a speech.~ Hana thought in a sarcastic matter. Clearly, without anyone to write the actual speeches for him, the Prime Minister was no better at coming up with stuff on the fly, than a Bronze League Player.
"What I am about to say might sound outlandish and you have all right to question our sanity for even thinking about doing such a thing, but I am afraid we do not have the time to think about a better solution than the one we have right here. With any luck, it will only be short term, however, there is no telling, whether this will be true or not. Miss Song?"
"Yes, Prime Minister?" ~What a lame speech. Even I could write a better one.~
"Tell us, what entity controls the Zerg in the story? I think you can explain that better than everyone else."
Hana frowned for a moment, getting the story together in her head. "Well at first it was the Overmind, which is simply put a big brain creature, controlling everything. It was later revealed that some other thing controlled the Overmind, in order to destroy the galaxy. The Overmind still had enough control over himself to create a new leader, someone who would be free from this control. He basically turned a human...oh hell no." Hana's eyes widened in realization.
"It seems you have caught on." The General sighed. "Believe me, I don't like the idea either, but our only option at this point is to use the alien virus, which we managed to extract and turn someone into a Zerg-Human like it happened with Sarah Kerrigan in the story, who in return would control the Zerg."
The entire room went deathly silent.
"Specifically...we were wondering if you would like to volunteer, Agent Song."
Chaos ensued immediately after those words had been spoken.
XXX
"Well, that could have gone better," Sombra commented, as soon as she entered her personal room inside the Talon base. She herself just came out of the med bay, receiving treatment for multiple broken bones, which she received from a certain angry gorilla. Luckily for her, medicine had come a long way, especially thanks to Mercy's research, as such broken bones could be easily fixed if you had the right technology available. Still, it was recommended to not overburden the mended bones for a week or two, because the treatment was far from perfect. There was always some minor damage left, which the body had to heal itself.
Still feeling sore, the best hacker in the world let herself fall onto her bed and took out a holo-pad, in order to check her sources for anything that might interest her. Of course, being the best hacker in the world, her sources were plentiful and looking through all of them would be impossible. As such, she had written a complicated (for non-Sombras) algorithm, that would look for anything that really might interest Sombra. Everything else was stored away for possible later usage or deleted right away.
The thing Sombra was currently interested in was info about the contents of the secret lab she and the rest of Talon attacked just recently. Specifically, she looked at the device they had been after, something called a "Hive Mind Emulator". From the sparse information they managed to get together, it very basically was a device to mind control multiple people by connecting their brains to the device...somehow. Apparently so far, the South Korean Government had successfully tested the thing on ants, beetles and other insects, yet was hesitant to take the next step.
Naturally, Talon was more than interested in such a device, for obvious reasons. It was for this very same reasons that Reaper, Widowmaker, and Sombra herself had put a plan together to either use the device themselves or destroy it if it couldn't be operated by any of them. What did you expect? They weren't dumb enough to actually give away such a treasure.
"Hmm...well, looks like the problem just solved itself," Sombra mumbled to herself. According to the data from one of the holo's she'd hacked, the device had been destroyed beyond repair and the blueprints had been stored away somewhere else. Sure Talon could possibly search for the blueprints, but the Master Hacker decided to do this one all by herself and delete every single bit of data about the device. Seriously, she knew enough about humans to know where this would go if some idiot builds a second one.
Onto another subject, Overwatch proved to be more and more of a real problem, than a simple annoyance. Ever since the Overwatch agents regrouped Talon had a really hard time in achieving its goals. Perhaps it was time to change employees? There were more than enough people out there, who were ready to pay any price for Sombra's abilities. She even considered going solo, as it would give her a lot more leeway. Though, she personally still had use for Talon, Widowmaker, and Reaper, so maybe another time. Maybe she'd even work for the "good guys" for once. It would certainly bring some much-needed variety to her life. But on the other hand, the good guys always followed some stupid principle or rule, which usually went against Sombra's style.
XXX
Lena Oxton, aka Tracer, sighed in annoyance, as she exited the shower. Cleaning her body was always such a hassle for her since the Chrono Accelerator had to stay attached to her body 24/7. If she put it off even for a second, she ran the risk of disappearing for days, weeks or even months. Not to mention, half the time she wouldn't be able to touch anything, making it hard to shower at all. She had asked Winston multiple times to make her a newer version, one that was a bit slicker and allowed her to properly take care of her body.
Sadly, her primate friend couldn't help her much in that regard. There simply were too many mechanisms that needed to be accounted for. Speaking of the Gorilla, after getting a fresh set of clothes on, the former pilot found the scientist sitting in front of his holo-screens and going to what appeared to be a very long grocery shopping list. A shopping list consisting of weapons, mechanical doohickeys and stuff Tracer couldn't even guess what it was supposed to be.
"Whatcha doin', love?" she asked her longtime friend while approaching him from behind. Winston for his part glanced backward for a second, before readjusting his glasses and returning his attention to the "shopping list".
"Lena. I'm going through an inventory list of the facility in South Korea."
"Uh huh." Lena took another look at the list, now genuinely interested. She placed a hand on Winston's shoulder, the other one on the table and leaned forward. "Where'd you get that? Looks like top secret stuff to me."
"Soldier 76," Winston grunted, scrolling down the list. "He gave me a datapad, before disappearing who knows where. He meant it might help us find out as to why Talon targeted this specific facility."
"Hmm…" Tracer's eyes scanned through the contents. "Well, it was one of those places, you know. Maybe they just wanted to get some high-tech stuff and they somehow got the location and codes for this one."
But Winston shook his head. "Talon doesn't operate at random. They attack specific targets for specific reasons. Every country has a secret installation like this. If they were just after some next generation weapons, then there are better places for them to rob, like the US or Russia."
"Guess ya got a point there." Tracer conceded. "So, anything standing out."
"Not really. There are some rather disturbing projects listed, but nothing really outstanding. Not outstanding enough to gain Talon's attention anyways."
"Huh. I see. Program to identify potential terrorists via mouth movement? Yeah, sounds like something any government would want to have. Laser weaponry… bacteria bio-weapon?" Tracer shuddered at the implications. "I thought bio-weapons were forbidden…"
The Gorilla sighed, as he opened the specific file and skimmed over the contents. A few pictures of meat rotting away in a controlled environment and people wearing biohazard suits were included as well.
"Lena, we both know that the world doesn't work that way. There will be always someone who thinks they're above everything. Which is where we come in."
He put his oversized hand on her own and pressed it gently, yet reassuringly. Tracer smiled at her longtime friend, before returning to reading the files.
"Yeah, you're right." The time-girl nodded and returned her attention to the screen once again. Winston in the meantime, returned to the seemingly endless list of projects the South Korean Government has undergone in secret.
"I wonder why 76 not just looked over all this stuff himself." Tracer wondered, to which Winston simply snorted.
"He probably took a quick glance and thought he could come over as trustworthy or something for handing such valuable intel over to us. Personally, I think he just didn't want to spend time looking through all of this himself."
Winston placed his oversized hand on a smaller side screen and flipped the picture over to the main screen. The list went over to the smaller screen. The big screen now showed a picture of 76's face, along with some basic biometric data, such as height, possible age, hair color, blood type and so on. Winston type something into his holo-keyboard, which brought up pictures of various former Overwatch Bases and storehouses.
"The man is an enigma. He has raided more of our old facilities, than Talon alone."
"He gives me a vigilante kind of wipe, ya know." Tracer opined. "Someone working outside the boundaries of the law, yet still doing the right thing. Helping the small people, kinda like us. Makes me wonder, why he simply doesn't join up."
"That's exactly what worries me about him. I think he only works with us because our goals don't interfere with his own. He might only use us, only to betray us at the end."
"Aw, don't be like that." Tracer lightly slapped Winston's shoulder. "Maybe he's just shy."
The gorilla scientist couldn't help himself but chuckle. "Whatever the case is, he knows a lot about us. Almost as if he was a former agent of ours."
Tracer looked a little dejected at the implication. "Then that would be more of a reason to come back. Do you think he doesn't trust us, after what happened back then?"
"Who knows, Tracer. Who knows." Winston sighed. "At least he only seems to be targeting terrorist organizations and the such. There're even mentions of him rescuing civilians on numerous occasions."
"See, he is a good guy." Tracer smiled. "I'm sure he'll tell us more about him, once we have shown him that he can trust us."
"Heh, you always try to see the best in people, Lena." Winston shook his head, smiling himself. "I guess all we can do is wait and see for now. In any event, I'll let Athena check the data for anything useful." The Gorilla let out a huge yawn. "I better go to bed or Angela is going to throw a tantrum again."
Tracer let out a heartfelt laugh. "Yeah, we don't want the good doctor to lose her cool again, now do we? Nighty night, big guy."
"More like, good morning. You do remember we're in a different time zone."
"Haha! I'm always in a different time zone."
Winston laughed but didn't comment on the small joke.
