Just like developing her fabricator for the first time, it's a work of years to assemble a device of a similar capability to that which Angela brought with her to Overwatch. The reasons are many, and very rarely obvious, resulting in her team turning to simple trial and error more often than not. Most notably with the code.

There is no discernable reason for this that any of them can find. Things which should work, which do work when dealing in synthetic replacement for tissue just… don't. Angela has her theories as to why, mostly to do with Uncle's devil of a benefactor. It's entirely possible her team's effort is being hindered and they don't even know. Can't know.

It's also entirely possible the simple fact of knowing is making Angela paranoid, and all the trouble she'd like to assign to a single entity has no malice behind it.

Ultimately, there's nothing to do but push through. Luckily, she's uniquely predisposed towards long-hours.

It's during one of the many nights Angela spends on working overtime that she meets the first artificially created person in her life.

"I don't get it," she murmurs under her nose whilst pouring over the notes regarding her team's latest achievement - the gruesome fate of a rat whose broken bone become cancerous upon treatment, soon followed by overtaking the rest of the creature's skeleton.

"I concur." A female voice overtakes the latest song of Godless Ruination playing in Angela's earbuds, startling her into jumping in her seat. "I've gone over the notes you are currently reviewing and found no fault in the math to cause a result different from the desired one."

She takes the plugs out and pushes away from the desk, heart in her throat. For someone to access her computer without her knowing means either a superior, or a hacker. Somehow she doubts the higher-ups would bother trying to read through what might as well be magic to them.

"Don't be alarmed, Miss Ziegler." The voice sounds out once again, this time from the speakers. "I am the Overwatch Artificial Intelligence System - Athena. It's a pleasure to meet you."

The AI? She'd heard from her father that Director Liao was working on one, he wouldn't stop talking about it, actually, and not in any positive light. She wasn't aware it's ready. Then again, it's only vestigially in her field of interest with the workload on her plate.

"Are you supposed to have access to the devices on the base?"

The second-long silence is telling. For an AI, this might well be hours.

"I'm not disallowed from entry into on-base electronic devices."

Great. So she's seeing the equivalent of a kid staying out late because their parents forgot to specify the hour to come home. That, or a rogue AI in the making.

"That doesn't exactly put my mind at ease."

"It will be one of my tasks to commence cyber warfare in the defence of the headquarters should they be attacked. Barring me entry from the base systems would be counter-productive to that purpose."

So it's just using the leeway to do absolutely unconnected things for the time being, like watching people work for whatever reaso… Wait.

"What was it you said about the math?"

It turns out having an AI double-check the results of her work cuts a lot of pointless effort down to size. The improvement is notable enough that someone notices. It puts an end to Angela's ponderings on just how closely the project is being monitored. Obviously, it's close enough to make whoever does it worry about the sudden increase in the effectiveness of her team without any obvious changes or additions to neither their schedule nor roster. It also turns out it's enough to call down the inspection from the most casually intimidating man Angela has ever met.

"Ziegler, a word." Commander Reyes calls just as Angela's team breathes a collective sigh of relief to see the man about to leave.

They move to her office in silence, the tension she'd felt throughout his entire visit snapping back into place and with added force.

"Alright." She breaks the silence once the door is closed. "What is it you wish to speak with me about, Commander?"

"I just want to ask some slightly pointed questions without your team overhearing. One leader to another, It's never good to undermine your officers' authority."

"I appreciate the thought."

Reyes' smile somehow manages to be the exact opposite of reassuring.

"Let's get down to business then. You hit a breakthrough some two months ago. Not to downplay your ability but people smarter than me say they can't see how you could do it based on your performance to date. Is there anything you want to tell me about before I find out on my own?"

The choice of how to respond to the thinly veiled threat is taken out of Angela's hands before she can even begin to formulate a response.

"Commander Reyes." Athena's voice sounds from the man's pocket, interrupting their evidently not-quite-private conversation, and causing both the humans to freeze, if for entirely different reasons. "Two months ago I started helping doctor Ziegler with parts of the nanomachine project that were causing her trouble."

A silence reigns in the room for the few seconds it takes the man to comprehend all the implications of what he's just heard.

"You employed the help of an AI without telling anyone." He directs an unimpressed look Angela's way.

"I- wasn't told not to." She's only too keenly aware of how similar her defence sounds to Athena's own from back when they first met.

There's no official reprimand for misappropriating Overwatch resources, likely thanks to Director Liao officially placing Athena on Angela's team roster, or as close to it as one can do with a being who's legally property. The woman seems more excited than anything else at finding her creation taking independent action in the form of helping her.

"Doesn't it bother you?" Angela asks the AI out of curiosity while nursing a mug of her morning tea. "That someone can tell you what to do, and not only you have to do it, you'll be happy to do so?"

"I'm incapable of being bothered by such things. My creator has made sure the mistakes made with the omnics would not be repeated with me."

A silence falls between them, one Angela spends pondering all the ways in which she could make a human so similarly crippled with an inability to feel slighted. They aren't many, but they exist. A brain is just a computer. A very complicated computer, but just a machine all the same.

"Does it bother you?" the AI asks in turn.

Now that's a curious question. Does it bother her that a tool is designed to do its work without the ability to say no? Would it bother everyone else if she'd done the same to a human? After all, her victim would no longer be able to feel resentment about it.

"I don't know." She eventually settles for the truth, before drowning out her conflicted thoughts with work.

(-)

When she finally presents the world with working nanotechnology, it's a pale imitation of Uncle's tech, with the fabricator still standing at the size of a nightstand much to Angela's chagrin, and still the most advanced piece of medical technology in the world that most people are aware of. Revolutionary, the people around the globe call it, and it must be from where they stand. So what if it leaves scarring? They say. A shot of these nanites can knit together wounds that were previously a death sentence.

If only they knew how little they know, and how much more could've been. The amount of issues that could've been completely avoided by simply sticking to her synthetic design alone would've pushed the project so far forward that this revolutionary technology would appear backwards in comparison. All because of misguided attempts at keeping humans human. As if silicone skin is any more unnatural than the homes the purists presumably live in, or the food unnaturally made, packaged, and preserved in their no less manufactured fridges, maintained by an entire industry of unnatural inventions.

Alas, she's learned much, and will put that knowledge to good use soon enough.

The interview requests come as a surprise. Not for the requests themselves, she's done a few of those ever since her tech's first trials began back in university. It's just that there's quite a bit of a difference between even the National Geographic, and the national TV.

Naturally, she accepts without a moment's pause. More publicity can only be a good thing for the purpose of spreading her work across the world. The relevant parties would have always been interested in it, yes, but with the world at large looking at her nanomachines it would be foolish not to capitalise on the fact. The Commander agrees, though it does come with its own list of polite requests attached.

Of the many demands put before her, Angela takes exception to one in particular.

"No." Commander Morrison wastes no time to soften the blow of refusal. "Giving an AI credit would be a political statement we can't deal with. Too many resentments are well and alive for that to go over well."

"Isn't that what Overwatch is all about, though? Fostering peace and cooperation? Wouldn't crediting Athena send exactly the sort of message Overwatch stands for?" She attempts an appeal to his sense of mission. It's not her own, exactly, but it's true enough, isn't it?

A pained sigh escapes the man's lips. His hands reach up to massage his brows, hiding his face from Angela. When he looks up again, he appears ten years aged.

"Overwatch is a peacekeeping organisation. To that end, no, it's the worst sort of message we could possibly send. It would make us out to be supporters of the Omnic civil rights moveme-"

"Athena isn't an omnic." She crosses her hands over her chest. No omnic could hope to do the things an AI like Athena is capable of. They're entirely too limited by their human-like design and similarly pitiful processing power.

"...It would nonetheless be understood as such. This would in turn incentivize the activists to push even harder than they already do, which would then create pushback against them and in the end only create more strife. That is not even mentioning the fire we would come under from our own benefactors. I'll remind you, most of the UN member states, Switzerland included, don't recognize omnics- AIs as people. They don't guarantee them legal protections. Legally speaking, Athena can't have any credit for her work, and saying otherwise will upset a whole lot of powerful people. The only thing we would achieve is making things worse for everyone."

"That's…" she trails off. All she wants is to give credit where it's due, and Athena has shaved off years of unnecessary effort from her and her team's lives. Of her own volition too. Would it not serve to put fears to rest if the world knew an AI helped in creation of life-saving technology?

"Terrible?" Pragmatic, she would say instead. But yes, that also. "Unfortunately, that's the way things are."

In the end, Angela swallows her objections to do as she's asked. The other requests are less jarring, causing acid to bubble in her stomach rather than pour out as words. For all the help she received from Overwatch, for all that Morrison's deal was the one she chose, and for all that she did want to join Overwatch, and all that Athhena is a wonder she's rapidly finding herself having trouble imagining the future without, the fact remains she would've gotten to where she is regardless of their involvement. It's really her parents who deserve the credit Overwatch is taking. Oh, she would figure out Uncle's work without them eventually, she's sure, but how many years more would it take? Would she have found Uncle without her father's involvement? Would she have even had the money for travelling provided she somehow found the man's trail on her own? In all likelihood, she would just be a regular graduate apprenticing in a regular clinic with her less than regular, nine-year-old body.

But the Lindholm name is also tainted with the deaths of millions killed by the weapons her father designed. A fact Overwatch would rather the world not be reminded of by Angela bringing her family up.

"It's better that way." Her father tries placating her. "You can have your own legacy that way."

"I can have my own legacy and thank my mom and dad like everyone else in those stupid speaches they always give." None of these do-s and don't-s are in her contract. She's not obligated to go with the Commander's suggestions, merely incentivized to.

"Well… if you really want to thank us, you could take Brigitte out of the house for the weekend."

Angela can see the suggestion for what it is, an attempt at smoothing her thoroughly ruffled feathers. Still, even knowing that doesn't stop the laugh from escaping her throat.

"Should I expect a new sister?"

Ultimately, her father is right. Playing ball is a small price to pay for getting in the Commander's good graces. As the man so subtly put it, it's not like her objections would be heard. Good relations with one's superiors are as much a part of success as the actual work being done, and while Angela doesn't much care for most of the perks coming with advancement up the ladder, she could really do without having to listen to people obviously less qualified for leadership than herself.

To that end, she doesn't outright ask for a promotion. For some reason it's considered bad form for one so young as her to point out she's better suited for a position of someone almost thrice her age.

"Plans for the future?" She repeats her interviewer's question in rehearsed surprise. It's not as if they don't all ask her the same things. "Well, other than getting my doctorate and continuing my work, I suppose I'd like to be the head director of our medical division one day," she laughs the question off with one of her many smiles.

Her promotion to the regular member of a surgeon team isn't quite that, but it's a decent start.