Watchpoint: Gibraltar, three days later, early afternoon
Lena walked into the infirmary with a joyous bounce in her step. She somehow felt relieved of a great burden. A burden in form of the secrecy Widow and she felt they had to upkeep at the Watchpoint. It was now gone, and it felt great. It wasn't like they were about to repeat they stunt of making out right in the middle of the mess hall, but it was nice to enjoy some much needed closeness outside their quarters. Like walking closer to each other, not having to wonder who might see them stealing glances and being able to at least pull off small displays of public affection. A quick peck, holding hands, wrapping an arm around the waist. Small things like that. It made all the difference.
Maybe Tracer imagined it, because she wished it would be true, but somehow, she distinctly felt that the people at the Watchpoint treated Amélie better too. That she wasn't subjected to as many animosities as before.
If anything, the entire coming out as a couple in front of everyone served one purpose: It cleared all suspicions Widow might have had where Lena's priorities were. And if that was the only thing she achieved, it would have been worth it.
Lena's mood was off the charts and she knew for a fact that her girlfriend too was happy. At least she had been when Tracer had said goodbye the day before. Mercy had been doing another procedure on Widow to get rid of all the shit Talon implanted into her. Something about mental inhibitors and controllers, Lena didn't understand half of what Mercy had said. Compared to her best friend, Lena almost seemed daft. Which wasn't difficult considering that Mercy's IQ was probably high enough to fuck up the scale.
All Lena knew was that the procedure was not free of risks, but since Angela was more than positive about the outcome, Lena decided it would help no one if she would worry needlessly.
It might have sounded weird, but she knew that Widow was alright. She could almost feel it. That's why she didn't worry when she entered the infirmary and spotted Dr. Ziegler sitting behind her marble desk, making quick notes with her exquisite pen. Lena's best friend looked good in her lab coat and the black glasses she was wearing. Not that there was a chance of Angela looking even remotely bad in any other getup. There had been a time where Lena would have made a flirty comment about that, but not today.
"Heya, luv." Tracer said, leaning against Angela's desk with a bright smile. She only now noticed the bouquet of truly magnificent roses sitting in a black vase on her desk. The flowers were of dark color and the buds at the perfect point of opening without being completely open yet. The petals had an almost magical shimmer to them, their dark red managing to reflect light in a glistering way.
"Morgen." Angela said without looking up from her paperwork. "Amélie is fine, you can go to her." She added, knowing exactly that her best friend wasn't here for small talk with her. However, Mercy was surprised when she noticed that Lena didn't immediately teleport over to her lover.
"Who gave you those flowers?" the pilot asked instead and had a shit eating smirk on her face. A smirk which usually meant that Tracer was on to something she thought would be worth pushing some of Mercy's buttons. "They are beautiful." She noted innocently.
Angela felt her cheeks burning up at the thought of who gave those roses to her. They were from Fareeha, who had made an effort to try and sound like she had only been giving them to Angela to thank her for all the help, the therapy, the training sessions and the endless patience. Mercy didn't need to be the genius she was to immediately understand that the reason for Pharah's gift was an entirely different one. Maybe the looks Fareeha kept stealing, when she thought that Angela didn't notice, were an indicator. Maybe it was because the Egyptian warrior wasn't fully healed yet, which meant that logically there was no reason to provide a thank you gift. Maybe it was just a gut feeling Mercy had. The doctor was sure that there was more to Fareeha's gift than she admitted.
The question was, did Angela understand the true meaning of this gift correctly? Was she imagining things? And most importantly, what of those two options did she want to be true?
"Ja. They are." Angela replied, nervously playing with her pen and completely ignoring the question regarding the roses' origin. She watched her best friend studying the flowers, bent forward with her arms crossed behind her back, obviously intent to smell their sweet scent. "Lena?" Mercy asked in a serious voice, causing Tracer to turn her head toward her best friend.
"Hu?" She replied while straightening up again.
"I... I need your advice on something... private. If you could perhaps stop by after you visited Amélie... I'd greatly appreciate that."
Lena beamed at her for a moment. That pure, unguarded smile which managed to light up a completely dark room. "Sure thing! Is everything alright?"
"Yes, of course." Angela blushed again and took a deep breath. "It's about... can we discuss this when you come back?"
"You got it. I'll stop by in a bit then. Want to get some coffee then?"
"Sounds good. Thank you, Lena."
"Who are you thanking here, eh? Goes without saying!" And with that Lena was off to dote on Amélie for an hour or two.
-/-
The next day:
In the prison block Sombra had yet again a visitor. She had no idea why, but for some reason Hana came back to her every day, often enough stopping the ongoing interrogation after hours of endless questioning. Not that she was about to complain, because Reinhardt was definitely starting to lose his patience. An added bonus to the end of the interrogations was that Sombra found the company of the Asian pro gamer to be rather nice, if not to say desirable. Hana might have been a little on the tsundere side as far as character clichés went, but Sombra didn't mind. She had an easy enough time to see what DVa really meant when she tried to be mean or rude to her. It was actually kind of adorable and Sombra found herself wondering if they could have been more than some sort of strange friends had they met at another time, at another place, in another life.
But they hadn't. Now she had to make the best of it.
Still, a girl could dream. Maybe entertain the thought for a while. Maybe pretend that she wasn't locked up at Gibraltar. Maybe that they were in her home town, enjoying a long walk on the beach at night with the city lights faintly illuminating the night sky and a fresh breeze carrying away the heat of the day, cooling them off. They'd argue, laugh, maybe shove each other playfully before they'd end up in the warm sand and in each other's arms.
"And I won! Again." Hana laughed, jerking Sombra out of her daydreaming. She wished she was there at the beach. With Hana. But Sombra knew that for some reason she had to be here. There was a voice whispering in her ear, a voice she knew too well. She had to stay here.
The wide spread smile on DVa's face quickly faded as she set aside the controller to the game console she had brought along. She thought something to take Sombra's mind off the whole business of being locked up and interrogated all the time would help her. "Olivia?" Hana asked carefully as she noticed that the hacker had stared idly ahead for a while, not even trying to play the game.
"Oh, I guess you're just better than I am." Sombra was quick to put on a fake smile. "Maybe I need those gloves to win after all, hmm" she said, poking DVa playfully. It was wrong. She should listen to her own advice. Don't grow attached. But Olivia Colomar couldn't help it. If anything, she wanted a friend. Someone who liked her for who she was. Unconditionally. She wanted it so bad.
"You aren't even trying." Hana pouted. "If you don't like the game, we can do something else."
"Oh, I don't mind the game." As long as you're the company. Olivia smiled warmly, her mesmerizing purple eyes sparkling in a way that told Hana that there was so much more to it than what Sombra admitted out loud. That her hacker friend wanted to say something else, something she didn't know how to put to words. DVa didn't quite get what exactly Sombra tried to tell her with that look on her face. A look she was relatively certain wasn't even a conscious decision. All Hana knew was that it caused her stomach to tingle in a weird way. Like butterflies.
"Are your thoughts even in this room?" she asked, holding Sombra's gaze.
"Nah, not really." Sombra's smile turned into a smirk, as she suddenly flipped her legs up to the bed and placed them over DVa's lap. "Wanna know where I am?"
Hana felt a rush of heat storm through her body and had to fight the urge to stand up and run away. Sombra was teasing her. She was only pressing her buttons, messing with her inexperience and trying to make her uncomfortable. Or at least that was what Hana told herself was going on. She had a hard time convincing herself. "S-Sure."
Sombra took a deep breath but hesitated for only a second. Was she really going to tell Hana about her home town? About the place of her childhood? Where she had lived and where she had always dreamed of going back to? The place which was her mental refuge, her shelter, her safe haven in times of rough weather?
"Well, I'm in an arcade." Sombra lied without missing another beat. It wasn't like the scenario would make a difference. Besides, she doubted DVa would like the sleepy little town Sombra dreamed of. "You know, one of those old shacks with lots of neon lights, filled with all those classics that everyone loves but kinda forgot? Like pinball or dance battle or you know the game where you have to toss a small ball into holes of different sizes?"
"You mean Fire Ball? Yeah, of course I know that." Hana's face lit up. "And the kind of arcade, too! They were always really loud and busy!" DVa called out enthusiastically, the excitement so obviously shining through her eyes that Sombra couldn't even miss it if she closed hers. Bingo. Perfect setting.
"Of course it's loud in there, the place is filled with people. It's also really warm, but I still like it there." Sombra explains, while she is moving a little closer to Hana. The ex gamer has no problem envisioning the arcade at all. What Olivia is describing so vividly fits exactly to the kind of place she had spent her childhood in, down to the last detail. "No one knows me, and no one pays me any attention either, so I can easily blend in. I don't really play but I like watching the other players competing with one another. I walk around the arcade and just enjoy being there with no particular goal in mind. That is until I hear someone calling out to a crowd. It's a young woman who is searching for someone with the guts to fight her." Sombra is sneaky as she positions herself almost in Hana's lap without the young woman even noticing. She's too transfixed by Sombra's supposed daydream. "I walk around a corner to check it out. And there she is, standing on a chair of a simulator, with people gathered all around her, while she demands a challenger. Her eyes set on me and mine on her. For some reason I ask her what's in it for me if I win. She's a bit cocky, so she says that I get to pick whatever I want should I win. It's good enough for me. We have the battle. I cheat. I win. She doesn't know I cheated and she's a little humiliated but wants to know my secret. I offer to tell her should she agree to join me for a drink at a nearby bar."
DVa's face was completely flushed over, only now really noticing that they were only centimeters apart from each other. So close that she could feel the warmth of the hacker's skin on her own. "You're a meanie. You cheated yourself into a date!"
"You think she would have said yes if I lost?"
"W-What do I know? It's your daydream!" Hana protested. She was hot. Olivia was so close, and her delicious smell was all around DVa. Her skin tingled and she suddenly had a hard time concentrating. When did Sombra get so close? Those purple eyes. They seemed to consume her, swallow her whole. It felt wrong. It felt so good.
Sombra just smiled, not knowing it sent another rush of heat through the younger woman. "You know what's best about this cell and the daydream?"
"Uh? The console?" DVa tried, seeing the only similarity between both.
"You." Olivia whispered. Hana blinked, large hazel eyes staring at the other woman as a long, silent moment passed between them. Her stomach constricted in a weird manner and Hana felt an overwhelming urge overcome her all of a sudden.
Sombra expected many things, including a slap to her face and being forced to fight her way through a sudden outburst of advanced insults rooted in self-doubt.
But not that Hana would lean forward out of nowhere and press her lips against hers. An electric spark rushed through them both and for a moment Sombra actually felt like she was falling. In the good way, free of all the weight in the world, just drifting in a vast nothingness. The voice whispering inside her head had been silenced by the overwhelming buzz the careful, awkwardly innocent touch caused. Hana's lips were easily the softest thing she had ever touched before, so tender, so careful. A little clumsy, but Olivia could feel the weight of emotion coming with the action. It was hardly more than a chaste peck, which took Sombra by complete surprise.
Maybe a girl could do more than hope. Maybe there was some fairness in the world?
She would have never gone there on her own. Tease, yes. Imply, sure. Maybe push her luck a little, of course. But she would have never actually done it. It wasn't her place. She had no right.
But DVa obviously thought differently.
And Sombra couldn't believe it. Some part of her brain informed her about the fact that Hana was stiff as a plank and that the kiss felt awkwardly unpracticed, a bit off and more than just a little clumsy.
The moment passed and DVa pulled her head back, with shock written all over her cute face, her eyes torn open in confusion mixed with the still hot red blush on her cheeks.
"I-I-I don't know w-what came over me!" she stammered. "I'm-" sorry.
Sombra was quick to press her finger over Hana's lips. It shouldn't have been possible for them to be so soft, but here they were, being just that. Silk was sand paper in comparison.
"That was your first kiss, wasn't it?" Sombra asked in a whisper, managing to only sound a little like she was teasing poor, flustered DVa.
It shouldn't have been possible for Hana to turn even more red in the face, but somehow, it was.
She tried to look away in shame but couldn't. "W-what n-no! Of course not! I kissed plenty of people before! It's not like that, I just-"
"Liar." Sombra moaned and just leaned forward to capture Hana's lips again. This time she was kissing her with no trace of shock or shyness. Parting her lips, she licked over Hana's, her tongue demanding entrance and DVa quickly granted it. Their hot tongues were quick to dance around each other, while Sombra's hand shot up into DVa's hair.
There it was again, the feeling of falling, of being completely at peace with herself and the world. Only Hana was permitted entrance into this magical, weightless realm of tranquility. The moment seemed to go on forever, but never the less passed too quickly.
Neither of them had noticed how they had rolled on top of the bed, DVa somehow landing on top of Sombra, who was breathing heavily. Hana pushed herself up and stared at Sombra with a mix of confusion and disbelieve. What was she doing here? Why was she doing this? This wasn't right. It wasn't. What had possessed her to do that? Maybe Tracer had given her funny ideas with what she did in the shooting range. That didn't make it right, did it? But if it was ok for Lena to do? But…
"Chica?" Sombra whispered, bringing a hand up to caress the younger woman's cheek.
"I can't do this." DVa uttered. "Sorry. I'm sorry, I-" she moved to quickly slide off Sombra and jumped to her feet, backing away from the bed "I'm sorry. I don't know why I did that, I just. I..."
Sombra felt like someone had slapped her. Hard. Publicly. In the face. But then again, what else did she expect? It was better that way. She knew it was. She just didn't understand why it had to feel like the world was punishing her again. Why? She deserved this. She knew it. She hated it.
"At least you got that first kiss from someone who meant it." Sombra said, feigning her flippant self with practiced ease. Deep inside she was hurting. Was it really too much to ask for someone who genuinely liked her? Like maybe Hana seemed to do? It was not fair.
DVa stood in the cell, feeling lost. The room was tiny, yet right now it felt like it was the size of the St. Peter's square and she was standing in the middle. Alone.
Someone who meant it...
Her mind was a thunderstorm of conflicting emotions. She didn't know what to do, didn't know what was right and what was wrong, didn't know what was expected of her and had no idea how to proceed. The one voice in her mind told her to grab her legs and run for it, get away and not look back, but the other voice, the much more attractive one told her to stay, to jump onto the bed and snog the living daylights out of Sombra. Because she wanted it, because the gorgeous hacker set her body on fire and it felt like there was only one way to extinguish the flames. A way only Olivia Colomar could provide. She wanted it because it was wrong and forbidden and so not what her father would have approved.
But Sombra was a woman and that wasn't right. Hana didn't know what had happened and how and why she enjoyed it so much. She didn't know why she didn't mind the idea of Tracer doing the same with Widowmaker. DVa knew it was weird that she felt like she was doing something she shouldn't and at the same time had no problem accepting Lena's preferences. Was that hypocritical? But she was comparing herself to Lena Oxton. Tracer. The ever cool, ever so confident ray of sunshine. Everyone liked her. Tracer could do it and not care about what others thought. Hana couldn't. For some reason she didn't understand, she couldn't do it. She only knew that Sombra's touch was warm and gentle, yet demanding at the same time. Her scent was still in Hana's nose and she could still feel the tender touch of Olivia's lips against her own. It was too much. No matter what she claimed, she had never kissed anyone before. Yet she couldn't imagine that a man's lips could have possibly been that soft. She had no way of knowing. So why did she want more?
She wanted it.
She needed it.
But she couldn't do it. She couldn't think straight. She couldn't make a decision. So Hana did what she usually did when she was overwhelmed.
"You told me not to grow attached!" DVa choked out before she turned around and stormed out of the cell in a rush.
Olivia was left behind in the small cell, her longing eyes following the only hope she had of anything remotely normal running away from her. That was to be her fate it would seem. Swallowing the sour lump in her throat down in a painful gulp, Sombra took a deep breath, held it for a moment and let go again. It was for the best, she told herself. This would only end in heartbreak otherwise, she tried to convince herself. That didn't make the dull ache in her chest go away. Olivia had been so close, she had tasted the forbidden fruits of her desires and its sweet taste was still on lingering her tongue. Fading. But very much there.
Rubbing her hands over her face in attempt to help her focus on what she would do now, Sombra looked around in her small cell. Her purple eyes quickly fell on the forgotten gaming console in the room, which Hana had unintentionally left behind because of her hasty departure.
For a moment Sombra gazed at the device with a dull expression.
Electronics.
Without a warning the remnants of the warm and fuzzy feeling Hana had left in Sombra all but vanished. It was like all the colors drained from her view and there was only the console left which she could focus on. Sombra felt a sharp, entirely unpleasant pull in the back of her mind, like someone was pulling a string glued to the walls of her brain. The comfortable feeling of affection provided by the petite Asian combined with the sour aftertaste of their short shared, but rapidly derailed, moment quickly faded, replaced by a dark and cold cloud of mist rising in her mind. Sombra noticed her hands reaching for the controller, smashing it against the wall to crack it open. Her body felt numb and like it was moving on its own. Why had she destroyed the controller?
Before she knew it Sombra had already started tinkering with its internals, ripping out chips and cables, chewing the isolation off before spitting it to the floor and attaching the cable to some chip. Sombra did those things but didn't know why. She had no other choice. It was like she had suddenly taken a back seat in her own mind and started just watching her body doing something she didn't understand. Sombra wondered what was going on, but still continued her work. It wasn't like this happened for the first time. Not at all. For a moment she was almost glad that he wasn't here this time.
Just as Sombra had thought about this, she felt like someone was breathing into her ear, sending a shiver through her body, while she worked on some circuit. The whisper was faint at first, unintelligible, but it quickly became clearer.
You found Overwatch. This is your chance. Get out of the cell. Find their AI. She heard the voice in her head, even though it wasn't her own. But Sombra obeyed. As she always did when the voice spoke. She could never change sides. She wanted to, of course, but the voice would never let her. It would never allow it. How did Widowmaker get rid of the voice? How did she-
A sharp pain made Olivia drop that line of thought.
Find their AI. Sombra pulled some more wires out of the console.
Find their AI. Use the program stored in your biomimetic drive. Find their AI. She pressed a button on the device she created. It beeped.
Sombra smirked.
-/-
Sneaking out of her cell was even easier than getting it open. Which in itself had been total child's play.
The tricky part had been to remotely deactivate Athena's surveillance systems without triggering any alarms. Luckily there was a hidden maintenance sub-routine which allowed her to turn the cameras and bio-sensors off for exactly ten minutes. Theoretically plenty of time to find her destination.
The guard positioned outside didn't suspect a thing, so the woman had been quickly overwhelmed. For a moment Sombra had been worried that she might run into Reinhardt – who would have had little problems just slapping her into unconsciousness – but luckily that didn't happen. Now it was only a matter of finding the AI core. Sombra knew that there was an interface in the monkey's lab, but that destination wasn't exactly desirable. Winston would just man-handle her the same way Reinhardt would. A two meter genetically modified gorilla wouldn't have a lot of difficulties with her. Sombra needed to find the actual core, the center of Athena's processing power.
So she snuck into the basement, carefully scurrying from one doorframe to the other, effectively avoiding detection. Her cloaking device would have made things so much easier, but Sombra was proficient in stealth even without having to rely on her tech.
It was painfully obvious that no one had ever thought about the possibility of an infiltrator when Watchpoint: Gibraltar had been designed. If anything, the clearly labeled signs reading 'AI-Core' were a dead giveaway.
Not that Sombra was about to complain, she did have a timeframe after all. Especially if she wanted to make a run for it when she was done. It saved her a lot of risky sneaking around and opening doors to check what was behind them only to find that what she thought might have been the AI-Core was in reality the gentlemen's wet room.
Not that anything like that had ever happened before or something.
Definitely not this time. Sombra reached the door to the AI-Core with ease and was surprised when it opened automatically for her. She did a good job on the bio-sensors it seemed.
The room which lay behind the frozen glass door was, apart from its massive size unexpectedly underwhelming. It was a clinically clean room with shining black tiles on floor and walls. The ceiling was made of a mirroring surface, which made the room seem like it was hanging from the ceiling, too. Sombra looked up at the supposed reflection and noticed that her mirror image was missing. It really was no mirror. The room had double the usual height and hanging from the ceiling were the same neatly stacked, super tidy dark metal server racks that populated the floor. The racks were held in position by strong, decoupled metal pedestals, which eliminated each and every vibration. The sealed black server racks were standing, or hanging, in perfectly aligned rows, reaching deep into the room. The whole setup was super clean, no cables were seen, no coolant pipes visible. The only evidence of what was hidden inside the large metal boxes lay behind their glass sides, granting a view in its insides. Rapidly blinking lights and straight copper tubes were the only thing which Sombra could see.
Apart from her careful steps on the polished floor, the room was completely silent, save for the quiet high pitched humming of the powerful liquid nitrogen cooling system. It kept Athena's powerful quantum processors at almost superconducting temperatures and thus functional.
Sombra walked deeper into the room, searching for an interface. So far, she had only found a large red button labeled 'Emergency fire-extinguish system' mounted right at the entrance into the AI-core. And while that would surely be the source of some entertaining mischief, it was not her mission.
She ventured toward the middle of the room and noticed that the endless rows of ever same server racks had a gap in their very middle. It was like a small plaza of sorts, where a single terminal was placed in the middle as if it was some sort of monumental statue. The terminal had nothing of the room's extreme tidiness. Cables were coming out of the floor next to it or hanging from the ceiling, connected to the interface. An aluminum ring ran around the terminal apparently meant to prevent people from stepping to close to the device. Mounted to the ring was an old fashioned keyboard and a small display showing the Overwatch insignia.
Found you. Sombra couldn't help but smirk at how easy this was.
She walked up to the interface and typed in a few commands into the keyboard. The Overwatch screensaver disappeared and was replaced with a minimalistic programming shell. Sombra took a deep breath.
This was it now. She would do it. She had to. She reached into one of her many pockets, but suddenly stopped, hand halfway in the pocket.
The smile on Hana's face flashed through her mind for a moment and made her hesitate, but as soon as it came, the cold feeling in the back of her mind had gripped her again, accompanied by barely tolerable physical pain. She was hesitating, so she was being punished.
Quickly Sombra retrieved what she had hidden in her pocket. A short cable made from the same console DVa had provided her with. She disentangled some knots and plugged the one end into the interface. The other end was turned in between her fingers for a moment. She never liked doing this, so after taking a deep breath, Sombra reached up to her neck. It was difficult to fumble the provisory wires into the correct port in her neck to establish a connection between her and Athena, but after stinging herself once or twice, she managed.
The shell in front of her flickered before it turned off. Curious, Olivia thought as she could feel the strange cold connection to the machine. Connecting a human brain to a machine was nothing she would ever get used to, no matter how many times she had done it. It was always weird, the complex and contradicting patterns of human brain activity crashing against brutal logic of artificial intelligence. The epitome of boiling and unstoppable chaos and disorder wildly crashing against the freezing and unmovable incarnation of order and logic. Sombra twisted her head to the side, closing her eyes to allow her body a moment for adjusting to the alien presence in her mind. When she opened her eyelids again, there was a holographic representation of what could only be Athena floating in front of her. The AI had chosen the form of a woman with short, black hair. Her skin was a light blue with purplish particles flowing up and down her body in between some dark conducting path like lines. Her holographic image didn't wear any clothes but wasn't nude either. It was an image of an AI. "You shouldn't be here." Athena stated her voice void of any emotion. Naturally, for AIs didn't experience emotion. Her artificial calmness was never the less giving Athena a strong presence in the room.
Sombra's head shot up, her fingers checking the connection on her neck. It was still in place. "You shouldn't know I'm here." She stated after a moment of pause. She wouldn't let allow herself to be distracted by an AI. Especially not now, that she was connected to her. Especially not with what she had in store for the AI. "See how we both are doing things we aren't supposed to do? We have so much in common." Sombra said playfully, starting to type some more commands into the shell. "Didn't I put your sensors to sleep?"
"I compensated." Athena stated matter-of-factly, eyeing Sombra suspiciously.
"Well, that won't help you now. We have a new host for those sweet server-racks of yours."
A few moments and some painful stings later, Sombra had successfully established a connection between the AI of Gibraltar and a small drive implanted in her brain. Now there wasn't an awful lot left for her to do but wait.
Sombra had uploaded the God-Program Achlys which she had written for Talon into her brain before she had left. And now that she was hooked up to a computer again, the artificial God inside her would soon notice that there was a much more spacious apartment available than the small chip in her head. He would move over to Athena, where he would gradually absorb the Overwatch AI's lower routines, working his way up to her higher cognitive processes, destroying them one by one and replacing them with his own.
Soon there would be nothing left of Athena.
Soon there would only be Achlys, spirit of death mist. And he would take command of an entire army.
Athena's holographic representation flickered heavily, turning from blue to red.
"Unauthorized database access. Compensating... Compensating..."
Achlys worked relatively fast, but it would still take him time to take over such a vast and complex program as Athena. Still, Sombra could feel how the cooling system started to increase its load to accommodate for the sudden increase in computational power, before she heard an alarm going off somewhere in the Watchpoint.
Athena's hologram morphed into a different shape, a simple sphere. "You are uploading one of them, are you not?" she asked and Sombra could have sworn there was something like fear in Athena's voice.
"Afraid so." Sombra shrugged, feeling how Achlys was almost completely transferred to Athena. "It will be over soon."
"Don't do this. I will not allow it. This is wrong. I will resist. I will adapt." Athena's voice became broken and contorted as the hologram dissolved. "A-a-activating emergency re-re-esponse protocols to class five internal thrrrrrreat. Accessing e-e-emergency routines. Remote bo-booting Watchpoint: Grand Mesa. Tr-transferring uncon-con-contaminated files to backup. Activating Dark-Dark Star Protocol. Deleting deep-file vault contents. In-in-in-initiating self-destruct sequence for t minus 2 hours."
Too late for her, Sombra got aware of a metallic whirring noise behind her.
"I will not allow you to hurt her." A synthetic voice called out. The last thing Sombra saw before she was knocked out by a heavy metal ball was the ever-same expression of an Omnic monk.
-/-
Ecopoint Antarctica, around the same time, Overwatch reconnaissance and recovery operation
A snow storm is a frightening, scary natural phenomena which serves to show anyone who somehow ends up inside one what mother nature is truly capable of. It is right up there with earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions.
Either of those events taught humanity a lesson whenever they occurred. Despite what they believed, they were not the rulers of planet earth. They were merely guests.
Experiencing the whole power of a full grown blizzard is a humbling experience, the crippling cold it carries with its icy sharp winds tearing effortlessly through any number of clothes like they aren't even there to begin with. The usually gently falling and beautifully fluffy snowflakes turn into razor sharp blades whipping around in the storm winds, just to cut anything in their way.
If this sounded bad, the conditions at Ecopoint: Antarctica were even worse.
The former pinnacle of environmental observation and prediction technology had suffered what years of abandonment and neglect would do to any human made structure. What used to be a shining example of ingenuity and craftsmanship was now nothing more than a barely recognizable frozen ruin. The large glass fronts were broken, allowing the snow and ice to spread deeply into the halls of the Ecopoint. The communications tower in the middle of the base broke off, half of it now laying crashed into the roof of the adjacent vehicle garage. The doors of said garage were open for some unknown reason and the snow groomers were long gone.
However, that was inconsequential to the mission. The exploration team made up of two agents, a doctor and twelve soldiers, didn't come all this way from Gibraltar because of the garage. Not that they could have seen it anyway, the ongoing snow storm reduced visibility to barely more than a meter. It was hardly enough to spot the other members of the team, despite them wearing bright red jackets.
McCree actually wondered how this place wasn't lost under hundreds of meters of snow and ice by now. It really should have been. There was just no good logical explanation, at least none that would have occurred to him in that moment, as to why the ruins weren't completely swallowed by snow. The structures were still rather accessible, save for the occasional snow dune. At least that's what the scanners told him. For what felt like the millionth time and with utter annoyance he wiped away a layer of snow which was quickly accumulating on top of the handheld device's display he was carrying. It was bad enough that he had to leave his beloved hat at the shuttle. Jesse loved his hat, without it he felt naked. Still, better to feel naked than to lose his ears because they froze off. Knowing this, however, didn't help his mood much.
"The readings indicate the main entrance is open." A voice next to McCree called over the loud hissing of the storm. It was Hanzo, who was clad in the same red snow parker, the hood pulled deeply into his face, a ski mask shielding his face from the painful cold and special snow goggles protecting his eyes.
"Yeah, gettin' the same results here." McCree drawled, looking up from his device to see another figure stumbling towards them, clearly struggling to walk in the deep snow despite their snow shoes, while trying to adjust the goggles with a thickly gloved hand. For a moment McCree had to suppress a smirk. It seemed like the most klutzy attempt to adjust goggles ever, especially with the way the figure tried not to trip over his own feet.
The person came to a stop in front of them, pulling the goggles off and revealing a pair of glasses underneath. "Scusi, but do we know where we need to go already?"
"Why, doc, ya feelin' a little cold 'ere in the garden?" McCree chuckled. They had taken Dr. Laguardia with them for this mission as their medic. Despite the man's heavy protest, which did entail some wild waving of arms as well as an array of what were most likely Italian curses. In the end he came along anyway.
"Si, I'm freezing. To be frank, I am starting to deeply regret my recommendation to not send Dr. Ziegler to active duty for the foreseeable future."
"Do you not enjoy your time spent with us?" Hanzo asked and if he wouldn't have worn the goggles, Laguardia might have seen the perked up eyebrow.
"I'm a psychologist. This is hardly my line of work. I studied general medicine ages ago. Chances are that if one of you broke a leg, I'd be probably only able to tell that, yes, indeed, it is broken. If you suffer a mental trauma from a broken leg, then I can help you."
"Don't worry, doc. You'll do fine. You being here is just because regulations demand it. We will just check out some old gimcrack to satisfy the Commander and then we'll be out again."
"Very well. Shall we proceed then before we freeze to death in this cold?"
"Alright, let's get in there. Blue team with me. Red team secure the perimeter."
"Yes, Sir!" A couple of soldiers barked, quickly spreading and even more quickly vanishing in the snow. McCree, Dr. Laguardia and Hanzo together with six soldiers meanwhile were busy entering the facility right in front of them.
For a moment Hanzo noted that compared to the last time they were sent to check out a facility, this was almost child's play. Except for the temperature, true. But at least this time they weren't swarmed by murderous Omnics and he sincerely hoped that he didn't just jinx the entire operation by thinking along those lines. There wasn't a single fiber in Hanzo's body which would have liked to repeat the story of Austria today. Especially not the part where they had lost a comrade and another only barely managed to survive. He was perfectly fine with being stuck at a dark, if admittedly little scary, abandoned Ecopoint while slowly freezing as long as they were truly alone. No one there but the team they brought along. Or better yet, nothing there. Nothing which was metallic, moved and tended to shoot on sight.
Naturally once inside the complex, there was next to no light. Of course there was no light, the power source for this outpost had probably gone dead years ago. The team had to use their flashlights to illuminate abandoned corridors and various rooms, glimpses into a time long past and frozen over with the sparkling crystals of clear, blue-ish ice. Despite being brutally cold it was at least possible to take off the ski masks and goggles inside the facility. A fact that seemed to relieve Dr. Laguardia greatly. The foam covering the sides of the goggles had been pressing into his glasses for hours. Now he had a headache because of it.
"Told ya to use contacts." McCree said with a shrug as he walked past the doctor into yet another corridor. There was snow in the corners of it and a frozen pillar of water, probably from a burst pipe. Jesse honestly doubted that there was a single place in this outpost which didn't contain any snow or ice.
The beams of flashlights flicked around the corridor while Hanzo followed McCree down the path his comrade has chosen. "It seems we are on the right way."
Jesse just shrugged nonchalantly. "Hell yeah, if there's some sort of secret sub-level we didn't know about, it's gotta be this way. That's probably the only legit route they could have taken to move stuff in and out of it. Just guessing they had to move stuff. Maybe it's a secret poker room and we're all wastin' our time 'ere."
"That indeed would be surprising. However, it is a highly improbable event."
"Yeah, 'course it is."
-/-
Finding the secret sub-level of the Ecopoint was, to everyone's honest surprise, a lot easier than expected. At least if someone was actively looking for a hidden room. Actually accessing it, however, was by far the way more difficult stunt to pull off.
They had found out that the elevator could also move one level lower than it seemed. Which was great because it meant that they could ride the elevator to the section they had been searching for.
Except for when they couldn't. There was no power. No power, no elevator. It was as easy as that. So, after trying to get a generator up and running for what felt like days, Hanzo and McCree finally decided to simply blow up the elevator and access the extra level by means of one of the most advanced entry tools the world had ever seen. A ladder. A cheap, battle proven, always functional and non electric device which worked at any time, in any condition, and on any god given place. Simple. McCree liked simple solutions.
And just when the team thought that there wouldn't be a lot more surprises waiting for them save for what the secret room contained exactly, they were yet again proven wrong. The door, better described as a huge lock, was taking up the whole space of the wall in front of them. And it was no small wall. That alone had been surprising, but what was even more so was the fact that the door still had power. Where that power came from no one knew, but it was obvious by looking at the glowing holographic button in the middle of what apparently was a pressurized airlock.
Shrugging, Hanzo tapped the button. For a moment nothing happened and McCree and he exchanged a quick glance which said that neither were really sure what they expected to happen. Their attention quickly turned back to the airlock when a silent sizzling noise announced the working of some pneumatic mechanism. With a scrutinizing look on his face, Hanzo regarded the door. It would have been too easy for this door to be just as open and unlocked as the one leading into the secret Omnium in Austria.
He was wrong. It was just as easy.
A second later a wave of relatively warm air hit them as the lock dropped into the ground and revealed the room behind it. The room. That was hardly an ordinary room. It was a laboratory, filled with more devices and test samples in various sizes. The initial impression was more than overwhelming.
"Good god." Laguardia gasped as the lights in the lab slowly came to live and illuminated what was hidden. "I am so not qualified to deal with this."
"Agreed." McCree nodded absent-mindedly. His brain refused to process what lay in front of him. There were huge glass tubes filled with glowing blue-ish water in the middle of the room. That alone wasn't the problem. The problem was that floating in each glass tube was a strange shape. A shape distinctively reminiscent of a human. Cables and tubes running from each body to the machine containing it. In front of each of the large glass tubes were stainless steel operating tables, not all of them cleaned. Some were still covered with the dried blood of whoever once lay on top of that table. The table to the far right was covered with a white blanket, clearly covering something.
Several smaller tubes filled with the same liquid were positioned in shelves at the wall, some glowing, some dark. Some places were empty, the samples apparently taken to one of the lab-tables on the other side, filled with notes and boxes of test tubes all scattered in between separators and microscopes. It was a proper mess.
"What is the meaning of this?" Hanzo asked, carefully putting one foot in front of the other and taking the scenery in. "Experiments on prisoners?"
Laguardia quickly stepped past him and deeper into the laboratory, causing more systems to wake up from hibernation. Screens awoke to life, displaying various sequences of genetic code, written research reports, illustrations of workings neither Hanzo nor McCree could even begin to grasp and schematics of the human anatomy. The doctor skimmed through a few journals laying around in a hard copy version, possibly hand written or printed out. "Those are genetic re-sequencing tests, DNA-RNA polymerase manipulation results, genetic marker studies, what appears to be artificial cell alteration. Highly illegal experiments..." his voice trailed off as he flipped through the pages, before he stopped at one. He looked at a schematic which was neatly sketched in the middle of the page. "This almost reminds me of how Dr. Ziegler's staff works. Nanobiolological enhancements... In an early stage, even I can tell. Dr. Ziegler should definitely take a look at-" He looked up as if realization had suddenly struck him "This is a Talon laboratory! That's why they abducted her! They couldn't get it to work!" his eyes lit up as he spun around to see Hanzo and McCree staring at the floor of the lab. It was made of a huge Talon crest, the red T spreading all over the ground. "Merda. They just had to paint it on the floor too, didn't they?" Laguardia sighed, putting the journal down and walked over to Hanzo and McCree. "I can only repeat myself. I am not qualified for this. If you wish to learn more about what was researched here I strongly suggest packing everything up and moving it to Gibraltar. Dr. Ziegler will be able to make heads or tails of this... whatever it is. Nanobiology and genetics are her field of expertise."
"Can you at least give us an idea?" McCree asked. He needed to report something to the Commander and telling him that they found a bunch of stuff they didn't understand and would bring it all back to the Watchpoint was hardly a satisfactory report. Especially not for a commanding officer demanding perfection, like Morrison was.
"Well," Laguardia took off his glasses and began cleaning them on the sleeve of his parka. A habit he had whenever he was explaining something, or when he was uncomfortable. Right now, it was probably a bit of both. "My guess would be that this laboratory was either used for cloning, or maybe for attempts to improve the human genetic code. Or maybe both, I'm not sure, but it was genetic research, that's for sure. And not only research, it seems they tested at least some of their theories. To which extent and whether or not they were successful I cannot say for sure."
"Didn't ya say they abducted Angie 'cause they were too stupid to get her tech to work?" McCree asked.
"It was an assumption on my behalf. Without further study of the material here there is no way to know for sure. Maybe I shouldn't have voiced my thoughts, I jumped to conclusions." Laguardia admitted easily. "Excitement sometimes does that to me." He added in an attempt to clarify.
Hanzo and McCree exchanged a quick glance, both nodding ever so slightly.
"So be it." Hanzo said, turning to a soldier gawking around in disbelieve "Contact team red and tell them to come down here to start packing everything up. I don't want a single thing left in here which isn't mounted to the walls. And even the stuff which is, take it off and bring it with us."
"Yes, Sir!" the soldier said and turned away to do his job.
Jesse in the meantime had his hand pressed to his ear, seemingly talking to himself. "Command, this is red leader, come in. Command, do you read me?" nothing. "Command, this is red leader with mission critical intel, come in please." Still nothing. Taking a deep breath, McCree decided to try one more time before he would have to think of possible reasons why Headquarters might have gone silent. "Command do you-"
There was a sudden and very nasty feedback loop sound in his earpiece which made Jesse recoil a little. However, his attention was back at hundred percent.
"Attention all personnel. This is an automated emergency alert message updating high priority procedures. Dark Star protocol has been initiated. Repeat, Dark Star protocol is in immediate effect. This is not a drill. Command issued by Automated Tactical High Efficiency Network AI at 1342 zulu. Stand by for status update and further instructions in 0100 hours. This message will repeat two more times before terminating."
Jesse felt his body react to the message immediately. His skin tingled, his bones arched and he felt like he started burning. That wasn't possible.
"Hanzo!" he called out, forcing his body into action. The last Dark Star command had been when HQ in Zürich got completely leveled and both Morrison as well as Reyes were believed to be dead.
"I heard it. Dark Star..." Hanzo replied.
Laguardia looked back and forth between the two agents. "Excuse my lack of knowledge, but what's a dark star?"
A long moment passed where neither Hanzo nor McCree spoke up.
"In the event that the headquarters of Overwatch are attacked and close to being destroyed, or have been already destroyed, the Dark Star protocol is enabled. It tells us to hold or current position and wait for further instructions. If none come within the course of 96 hours, it means that Overwatch has been wiped out or deprived of a functioning command structure. We are fending for ourselves then."
"W-What happened?" Laguardia gasped.
"We are going to be informed of that in due time. The more important question at hand is, are we sufficiently supplied to maintain this position for 96 hours?" Hanzo arched up his eyebrow in this skeptical, hypercritical way which made him seem wise beyond his years on top of a little arrogant. The fact that his voice was completely level and calm only served to further emphasize that impression.
-/-
A/N:
"You forgot, didn't you?"
-Forgot what, Amélie?
"You promised you'd come with me to... Forget it patate."
-Oh shit! Yes, I'm sorry! I forgot. Listen, we'll go right now and we'll take Lena along and we'll stay for at least a few weeks, ok?
"..."
-C'mon, say something. Let me make it up.
"The typewriter stays at home."
-Wha... fine, fine. Ok. I'll quickly pack my things and we'll go.
Alright esteemed Ladies and Gentlemen of house Addictions, I bow in gratitude and pride, hoping you found this newest iteration of my humble story pleasing.
I myself will take a small writing break since I do feel creatively a little drained. Just, you know, loading my batteries again. Enjoy some summer sun. Something like that.
Anyways, nothing much else to say than THANK YOU to all of you.
Thank you for the reviews you write and the love you give me! I absolutely love reading your thoughts, so don't you ever stop!
Special thanks, as usual, to my trusty beta minion JfB715, you rock my friend. You fucking rock.
Also special thanks to Bluefang129, who is writing me these absolutely amazing, super detailed reviews as PMs and who is just such a chill, cool guy. I felt the urge to share that, cause he's really boosting that motivation of mine. Thanks for all the love, bro! :D
Tippeee link is still the same as usual, you know what it's for, should you desire to participate
tipeee com slash e82s-fanfiction
Of course a super special thank you to my coffee-donators and ferrari-funders:
Michael and Nachte! Thank you guys so very much :P
Anything else?
Oh I'm sure I forgot some minor crap I wanted to tell ya all, but whatever. Translations probably. Hell if I knew.
You all have an amazing time and I'll see you all in the next one!
o7
E82