Chronal Disassociation Ch. 42

Lena had barely stepped foot inside the London Overwatch base before she was moving again. Lights hummed, boots echoed against steel, and the distant murmur of voices in hurried discussion barely registered in her ears. Her head was still spinning from the call.

Gérard was alive. Amélie was gone. And now, Overwatch had to decide what to do next.

She strode past the main atrium, barely acknowledging the few agents who turned their heads at her arrival. She didn't even register Archer walking beside her, even though the man had been making his way with her this entire time.

“You look like hell.” His voice was flat, but not unkind.

Lena scoffed, rubbing at her face, “Cheers, mate. Really needed to hear that.”

Archer didn't answer, just exhaled through his nose, an odd mix of amusement and seriousness.

As they approached the command center, the doors slid open with a hydraulic hiss, revealing Winston hunched over a table covered in mission reports and holo-projections. His fur was bristled, his expression grim, but his gaze lifted immediately as they entered. Across from him stood Captain Amari, arms crossed, unreadable.

What was strange was the missing members of the rest of the strike team. Captain Chase was already back in Canada last she heard, so that was not surprising. Sombra's lack of presence meant absolutely nothing when the woman could just be invisible, or listening with whatever she had. However, there was no sign of either Angela or Genji. Nor did she see any hint of the two commanders, Morrison and Reyes.

Captain Amari must have noticed Lena’s confusion. Normally, everyone who was available would have been called in, so the fact that there was not one, not two, but four people missing was entirely out of the norm, “Don’t worry too much about Angela and Genji, they’re in medical fishing out anything that Lacroix might’ve left behind.”

That worried Lena, “You think she would have?” 

The door hissed open, and the stench of tobacco wrinkled Lena’s nose, “Can’t say I know ‘er enough to say yes, but I do know someone who might’ve taken somethin’ or the other.”

Cassidy walked in with a lit cigar already in his mouth. He wasn’t wearing the Blackwatch uniform she had seen him in the last time she had met the man. Instead, he was in an old western style outfit, hat and all and with a red poncho of all things, completed by a gaudy belt that made Lena wonder just how heavy it was in the first place.

The cowboy tipped his hat at her, “Lena. Congrats on the wedding, shame we couldn’t meet up in better circumstances.”

She gave him a nod and a quick, if weak, smile, “Cheers, Cassidy. Shame indeed.”

He took a long drag from his cigar before flicking the ash onto the floor, rolling his eyes at Captain Amari's pointed glare, "C'mon Ana, you can at least give me this after you lot fired me." Despite his words, the man snuffed out the cigar pretty quickly after that.

That said, what he said raised a lot of questions, "You got fired?"

The cowboy shrugged, “Was meant to happen eventually after Blackwatch got outed. ‘Specially when it happened on the back of that whole hoo-hah in Venice. Might’ve been a couple ‘a weeks after we met that Blackwatch got quietly dismantled. Gotta say though, the benefits? Not bad at all.”

Lena arched her brow, “What, they give you a severance package for running black ops?”

Cassidy grinned, leaning back slightly as he hooked his thumbs into his belt, “Somethin’ like that. I figure Reyes wanted me outta the picture nice and quiet. Didn’t argue. Man hands you a ticket to ride off into the sunset, you don’t go askin’ for a refund.”

“So what’re you doing back here?” She felt somewhat bad for the man, don’t get her wrong. If she got fired from Overwatch, she didn’t know how she’d react. At least he didn’t look all too fussed about it. In fact, the man looked much happier than she’d seen him when he was still part of Blackwatch.

“Reyes gave me a call back when you first found Lacroix. Told me to keep an eye out if I heard anything suspicious. ‘Course, he didn’t tell me anything about Lacroix back then, only found out about that when he hired me to roll up in this shindig.”

Captain Amari clicked her tongue in a way only a disappointed mother could do, “So you’re back to being a mercenary then?”

“Back to?” Cassidy gave a wide grin, “Ana, lemme tell you, once a mercenary, always a mercenary. Far as I’m concerned, that whole Blackwatch thing was just a longer than usual contract.”

“So…you’re back to being on…Overwatch I guess?” Since Blackwatch apparently no longer existed, a fact that Archer quietly confirmed through their link, the only other organization that could have hired him was Overwatch itself. Unless there was another secret Overwatch division that she didn’t know about. A question for later.

Right now, she watched as Cassidy shrugged his shoulders, “Not exactly. Think of it as me as a specialist coming over to help. For the right price, ‘course.”

Making his way over to an empty chair, he plopped right down, the chair squeaking slightly against the force in which the man did so, “See, Reyes never told me what exactly to keep an eye out on, but let me tell ya, I already knew what he meant. Most of Blackwatch was made up of, let’s say less than savory individuals. Some of them, not that bad. Might’ve invited them to a drink or dozen if I could. Others though, they’re real problematic.”

From the inside of his poncho, Cassidy pulled out a flask and took a large swig out of it. Lena wasn’t under any illusions that it was water.

“Cassidy.” Captain Amari was not amused, and crossed her arms.

His only response was to raise a finger as he continued to drink.

It was after a good few seconds before Cassidy finally finished. With a sigh of satisfaction, he only looked at the captain with a pitying look, “Trust me, Ana. You’re gonna be wantin' a drink after I’m done talking.”

That worried Lena much more than anything.

“Right. Now, remember Moira? Tall redhead, grouchy as all hell?” Lena did. It was the same person that had asked Archer for tests. Ones that the man apparently had to eventually stop with as they, according to him, became weirder and weirder. And coming from him, that meant a lot, “Yeah, I’m not gonna sugarcoat it, that woman’s batshit insane.”

“We’re aware of O'Deorain’s experiments.” Captain Amari pursed her lips in disapproval, even as both Winston and Lena raised their brows in dual interest. Archer remained unphased. Likely, the Spirit had already known of this for a while, what with his propensity to sneak into secure servers.

Still, sending Lena a snort through their link, the red-clad man raised his hand with a smirk, “I don’t, and I’m curious. Tell me, Cassidy, what did O’Deorain do?”

Captain Amari was clearly unhappy where the conversation was going, and opened her mouth to speak, only for Cassidy to laugh out loud. A laugh that sounded just slightly off to Lena, “Buddy, you ain’t gonna believe half of it.”

He leaned forward, flask dangling from his fingers, eyes sharp despite the easy grin still pulling at his lips.

“Oasis, right? Fancy place. Smart people. Real cutting-edge kinda science. Moira fit in there like a wolf in a henhouse. They gave her a lab, a budget, and told her to ‘expand the frontiers of biological understanding.’ Problem was, nobody ever thought to ask what direction she was expandin’ in.”

Lena frowned, “What, you mean genetics? Augments?”

Cassidy scoffed, “If only. Nah, she started pokin’ at somethin’ bigger. Somethin’ even the City Council got antsy about.” He rolled his wrist, thinking, “See, Oasis is run by a bunch of science types, sure, but they still got rules. Lines even they won’t cross. Turns out Moira found one of ‘em and decided to leap over it with both feet.”

Winston’s expression darkened, “What was she researching?”

Cassidy took another swig, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and grinned, “Immortality.”

Silence. A sharp, heavy kind. Even Archer, ever the picture of calculated indifference, narrowed his eyes slightly.

Lena blinked, “You’re takin’ the piss.”

“I wish.” Cassidy sighed, shaking his head, “Dunno all the details - she didn’t exactly put out a press release - but from what I could dig up, she was tryin’ to crack the ‘essence of life’ or some mystical crap like that. Thought she could make a body self-sustaining, unaging, unkillable. Problem was, she needed test subjects.”

Amari’s voice was grim, “And she didn’t get them voluntarily.”

Cassidy’s smile dropped, “Hell no, she didn’t.”

Lena felt her stomach twist, “How bad?”

He exhaled. “City Council found a whole facility underground, one they didn’t even know about. Filled with…half-formed things. Bodies that weren’t quite alive, weren’t quite dead. Some of ‘em were still breathin’. Some of ‘em were…aware.” His fingers tapped the flask absently, “Council shut it down the second they found it, stripped her of her titles, her funding, kicked her outta Oasis so fast her boots probably caught fire.”

Lena swallowed hard. Winston looked sick. Ana’s face was unreadable, but there was a tightness around her eyes that hadn’t been there before.

Archer, though, he was watching Cassidy carefully, weighing something in his mind.

Lena’s voice was quiet, “Where’d she go after that?”

Cassidy’s smile came back, but it was sharp, humorless, “Where else?”

Archer answered before anyone else could.

“Blackwatch.”

Lena leapt to her feet after a moment, "You mean to tell me that you hired her after all of that?! What the fuck!"

Cassidy didn’t even flinch. He just tipped his head back and took another swig from his flask before leveling her with a look that, for once, held not a trace of his usual amusement.

“Not me, darlin’.” He said, voice even, “Reyes.”

Lena’s jaw clenched, hands curling into fists. She turned to the quiet captain, “You knew about this?”

Captain Amari exhaled slowly through her nose, “Not at the time.” Her voice was measured, controlled, but there was something sharp underneath it, “By the time I found out, it was already too late.”

Winston’s fur bristled, “You mean to tell me Overwatch willingly took in someone who-who did that?” His large hands curled against the table, knuckles pressing into metal, “Why?”

Cassidy gave a dry, mirthless chuckle, “Ain’t it obvious? Same reason Overwatch kept Blackwatch around in the first place. Because sometimes, when you’re fightin’ monsters, you think the only way to win is to make some of your own.”

Archer’s gaze flicked to Amari, “What was the justification?” His voice was devoid of any emotion apart from a narrowing of his eyes.

She met his eyes, shoulders squared, “Reyes framed it as ‘repurposing a dangerous asset.’. She was a liability to Oasis, but to Blackwatch, she was an opportunity.”

Cassidy shook his head, “Still, Reyes ain’t stupid. He didn’t trust her. But he figured if she was gonna do that kinda work anyway, might as well have her do it where he could keep an eye on it.”

“Yeah, bet that worked out real well.” Lena snapped, voice dripping with sarcasm.

Cassidy’s lips twisted, “Oh, it didn’t. She ran circles around all of us. Had a whole other lab stashed somewhere even Blackwatch didn’t know about. Kept doin’ whatever the hell it was she wanted to do, just with fancier equipment and a tighter security detail.”

“And Reyes only found out about it after Blackwatch got disbanded.” Archer sighed as he rubbed the back of head. Cassidy raised an eyebrow at him as he did so.

“You seem pretty nonplussed about this.”

“Suffice it to say, this isn’t exactly the first time I’ve seen someone do something similar.”

That made most of the room blink in response. Cassidy opened his mouth, but nothing came out of it. Instead, he sat with his mouth open for a few seconds, before shaking his head and heaving another gulp out of his flask, “Right, magic bullshit. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I am glad I don’t know the half of it.”

“You and me both.” Arche agreed readily, “Regardless, since you’re talking about O’Deorain, I’m guessing that she has something to do with the current situation.”

“Yep.” Cassidy tipped over his flask, revealing that he had managed to empty the entire thing. He shrugged, and tucked the flask back into his poncho, before pulling out another flask and opening it up, “See, I looked into more of what she was doing in Blackwatch, the parts that only Reyes initially kept to himself.” At that, Captain Amari’s frown tinged with regret was replaced by a sharp look that practically pinned him to his seat.

"And?" Ana's voice was cold, a warning wrapped in a single syllable.

Cassidy didn't flinch. He took a swig from his fresh flask and exhaled slowly, rolling his shoulders, "And turns out, immortality ain’t just about not dyin’. Moira, well, she figured that out the hard way."

Lena frowned,"The hell does that mean?"

Cassidy swirled the liquid in his flask, watching it shift in the dim light, "See, she wasn’t just tryin’ to stop aging. Wasn’t just messin’ with genes or cybernetics. She wanted to siphon life. Thought if she could take vitality from one thing and shove it into another, she could make somethin’ - or someone - last forever."

Winston’s expression darkened, “A biological transference method...?”

Cassidy clicked his fingers, pointing at the scientist, “Bingo. Blood, marrow, neural tissue - you name it, she experimented with it. Hell, she even looked into symbiosis, parasites, all that fun, nightmare-fuel kinda stuff. Even worse when her experiments turned out just a step worse off than a certain Dr. Angela Zielger's.” His grin was humorless, “Thing is, she actually made somethin’ work. Problem was, the side effects were real noticeable.”

Lena crossed her arms, impatience creeping into her stance, “Spit it out, Cassidy.”

He lifted two fingers and gestured vaguely at his own face, “The skin.”

Winston's brow furrowed. “What about it?”

Cassidy leaned forward, voice dropping slightly, "The process, whatever the hell it was, messed with pigmentation. Anyone who got hit with it ended up with their skin turnin’ this kinda blue-purple shade. Like somethin’ drained outta them, but not all the way. Actually, that part, we found out about way earlier than everything else, since she made it a point to experiment on her own damned arms. Last I saw, one arm was built like a bodybuilder, the other, well, rotting skin and bones would be generous.

“Well, to make a long story short, yeah, it’s exactly what you’re thinkin’; Moira’s been taken in by Talon, and whatever the hell happened to Lacroix, you can blame her for that. And me?”

Cassidy’s grin turned absolutely feral, “I’ve got my own score to settle, and I know exactly where the hell the bitch is at.”

…