thisavrou_log | a buddy of mine said that he saw jack morrison take his shirt off in the shower

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a buddy of mine said that he saw jack morrison take his shirt off in the shower

Who: Angela Ziegler, Soldier: 76, special guest Solid Snake, extra special guests Reinhardt and Reaper and Mei
When: Early February
Where: The Ingress entrance to Eosoros and then some other places maybe
What: Basically the part of Undercover Boss where the boss stops being undercover, except with fewer monetary gifts
Warnings: Blood, medical business, an angry old man

[76 arrives on Thisavrou very, very angry.

He’s usually angry, but generally speaking, he manages to keep said anger to a low simmer if only to function on a day-to-day basis. Arriving on this new planet after the ordeal at the Midway Hub, finding that all he can really do is sit and wait for his number to be called means that anger gets the better of him, even as he attempts to settle in (but 'settling in' is for other people). 76 takes one of the security gigs on Eosoros in a bid to do something productive, and that's sort of when things come to a head.

He’s angry, and he screws up.

It’s not really his fault, he thinks. It’s easy to blame the client (too reckless, an idiot, doesn’t listen to him, gets them both in a bad situation), but probably 76 could have handled this better. He should have bailed when things started to go south or ditched the client entirely or not taken the job in the first place—the money for a security detail wasn’t worth any of that, but he’s still boiling over with ire about the whole situation and that’s enough to make him do very stupid things, like throwing himself down in order to save both their asses when the client proves too incompetent to make it through the stupid torture gauntlet.

Hindsight, however, is twenty-twenty, and he’s not exactly coherent as he drags them both back through the Ingress and is immediately sidelined for medical attention. 76, too angry to care about decorum or not making a scene, immediately makes a scene. Someone is trying to hold him down, if only to keep him from getting blood everywhere before a medic arrives. The Savrii, however, are hard-pressed to subdue an enhanced human like him, especially when he’s in absolutely no mood to listen to reason.

Under duress, 76 becomes all but feral, hissing and spitting and doing everything in his power to get out and away, even if that means ignoring the fact that he's wounded and throwing all his self preservation out the window (said like he had any to begin with). It’s only the nature of his injury that keeps him from making an effective escape, though that doesn’t mean he isn’t going to try.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[He's ripped off band-aid after band-aid until the number of agents who don't know the truth rapidly dwindles. It reaches the point where Jack knows he has to tell the rest of them, before they find out from the others. It's painful either way, but if he confesses it first, then he has the chance to explain himself. The real challenge is making it happen--one of those things that's easier said than done.

But he steels himself and heads out to Chioni, knowing that's where Mei lives and works. More power to her, really, given the climate on the planet, but she's never let anything like that stop her. She's looking for security detail for her current research, and he takes the opportunity, knowing it's going to be his best chance to break the news gently.

He still harbors no small amount of guilt for what happened to the Ecopoint, and as he helps haul her equipment, gun in hand, he perhaps allows himself to believe that this is his way of making it up to her.]

Here. I can get that, too.

[One of many advantages to being a genetically-enhanced super soldier: he makes an excellent pack mule and he barely breaks a sweat doing it.]

Chioni has dangerous temperatures during peak hours, which is why they're out at night, after the surface has cooled down. In this case, 'cooled down' is more like ninety degrees, but it's a dry heat instead of the moisture filled heat that sticks to a person. Their trip should be short -- she only needs to grab a few rock and soil samples and then it's back to base -- so her supplies aren't many, but it is nice to have him offer to carry it all for her.

"If you'd like!" she replies, handing off a vaguely square shaped case with a handle. "I'll carry the lantern." A battery-operated one, of course, but it provides more light than the beam of a flashlight. "I'm told the rocks I'm looking for are just at the edge of this ridge." It's a simple task to do, and really the only dangers are the fact it's at night and some of the local wildlife might try to harass them. But judging by 76's gun, they shouldn't be too much of a problem.

"So how are you liking Thisavrou so far?" she asks conversationally as they start out.

He takes the case from her and hefts it almost effortlessly, a testament to his enhancements. This could be more awkward, probably--they could be out here during the day, and though it's still hot, the lack of a sun helps immensely. Doesn't mean he isn't sweating in his body armor, but knowing the alternative, he'll take it.

Mei doesn't seem dissuaded by anything, however, and he trudges after her, raising an eyebrow at her seemingly irrepressible excitement. Some things, he guesses, don't change.

"Just waiting for my number to come up."

76 says it in a tone of voice that indicates he's not exactly impressed with the situation. He can curb his boredom by taking jobs like this, but it all feels a bit too much like retirement for his tastes.

"I bet this is a change of pace for you."

You know, Antarctica.

"I thought you were already a number," she says in a light tone, clearing joking with him. When a man introduces himself as a number, it's pretty unforgettable. But she understands what he really means. They're all just waiting while trying to live their lives in the meantime. At least they're in an exciting place, with lots of opportunities for exploration, either here or wherever the Ingress can take them. That's some consolation. Of course, not everyone is as adventurous as she is, and she can understand how this might not be fun for them. Hopefully they can see the bright side too.

"You mean the heat? Yeah, usually I travel to places with the opposite temperature. But I've heard Chioni will cycle back to cold temperatures at some point. Then it'll feel like Alaska again. Or Nepal. Or... Antarctica." The best way to avoid wallowing in what happened? Not thinking about it. But the problem with that is that Ecopoint: Antarctica was a huge part of her life and can't just be forgotten. And it would be wrong to forget anyway; like she was forgetting her team or something. So sometimes she has to face it before putting that chipper smile back on.

Her subdued expression only lasts a moment before she's clearing her throat and putting a little bounce into her step.

"Did you travel a lot back home?"

She gets something of a laugh out of him, but it's more a noncommittal noise from the back of his throat than anything else. He notes the slight pause before she says Antarctica, and it just reminds him all over again how thoroughly he failed her and her team.

"I keep moving. Don't stay in one place too long."

Because he can't, really--that's what happens when you're an internationally wanted vigilante. Again, 76 seems entirely uncomfortable talking about himself, and tries to turn the conversation back on her, even though he knows he's supposed to be working his way to some kind of confession.

"Comes with the territory. Bet coming back was an adjustment, huh?"

"It was, yes! I was glad to be back, but I'd missed so much! And just when I was starting to catch up, I end up here. Well, not here here, but you know what I mean." She wonders if the Ingress would have picked her up if she'd been anywhere else but Nepal. Maybe if she'd stayed in Hollywood, or had joined Winston at Watchpoint: Gibraltar, she wouldn't have been taken. But there's really no way of knowing.

"I had so many tv shows to catch up on," she says lightly, but there was of course more than that: old friends, the state of the world, what happened with the other Ecopoints. There's a lot that's waiting for her back home.

But right now there are samples to collect. Mei spots the rocky terrain and veers towards it, holding up her lantern to spread more light.

"Here it is! I can collect tiny fragments if there's anything loose. If not, I'll have to bang it with a hammer."

He sets down their gear when they come upon what she's looking for, readying the hammer but watching her, instead. 76 holds out a hand for her lantern so that she can get to work using both her hands, and he's careful to angle the light in such a way that it doesn't cast shadows over what she's trying to do.

Beyond that, he listens. He's not sure how he'd be able to stay so optimistic after waking up the way she did, but somehow she manages it, talking about the tv shows she missed like nothing terrible happened at all.

"Don't think many people could come out the other end of that as optimistic as you."

"You don't think?" she asks, putting small rocks into a thick plastic bag as he takes over lantern holding duty. The alternatives to how she's living life now wouldn't be very pleasant. Moping, wallowing, stewing -- they're not her style. There is some amount of guilt, however. It's only natural when you're the sole survivor of a disaster. You start to ask questions like "Why was I spared?" for instance.

"I think it would be doing my team a disservice if I didn't carry on and live life to the fullest." She pauses in her collecting to look up at 76's masked face. "At least, I know that's what I'd want if I was one of the ones who didn't make it and someone else had."

"I'm saying that's easier said than done."

Means she's strong--resilient. Jack has always been proud of his agents, knows that they're the best people in the world. Hurts him all the more when they're in a situation like Mei's.

"It's a compliment."

Even if it doesn't really sound like one. He's not so good at giving them, anymore.

He does have a way of saying things that makes it hard to tell if he means it in a good way or not. The clarification is appreciated here.

"Well, thank you. That's nice of you to say."

It definitely hasn't been easy, but Mei has a way of approaching life that might make it seem that way. No one can see inside her head to see how she thinks, and how not everything is sunshine and rainbows all the time, but overall, she's been handling this well. Except for the survivor's guilt, of course, but that's to be expected. Those who hold a normal conversation with her would never guess at it being there, but it is.

"I have to say, I'm a little surprised that word of what happened spread like it did. No one thought of us for years, but once I woke up and returned, people knew about it."

He grunts in acknowledgement, just as bad at receiving complements as he is at giving them. 76 lets her talk while he holds the lantern in silence for a few moments, holding out sample bags for her when she needs them, shifting his weight a little uncomfortably when she mentions how no one thought of Antarctica's crew.

"Bad timing."

Said like he doesn't blame himself more than anything.

"They were busy shutting down Overwatch while you were asleep."

And the Ecopoints got lost in the shuffle.

"I guess so." But her voice is soft, because she's thought about this a lot. Even though the Ecopoints were supposed to be self-sufficient for the most part, they did need supplies from time to time. What had happened with Athena that didn't have the computer alerting the others to those who were stranded out at the Ecopoints? Did they just straight up unplug her one day? It's weird. If she was more of a conspiracy theorist, she could come up with some doozies for this one.

Now it's just her, traveling across the globe to collect all this lost data from the abandoned Ecopoints. It's weird how none of the others pooled their data and turned it into the UN or anything. After all, even if Overwatch went under, what value was there in ignoring important information regarding the Earth's climate? Well, that's another question for the conspiracy theorists.

"Okay, I think that's enough of this type of rock. Now I just need a slightly darker type. It's further along the ridge here. They say it's leftover from ancient volcanoes."

Edited 2017-03-29 17:30 (UTC)

"What happened was...it wasn't right."

Sure, it would be easy to keep talking about the rocks that she needs, or ancient volcanoes, but 76 is a giant conspiracy theorist and he's supposed to be confessing his true identity to her, isn't he? That was the point of this trip. He'll follow her along, but he swallows down the temptation to change the subject.

"You shouldn't have been caught in the crossfire."

It is a bit surprising that he's staying with this subject, and that he's offering his opinion without her having to prompt him for it. He's not a very verbose guy, but this seems like it's important to him that she knows this. Her steps slow a little so they can walk besides each other along the way.

"Thank you. It's been hard..." It's not something she wants to unload on him, even if it seems like he's all right discussing it. And yet these questions she has just won't go away. "I thought at least someone would have remembered us. But not even Athena did." And then she realizes that he probably doesn't know who Athena is. "She was the computer system we had. I don't know why she didn't alert anyone that she couldn't reach us. If Overwatch was shut down, there should have been a computer message, and one sent to us in Antarctica would have bounced back because our comm tower was damaged in a polar storm."

"I know about Athena."

Maybe that's how he can ease himself into it--reveal that he's much deeper in Overwatch then any of them know, and let them draw their own conclusions from there. He'd watched the dismantling of the organization, but there was only so much he could do, and it wouldn't surprise him at all if the UN did something to Athena, if only temporarily.

"Something must have stopped the message from getting through. I don't think it was an accident."

"Oh? Yes, that's what I've been contemplating myself. They would have known so much sooner that we were stuck in cryo if they'd tried to contact us." She blows out a breath before stooping to examine several rocks more closely with her lantern. "But it's not like I can go back in time and get the answers I'd like, can I?" She'll just have to keep moving forward with the hand she was dealt.

"You can ask me."

Not exactly how he wanted to segue into his confession, but the words come out easily enough. Surely that will arouse some kind of suspicion.

"I've been digging."

Among other things.

"About Overwatch?" she asks, stopping in her examination of these very interesting rocks to sit back on her heels. "Why have you been digging into that?" All Mei knows is that 76 is from her world and knows what Overwatch is. She never would have thought he had some extra interest in it. Is that why he's out here with her? Does he want to get some information out of her? If that's the case, he'd be better off talking to someone like Reinhardt or Angela. Someone who can tell him about their headquarters, since Mei was only stationed there in between trips to different research outposts.

"Because it was a setup."

Might as well come right out with it, even if he sounds like a crazy conspiracy theorist. 76 has convinced himself, at least, enough to relay all this with a certain amount of gravity and conviction.

"Someone wanted Overwatch gone. I've been trying to find out who."

Mei frowns, her gaze shifting for a moment to stare at the rocks in deep contemplation. If what he says is true, then she really should be blaming whoever wanted Overwatch to fall, instead of the people caught up in the chaos who forgot about them down in Antarctica. Well, she can blame them a little bit too, but not completely.

Now she meets his covered eyes, a serious look on her face.

"Tell me what you know so far."

Now it seems like he has her attention. Good—it’s easier that way, easier for him to segue into the confession. Unfortunately, the truth of what happened to Overwatch is complicated at best, a wild conspiracy at worst. He isn’t sure if she’s just going to write him off as paranoid or crazy or both.

“I have reason to believe the UN had a hand in it.”

That’s the crazy conspiracy part, but he’s convinced himself it’s not so far-fetched.

“The organization was going off the rails. Too much of a liability. Just shutting it down wouldn’t have been final enough.”

He offers a shrug.

“Take out the leadership in a coordinated attack on HQ. Make it look like an accident. Like Overwatch ate itself.”

Immediately, her forehead creases, because this seems to go against everything the UN stands for, doesn't it? They needed Overwatch to keep the peace too. If they wanted to attack HQ, who would they get to do it?

"Do you think they hired mercenaries?

"I think they collaborated with Talon."

So, worse than mercenaries. 76 has very little evidence in the way of this theory, but this is his gut instinct, and he's learned to rely on that more than anything else in the years following Overwatch's fall. Maybe he sounds crazy, but he's never been more sure of anything.

Mei's eyebrows lift in a nearly comical display. Now that seems a little too far. Talon is the antithesis of everything Overwatch had stood for! Even if the UN wanted them gone, why go to such lengths?

"But that would be so risky! Talon could blackmail the UN and threaten to release proof that the UN was involved, couldn't they?" She gasps. "Is Talon blackmailing the UN now?" Okay, she seems to be on the conspiracy theory bandwagon already. She wants an explanation for being forgotten.

"Could be. Don't have enough intel, unfortunately."

Too many missing pieces in the puzzle. He's working on it, but he's only one person, and the whole world is out to get him, quite literally. Chasing ghosts he isn't sure even exist.

"Trying, though. This goes deep."

mei

is switching to prose okay?

shore

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okay, wait, have a real tag instead

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