Chronal Disassociation Ch. 61 (Patreon)

“Isn’t this, you know, out of our realm of expertise?” Lena didn’t often make it a point to question her superiors' right to their faces, but the Overwatch Strike Team was flat enough in hierarchy that, after a few months of joining, she at least felt comfortable to do so.

The same, it seems, went for the commanders themselves, who had become less and less of the untouchable figures that she once saw them as. Somewhere along the line, while the respect she had for them and their orders still remained, she had started to also see them as a sort of equal.

Which is why she was comfortable asking questions, especially when it comes to matters like this.

When Commander Morrison had called them in, Lena had expected another mission. Failing that, an update on the many, many missions that had loose ends that needed to be tied. Failing that, something regarding Archer doing something ridiculous and borderline illegal.

Lena did not expect being told that she was going to be playing babysitter for a bunch of might-as-well-be interns.

“Unfortunately, we don’t really have a choice in the matter.” It was Commander Reyes that spoke up, looking as though he would rather be doing literally anything else, “Apparently, with all of the backlash regarding the Blackwatch incident, the suits up in the UN decided that Overwatch needs some better PR.”

“That was months ago!” Reinhardt spoke up, equally confused, though at least the crusader looked much more excited than Lena, “We do this now and we’ll just put the incident back in the limelight!”

“Yeah, well, bureaucracy is slow as all hell.” Reyes rolled his eyes, “Trust me, I’m not happy with this either. But…” He trailed off, nudging his head towards the other commander.

Morrison picked up where he left off, “After what happened to Ana, me and Reyes decided that this was the best option, even if it’s not ideal.” He nodded specifically to Reinhardt, eyeing the crusader with a small frown.

“As it stands, the current average age of Overwatch as a whole is around forty. It’s even worse for this strike team, which has an average of forty-five. I shouldn’t need to tell you this, but this is significantly higher than any on-the-ground force should have any right to be.” Morrison sighed as he scratched his head in abject frustration, “Unfortunately, even with both Talon and Null Sector being threats, we just aren’t getting any new recruits to fill out the ranks.”

“That ain’t right.” Cassidy piped up from where he was sitting, “I saw some new guys trainin’ downstairs. Can’t be that bad, can it?”

“I should reiterate for clarity then.” Morrison nodded, “We’re not getting any new recruits for the strike team specifically. In fact, we barely get a new member every five or so years, bar some extenuating circumstances. Even then, usually, those members that we do get were from some other Overwatch branch, which doesn’t actually get us any new blood.”

“If things continue the way they are, it’s highly likely that either me or Morrison are going to die without having a proper replacement.” Reyes scowled in distaste, “‘Cause I’ll be honest; I don’t think any of you are fit for strategic leadership.” 

Lena didn’t wince at that. Neither did anyone else in the room. Every single one of them knew that they were better as boots on the ground, rather than leading the strategic whole of the strike team. They knew what to do when they were fighting, but not so much when it came to long term planning.

Even Archer, Heroic Spirit that he was, looked like he agreed with Reyes’ assessment.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Reyes laughed mirthlessly.

“At any rate,” Morrison threw a glare towards Reyes, “We’ve come to the conclusion that, if we want any chance of combating Talon or Null Sector, we have three options. One, we pump up recruitment for the strike team.”

“Difficult, but not impossible.” Reyes pointed out, “The main problem being that those that we’d want to be on the team are usually already affiliated with some other organization, and we don’t make it a point to steal talent from them - breeds discontent and whatnot.”

“Second option, we support the regional branches more heavily.” Morrison continued, his voice dropping an octave as he leveled his gaze at the table, “We pour funding into local militias, secondary security forces, and national academies, hoping a diamond in the rough stands out and climbs the ranks naturally. But that takes time and money. Both of which the UN isn't giving us, and Talon is actively stealing from us.”

He paused, resting his palms flat against the steel surface of the briefing table.

“Which brings us to the third option. We actively cultivate the next generation ourselves. A specialized, fast-tracked program. A junior strike team trained directly under our supervision, designed for up-and-coming specialists from around the world.”

“With the UN having too much of a say in things, of course.” Reyes rolled his eyes, which Morrison acknowledged with his own grimace.

“Reyes is right in that regard as well. The candidates we’ll be taking are those that are exclusively approved by the UN Security Council.” There was a collective groan at that. While the strike team wasn’t embroiled in politics too much, that didn’t mean it was completely isolated.

A lot of the time, the meddling of the UN was kept to a minimum thanks to the efforts of the commanders and Captain Amari. However, ever since her publicized ‘death’, the credibility of the remaining Overwatch leaders was put into question. That’s on top of the public outcry against Blackwatch.

Simply put, as more and more time passed, the soft power that the strike team had was being slowly whittled away. It was even more obvious when the UN decided to mess with things that would otherwise be better left alone.

Overwatch in its entirety was one of those.

Lena wasn’t blind. While she may have once viewed Overwatch as an infallible bastion of justice, that was only when she was a kid. Nowadays, she knew that, for all the good that Overwatch did, there was still a hidden underbelly that lurked underneath it all.

Politics was as dirty as ever, and its influence was obvious once you looked past the strike team. Overwatch, in remote areas where they were needed, were not present. The people that needed them the most would not get their help, because the powers that be decided they were not worth the time, effort and money to do so.

Bribes and under the table negotiations were not uncommon to read about. Before the Blackwatch scandal, however, they had been treated as nothing more than one-offs. Where there was only a certain person, or group, being corrupt, and not Overwatch as a whole.

It changed when Null Sector attacked.

Or rather, when Overwatch had moved to assist against the London Uprising. See, Lena didn’t know it at the time, but when she and the other members of the unit deployed the EMP to stop the invasion, they were technically doing so illegally.

Commander Morrison had not actually gotten permission from the Prime Minister, at the time, for Overwatch to be deployed like that. Despite the lives already taken by Null Sector, the politicians in Downing Street claimed that those lost lives were the fault of Overwatch intervening. That their actions inevitably led to the deaths that they had worked so hard to prevent.

Needless to say, Lena and Emily were up all night, with the pilot ranting and raving about it.

Of course, nobody actually believed that tripe. Everyone that had been at the heart of it, including the mayor, lambasted that opinion more times than Lena had bothered to count.

It was only the Blackwatch incident that blew everything out of the water.

Suddenly, Overwatch doing something illegal wasn’t just a one and done deal. They had set a precedence that quickly brought their actions during the Uprising into public scrutiny. This time, the people that once defended them found themselves facing accusations that they were being bribed by Overwatch itself.

It was an ugly, inescapable truth. Overwatch was no longer the golden shield of humanity. It was a political bargaining chip, heavily tarnished and desperate for a new coat of paint.

"And because it's the UN Security Council signing the checks," Morrison's voice cut through Lena's spiraling thoughts, grounding her back in the sterile, air-conditioned chill of the briefing room, "They are the ones supplying the shortlist of candidates. We have limited veto power. If we reject too many, they pull the funding and instate oversight committees."

"So they're handpicking our recruits based on what? Polling numbers?" Cassidy scoffed, lighting a cigar despite the glaring No Smoking sign flashing above the holotable. Reyes didn't stop him. He just looked tired, "Next thing you know, they'll be givin' us pop stars and actors with a good jawline."

Morrison and Reyes shared a look. Lena did not like the silence that permeated between them.

Eventually, the standoff was broken, Morrison coughing lightly, "...I'm not gonna sugarcoat this, and I understand your protests - and there will be protests, I don't doubt it - but our hands are tied."

Morrison tapped a command code into the holotable console. The central blue grid flickered, dissolved, and expanded into five floating, high-resolution personnel files. Personal data, military service numbers, and high-definition portraits hovered in static projection above the steel table.

Cassidy stopped mid-drag, his cigar hovering inches from his mouth. His jaw slacked just enough for a thin wisp of grey smoke to curl up past his eyes, "You gotta be shittin' me."

"Is that...is that a child?" Reinhardt's voice cracked. The massive crusader leaned so far over the table his chair creaked dangerously. Lena couldn't say anything about the others to her side, Angela and Genji included. She was too busy doing the same as Reinhardt.

NAME: Song, Hana ("D.Va")AGE: 16AFFILIATION: ROK Army / MEKA (Mobile Exo-Force of the Korean Army)PRIOR OCCUPATION: Professional Esports AthleteCURRENT STATUS: Trainee Combat Pilot – MEKA Unit #01

Flanking her profile were four others. Kyung-soo Han ("King"), Seung-hwa Kang ("Overlord"), Yuna Lee ("D.Mon"), and Jae-eun Kwon ("Casino"). The oldest among them was barely twenty-four.

Cassidy’s fist slammed on the table, "Are you fuckin’ kiddin’ me?!”

"They are children, Jack!" Reinhardt roared, his voice echoing off the reinforced walls, entirely stripped of its usual jovial warmth. "A sixteen-year-old girl? A professional game player? This is not a PR stunt, this is a war crime! We are supposed to be their shield, not their-their whatever this is supposed to be!"

"Don't you think I know that?!" Morrison barked back, his own voice rising to match the German's thunder. He leaned over the table, his face drawn and exhausted, "You think I want to send a teenager into a live-fire zone? I fought tooth and nail against the council on this, Reinhardt. Believe me, I tried!"

"Then why are their faces on our table, Commander?" Angela's voice was much quieter than Reinhardt’s, but it cut through the room like a scalpel, "Neurologically, a sixteen-year-old's frontal lobe isn't even fully developed. The trauma of active combat..."

"As disturbing as it is, South Korea didn't have a choice, Angela, and neither do we." Reyes interrupted, his voice a low, gravelly rasp. He rubbed his temples, looking at the holograms with thinly veiled disgust, "Look at the intel reports out of the East China Sea. The Gwishin are still active, and every time the ROK military sends in automated drones to try and deal with them, the Gwishin slice their networks, hijack the mechs, and turn them on Seoul."

The Gwishin. The last, large scale remnant of the Omnic Crisis. Of course Lena had heard of it. An entire Omnium located beneath the East China Sea, so far below the ocean that any attempts at sending people to deal with them would put them at the mercy of an endless Omnic tide.

Every few months, there would be a news report from South Korea, about the damage that the Gwishin Omnics would cause to the country. She even remembered watching the news the first time Overwatch encountered them. The first time Overwatch lost against the Gwishin, owing to their inexperience at fighting on open water.

It was years ago, and news of the Gwishin became more and more of a norm that Lena didn’t bother to really pay any attention to. She wished she had, now.

Morrison nodded grimly, tapping another key to bring up footage of a massive, squid-like Omnic tearing through a naval blockade, "The only way to fight them was to take the AI out of the equation. They built the MEKA suits to be piloted manually. But the control interfaces are too complex. The reaction times required to pilot a bipedal weapons platform in three-dimensional space while managing asymmetrical weapon systems..."

"Neither me nor Jack could make heads or tails of the damn system." Reyes admitted with some reluctance, “And if two enhanced super-soldiers with decades of combat experience can’t process the sheer sensory overload of those neural links, a regular human doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell.”

Reyes leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest, his eyes locked on the flickering hologram of the sixteen-year-old girl, “They needed minds that were already wired for hyper-speed simulation. Kids who spend eighteen hours a day tracking ninety different variables on a screen without their brains turning to mush. The South Korean government didn’t draft them because they wanted to - they drafted them because the human nervous system is the only computer the Gwishin can't hack.”

“So they put children in weaponized tin cans and call it a defense program.” Angela said, her voice trembling with a quiet, furious heat. Genji tried to calm her down, but she shrugged off his hand as she stood up, her knuckles white as she pressed them against the table, “Commanders, this is madness! The psychological toll of neural synchronization is experimental enough in adults. In developing minds, it is a recipe for catastrophic neurological collapse. They are trading these children's futures for a temporary shield!”

“And what would you have them do, Angela?” Morrison’s voice was suddenly very quiet, stripped of the commander’s authority and replaced with the heavy, hollow tone of a man who had made too many compromises, “Let Seoul burn? Let the Gwishin march inland? The ROK army was desperate. They found a solution that worked, and now the UN wants to capitalize on it.”

"For what it's worth," Archer cut in, "I think this is the right decision."

“Archer, what the hell?” Lena was alarmed that the Spirit would say something like that. She had thought that he, of all people, would be against drafting actual kids into the military. He had seen far, far more things than any of them, so he should know that this was fucked up!

“Don’t get me wrong, I hate this as much as you do.” Archer raised a hand to calm her down, “But think about it - Overwatch training them would actually keep them off the field for longer than they would otherwise be. Am I correct in assuming this, commander?”

Morrison stared at the Heroic Spirit for a long moment before releasing a breath he seemed to have been holding for days. He leaned back in his chair, the tension in his shoulders easing just a fraction.

“Yes.” Morrison confirmed, his voice rough, “That was part of the negotiation.”

Archer nodded, unfolding his arms and stepping fully into the light of the holotable. He didn't look at the files anymore, “Think about the logistics. The UN wants a spectacle. A highly publicized, extended training regimen where the world gets to watch their new darlings learn from the legendary Overwatch. As long as they are here, running simulations, posing for cameras, and participating in controlled exercises, they are not in the East China Sea.”

Lena blinked, the righteous anger in her chest suddenly stuttering to a halt. She looked back at the holographic projection of the sixteen-year-old girl.

“You mean…” Lena started, the realization dawning on her.

“He means we’re buying them time.” Reyes said, a humorless, razor-thin smile touching his lips. He looked at Archer with a newfound sliver of respect, “Leave it to the ghost to see the tactical advantage in playing babysitter. If they’re here, they ain’t fighting.”

Archer took one final look at the holographic profiles, "The longer they play at being students, the longer they survive."

Lena hated that she could only agree with him.

…