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solivar · 8 years ago

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WIP: I Heard The Bells

aka the one where Jesse makes all his friends cry on Christmas for more than one reason

@joasakura remains the best for letting me use Tombo, Mizuchi, and Zentatsu

Content warning: somewhat more graphic than usual but still canon-typical violence, discussion/depiction of unpleasant gunshot wounds

Now with 100% more sassy navigational hijacker and everybody else going OMGWTFBBQ, though in many more words.

The packages arrived within hours of each other, in cascading order, earliest time zones first, on Christmas Eve. And, for a miraculous change, nothing -- no deficiencies of local air or ground mail delivery, no perfidious intent-thwarting issues of back-ordering or selling out, nobody failing to be where they were supposed to be when they were supposed to be there -- managed to screw a single solitary bit of it up. He watched it all come together as the delivery notifications popped up on his tablet, from the vantage of a cheapass hotel room in Fredericksburg while he waited for it to get dark enough and late enough to complete the last stage of his self-chosen mission.

Within sixteen minutes of the first delivery, his phone chimed with the tone he’d assigned to Genji the very instant he’d found out his former partner in twentysomething angst had shacked up in a Nepalese monastery with an omnic spiritual adviser. It was a gong. The most obnoxious gong available in open source sound files. Hearing it now brought an extremely satisfied little grin to his face, a grin that stretched a fraction wider with each new, unique text notification tone.

Really. It was almost as good as being there.

🌟

Dr. Angela Ziegler desired nothing more than sleep. She longed for the soft, cool embrace of her pillow as she desired absolutely nothing and no one else for years. The terrible, heavily bleached hospital sheets she and everyone else slept on called to her with the sweetest of siren voices. The door to the suite she shared with the two other doctors -- an infectious disease treatment specialist and an epidemic disease control specialist -- with whom she was coordinating the establishment of the world’s first teaching hospital interfacing all of their disciplines lay but a few feet away and she had, at that very moment, been awake so many hours in a row that she was perfectly willing to abandon a lifetime of heartfelt pacifism if someone would try to prevent her from reaching it. So close.

“Angela!”

And yet so far.

“Yes, Kate?” Katherine Solaja was an amazingly gifted young woman, afire with the desire to help others, a quick study and a steady head under pressure, and generally Angela was grateful to have such a talented young physician working with her. At the moment, however, she was firmly resisting the urge to introduce her resident to the truest meaning of the term ‘defenestration’ and then offer the last fifty-two sleepless hours as her defense when someone came to arrest her. Perhaps they would be kind enough to handcuff her to her bed and wheel her out that way.

“You have got to come down to the office. Something just arrived for you with the late mail drop-off.” Angela found her hand in Kate’s uncompromisingly energetic grip and, before her weary brain could formulate a coherent objection, she was being pulled down the hall and into the elevator.

“Kate,” Angela began.

“I know you’re tired, Angela. But I’m serious. You need to see this.” Kate was grinning, dark eyes shining with glee.

“What could possibly be so -- “

“Trust me. You’re going to want to see this.”

The elevator doors hissed open and Angela again allowed herself to be dragged along, into the labrynth of offices that occupied the hospital’s lowest floors, her own inclusive, which seemed to contain entirely too many people for that time of day. Entirely too many, and most of them loitering in the vicinity of her own neatly arranged workspace, which at the moment contained a desk, three floor to ceiling bookshelves, a potted ficus, a tiny holotank in one corner, approximately the entire senior medical advisory staff, and a cylindrical object approximately three feet around and four feet tall, wrapped in silver paper neatly stamped down its side with air mail shipment codes.

“What in the name of God is that?” Angela asked, completely flummoxed.

“That’s what we’d all like to know.” Kate nudged her gently forward. “Like I said, it came in with the late mail. Go on, Angela, open it open it open it.”

“It’s -- “ Slowly, Angela’s weary mind put the pieces together -- the lateness of the day, the lateness of the year, the unexpected late delivery. “Oh, dear. It’s Christmas eve, isn’t it?”

She found herself collecting a series of pitying looks and, gathering the remains of her dignity about her, she stepped forward to examine the object. Not just silver paper, clearly -- it was a far heavier gauge than simple paper, wrapped in an overlapping scallop design that came together at the top beneath a medallion of what was probably not sealing wax but which artfully resembled it nonetheless. Fortunately, she had absentmindedly stuck a clean scalpel into her pen case earlier that day; it slid beneath the edge of the seal and disengaged it without damaging the seal itself. She palmed it into the pocket of her lab coat as the wrapping unfolded itself, expelling a burst of intensely cold air and releasing a genuine flurry of impossibly tiny snowflakes as it did so, glittering briefly in the artificially dry air of the hospital complex’ air conditioning. The entire assembly took a sudden breath, some ooohed, others ahhhed, there was at least one squeal that Angela suspected came from Kate.

The little Christmas tree contained inside the package was utterly perfect in every way, its blue fir branches glittering with a hint of frost, strung with beaded golden and crimson garland, hung with impossibly tiny and perfect blown glass ornaments, the angel atop it bearing a rather suggestive resemblance to her Valkyrie suit as occupied by she herself. Piled at its base were a selection of equally tiny and perfect individually wrapped presents, all of them tagged with her name in a hand she knew well.

“You’ve been holding out on me,” Kate murmured as Angela bent down and retrieved one, opening it to reveal an orb of dark chocolate molded in the shape of a Christmas ornament. “You do have a secret admirer.”

Angela handed her the tiny gift box. “No...not an admirer. A brother.”

At that moment, her phone buzzed for the first time, and continued to do so steadily for the next three hours.

🌟

WickedCuteButDeadly:

Oh my God. OH MY GOD.

DeathFromAbove:

Are you kidding me? You too? Is is a tree? He sent you a tree, didn’t he.

WickedCuteButDeadly:

HE DID. IT’S SO CUTE I WANT TO DIE. AND -- look, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I don’t have a good number for him, the last time he called me was, oh, maybe three months ago wanted to be sure he had a good snail mail addie for me, and I spent two hours chewing his ear about Em and how we met and how wonderful she was and how happy we were AND HE SENT US A PREPAID RESERVATION CARD FOR A COUPLES WEEKEND AT THIS SWANK SPA HOTEL IN PARIS AND THE NUMBER I HAVE FOR HIM IS NO GOOD ANYMORE AND I KNOW AT LEAST ONE OF YOU HAS TO KNOW HOW TO GET IN TOUCH WITH HIM. Ange, it’s you, isn’t it? It has to be you, you’re his DOCTOR.

DeathFromAbove:

My tree is covered in miniature planes from the dawn of aviation to the present. I’m afraid to open any of the boxes. My heart can only take so much.

WickedCuteButDeadly:

Do it. You know you want to, Fareeha.

DeathFromAbove: …

DeathFromAbove:

This is not okay. I can’t stop crying.

WickedCuteButDeadly: ????!!!!!!

DeathFromAbove:

You remember that huge old erector set I had as a kid? The one my father got me for...I want to say my tenth birthday? I lost it in one of the moves sometime before I went away to college and I swear I only told him about it once and he found it HE FOUND IT. I’VE GOT IT SITTING IN MY LAP RIGHT NOW. I don’t even know how he knew I was going to be in Vancouver for Christmas this year, I only finalized my plans two weeks ago!

WickedCuteButDeadly:

Angie, please.

DeathFromAbove:

Angela, you have GOT to tell us.

SantasLittlestHelper:

I don’t know how he remembers ALL THEIR NAMES and all their favorite candies. I’m their FATHER and I don’t remember all that at the same time.

🌟

Angela fell asleep with her phone still vibrating next to her on the bed, having given away far more of Teuscher’s wonderful champagne truffles than she actually ate herself and without receiving a reply to the text she sent to the one contact number she had.

🌟

The inner rooms of the monastery were, it was generally agreed by all residents and visitors, far warmer than the outer chambers -- the milled stone walls were paneled in ancient, fragrant wood, hung with the heavy woolen draperies woven in the radiant iris pattern of the Shambali order dyed in brilliant hues of saffron and emerald. They captured the warmth of strategically placed high efficiency solar powered ceramic heaters and the more traditional charcoal braziers and the banks of votary candles in the memorial shrine dedicated to Tekhartha Mondatta, kept it close for the succour of the monastery’s handful of entirely human residents. Most were postulants to the order, men and women who had come from all corners of the Earth, drawn by the offer of all-encompassing inclusion and acceptance that lay at the core of the Shambali philosophy. Some were tourists -- the monastery opened its doors to the curious as well as the dedicated, provided they were willing to respect the customs of the order during the course of their stay. Only one was a professional assassin.

The assassin occupied one of the outermost of the inner chambers -- it was cooler, markedly so, but also significantly less likely to result in being forced to interact involuntarily with another human being, particularly the sort of human being likely to seriously strain his minimal tolerance for idiocy. (There were a number of wealthy tourists on hand at the moment, forced by the weather to wait for the next stage of their pre-packaged Journey Of Enlightenment, and they were growing gradually less enamored with the pursuit of spiritual evolution and union in the soul of the world with every passing day, most of which were exceedingly cold. The monks tolerated them because the tour companies always donated generously on top of the standard fees, the novices tolerated them because they could always claim to be functioning under vows of silence in order to escape unsatisfactory conversations, and the assassin tolerated them, barely, because there were simply not enough places to hide all the bodies -- the snow piled at the bottom of the cliff would, after all, melt eventually.) He had arrived at the end of autumn, just ahead of the first snows, greeted with an excess of enthusiasm by his brother -- a student of Tekhartha Zenyatta -- that many considered equal parts ill-advised and adorable, and, after a lengthy private interview with the elder sibling serving as abbot that season, was permitted to stay. He selected a room on the same corridor as the chambers his brother and the mendicant Zenyatta occupied when they were in residence, and thereafter he was an enticing mystery to the rest of the monastery’s inhabitants, a phantom within its walls, nearly invisible unless he chose to be seen and he almost never allowed it. The cooks saw more of him than the monks, for he would occasionally take his meals in their company, and the security team that patrolled the plateau on which the monastery sat, who occasionally witnessed the feats of physical prowess he indulged in during his personal exercise regime. The best chance anyone else had of seeing him was on one of those rare days when he made use of one of the public chapels or meditation rooms, rather than retiring to the privacy of his own chamber.

It was therefore a matter of some note when, one morning just at the edge of dawn, when no one but the earliest-rising novices would be stirring, he emerged from his quarters dressed in a manner that would not have looked out of place in a painting of the Heian imperial court, carrying a small rolled silk case in the crook of one arm. Word of this astonishing sight -- rendered even more astonishing by the sharp contrast with his decidedly untraditional hair and even less traditional piercings -- made the rounds from novice to support staff back to novice and from there to more than a few monks while he was still crossing the courtyard to the dokhang. By the time he set foot on the first of the five staircases he would thereafter climb, the prayer hall was at least half-full of novices, monks, and three sleep-groggy tourists, most of whom shamelessly watched him in his progress, for reasons ranging from wildly irrepressible curiosity to absolute prurience, for no one could deny the sight of him at that moment was one of the most glorious to be found on the mountain. At the top of the fifth and final staircase, he retired to one of the uppermost meditation chambers, politely declined the offer of a senior monk to bring him anything that he might require to effectuate his devotions, and slid the door shut.

🌟

It took twenty minutes to grind the ink to his satisfaction and another twenty to make certain that it was warm enough in the vicinity of the plate for his chosen medium to remain in its liquid state. The upper meditation rooms were, in general, fiercely cold at the best of times and today the cold was particularly penetrating -- the wind was light but constant, dry enough to suck the last lingering traces of moisture out of any exposed skin, and with a certain cutting edge to it that suggested the weather might be about to make one of its unpredictable high altitude changes. The pass leading up from the next nearest village had only just been cleared enough to allow passage the evening prior; below in the courtyard, the tourists were making good their chance at escape. At the moment, the sky was a pure and perfect shade of blue that reminded him of his dragons’ scales, the snow-capped Himalayan peaks that ringed the monastery’s high plateau shone savagely in the thin winter sunlight and undulated away in a manner that reminded him of their coils as they flew, and he wanted nothing more than to capture the image in paper and ink. The exceedingly traditional multiple layers of heavy winter clothing simply meant he could do so without freezing to death while in the best painter’s vantage point in all of Shambali.

He rendered the faint, nearly invisible filaments of windbourne snow curling away from the saw-backed ridge of the mountains in the palest, pearlescent shades of gray, the bones of the mountains themselves in a darker wash, a wider stroke. The snow itself was nothing more than the pure white of the silk on which he painted, it existence delineated in washes of pale gray that established the shape of the snow line, the jut of stone and ice in slightly darker shades. It was soothing, to create so, allowing the brush to dance and the ink to sing in a way that he had not for years, having neither the leisure nor, if he were being honest with himself, the desire. Painting had given him great peace and joy as a child, and even as a young adult; as an adult, with violence and death as his closest companions, it seemed nearly obscene to engage in such pleasures, the perversion of an art of which his hands were no longer worthy. He still did not feel worthy, precisely, but now his own absence of virtue seemed to matter somehow less, enough that he could lose himself in the serenity of drawing his brush across an unblemished length of silken canvas, allow his thoughts to vanish into the concentration needed to compose each stroke, to contemplate nothing but the image taking shape before him. His spirit was as still as the surface of a lake on a windless day, tranquil enough that, when the dragons stirred within him to watch what he was doing, it disturbed him not at all and, for the briefest of instants, his awareness became theirs and theirs became his --

Something sent a ripple of dissonance through them -- through them and into him, jarring his concentration and, very nearly, his arm, and it was only intensely disciplined reflexes that saved the stroke from complete ruination. For an instant, the insides of his skull were a jumble of perception and emotion not his own -- a flash of something silver, a flash of something green-gold-crimson, a breath of cold, surprise childlike delight a sudden stab of sorrow so intense it brought involuntary tears to his eyes and made Tombo keen softly --

Hanzo blinked the tears -- not his own -- out of his eyes, set his brush carefully aside, and briefly considered the stairs before deciding that swinging over the window ledge, sliding down the secondary roof, and climbing down the side of the dokhang was altogether more efficient, particularly once he shed a few layers of clothing. Fortunately, most of the tourists had already departed the courtyard; also fortunately, those that were left contented themselves with gawking and did nothing to impede him as he crossed the distance between the prayer hall and the monastery’s living quarters at a dead sprint. The cluster of human and omnic novices gathered in the dormitory’s central common hall was too small to be called a crowd, no more than a handful really, but they effectively screened the source of the distress that had cried out to him. Fortunately, they also knew, to a being, that it was generally best to get out of his way.

“Genji?”

His brother sat cross-legged in the middle of the common room floor in front of what looked, to his eye at least, like a fully decorated albeit miniature Christmas tree -- branches somehow frost-coated despite the relative warmth of the room, tiny ornaments glittering and, unless he was seriously mistaken, that was a Pachimaru sitting on the top, where an angel or a star ought to be. It was. A Pachimaru. Genji’s head was in his hands and his shoulders were quivering silently and there was a box sitting open on his lap. And not a single one of any of those things made the slightest trace of sense, taken individually or together, and so he knelt, and carefully placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder, firmly resisting the urge to shake something resembling an answer out of him before he was ready to provide it on his own.

It took some moments before Genji was ready to speak and, when he did, his voice was not steady, synthesized or not. “I -- My apologies, aniki. I did not mean to disturb you. But I...was not expecting this, in any way.”

“You did not disturb me.” Softly. “What has happened? Why -- “

Silently, Genji showed him the package. Inside, nestled carefully in a mass of impact-resistant wrap and neon green tissue paper, were a pair of hand-held game machines, one black with green fittings, the other black and red. Perplexed, Hanzo looked up and found his brother’s eyes swimming again with unshed tears and, before he had even the slightest chance to construct a reasonable interrogative about either, Genji’s head was resting in the crook of his neck and his shoulder. He did, at least, know what to do about that, and wrapped his brother close. It seemed to be the correct choice, for shortly thereafter Genji began to speak again, softly. “When I was...first recovering...the initial neuromechanical attunement was...complex. I could not walk reliably for weeks. I was confined to the medical research complex at Watchpoint Geneva for much of it. I was losing my mind from the boredom -- I was not yet allowed access to anything and then...one day...someone found out about it and decided enough was enough. And brought me these.” A pause. “Well, probably not these particularly since these are much newer but...the same thing. Something to distract me. To help with something that...simply made me feel better.” He could hear the smile, tremulous thought it might be, in his brother’s voice. “I can imagine that Jesse would think a monastery on the top of a mountain in the middle of the winter would be the very definition of madness-inducing boredom.”

“Jesse?” The word itched at the back of Hanzo’s mind, familiar for no good reason that he could name.

“Jesse McCree.” Genji pronounced that ridiculous surname with the ease of long familiarity. “A comrade in arms and a very dear friend.” A flicker of expression crossed his face, a welter of emotions mostly visible in his expressive eyes. “I have often wished -- “

“McCree.” Hanzo knew he was mangling it, and the uncontrollable twitch at the corner of Genji’s mouth confirmed it. “Are you certain this came from him?”

“It is extremely likely. He knew that Zenyatta and I would be here through the winter and his Christmas gifts in the past have been…” Genji gestured eloquently. “Not quite as elaborate as this, but always well-meant and heartfelt. He cannot be with us, and so instead sends the best that he can give.”

“Why?” Hanzo caught the tiny package Genji tossed at him and opened it to find it contained higashi, carefully shaped in the form of snowflakes, tinted blue and silver, and he decided in that instant whatever faults the absent friend might possess, bad taste was not among them.

“Not all of us joined, or left, with a clean slate.” Unspoken: Overwatch. “Jesse attempted to wipe his clean but circumstances conspired against him, then and now. He -- “

It clicked into place then -- suddenly and all at once, he knew where he had heard that name before, and in what context, and he forced his face empty of expression. “Genji.” He reached into the innermost pocket of his clothing and drew out his tablet, thumbed open the lock, scrolled through the most recent half-dozen of his contracts, made his selection, and handed it to his brother. “Is this your friend?”

Genji’s brows knit momentarily. “How -- ?” He looked, and read, and the last of the color fled the scarred skin of his face.

“Someone attempted to hire me to kill him before I came here.” Hanzo replied.

🌟

GreenCyborgNinjaDude has joined the conversation.

GreenCyborgNinjaDude: Does anyone know how to contact Jesse?

DeathFromAbove: LET ME GUESS. He sent you a TREE and EVERYTHING UNDER IT made you cry like a two year old?

WickedCuteButDeadly: I DID NOT CRY. We both cried, it’s not the same thing if everyone’s crying all at once.

DoNotHassleTheHoff: A case of the finest Schwarzbier, a currywurst sampler, and two tickets to the Hasselfest tribute concert next year. Tears were shed. MANLY TEARS.

SantasLittlestHelper: He remembered the names of all my children AND my wife AND somehow knew that I needed a new portable thermal anvil. I suspect a conspiracy.

DeathFromAbove: And Angela isn’t answering her phone --

GreenCyborgNinjaDude: My friends, please. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. Do ANY OF YOU have good contact information for him? The number I had now belongs to a very pleasant young woman who did not appear to speak any of the languages I know.

DeathFromAbove: Not I.

SantasLittlestHelper: Alas, no, or I’d have used it.

DoNotHassleTheHoff: Nein.

WickedCuteButDeadly: I was trying to get someone to cough it up earlier. Still think Angie’s our best bet but she’s not picking up or answering texts.

GreenCyborgNinjaDude: This is bad.

WickedCuteButDeadly: What’s the ish, Genji?

GreenCyborgNinjaDude: I have unfortunately excellent reason to believe that he is in danger. MORTAL danger.

DeathFromAbove: …

WickedCuteButDeadly: …

DoNotHassleTheHoff: …

SantasLittlestHelper: …

WickedCuteButDeadly: SPILL IT.

GreenCyborgNinjaDude: An...acquaintance...here in the monastery witnessed the arrival of my present and recognized Jesse’s name when I spoke of him, and indicated to me that he was offered a contract on Jesse’s life before he came to Nepal, but ultimately declined.

DeathFromAbove: An ACQUAINTANCE? At the MONASTERY?

GreenCyborgNinjaDude: It is a very long story. But I have no reason to doubt him or consider his information in any way not credible. The request came through a contract broker my acquaintance has worked with more than once in the past -- I have seen enough of the negotiation to know that, whoever made the request, they knew enough of Jesse’s service with Blackwatch to extend specific warning of his abilities. And they seem to know where he is going to be tonight.

WickedCuteButDeadly: TONIGHT?

GreenCyborgNinjaDude: Yes. The contractor seems to believe he will be at Arlington National Cemetery tonight.

WickedCuteButDeadly: IT’S CHRISTMAS!

DeathFromAbove: I’m pretty sure anybody willing to put out a hit on someone isn’t really going to care about that, Lena.

WickedCuteButDeadly: I KNOW that but -- it’s the PRINCIPLE of the thing! And at

DoNotHassleTheHoff: Gabriel’s grave. He is going to visit Gabriel’s grave.

DeathFromAbove: I’m trying Angela again. Is there anybody in the eastern United States right now? ANYBODY?

WickedCuteButDeadly: If we took off from Gibraltar RIGHT NOW it would take us at least eleven hours to get there -- we couldn’t cruise at commercial air altitude -- and we can’t take off right now, I’d have to fuel up for a long-haul flight and run preflight checks and

DeathFromAbove: I’m closer and I’m still not close enough, Lena. It’s not your fault. Angela, please, please pick up.

🌟

Genji was distraught. That, alone, was astonishing -- Genji, as a young adult, had been charismatic, effortlessly charming to all except the eldest and most hidebound members of the clan, almost casually lethal with everything from blades to the edge of his tongue, and as utterly self-absorbed as it was possible to be. Hanzo, then, had thought he could count the number of people his brother actually cared about on the fingers of one hand, if that, and rarely considered himself among the number.

Hanzo, now, had more than one reason to reevaluate his judgment. He had not anticipated, when he made his decision to follow Genji to Nepal and make the attempt to reconcile all that had passed between them, that he would witness his brother in fear for the life of another. It occupied the precise space between astonishing and heartwrenching and Hanzo, for the first time in a long time, had no idea how to react.

“There must be something that can be done,” Genji muttered, on his sixth pass around the perimeter of the dormitory common room, now cleared of random bystanders by the order of the abbott, who had sent senior monks to shoo them back to their own neglected tasks. He was dialing another number that could, in theory, be used to contact Dr. Angela Ziegler who, it seemed, could be anywhere from Zurich to some godforsaken war zone without even the most basic communication service; the woman did not, apparently, even take holidays off and she was, in the estimation of all, the most likely to know how to reach Jesse McCree. Thus far, no one had managed to raise her.

His brother was, at most, sixteen seconds away from literally climbing the walls in his anxiety, for which Hanzo could not at all blame him. A discreet nibble around the edges to his intermediary had yielded the information that the contract was no longer available -- not cancelled but accepted and closed to further interested parties. That was, in his estimation, no good news whatsoever, given that he had been directly and personally approached for the matter. His particular skills, areas of expertise, and reputation placed him among fairly rarified company in the loose and not especially friendly society of freelance killers-for-hire; he could think of three who could reasonably be considered his equals and only one his superior and none whom he would wish to bet against in matters of life or death.

Genji uttered a number of uncomplimentary things under his breath in Japanese and came to a halt, folding into a place at his side, deliberately and carefully setting down his phone between them. Hanzo rather thought he wanted to throw it, either against the nearest wall or off the side of the mountain, and that impression was confirmed an instant later as Genji flexed his hands, his wrists, flicked weapons from beneath the armor his forearms, between his fingers, and then back into their housing, nothing about the gesture bleeding any tension from the set of his shoulders, the length of his body. “Hanzo.”

“Suzume.” He rested his hand on Genji’s shoulder and could not miss the shudder that passed through him.

“Please tell me that he will survive this.” It emerged as a whisper, barely given voice at all.

It was on the tip of his tongue to utter a comforting lie. He was spared the necessity of making it sound convincing by a soft chiming, almost as of bells, and an equally quiet voice. “My apologies, Shimada-san. It was not my intention to interrupt.”

Genji took a ragged breath. “Master.”

“Tekhartha.” Hanzo inclined his head slightly in greeting. “No apology is necessary, and your company is welcome.”

It was only a slight overstatement; Genji found his deepest comfort in the companionship of his mentor, and comfort was what his brother needed more than anything but a solution right now. Tekhartha Zenyatta, hovering in the doorway yet, bowed from the neck and floated to Genji’s side. In his wake, the senior Shambali monk acting as the monastery’s abbot also entered the hall and, if it were possible for machines to look thoroughly and utterly uncomfortable, Hanzo would have used those words to describe his posture, the set of his spine.

“It was not my intention to interrupt,” Zenyatta continued in that same perfectly modulated voice, the one that he adopted when he was strenuously controlling the urge to allow the direction of his thoughts to show in his tone, “but I feel that I must do so. It has been brought to my attention,” out of the corner of his eye, Hanzo swore he saw the omnic abbot actually flinch slightly, “that we have at our disposal a means of reaching your friend more swiftly than we thought.”

Tekhartha Zenyatta turned what had to be the most heavily weighted look Hanzo had ever witnessed between two omnics on his brother, the abbot, who responded with a low, deep bow -- to Zenyatta, to Genji, and, peripherally, to himself. When he spoke, his voice was also a carefully expressionless tone. “Some months ago, after much discussion among the elder siblings in residence here in Shambali,” the faintest hint of reproach colored residence, Hanzo thought, “it was decided that we required a more reliable method of transport into and out of the monastery in the event of an emergency -- physical danger to the community in the form of attack, or an inability to resupply by our ordinary methods due to weather. We therefore entered into a contract with the Vishkar Corporation to meet our needs in this regard.”

“What Brother Dzasatta is trying to say,” Zenyatta cut in, coolly, “is that the monastery is now equipped with an active short range telestation.”

“What.” It was not actually a question and Genji surged to his feet in a sinuous motion that, only barely, remembered to turn into a bow. “Brother Dzasatta, may we -- “

“Yes. Yes, you may.” The poor abbott sounded as though it gave him enormous pain just to say it and Hanzo could not help but wonder how many arms Zenyatta had to twist, and with how much enthusiasm, to achieve that permission. “We have already calculated your route. Our telestation is not powerful enough to reach the United States directly -- you will have to transit in stages, from here to Tehran, Tehran to Istanbul, Istanbul to Madrid, and Madrid to Washington, DC. The arrangements have already been made but you must depart soon.”

“Thank you, elder brother.” Genji bowed again, lower this time, and then turned to him. “Aniki, I must -- “

“I know.” Hanzo rose. “Give me a moment to change and retrieve my case and I will -- “

The force of his brother’s embrace lifted him entirely off the floor.

🌟

Columbarium Court Nine would, in any other place, have been a cemetery all by itself, a long fully walled quadruple rectangle of elegantly designed and expertly tended landscaping, the perfectly flat-cobbled lanes between the niche walls kept clear of snow in the winter and leaves in the autumn and blowing blossoms from the flowering trees in the spring, the marble benches discreetly placed just so in the central memorial garden, around the fountain, for mourners to sit and collect themselves, before or after or both. Since it was sitting in Arlington National Cemetery, it just happened to have the distinction of being the largest of several of its kind, originally part of an expansion intended to extend the useful life of the cemetery, and then expanded twice more in the years since its construction, home to sixty thousand inurnment niches, about half of which were in use. By day it was the very image of martial, commemoratory solemnity, row upon row of variegated gray stone walls faced in gleaming white memorial plaques, surrounded outside in row upon row of headstones and monuments and, in at least a few places, something vaguely resembling a serious attempt at security fencing, mostly around the places where, paradoxically, people were supposed to enter the grounds.

Jesse McCree had been to Arlington National Cemetery exactly once by daylight and the occasion still resided under the heading of the Worst Day of My Life in his memory, only dragged out and examined under duress or too much terrible whiskey in the middle of the night or some combination of the two. Subsequently, he kept his visits confined to those hours when he was distinctly unlikely to encounter another living being -- well after official closing time, far after dark, and he never bothered hopping one of the more properly fency fences while it was possible to jump off the top of the last metro train of the evening, over the significantly lower back-end fence along the tracks, and walk the rest of the way under the cover of night and the thin copses of trees still left standing along the perimeter. It was particularly possible that night: bitter cold and dark, the moon a brushstroke crescent hanging low in the west, the rest of the sky an empty arch of light pollution that offered no help to unenhanced eyes. He had a flashlight clipped to his belt for the parts of the walk that lay outside the nimbus of the security lamps scattered along the main thoroughfares, routes he generally avoided, in any case -- the grounds weren’t patrolled, but there was always a full guard complement on station, rotating on and off watch at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier through the night. And, once he was inside the outer wall of the Columbarium, through the arch of the ungated gate, he had no need, could find his way to where he was going without eyes if necessary.

Overwatch had its own monument, plunked down on one of the plots set aside for the memorialization of future disasters, immediately next to the significantly larger one dedicated to all the victims of the Omnic Crisis, civilian, military, and otherwise. One of them was, in fact, a columbarium in its own right, laid out in the form of the organization’s insignia, Morrison’s nonstandard gravestone beneath which his ashes were interred dead center, and every former member of Overwatch who had also first been a member of the American armed forces had the at least theoretical right to be buried there. In practice, “anyone” included a specific exclusion, for the obvious reasons, particularly when the six layers of international and domestic bureaucratic fuckery involved in the decisions related to who got to rest where could veto each other and reject requests for reconsideration until Hell froze over solidly. The Marine Corps, by way of contrast, had authorized Silvia Reyes’ request on behalf of her late brother without hesitation -- Major Gabriel Reyes had, after all, saved the entire goddamned world while still under their colors and, even if the rest of his service record was so classified God himself wasn’t rated high enough to access it, that was something they never forgot for one minute.

Gabe’s niche was in the newer segment of Court Nine, in one of the alcoves at the far end of the whole structure, a quiet and secluded little spot equipped with its own sculpted marble bench and a little patch of garden around the base of a wide-spreading sakura, currently winter bare, a bit of ice clinging to its corners. The plaque wasn’t quite centered in the back wall but it was at least still mostly aligned with the bench, more or less at eye level, polished white marble incised with his name and final rank, Omnic Crisis, two dates nowhere near far enough apart, You Are Not Forgotten. Silvia and Lorena always came in the summer, on his birthday, to make sure the plaque was tended and to lay flowers; he always came at Christmas, by mutual agreement, to lay the wreath.

The wreath, this year, was tiny, a braided confection of evergreen and holly made by the same former client who’d constructed the trees, strung through with strands of beaded garland in black, white, red, and came with a hook small enough to hang on the lip of the plaque. He fussed with it a bit until it looked just right. “Been awhile, shizhé’é’. Got quite a bit to catch you up on.”

The glass and the bottle wrapped up in his pockets had come through the jump-off-the-train-and-roll routine without a scratch, fortunately, though both were warmer than they’d been when he set out. He cracked the seal and a scent more in common with summer filled the cold air, cherries and almonds, the liquor clear as it poured, the kirschwasser he’d developed a taste for while living in Switzerland. It wasn’t sweet, which Jesse had always thought completely defeated the point of drinking something that tasted like cherries, and he had never gotten even slightest buzz from it, because there wasn’t a booze on Earth strong enough to overcome his super-science-enhance metabolism, but he’d loved the flavor and thus the cemetery caretakers had acquired an encyclopedic collection of fine European lifewaters over the years. He left both the glass and the bottle sitting on the bench next to him.

“You remember how I told you last year that Ylva was pregnant out to here and we were all making bets on when she’d pop? Well, she didn’t make it two weeks past New Year and guess what? They finally did it. Gabriel Matthias Lindholm.” A smile curled one corner of his mouth. “I understand he’s already a precocious little troublemaker who escaped his bassinet Mission Impossible style before he was eight months old so your legacy is in good hands.”

Somebody wasn’t moving as quietly as they could have -- that was an unmistakably distinct scrape of boots on stone. Jesse reached down and unclipped his spurs, tucking them into a pocket.

“Lena finally stopped dodging long enough to actually get asked on a date -- they moved in together last month. And, yeah, it was the one Angie spent two years trying to set her up with. Two years. You’d think she’d have eventually given up but noooo.”

He unclipped a stun grenade from his belt, thumbed it over to maximum yield on the flash, minimum on the bang, and deactivated the micro electromagnetic pulse generator entirely, because he didn’t need even minor twitch issues with his arm right now. The yahoo -- or, more likely, yahoos -- dithering on just the other side of the alcove wall weren’t likely to dither for much longer and so he set the timer for fifteen seconds, boosted himself up the outside wall with just a slight gravity anchor assist, waited for them to round the corner, dropped into the alcove they had just vacated, and shielded his eyes. The detonation wasn’t quite as impressive as it would have been if he’d left everything cranked as high as it could go and, even so, it was more than sufficient for the purpose to which he’d put it -- the pair of would-be assailants, one big, the other bigger, staggering around the alcove in visibly disoriented anguish were wearing night vision gear. Jesse indulged in an infinitesimally tiny amount of pity for perhaps a tenth of a second before he introduced Big’s head to the edge of the alcove partition wall with force sufficient to break a few of the more delicate bones in his face and robbed Bigger of the remains of his senses and the free use of his jaw with a firmly to-the-point left. The echoes of the grenade’s sonic component were still propagating across the rolling fields of the cemetery as they hit the ground and if that didn’t poke a stick into the honor guard relief quarters and swish it around a few times, nothing would, and that gave him little time to work.

Big was carrying a heavy shock baton, one of the new school tasers hung heavy enough to work on an omnic or a cybernetically enhanced human, and a pepper-box muzzled sidearm whose ammo looked more like a reinforced hypodermic needle than a standard flechette. Bigger had one of those, too, and another baton, and a couple cylinders he knew for a fact were area-of-effect neurodisruption ordnance. “This is a goddamned cemetery. And it’s Christmas. You couldn’t wait for me to walk out?”

He tossed both the flechette guns and their extra ammo over the far wall, with the hope that they would meet their end under the wheels of a passing truck or at the very least not end up pointed at him. He slid both shock batons through his belt, the taser in the pocket not containing his spurs, and briefly considered the neurodisruptor grenades before the quiet hiss of static caught his attention. Bigger had a still-active comm in his ear and a bit of attention lent to it gave him the knowledge that his present companions were not alone (too much to ask for), there were at least six other teams of two positioned at strategic points (the entrances/exits, the major cross lanes), and two of them were being sent to investigate What the Hell That Was. Jesse cheerfully decided he knew what he was going to do with the neuro grenades.

The best and worst aspects of the Columbarium were one and the same. The pathways were wide and open, particularly the main thoroughfares running through the midline and up both sides, easily traversed when searching for a grave, obstruction-free fields of fire in the admittedly not planned for instance of the place turning into a combat zone. The niche walls themselves varied in altitude, from little more than waist high (good enough for cover in a pinch) to the overhead gate caps at least ten feet off the ground (perfect platforms for enfilading fire). Staying low yielded some advantages, but not enough. Jesse detached the night vision goggles from Bigger’s face and used the last of the charge in his gravity anchor to retake the high ground, hugging close to the outside wall as he put healthy distance between himself and the initial point of contact, scanning across the visible territory through the night vision goggles, careful not to look directly at any of the security lights.

There was the team he arbitrarily chose to call Dumbass One and Dumbass Two, approaching from the central memorial garden in staggered order. From what he could see, hunkered down in the shadow of one of the enormous memorial trees growing along the Columbarium perimeter, Dumbass One was carrying a flechette gun at the ready and Dumbass Two had a taser in hand, both had a baton, arguing for organization and standardized equipage, and yet no recognizable insignia. He swept the upper levels, found no one hanging out up top with him, or at the very least no one visible. He moved, quickly, because D1 and D2 were about to discover the present he’d left sitting on the trussed-with-their-own-MOLLE-webbing colleagues in Gabe’s alcove. The subsequent involuntary screaming was, indeed, music to his ears and also helped cover the largely unintentional noises he made jumping between outer wall and niche wall and then scrambling up to the top of the gate.

Something was going down at the far edge of the enclosure beyond the central garden -- he caught a flicker of movement between the walls, there and gone again before he could properly focus on it, a strangled, choked-off cry in the distance. Beyond that: headlights coming down one of the internal access roads, a hoverjeep no doubt carrying a team of honor guards off rotation coming to investigate the brouhaha, which officially made cutting and running the least morally defensible of his options -- if he hadn’t been there, neither would Dumbasses One through Twelve, and whoever was in that vehicle would be spending a long, boring winter’s night freezing their asses off or recovering from the same, not in danger of strolling into the middle of a fight with opponents armed to, at the very least, mess their central nervous systems up good and proper.

Fortunately, it looked like D1 and D2 had been the team assigned to cover the central garden, with its low enclosing wall and an exit into the rest of the cemetery on each side, and no one else had moved in yet to replace them. Or, if they had, that team hadn’t made it yet; he waited, tensely, feeling acutely exposed in his present perch while he watched for his most recent victims’ backup to arrive and received nothing for the effort. Whatever was going on at the far side had migrated to the east, close to the furthest gate; he could hear, just at the edge of range aided by the Columbarium’s accoustics, the faint thwipthwipthwipthwip of semiautomatic flechette fire. Running footsteps, approaching quickly, and he dropped flat against the top of the gate, watched arbitrarily assigned Dumbass Three and Four running down the narrow corridor between the outer wall of the Columbarium and the inner wall of the garden, foregoing the exit and sprinting almost directly towards him. He unclipped a second stun grenade and lobbed it as they came in range, flash and sonics both fully engaged, pulled off the goggles and covered up.

Dumbass Three was having trouble keeping on their feet, blind and deaf and off-balance after catching a face full of less-lethal ordnance. Dumbass Four was clinging helplessly to the edge of the garden wall. Jesse dropped off the side of the gate, landed in a roll, came up swinging with one of the shock batons, and caught D3 under the chin; the impact was almost disconcertingly satisfying as was the solid thud as they landed in a senseless heap. “Seriously. Christmas. In a cemetery. What is wrong with you people?”

D4 collected a sharp blow to the gut and folded, which he found somewhat surprising, before he realized they were already wounded, ballistic armor smeared with tacky blood and something long and thin jutting out of the shoulder joint. An arrow. An arrow that had cleanly pierced armor specifically designed to prevent just that eventuality. Of all the evening’s surprises that was, he decided, probably the most surprising thus far.

The distinctive pop of military standard-issue small arms fire joined the second round of echoes and the ongoing flechette thwipping and he filed armor-piercing arrows, provenance unknown under things to investigate once he was closer to the action. He took a moment to make certain D3 and D4 wouldn’t get back up without assistance and ducked into the garden corridor, keeping low and moving quickly. Up ahead, the sound of caps popping grew more frequent and more widely spread. On the far side of the cemetery, the Old Post Chapel’s belltower began sounding the hour in low pealing tolls and, beneath it, he heard the sharply echoing bark of a rifle firing, from above and behind.

🌟

“That may have been one of Jesse’s stun grenades,” Genji remarked in an undertone, as they crouched together in the deepest available pool of shadow, watching as armed and armored individuals took up station at strategic points throughout the cemetery.

A moment before, an intensely brilliant flash lit the far southern end of the Columbarium and a not insignificant portion of the sky above it; even as far away as they were, Hanzo was still blinking after-images out of his eyes after a single unwary glance. More worrisome were the echoes of the detonation, which would no doubt be audible for some distance. “I suspect, then, that he has made contact.”

“No doubt.” Once again, he could hear the smile in his brother’s voice and it was not a kindly one. “Shall we make the odds somewhat more even?”

“A moment.” Hanzo closed his eyes, pressed the tips of two fingers to his brow, and silently bespoke Zentatsu and Mizuchi, where they coiled within his flesh and soul, begging the aid of their clarity of vision. When he opened them again, it was as though the night had fled, replaced by a flat and shadowless stormlight that dispelled the advantage of darkness. He murmured his thanks and turned an unkind smile of his own in Genji’s direction. “Right or left?”

“Left.” Genji was up and over their concealing wall with a speed that exceeded even his own dragon-enhanced vision, little more than a flicker of motion briefly silhouetted against the sky.

He waited for the soft but unmistakable sounds of Genji introducing himself to the pair guarding the southern entrance before leaving the alcove himself, clinging close to the outer wall until he drew even with the next team, one to a side along the midline thoroughfare, crouched and waiting for something to come in their direction. Neither saw him, dressed to blend into the darkness and indistinct in a way that deceived the eye, even one equipped with night vision enhancements; he climbed the wall and slid forward on his belly to observe them at closer range. Ballistic armor, including what looked to be a military-grade helmet, night vision gear, communication equipment. Their sidearms looked too boxy for a silencer or flash suppression, and they were both carrying a baton of some kind. His curiosity itched, and he scratched it by firing a scatter arrow directly between them, flechettes radiating out from the point of impact in multiplying waves. The one closest to him fell with a howl of anguish, pinned to the ground; the further fell silently, with at least two slender shafts jutting from their throat. Hanzo dropped behind the howler and gave him peace and the world silence. He gathered up the gun and the baton and made good his escape before the running footsteps he heard approaching could reach his position, retreating to a spot atop the outside wall where he could both watch the pathways and examine his acquisitions.

The gun was a flechette pistol, which explained the boxy design, but the entire thing felt heavier than the weapons of that type with whom he was acquainted. He ejected the magazine and then a clip of the darts, found them to be substantially beyond standard, a projectile hypodermic flechette, reservoir filled with a clear liquid. He snapped a picture with his phone, making certain to catch the serial number engraved on the side of the dart, and sent it to Tekhartha Zenyatta, on station with their getaway vehicle. Tekhartha, please identify if possible.

The baton also modified -- weighted normally enough, sufficient to break unenhanced bone and pulverize unenhanced flesh, but also equipped with a shock generator heavy enough to overcome omnic, or cybernetically enhanced human, neuromechanical surge protection. He reached up and keyed the comm. “Genji, be careful. At least some of these creatures are armed with weapons that can harm you despite your armor.”

“Thank you, aniki.” Genji sounded slightly breathless and Hanzo glanced back in the direction he had come, concerned. “Be aware that our friends have brought more reinforcements than we originally suspected and also a team from Fort Myer has arrived to investigate.”

“Do you require my assistance?” Hanzo tucked the pistol into a jacket pocket and slid the baton into his belt, half-turning as he did so.

“No.” And now it sounded as though he were breathless with laughter. “I have the situation under control. Find Jesse -- if any proper soldiers reach him first, we may have to do something...regrettable.”

“As you wish.” He slipped his bow off his shoulder and nocked an arrow, arming the scattershot as he did so, and sped along the top of the outside wall as quickly as he could without compromising his balance. To his right, the midlane remained clear as he passed a second set of internal gates, to his left, something flickered in the corner of his eye, movement.

Hanzo stopped, spun, and snap-fired -- connecting, to his annoyance, with nothing. The arrow passed cleanly through empty air and came to rest somewhere amid the field of gravestones opposite the Columbarium and the access road running between. He remained in place for a moment, intensely still and watchful, waiting for whatever he had glimpsed to show itself.

Behind him, someone screamed. It was a brief, abortive, choked off thing followed shortly thereafter by a storm of semiautomatic flechette fire -- it sounded like more than one gun -- and running footsteps rapidly approaching his position. He nocked another arrow and waited, drawn to the ear, and loosed the instant the first target crossed into view. The arrow punched cleanly through the shoulder joint of their armor and they stumbled, half-falling and half-dragged by their partner as they both fled. A gust of something, a dark mist moving against the faint breeze, flowed down the midlane in pursuit and Hanzo followed as swiftly as he dared.

Ahead, the night dissolved into another intense burst of light, one he was spared by the grace of the dragons, and far more intense burst of sound -- loud enough to make his ears ring, even at a distance, not enough to affect his sense of balance. He leapt across the outside lane to the top of a niche wall, ran its length, and dropped into the midline, attempting to get a better look at what was going on up ahead. The garden wall was low enough to see over, barely, as he ran in that direction and he caught intermittent glimpses of a scuffle taking place before the gate that opened into the southern end of the Columbarium, someone ducking into the corridor passing the front wall of the garden, the muzzle-flash from atop the gate and the report of a single high-caliber gunshot.

Hanzo went over the garden wall even as the shooter dropped from the gate, its form slim and sleek and dark in a manner that suggested engineering rather than armor. He crossed the garden at a dead sprint, arrow already on the bowstring, and as he came through the gate, he fired point-blank at the shooter’s center of mass, once, twice, before he rolled out of the immediate line of fire, explosive heads that knocked it back and forced it to give up the shot it was about to take. Its target lay in the garden corridor, a pool of blood spreading across the paving stones, shuddering helplessly in a way that suggested a seizure in progress. He came back up over the wall, the last of his explosive arrows nocked, just in time to find the shooter regaining its feet -- an omnic most definitely, nothing purely human, even an armored human, would have shrugged off those hits that quickly -- reaching for a cylinder at its hip, hurling it at him. Hanzo fired to intercept it at the peak of its arc and dove flat; the neurodisruptor pulse spent itself on nothing as it triggered in midair and he rolled to his feet, reaching for a scatter arrow.

The shooter fled across the narrow court separating the garden wall from the gate, and regained its previous perch in a single prodigious leap. To his surprise, it did not turn back -- did not even attempt to do so, leaping to the top of the next niche wall and sprinting across the rows in long, loping strides. He watched until it vanished out of immediate view, dropping below the level of the walls, and then turned his attention to its target.

He was scruffier than the pictures in the file sent along with the contract information, his beard and hair longer and less tamed, but still recognizable as the man he had nearly been hired to kill. His upper left chest was a mass of blood-soaked cloak and shredded outer jacket, the wound itself concealed in layers of clothing, but the shooter had clearly not missed. And he was seizing, his muscles spasming convulsively, the tension half-lifting his back off the ground, face contorted with pain, desperate sounds that were almost words coming out of his mouth. Hanzo knelt at his side, caught his face between his hands, and, with an effort that he felt in his own flesh, Jesse McCree forced himself to meet his gaze and rasped out, “Arm.”

McCree’s left arm was a known cybernetic enhancement and at that moment it lay at his side, unmoving, fingers locked in an involuntarily contorted claw. He felt along the edge of the skull plate and found the switch concealed there, popped open the diagnostic panel, reading red across the board with multiple neuromechanical system failures, and pressed the emergency disengage switches in sequence. The joint sealed and locked, the arm itself disengaged with a series of audible metallic clicks, and the muscular convulsions slowed almost immediately, finally stopped entirely as Hanzo lifted him, gathered him around the chest, and bodily pulled him into the garden, behind the fountain basin. It wasn’t the best possible cover but it was still better than none and it allowed him to prop McCree up as he sliced away the blood-soaked over-cape and the heavy suede-and-fleece jacket beneath. With both gone, the blood flowed freely across the ballistic armor he wore under them, armor that had been broken from beneath by a high caliber, high velocity armor-piercing round that punched through it completely, taking a divot of flesh and bone and muscle the size of a large man’s fist with it. Hanzo saw, amid the mass of pulped flesh and shattered bone, strands of broken neuromechanical control wire, the feedback from which must have caused the seizure. McCree coughed, and wheezed, trying to draw enough breath to speak and another pulse of blood flowed out of the wound, frothed with air bubbles. Hanzo hit the disengage switches on the remaining shoulder joint and both side panels, lifted the armor away as gently as he could; the sounds that escaped his patient were completely involuntary.

Hanzo reached up and activated his comm. “Genji, I have him but he is badly injured. We are in the central garden.”

McCree’s throat worked silently for a moment as Hanzo opened the pouch in which he carried his own medical supplies, inadequate though they might be to this task, and began searching for something large enough to serve as a proper compression dressing. A little sound escaped him as Hanzo pressed one of the sleeves of his own jacket over the site and bound it as best he could with knots and a length of sterile bandage wrapped around to keep it in place.

“Genji?” He croaked.

“Yes.” Hanzo slipped out of his own coat and wrapped it around McCree as best he could -- the man was broader across both chest and shoulders than he, but he had no other means of warming him, and silently cursed the lack of an emergency blanket among his gear.

“Shimada.” It took all of his breath to properly aspirate the syllables and Hanzo pressed a hand to his chest.

“Yes.” Gently. “Be still. Save your strength and your breath. He will be here soon and we will...make certain you are properly cared for.”

He was in no way certain that was true. He knew, from many years of long experience, what a sucking chest wound looked like, suspected mordantly that the heavens would not favor making this one clean or uncomplicated, knew that the longer it took to bring him comprehensive medical attention the greater the chance of his death from shock or cardiorespiratory collapse. Knew also that saving this man’s life greatly exceeded his skills. He pressed close to his unwounded side, the best to share body heat, resting one hand against the curve of his throat to monitor his heart-rate (high, fast, with pain and adrenaline), watched the shape of his chest for signs of a collapsing lung.

McCree took three ragged breaths, in and out, and rasped, “Who?”

Hanzo glanced up, found dark eyes hugely dilated with pain fixed on his face. “Hanzo. At your service. Please, do not speak.”

He looked, for an instant, like he might try to argue that point -- and then his gaze shifted upwards, and his lips parted in a pained, more than slightly bloodstained smile. Genji landed almost precisely at his side, soundless and apparently none the worse for the evening’s exertions. “Jesse.”

“I just told him to save his breath,” Hanzo remarked, with some asperity.

“Heya...li’l brother,” McCree wheezed. “Long time...no see.”

“Perhaps I should save mine.” Hanzo flicked a glance over his shoulder. “Pursuit?”

“Napping.” Genji held up one of the flechette pistols with the tip of one finger, the gesture a thing of ineffable disdain. “Experimental sedation rounds -- the serial number you sent my master matches a lot stolen from a cargo hypertrain last month. I summoned assistance for the soldiers, at least, and my master should be here -- “

A sleek, nondescript sedan pulled up immediately opposite the garden entrance, the rear door cycled open, and the driver’s side window came down, Tekhartha Zenyatta peering owlishly out at them. “Please hurry. Another group of soldiers has been deployed and I suspect we should make good our departure before they arrive.”

Together they lifted and together they carried, McCree biting down on his gloved right hand to hold in any sounds of pain, and in such a way did Hanzo find himself sitting in the car they had stolen upon their arrival at Vishkar’s Washington DC telestation with a bloody cowboy propped against his chest. Fortunately, there was an emergency blanket in the vehicle’s First Aid case and, perhaps even more fortunately, the wrapper was large enough to lay over the worst part of the wound with enough whole flesh around it to tape it in place. One of Zenyatta’s spheres joined them in the back and hovered over McCree’s chest, shedding warm and soothing golden radiance as it did so. The desperate edge to McCree’s breathing eased somewhat, his head fell back against Hanzo’s shoulder, and his eyes flickered shut as exhaustion claimed his senses. Hanzo kept a hand wrapped around his wrist, fingers on the pulse-point. “Where can we take him?”

He could feel the helplessness in Genji’s gaze as he looked back at them. “I...do not know. If we take him to the hospital…” The thought trailed away into things that they both knew would happen. “I am going to message Lena for their ETA and then we can -- “

“My student,” Zenyatta was behind the wheel of the vehicle, carefully navigating them through Christmas Eve traffic. “Something is...happening.”

“Master?” Genji looked up from his phone, perplexity clear in his tone.

“Something is attempting -- “ A pause, a brief burst of sound that Hanzo was tempted to call a gasp. “Something has ejected me from the vehicle’s control systems.”

Hanzo’s hand flew to the manual door latch, only to find it locked. Genji swore, short and explosive, as he made a similar discovery, and all of Zenyatta’s spheres chimed a single high-pitched tone of alarm. Then, the vehicle’s onboard sound system activated itself, and the console navigation panel flickered, flashing a lurid electric purple overlaid with a stylized white skull icon, its nose an inverted heart; the voice that came over the speakers belonged to the vehicle’s GPS navigation system. “Whatever you do right now, do this one thing: do not panic.”

“Who are you?” Hanzo demanded, reaching up to steady McCree’s head where it rested, as the vehicle maneuvered through traffic at a rather higher rate of speed; a sign for hyperlane access sped past on the right.

“Consider me a contractor.” A warm little chuckle in the navigation system’s sexless contralto. “I’ve been hired by a not exactly neutral third party to make sure you and your cargo make a clean getaway and reach a place where you can hunker down in reasonable safety. So, if you want my advice -- and, I assure you, you want my advice -- don’t entertain any heroic foolishness for the next couple hours, sit back, and enjoy the ride. So long you make sure the dumbass vaquero doesn’t bleed to death or hack out a lung, we’ll be golden, and the rest will be up to you once you get where you’re going. Agreeable?”

“If it were not agreeable?” Genji growled.

“Oh, well, in that case,” The navigation system replied cheerfully, “I’d pulse some sonics through the vehicle’s entertainment system that would render you all unpleasantly senseless and you’d still go where I’m taking you, only you’d get there with a skullfucking headache and maybe a dead cowboy. Seriously, the speakers in this thing are incredible.” Hanzo felt one, just behind his back, vibrating at a decidedly threatening pitch. “Your pick.”

“Agreed,” Hanzo snapped, before Genji could intervene. “Where are you taking us?”

“I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you. Seriously...just relax, and make sure he doesn’t die. All I ask.”

The vehicle peeled off onto the hyperlane, headed west.

🌟

GreenCyborgNinjaDude: We have him but he is severely injured.

DeathFromAbove: HOW severely? We’ll be leaving for the airport in a minute, btw, might be without good service for a bit while Dad and I are on the road.

GreenCyborgNinjaDude: It would be best if my master describes it, he is monitoring Jesse’s condition.

PeaceLoveAndBalance has joined the conversation.

PeaceLoveAndBalance: Greetings and thank you for permitting me access.

ATHENA: You are entirely welcome, Tekhartha.

WickedCuteButDeadly: What’s the word? Winston, Em, and I are inbound and we’ve got one of those mobile life support pods loaded in the passenger compartment. Incidentally, I hope nobody’s carrying too much gear.

DeathFromAbove:...Weren’t those experimental?

PeanutButterIsLife: They’re significantly less experimental than they were. Tekhartha?

PeaceLoveAndBalance: Briefly, he was shot from behind by an individual using a sniper rifle, firing high caliber, high velocity ammunition. He was hit between and to the left of the first through third thoracic vertebrae, just above the upper edge of his ballistic armor. He has suffered significant injury to both the trapezus and pectoralis major muscle groups, the brachial nerve plexus including the neuromechanical attachments to his left arm, the left scapula, the left clavicle, the left acromioclavicular joint and ligament, the glenohumeral ligament, the second rib and costal cartilage, and the upper left lobe of his lung. He was respiring abnormally when we found him but has responded well to our efforts to treat that particular injury and his lung is not in danger of collapsing at this time. He has, however, lost a great deal of blood, which we have no means of replenishing, and he is still bleeding internally -- slowly, I can personally assure that much. But we are maintaining him in a state of shock, at best, and he requires more care than we can provide in our current circumstances.

WickedCuteButDeadly: I hear you. What’s your present position?

GreenCyborgNinjaDude: That...is an excellent question. We are not entirely certain ourselves.

WickedCuteButDeadly: What.

DeathFromAbove: I’m with Lena. What?

GreenCyborgNinjaDude: Our vehicle has sort of been hijacked.

WickedCuteButDeadly:...

DeathFromAbove:...

PeanutButterIsLife:...

ATHENA:..

DeathFromAbove: Explain this to me using small words and diagrams.

PeaceLoveAndBalance: As we were departing the Washington DC metropolitan area, an external force ejected me from our vehicle’s navigational systems and seized control. It was not...violent, per se, but it was extremely swift and thorough and brooked no resistance on my part. We have been proceeding under its control since.

GreenCyborgNinjaDude: We’re travelling through the mountains west of the city, heading south.

WickedCuteButDeadly:...

DeathFromAbove:...

PeanutButterIsLife:...

ATHENA:...

PeanutButterIsLife:...Are you saying that, in addition to everything else, you three have been KIDNAPPED? By parties unknown? Is that what you’re telling us?

GreenCyborgNinjaDude: Sort of? Whoever they are, they helped us get away -- in fact, they told us they were hired by an interested third party to make sure we got away and would reach a safe place for your arrival. Admittedly, we do not know where that is yet.

WickedCuteButDeadly: OKAY, THEN.

GreenCyborgNinjaDude: I am so sorry, Lena.

WickedCuteButDeadly: No no no, don’t be sorry. I made certain all the fuel tanks were loaded to capacity before we left and the backup solar cells are fully charged. Just...lemme know your final coordinates as soon as you’ve got them out and we’ll...figure things out from there!

DeathFromAbove: You are going to owe her all the booze, Genji. The GOOD stuff. And me. All of it.

GreenCyborgNinjaDude: I am poignantly aware of that, yes.

MercyMercyMe has joined the conversation.

MercyMercyMe: I’m sorry, everyone, I just woke up -- it has been a terribly busy last few days. What is going on?

🌟

In the front seat of the car, Genji uttered a sound that, even synthesized, could not be mistaken for anything but a moan of absolute despair. Zenyatta reached over and laid a comforting hand on his student’s shoulder; he leaned into the touch in a manner that suggested he had forgotten, for at least a moment, that they were not alone in the vehicle.

Hanzo declined to remind them, partly watching the scenery as it passed, mostly attending to his charge, who was drifting in and out of consciousness and occasionally making sounds that were almost words. McCree was, at the moment, still and silent and the view outside the window consisted entirely of dark, dense forest with occasional glimpses of overcast sky, the leading edge of a storm according to his phone’s weather app. Even more occasionally he caught a glimpse of ruddy light pollution staining the bottom of those clouds, though at present is was oppressively dark, the road lined in stands of enormous evergreens that screened the view as effectively as a wall. A glance at his phone showed him they were still heading generally southward, now tending somewhat more west; the road wended along the side of a heavily forested mountain, one of a dozen twisty lanes they had followed since leaving the hyperlane an hour before. They had, in fact, only remained on the high-speed, fully-automated-vehicles-only interstate long enough to put a hard burst of distance between themselves and the city and turned off as soon as pragmatically possible -- not the least, he suspected, because the hyperlanes were heavily monitored by law enforcement.

Their navigator had, in general, declined to explain their thinking, ignoring questions in general in favor of switching through a series of radio stations exclusively playing Christmas music and actively refusing them access to a newsfeed. Hanzo managed to find one on his phone, displaying luridly melodramatic streaming text suggesting that a left-wing domestic terrorist cell was clearly responsible for desecrating America’s most hallowed cemetery on the very eve of Christianity’s most important holiday, and he clicked it off, satisfied by the lack of immediate association with Jesse’s rather too notable name.

Jesse chuckled softly, the sound more cough than laughter.

“You should be resting,” Hanzo murmured against his ear, and slid the phone back into his jacket pocket.

“Ears...popped.” Several slow, shallow breaths. “Woke me up.”

They were, Hanzo had to admit, changing altitude, climbing higher into the mountains and, it seemed, slowing as they went, as though their unseen navigator were searching for something. They found it quarter of an hour later, the vehicle slowing almost to a stop, then turning off onto an unmarked side road that wended deeper into the forest and higher onto the hill. The antigrav generators whined in protest, the entire frame shuddered the incline steepened and in the headlights Hanzo could see that the road itself was entirely unpaved. Jesse’s body tensed with every jolt, and Hanzo held his arm and head as steady as he could; even so, by the time they reached their destination, he was soaked with pain-sweat and shivering uncontrollably, tiny, choked off sounds clawing their way up his throat.

“And we are here.” The navigation system informed them. “Wait just a moment annnd…”

In the forest ahead, lights appeared -- low-power security lamps, lining a path through the woods.

“Follow the path. Your destination is at the top. I’ve unlocked the doors and turned on the power. Once you’re inside, I’ll activate the security perimeter.” The door locks disengaged. “Rápidamente.”

It took some time and quite a bit of careful maneuvering to get Jesse out of Hanzo’s lap and into Zenyatta’s, the monk more than capable of holding him and floating at a decent clip despite their differences in size. Hanzo took the lead, bow in hand and at the ready, and Genji took rearguard, covering their tracks as snowflakes began drifting through the winter-bare canopy. It was, fortunately, not a far or strenuous climb, the path opening into a small clearing, the bulk of which was taken up by a compact two-story cabin. A light burned on the porch next to the door, and in the window athwart it; as promised, Hanzo found the door unlocked and a puff of air warmer than that outside greeted them as he opened it.

Hanzo resisted the impulse to ask his companions to wait outside while he scouted, choosing to err on the side of bringing Jesse into the relative warmth before he lapsed even more deeply into shock. There was not, in fact, much to scout: immediately inside the door, to the right, a kitchenette and dining nook, a security panel gleaming luridly purple against the far wall; to the left, a sitting room separated from the rest by a low counter, equipped with heavy wood-frame furniture, a flat-panel holotank mounted in the wall. Down a short hallway: a bedroom, equipped with two sets of bunk beds and a single cot; a bathroom, sink, toilet, shower; linen closet full of pillows and blankets sealed in plastic. A steep, narrow set of steps having more in common with a ladder than a staircase led upwards to the second floor, which was more of a storage space, stacked front to back with storage bins, their contents neatly stamped on the the visible end: provisions, cold weather gear, warm weather gear, small arms, ammunition, medical supplies…

Hanzo seized that one and dragged it to the top of the steps. “Genji, please assist me with this.”

His brother appeared and took one end of the case as Hanzo eased it down, then carried it into the bedroom, where he and Zenyatta had already transferred Jesse to the cot, propping him up against the rear wall with a half-dozen pillows behind him and at least two blankets thicker than reflective foil spread over his legs and chest. The lights were pale and mounted in the walls and showed all too clearly how terrible his color was under the dried streaks of blood, eyes closed and sunken into nearly bruised hollows of flesh, his chest heaving with the effort it took to breathe and fresh blood welling beneath the bandages. Zenyatta cracked open the medical supply case and began extracting useful items; Hanzo left him, and his able assistant, to the task of tending Jesse and prowled back into the kitchen, to the security monitor.

“The security perimeter is armed and active.” The security system’s voice was close kin to the navigation system, though slightly deeper. “Write this code down.” He fetched a yellow legal pad and a miraculously functional pen from one of the kitchen drawers and scribbled down the alphanumeric sequence that crawled across the screen. “That’s the deactivation code, one-time use. Punch it in when your rescue crew arrives. Otherwise, don’t touch this panel unless I tell you to do so. And, just so you know, I drove the car off the side of the scenic overlook just up the way. You’re welcome. Thermostat controls are in the hallway but I suggest you let the heater work on its own curve, it’s running off the solar batteries in the attic. So are the lights. For the time being, you should make yourselves comfortable, let me keep an eye out for any pursuit, and get in touch with the rest of your friends. Not necessarily in that order.”

Hanzo, shivering slightly from the chill in the air and covered from neck to knees in the dried blood of a man he hadn’t actually tried to kill, could find very little to argue with in that.

🌟

#WIP #I Heard The Bells #Short story is officially a novelette

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outfittrends · 6 years ago

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30 Best Summer Travelling Outfits for Women Over 50 Outfit Trends - Ideas How to Wear

New Post has been published on https://www.outfittrends.com/summer-travelling-outfits-for-women-over-fifty/

30 Best Summer Travelling Outfits for Women Over 50

Summer Travelling Outfits for Women Over 50: Women in this day and age need to think less about the age brackets that they are going through and more about how to keep themselves healthy and invest in themselves for happy living. It is often seen that we put limitations on ourselves thinking about our ages and that can really affect our living.

To celebrate and acknowledge the 50s that you have successfully reached, we have compiled a list of summer traveling essentials that every woman need on her list because you deserve a luxurious break and need to let yourself get pampered for all the hard work you have done in your life.

How to Choose Outfits for Summer Traveling For 50+

Here are a few tips to keep in mind:

Don’t be afraid to wear bold and bright colors in summer.

Don’t be anxious if you can’t get full coverage because sometimes it can lead towards problems like hot flashes.

Keep things simple and don’t overdo patterns or colors as that could spoil your look and kill the factor of subtle elegance.

Invest in great sunglasses and a modern hat.

Keep a few versatile pieces that won’t take a toll on you while packing.

Keep comfortable footwear with you for sightseeing.

↓ 30. Stripes for Summer Vacations

Stripes are classy and easy to wear in versatile ways. You can wear a long striped tunic with jeans or pants and it is ideal for summer daytime traveling. The crisp bright tunic will contrast beautifully with light color jeans and you can wear a nice belt to give structure to your waist. For an easy-going look, wear it with stylish pearl sandals and some pearl jewelry. You can find this tunic in green here and the belt here. You can find these pants here. For more fashion ideas, you should also check out these 30 Best Outfits of Female Celebrities Over 50.

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↓ 29. Daytime Vacation Outfit

For vacations, you don’t only want outfits that are easy to wear but present a modern version of you to the world. In this outfit, you get the best of both the world of the patterns. Style this classic gingham pattern long shirt with sweet lilac houndstooth pants and wear a big buckle logo belt to add a pop of glamour to the whole outfit. You can get the shirt here and the pants here. To accessorize the outfit uniquely you can get this big chunky belt here.

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↓ 28. Relaxing Outfit for Travel

Whilst traveling, you want to take items with you that can be matched together without much ado and keeps you comfortable at the same time. These vintage/geometric print casual tuxedo shirts are not only ideal for day wear, but with beautiful designs are pretty captivating. You can style them with pants or long maxi skirts depending upon your requirement. You can buy this shirt here.

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↓ 27. Beautiful Floral Skirts for Traveling

A vibrant floral asymmetrical high-low skirt is a summer essential while traveling. With the right top, the skirt can really stand out. Choose to wear a white or cream colored shirt with this type of floral skirt and it is modest enough so that you won’t feel uncomfortable and chic enough to make you shine like a star. You can find this beautifully styled skirt here.

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↓ 26. Perfecting the Basics

Sometimes it is best to go back to the basics and then develop awesome outfits. These high-rise slim fit chinos in honey brown color are best to carry for summer traveling and outdoor trips as you can easily pair them up with any modern top and cuff them for a sweet cropped look. You can get your hands on these ideal chinos here and the crisp white cotton tunic here.

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↓ 25. Summer Tropical Print Dress

You are never too old for funky prints and tropically themed dresses when going on summer vacations because they help you set the mood right. Looking for the perfect dress that suits all shapes and sizes and makes you appear chic and fashionable? This tropical print maxi dress with a V-neck and knot detail on the front is ideal for traveling in the summer season. You can find the dress here.

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↓ 24. Travel Wardrobe Over 50

If you are over 50 and traveling during the summer season, you have to be extra careful about the fabrics you are packing because the wrong choices can actually be painful for you and even cause hot flashes. Certain designers and brands cater perfectly to the summer wardrobe needs. Off-shoulder or Shoulder-dipping tops are ideal for summer traveling because they provide you with appropriate coverage for hot weather. You should go for chambray shorts or trousers since they are easy to pack and wear for the summer holidays. You can get this ideal top here and the shorts here.

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↓ 23. Resort Wear for Over 50

When you are opting for staying in a resort, you want to appear stylish and yet feel comfortable doing it. Often woman after crossing certain age barriers feel restricted and conscious about their outfit choices and thus we present to you the perfect tradeoff. Go for these bold floral print ankle length pants and style them with a sophisticated plain white top so that you don’t feel over-the-top. You can find these pants here.

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↓ 22. Summer Retro Look for Traveling

There are endless possibilities of getting inspired by the retro and vintage trends and outfits and to incorporate them in your traveling wardrobe. Polka dots are going huge this year and no one can ignore the sweet romantic touch this print adds to your dress. Whether you are 20 or 50, you can wear a polka dot dress and shine brightly. Try this polka dot dress that you can find here and you can tie a belt around your waist for dressier options.

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↓ 21. Capri Pants

If you feel that shorts are not for you, the next best thing is the capri pants. Not everyone sees capri pants as a fashion statement or approve of them, but styling them in the right way can be really rewarding. You have to consider the length and width while buying or wearing capri pants. It is wise to go for fitted tops or off-shoulder tops with capri pants to kill those frumpy vibes people might accuse you of.

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↓ 20. Cute Tops with Pants

Here are 15 Fashion Tips For Plus Size Women Over 50.

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↓ 19. Dressing Up for Special Events

You might need to attend some special events when you are traveling so it is only wise to pack something gorgeous with you. This beautiful bold colored dress with scalloped edges and off-shoulder style is just the right one to showcase your sassy style. Whether you are planning something elegant to wear at a special event or to look sexy for date night, this dress is all you need to pack in your suitcase for an over 50 sultry look. You can get this dress here.

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↓ 18. Blast From the Past

When the whole world is going crazy over the double denim phenomenon, why should you not carry this internationally popular look while traveling? With simple black jeans and classic denim or chambray jacket, you can be the effortless fashionista in a matter of seconds. This look is so versatile and so minimal that it is a perfect one to carry with you for summer trips.

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↓ 17. Versatile Maxi Dress

If subtle colors and modest dressing is your thing, try maxi-cut dresses. This perfectly tailored sleeveless dress with elastic waist and crewneck is ideal in giving you a relaxed looked with its free-floating fabric and design. It is light-weight and easy to pack for summertime traveling and you can get it here.

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↓ 16. Chic Overalls

You are confused about how overalls landed on this list when it is for over 50 females? Well, it is time you add some quirky pieces to your summer traveling wardrobe. Overalls are very easy to style and can be dressed up or kept simple. Try these white overalls and wear your favorite cami top under it or you can wear black overalls with a white or black shirt and colorful scarf for a sleek look. Don’t miss out these 18 Elegant Work Wear Outfit Ideas for Women Over 50.

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↓ 15. How to Wear Graphic Tees While Traveling

Why hide behind modest dresses when you can spice things up a notch? Wear this flirty denim distressed skirt for an edgy and whimsical 1970’s look with a graphic shirt. Fold the sleeves of the shirt for a typical 1970’s look and wear this outfit with your favorite wedges. You can also wear graphic tees with flared jeans for a classic revival of this era.

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↓ 14. Essential Black Dress

People might say different but in my opinion, a black dress is a woman’s best friend. A black dress is something you have to carry because it is so functional and can be styled in a million ways for different alluring looks. It can be worn with sneakers for a casual look and with silver slippers for a modern formal look.

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↓ 13. Casual Beach Style

Planning for traveling involving a lot of beach time? Keep a bunch of linen or cotton skirts ranging from the pencil skirt to long maxi skirts and a few shirts to wear with them. You can also try and pack shorts as they will help you beat the heat this summer.

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↓ 12. Stylish Gingham Trousers

Gingham trousers are all the rage this year and you got to be kidding not to carry them while traveling in summer. This pattern has a subtle dignity about it and can be matched and worn with various different tops for great effortless outfits. You can wear it with a white eyelet top or with a bright mustard cami top for amazing looks. It can also be worn with a stylish duster or kimonos.

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↓ 11. Destination Wedding Dress

By any chance do you plan to attend a destination wedding this summer? Then we have the perfect dress for you. Whether you are the mother of the bride or a far-off relative or a friend, pamper yourself with this rich embroidered royal blue gown that is not only flattering but also fit for the Queen. You can carry a white or silver clutch with this dress.

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↓ 10. Bikini for Women Over 50

If you are fifty, be fearless and flaunt your body with pride. Choose the bikini that speaks to you and you shouldn’t care about what people might say instead focus on what makes you feel good. Tie a scarf around yourself if you feel conscious or as a Sarong and jump right in! Here are the best Dressing Styles for Women Over 50.

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↓ 9. Gym Wear and Outdoor Sports Clothing

You must carry your gym wear and outdoor sports clothing with you at all times because you never know what opportunities might strike at your door.

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↓ 8. Feminine Touch

Who would say no to a nice pink outfit? A ruffled hem pink dress has the ability to brighten up any day and you can easily style it with a denim jacket for a chic look.

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↓ 7. Kimonos for Traveling

Kimonos are ideal for traveling because the weather can sometimes be unpredictable and you might feel the need to wear something that fights the night chill. Apart from this, kimonos can add a lot to even the simplest of outfits like a graphic tee and cropped distressed jeans. You can wear kimonos with multiple outfits for a summer inspired look.

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↓ 6. Comfortable Pajama Set

You can’t just not take a comfortable pajama set with you while traveling because it gives you that cozy feeling when you go to bed at night. You can get this comfortable pajama set from here.

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↓ 5. Keeping Cool with Summer Dresses

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↓ 4. High Waisted Pants

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↓ 3. Floral Camo Pants

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↓ 2. Accessories

Here we have compiled the list of some great trendy pieces that you can pack with you for the summer traveling this year. These awesome black statement-making sunglasses are a must-have for summers to avoid the glare of the sun and you can get them here. These cute earrings shaped as fans are so splendid that you won’t be able to resist wearing them with any dress and you can get them here. Introduce sophistication in your outlook with this multi-tone pearl necklace that you can get here. Lastly, the most loved trend of this year is these iconic bamboo bags and you can get your own and flaunt it this year.

↓ 1. Footwear

The shoes you choose to wear must be comfortable and perfectly compliment the dress. If you plan to wear lighter shades of footwear or footwear that will go well with any outfit, go with blush colored wedges that you can buy here or these elegant wraparound espadrilles that you can get here.

If you plan to wear something fancy with your dress, you can try these youthful black and white striped block heel with floral details that you can buy from here or these golden greek style sandals that you can get here.

#2018 Outfit Trends #2018 women fashion ideas #Colorful outfits for women #Fashion And Style #Fashion over women over 50 #women outfits 2018 #Women Over 50 Fashion

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