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hasansonsuzceliktas · 5 years

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Spiritual Movies that Nourish Your Soul

One night in 2003, while channel hopping on TV, I came across a movie named Interstate 60. I read the summary and it looked appealing. The movie then started, and after I finished watching it, I watched it again. (That channel had a repeat function.) My mind was blown, my smile was wide, and I felt great. I had never watched anything like it before. That’s when my interest in spiritual movies began. Four years passed and then The Secret came along. It was also mind blowing for its time. Although it has its controversial aspects now, it was a revolution in spiritual documentaries. Oh, there was also What the #$*! Do We Know?, but it takes my interest only after The Secret. Afterwards, I became deeply interested in spiritual movies and watched many of them. I made recommendation lists for my followers in Turkey, and now I want to share them with you. I don’t want to give details about the movies, though, because you can look them up on IMDb or whatever. I want to instead share the reasons for why I recommend these particular movies. First let me be clear about one thing, though. What is a spiritual movie? Everything is spiritual. The life we live is spiritual, because everything comes out of the spirit. If we looked at it from this perspective, there is a vast number of spiritual movies. You can see the spirit in many such movies. For me, though, a spiritual movie is one that expands your view, your perceptions, your world, and your being. After finishing one, you do not feel like you are the same person that you were two hours ago. It has touched your soul and made you think and feel deeply. Some of them even blow your mind. Such movies have similar effects on others too. That is what I call a spiritual movie, so I selected movies based on that criterion.

Classic Spiritual Movies

These are the ones where I could say, “Haven’t you watched it yet? How can you call yourself spiritual?”

The Matrix You may well say, “Oh, come on! Starting with The Matrix? We’ve all watched it a million times. Give us something new!” Yes, I know. I also said it many times while checking the spiritual must-see lists of others. But last week, I watched the whole trilogy again because I wanted to find clues about “the loop.” By this, I mean the loop in our minds, which we may call dharma. I was thinking deeply about how I could get my mind out of the worldly plane. I then started to watch the trilogy and realized that The Matrix is about the trinity of mind, body, and soul. The machines could not understand love and therefore the soul, so the movie gives the message that the best way to get out of the worldly plane is through love.

Celestine Prophecy James Redfield’s novel was one of the first books I read in my spiritual awakening days. It is still marvelous, but the movie could have been better I think.

Peaceful Warrior Dan Millman’s marvelous book was adapted into a great movie. It touched many people’s souls, as I have witnessed many times. You have to read the book after watching the movie, though. The book has much more, as you can no doubt imagine.

Conversations with God We all love Neale Donald Walsch, author of the Conversations with God series, and this movie is about his life. It is a good movie.

Interstate 60 For me, this is the best spiritual movie of all time. In my mind, it’s a timeless classic. Yet when I checked other people’s lists on the web, I didn’t find this movie in many of them. It may well be that you still haven’t watched it yet. If not, prepare yourself for a spiritual feast. Even after watching it 30 times, like I have, you can still find many messages. Believe me when I say you can watch it many times over without ever getting bored of it.

What the #$*! Do We Know? This early spiritual documentary was labeled as talking heads (i.e., many experts coming together and talking about something). Quantum physics meets with spirituality and good drama in what is still a must-see documentary.

The Secret Ah! The Secret. We can still argue that it represents the law of attraction, but it is still a great documentary. It gave rise to the term “secret-like” when describing spiritual documentaries. Nowadays, when you mention The Secret, many people deride it, but it has still a special place in my heart.

Fight Club “The first rule of fight club is you do not talk about fight club.” Okay, I won’t, but I had to put it on the list.

Avatar If I feel like an avatar living on Earth, being controlled by someone’s conscious in another place, it is because of this great movie. I had to watch it again.

Groundhog Day A funny, classic movie about being stuck in a time loop. No doubt you have seen it already.

Baraka – Samsara Movies without words but with many deep meanings. Many years of work went into Ron Fricke’s movies, which are not just spiritual classics but also works of art.

Lesser-Known Movies

These great movies are adored by many, but maybe you haven’t heard of some of them

Nossolar Do you want to know how the afterlife is? Based on the channelings of Chico Xavier, Nossolar is a great Brazilian movie about the afterlife.

Bab’aziz This is the most beautiful movie about Sufism ever made. Nacer Khemir’s work is outstanding, and you can feel this great movie fill your soul. The soundtrack is also magnificent.

Chaotica Ana This is one of the best movies about reincarnation and the goddess. Ana, a Spanish art student, meets Said in Madrid and they fall in love. After Said disappears, Ana starts to undertake hypnotherapy and finds out she has lived many past lives. You can find out the rest in the movie…

The Man from Earth This very beautiful classic movie starts with a boring discussion between six university professors and turns into a great dialogue when one of them confesses that he is 14,000 years old. Still not watched it yet?

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring You cannot forget this movie, even after many years. Korean director Kim Ki-Duk uses the symbolism of the passing seasons to tell this story of a young Buddhist monk’s evolution from innocence to love, evil to enlightenment, and ultimately to rebirth. Please watch it in HD on a big screen please. It is a Buddhist poem conveyed through cinema.

Powder IMDb describes it as follows: “An off-the-charts genius who is home schooled and shunned after his last relative dies shows the unconscious residents of his town about connection awareness and the generosity of the spirit.” It’s the story of an albino boy with psychic powers. It is a classic, and I will never forget the scene with the hunter and deer.

Defending Your Life This movie is also about the afterlife, but its story is told in a much funnier way. It is about love, karma, and rebirth. You will remember this movie from the scenes of a Japanese restaurant in Heaven.

Serendipity A romantic movie about love and coincidence starring John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale.

Sliding Doors Just one door staying open can change your life in this Gwyneth Paltrow classic.

Little-Known Movies

If you’re saying, “Come on, we all know these movies. Give us something new!” Okay, here you go.

Valley of Flowers IMDBsays, “A great Asian love story, an unforgettable tale about passion, death and reincarnation. A mesmerizing Himalayan epic that spans two centuries, from the Silk Route of the early 19th century to the bustling metropolis of modern-day Tokyo.” It’s the most passionate story about soulmates ever made, and the love of Jalan and Ushna will take your breath away.

Looking for Muhyiddin A man (played by filmmaker Nacer Khemir, who also directed Bab’aziz) returns home to Tunisia to bury his mother. Following the burial, his father gives him an amana to take to a Sheikh named Muhyiddin. The man immediately sets out on an epic journey to find the long-lost Sheikh and deliver the amana to him. Throughout his journey, he is guided by a mysterious spiritual master and many friends of the Sheikh who he encounters along the way. As the adventure unfolds, we learn about the rich life of this Sheikh and his uncompromising love for humanity, for under his teachings, different beliefs, faiths, and ways of life can only converge and become one. The more we learn about the Sheikh Muhyiddin, the more we understand why he is so venerated across cultures and continents. Looking for Muhyiddin is a deeply lyrical odyssey into the soul of Islam through the life and the works of one of its most beloved mystics: Ibn Arabi. This is one of the best Sufi movies you will ever watch.

Happenstance Everyone knows Amelie, but did you ever hear about this other movie with Audrey Tatou. It is about coincidence and chaos theory, possibly the best one on the subject.

Un Buda IMDb says, “Un Buda follows two brothers orphaned as children when their parents were taken by the military during the ‘Dirty Wars’ of the 1970s in Argentina. Tomas is now a drifting and withdrawn young man who experiments with ascetic practices and has an instinctive compassion for others. His older brother Rafael is a university philosophy professor, detached and alone. Their struggles with each other and the world around them in Buenos Aires take a dramatic turn when they find themselves at a rural Zen center.” It’s a great spiritual movie from Argentina

Now and Forever If you want to watch an unforgettable spiritual love story, do not miss out on this one. I watched it many years ago, but some scenes still stick in my mind. IMDb summarizes it like this: “Against a backdrop of clashing cultures, John Myron and Angela Wilson find each other and over the years form a powerful bond. One tragic night, John rescues Angela from a wicked act of betrayal. Faced with its aftermath, Angela flees town, unaware that she has put into motion a dramatic and intense string of events that will forever change the course of their lives. Harboring a secret, John guides Angela to a shocking realization that will uncover the past. Now & Forever is a dramatic contemporary love story combining elements of spirituality, heart and integrity. They say sooner or later all love stories will end; Now & Forever is the exception...”

An… This Greek movie is so special for me. We watch a choice and then the consequences in parallel universes. Demetris is a handsome man with a dog. One night while out with his dog, he meets Christina. In the alternate universe, he doesn’t go out with his dog, so he doesn’t meet Christina. We watch both sides of this simple choice. But fate says, if you are destined to meet someone, you will meet him or her whatever. Why is this movie so special for me? In one great scene, Demetris and Christina sit with a coffee and share love. I later found this coffee when I visited Athens and sat with my own love. I will never forget either that experience or this magnificent movie.

Storm If you loved The Matrix, watch this Swedish version. It starts similarly when a man meets a mysterious woman with an evil man chasing her. The story then turns in a different direction. Please just find it and watch it.

Ink Ink, a mysterious creature, steals a child's soul with the aim of using it as a bargaining chip to join the Incubi, a group of supernatural beings responsible for creating nightmares. It may seem like a horror movie, but it’s not. The less you know about it, the more you will enjoy it. I know many other movies could be added to this list, but this is just a selection to start you off. There are also many spiritual documentaries, but I will share a list of these in our next issue… Read the full article

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whenthenightfalls224-blog · 7 years

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Backstory for all overwatch heroes

Here is a quick backstory for all of the heroes in overwatch, if you are just starting out the game and want to just get a simple run through of the hero’s backstories or if you just want to learn more about the heroes in the game.

THIS IS ABOUT HERO BACKSTORIES, NOT HERO ABILITIES

Background info:

Overwatch was a group founded by the UN that recreated people from all over the world to fight Omnics.

Omnics are sentient robots which can function by themselves.

The Omnic Crisis happened when omnics were being mass produced to kill. They devastated the world.

Blackwatch is an offshoot of Overwatch, which was not revealed to the public and carried out Overwatch’s dirty work.

Talon is a terrorist organization and an enemy of Overwatch, and has no clear goal.

The Vishkar Corporation is an Indian Corporation which manufacturing hard light, a substance that can become anything.

Doomfist

Doomfist’s name is Akande Ogundimu, he is Nigerian. He lost his arm during the Omnic crisis. He killed the former owner of the doomfist, who was involved with the organization Talon, and took the doomfist and gained control of Talon. His goal is to make the world stronger with conflict.

Genji

Genji is one of the Shimada brothers, his brother is Hanzo, and they are Japanese. The brothers are from a family of criminals, and Hanzo was ordered to kill Genji. However, before he was killed he was rescued by Overwatch and healed by Mercy. To keep him alive, he got a cybernetic body. Genji joined an Overwatch offshoot called Blackwatch, but ended up leaving to make peace with his cybernetic body.

Mccree

Jesse Mccree is the stereotypical cowboy/vigilante and has a cybernetic arm. He was formly part of the Deadlock Gang, before being caught by Overwatch. He was given a choice: join Overwatch, or go to prison. He choose Overwatch, and therefore became part of Blackwatch.

Pharah

Pharah’s name is Fareeha Amari, she is the daughter of Ana Amari. They are both Egyptian. Pharah grew up around the heroes of Overwatch, and wanted to join them one day. However, Overwatch was shut down before she could join, so she joined Helix Security National, a private force that protected an articulate intelligence facility, from them she got her flight suit.

Reaper

Gabriel Reyes was a soldier, but was chosen for a program to create the perfect soldier, along with Jack Morrison (Soldier 76), in light of the Omnic crisis. Reaper was chosen to lead a new organization called Overwatch that included the best people around the world to fight the omnics. However, Soldier 76 was later named the leader of Overwatch, which put a rift between the two. Reaper was later put in charge of Blackwatch. His jealously got the better of him, and he fought against Soldier, destroying both organizations. Reaper and Soldier were believed dead but both survived, and Reaper joined Talon.

Soldier 76

John (Jack) Morrison was a soldier who was recruited to be in Overwatch. He was ‘enhanced’ and later became the leader of Overwatch. After his fight with Reaper, the world believed him to be dead. With Overwatch destroyed, he became a vigilante determined to discover the cause of the fail of Overwatch.

Sombra

Sombra, real name Olivia Colomar, is a Mexican hacker. She was orphaned at a young age. After developing her skill for hacking, she joined the Los Muertos gang to fight against the corrupt Mexican government. However, she was discovered by an organization that forced her into hiding. Later, she got cybernetic enhancements to help her hack and joined Talon to uncover the organization.

Tracer

Lena Oxton was a British pilot. After an accident with a fighter jet called the Slipstream, which could jump in time, she was presumed dead, but turned up later lacking the ability to stay in the present. Winston, a gorilla scientist, made her a chronal accelerator which gave her control of her time jumps. Tracer later joined Overwatch, and tried to stop Talon from getting the doomfist, as well as trying to stop Widowmaker from assassinating the omnic monk Tekhartha Mondatta. Tracer also has a British girlfriend (Emily).

Bastion

Bastion is a omnic that was created during the Omnic crisis to fight, but was damage and deactivated in a forest for years. He later reawoke, and was found by Torbjorn. He is accompanied by Ganymede, a bird.

Hanzo

Hanzo Shimada is a Japanese archer. Being the oldest brother, he was in line to lead the Shimada clan. When his father died, he was told to by the elders to ring Genji into line. When he couldn’t, Hanzo fought Genji, and believed he killed him. Grieving, he left the Shimada clan and traveled the world to try and restore his honor.

Junkrat

Jamison Fawkes is an Australian scavenger in the Australian outbacks, called a Junker. Evicted from Junkertown, Junkrat found a valuable treasure, making him a target. He teamed up Roadhog, and they split their profits 50-50. Junkrat is a criminal pyromaniac.

Mei

Mei-Ling Zhou is a Chinese climatologist employed by Overwatch to find the cause of climate change. While deployed in Antarctica, the facility she was at was damaged by a polar storm. Mei and the other scientists their entered cyrostatis. However, the pods malfunctioned, and Mei woke up a decade later, the only one at her station alive. With the help of Snowball, she decided to continue her work there.

Torbjörn

Torbjorn Lindholm is a Swedish engineer. He creates machines that are non sentient, as he has a fear of sentient machines, which was justified during the Omnic crisis. Torbjorn was also a member of Overwatch, his engineering and weapon building skills being invaluable to Overwatch’s success.

Widowmaker

Widowmaker, or Amélie Lacroix, is a French sniper. She was the wife of an Overwatch agent that was working against Talon. Talon kidnapped and brainwashed her. She was later returned home by Overwatch, but she killed her husband after two weeks and returned to Talon. Her physiology was altered and her heart rate slowed, turning her skin blue and removing her emotions.

D.Va

D.Va (Hana Song) was a South Korean pro gamer. She was a world champion in Starcraft II. When the Omnic crisis broke out, the government recruited pro gamers to pilot mechs.

Orisa

Orisa is an omnic built by the 11 year old Efi Oladele. She was made from the wreckage of an OR-15 in Numbani, while the city was recovering by an attack for Doomfist. Orisa was built to protect the city, and she performs her function.

Reinhardt

Reinhardt Wilhelm is a German crusader. He was recruited by Overwatch, and follows a strict code of ethics. He was respected by the members of Overwatch, but later was forced into mandatory retirement and watched Overwatch collapse.

Roadhog

Mako Rutledge is the bodyguard and partner of Junkrat. Roadhog lived the Australian Outback after the omnic crisis, but the Australian government gave the Outback to the omnics. Roadhog and other angry humans rebelled, and created the Australian Liberation Front. In an attack against the omnium, they overloaded the fusion core in an explosion that scarred Roadhog’s face and made the Outback into a radioactive wasteland.

Winston

Winston is an enhanced gorilla born on the Horizon Lunar Colony on the moon. When the gorillas revolted and killed the humans on the colony, Winston escaped to Earth. He joined Overwatch, to help share his scientific knowledge. When Overwatch disbanded, he went to Gibraltar, an old Overwatch base.

Zarya

Aleksandra Zaryanova, or Zarya, is a Russian bodybuilder and weightlifter. She broke world records, but later stopped to help defend Russia against an omnium.

Ana

Ana Amari is the mother of Pharah. She joined Overwatch and became second in command. During a fight with Widowmaker, she hesitated to kill her because she recognized her as her old friend. Widowmaker shot her through her sniper lens, leaving her blind in her right eye. Everyone believed she was dead, and she left combat for awhile, later reamerging to help protect her country.

Lúcio

Lúcio Correia is a Brazilian DJ from Rio. When the Vishkar Corporation took over the city and exploited the people, Lúcio stole a Vishkar weapon and rose up against them, inspiring his people to revolt. When Vishkar out of Rio, Lúcio became a national celebrity and now DJs around the world.

Mercy

Angela Ziegler is a Swiss field medic. Her nanobiology she used to heal caught the attention of Overwatch, and she joined the organization. She became the head medic there, and designed her Valkyrie suit to get to people faster, to treat them.

Moira

Moira O’Deorain is a scientist originally in Blackwatch. Later, she became part of Talon and helped Reaper obtain his wraith form and shadow step.

Symmetra

Satya Vaswanin is an autistic Indian architect. She was recruited by the Vishkar Corporation at a young age, trained in hard light, a substance that could be bender into anything. Symmetra combined hard light into her traditional dances. She was a top member in the Vishkar Corporation and traveled around the world overseeing it.

Zenyatta

Tekhartha Zenyatta is an omnic monk. He is studied in Nepal with the Shambali, who believe that omnics have a soul, and wants to make omnic-human connections better. After disagreeing with their leader, Tekhartha Mondatta, he left the monastery to travel the world and help people. Along the way, he met Genji and helped find peace with his omnic body.

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solivar · 8 years

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WIP: Shōgatsu

aka the sequel to I Heard The Bells

aka everybody wants to know what’s in the box (spoiler: it’s probably not hope, either)

aka the bit in which Dr. Angela Ziegler has a long, dark night of the soul

The surgeries took a total of fourteen hours -- five for Hanzo, nine for Jesse -- all of which Genji Shimada spent in the corridor between the two operating theatres despite the best efforts of everyone to pry him out of it.

Reinhardt was the first to make the attempt: he was already there when the Orca landed at Watchpoint Gibraltar, coasting on the fumes as Lena promised and relying heavily on its solar-powered propulsion systems on the final leg of the journey. He and Brigitte reached the base before anyone else, departing Gothenburg via telestation to Berlin, Berlin to Madrid, and then the red-eye hypertrain to Malaga, the last stretch accomplished at breakneck speed in a rental car along the scenic old coastal highways that linked the two cities together. Angela pulled into the Watchpoint to find a full breakfast waiting for her in the communal recreation center, a room in the personnel quarters block cleaned and prepared for her use, and a capable assistant in the form of Torbjorn’s eldest daughter when it came to preparing and restocking the surgical suites in the medical bay. It was thus that the rest of the team arrived, late in the evening on Christmas Day, to Reinhardt and Angela waiting on the platform next to the VTOL landing pad, Angela already in scrubs and ready to take the emergency life support pod containing Jesse in hand and Reinhardt manning a hovercart containing freshly brewed carafes of coffee and tea and an enormous platter of fresh cinnamon buns nearly as tall as himself because he was, at the best of times, a stress baker and never more so when legitimately unable to do more than wait.

Unfortunately for both his nerves and his good intentions, the only member of the rescue team desirous or capable of partaking of that largesse was the pilot, who rapidly consumed three buns and two cups of coffee, having just spent nearly twenty hours at the controls and who needed the stimulants solely in order to stagger upstairs to bed. Zenyatta did not, of course, need to eat, having no actual nutritional requirements answerable by sugar or caffeine. Jesse was not in a condition to do so nor, as it turned out, were Genji’s brother and Dr. Corbin, who had spent the majority of the flight stabilizing the same and who disappeared with him into the second surgical suite within minutes of their arrival. That left Genji himself, who should have had something to eat and drink, and was absolutely neglecting the remaining needs of his organic body for rest and nourishment in favor of pacing a course that would, eventually, send him right up the walls. Literally.

Reinhardt permitted this folly to go unanswered for the full eighty-five minutes it took to relocate the hovercart to the kitchen, unload it, use the terminal there to obtain a proper medical reference vis a vis Genji’s daily nutrient intake requirements and thereafter prepare him a properly wholesome breakfast. He selected breakfast because he knew, beyond a shadow of any doubt, that at no point during the mad telestation enabled dash from Nepal to Washington, D.C. had any member of that trio spared more than a passing thought to the concept of a meal and, seeing as it was 1:45 am in Shambali at that very moment, it was officially both too late and too early for dinner. A boiled egg, a small fruit salad of sliced bananas and hothouse strawberries, a glass of apple juice. Genji’s body required little in the way of protein intake and too much could, in truth, harm him if he did not manage it carefully and the fruits to satisfy his sweet tooth in a healthful way. It was with a warm sense of satisfaction for a job well-done that he rang the public communications panel in the medical bay hall and announced, “Genji, your breakfast is waiting in the kitchen! Come and eat!”

He was humming cheerfully to himself as he laid the dishes out, folding the napkin into the form of a snowy white rose and settling the fruit salad bowl in the middle of its petals, adding a straw to the glass of juice, when the kitchen terminal chimed a response. “Thank you, Reinhardt, but I am not hungry.”

Everything came to a halt for several moments as Reinhardt stared in blank incomprehension at the communication screen. Then he crossed back to it, opened communication again with rather more enthusiasm than was strictly necessary, and bellowed, “WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU ARE NOT HUNGRY? YOU HAVE NOT EATEN IN AT LEAST TWELVE HOURS.”

“Please, my friend.” Genji’s voice, when he replied, was soft but not enough to disguise the pain in it. “I...do not wish to leave Medical right now.”

“I understand.” And, so saying, he packed the meal onto the hovercart, walked it down to Medical, and waited patiently while Genji, captive to his own better nature, ate every bit of it. “Now, was that so terrible?”

“It was not.” Genji admitted, dabbing the corner of his mouth with the unfolded napkin. “I am not going to leave. My brother -- Jesse -- I cannot.”

Reinhardt patted his shoulder comfortingly. “I do not expect you to do so...yet. But you must rest at some point, Genji. You will be no good to anyone if you do not.”

“At some point, yes.” He agreed.

Four and a half hours later, he had, in fact, stopped pacing when Reinhardt stirred from his own very necessary nap to come check on him, instead sitting in half-lotus position next to his mentor, floating serenely a few inches off the ground. His body’s lights were noticeably dimmed and it took him no small amount of time to notice that they were no longer alone, an impressive lapse of awareness given the circumstances. “Reinhardt -- is something wrong?”

“Do you remember when I said that I think you should rest sometime?” Reinhardt asked, in a tone that strongly suggested that time had clearly, obviously come.

“I do. It was not that long ago.” Genji raised his head with a physical effort. “I -- “

“Your friend has a point, my student.” The omnic -- the monk -- Reinhardt remembered belatedly that his name was Zenyatta -- remarked delicately. “You have expended a great deal of your strength in a short period of time and you must replenish it properly. Neither of your brothers would wish you to bring harm on yourself for no reason.”

Reinhardt thought that was giving at least one brother slightly too much credit, but also recognized the better part of keeping such sentiments to himself. “Your teacher is a wise being, my friend. You must rest, even if only a little while. You are, as they say, running on empty.”

“It is not -- “ Genji began wearily and at just that instant the indicator panel over the left-hand surgical suite flicked from sterile-sealed-red to green and, a moment later, the door hissed open in a wave of antiseptic-scented air.

Dr. Corbin stepped out, shaking the coppery-red braid out of her surgical cap, and Genji rose on unsteady legs to greet her. “Doctor?”

The doctor -- Reinhardt thought he recalled her name as Emily -- smiled a tired but reassuring smile at him. “Shimada-san. Your brother is in recovery and I don’t mind at all telling you he is a very lucky man, in several respects.”

Genji closed his eyes and, for a moment, the emotions that crossed his face came too rapidly to distinguish one from another, ending on a fragile species of relief. “Thank you, Doctor.”

“You’re welcome.” She stepped more fully out into the hall and keyed the door shut behind her. “Briefly, he’s lucky that whatever hit him wasn’t a few inches further to the left, because I strongly suspect the force of impact he absorbed at that point would have broken his sternum and pulped his heart and we wouldn’t be standing here having this conversation if that were the case. As it stands, it broke the right second through fifth ribs in multiple places and tore loose the sternal cartilage in a discrete segment, badly enough that I thought it best to repair it surgically, both for its own sake and to prevent any further damage to the lungs. Both lungs, but particularly the right, were contused, the right lacerated in several places, the myocardium contused but he somehow managed to avoid serious damage to the thoracic aorta, which is frankly pretty miraculous given the extent of the compression injuries otherwise. He does, I have to warn you, look fairly awful just now -- he’s on ventilator support and will be for at least the next several days while the nanocolonies finish the soft tissue repair of the internal and external lacerations and there are all sorts of pulmonary hygiene tubes coming in and out of his chest to assist in excess fluid removal and prevent any sort of infection from setting in. I have him on a therapeutic level of sedation and analgesia because there’s nothing about any of this that isn’t miserably uncomfortable and, frankly, it’s best if he sleeps through the worst of it. If you want to see him, you may, but no more than a few minutes.”

“Please.” Genji stepped forward, knees wobbly; Reinhardt caught him by the elbow and they went into the recovery pod together.

Reinhardt was, in all honesty, not certain what to think as Genji sank wearily down onto the stool and reached for his brother’s bloodlessly pale hand -- one of the hands that had, by his own admission, once tried with some substantial measure of success to take his life. He was not certain what he himself had been expecting to find when finally confronted with the elder Shimada sibling in the flesh, flesh clearly compounded as fragile and mortal as any man’s, attached to machines now helping him to breathe and suffer no pain. Wondered, unkindly, if the effort were truly even worth making for his own sake and found no answers in the still face beneath the intubation apparatus. Very little about this situation made any fully coherent amount of sense and he suspected it would not until all of its participants were awake and capable of speech and perhaps not even then. For now, he kept his uncharitable judgments to himself, for the sake of the young man whispering quiet exhortations in his mother tongue to his senseless brother, and resolved to stand guard as best he could over that perhaps foolishly forgiving heart. It was the very least that he could do.

The hours dragged, as hours spent in an excruciating state of nervous tension were inclined to do. Genji lasted another twenty minutes after Reinhardt pried him out of the recovery pod, his body’s autonomous support systems initiating a self-defense override that left him sprawled mostly senseless in Zenyatta’s lap. Reinhardt fetched a cot equipped with a fully charged high capacity cybernetic support pack and the necessary connection conduits from the medical stores block and, together, they shifted Genji onto it, removed the armor guarding his access ports, and settled him down to rest properly while his body drank down the power it needed to function.

Zenyatta tucked a blanket around him and fussed a moment with the pillow, the gestures so endearingly human that Reinhardt could not help but like him at once. “I thank you, Herr Wilhelm. He can be enormously stubborn, to his own detriment at times.”

“That has been true as long as I have known him.” He smiled down on his sleeping comrade and laid a kindly hand on the monk’s shoulder. “And you, Herr Zenyatta? May I assist you in some way?”

“If there is another of these devices available, I would not refuse the use of it.” The monk’s tone modulated in a decidedly wry direction. “My student is not the only headstrong man with whom I have had to contend lately.”

“Of course.”

The corridor was more than wide enough to accommodate a cot on each side with room for other concerned parties to pretend to casually pass through on the way to other destinations. Lena wandered through to let him know that Fareeha had called from JFK to let them know she was on the last leg of the trip and would be landing in Gibraltar later in the day. Winston ambled down from Operations to casually mention that Torbjorn had messaged that he was leaving Gothenburg within the hour. Both of them inquired delicately after Genji, who remained deeply asleep even after all his mechanical systems were fully recharged and reading in the green, likely jetlagged in the way that only seemed to hit after sequential telestation transits across multiple time zones. Neither said any of the things they clearly wished to say about the man they did not really know lying in recovery, or about the friend they knew all too well still in surgery after so many hours. Reinhardt did not speak any of those words yet, either, no more prepared to begin thinking in that direction than they.

Late in the morning, the light over the sealed surgical suite flicked from red to green, and Angela stepped out into the corridor. For the first time in what was certainly years she looked as though she had just spent nine hours laboring over an operating table, contending mightily to save her patient’s life: her eyes were shadowed with exhaustion and her shoulders were so bent under the weight of some powerful emotion that, for a moment, fear genuinely seized his heart.

“Liebchen,” He rose, and opened his arms, and she walked almost blindly into his embrace, rested her head on his chest. “Is he…?”

Angela nodded, a weary tremor running through her shoulders. “Alive. He is alive.” A choked little laugh. “I never want to spend that much time picking bone fragments out of his lungs and pericardium ever again. A few more hours and I would not have been able to…” She stopped and took several deep breaths to steady herself. “He is not completely out of danger but he is past the worst. The life support pod did its job perfectly and I do believe we owe the Tekhartha a great many thanks for his efforts, as well.” A little smile quirked briefly at the corners of her mouth. “Once he is awake, that is.”

“You should also rest, Angela.” Reinhardt replied, gently.

“I have another patient to attend before I can do that.” Angela replied and the tiny smile planed completely away.

Knowing there was little he could do to dissuade her and absolutely nothing he could say, he stepped aside to allow her entry to the recovery pod; she gestured for him to follow, and so he did.

“Did Genji tell you how...this...came to pass before he succumbed to system shutdown?” Angela asked, carefully calm, as she opened monitor screens and scanned data streams, making adjustments as she went.

“He did not. I thought it unkind to press him on the topic given the circumstances.” Reinhardt thought that their guest, though clearly still not well, looked slightly less terrible than he had before. “Dr. Corbin thought he would recover given sufficient time.”

“Yes. And it seems that we must be the ones to give it to him.” Her tone was coolly neutral, nearly cold, and he knew she was seeing in her mind’s eye the wreckage of Genji’s body when he was first given over to her care, the months of cybernetic reconstruction and the pain that was only partly physical -- and not the largest part, at that. “Dr. Corbin is correct. Unless his condition deteriorates dramatically in the next twenty-four hours, he stands an excellent chance of recovery.”

It sounded, to his ears, as though she could neither rationally despise the idea nor take any particular pleasure in it. He did not think he could blame her for that. She made a few last adjustments and closed the monitors, stepped back out into the hall with her arms wrapped around herself, as though she did not quite trust what she wanted to do with her hands. “We should get these two into a room of their own -- they may not require monitoring, but I do not think they would refuse privacy.”

“Agreed.” The cots were mounted on antigrav railings and it took only minor effort to maneuver them down the hall and into one of the larger nonsurgical medical suites. “And now, liebchen, I insist that you find your way to your quarters, as well.”

“Yes, onkel.” She looked up at him, heaven-blue eyes suddenly bright, steely. “I am going to need your help, I think, before all this is said and done.”

“With what?” He asked, feeling already the weight of what she would say and his willingness to shoulder it.

“This was not a random act of violence. It was not even, I suspect, an attempt to cash in on Jesse’s bounty. Someone was willing to expend an enormous amount of effort in order to kill him.” Her eyes flashed, icily furious. “We must know who that is and why, and then we must make certain they cannot try again.”

Reinhardt reached out and grasped her hand. “You know that my hammer is yours.”

She squeezed tightly in return. “Yes. I do.”

This was not at all how she imagined it happening -- and she had had years, more than a decade really, in which to construct scenarios in the back of her mind, to contemplate every reasonable permutation of events that would bring her, bring them, to this point. Somehow, none of those carefully planned, artfully arranged fantasies had involved Hanzo bloody Shimada being carried senseless and just short of mortally wounded into a Watchpoint medical facility over which she held more or less absolute operational authority, which just proved that reality would always contrive to be stranger than fiction. Fiction, after all, was obligated to make sense.

Dr. Angela Ziegler stood in the recovery room currently occupied by a man whom she had faithfully despised in absentia for more than a decade, tried and convicted by undeniable evidence, surrounded by a holo-fan of his medical monitors, trying strenuously to think of nothing but their contents and failing miserably. Dr. Corbin’s field assessment and subsequent course of intervention was completely clinically sound. The surgical stabilization of the chest wall injury was clearly necessary -- the amount of force applied to the initial point of impact had shattered two of the four ribs involved, tore the sternal cartilage completely loose, lacerated the lung beneath in a manner functionally indistinguishable from penetrative chest trauma. (In her mind’s eye, she saw another set of pulmonary scans, the results of another form of penetrative chest trauma, the molecules-thick nanofilm that held Genji’s thoracic cavity together in the absence of most of his sternum, ribs, musculature on his arrival in Geneva, strapped into the first generation life support pod prototype the Blackwatch retrieval team had absconded with on their recovery mission. Proof of concept and successful rescue rolled into one, she had been forced to admit, even as she struggled then to find the intellectual distance necessary to save what was left of her patient’s life.) The secondary bilateral pulmonary contusions meant, taken as a total picture, he had more damaged lung tissue than healthy with all the attendant problems related, positive pressure mechanical ventilation being a completely reasonable means of addressing the prevailing issue of adequate oxygenation while the nanocolonies worked to repair the pulmonary soft tissue damage. (Genji had not breathed on his own for more than three months while his lungs were being rebuilt on a nanomachine framework overlaid with organ tissue based on his own genetic blueprint using stem cells harvested from the marrow of his remaining bones, to reduce the risk of rejection.) The tube thoracostomy was a pragmatic, therapeutic response to the risk of pneumothorax and the heavy epidural-delivered anaesthetic requirements for pain management, as were the intravenous antibiotics and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medications the pod’s autonomous monitoring systems fed him at regular intervals -- all the rest was for nothing if he drowned in his own fluids or developed a secondary post-surgical infection that further compromised his pulmonary functions. (Pneumothorax had been the very least of Genji’s concerns -- his thorax had, after all, been mostly theoretical until the fabrication team produced a workable synthetic thoracic cage that played nicely with the modular spinal reconstruction, a process of trial and retrial that produced seven different prototypes that had gone on to save thousands of other lives. Genji’s unique and horrific circumstances had partaken of several to produce a functional result, given the desired parameters of his recovery.) The external injuries were nearly an afterthought in terms of severity, the incised wounds carved down his side by the assassin’s talons responding well to the biotic infusions he had received; he might not even have a scar to remember them by. (Genji’s remaining nonsynthetic epidermis was more scar tissue than anything else.)

It would take so little. A slight alteration in the ventilation pressure. A tiny adjustment to the anaesthetic level. Either or both could depress the breathing reflex, compromise the oxygenation levels. Reduce the concentration of anti-inflammatories in the medication mixture and the amount of excess fluid his body produced would increase slowly but surely. The sedation would break, eventually, and before he died he would be aware enough to know the agony and the horror of being trapped in his own broken body while he drowned in his own fluids, helpless to save himself. It would take so little. Her fingertips rested on the recovery pod command keys that would make it happen. All she had to do was move them.

Angela jerked upright, heart pounding against her ribs, breath coming in desperately pained rasps, something close to a scream lodged in her throat. It took her far too long to choke it back down, too long to manage an almost-normal tone of voice. “Athena.”

“Yes, Dr. Ziegler?” The workpad sitting on her bedside table came to life as she snatched it up. “Do you require assistance? Your heart rate is significantly elevated -- “

“Please do not monitor my vitals, Athena.” Her heart rate was significantly elevated, her hair was dripping into her eyes and her nightshirt was plastered disgustingly to her body with sweat -- fear? Exertion? Nightmare? -- and she could not stop shivering where she sat on her dubiously comfortable bed in a puddle of bedclothes. “Give me the current diagnostic monitor feeds for the patients in Medical, please.”

“As you wish, Dr. Ziegler.”

Was that a faint hint of reproof in Athena’s tone? Angela decided that she didn’t care as the data feeds opened on her tablet. And there was the proof that she had not indulged in emotional impulses of murderous intent while in the grip of physical and mental exhaustion: Shimada-the-elder’s therapeutic program unaltered from Dr. Corbin’s planned course of action. Relief rushed through her, almost as dizzying as the adrenaline rush of sudden fear, and she fell back into her pillows with a disgusting squelch that sent her rolling out of bed, stripping off her wet clothing as she went. She needed a shower. No: she needed a shower, then she needed a sedative of her own, and then she needed at least eight hours of uninterrupted rest. Of the three, she was most likely to get the shower, every nerve still twitching with the sudden release of stress and sleep running away with a laugh that mocked the entire concept of pharmaceutical intervention.

“Sleep is for the weak anyway,” She muttered to her reflection in the bathroom mirror as she stripped off her nightshirt and turned on the water in the shower to let it heat while she retrieved her toiletries bag, still in the bedroom, sure evidence of her lack of mental organization upon arrival.

The hot water washed away the clammy remnants of her nightmare, unknotted the muscles in her neck and shoulders and back, and she stood for a moment simply luxuriating in the sensation, breathing deeply of the steam, pretending that the water on her face was solely from the showerhead.

“It was not real,” She informed the woman looking back at her from the mirror as she toweled herself dry. “I would never do such a thing, not even to him.” She turned away before that woman’s expression could turn more self-mocking than it already was. “Get yourself together, woman, you are not a first year resident, this is not the first time -- “

Her suite’s door chime sounded, and Reinhardt’s voice came over the comm. “Liebchen? Are you awake?”

“Just a moment!” She twisted the towel around her wet hair and slipped into her robe, belting it tightly around her as she keyed open the door. “What is wrong, onkle?”

“Nothing, for a pleasant change. You asked to be informed when Fareeha arrived -- her plane just landed in Gibraltar, and she should be here shortly.” Reinhardt paused, his good eye narrowing slightly as he regarded her. “Are you well, Angela? You look -- “

“My sleep was something other than restful.” Angela admitted, reluctantly. “Too much stress. I should have taken an aid, but I did not want to adle myself in the event of an emergency.”

“You take too much upon yourself.” He rested a hand on her shoulder. “Do you want me to fetch you something? I know that Fareeha will understand.”

“After we’ve spoken.” She smiled brightly up as his skeptical look. “I promise.”

“I will hold you to that. Come to the kitchen when you are ready and I will make you some tea.” He stepped out and left her to make herself decent.

“...That had best be some miraculous tea.” She whispered and turned to the contents of her suitcase.

#WIP: Shogatsu

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solivar · 8 years

Text

WIP: Shōgatsu

aka the sequel to I Heard The Bells

aka everybody wants to know what’s in the box (spoiler: it’s not Gwyneth Paltrow’s great-granddaughter’s head)

aka the one where Reinhardt really surprised me by choosing to become a POV character right off the bat

Now with a significant text upgrade for the evening crowd!

Unfortunately for both his nerves and his good intentions, the only member of the rescue team desirous or capable of partaking of that largesse was the pilot, who rapidly consumed three buns and two cups of coffee, having just spent nearly twenty hours at the controls and who needed the stimulants solely in order to stagger upstairs to bed. Zenyatta did not, of course, need to eat, having no actual nutritional requirements answerable by sugar or caffeine. Jesse was not in a condition to do so nor, as it turned out, were Genji’s brother and Dr. Emily Corbin, who had spent the majority of the flight stabilizing the same and who disappeared with him into the second surgical suite within minutes of their arrival. That left Genji himself, who should have had something to eat and drink, and was absolutely neglecting the remaining needs of his organic body for rest and nourishment in favor of pacing a course that would, eventually, send him right up the walls. Literally.

“Please, my friend.” Genji’s voice, when he replied, was soft but not enough to disguise the pain in it. “I...do not wish to leave Medical right now.”

“It was not.” Genji admitted, dabbing the corner of his mouth with the unfolded napkin. “I am not going to leave. My brother -- Jesse -- I cannot.”

Reinhardt patted his shoulder comfortingly. “I do not expect you to do so...yet. But you must rest at some point, Genji. You will be no good to anyone if you do not.”

“At some point, yes.” He agreed.

“Do you remember when I said that I think you should rest sometime?” Reinhardt asked, in a tone that strongly suggested that time had clearly, obviously come.

“I do. It was not that long ago.” Genji raised his head with a physical effort. “I -- “

Dr. Corbin stepped out, shaking the coppery-red braid out of her surgical cap, and Genji rose on unsteady legs to greet her. “Doctor?”

Genji closed his eyes and, for a moment, the emotions that crossed his face came too rapidly to distinguish one from another, ending on a fragile species of relief. “Thank you, Doctor.”

“Please.” Genji stepped forward, knees wobbly; Reinhardt caught him by the elbow and they went into the recovery pod together.

#WIP Shogatsu #Listen to your badass German grandpa Genji Shimada

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solivar · 8 years

Text

WIP: Shōgatsu

aka the sequel to I Heard The Bells

aka everybody wants to know what’s in the box (spoiler: it’s also not Marsellus Wallace’s soul)

aka the one in which Reinhardt is everybody’s favorite surprise POV having uncle

“Please, my friend.” Genji’s voice, when he replied, was soft but not enough to disguise the pain in it. “I...do not wish to leave Medical right now.”

“It was not.” Genji admitted, dabbing the corner of his mouth with the unfolded napkin. “I am not going to leave. My brother -- Jesse -- I cannot.”

Reinhardt patted his shoulder comfortingly. “I do not expect you to do so...yet. But you must rest at some point, Genji. You will be no good to anyone if you do not.”

“At some point, yes.” He agreed.

“Do you remember when I said that I think you should rest sometime?” Reinhardt asked, in a tone that strongly suggested that time had clearly, obviously come.

“I do. It was not that long ago.” Genji raised his head with a physical effort. “I -- “

Dr. Corbin stepped out, shaking the coppery-red braid out of her surgical cap, and Genji rose on unsteady legs to greet her. “Doctor?”

Genji closed his eyes and, for a moment, the emotions that crossed his face came too rapidly to distinguish one from another, ending on a fragile species of relief. “Thank you, Doctor.”

“Please.” Genji stepped forward, knees wobbly; Reinhardt caught him by the elbow and they went into the recovery pod together.

“Of course.”

“Liebchen,” He rose, and opened his arms, and she walked almost blindly into his embrace, rested her head on his chest. “Is he…?”

“You should also rest, Angela.” Reinhardt replied, gently.

“I have another patient to attend before I can do that.” Angela replied and the tiny smile planed completely away.

Knowing there was little he could do to dissuade her and absolutely nothing he could say, he stepped aside to allow her entry to the recovery pod; she gestured for him to follow, and so he did.

“Yes, onkel.” She looked up at him, heaven-blue eyes suddenly bright, steely. “I am going to need your help, I think, before all this is said and done.”

“With what?” He asked, feeling already the weight of what she would say and his willingness to shoulder it.

Reinhardt reached out and grasped her hand. “You know that my hammer is yours.”

She squeezed tightly in return. “Yes. I do.”

#WIP Shogatsu

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solivar · 8 years

Text

WIP: Shōgatsu

aka the sequel to I Heard The Bells

aka the one in which everyone wants to know what’s in the box (spoiler: it is not a Pepperidge Farms Gift Basket)

aka the bit in which Torbjorn and Winston begin conducting an omnic assassin autopsy

Reinhardt was the first to make the attempt: he was already there when the Orca landed at Watchpoint Gibraltar, coasting on the fumes as Lena promised and relying heavily on its solar-powered propulsion systems on the final leg of the journey. He and Brigitte reached the base before anyone else, departing Gothenburg via telestation to Berlin, Berlin to Madrid, and then the red-eye hypertrain to Malaga, the last stretch accomplished at breakneck speed in a rental car along the scenic old coastal highways that linked the two cities together. Angela pulled into the Watchpoint to find a full breakfast waiting for her in the communal recreation center, a room in the personnel quarters block cleaned and prepared for her use, and a capable assistant in the form of Torbjörn’s eldest daughter when it came to preparing and restocking the surgical suites in the medical bay. It was thus that the rest of the team arrived, late in the evening on Christmas Day, to Reinhardt and Angela waiting on the platform next to the VTOL landing pad, Angela already in scrubs and ready to take the emergency life support pod containing Jesse in hand and Reinhardt manning a hovercart containing freshly brewed carafes of coffee and tea and an enormous platter of fresh cinnamon buns nearly as tall as himself because he was, at the best of times, a stress baker and never more so when legitimately unable to do more than wait.

Reinhardt permitted this folly to go unanswered for the full eighty-five minutes it took to relocate the hovercart to the kitchen, unload it, use the terminal there to obtain a proper medical reference vis a vis Genji’s daily nutrient intake requirements and thereafter prepare him a properly wholesome breakfast. He selected breakfast because he knew, beyond a shadow of any doubt, that at no point during the mad telestation enabled dash from Nepal to Washington, D.C. had any member of that trio spared more than a passing thought to the concept of a meal and, seeing as it was 1:45 am in Shambali at that very moment, it was officially both too late and too early for dinner. A boiled egg, a small fruit salad of sliced bananas and hothouse strawberries, a glass of apple juice. Genji’s body required little in the way of protein intake and too much could, in truth, harm him if he did not manage it carefully and the would serve fruits to satisfy his sweet tooth in a healthful way. It was with a warm sense of satisfaction for a job well-done that he rang the public communications panel in the medical bay hall and announced, “Genji, your breakfast is waiting in the kitchen! Come and eat!”

“Please, my friend.” Genji’s voice, when he replied, was soft but not enough to disguise the pain in it. “I...do not wish to leave Medical right now.”

“It was not.” Genji admitted, dabbing the corner of his mouth with the unfolded napkin. “I am not going to leave. My brother -- Jesse -- I cannot.”

Reinhardt patted his shoulder comfortingly. “I do not expect you to do so...yet. But you must rest at some point, Genji. You will be no good to anyone if you do not.”

“At some point, yes.” He agreed.

Two and a half hours later, he had, in fact, stopped pacing when Reinhardt stirred from his own very necessary nap to come check on him, instead sitting in half-lotus position next to his mentor, floating serenely a few inches off the ground. His body’s lights were noticeably dimmed and it took him no small amount of time to notice that they were no longer alone, an impressive lapse of awareness given the circumstances. “Reinhardt -- is something wrong?”

“Do you remember when I said that I think you should rest sometime?” Reinhardt asked, in a tone that strongly suggested that time had clearly, obviously come.

“I do. It was not that long ago.” Genji raised his head with a physical effort. “I -- “

Reinhardt thought that was giving at least one brother slightly too much credit, but also recognized the better part of keeping such sentiments to himself. “Your teacher is a wise being, my friend. You must rest, even if only a little while. You are, as they say, running on empty.”

Dr. Corbin stepped out, shaking the coppery-red braid out of her surgical cap, and Genji rose on unsteady legs to greet her. “Doctor?”

Genji closed his eyes and, for a moment, the emotions that crossed his face came too rapidly to distinguish one from another, ending on a fragile species of relief. “Thank you, Doctor.”

“Please.” Genji stepped forward, knees wobbly; Reinhardt caught him by the elbow and they went into the recovery pod together.

“Of course.”

The corridor was more than wide enough to accommodate a cot on each side with room for other concerned parties to pretend to casually pass through on the way to other destinations. Lena wandered through to inform him that Fareeha had called from JFK to let them know she was on the last leg of the trip and would be landing in Gibraltar later in the day. Winston ambled down from Operations to casually mention that Torbjörn had messaged that he was leaving Gothenburg within the hour. Both of them inquired delicately after Genji, who remained deeply asleep even after all his mechanical systems were fully recharged and reading in the green, likely jetlagged in the way that only seemed to hit after sequential telestation transits across multiple time zones. Neither said any of the things they clearly wished to say about the man they did not really know lying in recovery, or about the friend they knew all too well still in surgery after so many hours. Reinhardt did not speak any of those words yet, either, no more prepared to begin thinking in that direction than they.

Late in the morning, the light over the sealed surgical suite flicked from red to green, and Angela stepped out into the corridor. For the first time in what was certainly years she looked as though she had just spent nine hours laboring over an operating table, contending mightily to save her patient’s life: her eyes were shadowed with exhaustion and her shoulders were so bent under the weight of some powerful emotion that, for a moment, fear genuinely seized his heart.

“Liebchen,” He rose, and opened his arms, and she walked almost blindly into his embrace, rested her head on his chest. “Is he…?”

“You should also rest, Angela.” Reinhardt replied, gently.

“I have another patient to attend before I can do that.” Angela replied and the tiny smile planed completely away.

Knowing there was little he could do to dissuade her and absolutely nothing he could say, he stepped aside to allow her entry to the recovery pod; she gestured for him to follow, and so he did.

“Agreed.” The cots were mounted on antigrav railings and it took only minor effort to maneuver them down the hall and into one of the larger nonsurgical medical suites. “And now, liebchen, I insist that you find your way to your quarters, as well.”

“Yes, onkel.” She looked up at him, heaven-blue eyes suddenly bright, steely. “I am going to need your help, I think, before all this is said and done.”

“With what?” He asked, feeling already the weight of what she would say and his willingness to shoulder it.

“This was not a random act of violence. It was not even, I suspect, an attempt to cash in on Jesse’s bounty. Someone was willing to expend an enormous amount of effort in order to kill him.” Her eyes flashed, icily furious. “We must know who that is and why, and then we must make certain they cannot try again.”

Reinhardt reached out and grasped her hand. “You know that my hammer is yours.”

She squeezed tightly in return. “Yes. I do.”

This was not at all how she imagined it happening -- and she had had years, more than a decade really, in which to construct scenarios in the back of her mind, to contemplate every reasonable permutation of events that would bring her, bring them, to this point. Somehow, none of those carefully planned, artfully arranged fantasies had involved Hanzo bloody Shimada being carried senseless and just short of mortally wounded into a Watchpoint medical facility over which she held more or less absolute operational authority, which just proved that reality would always contrive to be stranger than fiction. Fiction, after all, was obligated to make sense.

Dr. Angela Ziegler stood in the recovery room currently occupied by a man whom she had faithfully despised in absentia for more than a decade, tried and convicted by undeniable evidence, surrounded by a holo-fan of his medical monitors, trying strenuously to think of nothing but their contents and failing miserably. Dr. Corbin’s field assessment and subsequent course of intervention was completely clinically sound. The surgical stabilization of the chest wall injury was clearly necessary -- the amount of force applied to the initial point of impact had shattered two of the four ribs involved, tore the sternal cartilage completely loose, lacerated the lung beneath in a manner functionally indistinguishable from penetrative chest trauma. (In her mind’s eye, she saw another set of pulmonary scans, the results of another form of penetrative chest trauma, the molecules-thick nanofilm that held Genji’s thoracic cavity together in the absence of most of his sternum, ribs, musculature on his arrival in Geneva, strapped into the first generation life support pod prototype the Blackwatch retrieval team had absconded with on their recovery mission. Proof of concept and successful rescue rolled into one, she had been forced to admit, even as she struggled then to find the intellectual distance necessary to save what was left of her patient’s life.) The secondary bilateral pulmonary contusions meant, taken as a total picture, he had more damaged lung tissue than healthy with all the attendant problems related, positive pressure mechanical ventilation being a completely reasonable means of addressing the prevailing issue of adequate oxygenation while the nanocolonies worked to repair the pulmonary soft tissue damage. (Genji had not breathed on his own for more than three months while his lungs were being rebuilt on a nanomachine framework overlaid with organ tissue based on his own genetic blueprint using stem cells harvested from the marrow of his remaining bones, to reduce the risk of rejection.) The tube thoracostomy was a pragmatic, therapeutic response to the risk of pneumothorax and the heavy epidural-delivered anaesthetic requirements for pain management, as were the intravenous antibiotics and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medications the pod’s autonomous monitoring systems fed him at regular intervals -- all the rest was for nothing if he drowned in his own fluids or developed a secondary post-surgical infection that further compromised his pulmonary functions. (Pneumothorax had been the very least of Genji’s concerns -- his thorax had, after all, been mostly theoretical until the fabrication team produced a workable synthetic thoracic cage that played nicely with the modular spinal reconstruction, a process of trial and retrial that produced seven different prototypes that had gone on to save thousands of other lives. Genji’s unique and horrific circumstances had partaken of several to produce a functional result, given the desired parameters of his recovery.) The external injuries were nearly an afterthought in terms of severity, the incised wounds carved down his side responding well to the biotic infusions he had received; he might not even have a scar to remember them by. (Genji’s remaining nonsynthetic epidermis was more scar tissue than anything else.)

It would take so little. A slight alteration in the ventilation pressure. A tiny adjustment to the anaesthetic level. Either or both could depress the breathing reflex, compromise the oxygenation levels. Reduce the concentration of anti-inflammatories in the medication mixture and the amount of excess fluid his body produced would increase slowly but surely. The sedation would break, eventually, and before he died he would be aware enough to know the agony and the horror of being trapped in his own broken body while he drowned in his own fluids, helpless to save himself. It would take so little. Her fingertips rested on the recovery pod command keys that would make it happen. All she had to do was move them.

“Yes, Dr. Ziegler?” The workpad sitting on her bedside table came to life as she snatched it up. “Do you require assistance? Your heart rate is significantly elevated -- “

“As you wish, Dr. Ziegler.”

Was that a faint hint of reproof in Athena’s tone? Angela decided that she didn’t care as the data feeds opened on her tablet. And there was the proof that she had not indulged in emotional impulses of murderous intent while in the grip of physical and mental exhaustion: Shimada-the-elder’s therapeutic program unaltered from Dr. Corbin’s planned course of action. Relief rushed through her, almost as dizzying as the adrenaline rush of sudden fear, and she fell back into her pillows with a thoroughly repellent squelch that sent her rolling out of bed. She needed a shower. No: she needed a shower, then she needed a sedative of her own, and then she needed at least eight hours of uninterrupted rest. Of the three, she was most likely to get the shower, every nerve still twitching with the sudden release of stress and sleep running away with a laugh that mocked the entire concept of pharmaceutical intervention.

Her suite’s door chime sounded, and Reinhardt’s voice came over the comm. “Liebchen? Are you awake?”

“Just a moment!” She twisted the towel around her wet hair and slipped into her robe, belting it tightly around her as she keyed open the door. “What is wrong, onkle?”

“My sleep was something other than restful.” Angela admitted, reluctantly. “Too much stress. I should have taken a sleep aid, but I did not want to adle myself in the event of an emergency.”

“You take too much upon yourself.” He rested a hand on her shoulder. “Do you want me to fetch you something? I know that Fareeha will understand.”

“After we’ve spoken.” She smiled brightly up as his skeptical look. “I promise.”

“I will hold you to that. Come to the kitchen when you are ready and I will make you some tea.” He stepped out and left her to make herself decent.

“...That had best be some miraculous tea.” She whispered and turned to the contents of her suitcase.

Fareeha Amari looked like Angela felt -- which was to say as though she were running a semi-permanent sleep deficit, presently held at bay by military-grade combat stimulants, cardiac arrhythmia inducing amounts of caffeine, or some deeply unhealthy combination of the two. The shadows under her eyes had shadows of their own, and it was entirely possible that she had completely lost track of the number of sugars she had already added to the steaming cup sitting on the rec center table in front of her, because she was glaring at it as though it had personally insulted the honor of her parents. She looked up as Angela entered the room and crossed into her still-active-albeit-sluggish situational awareness sphere and the expression of dismay that crossed her face would have been comical under any other circumstances. “Angie, who punched you? Tell me now and I promise I’ll only break their arm a little bit.”

“No punches, I assure you, just the inevitable consequence of not sleeping a night through for...what day is it again?” Angela asked, and accepted the mug Reinhardt poured for her, already adulterated to her preferences.

“It is technically still the 26th for a few more hours.” He replied and turned back to the teakettle to fix himself a drink, as well.

“Four months? Give or take the odd weekend here and there where absolutely nothing urgently acquired my immediate attention and I didn’t have to fly thousands of miles on a moment’s notice to perform life-saving medical intervention for my idiot brother.” Angela sipped her tea and savored the warmth.

“Well, you’re calling him an idiot which means he’s not going to die.” Fareeha’s shoulders slumped as though an enormous weight had been lifted off them and she sagged back into her chair. “He’s...not dying, right? That’s what that means?”

“He is not dying any longer. But I do not think I will ever be as afraid as I was when I opened the life support pod and saw -- “ Her hands were shaking hard enough that she thought it wise to set her mug down. “A half-inch to the left or to the right and we would be sitting here planning his funeral. I -- “

Fareeha’s arms closed around her and, a moment later, the force of Reinhardt’s embrace crushed them both and for quite some time thereafter none of them said anything.

“Thank you. I feel so foolish,” Angela said, as Fareeha handed her a napkin, which she then applied to her eyes. “This is not the first time and yet, for some reason, it feels so much worse than it ever has before.”

“Before you could order him confined to the Medical or his quarters until you saw fit to release him back to active and Commander Reyes would not only back you up, he might personally sit on him, as well.” Fareeha warmed everyone’s tea. “It feels different because it is different. And -- “ She paused, looked all the way around the room before she let herself look at them again, “I don’t know how you two felt about the presents he sent but -- “ She stopped again, drank a sip, and soldiered on. “Everything he sends is always so thoughtful but this year it was...something else. Deliberately something else, not just something that we’d like to have but something to take comfort in like…” She trailed off.

Reinhardt put the thought she had not been willing to speak into words. “As though he knew this might be his last gift to us.”

The silence that followed was thick with things that none of them wanted to admit aloud. Angela focused on the surface of her tea and drank, thinking fixedly of nothing, until she reached the bottom of her cup. “I was not exaggerating when I said a half-inch either way would have meant his death. If the shot had placed slightly to the right, it would have struck close enough to sever the spinal column and the exit path would have severed all the major blood vessels in his neck and the esophagus. He would have died more or less instantly. To left, it would have done a similar amount of damage to his heart and the great vessels emerging from it, though the shot might have been less immediately lethal. Had the assassin placed their shot below the back edge of his ballistic armor, the bullet would at the very least have done severe and likely mortal damage to one of his kidneys -- if that were not enough to cause him to bleed to death within minutes, the cavitation injuries caused by its path through the abdomen would have killed him.” She looked up and found Fareeha carefully assembling her Professional Security Officer face and Reinhardt with his expressionless Old Soldier mask already firmly in place. “Instead, the assassin placed their shot to rather precisely sever the brachial cybernetic control plexus and inflict significant, immediately disabling but not instantaneously fatal injuries.”

“That’s….” Fareeha began, her brows knitting together. “Wait just a moment. Athena, can you give us an American news feed? Any news items applicable to the events in Arlington. Literally everything.” She pulled out her own tablet and opened a subscreen.

“Of course, Fareeha.” On the far side of the rec center, the holotank came to life, split into a dozen screens of both local and national coverage, chyrons running across the bottom of the display in place of competing audio. “Searching for archival information now. These are the currently active broadcasts.”

Angela stood and drifted closer. At least three of the broadcasts were politically oriented talk shows populated by a random selection of individuals who never allowed a complete absence of solid information to interfere with their ability to be thoroughly outraged by the topic at hand. She ignored them completely in favor of the local news feeds which seemed to be altogether more focused on the realities of the situation. The police cordon around the area remained in place despite the thorough disruption it caused to nearby traffic because both military and civilian forensic examiners were combing every inch of Columbarium Court Nine, where the majority of the victims had been found, and two other, smaller sites nearby, where other bodies had been discovered after sunrise. The investigation was young enough that no official statements had yet been made with regard to it, though that did not prevent several reporters from speculating by loudly refusing to speculate about connections to either international or homegrown terrorist organizations. The soldiers injured in the incident had regained consciousness and were being treated for an assortment of minor injuries. They all remained hospitalized for assessment but in general appeared to have fared better than anyone else involved.

“...No, no rush. I’d rather it be good intel, not wild mass guessing. Thanks, Alex.” Fareeha’s laugh rang off the walls. “Sure, fine. Next time, drinks are on me.”

“Dare I ask?” Angela glanced over her shoulder as Athena pulled up a half-dozen more screens from the night of the attack itself.

“One of the nice things about working for Helix.” Fareeha joined her, eying the publicly available news sources with obvious disfavor. “We’ve got contractor teams all over Washington D.C. working private security for events, for individuals, even for certain non-governmental buildings. A colleague of mine, ex-American military, is on station there right now working bodyguard duty and agreed to keep his ear to the ground for interesting pieces of intelligence that don’t make it to broadcast for me.”

“Do you think anything will come of that?” Reinhardt sounded slightly dubious.

“It’s not impossible -- Helix recruits pretty heavily from retired military personnel and more often than not we get looped into unofficial investigation and intelligence gathering networks. The investigation is pretty tight right now but it’s going to start springing leaks, that’s inevitable, especially if that -- “ Fareeha reached out, selected a sub-screen, and pulled it up to full size, “is what I think it is.”

The footage was obviously shot from above, likely a local news drone trying to get a drop on any competitors, grainy low-light footage of a forensic medical examination team removing a knot of corpses from one of the columbarium alcoves. The picture blurred momentarily, as the camera zoomed in, and all of them had to control the instinctual urge to recoil as it focused again, a far too near close-up of the remains: withered to the point of near-mummification inside their armor, limbs contorted in a particularly inflexible state of rigor, what little was visible of their faces suggesting they had died in hideous agony.

“I have seen that before,” Angela admitted, throat dry. “Though I was not part of the forensic examination team that performed the autopsy.”

“Only in pictures.” Fareeha replied, evenly. Then: “Whatever -- whoever -- did that...it killed the entire team, the ones that were in the columbarium, the ones that tried to get away, everything except the shooter itself, which hauled ass rather than hang around and tangle with it.”

“The...mercenaries, for want of a better term, were equipped with less-lethal weapons, per Genji’s report of the situation.” Reinhardt observed. “Intended to injure and disable and, likely, to overwhelm with sheer numbers. It is...not impossible that they intended to capture him there, remove him to another location and…” He gestured expressively.

“Why not wait for him to come out, then?” Fareeha asked. “Whoever contracted this knew where he was going to be. They wouldn’t even have to monitor the whole cemetery perimeter, just keep an eye on the columbarium and follow him out.”

“Because whoever contracted this also knew he would try to avoid the use of lethal force on the grounds of the cemetery and that was a tactical advantage useful enough to exploit.” Reinhardt replied, his disgust with the dishonor of it all readily apparent.

“So...someone who knows him well enough to predict his behavior with a high degree of accuracy.” Fareeha mused. “Because he didn’t actually fire any shots according to Genji.”

“And...who might have particular and accurate knowledge of his medical history.” Angela admitted, worrying at her lip. “Or, at the very least, knew precisely how to injure him in order to effectively cripple his neuromechanical interface hardware.”

Fareeha said it for all of them. “Jesse McCree, what have you been doing?”

The remains of the omnic assassins arrived at Watchpoint Gibraltar sealed inside three repurposed plastic storage bins labeled, sequentially, Bathroom, Spare Utensils, and Miscellaneous. Two contained the expertly dismembered remains of the thing that shot Jesse, the lid to the first bin marked Head and Trunk and the second Limbs and the third, very simply, Kibble in indelible black marker and Lena’s handwriting. Winston had the hangar’s cargo service drones deposit all three in a blastproof storage locker on the far side of his lab, mounted the storage locker with one of his less experimental shield generators rigged to trip if anything larger than a mouse crossed the sensor boundary, and added a neurodisruptor mine with a definite propensity for deploying at the slightest air pressure change directly in front of the locker door, just in case the things were capable of pulling themselves back together or someone tried to infiltrate the facility and scoop them back up. Then he forcefully put them, and all his curiosity about them, firmly out of his mind and went to work helping Fareeha on her own deeply frustrating quest for useful intelligence until Torbjörn and Genji were both awake and capable of rational conversation. Torbjörn, because if anyone was going to be of assistance in autopsying a pair of deceased omnics it was he, and Genji, because he’d both been there and done that in terms of making it possible.

“I am not certain how much help I can be with this, my friend,” Genji admitted, dryly, as Winston went about the process of disarming his security precautions. “Research at this level is not precisely my specialty.”

“It doesn’t have to be.” The bins were, thankfully, exactly where he’d left them, displaying no overt signs of tampering, attempted theft, or spontaneously coming back to life just to mess with everyone’s day. He had his Tesla cannon fully charged and in standby mode leaning against the wall nearest his work table nonetheless. “I primarily need to pick you brain since, unlike the rest of us, you actually witnessed this...being...in action.”

And it was the collective opinion of Angela and the Tekhartha that Genji needed to spend at least a few hours doing something other than brooding at one bedside or another, for the sake of his own mental and emotional health. Hence his presence here, perched on the edge of a stack of empty munitions cases, a decidedly dubious expression gracing the fully mobile portions of his face, while Winston and Torbjörn unpacked the assorted not-too-mutilated assassin appendages and laid them out on the first of two fully equipped forensic examination tables carted down from medical stores. Of the them, the one Genji killed was far more physiologically complete, having been sliced into eight separate and distinct segments by a monomolecular edged weapon designed specifically for that purpose, its head in particular neatly bisected down the midline and then snicked cleanly off. The one Genji’s brother had killed, by way of contrast, consisted of a dozen middling-sized chunks of pitted and fractured metal that if you squinted at from a distance almost resembled the physical remains of something that had once been at least nominally alive, plus a few handfuls of charcoal fused together in a manner reminiscent of certain mid-21st century schools of modern sculpture. It took more or less all of Winston’s self-control not to glance between it and Genji, having obtained a sudden and uncomfortably complete comprehension of how he’d come to require such extensive cyberneticization.

“Did you see what this -- “ Torbjörn prodded the largest of the recognizable omnic-chunks with a neuromechanical probe, testing on the off-chance for anything still reactive in its heavily carbonized mass. “thing looked like before that brother of yours had his way with it?”

Genji flicked a look Torbjörn’s way, though his tone remained perfectly even. “I did not. When this one registered on the perimeter monitors, Zenyatta and I were already moving to intercept the shooter, and by the time we returned it was already -- “ He gestured expressively, “as you see it.”

“Well, that might be a chunk of hardened processor containment structure but I’m also sure it doesn’t matter if it is. When your brother kills something he doesn’t do it by half measures, does he?” It had the tone of musing done aloud. Then: “Oh. Oh, dear. I’m sorry, lad. I wasn’t thinking.”

“No apology is necessary. You are not wrong.” Genji’s voice, even synthesized, held more than a trace of rue. “Thoroughness is one of his virtues. And I am certain he will be more than willing to cooperate with the investigation when he is capable of doing so.”

“If you say so, lad.” Torbjörn leaned over and gave him a intensely earnest pat on the shoulder. “In any case, I doubt we’re going to learn very much from this one. Winston?”

“I concur.” Winston activated the table’s onboard preservation and containment systems, and the drones hauled it back out of the way. “Athena, please run the spectroscopic test battery we talked about earlier -- if nothing else, we might learn something from the materials composition.”

“As you wish, Winston.” The table scooted sideways at Athena’s direction and into one of the side antechambers where she’d set up the spectroscopy rig.

“Now this…” Torbjörn cracked open his full toolkit, wheeled into place some hours before, and pulled on his capacitive sensor gauntlet. “Good on you for the neat incisions, lad. Lets us get a good look at everything we really need to see. Shall we?” He handed Winston a plasma cutter and a face shield.

Getting that particular good look was more easily said than done. The assassin’s armor proved substantially more resistant to the focused energy lancet than it had to Genji’s sword, drinking down the full charge of both cutters in exchange for an incision on the left thorax less than three inches long. They brought out a third, and managed another inch, just long enough for Genji to insert the smaller, thinner of his monomolecular weapons and still exert sufficient pressure and leverage to cut, slowly and carefully. The result, when he was finished, resembled a matte black sardine can peeled open by main force.

“I think we’re going to need that materials analysis after all.” Torbjörn admitted, running the sensor-studded palm of his gauntlet over the thoracic hood segment that Genji cut away for them. “My eyes say it’s there but the sensors aren’t having any of it.”

“The security perimeter sensors at the cabin had enormous difficulty locking onto both of these things, as well.” Genji mused aloud. “It speculated about a truly impressive level of onboard stealth countermeasures.”

“That’s one way to describe it.” Torbjörn set the hood segment aside, over top the disembodied limbs. “Innards look to be basically standard configuration, at least, but…”

Winston adjusted the angle of the lights and leaned in closer. “That’s a fairly heavy power plant for an omnic of this size and weight. Better support for the weaponry?”

“Possibly. Likely needed a higher output for any stealthy shenanigans not related its outer shell composition. And its locomotion since this thing more or less kept pace with you lot, even though you hopped on a hyperlane, yes?” Torbjörn inclined a questioning brow but didn’t look up from the delicate process of jimmying the power core free of its main conduits and housing.

“In essence. We must have outrun it for a time, but did not entirely shake it.” Genji also drifted closer, a worry-mark engraving itself between his eyebrows.

“External sensor package is in the head, we’ll look at that next.” Out came the power core, smoothly spherical, unmarked except for the conduit connection ports. “That’s...unusual.”

“What?” Winston and Genji asked simultaneously, in near-identical tones of concern.

“Well. For want of a better term, this is the thing’s heart. Processor module’s the brain.” He tapped the assassin’s abdominal casing, still mostly intact, with his prosthetic hand. “If your friend would come down and crack open his chassis for a bit of compare and contrast, what you’d see is a reasonably similar configuration, though I suspect the Tekhartha would have a somewhat smaller power plant, since I rather doubt he was intended as a combat model. What he would have, however, is an alphanumeric code etched into the surface of his power core and the housing of his processor unit, identifying the Omnium where he was manufactured and time and date on which he came online.” He rotated the assassin’s disembodied power core, displaying its completely unmarked surface. “Such as this thing completely lacks. And may have always lacked, since it doesn’t look like it was scrubbed clean. The processor housing might tell a different tale, but…”

“Torbjörn,” Winston asked, slowly, a number of unpleasant realizations breaking over him at once, “are you suggesting this thing is...new? Genuinely, absolutely new?”

“I don’t know.” Torbjörn admitted quietly. “But I think we should find out before -- “

Athena’s comm interface chimed delicately. “Genji. Dr. Ziegler has asked me to inform you that your brother has regained consciousness and to ask that you please come to Medical at your soonest convenience.”

“Thank you, Athena.” The three shared a deeply worried look among them. “I will ask him what he remembers, but I cannot be certain that he will be able to give us much useful information yet. Torbjörn, do you think it safe to keep this thing here even in its current...inactive...state?”

“It’s likely as dead as you can make it, lad, so I’m not overly concerned about that at the moment.” He set the power core aside. “But whoever made it, and whoever sent it out? That’s another story.”

#WIP Shogatsu

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