Chapter 3 : Commence the attack
We drove down a side street that brought us around the mountaintop to a gated off area with guards patrolling around and flight towers reaching into the skies. We got led inside until we ended in the main plaza which was outside on a ledge of the mountain. Temporary aluminium buildings on either side, several stories high. More gates going inside the mountain where rooms had been carved out like well-furnished caves. The soldiers seemed genuinely happy to be here. They had everything soldiers could want, a grill, a pool set up at the side of the cliff to watch over the ocean. Benches and tables where they played silly games together and chased each other with ice water to escape the hot August sun.
Conversations died down as the Commanders stepped out of the car and helped me with my bags. Curious eyes followed us as we walked into locker rooms, where I was allowed to store my bags until my room was up and ready. They already provided me with a basic unform and essentials like towels and a tooth brush. “I’m going to look what’s taking so long to get a new room ready, stay with Gabriel for now, maybe he can show you around a little?”, Morrison was not suggestion, it was more of a hidden order towards Reyes who just rolled his eyes and shooed Jack away to get his business as the team lead done.
Gabriel meanwhile took me on a walk around the area, half the base had been carved into the mountain to protect their equipment and other mysterious secrets I didn’t get to see. All the personal rooms were also inside the caves, everything triple locks in case of an attack. They had storage halls filled with dozens of fighter jets and transport planes, ammunition to supply an entire nation. Training facilities for all sorts of scenarios, sharp shooting, hand to hand combat, environmental parkour, rescue missions and a dedicated trainings area to work with the individuals’ special skills. It was stacked with robots, some with special shields, some even shotting light beams to simulate getting shot at. Everything made with the most advanced AI intelligence.
He must have seen how impressed I was by all of it, touching the standing robots with care like they were worth millions. The second Commander let out a laugh and pushed one robot over that was now rolling around trying to get back up “They aren’t alive, not those ones. We made sure that they are just programmed pieces of metal. We at Overwatch respect Omnics free will and are not using life bait to train with.”, he explained and started looking around the room for something.
As he came over to me, he handed me a pistol, just dropped it into my open palms and let me stand there like some moron. I just glared at him, carefully shifting the weight of this death bringing object in my hand. I had only seen these things in movies and video games before, and maybe got a toddler like exploitations how they work off a YouTube video doom scrolling on late nights. “Is it loaded?”, I asked carefully, keeping my hands steady like I was holding a bomb
Gabriel just started laughing again, and took the weapon with two fingers and dropped it, I flinched thinking if would go off which was even funnier for the man. “As if I would just hand you a loaded weapon!”, he bellowed and picked it back up, aimed for a robot and pulled the trigger. Just like the robots themselves it was controlled light beams that wouldn’t hurt a fly, the robots were programmed to react as if they got eliminated until they were reset. “See, no harm done.”, he laughed and decided to also shoot at beam at himself to show it was harmless to humans. “Since you never held one of those were going to give you the children’s toy version, until you’re ready for more”, he snickered and handed it back to me to figure it out.
I played around with this child-locked version feeling much safer knowing I can’t commit murder on accident. I played around pretending to shoot random walls making little “pew pew” sounds. We laughed it off and gave the gun back for now. I could see a small hint of adoration in his eyes as he put the guns back where it came from.
We continued our tour, Reyes let me lead the way, which meant running around aimlessly and following old, half torn down signs to the places I wanted to see. He just seemed to watch me while I went on my little exploration, always with a smile on his lips, always encouraging me to open doors that said “Staff only” because I was “staff” now. We strolled through the sports fields, a soccer field, a basketball court, a tennis court, all that recreational stuff as Gabe decided to ask me something. “So, between you and Morrison…” he started, clearing his throat.
At first, I just tilted my head, the gears turning slowly to figure out what he meant. Then it clicked, it was true that we had gotten close since the Route 66 incident. He helped me pack up my things, talked with my old landlord to get that squared away. We spend long nights in his office getting the legal aspect in order, it was too many papers to sign. “Don’t even go there. It’s not…that…”, I caught myself stuttering, hesitating
just enough for him to press it a little more.
“I beg to differ, I caught him smiling more since you showed up in his life.”, he said grinning like he already knew more than me. Jack and him were friends since the rooky days in the army, if Gabe said something is different with Morrison, I should trust him. The thought of Jack being happier since he met me gave me the same little flutters I had as he first held my hand on that one night where he recruited me. I had been looking up to this man since the Omnic Crisis happened and I saw him holding an interview on TV, uniform torn, hair a mess from the fighting, weapon still in hand.
He immediately dropped his smile as Morrison came studding along looking for us. We both quickly pretended we never said anything whilst sharing knowing looks between each other. It must have been a mere coincidence that I was stationed in the same floor as the two leaders, in a room that even had a small balcony hanging over the edge of the cliff. It wasn’t the biggest room, but the one with the most beautiful view over the setting sun. I must have talked a lot about how I want to see the sunset while sipping some fancy drink in my room.
My first task as an official rooky soldier was to introduce myself to the other heroes at dinner. My knees were shaking as I stood between Jack and Gabe at the front of the dining hall. Jack had his hand on the small of my back to support me while Gabe just rested his arm on my shoulder like I was just personal wall to lean on. I just pressed a smile on my face and nodded along with whatever was being said, mostly not paying attention. I was more focused on all the eyes on me, the subtle touches on my body, and how fast my heart was racing.
After that embarrassing ritual was done, I got to have my dinner in silence, I was the new kid, no military background, no experience around guns and life at war. I was a civilian at best that was eating their food and taking up their space. I was told the others would warm up to me eventually, but I wasn’t as hopeful.
The next day Gabriel was responsible to get me settled my new schedule, I needed a lot more training than some of the seasoned heroes and was often assigned for cleaning duty afterwards. Nobody said being a newbie was an easy task, but I wasn’t going to give up because of that. I worked hard, with the fake weapon at first until I gradually worked up to hold a real gun and shoot real bullets at paper targets. I watched as the other soldiers ran through their training routines like it was second nature to them feeling a wave of shame and envy.
While Jack was busy working Gabe kept an eye on me, checking in on my progress and gave me tips. I missed Jack a lot, he was always locked up in his office all hour of the day. The only way we spoke is over a few short texts and some notes I slip him under his door when I was bored. The entire Route 66 incident has caused a hell of an investigation seeing as many highly respected leaders died on that train.
It was just more of the same every day, wake up before the sun rose, clean the training equipment for the others to use later, breakfast, physical training, rehearsing skills with several fake weapons, lunch, learning new things and training with real guns, supervised of course, Clean up behind myself and other if needed, dinner, and then maybe a few hours of free time where I mostly collapse on the nearest sunbed and slept
Until one day I had enough, my body ached with every breath, it felt like I was falling apart under the harsh conditions of the training routine but I wanted to have fun, I wanted to live. Since I had clean-up duty every morning nobody would even notice if I used the Overwatch agents training facilities, the ones I felt so envious towards just watching how it’s done. It was the middle of the night as I got dressed and snuck out of my room.
I walked my way down to the training halls turned on the lights like I would at every normal day. I really looked at the course closely this time, and not just to clean it. An Obstacles course, moving and shooting robots, gaps that would make me fall several meters onto somewhat soft ground. All while having missions to complete. “Fuck it, let’s run this simulation.”, I sighed as I got set up.
The first five or six attempts I couldn’t even get past the first jump without either getting hit, or making stupid missteps that made me trip and fall into the mattress that caught my fall.
As I laid there face down in one of the mattresses, rolling over in pain as I yet again landed in a weird way, I heard a voice from the entrance “Ay Mijita. That’s not how that works.”, a deep laugh echoed through the room. I sat up to see Gabriel standing there, leaned against the door.
I thought that it was all over for me, that I would get into real big trouble for using facilities I wasn’t allowed on yet due to their difficulty, but he didn’t mention that fact at all. He just stood by and watched, for God knows how long.
I dragged my body up, limping a bit as I had somehow injured my knee while running but trying to be brave about it. He looked at how beaten up I looked and his smile soon vanished. “How long have you been trying that”, he said as he helped me sit down.
I shrugged and gladly accepted a sip of water while recovering. “That was attempt seven… I think. This parkour is no joke.”, I huffed a bit and started stretching again to set up another try. Reyes clearly wasn’t happy that I was doing so much, I still had the whole day ahead of me and was already injured and drenched in sweat. I brushed off his concern and said I still had a few hours before I would have to be on duty.
I got up and made my way to the top again, Gabe was silent, a little too silent, he was up to something. Once I had climbed up the ladder I looked down and saw him strip off his shirt to change into the special uniform covered in electrical sensors that was used for this activity. The suit knew if and where you got “hit” and would give you a small electroshock in that area so you would feel it.
I just waited, and watched, maybe I shouldn’t have stared so obviously but I was too stunned and confused to think about that. He got dressed and quickly followed me up the ladder. “I know you won't stop trying until you beat this thing so I'm helping before you actaully break soemthing. Estúpida ”, he scoffed before he was off on the course.
He showed me how to properly jump off hights without tripping, hiding behind covers so the “bullets” would hit me. There was always a supportive arm around me, guiding, helping, holding me. Always there to catch me or pull me away from a situation.
We had one last big jump, with monkey bars over us, no cover, and two robots aimed and ready to shoot the moment we got into sight. I told him we should have eliminated them before we got here to have our peace when climbing, he just scoffed and jumped up easily swinging over, rolling off on the other side and jog into the safety area like this was some Sunday beach stroll. I stood there, behind the covers, gestured wildly how I should even reach the bars before I would get hit. He shrugged and waited for me behind the finish line, observing how I would handle myself in such a situation
I was so close to finishing this cursed training, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to focus on swinging over when I had “bullets” to dodge. My aim was still terrible, but if I knew something it was how to disobey orders. I took a deep breath and steadied my gun in my hands. I peeked from my cover and barely dodged a shot before going back into hiding. Reyes had jumped to his feet already, looking at me wide eyed on what the hell I was up to.
I held the gun steady and looked just enough to see the robot’s arm, I didn’t have long to aim, it was just turn and shoot, and the bullet had to hit the mark. I thought back of everything the last couple of weeks had taught me. I nudged myself to the edge of the cover and went for it, turned to be in view, arms loose, hands tight and pulled the trigger. To my surprise I actually hit something, the robot was still “alive” but I hit his arm, effectively disarming him, literally.
I rolled back behind cover and tried to repeat the same with the second gunmen that was locked on me. This one actually hit good, full body hit, robot disabled. This was the run; this was the attempt that would work. I put the gun back as carefully as I could and fully sprinted to the monkey bars, I was slow, the strength in my arms already exhausted but I made it.
I made it all the way across before I dropped down, maybe not as gracefully as Gabe did, I landed on my feet and stumbled until I landed on my knees again, but I was right there. I got back up and gave one last sprint to the finish line. Gabriel was already waiting for me with open arms to catch me. I fell into his arms after I crossed the line into the save area, panting like I just ran a marathon, I might as well have. But I could not have been prouder of my achievement. “I did it.”, I huffed while Gabe was still holding me.
I pulled myself away from the prolonged hug to find him with his mouth still slightly gaping and an expression like he just saw a miracle. He kept his arms around me, lifting me enough to take some of my weight of my leg. I was already limping before this run so it was just a protective measure to keep me off the hurting leg “You sure did Mijita,”, he sounded proud of me, like I for once had exceeded his expectation.
We stood there, looking at each other while Reyes’s hands were gently laid around my waist. Both of us smiling and out of breath. Looking back, a few weeks ago, I never thought I would be physically able to run like that. All because I was assigned him as my instructor have a grown into a protégée new agent for their group. Gabriel sure took his work seriously, training me, leading the others, and yet he would find time to run a simulated training with me in the early morning hours.
My hands softly stroked over his arms, stepping out of his grip to take the stairs down to the ground again. He grabbed my hand and followed slowly behind me. The first few steps were already a challenge, putting my entire weight on that one leg, even if it was a short amount of time, stung like crazy. Reyes saw my struggle and swiftly swept me off my feet, carrying me back down and to the nearest chair and put my leg up. “Let me see.”, he said shuffling up my suits leg. My knee was a little red and scarped but very sensitive to touch.
It wasn’t clear yet if I had actually injured myself or if it was just a minor bump. None the less Gabe grabbed an ice pack and stuffed it in a soft splint. “Wear this until tonight. If its not better by then tell me and ill bring you to a healer.”, his hand still on my thigh, holding my leg straight so my foot wouldn’t slip off.
I went back to my room to shower and get ready for the real day. I spend my time doing light work, sitting down more often, bending and stretching my leg to keep it moving. I was just outside at the shooting range, cleaning and maintaining the training weapons as I saw a real rare sight. Jack had left his office for once and was connecting with his soldiers after being stuck in his office for days straight.
Morrison and Reyes were discussing something while I stood at the range currently looking through a sniper’s lens to clean it. Morrisons eyes fell on my knee brace and his steps quickened to reach me. “Caitlin! What on earth happened to you”, he sounded so concerned. He took the weapon from me, his arm immediately going around my hips to hold me and allowing me to lean onto him.
Surprised as I was, I started chuckling exchanging a look with Gabriel who also had to keep a straight face. “Just a training mishap Commander. Took a tumble and landed funny. All good.”, I was very casual about it, but that smile on my lips had given me away. Nobody would be happy about an injury like that.
He turned to Reyes and question him about it: “Is that what really happened? I swear I leave for a few days and you can’t even keep an eye on her.”, Jack sounded like this was some huge dealt that I tripped. It had become obviously evident that he cared more about me than he should. Kneeling down to my leg lifting it to rest my foot against his leg while checking again if my knee needed professional medical treatment.
Gabriel just scoffed and gently nudged the Commander away. I could see in his face that he also tried to hide his smile. “She’s fine. You’re embarrassing yourself.” If Jack heard about the stunt, we pulled he would straight up rant for an hour how I was still not ready for the real trainings yet. He was very careful with me, I was training to be a medic, not a fighter. For him I was this fragile girl that would stay in the back lines and only shows up to help the ones injured after the battle was over.
Jack’s senses were tingling, with Gabe being so dismissive and me almost beaming at an injury something else was going on between the two of us. He stood back up and gave us this very strict, disapproving look. He was suspecting things, crossing his arms and tapping his foot, waiting for one of us to crack.
I looked at Gabriel who started looking guilty, lying to his Co-Commander and friend, especially if we were already discovered felt wrong in so many ways. I didn’t want things to snowball into a full fight and lie campaign so I decided to take the blame: “Fine… I snuck out and used the training simulator. I put it on the easier setting but I still fell off multiple times. I landed on my legs once and my knee buckled away.”, I sighed and got back up trying to defend my actions and keeping Gabe away from the inevitable, “but, I did it. Took me a few tries but I got to the end, even doing it the proper way with eliminating targets and everything.”. I didn’t mention that Gabe was there for it, not that I didn’t want to admit he helped but because I didn’t want him to get into more trouble by helping me do something I shouldn’t.
Jack looked like a bomb got dropped on him, he glared at me, his eye twitching already. He was about to go off at me before Gabriel put a hand on my shoulder. “I supervised the entire thing. She was always save and sound, déjala aprender Jack, let her learn. She will never improve if you keep her locked in a glass cage. She’s gotten really good. Hell, she could keep up with one of us. “, he supported my arguments which caused Jack to turn his anger into defeat. He was locked up in his office for so long he didn’t know how much I had been training or be there to assess me and allow me to graduate up to use the real training equipment.
He didn’t completely go off on us, he put his professional Commander façade aside and pulled me closer, kneeling down to look up at me. “You two are right. I can’t judge your skills when I’m not even there. If you’re ready for the real training go ahead. You’re no longer a rookie, see yourself as promoted to a junior agent. If you can beat the simulator once you can do it again. I want front row seats to every training though. “, he laughed softly, his hands on my shoulders. I promised to tell him when I would try the new equipment so he can be there and give advice or jump in If I would take another fall. He also went to hug Gabe, thanking him for taking such good care of me while he was working day and nights on the incident reports.