Conquest of Paradise Chapter 8

Conquest of Paradise

Chapter Eight

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Jessica Kendal

The last hour had been a bit of a whirlwind, as far as I was concerned. Struggling to do research without assistants or materials, nearly frustrated enough to go out and collect samples personally if I had to, only for those goddamn Rioters to remind me why, exactly, that was a bad fucking idea. Then I had been treating the injured JTF as best I could, and now I was busy scrubbing blood off my hands because some guy who called himself ‘Black Wolf’ wanted to have a chat with the Post Office command staff.

Grabbing a towel and drying off, I tossed it aside and headed towards the long-unused stairs down to the SHD Command Center. Not someplace I had spent a great deal of time since I had been recruited to help beat this thing, given my responsibilities lay in the lab, and after the First Wave had vanished in the Dark Zone it had been empty and tomb-like. The machines required the presence of Division Agents and Coordinators to even turn on, never mind operate, no matter how hard the JTF had tried in the hopes of using those resources for their own efforts.

“Doctor Jessica Kendal?” a soft voice with a European (Eastern European? Sounded German, but not…) accent addressed me, and I looked over to see one of the young woman that had escorted an injured Division Agent into my infirmary without so much as a by-your-leave. She was gorgeous, blonde-haired and blue-eyed, svelte and smart. If I was less of a hard-bitten old bitch, I probably would have tried hitting on her.

“Yes, and you are…?” I replied leadingly, and she gave me a sweet smile that made her look even young and more beautiful than she already did.

“Doctor Angela Zeigler, callsign Mercy. Gaius asked me to meet you and escort you to the meeting, given that we will be working in close proximity with one another for the foreseeable future. Along with Doctor Tchernenko, once Gaius has him extracted from the Russian Embassy.” She introduced herself, shaking my hand (God, her skin was soft, but she had a hell of a grip!) and gesturing invitingly down the hall. We set off, and I mulled over her words carefully before speaking again.

“Vitaly is brilliant, his assistance will be invaluable, but we’re lacking a lot of material required for a project like curing this plague that we’re dealing with. Gordon…Amherst, he was beyond any of us, better than Vitaly and I put together. We need some sort of in, a chink in the armor.” I respond, trying to convey all of my frustration and none of my hopelessness, though I’m sure she hears it anyway, given the comforting smile she gives me.

“Not to worry, Jessica. Gaius has a plan to get you exactly what you need. He’ll explain at the meeting, but he is quite sure we can locate the original lab where this plague, as you so accurately described it, was created and prepared for release. All of his original notes, pure-strain samples, even the equipment used to make it.” She says cheerfully, as if she hadn’t just declared that her boss could get his hands on things that would cut development time of a vaccine by 75% or more like she was commenting on the weather.

“…who areyou people?” I can’t help but ask as we finally enter the Command Center, but she simply smiles and shows me to my seat at the table, between Paul and Roy, before moving around to sit in her own place next to a redhead and a ravenette.

“A good question, and a good place to start. Allow me to introduce us all to one another.” Black Wolf said, reaching up and removing his mask, placing it on the table before him. He was decent enough to look at, for a man, and I could certainly see why women of such an inclination might find him attractive. Hell, I found him somewhat attractive, and I’d never been interested in men my entire life! “My name is Gaius Mactire, callsign Black Wolf, of the Extra-Governmental Oversight Operations Unit. Far more commonly known as Hunters. Long story short, our job is to keep an eye on Division Agents. Unfortunately, the majority of my organization, and the entirety of the rest of my cell, have gone completely rogue.”

Oh, great. There were anti-Division Division Agents out there, which was a bad enough concept, but the majority of them have evidently turned to the proverbial Dark Side. Fantastic, that won’t result in this shit-show getting a whole lot shittier or anything…

“The members of my personal unit: Pyrrha Nikos, callsign Warmaiden,” he gestured to a young and gorgeous redhead dressed in Grecian-inspired body armor, who beamed around at us with genuine pleasure.

“It’s good to meet all of you, I look forward to working together to save this world.” She declared.

“Laura Kinney, callsign Talon.” He pointed to the ravenette next to Mercy, who merely nodded in silent regality. From what I had heard the JTF troopers saying, this woman had put a man on the ground, unconscious, in less than five seconds with nothing but her limbs. A man that was probably twice her weight and half again her height.

“November Terra, callsign Nova.” He waved one hand towards a blonde young woman that was quite frankly lounging in her seat. Despite the lazy sprawl (and the equally lazy wave of greeting), I could tell that she was no less dangerous than the rest of the group. Her eyes were sharp, and while I was no soldier, it looked to me like her sprawl kept her sidearm easily accessible.

“Doctor Angela Ziegler, callsign Mercy.” The doctor smiled and inclined her head politely, before blushing lightly and glancing at Gaius shyly as he continued with a warm smile in her direction. “Now, I apologize to the rest of my team and to Angela for singing her praises, but her skills will be nothing short of vital for current circumstances. It was her pioneering in the field of applied nanobiology that resulted in the Hive and Support Station deployable assets used by both SHD and Hunter agents. Had she not been recruited when she was, she was being groomed to take over as Head of Surgery for the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois in Lausanne, likely by the time she turned twenty-five.”

I gave a low whistle at that, giving (alongside every other person at the table that wasn’t a member of Gaius’ unit) Angela a very impressed look. The CHUV was one of the best hospitals in the world, top ten last time I had checked, and getting appointed Head of Surgery there was no joke. To reach it at such a young age was unheard of, and went a long way to explain where something as incredibly advanced as the SHD tech had come from. I looked around, taking in the expressions on everyone else’s faces, and almost laughed at the looks she was getting from the Division fireteam. Clearly, they were all big fans of her work.

“I think it is safe to say that her collaboration with Doctors Kendall and Tchernenko will solve the majority of the issues posed by the Green Poison. Unfortunately, societal damage is a bit beyond our purview.” A small disk-like object, which I had missed where it sat in the middle of the table, flashed to life as a voluptuous blue woman made out of lines of code appeared in mid-air, hand posted on a cocked hip with a confident smirk on her lips. “Cortana, smart-AI serial number CTN 0452-9. Everything ISAC’s designer wanted him to be, plus about five-hundred years of research. I keep an eye on the big guy, his girls, the rest of the city, and half the planet while writing a novel and composing poetry.”

There was a long, almost awkward silence after her bold and unashamed introduction, before one of the Division Agents cleared her throat and began introducing her own team, as well as providing some background. The fact that they were technically ‘rogue’ agents was surprising and discomfiting, but it quickly became clear that not all Rogue Agents were truly rogue.

“The ambiguity of the situation is actually concerning to me.” Roy, ever the cautionary guardian, mused unhappily. “I’m glad to know that not all Rogue Agents are actually threats to my people and to the public, but other than this fire team, we have no way of separating the wheat from the chaff. Our people will have no idea who is an ally or an enemy until it’s too late to make any difference.”

“I agree, which is why Cortana is dedicating a significant portion of her processing power to monitoring Isaac, who is in turn monitoring the Agents. Since he has to cogitate and log the cause and timing of each Agent going Rogue, she can forward those logs to us. Agents that are truly Rogue can have their pictures and crimes disseminated, those that aren’t can be reached out to in order to bring them back into the fold.” Gaius acknowledged, the blue woman giving a peace sign with a cheeky smile.

“Doctor Ziegler mentioned you plan on getting Vitaly from the Russian Embassy, as well as the fact that you have a strong suspicion about the location of Gordon…of Doctor….of his laboratory. That you were planning on raiding it for information and data on the Poison’s production.” I said, a guilty flash darting through me as I wondered if I had just gotten Angela in trouble, but from his expression he didn’t mind. Which was good, given the amount of renewed and hyper-focused attention I had just placed on him.

“Correct. A nondescript apartment complex, 23rd St. and 10th Ave., that is where we will find our ‘savior’ from the evils of Mankind and overpopulation. However, I will not move to secure him until my own unit, sans Angela and Pyrrha, secures the UN building from the LMB.” His tone was casual, as if he hadn’t just pinpointed the location of humanity’s worst terrorist and mass murderer and mentioned taking over the heavily fortified military complex of the mercenary company in the same breath. He continued on, ignoring our spluttering and shocked murmurs as he gave us all a commanding (and dare I say threatening) stare. “Let me be clear: the location of Amherst’s lab is never to be spoken again. Not amongst yourselves, not to your lieutenants or assistants or your pets. A single careless word could result in us losing the wealth of information and resources in that apartment, and I’ll shoot all three of you before I let that happen. Understood?”

“No argument from me. I’m surprised you told us in the first place. Information security is paramount with this, the last thing we need is some pissed-off vigilante torching the place, or one of the gangs getting in there and mucking everything up.” Roy shrugged, immediately agreeing to the stipulation without any visible discomfort or concern over the summary executions we had just been threatened with. Which was funny, given how concerned he had been about the lives of a bunch of gang-bangers earlier. Still, I nodded in agreement, as did Paul, and Gaius gave a nod of his own with a satisfied look on his face.

“Now, to respond to your concerns from a moment ago: I have no intention of storming the UN Buildings in a bloody siege and getting a lot of good guys killed. Cortana?” he waved a hand towards the center of the table and sat back down between November and Laura. In response, the blue form of the AI dispersed and reformed as lines darted this way and that, layering and swarming and combining to create an impressively realistic representation of the UN Building and its extensive defenses. I could hear Roy muttering in discontent as he took in the various pieces of data being display, and while I understood essentially none of it, I had seen enough movies to know what red dots and emblems meant in this sort of context.

And there were a lotof red dots and emblems, including two Rogue Agents.

“Now, this might seem insurmountable to you, and to a conventional force, such as the JTF, it probably would be. Fortunately, we have a few things on our side that even a standard combined force of SHD and JTF wouldn’t. First and foremost, we have me. Anything electronic and connected to a network, I can take over. Even if the LMB is on an enclosed network, I can get in via transmission or the boss plugging me in directly. That means I can monitor comms, even falsify messages. I control security doors, computer systems, automated defenses, the whole smash. The LMB isn’t going to be much of a threat with their own turrets attacking them, their comms down, and their security doors locking them apart from each other into small groups that can get picked off.”

Roy chuckled a little darkly at that, and I suppose that I couldn’t blame him too heavily for it. He had lost a lot of people to the LMB over the last few months, the professional and amoral soldiers butchering his partially-trained civilian soldiers and law enforcement with little in the way of difficulty. For the tables to be turned as badly as Cortana would claiming seemed a very ironic and karmic reversal to deliver upon them.

“Secondly, as good as the LMB are, they can’t match Division Agents without significant numbers. Consider the fact that Hunters and their units are meant to kill Division Agents one-on-one. By preventing the LMB from bringing the full weight of numbers required to bear, they won’t be able to stop our attack.”

That…made a frightening amount of sense. A predator might be dangerous to its prey, but if that predator had a predator of its own, what hope did the prey have then? Besides trying to run, and even that seemed less than likely. For a moment, I wondered if that was why Gaius had his callsign. Wolves were one of the instinctual answers to ‘what animal do you think of in relation to the word ‘predator’, along with bears and sharks. They were pack animals, could be relentless in their hunt and pursuit of prey, and had turned teamwork into an art form. Yeah, I could see why that moniker might be appropriate.

“Finally, and most important for future considerations, is the fact that there is a small maintenance tunnel running close to the underground portions of the UN complex. This tunnel will be used by Gaius and his team to infiltrate the building via stealth and bypass significant amounts of the LMB’s defensive measures. Then it will be over except for the shouting.”

“At least so far as the LMB is concerned.” Gaius commented, getting back to his feet and leaning on the table as he regarded us all calmly. He was obviously giving us some time to absorb everything that had just be thrown at us in a very short timeframe. I, for my part, had no idea what to say. It sounded audacious and confident at best, and arrogantly insane at worst, but I was no expert on strategy or combat. Everything seemed like it made sense, but as little as I knew about war, I knew that counting on your plans to go smoothly was a recipe for disaster. “At any rate, with the UN building secured and its defenses under our control, we will relocate the doctors there by air and set them up a full laboratory. I would like to maintain this location as a purely armed camp to split the city between our forces. Response times will increase, allowing us to secure more of the city and expand the safe zone. With the LMB removed, the largest threat outside of Rogues will be gone. When the Second Wave agents arrive, we will wipe out the Rikers and the Cleaners for good.”

“God, there are more of you people? A whole new batch of trigger-happy people with no oversight, fantastic.” Paul groaned, rubbing his face, entirely missing the dark looks half the table shot him. He sighed, shaking his head, before squaring his jaw and looking at Gaius. “I’ve been…chatting with a few of my friends from back when I was in the LMB. They’ve been feeding me intel and I’ve been helping them get…at risk people away from LMB patrols and territories whenever possible. You get them out for me, maybe you won’t be so bad after all.”

“…Fair enough. We won’t need them as insiders anymore once we wipe them out. I’ll manipulate things to either have them all out on patrol, or all together inside the UN so I can secure them quickly.” Gaius agreed with a shrug, seemingly unconcerned by the fact that Paul had once worked for the people he was planning on wiping out later today, but then it occurred to me: why should it? He probably had exhaustive dossiers on everyone in this building and half the people in the city as a whole. Paul grumbled an honest, if less-than-effusive, expression of gratitude. “After the LMB are eliminated, I intend to start recruiting the surviving First Wave Agents in the same position as Jupiter’s team. Most of them are…”

He hesitated, clearly looking for a polite way to put things, but Roy grunted and stood, planting his hands on the table and meeting Jupiter’s eyes across the table. I could see the regret, the guilt, seeping out of him as he addressed her directly.

“Ma’am, I know exactly why Mr. Mactire intends to keep your unit and your fellow First Wave Agents in their own compound, separate from my people. We, the JTF, left you hanging in the breeze in the Dark Zone when we pulled back. I know for a fact that entire platoons of my people left individual Agents or Fireteams mid-mission, or never even showed up in the first place. We made no efforts to support your own withdrawal, and we didn’t ignore bad orders when we got them.” He said bluntly, and judging by the way the sort-of-Rogue Agents stiffened and glared, he wasn’t making things up. Jupiter managed a short, terse nod in response, and he sighed tiredly. “I’m sorry. I know it doesn’t make up for everything. It doesn’t make up for all the civilians that died because you didn’t have the support you needed, I’m sorry for all the comrades you lost, and I’m sorry that our actions have pushed even more of your comrades to outright criminal action out of bitterness or genuine belief that we’ve failed the country…”

“Bitterness? You think we, any of us, went Rogue because we were bitter?” Saturn’s hiss cut him off as she rose, a slight gleam of light playing across her choker and its decorative wolf’s head emblem. Planting her fists on the table and leaning forward, she continued. “We went Rogue by trying to survive. Can you imagine what it means to be declared a traitor to your homeland simply because you refused to commit suicide by attacking a target you suddenly lacked the manpower to overcome? Do you know what it is like to find the corpses of your friends, surrounded by the civilians they were trying to save, and to realize they died as traitors because they refused to abandon the people they swore to protect? To be hunted down like an animal by the people you had been protecting and leading and fighting alongside not hours or days before? It has nothing to do with bitterness, Captain, because it wasn’t a choice we made. All of us, every single First Wave Agent still alive, has an automatic death sentence for going off-mission. One that is irrevocable and summary. Imagine that, Captain! No trial, no right to plead and present evidence that we were condemned for being abandoned by your people, just a bullet to the brain and a sewer ditch for a grave! We…!”

“Enough, Mary.” Gaius’ voice was level and low, but it cut the brunette Agent’s tirade off instantly, though it was obviously a struggle. She grit and ground her teeth, hard enough I wouldn’t be surprised if she had done some minor damage to some of them, hands tight and leather gloves creaking from the strain.

“Yes, Sir.” She finally bit out, sitting down and pointedly looking anywhere except the three of us. There was a long silence, before Venus sighed and leaned forward.

“We aren’t happy with the JTF, and the rest of our Wave is worse off still. We know that you had orders, that you were in a bad spot and short on the intel you needed to make the right decisions. But the fact of the matter is, you followed bad orders and a whole lot of people died as a result. That’s not going to go away anytime soon, Captain Benitez, so its probably best if the First Wave handles things near the UN building and the Second Wave works with you, at least for the time being.” She said, voice calm despite how angry and bitter she must feel on her own part, and Roy hesitated before nodding and sitting down again. Clearly, he had heard the utter lack of interest in any apology in the dark-skinned woman’s tone and considered that patience and discretion were the better parts of valour.

“Sir, I think that you can provide at least some of the good Rogues, like Saturn, Jupiter, and Venus, with biometric identifier wristbands. We can set up a scanning device that identifies them, maybe even smaller ones for the JTF to carry. Captain Benitez is right, we need to give them a solid way to know who is who, at least for the time being.” Nova proposed after a moment, sounding intent on the idea, and Gaius furrowed his brow at her thoughtfully.

“Our tech turning blue doesn’t cover that?” Venus asked, flashing the shining cobalt circle that was her smart watch, and Nova shrugged.

“For now, maybe, but not forever. I’m sure there is a way to make a cosmetic change like that, given how relatively minor it is, whereas biometrics are a bit harder to spoof. We need to do what we can to start rebuilding and reinforcing even the minimum amount of trust between Agents and regulars, or the whole damn opera falls apart.” She responded, voice turning quite firm towards the end, and I watched as grudging nods were made on all sides. “We have a consensus then. Sir? This needs to happen, and it needs to happen now.”

“Alright, Nova.” Gaius agreed, sounding oddly reluctant for something as simple as handing out ID markers, before reaching into one of the myriad pouches that decorated his body and pulling out three wristbands. Wristbands that honestly were more akin to archery bracers, though not quite so long, and looked little different from the chokers that his personal squad wore. They were tossed, one at a time, to the three present members of Jupiter’s unit, who examined them critically before putting them on. “Now, I believe we have covered everything I intended for us to discuss. Jupiter, Venus, if you could begin planning your visit to the Russian Consulate. Nova, you and Laura go back over the plans for our own operation. Pyrrha, please speak with Captain Benitez about how best you, Mercury, and Neptune can assist or enhance in the defenses here. Angela…”

“I will assist Doctor Kendal in preliminary evaluations of equipment and logistical needs, Sir. For the moment, I believe that you and Saturn need to have a discussion on future interaction between yourself, her, and the rest of her team.” Angela interrupted him calmly, getting to her feet, which spurred everyone else into action. We split, each group going their separate ways, and even as Angela escorted me back to my lab, I couldn’t help but look back over my shoulder as Gaius and Saturn headed for the SHD Commander’s office.

What conversation could be so important right now?

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Mercy

My life had taken a turn for the strange, I mused to myself as I led Dr. Kendal back to the med lab. Here I was, helping to keep a bunch of strangers busy so that my owner could have a conversation with a woman that was, according to Nova, one of the most submissive people she’d ever met. Angela thought that was probably true, since by all account Mary had collared herself without a single word or suggestion from anyone in their group.

I almost snorted in amusement as I went over that whole train of thought, noting that it was only feeling strange to me to play the part of a distraction, rather than to think of Gaius as my owner. An effect from the collar around my own neck, or had I always been submissive at heart myself? Was I so needy to be seen as a woman, instead of an untouchable heroine? Did I have faith that Gaius saw more than my body when he looked at me?

Well, at least I knew the answer to that. Gaius had, more than once, been effusive in his praise of my talents, my hard-won skills. In private, with the rest of his girls, with strangers and enemies alike. Every word was sincere, except for some of the…misinformation he had needed to use, such as my recruitment by SHD to create some of its technology. While I generally disapproved of dishonesty, especially to allies and potential allies, in this case I could certainly see the logic behind it. My reputation was now iron-clad with everyone in this building, and would be so with those outside of it as word spread. I would be listened to, respected, and well-protected, even when Gaius was out of the immediate vicinity.

Still, as nice as being praised so sincerely was, it was also nothing unique. Nothing special. I had been receiving such praise for most of my life, such looks of awe for many years, and I had grown numb to it. I had grown tired of being looked at as some untouchable paragon, some icon of purity and goodness that could never be reached and only rarely interacted with. Even my friends and comrades in Overwatch had regarded me differently, like something to protect and guard. Not just because of their care for me, which of course was no small part of it, but because I was ‘just a Healer’. I wasn’t a fighter, wasn’t someone to have on the front lines, and so I needed to be packed in cotton and carefully kept away from danger. Gaius, for all that he focused on protecting me as well, obviously had plenty of faith in my own abilities. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be letting me out of his sight, never mind leaving me with just Pyrrha and some of the locals (locals that had already proven outmatched on more than one occasion) to protect me. He trusted in my experience and my training, he trusted in my ability to think for myself and to lead those around me, and he trusted me to be honest with my feelings about him.

How many men, in the position he was, would be as patient? Would wait for us to come to him, would wait until we were comfortable enough with the idea of being his completely that we offered ourselves freely instead of being claimed and broken to his will? Were I to be entirely honest, I wasn’t all that sure that many of my own friends amongst Overwatch could have resisted that lure, that temptation, so easily as he seemed to.

Listening to him making love…no, fucking, Nova and Laura the other night had made me almost painfully aroused. I had thought it had been incredible listening to he and Nova that night when they first came together, but hearing three voices in symphony…well, it was getting very hard to resist joining my voice to the chorus. I wasn’t like young Pyrrha, with a prior affection still lodged in my heart and deeply ingrained feelings of propriety and inferiority, even the belief of being a fraud that seemed (thus far) unshakeable despite anyone’s efforts. If I had to listen to him claiming Mary, Molly, and Lucy as well, never mind whomever else he chanced across…well, I would probably do what Laura had done and simply invite myself to his room, whether he had company already or not.

Oddly enough, I was okay with that. I wasn’t home, I had no reputation I had to maintain, no organization I had to avoid tarnishing, no dear friends to demean myself before. The only people who mattered now were Gaius and my new sisters, everyone else was ephemeral. This world was one of many, unlikely to ever be revisited once we left. The natives could think whatever they wanted about me, I would likely never see them again. I didn’t have to be Mercy the Perfect, Mercy the Paragon, Mercy the Pure anymore. I could have the best of both worlds, now: healing those in need and indulging in whatever sinful vices I saw fit. I was free to be more…and more is exactly what I intended to be.

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More smut next chapter, we aren’t missing anything with Mary and Gaius right now. As much as I would enjoy having a scene that is a full-on contract negotiation between a dominant and a submissive, I know ya’all aren’t here for that. So, its happening off-screen. Their actual sexcapades will be on screen soon enough