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99 percent.
Zenyatta has never seen the ocean before. The others follow Winston through the huge, salt-worn door into the watch point, but Zenyatta excuses himself to walk the cliffs.
His sensors register the mild chill (13.2 degrees Celsius) and gentle breeze (16.7 kilometers an hour), a data set, one of an endless sea that fails to account for the experience of them. The humidity (73.5 percent), dampness along his chassis, the salt in the air from the waves below (33 parts per thousand) against the sensors of his intake chamber.
“It’s so beautiful here.”
Deep, modulated, tinny from his respirator. The sound soothes Zenyatta, and the awe, the appreciation in each word, makes him fond.
“Truly.” Zenyatta replies. “You have not been here in many years. How do you feel?”
Genji falls in step next to him. Known variables: the shape of his shadow, the hues he casts, the gentle hum of his machinery, many times more advanced than Zenyatta’s own. Between one journey and the next, in the minutiae of lessons and koan and sparring matches, Zenyatta has come to find comfort in them.
“I am not sure nostalgia is the word. Being at this watch point again…” The silence between Genji’s thoughts, his mindfulness, Zenyatta also cherishes. “...is bittersweet. I was not in the right place to appreciate its beauty before.”
“What is most important is that you have a chance to experience it now.” Zenyatta hums.
“You are right as always, Master.”
The cheekiness of his tone is not lost on the omnic, who laughs.
“Not always.”
Genji steps closer to the edge of the cliff. Zenyatta turns to him as a quiet hiss muffles the distant crash of waves. Genji’s eyes are closed, his posture loose, comfortable; his chest expands as he takes in the cool, salted air, free of his respirator.
He has seen Genji many times without his helmet. It is the first time he sees him in the glow of the late afternoon sun, wind fluttering his matted hair, black with a tinge of gray. The first time he exists for a precious few seconds in the moment, without the weight of his burdens balanced on his soul.
It is a whisper. A hiccup. A gentle, blooming twist, so deep within Zenyatta he cannot identify its cause. It is not the golden warmth of the Iris, though it is warm: small, but powerful, concentrated in a drop of pure energy. It pulses like a tiny overload, one too many data sets, one too many amperes.
Only later, in the privacy of his own room, does he notice it in the mirror.
Just above his power core, nestled between the top two pistons, is a hint of bright pink. Zenyatta shifts with great care, curiosity overriding what should be fear, unease, trepidation. With gentle maneuvering, he works the obstruction from his chassis. His orbs, which had been rotating in a smooth circle around his head, still.
Grasped carefully between servos and smaller than the circle on his palm is a lotus bloom, mostly closed, petals tinged green with youth.
Zenyatta stares for several cycles. Its composition, its measurement, its fragrance, reveal nothing of its purpose. Then, as if he has skipped forward in time, he returns to himself, orbs resuming their slow orbit before settling around his throat.
He laughs as he cradles the flower in his hands. He cups it to his power core, several degrees hotter than his system’s recommended temperature.
Before the weight of the tiny, fragile bloom colors everything that is to come, Zenyatta’s heart soars.
87 percent.
Be it luck or fate, Zenyatta’s room has a balcony. It is modestly sized, outfitted with a small table and two rust-flecked chairs.
The blooms within his body are rooted deep, and even with dexterous hands, he cannot remove them from their source. Each time they are different species of flora, and Zenyatta finds a gentle, curious joy in identifying them. Lotus. Bluebells. Gardenias when Genji had fallen asleep next to him, his gentle snores rousing Zenyatta from meditation. Cactus blossoms after a morning of sparring, when Genji had removed his helmet and sweat glistened down the skin of his throat. His fans still quicken when Zenyatta remembers it, the deep-seated pulse of warmth that had no outlet—alien, terrifying, and desperately coveted. Jesse hailed to Genji right as it happened, and Zenyatta had never been more grateful for the man’s boisterous salutations than when it allowed him a quiet escape.
Each flower after the first, which he had pressed flat and preserved in the pages of his oldest and fondest book, he transplants. They should languish, struggle in the climate, some out of season, other rooted in improper soil. Yet, each prospers in whatever environment Zenyatta gives it, sustained, perhaps, on something that cannot be measured. First in cans and old crates, whatever he could find, then in terracotta pots, brought back from missions when his companions had discovered his hobby.
It should terrify him when the plants multiply, each overgrown leaf and petal warm with fragrance, and maybe it does, somewhere far off, ripples that finally kiss the shore. Closer to his heart is amusement, the pleasant grip of affection. His brother had been right, more so than he thought. Born. Created. Raised. Programmed. Both produced physical manifestations of their emotions. Suffering.
Love.
63 percent.
Dr. Ziegler requests his assistance in the med bay.
She had managed all support operations in the early days of the recall, but as her duties increased with each new member, Zenyatta helps however he can. He often catalogued her findings and corroborated medical treatments, and during extended shifts, when the doctor stared unseeing into the cold glow of her holopad, he brewed her coffee sweetened with ten milliliters of honey.
Today, however, his sensors record a second voice as the door slides open.
The conversation dies to the sound of Genji’s respirator reattaching. He sits next to Angela near her desk, empty besides a holopad and a tiny vial of muted orange. It shouldn’t surprise him; they are close now, appreciation replacing the old bitter, anger that had soured their relationship a decade prior.
Her hand, steadily balanced on his knee, tightens once before letting go.
Genji does not look at him.
“Zenyatta, thank you for coming. We were just finishing up,” she says.
“Of course.”
Zenyatta hovers in the doorway, uninvited in all but word. A tinge of discord as familiar as his own chassis brushes against him.
“Is something troubling you, my student?”
The tightness around his eyes says what Genji will not.
“I do not wish to discuss it.”
Genji walks past him at 1.3 times his normal gait, hurrying with a vestige of calm. The door hisses shut. Angela sighs.
“I’m sorry you had to see that. He came in suddenly with an urgent matter.”
She pockets the vial while studying her holopad.
“My apologies as well. I did not mean to interrupt.”
Genji had not looked, had not felt like that in several months, not since before they had left the monastery. Had he been the cause? Interrupted a moment years in the making—
“Zenyatta.”
He meets her bright eyes. Only then does he notice what holds her attention.
Zenyatta tilts his head down, watching the steady crawl of vines, thorned and nicking delicate circuitry. From them, tiny buds of shocking yellow bloom against the tired gray of his chest. It hurts in a distant way, pinched like something caught between nodes, too deep to fix.
Her face is milk white, though her voice is steady.
“I have never seen an omnic with this before.”
Zenyatta nods. He lifts his servos, catching a finger beneath an unfurled rose. Small enough to rip away, to hide before anyone could see.
“It is still early in its progression,” he offers.
“Let me take a look at you.”
Zenyatta climbs onto the examination table.
She tells him what he already knows: potentially deadly, cured in one of two ways.
“I do not know omnic physiology well enough to perform the operation. Brigitte may.” Angela shakes her head. “Though I have the feeling that you will not be making an appointment regardless.”
“You know me well, Dr. Ziegler.”
“Well enough to make me worry.” She smiles though the pinch in her brow doesn’t ease. “What happens here is confidential. However, I would advise action. Whoever it is, they would not wish to watch you waste away.”
“I appreciate your concern.”
Her palm is warm on his shoulder, rougher than her unlined face suggests.
“Please take care of yourself.”
34 percent.
Zenyatta taps the last of the hibiscus into dark loam. The pot is large this time, proportional to the flower, a pleasing contrast to the more delicate plants in his collection. Soil clings to the joints of his fingers, but unlike the twist of roots within his body, it is easily removed.
“Wow. It is really coming along.”
A beat. A shudder.
“It is.”
32 percent.
Zenyatta stands with terracotta clutched in his hands, joints tight, slow. They are always such now. Mid morning sun brightens the garden into an ever-shifting kaleidoscope. Surrounded by the manifestation of his feelings while their cause stands scarcely a foot behind him serves as a surreal experience.
“I, uh, brought you something.”
The path of his orbs jumbles for a moment. It had been a several days since he had seen his student. Their last meeting reverberates silently between them, a topic not yet breached, not when Zenyatta struggles to protect the relationship they have.
Zenyatta steels himself, then turns to face Genji.
Clasped between the white and gray of his student’s hands is a potted, unbloomed tulip.
“Not as impressive as these exotic breeds, but it should thrive in this climate.”
“I did not know you were knowledgeable about gardening.” Zenyatta’s array brightens. Oh, how he forgets himself, unable to tamp down the swell of joy as Genji places it among the others.
“I’m afraid I’m not. I had to ask around the city.” Genji smiles softly as he glances back at him. “It should not surprise me that you are able to encourage the flowers themselves to try their hardest.”
29 percent.
There is no crawl. No twinge. The flowers burst from his chassis with near staggering force.
21 percent. He freezes only a moment, core trembling, but Genji is turned toward the balcony, admiring the blooms.
Art by Heronfoot
Zenyatta nearly trips as his hover module offlines. He knows there will be questions, but he cannot answer, not yet. He does not have the words. The time is wrong, wrong—
Genji calls after him, but Zenyatta doesn’t look back, cannot for fear of exposing himself. His feet clatter against the dark, metal hallways of the watch point, but luckily (unluckily), Genji does not pursue.
15 percent.
He does not avoid Genji. Not on purpose. Zenyatta does not eat, so he steers clear of the mess hall. Dr. Zeigler had banned him from active duty, watch point operations included, so Zenyatta spends most days in his garden. He tends it even as his power dwindles, mindful contemplation replaced with daydreams of half-baked confessions.
His gaze falls to the tulip that Genji had given him. It had struggled at first, a few cold nights throwing its health into uncertainty. Zenyatta had brought it inside, the added warmth giving it the chance it needed to bloom into a beautiful, glossy red that stands out among the rest.
The truth...
The truth is he is afraid. Could he really face Genji, soft eyes softer with pity for the old, scuffed omnic who had helped him when he was at his lowest? Genji would be kind. Maybe he would even humor him, and that would be the worst of all, a bandage over an infected wound that needed to be lanced and scraped clean.
But selfishness battles just as hotly. To look at Genji and feel nothing.
He would die from that too.
11 percent.
It has come time to talk.
Zenyatta expects hesitance, but as always, Genji surprises him. He arrives within minutes, wordlessly sits next to him on the tattered rug lining the center of the balcony. The flowers whisper, the garden bright and overflowing, gems, grand and small, glittering in the afternoon sun.
“I know you have been troubled these past weeks. My hesitance has caused you undue suffering.”
Genji doesn’t move.
“Often we assume that our feelings are known and cherished. A touch. A token. That action alone is sufficient.”
Zenyatta wants to laugh; of everything they have been through, this is where his resolve stumbles.
“We forget that it is necessary to voice these feelings aloud.”
The sea wind catches the flora, the heavy, overgrown leaves shuddering in the tepid air.
“Words are limited. They are fickle. An expression of them will never come close to articulating the feelings of the soul.”
Ten percent. The vines crawl and twist around his core. His synth glitches.
“Master—”
“Please, Genji.”
He clutches his chest, staggered by the not quite pain of energy rerouting. The scent of his garden revives him, each one catalogued, remembered, relived.
Nine percent.
Zenyatta looks at his orbs, deactivated and nestled within the nooks of the planters. He hasn’t possessed the power to control them in a fortnight.
“You have come far. Changed so much. You possess a strength that could save this world.” His core trembles as he speaks. “If something were to keep you from it...from finding happiness and purpose...I could not bear it.”
“I fear I may be such an obstacle.” Yet, he must press on, cling foolishly to hope.
Had he not been so close to shutdown, perhaps he would’ve known then. The shifting emotional energy from those nearby is lost to him in his final hours.
“It is impossible to describe how much I—”
Genji’s only give is his fingers sinking into his thighs. His student snaps forward, folding in on himself.
The sounds freeze Zenyatta’s words in his synth.
Loud, wet coughs rasp through Genji’s respirator, so painful it makes the vines around his core seize, makes Zenyatta ache.
He moves with what little energy he has left, hands flattening to Genji’s spasming back. A pathetic trickle of harmony warms his palms. His array powers off for a few, horrifying seconds. Not yet. Not now, with Genji injured—
Five percent.
The impulse strikes, the last, bent match in the book.
“I love you.”
His voice breaks hard over the word, doubling its syllables, mimicking an embarrassed stutter rather than an expulsion of the last of his power.
Everything is quiet. Still. Like being in the center of the monastery cloisters, where the howl of the wind and the sounds of life fade, the hum of his own systems muted within its immensity.
For a moment, he wonders if his audial receptors have failed.
Six percent.
The immobilizing tightness in his body eases, a fist slowly but surely unfurling. His servos slide off Genji’s back as he straightens. He registers a familiar hiss.
His array fizzles, then powers online in stages, monochromes to vivid color.
Genji’s looking at him like he’s seeing him for the first time. He wipes at his mouth, drawing Zenyatta’s attention.
The bright blue of petals smears over his lips.
“Zenyatta,” he breathes, awe warming into a smile that brightens his whole face. “The color suits you.”
Genji’s hand closes the distance between them, settling between his top two pistons.
The same petals coating Genji’s lips bloom along his metal. A swan song, it seems, as they wither and shrivel before his array.
“Forget-me-nots,” Genji says, then his smile grows mischievous. “You led me to believe you were a green thumb. Cheater.”
Zenyatta does not have the energy to laugh, but he cannot resist the cautious joy that manifests in his bugging synth.
“A lie of omission. No one had asked,” he murmurs.
Genji’s hand shifts higher, the lightest touch against the gold chrome of his faceplate. There is no teasing lilt, no sheepishness. Quiet but clear.
“I love you, too.”
Zenyatta settles his hand over Genji’s, squeezing, leaning into his touch. They draw close, the smooth whisper of the garden reduced to the dry rattling of fall.
Just before their faces touch, Zenyatta speaks.
“You may find my french kiss lacking.”
Genji laughs against his chrome, heat and softness settling over the seam of his mouth.
“Whatever will we do?” he whispers, kissing him once more.
In the following days, after Zenyatta recuperates under Brigitte’s care (and many stern lectures), Genji helps him clean the balcony. They compost the decomposing remnants of the flowers, and repurpose them as a base for a new garden.
It is meticulous work, but rewarding. With the sun just beneath the horizon, they survey their progress. Planters line the ancient railings, each filled with properly spaced seeds hidden just beneath the surface. Local flora that would survive readily above the sea.
The only mark of color within is the tulip, fully bloomed, a promise of what’s to come.