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Jack Morrison was sitting in his office looking at the three pictures positioned at the right edge on his desk.
In the first one, a younger, blonde Jack was hugging a dark haired man. Jack’s thoughts of Vincent were bittersweet. He was happy that the man had moved on with his life, but a small part of him was hurting because he wasn’t able to be part of that life himself.
The next picture was that of his final day of the U.S. Soldier Enhancement Program. It depicted ten men standing attention in full military gear. A darker man was near Jack, sporting a black beard and an extra shotgun in his belt. Gabriel Reyes. His old Strike Commander and valuable friend during their days in the Enhancement Program. He used to hate the guy. Not anymore.
The final one had a woman with a kind smile and an Egyptian tattoo under her left eye. He hoped that Ana Amari would have approved what he had done after her passing. She always was a protector after all. And wasn’t that what he turned Overwatch into? A worldwide protecting force?
No more wars. Military organizations had either been merged into Overwatch or were disbanded. Overwatch had effectively replaced military and police in every country. The organisation was in control of everything that happened in the civilized world. Everyone was safe, protected.
Jack was not happy about how that was achieved. He grabbed his head and leaned forward as memories came back.
It was a month after he was first forced to step up and take control of Winston’s Overwatch. His technicians were hard working to create a new A.I. based on ATHENA’s code after the latter was hacked and deleted from their system. With barely any information, Overwatch was in a state of hibernation, with most agents on temporally leave.
He was looking through the old, paper printed archives, mostly out of boredom. As he was going through the military resources folders, he noticed a brown one with no visible title or number. He took it out. A line was written in its centre with small white letters. It simply read: “CLASSIFIED”.
Jack was the head of Overwatch now, none of these files were classified to him. He scoffed and opened it.
And if he wasn’t on his knees already, he would have fallen. These were the codes and locations of the nuclear bombs that were manufactured during the Cold War, almost a hundred years before he was born. He thought that those were destroyed as part of a U.N. agreement a few months after he enlisted. The whole world thought that. It was live on television and everything. Fourteen thousand, four hundred and sixty-five nuclear warheads that should have been blasted on ten different spaceships, with the goal of sending them outside of the Solar system, where no human could retrieve them.
Jack was sweating. If this file was found by someone with ill intentions... He had to hide it somewhere where no one would look. So, Jack Morrison took his first and last leave from Overwatch. He flew to his family’s farm in Bloomington, Indiana, where stayed for two days. The day after those he was back to his office, evaluating the now completed Overwatch A.I.
Six months after Jack Morrison took control of Overwatch.
“You are not going to like the news, Commander.”
He was pacing up and down in his office. He also had some ideas of what these news were.
“Hit me, HERA.”
The A.I. complied.
“We had another incident in the U.K. An omnic suddenly attacked civilians in the middle of the Kelvingrove Park in Glasgow. Six people killed, five injured.”
“What about the omnic? Did it follow the same routine?”
“Yes, Commander. He was just walking before he froze in place for approximately ten seconds. After which he attacked.”
Jack cursed. This was becoming a common thing in the U.K. This was the third attack in a month. His analysts were almost certain that some kind of hacking was taking place during these ten seconds. But the previous two omnics had exploded when police approached. Ashes and scraps didn’t reveal much.
“Did it explode again?”
“Not this time. People started attacking it as well. Camera footage shows him getting rushed by almost every human in the area. Police reported that all they found were scraps and people kicking and yelling at them.”
“Jesus... Is this what started the riots I see on the news?”
“Most likely. Humans in the scene also attacked some omnic bystanders. The U.K. is dealing with both human riots and an omnic one.”
“Has Tracer’s team mobilized yet?”
“They are co-operating with the police to stop any violence.”
“Good. Send them one of our back-up teams from Sweden.” It wouldn’t arrive until half a day after the initial riots, but that was all Jack could do. “And go public about our suspicions of omnic hacking, in case it calms the waters a bit.”
“I forwarded it to the BBC.”
Jack was getting more and more uneasy. Omnic relations had dropped ever since the assassination on Tekhartha Mondatta. No one had stepped up to take his place as a peace talker after that. Omnics had turned more to themselves and only allowed a few humans to talk with them. There were talks of an omnic government forming, although no omnic had confirmed it. Tensions were high, especially in countries where the First Omnic Crisis had left bigger scars. England even had some street murders committed on omnics, presumably by humans. North Korea had refused to accept any travelling omnics and the ones already in the country were forced to be catalogued.
“We also had more attacks on Christians and Muslims in the Middle East and Europe. And a civil war has started in Armenia.”
“Why...”
“Assuming you are asking about the civil war, apparently it started with two villages fighting between them, and it escalated.”
“You are got to be kidding me.”
“I don’t have a humour component, commander.”
Jack finally stopped pacing around, only to sit on his chair defeated. Talon was gone, but wars and conflicts kept appearing, even without them feeding the fires.
Five days after the first riots in the U.K.
“The factories in the Faroe Islands are in the hands of the omnic extremists. Glasgow and Edinburgh are in flames in the U.K., Russia declared war on all omnics and their allies. North Korea is completely locked down. Almost every other country is dealing with more and more riots, from both humans and omnics. India-”
Jack had stopped listening. The world was going to shit. They were in the brink of a Second Omnic Crisis and Jack couldn’t do anything about it.
Or maybe he could.
“HERA. Can you contact the hacker Sombra?”
“I will post a job offer in the channels we think they lurk.”
“Patch them through to me when they answer.” Jack wore his jacket walked to the door. “Get all our own hackers on standby, they are to help Sombra in any way they might ask of them. And sent a surveillance drone to follow me”
He sprinted out the door. Hopefully, he would be able to stop this madness.
He heard a heavily distorted voice through his headset.
“What does the mighty Overwatch need from little old me, Jackie?”
Jack ignored the casual tone of the hacker.
“To hack all news networks and communication devices. Then add a live broadcast from the surveillance drone that follows me right now.”
“All of them? That would take quite some time. And a lot of money.”
“All Overwatch resources are to your disposal, including our hacker unit. You have two days.”
The hacker paused for a second, then laughed.
“Your hacker unit, pffft. I’ll do it myself.”
“I don’t care how you do it, Sombra. Just get it done as soon as possible.”
Jack flew to his family farm and got the brown file. From there, he flew to the nearest site, where he entered the two centuries year old bunker. After re-activating the generator, he was pleased to see that everything was still intact. These things were built to last. He waited there, listening to the news. The omnic extremists were launching the first attacks on Ireland and the U.K. islands when Sombra contacted him again.
“The world will be listening, Jack. You better have something good to say.”
“Can you also get a live satellite camera pointing to Australia?” Jack’s voice was hard as steel.
“I can...”
“Do it. Then ask HERA for your payment and pass the broadcasting controls to it.”
He waited for a while, arguing the same arguments with himself. A war on a global scale had started. People seemed to have forgotten how the First Omnic Crisis had gone. A continent in ruins, cities reduced to ashes. Generations of children left parentless. Ten whole years of war. He just couldn’t let it happen again. If they refused to listen, he would make them.
Sombra leaned back in her chair after she confirmed the payment. That was a lot of money. She could fund the repairs for at least one more town block in Mexico. She had put a halt on than after the first riots though. It didn’t make sense to build houses when the world was about to burn.
When Jack’s face appeared in one of her screens, she unmuted the audio and pushed the feed into all the screens she had. He was in a grey, empty room. Behind him, she recognized one of the first computers, manufactured hundreds of years ago. In its blocky screen, a thin, white rectangle was awaiting a password.
”Is it on, HERA? Can they hear me?” Jack poked the lens with his finger. He looked away for a second and then turned back to the camera.
“Alright...” Even through the mediocre quality, Sombra could see that the old man was extremely tense.
“My name is Jack Morrison. I am the head of the Overwatch organisation. I am in possession of approximately fifteen thousand nuclear warheads along with their launch codes. I know you don’t believe me, these nukes were supposed to have been blown out of the Solar System.” Jack took a deep breath. “I launched one about an hour before starting this broadcast. It’s about to hit Australia. HERA, switch to the satellite broadcast.”
Sound was cut off as the image switched to a black and white satellite feed. It was focused on the Uluru monolith. This was undoubtedly Australia. The barren continent. Very few creatures called the radiated island home.
A tiny dot moved in the image, then it all turned white. As the satellite was zooming out, the horror-inducing mushroom was forming.
Jack appeared again on the screens. He was looking directly at the camera with determined eyes.
“I ask- No. I command every combatant to stand down. Stop this madness. Did you learn nothing from the First Omnic Crisis? I will launch every single one of these warheads unless you stop all this fighting.” He waved a brown folder to the camera. “You have twenty-four hours to do so. After that, HERA, Overwatch’s A.I., will send invitations to country leaders, religious heads and private military organizations. That will include humans and omnics. You will cooperate with Overwatch for a peaceful future.” He sighed. “I don’t like this any more than you do. But you apparently you need a gun on your head to listen to reason.”