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The bullet ricocheted off Fareeha’s helmet, it’s force violently shaking her head to the side. She growled and returned fire. Her rocket destroyed the wooden shack that the rebels were hiding and the men inside screamed in pain and terror. Fareeha winced upon hearing them. No matter how many times she heard the echo of her actions, it never failed to repulse her.
She shook her head and flew higher to get a better view of the area.
Grey tents and two wooden buildings formed a small village below her feet, craters of chattered black sand marked where her rockets had landed. Smoke was rising from the destroyed shack and a few burned bodies around it. They must have stored ammo and explosives there, the explosion was way bigger than her rockets’ usual blast radius.
Beyond the village, sand dunes looked like still waves in the desert sea. Behind her, some rocks had managed to escape the sand, like lone grey islands in the red sea. The well that kept the village alive was in their shadow.
A lone gunshot from behind awoke her from her sightseeing. Fareeha dropped to the ground and turned to see her attacker. A young man, not older than 25, was trying to stand using the well to steady himself. An old handgun on his right hand was aiming at Fareeha. The man’s feet were gone, the rest of his legs were black as coal from the burns. Sand was all over the left side of his face. His left eye was closed and instead of tears, blood was running out. His open eye, beautiful light blue, was looking at Fareeha with a mix of anger and terror.
His next shot would have hit her in the heard, but her armour ricocheted the bullet to her left. Cursing her in Masri, he emptied the aged weapon on her. Fareeha’s armour reflected the bullets to the sand at her feet. She looked at the man with sad rage boiling inside her, as he pulled a knife from his belt.
“Why fight?!” she snapped, ” Why rebel?! Look at you! This was a small fight, can you imagine what would happen if you had gained more people?! If you had managed to create this great holy rebellion of yours?! HOW MANY WOULD HAVE DIED THEN?!” she asked as she walked to him, holstering the rocket launcher on her back.
He only gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on the knife.
“We asked the world for one thing only. To. Stop. Fighting.”
He thrust the knife at her neck as she talked. Fareeha moved to the right, grabbed the knife blade and squeezed. The weapon cracked to pieces under her armoured fingers. The man dropped the handle and reached for another knife on his belt but Fareeha was faster. Her left hook got him on the ribs and the force threw him flat to the ground. She towered above him. He mumbled a prayer to a god and pulled the knife from his belt in a final attempted to kill her.
Fareeha grabbed his hand again. And forced the knife to his neck, painting red the sand beneath them. She got up and looked at him as he drowned in own blood. Behind the yellow visor, she almost cried at the stupidity of it all.
None of this should have happened. Overwatch had given the world peace, yet people still fought and killed and maimed. Wars between countries were non-existent, yet grudges between countries and religious groups remained, so the killing didn’t stop. It just wasn’t “official”. There were fewer deaths and smaller fights, sure, and most groups run when the Overwatch transports flew in the area. But religious fanatics such as the man at her feet never stopped. And as Overwatch began enforcing its laws, some people took arms against the organization, claiming loss of personal privacy and freedom.
Fareeha began checking the tents for survivors, thinking about the world’s state.
Yes, these claims were valid. Loss of privacy? The resent nano-cameras were following people everywhere, programmed to sound alarms if their assigned person got involved in a fight. Big deal, it was just AI that “watched” them. The only time that human eyes would see the camera feeds was when the alarm had been sounded, and that to be sure that the AI was correct in finding troublemakers.
Freedom? The world-wide curfew was a pain to be sure, but necessary. The lowered visibility gave issues to the AI and before them and the nano cameras, the Overwatch patrols could only do so much. Killings, abductions, drug trafficking and assaults had almost completely stopped after the curfew was enforced.
These sacrifices were necessary. They had to make them to protect the people. It wasn’t idyllic and the way Jack took control wasn’t pretty. But the result was worth it. A safer world for all. No more children forced into war. No more sex trafficking. No more families broke apart. No more drug wars. No more crazy omnics. No more madness.
“We’re protecting you. So why? Why fight us?”
The village was empty and the dead couldn’t answer. Fareeha sighed and signaled the clean-up team. They would take and identify the bodies, clean them and deliver them to their families if they had any. Any supplies the village had would be sent to people in need. The well would be filled with sand to deter any other criminals from using the area as a base.
Fareeha didn’t know where exactly they were and she didn’t care. The sky was filled with bright stars, the sand was pleasantly warm and Angela was laying next to her. Fareeha didn’t care about anything else at this moment. She was enjoying the silence.
A silence that Angela quietly broke.
“How many today?”
Fareeha didn’t want to talk. She stayed quiet for a while, but, not wanting Angela to think she was ignoring her, she answered.
“13... Or 15. I don’t know.”
Angela’s hand found her own.
“Want to talk about them?”
“No.”
“Alright.”
They stayed quiet for some time. Fareeha used her elbow to rise and turned to look at Angela. The doctor was wearing white pants and a white t-shirt, covered by a red jacket. She had untied her hair to lay down and they had spilled around her face like a halo. She noticed Fareeha looking at her and gave her a gentle smile.
Fareeha’s return smile was forced.
“Do you think we should have retired?”
“Hmm?”
“Like Lena Oxton. And live like normal people.”
Angela sat up and looked at her.
“You want to retire?”
“No. No, I don’t.”
She paused, gathering her thoughts.
“But I don’t understand it, Angela. We end all wars and crime and some people still hate us? I’m not talking about these religious extremists, I don’t expect them to use their brains. But we have small protests every month. More and more people disappear and we find them living in the woods like hermits. People leave their countries to, and this is their words, escape Overwatch’s suffocating reign. I mean, this isn’t a utopia, sure, but it’s way better than what we had.”
“How do we know what they said?” Angela asked calmly.
“From the public cameras and- No, I get the privacy problem. But it’s what keeps the cities safe. No more attacks in the middle of the day. No more shoot-outs. No more crimes and no more wars. How is the result not worth it for them?”
“Some people value their freedom and privacy more than peace.”
“That’s-”
“Dumb, right? It is to us. We’ve seen war. We’ve seen the terrible, terrible things it brings. Peace, to us, is worth sacrificing our freedom and privacy.” Angela was looking at the sand as she talked. Now she turned to look at Fareeha again. “Imagine that you never enlisted. Imagine that the closest to danger you’ve ever been was going down a dark alley in the night. Imagine that your loved ones never died before their time. Imagine that your only contact with war was through TV news.” she paused. “War was never real for them. Just another catastrophe. So, to them, sacrificing a bit of their freedom and privacy isn’t worth it to stop something they only saw on their screens.”
Fareeha hadn’t thought about it like that. It made sense. From an ignorant, detached point of view, it made sense.
“I get it.” she sighed, “I hate it. But I get their reasoning.”
Angela looked away, to the dark shadows of the sand dunes in the distance.
“We just have to suck it up and keep explaining our reasons. But...”
“Ultimately we have to enforce the peace.” Fareeha completed her sentence.
Angela took some time to answer, and when she did, her voice was sad and tired.
“Yeah.”