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Angela woke up with a groan.
“ Good morning, Dr. Ziegler ,” Athena said from the speaker nearby.
“Too loud, Athena,” she groaned. She rolled over into another body that also groaned. “Fuck.”
Angela peeked an eye open, cursing in three languages when the bright sunlight streaming through the window tried to stab her in the eye with a thousand little needles.
“ Dr. Ziegler, ” Athena said from the speakers nearby. Mercifully, her modulated voice was softer.
“That’s not my name,” someone mumbled. Angela grunted.
Angela groaned, splaying her legs as she heaved herself up into a seated position. She felt disgusting. There was a body next to her, curled in a sad little bump under the duvet. Angela blinked blearily, poking the lump until it made a disapproving sound and let out a long string of what sounded like expletives in Mandarin.
Maybe Cantonese.
She should probably ask Mei which dialect she spoke.
“What are you doing in my bed?” The lump rolled over and Angela looked around, her neck stiff and painful. Her head was pounding. Somehow she could feel that her hair was a mess. “Why am I sticky?”
“That would be the body shots,” someone said, and Angela turned her entire torso—her neck hurt too much to turn—to find Brigitte stripped down to a grease-stained sports bra.
Hana groaned. “Or the wet T-shirt contest which we decided to do with wine .”
“Waste of good alcohol,” Satya muttered from wherever she was hiding.
The intercom chimed again—the equivalent of Athena clearing her nonexistent throat. The sound sent spears of pain rattling up and down her spine and through her skull. “ Dr. Ziegler .”
“How many times have I told you to call me ‘Angela’?” she grumbled. “You were doing so good about it too.”
Athena made a disgruntled noise and said a bit too patiently, “ It is the doctor that I need, though. ”
Angela groaned and flopped backwards in bed. She regretted it immediately when her head pounded even worse and her stomach rolled with nausea. “Did someone get hurt again?”
“ Not yet. ”
“Good,” she groaned with feeling. “Because I might kill them myself.”
“ Dr. Ziegler …” Athena started.
Angela groaned and heaved herself to her feet. “I need coffee.”
“ Dr. Ziegler! ”
“Whatever it is,” she said too patiently as she shuffled to the kitchen suite. “Can wait until I’ve had coffee. Who wants?” There was a ragged chorus of answers, smattered with “tea, please” as she began filling the pot.
Athena chimed in her two-tone noise of annoyance. “ It really cannot wait, Dr. Ziegler .”
“Is anyone bleeding, internally or otherwise?”
“ If I say ‘yes’ will that get you there faster? ” Angela scowled at the intercom. On the screen, Athena’s blue symbol continued to spin innocently. “ Chance of exsanguination: extremely high. ”
Angela groaned. “I can’t even tell if you’re joking or not.”
Much to her frustration, Athena sounded smug. “ You cannot risk that, can you? ”
“Happy now?” she asked the world in general as she slung her emergency bag over her shoulders and walked out of the suite, barely dressed. She had briefly considered going out shirtless with nipple pasties but that sounded like more work than finding a ratty tank and pulling it over her head. Only Satya—who didn’t drink—seemed well enough to accompany her, leaving the rest of Ladies' Night to sleep in her room.
“I’ll kill them if they drink all of my coffee.”
“Sacrifices must be made,” Satya told her seriously, though her lips ticked up in a small smile. “I am sure we can find more in the kitchen.”
It would just be rude to tell Satya that her coffee was better than the boiled dirt the rest of the team drank, so she held her tongue. “Alright, Athena,” she said tiredly. “Where’s the fire?”
The nearest console blinked. They approached and found a map of the base on the screen. Angela and Satya’s symbols were in blue; across the base, McCree’s was highlighted in red.
Another symbol appeared: Soldier: 76.
Then a cluster of them in the kitchen that blinked urgently: Reinhardt, Ana, Lena.
Taking a deep breath, Angela pinched the bridge of her nose. Deeming herself calm enough to face the map again, she looked and found that another symbol had appeared just down the hall from them: Zenyatta.
“ Jesus fucking wept! ”
“Good morning,” Zenyatta said brightly as he answered his door. “What brings you here?”
“Are you bleeding?” Angela asked dryly.
The omnic tilted his head to the side as if he considered that question. As if he fucking wondered if he was bleeding . “I do not believe that I am.”
Angela wanted to cry. “Alright,” she said through clenched teeth. Her headache and nausea made her much shorter than she normally would be with Zenyatta. “So that was a false lead.”
“Are you here for Dewdrop?” Zenyatta asked. “He said that you might return for him.”
Confused, Angela peered past Zenyatta further into the monk’s quarters. He had a guest of sorts: the ugliest pink plastic flamingo that Angela had ever seen. Its beak was cracked and scraped and there were black streaks like burns along its sides. Fat lines of melted plastic made it looked like someone had cut open its tail and then sealed it shut again with a flamethrower. Angela watched as it suddenly jerked forward, rotating on what may have been a piece of rebar, and slammed its cracked beak into the ground. It bobbed back up.
Angela was wondering how to tell Zenyatta that he may need to check his sanity—could omnics go insane?—when the flamingo let out a string of beeps.
Somehow it sounded like expletives.
“Peace, Dewdrop,” Zenyatta said soothingly. The flamingo’s string of beeps increased in volume. “I apologize for his language. I must—”
Angela nodded, backing away. “Yeah,” she agreed. “I’ll just leave you to it.” The door closed between them and she turned to Satya. “What was that ?”
“Ladies’ Night,” Satya said gravely, though she hid what might have been a smile behind a hand.
Angela narrowed her eyes. “You know what we’re looking for,” she accused.
Satya, who was at Ladies’ Night.
Satya, who didn’t drink.
“Perhaps,” she said coyly.
Angela told her exactly what she thought in the worst German she could think of. Satya was unperturbed and frustratingly unrepentant. “You will feel better with something in your stomach,” she assured Angela.
Scowling, feeling her pulse in her temples, Angela stalked to the nearest terminal. “Athena,” she snapped. The AI didn’t answer, but Reinhardt’s icon began to blink insistently from the kitchen; she told Athena exactly what she thought of her helpfulness in language foul enough that it would have made McCree blush.
Hefting her bag over her shoulder, she stomped off toward the kitchen. Satya followed serenely in her wake.
“Hello!” Reinhardt bellowed cheerfully when they walked in. As if it were normal for him to be cooking while standing on the lower rung of a step stool. Ana and Tracer sat on the table, their legs propped up on chairs as they sipped their tea.
“Come in or out as you like,” Ana said, far too awake for such an early hour, “but decide quick and close the door.” Frowning, the two women came in; Satya closed the door behind them. “You look like shit,” Ana continued. “Reinhardt—”
“It’s coming back!” Lena exclaimed. “Quick, get on the table!”
Looking where she was pointing, Angela froze. A skull seemed to be peering around the edge of the couch, with a hint of black lace. It reminded her of a shy animal or child. Hysterical laughter bubbled up in her chest; if she laughed, she’d probably puke, so she caught it behind her gritted teeth.
Then the skull, its orbital sockets painted black and terrifyingly blank, emerged from behind the couch. It was, of all things, one of those antique vacuum cleaners, a short disc of plastic with pressure sensors around the edges to keep it from bumping into things.
This one was decorated with the skull she had seen peeking out from behind the edge of the couch—plastic; it was a plastic skull, thank all that was holy—on a little platform that let it move its head as if it were alive. The edges of the disc, where the pressure sensors would be, had a little fringe of black lace like an absurd skirt.
“Hurry up!” Lena cried while Ana laughed as if this were all very amusing to her. “Get on the table!”
A panel along the edge of the disk, just above the edge of the lace, opened and there was the whirring of something mechanical from within. Then emerged a blade—crude, looking hand-forged by someone that only half-knew what they were doing, but all the more terrifying for it—and the thing trilled the call for a cavalry charge.
Faster than Angela expected, it zoomed across the tile of the kitchen floor toward their ankles. Hangover momentarily forgotten, Angela shrieked and scrambled onto the table, spilling Lena’s tea.
But Satya only stepped toward the charging robot. “ Piharavaa ,” Satya murmured, kneeling smoothly in front of the charging thing. Angela was mentally preparing to treat grievous stab wounds when it beeped, slowed, and let Satya gently pat the little plastic skull on top of it. “What did I tell you? That is not how you say ‘hello.’”
The knife retracted and the thing that Satya called Piharavaa trilled like a child caught doing what it wasn’t supposed to.
“Have you been terrorizing everyone in here?” Satya asked, cooing at the abomination. “You naughty thing.”
Piharavaa trilled and chirped as Satya stood up. “I’m calling bullshit,” Angela said dryly. Satya shrugged. “What is that thing?” Piharavaa made a sad little noise and Angela sighed. “I’m sorry.” Piharavaa chirped.
“A product of Ladies’ Night, I assume,” Ana said, sipping her tea. “You always get up to trouble when you have Ladies’ Night.”
Angela scowled at her. “I think I would have remembered that,” she snapped back, though it was clear that she had probably blacked out at some point.
Leaning over, Ana lifted Angela’s hand pointedly. It was covered in soot and grease and little red marks like minor burns, the product of a busy night with power tools.
“Eat,” Reinhardt suggested from his perch on the step-stool. “I have some hash browns and sausage for you. If it’s safe to come down, of course.”
“It is,” Satya assured him, walking to the table and sitting in a chair. Piharavaa followed at her heels and then wound around the legs of her chair like a cat.
Reinhardt put a plate of greasy food in front of Angela and a mug of coffee that she was tempted to ignore. But boiled dirt was better than nothing, she supposed.
“You knew,” Angela accused her through a mouthful of food.
“Naturally. I do not drink.”
Angela told her exactly what she thought of that in every foul phrase she knew in as many languages as she could say it.
At the same time a hazy snippet of memory resurfaced. Satya telling them about Junker gladiator fights and robot battles to the death. Someone suggesting a small-scale battle—it hadn’t been Angela, but she had been excited for it. Insults had been flung, supplies gathered, and each had separated to a different corner of the lab.
The lab .
“Eat the rest of your meal,” Ana said as if sensing Angela’s impending flight.
Angela flipped her off but obeyed, shoveling the last few bites into her mouth. She thanked Reinhardt, rinsed her dishes and put them away, collected her bag, and with Satya and Piharavaa following, stalked down the hall toward her lab.
“ Perhaps you should visit Agent McCree first ,” Athena suggested as they passed one of her terminals.
“Perhaps I should shove deli meat into your disk drives,” Angela snapped. There was a sound behind her like a muffled laugh.
Athena sniffed. “ Rude. ”
At the next junction, they nearly ran into Solder: 76. Angela had a difficult time muffling her laughter.
It was hard to indulge his “secret identity” when he had used a piece of twine to fasten a paper plate over his face with little slits cut so he could see—even though without his visor, he was just about blind.
Through his eye-slits in the paper plate, she could see Soldier: 76 squint at them. “Have you seen my visor?”
“No,” Angela managed to say, her voice a strangled squeak as she fought to keep from laughing in his face. He was dressed in his pajamas still, not a terrible thing as he was at least clothed, but they were decorated with little cowboy hats and cacti and little speech bubbles with the word YEEHAW.
Soldier: 76 grunted and continued shuffling down the hall with one hand on the wall to keep his way. His feet were in pink rabbit slippers—clearly D.Va’s merchandise.
“Did we take his visor?” Angela asked Satya as they walked down the halls, out of earshot of Soldier: 76.
Satya shrugged. “If you did, it was not when I was paying attention.”
Angela sighed. “Great. Remind me to never drink alcohol again.”
“That’s what you said the last time,” Satya replied.
“ You said that if you stopped cold turkey you were certain that the cumulative hangover may actually kill you, ” Athena chimed in.
Deciding to ignore them, Angela keyed the code in for the lab and stomped inside as Piharavaa trilled in what was very obviously a laugh.
She found Torbjörn, Hanzo, and McCree already there. McCree was missing his arm.
“Ah, Angela,” Torbjörn said when he saw her. McCree looked like he had sucked on a lemon and Hanzo looked more amused than she’d ever seen him. Torbjörn’s eyes drifted down toward Piharavaa as it followed on Satya’s heels. “What…what is that?”
“Winston didn’t allow living pets,” Satya said seriously. Hanzo nodded as if a killer death vacuum was the logical step after such a ban.
Angela prayed for patience.
Torbjörn seemed similarly inclined to ignore that and looked at Angela. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen Jesse’s arm around, eh?”
“Perhaps it simply wandered off,” Satya suggested enigmatically. Again, Hanzo nodded as if this were completely expected , and Angela began to wonder if he was in on it too.
Angela shook her head.Torbjörn squinted at her. “Ye’re sure? ” he pressed. “I know ye girls get up to some…crazy things on yer Ladies’ Nights.”
“If I do,” Angela informed him tartly. “I do not remember it.”
“Ah,” Hanzo said simply. “One of those nights.” He looked at Satya as if this was completely expected .
“I will tell you about it later,” Satya promised, the traitor.
Angela ignored them and opened the door to her private workspace. Something scuttled beneath one of the work benches as she entered. Flicking the lights on, she sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose once more. “Jesus. Fucking. Wept.”
“You like that phrase,” Satya observed. She and Hanzo followed her into the lab, followed a moment later by McCree and Torbjörn.
“It’s a good phrase,” Hanzo pointed out and Satya hummed. Piharavaa trilled and Hanzo moved his leg out of the way so that it could enter, too.
Torbjörn looked around. “What?” he asked. To him it likely didn’t look too out of the ordinary. One of the cabinets was probably blocking his view of the work bench.
“Well,” Hanzo said, clearly able to see what Angela did. “McCree, I believe we have found your hand.”
The scuttling sound came back and McCree’s arm came into view as it emerged from beneath the work bench, walking on its fingertips like something out of an old cartoon. It jumped, its fingers flaring out as if surprised at seeing them, though how it could possibly see without eyes, Angela could never know.
Then it jumped as Piharavaa made an ugly hissing noise. It charged as fast as its little fingers could take it right at them. McCree, catching sight of his arm, yelled in surprise. Even Hanzo jumped back.
But Angela had been pushed to her breaking point and beyond. She opened a nearby drawer, pulled out her gun, and opened fire. The first three shots missed but the next four caught it on the forearm guard. It paused. Angela took the few steps to bring her right on top of it and, ignoring the lack of safety, braced the forearm portion with her foot. She shot point-blank into its palm until the slide of her gun clicked back.
With an inarticulate sound, she threw the gun down at the still arm and turned to face her audience. “I’m done,” she announced. “I’m going the fuck back to sleep.”
They parted for her, even Piharavaa, and watched her leave. “Ye’ve been askin’ for a new one,” she could hear Torbjörn say consolingly as she left.
Back in her room, she found that her guests had been kind enough to tidy up before they left. “Athena...” she began.
“ I’ve already informed Ana and Lúcio that they are on call, ” the AI told her, sounding unbearably smug. “ I have also put your quarters under lockdown pending medical emergency code. ”
Groaning, Angela fell face-first on the bed. She felt the siren call of sleep begin to tug at her, a weariness deep in her bones. “Kill me,” she begged, voice muffled by the pillows.
“ I cannot do that .”
Angela wiggled a hand free and lifted a middle finger in the general direction of the terminal.
From beneath her bed, something gave an electronic chirp. Four plastic arms emerged and eased her shoes off. They lifted her legs into bed and tucked her in before retreating beneath the bed once more. The bedskirt swayed and slowly fell still.
But Angela didn’t notice—she was already asleep.