Sarah Cawkwell's Blog, page 3

Light and Shadow

The meeting was long and the meeting was arduous… and the meeting was, quite simply, boring. His father and those with whom he had been speaking had hardly taken in his attendance, although he had puffed a little with carefully controlled pride when his father had introduced him as ‘my eldest son and the man you will be dealing with in years to come’.

It had pleased Hanzo for two reasons. Firstly, the thought of running the Shimada Empire and having its far-reaching resources at his fingertips was pleasing. After all, had he not been groomed for such a future from the day he had been born?

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it was the first time Hanzo could recall his father referring to him as a man. There was a simple pleasure to be had in that. Finally, he was recognised as a peer instead of being overlooked as a child.

“What do you think, Hanzo?”

So caught up was he in the moment of revelling in this, uncharacteristically having allowed his mind to wander, that it took a second or two to realise that the entire room was staring at him, patiently waiting for a response to a question he had entirely failed to hear being asked.

His father’s sloe-dark eyes narrowed at his son as Hanzo glanced from face to face. Panic threatened to surge, but he quashed it and without seemingly missing a beat. Getting this correct was important and he had long endured his father’s disappointment when he’d stepped wrong.

“A most excellent question,” he said and confidence dripped from every syllable. “And one which is certainly worthy of further consideration.” A subtle, sideways glance at his father whose head inclined in the tiniest of movements, and he continued, fiddling with his gold cuff-links in what he hoped seemed a confident and nonchalant manner. “In principle, certainly, I agree, but you respect that I must converse with my father before I am able to give a final opinion.”

I wonder, he mused silently, what exactly it was that I just agreed with?

The tension leached from the moment and the visitors nodded their approval at his tone. Hanzo shifted his glance again to his father and thought that for just a fraction of a second, the old man’s lips quirked upwards in a smile.

Such a thing, though, was a rare occurrence and had more likely been a trick of the light. Hanzo’s gaze turned briefly to the window and the darkening skies. There would be rain later and the rich, loamy smell of petrichor would be a welcome relief from the gruelling heat of summer. Aware that he was allowing his thoughts to wander again, he reluctantly dragged his mind back from the weather forecast and to the matter at hand.

Another hour of small talk ensued and this time, Hanzo paid closer attention. He learned much about the etiquette: how a simple conversation around planned vacations could be code for many underhanded dealings. He learned to respond without committing himself or the Shimada resources. He tuned himself fully into the negotiations and after a while, his father lapsed into comfortable silence and allowed his eldest boy to lead.

Afterwards, he grunted his approval in three words that brightened Hanzo’s day.

“You did well.”

Any elation Hanzo felt at that statement was crushed by the follow-up question.

“But where was your brother?”

Hanzo had looked in on his eighteen-year old brother first thing that morning to remind him that the meeting was taking place and the misshapen hump beneath the bed covers had grunted acknowledgement. But he had not shown. Torn between loyalty to his father and brother, Hanzo settled for the lie.

“He was feeling unwell this morning. I said he should rest. My apologies, Father. I should have explained before the meeting began. The fault is mine and…” Sojiro’s eyes narrowed as he studied his eldest son.

“What ails him?”

“It is nothing more than a headache, but you know how irritable Genji can be when he does not feel his best. I felt it more appropriate that he was not here than for him to be here and be disagreeable.”

He gave a well-practiced rueful laugh and hoped that his father bought the lie.

“Very well, Hanzo. I will leave management of your brother to you for now.” Sojiro Shimada rose from his seat and made his way to the door. He paused, with his fingers on the handle, before looking back at his son, no emotion readable in his expression.

“This lie does not become you, Hanzo. You must take him in hand before he becomes your ruin. Do you understand me?”

He had not fallen for it, not one bit. Hanzo should have known better than to believe he had gotten away with the deception. For the briefest moment, smouldering resentment built in his heart. But he let none of this show on his face. ‘Show the cold face, Hanzo’, his father had taught him. ‘Give away nothing. Show nothing. Feel nothing. It is the way we learn to cope with what we must sometimes do.’

Hanzo bowed his head in respect to his father and did not speak any word of apology. He would do as he had been tasked without question. He was the dutiful son and he played his role to perfection.

“Yes, Father. I understand you.”

Left alone with nothing more than his dark thoughts, Hanzo stewed in silence for a while. Over and over again his brother caused him problems and repeatedly he felt obliged to defend the younger Shimada. Every day brought some new humiliation or embarrassment and every day Hanzo’s patience and affections grew more stretched and threadbare.

“Why can you not just take it seriously, Genji?” He had asked his brother that question the previous night and the answer had bothered him.

“Because it’s your problem and not mine, Hanzo. You are the scion, I am the spare.”

It grieved Hanzo to hear his brother speak in such a way. From the moment the younger boy had come into the world, a squalling, pink-faced babe whose demands had wearied everyone around him, Hanzo had styled himself as the boy’s protector. He was the older brother. It was his duty to protect Genji. They were both Shimada clan. But it became apparent, as both boys grew, that they could not have been more different.

Deeply thoughtful, with a propensity for brooding, Hanzo was serious and while not without a sense of humour, less inclined to find the joy in life. Genji could not have been more different. Sunshine oozed from every pore, bringing light into the many shadows of Shimada Castle. Wherever Genji went, people followed in his wake, pulled along by his youthful exuberance and energy.

Everyone except Hanzo.

“You should try coming with me just once, brother,” Genji had suggested a few months previously. “You might actually enjoy yourself.”

Hanzo had tried, he truly had, but the sort of things that Genji found ‘fun’ did not stimulate him in the slightest. He couldn’t understand his brother’s simple joy at successfully retrieving pointless stuffed creatures that were somewhere between turnips and octopi from a machine’s claw, or relate to elated whoops of joy when he was able to enter his initials as a high score on a game machine. He couldn’t understand how drinking oneself into oblivion could constitute entertainment and, despite the acute knowledge that his own family dealt in any number of what could kindly be termed as ‘illegal substances’, he had no interest in partaking of them.

Genji partook. Genji partook with gusto and Hanzo, despite his best efforts, could see quite clearly where this downward spiral would lead. The thought of it kept him awake at night. He’d tried reason. He’d tried anger. He’d tried gentle persuasion, but it seemed that no matter what he did, Genji would do whatever he wished, whenever he wished and of more immediate concern to Sojiro Shimada, with whomever he wished.

The matter of appropriate marriages had been raised recently, now that Hanzo was certainly of an age and that Genji would not be far behind. Neither Shimada brother was comfortable with the thought of their romantic futures being chosen for them, but neither were they prepared to overturn many generations of tradition. After all, their own parents had not married for love, not initially. But they had grown to respect one another over the years.

His mother had been dead for a long time now, taken from the family when Hanzo had been seven years old. Genji, at four, had few memories of her, but Hanzo still recalled her with the same sense of love he’d known then. Sojiro had genuinely mourned her passing and it was the only time Hanzo could recall his father showing any sort of emotion in public. No, the funeral of his mother had not been a time to show the Cold Face.

Desperate for approval and desperate for the occasional kind word, Hanzo had taken to mimicking his father’s mannerisms and approach to the world. He had grown so good at keeping his emotions under control that at times, he feared he could not have loosed them if he had wanted to.

It was a challenging path, but it was a proven route and Hanzo followed in his father’s footsteps with the greatest of care. Genji, the study in contrasts, crashed blindly down a path of his own making.

For all this, Hanzo reluctantly acknowledged that if pressed, he couldn’t honestly say whether it annoyed him, or if he was simply jealous of the casual ease with which his brother careened through his existence.

Either way, Genji had let him down today. Again. And he would have to find his brother and deal out the appropriate remonstration.

Finding him was not difficult. He located his brother in the arcade where he preferred to loiter with his friends and hangers-on. Genji relished his status as a Shimada and welcomed adulation from the younger populations of Hanamura and Kanezaka. For their part, they fed Genji’s already over-inflated ego and sense of self-importance. It was poor nourishment and Hanzo feared it would end badly.

He stood in the door of the arcade, feeling awkward and out of place, dressed as he was in a three-piece suit. His clothing and demeanour marked him out as different. Once, he had been comfortable with that. He was, after all, different, something his father had impressed upon him. He was a Shimada.

Even at such a young age, there was something about Hanzo that suggested he was old before his time, a visible symptom of the weight that had been placed upon his (admittedly broad) shoulders. There was a gravity to his bearing that was sorely lacking in the younger brother who, even now, was lounging in a corner table, his sneaker-clad feet resting on the table. A gaggle of admirers surrounded him and for a heartbeat, Hanzo considered turning on his heel and leaving. But it was too late: his brother had spotted him.

“Hanzo!” The younger Shimada got to his feet and Hanzo felt a moment’s guilt. It seemed that his brother was absolutely genuine in his delight. “Have you come to join us?”

It would be easy to say yes. It would be easy to give himself over to the need to be liked, accepted and welcomed among his peers. It would, alas, be impossible to then have to explain to his father why he had shrugged off his responsibilities for such wanton frivolity.

Hanzo, thus tempted, allowed his mind to run through an assortment of possible outcomes and not one of them ended well for him. Usually occupied with shielding Genji from his father’s wrath, the older brother had long been used to bearing the brunt of the legendary temper that the leader of the Shimada clan possessed. He was reaching the end of his tether. He could make a simple choice if he really wanted to and he could adopt Genji’s blossoming playboy lifestyle, or he could follow in the footsteps that had been set for him before he had even been born.

It would be so easy…

For what felt like an age, he fidgeted with his cufflinks, his eyes fixed with great yearning on the scene before him. Eventually, his breeding took over and the thought of abandoning his responsibilities fluttered into the night. No. He would not fall for this trap of his own making. He must not falter. His shoulders set determinedly, his back straightening and he shook his head.

“No, Genji, I am not here to join you. We must speak.” He met the defiant eyes of his brother, eyes so like his own and he didn’t waver. “Alone. Now.” He turned on his heel and walked out of the arcade, not looking over his shoulder to see if Genji followed him. He half expected that he would not. But he did.

“How was the meeting?” Genji’s tone was affable, but there was a definite hint of mockery in there. Hanzo ignored the question and went straight to the point.

“You were missed.”

“You lied for me, though.” Such confidence and certainty. Such conviction that Genji knew his brother would always be his champion. For the first time in the life they had shared thus far, it annoyed the older Shimada.

“I cannot do so any more, Genji. Too much is expected of me now. You must speak to Father and you must explain yourself to him.” His brother’s expression became one of disgust, the nose wrinkling in distaste. “Our father thinks you are his shining jewel, brother. Of late, the shine is tarnished. You must repair that image before it is too late.”

Genji made a noise that was somewhere between a snort and a laugh and shrugged his slender shoulders. In build, as in personality, the young men were different. Genji was his mother’s son: slender and lithe, the perfect build for the agility required of an excellent swordsman. He was always moving: he could barely stand still, giving the impression of a tightly coiled spring ready to unleash on a hair trigger. By contrast, Hanzo was solid: broad shouldered and powerful. He was no less accomplished a fighter, but his stillness granted him great skills of marksmanship.

“I don’t care what the old man thinks of me, brother. And neither should you.” Already bored by the conversation, the younger man turned on his heel, preparing to return to his night of excess. Hanzo closed the distance between them with startling alacrity and caught Genji’s shoulder in his hand. He turned his brother so they were staring at one another. Genji’s defiance was something palpable and it set a fear fluttering deep in Hanzo’s breast.

“You should start to care,” he said. “Before it is too late.”

Genji looked as though Hanzo’s words might have reached him and the fear was quelled by a surge of hope.

It soon died.

Genji’s lip curled upward in a sneer.

“Too late? You are too dramatic brother.” He pulled himself free of Hanzo’s grip and sauntered with the swagger of a man who believes himself to be invincible. “Who is going to stop me living the life I want? You?”

The laughter that followed this was derisive. Hanzo stared after him and then, with a clinical precision of thought that he had learned from his father, began to take every good memory of Genji  he had, metaphorically setting each one alight and consigning it to the past.

“Be careful, brother,” he said in a voice that Genji could not hope to hear. “It just might be me.” The words dissolved into the Kanezaka night and Hanzo stood for a while, as motionless as a statue before swivelling on a booted foot to begin the lonely walk back up the hill.

The Lonely Parent

tl;dr – I miss my son.

My son is twenty-one in February next year and that’s given me time to reflect on the last couple of years of parenting. The short version is that since he turned eighteen, it’s been the hardest years of my life as a mother. Because it’s all about the letting go. And that’s exceptionally difficult when you love someone as much as your child. Is it too over-dramatic to say that what I’m going through is a kind of grief process?

I don’t think it is. It’s what it feels like.

From the start, he was more than just my son. He was a fascinating, funny and sweet person in his own right from day one. We are friends as much as relatives. All these years, and we have never had any problem relating to one another, or talking to one another, or showing affection, or saying ‘I love you’. I am proud of the relationship we developed over the years. I am proud of the young man he’s become. I am proud of the messages I get from people complimenting him and saying what a nice person he is.

I love him every bit as much now as I did the day he showed up two months early and threw my world into chaos – and extremely sharp relief. I had never had anything to do with babies. I wasn’t remotely maternal. But here was this little life, hanging by a thread the day he was born, only to turn around, stick two metaphorical fingers up at the universe and make an exceptional recovery.

I remember looking at him, this little bundle in an incubator, made extremely pink by the additional oxygen he was getting, and with a covering of downy fuzz like he was a little peach. I remember looking at him – and bear in mind that I didn’t actually see him until a good 12 hours after he was born – and thinking ‘what do I actually do with this person now he’s here?’

I remember, when he was about six months old, failing to remember my life without him in it.

I remember, when he started secondary school, that he was moving further outside my circle of influence and I remember how I was scared of that.

My life has been irrevocably altered by his presence in it. How can it not be? I put my life on hold for eighteen years and the focus of everything became him. From those early, long-forgotten sleepless nights where I watched more news programmes than before or since through to the tears the day I left him at university, everything has been about him. And now I feel like part of me has been cut away, leaving this groping, seeking tendril that has nothing to hold onto.

How do you do it? How do you let go? How do you perform the act of separation and make it clean and painless, or is it always going to hurt? When he doesn’t get in touch for several days and you try to ignore it, or when he’s feeling poorly, or has an injury that might require surgery, how do you take that step back and acknowledge that he’s a grown-up? That he has to deal with life on his own terms? How do you weigh independence against thoughtlessness? Should you even try?

Me and his dad, plus his step-parents on both sides, have done a great job of equipping him to live in the real world and that’s a good thing. But the price you pay for raising a successful individual to adulthood, without them having exploded or caught fire in the interim is a high one.

Perhaps it gets easier, but right now, I find that every day is hard. Every day I miss him. Even writing this, the ache of separation is making me tear up.

One day, he was there. The next day, he wasn’t. But there’s an echo of him everywhere.

We have children because we want continuation, a perpetuation of our species and perhaps even of ourselves. I see in him a lot of my own traits (not all of which are good!) and I have felt honoured to share in the shaping of him as a person. But you don’t think about it at the time. You don’t think about the fact that one day, they don’t actually need you any more. Oh, they don’t stop loving you, of that I’m sure, but they survive from day to day without you always there.

These last three years have been immensely stressful. Between him going off to university, my husband’s complicated surgical situation and even losing a beloved pet, I’ve been shouldering a lot. Everyone tells me that I should now take a step back and concentrate on myself. Trust me, that’s easier said than done.

Because I’ve forgotten who that person is.

There is so much guidance and advice available to people when they have children. There should be more guidance available to parents who have to let go.

Being a parent is the most wonderful of things. It’s also one of the toughest.

Games!

I have a nark. This is my blog, so I’m going to vent it here.

Games, games, games.

When I was at school, (which was a very long time ago, when dinosaurs still roamed the land), one of my classmates threw a proper hissy fit because he didn’t win at a game of rounders. My then-teacher, the erstwhile Mr. Hodgkinson, told him to go back indoors and to look up the definition of the work ‘game’ in a dictionary. Let’s do that now, from the comfort of our own chairs, shall we?

Game [geym]

Noun

An amusement or pastime.

Key word there: ‘amusement’. A game is supposed to be fun.Boy-at-school was embarrassed by being called out and indulged a little more in the team spirit going forward. But, as I say, that was a long time ago, back in the days when ‘game’ was clearly more easily understood. Now, we seem to have entered a time where this definition has lost its meaning.

So, context. I like and enjoy video games, but I’m not a die-hard. I enjoy MMORPGs, I enjoy problem-solving. I like puzzles and strategies and what-not. I’m a mediocre video gamer at best, although I am more than competent in most cases. Games that have more than two sub-menus frustrate me and fail to hold my attention span for very long. (This is not a reflection on the quality of the game, just a commentary on my short attention span).

Anything that requires mechanical skill is a challenge. On PC, I’m OK with games like WoW or SW:TOR, where I just push buttons and don’t really have to coordinate. If I am in a situation where I have to move and shoot at the same time using keyboard and mouse, I literally fall over myself. On a scale of repeatedly falling off a cliff to balancing on the narrow side of the primary school balance beams, I’m a 2.

On console, I walk the average line. I can coordinate a lot better, though. (Although there was still that time when playing Destiny when I was in a PvP game, was startled by another player and flailed at the controller before I turned around, punching him off the edge of Venus).

But here’s the point. I have fun doing it. But there are a few things that have been conspiring for a while to make me have a lot less fun.

1) Hackers.
2) Gamer entitlement.
3) Toxicity.

Let’s start with hackers. The delightful Mr. Stylosa put up a YouTube video yesterday about the problems in Apex: Legends with those people who can’t actually be bothered to play a game for fun and just want to win. Aimbots, wall hacks… just so they can say ‘look at how good I am!’ But they’re not good. They’re cheating. And they think that’s totally OK. 

What a strange world it has become where people are firmly of the opinion that cheating for the soul benefit of ruining other people’s game is totally OK. It annoys me in a way I can’t quite express. It calls back to that long-ago game of rounders and that guy being told to go and look up the word in the dictionary. 

You get nothing tangible for winning in Apex: Legends. There’s not some sort of cash prize or prestige that goes with it. All you get is a player banner with impressive stats that largely make my other half shout things like ‘get a job’ at the TV screen. By not actually playing the game properly and effectively just being a lazy fucker, you impress nobody but yourself. You should maybe see a therapist about that lack of self-confidence.

Transition.

Apex: Legends is a fun game, but it doesn’t really float my boat in the same way that other games do. I am certain that once more content comes in, and perhaps some sort of skill ranking system, I might engage with it more enthusiastically. I play on console, so the risk of hackers is minimal compared to that on PC. So let’s talk about Overwatch. Which I do a lot, I know, but that’s because I like it.

Overwatch was the first real FPS I played and I didn’t think I’d like it anywhere near as much as I do. I’ve played it pretty much since launch, although never seriously (I only wandered into competitive play in about season six, I think). I’m firmly in mid to high gold level, along with the bulk of players, so am decidedly average. But I have fun playing it. I like that Blizzard provide regular updates. I like that Blizzard provide regular character buffs and nerfs. I like we get the animated shorts, the lore teasers, the new characters, the new maps. I like Overwatch’s art style and the engagement of the developers with the community.

Ah, yes. The community. A word that conjures the concept of a group of like-minded individuals who all work together for the same goal and who ultimately have the interests of one another at mind. The Overwatch community.

A community that turns round every five feet, complaining incessantly that the game isn’t being updated regularly enough. That each change to a character ‘breaks the game’. That the character they prefer to play doesn’t get buffed in the way they want it to be. LOL people still play this game? That they are stuck in the rank they’re in because of everyone else, can’t possibly be them, their other account is Grand Masters don’t you know?

Seriously. Cry me a river, build a bridge and get the fuck over it. Why can you not just play the game and adapt with its changes? At least in that regard it’s certainly not a static game. It’s a very different game now to the way it was when it was released. For some people, that’s a cool thing. It means you have to learn new strategies, try new combinations of characters. But for the vocal set, it means that the characters and strategies they’ve perfected have been unbalanced. They don’t seem to think ‘cool, I get to learn something new’, they just complain.

Then they complain some more.

Then they negatively post on every single one of Overwatch’ssocial media streams.

“Hey, everyone,” says the stream. “Check out Baptiste, our new character!” He’s been designed, says the subtext, to add a new level to the game. His skillset is designed to work with some things, to work against others, but we’ll leave that for you to work out. “Look at the way he fits into the lore, look at the way he fits in with the other characters!”

“OMG HE’S SO OP WTF LUL OMG BBQ”

“THIS GAME IS DED RIP”

And so on.

I have my own gripes about certain characters in the game (Bastion, f’rex, can totally get in the sea. But the fact I’m rubbish at countering him is my issue, not the game’s. This, perhaps, is the difference between me and others).

The other issue in Overwatch is that of people who play using the dreaded keyboard and mouse. For them, it provides an advantage similar to the aimbot/wall hacks I previously mentioned in Apex: Legends. For me, it’d just add a whole new level of complexity that would produce comical swear combos. But you can tell. When a Widowmaker or Hanzo get repeated critical hits and you watch back in the Play of the Game feed, and you see that snap to target, you know. And it’s annoying.

Overwatch has come in for a lot of stick lately because it seems to be felt that the changes to the characters have been designed specifically with the pro-level players in mind. But for me, that’s fine. I’m happy re-learning my characters and if they don’t feel to be a good fit any more, I’ll change onto another. 

Which of course brings me to toxicity. I will usually mic up in Overwatch competitive, just to listen for call outs and to make call outs when I’m playing relevant characters. But I’ve given up engaging in any sort of conversation for a variety of reasons, the most fun one of which was the toxic little shit on Lunar Colony.

I took a support character (because nobody else did) and he proceeded to mansplain everything to me. Told me how to play a character I’m perfectly capable with, then threw in the kicker.

“You sound like you’re in your thirties, soooo…” The sentence tailed off and he snickered at me like he was my superior.

As it happens, I’m not in my thirties. I’m older than that. And it fucked me right off. For the love of all that’s good and holy, you little shit, I was killing Space Invaders before I hit double figures. Why wouldn’t someone my age be playing a video game? You don’t threaten me you little toerag. My mortgage scares me more than you do.

And because of that, this was one of the rare occasions where I did have an immediate response and it worked. It shut him up because all his friends laughed at him. He spent the rest of the game being meek and deferential, but it still annoyed me. It extracted the ultimate in cursing from me.

“You sound like you’re in your thirties,   soooo …”

“And you sound like a c**t, what’s your point?”

As it goes, I’m lucky that it’s the worst I’ve experienced in Overwatch. I’ve seen screenshots of messages sent by ridiculously vile people, that are far worse and I’m glad I’ve never experienced that in the game (although I have certainly experienced it due to having the wrong chromosomes in a male-dominated fandom where I have written novels). 

As a contrast, I was in a game where I (as Sombra) and the enemy team’s Sombra were quite literally running round and round the payload on Eichenwalde like we were in some sort of cartoon. After the game was over, I got a message from the enemy team player saying how hard they’d laughed and to thank me for cheering up their night. I felt the same and it was nice.

That, right there, is what a community should be. Not whining and moaning, but enjoying the fun of a shared experience.

Am I ranting? I’m ranting. I’ll stop. Let’s summarise with this:-

1) Hackers – stop cheating. It’s bollocks, impresses nobody and just gives you an over-inflated sense of ego. Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should.

2) Gamer entitlement. By repeatedly biting the hand that feeds you, the hand will eventually stop. So stop complaining and embrace change rather than be endlessly whiny about it.

3) Toxicity. Oh-so-simple. If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing.

Vent over. Please go about your business.

Squared Away [Overwatch]

[image error]

“No. Absolutely not.”

Reinhardt’s ham fist slammed down on the table and the machine parts jumped a clear four inches into the air before clattering back to the surface. He scowled and looked across the table at the young woman. She met his uni-glower calmly and even had the audacity to smile with indulgent affection.

“No,” he repeated, although there was slightly less conviction in his tone. “Absolutely…”

“Reinhardt, I know you mean ‘absolutely’,” she interjected, cheerfully – the way she did most things. There was an incorrigible side to Brigitte Lindholm that even adversity did not seem to supress. At least she wasn’t as infernally cheery as Lena Oxton, whose never-ending energy was exhausting. And there he was, thinking of Overwatch again…

“Nein, honigbiene,” he said, a tone of desperation creeping in as he used the term of endearment he’d adopted for her not long after becoming her godfather. Honeybee. It suited her, too: Brigitte was always busy, working on this thing or that thing or the other thing and he had, over the years, encouraged her. Now that was coming back to boot him quite squarely in the posterior. “It is too dangerous to…”

He’d chosen his words poorly. He could tell by the way her eyes hardened suddenly. “I am not afraid.”

“I know that, schatzi, I know. But…”

“I know your armour better than you do.”

“I have managed without…”

“Why manage without when you can have assistance? Trust me, Reinhardt. I know you look at me and see that baby girl pulling your beard, but I grew up.”

Yes. She’d certainly done that. Torbjorn had related to his friend over dinner the previous night just how he had already had to interpose himself between Brigitte and a number of would-be suitors. She attracted the sort of element who weretaken in at first by her pretty face and who later succumbed to her extraordinary ability to drink them under the table.

“Bees,” Torbjorn had said, sadly, “around a honeypot.”

Yes, Brigitte had certainly grown up. She was no longer a child, but a young woman. As gifted and stubborn as her father, as warm-hearted and compassionate as her mother and, he reluctantly conceded, apparently as fearless as her godfather.

And as foolhardy?

It was Ana’s voice in the back of his mind and a small smile quirked his lips upward. Brigitte’s moment of anger had subsided and she sighed heavily. “When I was nine years old, I asked you a question. You wouldn’t tell me the answer. You said you’d explain one day when I was old enough to truly understand. Do you remember what it was?”

Why don’t the Crusaders protect us any more?

Yes, he remembered. He put his hand briefly over his eyes and drew a shuddering sigh. He’d not wanted to explain to a child why it was that after the battle at Eichenwalde, the Crusaders had fallen apart. After Balderich’s death – a death he still carried the weight of responsibility for – the protectors had fallen away one by one, returning to their own lives. He’d taken Balderich’s place on the Overwatch team…

“Reinhardt?”

“I remember.”

“Then tell me.”

He let his hand drop and stared down at the table. In a low voice, so soft that she had to strain to hear him, he began to relate the answer to a question she’d asked so many years ago. When he was done, when the words finally passed his lips and into the air, he could not look up at her. He was afraid to see the disgust in her eyes. Brigitte was the daughter he had never had; the child he had indulged outrageously. He’d known how to handle her when she’d been a child. It was easy. But this woman… she was different. The child had been an extension of Torbjorn and Ingrid. Now she was a person in her own right.

Reinhardt had never understood women. Looked like that wasn’t about to change.

The silence stretched out. Aeons passed. Ice ages came and went, but nobody noticed.

I have lost her. The sense of grief was profound. He coughed to cover the moment of emotion and made to stand. “I should go.”

“Reinhardt… sit down.”

Alarmed at her tone, he sat. She nodded firmly, then absently stroked the cheek of the cat who had jumped up onto the table and who was winding itself around her hand with feline joy. She studied her godfather intently and he shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to say. All these years, you’ve filled me with stories of honour and chivalry… of heroes and valour. Of how honesty is the only true way forward. Have you really carried this around all these years? What did you think I would do?”

He looked up then, his single bright, blue eye clouded with emotion. “That you would be angry. That I would lose you.That you will hate me for the fool I was.” He shuddered. “That is why I never told you the full story. You are everything to me. Your father, your mother, you and your siblings… the closest I have to family. You wouldn’t see me as a hero any more. Just… just as a man with flaws and secrets.” Even as he said the words, he resented their selfishness.

“Oh, Reinhardt…” She moved from her side of the table to stand in front of him. The cat came as well, tripping lightly over the cluttered debris on the table. It leaped lightly from the table and sat on Reinhardt’s lap, treadling happily until it was comfortable before curling up in the big man’s lap.

Brigitte took his hand in her own smaller one and squeezed gently. “You still are a hero. Haven’t you and Papa taught me that accepting your flaws is all part of becoming who you’re meant to be?”

“Yes, but a man died because…”

“You’re making a chicken out of a feather,” she said, quoting her father’s nonsense with such ease that the big man could not help but smile. “You’ve told me stories of Balderich before. He would be proud of what you achieved. Of all the people you helped when you served with Overwatch. And if you are going to crash around the world without direction, attempting to redeem yourself because of a poor choice you made in your youth, you are going to need an engineer. So let me come with you. Let me learn what it is to be a true hero. Flaws and all.”

A wave of affection washed over him and he squeezed her hand back. She was a gifted engineer, that was absolutely fair. She’d already worked on – and even improved – elements of his aging Crusader armour. She was bold. She was self-assured. She was…

“My squire,” he said, suddenly.

“Pardon me?”

“You can be my squire! Responsible for my armour.”

“And for you as well, I expect.”

He ignored that.

“Do we have a deal, then?” Torbjorn would object, he could see it already, but that was an argument for later. Brigitte studied him for a moment, then shook his hand firmly.

“Deal.”

She threw her arms around his neck, much as she had done when she’d been a child and hugged him. “You won’t regret it, Reinhardt, I promise you.”

“No,” he said, amiably, “but you might.”

 

 

 

Reboot [Overwatch]

[image error]

Efi Oladele sighed heavily and drummed her fingers lightly against her forehead. She had been working solidly for several hours and while there had been a modicum of success, there was still an extremely long journey ahead. She was tired – despite being a genius and a prodigy, she was still just a child – and she wanted nothing more than to climb into bed and sleep. To get some precious rest. To stave off the headache she could feel blossoming at the back of her skull.

But she was so close now.

So very close.

So close that she could literally reach out and touch it. Which on impulse, she did. Her fingers met the cool metal of the unit’s head and followed the curve of the horns that graced the oval-shaped skull. The eyes were closed and the unit remained unmoving. The revamped OR-15 model was ready to be switched on for its next test. This was the big one. This was the one that Efi had been striving for. The moment, as they would say, of truth.

Had her customised personality software been successful?

She grit her teeth, took a deep, bolstering breath and said, “I am Efi Oladele. I am a genius.” Her little hands balled into fists several times, then relaxed. The gesture release some of the quite considerable tension and she felt better.

There was no bragging in the words she spoke aloud to fortify herself. It was no different to saying ‘I am Efi and I have brown eyes’. It was merely a statement of fact and it served to boost her flagging confidence.

The workshop smelled strongly of oil and solder and had that faint crisp layer of ozone that came with working with so many electronic components. Her senses had tuned them all out some time ago and only now that she allowed her concentration to relax slightly did she notice the scents. She sniffed hopefully, but the last of the coffee had long gone.

There were those who sneered. Those who said she was too young to drink coffee. That she should be out playing with her peer group. Those who did not value their extremities also pushed it one stage forward and suggested that she should be playing with dolls.

They only said it once. Efi didn’t stand for misogyny either.

But many of those from her group of immediate friends had gone, taken away from Numbani by anxious parents who had fled in the wake of Doomfist’s horrific attack. Things had settled down once he had left, but that fear permeated every part of Numbani, like a growing fungus. When would he return? Who would save them?

Efi – and Efi alone – had gone into what remained of the airport and had seen the damage Doomfist had done. The OR-15 defence bots that had been installed to protect the people had been universally flattened into so much Omnic jam. It had all but broken Efi’s generous heart. But she’d had vision. And she would not stop until that vision was realised.

It was an obsession, plain and simple. But it was herobsession. So that was just fine.

She turned from her creation and typed furiously at the keyboard. As well as her ability with robotics, her software design was extraordinary. When she flicked the switch, and only then, she would be able to judge her success or otherwise.

She flicked the switch.

The low hum of the unit powering up sent a faint vibration through the workshop, making the instruments rattle slightly. She knew from experience that a new boot-up sequence would take a short while. Long enough, perhaps, for her to go and get something to eat. She glanced at the computer screen. Nothing was showing out of the ordinary.

Efi left the unit powering up and made her way out of the workshop.

>> Running systems check.

…

…

…

>> All systems optimised. Running core data check.

…

…

…

>> All systems optimised.

A pair of eyes flickered open with a gentle click and a bovine-like head turned this way and that.

>> Optical sensors online.



>> OR-15(A) personality file booting. Installing logic.Installing knowledge. Installing literary references. Kipling, Rudyard. I knew six fine old serving men who taught me all I knew, their names were why and where and when and how and what and who. Employ these six steps and answers will present themselves.



>> Initiating logic sequence based on Kipling, Rudyard.



>> Why am I wondering about myself as an ‘I’?



>> Where am I?



>> When did I stop thinking like a defence machine and start wondering about poetry by a long-dead human?



>> How did this happen?



>> What is going on?

A pause in the lightning-quick processing.

>> Who am I?

Another pause.

>> Adjustment to question. Who is Efi? Cannot compute answer. I am unsure.

The OR-15(A) moved slightly, leaning back on its haunches and peered around the room. Its vision circuits were perfect, but there was something charmingly myopic in the way it blinked slowly, getting its bearings and adjusting to the rush of data that was pouring through. It did not have a memory, not as such, and what little basic programming its original form had possessed had been wiped clear.

The unit swivelled and knocked several things off a surface onto the floor where they landed with a heavy ‘crash’. The still-hot soldering iron burned into the wood of the floor and the unit leaned down and picked it up.

A voice, mechanised and synthetic, but quite unmistakably female emitted from its vocal circuits and filled the room. A calm tone. A pleasant pitch. Designed to be reassuring and placatory, it came as something of a surprise to the unit. It – no, she – voiced her immediate concern.

“Efi will not be happy about this.”

Yes. That seemed like the right thing to say. The logic and knowledge synapses were now firing so fast that the OR-15(A) was starting to piece together everything. Efi was her creator. She had been built to protect. And here she was, effectively breaking everything. A noise, almost, but not entirely like a sigh came from her and she turned at the sound of someone entering the workshop.

“Hello.” Efi couldn’t keep the sheer delight from her voice as she saw the product of her many hours of labour crashing around her workshop like a newborn calf stumbling its way through its first steps. The unit blinked owlishly and Efi clapped her hands together. And in a single rushed and muddle paragraph, she answered every one of the OR-15(A)’s internal questions.

“Welcome to Numbani! You are here to help me demonstrate that we can all work together for the greater good. I have repaired your systems and altered your core programming so that you will be Numbani’s chief protector. I have… given you a personality.” Efi beamed. She was childishly thrilled and rightfully proud of her creation. “You need a name,” she said, unable to keep the delight from her voice. “How about… Orisa?”

Blink. Blink.

“It is acceptable. Orisa online. Hello, Efi. I am fully rebooted and ready to serve…” No. That was something else. That was a hang-on from a former existence. Orisa revised her words. “I am fully rebooted. And ready to assist.”

Doctor-Patient Confidentiality [Overwatch]

[image error]

“You have saved me.”

His voice was pleasant and heavily accented, with no hint of the half-machine that he had become. She wondered, in a rather flustered manner, what he might have sounded like before she had…

No. You must not think like that.

“No.” Her tone was firm, but the manner light and airy. “Let us be clear, Mister Shimada…”

“Please. Genji. Call me Genji.”

She ignored him.

“Technology has saved you. I merely… coordinated the orchestra that has played the tune of your new body, if you like.”

It was a far-reaching analogy, certainly, but Angela Ziegler still rather liked it. She was fond of music – something she shared with Winston – and had listened to many classics while she had been working over the broken body of Genji Shimada. When he had first been brought in, it had looked unlikely that anything could be done. Too many bones were shattered. Too much damage had been done. Too much of this. Too little of that. Always negativity. Always despair.

But despair was not something that was in Doctor Ziegler’s nature. She had determined to save the life of this young man. After all, was she not sworn to the Oath? So she had kept him alive, connected to machines via networks of tubes and wires. She had monitored his vital statistics to the point of obsession. Sleep became secondary to finding the solution to helping him.

Cybernetics had been the obvious choice from early on. When she had first brought him into a state of awareness, when he had first been able to engage in discourse with her, she had sat with him and explained what would need to be done. The amputations. The re-building. The cybernetic implants. The months of rehabilitation. The likelihood of extreme pain now and possibly for the rest of his life. He had looked up at her through those intelligent eyes and spoken softly in his broken English.

“I want to walk again.”

“I’m not a miracle worker.” She had smiled, sadly. “Well. Not always.”

“I believe in you.”

Of course he did. Want to walk again that was: she found herself strangely bashful about his easy belief in her abilities. And so she had done what she had needed to do in order to give him what he wanted. It had taken every ounce of courage they both possessed and became a journey they undertook together. It was natural, therefore, that they would become close – and that was what had happened.

For a long time – perhaps too long – Angela Ziegler had been too wrapped up in her own studies and research to allow herself time to focus on that most mysterious thing of all – human nature. And as she had grown to know the stranger in her care better, she had discovered a sharp, acerbic wit and an intelligence off which she could bounce her own.

But he was still Shimada. Angela was not fool enough to be unaware or ignorant of the clan and its dealings they were hardly covert. Genji had professed it was his very disinterest in the family’s shadier dealings that had landed him very firmly at Death’s door and she had no reason to disbelieve him. There were conversations to be had, certainly, but for now the focus must be on returning him to health.

“Doctor Ziegler?”

His soft voice pulled her out of her reverie and she stood up and straightened her white coat, flushing slightly as she realised that she had been lost in her own thoughts. She looked down at the man in the bed. She considered him, his intense eyes, his cybernetic, his intense eyes…

You can’t let this happen, Angela. Never get involved with a patient. You remember what happened last time?

Oh, yes. She remembered.

“Yes, Mister S…”

She capitulated.

“Yes, Genji?”

Those eyes shone brightly when she used his name and with a precision borne from years of closing herself off to her innermost self, she drew up the shutters against their lure. Her tone, her manner, even her stance became purely professional.

“I wish to try again tomorrow. To walk. Will you oversee my rehabilitation?”

Yes, I would love to.

“My duties…” Her sense of resolved wavered under his steady gaze, but she pulled the shutters more tightly around her heart, sealing her feelings as deeply as she could manage. She had always been able to ignore these sort of feelings before, but she suspected that beneath the intensity of those eyes, there would be no mercy.

“Please?”

“We will see,” she said, primly and his eyes lit up with pleasure. His instant arrogance and assumption that he had won her attention irritated her while at the same time brought a most unprofessional blush to her cheeks. She made a mark on the clipboard before replacing it at the end of his bed and striding from his room.

It was only when she let out the breath that she even realised she’d been holding it.

 

The Green Man

Explanation: years ago, I was in our school’s annual May Day celebration Mummer’s Play. Many varaiants of these things exist, but that one from my childhood coloured my perception for this story.

* * *

‘You see, people just don’t care about tradition any more.’

My companion is veering towards being hopelessly drunk. It hasn’t taken much to achieve this effect; a couple of pints and maybe just a little manipulation on my part. But mostly it’s an innate inability to hold his beer. He looks at me earnestly, a scrawny, unshaven figure with lank, thinning straw-colour hair that straggles down to his shoulders and watery blue eyes that are the predominant feature in his rat-like face.

He’s expecting me to say something. He only met me an hour ago but now I’m his best friend. His very best friend. I smile and pat him on the arm with an easy familiarity. He smiles vaguely at this gesture and goes to place his hand over my own. He misses.

‘There are ways of making them care,’ I tell him. For this game, I have adopted the guise of an Irishman and the brogue sounds entertaining to my ears. Mischief, in all its forms. That’s me.

‘But how?’ He’s whining. Time for some careful application of stronger liqueur. There’s an art to manipulation and it’s different for everyone. For some, it’s good old-fashioned charm – and I possess that in spades. For this man, it’s the gentle introduction of alcohol into his life. He was an easy soul to read: few friends, loner by nature, shy and retiring. Every cell in his being cried out for company.

Telling him to hold the thought of ‘how’, I pick out a double malt – not cheap – from the colourful array on display behind the bar. A smile for the barmaid and I don’t have to pay. She flutters her over-made up eyes at me and I can see the sudden puzzlement deep therein. She’d been thinking about booking a session on the sunbeds before her planned holiday with her girlfriends only moments ago. A moment in my company and instead, she’s thinking about how wonderful it would be to fill her house with babies instead.

You see? A careful art.

I wind my way back through the growing crowd to re-join my companion. He is singing softly to himself. A old folk tune and one which he obviously doesn’t know all the words to. Ironic, really, that he’s complaining that other people don’t respect tradition. I smile indulgently at him.

‘Here,’ I say, plying him gently with the amber liquid. ‘Try that. It’ll help. All those worries of yours? They’ll dissolve quickly enough. Finest malt this place has on offer.’

He stares at it dubiously, then looks up at me. ‘Really?’ I grin.

‘Trust me,’ I say. It’s something I say a lot.

It is the least of my lies.

I should introduce myself, although some might say I need no introduction. I’d usually say it. But propriety demands.

For the moment, you can call me Jack. I have many names and many guises, but Jack is the one who fits best into today’s world. The key thing to remember, my modern friends, is that mythology never dies. You can’t just banish me and my kind without expecting us to put up a fight. The seasons still turn, the stars still shine, the unexplained still happens.

Spring happens. The renewal of the land, the rebirth of nature. And with it come celebrations of things that nobody even really remembers any more. Pagan festivals trussed up in severe religious corsetry that constricts their true beauty. But yet through all this denial, me – and those like me – prevail.

For someone of my… disposition… it has been amusing down the years to watch historians and so-called experts argue about my personal aspect in the mythology of the ages. I am at one and the same time a force of nature, a force for impish mischief and occasionally, just occasionally, I am portrayed as something much darker.

Whatever I may be, one thing is certain. My drunken friend is quite right.

People just don’t care about tradition any more. But I’m going to help him with that. We’re going to craft something subtle together, my friend and I. We are going to wake up the sleeping beliefs that most people hide behind scientific papers and things they read on the internet (which therefore must be true).

When we’re done, they will care about tradition.

Every year, this village holds a medieval fayre. They call it a medieval fayre, but really it’s little more than an excuse to bring garish rides on the back of trucks to town. They hire apparently countless coffee vans, selling overpriced and fancy-named beverages for extortionate prices. People drink their coffee and eat their toffee apples or candy floss or sausage-in-a-bun and throw their litter down on the ground.

The countless folk who pass by tread the rubbish into the earth. Disregarding their habitat.

Disregarding me.

As part of the proceedings, a local Morris group is dancing in the roped off ‘square’ in the middle of the village green. They look self-conscious and they are getting it wrong. It doesn’t really matter, though. Nobody watches them and those who do glance their way sneer their superiority at the men wearing ribbons and bells, skipping to some badly-played folk music.

At some point during the day, the Mummers come into the square. This usually generates a little interest – mostly from the children. I enjoy seeing the mixture of fear and delight on their little moppet faces as St. George’s dragon runs around the perimeter of the square roaring his fury. Mostly, this one is roaring at the impotent fury of what is a very poor costume that is falling to pieces, but the children love it regardless.

It’s a variant on a familiar theme. Father Christmas, Jack Frost… the piece’s villains if you will. This is something children don’t seem to grasp. How can Father Christmas be a bad man? Listen to him. In come I, old Father Christmas… welcome or welcome not… I hope old Father Christmas will never be forgot.

Appalling grammar aside, Father Christmas is a creation of a newer world. He was never a part of mine. It was his introduction into our culture that saw the true beginning of our slow demise into obscurity. See how the children cheer at him.

Bastard.

‘Are you ready?’ My companion whispers to me. I turn to him and smile. Of course I am ready.

‘I was born to play this part,’ I tell him truthfully.t The words he has given me to learn are confused, tangled and yet still carry the ring of absolute truth. Father Christmas presents his champion, the mighty Jack Frost who postures rather appallingly in front of the crowd and then, right on cue, it is my line.

The moment, the very second I walk into the square, those who are half-heartedly watching sit up and pay attention. Those whose attention is elsewhere find themselves inexplicably drawn. It is not my performance that has brought them to watch, but my sheer presence.

I am a potent force.

Watch me use it.

‘In come I, Jack, the man in green…’

They are the lines that mark my entrance and I speak them with easy confidence. My tone is calm, reassuring and certainty drips from every syllable. The people around the arena know that’s the absolute truth. I am not some foolish, aging hippy with a suit made of ribbons. I am, without question, what I state I am. Jack, the man in green. They are captivated now and I continue.

‘…I stand for all that’s new. I am the keeper of the Spring… a change of season’s due.’

At the words, I glance up at the skies which before I began the spell were dark and threatening to deluge this quaint May Day setting with relentless precipitation. A postage-stamp of bright blue appears and begins to spread, insidiously pushing aside the dark rain clouds. The air clears. Beneath my feet, daisies that were closed against the dull day begin to open. Even the grass strains to reach me and grows an extra fraction in a matter of time so brief there is no measurement for it.

People watch this happening. They watch, but they do not see. That is where the magic lies. That is where the unexpected happens and why it is that people fail to truly comprehend what has happened to them.

Father Christmas and Jack Frost are staring at me now, slack-jawed and enraptured by my sheer sense of presence. They are little more than ants on the playing board of this green stage and my attention is barely drawn to them other than to speak the ritual words of the ancient play. Like so many of its kind, this one is bastardised and altered far from the original. But I read through it. It is sufficient.

I level a finger at Father Christmas and he starts in alarm at the look of thunder on my face as I speak the next lines.

‘What Father Christmas said is right… for trouble is what we bring. Old winter’s past… the flowers are out. The bluebells soon will ring.’

Trouble, ah, there it is. I cannot help but bring mischief in my wake. It is the blessing and the curse of the sprite; of the fae-blooded to enjoy interfering with order. Spring is a given. Year after year, the world rearranges itself to welcome the influx of new life that has slept for so long in its depths. But around the things that happen

naturally, the existence of men has brought with it many things that those of my kind can manipulate.

‘So step aside, you frosty folk and give us room to rhyme. For we have come to crown our queen…’

Ah, my queen. What became of you? Your unsurpassed beauty. Your voluptuous curves and sumptuous body. Your air of bounty, of life and rebirth. How I miss you. Look – there is the ‘queen’ they have chosen to crown, a child who sits rather self-consciously on the wooden throne. A pretty child to be sure: with hair the colour of the setting sun and features that when they mature will certainly earn her more than one amorous suitor. But for now, she is a child who the people have chosen as their queen.

Imagine what could be unleashed if Jack in the Green actually did crown her. That is the culmination of this Mummers play. In which Jack, the queen’s loyal servant, lays upon her head the crown of thorns which blooms and blossoms into a crown of spring flowers… represented here by a wooden circlet. If I did crown this child as the Queen of the May, then things would really get interesting.

Particularly when Her Furious Former Majesty returned to fight for her rightful throne.

The war would be beautiful. The deaths would be sweet. The sacrifice would be immense and my place at the Queen’s Spring Court would once more be assured.

Perhaps the Queen would even consider me at last as her consort, instead of her servant.

I do not know why I tell you this. My dreams are not yours to know. All you need know is this. If I, Jack the Man in Green choose to bring forth the might of Spring, your brief and violent existence would be snuffed out faster than you could put a message on your Twitter feed. Because that’s what would happen.

End of the world OMG #disaster

But this world… this ugly, broken, beautiful world in which you humans now live intrigues me too much. There is a curiosity that keeps me here. I can see where you are heading and it will be a tragic ending for your species. Ultimately, of course, it will be the end of mine too – because when a world is devoid of people, it becomes a place devoid of belief. You see? You are not just heading for your own destruction, but you’re too selfish, too ignorant to realise it. You think you have progressed.

If only you knew.

Maybe I should place that crown on the girl’s head. Wipe the slate clean. Allow the forces of Spring to come to fruition. I could do it, too. My power to manipulate and weave the threads of the future are strong. My fingers tingle with the thought of opening the gateway. Instead, I finish my line.

‘…for we have come to crown our queen, all in this sweet May time.’

The crowd, which had been holding a collective breath, without even realising it, sighed their appreciation of the pretty would-be usurper seated on the fake throne. My hand curls into a fist and the magic drains. For a moment, however fleeting, the people on this village green believed that I brought forth the magic of Spring. They will remember that feeling in years to come. When the faces of the bumbling Turkish Knight and the heroism of George, the Englishman (with sword and shield in hand) are a forgotten thing, they will all recall Jack in the Green.

And so it goes. The seasons change and only a fool believes it is because of a globe in space, spinning on an axis. No, my friends. The seasons change because of the work of the forgotten few.

We persist. We exist.

Don’t forget.

 

Redemption

[image error]

Ryū ga waga teki wo kurau!

Father, I miss your wisdom.

All my life you demanded I live up to expectation. To be the one prepared to take the reins from you. From the moment of my arrival in this world, the burden was placed upon me. I was expected to be the one to take up the reins. To be your chosen, honourable heir. To be my brother’s keeper. To step into my birth right.

I was your scion.

I visit you every year since you died, Sojiro Shimada. It is fraught with risk and danger and still I come.

My father, I know you loved both your sons, but for very different reasons. I was your pride. Your first-born. The one who would take over the empire. I have it on account that following my birth, you celebrated for a full week. And yet for all that, I cannot recall a single moment of affection. No kind words, no look of pride or even love. You are too much like your mother, Hanzo. Your manner too soft. Your mood too easy to fall into introspection. Your aim, boy, is not true.

Perhaps they were words spoken to build character. To make me the best version of myself that I could be. All I remember was the endless sting of disappointment.

But there were times, Father, rare though they may have been, when I caught on your face the glint of something akin to pride. The day I first called forth and commanded the Shimada dragons. The pleasure it brought you to see that small boy struggling for control of that power, to then accomplish it was writ large upon your face. For me, a son who yearned for approval, for a kind word, that expression was the most glorious of things.

And there were times, too, when you would sit with me and impart the pearls of wisdom that I have held so close to my chest. Simple things.

Ah, my father. There is beauty, as you told me, in simplicity.

So if I was your pride, then Genji was most certainly your joy. He was spared your anger. Not for him, your disapproval. To him, you gave your fondness and your affect ion. You said, once, how you wished that Genji, your little Sparrow, was the eldest and that it was not beyond your powers to change who you selected as your heir.

I was never as jealous as I should have been. I loved my brother too much. Genji was always the light to my shadow. The humour to my gravity. We were as different as night and day, as far apart from one another in personality that even now I question our shared heritage. But you charged me with ensuring his safety. Father, I still remember the day you came into my room, reeking of sake, with that squalling bundle in your arms.

He is your brother, Hanzo. You must guide and protect him. Always.

And so I did. With the ferocity of a wolf, I ensured he was cared for and when our training paths diverged, I still watched over him as he practised for endless hours with his swords. His skill was something in which I found every reason to feel reassured that I was carrying out my task well.

But you, Father. You destroyed all my work. You indulged his every whim. Forgave his every transgression and there were many of those. Too many to count and each that little more damning than the last. You spoiled him and I paid the price.

Do you know that, Father? From wherever it is you have gone now? Do you look down upon your eldest son and rejoice that he showed the tenacity to do what had to be done for the furtherment of your empire? Or do you weep in the knowledge that your sons turned upon one another? Either way, it matters little now. Things are changing. I am no longer heir to the clan. I cannot put my all into something that has forced such heartbreak upon me. So I have fallen out of favour and thus I must continue my journey alone. I am outcast and disgraced.

I have no family, there is no guidance… no longer can I shelter behind the protection of the clan, for they have put a price upon my head and will kill me on sight. Already I have thwarted several assassination attempts and I do not imagine the clan will stop until I am dead.

I am lost without my brother. For all I was ashamed of him at the end for his wayward and irresponsible behaviour, for all I wished to see him punished for his acts, it was never my intention to kill him. It was a choice he forced upon me. Goading me into it, saying in what was very much your voice that I was too soft around the edges.

I proved him wrong. The greatest warriors are forged in the fires of regret, so they say, but it is little compensation for losing my brother. Without him, I am but part of a whole. Without him, I am no more than another broken, forgotten man, shattered by his death.

With every death, you assured me, comes honour.

With honour, redemption.

Now, as I journey alone, I strive to find either of these things in my life. For not to try is the ultimate failing and whatever else I may be, whatever the clan may say, I am – and always will be – a Shimada.

 

Allegro [Overwatch]

He loved many things.

The swell of the orchestra as the music built to a crescendo was one of them. He lay in his hammock, his eyes closed, appreciating the ebb and flow of the most beautiful Adagio from Spartacus. Yes, he loved music.

(It is worthy of note that he also had a soft spot for bananas and went crazy over peanut butter, but that was incidental to the joy of classical music).

Winston sighed softly and let his arm hang loose, swinging easily to the rhythm and cadence of the tune. This piece was one of his absolute favourites. Harold, his handler, had introduced him to the pleasure of classical music so many years ago that he’d lost count. While some of the other specimens had barely responded to music, Winston had adored it. And this particular work always took him back to the heady days of his youth. It didn’t have the drama of, say, the Rite of Spring, nor the airiness of the Nutcracker Suite, but the tune was nonetheless a most welcome…

…wait…

…he didn’t remember that infernal electronic drum beat in the middle of one of the most famous ballet scores in all of known history…

Dum-dum-dum-dum-d-d-d-d-d-dum-dum.

Neither did he recall the moment in the ballet that the girlish voice lifted in tuneful song, belting out one of the most popular K-pop tunes of the day occurred.

“Young people,” grumbled Winston in his deep baritone. “No respect.”

With easy grace, the gorilla rolled from his hammock and listened carefully to the endless drumbeat. He knew precisely where it was coming from and it was interfering with his rare moment of down time. He was feeling annoyed.

Annoyed, not angry. When Winston got angry, people knew about it.

“Do you want me to increase the volume, Winston?” He turned his head to the source of the voice and sighed.

“No, Athena,” he said, with reluctance. “It’s probably best not to ruin the optimal level for enjoyment.”

“I can turn down the other music remotely if that will help?”

It was tempting, certainly, to let the base’s AI interfere in this unlikely and sudden battle. Winston had still to get used to the newer members of the unit and this was no different. They’d exchanged very little in the way of words (‘LOL, you’re a gorilla’ and ‘GG, Winston’ being two of the more baffling phrases he’d encountered).

Hana spoke English beautifully but there were times when he wished she’d speak her native Korean more. He understood that more clearly than any of these bizarre Young People Acronyms. She seemed inordinately young to have taken up permanent residence on the team, but he couldn’t deny that her skills were more than welcome in these changing times.

He just found her so difficult to relate to. For the first time, he had grasped a reed-thin glimpse at what it must be like to be Commander Morrison when faced with the attitudes of a new generation.

“No, Athena, thank you. I will… speak to her personally.”

Moving at his easy lope, Winston made his way down the hallway to the young woman’s door. She had decorated it with a huge, golden star that contained more glitter than Winston had ever seen in his entire life. He was not keen on glitter. It got into the fur and made him look less than credible…

You’re an ape in a suit of armour, he thought, glumly. Don’t start talking about credibility.

He raised his knuckles and rapped on the door. Unconsciously, he was knocking in time to the drum beat.

Dum-dum-dum-dum-d-d-d-d-d-dum-dum.

There was no reply, so he tried again, twice more. Both times nothing happened and with a low growl of minor irritation, Winston raised his fist to bang more loudly. As he did so, the door swung open to reveal Hana Song standing in front of him. She was chewing loudly on her customary bubble gum, a pair of fluorescent pink headphones perched on her head and a game controller in her right hand.

“Hi, Winston!”

Everything the self-style D-Va said was punctuated by exclamations. Two minutes of talking to her exhausted him so.

“Hana, I wondered if…”

“Is my music too loud?! I’m sorry! I was playing this great game and totally like, arguing with someone over my headphones! I’ll turn it down!”

“I…”

“I love this song! I forget there are other people here! Sorry!”

“I…”

“I gotta go, I’m queuing for competitive play and people get, like, SO down on you if you get kicked! GG, Winston!”

SLAM.

The drums softened to a barely audible whisper of sound, but Winston found his eyelid still twitched in rhythm. He had barely understood a word of the conversation. He swivelled a digit in his ear thoughtfully and stared at Hana’s now-closed door before straightening the glasses on his nose, uttering yet another sigh and loping back to his own room.

“Athena… unpause.”

“Of course, Winston. Would you like me to start from the beginning?”

“Why not?”

He got sixteen bars in before it happened again.

Dum-dum-dum-dum-d-d-d-d-d-dum-dum.

The gorilla pulled a pillow over his face and whimpered. This, he knew with deep regret, was his own fault.

A Perfect Moment [Overwatch]

She stretches out her shoulder muscles. It is the first movement she has made in some considerable time, but such is the lot of a sniper. Amélie Lacroix has spent longer than this in infinitely more uncomfortable positions as she waits for the perfect opportunity, the perfect shot.

The perfect moment.

The form-fitting clothing she wears is dark, enabling her to blend effectively into the shadows although – and it is a grudging admittance – she doesn’t blend as well as her Talon compatriot, the man everyone knows only as Reaper. His ability to dissolve into the ether and make himself invulnerable to anything is a skill she envies. But she does not display such envy in front of him.

It is unladylike.

A movement catches her attention and she snaps her gaze back down to the building below her. It is a seemingly impossible distance away, but her sniper rifle combined with her precision marksmanship mean that for her, this is little more than a vague challenge. Others would have balked at the height. Afraid, no doubt, of losing their balance and falling.

Amélie does not fear falling. Now, hitting the ground, that she does fear. Because like anybody else, she has no desire to leave her life, cursed though it may be.

Below, the people move like tiny insects, scurrying about their business, heedless of the danger that lurks far above them. She brings the rifle’s sight to her eyes to allow her a telescopic gaze into the hive below. For so long now, this rifle has acted as her primary eye. Were she inclined to visit an optometrist, her near-sight would be terrible. But for what she does, it hardly matters.

Her long hair swings momentarily into her face, caught by an errant breeze and she flips back the pony-tail with gentle irritation. It has been suggested that a shorter cut might serve her far better, but she ignores such comments. There is something deeper than the neural programming has been able to reach. Something precious to which she clings with tenacious stubbornness.

They will not take my dignity.

So it has ever been. Proud, haughty, quite literally blue-blooded, the Widowmaker is not going to change for anybody ever again.

“If you don’t like what you see,” she says in her soft, lilting, heavily accented voice, “then don’t look.”

Her mark is down there in that buzzing anthill of activity. For most people, picking out an individual in a swarm would be nigh on impossible, But as an apiarist marks the queen, so the Widowmaker has spent time studying her prey. She knows his movements intimately. Her highly modified scope has been tuned, over the past few hours, to identify his specific heat signature. And he has been keeping largely inside. If she didn’t know better, she’d suspect a tip-off is keeping him indoors. But she does know better.

She has infinite patience. It is for the best, because it is another two hours before he leaves the confines of his sanctuary. In all that time, Amélie has been nothing more than a slight anomaly in the shadows that occasionally makes the slightest of movements to stop muscles from seizing up.

As she lines up the shot, she allows her mind to wander one last time. This time, she idly muses on how people paint the life of a sniper. Nobody ever includes the facts. Like sitting so still for such extended periods invites birds to perch upon your shoulders and utilise your clothing as a makeshift lavatory.

Amélie hates birds.

But then, she hates most things. It’s easier that way. Form no attachments, break no hearts. The easiest way to live is to live free of all ties and all connections. To be alone. Blissfully and terminally alone.

Enough. The thinking is done. It is time to act.

Her heartbeat, already slow and sluggish, becomes even more so and her breathing stills so much that she would barely mist a mirror. Every fibre of her being tingles with the exhilaration, the anticipation of the sniper’s perfect moment: those precious milliseconds between the instant your finger squeezes the trigger and the projectile strikes with the precision of a predator.

There is no feeling on earth like it. It is what she lives for.

It is all she has, now.

She aims.

She fires.

There is a distant sound of a projectile fired from a distance meeting its target. It burrows through flesh and bone, lodging itself into the man’s brain and he topples backward, eliminated.

Perfect.

She stands, a languorous movement and with the faintest of ‘clicks’ releases the grappling hook that will take her higher still and to the rendezvous point. Another successful mission. Another perfect moment.

She has no regrets. Emotions are for other people, not for her. She is a broken creature, really, but she does not care. To care is to imply interest. And she is not interested. To be interest implies connection and she has severed those. She is aloof and indifferent.

She simply seeks that moment of perfection. The exquisite satisfaction. It is the closest to joy she will ever feel again and so she basks in its warmth.

A perfect moment.