The Next Morning Vishkar Tower Underground Garage
The convoy prep was tense. Smoke hung in the distance, thick with ash and static from overloaded hard-light panels. Sparks crackled from broken lighting strips in the garage. Half the Vishkar escort detail hadn't shown up. The other half were barely sober.
Amrita Kaur, draped in white armor laced with gold, stood with arms folded and disdain in her eyes.
"This is the protection I was promised?" she asked, lips curled.
Sonya didn't even turn. "You'll live. Try to pretend that's a privilege."
Spencer muttered under his breath, "Not if the crowd gets to her first."
Shawn finished inspecting the lead vehicle. "Protestors are blocking major routes. And omnics are swarming every Vishkar data node they can find."
Virginia looked up from her data pad. "They're not coordinating. But they're converging. Civilian mobs on the ground. Omnics in the skies. Same location, same time."
"Like a noose tightening from both ends," Dwayne added.
Amrita scoffed. "Then perhaps you should drive faster."
The streets outside the tower were warzones. Wrecked market stalls, overturned cars, and shattered hard-light shields lined the route. Protestors had been here hours ago, leaving paint still fresh on the walls:
"Let Her Burn."
"No Grid, No Queen."
The convoy moved fast through Sector Seven. But civilians were awake early, and crowds were forming again.
At first, it was yelling. Then bricks were thrown at the car. Then a firebomb. The blast rocked the third escort vehicle. One Vishkar guard screamed from inside.
"Ambush!" Sonya yelled. "Human-side!"
The crowd wasn't armed. But they didn't need to be. Over a hundred people charged the convoy with clubs, metal rods, and homemade Molotovs.
Shawn climbed out of the lead transport, shielding Amrita. "Non-lethal only!" he barked. "Smoke out, stun rounds only!"
Virginia deployed crowd suppressors. Sonya fired a stun burst into the lead protestors, knocking several flat. Spencer fired a flash bang into an alley. Dwayne punched a protestor who dared get too close.
"Up above!" Marco shouted.
An Orisa dropped from a rooftop, followed by a Bastion unit.
"This isn't a coincidence," S3bastian snapped. "We've got dual fronts with both civilians and bots, same time, same place."
"Doesn't make it any less of a warzone," Shawn replied, hauling Amrita back inside the transport.
The streets grew tighter. The convoy slowed. Civilians ran in every direction, some screaming, some fighting. And some filming.
"Why aren't they helping?" Amrita snapped. "We are here to protect them!"
Spencer's laughter was bitter. "Protect? You cut power to every poor district from Mumbai to Bhopal."
Sonya narrowed her eyes. "They think you're worse than the omnics."
An explosion hit the rear vehicle, this one from an omnic pulse mine. Three protestors were caught in the blast. Civilians screamed. Then they turned on the omnics.
Rocks thrown at the bots. Screams of panic as confusion exploded into chaos. Omnics began firing on civilians—identifying targets in a hostile zone. Protestors retaliated with makeshift flamethrowers and stolen weapons.
Shawn watched in stunned silence. "They're killing each other."
"No," Virginia said grimly. "They're all trying to kill her. They just haven't figured out who gets the credit."
Smoke thickened as the team rerouted through a shattered factory zone, in an old Vishkar construction site abandoned after the first wave of omnic strikes.
"Evac's two klicks out," Sonya said. "If we keep moving...."
A bullet shattered the left window. Then another.
"Sniper!" Spencer shouted as everyone in the vehicle ducked.
Shawn peeked from his cover, risking seeing their new enemy. From the rooftops, a local militia, obviously not aligned with Overwatch, opened fire.
"Ok, does anyone know what is going on now?" Dwayne muttered. "They're trying to assassinate her before the omnics can. But if they do, then the omnics will run even more rampart here."
Shawn shoved Amrita down inside the convoy. "Stay down. If one more ego talks, it's your head on the windshield."
S3bastian launched a plasma burst to collapse the sniper perch. Spencer suppressed the left flank while Sonya tossed a high-flash charge, temporarily blinding the attackers.
Amrita was breathing hard now. "You were supposed to have this under control."
"We did," Shawn said. "But you built a country on resentment. Now we're just trying to carry your corpse to a helipad before it all detonates."
They reached the extraction zone, which was a half-crushed highway overpass scorched from months of fighting.
The Overwatch dropcraft hovered low. The pilot signaled in telling us thirty seconds to touchdown. Then came the last wave. Two Bastions. One aerial drone cluster. And a militia with black-market anti-air gear.
"Split team!" Shawn shouted. "Virginia and Spencer, deal with the militia! Sonya, cover the evac with me! S3bastian and Dwayne, light 'em!"
S3bastian let loose a wall of plasma, staggering the drone formation. Dwayne opened fire on the Bastions with his submachine gun. Spencer took a round to the shoulder but dropped three attackers in return.
Shawn dragged Amrita through the smoke as the ramp lowered.
She looked around, dazed, ash in her hair at the one guy from her detail that actually survived, now sober. "They would have let me die. All of them."
"You're not the only one they've lost," Shawn said. "But you're the only one with the keys to keep more people alive. That's the only reason you're still breathing."
The dropcraft came down while they were still hot. Shawn rushed Amrita onboard first, while the team covered. One by one, they boarded, with the others laying down fire to on their retreat. The ramp sealed. The dropcraft rose through clouds of fire and grief as the team breathed a sigh of relief.