Returning back to the base, news of our success spread through the base like a wildfire. As we got off the stratoscopter, cheers erupted as hope once again was returned to people who were struggling to get a foothold for months. Among the people there to greet us was Mina Liao, who was eager to hear everything that transpired.
As we settled in a room to tell them what happened, a sheepish looking Torbjorn approaches Mina. Chase goes to stop a possible confrontation, but I grab her shoulder, stopping her. She looks at me questioningly, but I motion for her to wait. She shrugs her shoulders as she remains where she is as Torbjorn begins.
"Listen Mina I'm.... sorry. I let my resentment of your work cloud my judgement and focus on the wrong thing. I've always believed that my work should better humanity, but by me refusing to work with you, I was hindering humanity.
Last night, I realized that without your help, I could have single-handedly doomed humanity over nothing. In the report, I will make it clear to Campbell that any glitches in the heron's systems were on my end."
Having said that, Torbjorn extends out his hand. Despite the various shocked faces in the room, Mina maintains a neutral face. Of course, I can feel the excitement oozing from her and commend her on maintaining a professional attitude at this moment.
Taking his hand in a shake, she responds, " Thank you, Lindholm. It is always a pleasure working with you." He nods his head, then walks out of the room, as Mina heads over to us. Excitedly clapping her hands together multiple times, she says with glee.
"I never thought I'd see the day when Torbjorn Lindholm would apologize, much less admit he'd made a mistake." Hearing her, Jack chuckles to himself as he too was surprised at Torbjorn's actions. While the atmosphere is pleasant, Mina slides over to Chase and whispers,
"I have your next set of upgrades available. I can promise that you'll definitely be pleased with them." Chase thinks about it for a second before responding.
"Oh, what the heck. When in Rome as they say." Shrugging her shoulders as she heads off with Mina. As they leave, I regret giving S3bastian the rocket legs that Chase was about to get. They were incompatible with his plasma reactor, and his fusion reactor didn't generate enough to power them. I couldn't install it now anyway, as any replacement parts feel alien to an omnic.
Once they left, I too stood up to leave. I wanted to get a much needed and earned shower and nap before meeting them for dinner. The shower was heavenly as it warmed my chilled bones from this insanely cold weather. The dinner was even better as it was beef stew served with a slice of cake to celebrate our success and humanity's comeback.
It wasn't that hard to find them as they were surrounded by multiple soldiers who were asking them about their experiences. Luckily, I found an open spot where I ate quietly while waiting for the main topic to start. It didn't take long as Chase was a true tactician and asked the questions that mattered.
"Hey Jack, how does Overwatch shut down an omnium? I mean permanently." Her question directs everyone's attention to Jack.
"Well, there is no real way for us to efficiently shut down an omnium permanently. So far, we've just been able to shut it down to give us a better edge to excavate any civilians who remained in the city. If I were to try to shut it down permanently, it would probably take a bunch of hypothetical explosives in well-placed areas." He suggested.
Chase shakes her head. "That would jeopardize the fusion reactor too much. The nuclear fallout wouldn't be worth it. Wait, didn't you shut one down with the fusion reactor, Rose?"
"I did, the one in New York. Though, truthfully speaking, I don't think it matters much as omniums, even without their fusion reactors still would have a way of producing omnics until they figured out how to replace it or turn it back on." I explain. This causes the soldiers to think as they find the truth behind the matter. Omnics would always be a problem as long as omniums existed.
"What about the new heron siege? You saw what it did to those omnics once it was up. It could take care of an omnics that emerge from them." A soldier who was with us on the mission proposes.
"Some omniums are the size of a small city, I doubt it would be able to cover all of it." Chase shoots his idea down.
"It would seem like our best bet is to starve the omniums from resources. Removing any metal from the areas, forcing their productions to halt." Jack suggests, after thinking on it for a while.
"Well, that would take decades to successfully achieve that. Decades that we don't have." Grayson interjected.
Soldiers begin to brainstorm ideas, shouting out ideas, one more ridiculous than the next. Until Chase speaks up after realizing something.
"I've read in reports that omnics are adjusting to different strategies on a global level. Just this week, Russia introduced their own line of human operated mechs to combat the omnics. In response, a wave of Titans was present in the next fight. I don't think it's just the Ravagers who are commanding them, either, as there wasn't one reported in the area of our heron siege." Chase says while looking off as she's almost on the verge of making a discovery.
I watch interested, as I don't offer up any help to the matter, as I want to see them reach the answer for themselves. Mina hears this and offers her own piece.
"There are millions of omnics operating in the field. In order to properly hold, command, and adjust all the information, a hierarchy must be established in order to filter it all."
"What if there was some outside source commanding them all?" Chase asks.
"Impossible. There are numerous of omnics spread out worldwide, each raging a different battle, sometimes simultaneously. The information would be too much for any computer or singular being to be able to successfully..." Mina starts to say but as she says it out loud, she herself begins to doubt her own words.
An idea comes to her as she pulls out a laptop and begins typing. I smile as they finally reached the answer. They were about to discover Anubis' telecommunication network. The soldiers watch her quietly, interested to see what she would find. Her typing stops suddenly as her eyes grow wide,
"Oh my." She says which makes all the soldiers rush behind her to see what she discovered.
"What?" Chase asks.
"Well, all omnics are connected to a network as per regulation from the government to ensure that we could always remotely take control of them in case of emergency. I just checked that network to see if someone was controlling them through that, and I found something."
She projects the information on her laptop to a nearby screen. It was a picture of the world with various dots of green, red, and yellow on multiple countries. From those dots, dotted lines connected them as they jumped from location to location.
"What are we looking at?" Grayson asks.
"This is someone relaying orders using this communication. The green circles are omniums, I know this as I know the location of most omniums in different countries. The red and yellow are unknown to me, but if I were to take a guess based on their numbers, I would say it were omnics that are responsible for relaying the orders of the entity who has control of this." Mina explains.
The soldiers stare in bewilderment at the information before them. Then slowly, one by one, they all understand something that Chase says out loud.
"If this information is true, then this is a turning point for us. Instead of holding and attacking for cities, we can prioritize these targets and take the fight to them." She says, thinking of the implications behind it.
She stares at the map projected on the screen. "So the nearest omnium to us is in Detroit. If we shut off communications to it, we could permanently halt the production of omnics there."
"But that would mean entering the facility, manually overriding the three internal assess ports on different locations within. We would be making an attack deep into their lines, and I doubt they wouldn't expect be as caught off guard this time in an omnium." Mina warns.
"I'll go pitch this to the top brass, see their opinion on it." Chase says while standing. I, too, stand alongside Jack and the other soldiers, although I'm tagging along for another reason entirely. She's going to need all the help she can get for what's about to happen.
Within the hour, the high command within the base is assembled to hear Chase's proposal. From barely an hours' time, she's created quite the presentation from the information we just discovered. Like when she always pitches a plan, everyone gathers together in support. However, I knew this time was different.
Fournier stood up from his spot in the front, "Another well laid out plan, Captain Chase. This will single-handedly change the entire course of the war. Unfortunately, you won't be a part of this mission."
Even expecting him to say it, I still cringed from how bad it sounded along with everyone else. The silence in the room was deafening, only broken by Chase.
"What? Why?" She asks in disbelief.