#Hence why Grey had to run somewhere else to get his education

[pocket-bunney]

Educational | An Overwatch story

‘Gabriel, Gabriel, Gabriel’ - Moira said, each word rolling off with more delight from her tongue ‘You have really outdone yourself this time.’

She picked up the tablet from the table and a wide smile spread across her face. Unintentionally, she let out a strange little chuckle of excitement, one she usually reserved for significant scientific breakthroughs.

‘We must bring him here at once so we can start our research.’ she said, her voice matter-of-fact with a dash of that lingering delight.

‘Tomorrow evening at 2200. I heard you two know each other?’ Gabriel growled and turned around and headed to the exit  ‘Spare me the whole story. Just be ready. I heard he is unstable, our best bet is that he will react favorably to a familiar face.’

Moira looked at him leave but did not say anything. Then she carefully lifted up the tablet again, looking thoughtfully on the profile picture of a man in his sixties.

‘Siebren… you’ve really done it this time, old fool’ she muttered, then discarded the tablet and turned around to make preparations.

***

It seemed like a lifetime ago when she first met him, even though it must have only been 15 years or so, but her life had taken quite many turns since then. 

Back then she was still working on her paper about DNA alteration, but skill, knowledge and diligence - as she had to find out - did not bring progress after a certain point in the scientific community. You needed connections, mentors and sponsors, the more influential, the better.

Moira in her younger years was never quite good at socializing. There were a few peers she could tolerate from her long years of studies, but that network only got her so far. Her funding, and hence her research, was halted for good without some influential backers.

Therefore, albeit unwillingly but she started reaching out to other colleagues across the globe and got to attending some science conferences. These were mostly bland and boring, bound by the shackles of ethics, not a true innovator among any of the people she met. Even worse, all that socializing, small talk and fruitless network-building were making her sick to the stomach.

She was in Rotterdam now at a conference where the overarching theme was gravity. Physics were normally not in her field of interest, but she was quite intrigued by the biological findings of the Horizon Lunar Colony, and anyway, the event was just a short plane-trip away.

‘I should be up there’ she thought to herself annoyed, standing in one of the lobbies by one of those tall, skinny tables and taking yet another piece of dry salty pastry form a bowl while glancing up at the sky with the pale moon up. ‘I should be up there, making actual, daring research, not those pansies with breeding monkeys and hamsters.’

‘Excuse me, madam’ someone said, stepping into her line of sight. She looked up unamused - it was a surprisingly tall man about a decade older than her. He had muscular, broad shoulders and a friendly expression on his face ‘I saw you were here all by yourself so I thought you could use some company. Please let me introduce myself, I am Dr. Siebren De Kuiper, astrophysicist.’

‘‘Dr. Moira O’Deorain, genetic engineering.’ Moira offered restrained and held out her hand. Dr. De Kuiper had a nice handshake - Finally someone, Moira thought - not too aggressive, not too limp. She was not a short one herself but she found she needed to tilt her head up if she wanted to look into his eyes.

‘So, Dr. O’Deorain, what brings you to this conference, if I may ask? Surely not the awful break-time snacks.’ he said, taking a piece from the bowl.

Moira snickered, but instantly checked herself.

‘I mainly came for the session about the Lunar base and to hear the findings about the genetic level influences of low- and zero gravity.’ she offered in a measured tone ‘But I don’t want to bore you with the details. Surely, an astrophysicist has a broader interest here than me.’

‘Oh, good Doctor, but that is the thing! The theme of the conference is Gravity. Such an overarching power, so many fields influenced... From the very stem cells we all come from, until the super-massive black holes at the center our our Galaxy… Gravity is everywhere, governing our existence, our very fate!’ his blue eyes sparkled with enthusiasm as he was talking and gesturing ‘Such a force to be reckoned with, uniting so many people… I must admit, it makes me quite happy colleagues from other fields also find interest in this event today. But-- forgive me, I am rambling. Dr. O’Deorain, do tell more about your research.’

Moira took a slight breath and gave her elevator-pitch on her current research about custom genetic programs. She had several of these speeches perfected out for each type of listener - one for patrons who knew little of science, one for scientists from other fields and the most elaborate of course, for genetic engineers. She thought the pleasantries would end after her short speech, but to her surprise de Kuiper was very inquiring and before long they struck up quite the conversation. He was a strange person: wise and thoughtful, yet also eccentric and quite jovial - and above all, very polite and thoughtful.

Moira felt intrigued and, after the last year or so full of long and tedious of forced networking, she found herself enjoying the conversation about their researches just for the sake of it.

A bell rang somewhere and Siebren perked up, then quickly apologized and told Moira to come to his seminar that was the last one of the day.

‘I really hope you will come. I’ll do my best to make it interesting’ he added with a smile, and Moira caught herself smiling back and nodding.

Once he was out of sight, she angrily bit the long nail of her thumb, contemplating why the hell she agreed to go. It was not like she had to gain anything from this connection. 

Why would she even be interested in something else than her own agenda? 

And still - some time later, there she sat in the seminar room with the rest of the crowd. Just to observe him, she told herself. There was something to learn from this elderly man.

Siebren was commanding the small stage with his posture, gestures and charismatic but friendly voice. He sometimes stammered just a bit, looking for exactly the right words, like a teenager confessing his love, and wanting to get the feelings across just right. He had a simple, old-school whiteboard behind him and scribbled some equations Moira did not grasp at all, and now and then used some impressive holographs to prove a point. Amidst all the gravity-related puns (of which there were more than what Moira was comfortable with as a geneticists) Moira couldn’t help but think how the power of harnessing a black hole’s energy was quite as exhilarating and a morally grey area like her own research of DNA alteration on the cell level.

If one could create black holes at will… maybe even use the immense power of gravity to shield oneself and to assault enemies… Surely it could be done, with the right circumstances. But the issue of stability…. well that was agreeably the greatest risk of this hypothesis.

Moira found herself feverishly noting down some raw ideas, mixed with observations she made from Siebren’s presentation. He was captivating everyone’s attention in the room with his words, tone and gesture - and she wanted to possess such a power as well.

There was a roaring applause once the Dutchman finished and several members from the audience went down to shake his hand and speak a few words with him. Moira lazily scribbled in her notebook as the line in front of Siebren just got longer and longer. 

She stretched and let her thoughts run wild in her head - not quite sure how much of these she could actually include in her current research, but it was a refreshing change to be considering new possibilities after being bogged down in her laboratory for such a long time. She found she was not tired at all, and was not in the mood to return to her dull hotel room just yet.

At one point a strange chill struck her, and she looked up, seeing Siebren staring directly at her from the podium with a wide smile.

‘How did you like it?’ he asked cheerfully. They were the last two people in the enormous hall.

‘It was… educational’ Moira said teasingly as she gathered her notebook and slowly walked down the flight of stairs next to him.

‘Educational?’ he seemed a bit disappointed ‘O mijn God, even my completely stoned students have stronger opinions than that, Doctor. Was it that bad?’ he asked, stepping next to the whiteboard and wiping it off with a concerned look.

Moira stepped next to him and picked up a whiteboard marker.

‘It actually made me think of a few new things.’

Siebren’s face instantly lit up. ‘Happy to hear that!’ he exclaimed ‘Do you wish to discuss?’ he asked eagerly, gesturing towards the whiteboard.

‘Before we do, Dr. De Kuiper…’ Moira started in a silken voice ‘I am quite inclined to ask you about your views on ethics. Both you and I seem to be exploring quite the moral grey zone, wouldn’t you agree?’

‘Hmmm’ the man replied at first with a light smile as he looked thoughtfully into the heterochromic eyes ‘I can of course give my opinion… Under one condition.’

‘Yes?’ Moira frowned. She did not like conditions.

‘Let’s be on a first name basis, Dr. O’Deorain. Such conversations are more suited with closer acquaintances’ he said with a warm smile, and she smiled back at him.

‘Very well... Siebren. So, your views?’

‘Well, Moira, twenty years ago everyone thought me for a fool for even mentioning harnessing black holes’ Siebren chuckled and sat down on the table on top of the podium ‘It took some convincing, some funding and a lot of work to change how people perceived it. Let me put it this way - gravity and ethics both keep something together. Only the latter is not absolute, it is not a rule of the universe. You can slowly chip away at it. Two hundred years ago women in science were unheard of. And now, here you are. Ethics change. We are the ones changing them, Moira.’

They talked for hours, discussing hypotheses about utilizing black holes and gravitational force on a cellular level. There was no topic too daring, no idea too unethical for their conversation. He even promised to get her in touch with some important people. 

Around 2 a.m. he called a taxi for her, holding out an umbrella until she got into the car. 

The contacts he introduced her to ended up being the founders of Oasis, which, after the fall of Blackwatch provided to be a stable means to fund her research.

Later they emailed each other a few more times, but never quite managed to meet up again. She occasionally read articles about him, but in the last few years, all but forgot about him - until today.

***

The facility was unassuming on the outside, but a fortress on the inside - but it all mattered not with Gabriel’s planning and Talon’s sheer force.

‘Daaaamn, this security is top-notch’ Sombra pouted ‘Just sayin, I ain’t goin’ in there to see granpa if this is the level of security he gets.’

‘Just get this thing open and disable the alarms’ Moira snapped at her ‘I’ll take care of the rest.’

‘Be sure you do, Doctor…’ Sombra replied, giving out a little snicker.

The door to the cell was a huge one, protected not only by electric locks but also a huge mechanical valve. After the screeching alarms went down, Akande tore off the whole door and flung it to the side as if it was made out of paper, then glanced into the small room beyond it, padded from floor to ceiling.

‘Not going in?’ Sombra teased him.

‘Doctor, this is your specialty’ Akande gestured towards the room, but as Moira passed him, he grabbed her arm and whispered into her ear - ‘I want you and him BOTH in one piece and in a usable form.’ The woman removed her arm from his grip and brushed it off with an annoyed expression. Then, with a sharp inhale, she stepped into the confinement room.

It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dimly lit room, but once they did, she saw a figure standing in one of the corners, hunched and muttering something inaudible. The silhouette she recognized but it has changed, the broad shoulders and confident stance broken and shaking. He looked like he was on the verge of imploding on himself.

‘Siebren.’ she called out softly. The figure twitched but did not turn her way.

‘It’s all the same! Life, death… it doesn’t matter!’  he suddenly said, then fell abruptly silent.

Moira took a step closer. Suddenly, the floor gave away beneath her and the air was instantly pressed out from her lungs. She slowly fell to her knees - the floor was still there, but the sinking feeling in her stomach just kept getting worse. She was panting, trying to fight this invisible force, somehow. 

So this is his power, she thought to herself. She needed to get closer, within reaching distance… but it was impossible to stand, so she resorted to crawl towards him inch by inch - she would have felt immensely humiliated if she wasn’t completely oxygen deprived and fighting for each and every breath.

‘It’s me Siebren... Moira… Dr. Moira O’Deorain. You need to calm down for me… Siebren, can you hear me? Do you remember me?’

‘I don’t remember what went wrong’ Siebren muttered ‘My calculations… my life… everything was coming down to that moment…’

A bullet swished through the air, abruptly stopping right before Siebren’s head, then it bounced right back where it came from with a loud PANG. Moira couldn’t decide if she felt relieved that this ragtag group of idiots were looking out for her or disappointed that their efforts were worth absolutely nothing.

‘THAT MELODY, I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE, WHAT IS IT?!’ Siebren suddenly yelled out. Moira felt her body rise uncontrollably and then be abruptly smashed back into the floor. She growled; every inch of hers hurt like hell, her head was spinning and she was on the verge of throwing up, passing out, or worse enough, both. She needed to end this, now.

With her last bit of strength she hoistered herself up onto her forearms and saw De Kuiper collapsing a few feet away from her. He was completely silent now, just slightly twitching and staring up at the ceiling, never blinking.

Moira slowly crawled next to him and felt the pressure on her lungs lift with every passing second. Gently, she held out her left hand above his head and released a tiny amount of healing biotic energy. Then, she placed her hand on Siebren’s forehead.

‘I’m here’ she said in the gentlest tone she could muster. He twitched a couple more times, then slowly closed his eyes.

‘Doctor O’Deorain’ he muttered, only half opening his eyes, his gaze unfocused. ‘May I ask, what brings you to this conference? Surely not the awful break-time snacks.’

After her initial shock, Moira forced a smile on her face and while whispering a reply, carefully reached into her pocket for the tranquilizer she’s stashed away.

‘I came to see your  seminar on gravity, Siebren. I heard it was quite the event.’

‘Someone once said it was... educational’ Siebren chuckled to himself, then tensed a bit as Moira pressed the tranquilizing shot onto his neck.

‘Well, we can’t all be great astrophysicists like you’ Moira said lightheartedly, leaning back a bit.

‘I have a great experiment lined up…’he said, dozing off, then twitched, and looked at her sharply ‘Help… m-’ then another twitch ‘So nice you ca…’ and then he closed his eyes and remained still. 

Moira felt her hand weighing down on his forehead heavily, as if bound by a tiny but powerful gravity field.

#overwatch #sigma #moira #fanfiction #siebren de kuiper #moira o'deorain #sigmoira