#forwhatcouldbe

It was a simple enough mission. A distraction would be set off somewhere away from the main building, at which point Sigma would enter and take what they needed.

Overwatch was growing again, quiet and underground, but in the last few months it had become no longer reasonable to just storm in and shoot up the place. That was too dangerous. A more cunning touch was needed.

It started with an explosion off by the communication tower, and then another by the vehicle depo, and yet another at the gates by the cliffside. Overwatch was growing, yes, but to investigate all of it, would be to spread themselves quite thin.

By the time the plan was in motion, it was almost laughably easy for Sigma to just float on into the main building, up the stairs, into Winston’s office. The computer held Overwatch’s plans for illicit expansion, and that was information Talon needed to have. Needed to track. He leaned over the desk, installing a tracker into the computer and searching through the files.

Movement in the room caused him to look up and he found himself staring at a man, roughly his own age, as though time meant anything at all, staring back at him.

@forwhatcouldbe​

How long had he been floating here? It felt as though it had been forever. Time doubling over itself to give the impression of an eternity far longer than any could hope to experience.

Not that any would hope that.

Siebren had long since gotten past wondering if he was going to die. Death seemed a petty concern now. Almost a mercy.

But it didn’t seem possible to die when smeared over so many different realities. He was floating, yes, but he was also working in his lab. He was there, he was looking through his own eyes, completing an equation with his marker pressed up against the cool glass. He felt the weight of the marker in his hand. It was real. But it had also already happened.

He felt the heft of a large boulder and paused, why did he have this again? He heard a tsk behind him, a muttering voice that suggested bitterly that he was having an episode again. He wasn’t sure what they meant, that reality faded out fast.

Sometimes they felt more real than others. Sometimes he felt barely there.

This one... he hadn’t been prepared for.

He opened his eyes, and could barely see the stars in the edges of his vision. He felt grounded for the first time in a long time, and breathed a little sigh of relief. He also felt... good.

He raised his hand up to his face, then his head. Less wrinkles. More hair. The past, then? Or at least some version of the past.

Usually, Siebren played quite the passive observer in these trips through time and space, but something twigged in him as he looked around and realised where he was.

He was on the Lucheng Space Station.

Siebren pulled himself shakily to his feet, stepping outside the small room that had been his bedroom during his time there. He looked around. There were scientists hurrying from place to place, little apes climbing up tire swings. Everything felt normal, peaceful. So it was before...?  Or perhaps an alternate reality where it would never happen at all.

He didn’t stop to ponder any of that. Usually he kept his distance from those he saw in these... journeys. He felt alone, isolated out in space and these apparitions did nothing to soothe that, but...