Seeing that envelope gave me chills, it did. Knowing someone had been in the room with me while I was having that horrible nightmare was flat out scary, even if it was probably just hotel staff who delivered it. Whoever it was in here with me could have casually taken my chronal accelerator while I'd had it off, just like in my nightmare.

Feeling a bit ill, I walked up to the purple envelope on my table and tentatively picked it up. It felt very light. Promising myself it wouldn't be anything terrible, I tore it open. As I did that, something slipped out of it and fell towards the carpet. I blinked and caught it; it was a tiny little high capacity data chip, the type that you fit into smart watches.

Huh. Well, I supposed there was only one way to find out what was on it, wasn't there?

Ignoring every piece of advice I'd ever heard about not sticking strange data chips in my watch, I popped it in the side and waited to see if, like, my watch would explode or something.

It didn't. A little program opened and instructed me to hold my phone up to my face so it could verify my identity. Hoping it liked my terrible morning hair, I held it up so it could scan me, beep, and then open a holo-window in front of my face. The text read 'Room 1841. Leave the chip in.'

Righto, 'leave this dodgy chip plugged into you', because that sounded like a jolly good idea, didn't it? I would have put good money on this thing having secretly installed some sort of surveillance-tracker app in my watch, too. I wasn't too keen on the idea of being under surveillance, but at the same time, if a very high-paying client was going to put me up in the literal penthouse and give me loads and loads of money, I supposed I'd just have to be content with them knowing where I was at all times. It was probably standard security protocol for contractors and, technically, I was on the clock, wasn't I?

I reluctantly left the chip in, closed the holo-window, and went to have a wash and do something about my hair so I could find out what was waiting for me in room 1841. Before I had a shower, though, I thought twice about leaving my bugged watch in full view of the shower and put it under my jacket.

Room 1841 was only a couple of floors below the penthouse. The Omnic lift attendant was surprisingly unjudgmental about my vague request to be taken there. "Visiting a friend, Ms Oxton?" he asked conversationally, hands politely behind his back.

"Not really a friend," I said, thinking that it was unlikely anyone I knew was in that room. "A work colleague, I think."

He escorted me out of the lift and to 1841, bowed, and then asked me to call room service if I needed anything at all. I watched him leave and step back into the lift, and then I looked forward at the door.

It looked completely normal, like the door to any other ordinary hotel room. I don't know what I was expecting, really—after all, they'd already finished frightening me half to death, hadn't they? They didn't really have cause to do anything like that again. I was probably just down here for some sort of briefing for whatever Istvan had been on about. Well, I figured, at least this time it was in a nice hotel room and not in a scary abandoned warehouse. Taking a deep breath, I knocked on the door.

In response, the digital mechanism in the lock clicked and the little light went green—apparently without anyone touching it. Shrugging off how odd that was, I pushed the door open.

Inside, I expected that Istvan and his scary colleague would be seated at the dining table or something waiting for me.

They weren't; the dining table was empty except for a pile of tech equipment. There was someone seated in a big leather office chair facing the television, though. The top of her cybernetically augmented head had purple-to-white gradient hair, and I immediately recognised it.

I gulped: it belonged to that girl who'd been madly flirting with me on the plane.

"Hey," she said, still facing the TV. "I was wondering when you'd finally come visit me." Her voice was honeyed, low, at the back of her throat: it made my palms sweat. I did pretty well not to just melt into a puddle right there on the spot.

While I was trying to stay cool and wondering how she managed to end up in my business meeting, she turned very slowly around in her big leather office chair to face me. Small mercies: she wasn't looking at me. Instead, she was watching a holo-window she had opened in her lap.

There was some data scrolling on one side of it, but the part she was watching had a little heart icon pumping. "104," she read off the screen in her lovely accent. "110. Ooh, 116! Looks like I'm making your heart race, chica." She looked up at me, dead in the eyes.

I swallowed; mine were probably wide as saucers. I couldn't say a word, that was for bloody sure. This woman was—

—wait.

Wait. That thing in her lap, that was showing my heartrate?! Distracted, I looked down at my watch and the chip in the side of it.

"You only just figured that out?" she chuckled, closing the holo-window and turning her attention to me. "From all I heard about you, I thought you'd be faster than that."

My face went bright red. I was fast normally! It was just really difficult to be fast when a really fit woman was staring right at me and quoting my heart rate from a—h-hang on just a minute. If she'd been the one with the chip—if she'd 'heard about' me—did that mean she worked for my client too and she wasn't just a random passenger on the plane talking about opening my client's package as a way of starting a conversation with—

"You were testing me, too! Yesterday, on the plane!" I accused her. My gut hadn't be wrong, I wasn't paranoid: the woman trying to get into the envelope had actually being trying to get into the envelope, and not my pants after all! Honestly, with my luck, I should have known the moment a drop-dead gorgeous woman showed any sort of interest in shagging me that something was awry.

"And you passed my test with flying colours," she told me. I still couldn't make eye-contact with her. "You know, I don't get 'no' a lot," she said, something which I didn't doubt one little tiny bit, "What made you say it? Should I have worn a lower top, maybe?" She laughed.

I laughed too, because I didn't want to seem as horribly awkward as I felt. She was pretty. "Well, I did sign a contract saying I wouldn't open it, so it probably wouldn't have mattered what you wore. I wouldn't have opened it."

She closed the holo-window and stood in a way that suggested she might approach me. "You mean to tell me that you didn't open the package because a harmless little piece of paper said you weren't allowed to?"

I blinked at her. "Er, yes?" Wasn't that rather the purpose of a contract?

She looked entertained by that idea. "Do you always do what you're told, chica? You don't strike me as someone who plays by the rules."

Was this another test? "D-Depends on the rules, I suppose?"

She brightened. If she was testing me again, she liked my answer. "Huh. 'Depends on the rules'," she said, quoting me as if she were considering my answer. "I like it. That is exactly how I play, too. I'm glad we'll be playing on the same team." Then, staring me dead in the eyes, she approached me.

Even though I was certain she wasn't going to try and snog me or anything, I didn't realise I'd backed up against the door until I hit it with an oof.

She snickered, extending her hand and taking mine before I gave it. "Sombra," she said, shaking it. "Pleased to finally meet you. I'm a big fan of your work."

My work? Surely she didn't mean this little courier job. "What, like with Overwatch and all that?"

She laughed once and returned my hand. "No, silly," she said with a cheeky grin. "Your artwork-work. You know. You used to be quite prolific."

My artwork? I'd never been much of a—oh. Suddenly it hit me: she meant all the pro-Omnic culture-jamming and graffiti I used to do when I was younger; all the stuff that Overwatch made me swear black and blue I'd stop doing when I joined them. That was a secret, though. I couldn't even believe Overwatch had found out about it, let alone this girl. "How did you…?"

Her eyes twinkled. "It's my job to research new recruits," she said, finally explaining what was going on, "and I take my job very seriously."

I sincerely doubted this Sombra woman was capable of taking anything very seriously. I wasn't about to say as much, though, because I had a feeling I was about to get a briefing.

I was right. "Anyway, here's the plan," she began, apparently inspecting my chronal accelerator as I talked. People didn't normally look directly at it, so it was horribly distracting. Everything about her was distracting. "We need someone who has some expertise in escorting assets to take a very special asset from a location in central London to a location in central Paris. No flying, though: it has to be along the ground. Does that sound like something you'd be able to do for us?" She looked back up at my eyes.

I swallowed. It felt like a trick question. "Well, I am an international courier, so that is right up my alley."

"There's just one little thing," she said, with a sort of false casualness that signalled whatever was to follow wasn't 'little' at all. "You might meet some—how shall we say—resistance along the way."

Well if that wasn't sinister, I don't know what was. "Brilliant." I may have sounded a tad sarcastic. "Can I ask what sort of resistance?"

Sombra chuckled. "Well, you can ask…" she said, making a vague gesture in the air.

I made a face: this lot were like Overwatch. We never really knew anything about the missions we were on unless we had to. Oh well—I supposed people didn't pay top dollar or specifically recruit people like me to deliver the post, did they? Istvan had said something about me needing to be able to defend myself. I should have known it would be for something like this.

I wasn't that bothered, really. My chronal accelerator was able to get me out of most problems, and my pulse pistols out of whatever was left of them afterwards. I'd probably be fine. "Alright," I told her. "I understand. So when do I start?"

"Did you leave anything in your room?" I shook my head. "Right now, then. Let me just get you a cab and give you your very attractive down payment," she said simply, and then opened a holo-console to do that.

While I was being quiet as a church mouse (I didn't want to jeopardise my down payment), my eyes wandered over to the tech Sombra had piled up on her desk while I waited. I didn't mean to be a sticky-beak about it, honest, but I noticed something glowing in a really familiar way. Curious, I leant sideways so I could get a better look at it.

It was small, round, and had a central vortex just like the one on my chest. I took a big, excited breath—I'd recognise that tech anywhere!

A big, wide smile stretching across my face and looked back at Sombra. "You need a chronal accelerator, too?" I'd never met anyone else who had chronal dissociation! I didn't even know other people could have it!

Sombra blinked at me. "What are you…" She followed my line of sight over to her desk. Relaxing, she laughed. "Oh, no. That's my translocator."

My smile faded. Oh. "So it's not for chronal disassociation?"

She shook her head, getting back to whatever she was doing on her screen. "No. You're the only one who has that."

That—was a bit of a king hit. I mean obviously it was true, but it stuck me harder than I expected it to. I was the only one who had chronal dissociation and needed an accelerator.

While was feeling a bit sore from that, my eyes rested on the device. It may not have been a chronal accelerator, but the vortex looked very similar, very similar, and the three stabilisers on the outside were exactly like mine. It looked very much like Overwatch tech, actually, it had that 'Lunar Horizon' aesthetic—something Winston's tech always had, because that's where he'd learnt engineering. Honestly, the more I looked at it, the more it looked exactly—exactly—like something Winston would make.

That made me feel uncomfortable. "How did you get it?" I asked Sombra, not wanting to sound rude. "I mean, out of curiosity…"

Her eyes darted up for a moment. "I just found it, is all," she said a little too casually, and then went back to typing.

T-That seemed a little suspicious. "Where did you find it?"

She didn't look at me. "Does it matter? I didn't kill anyone for it, if that's what you want to know."

Well—I mean, that was good and all, but it didn't answer my question. "Actually, it does matter. The reason I want to know is it looks very much like something one of my friends would have made back when—"

"Well you can thank your friend for the tech, then. It's come in very handy," she closed her window and tried to change the subject. "All done! You have a cab waiting for you downstairs right now. You shouldn't keep him waiting."

As much as I didn't like to be rude and keep anyone waiting, as if I could leave right now. "Sombra, how did you get one of Winston's inventions?"

She gave me a tired look, leant heavily on one hip, and crossed her arms. "Okay, okay. I know where this is going," she began, sounding bored. "When I was doing my research on you I came across it. No one was using it. No one noticed it was gone, so what's the harm? I use it all the time now."

I knew it. "You stole it!"

"I think of it more as… liberated." She gestured up to towards the ceiling.

What a load of absolute bollocks. "Well I think of it as theft!" I told her, taking a step towards her. "Winston would have worked his heart out on whatever that thing is! It would have been really important to him!"

She was unmoved. "Uh huh. So important he hasn't even noticed it's gone."

"That's not the point!" I told her. "It's not yours, you took it, it's theft!"

She gave me a weary look. "You know what's theft?" she told me. "Exploitative corporations creating amazing technology that can help people and never using it, patenting it so no one else can use it, and then locking it away behind firewalls so no one can ever have it. No one should own an idea," she said, defiant. "So who's really the bad guy? Someone who creates things that can help people but never gives them to those people, or the person who takes them?"

She was driving me mental. "That's not the point! Winston's my friend! It was wrong of you—"

"Well, wouldn't your friend be happy he's helping someone?"

"I don't know, because I haven't asked him, and neither have you! Maybe if you'd asked him if you could—"

She was shaking her head. "Fine, you want it so badly?" she asked, walking over to the table, picking it up and approaching me with it. "You want to take this device away from someone who needs it? Take it." She put it in my hand. "Take it away from me."

I stared down at it in my hands. Well, I—I mean... I hadn't expected her to just give it back. I had expected—I don't know really, a fight. I sort of felt a little bad. 'Take it away from me' she'd said—that made me think of my accelerator and what happened when someone took it away from me. Maybe she didn't have chronal disassociation, but what's to say she didn't have some sort of condition that needed the translocator? If she needed her translocator like I needed my accelerator... It made me think: what if I were in her position and the only way I could get my chronal accelerator was to steal it? What would I do?

I knew the answer to that question, and I hated the answer. I also hated this horrible woman and I was very annoyed with myself for thinking she was pretty before. I pushed it back into her hands.

She raised one perfectly sculped eyebrow. "What, now it's okay I have your friend's beloved tech?"

"Shut up," I told her sullenly. "You did the wrong thing."

"Pfft, like you've never broken the law," she told me, obviously knowing I had broken it on multiple occasions. "Anyway, chica, your poor cabbie's probably busting a fuse waiting for you by now."

My lips pressed in a thin line, my fists clenched, I wanted to say more. She looked far too smug for my liking, but since she was a work colleague I couldn't really just clock her one, could I? I did sort of need the money, and I was rather interested in this 'special' mission which she fortunately didn't appear to be joining me on. Rather than say anything else, I spun on my heel and marched out and down to my taxi. I hoped I would never see her again.