It was about midday at the ING Bank in Mexico City. No one had heard from Los Muertos for a few months now. Foreign banks like these were a usual target but these days things were normalizing, security was allowed to be more lax. Bankers banked, a man negotiated a loan for his incidental hardware store with a bank representative, the bank manager sighed thinking of his upcoming vacation plans at his adorable summer rental for him and his beautiful family, financial capital flowed freely. All was well.

In a flash, Sombra burst through the banks front entrance with a group of armed Los Muertos thugs in tow, "Ladies and gentlemen and omnics—we haven't forgotten you, we're here to take back the money stolen from the people. Relax, take a cupcake and enjoy the festivities."

The bank guards immediately started calling in a robbery. One guard drew his pistol to fire and Sombra immediately hosed him down with her machine pistol. The crowd in the bank was hushed by the sudden gun fire.

"And please, no guns, we are a non-violent movement," said Sombra to the crowd, "How I hate silence, Mr. Maestro, will you play?"

The Los Muertos mariachi band started up "El clavo y la cruz" as the thugs went to the tellers and emptied out their drawers. Los Muertos had a habit of robbing banks accompanied by "revolutionary brass bands" and "roving bandit entertainers." This time they were distributing baked goods. Two beautiful girls sporting full Los Muertos tattoos and wearing only kitchen aprons took this as their cue to start passing out cupcakes. Soon they were on to the next bank and the next bank.

That day Los Muertos hit 3 banks in under 10 minutes in Mexico City. They drove the getaway van into the river, escaped into the sewer canals and emerged in a Los Muertos controlled slum. Soon they were drinking heavily, singing "The International" and divvying up the loot in a Los Muertos squat.

After splitting the loot between all the heisters and giving the larger take to Los Muertos' war coffers, Sombra could finally afford her "upgrades."

It was all for a good cause, Sombra wanted modifications. Unlike her upwardly mobile countrymen's increasing predilection for cosmetic body alteration as the country's uneven recovery continued, her desired modifications were brutally practical. It was radical, it would allow her to interface with computers in a way that mirrored omnics. She would, for all intents and purposes, become a hybrid human-omnic.

She had been planning this surgery for a while and had murdered for it. A lone omnic had gone wandering from his friends at the bar—omnics can't drink and find this human ritual boring—and found himself clubbed in the head by a glow in the dark skeleton girl and cannibalized for parts. He was barely in the news the next day, no one cared about missing omnics.

There were only a few people in the world who could do the type of surgery she wanted.

Sombra had heard-tell of a person in California who was willing to do the surgery like this. However, finding her and getting to California posed a difficult problem. Sombra was incredibly hot right now; she doubted that no one noticed that she escaped from prison. U.S. border security was incredibly heightened when Mexico destabilized. But Sombra needed this, she would never be caught again with these upgrades, she would be inhumanly fast and elusive. She would get the components surgically grafted to her spinal column and her ability to hack would move at the speed of thought.

Sombra contemplated this as she looked over the schematics she had made. It was too late to go back now: she had murdered an omnic in cold blood to get the components—not even to mention the bank robberies.

How am I going to do this?

Sombra had secured the passport of an actual America citizen after some wheeling and dealing on the Internet. It had arrived at her crappy apartment this morning.

"No way," said Sombra eying the picture, "I said for her to look like me"

She cursed, she didn't fully trust the guy so she sent a detailed description of what she wanted not a photo. The woman was a little bigger than her, had blonde hair, blue down-turned eyes and extremely pale skin. In other words, she looked nothing like Sombra. The fool had taken a flight to Mexico to do volunteer work and lost her passport. Sombra had to do this fast before she knew it was missing and found herself stranded at the airport desperately trying to deactivate it.

Sombra gathered what she needed to try and pull this off. She would need normal white-people clothes not her shredded shirts and jeans and would have to lighten her features. She utterly despised the idea, unfortunately increasingly popular in her country, especially for the sake of looking like this dumb North American girl. Her Mohawk hair was completely shaven on the sides. No way she could just dye it. She bought a wig, braided it and tried her best to make it look lank and oily like the passport picture. Sombra thrifted a T-shirt of some random U.S. state university and tied the back in the way she had seen U.S. tourists and volunteers do it. A chemical bath hid the glow tattoos and temporarily lightened her skin. Color changing contacts did the trick but her eyes were plainly different, she played around with makeup and managed to obscure it.

"Heh, I'm white," she chuckled looking in the mirror, she picked up the passport to compare, "but this bitch is still whiter than me"

She practiced saying, "I got sun on vacation," in her best North American accent.

She went online and found students from Texas arranging road-trips to and from Mexico. Everything was in order; she just had to tolerate Texas A&M students for a couple of hours.

"Looks like you got some color Ms. –let's see here– Kaufman," said the border guard eying her from behind his reflective aviators.

"Yes, it was wonderful," said Sombra.

She smiled innocently. The guard lowered his glasses and scrutinized the picture for what felt like an eternity then looked at Sombra. She continued to smile. Shit, she thought, I underdid it with the skin lightener. It had been especially hard to lighten her face.

"I must say you're looking mighty healthier than your picture here, I could hardly tell it was you," he said handing the passport back to Sombra, "Welcome back to the states Ms. Kaufman"

Oh, he was hitting on me, she thought.

Some customs agents finished investigating the trunk of the car, found some opened tequila, smashed it and the rowdy car was on its way. Once they were clear of the boarder Sombra pulled off the wig revealing her pink Mohawk.

"Dude," said one of the frat bros elbowing his friend.

He pointed to Sombra's hair as she pulled a crushed packet of Marlboro Reds from her jeans.

"Got a problem?" asked Sombra before taking a heavy drag.

She had been unbelievably stressed; she couldn't believe they didn't recognize the components from the dead omnic hidden in plain sight. Sombra needed a fucking cigarette.

From Texas she took a bus to California. She had to get to L.A. to find Dr. Morin. Well, formerly doctor. Jacqueline Morin was a surgeon and computer scientist who had perfected a unique way of surgically grafting unconventional electronic components into people. She had also perfected a neural interface which allowed one to control the grafted component as though it were a part of their body. Far more advanced than mere prosthetics, Dr. Morin made it possible to interface with more complex and less specialized hardware than artificial limbs, namely computer processors. Dr. Morin had successfully tried this out on herself but after the Omnic Crisis, an anti-omnic ideology took hold and she was stripped of her academic credentials and deemed an abomination.

"Doctor," Sombra had found Jacqueline sitting alone in a dive bar of an omnic/human neighborhood valiantly resisting gentrification, "I have business for you"

"Hope you don't mind if I have a drink first," Jacqueline replied, it was incidental but Sombra was getting strong lesbian vibes from her: her creaky voice, her white tank-top and muscles, her piercings and tattoos. Jacqueline being a savvy woman herself immediately identified Sombra as a sexual opportunist, though she didn't like that she had lightened her skin, "and please, call me Jackie. How much do you have?"

Sombra told her and she blinked.

They grinned at each other, this was going to work.

Soon Sombra was below the bar, topless lying down on a chair converted into a makeshift surgical bed using tequila as anesthetic while the doctor grafted the hardware from the dead omnic to her back. The doctor had swapped out her prosthetic arm for one that is normally used by industrial robots building circuitry. A jumble of thick cables ran from the ceiling into her arm, they twitched and shook as she moved her mechanical arm with machine precision. She was only two beers in. This would be a long night.

Sombra awoke in Jacqueline's bed, she was holding her. Sombra had felt more comfortable and secure in this strangers bed than she'd felt in a long time. She had slept late. Somehow she knew it was 3:23pm. The bedroom was medium sized with high bookshelves and antique but modest furniture, contemporary art furnished the walls, a small glass door opened up a tiny terrace with a rod-iron coffee table and chair. She gently removed Jacqueline's hands, got up and oriented herself.

She was naked but Jacqueline was still wearing her tank-top-she peered over-and nothing else. Sombra thought back, she had blacked out the surgery but remembered Jacqueline kissing her belly, then kissing the inside of her thigh then slowly kissing her pelvis and moving down. Her back throbbed, she felt it and touched metal and inflamed skin. She then ran her hand through her shaved hair. Her fingers brushed up against a neural interface.

Yes, she thought, I did it.

Despite her hangover she felt lucid. Her biology ached from travel and stress but something else in her propelled her thought along, she was thinking so clearly. She got out of bed and walked over to a book case. She grabbed a book "The Politics of Nature" and flipped through the pages. After some time she closed it and found she could read the pages from memory.

Sombra chuckled, this is power. The walked over to Dr. Morin's desk, her computer sat open, totally unguarded. Sombra tapped her lips and thought to herself. It was a desktop, what where the chances it was just… open, unlocked? She moved the mouse, the screen turned into her desktop.

Unbelievable, thought Sombra, even someone like Morin doesn't protect her computer. She opened her browser and navigated to a site Sombra had set up to compromise people's browsers. Morin's browser warned about malware, Sombra clicked ignore and the site automatically started uploading Dr. Morin's saved passwords, history, and browser cache. She couldn't help herself, who would know when this might come in handy? It was done in an instant.

A yawn emanated from the bed.

"Hey," said Jacqueline.

"Heya," Sombra replied, "you did good work"

Sombra crawled back on to the bed and kissed her.

"How do you feel?" Sombra wrapped her legs and arms around Jacqueline and they spoke between kisses.

"Powerful"

"You requested some radical stuff, the finger nails I wouldn't have had done myself"

Sombra flicked her new claws, she suddenly remembered Jacqueline pulling her organic ones out at the root, now she could pulse electricity through them at will.

"Aw, you don't like them," she teased as she ran her new gun-metal gray inch long nails across Jacqueline's cheek, "Don't worry, I'm gentle"

"I know you are," Jacqueline brushed her fingers off, "It's funny, I don't usually sleep with my projects. What's your name, by the way?"

"Oh, you'll know soon enough"

Morin laughed dismissively, "Ok, badass, just don't do anything evil with this stuff," she warned.

"I definitely will," replied Sombra, moving some hair out of Morin's eyes, she giggled and fell backwards.

"You think I'm joking? You don't know me, I'm a bad person"

"I believe you, I'm not a good person either. That's why you're all jacked up right now"

"No, you are"

"So certain of yourself," replied Morin looking past Sombra, "How do you know? What I do is illegal, how can I be a good person?"

Sombra rested her chin on Morin's chest, "I can see it in your eyes, you might not care when it comes to money but I can tell you don't hurt people, not like I have"

Jacqueline turned her head to meet Sombra's gaze, she smiled, "what do you see?"

"I don't know, just you. Your eyes look kind"

This pricked Sombra's hair up. Dr. Morin's statement sent signals bouncing around Sombra's brain. She can't tell, she thought. Sombra's eyes changed as a sense of advantage overcame her. Morin caught it, "Well, now you look like a wolf"

Sombra laughed.

She showered and washed the chemical lightener out of her skin. Emerging from the bathroom naked, her skin and tattoos were restored. Jacqueline was wowed, she couldn't believe the creature she had in her apartment. She teased and begged and prodded her to have sex again. Soon they were in bed again enjoying the afterglow.

The thought of staying in California and becoming this woman's girlfriend crossed Sombra's mind, she thought about living in her beautiful apartment. No, she would just dump her when she was bored of her. She has everything she needs, I don't.

Morin gave Sombra her phone number before she left.

"I don't expect you'll ever call but if you ever need anything..."

"Don't count on it"

"Well, I'd like to see you again," she smiled, the infatuation was in her eyes, "mystery girl"

Soon Sombra was back in Mexico. Leaving the U.S. was far easier than entering. Sombra paid the guard to look the other way and before she knew it she was back in her sweaty blown out apartment.

The surgery changed her to her core. Her brainstem could interface with circuitry, she could program by thinking, her nails had been replaced with conductive ultra-sharp metal, she could pulse electromagnetic energy out of her hand and act as a ground. Things were different now.

Now she hacks and Jesus Christ can't save the person she is hacking. Now she hacks and accidents happen to powerful people. Things that are supposed to be locked are not locked and things that are not supposed to be locked are. Now she hacks and if you knew you would vomit from a sense of profound insecurity and wrongness at the violation of privacy. Now she hacks and you pray it's someone who deserves it. Sombra knows: her memory is extensible and supported by cloud computing, her intelligence is upgradeable.