Location: South of the US/Mexico Border, Sonora Desert
Time: 11:36 pm
She couldn't drive to save her life, but she was better than Oxton. At least she was on the right side of the road.
Transportation wasn't the first thing he thought about when the Suit told him to infiltrate Talon. However, somewhere in his mind he assumed that he would carted off around the world at high speeds. Not in an, admittedly, nice rental. He suspected she had stolen it, but he didn't press the issue. He hadn't pressed anything after she told him who she was. Because now he had to kill her. The last thing he wanted to do was talk to her.
When he was a younger man, he might've already have tried something risky and reckless, but age had brought wisdom and he learned his lessons well. She was a Sombra. There very well might be more. He needed to get a bit more intel before he made any decision. Additionally, he was trying to see what kind of game Reyes was playing here. This hadn't seemed like his MO so far.
Of course, there was always the matter of being rigged to blow. He couldn't forget about that, now could he? She certainly hadn't let him forget either. He had done his best to ignore her verbal jabs at him, he wasn't interested in verbal spars with most people let alone a mark, but she was persistent. She also seemed to notice his unusual silence, though she had attributed that to her "beating him."
He scoffed.
As if that's what it was about. No, he had the better hand. Because she didn't know his job was to kill her. It was the only one that mattered. He'd get Moira's notes, cure Reyes, and have this demon put to rest forever.
"Something funny McCree?"
He didn't answer. His hat was positioned over the ridge of his nose, like he was pretending to sleep. He had no intention to talk to the dead and if he kept that in mind with her then he'd have no problems when the time came.
"I know you're awake. You're breathing's off."
Don't say anything.
"Oh, I see how it is…."
Not in a million years darlin.
"Still pouting."
More like waiting.
"It's not every day you lose so badly."
He laughed. He couldn't help himself. He was going to have to kill her and she thought she was winning? Sure, it was dark humor, but she was so far out of her element here. How did Reyes put it? McCree and he weren't psychopaths, they were high functioning psychopaths.
From under his hat, he had seen her physically jump when he laughed. Evidently, she was spooked.
"You got headphones under that hat? You listening to a comedian?"
"Nah."
"Then what is so funny?"
"You thinking I lost."
"Gabe beat you negro y azul and your arm is set to blow. How did you not lose?"
"Because I'm not playing."
She was silent for a spell. The motor was the only sound to accompany them for a stretch.
"That doesn't always matter amigo."
Her voice had lowered, like it was thoughtful or somber. He might've touched a nerve. Which would be annoying. Jesse could handle bitchy women, but he hated dealing with sad ones.
"What is it you do anyway?"
He could at least dig for intel.
"Why the interest?"
"I'm guessing support related, maybe tech."
"What makes you say that?"
"Besides rigging my arm to blow? If Reyes needed something dead he'd do it himself. And if he was so busy that he couldn't then I'd be doing this alone."
"You're forgetting that he doesn't trust you."
"So, you are my handler?"
"No, I'm just saying that he wouldn't send you unless he could control you."
"That how he does things with you?"
"No, like I said, he needs me. I'm Sombra."
Amused pride soaked her tone. The arrogance alone seemed to corroborate the fact that she was someone important. Maybe Sombra was just one person? It should make this easier.
"You say that like it's supposed to mean something."
"Oh, it does."
"And what does it mean besides shadow?"
"Ha! I knew you spoke Spanish. I was just thinking; how does a guy smuggle weapons and drugs across the border for years and not speak Spanish?"
"Money's a language everyone speaks."
"Hmm"
"So?"
"Que?"
"What does it mean?"
"You know you haven't bothered to ask what you're doing here? Why you're part of this?"
"Heh, there's only one reason ya'll need someone like me and it ain't my looks or sparkling personality. And you're changing the subject."
"But aren't you wondering why Gabe didn't kill you?"
"…"
"I know I am."
"You don't know then?"
"Not fully, but I've got theories on the rest. He can play it mysterious if he wants to."
"He mentioned that I wouldn't be working for Talon."
He was aware of a shifting movement from her side. She was shaking her head.
"No, you're working for me."
"Not what he said."
"You're working for him by working for me."
"He's your boss then?"
"We're more like co-workers."
"Reyes doesn't do co-workers."
"That explains a lot. He's always acting like I'm his little soldier, but I can pull more strings than he can possibly imagine."
"Sounds like a lot of resentment there."
"Ha, you know we're a lot alike McCree."
"How long have we've known each other again?"
"You've known me for hours, but I've known you for months."
"…"
"Your whole life is in various news reports, top secret mission reports, criminal records, and medical files, but none of those tell the true story."
"And what's that?"
"You're a sobreviviente, a survivor. Just like me."
She can think that all she wants, doesn't mean she's right. Especially since he's going to put her survivability to the test.
"But that's just what you want people to think right? The funny thing McCree is you like playing hero and you want to shoot the bad guy and go riding into the sol."
"…"
"And people don't need to see you as the good guy either. You just need to take out the bad guy."
"Where are we going anyway?"
"Ha! I must be on to something."
"I'm just getting bored of you rambling on."
"Whatever you say vaquero. We're going to meet up with a contact of mine first. The rest is need to know."
"How much longer till we get there?"
"Ten minutes."
He moved his hat off his brow and sat up. They were still in the desert, no city in sight. A high-tech hacker physically meeting a contact in the middle of the desert? Didn't quite look like the image of a world ending threat that Jesse had tried to imagine.
He didn't question her though and leaned back again. She didn't attempt to restart the conversation and McCree was grateful from the first break from her barrage. With the newfound silence, the minutes came and went. Eventually, he felt the telltale signs of deacceleration. They were arriving.
"Bueno, we're here."
He silently adjusted his hat and stepped out of the vehicle.
They were in the middle of a small and ruined town. From the looks of things, another scar from the Omnic Crisis. The houses and buildings looked like they were used as target practice rather than living. None of them seemed livable.
He noticed that they were parked in front of what appeared to be an old convivence store. At least what was left of it. Sombra began walking towards it.
"Stay here McCree. This should only take a few minutes."
He nodded, even though she couldn't see and leaned against the vehicle, taking the time to enjoy the cool night air. He also took the time to rummage through his pockets for a cigar. He could at least enjoy his time out of the car.
Time passed by and McCree found himself immersed in the beauty of the desert night sky. God what a sight. He also took in the geography around him. It was then that he noticed it. Not a light but the absence of it. Specifically, the absence and reappearance of some stars. Like something was passing in front of his vision and the starlight. He saw a flash of light
He ran from the car as fast as he could and threw himself over a ruined wall, seconds before an explosion destroyed the vehicle.
Shrapnel rained from the sky and McCree's ears were ringing like wedding bells. His training kicked him into gear. He had to secure the target. He vaulted over the wall and sprinted towards the store. Sombra and some guy emerged from the store to see what was going on and she was almost tackled by McCree as he threw her over his shoulder and renewed his sprint.
"Hey put me-"
She was cut off by another explosion that shattered what was left of the store and the screaming emanating from the other man.
McCree couldn't stop though.
He ran straight to what was left of the town church. He didn't bother stopping as he braced his shoulder for impact. The door fell off from the hinges and Jesse spent all of a second recovering before he darted towards the back of the church.
He managed to get behind the south transept right as a third explosion ripped right into the bell tower, effectively demolishing the front of the building. After the dust and shrapnel subsided, McCree darted to the back of the church.
"Where is it?!"
"What?!"
"The basement, they've all got one!"
"I-"
"There!"
He threw the door open and rushed down the stairs as another explosion incinerated the center of the church.
As was fitting of his location, he thanked whatever God there was in heaven that the basement was relatively deep.
For all the good it would do them.
He threw her from his shoulder and surveyed their location. Heading back towards the direction of the bell tower was their best bet. He grabbed her hand and pull/dragged her with him along the way.
Finally, having had enough, she wrestled her hand from his grasp and growled out.
"Let me handle this."
"What the f-"
"I've got this."
With that, she pulled a tablet like device from … wherever she had it and proceeded to tap at the screen furiously. Holographic projections shot up around her and she began an intricate dance of holographic manipulation and device juggling. McCree had seen nothing like it before and, coming from a Blackwatch background, that was saying something.
Another explosion rocked the ground above them and part of the basement collapsed. He was about to carry her off again when she triumphantly tapped the tablet with a smirk and declared, "Child's play."
McCree paused and glanced around.
Nothing happened.
Seconds became a minute, and a minute became two, but still no more explosions. He looked at her with a steady eye. Careful, lest he could jinx them, he asked, "What the hell?"
"Drones are child's play chico. There's a reason they weren't used much in the Omnic Crisis."
She tisked and shook her head.
"Honestly, I think they sh-"
"Come on."
He grabbed her hand and marched out of the basement. It was a chore to get out, but he managed to push aside the rubble without too much trouble. The church was, more or less, burning rubble and only a few sections of wall remained. He wasn't three steps on the surface when he noticed the sound.
It was the sound of repulsor based aircraft.
He grabbed Sombra's hand again and pulled her with him as he dived behind a burning section of wall. Before she could even think to interject, he raised his cybernetic limb to indicate the sounds outside.
Her eyes lit up in understanding and a holographic projection sprang up. McCree position himself beside her, careful to keep the fire directly behind them so as to throw off IR sensors. He found himself seeing an aerial feed of the town with three dropships hovering above.
"The drone?"
"Si, it's not difficult to hack McCree."
"You hacked a military encrypted multimillion-dollar piece of hardware in seconds?"
"Now you're impressed!"
"Not yet."
"Huh?"
"First, give those bastards a taste of their own medicine, then I'll be impressed."
She smiled evilly at him.
"It will be my pleasure McCree."
Another projection appeared, and she worked her magic. Five rockets shot out from the drone. Blasts of dust and fire erupted around them and the sound of screeching metal pierced the night. Secondary explosions were heard briefly afterward followed by more dust clouds.
When the gunslinger raised his head again, he found that two of the dropships were burning heaps of scrap. One near the north side of town and the other near the southwest. The one closest to them was grounded but appeared to be mostly intact. Some twenty troops had already been deployed and had positioned themselves facing the direction of the incoming fire.
Jesse couldn't help a smirk as he stood up and casually walked to the destroyed entryway. He took his time repositioning his hat and securing a cigar in his mouth along the way. He needed to make sure he had his game on first.
"What the hell are you doing? Just let the drone handle it."
"You're out of ammo."
She pulled up her projection of the drone's systems and found that she had indeed used up what was left of its AGMs.
"We've still got the cannons."
"I've no intention of being strafed by your aim. The rockets were bad enough."
"Hey!"
"Sides, I've got the advantage."
Without waiting for her response, he continued his trek to the entryway.
Dust was still billowing from the recent bombardment and smoke and ashes filled the night sky. As he stepped onto the elevated rubble that used to be a doorway, he noticed the eerie shadows the fires caused. The sounds of armored boots rushing along the dirt and rubble resounded in his ears. In the dim light he noticed the armored figures facing the direction of rocket fire, not knowing that they had been hit by their own ordinance.
A normal man would have seen the odds as too great: there were too many, the terrain too unfavorable, visuals too obscured, the enemy had night optics, he didn't have any etc. A normal man would have tried to use their distraction to run away and be hunted down in the desert like a dog.
This wasn't a normal man though, this was Jesse McCree and as for the lighting, it might as well had been high noon.
He tossed a flash bang high in the air and brandished his Peacekeeper with a twirling flourish. He emptied his shots in rapid succession.
Every shot struck its target and every target dropped dead.
As soon as his last shot was fired, he dived to his left to avoid the retaliatory fire. He immediately began reloading as soon as he hit the ground, ignoring the shots from almost a dozen rifles ripping apart what was left of the church wall.
Then the flash bang went off. The overly luminous blaze of light was bad enough on a person's eyes without even factoring in what it would do to a person wearing night vision optics. But if any person would know its effect, it would be Jesse.
The shots instantly were silence after the flashbang exploded, exclamatory shouts were heard, and McCree vaulted over the wall and immediately began his charge, firing off shots along the way. He was targeting the squad outside the ruined building directly across the street. He had seconds before they recovered, and he did not want to be cut down in the middle of Nowheresville.
He dropped three more on his charge across the street. As he stepped through the dilapidated doorway he came face to face with the red armored mask of a Talon trooper.
His cybernetic fist shattered said mask and probably a considerable amount of the man's skull. The three other soldiers in the room were already raising their rifles.
He pulled the incapacitated trooper to him before he could fall and leveled his Peacekeeper.
First shot, a kill.
Second shot, a kill.
The third Talon opened fire, his shots peppering McCree's makeshift body shield.
Third shot, a wound.
The man grunted as the bullet penetrated his abdomen and collapsed on the ground, but he was still a threat. McCree, still gripping the now certainly dead Talon trooper, took a step forward and half hoisted half tossed the corpse onto the wounded Talon, effectively pinning his gun under the corpse.
The ex-Blackwatch agent was on him in two strides and delivered a bone crushing stomp to the man's head.
A few shots slammed into the wall behind him as the remaining Talon agents zeroed in on his location. This is where it got interesting. He no longer had the element of surprise or shock on his side, they had eyes on his position, and were able to concentrate fire. But he had another ace in the hole.
A two-man fireteam that had been laying down a constant stream of fire suddenly ceased in a wave of sub machine-gun fire. He slowly peered around the door frame.
Where the hell did that come from? There's no movement.
There couldn't be many more left. He reckoned three or four at max. The two-man fireteam had been on his left side, the shots that had been hitting his building came from both sides so there was around one fireteam left.
He felt a hand touch his shoulder.
He twirled around with all the speed years of military training can instill, intent on fracturing the combatant's cranium, only to find empty air. He paused for a moment before Sombra materialized from nowhere.
"Careful McCree! You almost took my head off!"
"A little warning next time darlin and I won't take your head off."
At least not yet.
He turned his eyes back to the front, scanning for any movement before turning back to Sombra.
"We're changing locations."
"Better idea. I've still got eyes in the air."
She waved the projection of the aerial feed in front of him. He saw about five IR signatures. Considering that two of them were Sombra and he, that left three more. Better yet, they were all in one building. He looked out the doorway and found the building from the feed.
"You ready for a good old-fashioned breach?" he asked while pulling another flashbang off his belt.
"How about you let me line up the drone for a strafe? It will take a minute tips."
"Tops."
"What?"
"The expression is tops, and no, they'll already consider that, and they'll try something. We push the attack."
With that said, he pulled the pin from the grenade, carefully aimed over the wall, and lobbed it far and hard. He looked out the door to see the grenade fall right in the center of the roofless building.
An explosion and he was already midway to the building. He was less than a yard away from the door when he heard it.
The tell-tale roar of flight engines.
He came to an abrupt halt and through himself in a sprint back to the building, narrowly missing the missing the cannon fire from the drone. What was left of the building was grounded to powder, but the gunslinger couldn't appreciate the destruction while he was diving face first through the doorway.
"Ha! Told you the drone could get it!"
"Woman! Are you trying to kill me?!"
She looked incredibly bored at the moment, like his survival centered complaint was too obvious.
"No, but I thought it would remind you."
"Remind me what?! That you're insane!"
"That I'm the boss."
"…"
"And when I say we're using the drone then amigo we're using the drone."
"…"
"Come on."
The town was already ruined before they got here but now it was a burning mass of rubble and dropship parts. As McCree carefully walked through the desolation he was aware of only the sounds of cackling fire, and the high pitch whine of winding passing through narrow openings and holes.
There was no life, no movement, nothing. He noticed Sombra heading to the convenience store. She stopped at the edge of the crater that had once been her contact. She had her hands folded in front of her and her head bowed. If McCree didn't know any better, it almost looked like she was praying but she had her hands tapping away at some device.
He glanced at what was left of the church, the walls and the bell tower gone but the cross on top somehow surviving.
It's not like prayer would do anyone any good here.
Jesse pulled another cigar from his pocket and lit it on the fiery scrap pile that used to be their car.
"A friend of yours?"
"No."
He nodded and decided to leave it at that. There was a lot more to worry about right now. Wasn't she with Talon? Then why were they trying to kill them? Did she have anyone she could call to pick them up? Were they going to be walking out? Is there mission compromised? Etc.
McCree removed the cigar, spat then took another drag. He let the smoke fill his lungs and let it out with an all too relaxing breath. He had made the mistake of underestimating his situation. It wasn't just semantics when everyone told him that he wasn't going to be working for Talon. He wasn't going to be working for Talon.
He looked up to the night sky, polluted with ash and smoke. It was harder to see the stars now.
What the hell did Reyes get him into?
A/N: I'm back! I've made some changes to the story. Mostly cut out the flashback sequence at the beginning. Though I like it, it felt like it was going against the direction of the story. I should get the next chapter up soon.
