First of all, thanks to TerminalNostalgia, as always, for beta reading my mess. Not only she beta reads it, and deals with all the bad grammar, but she also teaches me. Thanks!

Also, sorry for the delay. This is the first story I'm putting enough thought into it to not just write and nothing else. I have a txt full of small notes of plot points and all, something I've almost never done before, so yeah, I hope this one goes on well.

Enjoy.

...

Screams. Everyone on the battlefield was screaming and yet, he could only obser...ok yep, he was back in that dream.

Sniper felt less scared, and more slightly annoyed. He took pride on his memory, while awake and while asleep, and he could usually determinate whether he already had a dream or not. That helped him a lot in the past, specially to recognize problems hiding in his dreams.

And there he was, back on the same place, in front of the same window, with a Spy chatting behind him. Only this time Spy was talking in French, and Sniper couldn't understand a word. So instead, Sniper focused on the ground below. The mist was still there, and he couldn't see a lot, only blurry shapes moving everywhere. Sniper turned around and walked towards the door on the other side of the room, while the Spy continued to babble in French. Since he couldn't make the man stop talking, he decided to ignore him and go down to see what was going on.

Upon opening the door he found himself in a darker room, with enough light to see himself and his surroundings. Turning around he realized the door was no longer there, and lucky him, neither was the babbling Spy. Sniper turned to the room, inspecting it. He soon realized the walls were marked with weird words, similar to the ones he wrote in that note, but in longer pharagraphs. Taking a step forward, he touched the wall closest to him, and realized the word had been marked into, not written, on it. Sniper squinted, trying to make out the meaning of those words, when he felt a presence behind him.

On instinct, his hand went to take the kukri, but found nothing on his belt. Sniper spun around and found himself in front of what looked like Scout.

But like what happened to the babbling Spy, this Scout wasn't the one from his current team; and yet, for some reason, he looked familiar. The entire situation was unnerving him enough, but this new revelation made his entire focus fall on the young man in front of him. Unlike any other Scout, the boy was silent, standing there without doing anything else but stare directly at him. Now that felt uneasy...

Sniper tried a step forward, and seeing how Scout didn't even flinch, tried another one. Since he knew this was a dream, and his brain was able to understand sign language, Sniper gave it a go:

'Hello there mate, you know what's going in here?'

Scout's only reaction was to let his eyes wander around the room. Sniper followed his gaze, only finding what he already knew was there. All the codes he could ever wish for, but still he couldn't understand what it did, or what was it for. Distracted, he didn't realize Scout was drawing closer until the young man was right in front of him. Sniper jumped and took a step back. Scout simply pointed at a place of the room, right behind Sniper. Hesitantly, Sniper turned around and saw what Scout was trying to show him.

He only found one word sticking out from the rest for being alone.

Beta.

...

Sniper woke up, but this time without gasping or screaming. He simply stared at the ceiling, covered in cold sweat and shaking a bit, but other than that all right. Once he collected his thoughts, he looked around, not moving from where he was. He realized he was in a bed, inside the infirmary, and he wasn't alone.

"Uuuuuh! Herr Sniper, you finally woke up!"

Sniper's first reaction was to stay as far away as possible from Medic, especially after the dream, but lucky him his common sense kicked in. This was Medic, the one who opened his teammates up for sick experiments, had told the world he was mute, had a thing for blood...on second thoughts...

Sniper shook his head and sat up, touching his head. He was about to ask about what happened when he remembered Medic didn't know sign language. Lucky him, the doctor proceeded to explain without the need of a question.

"You fell asleep during the examination, not a common thing, but not especially rare either. Oh, Spy came to check on you, and when he found out you fell asleep he got a bit mad. You had plans?"

Sniper facepalmed. He had promised Spy he'd eat dinner with him and then stargaze. Great, now he was finally getting used to socialize, his body had to go and fall asleep, missing it all. Good job, kudos to him.

"Don't worry" Medic said, smiling as always. "Herr Spy told me you could do it tonight, and lucky you, there are no more examinations until next week! Just make sure not to fall asleep before going, okay? OH! And you're healthy, maybe some parts of your body will age faster than others, but don't worry! We are humans after all. Besides, the study of the body, especially when aging, is amazing! Did you know millions of cells die everyday?"

Sniper looked at the Medic, slightly scared. He didn't need to know that! He was about to just stand up and run away, when a knock on the door stopped the good doctor mid-speech. Medic turned to the door, asking more to himself who could it be, and when he opened the door the first thing Sniper heard was "Ah! Herr Spy, good to see you! Come in, he's awake!". Sniper tried to hide himself as much as possible. He felt awkward, very awkward, for different reasons. The most important was having to face someone who he'd just ditched for a good night's sleep. Which had felt refreshing, to say the least.

Before he could make a good explanation for what happened the night before, Spy stood next to bed, with his arms crossed over his chest and an annoyed expression on his face. Soon enough, his face softened into a simple frown, and then the man sighed. Sniper didn't know what to make out of it.

"Good morning bushman, I hope you slept well,"

Sniper looked down. Missing a stargaze shouldn't be a big deal, but for some reason it felt like it at that moment. Up until now, he had trusted very few people in his life due to his solitary nature, and now that life was giving him a chance to actually have the closest thing to a friend he could ever achieve, he slept through it. Well done him. Sniper sighed as well, the least he could do was apologize.

Looking up at Spy, and using his arms to communicate, he said:

'I'm sorry Spy. I don't know what came over me, but I'm sorry I missed our plans. I guess yesterday really got me, I'm not used to so many weird things happening at once.'

Spy snorted at that, and Sniper saw his shoulders relaxing. Well that was a step forward.

"Apologies accepted bushman. I guess I can't expect a wild man like you to all of sudden be as civilized as the rest of mankind."

Sniper chuckled. Spy had a point, and he deserved those words. And for some reason, this time he didn't feel angry or offended by them. Well, that was a step forward. Then Sniper remembered the dream, the note, and everything. It was clear that weird things were happening, and he had something to do with them. Looking up at Spy, his mind worked at full time. Could he trust Spy enough to tell him about this? It was clear that he alone couldn't achieve much, since he had no idea about those words or what they meant, but maybe someone as cunning and, let's admit, smart as Spy, might know what to do.

'Can I have a word with you? Alone. I want to show you something.'

Spy raised a brow, and then turned to Medic, who had been busy with the usual paperwork.

"I think the bushman and I will go. Thanks for taking care of so lousy a man, and sorry for the troubles."

Medic turned to him, and laughed, waving his hand. "Do not worry Spy, it is my job to keep you all healthy; besides, I was able to check Herr Sniper's organs while he was asleep. You have no idea how fascinating the human body is!"

Sniper looked at him scared, and touched his chest and stomach, looking for any new scars he might have gained. Spy simply raised his eyebrows, unable to believe how Medic could find glee in examining someone's innards, and then shuddered.

"Of course doctor...erm, come on bushman, let's go."

Sniper quickly stood up from the bed and headed for the door, barely waving at the Medic, just in case the man changed his decision and decided to keep them both for more experiments. Spy, for once, did more or less the same, waving his hand and saluting the doctor before following his teammate. Once outside, the two of them looked at each other, and started a fast pace away from the infirmary until they were outside the base. The sun was already out, which meants Sniper had slept the entire night in Medic's infirmary. That gave him the chills, but he decided not to comment on it any further. Instead, he motioned the Spy to follow him to his van. The fight would start in an hour or so, and he had to do this now while he had the strenght to do it. He was sure after the fight he would be tired, and his resolution would have disappeared by then.

Spy followed him, with a straight face. He was curious, of course, but he also knew the bushman kept things to himself all the time, and having a chance to know more about him without asking was a chance he didn't want to lose. Sniper stepped inside the van first, and Spy followed, taking in his surroundings. Even if this was the second time he had been in there, this time it felt different: this time he was going in invited, not forcing the invitation. Sniper offered a seat to him on the couch, same place he took the last time, and went to the bin, looking for the piece of paper. Lucky him, he had forgotten about it, if not the paper would have been probably destroyed, and with it his only clue.

Sighing, and hoping for the best, Sniper handed the paper to Spy, who looked at him raising an brow, an act Sniper found the man doing more often than not. He inwardly chuckled; he was beginning to notice certain details about the masked man. Spy took the offered paper, unfolded it and read its contents. Soon his expression changed from serious to shocked, and looked at Sniper, waiting for answers.

It was now or never.

'A few nights ago I had a weird dream, and when I woke up I wrote this down without even thinking. Weird things have happened to me lately, and I was...kind of scared to say anything, because I barely know you all and...'

Sniper stopped at Spy's raised hand, unsure.

"Get to the point, bushman"

His serious voice made Sniper shudder. Well, if he was going to lose everything, might at least do it while helping the team.

'In my dreams I could hear screams, and then a Spy saying weird things to me. Then the BLU Spy realized I change a bit in some situations, or whatever that is, and then Respawn had this weird death with me, without logging it whatsoever, and then tonight I had another weird dream, where I was in a room full of words like the ones on the paper, but more of them, and a Scout (not our Scout) was there, being creepy, and he he pointed at a word on the wall.'

Spy didn't know what to say. Should he trust the bushman, even if he looked pretty crazy? Maybe this whole buddy-buddy deal had gone too far. He could step back, and make like nothing had happened. But when he looked at the expectant Sniper, he realized something. Spy hadn't trust anyone since she left, afraid of losing everything again because of his trust on others. But this wasn't her, this was a grown man who could fight his way out of danger, and who right now was trusting him enough to tell him about all this, knowing that if everything went wrong he would lose a lot.

Well then...time to try again this trust thing.

"What did he show you?"

Sniper looked around, and then briefly said 'I don't know how to say it in sign language'. Then quickly proceeded to get his notebook and pen, and wrote whatever he had seen. Then he handed the notebook to Spy, who took it calmly. On the page there was only one word: 'Beta'.

"Beta?" Spy repeated out loud "he showed you the second letter of the Greek alphabet? Having in mind is a dream, you showed yourself that. I didn't take you for an erudite" Spy looked at Sniper, waiting for an answer. He received just an annoyed frown, but that meant the old bushman was coming back. Spy chuckled slightly, and then went back to business.

"I really don't know what this could mean, but this note here has source code, the code that computers use to properly work. All the weird things happened after you wrote this, and if you were an Engineer I would accuse you of being the one behind all this, but I'm fairly sure you don't know how to program anything. Which means someone is behind all this and, for some reason, whatever that person is doing is affecting you. Maybe he or she is using you to lure us away from their plan."

Spy stood up, with the source code note in hand.

"We should show this to Engineer, he may know what to do with it." Before he could even think what was he doing, Sniper took a hold of Spy's arm, stopping him on his tracks. Spy turned around, again with his raised eyebrow.

"Sniper?"

Sniper looked away for a moment, and then at him.

'Please, keep this a secret for now. I...' he stopped moving, trying to decide if it was okay to say this or not '...I finally have a team that actually communicates with me. I know that if they see this, they'll see me with other eyes.'

Spy's form relaxed. So he had been the one Sniper decided to trust with this. Still, this didn't sit right.

"Then why did you tell me? I could have had the same reaction you fear the others might have."

This time Sniper locked eyes with him. 'You asked me if I trusted you back in that fight, and I said yes. This is my way of showing you that I mean it.'

Something inside Spy's very core stirred, waking after years of being dormant. He realized how powerful his question had been at that moment, and how powerful the answer was in the present. Sniper was trusting him with something he was scared of showing to everyone else due to the possible consequences.

This was real, this was happening.

Spy looked at the paper. He knew showing it to the Engineer would solve a lot of problems, maybe lead them to discover about what was going on, but the bushman was right; without any more clues, the team would condenm Sniper for being the only one so close to what was happening. Sniper would probably be isolated, and all he had achieved until now would have been for nothing.

"You're right. This is not the moment to tell them about this."

Sniper sighed in relief, smiling after being so tense.

"But if anything else happens, you'll tell me immediately. We don't know what we're up against, and it might be something bigger than what we think. The moment we have more clues, we'll inform Engineer about this, or if it gets too dangerous for everyone else, all right?"

Sniper nodded approvingly. If the whole thing turned way too big for both of them, then he would tell them himself if needed. Spy nodded back, smiling this time. And then he went back to business.

"All right, bushman, if we are going to investigate this, first we need to recall everything that happened until now. Take your notebook, we're going to do a list. First: you have a weird dreams where you hear screams and a Spy saying things you can't understand."

Sniper wrote that as the first point.

"Second: you write source code. Third: Respawn performs a sudden death with you, out of nowhere. Fourth: that death doesn't leave a log, or any form of data to identify it. Fifth: you have another weird dream, and this time you receive the word 'Beta', and there's more source code in the dream. I think that's all for now?"

Spy waited for Sniper to finish writing, and then gave it some thought. All those elements had little in common; but the most important one was that everything seemed to go around the Respawn system. Maybe he was looking way too much into that theory, but the source code coming from a man who doesn't know about it was weird, unless he had seen it before, and couldn't remember. Which meant that maybe Sniper had some memories blocked in his mind.

So maybe the Sniper in front of him wasn't completely the man he really was.

"Say, bushman, is there anything you have trouble remembering?"

The question sounded innocent enough for him, but when his eyes focused on Sniper he saw there truly was something hidden beneath the bushman consciousness. All of sudden, Sniper had become tense, looking at the table like it was the most interesting thing in the world.

Yes, there was something, and for the way he saw Sniper reacting, it was something he couldn't get by simply thinking about it.

"Forget I asked, bushman, you may break your tiny brain trying to answer that." Spy placed a hand on Sniper's shoulder. The man, in turn, looked at him "we don't need that now, don't worry. If there is anything you truly can't remember, time will answer everything, trust me."

Spy smiled at Sniper, and in return he got a smile from the other man.

"Take the notebook with you, but give me the page where we wrote everything. Don't worry, I won't show anyone, but I don't think it's safe to leave it in here."

Sniper nodded and did as he was told, giving the page to Spy.

"Now, get ready, the fight will start soon, and I don't think you've eaten anything since yesterday."

Sniper's stomach grumbled, and a faint tint of red appeared on his cheeks. He hadn't realized he was hungry until Spy mentioned it. To Spy's credit, he didn't laugh, just smiled knowingly. Both men stood up and walked outside of the van, heading towards the base. Spy made sure to put both notes, the one with the list and the one with the source code in his pocket. He would need to find a safe place to hide the clues Sniper and he could find. But for now, they had a battle ahead of them.

...

Outside of the base, but still inside of Respawn's grasp, a small bunker-like building stood against the hot air of the desert. From outside, the building looked abandoned, but if anyone took a closer look, they would see it wasn't.

Inside, a man was working on a computer with different screens, all of them with code in it. The man, whose eyes were hidden behind googles and had a hardhat covering his head, looked calmly at the words, writing here and there a few pieces of code. After several minutes of staring and writing, the man sighed and turned the chair around, following the cables coming out from the computer and going all over the floor, to end up connected in several other computers, and some of them into the back of the neck of a young man, who was sitting on a wheelchair.

The hard hatted man stood up from his chair and walked towards the other figure in the room. The younger man, however, didn't react at all at his presence or movement, his eyes focusing on the floor on a cold stare; a thing that didn't bother the older at all. Hardhat knelt in front of the boy, and put a hand on his right knee, patting it as if he was reassuring him.

"Don't worry, we're getting close. Soon everything will work out."

He didn't expect the boy to react at all, but it still hurt him to see him like this. He squeezed the knee, out of reassure himself more than anything.

"I'll bring both of you back, Scout, I promise."