When she got home, Satya didn't feel like dancing.
As she stepped out the other end of the teleporter back into her apartment, a profound exhaustion swept over her like a rainstorm over a desert, feeding an insatiable wish for a very long shower, a strong cup of tea, and a deep night's sleep in hopes that she'd be able to wake up the next morning and put it all behind her. The desire was compounded even further when she nearly tripped on the stairs due to a leg that still felt like a pincushion.
But still, Satya reminded herself, tomorrow would be a new day. I'll clear my head tonight, patch my wounds up, and begin my next assignment tomorrow. Things will make sense then.
They didn't.
The details for the assignment didn't unlock the next morning, or the morning after, or the morning after that. For a full, torturous week, Satya waited for her friend to provide the key to getting her life back on track, a key made so vital by the fact that her routine simply wasn't cutting it. No matter how many cups of Green Darjeeling she had, how much time and effort she devoted to her dances, or whatever new outlets she found for her free time such as days spent at the Life Complex's gymnasium learning unarmed martial arts. Even when she attempted a night at a bar on her own to try and recapture lightning in a bottle, her mind circled back around to what couldn't be unseen from that night in Monaco.
In retrospect, she wasn't surprised that Sanjay was a part of the same Conspiracy that Maximilien was, the one that Sombra feared so much. After the Calado incident Sanjay had done nothing to convince her to trust him again, but that wasn't what made her clench her teeth under her lips and lament another wasted night as she woke up on the seventh morning.
"Sombra said he wasn't involved," she repeated to herself yet again, before rolling her eyes and realizing just how stupid she sounded, yet again. This shouldn't have been bothering her, dammit! A few deep breaths and some repeats of her mantra and it should have become a non-issue!
She placed her hands on her lap and crisscrossed her legs on the bed as she dumped out all the clutter wracking her brain, pointing its focus towards the feelings of air swirling over her upper lip and her lungs working their process in her chest. She timed the phrase to begin with each unhurried inhale and end on the glacial exhale. Breathe in; Order through peace. Hold; Peace through calm. Breathe out; Calm through order.
Breathe in... hold... breathe out.
Breathe in... hold... breathe out...
Breathe in... hold...
Did she know?
Satya shook her head rapidly and let the stress drain away again. Breathe out. Calm through order.
Breathe in...
Did Sombra lie to me?
Her fingers clawed through her hair as she growled in vexation and unfolded from her stance to make for the kitchen, but not even the rich smell of toasted rice cakes could remove the scowl and furrowed brow that marked her face. In a last-ditch effort she rummaged through her mind for something, anything, that she could divert her concentration to.
The only things her subconscious spat out were Sombra's card, the one she'd been told was for if they ever needed to talk, and temptation that tasted both sweet and sour.
It seemed like the only way...
Satya bit her tongue so hard she could feel the blood pooling in her cheeks, drowning out the taste but not the itch that remained to gnaw at her ideas of trust and self-reliance. No, she protested to herself. I can't, I WON'T. She's my friend, so I should trust her.
And yet, the itch still persisted...
Her phone was snatched up so fast off the countertop it barely had time to buzz, but as she opened it she crossed her free arm, expecting with the disdainful snort of returning boredom that whatever the notification was wasn't worth her time. On her phone's screensaver as she swiped it open, the notification read one word.
Her fingers moved in such an excited flurry that her phone was nearly fumbled out of their reach. Even before she'd read it Satya felt like a cathartic weight had been lifted off her shoulders. After a week of boredom and disorder, an open-mouthed smile greeted the message her friend had sent.
Qué onda, amiga?
I know that that last mission couldn't have been easy, but Maximilien isn't someone to worry about. Something tells me that when it comes down to it, all that sliminess isn't going to do him any good.
But what can I say? That's then, this is now. Speaking of now, you'll want to get to the coordinates I've linked quickly. You'll meet a couple of my colleagues who will give you your next assignment.
Todo mi amor,
Sombra.
P.S. Next chance we get, how's about we start the night off at Calaveras? Get a buzz on, see where things lead from there. I can't wait.
Satya hadn't even finished reading the notice by the time she'd outfitted herself for field duty and a teleporter to the coordinates, already committed to memory, flowered five feet away. Without a moment's hesitation she stepped through it, leaving the shining dawn rising over luxurious Higher New York for a stark and dim warehouse, the last glimmers of twilight fading in the glass roof fifty feet above her head. Closing the portal behind her, she used the last gasps of the sunset to get a lay of the land under the evening shadows, performing a slow, three hundred sixty degree turn with careful steps that echoed faintly off the concrete floor. The light's spilled secrets revealed her to be alone in a securely locked building, save for a very large hover-truck loaded with an equally large crate. Whatever they were there for had to be important, but without any further education she didn't bother to make a guess.
The minutes that followed found Satya with little to do. Having taken a seat on an old but sturdy box, she double and triple-checked the coordinates to make sure she hadn't made a mistake. Sure enough, her phone showed, this was where she needed to be, but with the slow pace came an itch of curiosity: Just where am I?
At last, the final hurrah of the day surrendered to the encroaching dark. Heavy gray clouds veiled the stars, but the night sent its own sources of light through the windows, each one painted in the colours of a neon rainbow and twisted through glass tubes for the purpose of attracting a wandering eye.
Her eyebrows raised and her head cocked to one side, Satya hopped off her perch to gain a closer look at the cacophony of light that swirled in the middle of the largest shadow on the solid floor. Within the chaos of the vibrant shades she saw a way to scratch her itch, a way much more orderly than any that could answer the mystery of the truck.
With absolute precision she circled the shapes, tracing a thin line of luminescent blue around the shape with her index finger as she went. The instant she stepped back from completing the circle her light shot upwards through the highest glass panel, ascending like a spotlight at a steep angle before ricocheting in all directions off the colossal tower that loomed its shadow back downward. Satya's neck craned so far back she worried about losing her balance, a concern rectified when she moved into the center of the warehouse, bathing in the neon colours and enveloped in the all-consuming shadow.
With the light bent to her will, she beckoned the thin line back to her fingers, moulding it like clay into a tablet shape until it took physical form as a tablet device that she held directly into the light's path. Through it, the vibrant mass of green, orange, pink, and purple shapes were filtered into clear pictures and their words translated into Hindu script: Vacancy, No Parking In The Market Square, and Try Our New Galvanizing Treatment And Never Feel The Rust In Your Joints Again! were among the innumerable sales pitches that swarmed in like bees and came through her visor in a clean, orderly fashion. After just over half a minute, Satya lowered the filter and let it dissolve away, its purpose spent.
Among the cacophony of variety, one word had stood out as a constant: Lijiang.
The name brought back old memories from years past in Vishkar, memories of walking in through the front door of the building that loomed so high overhead alongside Sanjay Korpal to 'negotiate' a deal for Lucheng Interstellar's experimental glove-mounted remote control, originally meant to operate deep-space mining probes. The deal had fallen through when her old handler had responded to the CEO's refusal with a veiled threat that referenced to the Horizon Lunar Colony's unexplained fate, making any further progress impossible without having to deal with the messy disorder of murder.
Murder. Another word that stirred the pot of Satya's memory and jumped from one train to another, though its attribute was less the grimace of hindsight's twenty-twenty vision and more a one-two punch. The right jab brought the physical sickness of a churning sea in her stomach, while the left hook pursed lips and fueled a deep sense of irony.
Suddenly, the low rumble of thunder rolled through the sky and echoed in her ears, as the clouds entrapping the moon tightened into thick banks and released their rainy cargo. The gentle patter on the glass and the neon reflections dancing through their watery mirrors physically soothed her in a way little else could, but its emotional effect was no good at erecting a roadblock against the direction her thoughts were going in.
Murder. The word sounded more disgusting with each repetition. She couldn't say with any truth that she hadn't killed before, but only because it had been them or her. How many times Sanjay had questioned, argued against, or chewed her out for such a belief was a number she knew but didn't keep track of, simply because it didn't matter. Death was cold, random, indiscriminate, chaotic, slinking in the shadows like a tiger waiting to pounce. It wasn't fooled by a mask or intimidated by meager displays. Death, she knew, didn't wait for a reaction.
It just came.
"Enjoying the view?"
If it had been literally any voice on the planet other than that snarling, sandpaper-rough whisper, her heart may not have stopped cold for the next fifteen seconds. But it wasn't and it did, along with every other part of her. At the same time she both did and didn't know what had overcome her; For sure it wasn't the raw startle of when she first met Sombra, or the mind-racing terror of her encounter with Maximilien, or even the frozen shock of finding Sanjay's connection to the Conspiracy. She just froze, drawing blank after blank on being able to do anything.
Until a hand wrapped around her shoulder and turned her around one hundred eighty degrees. Then, she realized it.
Pure, abject dread.
The cold burn of his touch, the pairs of soulless eyes, the dual memories of first being met with the cold, pale face of death itself and of her life being physically crushed in a malevolent hand. She'd seen it all, felt it all, brushed with death itself twice and gotten away with it.
But it came again, just like death always did. It just came.
"You gonna stand there all night or are you gonna answer me?" the ghost demanded.
Satya's own mask felt cracked in a thousand places, but it was better than naked emotion. "No - yes. Sorry, about that, I mean. I'm guessing you... both are here for the assignment?"
The other one raised an eyebrow, but kept her expression utterly blank. "That depends," she purred. "Are you?"
Satya wringed her hair in one hand as fear made an easy sentence brutally difficult. "Um, well... of am yes I cours- I mean, yes, of course I am. Sombra sent me."
The living shadow scoffed. "Did she now? Well, at least you're on time."
The blue-skinned woman next turned over towards him. "This isn't right," she remarked. "De Kuiper was supposed to be our third. This changes everything."
"Moira said he wasn't ready, and the last thing we need is him on a bad day. Otherwise, this changes nothing."
"C'est une amatrice. She won't-"
An iridescent blue polyhedron took form without warning, spreading throughout the warehouse, interrupting their conversation, and outshining the neon reflections. Satya waited for them to look back over in her direction before warping the shape into a wide array of others.
"I'm hardly an amateur," she stated, a rush of assertiveness filling in the cracks. "and I assure you, whatever you need me to do," In an instant she shrunk the creation back into her hand, crushing it in her fist. "I can."
The unfeeling woman simply walked over to the truck, but the shadow sent over a look that Satya couldn't quite put her finger on. The closest she could get was that he was sizing her up. "What's your name, kid?" he growled.
"Satya Vaswani." she answered with the utmost formality. "At your service."
"Not what I meant," he snapped in reply. "Plausible deniability is essential to this mission." He moved in closer, pointing a clawed finger right at her nose as he stopped with less than six inches between them. "That means you either tell me your name, or I give you one."
Satya planted a foot back almost out of instinct, but she knew it wasn't needed. Anonymity was a concept that had allowed her to get away with a lot of Vishkar's dirty work, and the name she'd chosen as part of the academy's graduation ceremony was one that had served her well. "Symmetra," she answered. "What's yours?"
After a head turn that suggested mild annoyance, the ghost first gestured to himself, then to the woman. "Reaper, Widowmaker. Now, I assume you know what to do here?"
Satya said nothing; The feeling that had paralyzed her was beginning to return and most of her attention was dedicated to suppressing it. Besides, the answer he was clearly looking for would have been a lie.
"In that case," Reaper said through a sigh. "just do EXACTLY what I tell you, and this'll all go smoothly." With that, a cloud of inky smoke formed around his lower half, allowing him to float over to the truck where Widowmaker waited for the both of them.
For the first time since they'd appeared, Satya moved of her own volition. Each step forward almost felt like trying to walk through a raging river, but the further she went the more her own mask felt as invisible as it was, and the better it did its job of filtering out the purpose of Reaper's physical mask. A stray smile and a comforting thought even crossed her, but she welcomed both.
It had been a long week, and things were finally making sense again.