Lost in Time
"Adieu, chérie." The taunt echoed in Tracer's head as the blue-skinned assassin below her thrust Tracer off her. Her grappling hook grew taut, slamming Tracer into the side of an apartment building with a resounding crash. The next thing Tracer knew, she was on the floor of a lower down, neighboring apartment building. Tracer heard the whir of a ship as the assassin made her escape.
Tracer lay dazed on the cold, stone surface of the apartment building's roof. Pain blossomed through her chest and down her spine. Her arms felt heavy, and her legs refused to move. It was the Talon sniper, the one who went by Widowmaker; that had done this. She could only listen in a stunned silence at the chaos below her.
Had she not teleported, this wouldn't have happened. She wouldn't have even died, if that was even possible for her to die completely, that is. It had all happened so fast. One moment, she was fighting Widowmaker on the rooftops of the big apartments and business buildings of King's Row. The next moment, Tracer, or more accurately, her chronal accelerator, stood between a bullet and the voice of peace between the humans and Omnics. And Tracer chose herself. Now Mondatta was dead.
Omnics weren't like normal robots. They were alive. Anything alive can die, even herself if she has her chronal harness. For Omnics, it was a matter of a complete hard drive failure: no fixing it. Mondatta was dead, and it was all Tracer's fault. Some hero she was. She couldn't find it in herself to take a bullet that wouldn't even kill her for him. Pathetic. She was no hero.
She struggled to move. Slowly, she forced herself onto her hands and knees. The large clock tower cast its deceitfully cheery yellow over the dark cobblestone streets, wet with recent rain. Tracer sat up and shuffled over to the wall into which the assassin had smashed Tracer. There was a significant dent in the building from where her chronal accelerator had collided with it.
She delicately felt her chest. She had probably broken some ribs. Her head was pounding, and her stomach was churning from being kicked so hard off the building. What worried her most was her Chronal Accelerator. The lightweight device she had grown so used to was flickering on and off rapidly, with blue sparks threatening to shock her. The metal was bent and scratched, with an intermittent buzzing noise that shouldn't be there drowning out the sounds of the chaos below. It had not been damaged, had it?
Terror laced Lena Oxton's very being. It couldn't be broken! It just couldn't! If it were, she'd be lost in time again! Her Chronal Disassociation would cause her to lose her very body again!
Tracer took a few deep, calming breaths; she was a soldier. She's dealt with much worse on the battlefield. She needed to get it to Winston. He was the only one who could fix it. There was one problem with that, though. He was at the Watchpoint Gibraltar, and that was across the ocean, below Spain. How would she get the accelerator to him? She swore she would only use the tracker in emergencies.
Tracer heard footsteps in the stairwell next to the roof on which she stood. It must have been Mondatta's bodyguards! Tracer attempted to stand up and blink. The most she could achieve was a few sputtering moments of time slowing around her before she was thrust awkwardly back into her normal speed, and she was still unable to move from her sitting position.
If they found her, they'd arrest her. Even worse than that, though, was that they'd take off her chronal accelerator when they searched her. She had to do it. She quickly lifted it slightly off her chest, sticking her pinkie fingernail into a tiny hole, concealed behind a small metal slab. The tracker clicked on with a loud beep. Winston would know she needed help. He had started reassembling Overwatch, but only had their general locations. Now, anyone who had access to the Overwatch channel could track the exact location of her chronal accelerator. Both friends and foes. She had to risk it. It had been roughly a day since Winston made the recall to Watchpoint Gibraltar. Hopefully, he would be watching his monitors and see.
She hoped she made the right choice. The door to the roof burst open, and the guards dressed in all black stared at her in awed horror for a short moment.
"She got away," Tracer grit her teeth through the pain. "She was a mercenary sent to kill Mondatta. I couldn't stop her. I'm sorry." One of the guards regarded her stonily.
"You're Tracer, the time wielding Overwatch agent, are you not?" he asked sternly, his emotions not visible.
"The former Overwatch agent, what with everyone forcing us to disband," she corrected with distaste, setting her head up against the wall and staring at the gloomy sky above. "Look, do whatever you want to me. Just please don't take off my Chronal Accelerator. I'm begging you."
"I'm afraid we cannot risk that, Ms. Tracer." Did these men actually think that was her name or had they come to associate that name with her more than her actual one? Regardless, all Overwatch activity was illegal, and they would arrest her for it. She knew that was a risk the second she walked outside as Tracer.
Out of everyone, though, a select few could not drop their identities as former Overwatch agents. That included Winston, a cybernetic ninja from the Shimada clan back in Japan, Zenyatta, one of the Omnics that followed Mondatta, among a few others. One of those was Tracer.
No matter what, she would always be Tracer. She couldn't stop being Tracer, thanks to her condition. That meant she had to be careful in public. She was usually safe in crowded areas, being hidden by the hustle and bustle. She knew it was a risk to wear her special uniform today, yet she had been looking forward to seeing Mondatta, and she felt she needed to honour that which she fought so hard to achieve. Now it cost her, because as long as she had her chronal accelerator, she would be Tracer.
"Look," Tracer began. "If you keep this thing on me, we both win. Don't you think I'd be fleeing if it was working? It's barely functional, but I need it."
"I find that unlikely." The man took steps towards her. Tracer's eyes widened. "I'm sorry, but I must confiscate that. You are officially under arrest for engaging in illegal Overwatch activity.
"No! Please! Don't take it! I'll disappear if you do! I'll physically disappear! Please, don't!" Despite her struggles, the same man that had been speaking to her quickly picked up her pistols that lay nearby, handing them to one of his peers.
Tracer shied away, quickly forcing herself off the ground in an attempt to flee. Quickly, she turned and ran. It was a sporadic run, with time lurching around her as she tried to blink. She barely made it halfway across the roof.
All at once, her chronal accelerator let out a horrendous screech from the strain. Time returned to normal. Tracer could feel herself slipping. She was becoming Lena again. She collapsed onto the cement, gripping her accelerator in her arms, in a desperate attempt to hold onto her anchor.
One of the guards walked up to her and grabbed her by the wrist, pulling her up and forcing her to release her grip on her device. He grabbed one of the metal clasps, unlocked it, and in one painful moment, he tore it off.
There was a pain. A terrible pain that jolted her entire being for several long seconds. It was as though some unseen force was ripping her in two: a feeling she hadn't missed. She let out a scream of agony as the man passed it to another, leaving her out of its radius of effect. Then she stopped hurting, then she fell. The guard looked shocked, the hand he used to grip her still coiled in a fist. Lena landed on the roof in a painless, soundless heap. She looked up, tears forming in her eyes, to see the merciless face of the guard, who was attempting to imprison Lena, thinking she somehow blinked out of his grasp.
Tracer's wounds didn't hurt. She couldn't feel the roof below her. She couldn't feel the guard attempting to grab her again. She felt nothing. She was empty: a ghost. She was back to being Lena.
Quiet, unheard sobs racked her chest as she curled into a ball. The only thing she could feel was slight cold where her legs were touching her arms. She needed as much feeling as possible. Then her vision slowly faded, despite her eyes being open, and the noise in the background disappeared.
Then Lena Oxton blinked out of time.
…
He made the recall a day ago, and he already saw results. He received feedback that many of the former agents were already giving feedback, stating that they'd be coming as soon as they could. Winston leaned back and sighed, having just finished his recall video, sending it to every former Overwatch agent he could.
He glanced around the messy office. Below his small room on the second floor with his computers, peanut butter jars littered the ground, along with various trinkets with which he has been working. He rolled his eyes and swung down his tire swing to the large pile. He quickly gathered the empty jars into a bag, which he would burn later.
The room was still disastrous, but cleaning up the jars had made a difference. Winston passed by the table full of trinkets and stared idly at the orange holographic map on one of the white walls. Several spots had small pinpricks of blue. It was his family. They'd all be together again. Dr. Angela, who used the field name "Mercy," had sent a message saying she would arrive in a matter of hours, bringing as many supplies as she could, along with someone if she managed to find her.
He heard a beep from his monitor, signaling something had changed, or he had received a message. "Athena," he began, activating his custom-made AI program. "Did we receive a new message from someone?"
"No, Winston," her smooth, robotic voice began. "Tracer has just activated her tracker. Her exact location is now visible." Winston looked startled.
"Where is she?" Winston asked. Their location trackers were incredibly accurate. He should be able to see her exact location.
"Calculating…" Athena spent a few seconds pinpointing the location. Why would Tracer turn it on? She knew that Talon could hack into it and discover her whereabouts quickly with such precise coordinates given.
"Location found. Tracer is currently in a high-security lockup in King's Row, England." Winston let out a quick gasp, quickly swinging up to the computers. Several deft key clicks later, a map popped up on the screen, revealing a flashing circle in prison used to keep dangerous criminals and their weapons.
"Athena, Check the news outlets in London to see if there has been anything with which Tracer was involved," Winston requested quickly.
Athena replied instantly. "Yes, sir. Checking for recent news involving Tracer… Information found." A website popped up on the computer revealing a news headline.
"Mondatta was assassinated?" Winston asked in surprise. "Oh no. Where was Tracer when this happened?" Athena pulled up a video clip. It showed the briefest glimpse of two people jumping over two buildings in front of a clock tower, haphazardly caught on a phone camera. One showed the blue telltale blink of Tracer's chronal accelerator. A few seconds later, she was visible again, seeming to jump backward halfway across the gap, then lurch forward again. It was evident she had rewound time, meaning something had attacked her. Several seconds later, there was an explosion, then the phone camera was whipped around to reveal Mondatta collapsed on the ground.
"Athena, zoom in on the first figure in the video."
"Right away, sir." A second later, the blurry video was zoomed in on the first figure as they jumped across the gap. It was blurry and hard to make out.
"Run comparisons with the known Talon agents."
Another tab on the computer opened and faces flashed across the screen faster than Winston could keep track.
"Match found to be 'Widowmaker,' Talon's most efficient assassin," Athena droned on. A blurry picture of her popped onto the screen. Her skin was blue, and she was wearing a jumpsuit, with a helmet that had several red cameras on it. Winston could swear she looked familiar, though…
That wasn't important right now. It seemed as though Widowmaker had gotten away, and They captured Tracer in her stead. "Athena, is Tracer mentioned in the article?"
"No, sir," she replied in monotone. "Aside from the video, there is no mention of Tracer in this article. Speculations have reached online blogs, though."
"Show me one," Winston demanded.
"There are two most common reactions. Many people are enraged an Overwatch agent would show themselves again, while some are pleased that the heroes have yet to abandon them."
"And she may have been captured. If that were the case, would it not be put in the headlines?" Winston mused aloud.
"Either they captured her and are trying to avoid protest by the few Overwatch supporters, they wanted to keep the presence of the Overwatch agents under wraps, or they didn't capture her."
Winston panicked for a moment. "Winston, your heart rate is drastically increased," Athena unhelpfully informed.
"I know, but if nobody captured Tracer, that means her chronal accelerator is in the lockup, and not being worn by her, meaning finding her will be nearly impossible. We'll have to take our chances on her being in prison, and if it turns out she isn't, then we'll have to do everything in our power to find her and return her chronal accelerator to her."
"I suggest awaiting the arrival of Mercy, so you will have additional help in rescuing her, as you lack the ability to be subtle."
"I am aware. Athena, monitor as many websites regarding Mondatta as possible to see if there is any sign of Tracer."
"Of course. I will also continue to follow the tracking systems, as well as search for any incoming messages by former agents."
"Thank you, Athena," Winston expressed distractedly, climbing down to his work table. He would need gear to save Tracer, though he would have to take a back seat and let someone capable of subtle methods assist him. He began by repairing some of the long since broken ear pieces he had kept in a small box should he need them. They were too valuable to throw out, even if they sustained damage, due to their incredible range and secure channel. He could only hope Tracer had her chronal harness.
…
Lena couldn't tell if her eyes were open or closed. She couldn't feel her limbs, and it was complete and utter silence. She couldn't speak, but she could think, sadly. She wished with all her heart that she couldn't think. It was painful, an endless void of repeated thoughts.
She was lost in time once more. It was perpetual darkness, with no light in sight. It was nothing. Everything was nothing unless she was dreaming. The dreams were often terrible. The nothingness was terrible. Everything was terrible in her cruel world she went to without her harness.
She dreamt when she wasn't conscious. Sometimes she was self-aware, at times she wasn't. Sometimes the dreams were about herself; sometimes they were about some different soul in a different era. She never had control. She never had limbs to call her own or a voice with which to call out. She was alone, isolated, and silent when in the very essence of time itself.
Lena just existed. For hours. For days. For months. Maybe years. She couldn't tell. Every second was endless. She wished for nothing more than to be back in Watchpoint Gibraltar, with her chronal accelerator and Winston, her best friend. She wanted to be back with Angela, with Genji, with Jesse, with every other member, laughing and fighting at the base. She wanted to be with her team. With her friends. With her family. Not this horrible, lonely, world. She couldn't even hum a tune to break the deafening silence. She had no voice. When she reappeared in the present, how would she even get to Gibraltar? Would it be a better idea to get her accelerator first, or find a way to message Winston?
She felt herself slipping further, like slowly sinking into a hole. Terror gripped her heart. What would she experience this time? Would she be conscious? All at once, there was a blinding light.
…
Tracer was standing in a runway owned by Overwatch. Trees marked the beginning of a forest in the distance, along with a central control room painted a dull gray with the Overwatch logo painted carefully on every side of it in dark gray and orange color. One-way orange glass rounded each side, with a lighting beacon at the top, covered by a transparent glass dome.
A blue and yellow jet stood in front of Tracer, lean and aerodynamic. The paint coat was fresh, and the jet had not a scratch on it. Tracer herself was wearing a black and blue suit, covered in protective padding. An orange vest lay over that, with a white and orange lightning bolt trailing down the left half of her body. She had brown gloves and boots as well. They were soft and easy to wear, helping her be comfortable during the test flight.
She bounced up and down nervously yet eagerly as one of the engineers told her everything she needed to know about the jet. She listened carefully, despite already knowing everything the person was droning on about.
Several minutes later, the engineer left Tracer to head to the control room, and Winston could be seen trotting over to her.
"Cheers, Winston!" she greeted with pep. "Is something wrong?"
"Lena, are you sure about this?" he nervously asked, his large gorilla hands rubbing the ground nervously.
"Winston! Come on, love! It's Tracer, now!" she corrected him, bouncing up and down with jittery excitement, absentmindedly watching a squirrel that had found its way onto the runway, before scampering back to the forest.
"I'm serious, Lena! I don't want you getting hurt!"
"Come on, Winston! I'm one of the best out there! I'll be fine!" she assured, gazing eagerly at the jet.
"I believe it," he admitted worriedly. "But this ship is brand new, never having been tested. There are so many unknown factors. The teleportation matrix inside of it is very unreliable until we have solid data on how it reacts, but by that point, something bad could have happened."
"Winston! You worry too much!" Tracer scolded with a giggle. "You have nothing to worry about!"
"Alright, Tracer. Just be careful."
"You got it!"
A minute later, she heard Winston coming through the comm in her ear. "Okay, Le- I mean Tracer. You're cleared to get in the Slipstream."
Tracer let out a whoop, using a provided unfolding staircase to reach the ships level and unlock the small door, deftly crawling inside without any trace (haha, get it?) of a struggle.
The seat was a pale blue, and incredibly comfortable to sit in it. A rainbow of different buttons and switches covered the entire wall, all of their purposes Lena knew by heart. Once she received the word, she fired up the engine, listening to their steady, melodic buzz. She pressed the ignition, and the jet started rolling down the runway.
Adrenaline pumping, Tracer pressed down on the controls as the ship began its ascent. She let out a hearty laugh as the ground dropped away. This ship was fast, but that was what everyone had expected.
"Okay, Tracer. Take it easy at first. Fly it around for some time before trying to activate the translocator," Winston commanded, his voice steady.
"Aww, rubbish! You're no fun!" Tracer joked as she tested the Slipstream's essential functions. So far it performed as a typical dogfighting jet: the kind Tracer was best at flying. Lena flew, performing various stunts and tricks with the ship, watching the beautiful forest landscape below. There was no city for miles around this remote facility. It was an endless stretch of lush, green trees.
"Tracer, you're clear to fire up the translocator," Winston admitted after roughly half an hour, the nervousness returning to his voice.
"You got it!" She grinned, pressing one of the buttons on her handle. A high-pitched sound began to drone on in the background as the ship picked up speed, preparing to teleport. Lena laughed in exhilaration as she flew the ship. If all went well, she should teleport to the another facility on the other side of the extensive forest.
Suddenly, a droning alarm began to blare, lights flashing red. "Winston? What's wrong?" Tracer demanded as the Slipstream continued to speed up.
"Lena! Turn the ship around now! Get back here!"
With a jolt of the control stick, the ship was flying back towards the first base. "I can't stop it! What's wrong?" Lena cried, doing everything in her power to cut the translocator, but unable to.
"The teleportation matrix is malfunctioning! Lena! You have to bring the ship in for landing now! Hurry! The whole ship will blow if you don't!"
"Roger! I'll- AAAAAAAAAAAAGH! Lena let out an agonized scream, losing control of the ship. Electricity sparked straight through the rubber suit as though it were metal. It was painful. She felt like she was being shredded and ripped apart. It was like a million bullets piercing her body.
"LENA? LENA!" she heard Winston call, but the sound was distant. The shocking continued for several seconds, before subsiding. She was in no pain after that. In a panic, she tried to grasp the controls, but for some reason, she was unable to hold onto them. Lena cried out again.
"Winston! I can't grab the controls!" Then more shocking came. She screeched again. It was a ghostly wail that drowned out all the alarms and Winston's voice. She slumped in the chair, gasping heavily as the pain subsided as suddenly as it came. She still couldn't grasp the controls, and the ship was careening out of control.
The forest came up to meet her. "LENA!" she heard Winston cry one last time before the trees and plane met. There was a sea of fire; then Lena was claimed by darkness.
