Éveiller – French, verb, awaken
And now back to our regularly scheduled ass kicking.
To fully experience this chapter the author recommends listening to Survivor Epic cover watch?v=JGuWb_81als from the beginning of the chapter or Brand New Numb watch?v=dXOA4XAt_G0 starting with the fight scene. You'll know when the fight scene begins.
[LOCATION: UNKNOWN. DATE: UNKNOWN. TIME: UNKNOWN. (PRESENT)]
"Mactans."
Nothing.
The blue-skinned woman in a hospital gown and pants doesn't even twitch. Thick eyebrows furrow in frustration and the Talon scientist repeats the word. The Latin rolls off his tongue with ease but still operative Widowmaker doesn't respond. He glances at the operative's vitals, still unconscious. Frowning the tan-skinned man grabs the remote to the chair restraining her and moves closer to the slouched form.
"What are you doing?" his partner calls out from the other side of the room standing between two leery guards watching the whole thing.
"Mactans." Again, no response. "I just want to do a system check; we need to see what type of condition the operative is in."
"A level III operative."
"She's restrained and offline. If the retrieval team broke her, we need to know so we aren't blamed."
His partner makes a face, causing the skin around his scars and cybernetic eye to bunch up. "Fine, fine," he says with a wave, "It's your funeral."
The scientist crouches in front of the unconscious operative and reaches for her face, he needs to check her pupils for reactivity.
Widowmaker rams the crown of her head into his nose as hard as she can. She feels the cartilage crumble under the force. The scientist grabs on to the chair in an attempt to keep his balance. While the man is still reeling, Widowmaker clenches his tie between her teeth and twists her entire body to the right as hard as she can. Her left shoulder pops. The scientist pitches to the right, his head collides with the corner of a filing cabinet. He collapses to the floor blood dripping from his temple. She crushes the release button on the remote now in her hand. The metal restraints snap open. Widowmaker leaps out of the chair.
"Ha!" she exclaims. The Talon guards stare at her frozen in place.
"Shoot her!" the other scientist roars.
The guards open fire. Widowmaker dives to the ground, her shoulder clicks back into place, and pops up under a lab table. She knocks it onto its side and takes cover under the heavy steel. Plastic cracks, papers scatter across the floor, and pulse blasts gouge holes in everything. She needs to get out of here, now.
"Stun! Stun!" Cries the first scientist who's pulling himself up off the floor. "Override 114!"
The pulse fire drops in pitch and the shots stops chewing through the table, but they still rattle it with every impact.
Alright then, Widowmaker thinks unscrewing one of the table's legs, she can work with this.
"What are you doing?" Screeches the scientist with a cybernetic eye pushing his way past the guards to a panel on the wall.
"Do you have any idea how much she's worth?" the bleeding one screams back.
Widowmaker peaks out through the hole of molten metal zeroing in on her target. Step one, stop the alarm.
"She will kill us!"
"And O'Deorain will do worse than that!"
A flick of her wrist sends a metal rod across the room and embeds it in the center of a touchpad on the opposite wall. Spiderweb cracks fan out from the center, it's light flickers and dies. The guards rush at her.
Two, secure an exit.
The scientist in the back takes off sprinting down the room towards the exit. The other finally comes to full standing, blood running down his face. He takes a deep breath. Widowmaker's eyes narrow.
"Latrod-"
He's cut off as the second desk leg hits him square in the temple and then pinwheels to the other side of the room slamming into the head of the retreating scientist. He falls flat on his face through the open doorway. Both of the guards look away for a split second.
Three, don't die.
Bracing the third leg on her shoulder Widowmaker stands, lifting the table onto its short edge, with a grunt she throws it forward.
The slab of steel falls. Widowmaker ducks behind a row of workstations. She hears a deep thud, shouts, and tile cracking. Darting out she takes in the scene. One guard is half pinned under the table the other has his back to her. This opportunity won't last long.
The final steel leg nails the standing guard's helmet cracking the faceplate, a perfect shot. Lightning fast she puts the guard's arm into a wrist lock and pulls. Something gives. The pulse rifle slips from his grasp. A wild punch grazes her temple but she's already sprinting away.
Widowmaker slides to a stop, drops to one knee, levels the guard's helmet with the sight, and pulls the trigger.
"Et c'est comme ça."
An error sound rings out and the pulse rifle handle flashes red. "Unidentified user," a flat voice informs her.
The guard has ripped off his helmet and is lunging at her.
"Merde," she spits.
Widowmaker clutches the gun to her chest and rolls backward over a table jumping out of the man's reach. She lands, kicks the table into his gut, and takes off. They're bigger and stronger than she is her only option is to outmaneuver them. Reye's advice ringing in her ears, Your fighting style will be used against you as soon as the enemy figures out what the fuck you're doing. Don't let them.
She weaves between chairs, knocking over file cabinets and slides under desks, making random pivots whenever she can. It works, but space is limited, and she ends up circling back sooner than expected.
The strap of the pulse rifle suddenly becomes taut and cuts into her sternum. A beefy arm wraps around her in a half-nelson.
"Gottcha bitch!" the guard she dropped a table on exclaims.
Widowmaker struggles, already working towards another escape.
"Hold her," the other one says, taking several attempts to pull out a large hunting knife with his unbroken hand.
Merde.
She raises her left knee and slams the heel of her foot through her captor's knee as hard as she can. His leg folds backward, he goes down screaming. The other one is already advancing slicing the air.
Widowmaker dances out of the blade's range with only a few nicks but she can't evade forever. Her opponent controls the fight now. She needs to end this.
Her thigh hits a table. She stumbles. The guard shifts his weight, lunges. The knife comes shooting towards her. Widowmaker twists her body and reaches for the knife. The blade slips through her hands and slices her hospital gown. The guard is in range. Widowmaker clamps down on his arm, shoves her heel into his instep, turns pushing her back into his front, and pulls.
He rolls over her back and slams into the ground. The air leaves his lungs in a gasp. His unprotected head bounces off the tiles on impact. He tried to reduce the impact but the shock rolls down his limbs. The knife slips from his fingers.
He's easily neutralized after that.
Her breathing is still ragged by the time Widowmaker has centered herself enough to re-evaluate her situation. The cuts sting in the open air, but none of them are deep. All other aches and pains have been washed away in the wave of pure adrenaline racing through her veins. She hasn't felt a rush like this in years. It might be the last one she ever experiences.
The room is a disaster; one side riddled with bullet holes, chairs broken in half, plastic debris covers the floor, a florescent bulb swings from the ceiling, the automatic door keeps attempting to close on the second scientist, ramming into his side with a whoosh.
One Talon employee dead, two with head injuries, and one incapacitated still moaning on the floor. No alarms yet, they must have cleared the floor, but it won't stay that way for long.
She needs to know where she is. She needs to know how long she's been out.
Widowmaker strides over the remaining guard. Ripping off his helmet she levels the bloody knife at his face.
"You still have another knee and ten fingers. I recommend you cooperate."
The Talon guard nods, his eyes red, snot dripping from his nose.
"Location. Date."
"The Miano Base, Naples. August [23rd]," he grits out.
Widowmaker blinks. It's still the same day, she's only lost a handful of hours and of course, she's still in Italy.
She starts pacing. Nothing ever happens at the Naples location, it's essentially a giant storage unit or artifacts and stolen scientific advancements. It's a checkpoint, she's been dropped here before being transported to her final destination. The good news, they won't be expecting her, the location is designed to keep people out not in. The bad news, she's vastly outnumbered with none of her gear, weapons, or backup, someone here knows how to play her like a damned fiddle, there's only one person left like that. She needs a plan, she needs intelligence, she needs-
"Ah!" Widowmaker yanks her barefoot off the plastic shard she just stepped on.
Shoes. She needs shoes. A wave of hair falls over her face. She blows it out of the way. And a hair tie.
Taking a deep breath, she clenches her trembling fingers into a fist. No more. No more panicking. She is better than this. She is stronger, faster, smarter than last time.
She is Amélie fucking Lacroix and she is the goddamned Widowmaker.
And Talon is going to regret everything.
Moira trails her finger over the report, careful not to skip a digit. Confirmation bias was a hard to shake when one was so invested in their work. But the results were exactly as she hoped.
"The nanites are reacting to the electrical impulses from your nervous system, not just the other various chemical factors," she remarks, "Incredible."
The other occupant of her office, a middle-aged woman with short gray hair, scoffs. "That's great and all Doc but you said you could get it out."
"Patience, Silver, patience," Moira chides skimming through the files of the second-generation SEP formula. "Altering a person's biology is a delicate process as it is, but in your case, you also risk extreme central and peripheral nervous system damage."
Silver grumbles but Moira's attention is drawn to the clock on her data pad. Is it that time already? She dials Dr Khatri. The little red claw icon circles three and then four times. The call ended due to no response. Frowning Moira calls him again. No answer.
This time she uses her code to override and turn on Dr Khatri's camera. What she's shown looks like a warzone. The lab room has been completely overturned, bullet holes everywhere, and a handful of bodies are scattered on the floor. One man is dead, the other is dragging himself towards the door.
She lets a long slow breath out of her nose. She sees her instructions were ignored and now she has to clean up someone else's mess. Typical.
Moira turns back to her guest. "Squadron Leader I have another job for you and your team."
Translations
"Mactans." – Latin, species name of Southern Black Widow
"Et c'est comme ça." – And that's how it is.
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