Tracer blinks around the freight container back to safety, sending up a spray of gravel as she skids to a stop. Reaper pushes off where he's leaning on the van,
Sombra doesn't look up from her work on her halo-keyboard.
"All set," Tracer reports, "I wasn't seen, and patrols are sticking to basic formations. We're good to go."
Reaper grunts in approval and looks at Sombra.
"Well either Widow is awake, or the base has been infiltrated by gremlins," Sombra says.
"And," Tracer says, twirling her hand as if that will pull more information out of Sombra.
"And the security cameras are completely cut on several floors, that's all I've got."
"The cameras? Why didn't you hack their core system or something?"
"Golly gee!" Sombra theatrically clasps her hands to her cheeks, "Why didn't I think of that? Oh wait, I did, and it would take two weeks."
Tracer scowls. "You broke into Helix in seven seconds."
"Yeah, cause I'd been planning that job for six months."
"Both of you shut up," Reaper growls, "I'm trying to think."
Tracer frowns, something about Reaper's exasperation is almost familiar. Maybe he was a crime boss Overwatch busted before he started eating people? She dismisses the thought; she'd never forget a voice like his.
"Sombra, can you pull up a record of Widow's movements over the past 30 min?" Reaper asks.
"Well not exactly but I can review the location and timing of the blackouts," Sombra says, fingers already flying. She smiles when the information comes up, "Gotcha Azul ."
The smile slides off her face. "Uh, what are you doing? Oh. Uh, Boss, we've got a problem. She's not escaping."
"What do you mean she's not escaping?" Tracer asks.
"Shit." Reaper stands up straight. "Okay, change of plans, this is now an extraction mission. The trigger word and distraction will remain the same, but I'll be taking point. Tracer, Sombra, your job is to find Widowmaker. Tracer with your abilities you'll probably reach Widow first. If she doesn't recognize you, both of you run. I'll take care of her."
"What? No! Why?" Tracer sputters out.
Reaper faces Tracer directly, "She can't kill me."
Widowmaker makes her way up the dim interior of the elevator shaft climbing past two pale rectangular outlines before stopping at a third. It takes a bit to find the emergency release in the dimness, but her boot strikes it, and the stainless-steel doors slide open. Alarms are already blaring on this level, and she can hear a recorded woman's voice telling employees to Remain calm. Our best operatives are on the job. Your safety is our top priority.
The hunting knife streaks out of the elevator shaft and buries itself into the plastic dome of the hallway security camera and Widowmaker's stollen boots touch down on the shining tile floor. Without breaking her stride, Widowmaker reaches up and pulls the blade free of the plastic dome and turns the corner into the main hallways. Let's see what she's dealing with.
Down the hall to the left is a short man with dark skin in a lab coat. He stares at her, his eyes widening comedically before he turns and sprints away. The knife flies after him, the butt meets the back of his head with a thud. The scientist falls to the floor and lays still. Widowmaker looks behind her in time to catch a pale face peeking out from behind an office door retreat, the door locking after it. More people on this level but no security by the looks of it.
Widowmaker slips the scientist's ID card and lanyard off him, adding it to her collection. Time is running out; she needs to find something useful. She glances around and finds directional signs hanging from the ceiling. Even though they are in Italian a rough translation isn't too hard to figure out. One catches her eye and Widowmaker smiles.
Ufficio Sicurezza.
The Security Storage Room is small with a few tables, two walls covered in lockers, and shelves that hold boring things like packs of cocaine, blackmail files, and the burnt remains of a small quadruped robot. Pieces of grey metal and red lenses lay strewn out on one of the tables. A magnifying glass and bare computer chips slotted into an adaptor sit next to the stripped metal frame of Widowmaker's visor. A pile of lilac cloth lays beside it.
Widowmaker slips her fingers into the ripped seam of the bodysuit holding it up by the outer layer while the bullet-resistant material falls away limply. Her lip ticks down in disgust. No respect for personal property. Widow's Kiss isn't in sight, but the lockers are easily broken into with the help of a wrench. In the third one, she finds her rifle and grappling hook intact. Thumbing the release reveals five bullets in the magazine. Well, she'll just have to make every shot count then, won't she?
A strange sense of peace flows over her as she dawns her suit, hospital pants, wrist mount, and rifle. She's well aware this might be the last time she does any of these actions, but the concept has lost its sting. Life is funny like that she muses, as she tugs the gaudy stylized 'W' zipper to the hollow of her throat.
The camera room is clearly where the majority of the surveillance budget went with its facial recognition software, real-time tracking, and shiny new coffee machine. Of course, she's destroyed roughly a fifth of the indoor cameras, but the external and warehouse feeds are unscathed. Not that watching the injured Talon Strike team being carted away, a white delivery van pull up, or parked cars flicker were going to spark any groundbreaking revelations but she'll take what she can get.
On the screen showing the delivery bay a figure entirely clad in black with various decorative spikes and a white skull mask steps out the delivery van carrying two shotguns, also black, one in each hand.
Widowmaker stares at the screen.
"Reaper, what the fuck?"
If his sudden appearance had the Talon flunkies acting like a Drill Sergeant had announced a surprise inspection, then leveling his shotguns at the guards sent them into a whole new level of panic.
To their credit, the guards drew their weapons with minimal fumbling and the hourly workers scrambled for cover while a new alarm started blaring. But the guards just stood there shouting at him and each other, unwilling to make the first move. His earpiece helpfully translates.
"Is that Operative Reaper?"
"I thought he worked for us!"
"I'm a free agent," Reaper says and open fires.
Widowmaker stares, watching Reaper shadow-step around the delivery bay blasting guards and avoiding clumsy pulse fire.
You're an ambush predator Reyes, what are you doing?
A sharp crack and the bang of the door flying open pulls Widowmaker away from Reaper's current bout of insanity to see a Talon Strike operative standing in the doorway of the camera room. Kicking the door open was unnecessary, it wasn't even locked.
Widowmaker glances at the intruder; woman, pale skin, mid-thirties, artificially gray hair, pixie cut, only wearing half of her uniform, no helmet, no armor, a square tattoo with the letters Ag peak out from her inner forearm, silver flashes from her fingertips, and anger radiates off her. Oh, look she has a theme, how cute.
"Gotcha," the woman hisses with an American accent.
Widowmaker arches an eyebrow. "Do I know you?"
The woman gives her a tight-lipped grin, a feral gleam in her steel gray eyes.
"The name's Silver. My team brought you in, then you humiliated them." Silver cracks her knuckles in what she thinks is an intimidating manner. "My instructions are to bring you back alive, not undamaged, so please, feel free to resist."
Look who else has greatly overestimated the number of fucks she gives.
The hunting knife streaks through the air, only to stop a hair's breadth away from Silver's skull. Two pale fingers clamped around the last bit of the handle. Reaper would have done better.
She does not have time for a discount SEP soldier.
The shot rings out with a crack, even with the suppressor it's painfully loud in such a small room. Silver's head whips back. Widowmaker doesn't even need to check to know the Widow's Kiss hit dead center. Now, back to business.
Only the dull thud of the body hitting the floor never comes. Instead, a very specific sound she's only familiar with from all the time she's spent sparring with Reaper reaches her ears. The sound of bones knitting themselves back together.
Widowmaker looks back in time to see Silver, catch herself, stumble forward, bent over, her face hidden by her position. There's a plink and something metallic falls from the woman's face to the tile floor. It's the bullet, completely flattened like it hit a wall.
Silver jerks upright meeting Widowmaker's gaze. There's a sickening pop as the plates of her skull snap back into place. What looks to be liquid mercury drips down her face from the point of impact, a neat little hole the size of a ten-cent piece in the middle of her forehead. More of the silver liquid flows out of the wound moving sideways and upwards until a silver band is formed. The liquid stops flowing, visibly hardening, turning into a curved piece of metal, like a headpiece.
"So, you want to play hardball?"
Silver flips the knife around getting a better grip and moving into an offensive stance. She grins, revealing gleaming metal teeth, more liquid mercury seeps out of her pores, solidifying into spikes protruding from her knuckles.
"We can play hardball."
It appears she's made a slight miscalculation.
Notes: Ufficio Sicurezza - security office Introducing my first offical OC, Silver!
Second gen American SEP solider turned mercenary after Overwatch's fall from grace. An update? In this economy?
I have three 1-2k ish chapter drafts I will be putting up once a month. I'm still in med school! Can you believe it? Neither can I *sobs* For real I have three more months to go before I graduate. BUT I still have to take a Boards Exam before I can get my license so I'm still constantly studying for that. :/ Obv my free time is limited but I will finish Sass. I just have no timeline.