Junkrat followed the others into the heart of King's Row – the command centre that had been referred to as The Meridian. This was, apparently, where the legendary Talon hacker named Sombra ruled. If Widowmaker was to be believed, this was where they'd find out where old Overwatch commanders were hiding, and possibly use their information to save Tracer's life.
Junkrat didn't give a damn about any of that.
In fact he was finding it hard to give a damn about anything at all. Since dying in Japan, and having his stole snatched away by Reaper, he felt disconnected to the world. He no longer had a drive to live, to survive. He cared about his old pal Road Hog more than anyone else, but even then it wasn't much. He'd seen Road Hog take a dozen bullets that day, and watched his flesh and bones plucked back together by Mercy. In a world of magic and spirits, what difference did one little Junker make?
The Meridian was really just a dark room filled with computers. Dark because the windows had been boarded up and no lights were on. Their leader, Omar, was an Englishman with African heritage, whose white teeth shone in the dim lighting.
'Come on,' he said. 'Sombra's this way.'
'I don't like this…' Soldier 76 muttered. 'What if the omnics…'
'You have nothing to fear,' a voice called. 'The technology is clean. There's no omnic virus here.'
Junkrat looked up with the others and saw a short Mexican woman. She was well dressed for the cold in a heavy black overcoat, and stylishly presented with a fade haircut, purple highlights, and a sneering grin. He liked the look of her instantly. Cool, calm, collected. There was a bulky glove on one hand which seemed to hum with electricity. She caught him looking at it.
'This glove,' she explained, 'is one of the most advanced pieces of tech I was able to salvage from before the Fallout. It's emitters are connected to every network, every frequency, in the world. But it's too advanced for the omnic virus to corrupt. I've been using it to clean and save as much tech as possible. It's how I got the computers running, and kept the lights on.' She gestured around. 'King's Row was once a criminal dungeon. Now it's a safe-haven. One of few left in the world.'
Widowmaker approached. The two women could not have been more different in appearance. Where Sombra was tan-skinned and flamboyant in her use of colour and fashion, Widowmaker stood tall and stark and square-shouldered. Widowmaker still had a tinge of blue to her skin from her time as a corpse, but otherwise wore a tight black suit with her hair tied back. Everything about her spoke of a need for stealth, for moving quickly and quietly. Whereas Sombra's outfit was made for comfort, moving slowly, allowing machines to take on the brunt of her needs.
'You look different,' Sombra mused, looking up at the taller woman.
Widowmaker nodded. 'So do you. But then, times have changed all of us.'
A moment longer they paused, just a foot or two apart. Junkrat had no idea if they were about to slap each other or kiss, the tension could've gone either way. But finally, the two embraced as friends.
'Hard to believe I haven't seen you in what, three years?'
'Something like that,' Widowmaker admitted. 'We were still hunting the Overwatch leaders when you left Talon.'
'We did our job, didn't we? Too well, perhaps.'
Junkrat didn't know what that meant. The others in the room were, apparently, thinking the same.
'Did your job too well?' Mercy asked.
Sombra shook her head. 'Come on. I'll put the kettle on, and you can introduce yourselves. Then I'll tell you the story.' She glanced over at her assistant, Omar. 'And you – make sure all the bodies outside are disposed properly. We don't want an uprising of the dead, do we?'
Omar nodded and disappeared.
After Widowmaker finished introducing everyone, the conversation continued to flow naturally. Sombra seemed very interested in Reaper, and his abilities. Less so in Mercy, who refused to give a demonstration of her healing magic. Cassidy and Soldier 76 hung back, largely silent, not wanting to step on the toes of anyone who might reveal important information.
'And what about you, big boy?' Sombra asked. 'We could use a guy like you around here. I saw you leading the troops through King's Row. Nothing takes you down, huh?'
Road Hog seemed chuffed by the compliment. 'Just helping the team,' he grunted. 'This is my mate, Junkrat.'
Sombra looked over Junkrat. He felt her beady little eyes boring into him, analysing him like a piece of equipment, deciding whether he was useful or not. He felt suddenly very underdressed. He'd taken off his shirt outside, as it was become tattered and burned from the wounds he'd taken. Now he was just a grimy, sweaty, skinny Australian. And worse still, he was getting cold. Sombra must've noticed.
'We'll get you a coat,' she said. But otherwise made no comment about him. He was not useful, clearly. Or maybe he just looked like a frail version of himself. That was to be expected. A soulless, fragile, empty shell…
'Keep it together,' said a voice in his mind. Reaper's of course. Junkrat looked over at the skull-faced warrior, but Reaper had not even turned his way.
Was this a secret message? Was Reaper communicating only to him?
'Be ready to fight,' came the voice a second time. This time, Junkrat was sure only he was hearing it. He wondered what Reaper's agenda was. But it didn't matter. As long as his soul was in Reaper's hands, Junkrat would do whatever he was told.
'So, darlin', tell us again about your time with Talon?' Cassidy prompted.
'Sure, cariño,' Sombra purred, 'I'll tell you. Unless Widowmaker wants to?'
The blue-skinned sniper had already found a place near the back of the room. She took a shot of tequila and shook her head.
'All yours.'
'So, then,' Sombra began. 'A while back, when the world started falling to shit, we knew a war was coming. Everyone started building up their armies. Omnic robot warriors on one side, clones on another, vast conglomerates of organised crime, you name it, someone thought it was the answer to the world's problems. But all it was doing was dividing us further. So an international task force was created. Overwatch. And for a while, they did some great things.'
Junkrat had followed the stories of Overwatch for a time, when he was a younger man. They'd talked about it at school. Trading cards and fan fiction were rife. There were enigmatic heroes, larger than life, such as Reinhardt. Reinhardt was a German man as big as a truck, who wore heavy armour in medieval style, built to help him charge into battle. He was assisted by the Scandinavian inventor Torbjörn, the sniper Ana, the bio-chemist Moira, the animal specialist Dr Winston, and more. Some of the world's most fearsome warriors and brilliant minds, all assembled in one place: their base of operations on the Mediterranean: Watchpoint Gibraltar.
Stories vary about what happened after that. Some said the power went to their heads. Some said they disagreed about who the enemy was and began fighting amongst themselves. Either way, it disbanded.
'They didn't just disband,' Sombra explained, as if she'd been reading Junkrat's thoughts. 'We were tasked with hunting them down. Talon, that is.'
Junkrat had heard a little about Talon already, from Widowmaker. They were a shadow organisation. The dark side of Overwatch.
'Reinhardt retired. Ana went into exile and disappeared. Moira was sent to prison for her human experiments. Dr Winston was allowed to continue his work on a farm at a secret location. Widowmaker killed a handful others. I broke into some of their databases and stole their information, and their tech. We dismantled Overwatch one secret at a time. But now, I'm starting to wonder if that really was the best thing to do…'
Sombra looked around, and sighed. 'Overwatch were the perfect scapegoat. Everyone liked to blame them because they were supposed to stop the world falling apart, but it fell apart anyway. Not that they really had the chance to do what they needed to.'
'Scapegoat?' Junkrat asked.
'Yep. Seems the world leaders wanted to blame Overwatch for the nuclear war. And the omnic virus. But the truth is, I don't think they were responsible at all. If anything, I think Talon was. But by the time I started investigating the people giving us orders, I was the new perfect scapegoat. I was sent here, locked away in the heart of King's Row, with the worst of the worst. I've been here since well before the Fallout.'
A hush fell over the group then. Mercy sipped her tea. Reaper said nothing. Soldier 76 kept his face emotionless, but Junkrat could tell the old man was thinking, lining up this new information with everything he'd been told, back in the day. Soldier 76 had already explained that his American clones had fought beside Overwatch, years ago. He thought they were heroes. Sombra thought the were falsely accused, but hadn't actually expressed an opinion about the Overwatch organisation itself. Not directly.
'Did you know all this, Widowmaker?' Mercy asked, looking over to the sniper.
Special Agent Lacroix nodded, ponytail bobbing behind her head. 'Most of it. When Sombra left, I was promoted. I did not argue with our superiors. When Talon was disbanded, I was sent to Soldier 76's facility, to direct the clones. But I never stopped thinking about what we had done. That's why I wanted to go to Japan.'
No one seemed to follow this line of thought, apart from, surprisingly, Road Hog. The big road warrior burped, then spoke.
'General Shimada… You wanted to kill him?'
Widowmaker nodded again. 'Most of the leaders of Talon were anonymous. We knew they were world leaders, but we did not know exactly who. So when I got the chance, I investigated in secret. It turns out most of the leaders of Talon were the same people who formed Overwatch. They were behind both teams, forcing each to attack the other. Playing us against each other so that everyone was busy but nothing actually got done. General Shimada was one of these leaders. That's why I killed him when we went to Japan.'
'Ah, so you did get him.' Sombra grinned. 'Excellent.'
'I think General Shimada was even more involved than that,' Widowmaker continued. 'I think he wanted the Fallout to happen. And helped create or fund the Omnic virus. The Japanese nation was perhaps the only one to survive completely unscathed.'
Some countries, or at least regions, had partially survived the Fallout. Others, like the US and China, had been decimated. Nothing remained but a few scavengers. If General Shimada really had been responsible for so much death, then his own assassination was too good of an end for him. He should have been tried and punished for what he did. But then, there were no more international courts to hold him. No fair jury to judge him. Death had perhaps been the only answer.
The group discussed this for some time. They all had opinions, but could not reach any answers. Mercy and Reaper, being angels of life and death respectively, did not know much about human politics. Junkrat did not much care. Soldier 76 had always done what he was told. Sombra and Widowmaker, really, were the only ones who knew enough about the shadowy behind-the-scenes machinations of the world to share ideas that might hold nuggets of truth. The others could only listen and absorb.
'But enough about all that,' Sombra said. 'What brings you to me? There must be a reason for you to break into King's Row and kill so many innocent civilians. Is it questions to be answered, or do you need my help with something?'
'Both, maybe,' Mercy said, taking leadership once again. 'We need you to find the old Overwatch networks, if they still exist. And, if you can, help us locate Dr Winston. If he's alive.'
Sombra nodded. 'I can do that, no trouble. Why?'
'Because there's a young girl travelling with us who…'
Mercy never got to finish her explanation. At that moment Tracer arrived, bursting through the doors at the speed of light, flickering in and out of existence. She dashed back, and ran through the door again. The loud, sudden, chaos of it all had the group on their feet and armed in an instant.
Tracer took several deep breaths. 'The time-travel thing is getting worse,' she said, gasping. 'I can't control it. I need to…'
She disappeared again. Then popped back into existence.
Mercy took over the explanation. 'We need Overwatch's scientists. They're the best in the world. Only they can save Tracer from this strange, chronal disease that is forcing her to become unstuck from temporal reality.'
Sombra nodded seriously. 'This is wild. Very strange. Muy interesante. Alright. I'll find Winston. But I can't promise that he's alive, alright?' The Mexican hacker turned to Widowmaker. 'So, a time traveller and an angel of death. Any other surprise visitors you want to tell me about?'
'We have General Shimada's son Hanzo captured in our ship,' Widowmaker said.
'Wow.' Sombra whistled. 'Nice work.'
'Actually, no.' Tracer took another deep breath and stared straight at Widowmaker. 'Hanzo escaped. Sorry.'
Sombra laughed. 'Shall we try that again? Any other surprise visitors you want to tell me about?'
Widowmaker sighed.
'No.'