Chapter 3: Rendevouz

Aliprando woke up to yelling when someone shook him. "-up! Wake up, Pendejo! We're about to hit the ground!"

He surged in his seat, grabbing the flight stick and pulling back hard. Sombra collapsed to her knees with a yelp from the G-forces. They barely managed to clear the trees at the swiss border to the Bodensee, startling the people walking on the coast paths.

He quickly stabilized the Jet, still holding his breath. He exhaled and turned his head towards the equally terrified Sombra.

"Pendejo, you do this one more time and I will shoot you." Aliprando blinked and tried to remember how to breathe. "Well, that was one terrifying way to wake up. What happened? Didn't you turn the autopilot on when you tried to kill me?"

Sombra slowly stood up, still slightly shaky and annoyance in her voice. "Well, pendejo, the autopilot is a slave program, not a master program. You slumped over the stick and pushed the nose down."

Aliprando looked forward out the front again. "Well, I was tired. Partly thanks to you."

Before they could drag the now starting argument further, the comms crackled to life. "This is Zurich Air control tower. Identify yourself, or we will send interceptors." Aliprando picked up the headset and put it on. "Zurich ATC, this is two-four-zero Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Mayday Mayday, two souls on board, we are losing engine power in engine 2 trough 4 and hydraulic pressure is dropping rapidly, requesting emergency landing on Airstrip 28. Repeat, requesting emergency landing on Airstrip 28. Over."

For a moment, the radio stayed quiet, before exploding with activity, mainly communication commanding other aircraft to divert course or stay in a holding pattern filled the airwaves.

"four-two-zero Whiskey tango foxtrot, Airspace is clear and you are cleared for emergency landing on Airstrip 28. We are on standby with emergency response units and Medical professionals. Repeat, you are cleared for landing on Airstrip 28, we have Firefighters and Medical teams on standby for arrival. Good luck. Over."

Aliprando took off the headset, turning to Sombra again. "So, ya think you can damage three engines and make the hydraulic system lose pressure?"

Sombra didn't bother asking why they were doing this, and pulled her SMG out. She walked back into the Cargo bay, smashing one of the windows on each side. She shot at the two right side engines, and at the inner left side engine, hoping that the massive flames coming out the back wouldn't set the rest of the plane on fire. As she heard the right engines lose speed, the plane violently rolled to the right.

She let out a string of curses and thanked the fact that Aliprando seemed to know his stuff when the plane stopped rolling, leaving them in a steep curve.

The prospect of losing the hydraulics in this situation because she made a hole too big wasn't very tempting however, so she left it alone and returned to the Cockpit. "Done, amigo. But I am not touching the Hydraulics." Aliprando was wrestling with the controls and answered with a strained voice. "Yes, I noticed. Now, you might want to buckle up, we're going to be coming in hot on Zurich. Turns out the gear was damaged when I took of from Mirny." He pulled the stick to the side with a grunt, bringing the plane horizontal again.

Sombra decided to heed his advice and sat in the co-pilot's seat, putting on the five-point harness.

Aliprando glanced at Sombra and asked "So, considering we'll both die if you kill me now, why don't we work together, Olivia?" Sombra turned to him, surprised anger contorting her face. "Yes, I know your name, surprise, but I won't tell anyone. Hack my phone if you need blackmail for peace of mind. But I likely will need your help in the future, as you need mine. I can offer you access to all Overwatch activities and their servers. In Exchange, I want your help diverting Talon from the actual Overwatch HQ."

Sombra laughed at him. "Pendejo, Overwatch is dead. Talon got rid of them a long time ago. But the Server access does sound juicy." She leaned towards him "But how would you be able to help? You have no affiliation with them, nor were you part of Blackwatch. How would you get me access?"

Aliprando smirked at her, despite the strain of keeping the plane stable. "I have my ways, as do you. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna try and get us down in one piece, we'll continue this once we escape the law enforcement. They won't take kindly to people stealing aircraft and then destroying them in another country."

Sombra didn't reply and braced for a hard landing by holding onto her armrests and pushing herself back into the seat as far as possible. She kept her gaze on the now approaching airstrip, hoping they'd get down in one piece. From the corner of her eye, she could see Aliprando now straining at the Stick to keep the Plane on course, as they were already leaning dangerously to the right.

To her surprise, Aliprando was also smiling widely, as if he was thoroughly enjoying the situation.
She was about to yell at him how he was still having fun in this situation when the plane touched the runway with a heavy thunk, followed by the scraping and screaming of metal against concrete.

The windshield cracked, sending splinters inside the cockpit. Sombra threw her arms up to shield her face, hearing Aliprando scream in pain. He let out a string of curses, but didn't get far into it as a sudden shock went through the plane, making the cockpit lurch into the air. It had broken off the rest of the Aircraft and was now tumbling down the runway. When it finally came to rest in the grass beside the runway, it was so beat up that it was barely recognizable as the nose of an Aircraft.

Sombra was barely conscious, looking over at Aliprando. He was bloodied, lying on the dashboard. His harness must have come loose.

Sombra remembered the approaching wailing of Sirens before passing out.

Three Hours earlier, Swiss Air Traffic Control Centre, 'Luftverkehr Schweiz', Dübendorf

John Bosch was grumpily getting himself a cup of coffee, cursing himself for deciding to be an IT Major all those years ago, when him and his friends were still fawning over having the best Gaming PC. Because of that, he was now stuck in a 5/7 job, that, while paying well, was quite frankly shit.

He had 4 emergency attendances, two of which on the weekend. All 4 of them took at least 5 hours individually to rectify, or at least get the machines to run again. Mostly hasty fixes that were stop gap measures, meaning he'd have to work on making permanent fixes.

And that was besides his actual job description of monitoring the skies for suspicious activities.

The only reason he even took the Job was because some of his closest friends died in a plane crash six years ago, which he found out to be orchestrated by some shady organization. He didn't find a name or location, but he managed to find some titbits. Admittedly though, he knew they'd lead him nowhere.

For that reason, he decided to help make the skies safer. Seeing that he wasn't fit to be an air marshal, he decided to start working for the Intelligence agencies, sending him to where he was now.

Using his not unimpressive abilities with anything logical to solve some Server issues. Great.

He took his now full cup of Coffee and went back to his desk. Thankfully, today seemed to be rather calm, with no weird bugs appearing yet. He froze for a second. I just jinxed myself, didn't I?

As if on Cue, the screen with the Air surveillance on it started showing a dot approaching swiss borders at almost ground level from the direction of… Germany? What the hell? Not only would German ATC announce the passing of an Aircraft into Swiss airspace, nobody with half a brain would willingly fly that low over the ground. "for fucks sake, I just really had to Jinx myself again…" John muttered under his breath, sighing.

He took a big sip of coffee, then rolled back his sleeves, getting ready to wear out some keycaps trying to find the issue of the code.

He worked away for almost an hour, but ultimately had to give up. He found no errors in the detection algorithm, the Radar itself was working fine as well and there wasn't anything weird going on with his terminal either.

He was about to call up Zurich ATC that there really was something, when a small window appeared on his screen.

'would you like to find out what happened to your friends in the plane crash?'
Y/N

He put the phone down and stared at the message. Who was this? How did they know he was still brooding over his dead friends after six years? Or, more importantly, how and why did they hack state of the art, AI reinforced, firewalls without triggering an alarm just to ask him that?

He hesitated for a moment, before ultimately deciding 'fuck it' and pressed Y.

'We can help you, but you must help us first. This also entails the unidentified aircraft approaching Zurich.'

He read the message, his jaw now slowly dropping lower.

'You see, the people on that plane know where to go to find the answers, but they will most likely be imprisoned the moment they touch down. The aircraft was stolen from the Russian Village Mirny and they have illegally crossed multiple borders.'

John was now fully slack jawed.

'So, we want you to help out. Go to Zurich Airport, make the staff believe whatever you make them believe in cases like this, and take the two of them with you to safety.'

John was not sure what to do. While he did have the authority to do what was asked, he had to file an appeal first. Not to mention he'd have to provide a reason to do so in the first place.

Then again, the People at ATC Zurich wouldn't know, right? He just had to hack into the system and forge an approved appeal, then drive to Zurich Airport, convince the staff that the appeal was very much not a joke, because, you know, government stuff, then successfully convince the police that the two refugees weren't dangerous and definitively of use to the Intelligence agency.

Easy as pie. Clearly not a lot for a simple Hacker-turned-IT.

The explanation window disappeared and a smaller window with the simple Y/N? took its place.

He deliberated further. Despite all the difficulty, there was a not inconsiderable chance that he'd find out at least something from the two Refugees. If he didn't, he'd have to ditch them somewhere and cover his tracks somehow.

The latter wouldn't be too hard for him, but it was still a risk.

But the prospect of finally finding at least a trace of what happened was too alluring.

He pressed Y again, making the window disappear. It reappeared a second later, only saying 'Thank you.'.

Now a slight smile on his face, he got to work on forging an approved appeal.

At the same time, at an Inn in Basel

Dan closed his laptop. Finding out this world's version of him was dead was not on his bucket list.
Much less pressuring this worlds version of another of his friends with the fact, and the empty promise of closure. The whole move left a bad taste in his mouth.

He sighed, stuffed his laptop in his duffle bag, then checked the chamber of his pistol and Holstered it. Picking up the duffle bag, he inserted a small earbud Headset in his left ear, leaving the room.

"So then," he sighed "That's done. Now off to Zurich Airport." He would have to apologize to John when the, likely upcoming, police chase was done and they were on their way to the next country.

The Headset crackled to life. "I Understand that this made you uncomfortable, but you had little choice but to do it this way, Daniel." Athena spoke in his ear. Dan sighed again. "I know, but lying to my friends and deceiving them is not my style. If this wasn't to prevent Aliprando from getting imprisoned, I'd not even consider it and throw you out immediately for even suggesting it."

Athena seemed to hesitate a second or two, and replied in a sombre tone. "… I'll keep that in mind." After another few seconds of silence, she spoke up again, this time with her normal voice.

"I have input the route in your car's navigation and readied the Music you requested. The tank is at approximately 87% and the tire pressure is optimal. I have finished Initialising the modules you installed, we should now be able to effectively jam communications at a range of up to five kilometres continuously."

Dan smiled again as he opened the garage door of the Inn, revealing his dear BMW M3. It's signal Orange finish made it stand out, but standing out was what he lived for after all.

He threw the duffle bag into the trunk and closed it with a thud. Sitting down behind the steering wheel, he turned the engine on, which roared to life. "Athena, do me a favour and make sure the Police won't get the call too early. I got a feeling John might be a few minutes late."

Athena spoke over the Car's Hi-Fi system this time. "What makes you say that?" she asked.

Dan smirked. "Intuition." He drove off with screeching tires.

Present time, Zurich Airport

As soon as the cockpit came to a halt, the Firefighters and Medical teams hit the gas. With screeching tires, they sped over the Runway towards where the Nose of the Aircraft hit, with half of them breaking off at the wreckage of the plane itself. Their sirens filled the air in an all-encompassing drone, underlined by their high-power engines roaring as they drove.

While the team searching the Fuselage of the Aircraft had to abort halfway through because the Fuselage collapsed, the team leader attending the Cockpit had more luck. He radioed the rest of the Responders. "This is Team Leader of Team 1, checking the cockpit, we found two people, one male and one female. Male is critically injured, likely spinal damage, Female is lightly injured, possible concussion. Repeat, both souls accounted for, need Medical teams at Cockpit. One Heavily injured, one lightly injured."

All he heard as Reply was static, leaving him perplexed. He looked over to the Team tending to the wreckage of the Fuselage, but none of the medical teams was moving towards them.

He let out a string of curses as the two medical staff that went with him started freeing the woman. They were making sure the Woman was out of harms way so they could attend to the Man that was slumped over the Dashboard.

Seeing as she was only lightly injured, he got one of them to follow him to tend to the heavily inured Man. When they started checking his vitals without moving him, the Man groaned.

Team leader and his attendee tried not to be too startled. There should be no way this man was conscious with his spinal cord bent so unnaturally like- the Team leader looked at the Man's back. It was now back to normal. When he looked back at his face, Aliprando opened his eyes and peeled himself away from the dashboard. He dragged a hand over his face, grunting "Well, that fucking hurt.", swaying as he started walking away and out of the Cockpit, directly to where the Sombra was lying.

"How hurt is she?" he asked the Team leader's assistant who was tending to her, like it was the most normal thing in the world. Said sense of normalcy led the assistant to answer honestly, not noticing who was talking to him. "She's got some bruises from the five-point harness, likely a murderous headache, but she seems fine otherwise. Her augments are worrying me however, I have never seen anything like it, so I can't promise that they will work as intended."

The Assistant turned to Aliprando at the end of his sentence, thinking he was talking to a firefighter or even his Team leader. He almost jumped when he saw the bloodied Aliprando looking down on Sombra.

Aliprando moved to Pick her up, as the Assistant pushed himself between them. "I can't let you pick her up. We need to run a full medical check-up on both of you before we let you anywhere near the exit." Aliprando just stared at the man. After a few seconds, however, he roughly pushed him aside.

"No offence, buddy, but I don't give jackshit about your Check-up. What you should take offence to, is what your girl and Team leader do behind your back." He said, throwing the unconscious Sombra over his shoulder.

The assistant froze, confusion on his face. "Dude, I'm- I'm gay. And single." Aliprando was walking away now. "Don't care. Have a nice day and whatnot."

Aliprando was walking towards the Airport terminals when the Team leader came running up behind him, stopping him by the arm. "Sir! Sir, I'm going to need you to come with me. You have several lacerations, and carrying unconscious people can seriously harm them. Please, follow me, I need to perform-" Aliprando whipped around, glaring at the Team leader's face. "First of all, I need to do fuck all for you, Secondly, my injuries are gone, and thirdly…" he put Sombra down, who was now stifling a giggle, "She's not unconscious. At least not for the last thirty seconds of your boring monologue."

The Team leader was about to retort when the Police finally arrived with wailing sirens. What took them so long? He thought for a second, but froze when he saw both Aliprando and Sombra dash towards the Terminals. He thought about running after them, but decided not to when he saw the police give chase.

Aliprando was making sure to not run ahead of Sombra, attempting to shield her from whatever the police planned on throwing at them. He had a Healing factor, but Sombra didn't. It was bad enough that she had to run as-is, no need to put even more strain on her.

"Hey Sombra!" he called to her "think you can do something about the police? I'm not keen on seeing a prison cell from the inside!" Sombra looked behind her, still running and grinned at him.

"Sure can, Amigo!" she pointed her open hand at the police cars chasing them, as multiple purple hexagons appeared and she started tapping them rapidly, still running towards the Terminals.

After a second or two, the frontmost car suddenly went full on its brakes, screeching to a halt and causing the two cars following it to curve around it, with the last one grazing it and spinning out.

The two cars still chasing them continued to quickly close the distance. Aliprando growled annoyedly.

"That takes care of two, but what about the others?" he asked as the two of them dove over a barrier, now almost at the Terminal. Sombra was clearly out of breath from the full-on sprint now, starting to slow down.

They were about two hundred meters from the terminal as the two police cars caught up with them.

Aliprando and Sombra stopped dead before the cars, as they screeched to a halt in front of them, all four policemen disembarking and aiming their pistols at them.

Aliprando scanned them and pushed Sombra behind him. He took a deep breath "MY NAME IS ALIPRANDO ALEXANDER DE GUERRI. I AM THE LEADER OF THE BLOODY LEGION. YOU WILL LET US PASS OR YOU WILL REGRET IT." Sombra hastily covered her ears as she winced from the sheer volume.

The policemen didn't move, but instead brought out a megaphone. "ALIPRANDO DE GUERRI IS DEAD. THE BLOODY LEGION HAS BEEN DISBANDED. CEASE YOUR ACTIONS AND COME WITH US QUIETLY OR WE WILL USE DEADLY FORCE."

"O, can you tell me if any of the four are corrupt?" Aliprando suddenly asked Sombra. She immediately got to work and pulled up registers, still shielded from the Policemen's sight behind Aliprando. "The one on the left is the only one who isn't corrupt. The second from the left has taken bribes to ignore rape and murder, the other two have raped people and used their authority to silence witnesses. Yikes, and I though America had bad cops."

Aliprando's expression darkened. "That makes two of us."

The Policemen started moving towards them as Aliprando materialised his blackened longsword.
"At least I won't feel bad about killing them now."

"Take the one on the left and don't kill him, please. Just knock him out." He said to Sombra, whispering again.

Before she could reply, he dashed forward. The Policemen retaliated by firing their guns, but Aliprando dodged the lethal hits, letting his healing factor deal with the grazes and cut the first policeman in half at his waist, sending blood towards the other three. His face was now contorted in a vicious snarl, teeth bared and eyes almost glowing yellow. The three remaining men kept firing at him but Aliprando was now genuinely pissed off. He leapt at the next corrupt cop and impaled him with his sword, grabbing his throat with his left, ripping it out. He swung the sword around, cutting the dead policeman's body up the middle in the process and released the sword, sending it flying towards the last corrupt policeman.

It embedded itself in his head.

The last man of the four was lying knocked out on the concrete, with a lightly terrified Sombra standing over him. "Alright, that was not how I pictured you. Your face rivals Reaper's right now. I'm not sure I can call you Guapo anymore."

Aliprando picked up his sword and let it disappear, "Gee, thanks." His face now slowly turning back to his passive expression. It'd almost feel calm again, if not for the blood staining Aliprando's clothes, a mix of his own as well as the now dead Policemen's.

He looked at Sombra. "Let's leave. We need to nab a car and ditch this place before the Luchs Unit shows up." He turned towards the Terminals again, taking Sombra by her arm, making her struggle against it.

"Let me go, pendejo, I can walk by myself!" She protested, ripping herself free and following him.

He shot her a sidelong glance, but kept walking. "Sorry. I'm just pissed off that I'm apparently not in a time slip, but a different world altogether, in addition to this world's me being dead, as well as my Squad being disbanded. Also, let's not forget the corrupt cops raping people." He was clearly struggling to contain himself.

"Sure thing, pendejo. Keep it to yourself, will you? I had no part in that!" Sombra complained, struggling to keep up with his pace, despite it just being a jog. Looks like the crash and fight were harder on her than she thought.

They entered the Terminal full of terrified civilians by smashing one of the big sight-seeing windows. The crowd that was watching the Crash and the Fight parted around them like the sea as they walked towards the Park deck. Some of them were holding up phones and cameras, clearly filming them.

Sombra chuckled as she disabled all the devices around. None shall see her.

They took the stairs down to the Park deck and entered the underground structure. They paused at the entrance when Aliprando suddenly froze at the sight of a Signal Orange M3.

Without saying a word, he took off towards it, skidding to a halt before it.

Behind the wheel was Dan, a smug grin on his face, feet up on the dashboard. "Sup, knobhead. Shitty landing you us showed there." He laughed as he got out of the car, grinning at Aliprando, who was also smiling.

"Still better than anything you've done. Last time you flew a Plane I had to explain to the Marshal why there were three destroyed jets instead of the usual one." They laughed as they hugged each other.

Still grinning, Dan pointed at Sombra slowly limping towards them. "Who's your plus one? Your new girl?"

Aliprando shrugged. "Just some random hacker that could eat you for breakfast." Dan acted exasperated. "Oh no you didn't! It's not even Christmas yet, and you bring me a slave for my basement? You shouldn't have!"

Sombra was getting more weirded out with each passing second. What did she get herself mixed up in this time? And just for some lousy server access, which she wasn't even sure she'd get.

Aliprando shoved Dan into the car again, waving at Sombra. "Heeey, Slowpoke, we're gonna leave without you if you don't hurry!"

Sombra muttered a string of curses and hobbled as fast as she could towards the car.

The second she was in, Aliprando hopped into the passenger seat in front of her and Dan started the engine. They drove off towards the next sublevel, confusing both Sombra and Aliprando.

"Dan, where are we going?" Aliprando asked, lifting an eyebrow. "I located this world's John Bosch and got him to help out. He's the reason the Luchs unit isn't showing up. We're meeting him at the emergency exit tunnel."

Aliprando gasped. "You did? What's he like? Is he like our John?" Dan chuckled in response. "Mostly. He's older than us and more fit than ours. Still got his shrewd sense of humour, so that's something."

They arrived at the second Sub-level in front of the Emergency evacuation tunnel. As Promised, John was waiting for them in front of it.

His eyes widened when he saw who was driving the Orange car. Dan stopped the car besides him, gesturing him to hop in. "Come on John, we can explain later! Hop in before they realise the appeal was forged! I'm not keen to go against the Luchs unit!"

As John didn't move, Aliprando got out of the car and shoved John in, then got back in himself.
The massive gate before them started opening with a creak as Sombra hacked the controls.

She took longer than expected and as Aliprando was about to quip something rude, he saw her face in the rear-view mirror. She was pale, dangerously so, and wheezing something unhealthy. He cursed under his breath. "Dan, hit the gas. Sombra is injured. Goddamnit, why didn't you tell me, O?"

He climbed over the seat and was crouching between John and Sombra, examining the injured Hacker. "Shit, you got a stomach wound! God fucking damnit, why didn't you tell me?"

She weakly grinned at him. "You didn't ask, Guapo..." before losing consciousness once more.
John finally snapped out of his shock now and started digging around in his pockets, producing a small medkit. "Move, Ali. I got Nanite gel, it will stop the bleeding." He said as he produced a small pad from the kit. He unwrapped it and slapped it on Sombra's stomach, Gelatinous side towards the wound.

Aliprando could almost see the gel dissolving into her skin. The bleeding stopped within seconds as the gel fused with the skin around the wound. After a few more seconds, the bullet that was still stuck in Sombra's stomach, was slowly pushed out.

She winced in her unconscious state. Aliprando looked to John, who nodded at him. "She won't die, but she's lost blood, and not just a bit. She'll likely be unconscious for another while. We need to lie her down on the backseats." Aliprando nodded. "Alright, lets do that. John, go to the front seat."

John wanted to protest, but did as he was told. He wouldn't push his friends away, now that he found them again after such a long time. "So, Dan, Aliprando. What happened? I was at your funeral, so how are you here?"

Dan remained quiet as Aliprando shuffled around in the back. He had laid Sombra down in Fetal position, her head resting on his right leg. Aliprando spoke up as he was certain that she wasn't going to slide off.

"It's a long story. And just as confusing." He finally said, sighing. "You sure you want to hear it?"

John swallowed audibly. "Yes. I've spent the last ten years looking for clues to what happened. I'm not gonna pass this up, confusing it may be."

Aliprando nodded in understanding. "We're not the Daniel and Aliprando that you know. I mean, we are, kind of, but we really aren't."

John let out the breath he didn't realise he was holding.

"The Daniel and Aliprando you know died in the plane crash." Daniel piped up. "I researched. The legion got in the way of Talon and the jet that your Dan and Ali were on got hit by them. Even Ali's healing factor couldn't recover from that."

John remained quiet and Aliprando spoke again. "We're from a different world, from what I gathered. I also seem to have been dragged along by Dan, and not Dan by me, seeing as I temporarily forgot some details. The last date I remember is the 5th of April, 2019. What about you, Dan?"

Dan seemed in though when he answered. "So do I. But what do you mean I dragged you along?"
Aliprando sighed. "Well, time to leave the cat outta the bag. If my healing factor wasn't indication enough, I am not human. I can access a subspace where I store my weapons, I can control electrons to a certain extent, have superhuman strength, as well as being move at speeds no human should be able to."

Dan and John processed this for a few seconds. John spoke up first. "So, you're what? An Alien? A Mutant? The random slave that escaped my basement yesterday?"

Aliprando chuckled at John's sudden display of his dark humour. "Not quite. Frankly, I don't know myself. I remember entangling Dan's and my Existence on the quantum level, hoping this would anchor me in that world. Seems that just made Dan's anchor weaker and then dragged me along."

John and Dan now looked confused. "You can mess with quantum relativity?" they asked in unison.

Aliprando nodded. "That, and some more, which I'd rather not get into. The less you two know about that topic, the safer you are."

"But, why this world? How did we get dragged here?" Dan asked, exasperation in his voice. Aliprando shook his head. "I don't know, Dan. We need to look for a connection between our world and this one if we want to find out why. But it could be something trivial, like us being at the exact same location in space and time, or something massive like someone passing between our worlds. It'd explain the forceful relocation. But right now, we're in a World where Overwatch Is -was- Real. They're currently disbanded, but will likely be recalled soon."

At this, Athena piped up, startling both John and Aliprando. "What makes you say that?"

Aliprando was frozen in place for a couple seconds. "Wh- is that Athena?!" He asked, pointing at the screen in the middle console.

"Yes." She replied courtly. Aliprando stared for another few seconds. "And I have not missed that there Is a Talon agent lying on your lap, judging from the fact that I cannot scan them."

A pistol appeared in Aliprando's hand, pointing at the console. "Don't try anything stupid, Athena. I know where Lena, Winston, Angela and most others are right now."

Dan hit the brakes. "WHAT THE FUCK ALI!" Aliprando barely managed to catch Sombra before she slid off the backseats. John didn't have as much luck, as his head hit the dashboard, making him swear in pain.

Dan turned around on the drivers' seat. "Alright, explain, NOW. How do you know, why are you threatening the people that are supposed to be the good guys, and also WHY THE HELL IS A TALON AGENT IN MY CAR?"

Aliprando glared at him. "Drive. We're going to get caught if you keep this up." "Ali." "Drive, will you?" "ALI."

"FINE. I made a deal with her that she'd get access to Athena's servers for her own ends, if she diverted Talon forces from Watchpoint: Gibraltar as long as possible." Aliprando snarled, crossing his arms.

Dan didn't believe what he heard. "You did WHAT? She's a villain! She needs to be dealt with!"
Aliprando scoffed. "You have no idea, Dan. She's the only person in Talon that we can trust. We need her to be able to effectively revive Overwatch and get rid of Talon."

Dan glared back at Aliprando. "And what makes you trust her? The little facts you know from game lore or that she somewhat resembles your ex? Hell, why are we even trying to save this world, shouldn't we be looking for a way back?"

John looked surprised. "Whoa, you had a girl in your world? The poor Woman."

Aliprando ignored John's comment and glared at Dan, but this time his glare was terrifying. "So what? It's the best we can do right now. Now drive, we can bicker about this later, when we're not being chased by police."

Dan glared for a few seconds longer, before shifting gears and driving off towards the border to Germany.

Athena spoke up again, surprising them with her suggestion. "I'm afraid I must agree with Aliprando. I would offer to make an Account with limited access to my faculties, in exchange of her diverting Talon's attention when necessary."

Aliprando grinned. "That should work. But for now, we need to go somewhere the Police won't follow and where we can patch Sombra up."

"Agreed. I will plot a route for you that is scarcely travelled and not patrolled. In the meantime, I will mobilize a Medical Team from the nearest underground Hospital." Athena replied as the Navigation system popped up.

Aliprando nodded, yawning. "Alright, glad we're on the same page. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm dead tired."

With that, he quickly fell asleep, snoring quietly. John and Daniel were lost in thought, so they spent the rest of the Trip in silence, only disrupted by Sombras occasional grunts of pain when Dan drove over manholes on purpose.

They managed to pass the border without issue and proceeded to make camp in the abandoned city of Eichenwalde. Sombra remained unconscious for another two days. They had decided not to take the help of the medical team that Athena had offered, relying on the Nanite tech that John carried on him.

They were worried about the residual radiation at first, but Dan's tech couldn't pick up any irregular radiation levels. They restored the power grid in the Town's hotel using the emergency Fusion-core generator in the basement.

Sombra departed shortly after waking up, but not before getting the Passcodes to Athena's network. To everyone's surprise, they actually had a loose comradery developing with her. She left with the promise of coming up with a cover story, for free this time.

Despite their budding comradery, they were sceptical of her promise at first. But, in the following year, despite their efforts to disrupt the few Talon actions they caught wind of, they weren't tracked down. If it really was thanks to Sombra or not, they couldn't know, as the attempt to establish contact would likely expose them, making Sombra's supposed effort pointless.

Furthermore, they had decided to not become overly active before the date Aliprando set as likely for the Recall. He had made his point in explaining that, if they interfered too early, it was entirely possible that what little they knew about this timeline would likely deviate, making it hard or even impossible to succeed in finding a way to effectively shut down Talon.

The three of them decided to follow that notion.

They watched in anguish the events unfolding as Aliprando had predicted them. Vishkar exploiting Rio, the ridiculous crime spree both Roadhog and Junkrat went on, the attack on Kurdistan by the Titan Omnic, the God AI Anubis almost breaking free, the thwarted attack on a Hypertrain as well as the eventual uprising in Rio, led by none other than Lucio Correia dos Santos.

And finally, the Recall.