IX
As Jack Morrison examined the map of the prison, he wasn't comforted by the straight line leading directly from the yard to the front exit. Processing read as green, a wide open door.
"That's a trap," said McCree, pointing, tipping a hat he kept forgetting wasn't there. There was a crowd formed around Jack, who was examining the wall panel on which the map was displayed.
"No, I'm sure they've got a nice little table set up for us there," grumbled Jack. "Cake, tea, all that shit."
"Laugh it up, Jackie-boy, we ain't goin' that way."
"That skull girl must think we're stupid," said Rat. He was still tinkering with something that was about the size and shape of a handgun, but bore no other resemblance. "That's a bowling alley, and we're the pins!"
"The rest of the facility is locked tight," said Zarya, ignoring the analogy. "That stretch is the only way out. I will bet anything that every single prisoner left is somewhere along that path. But there is nowhere else to go."
"Yeah there is," said McCree, dragging his finger across the map, towards the control room. "This way."
"That's… not a way out," said the Rat, not satisfied.
"Nope," said McCree with a smile. "It's a way in."
Jack took McCree's meaning immediately, and knew as well that there was no time to wait any longer, no time to explain. He downloaded the map to a wristwatch he'd looted from one of the guards and stepped away. "Then we have to move," said Jack, starting forward. The rest of the team followed, even the Rat, who was affording more attention to his project. "We don't do it fast, Sombra's going to start putting up walls."
"She's going to anyway," said Zarya. "As soon as we start coming for her."
"See this stretch right here?" Jack said without hesitation. He used the holo-projector function on the watch, and pointed to what appeared to be just another line of white in the hovering map. "We use this. The original plan was to sneak Zarya out to the helipad, it passes pretty close to the control tower."
"What is special about this hallway?" said Zarya.
"One hallway's just as good as another when you're gonna be fried anyhow," chimed in the Rat. His sentence was punctuated by a sharp metallic click from the unfinished gun followed a string of curses.
"Rotating maintenance," said McCree. "Inmates ain't supposed to know the schedule, but our man Winston managed to rustle it up. In our plan, the only people in that hall would have been techs rewiring everything. Now, it ain't gonna be anyone."
"No cameras and faulty wiring," said Jack, concluding. "It's a start."
Without a word, Hog pointed a massive finger down the corridor, in the opposite direction that they'd just agreed to go.
"You got a better idea, then?" Rat asked peevishly. "I'd like to hear it then."
Hog snorted, and somehow with this monosyllabic, wordless utterance, managed to say, "Would you look at where I'm pointing already, you idiot."
There was a mob of surly characters in prison grey rushing down the corridor brandishing all manner of improvised weaponry. At least twenty people, thought Jack, but he couldn't be sure.
"Company," said Jack. "Move now!"
Nodding, they all darted towards the dark spot in a flash. Jack took the lead, running faster than any of the others. He only prayed that the Hog and the Rat, by far the slowest of them, could keep up. Then, the green lights on the walls started blinking purple in a row, slowly at first, then speeding up, faster than any of them could run.
"Goddamnit move!" Jack said, pouring on speed. Maybe if he could get far enough ahead, he could get to the hatch. Maybe his enhancements would let him hold the door open long enough to let the others through. He looked back at the others, falling further behind, then ahead, where the closest green light was almost too distant to see.
"Hold this," someone said indistinctly, then overtook Jack, and the old soldier blinked in disbelief.
It was the Rat, bounding past with perturbing rapidness on his prosthetic leg. He had slipped into an eery, silent calm. His eyes followed something invisible to Jack's sight, something within the walls. As soon as Jack understood, the Rat had fired two explosive spheres at the wall, blowing the alloy open, and burning out a fuse beneath it.
"Come on, then!" Rat shouted back at them. "Or is the plan dying now?"
Of all things Jack could hear then, he heard gunshots. His mind switched into full tactical mode thinking of ways he could counter this before looking back and seeing McCree firing the weapon that Junkrat had just been tinkering with into the crowd.
"Ain't half bad!" McCree said, ecstatically firing off a round.
"Oi careful!" squeaked the Rat. "It ain't finished yet!"
McCree's face went icy white as his heart fell into his stomach, and stopped shooting. Jack slammed against the wall, right next to the double set of doors that led into the dark spot.
"Move!" Jack barked and gestured, unsure of what else to say. "Gun! I'll cover you!" he said to McCree, who was slipping in, joining Rat on the other side, but not before tossing the weapon over to Jack, seemingly happy to get rid of it. Jack shot the knees off an unusually quick inmate, who fell and was trampled by the stampede on his heels. Hog had slowed, and was firing into the mob with his own cobbled together weapon. He would have been the second to last one to enter, if the green light on the door did not suddenly blink purple.
Hog collided ass-first into the door. He roared, slamming his meaty fist against the alloy.
Jack's first thought was not a pleasant one. "Open up that door you son of a bitch!" he shouted at the traitorous Rat.
"Not my fault!" squeaked the Rat, muffled by the wall. "Door just closed by itself!"
Jack looked back at the advancing mob seized by adrenaline at the impossible situation bearing down on him. He couldn't take down twenty in a straight fight at the best of times. "Open it!" Jack bellowed, shooting three more knees.
"Like these goodies would let me do anything else," grumbled the Rat, loudly enough to be heard.
"Hold on, Jack, we've almost got it!" said McCree.
The Hog was stepping forward, and before Jack could ask what he was doing, he'd grabbed hold of one of the inmates and smashed his head against the wall, breaking his nose and leaving a red smear against the white. He then shot more junk into the crowd, making more red holes in prison grey as shrapnel passed through flesh.
Jack fired off two more bullets, but then the gun clicked empty. He instinctively reached for his ammo belt. Or where his ammo belt would be.
The inmates had separated out into waves. All of them were in a dead sprint, unwilling to accept aid from any of the others. After all, only one would be set free for killing Zarya. Jack holstered the uncomfortably hot gun in his greys, then smashed an inmate's head into his knee. Between his and the Hog's brutal efficiency, the mob had been scared into slowing down.
A simply gigantic thing that dwarfed even Zarya stepped forward. Jack was pretty sure that being that big qualified as a superpower and had no place in this wing, but he had no time to take it up with management. His squashed face was contorted into a barely human, battle-ready snarl. Jack steeled himself and threw a mighty punch into his gut, but may as well have punched stone. Before he had time to mutter any kind of expletive, he was thrown back by a counterpunch.
"Gun!" Jack shouted, hoping his voice carried over the growing rumble. The Hog whacked an inmate across the face with the gun, then tripped some more with his chain. Weaving away from the beastly creature chasing him, Jack tripped another prisoner, then delivered a swift, no-nonsense punch to his teeth on his way down.
He leaned forward and shouted into Hog's ear. "Gun!" he said again, but was pulled away immediately by a hand so rough it felt like stone. He was held by the shoulders, the beast looking into his face, breathing a putrid scent of rot and the faintest twinge of mint.
Jack asked for the gun again, though he figured it was futile. The Hog wouldn't really care if he died, didn't have a reason to. In desperation, Jack brought back his foot and prepared for a kick with all his might. What he was about to do was dirty fighting, but Jack was a little too near to death to care. He swung, aiming for the jewels, and he landed right where he'd intended to. But there were no 'jewels.'
"What in-" Jack muttered. She slammed him into the wall, only angered by the attempt, and Jack would die knowing that he'd spent all his options.
The Hog plunged his hand into a screaming Omnic's guts, metal crunching in his grip. "'Scuse me, gotta borrow these," he said under the Omnic's distorted shriek, and ripped out a mass of cables and chunky innards dripping with golden oil. He slammed this mass into his weapon, fired off a shot, clearing the four inmates in front of him away, then tossed the gun in Jack's direction.
Weakened as he was, Jack nearly missed catching it, and nearly couldn't lift what felt like a steel brick on a flimsy handle. But he did catch it, he did grip it, and he pressed to his attacker's leg, pulling the trigger, and knocking her down, screaming in pain and clutching her shredded leg. Jack dropped the gun, and swung at her face one last time, knocking her to the floor.
Hog snorted. "Shame. Pretty girl like her in a place like this," he said.
Jack's lip curled up at the remark before remembering that he had a fight to get back to. Or he thought he did. There were only five prisoners left standing. The rest were on the ground, or the walls, dead or dying.
Jack stared at the scene in disbelief. "You… You killed all of them?"
"Not all," said Hog. "Didn't want you getting rhetorical about it." He pointed in turn to some of the bodies. "That one," he'd say, or, "Not that one," or, "Maybe."
The door hissed open behind them. "Come on!" McCree said. "Get in… side." He trailed off, witnessing the carnage.
"Yeah," said Jack. "Me too."