"I hope you're not drifting off back there, Tracer. We've still got a lot of work to get through tonight. I know you must be tired…but would you mind staying awake just a bit longer?"
"…Go to hell."
"Ha! Cheers, love!"
Lena gritted her teeth as her captor returned to the workbench nearby. Strapped into a heavy restraining frame by her wrists and ankles, she had been placed inside a spacious, dimly lit tent near to the edge of the pit. Widowmaker had been called away with the guards, Reaper had characteristically disappeared, and she had last seen Emily being dragged away in the direction of a building on the far side of the camp. They'd only had time to exchange a brief glance, but despite the fear that Lena had seen in her eyes, she had also caught a flash of quiet determination. Closing her eyes, Lena whispered another vague prayer, hoping that she was still alive and unharmed, wherever she was.
The woman that Reaper had called Sombra was the only other person in the tent. She flitted around in the shadows, muttering to herself in Spanish as she manipulated holographic readouts that sprang from her fingertips. When she turned her back, Lena caught a glimpse of yet more cybernetic enhancements running down the back of her neck and presumably linking up to the device attached to the back of her coat. Whoever she was, she certainly seemed to be an influential figure within Talon, and yet Lena did not recall ever seeing her mugshot or her name in the extensive databases kept by Overwatch.
Ever the resourceful field agent, Lena scanned the tent for weapons and possible escape routes. Her pulse pistols were presumably still folded away inside her gauntlets, which were dangling from their straps next to the chronal accelerator. Lena had also seen the butt of a submachine gun protruding from beneath Sombra's coat. Before she could consider arming herself, however, she would need to get herself free of the heavy metal frame to which she was strapped.
"The chronal accelerator. I would have given anything to get my hands on this thing back in the day." The woman patted a bandolier of purple and black gadgets that was strapped to her coat. "It would have come in handy when I was designing these. Just going off the plans I stole from Overwatch took months."
"You stole it from Overwatch? How…and when? That device was top-secret." Got to keep her talking. With her captor's back turned, Lena went to work on the manacle around her right hand, using her slender fingers to loosen the clasps.
"What can I say? A girl just has to have the latest tech." Sombra chuckled as she ran a hand over the casing of the chronal accelerator. "Say, sometimes I feel a little sick when I use my translocator. I'm sure you know what I mean, Tracer. I guess I need to put in a little more work, once this is all over."
The purple holograms hovering around Sombra shifted, and Lena saw an image of her fingers manipulating the manacle flash across them. In an instant, Sombra whirled around and seized her right hand. A flash of purple light followed, and the restraints became painfully tight in response.
"Ahh…I'm sure it wouldn't be a problem…if you'd just disappear forever."
"What kind of talk is that? We've only just met." Sombra lifted the chronal accelerator off the bench and carried it over to Lena. She considered it for a moment, then pressed it to the chest of its owner and began attaching the straps.
"You're just some hired gun. What kind of a pay rise did he promise you?"
"Gabe, Gabe…he doesn't usually talk about payment like that. Must be a stressful mission, because I'm on a fixed contract with Talon." Sombra snorted. "Besides, I stopped caring about money a long time ago. Information is the only currency I deal in. Offering electronic money to a hacker like me…no me importa." Sombra clipped on Lena's gauntlets, and rolled her eyes when the Overwatch agent attempted to deploy her pulse pistols. "Don't bother, I've disabled the gesture controls."
Lena ran her tongue over her dry lips, considering the situation. "I've got plenty of information. I don't know what kind you're after, but if you helped Emily and I get out of here…"
"Any other day…I might have agreed. Too bad that there's nothing you know that I don't already." Sombra's purple eyebrows knitted together as a thoughtful expression crossed her face. "A shame, really. We have more in common than you think, Lena Oxton. Two young women…both orphans, if you like, each a hero to their own world. You, me…maybe even that pelirrojo of yours, hmm? What do you say? We'd make a pretty good team."
Lena rejected her offer with a barrage of insults that were enough to make the hacker giggle as she examined the core of the chronal accelerator. The blue light at the centre of the device flickered, then began to change colour, moving through dark blue to resemble Sombra's own shade of purple.
"Que salado eres, ha ha!" Sombra chuckled as she tightened the last of the straps. "But, Lena. I'll warn you – the next part of this operation won't be so funny."
Sombra seized the frame and spun it around, revealing to Lena what she had been working on behind her back. Illuminated by white strip lights, the rear portion of the tent was dominated by a pod, roughly double the height of the frame Lena was strapped to. Similar to the device she had glimpsed on the way into the camp, this pod was also connected to a number of computers and other machines by a network of wires and hoses, complete with theatrical puffs of white gas around the joints of the biggest pipes. The entire contraption was suspended only a few centimetres from the ground by a crane that protruded through the ceiling. Hanging as it was, Lena recalled seeing a similarly shaped object in Winston's lab in Gibraltar, dangling from the ceiling in his quarters. Some kind of space capsule, maybe?
"Not bad, hmm? Another Overwatch design. The white panelling gives it away. Not my choice of colour, you understand, but to be honest I didn't want to risk deviating from the original schematics. Too much other stuff could go wrong." Sombra kicked out the stoppers from under the wheeled frame Lena was strapped to, allowing her to drag her captive closer to the pod. As she did, the flaps of the tent to either side of her opened, and a handful of masked Talon operatives stepped in. "Like I said, you may not find the next part particularly enjoyable…but it's all necessary for the operation to work, I'm afraid."
Lena snarled and rattled her restraints. "If torture is part of your plan, then bring it on. I've trained to resist it."
Sombra sighed. "Very well, Lena. Just remember that we needed to make the environment as familiar for you as possible." Glowing rays of purple light shot from her gloves as Sombra interfaced with the pod, causing a hatch to spring open on the side. Lena only caught a glimpse of the interior of the pod – but it was enough to make her sharp wit dry up, and her blood run cold.
"Nothing personal, amiga."