Skates and heels scrambled on the cobbled streets of Dorado, cloaked in a faint layer of fog. No sooner had they traveled through the teleporter before Satya began to dismantle it, folding the structure in on itself and dissolving it in a flash of hard light that no Los Muertos could follow through. The three were soon consumed by the darkness of the alleyway.
"Wait a minute, "the thief started, watching as she maneuvered her hands with the glowing and fading architecture. "I know this tech-"
"That was amazing!" the girl in his arms interrupted. "Are you one of those heroes?"
"Are you referring to me?" Satya asked. Despite being carried in the arms of an international celebrity, the girl had not taken her wide eyes from her. "What heroes do you mean?"
"Los Protectores. Overwatch."
Satya stifled the instinct to laugh at the mere idea. "No, I am not."
"Who are you?"
Who was she? At the moment, recovering from a failed mission under Viskhar's orders, her moniker must be Symmetra. However, it was not a moniker appropriate to disclose to a civilian and Viskhar's greatest enemy. No, she may be safer with her true name.
"Satya," she said simply. The girl's intense gaze continued to linger, as if waiting for an elaborated response. Satya grew uncomfortable under the pairs of staring eyes. She could feel the thief studying her, able for the first time to truly soak in her appearance. Surely her heritage, her costume, and her technology, was not new to him.
"I'm Lúcio," the thief spoke to save her from the silence. "What's your name?"
"I'm Alejandra," the girl said, finally recognizing the arms she was carried in. "I know you! I wanted to be at your concert tonight, so I snuck out of the bakery and... oh, mama is going to kill me when she sees me like this!" Alejandra winced at the pain that had now erupted in her leg as the daze adrenaline had gifted her began to fade.
"Hey, no worries," the thief said, voice soft. "We'll take you home and explain this all to your mother. I'm sure she'll believe you if I'm there. Where do you live?"
"I live above the bakery, just across the market." Alejandra pointed to the plaza, the only source of light that peeked into the alleyway. "Through here."
The thief took a step before Satya stilled him with a command. "Stop. We cannot take this path."
"Why not?"
"Los Muertos are looking for us," Satya said, "and you and I are not fit to blend into a crowd. We should use the alleyways. We will be better hidden."
"Who are Los Muertos?" The thief asked, ignoring her suggestion. "Are they the guys that attacked the concert? Do you know what happened back there? That whole situation was crazy!"
Satya grimaced. Perhaps she had disclosed too much. She was not prepared to answer his barrage of questions. "Los Muertos is an organization of lawless Mexican freedom fighters. The woman we left behind was working with them and had told me they wanted something to do with you, but did not tell me why. That is all I know."
"Los Muertos aren't freedom fighters. They're bullies," Alejandra scowled. "They nearly got me killed once before. They say they care about Mexico, but they only care about themselves."
Freedom fighters, bullies, thieves. To Satya they were one in the same.
The thief glared hard at the wall in thought, then to Satya. "You said they were looking for us. What do they want with you?"
"I…" Satya bit her tongue, searching for the correct sequence of words. She could not let the thief know of the Vishkar employment that was so fundamental to the reason the mystery woman was searching for her; with no way of communicating with Sanjay now that her headset was left somewhere in Dorado's underground, there would be no way of guaranteeing her safety should the thief find out about the employment. "She would not tell me the reason for this, only that they are looking for us both."
"Alright fine, I guess this is what we're dealing with." The thief shook his head, as if trying to shake the happenings of the night from his memory. "You'll need to tell me where to go, Alejandra."
"Take a right down this way," she pointed to a connecting alleyway, and they started their trek in the shadows.
Satya was in no mood for conversation, and in no mood for silence. That the thief could satisfy her mood by striking conversation with the girl, and not herself, admittedly gifted her relief. The bells that continued to echo into the night soothed her nerves.
"So, Alejandra," he started, "sounds like you're a fan of Overwatch."
"They're heroes," she said, suddenly reverent. "Mama tells me stories about them all the time. One of them saved my life from Los Muertos."
"Really? Which one?"
"Soldado: 76."
"What, that guy that's going around attacking random places? He's not from Overwatch, is he?"
"I think he is."
"Well, you know, I've met some real Overwatch members," the thief flashed the shine of his teeth. "One of the perks of fame, I guess. I've met Tracer, Winston, Mercy, Reinhardt, even . Now I know she isn't from Overwatch, but she's a hero to her country. I know all about that feeling you get when you meet your heroes. I even got 's autograph."
"You're a hero too," Alejandra said. "You saved your city from Vishkar. I just wanted to help you do the same thing for my home, for Dorado."
Satya grinded her teeth to the rhythm of stone rolling under her heels. What was there to be saved from? Order? Peace?
"Well thanks, I appreciate it. Anyone can be a hero if they do the right thing." He turned to face the straggler following behind. "What about you, Satya? Any heroes in your life you look up to?"
She did not want to participate in the conversation. Heroes inspire freedom fighters, freedom fighters inspire chaos. Idolatry of people over ideas would not progress the future of humanity. Only discipline, only the work of organized individuals, only Vishkar, would do that.
"I do not believe in heroes," she replied instead. Simple. Unremarkable. Undetectable.
"Oh, come on, I'm sure you've got someone you look up to a little."
Sanjay, possibly, filled this role. He was not her hero, he was her colleague. Yet, he commanded the respect of his peers and the reverence of those under his command. Satya found admiration in his efficiency and charisma. If she could give a face to Vishkar, it would be his.
"I have an acquaintance I respect. Nothing more."
"Well, it's something at least."
"I think you're both heroes. Do you know each other?" Alejandra asked as she pointed a new direction down a new dark alleyway, nearly identical to the last.
Neither answered her question immediately. They looked to each other, awaiting a response from the other. She had expected her own silence – of course she knew of him, how could she not, but it was not her place to reveal just how much she knew about him. It was his silence that troubled her. It was in his silence that he perhaps saw a hint of fear in her eyes.
"Yes," he finally answered. Satya felt her cheeks and ears rush with heated blood. Had he known who she was?
"Satya is the light technician for my concerts," the thief lied. "She's responsible for all the awesome lighting effects that you saw happening on stage. She's a new hire though, so we're still getting to know each other."
Brilliant.
"Yes, of course. That was why I was there." Satya nodded to reassure the girl and reinforce the lie. She looked to the thief again. He turned his head away from Alejandra and towards her, mouthing to her a word she interpreted as "later." The girl seemed satisfied with the answer. It was a clever one. It accounted for her hard light equipment, her unique wardrobe, her appearance in an underground concert in the heart of Dorado. It was a lie too perfect. The beating of blood through her extremities did not cease as she thought of the possibilities "later" entailed. She may well be a hostage.
"The bakery is around the corner," Alejandra said, pointing to the end of the final alleyway. Satya and the thief crouched by the edge of the wall, inspecting the illuminated thoroughfare that was their final obstacle to the building.
"Wait," Alejandra ordered, squinting into the crowd. "Those guys over there by the market, they're Los Muertos. I recognize them. Wait until they're gone."
The men were just as large and intimidating as the thugs that attacked the concert. Leather-clad, spiked, tattooed, just as Satya imagined when she first prepared for this mission. It seemed as if they were asking around for something – something Satya could very well assume. They never received an acceptable answer, and they roughened up some of the civilians and especially the omnic ones before hopping on their car and taking off down the street.
"Okay, it should be clear," Alejandra said. Satya and the thief rushed through the crowd towards the bakery, receiving cold stares from the civilians that no doubt recognized them from the description Los Muertos had given them just moments ago.
Making their way up the steps, Satya glanced up at the sign above the door. Panadería Las Nieblas. Of her Vishkar-mandated courses in Spanish, she recognized "Panadería" as "bakery", but the remaining translation eluded her.
"I require a translation," Satya demanded of the thief.
"You know I'm Brazilian, right? We speak Portuguese, not Spanish."
"They are sister languages, are they not? Surely you can still read this."
The thief sighed, before replying "The Mist Bakery."
Satya knocked on the door to The Mist Bakery, and no sooner did her knuckle leave the wood that it opened to a full female face wrought with wrinkles and worry. The face was framed with pulled-back hair, rich brunette with signs of gray. The woman eagerly took her daughter from the thief's arms.
"Mija! I was so scared, it was so late and I didn't know where you had gone! What happened to you? Who are these people with you?"
"Careful, mama! My leg is broken."
"Oh, mija! How did you break it?"
"I'll tell you about it inside. I need to let my friends in, too."
The woman inspected the two strangers that awaited the sanctuary of her bakery. Her eyes were hard and narrow while scanning over Satya – no doubt she was an obvious foreigner, Indian, and suspicious during a time when an Indian corporation was staking claims in the city. But the woman's eyes were not so as they jumped to the thief. They were wide, just a bright and brown and beautiful as her daughters. "Wait, you're – "
Alejandra nodded. "Si, mama, it's Lúcio."
"Lúcio!" The woman did not know what emotion to feel. "What are you doing here?"
"Los Muertos are looking for me and my friend. We need a place to lay low for the night. I don't mean to put you or your daughter in any danger, but we would be grateful if you could help us."
With the title of Lucio's friend, Satya no longer received the cold, narrowed stare of the woman, but instead the same large, warm one she had reserved for the thief. Satya was not sure whether she felt comforted by her reaction or insulted to be given such a title.
"Of course, come in."
The bakery was still warm from the heat of the ovens, and the bright yellow and rust paint seemed to capture the light of day after the sun had already set. Alejandra's mother set her down gently in a wood chair, inspecting the bruised and twisted leg. "It doesn't look good, mija. I can't take you to a doctor this late at night. I'll have to make a splint for you out of something."
"I can help," Satya said, kneeling down with the woman to inspect the leg with her – not for a medical assessment, but for a measurement. With a few whisks of her hand, a hard light construct formed around Alejandra's leg in blue light, and with another whisk of her hand, it solidified into an ivory white cast.
"Who are you?" The woman asked, her eyes slowly returning to their narrowed state.
"This is Satya." The thief placed his hand on Satya's shoulder as he spoke. Her muscles contracted at the touch, and he took the cue to let go. "She's the light technician for my concerts. She does some incredible set designs with her tech. You see she can make just about anything."
"Oh, I see," the woman said, eyelids again retreating from suspicious squinting. "Gracias, Satya. Now what is all this about?"
"It's my fault," Alejandra started, "I snuck out to see Lúcio's concert."
"I didn't know about any Lúcio concert here."
"No," the thief chuckled slightly, perhaps in guilt, "it wasn't part of my world tour. After I learned Vishkar was planning to develop here, this was just something special I was holding for anyone local in Dorado that heard about it. I didn't want Vishkar to come in and break up the party if they found out. Turned out Los Muertos did that anyway."
"That is what broke her leg," Satya continued. "Los Muertos disrupted the concert with explosives. The rubble the explosives had caused landed on her leg. I removed the rubble and then the thie-"
She caught herself.
"…and then Lúcio helped carry her out." The name dragged like sandpaper across her tongue.
"Why didn't you tell me, Alejandra? I would have gone with you."
"Lo siento, mama. I wanted to go by myself. I should have asked you first." Alejandra said, before raising her eyes to Satya and the thief. "But they saved me. They're heroes, just like Soldado: 76."
The woman stood up to face them. "Gracias, both of you, for helping my daughter. I don't know how to repay you other than offering you my home for the night. If Los Muertos are looking for you, you should leave Dorado as soon as possible in the morning. I want my family to be safe."
"I understand," the thief said. Satya nodded her head in agreement. She must play the part. She mustn't let them know she will not be leaving Dorado at all – if able, she will be returning to Vishkar's temporary site in the LumeriCo building, just a few blocks from the bakery. Perhaps with the new information about the mystery woman and her intentions, Sanjay would let her transfer out of the city for her own safety.
"I have a room upstairs with a sofa and a cot. You can decide what to take. Help yourself to anything in the bakery if you're hungry." The woman picked her daughter up again, carrying her up the stairs herself. "And you, Alejandra, need to rest."
Satya and the thief followed behind her, and were directed into the living room where Alejandra's mother rested a blanket over the sofa and set up a cot on the other side of the coffee table. She lit candles on the coffee table for light, bid them both good night, and left with her daughter into their respective rooms.
Satya and the thief were alone. She sat on the sofa, claiming it as her resting place for the night without speaking a word. The thief did not protest. He silently unequipped his gear, stepping out of the clunky leg armor and skates and setting the stolen Vishkar tech to the side of the coffee table. He then carefully removed the speakers that clung to the ends of his dreads. It was a meticulous process. Satya removed her boots in the meantime. She would have to sleep in her Symmetra garments, which were not ideal for sleeping in, and were not washed or folded neatly. But there was not much room to complain.
It wasn't until he lay down on the cot, back facing her, that her mind began to race. She had so many questions, but one dominated them all – why did he lie for her? She supposed he would have clarified this "later," but now was "later," and he still did not attempt to clarify.
Satya's eyes lingered on the sonic amplifier. It was Vishkar's, but it was also his. It was modified into oblivion, and surely it would not be anything Vishkar would claim as its own in its current state. Thief. He was a thief. He was a rebel. He was a target. She suddenly remembered the failed mission. Terminate the target, Sanjay said. By definition, as long as he was alive, the mission was not failed – only delayed.
This was her chance. She could almost hear Sanjay in her ear now commanding her do it, to take the shot. Her photon projector was just an arm's length is for the future of Vishkar, and such an opportunity to be so close, for him to be so vulnerable, may never happen again.
But in the dark of night, with only the light of the candles flickering between them, it felt wrong. It was too intimate. Had she done it at the concert she could make her escape and call herself an assassin. If she did it now, it would be betrayal. They were not friends. They were not even close to friends. But they were both alive now because they had kept each other that way, willingly or not.
"Still trying to figure out what to do with me, Vishkar?"
Unlike the rush of heated blood she felt in the alleyways, her blood instead flushed from her skin, running cold and pale. He did not turn to address her. His back was still against her and the candle light, his head facing the dark opposing wall.
"I do not know what you mean."
This response caused him to turn over. His face was hardened, just as she had imagined him in the Vishkar reports. She dared to miss his softened features.
"Oh please, drop the act. I recognized your tech the moment we went through your teleporter. You're either Vishkar, or stole from them. I'm willing to bet it's not the latter."
She could not find the words she should have found. Sanjay would have known what to say.
"Anyway, I lied for you because that little girl thinks you're a hero. If you really are Vishkar, I wasn't going to ruin her night by telling her that isn't true."
"I am Vishkar," she admitted. There was little use denying it now. "And you are a thief."
He laughed. It was not a sincere laugh, this much she could tell. It was a laugh intended to mock her, and her blood once cold began to boil.
"Yeah, okay, I stole from Vishkar. You guys stole from everyone else. Seemed only fair after what you did to my favela."
"We helped your favela," Satya said. "After the explosion we rebuilt. We provided better homes, better jobs, better lives."
"Better slave labor too, right?" He stared into an empty spot in the air. "And I wonder who set off the explosion in the favela in the first place." Once again, Satya could not find her words. The thief dismissed her and turned over again. "Whatever. It's not like you were there."
"I was there." Satya said quietly. Her words now came to her in confidence, but her voice did not. "I was in the favela when it happened."
He made the effort to face her again, eyebrow perked in slight interest. "When what happened? The explosion?"
"Yes," Satya said. This was classified information. This was not something she was supposed to tell anyone not employed within the highest ranks at Vishkar, much less Vishkar's public enemy number one. Perhaps it was the lull of the candles or the disorientating night, but she continued to speak.
"I was there to gather information on Calado. Men attacked me and I disabled them, but I let them live. Any other Vishkar agent might have killed them with the right orders, but I saved them. There was nothing anyway. There was nothing on Calado. There was no reason for me to stay and kill men over nothing. As soon as I got out of to the favela and reported to my superior, the Calado building went up in flames."
She took her focus off of the flame licking the air to look back at the thief. He stared intensely, neither harsh nor gentle. Just intense. She returned to the candle.
"The men I left in the building perished. I might as well have killed them. But the people in the favela, I thought as long as I could save some of the civilians, I could still do some good. I rushed into the burning rubble. There was a little girl trapped in all of it. Her face was so perfect, so angelic. She had helped me earlier that day escape the chaos of your favela. Yet she suffered for it. I saved her life but I could not save her face, it had already been burned in the explosion."
Satya did not dare take her eyes from the candle now. Her stomach churned imagining the faces the thief may be directing at her now. "I never knew if the explosion was Vishkar's plan. It did not matter after Vishkar gained the contract in Rio. The past was behind us during the rehabilitation. I wanted to see that little girl in a beautiful, measured, secured home. She was for a while, until you ruined that life for her."
She could hear the rustling of his blanket on his cot, and a deep exhale as he absorbed her story. Then he spoke.
"You're a good person, Satya. At least you try to be. I could see that much in the way you cared about Alejandra. You just can't see what you're really doing. Vishkar is not helping the way you think they are. I know they're the ones that burned the favela down. Think about it: they waited for you to get out before they did it."
She did not need to be told to think about it. It was something she thought about regularly. But to be told that there was something she was missing, something she couldn't see, had become a troubling theme of the night. The mystery woman's comment reverberated in her foggy head. "You really have no idea how the world works, do you?"
"I do not dwell on it anymore. It is in the past. I look to the future." Satya rested her head on the sofa cushion, brushing her long oil black hair to the side. "In the morning we will part ways. I will return to Vishkar and I will not report you or confiscate your stolen Vishkar equipment, although it is the punishment you deserve for your crimes. That is my repayment."
"How generous of you," he laughed, more sincerely than before. He turned his back a final time. "Sounds fine by me."
Satya leaned over to blow out the candles. Her mechanical arm began to spasm, the light flashing from blue to purple. It jerked involuntarily, knocking the lit candles to the floor. The flames caught onto the threads of the rug. In a panic, Satya took the edge of her blanket with her organic hand and smothered the early flame, preventing the birth of a fire. Her arm returned from purple to blue before she had a moment to inspect it.
She closed her eyes and spent the remaining hours of the night attempting to remove the image of the mystery woman from her chaotic dreams. The woman finally disappeared, only to leave her with the face of the girl from the burning favela.
