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Signals rerouted. The security cameras would now only show the looped feed she sent through. Same for the drone cams. But on her end, she could see everything.
Sombra watched the real feed, skipped through each rapidly, until she spotted her: true to her nickname and tattoos she wore, she was tucked into a dark corner, barely visible unless you knew her patterns, knew where to look.
“Do you think she really doesn’t feel?”
“Focus,” Reaper growled at her.
“I’m already done, slowpoke.” She heard a little rattle that meant he was sighing again; he was so easy. She was bored though. He’d said this mission required patience, which she had plenty of, thank you. What he meant was that it required waiting around, doing nothing, which she was much worse at. “Seriously, Gabe.”
“Don’t call me that.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “Sure, jefe.” He grunted. “Most people who say they don’t feel, they’re on mood inhibitors, some kind of suppressants, maybe a little tech they can turn off and on.” She glanced at him, saw him looking back. “Or they’re just edgy assholes.” No sigh this time. She’d have to try harder on the next one. “She doesn’t seem like that though.”
“You know what they did to her.”
She raised an eyebrow at that. They, not we. She filed that one away for later. “I know she… follows orders. I know she doesn’t flinch. No fear response. That doesn’t mean no feeling though. Does it?”
She looked at him, and he only looked back, no way to know what he was thinking behind that mask. “Why do you want to know?” he asked. Growled. It was hard to say for sure – the modulator masked his tone nearly as much as his voice itself – but he seemed genuinely curious. Probing for something. She filed that away too.
“I want to know everything.”
This soon after Russia, she wasn’t allowed out of their sight. They didn’t trust that she’d gone off comms. These people didn’t trust anything. She could respect it, but she didn’t have to like it.
Widowmaker stood at the window, angled so the moonlight barely touched her. Sombra sat on the floor, no furniture here. No activity yet. Too much time to kill, and Reaper was on comm but not here to rile up.
She tried with Widowmaker anyway. “If you’re a spider and he’s a crow or raven or whatever, what does that make me?” No answer from her, of course. She didn’t even look over at Sombra.
Reaper hissed through the comm, “A pest.”
“Aww, Gabe, I thought you loved me,” she answered, almost automatically, eyes on the screens in front of her. Reaper only made a rough, grumbling noise in her ear. “You said I reminded you of someone you used to like.” He had, though he probably shouldn’t have said it. She wondered if he would be angry that she brought it up where Widowmaker could hear.
“I didn’t say I liked him. He was annoying too,” he said. Another admission, phrased differently this time. He had said he liked him, but he hadn’t called him him then. One puzzle piece at a time. She knew Gabriel Reyes’ history; she had it narrowed down to a handful of likely candidates, the likeliest of which was bouncing his way around the U.S., harder to track than he seemed like he should be. Not difficult for her, of course, but maybe for someone else.
Widowmaker sighed quietly, and when Sombra looked up, she was looking right at her. “A mosquito,” she said, with the barest hint of a smirk. Reaper said nothing at all. If he was surprised she’d spoken, there was no way to tell over comms.
A mosquito, though. It was probably meant to insult her, but she rather liked it. Mosquitoes stole human code, infected people with deadly diseases — some of nature’s little hackers, maybe. “I’ll accept it,” she said, smiling at Widowmaker. “They’re one of the deadliest animals on the planet. Spiders kill one at a time. Mosquitoes can take down armies.”
Widowmaker turned away, but Sombra was sure she was smiling.
Widowmaker smiled like that sometimes. She told jokes, very rarely. The mosquito thing was probably a joke, or perhaps she actually found Sombra irritating, but amusement and irritation were both feelings. She did know what they’d done to her, but Sombra also watched her closely, too intrigued to look away.
Sometimes she even seemed to lose her way. Never in the thick of things. Never when it was time to act. But sometimes. Sometimes her eyes went a little vacant, confused. Sometimes she hummed to herself, snatches of songs Sombra didn’t know. Sometimes she talked to Sombra, revealed a stray thought beyond only observation of her surroundings.
Of course, when that happened, she would come to the next mission as cold as possible, stiff and unspeaking. It was unsettling.
But she could feel. Sombra had decided on it. They were suppressing it somehow, a secret locked down so well even she couldn’t get through, hidden behind multiple encryptions and medical jargon so thick it was hard to follow anyway.
Widowmaker could feel though. Sometimes. She wasn’t all programming, anyway. There was a person in there, a real one, and the longer Sombra watched, the more she resented it. She liked controlling people. She liked besting them at their own game. She liked the knowledge and the power and the things she could accomplish with both of those. But those were different somehow. Widowmaker was only a mercenary with a gun. She wouldn’t be anybody important or dangerous if they had only left her alone.
For all her talents, Sombra had never actually hacked a person before. Not in the literal sense. But she was willing to give it a try. Especially now that she knew Gabe was what he was.
So she waited, waited until one of the times when Widowmaker looked a little more human, when she laughed her cold laugh at a joke Sombra made. They were on a mission. They were always on some mission. There wasn’t going to be a better time.
“Targets on their way. Get in position,” Reaper’s voice came through the comm. Sombra watched Widowmaker nod, as if Reaper was there to see it.
“Good luck out there,” Sombra said, and Widowmaker stared at her, a funny smile on her face.
“I don’t need luck.”
“Of course not,” she said, and she pushed in quick, up on her toes, and pressed a dry kiss to Widowmaker’s cold cheek, careful to pull away slowly so there could be no evidence of it on the comm. “I like you alive though. So good luck.”
Widowmaker only blinked at her, an uncharacteristically delicate flutter of impossibly long eyelashes. She left Sombra there without a word.
Sombra turned back to her screens, flicked through the drone cams until she saw her: there, in a corner in the dark, like the spider on her back. Sombra couldn’t see her expression. The zoom was too grainy, couldn’t pick her up well in the shadows. But she could see well enough. Widowmaker had a hand raised to her cheek, fingers pressed where Sombra’s lips had been.