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Hong Kong is a sniper’s hell.
It isn’t an ugly city, especially not at night. The streets are rivers of threaded gold pouring between glass and concrete beside the true river that looks to be a strand of a galaxy as it glitters with cargo ship stars. There is a certain droning loudness of car engines and rushing water that Widowmaker will tuck the crack of a bullet into.
Sombra, lounging on a rusted air duct with a magenta-tinted holoscreen, seems immune to Widow’s frustration. For tonight’s mission she’s served as the protractor. She selected this particular rooftop and the intersection below where, if everything goes according to plan, the mark will have to pause for 72 seconds.
The problem is the buildings are too tall, pressed too close together. The angles are unforgiving, the distance forced to an uncomfortable minimum of a mere 600 meters.
“More than enough,” the hacker reasoned.
“Of course,” Widow had hissed through gritted teeth. Her colleague had of course not considered the erratics of the wind tonight, the distortion of shooting through a car window, the barometric pressure descending as a storm haunts in from the west.
Widow presses her eye to the scope. Her thumb drifts to check that the safety is on before gently squeezing the trigger, projecting a phantom shot at a plastic bag stumbling across an alley a mile away. “Run the numbers again.”
Sombra’s cybernetic nails dash across the air. Not to conjure any equations or blueprints of the city, but to pull up a new game of sudoku.
“Sombra.”
“What?”
“We should relocate.”
“Okay, cool.” The hacker doesn’t mask her disinterest. “Where?”
Widow wills her shoulders to untense. “That’s what I asked you.”
“I told you, spider, this is the best you’re gonna get.”
The sniper peers down at the city again. Height rarely bothers her. The chemicals in her brain have been diluted to only a sigh of fear.
Sombra dangles a nine in the air before plugging it into a blank box. “I’ve seen you take more impossible shots.”
“Yes,” Widow agrees. She has. In London and Dubai, the Turkish countryside, at the center of a storm off the coast of Mykonos.
“Gabe’s taking forever. I’m getting antsy too.” Sombra is veering dangerously close to sympathy.
“Don’t attempt to understand me.”
The hacker laughs out a soft little triplet.
An hour later, Reaper’s voice crackles over their comms. The mark is moving but not on the street that Sombra had anticipated.
Nothing in the hacker betrays any sort of urgency. She pulls up a new holoscreen and languidly taps out commands with one hand while another pulls up a strobe of live CCTV.
“We should move.”
“Chill,” Sombra croons. “I just need a few redlights and he’ll land right in your web.”
Widow crouches at the edge of the roof. The scope is useless for now. “Which intersection will he turn from?”
“I can get him straight down the line.”
“That would be.” Widow licks her teeth. Her mouth is uncomfortably dry. “Ideal.”
The hacker’s pace picks up incrementally. Her perpetually upturned lips flatten slightly, then dip into a frown.
“What is it?”
“Um. You’re not going to like this.”
Widow retracts the scope, hoists the rifle up. “Don’t sugarcoat.”
“I can get him to turn—”
“Where is he?”
Sombra enlarges an image, cursing under her breath as the pixels trickle into focus on a white street sign.
Widow leaps.
For five terrific seconds her brain screams the song of adrenaline and cortisol. The tempo of her heart strains. Her stomach lifts.
Then the grappling hook catches an indent in the concrete and she flies into the streetlight forest.
Widow does not miss the shot because there is not a shot to take.
In the transport ship, Reaper and Sombra argue like wolves.
“If you had been faster—”
“If you had gotten him into the right garage—”
“If you had a precise location on—”
Widow finds it easy to drone out. She watches the scientist, seated across from her, spinning hyperspheres around his wrists.
The truth is that Sombra choked. Or she sabotaged this mission, as she had on Volskaya. Reaper doesn’t level that exact accusation, but as the tension notches up Widow wonders if he will. She holds the duffel bag on her lap tighter. Through the rough fabric she can feel the outline of her cigarette pack.
The southeast conference room in Talon’s Rome headquarters has an abyssopelagic fish tank fitted below the wide glass table. Hatchetfish and cusk eels, lit in a dim bioluminescence, swirl languidly through black water. Dr. de Kuiper is hovering across from her, peering down at the murk, muttering to himself. Akande, squeezed into a garish blue polo, sits at the head of the table scrolling on his phone.
Reaper sits beside her. Even on weekends he remains in his robes and mask. Right now he is struggling to open a Coke can, his leather gloves fumbling over the thin hinge of the tab.
“You’re late,” Akande booms when Sombra slumps into the room. She’s wearing the same ashen hoodie she had last night, sleeves tugged down, strings pulled tight so there’s a scrunch of soft cotton around her neck.
“Sorry, big guy. Didn’t realize this counted as overtime.” The hacker slouches into a chair at the far end of the table. She looks— well. Widow has learned that ‘tired’ is code for ‘bad.’ So Sombra doesn’t look tired. There are half moon bruises under her normally manic-bright eyes.
“This was planned to be a rote performance review,” Akande begins, “but it would be redundant to spend an hour reviewing the collective incompetency I’ve witnessed this quarter.”
Reaper chuffs out a laugh, crossing his arms over his chest. Widow can imagine his broad smile. Though maybe skulls are always smiling.
Widow’s hand shoots straight up into the air.
“You aren’t excluded, Reyes.” Akande flips a duotang folder open, then unfolds reading glasses from his pocket. “Yes, Widowmaker?”
“I should be dismissed.”
All eyes magnet to hers.
“Should you,” Akande asks. His voice is always smooth, betraying nothing.
“I have performed to expectations.”
“I’m aware. But you aren’t excluded from what I’ve identified as the issue impeding this strike team’s performance.” The high council member takes the time to carousel a glare around the room. “There is no camaraderie. No sense of teamwork. Each of you thinks you’re the smart one.”
“So who’s the smart one,” Sombra asks with that horrible, perfect smile.
She is, of course, ignored.
“Today, in an effort to establish rapport that you all should have accumulated already, we will be doing trust exercises.”
There is a duet of groans, a soprano laugh, and Widow’s own long sigh.
Akande, to his credit, just feeds off the allied distaste. “We’ll start with a classic: trust falls. Everybody stand up, form a circle, and—”
“Respectfully, sir, I cannot fall.” Dr. de Kuiper’s face is twisted in an agonizingly genuine apology. “To even simulate falling would require me to disturb the present equilibrium, the consequences of which may be—”
“Right. Yes. Okay.” Akande flips to the next page in his folder. “How does everyone feel about sustained eye contact?”
Reaper hacks out a laugh. Smoke simmers from beneath his mask.
This is a waste of time.
Akande’s shoulders rise. “Then all we’re left with is icebreaker questions.”
Widow’s hand raises again. She knows she must look like a schoolgirl. Sombra is staring with a sickening mischief.
“Excellent,” Akande booms. “A volunteer.”
“I’d like to be excused.”
“Taking into account all persons living or dead, who would you most like to attend a dinner with?”
The reply is reflexive. “George Sand.”
Akande clicks his tongue. Then smiles. Then nods. “Good choice.”
The praise is unendearing. Widow fits her molars together. Sombra is still staring.
“Sigma, same question.”
“Oh. Heavens.” The doctor scratches his stubbled chin. “You would prefer I answer genuinely?”
“Yes.”
“Ah. May I have a few moments to reflect?”
Akande stares at him. It’s deadly, but apparently completely unmotivational for the astrophysicist. He looks up at the ceiling, mouth moving around silent names.
The awkwardness is only interrupted by Reaper’s Coke finally splitting open. Widow glances over to see that he opted to slit into the bottom with a claw, and is now messily, half-heartedly shotgunning it. There is no civility left in the world.
“Okay,” Akande sears. “We’ll split into partners.”
“Dibs on Gabe,” Sombra trills immediately.
“You’re with Widowmaker.”
Akande distributes a copy of the icebreaker questions to each of them. There are 36. Widow scan reads down the list and dislikes more than a few keywords.
Sombra doesn’t even glance at it. The hacker has kicked off her shoes, folded herself up in the leather chair, and is probably three seconds of silence away from pulling up sudoku.
Widow glances down the table. Akande is watching.
“Would you like to be famous,” she reads flatly from the sheet.
“I already am. Next question.”
“You are supposed to ask me.”
Sombra’s face screws up in displeasure. Then— she is so transparent— a thought occurs. “Who is George Sand?”
“That isn’t on the list.”
Sombra’s cybernetic nails make picking up her copy a distinct struggle, but she manages. “How would you describe your relationship with your mother?” Her eyes have an almost pixelated sparkle.
“I will not answer that.”
“You only get one skip.”
Widow licks her lips. “George Sand was a writer.”
“French?”
“You are so perceptive.”
Sombra’s laughter is like a windchime. And there is—Widow feels something like a wind. Like a breath against her neck.
There are no windows in the conference room.
“Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die,” Widow reads.
“Power outage.”
Widow’s eyes trace the lines of Sombra’s— what is it called? An interface? An exoskeleton? They glow with neon-tinted electricity, from her skull down into the dark tresses of her hair. Widow knows it then descends her spine to the small of her back. Widow used to be afraid to touch it there, but Sombra would lay on her stomach in bed so often, sheets pushed down past her hips, and Widow learned to brush the place where metal fused into skin with just the tips of her thumbs, watch the sequence of a shiver work its way upr—
“Before making a phone call, do you rehearse what you’re going to say?”
“They don’t allow me to have a phone.”
“Oh. Right.”
“Do not pity me.”
Sombra rolls her eyes. “Doomfist is off his rocker. Our rapport is air-tight.”
Widow let’s herself risk another glance at him. He’s on his phone again. “Take four minutes to relay your life story in as much detail as possible.”
“Okay, that’s my skip.”
Widow looks down at the table. It must take an immense amount of pressure to maintain this aquarium so far above sea level. She wonders if the fish are bothered by the fluorescents here, or if the glass is tinted, or— “Do you like fish?”
Sombra’s chest convulses like a hiccup. It’s a silent sort of laugh. “Yeah. Sure. These are freaky though.”
Widow nods.
“Have you ever seen when deep sea fish are found on the beach? They’re just these big gross blobs of flesh. But they’re pretty ugly here too, aren’t they?”
“I suppose.” Delicate would be a better word. “Does that count as your question?”
The paper rustles in Sombra’s hands. “When did you last sing to yourself? Bonus points if you say which song.”
“I believe that I...may have hummed. In Paris. I do not remember the name of the song.”
The hacker’s eyes sparkle with familiar interest. “Hum it for me.”
“No. Name three things we appear to have in common.”
“We work for Talon.” One finger. “We are not human anymore.” A second. “We are purple.” The third.
A laugh flies from Widow’s mouth. She claps a hand over her lips, but it’s already out. Akande glances over, brow furrowed.
“You’re so easy,” Sombra chides, swatting Widow’s bare knee with her hand. “So you like Paris?”
“In ways.”
Akande is still staring.
Sombra is stubborn. Expectant.
“It is nice,” Widow says, willing her voice to be even, “to be somewhere that people speak the language I think in.”
Though— and she will not say this to Sombra, to anyone— sometimes that makes untangling her own thoughts even more difficult. Every voice is like an echo of her own. It’s so much louder than places where the blur of sounds are nothing better than organized nonsense.
“Okay, my turn.”
Beneath her, the fish slide their translucent bodies against the glass.
Their next assignment is to Ilios, but only to act as an optional force multiplier.
Sombra takes this definition to heart immediately, holing herself up in the hotel. Widow had only managed to distract her for half an hour before the hacker pulled on a t-shirt and insulated herself in a panorama of holoscreens.
“You’re feeling diligent today,” Widow observes. She doesn’t want to get dressed yet. The Mediterranean sun, barely blunted by the forced cold of her body, feels too good.
“I have some…” Sombra trails off. A nonsense of numbers dash from one screen to another. “Stuff to catch up on.”
Perhaps, through the scope of a sniper rifle half a mile away, this scene would seem intimate. Widow, prone on the cheap cotton sheets. Sombra, all her secrets displayed as jumbled numbers and cryptogram commands. The language barriers, the incompatibilities of their respective remade bodies, are invisible.
An hour later Widow is on the rooftop, unwrapping a box of Karelia Slims, watching Reaper pace. A smoldering shadow of smoke follows him everywhere. She’s noticed that, with a certain level of anxiety, he begins to reek more strongly of decay.
“Sorry,” he grumbles.
“It’s fine.” She lights a cigarette. The first draw is always the most worthy one. The rest are just to do the grotesque work of finishing something.
Rome is a fitting city for Talon to settle in. Like vultures to a stone carcass, their omnic troopers pace the ancient alleys bordering the barely disguised headquarters. It is a city built on assassin blades and martyr screams. Overwatch will probably come here, one day soon, and the next war for these hills will begin.
Widow can’t help but be nostalgic for years past every now and then.
Amelie Lacroix was cut out of her in the back of an unmarked van. Widowmaker was constructed in an abandoned plane hangar with guerilla chemists and veterinary sedatives. The conditioning was an experiment more than a method. She remembers, hazily, rabid periods. But Talon already had pit bulls with firearms. They had to allow wisps of Amelie back if they wanted restraint and deference.
It may only take an hour to make a woman a monster, but it takes twenty years to make her a dancer.
Had a grim ballet master said that or had it been that heterochromatic-eyed scientist?
Widow’s room in the Talon headquarters is not grand. She has never been inside anyone else’s, however, and is unsure where exactly in the pecking order she is. Being a mainstay in Talon was not the same as seniority. Surely, soon enough, she would be a relic like the Roman walls, the aqueducts emblazoned on t-shirts for only the silliest tourists.
All she had requested was a balcony, which Talon allowed. There are sensors built into it and an electric shock is delivered if she leans on the railing.
As a consequence, pigeons often die here. She picks one up by its trinity of talons, flings it down to the courtyard below.
On the horizon the sun is setting honey over the Colosseum. Half of it is a projection, holographic walls flickering with digital fuzz. Like Sombra, this city is half real and half electric.
Her stomach twists in a high-rise flutter.
On their next flight, Sombra sends a holoscreen whizzing across the cabin. It stations itself directly in front of Widow’s book.
“The deep sea fish,” the hacker explains.
Widow leans back, refocuses her eyes. “Oh.”
It is, as promised, hideous. A lump of flesh spilled out of its skin and yet completely bloodless. Gore without the red.
“Cool, right,” Sombra prompts.
“Yes.”
The screen shrinks to just a pixel.
Sleeping with Sombra took a certain kind of empirical choreography, but Widow had settled on enough excuses to be at relative peace with it.
For one, Sombra was as concerned with her privacy as Widow was with her own. Sombra would override the cameras looming in Widow’s quarters, bypassed certain locks in the shooting range locker room, adjusted room assignments when they went abroad so their windows were just a translocator-toss away. While subtlety was not one of the hacker’s gifts as a conversationalist or insurgent, she had excelled at this, at least.
And— more personally— Sombra did not insist on Christian names in the bedroom. The only questions she asked were for praise. She didn’t get offended when Widow wasn’t in the mood to indulge.
Second, they do have a specific technical compatibility. Widow learned quickly that she was not a comfortable person to be in bed with— cold to the touch, easy to exhaust because of the imposed slowness of her heartbeat.
But Sombra runs warm and electric. She’d nuzzle into the snow-soft flesh of the sniper’s thighs, guide Widow’s hands to the places where the wires seared against her skin.
They both required a— Widow winces to name it— delicateness. Sombra has spent more time and money and pain than Widow can imagine to become what she is. Widow must submit to routine physical check-ups to make sure the wrists and shoulders and tendons in her hands are good enough for the grip of a gun.
That part, at least, is easy to preserve.
In case of reconditioning, in case the Talon medics unhinge her brain and trace the way the chemicals have found their old rivers— well. That is why it is good that Sombra knows how to hide.
This time it is not a rooftop.
Instead, Widow and Sombra are awaiting orders on the middle floor of an abandoned parking garage in Chicago. Thin green weeds and splats of crabgrass have learned to grow in the stress fractures of the pavement. Moths, with the imperfect synchrony of snow, pass by the overhead halogen.
The hacker sits on a parking block, a diorama of screens floating in the air around her.
It will be hours before Reaper calls, if he does at all.
“Hey spider.”
“Mm.”
“Why do you smoke?”
Like the chamber of a rifle, answers spin in her mouth. Then: “Is that on the list?”
“Nope,” Sombra pops. Her violet eyes are fixed on the screens. “Just curious.”
“I am addicted to nicotine.”
She laughs.
Widow’s stomach churns.
It has become a Pavlovian response— a little bump of dizziness in the back of her brain whenever the hacker completes this particular sequence: a smile, a sharp inhale, then a sound that ranges from rain on a tin roof to an indulgent cackle.
“Okay,” Sombra chuffs, “but why did you start?”
“When I danced...it was a way to control the appetite. I believe that was my logic.”
“You never tried to quit?”
Gerard wanted her to. He hated the smell. Sometimes he would come home from halfway across the globe with a box of patches or gum or pills as a present.
“I like it,” she says instead. That’s also true. There’s a woozy high when she deprives herself long enough. Sometimes, if she waits days, she can get her vision to go white on the first drag. “And there is a certain camaraderie. A smoker may give you a spare or a light. It is difficult to find that sort of kindness amongst other strangers.”
Sombra’s face scrunches up. “I would never smoke.”
“How noble,” Widow drawls.
“For me, it would defeat the whole purpose of all this.” She gestures vaguely, but Widow knows she means the modifications she sewed into her body; wires pinched into her skin like an IV that can never be untethered. There is probably metal fused to her brain, a motherboard replacing some organ in her chest.
“We clearly have different expiration dates.”
It’s a heavy thing to say.
Sombra easily sinks back into silence. Her cybernetic nails conjure a new screen. It’s odd she doesn’t nag. Usually she is so like a mosquito.
When they were in Havana last summer the place had been infested. Widow, for her part, was fairly safe. They seemed to sense there was something wrong with her blood.
Sombra, however, was pummeled with bites along the skin of her arms and neck. She complained endlessly, scratching even though the medic advised against it.
They had been on, of course, a rooftop.
One landed on the tense line between Sombra’s neck and shoulder.
It had delicate legs, striped with white. Its needle sunk into Sombra’s skin, its body fluttering with lust.
Widow’s hand had shot out, crushing the bug. A decoupage of red was printed there until Sombra itched it away.
“Do you think,” Sombra begins. Of course she isn’t done. She’s arranged her face in a pitiable curiosity. Her facial articulation is incredible. Widow wonders if that was another modification or just an inherent charm. At the ballet they would go on and on about emoting, but all they truly meant was a breezy smile for a heroine, and a grievous scowl for a villain. “Doomie is right about this whole camaraderie schtick?”
“Yes. I do not trust you,” Widow replies flatly. “I cannot imagine how knowing you better would change that.”
Clearly the hacker did not anticipate this. She might even be— offended? Hurt? But it’s true. Everytime Widow feels herself hovering toward...something, for Sombra, there is a memory of snow falling in the aperture of her scope, the blast doors at Volskaya roaring shut, Sombra’s comm filtering out for three agonizing minutes.
Sombra is already twisting into another slippery smile. “Aw, spider, I thought we were friends.”
“We are not even comrades.”
There’s a hint of something not altogether playful in those electric violet eyes. “You’re so clever.”
“That day I was the fool.”
“Don’t take it too hard. I’ve outmaneuvered a lot of people.”
Widow eyes the uzi on Sombra’s hip. When the hacker first joined Talon, Widow hated the thing. Too loud. Terribly inaccurate. Only effective at point-blank.
Now she has acclimated. She almost delights in hearing it, in the theater of concrete, knowing Sombra is in an alley somewhere spraying bullets into a back. Maybe tonight, again, she’ll be graced with the hail.
“You should be careful of Akande,” she decides.
Sombra snorts. “I think I can handle him.”
That pride will get her killed. Reaper had been willing to overlook a few indiscretions, but he would run out of patience eventually. Widow thought, sometimes, he may even have a certain grudging affection for the hacker. But Akande is smart as he is strong, as ruthless as he is diligent. “He is cunning.”
Sombra pouts. “And I’m not?”
“You are a nuisance.”
Widow is convinced that the world would be a better place if her exact cocktail of mood stabilizers was mandatory for the human population.
Sombra, despite her blasé attitude and characteristic immunity to Widow’s— well, her personality, she supposes— Sombra has been avoiding her. In the most passive way possible. No late night insurrections. No translocator in the corner of her room, flickering with a weak promise.
“I would like to submit a request for leave.”
She’s in Akande’s greenhouse, a great glass gem in the center of the complex. He has benches lined with bonsais. Today he is winding a copper wire around a thin trunk, cinching it tighter with satisfied hums. “I already denied it.”
Widow holds a sigh in her throat. “Then this is my appeal.”
“Also denied.” He clips the wire with a comically tiny pair of scissors. “This is a Japanese winterberry. I picked it up in Kanezeka last—”
“I am not interested.”
“Okay,” Akande says slowly, dragging it out.
“I would like to submit a second appeal.”
“And again, I will deny it.” He stands, walks to the metal sink in the corner, and washes his broad hands. “The schedule this month isn’t demanding. Unless you’re beginning to feel in need of recalibration.”
“No.” Widow reaches out to pinch a fledgling leaf on one of the bonsai. “I do not believe my presence is necessary at Oasis. Unless you anticipate violence.”
“You’re right that it isn’t necessary, but that does not mean it is not required.”
Widow doesn’t attempt to prevent the contortion of displeasure on her face. Her teeth press against her tongue until there is the most muted shiver of pain.
“Am I understood?”
“Of course.” She turns to leave but—
“Stay a minute.”
Widow stops, hand poised over the handle.
“I wanted to talk to you about…” He pauses to smile. She suppresses a shiver. “Well. I’ve heard a few things, from Reyes. He has some doubts about one of your co-workers’ ability to perform to...my standards.”
Widow swallows. “Dr. de Kuiper?”
Akande’s face tints with displeasure. “Don’t get me started. But Gabe is more set on Sombra.”
“Ah.”
“So keep an eye out. And maybe a scope too.” He grins, and Widow knows she’s meant to mirror it, so she does.
Cities cities cities. Widow is sick of them. She had hoped— stupidly hoped— that she might be able to return to the Chateau for a few weeks. This time of year the maples on the lakeshore are a riot of yellows and the air is as brisk as her own breath.
The bookshelves in the estate are probably stocked with dust now. There are probably spiderwebs in nearly every corner, their empresses tucking themselves where the light doesn’t reach. The grout will need to be scrubbed out in the bathrooms. Leaves will need to be raked in the courtyards.
But of course that would be too pleasant, too convenient. She has to go to Oasis as nothing more than a glorified bodyguard for Maximillian. All she can hope is that Overwatch will show up. Otherwise her next chance of adrenaline may be months away.
At least Iraq is warm. That will make it easier to coax Sombra into forgiveness for whatever ridiculous affront the hacker must be whining over now.
But— no. Widow can’t leave that up to chance. She decides, turns on her heel, and takes the elevator down to the subterranean floor of the Talon base.
Sombra probably has private quarters, but Widow is sure she never bothers with them. For as long as she’s known her, the hacker has been squatting in one of the server rooms. The air here is dry and cold, constantly being cycled like an aquarium with particularly strict requirements. The headless systems have blinking lights. It is eerily similar to the deep sea fish tank in the conference room.
The prized specimen herself is laid out on an air mattress at the center. Charging cords flow out from the wall like the tendrils of a black jellyfish. She doesn’t have screens pulled up, just headphones over her ears, holding a one-eyed teddy bear to her chest.
Widow throws the book. It lands on Sombra’s calf.
“What’s this?”
“George Sand.”
Sombra flips the book over, scans the description on the back. “You know I’m not gonna read this, right?”
Widow ignores her. “It’s my favorite.”
“That is not convincing.” But Sombra is grinning. Her finger runs over the pages, letting them fan under her thumb.
Widow feels it again. That lift in her chest. That prickle of nerves, like she cut off the blood too long and now is letting it flow again, and her muscles are screaming their thanks.
“I did not give it to you to read.”
Sombra throws her head back against her pillow. There’s laughter in her voice when she says, “you just wanted to throw something at me?”
“No.” Widow sits on the edge of the mattress. She glances down. She’s holding her own hands. “I meant to say I do not care if you read it.”
Sombra sits up. “That’s a little less tyrannical.” She leans forward, rubs Widow’s knee. “Are you, like, feeling okay?”
“I’m fine.”
Sombra voices her skepticism with just the gymnastics of her face. Widow doesn’t conquer the urge to reach out, trace over Sombra’s forehead, bring her finger down to mimic the cut that split her left eyebrow. The scar healed long ago, is invisible, but she can feel the slightest thread of raised skin. She never asked what happened. She never asked about the hip replacement that Sombra would whine incessantly about whenever they were somewhere not tropical.
But would any of that be enlightening?
“I know I offended you—”
Sombra balks immediately.
Widow presses on.
“—but you must be wary of Akande. I believe he knows about St. Petersburg. Maybe Hong Kong, too.”
“I didn’t do anything in Hong Kong.”
Widow can feel her pulse thrumming in her skull. Or maybe that’s electricity. “It makes no difference.”
“It does.” Sombra’s eyes are wide. Pleading.
Which doesn’t make sense. She isn’t in danger. Widow reaches to smooth her hair. Maybe that would reassure her.
“I want you to— shit. I want you, at least you, to know when I’m telling the truth.”
Widow kisses her forehead. “You are being very convincing right now, cherie.”
“That’s not—” Sombra squares her jaw. “Widow. I didn’t sabotage you in Hong Kong.”
“If you did, I don’t care.”
The hacker has her teddy bear in a chokehold. “Fuck, it’s just round and round with you, isn’t it?”
“Honesty,” Widow reasons, cupping her cheeks, trying to catch her eyes properly, “has never been a necessity in this relationship.”
“Have you considered,” Sombra rumbles, “how hearing that might make me feel?”
“See.” Widow smiles. “You do not like it when I am honest.” She pecks Sombra’s lips, which barely perk to meet her.
“You make zero sense,” the hacker whispers. Finally she unhands the bear, her hands coming up to frame the sides of Widow’s neck, then around and up to scratch at Widow’s scalp. The nails make it hurt, but it’s one of the places the sniper doesn’t mind hurting. She keens at the touch, inclining her head, holding a whine back in her mouth. This is what she came for.
“Do you want me to let my hair down,” she asks, but knows the answer.
Sombra flattens herself against the bed, grinning giddy.
Widow makes a show of it, pulling her ponytail out slow, letting her hair fall behind her shoulders. For efficiency’s sake, she twists out of her t-shirt. Sombra strains to touch her hips, her stomach.
Before that terrible lift in her stomach can take hold, Widow rushes to kiss her.
After, Sombra puts her headphones back on.
Widow lays, silent, in the curve of her body while the hacker drifts to sleep.
She can hear the faint impression of the music, though it isn’t music. It sounds like rain.
Perhaps Sombra has digital dreams. Perhaps she writes the code, and her sleep is securely this peaceful because she can modify the unconscious.
Even awake, Widow has less control. She is replaying their conversation from an hour before, gritting her teeth at her own script.
“Araignée, I didn’t sabotage you in Hong Kong.”
“If you did, I don’t care,” she said. Meaning: I don’t care about Talon. I don’t care about you, but listen, I mean that I—
No. That’s wrong too.
Widow closes her eyes, tries to vacate her mind of everything but the warmth of Sombra’s thigh over hers, the steady breath puffing at the back of her neck, the osmosis of their perfumes.
Sombra is, of course, not brought to Oasis. Widow doesn’t need to ask to know she is considered a security risk here.
Dr. de Kuiper is absent too.
“Too excitable,” Reaper grumbles.
Widow is generally not subject to self-consciousness. But Oasis, amongst the bright sun and white lab coats, she knows she and Reaper stick out like a sore, gothic thumb.
Maximilian spends most of his time in closed-door meetings. Their only duty is to escort him from limousine to building, then sit in a waiting room for hours.
Widow rises to get another cup of water.
“Tonight I’m gonna see Moira,” Reaper grits out.
“That is unnecessary for me to know.”
“She said she’s made some progress on my.” He slumps. “Condition.”
She takes a sip. It tastes thickly of purifying chemicals. “That, also, is unnecessary for me to know.”
Reaper always went through the same cycle. He’d find some scientist, get convinced they had the miracle cure, hit a roadblock, and fly into a rage. It had been interesting the first time.
Moira’s inclusion makes it impossible to simulate even polite curiosity.
“I’m not telling her you’re here,” he snarls. Widow has learned not to take his tone to heart. He doesn’t exactly have a full set of vocal chords.
“How gracious.”
The mask may protect Reaper from his shame, but it doubles as Widow’s shield from his scowl.
“Is it true,” Sombra asks, in an airship headed for Antarctica, “the French don’t have a word for home?”
“We have plenty of words.”
“But no exact translation.” Sombra’s lips tilt up in triumph.
“Are you implying,” Widow begins, leaning back in her seat, “that not having a word for something means the feelings associated do not exist?”
“I’d never dare to presume you have feelings, spider.”
The plane plummets.
Widow grips the armrest with one hand, the other tight around Sombra’s elbow— except— no.
Sombra is pulling away, face screwed up in confused pain.
They are not falling at all.
But Widow feels it. She is unbearably light. No wire catches her.
In the subzero sniper’s nest, Widow unpacks her rifle. She is not designed to miss things that are not the whip-crack of a bullet, the thin trail of vapor strung between the barrel of the Kiss and a skull, the blot of red on a sidewalk.
“You’re in a mood,” Sombra observes. Unnecessary commentary, as always.
“I am aware of what a home is.”
“Oh. I did piss you off.” Sombra sounds far too proud.
Widow flexes her fingers against the trigger. “You are not capable of pissing me off.”
“Whatever you say,” the hacker sings, hunching down again, pulling up her screens.
“I have a chateau,” Widow continues. “Near Annecy. Though I suppose you’ve read my files enough to know.”
Sombra doesn’t look up. “Yeah.”
“Perhaps the next time we...maybe Christmas, you could— if you’d like to see it, I would not be opposed.”
“I’ve seen the blueprints,” she dismisses with a wave of her hand. “I could format a VR version if you want.”
Widow huffs.
Sombra looks up.
“You are in a mood.”
“Perhaps,” Widow allows.
“Would you like to define it?”
“No.”
“Okay,” Sombra pops. Her breath fans out into the air, a fleeting cloud. “By the way, I’m—” She reaches up to flick her comm off. “—definitely sabotaging this mission.”
They’re called to a late night meeting in the conference room.
Akande is not pleased. Widow watches him, pacing like a pendulum. Both Reaper and Sombra have taken an interest in the deep sea fish. Dr. de Kuiper looks unbearably nervous.
“I’m of half the mind,” Akande begins, “to dissolve this strike team altogether.”
Everyone is silent until Reaper speaks. “Well, it’s your call.”
“That’s not the right answer,” he hisses. “The right answer is ‘this will never happen again.’”
“This will never happen again,” the ghost croaks. Widow can’t tell if he’s afraid or angry.
“Perfect. And how, Gabriel, do you plan to achieve this lofty goal?”
He must know it was Sombra’s fault. He has to.
“I’m thinking about it.”
Akande rests both his hands flat on the table, straight across from Reaper. “That’s not a good answer.”
Widow’s hand shoots into the air.
“Yes?”
“I do not believe my presence is necessary.”
Akande’s jaw twitches. Then, slowly, his eyes alloy into something darker. “You’re right. All of you, dismissed.”
Reaper, to his credit, knows not to stand and exit with them.
There’s a pair of dead pigeons on her balcony. Widow flings them off, lights a cigarette. She keeps the door open. Sombra is taking her time getting dressed.
“You worried about Gabe?”
Widow takes a long drag. “No,” she says, with the smoke. “The worst thing has already happened to him.”
“Ah. Yeah. That’s true.” Sombra seems unsatisfied, somehow. She pulls her sweatpants up, then leans against the door.
Widow eyes her, suspicious. “I’m smoking.”
“Yeah.” The hacker has this faraway look in her eyes. She’s smiling at nothing. Someone finally wiped a harddrive.
“What’s wrong with you?”
Sombra’s nose scrunches up. Not in distaste. More like— well. Widow doesn’t know. It just has the effect of being cute. “You just look really pretty.”
Widow rolls her eyes. She taps her cigarette, letting ash descend to the concrete. The sun is rising, as it always does. Starlings are scattered over the skyline, moving in their secret, logic-less language.
Sombra groans but she’s still smiling. “You’re so cruel.”
“That’s my appeal.”
“It is.” The hacker draws in a deep breath and Widow has nothing but dread for what comes next. “You know I really like you, right?”
Widow pulls in another nicotine-laced breath. She glances down. Three stories below, Talon omnics are marching through the streets. She feels suddenly top-heavy, dizzy but not from the smoke. “I wish you wouldn’t say things like that.”
Sombra waits like a cat for a mouse.
“It makes me feel…” Widow gestures, realizes the gesture is not coherent, and sags. “Sick.”
“Sick,” Sombra echoes flatly.
“Yes.”
“Well. I guess that’s my cue.” She hoists herself from the doorframe.
“That was not a dismissal,” Widow calls into the apartment. Then, without a response, she rolls her eyes again, stamps the cigarette out with a slipper, and follows. “Cherie.”
Sombra looks up. Her shoes are half-tied.
“I did not— I meant sick, but— I don’t think I am expressing myself well.”
“Okay.”
This particular choreography— Sombra below her, looking up, violet eyes uncertain— does not exactly stabilize the vertigo.
“It’s— when I look at you, and when you speak, I feel— in my stomach. Sort of, ah, uneasy?”
Widow hates to see Sombra’s patented look of realization and immediate smugness.
“You mean butterflies,” the hacker says, eyebrows rising with every spare second.
“No. It’s— butterflies. That’s inane. And it isn’t constant,” Widow pleads. “Only when— sometimes you say things that are clever. Or you laugh. And I get sick.”
“Oh baby,” Sombra whispers, aghast.
“Do not pity—”
She snorts. “Shut up. Say you like me.”
“I will not.”
“I swear that’s the cure.”
“I should be reconditioned,” Widow whispers. She rubs her palms together, holds her own hand, but her palms are sweaty.
“No! Say you like me.”
“This is coercion.”
“Okay, how about this: how do you feel about me?”
Widow takes in a ragged breath. “I think that is clear.”
“No,” Sombra drawls, pouting. She reaches out, hands cupped around the back of Widow’s knees. “I’m dumb. I’m hopeless. Explain it to me.”
“Words are not— you already know!”
“That you like me?”
“Yes.”
“Now say it.”
“Fine,” Widow sears. “But I will say it my way.”
“Of course you will.”
“Give me a moment.”
Sombra, in her mercy, does. She detaches herself from Widow’s legs and settles on the floor. Her shoestrings hang down. Her cybernetic nails drum against the tile.
The sniper steels herself against the imminent humiliation. She sinks to her knees. She tips Sombra’s chin up, rests a thumb on her tense, grinning lips.
“I will not get in your way,” she whispers. “But if I do, it is because I care for you.”
Sombra kisses her palm.
“And I want you to know,” Widow continues, because now she has begun, “that you cannot change me.”
Sombra, as expected, is a shameless liar.
The bubbling in Widow’s chest does not dissipate no matter how many times she tightens her arms around the hacker, lays her head against her chest, and whispers a spare confession.
There isn’t a cure.
She tries letting compliments loose as soon as they enter her mind, kissing Sombra’s forehead on impulse, entwining their hands in the crevice between their seats on the airship.
Nothing works.
Even at the chateau, Sombra prefers the subterranean levels for her work. She is not helpful with the cleaning, instead holing herself up in a half-translucent fishbowl of screens, headphones in.
That night, on the balcony, Widow tries again. “I still feel sick.”
Sombra is seated on the stone railing, looking down at the lake.
Her hand pushes through the hacker’s hair. She can feel the wires beneath. “You lied,” she murmurs between kisses to the line of Sombra’s neck.
“Honesty isn’t a necessity in our relationship.” Sombra turns her face, just slightly, so Widow can catch the dimpled corner of her feral grin.
“You are so clever,” Widow sighs. “And so patient with me.”
“Ah.” The other woman tenses incrementally. “That sounded dangerously genuine.”
“You are, cherie. So clever and patient.”
Across the Ligurian Sea, the Talon headquarters are burning a riot of yellows.
The new empress of the earth touches the tip of her nose. It used to stun Widow into embarrassed silence, but now she can feel a lazy grin smoothing over her face, mirroring Sombra’s.