It wasn't until the morning sunrise came when the wind blew out the last remaining embers left over from the disarray of the Talon base. The smoke trails could be seen for miles, causing a massive commotion from witnesses believing it to be a forest fire. A flood of 911 calls came rushing in due to the concern of their safety. Before the incident could rattle up suspicion, Talon had to act now to keep their activities a secret. They sent over a few agents to investigate. Currently, it's been an hour since they have arrived at the scene. Most of that time was spent on hosing down the molten metal. A search team of about twenty-five men was all they had to figure out the mystery.

"Have anything new for us, captain?" A distorted voice came in through the transmitter beacon on the agents' helmets.

"Uhhh…nothing yet. Right now, we're having our men scavenge through the wreckage, whatever may have been of use is either destroyed or somewhere else entirely. From what we could gather our guess is foul play or espionage. Based on the base's security and architecture, it would be impossible that some accident would cause this much chaos. Eyewitness accounts say the explosion was massive, blasted the top off with so much force we found bits of rubble in the middle of the forest. As for the rest of it, well…let's say there's now a hundred-foot hole in the ground." The captain looked over his shoulder at the men with firehoses, "Hey, easy with that thing! There may be electrical currents still exposed."

"Any survivors?" The voice came in again.

"Highly unlikely but we'll keep looking."

"Don't bother, if there's anything that we can use for evidence, that is our main priority from here on out. Whoever did this is most likely still out there and can be extremely dangerous so they must be dealt with ASAP."

"Affirmative,"

"Hey, come look at this!" Shouted an agent reaching down for something in the tall grass. From afar, he held something solid and glistened a chalky white, he raised it up to the others, "Found this in some kind of…pile of ashes."

The captain looked over his shoulder, "Care to clarify that last part for me, corporal?"

"Yeah, it was some burnt crap that was splattered just in that area where I found it, it was like jet black, the consistency was super weird."

The captain eagerly followed behind the corporal, his desperation quite noticeable.

Upon reveal, he is found to be perplexed but not really satisfied, he gave the specimen the prod of his finger to ensure he could agree with the corporal's description, "Looks kinda like a silhouette. See the arms and upper torso?" He looked back at the agents circling him, they all exchanged puzzled looks, "No? Guess it's just me."

"Wait, I see footprints!" An agent pointed his finger at the prints, clear as day, "There's some over here as well,"

The captain squatted down to get a closer look, the prints were oddly thin, almost barefoot.

"The right foot left a blood trail, so they must've been caught in the middle of all this, this might be our culprit." With everyone circling the scene, they all followed the footprints, "Somebody walked over to whatever the hell this was…stumbled back…stopped…right here is where they walked away from the scene…and they continue right by the cliffside…only to end almost abruptly. If they were to leap off into the water they would definitely be crushed by the rocks or the waves would carry them off…this makes no sense." The captain thought for a while, "Did you find any more prints where you're standing?"

"Yeah, right here, sir-oh no, wait, those are mine, sorry."

Just in the corner of his eye, the captain pointed towards an unusual structure hidden beneath the branches, "What's in that cabin behind you?"

The agent volunteered to investigate the small metal cabin isolated from the rest of the base, it's peculiarity of being completely untouched caused the others to stand beside him at a considerable distance in eager anticipation. He felt for the rectangular outline that made the entrance, there were no handles, knobs, or buttons of any kind. "It's sealed shut, locked from the inside."

Noticing the narrow window on the other side, the agent got on his tippy toes and nonchalantly decided to peek in, with his head blocking the sunlight, he appeared to have a difficult time with seeing what was at the very back corner of the dark, secluded room. Before he could comprehend that there was something in there that was almost certainly human, the light reflected off the metal barrel of a rifle pointed directly at the agent's face. He immediately dropped down before he heard the crackling boom from inside the room, followed by a Doppler effect whoosh right above him. With his ears still ringing, he scrunched himself up against the wall in defense.

"What was that?!" An agent yelled.

"I don't know but it tried to kill me!"

"Get that door open." Ordered the captain, rallying a few startled agents. They all swarmed around the barren metal doorway with anticipation. Using a saw to separate the door's deadbolt, an agent across from them pulls the pin from a frag grenade, his fingers firmly grasping the lever.

"No, don't! That could be a witness. Subdue them!" Ordered the captain.

Obeying orders, he puts the pin back in and secures the grenade back in his holster. He instead calls for the soldier holding a gun made for non-lethal incapacitation. He sticks the barrel through the narrow opening of the unlocked door and blindly fires an electrocharged net. Judging from the muffled screams from inside the room, the agent assures them that he has hit his target. The captain orders the agents to wait a few seconds before rushing in after he knows for sure the target is subdued. Upon entering with guns at the ready, they witness the writhing, blue humanoid trapped like some animal. With their weapons still trained on her, they release her from the net and restrain her with handcuffs.

The captain spoke into the commlink, "Sir, we've found a survivor, over,"

"Specification, please?"

"Uhhh, adult female, armed…and she's blue,"

A long pause settled in, the captain rested his thumb on the transmission button on his commlink.

"Take her into custody for interrogation,"

The captain looked over his shoulder, the agents were anxious for their next orders, "Get her to the heli,"

"Yes, captain."

Most of the misconceptions about those who were on Talon's payroll was that they all shared the organizations beliefs, which wasn't always true. The affluence that came from Talon's corrupt endeavors allowed its executives to offer a very generous pay to the needy and desperate. The scary part was how easy it was for them to reel in some of the smartest and simplest of the working class through "too good to be true" offers; no resume? No problem! Form a union? Go right ahead, we'll compromise! Health insurance, workman's comp, and dental? You get it all! As long as they kept their loyalty and respect to the organization, they would never look back at their old jobs.

Monroe Kingsley, rank of captain, started off as a psychology professor at Yale, but never found admiration from his peers or pupils. He had found more solace at Talon when they saw interest in his insight and leadership skills.

First Lieutenant Katherine Pabst had been a journalist for Omnic Onslaught: a radio show that centered around conspiracy theories regarding the civil rights of Omnics and exposing their "true intentions". Needless to say, Talon had easily sparked her fancy.

The commander was a very private man but would tell of his time working for the FBI, it was a fair run and he was very good at his job. But the one thing he couldn't get over was the constant infighting from within his precinct. At Talon, differing opinions or refusal to conform to a group meant your ass. Here, the commander had peace of mind. Focusing on the task at hand with no opposition- with the exception being the typical questioning of order and counterarguments- was bliss.

Gathered around the conference table at base camp, the leading investigative team exchange souvenirs and artifacts from the crime scene. In the middle of the table was the disassembled rifle that nearly blew the head off the Talon private in the cabin. Kingsley examines the glowing red visor found Out of curiosity, he presses unfamiliar buttons that cover the eyes and focus the lens. "Hey, commander, can I have a turn with that when you're done?"

At the very end of the table, the commander examines the chalky white mask that had been haphazardly reassembled with industrial adhesive. "It's not like I'm playing with it, it's just that I'm…fascinated with the craftsmanship," He slides it over to Kingsley, stopping just within arm's reach.

"Careful, might be cursed," Lieutenant Pabst interjected. Drawing everyone's attention to her bogus claim, "What? Was on that goo monster, could've been like Diablo or something,"

Kingsley rolled his eyes, "Dude, out of everything we've been theorizing today, demons should be the last on our list of possibilities."

"Heh, maybe that's what all this is, the work of a shaman or some Gypsy queen blew up a remote Talon base in the middle of nowhere," Said the commander from over by the coffee maker, discovering it to be empty, "Ridiculous,"

"Don't mean to be a smart alek or anything, sir, but don't you think it's a bit redundant to use 'remote' and 'the middle of nowhere' in the same sentence?"

"Thanks for correcting my grammar, Kingsley, glad that you've made yourself such an asset for this mission." The commander looked over his shoulder at the captain, eyes glued to the floor in embarrassment while the others at the table exchanged chuckled, he sits back at the table and sighs, "Sorry, when I'm in a moment of disbelief I tend to exaggerate my statements. Or we're just out of coffee."

Kingsley's eyes shot back up, "Or maybe it was just a bomb?"

"We've looked at the base's specs and credentials, it has like quadruple deluxe security measures: thermal cameras, wiretaps, fail-safes, private servers, firewalls galore, defenses are beyond fully militarized. You could just be sitting in the employee lounge thinking about blowing it to smithereens and next thing you know you're fed to the sharks. And to be able to sneak in a bomb with that much cataclysmic capability, that does not sound like somebody I'd wanna mess with."

"I know you were speaking figuratively in all; when you said they could tell what others were thinking. But if our culprit did say something in the vicinity of, quote-unquote, 'blowing it to smithereens', wouldn't they have saved us some form of transcript?" Kingsley argued.

"To do that, you would have to remain in contact with another base within a five-hundred-mile radius via satellite and to do that, you would have to access that satellite via a third-party organization and to transfer that data would amount to give or take several hours at least. It was risky enough for us to get the memo of the base's destruction without revealing our location, let alone getting to the base in a helicopter disguised as military personnel."

The commander took a moment to catch his breath and think his next words through, hoping that he would get his point across, "Look, this is Talon you and I are talking about, we keep more and we share less, that's how it's always been. We've become so secluded that we can barely trust ourselves." Without caffeine to supplement his curiosity, he decided that nicotine would suffice as a substitute. Pulling out a packet of menthols, he grabs one of the two remaining cigarettes between his two fingers and uses his other hand to pull out a light. He takes a long draw as he leans back in his seat.

"So, what did they give us?", asked Pabst.

Without another word, the commander takes a few seconds to reach into his pocket, pulling out a thin and limp strip of paper with what appears to be bold printed text. He places it face down on the table and slides it over Pabst.

Using an available thumb to smoothen out the creases, she leans in to read the incredibly small text. "Base: Alpha-B; Offline-Destroyed"

"…Son of a bitch."

His moment of disbelief is cut short when a loud sequence of bangs is heard from the floor directly above them, and from experience they immediately recognize the gun to be from one of their soldiers.

Pabst dropped the sheet, "That's gunfire."

"Yeah, no shit," In an involuntary moment of suspense, the commander speaks into the available commlink on his chest, "Corporal, what's going on down there?"

"It's Matthews! That blue bitch you told us to bring in, he went to unlock her cell. She now has English hostage! There's…there's blood everywhere!"

Already expecting the worst, the commander grabs his rifle from under the table and rushes out of the room, "Come with me."

Running up the flight of stairs to the top floor that sheltered the prisoner chambers, the commander and his colleagues stormed into the immediate holding station. The screams that they heard becoming clearer and louder until finally coming onto the scene. Just as he expected, a complete bloodbath. Matthew's lifeless body on the floor against the wall, leaving behind a crimson smear as he slid his head down. Hastily panning his head over to where the other agents were huddled, the holding cell was wide open, the blindly contrasting light exposing part the purple humanoid's upper body. The commander ran in along with the others, his rifle at the ready.

There she was, Matthew's gun in hand pointed right at Agent English's skull, already writhing to escape. The others with guns also pointed and still screaming, some almost in tears.

"Stop stop! Hold it hold it! Don't shoot!"

"Get your hands off me!" She hissed, her voice notably sharp and her accent a very defined French.

Running through personal memory of what to do in the event of a hostage situation, the commander was finding himself unable to put his inner thoughts into words to engage in a stressful negotiation. Instead, he is only focused on the imagery in front of him, which is undoubtedly disturbing. A blood-stained cell creating the backdrop for the survivor's deeply contrasting skin tone. But that wasn't the only thing on his nerves. There may have been panic in the other agents, but to the blue-skinned woman there was no sense of tension at all, it was as if English was being held hostage by a mannequin with a gun. Every muscle completely still, unopposed by English's slight resisting jolts. The ultraviolet light had reflected off her eyes, revealing their bright gold luster, completely still and fixated forward at almost nothing.

"Commander, what should we do?!" Shouted Kingsley, standing his ground right next to him.

The commander's gun was shaking in his hands, he was somehow not able to grasp it correctly. Now realizing that he is more focused on the way he was holding his gun instead of the hostage situation in front of him, he had found himself frozen in place. "Everyone, back away slowly."

"What? Commander, she killed Matthews!" Pabst rebutted.

"I'm not losing another one of our men, back away!"

Hesitantly, the agents obliged, taking a few subtle steps back, guns still pointed.

"Now, what the hell do you want?" The commander asked nervously, his hand shaking more erratically.

"Sombra." Widowmaker whispered under her breath, her lips barely moving.

"Huh?"

Widowmaker asked again, "The one you are looking for, they call her Sombra."

"Sombra…that's Spanish for shadow, I'm guessing that's an alias." Kingsley confirmed. "You gonna tell us how we can find her?"

Widowmaker didn't answer, instead she increased the glare fixated on the agents as her lips formed an eerie sharp grin, her grip on English loosened.

"I want you to sit in that exact chair, alright? If you ever leave that chair without permission, you will be executed." The commander ordered, the other paranoid agents circling her with their rifles at the ready.

"Fair enough." Widowmaker pulled out a chair and sat down.

Kingsley walked over to English who was just coming up the stairs after medical examination to confirm that he was alright.

"Pen and paper, something to write stuff down." Being handed a small pocket notebook with one hand and a ballpoint pen in the other, he leans inward as he reveals a fresh page, "Now…tell us what you've promised us,"

"I'd be more than happy to." Widowmaker leaned back in her seat, her legs crossed, "Your culprit, your unsub, has spent years working for Talon. She is of Mexican nationality and a former member of the infamous Los Muertos gang. She claims to be the organization's lead technical support and an expert in covert black hat hacking. She has been sent on missions to spearhead tasks regarding digital networking and data, mostly involving governments and national conglomerates."

Lieutenant Pabst whispered to the commander, "Guess that rules out your 'insider' premonition, commander. This sounds like someone who knew Talon's codes and schematics by heart."

"That's only scratching the surface of what she is capable of. I've seen her murder others in cold blood before they could even get a glimpse of what she looks like."

"For your information, you and I among others, have done something at least pertaining to that kind of action." The commander argued.

"I wasn't finished. Not only is she a hacker but she's one that can kill through computer systems. I don't know how she does it but she has the knowledge and capability of accessing any piece of technology she can get a hold of. That means that laptop and that security camera behind you is susceptible and vulnerable to sabotage."

"How long has that been on?" Asked a nervous corporal, his full attention on the security camera that he never noticed before until now.

Pabst asked, "So, is that the best of her abilities?"

"Please tell me you're joking. She's joking, right?" The corporal was now sweating and hyperventilating, the commander always knew he could never do well under pressure. He shot up out of his chair and pointed his gun at the camera.

"Sit down, Cornell, this is not the time to get paranoid." The commander assured.

"Oh, but when that time comes, commander, best you keep a head count on your partners."

Everyone shot their attention back to Widowmaker and her ambiguous question. "She may play it cheap but to call her a diplomat would be an understatement. She makes negotiations look like pillow talk."

"What, like a seductive femme fatale of sorts?" Asked Pabst.

"Contraire. Cold as ice. I've seen her work, if you just so happen to find yourself sitting with her at breakfast, she will ensure that you never truly understand the difference between conversation and coercion. She only says what she wants you to hear and she only hears what she wants you to say. If neither of those criteria are met, you're just…wasted time. To her, friend is just a sick metaphor but it can shatter egos like glass."

Kingsley asked, "If she's resourceful with social skills, why would she ever contemplate blowing up a Talon base?"

"Because to put it lightly, commander, she is a paranoid sociopath…with a hint of a god complex. And let's just say she doesn't take betrayal lightly. Right now, this is Sombra at her worst state and rest assured it is not pretty; people will die if they get in her way."

"How do we know that you're not just saying her words back to us?" The commander asked suspiciously.

"Do you know why I'm the only survivor? Because I'm the only one who knows her one fatal error." Widowmaker looked around the room before leaning in, "…trusting me."

Ten minutes to eleven, London time. Angela came up the stairs to Winston's office with a fresh bunch of bananas, placing it right next to the scientist's keyboard, "There you go, fresh from the incubation chamber."

"Thanks, Mercy." Winston murmured, his voice filled with disdain.

At first Angela shrugged it off thinking Winston was going into withdrawal from the supposed lack of peanut butter. But as she went back down the stairs to join the others, she looked over her shoulders to see Winston's monitor still showing the chatroom screenshots of the alleged stalker.

Angela sighed and came back up the stairs to comfort the ape, "Hey, try not to stress out about it so much. Remember, it won't hurt to put it off until tomorrow. Besides, McCree, Amari, and I are having some fun just talking, you should join us."

Winston looked back at Angela, "I'll put it into consideration."

Angela looked out the dark window, "I don't know, it's getting pretty late. It's now or never."

"Then I guess the latter option would have to do."

Angela sighed again, returning back to the rec center with Jesse and Fareeha, who were exchanging jokes and anecdotes between a bottle of whiskey.

"Okay, so there's these two German guys fencing, right? Ones starting to get the upper hand. The other dude, he's already cavin' in, and eventually he does. Now he's all confused tellin' the guy, 'vat am I doing vong?' And then he says, 'I told you zat you need to use more defense,'. Now that only confuses him even more and he says, 'Vut, siss is fencing, I am using Die fence'." The buzzed Jesse let out an exhausted wheeze from laughing at his own supposedly brilliant joke, giving the tabletop a good beating with the palm of his hand. He inhaled to let out one last wail of overconfident laughter while everyone else stayed silent.

"Um, Jesse, it's actually Der fence," Mercy explained from the other table.

"Wow, Mercy, for once I'm glad that you could really APPRECIATE THE GODDAMN JOKE." McCree took a large swig of whiskey, "The nerve."

"You know fencing doesn't have actual fences." Pharah interjected.

"Well, that's the name of the sword they use, right?"

"No, it's called a saber."

McCree rolled his eyes and rubbed his temples, "Man, the one time I try to lighten the mood and everybody turns against me."

"I thought it was funny!" Mei's voice was just faintly heard across the room as she went to grab the notes on the table Mercy was at.

"Mei, you just walked in here."

Mei blushed, "Yeah, you're right. I was just trying to make you feel better about yourself. Bye!" She shuffled back to her lab.

Pharah brought McCree's attention back to her, "Maybe it's that you think about it too much."

"Whadd'ya mean?"

Mercy jumped in to support Fareeha's statement, "Well, humor is subjective, right? If it's something you had to make up and articulate, people can't process it as well. Try a real-life experience, something ridiculous you've done before."

"I mean, the funniest thing I've seen you do is tattle on that Austrian senator's five-year-old son." Fareeha mentioned humorously.

"He took the gun outta my holster when my back was turned, someone coulda easily gotten hurt!"

"And you handled it like he kicked sand at you on the playground." Fareeha cupped her mouth to suppress her lack of composed laughter, the pleasant memories coming back to her hitting all at once had made her nearly lose the contents of the glass she was holding, "Ahh, but that was…how many years ago?"

McCree looked at Fareeha, smiling pitifully, "You know, that's the first time I've heard you laugh all this week,"

Fareeha's giggles faded abruptly, she paused and began to reminisce the last time she was this amused, "Yeah, you could say that."

"Did you want to say something?"

She looked back at Jesse, "Excuse me?"

"Back at the car, I said that I wanted to talk about what happened back in Egypt more."

"Well, I kind of pretty much said the gist of it." Fareeha looked down at the bottom of her glass and took a confident sip.

Jesse began to look more concerned, "No, you were super vague 'cause you got so emotional and everything,"

Faintly, Fareeha breathed erratically as she broke eye contact with Jesse, "I…"

"Amari, what's going on?" Mercy said, sharing Jesse's concern for the Egyptian.

"…pardon me." Without another word, Fareeha got up from her chair, refusing to make eye contact with anybody before she emptied the contents of her glass into the kitchen sink.

Exiting the room through an automated doorway that happened to be unlocked, she found herself walking into Mei's personal laboratory which she had never thought to actually stumble upon. Expecting to find the scientist with her studies, she was instead welcomed by a small blue Omnic that hovered just at the level of Fareeha's chin. It's pixelated eyes and robotic giggles made itself out to be friendly. The Egyptian gave it an awkward pet, having to stop out of risking her hand getting burnt from its freezing cold metal exoskeleton.

"Oy, Eskimo! Wat's up with the new lady?" Shouted a rigid voice with a strong Australian accent from the back corner of the laboratory.

Fareeha jumped, as the specimen was so loud, she nearly went deaf in one ear, "Don't you know how to use your inside voice?" The image of him didn't sit well with her either. A frail, chiseled man with unwashed hair and wearing what could barely be considered sociably acceptable.

"Don't mind him, he's harmless," Said Mei, just walking in the lab, her eyes fixated on her notes. She took a moment to look up at Fareeha who was still unsettled by the base's new visitor, "Oh, this is Jamison Fawkes, he calls himself Junkrat."

"G'day." Chirped Junkrat as Mei handed him a plate of his late-night snack; an uncooked steak and some oranges.

"Our team caught him looting the barracks for weapons, more precisely explosives. And since we didn't have any cells for this base in particular, I decided to keep him in my lab for research. Turns out, his bloodstream contains heavy amounts of gamma radiation from fallout in the Australian Outback that would be deemed fatal to a normal human being. Which only makes him more interesting for my studies!"

"Maybe so, Mei, but don't you think we could improvise a cell?" Fareeha paused to take an up and down gander at the specimen, "Or at least put him on a leash?"

"Better! I injected him with the nanoprobes that I used to enter cryostasis back in Antarctica." Mei walked over to the computer station and focused Fareeha's attention on the switch next to the keyboard, she flipped open the protective plexiglass cover revealing a neon blue lever, her finger just hovering over it. "It's highly unlikely, but if he ever puts a step out of line, I can hold him in place with cold that contracts the muscles he needs for normal biomechanics,"

"Sounds mighty nasty if ya ask me, but I don't mind." Junkrat shrugged, taking a massive bite into the slab of meat.

Fareeha sighed, "Just make sure he doesn't do anything questionable,"

"You can count on me!"

Fareeha was just about to leave when the realization hit her; she had just remembered why she left Mercy and Jesse in the recreational area, "Hey, Mei, can I ask you a question?"

Mei nodded, "Uh huh!"

"When you used those nanoprobes. You…were rescued from that Ecopoint in Antarctica after all those years in cryostasis. That must have given you some amount of strain, right?"

"Mentally or physically?" Mei asked to clarify.

"I'm thinking more emotionally,"

Mei answered, this time more faint and timid, "Yeah, you could say that."

"How did you handle it?"

Mei's cheery smile dissolved, she knew the subject matter that Fareeha was bringing up was serious, "When they took me out of cryogenic slumber, they told me that out of all my colleagues, I was the only one who came out alive. At first, I felt terrible, but then they started to talk to me about how lucky I was to be alive, as if it was some sort of gift. I thought about my friends at the Ecopoint and how they would feel. When I was working there, there would be times where we didn't have a breakthrough for days, until something drastic happened and the weather changed in our favor, as if it admired our patience, but others just called it luck. Sometimes, when life gives us an extra chance, that's an extra opportunity to keep things in motion." The Omnic hovered over to Mei, giving her a quick nudge on the shoulder, the scientist chuckled, "I guess you can say Snowball here also helped me feel less lonely,"

"But how do you know for sure that those circumstances were luck or fate?" Asked Fareeha.

"I wouldn't worry too much about that. The clock never stops ticking, Pharah. Sometimes, we just have to accept things as they are, even if we never fully understand them."

"What happens when we do fully understand and the realization hurts us? I don't think I can handle it as fact or mystery."

"Well, that's up for you to decide." Mei rubbed her eyes and released a drawn-out yawn, she had put all of her energy into the story, "I bet the answers will be there for you in the morning. Time for some shut-eye, Jamison."

"G'night, Eskimo." Junkrat spit out the bone he was gnawing onto the floor, never bothering to escort it to the trash bin right next to him. He stretched out his lanky skeletal physique and plopped onto the available cot.

Pharah left after Mei, shutting the lights and punching in the keypad to lock the door behind her. Maybe Mei was right, maybe her fear of the unknown was getting the best of her. Maybe she just had to accept that we can't predict the future. But that thought still haunted her, the dark side of things, having to live in constant ignorance wondering why she can never talk to her mother again. The Egyptian stopped for a second, she couldn't let those thoughts get to her, just like Jesse said, it's not worth it. You left behind Jesse and Ziegler, you coward. Startled at first by how the subconscious thoughts persisted to give her guilt, she had shrugged it off, she really needed some sleep, it's been a long day.

Fareeha made her way back to her bunk through the recreational area, just noticing the luggage she had left by the table where she and Jesse talked. She had arrived at the door but noticed it was locked, which was strange since she always remembered having it wide open. She punched in the keypad, when the door opened, the blinds were shut as well, making the room completely pitch black-something definitely wasn't right.

Before turning the lights on, Fareeha took the chrome briefcase and tossed it onto her bed, instead of hearing the bed's cushioning soften the case's impact, it hit something rather unnatural. Fareeha noticed the object on her bed underneath the sheets let out a faint grunt from being woken up to something painful. Whatever the case hit had made it tumble off the bed and onto the thin carpet floor. There was definitely somebody else in her bunk, and it definitely was a person. It squirmed, kicked and flailed as it attempted to haphazardly remove the bedsheets.

"Urgh! Emily, what gives?" Murmured a feminine voice in a cockney British accent. Lena's clean-shaven head poked out of the sheets as she rubbed her eyes.

Fareeha was surprised yet relieved, now knowing that the other person in her bunk was a familiar face.

Lena's eyes adjusted to the light, she then recollected that she was at the abandoned Overwatch base. Looking over at who woke her up, she muttered, "Pharah,"

"Oxton," Fareeha retorted.

Lena stood up off the floor, pausing to gather insight on what was going on, "Oh, sorry, luv. Was this your room?"

Fareeha brushed her off, "Forget it, I wasn't going to ask."

"If it is, I mean, no hard feelings. After all, I'm still an accomplice and can't go home until Winston can assure that I'm no longer in danger,"

"I said forget it," Fareeha walked over to the dresser and pulled out an inflatable sleeping mat, the kind that was conventionally given to survivors after a natural disaster. She rolled it out at the very back corner of the room and pulled the tab, allowing it to inflate exponentially quick.

Lena sat on the edge of the bed, "Say, whatcha been up to?"

Fareeha was back at the dresser to find herself a blanket that was a reasonable size. "Well…I just got back from the hospital in Cairo-"

"Ooo, I've been there before. Back when we were hunting down that bomb maker. Yeah, was me, Winston, and a couple of other ones. And didn't y-oh wait, you work for Helix, right? "

"Worked for Helix."

"My bad." Lena murmured under her breath.

Fareeha finally found a good blanket and spread it onto the mattress that was close to fully inflating. She then took off her sweatshirt and hung it up onto the coat rack installed into the wall.

Lena chimed back in, "Oh yeah, you were going to tell me what you were doing back at Egypt."

Fareeha rolled her eyes, "Yes. I was…"

"Just wondering, why were you at a hospital? Was that volunteer work? Or was there an outbreak, 'cause those can be really scary…did you wash your hands?"

"Hey, I think you should come out and talk with us more, socialization is healthy."

Noticing Fareeha's change of the subject, Lena sighed and pouted, plopping her head back onto the mattress, "Been there, done that. I talk, they talk, I end up back here. Nothing changes. Rinse and repeat."

"It's just that I thought you'd want spend more time with the one's you've been friends with for almost a decade."

"Y'know, I had a conversation that was just like this yesterday," Lena changed the subject.

Fareeha smirked, "Déjà vu?"

Lena tilted her head, "…Right."

"What was it, then?"

"Huh?"

"What was the conversation you had yesterday?"

Lena recollected her thoughts to before she passed out drunk, "Well, back at my flat-"

Fareeha snickered and shook her head, "No no no, I meant what evaluation number?"

Lena paused and curled her lip to form a slight grimace, "You can't make this easy for me, can you?"

"You choose how difficult you want to make it, Oxton. I'm just sparking up a conversation."

"Actually, I don't think I want to tell you now. Maybe when you've earned it." Lena denied eye contact and folded her arms, her lip remained curled. Fareeha continued to ignore her body language and began to take things out of the chrome briefcase, arranging them around the mat.

Noticing how Fareeha was ignoring her, Lena brought her attention back to her, "Say, does this mean I can be your lodger since it doesn't appear you're going anywhere and you don't mind me taking up space?"

"If that's what you're going to call it, sure."

Lena unfolded her arms and shimmied across the bed towards Fareeha, "Wicked. So, why are you here, exactly?"

The Egyptian looked over her shoulder, her whole body away from the ex-agent, "More to the point, Oxton, why are you here?"

"I already told you that, remember? Bouta minute ago?"

Fareeha turned a heel and now motioned herself towards Lena, she folded her arms and her face became deadpan.

Both knew why they came to the base, but Fareeha decided to hold the silence for a little longer to let her intentions sink in.

Lena, being none the wiser, shot up with wide eyes, "I-I can't drive home! What do you want from me?"

"You haven't changed a bit, haven't you? I mean, everywhere I've seen you, you bring this…this apathy. You make everyone around you feel so jaded and discouraged just so you can feel better about yourself."

Lena's stopped biting her cheek as her mouth turned into a smirk of disbelief and condescension, the kind that showed amusement towards another's delusional self-righteousness.

Fareeha took this as a sign that she was listening, but not in a way that was transparent, "Yeah, you heard me. Because if you can't accept that then we aren't going to get anywhere with you around, you're just…a liability."

Lena now had her hands tucked in her pockets, "…I was right, wasn't I? This really is just like yesterday."

"Why?! Why do you keep going back to that? No wonder you don't want to talk to anybody, it's because the rest of your mind is still back at that run down complex."

"You're talking about my home!"

"So, what? Can this not be your home too?"

"I didn't choose to be here, y'know! It's very hard to imagine rubbish like that after you've basically been kidnapped."

Pharah threw her arms up, "Stop talking like that! All the time you complain about people trying to make you feel guilty and you think it's fine when you do it to them?"

"Of course, I do! It's only because these days it seems as though everyone here thinks about me, they can never shut up about it."

"Because they're scared for you. You have a problem, Oxton. You. Have. A problem. Why won't you accept that?"

"You really believe that you can just waltz in here and think you know me? You don't know my life story, you don't know what I've been through! I'd like to see YOU try a career at Overwatch and see what it's like."

Fareeha's blood boiled and her pupils dilated, both hands shook and clamored before landing a jabbing left hook into Lena's stomach. The impact jolted her upwards with feet an inch off the ground as she plummeted face first. She shot back up on all fours, clenching her abdomen and gasping for breath, her eyes watering and mouth ajar, loosening a stream of saliva onto the carpet.

"You should be grateful you got into the damn force!" Fareeha shouted from above the former agent's head. Within a millisecond, a plasmid blue aura encased Lena and propelled her into the Egyptian, with a trivial amount of effort sweeping her off her feet and into the dresser cabinet, the impact causing it to shutter and rattle. With Lena's right forearm against her larynx, Fareeha had found herself in complete shock; the feeling of going from the middle of the room to the back end bewildered her.

"What? Care for a rematch, luv?! Like to see you flail your way outta this one!" Just under Lena's thorax was a loud beeping noise behind the flickering of her chronal accelerator, the blink had drained the last bit of power from the device. Lena grunted, releasing Fareeha from her clutches as the Egyptian slid to the ground in both relief and pain. The knob from one of the drawers sunk its way into her abdomen and the aches were just settling in.

Lena reached under her arm, she lifted a metal flap and squeezed the lever on the blinking device. In a split-second it sprung out with a loud *sching* as the metal apparatus formed a prism around her upper torso. She loosened the straps on her shoulders and comfortably slipped out of the contraption, pulling it over her head and forcing it against the ground so it could compact into a singular flat triangle. She hastily rushed over to the charging station at the back end of the room and dropped it onto the tray. The gigantic battery below it sputtered and lit up, cueing for the flickers to finally halt.

"Now if you don't mind me, in case you've forgotten, I'm still extremely knackered!" Lena plopped back onto the mattress, this time covering herself with the bedsheets like before.

Pharah clamored herself up off the floor until something shiny caught her eye, it was her mother's Ankh necklace, "When did this get here?"

Lena looked over at what Fareeha was mentioning, "I dunno, it's not mine, I didn't touch it."

Skeptical at first, the Egyptian reached to pick it up and get a closer look. She noticed every detail was legit, it was as if she was a kid again: the gold luster of a deep yellow and white contrast, a righteous and boldly crafted symbol that dangled along the chain.

"Envious git!" Snapped Lena out from under her sheets, something she just needed to get out of her system before going back to sleep. The insult jolted Fareeha out of the chain's hypnotic trance.

After a good stretch and blowing out some hot air of contempt, Pharah decided to finally rest on the mattress along with the rest of her belongings. An ice-cold touch around her neck had suddenly caught her off guard. She reached around and realized that she had put on the necklace without even noticing, as if she was drawn to it somehow, drawn to the good memories with her and…her mother. She looked up at the ceiling, her message popped back into her head again: life has no real ending, the soul lives for eternity. She held on close to the symbol as she drifted off to sleep.