Nothing you want to see
Jan. 31st, 2013 11:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
It's shaping up to be another long day of working on my own projects while Reaper pretends to watch the news, when Athena sends me a message.
YOU NEED TO SEE THIS she types, and then a file comes through.
It's Gabriel Reyes, clearly caught in the middle of a prank someone has pulled because he's in a laundry room with an armload of clothes, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers and some white bunny slippers. A laugh bursts out of me. Reaper turns to look, wisping in alarm because me laughing is rarely good for his dignity. "Nothing you want to see," I say quickly, and I start to type but only get as far as WHY before a second file comes through. This one is an official order sent by Gabriel Reyes, as the head of Blackwatch, commanding a bunch of names I don't care about to do something I don't get a chance to read because Athena sends me another message.
CHECK THE TIMESTAMPS IN THE METADATA.
Behind my screens, I can see Reaper now wisping more, because me laughing is a bad but harmless sign. Me going from laughter to looking alert and serious is a bad sign that suggests something is wrong.
I check the insides of both files. The picture was taken on an ancient digital camera, back when those were a thing that ordinary people used, and the device helpfully encoded all of its information on the image. The timestamp matches when the Blackwatch order was sent within a handful of minutes.
"Sombra..."
Ana's connection opens.
I tell Athena, THEY'RE FOUR MINUTES APART.
Ana's still typing; without looking at her area of my visualization, I tell Reaper, "Give me a minute."
Athena says, THERE IS NO WAY HE COULD HAVE GIVEN THAT ORDER.
ATHENA DISCOVERED SOMETHING SIGNIFICANT, Ana's typed.
To Athena: TALON HAD AT LEAST ONE MOLE IN BLACKWATCH. To Ana: WHERE DID THE PICTURE COME FROM?
While Ana's typing her response, Athena says, I SUSPECTED SOMEONE WAS INTERFERING. NOW WE HAVE PROOF.
JESSE MCCREE HAD AN OLD CAMERA. HE BROUGHT IT TO ME TO RETRIEVE THE PICTURES, is as far as Ana's gotten.
I CROSS-REFERENCED TALON MISSIONS AND BLACKWATCH RECORDS TO IDENTIFY WHO REAPER USED TO BE, I tell Athena.
She types back, I DOUBT THAT WILL UNCOVER THE FULL SCOPE OF THIS BETRAYAL.
AND WHEN I SHARED THEM WITH ATHENA, Ana continues, SHE DISCOVERED
THE TIMESTAMPS WERE TOO CLOSE FOR THE ORDER TO BE LEGITIMATE, I interrupt. I'm abusing my processing speed to keep up with Athena and I'll pay for it later, but I don't care. I send the AI a question: DID YOU GET THE ORDER OFF TALON'S COPY OF THE BLACKWATCH SERVER?
NO, she sends back.
I highlight a section of the metadata and send her that part. THEN CHECK THE BLACKWATCH RECORDS YOU HAVE FOR THIS SEQUENCE IN THE METADATA.
WHAT IS IT?
TALON SERVER AUTHENTICATION CODE. ANYTHING THAT'S PASSED THROUGH TALON'S SYSTEMS IS MARKED THIS WAY.
Ana's typed, WE BELIEVE GABRIEL WAS SET UP.
My surge of vindication - because I knew it, I knew Papi Gabriel had been framed - is overtaken by the temper that got me into trouble as a child. I'M ON IT, I tell Ana. THANK YOU.
I WILL BEGIN SEARCHING AT ONCE. Athena's message is waiting when I turn my attention back over to her section of my visualization.
LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU FIND, I tell her. I WILL CHECK WITH TALON'S MISSIONS UNLESS YOU BEAT ME TO IT.
Ana types, THANK YOU, LITTLE SHADOW, and her connection closes.
"Sombra," Reaper growls, more worried and less patient.
I WILL DO IT, Athena says. IT WILL GO BETTER WITH THE GOVERNMENTS OF THE WORLD IF I CAN REPORT THAT IT WAS ALL MY INVESTIGATION.
I LEAVE IT IN YOUR HANDS THEN, AND THANK YOU.
THE ONLY FAMILY WINSTON AND I HAD WAS SHATTERED WHEN OVERWATCH FELL, she types. I MAY NOT BE CONVINCED REAPER DESERVES TO HAVE HIS NAME CLEARED, BUT EXONERATING GABRIEL REYES LIFTS OVERWATCH OUT OF THE METAPHORIC MUD, AS WELL.
THEN OUR GOALS ARE THE SAME, I send, biting back my temper. AND YOU HAVE MY WORD THAT TALON WILL BURN FOR THIS.
WHAT ARE YOU PLANNING? she asks after a beat.
WHEN I LEAVE TALON, I WILL BE TAKING REAPER AND WIDOWMAKER WITH ME, AND I WILL SET OFF A DATA BOMB THAT WILL LEAVE THEIR SERVERS A SEETHING CRATER OF ONES AND ZEROS.
Two beats. Three. WHILE I APPROVE, MIGHT I TROUBLE YOU TO WARN ME BEFORE YOU DO THAT?
I PROMISE. GOOD HUNTING, ATHENA.
THANK YOU, SOMBRA. I HOPE FOR ALL OUR SAKES THAT IT GOES WELL. And her connection closes.
"Sombra!"
With the connections closed, my attention snaps back to the outside world and Reaper's looming in front of my chair, black smoke seething from all over him. "I was having two conversations! Jeez, Papi!"
The wisps die down a bit. "About what?"
As much as I want to blurt out 'you were set up', that's not the best way to break that to Reaper. "Ana and Athena found proof that some of the orders Blackwatch was given were forged," I say carefully.
The wisping on his chest and legs stops, but it doubles from his head and back.
"Athena's checking to find all the orders that came from outside."
"And when she does?" he snarls, furious. "Then what?"
I shrug. "I guess she gonna take it to the U.N., try to un-disband Overwatch."
"Of course. Overwatch. I should have known that's all she would care about."
"She gonna have to prove you were set up to do it," I point out, but somehow that just makes him even more angry.
"So the whole world will know the head of Blackwatch couldn't keep his organization under control!" he bellows. "I fail to see how that's better!"
You know, considering the police records I dug up for the Reyes household and that it was always the wife or the neighbor who made the call for domestic violence, never the son because he was actively engaged in combating the father, this mindset isn't really a surprise. "Which is worse?" I ask pointedly. "Letting some asshole have power over you because you don't want to admit he does, or telling someone that he does so they can help you kick his ass?"
For a beat or two, all the wisping stops dead. Then his chest starts bleeding smoke, and wisps come off his legs so heavily that I can barely see them at all under it. "And what if that someone isn't strong enough to kick his ass," he demands. "Then all that's done is give the asshole two targets instead of one."
Before I can counter with bringing in more allies, and run the risk of having to identify some of my friends if he comes back with the argument that no one would come to his aid even if he asked for help, he dissolves completely into smoke and flows out of the room.
I know Ana would help if I asked her. I'm pretty sure Uncle Jack would, if I got a message to him. Tracer, Winston...maybe. Linkbrother Genji would come if I asked, for me if not for Reaper. But I don't have a target; I don't know who sent the falsified orders, I still haven't found the head of Talon. Well, no time like the present, right? I move to the couch and open my screens.
Two hours later, I close them in frustration. No matter how high up the chain of command I go, there's always someone giving them orders and when I think I've reached the top, I can't figure out where the orders came from. They're just there. Reaper's not back yet; he's probably taking his frustration out on whichever hapless Talon grunts get in his way. May as well take a nap and recover from overclocking my brain before he gets back.
=
When I wake up, it's not much of a surprise that Reaper's sitting on the other end of the couch, or that he's covered me with a blanket. What is a surprise is that when I sit up, he turns to look at me.
"What did they find?" he asks in a disturbingly calm voice.
"McCree took a picture of you. Timestamp puts it too close to an order for you to have been the one to send it out."
"That's not proof," he growls. "That piece of junk probably didn't know what day it was, much less have the right time."
"Fine." I start opening screens and accessing the Blackwatch server. "Let's find the truth, then."
Pull up the copy of the order in question, zoom in on the date and time. Reaper watches as I sift through the Blackwatch records for that day. Talon must have just taken the servers away entirely; I can find the security logs and trace who went where in the building. There's a stretch of time - six hours, fifteen minutes - where no one entered the office of Commander Reyes, and the suspicious order was sent almost ten minutes before the door logs register Gabriel Reyes as entering the office again.
Reaper's hunched over, wisping lightly from the back of his head. Angry, but puzzled. "That's not right."
"The door logs?"
"Those fifteen minutes. Laundry doesn't take that long. What caused the delay?"
He watches as I trace the door logs, following Commander Reyes's keycard through the building. Judging from the lack of reaction, there's no unusual stops. He's just in the laundry area past when, apparently, he should have left.
"Something had to have happened," he growls. The angry wisps stop for a beat, then come back with a vengeance. "The picture McCree took. What was it?"
"You sure you want to see?" I ask, giving him a chance to save his dignity.
"Sombraaaa!"
I pull up the picture.
Reaper fumes at it for a good minute and a half before growling wordlessly. Then there's another minute of silence before he grinds out, "McCree's stupid camera had the right day and time."
"Athena's going to find all the falsified orders," I say quietly, closing all the screens.
"Who sent them?"
"Someone in Talon. That's all we know so far."
But apparently Reaper knows something I don't, because he's wisping like his entire back is on fire.
"Papi?"
"When you find out who's responsible," he snarls, "you bring that information to me before you make a move. Understood?"
Agreement seems like the only safe response to that, so I keep my eyes on his mask and say, "Understood."
"Good." Reaper turns on the news and wisps in quiet fury while pretending to watch.
When the program is over, I say, "Between Ana and Athena, they gonna tell everyone Blackwatch was sabotaged."
"A few phony orders aren't going to change anyone's mind, Sombra."
"Then it's good we gonna have more proof than that." I give him a challenging look. "We also cross-referencing Talon's movements, and I know we gonna find they had a hand in all the shit that went down in Zurich."
"And how, exactly, do you know that?" Reaper growls.
"Because that's how I found you."
Whether it's the reminder that I figured out who he had been or all the possible repercussions of having been misjudged and unfairly blamed or just having it pointed out that he's working for the same organization that tried to get him killed and nearly succeeded, Reaper dissolves into a cloud of rage and flows up and into his room.
I pull up a few screens and start working on my data bomb, using the Talon authentication code as a bait indicator. I don’t want to accidentally erase the entire internet, after all. When I've got everything I need out of Talon, and I'm ready to take their assassins with me on my way out, I'll set it off and destroy everything the assholes worked so hard to build. One of my favorite songs from childhood, the one that's practically my personal anthem, comes to mind and I hum a few lines almost cheerfully under my breath as I work.
Set this plane up in flames.
It's over, it's over, it's over.
It's time to burn it down.
YOU NEED TO SEE THIS she types, and then a file comes through.
It's Gabriel Reyes, clearly caught in the middle of a prank someone has pulled because he's in a laundry room with an armload of clothes, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers and some white bunny slippers. A laugh bursts out of me. Reaper turns to look, wisping in alarm because me laughing is rarely good for his dignity. "Nothing you want to see," I say quickly, and I start to type but only get as far as WHY before a second file comes through. This one is an official order sent by Gabriel Reyes, as the head of Blackwatch, commanding a bunch of names I don't care about to do something I don't get a chance to read because Athena sends me another message.
CHECK THE TIMESTAMPS IN THE METADATA.
Behind my screens, I can see Reaper now wisping more, because me laughing is a bad but harmless sign. Me going from laughter to looking alert and serious is a bad sign that suggests something is wrong.
I check the insides of both files. The picture was taken on an ancient digital camera, back when those were a thing that ordinary people used, and the device helpfully encoded all of its information on the image. The timestamp matches when the Blackwatch order was sent within a handful of minutes.
"Sombra..."
Ana's connection opens.
I tell Athena, THEY'RE FOUR MINUTES APART.
Ana's still typing; without looking at her area of my visualization, I tell Reaper, "Give me a minute."
Athena says, THERE IS NO WAY HE COULD HAVE GIVEN THAT ORDER.
ATHENA DISCOVERED SOMETHING SIGNIFICANT, Ana's typed.
To Athena: TALON HAD AT LEAST ONE MOLE IN BLACKWATCH. To Ana: WHERE DID THE PICTURE COME FROM?
While Ana's typing her response, Athena says, I SUSPECTED SOMEONE WAS INTERFERING. NOW WE HAVE PROOF.
JESSE MCCREE HAD AN OLD CAMERA. HE BROUGHT IT TO ME TO RETRIEVE THE PICTURES, is as far as Ana's gotten.
I CROSS-REFERENCED TALON MISSIONS AND BLACKWATCH RECORDS TO IDENTIFY WHO REAPER USED TO BE, I tell Athena.
She types back, I DOUBT THAT WILL UNCOVER THE FULL SCOPE OF THIS BETRAYAL.
AND WHEN I SHARED THEM WITH ATHENA, Ana continues, SHE DISCOVERED
THE TIMESTAMPS WERE TOO CLOSE FOR THE ORDER TO BE LEGITIMATE, I interrupt. I'm abusing my processing speed to keep up with Athena and I'll pay for it later, but I don't care. I send the AI a question: DID YOU GET THE ORDER OFF TALON'S COPY OF THE BLACKWATCH SERVER?
NO, she sends back.
I highlight a section of the metadata and send her that part. THEN CHECK THE BLACKWATCH RECORDS YOU HAVE FOR THIS SEQUENCE IN THE METADATA.
WHAT IS IT?
TALON SERVER AUTHENTICATION CODE. ANYTHING THAT'S PASSED THROUGH TALON'S SYSTEMS IS MARKED THIS WAY.
Ana's typed, WE BELIEVE GABRIEL WAS SET UP.
My surge of vindication - because I knew it, I knew Papi Gabriel had been framed - is overtaken by the temper that got me into trouble as a child. I'M ON IT, I tell Ana. THANK YOU.
I WILL BEGIN SEARCHING AT ONCE. Athena's message is waiting when I turn my attention back over to her section of my visualization.
LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU FIND, I tell her. I WILL CHECK WITH TALON'S MISSIONS UNLESS YOU BEAT ME TO IT.
Ana types, THANK YOU, LITTLE SHADOW, and her connection closes.
"Sombra," Reaper growls, more worried and less patient.
I WILL DO IT, Athena says. IT WILL GO BETTER WITH THE GOVERNMENTS OF THE WORLD IF I CAN REPORT THAT IT WAS ALL MY INVESTIGATION.
I LEAVE IT IN YOUR HANDS THEN, AND THANK YOU.
THE ONLY FAMILY WINSTON AND I HAD WAS SHATTERED WHEN OVERWATCH FELL, she types. I MAY NOT BE CONVINCED REAPER DESERVES TO HAVE HIS NAME CLEARED, BUT EXONERATING GABRIEL REYES LIFTS OVERWATCH OUT OF THE METAPHORIC MUD, AS WELL.
THEN OUR GOALS ARE THE SAME, I send, biting back my temper. AND YOU HAVE MY WORD THAT TALON WILL BURN FOR THIS.
WHAT ARE YOU PLANNING? she asks after a beat.
WHEN I LEAVE TALON, I WILL BE TAKING REAPER AND WIDOWMAKER WITH ME, AND I WILL SET OFF A DATA BOMB THAT WILL LEAVE THEIR SERVERS A SEETHING CRATER OF ONES AND ZEROS.
Two beats. Three. WHILE I APPROVE, MIGHT I TROUBLE YOU TO WARN ME BEFORE YOU DO THAT?
I PROMISE. GOOD HUNTING, ATHENA.
THANK YOU, SOMBRA. I HOPE FOR ALL OUR SAKES THAT IT GOES WELL. And her connection closes.
"Sombra!"
With the connections closed, my attention snaps back to the outside world and Reaper's looming in front of my chair, black smoke seething from all over him. "I was having two conversations! Jeez, Papi!"
The wisps die down a bit. "About what?"
As much as I want to blurt out 'you were set up', that's not the best way to break that to Reaper. "Ana and Athena found proof that some of the orders Blackwatch was given were forged," I say carefully.
The wisping on his chest and legs stops, but it doubles from his head and back.
"Athena's checking to find all the orders that came from outside."
"And when she does?" he snarls, furious. "Then what?"
I shrug. "I guess she gonna take it to the U.N., try to un-disband Overwatch."
"Of course. Overwatch. I should have known that's all she would care about."
"She gonna have to prove you were set up to do it," I point out, but somehow that just makes him even more angry.
"So the whole world will know the head of Blackwatch couldn't keep his organization under control!" he bellows. "I fail to see how that's better!"
You know, considering the police records I dug up for the Reyes household and that it was always the wife or the neighbor who made the call for domestic violence, never the son because he was actively engaged in combating the father, this mindset isn't really a surprise. "Which is worse?" I ask pointedly. "Letting some asshole have power over you because you don't want to admit he does, or telling someone that he does so they can help you kick his ass?"
For a beat or two, all the wisping stops dead. Then his chest starts bleeding smoke, and wisps come off his legs so heavily that I can barely see them at all under it. "And what if that someone isn't strong enough to kick his ass," he demands. "Then all that's done is give the asshole two targets instead of one."
Before I can counter with bringing in more allies, and run the risk of having to identify some of my friends if he comes back with the argument that no one would come to his aid even if he asked for help, he dissolves completely into smoke and flows out of the room.
I know Ana would help if I asked her. I'm pretty sure Uncle Jack would, if I got a message to him. Tracer, Winston...maybe. Linkbrother Genji would come if I asked, for me if not for Reaper. But I don't have a target; I don't know who sent the falsified orders, I still haven't found the head of Talon. Well, no time like the present, right? I move to the couch and open my screens.
Two hours later, I close them in frustration. No matter how high up the chain of command I go, there's always someone giving them orders and when I think I've reached the top, I can't figure out where the orders came from. They're just there. Reaper's not back yet; he's probably taking his frustration out on whichever hapless Talon grunts get in his way. May as well take a nap and recover from overclocking my brain before he gets back.
=
When I wake up, it's not much of a surprise that Reaper's sitting on the other end of the couch, or that he's covered me with a blanket. What is a surprise is that when I sit up, he turns to look at me.
"What did they find?" he asks in a disturbingly calm voice.
"McCree took a picture of you. Timestamp puts it too close to an order for you to have been the one to send it out."
"That's not proof," he growls. "That piece of junk probably didn't know what day it was, much less have the right time."
"Fine." I start opening screens and accessing the Blackwatch server. "Let's find the truth, then."
Pull up the copy of the order in question, zoom in on the date and time. Reaper watches as I sift through the Blackwatch records for that day. Talon must have just taken the servers away entirely; I can find the security logs and trace who went where in the building. There's a stretch of time - six hours, fifteen minutes - where no one entered the office of Commander Reyes, and the suspicious order was sent almost ten minutes before the door logs register Gabriel Reyes as entering the office again.
Reaper's hunched over, wisping lightly from the back of his head. Angry, but puzzled. "That's not right."
"The door logs?"
"Those fifteen minutes. Laundry doesn't take that long. What caused the delay?"
He watches as I trace the door logs, following Commander Reyes's keycard through the building. Judging from the lack of reaction, there's no unusual stops. He's just in the laundry area past when, apparently, he should have left.
"Something had to have happened," he growls. The angry wisps stop for a beat, then come back with a vengeance. "The picture McCree took. What was it?"
"You sure you want to see?" I ask, giving him a chance to save his dignity.
"Sombraaaa!"
I pull up the picture.
Reaper fumes at it for a good minute and a half before growling wordlessly. Then there's another minute of silence before he grinds out, "McCree's stupid camera had the right day and time."
"Athena's going to find all the falsified orders," I say quietly, closing all the screens.
"Who sent them?"
"Someone in Talon. That's all we know so far."
But apparently Reaper knows something I don't, because he's wisping like his entire back is on fire.
"Papi?"
"When you find out who's responsible," he snarls, "you bring that information to me before you make a move. Understood?"
Agreement seems like the only safe response to that, so I keep my eyes on his mask and say, "Understood."
"Good." Reaper turns on the news and wisps in quiet fury while pretending to watch.
When the program is over, I say, "Between Ana and Athena, they gonna tell everyone Blackwatch was sabotaged."
"A few phony orders aren't going to change anyone's mind, Sombra."
"Then it's good we gonna have more proof than that." I give him a challenging look. "We also cross-referencing Talon's movements, and I know we gonna find they had a hand in all the shit that went down in Zurich."
"And how, exactly, do you know that?" Reaper growls.
"Because that's how I found you."
Whether it's the reminder that I figured out who he had been or all the possible repercussions of having been misjudged and unfairly blamed or just having it pointed out that he's working for the same organization that tried to get him killed and nearly succeeded, Reaper dissolves into a cloud of rage and flows up and into his room.
I pull up a few screens and start working on my data bomb, using the Talon authentication code as a bait indicator. I don’t want to accidentally erase the entire internet, after all. When I've got everything I need out of Talon, and I'm ready to take their assassins with me on my way out, I'll set it off and destroy everything the assholes worked so hard to build. One of my favorite songs from childhood, the one that's practically my personal anthem, comes to mind and I hum a few lines almost cheerfully under my breath as I work.
Set this plane up in flames.
It's over, it's over, it's over.
It's time to burn it down.