Trinity goes both ways
Feb. 8th, 2013 10:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
moonshadows
The connection opened so subtly that Sombra didn’t notice until the words appeared in the corner of her visualization.
ON A SCALE OF 1 TO 10, HOW WOULD YOU RATE YOUR EXPERTISE WITH HOSTILE NANITE SWARMS?
Interesting way of saying hello. She set one program to the task of tracking the connection while on another, she typed, ABOUT A 7, WHY?
The program reported that the connection did not originate anywhere. It was carried on some type of wave Sombra had never seen before.
BECAUSE I HAVE SOME FRIENDS WHO NEED A SAFE PLACE TO CRASH, AND THE ONLY PERSON I’D TRUST THEM WITH (BESIDES ME) IS YOU.
Well, that was flattering, but it didn’t answer any of the important questions. AND YOU KNOW ME…HOW?
THEY’LL ARRIVE TOMORROW. BY THE WAY – LOVE YOUR STYLE. XOXO
The connection closed.
“What the fuck?”
===
The safehouse had been locked down as much as possible, which for the most part meant the omnic staff was in their quarters with the doors locked, and Ana’s snipers were on the roof with orders to hold fire until they can see what they’re dealing with. Jack stood at the back door with his pulse rifle, Jesse at the front with his Peacekeeper, and Sombra lounged in the security office watching all the cameras at once with Reaper standing anxiously behind her, shotguns at the ready.
Then, suddenly, someone was on the helipad.
Sombra frowned and rewound that feed, slowing it, looking frame by frame. The masked figure did just appear, but the way it (he) had done so reminded her of her translocation beacons. Except, of course, that there had been no beacon there. So. It seemed she wasn’t the only one who had tinkered with the slipstream engine.
A gesture, and she was live on all channels. “Our guest has arrived on the helipad.” Wait. Hadn’t her mysterious contact said some friends, plural? “There may be more incoming. Do not engage.”
There was something familiar about that figure, but besides that, he was clearly hurt from the way he took two stumbling steps and collapsed. A few minutes passed, during which time whatever white clothes he was wearing seemed unusually animate, but no one else appeared. Was her mysterious contact counting the nanite swarm as a friend? Was that why the clothes seemed to move on their own?
Medical nanite clothes. There was some promise there; Sombra filed the idea away to share with Angela later.
The figure picked himself back up, looked around, and drew two very familiar shotguns. Now Sombra knew why he looked familiar, and it had nothing (or everything) to do with his owl-skull mask.
“Copycat,” growled Reaper from behind her.
“You famous, Papi, get used to it,” she shot back absently. The figure was walking towards the back door of the safehouse. “Uncle Jack, he heading your way. Be polite. Papi and I on our way to you.”
“Acknowledged,” Jack replied.
Sombra ran for the back door with a river of smoke keeping pace. They got there just as Jack was opening the door, rifle slung at his back.
Up close, their guest clearly shared the same height and build as Reaper, not to mention more than a passing design influence. From behind his mask, he eyed her and Jack with wary body language, although Jack’s face was covered by his targeting visor, and then he pointed one talon-gauntlet hand at the black mist that followed Sombra in.
“You have one, too?”
The fact that he sounded more than a little like Reaper wasn’t the thing that startled them the most. No, that would be the silver eyes that opened up on their guest’s clothing and watched them with what she assumed was curiosity. Sombra made a ‘stay’ motion at Reaper, hoping he would take the hint and stay as a cloud of black smoke. Thankfully, he did.
“Si,” she said cheerfully. “If your friend is a person held together by a nanite swarm, then yes, we have one, too. We were told you’d be arriving. This is a safehouse; you are safe here. I am Sombra.”
No one was really expecting the mention of her name to get both guest and…clothes…to relax, but it did. Mentally, she shrugged. She’d question it later, but for now, it was a lucky break.
“Come in,” she invited him. Them? “Follow me, we gonna get you settled in the west wing, second floor. No one there to bother you.”
The guest stepped inside, nodding warily to Jack, and Reaper flowed ahead of her as she led the way to the empty living area.
“You got names?” she asked lightly as they crossed the central area and started climbing stairs.
“Angel,” he said in that almost-Reaper voice. “And…seventy-six.”
“Your friend with the eyes?”
“Si,” he answered with a grin in his voice.
Sombra opened the door to the living area and gestured them inside. Once they were all in the living room, the white clothes flowed off of Angel and they both watched as the two clouds of smoke – one white, one black – flowed warily around each other like two dogs sniffing.
“Looked like you were hurt pretty bad,” Sombra said casually. “You need anything, either of you?”
“I could do with something to eat,” Angel answered.
“Not a problem, kitchen’s stocked. And your friend?”
“Uh…I think he’s good. Mi sol,” he called to the white mist, “you need anything before we settle in for the night?”
A tendril of the mist reached out to caress Angel’s left arm.
“Nah. We’re good.”
Sombra nodded. “This entire wing is empty except for you, and I will make sure no one bothers you. In the morning, I will come see how you’re doing, okay?”
Angel nodded back. “Sounds fine.”
“Okay. Come on, Papi, time to go.”
As Reaper flowed out of the room, Angel asked, “He’s your father?”
Sombra laughed. “Well…he can’t prove that he’s not.”
===
In the living room of the east wing, the other residents of the safehouse gathered around Sombra.
“He goes by Angel,” Sombra was telling them, “and his friend is called seventy-six.”
“They’re not friends,” Reaper growled. “Not with that pet name.”
Jesse grunted. “That’s their business, not ours. Did you figure out how they got here?”
“I have guesses,” Sombra said. “Until we know more, I don’t think anyone should approach them without me present.”
“They relaxed when you introduced yourself,” Jack said slowly. “Do you think they’re involved with an omnic group?”
Sombra shook her head. “I would have gotten more detail. I’m going to talk to them tomorrow. For now, I’ll monitor them through the safehouse systems. We don’t know what seventy-six is capable of yet, so no hostile moves because we don’t have a way to stop him without potentially killing him.”
Nods all around.
===
In the privacy of her room, Sombra and Reaper-dog lounged in her bed, watching the screen she had open. “That was my voice,” Reaper had argued. “If someone managed to clone me, I have a right to know.” Sombra had agreed, and switched the screen so that he could watch and listen. Neither of them said anything when “Angel” took his mask off and revealed a very familiar face.
“There’s plenty of food there,” Reaper growled. “Why is he making pancakes?”
“Cuz you pancakes just that good?” Sombra teased. “Joking. Look at his eyes, he looks like he hasn’t slept for a week. Maybe he been without a real kitchen so long he forgot how to make anything else.”
In silence, they watched the two guests make and eat pancakes.
“Why doesn’t he take solid form?”
Sombra scratched Reaper’s head lightly. “Maybe he can’t.”
“He was clothes, I don’t believe he can’t.”
“Clothes is not the same as a body, Papi. Maybe he doesn’t know how.”
Reaper just growled. “Look at them. That’s not friends.”
“Flipping pancakes into his mist?”
The way he’s looking at the mist. I have never looked at anyone that way in my life.”
“He not you, Papi.”
“Bullshit he’s not. I’ve seen my face too much to ever not recognize it.”
Sombra was silent for a minute. Angel finished his dinner and they left for one of the bedrooms where he stripped and headed into the bathroom for a long, hot shower.
“I think we both right,” she said as the white mist floated around the bathroom. “I think they from a parallel reality.”
Reaper sat up. “How?”
“Someone brought them in using a modified slipstream engine. The one who contacted me…I bet she is who I am in their reality.”
“That would explain why they relaxed,” he said reluctantly, “if they had never met…you…directly.” He shuddered. “So that reality…I never became…this.”
Neither of them said anything for a long minute as Sombra hugged the trembling dog. Neither of them wanted to ask the question they were both thinking:
If Angel was Gabriel Reyes, then who was 76?
ON A SCALE OF 1 TO 10, HOW WOULD YOU RATE YOUR EXPERTISE WITH HOSTILE NANITE SWARMS?
Interesting way of saying hello. She set one program to the task of tracking the connection while on another, she typed, ABOUT A 7, WHY?
The program reported that the connection did not originate anywhere. It was carried on some type of wave Sombra had never seen before.
BECAUSE I HAVE SOME FRIENDS WHO NEED A SAFE PLACE TO CRASH, AND THE ONLY PERSON I’D TRUST THEM WITH (BESIDES ME) IS YOU.
Well, that was flattering, but it didn’t answer any of the important questions. AND YOU KNOW ME…HOW?
THEY’LL ARRIVE TOMORROW. BY THE WAY – LOVE YOUR STYLE. XOXO
The connection closed.
“What the fuck?”
===
The safehouse had been locked down as much as possible, which for the most part meant the omnic staff was in their quarters with the doors locked, and Ana’s snipers were on the roof with orders to hold fire until they can see what they’re dealing with. Jack stood at the back door with his pulse rifle, Jesse at the front with his Peacekeeper, and Sombra lounged in the security office watching all the cameras at once with Reaper standing anxiously behind her, shotguns at the ready.
Then, suddenly, someone was on the helipad.
Sombra frowned and rewound that feed, slowing it, looking frame by frame. The masked figure did just appear, but the way it (he) had done so reminded her of her translocation beacons. Except, of course, that there had been no beacon there. So. It seemed she wasn’t the only one who had tinkered with the slipstream engine.
A gesture, and she was live on all channels. “Our guest has arrived on the helipad.” Wait. Hadn’t her mysterious contact said some friends, plural? “There may be more incoming. Do not engage.”
There was something familiar about that figure, but besides that, he was clearly hurt from the way he took two stumbling steps and collapsed. A few minutes passed, during which time whatever white clothes he was wearing seemed unusually animate, but no one else appeared. Was her mysterious contact counting the nanite swarm as a friend? Was that why the clothes seemed to move on their own?
Medical nanite clothes. There was some promise there; Sombra filed the idea away to share with Angela later.
The figure picked himself back up, looked around, and drew two very familiar shotguns. Now Sombra knew why he looked familiar, and it had nothing (or everything) to do with his owl-skull mask.
“Copycat,” growled Reaper from behind her.
“You famous, Papi, get used to it,” she shot back absently. The figure was walking towards the back door of the safehouse. “Uncle Jack, he heading your way. Be polite. Papi and I on our way to you.”
“Acknowledged,” Jack replied.
Sombra ran for the back door with a river of smoke keeping pace. They got there just as Jack was opening the door, rifle slung at his back.
Up close, their guest clearly shared the same height and build as Reaper, not to mention more than a passing design influence. From behind his mask, he eyed her and Jack with wary body language, although Jack’s face was covered by his targeting visor, and then he pointed one talon-gauntlet hand at the black mist that followed Sombra in.
“You have one, too?”
The fact that he sounded more than a little like Reaper wasn’t the thing that startled them the most. No, that would be the silver eyes that opened up on their guest’s clothing and watched them with what she assumed was curiosity. Sombra made a ‘stay’ motion at Reaper, hoping he would take the hint and stay as a cloud of black smoke. Thankfully, he did.
“Si,” she said cheerfully. “If your friend is a person held together by a nanite swarm, then yes, we have one, too. We were told you’d be arriving. This is a safehouse; you are safe here. I am Sombra.”
No one was really expecting the mention of her name to get both guest and…clothes…to relax, but it did. Mentally, she shrugged. She’d question it later, but for now, it was a lucky break.
“Come in,” she invited him. Them? “Follow me, we gonna get you settled in the west wing, second floor. No one there to bother you.”
The guest stepped inside, nodding warily to Jack, and Reaper flowed ahead of her as she led the way to the empty living area.
“You got names?” she asked lightly as they crossed the central area and started climbing stairs.
“Angel,” he said in that almost-Reaper voice. “And…seventy-six.”
“Your friend with the eyes?”
“Si,” he answered with a grin in his voice.
Sombra opened the door to the living area and gestured them inside. Once they were all in the living room, the white clothes flowed off of Angel and they both watched as the two clouds of smoke – one white, one black – flowed warily around each other like two dogs sniffing.
“Looked like you were hurt pretty bad,” Sombra said casually. “You need anything, either of you?”
“I could do with something to eat,” Angel answered.
“Not a problem, kitchen’s stocked. And your friend?”
“Uh…I think he’s good. Mi sol,” he called to the white mist, “you need anything before we settle in for the night?”
A tendril of the mist reached out to caress Angel’s left arm.
“Nah. We’re good.”
Sombra nodded. “This entire wing is empty except for you, and I will make sure no one bothers you. In the morning, I will come see how you’re doing, okay?”
Angel nodded back. “Sounds fine.”
“Okay. Come on, Papi, time to go.”
As Reaper flowed out of the room, Angel asked, “He’s your father?”
Sombra laughed. “Well…he can’t prove that he’s not.”
===
In the living room of the east wing, the other residents of the safehouse gathered around Sombra.
“He goes by Angel,” Sombra was telling them, “and his friend is called seventy-six.”
“They’re not friends,” Reaper growled. “Not with that pet name.”
Jesse grunted. “That’s their business, not ours. Did you figure out how they got here?”
“I have guesses,” Sombra said. “Until we know more, I don’t think anyone should approach them without me present.”
“They relaxed when you introduced yourself,” Jack said slowly. “Do you think they’re involved with an omnic group?”
Sombra shook her head. “I would have gotten more detail. I’m going to talk to them tomorrow. For now, I’ll monitor them through the safehouse systems. We don’t know what seventy-six is capable of yet, so no hostile moves because we don’t have a way to stop him without potentially killing him.”
Nods all around.
===
In the privacy of her room, Sombra and Reaper-dog lounged in her bed, watching the screen she had open. “That was my voice,” Reaper had argued. “If someone managed to clone me, I have a right to know.” Sombra had agreed, and switched the screen so that he could watch and listen. Neither of them said anything when “Angel” took his mask off and revealed a very familiar face.
“There’s plenty of food there,” Reaper growled. “Why is he making pancakes?”
“Cuz you pancakes just that good?” Sombra teased. “Joking. Look at his eyes, he looks like he hasn’t slept for a week. Maybe he been without a real kitchen so long he forgot how to make anything else.”
In silence, they watched the two guests make and eat pancakes.
“Why doesn’t he take solid form?”
Sombra scratched Reaper’s head lightly. “Maybe he can’t.”
“He was clothes, I don’t believe he can’t.”
“Clothes is not the same as a body, Papi. Maybe he doesn’t know how.”
Reaper just growled. “Look at them. That’s not friends.”
“Flipping pancakes into his mist?”
The way he’s looking at the mist. I have never looked at anyone that way in my life.”
“He not you, Papi.”
“Bullshit he’s not. I’ve seen my face too much to ever not recognize it.”
Sombra was silent for a minute. Angel finished his dinner and they left for one of the bedrooms where he stripped and headed into the bathroom for a long, hot shower.
“I think we both right,” she said as the white mist floated around the bathroom. “I think they from a parallel reality.”
Reaper sat up. “How?”
“Someone brought them in using a modified slipstream engine. The one who contacted me…I bet she is who I am in their reality.”
“That would explain why they relaxed,” he said reluctantly, “if they had never met…you…directly.” He shuddered. “So that reality…I never became…this.”
Neither of them said anything for a long minute as Sombra hugged the trembling dog. Neither of them wanted to ask the question they were both thinking:
If Angel was Gabriel Reyes, then who was 76?
===
It was somewhere past nine the next morning before the safehouse cameras reported Angel stirring in the room he’d claimed. Sombra sent Jack out for coffee and pastries with directions to get things he would have gotten for himself and Gabriel back in the day. While he was running that errand, she gathered the clothes she’d ordered from local stores. Angel hadn’t arrived with any luggage, after all, so now he had a few days’ worth of comfortable, casual clothes. T-shirts, tank tops, hoodies, jeans, running shoes (and, at Reaper’s insistence, combat boots), socks, boxers, and some sweats for using the athletic equipment the safehouse sported. Thanks to the body scan she’d gotten from Athena, she had something very close to Angel’s measurements, so she was confident the clothes would fit.
When Jack got back from his errand, she relived him of the bag of pastries and the cardboard carrier with two marked cups, Reaper took the bulging bag of clothes, and the two of them set off for the second floor west living area. Once there, he set the bag down and melted into a puddle of smoke while Sombra knocked on the door.
It was a minute, and a second knock, before the door cracked open and an owl mask warily peeked out. Upon seeing who it was (and probably smelling the coffee), the door opened and he holstered the shotgun he’d drawn.
“Buenos dias,” Sombra chirped. “I hope you slept well. May we come in?”
“Sure,” Angel said, but he sounded like what he wanted to say was, ‘we can’t stop you, well, we could, but it would be messy so sure’.
Sombra pushed the bag inside with her foot. “Clothes for you,” she said. “They should all fit.”
While Angel poked through the bag, Reaper and 76 swirled cautiously around each other again before hovering and puddling by their respective people.
“I brought coffee and pastries,” she said, setting them on the low table in front of the couch. “And I’m sure you have questions, so let me know what you want to do.”
Angel looked up from the bag of clothes and made what Sombra was assuming was eye contact with the white mist. “Watch them,” he said, hefting the bag, “but don’t hurt them. I’ll be right back.”
Sombra sat quietly in a chair with Reaper swirling around her feet for the handful of minutes it took Angel to emerge from his room in jeans and a dark hoodie, combat boots…and the mask.
“You know my size,” Angel said flatly, arms crossed like he had to forcibly keep his hands away from his guns.
Sombra opened a screen with a detailed wireframe model of the Gabriel Reyes body scan spinning slowly. “I took your measurements.”
Angel sighed in a resigned sort of way, some of the tension seeping out of his muscles. 76 curled around him, apparently exploring these new clothes he was wearing. “You know my style,” he said, but there wasn’t as much edge to the words.
“Amigo, I know a lot of things, and I don’t make a habit of advertising what I know.”
He let out a breathy exhalation, like at the last second he decided not to laugh. “I know.”
“Then you know,” she said evenly, “that if – for example – I knew what name would come up for the face under that mask…you would never know until I chose to tell you.”
The moment stretched. Then Angel sighed. “Habits. How fresh is that coffee?”
Sombra arched her eyebrows as if to say you should know better than that. “You in my house, you get the good stuff. Sent for it fifteen minutes ago.”
Angel shoved the mask back and examined both coffee cups before taking a long drink from one and setting the other further down the table for 76. After a moment of silent appreciation for the drink in his hands, he sat and started investigating the contents of the bakery bag. Sombra watched as he broke pieces off to feed to tendrils of 76, absently petting Reaper as he solidified into the doberman and laid his head on her knee. He really did look like he was playfully feeding bites to his lover.
“I take it you still want me to call you Angel,” she said, and it wasn’t really a question. “And your friend, you still want me to call him seventy-six?”
Angel hesitated for a long moment. Sombra suspected there was a story that he was declining to tell. “Yes.”
“Just making sure. Now, you were sent to me because I got experience with nanite swarms.” Sombra gestured to the dog leaning against her legs. “Before I can help, I need to know what I’m working with and what you want. I know that’s a lot of trust to be asking for, I not gonna be offended if you not comfortable going that fast.” She scratched the dog behind his ears. “Took me months to get his trust enough to ask those kinds of questions.”
“I don’t know what he wants,” Angel said slowly. “We haven’t worked out any sort of communication past ‘yes’ and ‘no’ yet.”
Sombra nodded. “That gonna be our first priority, then.”
She flipped a screen towards the white mist, the top half empty, the bottom half displaying an oversized keyboard. On a smaller, paired screen, she typed, CAN YOU READ THIS? The letters appeared on the larger screen.
The mist that was 76 condensed into a sort of inverted teardrop shape, silver eyes opening and closing. Slowly, a tendril reached out and carefully touched the letters on the screen.
Y E S
“Can you hear me?” Sombra asked.
Y E S
“Are you comfortable with me taking a sample-”
The rest of the question died unasked as the mist retreated to inside Angel’s clothes in a distinctly agitated way.
“I gonna call that a no,” she said dryly as Angel tried to soothe his agitated friend. “I promise, I will not take a sample without your permission,” she said once the mist started peeking out again. “That your body, amigo, no one got a right to mess with it unless you say they can. I take that very seriously. Reaper here, he okay with me upgrading his programming, but he knows I not gonna hurt him. You tell me no, that the end of it. We find another way. Okay?”
Slowly, the tendril reached out to the screen’s keyboard.
O K A Y
“Okay, so I gonna go get you a pad and make sure you can use it, and then I let you two get caught up for a while and come back around seven with dinner and we can talk again. Got any requests, Angel?”
The man who was absolutely another Gabriel Reyes shook himself and jerked his eyes away from the white mist. “Hm? I- no,” he said, looking longingly at 76 again. “I’m good.”
Sombra grinned. “Food, amigo. What you want for dinner?”
Angel looked completely blank, like he wouldn’t even be remembering to breathe if his body didn’t do it for him. “Uh…I don’t know. Pizza?”
As soon as the word left his mouth he was back to staring at the white mist, which opened several eyes to stare back.
“Okay.” Sombra opted to not confuse him further and ask what he wanted on the pizza. “Hang tight, I be right back with that pad. Come on, Papi.”
The two left the room. Sombra ransacked the nearest unused office while Reaper hovered just past the door, and he stayed outside as she showed Angel how the pad worked and confirmed 76 could read and manipulate the digital keyboard before she closed the screen she’d opened and excused herself.
“I heard him call seventy-six Jackie,” Reaper said softly as they crossed back to the east wing.
“They not you and Uncle Jack,” Sombra reminded him. “They got a right to live their own lives.”
Reaper was silent until they were back in her room.
“I think seventy-six was treated worse than me,” he said after several minutes of petting. “I didn’t think it was possible.”
Sombra hugged him. “Yeah. I not gonna ask what he went through.”
“He can’t even talk! I hope he got to kill whoever did that to him,” he growled.
“But speaking of talking…we gonna have to tell Tia Ana and Uncle Jack and Jesse something.”
Reaper whined. “Don’t tell them who Angel and seventy-six are just yet. I don’t want to hear the teasing. Tell them everything else, just not that.”
“Don’t want to hear it for you,” Sombra asked, scratching behind his ears, “or don’t want to hear it for them?”
“Them,” he said quietly. “They’re not us, clearly things went differently for them, but I keep thinking of what it would have been like if I hadn’t been able to take a solid shape and communicate with you. I’m glad seventy-six has someone who cares about him that much, and I don’t want anyone making fun of that because Angel looks like me or seventy-six was their Jack.”
“That is really sweet of you, Papi,” Sombra said slowly. “I’m proud of you.”
“I’m a murder-monster without a heart,” he deadpanned, “not a heartless monster.”
===
“We haven’t found all of what seventy-six is capable of,” Sombra told the others while Reaper leaned against Ana’s legs and soaked up the attention he was getting. “But we found out something he’s not capable of. Speech.”
The other three winced.
“I’m confident that he and Angel were lovers, and I don’t know how long they’ve been separated or reunited, but seventy-six displays signs of having suffered severe trauma.”
Jesse leaned over to pat Reaper’s back. “Worse than you?”
“Yes,” Reaper growled.
The cowboy leaned back. “Oh. Shit. Anything we can do to help?”
Sombra pulled up screens with some complex equations and diagrams on them. “I’ve been analyzing the data the safehouse systems recorded when they arrived. I believe whoever sent them here using a modified slipstream engine, they did it from a parallel reality.”
Jack sat bolt upright. “Seventy-six is their version of Reaper?”
“In the sense that he’s held together by a nanite swarm and was abused and rescued, yes,” Sombra said over Reaper’s whining. “But this means that we don’t know how they’ll react to seeing any of you. I’ve won a measure of trust from both of them, but it’s still delicate. I’ve given them a pad so they can catch up, and I’m bringing them pizza at seven. We’ll see how things stand then.”
Jesse nodded. “If that’s it, then?” When Sombra nodded, he said, “Alright. I’ll catch y’all later,” and ambled out of the living room.
Jack met Sombra’s eyes. “Can I talk to you alone?”
“Papi, you okay for a few minutes?”
“As long as Ana keeps petting me,” he answered, trying to sound deadpan but failing to cover up the quiet desperation.
“Of course, Gabriel.”
Sombra followed Jack out of the room and down to his first-floor office. Neither of them said anything until the door was closed behind them.
“I know what Gabe’s voice sounds like,” Jack said quietly. “I know what he looks like. How he’s built. How he moves.” His mouth twisted into a small, wry smile. “His sense of humor. And I know how deeply he cares about the ones he loves, and how fiercely he protects them.” Jack took a deep breath. “So I’m glad that Angel’s Jack has him for a lover. If he’s badly enough off that Reaper’s shaken, then he needs someone who will be there for him through thick and thin, like you’ve been there for Reaper. ‘There but for the grace of God go I’ as the saying goes. If Talon had targeted me instead of Gabe…” Jack shook his head. “After the explosion, after our funerals, I asked myself what he would have done, and the answer was that he would have found a way to take down Talon or die trying. I became Soldier 76 as a way to honor his memory, to get vengeance for everything. Sometimes I wondered if I was really doing what he would have done. Now I know I was. You don’t have to worry, Sombra,” he said solemnly. “I’ll keep their secret.”
There was nothing Sombra could think of to say to that, so she just hugged him. He hugged back, and for a handful of minutes they just stood there in silence, thinking about what could have been.
When Jack got back from his errand, she relived him of the bag of pastries and the cardboard carrier with two marked cups, Reaper took the bulging bag of clothes, and the two of them set off for the second floor west living area. Once there, he set the bag down and melted into a puddle of smoke while Sombra knocked on the door.
It was a minute, and a second knock, before the door cracked open and an owl mask warily peeked out. Upon seeing who it was (and probably smelling the coffee), the door opened and he holstered the shotgun he’d drawn.
“Buenos dias,” Sombra chirped. “I hope you slept well. May we come in?”
“Sure,” Angel said, but he sounded like what he wanted to say was, ‘we can’t stop you, well, we could, but it would be messy so sure’.
Sombra pushed the bag inside with her foot. “Clothes for you,” she said. “They should all fit.”
While Angel poked through the bag, Reaper and 76 swirled cautiously around each other again before hovering and puddling by their respective people.
“I brought coffee and pastries,” she said, setting them on the low table in front of the couch. “And I’m sure you have questions, so let me know what you want to do.”
Angel looked up from the bag of clothes and made what Sombra was assuming was eye contact with the white mist. “Watch them,” he said, hefting the bag, “but don’t hurt them. I’ll be right back.”
Sombra sat quietly in a chair with Reaper swirling around her feet for the handful of minutes it took Angel to emerge from his room in jeans and a dark hoodie, combat boots…and the mask.
“You know my size,” Angel said flatly, arms crossed like he had to forcibly keep his hands away from his guns.
Sombra opened a screen with a detailed wireframe model of the Gabriel Reyes body scan spinning slowly. “I took your measurements.”
Angel sighed in a resigned sort of way, some of the tension seeping out of his muscles. 76 curled around him, apparently exploring these new clothes he was wearing. “You know my style,” he said, but there wasn’t as much edge to the words.
“Amigo, I know a lot of things, and I don’t make a habit of advertising what I know.”
He let out a breathy exhalation, like at the last second he decided not to laugh. “I know.”
“Then you know,” she said evenly, “that if – for example – I knew what name would come up for the face under that mask…you would never know until I chose to tell you.”
The moment stretched. Then Angel sighed. “Habits. How fresh is that coffee?”
Sombra arched her eyebrows as if to say you should know better than that. “You in my house, you get the good stuff. Sent for it fifteen minutes ago.”
Angel shoved the mask back and examined both coffee cups before taking a long drink from one and setting the other further down the table for 76. After a moment of silent appreciation for the drink in his hands, he sat and started investigating the contents of the bakery bag. Sombra watched as he broke pieces off to feed to tendrils of 76, absently petting Reaper as he solidified into the doberman and laid his head on her knee. He really did look like he was playfully feeding bites to his lover.
“I take it you still want me to call you Angel,” she said, and it wasn’t really a question. “And your friend, you still want me to call him seventy-six?”
Angel hesitated for a long moment. Sombra suspected there was a story that he was declining to tell. “Yes.”
“Just making sure. Now, you were sent to me because I got experience with nanite swarms.” Sombra gestured to the dog leaning against her legs. “Before I can help, I need to know what I’m working with and what you want. I know that’s a lot of trust to be asking for, I not gonna be offended if you not comfortable going that fast.” She scratched the dog behind his ears. “Took me months to get his trust enough to ask those kinds of questions.”
“I don’t know what he wants,” Angel said slowly. “We haven’t worked out any sort of communication past ‘yes’ and ‘no’ yet.”
Sombra nodded. “That gonna be our first priority, then.”
She flipped a screen towards the white mist, the top half empty, the bottom half displaying an oversized keyboard. On a smaller, paired screen, she typed, CAN YOU READ THIS? The letters appeared on the larger screen.
The mist that was 76 condensed into a sort of inverted teardrop shape, silver eyes opening and closing. Slowly, a tendril reached out and carefully touched the letters on the screen.
Y E S
“Can you hear me?” Sombra asked.
Y E S
“Are you comfortable with me taking a sample-”
The rest of the question died unasked as the mist retreated to inside Angel’s clothes in a distinctly agitated way.
“I gonna call that a no,” she said dryly as Angel tried to soothe his agitated friend. “I promise, I will not take a sample without your permission,” she said once the mist started peeking out again. “That your body, amigo, no one got a right to mess with it unless you say they can. I take that very seriously. Reaper here, he okay with me upgrading his programming, but he knows I not gonna hurt him. You tell me no, that the end of it. We find another way. Okay?”
Slowly, the tendril reached out to the screen’s keyboard.
O K A Y
“Okay, so I gonna go get you a pad and make sure you can use it, and then I let you two get caught up for a while and come back around seven with dinner and we can talk again. Got any requests, Angel?”
The man who was absolutely another Gabriel Reyes shook himself and jerked his eyes away from the white mist. “Hm? I- no,” he said, looking longingly at 76 again. “I’m good.”
Sombra grinned. “Food, amigo. What you want for dinner?”
Angel looked completely blank, like he wouldn’t even be remembering to breathe if his body didn’t do it for him. “Uh…I don’t know. Pizza?”
As soon as the word left his mouth he was back to staring at the white mist, which opened several eyes to stare back.
“Okay.” Sombra opted to not confuse him further and ask what he wanted on the pizza. “Hang tight, I be right back with that pad. Come on, Papi.”
The two left the room. Sombra ransacked the nearest unused office while Reaper hovered just past the door, and he stayed outside as she showed Angel how the pad worked and confirmed 76 could read and manipulate the digital keyboard before she closed the screen she’d opened and excused herself.
“I heard him call seventy-six Jackie,” Reaper said softly as they crossed back to the east wing.
“They not you and Uncle Jack,” Sombra reminded him. “They got a right to live their own lives.”
Reaper was silent until they were back in her room.
“I think seventy-six was treated worse than me,” he said after several minutes of petting. “I didn’t think it was possible.”
Sombra hugged him. “Yeah. I not gonna ask what he went through.”
“He can’t even talk! I hope he got to kill whoever did that to him,” he growled.
“But speaking of talking…we gonna have to tell Tia Ana and Uncle Jack and Jesse something.”
Reaper whined. “Don’t tell them who Angel and seventy-six are just yet. I don’t want to hear the teasing. Tell them everything else, just not that.”
“Don’t want to hear it for you,” Sombra asked, scratching behind his ears, “or don’t want to hear it for them?”
“Them,” he said quietly. “They’re not us, clearly things went differently for them, but I keep thinking of what it would have been like if I hadn’t been able to take a solid shape and communicate with you. I’m glad seventy-six has someone who cares about him that much, and I don’t want anyone making fun of that because Angel looks like me or seventy-six was their Jack.”
“That is really sweet of you, Papi,” Sombra said slowly. “I’m proud of you.”
“I’m a murder-monster without a heart,” he deadpanned, “not a heartless monster.”
===
“We haven’t found all of what seventy-six is capable of,” Sombra told the others while Reaper leaned against Ana’s legs and soaked up the attention he was getting. “But we found out something he’s not capable of. Speech.”
The other three winced.
“I’m confident that he and Angel were lovers, and I don’t know how long they’ve been separated or reunited, but seventy-six displays signs of having suffered severe trauma.”
Jesse leaned over to pat Reaper’s back. “Worse than you?”
“Yes,” Reaper growled.
The cowboy leaned back. “Oh. Shit. Anything we can do to help?”
Sombra pulled up screens with some complex equations and diagrams on them. “I’ve been analyzing the data the safehouse systems recorded when they arrived. I believe whoever sent them here using a modified slipstream engine, they did it from a parallel reality.”
Jack sat bolt upright. “Seventy-six is their version of Reaper?”
“In the sense that he’s held together by a nanite swarm and was abused and rescued, yes,” Sombra said over Reaper’s whining. “But this means that we don’t know how they’ll react to seeing any of you. I’ve won a measure of trust from both of them, but it’s still delicate. I’ve given them a pad so they can catch up, and I’m bringing them pizza at seven. We’ll see how things stand then.”
Jesse nodded. “If that’s it, then?” When Sombra nodded, he said, “Alright. I’ll catch y’all later,” and ambled out of the living room.
Jack met Sombra’s eyes. “Can I talk to you alone?”
“Papi, you okay for a few minutes?”
“As long as Ana keeps petting me,” he answered, trying to sound deadpan but failing to cover up the quiet desperation.
“Of course, Gabriel.”
Sombra followed Jack out of the room and down to his first-floor office. Neither of them said anything until the door was closed behind them.
“I know what Gabe’s voice sounds like,” Jack said quietly. “I know what he looks like. How he’s built. How he moves.” His mouth twisted into a small, wry smile. “His sense of humor. And I know how deeply he cares about the ones he loves, and how fiercely he protects them.” Jack took a deep breath. “So I’m glad that Angel’s Jack has him for a lover. If he’s badly enough off that Reaper’s shaken, then he needs someone who will be there for him through thick and thin, like you’ve been there for Reaper. ‘There but for the grace of God go I’ as the saying goes. If Talon had targeted me instead of Gabe…” Jack shook his head. “After the explosion, after our funerals, I asked myself what he would have done, and the answer was that he would have found a way to take down Talon or die trying. I became Soldier 76 as a way to honor his memory, to get vengeance for everything. Sometimes I wondered if I was really doing what he would have done. Now I know I was. You don’t have to worry, Sombra,” he said solemnly. “I’ll keep their secret.”
There was nothing Sombra could think of to say to that, so she just hugged him. He hugged back, and for a handful of minutes they just stood there in silence, thinking about what could have been.
===
Seven on the dot, Sombra knocked on the door with boxes and a six-pack stacked in her arms and Reaper pooling anxiously around her ankles. The door cracked open. A tendril of white mist seeped out, then withdrew. The door opened all the way and Angel - unmasked - ushered them inside.
"Here, kitchen, or dining room?" she asked cheerfully.
Angel frowned absently. "Here is fine."
Sombra set her burden down, opened the large keyboard screen, and started opening boxes. "Didn't know what you wanted, so I split the difference. Cheese, all meats, and all veggies," she said, pointing to each pizza in turn. "Picked up some local brew I'm told is very good, and tiramisu for dessert. You want a plate?"
"Nah." Angel picked up one of the bottles and examined it.
"Okay. Be right back," Sombra said, halfway to the kitchen. She returned a moment later with a plate and a soup plate, both of which she set on the floor. "You get two pieces, Papi, which ones you want?"
The dog made an unhappy sound. "Only two?" he said in a voice that, honestly, sounded like he was trying not to talk.
From the couch, chewing on a slice of pizza, Angel arched one eyebrow but said nothing.
"You got a dog-size stomach, remember. You want the beer and the tiramisu, you get two pieces."
Another unhappy sound. "One meat, one veggie," he growled.
Sombra scratched behind his ears. "Okay."
Two pieces of pizza went on the plate, and a bottle of beer was poured carefully into the soup plate. Sombra herself curled up in a chair, just watching.
Angel fed a slice of pizza to 76, frowned at her, and took a careful sip of his beer. "You're not eating," he said, turning the question into a statement.
"Would be a waste of pizza," she replied cheerfully. "This is an omnic body."
"Then..." Angel looked back and forth between her and the dog. "How can he not prove that he's not your father?"
"This wasn't always my body; I've only been in it about ten years. Wiped all my records. Plus, he doesn't have any DNA anymore either. No DNA on file, no one can prove anything."
That wasn't anything he wanted to pry into further, so he made a noncommittal noise and turned back to his dinner. Reaper finished first, and lay down on the floor in front of Sombra's chair.
"How much do you know about how you got here?" Sombra asked casually.
Angel took another sip of beer. "Nothing. I was kind of..."
D Y I N G, 76 typed on the screen.
"Yeah. That."
Sombra opened a few screens with complicated diagrams. "Okay. So from what I've been able to figure out, your ally sent you here using a modified slipstream engine. The project was scrapped by Overwatch because it's great at punching through the spacetime barrier, but horrible at getting you back out the other side. Your ally got around that by altering the trajectory in creative ways. Instead of trying to punch through a fold and not making it out the other side, you got punched through two different layers."
76 opened eyes to take in the screens displaying an animated arrow failing to penetrate the other side of a wave form, and an animated arrow moving perpendicular to two parallel planes, piercing them both.
Angel glared at the screens for a long minute. Then he sighed almost angrily, slumping back in something closer to resignation than relaxation. 76 slithered under his clothes and back out. "So you're Sombra, but you're not...Sombra," he said awkwardly.
76 extended tendrils to the keyboard screen. R E A P E R ?
"Good question, babe." Angel and 76 both turned expectant eyes on the dog, who whined.
"I rescued him from Talon," Sombra said with a slight edge. It wasn't quite a challenge or a warning, just a reminder. "He was being abused, coerced into being their assassin. When I found him, he had been going by 'Reaper' for a few years and he'd managed to scrape himself from a puddle of ash and nanites into something barely functional. As far as he knew, everyone who'd known him was either dead or hated him and like I said earlier, it took me months to gain something resembling his trust. This configuration, it's therapy. He's not comfortable with his name or his face." Almost defiant, she met all the expectant eyes. "But trust goes both ways. Papi, show them your standard configuration."
The dog dissolved into black smoke, then stood up as Reaper. For a long, tense minute, there was silence. Then 76 extended tendrils to the keyboard again.
I L I K E IT
Reaper crossed his arms over the wisps that curled up from his chest and arms. "You would," he said in a dry, teasing growl.
Angel leaned forward to claim another piece of pizza. "I'm not sure if I'm jealous or amused," he protested, but no one was fooled: he was amused.
"So," Sombra said brightly, "this is what I had to work with. The first major change I made was hands and feet with temperature feedback. Papi?"
Obediently, Reaper activated the optional configuration and wiggled his fingers.
"The dog, I can't take all the credit for. I had help there. It's modified from an actual canine. As I said, he's not comfortable with his name or face, but I worked up a more...casual...configuration that works pretty well."
Reaper blurred into the hoodie configuration. Angel covered his face while 76 swirled around him in what was undeniably physical laughter. Practically the only difference between the two men was Reaper's mask. The white mist flowed out of Angel's clothes to swirl around Reaper, silver eyes open, before returning to a loose pile on the couch.
L O O K S A L M O S T A S G O O D A S Y O U
Angel laughed, one hand over his eyes, the other on the back of the couch like he wanted to wrap it around the white mist. "You're horrible, mi sol," he said between chuckles.
Y O U L O V E M E
"Well, of course," he said more gently, expression softening. One hand reached towards the mist, which curled tenderly around his fingers.
Sombra grinned. "I'm so glad that went well. Who's up for dessert?"
=
While Angel and Reaper ate tiramisu off plates and 76 accepted bites off Angel’s fork, Sombra opened screens to show off concept art.
“Obviously a doberman’s not ideal for you,” she told the puddle of white mist, “but I can apply the modifications to a Great Pyrenees easily enough. I know it sounds weird to be a dog, but Papi finds it easier to be around people who knew him. No one expects you to be anything but a dog when you’re a dog.”
“Being petted is the best thing ever,” Reaper growled. “Seriously. After years of sensory deprivation, being a dog is the best.”
Sombra moved the screen with the big, fluffy, white dog on it to the side. “I’ve also done enough work with his swarm that I can improvise a workable humanoid shape that’s quick and easy to condense into but still allows full range of motion. You won’t have conventional sensation past general pressure, but in a combat situation, that’s an upside. Stylistic choices are up to you. I got my hands on a full-body scan, so I can make it look as much like you as you want.”
The slowly-spinning wireframe was clearly Jack Morrison, despite a complete lack of color.
“The only catch,” Sombra said slowly, “is that faces are hard as fuck to animate. I know that’s not an issue right now, but eventually you will want to emote.”
“Being a dog helps for that, too,” Reaper added dryly.
“How long have you been a dog?” Angel asked out of embarrassed curiosity.
“On and off for almost two months.”
Angel looked over at 76. “What do you think, babe?”
D O E S E V E R Y T H I N G W O R K ?
Reaper made a coughing sound and glanced guiltily at Sombra. “Yes. Everything works.”
“I’m not going that kinky. Not even for you.” Angel crossed his arms and turned stubbornly away from the mist.
The mist seeped into his clothing.
Angel sighed. “Maybe. I make no promises.”
“I have the full scan,” Sombra pointed out. “I can code a configuration where everything works and have it still be easy to shift in and out of…after an initial six-hour configuration period.”
Reaper looked up with his best sad eyes. “You can? You never did that for me…”
“I’ve been working on it! It’s not done yet!”
Apologetically, he licked her hand.
Sombra’s eyes widened. “Angel…I’ll trade you, a DNA sample for a DNA sample.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked, frowning. Then his eyes widened. With minute gestures, he indicated Reaper and then 76. Sombra nodded.
“With a DNA sample, I can work up a complete restoration. It won’t be a quick process, it won’t be reversible, and he probably won’t be ready for it for a long time. But I can give that choice back to you.”
Angel turned to the mist flowing over his skin, in and out of his clothes. “We can get married,” he whispered.
A tendril of white mist stretched out to the screen. A N D R E A P E R C A N B E H I M S E L F
That cooled Angel's euphoria. Still, he smiled teasingly at his incorporeal lover. "If this if your way of suggesting a three-way, babe..."
"Double your pleasure, double your fun," Reaper growled. "Just kidding. I'm not in any rush to put my own face on again. I can barely look at your face."
"But my face is your face." Angel frowned.
Sombra reached down to scratch the dog's head reassuringly. "Part of the abuse he suffered was delivered using a holographic projection that looked and sounded like Gabriel Reyes."
Both Angel and 76 shuddered.
"So I'll start working on the full restoration tonight, and in the morning I'll take a quick sample from you," Sombra said to Angel. "But in the meantime, seventy-six, is clothes the only solid form you've taken?"
Y E S
"And do you have to concentrate to hold it, or does the swarm hold it for you?"
C O N C E N T R A T E
Sombra nodded. "Papi had to concentrate to hold himself together before I found him. Do you want a solid form to take?"
Y E S
The white mist swirled around Angel, wrapped around his right arm and rippled, a constant stream of excited, emphatic yesyesyesyesyes.
"Okay, you got it. What do you want it to look like?"
The mist quieted, sinking down to coat Angel and form the same half-armored clothes he'd been "wearing" when he arrived. Sombra opened a screen and started digitally sketching, mixing the wireframe of Jack Morrison with Reaper's form, kneading the result until it turned white and red looked like Angel's living outfit with Jack's wireframe head.
Slowly, the mist detached itself and reached for the screen. N O E Y E S
Sombra didn't even blink. "You want them covered, or blanked out?"
C O V E R E D typed 76 after a pause. B A N D A G E S
The mist opened eyes to watch as she added bandages that wrapped around the wireframe head, then extended tendrils to convey the way he wanted the bandages to lay.
M O U T H T O O
More pantomiming as Sombra covered the wireframe mouth with strips of cloth. Only when the mist started swirling around his lover did she fill the wireframe with color.
"How's it look, amigo?"
76 didn't reach for the screen. Instead, he wrapped around Angel's right arm and did the yesyesyes ripple again.
Sombra clapped her hands together. "Good! Now we just have to figure out how to get the programming into your swarm."
Angel frowned. "How do you get it...into...Reaper?"
"Direct transfer," she answered. "But his swarm? It dumb." Purple eyes met drifting silver ones. "Your swarm, amigo, is not dumb. I won't change its programming without its permission. That would be a violation of the worst kind. We don't do such things to each other." The words shook slightly with an emotional emphasis no one wanted to question.
The white mist that was 76 (and, apparently, his intelligent swarm) slowly eased away from Angel, watching Sombra with many eyes. One tendril stretched out to the screen.
S H O W M E
Sombra didn't question the command. A second screen opened, and a wall of complex code scrolled past. The mist condensed into that teardrop shape, all its eyes focused on the glowing characters flowing smoothly. When it made a tentative motion with one tendril, the flow stopped. Sombra gestured, and large 'up' and 'down' arrows appeared on the side so that 76 - or the swarm, or both - could peruse the code at leisure.
"How..." Angel glanced at his insubstantial lover and then looked back at Sombra. "How did you know the swarm wasn't...dumb?"
"I listened," she answered with a shrug. "Listened to Papi's to pick up on the programming, so I listened to them but...that's not just programming."
"And it's smart enough to give permission?" He tried to keep his expression neutral, but his eyebrows climbed into his hair anyway.
Again, Sombra shrugged. "I haven't tried to say hi, so I don't know the extent of its intelligence. I didn't hear complex communication, but that doesn't mean anything. It may not have directly communicated with anyone but seventy-six before, and it's organic-made, so I wouldn't expect it to know how to talk like omnics do. Oh, look!"
Something was happening with the mist. The eyes closed and the inverted teardrop shape trembled, boiling, curdling, before moving to the center of the room where it dissolved nearly into dust that spread out along the floor before pulling itself back together, forming an undulating pillar that writhed as it condensed, like a reverse explosion in slow motion. Then, with a sort of sudden shock, the loose bits were sucked in and solidified into the details of the model Sombra had developed.
For a long moment, no one breathed. Reaper sat alertly, ears erect and pointed at 76. Angel looked like he was afraid the slightest motion would cause the vision to pop like a soap bubble. 76, for all that his face was static, looked like he was afraid to move, afraid to hope. Then, slowly, his gauntlet-hands moved away from his body. He lifted them hesitantly, either remembering or learning anew how arms worked, and held them in front of his face.
"But he can't-" Angel's whisper cut off sharply, and he glanced at Sombra and Reaper.
"He can see," Reaper growled. "Sombra. Partial dissolution?"
"Nope. I mean, he can disable that if he wants, but you said it was uncomfortable."
76 was feeling himself, cautiously, minding the points on the end of his fingers. Then, abruptly, the gauntlets melted into naked hands that roamed over the bandages covering his face.
"Jack..." Angel breathed, wearing an expression of indescribable longing.
When 76 turned and stretched one hand towards his lover, the other man stumbled up from the couch and gingerly stretched one hand back. Fingertips brushed, and they both pulled their hands back, startled. Then 76 took an uncertain step towards Angel and reached out again, fingers tracing his face the way his tendrils had: quick, light touches, butterfly kisses while Angel stood there patiently, fists clenched with how badly he wanted to return the gentle exploration, but he wouldn't take that step until his newly-corporeal lover was ready for it.
Gentle fingers rested on either side of Angel's face. The bizarre vibration trick Reaper had developed to speak without a mouth or lungs let quiet words travel through touch alone, inaudible to human ears.
Gabe...you're warm...
As tears slipped down Angel's cheeks, Sombra and Reaper slipped out of the room, leaving the long-separated lovers to reunite a second time in peace.
===
"Jack's in his office," Sombra murmured as the door to the wing closed behind them.
Reaper followed without a word as she led him down the stairs and through the hall. When Jack opened the door, he waved them both inside and didn't say anything until the door was shut again.
"What happened, can I help?"
Before Sombra could open her mouth, Reaper whined. Immediately, Jack sat on the floor and pulled him into a hug, one arm holding the big dog tightly and the other scratching and petting.
"I need to get a DNA sample from you," Sombra said quietly as she sat next to them, also petting the doberman.
Jack nodded his acceptance, most of his attention still on Reaper.
"I'm getting a sample from Angel in the morning, so I can work on getting Papi his body back, but tonight I'm working on seventy-six. Helped him take a solid shape this evening."
"That explains things," Jack said dryly.
"Not a word to anyone else, Morrison."
"Don't worry," he said soothingly. "I won't tell. I'd probably be just as much of a mess if I'd been sitting there watching Alternate You and Alternate Me."
For a moment, Reaper froze. Then he sighed and let go of the urge to be outraged in favor of pressing his doggy head against Jack's chest and shivering.
"I'm glad I didn't know what hell you'd been stuck in until Sombra was helping you out of it," Jack murmured into Reaper's fur. "I think it would have broken my heart, no matter how much you wanted to kill me."
"I don't love you," Reaper growled, hating himself even as the words left his mouth.
"I know. But you come to me for comfort when you really need it, and that's good enough for me. Means you trust me to not hurt you when you're vulnerable. I'd rather have that much than not have anything."
"You're pathetic, Morrison."
No one was fooled; there was no heat behind the words.
"It's still light enough for an evening run," Jack said mildly. "If you're interested. Let Sombra code in peace, tire you out some."
With melodramatic mock reluctance, Reaper heaved himself to his feet.
===
Jack was making pancakes when Sombra led Reaper into the kitchen the next morning.
"Jesse's still passed out," he announced by way of 'good morning'. "He took it pretty hard that our guests are other versions of people he knows. Don't know if it'd be better, or worse, if he knew who they were."
"Let's not find out," Reaper said dryly as he climbed into his chair.
Sombra sat next to him and immediately slumped over onto the table's surface with a groan.
"Late night coding?" Jack asked gently.
"Si," she replied, her voice muffled by her arms, "but it's worth it. Got the full restoration done, and a dog shape, and ordered a collar and leash in blue. No name."
Jack set a plate of pancakes, eggs, sausage, and syrup down in front of Reaper and then awkwardly hugged the exhausted hacker. "I know you don't have the same biological needs as we do," he said, "but you're still pushing yourself too hard."
Sombra groaned and hauled herself upright again. "They were sent to me because they need help, and I'm going to give them all the help I can. If their Sombra could do this, she would have. I'd expect her to go all out if it was me sending you and Papi to her, so I'm gonna go all out for Angel and seventy-six."
"Well," Jack said, pouring coffee for Reaper before joining them with his own breakfast, "if you need anything else from me...let me know."
"I promise, Uncle Jack." She glanced at Reaper. "...I may need you to give Angel a crash course on How To Care For Dogs That Aren't Dogs."
"And a pep talk on Loving A Dog Is Better Than Loving A Cloud," Reaper added dryly. "Stop," he added as Jack froze. "I've known for years. I don't say anything, you don't say anything, nothing changes. Deal?"
"Deal," Jack said warily. "Thanks, Gabe."
Reaper snorted. "Don't get all sentimental on me, Morrison, or I'll puke in your shoes."
Jack shared a weary grin with Sombra. "Thanks, Gabe."
===
With Jack and Reaper out on an anxiety-induced morning run and the safehouse systems reporting that Angel and 76 were awake and chatting quietly in the living room, Sombra grabbed the pad loaded with the programming for both configurations and padded over to the west wing.
At her knock, Angel cautiously opened the door a crack, mask in place. “Sombra,” he said, half announcement and half greeting. “Come in.”
She slipped inside and closed the door while Angel shed his mask and rejoined 76 on the couch.
Where’s Reaper? The words ghosted through the air, 76 looking at her in mild alarm. A moment later, he picked up the pad, typed, and showed it to Angel.
“Where’s Reaper?” Angel asked warily as Sombra sat in the chair.
She sighed. “Didn’t bring him this time. Figured this would be a quick visit. I got your full-body restoration programming, amigo,” she told 76 as she passed him the pad. “The smaller program is the dog. Took Papi hours for his swarm to learn it, but yours will probably be faster.”
That was fast.
“Benefit to having an omnic body: easier to pull all-nighters, even if I still crash later. Also,” she added apologetically as 76 jerked in alarm, “I can hear when you talk like that.”
While 76 poked at the new pad, Angel said, “I hate to ask when you look like you’re about to pass out, but is there anything you can cobble together so mi amor can talk to me without…talking? Trauma,” he said shortly when Sombra arched one eyebrow. “Talon tortured him for information.” His voice gained a note of warm pride. “He didn’t say a word.”
“I can work something out, yeah. Listen, Angel…” Sombra hugged her knees. “You remember the guy at the door when you arrived?”
Frowning, Angel nodded slowly.
“He….is who I got the DNA sample from.”
Both Angel and 76 went rigidly still.
“He’s not the only one living here,” she continued gently. “But he’s the only one who knows who you are. Didn’t need me to tell him. He and Papi…they don’t get along the way you two do. Papi’s not interested in love. But that didn’t stop my uncle from loving him.”
76 wrapped himself around his lover, bandaged face buried in Angel’s hair.
“You don’t gotta talk to anyone,” Sombra assured them. “But if you want to talk to him…”
“I think I’d like that,” Angel said quietly while 76 silently whispered, Yes.
“The other two…like I said, they don’t know yet, but they know you’re the equivalents of people they know, and that what seventy-six went through was worse than what Reaper did, and that was enough to make Jesse try to drown himself in a whiskey bottle last night.”
The third? 76 asked silently, one hand cupping his lover’s jaw.
Sombra winced. “I don’t know what happened in your timeline, but here, Ana Amari nearly died to a sniper and was presumed dead for a few years.”
“Ana’s alive?” Angel’s euphoria drained nearly as fast as it had filled him. “That’s here. Ours might not be.”
But she might.
Angel sighed and hugged 76, face pressed against his shoulder. “She might. But she might not.”
“I know it’s a lot to take in,” Sombra said gently. “You have the configurations, I need a nap, I’ll let you sort everything out.” She dug a small device out of one pocket and leaned forward to set it on the table. “Communicator. If you’re feeling social but you don’t want to leave the suite without a guide, give me a call.”
“You know us so well,” Angel said dryly. “Have a good nap.”
She flashed them both a smile. “Thanks, amigo.”
Neither of them said a word as she let herself out of the suite.
===
The first thing Sombra did when she woke up was check on the guests. The safehouse cameras showed her that 76 was a fluffy white dog, and that he was licking the tears off of Angel’s face. That was all she needed to see; they’d let her know when they were ready for company. She turned her attention outward.
Reaper was chewing a braided rawhide ring on the floor by her bed.
“Doing okay, Papi?” she asked as she sat up.
He put the ring down. “Yeah. How are they?”
“Angel’s hugging a fluffy white dog and crying.”
Reaper looked away.
“He not you, Papi,” she said, reaching out to scratch him. “I know you don’t cry, and certainly not over Uncle Jack.”
“No, but…” Reaper climbed into the bed and buried his nose in her hair. “If something happened to make me think you were dead for a few years, and then I discovered that you were alive, but in worse shape than I’d been, and Angela stuffed you into a…I don’t know, Brazilian terrier or something because no one has your DNA…” He trembled, tail tight against his body. “I’m…pretty sure I would cry then.”
“Oh, Papi…” She hugged him tightly for a long minute. Then, softly, she murmured, “When you took your first sleeping doggy breaths, I cried.”
“Damn it, hija…”
For a few minutes, they just cuddled.
“I gotta work out something for Angel,” she said quietly. “Seventy-six was tortured for information and has issues with talking. I’m thinking if his swarm can shift the resonance to an inaudible frequency, I can work with a mission communicator…or maybe teach the swarm how to broadcast to something like that power-level-scanner thing Uncle Jack used to wear.”
Reaper snorted. “His Dragonball Z teleprompter?”
“Si,” Sombra giggled. “Or maybe I just teach them how to do my screens trick. In any case, how you feel about playing with another not-a-dog?”
“He’s not Morrison,” Reaper said, as though reminding himself. “I remember what it was like. Yeah. Bring the rope and the tennis balls and a water dish and the brush.” He cringed, as though reluctant to voice the words, and added, “And get Morrison in on it. If seventy-six doesn’t talk, then Angel hasn’t heard his voice in years, or seen the dumb crinkles he gets around his eyes when he smiles, or been hugged. I’m not going soft,” he growled. “I’m a needy little fuck, and Morrison got all emotional and told me the things he missed most when he thought I was dead.”
Sombra scratched him behind the ears. “You a good man, Papi. Let’s ask Jesse if he’ll make ribs for dinner.”
Tail wagging, Reaper said, “Good idea.”
===
A connection opened – the communicator she’d left with Angel. “Sombra?” said the voice like and yet unlike Gabriel Reyes.
“Si. What’s up, amigo?”
A breathy whisper, the shadow of a voice, answered her. “I want to go outside.”
So, the swarm had figured out how to interface. That solved that little problem. “Be right there.”
The connection closed.
“What’d he say?” Reaper demanded, his posture at Jack’s knee alert.
Sombra closed her screens. “He wants to go outside. Uncle Jack, you help Papi bring toys and a water dish to the backyard. I gonna escort our guests out there.”
Jack nodded, looking a little teary and a lot wistful. Reaper looked excited, but also subdued. Sombra hugged them both before traipsing over to the other wing, where she knocked cheerfully on the door and waited for someone to open it. She wasn’t entirely expecting the solidly-built mound of white fluff that pushed past Angel to put paws on her shoulders and lick her face, but it wasn’t entirely a surprise, either.
“He’s a little excited,” Angel deadpanned, grinning at his lover with fond amusement.
“He got good reason to be,” Sombra said cheerfully, both hands scratching at 76’s ears and the ruff of his neck. “Ready to overload those new senses of yours a bit?”
Tail wagging madly, 76 nodded in a jerky motion.
“Alright, both of you follow me, I’ll bring you out into the backyard. Ana’s got a thing she’s doing in one of the offices and Jesse is busy making ribs, so no worries there.”
76 looked up at Angel, and Sombra caught the electronic whisper of What about…? that was transmitted from swarm to communicator.
“What about Reaper and…your uncle?” Angel asked, stumbling for a second before avoiding Jack’s name.
“They gonna meet us outside. They’ve been through this before, someone adjusting to being a dog after years of sensory deprivation. If you want privacy…”
Angel shook his head. “No, it’s…okay. Lead the way.”
As they followed her, down the back stairs, 76 alternated between crowding Sombra and pressing himself against Angel’s legs. Then they got to the bottom of the stairs, and like Reaper, he went stock still as the welter of scents and sounds and sensation overwhelmed him. It didn’t last long, and although the hoodie kept half of Angel’s face in shadow, Sombra saw him smile softly as the white dog tore off to run around the trees and bite at grass and leaves and stand, eyes closed, as the breeze caressed him with insubstantial fingers. When he seemed to have adjusted, Reaper approached cautiously with his head and tail down and one end of the soft cloth rope in his mouth. Although neither of them said a word, they both seemed to work out the unspoken offer of play-fighting, and moments later they were enthusiastically tussling over the rope.
Once the two not-dogs were settled into their play, Sombra gently nudged Angel and nodded with her head to where Jack was standing, hands in the pockets of the broken-in jeans he was wearing. A deep, steadying breath, and Angel nodded. Jack waited until they had come within a few feet to look up, and as blue eyes met brown, a world of pain and understanding passed between them.
“It’s weird, isn’t it?” Jack said softly. “Seeing you – seeing me, knowing that it’s not the same, you’re not him, I’m not him, but at the same time…we could be.”
Angel swallowed. “Yeah. Sombra said…”
“She said you two were lovers.”
“Engaged. We were supposed to get married, but…”
Jack’s voice was a rough whisper. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry that you…” Angel’s voice wasn’t much louder, but Jack shook his head.
“It is what it is. He’s aromantic, never had feelings for anyone. I’m asexual, never wanted to sleep with anyone, even him. It was never going to work. I’m glad it worked better for you two than it did for us.”
Angel looked around, but Sombra had stealthed and retreated. “You still love him? Even though…?”
“Even though everything,” Jack sighed. “Our friendship has always been a bit rocky. He’s got issues, but he’s getting better. Being a dog has been good for him.”
They stood together in companionable silence for a minute, watching the not-dogs chase each other gleefully.
Jack cleared his throat. “This may be a little awkward, but…uh…”
Angel glanced at him. “Hm?”
“Can I have a hug?” muttered Jack.
A dozen different thoughts passed behind Angel’s eyes, but all he said in a quietly warm voice was, “Yeah. Sure.”
Maybe the hug had been intended to be brief. Impersonal. Maybe just the comfort one would offer to a friend. But their bodies fit together the way Angel had thought he’d never feel again, warm and firm and soft and giving, Jack breathing where 76 didn’t, warm where 76 was a barely-restrained furnace in his ‘normal’ state and cool like a mannequin in the new humanoid form, and Angel closed his eyes against the threat of tears and pretended that the Jack Morrison in his arms was his. Jack hadn’t intended to melt against Angel, but he looked so much like Gabriel – sounded so much like Gabriel – and after decades of only the manliest hugs doled sparingly out, this warm affection was like an oasis in a hostile desert and Jack couldn’t stop himself from drowning in it even if he wanted to.
After what felt like an eternity, Jack stepped back and wiped his eyes. “He’s lucky to have you,” he said, not looking at Angel. “How’d you two get together?”
“How’d we get together?” Angel’s eyebrows arched. “You’re not going to ask what happened to him?”
Jack gave him a look he was all too familiar with – the stubborn, jaw-clenched look. “Reaper came to me for comfort after he and Sombra visited you last night. He was trembling. Whatever happened, it was bad enough to shake him deeply. If you want to tell me, I’ll be an open ear. But I’m not going to ask.” The stubborn look faded into a smile. “I’d rather hear about the happy things. Your first kiss. Your first date. Who proposed to who.”
Slowly, Angel smiled. “I can understand that.”
While the not-dogs chased and played and lapped up cool water and chewed treats, Angel and Jack told each other stories. Eventually Reaper and 76 tired and trotted over to flop down next to their people, just cuddling quietly and enjoying the attention lavished on them as Jack and Angel petted and scratched and brushed.
They almost didn’t notice Sombra approaching except that Reaper lifted his head, ears pointed alertly in her direction and tail wagging slowly. She was pushing a hovertable ahead of her, loaded with food that smelled delicious when the wind shifted to carry the scent to them.
“Hot ribs, cold beer, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, fresh rolls, and plenty of butter,” she announced cheerfully as she approached. “Uncle Jack, make sure Reaper doesn’t eat too much?”
Reaper immediately gave him the biggest, saddest puppy eyes he was capable of.
“Don’t make me say your full name,” she warned, lowering the hovertable to the ground between Angel and Jack. “I do know it.”
Ears back, Reaper shot her a quick glare.
“You two doing okay?” she asked Angel and 76, who both nodded. “Good. You need anything, ask me or Jack. I’ll make sure no one comes by unless you tell me you’re up for company.”
Thank you, 76 said silently.
Sombra smiled at them all, scratched Reaper behind the ears, and left them to feast on the bounty of Jesse’s grill.
===
“It’s weird, seein’ you without Gabe hanging around,” Jesse said as Sombra returned from delivering dinner to the others.
She flopped down into the other lawn chair and stretched. “He needs to be more social.”
Jesse chuckled. “Y’know, it’s ironic – I was gonna make a comment about him bein’ your shadow, but you’re the shadow.”
“That would have been a good one,” she told him, grinning. “He’s helping seventy-six adjust to being a dog, and anything that gets him and Uncle Jack peacefully spending time together…”
“Yeah.” Jesse took a drink from his beer bottle, then turned it around in his hands. “Speaking of seventy-six…”
Sombra looked at him curiously. Maybe warily, too, but he wasn’t looking at her. “Yeah?”
“It’s…he’s another Jack, isn’t he? And Angel…he’s their Gabe.”
For a moment, she thought about denying it or dodging. But the cowboy looked tired, and she knew that he’d gotten smashed the previous night, which meant he was already emotionally invested. “Yes,” she said quietly. “Their timeline, they were going to get married. I haven’t asked what happened to turn seventy-six into a cloud or where the intelligent nanite swarm came from, but Angel said he was tortured for information and that tells me everything I need to know. Apparently, their Ana went through the same thing Tia Ana did and they don’t know if she went into hiding or if she actually died. Haven’t asked about you, but they didn’t seem either relieved or upset to hear you were in the safehouse, so…”
“Small blessings,” murmured Jesse. “Well, if they’re up for it, I’d like to talk to them. I know he ain’t our Gabe, but…” He snorted. “Oh man, no wonder Jack wanted to talk to them. I bet that was one hell of a conversation.”
Sombra grinned. “I’m not at liberty to say. But I’ll let them know you want to talk and see what they say.”
“Thanks, shadow-sis.” Jesse smiled at her, but his eyes were sad.
She hugged him when she stood up. “Gonna go fill Tia Ana in.”
===
Jack and Reaper were reading and chewing on a squeaky steak respectively when the house security system informed Sombra that there was movement in a locked office, and someone trying to gain access to the same room. A quick check of the cameras revealed an agitated white mist swirling around the office, so she unlocked the door and watched as Angel darted in and became the center of that anxious vortex.
She opened a line to the communicator. “You okay in there, amigo?”
“Just startled,” he said, although he sounded worried. “Almost crossed paths with your Ana and kind of…”
“Freaked out?” she filled in dryly.
“Yeah. It happened…right before everything else did, so we kinda…”
“You haven’t had a chance to process. Well, I don’t know if this will help or not, but there’s a certain cowboy who’d kind of like a chance to talk, if you both are up for that.”
On the screen showing the interior of the office, 76 settled into white clothes cloaking his lover. Angel tilted his head, likely listening to what he was saying.
“If he wants to meet us here, sure. We’re not going anywhere for a while.”
Sombra chuckled. “I’ll let him know.”
The connection closed, and she checked the security systems for her trash cowboy brother’s whereabouts…only to discover that he’d just thumbed in from the main gate. She called him.
“What’s up, shadow-sis?”
“Angel and seventy-six are holed up in one of the first-floor offices, the one across from the parlor, and Angel says you’re welcome to meet them there.”
“Holed up? What happened?” Jesse sounded concerned, which wasn’t surprising.
“Just got spooked a bit,” she reassured him. “All the shit that went down for them happened before Ana’s maybe-death could really sink in, so…”
“So it’s a good thing I brought beer, then.”
Sombra grinned. “I don’t think it will be unwelcome. I just saw you come in the front door, so I’ll let you go.”
“Thanks, shadow-sis,” he said softly.
She hung up, but monitored his progress until he was outside the office and watched as he knocked on the door.
“Hey, uh, we both know this is awkward,” he announced. “But…I brought beer?”
Inside, Angel tilted his head at 76, who swirled away and became a very fluffy white dog. A moment later, the man who was and was not Gabriel Reyes opened the door.
“Sure,” he said, not meeting Jesse’s eyes. “Come on in.”
Sombra closed the screens and discovered both Jack and Reaper were watching her very intently.
“Not our business,” she told them firmly. “Unless you want to share what you talked about…”
They averted their eyes guiltily.
“That’s what I thought.”
After a quiet hour or two, the safehouse systems informed her that the office was now empty and she tracked two paths as their guests returned to their wing and Jesse joined them in the common room.
“Good talk?” Sombra asked casually, not looking up.
Jesse flopped onto the couch, where his knee suddenly held a canine head. “Yeah. Thanks.”
“What’d you talk about?” growled Reaper, but the cowboy laughed darkly.
“I ain’t drunk enough to fall for that. You really want to know, we’ll have a conversation of our own in private.”
Sombra tuned out the bickering; that same strange signal she’d seen once before was bringing her a message.
HOW’S IT GOING?
She cracked her knuckles and typed, BEEN TAKING REAL GOOD CARE OF YOUR FRIENDS. ALL THREE OF THEM.
Beat. Two. GOOD. WE’VE GOT THINGS PRETTY MUCH CLEANED UP OVER HERE, SO WHAT DO YOU THINK – 12 HOURS FROM NOW A GOOD TIME TO BRING THEM HOME?
THE TIMING IS FINE, Sombra typed, AND WE’LL GET THEM TO THE POINT THEY APPEARED AT. BUT HOW ARE YOU GOING TO PUNCH THROUGH THE DIMENSIONAL BARRIERS IN SUCH A WAY THAT YOU PULL THEM BACK THROUGH?
MODIFIED THE DEVICE WITH A TIMER. WE’LL SEND IT THROUGH, AND THEN ANGEL AND 76 WILL HAVE TWO MINUTES TO GET IN POSITION TOUCHING IT BEFORE IT PUNCHES ITS WAY BACK HERE.
NICE SOLUTION. YOU SET THE COUNTDOWN, AND I’LL MAKE SURE THEY’RE READY.
THANKS. I KNEW I COULD COUNT ON YOU.
Sombra grinned. ‘IF YOU WANT SOMETHING DONE RIGHT’, RIGHT?
EXACTLY. T MINUS 12 HOURS…MARK. XOXO.
The signal died.
A check of the other wing showed that Angel and 76 were a comfortable tangle in one of the beds, so she sent a message to the pad with the live countdown and set an alarm to go off on the device in nine hours.
===
Knock, knock. “Just me, and I brought breakfast!” Sombra called.
The door opened and 76 swirled away to glob up across the room, watching her with multiple eyes. Angel came out of the kitchen with a mug of coffee and a suspicious squint, but that cleared up as Sombra set the tray on the coffee table and whisked the cover off.
“Jesse made pancakes, Papi fried the eggs and bacon, and I did the hash with onions and peppers,” she announced from a chair as Angel distributed plates and dug in with a smothered moan of enjoyment. “Your friend says they got things cleaned up back home, and you may have noticed the message and countdown.”
“Hard to miss,” he mumbled around a mouthful of pancake. 76 wagged slightly as he devoured hash.
“The device will appear right where you did, and you both will have two minutes to get in position touching it before it goes back and takes you with it.”
Angel looked up. “What about…” he gestured to his clothes.
“Anything you want to bring back with you, bring it,” she said firmly. “And anyone you want or don’t want there when you go, I’ll make sure it happens.”
They’re all welcome, whispered 76.
Sombra’s eyebrows went up. “Even Ana?”
76 looked at Angel.
“Up to you, mi sol,” he said quietly.
Yes.
Sombra stood, leaving the cover on the chair. “Alright! I’ll go tell everyone and leave you two to enjoy breakfast and whatever else you want to do before you go home. You’ve got the countdown, although I’ll be out there ten minutes early just to be sure.”
Angel murmured, “Thanks,” and she retreated.
A ten minutes to the device’s appearance, Sombra was on the helipad conferring with security footage and marking a six-foot circle where the device might appear. Reaper and Jack watched from the side, scritching and being scritched. At five minutes to the end of the countdown, Jesse wandered out and sprawled on Reaper’s other side, lending his hand to lavishing affection on the unhappy not-dog.
Two minutes to the device’s appearance, Angel and 76 left their suite. When they finally emerged, Angel was back in his armor with the mask covering his face and 76 covering his body, but he had a backpack and he was talking to Ana. Whatever their conversation was about, at the edge of the helipad Ana hugged him and turned away to join the others while Angel approached Sombra.
“This has been the weirdest couple of days of our lives,” he said dryly as something that looked like a translocator on steroids appeared in the chalk circle. “But we owe you a lot and I don’t know that we can repay it.”
She waved the issue away. “Nothing I wouldn’t have done – or am not doing – for mine.”
“They’re lucky to have you,” he said quietly.
Then he hugged her, 76 swirling mistily around them both with an inaudible Thanks, a hug of restrained searing heat, and she blinked back the tears she felt like she should be shedding even though her body didn’t do that.
“I hope everything works out for you,” she said as the hug ended, and then she backed away towards her little family.
Angel picked up the device, silver eyes opening and closing on his armor, and glanced at them. They all waved and smiled – Reaper from the hoodie configuration, other arm wrapped tightly around Sombra’s shoulders – and then there was a sort of implosion and they were gone.
“Thank you all for putting up with me,” Reaper growled quietly. “I’m going to try to be better.”
Sombra looked at him in shock, and she wasn’t the only one. “Papi?”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “They owe you a lot, and there’s no way for them to repay it. But I owe you just as much if not more, so it’s on me. I don’t promise I’ll be perfect, but…”
“You don’t have to be,” Jack said roughly, pulling him into a hug from behind.
Jesse hugged them both from the side. “Yeah. Just don’t shut us out, jefe.”
From the other side, Ana joined the group hug. “We are here for you, Gabriel. We care about you.”
Grinning, Sombra booped the nose of his mask. “You stuck with us, Papi, whether you like it or not.
“Sombraaaaaaa…”
“Si, Papi?”
The arms that had been crossed opened up. “Are you going to join this group hug or not, hija?”
She rolled her eyes and huffed, but no one was fooled. “Fiiiiiine.”
The group hug enveloped her.
In another timeline, a woman who looked nearly identical was being released from a hug she hadn’t been expecting, a white mist swirling around them both while behind his mask, Angel smiled.