Timely friend

[moonshadows]

It's going to be a few days before the next mission, and I'm actually being included this time. Reaper thrust a data pad in my direction with the details so I could familiarize myself with them, but they don't really tell me anything. Date, time, place, who owns the building, the guy we're going in for Reaper to kill, but my part is insultingly basic - disable the security system - and there's no details on that. Half an hour of independent research and I can practically shut the system down from here. Another hour tells me volumes about the target. Never married, no kids, few close friends. Moderately wealthy. Has a taste for sculpture. But most interestingly, he used to work for Omnica, way back in the day. He's got several highly-secure data drops both at home and in his office, but he's very rarely out of either and they're both pretty heavily-fortified. He's going on a business trip, though, and that's where we're going to kill him.

I want to know what he has in those data drops.

While Reaper and Widowmaker do their stare-at-the-news thing, I go up to my room and weasel my way into the target's home computer.

HELLO, JEREMY BENSON. The words appear in a simplistic chat box.

After a delay wherein he does his absolute best to close the box and kick me out, he places the cursor inside and starts typing. WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?

JUST A SHADOW, I type back, BUT I COULD BE YOUR BEST FRIEND.

That makes him hesitate. WHAT DO YOU WANT?

TO BE HONEST, THE CONTENTS OF YOUR ENCRYPTED DATA DUMPS.

I BET YOU DO, he types rapidly. He's angry. AND WHAT WILL YOU DO IF YOU DON'T GET IT, HMM? KILL ME? YOU DO THAT, AND THE DATA IS LOST.

It's my turn to hesitate, because now that entry in his medical records makes sense. He's got a tiny device implanted in his brain. I thought it served no purpose, or was a tracker of some kind - all it did was generate a signal verifying the device is working. But I was wrong, it's a dead-man switch. If his brain function ceases, the lack of signal will trigger the dumps to erase themselves.

WHO IS YOUR ENEMY, JEREMY? WHO ARE YOU TRYING TO KEEP THIS OUT OF THE HANDS OF?

AND NOW WHY SHOULD I TELL YOU THAT?

BECAUSE I KNOW THAT ONE POWER WANTS YOU DEAD, BUT I SPEAK FOR ANOTHER POWER THAT COULD KEEP YOUR DATA OUT OF THEIR HANDS FOREVER.

ARE YOU OFFERING TO PROTECT ME FROM TALON? He asks. BECAUSE THEY'VE WANTED ME DEAD FOR A LONG TIME. NO ONE CAN PROTECT ME FOREVER.

Well, at least this won't be an unpleasant surprise, then. NO. I'M OFFERING YOU A CHANCE TO GIVE YOUR DATA TO AN ENEMY OF TALON BEFORE THEY SUCCEED IN KILLING YOU.

THERE IS NO MAN I TRUST TO NOT BE AN AGENT OF TALON, he replies.

OR WOMAN?

OR WOMAN, OR ANYONE IN BETWEEN.

WHAT ABOUT OMNICS?

A pause. NICE CATCH, BUT THERE ISN'T A LIVING BEING I WOULD TRUST WITH THIS DATA.

Oh, I hope I'm right about this. THEN LET ME GIVE YOU THE COORDINATES TO THE POWER I SPEAK FOR, AND AN ENCRYPTION KEY.

I send over the longitude and latitude, then the encryption key I use with my sponsor. Jeremy is silent for several minutes.

I DON'T KNOW WHO YOU ARE, he says finally, BUT I AM GLAD YOU CONTACTED ME. I THINK TALON'S GOING TO MAKE A MOVE WHEN I GO TO ATLANTA LATER THIS WEEK.

I CAN CONFIRM THAT, I type.

I'LL GET RIGHT ON THIS, THEN. THANK YOU. IT'S A RELIEF TO KNOW THAT ALL THESE YEARS OF PARANOIA HAVEN'T BEEN IN VAIN.

A little shaken, I close the connection and back out of his systems. Whatever he's been hiding from Talon, I have no doubt it's better off in my sponsor's metaphoric hands, but the reminder that I've put myself into the lion's den is sobering. I gave up everything to do this, but Jeremy Benson has effectively sacrificed at least two decades of the life he could have had, the last defender in a war no one else knows is going on.

There's three days before we fly to Atlanta to kill an old man who's been expecting to die for probably as long as I've been alive, and I refuse to spend them depressed. I'm going to go visit the market, and lose myself in the warmth and color of the market for a while.

===

Reaper tolerates indignity amusingly well. It's like he's so unused to people not cowering or shooting at him that he literally doesn't know how to react when a cute Latina does something like bouncing in wearing a hot pink fedora and then plops the matching lime green one on top of his hood. Widow's reaction is so dull I'm tempted to not even bother in the future; I put the neon yellow one on her and it's like I (and the hat) don't even exist. But Reaper! Reaper stiffens even more than usual and I can feel the glare from the mask and little black wisps start seeping out around his shoulders while he growls my name threateningly. It's like an offended owl. So much fury, so much effort to look terrifying, and it's all for nothing. I have to bounce back out of the room before I start laughing, but oh man, the footage from my cameras! He stands there fuming silently for a good minute before dissolving into black mist and slinking out of the room like a sulky cat. Interestingly, the hat goes with him. I save the footage and add it to my growing collection of Reaper Being Pranked, while vowing to do more of this in the future. Years from now, I will sit somewhere luxurious and laugh at the annoyed looks and the growls of "Sombraaaa!" while wisps flicker up around him.

I wonder if he's been stuck alone with Widow for long enough that he secretly likes even annoying human interaction.