fantasmaniac | catalog it here

He allows a hum of acknowledgement, but otherwise remains silent as she gestures behind him. His tendency to get straight to the point didn't begin with her, per se, but it sure comes in handy when it turned out that the genius hacker he'd been paired with alongside Widowmaker was just as theatrical as he was... albeit in different ways. Where he preferred dramatics, she liked to string things along and build up tension or anticipation.

And honestly? It works. He brushes off her little idiosyncrasies without as much as a gritted out Sombraaa from time to time, and in most situations he lets her lead him along as she pleases unless it gets out of hand.

The hallway does feel a bit...snug. It feels like a hiding hole, where a little rodent burrows through its intricate labyrinth of hallways and doors. Where it keeps its secrets, scattered about the place in little spots where to an untrained eye or one unfamiliar with her secrets in the first place would see them as nothing. It is perfect for her, and he has little to say about it in regards to himself.

Edited 2016-12-05 06:45 (UTC)

Palms squared off against a door near the back of the old safehouse, just where the corridor turns sharply, Sombra flicks one last knowing glance over her shoulder at him. She wonders if he assumes she's found his shotgun. Then again, maybe he knows better than to lean on optimistic hope in conjunction with the delight she takes in dragging everything— no matter the circumstances— out to its fullest.

And then she presses against it, stepping inside (one arm raised in a universal sign of showmanship), keeping the door pinned open at her back so that he can fully follow suit.

"Tadaaa."

It's...a room.

Standard-sized, a little dark aside from the overhead light hanging above them and a pair of candles sitting in the opposite windowsill that look more suited to a church than an industrial hybrid bunker. There's a sofa on one end dragged in front of workshop shelving, a bed— small, and like everything else here, worn— and a desk that's undisputedly missing a chair.

All in all, unimpressive.

He hates to admit it, but the suspense is sort of killing him here. The longer it goes on, the more suspicious he's getting that this isn't what he's been expecting. There's something else she's adding to the mix.

He enters the room slowly, turning his head slightly to stare at her before looking back into the room. It seems the gesture of this dramatic revealing is lost on him.

"Sombra... what is this?"

It's a cautious sort of accusation, as if he's saying 'what did you drag me into this time?'

She shrugs, slipping into the room and letting the door snap shut behind her. "Sonic showers? Self-cleaning beds? Hypo-allergenic everything? That's not you."

It's not her, either (it might be Amélie, but since that doesn't exactly contribute to the topic in her favor, Sombra opts to keep that point to herself). Cutting a path to the wall behind the desk, she pinches the lip of a rickety projector screen between her claws, tugging it down to expose a strictly categorized list of enemies, contacts— all their allegiances and whether or not they're currently indebted to the Legion. "Plus, you said so yourself: you don't want to sleep in those ruins. No sirve para nada."

From there, it's a short walk to the bed - flicking open the multi-lock on the highest rusted container reveals a pristine weapons locker (empty, for the moment), an old trick Los Muertos liked to fall back on when too many people came snooping around. "So I thought, why not consolidate?"

Another sidestep, this time popping a section of metallic paneling out of place that leads to a deeper storage area, only housing a couple of hand-scrawled notes on Legion World's communication and R&D facilities. She prefers digital, always, but with her neural interfaces synced to alien hardware on an unfamiliar network, sometimes you need a backup plan to make sure nobody can pin you down. "This way you can look out for me, while I look out for you."

"So." A beat, her hands clapped together as she gives everything one last look-over, turning on her heel to face him again. "What do you think?"

Gabriel— in spite of his predictability— could be difficult to read at times, even for her. If he doesn't want it, she'll use it; if he wants it, she won't have to fight to coordinate meetings between them. Either way, it's a win, regardless.

But she'd be lying if she said she wasn't at least moderately biased in one outcome over the other.

Probably because none of those features really did much for him in the long run. Being dead had those 'advantages', he supposes, but maybe if he hadn't been blown up and become a bitter angry death ghost, he would've enjoyed those things on a superficial level. Of course, being an army brat, he didn't exactly revel in luxury, but he could appreciate advance technology and get used to it.

But not anymore. This gesture is wholly practical, but perhaps from someone else on the outside looking in, this would've seemed like a rather thoughtful gesture. Something that not only benefited both parties on a professional level, but perhaps on something akin to friendship. He would definitely deny being friends at all, no matter what Sombra claims. He knows the benefits to sticking close, especially on an alien planet with no other support— completely on their own, but he also knows it's a good way to keep him under surveillance too. It bothers him less than he'd expected. At least he knows if she decides to pull a fast one on him or try to do anything strange, he'll know. It's just as risky to keep him close as it is to keep him at a distance.

There's a good stretch of silence as he look the room over. The spartan facilities of the room appeal to him. She knows him well enough by now.

"It'll do," he says with a nod. "Now, if you have anything on... Freeloader's whereabouts."

He has his own tidbits, but it's honestly less time wasted if the one who's more likely to dig up more information goes first before he contributes anything that she may have overlooked.

To her, business partnerships are friendships. It doesn't come with fanfare or affection, and it doesn't mean that you're dedicated to the bone. She keeps her friends close, her enemies closer, and there's only a narrow gap between the two— if one exists at all, in certain cases.

Her lips purse, attention drifting off to one side. "I know where he isn't."

Which is to say no, she doesn't have the kind of intel he might be hoping to find. It's a knock against her efficiency to untrained eyes, but in reality, digging in too deeply too soon would screw them both over. She cast her net; eventually something will come out of it. "But I found somebody else that might be able to help."

If Sombra truly wanted to get to the bottom of something as simple as someone's location (especially when that someone wasn't exactly trying to hide from them), she probably would've forcibly done so and gotten it over with. Seeing that she didn't, however, does tell him that maybe he's asking for too much all at once.

He strides slowly over to the table while in thought, placing his single shotgun on the surface. It's just extra weight that he doesn't need at the moment.

"Who?" It's not as if he thinks Sombra will partner with just anyone nor does he usually care where she gets her help from, but when it comes to the Legion and who they have in their little club? He doesn't think it's too far-fetched to think they may butt heads. Just an extra precaution he wants to take should it be someone he's run into here already.

"His name is Locus."

Like the armor, she thinks, one foot still stuck in the memory of their interaction. And then it's done, attention snapping upwards to focus on the glint of Reaper's mask through what little dulled moonlight seeps in from dirtied windows. "Same as your friend's description, he wears only armor. Head to toe."

It's punctuated by a dramatic wave of her fingertips: head— to shoulders.

"But...he's too new to have been responsible for the theft, and from what I can tell? Either he doesn't like keeping people from his world around, or they're just not here."

Maybe both. It's not like it's uncommon for the inteligente to be antisocial.

Another beat passes— shorter this time— before she adds: "I like him."

There's a small handful of them wearing armor, he thinks, but as he listens to her explain the guy, he realizes this is definitely not the same guy that stole his gun. From what he remembers, the other guy was a wisecracking type.

"You like him." He repeats plainly, mulling over the new information. Well, if she likes him, then he's useful in some way or another.

"And you believe their similarities in uniform makes them associates?"

It's a stretch, but it's a start. Nobody ever said trying to be sneaky was an easy and direct process.

"Maybe."

Maybe not. Uniforms don't mean much in the way of understanding connections or motivations. "But I think more than anything else, it means he might have some insight as to how we get to your friend without running into trouble."

She scoots over to hop up and sit at the edge of the desk, already regretting having left her beer just down the hall. Ah well.

"Plus, he's military." It's said with a slight, knowing edge. Gabe always was drawn towards the shadow of what he once had— or maybe what he should have had— she won't pretend to know the difference. "Wouldn't be a bad idea to expand the team a little. In time."

Satisfied with the logic, he redirects his focus onto something else now. It's been a long day— hell, it's been a long week, so admittedly, he actually needed a place to crash.

As Sombra perches on the table, he keeps an eye on his gun out of habit. He starts with his gauntlets, removing them methodically, setting them down next to his gun with a heavy clunk. Working on the second one, he slows his efforts, snorting softly at the little hint of something in her voice. He's not entirely sure why she's doing it, but she's not wrong. Not that he'd ever admit it out loud.

He makes a sound of agreement, though it's barely a grunt at this point. Part of him wants to dig deeper, wring more information out, but he supposes this is why he has Sombra on his team.

"Just two is spreading it a little thin," he agrees, setting the second gauntlet down with finality. "You'll stay on correspondence to keep any other outside contact to a minimum."

As much as he'd like to give the guy a once-over himself, it'd probably be better to easy on this. In time, like she'd mentioned. He doubts introducing another person such as himself so quickly after meeting for the first time would go over well and might make her appear like an opportunist. If he knows anything about military guys, they really read between the lines.

"Ya lo sé, mijo." If it comes off about as arrogant as it is mildly exasperated, that's because it's meant to: tolerating orders is a luxury - a gift given as a show of goodwill on her part, considering how certain she is she needs less input from anyone else.

"I got it."

Where was he before she turned up? Missing a weapon, missing allies, barely scraping underneath the Legion's nose as far as she can tell. He's a decent leader when he wants to be, but that doesn't mean he gets to have a heavy hand over her decisions from here on out.

And for now, without Amélie around, it's his vote against hers.

Lucky for them, it seems they're both at the end of their lines for the night. As he lets his stare linger for just a moment as if considering whether or not to sigh irritably at her obvious exasperation, he flexes his hand- then turns his gaze down at the table.

He should be grateful. It's not often he can find a competent person not only capable of putting up with his overall creepy get-up/situation but his methods as well.

It falls quickly into silence and without really dismissing her verbally, he begins to remove the bullets from the straps against his chest. Systematically, he collects all his ammo remaining like some sort of calming ritual, including the ones hanging on his belt and sets them up quietly on the table next to the gun. He doesn't necessarily care if Sombra wants to just hang out and watch him lay out all his equipment, but who doesn't need a little privacy?

She could actually stand to watch him go through the routine, honestly. Not because it's interesting outright, but because it'd be abrasive enough to be entertaining, spectating those private rituals he keeps close to his chest.

Still, even she's too tired to play antagonist - slipping off the edge of the desk, she makes for the door, pausing only for a half second before adding, mildly (by her standards): "Ah, before I forget..." Her nail taps at the door frame, chin tipped towards her shoulder.

"I thought you might want to know that I spoke to him, too."

He pauses, sensing she's going to say something that will most definitely catch his interest. She always does this, act like she's done and then drop something like this at the last minute. But her speaking to 76 isn't necessarily a good or bad thing, so he just turns his head slightly in her direction to show that he acknowledges this fact.

"Learn anything?"

It's doubtful that Jack will catch onto who she is, even if he does see them working together. He's not worried about that just yet; one of those cross that bridge when we get to it sort of things.

"That we're going to be fast friends."

It was so easy to fall in step at his side, to commiserate and share suspicions she'd never have suspected from a man like him. Which, for what it's worth (if the sharpness of shown teeth is anything to go by), always makes playing the part that much easier. For Los Muertos, for Talon— less so for Fawkes and Rutledge, but what they lacked in appeal, they made up for in destruction.

She shrugs her shoulders, feigning a mild sort of indifference. All surface level. After a beat the tapping of her claw stills, maliciousness punctuated by how she drags it sharply along the edge of the door frame with enough force to leave a glowing little gouge in its wake.

"Duerme bien, Gabe."

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