albinomilksnake | OPEN RP PART II: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO

[Most of the time? They leave her alone. She's been with them for too long, contributed too much and left no alternatives. Who else can hack like she can? Who gets the kind of dirt that buys them friends with significant resources and no moral limitations? At six years old she was already securing footholds within Los Muertos— twenty-four years later, too few (that aren't young and stupid, short-lived to say the least) are bold enough to question either her motivations or her actions.

So she works out of her apartment these days. A cramped little studio close to LumeriCo's steadily growing foundation, like a predator nesting near its prey.

Her phosphorescent markings don't glow as brightly lately; attention fixated on those not-so-distant towers. Late nights spent staring at screens until her eyes are raw, sleeping in until there's hardly any daylight left. Too consumed by curiosity (by purpose) to even bother stopping for a second.

The day to day problems? Shipment errors, aggressive negotiations, territorial enforcement— someone else can handle those.

She's got her sights set on the horizon.]

[He comes covered in red, his steps a rhythmic and familiar beat up the stairs. The fuchsia glows in spatters beneath it on his arms, across half of his face, reacting to the mixture of light and temperature as the apartment warms him. Gabriel has to duck the doorframe covered by beaded curtains as he enters, too bulky on his own with his cargo in tow.

He deposits the sack on the ground in the gentlest manner he can manage, a mess of hard-drives torn straight out of their machines. They would need to be hardwired and repaired by anyone other than her -- but that doesn't mean he wants to listen to lectures about his methods of extraction.

He owed Sombra a lot -- but he didn't owe her that much. He was still her elder, even if he was just the figurehead. Nobody had managed to figure out how important Sombra really was to their operation. If they knew, someone would have made sure she never got to where she was, even if she had to die in the process.

And it wouldn't happen on his watch.]

Give it up already.

[He stinks of acrid iron. Tracks it in with him to the point that even if the curtains didn't rustle, she'd know he was there. Sombra doesn't bother to look away from the row of holographic monitors in front of her when she leans up out of her seat— through the rippling lines of code— to shove open the window by a few meager inches.

He'd earned the name 'La Muerte'— Reaper, if she had to strain to find an English translation— for his brutal efficiency, one of the only reasons a man not from Mexico could come as far as he had within their ranks. Anyone that didn't like it quickly found themselves rethinking voicing their complaints.

She'd always liked that, the chaos he created just by existing.

So there aren't any complaints from her as to the how or why or even the smell beyond the gentle creaking of the wind through that crack, sun already sinking low into the sea. He did what she asked; she'll manage the rest.]

Didn't ask for your advice, Gabe.

[A few more seconds of typing, a pull from the near-empty beer at her side before she swivels around in her chair to speak to him directly. Mildly. Mouth upturned at the corner.] You look like hell.

Mejor ve a lavarte la cara.

[The last thing he needs is someone actually spotting him on the street like that— though knowing him, he's probably looking for a fight.]

Don't care. You've been at it since last night.

[He carries himself into the washroom nearby without complaint, practically as she tells him. He'd been planning on it anyway, and as much as he'd like to stubbornly refuse on principal, he has better things to be worrying about.

Nobody who recognized his face ever made it back to tell the tale -- that was always how it had been. A soldier didn't just flee the enhancement program and not make a world full of enemies along the way. There were few men on the earth more dangerous than him. But that also meant that just being out in the daylight painted a target on his back.

He scrubs until the water turns pink, soaking his wife-beater down to the center of his chest. When he wanders out of the washroom, he's picking dried blood from under his fingernails, eyelids drawn low as he glances at the beer in her hand.

If only there was anything out there strong enough. He could use something to kill the headache -- but it wasn't as if horse tranquilizers were common cargo on the streets of Dorado.]

What's your rush?

I'm close to something, that's what.

[It's like a sixth sense, her intuition - she's sure of it.

In truth, it's obsession. Entirely in her head and as driven as any addict out there dropping more change on some dismal, distant street corner. But does it really make a difference when the results speak for themselves?]

Besides, they're not exactly slowing down. Better to get what we can before they've got security on lock down.

[Which won't be long now. Not if they keep this up— which, of course, she plans to. Her eyes drift downwards to the lip of his shirt where it's soaked with faded blood when he comes back out, collar tinged a faintly glowing pink.]

You erase the camera feed like I asked?

You said that last night too.

[He's getting the feeling that he's going to have to drag her away from that computer if he wants anything done for anyone else this week. Mentally, he sets a mark -- a point at which she has to finish whatever she's doing before he acts on that instinct. He never bothered asking -- it always turned up results, and she was always happy to attribute her success to his own. He wouldn't keep doing her dirty work otherwise.

Reaper's nail flicks outward to rid the last remains of dirt away, and folds his arms over his chest with a stern crease in his brow.]

What the hell kind of question is that?

[A good one, as it turns out. He hadn't exactly erased the feed, but he doesn't know to define it that way. The tape was on one of the hard drives in the bag. She would likely stumble on it later going through everything and pay witness to his method of extraction, up to and including the point where he got tired of trying to do things cleanly.]

A good one. [She huffs back with a dull, childish scoff from over the lip of her beer. It's empty by now, and the hollow insides seem to echo out punctuation for her moderately exasperated train of thought.

She knows him well enough.

Her heels drop from the edge of the hover-desk, chair swirling back around as she chucks the empty bottle into the nearest bin— it tips sideways from the force, spilling out onto the floor.

She'll get it later.] The shipments can wait a few more days. Pérez doesn't need them until...what was it, the fifth?

He'll survive.

[And then it's back to steady typing, keys chirping softly under pressure.]

Left you beer and some takeout in the fridge. Consider it payment.

I'm not taking your beer, Sombra.

[Her name is a growl as he turns his back to head toward the fridge. He wouldn't take the beer, but the takeout? With a metabolism at least three times as fast as the average human, he's starving, and he's not bout to turn down the food.

He's only gone for a minute or two. The "ding" of the microwave is the herald of his return to the room, half of the burrito already eaten by the time he crosses the threshhold. That is when he reaches forward and pulls Sombra's chair from the computer.]

Its not about survival. And neither is this.

[He gestures with his burrito to the computer screen, threatening its keyboard with rice grains.]

Take. A. Break.

Me. vale. madre. [It's stubborn and digging, unflinching to the bone. She doesn't let her stare drift when she reaches down a moment later to set her fingers beneath his hand, pressing it up, up— to move the burrito away from her monitors and significantly closer to his mouth.

Shh.]

Nothing we do is about survival.

[Maybe at first, when she was too young to know better, still learning the finer details of pulling strings and reading data, but those days have long since passed. Now everything is about power: the protection— the freedom— it affords, even to people like him. To her.]

But if it makes you happy... [There's an exaggerated show of surrender when she lifts her hands, palms bared.] I'll 'take a break'.

¿Está bien?

Edited 2016-12-17 13:52 (UTC)

[He growls low, but lets her move his hand to a point. It stops a few inches away from his mouth so that he can make his point -- if he wanted to forcibly remove her, he could. And he would.

Instead, he jerks his chin toward her computer again.]

I'm not stupid, gordita. Kill it.

[Only then does he lean back, release her chair, and go back to finishing his burrito as he moves for the balcony, forcing the lock open to let himself out.

If he didn't hear her chair move twice in the next two minutes, he'd be back in there to do it for her.]

[ U g h.

Her lips purse, features flattening out in irritation at being read so easily, but there's no further argument when she brushes her fingers across the paneling to shut it down entirely.]

Ahorita, mijo.

[Said as the door snaps shut behind him, dulling the noise of Dorado proper. Soft whirring of spent fans, desk lowering in to compress over itself. By the time he comes back, he'll be happy to know her console's stayed off: far corner still wholly dim.

Less happy to find her sorting through the hard drives he'd retrieved, but a compromise is a compromise all the same. She lifts one to the light, squinting at a few rows of barely legible lettering near the edge.]

[Its not necessarily the break he wanted for her, but at least the work is more productive for all of them. Reyes comes back, rhythmically tearing the paper that had held his meal, and then balling up the pieces into a larger conglomerate -- something to keep his hands busy.

He stops a few feet from her.]

There were a lot more people there than you'd said there would be.

[Not that he wouldn't have agreed to do it -- its a reminder that he doesn't necessarily appreciate the games she likes to play.]

You're gonna need more than a burrito if you want me to pull another stunt like that.

I'll take care of it. [There's so little to the lie it hardly seems like her: paper-thin and hardly there, she could do him more courtesy if she wanted to. And to be honest, she usually does.

For a moment Sombra stoops over, mechanical spine arching long when she drops the drive down onto the floor and brackets it with her hands— devoid of ceremony or reverence.] None of this hardware was built here. Did you know that?

[Of course he doesn't. She didn't until at least half a minute ago.]

For a company that promises security de México, they sure are getting their resources from somewhere else.

[Now that is interesting -- interesting enough that he doesn't bother to chastise her for her thoughtless remark. Instead, Reyes moves closer, towering over her to observe what she's looking at. He can't make heads or tails of any of it without her, but he understands what she's getting at.]

Not all that surprising. Not like anyone else cares to check on them.

[Its a backhanded compliment of sorts. Not many others would have figured that out so quickly, after all, without even plugging in.]

Can't be that much money left to drain out of this country. Not after the Crisis.

I don't see any industrial markers. [Borrowed favors she'd expect; everyone likes to think bartering is a dead system outside the impoverished and unsettled, but the truth of the matter is it thrives in politics — entire nations bought and sold over nothing more than promises.

For a moment her brow creases, lips thinned out as her stare seems to want to burn through that little piece of constructed technology laid out on the floor in front of her— and then she turns her attention to him, expression wholly painted with sincerity:]

Gabe, I don't recognize any of it.

[There are less than fifty manufacturers in the world capable of mass-producing similar hardware to a country like hers. All of them familiar, all of them easily identified. Something like this? It shouldn't be possible, let alone happening right on their doorstep.]

Edited (words are too hard) 2016-12-18 09:09 (UTC)

None of it.

[Reyes sounds skeptical, perhaps unsurprisingly. His arms fold across his chest, eyelids drawing as he waits for her to change her tune.]

So, all of this work I did-- [He spreads his arm over the pile and slowly closes his fist at the end of it.] --you can't use any of it.

Please.

[It's scoffed out, tip of her tongue hitting the back of her teeth as she scoots back on her heels, away from his outstretched hand to reach for a cable hook up housed at the side port of her desk.] Of course I can use it.

I can use everything, mijo.

[Still, while her back is turned— bony veridian patterning most visible in the shadows that hit between her shoulderblades— while his isn't, there's something to be recognized there, if he's paid attention to the wreckage left behind in the war's wake: most of the arrangement distinctly mimics omnic patterning. Not as outdated, but undeniably present all the same. For all the hardware she's picked apart, screwing around inside the heads of any wayward omnics isn't exactly her MO.

After all, she's a hacker, not an engineer.

When Sombra comes around again, plug in hand, there's a helpful little flick of clawed fingers to shoo him away from her workspace.]

[Mijo, every time she says it, he wants to roll his eyes. Somehow, he manages to avoid it this time.]

Be quick about it. They're ready to eat each other down there.

[Better he thinks, taking just a half a step back when he's waved away, and purposefully swatting back at her hand to remind her not to ever think about doing that again. He'll stand where he wants to stand, thank you very much.

He moves only enough to allow her to get started, and then sets to pacing impatiently, casting his eyes around her flat for something else to do. Almost instantly, he wishes he hadn't finished that burrito so fast.]

And you can't handle it?

[Los Muertos is the closest thing to family she's ever known— ever cared for; someone else might take that significance to heart, recognize it for the value it holds. Sombra, on the other hand, deals in more tangible terms, measuring their strides in comparison with her own and never coming so close to bleeding affection as to be compromised by their fluctuating turmoil.

Her criticism is palpable, timed to his pacing and punctuated by the jack as she shoves it into place, terminal flickering to life and casting the room a brilliant blue. She rushes to her desk like a parent to their child's side, tapping at keys without waiting for a cue, lines of code scrolling eagerly across the screens.

For all the favors she's done him, in this moment— breath twisted, held high in her throat— Gabriel might as well not exist.]

Yeah. I could.

[There's a distinct threat in how he replies. Los Muertos isn't the family to him that it was to Sombra -- it was an alliance of convenience, a force that he could bend and flex to his will as he pleased, with hardly enough manpower to fight back if they ever really got tired of his rule. One didn't simple cross el jefe and come back without something to show for it.

And it certainly wasn't a badge of honor. Sometimes, they didn't come back at all.

He watches the terminals with an obviously bored expression -- the code means nothing to him, after all. But when it turns to images, he pays more attention. The security feed he didn't erase, delivery manifests, among other things.]

Some operation they're trying to hide.

[ More than that. So much more than that.

No mames...

It's thought instead of spoken, fingertips gone still against her holographic keyboard in absolute awe of her own findings. She'd suspected corruption, enough to climb beyond highrises and paychecks in the millions, an ace up her sleeve that couldn't be flipped by any other hacker out there. What she got instead? Vishkar— Volskaya— she recognizes the names instantly, alongside blueprints that point toward omnic coding, composition. It's like asking for a bullet and being handed napalm.

It's like trouble. And power.

Maybe too much. She can't be sure.

The silence between his estimation and her lack of response is broken belatedly by a low, low exhale as she leans back in her seat, stare unfixed, shoulders sagging in a way that masks the calculations running in her head. She'd told him to erase the files.] These are the only copies - estás seguro?

No.

[Rather than reply to her, he unfolds his arms and moves to the pile, sifting through the various SSDs and HDs until he finds one in particular, shaped differently than the others. It was the only way he'd known what it was for, and he offers it to her when he manages to find it.

The security tape would show exactly what he did: rip everything out, and dispatch the virus she had given him.]

Not my job to figure out.

[She takes it without commentary, scrolling back through the feed and feeling out what security it seems to provide, however thin. The virus would at least stall for time, that much she's sure of.

Still, even without visual confirmation, there's certainty in the idea that someone— somewhere in that tightly knit circle of names that's invested both time and money into Guillermo's greedy hands— is going to want to push back.

And there aren't that many rocks to overturn in Dorado.

What if they buy out Los Muertos? What if they secure an association with some of her people? Revolution and a steady flow of excitement are all most of them need to get by, but there's no denying how easy it would be to make an argument that sticks with one or two of them at least.

Gabe, too, maybe.

He needed security. Something to stand between himself and whatever it was he'd been running from. For the moment, they're enough— in a month? Ten? LumériCo's friends could do better.

She doubts he realizes it yet. He always was slower on the uptake.]

Traigame una chela, La Muerte. If you're not drinking it, I will. [Whether he agrees to or not, the moment she's finished pulling data from the card is when she snaps it in half without reverence or concern, spattering the edge of her desk in bits of broken plastic. It's a process repeated a second later with the first drive itself: secure, save, destroy.]

[Reyes makes a noncommittal noise and retreats to the kitchen as asked -- not because she'd asked him to, but because it was easier than standing around watching her work on something he had mostly no concept of. The cap is popped off using her counter and his superior strength with a well placed strike.

He returns to the other room and offers it back to her.]

The back up is probably in here somewhere. They'd have to start over.

[So what's got her so uptight?]

Mmhm. [The beer's lifted from his fingertips gently enough, eyes still trained on the monitors for a moment longer. It's only then that she can feel her own transparency— the focus of his stare and what he might be thinking— like some soft warning against forgetting that he isn't so dense as the average vato.

The files keep downloading; she turns her chair to swing around and face him. Finally.]

You said they're unhappy. [Los Muertos, she means - expecting him to catch the segue.]

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