Save Him One More Time: Phase 3

Chapter 11- Breaking Out

"He's going to scream like that for a few hours. Try to tune it out if it bothers you too much."

She couldn't tune it out. It got louder when Sombra left. Every nerve was on edge and she cried harder every time he paused for breath. It seemed as if it would never end, that Moira would torture him to death. After an hour or so she couldn't take it anymore and covered her ears. She could still hear him and it hurt. Her chest throbbed with every scream.
And then it stopped. He was silent, and she was sure he was dead. She had run out of tears a long time ago and there was nothing left. She lay where she was, exhausted.
"Aw geez." Sombra opened a window in the door and put a plate of food on the floor.
"Come on, chica, sit up. He'll be fine, Moira's turned the machine off, he's asleep, she's not doing anything to him right now. He'll be alright."
Angela just looked at her.
"Really. And you need to keep your strength up if you're ever going to get out of here. You can't run if you can't stand up."
The medic sat up.
"What's in this?" she asked, picking up the plate.
"It's beans and rice and some enchilada sauce and some meat. I'm not the best cook here but I can make some things." Sombra handed her a spoon. "I'd give you a knife but that's too risky right now. So eat up and hang tight for a while." She vanished, leaving the medic to eat in silence.

Should be about ready to mix the chemicals and get him in the simulation room. The initial prep was over, he was asleep again, and Akande was on her back about him.
"We need results, Moira. Talon will not continue to fund your endeavors if all you can produce are failures. We need a stable agent, one that can kill anyone, no matter the past."
"You can take Amelie, if you need someone now, or you can wait until I've done the medic."
"And Reaper?"
"Gabriel is mine. Once I have the bugs all sorted, he will be mine. And only mine," she added, giving Akande a warning glare.
"If you can fix him, we'll gladly take the medic, once you've proven you can give us a stable agent. But as it stands, Reaper is a liability."
"You're a liability."
"Just fix him and we might not cut your funds."
"Fine." She handed him several vials.
"Hold these and get them to body temperature."
He stuck them under his arms.
"What are they?"
"Hormones. He needs to feel exactly like he would if he was actually in an explosion and being crushed by a chunk of metal. And I will rescue him from the wreckage instead of that medic. If I can fix his memories without that last glimpse of her, he should forget her entirely and be loyal to me."
That was how it was supposed to be, anyway. But Angela had survived. It was the suit, had to be the suit. The suit allowed her to heal anyone, including herself. That's why she hadn't died. A grave error on Moira's part, and one she would not make again. There would be no Angela to save him this time. Her thoughts were interrupted by Akande handing her the vials.
"Here. They're warm."
"Draoi mór, they're hot! They need to be body temperature, not a hundred and ten!" She put the back of her hand to his forehead and frowned. "You've got a fever."
"No I don't. You wanted them warmed up, they're warmed up. I am naturally this warm. If you wanted them cooler you should have told me not to put them under my arms."
"Shut up." She carefully measured the chemicals into a beaker, the colors mixing together into a dirty brown before fizzing and turning purple. Steam rose from the beaker and Moira waved it away.
"Try not to breathe that in too much, Akande. You might become a little foggy-brained. If you do, just get to some fresh air. You'll be fine in a few minutes." She turned to a shelf and started looking through the bottles.
"Acetaminophen...benzonatate... cortisone...ah, here it is." She pulled out a bottle labelled "cortisol" and poured a generous amount of the red liquid into a separate cup. She checked her notes and added a little more. She put the bottle back and pulled out a different one labelled "ad'line," measuring out a couple of tablespoons and stirring it into the cortisol. Muttering to herself, she pulled out another bottle labelled "thyroxine" and poured quite a bit into another beaker.
Akande watched her work disinterestedly.
"What are those concoctions going to do?"
"This one is going to make him feel like he's just been thrown from an exploding shuttle, this one is going to scare the everliving daylights out of him and this one's going to paralyze him." She pointed to each container as she spoke. "Now where are my sharps."

Angela had eaten some of the food Sombra had given her, but only enough to take the edge off her hunger. It was less than good and she wasn't sure it hadn't been laced with something. She was trying to sleep, having nothing else to do, when Sombra appeared in the middle of her cell.
"Okay, you can take your cuffs off. We've got to go, chica." She pulled Angela to her feet and yanked the cuffs off. Angela opened her mouth to say something. "Don't argue with me," Sombra said, putting a finger on the medic's mouth. "You don't have time. Moira's fixing to mess with Gabe again and you're next. You've got to get out of here. Get to wherever you were before he found you. Don't go back to America. Go somewhere else. Maybe Russia. He couldn't figure out where in Russia you were, just knew you'd been seen there." She pushed Angela onto a purple pad on the floor and grabbed her hand. The cell dissolved and they were suddenly standing outside the building. Angela put a hand to her mouth to keep from throwing up. Sombra frowned.
"Sensitive stomach?" Angela shook her head.
"It feels like shadowstepping, just not as intense." Sombra shook her head in agreement.
"Translocating. It's gentler on a body, yes. Not quite the same as shadowstepping, this is technology and not a side effect. But hey, do it a few more times and you probably won't even get nauseous anymore." She threw another purple gadget high up in the air, typing on her holo keypad. It flew away, disappearing over the trees.
"There. That should get you off the radar. When you get there, destroy the device and it'll shut down the building for a few minutes." Sombra set a pad down. "Step on that and then when you've calmed your guts, I don't care what you do, step on it, pry it apart, break it over your knee, just destroy the device. It'll trigger an EMP that'll fry anything electronic in the building for a few minutes." Sombra disappeared. "I'll come up with some way to make it look like you broke your way out of your cell and managed to knock me out. Now go. You can't save Gabe if you're an experiment too." She pushed Angela onto the pad and touched her nose as the location started fading.
"Boop!"
And Angela was in a completely different place. She took a few deep breaths and looked around for the device. She was standing almost on top of it. The medic picked it up and threw it into a tree, stepped on it as hard as she could, tried to pry pieces off of it, and finally rubbed snow into it, hoping to get the circuits wet. It sizzled and a few sparks jumped out. She startled and dropped it. The purple light in the middle of the device went out and she looked at the sky, trying to find the sun, and then she spun and ran north.

The lights went out. There was a crash from the basement, and Amelie ran down. The cell door was wide open and Sombra lay facedown on the floor, a thin stream of blood running from her head.
"Sombra." She knelt next to the girl, her senses tuned for even the slightest movement. There was a hole in the wall and several wires had been broken. The cuffs were on the floor, mangled. She looked down at Sombra. She was unconscious and she had been hit on the head. Amelie's visor slipped down over her eyes and she searched. The only heat in the vicinity was Sombra. She took it off. The medic had run. Amelie rolled Sombra over. "Olivia. Wake up." Sombra's eyes fluttered open and she winced.
"Ah, my head."
"What happened?"
"I don't- I don't know," she said. "I came down here to feed her," she pointed to the overturned plate of food, "and I opened the door and then she wasn't there and then everything went black." She ran her hand over her face and frowned, looking at the blood smeared across her hand.
"Ah man, I didn't think she was that violent. Maybe you should have put her in a container."
"You're going to Moira. You need to get your head checked out." Amelie locked her thumb and wiped some of the blood off.
"Ow. Ew, stop that! I know where your mouth's been and that's disgusting!" Amelie looked straight at her.
"The last place I put my mouth was on my breakfast. You were there. You watched me eat."
"Yeah, and your spit! That's gross!" Amelie rolled her eyes.
"Well fine then. Go to Moira with blood all over your face. She won't be happy either way." She stood, pulling Sombra to her feet as well. "Come on."

"What is the meaning of this?" Akande shouted, in what he supposed was Moira's direction.
"I don't know!" she yelled back. "Sombra must have been playing one of her tricks!"
She flung open the door and stopped short. Amelie stood there, one arm supporting Sombra, who was bleeding from a head wound.
"What happened!" she demanded.
"Sombra tried to feed the medic and got knocked out. I did a quick scan when I got there, but the medic was not in the vicinity." She walked forward, pulling Sombra with her. "I will go look for the captive while Sombra gets her head looked at." Akande stepped forward. "I'll go with you." Amelie put a hand up.
"I mean no disrespect, monsieur, but I work best alone, s'il vous plait." She looked at Moira. Moira shook her head. "If he wants to help search, let him. You don't have to be near him, as you can search from a vantage point." She guided Sombra to a table as the emergency lights kicked on. "When you find her, put her in the containment block. Number 1247. That one's clean. Do not put her in 1246 or 1248. Those are still contaminated and I don't want extra DNA on her." She pulled out her scanner and ran it across Sombra's forehead.