Without a Trace [yuratta]

Hush shook his head. "Fine, I get it, we won't stop, but we can't keep operating like we have been. It's not just terrorists and gangs we have to worry about now Ana. Now there's someone even bigger out there for us to worry about. We can't just run off every time Talon or Los Muertos does something. These guys are pulling strings we can't even see yet. If we want to keep going, we're going to have to change our tactics, that's all I'm saying..." He said, letting out a sigh. "I've had Athena scanning the symbol since before I came in here Ana...she's been locked out of everything. She's had to reboot herself to even get back onto Google that's how well protected this thing is. Because they gave us this, they must mean business." He said, holding up the card.

Ana didn't answer at first, she just blinked at the man as her jaw tightened slightly.

"And what, exactly, have I been saying for months? What have I been saying since Gibraltar? That we are not the Overwatch of old, that we have to change our tactics and be careful what we do. I have been...shouting this at what feels like the wall for months now! That we can't run off like crazy half-cocked wanna be big damn heroes at every jump and every shadow!"

She slapped a hand down hard on the desk. "I've already been *saying* this, Hush! No one else could be bothered to listen, and that's why we've had as many problems and as many causalities as we've had so far! If it took a goddamn postcard of an eye to finally make someone listen to me, then good! I thank them for it!"

She leaned back in her chair, rubbing a hand over her good eye. "I want to know who this is, I want to know what they want. But *yes*, we *are* going to do this the smart and careful way." She fixed her gaze on him.

==

Jess looked up at him. "If you want to go home, we can go home. But...we should talk to your mom first. She might know what's going on. She might be able to help." She squeezed his hand back tightly.

"And...I dunno? Maybe some sleeping pills or something? Look, we'll get you some help. It'll be better, it'll get better...you'll see." She tried to promise, although she knew it wasn't as simple as that.

Mido was nodding and about to answer Jessica when he heard a loud bang from inside the office, getting wide eyed. He'd never, even as a child, hear his mother yell and react in such a way, "who is she talking to...?" He glanced at Jessica for a moment before turning back to the door and opening it, forgetting himself and not knocking, "what is going on?!" He looked between the two, his eyes falling on the man who had clearly agitated his mother, then back to Ana, "is...Everything okay?" He was afraid and he was anxious, but he was also protective hearing his mother that angry, "mother do you need any help?"

Hush turned when Mido walked in. "You." He said, grabbing the folder. "You are currently the one person who might have some answers as to who the hell sent you." His tone was sharp. "So I need you to tell me every single thing you remember about who sent you here. Dig deep kid, we need as many details as possible." He held the card right in front of Mido's face. "What does this mean, who gave it to you, what do they want?"

Ana looked up as Mido and Jess came in, offering a bit of a forced smile to them.

"Everything is fine. We were just...discussing some things." The tension was still obvious in her manner and words though. The tone that Hush took with Mido didn't help either and she turned her sharp attention on him as he spoke, watching Mido's reaction to the questions put to him.

"He doesn't know anything..." Jess said quietly from behind him. "That's part of the problem..."

Mido shrunk back when the man approached him, lifting his hands and looking anywhere but at him, "I-I...Don't have any..." He fidgeted and looked nervous, "I was walking back to my hotel, in London, and then I was here...That's all I remember." He had several feet on this man's height but still seemed to shrink back, "I sleep and there's...Things...Like faces and images and...But then I wake up and it's gone..." He flinched a little and eyed the card, looking distressed, "I don't know, I don't know who gave it to me, I don't know what that want...I-I'm sorry..." His eyes were darting from the man to Ana to Jess for help.

"Quiet girlie!" Hush snapped pointing at Jess but not taking his eyes off Mido. "Listen kid, whatever they left in your brain is clearly still in there so I need you to dig. Dig as deep as you can and focus on those faces and things. There has to be something you can remember about them. Was it one guy or a group. Man or woman. Human or Omnic! There has to be at least one detail you can remember to give us something to start with so just think. What can you remember kid!" Hush said, slamming a hand down on Ana's desk next to him.

"Girlie? Are you shitting me right now?" Jess demanded, stepping out from behind Mido. "I dunno who the fuck you think you are, but you don't talk to me like that! Or to him like that!" She stepped forward, pushing a hand roughly into the middle of Hush's chest.

"That's enough. Both of you." Ana stood up, glaring at both Hush and Jess. "You are not helping." She looked at Jess.

"And you won't make him remember by yelling at him." She turned to Hush. "He doesn't remember, that's part of the problem. So I need you to do your job of looking into this without shouting at my son. He's been through enough!"

Mido was quickly getting overwhelmed by this entire situation as everyone started to yell at once, he flinched when the man slammed a hand on the desk, trying to find his words when Jess stepped out from behind him and went after the man, it felt like being a bystander watching from behind a glass wall and there wasn't much he could do, "I...I-if I remember I'd say something...Y-you think I haven't been trying to remember?" He ran a hand over his face, "I haven't slept in days trying to remember." He glanced between them all, "I' sorry...I'm sorry...I wish I could say more or offer more but I have nothing." He was exhausted and on the verge of a nervous breakdown, "I just want to go home..."

Hush let out an exasperated sound, tossing the folder on Ana's desk. "Fine, I'm the bad guy because I just wanted to get to the bottom of things. I get it." He pushed past Jess and Mido and towards the door. "I was just trying to finally get some god damned answers around here rather than just twiddling our thumbs and waiting for whatever is out there to come knocking!" He shouted, slamming his palm into the door frame. "But go ahead, just coddle him and ignore the fact that we are just a pawn at this point in a game we don't even know who's playing it. While you sit around, I'm gonna keep trying to do some research." Hush said, storming down the hall.

Ana rose to her feet, and strode with purpose past Mido and Jess to the hallway that Hush was leaving down.

"Soldier!" She barked after him. When he paused she crossed to him, moving to stand in front of him with only a short distance between them as she locked her gaze with his. Her voice dropped low and calm. Dangerously low and calm.

"You will *not* make yourself out to be some sort of put upon victim in this situation, surrounded by reckless fools ignoring the situation around them and you're the only one who cares what the hell happens here. Especially coming from you, who since day one of coming to this operation has repeatedly, recklessly acted as some sort rouge agent, playing with the lives of your fellow agents to chase your own objectives. I do not know what it is about this new organization that suddenly put the fear of God into you enough to pay attention, but the rest of us have known for quite a while that we're in well over our heads here, and have been trying to get to the bottom of this for some time. This is only one more player in a complicated game that the rest of us have already been playing and are already trying to get to the bottom of...not just sitting around waiting to become victims again. But shouting at someone who doesn't know what happened to them does nothing to fix this situation."

She kept her eye locked on him as she spoke, stern faced for whatever his reaction may be.

Mido was amazed but unsurprised by the way his mother was speaking, he hadn't been entirely aware of what all was going on with these new efforts, but he hadn't imagined that it was bad enough to push his mother to this kind of anger. He'd never seen her act this way often, even when he spent time around the base listening to her give orders to the other agents back during Overwatch's haydays, and he couldn't help but glance at Jessica with an exasperated laugh, less humored and more nervous, "Jesus...Yeah that's mom..."

"This isn't just another player though Lori." Hush said, sounding drained now. "These are the people that built the game. They built all of this." He said, the panic growing. "If we don't figure out who they are and fast, they will make sure we don't exist." He was almost pleading now. "We...We need to...Find them..." Hush then collapsed in a heap.

"I feel like you will appreciate that." Athena chimed in through Hush's comm. "He seems to be more obsessed with the symbol than I am, probably since he's seen it before, must say, he is a bit paranoid." The AI chuckled a bit. "For now, I'll let him sleep it out of his system until he's ready to play nice with everyone again. You can leave him here if you want, I can do my research wherever he's laying." Between being hacked multiple times and now operating the systems in Hush's suit, Athena had gotten very sassy.