#mujotan

“I need money,” Amélie snapped as she threw the Audi into a turn a bit harder than she really should have. “Hence why I took the offer to work. I taught classes, I got paid, and I will go home for a few days and come back after the holiday.”

“You sure?” Olivia’s voice turned a bit sly. “Angela might be at the party…”

Amélie stomped the accelerator to the floor, making the snow covered trees on either side of the road whip past. “An even better reason for me to avoid it.”

“Ooof. So you two didn’t…” Olivia coughed. “Y’know. Work it out?”

“When would we have time to do that?” Amélie didn’t bother hiding the bitterness in her voice. “Her work keeps her busy, and she made it clear it will always come first. It was…she was…a mistake.”

She could almost hear the sad little frown on Olivia’s face. “Hey. Wanting to find someone else isn’t a mistake, Ami. He would want you to be happy.”

Amélie took her frustrations out on a vicious downshift. “Then stop pushing me to go somewhere that I will not be happy.”

Olivia let out a long sigh. “OK, OK, entiendo, amiga.” She paused a second. “Stop by Gabe’s at least? He said he’d love to see you when you get back into town.”

Amélie let out an amused snort as she took another twisting curve. “Liar.”

Olivia chuckled. “OK, yeah. But he could use the company, too.”

Amélie hummed softly as she acknowledged the point. “Perhaps. But the snow is getting worse here - I need to concentrate on the road.” That wasn’t entirely a lie, but it wasn’t entirely the truth either.

Still, Olivia seemed to take the hint at last. “I’ll let you go, then. You drive safe - and call me when you get home!”

“Goodbye, Olivia.” Amélie thumbed the button on the wheel to end the call and sighed as she sank back into the embrace of her seat. Getting away for a few days had made her happy and so did driving. Thrashing her little sports car through the twists and turns made her feel more alive than anything else had since…

She tapped the gearshift paddle as she tossed her head. She was trying to distract herself, not dwell on her loss. But instead of a throaty growl and burst of acceleration to take her out of the curve, there was a nasty crunching sound as the car jerked violently, as if she’d caught it on some gigantic hook. Her speed dropped despite the climbing RPMs as she tried to give it some gas, and her nose wrinkled with distaste as she caught a whiff of burnt plastic and hot metal.

“Putain de bordel de merde!”

Amélie reached to turn on her hazard lights as she spat every curse she could think of while she tried to shift again, hoping the transmission would catch and slip back into gear, but there was nothing to be done. Using what momentum she had left to get over to the side of the road, her car finally came to a stop on the snow covered shoulder with the engine still idling but no power reaching the wheels.

“Magnifique,” she groaned as she let her head fall back against the padded material of the headrest, then reached for her phone. She wasn’t even certain where she was, but she had GPS and the number for roadside assistance.

She just hoped there was a tow truck driver working on Christmas Eve.

—

Keeping the car running had helped ward off the cold, but it had still taken several hours for a tow truck to reach her, and by the time the white haired driver had gotten her car loaded onto the bed it was nearly dark.

“Is there a dealership close by?”

The driver - MAKO, according to his nametag - shook his head with a grunt. “Nearest Audi dealer is two hours away, and their service department was closin’ early. Christmas,” he explained. “Think I could get you into Holliday Garage. Next town over.”

Amélie grimaced. “Do they have much experience with Europeans?”

Mako gave a rumbling laugh. “Oh. Yeah.”

She wasn’t sure she liked the sound of that, but what choice did she have? “If you are certain they will be open…”

Mako nodded as he threw the truck into gear. “Yup.” For some reason he still seemed quite amused. “She’s open.”

Mako didn’t seem like much of a conversationalist as he drove them into, as it turned out, the small town of Holliday, but Amélie hadn’t been looking to chat.

She ought to call Olivia and let her know, but she was sure that her friend would insist on dropping everything to come get her. Better to let them enjoy their party, and not ruin anyone else’s evening.

The small garage they arrived at had a brightly lit neon sign in the window announcing it was, in fact, still open, and Amélie could see a figure in a welder’s hood and apron at a workbench through the open bay doors, sparks flying up from whatever they were mending.

“Go on inside,” Mako rumbled. “I’ll get your car off the truck and you can warm up.”

Amélie nodded, pulling her wool peacoat a bit tighter before she stepped out into the cold, her boots crunching in the snow as she crossed the parking lot, then opened the door with a jingle of bells.

The warmth of the shop was welcome after her long wait for the tow. Unknotting the scarf she’d been wearing, Amélie undid the buttons of her coat before walking to the counter.

Wide windows looked in on the shop floor, and the figure who she’d seen welding was easier to see now, and she watched as they put down their tools, turned towards the open bay and straightened up in what seemed like surprise at the sight of Mako unloading her car off the truck. Turning to look into the shop, the welder saw her watching and offered a wave, then pulled her hood off to reveal a thick head of spiky dark brown hair, a pleasant looking face with a bit of a pointed chin, and a wide, expressive mouth that went from a surprised ‘O’ to a friendly smile.

Holding up a hand in a “Wait just a second” gesture, the welder (mechanic? Owner? All three?) pulled off her heavy gloves and apron to before walking into the waiting area. “Hullo! Welcome to Holliday Garage!”

Amélie blinked in surprise at the woman’s accent. At least she knew why Mako had seemed so amused when she’d asked if the garage had experience with Europeans. “Ah. Hello…”

The mechanic cocked her head slightly, then laughed at herself. “Oh! Sorry, I’ve gotten used to living in a pretty small town.” She offered a hand with a friendly smile. “Lena Oxton.”

“Amélie,” she answered, shaking the shorter woman’s hand. “Amélie Lacroix.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Amélie Lacroix.” Lena’s grip was firm, with calloused fingers that lingered perhaps a moment longer than absolutely necessary.

Amélie was a bit shocked by the warmth in her touch, but tried to explain it away as her own cold skin and Lena having just finished working with a torch. Still, she found herself wishing the brief contact had lasted another second or two longer as Lena stepped back and pulled a heavy red and black checked flannel off of the coat tree in the corner.

“So, obviously you had a spot of car trouble. Can you tell me what happened, exactly?”

Amélie grimaced as she buttoned her coat back up again. “I was shifting when I suddenly went out of gear. I tried upshifting, with no change, and trying to go down another gear didn’t work either.”

Lena gave a pained ‘ooof’ as she finished shrugging on her flannel. “I’ll be honest - that doesn’t sound good. If you’re lucky it’s just a plug, maybe a connection for the electronics in the gearbox. If not…”

Amélie groaned. She hadn’t wanted to spend the holidays with Olivia or their other friends, but she’d expected to be at home, not stranded in the middle of nowhere. “I will try to hope for the best, then.”

The sun had set completely and the snow was picking up when they went back outside, and the wind stung her face and hands as they walked to where Mako was waiting next to the gleaming black shape of her car, standing out against the parking lot like a polished piece of onyx atop white cloth.

“Oh,” Lena breathed with an almost reverent tone. “That is a lovely TT. Is that a Quattro?”

“Oui.” Amélie smiled despite herself. “It has gotten me into trouble, but when I am behind the wheel I don’t have a care in the world.”

“I can bet.” Lena flashed her a grin, then put her fingers to her lips to whistle. “OI! Mako! Can you help me push it into the bay?”

The big man nodded, and Amélie found herself behind the wheel again, steering as Lena directed until the car was positioned on the previously unoccupied lift.

“Right - go ahead and set the handbrake and then you can hop out.” Lena had started carefully walking around the car, dropping to her hands and knees to examine the undercarriage. “Got a bad feeling already, though…”

Before Lena could explain, Mako cleared his throat. “Got another call. The Song kid was doing donuts in the snow and blew a tire.”

Lena stood and gave a wave. “Go for it. I’ll see what we can figure out here. Thanks for your help, mate.”

Mako gave a grunt and a wave, then plodded back to his truck, flipping on the flashing yellow light bars before driving into the night.

Amélie turned back at the sound of the lift being activated, and watched as her car rose into the air.

“I love the paint,” Lena observed. “Didn’t notice the purple stripe you had added out in the lot - subtle little touch.” “Thank you.” It had been a bit of an extravagance, really, but she’d enjoyed adding something to make her car that much more special.

Lena had taken her flannel back off and was pulling a set of orange latex gloves onto her hands when a thought seemed to strike her. “Oh. Technically the insurance says no customers on the shop floor, but there’s not likely to be anyone else coming in tonight. You could grab one of the chairs and wait here, if you like.”

Amélie briefly considered the merits of the TV out in the waiting room, but to her surprise the desire for some company won out over the solitude she’d been craving earlier. Dragging the chair over, she draped her coat over the back before settling down. “I did not expect to meet an Englishwoman here.”

Lena’s chuckle came from beneath the car, where she was shining a work light up into the undercarriage. “We’re both a ways from home, aren’t we? Wasn’t really where I planned to end up.”

“May I ask…?”

She could see the light bob as Lena shrugged. “Ex-girlfriend was an actress and wanted to move to the States. Good for her career, she said.” Bitterness seeped into her tone. “Apparently so was sleeping with her producer.”

“Ah.” Amélie looked down at the floor. “I am sorry.”

“Well, it could be worse…heard from a friend about a little town that needed a mechanic, got a loan to buy the shop…” Lena grunted. “Oh, dammit that was not what I was hoping for…”

Amélie winced. “Bad?”

“Not good,” Lena hedged. “Here - push that cart over? I need my socket driver.”

Amélie walked over and brought the tools over as asked, getting a murmur of thanks before Lena swore under her breath again, then went quiet except for the sound of ratcheting.

“Fucking Audi gearboxes…” Lena gave a grunt, then made a satisfied noise. “There we are…” There was another rattle of tools, and Lena leaned over to get a proper look at her. “So what about you? How’d you end up across the pond?”

“My husband was in finance,” Amélie explained after a moment. “His firm offered him a promotion. I decided to come with him rather than stay in France.”

“You say was,” Lena observed as she went back to work. “Things didn’t work out?”

“No…” Amélie bit her lip, her chest suddenly tight. “We had two very good years. Happy years. I made some friends. I had started to work. But…” She trailed off, so lost in her memories that she didn’t even realize Lena had stopped working. “He had been having headaches. He went to the doctor, and…” She made a little gesture. “An ‘aggressive’ cancer. There was nothing to be done.”

“Oh. Shit.” Lena came out from beneath the car. “I’m so sorry.” She swallowed nervously. “Can I ask…how long?”

“Five years,” Amélie said as she looked down at the floor. “Four days ago.”

“God, that’s…” She shook her head. “That’s so hard.” She walked over, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Sorry to have brought it up.”

Amélie reached up to put her hand on Lena’s, appreciating the kindness, then realized Lena was still wearing a glove.

A glove that was now quite covered in grease and oil, which were soaking into her white silk blouse.

“Shit!” Lena snatched back her hand, her face flushing. “Sorry, sorry, fuck!”

Amélie stared at the black handprint in horror for a few seconds, then did the only thing she could: She laughed.

It started in deep in her stomach and burst out of her mouth, the absurdity of this entire evening boiling up and overwhelming her, until she felt tears pricking at her eyes and she was rocking back in the chair, nearly tipping it over.

Lena stared at her with wide eyes, stunned by the sight of her until she finally started giggling herself, joining in before she pulled the gloves off and tossed them into the bin. “Wow. OK…well, I guess that happened.”

“Hah… “ Amélie sniffed, then used the hand that had not gotten smeared with grease to wipe at her eyes. “I…I am sorry. It’s just all…it’s all so ridiculous. My car, this shop, the snow, my shirt…stuck hours from anywhere.” She stood and looked at her hand. “Do you have a sink?”

“Yeah, sorry, over in the corner - got the lava soap and everything.” Lena smiled as she gestured over to the sink. “Anyway - no harm done. Sounds like you needed that, honestly. But…” She sighed as she went back beneath the car. “I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news.”

Amélie rolled the sleeves of her blouse up to her elbows after she finished cleaning up. “I suppose I should not have expected anything else.”

When Lena walked back from the car, she held a pan and gasket in her hands. “This is the sump pan for the dual clutch the flappy paddle gearbox uses.” She tilted it so Amélie could see the bottom. “Should be a wet sump - oil to keep the gearing lubricated.” Amélie looked into the pan, and it was covered with metal shavings, with what looked like a thin scum of burnt oil at the bottom. “That does not look terribly lubricated to me.”

Lena shook her head. “That’s because it’s not.” She set the pan down and lifted up the gasket. “This was your gasket - but it’s cracked. Manufacturing flaw - I’ve seen a few notices. You’ve probably been losing a bit of oil every time you changed gears for the past couple of weeks, and as you lost oil the clutches started to chew themselves up, until it finally lost the gearing entirely today.”

Amélie groaned. “That will not be cheap to replace, then.”

“Afraid not,” Lena admitted glumly. “She’ll need the whole transmission pulled so I can get the gearbox and clutch out and install a replacement.” She put the sump pan down and took the gloves off, tossing them into a wastebin. “Might be able to save you a little dosh if I order a rebuilt gearbox instead of a brand new part, but it’s not like we can run out to the breaker’s yard and find one for you. I’d expect a day to get the part, minimum, and another four or five hours or work - at least - before I can get you back on the road…”

“And tomorrow is Christmas Day.” Amélie looked back. “Even if you placed the order this minute, no one would be there to receive it.”

“Yup.” Lena punched the lift’s control, lowering the car back to the ground. “Got a suitcase in the boot?”

Amélie grimaced as she popped the trunk lid. “Full of dirty clothes. I was on my way home…”

Lena gestured upwards. “My apartment’s upstairs. Got a washer and dryer, service is free.” She looked back at the handprint she’d left on her shoulder, and her cheeks went pink again, making her freckles stand out in contrast. “Least I can do.”

Amélie paused, suitcase in hand. “I…had thought to ask you to just drive me to a hotel. Or perhaps a car rental.”

“Only rental place in town closed hours ago…and with the snow, the motel six is probably full up, too.” Lena bit her lip. “You’d probably need…what, two, three more hours to get home? Then a couple hundred bucks for a rental car, plus driving back here?” She ran her teeth over her lip, and Amélie had to admit it was rather…distracting.

Stop that. She mentioned an ex-girlfriend but that does not mean she is available.

“Anyway,” Lena continued on, oblivious to her thoughts, “I…this is terrible, but I bought one of those ready to warm up Christmas dinners from the market here, and it’s not like I have anyone else to eat it with.”

Oh.

“So,” Lena smiled. “Free food, free laundry, and if you like, I can spend some time tomorrow on the teardown - get everything ready for when the parts do come in.” She looked up, nervous hope in her eyes. “What do you think?”

Ms. Vaswani’s files are, for the most part, painfully boring compared to her peers. In her e-mails, she’s awkward and stilted with her family and barely has contact with them, her bosses are treated with the utmost respect and professionalism, and her co-workers are always handled at arm’s length. Her architectural work lacks the same coding elements that her peers have—which Olivia could at least somewhat follow—so all of her designs and blueprints are lost on Olivia. And while she has personal photos and videos, they’re few and far between, and mostly of herself practicing various dances over and over until she is perfect. Olivia lets herself watch a few of them, her eyebrows lifting just a little in surprise by the sheer talent. But hardly anything worth using for leverage, so she moves on.

Because while for the most part, Ms. Vaswani is as dull as Vishkar could probably manage to turn any child genius into, the remaining piece is this: Ms. Vaswani is also codename Symmetra.

And that makes Olivia smile, her tongue caught between her back teeth, her shoulders hunched up close to her ears as she leans in closer to the flickering violet screen every time she pulls up the latest files on the exploits of ‘Symmetra.’

“What do you have for me today?” She murmurs, as if the security footage and stiff business profile pictures of Ms. Vaswani will answer her. They don’t. But the data will; it always does.

The thing goes on like this:

She’s in Talon now, sinking her fingers into their funds and their tech and their resources, getting herself into all kinds of places she’s sure no one wants her to be. For the most part she doesn’t care what Talon thinks of her, so long as they keep her on their roster. She’ll climb whatever slippery slope she has to if it means reaching the top. Getting to tease Gabe and Amélie until they end up sighing in absolute resignation every time she walks into a room is the cherry on top. It’s nice, feeling close to people again, having people she likes enough to drive a little crazy.

But it’s not all excitement and missions and blackmail. It’d be nice if it was, but really, most of her job lately is deskwork. Somehow, Olivia had half-convinced herself when she joined Talon it’d be adding more action to her life than it had. The more time passes, the more she itches to be doing more, to be getting where she wants faster.

When all she gets is No, Sombra, be patient, Sombra, we don’t need you out in the field this time Sombra, please go get some work done, Sombra, she has to get creative to entertain herself. Sometimes that means turning a mission to her own favor and cutting Talon out of the deal. Sometimes that means cutting loose for a day or five to do things on her own—not like anyone was checking in on her.

And sometimes that means kicking her feet up on her desk after waving some mook away and watching internet videos, like any self respecting twenty-something does while on the clock.

She surfs around indiscriminately. Viral vids, documentaries, personal vlogging, journalism, she doesn’t really care. It breaks up the monotony in the long afternoons when nothing is happening and none of her programs are pinging her with some update in data.

She doesn’t think much of it when she clicks on the latest Vishkar propaganda commercial. Most of the PR she lets pass her by, or else she’d never have a minute to sleep with all the companies she’s keeping track of. But a little check in every now and then can’t hurt. It’s more of the same as always: promises of a better future with Vishkar’s technology and their hard light cities. Various attractive actors and employees smiling for the camera, lying through their teeth—

“Together, we can create a brighter world,” Satya Vaswani says, her smile broad and bright, her rich brown eyes shining with a fierce determination, all while a complex web of light blooms in her hands like a living thing. Olivia’s breath catches for a moment, and then the shot changes away to some other stranger and she sits back abruptly. She runs her tongue over her lips and teeth, trying to rid herself of the sudden dryness in her mouth and throat.

If Olivia didn’t know Vishkar better, and didn’t know exactly what name Ms. Satya Vaswani was swanning under when she thought no one was looking, Olivia might have believed that Vishkar and Satya really did care.

As it is, she does know better. She has plenty of files on what Symmetra did for Vishkar to remind herself of the fact, too, and she dives in head first. Mission files, news reports, the data on Vishkar’s shareholdings skyrocketing afterwards time and time again, and Symmetra paving the way with a cat’s cradle of light woven between elegant fingers.

It was only a few seconds of video, anyways. Even someone as stiff in her correspondences as Satya could fake the genuine for a few frames. Olivia has seen worse actors achieve greater heights.

So she closes all of the Symmetra files and moves on, ignoring the clenching feeling around her heart.

The thing twists like this:

Brazil burns.

Brazil burns, and Olivia watches though a violet lens as Satya stands stiff backed and jaw clenched and eyes cast straight ahead in a thousand-yard stare, far past the gazes of anyone in the crowd whose lives she’s hurt. There is none of the pride that lived in everything that Satya touched, from the towering spires of clean blue light to the self-satisfied outlines sent out on a weekly basis that had been forwarded to Olivia’s own inbox for the past eight months. In front of the new City Center, a woman stands that Olivia doesn’t recognize at all from those videos of the proud, confident dancer who practiced over and over and over again until she got exactly what she wanted. Refusing to have anything less but her best, even from the performances she held only for herself.

Brazil burned, and though Symmetra may have played a hand in it, Satya wanted nothing to do with it.

Olivia waves the screen away and digs the heels of her palms into her eyes. “Too many variables.” She sounds tired and angry, even to herself. For a long minute she stays there, breathing in and out slowly, forcing herself to take a moment and adjust her plans. It’s a leap. It’s a risk.

She drops her hands and smiles, laughing under her breath at herself. As if risks have ever stopped her before.

“I think,” she says to herself, her smile turning thoughtful as she pulls up the Symmetra file again, a proper photograph of Satya’s strong gaze and upturned mouth floating in front of her face, “we could be very good friends.”

Within hours, there’s a short message sitting in Satya’s inbox, with no sender that anyone would be able to trace.

If Vishkar wasn’t what you thought it was, would you want to know?

She waits five days. And then:

Yes.

The thing turns into this:

“I don’t trust you.” Satya’s voice is hard and icy, her warm eyes narrowed to slits.

Olivia’s heart thuds uncomfortably in her chest and she smiles easily at the other woman, propping her chin into her hand. “But you’re still here talking to me. Maybe you don’t trust me, but you believe me. And you believe this.” She gestures with one hand at the tablet that Satya is holding in a white knuckled grip on the rickety wooden table between them. The small, abandoned apartment had been the most discreet place that Olivia could find that would get Satya out of Vishkar’s watch without catching too much suspicion.

Satya presses her lips together into a hard line and glances down at the tablet again, scrolling a finger over the screen almost absently. She’s already read through the highlights, the most incriminating information that Olivia has at her disposal. When Satya doesn’t say anything, Olivia tries again.

“I don’t have as much to gain from tricking you as you’d think.” She makes herself sound bored, forces herself not to react when Satya’s gaze snaps back up to her own. It takes a fraction of a second too long for her to remember what she was going to say. “Sure, I’d benefit, for a little while. And then when you inevitably found out I’d made up all the documents? You seem the type to hold a grudge, and I’ve seen what you can do. You’re not exactly high on the list of people I’d like for my enemy.”

“You don’t know anything about me.” It’s not an angry denial so much as a declaration of fact, firm and unwavering. She jerks her chin up defiantly, so different than the downcast woman on TV just a week ago. “It doesn’t matter what you think you’ve seen of me, or how many of my personal files I’m certain you’ve looked into.” Satya’s cheeks turn a deep ruby at the mere idea, either from embarrassment or anger, Olivia isn’t sure. Either way Satya keeps going, not even pausing for a second. She leans forward across the table, her wrists pressed into the edge, not letting herself be so vulgar as to prop herself on her elbow like Olivia has. “You do not know me.”

Olivia’s heart trips and stutters in her chest as Satya holds her gaze and refuses to let her go. Her stomach is twisting and her mouth feels dry, but that’s probably a good thing because it stops her from saying, No, but I think I want to.

Some risks are too big to take.

Instead she forces a sly smile and licks her lips. “We’ll see.”

They begin like this:

Satya’s hands are cradled in the crook of Olivia’s arm as they weave through the pastel streets of Mexico City, for once looking like nothing more than two strangers in a crowd of strangers. The heat of the sun is slipping behind the rooftops all too quickly, and the sharp crystalline yellow of street lamps are taking its place in illuminating the soft curves of Satya’s cheeks and catching like the moon in her river black hair.

“Stop staring,” Satya chides, though its gentler a tone than she usually aims at Olivia for behavior like this.

“But where’s the fun in that?” She asks, already laughing before Satya can even glare at her. Months of working together, and the heat that rises on Olivia’s neck when Satya looks at her has only gotten worse rather than easier.

“We’re on a mission, it isn’t meant to be fun.” She gives Olivia’s arm a quick squeeze to try and make her point. As if that’s ever done anything except encourage her. “Simply because you aren’t off cavorting on your own for once doesn’t change that.”

“I’m with you. What else did you expect? I always have fun with you.” She waggles her eyebrows, her tongue caught between her teeth, hoping and telling herself she shouldn’t and doing it anyways.

Satya glances away, but there’s no hiding the pink in her cheeks, and Olivia’s heart soars. “Some professionalism, perhaps. Then again,” and Satya’s eyes flick back to Olivia, over her face and lingering on her mouth before rising back up to her eyes, “It’s you. I should not have set the bar so high.”

Olivia throws her head back and laughs, feeling warmer and brighter than she has in weeks as Satya leans against her shoulder and cradles Olivia’s arm closer to herself, every finger burning through Olivia’s sleeve until she’s sure that there will be marks left forever on her skin.

She hopes it does.

They live like this:

Gentle fingers tangle into her hair and draw her up until soft lips are pressed to hers, until Olivia is left short of breath and her own fingers clutched desperately around Satya’s shoulders. She can feel rather than see Satya’s broad smile against her mouth, and she knows down to her bones that it’s the same smile that made her heart trip over itself the first time so long ago.

“Sometimes, I think I love you.”

Satya turns still, a statue pressed against her body, and for a moment her heart trips over itself again. And then, those clever fingers slide across her cheeks to hold her where she is and keep her. “A pity. I love you all the time.”

Olivia looks up at her, her breath caught in her throat as steadily as Satya has caught her. “Well. Maybe not just sometimes.”