Some things made Quentin feel more pathetic than others. Sitting at a public library, eyes closed, a hand caressing his own cheek was certainly at the bottom of the scale. The fact that he'd deactivated the touch sensors on that hand? That he was mentally reviewing a dozen different moments where it had been Ian's hand on his skin, his touch casual, but never perfunctory? Was a new low.

Disgusted with his own behaviour, Quentin turned the sensors back on and focused his attention on the blueprint in front of him. This wasn't what he'd come here to do.

He'd come to find a thread of hope.

Getting his manual hadn't been a waste of time, even if he wasn't who he'd hoped to be. It'd allowed him to start repairing the hole in his chest, to figure out how to control his nanites without overexerting them. It had led to him untangling a few more threads in his memory files.

And that had led him to the bunker.

The rebellion had already started splintering when he'd been assigned to Ian. Minuscule cracks that spread throughout its command structure like a virus, infecting everything it touched. What had started out as a freedom movement — BioSynths like Quentin, who wanted what had been promised, a life among the humans, as equals — had turned darker. A faction had arisen, wanting to rule over humans, seeing themselves as the next logical step in evolution.

In their struggle for the right to exist, some had become the very thing they'd rebelled against.

Ian was right — at the end of the day, they were weapons. Things created to sabotage and destroy.

Quentin didn't know what had happened in the ten years since he'd forgotten who he was, but he'd tried to extend feelers the night before, poke in older rebellion channels, see what still existed. There was nothing left. Ego and conflict, no doubt, had wiped out any semblance of union between BioSynths. Even the ones willing to let the world burn would have known there was no point in moving forward when they didn't have strength in numbers.

It had worked out in Quentin's favour in the end. It was probably what had allowed him ten uninterrupted years by Ian's side, with no one attempting to complete the mission Quentin would sooner die than carry out.

Would he, though?

He would now, for sure. Back then? If he hadn't glitched, hadn't forgotten who he was, would he have carried out his mission after all? Would he have ended Ian's life out of self-preservation, if enough pressure had been applied?

Quentin hated not knowing the answer to that. Hated how long he'd let the situation drag, hedging his bets, never flat out refusing the order, never warning Ian that he had to get to safety. He'd never know for sure what he'd have done then.

The only thing he knew was, even before he had Ian, he'd been certain he didn't want to be a part of the rebellion much longer. He'd started saving, buying, selling, accumulating. He'd set plans in motion so he could go off the grid if he chose to. Neither Quentin Morgan, married, nor Quentin Whitlock, single, owned so much as a roll of film Ian didn't know about.

Liam Seaborne? Liam owned an entire bunker.

Or at least Quentin hoped Liam still owned a bunker, and not an uninhabitable space surrounded by new construction on all sides. It had been a decade, and the bunker had been his backup plan, built with materials that would conceal him from any Tracker, stockpiled with provisions, equipped with running water and more than a few generators.

Quentin could have housed twenty people there, eleven years ago. He'd almost extended a few invitations, but he'd never really cared for anyone enough to risk it.

Now, if he were lucky, he'd get to live there alone.

It might not be the life he'd hoped for — would he really consider himself free if he couldn't even go out to feel the sun on his face? — but it was a future that allowed him to still be Quentin. He was virtually immortal; perhaps waiting was all it would take. Humans might stop hunting BioSynths, either when the activists became too loud to ignore or when the Trackers had captured enough of them to no longer matter.

Perhaps he'd have to wait for decades with only his memories of Ian to keep him company.

He wouldn't have happiness.

But he'd have peace.

It took him another two hours to map out all the construction changes in the area surrounding his bunker. One or two would be annoying, but it seemed no entrepreneurial corp had set out to build on his small piece of land, as they sometimes did when owners weren't around to protest the intrusion.

Quentin allowed himself to feel the first few tendrils of relief.

He could have done this without a nexus, but other BioSynths might have caught him. Using a library's nexus was as anonymous as one could get in the city. This particular library boasted several exits onto three different streets and was always crowded; it was, in short, the kind of place Ian would pay not to Track a target to.

He couldn't help but grimace at the bitter irony. It was Ian who'd been Quentin's target, once. Back when Quentin had found out what it meant to have everything. Now here he was, 180 degrees later, and he had nothing.

His muscles clenched hard enough that his chest wound throbbed under three layers of clothing. Could he do nothing without thinking about Ian? Without reliving Friday's accident, yesterday's chase, the last ten years?

Something inside him broke, something he couldn't attribute to the wound or the nanites still at work. This didn't feel like plotting freedom. It felt like preparing his own funeral.

Emotional exhaustion and loneliness made him reckless. He closed his eyes and walked in the web, just because he still could. His connection would be cut when he moved to the bunker. This time, when yet another message from the same BioSynth hovered among new ones, it wasn't unwelcome or unexpected. It was why Quentin had come here; hoping someone would reach out.

He opened the message. A single word materialised in his mind. 'Mia?'

Oh. He didn't know why he felt this disappointed, to know the message wasn't for him — wasn't a "hello, nice to meet you." But, now that he'd opened it, he felt compelled to answer. 'Sorry, no. Don't know who that is.'

A follow-up message. 'Were you in the mines?'

'I don't know what that is either.'

No reply came for a very long time. It hadn't been creepy after all. Just a BioSynth looking for someone named Mia. Quentin was about to leave when the third message popped up.

'Lucky for you. What's your name?'

'Sean.' Not his name, not his backup name either, which made it safe to use. 'You?'

'Jax.' And then, 'Why did you answer, this time?'

For once, Quentin didn't feel like obfuscating. 'Because I don't know if or when I'll talk to anyone again.'

'Are you safe?'

He snorted audibly, causing a pointed look from the person closest to him in the physical space he was occupying. This was a library. He needed to stay silent.

'Are any of us?' He shot back. Quentin had no clue where they were going with this conversation, both Jax and himself. It felt pointless. But, at the same time, it felt good to talk to someone, even if that someone was a BioSynth. 'No. I'm compromised. Tracker has my codes.'

'Which city?'

The city was too big to matter, and he wanted someone to know something — anything — about himself. 'Lyz.'

'Why haven't I seen you here before?'

No other messages hovered now. Apparently BioSynths didn't stoop to pestering someone already engaged in conversation. The humans could learn from that. 'You have. I noticed you on Sunday.'

'I meant before that.'

Yeah, Quentin knew. He just wasn't sure how much he was prepared to tell Jax. 'Long story involving a glitch and a nexus.'

'Sounds complicated.'

'The best ones are.' His words were truer than Jax would ever know. The last ten years of his life, as a human, by Ian's side, made the six decades that had preceded them pale in comparison. 'Are you with the rebellion?'

'The rebellion? Must have really been something, that long story of yours. It's been almost ten years since that ended. Why? Are you looking for a club to join or something?'

An undeniable relief, to know for sure no one would come after him for not having murdered Ian, but Jax's words struck a nerve, regardless. Quentin hadn't even finished setting up the bunker, and already he felt suffocated by the weight of the decades of loneliness looming ahead. 'Maybe it wouldn't be that bad, having a place to fit in. But I can't. Tracker has my codes, remember?'

'Alright, Sean of Lyz. I have to go. If you find yourself needing help, come to the main square in the old tech district and let us worry about the codes. Someone will lend a hand.'

The old tech district. The biological weapons Xeygh had unleashed had made the entire area uninhabitable by humans for decades. Nowadays some corps had factories there, but they were fully automated.

Someone would lend him a hand? Was it a trap? At the same time, it made a disturbing amount of sense that BioSynths would lurk where humans couldn't set foot on. 'Why would you help me?'

He could sense the self-deprecation in the next message. 'Well. It'd be a shame for us not to cover our own. Some might even call it a "Syn". No free lunches, though. Everyone works for their keep around here.'

Intrigued despite himself, Quentin couldn't help asking, 'What would I do there?'

'Depends on what you're good at. We'd find you something. Really have to go now.'

'Wait.' At some point, this had stopped being a theoretical exercise to become a real possibility.'If I do, how will I find you?'

'We'll find you.'

He would hold on to this offer. With Ian after him, the odds of everything going without a hitch were slim to none, and to have a backup to his backup plan was almost too good to be true. 'But how will I know it's you?'

'Don't worry. You'll know.'

☵☲☵

The rest of the day was uneventful, which didn't mean Quentin wasn't perpetually on edge. He kept to populated areas, never in the same spot more than twenty minutes before jumping on the closest public transport and heading somewhere else; head down, hoodie pulled up. Every face he looked at reminded him of Trackers he'd crossed paths with over the years. Made him want to run. But, if Ian was following, Quentin hadn't spotted him.

Things aligned in Quentin's favour, for once. The identity he'd set up for himself as Liam Seaborne still held, unchallenged after a decade. Liam had been automatically paying his taxes every year, giving the government no cause to dig deeper.

Quentin would have taken possession of his bank account if that didn't mean physically going in for a new nexus. No sense in having a flawless identity waiting for him after a decade only to muddle the waters by hacking corners. He had to do this by the book. Make himself look older, grow a beard instead of the stubble he usually wore, do something different with his hair. Obscure his features as best as he could while still looking natural.

That would require time for the beard, and credits for all the cosmetic changes.

Because he was an outdated, obsolete model.

He'd untangled a few more memories that proved it, missions they had passed him over for because he didn't have what it took. Static. Fixed.

Maybe that was why he loved his photography the way he did — after all, what was he, if not an immutable snapshot of a time that would never return? A memorial to what used to be?

Outdated and obsolete. But Ian used to love him, regardless.

That thought hurt most of all. Everything he'd shown of himself to his husband wasn't a cover story, a profile, something built to entice. It'd been him. Who he was past the logic and the programming. It'd been the unquantifiable spark that made him a being. And Ian had found something to love there.

Yet one look at his building blocks had been all it had taken for that love to turn to dust.

Could it still be qualified as love, if it was that fickle?

Quentin had been jumping from bus to train to subway without conscious thought for hours now, glancing left and right in fear of crossing paths with the man he still loved. Then he'd taken to walking. And walking. And walking.

It was with a quaint mixture of astonishment and utter inevitability that he found himself straight in the middle of the square in the old tech district.

Here I am. Come find me.

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Thank you for reading!

As usual, votes and comments are beautiful, warm, lovely expressions of appreciation.

Ah, Quentin! All that caution, and you accept an invitation like that when loneliness hits. Do you think it's going to come back to bite him?

And, If he wasn't Tracking Quentin, what was Ian doing on Wednesday? Tune in to SynTracker, BioSynth's companion novella (link on my profile) to find out!

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ONC Rec Time!

This week's recommended novella is Broken Bonds, by wera_nyooms