Pain had been a constant throughout the night, but that was the least of what was tearing Quentin apart. He'd spent the night standing bare-chested in the bathroom, staring at his literal insides in front of a dirty, cracked mirror. On the plus side, the hole in his chest was smaller.

The physical one, at least.

This was who he was: Pinocchio on a string.

But who pulled it?

For the umpteenth time Quentin clutched the ruined t-shirt he'd worn last night, the one piece of clothing he hadn't had the heart to discard. Much like his marriage, it was torn beyond all mending. Much like his marriage, it wasn't his.

This time, when the tears came, he did nothing to stop them.

'Weapons don't weep,' he remembered Ian saying, and succumbed to laughter that brought no joy.

Enough.

Wallowing for an entire night had to be more than enough — staying in the same motel for two nights in a row was not an option. He needed to figure out how to heal himself, and that meant he had to delve into his memories.

They were all... Jumbled inside him. Fragmented, corrupted. Some were buried beneath layers of useless data, impossible to untangle.

How could he even pick a date to begin? To know which ones were fake?

No, that wasn't hard — there were hashtags. Verifiable hashtags, one per memory. He could tell apart the fake ones, once he began untangling, but he needed a baseline for comparison. A thread of despair threatened to overwhelm him, that he even knew how to do this. He had to work backwards.

Quentin started with memories that couldn't be anything but real — drinking water, minutes before. Dumping his clothes in strategic places, using evasion procedures he'd have sworn he didn't know. Using Ian's traceless card last night to purchase the clothes he wore now. Stealing said card from Ian's wallet. Getting Ian safely to the sidewalk where TrackerEvac could get to him. The accident, Ian's face, the gun, the coldness, the absolute coldness of his expression—

He pulled away, breathless from the pain lancing through him. Ridiculous, that he'd still have all these human reactions and no control over them. This wouldn't work — he couldn't relive each memory, expose himself to its weight in full.

He'd go mad.

A few breaths and he tried a different angle — viewing only the beginning of each memory file, when he already knew what was in it, and note its hashtag.

This he could do without shattering.

But he still found himself lingering in the memory of them together, in the car before going in the restaurant, making love.

That one was real.

That one was his.

On some level, he didn't know if he hoped to find this Quentin alive, to return to Ian, to do a single good thing for him, or to find that the original Quentin had been dead for months. Ian was right — Quentin was nothing like a human. But he wasn't the emotionless puppet Ian believed, either. He was something darker. A petty thing, jealous of what it couldn't have, a source of death and destruction.

He tried to think more logically. If he were a programmer looking to replace Quentin, where would he do it? On his visit to Xeygh last week, perhaps? But no, those were all real as well. Three months before, when Ian had been away on assignment for almost two weeks? All hashtags were valid. How long had he had with Ian, then?

Maybe he needed to work from the other side. Look for his older memories, find the false ones, build a database from there.

These were much older. Older, more jumbled, and far more alien.

He knew they were his memories, but didn't connect with them. Waking up naked, shivering from the cold, while someone commented on how far the temperature sensors had come since the last model. Feeling confused. Being briefed on the war, on the unspeakable crimes Xeygh had committed. Biological weapons in the tech district. An arsenal so big, for a country so small, and their only hope was to infiltrate. A code that was him, but didn't feel like it: BSYN21069.

Pride in his contribution to the war effort. The feel of another BioSynth's body against his, in stolen moments, thrilling and a little sweet. Sabotaging a factory. His first time with a human in the mission's name. Other times, because he wanted to. Posing as an expert in bioengineering. There. The bioengineering knowledge, while genuine, had not been his own. Had been implanted, uploaded.

Sixty-five years ago.

He chased that thread.

There were other missions, other caches of knowledge that weren't his own, but his face remained the same. Had it been the same then, or was he viewing these memories through the filter of who he saw himself as today?

No matter. He had a trickle of hashtags to follow, now, and a start and end date: his entire relationship with Ian, with a little margin on both sides. He ran a search.

Ten years, four months, six days ago. The first false memory connected to Ian. Culinary knowledge, of all things. It had been uploaded into him, the ability to cook like a professional, but, in all his years as Quentin, he'd never done it. Didn't enjoy it in the slightest.

Wait.

What were true ten-year-old memories connected to Ian doing in his brain?

A cover persona file for him to study and integrate.

Ash Whitlock, 34, holorama maker. Single. No siblings. Orphan. Enjoys cooking. Good with small repairs around the house. Friendly. Neighbourly.

But he'd changed it. He had nothing against "Ash," no reason to assume his target would be less permeable to his attempts because of a name, but, after so many years, "Quentin" was the first name with a shape and a sound that truly fit; that he'd wanted for himself. And he didn't enjoy cooking, and he despised holoramas. He'd always been drawn to classical photography, and that had been his chance to indulge in it with complete impunity: making it a part of his cover. But how— there. Because he wasn't working for the government by then. Had rebelled and, in doing so, had gained enough autonomy to have a say in his cover profiles, and to adapt them to his needs.

Quentin had been a part of the rebellion for thirty-nine years by then. From the moment the war had ended and Alyra government officials had decided beating and annexing Xeygh wasn't enough: they wanted to use BioSynths to do some conquering of their own now. Going from 'righteous defenders of their homeland against a ruthless enemy' to 'ruthless enemies of those righteously defending their homelands' had been a pill no BioSynth had been able to swallow.

They'd been promised integration. They'd been lied to. They were, in the end, nothing but weapons in their makers' eyes.

Target: Ian Morgan, 36, SynTracker. Single. Siblings: one; relationship status: estranged. Parents: divorced; relationship status: estranged. Enjoys [_].

Nothing.

There was nothing, they'd had no info on Ian's hobbies, because his work was his life, and he knew better than to use his nexus for purchases. His habits couldn't be monitored. There were names, lists of friends — Zaiden Nuhr, Cid Rossi, Kaya Jones — but barely any decent info.

Mission parameters: observe and report. Sabotage if possible. Do not compromise cover. Collect data.

His dislike for parts of his persona had been his first in with Ian. He'd been irritated, distracted, knowing he was meant to have created a mouthwatering dish to go do the neighbourly thing and had, instead, allowed it to burn while fiddling with his camera settings.

Bold and eager to prove himself worthy of having gone solo, he'd improvised. Knocked on Ian's door not with an offer of dinner but with a frustrated slant to his eyebrows that was only too real. Without having tamed his singed hair or changed into a t-shirt that didn't smell of smoke, he'd asked Ian if he could borrow a protein bar, because there was nothing to eat in his entire flat at the moment.

Ian had thrown open the door to his flat with an amused smile and an offer of food.

He'd thought himself so clever, then. Mere days into his first solo assignment and he'd already established a connection with his target.

Except Ian had refused to stay a target from the first minute.

Nothing in the files Quentin had studied had told him Ian would be quick to help and easy to please. That he got no satisfaction from the record number of BioSynths he'd captured, apart from the belief he was making the streets safer.

Nothing had warned him Ian would knock on his door every other day to ask if he wanted to grab a bite somewhere, or that he'd look so very enraptured when viewing Quentin's photos. Nothing had indicated Ian would spontaneously put him in touch with Zaiden, noting they had an art gallery and had contacts whom Quentin might be interested in meeting.

Nothing had prepared him for Ian's intense blue eyes to lock on his outside a restaurant one night, or his quiet "I'd really like to kiss you right now." For how right that kiss would feel, more than any other before it. For the way Ian's smile had been almost shy but had lit up his entire face.

For 'pleasure' to be such an inadequate word to describe what they'd shared.

For how wrongfooted he'd felt when Ian had dressed in a hurry in the middle of that night, after receiving a nexus call, and said he'd be gone for an unspecified number of weeks, and he wouldn't be available via nexus. For the heart-stopping relief, unrelated to his mission, when Ian had rang his bell only minutes after having left, blue eyes wide, to say it wasn't an excuse. That he knew how bad it looked but, if Quentin were still interested in giving him a chance on his return, he'd do his best to make amends for his hasty departure.

For having as many kisses as he dared take — and he dared plenty — and never feeling like he'd had enough.

It had been a heady existence for months on end; Quentin had almost managed to ignore he was betraying Ian at every step until the order came.

Terminate target.

Ian was too efficient at his job, and the rebellion was turning more violent with each passing day; trying to get humans on their side was no longer in their priorities list, let alone at the top of it. And that... That violence hadn't been what Quentin had signed up for, nearly four decades prior, when he'd joined the rebellion.

How could he be expected to murder Ian in the name of something like that?

Quentin had been given leeway to decide when and how to do it, what information might be worth more than termination, and for how long. But it wouldn't last forever. Feeling Ian's body against his own, night after night, the ease with which he let Quentin have his keys, the trust he displayed whenever he turned his back to Quentin without fear, each had been one more twist of the knife, gutting him until there was nothing left. He'd made excuses for weeks, both to his superiors and to Ian, so he'd have less opportunity to complete the assignment. Had misplaced his smiles, his conversational skills, his charm.

Until the day Ian, no longer wearing an easy smile, had asked if Quentin had had enough of him; if he'd been struggling with how to break the news.

And, when Quentin had opened his mouth to concoct a plausible explanation for his behaviour, what had slipped out had been the truth instead. "I love you. I know it's too soon, but I do."

Ian, painfully beautiful with joy, was one of his favourite memories. "Oh, thank god," he'd said, pulling Quentin closer. "I love you too."

And that had been it. Quentin had shut down that night in emotional turmoil. With the fiercest, most hopeless yearning to be human — to be Ian's Quentin for real, instead of a murderous thing with a hidden agenda. The following morning, he'd woken up light-hearted and buoyant from their mutual confession the night before, with no knowledge of being a BioSynth. He'd rewritten himself in his sleep. A glitched would-be murderer turned boyfriend, later turned husband, to the most wonderful man he'd ever come across.

He released the thread.

There was no "real Quentin," whether dead or imprisoned. He might be Pinocchio but, despite all the corrupted data and the abilities he couldn't access, he pulled his own strings. When Ian had pointed that gun at him last night, he'd been chasing a fool's hope. Ian's human husband had never existed. And Quentin? No glitches would save him now.

Alone.

Unwanted.

Dead.

Ian's Quentin had died in that car crash, killed the moment Ian had seen the truth. But he still had to figure out where to go from here. Because, despite the pain, despite the loneliness, one thing remained constant: Quentin wanted to live.

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Thank you for reading!

As it says above, votes would be most welcome, if this chapter was worth it for you. Comments are even better!

How did this chapter feel to you? Quentin going through his memories, did it feel like welcome context or like an endless infodump?

Wondering how Ian is faring after the car crash? Tune in to SynTracker, BioSynth's companion novella (link on my profile). Remember there will be spoilers if you decide to read both.

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ONC Rec Time!

Why, yes, I'm using this space to recommend yet another enticing novella. This week it's the hauntingly beautiful Belltower, by SmokeAndOranges

Here's the blurb:

About to give up hope on ever finding her path in life, Janine finds her world upturned when an old woman shows up at her door, claiming to know things about their city's ghost infestation. It's a harmless mystery nobody has yet solved... but few know it might not stay harmless for long.