Quentin didn't bother asking Clementine for specifics. She met him at the motel half an hour later, with a set of clothes and a spare bike helmet, offered him a silent hug when she saw his face and arm, an encouraging smile when he mentioned having gotten back together with his husband, and drove like a madwoman all the way back to the others. He had to give it to them; they had bravery in spades, or perhaps it was insanity: they'd chosen to lie low in a flat next to a Tracker licencing centre, of all places.

Not the worst of ideas — he remembered Ian's rant when he'd found out of the government's newest hare-brained scheme at the time: a simulation new Trackers had to pass, before paying for their licence and collecting their Nuller, that proved they were 'ready' to work the field.

They had to pay to take the test; if they failed, they paid double to take it again; if they spent a year without working the field, they had to take it again; if it had been seven years since the last test, they had to take it again even if their capture record was spotless. And then there were the kids with rich parents who took it for sport, playing it like a holosim.

Nothing but smoke and mirrors, something to satisfy the insurance companies, and a source of governmental income to boot, but the tracking signals in the simulation were actual codes. They interfered with the tracking app's ability to pinpoint a BioSynth code within three blocks of the licencing centre. Ian had been livid at the naked money grab.

Ian. Who was probably at the motel or close to it, and would find it empty. Quentin sent him a message rerouted through various hubs so it couldn't be traced back to him.

'Went to help a friend. Will tell you the details when I can.'

Just like last time, he didn't sign it. Talking to Ian about his work nexus being a liability was at the top of Quentin's priority list the moment he laid eyes on his husband again. Meanwhile, it was a good thing Ian hadn't been in the room when Clementine had arrived; Quentin wasn't sure how to explain that the man next to him, ready to help, had been Jax's Tracker, and he didn't think withholding that information with Ian around would have ended well.

The mood was sombre when they got to the flat, a pale imitation of the Maimed Misfits he'd met back at the old tech district. Jax and Clementine were the two leading forces in the group; faced with Jax's capture, she was too focused on rescuing him to play cheerleader.

The flat itself was a single bedroom. Smaller than Quentin's darkroom, one sofa taking up most of the space, a lonely sink and a minuscule portable fridge wedged right next to it, it looked as sad and worn as the Misfits themselves. There were blankets rolled up on the corner, making him suspect the Misfits had spent the last few days sleeping on the floor and trying not to step on each other's toes.

Quentin wasn't sure how to feel about the three pairs of commiserating eyes that affixed themselves on him as soon as he squeezed himself in between Alice and Xavier on the sofa; it was lovely to see they cared, but he could do without the pity. And he had questions. "What happened Saturday night? How did he get captured?"

"He didn't, not on Saturday." Clementine's her narrowed lips made a poor show of masking her fear with anger. She was the only one not sitting on the sofa, pacing the minuscule space in front of them. "He'd have been shipped off by now if he had, so at least that's good. Stupid arse got himself captured this morning."

"This morning?"

"Yeah, can you not do the thing where you repeat the last words I say and make it sound like a question?" She pulled on her hair with one of her mismatched arms, letting out a breath and slowing down her speech to a quasi-normal speed for the first time since they'd gotten here. "I'm sorry. You came to help and I'm not being fair—"

"—But Jax has been taken, and this'll go quicker if I shut up," Quentin finished for her. "Got it."

"Thanks." She sped up again, making Quentin question whether, had he been a human, he'd have been able to follow along. "Anyway, we tried to look for you when you didn't come back on Saturday, but we couldn't find you. Jax said you'd given him your Tracker's frequency, and we found a message from the Fuckers Liaison Office with your codes and tried looking for you, but your code was off. He set up an alert too, but it was always off—" Her eyes widened as she jumped in the web. "—Wait a minute, it's still off. How did you—"

"Long story I'll be happy to tell all of you as soon as we have Jax back. It ended with me getting a blank chip installed."

Pity turned to awe in three pairs of eyes. Clementine's attention was reserved for Jax's rescue, from where Quentin was sitting.

"When we realised you weren't likely to be found, we decided we'd set up the new headquarters while we searched, so we tried to sort out the bunker."

"The bunk—" He grimaced, wondering how apologetic he looked with half a cheek devoid of skin. "Sorry, sorry. I won't turn it into a question and ask."

She tilted her head. "No, you were supposed to know that one. Jax said it was you who gave him the bunker's location?"

Oh. Had that been it, then? A bunker? His memory remained blank. Out of practice or not, he knew how to delete a file without leaving a trace. "I know I gave him something that was meant to help keep you safe, but I don't know what it was. I scrubbed the files when I realised it was Connors who had me."

What little colour the usually pale Clementine had on her face fled, hateful eyes darting from Quentin's cheek to his arm. "That was—"

"He's dead." Her instantaneous smile was brighter than Jax's glowing eye; it was terrifying enough to give anyone nightmares, and Quentin loved seeing it on her face. "I poured acid on him and he dissolved into a puddle." He'd known she'd appreciate the matter-of-factness of his retelling. "I promise more details as soon as we have Jax back."

"I'd like that," she replied in a soft voice. "I'd like that a lot. So you gave Jax coordinates for a bunker, and an identity, and a bank account. You're very put together, you know?"

That yanked a laugh out of him. "I try. Juri's still out on whether I succeed."

"Right. And we needed supplies and cosmetics and prosthetics and ways to look like an older human you, which really isn't that easy when we look like us—" He bit back a snort. "—and we split up, and he was half a block from here, just half a block, coming back, when this kid tried to mug him and his sunglasses fell right in front of a Tracker who'd just gotten to hold a Nuller for the first time, and the fucker hit him on the back just like that, on the middle of the street with all these people milling about, and he didn't even care he could have killed his own people, he was so happy with his win." Finally, a full stop. "And we... I..."

Quentin felt guilty for his last thought now that she had no choice but to stop. Her rapid bursts of breath concealed aborted tears. "We were standing right there, Lara and I, five metres away, and I couldn't do anything." She kept switching between 'we' and 'I', as if they'd both been witnesses, but she was somehow responsible for not single-handedly taking out an armed Tracker outside a licencing centre.

"A ton of fuckers came out of the centre to congratulate the mini fucker, and they closed Jax up in a case and got him in a car before I could get to the bike, and when I got to it, I couldn't follow them anymore because they were gone. And then you sent your message."

Quentin felt out of breath and he hadn't even been the one talking. Lara took over from her, explaining that central processing usually sent captured 75s and under straight to the mines without bothering with halfway houses, but that she suspected Jax's tracking chip had been damaged by the Nuller pulse, judging by where he'd been shot at what intensity. If that was true, they had a window of opportunity to rescue him — as long as they found out where he was being held.

☵☲☵

It was possible to feel at home with a group while feeling acutely lonely at the same time, Quentin discovered. He'd bonded with these people, especially Jax and Clementine, faster than he ever had with anyone else except Ian. Being with them under different circumstances would have been welcome. Today, in between the dark cloud that was Jax's capture and Quentin missing the husband he'd just gotten back, it lost most of its shine.

He sent Ian a few more messages over the day, aware Ian wouldn't be able to answer, knowing it would be better that way. Keeping his husband as up to date as possible over a com line that wasn't secure was one thing; bringing him right into the middle of the Maimed Misfits was quite another.

With dinnertime come and gone, Quentin started contemplating going back to the motel to talk to Ian and ask him if he had contacts they could tap. He just had to finish reviewing the current batch of street camera footage.

"I found him!" Clementine's cry pierced the air.

They abandoned their current tasks, some walking out of the web, and settled back on the sofa to listen to the explanation.

"At least I hope it's him. It would be too much of a coincidence if it weren't. Lara was right. The fucker damaged Jax's chip. Central sent a request for a replacement, but the delivery form went through an unsecured line. An installer and a courier, at midnight, and I have the address."

That was disturbingly convenient. The frowns on either side of him told him he wasn't the only one thinking that. She didn't give them time to speak. "I know what you're all thinking, and I'm thinking it too. I don't expect anyone to come with me. Quentin, I'll drop you off where I picked you up, but we have to go now. And the rest—"

'The rest' talked all over her, dismayed that she's think they'd let her go in alone; in this, Quentin found he was as much a part of 'the rest' as anyone else. Yes, it might be a trap, but there was no way she was going in alone.

"ALRIGHT," she shouted over their protests, "I get it, we're in this together. This is the plan: the delivery is happening at midnight, and it's going to have an installer attached. We want to let this happen; Jax won't turn back on without that chip. We'll worry about the codes later. Unless," she turned to Quentin, "the human who did yours is willing to help?"

Quentin was suddenly glad he hadn't looked through the small mountain of chips in Ian's backpack to know which models there were. He could cover for Ian without lying. He'd let the Misfits know about Ian's past as a Tracker in a more controlled environment. "I'm sure that he'd help, but I don't know whether he has more 69 chips. It's better to let the install go through, and then if he has them he'll switch it again."

"Okay. So they get there at midnight, and depending on the installer's experience, could be in there for as little as ten minutes. If any of you have seen a practiced human switching a chip, you know how fast it is. So we need to be in place to strike as soon as they leave. But we don't want to strike while there's any danger of them realising what's happening, because fighting two people is a lot easier than four. Got it?"

A chorus of assent went through them as she pulled up a city map. "Alice, you're here. Xavier, you're here. Lara, you're there." She pointed at three points across the street from the building. "Quentin, you're here" a tap on the building's ground floor, a restaurant, "and try to get a window seat to—" A huff of breath. "No, scratch that, you can't pass for human anymore. You're with me."

Quentin had a moment of discomfort at her casual remark, but chose to let it go rather than wallow in it. He had all the things that mattered, appearance notwithstanding.

"Alice, Xavier and Lara will be able to tell when the installation team clears the street, and they'll let us know. We'll be in a perpendicular street here. By the time we get there we can be sure the installation team is really gone. You and I go in, take out the two babysitters, the rest of the Misfits serve as backup. Once the babysitters are down, we get Jax out of there or take the case if the fuckers are keeping him locked. We'll figure out how to open it later. Any questions?"

There were barely any questions, and Quentin could tell why. When the occasion called for it, Clementine's abilities rose to the surface in an instant. She wasn't a helpless girl, never had been. Quentin only wished the idiots who'd put her on cleaning lady duty during the war could see her now.

"Just one question," he said, hoping he could live with the answer. "How do we take them out?"

"You'll have a taser and a gun. If possible, stun and cuff them." She looked straight at him, her features hard. "But if I think they're about to capture either of us, I'm shooting to kill. Your call how you handle it if it's on you."

He could live with it. Game on.

☵☲☵

Deceptively simple plans could be the most effective ones, sometimes. Quentin had seen it during the war, and was glad to see it proven here, when they needed it the most. The courier and the installer had arrived at the midnight on the dot, and had been spotted by all three Misfits on watch duty. They'd stayed indoors for forty minutes, making all Misfits — Quentin included — fret that something had gone wrong, but they needn't have worried. Either the installer was a rookie or they'd been comparing notes on BioSynths and bonding while Jax was turned off right there.

Lara, Xavier, and Alice held their positions as Quentin and Clementine crossed the street, still wearing their helmets. Quentin's left arm was folded up inside his sleeve, and Clementine wore too many layers for the difference in her arms to be noticeable, especially under neon lights. She was faster with her limp than plenty of people without one, as focused on rescuing Jax as Jax had been on rescuing Mia.

What a tangled web.

The door to the flat opened as they were making their way up the stairs. A lumbering man proclaimed he was going for some food "now, damn it, Anne, I'm hungry, it'll just be five minutes"; Quentin jumped in the web just as Clementine had the same thought.

'Let him go. One is easier to subdue than two.'

Outside, Lara and Xavier adjusted their positions to keep the restaurant in their sights, Alice remaining in her spot on the off-chance the installation team came back. The man moved past them on the stairs without a second glance.

Clementine raised a hand, telling Quentin to wait, and then knocked on the door. What was she doing? Why was she going off script? "Who is it?"

"It's me," she said, her voice sounding exactly like the man's. Quentin didn't have that ability, had no idea Clementine had it, and found himself a little jealous. "Open up."

The door opened and Clementine was in, taser pressed up against the woman on the other side, the muffled sound of a thrashing body hitting the carpeted floor. She waved Quentin in and he followed, closing the door behind him. The woman was out like a light. Drool dribbled down the side of her face; Clementine had not been gentle.

A minute later the woman was cuffed, mouth taped shut, to the gas pipe in the kitchen; it wouldn't hold if she put her entire weight into it, but the fact that it was a gas pipe might give her pause.

Lara let them know she had a visual, and the man was waiting in line to pay for his food. They had to be quick.

"Here," Clementine's voice was a harsh whisper from the bedroom. "A hovercase."

The case was too heavy for a human to pull unless they were its owner — Trackers used their bio signatures as insurance, so other Trackers didn't steal their prize; Quentin had seen Ian steer his with hardly any effort, the thing hovering above ground, but Kaya's wouldn't even budge for him and vice versa. It was no match for a BioSynth's strength.

Quentin and Clementine had just closed the flat's door when Xavier called 'He's leaving the restaurant. Get out of there now.'

What now? There was no way they'd leave Jax there, but with the lift out of order and the man coming up the stairs, they couldn't go down with the case. And if they couldn't go down—

Clementine pointed upwards. They climbed floor after floor, as silently as possible. Below them, the man knocked. Their only hope was the roof, or they'd be trapped inside the building. The door was right in front of them—

Locked, with a heavy chain on the other side. The metal shattered with nothing but a whimper as Quentin froze it in his hand.

'He just called for an ambulance.' Lara again. 'Sit tight and wait.'

Twenty excruciating minutes dragged by and, with each one that passed, Quentin cursed himself and Clementine for not having used every one of them to open the case. If they'd known it would take this long, they'd have reactivated Jax and, instead of dead weight, he'd have been one more in a fight.

'He's in a cab, she's in the ambulance.' Alice, now. 'And he just sent in the request for a secondary team to secure the building. You have fifteen minutes — get out now.'

They walked past a resident on their way down, who didn't bat an eyelash at two people with helmets inside the building hauling a hovercase. All things considered, Quentin couldn't believe their luck.

Until they made it to an alley, not daring to take the case to the flat, in case it was bugged, and bust open the lock.

There was no one inside.

☰☱☲☳☴☵☶☵☴☳☲☱☰

Thank you for reading!

That wasn't exactly how this was supposed to have gone. What do you think happened? Why were there people guarding an empty case? And where's Jax?

As usual, if you feel it's warranted, please hit that Vote button up top. Comments are the loveliest of things! Expect the next update on Wednesday — only two more to go!

Wondering how and where Ian is? Tune in to SynTracker, BioSynth's companion novella (link on my profile), if you're okay with knowing more than the characters do.