Friday brought with it conflicting feelings. It'd been a week already, since the crash. A week ago he'd been at home, getting ready to develop his photos, knowing he'd go out to dinner with Ian later. Making love to him in the car, before going to the restaurant.

If he'd known that would be the last time, he'd have made it last longer.

Quentin told himself he should feel hopeful. The raid Clementine had mentioned yesterday might just be the answer to all of his prayers. If they pulled it off—

No.

Not all of them.

Not the one that mattered the most. Ian was Quentin's unachievable wish, the one he'd give anything to have. He'd had ten years — ten more than what he could have reasonably expected — but ten lifetimes wouldn't have been enough.

Quentin hated how his thoughts kept circling back to Ian. From what Clementine had said about his model number, Ian wouldn't have gotten Quentin's contract unless he'd specifically requested it. For him, hunting Quentin down was personal. 'I'm never running from you. Only towards you,' Ian had said last Friday. He'd neglected to mention he'd also run after Quentin.

The control centre floor was cold underneath the thin mattress of his makeshift bed, in a corner by the monitors, seeping into his temperature sensors and making him shiver. Both Jax and Clementine had offered to put him up for the night, but Quentin had declined. They were risk takers, willing to use the surrounding buildings to have the illusion of home; Quentin would rather sleep on the floor in a place where his Tracking signal couldn't give him away, even if it left him without access to the web. Let the others think him weird, that he'd fear a human Tracker would venture into the old tech district. They were too damaged to care. Quentin was whole, and he wanted a life.

How could he be just a weapon when his will to live was this strong? What was the point of all these sensations, all these feelings, in weapons?

They hadn't started out that way, he remembered now. Jax's comment about Bishop Symons had led Quentin down memory lane, rediscovering wartime memories; Symons had been as conspicuous as a holorama in the middle of Quentin's black and white photography.

He'd met Symons. Twice. His first impression, as Symons himself had done some work on Quentin, all while quizzing him on his emotions, had been of an aging pacifist with infectious enthusiasm and a level of energy the world wasn't quite ready to handle. A whirl of colour and movement, delighted with his creations.

When Quentin had next seen him, four years after that, he'd looked smaller. Greyer. Defeated. That was the day he'd been pulled from the project. Quentin had happened to be in the room when Symons was collecting his things, under the watchful eye of two security guards half his age and twice his size, and had been surprised by Symons' tearful hug. 'Whatever you do, don't let them change you,' he'd pleaded as they'd escorted him from the building. 'Don't let them change any of you.'

What had he ever known?

They were mere BioSynths; they had no control over how they changed. The humans saw to that when they refused them integration. When they'd let BioSynths know, in no uncertain terms, they'd never be anything more than weapons.

How could someone not change after that?

He adjusted the blanket so it'd be snug around his shoulders. Symons had wanted them to be life. The rest of them had wanted them to be tools. Why not alter their programming, then? Why leave things like this in? Cold, and hot, and breathing, and yearning, and beating hearts, and working lungs, and falling in love?

Everything always boiled down to Ian in the end.

He got up and folded his blanket, focusing on the raid. The others would be here soon, and there was work to be done. Jax had gotten wind of a facility where BioSynth-related records were kept; they'd hit it tomorrow. If it'd been a private facility it would be harder with such a small group, but government? All the workers would be gone by Friday night, not to show their faces again until Monday morning. They'd only have the security guards to deal with.

If this had been during the war, they'd have gotten a 76 or up to go with them. Study the site for long enough, impersonate one of the high clearance people, in and out with no fuss.

Instead, Quentin was their best shot. The only one still whole.

The Maimed Misfits — Jax hadn't been joking when he'd said that was what they called themselves — were after the list of radioactive mine locations in Alyra, with the corresponding number and model of attached BioSynths in them.

'Attached' was a lovely euphemism for 'enslaved'.

Jax wanted to rescue his missing girlfriend, yes, but the group had a more ambitious goal: to free every other BioSynth in the mines. How the five of them, in their current state, imagined they'd be able to pull off the actual mine job was beyond Quentin; he wouldn't stick around long enough to find out. His was a different goal.

The raid would give him a fighting chance.

If there was one place where he could find out which factory produced tracking chips for his model, it'd be that facility. Jax hadn't even looked at that portion of the briefing, too focused on the mines by half, but that was all Quentin could think of. And when the time came to break into the actual factory? If Quentin played his cards right, this group would help him as well, before going on their suicide mission. He wasn't the only 69 in their midst; even if Jax didn't care about his own chip, he'd care for Mia's, from what Quentin had witnessed.

Clementine had hit the nail on the head in the 'hopelessly in love' arena: Jax was single-minded in his devotion to a girlfriend he hadn't laid eyes on in three years. Which, from where Quentin was standing, was a slap in the face if your name was Clementine, but she put up a brave front.

It was strange to see this level of emotion in other BioSynths. Stranger still to remember he was one of them. That his coding and his building blocks hadn't robbed him of empathy and feeling.

They hadn't before either, when he'd fallen for Ian.

When he'd rebelled, thirty-nine years before that.

He'd have been right in the thick of this suicide mission then. Drunk on the idea of being a rescuer, a saviour, of doing good with his abilities instead of sabotaging foreign governments. The poster child for everything Symons had wanted them to be.

But nothing had happened, other than the endless cycle of hate or be hated, for decades. Then they'd ordered him to kill Ian, and the rest of his idealism had fled.

How could he fault Ian for hunting him, when he couldn't even tell himself for sure he wouldn't have gone through with the murder back then?

"That's not the look I want to see on the face of the man who's taking point with me tomorrow," Jax announced from the doorway, throwing him a bottle of juice. "Wash away those sorrows and let's talk shop!"

It was impossible to remain gloomy in the face of Jax's enthusiasm. Some of Quentin's grief gave way to nervous anticipation. Less than two days, and he'd be free. He'd forgotten how good mission prep could feel when the goal was worth it.

☵☲☵

"Okay, recap," Jax said for the fourth time. Alice groaned, bringing a hand to her forehead and upsetting her wig. Xavier rolled his eyes. No one told Jax to shut up, or held themselves with the stiff formality of troops in front of a commanding officer. It was a different vibe than the one Quentin was used to, whether during the war or in his days in the rebellion. Less of a chain of command, more of a camaraderie. "Everyone knows what to do, right? Sean and I will—"

"—Quentin," he interrupted.

Jax furrowed his brow, exposing more of the mechanism behind his glowing orb. "Sorry?"

"My name. It's not Sean, it's Quentin." It felt huge, admitting that before the raid, even if there was a larger truth he was concealing. "I didn't feel safe enough giving you my real name, when we talked." He waited for the inevitable chorus of disappointment and protests.

A clap on his back was the only reaction he got. "Alright, man. Thanks for telling us. Now, back to the plan—"

Just like that. Without recrimination or outrage, with the same ease they'd welcomed Sean, Quentin was accepted instead.

Fools, the lot of them, and little wonder they'd been caught if they trusted so easily. That didn't keep it from leaving a gaping maw of yearning inside Quentin. How would things have turned out, if he'd found the courage to pull Ian aside and tell him who he was in the early days? The night they'd confessed their love to one another? Would Ian have given him enough time to explain?

"—And Quentin here hasn't been listening to a word, so I'm going to let him repeat the plan to us."

Fair enough, he thought with a twist of lips. He'd brought that on himself.

"Jax and I will leave here at 20:00 tomorrow," Quentin parroted. "We'll settle in the basement flat just outside the biohazard line so we can fall back here if things go south." Jax was confident they'd be close enough to the old subway that their signal would still be blocked, the only part of the plan that made Quentin queasy. It left too much to chance.

"A nexus, weapons, and a uniform will be there waiting. The rest of you will be across the city in a flat by the nexus hub. At 00:30 we'll leave for the facility, in a bike. Clementine will hack coms and serve as confirmation that I'm a government inspector sent to surprise the security team and see if their outfit is up to snuff. Lara will reroute any calls; Alice and Xavier will answer calls as needed." It was an effort to provide so little detail, even if this was the umpteenth time they reviewed the plan, but his current phrasing fit better with their loose command structure.

"Jax will be within nexus range of the facility with the bike, but not so close that they'll notice him and want him take off his helmet." He'd lied to himself. This part of the plan also made him queasy. "He'll take care of their firewalls. I go in to inspect, go nowhere near their computer, steal their data via the link Jax will have set up. Get out, go to Jax. Rendezvous back here no later than 4:00. If you're compromised, fall back here. If you think you've spotted a Tracker, fall back here. If you don't like how a child across the street looks, fall back here. Warn whoever you can before you do, so we'll know it's a no go."

Some of the things he was saying had no relation with the war or the rebellion. Every safety-conscious measure was a remnant of Ian and Kaya's discussions whenever they Tracked together. He could look at it as him being a traitor (to which side, he didn't know) or as poetic justice, that Tracker methods would help BioSynths. "The facility will still be there next weekend if we don't go through with this tomorrow, but if we get caught, that's the end of the line."

"You heard the man." Jax waved in his direction. "Safety first."

☵☲☵

"All set for tomorrow?"

Quentin had no choice but to laugh at Jax's earnest insistence. "No. I have no idea what we're supposed to be doing. Was anything mentioned in the briefing?"

"Sean," Jax scolded, only to correct himself. "I mean, Quentin. Come on, man. Help me out here. I can't sleep if I'm not sure everyone knows the part they'll be playing, and you don't want me on a half charge tomorrow."

"Jax. How many missions did you do, during the war?"

"Three-hundred and sixty seven. Why?"

More than Quentin had. "I have three-hundred and forty nine under me. Are any of them," he waved at the remaining BioSynths, currently debating dinner, "any different? Less competent?"

"Yeah, you're right." A sigh. "This is just... I have a lot riding on this."

"Mia?"

Jax's eyes were fixed on Clementine when he answered, "Mia."

☰☱☲☳☴☵☶☵☴☳☲☱☰

Thank you for reading!

Quentin is begining to have his perception challenged. Let's see what he does with that knowledge. if you feel it's warranted, please hit that Vote button up top, and remember comments feed an author's soul.

(I've been notoriously bad at replying, but I intend to go over and reply as soon as both of these novellas are properly polished. Because, yes, I've written the last chapter already, and am now doing only minor tweaks.) Also, get ready for more frequent updates as the ONC's deadline approaches!

Ian had a huge revelation in the previous chapter. If you're wondering how he's been coping, tune in to SynTracker, BioSynth's companion novella (link on my profile), if you're okay with knowing more than the characters do.

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ONC Rec Time!

This week's recommended novellas are Where There's a Will, There's a Tiara, by solorzanowriter

Here's the blurb:  Adelaide's parents' accidental death should have been the worst part, but their last wish has left her reeling. Proving her responsibility grows increasingly difficult with her facetious grandmother, a very forward carpenter, and the man she's engaged to all vying for her attention.  KGBuchanan

And Kare Means Boyfriend, Dumbass, by KGBuchanan

Here's the blurb: Oliver is an egotistical jackass. So is Jun. Soon they'll discover that not only opposites attract.