⚠ WARNING: ⚠ if you're reading both novellas, read SynTracker first this week.

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Quentin came to with a start, struggling to free himself from his restraints, terror gnawing at his insides. Something tore as he fell to the ground, leaning on a hand that was strong but not there. Just a metal skeleton, all the way up to his elbow. Inhuman.

Connors had branded him in a way he'd never be rid of. He wondered whether he'd ever hold a camera in a way that fit after this.

A camera?

Laughter burst forth from his lips, his go-to reaction when the world's absurdity reached its peak point. He'd be given a pickaxe, not a camera. Not if this was the mines. He pressed on his grief, forcing it down; this wasn't the time to deal with it, not yet. Figuring out where he was and what to do took precedence.

A blanket. That had been what he'd mistaken for restraints. A blanket on a bed. His internal clock told him it was Monday night. He'd lost an entire day. And now here he was, in a windowless room. To... To what? To be processed?

Why would they let him charge unrestrained or bothered to cover him? He still wore the torn uniform he'd have used for the raid; his feet were bare. And something else had been done to him. He didn't know what — couldn't tell, even with a full system diagnostic. Everything was in working order, except for the damage he'd sustained at Connors's hands, and even that caused no further pain. His system had recognised it, catalogued it, registered that the damage was too permanent to require a warning.

Had Ian brought him here?

Quentin got up, studying his surroundings. Not the mines. A motel room, smaller, bleaker than the ones he'd rented in his recent past. Just another version of their garage, then. Wherever the mines were, Ian was turning him in personally. They were on a road trip. And Ian had left Quentin here convinced he wouldn't turn himself on and had left to... His imagination failed him there.

Maybe Ian didn't want to share space with a BioSynth unless he absolutely had to.

But how had Quentin turned himself back on? It shouldn't have been possible for any model. The switch interrupted the current to all three chips at once — memory, emotions, tracking — so that only the organs kept working. A physical thing, so BioSynths couldn't bypass it.

There were no answers to be found here, but the outside posed a challenge that could affect his very survival. He needed to think. If his assumptions were wrong, if this wasn't a motel room but an elaborate processing room, the way he'd come to eliminated any possibility of pretending he was still turned off; information-gathering was the only course of action.

Not needing to turn the light on to see was more curse than blessing, he realised as he stepped foot in the bathroom.

The man in the mirror was straight out of a horror vid. The damage to his face started just next to his eye, the acid having eaten a considerable portion of his cheek. Blood splatter, decorated by the random patterns Connors had traced on his skin, completed the ensemble. And his left hand would cause nightmares in any child.

Even if he hid the arm, he'd never pass for human again.

Quentin couldn't stand the idea of his flesh showing proof Connors had touched him, a feeling of wrongness so deep it suffocated him. He scrubbed his face hard in the sink, a process made more difficult for the lack of a real left hand, his processing speed doing overtime.

Gone, gone, he needed all of it gone. He replayed the memory of Connors dissolving under the acid as he washed what was left of his cheek, finding a measure of comfort in that one moment. The man would never touch another BioSynth again as he had him. As he had Clementine.

Clementine, Jax, and the others. Quentin hoped they were safe. He remembered he'd taken steps to ensure that, knew he'd deleted those same steps from memory in a way they'd never be recoverable. Hoped it'd been enough.

He was a proper Maimed Misfit now, a thought that brought warmth as well as despair. He'd try to find Jax in the web once he fled to safety.

Safety had always been his primary goal, but now it felt like an empty objective. How many BioSynths like him had been safe as others fought? How many cowards who saw to nothing but their own needs? He didn't want that for himself anymore, he realised.

The man in the mirror might look horrendous, but he was a better man than the one he'd seen the last time he'd looked. He didn't want to attack humans, to rule over them, to murder them. He didn't want another rebellion like the first. He wanted what Jax and Clementine had: a movement of equals, a common cause, a belief that things could get better.

He wanted them to be like photos in an exhibit, relevant on their own but far stronger together. Not like photos in a magazine, subject to the whimsy of text, dependent on a third party to know how much space they could occupy or what shape to take.

Quentin was willing to die, if that's what it took; his days of hiding and pretending it was every BioSynth for himself were over. But he'd still prefer to live.

If he got out of here, he wouldn't have to go at it alone; even if he never found the Misfits again, the web was the best resource he could have imagined, to gather other BioSynths. They could organise. Establish priorities. Connect with human activists because he didn't believe true victory could ever be found in a war between races. Only death. They had to fight together, side by side. BioSynths and humans in a display of unity no one would be able to ignore.

A vision of a better future that didn't solve his immediate problem.

He didn't know what was waiting for him on the other side of the door. And, for all his posturing, the thought that it might be a team to prepare him for the mines — to condition him, to break more of his body, to break his spirit, to shape him into a proper tool — filled him with dread so deep a part of him wanted to barricade himself in this bedroom and never leave again.

Would Ian really have turned off his pain receptors only to doom him to that fate?

He clutched the fabric of his uniform close to his chest, fingers twisting as if that would ground him, pull him away from the ache that tore through him at every thought of Ian. Something hard and round was tucked away in his pocket. His wedding ring.

Sturdy, indestructible, and wholly unlike what his relationship had turned out to be.

There might be a small army on the other side of that door. Ian had his codes, and he wouldn't make the mistake of leaving Quentin unguarded twice, if this was as innocuous a room as it appeared to be. The tech district was compromised, possibly destroyed. The card with his few remaining credits was back at the flat with his real clothes. And his face no longer afforded him the freedom to go out and buy train tickets or rent motel rooms.

And yet he couldn't stay here and wait for life to catch up to him anymore. Jax, Clementine, and the others, they hadn't gone at it alone. Their odds hadn't been better than Quentin's, but they'd found one another, gained strength from one another, built homes and lives.

He located his boots by the foot of the bed. It was time to go out, face whatever was on the other side, and fight for the future he wanted to live in.

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Thank you for reading!

As usual, any and all comments will be treasured. Where do you think Quentin is? Where did Ian take him? If you feel it's warranted, please hit that Vote button up top.

Both BioSynth and SynTracker have made it through the Round 2 Qualifier!

Wondering what Ian actually did and where he's at? 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!

Today's recommended novellas are A Month of Colour, by nighted

and The Shadows of the Universe, by aftershock_

Here's the blurb: Jol Kesandu Nwani wasn't expecting to fall in love with a strange girl at the park that liked to sit with her and look at the stars, but then again Jol wasn't expecting a lot of things that happened in her life.