By the time the sun rose on Friday, Ian hadn't gone to sleep. He'd completed a sweep of his house and nexus for bugs, with no results. It came as no surprise: his skill level wasn't that of a hacker, much less one in SynSec's bottomless pockets. The conversation the day before proved beyond any reasonable doubt they were monitoring his coms.

At random intervals, the rest of the info he'd gleaned crashed into him, ripping him apart afresh like a Nuller shot on a human.

People.

Feeling, thinking, autonomous people. Whom Ian had tracked relentlessly over the course of twenty years. Whom he'd sent into slavery, torture, sexual degradation, conditioning. And those were just the horrors he knew about.

He'd married one of those people, built a life with him, loved him. But what had Quentin gotten out of the relationship?

SynSec's words kept replaying in his mind. 'Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.' Was that all there had ever been between them? For all of Ian's self-proclaimed ability to read his husband, had Quentin only been enduring him for ten years?

Quentin's boundless desire, the fire within him whenever they were together, had that been nothing but pre-emptive self-preservation? Needing to take the lead and start something before Ian could, to feel like he controlled some aspect of his life? To make himself forget the best way to remain safe was to be married to a Tracker?

The relentless headache still hounding his every moment made his eyes water.

There were no answers in memory. Only Quentin would be able to tell him the truth, and Ian wouldn't have tried to find him just for that. It was too late for them. The man Ian had made love to, only a week ago, and the injured man he'd pulled his gun on later that night were one and the same — there was no coming back from that, even if Quentin had held any fondness for Ian before. But that wasn't all that was at stake.

Quentin was out there now, still hurt, creditless, on the run. Having left an entire life behind, with no chance to alter his appearance.

And he had no idea what SynSec was about to unleash on him. Ian owed him more than that. He had to get to him, warn him, help him get to safety. That much, Ian could give him. But he had to be smart, or he'd be dead before he ever got to Quentin. He had to trust his instincts.

There was some irony to be found in all the times he'd mused that having a man like Quentin as his husband was too good to be true. Should have trusted his instincts there too, instead of falling too far down to climb back out.

His nexus alarm trilled, reminding him it was five to nine. In five minutes he'd be able to call Travers and try to walk the tightest rope he could imagine. He didn't know which side Travers fell on — ignorant or complicit — but that was irrelevant. Insisting on codes after his meeting would be a rookie move.

He splashed some water on his face, dried it with a towel, combed his fingers through his hair and stared down his reflection in the bathroom mirror until despair receded enough to be concealed by determination, only a hint of it leaking through the cracks. That would have to do.

Travers answered almost immediately. "Morgan! That was some fucking meeting yesterday! You were still in there when I left. And now I have instructions to give the contract to other Trackers?"

Ian showed no sign of weakness. Travers had the codes. He willed the mask to hold, for his words to come out in a way that didn't make Travers or anyone listening in on the call suspicious. "It went... Quentin's not coming home. And SynSec believes I'm too close to be the one dealing with—" he forced the word out, nary a pause. "—the Syn."

"Fuck. I'm sorry about your husband, Morgan." He looked sorry too, but Ian had no way of telling what was and what wasn't an act. "Do you need anything? Are you taking a break? Want me to forward the other contract to someone else?"

He'd be damned if he ever let them have another BioSynth, for as long as he lived. "No, I'll finish that one. Just... Can you give me a week or two to get my head in order? I..." The break in his voice was genuine, but he didn't try to conceal it, leaning into it to sell the image of a grieving husband. Which he was, but that... He couldn't think about that now. "There's no body to bury. Nothing to do. Legally, it'll take a while. SynSec doesn't want me on that case. Working other cases helps, but I need a little time."

"Yeah, okay. This one'll wait till you're at the top of your game. Fuck, I don't know what else to tell you."

Ian's jaw ached with the effort not to grit his teeth. "There's not much else to say." He looked the projection straight in the eyes. If Travers were in on it, saying this would be useful misdirection; if he weren't, it still cost Ian nothing to say it. "Thanks, Travers. For trying. You've been a friend."

Travers was a brief translucent splutter. "Right. Okay. I have a shipment of fucking tracking chips here to process by Wednesday, so I'll let you get to it. Call if you need anything, alright?"

Alright. He hoped SynSec had gotten his money's worth out of that call. It was time to take care of the rest.

☵☲☵

"As I live and breathe," the sleazebag across the counter declared, voice booming. "Holier-than-thou Ian Morgan, in here, shopping. Weren't you too good for us?"

Ian did his best to ignore him, setting BioSynth restraints on the counter. He didn't recognise the man's face, but the reverse was clearly not true. "I'll take these."

"Yeah? Heard you got yourself a side of Syn with your husband order." Ian's fist clenched. "Is that why you're taking these? Becoming a widower has made you loosen up? Going to have some fun with the things from now on?"

The Tracker network was a hub of meddlesome fishwives, but even they wouldn't have gotten the intel so fast if SynSec didn't want it known. Quentin's life was still at stake, and Ian hadn't been a kid in a very long time. He knew how to keep his impulses checked. "How much do I owe?"

"You still think you're better than the rest of us, don't you?" A sneer. "I bet you fucked that Syn when you thought it was your husband. I bet you liked it even more than your husband. I bet you're sorry the Syn didn't stick around to—"

The nose did bleed a lot when crushed against the counter, he noted dispassionately. The man's mistake had been venturing into territory where Ian had a plausible excuse. Judging by last night, the Secretary wouldn't blink at Ian feeling insulted by the implication he wanted to have sex with a BioSynth. He kept his pressure on the back of the flailing man's head as he placed his card outside the blood's reach. "Just the restraints," he noted, his tone even. "And please be quick about it. I'm in a hurry."

☵☲☵

Setting up these restraints was both easier and far more disturbing than his makeshift version had been.

For one, he now knew this was a woman. A mother, a partner, a person in her own right. Handcuffing her in any way felt wrong. But he needed to make sure she didn't kill him before he made his case. Then there was the neural interface. All BioSynth restraints had it — microscopic tendrils that attached through the pores and intertwined with BioSynths' motion controls, to keep their bodies pliant — but it hadn't been until today Ian had learned they also had pain sensor interfaces. Those tendrils he hacked off with extreme prejudice.

Ian had left the cable attached to her switch, a precaution he hoped not to have to fall back on. He turned her on and waited, gripping the Nuller as he had the last time. If she killed him, Quentin would pay the price, and he couldn't let that happen.

Her mouth started moving before she opened her eyes. "—excuse for a human being. Just because you were born instead of built, you—" She stopped, realising her situation had changed. "You shut me down." Her gaze darted to the restraints. "And you've decided to..." Panic in her voice again. "Making me hurt won't get you the answers you were looking for—"

"I know," he interrupted. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"I don't know how to get in contact with programmers who don't exist!"

"I know," he said again. He'd have lost the contents of his stomach, if there'd been any. "Please, it's not that. See for yourself. It's just the restraints, there's nothing else there. I'm not going to hurt you. I need your help, but I'll set you free."

She went silent for a moment, appraising him. "What do you want?"

"What's your name?" She narrowed her eyes and he hastened to add, "or what would you like me to call you? It doesn't have to be your real name. I'm Ian." He'd glazed over the name she'd been living under, in his contract, as he usually did. How long had he been trying to convince himself these weren't people?

"Ulla," she said at last. "What do you want?"

"To apologise, first. You're right. I kidnapped you, and—"

"Right. Why the change of heart?"

Who could blame her for being suspicious? Ian could offer nothing to prove her wrong. Not yet. But he could start by giving her the truth. "My husband's a BioSynth."

She laughed in his face, the sound harsh and cutting, so alien in the features of the kind mother Ian saw behind the fear.

"I thought he'd been replaced by a BioSynth, but he is one. And he's in danger."

"In danger of you cuffing him to a chair and locking him up to interrogate him?"

He tried to rise above the impatience she was eliciting. She was entitled to hate him, but they had no time for this. "In danger of being set upon by Trackers who want to use all the things I refused to use on you even before I knew you were AI. Of being captured and sent to the mines, because he's not like you and he can't change his appearance. Please. I need to find him."

She cocked her head. "Before you knew I was AI? Meaning you know now?"

"Yes. I've been a Tracker for twenty years, Ulla," he pleaded, appealing to the humanity he hadn't known she possessed only twenty-four hours earlier. "And I've been with Quentin for ten. I didn't know until yesterday. I thought you were all programming. They have his codes, but they're going to give them to someone else, if they haven't already, and I need to help him."

"I understand," she said, her tone soft. "If you don't get to him in time, someone else will."

"Yes."

"And you can't let that happen, so you need my help. And if I help you, you'll let me go."

"Yes," he repeated, nodding for emphasis.

"Such a pretty fairy tale." Disdain infused her every word, a poisonous drip that would erode any hope of a truce between them. "I'd tell it to my children, if I thought I'd ever see them again. You want my help to capture your husband so you can get even, and then you'll send me in anyway. Two for one."

"No," he tried to explain, but she kept right on talking.

"You talk a good game, Tracker, but I was winning wars before you were born. You're not using me to get to anyone else."

"Ulla, please. His name's Quentin, he's a photographer." He needed her to think of Quentin, not of him, to understand. Ian wished he could show her Quentin's face, but his nexus was inside the house; he didn't trust it. In a reversal of roles he should have expected, she was the one not listening now. "He likes all things retro, and he hates cooking, and he—"

"Fuck you. I'm glad your husband got away, if he's even your husband. If I have anything to say about it, you're never laying eyes on him again. How does it feel, not being all powerful?"

In a moment of weakness Ian pulled the cable, shutting her down. It was hopeless. She wouldn't help him. He had no one to blame but himself.

And Quentin was going to be hunted down and shipped off to the mines because of it.

☰☱☲☳☴☵☶☵☴☳☲☱☰

Thank you for reading!

Please remember to vote if you if feel it's deserved. Ian... well, I'm not going to comment. Instead, I'm going to hope you feel inspired enough to leave me your own comments and tell me how you're reading his reactions.

(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!

Want to know what Quentin's been up to? Tune in to BioSynth, SynTracker's companion novella (link on my profile) to find out!