Quentin!

Ian was on his feet before he opened his eyes, head pounding, hand reaching for a gun that wasn't there.

Bright lights. Beeping. Bare feet. And the virtual window to his right showed daylight.

He knew where he was. Remembered the crash; the Syn wearing Quentin's face; the gun falling from his fingers. What he didn't know was how or why he was still breathing.

He found his nexus on the bedside table, blinking with his chart. Recommended: 48 hour stay. Physical and mental rest for seven to ten days. One thumbprint and he'd yanked all the wires and shrugged on his clothes. TrackerEvac knew better than to get between a Tracker and an assignment. Their liability was covered by his thumbprint; everything else was up to him.

And he was going to find Quentin.

None of his government contacts answered their nexus on a Saturday. Ian knew this, that the entire government shut down on weekends for anything less than nuclear war — it was why there was a Syn in his garage — but this was Quentin. Quentin was out there, in danger, and no one would know to give Ian tracking codes for the impostor before Monday, and that was if they could identify the model that quickly. Panicking wouldn't help Quentin, though. Ian felt preternaturally calm, despite having run out of contacts to try even before leaving the cab.

All the logical steps fell short, as he knew they would. The Syn had discarded Quentin's nexus in the crash's vicinity; it was off the grid. Once upon a time he'd have called Kaya, but she'd put her faith in the wrong people. With her death he had no one he trusted enough to cover his back; certainly no one he trusted enough not to damage the Syn's memory banks. He'd have to find Quentin on his own.

Until this very moment, Ian had been running on autopilot, but walking in the bedroom was a gut punch he was unprepared for. Quentin's t-shirts strewn on the bed, the towel he — the Syn — had used the day before tossed to the corner. There were traces of Quentin everywhere he looked, from the ancient bedside lamp that wasn't voice activated to the paper book beside it, and he couldn't be sure which ones had been him and which ones hadn't. How long ago had Quentin vanished without a trace? Married to a Tracker who hadn't even noticed the switch? Who'd, just last night...

Bile rose in his throat. He didn't deserve the man he'd married. He'd find Quentin. Anything else was unthinkable. Ian would find him and get him to safety if it was the last thing he did. After that? Ian wouldn't blame him if Quentin wanted nothing else to do with this relationship.

Indulgent self-pity wouldn't help; neither would anything in this bedroom. The mission always came first, and this was Quentin. Fighting the urge to throw himself into theories and data on an empty stomach, or on one of Quentin's protein bars, Ian walked in the kitchen and started preparing a proper breakfast. The splitting headache was a side effect of the concussion and couldn't be helped, but he wouldn't put his body through further abuse, lest it fail him when he needed it most.

Knowing the difference between losing time and gaining it was one of the things that set him apart from the amateurs.

What had they been after, replacing Quentin? Ian's job was high profile only because of the perceived glory, but he didn't have any secrets. Nothing that would be valuable, nothing anyone might want. He sent the Syns in without ever turning them back on, had no knowledge of whatever key information those Syns might hold. That couldn't be it.

If not that, then... Leverage? Had Quentin been taken so he could be used as a bargaining chip at the right time? So Ian would release a captured Syn that might be of pivotal importance? His stomach clenched. They wouldn't need Quentin alive for that — the Syn could have walked in the garage at any moment to reactivate whatever fellow Syn it needed, and Ian would have been none the wiser. Not until it was too late.

The scrambled eggs tasted like ashes in his mouth. What good was his flawless career if it couldn't help his husband when it mattered the most? When it might have been the thing to put Quentin in the crosshairs in the first place?

No. He refused to believe Quentin was already dead. Lying in a ditch somewhere while Ian had been having sex with one of his murderer's tools. He had to be alive. He had to.

And there was another option: that Quentin hadn't been taken because of Ian, but because of something he'd seen. On one of his trips, perhaps, or even in the city. Quentin might have stumbled onto something he wasn't supposed to have seen, might even have photographed it. An impostor arranged so it could destroy the evidence or bring it back.

He washed two painkillers with a swig of orange juice and rose, checking the battery on his nexus. They'd keep Quentin alive if his theory was right, long enough to get whatever it was they needed back in their hands. And the Syn hadn't expected the crash. Even if it had found its prize, and nothing led Ian to believe that, it hadn't taken it to its programmers. Ian would give them whatever they wanted to have Quentin back; all they had to do was contact him.

Walking in Quentin's darkroom tore him to shreds. Photos from his latest trip were still hanging from his line, long since dried. Everything had its place, but it was Quentin's version of ordered chaos that only he could navigate. Ian didn't know what to look for, or where.

Maybe...

Yes.

Looking through Quentin's photos in search of hypothetical secrets wasn't looking for a needle in a haystack — it was looking for a needle in a needlestack. There were always secrets in every photo Quentin took, always layers of meaning, of vision, of beauty. But they weren't the kind of secrets anyone would send a Syn to uncover.

What Ian could do, what he would do, was look at the pictures with an objective eye. A Syn couldn't view the world the way Quentin did, no matter how perfect a copy. It would lack the spark of uniqueness, of creativity, of humanity. No code could emulate that.

He had to work through Quentin's photos chronologically until he found the moment they turned mechanical and uninspired; then he'd have his timeline.

Setting the nexus to call his government contacts every hour on the hour, in the futile hope one of them would have their work nexus with them on a weekend, Ian poured all his focus onto the photographs.

The effect of the painkillers had long since worn off by the time he gave it up as a bad job. There was nothing. He'd spent an entire day going through every photo of the last six months, and he had nothing to show for it — they were all Quentin.

Which could only mean the switch had happened after the last batch had been taken. Either during or after Quentin's latest trip to Xeygh. At any point in the last week, but only in the last week.

He had his timeline.

The rest of the house was almost as dark as the darkroom — night fell quickly, these days. No one had gotten in touch with him to set up an exchange. None of his government contacts had answered his calls, and tomorrow was Sunday. No one would answer them either.

With every second, Quentin's chances grew slimmer, but acting rashly would only get him killed.

Ian wracked his brain trying to pinpoint the moment the switch could have happened. Any difference in tone or attitude, both in presence and via nexus. He came up empty. Whoever had programmed this thing was a master in their craft, masterful enough that last night—

Vision doubling up, he accepted defeat: he couldn't keep circling back to this, to a betrayal that was so much more than physical. One step at a time. For now he needed to eat, sleep for a few hours, and figure out a course of action for tomorrow.

He fell asleep as he'd awakened, with Quentin's name at the forefront of his mind.

☰☱☲☳☴☵☶☵☴☳☲☱☰

Thank you for reading!

Just like it says in the image above, if you've enjoyed this chapter, I'd be thrilled with a vote.

Do you have any thoughts on this chapter? It's one of a pair of chapters that sets the stage for later on, but I can't tell if it lands or if it bores readers to tears.

If you want to know what BioSynth!Quentin is up to while Ian is desperately trying to find his husband, tune in to BioSynth, SynTracker's companion novella (link on my profile). Remember, though, reading it will bring its share of spoilers, now that Ian has no way to know what's going on.