SynTracker | ONC 2021 | MM Romance | Sci-Fi | Complete

Three: Saturday

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.