BioSynth | ONC 2021 WINNER | MM Romance | Sci-Fi | Complete

Nine: Friday

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.