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

Fifteen: Wednesday

Quentin.

After last night, after this morning, there was no way Quentin had sent that message because he was voluntarily leaving Ian. Someone had gotten to him. Ian never should have left him alone in that room without a weapon to defend himself.

The moment he stepped outside the house, he knew that wasn't the only thing wrong. He was being watched. Followed. Tracked.

Panic wouldn't do. Ian knew the procedure. He had to lose his tail before going back to the room, or he'd lead them straight to Quentin if he happened to still be back there. If there was an alternative explanation for that message. And he had to go back to the room if he was to have any hope of piecing together what had happened and where Quentin might have been taken to.

Populated areas, first and foremost, and he couldn't walk close to the street; he had to be on the inside of the sidewalk. If they were working with a van, it'd be less than a minute before Ian was hit and pulled into it, if he didn't hug the buildings.

He was calm, his strides quick and purposeful, never looking back. Looking like a man with a destination, his steps hurried just enough that onlookers would think he was trying to get away from the rain. Not as though he were fleeing.

Odds were, his tail was good at their job, experienced, and had already figured out he was onto them, but Ian wouldn't give them any hints in case they didn't.

Normally he'd have hailed a cab, but there was no way he'd be locked inside one when he had no access to the steering wheel. A self-driving cab would be a death trap if his tail was SynSec. If they could hack the vehicle and get him hand-delivered wherever they needed him to be.

He took some comfort in not having been shot in the back of the head so far; either whoever was after him had a modicum of respect for innocent bystanders or his death wasn't the goal. Either way, it played in his favour.

There was a bus near the stop about twenty metres ahead. Ian ran as if he meant to catch it, fumbling his step on purpose so he wouldn't actually reach it. He'd just added a little distance between him and his pursuer without having to jump in another self-driving-vehicle-turned-death-trap to do it. The path split in front of him. Right would take him towards the ferry, close to where he'd captured Ulla. Too risky by far — he knew from experience how easy it was to intercept someone headed that way.

He turned left, further into the city, and made sure he was well in the middle of a crowd when he crossed the street, even though it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. This would be the perfect moment for an assassination, and what he'd chosen as cover might just as well be what doomed him in the end. A smaller crowd gathered to his left, watching a demonstration of the next gen nexus model — one that interfaced with implants, if the owner had any.

He'd remember to shudder at the implications later, once Quentin was safe and sound.

The backpack was too bulky, hampering his movement; this was not the time to get sentimental. He'd either get rid of it or find somewhere to stash it, but, even with his wedding photos in it, he couldn't keep lugging it around. The library ahead. Seven exits onto three different streets on two levels. If he could lose his tail there, he could go straight to the motel from here.

Crowded was good, but also a liability. And a different plan was taking shape in his mind. Ian slowed down a fraction, just enough for the library camera to get a good look at him going inside one of the smaller bathrooms. Three stalls, all blessedly empty. He might have had enough time to hack the library cameras to see who was coming in after him, if he'd had his work nexus, but this one wouldn't manage without an amplifier. He dropped his backpack on the floor inside the stall closest to the door, put his boots on the floor of the third one and, locking it from the inside, climbed over to the middle one, waiting with his feet on the closed toilet.