The feeling of being watched returned. All around him, with their messages and their whispers and their eyes, were other BioSynths. More messages hovered close to Quentin, daring him to open and read them. At least one of those was from one of the BioSynths who’d tried to contact him last time; Quentin had no idea how he knew this, but he knew.

He pulled away, chilled. Humans accessed the net, but they weren’t in it. They’d never have an inkling of what it was like. For a BioSynth, it was just an extension of physical space — another room to walk into. Quentin had memories of doing it without flinching, of it being natural, benign, but he’d spent ten years doing it the human way. It was nothing if not unsettling, these days.

Over fifty years after the war and the web was nowhere near BioSynth-proof.

Quentin searched his memories. They‘d developed this current version of the web during the war. BioSynths. Its original goal had been to communicate while on a mission; it hadn’t been meant for humans, except for those issuing the orders, but then those same humans had ordered it adapted as a civilian commodity. Not out of generosity, but because it made humans easier to track.

They just never realised they weren’t the only ones doing the tracking.

Under different circumstances he’d have found it fascinating, how his memories were a history lesson no syllabus ever told. Running for one’s life had a tendency to take the shine off most things. The coffee was lukewarm and the muffin soggy, but he made himself finish them as he sifted through more memories, looking for whatever info he’d once possessed about his chip. Credits were in short supply, and he couldn’t go around wasting food.

A forty-seven-year-old conversation in the rebellion’s headquarters rose to the forefront of his mind. Taking the chip meant death. The BioSynths who’d tried it didn’t turn back on, no matter what. He needed to know more. His internal filing system supplied the next logical follow-up, a file dated three years after the original conversation. It wasn’t death, per se — not if someone kept them supplied with enough power to keep basic maintenance systems running. It was a coma, a failsafe.

They could remove their tracking chips, but they needed their tracking chips to turn on and function. An inescapable paradox?

No.

They’d found a workaround — switching the original chip with a blank one worked, provided it had been specifically built for their model number. Provided it was a human who installed it, because BioSynths were hard-coded not to be able to make the switch. But blank chips were in short supply since the rebellion. Only three government factories made them, so they could rechip any captured BioSynths who’d managed to get theirs out; the locations were classified, and the factories had no model overlap.

The thread ended.

It was now even more imperative that he get his manual. To close the hole, alter his appearance, and figure out which factory held the key to his freedom.

He couldn’t be sure whether Ian was home or not, but he wouldn’t be any more sure if he waited. No time like the present. His chest twinged in warning as he got up, an ever-present reminder of his wound. He’d taken to wearing the plastic film wrapped around himself at all times, more for psychological comfort than for anything else, but he knew the hole wasn’t meant to be open for this long. He was about to fix that.

The aftereffects of his visits to the web lingered. Even now, walking the streets, regular people walking past him on either side, it was as if he could feel eyes on the back of his head.

Watching.

He turned right, not really looking where he was going, just trying to shake the feeling. It didn’t work. Paranoia, that’s all it could be, Quentin told himself as he shoved his hands in his pockets and kept walking. There was no one watching him here. This wasn’t the web. But the feeling wouldn’t abate, putting all his senses on high alert, until he pivoted to look back, hoping to allay his fears once and for all.

Ian froze several paces behind him, a SynthNuller in his hand.