Some things made Quentin feel more pathetic than others. Sitting at a public library, eyes closed, a hand caressing his own cheek was certainly at the bottom of the scale. The fact that he’d deactivated the touch sensors on that hand? That he was mentally reviewing a dozen different moments where it had been Ian‘s hand on his skin, his touch casual, but never perfunctory? Was a new low.

Disgusted with his own behaviour, Quentin turned the sensors back on and focused his attention on the blueprint in front of him. This wasn’t what he’d come here to do.

He’d come to find a thread of hope.

Getting his manual hadn’t been a waste of time, even if he wasn’t who he’d hoped to be. It’d allowed him to start repairing the hole in his chest, to figure out how to control his nanites without overexerting them. It had led to him untangling a few more threads in his memory files.

And that had led him to the bunker.

The rebellion had already started splintering when he’d been assigned to Ian. Minuscule cracks that spread throughout its command structure like a virus, infecting everything it touched. What had started out as a freedom movement — BioSynths like Quentin, who wanted what had been promised, a life among the humans, as equals — had turned darker. A faction had arisen, wanting to rule over humans, seeing themselves as the next logical step in evolution.

In their struggle for the right to exist, some had become the very thing they’d rebelled against.

Ian was right — at the end of the day, they were weapons. Things created to sabotage and destroy.

Quentin didn’t know what had happened in the ten years since he’d forgotten who he was, but he’d tried to extend feelers the night before, poke in older rebellion channels, see what still existed. There was nothing left. Ego and conflict, no doubt, had wiped out any semblance of union between BioSynths. Even the ones willing to let the world burn would have known there was no point in moving forward when they didn’t have strength in numbers.

It had worked out in Quentin’s favour in the end. It was probably what had allowed him ten uninterrupted years by Ian’s side, with no one attempting to complete the mission Quentin would sooner die than carry out.

Would he, though?

He would now, for sure. Back then? If he hadn’t glitched, hadn’t forgotten who he was, would he have carried out his mission after all? Would he have ended Ian’s life out of self-preservation, if enough pressure had been applied?

Quentin hated not knowing the answer to that. Hated how long he’d let the situation drag, hedging his bets, never flat out refusing the order, never warning Ian that he had to get to safety. He’d never know for sure what he'd have done then.

The only thing he knew was, even before he had Ian, he’d been certain he didn’t want to be a part of the rebellion much longer. He’d started saving, buying, selling, accumulating. He’d set plans in motion so he could go off the grid if he chose to. Neither Quentin Morgan, married, nor Quentin Whitlock, single, owned so much as a roll of film Ian didn’t know about.

Liam Seaborne? Liam owned an entire bunker.

Or at least Quentin hoped Liam still owned a bunker, and not an uninhabitable space surrounded by new construction on all sides. It had been a decade, and the bunker had been his backup plan, built with materials that would conceal him from any Tracker, stockpiled with provisions, equipped with running water and more than a few generators.

Quentin could have housed twenty people there, eleven years ago. He’d almost extended a few invitations, but he’d never really cared for anyone enough to risk it.

Now, if he were lucky, he’d get to live there alone.

It might not be the life he’d hoped for — would he really consider himself free if he couldn’t even go out to feel the sun on his face? — but it was a future that allowed him to still be Quentin. He was virtually immortal; perhaps waiting was all it would take. Humans might stop hunting BioSynths, either when the activists became too loud to ignore or when the Trackers had captured enough of them to no longer matter.

Perhaps he’d have to wait for decades with only his memories of Ian to keep him company.

He wouldn’t have happiness.

But he’d have peace.

It took him another two hours to map out all the construction changes in the area surrounding his bunker. One or two would be annoying, but it seemed no entrepreneurial corp had set out to build on his small piece of land, as they sometimes did when owners weren’t around to protest the intrusion.

Quentin allowed himself to feel the first few tendrils of relief.

He could have done this without a nexus, but other BioSynths might have caught him. Using a library’s nexus was as anonymous as one could get in the city. This particular library boasted several exits onto three different streets and was always crowded; it was, in short, the kind of place Ian would pay not to Track a target to.

He couldn’t help but grimace at the bitter irony. It was Ian who’d been Quentin’s target, once. Back when Quentin had found out what it meant to have everything. Now here he was, 180 degrees later, and he had nothing.

His muscles clenched hard enough that his chest wound throbbed under three layers of clothing. Could he do nothing without thinking about Ian? Without reliving Friday’s accident, yesterday’s chase, the last ten years?

Something inside him broke, something he couldn’t attribute to the wound or the nanites still at work. This didn’t feel like plotting freedom. It felt like preparing his own funeral.