Quentin froze, mouth agape, staring in the voice's direction. The figure who’d spoken sat on a first-story balcony, legs dangling against the glass. Once, in a former life, he’d have mistaken the friendly tone and the once-over for flirting. Coming from a BioSynth whose mechanism was on display in portions of his neck? One eye ruined but still functioning, despite no longer resembling a human’s? A nose that looked like it had been flattened and undergone a haphazard attempt at reconstruction?

All the man was saying was, ‘You look like no one’s damaged you yet.’

He grimaced, trying to force himself to be less obvious in his staring. “Jax?”

“In the flesh!” Jax jumped down from his balcony to land close to Quentin. “So to speak. Sorry for the frosty night and all, but you looked too whole to be certain.” There was something vaguely familiar about him. Had Quentin met him before? “Had to make sure you weren’t a human trying to pass yourself off as one of us, but after this many hours, I’m sold.”

Talking. Talking helped. “But... Couldn’t you tell, in the web?”

“There, yeah, sure. But I had no way of knowing you were you once you got here.” He ran a hand through his sandy blond hair, exposing an ear that was essentially a hole in fused flesh. “Not that we get many human visitors, but better safe than sorry. So, what do you say, Sean? Ready to join a club?” Another once-over. “Hmm. We might have to stop calling ourselves the Maimed Misfits if you join, though.”

“I... What?” Talking didn’t help after all; Quentin was out of his depth.

“Just having a bit of fun with you,” Jax clapped him on the back as if they were friends. “You’re different from what I expected. Not that I had expectations exactly, but, you know. You’re the first fellow 69 I meet, apart from Mia, and no one’s like Mia. I guess I thought you’d be more like me and less like a gaping fish.”

They were the same model. Was that why Jax felt familiar? Quentin swallowed, preparing to apologise, but Jax beat him to it.

“Don’t worry about it. I get that reaction a lot from people who haven’t been to the mines. I’ll take it over the commiseration and existential dread of the ones who have any day of the week. Come on. Let’s get you settled.”

Quentin trailed after him, careful not to trip on the overgrown vegetation, trying to gather his scattered wits. “How do you know? That we’re the same model?”

Jax looked over his shoulder, eyebrows rising. “You didn’t? In the web?”

“I wouldn’t know where to look.”

Apparently BioSynths could whistle even when half of their neck lacked organic matter. “Oh, boy, that long story of yours keeps getting better. Now I’m really dying to know.” A smile made ominous by the skin crinkling to the left of an eye that was barely a glowing orb. “Maybe you’ll tell me for Symons day.”

“Symons day?”

“A bit of a joke to celebrate that one, but mostly not. Worshipping the creator has its appeal in any culture, right?”

Quentin rifled through his memories faster than he could speak until he found the name. Bishop Symons. The man who’d developed their code, before the war. An idealist. A dreamer. Was he the reason Quentin could appreciate beauty? ‘You see beauty everywhere,’ he remembered Ian saying, less than a week ago. There’d been so much love in his voice...

Jax mistook the reason for his silence. “It was just a joke, really. You don’t have to celebrate, or tell me anything. Anyway, it’s months away. Who knows what you’ll want to do by then.”