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

Ten: Saturday

Quentin woke up on Saturday with a feeling he'd forgotten ever having: the thrill before going on a mission he believed in.

The rest of the Maimed Misfits poured into the control centre, some soaked through from the downpour outside, all in various levels of excitement. This. This was what the rebellion should have been like, but hadn't been — a freedom movement.

He had more in common with these people he'd met two days ago than he remembered having with any rebel during the nearly forty years he'd thought he was fighting for the right thing. Seeing BioSynths being left behind in the name of a common goal, command treating them as if they were expendable, just like the humans had... It had worn him down even before the order to kill Ian came.

This group was reckless, and broken, and loyal, and hopeful, and alive. It almost made Quentin want to forget about new beginnings and join them in their insane quest to rescue their fellow BioSynths.

Almost.

He didn't have it in him to go through another disappointment. The war, the rebellion... It was enough.

'Don't let them change you.' Quentin had no idea what that meant.

"You really need to teach me that brooding thing, man. It's unfair how well you pull it off."

Quentin barked out a laugh. It was impossible to wallow in misery for long around these people. "I would, but you don't have it in you."

"He really doesn't," Clementine quipped, gesturing to Jax's glowing yellow orb with one of her mismatched hands. "Just look at that: all sunshine, no clouds."

☵☲☵

Everything was in place by the time he and Jax got to the apartment. The weapons, the uniform, the nexus that would be their only means of communication until they'd cleared the signal-jamming safety of the old tech district, all neatly laid out.

He fussed with the way the helmet fit on Jax's head a good dozen times, more worried than he'd expected. Maybe it was because he was the only undamaged BioSynth in their midst, but he felt responsible for their safety, and Jax was taking a colossal risk. Quentin was too — Ian had his codes — but they'd chosen to go in past midnight in the hope Ian would already be asleep.

He didn't want to consider Jax coming face to face with Ian, or the inevitable betrayal the merry BioSynth would experience when he realised who the husband Quentin still loved was.

Maybe what drove him wasn't responsibility so much as guilt.

"How long before we go, Broodmaster?"

"Five minutes less than the last time you asked, Sunshine."

Jax threw his head back and laughed, giving Quentin the irrational impression his lopsided neck wouldn't hold. "Sorry man, you just don't make that work the way Clementine does."

"I had an inkling."

Banter made him less likely to climb the walls or to fret over the security flaws in the empty flat. He'd been promised a basement flat, but it was only a basement from the building's front door. From the back it was a plain studio, two stories high, with actual windows people could break in through, and he didn't think just the two of them would be a match for Ian, if it came to that. Not when Quentin would rather shield Ian than allow any harm to befall him, regardless of the implications.

Without thinking, he slid into the web, searching for the security cameras outside their house. Ian's house, he corrected again. Nothing moved. No way to be sure whether he was home, and—