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

Four: Sunday

Ian had never been the world's greatest hacker, but he made do. Sometimes going through proper channels for authorisation meant not only a delay but also a digital trail; something a fleeing Syn could find and latch on to, to anticipate his next move. And he hadn't survived twenty years in this business by giving his targets advance warning.

So he hacked.

Right now he hacked street cameras, his nexus hooked up to an amp to boost its processing power. The three hours he'd managed to sleep had left him feeling more tired than he'd been before, his headache having graduated to a full-blown migraine.

He wanted to rest more, for the sake of bringing Quentin home, but his body wouldn't cooperate; he might as well work.

The City ought to do a better job of guarding access to their system. Finding a way in was always absurdly easy, even for someone with Ian's median skills. There was the file he needed, neatly classified among millions, waiting for its turn to be purged in less than a week.

He downloaded it; he'd need other files if he were to follow the Syn's path, and didn't have room for all of them, but he wanted a copy of the accident. The vid materialised in 3D in his living room. The car, twisting in an arc after the incongruous falling billboard had struck it, could be seen from every angle. Ian zoomed inside with a voice command.

It was unsettling, seeing himself this way. Seeing the look of pain and confusion on a face that looked so much like Quentin's, as Ian drew his gun. There had to be a special place in hell reserved for people who programmed these things to be so lifelike, even in peacetime. And, there. That was the moment he'd passed out.

The Syn wasted no time undoing its seatbelt and pushing itself forward on the gnarled metal impaling it; a grotesque view. No human would have survived it. The Syn? It just kept moving.

It kicked the car's door off its hinges, and then... Then it pulled Ian outside and picked him up, close to its chest, as soon as Ian was clear of the car. Set him down against a nexus hub on the sidewalk with a gentleness and care that were all Quentin. Ian's throat clogged up, his eyes burning.

Fucking programmers playing god, hitting all the hard notes and missing the obvious ones.

Caught between the need to mimic Quentin's reactions and an unexpected car crash, the Syn hadn't known how to act. Conflicting directives, no doubt: maintain cover; preserve self. Ian was no programmer, but even he could have done a better job. If caught then abandon cover. Done.

The Syn took Quentin's camera bag from the car (why?) and went back to Ian's prone form, rifling through his pockets. Was it looking for whatever it had come to find? It took a traceless card and Ian ran the numbers. Three hundred credits, give or take. Why would it need credits? Had its programmer not set up a rendezvous point?

His blood froze when he saw the next image.

The Syn had taken his SynTracker Elite insignia. If it impersonated Ian, the insignia would get him inside government offices, and the possibilities— But, no. The Syn hadn't taken it for itself. It'd set it atop Ian's chest, clearly visible, just before pressing Ian's thumb to the glowing nexus.

TrackerEvac.

Their signature loophole: the contract's advertised response time was only valid if the Tracker issued a confirmation, five minutes after the original request; otherwise it could take them hours for an extraction, with no liability. Easier on their finances if they got there and a severely injured Tracker had died, instead of needing expensive procedures like organ cloning. If they were conscious to confirm the request, odds were they needed less expensive care. All insurance companies did it — legal murder of Trackers who'd outlived their profitability.