Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-36637128-20180819030345/@comment-29800728-20180820160558

Well there are two reasons as for the absence of Wash's EMP.

Freelancer took Wash's EMP away after his mental break and just didn't give it back. Frelancer did all sorts of odd things just to see what would happen. It wouldn't surprise me that they wouldn't give it back just to see how Wash worked without it.

The second reason is that the Meta took it from Wash at the end of Recovery One and he never got a replacement. We can assume the reason as to why he didn't get a replacement would be much the same as what I said just above.