He shook off the questions. Why was he worrying about her when he should be worrying about himself?

  And why was he feeling stirrings of sexual attraction?

  That could only mean that the seep from her template was fading and his indigenous “Y-ness” was surfacing. He had a brief flash of the two of them, naked, entwined right here on the carpet…Lani on Lani…

  He wondered how Lani would feel about making love to herself. Could be interesting…she’d know all the special places…

  Tristan shook himself. Let’s not get sidetracked here…focus.

  What next? Now that he had the door working, he could leave the apartment but not the building—at least not while wearing a Lani Rouge masque. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to think. So hard to think straight with all that had happened since he woke up this morning.

  Too damn many coincidences...too many deviations from standard procedure. Instead of a composite genome specifically tailored to the assignment, Cyrill gives him an intact natural genome for his masque. Unheard of. But worse, not just any natural genome—it belonged to a mysteriously murdered Flagge citizen. And not just any random dead Flagge citizen, but the lover of the datameister Tristan was supposed to impersonate...someone active in a mime movement.

  Something very wrong here.

  Nothing like this had ever happened to Tristan. He'd always been in control when he was on assignment. Now...

  He felt as if he were suspended on strings.

  But who was pulling them? Cyrill? Someone above Cyrill? Or perhaps that strange old woman, Okasan, was involved. Or some double agent in Flagge Glom.

  All Tristan knew was that he had to get out of enemy territory and back to Kaze. As much as he'd chafed at his tiny quarters and limited range of movement back in the mime warren, right now he longed for that narrow space—those safe, secure, familiar confines.

  He stared at the datameister. Who was she? An innocent bystander, trapped in this by chance, or another one of those strings, pulling him this way and that?

  How did he know she was even a real datameister?

  He felt his body go rigid with alarm as a new possibility slammed into him.

  Bloaty—how did he know she wasn't another mime?

  He didn't. And short of stripping her and going over her skin a centimeter at a time looking for an interface slit, he couldn't know.

  So he'd have to be very careful about everything he said or did, not let on anything about the assignment, not even let on that he was suspicious.

  “Tell me,” he said, “is there a rear entrance to this building?”

  She nodded. “Of course. But it’s no secret. I'm sure Security’s watching it.”

  “How about a tunnel to a neighboring building?”

  She laughed. “Maybe in the older districts, but not around here. At least not unless you dig one yourself. But what’s the problem? All you've got to do is grab one of my neighbors and do to them what you did to me.”

  Tristan stared at her. What was she talking about? “I haven't done anything to you.”

  “You stole my body!”

  “Don't talk like an idiot. If I stole your body, then what am I sitting here looking at?”

  “All right, maybe you didn't steal my 'body,' but you stole my genes.”

  “No, I merely copied them. The only thing I took were a few loose cells from the lining of your mouth, and you were going to lose those anyway.”

  “All I'm trying to say is, we can grab one of my neighbors and—”

  “‘We?’”

  “You think you can handle something like that on your own? Bloaty. Go right ahead and—”

  “That’s not my question. Why should you want to help me?”

  “Well...” She hesitated. “The sooner you're out of my apartment, the better. I mean, you don't want to be here, and I certainly don't want you caught with me. So it’s to our mutual benefit to get you on your way and away from me as soon as possible. And besides...”

  “Besides what?”

  She looked embarrassed. “You saved my life. Least I can do is return the favor.”

  Tristan was baffled. “Saved your life? When?”

  “This morning—when you told that piece of multi-cellular debris who had me tied up not to kill me. You could have let them pulse me but you didn't. So...”

  Tristan looked away, unable to meet her eyes.

  Saved her life? He'd tried his damnedest this morning to tell the Kaze agents to finish her. But he couldn't get the words out. Seep from her genome had saved her—not him.

  “But anyway,” she said, "I figure we can grab someone, steal a few cells just like you did with mine, copy the genome, and then you can walk out of here as someone else. No one will stop you. Right?”

  Tristan looked right at her. “I wish it was that easy.”

  “Looked pretty easy this morning. You took that scraping, went around the corner, and—poof!—a little while later you came back as me.”

  Yes, it could be as easy as she said—if the writable template could be reused. But each was writable only once, then it was like any other template.

  “Can't be done,” he said, searching for an explanation that wouldn't mention the writable template. This could still be part of a trap, some trick he didn't understand. “I...don't have the equipment with me.”

  “But didn't I hear somewhere that you mimes always carry a bunch of templates you can use? You call it something...what is it...?”

  “A wardrobe.”

  How simple this would be if Tristan had his personal template collection with him: Open up his interface and remove the writable, slip in one of his trusty old genomes, and stroll past Security outside. But he'd never have slipped the collection past the Citadel scanners this morning. He’d had to leave it behind.

  “Mine’s back in that SynFood warehouse—at least I hope it still is. Sorry.”

  “Well, that’s just bloaty, isn't it,” she said. “We're both stuck here. And I know this is going to come to a bad end...unless...”

  Tristan watched her eyes narrow as she stared a him. “Unless what?”

  “Can you use another mime’s template?”

  “Usually. They all work on the same principle. But where are you going to find—?”

  “There's a mime who lives on the forty-fourth floor.”

  “Impossible. Flagge's controllers would never let a mime roam around free—”

  “They let this one.”

  “Even if they did, this is a luxury building. No mime could afford to live here.”

  “But he does. He poses as a regular person, but I know he’s a mime.”

  “How?”

  “Trev told me.”

  Trev again...dead, mysterious Trev.

  “And how did he know?”

  “He just...knew. The mime calls himself Dohan Lee. When he tried to get too friendly with me—calling, stopping by—Trev told me about him.”

  Tristan’s turn to laugh. ”He was just jealous.”

  “No, he wasn't. He told me Dohan Lee is really a mime arena gladiator, a champ named Eel. And one of his championship perks is the privilege of living here with other upper-echelon Flagge employees.”

  Kind of like Selfhood, Tristan thought. You can pretend to be a person.

  Tristan studied the datameister’s scowl. She seemed genuinely annoyed.

  Could it be true? What a prize for a champion mime—to have your roam grid extended so you could live out here in anonymity and luxury among the real people. You wear the same masque whenever you're among them, they accept you as another highly placed Flagge worker, and when they go to Flagge Arena to watch the mimefights, when they cheer for Eel, they have no idea they're cheering for you.

  An enviable life...as long as you remained champ.

  “Even if it were true—”

  “It is!”

  “—how would we get our hands on his wardrobe?”

  “Easy enough. I'll drop in on him, tell him I'm lonely, and then...” Her voice trailed off. “He always seemed interested in me.”

  “And then what? Ask him if he’s got a spare template you can borrow?”

  “Maybe I could steal one.”

  “Not a chance. Nothing in this world a mime guards more closely than his wardrobe. And a mime trying to pass as a real person? You’d never get close.”

  “What if I just hit him over the head with something?”

  Tristan laughed. “He’s a professional fighter. Your swing will have to be too quick for him to stop, placed just right, and hard enough to knock him out the first try. You won't get a second. Can you do that?”

  She bit her lower lip and shook her head. “No. But I bet you could.”

  It took Tristan a moment to understand what she meant.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Tristan stood just inside Smalley’s exit.

  As she followed the mime down the fourth floor hall, Lani’s heart pounded against the inside of her chest wall like a prisoner trapped in an isolation chamber.

  This is insane, she thought. The two of us...together...if someone steps into the hall and sees us, how do I explain?

  Oh, this is my cousin...from the Kaze Glom. She's just here to steal some Flagge secrets.

  Tristan signaled to her as he stopped and positioned himself directly in front of Eel’s door.

  They'd rehearsed this so there’d be no talking when it came time to do it. Shaking inside, she took her position off to the side, leaning against the ribbed wall, out of direct line of sight from the doorway.

  Her head seemed to have taken on a life of its own, rhythmically swinging her gaze from the heavy length of ivory the mime held behind his back—it had been a leg on one of her foot stools until he'd torn it off—to the hallway on either side, then back to the stool leg.

  Get this over with!

  The mime touched the doorplate with his free hand. The door remained closed—it wasn't keyed to him—but Lani knew that somewhere inside the apartment a chime was sounding.

  She tensed. This was it. No backing out now. She'd called Mr. Dohan Lee’s apartment and asked if she might stop by some time when it was convenient. She still remembered the hungry light in his eyes as he'd babbled an immediate invitation—”Anytime! Anytime at all!”—which she'd accepted.

  The door slid open almost immediately—someone was very anxious.

  “Well, hello!” Lani recognized the voice. “I've been wanting to get together with you for the longest time!”

  “Thank you so much for inviting me,” the mime said with a smile, then nodded in Lani’s direction. “And just to make the afternoon more interesting, I brought a friend.”

  Lee—or Eel—jutted his head through the doorway and looked her up and down. His grin faded as his eyes widened.

  “What in the name of—”

  The Lani-mime whipped his arm up and brought the stool leg crashing down on Eel’s head. He staggered back out of sight and Tristan followed. She heard a crash, then the sound of another blow being struck, then the thud of something heavy hitting the floor.

  Seconds later she saw her own flushed face poke through the door opening. “Quick. Get in here!”

  Lani slipped through and closed the door behind her. An inert form sprawled on the floor. Blood trickled from under Eel’s hairline and across his forehead.

  “Is he...is he dead?”

  “No,” The mime said. “Just unconscious.” He motioned her forward. “Come on. Help me lift him.”

  She pressed back against the door. She did not want to touch him. ”No...I couldn't.”

  “Look—if you had a stronger body I could move him myself, but you don't, so get over here and help.”

  Reluctantly Lani edged toward Eel’s feet and, as directed, lifted them. The mime grabbed the shoulders and together they carried-dragged the dead weight into a rear room and heaved it onto a bed.

  “Are mimes heavier than….people. I mean—”

  The mime laughed. “Not to my knowledge. Where’s that sleeper?”

  Lani fished the small black disk out of her pocket and handed it across. She'd already cleared all her preset interrupts and programmed it for the maximum sleep period it would handle—twelve hours.

  The mime pressed the disk against the base of Eel’s skull and left it there.

  “That ought to keep him out of our way. Now”—he began stripping off Eel’s clothing—”let’s see if Mr. Dohan Lee is really a mime.”

  Suddenly uncomfortable, Lani backed away.

  “Maybe I'll just wait out here.”

  “Well, then, make yourself useful while you wait. Look around for a stock of nutrient concentrate.”

  “Why?”

  “An active mime is never far from a supply.”

  Lani left the two mimes and wandered through the apartment. She realized it was larger than hers by a good twenty percent. She checked through Lee's kitchen but found no sign of concentrate among his foodstuffs.

  For the first time, she felt a twinge of uncertainty. Maybe Dohan Lee really wasn't Eel, the great arena champ. Could Trev have been wrong?

  No. She had to keep on believing—Trev had told her so, and Trev wouldn't have lied. Besides: Eel...Lee...it was so obvious when you thought about it.

  Still...where was the concentrate the mime had said was so important?

  She searched through the living room and dining room but came up empty-handed. With her spirits sagging, Lani wandered toward the rear of the apartment and stepped into one of the rooms. She stopped in the doorway and stared.

  A trophy room. Mime arena trophies? She stepped closer. What else could they be? Her spirits lifted. This would prove that Trev’s story was more than mere jealousy.

  But her hopes were dashed when she saw that all the trophies and awards were for pitsaur competitions. Rex...Rex...Rex... everything was for something named Rex. She leaned close to the holo of a vicious-looking pygmy raptor, all teeth and claws, and shuddered, suddenly very glad they didn't allow pets in this complex.

  Lani searched the rest of the room but saw nothing but that muting pitsaur. Lee or Eel or whoever he was seemed obsessed with the creature. She was about to give up when she noticed what looked like a storage area beneath the trophy display.

  “Probably more holos of Rex,” she muttered as she dropped to her knees and pressed the release.

  The panel slid open and she stared inside, not sure what she'd found.

  Squeeze bottles, gel packets, all neatly lined up, all...

  “You found it?” said a voice behind her.

  She turned and saw the mime stepping toward her.

  “See!” she said. “This proves it, right? Lee is Eel. Look at all this stuff. He’s a mime.”

  Tristan squatted beside her and pulled a large squeeze bottle from the cabinet.

  “Yes, I know.”

  He bit off the top and began sucking at the contents.

  “You know? Well then why did you have me turning this place upside down for—?”

  He held up a thin beige wafer as he swallowed. “Found his interface.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “His Dohan Lee template.”

  Lani leapt to her feet. “You took it from him? Just like that?”

  “Of course.”

  “But what about him?”

  “He’s fluxing back to neutral.” She realized her face must have betrayed her confusion because he cocked his Lani-head and stared at her. “You don't know much about mimes, do you.”

  “I know as much as anyone else.”

  “Well, if you want to see it first hand, go take a peek at him.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really. He won't bite. He'll be asleep for the next twelve hours.”

  Lani wasn't too sure she wanted to do this, but curiosity was getting the better of her. To see a mime unmasqued, undressed, as it were...

  “What will you be doing?”

  “I'll be looking for his wardrobe case. He'll have it somewhere about. And I'll be storing up on nutrients while I'm looking.”

  “For your next...did you call it a 'flux'?”

  “Right.” He raised the container for another swig. “I'll be fluxing into Dohan Lee.”

  Lani hesitantly made her way toward the room where they'd left Lee—no, Eel. This whole day had taken on a surreal air. Yesterday had been so sane and normal: She'd got up, gone to the Citadel, done her datameister duties, then come home. Simple.

  Today...she'd stepped outside her door and nothing had been the same since.

  She slowed as she neared the room. Did she want to see this?

  Yes. She had to. Trev had been involved with these creatures, these things. He'd actually thought of them as human, or damn close to human. “A genetic variant” was what he'd called them.

  But now she had a chance to see one of these mimes in what they called the “neutral state,” whatever that meant. Lani wasn't so sure she wanted to know, but how could she pass up the chance to see it in the flesh...as it were?

  She paused on the threshold. The room had been darkened, but she still could make out a large form on the bed. She moved closer. Lani noticed Eel’s legs were splayed and found her gaze drifting, seemingly of its own accord, toward the groin area.

  She gasped.

  She'd learned a bit about mimes from Trev. He'd told her how the Goleman chromosome replaced the sex chromosome on mimes, leaving them asexual in the neutral state. At least physically. Mentally and emotionally, he'd said, they retained the sexual orientation of their source DNA. If that source had come with a Y-chromosome, the residuals from the Y tended to make the resultant mime think of itself as a “he.” The reverse was true if the Goleman chromosome replaced an X.

  Sure. Facts...she knew the facts. But they hadn't prepared her for the sight of a neutral mime.

  She blinked a few times but that failed to add detail to the featureless expanse of flesh running from the lower abdomen all the way down to the space between the thighs. So smooth... like a doll.

  She moved closer to this pale, smooth-skinned being, watching the slow rise and fall of its hairless chest, then moving up to the head with its pale oval face and colorless hair—which made the contrast of the red blood from the scalp wound all the more startling. The sleep disk was still attached to the base of its skull.