"But first take a good look around."

  Tristan did just that. What the hell was this place? And that smell? Beyond the dampness, the stale odor of trapped air, tinged with...what?

  "Welcome," Callin said, "to one of the marvels of the Twentieth Century. This used to be the way people got around, back in what were called cities."

  Tristan nodded. Sure, he knew what this was. He had seen the vids, the parents clutching the children, and men dressed in strange costumes with colorful material dangling for their necks. Ties...men wearing ties and getting on—

  "Subways, they were called, mime. Trains that ran underground. Under the city."

  "And they left these tunnels here?"

  Callin laughed. "They became abandoned holes in the ground. What would you expect them to do?"

  "Callin—we best keep moving."

  Tristan looked at Callin's face as a cloud of anxiety crossed it. This massive arena gladiator was worried about something.

  "Right. Come on."

  Callin grabbed Tristan and yanked him forward, guiding him down one of the smaller tunnels. The black walls sucked up the light from their torches. They stepped over small pools of oily water and into other puddles hidden on the shadowy floor.

  They splashed along until—

  "Wait!" Callin stopped.

  One of the others said, "Do you hear something?"

  "Quiet. I'm trying to—"

  Callin craned his head left and right. Tristan couldn't hear a thing. What could be the problem inside a deserted tunnel under the freezone?

  Callin shook his head and turned to the others.

  "Good a place as any to leave the sacrifice. Hang it up." The beam from his torch flashed around until it picked out a sturdy-looking support jutting from under a pipe. "There."

  Three other beams focused on the spot and Tristan got his first look at the "sacrifice."

  A Flagge Security man. As the corpse was lifted and hung from the pipe support by the back of its jacket, Tristan saw that the entire front of his uniform was dark with clotted blood.

  He had a pretty good idea of the answer, but asked anyway.

  "What happened to him?"

  "Strayed from his friends and somehow managed to get his throat cut," Callin said. "What you call being in the wrong place—near us—at the wrong time—when we needed a sacrifice."

  "Sacrifice to what? Is this a religious thing or—?"

  That broke them up. Their peals of laughter echoed off the walls.

  "You're a regular Joey José, mime!" one of them said.

  Finally, they were ready to move again. Callin turned to Tristan.

  "Stay close, and walk fast. We don't dawdle down here."

  They were nearly jogging through the tunnel that stretched into an even deeper blackness beyond. If this led to the headquarters of Proteus—assuming there was a Proteus—then they'd picked a good place to hide. Even Glom security would think twice—three times—before entering this stench hole.

  Their steps echoed in the tunnel, punctuated by splashes. Tristan wished someone would say something. But apparently they had to keep silent for some reason.

  Why?

  More steps, and ahead on the left, another black opening appeared. Callin led the group in that direction...and the puddles grew deeper. Though the footwear connected to his smartsuit was water-resistant, Tristan could feel the level` rising past his ankles.

  "Getting there," Callin said, breaking the silence.

  "Just a few—"

  Skre-e-ek!

  The ear-splitting shriek erupted from behind Tristan. As he turned to look, he saw one of Callin's mimes go down...with something attached to his back.

  "Mute! It's one of them!"

  They spun, torches tracing wild arcs on the walls. Tristan spotted dozens of little caves and caverns dotting the rough surface.

  Somebody—something—had made those caves.

  Callin had his pulser out, as did the others. Tristan stood there, empty-handed, defenseless.

  Callin ran back to his partner on the tunnel floor...wrestling with something.

  "Stop moving!" Callin said. "Stay the hell still!"

  Then the tunnel was lit by the incandescent blast from his pulser, and another shriek echoed in the tunnel.

  The thing rolled off and the wounded mime stood. Callin's torch revealed a big chunk torn out of his upper arm.

  "Damn thing ripped me! I thought we had a deal!"

  "We do," Callin said. "Or we did." He jammed his pulser under his arm and cupped his hands around his mouth. "We left a sacrifice!" he shouted. "It's back there. A sa-cri-fice—understand?" He

  nodded at the wound. "We have to move faster. Others will smell this."

  Callin's torch beam caught the creature on the floor. At first glance it looked like an animal, a lightly-furred creature about the size of a ten-year-old child, with an elongated head and a rat-like jaw. But then the creature's eyes and teeth—yellow-brown things—caught the light.

  Callin let the light linger there a moment longer.

  And Tristan knew it wasn't an animal.

  "Mutin’ Dwellers," Callin said. "Let's move."

  Tristan got into line. The injured mime was right ahead of him, his open wound glistening.

  "What are they?" Tristan asked.

  "Dwellers. Once they were people, years ago, decades ago, living down here in this darkness, feeding off what was discarded above. Somehow they got hold of the wrong garbage. They didn't know they were eating failed experiments, ingesting test viruses that altered their chromosomes. They ate, they mutated, until they became this...species."

  "They're like rats," Tristan said. "Human rats."

  "And they'll eat anything. Which is why we come this way when we want to make sure we won't be followed."

  Tristan looked around at the walls, eyeing the small openings, looking for pairs of glistening eyes looking back.

  "But you mentioned a deal."

  "We have an...arrangement. If we 'sacrifice' a member of our party—kill him and leave him at the intersection back there, where they can feed without a fuss, they let us pass—our 'toll,' you might say."

  "But you don't—"

  "Of course not. We reduce a glom's security force by one and leave him or her."

  "Then why did that one attack?"

  "I don't know. Their leaders—and I guess they get that way because they're the toughest and smartest—seem fairly reliable. But some of their underlings are little more than a collection of instincts."

  "Then why are we hurrying?"

  "Because we've got a fresh wound among us, and the smell the blood could send these Dwellers into a feeding frenzy."

  Tristan tripped and stumbled, plunging into another oily pool and the water splashed onto his face. He scrambled to his feet and wiped it away.

  "Almost there," Callin said. "And then we'll see what your story is, mime."

  Tristan nodded. His primary worry wasn't these mimes anymore. He was tempted to contact his PDA, just to see a familiar face in all this gloom.

  Almost there, he reminded himself, feeling more uneasy than when he was in the heart of the Flagge Glom. Almost there...

  Skre-e-ek!

  Something heavy slammed against Tristan's shoulder. He felt thin arms wrap around his neck, tough fingers and talon-like nails dig into his neck, and then rip. Sharp teeth started gnawing at his scalp as though it were a piece of tough-skinned fruit.

  He reached up and grabbed skin, clothes—he couldn't tell—and tried to pry the Dweller off, but it was attached to him like a Siamese twin. No matter what he did, he couldn't dislodge it.

  Then he felt the talons being yanked from his neck, just in time. Only the creature's legs were still wrapped around him.

  He turned to see Callin jam his pulser into the Dweller's mouth and fire. The head disappeared in a crimson cloud and another foul odor was added to the mélange.

  Skre-e-ek! Skre-e-ek! Skre-e-ek!

  The attack on Tristan seemed to have burst an invisible dam. Suddenly Dwellers were everywhere, pouring from the holes to the side, and then—more horribly—from right above them.

  Tristan turned and saw the mimes gathered into a tight group against one of the walls, pulsers out, trying to pick off the dwellers as they came close. And further back in the darkness, hundreds of eyes reflecting the pulser flashes.

  All this because I thought the tube station would be too dangerous.

  "The deal, dammit!" Callin was shouting. "We have a deal!"

  Tristan splashed to the mime group and shouldered into their tight circle. Callin slid a weapon into his hands.

  "Hope you can use this, mime. Aim for the bigger ones if you see them. They're the leaders. Kill enough of them, and the others will back away. Otherwise we haven't got a chance."

  Tristan looked at the glowing eyes encircling them, moving left and right edging in and backing away, and tried to make out the size of their owners. He couldn't.

  "It's the little ones doing all the attacking," one of the mimes said. "They've gone crazy!"

  "We're dead," said another.

  "The sacrifice!" Callin shouted, pointing back the way they'd come. "It's back there! Fresh meat! Back there!"

  And from farther back in the tunnel came another screech, deeper, louder and even more frenzied than the ones from this crew.

  Suddenly the milling circle of eyes froze, but only for an instant. And then with a hellish chorus of shrieks, they all turned and raced down the tunnel.

  "Thank the Helix," Callin said. "One of the leaders found the sacrifice."

  Tristan felt the gun being lifted from his hand.

  "Thanks," he said to Callin.

  "Just doing my job, mime. Getting you there safe. What're you called?"

  Tristan thought about giving his name. Why not?

  "Tristan."

  "That's a strange one." He turned to the others. "Let get out of here before they change what little minds they have."

  Stepping over the bodies of the dead Dwellers, they resumed their trek into the darkness.

  "Don't relax yet, Tristan," Callin told him. "The tough part for you is still ahead."

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Tristan stood just inside Smalley’s exit.

  Tristan looked around this great room with its ceiling arching so high. Somehow it seemed familiar. He stood in the center, by more mimes than he'd ever seen in one place.

  And what mimes! Nearly all massive. If they were runaways, they must have come from the arena. Most bore the tell-tale signs of too many fluxes, with distended bits of flesh and bone that didn't quite make the transition from one phenotype to another. One mime sported crocodile-like fangs that he kept licking as he eyed Tristan with something that looked hungrier than mere suspicion.

  Tristan looked away.

  He didn't need any enemies. And just as he was feeling comfortable with Callin and his crew, they’d vanished after depositing him here. He was told to wait. And as he did, the mimes of Proteus—forty, fifty of them—came close and stared.

  Tristan spotted weapons. One corner of this great room was filled with open crates of stunners, pulse rifles, and compact laser cannons. A considerable arsenal, and if the mimes here knew how to use them, they could be a mighty army.

  Of course the firepower of the Gloms was far more immense. Still, it showed that these mimes were serious.

  Tristan heard voices from a far end of the room. The crowd cleared a path and he saw Callin following another mime, as big as the rest, with a leonine mane and clear blue eyes, but without the stigmata of too many fluxes.

  This new mime walked up to Tristan while Callin and the others stayed to the back. He turned to the room, raised a first, and yelled, "Proteus!"

  The mimes responded with the raised fists, hurling the word back—"Proteus!"

  So there is a Proteus.

  That was some comfort.

  This was obviously the leader, and now he turned back to Tristan.

  "I'm Krek."

  Tristan nodded. "I'm Tristan. And this is Proteus?"

  "One cell. Merely one cell in a creature that grows stronger every day. But before we proceed any further, let us see..." Krek took a step closer.

  "See? See what?"

  Krek smiled. "Your 'face, of course. You say you're a mime. We'll prove that before we go any further."

  Krek pulled open the fastener on Tristan's smartsuit and studied his exposed midsection.

  This was a violation, a deliberate insult. No mime ever let anyone touch his interface. Tristan wondered whether it was test, to see how he'd respond.

  Krek reached toward the slit.

  "No," Tristan said.

  Krek looked at him. "What's that you said?"

  "I said...no."

  Tristan grabbed Krek's hands. They were massive, the fingers like steel claws. If Tristan fought him it would be no match.

  Still, Tristan held tight.

  "I'll show it to you. But no one”—and here Tristan raised his voice—"no one invades my pouch."

  The room fell silent. If this test was scripted, the audience didn't seem to know who had the next line...if there were any more lines.

  Tristan began to feel he'd made an error. He shouldn't have challenged the leader, certainly not in front of his motley crew.

  They're going to rip me to pieces...

  But then Krek smiled, a great big grin, and roughly cuffed Tristan on the chin.

  "We wanted to see how much the gloms owned your soul, mime. Good to see you can still stand up for yourself...in such a friendly environment."

  The assembled mimes laughed.

  Tristan nodded.

  "Now—your 'face," Krek said, with a gesture.

  Tristan ran a finger along the fingered his slit, parting the flaps of skin to the side to expose his interface, the key to who or what he was. Krek made a show of leaning down and examining it.

  "Want a laser-torch?" Tristan said.

  Krek laughed. Then, turning to the rebel mimes, "He's a brother."

  Good, thought Tristan. Now will you help me get the hell out of here?

  "Onto business then, brother. You contacted us—"

  "Because I'm being hunted."

  "The Flaggers?"

  "Yes. They're all over the tubes. There's no way I can get back to Kaze Glom."

  "Kaze?" Krek spat on the ground. "Even worse than Flagge. Mute, what the hell were you doing for the kind-hearted mutagens of Kaze in Flagge Glom? "

  This wasn't going the way Tristan had hoped. He’d thought he might get some quick help. Instead, he was being interrogated.

  "They wanted me to steal something."

  Krek leaned close, obviously very interested.

  "Steal what?"

  "I can't say."

  "Yes, you can. We're all brothers here."

  It was all Tristan could do to keep from laughing in his face. Brothers? What romantic garbage was this?

  He said, "You mean, as in, we all came from the same mother?"

  "No, Tristan. I mean brother—in every sense: In our cells, where each of us carries the Goleman chromosome, and in our lives of slavery. The gloms have raised us to look at our brother mimes as rivals, competitors. They've fostered that since deincubation, and with good reason. The last thing they want is any sense of solidarity between mimes. Keep us at odds, teach us to kill each other for sport, make us do tricks for the treats they dispense, do anything to curry their favor. And above all, don't let us get close, because then we might realize what we share. We might come to think of ourselves as related, as part of a...family."

  Family? Tristan thought. Who needs family? An antiquated concept. Even realfolk don't have much sense of family. And besides, he sure as hell wouldn't want to be connected with a mime "family" once he'd achieved Selfhood.

  "So tell us, brother," Krek said. "What did Kaze want you to steal?"

  Tristan hadn't thought ahead to prepare a convincing lie. But maybe he could risk revealing some truth. Tell him what Flagge undoubtedly knew already, but keep the writable template secret. Lani knew about that...but he hoped that she hadn't told anyone, at least not yet. If he told Krek about the writable, and Krek told his people...then it could get back to Flagge.

  "Kaze acquired a special template. It got me through the Citadel's security."

  "The Citadel?" Krek's eyes narrowed. "Sounds...tricky. Some of us, those who fought in the Flagge Arena, might even say it sounds impossible."

  "If that isn't what I did, then why are the Flagge redheads crawling all over the freezone looking for me?"

  Krek nodded but looked unconvinced.

  And mute! I'm no closer to getting home than I was hiding in that alley with those splicer Ribos.

  "So then—where is this thing that you stole?"

  Tristan laughed. "I didn't get it. Didn't even get close to it. As soon as I got into the Citadel something I did triggered Flagge Security. I was lucky to get out."

  "So you failed?”

  “ And it means I won’t get Selfhood. Not yet."

  Krek laughed, a booming sound picked up by the others. Tristan looked around.

  A lot hinged on Krek believing him. But why was he laughing?

  “Selfhood?” Krek could barely contain himself. He took breath. “Don’t tell me that you actually believe that the gloms ever let a mime go.”

  Tristan felt shaken by their…ridicule.

  Then the mime leader’s smile faded smiled. "What if...what if what you say isn't true. What if you were sent by Flagge...?"

  "Sent? Why?"

  Krek moved closer, his face only centimeters away. Tristan smelled the mime's breath.

  "Sent to find us, to bring Flagge Security here, maybe to penetrate Proteus. They'd love to destroy us."

  "No. All I want is to get out, get back to Kaze."

  "To do more slave work for a glom? Why should we help you help them? They're the enemy, brother. We're your family. Time to choose, Tristan."

  This wasn't going well at all.

  Tristan tried to think of a cogent argument to steer Krek toward helping him back to Kaze. Problem was, he couldn't come up with one. He couldn't blame the Ribos for linking him up with this group, but he wished he'd known about Proteus and all this "family" nonsense in advance.