"Lord Tristan," Regis said, "you have less than seven minutes now. I suggest that you—"

  Tristan said, "Off." The bubble responded by collapsing on the face, crushing it out of existence.

  It doesn't concern me, Tristan thought.

  No, the only concern he had was the assignment he’d been training for. It began today.

  Tristan turned back to the mirror. He picked the two four-centimeter disks off the counter top. Both flexible, slightly translucent, with a feel almost like callused skin. But the first was a single piece, a typical ROM template from Cyrill... the starting point for the new assignment.

  The other was something new, with a removable seal: Kaze Glom's writable template. But that was for later. Right now he needed to activate the ROM template.

  Male or female? he wondered. Let's see what they've cooked up for me.

  He reached down and ran his fingertip along his lower left abdomen, dividing the skin there and opening a six-centimeter slit. He inserted the new disk, then ran his finger back over the opening. The slit disappeared without a trace.

  And now the flux began. He braced himself as the interface wetware began reading the code on the disk, digitizing it and bioelectrically transmitting the sequence data to the nuclei of his cells. Any second now, he'd—

  There! He felt the familiar rush as his mDNA began responding to the new genetic code. His cells, one by one at first, then in cascades of billions—brain cells, blood cells, nerve cells—began copying it, mimicking it.

  He'd prepped for this, loading up on nutrients—carbohydrates and amino-acids—last night.

  It was all a physical process...only physical changes.

  At least, that was what everyone who worked with mimes liked to believe.

  But Tristan wasn't so sure about that.

  He looked up at the mirror. His face was already changing, as a rugged chin began to jut, and his eyes took on an eggshell blue tint.

  Good looking masque, Tristan thought. Wonder who the donors are...or were.

  Assignment masques were almost always composites, bits and pieces assembled and tailored to the specific needs of the task at hand. Unless of course you were supposed to impersonate a real person.

  An ache grew in his bones as his body began to stretch. Now came the painful part as the skin pulled and cells struggled to keep up with the rapid changes. If he checked his neuronet he knew his personal readouts would show respiration and pulse accelerating crazily, as if out of control. He'd heard stories of mimes who died after too many fluxes.

  Only stories...

  Sweating, groaning, he leaned against the wall. He breathed heavily, noisily, grunting as he gave birth to this new body.

  When he could open his eyes, the first place he looked was his groin.

  I'm a male today. Not that it mattered.

  Not that it mattered. That was what he told himself...

  But over the years he’d found that he tended to think of himself as a “he”—a good indication that his source DNA had probably started out with a Y-chromosome.

  He looked down at his hands—good, strong fingers, muscular forearms.

  Slowly the pains subsided, and he took a good look at his reflection.

  This is who I am today.

  Not bad. Straight brown hair, clear blue eyes, strong jaw, lean, well-muscled physique. He smiled. Nice teeth.

  "You handsome devil," he muttered. The line, the way he said it…stolen from another old vid.

  Finally, a standout phenotype. The template he'd been given for his last assignment had turned him into a stoop-shouldered, weasel-faced woman. He'd hated every second in that masque.

  He felt his energy sagging after the flux. He needed a little pick me up.

  "I'm afraid that you don't have any time for breakfast, your lordship," Regis told him.

  "I'll eat during the conference."

  "Your lordship! That would be insulting."

  Tristan ignored him. He walked through Regis and emerged on the other side—just to make a point. I may be a mime, thought, but at least I'm solid.

  More than you could say for a Personal Data Avatar. And a damned annoying one at that.

  I may be property, but at least I own you.

  Tristan took a jump from the closet, pulled on the one-piece outfit, and waited as the smart fabric adjusted its size to his new body. Usually he wouldn't need clothes to meet Cyrill in the Ocean. He could sit here buck naked and appear in jeweled armor at the meeting. But he didn't know how much time he'd have before starting the assignment.

  And he did know that Cyrill wanted to see the new phenotype.

  "Scan me," he said.

  "Yes, m'lord."

  Laser flashes fanned from the wall unit, enveloped him for an instant, then winked out. His new image was ready to dive into the Ocean.

  "Lord Tristan," Regis said. "I'm getting a message...Mr. Cyrill is arriving in the ice box. He'll expect you to be there, waiting!"

  "I know, Regis." He grabbed a concentrate tube and glanced at the officious Regis who wore a properly worried expression. "I know, and thanks."

  Tristan enjoyed making Cyrill wait.

  He blinked his right eye twice, then his left eye once, activating his neuronet. He’d programmed it to jack him into Cyrill's super-secure virtual meeting room in three seconds...

  Two…

  One…

  "I'm diving, Regis. Stay out of trouble."

  "Lord Tristan, I would never—"

  Tristan’s compartment dissolved in a brilliant flash. A swirl of rainbow colors, thunderous music, an instant of vertigo...

  CHAPTER TWO

  Welcome to the Ocean. Where if you don't learn how to swim...you drown.

  Tristan raised his real hand and saw his virtual hand move. A quick jab, and he was at the door to the virtual room. No swimming today. No surfing. The address for the meeting room was preset.

  The ice box door stood before him, looking like rich, intricately carved wood. Only someone cleared to meet with Cyrill could pass. Tristan pulled on the latch and it swung open, as real as any door he'd ever seen.

  Inside, he noted that Cyrill had chosen a starship motif—a vast control room with a panoramic view of interstellar space.

  Cyrill stood by one of the huge ports, gazing out at the swirling galaxies...his back to him.

  Immediately, Tristan could tell that he wasn't happy.

  The virtual door gently shut behind Tristan with an equally authentic sounding "click." And still Cyrill didn't turn.

  "You're late, Tristan."

  "I hit a lot of crosscurrents."

  Now Cyrill turned. He was dressed in a gray corporate suit that matched the muted colors of the room and his brilliant white hair. Of course, Tristan had no idea if Cyrill really looked like this. Maybe it was a look he adopted just for Tristan... maybe he had a different avatar for each mime agent he handled.

  "Humor, eh? I didn't know mimes were given to humor."

  "Blame it on my wardrobe."

  "Speaking of which..." Cyrill looked him over. "Nice pheno. That new template looks good on you."

  "I hope it's been well scrubbed," Tristan said.

  Cyrill raised his eyebrows and took a step closer to Tristan in the virtual room.

  "Scrubbed? What—? Oh, come now, Tristan. Don't worry. You can't get psych seep from a composite."

  “I do.”

  “So you’ve told me, but all the experts say it can’t be.”

  “Maybe I’m just extra sensitive.”

  “Perhaps. And perhaps that’s what makes you a top agent. If so, embrace it.”

  "Maybe..." Tristan said slowly, "that explains my sense of humor."

  "That or too much free time. Too many hours floating among the old vid islands in the Ocean when you're not on assignment. You've been catching up on centuries of bad media." Cyrill fixed Tristan with his gaze. "Don’t worry about seep from this template. It's been designed to encompass the particular characteristics and attributes you will need on the first leg of your assignment—”

  Just like every other template you send me, Tristan wanted to say, but told himself to be patient.

  “—the assignment that’s going to earn you Selfhood."

  Tristan nodded. Right. That was the goal. He had to keep reminding himself: Selfhood. That's what I get at the end, when all this is done. If I live.

  "So, let's get to it, eh? As you've no doubt guessed from your VR training sessions, Kaze Glom has an extraordinary assignment for you."

  As Cyrill turned away, Tristan noticed his handler's holo image sweep through his own, like two ghosts bumping in the night. The breach of virtual etiquette—acting as if someone wasn't there—made Tristan feel a bit edgy.

  But two could play that game. He took a quick squeeze from the concentrate tube and swallowed while Cyrill's back was turned.

  He knew from the months of planning and training sessions that this assignment was going to be very big.

  And, if promises were kept, his last.

  Cyrill made a small rectangular holobubble appear in their virtual space. Its chamber filled with the 3-D image of a huge structure, rising impossibly high, a hundred bony fingers pointing up to space.

  "You know this place?"

  Of course, thought Tristan. Who wouldn't? "It's Flagge's Citadel."

  "Correct. The center of power for Flagge Glom."

  The Citadel reminded Tristan of an old vid he'd seen...a place called Oz. Except Oz was green and wonderful. The Citadel was a hopelessly dark place. A black hole from which no light escaped.

  The solid-looking image stopped turning, and then the view zoomed closer.

  "The Citadel...Flagge's impenetrable heart." Cyrill smiled. "Filled with mysteries. A veritable treasure trove of secrets."

  "Which no one but the Flagge inner circle will ever see," Tristan said.

  Now Cyrill's smile broadened. "Some would say, Tristan, that its defenses are impenetrable."

  He's playing with me, Tristan thought. Teasing me. Talking about Selfhood, and now—

  "But we know that to be untrue."

  Tristan rubbed his chin, feeling the unfamiliar contours.

  "And you see,” Cyrill said, “that's your assignment."

  Tristan looked away from the chamber. Cyrill wasn't smiling anymore.

  "You're going in there, Tristan. Into the Citadel."

  Tristan felt his stomach tighten. “Now who’s joking?”

  “No joke,” Cyrill said, shaking his head. "Think about it: hundreds of people pass through it every day. Moving in and out without a problem—"

  "Sure. Because their genomes check out. But someone from our glom?"

  "Trust me, Tristan. It can be done. You're going to do it."

  "How?" Tristan's gut tightened further.

  All those VR training sessions, all those virtual datacenter environments, the virtual merging with a holographic datameister, learning the routines, mimicking his movements step by step...but he’d never dreamed he’d be going in there...to Flagge Citadel’s datacenter.

  "Listen carefully.” The chamber shifted to a flyby of the Flagge Quarter, a self-contained megalopolis within the jumble. And at its center, the giant Citadel. "You know that Flagge has surrounded its nerve center, the aptly named Citadel, with superior counter-intelligence equipment."

  Tristan wondered why Cyrill said this as if it were unique to Flagge. He knew damn well it was s-o-p for Kaze Glom too. For all the gloms.

  "But suppose you were to pass through the perimeter defenses and actually enter the heart of Flagge, enter the Citadel...?"

  Cyrill paused. The more Tristan looked at him, the more he was sure that the real Cyrill or whatever his real name was, would bear no resemblance to this "elder statesman" of Kaze Glom.

  "What would you find in the Citadel? Only the finest ICE anywhere, whether you were trying to enter the system from the outside, from the Ocean, or through the structure itself, the automated defenses would identify the intruder and terminate him, her or it..." Another grin. "Immediately."

  "So, it can't be done. We all know that."

  "Don't worry, Tristan. I see what you're thinking...that maybe we consider you expendable. That could not be further from the truth. But I spoke to the bosu himself—"

  Another pause. The bosu. The head man. Kaze Glom CEO Kennedy Otari, one of the two most powerful people on the planet.

  "—I told the bosu there was only one mime agent for this mission...and that was you."

  Normally such a rare compliment from Cyrill would have buoyed him. But here, now, in this place, staring at the image of the Citadel, it gave him a sinking feeling.

  "I'm listening."

  "No system is perfect. Flagge Glom has an Achilles heel. Flagge has dissidents in its midst, some of them quite high up. And we have moles who are working with these dissidents...it's all a very complex arrangement that started well before your incept date, Tristan.”

  "And—?"

  "We can get you in."

  Tristan stared out the nearest port at the wheeling galaxies. A stunning effect. It took millions of years for a galaxy to rotate. In here it happened in minutes.

  "And once you’re in, you simply follow the procedures you’ve been learning. You get to the Data Center, access datasphere 87342J, and bring back a sample from that dear little cat's eye to me."

  A model of a datasphere appeared in the floating chamber. A tiny yellow ball, no bigger than a molar, its smooth surface marred only by a slim crescent slit. A universe of information was transcribed on the RNA of the virus it hosted.

  Viruses had become indispensable. No matter what ICE was deployed, information accessible from the Ocean was always vulnerable.

  Only data with an isolated, dedicated reader was safe; and doubly safe when, between readings, the data was stored off the reader, inaccessible, locked away until needed. Never put online. All the secrets, the programs, the routines stored on the RNA in the cat's eye remained safe and secure.

  Especially if the cat's eye was buried in the Citadel.

  He shrugged. "Nothing to it. I'll be back in time for lunch."

  Cyrill's smile was tiny, pinched. "More humor. Very good. But this is a very serious matter."

  "What makes this cat's eye so important?"

  "Oh, not much. Not much at all...except its virus is encoded with all of Flagge's long-term goals and how they will achieve them. All safely hidden in that tiny sphere: Flagge’s one-, two-, three-, four-, and five-year plans." Cyrill laughed. "It's the damned golden goose of the Flagge empire."

  "If they learn of the breach—and they probably will—won't Flagge simply change their plans?

  "So much the better! All their plans, all that groundwork will go into the void. We'll know every strategic move they had planned, both here and off-world. It will be a major blow to the Flagge Glom, a calamity, and an incredible boon to the Kaze Glom. Mind you, Tristan, I'm not talking about a mere advantage here. What you do on this assignment could end the glom wars. Flagge will drop out as a major player."

  "But isn't that going to happen anyway?" Tristan said. "I mean, Kaze's writable template is going to revolutionize mime technology. Flagge hasn't got anything even close to that, and they're probably years away from developing anything like it.”

  “True. They don’t even know such a thing as a writable exists. It’s so advanced that even if they stole one, they don’t have the technology to copy it.”

  “Exactly my point. Kaze's going to own the mime market by next year."

  "That's the assumption, yes, but markets are fickle. Who knows what they'll be like next year? Sampling that cat's eye will be the coup de grace. Flagge will have to merge with Kaze."

  "A world without glom wars," he said softly. "It won't seem right."

  "We've been engaged in our war since the Collapse. A long time. But this will end it. One glom—ours—taking control. Imagine the effect on the Mars Base, the moon colonies!"

  Tristan had started thinking about the reality of the assignment. It still seemed impossible. And he didn't believe Cyrill's talk of a merger. The Kaze Glom would use the cat's eye to destroy Flagge Glom.

  But that was fine with him.

  After all, Kaze Glom was his home. And Flagge wouldn’t be the first Glom he’d helped kill. How many now? The first had been Lexor, back when he was just starting out. He’d apprenticed on that one, and when Kaze had absorbed it, he’d been rewarded by a move up to full agent status. Rapalan had been next, then Mertex…And each destroyed glom was quickly absorbed into the conqueror’s territory. The predators grew larger…and fewer.

  So many. But never one so big as Flagge. How wonderful to retire at the top of your game.

  He wouldn't miss Flagge. No one would.

  "And trust me,” Cyrill said. “You will walk in and walk out. I've got all the arrangements made, we'll—"

  The room flashed with a brilliant white light, as if the link, the connection between Tristan and Cyrill in this virtual space, was breaking up.

  But that wasn't the problem.

  Another flash, and suddenly a new link, a new connection ...a new presence.

  Amazing! Someone was invading Cyrill's ice house—breaking through Kaze Glom's best intrusion countermeasure electronic fences, and kicking down the virtual door.

  Tristan stared in awe as the new entry's holoimage took shape. The points of light coalesced into the form of an old woman dressed in a shabby robe, with a shawl over her head, looking like a pathetic beggar from the freezone.

  A beggar who could crack top-grade ICE.

  The image of the woman struggled to maintain focus. She began to speak, but the audio devolved to a scratchy hiss.

  Tristan overcame his shock and turned to Cyrill. His handler was frantically accessing his own neuronet, alerting Kaze's Electronic Intrusion Security.

  Then Tristan turned back to the woman. He sensed no hostility, no threat from her. And his initial shock turned to wonder at how she got into this supposedly secure room.

  She stared back at Tristan.

  Her voice changed from a hiss...to speech. And she was speaking to him.