He stopped. "Me?"

  "That's not clear, but considering the warehouse is a focus of activity..."

  "Yeah. Mute! A damn good bet it's me."

  With a sick feeling growing in the pit of his stomach, he began moving again, but turned left at the next corner—away from the warehouse.

  This was bad. What had gone wrong? Could have been any number of things. Whatever it was, he was cut off from his previous masque…stuck with the Lani Rouge genotype for now.

  He wished he had his wardrobe with him, or at least another writable template. All he'd have to do was swipe a few cells from somebody.

  He shook off the wishes—wishes were useless—and focused on his predicament.

  "Regis—keep tabs on Flagge Isle. Key items to monitor are mention of Lani Rouge or mime agents. Alert me immediately if either pops up."

  "Yes, m'lord."

  Tristan shook his head. The "Lordship" motif was more annoying now than ever. He wished he'd taken time to reprogram Regis before leaving this morning, but he’d been in such a damn big hurry to get out.

  He kept walking, making random turns without bothering to check his roam grid. He simply wanted to keep moving. The squat low-rise warehouse district gave way to a glistening high-rise residential area. He noticed that the orgallic look was rearing its ugly head here, as well. A fair number of the fifty-story buildings sported a metallic sheen.

  He also noticed men eyeing him along the way, and reminded himself that he now wore an attractive female body. He might have to come up with some creative ways—actually, some very old-fashioned ways—to put his good looks to use before he got out of here.

  Tristan didn't relish that prospect. He could probably expect a physiological response from this female body, but his personal orientation had always been male. And sex from a female perspective seemed so...invasive.

  Tristan heard other mimes talk about switching sexes as though they enjoyed the process, as though their orientation didn't matter.

  Not for him.

  Moving randomly, taking first this turn, then that, he eventually found himself on a residential street with deluxe orgallic compartment complexes with shiny, steely, fish-scale siding, rising sixty or seventy stories on both sides, homes for upper echelon Flagge workers.

  He was about to ask Regis to give him a map flash to fix his location but he stopped when a black cruiser took the corner, floating his way, ten meters above the street.

  Flagge Security. Looking for him?

  He had to get the hell off the street, but couldn't look like he was ducking for cover. Better to take a bold approach.

  Just a good Flagge citizen going about my business...

  The Security floater was still a hundred meters or so away, moving slowly, checking everyone and everything below it. Steeling himself, forcing his body into a relaxed posture, Tristan stepped off the sidewalk and strolled across the street. As soon as he reached the other side, he stepped up to the nearest doorway. The doors slid open, he slipped through, and ducked to the rear of the vestibule. Turning, he watched the cruiser float into view...and keep going.

  Tristan sagged against the wall. Maybe just a routine patrol. After all, he hadn't seen them stop anyone. Still, he wasn't ready to venture out on the street again just yet.

  He looked around. He'd picked an upscale residential complex. The fish-scale veneer hadn’t been carried over to the interior. At least not yet. The blond walls rippled with the swirling grain of living wood. A comfy hiding place, but how long could he hang around this vestibule before someone began asking questions?

  He stepped over to the console at the rear of the space and accessed the resident roster. If anyone passed through, he'd appear to be searching for a name. He scrolled through the list, barely paying attention as he considered his next move. Suddenly a name registered and he backed up.

  ROUGE, LANI—3242

  What?

  Tristan stared at the screen. Of all the streets, of all the residences—

  …of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world…

  —Stop it—

  —of all the doorways in giant Flagge Quarter he could have picked, he'd chosen Lani Rouge's? He didn't believe in coincidences. And this couldn't be one.

  Seep...that had to be the answer. He hadn't been paying attention to where he was going, so perhaps those supposedly random turns he'd been making hadn't been so random after all. Something in him must have responded to familiar visual cues and walked him home.

  He stepped to the rear of the vestibule and pressed his hand against the ID plate. A section of the wall slid open, revealing an upchute.

  In a residential building? he thought. I'm impressed.

  He stepped inside and let the updraft carry him. At the thirty-second floor he grabbed a rung and swung himself into the arched hallway. Empty. He walked left—it seemed the right way to go—and found 3242.

  Now what? Go in? He realized he knew nothing about Datameister Lani Rouge. Did she live alone? Was she married? Kids? Did she—?

  The soft hiss of a door opening further down the hall spurred him to action. He couldn't stand out here as Lani Rouge stupidly staring at her door—her own door—and didn't want to risk a conversation with someone who knew her. He slapped his palm against the ID plate and stepped inside.

  The lights came on as the door whispered closed behind him. A good sign. They'd be on already if someone were here.

  He did a quick explore of the compartment—no, too big to call it that. This was a full-fledged apartment. Obviously datameisters got good perks.

  And lots of other things from the looks of this cluttered mess. Every table, every counter, every corner was stacked with...things. Toys, cooking implements, artificial plants and flowers, dead real plants and flowers that had never been watered, wall decorations, helper bots in all shapes and sizes, all of them clean, well-dusted, but most still in the original containers.

  The place looked like a warehouse full of all the impulse junk sold in odd corners of the Ocean.

  All this junk struck a cord with Tristan. He’d always liked browsing the markets, trying to spot items he'd seen in the flat vids. Like Lani, he too had an affection for near-useless stuff.

  He poked the trunk of an oddly twisted miniature tree and jerked his hand back as half a dozen dead leaves fluttered free from the stiff, dry branches. He'd barely touched it.

  No sooner had the leaves landed on the carpet than something round and beige and about as big as his foot scurried across the floor, scooped the leaves into its fur, and disappeared behind a sofa.

  Tristan smiled. A moppet. A quick one too. He'd heard the new models ate and drank only once a week—and cleaned up their own droppings.

  He looked around. That explained the lack of dust—moppets couldn't move the stuff around, but they could keep the clutter spotlessly clean.

  Only one piece of furniture was unencumbered: an oversized black chair. He dropped into it and jumped as he felt its padding shift under him. He relaxed when he realized what it was. A smart chair. He let it mold to his body contours. Nice. He'd always wanted one of these. The super-comfy chair reminded him of those old TV vids, with a 'Dad' always plopping down on the over-stuffed easy chair, his adoring family gathered around him. The chair, the family, all seemed so...warm.

  He closed his eyes and luxuriated in the perfect, temperature-controlled fit of the cushions.

  After a moment he reluctantly extricated himself from the chair's warm embrace and rose to his feet. Couldn't afford to get too comfortable.

  He walked to the window and cleared the pane. The street scene below was placid.

  "Regis," he said, and his PDA appeared. "What’s the current status on that 'heightened awareness' you mentioned before?"

  "The same, m'lord. Does your lordship want me to—?"

  "Enough, Regis. Set up reprogramming."

  As long as he had a few minutes to kill, he might as well get rid of that muting English butler avatar. But what to replace it with? Maybe just the default floating head for now.

  Tristan was halfway through disabling the butler when he spotted a Flagge Security cruiser pulling up before the building's front entrance.

  He stiffened. The same one as before? He couldn't tell. Had they spotted him when he'd crossed in front of them? Or had he done something wrong in here...tripped an alarm?

  He opaqued the window and headed for the door. Lani Rouge's luxury apartment suddenly felt like a gilt-edged trap. But as the door slid open he heard voices down the hall. He let it slide shut again and ran through the apartment, his heart pounding frantically as he looked for a hiding place.

  He'd recognized one of those voices. Of course...he'd been hearing it whenever he spoke.

  Lani Rouge was coming home—with a police escort.

  He found a closet in the rearmost room—a bedroom—and slipped into one of its corners, quickly arranging the clothes between him and the door.

  Seconds later voices rang through in the apartment—male, female, neither sounding too friendly. He tried to catch the words but they were too far away. Damn the size of this place.

  He slid down the wall to a sitting position, preparing to wait.

  Something in the corner on the floor pressed against his back. He reached around and pulled it out. Spherical with a flat base. He ran his fingertips along the underside of the base until they found a switch. A hologlobe.

  Curious as to why the datameister would leave it back here, he pressed the switch. The globe glowed and the image slowly took form. A man in his mid-twenties, just about Lani Rouge's age. Friend? Lover? Brother?

  Something familiar about those rugged good looks...the blue eyes...the answer hovered just beyond his reach...drifting closer...

  Whoever he was, the image suddenly triggered warm feelings in his seep from the datameister. Warmth...love...and grief.

  And then he had it. A sudden blast of winter killed the warmth as Tristan recognized the features. He almost dropped the globe.

  That face! The same face he'd worn all morning...until he'd got to the warehouse and switched to the datameister. This was the masque Cyrill had given him. It wasn't a custom composite as he'd been told—it was a natural.

  And Lani Rouge knew him.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Tristan stood just inside Smalley’s exit.

  Lani fumed at the Flagge Security Lieutenant Garmaz. Polite on the surface, nothing but rules and regulations beneath. She’d quickly grown to dislike him.

  "So I'm a prisoner? Is that it?"

  "Not at all, Datameister Rouge. I've told you—this is protective custody. You've already been abducted once today. We do not want that to happen again."

  She wished she could see his eyes behind the shiny crimson visor that covered the upper half of his face. She was sure he knew more than he was telling her.

  "So I'm not to leave my complex?”

  “Your apartment looks comfortable enough.” His visored head swiveled back and forth. “Perhaps you can spend the time...neatening it up.”

  A supercilious Security officer. Bloaty! Just what she needed.

  Lani refused to follow his gaze. She hoped her embarrassment didn't show. Yes, her apartment was a mess. She knew that. But it wasn't dirty. She had the best moppets on the market and they kept the place spotless. She simply had so many more things than she had places to put them. If she could just stop buying things...

  But how she kept her apartment was not the business of Flagge Security.

  “What does restricting my movements accomplish? Why can't I—?”

  "You'll be guarded as well. Your building will be under constant surveillance. Anyone who isn't a tenant had better have a verifiable reason for being here."

  "Oh, so I'm not only a prisoner, I'm bait too? I won't stand for this!"

  "Stop!" Lieutenant Garmaz said, raising his hand and his voice. "I have my orders. I am carrying them out. That is all we both need to know. Good day, Datameister Rouge."

  "And good riddance," she muttered as he stepped into the hallway and rejoined the pair of red-helmeted patrolmen waiting there.

  As the door cut him from view, she heard a loud hum and then a beep from the far side. Curious, she touched the plate but the door didn't move. She touched it again, then began slapping it, but the door remained closed. They'd disabled her doorplate.

  Unbelievable! She couldn't even leave her apartment.

  Furious, she whirled and kicked at a table, missing it with her foot but catching the edge against her shin. Pain shot through it. Clutching her lower leg, she hopped around, screaming curses.

  Finally, the pain eased and she dropped into her smart chair and it gently hugged her...

  How stupid am I? she thought. Why didn't I just tell them about the mime? It wasn't Trev...it just wore his skin.

  As hard as she tried, she couldn't find an answer to that question. She'd described the three thugs who'd kidnapped her—described them down to their nose hairs. And if—more likely when—they were caught, she'd testify against them and demand maximum sentencing. They'd her trussed up, naked as the day she'd been born, and subjected her to their leering and ogling.

  But after a while, simply looking hadn't been enough. No, they decided that something a little more physical was in order. What the hell—she was dead meat anyway. That was what they'd called her: dead meat. Might as well have some fun with her.

  And then she'd sat there, sick with horror, as they'd traded drug patches and started arguing over who was going to have her first...and how good it was going to be. They’d started to untie her, but then a fight broke out—she’d bet anything they were high on Hhhelll. After some shouted threats and half-hearted pushing and shoving didn't settle it, they agreed to let a game of 30-40 decide.

  Leaving her half untied as they settled down to play, Lani had hung her head, as if asleep or deep in depression, all the while patiently working on the knots. As a second fight broke out, this one more vicious than the first, she wriggled an arm free and untied the rest of her bonds. Then, taking advantage of her captors’ Hhhelll-induced fog, she ducked behind some crates, found the mime’s discarded clothes, and ran for the door.

  One thing about living here in Flagge, you usually didn’t have to go far before running into a Security patrol. Except today, of course. By the time she'd found one and led them back to the warehouse, her abductors were gone.

  The patrol had brought her first to their unit station where she'd told them everything—except about the mime. The abduction of a datameister was no small matter, and so she'd been taken to Central Security in the Citadel, where she'd repeated her story—still leaving out the mime.

  Why? Because he'd looked like Trev?

  Truly, "looked like" didn't even come close. He had been Trev. When he'd walked in she'd thought the man she loved had come back from the dead. But only for an instant. Trev's death had been confirmed. So that could only mean that his genome had been copied and given to a mime. But by whom? And why?

  She shivered and rubbed her upper arms as she felt her skin begin to crawl. Mimes were creepy in general, but this...this biological freak becoming a dead man...all but bringing him back to life....and then becoming her.

  She'd thought that was impossible.

  She should have turned him in, should have told about the mime copying her on the spot.

  So why didn't I?

  If she had they'd now be in a frenzy looking for a mime agent instead of worrying about whether or not her abductors would try again.

  Was it because the mime had saved her life? The kidnapers had wanted to kill her—had been ready to pulse her to mush—but he'd stopped them.

  And that was one more Why? to add to her list.

  So maybe she owed the mime some sort of payback. But even if she didn't, she'd had other reasons to keep quiet. She didn't trust Security. They were almost a law unto themselves. And if they caught the mime, he'd disappear. No one would know he'd ever existed, let alone penetrated Flagge.

  Seeing him like that...moving, speaking, it was almost as if Trev were still alive.

  She needed to see that mime again, talk to him, find out where he got that copy of Trev's genome.

  She sighed. How idiotic. As if she'd ever get the chance.

  "Lani Rouge."

  She bolted from her seat at the sound—her name...her voice

  —and turned.

  A young woman stood in the center of the room, wearing the clothes Lani had put on this morning.

  Me! No—the mime. And more life-like than any mirror.

  “Seems we share more than our looks,” the mime said, hefting a hologlobe.

  Lani backed away. This...creature terrified her.

  “Wha...what do you mean? What do you want?”

  The mime held up the hologlobe. “This. The man in here. How do you know him?”

  “How do I know him?” Lani stopped and stared. “How the hell do you know him?”

  “I don't.” For the first time, the mime seemed unsure. “I thought he was a composite. I never dreamed...”

  “That he'd once been a real human being?” Lani felt her eyes sting as they filled with tears. Not now, she thought. She willed them back. She would not cry in front of this thing, this shape-stealer. “Well, he was a real human being—the best!”

  “Was? Does that mean he’s dead?”

  “Yes.” Those damn tears again. “He was killed two months ago—murdered.”

  “Was he your brother?”

  “No.”

  “Your lover, then?”

  “None of your muting business.” She looked away but knew it had to be so obvious. What was the point of denying it? “All right, yes.”

  And I miss him...no one can imagine how much I miss him.

  “I'm sorry.”

  She glanced at the mime. Her face—her own face—looked genuinely sad as it stared at Trev’s holo. Did mimes have feelings? It occurred to her she knew so little about mimes. They didn't matter in her world.