Deathstalker

Down in Wormboy Hell

Finlay Campbell fled for his life, hunted and harried, and the pack came after him, snapping at his heels. He was the Campbell now, last scion of a butchered line, and the Wolfes came after him, merciless and determined. He guided the stolen gravity sled between the narrow towers of the city center, whipping past mirrored windows at incredible speeds. Adrienne lay on the deck behind him, awash with blood, curled around the wide awful wound in her gut that was slowly killing her. The rushing wind blew tears from Finlay's eyes, and he wished he'd taken the time to steal some goggles along with the sled, but there'd been no time, no time at all.

It had been a long time since he'd last flown a gravity sled, but old memories and skills were already coming back. He grinned fiercely and slammed the craft back and forth between the towers like a raftsman dodging rocks in the rapids, squeezing every last ounce of speed he could from the straining engines. The Wolfes stuck close behind him on seven craft, baying for his blood. The occasional disrupter blast scorched past him, but at this speed the sudden twisting turns of the sleds made aiming impossible. They kept firing, though. They only had to get lucky once. Finlay snarled soundlessly, his mind working frantically for some way out, some means of escape from the hell he'd fallen into.

He'd learned to fly a gravity sled during his training for the Arena. It was really just another weapon to master; you never knew what they'd send against you next. The Masked Gladiator had to be the master of all weapons, so Finlay had shrugged and learned what he needed to know. He'd thought at the time that some day it might save his life, but he'd never dreamed of anything like this: his father and his Family dead, butchered by Wolfes, and nothing left for him but flight. He was all that remained now of the first rank of the Campbells, with no friends or allies left to call on and the enemy close behind. A House that's falling has no friends. No one wants to get involved with failure; it might be contagious. And Adrienne, his loathed and despised wife, had taken a sword in the gut while trying to defend the Clan. He glanced back at her, lying in her own blood, still somehow intermittently conscious, panting obscenities. He had to get her medical help soon, but even if he could somehow shake off his pursuers, he didn't know where he was going to take her. He was the Campbell now, and as his wife, she was as much a target as him. No hospital would be safe; there was no sanctuary that would not be violated. Vendetta has no mercy.

He swung the sled round in a sudden sharp arc, bracing himself against the pull of gravity, using the updrafts and thermals that came and went between the high towers. He looped around, gunning the motor, and found himself above a single Wolfe sled that had made the mistake of speeding just a little too far ahead of the pack. Finlay's mouth stretched in a humorless smile, a savage death's-head grin that was usually hidden behind the steel helm of the Masked Gladiator. None of his Family would have recognized him at that moment, but they would have been forced to admit it didn't look out of place on him. He moved in close behind the desperately bucking and weaving sled before him and activated his sled's weapons. Twin disrupter beams tore into the rear of the Wolfe sled. The heavy steel shielding blew apart in a shower of sparks and jagged fragments, and the Wolfes screamed as their engine suddenly cut out. The sled dropped like a stone to the ground far below, and the occupants screamed all the way down.

Finlay sped on through the forest of steel and glass towers, confident the remaining Wolfes would keep their distance for a while. Time was on their side, and they could afford to wait for the best advantage. The prey had suddenly developed teeth and claws, and they were wary now. Which was as it should be. They weren't chasing the notorious fop, Finlay Campbell. They were fighters, but he was the Gladiator and they didn't have the life-and-death experience that he had. They were too used to being aggressors, made slow and stupid by reliance on the strength that comes from fighting in packs. Finlay smiled suddenly, and his hands moved over the control panels with new confidence. Tower Shreck wasn't far, and Evangeline had an apartment there. He was reluctant to involve his secret love in his troubles, but he didn't have any choice. Adrienne was dying, and Evangeline had a regeneration machine in her apartment. He'd given it to her some time ago, and she kept it hidden for him, in case he ever needed it in an emergency.

He had his own machine in his quarters below the Arena, but that was too well known, even before his current problems. There had always been the chance someone might sabotage it. The Masked Gladiator had made a lot of enemies in and outside the Arena, who would have stopped at nothing to gain revenge on him for his many wins. It came with the territory. Families who'd lost a loved one, gamblers who'd lost a fortune… So he secretly arranged for another regeneration machine to be delivered to Evangeline Shreck's apartment as a backup. Just in case. No one would think to look for it there, because no one knew about him and Evangeline. No one could ever know. Whatever happened, she had to be protected. He scowled unhappily as he realized what that meant. He would have to kill or shake off all his pursuers before he could head for Tower Shreck. But on the other hand, Adrienne's time was running out. If he didn't get her help soon, it would be too late.

He swore dispassionately. He couldn't do it alone, and there was only one person he could think of who might help him. Someone who had every reason to hate his guts. He patched into the sled's comm unit through his implant and entered a number he hadn't thought to use again anytime soon.

"This is Finlay Campbell, last survivor of the first rank of the Family. I invoke Clan loyalty, blood to blood. Can you hear me, Robert?"

There was a long pause, and then a dry voice was suddenly in his ear. "This is Robert, and you've chosen a hell of a time to get in touch."

"I'm sorry. I know you're still in mourning over Letitia."

"Mourning be damned, I haven't got the time anymore. Everything's gone to hell here. The whole Family's under attack. Wolfes and Campbells are fighting it out in the streets, down to the most remote cousins. I'm barricaded in my own home. The Wolfes have declared full vendetta: a death sentence on every Campbell, down to the last man, woman and child. They're firebombing our businesses, attacking our houses; I'm trying to put together some kind of resistance, but they caught us with our pants down and tangled round our ankles. Luckily I made some friends in the military, and they're helping out. The authorities are just standing back and watching. They won't get involved in Family quarrels. Bottom line: we're outnumbered, caught unprepared, and a lot of us are dead. What's your position, Finlay? And who's the Campbell now?"

"Currently, I'm running for my life on a stolen gravity sled, with Wolfes right behind me yelling for blood. I'm the Campbell now, if anyone is. All the others are dead. Any chance your people could help, if I could get to you?"

"Negative. We're surrounded on all sides. You're on your own, Finlay."

Finlay laughed briefly. It was a hard, cold sound. "Nothing changes. All right, listen to me. I've got Adrienne with me, and she's badly hurt. I'm taking her to Tower Shreck. I know someone there who'll help her. Don't ask questions; there isn't time. I'm going to leave Adrienne there, with Evangeline Shreck, and then go to ground. With me gone, the last of the first rank, you should be able to sue for peace. The Empress won't allow a full vendetta for long. She doesn't want any single Family getting that powerful. In the meantime, I need you and your people to break out, get to Tower Shreck and protect Adrienne until she's ready to leave. I know that's asking a lot, but I'm not asking for myself. Will you come?"

"I'll try," said Robert. "She was good to me. Can we expect much help from the Shrecks?"

"I very much doubt it."

Robert laughed briefly. "Don't want much, do you? Where are you going?"

"Damned if I know. Going to find a hole and pull it in after me. I'll have to disappear for a while. That means you'll be the Campbell. I don't know what kind of Family you'll be heading after the dust has settled, but remember: do whatever you have to do to protect and preserve the Clan. Make a deal with the Wolfes, promise them anything. There'll be time for revenge later."

"I'll do what I can." Robert sounded tired but amused. "Ironic, isn't it? Me, as the Campbell? After what happened at the wedding, I was ready to divorce myself from the Family, take a new name and give my life entirely to the military. But I can't do that now, can I? There are too many people who are going to be depending on me. The Family has me in its bloody clutch again. All right, Finlay, I'll talk to some of my friends in the military. See if they can get me safe passage through the chaos in the streets. I'll be there as soon as I can."

I inlay's implant went dead, and he chewed thoughtfully on the inside of one cheek. Not as much help as he'd hoped, but more than he'd expected or had any right to. The Family had not treated Robert well. Finlay smiled slightly. Hopefully Robert would treat the Family rather better now that he was the Campbell. He looked over the sled's control panels, and then looked away, satisfied he was still squeezing every ounce of speed he could out of the straining motor. He knew he couldn't keep this up for long. Gravity sleds weren't designed with this kind of abuse in mind. He shrugged mentally. Either the sled would hold together, or it wouldn't. It was out of his hands, and he couldn't afford to worry about it anymore. He had to think.

So, if he could just get Adrienne safely to Evangeline at Tower Shreck, he might find a way out of this mess yet. He glanced back over his shoulder. The Wolfe sleds were still hanging back, wary of him. They were easily within disrupter range, but at the speeds they were all traveling now, the chances of a hit were extremely low. And besides, if they missed, the odds were they'd end up slaughtering innocents in some nearby tower, and the claims for damages from the wounded Families would be enormous. Even so, the Wolfes wouldn't hold off much longer for fear of losing him, and there was no way they'd leave him alone till he reached Tower Shreck. Finlay grimaced unhappily. He had to deal with them now, while he still had the advantage of surprise. And he had to make it quick, for Adrienne's sake.

He'd already decided what he was going to do while he was talking to Robert. It was risky and dangerous and depended far too much on luck and bluff, but it was all he had. He bent over the controls before he could talk himself out of it, and turned the gravity sled around in a tight arc and sent it hammering toward the steel-and-glass face of the nearest tower. He braced himself as the wall loomed up before him like a great gleaming flyswatter. Beyond the illuminated windows, he could see people jumping to their feet and pointing. Some turned to run. Finlay drew his gun and fired at the growing expanse of window.

The heavy steelglass shattered as the energy beam tore through it, blasting lethal fragments through the office space beyond. People fell, spurting blood, and did not rise again. Finlay didn't have time to care. They were innocents, but they weren't Family. He steered the sled through the great jagged opening in the tower face, then hit the brakes for all he was worth. The sled shuddered to a halt halfway across the long office floor, almost throwing Finlay off. He hung on desperately. Adrienne's unconscious form rolled forward to press against the backs of his legs.

He leaned on the controls for a moment to get his breath back. His arms and legs were shaking from shock and reaction, and he ran through the calming chants the previous Masked Gladiator had taught him. In the Arena, control was everything. People were crying and screaming all around him, but as yet there was no sign of any security guards. He turned the sled around so that it was facing toward the gaping hole in the window. The Wolfe sleds had slowed to a halt well back from the shattered window and were hovering outside the tower, watching cautiously to see what he'd do next. They didn't seem too worried. After all, there was nowhere he could go now. He'd trapped himself. Finlay's death's-head grin stretched across his face again as he reached down into the top of his boot and drew out the small slab of explosive he carried there. Ever since he became the Masked Gladiator and acquired so many enemies, he'd always known that someday his true identity might be revealed, and he'd have to fight his way out of an impossible situation. Hence the explosive, for a last resort. Finlay had always believed in being prepared, in and out of the Arena.

He slipped the explosive into his belt, where he could get at it easily, and grinned out at the Wolfe sleds, daring them to come in after him. After all, he was only Finlay Campbell, the notorious fop. What could he know about tactics and traps? The Wolfes held a brief conference, and then one sled nosed slowly forward. They knew it had to be a trap, but they couldn't see how. Finlay grinned till his cheeks ached. Keep coming, you bastards. Just a little closer… The sled drifted in through the break in the window, giving the jagged shards plenty of room, and then moved on into the office. Finlay hit the controls, and his sled jumped forward. The Wolfes fired their sled's disrupters, but Finlay's sled was already upon them. The two hulls slammed together, sending the Wolfes staggering. Finlay had braced himself, and his hand was perfectly steady as he raised his gun and shot the Wolfe pilot. The energy beam tore right through the Wolfe's chest and threw the burning body over the side of the sled. The remaining Wolfes grabbed for their guns, but Finlay had already jumped onto their sled and was among them, sword in hand. He cut and hacked with his blade, trading skill for speed, and blood flew on the air. The Wolfes couldn't fire for fear of hitting each other, and there wasn't room or time to draw their swords. They fought back desperately anyway, but they had been caught unprepared, and he was the Masked Gladiator. They never stood a chance.

Finlay cut down the last man with cold efficiency, kicked the body over the side, and then sheathed his sword. The Wolfes on the other sleds were rushing forward, shouting their anger and outrage. Disrupter bolts shot past Finlay. He grabbed the slab of explosive from his belt, slapped it against the deck of the sled so it would stick, and activated the timer built into it for a twenty-second fuse. Then he turned the Wolfe sled around and sent it back toward the approaching craft. Fifteen. He timed his moment carefully, and then jumped off. Ten. He hit the floor hard and rolled behind a heavy desk. Five. The sled slammed into the midst of the Wolfes and blew apart in a gush of flames. The other sleds exploded as their drives ruptured, and for a long moment the office was full of jagged metal shrapnel raining down, interspersed with wet, soft parts of what had once been their crew. A fireball blazed briefly in the confined space, but quickly ran out of air and collapsed.

Finlay huddled in a ball beneath his sheltering desk, hands pressed tightly to his ears against the overpowering roar of the explosion. He slowly lowered his hands as he realized a silence had fallen, uncurled and cautiously raised his head to look about him. Fires had broken out all across the office, with desks burning fiercely here and there like so many warning beacons. Dead and injured lay to every side, some of them burning quietly. Finlay didn't spare them more than a glance. He didn't know them. Adrienne was all that mattered now. He saw a red light flashing over a door and wondered why the alarms weren't sounding. He slowly realized from the utter silence around him that they probably were, but he couldn't hear them. The blast had temporarily deafened him. At least, he hoped it was only temporary. He didn't need another problem.

He rose painfully to his feet and stumbled toward his own sled, still hovering where he'd left it. Burning fragments sputtered on the deck around Adrienne, but she seemed unhurt. Finlay brushed the fragments off the deck with a sweep of his arm and climbed aboard. It was growing uncomfortably hot in the office as the fires spread, and his bare skin was beginning to smart from the heat. The office should have invested in sprinklers. For a moment that struck Finlay as wildly funny, and he giggled helplessly before pulling himself together. He looked down at Adrienne. The deck was slippery with her blood where it hadn't burnt, and her hands were wet and crimson where they tried to hold her guts together. Her face was worryingly colorless, but she was still breathing shallowly. Finlay eased the sled forward and out through the break in the window, and headed for Tower Shreck.

Evangeline was getting ready for bed, even though it wasn't late. Daddy was coming over for one of his little visits. He'd contacted her just a few minutes before. He never gave her much warning, so she wouldn't have time to think up excuses, but he liked her to wait a little before he arrived, so that she could think about what was coming. So she sat in her long white nightdress before her dressing table mirror, listlessly brushing her hair and thinking about killing herself. She knew she wouldn't. She had so much to live for, apart from Daddy, and it would hurt Finlay so very much. The mood would pass, as it had so many times before, but for a moment it was comforting to think of ending it all and not having to worry anymore. She wouldn't have to worry about being revealed as a clone, or a member of the underground, or seeing Finlay die in the Arena, or suffering through another of Daddy's little visits ever again, and that would feel so good, so good…

She sighed and put down her hairbrush and looked at it for a moment as though it was some foreign object, unknown to her. How could she be brushing her hair, such an ordinary, everyday thing, when her life was such a nightmare? Apart from Finlay, of course. His love was all that held her together now, when even the fires of her passion for the underground sometimes ran cold. He gave her the strength to go on, even in the face of Daddy and his clammy-handed love.

He didn't come to her every night. Sometimes a whole week could go by without his honoring her with his presence. Gregor Shreck, smiling, sweating, lying beside her in her bed, talking smugly, calling her by her mother's name. She had never told Finlay, never even hinted at it. He must never know. At best he would have challenged Gregor to a duel and killed him, and then Finlay's secret identity and her secret status as a clone would both be revealed. At worst, he might not look at her in the same way again, once he knew who else shared her bed.

It was in Gregor Shreck's best interests to keep everything secret For cloning his dead daughter he'd get a fine and a reprimand, but incest was severely frowned on in high society. Genetic engineering had taken the biological dangers out of inbreeding, but it was still a taboo, if only because the aristocracy liked to have some rules that even they couldn't break with impunity. After all, incest was such a tacky crime. If society found out about Gregor and her, no one would punish him, but no one would speak to him, either. They'd send him to Coventry, in and outside his Family, and that would be worse than death to an aristocrat.

Of course, if they found out he'd murdered his wife and his original daughter… Evangeline sighed tiredly. So many secrets in one Family. Her comm implant activated suddenly, and she sat up straight before her mirror. She'd shut down all the public channels, and only one man apart from her father knew her private code.

"Evangeline, this is Finlay. I'm in trouble. Can I come to you?"

"Of course." It never even occurred to her to say no. "Where are you?"

"Right outside your window. Open up, will you? It's cold out here."

She jumped up and ran over to the window. The drapes rolled back at her quick gesture, revealing a blood-spattered Finlay standing on a gravity sled hovering on the other side of the steelglass. Even with the surprise of his arrival and the shock of his condition, her first thought was still to wonder how he'd got past Tower Shreck's security. He should have set off any number of alarms just by being there. Even with her beloved Finlay, she was still a Shreck. She deliberately pushed the thought aside and hit the emergency controls in the window surround. The great pane of steelglass swung open, and Finlay guided the sled forward into her room. The sled took up a hell of a lot of space, even hovering an inch or so above the floor, and Evangeline had to squeeze past it to shut the window again.

"Don't worry about security," said Finlay as he stepped down from the sled. "I've got a little device that takes care of things like that. It's part of what helps protect my secrets. Security won't know I was ever here."

Evangeline seethed impatiently, a dozen questions on her lips, but they died stillborn as she saw the blood spilling off the sled and onto her thick carpets. At first she thought he'd been badly hurt after all, but then her eyes fell on the huddled form lying on the deck of the sled, and her heart nearly stopped when she recognized who it was: Adrienne Campbell. Possibly the woman she hated more than anyone, except her father. And Finlay had brought her here.

Finlay picked up his wife with a strained grunt, which more than anything showed how tried and drained he was, and carried her over to Evangeline's bed. He lowered her carefully onto it, then sat down beside her. The last of his strength seemed to go out of him then, and his chin dropped onto his chest as his shoulders slumped. Somewhere in the back of Evangeline's mind she was wondering how the hell she was going to get all that blood out of her carpets and bedclothes without hiring a dozen new maids, but she made herself concentrate on what was important. Finlay needed her help. She moved quickly over to the drinks cabinet, poured out a large brandy and brought it to him. She had to push the glass into his hand and encourage him to drink it, but the brandy quickly put some color back into his cheeks, and his eyes cleared. Evangeline knelt down before him, her knees squelching in the bloody carpet.

"What's happened, Finlay? Did you kill her?"

"No! No, it was the Wolfes. She's dying, Evie. I have to save her. Do you still have the regeneration machine?"

"Of course I do, but…"

"I know. But I can't let her die. Please, Evie."

"All right. Because you ask."

She got to her feet, moved over to the dressing table and dragged it to one side. She activated the hidden controls by hand, carefully punching in the correct code, and part of the wall slid up as the regeneration machine rolled out. Gregor wasn't the only Shreck with secrets. She opened up the long narrow device, thinking it looked even more like a coffin than usual, and pushed it over beside the bed. Finlay picked up Adrienne very gently, ignoring the blood that coursed down his front again, and lowered her into the regeneration device. It closed over her like a grave, and that was that. Her fate was in the hands of the machine now, and all he could do was wait and see. Finlay sat down on a nearby chair like a puppet whose strings had been cut, and Evangeline stood before him, her back straight, her mouth a cold flat line. She didn't need to say anything.

Finlay took a deep breath. "Adrienne and I are the only survivors of the first rank of the Campbells. Everyone else is dead. The Wolfes wiped us out. They declared full vendetta and ambushed us in our own tower. They're after me too, but I shook them off. I shouldn't have come here, but I didn't know where else to go."

"Of course you should have come here," said Evangeline. "No one can hurt you now you're with me. I'm just glad you escaped. Oh, Finlay; your whole Family?"

"Yes. Only the minor branches and the distant cousins remain now, and the Wolfes are out in the streets, hunting them down. Clan Campbell is finished."

"And Adrienne, what happened to her? Why did you bring her here?"

"Kid Death stuck her when she tried to save my brother. I'll kill him for that someday. Her only hope was the regeneration machine I left here with you."

"But why bring her here at all?" said Evangeline flatly. "Why not let her die? She's always come between us, and you said you never loved her. This is our chance, Finlay. All we have to do is switch off the machine and wait. Don't look at me like that. You don't know how hard it's been for me, alone, without you. You don't know."

"I can't just let her die," said Finlay. "She doesn't deserve that. She fought so bravely. And as for you and me, there's a price on my head now that Clan Campbell's been all but destroyed. We can never be together in society, like we'd hoped, because I'm not a part of society anymore. The minute I show my face in public, I'm a dead man. Robert will be the Campbell now, and all he can do is try and salvage as much of the Family as he can. He can't help me. He daren't. He might be able to save Adrienne, if she survives. He's on his way here with help. My only chance now is to become an outlaw, go underground. You always said you wanted to be with me, no matter what. Do you still feel that way? Are you willing to throw everything away, give up wealth and station to be an outlaw with me? Will you come down into the underground with me?"

She sat down beside him and held him as tightly as she could. "Of course I will, Finlay. You're all I ever wanted."

They sat together for a while in silence, holding each other, and then the regeneration machine made a series of imperative noises. Finlay and Evangeline got up reluctantly and went over to look at the readouts. Finlay nodded slowly, and Evangeline kept her face carefully blank.

"She's in bad shape, but the device has stabilized her," said Finlay. "It's going to be some time before the machine's finished with her, and we can't wait that long."

"You said Robert was coming here?"

"With a few friends from the military. They'll look after her and keep her safe."

"Tower security won't let him in. Daddy's been even more paranoid than usual just recently, after the… incident at the wedding. His guards have orders to shoot anyone who tries to get to me that isn't a Shreck. You said you had a device…"

"It's an implant. Nothing I can pass on to Robert. Someone has to stay with her, Evie. I can't just abandon her. She deserves better than that."

"All right! Let me think." Evangeline wrapped her arms tightly around herself and paced up and down. "There's… more going on here than you know, Finlay. There are things I never told you. Things about me."

Finlay smiled. "I know all I need to know."

"Shut up, Finlay. You don't understand. I had to keep this secret, even from you. I'm a clone, and a member of the underground." She saw the look that came over his face, and wouldn't let herself look away. "The original Evangeline died in an accident. Daddy couldn't bear to live without her, so he had me cloned. Secretly. Don't look at me like that, Finlay. Please. I'm still the same person I've always been."

"Are you?" said Finlay. "I don't know anymore. I don't know anything anymore. How long ago did all this happen? Is the woman I originally loved dead? Have I been loving a copy ever since?"

"No! It happened long before we ever fell in love. There's only ever been you and me."

"How can I be sure of that?"

"You can't. You have to trust me."

"How can I, after this? I told you everything about me, even about the Masked Gladiator. And you kept this from me."

"I had to! I knew you'd react like this."

"What else have you been keeping from me?"

"Nothing! There's nothing else, Finlay. Nothing at all."

They stood for a long moment, just staring at each other. When Evangeline finally spoke again, her voice was as calm and steady as she could make it.

"We can't stay here. I can take you down into the underground. They'll accept you if I vouch for you. The Wolfes can't follow you there. You'll be safe. Valentine Wolfe is a member of the underground, too."

"So he could still come after me there. I'd be walking into a trap!"

"No. The underground wouldn't permit it. We have very strict rules about inner conflicts. We have to, or we'd never get anything done. When you come to the underground, you leave your other life behind. We could start again, Finlay. Start afresh."

"All right," said Finlay. "All right. I can't think about all this now. We'll talk some more later, assuming we have a later. What are we going to do about Robert? He's going to be here soon, with a small army of his military friends, to look after Adrienne. Your father's guards will try to stop him, and I don't think he'll be in any mood to take no for an answer. He'll fight, and there's been enough killing already. How can we get him in here? Can you override your father's commands? Will his people take orders from you?"

"No. Daddy doesn't trust me with important decisions."

"Then you'll have to talk to him. Call him and ask for help."

Evangeline looked at him steadily. "You don't know what you're asking, Finlay."

"I'm asking the woman who said she loved me for help. I know you and your father don't get on, but… look, this isn't for Adrienne. It's for me."

"All right," said Evangeline. "I'll do it for you."

She hugged herself tightly, so she wouldn't fly apart, and then made herself let go. Like so many times before, she had to be strong. She moved back to her dressing table and sat down, automatically adjusting her nightgown so that it fell appealingly about her. She had to look her best for Daddy. She activated her comm unit and called her father's private number. Her dressing table mirror shimmered, then cleared to form a viewscreen. Evangeline adjusted the focus so that only her head and shoulders would be seen. The screen blinked, and there was her father, sitting at his ease. He was dressed in a long flowing gown that did nothing to hide his bulk. He frowned slightly as he saw who was calling him, and his deepset eyes almost disappeared into the bulging fat of his face.

"Evangeline, my dear, I told you I'd be with you soon. Feeling impatient, are we?"

His voice was as fat and loathsome as he was, but she kept her face clear and serene. "I need your help, Daddy. Adrienne Campbell has turned up at my apartment, begging for help. She's the only survivor of a Wolfe attack on her Family. She's injured, and quite desperate. I allowed her to call one of her minor cousins for help, and he's on his way here with a few friends to protect her. I need you to tell the tower guards to let them in."

The Shreck raised an eyebrow. "I wasn't aware you and Adrienne Campbell were friends."

"We're not close. She's a Campbell, after all. But I don't think she had anywhere else to go. Besides, I never liked the Wolfes. They've always been very rude to you."

"Yes, they have, haven't they? But I don't know, darling. You're asking a great deal. Nothing good will come of interfering in a vendetta, and the Wolfes do seem to be winning. With the Campbells destroyed, the Wolfes will be in a very powerful position, and only a fool makes enemies he doesn't have to."

"I'm asking you this as a special favor, Daddy."

"Really, my dear?" The Shreck leaned forward in his chair. "And just how grateful is that?"

"I'll wear that special outfit you like, and we can do all the things together that you like to do. I'll be your loving, obedient daughter."

Gregor Shreck smiled. "Of course you will, my dear. Very well, I'll give orders to let the Campbell pup in. But you're going to have to be very nice to me for this, Evangeline."

"Yes, Daddy. I know."

She cut off the commlink and her father disappeared, replaced by her own face in the mirror's reflection. Evangeline looked at the cold determined face for a long moment and didn't recognize that person at all. That wasn't her, not the real her. But then, she'd had to do so many things that weren't really her. She turned away from the mirror and looked at Finlay dispassionately. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, staring down at his clenched hands, lost in thought. He was soaked in blood, some of it his own, but he'd never even mentioned his own wounds. He'd never know what his favor had cost her, what she'd had to promise. He must never know. If he did, he'd throw away his own life to kill her father, and she couldn't allow that. She needed him too much. But she wondered if she'd ever feel quite the same about him again.

"What are you thinking about?" she said quietly.

"My Family," he said, without looking up. "They're all dead. I miss them. My father's dead, and I never got a chance to tell him about the real me. He'll never know I was really a warrior, just like him. And William and Gerald are gone. They were there all my life, looking after me, being there when I needed them. Now they're all gone, and there's just me. I'm not even a Campbell anymore. I don't know what I am."

"You're the man I love," said Evangeline. "The man who loves me. I'm your life now. Or isn't that enough for you?"

He looked up at her then. "I always said you were all I ever really wanted. Seems I had to lose everything else to find out that was true, after all. I love you, Evie; never doubt it. But I loved my Family, too, and a part of me died with them. The rudder of my life has gone, and I don't know what to do."

Evangeline got to her feet. "We get on with our lives.

You'll find a new purpose in the underground. I did. Now let's get moving. I think it would be best if we were both long gone before your cousin arrives with his private army."

Finlay frowned. "You mean just leave Adrienne in the machine? Won't your father wonder what it was doing here?"

"I'll think of something plausible to tell him. Now let's go, Finlay. We've done all we can here."

Finlay nodded and got up off the bed. "You're right. I'm just putting it off, you lead the way, Evie, and I'll follow."

Evangeline smiled. "That's what I like to hear from a man." She stepped past the dressing table, and a light switched itself on, revealing a concealed elevator. "This was originally intended as an emergency fire escape. Some cyberat friends deleted its presence from the main files, and now only I know of its existence. It'll take us down to the subbasement. No one ever goes there. That's why no one's ever found the hidden tunnel that leads down to the subsystems below the city. You're not the only one with secrets, Finlay. It's a safe route to the underground. I've used it many times. Now come with me. Unless you'd rather stay with your wife."

Finlay moved over to join Evangeline. He started to put out his arms to hold her, but stopped as he saw the coldness in her unyielding face and stance. He let his arms fall back to his sides. "I'm sorry. I know what this is doing to you, to us. But I couldn't just abandon her and let her die. It's a matter of Family honor, even if the Family no longer really exists. I never loved her, but I did admire her. She was never afraid to be strong, to say what she felt and let the consequences fall where they may. She was always honorable in her way."

"And you put your Family honor before us and our future together?"

"What about your honor and your Family? We could have just left and let Robert and his people fight their way into the tower, but you couldn't allow that. You'd rather make a deal with the father you detest than let armed men from another Clan run loose in your Family home. It would have been wrong, and you knew that. Please, love, don't let's argue anymore. Let's just go. There's nothing keeping us here now."

She nodded briefly, because she didn't trust herself to speak, and led the way into the elevator. The doors slid silently shut behind them, and Evangeline hit the down button with her fist. The elevator began its descent, and for the first time Evangeline relaxed a little. They were committed now.

"There's a place along the way where we can get fresh clothes," she said, looking straight ahead at the closed doors. "Neither of us are in any state to meet people. Are you badly hurt anywhere? There'll be first aid stuff there, but that's all."

"I'm fine," said Finlay. "I heal quickly."

Evangeline looked at him. "Another implant?"

He shrugged. "Something like that. You need every advantage you can get in the Arena. The regeneration device can work miracles, but you have to live long enough to reach it."

"The dressing table will move itself back into position. There'll be no trace to show where we've gone. Daddy will be surprised when he finds I'm not waiting for him, but by then your cousin should have gotten to Adrienne."

"How angry is he likely to be?" said Finlay.

"Very. Can your cousin handle a little pressure?"

"Oh, yes. Robert's a lot tougher than he used to be, poor fellow. What will your father say when you do finally go back?"

"I don't know if I am going back. You're going to need me in your new life with the underground. And dear Daddy can go to hell. I would have disappeared into the subsystems long ago, if it hadn't been for you. And if I hadn't been such a useful contact for the underground. I think that part of my life is over now. Whatever happens from now on, we'll be together. And that's all that really matters."

She still didn't look round, but her hand was in just the right place to receive his when he reached out to her.

They stood comfortably, companionably together as the elevator sank into the depths. The doors finally opened out onto the subcellar, a dark and dank empty concrete box littered with junk. Evangeline led Finlay to another hidden door, and they made their way through narrow tunnels into the undercity, the interconnecting subsystems where the underground had dominion. Evangeline usually felt a surge of freedom and pleasure on the downward journey, as she left her Family self and obligations behind her, but it was muted this time. For all her brave words, she knew she'd have to return to Tower Shreck at least once more, to keep her promise to her father. If she didn't, if she just hid herself away in the subsystems forever, as she wanted, he'd take an awful revenge on Adrienne and Robert and all the lesser Campbells he could reach. She'd seen his rages before. No one ever crossed the Shreck and got away with it. And it wasn't such a hard price to pay. She'd paid it often enough before. The first time, she'd thought she'd kill herself, but she didn't. She wasn't that strong. Finlay must never know. For his own good.

And perhaps someday she'd be able to make a fresh start with him in the underground, safe from her father's reach. She smiled tightly. She had so much to live for now. Finlay, the underground, and perhaps someday a chance for revenge—

Finlay looked around the meeting place with interest. An abandoned workstation by the look of it, bristling with half-repaired, obsolete equipment. Dangling cables hung from the high ceiling, and battered viewscreens lined the walls, hissing with static. Evangeline had said he'd be meeting the esper leaders here, so that they could check him out, but as yet there was no sign of them. There was no sign of anyone, and Finlay didn't blame them in the least. The place was a dump, and filthy beyond belief. He had a strong suspicion he was in danger of catching something unpleasant just by being there. If this was typical of the subsystems, he'd have to think twice about staying. There were limits, after all.

And then the esper leaders appeared suddenly in the chamber before him, and for a moment his poise vanished as he stared with open eyes and mouth. He realized he was gaping, and pulled himself together. He had a strong feeling a good first impression was going to be important. Remember the code of the aristocracy: dignity at all times. He hoped no one had noticed his lapse.

"Don't worry," said Evangeline quietly beside him. "Everyone does that the first time they see the leaders."

Finlay didn't blame them. A waterfall splashed down from high above, gurgling and splashing. An abstract pattern folded in upon itself endlessly. A giant hog with bloodstained tusks glared at him with tiny crimson eyes. And a ten-foot woman wrapped in shimmering light looked down on him with cold disinterest. Evangeline had warned him that the leaders hid their true identities behind illusions for security reasons, but he hadn't expected them to seem so… real. He swallowed hard, and held his head high.

"Interesting friends you have, Evie," he said brightly. "Usually to see something like this I'd have to ask Valentine for something from his private stash."

"Shut up, Finlay," Evangeline said quietly, forcefully. "You're here under sufferance. The underground has no use for the Families. They've seen too many good men and women killed by the powers that be for daring to struggle to be free. The only reason you weren't shot on sight was because you were with me. And they're not always that happy about me. Now be quiet, and let me try and put in a good word for both of us."

"I am an outlaw now," said Finlay. "That means they have to take me, doesn't it?"

"No," said the hog. "It doesn't." Its voice was deep and harsh and seemed to echo on in Finlay's bones. "There are always spies and traitors, seeking to destroy us from within."

"And what happens to them?"

"I eat them," said the hog.

Finlay decided to let Evangeline do all the talking. He put on a respectful face while she talked to the leaders and carefully kept his hands away from his sword and gun. He looked across at the few relatively normal-looking people in the chamber with him, and moved over to join them, bowing respectfully.

"I'm Finlay Campbell, or I was. Not really entitled to the name anymore, I suppose. Are you part of the underground, too?"

"My name is Hood," said the tall man with no face. "I advise."

He wore a long cloak with a cowl pulled forward. There was only darkness inside the cowl. Probably another esper, thought Finlay. He turned his attention to the three women with the same face and gave them his most charming smile.

"Don't waste it on us, stud," said the woman on the left. "We're married."

"Really?" said Finlay. "Who to?"

"Each other," said the woman in the middle. "We're Stevie Blues. Call us One, Two and Three, but don't get us mixed up. We get very short-tempered when that happens. We're really very different."

"Right," said the woman on the right, Stevie Three. "And we don't like aristos anyway."

"Not many do, these days," said Finlay. "Perhaps I can help persuade you we're not all bad."

"I doubt it," said Stevie One. "And if you say some of your best friends are clones, I may puke."

Finlay decided to take that as an exit line and moved back to Evangeline, who seemed to be summing up. Clones. Like Evangeline. He still wasn't sure how he felt about that. He kept hoping for time to think, but things kept happening so quickly. When he got up that morning, as an elder son and heir of a respected Family, he'd never thought he'd end up down here, standing helplessly by while a clone argued with espers for his life.

He'd never thought much about clones and espers before. They were just there to be used, like other things belonging to his Family. And now here he was, in love with one. Whatever else had changed, that hadn't. He'd lost his Family and his place in society, and the Empress he'd sworn to serve all his life was now his implacable enemy, but he hadn't lost his Evangeline. And in the end, she was perhaps the only one out of all of them that mattered. She was still talking eloquently to the esper leaders on his behalf, and there was no one else in the chamber to talk with, so he moved reluctantly back to Hood and the Stevie Blues. For better or worse, they or people like them were going to be his future companions, so he'd better learn to get on with them.

He was an outlaw now. Like Owen Deathstalker. Finlay wished he'd felt more concern over Owen when it happened. He understood more now. Rather than think too much about Owen's fate, and his own possible future on the run, he nodded lightly to the man with no face. In his time at court. Finlay had made polite conversation with lunatics, eccentrics and monsters of all sorts. He could handle a few disgruntled clones and an esper. And if anything went wrong with the leaders, he could always grab Evangeline and fight and shoot his way out of here. He was the Masked Gladiator, and he'd faced worse odds than this in his time. Actually, he didn't think he had, but he decided very firmly that he wasn't going to think about that.

"My apologies for our barging in on you like this," he said easily to Hood, "but life up above was getting a bit frantic. Guns firing all over the place, and assassins on our tail. You know how it is."

"Yes," said Hood. "We all do. That's why we're here. But persecution above doesn't automatically buy you acceptance in the world below."

"Right," said Stevie Three. Finlay admired her leather and chains outfit, and wondered fleetingly how Evangeline would look in it. He realized the clone was still talking and made himself concentrate on her face. Stevie Three smiled nastily, as though she knew what he'd been thinking. "Far as we're concerned, you're just another damned aristo who got his fingers burned and came crying to the underground for help."

"Not that we're entirely unsympathetic," said Stevie Two. "Any enemy of the Iron Bitch can't be all bad. But we don't take chances anymore. We've been hurt too often."

"Right," said Stevie Three.

"We don't carry passengers down here, aristo," said Stevie One. "No matter who your enemies are. What can you do for us?"

Finlay's face flushed, and anger sent his hands moving automatically toward his weapons, but he made himself stop in time. It was a fair question. They only knew him, if they knew him at all, as a notorious fop and idler. And the torn and blood-stained clothes he was currently wearing weren't exactly helping. Still, it had been a long time since he'd had to justify himself to anyone, and he had to stop and think a moment before replying. Knowing several languages and which fork to use first wasn't going to be much help here.

"I'm a fighter," he said finally. "Any weapons, any odds. And I'm the best you'll ever see."

The three Stevies waited, and then smiled slightly as they realized he'd said all he was going to say. Hood chuckled softly. It wasn't a pleasant sound. "You may get a chance to prove that, Campbell. And sooner than you think."

"What did happen to your face?" said Finlay. "Cut yourself shaving?"

Hood turned away without answering, but all three Stevies smiled. Hood came to a halt beside Evangeline and broke into her speech without apology. "The Campbell is a complication. Valentine Wolfe is his enemy. The last thing we need is a blood feud in our midst Particularly when so much is happening. Send him away."

"He comes to us in need," said the waterfall. "Just as you did once. And he at least has shown us his face and told us his name. Shall we not show him the charity that was shown you? All the world above is his enemy now, as it is ours. They would kill him, as they would kill us. We accept him. Provisionally. Prove yourself, Campbell, and you will be made welcome. Fail or betray us, and we may kill you."

"Try me," said Finlay. "My sword is yours."

The giant hog nodded once, grunted explosively, and then turned its massive head to look at Hood. "You said you had a matter of importance to discuss with us. We are here. Talk."

"In front of him?" said Hood, gesturing disdainfully at Finlay. "I protest."

"He is one of us now. Accept him, as we accept you. Talk."

"Very well. For a long time now, we've been discussing various ways of freeing our fellow espers and clones held in prison and condemned to death for their rebellion. Most are held in Silo Nine, also known as Wormboy Hell. A maximum security prison, with esp-blockers by the dozen and a small army of guards. Long considered impregnable, none of our people have ever broken in or out and lived to tell of it.

"We've planned to storm it a dozen times, but we always had to call it off. Projected casualties were just too high. But information has come into my possession that changes everything. There's going to be a complete changeover of the guards this evening, at twenty-one hundred, as the prison's new security systems are installed. For a short time it's going to be sheer chaos in there, with new faces all over the place as they yank out the old equipment and plug in the new. The perfect time for us to launch an attack and free all our people rotting in Wormboy Hell. But we've got to go now if we're to take advantage of this opportunity. The authorities knew how vulnerable they'd be, so this was kept secret from practically everybody right up till the last moment. I only stumbled across it by chance. I've contacted as many of our people as I could reach, and had them prepare for action, but I can't launch an attack this big without your approval. We've got to do this. We'll never get a better chance."

The esper leaders turned to each other, and though they were apparently silent, Finlay could all but sense the telepathic arguments crackling between them. He moved in close beside Evangeline and kept his voice low.

"Fill me in, Evie. A maximum security prison just for espers and clones? How come I never heard of it before this?"

"Not many have. The Empire doesn't like to admit its conditioning fails as often as it does. Most espers and clones used to die trying to break free of their conditioning, hut an increasing number are surviving. The Empire's tried augmenting the usual mental blocks and controls with tech and chemical implants, but they kill as many as they cure, and there's always a pressing demand for more espers and clones. We're so useful. Most failures are locked away in the usual prisons until they can be disposed of. They don't bother with trials. Clones and espers are property, not people.

"Silo Nine is where they send the hard cases, the ones who fought back. Who questioned their orders or dared to think for themselves. And, of course, anyone found guilty or even suspected of being members of the underground. Officially, Silo Nine doesn't exist. Which means they can do anything at all there that they feel like. The prisoners become just so many warm bodies, used for experimentation. The Empire's always interested in improving its stock, or learning better ways to control or discipline it. We're talking about psychological conditioning, genetic tinkering, and every kind of mental or physical torture you can think of. Some of it works, much of it doesn't, but there are always more warm bodies to work with. Sometimes, the Empire works changes on them in the name of scientific inquiry. There are monsters in Silo Nine."

"And Wormboy?" said Finlay.

"He runs Silo Nine. He was human, once. Now he's become something else, though whether it's more or less than human depends on who you talk to. He has artificially augmented esper abilities far beyond anything that's ever arisen naturally. He makes the prison the hell it is and enjoys every moment of it. The suffering and despair of others makes him strong. It's because of him that no one ever leaves Wormboy Hell alive."

Finlay shook his head slowly. "I never knew any of this."

"You never asked. As long as there were always more clones and espers for you to use up as you chose, you never questioned the system that produced them. And you never asked what happened to the garbage you threw away, did you?"

"All right! I'm sorry. There are a lot of questions I never asked, but I'm asking now. I want to know. Has anyone ever tried to break into this place before?"

"No one that's lived to tell of it. Silo Nine has state-of-the-art security. Always. We've never been able to get past it before, but this could be the break we've been praying for. There's a lot of us who'd give our lives and die happy for a chance to bring down Wormboy Hell."

Finlay looked at her steadily. I thought you said I was your life. "You've lost someone to Silo Nine, haven't you? Someone close."

"Yes. We all have. She was my friend, before I was a clone and after. She helped brief me on taking over as Evangeline. The only person I could ever really talk to. They came for her in the early hours of the morning, and I never saw her again. Daddy tried to find out what had happened to her, for fear she'd talk, but even he couldn't get answers about what happens to people inside Wormboy Hell."

Evangeline fell silent, and Finlay couldn't think of anything to say. They looked across at Hood, who was talking persuasively again.

"I've managed to infiltrate some of my own people into the incoming security forces, and I've convinced some of the braver cyberats to run a jamming storm to coincide with our attack. They'll run interference while we get our people out and keep security from calling for outside help."

"All right," said the hog. "We're convinced. Set things in motion. We'll spread word throughout the esper network. You organize the clone forces. We'll begin our attack on Silo Nine in one hour from now. Get moving."

Hood nodded quickly with his empty cowl, turned away without acknowledging Evangeline and Finlay, and strode quickly out of the chamber. Finlay looked at Evangeline.

"This is all happening a bit fast for me. You're really going to launch an attack on a maximum security prison just on that man's word?"

"Of course. We trust Hood. We've been given good reason to in the past. And we've had plans for an attack for years, ready to take advantage of any opportunity that arose.

We've dreamed of this for a long time, Finlay. A lot of blood debts are going to be settled today."

"But what if it all goes wrong?"

"Then it goes wrong! We can't miss out on a chance like this; it might not come again for decades. You can't conceive what it's like in that hellhole, Finlay. None of us can."

"That's not strictly true," said the abstract pattern in a cool, expressionless voice. Looking at it too closely made Finlay's head ache, so he looked at it sideways and concentrated on the voice as it continued. "We have contact with one of our people in Silo Nine. She volunteered to be captured and sent there. We spent some time preparing her so that she would appear to break under their interrogation, but still keep the deepest part of herself free and separate. We can listen in, but we can't speak to her. She knew she was almost certainly going to her death, but she still volunteered, just on the chance that we might be able to make use of her. She was ready to wait for years, if need be. Have you ever cared about anything that strongly in your life, Finlay Campbell?"

"I put my life on the line every time I entered the Arena," said Finlay. "But that was just for me. I never cared about anyone except me, until I met Evangeline, and then I only cared about us. Maybe that's changing now. I don't know. I'm still coming to terms with… everything. I can't really understand what life has been like for you."

Then let us show you, said the esper leaders, and their thoughts swept over Finlay's mind like an irresistible tide of blinding light. He was torn away in a rush of thoughts and images, and all he could do was go along with it. He could feel Evangeline's presence beside him in the churning maelstrom, and that comforted him. He stopped trying to fight it and allowed the esper leaders to take him where they would. He listened, and after a while, thoughts came to him that were not his own.

Jenny Psycho wasn't her real name, but she had to give that up when she went undercover. She lost a great deal more when the Empire threw her into Wormboy Hell, but she somehow held onto her real name and kept it safe, one last secret hidden deep inside her, where her torturers couldn't find it. Not even Wormboy himself. To them, she was still Jenny Psycho, captured terrorist. Just as the esper leaders had planned, though she'd forgotten that. She'd forgotten a lot of things. It was the only way to survive.

She lay curled in a ball, naked and shivering, on the bare concrete floor of her cell. There was no furniture, or any other luxury, just four bare stone walls surrounding a space maybe twice the size of an average coffin, with a ceiling so low she couldn't stand upright without stooping. They'd dropped her in, sealed the lid shut, laughed, and then left her alone in the darkness. They dropped food and water in through a sliding vent in the ceiling, but no one ever talked to her.

Except Wormboy.

She knew she'd never be allowed out again until it was time to kill her, but she didn't know when that would be. So every time the guards came, she was afraid they'd come for her, and scrabbled back to press into a corner, as though she could hide from them. But they only dropped the food and water and went away. Sometimes it was hot and sometimes it was cold in the cell, but there was never any light. She had no idea what she looked like now, but it was probably pretty bad. She hadn't been able to wash in all the time she'd been there, however long that was. She'd tried counting the meals, but she soon lost track. There was a grille in the floor in one corner that served as a toilet, but not very well. Sometimes she heard things moving underneath it. Live things. Living off her.

Like Wormboy.

She used to scream a lot, but all that got her was a sore throat, so she stopped. She used to talk to herself, but she ran out of things to say. She still sang occasionally, as a small sign of defiance, but she was starting not to like the way her voice sounded. She smelt bad. The stench in her cell rose and fell just enough to keep her from getting used to it. She suspected that was deliberate. It was the sort of thing Wormboy would do.

They caught her easily. It seemed to her there was a reason for that, but she'd forgotten it. As a low-level esper, it had been her job to mentally test and examine babies developing in the womb to discover whether they had any trace of esp in them. If they did, they were either aborted or taken away at birth to begin a lifetime of training and conditioning. Depending on whether it was a useful kind of esp, of course. It wasn't a foolproof method, but it caught quite a few. The mothers all looked at her with the same controlled desperation, and she gave them all the same brief meaningless smile. And for a long time she just did her job, doing as she was told, as she'd been trained, but constant exposure to so many bright, innocent unsullied minds was finally too much for her. She began using her talents to conceal the babies' esp. It wasn't difficult. The esper abilities would still appear in later life, but at least that way they had a chance at a safe, normal, free life. Security found out. She hadn't tried that hard to conceal it. Defiance, perhaps, or maybe some last trace of her own conditioning. Or something else that she'd forgotten. Either way, they caught her.

And now here she was, alone in the dark with a worm in her head, down in Wormboy Hell.

Light began seeping into her cell from somewhere. A sickly yellow light that made her think of disease and decay. In it, she could see the sores and scabs on her blotched skin. The smell was suddenly thick and choking, and her stomach heaved painfully though there was nothing in it. And there in the cell with her, crawling out of the shadows in splashes of bloody amniotic fluid, came the babies. Bald and pudgy, with barely formed arms and legs, they crawled over and around her, a living carpet of unforgiving flesh. Unfinished fetuses squirmed spasmodically on the concrete floor, trying to squeeze in between her and the floor, as though trying to crawl back into the wombs from which they'd been prematurely torn.

She wanted to love them all, poor blameless innocents, but she knew what was coming next. They came from Wormboy. Teeth appeared in all the babies' mouths, sharp, jagged teeth thrusting up through torn bloody gums, and slowly, deliberately, they began to eat her alive. Jenny always swore that this time she wouldn't scream, but she always did in the end. Teeth ripped at her flesh as she screamed and screamed, and blood ran down to pool thickly on the floor. As the pain and the horror mounted, pudgy fingers began to pry at her squeezed-shut eyelids to get at the eyes beneath, and even though she knew none of it was real. Jenny Psycho screamed and screamed until her throat was raw.

Wormboy did so like his little games. And mindgames were the best fun of all.

* * *

Fat and wide and greasy like a slug, genetically-engineered to never sleep or waver in his duty, Wormboy filled an entire auditorium from wall to wall; vast acres of pale, faintly luminescent flesh that rippled and folded in upon itself. His bulk covered all the floor, and his huge distorted head pressed against the ceiling. Long tubes entered his body here and there, providing nourishment and removing wastes. He could never have eaten enough to satisfy his enormous appetite. His body's needs were taken care of by the authorities so that his mind could roam free across the prison. Wormboy's parents had been normal enough humans, but he had been designed and tampered with from the embryo onward to shape the mind and talents of the perfect jailer. He ran everything, from the computers that ran Silo Nine's security, to the guards who enforced his edicts, to the little pets that gave him access to every prisoner's mind.

Every time someone was damned to Wormboy Hell, for whatever reason, a small genetically designed and Imperially patented parasite was surgically implanted in their brain. Wormboy's worms. They blocked off the esper's powers so they couldn't use them offensively, and secreted various useful chemicals that helped to keep the espers and clones quiet and malleable. And if by some chance an esper or a clone did find the strength of will to fight off the chemicals and try to escape, the worm would fry their brain.

If his prisoners misbehaved, or held back information, Wormboy used his little pets to gain entrance to their recalcitrant minds and sent them nightmares that had all the hallmarks of reality except that you couldn't die in them, no matter how much you wanted to. Wormboy sent his horrid dreams to instruct or persuade or punish, or just for the fun of it. There was no one to tell him he couldn't, and after all, no one cared. They were going to die anyway. The worms gave him all the control he needed and were much cheaper and easier to run than hundreds of individual esp-blockers. Their designer won a major award, before he disappeared into Silo Nine to insure he never told anyone else his secrets.

Wormboy liked to go among the monsters, the malformed, horrid results of esper and clone experimentation. Too dangerous ever to be released, too useful to kill, they roared and spat in their cells, clawing at the stone walls. Human no longer, but more than beasts; wild and awful and beyond pain or fear, they defied even Wormboy's best efforts, but he never gave up on them. He swept back and forth among the specially reinforced cells, walking up and down in their minds, and they screamed and howled with a rage that shook the walls. To them, he was just one more monster among many. Wormboy laughed and laughed and laughed.

His mind roamed free among the prisoners of Silo Nine, present in every mind controlled by a worm; a slimy mental caress, a passing presence like a chill wind from a charnel house. Bringer of nightmares, vast and awful, horrid and merciless god of his own private hell.

Finlay Campbell lay curled in a ball on the floor of the abandoned workstation, shaking and shuddering. Evangeline knelt beside him, her hands cool on his feverish face, murmuring calm and soothing words. He felt sick, tainted and invaded on every level of his mind and body. Wormboy's thoughts had ripped through his mind like poisoned barbed wire, brushing aside all his defenses as he shared everything that happened to Jenny Psycho. Neither of them had known he was there, but that just made him feel even more helpless, unable to help Jenny or any of the other victims of Wormboy's rape. Finlay snarled his killer's death's-head grin, his hands clenched into fists. He would find the monster in its lair and kill it, and maybe then he'd feel clean again.

He ran through the calming chants he'd learned in the Arena, and gradually the shaking stopped. Control slipped over him again like a cool, familiar cloak, and he sat up. Evangeline hovered over him worriedly, but he managed a small smile for her.

"It's all right, Evie. I'm back. I swear to you, I never knew any of this. I never heard of Silo Nine, or Wormboy, or the terrible things they're doing there. If Parliament and the Company of Lords knew about this…"

"Many of them already do," said Evangeline. "Unofficially. They don't care, or if they do, they manage not to think about it Clones and espers aren't people, remember? We're property. The Empire made us, so it can do whatever it wants with us."

"But if the people knew; if we told them, made them understand…"

"You wouldn't be allowed to tell them. The production of clones and espers is too important to too many people. Stop the trade, and millionaires would become paupers overnight. And what would happen to the Empire, dependent on espers for its smooth running at all levels? The Empire has a vested interest in preserving the status quo at all costs. Why do you think they spend so much time and effort in portraying the underground as ruthless terrorists? I'm sorry, Finlay. This is all new to you, but we've lived with it all our lives."

"I won't allow this to continue," said Finlay. "It's wrong. It's obscene. It's against everything we're taught to believe and honor. The Families are supposed to protect their people against such abuses, guard them against horrors like this."

"Even clones and espers?" said Evangeline.

"You were right," said Finlay. 'They are people, too."

Evangeline smiled. "Welcome to our rebellion, Finlay. The attack on Silo Nine will be starting soon; will you be joining us?"

Finlay smiled back at her, and his eyes were cold as death. "Try and stop me."

Which was how he came to be padding down a narrow technician's access tunnel, gun in one hand, sword in the other, leading a small army of rebels through the interconnecting guts of the undercity. Evangeline was there at his side, a large gun looking out of place in her small, delicate hand. He had no doubt she would use it, though. She'd been there in Jenny Psycho's mind, too. Just the thought was enough to make Finlay's hands tighten around his sword and gun. He had vowed upon his name and honor to find and free Jenny, or die trying. It amused him a little to think how outraged he would have been at such a thing only a few hours earlier. A death vow over clones and espers? Unthinkable. His father would have disowned him. Or maybe not, if he'd seen what his son had seen. The Campbell had been a hard, pragmatic man, but even he would have drawn the line at Wormboy Hell. The Campbell, for all his faults and intrigues, had been an honorable man.

Finlay glanced about him, but there were only the bare polished walls of the tunnel and a ceiling so low he had to walk hunched over to avoid banging his head. There was darkness before his parry, and darkness behind them, as the fifty or so men and women moved in a blaze of sourceless light, a bright golden glow generated by the minds of the espers. Finlay hadn't known espers could do that, but he had a feeling there were lots of things he didn't know about espers. He'd begun to suspect that when early on one of the esper leaders had looked at him, and suddenly Finlay had a map in his head of the long, convoluted way that would lead him into Silo Nine. The map was still there, clear and distinct, though he'd never been this way before. It also told him he wasn't far from the first of the prison's outer defenses.

The fifty or so men and women with him (he kept getting a different answer every time he counted, because some of them weren't always there) seemed to be making a lot of noise, but Evangeline had assured him they were all telepathically shielded from detection, while cyberats were running interference on the tech security systems. The rebels were invisible, for all intents and purposes, until they began their attack. By which time they should be deep in the diseased heart of Wormboy Hell, and it would be far too late to try and stop them then.

Hood strode along on Finlay's other side, calm and confident. There was still no trace of any face in his cowl, which frankly spooked the hell out of Finlay, but Evangeline trusted Hood, so Finlay went along with it. Certainly the man showed no sign of fear or hesitation, despite the odds they'd be facing. Finlay approved of that. Among all the things a warrior needed, a cool head in a dangerous situation was right at the top.

The three Stevie Blues were striding arrogantly together some way ahead at the edge of the light, on point, in perfect step with each other, fearsome sights in their leather and chains, like young savage furies on their way to demand vengeance. Finlay would have been a little more impressed by them if he hadn't been so sure they were complete and utter psychopaths. Though that was probably just the kind of troops you needed on your side when you were playing follow the leader into hell.

There were other groups of rebels, following other routes, heading for openings in the prison's security system that Hood's people had arranged, but there was no way of knowing how they were getting on. All forms of communication, tech or telepathy, were too open to interception. Hood's plan relied on a series of lightning strikes from a dozen different directions to get in, kill Wormboy, rescue the prisoners and get the hell out before major security reinforcements could arrive to spoil the party. Publicly, Finlay approved of the plan. It had the virtue of being uncomplicated, at least. Privately, however, he couldn't help remembering his tutors' oft-repeated dictum that plans rarely survived contact with the enemy. Once the fighting started, everything tended to go to hell in a hurry. Hood seemed confident there wouldn't be much actual conflict, given the rebels' advantage of surprise. Finlay wished he felt that confident, too.

The three Stevie Blues came to a sudden simultaneous halt, lifting their guns and peering suspiciously into the gloom ahead. Stevie One looked back as the rest of the party came to a halt. At least, Finlay thought it was Stevie One.

"There's a door here that isn't on the map. It's big and solid and very definitely locked. Should I blast it?"

"Not on your life," said Finlay quickly. "We're right on the edge of the prison itself, if the rest of the map can be trusted. A disrupter blast would set off every alarm in the place, and the cyberats can only cover so much. Hood, it's your map and your plan. What do we do?"

"There's no problem," said Hood. "My people are waiting on the other side. They'll open the door."

He strode forward and rapped twice on the steel door. It slid upward, and lights blazed into the access tunnel, revealing an army of armed guards in the room beyond. Hood laughed and blinked out of existence.

"It's a trap!" yelled Finlay. "Everyone back! Hood's betrayed us!"

And as quickly as that, everything went to hell. There was a clamor of raised voices in the narrow corridor, with shouts and screams and a confused mess of orders and naked panic. Those at the rear turned to run, but a heavy steel door slammed down from the ceiling, cutting off their escape. So much for telepathic invisibility, thought Finlay. He grabbed Evangeline by the arm and pulled her behind him, putting his body between her and the armed guards ahead. He just had time to wonder why they weren't firing yet, and why they were wearing masks, when thick clouds of evil-smelling gas burst out into the corridor from concealed vents in the floor. The first breath was enough to set unprotected rebels coughing and choking. Finlay tried to back away, but there was nowhere to go.

And then a sudden wind roared through the corridor, forcing the gas back upon the guards and dispersing it as fast as it could form. The hidden vents exploded in showers of sparks and collapsed in upon themselves, closing off the gas. Esper power crackled on the air like harnessed lightning, so thick and close that even a normal like Finlay could feel it. The guards realized the gas attack wasn't working and turned their guns on the rebels. Finlay raised his arm automatically, slapping at the bracelet on his wrist to activate his force shield. The roar of energy beams was deafening in the confined space, joined with the screams of the dying and the injured as rebels fell. There was the stench of burning flesh and melting metal as energy beams tore through bodies and ricocheted off the reinforced steel walls.

They knew we were coming this way, thought Finlay. They've got us trapped in a killing field. He picked a target almost without thinking and shot a guard in the head. The top of the man's skull exploded in a shower of boiled blood and brains, and the guards around him fell back, shouting with shock and disgust. They hadn't expected any resistance. Finlay grinned savagely. When in doubt, do the unexpected. He ran forward, brandishing his sword, yelling for the others to follow him, and no one was more surprised than him when they did. Evangeline was there beside him, yelling her Clan's war cry and holding a sword like she knew what to do with it. The surviving espers and clones were right behind them, firing guns if they had them, and esper power thundered among the guards.

Swords clashed on swords as the two forces slammed together, and the guards tried to make a stand. But even savagely depleted by the unexpected ambush, the rebels were still more than a match for the guards. The Stevie Blues stood together, the same grim expression on the same faces as fire roared from their hands. Guards dropped their swords and ran screaming as their clothes and hair burst into flames. Espers picked up guards with their minds and slammed them together with deadly force. Blood flew on the air. Bones cracked and skulls collapsed under the implacable mental pressure, and some guards just stood and stared with horror-filled eyes as telepaths ripped through their thoughts with tides of fear and depression and self-loathing. And those rebels who weren't espers took their revenges with the point and edge of unforgiving swords.

Eventually Finlay looked round for another target and found there were no more left. Guards lay scattered across the floor of the chamber in awkward, blood-soaked poses, like broken dolls thrown aside by a bored child. Only rebels were still standing, looking confusedly about them, and it nearly broke Finlay's heart to see how few of them there were. Out of the fifty or so who'd accompanied him into Wormboy Hell, only nineteen remained, and three of them were Stevie Blues. He took a deep breath, turned off his force shield and flicked drops of blood from his sword. Someone would have to take charge, and it looked like it was going to have to be him. He had no real authority, but he'd spent enough time in the Arena to know that sometimes confidence is everything.

"All right, listen to me! You can bet there are more guards on the way here, armed to the teeth, even as I speak. We have to form a perimeter. Anyone with esp, find a corridor opening and guard it. Everyone else, grab a gun. Anyone you see coming this way is almost certainly an enemy, so shoot on sight. If you kill the wrong person by accident, we can always apologize later. Now move it!"

The Stevie Blues and a handful of others nodded unresistingly and hurried off. Finlay turned to Evangeline. There was a smear of someone else's blood on one cheek, and she was staring dumbly about her at the heaped piles of the dead. There was more blood spattered across her clothes, some of it hers. Finlay took her by the arm and made her turn around to face him.

"Don't blank out on me now, Evie. I need to know what you know. How many other groups of us were there in this assault?"

"Five," said Evangeline, swallowing hard and visibly trying to pull herself together.

"Can we contact them, see if they were ambushed, too?"

"They were," said a quiet voice beside them. It was a short, slightly overweight man with wide eyes and an open face. He might have looked like an accountant, if it hadn't been for the sword he held in a businesslike manner and the blood that soaked his sleeve to the elbow. "I'm a telepath. Denny Pindar. I heard most of them die."

"Then we're on our own," said Finlay. "I say the mission is officially aborted, and I further say we get the hell out of here."

"No," said Evangeline. "If we just turn and run, then the others died for nothing."

"If we try to take on overwhelming odds in enemy territory for no good reason, we'll die for nothing!"

"No good reason?" Evangeline looked at him steadily. "You swore a death oath to bring this place down, Finlay Campbell. Is your word worth so little?"

"Damn. I was hoping you'd forgotten that. You're right, as usual. But what can we do with just the handful of people we've got left?"

"Find Wormboy and kill him. He holds this place together. Without him it'll fall apart into chaos. We'll be able to free the prisoners and fight our way out of here."

"Great plan," said Finlay. "Have we got time to write our wills first? All right, let's look at the situation. Pindar, can you detect any hidden cameras or surveillance equipment here?"

The esper concentrated, then pointed at a wall decoration that looked just like all the others. Stevie One looked back briefly from guarding her corridor opening, and the decoration burst into flames. Finlay nodded his thanks.

"Evie, can we contact the cyberats? They might know more about what's going on."

"No, it was set up so that they could reach us, but not the other way round. Their comm units are specially shielded. Ours aren't."

"Then we'll just have to follow the map and hope it's not part of the trap, too." A thought struck him, and he looked at Pindar. "How come they didn't use esp-blockers against us? We'd have been dead in the water if they had."

The telepath shook his head. "There are no esp-blockers inside Silo Nine. They'd interfere with Wormboy's control. Security must have been banking on the gas and their superiority in numbers to make the difference. It did, with the other groups. They never had a chance to defend themselves. If you hadn't taken the initiative away from them by rallying us to strike first, we'd have just stood there and died like the others. We're not used to combat." He broke off, his eyes suddenly far away. "Company's coming."

Finlay looked automatically to the Stevie Blues. "Can you see anyone?"

"You won't see them," said Pindar. "They're shielded. They're battle espers."

"Oh, shit," said Evangeline. "We're dead."

Finlay glared at her. "We're not dead till I say we are. So they're battle espers—so what? We'll just stay out of their way."

"We can't," said Pindar. "They're coming from all directions."

Finlay glared at him. "Don't you ever have anything positive to say? Can we fight them?"

"If you really want to annoy them," said Evangeline. "These are espers specially trained and conditioned by the Empire to fight other espers. We can't talk to them, or reason with them, and they don't accept surrenders. They just kill and kill till there's no one left alive but them."

"There's got to be a way to beat them," said Finlay. "There's got to be a way. What about you, Pindar? Could you use your esp to fight them?"

"If I had to," said the telepath, blinking owlishly. "But they're much more powerful than any of us. And there's a lot more of them than there are of us."

"They'll only outnumber us if we stand here and wait for them," said Finlay. "So we'll go to them. God, I wish I felt as confident as I sound. Pindar, which of the approaching forces is the smallest?"

The esper thought for a moment, and then pointed at one of the corridor openings. "That way. Twenty-four espers, moving ahead of the main pack. No guards."

"Then that's the way we're going," said Finlay. "Stevie Blues, lead the way. Fry anything that moves."

"Sounds good to me," said Stevie One.

"Right," said Stevie Three.

The three esper clones set off down the corridor at a steady trot, conserving their breath. The chains on their leathers clattered loudly, like an angry chorus. Finlay hurried after them, Pindar and Evangeline on each side of him, and the rest of the party brought up the rear. It worried him that they were accepting his orders so readily; it probably meant they were still in shock. If they were going to have to fight battle espers, fighting at anything less than full strength would get them all killed. It surprised Finlay how much that mattered to him. They'd fought bravely. They didn't deserve to die. Getting soft, thought Finlay.

They pounded down the corridor, checking every opening as they passed, but there was no sign of anyone. Finlay was pleasantly surprised to note that they were still more or less following the original route on the map. If they stuck with it, it should lead them right to Wormboy. Eventually. It worried him that they hadn't encountered more guards. They must have been withdrawn to keep them out of the way of the battle espers.

They rounded a corner, and then the Stevie Blues skidded to a halt as Pindar shouted for them to stop. The party stumbled to a ragged halt, lifting guns and swords and glaring about them. Pindar stared straight ahead, frowning harshly. Finlay moved in close beside him and kept his voice low.

"What is it? What do you see?"

"It's what I don't see. It's too quiet. Too still. There should be some background random mental noise, but there's nothing. Nothing at all." .

Finlay turned to the Stevie Blues. "Roast the corridor ahead till it glows."

Stevie One grinned. "My kind of plan."

"Right," said Stevie Three.

A roaring wave of flames swept down the corridor as they concentrated, scorching the walls on either side till they glowed crimson. And then the fire stopped, thrown back by an invisible barrier. An esper just behind Finlay began to shake and shudder. People backed away from him as he convulsed. Blood gushed from his mouth and nose and ears. Finlay grabbed the esper by the shoulders, but the violent shaking threw him off. Evangeline pulled him away. The esper exploded into a crimson mist that filled the corridor, spattering everyone with blood and worse. Finlay aimed and fired his disrupter in one swift movement and then watched incredulously as the energy beam ricocheted off an invisible screen.

"Battle espers," said Pindar. 'Trained to perfection, conditioned beyond fear or weakness, programmed to fight to the death. Yours or theirs. The most powerful espers ever collected together. Supposedly. You'd need disrupter cannon to break through one of their force screens. And even then, you'd get better odds betting against the cannon."

"I'm getting tired of you," said Finlay. "You only ever tell me things I don't want to hear. Don't you have anything positive to suggest?"

"Yes," said the telepath. "Get them before they get us."

He stepped forward to form a line with the other espers, and they stood silently together, staring down the corridor. A group of the battle espers suddenly appeared to face them. And for a long moment, all they did was stand there and stare at each other. A trickle of blood ran slowly down from Pindar's left nostril. Another of his group began to shiver uncontrollably. More of the rebel espers came forward to face the Imperial forces. The corridor floor wrenched itself apart, splitting open in a long jagged line that shot toward the battle espers. It stopped several feet short. And that just left the Stevie Blues. They stepped forward in one simultaneous movement, brushed the hair out of their faces with the same hand, and frowned the same frown as they concentrated. Heat gathered on the air before them, savage and blistering. The walls on either side of them glowed a sullen red. The air shimmered. Beads of sweat ran down the Stevie Blues' faces, either from the heat or their concentration, and the angry blush on the steel walls began to move toward the battle espers. It got about halfway there, slowed to a crawl and then inched to a halt, no matter how hard the Stevie Blues scowled.

Finlay looked around, but the only people left uninvolved in the silent esper duel were him and Evangeline. He reached over to one of the rebel espers, took the gun from his unresisting hand and tried another shot at the Imperial espers. The energy beam faded out before it reached them, but it seemed to Finlay that it got a lot closer than the last one. He reached out for another gun.

"No," said Evangeline. "Energy weapons aren't the answer. They can control and absorb energy."

"Then what do you suggest?" said Finlay.

"The two sides are pretty much deadlocked. The battle espers are so hyped up on drugs and mental implants they'd sooner die than surrender or back off. But, with a bit of luck, that also means they're too involved with the struggle on a mental plane to defend themselves against a purely physical attack."

"So what do you want me to do?" said Finlay. "Rush over there and bang their heads together?"

"I was thinking of something a little more… dramatic." She fished in one of her pockets and pulled out a large round object. "Shrapnel grenade. Simple, effective, and extremely nasty at close range."

She pressed the stud, knelt down and rolled the grenade along the floor toward the battle espers. It seemed to move slower and slower all the time, but finally it got there. Finlay grabbed Evangeline, pulled her down and wrapped his body around hers as a shield. The explosion was deadening in the confined space, and shrapnel ricocheted off the steel walls, falling like jagged rain. An unfelt pressure in the corridor was suddenly gone, and Finlay rose unsteadily to his feet. His ears were ringing, and his balance wasn't all that it might have been. He discovered a sharp metal fragment sticking out of his thigh, looked at it dispassionately and pulled it out. The wound didn't bleed much. Evangeline stood up beside him, and he checked to make sure she was all right. She had a nasty cut on her forehead, dribbling blood down her face, but otherwise looked okay. Except that she was glaring at him.

"Will you stop grabbing me and pulling me around?" she said coldly. "I am quite capable of remembering to duck on my own, thank you."

Her voice sounded harsh but far away, as though they were both underwater. Finlay felt a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth, but controlled himself. He didn't think Evangeline was in the mood to see the funny side.

"Where did the grenade come from?" he said, finally.

"Daddy always made sure that the female members of the Family went around fully armed, after the Iron Bitch took my cousin to be a maid. I thought a gun was a bit obvious, and too easily guarded against, so I decided on a grenade. Not terribly subtle, but I suppose it shows I am my father's daughter, after all."

Finlay decided he wasn't going to pursue that point any further just at the moment, and moved among the slowly rousing espers, checking they were all right. They'd all been blown off their feet by the blast, but no one was actually dead. Several had nosebleeds or headaches, and they'd all been cut or pierced here and there by ricocheting shrapnel, but they were taking it well. Finlay took a deep breath and moved slowly down the corridor to get a better look at what was left of the battle espers. He stopped quite a ways short rather than step in the blood and gore. A few of the mangled bodies were recognizable. Most weren't. He heard footsteps behind him and looked back, expecting Evangeline, but it was Stevie Two. He recognized the different colored ribbons in her hair. She looked at the carnage unflinchingly. .

"There, but for the grace of God, go I. My sisters and I were created specifically to be the new generation of battle espers. We got away, but we had to leave a lot of friends behind. I wonder, if I looked hard enough through this mess, would I find familiar faces?"

"Best not to look," said Finlay. "Best not to know."

She nodded, turned away and walked back to her sisters. Finlay followed her back and rejoined Pindar and Evangeline.

"All right," he said brusquely. "Which way now? You can bet reinforcements are on the way, and I don't think we're up to facing down large numbers of battle espers again."

"The plan hasn't changed," said Evangeline. "Find Wormboy, kill him, free the prisoners."

"Just us?" said Finlay.

"Who else is there?"

"What about Jenny Psycho?" said Pindar.

Evangeline frowned. "What about her? We'll free her when we free the others."

"I think we need her," said Pindar. "The underground arranged for her to be brought here for a reason. She's powerful. More powerful than even she knew. She was supposed to be the key to killing Wormboy."

"We don't have time for this, and we don't have time for her," said Evangeline. "Jenny Psycho will have to wait. It's a straight run to Wormboy now. We've got to get to him before the Empire can set up extra protection."

"I think we can safely assume that happened the moment we breached Silo Nine's defenses," said Finlay. "And someone or something like Wormboy isn't going to be easy to kill. I think we should take all the help we can get."

"That's not why you want to free her," said Evangeline coldly. "She's the one you saw in your vision. You swore your oath because of her. You see yourself as the hero, rushing in to sweep her away to safety. You can't afford to let this get personal, Finlay. They're all Jenny Psychos in here. They're all equally deserving. And the best way to save them is to kill the beast that holds them captive."

Finlay frowned, thinking, and then turned to Pindar. "Can you contact her, mind to mind? Is she still open to us?"

"I don't see why not," said the telepath. "In fact, at this range I should be able to manage full contact."

He stared blankly ahead, reaching out with his mind, and his face brightened as he made contact. "Jenny, this is the underground. We're here to rescue you."

And then Jenny Psycho came fully awake for the first time, and everything changed again. Her mind ignited like a flare, bright and blinding, almost too painful to look at. The espers in the corridor clapped their hands uselessly to their ears as her voice shook like thunder in their minds. Even Finlay and Evangeline could hear her as though she was right there in the corridor with them.

I remember, I remember who and what I am. Go to Wormboy. Destroy him, I will free the prisoners.

The godlike voice was suddenly gone from their heads, and the espers slowly lowered their hands from their ears, looking at each other in shock. Telepathically deafened for the moment, they babbled at each other aloud. Finlay tried to make sense of it, but all he could make out was a name, repeated over and over. Mater Mundi. Mother of the World. Once again, Finlay turned to Pindar and Evangeline.

"All right, what the hell was that? This is something else you haven't got around to telling me about, isn't it? Who is she? Somebody talk to me!"

"Our Mother of All Souls," said Pindar, just a bit breathlessly. The most powerful telepath ever created. She founded the underground. No wonder no one was allowed to know who Jenny Psycho really was, not even her. If the Iron Bitch knew she was here, she'd nuke the whole city, just on the chance of getting her. If the Mother wants us to go after Wormboy, we are going after Wormboy. You don't argue with God when she speaks to you directly. Not unless you want to be turned into a burning bush."

"You think she's God?" said Finlay.

"Nearest local equivalent," said Evangeline. "My head feels like it's been scoured out with steel wool. She's not just a telepath, Finlay, more like a force of nature. Let's go find Wormboy. Which turning do we take?"

"Left," said Stevie Three.

It didn't take them long to get there, with the map burning in their brains like a grail. The corridors were eerily empty. There was no trace of the other battle espers anywhere, nor of any of the armed guards. The only sound in Silo Nine was their own boots thudding on the metal floors. Finlay didn't like the silence at all, and gripped his sword and his gun so tightly his hands ached. If all the other espers were being set free, the place ought to be full of the sound of it.

The floor they were moving along seemed to be mainly bureaucratic: rows upon rows of abandoned offices. The cells were much lower. The surveillance cameras still moved to follow them as they passed. Finlay had stopped the Stevie Blues blowing them up with their fire. He had a strong feeling they were going to need all the strength they could find once they reached Wormboy's lair. The cameras still annoyed him, though. What the hell had happened to the cyberats? They were supposed to be running interference and playing hell with the security systems. They shouldn't have been affected by any of the ambushes.

"Try and contact the cyberats again," he said to Evangeline.

"I've tried and tried, Finlay. There's no response."

"Well, try again."

Evangeline glared at him, but didn't have the strength to be really annoyed. "What did your last slave die of, Campbell?"

"Not making contact when I asked him. Get on with it."

She sighed and tuned her comm implant again to the cyberat's special channel. "Evangeline to the rats. Talk to me, people. What's happening?"

The voice was suddenly babbling in all their ears, almost incoherent in its haste.

"It's a trap! It's a trap! They were waiting for us in the systems, Empire AIs, huge and powerful, blazing like suns. We went blind, staring into the light. We can't find most of our people. Some are dead. We can't help you anymore. We can't help ourselves. You're on your own."

Thanks a whole bunch, thought Finlay as the voice fell silent. He looked at Evangeline. "That bastard Hood didn't just betray us, he set up a really thorough trap as well. I think we have to assume that the other esper groups are either dead or taken prisoner. We're all there is."

"No," said Evangeline. "The Mater Mundi is with us. She's all we need. You have to have faith, Finlay."

Finlay remained diplomatically silent and followed the Stevie Blues as they threaded their way through the interconnecting corridors of Silo Nine. There was still no sign of any guards, and the corridors had the quiet stillness of a jungle with its predators hidden just out of sight, waiting to pounce. They filed quickly down a narrow corridor set with featureless steel doors. Something about the doors made Finlay feel uneasy. They had the solid impenetrable look of doors that didn't open easily or too often. He looked at Evangeline.

"Any idea what's behind those doors?"

"Oh, yes," said Evangeline quietly. "This is where they keep the monsters: the espers and clones experimented on by Silo Nine's scientists. They're not human anymore, in shape or in mind. We can't rescue them. What's been done to them cannot be undone."

"All the same, we can't just leave them here to rot in their cells. Why can't we just blow open the doors, from a safe distance, and let them run loose? At least they'd have a chance to get away, and if nothing else they should keep the authorities busy."

"No. They still have worms in their heads. As long as Wormboy lives, they belong to him, body and soul. It always comes back to him, Finlay. He's the dark, rotten heart of Silo Nine. It's his dreams that breed monsters. Now come along and keep your voice down. You might wake them."

And so on they went, along corridors and down stairways, sinking deeper and deeper into Wormboy Hell. Until finally they came to a huge, featureless wall, and there was nowhere else to go. Finlay studied the map in his head, but it was definitely a dead end. Beyond the wall there was just a great empty space. And then he studied the map more carefully and frowned. For an empty hall, there were a hell of a lot of pipes and conduits and energy cables going in and out. And so he realized what he'd really known all along, but hadn't wanted to admit. They'd finally come to Wormboy's lair.

"All that space just for him?" he said finally. "How big is he?"

"The word is they're going to have to build him a new home," said Evangeline. "He's getting too big for this one."

Finlay decided he wasn't going to think about that for the moment "All right, how do we get to him? What kind of defenses has he got?"

"He doesn't need any defenses," said Pindar. "He's Wormboy. There are no guards, no high-tech security systems. Just him. And that's enough. He's the strongest esper the Empire labs ever produced, a mind so advanced as to be beyond our comprehension. Vast, unknowable, and inhumanly powerful. And possibly quite insane."

Finlay glared at him. "You're just full of good news, aren't you? He can't really be that powerful. Can he?"

"No one knows," said Evangeline. "No one's ever got this close to him before. And even allowing for Imperial hyperbole, he's got to be pretty damned amazing to run a prison the size of Silo Nine. He has continuous mental contact with thousands of minds through his worms, and he knows what all of them are thinking at any given moment. Just another reason why no one has ever escaped from Wormboy Hell."

"This gets better all the time," said Finlay. He hefted the gun and sword in his hands, but the familiar weights had lost all power to comfort him. He glared at the long featureless steel wall before him, and it stared back, giving nothing away. "Anything will die if you hit it hard enough and long enough. How do we get to him? Is there a door somewhere?"

"No doors," said Evangeline. "No windows. Wormboy isn't going anywhere. They built the hall around him and then sealed it shut. We'll have to break in."

"Great. Got any more grenades up your sleeve?"

"You don't need a grenade," said Stevie One. "You've got us."

"Never met a wall that could keep us out," said Stevie Two.

"Right," said Stevie Three.

They moved forward to stand before the great steel wall and stared at it thoughtfully. The temperature in the corridor rose sharply, and Finlay and the others backed away to a safe distance. The wall before the three espers glowed a cheerful cherry red and began to steam. It got hotter and hotter in the corridor, and slender rivulets of melting metal ran down the wall. The heat before the Stevie Blues had to be unbearable, but they stood their ground. They held each other's hands as sweat ran down their faces, and more molten metal ran down the wall. Finally the metal collapsed inward like sticky toffee, and a hole appeared. A terrible stench entered the corridor, of rotting flesh and waste products. The Stevie Blues pulled the same disgusted face and scowled even harder. The hole grew bigger, the metal running away like water, and everyone got their first glimpse of Wormboy.

Finlay edged forward, one arm raised to protect his face from the heat, and stared in sick fascination at the endless stretch of luminous flesh, pierced here and there by pipes as thick as a normal man's arm. The wounds had healed around the pipes in tucks of crumpled flesh, encrusted by trickles of escaped waste. By peering up through the widening hole, now the size of a door, Finlay could just make out one side of a vast, inhuman face. The skin was stretched inhumanly taut, so that normal expressions were impossible, but even as Finlay watched, a slow smile spread across the lower face. The lips were almost black from the pressure of engorged blood, and the huge teeth were a dirty gray. The eyes were hidden in shadow, but Finlay had no doubt that Wormboy could see them.

The Stevie Blues howled suddenly with pain and staggered back from the hole they'd made, gripping at their heads with both hands. It hit Finlay and the others a moment later, and he cried out as the flesh rotted on his bones. The pain was horrendous, swamping his thoughts. His skin grew discolored and cracked apart, revealing maggots writhing in the decaying muscles. Pus and rotting tissue fell from his arms and legs. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew this wasn't real, but his body believed it. Wormboy was playing his mindgames again.

Finlay squeezed his rotting hands around his sword and gun, though he could no longer feel them. How could Wormboy be doing this? There was no worm in his head, no access for the beast. He doesn't need one, Pindar's voice whispered in his ear. He's drawing on the collective power of all the espers he controls. Our power is nothing compared to his now. Some of the prisoners are trying to hold back, they know why we're here, but he's too strong, too strong. You're our only chance, Finlay. It's harder for him to reach you, because you're not an esper. Kill him. Kill the beast. Before our bodies really believe what they're being told and rot for real. He's winning, Finlay. He's killing us.

Finlay could dimly hear distant screams from the surrounding espers in their cells, goaded to action by the spur in their brains. They were killing their only hope, and they knew it. He almost lost track of himself in the vast sea of minds, but slowly, bit by bit, he curled in upon himself, shutting out everything else, drawing upon the ingrained disciplines of a fighter in the Arena, where to lose concentration even for a moment could mean your death. He pulled back from the brink, but still he was helpless in the grip of such power. They were all helpless, alone in the dark with Wormboy.

And then something wonderful happened. One of those minds exploded in a searing blast of light that threw back the darkness. One mind, pure and potent, reached out and gathered all the captive minds into its fold, and pulled them together in a single vast cry of outrage. Once Jenny Psycho, now fully Mater Mundi, she gave them hope and strength and bound them in a single gestalt mind, fully the equal of the Empire's greatest esper creation. But only the equal. Thousands of minds swept this way and that in the gestalt, torn between Mater Mundi's sheer power and the controlling worms hotwired directly into their brains. The prisoners were literally fighting themselves.

Finlay was there, too, snatched up into the gestalt by the sheer power of what was happening. He could feel Evangeline there beside him, somehow always just out of reach. Wormboy's power beat around him like the thunder of huge wings, grasping for him but unable to make contact. He had no worm in his brain, and more importantly he was not one man, one mind, but two. Even as Wormboy's thoughts curled around Finlay, pulling him in, the Masked Gladiator remained free, unnoticed, waiting. Finlay plunged deep into Wormboy's mind, seemingly just another small victory over Mater Mundi, another spark guttering in the darkness, but the moment Wormboy clamped down on Finlay Campbell, the Masked Gladiator was released. He sprang free, arrayed as always in his familiar armor and featureless steel helm, his sword Morgana in his hands. Wormboy sensed something was wrong, and tried to recoil, but he had already brought his killer deep into his own mind. The Masked Gladiator saw the single shining light in the middle of everything that was Wormboy's private self, his inner being, his soul, and it seemed a very small thing indeed. It was the easiest thing in the world for the Masked Gladiator to step forward, take off his helm and blow it out like a candle.

Darkness slammed down as Wormboy died, and his last fading scream was drowned out by the roar of triumph as the prisoners of Silo Nine burst out of his grasp, free at last. Finlay Campbell, complete again, watched them go, waited to be sure no one was left behind, and then strolled casually out into the light to take his bows.

* * *

Only when he dropped back into his own head, opened his eyes and looked around, he found himself in the middle of utter chaos. People were running everywhere, shouting and screaming, and the lights were flashing on and off. Evangeline was clinging to his arm, shouting in his ear, and Pindar was staring wildly about him. Finlay shook his head and made himself concentrate on what Evangeline was trying to tell him.

"Finlay, we have to get out of here! The prisoners have all broken free, and Mater Mundi is blasting a way out of the prison. The authorities have panicked and called in the Imperial Guards. Thousands of them are fighting it out with thousands of espers and clones. The guards are getting their ass kicked, but there's so many of them. They're everywhere! They'll be here soon. We have to get out of here, Finlay, while we still can."

"All right," said Finlay. "I'm back. How many of us are there?"

"Just us three. The others are off fighting. The Stevie Blues are in their element. Half of Silo Nine must be burning by now."

"So what's the problem? We'll just go back the way we came and get out under cover of the fighting."

"You don't understand," said Pindar. 'They're bringing in esp-blockers. Hundreds of them. Our people will be helpless. Unarmed. The guards will slaughter them."

Finlay raised a hand to interrupt him and thought hard. They couldn't have come this far, achieved so much, just to fail now.

"I've got an idea," he said finally. "I have an implant, a very tricky piece of quality tech, that enables me to sneak past security systems without being noticed. We'll patch it into the prison's systems via my comm implant, knock out the surveillance, and then everyone makes a run for it. A lot of people won't make it, but most should. It's not much of a plan, but it's the best chance we've got."

"Do it," said Pindar. "I'll pass the word to the others."

He turned away, and both of them concentrated in their separate ways.

Finlay and Evangeline made it out. Pindar didn't. Gut shot by a guard he never saw. Finlay killed the guard, but it didn't make any difference. They carried Pindar as far as they could and left him where he died. They never did find Evangeline's friend, the one she'd gone in specially to look for. The Stevie Blues got out, riding a wall of flame. More than half the prisoners managed to escape in the end, streaming out under the unseeing eyes of the security cameras, before the esp-blockers could be deployed. But hundreds of espers and clones died anyway, and more were captured. They were led away in restraints, neutered by the esp-blockers. Many suicided rather than be taken again.

The man who used to be called Hood walked unhurriedly through Silo Nine's corridors, his cowl pushed well back to reveal himself as the Lord High Dram. Some of the underground prisoners spat at him, before the guards clubbed them down, but Dram just smiled. There were bodies everywhere, and he had to step over and around them. Parts of the prison were still burning. And Wormboy was dead. On the whole, he had to admit his operation to crush the underground had not been as successful as he'd hoped.

But, a great many espers and clones were dead, and the guards had captured as many as had escaped. The underground's plan to break out all the prisoners had been foiled. The prison could be repaired, and they could always grow another Wormboy. Eventually. More importantly, Mater Mundi had been forced to reveal herself, and the extent of her powers. And that was worth a great many dead guards. She'd find it a lot harder to find a bushel to hide her light under now. The underground would be scattered again, thanks to his knowledge of their inner workings. His people were already raiding the appropriate locations. It would take the underground years to recover and regroup.

As Hood, he could identify many names and faces, including Finlay Campbell, Evangeline Shreck and Valentine Wolfe. Finlay didn't matter anymore, but the other knowledge should give him great power over the Shrecks and the Wolfes. They would be only too willing to bow to him to prevent their names becoming a scandal. Power like that was worth a lot.

The Empress would take steps to see that this operation was regarded by everyone as a great success, playing up the gains and turning a blind eye to the losses. It should be more than enough to justify her making him her official consort. And he even had some captured cyberats to give to Lionstone to help her with her problems in the Matrix. They'd cooperate rather than face conditioning. And finally, the captured clones and espers would make fine subjects for his experiments with the esper drug. As official consort, no one would be able to deny him access to the prisoners, or ask what became of them afterward.

Dram smiled and smiled as he walked, and the guards gave him plenty of room, especially when he started to chuckle aloud.