
… cold wet steel, undulating in frozen minihills, a rushing river of muddy water, a vast
curving ceiling echoing back the white noise of water, something huge ahead, the growing smell
of blood, the edge of a great hole, clinging to the edge, trembling with fear …
Ukiah tried to send comfort and encouragement over the fraying link. He could create the mouse
because he was in truth a collection of independently intelligent cells acting as a whole. Whatever method
his cells used to communicate, endowing him with telepathic abilities with his mice and those closely
related to him, depended much on mass. The smaller the collection of cells, like the mouse, the shorter
the distance he could communicate with it.
If he had been reduced down to hundreds of mice, none of them would venture down the
terrifying drop. They would be too hard-wired by instinct to follow that course. They would flee to a safe
dry place, and eat until they had energy to merge into a larger, stronger creature, hopefully human,
hopefully with enough of his memories intact to return to being Ukiah. Thus, only with Ukiah's human
mind directing the mouse remotely, did it overcome its fear and carefully pick its way down the rusty cliff.
… brown curly hair, a male human, a chilled cheek, closed eyes …
"It's him," Ukiah whispered.
"Unfortunately," Max's voice came over Ukiah's headset. "The nearest manhole is way down
here, around the corner, and it's really started to pour. Damn, where's that rescue crew?"
Ukiah murmured an answer, trying to coax his mouse back out. It was on the edge of his
influence, though, and frightened. It scurried back and forth on the imagined safety that the boy provided,
hesitant to face the dark alone. Suddenly it slipped into the fast-moving water that chuted down over
slick bare skin. Ukiah squeaked in surprise as the mouse was swept down through a hole between child
and pipe and washed away.
"Ukiah!" Max called over the headset. "What's wrong?"
Ukiah leapt to his feet and bolted toward Max. "I've lost my mouse! I need to get it back."
Max exploded into curses.
The rain beat furiously down now, sheeting off the rest of the world so it seemed like Ukiah
struggled within a pocket universe to save the boy. He rounded the corner and found his partner and Ari
beside an opened manhole, shining lights into the hole.
Max looked up, obviously torn. "Kid, the water is already deep and fast, and it's raining harder
now. We don't have ropes, and you're not even sure what direction to go. Just wait for the rescue crew."
"I've got to go," Ukiah said, wishing Ari wasn't there so he could argue with Max openly.
Perhaps, it was better this way—he could never win arguments with Max. He hadn't considered losing
his mouse when he sent it into the drain—a lost mouse was much too dangerous to the world. Hex had
used a single stolen mouse to create Kittanning. With a second mouse, the Ontongard leader had nearly
remade Max into a clone of Ukiah. Even without the evil intentions of the Ontongard, Ukiah could not
ignore that somehow, some part of the dismembered child Magic Boy, perhaps just a lone mouse, had
become the Wolf Boy, and eventually himself.
He had to get it back. He brushed past Max to the manhole, ignoring the look that spoke
volumes.
***
The sound of water falling out the throats of countless feeder pipes, echoed by curving concrete,