“Sound becomes light
Light becomes life
Don’t live in darkness
This dream is ripe

I’ve tried to live right
U seen me fight
We’ve been there 2gether
We’re 2gether 2night

Come feel my X, baby
What does it feel like 2 U?
What does X mean 2 U, baby?
What will U do
To make a dream come true?”

-from “What Does X Mean 2 U?”
by Alison Blaire, Not By A Longshot [2007]

---

“What are you doing, Lorelei!”

It wasn’t a question. She stopped dancing. She was about to repeat that all she was doing was dancing, but instead she turned up the volume on her Ipod (a gift from her favorite john). The last thing she wanted to hear was Erg’s voice.

“Makin’ a mess, all’s she doin’,” Plague said, bringing the blanket tight over her shoulders, before pulling the cap tighter around her withered face.

The night was surprising cool for late summer, with a long rain throughout the day. It served Lorelei well enough to remind her to keep dancing. Sometimes it was the only way to keep warm.

Pulling her headphones down, she stuck out her tongue. “If you had the new Alison Blaire album, you’d be right next to me!”

“Sit down, girl!” Erg barked. His spiky hair absorbed torchlight, just like the patch over his right eye. “You’re just kickin’ up dirt, and splashin’ slime! You ain’t careful, one of them crocodiles or mutant turtles’ll snatch you! Hahaha!”

Lorelei rolled her eyes. With a thought, the headphones were back on her ears, guided gently into place by luscious, purple locks of hair. Bountiful and thick, it was something all the Morlocks admired. Erg might be one to complain about her dancing, but in the end, he loved watching her dance as much as any of the men in this sewer. Plague would watch too…Lorelei had her female admirers.

“Leave her alone.” A new voice called from across the corridor, toward the edge of the torchlight where the tunnel became black. Everyone knew this voice. Callisto’s footsteps echoed off the stone. Her staff lithely twirled between her fingers casually, a nervous habit. In her other hand, she brought fire.

Slightly smiling, she said, “Lorelei’s the only thing keeping any of us warm.” With a wave of her arm, a fiery log sailed across the damp air. It landed, then splintered, across a small fire in the center of the bivouac.

Slowly, the flames grew higher. More of the corridor became visible. Callisto saw Morlocks she hadn’t even noticed clustered against each other, sharing what little heat they had. They sat in small groups of three or four, talking, drawing more tightly together the closer one got to the fire. In a darker corner, she saw, two of her brethren writhing against each other, hips and lips grinding together. They tried in vain to keep a rough blanket as cover, but the sound of slapping flesh and passionate grunts gave them away. It wasn’t love—it was desperation. Callisto chuckled and looked away. She could barely smell the sex over the sewage.

There were dozens of them, the most grotesque mutants the Big Apple had to offer. Light bounced off cold walls, illuminating an expanse that reminded Callisto of the cathedrals above ground…the human churches. Mutants needed a place to keep the faith too, and this was as good a place as any.

Callisto looked over her huddled masses, and raised a torch. Some of the vagrants littering the hall weren’t even mutants, but the Morlocks didn’t hate on them. It was useful to have humans around sometimes. Callisto called out to all, “There’s bread, cheese and filtered water in the eatin’ hall. Caliban’s passing out rations now.”

“Nice.” Erg stood up. “Better ‘n listening to Lorelei’s disco-techno noise, or that zombie sex over there.”

“Fuck off, Erg!” a raspy voice called from the corner.

They had dropped the blanket fully, pulling on their clothes. Dead Girl—no one knew her real name—pulled her clothes over her scarred flesh. The boy underneath her, scampered off the makeshift cot, grasping for his trousers. In the firelight, it was plain to see his scales and webbed hands and feet. Callisto tried to remember his name…Sammy, yes, that’s it. Erg just cackled at them and filed down the archway toward the eating hall with the rest of them.

In the chattering exodus that followed, Callisto tried not to overhear the two in the corner. She failed.

“What about that time?” Sammy asked.

Dead Girl just shook her head, pulled down her skirt, which had retreated up her waist. “No. Nothing. I don’t really ever feel anything ever, Sam.”

Sammy frowned and pulled his shirt over his head. “Oh.” He bit his lip a little and then said, “Look, you don’t have to keep doing this. I’m cold-blooded so the temperature doesn’t really—”

Dead Girl tapped his lips with her finger. “Did you feel anything?”

Sammy grinned a little, and kept his voice low. “Oh, god, yes, it felt so—”

Again, her finger silenced him. “Good. Just because I can’t feel doesn’t mean—ugh, never mind.” She waved him off. “Just go get some food, boy.”

The boy seemed unsure about leaving her there in the dimness, but then he remembered that Dead Girl didn’t eat. Slowly, he drudged in line with the others.

Callisto turned away. She focused on Lorelei again, hoping the dancer would raise her spirits. Of course she did. The Morlocks slowly passed Lorelei, but there seemed to be an invisible barrier keeping the crowd from interrupting her dance with their march. Her hair fluttered like a thing alive. The way she shook her hips and slid her hands over her smooth body (barely covered with a tube top and the shortest shorts) made everyone a bit hungrier on their way.

“Hey, Rhapsody!” Callisto called into the darkness.

“Hmm?” a blue skinned woman with a butch haircut looked back over her shoulder. Knowing it was Callisto’s calling, she forced herself upstream.

Rhapsody was beautiful. Callisto always told her so. But for some reason, for a woman with the power to warp sound energy to bend the laws of physics…Rhapsody turned a deaf ear to flattery.

“Have you heard Dazzler’s new album yet?” Callisto rested her staff on her shoulder.

Rhapsody replied without returning Callisto’s gaze. “Of course I have.”

“I heard it!” a loud voice shouted from Callisto’s side. Jazz, another blue skinned mutant, jumped toward them. His baggy clothing made him look incredibly thin. But, then again, the heroin made him even thinner.

“I heard that shit!” Jazz yelled, “Lemme tell you: record’s slammin’! Shit’s uncanny, honey! Straight up uncanny! I love it! She’s singing to the people!” Jazz’s eyes were almost totally bloodshot. In one hand, between two fingers, was a tight, thick blunt.

Callisto shook her head. “Jazz…go stuff your face and get out of mine. Did it look like I was talking to you?”

Jazz staggered backward a little. “S’okay, chill, chill, babe. I’m a goin’.” He spun on his heel, walked toward the rest of them. He was sure to watch every inch of Lorelei as he passed. The blunt left a smelly trail after him through the archway.

Callisto again turned to Rhapsody. Her frown curled gently upward. “You know, I haven’t heard it yet.”

Rhapsody finally met Callisto’s gaze. “Would you like to hear it?”

Her lips parting with a sly grin, Callisto nodded.

Rhapsody matched the smile, and exhaled. Then, she closed her eyes. The chatter from the trample of starving Morlocks was nothing to her. She focused and all she could hear was Lorelei’s music. Rhapsody could feel the sound waves bouncing across Lorelei’s sweaty grooves. With but a thought, she manipulated them.

And music echoed across the corridor. The Morlocks gazed around, as though expecting to see the sound, but when they all saw Rhapsody, they continued their trek. Lorelei halted her dance, and took the headphones off. Then, she resumed dancing.

“No breath
Before a vicious death
Were you like me?
Were you like him?
In-between?
Maybe human?”

Rhapsody’s smile got wider. She opened her eyes. “That good?”

Callisto brought her hand up to caress Rhapsody’s cheek. Gently, she kissed her lips. “So good, darling. So good. What song is this?”

Rhapsody giggled, “My favorite. A techno lament called ‘You Could’ve Been Human’. It’s sooo uncanny.”

Callisto closed her eyes and let the music flood her head. Alison Blaire’s voice was soft, comforting.

“Did you really die
If your life didn’t begin?
You could’ve been different
You could’ve been human.”

Callisto laughed at Dazzler’s ridiculous lyrics. But, she squeezed Rhapsody’s shoulder with compassion. “Go get some food, you crazy diamond.”

Rhapsody nodded and rushed off toward the Morlocks. It was a tight fit down the tunnel to the eating hall. The Morlocks had to file one-by-one to walk across the thin pathway above the sewage river.

Music and Lorelei were the only things left in the corridor. No. Not the only things.

“Who are you?” Callisto called toward the far corner from her.

There was a little girl sitting there. She had her knees up to her chin. This girl could not have been more than thirteen years old. Her blonde hair was up in pigtails, striped tights went up her legs toward a jean skirt. Her black oversized t-shirt contained the lone design of a giant smiley face.

The girl cocked her head slightly in Callisto’s direction, “I’m Layla.”

“You new here, Layla?” Callisto asked, though she didn’t need an answer. Callisto knew all the Morlocks. Of course this girl was new.

Layla shrugged. “I’m not that new. I just didn’t want you to see me.”

Callisto smiled. “Well, come and get some food then. You didn’t come all the way down here to starve did you?”

Layla shook her head. “No. Not exactly.”

“A mystery
I’ll never solve
I’ll live in misery
That won’t absolve”

Callisto waited for Layla to catch up to her. Then, Layla looked behind her, toward the darkness in the far side of the corridor. She brought her two index fingers up to her mouth and blew a loud whistle. “Hey! Doop!”

Slowly, floating, came a creature the likes of which Callisto had never seen. It didn’t have legs, hence the floating, but it did have arms: spindly, sticking from his sides like twigs off a bush. It looked like a giant, slimy potato. A pair of bulging eyes and the thin sliver of a mouth made up a face. Beneath the face was a graphitized ‘X’ on his stomach.

“This is Doop,” Layla said simply as the creature came to a halt over her shoulder. Doop was roughly the same shape of a one-gallon bag full of cottage cheese. And green, Callisto saw in the torchlight. Layla continued, “He goes where I go. That cool?”

Callisto squinted. “The more the merrier.”

In Doop’s tiny three-fingered hands was what had to be a disposable camera. He brought it up to his bulbous eye and squeezed the trigger. A light flashed in Callisto’s face.

“Gah!” Callisto slapped the device from Doop’s hand. It bounced, cracked, across the stone floor, before finally depositing itself into the sewage. Doop visibly frowned. Callisto shook her head. “Just no flash photography please.”

Layla puckered her face and looked at Doop. “Told ya so. Now you lost the camera.”

Doop shrugged, sighed.

Layla nodded, looked back to Callisto. “Okay. Let’s go eat.”

Callisto snorted and led Layla down the corridor toward the archway. Doop bobbled in the air after them. It was slow going; sometimes, they had to hop overflowing sewage, and even other passed-out Morlocks. Single-file, with only the torchlight, and some mutants’ bioluminescence, to guide them.

That, and Alison Blaire, whose hard beats and soft voice radiated over them:

“He withered away then
Off to war again
Who could be more human?”

“Could somebody turn that shit down?” Erg called from the front of the line.

“Hey!” Callisto shouted ahead of her. “Shut the fuck up! I’m trying to listen!”

Erg scoffed, “Give me a fuckin’ break. That’s all’s I hear, day and night. Alison Blaire or that goddamn Lila Cheney. Can’t you hobos play a little Foghat every once in a while?”

All the Morlocks seemed to laugh in unison at that. Even Callisto couldn’t help a smile: Erg was one of first Morlocks, and one of the only ones who could talk back to her. Erg himself chuckled as he led the way along the dank tunnel. Behind him a monstrous Morlock, resembling a more humanoid version of Ridley Scott’s Alien, playfully pushed him forward on the curved concrete.

“Yeah, yeah, keep walking, comedian.” Litterbug’s words were little more than squeals. The Morlocks had taught him to speak, after finding him, almost mindless, in the tunnels. “You bitch and moan but we know you’ll be at that festival this weekend with all of us.”

Erg pretended to stumble, but kept up the pace. “Damn right I’ll be there—scoring some nice smack! Every pusher in Mutant Town is gonna be there. Trust me, by noon, I’ll be too fucked up to hear this pop rock overload.”

“If it even happens.” A small voice piped up from middle of the line. They recognized it as Gargouille. There were only a few Morlocks who could say they’d met Magneto, but only two who could say they’d served under him. It gave Gargouille a bit more weight, though she’d not been with the Morlocks long. No one knew why she wasn’t welcome in Genosha, but times were obviously hard for her if she was in the New York underground. “Blaire’s gonna cancel on us.”

“Ag! No way!” That was Maggot, a true journeyman that every Morlock admired. Met Magneto and served with the X-Men and the Fantastic Four, however briefly. Most notably, he was a board member on the infamous X-Corporation. But he now made his home with the Morlocks. Why? No one knew, but he carried much more weight than Gargouille. He marched just a few people behind her, with his companions, the chitinous slugs Eeeny and Meeny on his shoulders. His South African accent was thick. “If it don’ happen, there’ll be riots, hey? This town hasn’ seen anything like this ever.”

“Says you, X-Man!” Gargouille hissed over her shoulder, “With the Sapien League demonstrations just outside Mutant Town, there’s no way Dazzler and her sparkling flares are showing up.”

“Sure she will.” The wet, dripping voice belonged to Sack, dragging his feet toward the back of the line. “She’ll want to visit all her X-Men buddies. You know they’re gonna be there, watching the Sapien League.”

“That’s just it!” Gargouille’s voice echoed over the music, which had obviously faded. “The X-Men are too busy in their high castle, behind their pearly gates to give a damn about us! The Beast is countin’ his money, chillin’ at ‘Vengers Mansion, and Worthington’s off on orgies with the Hellfire Club, and Charles Xavier is still dead!”

Callisto felt her eyes widen. She screamed, “Angel ain’t no fucking Hellfire!”

“Oh right!” Erg was quick to reply, “Just like you ain’t a fuckin’ Avenger?”

An uneasy silence fell over all the Morlocks then.

“Sorry!” Erg was still sarcastic. “But that’s what everyone was thinking just then, Cali.”

Another silence. The music was at a coda…slow, winding, like the tunnels ahead.

“Human for sure?
No X in your
Future.”

The music stopped.

“Human?
Not by a Longshot!”

---

“God she’s so hot, dude.” Bling handed the headphones back to Herman.

Glob Herman was seven feet tall, and was a bulbous mass of walking paraffin wax. If one peered closely, they’d see his skeleton through the soft pink epidermis. His eyes jiggled gently in their sockets. A slow, nasal voice said, “Oh, I know. Hottest X-Man ever.” He brought a thick arm over his shoulder and grabbed the CD player. His other hand was on fire. It illuminated the tunnels ahead of them.

“Would you two stop drooling?” a small voice said from the back of the line. Beautiful Dreamer kept her cap low over her eyes. A flowing, pink feather boa dropped from her neck over the thin tank and skirt she wore. Her combat boots were unlaced. She was so thin from years of abuse (drug, sexual, psychological, it didn’t matter) that she was hardly noticeable at all. But that’s the way the Dreamer liked it.

“Well they play that single on the radio all the damn time…it better be popular.” Bling leaned against the damp stonewall; this corridor was especially narrow. “Then again, she’s an X-Man so no wonder mutants are jumping for joy.”

“Has nothing to do with bein’ an X-Man,” Dreamer said. “I’ve got all of Alison Blaire’s albums and this is the best one in a really long time.”

“Uh-huh,” Herman chuckled. “Whatever. I don’t care about the X-Men, or X-whatever they’re calling themselves. You know twenty percent of the terrorists at the Morlock Massacre were from the X-Men?”

“Were not!” Dreamer yelled.

“Were so.”

Bling interjected, “I heard something like that too. That X-Mansion will fuck you up, fo’sure. If they ain’t harboring a piece of shit like Sabretooth then they’re sucking up to their buddies in the Avengers or the Hellfire Club…”

“Don’t you know your mutant history?” Dreamer’s voice was angry. “The X-Men were the only ones who saved us during the Massacre, you stupid little kids!”

“I ain’t dissin’ the X.” Herman said, “Magneto used to be an X-Man, right? I love Xavier as much as the next mutie, but those X-Men are a bunch of fuckin’ sellouts.”

“Word,” Bling agreed.

“Whatever.” Dreamer crossed her arms and walked a few paces slower than the two ahead of her.

Herman stuck the headphones into little crevices on the sides of his head, which functioned as ear canals. Soon, muffled techno sailed through the tunnel. Herman turned around, walking backwards now, and waved his arms through the air, the flames too. “People love this! Dazzler’s back, and it’s cool to look like a freak again!”

“Yeah,” Bling said, gazing at her hand, encrusted with the purple, gleaming diamonds that her skin produced like warts. They covered her. “That’s why we’re navigating a sewer right now.”

“For now,” Herman said. “But after the festival next week, I’ll be rich off the kick and the unity I scored…”

“Unity?” Bling’s eyes, pearls of black, widened. “How did you score some unity? You better let me in on that!”

Herman laughed, “Uh-huh-huh-huh. Save it for the concert.”

Bling scoffed, “Fool, we gotta be rollin’ ‘fore the concert starts so’s we can—”

Herman suddenly stopped in his tracks, and Bling walked right into his waxy hide.

“Hey, watch it, candlecrotch. What’s the hold-up?” She tried to peer around him. Herman turned sideways, so Bling could get a better look at what had held him up.

There was a metal grill in the concrete ceiling just ahead, and it shined a pattern of light across this woman’s face. But it wasn’t a face. It was a mask, an old-fashioned hockey mask, like the ones in the horror movies. The rest of her was dressed in tight, thick black…was that body armor? But what called the most attention was the gleaming machete in her hand.

“Oh shit,” Bling said.

Herman leaned backward and whispered, “Hear what happened to Glow Worm?”

Bling shrugged, “Dead, ain’t he?”

Herman whispered again, “Multiple stab wounds. Johnny Dee found him last night.”

“Oh shit,” Beautiful Dreamer echoed.

“Hey!” the woman finally called to the mutants. “Come over here. I want to talk to you. Know where I can find some unity?”

The flame in Herman’s hand flicked and swayed in the thick, stinky air. None of the mutants said anything.

The woman called again, “I’m talking to you—”

“Just who the hell are you supposed to be?” Bling yelled at her.

The woman brandished the machete. “I’m the Leper Queen. Come over here.”

“I think we’re cool right here, bitch,” Bling said.

The Leper Queen visibly stiffened. Then, she said, “You disgusting mutie jokes. Come over here so I can kill you.”

“Gogogogo.” Herman pushed backwards the two girls behind him.

Bling rushed past Beautiful Dreamer, shoving her down to the stone path, not even stopping as she heard the fall. Bling’s feet splashed the grime along the pathway’s edge.

Herman was picking up Dreamer, when a machete sliced through his head, spewing liquid wax and some kind of other thin film all across Dreamer. Herman’s voluminous frame crashed and slid against the damp floor. His flaming arm kept its light.

The Leper Queen reached, pulled the machete from Herman’s gooey cranium. Sullen eyes turned toward Beautiful Dreamer. The machete rose over her head…

“Only two only two only two only two.” Dreamer shut her eyes tight.

Suddenly the Leper Queen lowered the machete. After shaking her head, she gazed down the tunnel toward Bling, whose footsteps were becoming fainter and fainter. “One down one to go…now where did she get off to?”

A glazed look was in her eyes, and the Leper Queen disappeared through the dim light down the corridor after Bling. Dreamer felt her heart thunder in her rib cage for a few more seconds, but she couldn’t take her eyes of Herman, still oozing some sort of thick liquid on the concrete, into the river of sewage next to them.

Bracing herself on the stone, Dreamer tried to stand up. Her stomach felt queasy but she knew if she puked, she’d faint. So she kept it down, and ran in the opposite direction from Bling and her pursuer.

“Morlocks…Morlocks…they’ll save me. They always save me…”

---

“X to the six
Come get your fix
Race a future not mine
Split the fucking timeline

We’ll save the world too
Before the night is thru
Come feel my X, baby
What does it feel like to U?”

The music had started up again. Erg looked around. No, Lorelei was nowhere to be seen. Erg frowned. He’d have liked a little entertainment with his dinner. But the girl was probably herself feasting somewhere in the vast hall where the Morlocks congregated for food.

Erg smiled to himself. Morlocks were spread all over this city, but there was one time a day when it seemed all of them—the hundreds, maybe thousands of them—would try to gather in one place.

The family always gathered around the dinner table.

Or tables, in this case. There were at least twenty or thirty makeshift tables (made from old doors, or just warped discarded wood) with at least two-dozen Morlocks sitting at each one. There were more, mostly the humans who didn’t feel they were allowed to sit with the mutants (untrue), sitting on the concrete around the perimeter of the Alley.

He dropped his trey, topped only with a piece of thick, fresh bread and sticky, old syrup, unceremoniously on the table. Gazing along the table, Erg didn’t recognize many Morlocks but he knew they all recognized him.

“Hey, Erg!” Litterbug called from the far end of the table. “Say a little grace for us, eh?”

Erg laughed out loud, “Yeah, sure.” He folded the fingers of both hands across each other, closed his eyes and said, “Bless this fucking meal, bitch!”

Laughter reigned from the table then. So much so that the other Morlocks at other tables looked over at them. Small chunks of bread flew from plates to hit Erg in the face. He tried to block them with his arm.

“Hey!” he yelled. “You gene-jokes asked for it!”

They were all still laughing when Erg sat down. He tried to remember the names of the Morlocks he sat around: Double-Helix was easy to remember, with his twin heads attached at the same shoulders, and Mammomax took up the space of three people with his pachyderm hide, grabbing food and eating it with his brawny trunk. At the end of the table, Blindfold kept her chin in her palms, and the plate untouched in front of her. Next to her, Blackout—the drifter always good for a laugh—and Ernst—the girl who aged backward—were talking.

“I just can’t believe they broke up.” Ernst picked at her bread. “It was my favorite show! They had it so good together.”

“Yeah, I heard MTV is just pulling all the episodes now,” Blackout said. “It was inevitable really. Two mutants with their own TV show? The Republicans wouldn’t let that happen.”

“I dunno,” Ernst replied, “Just seemed to me like Vance was being a jackass.”

Blackout shrugged. “Yeah, but he’s been sapien-washed for years. That’s probably why Firestar’s done with him. She needs to find a real mutant to satisfy her.”

Ernst still frowned. “No-Girl feels like crying. Heroic Love was her favorite show too.”

Erg rolled his eye until it settled on Peeper, whose own wide eyes bulged from their sockets.

“No reading at the table, freak.” Erg tossed a piece of bread at Peeper. “Don’t you know how rude that is?”

Peeper slowly raised his narrow chin. His dilated, double-sized eyeballs stared at Erg; they didn’t need to blink. His hands ruffled at a thin, torn, small magazine, barely held to together by staples along the spine. The text was uneven, and the pictures were grainy, black-and-white.

It was Freakworld. It was Mutant Town’s underground newsletter. Some called it worse than toilet paper, but even more called it the pulse of the town. It was made up of thirteen pages at the most. The headline read, ‘NOT BY A LONGSHOT: *****!’

Peeper said quietly, “There are rumors that Magneto’s gonna make a speech.”

Erg groaned, reached across the table and pulled the rag out of Peeper’s hands. He examined it briefly (but didn’t read it…Erg was severely dyslexic) then he crumpled it and tossed it over his shoulder. Erg heard mutants at the next table bitch as it landed.

“Who cares?” Erg yelled. “What the hell has Magneto done for us? What kind of speech is gonna help us? It’s been the same way for years now. Humans got him stuck on an island, just like they always wanted. And what does he still say? ‘Mutants will inherit the earth blah-blah-blah’…”

“Yup, yup! Preach it, brother.” The right cranium of Double-Helix (he liked to be called ‘William’) was speaking through a full mouth of bread. “Magneto’s an outdated concept.”

“Oh shut up!” the left cranium of Double-Helix replied (he liked to be called ‘Billy’) from the same shoulders. “Magneto is an icon! A mutant and a Jew! Talk about understanding oppression and guilt!”

William stretched his neck so he could peer at his other half. “He’s a fossil. He doesn’t understand the struggles of a modern mutie. And his control over that island feeds his egomaniacal subconscious—”

Billy interrupted, spewing half chewed bread at his other side, “Oh puh-leeze! Don’t you think we mutants need all the icons we can get right now?”

William’s face was now nose-to-nose with Billy’s. Their voices faded into each other like one cacophony. “I know where you sleep buster oh is that right let’s just see you try why don’t you bring it on you know I was mom’s favorite!”

“Hey! Beavis and Butt-head!” Erg smacked the wood next to his plate. “No playing with yourself at the table!”

Double-Helix calmed down, and continued eating, but angry eyes would occasionally glance at the other set. Erg, shaking his head, looked back at Peeper.

“Point is, get some food, Peeps. And don’t let a dictator on the other side of the world break your heart.”

Peeper scowled, curling his massive upper brow. “I don’t need you watching over me.”

Erg chuckled again, picking up a piece of bread and pretending to give it more attention than Peeper. “Yes you do. We all need someone watching over us.”

Peeper sucked his teeth, and left the table, to retrieve his copy of Freakworld. Double-Helix and Mammomax laughed after him. Erg didn’t watch him go.

There had been something else bothering him since he sat down.

“Girlie,” Erg said to Blindfold. “You’re already thin as a rail. Eat, or the rats won’t even gnaw your corpse.”

Across from Erg at the table, a grin curled at Blindfold’s lip. The tiny girl replied, “Thank you, Erg, I hate disappointing vermin. But I’m finding it hard to eat.”

Erg frowned. Mammomax shuddered, but continued to pick at his bread with his trunk. He looked at Erg and shrugged. Erg’s frown deepened. “Why?” he asked quietly.

Blindfold shrugged. “I’ve been feeling so…hot recently. It’s like some kind of fever. I’m burning up.” As she tugged at her collar, Erg saw that she was clearly sweating. “But please, we have more to worry about tonight than me.”

Mammomax stopped eating. Both craniums of Double-Helix eyed Blindfold. Blackout and Ernst were carefully peering.

Erg didn’t like the atmosphere. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

She didn’t seem fazed when she said, “Did you hear what happened to Glow Worm?”

“Multiple stab wounds,” William said, and Billy followed up. “Johnny Dee found him last night.”

“Well,” Blindfold continued, “I told him what was going to happen.” The girl had started rubbing her hands together furiously—they sounded slick from sweat—and for some reason, everyone knew she couldn’t help it. “It was no use. He went off to god knows where, looking for some unity, and got shanked. But tonight…” Her voice faded.

“What’s going to happen tonight?” Erg asked.

“Justice.,” Blindfold said simply. “Sweet justice.”

“Morlocks!”

That voice didn’t come from the table. Eyes shot toward each other, but then over their shoulders toward the tunnels out of the Alley. Erg was on his feet, then on his chair, then on the table, in a matter of a second, only to see that Callisto was faster than him, already standing on her own table in the far corner of the room.

“Help me!”

Now, everyone was standing. Mammomax was one of the tallest, and his wide eyes scanned over most heads, toward a far tunnel. His low voice whispered, “Who’s that?”

“I can’t see anyone.” Blackout was trying to crane her neck over the mutants of the table in front of her.

“Morlocks! I’m a mutant! You have to help me!”

Erg’s one good eye was squinting to see, but he didn’t need to anymore. He recognized that voice. He yelled, “Dreamer!”

Callisto was way ahead of him, at another table. “Oh, my beautiful!”

Erg hopped onto the table and then leapt to the one adjacent. But he couldn’t help but look back—at Blindfold. She gazed up at him, as though she could actually see him, and shrugged. Erg turned his attention back to Dreamer, then skipped and jumped across the dinners and the shoulders of Morlocks to get to her.

Blindfold heard him go and pulled at her collar. “It’s not hot in here to anyone else?”

---

“Yeah…that’s right. Just a little farther, you psycho flatscan bitch,” Bling muttered to herself. Through intense breaths she muttered to herself, “All tunnels lead to the Alley eventually…”

She was quoting Callisto. It was one of the first lessons taught to the Morlocks. If someone comes after you…just start running. You’ll find your family, eventually.

“Family.” Another hot breath was forced from her lungs. But she kept repeating the word in her mind.

Bling didn’t even remember her real family. She was in an orphanage until she was thirteen, when her acne started to crystallize. For the next couple of weeks, she endured the daily beatings from the other children in the orphanage…the human children. It was an easy thing to escape from that place.

That was three years ago. She’d be damned if she was going to die now.

But her legs felt so heavy. Basically heaving them forward, Bling had fallen down about three or four times already. Every time she scraped herself on the warped concrete, she left gleaming specks of stone like a trail of breadcrumbs. Adrenaline was pumping through every muscle, and she would be up and running again in seconds.

She had to be careful now though. Water was starting to get deeper and deeper around the soles of her sneakers, and the ground was starting to slant downward. If she took a wrong step, it’d be easy to twist her ankle, or worse, slide down the tunnel toward parts unknown. Bling didn’t really recognize this part of the sewer…

“Hey! Mutie girl!”

The voice sounded closer. How was that possible? But Bling didn’t look behind her.

“Don’t you run from me, you stupid, ugly freak!”

The voice was right behind her! Bling had to run faster or—

Too late! There was a tight squeeze around Bling’s waist that could only be human arms. A weight pushed her forward, her knees crumpled, her feet slipped in sewage, and soon her whole body was submerged.

She tried to twist, feeling precious air for just a second—long enough to steal a gasp—before she was under again. There was barely any light, and with the stinging sewage in her eyes, Bling didn’t even try to see. She whipped out her hands, one after the other, unaware how numb they felt, unaware of the adrenaline that kept her fighting.

Still she was getting beat. It was the only thing going through her head: This bitch is beating me. She’s going to kill me…

Soon enough, there was a shin pressing against her throat, keeping her face just barely above the shallow water. Another knee was pressed against her gut, keeping her pinned, and her breath from reaching her lungs. Eyes, stinging, opened to watch her killer.

The machete still found light to reflect as it came down hard on her forehead.

CRACK!

Bling had braced herself for a sharp death and…she only felt bluntness. She forced her eyes open again.

The machete was broken. Her would-be killer—this Leper Queen—was only staring at it, like she was trying to will the thing whole. Bloodshot retinas returned to Bling through a dingy hockey mask.

“You freak!” Again she brought down the blade. This time, she aimed to stab through the bottom of Bling’s jaw.

Again, all Bling felt was the bluntest of pains. She opened her eyes with much less fear this time. The Leper Queen brought her wrist down again and again and again, slamming and slicing against Bling’s face. But…

“Flatscan…” Bling mumbled, “this is why you’re all gonna be extinct one day.”

“What…what is this?” the Leper Queen was still trying to bore through Bling’s face with the half-machete. But her weight had shifted.

Bling felt another rush of adrenaline, and lifted the woman, sent her hard into concrete and sewage. In another instant, Bling was on her feet.

But Bling couldn’t believe it herself. She brought a hand to her face. It felt…crusty. Bumpy. It felt…like diamonds. Bling smiled. Yeah…I knew this would come in handy some day.

Bling marched hard through the sewage toward the Leper Queen. Now, Bling could feel the sharp crystals rising on her back, down her arms, over her chest, pressing against her clothes. But they were sharpest along her knuckles.

“No! No…you can’t!” the Leper Queen scrambled backward, splashing slime and grime, trying in vain to kick at Bling. “You…abomination! God wouldn’t do this to me!”

Bling shook her head and wore a smile. “You’re a long way from God. But scream a little louder. Maybe she’ll hear you.”

---

Callisto leaned in a little closer. “You gotta speak up, Dreamer baby. I can’t hear you.”

Dreamer nodded, raised her chin a little from where it was tucked behind her knees. She brought up a hand to wipe her cheek, realized how sticky and wet her face was. The low cap that covered her brow was slowly removed. Dreamer cowered at first, but then Callisto brought her closer, pressing her face against her chest. Callisto ran her fingers through Dreamer’s blonde, unevenly short hair, and Dreamer let go a deep sigh.

“Tell me. Who did this to you?”

It was so quiet now. There were hundreds of Morlocks still here. Most of the humans had scattered once it was clear a human had hurt a mutant. Who else could have done it? With the Sapien League demonstrations upground…

Dreamer’s sore eyes briefly flashed open. It was so dim…but there were those faces she recognized, and those she didn’t. The glowing eyes, the dripping fangs, the bulging muscles—these were her people, this was her place.

She yelled, “Mur-mur-murderer—murderess! Killed them—just like Glow Worm!”

Erg was one of the closest, kneeling just a little bit away from her and Callisto. He stood as soon as he heard her words.

“You were out with Bling…and the Glob, right? You mean they’re dead?”

Dreamer violently nodded her head. “Oh god…”

Callisto spoke up, “No! We don’t just assume our brothers are dead. Not without bodies. That’s Morlock law.”

Erg frowned loudly at that, but said nothing. But he turned to the crowd.

“Hey!” he raised his hands, and felt his voice echo around him. “Who’s up for a lynching?”

The roars rolled like thunder, and disappeared just as fast. Everyone was still listening to the Dreamer.

“Just tell us which way to march,” Erg said simply.

Callisto said nothing. She watched, listened, yet to give her grace for any action whatsoever, but…she’d let Erg have his way for a few more minutes.

Dreamer pointed east, ahead of her. She knew these tunnels as well as any of the older Morlocks. The crowd parted. Heads all turned to the chosen passage. Like the others, it was dark and dank. But unlike the others…there was someone standing there.

Even from across the Alley, Dreamer recognized—

“Her! It was her!” Her arm whipped out violently, pointing straight ahead. “Her!” She was almost jumping out of Callisto’s arms. Almost.

Callisto gripped Dreamer’s shoulders a bit harder, calming her. Then, Callisto stood. Quickly, two other Morlocks—Callisto barely had time to recognize Masque and Skids—took her place at Dreamer’s aid.

She looked at Erg. “Let’s do this.”

The two of them marched through the passage side by side, but as the crowd closed after them, it was clear who was leading. Callisto twirled the staff in her fingers.

Their target was just a crumpled mass at the foot of the tunnel. But Callisto was not about to take any chances. She walked up the huddled body, and gave it a swift kick to its side. The body was rocked sideways, and it erupted a long, loud moan. It was a woman. Dressed in…leather? And a hockey mask?

Callisto growled, “Who the hell are you?”

“It doesn’t matter now.”

That voice didn’t come from the body. It came from the tunnel. Callisto and Erg stepped back defensively, but soon saw they had nothing to worry about. Bling stepped out of the darkness.

About a half-dozen Morlocks parted from the crowd, cheering, seeing that Bling was indeed alive. Bling slapped hands, and returned hugs, a smile barely visible over her diamond-encrusted jaw.

“Bling!” Callisto broke up the reunion. “Get over here.” She looked at Erg. “Who did you say she was with again?”

Erg replied, “The Glob? You know, Herman?”

Callisto nodded, and Bling was right at her side. “You wanna tell us what happened, honey?” She gently rubbed her hand along the base of Bling’s spine.

“She killed Glob,” Bling answered simply. “That’s all there is. He was one of my best friends…” Then she brought her hands to her face.

Callisto motioned for her to return to the crowd. Then, casually, Callisto walked up to the masked woman, and cracked the staff across her jaw…throwing off the woman’s hockey mask.

“No!” the woman jerked like in a seizure, bringing her gloved hands to cover herself.

Callisto slammed the staff into her belly. The woman gasped, and her hands went to her stomach. And they all saw her face.

“Whoa!” Erg held his hand up in front of his eyes. “That’s fucking disgusting!” He turned back to the crowd behind him. “You guys! Come take a look at this! Look at this bitch’s face! Oh my god! It’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen!”

The crowd converged like ants on a sugar cube.

“Ughhh! Look at her eyes! What color is that? Vomit green?”

“Damn! That’s got to be a wig she’s wearing…”

“Oh god, I just ate—”

“Look, you can see her teeth through her cheek!”

“I bet her nose comes right off! C’mere—I’ll see!”

The human woman curled again and tried avoid the fingers coming for her. “No! Stay away! Get away from me! Freaks freaks freaks!”

“Aw, no! Somebody pull her arms! I didn’t get to see her face yet!”

Callisto brought her staff up to her chest and waved it back and forth. “Alright! That’s enough! Back up! Stop your gawkin’! There’s justice to be done here! Morlock justice!”

There were huzzahs and cheers all around, and the crowd moved backward quite easily, quite quickly.

“For Glow Worm!”

“For Herman!”

Callisto kicked the human woman in the face yet again. “For Herman! For Glow Worm! This court is now in session!”

And the Alley filled with cheers. They didn’t die down until Callisto gave the signal for them to do so.

The human only lay there, shuddering in torchlight.

“Are you going to kill me?” she squeaked.

But Callisto’s answer was another crack across the jaw, this time with her staff. The crowd roared its appreciation. Callisto cut it short.

“I’m asking the questions around here, lady,” Callisto spat. “You admit killing Herman and Glow Worm?”

And the human woman sat up. She stared, with bulging, scarred eye sockets, right at Callisto. “Of course I killed them! You know I killed them! I wish I could do it again! Thousands of times over! I wish I could kill all of you—”

Another crack across her hideous face. Callisto watched the woman spit out a couple of teeth this time, blood oozing freely from her mouth. “Then you plead guilty,” she said.

The Morlocks again screamed their pleasure with that decision. Callisto let them scream this time, as she paced slowly around the human. The staff spun lithely in her fingers.

In the human’s face, fear had turned to insanity. She was quivering, tears spilling down burned cheeks, mixing with blood, and tracing a pattern along her disfigured jawbone.

“If you’re going to kill me, then do it!” she yelled, over the applause. “You’re nothing but freaks and jokes, and one day my death will be avenged!”

“Freaks?” Callisto laughed. “Define that! We’re all family. We want to live. Why did you come down here? Did you think we’d let you murder us? You know what I think?”

The human was silent. And so were the Morlocks. They wanted to hear Callisto.

“I think you knew you were one of us,” Callisto said, “Not by birth. But some…tragedy turned your face into that mess! And you knew you were a freak. Just like us. And you couldn’t handle it. Your perfect human world was destroyed, so instead of helping yourself, you brought a death wish upon your head. Well, guess what?”

Still silence.

“Death is too good for you, I think.” Callisto shook her head. “But unfortunately, that decision isn’t up to me. I’m just the prosecution in this courtroom. There’s your jury!” She waved her hand to the Morlocks. “Hundreds of your peers—freaks just like you—passing judgment upon you.”

Callisto looked back at the crowd. She paced back and forth in front of them. Then, she raised her staff high above her head. “And what say you, jury?”

The verdict was unanimous.

“DEATH!”

Callisto closed her eye and sighed. “Then it will be done.”

“Stop!” The voice rang through the Alley. It wasn’t Callisto. It wasn’t the human dog on the floor. The Morlocks stared where they had found Bling before.

“Herman!” Bling yelled, and she ran from the crowd.

It was indeed Glob Herman. As he got closer, the Morlocks could see there was still some ooze dripping from a giant gash in the top of his head. His arm was still on fire.

“Don’t kill her!” Glob yelled. “I want my piece first!”

Bling held onto Herman’s arm as he approached the Leper Queen.

“Are you okay?” Bling asked.

When Herman shook his head, more ooze squirted from his wound. “I’ve got the world’s most splitting headache, girl, and my arm has been on fire for over two hours now.”

Bling looked at Herman’s arm. Herman would regularly ignite his skin, but he never did so for too long. Bling had never thought about it before, but obviously there was a reason for that. The wax flesh around Herman’s arm had almost been burned to his bone.

“Gotta put this out somewhere.” Herman snarled. “Come here you ugly bitch.”

“No!” the human scrambled backward. “No, don’t! I killed you! Stay away!”

But she backed into Callisto. A booted heel smacked the human across the back of her head. She wailed, and crumpled into a ball, holding her head.

Callisto looked at Herman. “Glad to see you made it, kid. The sentence is death. I’m going to let you choose how we do it.”

Herman raised his burning arm again. “Torture.”

Callisto frowned, but nodded. “I understand.”

The Leper Queen sat up, and screamed at them, “Do your worst! You think I haven’t felt fire before? Others will find my body! They’ll know what happened to me!”

Callisto looked at her. “Nobody’s gonna find you.” Then, she looked back at the crowd, “Hey X-Man! Time you earned your keep ‘round here!”

Slowly the crowd parted, until Maggott marched through them. His companions clicked and squealed at his feet.

He waved at them. “Calm down, gels. I know you’re hungry.”

Callisto asked solemnly, “You know what I want you to do?”

Maggott puckered his lips. “I know. But that don’t mean I’m gonna do it.”

Callisto sneered, and got close to Maggott’s ear, “Don’t give me that. You want to pretend you’re better than us? Then you can pack your shit and get the fuck out of here. There’s a reason you’re down here hiding with us. And you know what’ll happen if she isn’t…dealt with.”

Maggott was silent, and he didn’t look Callisto in the eye. He instead looked at his companions, the chitinous slugs slithering about his ankles. “Feedin’ time, gels.”

Callisto only nodded. Then she sighed at Herman. “She’s all yours.”

And the Morlocks were delighted to hear that.

The human tried to scramble away again, but Bling was there to stop her. She held the human’s arms. Herman straddled the human’s chest, pinning her with his massive frame. And he brought his fiery arm down upon her face. It easily wiped the flesh from her bone.

Throaty screams didn’t sound human.

Maggott let his ‘gels’ get closer to the human. They started nibbling at her toes.

Callisto turned away, not wanting to watch anymore. She rested her staff along her neck and shoulder blades, and walked back down the Alley. As she wandered off, the Morlocks closed in on the human. They all wanted to watch.

“Go easy on her, Herman! We don’t want her die too quick!” That was Erg.

Another voice: “Hold on! If we get this on camera, we can put it on YouTube!”

Callisto grunted and continued down the Alley. Finally, she got to a narrow corridor, where she couldn’t hear the joyful shouts of the Morlocks, or the moans of a dying animal. She wasn’t alone.

“Did I miss anything?” Layla Miller asked. There was a small flashlight in her hand that lit her face under her chin, and the visage of Doop over her shoulder.

Callisto shook her head. “Same old, same old.”

Layla nodded. “Morlock justice.”

“Same as it ever was.”

“Well.” Layla joined Callisto’s side as she passed. “Want some company?”

Callisto was quick to say, “Yes.”

“Wanna listen to some music?” Layla held up an earphone. “Lorelei let me borrow it.”

Callisto took it from her and they shared the Ipod as they walked down the sewer.

“This family is just a start
It can’t deafen the hate
Don’t let it weigh on your heart
This can’t be our fate

Stand by my side
Don’t need to hide
You know you’re safe here
With your own kind

Come feel my X, baby…
What does it feel like 2 U?”

---

NOTE: This examination of Mutant culture continues in M2K’s Uncanny X-Men issue one!

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