"We don't have any friends. Who is it you're looking for?" you hear her say down the tunnel
"w.well, h.he is.s or.r f.friend! H.his n.name is B.ben. H.he c.an make himself r.really small."
as he starts to get a bit upset at her saying that Ben is not his friend, his stutter begins to fade a little.
"There are a few Ben's down here." There's a pause. "Do you mean Locust?"
"W.we c.alled h.him A.ant-L.lion."
"Sounds familiar but if he's down here then he's one of us." She pauses a moment then adds, "If it's who I think he is then he might be in trouble. Our leader, Masque, doesn't like it when people run away. He does things to us Morlocks so we can't -- we won't be accepted so we don't."
"B.but that's n.not fair!.. being a M.morlock doesn't mean you can.n.not have other f.friends. We have an.nother st.student that w.was actually sent to us by her eld.ders."
"Masque feels we shouldn't depend on anyone other then our own kind, Morlocks. You're friend Antlion use to be a Morlock until he helped a young group of mutants and then decided to join them. Masque wasn't happy. When Antlion returned he said he felt like he didn't have any friends. That the young mutants ignored him. Then something happened that took control of his mind. Made him do bad things. He tried reaching out to the young mutants for help but they were so consumed with themselves that he decided it would be better if he went back to his old friends."
"But we came all this way for him. His friends want to help him. Can we at least speak to him?" James implores.
"Alright then but only two of you may come. The others must stay here under the watch of a few of our Morlocks to make sure they stay out of trouble. You (Malcolm) and the chubby guy (James) seem level headed so you may come."