Notice that Trace refers to the group as “the rats”, not as “security” or “the strong arm of the High Council”. It may be, as a few people have mentioned before, that the rats aren’t a human-normal byproduct of the mutations (too many identical members of one species). If this is the case, then perhaps there’s a class-struggle issue between the mutants, and whatever it is that the rats came from. This could give us 3 known distinct groups – unmutated human Topsiders, humans-turned-mutants, and rats.
Notice that Trace refers to the group as “the rats”, not as “security” or “the strong arm of the High Council”. It may be, as a few people have mentioned before, that the rats aren’t a human-normal byproduct of the mutations (too many identical members of one species). If this is the case, then perhaps there’s a class-struggle issue between the mutants, and whatever it is that the rats came from. This could give us 3 known distinct groups – unmutated human Topsiders, humans-turned-mutants, and rats.