The next afternoon, the sun beat down hard enough to turn the cracked sidewalks into mirrors.
Jup and Robert cut across the old basketball court on their way home, shoes scraping over blacktop split by weeds.
The rims leaned crooked on rusted poles, and the backboards had blistered and peeled under years of heat.
Kids still played here sometimes.
Today, nobody did.
Jup noticed the silence before Robert said anything.
It didn’t belong to the court, and neither did the way the far fence seemed to hold too much stillness behind it.
He counted without meaning to: two exits, one open toward the street, another narrow enough to become useless if somebody decided to stand in it.
The far fence had enough blind space to hide a small group.
His father had taught him to notice things like that long before Jup understood why they mattered.
Lately, he noticed everything — the impossible tolerances in his father’s schematics, components he couldn’t identify, power routes that should have cooked themselves the second somebody tried to use normal parts.
The box had stayed closed after he put the schematics away.
Mostly.
He had made it through three pages before deciding that studying machinery he could build, if he surrendered enough hours to it, was a creative way to ruin his sleep.
Robert’s voice lost its usual bounce.
“Yo, Jup. You feel that?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t sound concerned.”
Jup kept his eyes on the fence.
“I’ve had a weird week.”
Movement answered him.
Six older teens stepped out from behind the chain-link, blue bands showing on their jackets.
The Blue Saints, one of the smaller crews that ran under East Bloc — small enough to need the larger name, close enough to it that most people did not test the difference.
Robert let out a quiet breath.
“There it is.”
“See?” Jup said.
“Concern.”
Marcus walked at the front.
His new C-tier marker glowed above his wrist whenever his sleeve shifted.
The rank drop had already taken his athletic placement, cut his family’s transit support, and raised the medical contribution attached to his mother’s clinic plan.
None of that belonged to Jup.
Marcus needed it to belong to someone close enough to hit.
He looked different outside school.
Same face, same build, but without cameras and teachers around, the usual smirk was gone.
Out here, he looked flatter, meaner, like the hallway version of Marcus was something he wore because adults preferred their threats dressed properly.
“Well,” Marcus said, spreading his arms like he owned the blacktop, “look who finally ran out of hallways.”
Robert tensed beside Jup.
“We don’t want trouble.”
Jup watched the crew spread instead of watching Marcus.
One boy drifted toward the street exit.
Another eased toward the narrow opening along the fence.
There went both ways out.
“Little late for that,” Jup said.
Marcus looked at him.
“Something funny?”
“Six of you waiting at an empty basketball court for two people?” Jup glanced around once.
“A little.”
One of the boys behind Marcus snorted before he caught himself.
Marcus’s mouth flattened.
Robert leaned slightly toward Jup.
“You know you don’t have to make him angrier.”
“I wasn’t sure he had another setting.”
Marcus stepped closer.
“You think you’re smart?”
“Usually.”
The answer landed before Marcus had time to decide what he wanted from it.
Jup slid his bag from his shoulder.
Nia’s crystal was inside, along with the camera assembly from the contractor cage.
His father’s box was back at the apartment, which suddenly felt like one of the better decisions he had made lately.
Instead of dropping the bag in the middle of the court, he set it beside the base of the fence.
Robert noticed, and so did Marcus.
Good.
“You done?” Jup asked.
Marcus blinked.
“What?”
“Talking.”
One of Marcus’s boys rushed him first.
Ki surged hard through the boy’s legs before he moved — too much, the burst giving him speed but announcing exactly when he planned to use it.
He came fast and angry, throwing everything into a reinforced punch.
Jup stepped half a pace sideways.
Ki flashed through his forearm as he caught the strike off-center and turned the boy’s momentum into the second attacker coming up behind him.
Both stumbled together.
Robert stared.
“Okay.”
“Move.”
“Right.”
Then the rest came.
Chaos broke across the court.
Robert reinforced his arms, swung, missed clean, and barely ducked a Ki-backed kick.
“Man, I am not built for this!”
“Then specialize in surviving!”
The next attacker caught Jup before he could turn fully.
A reinforced forearm slammed into his upper arm and spun him half around.
Pain shot from shoulder to elbow.
Jup recovered before the boy could follow and drove a palm into his chest, Ki snapping through the strike.
The hit landed hard, a sting kicking backward through Jup’s wrist where the reinforcement hadn’t settled cleanly.
“Like that,” he said through his teeth.
Robert ducked another punch.
“Oh, that’s what you meant.”
Another boy came in from Jup’s left.
Jup saw the shoulder rotate before the punch came.
His father had drilled that into him until Jup hated shoulders.
People could lie with their mouths.
Bodies were less creative.
He slipped outside the strike and hooked a foot behind the boy’s ankle.
He didn’t need to overpower him, only needed gravity to agree.
It did.
The boy hit the blacktop hard.
The satisfaction didn’t last.
Something drove into his ribs from behind. Find the original chapter at g.com.
Air left him in one ugly burst.
He stumbled two steps and caught himself before his knee hit the ground.
Too many.
“Jup!”
He turned.
Robert had backed toward the fence without realizing it.
One Saint had his sleeve twisted in one fist while another drew back to hit him.
Jup moved before thinking.
He caught the second boy across the shoulder with a reinforced shove, knocking the punch wide, then grabbed Robert by the back of his shirt and hauled him out of the corner.
The first Saint swung anyway.
Jup took the hit across his ribs instead.
Pain folded through the same spot the earlier blow had found.
Robert stared at him.
“You good?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
“Move.”
“Right. Still doing that.”
Jup shoved him toward open space and turned just as another hand caught the back of his shirt.
He went with the pull instead of fighting it and drove an elbow behind him.
The grip vanished with a curse.
One of the boys Jup had dropped earlier was getting back to his feet near the baseline, favoring one knee.
Marcus’s attention flicked toward him once, quick enough that nobody else might have noticed.
“Get up,” Marcus said.
The boy nodded and forced himself upright.
Then Marcus looked back at Jup.
That small glance bothered Jup almost as much as the way Marcus moved next.
He wasn’t wild like the others.
Marcus kept his Ki close, giving away almost nothing before he acted.
Jup knew reinforcement well enough to recognize the difference.
Marcus was not stronger because he used more.
He wasted less.
Jup shifted his stance.
Marcus didn’t rush, didn’t look toward Robert, and barely seemed interested in whether the rest of the crew was winning anymore.
His attention stayed fixed on Jup.
Cold and patient.
The others had come in swinging angry.
Marcus was choosing his moment.
He moved.
Jup saw the shoulder too late.
Marcus’s fist crossed the distance with almost no warning, reinforcement loading behind the knuckles only as the strike arrived.
It slammed across Jup’s jaw.
Pain cracked white through his skull.
The court lurched sideways.
Jup had managed to brace at the last instant, enough to stay upright, but his teeth snapped together hard enough to send another bolt through his jaw.
Blood filled his mouth.
Then something beneath the familiar heat of Ki pushed back.
Deeper.
Sharper.
Wrong.
It gathered somewhere deeper than muscle and climbed through his chest with no connection to breath or any pathway he knew how to control.
Jup froze.
The court seemed to pull away from him.
Sound dulled.
The pressure kept rising.
Forcing it down didn’t work — not at first.
His fingers curled so hard his nails cut into his palm.
The thing inside him pressed once more, almost impatient.
Marcus’s rear foot slid back half a step.
He caught himself immediately, but his eyes narrowed and his guard came up tighter than before.
Jup saw it.
Marcus saw him see it.
His father’s letter surfaced through the pressure.
Build before you trust.
Understand before you use.
Jup didn’t understand this.
He pushed harder.
Pain flashed through the center of his chest.
His breath caught, and his right hand spasmed open.
Then the deeper pressure collapsed inward so suddenly his knees nearly went with it.
Jup caught himself with one foot sliding backward across the blacktop.
The world rushed back.
Heat.
Noise.
Blood.
His own Ki still moving where it belonged.
The other thing was gone.
Mostly.
A faint tremor remained in his fingers.
Marcus had noticed that too.
Jup straightened slowly and spat blood onto the court.
Another voice came back to him, one he trusted more.
His father’s.
Get hit.
Stay standing.
Decide after.
A muscle jumped in Marcus’s jaw.
Jup wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“You hit everybody like that, or am I getting birthday treatment?”
Marcus came forward again.
This time Jup let him.
He watched the shoulders, the hips, the way Marcus loaded his right foot before his hand moved.
Marcus threw.
Jup shifted his reinforcement early, slipped outside the punch, and drove his fist into Marcus’s cheek with Ki behind it.
The force wasn’t contained as cleanly as Marcus’s had been.
Marcus still took all of it.
The crack snapped across the court.
Marcus staggered sideways.
The fury dropped from his face.
He looked stunned more than angry — not because Jup had hit him, but because whatever he thought he had seen a moment earlier was apparently still not giving him the answer he wanted.
Then rage closed over it again.
Jup stepped into the space Marcus had lost.
He didn’t attack.
He took the ground and made Marcus understand that he had.
Marcus understood.
A sharp whistle cut through the heat.
Red and blue light flashed across the fence as a Civic patrol vehicle rolled slowly beside the court.
Its siren gave one lazy whoop, almost bored.
The exterior cameras turned toward them one after another.
Jup watched the lenses track the blood on his mouth, Robert’s torn sleeve, Marcus holding one hand near his jaw, and the rest of the crew already breaking toward the fence.
The patrol had the entire scene.
Nobody inside lowered a window.
Nobody asked a question.
Apparently, six boys fighting in daylight mattered enough to record and not enough to interrupt.
Marcus backed away first.
His crew scattered around him, vaulting the fence and cutting toward alleys before Civic decided paperwork might become necessary.
Marcus moved more slowly.
The boy with the bad knee made it over the fence awkwardly, and Marcus waited until he cleared it.
Then his eyes returned to Jup.
“You should’ve stayed out of my way,” he said.
Jup wiped fresh blood from his lip.
“You waited for me at an empty court.”
Marcus said nothing.
Jup tilted his head.
“Feels like a scheduling issue on your end.”
Robert made a sound behind him that was either a laugh or a warning.
Marcus held Jup’s stare.
Whatever he had come looking for, the fight had not settled it.
Then he turned and followed the others.
Jup waited until the last blue band disappeared before crossing to the fence for his bag.
Bending down made his ribs complain immediately.
He hid the reaction badly.
Robert noticed.
The zipper was still shut.
Good.
“Man…” Robert planted both hands on his knees and dragged in air.
Jup checked the bag anyway.
“You are actually insane.”
“Probably.”
“Like medically.”
“That seems expensive.”
Robert straightened and stared at him.
“We just got jumped by six people.”
“Five and Marcus.”
“Marcus is a person.”
Jup slung the bag over his shoulder and regretted the motion when pain caught along his side.
“Debatable.”
Robert laughed despite himself, then grabbed his side.
“Ow. Don’t be funny.”
“I’ll try to become less charming.”
“You could start now.”
They headed for the street.
The Civic patrol rolled away at the same lazy pace it had arrived, cameras still tracking the court behind them.
Robert watched it go.
“Helpful.”
“Maybe they filed a very concerned video.”
“That’ll save us next time.”
“Government efficiency.”
Robert looked at him for a few seconds.
“You joke too much when you’re freaked out.”
Jup kept walking.
“I joke exactly the right amount.”
“You almost did something back there.”
The humor left the space between them.
Jup didn’t look at him.
Robert had seen it — not what it was, there hadn’t been enough to see, but he had seen Jup lose control of something.
“I saw your face,” Robert said.
“I’m sure it was very expressive.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
Robert waited for more.
Jup didn’t give it to him because he didn’t have it.
His right hand still shook faintly when he let it hang loose, so he closed it around the strap of his bag before Robert could notice that too.
The scanner had found something it couldn’t classify.
His father’s box held technology Jup couldn’t explain.
Nia’s crystal had reacted to that technology.
And now something inside Jup had tried to answer a punch before he had decided to.
Four problems, no instructions.
Technically, his father had left instructions.
That somehow made it worse.
Build before you trust.
The words had followed him out of the apartment that morning.
Now they followed him home.
Behind them, the basketball court shrank between the buildings.
Marcus’s punch would bruise.
His ribs already hurt.
Aya would notice both.
That problem could wait ten minutes.
Jup adjusted the strap of his bag.
Robert noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You have your thinking face.”
“I have one face.”
“No, you’ve got at least four. That one’s the one that gets us arrested.”
Jup kept walking.
“Good thing we’re going home, then.”
Robert glanced at the bruise forming along his jaw.
“You say that like home is going to be safer.”
Jup thought of Aya.
“Fair.”