Kane considered his options. Dive in? Without knowing anything about this scenario? That would jeopardize his cover before his first night was over. What would Dr. Edward Pearce do? He’d be in bed, asleep, earplugs in.

“He was snooping around,” the man said to the new arrivals.

“No, I wasn’t.” The boy tried to get up and the man stepped on his hand. The boy screamed. In the torchlight Kane saw the assailant was in his thirties, with a fade cut and tattoos, and the neat, polished muscles of military staff with time to kill. Kane’s guess was a corporal or junior technician. The other two wore identical red polo shirts branded INTERSERVE, one of the subcontractors running facilities. One was a Saint, darker skinned, the tallest of the three. The other was short and squat. He held a bottle and cigarette in one hand.

“What are you doing here?” The smoker stepped closer to the boy, speaking quieter. Now the corporal lifted the boy up. The stocky man got his hand around the boy’s throat. “Eh? What the fuck are you doing?”

The boy struggled, getting a foot up and trying to kick him. The bottle fell and smashed. The subcontractor grabbed his foot and twisted the leg, and then the soldier released the boy and let him fall face down in the dirt. The Saint drove a powerful kick into the boy’s stomach.

“Take his shoes,” the first man said. The two subcontractors tore the boy’s shoes off. The corporal lifted the boy’s head by the hair and looked like he was about to slam it into the ground.

Kane stepped forward.

“Hey.”

They all turned. One of the subcontractors aimed the torch in Kane’s face.

“Who’s that?” the corporal said.

“What’s going on here?”

The boy watched Kane, chest rising and falling, blood and ash across his face. He looked wary, as if Kane might be the next to kick him.

“Back off,” the short man said.

“Okay. But I think that’s enough for now. Let him go.”

Few people are ever up for a physical contest that holds the possibility of their losing. The mammalian brain is good at reading who has the psychological edge. Two of the men weren’t fighters—the Saint was going through the motions, but you could see he was deferential to the other two. The stocky man was angry but weak. He’d run if it came to it. The corporal was the one who needed to be taken out, and he was the one who walked toward Kane. He appraised the clothes and style of Kane’s cover: preppy, pallid, academic.

“I said back off,” he said. “Who the fuck are you?”

“What’s the boy done? It doesn’t seem like a fair fight to me.”