"Gonna get you, mutie," the boy promised, hovering on the balls of his feet in nervous threat. The hag urged her bravo on with a rude gesture at Mark. A peculiar set-up; little old ladies and punks were normally natural enemies, but these two seemed in it together. Comrades of the Imperium, no doubt, uniting against a common foe.

"Better a mutie than a moron," Mark intoned with false cordiality.

The lout's brows wrinkled. "Hey! Is that back-chat to me? Huh?"

"Do you see any other morons around here?" At the boy's eye-flicker, Mark looked over his shoulder. "Oh. Excuse me. There are two more. I understand your confusion." His adrenaline pumped, turning his late lunch into a lump of regret in his belly. Two more youths, taller, heavier, older, but only adolescents. Possibly vicious, but untrained. Still . . . where was Ivan now? Where was that bloody invisible supposed outer perimeter guard? On break? "Aren't you late for school? Your remedial drooling class, perhaps?"

"Funny mutie," said one of the older ones. He wasn't laughing.

The attack was sudden, and almost took Mark by surprise; he thought etiquette demanded they exchange a few more insults first, and he was just working up some good ones. Exhilaration mixed strangely with the anticipation of pain. Or maybe it was the anticipation of pain that was exhilarating. The biggest punk tried to kick him in the groin. He caught the foot with one hand and boosted it skyward, flipping the kid onto his back on the stones with a wham that knocked the wind out of him. The second one launched a blow with his fist; Mark caught his arm. They whirled, and the punk found himself stumbling into his skinny companion. Unfortunately, now they both were between Mark and the exit.

They scrambled to their feet, looking astonished and outraged; what kind of easy pickings had they expected, for God's sake? Easy enough. His reflexes were two years stale, and he was already getting winded. Yet the extra weight made him harder to knock off his feet. Three to one on a crippled-looking fat little lost stranger, eh? You like those odds? Come to me, baby cannibals. The bakery bag was still clutched absurdly in his fist as he grinned and opened his arms in invitation.