A mutie sec man raked a line across the plastic floor in front of Ryan and the others, leaving a burned strip as a warning against interfering in the fight.

Helpless, they could do nothing but watch the fourteen-year-old take on the other three sec guards, without benefit of a weapon.

The blasters gave only the faintest hum and crackle when fired. From the floor, Dr. Tardy squeaked an order to the muties not to use their weapons. With so many people crowded together, she knew there was a good chance "innocents," such as herself, might get injured.

"Minimum force! Subdue the stranger!"

But the stranger wasn't about to let himself be subdued.

Over the years, Ryan Cawdor had seen men and women who had lethal skills in hand-to-hand fighting, but he'd never seen anyone quite as good as Jak Lauren.

The boy dropped to the floor, pushing out with his fingers, kicking at the knees of the nearest guard. There was the clear crack of bone snapping, and the mutie toppled sideways, landing with a crash on the plastic tiles. The guard's helmet rolled off, revealing, for the first time, the face of one of the scientist's sec men.

It was the face of a slobbering idiot — rolling eyes behind the glittering visor, and a mouth that opened and closed like a landed fish. Only the faintest mewing sound could be heard.

The creature came up on one knee, hands snatching at the broken joint, spittle trailing across his chest. Jak glanced sideways, measured the distance and kicked once more, his foot striking the base of the mutie's broad nose. Cartilage split and bone splintered. Jagged shards were driven deep into the front of what passed for brains in the sec man.

The guard flopped back, legs kicking and flailing, blood trickling from his open mouth where the rictus of dying agony had made him bite through his own blubbery tongue.

Jak wasn't interested in the man behind him. He jabbed with a clenched fist at the solar plexus of the second sec guard, doubling him over like a fawning courtier. The breath whooshed from the mutie's lungs, and he fell to his knees, gagging. A thread of yellow-green bile wormed from under the rim of his helmet. As he bent over, he exposed the nape of his neck for several seconds.

Jak needed only a couple of those seconds.

Using the board-hard cutting edge of his left hand, the white-haired boy chopped down at the helpless creature. Doc Tanner winced at the sickening sound of vertebrae cracking. The mutie's voice box gave a shriek of electronic feedback as he fell, mortally wounded, to join his partner on the blood-smeared floor.

The third guard backed away, waving the laser blaster helplessly, head turning back and forth, waiting for orders. Dr. Tardy had gotten to her feet, ignoring her companion who was having problems with his prosthetic arm. She chattered into a tiny lapel mike, too quietly for Ryan to hear what she was saying. It didn't need a giant intellect to guess she was calling up reinforcements to take the boy.

"Hit the mutie fucker, kid," Finnegan yelled, hands opening and closing as if he imagined himself squeezing the throat of the sec guard covering them.

"Set on twenty!" the little woman screeched, fists clenched in impotent rage.

"Watch him, Jak!" Ryan warned, seeing the third sec man fiddle with the dial control on the side of his weapon, then push the slide from two up to twenty.

From scorch to destroy.

But Jak was too quick. He came in like a dancer, perfectly balanced, red eyes glowing ferociously. As the mutie clumsily leveled the blaster, Jak batted it aside with one hand. There was a brief crackle from the gun, but no stream of luminous death. The force of the blow was enough to send the stubby weapon spinning into the air. It landed with a hiss, and a microsecond stream of deep blue light spat from the muzzle. The beam hit the wall to the left of Krysty's bed, blasting a smoking hole in the concrete. Fortunately for everyone, after that single brief pulse of laser power, the gun lay still.

Standing with legs slightly apart, the guard turned to watch the flight of his blaster. That gave Jak all the chance he needed. With dazzling streetfighter speed, he kicked hard, his foot crunching between the sec man's thighs, pulping the scrotal sac against the sharp edge of the pubic bone.

"Malfunction has ensued malfunction has ensued malf..."

The voice box was activated. The tone was calm and measured, at odds with the figure rolling helplessly at the feet of the white-haired boy, hands clutching his groin.

For a few fluttering heartbeats, it looked as if Jak was going to do it. The guard covering the others hesitated, head turning, blind-visored, seeking orders. Dr. Tardy stood away from the door, face pale as death at the sight of two of her precious sec men down and dying and a third crippled.

Then the backup force arrived.

Through the door came a dozen or more black-uniformed muties, all holding blasters at the ready. They fanned out and covered the single skinny young boy.

Ryan sucked at his teeth, knowing the cord of Jak's life was a heartbeat away from being severed forever. One word from the woman...

"Negative termination." she said, panting as if she'd run a hard race over a plowed field.

The cripple was finally on his feet, wiping sweat from his high forehead with his normal hand. He leaned forward in a curiously reptilian manner, studying the albino boy.

"He is m-m-m-m-most interesting, Dr. T-T-T-Tardy," he stammered.

"Indeed he is, Dr. Avian. I have never seen or heard of such skill and control, lethal wise."

Ryan relaxed. They weren't going to have the kid turned into steaming spray and spilled guts, after all.

"You will go to Control, boy," she lisped to Jak.

"You're going to chill him?" Ryan asked. If the answer turned out to be yes, he would let them take Jak and watch for a chance to go after them and save the kid.

"I don't read you."

"Kill him. Waste him. Send him to buy the farm. Terminate him?"

Jak stood, watching, his chest hardly moving more than normal, despite having put down three armed men, two of them for keeps. The other sec men kept their blasters on full power, covering Ryan and the rest.

The only sound was a bubbling little giggle, like that of a tiny girl seeing her first fireworks, an obscene, crazed noise in that room of death.

"Negative termination. We must examine him carefully and cherish him. A mutie beyond all muties, this one. No. Remainder of you can sleep peacefully. He comes." The voice hardened. "No more resistance, or megacull. You understand, strangers?"

Ryan nodded. "Yeah. We understand, Doctor. Jak, you take care now. We'll be in to see you in the morning."

In their supertech world, it was obvious the scientists had never come across anyone with the raw power and ruthless skill to off armed men with hands and feet only. Ryan's guess was that that should be enough to keep the kid alive for a while.

That was his hope.

The sec men wheeled clumsily around, circling the young boy. Jak brushed back his snowy mane of hair, pale face schooled into stillness. The crippled scientist went haltingly out first, followed by the patrol.

"Hold your fucking head up, Whitey!" Finnegan shouted.

"Sure, Fats. I'll do that," the boy replied.

Dr. Tardy was last out, pausing in the doorway to turn and rake the six of them with her pebbled eyes. "Strange company for a man such as you, Dr. Tanner. We shall examine and test all of this. But it must wait. Central will become impatient if we do not proceed. And we are so nearly ready. So very nearly."

The door hissed shut, and Ryan and his companions were left alone.

Later, on his narrow bed, under the subdued lighting of the dormitory, Ryan found sleep difficult. The room still tasted of death, though the corpses had been removed and the floor cleaned.