weight training his grandfather had insisted he maintain. He was already larger than almost anybody of Takisian stock had ever been-anyone who grew so far beyond the classic somatotype would be destroyed as a monster-and his Takisian-derived muscles were denser and more efficient than a human's, his neurons firing and recovering quicker.
All of which was to say that while he'd grown a bit bored with the effortless control his mind power gave him, he had discovered the existential pleasures of kicking ass.
He told K.C. it was to set an example for the others, of course. To show that he wasn't just some effete egghead ace, just a wimp, like-well, like his grandfather. That was because K.C. wasn't tough, even if she was smart and, when the mood hit her, as happily savage as any of the jumpers. She liked to rationalize Blaise's violence by imagining that he was crafting a New Order of some sort out of the Rox rabble. Since she amused him, it amused him to play along.
Meanwhile, he was enjoying the animal pleasures, the morning light almost warm on his face, the breeze blowing stiff enough from seaward that he could smell the ocean over bloathlack and New Jersey, the tingling muscle memory of flesh-on-flesh impact, his bannermen murmuring respectfully behind him. "Did you see the way he straightened those fuckers out?"
He heard someone calling his name. He looked up. The sensual mood turned to dust and blew away. The hated stilt figure of Mark Meadows was running like a horrible scarecrow with an orange do, right along the beach, right at him, waving his arms and calling his name.
Blaise was stupefied. He must be some kind of monster. How can he be so bold?
"Blaise! Blaise, man." Meadows stopped a few feet away, looked him up and down. "It's good to see you. How long has it been? A year?"
"I, uh. I think so, Mark."
Merde! He makes me feel thirteen again.
"You're lookin' good, man. Growin' up and fillip' out. "
I should have fucked your daughter in the ass the way Latham fucked me. She was a beautiful little vegetable. She could have been a marvelous toy, and I could break her and throw her away if I wished....
"Thanks," he said. His lips tasted like paper.
Mark's watery gaze flicked past Blaise at the bannermen, then back to the boy. "So what, uh, what brings you to the Rox, man? Pigs come down on you too?"
"Yes. Yes, Mark, I guess they did."
Meadows nodded sagely. "Nail that stands out must be hammered down, huh? These're tough times to be different, man."
Yes, they are. And I'll show you just how tough.... "So, have you seen your grandpa recently, man? I, I really need to talk to him about something."
Blaise felt himself smile. It wasn't feigned. "Real recently."
"He's doing very well. What do you need to talk to him about?"
"It's kind of personal, man. I'm sorry."
Blaise gave a petulant little flip of his shoulders.
"Hey, I'd tell you if I could, you know that. But you're young, and I just hate to involve you, y'know?" He glanced around. "Well, I guess I'll catch you around. Good seeing you again, man." Meadows turned and walked away.
Incredible, he thought at the narrow retreating back. Such arrogance. Tell me now he doesn't wish me harm, dear Governor.
But he's still safe from me. Oh yes, so very safe.
K.C. was still hunkered on the sand where he'd left her. Her arms were around her knees, and her eyes were hooded. "Tell me one thing," she said, "and tell me straight. Is that true what you said, that the reason you came to the Rox, the reason you blew off your store, your being an ace, your whole comfortable little fantasyland life, was all for this daughter of yours?"
"Yes."
She stood. "You're a real case, buster. See you around."
He didn't see her the next day. He didn't expect to, and was disappointed anyway. In the chilly, fetid, humid dorm that night he reflected that he always seemed to be attracted to women who didn't see him the next day.
Ha. Attracted to her. There's a thought. For a moment, the voice n his head sounded like the familiar banter of JJ Flash, Esquire. But sharp-edged as he was, Flash was never quite that gratuitously nasty. And Mark's friends had dwindled away to nothingness within weeks after the trial. Actually, they'd drowned in booze for a few weeks, like the rest of his mind, and when he got a grip on himself