Nexus Day. Ten o'clock in the morning.

     "Are you following me?" Adam Forwarder asked the person directly behind him. 

​     "Keelo wants to talk to you," came the reply. "Now."

​     "Can't do it," Adam replied. "And, oh yeah, while you're back there, why don't you just go ahead and kiss my ass?"

     "No, you don't understand." Three other man appeared as if out of nowhere. They flanked Adam on four sides. "Maybe you didn't hear who we're working for."

​     "Maybe I did."

     "When Keelo wants to see someone, they get seen."

     "Not this time," Adam said to the guy who stood directly in his path. Adam was tall, but this man towered over him. He was bald and had a broken nose and looked like a very tough customer.

      Adam ducked then because everyone tried to grab him all at once. 

​     Three forceful strikes, one to a knee, one to a groin, the third up under a ribcage. The result was three idiots transfixed by their own pain. Adam stepped back to avoid the hammer-like fist of the big guy, the only assailant Adam had any real concern about. Adam put everything he had into the knuckles of his right fist to smack the guy hard in the throat. The guy stumbled back, stunned. Then Adam hit two of them with darts from his finger gun. Kill? No, he didn't need them dead. Knocking them out for a couple of hours would be enough. The third one rose with a Glock in his fist. Now why would he need a hand cannon like that on the streets of Seatrailia? Overcompensation, obviously. Oh well. Adam lashed out with a kick lightning fast. He kicked the Glock out of the man's hand and smashed the guy's knuckles in the process. Then, before the guy could recover from that, Adam took him out with a dart. One guy left. Stupidly, he came at Adam again. After getting his larynx crushed so that he had to gasp for air with each breath, he still wanted to play.

     Okay, Adam thought. Let's play.  

     Adam let himself go crazy. He hit the guy hard, and in about a dozen different places. The guy, at first, stood strong and tall. Then, minutely at first, then gushingly, he started to bleed, from his face, from his neck, from underneath his shirt. After that, he just kind of crumbled within himself. Adam finished him with one, two, three smacks to the face. With the third one, the guy's head snapped back like a twig cracking loose from a tree. He didn't even move. He just dropped to the sidewalk and went out.

     "You catch that, Claudia?" he asked his computer, who he kept in constant contact with.  

     "Every second. You're late for your luncheon with Elena."

​     "I'm afraid it's going to have to be rescheduled."

     "She's not going to like that." 

​     "Nothing to be done."

     "You know, you could just..."

​     "Keelo knows better than this. I can't let people just snatch me off the sidewalk whenever they feel like it. I'd never be able to go anywhere."

​     "Yes, I know, but I'm not sure you have to..."

​     "No. Keeleo's a powerful underground figure, but he just made a stupid mistake. He must be desperate or something. Otherwise, he never would have pulled a rookie stunt like this." He climbed into his Stargod. "I'll try to make this quick." 

     "Oh Adam."

CONTINUE