The ex-boxer already had an answer ready. You could see it in him before he said it, in the way his chest set and his shoulders squared, the response already loaded and aimed. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

Proxy did not let him fire it.

"Really, though, what’s there to say?"

His voice was unhurried, more interested in the sarcastic tone than in whatever was being said. "The great plan you came up with was to drag your sorry ass here to threaten someone you cannot touch, in a room with a guard near the door."

The ex-boxer’s expression changed, the veins on his neck nearly snapping with pressure.

"But I understand why, I really do."

Proxy continued. "Because you think yourself a winner, the last man standing, but until now you have nothing to show to convince yourself of that, much less others. Your greatest achievements so far was barely driving a truck through the finish line."

He let that sit for a beat.

"But you want to look dangerous, and that’s why you are here, talking shit."

The ex-boxer’s teeth grinded. He flexed the hand with the metal knuckles once, like the motion itself might improve his position.

"The fuck did you just-"

"Shh. Don’t interrupt," Proxy said. "The last part is the one that matters."

He looked at him with plain attention. "You’ve told me twice now what you’re going to do to me. Both times unprompted. Both times in a setting where you couldn’t actually do it. You know who announces a plan twice? Someone who’s too much of a coward to admit it isn’t going to work, someone who needs to say it out loud because saying it out loud is the closest they can get to believing it."

He paused for exactly as long as the sentence needed. "That just shows you are an insecure bastard that needs to compensate somehow, and I suppose besides large cars and weapons that’s how you do it. But hey, good for you to at least try it."

The punch was fast.

Proxy had noticed the forward shift of weight, the tell of a man who led with his right, and he dodged. He turned his head and stepped back, and the punch caught the side of his ear in a glancing clip that sent heat flashing across the left side of his skull and turned his vision briefly white.

He stumbled into the shelf behind him ungracefully. The shelf caught his shoulder, and he steadied himself against it with his palm and stayed upright, which was the only outcome that actually mattered.

"Hardin."

The guard’s voice was flat and immediate. He was already between them, arm raised, the movement rigid, the timing of who had considered this exact intervention before and knew precisely where to be.

"That’s a warning. Step back."

Hardin stood for one second with his fist still open from the follow-through. His eyes went from Proxy to the guard and back to Proxy, and what crossed his face in that beat was not regret. It was rage, the specific kind needed an outlet immediately to not implode but couldn’t find any.

He flexed his hand once, then stepped back.

"For the remainder of the free period, back in your cell,"

The guard said with indifference. His hand went over Hardin’s shoulder, forcefully turned him around and pushed him towards the library exit. There was no sense he wanted or needed cooperation, and the strength he showed when he manhandled Hardin made Proxy raise a brow in surprise.

"Move."

Hardin moved. He went the way someone like him goes when a moment has closed without resolving, not quietly, but not stupidly, the kind of exit that kept the larger conversation open while conceding this particular situation. He passed Proxy’s position without looking at him again, and the not-looking said more than looking would have.

The guard watched him reach the door, then turned to give Proxy a brief, assessing look, confirming no ongoing situation. There wasn’t one. He walked back to his position near the entrance and resumed his stance.

Proxy stood by the shelf with his hand still on it and ran through what had just happened in the only useful order.

The guard had moved at the contact attempt. Not at the raised voices. Not at the posturing. Not at anything in the verbal exchange, which had contained several things that might have warranted intervention if this were a different kind of guard. He had moved the moment the punch started, not a second before.

Response time: immediate. Threshold: physical attempt only. Everything between the opening exchange and that punch had been inside the guard’s window of acceptable, which meant that window was wide.

That was specific information about a specific guard on a specific block, and it was now filed.

He exhaled through his nose. The ear was warm on the left side, the way skin goes warm after a fast contact, and he ran a quick internal check on the rest of his situation and found nothing requiring further attention.

He turned.

The other inmates in the library were looking at him. The one near the periodicals who had kept his back to the room had not fully turned, but his weight had shifted toward Proxy’s direction.

The other three were not making any effort to look like they’d been doing something else. They had watched the whole of it, the exchange, the punch, the guard’s response, and what Hardin’s exit had looked like when the moment closed.

Proxy gave the room a small, flat shrug, the shrug of someone filing a minor inconvenience and finding it manageable, and walked to the door.

The interior corridor was the same flat white as everything else in the facility. The free period still had time in it. He went toward the yard exit, because Nyx was at the yard, and the yard was where he needed to be next.

He had a sub-basement, a guard threshold, and a name.

It was a reasonable morning.