Jay approached him again, this time without the full commitment of the first attempt. His movements were shorter and more controlled, with his hands positioned differently.

Mike reevaluated his assessment of Jay’s training, recognizing it was more advanced than he had previously thought.

He wasn’t working from instinct. He knew what he was doing.

Mike blocked the first strike, took a grazing contact on the shoulder from the second because blocking it cleanly would have cost him his position, and used the window that buying that position gave him to put Jay off-balance, rotating him out of the center line. Jay recovered faster than expected, and they separated.

Mike rolled his shoulder, testing it. "Fine."

"The shoulder," Jay said.

"Still attached," Mike replied.

"Next one won’t be just a graze."

"I’ll keep that in mind," Mike said.

He looked at Jay with the particular attention of someone who had upgraded their estimate and was recalculating accordingly. "Who taught you?"

Jay’s expression shifted slightly. "What?"

"The footwork," Mike said. "Somebody trained you, and it wasn’t a gym."

"Does it matter?"

"Curious," Mike said. "You’re wasted on this alley."

"Well, genuinely... You’re wasted on Tyler Schmith’s schedule and a service gate at two in the morning."

"Whatever they taught you, it wasn’t for this."

"Shut up," Jay said. "I’ll still kick your fucking ass!"

"I’m serious," Mike said. "This is what I’m saying."

"You’re the most capable person in this alley by a significant margin, and you’re spending it on a physics student who weighs fifty kilos. That’s the actual waste."

"I said shut the FUCK UP!" Jay exclaimed, and his tone was different this time, possessing a tighter quality that indicated he did not want to hear anything because some part of him had already considered it.

He came forward again, and this time he combined the controlled entry with a shift in angle that was genuinely good, and Mike found himself working harder than he had expected to work in this alley at this hour, which he noted without resentment.

They moved through the alley in a way that lacked fluidity—this was not a controlled environment—but instead involved the typical give-and-take that occurs when two individuals are intuitively reading each other. Each adjustment prompted a counter-adjustment. Mike blocked and redirected, absorbing a solid hit to the ribs that he noted would likely register tomorrow. He then struck Jay’s shoulder, causing him to stagger to the left.

Jay caught himself on the wall and pushed off, launching a follow-up strike that was fast enough to partially bypass Mike’s guard.

Mike moved into the strike instead of away, absorbing the impact at close range, where it had diminished force. He used the closeness to gain control over Jay’s arm and shift the dynamics of the encounter.

From somewhere behind them, Tobin said, "Jay—"

"Stay there," Jay said through effort. "You two are fucking useless, and I’ll deal with this myself!"

"He’s—"

"I FUCKING said stay your ass down, bitch ass!"

They were still moving. Jay was strong, trained, and angry—a combination that demanded sustained attention. Mike was fully focused while also maintaining the operational awareness of someone who needed to keep track of Cody and Tobin at all times.

Cody was back against the far wall, holding his wrist.

Tobin still had the knife but had not re-entered the fray, which could indicate a tactical decision or uncertainty—based on his body language, it seemed to be uncertainty.

Mike worked Jay’s position for another two exchanges, giving ground twice deliberately to pull Jay into overextension and then closing the distance on the third, stepping past Jay’s guard and getting behind him, one arm across his throat and the other controlling his weight.

Jay had retrieved the knife from the alley floor within the last thirty seconds—Mike had kept track of it. Mike applied pressure to Jay’s wrist until he dropped the weapon, allowing Mike to possess it.

He held the position.

Jay tugged forward once, then twice.

The alley was quiet except for breathing.

Mike waited and felt Jay’s resistance complete itself and then begin to settle.

"You hit well," Mike said quietly, at a volume that was mostly for Jay. "The rib shot was good."

"I’ll know about it in the morning."

"You’re welcome," Jay said through his teeth.

"I mean it as a compliment," Mike said. "Most people in alleys at two AM aren’t worth the attention."

"Are you going to keep talking," Jay said, "or are you going to do something?"

"I’m going to let you go," Mike said, "and then I’m going to show you something, and then you’re going to make a decision."

"That’s the order."

He held the position until he felt Jay’s resistance fully settle.

"Here’s what happens now," Mike said, at a volume that was for Jay specifically. "You’re going to listen to me say something, and then the three of you are going to go home."

"That’s the version we’re in."

He waited.

Jay said nothing, which was agreement.

Mike stood up. He didn’t put distance between himself and Jay, because that would have created a new problem, but he stood in a way that communicated the available positions for everyone in the alley without requiring any of them to be explicitly stated.

He glanced at Cody and Tobin for a moment. Cody still had a grip on the wrist, while Tobin had lowered the knife.

"You two," Mike said. "How’s the midnight going?"

Cody stared at him.

"Thought so," Mike said.

He pulled out his phone.

He played the video he had shot from the entrance.

Jay watched it. Cody and Tobin watched from the far end, and the quality of their attention changed as they heard themselves on the audio.

The alley lighting was poor but functional, allowing the three standing figures to be identified based on their size and movement. The sound from the alley was clear.

"Audio is good," Mike said. "Lighting’s adequate for identification."

He put the phone away.

"This stays where it is," Mike said, "as long as the three of you are being useful to me."

"Bastard... he’s trying to blackmail us!" Cody gritted his teeth, and when he was about to attack, Jay raised his hand.

"Useful...? What the fuck do you mean by that?" Jay asked, and his voice had the flat quality of someone who had arrived at a negotiation they hadn’t expected to be in. "We’re going to be your fucking lapdog...?"

"You said it, not me. And that depends on what I need," Mike said. "Right now, I need you to handle specific categories of problems when I point them out, and I need you to avoid causing any issues yourselves."

He looked at all three of them. "In return, this video stays private. Your academic records stay clean."

"And I might even be able to introduce you to situations that are more interesting than this alley."

Tobin looked at Jay. "Maybe we should trust him, Jay..."

"He’s not like the others."

"Shut up." Jay held his gaze. "What kind of situations are you talking about?"

"The kind where you’re not bothering physics students at two AM," Mike said. "The kind that actually benefits you other than him."

He let that sit.

"You," Jay said after a moment. "You specifically..."

"You show up in an alley, take both our knives, film us, and then offer us a deal."

"I had a free midnight stroll tonight," Mike said. "And I’m not here to ruin your lives; there are plenty of people who need to be taken down with our cooperation."

"Who the hell are you?" Jay said.

It was not quite the same question as the one Cody had asked in the earlier version of the evening. This one had a different weight behind it, the question of someone who was genuinely trying to categorize something and finding that their categories weren’t wide enough.

"Mike Hawk," Mike said. "First-year postgraduate. International Economics."

Jay looked at him.

"You’re pulling our legs," Cody said from the far end.

"I am not," Mike said.

"You’re a student," Jay said.

"I’m several things," Mike said. "Student is accurate."

Jay was quiet for a moment.

He looked at the ground between them, at the two knives on the alley floor, at Tyler still on the ground to Mike’s left. He looked like someone doing arithmetic.

"Alright," he said finally, and the word had the particular flatness of someone who had completed the arithmetic and found the answer unsatisfying but undeniable. "We’ll listen to you just this once."

"Good," Mike said.

"I’m going to walk over there and help Tyler up," Mike said. "You three are going to leave."

"I’ll be in touch with you three tomorrow, alright?"

He turned his back on them as a calculated decision to convey a specific message and walked back to where Tyler was.

"Are you sure about this, Jay?" Tobin asked.

"We’ll see," Jay replied. "If he didn’t give anything worth it, then we just have to stab him in the back."

"Come on, let’s leave."

Cody and Tobin started moving toward the alley entrance. Jay stayed still for another two seconds, which was the ego requiring its moment, and then followed.

At the entrance, Jay’s phone fell from his jacket pocket. He didn’t notice, and his footsteps continued up the street.

Mike noticed that Jay’s phone had fallen and walked over to it. He bent down, picked it up, and pocketed it.

’What a fucking fool...’

Tyler, from the ground, had been watching all of this. His glasses were in his hand, and he was squinting without them and had the look of someone who had processed the last fifteen minutes as a sequence of events he was going to need some time to categorize.

"You’re okay," Mike said, though it wasn’t exactly a question.

"I’m not," Tyler said. "I’m fairly certain I’m not."

"You’ll be okay," Mike said. "Different thing."

He walked toward him and extended a hand.

"Come on, man up."