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keep a low profile, lest any of Gredok’s gang see them, maybe figure out what Quentin was up to.
    Quentin turned as well. The offended Quyth Warrior was normal for his species, which was to say he was much smaller than John Tweedy. Quentin had grown so used to being around Virak the Mean, Choto the Bright, and his other Quyth Warrior teammates that he’d forgotten how big they were relative to their species, just like he was big for his.
    The Warrior wore grey pants that covered his folded-up lower legs. He wore no shirt, exposing his pale orange torso and big lower arms. A few enamels decorated his carapace, but nothing like the full-body art of Virak and Choto. The pedipalp arms on either side of the Warrior’s head twitched. Quentin thought he saw a tinge of pink flicker through the Warrior’s single, baseball-sized eye.
    “You talkin’ to me?” John said, his smile growing even wider, his face scrolling the bright words
FREE TRIPS TO DEATHVILLE, GET YOUR TICKET PUNCHED HERE.
    The crowd started to part, giving John, Quentin and the Quyth Warrior plenty of room.
    “John,” Quentin said. “Now’s not the time.”
    John shrugged. “Not up to me. Up to Mister Happy Public Helper, here.” John pointed to the empty mag-can. “What do you say, Mister Happy Public Helper? You want to do something about that trash on the ground?”
    The Quyth Warrior looked at John, then at Quentin, then back. The pink color faded, replaced by swirling yellow.
    “John Tweedy?” the Warrior said. “Oh, I am a huge fan. Can I have your autograph?”
    The Warrior reached into one of his pants pockets. Quentin flinched, took a half step back to run, but the Warrior pulled out a message board that he offered to John.
    John sighed, then took the board and signed it.
    “And you,” the Warrior said to Quentin. “Are you Barnes? Really?”
    Quentin nodded. John passed over the messageboard, which Quentin quietly signed and handed back to the Warrior.
    “Oh thank you! Such an honor! And good luck this season. Go Krakens!”
    The Warrior put the messageboard back in his pocket, picked up the mag-can, then continued down the sidewalk.
    “John,” Quentin said. “I thought we were supposed to keep a low profile.”
    “I can’t help it if I’m so damn pretty,” John said. “It sucks, though — sentients recognize me too fast. Almost impossible to get into a decent brawl these days. I even get recognized when I go to Orbital Station One to see my brother Ju. Now that we’re in Tier One, it’s going to be even worse.”
    Quentin thought back to the mines of Micovi, where a similar, minor altercation could quickly escalate into a lethal fight. “John, why would you want to start something like that? What if that Warrior had a weapon?”
    “Hard to get a weapon inside the dome, Q. The Quyth aren’t big on their citizens and workers getting shot or stabbed every ten minutes. Most conflicts end as a straight-up fight. And when it comes to a straight-up fight? I’m kind of good.”
    “I noticed,” Quentin said, thinking back to the fight at the Bootleg Arms bar. He and several other Krakens had tried to pay off Don Pine’s gambling debt to Mopuk the Sneaky. Mopuk, living up to his name, had refused to take the money — a game-tanking GFL quarterback was far more valuable than the millions Don owed. Mopuk’s bodyguards tried to attack Quentin, but the bodyguards ran afoul of Virak, Choto, several Ki linemen and John Tweedy. John used his bare hands to kill two Quyth Warrior toughs, one by punching through the single eye to the brain behind, one by snapping its thick neck.
    When it came to a brawl, John Tweedy was one bad man.
    “I’ve studied how to fight,” Tweedy said. “So many different styles. That’s how I spend the off-season, at least when we have an off-season. I even did some pro fighting, did you know that?”
    Quentin shook his head. “I had no idea. How did you do?”
    “Real good, but you can’t succeed in