KNOCKOUT

XI: ORTHODOX

A RIGHT-HANDED FIGHTER

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AELIUS VALERIUS WOULD SAY he likes his part-time job a decent amount. Sometimes it's a bit of a hassle, juggling the Justice Department and school at the same time, but hey, there could always be worse things to be doing.

Or at least, that's what he tells himself on this obscenely early Saturday morning, as he sits at a long oval table inside a giant conference room filled to the brim with a bunch of other half-awake, bleary-eyed agents, and watches his boss animatedly gesture and sputter in an endeavor to articulate to the rest of them, just exactly, how incompetent he finds them all to be.

"Just-just look! Look at these!" The aforementioned boss, Templeton, yells, shaking a fan of today's newspapers at them. He forcefully throws them on the oak table, and they land with a damning splat! "The press is having a goddamn field day with us!"

Aelius rubs his eyes and leans in to look at the headlines of the newspapers.

"PRICELESS MONET PAINTING GETS STOLEN!"

"MISSING MONET HAS AUTHORITIES SCRAMBLING FOR ANSWERS!"

"IT MAY BE CALLED THE PINNACLE, BUT IT IS DEFINITELY NOT THE PINNACLE OF MUSEUM SECURITY!"

Aelius sniggers at the last one.

"Hey." He nudges Aurelia, who's sitting in the chair on his right, her curtain of hair covering her face so it looks like she's taking notes, but really, she's just dozing off. "Look at this—"

"—Is there something funny, Mr. Valerius?"

Aelius's head snaps up, and he finds himself on the receiving end of Templeton's glare. All of the other agents in the room turn to look at him. Some of them look sympathetic, but most shoot him looks like: What the hell is this teenager doing here?

Aelius flushes red. "Uh . . . no, sir."

If glares were lasers, Aelius would be a puddle of goo, sliding off this oval table.

"Because if I were you, I wouldn't be laughing—especially since you were present at The Pinnacle last night."

Aelius cringes. "Understood, sir."

Ten minutes later, as Templeton drones on about looking into the alibis of every single guest and worker at the gala that night, Aelius feels somebody kick the back of his chair. At first he chalks it up to just a slip of the foot, but then it happens again. And again.

Aelius whips around to see Faris Safar, who was discharged from the hospital about a month ago, grinning devilishly at him.

"Stop it!" Aelius hisses.

Faris just kicks his chair again in reply. He tilts his head: Whatcha gonna do about it, huh?

Aelius turns back around. He reaches behind his chair and aggressively sticks up his middle finger. In return, he feels his chair jolt another time. And then nothing for thirty seconds. Aelius gets lured into a false sense of security. Okay, he stopped—we're cool. It's all good.

Then another kick.

Aelius balls up his fists. Alright, you asked for it, buddy. I don't care if you just got out of the hospital—no mercy. He rips out a sheet of paper from his still-sleeping twin's notebook that she was using to take "notes."

Artfully, he folds it into a paper airplane. Then Aelius turns around, raising his arm, getting ready to launch it, silently cackling at what he imagines to be Faris's reaction, when—

"What do you think you're doing?" Templeton's voice booms.