The journey back to the city was uneventful, I wandered why I'd come this far. Banner had promised information, he was gone, I had to dig a little deeper. The fact that no police were (as far as I could see) still in pursuit was a perverse worry. They'd been on special orders in coming after us and that, for some reason wasn't known by the HQ core. A split had occurred, teams were disjointed, working on their own lines of investigation, mine having just fractured for the time being anyway.
I abandoned the prowler in a dank alley, wiped down the controls and powered it down. They'd catch it in the morning when the homer came up on the system, by which time I'd be long gone underground, in some rat hole, smoking, eating, drinking, checking out for the next batch of slimy clues. A neon said "Chinese Food", there were symbols, marks - it was a brotherhood joint. I could recuperate in here and blend into the run down decor and faceless interior. Eastern language brokered broke down deals, they were all too busy to notice me. That'll do nicely, I was shaky. It'd been a while since I'd been involved in any kind of fire fight, at least two men had died today. I lit a cigarette and thought of their mortality and pondered my own humanity. I was weak.
