Sojourner-There_Chapter-3_Chariot-Interlude_draft-1

Chapter 3

	9:02 P.M. \ Cloudy \ Visibility: 19 km
	Lungmen Branch Office

	This is Operator Chariot, reporting in. At this time, I should be on leave in Lungmen, per orders from Captain Enka. Yeah, I- I know Doctor Hedge recommended that I shouldn’t strain myself and all that. But! I still wanted to get something done. I ended up helping the Lungmen branch office carry Oripathy suppressants over to to clinics. Just a bit of light manual labor, nothing too intensive. Oh, the Operators at the branch office were really nice guys, though! They guided me around town after, seeing as I hadn’t been around before.

	Even though I did my reading on the place, the little travel brochure still didn’t really prepare me for what Lungmen’d end up looking like. Compared to my Kawalerielki… Ah, well, there’s differences between the two. But for better or for worse, the city is what I’m most used to.
	Er, no offense to the facilities at Rhodes Island, of course!

	Right, uh, well, I should probably get to what happened today. I figured I’d take a stroll around Lungmen’s new shopping district in the late hours. I wanted to see what it’s like for the Infected in Lungmen. Back home, it’s… well, I’m sure it’s getting better now, just like how Lungmen’s trying to improve themselves, too, given what I’ve seen in the news and word of mouth. This new shopping district is proof of that- the guys at the branch office said they even host Sauin here.
	So, anyways, I’m moving along with the crowd through the district, when I spot this hooded Elafia at the food stand in spitting distance of the one I stopped at- not much older than me, if I had to guess. They seems to be fumbling around with a few LMD bills, but it’s like they didn’t know what any of it meant. I mean, yeah, there’s Columbian gold certs and Victorian sterling, or whatever, but I reckon they’d trade it all for some cool-looking rock she found on the barrenlands.
	...To be fair, those skewers the guy was selling looked pretty good. I ended up buying one, too, instead of finballs. It was really nice, gotta say, but I’ll probably try finball soup next time--

	[The audio is interrupted by a cough, and then intense wheezing along with several swears in Kazimierzi that will NOT be transcribed, followed by Chariot using his inhaler, taking his medicine in with a deep breath.]

	Wasn’t thinking too much on it then, but I trailed after that Elafia. They were on a window-shopping spree. It’s like if you took a little Kazimierzi boy from the castle days, and flashbanged him with modern-day Kawalerielki. Everything from gas lamps to bikes is gonna be a wonder to that kid. Well, maybe not that bad, but it was, like, pretty bad. They stopped to look at at least five different bikes before realizing that they were all the same. Real late into the night, I managed to get a look at their face from a reflection in the window- looked like a girl to me. I must’ve looked like an idiot, standing there with my equipment case strapped to my back like I was some dropout band guy, because she stared right back from the reflection.
	Obviously, I couldn’t just let her go after that, so like any good private eye guy you read about in those private eye books, I keep following her, and it takes me a while before I realize that she’s tryna give me the runaround- she must’ve been trying to shake me off. Kuranta are infamous for being really good followers, and I’m proud to say that I’m no different! She’s definitely onto me, though. She knows that I know that she knows I’m following her. Lot of close shaves with fences and walls I had that night. I figure that she’s trying to lead me somewhere, so I keep up with her- also another Kuranta specialty, if I may brag.
	That being said, uh, not one of my better running days, I’ll admit. I’ll apologize to Medical later for pushing myself like that, especially after the prior incident. It wasn’t a good idea-- The opposite, really. It was really bad! Anyways, I- well, I end up falling for her gambit in the end. She leads me into an old loading bay area, and I get the runaround from her again, and she led me to stumble into a dead end, distracting me long enough for her to cut off my only escape.
	Man. I must’ve looked like an idiot. Which I was, by the way. I remember me sounding really stupid there.