Got settled into the motel. It's not much, but it's peace and quiet ... Well, for the most part. Excluding the medley of gunshots and sirens, domestic disturbances and the occasional drunk knock at the door thrown in for variety ... It's Hathian. What can I say that the papers haven't already?

Guess I'd better start thinking about that even more, now that I mention it. That is, after all, my job now. Or do I come in and just keep saying what they've been saying for months? Cops are corrupt, gangs run the streets. Plague, oil spill. This place reads like an HBO drama. A bad one.

On the bright side--if there is one in all this--that means there's even less a chance of anybody looking for me here. Folks back home are pleased that I'm gone, and any that are curious as to where I've run off to, well, this isn't the sort of place they're apt to go visiting. Totally different territory, and that's fine by me.

Sure, I'll miss the quiet life, if you can even call it that. Quiet on the surface, turmoil beneath that placid veneer. And little old me just had to go and open my big mouth. They always said I did better with a pen in my hand or my nose in a book, but that wasn't true either.