“That’s - that’s an insane idea.” When Gloria and Sue retrieved to a local dim sum shop for re, Sue shook her head immediately at the idea of Gloria being a sultant for the PCPD: “This is - even if we ighe obvious problems with w with the badges, long hours, crap pay, shitty coworkers - if the collective knows you’re w with them, they’d have many more excuses to iigate you and to dig up dirt.”

  “Yes, yes, of course.” Gloria pyed with a piece of shrimp dumpling in her bowl, a wry smile on her face: “It is defio be expected from them. But - I don’t have a choice, do I?”

  “I ask Turner for some more information - we went to the tral archive once already. So - I try ask him aime - ”

  “No, you’ve done quite enough. What you’ve been doing is already very risky, I ’t let you do that.” Gloria raised her hand and cut Sue off: “I’ll - I’ll work with him. I’ll try my best to squeeze my way to that case, a as much as I could from them. I suspect they’ll want some help and intel regarding our unity, maybe the rituals and the paranormal. And - to be ho, I’ll share some information if it’s called for.”

  Sue sighed, then held Gloria’s hand: “I uand - I think I do. Now, I’m not gonna try to stop you. But - just be careful, okay? Promise me you’ll be careful. A me know if there’s anything I help you with. Anything you hear, tell me and I will ask Turner for help.”

  “I figure some day we’ll have to treat Turner food meal, maybe something more, even.” Gloria looked into her friend’s eyes and smiled.

  “Oh, piss off. No one’s got time for that!” Sue ughed out loud, then she lowered her eyes and stared at the ground: “Maybe - maybe when we have time, eventually…”

  “It will be over soon.” Gloria held her friend’s hand tight: “Soon. And then, maybe we save up some moo move.”

  “Maybe, maybe.” Sue took a sip of her lemon tea: “So, how are you going to proceed with this? Yonna frequent his prect? Yonna take less shifts at Luoshan’s coffee shop?”

  “Yeah - I‘ll talk to her in a bit. I ’t imagine having much spare time after this. ” Gloria shook her head, then she looked up at Sue: “But - that’s enough about me today, anything you wanna talk about? You found anything suspicious or iing?”

  “ht, we did find something iing.” Sue nodded as she fihe food in her bowl: “The wood carving of the cat you found from i granny? It’s reted to some kind of three-dimensional talismans, and apparently it’s very likely ected to that underground temple - because from some record found by Turhose cultists had a three dimensional carving of the a dragon Shyurak on their altar. He thinks it’s a practice of visualization - I am not very familiar with this but thought you may know. Ohing’s for sure though: whoever made the carving ihe cat granny, has access to the old records of her or may have seen her in real life.”

  —-----------

  “Okay - how much do you trust this - this Gloria Lee?” Sitting on top of his w desk in his small office, Kevin asked Marcus, while mung on a piece of shrimp dumpling, made by his mother.

  “She saved me once, and from some very unfriendly circumstances. I think right now I’m the shady one.” Marcus shrugged: “And - you know how people from the South Eastern District think about us - ”

  “Yeah, but - ” Kevin swallowed, then took a gulp of his milk tea: “She still stole Shrevas and Keryn’s case files.”

  “It could be food cause. COULD.” Marcus shrugged as he looked at the s of Kevin’s puter: “I’m not disagreeing, it’s important that we’d be cautious. But I do believe it will be mutually beneficial. After all, for those willing to talk to us there’s not many that are gonna be as familiar with the paranormal as a temp watcher of a coffin home.”

  “Yeah, I get your point.” Kevin sighed: “What did the captain say?”

  “Still waiting for his response - he’s been quite busy tely. ” Marcus shrugged.

  “He’s been really busy sihat ‘motorcycle act’ huh?” Kevin air-quoted with a ile: “I wonder who could have hurt him like that.”

  “There's still some sten him. I’ll see if I get something outta him.” Marcus chuckled. Before he could say anything else, Kevin’s puter chirped.

  “Looks like the pattern matg algorithm found something.” Kevin put down his pstito box with his pair of metal chopsticks pced inside and hopped off his desk to sit on his w chair.

  “What’d you find?”

  “Well, this is not good.” Kevin frowned: “It’s kinda all over the pce - South Western District, three cases. Northern District, two cases. South Eastern District - one case.”

  “How restrictive are your filters?” Marcus also frowned: “This might be - might be a little too frequent? And how e there’s only one case in the South Eastern District? Even if the unity collective is corrupted as hell, there’s no reason - ”

  “Hmm, I - I think I have a theory.” Kevin leaned ba his chair: “How familiar are you with The Association of Local Churches?”

  “Um - I’ve known about it, but not much. It’s a powerful entity, a huge, huge group, right?”

  “It’s VERY powerful.” Kevin scratched his nose: “I heard it from my mother - she knows someone who works there. If there’s ohing I remember about that dy, is that she always es bearing gifts. Sometimes it’s expensive snacks, sometimes it’s free shoes and clothes, sometimes it’s travel vouchers. Aly I heard the gossip that the association is iigating something, in colboration with the unity collective. So - ”

  “So they have the authority to do iigations, and sihey are also responsible for dealing with paranormality reted issues - ”

  “They she cases, using their iigative power.” Marodded: “It - it makes sense.”

  “So - what now? Do you want to check out those cases? I don’t know about the Northern District, but I think we still pull some strings to get case information from those in the South Eastern District…”

  Before Kevin could finish, Captain Ko knocked on the door: “Kevin, Marcus, briefing room, now.”