Now, in his cheap hotel room, Chase heard the pops of firecrackers, maybe even light gunfire, coming into the room from the streets. He shifted in his chair and adjusted the sling that held his right arm relatively immobile. He'd barely realized it at the time, but a shaft of metal had sliced into his shoulder and nicked a bone during those last few moments in Aztlan. It cost Chase a few hundred extra nuyen to buy the silence of the clinic doctor who treated him and Freid. He didn't want his friends to know that the wound was only to the flesh. Normal bone would have chipped from the impact of the metal, but that part of his shoulder had ceased being natural two years after Cara had been born. The doctor was amazed at his healing rate, predicting that Chase would have full use of the arm within a day or two.