I pushed the last dish away, resisting the urge to pick it up and lick the last molecules of food off of it. Officer Wilde was definitely wrong – the piroshki were excellent. I'd had better borscht before, but not more than twice. The price was also quite reasonable; if this "Koslov's Palace" was a good example of the local restaurants, I could affort to feed myself for a good three weeks. I might be living under a bridge, but at least I'd be eating well.
I stretched, took a last swallow of the catnip tea, left a decent tip behind, and left with a satisfied smile on my lips. I'd set my watch to the local time zone, and checked it against a local clock both at the start and end of my meal; twenty-four hour day, and it was now 2040 hours Zootopia Standard Time. Time to find "my" apartment and settle down for the night.
As I left the restaurant, I noticed a parked groundcar across the street – with two figures barely visible inside. It was too far from the nearest streetlight for me to identify them. But I've never much cared for people – of any shape – following or keeping on eye on my activities, and I decided to give my watchers something to think about.
I stopped when I was directly opposite the groundcar, took out the magpulse weapon and pointed it so as to "put a shot across the bow" of the groundcar. I held the stunner at the level of my waist, and fingered the firing stud. A low buzz told me that the weapon had discharged – and If the local vehicles had anything like the electronics that I'd expect from a society at this technological level, it was now effectively a stationary metal sculpture.
I turned and walked away in the direction of traffic flow on this side of the street – and slipped my stunner into the right pants pocket (the pocket on the far side from my "friends" the watchers). As I walked, I heard rising angry voices behind me; they'd tried to start their groundcar, and it was clearly being totally unresponsive. I suppressed a laugh as I strode casually away.
#
When I got to the local tram station, I took the number 3 train to Union Square and switched to the number 6 train to get to City Hall. I got off the tram and jogged over to the Chambers Street stop for the J train, and rode it to Essex street and switched to the F train there. Off the F train at the 6th street stop, then I headed West until I could pick up the A-train, and head off for "my" apartment on 130th street. I checked my "six" at every opportunity, and I appeared to have lost my watchers – I hoped that they were only "mildly" inconvenienced by their loss of motor transport, but at the same time I wasn't particularly sorry I'd taken them off my tail. If we met again, I decided that I would be "sympathetic" regarding their plight.