Rain pelted the top of Lotus’ black cloak as she gazed out over the city. It was always raining in Seattle. Maybe that was why she and Paul had enjoyed their time there. She looked down at her wedding ring and frowned, twisting the petals of her name sake tattoo on the left side of her face. Two of the petals were hidden behind the lenses of her thermo-shades, but her eyes could not make out the digital images at that moment. She was watching the astral reflection of the city, analyzing the lines and colors of it.

The city’s buildings blurred and melted together when she looked at it this way. It reminded her of abstract art or expressionist paintings she’d seen in her Humanities classes combined with a lava lamp effect that caused globules of color to float and sink together and then blend together to form a new color. She took a deep breath and looked down at her ring again. She had once felt a link from it. An emotional link to the man that had given it to her. She rubbed the date etched into it in orichalcum: February 14th, 2061. Her third anniversary was coming up, and it had been six months since she had seen her husband.

“You are difficult to find these days, Miss.”

She whirled around slowly compared to cyber-monsters, but she processed who was behind her before visuals caught up. One of many people she had helped in her travels, Felix sat crouched on the roof licking his hand. He was certainly one of the stranger shamans she had met. She smirked at his comical position, though she knew it was fitting of his totem, and said, “That is the idea. It is good to see you, Felix.”

He cocked his head in the feline manner of arrogance and said, “Of course it is good to see me.” She closed the gap between them in two steps and scooped the much smaller form up for a hug. “Hey now, watch the fur!” She released him, and he sighed before resuming his cleaning.

His astral form was not as small as a house cat, but he was half her height and very cat-like despite being an inch taller than her physically. She looked around the empty rooftop for a moment, then asked softly, “Did you find it?”

“It wasn’t easy, Miss, but I did owe you.” The cat man nodded then smiled and added, “Got one though. It took some work though. His file was buried quite deep. As you suspected, it was not deleted, just hidden. Not sure how helpful it will be to you, but our decker uploaded it to a place you can safely reach it.” The cat shaman rattled off the host information for her, and she took out her pocket secretary to record it.

She nodded and said, “Thank you Felix. You have been most helpful.” The host had been an off-site data backup with no matrix access. Felix’s team had to physically go to the site to get the data for her. She bowed to the astral shaman and asked, “Everyone made it out safely, I hope.”

The cat shaman got a sad look on his face and said, “I am afraid there was a serious injury.” She frowned deeply, and Felix continued, “Baretta lost her foot to a grenade. If the grenade had ended up under our vehicle, we all might have been in trouble.” Baretta was an elven Somatic, and a friend of Felix.

Lotus cursed, loudly. Felix quickly said, “I sterilized everything, so I am sure she will be fine.” If she had not been angry about the situation, she might have snorted at the idea of a cat shaman sterilizing everything.

Though she appreciated the poetry, she turned to look out at Seattle again. She was quiet for a bit with her fist curled under her chin, thoughtfully rubbing her jaw. She knew Felix knew the posture and would remain quiet. Finally, she said, “I’ll add fifteen for her to get another grown. It does not alleviate the pain, but it will certainly convey my apologies. Please extend them for me, and I will transfer the funds in about an hour.”

The shaman nodded, and dissipated into the background of the astral realm to depart from her. She growled and closed all of her eyes, blocking out the astral realm for the time being. She left the roof of the building and found her bike nearby. She punched in the grid guide coordinate for the Seattle Library. She went in to use a public terminal to send the authorization code and increased payment to Baretta’s stick. Then she used her deck to get the data and erase all of her tracks from the library hosts, including the transaction logs.

She logged off of the matrix, leaned back in her seat and stretched. It was expensive, but well worth it. Paul’s personnel file might contain information she needed to hunt him down. If he was still alive.