It was always the familiar things that got you. I didn’t even expect it to come from Lu―I imagined that was what it felt like to one day turn your head as you’re walking only to plant your face into a lamppost.

The first thing that hit me was shock, then anger immediately afterwards, which I again doused; unhealthy I know right. I imagined I’d jaywalked into a traffic pole and just let it go as I cradled my jaw―Lucas had shaved three pixels off my seventh stroke. I noticed then as it faded out of view.

Nurse Lea and her colleagues were transfixed and pale at the development. I flushed from a little bit of shame―and apparently someone had called hospital security who came stomping down the hallway with a baton and taser at his belt. I doubt he needed those to send the message home because his build was already intimidating enough. He easily stood crown to crown with Lucas but with the bulk to back it up.

He looked between me and him and addressing no one in particular growled, with a husky smoker's voice, “ Is there a problem here?”

“ No problem,” I hastily put it across. I didn’t need more piled on my plate―No thank you. Nurse Lea had already come around the desk and was trying to pull away my arm to get at my cheek. The security guard glowered at us as if we’d eaten into his breaktime and stomped off with a grunt.

“ I’m fine,” I said to the persnickety nurse as I tried to get her off my case.

“ I’m going to get some cold press; don’t move a muscle,” Lea said as she went running wherever. I looked at Lucas, he seemed out of sorts, slouched forwards and fists clenched. I’ve never seen him so small. Unfortunately, I wasn’t the type who knew about pick me-ups.

I could lend a listening ear to a bar patron and offer sage advice; drunk people seldom criticized that which was freely given but comfort wasn’t exactly my forte. Before the air could get any awkward he mumbled, “ Sorry about that man―I didn’t mean to… I—ah, need some time to cool off,”

Lea’s arrival with the cold press was his cue to leave. I never managed to get a word out―to tell him I had an idea that I wanted to run by him nor that I wanted to return his phone as he plodded down the hallway. I guess he knew where Cass’ room was.

“ That’s going to bruise―” Lea grimaced as I dumbly accepted an ice bag. “What did you do? Take his girlfriend?” She said jokingly―she was shaken.

“ It’s complicated,” I murmured as I felt the cold sting of ice on my smarting cheek. The pain was already fading to a dull throb.

“ It always is―” she shook her head as she returned to her desk.

What a day this was shaping out to be. With Lucas down in the dumps, even I wasn't socially inept to think it was a good time to go see Cassandra…not after he had his space anyway. But if I went back in time and the same choice was presented to me, I would do it again in a jiffy. Having reached such a point, it was superfluous to force things; he'd come around.

“When he comes around, give this to him will you?” I said sliding Lucas' phone over the glass-topped desk.

“Leaving?” Lea asked, as he picked up the phone placing it on the front pockets of her nurse's scrubs.

“ Yeah,” I said looking over the lobby. I hadn't noticed how much time had passed; it was mid-morning and the hospital was now in full-swing. The lobby seats were steadily filling up with patients—some of them shied away from my eyes, witness to what transpired a few moments ago. I suppressed a sigh.

“Your prescription,” Lea said, drawing my attention to a package on the glass-top. “ I don't know how you're going to get that lotion on your burns but—we'll need to have your dressing changed in a day,”

“Thanks,” I said, taking up the khaki bag as I left the front desk. It was going to be a long way home—so much for the food and supplies Mrs. Kaufmann got together for me. There was no give in the awkward parting between us to even ask for my things from Lucas' car. I was also dreading going to the caretaker to get my house keys but it was either that or a homeless night for me.

Making my way across the lobby, I pocketed the burn cream, an assortment of antibiotics and painkillers in my borrowed trench coat. I needed a breather, maybe a book to take my mind off things before I thought of the next course of action. The policeman from before barely gave me a glance as I stepped out of the hospital. I checked my stat bars— The seventh was already full.

Walking around the city was a habit I'd ingrained over the years—what was not to like? The streets were pedestrian friendly, most people who commuted quite a distance used bikes or barring that, the tram. A travel pass could get you anywhere with public transport—rarely were the streets clogged with cars.

I slogged along, stiff collar up all the way to my neck. There was a noticeable change in perspective from how I carried myself—not slouching really made a lot of difference. I guess towering over the average person really puts things into perspective. Thanks to my expanded awareness, I was able to keep track of many things at once like getting a couple of looks from the women I passed across the streets. They would giggle and whisper assuming I was out of earshot.

A ”…tout à fait un spectateur,” here and a "schöne Augen…'' there; I could hear my ears heat up as I suppressed a smile from crinkling up the edge of my lips. I found sudden interest in the flags I passed underneath. The Swiss were a very proud people—an irrefutable fact. They're also among the happiest people in the world, I would know because I'd lived here for a while. And of course, they made the best chocolate—sue me.

Therefore, having been a resident of the good city of Zurich, well versed in its strasses, or streets if you'd like—I very easily spotted my tail. To a casual observer, I was nonchalant as I picked my way around foot traffic into back alleys. I knew that one would be hard-pressed to find a shifty dead end if they were a native but my pursuers did not know that. They were three and they were sloppy about it

‘So not Intelligence then?’ I exhaled. I kept my pace even not to clue them in that I'd already spotted them. The route I'd picked would lead me to the White Raven; I'm sure I could ask for a favour from the Old man at the place and exit through the back door. Then reaching my place I'd call in and see if we could get something worked out with Old Betham.

Even if they were not overt about it, my stalkers were rather tenacious in their pursuit. As I approached the White Raven's street , I was left wondering how they knew it was me. My assumptions were however without merit—the more I conceived of them, the more absurd they grew until I gave up on them.

The only one who might have had an idea was Cass; I didn't think she would be in any state to apprise me of anything in the foreseeable future. Either way, I would nip this in the bud as soon as possible before things got out of control. It would not end if the authorities became involved.

Soon arriving at the White Raven's, I immediately ducked in as if I'd done it many times before—which I had. I noticed, there were few day patrons, which would make them stick out like sore thumbs if they dared to come in. Besides, it would also be easy to spot them through the wide glass windows.

As soon as I'd entered, I found my day shift co-worker tending to the bar. I rarely ever talked to him but he was an amiable and out-going personality. Pretty perceptive too—maybe too perceptive. He immediately picked up on my unmentioned distress and gave me a pointed nod towards the back as he continued to wipe a glass stein. As soon as I made it through the back door, out of my supposed stalker's line of sight, I ran.

I paced myself as I tore through the streets taking long strides that were a pace short of a jog. I was also wise to take a convoluted number of streets before switching back to my apartment just in case. Needless to say, I lost them.

By the time I reached my apartment building, I'd lost a significant number of pixels on the seventh stroke of my scarlet bar. I was glad I hadn't worked a sweat, else I would be ruing the agony of having it on my burns—I didn't get to ask but I guess they'd been first degree else I wouldn't have been discharged.

The caretaker was surprised to see me, another matronly woman who lived on the second floor of the six floored building. Most of the building's architecture was a blend of eras, and had that rustic feeling of the several cultures. Mine had greenery right over the brass railed balcony.

It was only after fending her attempts to sit me down for a pot of fondue, that she even gave me my spare key. When I finally stepped past the threshold to my apartment, I drew deep the scent of home. It was a little musty but it was still my place. The first thing I did was to divest myself of the trenchcoat and sleep, face—down.

Something knocked against the balcony's sliding doors and roused me from sleep. I didn't realize how late it was because it was still light out—summer days were awfully long. I thought it might have been a magpie—I had a love —hate relationship with those avians. They seemed to find my balcony ornaments interesting until they pecked all of my wind chimes. Yawning, and smacking my lips to get rid of the cotton mouth I staggered towards the curtain to see what in the blazes it was all about.

“Damn, forgot that was a thing, ” I said seeing the Bubble-E . I pushed the sliding doors aside to let in the eVTOL drone. The craft had an ellipsoid body that narrowed towards the back and was held aloft by two Dyson Ion Propulsors. Coloured cyberpunk yellow with black stripes, the bubble ship inspired autonomous drone was eerily silent as it hovered past my potted flowers like its smaller and not so electrical namesake.

The front bulbous section displayed its interface for user authentication and I registered my thumb. Then I stepped back as it split open like a roll top container to reveal my deliveries within. It was then I shook off my sleep as I recognized the things I'd left back in the car. Bubble-E's could carry about 25kg so I got everything in one go—chain deliveries were an option but they were pretty expensive.

I had been looking forward to sleeping on stale water, but this might just have been my saving grace. The Bubble-E flashed me a s running thank you across its LED smiley before pivoting around and zooming off. The first thing I needed after setting down my deliveries was to look for my phone whose battery was wholly depleted, then I booted up my laptop and set some water to boil. I needed some coffee to go with the pie; I needed a straight head for my plans. Also, I would need to talk to Old Betham―maybe he’d left a message for me.

Fifteen minutes later I found myself eating cinnamon pie; it was shaping up to be wholesome. Mrs. Kaufmann knew how to get the cheesecake texture right and before I knew I’d inhaled half of it before I’d even finished my coffee.

The bitterness of coffee meshing with the spicy sweet cake went down well and I found myself fighting not to keep going. Nonetheless, I got a cup of green tea to cleanse my palate of the lingering tart notes on my tongue as I set about doing some housekeeping―on my phone that is.

There were missed calls, which I chose to ignore. None of them were from Old Betham, the old geezer only came during the night shift. There were also messages, lots of messages; those too ignored. Finally, I checked my emails―most of my important stuff came by email. Including the bank transactions from deductions to my account, I of course expected to find the credits to my account. There were no reversal alerts from the bank whatsoever.

However, the account credentials were there to see that the address seemed to be one of those auto generated types. The first transaction was done three days after my admission to hospital, earning me a debit from my account.

I doubt the bank would have been aware that I was indisposed but that was not the point, there were no flags on my account which explained the numerous factor authentication messages filling up the inbox . I racked my head for ideas; there was obviously no getting into the Crypto wallet without a password and despite the number of hackers, true and fictional that I’d read about, I had nothing to go on.

‘Hmm, assuming two factor authentication is registered with my number,’ I hummed as I looked up the option for a forgotten password option. There was none―a cursory look up on the search engine however yielded tools and third parties I could reach out to to reclaim a supposedly lost password. I was leery of the latter, and cynical that the former would work as intended. I cursed being somewhat ignorant of crypto and vowed to get a book, or a discussion thread on it online. I reached for my tea, and realized at run out―

“A refill then,” I sighed, pushing back my seat. My spine was rather sore too because I’d been leaning forwards to avoid agitating my burns. I realized they'd barely been an afterthought at this point; which explained why only one and a half strokes of my scarlet bar were empty. I really could not put a gauge on how much value each stroke represented but I bet there was some esoteric multiplier effect; not my headache anyway. My phone dinged at the same time the unopened mail count went up by one on my PC.

‘Well…look who finally decided to show up―’

…to receiving MTA failed

----the following addresses had permanent fatal errors-

I skipped the rest of the error message. The mail address most definitely did not exist; I mussed my hair in frustration― ‘Ah, I’ll need that haircut. Maybe even trim my stubble’

I had hoped to reach out to my benefactors through the mail address. Out of morbid curiosity, I’d wanted to see if they could respond―if I could bargain for Cassandra’s treatment. But seeing as they had gone lengths to obfuscate their tracks by deleting the sender’s email I wouldn’t find them even if I tried. Following breadcrumbs was out of my ballpark; the best I could do was finding cookies.

‘Damn then, have it your way,’ I grumbled as I retrieved the attachment. It was a QR code; I wasn't even surprised. I scanned it immediately, it opened an external page and then started jumping through obscure host addresses until I got tired of it. I decided I might as well get that cuppa while I wait.

A couple moments with a cup in hand later, the redirection prompts had stopped at a cloud hosting site. A large zip-file 2 gigs worth sat there like a fat duck waiting to be plucked―

‘In for a pound―’ I thought, rubbing at the bridge of my nose as I set to downloading the file. Thank the Jovian moons my data plan had been on auto renewal; in no time I’d downloaded the file then transferred it to my PC to unzip.