Fiole has a cousin that lives in Chikagopolee that she lives with. Her name is Katazeena, but she insists that everyone call her Kat. She is quite a bit older and a black sheep in the family. Kat never bought into The Solution, and Fiole had thought that Kat hated her because she IS The Solution, but when she broke up with her latest boyfriend and felt lost in Protopolee it was Kat that actually physically came and got her.
Kat had always been interested in the visual arts and almost completely shunned music and singing. She was interested in fashion as a young girl while the rest of the family were academics, particularly her father and grandfather, Fiole's maternal grandfather. Their grandfather was a wise and well respected man that both Kat and Fiole dearly loved, but Kat felt disillusioned by him because of his active promotion of what the Howlers call The Solution.
The Solution is the concept that transhumanism, by creating better people will solve all the world's problems. Their grandfather worked tirelessly to make it a reality.
Kat was against transhumanism because she felt that it did not trust people. Kat believed in the goodness and value of Homo sapiens sapiens and felt that transhumanist didn't. She didn't think that we need new people, but that people should live up to their potential, to take responsibility for themselves.
By the time she was a teenager she had turned to painting and her anger at her grandfather had grown so that she could not even speak to him. In the end, because of her anger at their grandfather and because she wanted to go somewhere where she could paint she left for Paris to attend school.
She left at about the time Fiole was born. She traveled around Europe, Asia and Africa; specifically avoiding the America's because she felt that Howlers too readily associated with the US. She wanted a broader view. She is the only one of Fiole's family who has been abroad.
Eventually she got a degree in Anthropology and specializes in the art of different cultures. She met her husband in South Africa. He was a zoologist. They married and had a son. While doing fieldwork as a family together they were caught in a tragic series of events that ended in the death of both her husband and their school aged son.
The disaster devastated Kat and she tried committing suicide several times. Eventually a man from Howlina came to Africa and found her. He stayed with her and nursed her back to health, eventually bringing her back to Howlina. She never knew how word got back to her family, but eventually she did find out that it was her grandfather who, as he lay on his deathbed, had sent him.
Kat's rescuer was Soteero, and he is now her husband. It's very unusual for a Howler to get remarried, but it had been unusual for a Howler to marry a non-Howler in the first place. Soteero is a normal Howler in almost all respects except that he married Kat. He's a Biologist, but he had trained as an EMT when he was younger and in the Coast Guard. Since marrying Kat he has become a teacher. They have no children.
Kat is still an anthropologist, an historian and a painter. Both she and her husband follow the Veebeelo, and for Cheekagopolee standards they follow it closely, but that's Cheekagopolee. Compared to the rest of Howlina they are very loose with it indeed.
When Fiole was at her worst and most self-doubting Kat suddenly appeared at her door. Fiole was completely surprised to see her and didnt' even recognize her. They talked for a while and that was when Kat revealed to Fiole that it was their grandfather who had rescued her from Africa and her sorrow.
Fiole dearly loved their grandfather. He had so beautifully described the world that he knew would be. It was a glorious Utopia and Fiole was an integral part of it. It was his dream and became her dream, her drive and her goal. A goal she doesn't trust herself to achieve.
Kat doesn't believe in The Solution, in fact she hates it, but she is certainly capable of putting her hatred of an idea aside for the love of family and friends. It was Kat that suggested Fiole come to Cheekagopolee and live with her.
Frank has an uncle Vigo who is a captain of industry in Argentina. He is his father's older brother by many years and Uncle Vigo had always had a soft spot in his heart for his baby brother and his nephew. He was the reason Frank sought a job at a university in Argentina. When Frank was arrested after the gunfight with his wife, it was Uncle Vigo that kept him from being criminally prosecuted. He made sure that Frank was only kicked out of Argentina and he arranged for Frank's current job.
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