Morning of 26th March

I should have known better to take things easy. I had to remove the staples for stitches. The day before yesterday I had accidentally pulled one out. It did upset Lavender whom has been with me since. At this moment during my 'between breaks', we are together at the window over looking earth. The hope is this species link to share thoughts and feelings could potentially reach those on the surface - seek anyone on the surface that will notice us. The fallout ash has caused the sun blocked out and shrouded the world into another ice age. Despite our distance from the surface, the clouds and everything - there was at least a returned feeling back from the surface. After several attempts, those of London, the connected new cities around zoos, and opened dome habitats have showed us that life is still going. That the people are coping. The few may have asked for some idea of which survival TV shows came to my mind. Those survival tactics from Arctic expeditions has helped been the advice they needed. Whole houses are being constructed by snow to be used as temporary corpse holds. The promo-frost has prevented anyone to lay to rest the dead.

The better news that all the parasites whom were under mind control have lost signal and are so badly affected by the cold. This had meant that capture, surgery removal causing lost control and rehab in the many aquariums has been possible. They are down to nearly most of them being in the clear for second brain. Screening process have been successful due to everyone of all body types working towards this same goal of preventing space war. Because of Lavender and mines advantage of being in space looking down, we had been able to bring back connections to better dome cities as a emergency rely speakers. Calls for help are being answered even in the icy terrain. The relief to be eyes in the sky and being storm reporter has prevented whole dome cities from being snowed under for now. It seems that living day to day is how everyone is coping down there.

This evening at my favourite watch spot, signals from space as been more hindering towards the work as earth listener. Lavender has the earth on watch and gave me to go ahead to see what it was this stranger was annoying me particularly for. My vision is once more turned red, the walls of the station around a pink. The inspirational poster a jumble of foul language. The earth looked... dead. No sea. No air. No land. Molten lava pools of erased habitats. The figure of black posed in sort of waiting for me to be upset. So instead of returning the favour of fear to shoo them away. I took a calm meditate moment and curiously posed my questions.

"What is seriously your problem with worlds of living creature?" no response for a while - so next question, "What exactly is it that makes you show me all these fearful things meant to accomplish?" there is a sense of being heard but ignored, "Most importantly who are you? Why are you bothering me?" Finally there is some sort of curiosity imposed a moment. There flickered a sort of moment of it thinking, changing my vision green. There sudden sprouted things of plant life grow around and slowly all thickened into a forest of abnormal plant life. Still this black tall thin figure towers posed with watching. I sighed in how that didn't answer my questions. So I altered myself into someone I used to be... that strange beaded gold chains outfit from London, the look I had in the broadcast. In a sharp snap of my figures took away the distractions and brought us to a empty place. I gave a gestured greeting and stared darkly back at them. They didn't of course return the favour.

"Then you are not the parasite mind that used to belong to that body. You don't even know what or whom I am." It may taken some long time to find these words. But the ranting of how it seen many worlds in the eyes of the slaves and being most proud of the few whom attempts to rebel against. The relish of breaking the resolve within those it controlled. It feel into the relish of ranting about prideful yet sickened accomplishments. I stare a long time at it as it enjoys sharing these things, images of other worlds collapsed. Just another creep like the plague Doctor, is what came to my mind. It didn't even notice my own mind wavelengths. So I took control back for myself, I crushed its images away into dust and the had the guts to reach at the figure - pulled what should be clothing or maybe its skin around the front. The ting of pain of being forced to stare to me.

"Alright then. So finally you realized that." I interrupted them utterly from any sort of words that it were about to babble into more, "You know what your doing and what your causing. You sure love to see folks squirm in fear." I felt no expression in my face and the cold air whip at our backs. "I bet you think I can't return some sort of favour but when I did, this made you more interested in me." I altered into the human I was. I let them go since they were shut up at least to hear me.

"This was me. The me I am within this dreamscape of imagination." The dress of vines blooming of many logo beads. The fragile nature of such a delicate made dress may have gone. I did more then that to my mind's image, all traces of ever being infected may been erased - I was back into the lab coat, "But this version died a long time ago." I smile at them sort of lifting the happy times I did have with this image, "I blame you." those image turned as distant as they were timestamped. They tilted in wonder of how great those things are. I could feel that they were impressed by the mind numbingly normal those images of life were. I gave them some time for the words to settle into their mind with some understanding, staring at them as this form. I gave them some time to put the work together for what they did that would change anything with my images.

"So what." The words were quiet cold and distained. They were about to disrespect the very point I was trying to get them to see. It made me snap, so I took their hand and pulled them to me. Now I knew exactly just what to do. If images of what used to be being erased wasn't going to cut it. What they are about make them feel that process - what parasites caused when ordered it change hosts into weapons. That world to what it is today. They mostly screamed through the process and most totally vomiting everywhere. I mentally made them feel exactly how it did to be altered but no luxury of not feeling the pain that comes with it. To be pulled into nearly nothing. I did let them go and they now squirmed about the floor confused.

"I am the one that deals with folks whom felt that. That's the one gift I can at least guarantee that they all requested I shared with you." I lifted the head to stare at me, "I must also then thank you for that suffering. Because I know now. I knew how to best ease that pain." I drop them as they are, "My name was Katherine. I am now Kate. You have been giving me a migraine for the last month or so. Would you at least return the favour of telling me you name?" It was babbling scared and seems to left me. The connection severed. I stared at a empty corridor and annoyed in my sigh.

"Maybe you took it to far." Lavender told me. I had to give myself some time to try to calm down. Seated back and just let my mind wonder for a while the very consequence that that conversation will mean for us in the future. I did take it to far. But I felt justified for what I needed to tell that creature.

"The freak kept making my vision red, pranking me with showing everyone headless and seeing corpses of dead people laying around. Do you honestly think I could just hold back when it told me it knew about what it was ordering the parasites with implants to do?" Lavender shivers at such revelations, "A taste of the medicine it brought upon so many worlds. Not just ours but the ones he left lifeless and erased from history. It seems only fair that I let him suffer the inflections of phantom pains. The prick didn't even tell me what he was or his name. A disappointment is what he was."

I sit back in the wheelchair I brought with me. Since I could not stay standing here at the window the whole time. Lavender tries to return back to feeling out to the surface for any help needed. My mind could settle with the things I did learn about the creature and the dread such thought it held. The things it done or seen. It seemed a monster straight out of a horror story, but maybe it was worse then I could comprehend. That it relished the inflictions of pain on others, sporting out how to make the most of doing exactly that and there being a level of accepting that this were the right thing to do.

"Your brother and his girlfriend just left this station." It was a notification from Lavender and it shared this with me.

"I am sure they left me a long note of things. Or maybe a short one for when they be back." I thought deeply about the image I seen of the dark figure and how different it was to how it felt when inflected by phantom pain. The sort of real shape of it compared to the ghost. I took out a paper and pen, sketching all the details I recalled. I noted the different organs it held within too. The shape of the head. I got to focused into drawing, Lavender poked my head.

"We should call it a night." A last smug of the pencil lead and I folded it away.

"Yes. I guess so." I stand carefully and use the chair to walk steady back to the nearest elevator.

"Oh." Lavender shared with me the message from the mother network. Asking to be a little bargain to get trade rolling with the machines and the empire of the maiden mantis. This Mantis Maiden was in league with the plague doctor the last I checked in. Yet she's here based on been informed that I or my associates of influence were trade able here. By now as it is for many others, there is a sort of expectation of me being dead.

It has been years since I last put on the ambassador outfit. I am sure by now it has needed to be altered of new beads of todays partners and that the length of chain is to be added on from my last sleeping period. My altered outfit of the ambassador work was ready to be picked up on the way to the meeting. I should be expecting Lucas to be lounging around waiting for us. It is always that dress that seems to return to me after all this time. Often when things aren't looking smooth between the talking parties is when they want my sly tongue to play a part of getting what they want from it. The Mother network would often use me as a back up when Jackle isn't able to do it. I would assume that Freya is also occupied, so it would have to be me.

"We might as well go sort that out. Shall we see how scared they will be to see me?" The elevator was no slower or faster then usual. The service never stopped on any other floors and nothing out of the ordinary for this moment passes indifferent. For me at least, Lavender wasn't comfortable around me. I may have gave that freak so bad medicine but I must have also affected Lavender, "I am sorry for scaring you." On reflect upon the elevator opening on the market area.

"It is true. To see you so angry for us is terrifying. It really puts things into perspective of how good you do treat total strangers. To make a enemy of you must really take a lot." I pet her and held her close with warmth. Seated into the wheel chair and pushing myself around. The entry into the lounge was busy today. There is quiet the queue into the lounge rooms and Lucas was quick to swoop right into finding me. He was isn't alone with having been talking to some sort of message boy.

"Here you both are, not really sure what you two been up to doing with the human passage way to the lower station. Yet I was sent here to find you looking for me." Lucas these days has taken on his iconic art style of being nearly a purple walking utility tool kit. He has part of himself in mind of being for survival or practical use. Yet there is a sort of oddity to his step away from looking human at all, he did actually suit a 'modern' art museum even when it is the anything further from it. He expressional interface was mostly a colour pattern line across where eyes should be, as he spoke the wave pattern showed his speak in analytically.

He wasn't stood alone, the underling in training beside him was the bar staff lad. The kid has tried hard to retain all that was of his flesh and continues to evolve proving that there was still something human in the AI code - trying to prove it by his outward mockery of what he used to be. They both sported a sort of space combat suit that fits for any with military backgrounds. It reminds me of my hazmat suit before I had recently realtered it to fit the new space things.

Between them was also someone I didn't notice until wheeled right up to them. By this point of seeing just how cultures the upper parts away from earth is within this station, seeing bug people no longer sort of fazes me as something notice worthy normally. It is in full royal purple velvet clothing, medals of some sort of achievements along the left shoulder. They seem so keen in the jumpy excitement that all child would do when expecting something cool. This bug formed fella was no larger then a 10 year old, walks on four bug speers, two sects of front limbs acting as arms (one set were just as suggested for why they are called by humans as 'mantis'). The little guy seems so sad once I reached right to them, tilted in why I was seated in a wheel chair for.

"I do believe someone told one of you that you had to fetch me something from storage or had something new made?" I parked for now and held myself while I stood up to my full hieght - making even Lucas have to tilt his vision up to see me properly. That little mantis backed off a little in inspecting me once again.

"Here is a box were told to bring with. If I recall about a few years ago, mother AI has hassled your brother about finding it for some reason. I was told to have it custom altered but not explained much of what exactly it was." I took the box from him, it seems so light in my hands. He about nearly teetered from having to readjust his weight under foot from me taking it from him, "Is it meant to be a gift?" He asked nosy and I purr in chuckling at him.

"No. It's my dress." I purr lightly in dusting off the lid, "Very good that even the alloy zinc has prevented even the surface of this box from rusting so badly. My poor van hasn't fair so well in age." I posed with peering around, "I guess I should really put this one. If that is her request. Must be very important to be a glamour up as it gets."

"More like chain mail for a war enactment play." I flicked the bar keeper with the tip of my tail, he indeed had to check I didn't just break him there.

"This isn't any dress." I stopped purring with keeping it clamped closed, "It just makes me wonder how bad it must be if I am needed to act as the ambassador this offically and this seriously." I peer to looking to the mantis, his medals and the more importantly the things they signified. The metal that each was made from was once the remains of some planets crumbled into molten goo. In fact I knew exactly what some of those were in the languages of the creatures. So now I am eye to eye with the mantis of purple, "I think I know your here to ask me that the Maiden of your planet is requesting me. Or maybe that she expected someone of my assosations to be speaking to her shortly." The mantis nod confidently and yet there still a twist of falling distain about my current appearance, "Oh don't worry about what I look like right now." I took off my face shield (worn for privacy while on board any station) which often hid my snout enough to fool humans to not freak out so much, "I didn't always look like this before." I put the shield on properly as the mantis shivers, "Has to be on such a terrible day. Typical." I passed Lavender over to someone else, "I will be right back."

I stand in ease of my joints clicking in place and that my posture suited for my need to carry with my front. The nearest private lock door I can find for getting changed in wasn't hard. They thought of such things in mind when considering layout of market and food providers nearby. The nearest sort of thing you can get to having a toilet nearby yet be for all manner of things. The Mantis has no sense of personal space having actually followed me to here.

"I had a personal letter to hand you actually, or rather if you are indeed Kate Nick." I may have allowed them to hang around but I didn't let them be in full view of me removing my clothing. The stall was large enough space for me to bend around unzipping or unbuttoning sections of my current wear with. I pose a hand through a gap and a paper was put there. I closed the door and opened it. It was bland and deplomatic as it gets.

"Are you honestly sure this was meant to be for me? It is rather a dull way of playing fist fights with me." The mantis made a loud sound and I had to peek around to make certain the little thing didn't hurt himself, "I don't blame her anger at me for the trick I pulled back then." I muttered in peering about him washing his face, "What is it exactly is it she is struggling about lately? Or rather is there some sort of crisis over you home nest that concerns machines like the mother of AI?"

"I mustn't." He had to wash his eyes too. I close my stall and continue changing into the dress. Once rolled over my whole body, I could feel myself contort into fitting the dress then the dress fitting me. I have a new section for my tail to be put through and it too was dripping with gemstone beads of flowering along with other logos. My neck was empty, lacking much at all. I peer about the box, a new long chain was made. The charms of the original with my history in military, research and accomplishments in achieving schooling grades - all of that was there. Yet then there was human elements that I told my brother I wished was there. Such as the charms of my wedding, birthdays and anniversaries. I brushed every charm, purring softly or the occasional tears in some of them.

"I doubt that my words mean very little and you can't simply ignore me." The mantis reminding me I have stuff to do. I peer from creaking the door, "But did you ask those questions to mean my world harm. As we have plenty of that already in the crisis we stretch our race into helping others with far enough already. Now big time folks like machines whom could have paved so much help for us all are also in need of aid. You could say you asking me those questions sort of hurt."

"I recently woke up from a long slumber, I had no idea of much of what has happened while I been away. I didn't even know I wasn't on my home planet until I looked out to all those suns beyond the one I knew." I packed up all my loose items into one pile and moved to the sink area. Here I could better clean away my face and style my chain properly around me. I also had a few little bits from the box yet to add onto me. The Mantis made itself small and tiny into the corner. I left him be as I softly hum lightly in learning my voice adjustments, I sung a few songs I missed from my years growing up. Importantly was the little touches I managed to achieve with the last few bits.

"What are you?" It asked but was so scared of having asked the question, he held his mouth closed and ducked small again. I gave him some time with folding away my other bits into the box and carry it all into it. Once I had closed the lid, it activated some sort of locking system that awoken too. The old thing sprouted legs and hopped down to follow me. So I put the mantis onto the box, pet the head and tilt in purring.

"I use to be human. In fact, I was altered by the same plague that has destroied the worlds these medals on your shoulder repsented." he looked up from his hiding, "Don't ever be afriad of speaking your opinions with even those of higher status. Sometimes the best ideas come from little poeple like you and me." I softly hold his claws arm, "My orginal name was Kathrine, I am the other half of the ones whom researched into parasitic life. My brother has some creidit too, together we perfromed many surgerys across the earth to save lives whom were infected. I just so happened to taken a bit more then just the typical case... My human DNA was altered." I stand straight and admired myself in the mirrors but also used the mirror to watch the mantis, "I met the maiden before and I wanted her to learn something important about humans. I wanted to warn her... but she wouldn't understand if I just tried explaining it. Some words didn't exist in your culture at the time." I twirlled and clap and the box posed in action of ready to move. The mantis got off it and looked about me properly, "Because of me, I ended wars I didn't even consider existing. More importnatly 9 planets weren't erased." I pointed to the ones on his arm, "This one. That one and that one. They were in war that was set to wipe out a whole sun." I poked another three, "Their sun." He looked at those medals on his arm, "Sure I was a sly little tricky lady with smooth words. I sure played the maiden a fool." I waved in making sure we leave the place with nothing left behind, "I had nothing to my name then. I had only what I could scrap together from trash from my planet. She came to me because I was unassuming and maybe I would not care about the implications of such trading in fragile market. Assumed me a sucker for quick money."

"Then You really are the dark handed trade lady of earth." I purr at such way of words and very quickly there was so many eyes on us.

"I am." I made sure he walked at my side, my pawed hand gently guiding him beside me, "Look how much just changing my clothing changes a creature you were scared of into some sort of well..." I fluttered my free hand.

"You look like a highly regarded offical."

"I am now. I wasn't before." We returned to the veiwing sight of Lucas. He was pattling about with some sort of long winded story and lost all functions in notice of me approaching. Lavender had to slap some sense back into the sever brain of his. I looked to the little mantis and stop a moment to lower to eyes head highet, "War isn't always about using weapons. Sometimes battle armour is the very clothing you wear attending little gathering parties over a cocktail drink. Sometimes the little whispers can cascade into the life and death of a planet. A small little coin could even pay feeding the mouths of the enemy." I smile, "There is a old human saying you should remember. You keep your freinds and allies close to you. Yet it is even better to have your enemy closer." I stand up properly and nod with his unirofm being neat, "Because the maiden isnt the only voice I am speaking to these days. Someday, I look forwards to meeting the prick whom finds our little war a joke."

"There is nothing little about what is happening, Miss Nick." I purr lightly and then used my hands to gesture that the box was to crawl its way to safety first. Picked up sharply by my freinds. I give a little wave and the bugdged the little mantis ahead.

"We made her wait long enough."