20th January

"This makes the last connection needed to strengthen our severs. Processing data compacity is at it all time highest in known records." A team one communicate link reports.

"All dome city compacity has also been successful implemented with gate lock servers as barriers better." This was direct from the dome capital for this containtent. This is echoed by connecting containtents whom also chosen to follow the grid network system. Global connection was now possible as it was before the fallout of radiation. Through miles and miles of cables (mixture of old national grid, the fiber network of my younger years and the new cables we had to place / replace).

"Then do I have the all clear for stage 4?" I asked everyone, "We are about to reconnect and become a part of the space networks. We will be accessible for foreign world signals, not just our human satellites." The vote began... Any worries about it was made smaller with protection against hackers. Gate severs are just a small part of this protection, in order to have connection within local severs. The signal has to certificate permissions through a gate server.

"All clear." I closed the argument reality panels and began to climb a tower of my own construction on the summit of Ben Nevis. I am not the only one whom has done this but I was given the clear to be first to start the connection. I carried the cable waving it through the structure, reach to the lock cable connector. A zap of static and I climb back down this tower. I stand a little back in peering at the lights on the top of the tower, the flashing from red to orange... then green. I adjusted my coat and reopen my argument reality - rebooting it.

My permissions as an ambassador were completely modified, new tabs that they made were there. There was a open chat room they left private conversation messages on about work only. The bank on thier side was looking weak, but with established connection - I helped them with a bank top up. They were both in recharge, currently in a vr chat together. It was active but I left them alone.

I instantly was into bothering with my work focus only. I checked the work chat room with adding messages into it about earth updates. I made my own vr chat office that was left open for them to enter if they wished to speak with me directly. My private server which has been password locked and left untouched since I last left it. I managed to guess the password and reopened it. I added tabs along the hot keys I needed.

'It is about time that we are able to properly connect together. If either of you need anything from earth, step into my vr office. I will be there during set earth hours. I look forward to hearing back from you. There is work, business and private conversations to be had. But at our own pace. Instant messaging is more like emailing. It's a hit or miss upon arrival of the message. I miss you both and don't be causing more trouble then I do. K'

I closed the arguement reality down and tread the snow back into warmth of heated vehicle I had hired to take me here. The taxi drive is own hire from the network of hive machines. I am kept safe in Incognito uniform and body armor - forced my shape into a mock humanoid. Skin so covered, I would be mistaken for a machine. I took my coat off once in and gave the signal that I was ready to head back to the nearest dome.

I watch outside of the snow grave mounds that made this journey difficult pass by. I see the scrap heaps of the fallen segment of space stations on where the ocean is. The smaller mounds I created for each corpse I pulled from wreckage.

My arm of tied clothes were the only indication of my status, the logos and allies flags the were woven into the clothing. A patch of the space uniform among them, I subconsciously pet it. I were a little startled in the call I was getting, I don't recognise it. In checking through, this was someone expecting my brother to answer. As for my brother and his partner, they were still charging which is a machines way of sleeping. I answer with no camrea connection, had no camrea around me to do that with anything.

"We demanded 190 on the tariff!" They jolted into silence in wondering why there wasn't picture connection.

"My brother is currently unavailable to be receiving your call from wherever you are by whatever you are. And no... I am not my sister in law either. I am Kate. Just give me a moment to read through to catch up with what problems you have chosen to harrass us with." I openly show that I was being genuine in sharing what information I access from their own servers. Once I had this all in mind, "Hmmm... this seems a more locally induced issue on your market. This has nothing to much about it being a problem with earth, machines or just us in general." I scrolled a little more, "You have been tricked by a false vendor that pretended to have association with my earth dark market. I however have no legal standing to help you in this tariff transition." I look at the live feed of direct study of these things, "I can off set any short term issues with a shark deal of my own. This deal is no attachment to my brother or the ambassadors of earth machine intelligence." I open a template document of how the legal transfer works, "You will make a cheap purchase of a worthless empty box. I will then buy the box back from you with a associated amount. If you have any deeds or any scrap items of no value to use instead of a currency - I will still exchange. Do you wish to continue with this purchase plan or are you finished wasting my time?"

"What right does a hacker!" I openly then hacked into their systems and sent a digital image of myself to stand before them. They scramble in how human and normal I was in that image, yet there was also no point in hiding that my digital human having a shadow if what I am actually. This is how it would be in a mental connection, I transfer the ideas through the vr setting systems.

"Lady Kath, you are alive." wherever they were was a whole room at shock, "You can't be a human then."

"Not anymore. I use to be." They look about the document I was promising as a sort of only way I could aid them.

"We appreciate that you doing what is possible. Your words has laced advice... of which has helped us. We have no further questions or concerns. Maybe a deal like this would be reached in the future."

"My real advice before I go. You just saved yourselves in not accepting my deal. A deal like that would send war across all of your territory at such a fragile time. I am mentally still a human, don't assume that I would gain nothing on my end of that bargin. Later folks." I ended the call and noted it up. I put the records according to the tabs. The vehicle was simply waiting for entry clearance back into the dome premises. I put my coat back on as this was drop off for this vehicle. I paid my fare and was on my way. I had a closer look into the Scottish dome trades.

Surprised to see some classics of tradition will never change. Everything that made the Scottish proud was still here, they may had adapt with times. But I knew very well what words to be avoided in such areas. The traditional pie dishes with tripe and potatoe was still around. A meal I had once hated was amazing now. It was nice to be blended it among the crowds and not so much followed about by my coworker teams. I wasn't so highly prized as someone that mattered to the public eye here, so it was normal to haggle once again. No one was really targeting me for betterment from my dark market wares.

But this little time had to come to the end. The moment I was on ships to a new dome city, such things returned. Changing out of the Incognito and into the classic suit uniform that I considered home wear. Formal, neat but not that restricting of movement. Shows more of my lack of human shape and lack of machine parts. To be hassled by other city tradesman on the same flight over small amounts of nearly nothing, thier markets to small to cope in my deals.

"I came with a different trade in mind." A sort of reporter, a reconginized them from some the news channels I watch in my office, "I have this file in exchange of you opinions or maybe claims." They peer about me directly eye to eye, how brave for anyone most days. I can appreciate someone whom puts heart into a job, even if the job can be to reveal scandals.

"Before I go looking at the little file. I have my own questions of source and validation. My own opinions aren't always that of the networks, as you realize at the small print of some advertisements I face for." They lightly lower, "However..." I pose openly, "I am sure you expect someone with such trust to be clean hands. Dark Market is clean trades under my name. Maybe a few have seen my chain and questioned its lengths, as anyone should. You may have suspected machines in strange ways for strange things. I don't always know what they are up either." All in part of any disclaims where needed.

"Well... this file is more about the Strains of plagues that ravaged this whole planet." And for that I did take it.

"For that, you will be surprised that I had my awareness much longer then most." The file first page is explaining how dates worked as this were before nuclear, "So you found a source untainted by the history erase." I hum lightly and that jaw dropped. A bunch of stuff I knew, "What a blast from the past? I remember that." light purr on the off occasion, "Mmm... not much really to comment on. The governments of then choose this course of action. They hide a lot from the public. They still do."

"So your claiming that this a true?" They asked.

"Some of it. Some of it is a exaggerated. And some was cover ups for other things. Yet it is important that the core of it all... the document you pin as the nail in the coffin. That was a rewritten version of something I personally wrote." I shuffled the papers and to paper I meant, "I think it were the most of my 50 or so years as a untainted human. Such research was done and covered up." I pose it in return, "So many died for that. I am happy their deaths were not for nothing. I once assumed it be in vain. Good luck and don't die in your seeking of this. There are others like me outside the domes. Others whom had parts too. I am famous as a doctor. That fame isn't without my years of hardships." I pose in thinking.

They go through it in looking at the way I had ordered the papers. The document I had mentioned at the top of the stack was indeed the plague outbreak. The study of what things I grouped as I had shuffled the entire file in a strange order.

"I don't really recommend chasing this story unless you wish to lose things you had never thought to loose. You will be shoned and distained. It is a long story and gore... Plenty of gore." I shook in sorrow, "However the price to pay for it maybe more then you can handle. The consequences of the information will disrupt everything, even with those beyond our earth may gasp in horror." I pose in open hands, "This sort of cost has nothing else that I can offer you. This isn't a dark market thing. Sure the machines knew of this but they have moved on. The few humans around whom still care act as it was a hoax. There is a slight possibility of some vaults being aware of this whole situation and have yet to surface in public matters. Some whom may still be frozen and unaware of times change." I posed calm, "And there is folks like me. We have lost our humanity. There is still going to be some vague nostalgia if you can survive to talk to them."

"Lost your humanity?" I pur lightly in a reply, but still there seems a misunderstanding. A mistake I stare darkly for and shut anyone else from furthering it.

"You think I am a fully converted machine? Or that my association to the creatures alliance is off? Yes. I was human. I am at my core. Yet then we go I to the political arguments of what should share rights with humanity. Not all victims were human only." I tilted in staring, "Have you ever pondered that every morning on cue in front of camreas, if you could imagine the camrea as the eyes of the viewer... what shape would you assume them as?" The blank stare of not liking that, "Good luck. May the cost be worth your efforts. You are not alone to want such things. You just so happen to be human to have the voice for it."

"Your have to be a machine. A well programmed or a remote control." beside them. The crew were not recording at the time, I can tell with the detactors of the machines around me. Machines are camreas enough for any political gain over me.

"I strike fear in those around me. I taste it." I cross my arms, "Annoy me more and I will be told off for breaking things around me. My tail is on reflex after all." The eyes trailing to that fact of stating a tail exists. The assumption of it being a cord wire in design was actually a flesh tail. The one person with the folder flipping through a wade of papers I put together.

"Why would anyone outside our planet care for the affairs around the plagues?"

"Indeed. But it does. It matters." I posed with looking to the arguement reality panels for anything else as a distraction. Anything interesting published in my science tabs. The choose of pretending this conversation had never happened. My choose to stay within the machine section of the train as the more types are hoping on and off. Stood as I may, I was plenty steady of the motions. They hop off on some office place around the business sector.

I left to enter the court sections, a small crew of machines at my wake. All of them helping with sewing some patches of logos into the suit being further decorated like a walking advertisement board. The last part was changing the vizier along my helmet. Not hard to blend in as one of them. Together as a group to be among the courts pew seats, today's case in court was an creatures alliance issue. We here are just backing them as bench seaters. I listened as I do, given the chooses courts make about creatures - the more likely I am to face anything of my own issues in the future about it. Many machines have pets either in their bodies or like how I am with my brother. Creatures alliance are part of the govern body that machines best get advice about their chosen pets. It's rare that a human States they are a machines pet, even frowned upon. I am not popular among many for this same label.

It was a hard to sit still case, it was on those that can go either way. Edge of what is pet stupid or intellectual property. Having seated openly to watch this case in person, the machines whom were aware of how sketchy the wording was used often turned in pity at me too. Such displays of machines being openly concerned about wording chooses has put this case to be in question of those using the terms. There were maybe a few times I had to stop myself twitching in annoyance or my tail from breaking anyone around me.

"This case is on hold until return of jury." Some of those on the pews had quickly stood and shuffled in rapid fashion. Moved away in a back room, "In the meantime, open discussion can be observed." the fall of the hammer and the turn of the two sides to each other in whispers. That of the few machines posed to me in offering a drink or snack. I did take those offers, and study the room in a more leaned manner.

"Mrs K, you have a direct call from the network." I gave nod to whom informed me. I huffed in study of the area, standing alone from the group. I gesture to have the case results sent to me in a email. Took my water bottle with me, alone with leaving the pews. The startle of the two sides in court baffled at the commotion I am able to cause. I leave at the open lobby to then have signal back... the rung tone in my ear.