"Hello again, Your Honour. As this court system is somewhat less formal than the one I'm used to, I'm unsure whether or not this would be appropriate, but I would like your permission to take a few moments to describe recent events from my own point of view, which I hope will save some of the court's valuable time by removing the need for cross-examination to draw out each particular detail."

"Objection! Your Honor, rules of evidence were implemented for good reasons, and the defendant obviously plans to make a mockery of this court by ignoring them."

"Is that true?"

"Not at all, Your Honour. It's an idea. If it's a bad one, just say so, and I'll try to use that to improve any further requests I make."

"Hm... The prosecution will note that while there are good reasons for procedure, there are also good reasons I have the authority to set procedure aside. The defense will note that while I'm willing to give some leeway, if I see any deliberate shenanigans, I'll demonstrate one of the good reasons that I have the authority to slap people in the clink for contempt. Are we clear?"

"Yes, Your Honour."

"Yes, Your Honor."

"Right. Alright, defense, show me what you've got."

"Yes, Your Honour. Given what's already public knowledge, the most relevant starting point is that I received a message from someone purporting to be a member of Family and Children's Services, requesting an interview to determine the status of care of my son, Dan Junior. I should note that, before my death, that was the name of a government agency that had the authority to take children from their parents, and had something of a mixed reputation due to the strong feelings engendered by governmental intervention into ordinarily private affairs. As I am still learning about BosWash's civic structure, I perhaps paid more attention to this message, and gave it more concern, than someone who's had more than a week to learn such things may have."

"Objection, Your-"

"Shush, you. I said I'd let the man speak his piece. If he goes out of bounds, I'll throw in an objection myself, and we'll do things the more formal way, a'ight?"

"Yes, Your Honor."

"Alright, son, So you got an email you thought was from the government, and fretted yourself some. Go on."

"Thank you, Your Honour. The first thing I did was set some backup plans in place, the details of some of which I'll get to shortly. Then I tried to do some reading on this modern F.A.C.S., and found myself confused. Noticing I was confused, I realized that at least some assumptions I'd been making were wrong, and so set up some different backup plans, depending on which assumptions turned out to be wrong, most of which were irrelevant. Then, according to the customs of my time, I responded to the message, asking for a face-to-face meeting in a public place, such that if either party did something untoward, then there would be plenty of eye-witnesses, several avenues of escape, and the rapid arrival of constabulary or other emergency first responders. I also decided to bring along someone more familiar with present-day issues than myself, and after some kind of online discussion whose nature I'm still trying to figure out, the consensus candidate amongst the people I know was Peggy - the woman who's chosen the body of an ostrich-taur, sitting behind me.

"The response I got didn't mention any of that, just a request, or demand, or whatever word applies, to inspect the infant's home, living space, and so on.

"I feel I should also mention that, in what I still think of as 'my time', governmental processes tended to be at the speed of physical mail. That is, that there tended to be a certain amount of slack time, days or even weeks, between when a request like that was made, and when a response was expected. Thus, instead of firing off an immediate answer, I made arrangements to meet with Peggy for lunch to discuss the whole thing.

"With the court's permission, instead of me describing what happened, I'd like to play a video of the events, as gathered by various nearby sur-veillance and sous-veillance cameras that I've been granted access to."

"Would those be certified recordings, son?"

"I have a version of the video that only uses provable, offsite-archived, digitally-signed, and so on, sources, Your Honour."

"'A version'?"

"Given what I feel is at stake in these proceedings, Your Honour, I asked for some help putting together the background material in the little time I had to prepare. Some of those who helped went above and beyond what I asked for, such as editing multiple cuts of the video, to be ready for whatever variation the court wishes to see, from my own direct point-of-view to an immersive three-dimensional reconstruction. I'm planning on throwing a pizza party for everyone who helped, if I don't end up in jail or prison."

"Still have to decide on that. Okay, let's see your picture-show."

---

"Would you be the individual who identified as 'Dan Senior'?"

"Excuse me, Peggy... who's asking?"

"I should think it obvious from my AR tag."

"I'm not completely comfortable with relying on AR IDs."

"I'm from Family and Children's Services. Why have you not responded to my message?"

"Because I'm still deciding on how to reply to it. Or was. Since you're here, would you like to sit down and join us, to talk, if not for lunch?"

"You are not eating lunch - you are physically incapable of it."

"I am sharing a social meal with an acquaintance who is on the path to becoming a friend. I'm recharging, which is close enough to eating for social purposes, and the AC here has a particularly pure sine-wave."

"I am not - wait, you use direct-current to charge, and so there are no sine-waves."

"You've caught me out. I said something that was true, but not quite relevant, in the hopes that your mind would pattern-match it in a fashion that would create a story that was also true, and which would inform you about what I was doing in an efficient if somewhat indirect manner. Now then, if you do not wish to join us, how about we set a time and place for an actual meeting, and Peggy and I can resume our interrupted socialization and discussion of various personal matters until then?"

"You are being a very rude little man. That will not make a positive impression when I add that note to your case-file."

"On the contrary, I feel that I am being exceedingly polite, offering you the choice of how to interrupt my day in the manner which is most convenient to you. If you do not wish to take advantage of that offer, then on your own head be it."

"I see I will also have to add violent and racist language to your file."

"Pardon?"

"The phrase you just used derives from 'your blood will be on your own head', deriving from the ancient practice of sacrificing animals to expunge sin. I have no intention of having my throat cut to assuage whatever feelings of guilt you may be experiencing."

"... I apologize for whatever inappropriate language I may have used that might have disturbed you, in that I was unaware that that phrase was impolite. I thank you for bringing my attention to the topic, and will make my best effort to avoid such phrases in the future. Now, how does Tuesday, noonish, sound to you?"

"That is far too late. A child's well-being is at stake. You will escort me to the child's home so that I may inspect the living conditions."

"I'm disappointed; here I've been scrupulously trying to be absolutely honest with you, and you've just been impolite enough to drop, into the middle of this conversation, what may very well be politely described as a steaming fib."

"You must be joking."

"I may be presently using an idiom that is somewhat more verbose and loquacious than the norm in the culture I find myself in, but I do generally manage to make clear when I'm making an attempt at humour, and I assure you that I did not make any such attempt just now. You used the words 'you will', stating a fact about the future, and I have little-to-no reason to believe that said future will come to pass."

"Are you actually trying to refuse to be inspected?"

"Refusal has nothing to do with it. I have made an entirely reasonable request to discuss this matter with whatever agent your organization chooses to direct to do so, in order to help clear up certain potential minor misunderstandings before they turn into major misunderstandings that could lead to more serious difficulties. Given the fact that I have expressed my willingness to accommodate reasonable scheduling negotiations, and the fact that you have interrupted an otherwise enjoyable social occasion in a fashion that seems to primarily consist of veiled references to making notes and demands that I accommodate your demands without any regard to any other aspect of my life, I feel little compunction in disputing whatever facts you state that seem to be disputable in a manner that wastes your time in a manner that I am intending to approximately equal in annoyance the amount that your own behaviour annoys me, while remaining, as I have previously mentioned, as scrupulously honest and polite as feasible for mortal man."

"Do you have any idea what will happen if I note down that you refuse inspection?"

"As a matter of fact, I do not. There seems to be a curious lack of easy-to-find information on penalties for failing to cooperate with your organization."

"Just to begin with, we will add a note to your social media profile describing your uncooperativeness and the risk you are placing your son at! Do you think any reputable organization will wish to keep you as a member with that shining for everyone to see?"

"As it happens - I do think that. In case you have not done your own research, you may wish to examine which groups I actually am a member of, and/or am in the process of applying to. For example, the group whose core membership consists of 'people who have been revived from cryonic preservation' is unlikely to expel me due to some unsubstantiated rumour attached to a profile in a medium that most such members died before the creation of."

"What? But - wait, nobody can live with just that many memberships-"

"This, madame, if that word has not also become taboo with time, is just one of the several issues I wished to discuss, given that, from your perspective, I am effectively an immigrant from a foreign culture, despite my not having left this continent since I was born."

"You disrespectful-! You can't-!"

"Hey, watch it!"

---

"And that's when I shot her, your honour. Well, gave her a shot, with the fast-acting sedative I'd recently gotten a permit to install in the tip of my tail."

"He even admits his guilt, your honor!"

"I did nothing of the kind."

"This should be interesting. Care to explain yourself, son?"

"Of course, your honour. It was a simple case of self-defense. As the video shows, she was reaching to grab me. If the camera-recordings from my own eyes are inadmissible as evidence, then I should point out that her hand is approximately the size of my entire body, and that it is relatively simple for a human hand to exert pressures that would break large parts of my body from the other parts. I was not expecting a simple conversation with somebody who claimed to be operating for the benefit of a child to escalate into a physical altercation, so my reactions were slow, and I did not have time to attempt to retreat before I was in imminent danger of my head being snapped from my neck. I used the minimal level of physical force I had available to me to prevent such an assault - a level of force which was certainly less than the damage I could easily have suffered."

"You can tone down the wordiness, son, /I/'m not trying to waste /your/ time."

"Yes, your honour. Sorry, your honour."

"Now then. Does the prosecution wish to continue pressing charges?"

"Of course, your honor. Regardless of the defendant's aggravated battery against a woman just trying to-"

"Objection, your honour. Presumes a verdict that has not yet been given."

"Withdrawn, your honor. Regardless... there is still the matter of the care of the defendant's son, and the care thereof. As the defendant has refused a simple request to inspect-"

"Objection!"

"Withdrawn. As the defendant has not had his living conditions inspected, we can only conclude that he has something to hide, and that his son should be placed in the custody of a guardian of proven moral character until this matter is resolved."

"Sounds reasonable to me. Any objections, son?"

"Several, the most relevant of which is that what I believe the prosecution is asking for, or about to ask for, is quite impossible."

"Your honor, the defendant is obviously refusing to cooperate with this court, and should be held in contempt until he does so."

"The prosecution is reminded that /I/ decide what's contempt or not. Now, son, would you care to explain what you just said before I /do/ throw you in the clink?"

"As I said a few minutes ago, I made backup plans of various sorts, which I intended to explain later. I suppose that means now. Given that I was recently the subject in another incident in which I believed my life was in danger, and the various death threats I've received since then-"

"Objection! No such threats have been presented as evidence."

"I would be quite happy to forward a copy of the contents of my death-threat folder to the prosecution. I recommend double-checking your anti-virus software first, as some of the messages contain rather nasty malware, which would have done all sorts of nasty things to my online profile if I was less paranoid about digital security."

"Um..."

"Get back to your explanation, son."

"Yes, Your Honour. Given that, and my lack of confidence about F.A.C.S. being able to act in Junior's best interests, then among other preparations, I've taught myself some of the anonymization techniques used by the trolls who sent the drone that threatened to kill, and Junior has been, in essence, mailed to an undisclosable location. 'Undisclosable' in that I currently do not know the coordinates, and cannot learn them unless Junior chooses to tell me, which he is unlikely to do without certain other messages being exchanged first."

"Your honor! He has just said he /doesn't know where his son is/. I urge you to order these messages sent immediately."

"Any reason I shouldn't do just that, son?"

"Several. I have never said what these messages are aloud, or otherwise hinted at their nature or contents. It may help the court to think of it as a variation on the fictional idea of a 'time-travel password', a way for a person to know that another person has the same memories they do. I will say that my system is more secure than a simple time-travel password, though I choose not to go into any further details, as I expect the potential benefits from open-sourcing this particular security system would be outweighed by the potential downsides from a seemingly large number of trolls and other hostile individuals who would attempt to use any hints I give against me."

"I think I see where you're going with this, son. Go on - I'm curious how far you're taking it."

"Yes, Your Honour. Until such time as I see sufficient evidence that handing Junior over to a stranger's custody would be more in Junior's best interests than the arrangements I have already made, I am prepared to accept the consequences of disobeying the court."

"Your honor-!"

"I wish to interrupt the prosecution to mention a related fact, specifically that I am Canadian. If not in the citizenship sense, then in a cultural one. Most relevantly, in that, like most Canadians, I prefer to work within the system to resisting it, reforming it from within rather than tossing it out entirely. I say this so that the court will have a better understanding of the remainder of the plans that the court has asked me to go on describing. Does the prosecution wish to interject again? Thank you. As I was saying - if the court wishes to impose a fine for my silence, lowering my income below what this society deems the minimum allowable, I am prepared to accept that-"

"Your honor, I wish the record to note that the defendant admits to only having a minimal income, hardly sufficient to offer a child all the opportunities that would allow for greatest flourishing-"

"Your honour, since the prosecution wishes to divert us onto this tangent, I would like to submit into evidence these papers of incorporation, business plan, and related documents. While, as presently arranged, the organization is not expected to make a profit, I do have preliminary funding allowing for time to improve said plan until it's solid enough for more serious investment."

"Why do I have the feeling that, if these papers were made of paper, the ink would still be wet?"

"I could only speculate, Your Honour."

"Hm. So what's your plan here, son? Nested companies? You should know that we've got some laws against financial shenanigans that were legal before you died."

"Yes, Your Honor. The holding company, 'DataPacRat', is mainly a placeholder so that I can keep the trademark of the nom-de-net I chose before I died. The wholly owned subsidiary was created separately so that if it folds, I won't lose the name. The general plan is to do some research into the difficulty curves of certain old games that had few but deeply enthusiastic fans, to see if new games with those curves can be developed inexpensively, and if so, how best profit can be morally leveraged out of them. I honestly expect this particular venture to fail, but in doing so, to develop experience and connections that will improve the odds of any future such startups, until I put together one that rewards its investors with more profit than all the previous failures lost."

"Can't say I'm an expert in such things, son, but it does sound like you're doing more than just twiddling your thumbs. Does the prosecution wish to keep on that the defendant can't afford to buy diapers?"

"Well, er - he /did/ say he expects it to fail..."

"George. Really?"

"... Fine, your honor, motion withdrawn."

"Now, son, where were you?"

"That I am willing to accept fines. If the court wishes to jail me to try to entice me to contact Junior, I am willing to accept such imprisonment indefinitely, as long as it means Junior remains free. If the court wishes to place me in solitary confinement, I already have certain personality tendencies towards being a hermit, and have been meaning to start meditating more."

"Your honor, the defendant seems to be claiming he is judgement-proof, and making a mockery of these whole proceedings."

"Keep your suspenders on, George. Now, son, you know we don't use torture anymore, right?"

"I'm afraid that I do not know that, your honour. Not to a sufficient confidence level to rely on that as a fact, at least. Which is why I have programmed something of a deadman switch, so that if I do not respond to a challege given to me by the computer my mind is running on, according to a certian schedule, then the software that emulates my brain will not just be deleted, but securely overwritten to prevent any useful data from being recovered."

"Your honor! Um... the defendant is obviously suicidal? And should be remanded to psychiatric care until-"

"Don't even, George."

"Your honor, we also have no evidence that any such 'deadman switch' exists-"

"Son, you have any proof?"

"Well, Your Honour, while I accidentally broke the data pins that would allow direct access to my RAM, I have been studying the hardware my mind runs on, down to the level of assembly code and machine language, to try to make sure any software I write is fast and efficient instead of cluttered with stacks of libraries and IDEs. If the prosecution knows the difference between an accumulator and a shift register, I could, say, recite the hard-delete subroutine."

"Um..."

"George, let's just take the man at his word for now. Though I should note, son, that if there's any evidence that those pins weren't broken accidentally, that you'll be liable for unauthorized physical self-modification."

"I can assure the court that no such evidence exists."

"Good. Now, is there a reason you've decided my inbox should be crammed full of messages from people who're watching this hearing's feeds and are sure that they have something useful to say about your little self-destructive plan?"

"I... didn't anticipate that side-effect, Your Honour. But I have certain beliefs about the nature of selfhood, identity, and what most people would consider the soul; and while it may be arguable whether these beliefs are religious in nature, they are at least sufficiently deeply-held that it would take a long, philosophical discussion to even describe them, their derivations, and their ramifications in full, let alone engage in an argument that has any significant chance to change my mind about them. These beliefs guide my actions on several matters, leading to actions that differ from those of people who don't share those beliefs. As they seem to be a minority opinion in the overall culture I find myself in, I have prepared myself to accept the consequences of doing my own thing in spite of public and legal pressure. I don't actually want that deadman switch to go off - but, well, my beliefs are that there are worse things than being deleted."

"So let me get this straight, son. You're so willing to protect your son, that you'd rather die than let someone you don't trust to raise him right get hold of him."

"Any quibbles I have with that statement are minor compared to the overall sentiment, Your Honour."

"Your honor!"

"Oh, give it a rest, George. The man's obviously spent more time preparing for this than you have. I'm honestly surprised you let things come this far without doing more research."

"It was supposed to be an open-and-shut case, your honor. I mean, I even had pictures of him drugging her."

"That's why we don't let prosecutors run trials. Now, you planning on becoming a lawyer, son?"

"No, sir. I'm running mainly on general constitutional and moral principles; I expect trying to learn all the relevant case law and precedents for even a single field would make passing the bar quite beyond my abilities."

"Probably for the best. You know that you're not getting out of this scott-free, right?"

"Yes, Your Honour."

"I may let the court run informally, but I still have to do some things by the book. You're going to spend some time in the pokey, if for no other reason than to make sure anyone trying to follow in your footsteps, and pre-emptively defy a court order, knows they'll have to put their money where their mouth is."

"Quite understandable, Your Honour."

"You're sure Junior is where you want him to be?"

"I've made more plans and preparations than I've mentioned so far. He'll be in good hands."

"Out of curiosity, son, if you're so goll-danged sure you want to keep Junior away from anyone the prosecution wants as his guardians, why go to the trouble of telling me things I didn't ask about? You could've dragged the whole thing out for weeks by exercising your right not to self-incriminate, and using a bunch of other procedural tricks I expect you could dig up without too much trouble."

"Because, in at least one sense, you're not actually the main audience. I wasn't kidding about having so many death threats I need a separate spam-folder to keep track of them all. I'm hoping that concrete proof I'm willing to go to jail to protect someone close to me, and reasonably plausible evidence I'm willing to die for them, will deter at least some hare-brained schemes that would put lives at risk. To a lesser degree, the fact that I entered into evidence proof that I am willing to use force in self-defense against individuals, even if I'm not stupid enough to attempt to use it against a government, may lead some of the not-completely-idiotic death-threat senders to have second thoughts about what sorts of force I have made plans to use if I have to defend myself again."

"Doesn't sound very Canadian, to me."

"Being nice and polite and working within the system are simply our first choices, Your Honour - not the only ones. When push comes to shove, there are reasons that in World War One, Canadian soldiers were called 'stormtroopers'."

"Well, I can't say I agree with your reasoning, son, but I can understand where you got it from. If there are no other relevant points to raise? Thirty days for contempt of court."