This is a legal record of THE JUDICIAL HALLS OF THE COURT OF THE CONTINUUM specified as hearing document #0013007 from the Privy Council Chief Clerk. The wide-reaching scope of the accusations in this document calls into order The Tribunal of Seven representing the Realms of the Continuum, including the three Kingdoms and their three corresponding Levels of the Inferno and Meru across the Eighth Dimension.

  Realms may submit requests to review these findings to the Privy Council Chief Clerk. (For complete immersive real-time playback and perspective variations, please indicate specific formatting to your sensory input requirements when submitting your initial request). Those constrained by linear time will synchronize to CEERS-93316 before making requests from the Chief Clerk’s Office. Those magical beings will draw their baseline from the Eye and Hand of Vecna.

  The intent of this court is to assess damages and establish procedures for the restoration balance if so required. The following is direct testimony transcription broadened with source data from magical and technical means:

  Darius glanced to his friends on either side of him, Nova and Brock, and then back to the line of floating cloud faces in the pitch-dark. One smear of light in the center of seven glowed just a touch brighter and seemed to be staring at Darius. He could feel the weight of that gaze.

  “We really didn’t know what to do,” Darius said.

  A voice came from a cloud to the right, and its glow fluctuated as it spoke.

  “Your ignorance is irrelevant. This fact is upheld by your own laws in your own realm. It is consistent in records established earliest by your Leviticus document 5:17.”

  “We thank the respected Tribune for the clarification, but we still need to proceed in the same manner.” Said the cloud at center, “Just tell us what you did do.”

  Brock leaned over and whispered,

  “Start right before Nova shot you.”

  Darius glanced at Nova, and she rolled her eyes, looking just a touch guilty.

  Mercury’s voice came from behind them.

  “Yes. That should be about right. Tribune, Mr. Stormcloud will begin his testimony at that point. The previous statement of facts submitted by the Agency should cover events up to that point. If you require other information to fill in any gaps, that information can be provided here or by other means once we see how thoroughly this testimony covers everything. Will that suit?”

  “Yes, Barrister. Thank you. As agreed, begin testimony from the situation when Miss Antinov shot you.” The cloud said, and Nova rolled her eyes even harder.

  A cavernous expanse of space station decking leaned at a slight angle in shadow underneath high arcs of metal trusses. Plas-steel curved windows let in the subdued natural light of a raging sandstorm that boiled outside in the desert. A bird glided through the shadowy interior and landed awkwardly onto the top rail of an open balcony. It wore a pair of blade-thin metal arms attached to a collar, and the metal hands clasped the rail to halt a near fall.

  “See! That time I do it not problem. Flying is easy. You say I can not land on pipe! I do land on pipe!” Nova’s voice called to the three figures below on the tilted floor.

  “None of us said you couldn’t land on the pipe!” A big ostrich wearing a neck rig suspending bulky mechanical arms called up with Brock’s voice. “We said you’d probably break your neck if you tried to fly. And we don’t know what will happen if you crash your bird or whatever these things are called that we are stuck in.”

  The ostrich reached up with a bulk of a metal hand and adjusted the goggles it wore. Large eyes with long eyelashes blinked through the goggles at the little bird.

  “No, You say, Nova, don’t try to fly. I can’t do. Well, see? Nova fly. I do!”

  A smooth android stood beside the ostrich, a faintly glowing featureless mannequin with a single large round eye set high on its skull. It canted its head and dialled open the large optic to study the small secretary bird.

  “Performing a soul trade of your essence due to the death of your avatar with the limited resources of this station has an infinitesimal probability of success, Miss Nova.” The droid spoke in a soft, melodious, neutral human sound that had a touch of synthesis.

  The secretary bird spread its wings, released its hold, and plunged off the balcony into a gentle glide.

  “Whooooo!” Nova exclaimed. “Don’t care. Like I guess, flying it too much fun. Brock, you must try!”

  “Ostriches can’t fly, Nova. But you know that!” Brock called after the smaller bird as it glided away into the darkness, hooting with Nova’s voice.

  A silver sphere, scuffed and dented, hovered about a meter above the deck. It faced the curved window wall as if it were watching the storm outside. The ostrich swivelled its beak and goggles to point back at the drone to continue their earlier conversation. The drone had been painted with the number eight in script jersey font.

  “Come on, mate. There’s gotta be a way. We gotta keep working. We should try to concentrate like when Badrik had us hold hands and go into the dream. When we sat in the circle. Back at the Grandmother’s. We drifted through that camp like it was a movie or something.” The beak of the ostrich didn’t move. Brock's voice came from the heavy metal yellow harness around the ostrich’s neck.

  “I can’t concentrate my way into them. We’re, I’m not Badrik. He’s like the bloody god of voodoo or something, and I’m tired of looking at those stupid crystal data chips. Nothing is helping. I’ve never done this before.” Darius’ voice spoke, highlighted with little muted light pulses from the drone. “First of all, I can’t hold hands. And we’re not back at Grandmother’s. That place is different. It’s a place to daydream.” The drone spun away from the window and back to the giant bird and the green droid standing beside it. The drone seemed to take in the canted, darkened space station around them. “And this place, is, well, like really Real, or something. Something different than the grandmothers.”

  “What else are we going to do then?”

  “How long have we been trying this? I think it’s been more than a day now, but I can’t really tell. I can’t just stare at these stupid storage chips for a day and just ‘hope’ my way into them somehow. We have searched everywhere for some type of connection. Adam, you are totally sure there is no way for this drone to connect, like a computer would, to those memory storage chips? No cables or wifi or whatever?”

  “I am certain, young Sir.” The android replied. “The crystal storage system is memory based. There was never an interface. One was never constructed. They are individual storage for each human entity. Any interface would be forbidden. It would be the same as allowing someone to interfere with someone during cryogenic sleep. It is not permitted. These stored individuals are the same, it is just that their essence, their memory, their soul has been preserved without their body. We only had room for so many cryogenic storage systems on the three tethered stations. But the need to save more people was done with the crystals.”

  “We need somebody else here. Brock is right. We need someone who understands how the voodoo, or the magic, works, not the science. If Badrik was here, I could ask him, or he could hypnotize me. I can’t save anybody, I can’t fix, or repair, or defrag these stored memories if I don’t know how to do it. They never told us how. They just sent us here.”

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  “I and Professor Andoria Seelo sent you here. We were not aware you would be unable to repair these stored memories.”

  “Could Badrik even hypnotize a drone?” The tall ostrich asked. “Maybe this is all wrong.”

  “No. We’re on the right path. If we don’t get the professor help soon, her tower will be pulled down too. We have to stop that. The preserved people and avatars can help, but we can’t wake them yet. It’s because they,” the drone turned to take in the green android, “it’s because Adam and Zurn didn’t know how our memories needed to be stored so the memories would be chronologically recorded. So they made a mistake, and people wake up confused.”

  “Affirmative. Sometimes, they are so confused they forfeit their life form. A few examples have survived, but their minds are confused. The professor herself has difficulty, but she has learned to control her confusion by only living in ‘the now’, as she defines it.”

  The secretary bird glided out of the darkness, landed gracefully, folded its wings and skipped across the decking to join them. “This take too long. This bird body get hungry.” It said, looking up at them.

  “I have already indicated there are plenty of resources available…” Adam began. The secretary bird held up one gleaming hand.

  “Yes. I know. But as I say. Bird poo then. And I not poo as bird.”

  “I have also indicated that there are appropriate operational facilities where you may defecate…”

  “AH!” The hand came up even quicker to be thrust at the android’s face this time. “Do not say that word! We stop talking about this thing now. I will go. Darius. You figure this out now. I am tired. We been here forever. It is time to move on.”

  “Well, thanks, Nova. Ya, it's no problem. I’ll have it all figured out in a jiffy.” The drone pulsed as the secretary bird strode away.

  “What if you concentrated… pretended you were back in the water tower?” Brock asked. The ostrich was pacing back and forth around the bank of dark crystals; its heavy crane arms crossed in front of it in a posture of concentration.

  “I’ve already tried that. It was the first thing I tried, and it is easy to do. I can kinda ‘withdraw’ back away from what I can see, like my vision is narrowing, and it feels like I’m back in the warm water floating again. You can’t believe how easy it is, actually. Especially the way my legs used to go numb on me all the time. Being in this drone is kinda easy. But that’s as far as I can get. The pretending part doesn’t open any magical doors or anything. I don’t know how to go any further, to go ‘out’ of this thing to anywhere else. It’s like I’m stuck here. We’re stuck here.”

  “Ok. Let’s think about this. If Badrik was here, what would Badrik do?”

  “Back at the hospital, when this all began, he hypnotized me when he showed me the dream. Adam’s dream to save his garden. To save the human race.” The green-hued droid bowed slightly, “The dream of the Vietnam war medic helping Joan of Arc. And we’re here now. Here to help, like the medic was, but we can’t get any further.” Darius’ voice was frustrated.

  “Adam. Can you hypnotize someone?” Brock asked.

  “No. That is one of the things I don’t understand how to do. I comprehend, but I cannot execute. That is one of the areas I need your help with.”

  At the sound of a loud metal clunk and a hiss of depressurization, the three of them turned. The secretary bird was studying a bank of now-open metal cabinets built into the station wall.

  “Wow!” Nova said. “Look at all these things!”

  “That area is not designed for deficatio…” Adam began.

  “Don’t! Don’t even say it!” The bird held a hand up again, halting the droid’s speech. “You will not talk about that anymore. I am just explore. And see what I find? All these weapons. Hitting sticks. Space pistols. Long blinking guns. You show us empty station, why you not show us wall filled with guns?”

  “There is no requirement…” The droid began.

  “That wall does say ‘Weapons Lockers’ above it, Nova.” The ostrich said, shaking its head and turning back to the drone. “Well, what if I tried to hypnotize you?”

  “You? I didn’t know you could hypnotize people, Brock. Why didn’t you mention this earlier?” Darius said.

  “Well, because I’ve never tried, but how hard can it be?” Brock asked

  “Are you serious?” The drone asked.

  “Come on. It can’t be so hard. What is the problem with trying? I’ve seen it done in old movies and other stuff. They use an old gold pocket watch, a nut, or something like that.”

  “A nut. What in the hell are you talking about?”

  “Adam. What this do?” Nova called. The secretary bird was holding a smooth, blue, delicate pistol. The pistol was pointed in their general direction.

  “Ah, please remove your finger from the trigger. The weapon does have a slight chance of firing.”

  “Don’t worry. I not pull trigger. What it do?” She spun the pistol barrel into a ‘come on’ gesture.

  “It is a needler pistol. It fires individual projectiles it has selected once its specific target has been scanned and assessed for weakness. It can…”

  “Never mind.” Nova said, and clicked the pistol back to its mount in a row of identical pistols.

  “But what about a coin?” Darius asked Brock, his voice hesitant.

  “Ya. See? Now you’re getting into the spirit of it.”

  “There are no such items on this station.”

  The ostrich’s metal fingertips came together with a ‘clack’. “I’ve got it! A bullet. I saw a guy hypnotized in a movie once, and they used this bullet from a gun.” The ostrich straightened up and called away across the floor, “Hey, Nova! You see any bullets over there?” The thick metal fingers began to undulate in a slow wave, and the bird peered close at the back of its hand. “The guy ran the bullet along the back of his hand like this...”

  “Bullet?” Nova’s voice rang out with an eager tone. " Like from old-fashioned cow-boy movie. Made of brass and lead?”

  “Ya. Exactly.”

  “No. Of course not, you idiotic.” Her voice had dropped to nothing but scorn. “This all future weapons. Dumb bird.”

  With a resounding ‘click,’ away from its mount, she pulled out a long staff.

  “Adam. This war stick. What it do?”

  “Ah. It is what the surface dwellers call a charge staff, initially called a tower javelin.”

  “Yes. What it do?”

  “You don’t have to get mean about this, Nova. We’re just trying to figure out…”

  “You idiots don’t know about hypnotize. Time to think another way. You talk hypnotize waste time. Stupid. This bird getting hungry. Adam. What this staff ‘Do’?”

  “Surface dwellers can only get it to emit a touch charge of electricity as long as it is charged. Initially, they were designed to defend with a repulser charge, use the stun charge, and emit a ranged stun area effect the same as the charge rifles, the' long blinking guns,’ as you refer. The tower javelin, along with a mantis shield drone, was…”

  “So you say this stick can now make a touch of electric?”

  “Well, yes, it is the simplest attack and all those weapons are charged. Some of the charge staffs are a shorter configuration and only emit a stun charge on touch, called a batton. Some can be fixed to a longer second staff to create a lance. The tower javelin was a combination…”

  “Darius. Come on, man. What else is there?” Brock continued talking quietly. “Why don’t we try it? If hypnosis doesn’t work, what is the harm? So, you, like, don’t go to sleep or something. It’s not like nothing bad can happen.”

  A steady scraping sound of metal on metal began as the slender crane-like secretary bird began dragging the charge staff across the metal decking towards them.

  “Nova, what are you doing?” Darius’ voice asked as the drone turned to face her.

  “I want to have one of these,” Nova said. “How do I turn on?”

  “You don’t need that thing, Nova. Put it back.” Brock said. “It’s way too big for you anyways.”

  “We have no requirement to arm ourselves. We are safe here. My brother Zurn protects us outside.” Adam added.

  “Don’t bug me Brock. I am curious. How to I make stick electric shock?” She asked Adam.

  “I don’t think that thing is safe, Nova.” The ostrich continued, towering over the secretary bird as it came closer. “Maybe it can damage some of the electronics in here.”

  “Is true, Adam? Can hurt computer and stuff?”

  “Well, yes. For example, it has enough power to force me into a reset. I do wish you would not bring it any closer.”

  “Would it hurt?”

  “I would feel what you would consider pain, but it would not permanently damage me. But I do not wish to reset right now, even if it were accidental. As you continue to draw closer I am calculating that a possible reset may be in my future.”

  “A computer? Would it kill a computer? Hurt it? Or turn it off like turn you off?”

  “Yes. The same. It could shut down any non-bio organism.”

  “And people? Or bird people…, or whatever? Just stun them. Not kill.”

  “Yes. That is right. Some would be stunned. Others are tougher. The bioengineered for battle, for instance, it would cause them discomfort, but they could continue unhindered. There are historical records that you could review. I could provide them and they would be much safer to read at your leisure if you are interested in the station weapons. I would prefer that you return that weapon to its receptacle.

  “No thank you. It does not matter. I promise I will not touch you. How do turn on? It look like words on staff; and two arrows come together. I twist?”

  “Yes. You would just…”

  Blue electric fire jumped to life on the upraised end of the staff. The ostrich flinched away from the snap and crackle of the electricity in the air.

  “Jeeze, Nova, watch it with that thing, will ya?”

  “Darius?” Nova said.

  “Yes?”

  “I am going to be sorry later, but for now, I am hungry, and talk of hypnotizing is making me angry. Also, this android only know science. Not Grandmother’s cottage where we come from.”

  And she let the blue electricity fall against the silver drone.