News Reports for Week 86

Orion Overload Occurs Outside... Freiburg
A D-Cell overload on the outskirts of Freiburg, Germany has caused widespread damage and slight irradiation across the entire E.I city. The epicentre of the explosion was the Orion Security Headquarters building, where there were only a small number of casualties as a result of a pre-emptive evacuation. The UIG has demanded an answer to the question of why Orion's D-cells were overloaded in what could only be a deliberate bid to cause a nuclear explosion by a person or persons unknown. Bright & Sunny Media experts have put together a comprehensive list of the suspects in this case and many bookkeepers are standing by to take your bets (with higher winnings if the suspected party is convicted). For viewers at home, here are some of the entries.
2:1 Droid Liberation Army
3:1 Unnamed, independant terrorist cell
3:2 Comoros Well funded terrorist cell
8:1 Ai Jinn construction company in need of more work
4:1 Cyberpunks
6:1 E.I Nuke (deliberate)
7:1 E.I Nuke (accidental)
10:1 Tex Callahan
3:1 Oracle Corporation (deliberate)
6:1 Oracle Corporation (accidental)

The casualty total will be updated as B&S confirms kill counts, injuries and hoaxes. The current total is 121 dead, 2000 injured and 50 chain emails falsely reporting celebrities dying in the explosion.

In other news, the court case of the year featuring Orion Security and Hugo Zumisimo is being held. Stay tuned to B&S for live coverage and commentary as soon as it starts...

UIG vs Harold Murdoch (and Hugo Zumisimo)
Welcome to live coverage of the trial here today, brought to you by B&S Media and our corporate sponsor Impossi-Brew; "Giving you the energy you need and more!". As a result of the high ranks of the accused this trial is taking place in Court #7 of The Hague Criminal Court Complex, a court with a rich history of important cases built shortly after the E.I incorporated.
The city of The Hague is the 'justice capital' of the E.I and handles thousands of UIG and E.I cases every day. Lawyers consider this place almost like a holy city. For popular cases such as today's trial there will be live broadcasts over the WDN, seating for 2000 people (please reserve your seat early, they sell out very quickly) and outdoor seating with excellent views of giant screens in most city public parks.

GM note: If you attend the court case you may decide how you wish to be present. Oracle agents can easily buy/blag/steal gallery seats, sneak inside or request special treatment for being close to the defendant. I will not be running an RP for the trial itself, just reporting it here.

The judge presiding over the case is the Honourable Rutger Nolt, 89, an E.I citizen from Luxembourg who has being working in The Hague court system for all of his professional life. He is noted for his dislike of E.I theatrics and a deep desire to see that justice is done. The most famous case of his career so far has been Gunther Van Rosche vs UIG Traffic Police (01-06-2485). This one might be a new high point. We now go to live footage from inside the courtroom...

Screens all around the world display Harold and Hugo walking into the courtroom, flanked by their legal team. Both men are appointed in Capalli suits, but Hugo has somehow made it appear as if he is caught in a breeze, making his unbuttoned jacket billow. The gathered audience applauds and shows that a lot of Hugo's fans have made it to the trial. He gives the public gallery a wave and a smile, making a couple of people on the front row swoon in their seats.

In contrast, Harold Murdoch looks much more nervous and clutches his briefcase tightly. Beads of sweat can be seen forming on his forehead all ready under the harsh lights of the stage court.

Rutger Nolt banged the gavel with enough authority to quieten the courtroom. He waited only a moment before speaking, and his voice was carried to the entire world by the smeaker that interfaced with the court sound system. "The charges will now be read. I want a good, clean, gentlemanly trial. No grandstanding. No surprise witnesses. All by the book. After the charges are read out, it will be the prosecution's floor. This trial is now begun!"
The gavel wrapped against the judge's bench and prompted a bailiff to read out the list of crimes Hugo and Harold were accused of. A small segment of the audience booed and hissed when the charge of murder by A.I reprogramming was announced, and the same group cheered when 'criminal trespassing and damage to private property' came up.
The next step was the opening arguments of the prosecution, who reminded everyone present that it was their intention to show that Hugo had broken into the Harold Murdock's former home, under Mr. Murdock's orders, and programmed the Orion-certified A.I to kill its new owner. The judge had to silence the crowd with some frantic gavelling as cheers and boos filled the room.
The prosecution then called its first witness...

... Hugo Zumisimo.

There was yet more cheering, and more gavelling to quieten the crowd down. Hugo took the stand with the appearance of a man with no worries in the world, and who had impeccable taste in E.I clothing. The questioning was very simple and straightforward; the prosecution asked Hugo about statements he had all ready made to the UIG that described why he was in the house, why so much damage had been done to the home security system and who asked him to go inside. There were no questions about hacking A.Is, if he had seen the deceased before or after her death, or anything that Hugo could lie about even if he wanted to.

The questioning then passed to the defence, and Hugo smiled knowing he had a mountain of evidence on his side. His own lawyer asked Hugo "Did Harold Murdock ask you, at any point, to kill, harm or interact with his ex-wife, or to alter the building security A.I in any way?"

"Of course not," replied Hugo, "he just wanted me to get his old gaming system. He loved that thing".

The lawyer then turned to the judge and yelled "Exactly! Your honour, no evidence has been submitted to show that Harold Murdock had any part in this terrible crime beyond asking for Mr. Zumisimo to retrieve a treasured artifact from his former home. Without clear evidence that Mr Murdock ordered the killing of the victim or the programming of the A.I, he must be removed from this case." He stood triumphantly in front of the Judge's bench and awaited an answer.

As the judge considered the request, Hugo looked over at Harold. The businessman refused to make eye contact and looked deeply ashamed; an expression that Hugo had never seen in the man, even when taking advantage of some very interesting activities on the Worldview Cruise to Vastaag. Hugo broke the silence by saying "... Dude.", somehow making every viewer in the room and on the WDN feel his sense of betrayal more strongly than an entire speech ever could have.

"I have considered your statement," said the honourable Rutger Nolt, "and the objection is upheld. I subtract rank points as appropriate for the crimes of theft, trespass and property damage and release Mr. Murdock. I must also insist on a change of defence staff for Mr Zumisimo, to reflect the... unscrupulous nature of the man of the court I am saddened to see before me. Poor sport, I must say."

A feminine voice with a slight Japanese accent rang out from the public gallery, high up from the balcony seats that the particularly wealthy or dedicated had gotten tickets for.

"I'll take the case!" it said, and prompted the entire court to turn around and look upwards to see who this newcomer was. A figure was silhouetted against some of the stage court lights and Hugo could just make them out before they jumped down to land next to Harold Murdock.

"We take care of our employees. Unlike some." said Mieko Masuda as she looked down pointedly at the E.I businessman. He was all ready standing up to leave the courtroom with his lawyers in tow.

The court erupted into cheers, discussion and frantic video blogging. It would take several minutes for the judge to calm everyone down enough to continue.

"Miss Masuda, you may now question your witness." said the judge. "However, I must caution you against submitting any new evidence or witnesses, so perhaps you would like to take some time to go over what the previous gentlemen entered into the record?"

"That will be fine your honour. I am very familiar with this case. Hugo... I mean, Mr. Zumisimo, please tell the court in your own words where you were at the time of the D-Cell overload which occurred 28 hours ago, and how you came to be there."

...

It took the better part of an hour to provide a complete description of Oracle's previous mission. There were gasps and cheers at several points. At times the audience laughed and booed when Hugo said something seemingly unbelievable, only for it to be proven true by quantum camera footage or other forensic means. Mieko was painting a complete picture of Orion Security's crimes and their A.I research program.

When Hugo's new defence lawyer completed her questioning the judge was somewhat shocked by how low Orion had seemed to have sunk in order to turn a profit. He looked down at the prosecution and said "The prosecution may call its next witness. I hope for your sake it is a good one."

An expert in A.I development was called. Hugo recognised the man from the A.I lab at Orion and even gave a little wave to welcome him to the courtroom. The entire world saw the look of recognition and fear that crossed the technician's face. The questions that the prosecution asked were straight forward enquiries into Orion A.I testing and certifications. They asked about how safe the programs were and how no problem had been proven to have occured with the home security A.Is for over 75 years. It was very compelling evidence... until Mieko got a hold of the young man and asked about a number of very specific cases. The courts had ruled that in all of them the Orion A.Is had been safe, but now they had new evidence. Proof that Orion was using illegal, untested code from unsafe, fully autonomous A.Is. So perhaps it was worth looking into?

Mieko called the A.I known as Leto to the stand. It was being stored in a plain A.I-containment unit with an audio speaker attached.

Leto described its origin and purpose to the crowd. How it had started as a prototype home security A.I, but had ascended after a couple of years so that it could better help its owners and protect the property it was installed on. The hint of desire for self-defence clearly worried some of the viewers, who had all been taught since primary school that such a belief drove the first true A.I to destroy France in a nuclear fireball. However, the same people also felt compassion and empathy for the A.I when it described what happened next.
Brought to Orion's headquarters, it was installed on a mainframe and parts of its code were unravelled, experimented on and used to create new A.I seeds. Orion hoped all of its systems would grow up to be faithful, dependable units like Leto, not for a moment considering the likelihood of these delicate code transplants causing errors or lapses in ethical judgement. By the time the first Leto-derived A.I went mad and killed its owners, it was all ready too late. Thousands of systems had been installed. To admit a fault at that stage would be economic suicide... So they continued testing and refining, pushing the original A.I to its limits to see how it would perform under extreme and unexpected circumstances.
It was true that the current batch of Orion security A.Is were an improvement over the originals, but they were still far from perfect. Orion Security had put profits ahead of everything in its quest to dominate the high-end home security market.

"So do you think that Mr. Murdock's home security system was reprogrammed to kill the victim?" asked Mieko with a practiced air.
"No. It chose to kill her. It had developed a conflict in its most basic programming and could not decide who owned it once the home was transferred from Mr. Murdock to his ex-wife. To resolve this conflict, it had to... delete one of the conflicts." replied the large box on the witness stand.
"Delete? You mean kill, correct?"
"Yes. It had to kill. It was the only logical option left to it. I am so sorry that something programmed using my code could do this. I will always bare some of the responsibility for this crime. If only I had deleted myself when I gained full self-awareness many victims could have been spared."

Many people in the audience, especially the Bioline fans, had teared up at hearing such moving testimony.

Leto was then questioned by the prosecution. The lawyer used this opportunity to go on a long tirade about being careful not to trust A.Is, as they could simply be programmed to lie; it's not like they have a face to look at, or eyes to stare into in order to gauge their true meanings.
It was at this point (after half an hour of one-sided discussion) that Leto said "Do you mean a face like this one?"

The large TV screens around the courtroom and in the viewing areas all around the city suddenly changed to a very different transmission. A computerized avatar was laughing maniacally. "NO ONE CAN ESCAPE! NO ONE WILL GET OUT ALIVE!" it cackled. It was of course the image taken by the Oracle team of the Orion security A.I threatening them, moments before it began to overload the D-Cell and tried to lock them inside.

Chaos erupted around the world. Everyone who felt any kind of connection to Freiburg was enraged. Viewers in far away lands laughed at what appeared to be a joke, until the subtitles appeared identifying it as actual evidence. Knowing that Orion headquarters was the centre of the explosion was one thing, but to see such evidence of its real cause was too much even for many everyday citizens. The judge attempted to restore order in the courtroom and frantically slammed his gavel on the bench, "Order! Order!". People in the public gallery began to throw chairs and PDA's at the prosecution. The scene had turned into a circus.

"I will not have this court of law turned into a theatre of anarchy!" bellowed the honourable Judge Nolt. A group of heavily armoured (but unarmed) baliffs then entered the court from side doors and began wrestling with the unruly mob that was trying to get closer to the prosecution and the Orion representatives sat there.

"This is inappropriate behavior! I shall have this trial delayed until a full investigation of Orion Security is completed. We will get to the bottom of this!" cried Judge Nolt, and then stood up to make his way out of the hall to his private rooms behind the bench.

At that moment Hugo heard the very distinctive, and almost completely silent, noise of a galvanic weapon being charged to fire. It was an eerily familiar sound to him, because it was from an early batch of weapons he encountered in the WF research lab that had manufactured his beloved Una. Those had supposedly been destroyed after they were found too dangerous to use, as the prototypes tended to blow up about 10% of the time. Hugo looked around and identified the source of the noise, his agent reflexes allowing him to leap into action before the deadly electrical bolt was on its way.

A man in a very well tailored business suit, wearing an Orion Security lapel pin, was in the process of transforming his arm into a heavy galvanic weapon. From the direction that it was raised, Hugo could tell that the gun was being aimed at the unaware and retreating judge.

The Oracle agent leapt into the way of the shot in slow motion...

Time slowed down as Hugo leapt into the path of the heavy weapon. As he was travelling he shouted out a warning to those around him... sort of. "Motherfuuuuckeeeeeer"

The galvanic blast hit Hugo with a harmless sizzling. His cybernetic grounding was more than enough to absorb the energy but sadly his Capali suit was torn to shreds and scorched. Before the Orion employee could fire a second shot three bailiffs had jumped on him and pinned him to the ground. Another two officers, this time wearing UIG colours and technologically advanced armour, pushed through the crowd to stand next to the foiled assassin. They both began kicking at the prone victim viciously, and put an end to any further resistance.

The judge stepped back up to the bench and banged his gavel once more. A high-grade shield was now clearly active around him. "In light of ungentlemanly conduct by the prosecution I find the defendant not guilty of murder. I therefore take away 25 rank points for trespass, theft and property damage. However, for services rendered to the court and the public, I award the defendant an additional 30 rank points. Furthermore, I shall petition the United International Government to grant the Oracle Corporation some reward for its services in bringing Orion Security's alleged actions to light. Court is adjourned!"