301 Judged and Sentenced

"Mister Remian, right?" A man in a black-and-gold formal suit-mixed-with-armor offered a weird kind of gesture with one hand.

"Uh… yeah." Remian didn't know what that gesture meant. Was it some sort of salute?

"Huh." The man looked him over, then glanced about the room. It was reasonably comfortable for a holding cell, plain black walls, with a bed, a small table, chair, and two stalls in the corner for washing and biological excrement, though they held both familiar-looking equipment and strange items Remian couldn't identify. The cell even had controls for light and ventilation. In the end, while bare, it wasn't altogether torturous. "They seem to treat you well."

"They seem to think I'm one of your people." Remian grimaced and admitted. "I'm not."

"No, you're definitely not. According to our scans and database, you're not registered to any interstellar faction we know." The man cleared his throat. "In fact, your genetics indicate a very low level of technology, and there are traces on your body of both a Class-2 and a Class-3 civilization."

Remian rubbed his head. "I'm not sure what that means, but I just want to go home. If you claim that Pod is yours, maybe I can buy it or something. Also where's my friend?"

"The girl? The scan results imply she's never even been to a Class-3 civilization before now. She's clearly from a Class-2." The man frowned. "I need to know who you are, who she is, and where you're both from because you two are certainly not from the same place."

That took a bit of telling.

"So you're from a world that's been abandoned by the Quarin…" the man summarized. "Fell through a Spatial Rift while attempting to seal it to stop some Spectral beings from invading, and ended up on that girl's world where you found the Pod… our judge wants to find that shipwreck. We built that ship for the Estruaga family, and they want to investigate that wreck and find out what happened to their people."

���The who, what now? Wait, there's a judge?!" Remian was bewildered.

"Ah, right. You can't see them. You actually have two trials ongoing concurrently, one from the Conglomerate, and the other is Quarin, and they're both connected, but you can't see them because you don't have an ARD."

"A what?"

"An Augmented Reality Device. You don't see anything else around you other than the bare walls, do you?" he nodded to himself, as if answering his own question. Then, he took out a little black crescent. "Hmm. I happen to have a cheap one on me right now, its yours for just 100 Cua."

"What is that?" Remian blinked.

"Here." The corpoman stuck it around his right ear, and suddenly it extended a narrow band around his head, fitting according to his shape, and then lowered a veil-like clear screen and…

Instantly, the entire world seemed to burst in color and images. Noise from dozens of sources asked him questions at the same time, especially that one about private settings…

"Oh wait, here, let me configure it for you." The corpoman took the visor off Remian, put it on himself, linked it with that bracelet thing of his, and then made some adjustments and returned it. "Here, try it now."

Remian put it on and suddenly seemed to be seeing multiple halls and backgrounds overlapping his holding cell. There were people watching, people just lazing around doing nothing, and most importantly, each overlapping hall had someone at the front and center looking very dignified and very hassled with the current meeting. One of them was seated in front of a pennant bearing the symbol of a winged black staff in what appeared to be a busy courtroom. The other one sat at a glass desk in what looked like a private office, with a blue star and a constantly shifting projection of light like a fountain behind him.

The man in the private office setting spoke. "Due to the necessity of the investigation, the Blue Star Conglomerate has no choice but to appropriate the Pod. According to our Codes of Commerce, we shall, of course, compensate the holding party at salvage rates."

"He says we'll buy your Pod." The corpoman with Remian explained. "Current salvage rates value the Pod at 950,000 Cua."

"That's not too bad." Remian blinked. He couldn't stop them from taking the Pod, but it was nice of them to at least pay him for it. 950,000 Cua meant 9,500 Black… which was a lot lower than what he felt it was worth, but they were buying it as salvage, so…

One of the people seated in the 'private office' stood up. "The Estuarte Family demands fair compensation for the unlawful appropriation of the vehicle and usage of it."

The man at the desk nodded gravely. "The Estuarte family are awarded one business month's rental fee of the vehicle according to Underdeveloped Territory Expedition prices."

"One month?! Your honor, I request terms more specific to the actual usage of the vehicle! Two weeks, at most!" the corpoman protested.

"The Estuarte businesses only rent out vehicles by the month!" the Estuarte guy said.

"Denied." The judge at the desk said to the corpoman calmly. "Rental plus a small fine for misappropriation is hereby set at 2 million Cua."

2,000,000 Cua! That was 20,000 Black! These guys were demanding payment more than double of what he was getting for the 'salvage'!

The Estuarte guy spoke up, demanding more compensation, but to that, in exactly the same tone and same manner as before, the Blue Star Conglomerate Judge just calmly said, "Denied!"

"But…"

"Case closed. Next." The private office suddenly shimmered and vanished from Remian's point of view.

"Uh… that's it?" Remian blinked.

"That's it from the Conglomerate's court. You pay up, and you get paid. That's business." The corpoman shrugged.

"The Quarin impose jurisdictive penalties." The other courtroom judge said then.

"Following the specifics you outlined earlier, we have no objection." The corpoman said.

"What specifics?" Remian asked nervously.

The corpoman shrugged. "Word is already going around about you, and some think you're a thief, others say you're a salvager. Some people even assume you're a member of the Conglomerate since you speak our language. All these uncertainties and rumors have put some pressure on the court. Basically, the Quarin would lose face if someone accused them of letting a thief loose, so… they're going to jail you for a bit. On the other hand, since our court let you off with a fine and a payment, the Conglomerate would lose face if they punish you too strictly on top of that. Therefore, a light sentencing is to be expected."

"Ten years imprisonment!" the Quarin Judge boomed. "Without datanet access!"

Gasps of shock and horror rose up all around the courtroom and audience.

"Ten years?!" Remian yelped.

"I push for Virtual Acceleration!" the corpoman shot back. "With educational programs!"

"Granted!" the Quarin Judge hammered his gavel. "Case closed! Next!"

With that, the courtroom disappeared. Remian was left staring at the walls and the projections around him, mostly indicating offers and information.

"What… what just happened? Ten years…?!" Remian gulped.

"Don't worry. We're going to accelerate it virtually." The corpoman said cheerily. "Up to the maximum that your Psionic abilities can sustain. From what the scans tell us, you're quite strong in Psionics. I think we can manage a hundred times acceleration at the least, very likely more. It would be ten years to you, but in reality, you could be out of here in a Quarin month."

"That's… I can't waste a month here! My home world is facing a war…!"

"Then we'll just have to see how much acceleration you can stand." The corpoman shrugged. "Anyway, the real punishment is that you won't have datanet access. That was a really cruel move, but I managed to at least get you educational programs."

"What does that even mean?" Remian asked.

"You'll at least be able to learn something instead of wasting your time bored to death." He explained.

Learn something...? "Such as?"

"Whatever you want that our system deems you qualified for." The corpoman shrugged. "You can pick and choose as you like later."

"What… what about Xiao Yan?" Remian questioned.

"She has the same verdict. Oh, but don't worry, we won't charge you double. The payments only happen once, but she, too, will be imprisoned for as long as you are, under the same conditions." He explained.

In other words, Xiao Yan would be learning whatever she wanted too.

"Do you want to protest the verdict? There are human rights groups that would be willing to jump in to fight a sentencing that severe." The corpoman added. "Ten years with no datanet access is inhumane. Given an option, some people would rather accept a death sentence."

"It doesn't sound that bad to me." Remian mentioned. "It actually sounds like a bonus to have ten years squeezed into one month to learn whatever I want."

"I hoped you'd see it that way." The corpoman smiled, nodding. "Let's see just what acceleration you can handle."