Steve, I acknowledge your point as a valid one, as far as it's limited to the idea that "slippery slopes are dangerous." Yes, yes they are. Particularly for controversial cases. However, as sometimes said in legal debate, yes, there is a slippery slope, but the slope won't slip in this case.

Scientology is not borderline. Here, there are clear limits we can set. The beauty of a democratic legislative system and common law judicial system is that it allows for heroic battles and reshapings in the gray areas as public opinion pushes for reform from both sides of the issue, while maintaining clear areas of wrong in the periphery. Under the current body of common law precedent, Scientology is too much of an outlier to affect any future decisions. Even in the unfair court decisions that exonerated CoS of some of its crimes, the judges basically say "only in this case, we make the exception, and for no one else," barring all future cases from citing the decision as precedent.

I repeat, Scientology is not a borderline test case. It kills and blackmails. It extorts vast sums of money from followers and threatens the IRS with frivolous lawsuits, bullying the IRS into a particularly sweet tax-exemption deal that no other religion in the US gets , mainstream or otherwise. Its silencing of freedom of speech is blatantly outside the range of judicially acceptable precedent, even in this era of large-scale threats to freedom of speech in America. The only question that is possibly controversial is the question of whether Internet reposting of unaltered copyrighted material is protected under free speech if its posted for the purpose of newsworthiness or inducing commentary.

You can feel good about opposing Scientology with all your heart. The line won't slip because of it.

Aidan left behind the cloud of smoke, and ran on. Ah, no spoils of war that time! It would have been nice to make some zeny along the way, or pick up an extra chip or two, but he didn't really have time to worry about it. His facial expression suggested he didn't really seem to care though... oh, how he enjoyed fighting. He could do it all day, it gave him such a thrill.

He could see the database storage facility ahead. Picking up his pace he ran onward. He smiled, congratulating himself at escaping unscathed from the previous two encounters.

[Battle 3 please~. Thank you =] ]

The blue barrier flickered precariously as one Billy attempted to counter it with an electrifying attack. Aidan winced as the two opposing energies fizzled in a spectacular set of sparking fireworks. He watched incredulously as one explosive spark sent the closely billy careening backwards in a burst of force. Aidan nodded. He approved of this new toy.

Using the remaining barrier as insurance, he ran up to the damaged billy, still reeling from the impact, and struck it heavily with the sharp ened edge of his blade and stabbed into it with multiple times. That should finish him off. He had taken advantage of the lull in the battle to gain a favorable position. Now it was just a matter of waiting for Sohee to do her part.

Sohee slotted in one cannon chip and prepared the next. Only one virus left? She watched the time tick. The last two battles had already taken eight minutes. Unable to get her documents or concentrate on her memos, she impatiently tapped her fingers as she waited for Aidan to get things done.

Aidan felt his arm grow elongated and cannon-like. Taking the cue, he blasted at the other billy, still standing unperturbed and sending delicate ringlets of highly charged electric particles into the air. It would be difficult to reach him on close range, so cannons would have to do for now. "Another one like that, love," he called out to Sohee. Sohee didn't need to be told twice. She slotted the last cannon chip in, wishing for the battle to be over. Aidan felt the cannon materialize again, and shot the billy again in hopes of catching it by surprise before it could retaliate. He'd take a gamble—either he'd hit it first, or the tenuous guard barrier would remain intact from the previous hit. He'd wager that the barrier would hold...

Action 1: Ligera Ventaja. 40 dmg. BillyC.
Action 2: Cannon. 40 dmg. BillyD.
Action 3: Cannon. 40 dmg. BillyD.

"Hell. More virii," he yelled out to Sohee, but inwardly glad, he formed his strategy in his mind. "Sohee, the same sequence as last time?" he instructed her.

Sohee rolled her eyes. "What now?" At this rate, she was never going to get those documents. It just seemed as though there were more virii out in the Net these days. She never had to deal with those herself before (usually the company firewall and virus-busting mechanisms took care of that), but it was exasperating when she had come in early expressly to get work done. She prepared the chips as before. "Hurry, please," she commanded Aidan. "This isn't just time for you to fight. We're on... company time."

Aidan rolled his eyes in imitation. The girl really needed to loosen up. As he felt the fire gun materialize, he aimed it at the mets. After the last debacle, he knew to go for them first. They were unbelievable annoying when they bunkered down, and he had a dull blade to show for it... He'd have to sharpen it in his spare time. He dug in with his heels, aimed the gun at the two mets next to each other, and watched as the gun spewed intense heat over their metal helmets.

Next came the shotgun, just in time. He ran up to the crowd of billies, crackling with electric rage. Pushing himself directly into the center of the crowd, he fired a shower of pellets into the billies, hoping to hit at least two. He'd put himself in a bad position though, he realized too late. He was now completely surrounded by two... maybe all four billies. It would be difficult to dodge all of them. Ah, he'd been careless in his zeal, once again.

"Change of plans; I want to try the guard," he called out to Sohee. Sohee blinked. The... what? She looked around the folder of chips. He must mean the new one that had just downloaded. She slotted it in, watching Aidan surrounded. He'd gotten himself into quite a mess again.

A strange shimmering disruption coated Aidan in the atmosphere, enveloping him in a light-blue shield of electric resonances. Aidan hoped that the 360 degree protection would be sufficient to absorb the oncoming attacks from any remaining billies; he wasn't feeling quite up to the idea of dodging attacks from all directions at close range.

Action 1: Heatshot. 40 dmg. MetA, MetB.
Action 2: Shotgun. 50 dmg. BillyA, BillyB.
Action 3: Guard1.

Aidan watched as the dust cleared... The shattered, nearly unrecognizable corpse of a met lay lifeless on the floor, its hollow, battered helmet rolling emptily on the ground. Wow. He had hit it the first time, and blasted it with the cannon besides. He shrugged and dusted off his hands. He had made short work of that one, he thought proudly.

He began to run on again. "You needed those by 8:30, right?" he asked Sohee. Sohee was busy reading through some memos... "Mmhm," she replied distractedly. "Just, um, tell me if you run into any more trouble," she said, reading intently.

Gallantly, Aidan bowed his head toward Sohee's direction. "Not to worry, love," he said generously, dashing forward all carefree. "Ol' Aidan here's never failed an assignment yet," he crowed. His feet padded lightly down the pathway toward the data repository, still a brisk run away.

[Waiting for Battle 2.]

Aidan blasted his way through the pile of virii in a cloud of heat and debris. He was ready to spin back and obliterate the last virus when he stopped himself just short of clanging into metal. What was this? He blinked. Seeing its companions utterly obliterated in one blow, the last virus had holed itself up inside its helmet. Aidan poked at it a little bit with the dagger. Yep. It was... hiding.

Aidan took a few steps back and tried to pry open the helmet from the dormant Met. That didn't work. He felt a little impatient. He stuck the dagger underneath and tried to flip it over on its underside. Hopefully this would do the trick. Using extreme care, as if handling a trip-wired bomb, he poked his knife underneath and tried to fling the annoying helmeted thing over, but unintentionally scraped the ground with the knife, setting a cloud of pebble into the air.

He coughed as he tried to look through the dust to see if he'd succeeded, but he couldn't be sure. "Are you done, Aidan?" Sohee asked, gingerly. "I...DO need those documents by, say, 8:30..."

That does it! Aidan's patience for the dallying Met had run thin. The stupid thing would have been gone in one blast if he'd gone for it first. The coward. He snapped his wrist onto the dagger hilt on his belt and went rushing into the settling dust with dual daggers wielded and ready. He could make out the outline of the Met (he couldn't tell if it was out of its helmet or flipped or not, but he didn't care), and thrust at the fool with all his might. He spun around and stabbed at it, listening for the characteristic clang of metal or the redeeming sound of dagger meeting yielding flesh.

He had hardly recovered from the spin when Sohee slotted in a cannon chip. "I don't know if this will help, love," Aidan muttered, but he pointed the cannon at the met, which had remained where it was after it thudded on the ground. Was it out of the helmet yet? Aidan aimed his cannon in point-blanc range at the offending met. "I don't have times for the likes of you," he said disdainfully. "I've got... documents to retrieve."

Action 1: Flip over MetC with dagger as leverage.
Action 2: Ligera ventaja. 40 dmg. MetC, still trying to flip it or antagonize it if Act. 1 didn't work.
Action 3: Cannon. 40 dmg. MetC.

Aidan saw a horde of mets and billies in the distance. Haha! He laughed, and his heart soared at the thought of battle. Perhaps "retrieving documents" wouldn't be as useless to him as he'd thought. He'd just have to go out of his way to run into virii along the way... "Sohee, you watching?" he called out. He'd want some chips to finish this battle off quickly. He kept his dagger in its hilt, waiting for the chips to transform him. Time for fireworks!

The mets slowly crawled. Aidan yawned and grinned.

The mets crawled closer. Aidan bade his time.

The mets were upon him. Aidan started running. "Sohee!" he hissed. "Where's my firepower?" Sohee was apparently not paying attention. A little irked, he started luring the mets over to a different side of the pathway where he'd have more room to maneuver. He was a bit annoyed; he went into a defensive dodging stance while he waited for Sohee to do her part. His hand reached for his dagger. If he had to, he'd resort to poking 'em.

"Oh, goodness, Aidan, what have you gotten yourself into?" came a frantic voice through the PET communication.

"Yeah, that's what I've been trying to tell you," scoffed Aidan. "But nothing I couldn't handle..." He finally took out his dagger and faced the mets and the billies, which were catching up.

"But, I'd rather avoid the close combat and hit them with chips, if it's all the same..." he hinted. Sohee stared dumbly for a while. Goodness. How helpless, oblivious. Aidan made a note to himself not to expect too much from the girl—unreliable at best, he nodded to himself.

"Oh!" Sohee, suddenly realizing what she was supposed to do, sprang to action. "Yes, here you go," she replied, and slotted in the heatshot. Aidan gave her a thumbs up as the fire-gun materialized. Torching the two mets nearest to him, he giggled in glee—a true pyromaniac's laugh. Ah, the roasting of metal helmets. "Give me more of that," he commanded. Sohee complied with the shotgun chip.

He leaped over the charred mets and ran directly toward the billies. He cocked his shotgun with mock bravado and pointed it squarely at their squat bodies. Squinting his eyes at the sparks that were zigzagging out of the billies' appendages, he pulled the trigger and braced himself for the recoil. With luck, this would turn out to be a quick scuffle, and he could be on his way to... haha, well, "document"-searching.

Action 1: Dodge.
Action 2: Heatshot. 40 dmg. MetA, MetB.
Action 3: Shotgun. 50 dmg. BillyA. BillyB.

Aidan found himself in the middle of the center of Electown Net again. He had the five serial numbers from Sohee for the patent documents in his head, but he wasn't sure where to begin. Dammit. He hadn't signed up for the courier service, and he didn't know the first thing about looking up these things. He was an adventurer, for goodness sake! He poked at himself with a dagger in boredom. Still, he needed Sohee to take him battling whenever he could get. Oh, how he disdained being dependent on that woman. He figured he'd head over to the data repository hub at town where information of that sort tended to get stored.

[Waiting for Battle 1.]

Sohee walked into the law firm about an hour earlier than usual. The overworked receptionist at the front greeted her with a faint smile. "Hello, Addie," she smiled. "Pander in yet?" Addie, a middle-aged woman with a natural grimace, replied with a wave of the hand. She was apparently already busy on the phone. The woman truly didn't rest. Sohee nodded with a return wave of the hand, and walked on. She made a note to herself to send Addie a gift basket before the next holiday. She wasn't such a bad dame; she had always kept a lookout for her on Pander, her jerk of a boss.

Sohee unlocked her office door and opened her briefcase. She took out her PET and connected it to the work computer, then spread out her manual and assortment of discovery documents. "Well, before I start, I suppose I should put Aidan to work," she thought, as she settled into her ergonomic swing chair.

She turned on the PET again, and jumped despite herself in seeing Aidan's grinning face on the LED. "Goodness, Aidan!" she hissed.

"Good morning, love," he continued to grin ridiculously. "More battles today? I need the money. Can't wait to get back to my old speed," he said, feinting a few quick punches as if to recall his legendary past.

"Certainly," Sohee humored him. "But I have an assignment for you. Get online, and check on the pending status of the following five patent cases."

She typed in the registration numbers of each of the cases, and plugged in Aidan to Electown Net. "Do the work you need to for me, and I'll go virus-busting with you over my lunch break," she bargained. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get to my reading..."

[Aidan jacks into Electown Net...]

The law offices of Pander and Cant are situated at the eighth floor of an upscale art-deco styled skyscraper reminiscent of the early antique buildings of the 20th century. Inside, however, the building has been completely renovated, with high-speed elevators, renovated dark marble flooring, and computing kiosks scattered around spacious public lounge areas. A moderate-upscale Italian restaurant and upscale coffee bar are available on the ground floor, along with a clothing boutique.

Upon entering the eighth floor, one sees a glass wall with "Pander & Cant" silver lettering. The deep green of healthy potted shrubbery lines the sides of the entrance. Through the glass doors and walls, one notices a gracefully-lined receptionist's desk, lit softly with silvery ambient lights from the modernist light scones in the wall behind. Simplistic curves characterize the furniture in the reception area. Round end tables with green marble tops accent bright red sofas. A triangular bookshelf contains receptacles of newspapers as well as a few token items of leisurely reading. The green marble coffee table in front looks impeccably clean, underused.

Two hallways lead from the reception area to the right and the left. The left hallway leads to a conference hall, (apparently rentable at reasonable rates), partners' offices, and a large library/storage area. The right hallway leads to minor offices for associates and paralegals, an open lounge area, and other multi-purpose areas. All in all, the complex is home to about fifty or so law professionals.