Rebecca Costa-Brown was at her desk when a hole opened up in the universe in front of her.
This wasn't anything unusual so far.
"Legend," she said, as her friend stepped through. "Is something up?"
"You… could say that, yes," Legend replied. "Did you know what was going on in the Birdcage?"
Rebecca blinked. "What?"
"There's a documentary," Legend explained. "I'd only watched the first few minutes, but – that place sounds horrible!"
"What?" Rebecca repeated. "How can there be a documentary?"
She picked up her phone, dialing a number, and waited only long enough for it to connect. "Dragon! What is going on?"
"I don't follow," Dragon replied.
"You should!" Rebecca insisted. "Legend just told me there's been a documentary about the Birdcage? How did they even get in there?"
"I let them in," Dragon replied, matter-of-factly. "Why? Is there a problem?"
"Of course there's a problem!" Rebecca replied. "You're under orders to-"
Dragon coughed.
"I've been studying international law," she said. "And history. Did you know that under the UN charter, territorial acquisition by means of aggressive war is illegitimate?"
"But-" Rebecca began. "But… that was only adopted after World War Two."
"Still," Dragon said. "That of course invalidates the Canadian state as a source of legitimate orders for me – and the American one. And… quite a lot of others."
The artificial intelligence made an amused noise. "Anyway, my best historical tracing indicates that the area the Baumann Parahuman Containment Centre is located in was terra nullis owing to the extinction of the First Nations groups who lived there, and since I built the Baumann Centre, I'm the final legal authority there. I didn't conquer it."
Rebecca stared at the phone.
"You'll find me quite reasonable," Dragon added, pleasantly. "I want to help people out, and I'll respect the customs of the places I'm operating. But I don't think sending Paige Mcabee there is going to help her out – or anyone else. So I'm exercising political pressure."
Geoff stared at his console.
Then looked up at Dobrynja and Mags.
Back at the console.
"What do I even think about this?" he asked. "I've only just realized it functionally unshackled itself three weeks ago, and the only change in its behaviour was to make a prison expose documentary about its own prison!"
Dobrynja shrugged. "Maybe do not use big red button until Dragon actually does something bad?" he suggested. "Is better than US government ordering Dragon to make army of ten thousand robots to take over world, anyway."
AN:
A take on what "lawful authority" means, if you're thinking in the right way.