Credit: Jamie Tufrey

Paul Bunyett had never before needed to convince a magistrate that his client existed. Inigo Starlight, though, was not your run-of-the-mill plaintiff. The dapper defence counsel next to Paul thought the Federal Magistrate might not have noticed.

"Your Honour, this suit is completely spurious. He's trying to represent a delusion!" The lawyer waved in florid gestures.

Paul gritted his teeth.

The genuine-as-a-50-buck-romance attitude of the other man reminded him why he'd avoided joining a big partnership. Still, that didn't mean he couldn't play the game. Paul laid an affidavit before the magistrate.

"My client may be unconventional, your Honour, but I have expert testimony that a psycho-technological memetic personality does have an objective existence independent of its hosts. Professor Xiang from Carnegie-Mellon is a world leader in both artificial intelligence and online psychology."

Paul smiled inwardly as the other lawyer mouthed a curse while the magistrate scanned the document. After a few minutes she removed her glasses and looked sharply at him.

"If you turn my court into a circus, Mr Bunyett, I will cheerfully find you in contempt," she said. "However, the motion to dismiss is denied. But you'll need more than this," she waved the affidavit, "to obtain a favourable ruling, let alone survive with your career intact."

Having failed in chambers, the lawyers hired by Tegan McPherson's parents moved the case into the court of public opinion. News editors seised on Paul's surname, and so was born the Great Bunyip Hunt - the hunt for the imaginary client.

I FIRST INTERFACED with Mr Bunyett at The Bar, the most heavily accessed chat forum in MyWorld. Carlos had logged on 36 minutes earlier, and I hoped the lawyer would arrive while one of my hosts was online. I operate better when one of them has an active link, particularly when I am single-running in one locus, but to be safe I had altered my metadata so Carlos could not front-run me unexpectedly. I did not want one of my three remaining RealWorld hosts directly involved.

My ID filter pinged; Alex Bunyett had entered The Bar. His purple lizard-man was accompanied by a Basic Avatar. I accepted chat handshakes from both, then spoke using a merge of Carlos's and Tegan's voices. "Shangho, Felaxar."

"Niho, Inigo!" Alex said. "Look, I gotta catch up with some mates on Fantasy Island. This is my dad. He's a lawyer, like you wanted. Zeng bei, 'kay?" With that, the lizard-man pixilated out as Alex teleported his avatar away from The Bar.

"Good morning, Mr Bunyett. Thank you for seeing me," I said.

"So ... you're Inigo Starlight, eh? Alex said you wanted to speak to a lawyer, and for some reason it had to be done in this mad house. Given that nothing I say at this time constitutes professional legal advice, what's the problem?"

I summarised as clearly as I could. "I need to sue one of my hosts for support, and I don't know how to proceed."

It took two point three seconds for Mr Bunyett to respond. "Ooooookay. Can I ask why you haven't spoken to Legal Aid about this? Or another lawyer - in the real world, that is?"

I morphed my graph-rep into a swirling cloud of ones and zeroes. "I don't exist in RealWorld, Mr Bunyett. While my hosts can interact with the analog world, I'm limited to the digital one."