“Drat,” said Poly. “Hold that thought.”
She jumped up, managing to look artfully disheveled, and ran to the closet. Her phone kept ringing as she checked the pockets of her suit jacket.
“Hello?” She’d finally found it.
I could hear an urgent female voice coming through the phone’s speaker, but couldn’t make out any words. I asked a question with my eyebrows but didn’t get an answer.
“Okay,” said Poly. “Come over right away. I’ll order you an autocab. See you in thirty.”
Poly clicked off, then typed for a few seconds—ordering the autocab, I assumed. Her eyes were full of concern when she put her phone on the desk and returned to join me on the bed. I tried the asking a question with my eyebrows bit again and this time got an answer.
“It’s Pomy,” said Poly, naming her younger sister. “She sounded frantic. I told her to come over and tell us the details face to face.”
“Got it,” I said. “I hope it’s not too serious.”
I sat up, bent down, located my left shoe and began to put it on.
“What are you doing?” asked Poly.
“Getting dressed.”
“Didn’t you hear me?” asked Poly. “We’ve got thirty minutes.”
* * * * *
Poly and I met Pomy as she got out of her autocab. Pomy’s face was white and she had a panic-stricken about to give a speech naked look. We exchanged hugs and escorted Pomy down to the subterranean conference room. It still smelled like Hunan Pastrami. I pulled three chairs together and we sat. Poly held her sister’s hands to help her feel grounded. Pomy was clearly trying to regain some self-control so she could explain.
“Just tell us, Sis,” said Poly. “Use your words.”
Poly’s last phrase must have been some sort of family code because Pomy’s mood switched from panicked to pissed off.
“Don’t patronize me,” grumbled Pomy. “You’d react the same way.”
I was smart enough to keep my mouth shut. My phone decided to hop over to the nearby table so it could follow the discussion.
“Just tell us what happened,” said Poly.
Pomy jerked her hands away and opened her purse.
“This happened!”
She removed a manila envelope from her purse and pulled out a letter on EUA Corporation Legal Department stationery, holding it up for us to read.
“Please be advised…” said Poly.
“…your trial in the matter of the Factor-E-Flor, an EUA Corporation company, versus Ms. Melpomene Keen-Jones…” I continued.
“…has been scheduled for 2:00 p.m. tomorrow!” shouted Pomy, speaking from memory. “How can they do that?”
“The Sixth Amendment does guarantee the right to a speedy trial,” I interjected.
“For criminal, not civil trials,” said Poly.
“Sorry.”
I made a mental note to keep my mouth shut.
“I thought the wheels of justice turn slowly,” complained Pomy. “Now they’re moving at light speed. I’m not ready!”
“I don’t understand it, either,” said Poly. “There’s been no time to prepare.”
I ignored my mental note and pushed forward, against my own better judgment.
“It shouldn’t be a surprise to either of you,” I said. “Ever since Earth joined GaFTA, corporations have used arbitration for almost all litigation.”
“Right,” said Poly, raising her palm to her forehead and silently mouthing, “Doh.”
“Which means traditional court dockets are open…”
“…without the typical delays previously forcing cases out two or three years into the future,” said Poly. “I’m remembering details from my business law class at Emory’s b-school. But even then, two days from suit to trial seems to be pushing it.”
Then I noticed the tag line below the embossed EUA corporate name on the letter. The best justice money can buy.
“Crap,” I said. “Now it’s my turn to remember. Ever since the volume of cases shrank to a trickle, the courts have allowed plaintiffs and defendants to buy specific slots on their dockets as a way of funding their operations. Nobody cared because arbitration handled all the heavy lifting.”
“Let me guess,” said Poly. “All of the competent judges left to become arbitrators, right? We’re left with the dregs?”
“It’s a national disgrace, that’s what it is,” said Pomy.
“Traditional courtroom trials are broadcast to the stars,” I added.
“Like Judge Judy?” asked Pomy.
“Those are reruns,” said Poly.
“Most GaFTA member species prefer watching legislators over judges,” I said. “Which helps explain why our traditional court system is starved for revenue.”
“And why EUA can buy a date two days after they’ve served the suit,” said Poly. “Do we have any recourse?”
“Let me check,” I said.
I spoke to my phone and it came back with a quick answer.
“It’s all a matter of relative payoffs,” said my phone.
“Politics in Boston worked the same way,” said Pomy. “You had to pay off somebody’s relative to get anything approved.”
“No,” said my phone. “EUA put up a bid for a given date and you didn’t counter it with a larger sum.”
“I didn’t even know there was a bidding process,” said Pomy.
“Ignorance of the law is no excuse,” said my phone.
I had to grab it quickly before Pomy threw my phone in the trash with the leftover duck sauce.
“Hey!” I said.
“Please don’t shoot the messenger,” said my phone. “Court records indicate you were contacted about the bidding this afternoon but didn’t reply.”
“I had my phone off. I was restoring a mummy and didn’t get things wrapped up until after five,” said Pomy.
Pomy worked at Emory’s Carlos Museum—they had a marvelous collection of artifacts from ancient Egypt.
“Is there anything we can do to change it?” I asked.
“Not after the bidding is complete,” said my phone.
“What am I going to do?” asked Pomy. “I don’t want to go to jail.”
“This is a civil trial,” said Poly. “The worst that can happen is being assessed for massive damages.”
“But I’m a poor grad student,” said Pomy. “I can’t afford to pay!”
“Then the worst that could happen would be massive damages and personal bankruptcy,” said my phone.
Pomy tried to grab my phone and throw it against a wall but it danced out of reach.
“You could contact Jeanette Obi-Yu and seek her wise counsel,” said my phone from the middle of the table.
“Her advice would be helpful,” said Poly.
“You misunderstand,” said my phone. “You should get in touch with GalCon Systems general counsel—the head of their legal department—and get that being’s advice.”
“Smart,” I said. “It makes sense.”
Poly made a call.
“Hello? Nettie? Mayday!” she said.
It only took three sentences for Poly to explain the situation to her old roommate at Harvard.
“Uh huh. Really? You’d already checked? Who is it? Tonight?”
I surprised myself by being mostly able to decode Poly’s side of the conversation. Nettie was a step ahead and had already identified a great lawyer here in Atlanta to help Pomy after we’d told Nettie and her brother and sister about the lawsuit back in Las Vegas. Finally, something was going right.
“Still in Vegas? Pittsburgh?” said Poly. “Thanks! Text me his number and I’ll send him the location. Catch you later.”
Poly ended the call and typed a quick message. The Obi-Yu siblings must be back in Pittsburgh, where GalCon Systems had its headquarters.
“Good news?” I asked.
“Nettie’s got a lawyer here in Atlanta who can help us,” Poly answered. “He comes highly recommended by her legal team and wi
ll be here in twenty minutes.”
“Great,” said Pomy. “I need all the help I can get. What’s his name?”
“Atticus Finch,” Poly replied.
Wow, I thought. With a name like that he had to be a Pyr. This was going to be interesting.
Chapter 16
“Simply because we were licked a hundred years before
we started is no reason for us not to try to win.”
— Atticus Finch
Sometimes timing is perfect. If Earth hadn’t been invited to join the Galactic Free Trade Association in 2015 and gained the benefit of advanced alien congruency technology, the Yellowstone supervolcano would have blown within a decade and taken half the United States economy with it. Large congruencies—wormholes connecting points in space—bled the building Yellowstone magma off into the L5 Lagrange point of the Earth-Moon system where the resulting small satellite is currently being terraformed into a luxury resort.
I loved BOOM!, the 2022 movie about what might have happened if the supervolcano had exploded. It was considered the best special effects movie of the 2020s and was made by masters of disaster Roland Emmerich, Michael Bay, and the then up-and-coming Pyr director, Cecil B. DeMille.
I hoped Atticus Finch would prove as talented as his Hollywood counterpart.
All three of us went upstairs to the entrance of the complex to wait for Pomy’s lawyer to arrive. It was close to midnight and there weren’t any cars on the road until we spotted the headlights of an autocab coming up Northside Drive. The cab pulled under the cantilevered concrete slab protecting the main doors of the scientific facility and disgorged a decidedly odd-looking Pyr.
Atticus Finch was wearing a light-colored suit with a matching vest, a white shirt and a dark tie, much like Gregory Peck wore in the cinematic version of To Kill a Mockingbird—the original, not the atrocious 2023 remake with Matthew McConaughey.
What made Finch look particularly odd was the way his suit was trilaterally symmetric, with three ties and three rows of vest buttons, one under each eye. No matter which one of his three sides you looked at, he seemed to be the perfect model of a 1930s southern lawyer.
His glasses were even more odd. He wore dark-framed ones like Gregory Peck wore on screen. Pyrs don’t have external noses, so wearing glasses poses a quite a challenge. The little lawyer had cleverly rigged up a small, rigid headband of the same material as his glasses frames to solve the problem. It sat a few inches down from the apex of his body and anchored the temple pieces. To continue the incongruency, his glasses had two lenses for each side of his triangular body, even though he only had one eye per side. It probably didn’t matter, though. Most Pyrs have perfect vision and the lenses in his unusual eyewear were sure to be clear glass.
Three tentacles extended from the angles of each vertex of the alien’s pyramidal body. They stuck out through small openings in the seams of his suit coat. One of the flexible appendages held an old-fashioned leather briefcase and the other two were waving a cordial greeting to our informal welcoming committee.
“Howdy good gentles,” said the alien.
He sounded more like Andy Griffith than Gregory Peck.
“Howdy,” the three of us replied in unrehearsed unison.
“Which one of you fine people is my client, Melpomene Keen-Jones?” he asked.
“That would be me,” said Pomy, moving into a spontaneous curtsy. “And this is my sister, Poly, and her boyfriend and business partner, Jack.”
I gave the Pyr a small bow and Poly copied her sister’s more elaborate acknowledgment.
“Very pleased to meet you all,” said the lawyer. “Let’s get busy. There’s a lot to do before the trial tomorrow afternoon.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, holding the main door open for him.
We led Mr. Atticus Finch, Esquire, inside the complex and down to our familiar conference room.
“Thanks for coming out so late,” I said as we found seats around the table. I lowered the alien’s chair so he could stand on it and we’d all be at the same height.
“Think nothing of it. It’s part of the job,” said the lawyer. “Why does it smell like corned beef and cabbage egg rolls in here?”
“We ordered dinner from Ginsberg & Wong,” answered Poly.
“Ah, I see,” said Finch, “or perhaps, I smell. No, that’s not right either.” The little Pyr tilted slightly from side to side as if it was considering alternatives. “No matter,” Finch continued. “Their food’s delicious but can’t hold a candle to the Nicósn-Pyr fusion at Jade Triangle Garden.”
“The new place in Buckhead?” I asked.
“That’s the one,” said Finch.
He seemed ready to continue discussing the relative merits of local restaurants, then caught himself and pulled his attention back to the matter at hand. He took a yellow legal pad and a sharpened pencil from his briefcase and held the pencil above the pad, poised to write. The end of his tentacle indented slightly, surrounding the pencil to give him better control. With another tentacle, he removed a small recording unit from his briefcase and turned it on. Then he spoke to Pomy in a reassuring southern Mississippi drawl. He didn’t have to turn to face her—one of his eyes was always looking in her direction.
“Please tell me what happened on the day in question,” said Atticus, “when you were visiting the offices of Factor-E-Flor.”
“I was at their offices to ask Agnes Spelman about Poly and Jack. They were missing,” said Pomy.
“No,” said Finch, “please tell me the truth about what happened. We’re all covered under attorney-client privilege.”
“But we’re not your clients,” said Poly, waving her hand to take in me as well.
“Where is my brain?” asked the lawyer.
I held my tongue and didn’t say, “Nine inches below your body’s apex.”
He pulled three documents out of his briefcase and used all three tentacles to hand one to each of us. He repeated the process with three pens.
“Sign these,” said Atticus, using two of his mouths for emphasis.
“Shouldn’t we read them first?” asked Pomy.
“My fees and expenses are being covered by the Obi-Yu Family Trust,” said the Pyr.
“In that case, just sign,” said Poly, following her own instructions. Pomy and I did the same.
“Now that we’re all covered under attorney-client privilege,” said Finch, “please provide the full details.”
“Yes, sir,” said Pomy. “Jack and Poly and Chit were breaking into Agnes Spelman’s office—she was the CEO of Factor-E-Flor—and I was supposed to provide a diversion to get Ms. Spelman out of there, so they’d have a few minutes to look around.”
“Chit?” asked the lawyer.
“A friend of mine. A Murm,” I replied. “She’s an insect-like being shaped like an oversized ladybug who’s great at surveillance.”
“I see,” said Atticus. “I’m familiar with the species. Were you aware that Ms. Spelman is listed as the lead Factor-E-Flor plaintiff in this suit?”
I rubbed my chin. “No,” I said. “I thought Martin had her in custody. She was in jail on Sunday.”
“EUA’s legal team must have gotten her released,” said Poly.
“Why didn’t he tell us in Vegas?” I asked.
“Maybe it happened while he was out of town?” suggested Poly.
“Martin?” asked Atticus.
“Capital Police Lieutenant Martin Lee,” I said.
“I know him by reputation,” said the lawyer. “Is he another friend of yours, Jack?”
“He’s a friend of ours,” clarified Poly.
“Guys,” said Pomy. “Let me tell my story.”
“Please do,” said Atticus.
“I entered the building and told the receptionist I wanted to speak with Ms. Spelman.”
“That’s not exactly what you said,” my phone piped up. “Here’s a recording of your entrance.”
My phone started to project security camera foot
age showing Pomy entering the Factor-E-Flor building’s lobby onto the upper section of the conference room’s smart wall.
“Freeze,” I shouted.
My phone stopped the playback.
“Are smartphones covered under attorney-client privilege?” I asked.
“The Supreme Court ruled in 2027 that privilege extends to individuals’ artificially intelligent devices,” said Atticus, “but it’s a moot point in this case. Factor-E-Flor should have a copy of their own security footage.”
“Ummm, right,” I mumbled. “Never mind.”
“Continue,” the lawyer instructed my phone.
The video played. Pomy entered and confronted the receptionist, giving an excellent performance as a frantically overwrought, highly concerned family member.
“You tell Ms. Agnes ‘Fancy Pants’ Spelman that she needs to teleport down here instantaneously and tell me what she’s done with my sister and her boyfriend,” said Pomy. “My mother and father are distraught and I’m disturbed enough to stand here and annoy you until I get some answers.”
“I’m sorry, but no one sees Ms. Spelman without an appointment,” said the receptionist. He was a little man with a precisely trimmed Van Dyke beard. “I’m sure I could find an opening on her schedule for you sometime next week. There’s no one to speak with you today. Everyone is at a big off-site meeting to prepare for GALTEX.”
Pomy wasn’t taking it. She raised her voice. “Don’t try to put me off, buster. I’m here to see Agnes Spelman and I want to see her right now.”
A trim black woman of medium height in a gray power suit entered the lobby. She was Spelman’s administrative assistant, Ms. Smith.
“What seems to be the problem, Hans?” she asked.
“I’m the problem!” said Pomy. “Where’s. My. Sister?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” said Ms. Smith. “Please leave.”
“I’m not leaving until I find out about…” began Pomy, playing her part to the hilt.
Ms. Smith crowded close to Pomy, overlapping her personal space and pressing Pomy back toward the entrance as if she had a high-strength personal force field.
“Take the rest of the afternoon off, Hans,” said Ms. Smith, “after you lock the doors behind this young lady.”
Xenotech General Mayhem: A Novel of the Galactic Free Trade Association (Xenotech Support Book 4) Page 12
