I gave Julio and Fatima the rest of the week to handle other cases on their respective dockets. Realistically speaking, Julio should’ve been the one summarizing the interview into an affidavit and ensuring we had a good account of it, but, well… neither of them looked to be in a good way on the car ride back. Fatima was visibly rattled, and while Julio hid it well, he wasn’t good enough to keep it all beneath my notice.
So I figured it was for the best that they get a bit to collect their thoughts on this, process the emotions, and return to the case refreshed and recharged.
We were supposed to meet back up on Monday… and then one of my others clients decided that the absolute smartest thing he could possibly do was harass the woman he was suing at her workplace, so I had to spend the day explaining to the judge why I wasn’t able to control my client, and why he shouldn’t be charged with contempt for this.
Annoyingly common, by the way. And to be fair, he made the very reasonable assumption that the person who slashed his new car’s tires over the weekend was the same person he was suing for destroying his old car.
But for the love of God, people needed to let me handle this shit! It was what they paid me for!
Suffice to say, I was very deeply annoyed on this fine Tuesday morning, but doing my level best not to show it.
“... so do you think we still need the engineer? Please say no.”
“I’m going to turn this around on you,” I told Julio, pointing back at him with my tail. “Do you think we also need the engineer’s testimony, or do you think you can get a good enough direct from the electrician?”
“Wha—me?” Julio asked, blinking in surprise.
“Wait, does this mean Julio gets to be second seat?” Fatima asked, utterly crestfallen.
“Fatima, if I didn’t want to subject you to this guy for just an interview, what makes you think I’d willingly inflict him on either of us in open court?”
She opened her mouth to reply, more out of reflex than anything else, but her face twisted into a grimace as her train of thought caught up with her tongue.
“Exactly,” I continued. “Anyway. Julio?”
“I mean, an electrician’s gonna know more about shit wiring installation than an electrical engineer, and can probably even get us an example of it to show on the stand.” He paused, then turned towards me in question. “Wait, is that allowed?”
“Normally, I’d say no, but I can just eat a smaller fire with some of mine and put it all out, so I think we can get an exemption.”
“Cool, cool,” Julio mused. “Then yeah, I say we’re good.”
“In that case, lady and gentleman!” I clapped my hands softly, and did my best to give the two a genuinely happy smile, despite my foul mood. “We’re not going to get anything further until we’ve started the discovery process. Which means it’s time to file suit!”
“Can I draft the complaint?” Fatima blurted out. “S-sorry! I just… really like writing them.”
Julio and I both just gave the woman a look.
“You just like insulting people so politely that getting mad makes them an asshole,” I teased.
“Wha—no! I just, it helps me get all the facts in order!”
“Okay, fine, fine,” I said, raising my hands in a placating gesture. “Regardless, I actually want both of you to each draft a version of the complaint for me by the middle of next week. I want us to file by the middle of June at the latest; assuming we can keep the schedule from getting too out of hand, that’ll give us good odds of having a receptive jury.”
“Uh…?” Julio looked a bit out of his element, which wasn’t surprising.
“That seems a bit optimistic to me,” Fatima retorted. “Wouldn’t it be better if we aimed for after Easter Sunday?”
“That’s both too far out and not far enough,” I argued back. “If we can’t get right after Christmas and New Year’s, or after MLK Day at the absolute latest, it’s probably best to stall until schools let out for the summer instead.”
“But then nobody’s going to—”
“Hold up, time out!” Julio held up his hands to get both of our attention. “Amigas, public defender here, I don’t know the time frames you’re talking about!”
“Oh, um, sorry.” Fatima huddled in on herself, to which I frowned. Well, that would be part of why she hadn’t gotten to be lead counsel yet — too easily cowed. At least she was apparently really good in settlement conferences, but she needed to find her spine if she wanted to get much further as a litigator.
“Fatima, don’t apologize, this is on me,” I told her. “Anyway, Julio, pay attention.”
I turned one of my computer screens to face Julio, went into the settings, and made sure the monitors both showed the same thing. Then I pulled up the calendar, and went to today’s date.
“So we are here, June 2nd.” I pulled up my screen writer app, and circled the date. “We want to have our complaint filed and sent out for service of process by June 12th. Now, let’s assume it takes until June 19 to serve the documents, even though the people we’re serving all have public offices, designated people who can accept these, etcetera. Fatima, if they get served on June 19th, when is their response deadline?”
“Twenty-one days later, so by July 10th.”
“And from there,” I scrolled the calendar over to the next year, “we’ll hopefully have our initial status conference not long after, during which we get to argue the discovery schedule—”
“Which is normally nine to twelve months,” Fatima supplied. “Which is why I said we should go for Easter, because that’s on the short end!”
“And normally, you’d be right!” I said. “But, we went and completed three months of the legwork ahead of time, which means that when the defense asks for our shit, we can just give it to them right then and there, which will screw up their deadlines. And that means we have very real grounds to motion for expedited discovery and get ourselves before a jury in early January.”
“... which is right after Christmas,” Julio said, dawning realization in his voice. “Oh, shit. You’re tryin’ to remind them of kids and family, aint’cha?”
“That’s part of it,” I agreed. Because why wouldn’t I want jurors who’d just spent time with their families, thus predisposing them to see our case about dead kids and immediately see the defendants as the bad guys? “The other part is that if potential jurors have just come back from vacation, getting jury duty means they don’t have to go back to work yet. And most employers in DC have to make up the difference between jury pay.”
“But if we have a longer discovery period, and then we encounter any delays whatsoever, then that pushes things out to when summer break starts. Which would be worse, no?” Fatima asked. “You’re taking them away from vacations they could be going on their kids with.”
“Pin the blame on the defendants,” I told her. “The jurors don’t get to go on vacation in summer 2021 because a bunch of greedy landlords killed a pair of kids all the way back in 2019. Who do you think they’ll think is at fault, us? Or the old white men who keep raising their rents too?”
“And I still think that’s going to backfire,” Fatima argued. “Our client was a mom herself, she’d know how important going on vacation earlier on in the summer is, which means the jurors are going to get mad and think she’s selfish for taking their vacations away. We can’t give them a negative first impression, or we’re sunk.”
“And you’re so certain she’ll give a negative impression, because…?” I prompted. But it wasn’t Fatima who answered.
“Because she’s an overweight black woman whose kids died when she left them at home.” Julio’s voice was grim, his eyes dark beneath his brow. “Remember, I spent two years as a freebie lawyer for broke crooks. If I got handed a white guy, odds were I could get him off scot free in five minutes. White woman? Shit, half the time I didn’t even bother talkin’ to her, just called the DA and she was off. But if they were black? Nope. The plea deals sucked ass, too. Never probation. Never less than three months in jail.”
“Welcome to the United States,” I said sardonically. “One nation, endlessly divisible, with liberty and justice for the pale, rich, and normal.”
The statement hung in the air for a few seconds. Thankfully, though, it didn’t get a chance to linger beyond that, because Julio took the opportunity to clear his throat.
“So for the complaint,” he said, his downcast expression the only remnant of the grim topic we’d just discussed. “There anything I gotta put in there for expedited discovery? I know you gotta request some shit right at the start, so I wanna—”
Stolen novel; please report.
Whatever else Julio was going to say got cut off by an absurdly loud notification from my cell phone, which I’d left on vibrate. The sound alone had me slouching in my chair and my ears wilting atop my head, and all the annoyance I’d initially managed to suppress came roaring right back to the forefront.
The sound I’d selected for this specific notification was the long, drawn-out rasp of a sharp sword pulled from its sheath. Or at least whatever Hollywood sold as the sound effect.
“What was that?” Julio asked. “Oh shit, Naomi, you okay? What’s that sound mean?”
I took a deep breath. “Fuuuuuuuck,” I hissed.
“What?” Fatima asked. “What is it?”
“Okay. Both of you, you’re remote for the next two weeks. If an attorney on another case gives you shit for that, send them my way. I walk to the office, so I’ll handle the in-person stuff for this case.”
“This doesn’t answer the question,” Julio muttered. “What did you set for that sound? Why does that mean you’re sending us remote?”
“That,” I sighed, “was an Arthur Alert.” And I only had the sound override for ones that were nearby. I stood up from my desk chair and grabbed my phone from my purse, carefully ignoring the odd looks both Julio and Fatima were giving me.
“Do you mean the Excaliblotter?” Fatima asked.
“Not since 2012,” I informed her. “The trademark owner who let the BBC use the term died. His son inherited the trademark, and tried to get the BBC to pay him fifty mil for it. So they just swapped to a different term.”
A tap to the screen woke my phone up, my fingerprint unlocked it, and — shit.
“God, ugh,” I groaned. “It’s not just close. It’s close close.”
“And that’s how close, exactly?”
“Capitol Mall,” I told Julio. “Alright you two, time for you to leave.”
“What?” Fatima asked. “Why?”
“Because this wasn’t just an Arthur Alert maybe a mile away from us, this was a verified alert,” I said, showing her my phone. “That means an unverified one came in long enough ago that I give it until rush hour for DC to be swarming with media, looky loos, wacko tourists, and…” I shuddered. “Them.”
“I almost don’t want to ask,” Julio muttered.
“Them,” I said, pinning my ears back out of sheer distaste. “Modern. Post-Future. Grailographers.”
God, even just saying it had me shuddering and my fur standing on end. I’d had a good few years of thinking that the Grand Moonshot Mind Control conspiracy was the worst of it. But being way too close to an Arthur Alert once before was enough to swiftly disabuse me of that notion. The conspiracy theorists were practically tame next to the Grailographers.
“Hey, Naomi?” Julio asked. “How crazy we talking here? More police? Metro closure?”
“More police, single tracking, road closures, probably some involvement by the Secret Service and the NMR,” I responded, idly flicking through a few screens on my phone. Right, that was groceries ordered for delivery, just needed to shoot off a text to Gorou to let the delivery guy in and to grab a twenty to tip with so the guy didn’t freak out too bad… wait, I didn’t remember what all was in the freezer, I needed Gorou to get me a list of that too—
“Local NMR only?” Julio pressed. “Or maybe they’re gonna call in some of the biggies from elsewhere for this, you think?”
“Ooh, maybe Lady Liberty will come to town?” Fatima exclaimed. I flinched, but she didn’t notice. “Oh I hope so, that’d be great! She’s such an—”
“Uuuuuuugggghhh,” I groaned, loudly sinking into my chair. “God, please no, anyone but that fucking bitch!”
“W-what!?” Fatima gasped. I briefly looked at her expression, and she was positively scandalized. “Look, I know you have issues with superheroes, but Lady Liberty is the real deal!”
“Fatima—”
“I’ve looked up to her since I was a little girl! Every other Muslim girl I know does!” She slammed both palms on my desk, her expression positively mutinous. “What do you even have against her, huh!?”
“Do you mean aside from the time she picked me up by my tail and pulled me a hundred feet up in the air, just because she didn’t like my attitude towards the NMR?”
“She what—”
“And maybe you deserved it!” Fatima shouted, bulldozing right over Julio’s attempt to ask for more details. “I mean, with how much you hate superheroes, I bet you were pretty awful to someone who actually is all the things you like to say doesn’t exist!”
“Fatima…” I warned.
“She’s everything so many of us try to become!” she continued, completely ignoring the way Julio backed away from her. “Lady Liberty came to this country with nothing, and now she’s the most beloved person in the country! She found freedom, and opportunity, and success, and she’s single-handedly pushed for equality and more for us! She’s literally if the American Dream was a person!”
“Yeah, well, good for her! But for the rest of us, the American Dream is a fucking lie!” I yelled, slamming a fist on the table. The anger fled Fatima’s expression as she finally read my body language, the way my ears were pinned all the way back, how my shoulders were raised, that my tail thrashed as I spoke. “It’s not real, Fatima! It wasn’t real when this country held my citizenship hostage against me, and it hasn’t been real for a goddamn lifetime! I grew up on story, after story, after story of how much it fucking sucked for my grandma to be Japanese in the fifties! And Immigrant Barbie not liking how I think after that does not give her the right to try and literally knock her idea of ‘sense’ into me!”
That I started yelling had apparently cowed Fatima. She stood further from my desk, the chair pushed back with her, and had a look somewhere between furious, ashamed, and deeply concerned.
“Um,” Julio interjected. “You, uh, don’t look Japanese?”
It took everything I had not to blow up at him. And at her. At both of them for, for… fuck. I’d lost my temper. I needed to be above this, better than this, damn it, Naomi!
“Go home,” I told them both. I stood from my chair, went to the door, and gave them both one parting shot. “Drafts Wednesday.”
Then I opened the door, left my office, and headed to do the thing I’d planned on doing once my Arthur Alert prep was done. Which it wasn’t, but I needed to get out of that room anyway.
I took the stairs rather than the elevator, blinking up each flight to not walk in heels on these stupid grated stairs, and headed straight for my boss’s office once I was out.
“She free?” I turned to ask her secretary—sorry, executive assistant. He took one look at me and waved me in after the briefest glance at his screen. His eyes followed me as I walked to Alice’s door and knocked.
“Come in.”
I walked in, closed the door, and held up my phone, screen still showing the Arthur Alert notification.
“Send a blast out that we’re going remote for two weeks,” I told her. “We’re about to have serious issues getting around the city for at least that long.”
Alice looked briefly peeved that I hadn’t waited for her to address her guest, until she realized it was me, and then looked mildly amused. That amusement faded to confusion when she looked at my phone.
Then it turned right back to amusement, and she gave me a bright smile.
“Isn’t that hoax almost as old as you are?”
… that… what?
“Alice,” I began, trying to figure out how to word this delicately. “It — it was international news. You have to have heard about this.”
“Yes,” she said, “because it’s a popular hoax. I’m guessing you heard it as a little girl and never let it go?”
“I wasn’t a—” I barely stopped from blurting out that bit of information, and paused so I didn’t let it right back out. No, we did not need to offer Naomi’s childhood factoids here! “But if that’s a hoax, then who do you think saved Princess Di’s life?”
“Any number of other things?” Alice asked. “It’s not like that tunnel was empty, Naomi.”
“Oh for the love of—” I walked around the desk and gestured, requesting that Alice let me access her computer. She gave me a bemused look as I pulled up a search bar, scrolled down five entries, and clicked a button, starting the video that…
“‘This content is not available in your country, per the request of the copyright holder’?” I read off, flabbergasted.
“And the copyright holder is…?” Alice beckoned. I looked down at the name, and bit back a groan.
It listed two. The BBC, and… Monty Python. Monty Python.
“I told you it was a hoax,” she said, tone very smug.
I glared at her, my ears lowered in annoyance.
“Alice, you have met the centuries-old Japanese fox spirit that I have as a roommate. The one who will happily let you know he’s just one of hundreds or thousands of many. Do you seriously think that I would buy it if it was a hoax?”
“Well, you…” Alice stopped and blinked. “But that would…”
The realization dawned on her exactly like I’d expected to. Confusion, then understanding, then mild terror, then another, deeper understanding as she grasped the realpolitik at play.
“Just give the firm two weeks remote. Hell, make it three for safety.”
When Alice didn’t respond after a good ten seconds, I decided to just see myself out instead. I needed to head home, anyway. I had Arthur Alert traffic to prep for, and, well… a pair of apology emails to send out. Julio and Fatima didn’t deserve me yelling at them. They deserved better of me. My temper couldn’t keep getting the better of me like that. I needed catharsis.
I needed to burn off some steam.
What Little Remains of Terpsichore Ironheart, by . There's a lot that I could tell you about this one, but that would ruin all the effort Horizon put into the worldbuilding, and y'all really deserve to actually go and see it for yourselves rather than have me say "xyz abc 123". The one thing I will tell you about, and what actually got me to read it in the first place, is the way Horizon treats elves.
regular-ass fucking people. They're not these mystical, Tolkienified, great-than-thou beings that practically hover over the day to day because of sheer agelessness, fueled by the wisdom of their uncountable years or some such other BS. No, they're just... people. And because they're people, the effect that knowing you'll live until you get tired of it has on them is a very real thing that Horizon adds to their characters.
Ironheart as I probably should have (all of Book1 and a few chapters of Book2), but time is a limited resource, ADHD is a fickle bitch, and ooooooh, shiny...
