The Weapon - Lex - part 11
By Diana the Valkyrie
A day at court
Update: 26/10/2003 to valkyrie05


The next morning, I felt a whole lot better, It's amazing what a good night's
sleep can do, especially when you feel secure and so you can really relax.
Wendy had vanished again, so I found my way down to the hotel's buffet
breakfast; if there's one meal that Americans do really well it's breakfast.
No, it's lunch. No, it's dinner. Oh hell, it's all three.

Wendy walked in while I was demolishing something they call hash, which tastes
a whole lot better than you'd think from the name. Yes, walked. And no wings
either. She looked perfectly human as she sat down opposite me and helped
herself to a slice of toast. "So what's on the agenda for today?" she asked,
and then "Where's the Marmite?".

"Umfle," I said, and swallowed. "Today is the preliminary appearance, we swap
discoveries." So then I had to explain to her about discoveries, "they'll want
a copy of all the documents you have on this, but since obviously you don't
have any, that will be a joke." "But I do," she said.

I stared at her. "You send yourself memos? Emails? What?" She laughed. "No,
nothing like that. But I have a digital memory, and if they want to do a
discovery on that, I can do a dump for them."

I scratched my head. This was all most irregular. Oh well. I don't have to
worry about their problems, all I had to do was specify what I wanted from
them. And I already had a pretty good idea of that.

"Time to get to the courthouse," I said, finishing off my coffee. "OK," she
said, "want a lift?"

"Um, no, I'll get a taxi thank you. Want to share a cab?" She glanced over her
shoulder and sprouted her wings. "These won't fit in a cab." I nodded. It's
true, human cabs aren't designed to take a stonking great pair of wings. "I
thought they're, er, detachable?" "They are, but if I'm going to wear them for
this lawsuit, I ought to be consistent about it."

Hmm. Well, OK. "But Wendy, I don't think you should wear your Guardian
costume, not for the preliminary hearing anyway." She changed from that to
something bright red, skin tight and very fetching, with a big logo of a bird
and quite a lot of skin. "Uh. No," I said, "you want to look well-dressed but
conservatively so."

She sighed. "OK, how's this, then?"

She didn't look remotely like an angel, unless you think that angels wear
smart tailored grey pinstripe skirt-and-jacket suits with a very understated
brooch on the lapel. And high heels. And wings. I peered more closely at the
brooch - it was a some sort of pinkish-red bird. "Flamingo," she said,
standing up. And she didn't stop rising when she was standing, she just
continued on up, going straight through the ceiling.

I guess I have to get used to this sort of thing.

The taxi dropped me off outside the courthouse, but she wasn't there. I looked
up into the air to see where she was; I guess she'd stopped off to do
something, but I really didn't want to be late for this.

I looked around, and I didn't much like what I saw. There was a demonstration
going on. At first, I assumed it was something political or something, and I
certainly don't know anything about politics in foreign countries. Then I
noticed what the placards were saying. "Humanity First" seemed to be the main
theme, with "Aliens go home", "Humanity can take care of ourselves" and
similar stuff. For a moment, I thought it might be something to do with
immigration, but then Wendy appeared, soaring through the air, and the crown
started jeering and booing, and screaming insults at her.

Then she glided down out of the sky, did a half-somersault and landed lightly
on her feet. "Sorry I'm a bit late," she said, "kitten in tree kind of
situation, you know?" And then we were attacked from all sides.

I suppose I should have anticipated that. News is big business, it fills in
the slack space between the adverts at a much lower cost than sport or drama.
I was surrounded by video cameras and feeders, while the artillery laid down a
barrage of questions. "Will she be pleading guilty?" "Isn't starting an
earthquake rather reckless?" "Is she planning to start any more earthquakes?"

I suppose they were only doing their job, but Wendy was starting to look a bit
upset. "Hey, chaps," I said, "give us some space, huh?" "You're Briddish,"
said one, "is this an international conspiracy?" I sighed. There's really no
good sound-bite answer to that, especially when the whole case is still sub
judice. Then one of them made the mistake of tugging on one of Wendy's wings.

Immediately, she whirled round to face him, flared them out to their full
fifty foot span, and hissed at him, "You do NOT mess with my wings, you keep
your hands to yourself or you'll be facing assault and harrassment charges."
The pack of hungry reporters backed off a bit, faced with a furious Guardian
of Humanity. I knew she wouldn't hurt them, but were they so sure? I thought,
no harm in reinforcing the message a bit, so I grabbed her hand, and said
"Don't hurt them, Wendy, they don't know any better," and pulled her into the
building. They tried to follow, but Wendy slammed the front door in their
faces, and somehow it got stuck when they tried to open it. Somehow? No, not
somehow - I think she welded the lock or something.

We found the room where the preliminary hearing was to take place, and the
judge was already there; also the plaintiffs legal representatives.

The judge was dressed in an informal tailored suit, a similar sort of style to
Wendy's, nothing like the elaborate costumes that they wear when they're in
court. I was glad that I'd told Wendy to dress down for the occasion. The
snowy whiteness of her wings contrasted beautifully with the dark fabric of
her suit. Just sitting there quietly, cross-legged on thin air, she dominated
the room. Everyone stared at her. Except me - I stared at the judge, They
don't have judges like this in England.

She wasn't young, and she wasn't pretty. But she didn't look any older than
me, and she was certainly well put together. In other circumstances ... but
these weren't other circumstances. Stop daydreaming, Herbert.

Wendy looked at me. I coughed, quietly.

The judge stopped staring at the Guardian of Humanity, and ruffled her papers.
Then she began. "We're here today to see if we can find an agreement that will
obviate the necessity of a trial with all the expense and uncertainty that
accompanies it. Plaintiff is asking for discovery, and an initial estimate of
$4.83 billion in damages." She turned to me. "Mr Mickleshaw?"

"We reserve our position on the damage issue until we've had a chance to study
the documents that discovery will generate." The judge nodded, we couldn't be
expected to declare our defence until I'd had a chance to look at the papers.
"Then would you people get together and aim for a negotiated settlement?" "No
way," said Cattermole, "my principals have instructed me not to negotiate on
this one."

"OK," sighed the judge, "let's talk discovery. Counsellor Cattermole?"

Cattermole stood up. "We want to see all documents, emails, messages, notes
and files over the period of three months that led up to the wanton
destruction of property and reckless disregard for ..." "Ms Cattermole, stop
that," said Justice Langley, "there's no jury here to impress, you're just
wasting time with that rhetoric." Cattermole didn't look abashed. Langley
turned to me. "Is that agreeable to you?"

"No," I said. "Yes," said Wendy. I looked at her, and thought "Shut up Wendy."
I explained "There are no emails, no messages, notes, nothing. All there is,
is the internal thought processes. And to look at those would be a fundamental
invasion of privacy, a breach of human rights." "She's not human, she has no
rights," said Cattermole.

I opened my mouth. Then I closed it. She's right. There's a huge gaping hole
in our legal system. Even animals have some rights, although it's only some
animals that have rights, mostly the furry cuddly ones, and even they don't
have many. Wendy, at a quick guess, has no rights at all. I tried to think of
a way to quickly claim that she should be treated as human, but Wendy
pre-empted me. "You can have it all," she said. Cattermole smirked
triumphantly at me. "Where do you want me to put it?" asked Wendy.

"What do you mean?" asked Cattermole. "It's not on paper, it's just data. I'd
need to dump it to disks or something, what do you want me to dump it to?"
"Er. I'll get our technical people to sort that out with you. Is there much?"
"A fair bit," said Wendy, "yes. Quite a lot, really."

Americans aren't used to British understatement. I realised what Wendy was
doing here. I'd read an article about this, way back, I don't remember. But I
do remember that the article said that her digital memory recorded everything
she saw, heard, smelled and I don't know what else. And she was offering them
that record over a period of months. Even if they could find enough computers
to store it on, there was no way they could actually read through it or search
it. Cattermole smirked at me again; I tried to maintain a defeated look.

Mrs Justice Langley then turned to me. "You want the same?" "No, not really. I
want a list of the names and addresses of the people claiming damage, and how
much they're claiming, we might go and inspect some of them." The judge looked
at Cattermole, who nodded. "And I want a copy of your accounts for the last
couple of years." "Objection," said Cattermole, dramatically. The judge
sighed.

"Ms Cattermole, you aren't Perry Mason. I already told you, there's no jury in
here. Now, what's your objection?" "Privacy, this would be an invasion of
privacy, and what bearing could Roberts and Williams accounts have on this
case?"

Was that the distinct aroma of blood that I could smell? I sunk my teeth in
harder. "Payments from the plaintiffs will be recorded, and also payments from
third parties who might be donating funding towards the lawsuit. You're taking
this non-contingency, I want to know who's putting the cash up-front." "Sounds
fair to me," said Langley, "you don't have anything to hide here, and you'll
have to publish it in your end-of-year accounts anyway." Cattermole scowled,
but had to give in.

"Anything else?" said Justice Langley. No-one spoke. "OK, we're done for now.
Discovery to be completed within three days, meeting here a week from now.
Unless you folks come to terms before that?" and she looked at me and
Cattermole. I kept my face expressionless; Cattermole made a face that said
"fat chance."

I politely waited for Cattermole and Wendy to preceed me out of the room, and
caught up with them just as she turned on Wendy. "Godless soul-less
devil-spawn," she said viciously, "I hope you burn in hell." "Been there, done
that," said Wendy, "and all I got was this lousy t-shirt. I still love you
all. And if I don't have a soul, I don't go to hell. Come on, Herbie." She
grabbed my hand, turned on her heel, heading the opposite way from Cattermole.
With my hand in hers, I didn't have much option about which way to go. "This
isn't the way out," I pointed out to her. "You mean, it isn't the exit. We're
going out of a window, that way we avoid Cattermole and the sharks waiting to
feed outside."