The Weapon - Lex - part 13
By Diana the Valkyrie
Follow the money
Update: 28/10/2003 to valkyrie05


Back at the hotel, I told my mobile to display on the TV, it's easier to see,
and I started digging through the data that I'd gotten in the discovery. I
listed a few of the places that were claiming damage; I chose the biggest
ones, and a few more at random. I wanted to see if they could give a
reasonable justification for the amount of damage; maybe I could haggle the
total amount down a bit. Or even quite a lot.

I also found that Cattermole's colleagues weren't only taking an upfront fee
on this case; they were also getting a percentage of any money they could
extract from the defendant. For every $100 that Wendy would be coughing up,
the lawyers would be getting $90. Sharks. No, vultures. It's people like that
who give the whole legal profession a bad name.

But the main thing I was looking for, was to find out who was funding this
lawsuit, who was guaranteeing the legal costs, since it wasn't on a
contingency basis. And I struck gold. Some outfit called "Humanity Holdings".
Aha!

But who are they?

I've never heard of them. So I googled the web, found that they were based in
Bombay, found that they didn't seem to publish any information about
themselves or about who owned them. It looked like a dead end, and ordinarily,
I would have just given up. But I had an ace up my sleeve.

When Wendy got back to the hotel, she was very bubbly. "We had a lovely day,"
she said. "We?" I asked. "Geoff's really into superheroes and stuff, I told
him all about my Kerr-Newman black holes, and he wanted to know how four black
holes and a collection of fields could be intelligent, so I asked him how a
collection of protons, neutrons and electrons could walk and talk, and I told
him about the People, and about Momma, he was an orphan, you know? And he told
me about his job, which he really hates, because they're all so mean to him,
they treat him like a servant because he's a techie, and I told him about the
Galactic War that will sooner or later get to here, and how I'm going to stop
it from screwing up you humans, and he wanted to know why I was doing it, so I
told him how much I love you folks, and ... Herbie, why are you looking at me
like that?"

I wanted to scream at her. I mean, here I've been working my fingers to the
bone, just for her, and she's been gallivanting around with some guy ... some
young guy ... truth is, I was jealous.

"Oh, Herbie, you're jealous!" She came over and put her arms round me. "Green
eyed monster!" she said, and she shook me. "Ba .. ba ba ... ba ba ..." was all
I could manage. She stopped shaking me. "What?" "I am not jealous," I said,
with as much dignity as I could muster. "Are too," she said, and she wrapped
those great big feathery wings around us both.

"Stop that," I said, "let go." "You don't mean that," she replied. "Yes I do,
let go." "Look down."

Gulp. "Don't let go!" I retracted my demand, we must have been fifty feet
above the ground, and rising. How did she get us outside? I grabbed hold of
her and clutched her as hard as I could. "Oh, Herbie, stop worrying, I won't
drop you."

She was hovering now. I felt ill. Intellectually, I knew she wouldn't let me
fall, but a little monkey inside me was screaming about the drop underneath
and wanted me to cling on to a branch or something. So I clung on to Wendy's
arm.

She rolled so that I was on top of her, and that improved things a little, at
least I felt that there was something solid underneath me. Then she said
"Where shall we go for dinner tonight?" and I answered "Bombay" before I could
stop myself. "Bombay?" she asked. "I want to visit a company called "Humanity
Holdings"; they're funding this lawsuit and I want to find out more about
this. Like what they're hoping will happen as a result. Are they making money
out of it. That sort of thing. There's an old saying that applies in this sort
of situation - "Follow the money" and that's what I intend to do." "That money
thing again, well, I guess you know what you're doing, that's why I came to
you. Now, close your eyes and hold on tight."

I closed my eyes. It's a trust thing. If I can't see the dreadful thing she's
about to do, then I won't scream when she does it.

She was pressing hard against me, really hard. I felt like some huge hand was
pressing me down onto her body, and I couldn't have lifted my head from her
chest even if I'd wanted to. I heard her say "You all right, babe?" and I
managed a "mmmph" in reply, which I suppose she understood as meaning "I'm not
too bad, but I'll feel a lot better when this ton weight on my back is taken
off." Then the weight got a lot less, back to normal, in fact. "Keep your eyes
closed," she said, "you don't want to see this." "No, I probably don't, but
just out of interest, roughly what would I see if I did open my eyes?" "If I
made the field transparent, you'd see the world from a thousand miles up. It's
really lovely, all blue and white, and some green. And black behind, like a
velvet curtain with tiny white flecks." I wished I didn't suffer from vertigo.

"Actually," she said, "it's probably safe for you to look. The little monkey
won't have a clue what he's seeing, so you won't feel like your high in the
sky. And I'm maintaining a steady 1g acceleration so you won't feel
weightless. We're at Mach 25 now, and rising." I cautiously opened one eye,
while staying ready to slam it shut if need be. She was right, it really was
beautiful. "Look on your right, that's North Africa, and you can see the Med
right next to it." I gazed down at the amazing sight. Although I suppose lots
of other people have seen it before, it was all new to me. They don't usually
put solicitors in spacecraft. Maybe we should start a lawsuit to correct this
unfair discrimination.

"Close your eyes, honey, we're going down now." The feeling of a great weight
came back and stayed on me for several minutes. There's probably some
scientific explanation for this extra weight, I was just glad that I wouldn't
have to diet to get it off. Wendy's cooking was already doing too much damage
to my waistline. It felt like a giant hand on my back, pressing me into Wendy,
who wasn't the "Woman of Steel" that I've heard her called, she was very
pleasantly, um ... soft.

We landed in the middle of Bombay. You'd think that a woman flying down from
space and landing in the street would attract considerable attention. Add a
very attention-getting white and gold costume with a long flowing cape, that
should draw some eyes. And add a pair of snow white wings, fifty foot span,
which even when folded added two feet to her height. Maybe in some places all
this would attract attention. Here, we were just ignored, people minded their
own business, and streamed past us eager to get to wherever they were heading
for. Wendy took my hand, as I slid off her; just as well, my knees were a bit
wobbly from the ride, and I might have fallen over. "Not while I'm here," she
said, "come on, I know a great place to eat."

She seemed to know Bombay quite well. I've hardly ever been out of
Cricklewood, and when I do travel, it's to boring places like Brussels. When
Paris is demolished, Brussels will be the armpit of the world.

More amazingly, the place we went to eat, seemed to know her. Not "Oh my god,
it's the Guardian of Humanity" sort of thing. More "Oh, Wendy, lovely to see
you here again, who's your friend" sort of thing.

For dinner, I ate a volcano. It was quite a small volcano, but I could tell it
was a volcano because it was full of red hot lava. Possibly white hot. Apart
from the ferocious taste of chili, there were pieces of something in it; I
didn't like to ask what. I did notice that there didn't seem to be any cats or
dogs around. "It's vegetarian," said Wendy, "now eat up, it's good for you,
put hairs on your chest." "I notice you're not eating it," I said. "I don't
want hairs on my chest," she explained. "True, what you've already got is just
fine," I replied. "Oh, Herbie, you're flirting with me, that's great." Hmm.
She was right. I've never been able to flirt, it's probably why I'm still
unmarried at my age.

After I'd put out some of the raging fire with ice cold lager, she said "Now
we'll visit that office you wanted to go to." I tried to pay for the meal, but
the manager wouldn't hear of it. "I'm one of the Guardian's Babies," he said.

Wendy explained as we walked to the premises of Humanity Holdings. "It's
something I did ages ago, setting up orphanages all over the world, paid for
out of the Pretty Flamingo ship hauling business. And when the kids left, they
felt they owed a debt to me, so I told them to repay it by taking over the
funding of the baby rescue centers. Isn't it great? Now my older babies are
caring for my young babies, and I don't have to worry about that stuff any
more, they do it all themselves. And they call themselves the Guardian's
Babies."

I looked at her as we walked. I'd vaguely heard about this, but not the
details, it was all so long ago. I thought that was all history, but it seems
that our situation today is the sum total of our past actions.