The Weapon - Lex - part 28
By Diana the Valkyrie
Kate's story
Update: 12/11/2003 to valkyrie05

Kate:

Stupid. It was all so stupid. That case should never have reached court, it
should have been settled. And it should never have gotten onto my list, I'm
just not used to anything that's five billion dollars. But, you can't refuse,
it looks incompetent and shirking your duty, and I didn't have any real
grounds to disqualify myself.

Of course, in the end, I was glad I did take it. I'd never have met Herbie
otherwise, and he's turned out to be a real brick. I'm no spring chicken now,
more of a tough old hen. And after two disastrous marriages, I wasn't actively
looking for a third. But Herbie was a gift from the gods. Modest, quiet,
unambitious, didn't mind that I earned more than he, and when I got home at
night, we could natter away about the law. I could even tell him about my
cases; they're all done in public session anyway. It didn't take much to
persuade him to abandon the life of a carefree batchelor and move in with me.

And then there was Wendy.

I wonder about Wendy sometimes. She has layers, does Wendy. To the outside
world, she's the big, tough and powerful Guardian of Humanity; everyone knows
about the time she turned the sun off just to make a point. And people haven't
forgotten the aircraft carrier she dumped just outside the White House. No,
you don't mess with the Guardian of Humanity.

And then there's a layer under that. That layer seems to be all about love and
trust. She says she loves all of us, and I've never seen anything that makes
me doubt it. She sees us all as her babies, and she'd do anything to make sure
we're taken care of. Like a mother hen and her chicks. Like a she-bear and her
cubs. A sort of Universal Mother-figure. Although ... sometimes, I wonder. I
wonder, why. Why has she got this love-thing with several billion people? Call
me cynical, but I feel there must be somethng that she gets out of it. But I
can't imagine what it might be. Why would an individual of one species fall in
love with the entire population of a different species? It just doesn't make
sense.

And then under that, there's a layer that most people don't see. There's a
child. That makes sense - she told me once, she'll be an adult 100 million
years from now, and then she'll be able to do adult things, like fly faster
than light, and, well, stuff that I actually didn't understand when she told
me, but from her tone of voice, it's obviously important stuff. But now? She
loves playing with children, she does magic tricks for them, I've watched her.
Most of it is simple conjuring tricks, like any party entertainer could do,
but occasionally there's something that really defies any explanation I can
think of. And she tells them stories, and she teaches them new games, and
songs, and, well. She plays with them, not just as an adult plays with a
child. She plays with them as a child would. Yes, she's a child.

And then, I think, there's a fourth layer under that. I'm not sure about this
one, I don't think I'm supposed to have noticed it. I'm sure no-one else is
supposed to have noticed it. I'll try to explain.

After the case was done and dusted, I got Herbie to come visit me at my home,
and I seduced him. I've never done anything like that before, I've never
needed to. When I was younger, I was a babe. When I wanted to be. And a
pistol. Seduction wasn't necessary, all I had to do was choose. But when you
get to fiftyish, the exact number of years isn't important, the offers kind of
dry up. So, I inveigled him into my bed.

I only found out afterwards, and probably this was just as well, that it
wasn't just the two of us. Wendy was there too. Invisible, or something. And
she was coaching Herbie, telling him what to do and say. When I first found
out, I was furious, with him and with her. Then Wendy took me by the hand,
told me to shut up and listen. Which I did. There's something about her, maybe
it's her tone of voice, she gets to you. So I shut up and listened, and she
told me that Herbie's plan was to run and hide, head for the hills, duck and
disappear. That he was absolutely terrified. Of me. And that it was only by
holding his hand, as it were, that she could persuade him to stay.

Yes, well. "That makes me feel really good," I said, "for me to get a man, he
has to be tied to the bed?" "No, Kate," she said. "I'm sure you don't need
that. This isn't about you, it's about Herbie. You've only seen one side of
him, the competent lawyer. You haven't seen the scared little boy, he's kissed
maybe five women in his entire life, and hasn't even kissed them properly. And
certainly nothing more than a kiss. He's over forty, with all the experience
and self-confidence of a fourteen year old boy. I had to stay with him, he
trusts me, and I helped him get through a difficult coming-of-age."

"I could have helped him," I protested.

"Yes, but he wasn't going to tell you that he was an ultra-virgin, that's a
terrible stigma at his age. And he knew that he'd make a complete shambles of
it, so his idea was to run and hide. I just gave him the confidence to jump in
at the deep end."

And then I thought, "Are you two, er ... ?"

"No, we're not," she said, firmly. "Oh, I've hugged him a lot, and cuddled him
a few times, and taken him flying, which he hated, because it makes him
vomit."

"So you're not in love with him?"

"I love all of you," she said, "you're all my babies. But we haven't done the
blanket hornpipe, no."

"Oh."

"Kate, I'm not your competitor here. I'm not even human. He's all yours, and
in my opinion ..." "I didn't ask your opinion," I said, frostily. "You're
getting it anyway. In my opinion, he's much more what you want, what you need,
than either of the two selfish bastards you hooked up with before."

"Hmm," I said, "it wouldn't hard to be better than those two snakes. So tell
me, do you have a sweetie?"

"No," she said. "I had thought for a little while that Geoff might be good for
me, but he hasn't got the experience, and he's scared stiff of making
decisions. So I left him in Vegas, he's got a job with Cute Chicken, they make
disks. Porno disks. He's very happy there, he's a great fan of Sandy Gentle,
she's their main star."