Pink Slip Prophet (13 page)

“You weren’t even there,” Ian said. “How can you…?”

“It’s nothing personal, Dad,” Stacy said. “Larry’s going to pay us.”

“Yeah,” said Michael, “just business.” He shrugged.

“You’re good at business, Ian,” said Candy. “Just make us a better offer.”

Ian studied the three.
Parasites. Feeding off of me.
He fought the idea.
They’re your family. They’re blood-sucking leeches!
He shook the idea away. “None of you were there!”

They looked at him. “So what,” Michael said.

“So,” started Ian, “if the court finds out and this goes to trial, you can be prosecuted for perjury.”

Stacy and Candy stared at him, unfazed.

“What’s perjury?” Michael whispered.

“It’s lying in court,” Candy said. She kept her eyes on Ian.

“You could be fined or imprisoned,” Ian said. He surveyed them warily. What was their game? His money was ultimately their money. Why would they help Larry take it? Legally, they were his kids, not Larry’s. They’d be smarter to just kill Ian and inherit the money.

Shut up. Yeah, I shouldn’t even think that. If they weren’t so lazy they might do it
.

Candy turned to her children. “Your father would never let that happen, would you, Ian?”

“Larry promised us a share of his winnings,” Michael said. “And you love us too much to send us to prison.”

“It’s just a good business deal, Dad,” said Stacy. “Unless you want to pay us more than what Larry is promising?”

The outrage boiled over. “I’m not paying you a goddamned cent! You stupid, ungrateful little brats. Are you too stupid to see what Larry is doing? He’s screwed me over more times than I can count. What makes you think he won’t screw you over, too? What makes you think he’ll actually pay you anything at all, if he wins? Which he won’t.”

“He’s our real father,” Michael said with a glint of hurt and resentment in his eyes. “Yeah, we know now and we know you were keeping it a secret from us. He really loves us. If you loved us, we wouldn’t have to do something like this. You’d just give us what we wanted! I hate you!” Michael put on his VR goggles. Candy and Stacy followed suit without so much as a glance at Ian.

Ian took his seat at the defendant’s table next to his lawyer. The room was large, with lots of dark wood everywhere and light green walls. Directly in front of him was the judge’s raised box. To his far left was the jury box.

“Don’t worry,” his lawyer said. “This one is in the bag. I don’t know where this goof got the money to take the case this far, but he’s going to feel really stupid in a few minutes.” The man laughed to himself and pulled out his screen. “Tell me again, how he got your family to testify against you.”

Ian turned around in his chair. “How you holding up, buddy?”

Jack lay on the long, curved bench in the first row. He sighed. “I want to get home and work on my robots. This is so boring!” The boy teared up. “Why didn’t you just pay him? We could have been done with this.”

“It’s a matter of principle, son.”

“Principles just aren’t very practical, I guess.” The boy rolled over and faced into the back of the bench in the fetal position.

The doors at the back of the courtroom opened and Candy sauntered in, a look of mercenary satisfaction on her face. Michael walked in behind her and held the door open. Stacy came in next, tripped over Michael’s feet and fell forward into her mother’s rear end.

“Watch where you are going!” Candy loud-whispered.

“It was Michael’s fault,” Stacy said.

“I was just holding the door. I’m not responsible for your big feet,” Michael said. He walked in and sat in the back row.

“My feet are not big!” Stacy said. Her words echoed throughout the room. She slapped her hand over her mouth and sat down next to Michael.

Candy forced them to move over and she took the aisle seat. She glanced at Ian, then jerked her head in the opposite direction.

The court’s Maria activated. It was an older, silver model with the law enforcement add-on. It had a yellow, star-shaped logo over its torso. “All rise for the honorable Erwin K. Blickstein,” said the recording it played.

The judge entered the courtroom from the other side of the judge’s box and took his seat.

Ian’s lawyer folded his screen up and put it into his jacket breast pocket.

Ian started to stand then noticed no one else was standing so he hesitantly sat back down.

The judge looked at his wrist. “I have my regular golf game this afternoon so let’s wrap up this up quickly, shall we, gentlemen?” He fake-grinned before glancing up at Ian and his lawyer and then at the table where Larry and his lawyer should have been. He frowned. “Where is the plaintiff?”

Ian’s lawyer stood up. “Your honor, I move for summary dismissal.”

“I’m inclined—” Judge Blickstein started.

A boom sounded at the back of the room. Larry and his lawyer burst through the doors. “I am so sorry, Erwin,” Larry said in a loud voice. “But lunch ran late and then—”

Judge Blickstein slammed his gavel into its wooden base. “Silence!”

Larry’s gut hung out beneath the tails of his dress shirt as he made for the plaintiff’s table. His lawyer was even heavier than him without a similarly shoddy appearance.

Ian covered a smile with his right index finger. The long-awaited public crushing of Larry Kunkle was at hand. And in a courtroom no less. Ian could just sit back and watch the crushing from a distance. It was beautiful.

“As to the matter of Kunkle vs. Blake, I am ready to render my verdict. I find for the plaintiff and award him damages of five thousand dollars with punitive damages of nine-hundred ninety-nine million nine-hundred ninety-five thousand dollars.” He banged his gavel and retreated the same way he had entered.

Ian’s smile froze, then fell ever so gradually as the words registered in his brain. They weren’t the words he expected. He couldn’t remember the words he expected to hear right now but those definitely were not it. He looked at his lawyer.

“I’m sorry, Ian. You win some, you lose some.” He laughed and put his briefcase on the table. He stood up and shrugged.

“Now, wait a second,” Ian said. “What just happened.”

“He found for the plaintiff.”

The word entered Ian’s mind but the meaning didn’t register. “I’m the plaintiff, right?”

“No, Mr. Kunkle is the plaintiff.” He shrugged again. “Sorry. These things can slip away from you sometimes. It must have been your family’s testimony that put him over the top. It’s hard to beat witness testimony these days.” He stepped towards the exit. “Oh, and Mr. Kunkle is a government employee, of course. That always helps!” he said with a smile.

“But the surveillance video? It showed exactly what happened!” The panic and confusion competed inside of Ian.

His lawyer shrugged again and took a backwards step towards the exit. “Some people are really anti-tech these days. It’s a big movement and all now. Judge Blickstein clearly gave the human testimony superior precedence.”

“Superior precedence?” Ian got up and chased after his lawyer, who was almost at the door. He grabbed the man’s shoulder. “Did this happen because the judge is anti-tech?”

His lawyer half-turned, shrugged and ran. Then he stopped. “I just got word on your appeal,” he yelled.

“My appeal?”

“I filed it as soon as the verdict was in,” he said, walking backwards again.

“They denied it. It’s final.” The lawyer ran around the corner.

Ian collapsed against the wall and buried his head in his hands.
What the hell is going on?

***

Larry pulled Ian up off the floor and carry-walked him back into the courtroom. He set him down in the last bench. He looked behind him at Candy, Michael and Stacy, and smiled at them. He tucked his shirt into his pants and opened his mouth.

Jack ran around the other side and came down the bench row to his father. He sat down next to him. “Dad, are you okay?”

“Too bad you didn’t take the deal I offered them,” Larry said to Jack. He pointed his thumb back at the boy’s mother and siblings. “You could have gotten a payday, kid.”

“Shut up!” Jack screamed at him. He put his hand on his dad’s shoulder and pushed him back and forth. Ian’s head rolled from side to side.

Stacy motioned to her mother. Candy glared at her daughter then came up behind Larry on his left. “Well,” she said.

“I already talked to Divergent. They hung up on me,” Larry said with a shrug.

“Well, what’s it going to take?” Candy said.

“Does he have an accountant?” Larry asked.

Ian took a deep breath and stood up. His head was a sleepy jumble. Something ominous hung over him. There was something bad going on. It was right at the edge of his consciousness but it wouldn’t materialize. “Let’s get some lunch, Jack, shall we?” He grabbed Jack’s hand and turned to exit the bench row.

Larry blocked his path. “Ian, we need to talk. You owe me a billion dollars.”

Ian’s face contorted into a look of ridicule. “Are you stupid? I don’t owe you a damned thing.”

Larry’s lawyer walked up. He held his open briefcase in one hand, his suit jacket clumsily draped over it. His chest and armpits featured dark spots and his tie was pulled down to just above where his gut began. His shirt tails hung outside of his pants. “You have lost the case, Mr. Blake. Are you able to comprehend what I am saying?” He burped then snapped his fingers in front of Ian’s face.

It came rolling back to Ian. He lost. His lawyer said so. He could appeal, of course. No, they already denied it. Larry and his government connections. Larry and the anti-tech movement.
How?
The thought reverberated inside his mind.

Larry’s lawyer produced a document. “Sign here, Mr. Blake and we can settle this matter right now. You can be on your way, free and clear. This document transfers title of your rights in the Maria robot invention to Mr. Kunkle and in return Mr. Kunkle agrees to not just consider your debt to him fully paid but to also provide you with an income stream sufficient to fund a minimal but wholly acceptable standard of living for the rest of your natural life.”

“The rest of my natural life,” Ian muttered.

“That’s correct, sir, and is currently estimated at five years.” The lawyer handed him a pen. “Just sign at the bottom. I’m sure your lovely wife and eldest son will serve as appropriate witnesses.”

“What about our share?” Stacy asked. “We deserve our share now, too.”

The lawyer kept his eyes on Ian, the pen in his outstretched hand.

Ian reached for the contract.

Jack pulled at his father’s shirt. “Don’t sign, Dad! Don’t do it.”

Michael pushed past the lawyer and grabbed Jack. He pulled him over the rear of the bench and cupped a hand over his mouth. “Shut up, you little rat,” Michael said.

Jack fought and kicked.

Ian looked up at the lawyer. A normal flow returned to his movement as he grabbed the contract and the pen. “So I just sign this and Larry leaves me alone. Forever. Right?”

The lawyer nodded. “Absolutely. You can continue dealing with me in order to get your monthly allowance.”

Everything else fell away. He didn’t hear his sons fighting. He didn’t notice Larry and Candy laughing or Stacy smacking Larry’s free hand away from her. All he saw was the paper, the pen and the word ‘allowance’.
Larry will give me an allowance. Of course.

What? He looked at the pen and paper again and knew what he had to do.

Ian ripped up the contract and threw the pen into the lawyer’s face. He looked at Larry. “I don’t know how you did this. I may have to pay you but you will never control Maria. You will never own anything that I create, not again.”

Jack kicked Ian’s leg. Ian turned and glared at Michael. “Get your hands off my son!” he yelled.

Michael let go and backed away.

“Come on, Jack.” Ian held his hand out to him over the back of the bench.

Jack took a step toward his father, then turned and punched Michael between his legs. Michael fell to the ground.

Ian pushed Larry and the lawyer out of his way, grabbed his son’s hand and left the room.

“You’ll pay for this Ian!” Larry yelled. “I will make you pay through your teeth. And then I’ll break your goddamned superior teeth!”

***

“After paying the judgment, fees, taxes and my fee, of course, this is how much you have left.” The lawyer passed a slip of paper across his desk to Ian, who sat directly opposite him.

Ian took the note and looked at it. All the zeroes were gone now. He looked out the window behind his lawyer - a new one, different from the incompetent boob who got him into this financial holocaust. A few flying cars passed among the skyscrapers in front of a cloudless, shiny blue sky.
Nowhere to hide.

“I’ll see that it is deposited into your account. We’ve paid Mr. Kunkle and have the receipt on file, so you needn’t worry about that.” He looked up from the paperwork and studied Ian.

Ian sat slouched into the chair, his chest sunken in, his face blank and distant.

“What are your plans now, Mr. Blake? Surely a talented mind such as yours will come up with something new and exciting. We stand ready to protect you in the future, should you invent something, of course.”

Ian closed his eyes.

***

Ian opened his eyes. The bar was dark, the walls nearly black. The booths wooden with greasy, gray cushions loosely tied onto them. It felt natural, like a cave inside a tree, at night. But it stank of heroin, cheap beer and raw sewage. Ian finished off his mug of watery beer in one, long gulp.

People moved around him but Ian took no notice of them. His mind was numb. Everything had been taken from him: his job, his accomplishments, his wife, his children, his invention, his money, his pride and dignity, his trust of the world - except for Jack. Jack he still had.
He’s a good boy.
So young and yet he made those flittering, talking robots. Inside he laughed but the laugh died before it could escape his dark, leaden mind.

A bone-thin woman in her underwear approached his table. “Swax,” she whispered. “A hundred a hit.” She walked in circles near Ian’s booth then threw herself onto the bench across from him. “Swax, pilgrim - you need it! Just a hundred a hit. Best deal all day.”