Chapter 7: Lawyer Up (Part II)

“Hoy Carmina,” said Larry, using her RPG nickname. The name of her very first GURPS character ever, to her pride she still had the character sheet too. It became her erstwhile moniker for all things role playing and as a result also her handle for the club.

Lindsay—a petite law student with a hard jaw, and a harder nose—piped up, “Mage slot is open—ah, I see you got it already.”

“Yo,” said the final member of the trio from the other end of the console. Jules, one of her coworkers on the College of Education Student Computer Lab IT staff. He had all the good looks of a slack-jawed yokel just fallen off the hay wagon, with frizzy straw-colored hair, and a wore cowboy hat atop his head. His eyes were permanently half-lidded like he was always sleepy (or others surmised toking weed) but Elaine knew better. Jules could strip a PC to components and put it back together again faster than anyone else she knew.

Magic Missile! shouted her on-screen avatar as he cut through an oncoming barrage of warturtle-riding kobolds. The buttons underneath her fingers, and teammates to spend time with, a good way to escape from the droll tones of Statistics at least.

“There was a strange notice taped to your door today,” Jules said. “Does it have anything to do with what happened to your lab?”

“I haven’t been back to my room yet…” Elaine said. She had literally gone directly from raiding the Utgarde Keep to class. It wasn’t uncommon for her not to sleep at all. It wasn’t like she had a roommate in her dorm room to come back to or bother if she did come home at hell’o’clock in the morning. “You heard about my lab?”

“Who hasn’t?”

“What happened to her lab?” asked Lindsay. She was playing the thief—a lithe, quick thing who never spent a lot of time standing in one place. Swift, certain, and capable of stabbing enemies in the back.

“The campus cops decided to raid it,” Elaine griped. “They took all my stuff. Not a word to me. I’m told they think I was fingered for downloading music or some B.S.”

The screen changed abruptly as the current wave of enemies subsided. The music became softer, sedate. Safety.

“Uh huh.” Lindsay’s eye flashed for a moment with reflections of the screen. “If you need any help with what’s going on. You call me. I will get you hooked up. ASU is indemnified by law against certain damages in the outcome of things like this, but you might need to mount a defense against the charge. You could get expelled.”

“I didn’t even do it!” Elaine protested.

“Exactly the type of person who needs a good defense.”

Of course, she’d also been hoping to avoid discussions like this. She had no information. Didn’t know what was actually going on. Just that she was at the mercy of the Dean—whom she had yet conveniently avoided seeing. Professor Mickelson, her curriculum counselor, and the executor of one of the grants she was about to lose, probably wanted to see her. Although, it was strange he hadn’t called.

He had extremely late office hours. So if he hadn’t called the previous night, he didn’t know yet.

“It’s the DMCA,” Larry said. “People have been using that stupid law to railroad people’s free speech for a while now. Tromping all over people’s rights just to feed these giant media corporations on the culture that we produce for them. It really pisses me off.”

Lindsay rolled her eyes. “Or, they’re obligated by law to investigate. And this is how they do that. Elaine, Have you spoken to the Dean yet?”

“No.”

“You might want to do that soon. The sooner the better. But, if you feel like you’re being grilled get yourself some representation. I can help you with that. Actually. Let me write down a name for you.”

She bent down to pull a black pad out of her purse. Her shapely legs were covered in white stockings, terminating in pricey red pumps. She certainly fit the bill of the high-class lawyer, even the cut of her clothing looked expensive. Lindsay reminded Elaine momentarily of her own mental dissection of the photos on Emily Early’s iPhone.

Elaine mused for a moment that if only she’d chosen to go into a profession like being a lawyer or a bureaucrat maybe she wouldn’t have to wonder about what would happen to her lab. She could take to it hands-on. Except that she also wouldn’t have a lab; and she’d have to work with other people daily. People she’d have to pretend to be someone else for.

That would hardly be worth being rich.

Lindsay scribbled something on her pad and tore it off.

“Tomorrow, five-ish, come by the Law Library and ask the front desk for Timothy Hector. Talk to him about the situation, okay?”

Elaine looked the note numbly. The whole offering-of-a-friends-services happened so quickly that she couldn’t refuse. Was it proper to refuse? Was this like a gift or did she have to do something? It took her a moment to realize that Lindsay was waiting for her to take it. Elaine schooled her expression to something that mimicked the half-smile of a thankful recipient still uncertain of what might happen.

“Don’t worry,” Lindsay said. “He’ll take good care of you. I promise. I’d do it myself, but I’m up to my ears in law research. They’re trying to implement run off elections this year for Student Council and it’s taking an entire team of us to draft out the regulations before the guiding council will accept it and let it happen.”

“I understand,” Elaine said. “I appreciate this.”

“Speak not of it,” she said. “Let’s get back to running roughshod over Mystara, shall we?”

To her left, Jules held up the game dallying over extra potion choices so Elaine had a moment to let her eyes wander. There, glittering in the dark under an overhang, frizzling arcs of electricity spidered out of a wall socket. They groped around blindly as if looking for something, then receded leaving tiny black scorch marks.

She frowned at it. Another gremlin?

But she had no time to pursue idle curiosity—Jules had finished his purchases and it was time to get back to cutting down the wave after wave of pixilated foes.