Project Orpheus: A Tale of Blood and Feathers

Chapter 31: The Generator

Derek got out of the car, grabbing the walkie and opening the door.

"Doc, we made it."

"Good! You remember which door is the right one, right?"

"Yeah, I do." Derek said. "Second from the back on the right."

"You got it, now plug that laptop in and run the program."

"Don't have to tell us twice," Michael said.

The two went into the building and down the assigned door, Derek keeping a close eye on Michael. He could see he was still shaking from their encounter with the Deinonychus.

"You gonna be okay, man?" He asked.

Michael looked at him, a smile on his face, and nodded. "Yeah. The, uh, the adrenaline. It's still in my system. I'll be alright once this is all over."

"You sure?"

"Yeah," Michael said. "I promise. I've...I was about to say I've been through worse, but that's a sort of...not entirely true? A more accurate statement would be I have been more stressed than this."

Derek wanted to ask what exactly he meant by that, but he figured it was a fairly personal question, so he decided then and there not to pry on the matter. Instead, he just lead him through the winding halls until they got to the generator. He fixed his eyes on the path ahead of them, making sure nothing was coming through the halls towards them.

"So, you're a lawyer. What's the strangest case you've ever been to court on?"

"Well I'm like 90% sure someone's going to end up in court because of this, so uh, this. But before this, let's see...hm..."

He could hear Michael scratching his chin in thought.

"So, there was this one time, I was in a case for negligence. I was arguing for the company. To make a long and...ridiculous story short, the plaintiff had sued the company, claiming that they didn't meet what we call, uh, 'duty of care.' It's this idea that people have to have a reasonable expectation of safety when they go places or take on a job. That precautions considered reasonable will be taken. Proving a duty of care, and then it's breach, are the first two steps of a negligence case. If the company didn't take reasonable precautions to ensure safety, then they're on the hook."

"And who decides what's reasonable?" Derek asked.

"Well, that's where all the lawyering comes in," Michael said, getting excited. Derek could hear his voice getting more steady. "Arguing about where the line of duty of care falls is the exact sort of legal shenanigans that I live for. Good arguments can almost always be made either way, so the right answer is whoever can argue their position better - be it through the law, the evidence, or sheer insane table pounding. That's also why a lot of people hate lawyers - we're very good at putting on different hats, taking up different positions, so it can seem like we ourselves don't actually have any."

"Do you?" He asked.

"Oh, all the time."

Derek stopped for a moment. "Wait, are you saying you are good at wearing different hats, or that you have actual positions."

"Yes." Michael flatley.

Derek rolled his eyes and went back to watching the path ahead. "So, tell me more about this case."

"Oh! Right! So, so, get this. This lady throws herself off the roof of the company, and then takes them to court. Apparently her first argument was going to be that she had a 'reasonable expectation' that she would die from the fall, and because she didn't the company should be held responsible. Her lawyer pointed out that was batshit, so the argument changed to their not being enough safety to prevent a fall up there. Long story short, we were able to prove that the guard rails and bracing on the roof were enough that no normal person would be able to accidentally knock themselves off, they'd have to be deliberately trying. The woman had attempted suicide, failed, and wanted to see if she could at least improve her life off of it."

"That's...actually kind of sad."

"It really is," Michael sighed. "Frankly, if she had made the argument that the company had driven her to suicide, she might have had a really strong case. There was plenty of evidence that they were specifically treating her like shit. But for whatever reason that's not what she wanted the case to be about. Anyway, what made the case so strange was the lady herself. She was...well, to be as polite as I can be, completely off her rocker. She'd often come into court dressed in these ridiculously gaudy dresses with sequins and sparkles. She brought in these little red and yellow cards that she gave to anyone who did something to annoy her. But the real showstopper was when she was asked to describe her injuries to the court - she stripped down to show everyone the bruises."

"Holy shit really?!"

"Yes, really. Needless to say, a recess was called right after that."

"Wow. That...that is one crazy lady."

"Yeah. Like I said, I kinda feel bad for her, but it was...entertaining, if nothing else."

"Ah, we're here." Derek said.

They walked into the room, and Michael ran over to the network cable, plugging it straight into the laptop. Derek watched his back as he got to work. Michael tapped a few keys and clicked open the file. The screen filled with black and white as the program ran, moving so fast that neither of them could actually read anything. It especially got hard when other command prompts opened, one after another, also filling up with lines of code.

The lights flickered on and off for a moment, but the power came back on completely.

Derek pressed the talk button, "Noh, we got it!"