by Simon Archer
I glanced around. It was definitely one of my favorite rooms in the house. There was a matching mahogany China cabinet and table. The placemats on the table and the runner on the China cabinet had pictures of vineyards from Italy stitched into them. They were the perfect accent to the cream and merlot colored paint Kennedi had used for the walls. The room was lit by eight different recessed lights that were on a dimmer switch, so the mood of the room was easy to change.
“You look fantastic,” I started. “Don’t worry, that will change here in just a second. Grab your coffee. I have something to show you in my office.” The two of us stood up and walked out of the dining room, to a door on the other side of the living room. I opened the door, waited for Charlie to come in, and closed the door behind us.
“Have a seat, my friend.” I motioned to one of the leather loungers in a sitting area opposite my desk.
“Now, I know I have never seen this room before,” Charlie commented. Instead of sitting down right away, he walked over to the corner that had recessed, lighted glass shelves from floor to ceiling. He examined the shelves and then looked over at me with a surprised expression. “Did Kennedi make these?”
The shelves of the cabinet were full of sculptures of different places I have traveled to in my lifetime. They were all made out of hand-blown nano glass.
“She sure did,” I answered him. “She has me tell her stories about places I have visited, and then she re-creates a popular scene, or place, from that country.” I watched as Charlie examined Kennedi’s art. So far, she had made sculptures of the Sydney Opera House in Australia, a well-known crabbing boat from Alaska, Mount Kita in Japan, and a vineyard from Italy.
“I still need to get down to her art studio. Looking at these makes me think that visit might hit me in the pocketbook though,” Charlie quipped. He turned towards me and put on his serious face. “Alright, tell me what you’ve got.” He walked back over to the lounger I had initially sent him to, sat down, and put his coffee cup on a coaster on top of the coffee table that had been tiled different colors of blown nano glass well. I went to my desk, grabbed the envelope, and then sat opposite him, and put my coffee down as well. I took the letter out of the envelope, handed it to him, and watched while he read it. I saw redness climb up his neck and into his face and imagined that I had probably looked the same way the first time I’d read it. When he was done, he dropped the letter into his lap, sat back in his chair, and looked at me.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” he whispered angrily. “Is the shit for real?”
“My first thoughts exactly,” I told him. The paper in his lap was a cease-and-desist notice, as well as an intent to file lawsuit notice from Omnicorp to Vice Grip Solutions.
“They want to sue us for past monies earned through the sale of refurbished cat girls because the catgirls had the healing saliva in them already?” Charlie pondered, trying to wrap his head around what he had just read.
“Yes, sir,” I replied. “They are also requesting a mediation session to discuss us selling nano glass to them. Something about being the patent holders of the healing properties in the saliva and therefore needing access to the materials to produce the cat girls to use it in vital industries. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I think I have read that thing twenty times.”
“Who is this Floyd person?” Charlie asked, referring to Floyd Monarch’s signature at the bottom of the page.
“Apparently, he is the lead on the case,” I started. “This affects more than just VGS.”
“It would be a huge punch in the gut to UsForThem as well,” Charlie finished my thought.
“You’ve got it. Since cat girls have to have some sort of bill of sale, the adoption fees that Leah planned on using to get around that would be considered profit, and the lawsuit could extend to her because her abandoned cat girls all have the saliva as well,” I said angrily.
“We had better get her over here,” Charlie mumbled as he pulled his phone out of his pocket to call Leah. I got up and stood in front of the figurine of Mount Kita that Kennedi had made for me. It was during our trip to Japan that we had secured the nano glass contract and essentially put Omnicorp almost completely out of business. Without nano glass, they could no longer build cat girls. The only reason the company still had a hand in the cat girl industry was that it started making accessories for existing CGs, ones that did not require the special glass. I was lost in my memories of the trip when I heard Charlie put his phone on the coffee table. I walked back over and sat across from him again.
“Is she able to come?” I asked him.
“She is on her way now,” he replied. He leaned back in his chair and started shaking his head slowly. “I can honestly say this is not a curveball I expected. I pretty much thought we’d never have to deal with Omnicorp crap again.”
“They seemed to be coming back like a bad rash every so often, don’t they?” I quipped.
“If only we could find the right kind of cream to kill the rash!” Charlie said and started to laugh.
“Oh, we will find it. I have no doubt about that shit!” I commented back. I noticed Charlie’s coffee cup was nearly empty. I leaned over and picked it up. “You want a refill while we wait for Leah?”
“Yeah, that would be great. What kind of coffee is that, by the way? It’s a good brew,” Charlie replied.
“I would like you to think that I have that knowledge, but to be honest, the girls do most of the grocery shopping around here,” I chuckled. I picked up my cup as well and headed down to the kitchen for refills. I made sure to glance at the coffee packaging sitting on the counter next to the coffee pot before returning to my office. I sat down and slid Charlie’s coffee across the table to him.
“Thank you,” he said.
“I saw the packaging by the coffee pot. The name on it was The Death Wish Coffee company,” I reported.
“I will forget that before I even leave,” Charlie laughed. He raised a brow and turned his head to the side slightly. “Maybe have one of the girls pick me up a bag next time they are shopping for it?”
I sat back in my lounger and laughed.
“You’ve got it,” I told him. Right then, his phone beeped. He picked it up off the table and checked his messages.
“Leah is pulling up right now,” he notified me.
“Tell her the kitchen door is open and to just come right on in,” I replied as I stood up. “I’ll meet her and grab her a cup of coffee if she wants one.” I made my way to the kitchen and pulled out a coffee cup just as Leah walked in. I turned to say ‘hello,’ but saw that she was on the phone, so I just waved at her instead. I held up the coffee cup, and she nodded.
“I appreciate you taking the time,” Leah said into the phone. “When would be best for you?” I poured her coffee and motioned for her to follow me. We walked through both the dining room and living room as I led her into my office. She waved and smiled when she saw Charlie but held her finger up to let him know she would be with us in just a moment. I took my seat, set Leah’s coffee cup on the table, and Charlie looked over at me.
“Who is she talking to?” he mouthed. I put my hands up and shrugged.
“Sounds important, though,” I mouthed back. The two of us waited for her to finish her phone call. There was only a minute or two before she thanked whoever she was talking to and hung up. The hand she had her phone and dropped it to her side. She looked at the two of us with a shocked expression of disbelief.
“You will never guess who I was just on the phone with,” she whispered as though talking would take too much energy.
“You look like you just saw a ghost, why don’t you have a seat?” I motioned to one of the other nearby loungers. She walked over to it and sat down as if she was in a daze.
“Who was it?” Charlie asked her. She slowly looked over at him and tilted her head.
“That was Brody Woodin,” she said softly. Then she looked over to me, and I could see the excitement welling up in her eyes. “T
hat was freaking Brody Woodin!”
Charlie’s eyes got wide, and he sat forward in his chair. “Really?” He sounded almost as shocked as she had looked when she hung up. I glanced from one of them to the other.
“Who is Brody Woodin?” I felt as though I should know who this person was by the way they were talking about him. Leah slowly turned her head towards me.
“He is the most prestigious patent and ownership lawyer in the United States,” she told me. “I have been trying to get a meeting with him for months. He is extremely selective about the cases that he works.” Charlie sat even further forward in his chair.
“Did he schedule with you?” Charlie asked, sounding hopeful.
“He did. The meeting is two hours from now,” Leah told us as a huge smile spread across her face. Charlie and I exchanged knowing glances.
“Do you want to tell her, or should I?” I asked him.
“Tell me what?” Leah’s smile faded slightly. Charlie picked the ladder up from his lap and held it up for her to see.
“I don’t want to rain on your sunshine, but this is it a cease and desist letter from Omnicorp,” he started. “Clark got it in the mail yesterday.”
“Just what is it that they want you to stop doing?” Leah asked with alarm in her voice.
“To sum it up nice and pretty, they have intent to sue VGS for anything related to the CGs we have sold that already had saliva in them, citing their patent.”
“But that is all of them!” Leah hollered, quickly standing up.
“That’s not all,” I chimed in. “if they are able to get the lawsuit upheld, that would mean they could sue UsForThem in the same manner because you would be using the adoption fees to create a bill of sale.” As I watched Leah’s neck and face turn red, as mine had, I sat back in my chair to shrink away from what I was sure was going to be a monumental, angry, rant. Leah just stood there for a minute and said nothing. Then she slowly sat back down and took a deep breath.
“The term may be overused, and now I know why, but Omnicorp is one huge, ugly, toxic, selfish, asshole cockroach!” Her voice climbed in pitch as she spoke. “That would mean VGS would have to start building CGs from scratch as well.” Charlie started nodding his head slowly.
“Actually, it gets a little worse,” he started. “They also have the intent to make it so that we have to sell nano glass to them. They claim that they would need rights to it so that they can create the CGs that would have the ability to use healing saliva. They’re going at it from a ‘necessity to the medical industry’ standpoint.”
“But they have never allowed it to be used in medical facilities before!” Leah yelled. “Medical boards have been trying to get their hands on that stuff for years!”
Charlie and I both nodded at her. She took another deep breath, and I watched her face morph into a serious, cutthroat expression. She reached forward and took a drink of her coffee that had been left untouched until then. After a long sip, she set the cup back on the table and sat back in her chair.
“Well, it looks like my meeting with Brody is going to be a little different from how I imagined it.” She glanced up at Charlie and me. “The two of you are going to need to come with me.”
“Don’t you think it is a little bit out of his scope of practice?” Charlie asked her.
“No, I do not,” Leah replied. “I have been working to find out a way to make the CG saliva accessible to the medical industry, but I was going about it from the standpoint of CG ownership. We obviously need another strategy since Omnicorp has just made it product-specific.”
“Are you thinking along the lines of forcing Omnicorp to allow the trademarked usage of the saliva?” I asked her.
“I’m not going to speculate just yet. Let’s talk to Brody and see what our options are. You will be able to make the meeting, yes?” Leah posed it more as a statement than a question.
“Absolutely,” I replied. “I think it would be a good idea to have Kennedi and Ellie come along with us.” Charlie started nodding his head.
“A human lie detector, and someone that can download every piece of law that’ll possibly be applicable. I think that would be a smart move,” he confirmed.
“I will call them right now. Keep your fingers crossed that they aren’t doing anything they can’t get out of.” The three of us stood up together.
“I will text you the address,” Leah said. She pulled out her phone and started typing. Moments later, I heard my phone beep from its place on my desk. She and Charlie started to pick up their coffee cups to take them back to the kitchen.
“Leave those. I will take care of them. Just go get yourselves ready for the meeting, and I’ll meet you there,” I told them. They set their cups down and walked to the door. Charlie opened it but paused.
“There is no way we are going to let Omnicorp dick us around again,” he said.
“You are one-hundred percent correct about that,” I replied and watched as they walked out. I picked up my phone and dialed Kennedi’s art studio. It only rang twice before she answered.
“Hello, Clark!” Kennedi said cheerily on the other end of the line.
“Hey, Kennedi,” I started. “Listen, I need you to come to a meeting with Charlie, Leah, and me. I can swing by and pick you up. Do you have any conflicts? The meeting is in two hours.”
“No conflicts!” she said happily. “What is the meeting for?”
“I will fill you in on the way,” I told her.
“Sounds great!” she replied. I hung the phone and immediately dialed Belavi. I needed to make sure that Ellie had time to do what we needed her to before I picked her up.
“Thank you for calling Belavi. This is Lynn. How may I help you?” The voice on the other end of the line said when they picked up.
“Hi, Lynn. It’s Clark. Is Ellie available?” I asked.
“Well, I think she just got started on--“
“Let me rephrase. I need to talk to Ellie,” I said in a stern but polite voice.
“I will go get her now,” Lynn replied. She put me on hold, and I listened to soft jazz for a full two minutes before I heard Ellie’s voice on the other end of the line.
“Hi, Clark!” she answered the phone.
“Hi, Ellie. How quickly can you download everything and anything that has to do with patent and ownership law?” I asked her.
“Not including the time that it would take to get to the store, it would take approximately two and one-half minutes,” she answered. “Why?”
“That is exactly what I need you to do as soon as possible,” I told her. “I will also need you to come to a meeting with me in two hours. Can you make that happen?”
“Give me thirty seconds to check with Bev,” Ellie said and immediately put me on hold. The soft jazz started playing again. Almost exactly thirty seconds later, Ellie got back on the line.
“That timeline will work,” she said. “Barely, but it will.”
“Perfect. I will meet you at the store to pick you up,” I notified her.
“More details on the way?” she requested.
“Of course,” I told her. “See you then.” I hung up the phone and checked the time. I still needed to shower, get dressed, and grab clothes for the girls to change into. I wanted them to look as professional as possible for the meeting with Brody since cat girls tended to not be taken seriously by people who were not familiar with them.
10
One hour and forty-five minutes later, I pulled my 4Runner into an office building parking lot and parked. Charlie and Leah’s Town car pulled in right behind me. Ellie, Kennedi, and I got out and met Charlie and Leah as they were exiting their car.
“Everybody ready for this?” Leah asked all of us. We nodded our heads. “Good, the elevator is this way.”
Leah turned to her left and started walking. The rest of us followed her to a set of shiny, silver elevator doors. She pushed to the ‘up’ button, and the doors opened immediately. Once we were in, and the doors closed, we
rode up to the seventeenth floor of the building. When the doors opened again, we exited into a brightly lit hallway with soft blue, painted walls, and plush ivory carpeting. The sign directly across from the elevator doors told us that the office we were looking for was directly to our right. The five of us turned and started walking down the hall. There was only one office on this side of the elevator bank, and that belonged to Brody Woodin.
A concierge stood at the doorway to the suite. He had on a sharp-looking, navy blue suit and concierge hat. As we approached, he opened it and smiled.
“Welcome,” he said happily. “My name is Ben. Please be certain to check in with Alice behind our front desk, and let me know if there is anything that I can get you. Coffee, tea, soda, milkshake… anything at all.”
“We appreciate that, Ben. Thank you,” Ellie said strongly as we walked through the door. Ben just tipped his hat and smiled.
The suite was huge, and the walls were lined with bronze sconces. The place was huge and just as brightly lit as the hallway. The muted beige tones of the stone floor tile and walls gave the place a sort of calming energy, however. Off to the left, there were three different seating areas arranged separately from each other. Each was furnished with a different shade of brown leather furniture, but other than that, they were exactly the same. The setups included heavy oak coffee and tables, and each had a leather document binder and a shiny silver pen on top. On our right was a row of individual leather chairs pushed up against a wall and a massive reception desk. It looked more like a typical waiting area. The reception desk was bar height and made of oak and marble.
Behind the desk sat a young woman with her blonde hair pulled into a tight knot. She was wearing a light gray business suit, and her light brown eyes peered out at us from behind blue framed glasses. The five of us approached the desk, and Leah stepped forward to speak with the girl.
“Hello, I’m Leah Lindy. You must be Alice. I’m here to see Mr. Woodin,” she said quietly. Everything about the room made the place feel like speaking any louder than a soft tone was against the rules.