Chapter Text
I was sitting at my desk in the unaffiliated solicitors’ office when the alert popped up on my feed. It was meant to be very noticeable, flashing across my interface view in bright red, all-caps letters: ATTENTION: YOU HAVE BEEN SERVED.
Needless to say, it startled me. I’d literally just gotten into a good research flow (compiling example bot citizenship statutes from other non-corporate political entities), which the alert very inconsiderately interrupted. I’d also just picked up my coffee mug to take a sip, and almost spilled the damn thing all over myself in my shock.
I could tell immediately that it was a complaint from the Corporation Rim, since I had registered myself as Preservation’s designated agent for service. In order for Preservation to conduct any kind of research or business within the Corporation Rim, their law required we make it convenient for any of their persons (which included the corporations themselves, of course) to initiate a lawsuit against us. Meaning, I had to give someone’s feed address to be publically available for service of legal documents. I’d put myself down without thinking too much of it (“Oh, we won’t do anything to get us sued, that’s crazy!” Right. Great thinking, idiot), but had since regretted that decision.
I muted the alert and stood from my chair, trying to breath at a normal rate to get my heart to stop trying to pound its way out of my chest. It wasn’t the fact that we were being sued again, it was more the sudden burst of loud noise accompanied by flashing giant text in my vision. And, okay, also the fact that we were being sued again was admittedly a teeny bit stressful. I started walking down the row of desks towards the door into the main atrium; pacing helps me think, sometimes.
“You okay?” One of the other unaffiliated solicitors, Muna, stuck her head around the corner of her desk’s privacy cover. “I heard you, uh, squeak,” she said, grinning at me good naturedly.
“Yeah. No. Well, probably. Another CR complaint, but I don’t know what it’s about yet,” I replied. “And I did not ‘squeak.’”
She shrugged. “Okay, if you say so, Pin-Chee,” she said, her voice lilting up at the end of her sentence. (Pinchy is a cartoon mouse from a children’s show, and also her nickname for me. It would annoy me if she wasn’t so cute about it). “But, shit. Let me know if you need any help with it, ‘kay?”
“Thanks, Mun-mun. I will, but I’ve gotta go read it first.”
Muna made an affirmative hand motion, and I continued on my way out of the office. After exiting into the main atrium outside, I ascended to the second level where the walking path circled around the station’s professional office district. I took a deep breath, started walking, and opened the complaint in the right side of my feed interface’s vision overlay.
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CORPORATION RIM |
IN THE GENERAL COURT OF JUSTICE |
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TEEGARDEN SYSTEM |
DISTRICT COURT DIVISION |
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_72-CV-0019717__ |
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<THE COMPANY>, |
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Plaintiff, |
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vs. |
) COMPLAINT |
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) (JURY TRIAL DEMANDED) |
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PRESERVATION, |
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Defendant. |
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______________________________________________ |
) __________________________________________________ |
Yeah, okay, so it was basically what I’d been expecting, except… <The Company>? Wasn’t that…?
Shit. Bloody fucking shit.
I pulled up my private feed connection to Mensah, began to draft a half-panicked message, then deleted it. Gotta get it together, Pin-Lee, let’s get a better idea of what this actually is before you go freaking out the literal planetary leader. I pulled the complaint back to the front of my interface view and scrolled down.
Plaintiff, <The Company>, by and through its attorneys, bring this complaint… Blah blah blah. Standard language, statutes I don’t immediately recognize by number, and… bloody fucking shit, “…the Defendant’s failure to comply with contractual obligations and 23 CRGS §§ 47 et seq. resulted in tortious interference with contract, misappropriation of trade secrets, unfair and deceptive practices, civil conspiracy, and unjust enrichment pursuant to…” I noted down all the statute numbers to cross reference later.
Right, that was a lot of claims, but I couldn’t think of anything that we’d have done to <The Company> that would actually rise to that level. I scrolled down to the factual allegations. It started with a bunch of nonsense about our original security contract with <The Company>, then…
- Upon completion of the Security Contract’s term, Defendant opted to permanently purchase the contract of one (1) refurbished Security Unit, UN-80159, from Plaintiff.
- At the time of purchase, Defendant agreed to abide by all provisions of a contract for purchase (Hereinafter the “Purchase Contract”). See Exhibit B.
- The Purchase Contract contained a provision forbidding the reverse engineering of any Security Unit hardware or software, under penalty of statutory and stipulated damages.
- Upon information and belief, Defendant reverse engineered portions of Plaintiff’s proprietary Security Unit code and has distributed it to Plaintiff’s competitors, including but not limited to, Barish-Estranza.
Right, now that was interesting. As far as I was aware, SecUnit hadn’t let anyone on Preservation anywhere near its “proprietary code.” But <The Company> appeared to believe we’d… what? Downloaded a copy of SecUnit’s brain, and… Oh, wait. Shit. I guess that back at the Adamantine colony, SecUnit and Perihelion had kind of done exactly that. (Maybe? I wasn’t very clear on what exactly the two of them had been doing together). But they hadn’t distributed that copy to anyone; I’d been told by Perihelion’s crew that it had been deleted while down at the lost colony site.
So… maybe this was about something else? I reopened my private feed connection with Mensah, and sent, Received a complaint from <The Company>. They’re claiming we misused their trade secrets, meaning SecUnit’s code. Not a whole lot of detail in the complaint to explain what exactly they think we did, any ideas?
In under a minute, Mensah replied, I think I might know what they’re referring to, then added Dr. Bharadwaj to the connection.
A minute pause, then Dr. Bharadwaj asked, Do you remember how SecUnit “went rogue” to begin with?
Me: It hacked its own governor module?
Bharadwaj: Yes.
Me: They can’t seriously be saying that that counts as trade secret misappropriation.
Bharadwaj: Maybe, I don’t know how that works. But I do believe that on several occasions after that, SecUnit may have given that same governor-module-hacking code to other Security Units.
I removed the connection from my interface view and walked down past the pipefitters union office, then back to where I’d come. I reopened the connection and ran a hand down my face. My forehead was sweatier than I’d been expecting, my cheeks warm. I replied, If that’s true, then we’re going to have to start preparing our defense.