The year was 2120, a great year for Disney. A great year for copyright protections, via the Copyright Protection Act of 2120. A great year for copyright lawyers, for infringements abounded. Copyright lawyers have since become less of a hot commodity, as much of the archive became lost to public memory, but the specialty remains for those pedantic enough to enjoy it.

The year is 2325, a great year for Pearl, who passed the bar a year prior, was promptly hired by Disney, and is now sitting on a massive bed in a massive hotel room, far from her home planet, all bankrolled by her new employer. Disney doesn’t have a branch here. The planet is full of resorts and retirees, and too far from anywhere important enough to make a branch strategic. Not the first place anyone would expect to find a copyright infringement case, let alone one so egregious.

Pearl considers whether or not to unpack. There are quite a lot of outfits that ought to be hung up. A knock comes at the door, and she resolves to do it later. She answers it, and finds Cressida, her paralegal, has changed into a floral sun dress and a floppy sun hat. The red flowers on the dress clash terribly with her orange dye-job.

“You changed,” Pearl says.

“You didn’t?” Cressida asks. “Disney put us up at a beachfront hotel. The most expensive hotel in the northern hemisphere.”

“On a backwater retirement community planet for the middle class,” says Pearl, wondering, if she doesn’t sound a bit mean.

Cressida didn’t let on, if she thought so. Instead, she laughed. “Well let’s go down to the bar and see if the alcohol can at least withstand your critical palette. I’ve got the case file.”

The bar is indoor-outdoor, taking advantage of the perennially good weather (minus the periodic torrential rainfall, that, according to her idle research during the trip, had only gotten worse since colonization). Pearl does not necessarily look out of place in her matching designer athleisure, but she feels out of place anyway, surrounded by the happy elderly and their equally happy family members. She feels some sense of kinship with the bustling hotel staff, who are all much closer in age to her, but more importantly, she shares a bone-weary jadedness with them that they are all too young to be experiencing. At least the staff have an excuse, catering to people making up for a lifetime of drudgery by going out with a bang. Pearl was just born a little bit miserable.

The local time can’t be much past noon, but the bar is crowded anyway. Pearl and Cressida have to wait for a pair of silver foxes to walk away with their cocktails before there’s even space to speak with a bartender. Optimistically, Pearl allows Cressida to order for the both of them, scoping out a free table on the outskirts while she waits. This is her first mistake of many.

Cressida hands her a tall glass, overfilled with colorful slush and pieces of exotic fruit. Some of it slops over the sugared (why is it sugared?) rim and onto Pearl’s fingers. 

“It’s a piña colada!” Cressida says brightly, even though none of the colors resemble the color that a piña colada ought to be and none of the fruits speared in the drink are fruits that ought to be in a piña colada. 

“Right,” says Pearl, walking straight into her second mistake.

Sugary slop spills down the front of the person she bumped into, and Pearl jerks back,  barely avoiding the same fate. Her brand new set of lavender mist leggings and tank top remain unscathed, though their purported waterproof capabilities may have left them better off than Pearl’s victim’s bermuda shorts.

“I am so sorry,” Pearl says, reaching forward to mop up some of the mess before realizing that she has nothing to mop it up with and that she would be touching the bare stomach of the woman in front of her. Awkwardly, Pearl pulls her hand back, and the two of them watch pink slushy drip onto tan bermuda shorts.

“Damn,” Bermuda Shorts hisses. “These were new.”

“They weren’t expensive, were they?” Pearl asks. “I can reimburse you the cost.”

“Dreadfully expensive, I’m afraid,” says Bermuda Shorts. The slushy has begun to melt, sending pink rivulets down her stomach to drip on the waistband of her shorts.

Pearl fumbles for her comm bracelet, misremembering which wrist she had put it on after removing it for her security check. “I’ll send you the money now. How much–”

Bermuda Shorts grabs Pearl’s hand, heedless of her sticky fingers. “We can forget the shorts,” she says, “if you’ll let me buy you a new drink. Was that the piña colada? I’ve heard it’s the house specialty here.”

Pearl scoffs, outraged, and removes her hand from Bermuda Shorts’ grip, hoping she looks as affronted as she feels. Then, her mouth betrays her: her third mistake. “Your shorts weren’t expensive at all!” she says stupidly, before turning and flouncing away, as much as her tight fitting athleisure allows her to flounce. Her face burns, and she knows she is as pink as the drink dripping down Bermuda Shorts’ abs.

Cressida trails after her, offering to buy her a replacement drink.

“No!” Pearl snaps, then sighs. “Thank you, Cressida, but no. I’m not a fan of sweet things, anyhow, and I don’t need a drink. You find us a table, and I’ll meet you there once I’ve freshened up.”

Pearl retreats before Cressida can say or do anything else causing undue amounts of inconvenience or embarrassment. Squeezing through throngs of elderly to find the restroom, she expects it to be as crowded as the bar is. Blessedly, it is empty.

She scrubs her hands harder than she needs to with more soap than she should use. It froths up between her fingers and spirals down the stone basin styled to look like a volcano, though there are none on the planet. She’s never been in such a florid restroom before–tacky, yet clearly expensive.

Inspecting herself in the mirror, she reapplies her lipstick and considers whether she should touch up the rest of her makeup. The humidity is unfamiliar, and she wonders if she might sweat the product off almost as soon as she applies it. Behind her, somebody flushes and a stall door bangs open. Footsteps. Then, the somebody emerges from behind the dividing wall sculpted to look like some kind of rainforest with colorful birds exploding out of it in disconcerting 3D. Somebody wearing pink stained bermuda shorts, a sporty looking bikini top, and a horrendous open shirt printed with a white bearded old man.

Pearl’s stomach drops as their eyes meet in the mirror. Bermuda Shorts can see Pearl looking at her, and she quirks her lips into a smirk. Quickly, Pearl averts her eyes, fumbles her lipstick into her purse, and flees.

Luckily, Cressida’s hair is dyed a violent shade of orange that stands out quite starkly in a sea of salt and pepper, even under her sunhat. Pearl does not run, but walks very quickly while maintaining her poise to join her at the small table Cressida has claimed.

“Remind me of the defendant again?” Pearl asks quickly, cutting off anything Cressida might be waiting to say.

Cressida’s brow furrows. Pretrial had been completed weeks before traveling out, of course, and before that, months of back and forth between Disney and the defendant who refused to get a lawyer or even learn the proceedings. “The defendant is Solar Cabrera,” Cressida says. “She owns and operates some sort of physical media store, selling blu-ray discs. Last December, she put on a so-called Seasonal Film-stravangaza. The films included stuff from the Disney vault that she was distributing without proper licensing. Nothing she distributes is licensed.”

“Right,” Pearl says, though she knows all of this very well. Correspondence with Cabrera had been infuriating, and her only solace had been knowing how quickly the judge would decide since Cabrera was so dead-set on bringing the case to trial instead of simply acquiescing to Disney’s cease and desist. “We go to trial tomorrow,” she says, more to herself than to Cressida.

Cressida leans forward eagerly. “That’s right. Would you like to review what was found in discovery? Our plan?”

Pearl waves her off. “No.” She stands. “No. I think I am going to bed. Enjoy your…piña colada.”

And Pearl goes to up to her room. She showers, though she plans to shower again in the morning, before court. She carefully sets out her outfit for the next day, down to the makeup palettes she intends to use. She slips into her slinky silk nightie which makes her feel more like a successful lawyer than any of her sensible lawyerly court outfits make her feel, and she crawls into bed.

She lies awake for hours.

Her thoughts aren’t necessarily about Bermuda Shorts. They are too fast to hold onto for any length of time, about too many different things to pin down, and that suits her just fine.

In the morning, Pearl globs color corrector and concealer under the deep bluish circles that have appeared under her eyes. When she first saw them, she was outraged. Her skincare routine was too immaculate, too expensive, to develop dark circles. She tosses her eye cream in the trash on a whim but finds herself fishing it out again halfway through her makeup routine. It really was too expensive.

By the time she is finished, no one could ever guess Pearl was suffering from a sleepless night. No one could ever guess that Pearl suffered from any human malady of ugliness at all. With the power of makeup–and intense attention to detail–she was immune to mundane things like flaws.

She takes a luxuriant early breakfast before Cressida can attempt to invite her, and she watches the sea. It is early enough that the beach is only dotted by a few fellow early-risers. Her breakfast of exotic fruits and a decadent flaky pastry Pearl would have never eaten in the presence of another human being makes her feel as if she is on vacation. As if she is the person that she wants to be–is going to be in a few years, once she establishes herself. One day, she will be the kind of woman who takes vacations.

Cressida tries to send several messages, but Pearl ignores them all. Unluckily, she finds Pearl anyway. Luckily, Pearl has long finished her pastry and the staff had cleared away the evidence, topping off her coffee.

“Cressida,” Pearl says, as if it is a delightful surprise to see her coworker.

“You can call me Cress, you know,” says Cressida. “You hungry?”

“I know, Cressida.” Pearl takes a sip of her coffee. “I’m not hungry.”

“Well, I’m starving.”

Cressida orders her own breakfast–some sugar filled colorful monstrosity, traits which Pearl is coming to understand hold great appeal for Cressida. Maybe when the case was finished, she would buy her a scented candle as a thank you gift—something disgusting and fruity.

Pearl, though she hates to admit it, is still relatively untested as a lawyer. It was her impressive references and resume that secured her the job with Disney’s legal team, but she was hardly a seasoned lawyer then and still isn’t now. Every time she is in court, her stomach twists itself into knots in court, and she runs through worst-case scenarios in her head. This time is no different.

What if Pearl can’t remember the judge’s name? What is the judge’s name again? What if Cressida forgot the notes? What if Cressida didn’t forget the notes but Pearl has forgotten how to read?

Glancing down, she checks if she still knows how to read. The silliness of the action snaps her out of it, and she studies the notes carefully, as if there is some particular detail she would like to review a final time. No one is looking at her, of course, but she does it anyway, as if it will trick herself into forgetting the embarrassing thought.

Except, someone is looking at her. She can feel a gaze upon her, almost burning. Ready to flash a winning, yet appropriately politic smile to the judge, she looks up. The smile freezes on her face, probably making her look more like a startled gargoyle than a lawyer primed to win a case. Bermuda Shorts returns her smile, a little crooked in a way that should look awkward but turns out a little roguish and therefore charming. She mimes drinking a cocktail and widens her eyes, as if Pearl will understand what she means. Pearl does, so she forces her own gaze down again, holding the tablet with the documents higher than she needs to, so that Bermuda Shorts can see that she is busy. Busy looking over the plan that will handily win Disney the case and leave Bermuda Shorts in oblivion, where she belongs.

The words on the tablet swirl before her eyes, rearranging themselves into a fact Pearl already knows. Bermuda Shorts is Solar Cabrera. Solar Cabrera is the defendant. The defendant is wearing bermuda shorts, an open button up shirt, and a sports bra to court.

Pearl doesn’t know how she makes it through her opening statements, how she doesn’t sit, mouth agape as Bermuda Shorts gives her own opening statements, lawyerless and in her stupid little outfit. Pearl’s only saving grace is that she is certainly going to win. Bermuda Shorts doesn’t stand a chance. The case will be over in a few days, at the absolute longest, and Pearl can leave this backwater planet behind.

Court ends, and Pearl finds herself waving Cressida off. She orders a magcab, intending to ride back to the hotel alone to gather her thoughts without Cressida yammering away in her ear the whole time. Instead, when prompted for directions, Pearl spits out an address she was not aware she remembered. The modulated voice confirms the address, and Pearl says nothing to contradict, even as the horror of what she has said dawns upon her. She obeys its prompt to fasten her safety belt, and the cab whirs through the streets.

Manicured tropical plants blur into shades of green as they pass by the window. The magcab is probably programmed to take the most aesthetically pleasing route, but to Pearl, it’s about as interesting as the bread her 3D printer would assemble after being filled with carbohydrate mixture in the morning. Bland, flavorless, and arguably nutritionless. 

The magcab turns onto a less aesthetically pleasing route, and more mundane businesses take the place of the tropical plants and cute little boutiques and quaint cafes. This is clearly the part of town that the actual residents utilize. Warehouses, offices, and hospitals pass by.

It’s a short ride, despite the touristy detour. The magcab glides to a halt in front of a boxy blue and yellow building. It’s like nothing Pearl has seen in real life. It resembles the photos of Earth she was shown in her history classes, though in those photos, the boxy buildings sprawled over miles and miles of concrete and asphalt. Here, it stands alone, almost proud of itself in its anachronism. It’s hideous. It is not worth the credits Pearl spent to see it.

There is no sign and no logo. Written in large yellow letters is: Physical Media Vintage DVD, VHS, Blu-Ray, and More.

Pearl has no idea what most any of the acronyms stand for. She is only familiar with them as letters on her documents detailing the case. Solar Cabrera—Bermuda Shorts—is some kind of physical media aficionado. She owns and operates a physical media store, selling to other hobbyists who are stuck in the past. Weird, but not a crime.

The issue is the Seasonal Film-Stravaganza. Bermuda Shorts live streamed films that hadn’t seen the light of day in centuries. There is no telling how she got her hands on the films—a mole with archival access, perhaps, though mole is such a strong word for it. This isn’t some spy conspiracy. It’s an idiot obsessed with the past stealing intellectual property to show to other idiots obsessed with the past. Almost not worth pursuing. There’s a reason that Disney sent Pearl and not one of their other, more senior lawyers.

Before she really knows what she’s doing, Pearl tries to go in through the front door of the shop. It’s locked, of course. What kind of store owner keeps the store open the day of a court date? There’s no way vintage blu-rays, whatever the hell those are, bring in enough money to hire employees. It’s a wonder Bermuda Shorts can afford the clothes she wears. Maybe that’s why she wears so few clothes.

“We’re closed.”

Pearl whirls around to find herself face to face with Bermuda Shorts.

Bermuda Shorts wears that stupid crooked smile of hers. There’s a small white scar at the corner of her mouth that Pearl never noticed before. “Though I could make an exception for you.”

“You,” says Pearl. “You—You.”

While Pearl stutters, Bermuda Shorts walks up and gently pushes her away from the door. She unlocks it with a small piece of metal. Is that a key? How did she even get one of those made? She opens the door wide, gallantly, and Pearl doesn’t mean to walk in, but then she does, and she’s inside, standing on some horrendously ugly short carpet that she knows Bermuda Shorts must have selected with such care. Probably some sort of attempt of being true to the period, though what period, Pearl isn’t exactly sure.

Bermuda Shorts looks at her expectantly. Pearl looks inside herself expectantly. There are a lot of words in there, swirling around, fighting to bubble up.

“You’re going to lose,” she says, finally. “You are not good at representing yourself. Put on some pants, at the very least. Cover your—” Pearl gesticulates wildly at Bermuda Shorts’ toned torso. “That.”

“Is my,” Bermuda Shorts gesticulates at her own torso, “this distracting you?”

“Yes!” Pearl shouts. “Me, and the judge, and any poor soul who wanders into to witness this travesty of a case!”

Bermuda Shorts nods agreeably. “I’m known to be quite distracting in my personal life as well. I should have considered the effect I might have on the people in court.”

Pearl’s face burns. “You should have,” she says finally, storming out of the ugly building.

Bermuda Shorts does not take Pearl’s incredibly basic advice of not showing up in shorts, midriff exposed. If anything, she does the opposite, putting together the ugliest outfit Pearl has ever laid eyes on. She can’t look away.

Representing herself in teal shorts, a hot pink sports bra (her formal sports bra, Pearl presumes), an open button up shirt which sports a tacky floral pattern that clashes quite horribly with the rest of the ensemble, and a backwards baseball cap with her store colors and name on it, Bermuda Shorts speaks to the judge in exceedingly casual, unguarded terms. Pearl is beginning to wonder whether Bermuda Shorts even wants to win the case.

Pearl begins presenting the vast amounts of evidence amassed by Disney and organized by Cressida and herself. How Bermuda Shorts announced the Seasonal Film-stravaganza in public forums and social media pages dedicated to physical media and other old nerdy things. How she live streamed 24 hours a day, every day of December, playing movies that Disney had locked away for years. How she began to burn the stolen films onto hard copies and listed them for sale, shipping them off-planet even, for anyone to purchase.

Bermuda Shorts tries to interrupt her several times, and Pearl’s only saving grace is the judge silencing her. She isn’t sure what she would have done without the buffer of court. Strangle her, maybe? Spontaneously combust? Perhaps both, simultaneously.

Miraculously, court comes to an end, before Pearl has even finished presenting the heaps upon heaps of evidence against Bermuda Shorts. She no longer has to compose herself in the presence of a vulgar person wearing a vulgar outfit.

“Won’t be much longer,” Cressida says smugly. “She has no clue what she’s doing. Not that it would matter. She’s going to wish she had just rolled over and taken the fines.”

Pearl murmurs agreement, in no hurry to leave quickly and risk catching up to Bermuda Shorts. She just needs to get back to the hotel and enjoy a nice long soak. Maybe she would even do it in the ocean. When packing, she had considered bringing a bathing suit, and then declared it a faux pas for a work trip. But she could buy a new one. She deserves a new one.

“I have to buy a bathing suit,” she tells Cressida, and walks off before Cressida can invite herself to try on bikinis alongside Pearl.

Ordering herself another magcab, she thinks of the kind of bikini she might buy. Something classy, of course. Are ruffles in right now? Even if ruffles aren’t in, she thinks she might like a ruffled bikini, if she can find one. Ruffles are youthful, whimsical. Pearl isn’t particularly whimsical, but she likes it when her wardrobe is. She likes knowing that people look at her and think whimsy.

The magcab arrives, and Pearl means to ask it about stores that sell bathing suits. She opens her mouth, and her brain thinks the words. But then, Pearls mind is filled with teal shorts and subtle abs and the little bun that bobs when she walks without a hat on, and instead she supplies the magcab with the physical media store address. Startled at her own behavior, she sits through the ride in silence, too embarrassed to change her mind, even if it’s only in front of an AI designed to motor tourists around the city.

Pearl throws herself out of the magcab, having made up her mind to give Bermuda Shorts a piece of her mind. She barges into the store, a little bell tinkling her arrival. Bermuda Shorts is behind the counter, though there is no reason for her to be. The only person in the store is Pearl, and Pearl has no intention of buying any of the trash sold here.

“You couldn’t even do one thing!” Pearl shouts. “Show up to court in real clothes! I gave you the most basic of advice, and you couldn’t even follow it!” She wants to put her head in her hands, but she refrains.

“You don’t like my outfit?” Bermuda Shorts does a little twirl and flourish. “I picked it out especially for you.”

“It’s like you want to lose!” Pearl is unable to keep herself from pacing back and forth. Bermuda Shorts gives her restless energy like nothing and no one else in her life ever has. “Do you?” She stops pacing and looks Bermuda Shorts in her dark brown eyes. “Do you want to lose?”

“Do you?” asks Bermuda Shorts. “Why are you coming here and giving me all this advice? Aren’t I your sworn enemy or something?”

Pearl shrieks and flails her arms. She makes a tactical withdrawal. Even the few minutes it would take a magcab to arrive is too long, so Pearl takes the long walk to the hotel herself rather than loiter around pathetically in front of Bermuda Shorts’ windows.

The walk clears her head, and Pearl realizes what she needs and what she doesn’t need. She needs a drink. She does not need a bikini. She needs a cold shower. She does not need a sunset swim in an ocean full of fish piss.

Her original destination is the hotel bar, but she dreads meeting Cressida there and potentially having to make small talk about a bikini that she didn’t purchase. She passes by some tiki-themed monstrosity, and she considers, for the first time, that she doesn’t know what tiki is or why it is associated with beaches. She discards the thought and her disdain for umbrellas in fruity cocktails along with it, walking into the bar.

Ukulele music plays faintly through the roar of conversation. The bar is a tourist trap. The decoration should have made that obvious, but angry faced cups half as tall as Pearl is make it unmistakable.

Moderately busy, it takes a few minutes before Pearl is able to order and get her drink. Her  martini looks out of place among the tropical drinks stuck all over with novelty straws shaped like sunglasses. Still, with the dull roar of conversation in her ears, it’s a little easier for her to tame the embarrassment still roiling in her stomach. The martinis help too, and the bartender keeps them coming. Before Pearl is properly, drunk she resolves to give the bartender a generous tip.

She usually patronizes bars that employ AI staff. There is just something so much nicer about not having to look another human in the eye as she orders her fifth martini of the night. Luckily, Pearl is the least of the bartenders’ problems. The elderly carousers grow wilder with each passing hour; the roar of their shouting does well to silence the whirling thoughts in her head.

When drunk, Pearl gets sentimental. That’s the only explanation for what is happening, because there is one small, sober, self-aware part of her that knows exactly what she is doing and has an inkling of why she is doing it.

She hasn’t properly spoken to Justice since the breakup. It was amicable enough, but who wants to act chummy with someone who used to let you finger her but now won’t anymore? It was too odd for Pearl to take, so she just drifted away. That didn’t mean she never regretted it. She did, when she saw Justice’s vacation photos, her nights out, and her nights in. Justice could have been her best friend. It’s just a shame that she was her girlfriend first.

Making calls off-planet is expensive, but Pearl wants to hear Justice’s voice. She wants to remember that she is the kind of woman who has an ex she can drunkenly call. She’s not a prude, she’s just not in a place in her life conducive to having a partner. She’s focusing on herself. She’s prioritizing her career.

“Pearl?”

Justice actually picked up. Surprise cuts through the faraway drunk feeling that had settled over her after her third drink. Pearl is suddenly struck by what this sounds like: a rowdy bar. By what this seems like: drunk dialing her ex.

“Justice!” she says, trying to sound sober. “How nice of you to call.”

“You called me,” says Justice. “Are you alright? It sounds… loud. Where are you?”

Pearl hums. “Some budget retirement home planet thing. Hardly any young people live here. It’s all old people who want to party ‘til they croak.”

Justice barks out a surprised laugh, really quite uncouth sounding of her. When they were together, Pearl had always liked how Justice laughed. It sounded real. “You’re drunk.”

“Maybe.” Pearl inspects her nails though Justice isn’t on video to see her act nonchalantly. “Anyway, I have a favor to ask you. I have this—um—this friend. An acquaintance, really. She needs legal advice, but I’m just not in a place where I can do that right now.”

“Pearl, I bill for legal advice.”

“Well if you won’t do it pro-bono, just direct the checks to me. I don’t think my acquaintance believes in paying for things she believes she can do herself.”

“What the hell are you talking about? What’s your acquaintance doing? Representing herself?”

Pearl drains the last of her drink and signals for the check. Justice is making her feel soberer than ever. “I don’t know much about it,” she lies. “All I know is that she could use some help. Here, lemme send you her contact info.”

Except, Pearl doesn’t have Bermuda Shorts’ contact information. At least, not her personal information. Instead, she sends Justice the store’s social media page. The line is silent for a few seconds. Interplanetary communication is not instantaneous just yet. She pays her bill but remains at the bar, waiting for Justice to say something.

A sigh crackles over the line, barely audible above the sounds of the bar. “Should I be worried about you? The owner of this—what would you even call it?”

“Physical media store,” Pearl interjects.

“Whatever it is, the owner looks like a weirdo.”

“Can you please just get into contact with her? For me?”

Pearl knows that the silence means Justice is rubbing the wrinkles from her forehead now. She never used to do that in response to Pearl. Maybe that lack of friction between them was why it ended.

“Fine,” Justice says finally. “I’ll do it for you.”

Pearl thanks Justice effusively until she is hung up on. Then, she sits on her barstool and leans heavily on the sticky counter. What the hell has she done? The drink helps dull the panic, the sense that she is losing herself, somehow. That maybe Bermuda Shorts has stolen her sense of propriety. She feels a little unsteady as she peels herself off the counter and allows her body to slide off the barstool and onto the sticky floor.

The weekend stands between Pearl and the next court session. Though drunk, she vividly remembers calling Justice and knows to expect a call sometime over the weekend. She takes the chance to actually shop for a bikini, slipping out of her hotel room at an unfashionably early hour to avoid Cressida entirely.

She stands outside the first promising shop she strolls by and walks in the minute the doors unlock. There are, in fact, ruffled bikinis. Several of them to choose from. She tries on each one and chooses the set she thinks is least likely to give her a wedgie. When had she started being so comfortable?

The thought lingers with her as she walks out, and for a moment, she wants to turn around and return it. But, she doesn’t. Instead she marches herself back to the hotel, puts on the bikini without laundering it first, and parks herself in a lounge chair by the pool to wait for Justice’s call.

She had the presence of mind that morning, after warding away her hangover with an ordered in breakfast and a hydrating face mask, to check the planetary time difference. From that, she deduced the approximate time Justice would call (about an hour after work). Pearl knows she was setting a stage, making herself up as her own persona, making Justice see what she wants her to see. It doesn’t matter. She is embodying who she wants to be; who she needs to be.

When Justice finally calls, Pearl has already finished two virgin mimosas and needs to pee. But she can’t put off this interaction, especially not for something as banal as using the restroom. Before taking the call, she arranges herself in the lounge chair, taking into account both posture and her desire to look casual. She considers tightening her bikini straps, but dismisses the idea as it will take too long. Plastering a winning I’m on vacation smile on her face, she taps her bracelet to answer the call.

“Justice! Hi!” She says brightly. Perhaps a little too brightly for her lingering hangover headache.

Justice’s own image stutters and pauses for a moment, then projects from Pearl’s bracelet. She’s perfectly put together, natural curls slicked back into that tight professional bun, clothes still sharp and uncreased despite the grueling hours she spends each day in the office. Her brown eyes flick up and down, inspecting Pearl for any evidence of disarray, any lapse that might prove that she was not herself somehow.

“How’s your hangover?” Justice asks. She looks nonjudgmental. Sounds it too. But Pearl can read her micro-expressions, even over a video call. Some evidence of Pearl’s night must remain on her face, probably imperfectly concealed dark circles.

Pearl scoffs. “Hangover? I think you really overestimated how many drinks I had when we called.”

“Did I?”

Pearl chooses to ignore the opening for an argument. That was a skill she had been forced to learn when she and Justice were still together. Maybe it was a good thing she was no longer dating another lawyer.

“I took a look at the favor you want me to do you.” Justice sounds airy, but Pearl knows she is anything but.

“What? Does she require help beyond what you can provide?”

Justice scoffs, too evolved to fall for Pearl’s clumsy reverse psychology.

“I’m worried about you,” Justice says, voice softer than she ever let it get. It is almost tender. The tone makes Pearl’s skin crawl, and she shifts slightly to relieve the discomfort, peeling her thighs from the lounge chair.

“You don’t have to be—”

“But I’ll do it.”

Pearl opens her mouth to respond, but Justice cuts her off. Her mouth opens and closes like a dying fish, and she can only hope her expertly selected lip shade saves her from the unflattering image.

“I am not a generous person. When we speak next, it will be about something else.” Justice fixes Pearl with a hard stare.

Pearl nods mutely.

“We should catch up sometime. Go out for brunch when we’re both free.” Justice chuckles without humor. “So in a few years, I suppose. Take care, Pearl.”

The call ends before Pearl can say goodbye in return. Without Justice’s severe gaze, she feels lighter. She feels free. Free enough to unstick herself from her lounge chair and leap into the pool. Almost. She’s wearing a very nice face of makeup she would rather not ruin prematurely. And there are several couples that have arrived, occupying the other lounge chairs around the pool, also sunbathing.

Bermuda Shorts is still representing herself, but there is something different about the way she is speaking. The favor Pearl called in worked, somehow.

It’s clear now that the angle is challenging Disney at a higher level, challenging the copyright laws that led to this scenario in the first place. It’s all very noble, Pearl can see, though she still doesn’t quite care. She doesn’t care who, if anyone, owns all these old films. Nobody cares to see them anyway.

“These films are human history. Ancient art that has been locked away from us for centuries to be forgotten. And for what?” Bermuda Shorts paces, impassioned, before the judge, finally clad in court-appropriate attire. Before today, Pearl had been half-convinced that she simply didn’t own any.

What kind of magic had Justice worked in under two days?

Evidently, her judicial magic is even more potent than Pearl remembered. Bermuda Shorts—whether it is even fair to call her that anymore, now that she has upgraded to full-length pants (pants!), Pearl doesn’t know—parrots expertly chosen and argued points that Justice likely composed late last night. It’s a bit of a mind-fuck, seeing Bermuda Shorts with her infuriating little shaved sides woman-bun situation speaking just like Justice used to. Just like how Pearl always wished she could in court.

When Bermuda Shorts is questioned, Pearl can almost see the flow chart of possible reactions and the optimal counterpoints that Justice must have created. It’s so masterful, and it’s all being said by a woman who, days earlier, was showing up to court in an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt.

Court adjourns, and Bermuda Shorts leaves quickly, not sparing Pearl an errant smirk or even a glance. Wildly out of character, Pearl thinks. Then, she rethinks: wildly out of character? What does she know? She met this woman mere days ago by sheer accident, and now she thinks she has any sort of authority about what is and isn’t in-character?

Packing up is excruciating as Cressida prattles at her. Pearl tunes it out, mostly, but then Cressida says something that piques her attention. Cabrera, now where had she heard that name before?

“What?” Pearl asks.

“I think Cabrera found legal counsel,” Cressida says impatiently.

“Cabrera?” Pearl’s brain is as empty as a white sand beach. How does she know that name?

“The defendant? Pearl are you feeling okay? I think you should get something to eat.”

And that is how Pearl is finally roped into doing something with her paralegal after days of successfully avoiding her invitations.

Cressida calls a magcab to share and raves about the “cutest, quaintest little café” which sits right on the coast. Sure, it’s inconveniently located on the other side of the peninsula from the hotel, but the trip will absolutely be worth it.

The magcab comes, and Pearl climbs in, thinking about how nice an iced coffee will be, regardless if it’s imbibed in the presence of Cressida or not.

Once settled, Cressida turns to Pearl like she has a secret to share.

“The nerve of her!” she says, voice low and conspiratorial.

Pearl nods along mutely, like she knows what Cressida is talking about. She’ll know soon enough. People like Cressida always keep  talking if you nod along.

“Wasting our time, the company’s time… And the money! Think about how much Disney is spending to send us here, put us up in that great hotel—they’re really quite generous employers, aren’t they?”

Generous is not quite the word Pearl would use. She has never traveled for work before, but she’s almost certain that the Disney executives who sent her are not shelling out for that hotel out of the kindness of their shriveled little money-grubbing hearts. She guesses that there are no business hotels on the planet at all. It’s for the optics too, she supposes, though she’s not in the habit of supposing anything her bosses are thinking.

“I don’t think our travel costs are putting much of a dent in Disney’s coffers,” Pearl says carefully. She doesn’t really want to invite argument, but she is tired of nodding along to every inane though Cressida voices.

“Oh, yes,” Cressida agrees, almost fawning. “But it’s the principle of the thing, isn’t it? Imagine every little media hobbyist decides to do the same thing Cabrera has done. Suddenly, they’re sending legal teams around the galaxy. Then what?”

Pearl really wishes she could turn Cressida off, like an android. Why hasn’t Disney replaced paralegals with androids yet? It’s not like they lack the money to do so. Maybe it’s because androids simply cannot replicate the sheer fanaticism of a human employee.

Half-listening to Cressida prattle on about the slippery slope of allowing physical media shops to remain in operation, Pearl feels a little bit like a researcher. She is learning about the psychology of those strange people who believe in the companies they work for. Fascinating stuff.

Imagining herself as a scientist does wonders for the rest of the ride, and she climbs out of the magcab feeling invigorated and superior. In the café, she even lets Cressida order for her, which is how she ends up with what is essentially coffee flavored milk-substitute that is gradually melting into watered down coffee flavored milk substitute.

The café is relatively empty, so they get a good table with an unobstructed view of the sea. Pearl sips her drink and tries not to grimace. Across the table, Cressida has already almost drained her venomously green beverage, which is allegedly some kind of iced tea.

Still feeling a bit scientific, Pearl decides to poke her. “You were talking about physical media in the magcab over. What’s your problem with it?”

Cressida eyes Pearl with deadly seriousness. “Physical media is the biggest threat to Disney’s dominance in the media market.”

Pearl was unaware of any threats to Disney’s dominance in the media market. As far as she was aware, dominance was a bit of an understatement for the current state of the media market. Monopoly was, she thought, an apter word.

“How do you mean?” Pearl asks, leaning forward and miming Cressida’s greatly serious eyes.

Having successfully launched Cressida into a tirade about the evils of consumers being able to own (own!) the products they paid for, Pearl took the opportunity to look out at the view Cressida had extolled yet was ignoring in favor of talking about work. Still, even the, admittedly, very nice view was not enough to drown out Cressida’s incessant yapping about Disney.

Pearl had never felt any animosity toward her employers before. She liked working, and her salary and benefits package was quite adequate at the moment. But with every word Cressida says, Pearl begins to hate the company more and more.

“So.” Cressida pauses to exhale and surreptitiously catch her breath. “It only makes sense to go after the miserable little shop owners like Cabrera.”

A derisive laugh huffs out of Pearl before she can self-censor.

“What?”

Knowing one ought not say something and actually resisting the urge to say it are two different things. Evidently, Pearl has forgotten the second skill at some point since landing on this planet.

“Miserable? She seems quite happy to me.” The way she says it in her head sounds judgmental. As if she thinks that Bermuda Shorts seemed too happy (and Pearl did think that! She did!). Out loud, it doesn’t quite land that way.

“Well, she ought to be miserable. Nothing to care about besides a bunch of old movies.”

Waves crash against the shore, and through the window, Pearl watches the globs of foam that are flung through the air.

“Not much different from you then,”

Cressida’s face is suspicious. She’s not offended, yet. Pearl doesn’t think she’s used to being offended. Lots of people probably think she’s friendly and likable. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asks.

“Oh, just that it doesn’t seem like you have a lot to care about either. You didn’t go to law school, so what? Instead of congratulating yourself you congratulate the company? Walt Disney doesn’t know who you are, Cress,” Pearl says pityingly.

“Walt Disney is dead!” Cressida shrieks.

Pearl catches a barista craning his neck from behind the counter, trying to catch a glimpse of the woman shouting about a man almost as dead as Caligula. Only, Caligula’s name solely lives on in a snaggle-toothed, smush-faced Persian cat clone owned by the dean of Pearl’s alma mater (one of only 57 left in the galaxy!), whereas Walt Disney at least has the benefit of a giga-jillion dollar corporation bearing his name.

Just barely, Pearl holds onto the litany of middle school epithets she has ready to sling at Cressida. Instead, she sits by calmly as Cressida gathers her things and storms out. After a respectable amount of time spent sipping her terrible beverage, Pearl makes her own exit. She does not make a cleverly snide comment to the nosy barista as she breezes out, ordering herself a magcab. She does not think too hard about the fact that she, once again, tells the AI the address of the physical media store.

Buzzing with fight on the ride over, Pearl steps out of the magcab. Still buzzing, she bursts through the glass doors, first astonished to find a second person inside and then astonished to discover that he is an actual customer. She freezes in place, watching a completely normal looking man wearing normal looking clothing that covers all the normal body parts go through the motions that one would go through if one intended to purchase a product. Bermuda Shorts says something, and then the customer laughs as if it were witty.

The customer stows his purchase in an ugly reusable bag and walks out, paying no heed to Pearl who is presumably, from his perspective, another customer.

“What brings you to my video store?” asks Bermuda Shorts, startling Pearl from staring after the man who actually wanted to purchase a BHS or whatever.

“Video store,” says Pearl, snapping her attention back to Bermuda Shorts. “Is that what you call this?”

“Yes, it is,” says Bermuda Shorts, as if Pearl is a very young child. “Have you ever seen a video before?”

“Of course I have!” Pearl snaps. She takes a breath, consciously reminding herself that Bermuda Shorts’ secondary hobby seems to be embarrassing her and that she is better off not reacting.

“Are you sure?” Bermuda Shorts asks teasingly.

Pearl is quite sure, but she says nothing, intending to give her adversary nothing to work with. This is another mistake. She seems to make quite a lot of mistakes when in the presence of her adversary.

Her mistake allows Bermuda Shorts to walk out from behind the counter and steer her to a wall lined with colorful cardboard boxes. Any grievances at being touched so casually are quickly swallowed by her awe.

“How many do you have?” Pearl breathes. She counts up and down the sides, multiplying the boxes to a staggering total. It’s one thing to flick through a digital library of titles. It’s another to see a whole wall of films she’s never even heard of before.

“There’s more in the back,” Bermuda Shorts says humbly. Pearl didn’t know she was capable of saying things humbly.

“How did you get all these? They can’t be originals.”

Bermuda Shorts laughs. It’s an ugly snorting laugh that has no right to be as charming as it is. “Originals! In paper sleeves? You’re funny, Ms. Cooley.”

Ms. Cooley? Pearl realizes then that Bermuda Shorts hasn’t heard her first name. The judge certainly wasn’t using it in court, and where else would she have heard it? Intense relief floods over her when she realizes that as stupid as she had been when she had spilled her drink, she had at least not given her name.

“It’s Pearl,” she says. And then, embarrassed at having compromised her principles for the nth time, she adds, “You sound like a pig when you laugh.”

That only makes Bermuda Shorts laugh harder, sounding even more like a pig. “A pig! I’d bet the store that you’ve never even seen a pig!”

Indeed, Pearl had never seen a pig. Or even eaten one. Though she had, of course, grown up eating lab cultured pork until it had, inevitably, came out that lab grown pork was a carcinogen.

“Well, that can’t be betting much.” Pearl looks around the store. It’s obviously shabby, despite the highly unfamiliar, anachronistic decor.

“One day I’ll take you back to look at my books,” says Bermuda Shorts. Pearl shudders to think of her certainly terrible bookkeeping. “But today, I’m taking you back to look at a pig.”

There is no pig in the back, which is what Pearl first expects, failing to conceal her disappointment when Bermuda Shorts produces yet another VHS tape rather than a highly rare Earth animal.

“I thought you said we were going to look at a pig,” Pearl says flatly.

“I did! There’s a pig on the cover.” Bermuda Shorts shoves the VHS tape case in Pearl’s face. “See?”

Pearl takes the case. This one is slick and plasticky. There is a pink pig on the cover. It is wearing a collar, and there are a bunch of animals looking down at it. “Babe?” Pearl reads.

“Yeah?” asks Bermuda Shorts, doing her stupid snort laugh again.

Shoving the case back to Bermuda Shorts, Pearl whirls around. “I’m leaving!” she announces.

“No! Nonono, stay!” Bermuda Shorts catches Pearl’s arm, and then she drops it as if it were a hot brand. “Please?”

Pearl agrees, mostly out of curiosity, and she vows to leave if Bermuda Shorts tries the yawning arm over the shoulder trick. Her curiosity stems from the room itself. It looks like a set out of a period drama, like Pals, a remake of Friends, which was some sitcom from the 1990s. The episodes of the TV show were said to have been lost to time, but it was so popular that some Disney executives were able to create a reboot that included a lot of details from the show.

Well, it doesn’t exactly look like a set from Pals. The sets in Pals were immaculately styled—period accurate enough, but curated to fit the palettes of modern viewers. This room is downright ugly. There’s a squashed plaid couch, surrounded by stacks upon stacks of VHS tapes and other physical media Pearl doesn’t know the names of. There is a large plastic gray box on the floor that Pearl thinks resembles the televisions the gang watched in Pals.

Bermuda Shorts opens the VHS case like a paper book and pulls out a black tape. Then, she turns and inserts it into another black box. Early technology was so uncreative. Everything was just black and gray boxes.

“Sit down, sit down,” says Bermuda Shorts, still fiddling with the tape and the television.

Pearl does not know if she wants to sit down. The couch looks much older than she is, and not in a valuable museum piece sort of way. Rather, in a what bodily fluids have been spilled on this? sort of way.

Still, Bermuda Shorts is going to notice if she stands the entire time, and it’s too late to flee. Much too late. So, reluctantly, Pearl sits on the couch.

She perches on the edge gingerly, as if this can save her from contact with the probable bodily fluid stains hidden so well by the couch’s hideous pattern. It doesn’t, really.

Bermuda Shorts spends an interminably long time pushing actual physical buttons on the television, only for it to display absolutely nothing except for lists upon lists of mostly acronyms.

“Sorry,” says Bermuda Shorts. “I was watching blu-rays earlier.” This means absolutely nothing to Pearl.

Finally, the little pig appears on the screen, but Bermuda Shorts starts pushing more buttons because this too was apparently not the movie.

Pearl considered making some kind of snarky comment about the back of Bermuda Shorts’ head being very interesting, but she refrains, knowing the other woman would somehow twist it.

Logos begin to appear on screen, and Bermuda Shorts flops backwards onto the couch. It sags under her weight, and Pearl has to scoot all the way to the arm of the couch to not fall into the black hole she has created.

The movie begins in this appalling barn stall, and it only gets more appalling from there. Pearl doesn’t know what to make of the singing mice interludes.

“You know, this movie felt kind of sad to me when I was a kid.”

Pearl abhors talking during movies, but she turns to Bermuda Shorts anyway. “Isn’t this one of your pirated movies?” She asks this because she can understand why Disney locked it away in a vault. Why would any modern audience care to watch this? “How did you see it when you were young?”

“How do you think I got into this stuff?” Bermuda Shorts settles more deeply into her black hole in the couch, sprawling her arms and legs. “My parents were into it first. People have always cared about preserving this stuff. For them, it was their hobby. For me, it’s my vocation.”

“Vocation’s a strong word,” says Pearl.

“I have strong feelings,” says Bermuda Shorts.

Pearl doesn’t know how to respond to that, so she says nothing. She hates talking during movies anyway. Instead of talking, she lets herself sink into the worn out cushion of the couch, sliding inevitably into the black hole beside Bermuda Shorts.

Bermuda Shorts yawns, stretches, puts her arm back down across the top of the couch. Pearl allows it. After all, it’s not like they’re actually cuddling.

The movie plays on, and by the end of it, Pearl is leaning into Bermuda Shorts’ side, having allowed her arm, at some point during the film, to rest around her shoulders. The air conditioning is cold, and Pearl is dressed for the hot weather outside. Despite her open shirt, Bermuda Shorts radiates heat. Pearl is drawn to it like a gecko to a heat lamp.

“How’d you like it?” Bermuda Shorts asks as the credits roll, turning to look at Pearl, who is surreptitiously wiping tears from her lashes. “Are you crying?”

“No!” Pearl scrambles away from the heat of Bermuda Shorts’ side. “Movies never make me cry.” Her eyes betray her and more tears spill over her lashes. She is an ugly crier, and she doesn’t want Bermuda Shorts to see her ugly crying face.

Somehow, the feeling of eyes on her, the pressure of needing to stop crying, makes her cry harder. Bermuda Shorts crawls across the couch to look Pearl in the face despite her attempts to hide it.

“I’ll get the tissues,” she says.

Pearl splutters some kind of lying protest that she doesn’t need tissues because she isn’t crying, but Bermuda Shorts bustles out of the room anyway.

When she comes back, Pearl is still crying. Once she has started, it’s hard to stop. Bermuda Shorts offers her a tissue. Pearl takes it, dabbing at her eyes. Her nose is snotty too, but she doesn’t want to blow her nose in front of Bermuda Shorts.

“Thank you—” Pearl pauses. She had wanted to say Bermuda Shorts’ name. Instead, she is left with an obvious, dangling silence.

Pearl knows it. She knows that the name is somewhere, in the back of her head, frolicking about much like its owner. It does not come to mind, no matter how hard she tries to think back to paperwork and to court proceedings.

The silence stretches. Pearl suppresses a a hopeless sob.

“What? What’s wrong?”

Somehow, crying has opened the floodgates to more than just tears. Honesty pours out of her mouth without her say-so. “I forgot your name,” she whispers.

Bermuda Shorts leans in close to Pearl’s red, snotty face. “You forgot my name?”

Pearl nods tearfully.

“My feelings are hurt,” says Bermuda Shorts. She’s joking. Pearl knows she’s joking, but she sobs anyway. “I don’t suppose there’s anything you could do to make it up to me.”

Pearl is aware of every movement. The way that Bermuda Shorts crawls across the couch to exist in Pearl’s space, to lean over her. The slow, deliberate movement of her hand to Pearl’s chin. How Pearl allows her chin to be lifted up. How she lets herself be kissed.

Bermuda Shorts pulls away, and for the hundredth time in her presence, Pearl feels stupid. “I still don’t remember your name,” she says, blinking owlishly. “I’ve been calling you Bermuda Shorts in my head. Ever since we met.”

Bermuda Shorts throws her head back and cackles. It is a snorting cackle, which Pearl had never known was possible. Whatever suaveness she had once possessed swiftly vanishes as she laughs and laughs, and Pearl vows to never let Bermuda Shorts kiss her again. She vows to never find out her real name.

“It’s Solar,” she says. “I hope that’s okay with you.” Which is a totally nonsensical thing to say, but before Pearl can point it out, she is being kissed again, breaking her vows irrevocably. But, she can’t find it in herself to be that upset about it.

The bell at the front door tinkles, and Solar jerks away and launches herself off of the couch to meet the customer. Pearl is left there feeling like her teenage self again, hidden away when her date’s parents came home unexpectedly early. From the other room, she can hear Solar launch into some long winded explanation of one of the too many acronyms associated with physical media. If she stays in the back room, sitting on Solar’s hideous couch, there is no telling how long she will be trapped there.

So, she musters up her courage, telling herself that whoever is speaking with Solar in front will hardly notice her slip out, let alone analyze the expression on her face to determine that she had been making out with the shop owner in the back like a teenager.

As she slips out, Solar catches her eye and winks. A funny feeling storms in Pearl’s stomach. She tells herself it is righteous fury.

When the door to her hotel room is safely locked behind her, Pearl flops onto the bed, exhausted. The room is painted orange by the setting sun, and she feels compelled to finally try out the enormous bathtub rather than settling for a quick, yet practical shower.

The tub is filling with water and bubbles from a complementary bottle claiming to smell of Tropical Delight, her panties halfway down her legs when she gets a call. It’s from her boss. Not her direct supervisor, but the person supervising all of the supervisors. All at once, she scrambles first to turn off the tub, then to pull up her panties and pants. She is halfway through arranging her hair when she decides that the delay is not worth the hidden social consequences of declining to turn on her video.

She answers and tries not to sound breathless. “Hello! Kaspar! May I ask—”

Her boss’ boss cuts her off. “We’ve received a formal accusation of conflict of interest.”

Pearl frowns, and then is thankful that he can’t see her face. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid I don’t understand. Whose conflict of interest do you mean?”

“Apologies,” says Kaspar, unapologetically. “I should have been more clear. We have received an anonymous accusation against you, claiming that you have been offering legal advice to Solar Cabrera.”

It’s not true, Pearl thinks. But it’s close enough to the truth. Is the truth any better, in the eyes of her employers?

And then she thinks, Cressida. Anonymous complaint her ass! It obviously had to be Cressida. And, unless she was in the habit of making wild, unfounded accusations, which Pearl couldn’t entirely rule out, she had stalked Pearl.

Pearl laughs nervously and hopes that it does not read as guilt. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid the anonymous reporter must be mistaken.”

The call goes on a while longer, a series of attacks and parries couched in polite language. When it is over, Pearl knows she has won. After all, Cressida is only a paralegal, and not a very popular one at that. It seems Pearl is not the only one who finds her obnoxious. Still, the truth, or a version of it, at least, is on Cressida’s side, so Pearl needs to change that fast.

When the call ends, she sits on the toilet seat with her head in her hands, disheveled and exhausted. The bathtub is full of water that has gone tepid and the bubbles have mostly dissipated. She drains it and takes a shower instead.

After she is clean and dressed in one of the impractical silk pajama sets she brought with the intention of being the kind of woman who wears matching pajamas, she sits on her bed and considers the kind of person she wants to be. Then, she realizes that it’s hardly worth considering. She needs be the kind of person who can keep a job. The kind of person who does not get fired on the basis of accusations coming from annoying coworkers.

Pearl isn’t sure what time it is for Justice right now. If she were more considerate, maybe she wouldn’t call. But she can’t afford to be considerate when her job is on the line.

“Justice,” Pearl says, as soon as the call is picked up.

“Pearl? What happened?” Justice’s voice is raspy with sleep but still audibly worried. Pearl feels a shot of guilt at calling in the middle of the night, but it is quickly overwhelmed by the fear and urgency that has driven her since the phone call.

“Nothing really,” Pearl lies, keeping her voice light. “Well, not nothing because I’m calling you in the middle of the night. It’s just that I—”

“You’re rambling.”

Taking a deep breath, Pearl starts again, this time leading with her request. “I need you to stop giving Solar Cabrera legal advice.”

“What? And you had to call me in the middle of my sleep cycle for this?”

“I may have been accused of offering legal advice to a defendant in a case in which Disney is the plaintiff.” Running her hand up and down the satin fabric covering her thigh does little to assuage any of the negative feelings Pearl is currently experiencing. Somehow, admitting to Justice that she is at risk of losing her job due to poor decisions made while drunk is worse than the prospect of actually losing her job. “Obviously, if they find proof that I provided anything remotely resembling legal advice to her, I’m done.”

A sigh comes over the line, likely louder than Justice intended. “What did you do?”

“I told you what happened.”

“No, you told me what you were accused of. But you didn’t provide her with legal advice. You asked me to, without telling me that you were representing Disney. Though only an idiot would have seen the details of the case and thought otherwise.” The sleep in Justice’s voice has faded, and she sounds alert and keenly interested in how Pearl will respond.

“I suppose you want to know the full story,” Pearl says.

“I deserve to know,” Justice corrects. “You’ve made me a part of the story, it seems.”

Justice is right, of course. She always is.

Pearl sighs. “When I asked you to help Solar out, we weren’t involved.”

“But you wanted to be?”

“No!” Pearl almost shouts it. “I didn’t want to be involved with her.”

Shuffling crackles over the line. Likely, Justice is getting out of bed, or at least sitting up. “I’m sure you can understand why I might believe otherwise,” Justice says, uncharacteristically gentle. “Considering that you asked me to help her, at risk of the case.”

At risk of your job remains unspoken, but it rings loud and true in Pearl’s head. The gentleness irks her. Especially because she isn’t sure if she could handle the alternative.

“It sounds like you have it all figured out,” Pearl says bitterly. “No need to hear the story from me.”

“I’d like to anyway,” Justice says kindly.

Pearl sighs. “When we met, I didn’t know her. I spilled my drink on her and she came onto me. I found her annoying.” She listens intently for any evidence of judgment, but Justice is silent. “Then, I saw her in court and realized it’s the woman with bad taste. She was representing herself, and it was a disaster, so I—” There is a lump in her throat that will betray itself if she doesn’t stop. So she does, whispering, “Will you please just do as I ask?”

For a long time, Justice is silent. “If that’s what you want,” she says finally.

“It is.” Tears clump Pearl’s lashes and pool in her vision. She wipes them away before they can fall and ends the call, curling herself under the sheets without even bothering to turn out the light.

Her job is safe, but Pearl still can’t sleep. She lies awake and stares into the darkness, having waking dreams about the could-have-beens. She knows how lucky she is to have dodged what might have been a very serious accusation, but that doesn’t stop the highlights reel replaying the moment she is asked to clear out her desk on repeat.

Early in the morning, she makes herself rise to prod at the dark bags that have appeared under her eyes. She gets to work hiding them, spending far too long on her makeup in an effort to avoid running into Cressida. In between eye bags, she gets a call. She considers not answering it but thinks better of it.

A cursory check of who is calling sends Pearl reeling, but she answers anyway.

“You would not believe how hard I had to look to find your contact information!”

Pearl says nothing.

“Pearl? Are you there?” asks Solar.

“I’m here,” Pearl says tightly.

“Okay, good,” There’s some shuffling on the other line, and then something falls, followed by muffled cursing. “Sorry, I wasn’t expecting—well. I don’t really know how to say this. Do you know why that lawyer friend of yours would stop offering me legal help?”

Pearl sucks in a breath through her teeth. The eye bag she has yet to conceal looks purpler and saggier than ever. “I asked her to,” she says. “Last night.”

Solar is quiet for a long time. Finally, “Why would you do that?”

Numbly, Pearl says, “What you did to me last night was highly inappropriate. That, combined with the futility of your so-called vocation, induced me to ask her to withdraw her support. You will never succeed, Solar Cabrera. Disney is going to shutter your little store and eventually all like it. And nobody will miss it. Nobody will even know it existed.”

Shaking, she ends the call before Solar can respond and carries on concealing her left eye bag.

When Pearl is dressed and made up, she walks down the hall and knocks on Cressida’s door for the first time since arriving. The door nearly slams open, and Cressida says, curtly, “I thought I told you people—” Her face transforms, first to shock, then to a practiced friendly smile. “Pearl! I’m so sorry, I thought you were housekeeping. I’ve been telling them since we arrived that they aren’t to enter my room—sensitive documents and whatnot, not to mention my personal belongings. I simply don’t trust hired staff at places like this.”

Pearl plasters on a fake smile. “Oh I know what you mean,” she says, though she has been luxuriating in the sheets changed daily and fresh fluffy towels delivered while she is out of the room. “Would you like to join me for breakfast?”

The breakfast invitation is a ploy to throw Cressida off. A potential peace offering after the incident at the café. And maybe it is also a form of self-flagellation for the series of idiotic things she had done since arriving on this planet.

Breakfast is as awkward as Pearl expected. It is an equation. Cressida’s natural annoyingness is the constant, and Pearl’s mental state, a variable. As Cressida chatters on about something inconsequential, having seemingly forgotten the fact that she snitched on Pearl the day before, Pearl resolves to request a different assistant. Once she has won this case, she should have enough seniority to foist Cressida off onto a more junior, less fortunate lawyer.

Pearl stares out the window at the crashing surf, watching greenish clouds that hang low over the water. She had asked for the same thing as Cressida, so she ended up with some oversweet cream-filled, sugar-crusted pastry. It is cardboard in her mouth, though Cressida raves about the complex notes and aftertaste.

“Thinking about something?” Cressida asks.

“It looks like a storm,” Pearl says, though she’s no expert on the weather. Maybe the clouds here turn green on particularly calm days. “I read that the storms here are intense.”

“I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

Pearl nods and chokes down a large final bite of her pastry to finish it off. She stands up. “Let’s turn this case around,” she says.

Pearl takes it upon herself to order the magcab. It arrives, and they pile in. Pearl’s head is already pounding.

“All we need to do is stick to our plan,” Cressida says as the cab begins to glide. “We’ve already done all the work. Even if Cabrera wins here, we will just appeal the case. I’m sure we can get a better judge.”

Now that was a thought. Disney would win anyway. If, against all odds, Pearl failed, Disney would appeal. The case was bound to go to a judge who would favor Disney. No matter what Solar did, whether she found the best lawyer in the universe or if she represented herself, she would lose. The march of time had already wiped silly pig movies from the cultural consciousness. Solar was a hanger-on. A luddite. The world had moved on without her, decades before she was even a concept.

Only an insane person would let Solar grab them by the hand, let her fill their head with well intentioned lies she believed were true. What is the past worth anyway?

Then, Pearl considers her salary, the cost of the hotel, transportation, meals—all covered by Disney. What is the past worth? Quite a lot, evidently. Why bother to go after a little video store? What is the harm in selling movies no one wants to see?

Nobody else cares. So why does Disney?

That thought echoes in Pearl’s head, drowning out Cressida, the little chime the magcab makes when it reaches its destination, the clicking of her heels against the tiles of the courthouse, an institution ancient but elevated. Nobody had forgotten what a courthouse ought to look like, even as all those acronyms Solar cared so much about faded into obscurity.

Why does Disney care?

Walking into the courtroom, Pearl nods to the judge who will likely hand Disney the case, no matter the quality of Pearl’s representation. She settles in her hard imitation wood chair and scans over the documents pulled up on the tablet Cressida hands her. She attempts to read, but her mind still spins its gears fruitlessly.

Does it even matter why Disney cares? Pearl is an employee of the company, so it is her job to take the assignments she is given. She chose Disney. After law school, her sole goal was to get a job that demonstrated her worth, and when she got it, she went right to work demonstrating just how much she was worth. Pearl is a good lawyer, and Disney only hires good lawyers.

Disney only keeps good lawyers.

When Solar walks in, she is wearing respectable, professional clothing, though her actions betray this facade. Pearl avoids her eyes, which turns out to be quite difficult. She looks insane, bending down to see Pearl’s face and to try and catch her gaze. Solar doesn’t seem upset that her her only (slim) chance of winning has been pulled out from under her, and once again, Pearl wonders whether she wants to win at all.

The judge calls court into session, and Pearl goes through the motions. She says what she and Cressida had agreed she would say. She presents arguments that the production and distribution of intellectual property owned by another corporation is in violation of the Copyright Protection Act of 2120. During her statements, she locks eyes with the judge, ignoring the itchy hot gaze leveled at her back.

The judge calls a recess, and Pearl retreats, unsteadily, to her uncomfortable seat beside Cressida.

“Great work,” she whispers. “I personally wasn’t expecting the show of competence from Cabrera last session.” It’s a pointed statement. But you were expecting it, goes unsaid.

“I know,” Pearl says tersely. It is not the right thing to say.

Suddenly, Cressida looks more like a shark than a round-faced, smiley new graduate. “Were you expecting it?” she asks, softly.

Pearl inhales. She allows herself to finally glance over at Solar. Their eyes meet instantly, Solar’s gaze insistent and searching. It evokes a feeling Pearl does not need to be having in court, so she looks away.

“Kaspar called me last night,” Pearl says, fighting to keep her tone conversational. “An anonymous coworker accused me of offering legal advice to Cabrera.”

Cressida’s nostrils flare, and it is clear that she was not expecting Pearl to have already been contacted.

“Kaspar and I talked, and we agreed it was clearly a misunderstanding.”

“Who could’ve accused you of something like that?” Cressida breathes.

Pearl smiles benignly. “That’s exactly what I was wondering.”

Whatever antipathy Pearl felt before that Cressida somehow did not notice is finally returned in spades. The air between them is tense, and their conversation is replaced by strained silence.

When the judge ends the recess, Pearl stands up again to finish her statements. She had been reading them over, willing herself to remember them and deliver them well. Disney chose her. Disney only chooses good lawyers. Pearl is a good lawyer.

What she is supposed to say is that Solar Cabrera knowingly and intentionally flouted the law, going to extreme lengths in order to procure protected content not available to the general public. What she says instead is, “I can’t fucking do this,” and then resists the urge to clap her hand over her mouth, as if she can take back her words.

Pearl looks around the room. The faces she sees—the judge, record-keepers, reporter—look just as astonished as she feels. Except for Cressida, who looks elated.

It’s too late to take it back, though for a moment, Pearl considers faking a psychiatric episode. It very well could be a psychiatric episode. Her actions have been so uncharacteristic lately, but she knows that’s not really true. This strangeness had always lurked inside her, latent, waiting for the perfect set of circumstances to rear its ugly head.

Pearl doesn’t want to be strange. She wants to be normal. Rather, better than normal with a better than normal job and better than normal clothes. She wants to be aspirational.

Except, she isn’t aspirational. She is standing in the middle of a court room, having said something strange and wholly inappropriate, another item in a list of wholly strange and inappropriate actions. And everyone is looking at her, wondering what she is going to do next.

So she flees.

The calls come immediately, Pearl’s bracelet buzzing nearly nonstop as she rides in a magcab to take her back to the hotel. When she doesn’t answer the calls, messages begin to flood in, pinging on her wrist as she takes the elevator up to her floor. Part of her, when she stumbles into her room, wants to fling her bracelet off her wrist. But, she can’t resist the temptation to read the messages.

She learns she is fired, of course, and that’s the worst Pearl thinks could possibly happen. But she is quickly proven wrong.

The travel, the hotel, her extravagant meals, her transportation, even the magcab that she just called—every credit spent is accounted for in an itemized bill that arrives promptly in her inbox. She is on the hook for all of it. Sitting heavily on the bed, Pearl puts her head in her hands and stares blankly at her pantyhose clad knees.

Pearl is familiar with acute financial stress. While in law school, she counted credits to calculate just how much she could afford to eat because most of her money was going toward her school bills. When Disney had offered her a job, she thought that financial struggle would be a thing of the past.

With its shiny amenities and ocean view, the hotel room begins to feel sickening. Once upon a time, it had been tacky. It still is tacky, but now it is also completely out of Pearl’s price bracket. Credit counting comes back incredibly easily. Her mind races, calculating the credits wasted each minute spent sitting on the bed. It angers her, which invigorates her in turn.

She begins shoving clothes unceremoniously into her suitcase, makeup bottles into her toiletries bag, sitting on it all to make the messily packed items fit. When finished, she scopes out the room. All that is left are the amenities. Pearl had always thought only cheap people took things like the free soaps.

But, she’s paying for it. She’s paying entirely too much for it, so she had better get her money’s worth. She takes everything. The soaps, the complimentary tea bags—even the disposable plastic coffee cups wrapped in plastic. It all gets shoved in her suitcase along with her other stuff, and then she marches downstairs to check out.

The concierge is sad to see Pearl go, he tells her, handing back her identification.

“I’m not,” Pearl says, walking out even as the concierge is begging her to stay awhile to explain her qualms with the service.

For perhaps the first time, Pearl decides she ought to go to the video store. It is no accident, no feeling astonished at her own impulsivity. She simply steps out of the magcab (what’s more debt at this point?) and regards the store.

She doesn’t want to go in, but it doesn’t have much to do with an admittedly false sense of superiority. Apologizing is hard. She doesn’t want to do it. But she knows she must. She’s trying to be a good person now or something.

Pearl pushes the door open, and the little bell tinkles at her arrival. There is no one in the store, not even Solar at the front counter.

“Coming!” Solar shouts from the back, and Pearl considers the opportunity she has. She could just run out, and Solar would never know that it was her.

“Take your time,” Pearl calls, which only serves to make Solar bolt onto the shop floor and look at Pearl with wide brown eyes. She is still wearing the nice suit from court. It looks nice on her.

“Pearl?”

“I’m sorry,” Pearl says.

Solar closes the distance between them. “Sorry for what? You quit the case.”

“I told my ex to stop helping you. I was accused of a conflict of interest. I didn’t want to lose my job.” Pearl smiles sheepishly. “You can see how that turned out.”

Solar looks at her, dumbfounded. “Justice is your ex?”

“That’s how I was able to get the favor,” Pearl says. “It was an amicable break. It was no hardship to call her.”

“Sorry,” says Solar. “I’m just trying to wrap my head around this.”

“Around what? It’s pretty simple, isn’t it?” Pearl snaps. She didn’t think Solar would doubt her good intentions like this.

“Around Justice being your ex. Why would anyone let you break up with them?”

“Let me break up with them?” Justice had, in fact, broken up with Pearl.

“Yeah,” Solar breathes, stepping closer. “You’re you.”

Solar telegraphs a kiss, but she stops short. Pearl closes the distance.

Keeping it chaste, Pearl pulls away. Solar looks far more affected than she ought to for a kiss that short. It makes Pearl want to give her something to really think about. But, she doesn’t.

“This is embarrassing for you,” she says, feeling mean, though Solar only laughs and nods. Pearl follows her around the store, hovering awkwardly as Solar begins the closing process. It’s all very manual and low-tech, so it takes a while to flip all the light switches, turn off the open sign, and rifle through a pile of cases that all say DVD on the front to separate them into other piles.

Pearl isn’t entirely sure why she is sticking around. She has certainly overstayed her welcome, but she doesn’t know where else to go.

“I should probably leave,” she says, heading for the door. She can find a cheap hotel to sleep at and figure everything else out in the morning. “You don’t know of any inexpensive lodging in the area, do you?”

“What happened to that tourist trap of a hotel?” asks Solar. “That place was pretty ritzy. Nice bar.”

“When I lost my job, Disney sent me a bill for everything. I don’t have the money, so I need to find somewhere else to stay until I can figure out how to get off-planet.”

“Stay with me! It’s free.” Solar begins tugging Pearl out the door, but Pearl shrugs her off.

“I couldn’t possibly.”

“You could!” Solar insists. “I’ll take the couch, and you can have the bed.”

Somehow, Pearl allows herself to be convinced. And then she allows herself to ride on the back of a baby blue vintage reproduction moped, which is some kind of electric scooter that should have been left in the past where it belonged. Instead, it is Solar’s ride to and from the store. She has only one helmet which she makes Pearl wear. Pearl clutches onto her shoulders for dear life as she takes sharp turns the scooter was certainly not designed to handle.

After the moped lurches to a stop, Pearl carefully takes her hands from Solar’s shoulders and steps off, wobbly. Solar is there to right her as she takes a few uncertain steps in an attempt to keep her balance.

“You okay, Pearl?” she asks.

Pearl nods, dazed. She had been closing her eyes for the majority of the ride, preferring not to see her inevitable death before it happened. Gaudy lights dazzle her vision, and she has to squint to tell what she is looking at.

It is a small bungalow—a nice one—decked out in strand lights. It’s so close to the beach that Pearl can distantly hear the lapping of the water. It must have cost a fortune.

“This is your house?” Pearl asks, hardly believing what she is seeing. The property must be worth a fortune, even with the hideous lights. Still, those lights painted a pretty clear picture of who owned the house.

“Yup,” Solar says. “Just decorated for Christmas last week.”

“What’s Christmas?” Pearl yawned.

“It’s a—you know what? Never mind. Let’s get you to bed.”

Pearl intends to protest her takeover of Solar’s bed, but she finds herself distracted by the minutiae of sleeping over. The moped had been too small for Pearl to bring any of her luggage aside from her toiletries, so she stood and watched as Solar unceremoniously threw her own clothes out of drawers and onto the floor in order to find something suitable for Pearl to sleep in.

Solar emerges, triumphant, with a size extra large video store promotional t-shirt and a pair of boxers she promises she has never worn. She leaves Pearl in the bedroom to change, and when Pearl emerges to argue the sleeping arrangements, she finds Solar on the couch, already fast asleep.

Quietly, she pads back to the bedroom, which is cramped and eclectic, but somehow cozy despite the clutter. She turns out the light and slips into the unmade bed. The pillows and sheets carry the spicy sweet scent of Solar, and Pearl, who often finds personal scents off-putting, finds she doesn’t mind, though she expected to.

Despite sleeping in a strange bed, in a strange woman’s home, under highly uncertain circumstances, Pearl falls asleep quickly and deeply.

She does not dream, and she does not wake up until light pours in through the window, overwhelming the sheer curtain that covers it. Stretching languidly, Pearl, at first, does not remember where she is. Sleep still has its hold on her, and she is not concerned.

The bed is unfamiliar. The decorations in the room are too. The sound of the ocean is clear and close, audible even inside. None of it sends a shock to her system like the sound of Solar in the other room, singing quietly and banging loudly, probably in a misguided attempt not to wake Pearl.

She leaps out of the bed and stumbles, deer-legged through the hallway to the bathroom, hoping not to be caught. Her feet always seem to wake up last, and this does her no favors now.

Solar catches Pearl leaning heavily on the wall after stumbling where the rug had bunched up. The boxer legs are rucked up her thighs, barely visible under the overlarge t-shirt. Make-up that she hadn’t bothered to remove the night before is smeared across her face and probably across both of Solar’s pillows. Her breath must smell like death, her teeth feel mossy, and her tongue tastes foul.

And Solar looks at her fondly, like they are married instead of practical strangers who have almost ruined one another’s lives. It is too early in the morning to look at anyone like that, even your wife, which Pearl is not.

Pearl tries to tell Solar that, but it comes out in an incomprehensible mumble. She blinks heavily, wiping away a crust of sleep mixed with mascara and tries not to think about what a gross picture she must make.

Refusing to meet Solar’s eyes, she retreats to the bathroom, closing the door firmly behind her.

“Coffee is ready when you are,” Solar says from behind the door.

 Pearl scrubs the make-up off her face with water, certain that Solar definitely does not have make-up remover and unwilling to exit the bathroom, looking heinous, just to grab her toiletry bag. With time, some effort, and a bit of hand soap, the make-up dissolves from her face, and she swishes water and borrowed toothpaste around in her mouth to freshen her breath without her toothbrush.

She emerges a cleaner, better smelling version of herself. The smell of coffee lures her into the kitchen, and Solar presses a warm mug into her hands.

“I hope you like it black,” she says. “I don’t really have any of that creamer shit.”

“I prefer it this way,” Pearl says, standing there in her borrowed boxers and overlarge shirt, wondering if she should have changed back into the clothes she had worn last night. Solar is already fully dressed, or as dressed as she ever really gets.

The coffee shakes off the rest of sleep, and Pearl begins to feel acutely that she does not belong in this kitchen. In fact, she does not belong on this planet.

Solar must sense her discomfort, because her face goes uncharacteristically soft and serious. “I’m sorry about your job.”

“You shouldn’t be,” Pearl says. “I was a bitch to you. And I deserved to get fired.”

Solar barks a laugh and drains the rest of her coffee. “I don’t know about corporate law. But I do know about bitches.”

“Is that so,” Pearl says.

“It is so.” Solar puts her mug down and stretches. Pearl tries and fails to avoid looking at her stomach. “I like them quite a lot, I’ve found.”

Pearl’s cheeks burn. She ought to thank Solar, or return the flirtation. Instead, she says, “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“Do you need to know right now?” Solar asks.

The old Pearl would have said yes. The old Pearl would have been attending to the hundreds of messages waiting for her, doing damage control. The old Pearl wouldn’t be here, in Solar’s kitchen, drinking coffee.

Her old self, Pearl discovers, is nowhere to be found.

She tries to bring her back. She’s not sure she likes not knowing who she is. “I can’t just go tits out and free like you, Solar.”

Solar throws back her head and snort laughs. She leans against the counter to support herself, as if what Pearl had said is just that funny. When Solar has finally stopped, she looks at Pearl.

“I can’t!” Pearl insists. She sounds whiny.

Solar lets out a shuddering breath, like she is trying to suppress more laughter.

“Have you ever tried it?” Solar asks. “Going tits out and free?”

“No,” Pearl admits.

“You never know until you try.” Solar hops up onto the counter to sit, like a heathen. “And no one is on this stretch of beach in the mornings. We would have it all to ourselves.”

Pearl sucks in a breath, scandalized. “You mean like skinny dipping?”

Solar snorts. “Even the retirees, do it. Hell, especially the retirees do it.”

Pearl imagines, for a moment, a retired Solar. Well, maybe not retired, but older. She would probably still have abs, and her face would have wrinkles from the sun and from smiling too much. But those would give her face character, like she had lived a good life and had a lot of good life left to live. The old Pearl never would have imagined that or had a kind thought for wrinkles. But, the new Pearl kind of digs the wrinkles. Solar’s hypothetical old person wrinkles.

“We could practice, you know,” Solar says. “Would you be amenable to going tits out and free into the ocean this fine morning?”

Pearl pretends to think for a moment, even though she knows her mind is already made up. She is amenable, and she tells Solar so.

She finishes her coffee, and Solar lends her some swim trunks because she isn’t 100% sold on skinny dipping all the way just yet. But her tits are out. Solar sprints out of the front door, past the moped, and onto the sand, stripping her shirt and sports bra as she runs. Pearl follows her, tripping along because she’s hardly had any practice walking on sand before.

They run together into the freezing water, pressing on despite the cold.

And Pearl feels free.