The fourth ride service agreed to take her, but then the driver insisted on taking her on a tour of the city instead of driving her directly to the legal building.
“I’m telling you,” Imani snapped for the fourth time, “I don’t want to see any more landmarks. I’m due in court in…” She consulted her watch and grimaced. “In less than an hour. So stop talking and take me there now!”
“At onzze, Mistrezz. At onzze,” the driver—yet another of the pink mantises (Imani was really beginning to loathe the huge insects)—finally agreed to her demands. It stopped its vehicle on the side of an extremely busy road and gestured with one of its long, chitinous arms. “There it izz,” it buzzed. “The legal building.”
Imani frowned. The mantis driver was pointing at a tall, black building across the street.
“Well then, take me there,” she exclaimed. “Hurry and get us over to the other side.”
“I am afraid thizz izz azz far as I can take you,” the driver said.
“What?” Imani glared at it. “But there are six lanes of traffic going one way and six going in the other,” she exclaimed, gesturing at the busy road. “How do you expect me to cross that?”
“There izz a pedestrian crozz walk zzeveral blockzz down,” the mantis informed her. “Good luck on your legalitiezz.”
“But…but you can’t just expect me to walk! I’m going to be late for court!” Imani protested. In her entire legal career she had never been late—not once. And she didn’t intend to start now when a man’s life was hanging in the balance.
But instead of answering, the mantis driver simply activated the door mechanism. The back door of its luxurious vehicle swung open and then Imani found that her seat was tilting.
“Hey…hey!” she gasped as she found herself spilling out onto the sidewalk. She landed with a thump and all her documents and files wound up in a pile on the ground beside her.
The seat tilted back into place and the door shut with a final sounding thunk. Then the vehicle sped off in a burst of wind which scattered her documents everywhere.
“Oh, no!” Imani gasped, throwing her arms over the papers that were left. There were considerably fewer of them than she had started with—most of them were currently being flattened by the fast moving vehicles in the street beside her, which sped by so quickly she barely caught a blur of color before they were gone again.
Since there was no way to gather the lost documents without being flattened by an alien vehicle going two hundred miles an hour, Imani pulled together the much smaller pile of paperwork and clutched it to her chest.
Well, at least she still had the drive the Kindred operative had given her. Unfortunately, she had no way to look at its contents since the tablet had also been lost, along with most of her paperwork. She could see it, not five feet away from her, already flattened on the road by hundreds of whizzing wheels.
She was going into this case blind and with no way to look at the evidence which might exonerate her client.
The thought hit her like a hammer but Imani wasn’t one to give up easily. Grimly, she gathered what she could. Far up ahead she could see a raised crosswalk, arching high over the busy road. She would have to use it to get to the other side and then walk all the way back down to the legal building.
Imani just hoped she could make it in time. With another glance at her watch, she started off at a brisk pace. It was beginning to seem like someone didn’t want her to make this court date but she’d be damned if anything was going to stop her!
Five
“I’m afraid I can’t let you go in.” The female attendant at the door—who was dressed more like a sex worker than a bailiff as far as Imani could see—sneered at her.
“What? But I made it—I’m on time. I’m even five minutes early,” Imani protested. She didn’t need this right now—it had taken almost forty minutes of walking to finally get to the legal building and find the right courtroom. She was exhausted and her feet were aching. “I’m the councilor for the defendant—I have to get in there!” she exclaimed.
Even though she had no idea what she was going to say or do once she got inside, she thought unhappily.
“I’m sorry,” the attendant snapped. “But you can’t go into Judge Thoughtgood’s courtroom dressed like that.” She nodded in derision at Imani’s conservative button-down blouse and pencil skirt. “I mean, you look like a peasant. The judge will never consider your motions if you cover yourself so completely.”
“My clothes? You’re keeping me out of the courtroom because of my clothes? Because they cover too much?” Imani demanded. She had served with conservative judges back on Earth who demanded that people dress up for their court and not wear jeans or flip-flops or tank-tops, but she had never been told she wasn’t showing enough skin to get into court.
“It’s disrespectful to the court to dress in such a dowdy fashion,” the attendant informed her icily. “I can’t let you in unless you do something about your appearance.”
For a moment, Imani was at a loss. The case was going to start in less than five minutes—what was she going to do? Then she saw a woman walking by wearing a bikini top studded in diamonds and she had an idea.
Quickly, she began stripping off her outer clothing, right there in front of the courtroom door. Off came the white silk button-down blouse and down came the black pencil skirt. Soon Imani was wearing only her bra and panties—thankfully, a nice white lace set which looked lovely against her chocolate-brown skin.
She tied the arms of the blouse around
