"Look, that's why there's rules, understand? So that you think before you break 'em." -Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

It was as if a giant hand squeezed Parker's chest. The rustle of clothing as people shifted in their seats, murmuring to each other, someone coughing, all sounded abnormally loud in his ears.

"Ek...excuse me?" he said. "Disposal?"

The judge didn't even look up. "Humane disposal, yes. What's next on the..."

Parker came around the table. "Now wait just a minute. You can't do that!" He saw one of the bailiffs from out of the corner of his eye, on an interception course.

Parker stopped in the middle of the floor, clenching his fists. "Your honor, may I approach the bench?"

"I will thank you to lower you voice," the judge said sharply. "Mr. Parker, the court is ready to move on to the next case."

"This can't wait, your honor. This is his life we're talking about here!" He glanced at the bailiff again, who stood with arms akimbo as if ready to leap.

"I think I already brought down the gavel, Mr. Parker."

"But..." A hundred protests whirled through his head. "But he can talk," he finally blurted.

"I believe there are a number of claims to that effect, but I really don't..."

"He can talk!" Parker shouted. "He's an intelligent being who..."

"...see what difference it makes," said the judge, raising his voice and talking over him. "If the boy can't control his pet..."

"Minion's not a pet, he's a person!"

"I've heard just about enough," the judge said.

"This is as good as murder, goddammit!"

The judge jabbed a finger at Parker. "I will not tolerate that language in my court. One more word and I will charge you with contempt."

Parker clamped his jaw shut. He forced his hands to his sides and tried to look contrite, though he felt like he was getting strangled with his own tie.

The judge settled back in his creaking leather chair with an air of satisfaction. "Now, are you going to relinquish the creature or should I have animal control come to your house?"

Parker wanted to smack that superior look off his face. He gripped one hand with the other. "Can you at least let them see each other one more time? To say good-bye?"

The judge sighed and adjusted his glasses.

Parker talked fast, before the judge tried to tell him to shut up again. "Blue's had Minion his whole life, ever since he was a baby. He used to carry him around with him all the time. The robot suit started out as a way for Minion to transport himself. I ought to have restricted the size of it, but I have to confess I was pretty impressed by what Blue created. Out of scrap, mostly. I take full responsibility for whatever damages have been done, and I realize it seems a little strange that Blue is so attached to a fish, but taking Minion away like this will traumatize him. More than you can imagine. Please. I can bring him to visit Blue. Just this once."

The judge pursed his lips and shoved a few papers around while Parker sweated. He could hardly believe he was standing here begging for Minion's life. And with such trite arguments! Trying to reduce poor Minion's existence into a framework that this moron would understand.

The judge drummed his fingers. "I suppose that could be arranged. You have one week. They don't normally allow animals in juvenile hall, you'll have to talk to their warden. Do I have your word that you will hand the fish over seven days from now?"

"You have my word, your honor."

Parker felt light-headed as he hurried out. Well, that's it. I wasn't under oath, but lying to a judge is almost as bad as perjury. Wonder what other criminal acts I'll commit today?

Because there was no way in hell he was turning Minion over.

He was half way out of the courthouse before he remembered he was supposed to sit with Blue while he waited to be transferred. Sinking down on the granite steps, he clasped his shaking hands together.

Stay calm. The judge said he had one week. It wasn't like animal control workers were going to storm in with a SWAT team to take Minion away by force. They didn't work like that. They didn't know where Minion was right now anyway.

Just in case...

He went back inside, found a pay phone, and called his assistant Andrew, telling him not to give Minion to anyone for any reason. He talked to the security chief, too.

After Schmidt got done swearing, he assured him that no one from animal control would be allowed past the front gate. And he had a suggestion. "How about I hide him at my place, John? Nobody here'll say squat. Tell the court somebody stole him."

"Seriously, Walt? You really think anyone'd believe that?"

"Worth a shot."

Parker chewed his lip. The way things were going, hiding him didn't sound like such a bad idea, at least for a while. "I may take you up on that offer. Last resort, though. We can't hide him forever."

His next call was to the absent Strunk.

"Oh, hello, Mr. Parker. I should be on time after all. In fact I ought to be at the courthouse a few minutes early so we can..."

"Early?" Parker said, bewildered. "What are you talking about? It ended ten minutes ago."

There was a rustling of paper, and muffled voices as if a hand had covered the mouthpiece.

Parker leaned a fist against the phone. "The hearing was at eleven. ELEVEN O'CLOCK, Mr. Strunk," he said. "In the morning."

There were more muffled exclamations on the other end then Strunk was back, clearing his throat. "Oh. Eleven. You sure it was...oh, rats. It was eleven wasn't it? I thought it was at one."

"Tell you what, I'll call back later, when you get it figured out," Parker said through gritted teeth. He slammed down the phone.

He considered not mentioning it to Blue, but he decided the boy deserved to know what was going on, and he didn't want any more secrets between them.

It didn't make it any easier, telling him what the judge had done.

They were sitting almost knee to knee in the waiting area, three other teenage boys in handcuffs perched on a bench on the other side of the room and two guards by the door.

He'd never seen the boy turn so pale. Blue's eyes widened and his lips parted as he drew a harsh breath. For a second Parker thought he might actually faint, then the boy's mouth clicked shut and his face went rigid. He lifted his cuffed hands and clenched them into fists before pounding them onto his thigh, making the chain clink, an accompaniment to his frustration.

"I know it looks bad," Parker said. "But I've bought us some time. Time enough to..."

"He can't do that," Blue whispered. His chest heaved and his nostrils flared. Even though Parker was expecting it, the speed with which Blue launched himself at the door surprised him.

Parker grabbed him and almost got knocked over. Small as he was, the boy had a wiry strength even greater than Parker remembered, and he had no trouble understanding how Blue had escaped custody again and again.

"Stop! Don't!" he shouted towards the general vicinity of the guards, knowing at least one would be coming at them. "It's all right! He's upset!"

He dug his fingers into Blue's straining shoulders and pushed him back, looking him in the eye. "I'm not going to let anything happen to him! Stop it! You hear me?"

The boy's eyes were full of helpless fury, but his gaze locked on Parker. He stopped fighting against Parker's grip, though he could still feel the tension in the boy's taut frame.

"I am not going to let anything happen to him," Parker said. "I won't allow it." He squeezed his shoulders, then placed one hand on the back of the boy's head, at the base of his skull.

It was an old gesture he hadn't done in years. He remembered it had a calming affect, during times when the boy experienced pain too great for words to express.

He applied firm pressure with his fingers against the head and neck, and rubbed the smooth skin with his thumb. The boy stood rigid, but Parker felt him relax almost imperceptibly, and his skinny body no longer pressed forward.

As he looked down into the boy's eyes an ache started up somewhere below his ribcage. How long had it been since they'd connected like this?

He held Blue's gaze. "Everything's going to be fine," he said firmly. Then, because he felt like he couldn't say it enough, he repeated, "I'm not going to let anything happen to him."

Blue's handcuffed fists were still held up between them, knuckles almost white. Slowly the knuckles darkened to their usual blue. The boy nodded, once.

Parker lowered his hand to Blue's shoulder again and glanced around. He could sense that one of the guards was very close. Sure enough the man was right next to them.

"Everything all right then?" the man asked. "He has to sit down." He gave the impression that if Blue didn't sit down on his own, then he, the guard, would make him sit.

"Yeah. It's fine." Parker said, a little weak in the knees with relief that he hadn't had to see them wrestle Blue to the floor. He pushed a little at Blue's arm and they both sat down.

Blue wet his lips. "Dad, will you go to him and make sure he's all right, please?" The words came out in a monotone and a pink blush spread over his cheekbones.

It had been a long time since Blue called him that. Parker was not comfortable with this painful attempt at being ingratiating. He didn't want Blue to think he had to suck up to him in order to save Minion's life. "I'll be a damn sight more useful than you thinking you could bust out of here. What'd you think you were going to do, smash a hole in the wall?"

Blue gave him a sharp look. "Maybe," he said. "You never know." A very brief, evil smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

That was more like it. Parker squeezed his shoulder again and left.

Parker collected Minion and drove straight over to Miranda Tolliver's law office.

If she turned out to be a brick wall, he could always go back to Strunk and browbeat him into shaping up.

Telling Minion about the situation was even worse than telling Blue. It just about broke Parker's heart, seeing Minion go all quiet and wide-eyed.

If ever there was a time to have as many people as possible hear Minion speak, then now was that time. But he wasn't one to perform on command, to do little tricks and crap like that. Without Blue around he tended to be a lot quieter, especially without the robot suit to give him confidence, as if by keeping quiet he could escape people's notice.

Parker was in luck; she happened to be talking with her receptionist, otherwise she would have been in the fortress of her office, from where she could easily refuse to see him, and maybe even have security escort him out if he made a scene.

"They want to put Minion to sleep" probably wasn't the most polite way to begin the conversation, especially with poor Minion right there, but it sure got her attention right away.

As he explained, her mouth actually fell open. If he thought that she'd been shocked when he announced his plan to adopt the two alien boys, now she looked flustered. Her hand flew to her chest and her gaze moved from him to Minion and back again. Then her face took on a determined look, and she was a pillar of calm once more.

She nodded at him. "This once, Mr. Parker, I will do you a favor. No charge. Nicole, get the department for animal control on the phone, will you? Come," she commanded.

She ushered them into her office. Parker sank into the comfortable chair gratefully, with Minion on his lap. He felt drained, and it was a balm to his frazzled nerves to hand over the reins to someone else for a while.

With a slight buzzing in his ears, he accepted an offer of coffee from some clerk or other, and watched Tolliver work.

Mrs. Tolliver had clawed her way to the top of a male-dominated profession thirty years earlier, with perfectly manicured nails and iron-clad determination to not let any bastard get in her way. Disposing of a writ declaring that a fish was a dangerous animal was mere child's play.

He sipped coffee and kept one hand wrapped around the bowl. Minion peered out from behind his hand and they watched Tolliver summon law books and mysterious documents to her desk by the bustling secretary, all while she skewered various people over the phone.

Finally she seemed to be finishing her legal rampage. "Well, then, if you are so unfamiliar with such basic procedure, perhaps you ought to consider another line of work. I suggest garbage collecting," she said, and hung up.

Lacing her fingers together she leaned her elbows on the desk. "Judge Webb overstepped his bounds. He's a lazy idiot who has been on the bench too long," she said matter-of-factly. "No judge can simply decide an animal is a danger to society, not without at least one witness, a written complaint from city hall, and a separate hearing. No one has issued such a complaint. And for that we are extremely lucky."

She gave Minion a hard look and he shrank back. "Let's hope that none of your victims decides to formally issue a complaint. Or sue for damages."

Parker cleared his throat. "What else can we do to insure Minion's safety?"

She sat very still. "That's something for you and Mr. Strunk to decide."

"I'd like to hire you," he said.

Leaning back in her leather chair she steepled her fingers together. "Are you aware of how much I charge per hour, Mr. Parker?"

"Two hundred seventy-five for...uh...let's see, I think that's for a first consultation, for an hour, isn't it? And then..."

"You can't afford me," she said, cutting him off.

"I have savings," he said. "Melanie can get more financial aid. With a second mortgage, it'll come together." Hell, he'd put on spaghetti dinner fundraisers if he had to.

Mrs. Tolliver regarded him in silence. She knew all about his financial situation, how he had to battle the insurance company to pay for his wife's care, and how he struggled to keep afloat, and how he'd been secretly relieved that his younger son had decided to postpone college for a year.

The polished brass clock on the bookshelf ticked away.

"You still can't afford me," she said.

Well, it had been worth a shot. He'd better get back to Strunk, and see what they could do. He began to push himself up from the chair.

"I suppose you thought that because I'm a woman I'd get all misty-eyed and give my hard-earned services away free of charge, is that it?" Tolliver's voice ought to have shrivelled his hair.

Carefully he sank back into the chair. Any sudden movements could ruin the balance. "I'm sorry," he said meekly. "But you really are the best lawyer I know." He set Minion on his knees. "We've been so very lucky to have you working with us. I have been ...less than impressed with Mr. Strunk so far. Do you know of any others who could do what you do?"

Parker risked a glance downward. Mostly all he could see was the top of Minion's head, but it seemed to him that Minion was giving her a wide-eyed look. He hoped so. Anyone who could resist that look really did have a heart of stone.

Mrs. Tolliver pursed her lips. She tapped the end of a pen on the desk and her gaze shifted between him and Minion. Then she sighed.

"I'll take the case. We will discuss a reasonable discount, based on a sliding scale," she said, wincing as if the words caused her pain. "And a payment plan."

"Oh, thank you, Mrs. Tolliver!" Minion cried. He spun in his bowl.

She actually blushed. Parker got up and leaned over the desk to shake her hand. She gave him a brief smile, but then her gaze hardened.

"If anyone finds out about that discount, you're out on your ass," she said, pointing a warning finger at them. "And I hope I don't need to impress on you the advisibility of keeping our arrangement a secret from Lord Scott. And Minion's well-being is the only matter I will discuss with you."

Parker raised his hands. "Not a peep." It wasn't like the Scotts came around for Sunday dinner or anything like that.

"Now, we need to get some biologists and ichthyologists to determine Minion's status as, since he is the only one of his kind, an endangered species. We'll contact the university and the DNR..."

Animal control laws vary from city to city so I felt fairly comfortable making up my own for Metro City.

One more chapter left to go...