A little chime on the computer told me it was time. I locked it, stood up, and strode purposefully from my new office. I was in the zone. I was ready to tackle this project. Fatigue was entirely forgotten as I moved with that singular purpose down the hallways to where the meeting was scheduled to take place. I was not successful by being late, ever.
The room had a number and little else. I rapped the back of my hand on it. No answer. I opened it to reveal a sparsely appointed room. There was a single small table in the center with three chairs on one side, and one on the opposing side. Which side was I sitting at? There was only one person I was to speak to that day, so I made a choice and sat on one of the three. It wouldn't be hard to move if I was proven wrong.
Ah, there she was. She entered with two severely-dressed men, which had me switching sides quickly. Oops.
She smiled thinly. "A pleasure to meet you, Miss Frohein," spoke the director that Linda has just briefed herself on. She strode to the table with much the same purpose I had earlier and slid into the center of the three seats. She was flanked by the men quietly. "Don't mind them. They're just security."
Security? "We should be secure here, I'd hope."
"As do we all." She gave that thin smile again. "We have much to discuss, Miss Frohein. Thank you for coming such a long distance to reach us. We understand this was quite an inconvenience on your part, but there are only a few places equipped for this specific matter of investigation."
Investigation? That was not in my briefing at all. I thought we were discussing a potential merger. This was not going as I had planned at all. "We're... investigating the potential barriers to the merger, I imagine?"
"In a manner of speaking, yes." She leaned forward, forearms on the table, fingers twined from one hand to the other. "Let's dispense with some of the... small lies. Every bit of intel we have says you are the key to our research. Your employer was paid quite a handsome fee to ensure your arrival." She pulled up a slim briefcase from the floor and slid it onto the table. "I should start by saying that you have committed no illegal acts, save one, which we are willing to forgive for your cooperation."
I had read enough books. I could guess where this was going. "You work for the government, or a shadowy business that works for the government, I assume?"
"Astute." She popped open the briefcase. "Yours is not the first case, though most were, at their respective times, dismissed as the ravings of a damaged mind." She pulled a single sheet free and slid it across to me. On it was a photograph of a horse. Not just any horse, a blue horse, with large eyes and wings. It was a pony. "I trust you know what this is."
It wasn't a question. They knew. They knew everything, somehow. I considered the options. I could try to be cagey. I could lie like it was going out of style. There... were few happy endings in either direction. If I worked with them, I was an asset, possibly a valuable one. "Is he alright?" I tapped the picture.
"I'm fine," said the guard on the left. With a flare of flames, he was gone, and the blue pegasus was seated in his chair, still wearing the severe tuxedo, glasses, and earpiece that the man had been. "Thanks for asking."
The women glanced aside at him, but did not seem startled. I was startled! I'd seen ponies. Heck, I saw them transform before, but not like that. He had no horn, so how was he even doing it? "You have a pony... on the payroll?"
"We have." She drew the picture back. "He's been quite the source of information, and loyal beside that. He's our first true alien to be nationalized. He is a citizen. Show her."
He drew out his ID. It displayed his human self. His name was 'Simulacrum'. What a name...
"So... What is it you're hoping to get?"
"Using Simalacrum, we have been monitoring the country for similar patterns. Pony 'magic' is a specific spectrum of radiation. It can be detected." She pulled a metal rod from her case and twisted it on. It made a few odd clicks, like a Geiger counter. She waved it over Simulacrum and it got a little more excited. "When he changes, it gets much louder for a brief period of time. Now, you." She reached across the table with it. I didn't fight it. It began to click and chirp as she waved it over me. I was radiating pony 'magic'.
"You gave our agent quite the scare."
Who? "Who?"
"The young man at the alien spotting attraction. That coin your associate attempted to hand him made his detector go black." She saw my confusion. "Field agents are given sheets of paper, like a litmus test. The more they are exposed to this radiation, the darker it gets. He avoided coming into contact with it, and reported the incident."
I cringed at that. "She wasn't trying to hurt anyone."
"We are certain she didn't. This radiation is harmless, so far as research has uncovered. Unless actively being directed, it does very little to anything." She steepled her fingers. "Your guest has been very polite, please tell us about her."
Oh... Oh... "Look, she just wants to go home. She isn't an invading alien or even breaking laws."
"She's broken one." The woman raised a finger. "She is an illegal alien. We could fix that... Tell us about her." She folded the suitcase shut. "I've seen the same movies, read the same books. I'm sure you're worried we're here to harm her, but that's not the truth. We are authorized to make judgments outside the direct supervision of the executive branch. Our mission is to apply the laws fairly to unusual would-be citizens and other foreign nationals."
"Does that apply to just ponies?"
"That's on a need-to-know basis." She raised a fine brow. "I'm sure you understand that. Under the current president, there's considerable pressure to have things... changed, but let's not get too mired in politics. Your guest?"
I let out a heavy sigh. This was not the way I planned to spend the day at all. Still, lying wasn't going to help. They knew her... "Starlight. Her name is Starlight Glimmer. She's a kind soul, curious about the world."
"And she's from their world?"
I put my hands on the counter. "As am I." She started. I surprised her, and that felt good in a petty sort of way. "I am the first dual-citizen. The sovereign of their nation knows me on a first name basis."
She frowned sharply. "You have a means of moving from one country to the other? You use it daily?"
At first, that surprised me, but I quickly reasoned they were probably looking for whatever Equestrian magic radiation was. I must have been putting it out every time I fell asleep. "Yes. It's not a voluntary action."
Surprise flickered across her features again, but she was back in control. "Not voluntary?"
"I... transition when I fall asleep. I lead two lives right now. In one, Linda Frohein, lawyer. In the other, True Shot, relationship counselor."
Simulacrum flashed a fanged smile. "You're a pony? Of love?"
The woman, Director Swanson, held up a hand to silence him. "There's no law against that," she said simply. "So long as you obey the laws of both lands, you are free to come and go. However, that means you are uniquely equipped to give us information to handle this better. We have little doubt that there are other members of their country scattered across the world. If you can help us deal with them, you would be doing them, and your country, a service."
I glanced towards the guard who was still silent. "Pardon, but is he one too?"
"No ma'am," he gruffly replied.
She nodded. "Simulacrum is uniquely adapted. Now, we don't want to entirely disrupt your living conditions. You are still employed, with the same title and responsibilities. Consider us a little authorized moonlighting. We will correspond with you, and you might help a lot of people."
There she was again, trying to appeal to my sense of goodness, maybe a little patriotism in there. "What's the pay?" I asked bluntly. If I hadn't committed any crimes, then payment should be standard.
Simulacrum seemed to approve, his grin growing wider.
Swanson produced a small envelope from a pocket. "As I imagine you have guessed, your new residence was not entirely launched by the benefit of your employer." She set the envelope within reach. "We are prepared to make an offer. Do you accept?"
I slid the envelope closer, popped open the flap and pulled free the slender slip of paper inside. It was on a formal header. Everything looked proper. I was being offered forty thousand a year as a consultant. As a lawyer, that wasn't a high-paying job, not at all, but the listed responsibilities were simply to 'disclose information'. It said any additional duties would be compensated for. I tapped that clause. "What other 'additional' duties, and how much?"
She shrugged lightly. "For example, if one of their citizens is disoriented and lost, we may need someone familiar with them to help settle them. If you succeed in sending Miss Glimmer home, access to that technology may be required. If this becomes a full-time position, the option to renegotiate is included."
I read over it. As it stood, it limited my weekly hours to ten. Ten hours a week for 40k? That wasn't nearly as bad. Still wasn't a lawyer's pay... It wasn't bad, mind. "Benefits?"
"Pension, medical, dental, vision. You would be an employee of the United States, with all the benefits thereof."
And downfalls. I had heard about the times people in similar positions were screwed when Washington decided to play with the budget. "Can I think it over?"
Miss Swanson stood up. "This is where I make a threatening posture about this, but this isn't a spy novel. We really do want your help, and you are a law abiding citizen. However." That brow went up. "Harboring an illegal alien can get you up to five years in prison. I trust you are perfectly aware of that. You are also aware that your guest is not a citizen. You are guilty. I doubt many judges would see it otherwise."
I was starting to really sweat. They had me. There weren't a lot of ways I could claim I didn't know Starlight was an alien. I had already given up that option in the conversation we already had. "But if I go along, this goes away?"
"Oh, not entirely. If we simply brushed it under a carpet, it would be waiting to cause trouble down the road. No, you would be prosecuted, found guilty, and sentenced. The gravity of that sentence would be severely reduced." She pointed to the paper I still held. "Consider it community service."
Simulacrum glanced aside at Miss Swanson, then me. "Do you know what I am?"
I didn't, and admitted as much. "A spellcasting pegasus?"
"Huh." He went quiet.
"Consider it. You have my number. Please do not leave the state before giving me a reply, and don't take Miss Glimmer out of the city or you will be guilty of alien smuggling in addition to harboring." Swanson made a gesture to come along to her guards.
Simulacrum became a man again in a rush of flames that didn't harm the chair he was seated on. They both stood up.
Like that, they left. I slumped against a wall. Had the whole thing with my boss being an extreme lie just to get me out here? How much did even he know? Should I tell him? Should I ask? Questions stormed through my mind. Life had just gotten considerably more complicated.
...
oh no
Well shit. Changelings are involved now.
All that job.
It was all a dream.
And if things go top trumps.
It will so very easily become a Nightmare.
Forever.
Not sure how to feel about this. Feels completely out of left field.
8021525 As opposed to being given a two million dollar house to do a job you could do just about as easily without it? That one was way more commonplace.
[youtube=https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kdhhQhqi_AE]
Thread detected! Alien government possibly infiltrated by changelings.
S.M.I.L.E directive initialised.
Crap, now the spooks are involved. I wonder how they will mess everything up?
Oh. Government and changeling response. Information on changelings nonexistent.
Not good.
No he doesn't. He looks like a blue pegasus... since he never dropped that disguise. Possibly because the author 'dropped' that scene.
After this there was no further transformations are mentions thereof.
8021690 Tweaked to avoid plotholes.
well then, many interesting things just happened!
We get the feeling that the changeling is the only one they have now. The fact that they only have detection technology would seem to indicate this is relatively recent.
We're not a lawyer, but it seems she's not telling the whole truth. A whole court case and all that would get a lot of attention as soon as Starlight gets called in, and would quickly blow up unless they block it, at which point farce.
Still, easy opportunity.
Keep going! ;)
Facepalm...right. Threaten the dual citizen with prison... When she can literally leave with a nap. Oh no! What will we do? Give her too much coffee?
Every once in a while, I would seriously love for there to be a good guy working for the feds.
Also... Last paragraph... "The left" should be "they left"
well, this is an unpleasant twist... and i find i no longer have any desire to read.
8022106 Did she act in a 'not good' way? She seemed pretty reasonable, I thought?
8022206
Oh sure... your little fed did an admirable job at being 'reasonable'... but let's be honest here; they're not folks to screw around with, nor do they tend to be forgiving.
Heck, when I was on a field trip in middle school, we went to the FBI building (great tour, btw)... when walking through one section, there were displays behind glass with little brass plaques the size of business cards (only in English) that said "DO NOT TOUCH GLASS." One of the kids had on a baseball cap and touched the glass with the bill of his hat. Turns out those ugly fabric lined walls AREN'T walls at all... they're access panels from a monitoring hallway. Less than four seconds after his hat touched the glass, feds were pulling him into the walls and another guy apologized that the tour had been disrupted.
We got him back a few hours later. He was sent home, via plane, on the first day of a week long field trip, with a federal arrest record and a bill for the plane ticket.
Not saying they're bad people... heck no, those guys are top notch when it comes to keeping folks safe and keeping the peace... but they're not great folks when it comes to things with unusual circumstances, special conditions, or sensitive individuals. They're about getting something done, securing it, and making things work to the best of their ability to match their goal.
"Join us or else" is rarely a 'nice guy' line. Even less so when the "join us" part still comes with prosecution and giving up private/personal information.
I have some problems with this chapter:
She caved way to easy for a lawyer being threatened with a legal challenge.
Also, wouldn't a conviction hurt her ability to hold her job?
Lastly, they would need to have an actual trial and prove Starlight Glimmer was an alien. If she literally said nothing she would just be a pet which is completely legal.
I feel like Linda should have been a bit more aggressive here, maybe in a later chapter or so since she was surprised, but given how you've built her character in the previous chapters it feels like she gives in to easy. Also, 40K is way low for what they are asking her to do, at 10 hrs a week that is 77$ an hour a lawyer is worth way more than that. She should be insulted with how low they thing they can buy her cooperation for.
Her best bet and a way to throw a monkey wrench in their plans would be to go very very public, the situation smells to high heaven and sunlight is the best disinfectant.
Personal bias though: the thought of blackmail, which this is, always makes me want to have a disproportionate response and get everything in the open, I respond very badly to threats.
8022724 Is there a happy ending after you feel satisfied?
They have her confession, given without coercion of the type that would invalidate it. She'd go down, public or not. She'd get to feel real good about how she tweaked their nose... and go down. She'd go from well-off and successful to being another face in jail.
You're asking a lot. I don't think it would be in character for her to make such a hail mary play 'just to spite them' especially. There would be no gain here but self-satisfaction, and Linda has eschewed self-satisfaction in the past if she sees a more prudent option, more often than not.
This definitely feels silly to me. The whole 'We can prosecute you for harboring an illegal alien' holds like 0 water when said illegal alien is literally an extraterrestrial, and Linda is in possession of very, very interested extradimensional parties who would not look kindly to her being suddenly imprisoned.
Not to mention the, uh, massive public spectacle revealing Aliens Exist would cause.
And the bit where plenty of judges would refuse to convict on the grounds of there being valid extenuating circumstances, thus resulting in the case being thrown out of court. And where Linda could demand a trial by jury, and then the burden of proof is on the prosecution to prove that she harbored a magic pony.
Doubly so when Twilight Sparkle can appear at will in any reflective surface, and Linda going to sleep lets her cast summon Twilight.
Thus it would seem the only trump card the spooks have is to threaten to hold her extrajudicially in an induced coma, which might not even work, or to kill her right away.
8023054 But it's a real alien, your honor.
Judge> And you didn't think to contact any proper authority of any kind?
What is the retort for that? Anything that involves 'I'm scared of the government' is not getting you off the hook. She did a bad. It's an open and shut case, legally. Twilight being there wouldn't change much, unless Linda claimed to be being forced by said aliens. She might get off on that. That would be a decent defense.
It would also be tossing Starlight right under the bus, and hardly feels in-character for Linda to do.
Hell, she traveled clear across the country with said alien! She clearly was not afraid to transport said alien. She had ample opportunity to stop by any authority of any kind. She did not. There's really not a lot of wiggle room here. What's the extenuating circumstance?
8023068 'Reasonable fear for our life and safety' and 'She is trying to get home' and 'Trying to avoid a mass panic'. Fear of the government doesn't have a good track record but when it is literally an extraterrestrial, it becomes a far, far stronger defense. You're talking about something that if it went public is completely game changing on a degree far above the atomic bomb.
And the point of Twilight here is that at that point you have the scenario going public. Any prosecutor who pushes that case at that point is going to be causing mass public protest from the Let ET Go Home contingent that 100% would arise. Of course, that's assuming law & order doesn't break down on the bit where Aliens Exist.
It's an Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking scenario, so to speak.
Plus, again, right to trial by jury. The jury can absolutely refuse to convict for any reason they want to. Judges cannot override that; they can override a guilty verdict, but they can't do shit against a not guilty verdict. So all she has to do is convince a group of jurors here in what would be the world's biggest media circus ever.
And seeing as this isn't a crime that has her as a flight risk, she's out on bail, and even if convicted can appeal, and it's extremely likely the appeals court would stay the conviction pending appeal, and failing that go to SCOTUS, which they would virtually certainly take up because it's Aliens. At which point we're likely years past the initial charges, and there are bigger concerns worldwide like 'Talking magical ponies from a kid's TV show actually exist'.
'Literally has no precedent in human history' creates fairly good extenuating circumstances.
8022896
8023054
That's the point though, the leverage they have over here is effectively meaningless. When she calms down and thinks about it she holds all the cards. If they do anything really bad she has the ear of the leader of Equestria, which she should tell about this whole situation as soon as possible just in case they try to do something.
Her personality as you stated would be to do the prudent thing, but also she is a lawyer, and a good one from the story. Literally the last type of person to roll over on a spurious legal charge.
Going to jail for harboring a real life alien? A cute alien pony that the public loves? That would be a PR shitstorm of epic proportions.
They already said they were convicting her, that is enough most times to make her lose her license anyways and is an extremely crappy way for a government group to handle this when they could easily pardon or fail to convict here. This is just more forms of leverage from them. Even agreeing to do what they want makes her likely to lose her career, and maybe her life, and be beholden to that group for who knows how long? A group that shows no qualms about seriously manipulating her life and threatening her livelihood and freedom? Sometimes all the offered options are crap and you have to take a third option.
I like the character, she is smart and capable, I want to see here succeed in a clever manner and not roll over and give in at the first threat.
Going public would actually protect her more here then hurt her. Shadowy government entities are known for making problems disappear when they are no longer useful.
8023104 Also, they may have her confessing if they recorded their current conversation, but she still has the right to a trial.
They haven't convicted her yet. They'd still have to try her and yea. That won't end well for them and Linda ought to know it. 'She's shellshocked' might work, but once that wears off, yea.
matter of speaking - manner of speaking
geiger counter - Geiger counter
steeped her fingers - steepled her fingers
a mean of moving - a means of moving
fourty thousand - forty thousand
simple to 'disclose information'. - simple—to 'disclose information'.
downfalls.I had - downfalls. I had
There wasn't a lot - There weren't a lot
road.No - road. No
I am not a lawyer, obviously, but I think that each time they crossed a state line with Starlight they committed a new crime. And that reminds me, Kevin is in this up to his eyeballs too, and Linda didn't think to negotiate or even inquire about his status.
A spellcasting pegasus with fangs, no less. She's encountered a lunar before too so she knows the difference. Of course anyone that read the first version already knows that this particular
bugcat is out of the bag.8023947 As many other commenters have noted, there are a lot of typos around here.
8024025
I just finished reading the comments as you posted this, and all I can add is:
A few words of wisdom.
This was where my suspension of disbelief started to crack. So this unnamed organization - I'm going to be charitable and assume that it's part of one of the major intelligence agencies, rather than being some sort of off-the-books deal that sound great in stories but are hugely problematic when you stop to think through the implications - has agents just planted out in random tourist attractions in the mid-west, just in case ponies show up there? This would have been FAR more believable if this was someone sent to check on Linda, Kevin, and Starlight specifically, but the fact that she says that agent was so freaked out about getting such a high reading suggests that he wasn't aware of them ahead of time, and so flies in the face of that idea. As it reads now, he was just there, and that's where I frowned; no agency has the manpower to randomly plant enough agents all over a country as huge as America, and if he wasn't one among many, then the coincidence is so massive as to be contrived.
Okay, let's get into the nitty-gritty here. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, "undocumented presence alone is not a violation of federal criminal law." That means that this unnamed organization can't simply arrest her just for being there and not having a social security number. They could try and charge her with illegal entry, since she didn't enter the country via legal channels, but even if we overlook that that's a misdemeanor whose penalties are a small fine and/or not more than six months in jail, that presumes that they'd be able to make that case at all.
The reason they'd have trouble is that there's no record of Starlight anywhere, in any system that they could find. In order to levy a charge of illegal entry against Starlight, they'd have to say where she entered from, and they can't do that. Sure, they might know that she's a pony from Equestria thanks to Simulacrum and those pony-magic detectors they have, but good luck bringing that forward in a formal charge in a court of law. All they'd have to go on would be that she doesn't have proper proof of her identity, but that's not at all ironclad: according to "Citizens Without Proof", a 2006 report from the Brennan Center for Justice, as many as 7% of the voting-age public do not have "ready access" to proof of citizenship documentation such as birth certificates, naturalization papers, or a passport. Throw in "I lost my purse/wallet," and you suddenly have a very hard time proving that someone is a citizen at all. At worst, they'd find her to be a stateless person.
That, of course, opens up a whole 'nother can of legal worms, because the United States doesn't have a clear set of rules regarding what to do with stateless people inside their borders, at least insofar as I'm aware (since the U.S. is not a signatory of the Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons). A 2012 report from the Open Society Foundation (with a summary from the Center for Migration Studies) makes it clear that the United States doesn't have a strict policy regarding stateless individuals inside the country, but doesn't usually deport them simply because it has nowhere to necessarily deport them to; the best it can manage is to wait for them to exit the country of their own accord and then refuse them re-entry (i.e. they become someone else's problem). She could be held in detention while the courts tried to figure out what to do with her - if they determined her to be stateless in the first place, but they can't do so indefinitely; the longest that she could be legally held in such an instance would be, again, six months (according to a report by the Migration Policy Institute).
So yeah, I don't think that Director Swanson's threat is really much of a threat at all.
Okay, so they're an independent agency, which actually gives Linda a lot of material to work with, at least insofar as trying to figure out who she's dealing with here. The only intelligence agency to which that particular label applies is the CIA, and their focus on foreign intelligence - which is what this is, since they're dealing with aliens - makes them a prime suspect for the nature of the group in question. But they don't have any sort of law enforcement function, and are only allowed certain domestic intelligence collection (even if that seems like a rule honored more in the breach than the observance these days), which makes things like an agent at a tourist attraction rather unusual, to say the least.
So...not the CIA, then? Seriously, who the hell are these guys? You can't have a completely secret, unknown government agency active in the United States today; it not only runs counter to everything this government is predicated on, it would also utterly cripple their ability to operate within the existing legal systems, where everything is written down, filed, cross-indexed, and made available to the public (except in specific circumstances). They can't simultaneously be able to operate in federal courts regarding illegal immigration and at the same time be an off-the-books group that hide in the proverbial shadows. Linda is a lawyer, she should know this, or at least know the right questions to ask.
God fucking damn it, Linda! You're a lawyer, you should know not to volunteer more information than you're asked for! Yes, you can be prosecuted for lying to federal agents, but you don't have to answer more than was asked! In fact, you don't have to answer at all, since you can avail yourself of your Fifth Amendment rights - whether formally or by refusing to make a statement - when interviewed by people who work for the government. You've already been obliquely threatened with being an accessory to illegal entry into the United States (despite that charge being so incredibly flimsy as to be laughable), so you're certainly in a position to realize that you're best served by shutting up! Even if this isn't your area of law, you should still be familiar with this via deposition training and preparations. DO NOT SAY MORE THAN YOU WERE ASKED! EVER!
And this is why you don't volunteer anything: this line makes it very clear that they're now going to want her to spy on Equestria. Prior to this, it was probably just another fact-finding mission, since they seem to have met ponies before. But now, they have the means to have one of their citizens go to Equestria and actively find information for them. Linda is being asked to spy on Equestria, and she honestly seems too dumb to realize what's going on. There's quite simply no way that this agency would want anything else from her; their whole "we just want to make sure everyone gets along" is, quite frankly, not plausible.
"Authorized." Director Swanson really likes throwing that buzzword around, I can tell. But again, I'm going to say that a lawyer should know that it's just that, a buzzword.
Offered by who? If everything looked proper, than this should say something more than "on behalf of the United States." Anything with a freaking payroll department is going to have a more formal structure than that.
As a minor point, if she's being paid a salary - and according to the Fair Labor Standards Act, $40,000 per year is more than enough to be considered exempt (meaning that she can't ask for overtime pay) - then her hours per week don't actually matter. Having hours per week be a non-issue is part of what makes your pay a "salary" in the first place.
What the hell does this even mean? Being full-time or part time employee of Unknown Agency will have legal ramifications, but mostly for tax purposes and other financial minutia. The option to renegotiate your salary is always present. Saying you'll have the "option" to renegotiate is like having the "option" to quit your job; it's always there, not something your boss gives you. Hence why Linda renegotiates her salary in the very next chapter.
Yeah, I know this could be spun as "access = asking someone to do that again for us," but I'm going to once again presume that this is more nefarious, and instead refers to espionage.
Okay, what the hell is going on?! For real, what? Linda works for a major company (even if we don't know what it does) and is a highly valued member. There's absolutely no way her current job doesn't already give her all of these things! Yes, having a second pension is nice, but she already has social security, and almost certainly a 401(k) through her job, plus her savings, and now a two million dollar house that she received for free...and now a second income. So that's not really much of anything, but at least it makes sense. But offering her "medical, dental, [and] vision"? She's already going to have insurance through her job, so this is just an offer to use an insurance plan that probably won't be that different from what she has now. Seriously, this makes no sense as an offer. Even if she didn't have a job already, California has its own insurance market under the Affordable Care Act (which is relevant, since this fic alludes to the current presidential administration) and Medicaid. Obviously, neither are quite as good as private health insurance, but she has that anyway, so why make this offer at all? It boggles the mind...
Bullshit. Yes, Linda could in theory be hit with 18 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(A)(iii), but as mentioned above, good luck proving that in a court of law. Linda is a lawyer, and should know that the actual state of guilt or innocence is extremely different from proving the case in a court of law. Unless Director Swanson wants to say that Starlight is from a magical country called Equestria, found in another dimension, she's going to have to treat her as a stateless person, and that's the worst-case scenario. Starlight could very well claim to be a U.S. citizen who has no papers or education due to being raised in some sort of isolated area, for instance, and it'd be damned hard to prove or disprove either way.
This threat is near-totally empty.
Yeah, because you're apparently a crappy attorney, Linda. You should have clammed up immediately, rather than spilling your guts like a kid who was just dragged into the principal's office for the first time.
Absolute and utter crap. Call her bluff, Linda!
As per 18 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(A)(ii), that's not smuggling, it's "transporting." That's notable because "smuggling" is defined as per sub-section (i) rather than (ii), and subject to up to ten years in jail, rather than five. But that's a minor point.
Seriously, Linda, you should be lawyering up at this point, being a lawyer and all. Director Swanson is full of hot air, and her threats are all smoke and mirrors. She has only one, maybe two, minor charges to bring to bear, and they'd face titanic difficulties in securing a conviction, which would result in very, very few penalties anyway, in all likelihood. Linda is holding all the cards here, and she should know it, but instead folded her hand and surrendered faster than a French military officer.
8029956 So much.
I will address two points.
1: Linda is VERY OBVIOUSLY not a criminal lawyer. Lawyers come in a LOT of flavors. She's used to navigating red tape and avoiding problems and making things happen in an efficient manner. Being offense/defense in a legal case? She has shown zero (0) skill or experience. There are a dizzying variety of lawyers out there. She's never been arrested before, cut her some slack.
2: Yes, they were specifically there for Linda and her friends. He was not a random dude in a random place getting lucky. That would be too lucky.
3: related to 2, but Kevin planned his trip before they went, and was not too worried about privacy, so knowing they'd likely stop there wasn't impossibly hard to dig up.
4: I thought I was doing 2! But yeah, 4, relax. Quoting exact laws is about when you pass from 'fun story for fun' to it ceasing to be much fun. If I claimed this was a piece of science fiction, you'd have a case. It isn't. It's fantasy. It has a woman who talked with a dead horse and now she is him, sometimes. I try to keep things remotely reasonable, but nailing me for not being accurate enough to satisfy actual lawyers is just not fun.
8029956 You inspire thought. 1: The article you linked to first is a complaint about how it SHOULD NOT be a crime, and complains that... everyone treats it as one, because they do. If they didn't, the ACLU would have so much less to do.
2: (a) Improper time or place; avoidance of examination or inspection; misrepresentation and concealment of facts
Any alien who (1) enters or attempts to enter the United States at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers, or (2) eludes examination or inspection by immigration officers, or (3) attempts to enter or obtains entry to the United States by a willfully false or misleading representation or the willful concealment of a material fact, shall, for the first commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than 6 months, or both, and, for a subsequent commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18, or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.
Starlight, guilty.
Then we have: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1226
Which means Starlight could be snagged and, if they were feeling ornery, held indefinitely. Considering she's a crazy alien, that seems a fine option. If they were feeling generous, they could let her go eventually. Her lack of modern skills and understanding would count against her being admissable.
Best case scenario, Starlight gets grabbed, jailed, they determine they have no place to deport her to, and eventually let her go. She can then become a member of society, yay Starlight!
Worse case, eternal prison.
8031842
Then my job is done.
It's more accurate to say that the ACLU's policy paper that attempts to clear up much of the misunderstandings and misconceptions about undocumented immigrants in the United States today. One of the more notable issues that it addresses, and that I specifically cited, is that simply being in the United States without proper documentation is not, in and of itself, a violation of federal criminal law. Starlight's simply being there is not a criminal act unto itself.
Yes, this is what I said before, about Starlight having committed "illegal entry" into the United States, and that is a crime; specifically, a misdemeanor, if the U.S. Attorney's office feels like charging her. Even if it does, it can still seek a fine, rather than jail time, as they have sole prosecutorial discretion regarding how to try such a case, which means that it's not technically up to Director Swanson what would happen to Starlight (in fact, there's a lot to suggest that Swanson's unnamed group can't even arrest Starlight, since giving a new organization domestic policing powers would be a HUGE deal, politically).
And that's just the start of where the problems with prosecuting Starlight come into play.
I'm going to make the entirely-reasonable assumptions that A) Starlight would remain in human form during her arrest/detention/trial proceedings, and B) that no prosecutor would go before a federal judge and say that Starlight is from another dimension. That's the core reason for why any such prosecution against her would almost certainly never fly. Because now they've essentially got nothing more than a human woman in custody who has no particular papers, which means that the burden of proving that she's an alien falls on the U.S. Attorney's office, and that's going to be hard for them to do. Starlight could simply plead that she's a natural-born citizen of the United States who, for whatever reason, doesn't have any paperwork to prove her identity, and this would be hard to disprove. Moreover, since this would be a federal prosecution, the burden of proof would be that she was innocent until proven guilty, and since they can't put forward the time, location, and method of her alleged illegal entry, she'd have a very good chance of winning her case on the merits.
I'm really not sure what in this section makes you think that Starlight could be held indefinitely, because she can't. The best guess I can come up with is that you're looking at the following: "(a) an alien may be arrested and detained pending a decision on whether the alien is to be removed from the United States. Except as provided in subsection (c) and pending such decision, the Attorney General— (1) may continue to detain the arrested alien."
This does not allow for indefinite detention, as it's only with regard to a pending decision as to whether or not the alien is to be removed from the United States. While slightly dated, this report shows that that's not very long, particularly in California. Most detained aliens are detained for less than a month, with over 70% spending three days or less in detention. By contrast, only 4% spend six months or more in jail.
But all of that assumes that she'd be processed as an illegal alien to begin with. In order for that to happen, law enforcement would need to make that determination in the first place. You seem to be presuming that's automatic, and that's not at all the case; it doesn't matter that Director Swanson knows that Starlight is an alien; she isn't in charge of arrests, isn't in charge of prosecuting the case, and isn't in a position to start spreading the real truth around. The government, despite what a lot of people seem to think, isn't monolithic in nature; quite the opposite, most agencies compete with each other (and there's a lot of intra-agency competition as well). If Swanson thinks that she can tell the FBI or even local law enforcement to pay special attention to Starlight, they'll most likely resent her trying to tell them what to do. The same will likely be true of the U.S. Attorney's office if she tries to interfere with whatever prosecution they bring forward (and they might not bring one).
In other words, the presumption that just because Director (of whatever this unknown agency is) Swanson knows the truth about Starlight means that she can do anything about it is not only false, but wildly so. It isn't enough to know the truth; she has to be able to prove it in a court of law, where her agency has no special jurisdiction. She's got a handful of nothing, and is bluffing that she has all the cards.
I think that you're saying that her lack of knowledge would be taken as evidence of her not being a citizen, and I find that to be extremely dubious. Asking her to say things like basic history or who the current President is might seem damning, but they're far from hard evidence. If it's put forward that she was raised in the wild by crazy survivalists, then that's a good enough answer to deflect any sort of criticism on that front. Moreover, the burden of proof (as mentioned) is on those who put forward that she's not a citizen, and they'd have a very hard time demonstrating that.
That wouldn't happen, not even in Director Swanson's wildest dreams. That presumes so many things that wouldn't actually be taken for granted. The burden of proof that Starlight isn't a citizen is on them, and Director Swanson's word that "she's a magical pony from another dimension" would be laughed out of court. Likewise, you can't just leave someone in jail forever while awaiting a removal hearing. Hell, even if it came to that, there's no reason why Starlight (or, more likely, Linda on her behalf) couldn't ask for a bond; even if she's denied, she can go to an immigration judge and ask for a bond rehearing. Since Linda's worth so much, she could likely afford it if one was given (and there's a decent chance that it would be, since Starlight doesn't pose a danger to anyone).
8030444
There are a lot of lawyers out there, but if Linda is acting as in-house counsel to a company, then we can narrow that down considerably based on what's reasonably likely for what a company would want. In all likelihood, her areas of practice are litigation and/or corporate/transactional law.
In either scenario, Linda should be familiar with the basics of an adversarial proceeding, since there's no way that a company lawyer wouldn't be prepared for the basics of civil litigation. I find it extremely dubious that Linda wouldn't be familiar with the deposition process, and that knowledge would serve her extremely well here, since this is very similar to what's going on, save for the formalities involved (e.g. they can't use her confession against her at a trial, since that would be hearsay at best). The idea that she'd only be familiar with this sort of questioning if she was a criminal lawyer is a common misconception, but it's still a misconception; the very basics of any sort of deposition - which occurs all the time for potential civil proceedings - if that you don't say more than you need to, because it can all be used against you later.
I may be misremembering, but I seem to recall that the stop at the alien tourist trap was a last-minute decision, wasn't it?
I disagree. Leaving aside the issue of "it's not what you write about, it's how you write it that makes it engaging," the legal drama is a popular sub-genre unto itself. There's no reason why flirting with that here couldn't be fun and entertaining.
8034434 You seem mired in an ideal world. Like a fire fighter could never be surprised by a fire and react in the wrong way to handling it safely.
Like a policeman just never messes up with his gun.
And like a lawyer expecting to meet with a business client might react poorly when it turns into a sudden interrogation.
8034548 It's one thing to do something stupid when you're suddenly blindsided or caught off-guard, but Linda's actions both during and after that encounter don't seem like a momentary lapse of judgment so much as they do a near-total lack of training, training that she should have.
I can believe that a lawyer would do badly when surprised like that; but that badly, and with no realization and remediation after the fact? That's a harder pill to swallow.
That's an... interesting... conversation. Though, from an outsider's perspective I think that it would be a glorious mistake to accept anything to do with an organization that is that shady. Especially if it's an 'unofficial official' one. Especially especially with them already making it clear they're going to strong-arm her into doing it, and into getting a conviction so they have a leash on her. Sure they could be on the level, but there's more to potentially lose and less to potentially gain from trusting them, long term.
Do what instead? Well she does have a whole different life waiting and ready to go. Just get her Linda body petrified, live as True Shot, take her boy toy with her, then stick the mirror in a room full of carbon monoxide.
Then again, if everyone always did the most pragmatic thing, stories wouldn't very often have happy endings. Or interesting middles.
Still I hope her first action is going to be to inform the lady who can fling a star around about everything that's going on.
Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit OH SHIT!!!!!!!!!!
so they are blackmailing her into doing a good thing for no reason...
?????????????????
8418664
Yeesh, a good thing? Yes, they could actually be a good ‘shady business,’ but really, when do you see a group like Leverage, ever? The highest probability at this point is they’re taking advantage of her so that they may slowly subjugate, spy on, or otherwise tamper with an alien world, because they feel threatened, or some other type of BS. The threat only solidifies this idea to me, making it seem like a much better idea to accuse them of blackmailing, and/or refusing to help them if it gets too far. Linda knows legalese, right? Maybe change some of the requirements for her to ‘be employed by the government’ (as in, not go to jail) because they decided that a being from another demintion fits the bill for an illegal ‘alien’ so well and they feel the need to punish her for things beyond her control. Yes, they don’t know that, and yes, it is completely starlight’s fault, and coupled with my already unease with her character in the show, and the burning hatred this story’smade me develope for her, i feel like she should go to jail, maybe get the
fing citizenship she should have gotten in the first place, and many other bad things about her. Suffice to say, I don’t like the character you’ve portrayed her as.
Side note: changling on earth? What? Why? That just makes everything more complicated, and I personally now have half a mind to skim over such parts, or just stop reading. It seemed like at the start this would be an interesting and rather dramatic story, as many like it, even without the ‘Drama’ tag, are. Then it turned into a rather pleasent story with little to no action tension, which I’ve found reacts poorly with a sick body, and I started to enjoy it enough to read the entire long speal it is before needing a break like so many others. Then comes along this ‘shady government agency lady’ archetype with a changeling in tow. The best i can hope for with this is that the agency are really just trying not to have something bad happen, and don’t actually do anything, but that’s not likely to happen.
All in all, though, good story, although I may have to obstain till i get better and/or decide to finish it up.
9108331
You're already so far, you can't quit now!
Ponifyed MiB with changeling on a payroll? Oh my!
Heh, you, sir, have an uncanny ability to unpredictably derail your stories. I'm intrigued : )
10373181
Thank you. I do hope I do so in ways that make some kinda sense even if only afterwards.
Warning! Changeling has been Detected!...
8029956
I agree with all of these points, especially the suspension of disbelief one.