Why do the legal briefs cite precedents from courts that predate human civilization? Which client retainer covers services for cases that span multiple centuries? What contracts are written in languages that hurt to read aloud? And why does the law library contain statutes governing entities that shouldn't exist?
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The minute you read something that you can’t understand, you can almost be sure that it was drawn up by a lawyer.
― Will Rogers
The brass nameplate read “Blackwood, Crane & Associates” in elegant serif font, but Eleanor Chen had already begun to suspect that elegance was merely a veneer. As the newest associate at the prestigious firm occupying floors thirty-eight through forty-five of H.P.L. Tower, she should have felt privileged. Instead, she felt watched.
The partners worked exclusively with a peculiar clientele---reclusive collectors, eccentric academics, and representatives of old families with names that seemed to whisper themselves when spoken aloud. Eleanor’s first assignment involved reviewing contracts written in what appeared to be Latin, though the syntax felt wrong, as if the language had been corrupted by something far older.
During her third week, Eleanor noticed that certain files were kept in a special vault behind Mr. Crane’s office. The vault required two keys, and both partners wore identical obsidian pendants that seemed to serve as the second key. When she inquired about the vault’s contents, Crane’s usually warm demeanor turned glacial. “Some agreements,” he said, “transcend conventional understanding of jurisprudence.”
The breakthrough came when Eleanor discovered a pattern in the billing records. Every client paid not just in currency, but in what the ledgers cryptically termed “considerations of observance.” The amounts grew larger each year, and several entries were marked with symbols that hurt to look at directly. When she cross-referenced these symbols with the dates, Eleanor realized they corresponded to astronomical events---eclipses, conjunctions, and celestial alignments that occurred once in decades.
On the night she decided to investigate the vault, Eleanor used her keycard to access the forty-second floor after hours. The building felt different in darkness, its modern fixtures unable to dispel shadows that seemed too deep. She found Crane’s office door unlocked, as if it had been waiting for her.
Inside the vault, Eleanor discovered contracts written on materials that weren’t paper---some appeared to be pressed leaves, others resembled scales or membrane. The text shifted in her peripheral vision, rearranging itself into readable English only when she stared directly at it. One contract, signed by the city’s founding families in 1847, promised “eternal prosperity in exchange for periodic acknowledgment of the Old Arrangements.”
The final contract made Eleanor’s hands tremble. It was dated three days in the future and bore her own signature---though she had never seen the document before. The terms were simple: her soul’s trajectory would be “realigned with cosmic compliance” in exchange for partnership in the firm. Below her forged signature was a note in Blackwood’s handwriting: “Miss Chen demonstrated exceptional curiosity. Induction approved by unanimous consent of the Firm and its Silent Partners.”
The vault door sealed behind her with a sound like grinding bone. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, Eleanor watched the city lights below flicker in a pattern that matched the astronomical symbols from the ledgers. She understood now that H.P.L. Tower wasn’t just a building---it was an antenna, broadcasting humanity’s legal surrender to forces that had been patient enough to work within the system.
