maskormenace | 001

[Good morning, Heropa. Greeting you today is a man with a bright smile and an even brighter shirt — aqua, with a tie that seems to match only in theory — and a look in his eye that twinkles with confidence and certainty. Yes, here is a man who is not at all questioning this place and its motives; here is a man who is totally okay with the situation in which he's found himself; here is a man who is a very good, very convincing faker.]

Greetings and salutations, fellow ImPorts! Allow me to introduce myself: Saul Goodman, attorney at law and soon-to-be judge. I want you all to be able to think of me as a resource — as someone whose purpose here is to assist where and when I can, at least as far as legal issues are concerned. For consultation purposes only, though; I won't... uh, really have the time to open my own practice here, unfortunately.

[And that does seem like something that upsets him, but he allows that emotion in for all of two seconds before dismissing it and focusing back on sounding genuine and honest. Which he is, to some degree. It's just... kind of rare, is all. But this is what happens when you don't want to upset your kidnappers: You do what you think you have to.]

Anyway, I'm gonna have to spend some time catching up on what's actually going on in this place, legally and politically speaking. There are other lawyers and legal professional-types around, right? We should chat. Oh, and for all you daytime TV-watchers —

[THERE THEY ARE. THE FINGERGUNS.]

Get used to seeing this face.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

They wanted me to do retail, so I told them where to stick it.

[Which sounds defiant, but—]

I have a better thing to do around here.

[Ooh, feisty.]

You gonna leave me hangin'?

Oh, I do PI work, and when that isn't rolling in the dough—[because she's still shocked she makes money from it at all]—I'm working with Matt Murdock. He's a defense attorney around here. Very honest. Very driven. I don't think he likes court shows.

[A PI, eh? Saul makes a mental note. He might need one of those someday, but —

Ah. She's taken.]

Nobody likes court shows.

[Court shows are a thing that happen to you when you're channel surfing while ironing or spending the day home sick or something.]

Aw, you're already underselling yourself. People love court shows, or they wouldn't continue to exist.

[Okay, and they might love them on channel surfing days. But they have to be in syndication somehow.]

"Love" is a strong word.

[It would appear Saul isn't too fond of it.]

And this is where I point out that a lot of things people don't love continue to exist in spite of that, like parking tickets. And dentists.

Yeah, but those things don't necessarily depend on love to continue.

Look, I dunno how ratings work here. [Or how they worked back home, to be honest.] Is Nielsen even a thing?

It's probably called something else.

Like Bielsen.

[...okay but is she serious though.

Because Saul looks like he's not sure.]

Bielsen?

Oh, hey, I looked it up, and it's actually the Bizen. Go figure.

What the hell — is this one of those worlds where everything is off-brand? Like in television shows that aren't allowed to endorse products?

That's actually a good way of looking at it.

[Flatly:] Great.

Hey, it could be worse. At least Stark Tech is here, so we'll have good phones.

[Saul might have a tight grasp on his emotions, but the thing he's having the most trouble with is dealing with the fact that so many of the people he knows in fiction are actual, living, breathing people here.

So he can't hide his recognition of the Stark name, but at least he doesn't look like he's about to have a fanboy fit.]

Oh, that's cool. Just phones, or...?

Good phones, good everything—depending on how much the government's letting him get off his feet.

Of course, he'd love this free advertisement a little too much, so I think I'll leave it at that.

Fair enough.

[He can only imagine.]

So I know there's uh, 3 or 4 cities where most of us wind up, but — do people ever just show up here and bail completely?

I think I need some specifics on the "bail completely." Bail to where?

I dunno. Anywhere. Somewhere out west, somewhere out of the country, out of the hemisphere... or is this too promising an arrangement for most new arrivals?

Out of the country gets a handy message from your friendly neighborhood government. Anything else within the borders is possible, but inconvenient. I mean, did you turn up with working credit cards?

[Ah, right.]

An excellent point.

[He smiles.] No wonder you do PI work.

[And it's not just because she didn't know how to apply for retail work.]

Everyone's got their fields of expertise.

That's true. Should I ever need a PI, I'll keep you in mind.

[Whether she likes that or not, he means it.]

[She smiles, and she manages to make it look cheerful enough.]

Thanks for the consideration.

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