We Packed Eight Years of Records for a Monday Hearing

The petition reached Celia before supper.

Larchmere wanted an order stopping me from selling insects to anyone else. It also wanted keys to my rooms and control of the supply agreement while the dispute was heard.

The request called my laboratory "an off-site corporate facility."

I read that line at my kitchen table. The table had a burn mark from a pot I had set down twelve years earlier. For some reason, that small mark made me angry enough to stand.

I had paid for that mistake. I had paid for the lab too.

"Don't call Sterling," Celia said when I phoned her.

"I was going to call the equipment dealer."

"Good. Ask for receipts."

I paid Celia a $2,500 retainer from my personal savings. Then I made tea and started a list.

The lab lease came first. My company was the tenant. Next came the incubator receipt, paid from my lab account before I joined Larchmere. There were tax bills, insurance records, and staff pay records.

None of that was exciting. All of it had dates.

On Saturday morning, my technician, Tessa Pike, met me outside Desert Lily.

"Are we closing?" she asked.

"No."

"My sister saw a post about your retirement."

"The company wrote it. I didn't approve it."

Tessa held her lunch bag against her chest.

"I can work somewhere else if I have to. I just need to know."

I wanted to promise her a year of safe pay and a warm roof. I had learned enough from Sterling to know that a soft promise could be a kind of theft.

"We have work booked through January," I said. "The lab has $16,940 in its operating reserve. I'll show you our position every Friday while this is going on."

She nodded.

"That helps more than 'don't worry.'"

We checked the rooms together. We marked company-owned sample boxes and kept them separate from lab colonies. Larchmere had paid for certain reports and customer records. I was ready to provide those through counsel.

I wasn't going to hide what belonged to them just because they claimed what belonged to me.

Tessa found an old cabinet label that said PROPERTY OF LARCHMERE.

My stomach dropped.

We pulled out the purchase file. The cabinet belonged to Larchmere. It had been lent to us for storing its samples.

"List it," I said.

"Even now?"

"Especially now."

I drew a pencil flower beside the inventory after we both checked it.

Tessa taped a clean sheet to the cabinet door. It listed each company sample and the shelf where we kept it.

"They can find everything without touching our breeding trays," she said.

I took dated photographs of the shelves and sent them to Celia. Then we went back to feeding the colonies. A court date did not change what a living thing needed on Sunday. The eggs would hatch when they were ready, with or without a sale.

Dinesh arrived carrying a banker box and a pear in a paper bag.

"Lunch," he said, handing me the pear.

His box held old lot sheets, delivery slips, and our first signed contract. He had saved the envelope too.

"You kept the postage?" Tessa asked.

"It proves when it traveled. Also, I liked the stamp."

He opened the first lot sheet. Beside a weak hatch count, I had written REJECTED.

"We lost $1,860 on that batch," he said. "You were right to reject it. That was when I knew our agreement would work."

I had nearly forgotten the batch. Dinesh had remembered the loss without ever making it a debt between us.

On Sunday, Celia met us at the lab. She read the employment agreement aloud where it dealt with inventions and work done for Larchmere.

Then she turned to a signed attachment.

"Existing outside business and listed supplier rights excluded," she read.

My laboratory and Dinesh's agreement were listed beneath it.

"Will that end it?" Tessa asked.

"It gives us strong evidence," Celia said. "Monday's hearing is about the emergency order. It won't settle every claim or bill."

She placed my invoices in a separate folder.

The company's controller, Ellen Voss, had already confirmed their approval by email. She had sent the payment history I was entitled to receive as a vendor. It showed no dispute about the work, only repeated payment holds.

"Who ordered the holds?" I asked.

"We don't have that record yet," Celia said.

I put down my pencil. No flower went beside a guess.

We still needed the board minutes approving my outside business. My copy was unsigned. Celia had asked the former corporate secretary for the signed version.

At six on Sunday evening, a car stopped outside the lab.

June Bell climbed out with a stiff brown envelope held under her coat against the wind.

"I kept the certified minutes," she said. "Sterling asked me to remove that page eight years ago. The board voted to keep it."