Heaven, Hell & Room Service

Chapter 7: The Appeal Hearing

It had been a pretty tough week for Neil and Emily. Ever since Hewitt's face to face try with Neil, the battle to get Emily the relocation that she deserved had intensified. I won't bore you with any more of the details, but let's just say it wasn't going well in 'camp Emily'. In fact, to use a less articulate phrase, it sucked. The senior partners just held too many of the cards, and the proverbial deck was getting stacked higher and higher against our heroes.

Heightening their annoyance was the fact that their research had actually worked and they had found the way out, but couldn't get it past Hewitt and his cronies of bureaucracy. The A.A.D., or Afterlife Audit Department, was the regulatory body that oversaw the operation of the Afterlife. And, as Adam had discovered in one of the policy books that he had adopted as bed-time reading, they had the power to overrule senior staff. So, if they could get Emily's case heard, and the right decision was made, there would be nothing that any Satanic minion could do about it.

In theory, this should have been a relatively simple matter of contacting Hell's appointed ombudsman and filing a request. However, Hell's appointed ombudsman was never in their office. In fact, they didn't even seem to have an office, at least not one that Neil and company could find. Hewitt and Bloomey had caught on to their play, and were making especially sure that it was impossible for a complaint to get anywhere near the Afterlife Audit Department. Whether they had moved the ombudsman or there wasn't one to begin with, it did not really matter. Both avenues ended in the same roadblock. If there was no complaint, there was no appeal, and unfortunately complaints involved the help of staff. So yeah, they were pretty much screwed.

All of this stress was what made it unexpected, if not remarkable, for Adam to arrive at their lunch table wearing a broad smile. It certainly wasn't the food that was making him happy, because it was burger day. Or should we say wafer-thin-mystery-meat-on-stale-bun day.

"Good morning you two!" he said, brimming with some sort of weird confidence.

"Why are you in such a good mood?" Neil asked. He certainly wasn't, and it annoyed him that somebody else was.

"Oh you'll see, but we have to wait for Mildred."

Emily managed a smile. "I gotta say Ads, I think you and Milly are so cute together."

"Me too," he said with a quick wink. "There she is. Milly! Over here babe!"

Milly walked confidently over, wearing the same smile that Adam had stretched across his face. Both Neil and Emily could tell that she had something good, but couldn't imagine what it was. "Hi guys," she started brightly. "So...did he tell you?"

"Babe, you're the one who figured it out. I wasn't gonna steal your thunder. Well, except for last n—"

"Alright!" Neil interjected quickly. "Can we just skip the Star Trek fantasies please and get to the reason that you're both grinning like Cheshire cats?"

"The staff support rule," Milly announced proudly.

Emily looked blank. "Sorry, did we miss something?"

Milly whipped out a pocket-sized manual called TIDBITS & TINKERINGS ON THE A.A.D, looking like she had just produced the winning lottery ticket. "A.A.D. rule 47.3 states that requests can be made without an ombudsman if the claim is supported by an A.A.D. staff person."

Neil was still confused. "Okay...doesn't that mean we need to know someone there?"

Milly giggled, she was clearly very excited. "Yup. Someone like...my Uncle?"