Pierce spread his arms wide. “Welcome, Ms. Larson, to the Bay.”

Karen felt like her head was on a swivel, spinning this way and that. “The Bay?”

Pierce nodded, his large glasses glinting with the motion. “Yes, the repair Bay! Not the only thing that we do here of course. But it’s the big thing, in terms of money, time, and people”

He started rolling forward, Karen following automatically. “All the research and development that we do, all of the projects we fund... Finding new ways to use drones, new technological advances that we can monetize, that we can sell, none of it matters unless it gets USED!”

He came to a stop in front of one of the many workbenches, this one empty of people, but with parts laid out, ready to go. “This room is responsible for almost half our overhead, three quarters of our employees, and a good ninety percent of our income. We repair and upgrade our own drones, both those used in house, and those that we’ve already sold to other companies. More than that, we will happily repair other companies' technology, generally after warranties have expired.”

Jotting notes into her pad, Karen felt herself getting a grip back on the interview. “Drones used in house? Other than the ones that are being tested?”

Turning away from her, Pierce waved an index finger in her direction. “EXACTLY! We don’t just sell our technology, we use it to meet the needs of our customers with expertise. We often get hired to do on site evaluations and surveys, as well as one time or short term use of our drones for other random projects.”

He pointed across the vast room, and Karen followed his finger to a section that had several large shapes that slowly resolved in her view into clear sided water tanks, like an aquarium.

“Team Six currently has several of our aquatic drones on a county contract, examining underwater leakage of the Liet Reservoir north of town. Team One Two One is rewiring the Anderson building downtown. We have our people flying the drone platform, with waldos being run by outside electricians hired by the owners. They’re removing and replacing old wire in conduits outside the building. Spaces it would be impossible to reach otherwise without building scaffolding around the entire block.”

He paused for a moment, waiting for the sound of her pen scratching to slow, before starting to roll forward again. “Of course, there’s demo jobs as well, where a tech goes out and does a one time demonstration of one capability or another. Nothing like showing how quickly you can do a job with mobile robotics in order to get companies to purchase a fleet for themselves. And of course, our own R&D works out of here when actually field testing new designs.”

Looking around, Karen realized suddenly that Pierce was far from the only person in the expansive room in a wheelchair. Far from a majority, of the few dozen workers spread across the room, maybe four or five, but still a noticeable number.

Once again showing that he saw everything from every angle, Pierce grinde and gave a short laugh. “Go ahead Miss Larson, I know you wanna ask.”

Karen blushed slightly and looked down at him. “So, do you make it a habit of hiring wheelchair users?”

“Wheelchair users? I see that you are up with the current lingo. Society and the media seem to change what we get called every couple of years. And, yes, but not for the reason you think.“

Pierce continued forward, deeper into the room, Karen and her cameraman following behind.

“As you've seen, the entire building is accessible to me. Getting it that way was a rather large expense, both in time, money, and lost productivity. Really, up until two years ago there were entire wings I still couldn't get into until we had construction workers come in to add ramps, widen hallways, update doors. But the main hub, the Bay itself, and most of the paths coming into it from the rest of the building? A lot of it already was technically wheelchair accessible, due to the fact that it needed to be accessible to dollies and pallet jacks and self mobile drones.“

Karen nodded as they continued walking, several workers looking at the group and then looking up or over at the various cameras and waving. They went past several workstations, large benches covered with tools, most with a van or two next to them, and stopped in an empty bay, a rolling metal door nearby closed to the outside world.

“We don't truly make it a point to hire people in wheelchairs. But the fact of the matter is, a lot of wheelchair users who are looking for work in this field, be it drones directly, or just simply industrial workers, repair people, as well as quite a lot of our R and D staff, find it very hard to find a company that will employ them.“

Karen raised a finger, her face twisting in confusion. “That makes no sense. While I could easily believe there is the occasional company that will find a pretext not to hire someone, the ADA does a pretty good job as far as I'm aware of preventing that kind of discrimination.“

Pierce gave a harsh short bark of a laugh. “Oh, the ADA. Yes, it does such a great job protecting people.”

Karen glanced over at Robert for a moment as he made a discomforted noise, the look on his face one of tired resignation, as Pierce launched into the discussion with as much emotion as he had first addressed her with when they met.

“Of course no company is going to say ‘we aren't hiring you because you're stuck in a wheelchair’. What they WILL say, is ‘Of course we’ll hire you. But you have to understand that our four story building was built so many years ago, and with regulations for altering buildings of that age, and the cost of this, and the expense of that, we really don't fall under the readily achievable category, and so we don't have an elevator that would really work for your chair’. Or they’ll say we don't have this or we can’t afford that accommodation. They aren't ‘not hiring wheelchair users’. There simply aren’t any wheelchair users trying to get a job there, because they can't physically work there.”

Karen looked away, thoughtful and disturbed. “I never thought of it that way, I guess Grandfather clauses bite both ways “

.

“Miss Larson!” Roberts voice cut sharply across the room, several of the workers stopping to look at the group, startled by the tone. “First of all, to be completely correct, there is no such thing as a “Grandfather clause” in the ADA.”

Karen stared wide eyed as the older man continued lecturing, positive that she had actually HEARD the quotation marks around Grandfather clause when he spoke.

“There's simply an allowance made for an expense to be considered “unreasonable” for a company to incur. Otherwise, there is no exception for buildings to not be made ADA compliant based upon their age or any other factor, no matter how much other businesses may choose to suggest so.”

He paused to take a breath, obviously not quite finished. Karen found herself nodding slightly in agreement, wide eyed and still partially frozen.

“Second of all, the term itself, Grandfather clause, is a rather disturbing term with a dirty history. As a reporter, I would highly suggest you not use it. While its a mouthful, the accepted term in business use is ‘exemption for pre-existing allowances’”

The shock of the initial outburst wearing off, Karen began furiously writing notes. “Dirty history?“

“Yes,“ Robert continued dryly “if you are unfamiliar with the origin of the term, I highly suggest looking it up when you have a chance. It does not mean what you likely think it means.“

“I'll keep that in mind, thank you.“

Any further attempt at conversation was interrupted by the grinding noise of the metal door behind them suddenly beginning to roll up, daylight reflecting through a slowly increasing slit in the wall. As it reached the top of its path, a white van, identical to the rest of the vans in the Bay, pulled through, coming to a stop next to the group. The driver's window wound down, and a woman leaned out the window looking down on the group and smiling. Hair fell around her face in a shock of electric blue, all the brighter against a Mediteranian skin tone and the dark tone of large glasses, a duplicate of the ones that Pierce wore.

“Hey boss!” She called out jovialy, putting the car in park with a grinding of gears and cutting the engine. She yawned broadly and winked at him. “Didn’t expect to see you in this early!”