by Melissa Good
Dar gave him a wry look. "Welcome to my world."
"Lady, you can keep it. I should tell that damn governor to take his threats and shove them up his ass."
"Threats?" Kerry frowned. "What on earth does he have to threaten us with? None of these are even our circuits." She got up and went over to the counter, selecting two sandwiches. "Sheesh."
"Hungry, boss?" Mark asked, giving her two fisted selection a quizzical look.
Kerry merely gave him a look as she retreated back to her chair stopping on the way to deliver Dar's sandwich. She sat down again and took a bite from the roll, glad of the tang of the horseradish sauce taking the taint of dust from her mouth.
"Thanks." Dar licked a bit of the sauce off her fingers.
"He said if we didn't come through on this damn Exchange issue, he'd cancel all our state contracts," Alastair said. "Can you believe that?In the middle of all this? I asked him if he didn't have enough problems without us pulling out and taking the rest of his offices down."
"I think he's just panicked." Dar chewed her mouthful of prime rib thoughtfully and swallowed it. "I think the federal government is all over him, and he's punching at whatever is in reach." She took a sip of her juice to wash the sandwich down. "Besides, we committed ourselves to help out here. "
"We did." Alastair agreed mournfully. "Sorry about that."
"I'm not," Dar replied.
Kerry tilted her head to one side and regarded her partner. "Really?" She asked. "You like being here?"
Dar shook her head. "No." She licked another bit of sauce from her thumb. "I hate being here. But if those people get their heads out of their asses, and get that cable run, we can do something to help." She glanced at Alastair. "Did you explain that to him?"
"Do you think they can do it?" Kerry nibbled the edge of her sandwich.
"There's no technical reason they can't," Dar said. "If they have the cable, and they're the damn phone company so they should have the damn cable, and they can find their way into the subway which goes right over onto the island, they can do it."
Alastair extended his legs and crossed his ankles. "Seems like a lot of work for two days. I did mention to the governor we had a dependency on those folks, but he wasn't hearing any of it. Said I should get it done myself."
Dar rolled her eyes.
"Hey, it's your reputation that got us into this." Her boss reminded her."I wasn't the one who called the government and volunteered us."
"Like I did?" Dar shot back. "You're the one who told me to go do it. I could have told Gerry we didn't have a chance at fixing this."
Alastair paused and thought, then shrugged. "Well--you know you're right. I did," he said. "But you never do listen to me, so why did you this time?"
"Children." Kerry cleared her throat. "Can we table the snipe fest? We've already got enough issues here to deal with."
"Doesn't she work for you?" Alastair pointed at Kerry, staring pointedly at Dar. "Insubordination?"
"Don't I work for you?" Dar grinned suddenly. "What's your point?"
Alastair chuckled wryly after a brief pause. "Damned if I know. Someone get me another scotch." He waved a hand at the bus attendant. "All right. So you're saying if those folks do manage to get some agreement then there's a chance this can happen?"
Dar got up and went to the white board on the far wall of the bus. It was covered in scribbling, and she picked up an eraser and wiped it off."Okay." She grabbed a marker and started drawing. "Let me just sketch this in."
Kerry took the opportunity to finish her sandwich. It was good.Her body was craving protein, and it really hit the spot.
Dar was drawing in a reasonable facsimile of Manhattan with the Hudson and East rivers on either side. Her hand made easy, sure motions and after a moment, she was finished. "We're here." She made a mark near the tip of the island. "Mark, hand me that subway map over there will ya?"
"Sure." Mark hopped off the barstool he had perched on and brought the map over. He handed it to Dar then stepped back out of the way.
"Thanks." Dar opened the map and spread it on the bar, studying it for a moment. "Okay." She turned to the white board again. "Here's where we were today." She marked a spot on the map. "That's Cortland Street. Here's the disaster site." She marked a large square. "Here's where the triple pop was, and Verizon's Central Office."
Kerry watched in fascination while sipping her drink. Dar's sense of space had always intrigued her. She'd seen her partner draw underwater diagrams with a three dimensional precision that was amazing. Now, she laid out the diagram with absolute sureness.
"Now." Dar moved on to the east side of the island. "Here's Roosevelt Island. The subway comes in here and then the line that goes through there comes back around this side down to here." She tapped her marker on the map. "If they bring it up Lexington Avenue, to Central Park, they can come down the tunnel here, and they'll end up not that far from our node."
"That's a hell of a long way." Alastair protested. "Not that it looks that far on that board, but Dar, I've been on that side of the city. You're not talking about a trivial effort here."
"I know." Dar juggled the marker in her hand, flipping it end from end."You didn't ask me if it was reasonable or likely--just if it was possible."
Kerry was about to voice her doubts about the possibility of it happening at all when her mind flashed back to a rainy night in the Carolinas and her jaws clicked shut.
It was possible. Dar wouldn't have bothered discussing it if she thought it wasn't. Whether or not those other guys could achieve it was another question, but it was a question Kerry wasn't sure she should be asking.
It wasn't their problem.
"That's a crazy amount of work." Mark spoke up. "If those guys have the reels, then maybe, but I don't think they can get through all that red tape, Dar. I heard those guys from the phone company talking and they're not into it at all."
"Well." Dar went to the bar and sat down on a stool. "Governor or no governor, I'm not going down there and do it for them," she said, quietly. "This is their city. It's their customers. I'm not crawling around in a tube kicking rats out of the way on their behalf."
Kerry nodded in relief. "Dar, I'll go wherever you go, but I don't want to do that either. Being under there today freaked me out."
"Right there with you," Mark said.
Alastair sipped his scotch. "I can work with that." He decided. "Let me get hold of Ham and we'll go see that damn jackass again."
"Somebody call me?" Hamilton Baird entered the back of the bus,wiping his hands off on his handkerchief. "Why, hello there you all. Gentlemen. Ladies." He glanced at Dar. "Maestro."
"Just talking about you Ham," Alastair said. "Dar's got a plan.We've got to go sell it."
"Now that's different," Ham drawled. "Ah got to tell you, Dar, I heard from those people down at Crisis on the Bay, or whatever they're calling that junk shop on the Hudson, and they do think you're just the cat's meow."
"Thanks," Dar said.
"Did you really do something with a welder?"
"Soldering iron." Kerry supplied. "It really was pretty spectacular and brilliant, but that's pretty typical of Dar."
Dar looked at her, eyes widening a little.
"Do tell?" Hamilton half turned toward her, a humorous tone in his voice.
"When we're done with the chit chat, we've got a jackass to go see," Alastair said.
Hamilton paused at the sandwich tray. "Do I have a New York minute to swallow this like a civilized man or should I have this lovely young lady put it in a blender and make it a smoothie for me?
"Eat." Alastair waved a hand at him.
Hamilton picked up his sandwich and his drink and wandered to the front of the bus where a television was playing. After a moment, Alastair got up and followed him.
Mark dusted off his hands. "I'm gonna go see what routers I've got to mess with left back there." He unlatched the back door and disappeared, leaving Dar and Kerry alone in the small seating
section.
They were both quiet for a moment, just looking at each other. Then Kerry got up and moved over to Dar's chair, taking a seat on the arm and leaning along the back.
"Children?" Dar rested her head against Kerry's shoulder. "You crack me up."
"Sorry." Kerry ran the fingers of her free hand through Dar's hair."My brain is running in circles. Can they really do this, Dar?"
"Probably not," she conceded. "It would be like us running a cable from the office in Miami to our house. Possible, but pretty damn unlikely"
"Can they get it to our office at the Rock? We could take some of the traffic there, and not go all the way across to Roosevelt." Kerry suggested. "It's a little closer."
Dar considered that. "Which one of us is spectacular and brilliant?" she asked. "I forgot all about that. I have extra capacity at the office. We might be able to take part of the traffic there." She closed her eyes. "But I was serious, Ker. They have to step up, just like we had to step up yesterday and get the job done."
Kerry kissed the top of her head. "I love you," she replied, simply.
Dar smiled.
"Anything we can do to help though?"
"I knew you were going to ask that." Dar remarked. "Let's get Scuzzy up here and see if she knows someone we can talk to. I met her on a subway. Maybe it's a sign." She reached over and put her hand on Kerry's leg. "Want to hear my ulterior motive?"
"That if they run the cable up to our uplink, we can piggy back our customers down here on it? Starting with our tech office?"
Dar chuckled under her breath, a soft, light sound that echoed inside the bus. "Busted!"
Kerry started laughing too, her body finally giving up its tension as her headache faded and her blood sugar stabilized. The sense of horror from the disaster site moved to the back of her mind and the optimism that was more natural for her returned.
Dar turned her head and brushed Kerry's lips with her own, ignoring the rest of the folks on the bus that were within earshot.
Shocking. Kerry returned the kiss, caressing Dar's face with gentle fingers. But who cared?
The whole world was different now.
Chapter Seven
KERRY RESTED HER chin on her hand as her other hand moved her mouse clicking on another email. "Go ahead, Air Hub. I think it sounds like everyone has everything pretty much together."
"Roger that, Miami exec. Traffic isn't back to normal, but it's steady, and I think we can handle the additional service requests."
"Miami exec, this is Herndon." A female voice broke in. "We're getting calls from sites affected by the Pennsylvania outage. They want a status."
Kerry tapped on the mouse. "Do you have someone on now?"
"Yes, ma'am." Herndon answered. "Docson Pharmaceuticals."
"Put them on."
There was a moment's silence. "Put them on the bridge, ma'am?"
"Yes," Kerry said. "I only have two ears and one set of vocal cords. Put them on."
"Uh--yes ma'am. One second."
Kerry released her mouse and picked up her cup of hot tea, taking a sip of the mint and raspberry flavored beverage as she waited for the customer to come on the line.
She was in the last section in the bus a small, discrete office barely the size of her bathroom in the condo, but furnished in solid teak with the most comfortable leather office chair she'd ever encountered.
Plush and expensive, it was designed to provide a marginal business purpose for the courtesy bus and, in the case of strange and utter emergency, it allowed whoever was using the bus at the time--always senior officers of the company--to perform whatever office it was they held in dignified good taste.
She liked it. It was private. There was a smoked glass wall that separated it from the rest of the bus, and a door she currently had shut. The glass kept it from being too claustrophobic, but the shading kept it from being a fishbowl and it was soundproofed to a moderate degree.
"Standby." Herndon warned her. "Mr. Eccles? You're on the line with Kerry Stuart, our VP of Operations. Go ahead."
The only thing it lacked was enough space for Dar to be in therewith her. "Go ahead, Mr. Eccles. What can I do for you?" Kerry spoke into the mic.
"Ah, okay, yes. Ms--ah, Stuart was it?" A male voice came from the speaker, along with faint static.
"That's right." Kerry saw a popup start to flash, and she clicked on it.
Hey Kerry -- got a minute?
Kerry typed into the box. Go ahead Mari.
"Well, listen. I need to know what's going on here. I've tried to get hold of my account rep, but he's not answering, and the support center said there's no one available down there so--"
Kerry clicked on another box as a text message passed through their internal messaging system rather than to her phone.
Scuzzy knows a guy. She smiled at the words. "Well, Mr. Eccles, I'm very sorry, but you'll have to be a little more specific on the question. There's an awful lot going on right now. I am sure you can appreciate that we have many issues we're working on, including yours."
She waited for the answer while she typed a response. Scuzzy's going to be worth a promotion by the time this is over
She'll end up a regional director. Can't wait for the conference calls with her on them.
Kerry stifled a laugh, appreciating Dar's wry humor. Then Mari's box started flashing with a new incoming message, and she clicked over to it.
Kerry, I've got a request here from the FBI to provide them with all our employment records.
Kerry's head jerked up. "What?"
"Well, I--what?" Eccles answered. "What did you say?"
"Sorry." Kerry typed furiously into the machine. "Go ahead. I have quite a few things working here right now."
"As I was saying, our offices have been down since Tuesday. I'm the first one to understand that there's been terrible things going on, and I assume your people are busy, but my business is at a standstill and I need to know what's being done for us."
What? Dar's response came back.
What should I tell them? Mari asked.
"Hang on a minute, Mr. Eccles. Let me call up the support system and see what I can find out for you." Kerry said, as she typed. Mari, I'm getting Dar on this. She's with Alastair, and I hope also with Hamilton. They really need to handle that request. Who's it coming from?
I'm on the way there. Dar's message somehow sounded as indignant as Kerry knew she was.
Bring Alastair and our lawyer. Kerry advised her. "Okay, Mr. Eccles,what I have here on your outage is that you have three circuits down--"
Her cell phone rang. "Hold on a second, maybe that's news." She put the mic on hold and opened her phone without looking at the caller ID."Kerry Stuart."
Okay, gotcha. Mari typed back. I halfway understand the request, Kerry--it's become very obvious to a lot of people just how involved we are in the government, but I'm concerned.
She's concerned? Kerry took her eyes from the screen briefly as she heard a slight buzz on the phone. "Hello?"
"Ms. Stuart? Hello? This is Danny down at the Pentagon--I'm trying to get hold of Mark. Do you know where he is?"
The door opened and Dar entered the small room, bringing her restless energy with her. "Who's asking?"
"Danny, last time I saw Mark he was inventorying the routers here. Can I get him to call you? I'm on a few things right now." Kerry blocked out the distraction of her partner with difficulty.
"Oh, sure. Sorry about that," Danny said. "They're all of a sudden chewing me to move some of our rigs and I don't want to disconnect anything"
"Let me see that." Dar circled the desk and squeezed behind it with her, leaning over to peer at Kerry's screen. She clicked on Mari's box and typed into it.
"Okay, yeah, I'll have Mark call you." Kerry promised. "Bye." She hung up the phone and picked up the mic. "I'm on the bridge, hon.Don't start yelling."
"Idiots." Dar growled while reading the screen.
"Okay, sorry about that." Kerry keyed the mic.
"Mr. Eccles, according to our system--" She paused, as Dar's typing removed the view from her screen. "Sorry, hold on one more minute." She clicked the mic off. "Sweetheart, I need to see my stuff. I'm in the middle of something here."
"I know--I know--just one second," Dar muttered. "Freaking idiots. I'm having her give them Hamilton's number. He's earning his salary today, that's for sure."
Kerry took the opportunity to take a sip of tea. Despite Dar's interruption in her flurry of communication, she didn't mind having her partner hanging over her. It gave her a chance to rearrange her thoughts, and the warmth of Dar's breasts pressing against the back of her head didn't hurt either.
"There. Sorry. Want me to pass that message to Mark?" Dar kissed the top of her head. "Since I messed up your flow here?"
"That would be awesome." Kerry took possession of her laptop."Now let me go and give some BS story to this guy about his circuits. Do you think they'll look at the Philly ones any time soon?"
"All the techs are here," Dar said. "Want me to send him a sat truck? Is he big enough? "
Kerry called up the account and studied it. Then she sighed. "Honestly, no," she said. "Let me see what I can do to placate him."
"Okay." Dar gave her shoulders a squeeze, then edged out from behind the desk and got the door open. "Let me know if you need anything else, okay?"
"Absolutely." Kerry resisted the urge to come up with something else on the spot. "Thanks babe." She waited for Dar to close the door then she went back to her mic. "Okay. Where the hell was I?"
DAR SHUT THE door to the bus and emerged into the area defined by the bus, the sat trucks and equipment vans that had accompanied it. In the middle of the open space, they'd set up a rough wooden worktable, and on it was spread the underground map with a handful of techs and Scuzzy all looking at it.
She rejoined them and the techs cleared a space for her. She was about to delve back into the underground puzzle when her conscience poked her. "Where's Mark?"
"He was just here," Shaun said. "Just a second ago."
"Mark!"
