by Melissa Good
"Can we get an electrician to--well, what am I saying? We'd have to contract Methuselah for that electrical panel. Maybe he's free." Kerry started making her way toward the entrance, scribbling herself a note."Worse comes to worse, Dar, we can run a power cable in too. This isn't going to be pretty no matter how we do it."
Mark climbed up into another section ducking under the iron supports as he peered along the underside of a large pipe. "Lemme see if I can find something here. Running cable is gonna suck."
Dar leaned her elbows on Kerry's shoulders and whispered into her ear."How could it possibly be anything but pretty if you do it?"
Aw. Kerry had to smile, despite the surroundings. "Flattery will get you anything you want, you know that?"
Dar chuckled. She felt Kerry's body lean back a little against her, and she savored the moment, nibbling on the edge of her ear . "Did you really think I was flipping you off?"
"No." Kerry tilted her head back and gave Dar a kiss on her jawbone. "I'm just glad I'm here with you and I felt like messing with you a little," she admitted. "This is so insane. What are we doing here?"
"C'mon." Dar bumped her gently. "Let's go see what other bad news awaits us." She put her hands on Kerry's shoulders and steered her toward the door. They had left it open, and the light from outside seemed an odd contrast to the dank, dark, interior of the old closet they were poking around in.
The tangle of pipes and iron bars made their progress slow, but they climbed up the steel steps and onto the platform that held the door just as Mark crawled back out from under an ancient console, his jumpsuit now liberally covered in grunge.
"Anything?" Kerry asked.
"Maybe," Mark said. "But I think the outlet's older than I am. Scary." He dusted himself off as they emerged from the room, blinking a little in the light. The building superintendant was leaning against the opposite wall, and he pushed off to come meet them as Mark pushed the door closed.
"Seen enough?" The man asked.
"We found what we were looking for, yes," Kerry said. "Now we have to find a way to get to it. Do you have a building electrician? We need some work done."
The man stared at her. "Work done? Lady you seen that room? No one does no work in there."
"They put our circuit in there. That's work." Kerry's nape hairs bristled. "Though I'm going to have a word with the management here as to why that happened."
The man held his hands up. "That's not my area," he said. "You want the electrician? I'll call him. He can tell you himself," he said. "You want to wait here? I'll have him come down." He didn't wait for Kerry to nod before he picked up his radio and started speaking into it, turning away from them and lowering his voice. Then with a glance at them, he walked away, heading for a door in the back of the hall.
"I'm going to go grab a router and see what mounting stuff we have," Mark said. "I'll come back here and wait for the electrical guy if you want to go see what's going on."
"Sounds like a plan," Dar said. "Thanks Mark."
"No prob." He trotted off toward the stairs, leaving Dar and Kerry behind.
"You want me to tell Alastair you can talk to the press now?" Kerry asked.
"No," Dar replied placidly. "That's not part of my job. That's part of his job. He's got Hamilton with him, and the entire New York office publicity machine with him, and I've got better things to do."
"All righty," Kerry said. "But honey, even though I love you more than anything on earth, you're going to be the one to tell him that, okay?"
Her partner chuckled wryly.
Dar's phone rang again. Kerry promptly handed it over to her.
Dar took it. "Hello," she answered briefly after glancing at the caller ID. Not him She mouthed at Kerry. "Yes, this is Dar Roberts. Who is this?" She paused, folding her free arm across her body and resting her elbow on her fist. "Okay, bu--oh, all right. Okay." She nodded. "So what's the issue?"
Kerry half listened and half watched their surroundings. There were a lot of people walking around, but they all seemed distracted, and the stores she could see had workers in the doorways, mostly standing and watching the passersby.
"So they're fighting over that? What the hell do you want me to do?" Dar asked. "What makes you think that?"
Kerry spotted their team coming out from the entrance to the subway. She waved at them, catching Scuzzy's eye and smiling as they changed direction to come over to where she and Dar were standing."Here's the rest of the gang, hon."
"I think that's a crock of bullshit," Dar said. "I'll head over there, but only because I want to see the data path. If you're still there wasting time then I'll see you, but I hope you get your head out of your ass and get working before then."
Kerry patted her partner's hip. "Easy, tiger."
Dar closed the phone abruptly and clipped it back on her pocket as the rest of the crew arrived. "Jackasses," she muttered. "Did you find a route?" She asked the gang.
"We found a lot of mad people," Shaun said. "Boy, people get pissed off when you ask dumb questions in the subway around here. They even got mad at her." He indicated Scuzzy, who nodded.
"Okay. Well, I'd like to ride from here back to where they have to drop the line into the tunnels," Dar said. "They've got some kind of hangup somewhere up there about the cable they want to talk to me about."
"What kind of trouble were they giving you, Shaun?" Kerry asked. "What were you guys asking?"
"Just where the tunnels met and stuff like that. You'd have thought we were asking for the president's fax number," Shaun said. "They're just freaking tunnels. What did they think we were going to do, set a bomb off in them?"
Everyone fell silent after he finished talking, looking at each other awkwardly as the words penetrated.
"Well, ya know--" Scuzzy murmured.
"They might have thought just that." Dar finished, quietly. "Let's go folks. We found the drop and Mark's going to work on getting our end of this set up. We might as well find out how far they've gotten before he goes to too much trouble."
"We can take the six," Scuzzy said. "I'm sure they're up past Brooklyn Bridge station already. We can walk, or take the 8th Ave up to the 53rd."
Dar eyed her. "You pick. None of the rest of us know what the hell you're talking about." She added, "But since the cable's probably going to have to come from underground, we should go the same route."
"You got it." Scuzzy turned and motioned them back the way they'd come. "Let's get a move on, people. We got trains to catch."
Chapter Ten
"ANYTHING?" DAR PEERED out the door to the subway train that was idling briefly in the station. "See anything, Scuzzy?" She glanced at her watch, uncomfortably aware of the rapid passage of time."This is nuts."
"Not a damn thing." Scuzzy scratched her chin, as she hopped quickly back into the train. "Where the hell are these guys? I thought for sure they'd be at least halfway up to the place by now."
"You and me both." Dar ran her fingers through her hair. "I don't get it. They were all fired up to get this done after that meeting."
"Maybe they got a problem."Scuzzy looked apologetic. "Them guys ain't bad, mostly. They were pretty spooked after that guy got in trouble. My uncle said all of 'em were talking about it. Nobody wants that sorta trouble, you know?"
"Mm." Dar gripped the bars of the train rocking back and forth against them as though her body motion could make the car move with it. She went to the door again and looked out, squinting into the darkness as she peered into the tunnel. "Damn it."
They were in the first car of the train right behind the conductor's booth Kerry was sitting in one of the seats with her cell phone pressed to her ear and her free hand cupped over the other side of her head.
Dar glanced at her, then stepped back as the doors started to close."Ker? We're moving again."
"I feel it," Kerry muttered. "Okay, folks, I'm going to lose you again. I'll call you back." She closed the phone as the train rattled forward plunging from the fluorescent light o
f the station into the darkness of the tunnels again.
Dar sat down next to her and put a hand on her knee. "If this is driving you nuts, you can take off at the next station. Go back to the office and deal with Lansing there." She studied the frustrated expression on Kerry's face, watching the pale lashes flicker a little. "Okay?"
Kerry rested her elbows on her knees her phone clasped in her hands. "No," she said, after a moment. "I want to stay here."
"Sure?" Dar gave her kneecap a little scratch.
"Yeah. I 'm just saying the same thing over and over again. It's probably a good thing I keep having to get off the line before I start screaming."
"Ah." Dar leaned back extending her long legs across the floor of the car. She regarded the interior, then shook her head a trifle. "I can't believe I'm in one of these things and it's not freaking me out," she remarked."Last time I nearly chucked my guts up."
Kerry straightened up and sat back. "Relative levels of things to freak out about?" She suggested. "I know it would take a hell of a lot to freak me out right now, that's for sure."
Dar spread her arm out along the back of the seat behind Kerry, waiting until she felt the tense back relax against her touch. "So what's Lansing's problem? Can I help?" She rubbed the bottom of her thumb across the top of her partner's shoulder. "Someone I can yell at for you?"
A grudging smile appeared on Kerry's face. "Backups are taking too long. They're still pretty saturated across the northern links and they're running into issues finishing the drive mirroring."
"Are you kidding me?" Dar peered at her. "They're bitching about that?"
"It's causing problems with their autonomic scripts." Kerry tilted her head back to rest on Dar's arm. "Their production jobs aren't kicking off on time and it's throwing everyone off. I understand how frustrated they are, but damn it, Dar, its not like we're hanging out having Daquiris here."
Dar reflected on that. "I could use a Daquiri right now," she said. "Tell them to split the backup into two segments, and run them on alternate nights until we get a little more clear and I can spend some time working the metrics. We'll take the risk."
"I suggested that." Kerry watched Dar's profile. "That's what we were arguing about. When I call them back I'll tell them you said so,and that should end that conversation."
"You make me sound like such a pirate captain."
"Here's the next station." Scuzzy stood up. "They got to be here.This is the freaking last stop on this here train. It's Brooklyn Bridge!"
"Hold that thought." Kerry stood up as they pulled into the station and clipped her phone to her belt as Dar joined her and they both went to the door and peered out. The station was relatively quiet and, as they stepped out onto the platform, the rest of the passengers exited and headed for the stairwells further down.
Scuzzy had bounced out ahead of them, and she was near the very end of the platform, her head poked out into the tunnel as she shaded her eyes. "Okay, so here we are. Where the hell are these guys?"
Dar studied the tracks, not seeing any indication of new cable running through that would hint at the teams passing. "Kerry, get your buddy on the phone and find out where the hell these people are," she said, going over to the cracked Plexiglas covering a subway map and studying it. "If this is Brooklyn Bridge, we're almost back to where we started yesterday. What the hell have they been doing?"
Kerry joined her, phone pressed to her ear. "I don't want to go any closer to where we were," she stated. "We don't have any protection, Dar."
"Right there with you, Ker. They should have been a lot further up by now. This may all be one big damn moot point."
The train behind them was still idling in the station. Scuzzy came back over to where Dar and Kerry were standing, extending her arms out in visible bewilderment. "I don't get it."
"Us either." Dar acknowledged. "I find it very hard to believe these people haven't gotten up this far yet. What the hell are they doing, laying the damn cable an inch an hour?" She went to the edge of the platform and looked down the tunnel, seeing not much other than a few lights off in the distance.
It smelled. A gust of surprisingly cold air blew back down into her face and she stepped back quickly, glancing behind her at the train.
"No, you aren't." Kerry was speaking into her phone. "I'm standing right here, looking at the wall and we're in the city hall station."
Across the platform, against the far wall, Dar could see another,smaller concrete slab that was darkened and obviously not used. She turned around and saw the twin of it against the other wall, then she went again to the edge of the tunnel and peered inside.
The driver had come out of his cubicle and he approached her. "What are you people doin'?" he asked, in a gruff tone.
Dar turned. She held up her ID and credentials, which he peered at."We're working with the government," she said. "Trying to lay some cable down these tunnels."
The driver looked down the tunnel, then at her. "You're crazy,right? You think you're putting cables down the subway? We got manholes for that." He pointed across at the other, darkened platform. "They're over there, not in the tunnels lady."
"Are they?" Dar looked where he was pointing seeing a roll down door in the gloom. "Can I get over there to look at it?"
The driver studied her , then he shrugged. "G'wan inside the car.I'll open the other doors. You might need to jump a little."
"Look, I'm telling you I'm right here. No one--what? What do you mean, another city hall?" Kerry motioned Scuzzy over. "Can you talk to this guy? He's not making any sense to me."
"Sure." Scuzzy willingly came over. "He's probably from Brooklyn or somethin'."
Dar entered the car through the open doors and crossed over waiting until the driver entered his cubicle and opened the far set exposing the dark, shortened platform. It wasn't much of a jump, actually. Dar merely stepped across onto it, and pulled her flashlight out to explore.
The platform was filthy. She had the brief sensation of what it might be like inside a coal mine as she walked carefully along the concrete slab glancing up at an old mosaic embedded into the wall. "Brooklyn Bridge," she muttered under her breath.
It was obscured with plaster and a half wall of whitewashed wood forming a crude storage area. Next to that was a door painted black to match the inside walls and battered with years. Dar walked over and turned the knob, fully expecting it to be locked but not entirely surprised when it wasn't.
She pushed the door open and peered inside, and sure enough, she was faced with more cable trunks than she knew what to do with. She entered and looked around, tipping her head back to look up and see tiny chinks of light above her head.
They flickered, then flickered again, and she realized she was looking at daylight. Manhole? She turned and looked at the door, then shook her head and continued exploring.
"Hey, Dar!" Kerry's voice echoed through the station. "Where are you?"
"Over here." Dar examined the huge bundles of cables and thick, riveted pipes that ran along the wall. A rustle of movement made her jump, and she flashed her light into the corner, which now had a pair of glowing eyes. "What's up?"
"C'mere!"
Dar backed out of the room with guilty relief, shutting the door quickly behind her before she turned and found Kerry looking out of the open doors at her. "What's up?"
"What's there?" Kerry countered. "Did you find something?"
"Cable trunk." Dar joined her in the car. "Not sure it helps us. Not sure where it ends up."
"Hey, if you people wanna keep talkin', I got to pull the train around to the other track," the driver said. "You want to ride around? I got no problem with that, since you're with the government and all."
"We're n--" Kerry started to answer, then she stopped. "Sure, that's fine. Thanks." She waited for the door to the driver's compartment to close. "Dar, they told Scuzzy they were in some other City Hall station. She thinks they're in the wrong tunnels."
Dar looked over at Scuzzy, who lifted
her hands again. "There ain't no other City Hall station on this line, yeah? They got one over on the BMT though. I think they came down into the wrong stations or something."
"Great." Dar exhaled, pressing her nose against the window as the train started moving. "We're screwed."
"I think it's the stock market that's screwed, hon," Kerry said, pragmatically. "It's not our fault they took the wrong stairs."
"We'll still get screwed over it. No one's going to care if they did the wrong thing. We're the ones who promised we'd fix it." Dar stared grimly out the window, as the train eased into a turn, and the walls shifted from a drab sooty black to a lighter brick.
She got the impression of light, and she cupped her hands against the glass to see better. "Wh--" Her eyes took in arches and brickwork, a flash of mosaic, flickers of light, and outlined in it a group of workers with a familiar spool. "Hey! Hey! There they are!"
"What?" Kerry crowded against her and looked out the window."Where who--oh--huh?"
"Scuzzy, get this guy to stop, will ya?" Dar called out. "There are the bastards. In there!"
Scuzzy was already hammering on the door to the driver's compartment. "Hey buddy! Hey! Hold it up!"
The train shuddered to a halt, jerking and rattling and throwing Kerry against Dar and both of them against the window. Dar grabbed Kerry and the pole she was standing near and got them both upright as the door to the driver's pod yanked open and the driver emerged.
"What in the hell are you people yelling about?" the man asked. "Jesus Christ you scared the shit out of me! You know what it's been like the last couple days? I'm having a heart attack!" He fumed. "What's wrong with you?"
"Hey, take it easy." Scuzzy held her hands out. "We just found the guys we were looking for, yeah? We didn't want to miss them."
"What are you ta--" The driver ducked back inside and looked out his window. "There's no one--oh hell. There are people there. What the hell are they doing there?" He opened the slat and stuck his head out."What you people doin' out there, huh?"
