by Melissa Good
"Think they will?"
"No," Dar said. "But I want them on the record refusing to." She stood up and stepped carefully over the open space. "Stupid bastards."
"This is a lot of crap." Mark got up. "Crap on top of crap if you know what I mean."
Dar looked past him, silent for a moment. Then she looked back."Yeah. I'll be back." She ducked out of the computer room and looked both ways, and then turned right and reluctantly headed further into the building.
Reluctant, because her conscience was really driving her in the opposite direction, back to the steps, and the door, and the bus where her partner was supposedly resting.
She felt bad about ordering Kerry out. Even if she was right, and even if she knew her partner knew she was right, it put her guts in a knot remembering the imperfectly hidden hurt in Kerry's eyes when she left.
Stupid, really. Dar prowled the hallways, poking her head into the doors on either side. Most were empty--given that it was Sunday and getting late--and she suspected finding a responsible person who'd be willing to help her was going to be unlikely.
Also stupid. Really.
She paused before a barred window and stared out of it. Maybe Kerry was really pissed at her for what she'd done. She watched the shadows move past the glass. Her partner knew her well enough to give her ten minutes to chill, and then usually she'd be back around her, nudging and poking and putting her in a better mood.
She'd expected that this time. But an hour had passed and her partner had remained in exile, and Dar was starting to feel very unhappy about it.
"Shit." She turned and put the window behind her. "Grow the hell up, would you?"
She climbed up the steps toward the large inner doors and pushed them open, emerging into the trading floor that was now dark, silent and empty.
It smelled. She wrinkled her nose. Not of dirt and decay as the basement below had, when she'd worked with Mark to push the cable back up, but of wood and paper, oil and dust, with the scent of stale perspiration just at the edges of everything.
The room was vast, but seemed far less so with the strips and outlines of cable supports that criss-crossed over the endless series of kiosks and connected them with miles of wires.
Without the clutter, it would have been grand, reminding Dar just a bit of the Grand Central terminal she'd visited on her last trip to the city. But with all the machinery and trappings of modern technology it seemed more like a cyber junkyard.
Dar studied it, reflecting on how much her life had been influenced by the goings on here. Then she shook her head and turned, walking out and back down the stairs.
"Oh, Ms. Roberts?"
Dar paused and waited as a young man caught her up. "Yes?"
"Hi," he said. "Barry Marks. We met earlier?"
Dar turned and faced him. "Yes?"
"Listen," Marks looked both ways, and then back at her, "my boss just called me. "
"I don't care," Dar said. "I've had it up to here with everyone's bosses calling everyone's bosses trying to make people kiss their asses. I'm over it."
"Wait--"
"I don't care who your boss is, or who he called, or what he's threatening, or what he says some other jackass is threatening. I just don't care. Either the damn thing will be fixed tomorrow or it won't. Not a jack thing you can do about it."
Marks stuck his hands in his pockets. "Boy, you're a tough cookie.Okay. I just wanted to pass along a warning, that's all."
Dar rolled her eyes.
"The governor is on his way here." Marks added. "I guess he's spoken to Abercrombie." He gave her an apologetic look. "Sorry about that. Everyone's kind of losing their mind about tomorrow. Any idea what we're going to do?"
"Postpone the opening." Dar leaned against the wall.
"We can't do that."
"Better figure out how to do this the old fashioned way then." Dar indicated the doors to the big room. "I'm not going to tell you it's going to be all right, buddy. It's a clusterfuck. There are parts of this thing ripped up and I can't even find someone from here to go fix it."
"Well--"
"You know whose cousin does the wiring here?" Dar pressed him. "Maybe you can have him call me, since no matter what we do with the uplink it's not going to help with the pile of cable chewed up by rats in there."
"Rats!"
"Can your boss find whoever's cousin it is?" Dar persisted. "Because that would help a lot more than sending me some ridiculous warning."
Marks held his hand up. "I'll call him. He knows the guy who's in charge of the facilities here. Probably some friend of his. Want him to come see you?"
Dar turned and started walking. "Have him see Mark Polenti in the computer room. He knows what to do." She called back over her shoulder. "I've got a--something more important to take care of."
"Right." Marks shook his head and headed for a small office nearby. "Knew I should have just taken the train up to Niagara this morning. Screw this."
Dar heard the echo, and felt a certain sympathy with it. But she kept walking, down the hall and down the stairs to the street, ignoring the guards and the people walking down the side walk as she focused on the bus door.
It opened as she approached and she waved a hand in the direction of the driver as she climbed inside, glad when it closed behind her and she was sealed inside the quiet peace of the bus.
Very quiet. Dar found herself stepping cautiously as she went through the front part of the bus to the back, spotting Kerry immediately. She circled the chair, finding her partner fast asleep against one arm, her breathing slow and even.
So that was the reason she hadn't come back outside. Dar felt both relieved and a touch embarrassed. She went over to the storage compartment and removed a small lap blanket from it. She opened it up before she returned and settled it around Kerry's sleeping body.
She waited a moment to see if that would wake her. When it didn't, she knelt down and carefully loosened the laces on her partner's hiking boots, and easing them off her feet.
She set the boots down, then straightened up and went to the refrigerator removing a chocolate chug and leaning back against the counter to drink it.
It was very quiet. Even the sounds outside had fallen off, except for the beeping of cranes and the sound of heavy machinery in the distance. She could also hear a fading siren, but around the bus there wasn't much going on.
She felt her PDA go off, bringing a welcome distraction. She put the chug down and pulled the device out of her pocket, opening it and reviewing the messages. "Ah." She muttered softly, taking out the stylus and touching the top one.
Hello Dar. Good news and bad news. Bad news first. They've looked at all the existing optics and nothing we've got can be altered to work over MMF at that distance, even with some classified stuff they have here.
Well, that was bad news. Dar found herself shrugging, having expected the message. She had decided they were going to have to wait until the new cable got here.
So, now the good news. They have an experimental optic here they're putting together for the space station and they think maybe they could see if it could be adapted. My guys are working on building an enclosure for it, so if they hit pay dirt we'll be able to fit it in the chassis you guys have there. It's a pretty slim chance.
Dar blinked at the message. Pretty slim? It was a hell of a lot more of a chance than she'd considered possible.
So anyway, that's the news. We'll be burning the midnight oil--let you know if anything looks promising. Hope it's worth something by the time we're done.
Wow. Dar tapped the screen to respond.
We're burning the midnight oil here too, just in case. Slim chance or not, this is the only hope we have, so whatever you come up with will be better than what we've got now. Whatever the cost turns out to be for this--bill me for them. If you come up with a solution, name your price. DR.
She sent it, then folded the PDA cover down and slid the device back in her pocket. Could they do it? At least they
were trying. Dar picked up her chug and drank it slowly, the cold, sweet beverage easing the ache in her throat.
What next? She glanced over to where Kerry was still sleeping soundly. With a sigh, she set her empty chug down in the garbage and retreated to the door of the bus, opening it and emerging outside quickly, shutting the door behind her.
No sense in waking Kerry up, after all. Better she get some rest. Dar was glad of the decision a moment later when her cell phone rang,making her jump a little. She glanced at the caller ID, and then opened it. "Hello, Alastair."
"Dar. Where are you?" Her boss sounded exasperated.
"At the Exchange. Outside," Dar replied. "What now?"
"Well, do me a favor lady, and take all those people you got down there and pile them in that bus and take off," Alastair said. "The governor is on his way down, and I just told him to kiss my ass."
Dar leaned back against the bus, finding a smile somewhere. "You did, huh? What happened?"
Alastair exhaled. "Jackass. Someone got wind of their little game with the test yesterday and says they're going to tell the press. So the bastard told me he was going to cut them off and tell them we screwed something up and now we're trying to fix it."
Dar blinked. "Fuck him."
"Pretty much what I said. So gather the troops, Dar. Put them on the bus and head back up here. We're out of this."
"Just like that?" Dar asked.
"Just like that. I told him he could tell the press whatever he wanted, but then again, so would I," Alastair said. "I've had it up to my eyeballs. I already told the board."
It suddenly occurred to her that she wouldn't want to cross Alastair, not in this mood. "You got it, boss. I'll go get the team and tell the driver to get ready to move. I don't want to be here when that jackass gets here and starts yelling at me."
"Damn right,"Alastair said. "See you back here in a little bit."
Dar closed her phone, and exhaled. "Well." She tossed the phone up and caught it. "So much for that." She headed for the door, then halted, turned, and went back to the bus. She keyed the door open and trotted up inside, heading over to where Kerry was napping.
The blanket was now tucked around her, her fingers clasped lightly in it, and there was the faintest of smiles on her face.
Dar knelt, and put a hand on her shoulder. "Ker?"
The green eyes fluttered open at once, and the faint smile grew into a real one.
"How are you feeling?" Dar asked. "Sorry I was a bastard before."
Kerry drew in a breath, and then grimaced. "Ow." She muttered,sheepishly. "Don't apologize. I should go get this checked out. It's killing me." She extended her hand and clasped Dar's. "Thanks for the blanket." She added, "I figured you were the only one who could have done that and not wake me up."
"Well, we've got time to go do that now. Alastair just pulled us out. I wanted to wake you up before I got the rest of the crew in here rattling around. We're going back uptown."
Kerry blinked. "Really? What happened?"
"Long story. Tell you when I get back." Dar stood. "We could beheading home sooner than I thought." She stroked Kerry's head as she circled the chair. "Hold down the fort, okay?"
"Sure." Kerry eased to a sitting position as the door closed behind Dar. She wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and tried to find a comfortable position, wiggling her toes as she blinked the sleep out of her eyes. "It's over?" She looked over at the television screen that was showing scenes of the Pentagon. "Wow."
She felt a sense of relief. Her head fell back to rest against the leather surface and she imagined herself stepping off a plane into Miami's muggy heat. "Awesome."
DAR RESTED HER elbows on her knees glad she'd sent the bus on ahead to the office. The medical examination was taking longer than she'd expected it to, and she was starting to get nervous flutters in her guts.
Not that it was her guts being examined, but still. She was hoping Kerry's injury was nothing serious, but experience had taught her that the longer they poked, the more they generally found. It was the reason she avoided doctors when she could, and even though her better sense insisted that Kerry's ribs had to be looked at, her animal anxiety wished they'd just kept driving.
"Ms. Roberts?"
Dar lifted her head quickly, turning to find a nurse at her side."Yes?"
"Could you come with me please? Your friend asked to see you."
Friend. Dar took a breath, and then she stood and waited for the nurse to move forward so she could follow her. There were places, she reasoned, where making the point about their relationship wouldn't have gotten a second's hesitation from her.
Here, in the waiting room of St. Vincent's hospital, surrounded by dozens and dozens of people who were sitting there, in crisis, waiting in vain and hoping that a loved one who had gone to work on 9/11 would come straggling in--this wasn't a place to make a personal point.
She followed the nurse down the hall and past a set of sliding doors. There were rooms on either side, with old wooden doors and wooden sills, and the desks were age worn Formica when they weren't buried under paperwork.
The nurse paused before one of the exam rooms and gave her a brief smile. "In there." She stood back so Dar could enter, and then left.
"Hey." Kerry was lying on an examining couch, halfway reclined.
She had her boots and her jumpsuit off, but was fully clothed otherwise.
"Hey." Dar glanced around, finding them alone in the room. She crossed over to her partner and studied her. "You okay?" She found the lack of blinking and beeping machines, needles, or other medical equipment encouraging, so she took Kerry's hand in hers and clasped it, feeling the chill under her fingers quickly warm.
"Yeah, I will be." Kerry looked more than a little chagrined. "I did crack a stupid rib on that damn tile. Dar, that's freaking embarrassing," she complained. "How am I supposed to explain to everyone that I hurt myself escaping from a bunch of rats while falling into a raised floor?"
"You want me to tell them you actually saved me from falling off a balcony or something?" Dar asked. "I'm cool with that. After all, you told everyone I saved you from a shark." She chafed Kerry's hand, seeing the unusual pallor of her skin. "Hurts?"
Kerry nodded briefly. "They wrapped me up, and they're giving me a pain prescription. Not much else they can do. The doctor said its just a hairline fracture, and that I was lucky as hell." She drew in a cautious breath. "Pain's making me sick to my stomach though."
"Does that mean I get to take you back to the hotel and put you to bed?" Dar's eyes twinkled gravely. "Now that we're not on the hook anymore?"
"God, that sounds like heaven. It's so hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that we're just walking away from this. What about you?"
Dar shrugged. "You want to know the truth?"
"You want to go home." Kerry studied her face intently. "The guys want to go home. I heard them talking. They don't really like being here. The only thing that's been keeping them on the job is you."
"Me?" Dar looked honestly surprised.
"Oh, honey please." That brought a smile to Kerry's pale face. "We'd all walk over hot coals for you and you know it."
Dar's brow creased. "Do you seriously think I'd let you walk over coals?"
Kerry was prevented from answering by the return of the doctor."Hey doc."
The doctor, a middle-aged man with curly gray hair and a kind face, bustled in with a clipboard and a folder. "Well, hello there again,young lady. I think we've about got you wrapped up here. This your friend?"
"Yes, it is." Kerry nodded. "Dr. Ames, this is Dar Roberts."
"Hi," Dar responded warily.
"Hello, there." The doctor gave her a smile. "Well, here's what I've got." He handed Dar a big envelope. "These are her X-rays for her doctor at home."
Dar took them. "Okay."
"Here's her prescription. It's pretty strong." The doctor handed over a smaller square of paper. "If you want my advice, don't let her sleep lying dow
n. Find a recliner and use the arms for support until the bone starts healing."
"Okay." Dar repeated feeling slightly bewildered. "I'm sure we can do that."
"Good. Take care of her, she's a cutie." He patted Dar's shoulder and left the room, whistling softly under his breath.
Dar turned and looked at a bemused Kerry. "Does he think you're my lover, my kid, or my puppy?"
Kerry started laughing, then immediately regretted it. "Oohh." She held her side. "Honey, don't make me laugh, please. It hurts like hell." She moaned.
Dar set the envelope down, stuffed the prescription in her pocket, and carefully got her arm around Kerry's shoulder. "You ready to go be coddled unmercifully?" She could feel a chill under her touch, and put her other arm around her partner cradling her gently.
Kerry relaxed, and exhaled. "They gave me a muscle relaxant. I'm a little loopy. I think that's why the doctor was letting your brain do the work for me."
"No problem." Dar kissed her on the top of her head. "Let's go. We'll grab a taxi outside and be back at the hotel in no time. I'll call the hotel and have them buy a recliner while we're on the way over."
Kerry chuckled faintly. Then she swung her legs off the couch and got up, helped by Dar's firm grip. "Want to hear the good news?"
"Sure." Dar left her arm around Kerry as they made their way to the door.
"My blood pressure was on the low side of normal." Kerry didn't quite manage to keep the smug tone out of her voice. "Even after all the crap we've been through."
Kerry experienced total shock when the nurse had glanced up and patted her shoulder, releasing the cuff and taking the stethoscope from her ears. "Perfect," the woman announced. "I love to see nice, healthy women."
Amazing. Kerry had almost forgotten about her damn ribs in her delight. The injury was painful and annoying, but finite and her blood pressure wasn't. She was glad to hear the recent stress hadn't resulted in a reading that would guarantee to cause her far more anxiety.
