by Melissa Good
"Yeah?" Dar was faintly surprised that someone had actually admitted to it.
"Yeah, it was Steve." John nodded. "Good old boy, but lazier than a dog. He was taking a nap inside that closet when you all came up there."
Kerry put her hands on her hips. "He told you that?"
John shrugged. "I don't hire Rhodes scholars," he said. "Anyway, he said he didn't put no balls of cable anywhere, but what he did see was some guy walking around picking up scraps outside near where he was."'
"Really." Dar folded her arms.
"Yeah, and he said the guy didn't look like a contractor. He had long sleeves on," John said. "Now, gotta tell you, Dar, he could be talking out his ass, but seems to me it'd be easier for him to just keep his trap shut than come up with some wild ass tale like that."
"Unless he was trying to put the blame on someone else," Kerry said.
The contractor shrugged. "Yeah, could be, but he ain't a storyteller. He'd have just said one of my other guys, or an electrician or a ship guy did it. Not make up some fella in long sleeves."
"Long sleeves." Dar mused. "Yeah, that would be unusual. Well, anyway, thanks John. Listen, do you know the name of the electrical sub?"
John snorted. "Johnson. Those sons of bitches."
Sons of bitches. Yeah, Dar recalled using them for something at the office once that had denigrated into a lawsuit. "Figures Quest picked them. Lousiest jerks in the business."
"You know it." John agreed. "You need something from them?"
"You go look in the comm room," Dar said. "Let me go see what I can get out of them." With a sigh, she collected Kerry with a tug on her sleeve and started down the steps again. "Damn, damn, damn. That's not good news."
Kerry just put her hand on Dar's back, and scratched it lightly with her fingertips. A flash of motion coming at them from below made her pull up and grab the back of Dar's shirt, slowing her partner just in time to keep them both from plowing into Peter Quest hurrying in the other direction.
"Ah." Quest paused, spotting them. "I was looking for you." He folded his arms. "So. How are things going?"
"Fine." Kerry answered. "We're making a lot of progress."
"You are?" Quest seemed a little astonished. "I mean, I'm sure you are. But with everything and all the hold ups, I'm sure you're far behind the other ships. Is there any point to going on?"
If Dar and Kerry had been dogs, both their ears and their hackles would have lifted and made quite a spectacle there in the middle of the stairwell. "I dunno," Dar finally answered. "I'll let you know on Friday."
"We may surprise you." Kerry added, with a gentle smile.
"Everything has to work." Quest warned. "My people have already started reviewing the systems on the other ships. They know what they're doing."
"So do we," Dar replied calmly.
Quest looked at them, then he went around them and continued up the steps, shaking his head.
Dar and Kerry stood quietly for a moment, then turned and looked at each other. "You know what I'm thinking, Kerrison?" Dar asked. "Aside from the fact that our lunch is sitting on the desk in that office, and I'm going to need to rethink my approach on the electricians?"
"Mmhm." Kerry took her arm, and they continued downward. "I think you're thinking about long sleeves."
Dar glanced behind them. "Yeah."
"Well, so am I." Kerry felt herself getting angry. "So am I."
THE STORM KEPT on keeping on, drumming against the windows with boring repetition. A low rumble of thunder now joined it, and the light had dimmed so much outside it felt close to evening.
Dar leaned back in her borrowed desk chair, her forearm over her eyes as she put her cell phone down on her chest. "Jesus."
Kerry looked up from the desk where she was sitting, licking a croissant crumb off her lip before she spoke. "No luck?"
"No luck." Dar confirmed. "I'm getting nowhere with that bastard." She sighed. "He told me to go talk to our lawyer."
"Ew."
"Which I can do, but it's not going to get that conduit moved and he knows it."
Kerry got up and carried Dar's sandwich over with her. She sat down on the desk her partner had taken, and unwrapped her lunch, offering her a neatly cut half. "Here."
Dar stuck out her lower lip in a pout. "I'm mad."
Kerry broke off a corner of her sandwich and presented it to the lip. "Have some lunch."
Dar accepted the tidbit and munched a little on Kerry's fingertips in the bargain. "So now what do we do?" She swallowed. "I'm gonna end up having to pay a goddamned electrician to come in here and move that thing, aren't I?"
More expenses. "Well, do we have a choice?"
"Sure." Dar leaned to one side and put her head down on Kerry's leg, despite the wide open door. "We can blow this joint and go out on a sunset cruise. How about it?"
Kerry produced a sound somewhere between a groan and a sigh. "Honey, don't tease me like that." She smoothed one of Dar's dark brows with her index finger. "Should I call the guy we use at the office? The electrician, I mean?"
Dar reluctantly lifted her head and reached over for the rest of her sandwich. "I guess." She took a bite. "He's pretty good, and maybe he'll do us a favor this one time." She glanced up at Kerry. "Especially if you ask him. He likes you."'
Kerry's brow twitched. "Oh, I don't think he especially likes me."
"Yes, he does."
"Dar."
"He does." Dar insisted, with a slight grin. "He asked Maria, way back when, if you were available."
Kerry blushed, scrunching her face up and covering it with one hand as she turned a bright reddish pink color. "Don't tell me that."
Dar chuckled. "Why? He's not bad looking."
"I know. But now I have to go ask him to do a favor, and I'm going to feel so weird." Kerry explained. "What, ah, what did Maria tell him?"
"Hm, let me think." Dar chewed on her sandwich, apparently pondering the question. "How detailed--hm."
Kerry closed her eyes. "God."
"I think she just said no." Dar relented, nudging Kerry's knee with her elbow. "C'mon, this is Maria. Do you really think she'd chatter away about us in front of some scrungy guy in carpenter's pants?"
"I didn't think she'd dump chili on someone." Kerry looked mollified, however, and she continued eating her sandwich, swinging her legs a little. She glanced at Dar after a quiet moment. "How's your foot feeling?"
Dar studied her injured foot, encased in a pair of light sneakers as a grudging compromise between her preferred sandals and the boots Kerry had really wanted her to put on for protection. "It,"she wiggled her toes, "it's okay."
"Hm."
"How's your hand?" Dar tried some misdirection.
Kerry wiggled her fingers. "It's okay." She mimicked, raising an eyebrow. "Tell you what. How about you take those wet sneakers off for a while and I'll see what I can do to get my electrician friend over here to solve your problem. How's that?"
Dar put her head back down on Kerry's leg and exhaled, warming her skin even through the thick denim. "I love you." She announced with casual honesty. "Whatever you want to do sounds great to me."
Caught a little off guard Kerry put her sandwich down and took a moment to catch her breath. She gazed down into Dar's eyes and found herself lost in them. She reached out and gently cupped Dar's cheek, the intensity broken only when the sound of a few staff members approaching made them straighten up and sent Dar back into her slouched position in the chair.
Dar took a bite of her sandwich, chewing it in silence.
"Oh, there you are." Edith came in, spotting Dar in the chair. "The catering company wants to know what time we want dinner brought in."
"What are they bringing?" Dar asked casually. "Please don't tell me pizza again."
"Oriental smorgasbord."
The mixed cultural metaphor almost made Kerry do a mental double take. But her brain was really too busy dealing with hormones, and the sweet flush of emotion brought on by Dar's unex
pected romanticism. She knew she was still blushing, and so she was glad she had her back to the staff.
Did she care? She suspected strongly that Dar didn't. One glance at the devilish little grin on her partner's face told her that. What about the staff? Kerry collected herself and half turned, peeking at the two women who had just entered.
Neither appeared to notice anything out of the ordinary.
Hm. "How about six and nine." Kerry suggested. "You know how it is with Chinese."
Edith chuckled. "That's not a bad idea." She took the suggestion seriously. "Especially if you all are going to be working on this stuff all night. What if we had them refresh it every couple hours?"
"Sure." Dar finished up her half sandwich. "Make sure they bring in more cases of water, too. It's hot as hell in there." She settled back in her seat and cocked her head at Kerry. "Right?"
"Right." Kerry nearly had to sit on her hands. "Do we know where all those reporters are, by the way? I know Cruickshank is with Mark, but I haven't seen our friend from the Herald."
"She went over to the other ship," Edith said. "I heard her talking to one of the security guards on her way out. She seems pretty nice."
"Hm." Kerry had her doubts.
"I'll message Mark and find out what they're up to," Dar told her. "Any word from the server bunch?"
Kerry got up and went back to the other desk. She sat down and picked up her radio, keying it and pausing briefly to compose her thoughts before she spoke. Her eyes wandered a little, meeting a pair of blue ones across the office, and after a second, she un-keyed the radio and let it drop to her lap, completely distracted.
Jesus.
Dar stuck her tongue out a little, just the tip of it. Then she pulled her laptop over and focused her attention on it, leaving Kerry to communicate in peace. As it happened, she had an email from the Army bastard, so it gave her a good excuse to stick her nose into her screen and read it.
"Ah, Mark. You there?"
She could hear the slight huskiness in Kerry's voice, and it made her smile, and that was a good thing, because the email certainly wasn't making her do anything of the sort. Damn Army bastard. "No, I won't be available for a meeting tomorrow. Or the next day. Or next week." She grumbled under her breath.
"Right here, boss." Mark replied. "What's up?"
"How's it going upstairs?" Kerry watched Dar scowl, her eyes narrowing as she started to rattle out a response to whatever she was reading.
"Great!"
Kerry turned her eyes to the radio, shaking it a little. "What?"
"Great." Mark repeated. "We made some really cool friends!"
Huh? "Want to, ah, explain that?" Cool friends? Last time she'd been inside the ship it had been filled with hot, somewhat ill-smelling workers who were mostly cursing and giving them dark looks. What the hell had Mark done, have a crate of rum craned on to the pool deck?
"Sure." He sounded very cheerful. "We only needed one of those AC units in the server space, so we loaned the other one out to the bridge on the ship. They're like, loving us to death right now."
"Oh really."
"No kidding," Mark said. "Man, I thought those guys up there never smiled. I was way wrong. I think the big guy with all the stripes just invited me to become a part of his family."
Ahhhh. "I see." Kerry had to smile, and she heard a soft, reluctant chuckle from Dar's direction. "How are the servers doing? Barry get them up yet?"
"Eh." Mark made a verbal shrug. "He was muttering something about active directory when I was up there a minute ago. Least we lost our shutterbugs."
Uh oh. "We did?"
"Yeah, they filmed the boxes coming up, then took off."
Well, that could be a good thing, or a bad thing. With the luck they'd been having so far, Kerry wasn't betting on a good thing. "Okay." She sighed. "Let me know if anything else happens. I've got to go see a man about a pipe."
Silence. "Uh..."
"Literally."
"Right, later, boss."
Kerry put the radio down, and switched to her PDA. She opened it and scanned through her phone book listings, selecting one and then dialing it on her cell phone. "Dar?"
"Uh?"
"Please invent a gizmo that gets mail, lets me talk, and keeps track of my addresses at the same time." Kerry cleared her throat. "Hello, Pete? Hi. It's Kerry Stuart, from ILS?"
"Before or after I change the nature of Internet hacking for you?" Dar inquired, one brow hiking up.
Kerry gave her a sweet, loving look and a wink.
Dar snorted, and shook her head, going back to her mail but not before catching Edith peeking at her with an almost amazed expression. "Problem?" she asked, raising both eyebrows.
"No, ma'am." Edith turned around and went back to whatever it was she was doing.
Dar suspected she was well and truly blowing her image. Ah well. She suspected she might grow to like the new image better anyway. It seemed more fun. She opened her next mail, and, with a sigh, started to answer it.
Chapter Three
KERRY FOUND A spot near the window and amused herself by watching a bird trying very hard to fly against the rain. It was a seagull, and she reckoned it really should have known better, yet there it was flapping and flapping and going absolutely nowhere against the stiff wind.
She felt a certain kinship with it. Her cell phone rang and she answered it, hoping it was decent news. "Kerry Stuart."
"Well, hi there, Kerry, it's Pete."
Ah. Fifty-fifty chance. "Hi, Pete." Kerry responded. "Am I going to get lucky today?'
The man laughed. "Oh, ain't that a loaded question. Ah, yeah, listen, I got one of my guys, Guillermo, and he's gonna come over there and help you out. Be about a half hour, he's just finishing up some stuff in your building right now."
Well, what do you know? "Great." Kerry responded. "I don't think it'll take him long. Pete. It's just a junction box. In fact, if he just moves it, and runs an extension line down, and puts it right back, that's fine too."
"Whatever you need him to do, Kerry, you go ahead and ask him. I told him to just do whatever you say." Pete told her. "Okay?"
"More than okay. You definitely came through for us, Pete. I owe you one." Kerry winced a little as she said it, wishing her partner had kept Pete's romantic inquiries to herself. "These guys here are completely unprofessional."
"Johnson? Yeah." Pete made a clucking sound of professional censure. "I've had to come in and clean up a lot of their jobs. I think they got in some legal trouble with the city, surprised they're out there."
"Trust Quest to hire the very best." Kerry muttered. "Well, anyway..."
"Hey, listen," Pete said, suddenly. "You don't owe me anything, Kerry. Your boss stood up for me plenty when some of them others wanted to bring in their relatives and whatever to work your place. Consider it a payback."
Kerry smiled at her reflection in the window. Then she glanced up to find Dar's slouched form in the same reflection. "Well, you know, she stands by people who stand by her."
"You got that right." Pete agreed. "Anyway, I'll try to drop by in a little bit, make sure everything's okay. See you later."
"See you later." She turned and got up, walking over to where Dar was sitting and dropping a hand to her partner's shoulder. "We're all set."
Bright blue eyes flicked up to study her. "Yeah?"
"He's sending a guy over." Kerry confirmed, with a smile.
"All right. Good job." Dar complimented her. "So what's next?" She set her laptop aside and gave Kerry her full attention. "Network is in, right?"
"Right." Kerry said.
"Servers in?"
"Eh." Kerry waggled her hand. "I hear there are some integration issues."
"When isn't there?" Dar asked rhetorically. "I swear, even when they pre-load those damn things, just looking at them the wrong way while booting up blows a driver."
"Mm." Servers were something she was, in fact, more familiar with than her partner. Since the company she
'd come from had been primarily an applications developer, Kerry had spent a lot of time working with the intricacies of the devices, and their related operating systems. "Well, I'll go take a look at them and see what the deal is."
"And then," Dar glanced at the rain, "can we start moving all the rest of this mess in?"
"I don't know. From what I saw on my last walk through there, I don't..."
Dar got up from her seat. "C'mon. Let's go take inventory of where we are." She started off toward the door, latching on to Kerry's sleeve and pulling her along. "If we can't install today, I want to get everyone back in here, and just line all that stuff up."
"Okay." Kerry amiably allowed herself to be towed across the carpet. "Are we going to stop for an umbrella, or are you going to thrill and shock the staff when we get there?"
Dar stopped. "Hm." She glanced down at her now dry t-shirt, and then looked at Kerry.
"Nope. Can't borrow my shirt." Kerry shook her head solemnly.
"Hah. You always take mine." Dar protested.
"Dar." Kerry stood back, indicated herself, then looking pointedly at Dar. "How silly do you want to look with my shirt on, honey?"
"Hm." Dar looked speculatively at her, as though considering the question in due seriousness. "It'd just look like a crop top." She held her hand just below her rib cage. "Aren't those trendy now?"
"Oh, that'll help." Kerry started laughing. "I can see explaining it to Mari now, you fashion slave, you."
"Well, it's better than my wet see through act." Dar sighed, and looked around. "Damn it, I forgot to bring my bag in from outside, too. I had a change in there." She gave the room an annoyed glare. "Remind me to have them bring over a couple cases of those tacky t-shirts Jose ordered for the trade show."
"We should make our own departmental ones." Kerry said. "With Gopher Dar on them."
Dar looked at her, brow arching sharply.
"Well." Kerry turned around and surveyed the big room. Instead of stacks of network gear, now the techs were pulling computers and the touch screen point of sale systems out of their boxes. Bits of shredded Styrofoam were drifting around on the carpet, and the scent of new hardware was very sharp in the air. "How about we help unpack things, until the rain slows down."
