Storm Surge - Part 2

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 of 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?"

Dar leaned closer to the doorway. "Can you open the doors?" she asked. "We need to talk to those guys."

"What?" The driver was still yelling out the window. He reached back inside and triggered a switch. "How in the hell did you get in here? They told us this was strickly off limits!"

"We're the phone company, shaddup!" The man on the platform yelled back.

Dar went to the door and stepped carefully over the shoulder width gap onto the platform, turning to hold out a hand to Kerry without really even thinking about it.

Kerry paused in the act of hopping out and eyed her, a faint smile twitching at her lips. She shifted her flashlight to her left hand and reached over to clasp Dar's fingers, squeezing them as she stepped over to the other side and gave her a little bump. "Thank you, sweetie."

Her partner paused, and a tiny wrinkle appeared on the bridge of her nose. "Was I being pretentious?"

"Just charming." Kerry moved past her. "Wow. What is this place?"

Dar glanced around, then headed for the cluster of men around the spool. "Let's see what those bastards are doing here."

Kerry let her go ahead, taking a moment to tip her head back and look around. Scuzzy came up next to her and they both slowed to a halt, and simply stared around them. "Wow."

"No kidding," Scuzzy agreed. "I ain't never seen nothing like this in the subway. That's for sure."

It seemed like it was part of the tunnel itself, which curved around in a big loop, the far end disappearing into the darkness again on the far side of space. But in the center, the ceiling lofted up in a series of gothic arches that culminated in a thin ironwork tracery of windows that allowed the light in from outside to spill across the intricately bricked walls.

It was surprising and beautiful, completely unexpected and Kerry took her camera from her belt pouch and adjusted the flash taking a few pictures of the work. "I guess there were two City Halls." She pointed at a mosaic tile sign on the wall, which held the words. "How weird."

Scuzzy was looking right up at the ceiling. "Whoa," she said. "You know? I think this is like, right outside the freaking entrance to the Hall. I seen those glass things from the top, you know? I asked my brother what they were once and he had like no idea."

"Ker." Dar's voice interrupted their sightseeing.

Kerry put her camera away, turning and heading over to where her partner was standing. "Sorry, what's up?"

"Wrong fucking cable." Dar enunciated the three words in the most clipped tone imaginable.

"Oh Jesus." Kerry pinched the bridge of her nose, as a headache she'd been keeping at bay started up again. "Not what I needed to hear."

"This is what those guys gave us,"the man from Verizon spoke up immediately"This ain't my fault," he immediately added. "This is the stuff those guys from Jersey brought over, right Mike?"

"Right." Another tech agreed immediately. "So that's what I told that guy, you sure it's this code? I had the code. I told him the code, and he said yeah, it was the right code, but I knew it wasn't no right code because I been laying this cable since I was eighteen years old, and I know what code it should be, and it ain't this code."

"Right. So we told those guys somebody needed to come down here and look at this before we went no further, because this is a lot of carp to go through for no reason," the first tech said. "And my guys gave me a lotta crap about it and just said to go on with it, but ain't no way was I gonna have these here guys run this here cable if it's the wrong stuff."

There was a brief silence. Then Dar folded her arms over her chest. "Right choice."

The tech nodded. "You got that right. So they sending someone down to here now? I ain't got all day to be sitting in this tunnel."

"They sent someone," Dar answered, before Kerry's bristling hackles could make her pale hair fluff out like a Chia pet. "I'll look at the cable."

"You?" The man gave Dar a doubtful look.

"Yes."

"Okay." The man motioned the other techs over. "Unreel some of dat, will ya? This here lady wants to see it." He looked back at Dar. "You sure you know what you're looking at?"

"Yes."

"Whatever." The man motioned her forward. "C'mon, c'mon. We ain't got all day."

"Shit." Dar pulled out her flashlight and walked over to the spool where the telco techs were unhitching the end of the cable in the spool and twisting it back for her to inspect. "This was one complication I wasn't expecting."

"Can I punch him while you're figuring out what to do?"Kerry asked from between gritted teeth. "Stupid piece of ignorant pork rind."

"Easy slugger."

DAR LEANED AGAINST the intricately bricked wall, her arms crossed over her chest, her mind racing. In front of her the track was now clear as the train had moved along into its appointed time slot. She had been left to ponder the cable, the techs, and the pit she'd dug herself into.

Shit. She felt like kicking herself. After all the bullshit she'd been spilling about everyone else's lame ass actions she had to face the fact she had screwed up to an intolerable degree by not simply checking what type of cable this half ass vendor was giving them.

Inexcusable.

Kerry came over and leaned against the wall next to her, their shoulders brushing. "Hey." She braced one booted foot against the brick."Thanks for the advice on the Lansing issue. It worked."

Dar looked sideways at her.

Kerry peered mildly back.

"You're welcome," Dar finally said. "You trying to make me stop kicking myself?"

"Well," her partner plucked at the knee of her pants, "actually I was trying to find something to say to you that wouldn't make you blow up at me."

"At you?"

"You know what I mean. Hon, I know you're freaking out. I don't want to make it worse for either of us."

Dar sighed.

Kerry felt the gentle pressure as Dar leaned against her, a non verbal acknowledgment and surrender she felt a great deal of sympathy for. There really wasn't much she could say, to be honest. Dar was right. She should have checked.

Of course, she could try to take responsibility for that on herself, but if she tried, she knew Dar would go ballistic and, frankly, she wasn't looking for any kind of tension between them since the situation was already more than wretched enough.

Honesty seemed the better route. With Dar it always was, even if her own inclination was to try and make excuses or find some way to entice her lover into feeling better about whatever it was she was kicking herself over. "So it's the wrong kind of fiber."

"Wrong kind of fiber," Dar agreed. "Multimode. The long distance optics are single mode."

"No options?"

"Longest reach multimode will do is 550 meters." Dar let her head rest on the wall. "Eighteen hundred feet."

Kerry did the math, and sighed. "Do they have any other spools?"

"Sure. All the wrong kind," Dar supplied. "Know what that bastard said? Oops."

"Oops." Kerry mouthed the word. "Nice."

"Yeah." Dar acknowledged. "Mongolian clusterfuck, courtesy of yours truly." She gazed up at the skylights, then pushed off from the wall. "Well, screw it." She started back toward the techs, who had been taking a break leaning against the cable spool. "No point in standing around."

Kerry gathered herself up and followed, catching up as Dar neared the work crew. "Hon--"

Dar held a hand up. "Okay, go ahead and keep rolling it out. We'll deal with it on our end." She said, in a brisk tone as she came up next to where the men were lounging. "We're running out of time."

The crew leader turned in surprise. "Yeah? This is the wrong stuff though," he pointed out. "You said so."

"Not a problem," Dar replied steadily. "I'll handle it. Just get the cable rolled out. We've got a solution."

The man studied her. "Awright." He shrugged. "Overtime for us,and not doin what those guys down town from here are doin. Sounds good to me. Okay boys?"

The techs dusted their gloved hands off, most of them nodding."Better than digging out pipes," one agreed. "At least it's quiet down here, and no dust."

The men got to work, standing up and taking hold of the spool."Down the line here." The crew leader motioned Dar and Kerry out of the way. "Scuse me, ladies. We got work to do."

"Sorry, we definitely don't want to hold you up." Kerry gave him a smile."We'll be waiting for you on the other end. Thanks for taking the time to let us know about this, by the way. At least it gives us time to get a solution in place before you get up there."

The man nodded briefly at her. "You the people with the bus?"

Kerry nodded back. "We'll send some snacks down the line to you when we get back. We really appreciate you guys coming through for us with this."

The men reacted to Kerry's charm and sincere tone. They gave her brief smiles, and one of them touched the rim of his hard hat as they rolled the spool by. "See you down at the Rock, pretty lady," he said, giving Kerry a wink.

Kerry gave them all a genial wave. She waited for them to moved down the curve of the track before she turned and looked at her partner. "Come up with a plan?"

"Nope." Dar had her hands in her pockets. "I haven't a damn clue what I'm going to do."

Kerry turned her head and looked at the men, then swiveled back to face Dar. Her brows lifted. "Is this something maybe you can come up with a fix for?"

"Probably not."

"Hon? Is there a reason you want these guys to work all night doing this then?" Kerry asked, gently. "I know you hate to give up, so do I , but there's a lot of work they could be doing too, huh?" She laid a hand on her partner's arm to ease any sting from the words.

Dar merely lifted her shoulders in a mild shrug, though. "I can't just tell them to stop," she said. "Even if I know it's probably going to be a waste of time."

"Probably?"

"Well--" Dar removed one hand from her pocket and raked her hair back from her eyes. "I know the physics of it, Ker. But let's go back to the Rock, and I'll get on the phone with some of the eggheads I know up at our network vendor and see what they say."

Kerry studied her face cast in the shadows from the skylight's grill.Even she could see the doubt in her partner's eyes, and from her own knowledge of the technology she faced, the understanding that this time Dar really was just tossing crap in the air.

Sobering.

"Okay." Kerry said, after they were both silent for a minute. "We really don't have much choice, do we?"

"No."

"Then let's boogie." Kerry turned around. "Scuzzy? You around here? We've got to get going."

Scuzzy trotted down a set of steps in the center of the curve. "Man, this is amazing," she said. "I ain't never seen nothing like this place. You know what this is?" She came over, full of enthusiasm and oblivious to the nerdish gloom around her colleagues. "This is like the very first station in the subway."

"Is it?" Kerry looked around again. "It's really interesting."

"Yeah. I found a plaque over there." Scuzzy pointed. "This is where it started, you know? The first station where all the trains left from back in like in 1904. " She looked up. "Man, they used to make things cool, huh?"

"Why don't they use it anymore?" Dar spoke up. "Seems like a waste to leave it here."

"Oh." Scuzzy pulled out her phone. "Hang on a minute, that driver told me to like call him when we needed to get out of here. Walking down the track is not cool." She dialed a number, turning her head to one side and covering her ear as she waited for it be answered.

Her decision made, Dar turned her attention to her surroundings. She walked over to the plaque and studied it, tipping her head back to look at the mosaic sign above. There was an elegance and an architectural beauty to it that surprised her, and she allowed herself to be distracted by the artistry in the tiles and the arches.

She felt a moment out of time, hearing the echo of a different era as Kerry walked quietly up behind her coming to stand at her side, sliding the fingers of one hand into Dar's front pocket.

The silent support in the motion both charmed her, and made her feel more than a little guilty. She glanced to the side, catching Kerry's profile in the dim light from the work lamps.

After a moment, Kerry sensed it and turned her face a little their eyes meeting. "Know what I think?"

"Bet I'm about to," Dar wryly answered.

"I think Heaven is really going to be a plane seat heading home."Kerry tugged her a little. "C'mon, boss. Let's get out of here. I think I hear our chariot approaching."

"Here we go." Scuzzy confirmed it, pointing down the track. "Man,I wish I'd took pictures down here. This was freaking amazing."

"I have some. I'll share." Kerry clasped Dar's hand with her own and started toward the edge of the platform. Ahead of them, on the far side where the track seemed unused, the men were already working their way along, flashlights casting odd bursts of light against the soot darkened walls.

"That's cool." Scuzzy joined them at the edge of the concrete. "I mean, I know this is real serious and all that stuff, but I think New York is the coolest city, and I love seeing stuff like this. Like, you been over Brooklyn Bridge?"

"I have," Kerry responded, since her silent partner wasn't looking likely to. "It's an amazing construction," she added. "I know the head of the office here--who died in the attack--was also a big fan of the city wasn't he Dar?"

"He was," Dar said. "I'm sure he would have loved to have seen this place."

The train pulled slowly into the station, its bright number six prominent in the gloom. Scuzzy tilted her head back and looked up at the skylight."Like that stuff. Today, we put these lights everywhere. Back then, they were smart. They used what they had, you know? Got all kinds of light in here from that."

"Using prisms." Kerry waited for the door to open, then she hopped inside.

"Prisms," Dar repeated, as she joined her.

"You people done with all this now?" The driver poked his head out. "My boss said I can't do this no more. They got real pissed at me."

"We're done," Kerry said. "Thank you very much for picking us up."

"Yeah, that was really cool." Scuzzy went over to him. "This place is great."

The driver shrugged. "It's just a tunnel." He went back in his cubicle and closed the door, then closed the outside doors and put the train in motion. They sat down as they left the old, unused station and pulled around, shuttling through only a short period of darkness before they were pulling into Brooklyn Bridge.

Dar settled back in her seat to wait out the ride, folding her arms over her chest as she half closed her eyes and thought about light.

And prisms.

Kerry felt her phone buzz, but she left it on her belt content to merely sit and share Dar's space as she let her mind go blank. There would be time when she got back to the office to continue her never ending problem solving.

Right now she could use the tunnels as an excuse to rest her head against Dar's shoulder and think about something trivial, like the pretty mosaics on the wall back there, and how warm her partner's skin was.

There was no real point in wondering what they were going to do about the problem of the cable. If Dar didn't know what to say about it, no one did.

She really had no idea what they were going to do.

DAR RESTED HER forearms on the mahogany wood surface appreciating the sound proofed walls and the stillness of the office.

On the desk was a phone and her laptop which was closed. The rest of the office was fairly sterile and empty, a spare the staff had rapidly found for her when she and Kerry returned from the subway, moving from an active part of the work back to something a bit more administrative.

For once, Dar was glad. She didn't really want to be around the fiber guys and Mark, who were setting up the gear needed to make the connection she knew wasn't going to happen when it was all said and done.

She didn't want to say anything to them, but she was finding it hard. It was an odd mix of embarrassment, anger, and frustration at the situation and self disgust at her part in it.

Ugh.

She looked at the phone, then removed her PDA and opened it, flicking through the address book as she searched for a specific entry. After she found it she exhaled, studying the phone pad for a long time before she made a move toward it.

A knock at the door stilled her hand in the act of dialing. She released the line and put her hands back on the desk. "C'mon in."

Alastair poked his head in at the invitation. "Hello, there."

"Hey." Dar waved him forward, guiltily glad of the interruption. "How was the interview?"

Her boss smiled briefly. "Well, that went just fine. But you know they followed me back here. Really want to talk to you."

Dar made a face. "Alastair, I'm busy."

"I know," Alastair said. "But they're right in back of me, lady. Don't make me turn around and boot them. They're not bad folks. Just want a few minutes of your time."

Silver linings. Dar sighed. "Okay, sure. Might as well get it over with before I get on a conference call." She shifted and rested her chin on her fist. "Bring them in."

Alastair smiled again, this time far more warmly. "Thanks." He drew back for a moment, then opened the door and entered, holding it open for the rest to follow. "C'mon in, folks. Dar's got only a minute, so please keep it brief."

A group of four people entered, two men dressed in khakis carrying cameras with pockets full of technical items, a tall man in a turtleneck and a jacket, and a medium height woman in a leather coat and boots.

"Hi." Dar briefly wished Kerry was in the room. "What can I do for you folks?"

The tall man approached the desk. "John Avalls." He held a hand out. "Thanks for taking the time to talk to us, Ms. Roberts. We won't be too long."

Dar stood and took his hand. "I'd appreciate that. We're in the middle of a lot of activity here."

"This is my colleague, Sarah Sohn." The man indicated his female companion. "And our cameramen John and Barry."

Dar gave them all a brief nod. Then she stuck her hands in her pockets and waited.

The reporters came closer to her while the camera people set up their gear. Alastair loitered in the background perching on a credenza that held a set of glasses and probably hid a large screen television panel.

"Okay." Avalls was flipping through a notepad. "Sorry, Ms. Roberts. It's been a long couple days for us too. I'm trying to get my questions straight here so I don't waste your time."

"No problem." Dar watched the cameramen wrangle their gear. "I can imagine that you folks have been going without any sleep just like we have. "

"Exactly." Sarah nodded. "You almost feel guilty taking a nap, like you're going to miss something if you do." She had a portfolio open, and she took up a position near the short edge of Dar's desk. "For a while there, even going to the restroom felt like that."

Dar nodded. "Can't be like that forever though."

"No," Sarah said. "It's funny you say that because I was thinking that this morning before we met Mr. McLean, I had so many other things to do--personal things, laundry, you know, shopping--that I haven't even thought about since Tuesday. "

"Life's moving on," Alastair suggested. "I know we feel it. Our customers were completely understanding the first few days, but now, their priorities are changing too."

Avalls looked up from his notes and nodded. "I found myself hoping over coffee this morning they'd find me an assignment somewhere else," he said, honestly. "You can just take so much. I felt like going to cover baseball in Wisconsin."

Dar nodded slowly. "Wish I was home in Miami, myself, matter of fact. Alastair and I were in London when it happened, and we've been going full out since then."

"I was at my in-laws in Virginia," Avalls said. "My father in law was having his sixtieth birthday party, and we had the whole family in for a big barbeque." He glanced up from his notepad. "Now he never wants to celebrate his birthday again. "

They were all silent for a moment. "Tough to know who to be mad at, isn't it?" Alastair came over and settled on the far edge of the deskDar was standing behind. "Anyway, here we are."

"Here we are," Avalls said. "John, you ready?""

"Yeah. I think there's enough light in here not to use ours," the cameraman said, peering into his lens at Dar's image. "We're good."

"This is a high pickup mic," Sarah said, "so we don't need to do the whole stick it in your face thing. It's picking you up fine." She looked at a meter on the device she was wearing over her shoulder. "And it's quiet in here."

"Great." Dar rocked up and down on her heels. "One warning. I'm tired, and I'm not a talking head," she said. "Don't ask any questions you don't want to hear the answers to."

Sarah looked up and smiled at her. "We know. Ms. Roberts, I've bee a fan of yours since you did an interview about that ATM breakdown for a colleague of mine. I can't speak for John, but we're not here looking for a headline on the crawler. We just don't understand some things we've seen happening and we'd like to, and we think you have the answers."

"You speak for me,"Avalls said, mildly. "I am just the talking head."

Dar relaxed, sensing a weary doggedness in the little crew she understood at a gut level. She was usually wary of the press, given her recent experiences with them sometimes more than wary, but in this time, in this place, she felt like it was going to be okay.

Alastair, after all, knew her well enough not to put her in front of a couple of antagonistic reporters, didn't he? She glanced over at him, seeing only mild interest on his face. "Nice shirt, Alastair."

Her boss eyed her. "Laundry's in the hands of the hotel, Paladar. I wasn't banking on spending an extra couple of weeks on the road with you."

Dar grinned, then she turned back to the reporters. "So, what can I answer for you folks?"

"Okay."Avalls studied his pad and paper. "Let me put on my weatherman voice and get this started." He cleared his throat. "Ms. Roberts, we all know everyone rushed to New York to help in this time of great tragedy. But what did that mean to you? What are you doing here?"

"Dar, be good," Alastair got in, just as she was taking a breath to answer. "Remember this will probably be national."

Dar merely laughed. Then she sighed. "What am I doing here." She mused."Well, for one thing, we didn't rush up here. This was our second stop."

"Second?"

The door opened and a familiar blond head poked inside. Dar motioned her partner forward, then returned her hands to her pockets.

"We went to the Pentagon first, physically, but in reality we were every

where after it happened."

"Can you explain that?"Avalls asked.

"Not without a white board and at least ten colored markers," Dar replied. "In brief, we reached out and connected all of our corporate resources so we could understand what was happening and mitigate the effects when we could, and where we could."

Kerry came over and took a seat out of camera range in one of the comfortable leather chairs to one side of the desk.

"Then, after we got a team on the ground at the Pentagon and resolved their immediate infrastructure problems, we came here." Dar concluded, "and since we've been here, we have been using the resources we have to try and help the city knit itself back together. "

"The city asked you to come?" Avalls asked.

"We came for our people here,"Alastair answered. "City didn't have much to do with it."

"But once we were here, and they knew we were, they gave us a priority list and we did what we could with it," Dar added.

"Yet you brought your infamous bus with you."Avalls consulted his pad. "This bus, which I've heard about from roughly everyone including all our production people, has been seen all over the city passing out drinks and cookies." He glanced up. "Was that calculated?Good corporate PR?"

"I'm sure it is good corporate PR. The name of the company is plastered over the outside of the damn things," Dar replied. "But in fact, no.We sent the buses because we knew we had people here who needed help. Not people in general, our people here in the city."

"I'm sure a cynic would doubt that," Avalls said, but he smiled.

"I'm sure they would,"Dar agreed. "And in the end, it really doesn't matter because the buses did what we wanted them to do and more. No matter what anyone considered the motive to be, we know better."

"So what now? What are you doing now, and what do you intend to do in the future here?" Avalls asked, after a brief pause. "How long do you focus on New York?"

Dar remained silent for a moment, pondering what to answer to that. "We focus on all our customers," she said finally. "So in that sense,we'll be busy here for a while. We have a lot of facility down that we need to take care of."

"That's not exactly what I meant,"Avalls said. "I understand, of course, you take care of business. What I meant was, how long will you be acting in this--well, let's call it philanthropic mode? I'm sure you're not billing Manhattan for the cupcakes."

Dar turned her head and looked at Alastair, her brows lifting.

The camera swung over and focused on the CEO. He had his arms folded over his chest, and a thoughtful expression on his face. "Well now." He mused. "I don't think we ever even thought about it that way. I recall being on our conference bridge and, naturally when I heard about the problems our people were having here, of course we sent our service personnel. It's part of who we are as a company, you know? It's the people."

"The people?"

"The people." Alastair indicated the general surroundings, and then specifically Dar and Kerry. "Our company is our people. It's not the technology and the gew-gaws and wiring. Of course we focus on taking care of the most precious resource we have, and the buses will stick around until we no longer need them. If the city benefits by that, great. I'm fine with funding as many damn cupcakes and cups of lemonade that we can pass out."

"Now," Dar cleared her throat, "will that bring us good PR? Sure. Will people remember the logo on the bus? Sure." She shrugged. "But we'd do it anyway. Our people are as glad to see those buses as anyone else is."

"Okay, cut it, John,"Avalls said. "So now let me ask you--shouldn't the city, or the government be out there doing the same thing?"

Dar sat down behind the desk. "Not my area."

Kerry chuckled.

"Not being provocative?" Sarah chuckled also. "The Red Cross is out there. There's nothing in the government really that provides that type of service. That isn't their area either."

"That's true," Kerry responded. "We have to have that facility because, like Alastair said, our people are our most important resource. We have to provide for them so they can do the jobs we need done in situations like this. It's tough to be away from your family and thrown into a relatively dangerous situation."

"Well, we could say the city workers and the military have the same issue,"Avalls commented.

"Yes, but they get paid to do public service," Kerry said. "Our people get paid to be nerds. That doesn't usually mean you put your life on the line for your job."

"And yet, here you are," Sarah said. "And from what Mr. McLean said, you were down in the disaster area in the wreckage yesterday where you could easily have been hurt, true?"

"True," Kerry agreed.

"Do they pay you for that, Ms. Stuart?" Avalls asked, folding his hands over his pad.

"No." Kerry shook her head.

"So then why go? I'm not asking to be contrary. I'm curious."

Kerry glanced past him. "Because Dar went," she answered honestly. "And I go where she goes, no matter how crazy it is."

That shut them up. They glanced between Kerry and Dar, as the cameraman fiddled with putting his gear away. "All right then," Avalls finally said. "Thanks for taking the time to talk to us. I really appreciate it."

"Anytime."Dar leaned back in her chair, as Alastair got up from the desk.

"I'll walk you folks out,"Alastair said. "Dar, the board's asked for a short recap call, can we squeeze that in next?"

"Sure," Dar agreed.

They left, closing the door and leaving Dar and Kerry alone in the office. Dar turned in her chair and regarded her partner, a wry smile on her face.

"Was that too goofy?" Kerry asked.

"Nah. Wish they'd gotten it on camera," Dar replied. "We might as well get all the good press we can now because you know we're going to get thrown under those damn buses when nothing works on Monday."

Kerry sighed. "So you haven't come up with a brilliant plan to fix the problem yet?"

Dar snorted. "Ker, thanks for the vote of confidence, but even I can't change the laws of physics." She went back to her PDA. "Hang out. You can hear the guffaws of laughter when I ask the guys over in the optics division of our network vendor if they can."

"Yerg."

"Mm."