Tropical Convergence

Chapter Twelve

DAR EMERGED INTO the sunlight once again, after her sixty-second subway ride had drawn itself out to twenty minutes. She had, however, apparently made a friend, since Scuzzy showed no signs of continuing on her way as they exited the subway station together.

Subway station? Dar glanced behind her at one of the many stairwells burping people up out of the ground. More like a nightmare from some science fiction writer's imagination.

The heat had gotten a little worse, or maybe she'd just gotten used to the cooler confines of the underground world.

"So, like, Dar. Where ya goin?" Scuzzy interrupted her thoughts. "Just coming down to see the Square?"

"No. Here." Dar pulled the brochure out of her pocket and displayed it, turning slightly as she tried to orient herself in the busy street. Buildings rose on all sides, and the roads seemed to run together from all directions.

What the hell?

After a moment of blinking, she realized why the place looked so damn familiar. She'd never been here before that she could remember, and now she took a moment to just stand and look around.

Times Square. Dar cocked her head to one side, realizing she'd always considered the place to be more of a stage set than a real city street. Her gaze shifted.

Streets.

She turned her head to look the other way.

Whatever.

The marquees raced across the building fronts just like they did on television, and Dar tilted her head back to look up at the post she'd seen the ball drop from on countless New Years Eves. Then she chuckled and returned her attention to finding her way to the Hudson river.

"You like, into that stuff?" Scuzzy had kept right up with her. "Like, guns?" She handed back the brochure.

Dar stopped and looked at her.

"Hey!" The woman held up both hands. "It's cool! No problem! I'm into that show Gunsmoke too, you like that show? It's great!"

"No." Dar figured out what direction to go in and started walking. "My father was in the Navy." She checked the street numbers, and started down one with some confidence. She was mildly surprised when Scuzzy chose to join her, shambling down the sidewalk at her side. She gave the woman a speculative look.

"I figured I'd make sure you got there okay," Scuzzy explained. "Then I'm goin back to get the bus."

Dar stopped walking, forcing the girl to stop as well or else plow into her. She took off her sunglasses and looked her persistent companion up and down, then repeated the exercise on herself. She finally returned her stare to Scuzzy's face, and lifted both eyebrows meaningfully. "Thanks," she drawled. "But I'll get there okay."

Scuzzy studied her for a minute. "You tryin to tell me something?"

With a faint sigh, Dar returned her sunglasses to their perch on her nose and started walking again, shaking her head. A breeze picked up, puffing fitfully between the buildings and bringing the unmistakable scent of water to her. She glanced at the storefronts she was passing, intrigued by the variety of clubs whose identity changed at almost every stride. "Something for everyone, huh?" she remarked, passing a jazz club next to something she imagined catered to the Goth crowd.

"You say something?" Scuzzy peered at her. "Hey, you ever been here to the city?"

"Yeah, I've been here," Dar finally relented, edging over slightly so the woman could walk next to her and not plow into the trees planted incongruously in the center of the sidewalk. "I'm not really fond of it."

"Miami's kinda different, huh?"

Dar looked around her with a wry chuckle. "Like night and day. I wouldn't trade 'em for a million."

"No, huh?" The woman looked around. "Well, y'know, this used to be a really tough neighborhood." She said. "Times Square, man, you didn't want to come down around here. But they fixed it up pretty nice now."

Dar peered at the theatre they were passing, realizing she'd heard its name half her life and never realized where the hell it was. "Bad neighborhood, huh?" she asked with interest.

"Oh, yeah, Absolutely." Scuzzy nodded. "Hookers lined up tits to ass back there, yeah?"

"Yeah?"

"Absolutely!"

It was hard to picture all those people in mink coats coming to see shows stepping around bums and drug dealers. Dar put the idea away for later study, and ducked to one side as a man walking a Dalmatian hurried by. Or maybe it was a Dalmatian walking the man, as the dog seemed far more relaxed than his owner. "You been here when it was?" she asked Scuzzy. "When it was a bad place?"

Scuzzy seemed delighted Dar was warming up to her. "Oh, sure." She made a dismissive gesture. "Me and my bro, we used to come down here all the time back then, cause we'd take the bus out to DC to visit my old man."

"Ah," Dar murmured. "Must have been scary."

"Nah. Just different." Scuzzy peered behind her in the direction of Times Square. "Lotta people usta live over there, y'know? Not no more. I dunno where they went now. The Park, maybe. You gotta have money to live over there now." Her nose wrinkled a bit. "Ritzy."

Dar was struck with an unexpected parallel. "Yeah," she agreed. "That happened down on South Beach, too."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. It used to be retirement hotels for all these older people. Twenty bucks a week, something like that," Dar said. "Then they put all the money in there and now I think twenty bucks maybe gets you parking for the night. Maybe." Maybe. "Sucks sometimes," Dar admitted. "You pay thirty bucks for a coke and a damn hot dog."

"That's right!" Scuzzy agreed heartily. "You got that right, yeah?" She kicked a rock which rattled ahead of them and rambled through the wrought iron steps that lead down into someone's basement. "So where did them old people go?"

Dar slowed, her head tipping to one side a little as she thought. "I don't know," she finally responded. "But I remember what it felt like when we lived on the Navy base, and they were talking about closing it." A ghost of a memory floated into focus for her. "They wanted to sell the place to build a supermarket."

"Oh, that's cold." Scuzzy patted her on the back. "So you lived with all those navy guys huh? That must have been cool."

"Yeah, it was." Dar shrugged the memories off. "So where are you going on a bus today, Scuzzy?" she asked, as they reached the end of the street and were faced with a four lane road separating them from the piers. To one side, Dar could see the distinctive shape of the Intrepid, and found a smile forming.

"No place," Scuzzy shrugged. "Just get me a ticket and ride somewhere and back. I got laid off last week."

Dar found herself snagged by one of the fits of recklessness that occasionally happened to her. "What do you do?" she asked, turning and leaning against a light pole. "That you got laid off for?"

Taken slightly aback, her erstwhile companion made a nervous motion with her hands. "Oh, you know, just office stuff. I was putting in traffic tickets, callin people. Anything they want me to do, but they got cut sos they had to let me off."

"You worked for the police?" Dar clarified.

"Yeah, kinda." Scuzzy seemed abashed. "So like, that's why I don't like people getting into trouble, you know?" She cleared her throat. "So whadda you do, Dar from Miami? Like what you get paid for?"

"I work with computers." Dar removed her PDA from her pocket and opened the flap. She selected a square of white cardboard, then flipped it over and fished her pen out and scribbled on the back of it for a moment.

"Yeah?" Scuzzy perked right up. "Oh, man, you lucked out. I love computers. I got me a internet mail thing at the library last month and I love going to check that out."

Dar reviewed what she'd written, then held the card up, reverse side forward for Scuzzy to see. "Go there." She indicated the address on the back. "When you get there, give the guard at the desk this." She reversed the card, the ILS logo flashing briefly in the sunlight. "Tell them I said to hire you." She handed the card over.

Scuzzy looked at the card, then looked at Dar. "For real?" she asked, after a long moment. "Like, no shit? If I give them this thing, they're not gonna throw my ass out and call the cops? That's like, Rockefeller Center!"

Dar chuckled. "No." She spent a brief instant of deliciously evil anticipation on just how much twitching she'd cause the company's staid Manhattan office. "They'll take care of you."

Scuzzy looked down at the card again, and turned it over. "Chief Information Officer." She lifted her eyes to Dar's face. "You get good money for that?"

"Yeah," Dar nodded. "But you'll do all right too."

"Yeah?" Now a touch of incredulity entered Scuzzy's tone. "You know somethin? I woke up today and I knew somethin' cool was gonna happen to me." She carefully tucked the card away in the pocket of her shirt and stuck her hand out. "This is all right."

Dar took it and gave it a shake. "See ya." She released Scuzzy's hand and turned as the light changed and gave her the opportunity to cross over to the pier.

"See yah," Scuzzy repeated, waiting until the tall figure had disappeared from sight into the pier's square frontage. "Ain't that a kick in the ass?" She removed the card and looked at it. "I'm gonna go get me a job, so screw you, momma, saying not to talk to nobody on the subway!"

Turning, she sauntered back down the street, heading back toward Times Square.

DAR STOPPED BEFORE she went through the gates into the museum, taking a moment to enjoy the breeze off the water, and the sense that she'd emerged from the close confines of the city at least for a while. She found a bench and sat down on it, retrieving her PDA and opening it up.

To her surprise, a message she hadn't caught was waiting. She tapped on it.

Have I ever told you just how much I love you?

Dar blinked a few times, then rubbed the back of her hand over her eyes impatiently. Matter of fact, you have. But I never get tired of hearing it.

She could almost hear the sigh in Kerry's words when she responded.

I'm sitting at a table across from Shari and Michelle, suffering through an endive salad with the prospect of chicken breast over rice pilaf before me.

Ugh. Dar extended her legs into the sun and crossed them. Well, I'm sitting near the Hudson River, and I just sent a vagabond over to the local office to get a job.

(laugh) You call me a troublemaker?

Dar smiled in reflex. Hey, I rode on the subway to get here.

You did? No fair! I wasn't there to go with you!

The lump in her throat was getting to her. Dar shifted on her bench, then rolled her stylus in her fingers before she answered. No one was here to see me chicken out!

But you didn't.

True. Yeah, specially since the damn thing got stuck three times with me on it. They don't like me. Dar allowed. Well, I'm going in to see the Intrepid, then maybe I'll find one of those hot dog stands and get sick to my stomach.

(chuckle) Have one for me, since I'm suffering here with a raunchy vinaigrette. Hey--get a sailor hat so I can see my life-sized hamster dance.

Oh, god. Dar started laughing, her humor restored. All right. Take it easy and go grab a burger after the meeting. That's what I do.

I will. Love you.

Dar felt as warm inside suddenly as she did outside. Love you too. She sent the message and stood up, stretching her back out before she headed off toward the aircraft carrier's impressive bulk.

Sailor hat, huh? Dar looked forward to some quality shopping, for more than just her partner. New York, she decided, was potentially looking up after all.

LUNCH WAS AS sour as the vinaigrette. Kerry wiped her lips on her napkin and returned it to its place on her lap. She hadn't even bothered with the chicken, it's dryness evident to her even through the thin, lemony sauce drizzled over it. She stuck to her iced tea instead, and pacified her grumbling stomach with some of the rather benign rolls and butter the table had been graced with.

Long gone were the days, she mused, when she could be satisfied with a handful of carrots and some water. She still liked snacking on them, and had even gotten Dar to eat the little suckers, but they no longer provided a meal for her and neither did this collection of pretentious garden refuse and pseudo free ranging ancient fowl.

Bah. Kerry leaned back and nursed her tea. The small talk at the table was small indeed, and she only half listened to a discussion about an advance release of a new server operating system.

"Hey, Kerry?"

Kerry looked across the table at another of their rivals, though one of the more palatable ones she more or less got on well with. "Hey,

Ross?"

"You guys stick to one system? I heard you were a uni-house."

"Nah." Kerry shook her head. "We have a little of everything, depending on the application. We support way too many different companies to stick to one system," she said. "Mainframes, minis, six flavors of Unix, Linux, the full range of Microsoft, some Novell, you name it."

"That must be a support nightmare," Ross Cunningfurth said, with an easy grin.

"Training's the biggest chunk of my budget," Kerry replied. "But it's worth it. We can leverage like crazy. I have six different major support centers that all fall back to each other."

"Six?"

Kerry spread one hand out in a faint shrug. "International."

"Shit." Ross just shook his head with a chuckle.

"Yeah, but how can you even think about giving personal service to your accounts, with that size operation?" Shari's tone was dismissive. "Just a bunch of cookie cutters."

Kerry debated on whether she wanted to engage in the debate. Before she could make a choice, Mark spoke up for almost the first time that afternoon.

"It's not that hard," Mark said. "We got a system that profiles all the different accounts and systems, so whoever answers the phone gets the whole deal in a couple clicks." He shrugged. "What matters is you getting the call to someone who's got the right skill set. That's the trick."

"Exactly," Kerry picked up the thread neatly. "But you guys all know that. It's not rocket science," she added. "We save the rocket science for the solutions teams."

Mark chuckled.

"So, what's the deal with that new system you guys are rolling on?" Ross asked. "Bud here was at the trade show, and he said something like Dar was teaching routers to think?"

Shari laughed in derision. "What a load of BS."

Kerry looked across the table and caught Michelle's eye. The shorter women looked away, then visibly sighed and nudged her partner. Shari gave her an outraged face, but Michelle lowered her chin and stared at her until she subsided.

"Dar's working on a lot of new technology," Kerry went on after the awkward break. "Most of which I can't really go into, but it's fair to say we're being very aggressive in taking the limits out of our new hardware."

"Yeah, I can imagine what you're selling the government with our tax dollars to burn." Shari stared steadily at Kerry. "How many millions was it for the Navy?"

Bitch. Kerry braced her elbow on the arm of her chair and rested her chin against it. "Well..." she finally addressed Shari directly. "Considering that the systems they were running before we went in there were written by Dar when she was fifteen years old, I guess they thought they needed an upgrade."

"Fifteen?" Ross stared at her. "What are you talking about?"

Kerry grinned briefly. "She was trading programming sessions for peanut butter way back then. But the systems held up until they were ready for the next century."

Ross cocked his head. "I didn't know Dar was a programmer. I thought she was all infrastructure and design."

"She has many, many skills." A wicked twinkle entered Kerry's green eyes. "That has been a very successful contract for us. I've enjoyed working on it. It makes me feel good to know we're providing the best to the people who defend our country."

Shari rolled her eyes.

Kerry caught the interested expression on the Tech TV reporter's face as he sat there picking at his chicken. "That's what's given us a leg up on the new project. Dar's helping them write the machine code for it."

"Wow." Ross didn't disguise his reaction. "So we'll all end up licensing her brain cells, huh?"

"Eventually," Kerry agreed. "But you have been all along. She holds I think..." She glanced at Mark.

"Twelve," Mark supplied promptly.

"Twelve patents," Kerry nodded. "That's right. Most of it in behind the scenes firmware advances." She took another sip of her tea, glancing around with a good deal of bland, mock innocence. "Sometimes you really do get what you pay for."

"You'd know," Shari sniped. "Talk about the last century. You're never going to survive in the next one with that old business strategy. Our last six months proves that."

Kerry shrugged. "Time will tell."

"No one wants to deal with you dinosaurs anymore," Shari added. "They want small companies, who can react fast, and not charge an arm and a leg." She looked directly at Kerry. "And you are only as good as your last success. One big screw up in the news, and you don't even have that much."

Kerry looked at the Tech TV reporter, then at her. "Very true."

"Well, if we're done." Quest appeared, his hair disordered as though he'd been running his hands through it. "Let's go get the rest of the meeting started. I've had some things crop up that need tending to."

Kerry gladly got to her feet and shoved her chair in, dropping her napkin on her mostly untouched plate. "Definitely would be my pleasure." She motioned Mark to precede her, and evaded Ross' hastened steps as they headed toward the door.

Outside, she touched Mark's arm briefly. "Go on upstairs. I'm going to take a pit stop." She indicated the restrooms.

"Okay," Mark agreed. "But you are coming back, right?" he asked, with a wry look. "I mean, you want me to call the center and have them broadcast a fake disaster so we can get out of here?"

Kerry narrowed her eyes. "Don't tempt me," she muttered, giving him a bump. "G'wan. Maybe Quest'll give us a break and make this short."

Mark took off toward the steps, and she turned after a moment and headed for the restroom door. She heard steps catching up to her, and felt the odd sensation of her hackles lifting as she imagined them to be Shari.

Her heart started pounding, and she got the same tingles in her guts that she did when they were sparring in kickboxing class, a response to challenge that made her fingers twitch in sudden reaction.

She reached forward and grabbed the door handle, pulling it open only to find not Shari, but Michelle behind her as she half turned to face her pursuer.

Maybe Michelle got the hint. She stepped back quickly and waited, watching Kerry with faintly alarmed eyes. "Sorry."

Kerry glanced past Michelle, and ascertained they were alone. "Where's your traveling jackass?" she asked directly. "Don't you take her with you to critique the toilet paper?"

Michelle sighed, and edged past Kerry through the door she was still holding open. "I'm not going to answer that," she said. "We all have our issues."

"That's not an issue." Kerry followed her inside and headed for a stall. "That's a brain the size of a walnut and an ego the size of the glades." She closed the door with a snick. "And a lack of professionalism that makes you look like an idiot."

Michelle cleared her throat gently. "Gee, Kerry. Tell me how you really feel. Don't hold back."

"Fuck it," Kerry snapped. "You two have been on my last nerve for a week. Grow the hell up, would you?"

Dead silence.

Kerry amused herself by flipping open her PDA and reading some of her saved messages from Dar.

"Well. I see we really did piss you off," Michelle finally said into all that silence. "The real Kerry Stuart emerges." She ran some water in the sink, as the outer walls echoed with a faint announcement. "Look, Shari feels like she's got a right to blow the gilt off of your reputation when she can. It's just business, remember?"

"Shari does it because she's got a hard on for Dar," Kerry replied evenly. "It has nothing to do with business, and we both know it."

Michelle cleared her throat gently. "She does have a personal insight," she remarked. "It's valid."

Kerry emerged, leaning against the stall door to face her adversary. "I have a personal insight too," she reminded Michelle. "Want me to bring out in that meeting how you chased Dar and wanted to get into her skirt? Or how you tried to blackmail her by sending pictures of us to the corporate office? Or how..."

"Okay." Michelle's voice was sharp, and hard. "Let's just relax a minute."

Kerry waited, keeping her eyes fixed on the smaller woman. After a long moment, when neither of them said anything, she stepped forward. "You listen to me," she said, her voice dropping a little. "You want this to be civilized? That's fine with me. I want this to be civilized. I want this to be a tough bid, and the best deal wins. Can we leave all the personal bullshit out of it?"

Michelle shifted and leaned against the wall. "Is that why Dar skipped out? Get too hot for her?"

Kerry rolled her eyes. "Jesus." She threw up her hands. "I give up. Fine. Let it be a bitch fest. Just make sure you know how to duck when I start throwing." She turned and headed for the door, but Michelle edged around her and put her back against it. "You really don't want to get in my way, Michelle."

"Okay--okay--okay." Graver ran her hand through her hair, disordering its fair glossiness. "Listen, just like you have a vested interest, so do I. You may not like the methods, but I respect Shari's skill at marketing, and she's been a big part of the progress we made in the last year."

Kerry put her hand on the door and started to push.

"Yeah, okay--she's got a bug up her about Dar, but I think it's mutual, right?" Michelle persisted. "She's got a beef, and now she's in a position to screw Dar over like Dar screwed her over way back when. It's human."

Kerry stopped pushing. "Michelle," she said quietly. "Did she ever tell you why Dar screwed her over?"

The smaller woman cocked her head slightly. "Did she need a reason?"

"Dar always has a reason." Kerry shoved past her, into the bright chaos of the hotel lobby. "You want this to be nasty?" She turned and regarded Michelle. "I can make it nasty. Dar's just honest and straightforward." She smiled grimly. "I'm a politician's kid. Screw with me at your own risk."

It felt good to turn and just walk away then, sauntering across the lobby well aware of Michelle's eyes on her back. "Bitch, bitch, bitch," she warbled under her breath, as she started up the steps to the second floor conference rooms. "Y'now, there are some days when I wish I'd taken my family's advice and become a teacher." She got to the top of the steps and turned to see Michelle and Shari standing next to the restroom, obviously in a heated discussion. "Heh. But today isn't one of 'em." She tapped the railing, then continued on her way toward the conference room, whose doors were standing wide open.

And as she stepped across the threshold, every single light in the building blinked out, leaving the room, and the rest of the hotel, in total darkness.

"I didn't do it," Mark's voice sounded just behind her. "Honest."

Kerry emerged back into the lobby, which was lit by outside light. "They forget to pay FPL or something?" she commented to Ross, who quickly joined her at the balcony rail. "Nice timing though."

"You got that right," Ross agreed. "I'm not sure what the deal is here, Kerry. What's the game? You never have vendors come in and do a face off."

"Good question," Kerry agreed. "I don't know wha..." She glanced down as her PDA started to go off, then she turned as Mark pulled his phone out. "You getting those too?"

Mark studied his phone. Then he opened it and dialed. He waited, his eyes going a little unfocused, then he hung up only to answer the phone as it rang immediately. "Polenti." He listened, then his eyes went up and fastened on Kerry's. "She's right here."

"Uh oh. That doesn't sound good," Kerry muttered.

Quest came over, leaving the house phone on the wall he'd been talking on. "Well, it appears it's not the hotel's fault," he announced. "Apparently the power is out all over the city." His eyes fell on Kerry. "Some screw up or other."

"Okay," Mark said. "I'll tell her." He shut the phone and clipped it to his belt. "Boss?"

Kerry felt the buzzing against her palm as alerts came one after another. She kept her expression mildly interested though. "So, does that mean your meetings for this afternoon are postponed?" she asked. "We'd like to beat traffic back to our offices if that's the case."

"Well." Quest looked briefly nonplussed. "There's nothing we can do right now. I have a presentation I was going to show, but it will need to be rescheduled. I expect you all to remain available for that." He motioned to his staff and started down the stairs toward the hotel front desk.

"What are we supposed to do?" Shari asked. "Just hang around here in the dark?"

Kerry bit her tongue on the obvious response. "If the AC's off in here, I'd actually go outside if I were you," she offered. "It gets very hot, very fast. Mark, let's head back to our offices. I'm sure we can get some work done in the meantime."

"Gee, thanks Kerry," Ross exhaled. "I was supposed to fly back to Oregon tonight." He started down the stairs. "Damn it."

"See you all later." Kerry motioned for Mark to follow her and they trotted down the steps, getting some distance away from the rest of the crowd before speaking. "Are we in trouble?" she asked.

"Big time screwed," Mark confirmed. "We lost all our links."

"What?" Kerry stopped in mid step, and stared at him.

"Think you better book, poquito boss. They can't even call into or out of the office. Lucky we got our cells."

"Jesus." Kerry fought to keep herself from breaking into a run. "What in the hell happened to the redundant systems?"

"No one can get through to the Telco to find out."

"God damn it."

THERE WAS JUST enough breeze for Dar to be able to sit in comfort, allowing the late afternoon sun to drench her with its oddly pallid light. She had a delightfully intricate tour behind her, two bags of rampantly tourist-flavored purchases next to her, and a bellyful of cherry vanilla ice cream.

Life was good.

The museum had charmed her and she was fairly sure her knickknack acquisitions were going to charm her family.

Her family. Dar had to stop and take a breath, releasing it slowly as she thought about how full of family her life was now. She'd gotten a sub model and a sweatshirt for her dad, and a space shuttle plus a T-shirt that said 'my husband is in the navy, and all I got was this T-shirt and a pail of seaweed' for her mom, and a bagful of god only knew what for Kerry. Even Chino had gotten a toy.

It was a radical change for her, having so many people to get things for. Dar removed the stuffed squeaky Apollo capsule she was sure Chino would tear apart in no time and examined it, squeezing it gently with her fingers and listening to the wheezy bright sound.

It certainly made shopping a lot more fun though. Dar grinned. She'd gotten herself a few things, but she'd extracted far more enjoyment in picking stuff out for everyone else, especially the bagful of items for her partner.

Silly things. But Dar was certain Kerry would love them, and that a good number of them would find their way into the office to perch in, hopefully, inconspicuous spots near her desk. The hours of exploration had restored her good humor, as had the moments of indulgence in old memories that the smell of brass and diesel had called up to her.

In fact, Dar pulled out her conspicuously silent PDA and opened it, scribbling a little note and sending it on its way. She waited for a short while, but didn't get an answer, and figured Kerry was probably either busy with the meeting, or had fallen asleep at the meeting, but probably was doing just fine.

Dar decided she'd had a long enough rest, and after flexing her calves a few times, she stood up and arranged her shopping bags, then started back down toward the city and away from the docks. Now toward evening, the foot traffic was starting to pick up, and the harried looks of the people on the street were relaxing as the workday was ending.

Well, if she was stuck in New York, at least she'd had the afternoon off. Dar strolled down the sidewalk, pausing as a small bar caught her attention. After a moment's hesitation, she shrugged one shoulder and entered, finding a spot in a quiet area off to one side.

She eased onto one of the high stools and set her bags down by her feet, resting her forearms on the round wooden table as one of the waitresses scooted over to her. "Hi."

"What can I getcha?" the girl asked, putting down a small, square napkin next to Dar's elbow.

Milk? Dar glanced around the place, which oozed a tavern atmosphere she could almost feel coating her skin. Hm. Her eyes fell on the beer tap, and spotted a name she knew Kerry liked. "Ah, I'll take a Killian," she decided. "And a plate of wings."

"No problem." The girl looked approvingly at her. "C'm right up." She headed back toward the bar, leaving Dar to appreciate her surroundings more fully.

Bars generally weren't places she tended to hang out in, at least not by herself. Deferring to Kerry's fondness for good brew, she accompanied her partner into pubs and enjoyed them, but more for the company than for the alcohol.

She didn't mind beer. As long as it was served very cold and didn't have too strong a taste it satisfied her and she'd found it a reasonable thing to drink when she was with others due to its relatively small alcohol content. She'd seen enough people drunk off their asses to know she had no personal desire to emulate them.

Kerry was a cute drunk. She got silly, and publicly snuggly, the sweeter side of her personality coming out. Dar, on the other hand, knew herself to be a surly drunk the few times she'd gone down that road and reasoned she was better off stopping before things got ugly.

She sure didn't want Kerry to have to deal with that. Dar let her chin rest on her fist and sighed.

A television was on above the bar, and she amused herself by watching the basketball game in progress, mildly surprised to find the players female. A news banner ran chattily under the picture, but she steadfastly ignored it until a familiar word caught her attention.

Miami.

Dar leaned forward and focused on the headline, gritting her teeth and squinting slightly to keep the words in focus.

It didn't take long. "Son of a bitch," she uttered with feeling. "Why the hell didn't she call me?" Dar removed her cell phone from its clip on her belt and hit a speed button, waiting for it to connect and then holding it to her ear.

It rang eight times before it was answered, and then the first sound that came down the line was a rattling noise and a seriously Midwestern sounding curse.

"God bless the milkman...yes, hello?" Kerry growled into the phone. By her tone she obviously was at the end of the chain tied to the ribbon tied to the end of her rope.

Dar waited a moment, then exhaled. "I love you."

There was a few heartbeats of silence, then a soft grunt came down the line, and a sound Dar recognized as a body landing in the leather chair in her office.

"Jesus," Kerry exhaled.

"No, just me," Dar responded. "I just saw the headlines on the television. How's it going there?"

"Well," Kerry said. "Entire city has no power."

"Son of a bitch."

"Yeah," her partner exhaled. "On the other hand, every single employee in this building is lighting candles of prayer to your image for having a diesel generator big enough to run the air plants."

"I'm a native. I know better."

Kerry faintly chuckled, then sighed. "Now for the really bad news. I have a headache the size of the Orange Bowl, and Bellsouth blew their backup power to one central office and a spike blew their OC on the other. We have no telecom or data services into the building."

Dar covered her eyes in pure reaction. "Holy shit."

"I was holding off calling you until I was absolutely positive the only thing you could do was pat me on my head," Kerry sighed. "I have every critical thing we've got loaded on the sat links, but..."

"Jesus."

"No. Just me." Another sigh. "The one bright spot in my day was that piece of moose pooter meeting got canceled."

The waitress returned, putting down her beer and giving her a bright smile. "Wings'll be right up. K?"

Dar nodded, picking up the frosty mug of beer and taking a long swallow of it. "Ker..."

"Tell me you're in a bar having a beer, and I might have to fly to New York just so I can bite your butt for that."

Dar almost spit her mouthful of beer out across the table, but she managed somehow to swallow it instead. "Um..." She cleared her throat. "Want me on a plane back there?"

Kerry sighed very audibly. "Yes," she replied in a quiet tone. "There is nothing in the world I want right now more than to have you here right next to me."

Dar checked her watch, then reached for her PDA. "Gimme a minute...let me get the flights..."

"Sweetheart, hold on," Kerry said. "I have so many people pissed off at us down here, do we really need another client ticked off because you walked out?"

"Fuck them." Dar was busy with her flight scheduling.

"Dar."

"In addition to the fact that they all mean jack nothing to me next to you, Kerry, the rest of the company does take precedence over them," Dar replied, reviewing her options. "You should have called me before now."

"Yeah, I know." Kerry's tone now just sounded tired. "But I like to think I can actually do the job you pay me for sometimes."

Dar paused in mid tap. She put her PDA down and concentrated on the phone exclusively. "Kerry, this has nothing to do with your competence. This is outside anyone's scope." She hesitated. "You want me to butt out and let you handle it?"

There was a very long silence after that. Finally, on the heels of the faintest of sniffles, Kerry spoke up. "Professionally? Yes."

Dar winced, the rejection stinging more than she'd anticipated.

"Personally, no," she went on quietly. "So what should I do? Can you give me some advice so I can make some kind of peace with myself?"

Dar released a held breath, and ordered her thoughts, sipping her beer as she pondered the question. "Okay," she said. "I'm assuming the big cluster is our lines being down."

"Yeah."

"I'm assuming you've already browbeaten and bullied everyone in Bellsouth you can get your hands on."

"Mmph...yeah. Problem is, emergency services are priority, and we're not," Kerry said. "Even though we pay them for diversity out the wing wang."

Which was true. "Okay." Dar closed her eyes and thought. "The blown switch is out of our hands, but the other Central Office is just out of power?"

"Yeah."

"Send Mark to Home Depot and have him buy every big generator they've got, then just go in there and hijack the bank we're in and push power through it."

"They're not going to let us do that."

"Don't ask them," Dar said quietly. "Just show up, walk in, don't take no for an answer."

"They're going to think we're nuts."

"Yeah," Dar agreed. "But our customers are going to think we're miracle workers."

A soft rattling of keys came down the line, along with the ghost of another sniffle. "You were right," Kerry said, after the rattling stopped. "I should have called you before now," she admitted. "Damn."

Kerry had been doing everything humanly possible, Dar was sure. They'd been through enough crises together for her to trust her partner's judgment implicitly. But sometimes when Kerry encountered the unlikely and was under a lot of stress, thinking way outside the box wasn't her first instinct.

It was always Dar's first instinct. "It's okay, sweetheart." She tried for a faint joke. "S'why you pay me the big bucks, remember?"

A faint chuckle rewarded her.

"I wouldn't have called anyone either," Dar admitted. "Never have been able to do that. So..."

"Hello pot, kettle here." Kerry sighed wryly. "Wanna get together for some macaroni and cheese?"

Dar relaxed a little, the knots in her guts easing slightly as she felt her heartbeat start to settle and cease its painful pounding inside her skull. "Sounds delicious."

Kerry chuckled a little. "Do me a favor?"

"Anything," Dar responded. "I've got the flights in front of me. Offer's still open."

Kerry was very quiet for a bit, and Dar gave her the space to wrestle with her own conscience. At last, she grunted softly. "Tell you what, partner. If this doesn't work, I'll give you a call with your flight information, okay?"

A compromise. Dar accepted it reluctantly. "You know I'm going to be a mess all night, right?" she found herself saying anyway. "I'll be sweating that call."

"I know," her lover said. "But if it works, I'll take out a full page ad in the Herald and tell everyone what a smart and amazing person I have as my boss."

"That's supposed to make me feel better?"

At last, Kerry laughed, if only briefly. "Or maybe they'll get the power grid back online, Dar. Having the entire city down with no AC is putting more pressure on the powers that be than I ever could."

"Mmph."

"Call you back as soon as I know something," Kerry went on. "Promise."

"Okay." Dar sighed. "Hang in there, Ker."

"Love you."

"Love you too." Dar closed the phone reluctantly, thoughts running through her mind at a furious rate. She looked up as a plate appeared in front of her, meeting the eyes of the waitress.

"Wings?" the girl said.

Wish I had a pair. Dar nodded in response, staring at the crispy golden items before her. With a sigh, she picked one up and turned it in her fingertips, completely uninterested now in everything except for the vanished voice on the other end of her disconnected phone.