Tropical Convergence

Chapter Thirteen

KERRY FORCED HERSELF not to tense up, concentrating on keeping her hands down at her sides and not balled up into fists. "Listen, Barry, you don't have a choice here." Already in her shirtsleeves in deference to the dank mugginess of the emergency lighting lit office, she resolutely refused to wipe the sweat off her face as she ordered her arguments.

The man she was speaking with, a tall, gangly station manager with a drooping moustache and desperate eyes, slammed his hand on the desk. "Kerry, I can't do it," he repeated, for the nth time.

"You can," Kerry replied inflexibly. "Bottom line is, you have no choice." Her voice already had a slight rasp in it.

"If I let you do it, I have to let everyone. Do you know how many lines go through this building? To the financial district? Jesus, Kerry, do you think you're the only one who's down?"

"We have a contract."

"THEY ALL DO!" Barry yelled, at the top of his voice in frustration. "Woman, you can't understand what you're asking."

What would Dar do? Kerry took a breath. Dar would just yell louder, until the walls shook. But she couldn't do that--it wasn't really her style. "Barry, you have a contract with us to provide diversity. You didn't. Are all those other companies paying you top dollar for that kind of insurance?"

He stared at her.

"We pay you to make sure." Kerry inhaled and upped the volume just a little. "MAKE SURE that we never go down. NEVER. Not 99 percent, not 99.5 percent, not 99.9 percent. 100 percent, Barry. I can't afford any less, and you god damn well know it."

"Yes, I know, but..."

"Barry." Kerry leaned forward. "What is your guarantee worth if all you can tell me is too bad, take a number?"

"You can't just hook this stuff up to a generator," he replied, after a long hesitation. "It just doesn't work like that. You can't fathom the complexity of this stuff, and I..."

Kerry walked right around his desk and grabbed him by the shirtfront, shocking them both. "I can't fathom it? I can't fathom it? Who in the hell do you think you're talking to, the operations vice president of Publix? Jesus Christ, Barry! I've got more complex technology sitting in my living room than you have in this place!"

His eyes widened. "Hey, now listen. Let go of me!"

Kerry did, but she didn't step back. Dar's words were ringing in her head like sea-bells and it was all she could do not to just keep shaking the man until he gave in to her. "Barry, use your head. Get me off your back. Just do it."

"I can't."

"You can," Kerry insisted.

"Kerry, for the sake of god, I can't. It'll be my job!"

Kerry leaned over him, wishing she had Dar's presence. "You will." She nailed him with a look right in the eyes. "Or it'll be your job any way. I swear it."

Would he believe her? Kerry forced herself to hold her gaze steady and cold, offering him no compromise. Her guts were clenching inside, and she only hoped it wasn't showing.

He straightened up and took a breath to answer, only to release it partially as his shoulders slumped. "Kerry, it's not that easy. C'mon now. You can't just plug in one of those things to a damn generator. What if it blows the boards? Then what?"

Ah. Kerry felt the success, like that momentary give in a tug of war when you knew your team was about to break the grunting muddy stalemate, and start to move in the right direction. "Then you hand me a bill," she agreed readily. "I'll take responsibility for the decision."

He leaned forward. "You know how much money you're talking about?"

"Yes, I do." She tilted her head just a little, and gentled her expression. "C'mon, Barry. Get rid of me. You know I have to do it."

Barry relaxed in defeat. "What the hell." He lifted both hands off his chair arms and let them drop. "I'm screwed anyway. I was the dumb bastard who forgot to schedule the maintenance on that freaking backup system."

Kerry felt sweat roll down the back of her neck, and she spared a moment of tired sympathy for him. "Thanks, Barry. Let me get my guys rolling on this." She hesitated. "You got anyone else that's as big a pain in the ass as I am? I can see if we have enough power to share some."

He shook his head after a second. "I wouldn't know where to even start."

"Okay." Kerry turned and headed for the door, already reaching for her cell phone. She keyed the radio button on it. "Mark?"

"Yeah?" a slightly apprehensive voice answered.

"Go," Kerry instructed, now at last wiping the sweat off her face with one hand. "Pull the truck around back. No sense in giving the news people something else to shoot." She looked around for the emergency exit, spotting it on the back of one wall in the gloom. It was hot and very stuffy inside the central office, and eerily empty of workers.

No sense, she had to agree. Why pay for techs to stand around and look at non-functional equipment? With a deep sigh, she hit the door release and opened it, finding some mild relief in the cooler evening air that brushed against her.

Finding a broken piece of punch down block handy, she blocked the door open with it and leaned against the back wall of the building, waiting for Mark and her crew to arrive. She kicked a bit of slate with one toe, glad she'd taken the time to change into jeans and a short sleeved shirt before coming.

Even that was too hot, but anything else risked compromising her ability to project her authority in a serious way, and Kerry wasn't that stupid. She let her eyes close for a minute, the stress of the long day weighing on her heavily.

Then the rumbling of the approaching motor jogged her into straightening up. She brushed off the fatigue and walked to meet Mark as he pulled up close to the building in the rented panel truck, putting the back of the vehicle next to the emergency door.

"Hey, boss." Mark looked as ratty as Kerry felt. He opened the door and jumped out, circling the truck to open the back and let four other techs out into the muggy night air. "Sorry about the ride, guys."

"Shit." One of them rubbed his head. "Oh." He winced, spotting Kerry. "Sorry, ma'am."

"Shit about covers it," Kerry responded. "Okay." She peered into the truck. "Six. Good."

"All they had," Mark explained. "These are the big ones. Most of the small ones were gone already. You know how people are. Lucky we're halfway through the season."

"Right." Kerry studied the machines. "How many to run the one switch inside, Mark?"

"Lemme check." Mark scooted inside the building, pulling out his flashlight as he ducked inside the door. "Holy crap, it's steaming in here!" He poked his head back out. "Hey...I'm not sure we can run those things even if we do juice 'em up. They'll overheat."

Shit. Kerry thumped against the truck, a sense of sick horror coming over her. "Find out what they'll need," she told Mark, to give her a moment to think.

Idiot. Of course they need cooling. She blinked a droplet of sweat from her eyes. Why hadn't she thought of that? Kerry let her head rest against the metal wall. Maybe she'd gotten too used to letting Dar do her thinking for her?

A draft of cool air blew into her face, and she looked inside the truck, sticking her hand into the dark bay. She stepped back and looked at the side, spotting the boast of an air conditioned truck bed. "You got a flashlight?" she asked the tech nearest her.

"Um...sure." The curly-haired tech handed it over.

Kerry turned it on and flashed it over the interior of the truck, spotting the large air conditioning unit near the ceiling. "Okay." She saw Mark emerge. "What's the deal?"

He shrugged. "We can do it with one of these suckers." He indicated the generators. "No problem, but it won't stay up more than ten minutes, boss. I..." He hesitated. "I shoulda thought of that."

"Why? Even they didn't." Kerry exhaled, pointing inside. "At least, they never mentioned it. So maybe they figured we'd figure out a way around that, too."

"Yeah." Mark frowned.

"So we'll have to. Listen." Kerry pushed away from the truck. "Here's the plan. Mark--set these four up and get them going. Figure out what we need to connect them all in series, but use one at a time so we can keep them running longer. When one runs out of gas we switch to the second, but we can't drop any power."

"Uh..."

"When you figure out what you'll need for that, surge boxes or whatever, call me at Home Depot. I'll be there buying air conditioning duct and duct tape so we can run the truck all night and pipe some air in there." She pointed. "Okay? Thanks. Call me."

She turned and headed for her car, knowing she'd left slack jawed employees behind her. Reaching her Lexus, she popped the door locks and hopped inside, starting up the SUV and closing the door as the air conditioning promptly bathed her in a very welcome chill.

Would Mark figure that all out? Kerry wondered. If they didn't find a way to keep things going, it'd be useless. Dropping the lines every couple hours while they refilled the diesel just wasn't going to cut it. "One thing at a time, Ker." She reminded herself, putting the car in gear with a determined expression. "What was that Dar once said? Mouthful at a time and you can eat an entire whale, tail and all?"

She turned the car onto the road carefully, since the signals were out along with everything else. The power outage had been so severe the power company hadn't even been able to project a fix for it. Too much damage had been done to too much of the infrastructure when a freak collapse of a transfer station had sent power back the wrong way up the lines into the grid.

So, she had to come through here. They had to come through. There wasn't any choice--the pressure was building and she'd started getting more and more calls from their clients frustrated with lack of, or slowness of, service to their vital resources.

As if in cosmic synchronicity with that, her cell phone rang. Kerry fumbled it out and flipped it open, keeping her eyes on the road. "Kerry Stuart."

"Kerry, it's Eleanor."

Kerry exhaled silently. "What's up?" she asked. "I'm a little tied up at the moment."

"Yeah, me too," Eleanor replied. "Listen, aside from everyone that comes through here calling Jose every name in the book, I've got that damn CNN reporter here. Someone told him our customers were up in arms."

"Is he aware there's a power outage?" Kerry said, dodging a car stopped in the roadway. "One that isn't ILS's fault?"

"Sure," she said. "But his point is, we made a big deal about service. So now that there's a problem, where's our service? We charge a premium to make sure customers don't go down, so..."

Kerry sighed. "That's exactly the point I just made to our Bellsouth manager here," she said. "We pay a premium to make sure our customers don't go down. But the fact is, they screwed up, and we're down, so now I'm out here headed to Home Depot to find a way to fix it."

Eleanor sighed. "So I guess you can't talk to him?"

"Not right now," Kerry said. "When I get back to the office, I can."

"Okay," Eleanor sounded mollified. "Hope you have a good story for him. Ker. This guy's a skeptic."

"Yeah. Okay," Kerry muttered. "Talk to you later." She hung up the phone, and shook her head. "Jesus."

A clog of traffic at an intersection forced her to stop, and she rested her forearms on her steering wheel as the crowd sorted itself out. A queasy roll of her stomach reminded her she hadn't stopped to have dinner, and though the last thing she felt like doing was eating she knew she was asking for trouble if she didn't.

She already had a stress headache. With a sigh, she let the brake up a little and crept forward, one hand fishing in her utility well until she found a bit of cellophane. Pulling the power bar out, she used her teeth to rip it open, and took a bite without taking her eyes off the road.

It wasn't satisfying, but it was banana nut, and it took the edge off. Kerry chewed at it as she got through the dark intersection, only having to honk four or five times to keep other cars from plowing into her SUV's dark blue sides. "Bah...bah...hey! You jerk! Watch it!"

A Mustang squirted past her in a blare of horns.

Kerry felt her heart hammering in her chest as she got past the intersection, heading toward the nearby hardware store. She got into the parking lot without further incident and headed into the store, regretfully trading the cool leather interior of her car for the heat outside.

The Home Depot was also running on generators, and it was clammy inside. Kerry found it hard to breathe, between the sawdust and the smell of generator oil, but she continued on, glancing down the aisles until she found the central air supply row. She paused in front of the compressed ducting and paused, realizing suddenly she had no idea how much to get.

"Jesus." Kerry slapped herself on the side of the head, unable to believe the stupidity of not measuring the distance first. "I should have had Dar just come back. I can't handle this."

But Dar wasn't there, so after a moment of mentally kicking herself Kerry leaned against the steel shelving and closed her eyes, trying to picture the unfamiliar confines of the telephone building. "Okay." She sighed. "How many Dar's can fit with arms outstretched between the truck and the switch, Kerry. C'mon. Think."

Dar was the easiest thing she could picture, and she knew her partner's outstretched arms were just over six feet across. Mentally, she positioned that tall, lanky frame, imagining her at the truck, then at the door, then inside, then across the aisle and around the corner, just Dar after Dar after Dar, until she was smiling and she had her answer. "Mm...ten Dar's. Lucky me."

With seventy-five feet of ducting to be safe, and four rolls of tape, Kerry loaded up her wagon and then checked her cell phone. It was stubbornly silent, so she pushed the cart over to the electrical section, and started browsing the different devices herself.

What would she need? The urge to call Dar and ask almost overtook her, but Kerry firmly closed her hand away from her cell phone and concentrated on the big boxes lining the shelves. Cables? They had those. Diesel? Mark had stopped for that too. Kerry's eyes roamed over the choices until it fell on a dust-covered box on the bottom shelf labeled GAC Load Control Systems, a lonely looking item, one of its kind.

Crouching down, she tugged the box forward, releasing a cloud of ancient dust that nearly bowled her over. Stifling a sneeze, she peered at the lettering on the box, trying to make the technical terms fit concepts she was already familiar with. "Hm. Load balancing between two or more generators." She let her hands rest on the box. "Well, I guess that's what we're doing." With a grunt, she lifted the item and put it on the cart with the rest, going to the front and hauling the flatbed after in a sweaty, dusty pony-like fashion. She was standing at the counter handing over her credit card when three or four men rushed in, dashing past the entrance and heading for the same aisle she just came out of.

Kerry turned back to the cashier as she was presented with a slip to sign, giving the exhausted looking clerk behind the desk an understanding smile. "Long day."

"Honey, you ain't kidding." The woman handed her card back.

"Damn it, they had one this afternoon." The men came back, obviously frustrated. "Jesus, those damn generators won't do us a lick of good if we can't connect 'em all in series and keep the power up...hey!" He stopped, staring at Kerry's cart. "She got one! She got it!"

Hey! Kerry echoed in mildly amazed silence. I guessed right! Whoa! "That's right. Excuse me, gentlemen." She pocketed her card and started to push her flatbed past them. "Things to do, power to generate, you know how it is."

"Damn! Hey, can we buy that off you? Pay you double for it!" The man in the lead caught up with her. "C'mon, lady...I really need that!"

"No thanks. Sorry. So do I." Kerry steered toward her car with a definite purpose.

"You even know what it is?" the man yelled in frustration.

Kerry stopped, turned and looked at him, one hand on her hip.

"Yeah, yeah, okay." The man waved a hand in disgust at her, shaking his head. "Five minutes too late."

"That's right." Kerry made a shooing motion at him. "Go find another Home Depot. Scoot." A rumble sounded over head, and she glanced up, dismayed to see storm clouds gathering. "Oh, great. Just what I need." She gave the cart a shove and headed for the Lexus. "Maybe I should have gotten a tent."

The thunder rumbled again, as though she was being laughed at.

DAR'S CELL PHONE rang as she entered the hotel lobby, and she found a quiet corner to drop into a leather chair and answer it. "Yeah?"

"Dar!" Alastair's voice belted through the phone. "Good grief, woman! Where are you!"

"New York," Dar answered. "Saving one of our client's asses. Why?"

"Do you know what's going on down in Florida? Dar! We've got half the network down!" Alastair said. "I've got twenty customers on hold on my damn phone screaming their heads off!"

The silent anchors of CNN faced Dar from the bar's big television, the outline of a darkened Miami prominent in the background. "We're page one on CNN. Of course I know what's going on, Alastair," she snapped. "Kerry's handling it."

"What?" her boss almost squealed. "Dar! This is serious!"

"And I'm 2,000 miles away!" Dar yelled back, only in a soft tone, since three men at the bar had turned around to look at her. "What would you like me to do about it? Jesus, calm down!"

"Calm down." Alastair fumed. "I have an international board meeting in two hours, in case you forgot, Dar. One where I have to explain all the calls I've been getting from every big name account we have in the US."

Oops. "No kidding. Me too," Dar replied calmly. "And?"

"Dar."

She could hear the absolute panicked frustration in his tone. "Alastair, it's a power outage. Most of the crits are on the SAT, and Kerry's working on a plan to get more lines up. What is it you expect us to do? Change physics? All the money in the bank ain't gonna cut any slack down there because they can't get the damn hospitals working. Guess what? That's first."

There was a brief silence. "Kerry's working on something?"

"Of course." Dar injected as much impatience into her tone as she could. "I thought we'd gotten past that damned 'I picked her for her looks' thing. What's wrong with you?"

Alastair sighed. "I'm not used to having to rely on anyone but you. That's what's wrong with me."

"Get you something, ma'am?" A waitress came over to her.

Dar hesitated, debating on the answer, covering the microphone with her fingers. Then she half shrugged. "Got a chocolate milkshake handy?"

The woman smiled. "I can find one for ya. Be right back."

"Well." Dar spoke into the phone. "Get used to it."

Alastair paused, taking an audible breath. "What's that supposed to mean?"

What was it supposed to mean? Dar wondered bleakly. "I pay her for a reason," she finally said. "If I didn't think she could handle it, I'd have already headed back."

Her boss sighed. "Yeah, I know," he admitted. "Sorry, Dar. Backhanded compliment, really."

"Yeah," Dar agreed softly. "Look, she'll take care of it. Trust her."

"Since you do, I will," Alastair said. "Just got the jitters, Dar. Been a rough couple of months here. Last thing I need is bad press. What the blazes happened to the backup we're supposed to have down there?"

Dar explained the problem. "So, yeah, it's Bellsouth's issue. They screwed up. Doesn't help us."

"I'll get Ham on it," he stated, his voice now brisk and businesslike. "We can get some cash out of it, anyway. Keep me advised, willya, Dar?"

"I will." Dar promised. "See you on the conference call later."

"With good news," Alastair said.

"With news," Dar clarified. "Or else I'll be on a plane headed south. Guaranteed."

A more contented sigh. "Now I feel better," he replied. "Thanks, Dar. Talk to you soon."

Dar folded the cell phone up and clipped it to her pocket. She slid down in the leather chair, gazing up at the finely plastered ceiling until the waitress sauntered back over with her milkshake. "Thanks."

"Sure you don't want a shot in that?" the woman asked, with a sympathetic grin. "Looks like you could use it."

Dar stared at the glass for a long moment, then her eyes lifted. "No, thanks." She cradled the cold drink between her hands. "Just this for right now." She handed the woman her room key, then signed the resulting check presented to her from the handheld printer. "Appreciate it."

"Anytime, okay?" the woman smiled warmly at her. "Just ask for Angie." She gave Dar a wink, then went on to the next group of older, business suited men seated nearby.

The flirting didn't even register, really. Dar got up and headed for the elevator, hardly aware of the watching eyes.

MARK MET HER as she got out of the Lexus, his face a study in anxious consternation. "Kerry, listen, I tried like a son of bitch to figure out what that electrical stuff was but..."

"No problem. I got it," Kerry said briefly. "I'll need a hand with the stuff in the back. Got the generators set up?"

"Yeah, but..." Mark pointed at the now very overcast sky. "I don't know how good they're gonna be in that."

"No problem." Kerry replied again, with a grim smile. "I brought a tent. Let's go." She turned and headed for the back of the car, popping the hatch and pulling down the rear gate. "You guys, take that ducting and tape out and start stretching it. Need to go from the air unit inside the back of the truck all the way inside the building."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Mark, you get the tent. I'll get this gizmo up and running and connected to the generators. Then we can fire them up and see what we got." Kerry finished briskly. "Any questions? Okay. Let's just do it. I want out of this damned sweatbox."

"You got it, boss." Mark pulled the canopy out and threw it over his shoulder, moving aside to let the two other techs get the ducting gear out. He followed Kerry over to the back door and watched as she dropped to one knee in front of the generators and started tearing the box of her gizmo open. "Whoa. Didn't know you knew the electrical engineering side, boss."

Kerry pulled aside the foam packing and removed the control unit, studying it closely. Four inputs in the back, four in the front, dials, gauges...Jesus. "Yeah, well...you never know when the odd class in college comes home, huh?" She set the unit down and reached inside for the insulated plugs, connecting one end to each generator and the other end to the back of her unit.

Her hands were shaking. Kerry wiped the back of one across her forehead. "Hey, Mark?"

"Yeah?" Mark finished unrolling the tarp and walked over. "Need me?"

"Can you get my backpack from the car?" She fished in her jeans pocket and removed her keys, handing them over. "I need something from it."

"Ma'am...you want this on the floor or..." One of the techs stuck his head out. "It's kinda wonky."

Kerry climbed to her feet and peered inside the building, getting a face full of stale air. "Let me see where the boards are...ah." She stepped over the unrolled ducting and looked at the switch, squatting in damp silence in front of her. "Okay, there's the out-take up there, so the intake has to be back here." She indicated the fan. "So it should pump in right behind that."

"Run it up here?" the tech queried, touching the top of the unit. "It's a hard bend."

Damn it, yes, it was. Kerry looked overhead, taking the flashlight from the tech and examining the drop ceiling. "No, loop some tape over the crossbar, there... see? Then kind of..."

"Cradle it, like this?" The tech wrapped a piece of tape around the duct and held it up. "Like that?"

"Perfect." Kerry gave him a pat on the shoulder. "Just suspend it like that out the door, and then we'll go right to the truck. We got enough duct?"

"Oh yeah." The tech nodded. "Just right."

Kerry managed a smile, before she escaped outside and went back to her work. The sun had long since set, and it was getting dark. She looked up as Mark came over with her pack, and set it down. "Thanks." She dug out another power bar and ripped it open. "How's the tent coming?"

"I'm a lot better at routers," Mark said mournfully, gazing at the poles. "But I think I got it."

Kerry looked up. "You better," She muttered around her mouthful.

"What if we blow that thing up? These generators aren't the greatest," Mark commented, as he got a pole into the corner of the tarp and raised it. "That's some bitching gear in there."

"This thing's got a power massager and anyway if we trash it I'll pay for it." Kerry squinted in the gloom at the directions. She looked up as a warm light bathed her, then gave Mark an appreciative smile. "Thank you."

"No problem." Mark was holding the flashlight in his teeth, and working the tarp with his hands. "You know how many times I hadta do this last time we moved one of the regionals? It sucked!"

Kerry got everything connected. With a slow exhale, she leaned over and pressed the starter on the first generator, holding her breath until the machine caught and came to life in a shockingly loud rumble. A low hum nearly made her jump out of her skin, until she looked down to see the gauges coming obediently to life on her gizmo. "Last one they had." Her voice almost cracked. "Had to fight some guys for it."

Mark peered over her shoulder at the dials, pointing his flash at them. "Wow," he said in a respectful tone. "Man, you know your shit, let me tell you what."

The irony made Kerry smile briefly. "Thanks."

Another bright light suddenly interrupted them, and they looked up to find a television camera pointing its round, inquisitive eye at them followed by a reporter stumbling alongside almost losing his footing on the loose shale.

"Uh oh," Mark muttered. "This ain't' good."

Kerry exhaled as the reporter headed her way. "Wanna be a Vice President for a day?"

"Nuh UH."

"Didn't think so."

"Betcha wish Big D were here."

The sweat in her eyes felt very much like tears. Kerry had to look down for a long moment and wipe the moisture away with her sleeve before she could pick her head back up and face the music.

AT LEAST IT wasn't CNN. Kerry wiped her hands off as she walked over the broken stone and grass, lifting one to shade her eyes from the blaring lights as she recognized one of the local news stations. "Hello."

A woman in her mid-thirties, sweating like a pig, was unwinding a mic cord as she approached. "Okay, hold on, hold on, I'm almost there." She was obviously talking into her own ear. "Give me a minute."

Kerry stopped and hitched her thumbs into her front pockets. She watched the cameraman circle around and take a bead on her, and it gave her a moment to gather her thoughts as the reporter got herself together and made eye contact.

"This is Conchita Gonzalez, of Channel Seven news. We're here at the Bellsouth regional center, where we've been told someone is trying to get something going here in this wasteland of darkness."

She extended the mic. "Can I ask who you are?"

Kerry almost said Martha Stewart. But at the last minute, her better sense prevailed. "Kerry Stuart." She paused, then waited, a mildly inquiring look on her face. "Can I help you with something?"

"What's going on here?" the woman asked, as the camera panned over to the truck. "Are you from the city?"

"No." Kerry shook her head. "We're a private company working on getting our customer's service back." She looked around. "Nothing really interesting going on here."

"Okay." The woman talked to her ear again. "We've been told the emergency services tied through this office are down. Are you helping to restore that?"

"No." Kerry shook her head again.

"Can I ask why not?" The woman focused on her. "We have people who could be in trouble, who could be hurt, or needing help, depending on those services. Shouldn't that be the priority?"

Kerry felt her mouth go dry, as the camera zeroed in on her. "It's not my priority," she said, after a pause. "My priority is doing what I can for my customers. The emergency systems are important, but the people in charge of them are who you should be asking that question."

The woman nodded to herself. "Okay." She said into her ear. "Can you tell us what you're doing?"

It all felt very disconnected. Kerry had the sense that the reporter was only ten percent here with her, and ninety percent in some crazed television news land with people yammering in her head all the time.

"Sure," she said. "We're generating power so that we can bring up the circuits to our main offices, to restore service to our customers."

The reporter stared at her. "Why aren't you doing that for everyone?"

Kerry stared right back. "Why isn't the city doing that? If it's that important, shouldn't they have backup systems?"

"What?" The woman leaned her head to one side. "They are? Okay. I'm out of here." She looked back at Kerry. "Thanks for your time. I'm not sure what you're doing, but someone should be finding out."

She motioned to the cameraman who flicked a switch on his camera and turned to follow her as she trundled away, her hand pressed to her ear. "What? What? What street is that?"

Kerry put her hands all the way in her pockets and stared after them. "Jesus." She turned and headed back to the crew, pausing when her cell phone rang. She glanced at the caller id, disappointed it wasn't Dar. "Kerry Stuart."

"Hello, Ms. Stuart? This is Nelson Argos."

Oh crap. "Mr. Argos, I don't really have the time to talk right now, I'm in the middle of something."

"Oh, I'm sure you are. I just got off the phone with a couple of your biggest customers and they want to know where that famous bulletproof service is. So do I."

"You can call them back and ask them in five minutes. Until then kiss my ass." Kerry hung up the phone as she got back to the truck, dropping to her knees beside the generators. Her phone rang again, but she ignored it this time, as she braced her hands on the load balancer. "We ready?"

"Just about." Mark had a loop of cable over his arm, and he was feeding it out as he walked toward the open door. "Give me a minute."

Kerry's phone buzzed, then buzzed again. She left it in its holster, as a damp breeze blew in and the first patter of rain dropped on the top of the tent.

"Okay, we're done." One of the techs came out, with a roll of duct tape. "You want to check it out, ma'am?"

"I trust you." Kerry didn't feel like getting up, her stomach in a roiling, churning mess. The phone rang again.

Again.

"Boss, we ready? I'm gonna plug it in!" Mark called back. "Cross your fingers!"

The phone buzzed again. Kerry pulled it off her hip and threw it against the wall. It bounced onto the ground, and sat there rocking, a small puddle growing around it. "GO ON," she called back.

The techs watched her in wide-eyed silence.

Kerry ignored them, focusing on the load gauges as she listened to the phone rattle and buzz, and jump against the pavement. As she watched, the needles quivered, then vibrated, then finally jumped a little, moving from zero up to twenty percent.

"Ms. Stuart, do you want us to fetch your phone?"

"No." Kerry leaned on the balancer, taking a bit of weight off her knees since the broken pavement was cutting into them even through her denim. "C'mon."

"Coming up!" Mark hollered back. "I got blinkies!"

The rain started coming down harder, the mist starting to come in the sides of the tent. The techs rushed to secure them, blocking the rain, as Kerry pushed herself to her feet and made her way inside.

Mark was standing in front of the rack, which was not cool, but not as stifling as it had been. There was a hum in the darkness, and red and green lights reflecting against his profile.

Kerry came up next to him. They watched in silence as the LED's moved from a testing pattern to something else.

"That's traffic," Mark finally said into the quiet.

"Yes, it is," Kerry agreed. "You think it worked?"

Mark opened his phone and watched the display. "We'll know in about a minute."

IT WAS DARK in the hotel room. Dar was lying curled up on her side on the bed, her laptop open in front of her and her cell phone resting near her hand.

But the screensaver whirled unmolested, and the cell screen was dark. Dar merely lay there and watched the hypnotic pattern, waiting through what seemed to be the longest night of her life.

It was very quiet, and after a while she lifted her hand and let it drop on the keyboard, bringing the screen to life and exposing the network map she'd placed there. The lines leading into Miami were still mostly dark, and she felt a moment of intense shame as she hoped they stayed that way.

Not for Kerry's sake. For her own, because if they didn't come up, the phone would ring, soon, and she'd grab her bag and head for the airport and home.

Home.

But as she watched, there was a flicker in the lines, a slow ripple that went from red, to yellow, to green as she blinked and sat up, leaning forward to stare at it. The lights steadied and held, pulsing a healthy color that reflected brightly against the dark background.

She did it. A burst of pride drove aside the gloom, and despite it all, Dar found herself smiling. Unless the power came back but... She checked a gauge. No, the office was still on generator. She released a held breath into a whirlpool of mixed emotions. "Good girl."

The phone rang. Dar looked at the caller id for a long moment before she answered it, cradling the phone next to her ear. "Hey."

A long, long, long sigh. "It worked." Kerry sounded lightheaded with relief. "Oh, my god, Dar. It worked. It worked. We're up."

Shoving aside her own ridiculous disappointment, Dar determined herself to rise to the occasion. "I knew you'd do it," she said. "Tell me how it went."

"Hang on, let me sit down." Kerry was almost out of breath. There was the sound of a car door shutting, then a brief rumble of an engine starting. "Oh god. Sorry. Had to get the AC on in here. I'm dying in this goddamned heat."

Dar closed her eyes and just drank in the voice. "Must be like hell."

"Oh, honey...where do I start." Kerry sighed. "Shit, I have such a headache."

Dar's fingers twitched in pure reflex, a testament to her natural inclination to answer the comment with a gentle knead of Kerry's neck. "You take anything?"

Another sigh. "I want to eat first. Otherwise it gets me sick."

"You haven't had dinner?" Dar checked the clock.

"I didn't have lunch," Kerry admitted. "Just some of my bars. Anyway...they fought me tooth and nail, Dar. No way did they want me to do this, because everyone's up their butts wanting favors and screaming at them."

"I'm sure they were." Dar said. "Where are you now?"

"Outside the central office. Mark and the guys are cleaning up. We're leaving two techs here to keep filling the gas tanks."

Dar opened her PDA and tapped out a message, hitting send quickly. "Good idea."

"Thanks," Kerry said. "We kept running into obstacles, but everything worked out. I got the generators hooked up together, and we were just going to start the power..."

"Hooked them up together?"

"Yeah. I got a gizmo, a thing that let me connect all of them. A load balancer. You know...I mean, you must know because you told me to get a bunch of generators, but I didn't think about how to make them work together and I guess you assumed we'd know so..."

Dar's eyes widened. "Shit." She exhaled. "I didn't even think of that, Ker. I just figured you might need more than one in case our stuff was on more than one switch."

Kerry was silent for a little bit. "Oh," she finally said. "Wow. Well, no...I got this thing to make them all work together, so we didn't have to take the lines down to refill the gas or anything like that."

"Go on."

"So then I had to figure out how to keep the switch cool." Kerry said. "I put some air conditioning duct from the switch out the door to the truck we rented...it had AC in the back."

Dar rested her chin on her fist, a genuine smile appearing on her face. "Uh huh."

Kerry cleared her throat. "So it was going great. Then the reporters showed up." She let out an aggravated breath. "Dar, they treated us like a bunch of squirmy hooligans. Like I was cheating or something to get what I wanted."

"Sweetheart, you were," Dar told her. "But it's okay. It's what you get paid for."

"That's what I told her," Kerry said. "She went away, but I think she's coming back. Anyway, I got it all going, and plugged the switch in, and we all sort of just held our breath."

"And it worked."

"It worked."

"Kerry?"

"Mm?"

"Outstanding job. You went over and above, and I really appreciate that. Well done. Very well done," Dar said, meaning every word.

Kerry exhaled, and there was a soft sound as though she'd let her head rest against the glass window. "Thanks, boss," she replied simply.

They were both quiet for a little while. Then Dar shifted the phone from one ear to the other. "I'm damn proud of you."

A faint sniffle traveled down the cellular link. "Even though it meant you didn't get to come riding to the rescue?" Kerry asked, making a wan joke.

"Yeah."

Kerry made a small sound of contentment, but then she sighed again. "Know something?"

"What?"

"I was just thinking about something you once said to me. About how you felt when you got promoted, that time? And how you just went back home and it was like..."

"It ended up not meaning much, yeah," Dar said. "What brought that up?"

"Uuugh. Because I just was sitting here thinking that after all this, after this crappy, disgusting, horrible day--all I have to go home to is a dark, hot house and an empty bed."

Dar was caught speechless.

"I want a hug," Kerry uttered. "I want you."

Dar swallowed, hearing a note in Kerry's voice she knew meant her partner was very close to tears. "Ker."

A pause. "Sorry," Kerry whispered huskily. "I'm just on overload right now. The stupid guy from CNN called me in the middle of this and I told him off. My phone wouldn't stop ringing."

"I love you," Dar said the only thing she reasonably expected to make her partner feel better. "I wish I was in that car right next to you right now."

Kerry was quiet for a minute, then she exhaled. "I want to be jazzed about what I just did, but you know, Dar...I don't know. I hope it was worth it."

"It was," Dar said, in a positive tone. "I'm sure everyone back at the office is cheering your name right now."

"Hm." Then there was a rustle, and the sound of the car window opening. "Hang on, sweetie." The sound of wind rushed in. "Hey, Mark...oh...oh, yeah, um...that would be great...yeah. Thanks! How...oh, that smells great. Thank you."

Dar smiled faintly at her distorted reflection in the laptop screen. She waited for the sound of the outside to vanish as Kerry rolled up the window again, and heard the rustling of paper bags on the other side of the line.

"Did you have something to do with this, Paladar?" Kerry's voice sounded more normal.

"Me?" Dar inquired. "I'm sitting here in New York. What makes you think I had anything to do with having your dinner delivered?"

A very soft, knowing chuckle answered her. "The fact that my Wendy's spicy chicken sandwich has no lettuce, and extra cheese on it, the frosty is large, and the baked potato has no bacon bits. Mark maybe could guess number two, but the other ones had your little fingerprints alllll over them."

Dar flexed her hand in front of her eyes, studying her fingerprints. Then she let her arm drop to the bed again. "Least I could do," she conceded. "Since I'm not there to do it myself."

"Wish you were." Kerry's voice was muffled as she chewed. "I can admit that now, since this crappy thing is over."

"Wish I was too," Dar echoed softly.

Kerry swallowed, and cleared her throat a little. "Are you okay?" she asked, in a gentle voice. "You sound really down."

Was she? Dar stared at the screen, with its winking green lights. "Yeah, I'm all right," she answered, after a brief pause. "Worried about you all night, that's all."

"Mm."

"Least I have good news for the international board call in half an hour." Dar made an effort to inject some normality into her tone.

"Call? I didn't know you had one," Kerry said.

"Yeah, I forgot too. Alastair reminded me," Dar admitted. "It's on my schedule...woulda binged me anyway. Give me something to do now that the crisis is over."

Kerry seemed to absorb this in silence for a few heartbeats, chewing on her chicken sandwich in a thoughtfulness almost tangible through the phone. "Want some of my frosty?"

Dar chuckled.

"Want me to get on a plane and come to New York?" Kerry asked. "Not for business. Just to keep you company and get my hug?"

"You really have to ask?" Dar responded wistfully. "You know I'd love it. But you've got that damn bid, Ker. This won't take me more than a day or so to straighten out. Then I'll be back and you'll get your hug."

"Mm," Kerry grunted unhappily. "Hell with them," she said. "Oh, crap. I was right. Here come those damn reporters again."

"Ouch."

"You think they'll just stay there filming me if I eat my dinner inside the truck and refuse to open the door?"

Dar smiled. "Worth a try, sweetheart," she said. "Guess I can go order room service now too."

"Bad Dar."

"Bad Kerry," Dar responded promptly. "Two of a kind."

Kerry laughed suddenly, a light, joyful sound that made Dar's tense neck muscles relax in an instant. "Oh, what a compliment that is. Okay, love of my life...let me let you go get dinner, and I'll try not to strangle these reporters. Call you later?"

"Sure," Dar agreed. "I'll let you know what the board had to say about my genius VP Ops."

"Love you."

"Love you too. Later." Dar closed the phone, feeling better than she had all night.

Good enough to make her get up and go to the desk, sitting down and flipping open the room service menu with renewed interest.