by Melissa Good
Kerry started humming "New York, New York" under her breath as she worked on her aggravated boss's tall frame.
"You people are as useless as tits on a boar." Dar clapped the phones hut and almost tossed it across the room, remembering at the last minute it wasn't hers to destroy. She handed it back to Kerry and growled, leaning with both hands against the wall. "Son of a bitch."
"Easy, babe," Kerry soothed her. "We'll find a way. "
A soft knock came at the door. They both paused then sorted themselves into a semblance of decorum as Dar cleared her throat. "C'mon in." She resumed studying the wall, but didn't hide a smile as Kerry kissed her hand then let it go just as the door opened.
A woman with dark golden skin and dark hair entered, wearing a colorful jacket and leather pants. "Hey!" She spotted Dar. "Dar from Miami! How are ya!"
Dar chuckled and stepped forward to take the extended hand."Hello, Scuzzy," she said. "How are you doing?"
"Well," Scuzzy stuck her hands in her pockets and shrugged, "not so great, you know? It's been tough the last few days."
"I know," Dar said. She half turned. "Scuzzy, this is Kerry Stuart, our Vice President of Operations." She could see the quirk in her partner's brow. "Ker, this is Hermana Jones, from the Queens data center."
"Hello," Kerry extended her hand, "nice to meet you."
"Oh hey!" Scuzzy took her hand and shook it vigorously. "That's been you on the phone that whole time, huh?"
"Mostly, yes," Kerry agreed. "It's been a long couple of days."
Scuzzy released her. "Everyone here's pretty shook up, you know? It's been tough. My brother's FDNY."
"Oh no," Kerry said. "Is he okay?"
"Yeah." Scuzzy nodded. "He was uptown saving some lady who got stuck in her car or something. He was all pissed off that he didn't get down there until them buildings fell down. Then he wasn't so pissed anymore, just mad about all the other guys."
They were all silent for a moment, and then Scuzzy shrugged. "My mama wants to send that lady a basket of flowers, you know?" She glanced around. "But they weren't so lucky here, huh? I heard about the big cheese."
"They weren't," Dar agreed. "But we've got a lot of other things to worry about too. That's why I asked you to come down here, to see if you could help us out." She turned to face the map. "You up for that?"
"You kidding?" Scuzzy asked. "Meeting you in that subway changed my whole freaking life. You want me to do something? Whatever, you know?" She glanced at Kerry. "Sorry, I know that sounds crazy."
Kerry's green eyes twinkled. "I know exactly what you mean," she demurred. "Dar certainly does have that effect on people." She patted her partner on the side. "Let me get back to the conference. Do I take it we get no help from the governor?"
"Jerk," Dar said. "No." She looked at Scuzzy. "But you might be able to help. Here's the deal." She turned to the map, finding the pier with one long finger. "The city's putting in a command center here."
"The pier? That old creaky place?" Scuzzy seemed dubious. "You got to be kidding me, right?"
"Wish I was," Dar said. "They want communications. There's nothing down there, no phone lines, nothing."
"You ain't kidding. I had a cousin used to live under the terminal," Scuzzy stated. "There ain't nothing but rats under there, I'm telling you."
Dar eyed her. "Nice," she said. "Well, I've got some guys going down there to run a big cable from there, down to the Intrepid, the air museum, where I was going when I met you."
Scuzzy nodded. "All right."
"Problem is, we have to get it into where we have an office there, and get them to let us connect it up," Dar said. "In the electrical rooms."
"Oh man." Scuzzy made a sound with her mouth like a mouse screaming. "They ain't going to let you in there to do nothing like that. Not those guys down there. They don't like nobody messing around down by the docks."
Kerry, who had been listening, now spoke up. "We could pay them to do it," she suggested. "It'd be worth it if that would get it done."
"How many fiber optics technicians you figure work off the side of the Hudson, Ker?" Dar put her hand against the wall and leaned on it. "Who haven't already been sucked down into the financial district?"
"Ah."
"Y'know." Scuzzy had been looking at the map. "I got an uncle I could maybe call," she offered.
Dar's lips twitched. "I was hoping you did."
"He does some business down there, you know?" Scuzzy explained. "He's in real good with those guys. You want me to call him,see if he could maybe help us?"
"I do." Dar went over to the conference table and perched on its edge. "Scuzzy, we don't mind paying whatever service fees they want, understand? This is important. We have to get the city emergency center up so those people can do what your tax dollars are paying them to do."
"Gotcha." Scuzzy pulled out her cell phone, a bejeweled item with three or four things dangling off the edge of it. "No problem. Lemme see what I can do here, okay?" She moved to one side, and started punching buttons. "Uncle Jazzy, Uncle Jazzy where are ya in here--"
Dar folded her arms over her chest and turned her head, giving Kerry a wry look. Kerry merely smiled back at her charmingly, letting her chin rest on her hand. "Got that tea?" Dar finally asked, with a mild grimace. "Or a hammer to hit my head with?"
"Absolutely." Kerry got up and slid her laptop over, handing the ear buds to her partner. "Listen in while I'm out doing your every bidding." She winked at her partner, and ducked past, going to the door and slipping outside into the hallway.
Dar sighed, and put one bud in her ear, doing her best to ignore the cramps that were getting on and stomping all over her last nerve. It was even making the back of her eyeballs ache and she swallowed, feeling a little like she was going to throw up.
Like life wasn't a pain in the ass enough as it was, right?
"Miami exec, you on? This is Miami ops."
Dar clicked the mic. "Miami exec here," she dutifully responded."Go ahead Mark. How's it going out there?"
"Boss, we're doing pretty well," Mark said. "Especially since a freaking truck just showed up here with linemen from three of the phone companies dumping into that closet. They're in there giving our guys a break now."
Dar managed a smile at that. "Well, I'll be damned," she said. "That is good news." She spared a wistful thought of the bus, and the crew they'd left behind. The two other community buses were here, and parked downstairs but it wasn't the same thing. "Listen, do we have any fiber guys there? I'm going to need one."
"Hold one, boss." Mark clicked off.
Dar was glad enough to remain silent. She checked her watch to see if she could take more painkillers, sighing and rubbing her temples when she realized she couldn't. She turned and looked out the window, finding her eyes drawn to the east, where a dull plume of smoke was still rising between the skyscrapers in the distance.
Sitting here, she realized, she could have seen the whole thing happen. Had the people here wondered if they were next?
Dar sighed, hearing Scuzzy talking at the other end of the room. She got up off the table and sat down in the nearest chair, resisting the urge to put her head down on her arms as the cramping worsened. She focused on Kerry's laptop instead, moving aside the window with her mail to study her desktop background.
It was a picture of a sunset from the boat. She vaguely remembered it, a lazy Saturday out on the water that had ended with a freshly caught fish dinner and Kerry leaning back against her on the bow snapping shots of the sky.
Dar could almost smell the salt tang on the air and feel the warmth of Kerry's back pressed against her as she rested her chin on Kerry's shoulder and gently blew in her ear.
"Dar?"
The hand on her shoulder nearly made Dar jump out of her skin. She turned to find Kerry standing there with a faintly concerned look on her face, and a cup of steaming tea. "Ah. Sorry. I zoned out for a minute." She took the cup and set it down. "Mark's finding us a fiber man."
"You were a million miles away there." Kerry sat down next to her,glancing past at the still talking Scuzzy, who was now pacing back and forth, gesticulating with her free hand. "You okay?"
Dar took a sip of the hot, minty, honey laced beverage. "Not a million miles," she disagreed. "Only about two thousand or so. I was thinking about the day you took that picture." She pointed at the screen.
"Wishing I was there again right now."
"Mmm." Kerry settled the ear bud in her ear and gazed at the red orange scene. "That was the day you caught the grouper," she said. "What a gorgeous night that was, too. So many stars. The sky was so clear."
"You found so many loony animals in the sky I ended up tossing you overboard," Dar added grinning.
"And I ended up tangled in seaweed half scared out of my mind," Kerry concluded. "I wish I was back there now too."
"Hey, Miami exec? This is Miami ops." Mark came back on. "Found one guy who can do splicing. That what you need?"
"Sounds good, Miami ops. Put him on the train," Kerry answered. "When are you heading up here? We're really short on techs and really heavy on sales folks here."
"Hey, I got him." Scuzzy came back over, and the pace picked up again around them. "He says he's interested in doing business with us,yeah."
"Great." Dar half turned to face her, catching Alastair entering the room with a frown on his face. "Alastair, get your checkbook ready."
Her boss stopped in mid step, and blinked. "Eh?"
"We need to start doing business here," Dar said. "The old fashioned way." She motioned to Scuzzy. "Meet Scuzzy."
"Hey. How ya doin?" Scuzzy held her hand out. "Nice ta meet ya."
Alastair took her hand automatically, his pale blue gray eyes going wide. "Charmed." He looked over at Dar. "I'm sure."
Dar smiled briefly at him. Then the door opened again, and one of the sales staff poked their head in, and a flashing alert went off on Kerry's screen. In the distance, a siren went off.
And it still wasn't time to take more drugs.
"DAR." KERRY LOOKED up from her laptop, and across at her visibly miserable partner. "I'm sorry, sweetie, but they're going to need you to go down there." She grimaced in sympathy at Dar's hunched over posture.
"Fuck." Dar had her eyes covered with one hand, having just swallowed a second set of pills. "Why?"
Kerry felt as emotionally miserable as Dar was physically. "They won't let them in the demarc room at the Intrepid. Not even our local people." She got up and circled the table, putting her hands on Dar's shoulders and beginning a gentle massage. "Want me to go? If you tell me what to look for, and I take Dad, maybe we can do it."
"Stupid fucking bastards. What do they think they're going in therefor with a three hundred pound spool of fiber optics? Wiring the admiral's urinal?"
"Does the admiral have his own urinal?" Kerry returned the wry attempt at humor. "I'll go down there. Let me get some usefulness out of my PMS before I'm as miserable as you are."
Dar sighed. "I'm in hell." She straightened up. "We'll all go down there. If I don't kill someone we can stop by a bar I know near there and get me some alcohol and see if that helps."
"Aw, honey." Kerry kissed the top of her head. "You're making me crazy watching you be so miserable." She wrapped her arms around Dar from behind, resting her cheek against her hair. "I wish I could do something besides ache for you."
"Life sucks." Dar sighed mournfully. "Someone once asked me if I wasn't pissed off I was born a woman instead of a man. I told them absolutely. For about four or six hours every goddamned month."
Kerry chuckled wryly. "Buy me a beer at that bar?"
"Buy you the bar if you want." Dar gathered herself and stood up. She followed Kerry around to her laptop and waited for her to start to shut it down. Then she came up behind her and wrapped her arms around her, returning the hug and the emotion behind it. "We get this office up, you and I are going to our hotel, and chilling."
Kerry glanced at her watch. It was almost 2:00 p.m. and she figured it would be at least two hours before they had an even chance of getting the problem on the river resolved. That would make it four. "We can schedule more stuff from there," she agreed, "and at least get comfortable."
"What have we done to get someone into lower Manhattan?" Dar asked."That's going to be a lot tougher than fixing this damn office of the mayor's."
"I called my contact at AT&T. He's arranged to get us credentials down there. I haven't told him what we're doing. I just said we might be able to help somewhere."
"Mm."
"Well, it's true." Kerry closed her laptop. "Just not how he's going to think of it." She went still, taking a moment to savor the warmth of the body pressed against her back, finding herself rocking gently as Dar did.
How crummy and unbearable it would be if Dar wasn't here, she mused. No matter how lousy they both felt. "I love you." Dar didn't answer. She hugged Kerry a little harder and nibbled the edge of one of her ears.
Then they both sighed at the same time, and Dar released her so she could slide her laptop into its case and zip it shut. "Let me call Dad."She grabbed Kerry's phone and opened it, half turning as she heard footsteps outside the door. "Grrr."
"C'mon honey, remember where we are," Kerry murmured."They've had it really rough."
"Rowr." Dar's eyes narrowed, but she subsided, juggling the phone in one hand as they waited.
The door lock worked, then opened, and Alastair came inside, shutting the large wooden panel after him and leaning against it. "Y'know, I could get to not like people after a lot of this." He studied them. "You two off somewhere?"
Dar's brows twitched. "We're going to the emergency office. Try to get the cross-connects done and get those people off our backs at least."She paused, holding the open phone in one hand. "Wanna go with us?"
"Yep." Alastair didn't even hesitate. "One more person calls this office from somewhere in New Jersey and tells me they're down I'm going to take my Longhorns coffee mug and stick it right up their behind."
Kerry's eyes widened. "Wow."
"I didn't think so many people these days didn't read the newspaper. Or watch the evening news. Or have CNN in their houses. Or lived in such a bubble," Alastair said. "I simply don't understand it. The blacksmiths on my damn ranch know more about what's going on in the world than some of these folks."
"You mean, they really didn't know what happened?" Kerry asked,in an incredulous tone.
"Apparently not." Alastair sighed.
"C'mon." Dar was at least glad for this startling distraction to her cramps. "I think you could use a beer too." She indicated the door as she put the phone to her ear. "Let's get out of here for a while. I need some fresh air." She paused. "Hey Dad. Meet you downstairs?"
"Air," Alastair agreed, waiting for them to exit and following along. "Don't much care if it's fresh or not at this point."
Dar hung up as they got to the elevator, pausing to exchange a brief smile with the receptionist. "Sorry if I startled you earlier. It's been that kind of day."
"Oh." The woman smiled back. "Actually, what you did was really cool," she said, "and I forgot to say thanks."
"What did you do?" Alastair asked, as the doors slid open.
"Told a customer to kiss my ass." Dar entered the elevator and impatiently waited for them to follow before she punched the door button. "Dad's downstairs at the bus."
"Ah."
Kerry leaned against the back wall of the elevator, swallowing a little as it descended and she felt the familiar pressure against her inner ears. It reminded her of their last diving trip on the boat, where Dar had taken the Dixie out deep to a wreck in nearly 140 feet of water.
They had descended in the blue, clear water until the wreck had morphed out of the depths, half on its side, filled with ghostly schools of fish robbed of their brilliance by the depth.
Gorgeous and spooky, startling when a huge grouper came nosing around from the gloom around the wreck, and reeking with mystery they c
ould barely get a few minutes to look at. The loneliness of the wreck's position, settled in its bed of white sand had triggered her poetic side and she'd thought about the site frequently since.
What story was behind it, she mused?
"Ker?"
"Huh?" Kerry looked up, to find the elevator doors open and her partner gazing back at her with mild bemusement. "Oh. Sorry." She pushed off the back wall and scooted out of the car, feeling a little embarrassed. "Day dreaming."
Dar patted her on the back as they walked across the huge lobby and out the side door, to a large parking area complete with two of their buses were. There were a few people around them including Andrew,and they walked quickly across the lot to join him.
"Hamilton's gone down to represent us at the big shindig," Alastair commented. "I figured it wouldn't do for me to be showing the flag there with all this stuff yet to be done."
Dar gave him a wry look.
"Glad I'm not trying to fly out of here today," Kerry muttered. "I'd be stuck on the tarmac at LaGuardia until the circus leaves town."
Alastair gave her a wry look.
"Kerry had an unfortunate ground hold the last time the president was in Miami," Dar explained. "She got stuck in a 737 in the middle of July for six hours with no air conditioning. It made an impression."
"I can still smell the inside of that airplane, matter of fact," Kerry said."Closest I ever came to going postal in public."
Alastair grimaced, "That does sound painful." He dredged up a smile up as they arrived at the bus, and people turned to greet them."Hello, folks. How's everyone doing?"
"Lo there." Andrew cocked his head and regarded Kerry and Dar. "How are you kids doing?"
"I've been better." Dar didn't bother to dissemble. "Let's get a cab and get down to the pier. The faster we do that, the faster Alastair can go preen for the press."
"Well, hey." Her boss turned around, startled. "I didn't mean you should go make me into a hero, Dar. For Pete's sake!"
"Don't worry about it," Kerry whispered to him. "She's just in a really bad mood."