by Melissa Good
"Hey boss!" Mark waved her over. "The big Kahuna was checking one more thing, then she said she'd meet us up here."
"Good." Kerry claimed one of the leather chairs in the midst of her techs. "Someone get me a beer, please. The bigger the better."
"Right you are, ma'am." Shaun got up and trotted over to the bar.
"Long ass day, huh?" Mark asked. "Man, I don't envy those phone guys though. I wouldn't want to be creeping around in that subway at night."
"No way." Another of the techs agreed. "They've got balls." He paused, and blushed. "Sorry ma'am."
"No problem." Kerry sighed. "They've sure got more balls than I do, anyway." She glanced at Mark. "So what's Dar doing now? Did you find a route through the basement?"
Mark shook his head. "No such luck," he replied, mournfully. "I can't even get them to tell me where our damn demarc is. They have to call some guy who was on vacation or something to find out. We couldn't find any easy way to get from the building out."
"Ugh." Kerry accepted the large, frosty mug of beer Shaun was handing her. "Thanks. Where's Kannan?"
"In our room," Shaun said. "He's still pretty freaked out. I told him to order some room service and relax."
Kerry took a sip of the cold beer and swallowed it "Good choice." She complimented Shaun. "And good idea to have Kannan just rest tonight I have my admin trying to get him a flight out of here tomorrow to go home. I don't think he's really in danger hereafter all, so many people here in New York are from India it's not really unusual--but I understand how he feels."
"Yeah, I know." Shaun picked up his own glass that seemed to be some kind of highball drink. "He's just freaked out by all of it. Sucks too, because he's our best WAN guy."
It did suck. Kerry sat back in her chair and looked around the bar. Aside from her group, there were several others, clustered around the scattered tables or watching the three television sets mounted on the walls.
Ordinarily, the screens would have sports on them, she figured.Basketball, or football, or whatever ESPN was serving up. Now, all three were tuned to CNN, and those sitting around seemed fixed on the pictures that showed again and again the horrific sights she'd gotten to know up close and personal earlier that day.
Shots of the wreckage. Shots of the Pentagon. Shots of a burned field in Pennsylvania. Talking heads. Shots of the president with his bullhorn standing on a mound of debris. More talking heads. Shots of smoke, of the mayor at a funeral, of the barges removing remains to Fresh Kills landfill along with mounds and mounds and mounds of debris.
Fresh Kills. What a cosmically ironic name. Kerry was truly surprised someone hadn't changed it just to spare everyone the wince. It was Dutch, she'd learned. The old word kille meaning water channel and the place itself was an estuary that drained wetlands into the sea, but in the current context it was ghoulish and she was tired of hearing it.
Certainly, she'd winced. That reminded her of something and she set her beer down, removing her cell phone from her belt and opening it. She looked up a number, pressed the dial, and listened to the ring until it was answered. "Hello, Mother."
"Wh--oh, hello, Kerry," Cynthia Stuart answered. "What a surprise. I hadn't expected to hear from you this evening. Where are you? Still in New York?"
"Yes. Across from our office at Rockefeller Center," Kerry replied."How are things there?"
"Frustrating," her mother answered honestly. "I have to say it's very difficult talking to people who cannot see past someone with perhaps a different religion, or so on, and who must assume everyone who is from somewhere else is suspect."
"I heard about the attacks," Kerry said. "I'm sorry. We encountered that here. One of our techs is from India and he's had a tough time."
"Terrible." Her mother agreed. "I have to say your being there also makes me quite anxious, however, Kerry. Angela is also concerned. "
"Thanks. It's been a rough day. We were down at the disaster site earlier. We just got back uptown a little while ago."
"Oh my." Cynthia gasped a little. "I had no idea! I saw the pictures on television just before--it seems absolutely horrific. Hold on, Angela, I have your sister on the phone. She seems right in the middle of everything again--what--oh, all right. Yes, hold on."
"Ker?" Angie's voice came over the line. "Are you nuts? Get the hell out of there!"
"Hi, Ang." Kerry gave her table mates a wry look, and a shrug."Family," she mouthed. "Get out of here? We're in the lobby bar at our hotel. What's wrong with it?"
"Kerry, cut it out! Why are you guys there?" Angela acted upset. "It was bad enough when you were at the Pentagon, but Jesus!"
Perversely, after being horrified the whole day, now Kerry felt the need to downplay the whole thing. "C'mon, Ang. There's a whole city full of people here. Chill. We had to come here. There's a lot of stuff that needed taking care of. "
"How long are you staying there?" Angie asked. "Have you heard what's going on here?"
"I heard. People are going a little crazy, I think," Kerry said. "We have a lot of customers down here, and there are some things we're doing for the government. It's not just me and Dar, either. Our CEO is here and a bunch of our corporate people. "
"So you and Dar aren't running the planet as usual?"
Kerry spotted her beloved partner entering the hotel, surrounded by men, all of whom were glued on whatever it was she was telling them."Who us? Nah, we're just little fish here." She watched Dar, hands moving in a decisive motion, dismiss her accolytes who scattered in all directions. "We're just a couple of nerds to these guys."
"Uh huh," Angie said. "Sis, be careful, please? It's easy to get hurt in all the stuff going on.
"I will."
Dar stopped at the front desk and leaned over the top of it talking to the short, well dressed woman behind it.
"Ker?"
"Huh?" Kerry wrested her attention back to her phone. "Sorry, what was that?"
"I said, here's Mom back. Be careful!"
"Here comes Big D." Mark spoke up. "Looks like she could use a beer too, Shaun."
"Hey, you'd think my family were Irish bartenders or something--oh wait. They are." Shaun good naturedly got up and headed back to the bar.
"Kerry?"
"Yes, I'm here." Kerry could see the irritation in her partner's body language, but she smiled anyway, as the stormy blue eyes lifted and found hers. "Listen, I hope everything settles down and people start to think again. I know this has to be a knee jerk reaction."
"I certainly hope so. Will you be there long? "
Kerry considered the question as Dar arrived and took a seat on the arm of her chair. "I think we'll know more on Monday, to be honest. I'll let you know," she said. "I'm sure Dar will want to get out of here as soon as we can."
"Bet your ass." Dar commented.
"I'm sorry, what was that?" Cynthia asked. "Was that Dar? I thought I heard her voice."
"It was," Kerry said. "She was just agreeing with me."
Shaun came back over and offered Dar a glass. "They told me to get this."
Dar eyed him. "They did, did they?" She let her eyes narrow. "Now why would they say something like that?"
"Um." Shaun took a half step back.
"C'mon boss." Mark called over. "Be nice."
A grudging smile appeared on Dar's face and she extended one hand to take the glass. "Thank you, Shaun." She lifted the glass and glanced around the table. "Let's hope this is one day in a million."
"Hear hear." Kerry lifted her own glass. "Mother, we're going to rustle up dinner now, so let me let you go. I'm glad the family's safe there, and I hope things cool down." She listened, then closed the phone and put it down on her knee. "People, you all did an amazing job today."
"Ma'am, we just hung out and watched," Shaun said.
"That's okay, I did too." Kerry bumped Dar's leg with her shoulder. "Dar did the heavy lifting. But everyone hung in there, and now at least we have a plan, and we're moving forward." She glanced up. "Right?"
Dar waggled her free hand and took a sip of her beer.
"Uh oh." Kerry retreated to her own mug.
"We have some challenges," Dar said, after a pause, waiting for everyone to lean forward to listen. "I found out we need to go and take a closer look at the subway tunnels coming under the office tomorrow.Apparently there's more than one set."
"Oh sure," Scuzzy spoke up. "You ain't gonna believe how many tunnels are under this city here. I think there's like ten that come into Grand Central--you remember Grand Central? That's where we met up that time."
"I remember." Dar nodded. "Looked like a maze made by whacked moles fighting blind badgers," she said. "So tomorrow we need to try and scope a path for them to take that cable up into the building so we can cross-connect it to our gear."
"We can't use the copper riser," Mark said. "I didn't find any ground level demarc."
"I'll go with ya tomorrow," Scuzzy said, confidently. "My old man worked here. I used to sleep in some of them little rooms, me and the rats and the bums."
Kerry felt the air in the bar hit the outsides of her eyeballs as they widened.
"Y'know, you never know. They might have coal bins and who knows what down there. We'll find something. But I thought you were telling them to take it out to Roosevelt?" Scuzzy went on. "What's up with that?"
"Kerry reminded me it'd be a lot closer to bring it here," Dar said."We've got enough pipe here to take at least part of the traffic."
"That sure helps," Scuzzy said, sucking on the straw poked in her colorful fruity drink. "Cause you don't want to be in those tunnels under the East River, you know?"
"I know." Dar agreed solemnly. "Me either."
"Specially since the Roosevelt is like, halfway to China." Scuzzy continued, "It's like, ten, maybe fifteen stories underground, and I got my ears all screwy going up and down from there."
Dar regarded her for a moment, then she looked down at Kerry."This project lucked out having you in it. I sure as hell am not going ten stories underground to fish fiber cable up."
"Anytime, honey." Kerry leaned her head against Dar's hip."Though I have to admit I'm not crazy about going ten stories underground right now either."
"That was rough, today," Scuzzy commented. "I thought I seen some bad stuff before but that was bad. Real bad."
"I've asked our real estate branch to find a different location for the technical office there." Dar said, after a brief silence, "I don't know how long it's going to take them to get things going again."
"I feel bad for all the people who live down there," Shaun said. "Like the office folks. They can't go home. That must be terrible on top of everything else."
"Living down there right now would be a lot worse," Scuzzy said. "They're better off staying uptown. I got a cousin who's right on the edge of where they don't let you go no more, and she's thinking of staying with my uncle in Jersey for a while."
"I'm sure most of the people here would rather go somewhere else for a while," Nan said, in a quiet voice. "I know I would. It was horrible in DC, but nothing like this."
Kerry listened to the voices around her, and found a kinship in the mental exhaustion she heard in them. She felt Dar's fingers close on her shoulder and figured they needed a change of scene. "How about we all go find some dinner now. You guys up for that?"
"Hell yes." Mark put his glass down hastily. "I'm starving."
"That sounds damn good to me too." Andrew had been sprawled in a nearby chair. Now he straightened up and studied his neatly laced military boots. "Find us some place we can get some steak and taters."
"Let's go." Dar slipped off the chair arm and offered Kerry a hand up. "Alastair and Hamilton are meeting with some board members, so they'll just have to miss out." She waited for the group to rise and start to file out the door. "With any luck, wherever we find will have ice cream sundaes."
"There's a Ben and Jerry's around the corner," Kerry answered instantly. "Caught my eye on the way in."
Dar chuckled.
"Hey, gotta find the essentials."
"WE'RE GOING TO regret staying out this late." Kerry trailed after Dar down the hallway to their hotel room. "Tomorrow is going to really suck."
"It is," Dar agreed, keying the door open and shoving it inward. "But I don't care. I needed a mindless night out." She trudged inside passing the bathroom and moving further into the space. "We'll survive. Mark has two cases of Bawls in the truck."
"Good point." Kerry closed the door behind them, sat down in the nearest chair and unlaced her boots. "A lot of people were out tonight. I was sort of surprised."
"Hysterical relief." Dar dropped down onto the bed and laid down flat on her back. "Felt a little desperate."
Kerry finished with her other boot, then got up and went over to the bed, sitting down and picking up one of Dar's legs to get at her laces. "I feel a little desperate," she said. "Christ, I want to go home."She pulled a lace loose.
Dar rolled her head to one side and gazed at her. "We will soon."
"Not soon enough," Kerry replied. "I feel so damned overwhelmed here, Dar. I'm not sure why." She pulled off one shoe, then the sock beneath it, pausing to tweak her partner's toe before she got up and went around to the other side of the long legs, and sat down to pick up the other foot.
Dar's eyes followed her. "You don't know why you feel overwhelmed? Ker, you're in the middle of a disaster zone in an unprecedented act of terrorism against our country. How are you supposed to not feel overwhelmed? I was watching those guys out there today. They're just digging, digging, and they had no real idea of what they were digging for. You don't think they're overwhelmed?"
Kerry removed Dar's other boot, and then set her foot down, leaning back along her side on the bed. "I know they are. That's what makes me feel so crazy. I should be able to do my job here because I wasn't a part of all that, but it's just making my brain go in circles." She propped her head up on one hand. "Why can't I be more like you?"
"A single minded idiot?"
Kerry smiled wryly. "Focused," she corrected her partner, "with an infinite capacity for innovation."
Dar turned on her side so they were facing each other. She lifted a hand and stroked Kerry's face with the backs of her knuckles. "You can only focus so long," she said. "That's why I stopped looking for holes in the wall today and took tonight off. Yes, I'll pay for it tomorrow, but I've finally learned the value of chilling out."
"You didn't chill with those darts." Kerry enjoyed the touch, savoring the look of gentle affection gazing back at her. "I can't believe you beat your Dad."
Dar grinned "Neither could he." She gently traced one of Kerry's pale eyebrows. "You weren't so bad yourself."
"It was fun," Kerry admitted, "but I'm glad we skipped the karaoke bar." She clasped Dar's hand with her own, and studied her face, half hidden in the shadows of the dimly lit room. There was a furrow over her brow and she looked tired.
"Hehe, me too," Dar said. "I guess we should get undressed and get some sleep, huh?"
"We should." Kerry agreed. "Especially if we're going to spend tomorrow digging around in office basements." She levered herself up and stood, unbuckling her belt and getting out of her cargo pants, hopping over to one side as Dar did the same.
"Careful." Dar reached over to steady her, as she draped her pants over her suitcase and stripped off her shirt one handed over her head. "Last thing you need is rug burns."
"Thanks, sweetie," Kerry said. "I know I can always depend on you to keep me from falling on my butt."
Dar chuckled, then she moved over a few steps to put her shirt away.
Kerry folded up her clothing and put it to one side of her suitcase, rummaging inside it to remove her sleep shirt. She had it in one fist, when a long arm snaked around her and removed it from her grasp."Hey."
"Hey." Dar dropped the shirt back on the bag and took her hand instead, drawing her toward the bed. "C'mon. There are plenty of sheets on the bed. You won't be cold."
Kerry f
elt the faint thrill of unexpected raciness. "I'm not cold already."
Dar glanced over her bare shoulder at her, a faint grin twitching at her lips, as she waggled an eyebrow. "Oh really?"
"Really." Kerry planted a kiss between Dar's shoulder blades, then bumped her gently forward. "Lead on, hot stuff."
"Remind me of that again tomorrow after we're both conscious again," Dar responded, in a wry tone. She continued moving forward,towing Kerry along behind her.
Kerry smiled and followed willingly. "Bet your booty I will." In a moment the room was in darkness and she was under a set of cool sheets rapidly warming her and Dar's bare bodies. And the comfort of the skin on skin touch pushed the day's anxieties aside.
Animal comfort. She wrapped her arm around Dar's waist and felt her exhale. "Dar?"
"Yes?"
"Why do you really think they made that announcement today?About the systems working? Do you think they were playing with us?"
"No." Dar said, after a pause, "I'm not sure why they did it." She added, "maybe so people--so investors wouldn't panic."
"Hm." Kerry nibbled a bit of the skin on Dar's shoulder. "I think they're going to anyway. I bet when that market does open it drops like a rock."
"Nah." Dar shook her head. "People had time to stop and think. Having it closed wasn't a bad idea regardless of what the technical situation was. No knee jerking if you've had almost a week to react."
"But what if we can't actually bring everything back up by Monday? Won't that--" Kerry paused. "Maybe that's why they made that announcement. To put pressure on us."
Dar snorted softly.
"It bothers me. I don't like people playing games when we're going crazy trying to get things done here." Kerry grumbled.
"Yeah, I know." Dar rubbed Kerry's back with her fingertips.
"Sorry I'm whining."
"You're allowed." Dar looked up at the dimly seen ceiling. "Seems like this has been going on forever, huh? It's hard to remember I was in London a few days ago," she said. "Working with those guys--I feel like it's been a year since then."
"I was giving a speech just a few days ago," Kerry replied. "You know, I can't even remember what the hell I said," she admitted. "But I wish that reunion was the worst of my worries right now."