Moving Target

by Melissa Good

  "Uh huh, okay. So you're telling me Dar built this, uh, this power generator from--from what exactly?"

  "Oh, odds and ends," Kerry said. "Yes, she just finished it, and we tried it out, fried a few things, but we seem to have it settled down now, but like I said, it's acting weird and I really want her to look at it." She turned and pointed at the ship that now, in the coming sunset, had a few lights shining in the windows. As they watched, one sputtered out. "See? I don't dare put the computer system on that--might blow up."

  "Uh, okay, right," the reporter said. "So, if this works out, does...I mean, you'll win, right?"

  "Uh huh."

  "Okay. Well, that's very exciting!" Cruickshank said. "I mean, it could be over. Listen, can we get some film of this, uh, whatever it is? How long will it take Dar to fix it? Could it be in the next ten minutes or something like that?"

  Gotcha. "Well, it's hard to say." Kerry confided. "We have to find Dar first--and you know, that's a proprietary piece of hardware. I'm not sure she'd want it filmed, but maybe you can ask her."

  The reporter was already backing away. "Ah, yeah, I'll do that. Listen, I'm going to go, uh, talk to someone. I'll keep my eye out for her, okay?" She turned and rushed off, nearly shoving the two cameramen ahead of her.

  Kerry waggled her fingers amiably. "Bye." She checked her watch, wondering how long it would be before Quest and his scumbags made an attempt on her hyperbaric thermoelectric generator. "Hm. Wonder if they have any of that old plumbing around still."

  She ducked back into the building and shut the door, giving the guard a wink.

  THE COMMUNICATIONS ROOM had gotten relatively quiet. One of the officers had come in a time or two, but after glaring at Dar's back with completely no effect, they'd left the two IT professionals in peace to muck with the cables to their hearts content.

  At least one of them anyway. Dar paused to study her screen, one hand lifting to riffle her bangs back off her forehead before she continued to type.

  "Well?" Michelle asked for the nth time.

  "Artesian." Dar replied.

  "Very funny."

  Dar looked up over the screen of the laptop. "Michelle, I'm doing this as fast as I can. You're not making it any faster if I have to stop and be inane with you every sixty seconds."

  The shorter woman released a disgusted breath. She checked her watch then got up and wandered over to the porthole, staring out it and turning her back on Dar.

  In that peaceful silence, Dar got back to work. She left the laptop for a moment and went to the rack, connecting a cable to the back of one piece of equipment and running it through the side of the rack to a second, plugging it in with a decisive snick.

  After waiting to see the lights near the cable ports go from dark, to yellow, to green, she returned to the laptop and sat down behind it, cracking her knuckles before she got back to work on the keyboard. It wasn't that configuring the units was that difficult after all, she'd done it plenty of times before. It was trying to integrate the devices into a satellite system just different enough from the one she was using that was presenting its own set of unique challenges.

  Dar frowned and tried another setting. "Hmph."

  "You say something?" Michelle turned.

  "Nope." Dar went over to look at the satellite gear, turning it on and watching the oscilloscope waver and settle into a pattern. "Where's the dish mounted?" she asked.

  Michelle looked at her. "How would I know?"

  Dar put her hands on her hips.

  "Listen, not all of us are egghead tech huggers, okay?" Michelle replied to the implied derision. "I leave the technical installations to the experts. I don't ask my air conditioning repairman to let me inspect his filters either."

  Egghead tech hugger. Dar liked that. It had a nice ring to it. "Ever consider the reason I'm as successful as I am at what I do might be the fact that I invest myself in the technology?" She went back to the laptop without waiting for an answer, coding in a second option.

  Stubbornly, the device refused to cooperate with her and the results didn't change.

  Damn it.

  Dar pulled out her PDA and tapped in a message and then sent it. She continued on to a different area of the configuration, setting up some secondary sections to her satisfaction before she saved the configuration just in case.

  You never knew when something might happen that could wipe your work out after all, and... Dar looked up as the lights went completely out, plunging the room into darkness relieved only by the fading light from the porthole.

  The rack went silent as well. "Nice," Dar commented.

  "Shit."

  "Careful what you ask for."

  KERRY READ THE PDA message twice before she rapidly shook her head and made a weird noise of astonishment. "I can't believe I'm reading this." She sat down at one of the desks in their small office and logged on, waiting for the network to validate her account as she tapped her thumbs on the desktop.

  "What's up, boss?" Mark entered. "You get rid of the spooks?"

  "Yeah." Kerry opened up a console window and logged into Dar's shares back in the office. She browsed through them until she found what she wanted, then opened the text file and viewed it. "I can honestly say I never thought I'd have to do this."

  "What?" Mark eyed her curiously.

  Kerry copied the contents of the file into a notepad file then transferred the file to her PDA. "Dar forgot how to do something."

  "Huh?"

  "Yeah, that's what I said." Kerry attached the text file to her reply message, and sent it back to her partner. "Sometimes she has these small flashes of plain old ordinary humanity and I'm never really expecting them."

  Mark chuckled. "Yeah, I know what you mean. I remember one time we were working late in the ops center, and Dar had gone downstairs to get some cables or crap like that. I had to get some ends, so I went down after her and when I got to the door, I heard this cursing like crazy inside. I walked in and Dar was on her back on the ground and I couldn't figure out what was going on."

  "Tripped?" Kerry asked, with a knowing grin.

  "Yeah fell right on her butt. Man, she was pissed." Mark agreed. "Cause, like, she's pretty graceful normally, you know?"

  "I know."

  "So I was like--do I laugh? Commiserate? Offer her a hand up?" Mark shook his head. "Close the door and pretend I wasn't there? There weren't any good choices."

  "Yeah," Kerry said. "I never really know what to do either. I usually just end up kissing her."

  Mark's jaw clicked shut. "Uh," he said, after a moment's silence. "Wasn't really an option."

  Kerry's cell phone rang, saving her from having to recover from her mild faux pas. She answered it, wryly scrubbing her now blushing face. "Hello?"

  "This is Shari."

  Ugh. "Hi."

  "Michelle told me to turn over some of our spares to Graham." Shari said shortly. "Which I'm willing to do."

  Bet you're not. Kerry mentally stuck her tongue out at the phone. "Okay, that's great," she said. "But what do I have to do with this?"

  "You're supposed to have the answer to everything," Shari said. "So here's the problem. They have no way of getting the stuff over to their ship because all the pier people have vanished. They have no carts, and the three people he has left over there have bad backs."

  Kerry stared at the wall, her jaw working a little as she struggled to get words out through her clenched teeth.

  "Uh oh." Mark was watching her in fascination. "Should I get the baseball bat?"

  Kerry cleared her throat. "Why don't you help them take it over?" She suggested mildly.

  "We're busy."

  You. Are. Such. An. Asshole. Kerry mentally articulated the words, and almost duplicated the effort audibly. "Okay. I'll take care of it," she said. "Thanks." She hung up the cell phone, shutting it with a vicious click. "Stupid hairball piece of sea cow moosemeat."

  Mark looked at her, his eyebrows hiking up. "Evil, boss. Evil."

  "Ba
h."

  Kerry opened the cell again, and dialed a number. She waited then started speaking when it was answered. "Hi Dad. Listen. Do you have the truck here?" She waited. "Can you bring it over here? I have to pick something up over at the next ship, and drop it off somewhere." She waited again. "Thanks. I really appreciate it." A smile. "You rock, Dad."

  She closed the phone. "You know something? People suck."

  "Yeah, but other people don't." Mark suggested. "Was that big D's pop? He's cool."

  Kerry got up. "He's more than cool," she said. "He's the father I always wished I had." She paused, a little surprised the words had come out. "So anyway, we're going to go pick up some switches and bring them over across the port to that other pier. Okay?"

  "Want some help?" Mark asked. "Not that the big guy couldn't just pick up that whole ship and put it in his shoulder, but y'know, we got guys to do that stuff for you." He followed Kerry out the door. "Kerry?"

  Kerry held up two fingers as she headed for the front door.

  "Right." Mark turned. "Hey, Carlos! Get over here." He motioned to the tech. "We got a gig, dude. Move it!"

  "Yeah?" Carlos didn't seem upset by the command. "It's better than hanging out here. Where we going?"

  "With the boss."

  "Oh. Cool." The younger tech grinned. "Poquito boss, yeah?'

  "Yeah."

  "Bueno."

  They walked outside and joined Kerry, who was standing on the curbside rocking up and down on her heels. Sunset had begun in earnest and the light was growing golden, as a relatively cool breeze came up off the water and ruffled their hair.

  "Getting late," Mark remarked.

  Kerry gazed at the sky. "Can't spin fast enough for me," she admitted. "It'll be nice to get to the end of this particular day." She caught sight of Andrew's truck heading haphazardly in their direction. "Okay, so here's the deal. We have to go get some switches from that ship over there and bring them to that one across the way. Speed counts. We don't really have much time."

  "There go those reporters again." Carlos pointed. "They're going to that other ship too. Hey, and there's people all running around over there."

  Kerry looked, and sure enough, there was a lot of activity around the gangway. She tipped her head back and shaded her eyes, as she noticed something else. "It's pretty dark over there," she commented. "I wonder..."

  Her PDA beeped. She pulled it out and looked at it.

  I'm stuck in a dark room with a bunch of wires, bad carpet, and Michelle.

  Kerry quickly tapped out a message as Andrew pulled up in front of the pier.

  I'm about to get in the back of Dad's truck. Want to trade?

  "Howdy there, Kerry," Andrew said. "You all want a hitch?"

  Kerry vaulted into the bed of the pickup, finding herself a handhold as Mark and Carlos joined her. "Go for it, Dad."

  "Sure you're hanging on back there?'

  "Go."

  The truck started into a 180 degree turn that aimed to take out a large patch of gravel and grass as Kerry hung on for dear life.

  She hoped one of them remembered a flashlight.

  Chapter Ten

  THE DARKNESS CONTINUED, and Dar lifted her arm to wipe the sweat off her forehead as she stood in the middle of it. "Okay."

  "Okay what?" Michelle asked.

  "Okay this is not getting us anywhere." Dar reached over and, by touch, identified the piece of equipment she'd been working on. She pulled the screwdriver from her back pocket and using just her fingers and a mental image she unscrewed the rack mounts and yanked the piece of gear loose.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Making progress. "Dar grunted as she hoisted the router clear of the rack. "I'm going back to the office." She tucked the laptop under one arm and the router under the other.

  "With that? No way!"

  Dar moved past her in the darkness. "Michelle, I can't configure this in the dark with no power. If you can figure out a way to do that, we'll stay here. Otherwise, hasta banana, cucaracha." She pulled the door open and headed out into the pitch black corridors with Michelle's scrambling form right behind her.

  "Hey!"

  Dar just kept going. She figured she was making enough noise to warn anyone ahead of her to get out of the way, and she was moving with enough force that if Michelle was dumb enough to grab hold of her, she'd end up flat on her ass or dragging behind.

  They were running out of time. "Why don't you go find out why the lights are off?" Dar suggested bluntly. "You're not going to help me with this thing."

  "How do I know you're not sabotaging it?" Michelle countered.

  "Would you know anyway, even with a damn searchlight focused on me?" Dar shot back. "I could be programming this thing to send packets to the moon for all you know." She spotted a bit of light and headed for it, turning the corner and getting to the stairs with a sense of relief.

  "I'll get Shari to find out what's up." Michelle stubbornly stuck to Dar's heels, flipping open her cell phone as she trotted down the steps after her. "Hey. You know what's going on?" She spoke into the phone. "Well, find out. Let me know." She closed the device up and put it back into her pocket.

  "Maybe they forgot to pay the bill." Dar tucked the router under her arm.

  "What bill? My bill?"

  "The electric bill."

  "Very funny." Michelle skipped a few steps to catch up. "Why don't you just leave that here. Maybe we can just forget the whole thing."

  Dar reached the main deck and headed for the upper gangway. "Forget it." She emerged into the sunlight and strode across the teak surface, hopping up onto the metal walkway with determined strides.

  "Dar!" Michelle yelled in frustration. "Now stop!"

  Dar glanced at the pier below, spotting the filming crew wheeling to focus on this new noise above them. She waved at Cruickshank as she passed over her head, then she broke into a run along the concrete walkway.

  "Hey! Hey!" Michelle yelped, caught unprepared by Dar's escape. "Get back here! That's our router! Hey! Hey! Stop!" She chased after Dar belatedly. "Roberts! Hey!" She started running, pounding down the pathway as fast as she could.

  Below them, the camera people rapidly swung the lens up to capture the action, Cruickshank barely getting her jaw closed in time to bring the microphone up to her lips to talk. "A new development is just breaking here. It looks like the ILS team has taken something from the Telegenics team!"

  "Roberts! Damn you!" Michelle howled. "Get back here! Have you lost your mind?"

  Heh. Dar spotted a familiar car heading toward the pier and she almost stopped, then thought better of it when she glimpsed the furious expression on Michelle's face. The absurdity of the entire situation suddenly became clear to her, and it almost made her double up laughing.

  "Roberts!"

  So what the hell, she might as well have some fun. Dar turned gracefully and ran backwards, sticking her tongue out at Michelle before she turned around again and picked up speed.

  "Bitch!"

  "Hard to say what's really going on--oh!" The reporter jumped back out of the way as a small pickup truck roared through the gates and headed straight for her. "Now what?' She glanced between the truck and the walkway, torn as to what to report on.

  The truck skidded to a halt and Kerry launched herself out of the back with Carlos and Mark right behind her. "Excuse me." She gave the reporter a halfheartedly polite smile, motioning the techs toward the gangway. "Let's go people. We've got gear to move."

  "Hey! Roberts!"

  Kerry heard the yell, and only just kept herself from turning to look.

  "Ms. Stuart, can you tell us what's going on here?"

  "Nope." Kerry ran up the slanted metal platform. "C'mon guys." She had no idea what Dar was up to, but she knew they only had limited time to get things moving so her partner's shenanigans would have to wait till later.

  Right now, she had a switch to pick up from a bitch. And speaking of...

  Shari appeared at the top of
the ramp at the last second, and Kerry only had a heartbeat to stop. Being covetous of her heartbeats, she decided not to, and instead plowed right into the taller woman knocking her head over keester into the darkness of the hold.

  Ah. Kerry felt a sense of personal satisfaction she hadn't quite anticipated and loved every minute of it. Her body tingled with the release of energy. She stepped down into the warm space, aware of the techs that had stopped short behind her. "Oops. Sorry." She apologized. "Didn't see you there."

  Shari leaned back on her hands and just glared.

  "ROBERTS, DAMN YOU! Stop!"

  Dar knew Michelle couldn't catch her. She got to the end of the walkway and shoved the door open with her shoulder, trading the humid late afternoon air for the cold briskness of conditioned dryness. She started down the stairs, rambling down them at a breakneck pace as she heard the door open again behind her.

  She could hear Michelle cursing, too. Dar got to the bottom of the steps and entered the open space of the terminal, spotting a table set up near a wall that conveniently had a power outlet underneath it. She dropped the router onto the table and put the laptop next to it then knelt to plug it in.

  Michelle was coming up behind her. Dar got the plug in and stood turning and quickly finding her center of balance just in case Michelle decided to do something really silly like try to kick her. "Ah, ah ah." Dar held both hands up in warning.

  Michelle kept going, reaching out to grab Dar's shirt. "I've had about enough of you, goddamn it!" She suddenly found herself stopped, her fingers inches from their target as Dar simply used her longer reach to good advantage.

  She grabbed Dar's arm with both hands and yanked at it. Under her fingers, the muscles bunched and stiffened as Dar's hand closed on the fabric of her shirt, and Michelle looked up to find ice cold, blue eyes regarding her.

  The humor was gone. The light coming in the window flickered off the tanned planes of Dar's face and accentuated the slight flaring of her nostrils.

  Psycho, Shari had said. Michelle had dismissed the charge, but right now, right here, she wondered. "What the hell was that about?" she finally asked, dropping her hands from Dar's arm. "You lost your mind?"