Red Sky At Morning - DK4 (59 page)

She accepted the box of food, its spices already sneaking out and tickling her nose. “Back to the mines.”

The guard chuckled. “Good to have you back, Ms. Roberts. We missed you.”

Dar swiveled and regarded the man, whom she might have seen all of twice before. “Why?”

The man blinked at her. “Pardon me, ma’am?”

“Why the hell would anyone down here miss me?” Dar asked curiously. “Is there a rumor going around that I bring in doughnuts or something?”

The guard looked around, then took a few steps closer to her. “No, ma’am, but everyone knows that when you’re here, no matter what happens, we’re okay.”

Dar studied him in mild surprise. “Everyone knows that, huh?”

He nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Interesting.” Dar turned and made her way back to the elevator, supporting her tasty-smelling box with her good arm and balancing it with the other. She punched the button for the tenth floor and watched the doors close.

THEY ATE IN the ops center, with Dar leaning back in her uncomfortable chair, her feet propped up on the desk and her container of spicy chicken and rice nestled in her lap. Kerry was perched on a box of computer paper next to the desk, and Mark was sitting on an old mounting rack.

They were alone and it was quiet, the only activity around them in the operations control room itself just around the corner behind its secured door. At 8 PM, the office building was emptied of its staff and only the computer support group was left to tend the servers and provide support for the other offices around the world.

Mark selected a pea pod, turned it around so the small end faced him, and took a bite. “This reminds me of the old days, boss.”

Dar chuckled. “The bad old days, you mean.” She deftly used her chopsticks to transfer some chicken to her lips. “I spent so many damn 322
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hours in this room.”

Kerry looked around. “This room?”

“This used to be Dar’s office,” Mark supplied, with a grin. “I remember whatshisface, that John whatever-his-name-was, that used to be the CIO. Remember when he came in here and saw this place the first time?”

Dar snorted. “Oh, yeah. Took one look at the posters on the wall and nearly laid a load in his pinstripes.” She looked around fondly at the small space, its walls at an odd angle due to the room’s position in the corner space. “Took one look at me and hauled ass right back to Houston to sign my termination papers.”

“Didn’t help you had your favorite uniform on,” Mark grinned.

“It was after hours,” Dar demurred. “I was going clubbing after work.”

Kerry had been watching them, her eyes moving from one to the other like she was at a particularly interesting volleyball match. “Was this during your rebellious phase?”

Dar waggled an eyebrow at her. “Definitely.” She took a sip of Thai coffee. “I had on biker boots with more chains dangling from them than you’d see in two days at the Westminster Kennel Club.”

Kerry covered her eyes as her shoulders shook.

“Mm-hmm. Those were nice,” Mark agreed. “I have a pair.” He chewed thoughtfully. “Without the chains. They get stuck in my gears.

But I think it was the muscle-T that spooked him worse.”

Dar chuckled and shook her head. “It’s a mystery why the hell I wasn’t fired that week. What was it that time, the mainframes in Troy?

That whole processing center went down, and they dragged me into it right before I was leaving. Damn, I was pissed,” she sighed ruefully.

“The bad old days. Things sure have changed.”

Mark looked up at his boss, who had removed her light jacket and was slouched in her chair in a short-sleeved top and cargo pants, with hiking boots parked on the desk’s surface. “Uh, yeah.” He tilted his head and studied her. “You make a lot less noise when you move now.”

Kerry almost snorted soup out of her nostrils as she burst into laughter. Mark started chuckling, too, at the expression on Dar’s face.

“Hey!” Dar gave them an injured look. “I did grow up, remember?”

“Sorry, Dar,” Mark apologized. “I know it’s a different world now, but I miss those days sometimes.” He looked contrite. “I didn’t really mean you look like a teenage punker anymore.”

“Mmph.” Dar appeared mollified. “Yeah, I do, too, sometimes,” she admitted. “Long days, but we had some good parties, didn’t we?”

Mark nodded, sucking on the end of his chopstick. “The night you guys were stuck in that hospital, we had the television in here. Sixteen of us crammed in here most of the night watching.”

Dar fell silent, concentrating on her container. Kerry watched her face for a moment, then picked up the conversational ball where it had
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fallen and rolled between her feet. “That was a pretty scary night,” she said. “I don’t remember a lot of it; the details are really blurry.”

“You had a concussion,” Dar stated quietly. “It’s probably best you don’t remember most of it.” She picked out more chicken bits and ate them. “Just a lot of smoke, and loud noises, and heat.”

They ate in silence for a moment. “Were you scared, boss?” Mark asked suddenly.

“You bet your ass I was,” Dar replied without hesitation. “Anyone with half a brain cell would have been.” She glanced up at him. “Why?”

He shrugged. “Just curious. I know I was scared pissless just watching the coverage,” he replied. “You guys pretty much just got to that room, then busted out, though, right?”

“Right.”

“No.”

Dar looked at Kerry, who had replied negatively. One eyebrow lifted. “No?”

“Well...” Kerry leaned her head back against the wall, “I remember the explosion.” She looked off into the distance. “I remember waking up and hurting.”

“Dislocated shoulder, right?” Mark commented.

“Yeah,” Kerry nodded. “Dar put that back all right, then we had to crawl out of where we were and through this little tunnel.” She looked at Dar, who was busily decimating her chicken and studiously avoiding everyone’s gaze. “It collapsed on us, and we almost died.”

Mark stared at her. “No shit?”

Dar looked up. “Thought you didn’t remember details,” she remarked wryly.

“I just remembered that,” Kerry murmured. “Jesus Christ, Dar. You saved us.” She stared at her lover in bemusement. “How in the hell could I have forgotten that?”

The pause was awkward this time. Mark cleared his throat. “Shit like that happens with concussions, I guess. That’s what I’ve always heard.”

Kerry felt her arm hairs lift as the memory cleared and she pictured the image of that tiny space with its smell of concrete dust and their sweat and blood as the wall pressed in on them. She could almost feel the labored heaving of Dar’s back under her weight as her lover struggled to breathe and the sudden, distinct surge as her body had arched, ready to break them out of their prison.

And in that moment, Kerry remembered with eerie clarity now, she’d had no shred of doubt that Dar would do just that. “Yeah,” she agreed with Mark’s comment. “I guess it does. Glad I finally shook that memory loose, though,” she said with a conscious lightening of her tone, on seeing the tenseness in Dar’s shoulders. “Anyway, it was an experience I never want to repeat. I was never so glad of anything as I was to put my feet on the ground after they rescued us.”

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“I bet,” Mark chuckled, getting up from his seat. “Hey, I’m going to grab a Coke, want one?”

“Sure,” Kerry agreed. “Dar?”

Dar nodded. “Sure.”

Mark slipped out the door, leaving so quickly it almost seemed like an escape.

Kerry waited a moment, then stood up and walked over to where Dar was seated. “Hey.”

Dar looked up at her from under dark brows and slightly shaggy bangs.

Kerry knelt. “He’s not very subtle, is he?”

It was the right approach. Dar’s lips tensed, then curled into a wry smile. “No,” she drawled softly. “He’s not.” She put her food container on the desk and rested her chopsticks on top of it. Then she leaned on her chair arm and gave her lover her undivided attention. “So.”

“You didn’t tell me about that.” Kerry put a hand on Dar’s arm and rubbed her thumb against the skin of it. “You told me about the wall, and the window, and the children, but not that. Why?”

Dark eyelashes fluttered closed over Dar’s eyes. “Maybe I didn’t want to remember it,” she said.

Kerry thought about that as she watched Dar’s face. “Okay.” She leaned forward and brushed her lips against her lover’s. “I can buy that,” she readily agreed, saving her thoughts for a later time. “But thanks.”

“Anytime,” Dar replied with a smile. “Now go back and finish your dinner so Mark can skulk back in here safely.”

Kerry stuck out the tip of her tongue, but got up and resumed her perch. “What’s the next step,” she consciously raised her voice a little,

“on the data restoral?”

Dar laughed silently. “Once I finish the structural rebuilding, we have to run data patterns to make sure the damn thing actually works and I didn’t put a piece back in wrong.”

Like a genie, Mark appeared in the doorway, carrying three cans of soda. “Hi.” He gave them a cheerful look. “I’m back.” He handed around the cans. “Damn AC’s going goofy again, Ker. I think they need to change those filters.”

Kerry sniffed. The air held a distinctly musty scent. “Son of a— ”

She sighed. “What is that, the fourth time this year? Where did they get the AC plant for this building, Dar, Sam’s Club?”

Dar sighed. “You can’t lay that one on my doorstep.” She resumed eating her chicken. “One of Alastair’s fishing buddies’ long-lost fourth cousins twice removed got the contract on this building, and I’ve had nothing but trouble with it since we moved in.”

Mark shifted. “You thinking of going somewhere else when the lease is up? I heard rumors.”

“Maybe,” Dar admitted. “I’ve got a couple of proposals on my
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desk. West Broward’s got the best one, and they’re promising me everything, including a private elevator and my own alligator.”

“With a view of the Everglades?” Kerry teased. “I thought you liked the one you have.”

“Gotta be a down side,” Dar admitted. “And yeah, I do, but I’d be willing to give it up for someplace I don’t have to have maintenance on three days a week.”

“West Broward? I like it,” Mark approved.

Kerry pointed a chopstick at him. “You live there.”

“Gotta catch a break sometime.”

“Maybe the rest of us don’t like dodging possums on the way to work.”

Dar rolled her eyes. “Can we wait until I pick a spot to start this debate?”

DAR PEERED AT the screen and studied the algorithm. “Okay.”

She typed in a command and viewed the results. “I think that does it.”

Kerry leaned on the back of her boss’s chair and looked. “It’s done?”

“Yeah.” Dar rubbed her eyes wearily. “What time is it?”

“Two,” Kerry supplied, shifting as she reached around and started a gentle massage of Dar’s shoulders. She’d tried to get her lover to quit for the night some four or five hours before, but had no luck. “Dar, your neck feels like a suspension bridge.”

“I bet.” Everything ached. Dar wished she could sneak in another round of painkillers, but it had only been two hours since the last set, and her stomach was already queasy from the medication. The throbbing in her arm was so bad she almost couldn’t feel the pressure from Kerry’s hands, though the warmth was definitely noticeable through the fabric of her shirt. “Mark!”

“Yeah?” Mark stuck his head around the corner. “I’ve got the links set up here. Hang on. You done?” He came into the room dragging several large cables behind him. “You wanted a patch directly into the big box, right?”

The IBM mainframe ran a custom program designed by Dar herself and was isolated from the rest of ILS’s giant network. It could analyze the structure of a database design and take it to pieces; she’d used it on many occasions to locate not only holes in a newly acquired company’s databases, but also hidden defects that could cause problems during integration.

“Right,” Dar murmured. “I think I got it back together.”

Mark cocked his head. “You think?”

She shrugged. “Far as I can tell.” In truth, her eyes would no longer focus on the screen, and she’d been going by instinct for the last little while. “Let’s find out.”

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Mark and Kerry exchanged glances. “Now?” the MIS manager queried. “It can wait ’til the morning, boss.”

Eyes closed, Dar merely shook her head. “Not with Alastair booked on a flight at 1:00,” she disagreed. “If we don’t have anything, we need time to get our asses covered.”

Another exchange of glances. “Well, it’ll take me a little while to get all the connections secure and the ports configured,” Mark temporized. “You wanna to take a break for a few minutes?”

“Sounds good,” Kerry agreed quickly. “How about a cup of hot chocolate?” She tweaked Dar’s ear. “I’ve got a tin of dark Godiva upstairs.”

Hmm.
Dar didn’t feel like resisting the offer. “Okay.” She slowly got up and stretched, wincing at the audible pops. “Jesus, I’m getting too old for this.”

Kerry rolled her eyes out of Dar’s range of vision. “C’mon, grandma. I’ll race you up the stairs.” She put a hand on Dar’s back and gave her a gentle shove toward the door. They ended up, however, at the elevator, which was obediently standing open awaiting them. “Ah, our chariot,” Kerry remarked. “Unless you’d really rather walk.”

“Nah.” Dar ambled inside and pressed the button for the fourteenth floor. She leaned against the wall while the elevator rose, then followed Kerry out as the doors reopened. “Wish it was this quiet all the time.” She glanced around at the dim corridor, empty of even the cleaning staff by this time. “I think they vacuumed up here tonight.”

Kerry wrinkled her nose at the scent of carpet dust mites clawing through the air. “Yum. Remind me to talk to the cleaners about using HEPA filters in those damn machines, will you?” As though in retaliation, her body expressed its displeasure in a sudden sneeze.

“Yeesh. Listen, go on over to your place. I’ll make up the hot chocolate and bring it over, okay?”