Storm Surge - Part 2 (11 page)

The guard post was now very quiet with only two of the men standing by the barricade with their rifles, The rest were hunkered down behind the truck, legs sprawled out and a pizza box nearby. As they approached, the two men on guard alerted the others, and by the time they reached the bottom of the ramp, the guard captain was there to greet them.

"You folks finished up?" he asked.

"Yeap." Andrew did the talking for them. "We're fixing to get out of your space now. Got all them people up there happy, time to move on."

"John, bring that truck up and give these people a ride to their hotel," the captain said. "And listen, sorry again about that mix up earlier, Commander. Things are so mixed up here, we're just trying to be safe." He glanced over at Dar. "So much is going on."

Dar frankly couldn't have cared less at this point. "No problem." She waved it off. "Let's get the hell out of here."

They got in the personnel carrier and it rumbled off turning onto the roadway and heading for the nearest cross street, a blinking yellow traffic light fluttering overhead. The driver leaned on his wheel and glanced at Andrew. "Where're we going, sir?"

"Doubletree Metropolitan," Alastair provided, then settled back in the hard, bench-like seat as the truck turned and headed east. "Boy. What a day."

Dar was leaning against the door on the other side of the vehicle with Kerry between them. The window was shaded but she was able to look out and see the buildings go by with blinking lights and vivid neon decorating the mostly empty streets.

"Ms. Roberts?" Shaun spoke up from the back seat. "So, are we going to stay and help out with whatever else is needed tomorrow? My folks were asking. They're kind of nervous I'm here."

Dar stirred herself to some kind of skewed alertness. "Yeah," she said, after a pause. "Tomorrow we have to go down to the Trade Center site and see what we can do about putting the country's financial infrastructure back together."

Shaun leaned forward and put his hand on the back of Dar's seat."For real?"

Kerry half turned her head and nodded at him.

Shaun sat back. He blinked a few times, then exchanged looks with his coworkers. "I'm going to tell my ma you're sending me to Niagara Falls."

"Very good idea," Kannan agreed. "Or maybe to Buffalo, so we can get some wings."

Kerry managed a faint laugh. Then she let her head rest against Dar's shoulder and tried to forget the cramps she was now experiencing. "Barrel over the falls sounds good right about now," she muttered. "Hope the hotel has room service."

"They better." Dar sighed. "They damn sure better."

THEY DAMN SURE did. Dar ruffled her hair dry as she exited the bathroom to find Kerry sprawled on the bed with her arm wrapped around a pillow and a cup of rum laced chocolate nearby. Her forehead had that little wrinkle it got when she was in some discomfort, and Dar fully empathized with her on that subject.

"Ugh." Kerry reached over and picked up the cup, lifting herself up enough to take a sip from it, then putting it back down. "Life sucks."

Dar draped her towel over the chair and climbed into the king sized bed, laying down behind Kerry and slipping one arm over her as she blew gently in her ear. "Could be worse."

Kerry leaned back against her. Despite her current discomfort, she could appreciate the wonderful feeling of that solid connection and was very glad she could simply lay here with Dar wrapped around her and not have to move, or think, or yell at anyone.

Wonderful. "What a long, freaking day."

"Ultimately a successful one. I'm glad we saw that connection through At least we won't have that on our plates tomorrow morning."

"Only thing I want on my plate tomorrow morning is some French toast," Kerry sighed. "But somehow I don't think we'll get that lucky."

"Advil kick in yet?" Dar asked, sympathetically.

"Not yet. But I think you're enhancing its attempt," Kerry told her. "It's nice to just lay here. I'm trying not to think about having to get out of this bed tomorrow morning and go do again what we did today only in a much worse place."

Dar exhaled. "I feel like we busted our asses all day and ended up getting the finger from the city. I appreciate they've having a crisis here, but we're not the cause of it."

Kerry folded her arm over Dar's and exhaled. "Yeah. It's a weird attitude I think it's because they're so pissed off at what happened, and they can't lash out at the people who did it. So they're taking it out on everyone else."

"Peh."

Kerry smiled. "Hey, we're going around saying we're being mean because we're having our periods. Cut them some slack, okay?"

Dar chuckled dryly. "I never needed that as an excuse," she demurred. "Though it sure didn't help today. I felt like doing some surgery on myself there for a while."

Kerry grimaced in reflex. "Ouch."

"Mm."

"Do you think we can get the financial stuff going, Dar? Is it going to be more of what we had to do today? That was kinda nuts," Kerry said. "I mean--" She went briefly silent. "I don't know what I mean."

Dar pulled her a bit closer and felt her eyes drifting shut. "I don't know," she answered. "If it's as big a cluster there as I think it is, maybe we don't have to do anything. Or maybe we have to come up with some wild ass scheme no one's thought of yet."

"Ah."

"Or maybe someone else will be brilliant for a change."

Kerry felt her own eyes closing, and she relaxed against Dar's warm body, setting aside the aggravations of the day and letting them go for the moment. Far off, she could hear the late night sound of the city, but that too was fading, and before she could take another breath she was asleep.

Dar was awake a bit longer, savoring the peace and quiet after the long day. She felt Kerry's body go limp against her and her breathing even out and hoped they'd be able to get through the night without any calls, or demands, or--

Screw it. She reached over and turned Kerry's phone to silent. Then she closed her eyes, and tugged the covers up over them.

Chapter Five

"OKAY, SO WHERE are we." Kerry blinked into the pallid dawn light coming in the window, half distracted by the scent of coffee nearby. "Mark, your three guys are here in the hotel with the rest of us."

"Cool, yeah," Mark answered. "I got an email from Shaun last night," he paused. "He sure was glad to put his head down on a pillow."

"Me too," Kerry agreed. "So, what's the status right now? Who's here, who's on the way here, and what kind of gear is everyone bringing."

There was a soft knock at the door. Kerry went to mute the mic, but stopped when Dar appeared from the bathroom and waved at her,heading over to answer it. "Who the hell is knocking this early?" She grumbled under her breath.

"What was that, boss?" Mark asked.

"Nothing. Go on." Kerry sighed. She leaned forward a little, grimacing as a cramp gripped her.

"Anyway," Mark cleared his throat, "so we've got six guys and me in the truck, and we're like one, maybe two hours out. I left a bunch of guys there, a half dozen showed up from different accounts yesterday to help out so I thought it was okay to take off from there and head over."

He sounded a touch nervous. Kerry half smiled, understanding the feeling from her first weeks working for Dar, and having to lay out her own decision making. "Great plan," she said. "We need you here badly."

Mark didn't answer for a moment, and then he chuckled. "Thanks boss. So we've got the camper, and we'll pick up the SAT units and the power trucks on our way down there. Where do we go?"

Ah, good question. "For now, come here...well, to the Rock," Kerry clarified."We have to find out where the best place is to start working. I know we'll need stocks of cable and patch equipment, do you know if we've got that on the truck?"

"Hang on, lemme check."

Kerry muted the mic and hissed a small curse as another cramp hit.

Dar came back over to the desk where she was seated and emptied the contents of a packet on the table. "Ah. I'm legal again." She flicked her slim billfold with one finger and pushed the folder of identification cards around. "You don't have to worry about me being deported."

"That's a relief." Kerry managed a smile. "Though I have to admit razzing the admin at the office was pretty funny."

"It was." Dar sat down and extended her long, mostly bare legs across the floor. "Gut still hurting?"

"How'd you guess?" Kerry made a face, resting her chin on her hand. "I feel like dog poo."

"Been there."

"No kidding." Kerry turned her attention back to the phone as she heard rustling against the remote microphone. "I'm surprised we haven't gotten called from Alastair or anyone yet this morning."

Dar picked up her newly reunited cell phone and opened it, triggering it on and watching as it obediently started up. After a quiet moment, it started buzzing and rattling loudly, making her jump."Yah!"

"Holy crap!" Kerry blurted.

Dar dropped the phone and it danced across the table in truly spectacular fashion. "Any ideas how to bulk delete voice mail messages?"

"Okay, boss." Mark came back on the line and paused as he heard the noise on the other end. "What the heck's going on there?"

"Um--not much." Kerry grabbed the phone and tossed it to its owner. "So what's the scoop?"

"Let me put it this way, you got any pull with those guys at ADC?We used all the stuff they sent rebuilding the space at the old P, and we ain't got any more."

"Ugh," Kerry uttered. "So we don't have patch panels or anything like that, right?"

"Right."

She sighed. "What do we have?"

"Got some routers, some little switches, a couple spools of STP, couple spools of UTP, another big roll of that fiber the guys used last night, and a handful of RJ45 plugs."

"My mother could probably do a three dimensional art project with that," Dar commented, her eyes fixed on her now rattle free phone as she thumbed through the alerts and messages. "Want some coffee?"

"Well--I'd say let's get ordering, but you know what Mark?" Kerry sighed.

"We got no idea what to order," Mark supplied. "I know. I thought of that when I got up this morning and took over the driving again. I think we gotta get eyeballs on it then figure it out."

Kerry muted the mic. "Coffee sounds great, except it's going to make my stomach ache worse." She moaned.

"Figured you'd say that. I had them bring tea too. Want blackberry or honey lemon?" Dar didn't even look up from her phone. "Mark's right Let's wait for him to get here, then we will all go down to the Trade Center and see what we've got to work with."

"I love you."

Now Dar looked up, and smiled. "Blackberry?" Her eyebrows lifted. "And we've got some warm muffins. You up for that?"

Kerry merely rested her chin on her fists and gazed at her partner.

"Take that as a yes." Dar set her phone down and sauntered back over to the room service tray.

"You hear that, boss?" Mark queried. "Hello?"

"Sorry." Kerry wrenched her attention back to the phone. "That sounds like a plan, Mark. Dar was just saying we should wait for you to get here then all go down together. You think you'll be here by eight?It's just ten past six now."

"We can probably do that unless we get held up nearer to where you are," Mark replied. "They going to let us in there?"

"We've got passes." Kerry didn't elaborate. "All right, you guys head on up here. We'll meet you at the office." She waited for the line to drop then closed her phone. "What else do we need to do? Why do I feel like I'm so damned behind the eight ball today?"

Dar came back over with a plate containing a buttered muffin and a steaming cup of tea. She set them down next to her partner's laptop and leaned over, giving her a kiss on the top of her head. "I love you too."

Kerry leaned against her. "Oh honey, I sure know that," she murmured. "Thanks for breakfast."

"No problem." Dar straightened up and went to retrieve her coffee, pausing to watch the silent television screen full of frenetic activity and destruction. More people. More rubble. More talking heads. The scroll at the bottom spat a never ending series of numbers that she had to force herself to realize meant human beings either missing or dead.

It was strange. The whole thing had started to take on a surreal glaze and it was hard to concentrate on the facts that seemed to come at her from the screen in so many different directions. She watched shots of the president down near the still smoking rubble yelling into a bullhorn, an American flag flapping in the wind nearby.

Behind him a fireman sat on a flat, twisted piece of iron, his head down and his elbows resting on his knees in exhaustion.

Dar nodded to herself a little, then went over to the small table and picked up half a corn muffin, taking a bite of it as she tried to focus her mind on the task at hand. She glanced at her new laptop, open on the table, and watched the network metrics, a slowly healing graph of yellows morphing to greens rather than blotches of solid red.

The company was recovering. Things were starting to move back into normal patterns, and along with that her list of tasks shunted aside for the emergency were starting to build.

The world had held still since that morning. Now, she had a sense,that her world, if not everyone else's, was starting slowly to turn again and she had to admit a trace of impatience that she found herself tied up here, working a problem not remotely her own, heading toward a hopefully successful end that probably would get little notice and less credit.

Uncharitable, probably. Dar chewed her muffin and turned to watch the television screen again with a thoughtful expression. "Ker?"

"Hm." Kerry looked up from her laptop.

"Can we get a list of our customers who are still out of service here?" Dar asked. "Let's see what synergy we can get with restoring services to them at the same time we're relieving our obligation to the government."

"We don't have enough to do?" Kerry's tone was, however, rather than accusing. "Sheesh."