Tropical Convergence (26 page)

"Si." Maria got up and accepted the folder. "It is good to have you back here, Dar. People were saying this week that things were too...how you say it...too much alike?" she ventured. "That you made things upside down, but that it was a good thing." She gave Dar a smile, and left the office, closing the door behind her.

Dar poured herself another small cup of coffee and took a sip from it. One finger reached out and tapped the photo a few times, and she found herself smiling at the image it presented. "Well." she finally sighed. "I don't know how good a thing it was, but I guess we'll be finding out."

However, remembering how it felt to rise to the challenge was stirring an interest in her she hadn't felt since she'd finished her network project. Doing the second generation of the technology was all right, but Dar hadn't found the same interest in it she had with the original.

Now this, on the other hand, this was brand new.

Dar captured a pastry and popped it into her mouth, chewing it with piratical gusto and blowing a few crumbs onto the surface of her desk.

KERRY FINISHED SCRIBBLING her name for the nth time, running her eyes over the purchase order before she lifted it and tossed it into her outbox. She had her head resting on one hand, and now she straightened up a little, hissing slightly as her shirt pulled over her sunburned back. "Son of a biscuit."

Her phone rang. She checked the display, and then pressed the button readily. "Hey, Col."

"Hey girl," Colleen replied. "You up for lunch?"

Lunch? Kerry glanced at her watch. "Sheesh...didn't realize it was that late. Sure." She pushed the rest of the paper pile back into her inbox and eased herself to her feet. "Let's go downstairs. I don't really want to put my jacket on to go to the dining room."

"Works for me," Colleen agreed. "Meet you by the elevators?"

"You got it." Kerry hung up and stretched cautiously, then circled her desk and headed for the door. She passed Mayte busy at work, and drummed her fingers on her assistant's desk. "Going for lunch, MT. Hold the fort down."

"That I will for sure," Mayte answered. "Can I take what you finished?"

"Eh." Kerry leaned on her knuckles. "There isn't that much. I signed some of the outstanding PO's, and reviewed that integration report. You're welcome to whatever's there. I'm expecting a call from the LA office about some new circuits, and keep an ear out for Dar. She's in a conference call with the overseas groups."

"Will she need to take hold of you, Ms. Kerry?" Mayte asked.

Kerry's lips twitched slightly at the phrasing. "You never know," she said. "If she needs me, she'll probably SMS me, but she might need some of the statistics I've been working on for the past two weeks. They're on my desk, in the infrastructure folder. Okay?"

Mayte nodded and smiled, giving Kerry a little wave of her fingers as she left the office.

"HEY, COL." KERRY spotted her friend as she exited the elevator, joining her as they walked across the lobby to the cafeteria. "How's it going?"

"Busy." Colleen glanced at her. "You got some sunburn, eh?"

"Mm. Fell asleep in the sun yesterday like a tourist," Kerry admitted. "We were decompressing after the trade show.

Colleen laughed. "Yeah, we saw the film from that, bucko...boy, did you two ever make the news. What got into Dar? She's been so laid back lately, it was a real shocker to see her come out swinging like that."

"Mm." Kerry took a tray and handed one to her companion. She smiled at the attendant, and reviewed her options. "Chef salad, please, and a large iced tea." That taken care of, she turned to Colleen while they waited for their orders. "I think Dar just took the opportunity to get the brand out there. You know?" She half shrugged. "It's what the trade show's for, Col."

"Oh, I know." Colleen took her plate and nudged Kerry forward. "And a great job of it she did. Duks was all over lauding her up and down the hallways, he was."

They walked to a table in the raised level of the café which was mostly empty. By some unwritten convention that level was generally reserved for those members of the upper floors who didn't like to eat in the upstairs dining room. Kerry set her tray down and eased into a chair, resting her elbows on the table top with a grimace.

"You did get burned, huh?" Colleen chuckled.

"Oh, yeah." Kerry took a sip of her iced tea, and reviewed her chef salad. It wasn't something she usually fancied, but the hot weather made the thought of hot food unpleasant, and the salad was a nice mix of greens and protein calculated to keep her alert through the afternoon. "Between that, and not getting any sleep last night, I'm in great shape today."

"Y'know, Kerry, there is such a thing as too much information." Her friend poked a fork at her.

"Hm?"

Colleen snickered at her. "You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?"

Kerry speared an egg slice and popped it into her mouth. "No." She shook her head. "Anyway, aside from all that, it was a good trip. We may have gotten some leads on some new business."

"Hey, Ker? Can I ask you a question?" The redhead lowered her voice. "About something I heard?"

Yeesh. "Um...sure," Kerry replied. "If I can answer it, I will."

Colleen edged a bit closer. "Someone said one of those new rival companies causing us grief is run by some old flame of Dar's. Is that true?"

Kerry felt a set of conflicting emotions surge through her. On one hand, she'd known Colleen for a long time--longer than she'd known Dar, for that matter. The redhead had been her neighbor in Kendall, and someone she'd spent a lot of time with, time she remembered fondly.

However, she hated gossip. Everyone knew she hated gossip. She didn't want to indulge in gossip with Colleen, but she also didn't want her friend to think she was evading the question.

She put her fork down and leaned on her forearms, pinning Colleen with a direct stare.

"Uh oh." Colleen made a face. "I haven't seen that puss in a while."

Kerry paused, one eyebrow lifting as she allowed herself to be sidetracked. "What puss?"

"That 'I'm gonna tell you what you're gonna die of' puss," her friend replied with a frank grin. "Sorry, Ker. Did I hit a sore spot?"

"Do I have a face like that?" Kerry rested her chin on her hand. "I know Dar does."

"You do. It's cuter, but it's still 'back off,'" Colleen admitted.

Kerry went back to decimating her salad. "Well, yeah. I guess...you know how much I hate BS talk. Especially about her."

"I know. Everyone knows."

"It's true," Kerry said. "Telegenics is run by Michelle Graver, who I told you about." She chewed a moment, and then swallowed. "And her partner is someone called Shari Englewood, who once upon a time Dar was involved with."

"Mm," Colleen grunted. "That kind of thing is always rough. Did you have a hard time with it?"

"Me?" Kerry sounded surprised. "Other than wanting to strangle both of them for harassing Dar? No. Why?" She picked up a carrot and munched it.

Colleen fiddled with her fork. "Well, I mean..." She glanced around, and then shrugged one shoulder. "Doesn't the fact that there was someone before you make a difference to you, Ker? I know it did for me. The last guy I sent packing. We bumped into his former girlfriend at Quiznos, and after that...out the door, boyo!"

Kerry frowned, her eyes shifting to one side as she considered the thought.

Did it matter to her? "Um...no, actually, it doesn't make a difference to me at all, especially since I know Dar's never had a steady, happy, long term relationship before ours," she replied honestly. "Why should the failures bother me any, except for feeling bad for Dar, I mean?"

Her friend leaned back and wiped her lips with her napkin, watching Kerry in silence as she finished her salad. There was little resemblance between the woman she shared a table with now, and the neighbor she'd first met right after Kerry moved to Florida.

Kerry had always been fun to hang with. She was smart, and had a gently sly sense of humor. Generally, she seemed to be enjoying life, despite the problems Colleen knew she was having with her family.

But meeting Dar had changed her profoundly in Colleen's eyes. She remembered very clearly the night Kerry had come home from Disney the first time, so obviously lost in the throes of her first real love she'd worried that her friend would drown from it.

No one, Kerry had once told her, had ever loved her for her. Never. Not until she'd met Dar, and Colleen had been really sort of scared for her at the beginning. She'd been in so deep. "You two are really solid. That's cool," she commented mildly. "Listen, sorry if I stepped into it, Ker. You know I just care about you."

Kerry's shoulders relaxed under their silk covering. "Yeah, know," she said. "Boy, we were both ticked off at them big time though. You know what we did?" Her expression turned impish.

"What?"

"You've been to EPCOT, right?" It was Kerry's turn to lower her voice.

"Sure."

"Living Seas? The big aquarium?"

"With the sea cows, sure," Colleen agreed amiably.

"Dar and I went diving in it."

The redhead leaned forward. "On purpose?"

Kerry chuckled, draining her iced tea glass. "Yes, on purpose...it's a program they have. Anyway, we went diving and one of the tank windows is in the restaurant."

"Yeap, I've been there. Nice view." Colleen nodded.

"Yeah well...Shari and Michelle were having dinner, and we scared the living poop out of them and made them spill all over themselves," Kerry told her. "It was hilarious. We were laughing so hard we almost drowned."

Colleen covered her eyes. "Ye gods and little fishes, Kerry. You could have been kicked out of the park for that!"

Her lunch companion grinned. "It was worth it. They were being such jackasses. You know their company actually tried to recruit us?"

"You?"

"Both of us! They had no idea who we were!" Kerry replied. "And then Michelle tried to buy us off. It was such a mess."

"Jesus, Kerry." Colleen's eyes widened. "You think they targeted us deliberately? Because of Dar? Is that why they went after our accounts?"

Kerry made a vague shushing motion with her hand, as several more people joined them. "I don't know...no, I don't think it was that. I think it's how big we are. We're a good target. If anything..." she hesitated. "If anything, I think they're scared of Dar."

"Huh." Her friend exhaled, taking a sip of her drink. "Well, after that show this week, they fair well should be! Besides that, my friend, did you see yourself on television yet? I taped it."

"Eurf." Kerry grimaced.

"C'mon upstairs," Colleen invited her, with a grin. "You didn't see what Dar was doing behind you either, I'm thinking."

"Uh oh." Kerry got up, carrying her tray to the back table. "Tell me she was making faces."

"Weeeeell..."

Kerry groaned again, and followed her out.

"ALL RIGHT, JAVIER." Dar was leaning back in her chair, her feet propped up on her desk. "How much is it gonna cost me?"

"Now, Dar..." The South American sales director laughed. "You know that I have never, never asked for more toys for us down here, have I?"

Dar had her eyes closed as the very late afternoon light tinted her windows. "No."

"Bueno. Now, if we had this capacity available here, in Buenos Aries, I could do very good things with it. I have sold very well the systems you have given me, no?"

"Yes."

"So?"

Dar wiggled her toes, thinking in silence.

"Is it my fault that so many people saw your cable show?" Javier asked, after a pause. "I have had six enquires just today. People are very nervous about security."

"So they want to hire hackers?" Dar asked bemusedly. "What exactly does that say about Brazil, Javier?"

"Tccha."

"I'll review it, see what we have available to put in there," Dar conceded. "We might have an installation I can divert over there, depends on the projections due next week."

The inner door to her office opened, revealing a very tired, very bedraggled looking Kerry. Dar waggled her fingers at her, giving her a wry look when Kerry trudged across the carpet to her desk and sat down on it, draping an arm over Dar's legs.

"Excellent! That is very good news, Dar. I will let my people know." Javier sounded smugly pleased. "So tell me, is every hacker in the world now trying to get in our gates? That was quite a braggadocio you made. I hope it does not come back to haunt you."

Dar leaned over and clicked her mouse, pulling up a monitoring screen and reviewing the results. She studied it briefly. "Eh," she eventually grunted. "Hits are up, but it's nothing overly scary." She turned away from the screen, preferring to gaze at Kerry instead. "We only have the one big website that exposes us, and that's strictly outside the network."

"Really?" Javier murmured.

"Sure. Our entire class A's masked, so the first problem hackers have is finding us. We don't have a lot of things hanging out there. I've got four redundant pipes servicing the website with logic that detects DOS on any link and runs an automatic squelch on the inbound packets," Dar said. "So yeah, they could probably pick at some of the smaller accounts we have, but only the ones where we don't provide the infrastructure. The network itself's pretty locked down."

There was a respectful silence. Then one of the international sales managers cleared her throat. "Lovely. Can we have a side of chips with that, then, Dar?"

Dar chuckled. "I'm glad the show's having some positive spin. I'll try to make sure we don't get backlash if some little nerd creep gets lucky," she conceded. "Anything's possible, but Mark's been working on some new routines that incorporate some of the intelligent logic I'm using for the network upgrade, so we'll see."

Another bit of silence. "Have a pint of Guinness with that one," the same manager piped up. "Never mind the chips."

There was a round of laughter on the phone. Kerry moved her arm and started massaging her partner's bare feet, too tired to really concentrate on what was going on. Of course, the managers on the phone didn't understand one word in ten Dar was saying on the technology side either, but that wasn't really unusual.