Tropical Convergence (4 page)

"I don't know, and I don't give a damn," Dar grumbled, as they crossed from the warm night air into the cooler, but musty smelling building. Lit by fluorescent lights, and featuring a poured concrete floor it resembled the inside of a warehouse more than anything.

Which, of course, it basically was. Kerry's nose wrinkled at the scent of mildew coming from a set of draperies dropped in a pile near the door. "Nice."

"Maybe they'll have a sledgehammer I could borrow," Dar muttered.

"Dar." Kerry patted her on the behind. "Would you relax? He was full of horse poots. Don't tell me you're getting so sensitive in your old age."

Her partner scowled dourly.

"Okay." Kerry could see a pile of people ahead of them, all busy. She took hold of Dar's arm and pulled her to a halt barely inside the loading area, out of sight of the main room. "Sweetheart." It really wasn't like Dar to be so sensitive, and Kerry sensed a moment taken here would pay off in the long run. "Did that really bother you?"

Her taller partner leaned against the wall, and scrubbed one hand through her hair. "Stupid, isn't it?" she admitted, lifting her eyes. "Just hit me the wrong way, I guess... and I don't even have the excuse of it being that time of the month."

Kerry tucked her fingers into the waistband of Dar's jeans. "Listen, I asked you to wear this because I think it's really sexy." She tugged a little. "And I didn't marry a construction worker." She paused, considering. "Though, I would have if you'd been one."

"Would you?" Dar grudgingly smiled.

"Absolutely." Kerry gazed up at her. "You know I would."

Dar's expression gentled. "I know." She looked down. "And given I picked a pair of boots to wear that I used when we were painting the cabin, I guess he might have had a point."

"Hm."

"Tank top, ripped jeans, paint splattered hiking boots...all I need is a tattoo and I could pass as a very good butch stereotype."

Okay, crisis over. Kerry relaxed, and smiled. "Nah, you'd need leather pants for that."

"I have those," Dar reminded her. "But you'd have to arrest me to get me to wear them in summer." She bumped Kerry's knee with her own. "C'mon. Let's go see what the kids are doing, and get the hell out of here."

They walked through the open garage door and into the convention center, pausing for a moment to catch their bearings. The room was huge, and it was full of nerds. The smell of new computers mixed with the scent of old coffee was almost overwhelming.

"Whoa." Kerry rubbed her nose. "What a zoo."

"Uh huh." Dar stretched to her full height, reviewing the room. It was laid out in regulation trade show fashion, with wooden frame booths stretched in orderly rows interspersed with larger displays custom built by some of the bigger companies. "Ah. There we are." She pointed to a familiar logo banner, half hung, half draped over some metal pipe supports.

"Nice spot." Kerry followed her between two wooden stalls, ducking as a technician struggled with a projection screen and almost clocked her in the process. They walked through piles of equipment cases, and emerged into a more open area that held the ILS display.

It was definitely one of the bigger ones. It held pride of place in the center of the largest open aisle and spread out in a series of ovals to either side.

Four of their techs were on ladders trying to lift up and bolt into place the steel tube framing the marketing department had designed, and as they watched the heavy structure tilted precariously to one side. Without a word between them, Kerry and Dar reacted, leaping forward to help.

Kerry grabbed the nearest ladder, which had started to tip over, while Dar used her greater height to reach up and take hold of the steel frame, taking its weight as the techs fought to regain control over it. "Whoa!" Kerry grunted, throwing her body against the ladder as it threatened to come down on top of her. "Take it easy, guys!"

"Damn it!" the tech on her ladder cursed. "This piece of shit was built by freaking Gumby!"

"All right, hang on." Dar grabbed the ladder and climbed up several of the steps, hoisting the frame with her as she walked. "Get that end on there, Bruce."

The tech on the next ladder blinked, only then realizing who it was addressing him. "Holy crap!" he blurted. "When'd you get here, ma'am!"

"Just in time, apparently," Dar grunted. "You gonna bolt that into place, or are we all going to end up with our asses on the concrete? I can't hold this forever."

Kerry could hear the tension in her partner's voice, and beneath the worn denim, she could see Dar's legs straining to keep her load balanced. With Dar's weight on the ladder, though, it no longer threatened to tip over and she shifted her grip to wrap her arm around Dar's calves in a secure hold.

"Okay...okay...almost got it." Bruce panted, extending himself out on his ladder to put a socket wrench on the bolts that Dar was holding even. He ratcheted them quickly, muscles jumping under his skin as he tightened the grid into place on one end. "Done!"

Dar relaxed her hold cautiously, relieved when the structure seemed likely to stay in one place. She flexed her fingers and shook her arms out glancing up at the tech still perched on the steps above her. "Why the hell are you guys doing this?"

Bruce finished bolting down the other end of the structure then scampered down the ladder. He was of middling height, and lightly built, with wide brown eyes that had a perpetual look of astonishment in them. "We gotta get the booth up ma'am." He paused. "Don't we?"

Dar got off her ladder, and dusted her hands off as the tech above her gingerly climbed down as well. "They don't have a setup crew here?" She looked around, aware now that at many booths around them conspicuously corporate T-shirted crews were struggling to assemble the structures. "What the hell? Kerry, didn't we contract for this to be built?"

"Well," Kerry cleared her throat, "I don't have the paperwork in front of me, but I'm willing to bet I didn't expect our setup staff to handle the carpentry."

"Hmph."

Kerry ducked out from under the ladder and joined her, as the rest of their techs gathered around. "Hi, guys," she greeted them with a smile, keeping an eye on Dar who started investigating their surroundings like a large, suspicious house cat.

"Hey, boss." The one nearest her returned the smile, his blond head not topping her own by much. "What are you guys doing here? Mark said you'd be up in a few days."

"Eh." Kerry put her hands on her hips. "We decided to come up a little early. Did they say why no one was here from the production company? You guys shouldn't be doing this. Dar's right. We pay big bucks to have someone else come in to do it."

"Well," Bruce sidled over to her, "we got here a couple hours ago, and the guy in charge told us if we wanted anything else put up, we'd have to do it," he said, with a tiny shrug. "Everyone here was bitching for sure, but what could we do?"

"Call?" Kerry eyed him, spreading her hands out in question. "It's not like my cell phone number's a secret."

The blond tech next to him winced. "We didn't want you to think we were whiners. It's not that much to do. Get those pipes up so we can start cabling. Not like the other guys, they're trying to get that wood together without hardly any tools."

"Mm." Kerry shook her head. "The guys in charge, they still here?"

"No way." Bruce snorted. "They took off and left the guards out front. Bunch of...um..." He remembered whom he was talking to and his voice trailed off.

"We met them," his boss muttered. "They didn't make a very good impression on us. Hey, Dar?"

Her partner had wandered over to the next booth, and was talking to its occupants. She held a hand up to acknowledge Kerry's call, but continued her conversation. "Well, anyway, we can help you get set up," Kerry told the techs. "What's up next, those poles over there?" She pointed.

Dar returned before they could get started, and she didn't look happy. "The Lucent guys say they heard the center didn't pay their setup crew for the last convention or something, so they walked," she reported. "They're pretty torked. According to their lead tech, the center basically told them they could wait until tomorrow, when maybe they'd have some workers, or do it themselves and shut up."

"Nice," Kerry muttered, "very professional."

Bruce nodded. "That's what they told us too," he agreed. "So we talked about it, and decided to see what we could do. We didn't want you guys to get here and not have stuff ready."

Dar sighed. "So instead, you get to have us show up and help you haul cable. It'll make a good story back at the office. Let's go. Faster we do it, faster we get out of here."

Kerry walked over and claimed a spool of cable and a wrench. "Are those the switches over there?" She pointed at a stack of brown cardboard boxes with a familiar label on them. "Cody, why don't you start unpacking them."

"Speaking of..." Dar turned, and then tipped her head back. "Let me guess. They didn't pull any Telco drops, did they?"

"Nope," Bruce said. "That was going to be a real problem," he admitted. "Mark didn't send any WAN guys up here."

"Not a problem anymore." Kerry tossed Dar a punch down kit, which her partner fielded with consummate grace. "I think the jack boxes are over on that pole, Dar." She nudged Bruce toward the remaining not-yet-hung structure. "Let's go guys--move those ladders over."

Dar removed a pen from her pocket and scribbled down the jack numbers on the pole Kerry had spotted. She paused when she saw several people standing near the back entrance watching them.

None were familiar, but if she squinted, she could make out the logo on the nearest one's shirt. "Ahh," Dar murmured, "our low-balling adversaries." The faintest twinkle appeared in her eyes, as she stuffed the bit of paper she'd written on in her back pocket, and headed for the Telco room, which they'd passed on their way in.

Two of the newcomers walked on past her into the room, sparing her only cursory glances. The other three remained at the entrance, talking amongst themselves with sour looks on their faces. They absently returned Dar's nod of greeting, then dismissed her as she walked by and continued talking to each other.

"I'd love to take off, but I want to wait till ILS gets their system set up, and then see what we can find out about it. Those guys look like they'll talk our ears off." The one nearest the booth--a well-built man with thick, black hair who had the air of a manager--pointed toward the ILS area. "Maybe we can recruit some of 'em...I heard they're looking at layoffs."

The other man laughed. "Typical. Cut the people who do the real work and protect the do-nothing executives."

He probably would have stopped, if he'd bothered to turn around and see the ice blue eyes drilling unseen holes in the back of his head, but his attention was focused on the booth and so he missed the rude gesture as well.

"You go for the guys. I'll take that babe with the cables." The shorter man also laughed. "I'll give 'em one thing, they hire for looks. She's hot."

Dar glanced at the kit in her hands, and opened it, selecting a pair of needle nose pliers and studying them, wondering how much jail time she'd incur if she pulled the bastard's gonads out with the tool. Then she sighed, and put it back, turning and continuing on her way with commendable restraint.

Work before pleasure. Their time would come soon enough.

"HERE YOU GO, guys." Kerry eased back into their booth, cradling a half dozen cans of soda in a pouch made from the long tail of her T-shirt. The techs gathered around her shyly selecting their choices as Kerry stood in their midst. "C'mon, they're cold."

"Thanks, ma'am." Bruce sat down on a switch, wiping his brow.

Two hours had gone by, and they'd finished the structure of the booth only to realize the center had turned off its air conditioning.

It had rapidly gone from relatively comfortable to stuffy to stifling before Dar had hoisted her pirate's pennant and found the A/C control room. She got busy picking the lock and flipping switches inside until the units turned themselves back on.

Now the air was sluggishly circulating again, and Dar had gone back to methodically hacking her way through the unlabeled circuits in search of the one they'd ordered.

"Okay." Kerry sat down with her own soda and opened it, taking a long swallow before she continued. She was sweaty and covered in dust, and her knee ached where she'd banged it on the corner of a switch, but as she looked around at their progress, she was satisfied. "Once we get the line up, we're pretty much done until the servers get here tomorrow."

The techs looked tired, but relieved. "Think the circuit'll be up tonight?" Bruce asked.

"Oh, I'm sure it will." Kerry leaned back and extended her legs, crossing them at the ankles and regarding their bare length studiously. "Even if Dar has to run a fiber cable all the way to Miami, it'll be up." She looked up at her troops, with a grin. "I have faith."

The four techs grinned back.

"Thanks for stopping by and giving us a hand, ma'am. That was really cool," Cody said.

"No problem." Kerry glanced to one side as a motion caught her attention, and stopped speaking when she spotted a pod of their competitors approaching. She watched them as they came over, observing the booth with intent eyes. "Hi."

"Hi," the man in front greeted her with a friendly grin. "You guys sure have been busy."

"Hasn't everyone?" Kerry replied. "What a mess, huh?"

"Yeah," the man agreed. "We're going to wait for some help tomorrow to put things up, but I guess you folks decided to do it yourself, huh?"

Kerry glanced around at their booth. "Looks like it," she agreed. "We can take off and go to sleep in peace now."

The man stuck his hands in his pockets and chuckled. "Yeah, I'm sure you guys have to be careful about that. I hear things are up in the air for you. You don't want to take any chances, huh?"

The techs all looked at Kerry, who looked at the man with gently inquisitive green eyes. "Pardon me?" she asked.

"Ah, c'mon, we've heard about your problems...hell, we caused some of 'em!" The man laughed. "No hard feelings. In fact, you guys look pretty bright. Interested in coming over to the other side?"