Tropical Convergence (44 page)

Kerry bit her tongue on the obvious response. "If the AC's off in here, I'd actually go outside if I were you," she offered. "It gets very hot, very fast. Mark, let's head back to our offices. I'm sure we can get some work done in the meantime."

"Gee, thanks Kerry," Ross exhaled. "I was supposed to fly back to Oregon tonight." He started down the stairs. "Damn it."

"See you all later." Kerry motioned for Mark to follow her and they trotted down the steps, getting some distance away from the rest of the crowd before speaking. "Are we in trouble?" she asked.

"Big time screwed," Mark confirmed. "We lost all our links."

"What?" Kerry stopped in mid step, and stared at him.

"Think you better book, poquito boss. They can't even call into or out of the office. Lucky we got our cells."

"Jesus." Kerry fought to keep herself from breaking into a run. "What in the hell happened to the redundant systems?"

"No one can get through to the Telco to find out."

"God damn it."

THERE WAS JUST enough breeze for Dar to be able to sit in comfort, allowing the late afternoon sun to drench her with its oddly pallid light. She had a delightfully intricate tour behind her, two bags of rampantly tourist-flavored purchases next to her, and a bellyful of cherry vanilla ice cream.

Life was good.

The museum had charmed her and she was fairly sure her knickknack acquisitions were going to charm her family.

Her family. Dar had to stop and take a breath, releasing it slowly as she thought about how full of family her life was now. She'd gotten a sub model and a sweatshirt for her dad, and a space shuttle plus a T-shirt that said 'my husband is in the navy, and all I got was this T-shirt and a pail of seaweed' for her mom, and a bagful of god only knew what for Kerry. Even Chino had gotten a toy.

It was a radical change for her, having so many people to get things for. Dar removed the stuffed squeaky Apollo capsule she was sure Chino would tear apart in no time and examined it, squeezing it gently with her fingers and listening to the wheezy bright sound.

It certainly made shopping a lot more fun though. Dar grinned. She'd gotten herself a few things, but she'd extracted far more enjoyment in picking stuff out for everyone else, especially the bagful of items for her partner.

Silly things. But Dar was certain Kerry would love them, and that a good number of them would find their way into the office to perch in, hopefully, inconspicuous spots near her desk. The hours of exploration had restored her good humor, as had the moments of indulgence in old memories that the smell of brass and diesel had called up to her.

In fact, Dar pulled out her conspicuously silent PDA and opened it, scribbling a little note and sending it on its way. She waited for a short while, but didn't get an answer, and figured Kerry was probably either busy with the meeting, or had fallen asleep at the meeting, but probably was doing just fine.

Dar decided she'd had a long enough rest, and after flexing her calves a few times, she stood up and arranged her shopping bags, then started back down toward the city and away from the docks. Now toward evening, the foot traffic was starting to pick up, and the harried looks of the people on the street were relaxing as the workday was ending.

Well, if she was stuck in New York, at least she'd had the afternoon off. Dar strolled down the sidewalk, pausing as a small bar caught her attention. After a moment's hesitation, she shrugged one shoulder and entered, finding a spot in a quiet area off to one side.

She eased onto one of the high stools and set her bags down by her feet, resting her forearms on the round wooden table as one of the waitresses scooted over to her. "Hi."

"What can I getcha?" the girl asked, putting down a small, square napkin next to Dar's elbow.

Milk? Dar glanced around the place, which oozed a tavern atmosphere she could almost feel coating her skin. Hm. Her eyes fell on the beer tap, and spotted a name she knew Kerry liked. "Ah, I'll take a Killian," she decided. "And a plate of wings."

"No problem." The girl looked approvingly at her. "C'm right up." She headed back toward the bar, leaving Dar to appreciate her surroundings more fully.

Bars generally weren't places she tended to hang out in, at least not by herself. Deferring to Kerry's fondness for good brew, she accompanied her partner into pubs and enjoyed them, but more for the company than for the alcohol.

She didn't mind beer. As long as it was served very cold and didn't have too strong a taste it satisfied her and she'd found it a reasonable thing to drink when she was with others due to its relatively small alcohol content. She'd seen enough people drunk off their asses to know she had no personal desire to emulate them.

Kerry was a cute drunk. She got silly, and publicly snuggly, the sweeter side of her personality coming out. Dar, on the other hand, knew herself to be a surly drunk the few times she'd gone down that road and reasoned she was better off stopping before things got ugly.

She sure didn't want Kerry to have to deal with that. Dar let her chin rest on her fist and sighed.

A television was on above the bar, and she amused herself by watching the basketball game in progress, mildly surprised to find the players female. A news banner ran chattily under the picture, but she steadfastly ignored it until a familiar word caught her attention.

Miami.

Dar leaned forward and focused on the headline, gritting her teeth and squinting slightly to keep the words in focus.

It didn't take long. "Son of a bitch," she uttered with feeling. "Why the hell didn't she call me?" Dar removed her cell phone from its clip on her belt and hit a speed button, waiting for it to connect and then holding it to her ear.

It rang eight times before it was answered, and then the first sound that came down the line was a rattling noise and a seriously Midwestern sounding curse.

"God bless the milkman...yes, hello?" Kerry growled into the phone. By her tone she obviously was at the end of the chain tied to the ribbon tied to the end of her rope.

Dar waited a moment, then exhaled. "I love you."

There was a few heartbeats of silence, then a soft grunt came down the line, and a sound Dar recognized as a body landing in the leather chair in her office.

"Jesus," Kerry exhaled.

"No, just me," Dar responded. "I just saw the headlines on the television. How's it going there?"

"Well," Kerry said. "Entire city has no power."

"Son of a bitch."

"Yeah," her partner exhaled. "On the other hand, every single employee in this building is lighting candles of prayer to your image for having a diesel generator big enough to run the air plants."

"I'm a native. I know better."

Kerry faintly chuckled, then sighed. "Now for the really bad news. I have a headache the size of the Orange Bowl, and Bellsouth blew their backup power to one central office and a spike blew their OC on the other. We have no telecom or data services into the building."

Dar covered her eyes in pure reaction. "Holy shit."

"I was holding off calling you until I was absolutely positive the only thing you could do was pat me on my head," Kerry sighed. "I have every critical thing we've got loaded on the sat links, but..."

"Jesus."

"No. Just me." Another sigh. "The one bright spot in my day was that piece of moose pooter meeting got canceled."

The waitress returned, putting down her beer and giving her a bright smile. "Wings'll be right up. K?"

Dar nodded, picking up the frosty mug of beer and taking a long swallow of it. "Ker..."

"Tell me you're in a bar having a beer, and I might have to fly to New York just so I can bite your butt for that."

Dar almost spit her mouthful of beer out across the table, but she managed somehow to swallow it instead. "Um..." She cleared her throat. "Want me on a plane back there?"

Kerry sighed very audibly. "Yes," she replied in a quiet tone. "There is nothing in the world I want right now more than to have you here right next to me."

Dar checked her watch, then reached for her PDA. "Gimme a minute...let me get the flights..."

"Sweetheart, hold on," Kerry said. "I have so many people pissed off at us down here, do we really need another client ticked off because you walked out?"

"Fuck them." Dar was busy with her flight scheduling.

"Dar."

"In addition to the fact that they all mean jack nothing to me next to you, Kerry, the rest of the company does take precedence over them," Dar replied, reviewing her options. "You should have called me before now."

"Yeah, I know." Kerry's tone now just sounded tired. "But I like to think I can actually do the job you pay me for sometimes."

Dar paused in mid tap. She put her PDA down and concentrated on the phone exclusively. "Kerry, this has nothing to do with your competence. This is outside anyone's scope." She hesitated. "You want me to butt out and let you handle it?"

There was a very long silence after that. Finally, on the heels of the faintest of sniffles, Kerry spoke up. "Professionally? Yes."

Dar winced, the rejection stinging more than she'd anticipated.

"Personally, no," she went on quietly. "So what should I do? Can you give me some advice so I can make some kind of peace with myself?"

Dar released a held breath, and ordered her thoughts, sipping her beer as she pondered the question. "Okay," she said. "I'm assuming the big cluster is our lines being down."

"Yeah."

"I'm assuming you've already browbeaten and bullied everyone in Bellsouth you can get your hands on."

"Mmph...yeah. Problem is, emergency services are priority, and we're not," Kerry said. "Even though we pay them for diversity out the wing wang."

Which was true. "Okay." Dar closed her eyes and thought. "The blown switch is out of our hands, but the other Central Office is just out of power?"

"Yeah."

"Send Mark to Home Depot and have him buy every big generator they've got, then just go in there and hijack the bank we're in and push power through it."

"They're not going to let us do that."

"Don't ask them," Dar said quietly. "Just show up, walk in, don't take no for an answer."

"They're going to think we're nuts."

"Yeah," Dar agreed. "But our customers are going to think we're miracle workers."

A soft rattling of keys came down the line, along with the ghost of another sniffle. "You were right," Kerry said, after the rattling stopped. "I should have called you before now," she admitted. "Damn."

Kerry had been doing everything humanly possible, Dar was sure. They'd been through enough crises together for her to trust her partner's judgment implicitly. But sometimes when Kerry encountered the unlikely and was under a lot of stress, thinking way outside the box wasn't her first instinct.

It was always Dar's first instinct. "It's okay, sweetheart." She tried for a faint joke. "S'why you pay me the big bucks, remember?"

A faint chuckle rewarded her.

"I wouldn't have called anyone either," Dar admitted. "Never have been able to do that. So..."

"Hello pot, kettle here." Kerry sighed wryly. "Wanna get together for some macaroni and cheese?"

Dar relaxed a little, the knots in her guts easing slightly as she felt her heartbeat start to settle and cease its painful pounding inside her skull. "Sounds delicious."

Kerry chuckled a little. "Do me a favor?"

"Anything," Dar responded. "I've got the flights in front of me. Offer's still open."

Kerry was very quiet for a bit, and Dar gave her the space to wrestle with her own conscience. At last, she grunted softly. "Tell you what, partner. If this doesn't work, I'll give you a call with your flight information, okay?"

A compromise. Dar accepted it reluctantly. "You know I'm going to be a mess all night, right?" she found herself saying anyway. "I'll be sweating that call."

"I know," her lover said. "But if it works, I'll take out a full page ad in the Herald and tell everyone what a smart and amazing person I have as my boss."

"That's supposed to make me feel better?"

At last, Kerry laughed, if only briefly. "Or maybe they'll get the power grid back online, Dar. Having the entire city down with no AC is putting more pressure on the powers that be than I ever could."

"Mmph."

"Call you back as soon as I know something," Kerry went on. "Promise."

"Okay." Dar sighed. "Hang in there, Ker."

"Love you."

"Love you too." Dar closed the phone reluctantly, thoughts running through her mind at a furious rate. She looked up as a plate appeared in front of her, meeting the eyes of the waitress.

"Wings?" the girl said.

Wish I had a pair. Dar nodded in response, staring at the crispy golden items before her. With a sigh, she picked one up and turned it in her fingertips, completely uninterested now in everything except for the vanished voice on the other end of her disconnected phone.

KERRY FORCED HERSELF not to tense up, concentrating on keeping her hands down at her sides and not balled up into fists. "Listen, Barry, you don't have a choice here." Already in her shirtsleeves in deference to the dank mugginess of the emergency lighting lit office, she resolutely refused to wipe the sweat off her face as she ordered her arguments.

The man she was speaking with, a tall, gangly station manager with a drooping moustache and desperate eyes, slammed his hand on the desk. "Kerry, I can't do it," he repeated, for the nth time.

"You can," Kerry replied inflexibly. "Bottom line is, you have no choice." Her voice already had a slight rasp in it.

"If I let you do it, I have to let everyone. Do you know how many lines go through this building? To the financial district? Jesus, Kerry, do you think you're the only one who's down?"

"We have a contract."

"THEY ALL DO!" Barry yelled, at the top of his voice in frustration. "Woman, you can't understand what you're asking."