Kerry half listened and half watched their surroundings. There were a lot of people walking around, but they all seemed distracted, and the stores she could see had workers in the doorways, mostly standing and watching the passersby.
"So they're fighting over that? What the hell do you want me to do?" Dar asked. "What makes you think that?"
Kerry spotted their team coming out from the entrance to the subway. She waved at them, catching Scuzzy's eye and smiling as they changed direction to come over to where she and Dar were standing."Here's the rest of the gang, hon."
"I think that's a crock of bullshit," Dar said. "I'll head over there, but only because I want to see the data path. If you're still there wasting time then I'll see you, but I hope you get your head out of your ass and get working before then."
Kerry patted her partner's hip. "Easy, tiger."
Dar closed the phone abruptly and clipped it back on her pocket as the rest of the crew arrived. "Jackasses," she muttered. "Did you find a route?" She asked the gang.
"We found a lot of mad people," Shaun said. "Boy, people get pissed off when you ask dumb questions in the subway around here. They even got mad at her." He indicated Scuzzy, who nodded.
"Okay. Well, I'd like to ride from here back to where they have to drop the line into the tunnels," Dar said. "They've got some kind of hangup somewhere up there about the cable they want to talk to me about."
"What kind of trouble were they giving you, Shaun?" Kerry asked. "What were you guys asking?"
"Just where the tunnels met and stuff like that. You'd have thought we were asking for the president's fax number," Shaun said. "They're just freaking tunnels. What did they think we were going to do, set a bomb off in them?"
Everyone fell silent after he finished talking, looking at each other awkwardly as the words penetrated.
"Well, ya know--" Scuzzy murmured.
"They might have thought just that." Dar finished, quietly. "Let's go folks. We found the drop and Mark's going to work on getting our end of this set up. We might as well find out how far they've gotten before he goes to too much trouble."
"We can take the six," Scuzzy said. "I'm sure they're up past Brooklyn Bridge station already. We can walk, or take the 8th Ave up to the 53rd."
Dar eyed her. "You pick. None of the rest of us know what the hell you're talking about." She added, "But since the cable's probably going to have to come from underground, we should go the same route."
"You got it." Scuzzy turned and motioned them back the way they'd come. "Let's get a move on, people. We got trains to catch."
Chapter Ten
"ANYTHING?" DAR PEERED out the door to the subway train that was idling briefly in the station. "See anything, Scuzzy?" She glanced at her watch, uncomfortably aware of the rapid passage of time."This is nuts."
"Not a damn thing." Scuzzy scratched her chin, as she hopped quickly back into the train. "Where the hell are these guys? I thought for sure they'd be at least halfway up to the place by now."
"You and me both." Dar ran her fingers through her hair. "I don't get it. They were all fired up to get this done after that meeting."
"Maybe they got a problem."Scuzzy looked apologetic. "Them guys ain't bad, mostly. They were pretty spooked after that guy got in trouble. My uncle said all of 'em were talking about it. Nobody wants that sorta trouble, you know?"
"Mm." Dar gripped the bars of the train rocking back and forth against them as though her body motion could make the car move with it. She went to the door again and looked out, squinting into the darkness as she peered into the tunnel. "Damn it."
They were in the first car of the train right behind the conductor's booth Kerry was sitting in one of the seats with her cell phone pressed to her ear and her free hand cupped over the other side of her head.
Dar glanced at her, then stepped back as the doors started to close."Ker? We're moving again."
"I feel it," Kerry muttered. "Okay, folks, I'm going to lose you again. I'll call you back." She closed the phone as the train rattled forward plunging from the fluorescent light of the station into the darkness of the tunnels again.
Dar sat down next to her and put a hand on her knee. "If this is driving you nuts, you can take off at the next station. Go back to the office and deal with Lansing there." She studied the frustrated expression on Kerry's face, watching the pale lashes flicker a little. "Okay?"
Kerry rested her elbows on her knees her phone clasped in her hands. "No," she said, after a moment. "I want to stay here."
"Sure?" Dar gave her kneecap a little scratch.
"Yeah. I 'm just saying the same thing over and over again. It's probably a good thing I keep having to get off the line before I start screaming."
"Ah." Dar leaned back extending her long legs across the floor of the car. She regarded the interior, then shook her head a trifle. "I can't believe I'm in one of these things and it's not freaking me out," she remarked."Last time I nearly chucked my guts up."
Kerry straightened up and sat back. "Relative levels of things to freak out about?" She suggested. "I know it would take a hell of a lot to freak me out right now, that's for sure."
Dar spread her arm out along the back of the seat behind Kerry, waiting until she felt the tense back relax against her touch. "So what's Lansing's problem? Can I help?" She rubbed the bottom of her thumb across the top of her partner's shoulder. "Someone I can yell at for you?"
A grudging smile appeared on Kerry's face. "Backups are taking too long. They're still pretty saturated across the northern links and they're running into issues finishing the drive mirroring."
"Are you kidding me?" Dar peered at her. "They're bitching about that?"
"It's causing problems with their autonomic scripts." Kerry tilted her head back to rest on Dar's arm. "Their production jobs aren't kicking off on time and it's throwing everyone off. I understand how frustrated they are, but damn it, Dar, its not like we're hanging out having Daquiris here."
Dar reflected on that. "I could use a Daquiri right now," she said. "Tell them to split the backup into two segments, and run them on alternate nights until we get a little more clear and I can spend some time working the metrics. We'll take the risk."
"I suggested that." Kerry watched Dar's profile. "That's what we were arguing about. When I call them back I'll tell them you said so,and that should end that conversation."
"You make me sound like such a pirate captain."
"Here's the next station." Scuzzy stood up. "They got to be here.This is the freaking last stop on this here train. It's Brooklyn Bridge!"
"Hold that thought." Kerry stood up as they pulled into the station and clipped her phone to her belt as Dar joined her and they both went to the door and peered out. The station was relatively quiet and, as they stepped out onto the platform, the rest of the passengers exited and headed for the stairwells further down.
Scuzzy had bounced out ahead of them, and she was near the very end of the platform, her head poked out into the tunnel as she shaded her eyes. "Okay, so here we are. Where the hell are these guys?"
Dar studied the tracks, not seeing any indication of new cable running through that would hint at the teams passing. "Kerry, get your buddy on the phone and find out where the hell these people are," she said, going over to the cracked Plexiglas covering a subway map and studying it. "If this is Brooklyn Bridge, we're almost back to where we started yesterday. What the hell have they been doing?"
Kerry joined her, phone pressed to her ear. "I don't want to go any closer to where we were," she stated. "We don't have any protection, Dar."
"Right there with you, Ker. They should have been a lot further up by now. This may all be one big damn moot point."