Kerry saw her partner's eyes narrow, and she instinctively put a hand out, catching Dar's arm as she moved back against the wall to let the men pass. "Dar, hold on."
She could feel the tension as Dar stood her ground. "Dar, c'mon. These people aren't worth it."
The man pulled up short, since Dar was standing in the middle of the hallway effectively blocking it. "Did you hear me?"
"Listen, sir, we're doing all we can." The man behind him caught up to him and grabbed his arm. "You don't understand what's gone on here. What these people have been through."
"I don't give a shit what these people have been through." The man in the lead turned around, throwing the hand off his arm. "This place has half the liquidity of the planet tied up in it. You fed some bullshit to CNN but if it doesn't open tomorrow morning, everyone's head's gonna roll." He turned back around. "Move out of the way or I'll toss you on your ass, lady."
Dar grinned with absolutely no humor and a good deal of delight.
"Lord." Andrew shoved his way back down the hallway. "Can't leave you for a minute, can I?" He took the man by the shoulders and shoved him past Dar. "G'wan, blowhard. Git your ass out before you done get hurt."
"What? Get your damn hands off me! Police!" The man yelled, thrashing around.
Andrew gave him a final shove then he put himself between the angry figure and Dar's tall form, his bigger body blocking the hallway with even more effectiveness. "Git!"
"Sir!" The other man dashed after him, taking hold of his arm."Whoever you people are you better get lost. Now!" He hurried the man past, before he could recover and say anything at all, and they disappeared around the corner toward the door.
Dar sighed. "There goes my fun for the day." She turned back to the rest of the men, who were standing there gaping. "Who is that?" She indicated the now vanished man.
"Marcus Abercrombie." The young man nearest her answered promptly. "The second richest man in the world. He's just really upset about the market. We just heard they're having problems with the systems."
"We're the ones trying to fix it," Kerry told him "We don't appreciate being yelled at."
"Well, sure. No one does." The young man agreed. "Hi. I'm Barry Marks." He offered Kerry his hand. "I'm the trading floor coordinator." He glanced past her. "Are you the technical people? Our director said they were expecting some people here to look at the computers."
Dar joined Kerry, now that it appeared the excitement was over. "We're working on the problems, yes. I heard the CNN report too--that guy didn't buy it?"
"Nope." Marks shook his head. "He came in the back and started snooping around and figured out that it wasn't working. He said he'd keep it to himself, but I bet we see it on CNN in ten minutes. He's probably telling his chauffeur about it right now."
"Great." A man behind him sighed. "Like we don't have enough problems. I don't want all those damn Federal guys shouting at me again." He looked at Dar. "Can you fix it?"
"Ultimately? Yes," Dar said. "There's nothing in technology enough time and money can't fix."
"By tomorrow morning?" Marks asked.
"That's an open question." Dar pointed down the hallway. "Let's go downstairs, team. We're wasting time."
They filed past the brokers who looked dubiously at them, and shook their heads. "Tomorrow's going to suck," one said.
"No matter what happens." Marks agreed. "Let's go get some coffee. My mouth's dry as a bone from the damn dust."
They headed in the opposite direction. Dar was glad to be rid of them, as they walked down the hall and headed down the steps to the lower level of the building. "Did you call me a can opener?" she asked Kerry.
Kerry chuckled under her breath.
"Manual or electric?"
Chapter Fourteen
ANOTHER DUSTY, CONCRETE room. Another raised floor. Another long stretch of time between humming black racks of equipment that gave off the faint scent of ozone and plastic.
Kerry lifted herself up off the floor, pulling her head out of the space under the floor and resting her weight on her elbows as she waited for the blood rush to fade. "Can't see anything."
Kannan and Shaun were over by the wall against a sheet of plywood that was as age worn as Kerry felt at the moment. They had a black box partially assembled; their heads bent over thin strands and tiny posts, their tools gathered neatly around their feet as they sat there cross-legged.
"They had the end right there." One of the techs from the Exchange was sitting on a desk nearby. He pointed at the hole in the floor. "Then those guys pulled it back, I guess. It disappeared."
Kerry folded her hands, and studied her knuckles. "Didn't occur to anyone to anchor the cable?" She inquired.
"It's not our stuff." The tech shrugged. "No one told us what they were doing."
Kerry silently counted to ten. "Boy, that's a shame." She shifted her flashlight and inched herself forward, extending her head down under the floor again. It smelled dank and musty, and she had to keep convincing herself she didn't smell anything worse than mold.
It was uncomfortable, and it gave her a headache hanging upside down as she was. She pushed that aside and extended her arm down into the space, turning on her flashlight and examining the underside of the floor.
It was full of trays and pipes, the cabling so dense she could barely see past it. She squinted hard, peering past a clump of metal and dust and spotted a stretch of the cabling that was scraped free of the grime. "Ah."
"Found it?" Shaun asked.
"Found where it was." Kerry pulled her head back out and moved down two squares, picking up the aluminum floor pulling and thwacking it down against the surface. She wiggled it then she leaned back, hauling the floor tile up off its frame and sliding it out of the way.
She got down on her belly again and continued her investigation.She could see the scrape marks traveling over the piping and squirmed further into the opening, shining her flashlight under the next section of floor.
Eyeballs reflected the shine. Kerry stifled a yelp and somehow kept herself from scrambling out of the opening by sheer will.
"Something wrong ma'am?" Shaun looked up.
"Um. No." Kerry bravely resumed her search. She looked for the eyes, but there was nothing in that back corner now except some hanging cable.
She was about to move on, when her eyes registered something unusual, and she looked back at the spot, carefully craning her neck to one side and narrowing her eyes. "Oh crap."
"Ma'am?"
Kerry got up and crawled over two more squares to where she'd seen the eyes, and then she slapped the floor puller into place and settled back, both hands on the device. "You might want to get back." She told the tech. "I saw something move under here and it's too small to be one of us."
The tech didn't need to be told twice. He jumped off the desk and went around it, backing away from Kerry. "You're crazy to be opening that up. Could be anything under there. Someone said there were snakes."
Kerry took a deep breath and yanked her shoulders back, pulling the tile up off its seating. She rocked back onto her heels and pulled the tile with her, tensing her thighs a she prepared to have to jump clear just in case.
Nothing stirred. She slid the tile to one side, and shone her light on the cabling underneath. "Look at that."
The tech got up on the desk and peered over it into the space. "Holy crap."
Shaun and Kannan scrambled to their feet and approached, staying cautiously behind Kerry's kneeling form. "Oh wow," Shaun said. "That's all chewed up!"