Mark carefully shone his flashlight into the opening, and then pulled his kit over and settled on the floor. "C'mon, Shaun. No critters."He removed a set of cutters, an Ethernet crimper, and a handful of ends and mounded them on the floor near his knee, studying the mess to see where to start.
Shaun sat down on the other side of the open tile and removed his own tools.
"Who the hell prepped this router?" Dar asked.
"Uh oh." Mark eyed her. "Why?"
"It's the wrong damned image. Would have truly sucked if they showed up here and we didn't have the right code to support an optics module, wouldn't it?"
Mark made a face, but he kept his mouth shut, his eyes focused on the task at hand.
Dar sighed "Kerry--would you--"
"Mind using the bus's satellite hook up to download you the right image? Of course not, hon." Kerry gazed fondly at Dar. "Which one do you need?"
Dar handed her a slip of paper. Kerry took it and headed for the door, glad she had a task to take care of. Sitting there watching everyone work, while it fulfilled her promise to Dar, wasn't really to her liking.
She walked down the darkened corridor past the closed doors in the nearly silent building. As she came close to the door though, she could see an outline of gray light, and hear the sounds of the city waking up around them.
Not much time. She eased out the door, surprising the guard standing there. "Sorry." She gave him a brief smile. "Need something from the bus."
The man nodded. "All right, Ms. Stuart. But I have to tell you, my boss isn't going to be happy you people are in there. I know you got those passes and all, but no one's supposed to be near this building at this hour. Got a lot of important people showing up soon."
Kerry didn't even feel annoyed. "I understand." She patted his arm. "We'll try to do what we need to do and get out of here, before we can get ourselves and you in any trouble." She walked down the steps and crossed over to where the bus was parked, its door already open.
She entered and grimaced a little as she felt a jolt in her side. "Hi Dad."
"Hey kumquat." Andrew appeared from the back of the bus. "You all doing all right?"
"Yeah, just getting something for Dar." Kerry made her way to the small office and sat down behind the desk, carefully leaning forward and trying not to breathe deeply. She put the piece of paper on the desk, and logged in to her laptop waiting for it to give her desktop image.
"Had some fellers come by here." Andrew had followed her inside. "Think they were them secret service type people."
Kerry kept her arm on her injured side tucked against her side, and typed one handed on the keyboard. "What did they want?"
"Ah do not know that. But they were asking a lot of questions and ah do think they will be back here."
"What did you tell them?" Kerry pecked out a website, waiting for the slow satellite link to return the page to her. Then she logged into their image repository and slowly typed Dar's request into the search box.
"Told them ah was just a tour bus from Japan."
Kerry stopped typing, and looked up over the laptop's screen at Andrew. His scarred face tensed into a grin, which she returned. "You did not."
"Naw. Just told him you all were doing some work for the gov'mint in there. That's all." Andrew relented. "You all want some water or something?"
"Do we have any coffee?" Kerry clicked on the result of the search,and watched it start downloading. She fished in her pocket for a thumb drive, and plugged it into the side of her laptop. "My drugs are making me a little sleepy."
"Ah think we might." Andrew moved away, rattling around in the kitchen area of the bus and leaving Kerry to watch her creeping progress bar.
While she was waiting, Kerry clicked over to her mail program that was sorting itself out in the background. She scanned the new items relieved that nothing seemed really urgent, and her cleaning of the box on Friday hadn't resulted in a cascade of new mail over the weekend.
In fact--She clicked on one, a rare personal note from her sister.
Hey sis.
Mom said you were right in the thick of everything as usual. I hope you're safe, and Dar's okay. I thought it would be better to send you an email because I didn't want to call and interrupt you. I have some good news that I wanted to share though.
Kerry perked up. Good news? "Damn. It's been so long since I've gotten good news in my email I'm not sure what to do."
Brian proposed.
"Holy molasses!" Kerry blurted, straightening right up and then regretting it. "Ow!"
Andrew ambled in at a deceptively high rate of speed given his bulk. "What's the matter, Kerry?" he asked, his eyes flicking over her in concern. "You doin' all right?" He put the cup of coffee he was holding down and rested his big hands on the desk.
"Oof." Kerry tried to catch her breath, closing her eyes as the stars faded. "Wow." She exhaled. "Who'd have thought a little crack would hurt this much." She eased her eyelids open, to find Andrew looking at her with an expression so familiar it made her smile.
Dar's image; that concerned glower facing her, right down to the twitching fingertips resting on the wood surface. Kerry reached out and patted one hand. "I'm okay. I just got a surprise from my sister, that's all."
"Uh huh."
Kerry relaxed as the pain faded. "No, really. Brian proposed to her."
Andrew studied her for a moment, and then hitched up one knee and perched on the edge of the desk. "That the feller who's the daddy of that little boy?"
"The one named for you? Yes." Kerry nodded.
"Took him long enough."
Privately, Kerry agreed. "Well, you know that was complicated. I mean, Angie was married and all that."
Andrew snorted. "I'd a been her daddy that feller would a stepped up a lot sooner."
Kerry got lost in a moment of wondering what her life would have been like if Andrew had been her daddy. Then she shut that out deliberately, as a pang stung her chest. "I bet he would have. But I'm just really glad he did, no matter how long it took."
"Hmph," he grunted. "Let me go see what's going on outside. Heard me some noises out there." He nudged the cup. "Made that like I do Dar's. Figured it would do."
"Absolutely. Thanks Dad." Kerry turned her attention back to the mail as he wandered out, leaning forward cautiously again and studying the screen.
I can hardly believe it. He came over last night and after we put Sally and Andrew to bed we were just talking and we ended up in the solarium, and the next thing I knew he was kneeling down and taking a box out. I almost freaked!
Kerry smiled quietly. "Good for you, Brian."
He said what happened this week made him realize the world isn't a sane place. That you have to do the right things at the right time and not worry about the future. Maybe he's right. You know, I thought I didn't care, but I found out last night I really did.
So anyway. Will you be my best lady? Maid of honor sounds so stupid. I want you and Dar and Dar's folks to be there. We're planning for a Christmas ceremony, but Mom's freaking out because it's so short on time. She's glad though.
"Sure." Kerry rested her chin on her fist. "I'm sorry I didn't ask you to be mine, but I don't think you were in a space where that would have happened then, Ang." She flipped over to the download, then back to the mail.
"Thanks for making my morning a lot brighter, though." She clicked the reply button, and started to type. "And if it's any consolation to you, Dar freaked when I proposed to her, too."
DAR CLOSED HER laptop. "That's it." She watched Kannan finishing up the delicate task of fusing the fiber ends to the patch panel."Mark, how are you guys doing?"