"Do you have another suggestion? Cough it up."
"Um."
"Aside from not trying this at all?" Dar exhaled. "I just hope we've got existing gateways to where this stuff's going." She scrubbed the hair out of her eyes with one hand.
"Wow." Mark said, after another long pause. "You want me to--"
"Capture everything so we can put it all back if this tanks? Sure." Dar logged into her laptop. "Wish me luck? Sure."
"Okay, will do." Mark responded. "I feel kinda lame up here. "
"Just hang tight," Dar said. "It's all in Kerry's pocket right now anyway." She set up her monitoring tools, opening a console to the router in one window and several sessions with the routing systems in the Miami office in others.
"Think we can get a case study out of this when we're all done,Dar?" Chuck asked, as he clasped his hands around his knees.
Dar gave him a sideways look.
"How about you keynote our next tech convention?"
"ONE MORE STOP." Kerry stood up as the train lurched into motion."Ready, Dad?"
"Right with you, Kerry." Andrew stood behind her, one hand resting lightly on her shoulder. They waited for the train to stop, then were the first ones out of the door dodging the rest of the travelers as they reached the steps and headed up them two at a time.
It was loud and bustling under the ground and Kerry got through the exit turnstiles yearning for a sight of the open sky again. She evaded crashing into two men rushing for the entrance and got to the steps outside, running up them and emerging into the open air.
It was gritty and dusty, but there was no time to worry about a mask as Kerry broke into a run toward the exchange. The jolting of her own footsteps sent shocks up and down her side, but she ignored them and focused on the gothic front of the now familiar building a short distance away.
There were people clustered in front of the main entrance. She saw police there, and the military. The streets were blocked off.
Men were yelling. There were two people being held by their arms.
"Kerry that does not look good." Andrew was keeping pace with her."Gonna be a fight."
It was. Kerry could see it. She glanced at her watch and knew they had no time for it. Twenty after nine.
A policeman spotted them running, and pointed. Two military men reacted, and started forward. Kerry took it all in a series of vivid impressions. She realized she had no time to make a decision; her forward momentum was taking her toward the main steps as fast as she could run.
Soldiers ran toward them. "You--have a card you can show them Dad?" Kerry felt her breath coming shorter, and the pain made flashes of black and red on the backs of her eyeballs.
"Lord." Andrew didn't sound happy.
Kerry prepared to haul up as they were intercepted, when a motion caught her eye and she looked down the street to the back entrance, spotting a cluster of suited figures shuffling from a set of black cars.
One moment. One view. Instantly, Kerry changed course. "Hold 'em off." She called back as she bolted down the side street.
"Lord." Andrew dug in his pockets for his identification as he came to a halt in front of the military men. "Whoa there, fellas, Hang on."
Kerry kept going. She ducked between two wrecked cars, her boots tossing up puffs of ash dust as she powered along the sidewalk toward the group of people. The guards at the top of the steps spotted her and turned, and the group on the steps turned to see what was going on.
"Watch it! Stop her!" One of guards yelled. A policeman standing nearby lunged at Kerry, but missed her as she ducked past. "Hey! Stop! Stop!"
The guards pulled their guns off their shoulders, one hopping over the railing and falling to the ground with a grunt as he tried to get in between this oncoming threat and the people on the steps. "Stop!"
"Kerrison!" Cynthia Stuart blurted in surprise, as Kerry closed in on them. "What on earth!" She pushed to the front of the crowd. "Wait, stop. That's my daughter!"
The guards hesitated, just long enough for Kerry to slide past them and get to her mother's side. "Wait-- ma'am!"
"Mother." Kerry got hold of Cynthia's arm. "I have to get inside. There's no time to explain." She uttered. "Trust me, please."
Cynthia stared at her for a long heartbeat as their eyes met. Then she blinked. "Well, of course. We must go. Excuse us gentlemen. Sorry for this disturbance. I'm sure Kerrison just didn't want to be late for the opening."
Nine twenty five. Kerry barely held her impatience as they filed in the door among the group of senators, most of them looking at her with varying levels of surprise and distaste.
No time. Kerry broke from them the minute they cleared the inner door, past the guards, past the security in black jackets, past the secret service stationed carefully long the walls. She dodged a set of outstretched hands and went down a hallway, hearing yells behind her.
Ignoring them. Down a set of stairs, around a corner, and she was in the lower level again. Two doors down on the right, and she was throwing her shoulder against the surface as her hands turned the knob, almost falling inside.
Men inside. Startled, they turned, hands outstretched.
Kerry avoided them, her eyes focused on the setup in the corner, the one they'd left there, blinking quietly untouched.
Untouched.
The men were yelling at her, but all she could hear was her heartbeat thundering as she dropped to the floor and slid the last few feet,her hands wrenching at the static wrapping around the module she'd brought.
Footsteps. "Don't touch me!" Kerry yelled in warning, as she felt people closing in and her fingers felt cold steel instead of plastic. She got the optic out and shoved it into place, then grabbed for the patch cable as hands grabbed her.
Digging her boots in she leaned against the yanking, almost blacking out as a jolt of fire went through her chest. "Ahhhh!"
The pull relaxed for an instant, just enough for her to fall forward on to the router and get the end of the cables into place, shoving them home with a set of soft, unremarkable clicks.
So close to her eyes, she couldn't make out the features. For a moment, nothing happened.
"What the hell is that crazy woman doing?'
Then a soft, green light came on. It lit her face up, and as she blinked sweat out of her eyes she swore she could almost taste the green on the back of her tongue.
"Leave her be."Andrew's voice cut in, loud and uncompromising."Let her loose fore I rip your damn arms off and choke you with 'em."
Nine twenty seven.
Kerry felt the grip come off her, and she rolled over to sit on the floor, legs splayed, breathing hard, and flashes of red in her vision timed with her heartbeat. There were three men in the room aside from Andrew, and they were in logo shirts and pressed chinos.
"It's that crazy lady," the tech who'd been in the room when she'd gotten hurt blurted. "What in the hell are you doing?"
Kerry licked her lips. "Finishing what we started." She got to her knees and then had to stop.
Andrew came over and held his hands out. "Here." He took her hands and lifted her up. "You done now? This thing working?"
Kerry turned to look at the router that was now flashing with a lot of activity lights on the front. "Something's going through. Whether it works or not is in Dar's hands now."
"Wait--are you saying you're fixing this thing after all?" One of the other men stepped up. "They told us you weren't. Some guy came in here and said--there was an FBI agent here asking questions, said they were--that you--"
The tech was looking at something on his screen. "Well, something's happening because all of a sudden this stuff's trying to work,"he said. "So if those guys are going to arrest these people they probably should wait a few minutes."
"I should call them--" The man hesitated. "But if you're fixing it--"
Kerry held her hand up. "Spare me the details," she said, exhausted. "We're doing what we can." She turned to Andrew. "Let's go find my mother again. She's going to kill me for using her like I just did."