"Can you take all the monitoring from Miami ops?"
"We're setting up consoles now."
"Mari, go ahead and tell everyone to leave the building," Kerry said. "I honestly don't think Miami's a target, but who the hell knows, and it's better not to take a chance."
"You got it."
"Mark, see if the tech can find Danny," Kerry said. "Get a text blast out and see if we can get a count of people out there."
"Working it."
"This is Sufir in Dubai," a voice very quietly broke in. "I know there is not much that we can do, but we are all thinking about all of you there and wishing with all our hearts the danger stops quickly."
"Miami Financial," Duks' voice broke in. "Houston, please stand by we're syncing the accounting systems."
"Standing by," the Houston Ops tech said.
Kerry looked up at the television, aware that her sister and brother were half listening to it, and half to her as pictures continued to roll along the screen, more smoke, more screaming people, more destruction.
Where would it end?
What if it didn't?
"COFFEE?"
Dar glanced up from her screen to find a server there, standing with a tray of steaming cups. "Thank you." She accepted one, and set it down, nodding as the server placed a small dish with four sugar cubes next to it, and a container of cream.
Alastair was still sitting next to her, one hand cupped over his ear, the other pressed against his cell phone. The television was on and Hans, John, and Francois were seated at the nearby desks watching the screen with expressions of bewildered disbelief.
"All right, thanks." Alastair closed his phone and turned back to Dar. "So where are we?" He picked up a set of ear buds connected to the second jack on Dar's laptop and inserted one in his ear. "Kerry's doing a hell of a job."
Dar nodded.
"Never seen her work before. Very impressive."
Dar nodded again.
"Dar?"
She looked up at him. "Sorry," she murmured. "Aside from all our people, I'm worried about my friend Gerry Easton."
Alastair's face tensed. "Ah. That's right. He works at the Pentagon, doesn't he?" He studied the screen. "What a goddamned mess."
Dar reached over to drop three of the cubes into her coffee cup, stirring the liquid with the provided spoon before she added cream to it. "So many damn people unaccounted for."
Alastair sighed. "What do we have down in that area?"
"Mostly commercial," Dar said. "Closest net node is near Penn Station." She leaned closer to the screen, listening as voices now echoed again.
"Hello? Hello? This is Sherren again."
Kerry's voice answered. "Sherren? Did you get out of the office? Where are you?"
"I did, but you can't get anywhere," Sherren said. "I'm near Central Park though, at a Starbucks."
"Miami ops," Mark's voice sounded. "Kerry, I've gotten the blasts out to DC and NY," he said. "I'm only getting about fifty percent positives."
Everyone went quiet, and Alastair briefly closed his eyes.
"Well," Kerry said, "you know the cell systems are pretty overloaded, Mark. Let's wait and see what happens before we assume anything."
"Oh!" Sherren suddenly said. "Hey, it's Larry. Larry! Over here! I'm online!"
Dar studied the traffic patterns on the network screen behind all the chatter. She could see the bare bones chat window filled with lines of talk, the employees online who were not participating in the conference bridge sharing with each other in this remarkable time.
"Network looks pretty stable," Alastair commented. "But that shouldn't surprise anyone."
Dar glanced at the keyboard, then turned her head and looked at him, one eyebrow lifted.
"Well, I have seen you work before," her boss said. "So what's our plan here? Can we send help out to Virginia and New York? I know it's early yet--"
"OH MY GOD!"
Both of them jerked upright as though they'd been shot, and turned back to the screen.
"Good lord!" John blurted. "Look!"
"It's falling! Oh my god! Oh my god!" Sherren was yelling at the top of her lungs. "Oh my god! The whole tower! It's falling down!"
Dar's heart rate shot up as she found herself unsure of where to look first. The television screen showed a scene of unreal destruction, hundreds of stories of the World Trade Center collapsing in on itself as though taken down by an expert demolition team.
People were running.
People were screaming.
The air was full of thick, choking gray dust filled with debris that flowed and rushed over everything, leaving a landscape behind that must have been what Pompeii had been like just before the end.
Lunar. Horrifying
She stood up behind the desk, staring at the screen, unable to imagine actually being there and realizing she had been, the cross streets now covered in debris, places she'd walked on her last visit. "Damn."
"Son of a bitch," Alastair added, standing at her shoulder.
Hans covered his eyes, and then shook his head, opening his fingers to look at the screen again. "Mein Gott," he said. "Die ganzen Leute hinein."
Dar remembered, then, suddenly, the moment after the explosion in the hospital when she'd been on the floor, lying in something like that same gray dust, in a completely different world.
Slowly she sat down and rested her elbows on her knees, and after a moment, Alastair perched on the edge of the desk, gazing quietly down at his shoes.
"Miami ops," Mark said. "Kerry, we're almost evacuated here."
"Miami ops, this is Houston ops," the Houston group broke in. "We are showing large scale outages now in lower New York."
"Miami exec, this is Herndon." Another voice. "We've had a request to activate the emergency circuits for Cheyenne, and add seventy two more channels to the tie lines."
It took a second, and then Kerry answered. "Ah," she said. "Sorry. Herndon, go ahead. Take standby circuits 2105 through 2110 and shut down the failover."
"Miami HR." Mari's voice. "Sorry to break in, but we're out of the building except for a few people."
"Miami exec, Miami ops." Mark's voice. "I'm staying."
Sir Melthon entered his eyes wide. "Did you see that?" He pointed at the screen. "Never in my life have I seen the like of it." He turned. "Got your things from the hotel, and they're settled here. Anything else we can do?"
Alastair sat back down in the chair and rested his elbow on the arm of it, propping his head up on his fingertips. "Got any good Scotch?'
Melthon snorted with wry understanding. "Of course we do. What do you think this is, America?" He snapped his fingers at one of the servers. "Bring me a bottle of the Talisker and a couple of dirty glasses."
"Sir." The man inclined his head, and scooted off.
Dar turned back to the screen, and settled the bud more firmly in her ear as she heard her partner's voice, sounding more than a little stressed.
"Miami ops, Miami exec. Mark, please shut down the center and leave," Kerry said. "The last person we need something to happen to is you. Work from home."
"Miami exec, you're not here, and you can't make me leave," Mark said, in a firm voice.
Dar keyed her mic for the first time. "I can," she said. "Get your ass out of there before I have my father drive over and smack you over the head and drag you out."
Totally against protocol. However, Dar figured the two people involved would know who was speaking without her announcing who and where she was and, given that the apocalypse was showing on television at the moment, who really cared anyway?
There was a moment of somewhat shocked silence. Then Kerry sighed audibly. "Boy, is it ever good to hear your voice," she said, in an achingly sincere tone.
Alastair chuckled softly under his breath as Dar's face tensed into a mildly embarrassed half grin.
"Uh...okay, boss, I'm leaving," Mark responded meekly. "I don't want your pop thumping me," he said. "Or you thumping me."