Dar traced a random pattern on her desk surface with her finger. "I'd like to agree with you." She finally said, in a quiet voice. "Except that I'm finding it hard to forget what you were being distracted by the most."
Mm. Kerry nibbled the inside of her lip. "Well."
Dar's cell phone rang. She picked it up and opened it. "Yeah?"
"Did you do that? You stopped it? What was it? Where is it? What'd you do?" Mark's words spilled out so fast and so loud Dar almost dropped her phone. "C'mon, Boss! Don't tell me it just stopped, please?"
Without answering, Dar just handed the phone over to Kerry. "Have him find whatever it is, and secure it. We'll do an analysis tomorrow."
Kerry took the phone as she watched Dar get up and wander out of the study into the living room. "Hi, Mark." She finally sighed. "I...um...found the problem. It's in the number ten switch, blade six, port thirty."
Rattling keys. "It's disabled!"
"Well, yes."
"That's the big conference room. I'll get some techs down there. What ya think--the projector system go nuts again?" Mark's voice sounded utterly relieved. "Son of a hoota...that scared the crap out of me. I thought we were getting slammed."
"We were." Kerry hardly knew how to feel inside. "I think we might have gotten something planted on us during that meeting we had here in the blackout. Remember?"
Silence. "Oh, man!" Mark nearly howled. "I had that on my schedule. I had a damn sticky note here to check... oh, crap. Crap. I'll go check it myself. Crap. Sorry, Kerry."
"S'allright."
"Call you right back." Mark hung up the line, still obviously very upset.
Kerry folded the phone shut and sat there for a moment. She heard a sound and looked up to see Dar standing in the doorway, leaning against one edge of it in almost the same pose she'd seen her in the very first time they'd met. "Did you ever think we'd come to a point where we both needed to quit?" She asked.
Dar pushed off the door jam and came over, flopping down in the couch and patting the seat next to her. Kerry got up and settled onto the cool leather, hitching one leg up over Dar's left knee. "You thought it was your fault, I thought it was my fault, Mark thinks it's his fault? The hell with it, Dar. Let's just all go open a taco stand down on Card Sound road."
"You like tacos?"
Kerry leaned against her partner. "Not particularly. I like fajitas better but a taco stand sounded easier and more fun."
"Would we have to get a Chihuahua?"
"No, but Chino would have to wear a hat." Kerry appreciated the quiet humor very much. She was upset at herself, but like Dar she was finding it very hard to regret her choices and so indulging in their light banter at least distracted her mind. "You think she'd like wearing a hat?"
"Sure." Dar leaned closer and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "Don't beat yourself up, Ker."
Kerry sighed.
"Did I ever tell you about how I found out about the outage the night you ended up coming over and helping me fix it?"
More banter. Kerry gave in and snuggled up. "The night we kissed?"
"Uh huh."
"Mm...only thing I remember about that whole thing is opening the door, seeing you in your pajamas, and forgetting what my name was."
Dar chuckled softly. "Well, the ops center called me, and told me the whole damn network was down. You know what I said to them?"
"What?"
"No problem, guys. Just go on home."
"Oh, you did not." Kerry started laughing, despite herself. "C'mon, Dar. I know you're trying to make me feel better, but really."
"Really." Dar went nose to nose with her. "I told them to go home, no sense in them sticking around if everything was down, right? Made sense to me at the time."
"Really?"Kerry tried to imagine that, and just started laughing again. "Oh my god."
Dar gave her a hug. "Let's wait to see what Mark finds, and instead of beating ourselves up, figure out how we're gonna get even."
Would they? Kerry wondered seriously if they should. Oh well.
Tomorrow would be yet another day.
"HEY UGLY!"
Andrew looked up from the crate he was methodically ripping apart; correctly assuming the voice was addressing him. "Yeap?"
The supervisor hurried over to him. "Hey listen...remember that thing you told me about those invoices? You got any more tricks like that?"
Andrew leaned on his crate and considered the man, eyeing him with shrewd thoughtfulness. "Maybe. You got something better for me to do than mess with these here boxes?"
The man chewed his lip. "Well, I could...I'd hate to lose you out here because you're the only guy I got who doesn't bitch all the time, but I could do like a half day here, and half day in the office, how about that?"
"They got coffee inside there?"
The man chuckled. "Sure."
"All right." Andy nodded. "Saw them big trucks coming in this morning."
"No kidding. All that damn high tech crap with ten thousand little pieces and no manifest. C'mon." The supervisor motioned him to follow. "Let's see what we can do so it doesn't become a cluster."
Andrew followed him willingly, leaving behind his crate full of bolts and nuts and emerging from the dockside warehouse into the sun. It was early yet on Wednesday morning, but he was glad to get out of the noisy, chaotic building with an opportunity to do something more interesting.
Not that he'd never unpacked boxes. He'd unpacked more boxes than Dar had brain cells, but the action had limited opportunity for mental exercise though it did provide plenty of physical work.
They went into the trailer being used as an office. It was small and only barely cooled by an overworked wall air conditioner, and the four men sitting at old, scarred wood desks inside it were sweating as they worked.
"Hey, Brady, gimme that file." The supervisor held a hand out, and when the tattered manila file was put in it, he promptly turned and gave it to Andy. "There...see what you can do with that stuff. Most of it's Greek to me. I know carpet, hammers, and machine parts. This stuff is just garbage."
Andy opened the folder and studied the first page. "Wall." He sniffed reflectively. "Mah kid's one of them geek types. I think ah can figger this stuff out."
"Yeah?" The supervisor sounded interested. "He want a job?"
Pale blue eyes looked up at him. "She's got one already, thanks for askin'." Andy moved over to a chair near the side of the trailer sitting down and putting the folder on his knees. What he had here, he realized after studying the papers for some minutes, was all the stuff he'd heard Dar and Kerry talking about putting in their ship. So it was a sure bet the two people working against his kids had come up with their own list and here it was. "First off." He looked over at the supervisor. "Better make up some copies so I can mark on 'em."
"Right over there." Brady, the heavyset paymaster, pointed at a paneled wall without looking up.
Andrew got up and went around the wall, finding a copy machine there. With a satisfied grunt, he set the stack of papers down on the top sorter and punched the number 2, then copy.
The super poked his head around. "Listen, I cleared off the end of the table in there. You can use that to work on, okay?"
"All right."
"Great!" The man disappeared, leaving Andy to stand and watch the copier do its work. He bounced up and down on his heels a few times, whistling softly under his breath until he heard the door slam open.
"Where the hell is that asshole?" A woman's voice rasped.
Andy's eyebrow quirked as he recognized one of the two targets he'd heard the previous day.
"Pardon me?" Brady asked in a bored voice. "You'll have to be more specific, lady. There are a lot of assholes around here."
"Heh." Andy chuckled silently. "Ain't that the damn truth?"
"Don't give me that...oh, there you are. Where's our gear?"