"You can't just hook this stuff up to a generator," he replied, after a long hesitation. "It just doesn't work like that. You can't fathom the complexity of this stuff, and I..."
Kerry walked right around his desk and grabbed him by the shirtfront, shocking them both. "I can't fathom it? I can't fathom it? Who in the hell do you think you're talking to, the operations vice president of Publix? Jesus Christ, Barry! I've got more complex technology sitting in my living room than you have in this place!"
His eyes widened. "Hey, now listen. Let go of me!"
Kerry did, but she didn't step back. Dar's words were ringing in her head like sea-bells and it was all she could do not to just keep shaking the man until he gave in to her. "Barry, use your head. Get me off your back. Just do it."
"I can't."
"You can," Kerry insisted.
"Kerry, for the sake of god, I can't. It'll be my job!"
Kerry leaned over him, wishing she had Dar's presence. "You will." She nailed him with a look right in the eyes. "Or it'll be your job any way. I swear it."
Would he believe her? Kerry forced herself to hold her gaze steady and cold, offering him no compromise. Her guts were clenching inside, and she only hoped it wasn't showing.
He straightened up and took a breath to answer, only to release it partially as his shoulders slumped. "Kerry, it's not that easy. C'mon now. You can't just plug in one of those things to a damn generator. What if it blows the boards? Then what?"
Ah. Kerry felt the success, like that momentary give in a tug of war when you knew your team was about to break the grunting muddy stalemate, and start to move in the right direction. "Then you hand me a bill," she agreed readily. "I'll take responsibility for the decision."
He leaned forward. "You know how much money you're talking about?"
"Yes, I do." She tilted her head just a little, and gentled her expression. "C'mon, Barry. Get rid of me. You know I have to do it."
Barry relaxed in defeat. "What the hell." He lifted both hands off his chair arms and let them drop. "I'm screwed anyway. I was the dumb bastard who forgot to schedule the maintenance on that freaking backup system."
Kerry felt sweat roll down the back of her neck, and she spared a moment of tired sympathy for him. "Thanks, Barry. Let me get my guys rolling on this." She hesitated. "You got anyone else that's as big a pain in the ass as I am? I can see if we have enough power to share some."
He shook his head after a second. "I wouldn't know where to even start."
"Okay." Kerry turned and headed for the door, already reaching for her cell phone. She keyed the radio button on it. "Mark?"
"Yeah?" a slightly apprehensive voice answered.
"Go," Kerry instructed, now at last wiping the sweat off her face with one hand. "Pull the truck around back. No sense in giving the news people something else to shoot." She looked around for the emergency exit, spotting it on the back of one wall in the gloom. It was hot and very stuffy inside the central office, and eerily empty of workers.
No sense, she had to agree. Why pay for techs to stand around and look at non-functional equipment? With a deep sigh, she hit the door release and opened it, finding some mild relief in the cooler evening air that brushed against her.
Finding a broken piece of punch down block handy, she blocked the door open with it and leaned against the back wall of the building, waiting for Mark and her crew to arrive. She kicked a bit of slate with one toe, glad she'd taken the time to change into jeans and a short sleeved shirt before coming.
Even that was too hot, but anything else risked compromising her ability to project her authority in a serious way, and Kerry wasn't that stupid. She let her eyes close for a minute, the stress of the long day weighing on her heavily.
Then the rumbling of the approaching motor jogged her into straightening up. She brushed off the fatigue and walked to meet Mark as he pulled up close to the building in the rented panel truck, putting the back of the vehicle next to the emergency door.
"Hey, boss." Mark looked as ratty as Kerry felt. He opened the door and jumped out, circling the truck to open the back and let four other techs out into the muggy night air. "Sorry about the ride, guys."
"Shit." One of them rubbed his head. "Oh." He winced, spotting Kerry. "Sorry, ma'am."
"Shit about covers it," Kerry responded. "Okay." She peered into the truck. "Six. Good."
"All they had," Mark explained. "These are the big ones. Most of the small ones were gone already. You know how people are. Lucky we're halfway through the season."
"Right." Kerry studied the machines. "How many to run the one switch inside, Mark?"
"Lemme check." Mark scooted inside the building, pulling out his flashlight as he ducked inside the door. "Holy crap, it's steaming in here!" He poked his head back out. "Hey...I'm not sure we can run those things even if we do juice 'em up. They'll overheat."
Shit. Kerry thumped against the truck, a sense of sick horror coming over her. "Find out what they'll need," she told Mark, to give her a moment to think.
Idiot. Of course they need cooling. She blinked a droplet of sweat from her eyes. Why hadn't she thought of that? Kerry let her head rest against the metal wall. Maybe she'd gotten too used to letting Dar do her thinking for her?
A draft of cool air blew into her face, and she looked inside the truck, sticking her hand into the dark bay. She stepped back and looked at the side, spotting the boast of an air conditioned truck bed. "You got a flashlight?" she asked the tech nearest her.
"Um...sure." The curly-haired tech handed it over.
Kerry turned it on and flashed it over the interior of the truck, spotting the large air conditioning unit near the ceiling. "Okay." She saw Mark emerge. "What's the deal?"
He shrugged. "We can do it with one of these suckers." He indicated the generators. "No problem, but it won't stay up more than ten minutes, boss. I..." He hesitated. "I shoulda thought of that."
"Why? Even they didn't." Kerry exhaled, pointing inside. "At least, they never mentioned it. So maybe they figured we'd figure out a way around that, too."
"Yeah." Mark frowned.
"So we'll have to. Listen." Kerry pushed away from the truck. "Here's the plan. Mark--set these four up and get them going. Figure out what we need to connect them all in series, but use one at a time so we can keep them running longer. When one runs out of gas we switch to the second, but we can't drop any power."
"Uh..."
"When you figure out what you'll need for that, surge boxes or whatever, call me at Home Depot. I'll be there buying air conditioning duct and duct tape so we can run the truck all night and pipe some air in there." She pointed. "Okay? Thanks. Call me."
She turned and headed for her car, knowing she'd left slack jawed employees behind her. Reaching her Lexus, she popped the door locks and hopped inside, starting up the SUV and closing the door as the air conditioning promptly bathed her in a very welcome chill.
Would Mark figure that all out? Kerry wondered. If they didn't find a way to keep things going, it'd be useless. Dropping the lines every couple hours while they refilled the diesel just wasn't going to cut it. "One thing at a time, Ker." She reminded herself, putting the car in gear with a determined expression. "What was that Dar once said? Mouthful at a time and you can eat an entire whale, tail and all?"
She turned the car onto the road carefully, since the signals were out along with everything else. The power outage had been so severe the power company hadn't even been able to project a fix for it. Too much damage had been done to too much of the infrastructure when a freak collapse of a transfer station had sent power back the wrong way up the lines into the grid.
So, she had to come through here. They had to come through. There wasn't any choice--the pressure was building and she'd started getting more and more calls from their clients frustrated with lack of, or slowness of, service to their vital resources.