Then she considered. Siamese fighting fish. Her fingers drummed against her thigh. Maybe that won’t be so bad after all. She grinned. Here, José, give me your finger. Oops, did I prick you? Sorry, didn’t realize I was holding a needle. Oh, here, just put your finger in here to wash it off. “Heh heh.”
“What’s so funny?” Kerry was busy picking out two of the biggest, prettiest fighting fish she could find.
“Oh, nothing.” Dar cupped her chin in her hand. “You up for some lunch after this? I’m starved.”
Kerry gave her a look, then gathered her choices and proceeded towards the checkout lane. “Sure. What’d you have in mind?”
“Dunno.” Dar chuckled softly to herself. “How about some burgers?”
“Mmm, okay,” the blonde woman agreed. “Did you get some shrimp for your fish?”
Dar juggled the box. “Yep. Do you know what these really are?” she asked teasingly.
Kerry peered at the container. “Yes, brine shrimp.” She got to the counter and put her stuff down.
“Nope, they’re Sea Monkeys.” Dar took possession of her fish and their case, and pulled out her credit card, passing it over to the woman. She took advantage of the fact that Kerry was staring, aghast, at her fish’s food, to make a circling gesture over Kerry’s fish too and give the clerk a smile.
“Sea Monkeys?” Kerry squeaked. “Those cute little things that have families and do tricks?” She grabbed the container. “Dar, you can’t feed your fish Sea Monkeys!”
Dar snatched it back. “Yes, I can.” She gave her companion a piratical grin. “Just be glad you didn’t talk me in to a python.”
Kerry stared at her. “What do they eat?”
362 Melissa Good
“Bunnies,” Dar told her seriously as she took the slip from the clerk and signed her name. “Nice fluffy ones.”
“Eeewwww!” her shorter companion let out a squeal. Then she turned to the clerk. “Do they?”
The clerk nodded sadly at her. “Oh yes, ma’am. And they go down tail first, the last thing you see is their twitching little noses.”
“That’s it.” Kerry slapped her hand on the counter. “I’m out of here.” She looked up expectantly. “How much?”
The clerk glanced at her, then up at Dar. “Um…” She cleared her throat.
“I took care of it,” Dar said quietly. “You were too busy squealing.”
Kerry put her hands on her hips and looked first at the clerk, then at Dar.
“I will get you for that,” she warned, then shook her head. “Thank you,” she added, picking up the bags. “Now, let’s get out of here before you start telling me they feed the parrots live mice.” She stalked out, leaving Dar to exchange amused looks with the clerk, and pick up her own purchases. Dar strolled out after her, feeling quite pleased with herself—for several reasons.
IT WAS CLOUDING over by the time they got back to Kerry’s apartment, and Dar tipped her dark head back to regard the clouds as they walked towards the door. “Looks like a front’s coming through.” The wind rose and whipped their hair around them. “Good thing we’re not out on the water, this could get nasty.”
“Brr.” Kerry hopped up on the sidewalk. “I must be getting used to the warmth down here, that wind feels cool.”
Dar only barely kept herself from wrapping a friendly arm around the smaller woman. Jesus, Dar. she admonished herself. What the hell happened to the ‘I don’t like to be touched’ person you used to be? All it takes is one five-foot-four-inch blonde with pretty eyes to turn you into a huge, dripping pile of mush? “Yeah,”
she commented simply.
“Well…” Kerry keyed in her new code and opened the door, standing back to let Dar enter. “I, um…” Suddenly, she didn’t want Dar to go home.
“Hey, I picked up some stuff the other night, to try a new recipe. You game?”
There was so much she had to do at home, Dar reflected. Work lists and projects she had to take care of. She could see the imperfectly hidden hopefulness in Kerry’s eyes, though, and she smiled inwardly. “I’d love to, but I’ve got to log in and take care of some stuff.”
Kerry smiled happily. “Computer’s all yours. I’ll get the fish put away.”
She gestured toward her desk, and moved past it to put the packages down on the dining room table. “Listen, I picked up a copy of the X-files movie. We could watch that afterward.”
Dar settled into the comfortable desk chair and flipped the computer on, cracking her knuckles lightly. It felt good to be part of someone else’s plans for a change. “Hmm, I’d like that.” She waited for the connection to complete, then logged in and set her mail to downloading while she started up a session with the mainframe. “Oh, crap.” She reviewed an Urgent Notify. “Ouch.”
Kerry finished tucking the containers of fish into the tank without opening them, allowing the temperatures to equalize, then she wandered over Tropical Storm 363
and peered at the screen. “What’s wrong?”
“Damned airline tried to backup its print servers…and blew one.” Dar sighed. “All of domestic printing is down for them.”
“What does that mean?” Kerry asked curiously.
“You ever check in at an airline counter?” Dar asked as she flicked through the report.
“Sure.” Kerry laughed. “A lot of times. Why?”
“You ever need a boarding pass?”
“Yeah.”
“You ever need your bags tagged?”
“Sure.”
“You see all those lists the stews check passengers off on?”
“Um…”
“Ever had to buy a ticket at the counter?”
“I’m getting a clue here, Dar.” Kerry patted her shoulder. “What do they do if this stuff’s down?”
“Hand write everything.”
Kerry blinked. “Oh my god, I’m glad I’m not at Newark.”
Dar turned her head and gently kissed the hand resting on her shoulder.
“Me too. It’s going to be a lousy night to fly.” Mushball. The hand lifted and caressed her cheek. “This close to the holidays, too.”
“Can you do anything?” Kerry asked, enjoying the feel of her soft skin.
About what? Dar wondered. Oh, right. The printers. “Well, it’s their server.
We just carry the data.”
“They don’t have a backup?” Kerry asked. “Where are those servers?”
“Charlotte. They maintain them long distance.” Dar leaned back against her.
“Do we have a backup we can lend them?”
Dar crossed her arms and thought. “Hmm. Damn thing’s a beast box—
quad Pentium II, hundred twenty eight megs of ram. They have a RAID five array on the thing, and normally they’d just plug the array into the backup box. But they upgraded the operating system on the primary and hadn’t gotten around to doing the backup yet. And, they have different controller cards.”
“Not supported?” Kerry winced.
“Nope. They’d need a duplicate of their existing box.” She closed her eyes and concentrated. “Let me think.”
Kerry obliged, massaging her neck lightly with a gentle touch. “When we were doing the Disney project, I thought we had some pretty powerful resources up there—those Alpha boxes I was plugging into, for instance.”