“Dar?” Kerry watched her bemusedly. “When was the last time you were here?”
Dar thought about it. “Jesus...has it been ten years?” She shook her head and took a left, then put a hand on the first right-hand door and pulled it open. “I can’t believe it.”
Kerry glanced at the doorplate, which said “Computer Operations—Do Not Enter.”
“You’re telling me they haven’t moved anything in ten years?”
Dar looked at the plate, then at her. “Ten years? Kerry, there are some government offices that haven’t changed in over two hundred.
C’mon.” She followed her lover into a suite of offices that had a darker shade of carpet and colder air.
Now it was Kerry’s turn to twitch her nose. “That’s not mimeograph fluid I smell, is it?”
Dar chuckled, walking past her toward an office with a thick wooden doorframe and a scarred wooden door.
Perched outside it was a small desk, occupied by a dour-looking woman with curly dark hair and an attitude three times larger than she was. She intercepted them as they walked forward. “Ms. Roberts?”
Dar regarded her soberly. “Yes.”
“Commander Albert is in a meeting. He asked me to fill in for him,”
the woman stated flatly. “My name is Perkins, and I’m the data center manager.” She stood up. “We have a full schedule, so if you’d like to give me a list of what you want, I’ll see what I can do.”
Dar flicked her eyes over the much shorter woman, then simply walked past her, heading down a small corridor toward a set of double doors.
“Ma’am?” The data center manager bolted after her. “Ma’am, that area’s off limits.”
Dar just kept walking, stiff-arming the doors open and letting them close behind her, almost slapping her pursuer in the face. Kerry sighed and followed, catching one door as their naval guide blasted through them. Inside was a large room filled with mainframes, some of which, she realized, were perilously close to being an older vintage than she was.
“Ms. Roberts, I need to ask you to leave, or I’ll have to call the guard,” the data center manager stated fiercely.
“Go ahead.” Dar turned abruptly and faced her, showing her edgier Red Sky At Morning 69
side. “You call the guard, I call the Pentagon.” She took out her cell phone and opened it. “Because frankly, Lieutenant, I’ve had about enough BS for one morning, and I just got here.”
“This is a secure area,” Perkins shot back. “You are a civilian, and this is off limits; I don’t care how many generals you know.” Pause.
“Ma’am.”
“Look.” Kerry eased between them. “Lieutenant Perkins, I know this is seriously messing up your day.” She smiled kindly at her. “And I know that Commander Albert probably told you to be as big a pain in the ass to us as possible, but that’s okay, because Dar and I are used to that.”
The lieutenant eyed her warily.
“Most of the time when we’re doing this, the people we’re working with are scared silly we’re going to fire them, and sometimes we do,”
Kerry went on. “But you’d do us and yourself a favor if you’d just relax and let us do our jobs. Things will go much faster, and we’ll be out of your hair before you know it.”
The woman stiffened a little, bringing her head just slightly above Kerry’s. “We have a job to do here. Everything works, and we don’t need a couple of outsiders coming in and changing things,” she replied.
“I don’t have time to explain these systems to you. So why don’t you do yourselves a favor and just get the hell out of here.”
“Because we’re being paid to be here, just like you are,” Kerry explained gently. “And frankly, Lieutenant, you don’t have to explain anything to us. Between Ms. Roberts and myself, we’ve got enough certifications to plaster every square inch of the walls in here, so why don’t you just go over there and sit down and stay out of our way.”
The three junior operators in the room had become silent, radar-eared statues, staring at their screens and watching the reflections of the three women behind them.
DAR PUT HER briefcase down and unzipped it. “If we’re done with the first round of jousting, I’m gonna get the analyzer up and connected and start running first- and second-level tests.” She pulled out a coil of network cable and booted up her laptop. “If you’d like to do something other than stand there gaping, Lieutenant, you can get me a list of subsystems and running job streams.”
Without a word, the woman turned and walked out, letting the doors swish shut behind her with a vindictive sound.
“I’ll take that as a no.” Dar continued her task. She looked around and caught one of the console ops staring at her, a look of mixed awe and admiration on his face. “Would you like to run that for me?”
The sailor grinned at her wholeheartedly. “Yes, ma’am, I would.”
Dar grinned back and winked at him. “Smart boy.”
The other console operator turned in her seat and folded her arms 70 Melissa Good over the back of it. “Who are you people?” She was a willowy thin woman with straight, russet hair and an innocent face. Her voice was soft, and thickly Southern.
Kerry, who was closest to her, held out a hand. “Kerry Stuart, and that’s my boss, Dar Roberts.” She shook the red-haired woman’s hand with a firm grip. “Our company’s been asked to come in and see what we can do to make your lives easier.”
“You just did,” the third operator drawled softly. “Lieut’s been on the warpath all week, driving us half crazy.”
“Well, that’s probably our fault,” Kerry told him. “I know your leadership isn’t too happy we’re here, because they think we’re going to find all kinds of things they’re going to get blamed for. But that’s not what our plan is.”
“It’s not?” the girl asked.
“Nope.” Dar studied the results on her laptop screen. “The government’s looking to spend some money here, we’re gonna help them.” Her brow creased.
“Why’re they all freaking out, then?” the towheaded man closest to Dar asked.
The lines of data flashed before her eyes. “You know, that’s a good question.” Dar looked up at Kerry.
“People get comfortable with things, Dar. They don’t like change,”
her lover reminded her. “Even if the change is good.”
“Mm.” Dar finished her capture and closed her laptop. “That’s all I need here for now. Let’s see if we can get into the command and control center.” She gave the operators a half wave. “We’ll be back.”
Kerry heard the whispers and muffled laughs as they left, and she shook her head. She had a feeling this was going to be an uphill battle all the way.
And they were wearing Roller Blades.
DAR PUT HER briefcase down on the scarred wooden conference table and sat, folding her hands together. Kerry took a seat to her right, and the two Navy officers settled opposite them. “We’ve finished our initial review,” Dar said. “I’ve identified three main systems that need replacement of hardware, and I’m going to recommend installation of a new infrastructure to support that.”
Albert and Perkins exchanged glances, but didn’t comment. Kerry could almost read their minds, which were buzzing along the lines of
‘not as bad as we thought.’ “I’ll have the proposal transmitted to the Pentagon by tomorrow,” she told her boss. “And an estimated timeline for install.”
“All right,” Commander Albert said. “You can coordinate with Lieutenant Perkins for that.”
Dar nodded. “That was the easy part.”