Dar was standing near the wall where the pipe emerged, a long piece of thin conduit in her hand and a soldering iron in the other. "Let's see."
Kerry set out the various supplies, glad she'd taken the time to go and get most of the grease off her skin so it wasn't getting all over the place. She could still smell it though, and cast a brief, wistful thought toward a nice long shower with lots of soap to scrub with.
Dar leaned the pipe against the wall and concentrated on the soldering iron, using a tiny screwdriver from the tech's tool kit to unfasten the plastic grip and remove it. She experimentally fit it into the end of the pipe, glancing up as Jason stuck his head in the hatchway. "I think this will work."
Jason eyed her. "Yes ma'am," he responded dubiously, "if you say so. Is there something else we can do in the meantime? Any prep we can do for the fiber guy?"
Dar looked around. "I need some 110 cable in here. Can you rig that while I'm duct taping and twining us into a solution for this pain in the ass problem?"
"Sure." Jason disappeared.
Kerry took the opportunity to sidle closer. "What are you doing with that hon?"
"Trying to resist the urge to bash it against the wall," Dar responded. "It's probably good they're leaving us alone in here. You're the only person I want around me right now."
Responding to the compliment, Kerry pressed her cheek against Dar's shoulder blade, then kissed it.
Dar put the pipe back against the wall and looked at the plug of thesoldering iron holding it up against the opening. It was obviously too big to fit inside. She went over to the makeshift shelf and pawed among the supplies. "I need wire nuts."
"Wire nuts," Kerry repeated. "Is that something I need to send the guys back for?"
"No." Dar removed a pair of cutters from the toolbox. "I'll just tape the damn thing." She cut off the end of the plug, then removed the extension cord from its wrapping and cut off the female end as well.
Kerry merely stood back and watched, her arms folded across her chest.
With the cutters, Dar clipped the cord in the middle of the two wires, and pulled the ends apart. She then stripped off the ends exposing the copper. She repeated the process on the end of the cable connected to the soldering iron.
Setting the cutters down, she took one of the ends from each cable and twisted it together, taking a piece of the duct tape and wrapping it around the ends. She repeated the act with the other end, then she wrapped all of it together into a neat bundle. "There."
"Okay." Kerry glanced at the pipe. "Did you want to put that through the pipe there before you connected that? Cause the other end won--sorry, sweetheart."
Dar was banging her head gently against the metal wall.
"You did such a pretty job though." Kerry picked up the other end of the extension cord and examined it. "You can do that with this end too if we cut it off, right?"
"I want ice cream," Dar sighed.
"Me too. Should I cut this off though? I got the idea." Kerry picked up the cutters. "You want to put the cable down that pipe, then plug it in, right?"
"Right."
Kerry clipped the plug off and retrieved the pipe, carefully threading the end of the cord through it and pushing it down. She continued until she got to the taped part, which she wiggled in and coaxed onward, glancing at the bottom of the pipe and smiling as she saw the end of the cord emerge. "There."
Dar fit the soldering iron into the end of the pipe and took the tape, strapping the device in as tightly as she could. "Thanks," she eyed Kerry, "my brain is a little off right now."
Kerry walked to the other end of the pipe and drew the cable out. It extended a good foot outside the pipe. She took the cutters neatly cutting the end and pulling it apart as she'd seen Dar do.
Electrical work was definitely not a general part of her skill set. In fact, she hadn't thought it was part of Dar's since her partner had contacted electricians on the few occasions they had issues either at the condo or the cabin.
However, this seemed simple enough. She picked up the plug she'd cut off and split the ends there then looked at it. "Dar, does it matter which one connects to what?"
"One of the cables has a white line," Dar answered. "White to white. Brown to brown."
"Oh." Kerry examined the cable, and proceeded. "Cool."
They worked in silence for a few minutes until Dar had the soldering iron fastened to her satisfaction. Then she set the pipe aside, coming over to Kerry's side to watch her finish taping the ends of the cable."Good job."
"First time I've ever done that," Kerry admitted. "Now what?"
"Now we wait for 110 power." Dar carefully leaned the conduit against the wall. "Then we plug that in, I stick the pole down the pipe and with any luck, I use the soldering iron to melt the cable tie."
Kerry studied the pipe then turned to look at her partner. "Dar,that's really ingenious."
"Thanks." Dar sat down on a metal shelf. "I could have tried to shear through it with a blade, but chances are I'd cut through some of the damn cabling in there and that' s the last thing we need." She exhaled as Kerry came over and put her arms around her neck, cradling the side of her face and kissing her on the cheek. "Mm."
"You're so damn smart," Kerry whispered in her ear. "I wanna be you when I grow up."
Dar let her forehead rest against Kerry's collarbone. "Know what I want?"
"More Advil?"
"That or a gun," Dar sighed. "Cause I don't think this day's ever going to end."
IT WAS COMPLETELY dark by the time their train pulled back into Penn Station halting with a jerk and a screech and the hiss of hydraulic doors preparing to open.
"Well." Alastair stood up and opened the storage bin over the seats. "That wasn't so bad."
"Nope." Andrew also stood, stretching out his long frame before he carefully lifted a box from in front of his feet and cradled it. "Glad that place wasn't but a minute from the train. That feller was looking to close up on us."
"Wasn't very friendly was he," Alastair agreed. He pulled down another big brown sack and followed Andrew as he stepped off the car and back into the lower levels of Penn Station.
"Jackass," Andrew grunted. "Like he was doin' us a favor selling this stuff." He paused to let a woman with a large child stroller move past then continued.
"Then asking twenty questions about what we're going to do with it." Alastair frowned. "What in the hell did he think we were going to do with it? Install fiber optics in our hotel room?"
"Jackass."
It was a bit quieter now, the rush hour just getting passed, and when they climbed up the brass lined stairs to the concourse there seemed to be more National Guard in the area than passengers. A number of the guards with large dogs on leashes were nearby.
Everyone walking by looked a little nervous. But the dogs merely sat there, tongues lolling, waiting to be called into whatever action they were apparently trained for.
At least it was less chaos. Alastair tucked the bag of gewgaws under his arm and was glad of the noise reduction. He gave the guardsmen a pleasant smile as they crossed the open concourse and headed for the hallway that would eventually take them to the escalator and outside.
"Long day," he commented. They entered the main part of the station, a large, high ceilinged space with several branch corridors and plenty of signage pointing to trains and subways in three different directions.
"Got that right," Andrew agreed as they headed up another hall. He glanced to one side and then paused. "Goin' to get me a hot dog. You want one?" He indicated a shop to one side.
Alastair looked past him to a cluttered gathering of fast food marquees, all crammed into one low ceilinged space. "Why, sure," he said. "Been a long time since lunch."
Andrew went inside and set his box down on a table near the hot dog counter. He removed his wallet from his back pocket and advanced on the woman behind the counter, turning his head as he stopped. "You want one with all them things on it?"