"Okay," the Sprint rep said, after a long pause. "So, what are our options? I've got twenty customers leaving voice mails for me every ten minutes."
"We all do," the MCI rep agreed. "Except you people." He glanced across the table at Alastair and Dar. "Bet you're glad they're not your customers."
"Well now." Alastair settled back in his chair. "You're right. I don't have a dog in this hunt. We'd be happy enough to be one of your customers calling and bugging you, but as it happens the folks in Washington did hear we have some experience in this type of thing and asked us to stop by."
"Really? Chuck didn't say that."
"Not sure he knew," Alastair admitted.
"So." Dar picked up the ball. "Let's discuss what the possibilities are. If there are any."
THEY CLUSTERED INTO the demarc room, only six of them this time as the rest waited outside. Dar was there along with Mark, the reps from the three telcos, and one of the techs who worked in the Exchange
Kerry found a bit of wall to lean against between Alastair and Andrew. "What a mess."
"You could squeeze in there if you wanted to." Alastair pointed at the room. "See what's going on."
"Nah." Kerry shook her head. "This is Dar's ballpark." She paused,the word triggering a memory. "Ballpark. We were supposed to play our first practice game today."
"Eh?"
"We joined a corporate softball league. Today's Saturday right? We were supposed to all meet at the park today and see how bad we all are at playing ball." She let her head rest against the wall. "Sorry I'm not there I'd even enjoy striking out and falling on my ass right now."
Andrew patted her shoulder. "Can't last forever, Kerry. We'll be getting on home soon, for sure."
Kerry rubbed her eyes. "I hope so."
"This really stinks, doesn't it?" Alastair asked. "What in the blazes are we all doing here?"
"S'what I asked Dar," Andrew said. "Leave these here people to fix their own problems. They give me a hive." He added, "don't 'preciate nothing nobody does for them, like it's owed."
Kerry thought about that. "Well," she said, after a moment. "I think maybe they do. I think they expect everyone to go the last mile for the city, because of what happened."
"True enough." Alastair allowed. "But does that mean we throw off all our own responsibilities to take on theirs?"
Andrew and Kerry looked at Alastair. "I think that's your call, isn't it?" Kerry asked. She studied the older man's face, which was tired looking and smudged with dust. "Can we just walk away from this?"
Alastair thought for a moment, his eyes going a little unfocused as he considered the question. "Sure would be nice to go home, huh?"
Kerry flashed back to that underground nightmare, and the strong desire it had spurred in her to turn and run, and keep on running right back to the warm sun and blue skies waiting for her back home.
Home. Miami was home now in a way Michigan had never been. "It would," she replied softly. "It's not that I don't want to help those guys in there. I don't think it will end up being worth anything to us."
"Hm." Alastair rubbed his nose. "Not sure we should expect any worth out of it. There is something to be said for public service. We don't always get a return on an investment, at least not in the short term. I have a feeling if we turn our backs on these bastards, we'll suffer in the long term." He paused. "Not fair, really."
"Jackasses," Andrew muttered.
"Let me go see what's going on." Kerry pushed away from the wall and headed over to the doorway, more to give Alastair room to think than because she thought she would be of any help inside. She eased into the space, spotting Dar's tall form to one side as her partner pointed out something.
She could sense the tension in the room. With a gentle "excuse me", she edged behind the Sprint rep and came up behind Dar, finding a spot between her and the wall that was just about the right size for her to fit into.
With a gentle clearing of her throat, she fit into it.
Dar sensed her, stepping back and draping an arm over her shoulders with a complete lack of self consciousness. "Hey Ker."
"Hey." Kerry hoped the layer of dust on her skin masked the mild blush. "How's it going?" She studied the demarc, rows and rows of telecom cards in shallow racks festooned with tags in a rainbow of different colors.
Dar shook her head. "Hard to say where to even start," she admitted. "It's not just communications with the rest of the exchanges. Data comes in here from all over the world."
"Yeah," the tech from the Exchange said. "That's what I was trying to explain to those other guys." He walked over to the wall. "This stuff's just here in the financial district. It's all local point to point." He indicated one rack. "This goes to the banking system. This goes to the major
trading houses in, like, forty cities."
He slapped the wall. "None of it's working."
The MCI rep put his hands on his hips. "I don't think we can do this. Even if we bring in a full sat setup, there's not enough transponder space up above to handle the traffic."
"They'd never let you anyway," the Exchange tech said. "The trading houses, and the other exchanges...the foreign ones, they've got security on this stuff big time."
Charles exhaled. "That's true. Most of those tie lines are ours. I've already had a call from London and Hong Kong."
"We had enough trouble getting space on the sat to relay our mobile cell units down here," the Sprint rep said. "They're jammed."
"They are." Kerry spoke up. "We've got a majority of the transponder space up there and we're using it for our customers."
The men turned and looked at her, then looked back at the maze of wires. "So what the hell are we doing here?" Charles asked. "Let's tell them we can't do it. What can they do? I'm already toast and I don't have an ass left--begging your pardon..." He glanced at Kerry. "For them to chew anymore."
Kerry looked at all the tags, then she glanced up at Dar. "What are our options, boss?"
Dar regarded the mass of wires. "Our options? Our options are which direction we're going to drive the bus out of here on our way out of town, unfortunately. We can't fix this."
The rest of the men nodded in simultaneous agreement.
"No way?" Kerry nudged. "Nothing at all we can do? I sure got the impression from the White House that this was really important. "
"It is important," the Exchange tech spoke up again. "If the market doesn't open, that's a huge amount of money tied up that can't go anywhere."
"Can't they do it by hand?" Dar asked. "Y'know, computers are a lot younger than this building."
"You got to be kidding me," the tech said, in chorus with Charles and the MCI guy.
"Guess not," Kerry murmured. "Dar, there has to be something we can do. Even to bring up basic services. Isn't there?"
Dar removed her arm and put both hands in the pockets of her coveralls, tilting her head to one side as she gave the question its just due. Everyone waited respectfully in silence, until she cleared her throat and shrugged slightly.
"Think of something?" Kerry could tell, by the body language alone, what the answer was.
"Won't fly," Dar demurred. "The only way we could help out is if we get a trunk line from here over to Roosevelt Island. That's our closest node." She went on. "You'd have to do it underground."
"Impossible," the Exchange tech said, immediately. "Especially not without the union guys. I can't even get in a manhole without paying them through the nose."
"We'd never get the clearance," the MCI rep said. "He's right. That's all Verizon right of way and there's no way they'll let us run cable in there. Not taking money out of their pocket. I wouldn't either."He added. "If it was me."
Charles looked thoughtful. "Okay, it's impossible," he said. "But what if we could do it? What would that get us? It gets us to your network. That's private. We all know it."