"Sure." Mark hopped off the barstool he had perched on and brought the map over. He handed it to Dar then stepped back out of the way.
"Thanks." Dar opened the map and spread it on the bar, studying it for a moment. "Okay." She turned to the white board again. "Here's where we were today." She marked a spot on the map. "That's Cortland Street. Here's the disaster site." She marked a large square. "Here's where the triple pop was, and Verizon's Central Office."
Kerry watched in fascination while sipping her drink. Dar's sense of space had always intrigued her. She'd seen her partner draw underwater diagrams with a three dimensional precision that was amazing. Now, she laid out the diagram with absolute sureness.
"Now." Dar moved on to the east side of the island. "Here's Roosevelt Island. The subway comes in here and then the line that goes through there comes back around this side down to here." She tapped her marker on the map. "If they bring it up Lexington Avenue, to Central Park, they can come down the tunnel here, and they'll end up not that far from our node."
"That's a hell of a long way." Alastair protested. "Not that it looks that far on that board, but Dar, I've been on that side of the city. You're not talking about a trivial effort here."
"I know." Dar juggled the marker in her hand, flipping it end from end."You didn't ask me if it was reasonable or likely--just if it was possible."
Kerry was about to voice her doubts about the possibility of it happening at all when her mind flashed back to a rainy night in the Carolinas and her jaws clicked shut.
It was possible. Dar wouldn't have bothered discussing it if she thought it wasn't. Whether or not those other guys could achieve it was another question, but it was a question Kerry wasn't sure she should be asking.
It wasn't their problem.
"That's a crazy amount of work." Mark spoke up. "If those guys have the reels, then maybe, but I don't think they can get through all that red tape, Dar. I heard those guys from the phone company talking and they're not into it at all."
"Well." Dar went to the bar and sat down on a stool. "Governor or no governor, I'm not going down there and do it for them," she said, quietly. "This is their city. It's their customers. I'm not crawling around in a tube kicking rats out of the way on their behalf."
Kerry nodded in relief. "Dar, I'll go wherever you go, but I don't want to do that either. Being under there today freaked me out."
"Right there with you," Mark said.
Alastair sipped his scotch. "I can work with that." He decided. "Let me get hold of Ham and we'll go see that damn jackass again."
"Somebody call me?" Hamilton Baird entered the back of the bus,wiping his hands off on his handkerchief. "Why, hello there you all. Gentlemen. Ladies." He glanced at Dar. "Maestro."
"Just talking about you Ham," Alastair said. "Dar's got a plan.We've got to go sell it."
"Now that's different," Ham drawled. "Ah got to tell you, Dar, I heard from those people down at Crisis on the Bay, or whatever they're calling that junk shop on the Hudson, and they do think you're just the cat's meow."
"Thanks," Dar said.
"Did you really do something with a welder?"
"Soldering iron." Kerry supplied. "It really was pretty spectacular and brilliant, but that's pretty typical of Dar."
Dar looked at her, eyes widening a little.
"Do tell?" Hamilton half turned toward her, a humorous tone in his voice.
"When we're done with the chit chat, we've got a jackass to go see," Alastair said.
Hamilton paused at the sandwich tray. "Do I have a New York minute to swallow this like a civilized man or should I have this lovely young lady put it in a blender and make it a smoothie for me?
"Eat." Alastair waved a hand at him.
Hamilton picked up his sandwich and his drink and wandered to the front of the bus where a television was playing. After a moment, Alastair got up and followed him.
Mark dusted off his hands. "I'm gonna go see what routers I've got to mess with left back there." He unlatched the back door and disappeared, leaving Dar and Kerry alone in the small seating section.
They were both quiet for a moment, just looking at each other. Then Kerry got up and moved over to Dar's chair, taking a seat on the arm and leaning along the back.
"Children?" Dar rested her head against Kerry's shoulder. "You crack me up."
"Sorry." Kerry ran the fingers of her free hand through Dar's hair."My brain is running in circles. Can they really do this, Dar?"
"Probably not," she conceded. "It would be like us running a cable from the office in Miami to our house. Possible, but pretty damn unlikely"
"Can they get it to our office at the Rock? We could take some of the traffic there, and not go all the way across to Roosevelt." Kerry suggested. "It's a little closer."
Dar considered that. "Which one of us is spectacular and brilliant?" she asked. "I forgot all about that. I have extra capacity at the office. We might be able to take part of the traffic there." She closed her eyes. "But I was serious, Ker. They have to step up, just like we had to step up yesterday and get the job done."
Kerry kissed the top of her head. "I love you," she replied, simply.
Dar smiled.
"Anything we can do to help though?"
"I knew you were going to ask that." Dar remarked. "Let's get Scuzzy up here and see if she knows someone we can talk to. I met her on a subway. Maybe it's a sign." She reached over and put her hand on Kerry's leg. "Want to hear my ulterior motive?"
"That if they run the cable up to our uplink, we can piggy back our customers down here on it? Starting with our tech office?"
Dar chuckled under her breath, a soft, light sound that echoed inside the bus. "Busted!"
Kerry started laughing too, her body finally giving up its tension as her headache faded and her blood sugar stabilized. The sense of horror from the disaster site moved to the back of her mind and the optimism that was more natural for her returned.
Dar turned her head and brushed Kerry's lips with her own, ignoring the rest of the folks on the bus that were within earshot.
Shocking. Kerry returned the kiss, caressing Dar's face with gentle fingers. But who cared?
The whole world was different now.
Chapter Seven
KERRY RESTED HER chin on her hand as her other hand moved her mouse clicking on another email. "Go ahead, Air Hub. I think it sounds like everyone has everything pretty much together."
"Roger that, Miami exec. Traffic isn't back to normal, but it's steady, and I think we can handle the additional service requests."
"Miami exec, this is Herndon." A female voice broke in. "We're getting calls from sites affected by the Pennsylvania outage. They want a status."
Kerry tapped on the mouse. "Do you have someone on now?"
"Yes, ma'am." Herndon answered. "Docson Pharmaceuticals."
"Put them on."
There was a moment's silence. "Put them on the bridge, ma'am?"
"Yes," Kerry said. "I only have two ears and one set of vocal cords. Put them on."
"Uh--yes ma'am. One second."
Kerry released her mouse and picked up her cup of hot tea, taking a sip of the mint and raspberry flavored beverage as she waited for the customer to come on the line.
She was in the last section in the bus a small, discrete office barely the size of her bathroom in the condo, but furnished in solid teak with the most comfortable leather office chair she'd ever encountered.
Plush and expensive, it was designed to provide a marginal business purpose for the courtesy bus and, in the case of strange and utter emergency, it allowed whoever was using the bus at the time--always senior officers of the company--to perform whatever office it was they held in dignified good taste.
She liked it. It was private. There was a smoked glass wall that separated it from the rest of the bus, and a door she currently had shut. The glass kept it from being too claustrophobic, but the shading kept it from being a fishbowl and it was soundproofed to a moderate degree.