Dar twirled her flashlight in her fingers and followed, a faint grin on her face. "Watch your head."
"Mine's a lot lower than yours is, hon. "
Dar ducked under a loop. "Good point."
"Hope those aren't electrical," Mark muttered, bringing up the rear. "This could get way more exciting than we need it to."
THE ELECTRICAL ROOM was a labyrinth on its own. It had several levels that seemed to have been built in different times and styles and, on top of that, the floor itself wasn't level. "Careful of that damn ladder." Dar warned, as Kerry started to climb down one. It was a cast iron pipe with diamond plate steps, and it shifted creakily as she put her weight on it.
"Yikes." Kerry went down it as fast as she could, arriving on a lower level to be greeted by rustlings and a pair of glowing eyes in the dark that vanished when she shone her flashlight in the corner. "What in the hell--"
A huge pipe ran over her head, its width twice her arm span at least.Its sections were held together by huge, riveted collars and its outer surface was covered with thick, peeling paint. She put her hand on it, surprised when she felt warmth against her skin.
Shaking her head, she ducked under the pipe and went past a huge bin with a closed lid, and three more large pipes running up and down vertically. They all seemed ancient, and were thick and heavy cast iron."What is all this stuff?"
"It's not telecom." Dar was methodically searching the far wall. "I don't care what it is."
"Reminds me of that old cruise ship." Kerry edged through two large black iron posts with rivets in them and ducked under a pipe as she spotted a bit of wood through the gloom. "Is that it back there?"
Dar peered past a large box she was looking in. "Where?" She shone her flashlight into the dark corner. "Mark, over there." She closed the box and ducked under the pipe. "Kerry, you rock."
"Holy shit." Mark crawled out from under a step and got up. "In the back there? Dar, this is nuts! There's power running all over this place. How in the hell does our data not suck here?"
"My engineering can overcome pretty much anything or so everyone keeps telling me." Dar edged in next to where Kerry was standing, and they peered over a big iron pipe to see an old, tattered piece of plywood bolted to the back wall with a familiar set of telephone punch down blocks on it.
They were covered in dirt and dust, so obscured the colors of the wires were completely indistinguishable. Kerry squirmed over close to it and shone her flashlight on a tag, which was completely blank, brown from age, and crumbling at her touch. "Wow."
Dar peered at the electrical board perilously close to Kerry's shoulder. "Ker, don't move back. I think that's a live block."
Kerry froze, then carefully looked over her shoulder shining the flashlight on the cast iron works. "New York Edison Company," she read, "nineteen hundred and one."
"Didn't Scuzzy say this building was built in the thirties?"
"Maybe they reused the hardware." Mark managed to squeeze in closer. "Shit most of this room is older than I am. Hey, there's a door down there--for midgets."
Kerry gave him a sideways look, then she turned carefully and pointed her light at the back wall under the block. Sure enough, there was a door there. "Wow. Midgets for real."
The door was about as high as her knees with a knob near the bottom of it as though a regular height door had been cut in half. "Wonder where it goes? Looks like it's been painted over a few times."
"Probably doesn't go anywhere. They just didn't feel like removing it." Dar dismissed the painted over panel and started exploring the punch down. "I can't believe this is the demarc."
"For the whole building?" Kerry's voice rose in utter disbelief. "No way. No way in hell, Dar. There are hundreds and hundreds of tenants here. This block is barely big enough for a dozen of them."
"Well, the way the guy said it, the big boys have a nice room up one level in back of the elevator stack," Mark said. "We're private line, so--"
"Are you kidding me?" Kerry asked. "Do you mean to tell me they wouldn't let us drop a line into their room, and I'm carrying one of those bastard's entire backbone on my network?"
"Um." Mark's eyes widened.
"Grr." Kerry fumed. "Let me call the office and have those bastards cut off." She started to fish for her phone only to find her arms gently held."Dar!"
"You're going to electrocute your ass. Hold still." Dar tugged her away from the electrical panel. "Cutting them off doesn't really get us anything, Ker. Money probably crossed hands to get them a new facility. We had nothing to do with it."
"But that's not fair!" Kerry protested. "We pay as much as any off them do for this damned access!"
Mark kept his mouth shut, peering at the blocks instead and trying to read some of them.
"Shh." Dar managed to maneuver her pissed off partner into a clearer space, then she wrapped her arms around her. "Leave it, Ker. Not worth the headache."
Kerry drew in a breath to continue arguing, then paused and exhaled, unable to keep the anger roiling inside the warmth of Dar's embrace. "It's not fair," she repeated. "Look at this place, Dar. They're probably laughing their asses off at us over this."
"Probably. But we're a level under them, and that means we're closer to our goal. Leave it."
"Grr." Kerry sighed, giving in. "And I'm damned well going to get this changed, but yeah, it'll wait until this is over."
Dar gave her a squeeze. "Now let me in there to see what the hell's going on with that demarc." She slipped past Kerry and carefully eased her way between the electrical panel and the iron pylon to get closer to the age scarred wood.
"You tricked me." Kerry issued a half hearted protest before she inched in after her, raising her hand to stifle a sneeze as they stirred the dust around them. "I'm safer in there, Dar. I'm smaller than you are."
"Nah, I'm fine." Dar disagreed, poking her head around a pipe.
"Okay." Mark finally spoke up. "I think there's only six or eight active on here, so we should be able to find ours pretty easy." He peered into the far corner. "Hey, Dar, is that a smart jack? There in the back? That has to be ours."
Dar directed her flashlight in that direction and leaned closer to look, inadvertently brushing her elbow against the electrical panel. She yelped and jumped back, nearly knocking Kerry on her butt. "Son of a bitch!" She grabbed her elbow, which was numb and tingling.
"Live, huh?" Mark asked, weakly.
"What kind of idiocy is this!" It was Dar's turn to be outraged, as she examined the panel. It was floor to ceiling copper strips with clams at various levels. "You could get killed in here!"
"Easy honey." Kerry patted her hip. "How about we find our circuit and get out of here before we both end up in the hospital?"
Dar muttered under her breath, then cautiously eased back over to the back wall and peered at the box. It was the same dingy gray as the rest of the room, but there were somewhat newer looking cables coming out of the bottom, and a tag that was more white than brown hanging from the front.
She extended her arm carefully and got a fingertip on the top of the box, almost jumping out of her skin when her cell phone rang. "Brpht!"
"I got it." Kerry fished in her partner's pocket and retrieved the instrument. "Hello?"
"Glad you were here." Dar went back to prying the box open.
"Me too." Mark chimed in. "No offense, Big D, I'da let it ring."
Dar paused and looked over at him, then chuckled briefly.
"Hell--ah, is this Kerry?" Alastair's voice trickled hesitantly through the speaker. "I'm sorry, I thought I--"