He finished one last screw into the peeling paint on the punch down board. ”Yeah, you got drop cables?” He looked up as Dar lifted a handful of the requested items. ”Oh, right.” He took the handful and started plugging them in while Dar connected the other end to the equipment. ”What time is it, anyhow?”

Dar checked her watch. ”Four thirty.” She winced. ”All right, is the fiber drop in?”

”Almost,” the man remarked, moving towards the door.

Dar finished her task, then she stepped back and regarded the assembly of equipment. ”What a mess.” There were wires everywhere, connecting the routers and the interconnecting hubs, not to mention the power cables running everywhere. Green and red LEDS were beginning to blink on the routers, and she ran a hand through her hair, trying to shove back the exhaustion as she figured out what needed to happen next. Oh. Right. She pulled her cell phone out and dialed.

”MIS,” the voice answered.

”Mark, okay, we've got the...” Dar started.

”Circuits up, yeah, I see them, but they aren’t terminated yet,”


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201

Mark replied, amidst a rattle of keys. ”Shit, that was fast, Dar. What did you do, coerce the entire phone company?”

Dar sighed. ”We got lucky. There were already terminator blocks in this damn warehouse. They just had to assign the pairs.” She found a box to sit down on and took a deep breath. ”That was the easy part.

Now I have to configure the routers, and get the fiber line in, and hope to god those damn mainframes are still running off the generator, or we’re doing this for shit.”

”You sound beat,” Mark commented quietly.

”Been a long day,” Dar acknowledged, letting her elbows rest on her knees and allowing her eyes to close momentarily. ”Wish I had some...” She stopped talking, and looked up as the smell of fresh coffee hit her nose, and found warm green eyes gazing back at her. ”Oh, are you a sight for sore eyes,” she murmured.

Mark chuckled in her ear. ”Tell Kerry I said hi,” he remarked wryly Kerry handed her the large cup of coffee and took the phone from her. ”Hi Mark, can we call you back?” She waited for the answer, then hung up. ”Sorry it took so long. You have no idea how hard it is to find open places up here at this time of day.” She looked around. ”Wow.”

Dar sucked on her coffee without comment, feeling some life come back into her as the warm, sweet liquid hit her stomach. ”I was about to send out a search party,” she advised her lover. ”We’ve got the circuits up, but...” Dar let a tendril of doubt in. ”Damn, Kerry, I don’t know if we can do this. There’s just so much to get done.” She cast a glance over her shoulder at the half assembled system. ”Maybe I was crazy to try.”

Kerry gazed at her in concern. Dar’s face and arms were covered with smudges of dust and dirt from the equipment, and there were dark circles under her eyes, visible even in the dim light. ”Dar, if you didn’t believe this was going to work you wouldn’t have done it.” She sat down next to her boss. ”I brought back food for everyone, that should help, and I can program the routers, if you give me a chance to change first.”The bloodshot blue eyes lifted and regarded her. ”That’s right. You are Cisco certified, aren’t you?” Dar let a reluctant smile tug her lips.

”Go change. I have them making up cables for the laptops. If we both work on it, we can get enough done so that the other techs can get in and start downloading the routing tables.”

”You got it.” Kerry slung her bag over her shoulders and headed for the rest room, changing quickly and hanging her wet clothing next to Dar’s. She returned to find her boss hunched over a box, studying the screen on her laptop.

The silvery reflection flickered over her tanned features, which shifted as Kerry put her own laptop down next to her. ”Okay.” Kerry smiled as a tech handed her a cable. ”Thanks.” She plugged it in, then ran the other end to one of the routers. ”Oh. I’ll be right back.”

Dar nodded, absorbed in her screen. ”Let’s hope I remember how to 202

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do this,” she muttered, shoving down her annoyance that they’d been unable to locate the hardware group for the facility, meaning that only she and Kerry really knew how to get in and program the complicated devices. ”It’s been a while.”

The scent of cooked food spread through the room and most of the techs had wandered over to where Kerry had left the boxes, leaving Dar in relative isolation as she puzzled through the software.

The screen started to fuzz out and she stopped after what seemed like the twentieth screen, leaning back and rubbing her eyes, as her back protested against her hunched posture. ”I think that’s it,” she commented to Kerry, who knelt at her side. ”Wh...”

”Open wide,” Kerry instructed, capturing her gaze.

Dar stared, uncomprehending, then hesitantly opened her mouth, startled when a spoonful of cold, chocolate ice cream was deposited into it. She blinked a few times. ”Mm.” She swallowed the rich cream. ”Was that Haagen Daz?”

”Yes,” Kerry informed her, offering up another spoonful. ”And don’t you ask me where I found chocolate Haagen Daz in the middle of backwoods North Carolina, okay?” She watched Dar’s whole attitude perk up, and was convinced if the dark haired woman had possessed a tail, it would have wagged enthusiastically. ”It’s amazing what ice cream does to you, did you know that?”

Dar licked her lips. ”Hey, it beats recreational drugs,” she remarked wryly. ”What did you bring the rest of these guys?”

Kerry glanced over her shoulder. ”The best of Big Fat Boy’s Eat ‘Em All buffet,” she told her boss, taking a spoon of ice cream for herself.

”And a box of Twinkies, Snowballs, Ring Dings, and Mallomars.”

Dar covered her mouth quickly and stifled an almost hysterical laugh. ”Did you get some buffet?” she managed to ask. ”Damn, I thought it was more, uh...”

”You’re joking, right?” Kerry fed her more ice cream. ”I’d like to live to get back to Miami, thanks, and I got the lecture that yes, during the day, it’s much more sophisticated around here, but those places roll up the sidewalks at night, because all the workers go home.”

”Well.” Dar accepted another spoon and chewed it contentedly. ”It was a good idea, though. It might give everyone enough energy to get through the morning.” She paused, and regarded her lover. ”So, no buffet for you?”

Kerry sucked on the spoon. ”Um, no, actually, I...” She made a tiny face. ”I have a weakness for Snowballs,” she admitted, a touch embarrassed. ”That was enough sugar to get me going.”

Dar laughed. ”Ah! I see.” She teased gently. ”Those white ones with the chocolate insides?”

Green eyes batted their golden lashes at her. ”Yeah,” she confessed, a little shamefacedly.

”Wanna share a pack?” Dar inquired, one brow lifting.


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Kerry cleared her throat. ”Oh no, I’m okay. I...” Then she glanced up. ”Well, maybe one.”

Dar grinned, finding the energy to stand up, and stretch. She could feel her own determination returning, and she glanced out over the room, planning her next move.

DAWN BROKE, TURNING the darkness outside to a dull gray as the rain continued. Inside the warehouse it was marked only by a break for coffee, from the multitude of thermos bottles that littered the worktable.

”All right, Mark.” Dar leaned against the wall, crossing her ankles and taking the weight off her knee. ”Can you see them?”

Clicking. ”No. No, wait.” More clicking. ”Ah, yep, there they are.”

Dar closed her eyes in utter relief. ”All of them?”

”Wait, I’m getting Unicenter booted,” the MIS chief muttered.

”Hang on. Hang on, okay, yeah,” he confirmed. ”I’m seeing all the gateways and both backbones.” A beat. ”Wow, tremendous work, boss, that kicks ass.”

Dar let her head rest against the wall. ”I had a lot of help,” she muttered. ”Okay, now I’m going to boot the fiber hub.” She reached over and flipped a switch.

Across the room bodies were slumped on the carpet or leaning against the far walls, and the door kept opening fitfully, letting in cold, damp air.

”I don’t see it,” Mark’s voice cut through her exhaustion.

”Shit.” Dar shoved her body off the wall and examined the piece of equipment. ”I don’t, it’s connected, let me...”

”Did you set the IP?” Mark asked, gently.

Dar thought about it. ”I don’t remember.” She glanced up as Kerry came over. ”Mark sees the backbones and the routers, but not this box.

Did we program it?”

Kerry brought the laptop over and connected it, then ran through a few screens. ”Nope.” She typed in a few commands, then reset the unit.

”Try now.”

Mark clicked a bit, then grunted. ”Got it.” He entered several commands rapidly. ”Needs the secondary table though. Hang on, I’m in there. I can download it from here. Wait, okay.” He sighed. ”Got it, got it. You’re going to have to IPL the mainframes, though.”

Dar and Kerry exchanged glances. ”What?” Dar asked. ”I thought they were up?”

”They are,” Mark said. ”But the ports shut down when you don’t have activity after a certain point. It’s a bug or something. You need to reset them.”

Dar let out an explosive breath. ”Son of a fucking bitch. Mark, we can’t get in there,” she told him. ”Can’t you remote IPL?”


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”Has to be a hardware reset,” the MIS chief responded. ”God, Dar.

I’m sorry. I knew that in the back of my head, I should have told you before. I didn’t realize...”