Dar wiped her fingers on her shirt to get the worst of the dust off, before she selected a cookie from the tray and accepted a cup of milk from the smiling attendant. "Thank you."

"You should really thank Ms. Stuart," the woman chuckled.

"She'll get hers later," Dar responded, with a somewhat rakish grin, which grew even more wry as a short, blond woman appeared in the doorway, leaning against it as she looked inside. "Well well. Speak of the devil."

Kerry entered, waving at the techs who all called out greetings. "How are you guys doing? Is Dar running you into the ground yet?"

"Hey." Dar seated herself against the bare wall, extending her legs out as she took a sip of her milk. "I'm working here too."

"I know." Kerry sat down next to her, the entire reason for her coming over now moot, but she didn't care in the least. "I came over to see how you were doing." She glanced up at the crowd, but they were clustered around the cookies, moving away once they'd gotten their share and settling down on the other side of the room.

Or wandering outside in the hall. Kerry wondered if they were being given space out of courtesy or just coincidence.

"I'm doing complete and utter suckitude." Dar gazed down at her now empty hand, its palm scraped and reddened. "We've found ten circuits out of a thousand in six hours."

"Jesus."

"If he was here, I'd give him a phone tester and tell him to get his ass working," Dar said. "Ker, this is insane. "

Kerry took hold of Dar's hand and stroked it, clasping her fingers around her partner's. "Can I help?" she asked. "I'm tired of yapping on the bridge. Why don't you go yap for a while, and I'll do this."

"And make me feel like a total zero for sticking you with this nightmare while I lounge in the bus?" Dar eyed her. "I don't think so."

"Are you saying that's what I was doing?"

Dar saw the quirk of Kerry's eyebrows, and the sudden bunching of her jaw. The last thing she really wanted to do this late in this crappy a situation was trigger her partner's temper. Kerry was tired. She was tired. No way she wanted a squabble. "No, hon. I sent you to the bus, remember?" she replied. "Is there any sense in both of us being miserable?"

Kerry studied her face. "Yes." She laced her fingers with Dar's. "Because I was just in that damn bus thinking I was a creep for not being out here with you," she admitted. "I'm tired of people telling me all their problems, and politicians calling to yell at me. The governor of New York wants his new office connected."

"You have got to be kidding me."

"Well, it's their disaster response office," Kerry said. "Long story, and anyway, we can't even look at that until we get through this. So teach me to use one of those things and let me suffer here with you like the sappy love struck goofball I really am."

Dar sighed, looking across at the cabinet with its morass of wires. "I feel like just quitting and going to bed," she admitted, in a soft voice. "Ker, I don't want to sit here and do this. It's going to take days. We don't have days."

Kerry gently rubbed the side of her hand. "Is there any other way to do it?"

"No."

"Can we get the vendor in here to do it? It's really their hairball," Kerry asked, reasonably. "Let me call them again."

Dar was silent for a moment then nodded. "Call them," she said. "I've had enough of this."

Kerry leaned over and rested her head against Dar's shoulder for a brief moment then straightened up and pulled her cell phone out. "You got it, boss."

"Ten freaking lines in six hours." Dar sighed, letting her head rest against the wall. "Most moronic thing I've ever done."

"WHAT DO I want? I want your technicians standing in front of me ready to go help, that's what I want." Kerry heard the sharpness in her own tone, and knew she was close to losing her temper.

"Ms. Stuart, I don't have anyone to send you." The male voice on the other end of the line sounded as harassed as she felt. "I'm not trying to blow you off. I just don't have anyone. We sent everyone--everyone we had to New York."

Kerry felt her neck start to get hot. "So what am I supposed to tell the generals here at the Pentagon?" she asked. "And by the way, let me make sure I have the spelling of your name right."

"Ms. Stuart, please. Don't think threats are going to get you anywhere."

"I'm not threatening anyone," Kerry said. "I just have to know what the hell I am supposed to say to the military leadership of this country when they ask me why they have no communications."

The man sighed. "Look, we're under a lot of pressure from the political people. They told us to send everyone to New York, and damn it, that's what we did."

"They told us the same thing," Kerry shot back. "But we're intelligent people, and we know better. So fine. That's what I'll tell the people here. That your company abandoned them to go hook the mayor's phone back up and make sure the stock traders can make money."

"Oh come on," the man said, in exasperation. "Would you please cut the crap? This isn't a stupid game anymore."

"I'm not playing anything. That's exactly what I am going to go tell the Joint Chiefs of Staff," Kerry said, in an inflexible tone. "And trust me, when we pull everyone's ass out of the fire here, we're going to take every bit of business you had and make it ours, because that's my CIO in that demarc room punching down your lousy circuits."

The tension and the exhaustion were getting to her. Kerry was on the verge of just hanging up.

"What is it you want from me, Ms Stuart?" the man asked, after a pause.

"I want linemen in here, sorting out your part of the fucking hairball someone left in this facility," Kerry responded, in soft, precise tones. "And if you can't do that, I guarantee not only will the Pentagon not do any more business with you, we won't either and we're a hell of a lot bigger."

A click sounded down the line, and she was listening to nothing but a busy tone. Kerry closed the phone and exhaled, letting her head rest against her hand. She was sitting in the hallway, lit by orange fluorescent lights that made her head pound all the harder.

She checked her watch. Two a.m. "Jesus." She leaned back against the wall, feeling the hard surface cold against her skin. Her skin was covered in dust, and her lack of progress in getting help for Dar and the rest of their crew made her feel covered in dust inside as well.

She heard a sound, and turned her head to see a tall figure approaching her, a little too tall, and too broad to be Dar, but with the same bouncy stride. "Hey Dad."

"Hey there kumquat." Andrew came over and slid down the wall to settle next to her. "You don't look so hot."

"I feel crummy," Kerry agreed. "I can't get anyone to come here and help us. It's so frustrating"

Andrew absorbed this, drawing his knees up and resting his forearms on them. "Hell of a lot of work," he agreed. "Ah was watching Dar do that for a while, made my eyeballs ache."

"Me too. She won't let me take over for her," Kerry said. "We've rotated the other techs in at least once. But she won't stop."

"Stubborn kid," Her father-in-law agreed. "Gets that from me, I do believe."

Kerry leaned over and rested her head against his shoulder. "Can you go talk her into taking a break?"

Andrew's brows quirked. "Ah could try," he said. "But she's out stubborned me before now."

Kerry sighed, and straightened. Then she gathered herself up and climbed to her feet. "C'mon. Let's both try," she said. "Maybe that'll work." She waited for Andrew to stand and then she led the way back to the demarc room, pausing in the doorway to look inside.

Most of the pockets in the floor were now closed. The majority of the techs were now clustered around the back of the room, where four were stolidly at Dar's side working on the cables, and the rest were doing busy work waiting their turn.

Everyone looked utterly exhausted. No one was even trying to leave. Kerry felt a tiny prickle of pride, the hint of a lifting of her nape hairs at the understated loyalty of their staff and the stolid, equally understated leadership of her steadily working partner.

She started across the room, gathering her arguments, steeling herself to maybe even get Dar mad at her, as she straightened her shoulders and sucked in a lungful of air.

"Oh!" One of the techs yelped, as though he'd been bitten. "Ms. Roberts--Ms Roberts--I think this is one of ours!" The man froze in place, gripping the wires in a deathly tight clutch and not taking his eyes off them. "Holy cow!"

Dar clipped her kit to the wall and crawled over the pile of cabling to where he was standing, the rest of the techs edging out of her way as fast as they could. She peered over his shoulder at the readout then she clapped him on the shoulder. "It is."

"Oh holy Christ." Mark came in on the other side. "Dude, you just won the brass ring. That's the fucking backbone management uplink." He looked at Dar. "We can bring up services on this, boss. It's only a T1.5, but it's a hell of a lot better than that portable sat."

Kerry sidled up in back of Dar and looked over the man's shoulder too, her arm slipping around her partner's waist and giving it a squeeze. "Wow. Nice job, Ken."

The tech looked around, and smiled at her. "I feel like I won the lottery," he confessed.

"You did," Dar said. "I promised a 200 percent raise and a month vacation. You got it." She took the cables from him and carefully routed them, winding them through the spools on the top of the punch down and seating them with a double punch of her tool. "Little bastard."