"Miami ops," Mark's voice sounded. "Kerry, I've gotten the blasts out to DC and NY," he said. "I'm only getting about fifty percent positives."

Everyone went quiet, and Alastair briefly closed his eyes.

"Well," Kerry said, "you know the cell systems are pretty overloaded, Mark. Let's wait and see what happens before we assume anything."

"Oh!" Sherren suddenly said. "Hey, it's Larry. Larry! Over here! I'm online!"

Dar studied the traffic patterns on the network screen behind all the chatter. She could see the bare bones chat window filled with lines of talk, the employees online who were not participating in the conference bridge sharing with each other in this remarkable time.

"Network looks pretty stable," Alastair commented. "But that shouldn't surprise anyone."

Dar glanced at the keyboard, then turned her head and looked at him, one eyebrow lifted.

"Well, I have seen you work before," her boss said. "So what's our plan here? Can we send help out to Virginia and New York? I know it's early yet--"

"OH MY GOD!"

Both of them jerked upright as though they'd been shot, and turned back to the screen.

"Good lord!" John blurted. "Look!"

"It's falling! Oh my god! Oh my god!" Sherren was yelling at the top of her lungs. "Oh my god! The whole tower! It's falling down!"

Dar's heart rate shot up as she found herself unsure of where to look first. The television screen showed a scene of unreal destruction, hundreds of stories of the World Trade Center collapsing in on itself as though taken down by an expert demolition team.

People were running.

People were screaming.

The air was full of thick, choking gray dust filled with debris that flowed and rushed over everything, leaving a landscape behind that must have been what Pompeii had been like just before the end.

Lunar. Horrifying

She stood up behind the desk, staring at the screen, unable to imagine actually being there and realizing she had been, the cross streets now covered in debris, places she'd walked on her last visit. "Damn."

"Son of a bitch," Alastair added, standing at her shoulder.

Hans covered his eyes, and then shook his head, opening his fingers to look at the screen again. "Mein Gott," he said. "Die ganzen Leute hinein."

Dar remembered, then, suddenly, the moment after the explosion in the hospital when she'd been on the floor, lying in something like that same gray dust, in a completely different world.

Slowly she sat down and rested her elbows on her knees, and after a moment, Alastair perched on the edge of the desk, gazing quietly down at his shoes.

"Miami ops," Mark said. "Kerry, we're almost evacuated here."

"Miami ops, this is Houston ops," the Houston group broke in. "We are showing large scale outages now in lower New York."

"Miami exec, this is Herndon." Another voice. "We've had a request to activate the emergency circuits for Cheyenne, and add seventy two more channels to the tie lines."

It took a second, and then Kerry answered. "Ah," she said. "Sorry. Herndon, go ahead. Take standby circuits 2105 through 2110 and shut down the failover."

"Miami HR." Mari's voice. "Sorry to break in, but we're out of the building except for a few people."

"Miami exec, Miami ops." Mark's voice. "I'm staying."

Sir Melthon entered his eyes wide. "Did you see that?" He pointed at the screen. "Never in my life have I seen the like of it." He turned. "Got your things from the hotel, and they're settled here. Anything else we can do?"

Alastair sat back down in the chair and rested his elbow on the arm of it, propping his head up on his fingertips. "Got any good Scotch?'

Melthon snorted with wry understanding. "Of course we do. What do you think this is, America?" He snapped his fingers at one of the servers. "Bring me a bottle of the Talisker and a couple of dirty glasses."

"Sir." The man inclined his head, and scooted off.

Dar turned back to the screen, and settled the bud more firmly in her ear as she heard her partner's voice, sounding more than a little stressed.

"Miami ops, Miami exec. Mark, please shut down the center and leave," Kerry said. "The last person we need something to happen to is you. Work from home."

"Miami exec, you're not here, and you can't make me leave," Mark said, in a firm voice.

Dar keyed her mic for the first time. "I can," she said. "Get your ass out of there before I have my father drive over and smack you over the head and drag you out."

Totally against protocol. However, Dar figured the two people involved would know who was speaking without her announcing who and where she was and, given that the apocalypse was showing on television at the moment, who really cared anyway?

There was a moment of somewhat shocked silence. Then Kerry sighed audibly. "Boy, is it ever good to hear your voice," she said, in an achingly sincere tone.

Alastair chuckled softly under his breath as Dar's face tensed into a mildly embarrassed half grin.

"Uh...okay, boss, I'm leaving," Mark responded meekly. "I don't want your pop thumping me," he said. "Or you thumping me."

Dar cleared her throat. "Good job, Kerry," she said, mindful of the global audience. "Everyone please just stay as calm as you can, and follow the plans we've laid out as best you can. This is horrific." She paused and exhaled. "This is unprecedented, and there are a lot people out there, both in the company and our clients that are going to need our help."

"Miami exec, this is Herndon." The voice almost sounded apologetic. "Excuse me, Ms. Roberts, but I have one of the folks at the Pentagon on a land line and he said part of that building just collapsed. They're going to need infrastructure support there."

What next? Dar rubbed her temples.

"Let's get some mobile units assembled," Kerry said. "Lansing, are you on?"

"Lansing here," a voice answered. "We have four vans."

"Lansing, this is Houston ops." The Houston office stepped up. "We have portable satellite units here. Miami exec, can we roll them east?"

"Going to need those in New York too, I'm afraid," Alastair murmured.

"Miami exec? This is Halifax," a crisp male voice broke in. "We have heard all the inbound international flights are going to end up diverting to Canadian airports and they're worried about the phone and data backhaul."

"Houston, go ahead and roll the units toward Virginia right now," Kerry said. "Halifax--Dar, do we have any spare capacity in that area to shift?"

Kerry could, Dar knew, have looked it up in the painfully detailed dynamic utilization chart she designed, but she knew that Kerry knew, she would know off the top of her head and, in fact, she did. "Well, I've got spare capacity right now in the Niagara node. I'm getting pretty much nothing from New York."

A small silence.

"We can land the net traffic. The phone backhaul is going to depend on how much damage the interchanges took." Dar went on. "There's a three carrier interchange that holds most of the big international circuits that sits right under 2 World Trade."

Another silence. Then Mark cleared his throat. "I guess that's why we're seeing red across the board up there."

Alastair clicked his mic on. "Ah, Houston," he said. "Let's get the community support teams rounded up and headed out. Not sure they'll let anyone near Manhattan but we can get to DC." He paused, and then added. "This is Alastair. I realize I'm probably not as instantly recognizable as some other people."

"Houston ops, we copy sir."

A loud crackle and everyone jumped. "Hello? Anyone there?" A breathless voice came through. "Oh hell. This is Danny at the Pentagon. What a mess. We need some help. I just managed to get my cell connected but they took out one whole side of the building and they're evacuating."

"Danny, do they need a trunk for backup?" Kerry asked. "I'm glad you're all right."

"Well," the tech sighed. "I've got a broken arm or something. We got lucky though. The side they plowed into was the side they just finished the renovation on and we were just pulling cable. Not many people were there."

Dar closed her eyes and rubbed the back of her neck, feeling a little relieved.

"But they say there are more planes out there so everyone's scrambling," Danny concluded. "I don't know if they're thinking about backup. I'll find out and let you know."

"Just text us, Danny," Dar broke in. "You'll probably lose cell."

A crackle, and there was no answer.

"Miami, this is New York," a new voice spoke up. "It seems we've moved the office to the Central Park Starbucks, but there are ten of us here now. We can't get cell to pick up, even for SMS. Can we get someone to log us in as okay?"

"New York, this is Miami HR--go head," Mariana answered. "Glad to hear from you."

Alastair clicked off his mic. "What the hell's going to happen next? This is nuts!"

Dar merely nodded, and then shook her head.

KERRY SUCKED SLOWLY at a cup of tea, her throat already a touch sore from talking. There seemed to be a slight lull for the moment, or else everyone was just a little shell-shocked and holding their breaths that nothing else bad happened.

She was resisting the urge to ask Dar to explain something esoteric, like node density, just to hear her voice.

"Ker?"

Kerry looked up over the edge of her laptop screen at her sister. "Hey."

Angie took a seat in one of the leather chairs on the other side of the desk and leaned forward. "What are you doing?"