"Acknowledged," Kerry said. "Are you mentioning it just because it's out of time range?" She almost bit her tongue when she suddenly felt warmth against the side of her knee and realized it was Dar's breath.

"Yes, ma'am," Houston answered. "We can give them their standard bandwidth but if something comes up while it's transferring we're tapped."

Kerry glanced down, to see twinkling blue eyes looking back up at her. "What do you think?"

"What do I think?" Dar drawled, pressing her cheek against the outside of Kerry's leg. "Hm--" She watched the light blush climb up her throat before she relented, moving away and coming back up from under the desk with the end of an ethernet cable in her fingers. "Houston, let them go for it. I'll keep an eye on the pipe and if you start stressing it I can throw some compression on it."

"Okay, uh--ma'am," Houston said. "Will do."

Dar remained on her knees, plugging the laptop into the ethernet cable after she scribbled some numbers off the bottom of it. "Let me get at your session for a minute," she told her partner. "Miami ops, this is Miami exec. Stand by for a high speed encrypted image transfer. You're going to redline. No one freak out please."

"Copy that, Miami exec," Mark's voice broke in. "I tanked the alerter."

"All yours." Kerry slipped out of her seat and took her milk, retreating around the side of the desk to where Nan was somewhat awkwardly standing. She took up a spot next to the woman and sipped from the cup.

"Thanks. So is the computer." Dar dropped into the chair and flexed her hands, cracking the knuckles of her fingers before she started typing on Kerry's laptop. "Hope to hell this thing isn't different enough hardware for the image to choke."

"Dar's machine image is a one of a kind," Kerry said, conversationally to Nan. "She goes through laptops like popcorn, so we always have a snapshot ready. "

"Oh," Nan murmured. "What's so different about it?"

"Programs," Dar answered without looking up. "A handful of cranky, self written piles of code that do analytics on pretty much everything." She glanced at the paper, and then back at the screen. "Along with consolidated control consoles for the majority of the infrastructure."

"And Gopher Dar," Kerry commented.

"And Gopher Dar," her partner agreed. "Okay, Mark, here it comes, I ran it by mac."

"Gotcha."

"I'm going to clear out my inbox," Nan said. "If you all need anything, give me a ring." She backed away from the desk and escaped out the door, closing it quickly behind her.

Kerry watched her go, then turned back to her partner. "I think you're scaring her, hon."

Dar's brows twitched. "Me? I didn't do anything," she protested. "I thought I was being nice."

Kerry gave her an affectionate smile.

Dar hit a few more keys then turned to watch the newly purchased laptop. It blinked, then the screen shivered and blanked out, replaced by a spinning pirate flag. "Nice touch." She drummed her fingertips on the desktop. "This snap is from before I left for London, but I didn't have time to do much with it there so it should be all right."

"Holy crap!" a voice echoed on the line through Kerry's laptop.

"Didn't I tell everyone not to freak out?" Dar frowned, and tapped the mic. "Hold tight, people. This won't take long." She muted. "I hope." She leaned on the desk and tilted her head, peering over at Kerry. "We're going to have an issue."

Kerry blinked mildly at her. "Another one?" she asked. "Dar, we've got a metric ton of them now, you're sitting there thinking of more?" She perched on the edge of the desk, swirling her milk in its cup.

"Paradox," Dar said, succinctly. "We're going to need to be in lower Manhattan to make things happen."

"Sure."

"There's no damn comms or cell service in lower Manhattan. How do we make things happen if we can't communicate?"

"Ah." Kerry frowned. "We have to bring comms with us then, I guess."

"Miami exec, this is Miami ops, we just got a call from the banking center. They're saying they're seeing degraded response," a voice interrupted them.

"Shoot." Kerry leaned over and hit the mic. "Miami ops, tell them we're aware, and we're working to clear space. Please remind them we have a lot going on."

"Yes'm."

'We've moved big chunks of data before, and not caused that." Kerry looked at her partner. "Is that you, really?"

"Me, really," Dar admitted. "I prioritized the stream. Sixty more seconds and we're done. It would have taken a half hour otherwise." She drummed her fingers on the desk again. "I need those damn programs. I have structure diagrams from New York in one of them that might help us."

"Do we have anyone local we can call--" Kerry let her voice trail off. "Boy, that was stupid. Sorry," she muttered. She got up and went around the desk, coming to kneel next to Dar so she could see the laptop screen a little better. There was a black window open, full of Dar's cryptic typing and she rested her chin on her fist for a minute, releasing a long sigh.

Dar's hand immediately settled on the back of her neck, the strong fingers kneading the skin there with gentle sureness. "God, Dar. There's so much to do."

"I know," Dar responded. "I just feel like taking off and going to the beach when I think about all the crap we've got to get through." She kept rubbing Kerry's neck, feeling the bones move under her fingers. "Not looking forward to it."

"Me either."

Dar reached over and hit a few keys. "Done," she said, keying the mic. "Miami ops, Miami exec. Transfers complete." She draped her arm over Kerry's shoulders then leaned closer and kissed her on the back of her neck, just above her collar. "Let's hope I don't have to do that again."

"Honey, you can do that whenever you want." Kerry was content to remain where she was, one elbow resting on Dar's thigh as she listened to the chatter on the bridge call. To one side, she could hear the laptop rebooting and she struggled to gather her thoughts and go back to work as soon as she knew the machine was ready.

"That's not a bad idea,' Dar said, suddenly.

Kerry paused then cleared her throat gently. "What isn't?"

"Getting someone local," her partner replied. "We need someone really local. Someone who knows people."

They were both quiet. "I think Bob probably really knew people," Kerry said, finally.

"Yeah."

"Hello, hello, Miami?" Sherren's voice broke in. "Are you there?"

Kerry reached over and hit the mic. "We're here. How are things there, Sherren?"

"The phones came back on," the woman said. "We were all sitting in the boardroom just keeping each other company, and all of a sudden the phones started ringing off the hook in here. It's a madhouse now."

"Sorry about that, Sherren," Kerry sighed. "I did ask AT&T to try and work us into their priority schedule."

"No, hey, it's great," Sherren protested. "You don't know we couldn't make calls here or nothing, and now everyone can talk to their families. It's--that's the calls. People trying to talk to us, find out if we're okay."

"Oh."

"It's good. We're okay," Sherren said. "And oh my gosh. Oh, look. Mr. McLean just got here. I didn't know he was coming!"

Dar leaned forward. "He wanted to be with you all there. He thought you could use some support, Sherren. He knows you all have had a terrible time."

There was a long silence. Then Sherren's voice came back on, she was clearly in tears. "Oh," she gasped. "Oh, that's so wonderful. It's so wonderful people care about us." She sniffled. "We're trying to take care of each other."

Behind her, Dar could faintly hear Alastair's voice, sounding quiet and sad. "Sherren, tell him we're doing fine here, okay?" she said. "You all just hang in there."

"We will. We will. We're tough people," Sherren said. "I'll tell him. I'll be back."

"Miami exec, this is Combus 2." A low, deep voice took advantage of the break in the chatter. "We're in bound from Albany and I have Combus 3 about two miles behind me."

"Will they let them in?" Kerry whispered.

"From the north, maybe," Dar murmured back. She keyed the mic. "Combus 2, you and 3 try to get as far down toward the Rock as you can."

"Roger that, Ms. Roberts," the deep voice said. "Anything we need to stop and pick up?"

Dar glanced over at the monitor that was showing desperate scenes of men digging in debris, a pall of smoke hanging over the air. "Find a medical supply warehouse," she said. "Get breathing masks, filters, whatever you can. Suits," she added. "Miami exec, Miami Financial, you on?"

"Right here, my friend," Duks answered. "I will have my purchasing people find such a place, and let the good drivers know where it is. We will handle the payment for it."

"Thanks Duks," Dar said. "Combus, see if you can pick up bottled water or Gatorade, too."

"Will do ma'am."

Dar signed into her new laptop and got up, clearing Kerry's chair for her. "Let me get out of your way. I think I can--" She stopped, as Kerry put a hand on her arm. "What?"

"Stay here," Kerry said. "Just bring that chair around to this side. I want you here." She got up off her knees and settled into the chair. "Please?"

Dar studied her for a moment then smiled. "Works for me." She dragged the other chair over and settled back down. "Let's get back to business."

THE RV AND bus had, in fact, become the social center of their piece of the parking lot. Dar was glad enough to stick her hands in the pockets of her jacket and head toward the crowd, shifting her shoulders to settle the weight of a company issued backpack that held her new laptop in it.