"Mmhm. We have to go back and get the car," Dar said. "We took the bus and monorail." She sighed again. "Oh well. We'll just have to go do it." With that, she rested her hand on Kerry's tensed thigh and stood, reaching for the shower controls to turn them off. "After dinner."

"Absolutely. I'm hungry enough to have started chewing on those turtles down there and that would have been a shame because they were adorable," Kerry agreed, as she followed Dar out of the shower and handed her partner one of the two large towels they'd left waiting.

The other two women had already finished dressing, and they heard the door close as they dried off. "Not real friendly, huh?" Kerry peered in the direction of the exit.

Dar lifted herself up on her tiptoes and peered over the partition, making sure they were alone in the room. "No." She nipped Kerry's ear playfully. "Did you see the crosses? They're from a Kansas seminary."

Kerry stood quite still, enjoying the tingles brought on by Dar's teeth. "And?" She patted her partner's body dry with her towel, removing impudent droplets from between her breasts. "Did they guess we're gay or something? What clued them?"

"Beats me." Dar watched Kerry lean closer and kiss a few more droplets away. "Maybe it's our haircuts."

Kerry looked up at her, one eyebrow arching sharply.

"More likely it's the way we look at each other." Dar grinned. "Or the fact that we spend more time dressing and undressing each other than all the rest of them combined." She ruffled Kerry's wet hair. "C'mon. Let's get our T-shirts and our certificates, and go eat."

Kerry toweled her head vigorously, and reached for her clothing, dismissing their unfriendly neighbors with a shrug. Not everyone, she reminded herself, accepted their lifestyle as easily as their friends or Dar's parents.

In fact, she mused, as she pulled on her shorts and fastened them, most people who were not gay really didn't seem to be comfortable with the idea, at least at first. What she'd discovered, however, was that after a while, even the most wary generally got used to it, and then they forgot about it.

That was pretty much what happened with her and Dar at work. In the beginning, there had been many people who had avoided her like the plague unless they had to come to her for something.

Now, however, she very seldom got what she referred to as the 'ew--gay cooties!' response. People generally treated her like anyone else, and that really was all she ever could have asked for.

With a satisfied sigh, she shouldered her small bag and followed Dar out of the changing room, setting down both of their wetsuits in the marked hamper. She ran her fingers through her hair to put it in some kind of order, and rubbed a little remaining water from her eyes as Dar opened the door into the hallway and they joined the rest of the group.

"Okay." The guide reappeared, with two of his buddies carrying a clipboard and a pile of bags. "I've got your shirts and your guaranteed frameable certificates here...anyone interested in getting the video? We've got it inside, and it's just twenty bucks. The money goes toward the marine sciences institute here, so we can keep doing these kinds of services."

"We'll take one," Kerry spoke up ahead of the others, who agreed and nodded.

"Great." The man smiled at her. "Hey listen, did any of you see anything weird happen in the tank? Like around the windows to the restaurant?"

Kerry felt Dar inhale, and she instinctively took a step closer to her, caught flatfooted by this new danger of revelation. Had any of the others seen them? And if they had, would they tell? She let her eyes slowly drift around the group, and then fastened them back on the guide.

Everyone had a puzzled look. Even Dar had manufactured a nice one, cocking her dark head to one side and lowering her eyebrows.

"Okay, well, I didn't see anything either, but somebody inside the restaurant swears they had someone scare the poo out of a couple of people at one of the window tables, so...I had to ask. Probably was a fish." The guide dismissed the entire affair, and went about passing out their goodie bags.

"Whew," Kerry muttered under her breath.

"Mm." Dar returned the guide's smile and took her booty. "Thanks...that was great."

"Hey, thanks yourself! You were great," the guide responded. "You were a real trooper with the kids. They loved ya! Got any yourself?"

"Just a dog," Dar responded. "Glad I was a hit."

Kerry took her bag. "It was really fantastic," she complimented the guide. "I had a great time."

"You're a good diver," the man responded. "You've got great buoyancy control. You dive a lot huh?"

"I do, yes," Kerry agreed. "Mostly in the Caribbean and South Atlantic." She smiled at him. "This was really cool."

"Thanks! Tell all your friends." The man smiled back, and moved on. "Your tapes'll be out in a minute, and after that, my buddy John here will take you back out to the lobby. Hope you all had a great time!"

"Yes!" the group responded in a chorus.

Dar rested her forearm on Kerry's shoulder, and they both relaxed as the guide left and the rest of the group milled around waiting for their videos. "This was nice," she remarked. "Totally Disneyfied, but nice."

"Uh huh," Kerry agreed. "And at least they don't pipe "It's a Small World" at you through underwater speakers." She guided Dar toward the doors, where a new staffer had appeared with a stack of plastic videotape cases. "C'mon, let's go."

Dar took the tape from the woman and they escaped into the Living Seas, blending into the sparse crowd and heading for the exit. As they passed through the doors, Shari and Michelle entered from the other direction, pausing to look around intently before moving on.





Chapter Four



DAR DIDN'T EVEN bother with the front door this time. She pulled the Lexus around to the back and parked in the loading dock, hopping out and slamming the door as Kerry did the same. They strolled over to the entrance in companionable silence and ducked inside.

It was much less chaotic and much more organized, Dar noticed at once. She paced slowly down the aisles of now completed booths, giving the odd security guards now on duty an amiable look as she passed them.

The ILS booth was in the center of the room, and she circled it entirely once before she entered the neatly made up space. "Nice," she commented to Kerry, who was checking out the locked case full of routers and switches. "Everything look good?"

Kerry walked to one of the sets and brought it up, coding in her password and running a few quick commands. "Looks very good," she said. "Decent throughput."

Dar leaned against the center column with her hands in her shorts pockets, admiring the contrast of Kerry's sun-gilded skin against the white cotton of her shirt. The sleeves were rolled up, and the shirt was tucked into her worn denim shorts and Dar found the whole picture quite appealing. "Know what?" she drawled.

"What?" Kerry looked up inquisitively.

"You're gorgeous."

Kerry's sunburn deepened several shades, and she glanced around the room before she produced a grin. "Um...thanks," she murmured. "What brought that on?"

Dar shrugged. "Merely an observation. Are we getting a two meg download?"

Kerry blinked. "What?" Her brows creased for a long moment before she realized what Dar was talking about. "Oh...um." She looked back at the screen in confusion, and then punched a few more keys. "One point eight."

"Good enough," her partner decided. "We're streaming locally anyway. At least I hope we are. Check to see if the marketing nitwits downloaded the mpegs." She wandered over to the far side of the booth, examining the colorful brochures curiously as Kerry bent over the console again.

A door slammed. Dar lifted her head at the sound, turning and peering across the center toward the front of the room. She spotted the two figures and barely stifled the impulse to grab Kerry and disappear, reasoning that they'd have to face off against their two adversaries sooner or later.

But there was no point in rushing the confrontation, so she merely went back to examining the marketing literature.

"Dar?" Kerry's low voice reached her.

"I know," Dar answered calmly. "Just do your thing."

Kerry sat down in the nearest seat and continued her parsing, examining the file structures of the presentations they'd sent out from the office earlier that day. Her ears were perked, though, as she listened to the footsteps wandering through the hall, which would, she knew, eventually end up right where they were.

She grinned a little, and cracked her knuckles.

MICHELLE STOPPED AS she reached the edge of the booth and waited for the two women inside it to look up.

When they didn't, she cleared her throat. "Well, well."

Kerry glanced up from her screen. "Oh, hi." She greeted their guest cordially. "C'mon in."

Michelle availed herself of the invitation and stepped inside the booth, circling the desk Kerry was at and taking a seat on the edge of the console. "Hello, Dar." She peered at the booth's second occupant and paused.

"Hi." Dar rested her chin on her fist and looked up briefly, then went back to studying the settings she had been investigating. "How's it going?"

Somehow, it wasn't the reception Michelle seemed to have been expecting. "Damned good, actually. Bet you're surprised to see me here."

"Not really." Kerry finished checking her screen, and moved to another one. "You guys get everything taken care of? We heard there were some problems last night. I thought your booth looked pretty well together."