"Very," the man in gray muttered.

"But I don't get it," one woman in the front addressed Dar. "I thought hackers were criminals."

"Depends," Dar said. "They can be, but the truth is we're facing serious attacks from people breaking the law, how responsible would it be of me not to have people who could counter them?"

The crowd was restless. The moderator edged over in front of them. "Okay. So, let's talk about some of the reports we've had lately about Trojans, huh?"

Dar sat down on her stool again and folded her arms. And that, she mused, would teach Eleanor to volunteer her, wouldn't it? She felt eyes on her, and she turned her head, not entirely surprised to find Peter Quest nearby, watching her, a grin on his face.

Now he didn't seem worried about hackers at all. While Dar, on the other hand, was worried about having to bail out a certain green eyed woman she dearly loved.

Time to end the debate.

THERE WERE TIMES, and this was one of them, that Kerry cursed the genetic dice throw that doomed her to a life nearly a foot shorter than her partner. She could see her quarry ahead of her, but as she squeezed through the last line of suited bodies and got into the clear, Shari and Michelle were nowhere to be found.

"Son of a bitch." Kerry stalked toward the booths, half listening to Dar's damning commentary behind her. The security discussion had started off badly and went down from there, and her boss's blithe confirmation that they hired hackers sure wasn't going to make her life any easier, but those were minor details.

Shari going out of her way to attack Dar wasn't. Kerry prowled the aisles, looking for the two women. As she passed her own booth, though, she paused. "Okay, wait a minute." She collected herself. "And what are you going to do when you hunt them down, Kerrison?" she asked "Start a cat fight? Bar room brawl in the trade show? That'll make headlines."

"Ma'am?" One of her techs scurried over, seeing her standing there. "Did you say something?"

Kerry sighed. "Nothing intelligent, no." But her eyes kept sweeping the hall anyway, half hoping she'd spot what she was looking for.

"Hey." Mark appeared. "Dar outed me!" He seemed amazed. "Did you hear that?"

Kerry leaned on the edge of the booth. "I heard it. So did everyone else. I know what I'm going to spend the next two weeks explaining." She sensed the crowd coming back into the display area in back of her. Without turning she knew Dar was heading her way.

It was a really weird feeling. To test it, Kerry casually turned her head just as Dar cleared the booths one aisle over and came into view. She watched a muted look of relief cross her partner's face on seeing her, and she felt a little sheepish as Dar hopped up onto the platform with her. "Hi."

"Hi." Dar glanced around. "You okay?"

Kerry cleared her throat gently. "If you mean, did I flatten anyone recently, no," she muttered under her breath. "Boy, did I feel like it. I think you'd better get me out of here before my hormones land us in court."

"Nah." Dar grinned. "I'm gonna put you in a tank top with the words "My bodyguard" right across your chest." She blew a lock of dark hair out of her eyes. "Okay, I think I botched that pretty big time. Sorry."

"Eh." Kerry indicated Mark, who was studying a console across the booth. "Most of our clients have worked with Mark for years. It's not going to be that big a deal. I'll take care of it." She laid her hand on Dar's shoulder. "By the time I'm done, you'll have started the newest trend in IT hiring."

Eleanor hurried into the booth from the other side, hauling up as she spotted Dar. "Okay, you win!" She held up both hands. "Next time, I'll stick to passing out ILS pens for advertising!"

"Dar!" Jose arrived from the opposite direction, sweating. "Jesu! Could you have warned us you were going to do that? Dios Mio!"

Dar sniffed. "Got us attention," she remarked. "Aren't you the one who's always says any publicity is good?"

They certainly were becoming the center of attention quickly. The booth was surrounded by curious onlookers, as well as customers now clamoring for attention. The man in gray pushed his way forward, heading right for Dar.

"Is this where I take off and let you all clean up my mess?" Dar inquired, with a faint smirk.

Eleanor sighed.

"Just kidding." Dar faced the crowd and held her own hands up. "Okay, folks. Settle down."

"Dar..."

"I've got it," Dar told her quietly. "Keep an eye out for our friends. If you see 'em..."

"Go into my WWF impersonation?" Kerry joked.

Dar turned and regarded her with a puzzled expression. "You going for a panda?"

"Panda?"

"Never mind." Dar turned back to the crowd. "All right. Let's put this in perspective, shall we?" She raised her voice. "How many people here believe police officers always obey traffic laws?"

"What?" the man in gray spluttered. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Raise your hands." Dar ignored him. "C'mon."

"How can you seriously expect us to trust someone who breaks the law? The man stubbornly kept in her face. "Huh?"

Dar gazed at him. "I'm from Miami," she reminded him with a slight grin. "We elect felons there."

"Dar." Eleanor was getting nervous.

Mark wandered over. "Hey, Mr. T!" he greeted the man in gray. "How's that website, still stable?"

The man frowned. "Um...yes, fine, fine, Mark. Listen, we can discuss that later. Right now I want some answers about this hacker thing."

Mark leaned over the edge of the booth and lowered his voice. "Hey, Mr. T?"

Annoyed, the man glared at him. "I said..."

"I'm the hacker." Mark indicated his own chest. "Only I'm like the number two, if you know what I mean." His thumb inched toward Dar's towering form. "You're pretty safe. Don't sweat it."

The man in gray goggled at him.

"Okay, so let's talk about security." Another man pushed forward. "I don't give a damn who you hire. You say you can't be broken into? My site's been taken offline three times in two months. Tell me how I can stop it."

"Hire us." Dar perched on the corner of the counter, letting her hands rest on her thigh as she settled down in a more comfortable element. Her comment drew a few laughs, and she smiled in response. "Seriously. It's a lot of intensive effort, and a damn substantial budget. You can't ever stop...there's no time where you can take a breath and say we're okay."

"Right." Mark nodded. "Twenty four seven, we're out there checking, rechecking, double checking, coming up with new checks...it never stops."

Kerry eased back and relaxed a little, realizing Dar did, in fact, have the situation very much under control. She leaned back against the booth's center pylon, releasing a silent sigh of relief. So then, of course, she spotted Shari and Michelle at the fringes of the crowd. Her eyes narrowed, but the two seemed content to just stand and listen.

"What a circus." Eleanor leaned on the pylon next to Kerry. "Next time I'm gonna send my assistant. I'm going on a cruise instead."

"Mm."

"Y'know, it's kind of fun to see the old Dar again, though," the older woman mused. "I'm glad she's pointed that way, not this way."

Kerry exhaled. "I'll be glad when the damn doors close tonight and we can get the hell out of here."

Eleanor looked at her, with a puzzled expression. "You not feeling well, Ker? You've been antsy all day."

Had she been? Kerry frowned, thinking about her actions since the morning. "Yeah, well..." She shrugged one shoulder. "Between the weather and our friends over there, my last nerve got Fedexed to Fargo around lunchtime."

Eleanor clapped her on the shoulder, and then she groaned and headed off to join Jose. Kerry watched a moment more, and then she sat down behind one of the consoles and smiled at a customer brave enough to wander past Dar to look over her shoulder. "Hi."

"Hi." The man sat down next to her and looked at the screen. It was currently displaying their top-level view, the huge backbones that made up the core of their network. "That's really impressive."

"Thanks." Kerry smiled at him. "It's a really good design. There's so much redundancy, even when we try to crash it, we can't."

"Bet it cost a pretty penny," the man grinned back.

"It did, but it's already paid for itself," she replied. "Watch this." Kerry typed in a command, taking down one of the core routing centers and removing it from the network. Other than a little greener pulse, the net barely flickered, rerouting around it in a blink of an eye.

"Wow."

Kerry restored the center before her pager started hitting the roof and watched the routes reestablish themselves. "It's flexible and self healing. A pleasure to manage." She glanced past the man, a little surprised to find Peter Quest there, watching her.

"Well, we'll have to look at our budgets," the man said. "It's a tight economy." He patted the desk and wandered off, clearing the way for Quest to approach.

"Hi," the man repeated, holding his hand out. "We met earlier? My name's Peter Quest." He took Kerry's outstretched fingers and clasped them. "People tell me you're the one to talk to about some new business. That true?"

Kerry's ears perked up a little. "It could be," she allowed. "I'm one of the people. What did you have in mind?"

Quest smiled at her again. "Let me ask you something first," he said, leaning on the counter with an elbow. "Are you up for a challenge? Can you put your name on a dotted line, and go head to head for some business...could turn out to be pretty big."