Dar sat back down and leaned back, resuming her brooding posture. "You don't have source code, you can't communicate with your developer, you paid for something that doesn't work on your existing infrastructure and you want me to fix it?"

"Well..." Godson leaned on his elbows. "I mean, who else can we go to, Dar? Really? Okay, so we maybe miscalculated a little, but this project is vital to the company. It has to happen."

Across the table, Meyer lifted his hand to cover his mouth, his eyes taking on a dark glint. "Well, maybe we have other options."

Dar remained quiet for a few minutes, considering her own options. They were as few as Godson's, really. She could walk out and tell them it was their problem not hers, but that meant a disaster for them, and they had a contract up for renewal next year with ILS.

She could force them to pay for new infrastructure, but the thought irked her given the fault really lay not with Godson or his clueless git of a VP Ops, but with the developer who sold them a bill of goods and was now probably laughing his German butt off on the other side of the world. Also, they had a contract up for renewal, and Dar knew if she forced a half million dollars worth of gear down Godson's throat, he'd just take it out of her when they were negotiating in twelve months.

If they re-signed at all. Something like this could cause them not to, no matter how good a deal she cut them.

So.

On the other hand, Dar reasoned, if she could pull this off, and fix Godson's problem, she had his cojones in a blender when it came time for him to sign on the dotted line in those same twelve months. The only problem with that was...

Shit. "Okay," Dar finally said. That meant she had to stay. "Call your developer, and have him put a coder on a plane before close of business today. When he gets here, he's gonna do exactly what I tell him to do, and I'll see if that, plus what I can squeeze out of the pipes, will get your Frankenstein walking."

Godson looked so relieved, Dar suspected he'd need to change his underwear before leaving the room.

"But..." Meyer spoke up, giving Dar a wary look. "His people only speak German."

"I speak German," Dar informed him wryly. "Just don't tell them that, okay? Not until the little bugger gets here and pretends he doesn't know what's going on." She casually took out her PDA and flipped the top open, frowning slightly as she started to scribble on it. After a second, she glanced up to see them all watching her. "Well?"

"Call him." Godson slapped the table, pointing at his VP. "Get that guy here...what's his name, Gunther?"

"Hans." Meyer opened his cell phone. "Okay, I'll get him here. It'll be tomorrow morning, though before he's landed."

"Fine," Dar muttered as she scribbled. "Tell you what. I'll bill THEM for having to teach the bastard how to write a decent application, how's that?"

For the first time, Godson chuckled. "Listen, Dar, I know this was a bitch of a thing to dump on you, but you know we really had no choice. You were the best option we had to salvage this...this..."

"Clusterfuck is the technical term we use." Dar leaned back, calculating the days. If the programmer got here tomorrow, and she was very, very lucky, maybe she'd get the hell out of here by the weekend.

Damn. She didn't want to stay here that long. She wanted to get to the airport, get on a plane, and just...

Her PDA chirped, and she glanced down, to see a hand drawn sad face appear on the screen. Then a second message appeared, and she clicked on it.

I am sitting here in this freaking oatmeal colored hotel conference room having to listen to freaking Michelle Graver go on and on about how wonderful her company is and how they're going to revolutionize Quest's business, and you tell me that??? Augguuhhh!!!!

Dar half listened to Meyer's halting conversation with the programmer as she answered.

Sorry, Ker. More complicated than I thought. I'll talk to you later about it. Might get out of here Friday night.

She sent the message. The PDA beeped almost immediately.

FRIDAY!!!!!!??????????????

"Dar?" Meyer called her name and waited for her to look up. "They can do it. The guy'll be on a flight that gets in here at eight a.m. tomorrow. How's that?"

"Good." Dar nodded, and then went back to her messaging. I'm not happy about it either. I have to go get a couple spare pairs of clothes, and these bastards are going to cope with them being jeans and T-shirts. She tapped the stylus a few times. Sorry. Didn't mean to stick you with the crap. Or the crappy jerks.

"Here's the game plan." Dar looked up after she sent the last message. "We start with laying out the design changes tomorrow morning. I'll give our German friend a framework to start with, and then I'll see what I can do with our existing infrastructure to maximize it. You may end up being a beta site."

"Okay." Godson nodded, a bit nervously. "Do we get a rebate for that?"

Dar stared at him, both eyebrows lifting.

"Just kidding," the CIO smiled weakly.

The PDA beeped. Dar's eyes dropped to it, scanning the message and gaining a faint twinkle as a ghost of a smile crossed her face.

I think Michelle and Shari got my silent mental message because they've been leaving me alone. My turn to lie like a fish is next, and then we're all supposed to have lunch. If I throw chicken Kiev at them, will you fire me so I can fly to NY and be with you instead?

"Dar?"

"Hm?" Dar glanced across the table. "All set?" She realized the room had been watching her, and shrugged, holding up the PDA. "Telling my staff back in Miami not to expect me. I've got a couple of hot irons someone's having to cover." BRB She scrawled hastily, hitting send.

"Uh...yeah, we're set," Meyer agreed. "Is there...can we do anything until he gets here? Run some...um...tests, or..."

Dar shook her head. "No." She battled the urge to ignore the room and chat with Kerry instead, finding it disturbingly difficult to keep her concentration on the clients in front of her. "Just tell everyone to relax, that you know it's slower than molasses, but that it's being worked on." She stood up and slipped her PDA into her pocket. "And now, gentlemen, I'm going to make arrangements for the rest of my responsibilities while I'm working on this little problem of yours. I'll see you first thing in the morning."

They hastily scrambled to their feet and started yammering thanks and goodbyes as she strode across the room, heading for the door and the dubious freedom of the Manhattan streets.

Outside, she was hit with a blast of hot air, and all the sounds of a busy city that jarred on her sensitive ears. She ducked between two buildings to escape the worst of the sun and opened her PDA, leaning against the brick building as she started to write. Finishing, she hit send, and then looked around her. "So." She unbuttoned the collar button on her shirt. "What in the hell do you do on a summer day in New York?"

With a sigh, she stepped out onto the sidewalk and began hunting for the proper spot to find a cab. "Guess I'll be finding out." She fixed an oncoming yellow victim with a direct stare, making eye contact with the driver and pulling him over to the curb apparently by the force of her own will. "Shit," she sighed, opening the back door. "Now I won't find out what she did for two whole damn days."

Damn it. The secret nipped at the corners of her conscience as she tried to puzzle out what her partner could have done that she didn't want to tell Dar about over the phone.

Shaved her head maybe? Dar frowned. No, she'd just gotten a haircut.

Maybe she dyed her hair a different color. "Hm." Dar put her PDA away and watched the city roll by. "How bad could that be?"

DAR REVIEWED HER options once she'd changed out of her suit into a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. There was, she had to grudgingly admit, a lot of things to do in New York, but most of them didn't really appeal to her.

Of course, she could stay in her hotel room and catch up on email. She gave her laptop a dour look, leaning over to check the screen. It was dark with new lines, some of them with red exclamation points next to them.

Dar read the first two, then impatiently shoved the laptop away, deciding to postpone the task until later. The sender's idea of urgent didn't jive with hers, and she had other things she needed to be doing. With a grunt, she got up from the bed and went to the small table, grabbing up one of the magazines there and dropping into the chair by the window.

Faintly, the sound of the city came through the glass. Dar turned her head and peered down at the street, but after a brief moment, she lost interest and went back to deciding what to do.

She flipped through the hotel guide restlessly, passing up coach rides in Central Park she'd have jumped at if Kerry was there, and the miles of shopping available to those into that kind of thing. Fancy stores whose advertisements probably cost more than the average family made in a month. Dar's nostrils twitched as she reflected on the fact that despite all her resources, her tastes really hadn't altered to high priced snootiness all that much.

Diamond bracelets? Well...

Dar occasionally enjoyed shopping, but usually only when she and Kerry were out for the day getting stuff they needed, and also mixing it up with lunch, or a trip to the computer store, or something they both found interesting.

They liked a lot of the same things. Dar always found that comforting. At first she'd wondered if Kerry was pretending to like things just because she wanted to make them seem more compatible, but after a while she realized they really did like the same stuff and in the cases when they didn't, she'd learned to read Kerry's facial expressions so accurately she knew in a single twitch of a muscle in her cheek what she was thinking.