Melissa Good - Tropical Storm

“Not exactly.” Kerry chuckled, pulling out her Rollerblades. “I mean, yes, we had a late meeting, but it was down here, and we…I found someone to go eat Thai with me, so I tried out that new restaurant I was telling you about.”

“They sauté cats, y’know,” Colleen advised her, plopping down on the couch and removing her own skates from around her neck. They’d planned to go out skating, and she’d been watching for Kerry’s car. “Not that you can tell what the hell’s in there in any case.”

The blonde woman rolled her eyes. “It was chicken, Col. Just chicken, rice, some stuffed shrimp, and these really nice little doughnuts for dessert.”

She pulled on a skate and tightened the laces. “And it’s Vietnamese that uses cats, not Thai.”

“Mmm-hmm. So, should I be jealous? You’ve got a new friend at work, eh? What’s his name?” Colleen coaxed mischievously. “How’d you con him into dubious restaurants so fast?”

Kerry stopped lacing and rested her hands on her knee before looking up.

“Um. It’s a her, and it’s Dar, and she didn’t need any conning. She likes Thai.”

Colleen’s jaw dropped. “No shit? You were out having dinner with your boss, again?” She clucked under her breath. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d be thinking you were doing some first class butt kissing here.”

“Tch. You’re just pissed because I finally found someone who’ll eat that stuff with me.” She gave a soft laugh. “Besides, she’s kinda fun.”

The redhead slapped her hand to her temple. “I didn’t hear that.” She plugged both ears. “I’m not listening to you tell me that fire-breathing dragon is ‘fun.’ Kerry, this is the bitch who was going to fire you and everyone at Associated two weeks ago, remember?”

Kerry bristled unexpectedly. “Don’t call her that. She was just doing her job.”

“That’s what the Nazis said,” Colleen replied unrepentantly. “I can’t believe you’re sitting here defending her.”

Kerry finished tying her laces, then stood, balancing easily. “It’s different now, Colleen. I understand a lot more about what was going on behind all the decisions she was making. She’s not a bad person.”

“So, it’s okay for her to just fire everyone now?” The redhead stared at her. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“No. Understanding is not the same as agreeing with. It’s just that I can take what she does separate from who she is.”

Tropical Storm 113

Colleen grabbed her head with both hands. “You’re confusing the daylights out of me.”

“Well, put on your skates and let’s get going.” Kerry sighed. “Look, it’s simple—I didn’t like what she did. It’s why I decided to try and join her department, so maybe I could change her mind on things. But I do like who she is, I like her, as a person—regardless of what she does at work. You understand?”

Her friend finished tying off her skates and stood, wobbling a little. “I understand she’s charmed the hell out of you, that’s for sure.” She shook her head. “Just…Kerry, be careful, okay? I don’t want to see you throw yourself into this job, only to have it backfire on you, and have her screw you over.”

She wouldn’t do that. The words came naturally to her lips, without thought, but Kerry clamped her jaw shut on them, realizing it wasn’t something she could easily explain knowing. “I’ll be careful. I know sometimes things can get ugly, especially at the level she’s at. Thanks for being concerned about me.”

“Mmph,” Colleen grumbled. “Someone’s got to be.” She followed Kerry out the door and down the sidewalk. “So, how’s she treating you up there anyway?”

Kerry swung into an easy rhythm, heading down the paved street.

“Pretty good, really. She keeps sabotaging me with cookies. She thinks I don’t weigh enough.” She gave Colleen a wry look. “We share a lot of the same tastes in goodies.”

“Ah.” Her friend nodded. “Okay, she gets a point then.” She paused.

“But only one, mind you.” She tugged at Kerry’s shirt. “I’ve been telling you that for months.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Kerry rolled her eyes. “Come on, I’ll race you to the corner.”

KERRY ENTERED THE conference room and gave a smiling nod to the assembled group as she slipped into a chair halfway down the table. It was the first meeting she was going to attend without Dar’s comforting presence by her side, and she was a little nervous. She put her PDA down on the table and glanced around, folding her hands together.

The meeting was to coordinate a project to replace the current technology they were using for their huge intranetwork with a more advanced type, and that affected virtually everyone in the company. Dar had meant to attend, but she was in the middle of straightening out a huge problem affecting the entire West Coast and had told Kerry to just go on, take notes, and not to agree to anything.

Easy enough. She was a little worried about Dar, though. The morning had started out fine, but after she’d taken care of the day’s urgent morning e-mail, she’d stopped by to check on something and found her boss standing by her window, staring out at the water with a grim expression. Something was bothering her. Even after only two weeks, Kerry could see it plainly. Dar had given her brief answers, a dismissive attitude that had surprisingly hurt. But there was this meeting, and they had work to do, so there was no time for her to ask any more questions.

So she sat here, instead, worrying about someone she barely knew and sitting in a meeting she was barely prepared for. Kerry sighed. Good thing it’s Friday. She glanced up as a tall, bearded man stepped to the head of the table and sat down, shuffling some papers in front of him, then looking at her with an unpleasant frown.

“Do I understand we’re not deemed important enough for Ms. Roberts to be here?”

Kerry bit her tongue for a minute, then cleared her throat. “Actually, she’s cleaning up a mess out in the western region. She asked me to sit in for her.”

The younger man sitting next to him winced. “Ouch. The Pacific deal?”

Kerry nodded. “She forced Unisys to ship those mainframes a week early, and she was pushing some of the folks out there to get a team out for install.”

The bearded man didn’t look any happier, but he grunted and focused his attention on his papers. “Well, all right, let’s get started with this.” He glanced at his neighbor. “You have a technology presentation?”

Kerry settled in, opening her PDA and scribbling a few notes as the lights dimmed and a circuit diagram flashed on the screen.

Tropical Storm 115

DAR TOOK A sip of the water on her desk and focused her attention on the woman sitting in front of her desk. The Marketing VP was busy outlining a new scheme and wanted Dar’s input on whether or not their current infrastructure would be able to handle it. She took a breath and swallowed, forcing down the nausea that had added itself to her daily headache, today’s being worse than usual, so bad that she suspected what she was suffering was actually a migraine.

It had started with a spell of tunnel vision, the edges of her sight becoming a whirling, sparkling blurriness. The pain had started at the base of her skull and was working upward, the throbbing so bad it was making her stomach upset. The Marketing VP’s voice wasn’t helping. Eleanor had an unfortunate nasal voice, and Dar felt herself losing her concentration, wanting nothing more than to curl up in a dark place and tune the world out.

But she couldn’t. There was too much to do, so she grimly sucked down more water, calculating whether she could risk downing another four or five ibuprofen. “Looks good, Eleanor. We can work out the bandwidth, but I’d write in the overhead for additional T3s into those contracts.”

The woman scribbled a note, nodding. “Yes, we can do that.”

The phone rang, and Dar punched the speakerphone button. “Yes?”

“Dar, we’ve got a problem.” Mark’s voice was irritated. “T and T

requested Internet access for some of their senior techs, and they’ve got an open TCP/IP stack on their boxes. I can proxy them, but there’s a chance someone can get into them from that damn intranet they support and hit us from the inside.”

“Fine. No,” Dar uttered, resting her head on her hand. “Tell T and T

nothing doing.”

“I did,” Mark replied. “But Alai’s complaining up and down the place and chewing my ass.”

Dar took a breath and released it. “Tell him I said no,” she answered evenly. “Tell him if he has a problem with that, he can call me directly and I’ll tell his little, punky, unintelligible ass no.”

Momentary silence. “Okay,” Mark answered slowly, drawing out the word.

“And you can tell him from me, if he’s so stupid he can’t understand a simple concept like network security, we can find him a new position painting stripes outside in the parking lot of the Bank of New Zealand,” Dar continued, her voice deepening into a growl.

Longer silence. “I think I’ll let you tell him that,” the MIS chief finally replied with a hesitant chuckle. “I don’t want to deprive you of the pleasure.”

The throbbing got worse, and Dar suspected she was near throwing up, the very thought of which made her head hurt even more. “Thanks.” She hung up, then looked at Eleanor “Are we done?”

The woman blinked at her. “You all right, Dar?” she politely inquired.

“Not that you usually aren’t in a foul mood, but this seems a bit much, even for you.”

Blue eyes pinned her mercilessly. “Are we done?” Dar repeated testily.

The woman stood and shook her head. “Yes. Have a nice…weekend, Dar.” She paused. “Or whatever.” She walked out, closing the door behind her 116 Melissa Good with an unnecessary force and gave Maria a look. “She’s got a bug up her ass today, doesn’t she?” Her eyes fell on Kerry, who had just entered the office and was now standing near the secretary’s desk. “Oh, sorry, honey, you’re still kinda new, aren’t you? Haven’t gotten sick of her yet? My god, you’ve lasted six times as long as the others. You must be some kind of saint.”