Kerry had always been fun to hang with. She was smart, and had a gently sly sense of humor. Generally, she seemed to be enjoying life, despite the problems Colleen knew she was having with her family.

But meeting Dar had changed her profoundly in Colleen's eyes. She remembered very clearly the night Kerry had come home from Disney the first time, so obviously lost in the throes of her first real love she'd worried that her friend would drown from it.

No one, Kerry had once told her, had ever loved her for her. Never. Not until she'd met Dar, and Colleen had been really sort of scared for her at the beginning. She'd been in so deep. "You two are really solid. That's cool," she commented mildly. "Listen, sorry if I stepped into it, Ker. You know I just care about you."

Kerry's shoulders relaxed under their silk covering. "Yeah, know," she said. "Boy, we were both ticked off at them big time though. You know what we did?" Her expression turned impish.

"What?"

"You've been to EPCOT, right?" It was Kerry's turn to lower her voice.

"Sure."

"Living Seas? The big aquarium?"

"With the sea cows, sure," Colleen agreed amiably.

"Dar and I went diving in it."

The redhead leaned forward. "On purpose?"

Kerry chuckled, draining her iced tea glass. "Yes, on purpose...it's a program they have. Anyway, we went diving and one of the tank windows is in the restaurant."

"Yeap, I've been there. Nice view." Colleen nodded.

"Yeah well...Shari and Michelle were having dinner, and we scared the living poop out of them and made them spill all over themselves," Kerry told her. "It was hilarious. We were laughing so hard we almost drowned."

Colleen covered her eyes. "Ye gods and little fishes, Kerry. You could have been kicked out of the park for that!"

Her lunch companion grinned. "It was worth it. They were being such jackasses. You know their company actually tried to recruit us?"

"You?"

"Both of us! They had no idea who we were!" Kerry replied. "And then Michelle tried to buy us off. It was such a mess."

"Jesus, Kerry." Colleen's eyes widened. "You think they targeted us deliberately? Because of Dar? Is that why they went after our accounts?"

Kerry made a vague shushing motion with her hand, as several more people joined them. "I don't know...no, I don't think it was that. I think it's how big we are. We're a good target. If anything..." she hesitated. "If anything, I think they're scared of Dar."

"Huh." Her friend exhaled, taking a sip of her drink. "Well, after that show this week, they fair well should be! Besides that, my friend, did you see yourself on television yet? I taped it."

"Eurf." Kerry grimaced.

"C'mon upstairs," Colleen invited her, with a grin. "You didn't see what Dar was doing behind you either, I'm thinking."

"Uh oh." Kerry got up, carrying her tray to the back table. "Tell me she was making faces."

"Weeeeell..."

Kerry groaned again, and followed her out.

"ALL RIGHT, JAVIER." Dar was leaning back in her chair, her feet propped up on her desk. "How much is it gonna cost me?"

"Now, Dar..." The South American sales director laughed. "You know that I have never, never asked for more toys for us down here, have I?"

Dar had her eyes closed as the very late afternoon light tinted her windows. "No."

"Bueno. Now, if we had this capacity available here, in Buenos Aries, I could do very good things with it. I have sold very well the systems you have given me, no?"

"Yes."

"So?"

Dar wiggled her toes, thinking in silence.

"Is it my fault that so many people saw your cable show?" Javier asked, after a pause. "I have had six enquires just today. People are very nervous about security."

"So they want to hire hackers?" Dar asked bemusedly. "What exactly does that say about Brazil, Javier?"

"Tccha."

"I'll review it, see what we have available to put in there," Dar conceded. "We might have an installation I can divert over there, depends on the projections due next week."

The inner door to her office opened, revealing a very tired, very bedraggled looking Kerry. Dar waggled her fingers at her, giving her a wry look when Kerry trudged across the carpet to her desk and sat down on it, draping an arm over Dar's legs.

"Excellent! That is very good news, Dar. I will let my people know." Javier sounded smugly pleased. "So tell me, is every hacker in the world now trying to get in our gates? That was quite a braggadocio you made. I hope it does not come back to haunt you."

Dar leaned over and clicked her mouse, pulling up a monitoring screen and reviewing the results. She studied it briefly. "Eh," she eventually grunted. "Hits are up, but it's nothing overly scary." She turned away from the screen, preferring to gaze at Kerry instead. "We only have the one big website that exposes us, and that's strictly outside the network."

"Really?" Javier murmured.

"Sure. Our entire class A's masked, so the first problem hackers have is finding us. We don't have a lot of things hanging out there. I've got four redundant pipes servicing the website with logic that detects DOS on any link and runs an automatic squelch on the inbound packets," Dar said. "So yeah, they could probably pick at some of the smaller accounts we have, but only the ones where we don't provide the infrastructure. The network itself's pretty locked down."

There was a respectful silence. Then one of the international sales managers cleared her throat. "Lovely. Can we have a side of chips with that, then, Dar?"

Dar chuckled. "I'm glad the show's having some positive spin. I'll try to make sure we don't get backlash if some little nerd creep gets lucky," she conceded. "Anything's possible, but Mark's been working on some new routines that incorporate some of the intelligent logic I'm using for the network upgrade, so we'll see."

Another bit of silence. "Have a pint of Guinness with that one," the same manager piped up. "Never mind the chips."

There was a round of laughter on the phone. Kerry moved her arm and started massaging her partner's bare feet, too tired to really concentrate on what was going on. Of course, the managers on the phone didn't understand one word in ten Dar was saying on the technology side either, but that wasn't really unusual.

"Listen, I'm outta here, folks," Dar said. "I got in from the show very late last night." She reached over and laid a hand on Kerry's thigh, stroking it lightly. "I've got the action items you all asked for--I'll let you know what my decisions are tomorrow."

She let the conference line go after a round of goodbyes and focused her attention on the blond woman sitting on her desk. "You look toasted."

"Get the jam and butter, Sinbad," Kerry admitted. "I want you, a hot cup of tea, a shower, and our waterbed. Can you make that happen, boss?"

Dar removed her legs from the desktop and sat up, reaching down for her shoes. "You bet your crumbs I can, my little Yankee toast," she said. "How about we order in something light from the beach club and go crash?"

Kerry leaned in and collapsed over Dar, draping her arms over her partner's shoulders. "Lead me."

Dar managed to get to her feet, and turned Kerry's sprawl into a full body hug, careful not to squeeze her sunburned shoulders. "C'mon." She picked up her briefcase and nudged Kerry toward the door. "I'm so fried I was about to agree to whatever they asked me on that damn call."

"They'd probably never have realized it." Kerry hooked her fingers inside the waistband of Dar's skirt as she followed her from the office. It was quiet outside. Maria had left a short time before, and the normal sounds of evening were starting to settle over the building. "Euu...they're shampooing the carpet tonight."

Dar's nose wrinkled as the scent of wet, dirty, mildewy carpet wafted down the hallway. "Definitely time to leave." She punched the button for the elevator. "How'd your afternoon meeting go?"

"Ick." Kerry had her eyes closed, and she was leaning against Dar as they waited for the elevator. "I have some wacky problem going on in Vancouver we can't isolate. Two T1's that are supposed to be redundant, but one of them keeps tanking and the other one just sits there dumb and happy like a frog and refuses to pass traffic unless we bounce it."

"Uh huh," Dar mused, guiding her engaging limpet through the doors, and then punching the bottom floor button. "HSRP set right?'

"Duh."

Dar watched the floors count down. "Metrics checked?'

"Baaap. Try again."

"I'm trying to be helpful here, Kerrison."

"I know, but we've checked all that." Kerry yawned. "Three times. I even had the vendor in to verify the configs."

The elevator reached its destination and opened to release them. "Why are you involved in that anyway?" Dar asked suddenly, as they crossed the lobby. "Since when does a VP Ops troubleshoot the WAN links?"

"Since it's been going on for four months and no one's fixed it yet," Kerry replied. "And because they figured if they brought it to me, I'd scratch my head over it for a while then take it to my boss, the CIO who also should not be troubleshooting WAN links, and that was the best chance they had to resolve the problem."

"Hmph."

"It's a compliment, hon," Kerry assured her.

"How ridiculous is it that we need to have the top two technology officers in the company working on a piddling T1 problem?" Dar groused. "C'mon, Kerry. What the hell do we pay people for?"

"I know, it's ridiculous," Kerry agreed. "You know, let me call the vendor again."

They walked out of the building in silence, crossing into the muggy heat of summer.

Kerry was glad to see the Lexus' looming bulk with its promise of comfortable, though overheated leather seats. She put her briefcase in the back and climbed into the passenger side, easing back gingerly as she closed the door. "Ow."

Dar glanced at her. "Aloe time for you," she remarked.

"Yeah." Kerry turned on her side and rested her head against the seat. Her eyes went to the console between them, however, as Dar's cell phone rang. "Want me to get that?"

"Sure." Dar had her hands full starting the car and getting the air conditioner running before they both melted.

"Hello?" Kerry opened the phone and listened. "Oh, yes. Hello, Mr. Quest." She gave Dar a look and received one in response. "No, she's here. Hang on."

Dar took the phone and hit the speaker, then set it down on the console as she put the Lexus in reverse. "Yes?"

"Hello, is that Dar Roberts?"

"Yes," Dar repeated, slightly louder. "You got me in transit, Peter. What can I do for you?" she asked. "I spent some time with your requirements today, but I'm not done reviewing them."

"Yeah, well, the plan's changed," Quest said. "We have to pull out of New Zealand early, so we're going to do the finishing in the States."

"Ah." Dar felt a pang of disappointment. She'd been looking forward to visiting that part of the world. "And?"

"Port of Miami made me an offer. I'm taking four unused passenger piers for two months down there. I figured that would work for you, at least, if not the other two companies bidding."

"Peh." Kerry snorted softly. "We could practically swim there from our house."

"Matter of fact, that's right around the corner from our offices," Dar replied. "Won't those other guys think you're giving us an advantage?"

Quest laughed. "I'm sure they will. But you can handle the heat, or so I've heard." He cleared his throat. "We also moved the timetable up. The two ships'll be at the port in two weeks. Be ready, or don't bother."

He hung up, leaving a distinct echo in the car.

For a few minutes, they drove on in silence. Dar flipped the phone closed and curled her fingers around it, tapping the leather cover with her thumb while Kerry chewed the inside of her lip thoughtfully. Then they both started talking at the same time.

"There's something..."

"Something's not ri..."

"Ahem." Dar coughed slightly as they stopped and fell silent again.

"Hm," Kerry agreed, pursing her lips. "Did you do any background research on these guys?" she asked. "Want me to run our standard client query?"

Dar felt slightly embarrassed. "Yeah." She slowed down to make the turn into the ferry terminal. "I didn't get around to that. I um..." She paused, then scowled as she pulled into a lane. "Shit."