Kerry debated on whether she wanted to engage in the debate. Before she could make a choice, Mark spoke up for almost the first time that afternoon.

"It's not that hard," Mark said. "We got a system that profiles all the different accounts and systems, so whoever answers the phone gets the whole deal in a couple clicks." He shrugged. "What matters is you getting the call to someone who's got the right skill set. That's the trick."

"Exactly," Kerry picked up the thread neatly. "But you guys all know that. It's not rocket science," she added. "We save the rocket science for the solutions teams."

Mark chuckled.

"So, what's the deal with that new system you guys are rolling on?" Ross asked. "Bud here was at the trade show, and he said something like Dar was teaching routers to think?"

Shari laughed in derision. "What a load of BS."

Kerry looked across the table and caught Michelle's eye. The shorter women looked away, then visibly sighed and nudged her partner. Shari gave her an outraged face, but Michelle lowered her chin and stared at her until she subsided.

"Dar's working on a lot of new technology," Kerry went on after the awkward break. "Most of which I can't really go into, but it's fair to say we're being very aggressive in taking the limits out of our new hardware."

"Yeah, I can imagine what you're selling the government with our tax dollars to burn." Shari stared steadily at Kerry. "How many millions was it for the Navy?"

Bitch. Kerry braced her elbow on the arm of her chair and rested her chin against it. "Well..." she finally addressed Shari directly. "Considering that the systems they were running before we went in there were written by Dar when she was fifteen years old, I guess they thought they needed an upgrade."

"Fifteen?" Ross stared at her. "What are you talking about?"

Kerry grinned briefly. "She was trading programming sessions for peanut butter way back then. But the systems held up until they were ready for the next century."

Ross cocked his head. "I didn't know Dar was a programmer. I thought she was all infrastructure and design."

"She has many, many skills." A wicked twinkle entered Kerry's green eyes. "That has been a very successful contract for us. I've enjoyed working on it. It makes me feel good to know we're providing the best to the people who defend our country."

Shari rolled her eyes.

Kerry caught the interested expression on the Tech TV reporter's face as he sat there picking at his chicken. "That's what's given us a leg up on the new project. Dar's helping them write the machine code for it."

"Wow." Ross didn't disguise his reaction. "So we'll all end up licensing her brain cells, huh?"

"Eventually," Kerry agreed. "But you have been all along. She holds I think..." She glanced at Mark.

"Twelve," Mark supplied promptly.

"Twelve patents," Kerry nodded. "That's right. Most of it in behind the scenes firmware advances." She took another sip of her tea, glancing around with a good deal of bland, mock innocence. "Sometimes you really do get what you pay for."

"You'd know," Shari sniped. "Talk about the last century. You're never going to survive in the next one with that old business strategy. Our last six months proves that."

Kerry shrugged. "Time will tell."

"No one wants to deal with you dinosaurs anymore," Shari added. "They want small companies, who can react fast, and not charge an arm and a leg." She looked directly at Kerry. "And you are only as good as your last success. One big screw up in the news, and you don't even have that much."

Kerry looked at the Tech TV reporter, then at her. "Very true."

"Well, if we're done." Quest appeared, his hair disordered as though he'd been running his hands through it. "Let's go get the rest of the meeting started. I've had some things crop up that need tending to."

Kerry gladly got to her feet and shoved her chair in, dropping her napkin on her mostly untouched plate. "Definitely would be my pleasure." She motioned Mark to precede her, and evaded Ross' hastened steps as they headed toward the door.

Outside, she touched Mark's arm briefly. "Go on upstairs. I'm going to take a pit stop." She indicated the restrooms.

"Okay," Mark agreed. "But you are coming back, right?" he asked, with a wry look. "I mean, you want me to call the center and have them broadcast a fake disaster so we can get out of here?"

Kerry narrowed her eyes. "Don't tempt me," she muttered, giving him a bump. "G'wan. Maybe Quest'll give us a break and make this short."

Mark took off toward the steps, and she turned after a moment and headed for the restroom door. She heard steps catching up to her, and felt the odd sensation of her hackles lifting as she imagined them to be Shari.

Her heart started pounding, and she got the same tingles in her guts that she did when they were sparring in kickboxing class, a response to challenge that made her fingers twitch in sudden reaction.

She reached forward and grabbed the door handle, pulling it open only to find not Shari, but Michelle behind her as she half turned to face her pursuer.

Maybe Michelle got the hint. She stepped back quickly and waited, watching Kerry with faintly alarmed eyes. "Sorry."

Kerry glanced past Michelle, and ascertained they were alone. "Where's your traveling jackass?" she asked directly. "Don't you take her with you to critique the toilet paper?"

Michelle sighed, and edged past Kerry through the door she was still holding open. "I'm not going to answer that," she said. "We all have our issues."

"That's not an issue." Kerry followed her inside and headed for a stall. "That's a brain the size of a walnut and an ego the size of the glades." She closed the door with a snick. "And a lack of professionalism that makes you look like an idiot."

Michelle cleared her throat gently. "Gee, Kerry. Tell me how you really feel. Don't hold back."

"Fuck it," Kerry snapped. "You two have been on my last nerve for a week. Grow the hell up, would you?"

Dead silence.

Kerry amused herself by flipping open her PDA and reading some of her saved messages from Dar.

"Well. I see we really did piss you off," Michelle finally said into all that silence. "The real Kerry Stuart emerges." She ran some water in the sink, as the outer walls echoed with a faint announcement. "Look, Shari feels like she's got a right to blow the gilt off of your reputation when she can. It's just business, remember?"

"Shari does it because she's got a hard on for Dar," Kerry replied evenly. "It has nothing to do with business, and we both know it."

Michelle cleared her throat gently. "She does have a personal insight," she remarked. "It's valid."

Kerry emerged, leaning against the stall door to face her adversary. "I have a personal insight too," she reminded Michelle. "Want me to bring out in that meeting how you chased Dar and wanted to get into her skirt? Or how you tried to blackmail her by sending pictures of us to the corporate office? Or how..."

"Okay." Michelle's voice was sharp, and hard. "Let's just relax a minute."

Kerry waited, keeping her eyes fixed on the smaller woman. After a long moment, when neither of them said anything, she stepped forward. "You listen to me," she said, her voice dropping a little. "You want this to be civilized? That's fine with me. I want this to be civilized. I want this to be a tough bid, and the best deal wins. Can we leave all the personal bullshit out of it?"

Michelle shifted and leaned against the wall. "Is that why Dar skipped out? Get too hot for her?"

Kerry rolled her eyes. "Jesus." She threw up her hands. "I give up. Fine. Let it be a bitch fest. Just make sure you know how to duck when I start throwing." She turned and headed for the door, but Michelle edged around her and put her back against it. "You really don't want to get in my way, Michelle."

"Okay--okay--okay." Graver ran her hand through her hair, disordering its fair glossiness. "Listen, just like you have a vested interest, so do I. You may not like the methods, but I respect Shari's skill at marketing, and she's been a big part of the progress we made in the last year."

Kerry put her hand on the door and started to push.

"Yeah, okay--she's got a bug up her about Dar, but I think it's mutual, right?" Michelle persisted. "She's got a beef, and now she's in a position to screw Dar over like Dar screwed her over way back when. It's human."

Kerry stopped pushing. "Michelle," she said quietly. "Did she ever tell you why Dar screwed her over?"

The smaller woman cocked her head slightly. "Did she need a reason?"

"Dar always has a reason." Kerry shoved past her, into the bright chaos of the hotel lobby. "You want this to be nasty?" She turned and regarded Michelle. "I can make it nasty. Dar's just honest and straightforward." She smiled grimly. "I'm a politician's kid. Screw with me at your own risk."

It felt good to turn and just walk away then, sauntering across the lobby well aware of Michelle's eyes on her back. "Bitch, bitch, bitch," she warbled under her breath, as she started up the steps to the second floor conference rooms. "Y'now, there are some days when I wish I'd taken my family's advice and become a teacher." She got to the top of the steps and turned to see Michelle and Shari standing next to the restroom, obviously in a heated discussion. "Heh. But today isn't one of 'em." She tapped the railing, then continued on her way toward the conference room, whose doors were standing wide open.

And as she stepped across the threshold, every single light in the building blinked out, leaving the room, and the rest of the hotel, in total darkness.

"I didn't do it," Mark's voice sounded just behind her. "Honest."

Kerry emerged back into the lobby, which was lit by outside light. "They forget to pay FPL or something?" she commented to Ross, who quickly joined her at the balcony rail. "Nice timing though."

"You got that right," Ross agreed. "I'm not sure what the deal is here, Kerry. What's the game? You never have vendors come in and do a face off."

"Good question," Kerry agreed. "I don't know wha..." She glanced down as her PDA started to go off, then she turned as Mark pulled his phone out. "You getting those too?"

Mark studied his phone. Then he opened it and dialed. He waited, his eyes going a little unfocused, then he hung up only to answer the phone as it rang immediately. "Polenti." He listened, then his eyes went up and fastened on Kerry's. "She's right here."

"Uh oh. That doesn't sound good," Kerry muttered.

Quest came over, leaving the house phone on the wall he'd been talking on. "Well, it appears it's not the hotel's fault," he announced. "Apparently the power is out all over the city." His eyes fell on Kerry. "Some screw up or other."

"Okay," Mark said. "I'll tell her." He shut the phone and clipped it to his belt. "Boss?"

Kerry felt the buzzing against her palm as alerts came one after another. She kept her expression mildly interested though. "So, does that mean your meetings for this afternoon are postponed?" she asked. "We'd like to beat traffic back to our offices if that's the case."

"Well." Quest looked briefly nonplussed. "There's nothing we can do right now. I have a presentation I was going to show, but it will need to be rescheduled. I expect you all to remain available for that." He motioned to his staff and started down the stairs toward the hotel front desk.

"What are we supposed to do?" Shari asked. "Just hang around here in the dark?"

Kerry bit her tongue on the obvious response. "If the AC's off in here, I'd actually go outside if I were you," she offered. "It gets very hot, very fast. Mark, let's head back to our offices. I'm sure we can get some work done in the meantime."

"Gee, thanks Kerry," Ross exhaled. "I was supposed to fly back to Oregon tonight." He started down the stairs. "Damn it."

"See you all later." Kerry motioned for Mark to follow her and they trotted down the steps, getting some distance away from the rest of the crowd before speaking. "Are we in trouble?" she asked.

"Big time screwed," Mark confirmed. "We lost all our links."

"What?" Kerry stopped in mid step, and stared at him.

"Think you better book, poquito boss. They can't even call into or out of the office. Lucky we got our cells."

"Jesus." Kerry fought to keep herself from breaking into a run. "What in the hell happened to the redundant systems?"