"It is not!" Hans insisted. "Look, look here." He pushed a paper toward her. "See there? It is only what the program needs. Just that."

Dar pulled the paper over and studied it, one long finger tracing the code. Her brow furrowed, and then she pulled over the next page, her eyes flicking over the lines of text searching for something. "Eh...eh..."

"What?" Hans got up and came around to her side of the table, leaning on the wooden surface and peering over her shoulder. "There is nothing there."

"There." Dar tapped a line of code with the tip of her finger. "Look what you're doing here."

"Nothing!"

"You're sending the whole screen at once."

Hans leaned closer, almost touching Dar's arm as he peered at the paper. "And, so?"

"So it's going as an unbroken string of linked packets and it grabs all the bandwidth," Dar said. "You're sending colors, Hans, as bits. You should be sending only vectors."

He stared at the paper. "Plot it all? Don't be ridiculous!"

"I'm not. You send vectors, it's only four bits, I transmit that as a small packet," Dar argued. "Change it. I'll show you."

Hans took the paper and sat down, frowning. "No. I cannot change it."

"Give me that. I'll change it." Dar held her hand out. "Share your drive out."

"No." Hans refused. "You do not understand, Dar. If this changes, the whole program must change."

Dar looked at him. "That's right."

"I am not changing my whole program. That is not what we agreed to."

"You agreed to make it work for them. That's what it's gonna take," Dar said.

"No, you must change your network, to allow them to work better." Hans shook his head. "I am not at this time going to redo my entire program."

Dar got up, in an almost explosive motion that sent the chair skittering back a few hops. She walked to the window and peered out of it. "Hans, it'll work."

"Pah." Hans pushed a stack of papers out of his way. "It is much easier if you give them more room."

"They have to pay for it."

Hans shrugged. "The world turns around on such things."

Dar turned and leaned against the window. "Hans, cut the dirt. They contracted you for a working program. You gave them a big, smelly white elephant."

"In no way!" he shot back, slapping his hand on the table. "This system works as designed! As designed! I will not change it!"

"You will." Dar crossed the space between them and braced her arms on the table, leaning toward him. "Because I'm not going to ask my clients to pay more for bad programming."

"You cannot say that!" Hans warned. "There is no way that I will..."

Dar moved suddenly, leaning much closer and lowering her voice. "Yes, you will," she growled. "So get it into your head right now you're going to make those changes. Do it, or I'll call in their legal department and we can start drafting up a breach of contract filing."

"You would not dare."

"Sure I would," Dar rasped. "So you'll sit there, and make that change." She pointed a finger at him. "Because you know damn well I'm right."

"You are not!"

"I AM." Dar's voice built up to an impressive bark.

Hans glowered at her. Dar kept her eyes locked on his, refusing to let up. He shoved back from the table and threw his pencil down, then walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

Dar straightened up with a reflective sniff, and resumed her seat. "Hm." She crossed her ankles. "Forgotten how much I really like doing that." She looked up as the door opened again, ready to resume her argument but put it on hold as Meyer walked in instead. "Hi."

He gave her a slight nod. "Not going well, I see."

Dar blinked mildly at him. "I think it's going great." She checked her watch. "Only took me four hours to figure out what the problem is. With any luck, I'll be able to get him to fix it in less than a decade."

Meyer rested his hands on the back of one tall chair and regarded her. "If you get the chance. I don't think you will. I think you upset our friend Hans so much he's leaving." He smiled grimly at her. "So I guess your great discovery is a bust."

Dar leaned back and laced her fingers behind her head. "Unfortunately for you, I think he's got more integrity than that," she remarked. "Not that you'd recognize it if you saw it."

"Just who the hell do you think you are?" he asked, angrily. "You think you can come in here and mouth off like that to me? I'm your customer!"

The door opened again, and this time Stewart Godson walked in. "Well, hello you two." He smiled, apparently oblivious to the dark thunderclouds hovering over the conference table. "How are things going? Made any progress? I see you've got a lot of paperwork here."

"Excuse me, sir," Meyer murmured, dodging past his boss and leaving the room.

Godson peered after him, then he turned and looked at Dar. "Did I interrupt something? I knew you two would get along if you just got to know each other a little bit. He's not a bad sort, Dar."

"He's a scheming skunk who wants your job and has the skill set of a pickle," Dar replied, with a light drawl. "Watch out for him, Stewart. He'll sink you."

"Oh, c'mon Dar." Godson took the seat next to her. "You always think the worst of everyone, don't you? He's all right. He's done some great work for us, and not only on this project."

Dar wondered if her counterpart was really that oblivious. Finally she just shook her head. "Whatever," she said. "All right, here's the deal, Stewart." She sat up and pushed the piece of paper over. "I found the problem."

"Did you? Excellent!" Godson was delighted.

"Yeah. Only Hans is giving me heartburn about fixing it," Dar said. "So I don't know how far we're gonna get," she admitted. "Especially if your boy Meyer gets to him, since he's got a reason to keep him stubborn."

"What? Oh, really now, Dar. Let's stop this talk." Godson frowned. "He's a valuable employee, and I don't appreciate you tearing him down like that," he said. "You wouldn't talk like that about your next in line, would you?"

Dar folded her hands on the table, and took a breath. "No," she replied evenly.

"Well, there then."

"I wouldn't talk like that about Kerry because she's the very best at what she does," Dar went on. "And because she's proven herself to be a person of high skill and integrity. Can you say that about Meyer?"

Godson frowned.

"Do you trust him?"

"Well, I..."

Dar got up and roamed around the room. "Stewart, you're my customer." She stopped and gazed out the window again, blinking as she spotted Hans on the street below. He was pacing up and down, frustration evident in every line of his body. She exhaled, reluctantly censoring her words. "I don't want to upset you. I just call them as I see them, sometimes."

She watched his reflection in the window, his face folding into a pensive expression. Well, good. Maybe he'd think about it a little. In the meantime, that left her with her own problem down there on the street.

What if she couldn't talk Hans into it?

"Oh, I know that, Dar," Godson finally answered. "Listen, I'm the one who asked you to come here, remember? If I didn't respect your opinion, would I have done that?"

Dar felt a moment of almost dizzying doubt. What then? What if the programmer refused, and really did walk out?

"Dar?"

"Yeah." Dar swallowed before she turned back around. "Sorry. Just thinking." She returned to the table and sat back down. What would she do? Her eyes fell on Hans laptop, left invitingly close to hers. Could she take the code and, if he refused, do it herself?

Godson clasped his hands together. "Well, look, Dar. Why not let me take you and Jason and Hans out to dinner tonight, hm? We could go down to the Italian place on the corner. How about it? You guys will be ready for a break by then, right?"

Would that be ethical? "Stewart, mind letting me look at the contract you have with these people?" Dar asked. "Just want to see what leverage we have."

He shrugged. "Well, sure, Dar...sure. Let me get legal to bring you up a copy. "

"Thanks." She nibbled the inside of her lip. "Let's hold on dinner until we know how far we're gonna get today."

"Fair enough." Godson stood up. "I'll leave you to it then. Seems like you and Hans are getting nice and chummy!"

Okay. Dar finally decided. He's just an idiot. "Not really how I'd put it but..."

"Oh, sure, I saw you two."

The door slammed open, smacking against the wall and making a resounding crack. Hans strode in, brushing past Godson and slamming his hands on the table in front of Dar. "This is what my decision is." he barked in German. "And if you do not like it, then it is just too bad!"

Godson's eyes turned to saucers. "Hey!..ah..."

Dar leaned forward, and rested her chin on her fist. Her eyes narrowed a little, and she allowed a rakish grin to appear. "Talk," she replied. "Or walk."

Hans grabbed the paper they'd been discussing and shook it at her.

"I will make one, ONE change in this. In only this one module, and then you will show me this big difference it will make. I will see it with my own eyes how this is the big problem you claim."

Ahh. Gotcha. "All right," Dar agreed. "One change."

"And if it does not make anything better? Then?" Hans demanded. "What will you do? Because I will make no further changes."

Was she confident in her own analysis? Dar felt uncharacteristically unsure.

"Well?" Hans barked.

Stewart Godson was looking from one of them to the other, his eyes wide and his jaw hanging. "Ah..." he stammered. "Now, everyone relax, okay?"

Dar exhaled. "If I'm wrong, I'll give him the bandwidth," she said, in an even tone. "On me. How's that?"

Hans drew back and studied her. Then he grunted eloquently. "Good." He held his hand out to her. "We have a deal."

Dar accepted his grip, and released it. She sat back as Hans flopped into his chair, almost pushing Stewart out of his way as he pulled his laptop over and started pecking at the keys with long, agile fingers. After a second, she looked up. "Rain check on dinner, Stewart?" she suggested, in English.

"Uh...well, yes." Godson lifted a hand and started to back away. "Glad you two...uh... got things settled. Listen, if you need anything, just give me a call, okay?"

"Sure."

Godson left. Silence settled over the conference room again, punctuated by Hans' typing, and low, under his breath German muttering. Outside, faint sounds of the city filtered through the thick glass, but they were mostly obscured by the air conditioning cycling on.

Dar slowly let out a held breath, and picked up her PDA. She flipped it open and tapped a new message into being.

Ker?

A few seconds later, the message light stuttered.

Hey! How's it going?

Very good question. All right. Think I found something. How's it going there? She answered, then waited for a reply that seemed to take a while to come back.

Could be better. I just bumped into Michelle in the bathroom.

Dar winced. You didn't drown her, did you? This time the answer came back much faster.

I wish. I just want the day to be over. I'm trashed. Any idea when you'll be home?

Dar could sense the wistfulness in the words, subtly reassuring. I'll know better tonight. Cross your fingers.

(smile) Everything I have is crossed. I miss you.

Dar glanced furtively at Hans, but he was oblivious to her, his attention focused completely on his laptop screen with an intensity she recognized. She went back to her scribbling. Same here. Call me when the meeting's over, okay?

You got it. Love you.

Love you too. Dar folded the cover over the PDA and chewed on the back end of the stylus absently. Hans was working hard, but she found herself suddenly wondering to her own shock, if she shouldn't just open the pipes and have it over and done with.

What was going home worth?

Dar bit down on the stylus, lost in thought.

KERRY PAUSED FOR a moment outside the conference room to gather her composure. Consciously, she relaxed her shoulders and straightened her spine, and then she worked the latch on the door and pushed it open.

Inside, ten people were already circling uneasily around the big oak conference table. They were dressed in typical business attire, the worse for wear given the heat outside, and they all looked up as Kerry entered and crossed to the table.