"Thank you." Michelle turned back to Kerry. "How about it?"

Kerry turned to leave. "Sorry. I'd rather have dinner with my dog."

"Kerry. C'mon." Michelle moved forward and intercepted her on the way to the door. "We're going to have to deal with each other for this whole damn project. Let's not start it off this way."

Kerry stared at her, then pointedly at Shari, then back at Michelle.

"Besides, we've got something you might want to hear." Michelle tilted her head to one side in acknowledgment. "You pick the place. I know this has been a battle so far, but I promise you won't regret listening to what we have to say."

On the verge of saying no, Kerry paused, remembering what Dar had said about Shari's plans. Maybe she could get her to put her cards on the table now, and have it be over and done with, before her partner even got home. "Okay," she decided. "My choice, huh?"

"Anywhere you want to go," Michelle assured her. "How bad could it be?"

Kerry smiled. "It's a favorite spot of mine. Out on the beach. I'm sure you'll enjoy it."



Chapter Sixteen



DAR BUMPED THE door open with her elbow and proceeded inside. Hans was still hunched over his laptop cursing in German, and the sun was slanting inside the tinted windows to a far more radical degree. She set one cup down next to the programmer and went back to her own seat, settling into it and leaning back. "How's it going?"

"Like crap. Do you know how much I have to change in this to do your foolish test?"

Dar sipped her cappuccino. "Want me to take a look at it?"

"No."

Programmers. Dar cheerfully acknowledged her own species. "Yeah, I'd give you the same answer," she admitted. "Keep your paws out of my code."

Hans glanced up at her briefly, then went back to his screen. "Do you program?"

"I used to," Dar admitted. "Before I went into design and engineering. I still mess with it a little bit sometimes."

"Hmph."

Dar pulled out her PDA and opened it, seeing the stuttering light. She tapped on Kerry's message.

Hi sweetie.

Quest just chucked up strained peas on the conference table. He wants all of us to do one of his old ships and whoever comes in best value wins his fleet contract. I complimented him on getting his ships done for free, but I'm sending the contract down to legal now. Is it worth doing?

K

Oh, ps -- I snapped my fingers and the power came on. I think your geek genes are leaking into me.

Dar snickered. "Oh, that's rich." She shook her head. "Slimy bastard."

"Eh?" Hans glanced at her again.

"Another company." Dar started scribing. "My partner's handling it."

Ker --

My geek what? Glad the power's on. Least I know you'll be comfortable tonight while I sit here babysitting a cranky programmer--must be paybacks.

Quest is a slick operator. I wish I could tell you to drop it, but with the coverage Telegenics has started, we'd look like crap if we gave up now. They'll say we're afraid of them. So we'll suck it up and participate unless you find something in the contract you don't like.

Dar hesitated, and then continued.

I think I found the problem up here. This guy's trying to fix it, and then we'll test. If it's what I think it is, he'll have to rewrite half the program code. He's pissed off. I half want to open the pipes even if it's not the problem. I want to go home.

D

She hit send, and then waited a little. However her PDA remained silent and she set it down on her leg, reasoning that Kerry might be busy. Bored, she pulled her laptop over and set it on her knees, minimizing the network sessions she had open and clicking to her personal storage icon instead.

She had several folders there, but she opened her favorite one, which had pictures of Kerry, her family, and scenes of home in it. They were set in date order, and she occasionally amused herself by just letting her eyes linger over this visible record of their relationship.

One of the ones she liked the best was the one that had caused Kerry the most problems when she went home that first thanksgiving. It was of the two of them, sitting on the couch together. Kerry had one leg slung over hers and they were leaning against each other, grinning at Colleen's camera.

She shifted her eyes to a picture of the two of them dressed for her high school reunion. She was standing behind Kerry in this one, her arms wrapped around her partner's bare middle. The sight of Kerry's mildly embarrassed expression at her skimpy gear always brought a smile to her face. But she looked adorable in her leather bikini, and Dar was always trying to find an excuse to have her wear it since then.

Maybe next Halloween.

She went on to a picture taken by her mother of the two of them relaxing on the offshore island during one of their picnics. Kerry was curled up on her side, asleep in Dar's lap. They were both covered in sand and blown by the wind and the sea, and were totally zonked, but Dar liked the picture mainly for the smile of pure joy plainly visible on Kerry's face.

It was amazing to her to know she'd put that look there. Or the look in the next picture, a single picture of Kerry that she'd taken on the boat, just at sunset after they'd come up from diving and were resting before going in for dinner. With reddish gold light surrounding her, Kerry gazed not into the lens, but into Dar's eyes past it, a warm and gentle love fairly glowing from her.

Dar exhaled softly.

"Fizzing crap," Hans cursed. "All right. Are you ready to do this test?"

Dar flexed her fingers and maximized the network session, logging into her local routers and keying up the monitor. She set several parameters, and then reviewed the results. "Okay." She rattled more keys. "Let me...that's a test database you're using, right?"

"Of course."

"Okay...let me give you a subinterface...hang on." Dar quickly set up the port. "Change your default gateway to the .2."

Hans muttered something under his breath, but set to work on his computer anyway. "It is done."

Dar set up a graph of the existing port, and her new one, and arranged them side by side. "Okay, start up your database...wait. You got someone on the other side who can hit it?'

Hans paused in mid key, then he looked up at Dar.

Dar didn't even wait for him to speak. She leaned over and picked up the phone, hitting some buttons. "Stewart? We need someone at a remote site to work with us. They'll have to have enough brain cells to change their application database source."

"Ah..." Godson's voice trickled through the speakerphone. "I think I can find someone for that...give me a few minutes, Dar. Okay?"

"Okay," Dar agreed, and hung up. She drummed her fingers on her keyboard, then retrieved the PDA that had slipped off her lap and opened it when it started flashing.

Ah. Note from Kerry. Dar tapped on it.

Hey Dardar.

Honey, no one wants you home more than me--but don't tank the Northeast, please? I'll come up and keep you company if it doesn't work. We can find some little Italian place and get drunk on Chianti and cheesecake.

Dar scowled.

Michelle and Shari want to take me out to dinner. I get to pick where. I'm going to take them to the place we go after kickboxing, and not give them a chance to change out of their suits. Think they'll refuse to talk to me after that?

Hope so.

Love you, K.

The scowl edged into a reluctant grin, which then faded out to a pensive stillness. She spent a moment thinking about Kerry spending the evening with Michelle and Shari, dive or no dive, and unexpectedly felt her blood start to boil.

The phone rang next to her elbow, and she had to tear herself back from a descent into furious jealously to answer it. "Yes?" Her voice came out a growl.

"Ah...Dar?"

Dar cleared her throat. "Yes?" she repeated, in a more reasonable tone.

"I've got someone from Tucson who'll work with you...ah, is that okay?" Godson said, a trifle hesitantly. "I've got her on the line, I can conference her in."

Focus. Dar felt the muscles in her thighs twitch, a leaking of the nervous energy that suddenly filled her. "That's fine. Thanks." She heard a click, then background noise came on the line. "Hello?"

"Um...hello?" A voice came through timidly. "This is Angie. Did you need me to do something?"

Dar had an overwhelming urge to hang up and walk out. Go somewhere private and give Kerry a call and tell her...

Tell her what? That you don't trust her? Dar took in a slightly ragged breath. "Ah, yeah." she answered Angie. "We need you to open up your booking engine, but we need you to make some changes in the setup first. You know where that is?"

"Yes." The woman's voice became blessedly confident. "I sure do. What do you need me to change?"

Dar looked at Hans. "Settings?" she asked in German. "For the database?"

He gruffly gave them to her. Dar repeated them in English for Angie's benefit. While the girl in Tucson was making the changes, Dar half decided she was going to force the ports to show what she needed them to show, and the hell with it.

Get on a plane home, tonight. If she was coming in, Kerry would surely toss up the dinner and come get her, right?

Of course. Dar stared at the screen, unable to suppress the churning emotion.

"Okay, I'm done. Want me to open the program now?" Angie asked.

I don't care. Dar forced her attention to the screen. I swear I don't care. I don't give a shit about any of this. "Go ahead." She looked up as Hans got up and came to peer over her shoulder at the monitor. On it, she had the production port, which was saturated and blinking red, and the test port, a benign green.

"Now we will see that I am right," Hans stated calmly. "I am sure of it."

I don't care. But Dar called up the router config anyway, making sure the buffers were set to take advantage of the changes, and her priority lists were in place. She watched as the new port showed activity, the traffic statistics building as Angie started it up.

All mechanical. She was hardly aware of what her fingertips were doing.

"Hey!" Angie's voice erupted through the phone.

The port stayed a placid green. Dar exhaled, her vindication meaningless at the moment.

"That was really fast!" the girl from Tucson blurted, in an amazed tone. "What the heck did you do?"

"Shit." Hans turned and walked away, taking a stack of printouts and throwing them against the wall with shocking violence. He got to the door and yanked it open, slamming it behind with such force the certificates hanging on the wall jumped and crashed to the floor.

"Hello?" Angie repeated. "Are you there?"

"Sorry." Dar laid her fingers on the keyboard, noticing now that they were shaking. "I'm here," she answered briefly. "We made some changes. Guess you can see the difference."

"Wow! I sure can!" Angie sounded very enthusiastic. "It used to take me twenty seconds to move from page one to page two on this database, and now I just clicked it, and it was right there! Fantastic!"

Dar measured the traffic. It had made a difference, no doubt. However, it was only one session, and she realized under full load, it would need more than that. It was a perfect opportunity for her to try out her new intelligent algorithms.

Damn it. But that meant she had to stay here. Just the thought made her want to scream in outrage.

"Are you going to do that with the real system?" Angie sounded excited. "Like, now?"

Dar's cell phone rang. "Hold on." She pressed the hold button and unclipped her cell, flipping it open and putting it to her ear without looking at the caller id. "Hello?"

"Hey, sweetie."

The angry, buzzing bees in her head settled suddenly. "Hi," Dar replied. "What's up?"

"Did you get my note?"

Dar settled back in her seat, pushing her laptop back and out of her view. "Yeah."

"Mm." Kerry's voice dropped a note. "You sound pissed. What's wrong? Didn't your idea work out?"

She'd only said three words. Could Kerry really tell how she felt based on that? Dar exhaled a little. "Matter of fact, it did," she admitted. "But goddamn it, to make it work in production, I need to throw my beta program in this fucking router after that goddamn programmer fixes the whole fucking thing."