Just taking a step back to move the entire story along, not just the suspenseful part in Washington. Enjoy.

Steph's POV

After an hour and a half in the gym, Lula and I ran up to our apartment to shower. I went first and was struggling to make my hair behave when Lula emerged ready for her day before I was even dressed. I looked at her and said, "You look great Lula. I really like your short hair. I just wish my hair was a little less of a pain in the ass. I would be ready by now if it wasn't for my hair."

Lula looked at me and said, "Come here, I have an idea."

I walked over to Lula who took my hair brush from my hand and spent the next 5 minutes doing something I couldn't see to my hair. When she was done she said, "Do you have a hair tie somewhere handy?"

I handed her the one I was going to use to put my hair in a pony tail and she used it to tie my hair. She then handed me my brush and said, "Et Voila."

I went and looked in the mirror and Lula had done an elaborate plaited braid of some sort. I looked at the sides of my head and liked what I saw. I smiled at Lula and said, "Wow Lula, you'll have to teach me how to do that. You did it so quickly too."

Lula nodded and said, "Come on, get your skinny white ass dressed. We have some work to do."

I dressed in a lime green RangeMan t-shirt, black cargos and black boots. I didn't bother with makeup so I was out and ready to go in about 5 minutes. It was still only 8:30 and our next training session didn't start until 9, but Lula was so excited that we went down early.

"Come on Steph, we're ready and we can do some searches while we wait. I am looking forward to shooting a gun again. It was real fun last time and Tank said that he would show me several different guns so I could choose which one I wanted to carry."

I grimaced at the thought of carrying a gun, but if I got to try out several different ones, maybe there would be one that was a little less bad than the rest? Who knows, but I'll probably find out later when it's my turn with Tank. While Lula spends an hour with Tank, I get to spend an hour with Hector and Hal. I think Hal is there mostly for translation purposes, but he probably knows about security systems too. After an hour, Lula and I swap. I kind of hope Tank and Lula get caught up and lose track of the time. I'd much rather spend my day learning about security systems than firing a gun, no matter how much stress it relieved when we were waiting to hear about Lester.

I figure my reaction to shooting a gun last night was purely because I was so stressed and worried about Les. I figure that I'll feel different about a gun today. It won't be fun and I'll probably feel like a wreck when the lesson is over.

Since we were 30 minutes early for our appointments, we headed to our cubicles to see if any searched appeared in our box over night. We were in luck and there were two searches. I handed the top one to Lula and she took a seat in her cubicle and got started. I walked into the kitchen to get a cup of coffee after I set my search running and ran into a few of the guys who had down in Atlanta.

"Hey guys, glad to be back?"

They all greeted me with hugs and said that they were glad to be back. All of them were on the schedule for the day, so they grabbed their drinks or snacks and headed on their way. Lula came in and poured herself a coffee. She looked around for cream and sugar, but ended up settling for low-fat creamer and sugar substitute.

I watched as Lula took a drink and almost spit it out again. She looked down at the coffee, gave it a bit of a frown and then dumped it down the sink. I laughed as I watched her do that and said, "The key is to pick up those little creamers and sugar packets from diners and coffee shops and stash them in your desk."

Lula grimaced and said, "I'll remember that. In fact, we should go to one of them places this evening."

I thought about it for a moment and said, "Would you like to come over to my old apartment? I still haven't done any packing and I haven't even talked to my Grandmother to see if she'd like to stay at my place. Things with Lester kind of put my plans in a bit of a hold pattern over the weekend."

"Sure. We can do that after stopping for coffee creamer and sugars."

Tank showed up in the kitchen to collect Lula. We both locked our computers and Lula went with Tank to the gun range while I went to find Hector and Hal. I found the guys in Hector's office and they were both grinning like fools when I walked in.

"What's up guys? You look like those cats that ate the canary."

Hal laughed and said, "Hector was just reminding me about the time you stunned me and I reminded him of the time you thought he was one of the gangsters trying to kidnap you. We then started remembering all the things you did over the past few years and it started to get funny."

I glared at them and said, "It wasn't funny to live a lot of them. How about we concentrate on why I'm here. I'm supposed to learn about security system equipment."

Hal looked a little embarrassed but Hector was still grinning. He leaned over and whispered something to Hal, who in turn said something tot Hector in Spanish. The smile slipped off Hector's face and he turned to me and said "Sorry Steph, just joke."

I nodded and asked, "Where do we start?"

Hector handed me a catalogue and said, "You read." I looked up at Hal hoping for a bit more information. He nodded and said, "All of the camera and a majority of the electronic equipment that RangeMan uses for its security systems are included in this catalogue. Hector thinks that it is important for you to learn about the hardware before we teach you which item is best used in any specific location."

I looked at the catalogue and thought that it would take me days to read my way through it. I looked up at Hal and said, "I'm going back up to my cubicle to read through this thing. Who knew there was so much to learn?"

Hal looked confused for a moment and then he said, "Oh, I forgot to mention that you only need to read the pages that have red tabs. RangeMan only uses the top-of-the-line equipment and that catalogue contains everything. You only need to read about 15 pages."

I sighed with relief and sat down in the chair Hal indicated and started to read the catalogue. The cameras all had similar features. They were all high resolution, colour, fully encrypted and communicated via a wired or wireless network. Some cameras had wider angles than others. Some were battery operated, some had built-in motion sensors and others had infrared capabilities.

There were a lot of features for security cameras, many of which I had never heard of before outside of a science fiction film. The different types were beginning to get a bit overwhelming, so I looked around for a pen and a notepad of some sort. I didn't see anything so I asked Hal. He riffled through a drawer and pulled out a pen and a spiral notebook. I thanked him before he left me alone in the office with Hector who was busy working with a soldering iron at a workstation. I did my best to focus and started taking notes.

I figured it was easier to learn the various features and then search for a camera that met the required specs at the beginning, so I listed the different features available. If I listed a feature that was common to all cameras, I marked it with an asterisk. If a feature was only available in one or 2 models, I marked the model number.

After about 45 minutes, Hal came back to ask how I was getting along. I said, "I have a few questions. Would it be alright to ask them now?"

Hal nodded so I said, "What is the limiting factor for most of our customers?"

Hal thought for a moment and said, "Price is usually the most limiting factor. Customers want great security but many don't want to pay for it. Fortunately, RangeMan is very good at what we do so a lot of customers take that into account when we make recommendations."

"How do you know what to recommend?"

"We usually go through several stages with a potential client. First, the client comes here to RangeMan and meets with an account manager. Up until now, that has been Ranger, Tank or Lester. The account manager then asks a bunch of generic questions to try and get a feel for what type of security the client is after.

"The next step is a site visit. These site visits are sometimes done by the account manager, but those three guys are far too busy to visit every potential customer. These site visits fall to the more technical guys like me, Vince, Ram, Hector or any number of others. We go to the client site and do a walk through. We ask questions and get a basic idea of what we can offer.

"We then return to RangeMan and make three proposals. The first level is top of the line everything. The second proposal is more middle ground and the third proposal is basic run of the mill stuff. Most of the time we hope for the top but in reality, it tends to fall more in the middle category."

I nodded and thought for a moment and said, "Why do you bother making the top and bottom level proposals at all then, if nobody ever takes them?"

Hal smiled and said, "That's a good question. It's one I've often wondered about, but that's just how everyone was taught, so that's how we do it. Maybe you can make a better suggestion once you have done a few."

I doubted I would be able to change the way things were run at RangeMan straight away. I had doubts I'd be able to change things even after working here for a few years, but it was something to think about.

I jumped a bit when Hal's watch alarm went off. He smiled at me and said "Time for the gun range now Steph. Good luck. We'll meet up again tomorrow to go over some existing customer sites to see how you'd kit them out."

I blanched at the thought of being expected to know how to come up with a recommendation for a security system so soon, but Hal reassured me by saying, "We don't expect you to be perfect right away. We just need to show you what works best where. Enjoy the gun range."

I tore off and pocketed the papers from the notepad and waved goodbye to Hal and Hector. Hector looked up briefly from his desk, smiled and waved as I walked out the door.

Don't worry, more to come soon.