Yeah I think that I will be combining two chapters for the forseeable future, because this is super short for me LOL. Next chapter.
Five
"Here you go, guys." Tori eased back into their booth, cradling a half dozen cans of soda in a pouch made from the long tail of her t-shirt. The techs gathered around her shyly selecting their choices as Tori stood in their midst. "C'mon, they're cold."
"Thanks, ma'am." Bruce sat down on a switch, wiping his brow.
Two hours had gone by, and they'd finished the structure of the booth only to realize the center had turned off its air conditioning. It had rapidly gone from relatively comfortable to stuffy, to stifling before Jade had hoisted up her pirate's pennant and found the a/c control room.
Now the air was sluggishly circulating again, and Jade had gone back to methodically hacking her way through the unlabeled circuits in search of the one they'd ordered.
"Okay." Tori sat down with her own soda and opened it, taking a long swallow before she continued. She was sweaty and covered in dust, and her knee ached where she'd banged it on the corner of a switch, but as she looked around at their progress, she was satisfied. "Once we get the line up, we're pretty much done until the servers get here tomorrow."
The techs looked tired, but relieved. "Think the circuit will be up tonight?" Bruce asked.
"Oh, I'm sure it will." Tori leaned back and extended her legs, crossing them at the ankles and regarding their bare length studiously. "Even if Jade has to run a fiber cable all the way to Miami, it'll be up." She looked up at her troops, with a grin. "I have faith."
The four techs grinned back.
"Thanks for stopping by and giving us a hand, ma'am. That was really cool." Cody said.
"No problem." Tori glanced to one side as a motion caught her attention, and stopped speaking when she spotted a pod of their competitors approaching. She watched them as they came over, observing the booth with intent eyes. "Hi."
"Hi." The man in front greeted her with a friendly grin. "You guys sure have been busy."
"Hasn't everyone?" Tori replied. "What a mess, huh?"
"Yeah." The man agreed. "We're going to wait for some help tomorrow to put things up, but I guess you folks decided to do it yourself, huh?"
Tori glanced around at their booth. "Looks like it." She agreed. "We can take off and go to sleep in peace now."
The man stuck his hands in his pockets and chuckled. "Yeah, I'm sure you guys have to be careful about that. I hear things are up in the air for you. You don't want to take any chances, huh?"
The techs all looked at Tori, who looked at the man with gently inquisitive brown eyes. "Pardon me?" She asked.
"Ah, c'mon, we've heard about your problems.. hell, we caused some of 'em!" The man laughed. "No hard feelings.. in fact, you guys look pretty bright. Interested in coming over to the other side?"
Tori's eyebrows lifted. The rest of her troops remained prudently quiet, apparently quite satisfied to let her do the talking. "I have no beef with who pays me." She said, "What about you folks?" Her eyes shifted to her techs.
"We're fine." Bruce replied. "No gripes here." He added, as the rest of the techs shook their heads.
"Now, come on." The man lifted both hands up. "Here you are, sweating like pigs, busting your humps to get this all running, and the guys who make the big bucks are sitting on their asses in some leather chair in a penthouse. That how you like things?"
Bruce giggled, his eyes fastened on Tori's disheveled figure, which had started taking on distinct lines of angry tension.
"That's not how our company works." The man said, apparently oblivious.
"That's not really how our company works either." Tori replied in a quiet tone.
"Yeah? When was the last time you saw your boss pick up a cable?" The man countered. "I bet you never have."
Tori's lips twitched into a reluctant grin. "I bet you're wrong." She said, as she spotted Jade's distinctive figure approaching the group. Her wife looked harassed, but triumphant, and she brushed past the intruders as she picked up an interface cable and shoved it into place. "We up?"
"Son of a bitch piece of shit half assed infrastructure." Jade growled, plugging in their router and booting it up. "I'm surprised the damn sixty six block wasn't put together with grape bubble gum."
"So, we're up." Tori interpreted the cursing. The techs all clapped and whistled.
Jade studied the lights, then grunted. "Yes." She dusted her hands off and gave the two strangers a dour look. "Excuse me." She sat down next to Tori and examined the palm of one hand, which was covered in dust and scraped raw. After a second, she looked back up at the men . "You want something?" She snapped.
Caught off guard, their jaws dropped. "Ah, no, just visiting. Listen, you guys take it easy, okay? Come talk if you're interested in what I had to say." The man in front lifted his hand and waved it. Then he stepped forward and offered it to Tori. "My name's Robert Caustens, and I'm the director of IT for Telegenics."
Tori readily took his hand and gripped it. "Tori." She replied. "Nice to meet you. Hope you get things straightened out."
The two men left.
"Jesus." Tori started laughing. "What a dork."
"He pitch you?" Jade inquired, her eyes flicking to the rest of the techs in question.
"Yes, ma'am." Cody nodded. "Said we shouldn't work for a company where the big shots stay up in their ivory towers." He blinked at Jade, keeping a straight face. "It was pretty funny."
Jade extended her boots, and let her scraped hands rest on her knees. "You know, that's just damn hilarious." She glanced at Tori. "Are we supposed to be in a tower? How come you didn't tell me that? And how come he didn't pitch me?"
"I dunno, boss. Maybe you scared him." Tori took Jade's right hand and turned it over. "I think you have a splinter here. Let me get it out."
"Thanks." Jade relaxed. "Okay, let's get cleaned up here, gentlemen, and get the hell out of this damn garage."
Bruce got up and straightened the router, as the rest of the techs began tidying up the space as Tori bent her head over her task, straining to see clearly in the annoying fluorescent light.
"Are those the guys who took those accounts?" Cody asked Jade, shyly. "That everyone was so pissed about?"
"Mm." Jade nodded. "They're an upstart company. Just came onto the scene this past year, and they targeted a bunch of contracts coming into renewal. Not just us, but we got slammed pretty bad by them, though our other friends…" Jade pointed to the right, where another of their bigger rivals was setting up. "Lost a couple too."
"Are they that good?" Bruce asked.
"They're that cheap." The CIO replied. "That's their pitch – that they're lean and mean, and they can service the contracts at a lower cost." She regarded Tori's dark head. "Which on a small scale, they can, if everything runs perfectly.
"Like when does that ever happen?" Tori muttered.
Bruce was mounting the switch they'd brought into a rolling cabinet with a locking door, as Cody helped him. "But they tell that to everyone." He said. "So – they can do it for one company at one time, but they can't do it for all their companies every time."
Jade produced a warm, sexy grin. "You got it." She complimented him. "It's like the stock market. You can't get hung up over the short term."
"There." Tori straightened, smoothing her thumb over the roughened skin on her partner's palm. "That wasn't a splinter, Jade, it was metal." She said, "And it might have been rusty. We should go get you some first aid."
"Thanks, Dr. Tori." Jade gave her an affectionate look, bumping her shoulder lightly. "Well, I think we're done here. Let the marketing wonks crawl all over this place in the morning." She glanced at the techs. "You guys got a ride to your hotel?"
"Um.. I think there's a shuttle.." Bruce said, hesitantly, checking his watch.
"C'mon." Jade got up, clasping Tori's hand in her own and hauling her up as well. "It's gonna be crowded, but we'll get there." She straightened to her full height, looking around. Most of the crews had given up and left, and they were virtually alone in the cavernous chamber, only a few other teams still making desultory attempts at completing their set ups. "Good job, everyone."
Bruce peeked up at her. "Ma'am?" He said. "I think you all did most of it."
"Us?" Tori drawled in response. "Nah. We're up in our ivory tower, remember? In our nice leather chairs, eating…um…"
"Quiche." Jade patted the rolling case. "Or caviar."
"Ick." Tori's nose wrinkled. "I'll pass. How about a pizza, instead?"
The techs all chuckled, as they followed their two leaders towards the back door, after Bruce double checked the locks on the rolling cabinets. They passed a few stragglers, but didn't see any of their friends from Telegnics, and the area they'd been setting up in was dark and quiet.
Outside was dark and quiet too. The guard at the back door watched them as they left, circling the building and heading for Jade's lonely looking Volvo, crouching balefully in the cone of light from a security lamp. A soft buzz came from crickets in the bushes ringing the parking area, and Jade make the car chirp in response as she remotely unlocked the doors.
"Someone want to let Tori sit on their lap?" Jade asked, as they reached the car.
Four sets of stunned eyes faced her, in such evident shock it made her smile. "Didn't think so." She opened the rear hatch, and shoved their bags over. "One of you in here, the rest in the back. It's not a long trip."
"You're so bad." Tori opened the front passenger door.
Jade watched the crowd pile in, then she opened her own door, pausing when a motion across the parking lot caught her attention. A car was parked near the front door of the center, and as she watched, two figures got out and headed for the guarded front door.
Jade blinked, and leaned forward a little. Despite the distance and the darkness, she recognized them both, a knowledge that brought a faint grimace to her face.
"Jade?" Tori called her.
"Yeah." The taller woman slid into the driver's seat. "See that?" She pointed to the two figures. "Recognize them?"
Tori peered through the glass. "Um… not really… oh." She sat up. "Isn't that Michelle Graver?"
"Uh huh." Jade nodded. "Sure is."
"Didn't she go into business on her own? You told me that, I thought."
"Uh huh." Jade said again. "Found herself a new partner, apparently." Her face could have been cut in ice, the angles were so cold. "They deserve each other." She started up the car, and put it into gear. "Looks like Shari's finally found a kindred spirit."
Tori's jaw clicked shut audibly.
Jade pulled out of the parking spot and drove slowly past the parked car, which bore a blazon on the driver's side door. She chuckled humorously as she read it, and heard a sound of mixed consternation and disgust come from Tori. "Shoulda guessed." She picked up speed and drove past the front door, where the guard was courteously opening the glass for the two women. "Telegenics."
"Two lemon dykes on a stick is more likely." Tori uttered, so under her breath it was a miracle Jade heard her. "But I guess they wouldn't register the name."
"Something wrong, boss?" Cody asked hesitantly, from the back seat.
"Oh, no." Tori leaned back in her seat and crossed her arms. "Everything's just peachy." Her eyes slid to Jade's profile. "Juuuust peachy." She repeated. "You don't think they'd mess with our stuff, do you?"
Jade paused at the exit to the lot, leaning on the steering wheel and considering. "No." She continued her turn, moving out onto the main road. "They don't think they need to right now." But her fingers drummed on the wheel pensively.
"But you'll set up a monitor when we get to the hotel."
"Yeah."
Tori sighed. "This is going to get icky."
"Oh, yeah."
"Well, we're gonna damn well make it ickier for them than for us." Tori decided. "To hell with them."
Somewhere in that, Jade found a true smile. She relaxed, and leaned back, the knots in her gut easing. "Yeah, wait till they see the wreck their booth's in." She agreed.
"And the wreck ours isn't in." Tori grinned.
It would almost be worth being there to see it. Jade acknowledged, glad of the car's cold air conditioning against her, and looking forward to the shower she knew was at the end of the ride. Tori reached over the seat divider and laid a hand on her knee, the brown eyes full of a promise she knew as also waiting there.
To hell with them. "Let 'em sweat. I turned off the a/c before we left."
Tori muffled a laugh. The techs joined in, not really sure what was going on, but willing to follow Tori's lead anyway.
They drove on into the night, leaving the blazing lights of the convention center behind them.