Changed Scuzzy from a cultural appropriating white woman with braids to this sassy and smart black young woman. Cause why the hell not.
Twenty
Jade emerged into the sunlight once again, after her sixty second subway ride had drawn itself out to twenty minutes. She had, however, apparently made a friend, since Scuzzy showed no signs of continuing on her way as they exited together from what had appeared to Jade as a maze a minotaur would have run screaming in terror from.
Subway station? Jade glanced behind her at one of the many stairwells burping people up out of the ground. More like a nightmare from some science fiction writer's imagination.
The heat had gotten a little worse, or maybe she'd just gotten used to the cooler confines of the underground world.
"So, like, Jade. Where ya goin?" Scuzzy interrupted her thoughts. "Jus coming down to see the Square?"
"No. Here." Jade pulled the brochure out of her pocket and displayed it, turning slightly as she tried to orient herself in the busy street. Buildings rose on all sides, and the roads seemed to run together from all directions.
What the hell?
After a moment of blinking, she realized why the place looked so damn familiar. She'd never been here before that she could remember, and now she took a moment to just stand and look around.
Times Square. Jade cocked her head to one side, realizing she'd always considered the place to be more of a stage set than a real city street. Her gaze shifted.
Streets.
Whatever.
The marquees raced across the building fronts just like they did on television, and Jade tilted her head back to look up at the post she'd seen the ball drop from on countless New Years Eves. Then she chuckled and returned her attention to finding her way to the Hudson river.
"You like, into that stuff?" Scuzzy had kept right up with her. "Like, guns?" She handed back the brochure.
Jade stopped and looked at her.
"Hey!" The woman held up both hands. "It's cool! No problem! I'm into that show Gunsmoke too, you like that show? It's great!"
"No." Jade figured out what direction to go in and started walking. "My father was in the Navy." She checked the street numbers, and started down one with some confidence. She was mildly surprised when Scuzzy chose to join her, shambling down the sidewalk at her side. She gave the woman a speculative look.
"I figured I'd make sure you got there okay." Scuzzy explained. "Then I'm goin back to get the bus."
Jade stopped walking, forcing the girl to stop as well or else plow into her. She took off her sunglasses and looked her persistent companion up and down, then repeated the exercise on herself. She finally returned her stare to Scuzzy's face, and lifted both eyebrows meaningfully. "Thanks." She drawled. "But I'll get there okay."
Scuzzy studied her for a minute. "You tryin to tell me something?"
With a faint sigh, Jade returned her sunglasses to their perch on her nose and started walking again, shaking her head. A breeze picked up, puffing fitfully between the buildings and bringing to her the unmistakable scent of water. She glanced at the storefronts she was passing, intrigued by the variety of clubs whose identity changed at almost every stride. "Something for everyone, huh?" She remarked, passing a jazz club next to something she imagined catered to the Goth crowd.
"You say something?" Scuzzy peered at her. "Hey, you ever been here to the city?"
"Yeah, I've been here." Jade finally relented, edging over slightly so the woman could walk next to her and not plow into the trees planted incongruously in the center of the sidewalk. "I'm not really fond of it."
"San Francisco's kinda different, huh?"
Jade looked around her with a wry chuckle. "Like night and day. I wouldn't trade em for a million."
"No, huh?" The woman looked around. "Well, y'know, this used to be a really tough neighborhood." She said. "Times Square, man, you didn't want to come down around here. But they fixed it up pretty nice now."
Jade peered at the theatre they were passing, realizing she'd heard it's name half her life and never realized where the hell it was. "Bad neighborhood, huh?" She asked with interest.
"Oh, yeah, Absolutely." Scuzzy nodded. "Hookers lined up tits to ass back there, yeah?"
"Yeah?"
"Absolutely!"
It was hard to picture all those people in mink coats coming to see shows stepping around bums and drug dealers. Jade put the idea away for later study, and ducked to one side as a man walking a Dalmatian hurried by. Or maybe it was a Dalmatian walking the man, as the dog seemed far more relaxed than his owner. "You been here when it was?" She asked Scuzzy. "When it was a bad place?"
Scuzzy seemed delighted Jade was warming up to her. "Oh, sure." She made a dismissive gesture. "Me and my bro, we used to come down here all the time back then, cause we'd take the bus out to DC to visit my old man."
"Ah." Jade murmured. "Must have been scary."
"Nah. Just different." Scuzzy peered behind her in the direction of Times Square. "Lotta people usta live over there, y'know? Not no more. I dunno where they went now. The Park, maybe. You gotta have money to live over there now." Her nose wrinkled a bit. "Ritzy."
Jade was struck with an unexpected parallel. "Yeah." She agreed. "That happened down on oakland, too."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. It used to be a sort of chocolate city, lots of activists and community organizing stuff like that." Jade said. "Then they put all the money in there and now I think twenty bucks maybe gets you parking for the night. Maybe. All those people are all priced out of their neighborhoods."
Maybe. "Sucks sometimes." Jade admitted. "You pay thirty bucks for a coke and a damn hot dog."
"That's right!" Scuzzy agreed heartily. "You got that right, yeah?" She kicked a rock, which rattled head of them and rambled through the wrought iron steps that lead down into someone's basement. "So where did them old people go?"
Jade slowed, her head tipping to one side a little as she thought. "I don't know." She finally responded. "But I remember what it felt like when we lived on the Navy base, and they were talking about closing it." A ghost of a memory floated into focus for her. "They wanted to sell the place to build a supermarket."
"Oh, that's cold." Scuzzy patted her on the back. "So you lived with all those navy guys huh? That must have been cool."
"Yeah, it was." Jade shrugged the memories off. "So where are you going on a bus today, Scuzzy?" She asked, as they reached the end of the street and were faced with a four lane road separating them from the piers. To one side, Jade could see the distinctive shape of the Intrepid, and found a smile forming.
"No place." Scuzzy shrugged. "Just get me a ticket and ride somewhere and back. I got laid off last week."
Jade found herself snagged by one of the fits of recklessness that occasionally happened to her. "What do you do?" She asked, turning and leaning against a light pole. "That you got laid off for?"
Taken slightly aback, her erstwhile companion made a nervous motion with her hands. "Oh, you know, just office stuff. I was putting in traffic tickets, callin people. Anything they want me to do, but they got cut sos they had to let me off."
"You worked for the police?" Jade clarified.
"Yeah, kinda." Scuzzy seemed abashed. "So like, that's why I don't like people getting into trouble, you know?" She cleared her throat. "So whadda you do, Jade from San Francisco? Like what you get paid for?"
"I work with computers." Jade pulled her phone from her pocket and flipped it to the back. She selected a square of white cardboard from the back of her case, then flipped it over and fished her pen out and scribbled on the back of it for a moment.
"Yeah?" Scuzzy perked right up. "Oh, man, you lucked out. I love computers. I used to mess with some baby ass codes back when I was in school."
Jade reviewed what she'd written, then held the card up, reverse side forward for Scuzzy to see. "Go there." She indicated the address on the back. "When you get there, give the guard at the desk this." She reversed the card, the WesTrek logo flashing briefly in the sunlight. "Tell them I said to hire you." She handed the card over.
Scuzzy looked at the card, then looked at Jade. "For real?" She asked, after a long moment. "Like, no shit? If I give them this thing, they're not gonna throw my ass out and call the cops?"
Jade chuckled. "No." She spent a brief instant of deliciously evil anticipation on just how much twitching she'd cause the company's staid Manhattan office. "They'll take care of you."
Scuzzy looked down at the card again, and turned it over. "Founder/Chief Information Officer." She lifted her eyes to Jade's face. "You are The FOUNDER?"
"Yeah." Jade nodded. "But you'll do all right too."
"Yeah?" Now a touch of incredulity entered Scuzzy's tone. "You know somethin? I woke up today and I knew somethin' was gonna happen to me." She carefully tucked the card away in the pocket of her shirt and stuck her hand out. "This is all right."
Jade took it and gave it a shake. "See ya." She released Scuzzy's hand and turned as the light changed and gave her the opportunity to cross over to the pier.
"See yah." Scuzzy repeated, waiting until the tall figure had disappeared from sight into the pier's square frontage. "Ain't that a kick in the ass?" She removed the card and looked at it. "I'm gonna go get me a job, so screw you, momma, saying not to talk to nobody on the subway!"
Turning she sauntered back down the street, heading back towards Times Square.
Jade stopped before she went through the gates into the museum, taking a moment to enjoy the breeze off the water, and the sense that she'd emerged from the close confines of the city at least for a while. She found a bench and sat down on it, retrieving her phone and opening it up.
To her surprise, a message she hadn't caught was waiting. She tapped on it.
Have I ever told you just how much I love you?
Jade blinked a few times, then rubbed the back of her hand over her eyes impatiently. Matter of fact, you have. But I never get tired of hearing it.
She could almost hear the sigh in Tori's words when she responded.
I'm sitting at a table across from Shari and Michelle, suffering through an endive salad with the prospect of chicken breast over rice pilaf before me.
Ugh. Jade extended her legs into the sun and crossed them. Well, I'm sitting near the Hudson River, and I just sent a vagabond over to the local office to get a job.
(laugh) You call me a troublemaTor?
Jade smiled in reflex. Hey, I rode on the subway to get here.
J You did? No fair! I wasn't there to go with you!
The lump in her throat was getting to her. Jade shifted on her bench, then rolled her stylus in her fingers before she answered. No one was here to see me chicken out!
L But you didn't.
True. Yeah, specially since the damn thing got stuck three times with me on it. They don't like me. Jade allowed. Well, I'm going in to see the Intrepid, then maybe I'll find one of those hot dog stands and get sick to my stomach.
(chuckle) Have one for me, since I'm suffering here with a raunchy vinaigrette. Hey – get a sailor hat so I can see my life sized hamster dance.
Oh, god. Jade started laughing, her humor restored. All right. Take it easy and go grab a burger after the meeting. That's what I do.
I will. Love you.
Jade felt as warm inside suddenly as she did outside. Love you too. She sent the message and stood up, stretching her back out before she headed off towards the aircraft carrier's impressive bulk.
Sailor hat, huh? Jade looked forward to some quality shopping, for more than just her partner. New York, she decided, was potentially looking up after all.
Lunch was a sour as the vinaigrette. Tori wiped her lips on her napkin and returned it to its place on her lap. She hadn't even bothered with the chicken, it's dryness evident to her even through the thin, lemony sauce drizzled over it. She stuck to her ice tea instead, and pacified her grumbling stomach with some of the rather benign rolls and butter the table had been graced with.
Long gone were the days, she mused, when she could be satisfied with a handful of carrots and some water. She still liked snacking on them, and had even gotten Jade to eat the little sucTors, but they no longer provided a meal for her and neither did this collection of pretentious garden refuse and pseudo free ranging ancient fowl.
Bah. Tori leaned back and nursed her tea. The small talk at the table was small indeed, and she only half listened to a discussion about an advance release of a new server operating system.
"Hey, Tori?"
Tori looked across the table at another of their rivals, though one of the more palatable ones she more or less got on well with. "Hey, Ross?"
"You guys stick to one system? I heard you were a uni-house."
"Nah." Tori shook her head. "We have a little of everything, depending on the application. We support way too many different companies to stick to one system." She said. "Mainframes, minis, six flavors of Unix, the full range of Microsoft, some Novell, you name it."
"That must be a support nightmare." Ross Cunningfurth said, with an easy grin.
"Training's the biggest chunk of my budge." Tori replied easily. "But it's worth it. We can leverage like crazy – I have six different major support centers that all fall back to each other."
"Six?"
Tori spread one hand out in a faint shrug. "International."
"Shit." Ross just shook his head with a chuckle.
"Yeah, but how can you even think about giving personal service to your accounts, with that size operation?" Shari's tone was dismissive. "Just a bunch of cookie cutters."
Tori debated on whether she wanted to engage in the debate. Before she could make a choice, Sinjin spoke up for almost the first time that afternoon.
"It's not that hard." The MIS manager 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.' Tori picked up the threat neatly. "But you guys all know that. It's not rocket science." She added. "We save the rocket science for the solutions teams."
Sinjin 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 Jade was teaching routers to think?"
Shari laughed in derision. "What a load of bs."
Tori 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.
"Jade's working on a lot of new technology." Tori 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 Tori. "How many millions was it for the Navy?"
Bitch. Tori 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 Jade when she was fifteen years old, I just guess they thought they needed an upgrade." A wicked twinkle entered her brown 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.
"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"
Tori 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 Sinjin to precede her, and evaded Ross' hastened steps as they headed towards the door.
Outside, she touched Sinjins' arm briefly. "Go on upstairs. I'm going to take a pit stop." She indicated the restrooms.
"Okay." Sinjin 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?"
Tori 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 I have a flight to catch."
Sinjin took off towards 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 kick boxing 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 Tori with faintly alarmed eyes. "Sorry."
Tori 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 Tori 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." Tori followed her inside and headed for a stall. "That's a brain the size of a walnut and an ego the size of the rocky's." 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, Tori. Tell me how you really feel. Don't' hold back."
"Fuck it." Tori snapped. "You two have been on my last nerve for a week. Grow the hell up, would you?"
Dead silence.
Tori amused herself by pulling out her phone and reading some of her saved messages from Jade, pithy sayings that often brought a smile to her face.
"Well. I see we really did piss you off." Michelle finally said, into all that silence. "The real Tori Vega 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 Jade." Tori 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."
Tori 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 Jade 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."
Tori 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 Jade skipped out? Get too hot for her?"
Tori rolled her eyes. "Jesus" She threw up her hands. "I give up. Fine. Let it be a bitchfest. 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 it's 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."
Tori put her hand on the door and started to push.
"Yeah, okay –she's got a bug up her about Jade, but I think it's mutual, right?" Michelle persisted. "She's got a beef, and now she's in a position to screw Jade over like Jade screwed her over way back when. It's human."
Tori stopped pushing. "Michelle." She said quietly. "Did she ever tell you why Jade screwed her over?"
The smaller woman cocked her head slightly. "Did she need a reason?"
"Jade always has a reason." Tori 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. Jade'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. "You 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 towards 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.