One

The conference room was almost full, every seat at the long table taken save the one at the head of it. Late afternoon sunlight poured into the room, resisting the valiant efforts of even the several ton air conditioning plant to alleviate it's effects, and after a moment shading his eyes, Sinjin VanCleef got up and walked over to the glass panel. "Son of a bitch." He lowered the shades. "You could cook a damn egg on this thing."

"No kidding." Peter Prescott, one of the IT group leaders agreed. "I start sweating just thinking about going out to my car."

With a shake of his head, Sinjin returned to his seat. The MIS manager picked up and flipped his pen, settling back in one of the leather chairs that ringed the table. "Long damned summer."

"Mm."

"Yeah."

Agreement chimed in from around the table full of assorted technical managers. "I wouldn't go outside for ten minutes longer than I had to." Peter added. "Man, I see those freaking tourists on the beach… you can just see them frying like turkeys at Thanksgiving."

"You got that right." Sinjin snorted.

The door to the conference room opened, and they all turned. Eyes opened wider as the newcomer commenced to dance inside, jiving to a song apparently audible only to her as she made her way across the room and ended up bouncing into the chair at the end of the table.

Relatively short, but sporting a lithely muscular build, the woman shrugged out of her neatly tailored blue jacket and draped it over the back of the chair, before she leaned on the padded surfaced in a jaunty finish to her dance.

"Hi, guys." Tori grinned at them. "Is today not an awesome day, or what?"

The operations department heads all looked at each other, then peered down the table at their leader. Tori was dressed in a no nonsense business suit, with an impeccably pressed cream colored silk shirt, but her chesnut brown, summer cropped hair was so tousled it appeared that the vice president of operations had stuck her head out of some car window on the way back from lunch.

"Um." Sinjin cleared his throat. "Yeah, it's okay." He allowed. "We got the espresso machine working again, at least." His eyebrows quirked. "Did you.. like.. drink a couple cups to celebrate or something?"

"Nope." Tori laced her fingers together before her on the table. "Guess again."

"Did… we make our numbers?" Peter hazarded.

"Yes, but that's not why I'm jazzed." His boss replied.

"Did.. your dog have puppies?" Ellen Jasmine chimed in from across the table, her weathered face wrinkling up in a grin.

"No, no no." Tori waggled her hand. "No puppies, no kittens, and neither Jade nor I are pregnant so don't even go there." She danced a little in her seat. "C'mon, c'mon… we've only been talking about this for a month."

Sinjin made a face. "Don't tell me you're all whacked about going to the technology convention."

Tori grinned widely.

Her audience wasn't sure whether to laugh or groan. "Jesus." Sinjin covered his eyes. "Man, I thought I was the primo geek in this place." He pointed at Tori. "Not no more. You win. I give."

The Operations VP opened her leather folder, and chuckled. "Actually." She glanced around and lowered her voice. "I could give a gopher's wazoo about the convention. I've been waiting to go back to Disney World with Jade since forever." Her face creased into a grin again, it's summer tan emphasizing the bleached lightness of her hair, and the vivid green of her eyes.

"Ahhhh!" Ellen laughed. "Now I get it!"

"Augh… Orlando in July? Tori, you're gonna regret it." Sinjin objected. "Not even the Mouse could get me up there in this weather."

"You." Tori pointed at him. "Have obviously never done Disney with Jade." She pulled out her agenda. "Now. Let's see where we are this month." She smoothly switched gears, her voice dropping a few notes and becoming more businesslike. "Okay, I've got some good news, and some bad news."

The room settled down, and became more serious. Around the table, eyes met in mild apprehension, the universal fear of skilled, valued, but ultimately powerless parts of the company machine to statements of that nature. Even though most in the room trusted Tori, and all liked her, still they also knew exactly where her loyalties were.

"Let me get the bad news out of the way." Tori said. "First of all, let me make it clear that in no way do I, or Jade for that matter, hold anyone here responsible for the fact that twenty percent of our contracts up for renewal this quarter did not sign." She looked up, meeting the eyes facing her squarely. "Our service was not in question, nor was it a factor in the signings."

Sinjin exhaled. "Fuckin lowballers."

Tori's expressive face twitched a little. "For the record – when sales brought the final numbers to the table, it was Jade who drew the line and said we would not counter bid them. Okay?" She gave them a moment to absorb the words. "Jade said she would not trade off our services levels for paper numbers. We decided we couldn't provide acceptable levels of response for the dollars they were suggesting." She paused. "I agreed wholeheartedly."

Bodies relaxed around the room, falling back into the leather chairs with faintly audible squeaks.

"Tori, that's an amazing thing to hear." Ellen said, in a serious tone. "I have a friend who works for our friends out east, and last time something like this happened, they took big time heat for it."

Tori rested her chin on her hands. "Jade would never let that happen." She said. "But let me tell you, those meetings in New York last week weren't pretty."

"Yeah, I bet." Sinjin muttered. "But, Tori, I saw those freakin numbers. No way in hell those guys can deliver what they said they would."

His boss shrugged one shoulder lightly. "Time will tell. But in the meantime, we have twenty percent of our budget we need to find funding for, or else lose it. That means you all need to look vveeerrrryyy carefully at your books and see if we have slack room." She warned "If we have a repeat next quarter, things are going to get very tight around here."

Everyone nodded in grim understanding.

"Now, on the bright side." Tori changed gears again, seeing in the looks she'd studied the response she was looking for. "We did make our service numbers, in fact…" She smiled warmly. "We exceeded them. I'm very proud of that, and so's Jade." Her eyes twinkled just a little. "And so, even though I know you all must have heard about the salary freeze…"

Sinjin cleared his throat. Ellen looked away, out the window. The rest of the table found something to study that didn't involve middling height brunettes. Everyone knew how much Tori hated office gossip, and wise people didn't bring it up in her presence.

"It doesn't apply to us." Tori finished quietly. "I've processed the first of this quarter's raises and bonuses, and they should be hitting your worklists by the time you get back to your offices." She almost smiled at the instinctive gasps at the very unexpected statement. "Please let your people know that we appreciate all the hard work they've put in this year, and we hope they continue along through the rest of the year the same way."

For a very long moment there was silence around the table. Then Sinjin rocked forward and thumped his elbows against the table. "Holy crap, boss. My socks are still bouncing off the walls here." He said. "Aren't the rest of those guys gonna be pissed?"

Tori leaned back in her chair, extending her legs and crossing them at the ankles. "Well." She steepled her fingers and tapped the tips against her chin. "First off, no one should be talking about it." One brown eyebrow cocked meaningfully. "But second, if someone has a problem, just direct them that way." She jerked her thumb sideways, in the general direction of Jade's office.

"Not to you?" Ellen asked, curiously.

Tori's nostrils flared just slightly. "Jade's orders." She replied in brief words. After another moment of silence, she nodded. "Okay, so, next on the agenda…."

Her staff shifted around the table and leaned forward, sorting their own papers and relaxing. Tori took the opportunity to silently evaluate them, absorbing the air of surprise at her last statement. They knew her to be a fierce defender of her own prerogatives, and one of the very few people in the company not only willing, but able to stand up to their legendary CIO.

Ah well. Tori folded her hands over her stomach, twiddling her thumbs idly. Everyone would get over it in a few days, and after all, there was Disney World to contemplate.

It wasn't that she was making light of the company's troubles – they weighed on her shoulders more than most. But as she'd told her staff, the troubles hadn't been laid at their doorstep, and the best thing they all could to right now was just keep doing their job, as best as they were able.

And that meant putting on a good show at the convention. "Everyone ready for the trade show, since I mentioned it?" She asked.

"Advance team's packed and itchin'." Sinjin replied, checking something off on his agenda.

"Who's in charge?" Tori asked. "You going?"

The MIS manager glanced up at her. "Peter. He's buds with Elle's chief whiner. They get along great."

"He the one with the pierced eyebrows?"

"Eh…"

"Good choice." Tori spun her papers. "Okay, tell me what didn't come in on time this week."

"Jade, listen."

"I'm listening." Jade West selected a colorful dart from the case resting on her knees and let fly, grinning in triumph when its point buried itself in a newly wall mounted target. "I'm not hearing anything but bilge wash so far, but I'm listening."

"Bilge wash? You been out on that boat of yours again?" Alastair Rosenthal chuckled.

"Been around my daddy." Jade replied, launching another dart. "Alastair, we've been around and around with this. We both know there's no damn good answer."

A long sigh issued through the phone.

"I've put as much pressure on every supplier we have, pushed as hard as I could, gotten everyone down to the lowest cost they can do without losing money." Jade said.

"I know that."

"Cut our costs to the bone. We don't have any padding, not one area that I can point to and say, fluff."

"Jade, I know that too."

Jade thwacked another dart in the target, nailing the bullseye. "So why are we still on this call? What else do you want from me, Alastair? Want me to sell my desk?"

Another long sigh. "You could can those raises."

"No."

"Jade."

"No." Jade repeated firmly. "Take it out of my check if you want to. Those people deserve it."

Her Chairman grunted. "Hell of a time for you to be turning into Robin Hood."

The inner door to Jade's office cracked open, and a shaggy brown head poked inside Jade's face responded with a wide grin, and she twirled a dart in silence, pointing at the phone and mock aiming at it. "Me, Robin Hood? Get out of here. I just value my people like you value yours."

Tori snapped her fingers in silence, then pointed at Jade, biting her lip.

"Ahem." Alastair cleared his throat. "Walked into that one, didn't I?" He admitted. "All right, but please, Jade – try to drum up something good at the convention, will ya? I need something other than bad news for the board meeting next month."

"Do what I can."

"I know I can count on you Jade." Alastair concluded. "Good luck!"

The line clicked off. Jade rolled her eyes as she waited none to patiently for Tori to cross the carpet and arrive at her side. "Hey there."

"Hi." Tori sat on the edge of Jade's desk, dangling her feet and allowing her moderate heels to slip off. "He sounds worried."

"He is." Her partner agreed.

"You don't sound worried."

Jade flipped another dart at her board, a newly christened present from Tori. "Wanna know the truth?' She searched Tori's face intently. "I don't know how much I really care."

Tori reached over and ran her fingers through Jade's thick, dark hair, moving the slightly shaggy bangs out of her pale blue eyes."Yeah, I know." She murmured. Jade's skin was a shade darTor tan than her own, and there were several sun lightened streaks in the locks her hand stirred.

When Tori asked her why she'd gone back dark, said she didn't need the Dumb blond stigma flung at her. As her hair was getting lighter in the heat of the summer. Besides, she had her entire pregnancy to be a dumb blond when she got there, now that they were actually trying. Then Tori pointed out that she wasn't blond. But she got the point.

Jade's lashes fluttered and she fiddled with a dart. "Ah, I still do care." She half shrugged. "I just can't take the whole thing so damn seriously anymore."

"It's okay." Her partner said. "I have to admit I'm more excited about going back to Disney World with you than I am about the convention, so don't feel bad."

Jade peeked up at her. "Really?"

Tori grinned wholeheartedly. "Yeah. I keep trying to figure out how we can run the display scenarios from our phone's." She scratched Jade behind the ears with her fingertips. "How'd you like to go up a little early, just to check out the convention center?"

Her boss slid open the flat drawer at the front of her desk and withdrew a folder, dexterously opening it with her thumb and displaying the contents.

"Mmm…. I think those are plane tickets."

"I think you're right." Jade agreed. "C'mon." She got up, curling her arm around Tori's waist and drawing her up as well. "Let's go get some bags packed, Yankee."

Tori amiably returned the hug, resting her head against Jade's shoulder and reflecting on her lover's surprise at finding their bags well and truly already packed. "Hey, Jade?"

"That's me."

"If we get a memory upgrade for my tablet, I really think I can run the data apps."

"While we go down the water slides?"

"Yeah."

Jade walked her towards the door, considering the question. "You'll need a waterproof case for it." She finally concluded. "I think the dive shop has them in blue."

Tori only chuckled, as they walked through the door, and headed for the elevator.