Melissa Good: Tropical Storm

She still kept her gaze on her hands. “What kind of people are you?”

“Look.” Dar found herself uncharacteristically at a loss for words. “It’s a business. There’s nothing personal, understand?” The blonde head moved in a nod, then the manager looked up, her face closed, and wary, green eyes darkened with a quiet anger. “You have a week. I need a list of your senior people, so we can arrange sessions with them to start going over exactly what you do, and when and how you do it.”

Kerry swallowed. “You’re saying you want us to train the people who are going to take our jobs away.”

Dar looked quietly at her. “Yes.”

The anger dissolved into something else, and Kerry clenched her jaw.

16 Melissa Good

“All right,” she got out, her fingers clenching on the pencil that had been sitting on her desk. “I’ll see what I can arrange.” Arrange to get every damn one of them out of here before they can tell anyone anything, that is.

“You want to tell me to go to hell.” Dar remarked. “Don’t you?”

Kerry licked her lower lip. “No, ma’am, I don’t. I wasn’t raised that way.”

Dar sat down in the chair again and leaned forward, tilting her head to gaze into Kerry’s lowered face. “Sure you do,” she disagreed. “I did…when we were assimilated.” Green eyes slowly rose to meet hers.

“These are people, whose livelihoods you’re about to take away from them. It’s not funny.”

“And any one of them would gladly wave you goodbye, if the guy down the street offered a buck more an hour,” Dar replied. “This is a business, Ms.

Stuart. It’s not a charity.”

Kerry’s chin lifted. “Your people won’t be able to do half the job mine do,” she stated flatly. “So when you lose all these accounts, I’ll be there laughing, Ms…Roberts. Because you know what? Your people probably aren’t any better workers than mine are unless you employ robots just like you.”

Well, now. Dar leaned back, studying her. She hadn’t had this kind of challenge in a long, long time. Most of her accounts were fresh-faced MIS

majors who scurried around and tried to get on her good side, just long enough to realize she didn’t have one. One of her side tasks, besides stripping companies, was finding new talent for the corporation. Sometimes , she reflected, I find potential in the weirdest places. “That’s not a way to win friends and influence people, Ms. Stuart.”

Kerry gazed steadily at her. “Good thing for me I don’t need to do either in this case, I guess,” she said. “I noticed you didn’t deny my statement. Does that mean you agree with me?”

Well, well, well. Dar let the silence lengthen, watching the faint flare of Kerry’s nostrils as she too waited. “All right,” she said, “tell you what.” Her eyes caught the shift in Kerry’s expression, a wariness reshaping the slim planes of her face. “I can do this for half the budget you’re currently doing it with. Come up with a plan to do it for that, in a week, and I’ll look at it.”

Kerry’s jaw dropped. “Fifty percent? That’s impossible!”

Dar shrugged. “Your choice. See, we can leverage out the costs because we use less overhead per account. If we’ve got someone who needs support, for instance, we just add them to the current load over at the MTC, and we don’t have to pay for rent, a phone switch, the consoles, desks, all that crap again.” She smiled. “You can’t do that.” Will she take the bait? Dar watched the muscles bunch in her jaw, not sure which way she wanted Kerry to jump.

“No, but that means…” Kerry stopped and exhaled. People would have to go. It was the biggest cost factor, she knew. Looking at the closed, chill face across from her, she knew this damn iceberg woman knew it too. But maybe she could save some of them. It was worth a try. “All right. You’ll be hearing from me,” she said, her voice quietly icy.

Well, she hates me . Dar sighed. One among many . “Fine. You can send it over in e-mail; you should be added to our post office by now.” She lifted her cell phone and dialed a single code, holding it to her ear until she heard a gruff voice on the other end. “Mark, you all done?”

Tropical Storm 17

A short laugh came through the phone. “Lock, stock, barrels, monkeys, hair dryers, and their accountant’s latest lunch list,” he advised her. “Mail’s up, servers locked down. Anything else I can do for you today?”

“Thanks.” Dar folded the phone up. “You’re up on mail. Tell your people not to make any administrative changes to your servers, and you can expect a team here tomorrow to start going over procedures.”

Kerry folded her hands over her desk. “How did you know all that about our personnel statistics?”

Pale blue eyes lanced into her. “We broke into your server database this morning and extracted it.” Dar smiled. “Your security sucks. You might want to start your review there.” She felt a sense of quiet triumph, which faded as Kerry returned her look with one of stony dislike. “Nothing personal.”

“No.” The blonde stated quietly. “I can see that.” She stood. “Would you like to look around?”

The last thing Dar needed was the nickel tour. She reminded herself she had six or seven conference calls to take care of back at the office, so she was very surprised when she heard her voice answering “Sure.”

Kerry just nodded and stepped around the desk, running a hand through her pale hair and pushing it back off her face. She was wearing a pair of fairly snug jeans and a short-sleeved white lace shirt that displayed an outdoor tan, which tightened against her body as she took a deep breath. “All right, follow me.”

She circled the desk and brushed by Dar as she headed for the door to the office. The dark-haired woman caught a hint of clean soap and the faintest hint of apricot as she belatedly stood and headed after Kerry. Well, well, well, indeed.

IT HAD, DAR later mused, been a very hostile afternoon. She’d gotten the feeling that word had spread quickly, since they’d only made it to the programmers’ nests before she was starting to get those dagger-in-the-eye looks from the inmates. She half expected her car to be keyed by the time they finished up, but apparently no one had figured out which one it was. Not surprising, since an LX470 sport utility truck was hardly what they expected a VP Ops to be driving.

The head programmer had possibilities, she conceded, if you could dig her out of her shell long enough to talk code with her, which Dar had. The support and IS managers were useless, and listening to the calls as she passed through, seemingly oblivious, had allowed her to catch at least two individuals telling customers complete lies, and two others using the opportunity to make social arrangements. Stuart had heard that last one, Dar realized, as she’d seen the look of dismay in the woman’s startlingly open face. Kerry Stuart. Dar leaned back against the leather and allowed herself the luxury of a few minutes of quiet thought. The kid isn’t stupid, and she’s gutsy…but damn, is she an innocent. She really wasn’t ready for this, but all in all, handled the shock pretty well, considering.

What Dar couldn’t get out of her mind was that nagging sense of 18 Melissa Good familiarity. Do we shop in the same place or something? Not likely. Kerry lived in Kendall, just past the Turnpike in one of the mazes of suburban rental clusters frequented by white-collar workers in the area. Maybe she comes down to the beach a lot? Not that Dar spent a whole lot of time on South Beach, but she did get down there from time to time, and would stroll along the boardwalk.