Melissa Good - Tropical Convergence

Dar felt her heartbeat start to slow as she forced herself to concentrate on the screen. The adrenaline pumping through her body was threatening to make her hands shake, and she laid them firmly on the palm rest as she silently willed her algorithms to work.

Stubbornly, the stream seemed to be resisting them, giving her no real improvement. Stifling a curse, Dar studied the output, suddenly aware of the tense silence around her, and the expectations weighing heavily on her shoulders.

The heaviest of all being the light, gentle touch on her back.

"I doubt very much that anything's fixed," Meyer stated. "In fact, I doubt very much you people even know what you're doing."

"Dar?" Kerry uttered softly.

"I know," her partner answered. "Give me a minute. I'm looking."

Her eyes spotted an error. With a twitch of her lips, she corrected it, then put the new configuration in place and watched the streams flicker back up, this time to a completely different rhythm. Dar let out a silent breath. The erratic spikes on her gauges dissipated, replaced by much lower, even flow, and the throughput level settled into a comforting green pulse.

"Well, unfortunately for you, but fortunately for your company Mr. Meyer, you're wrong," Kerry spoke up. "Could you please contact one of your remote offices, and let's see how it looks from there? It looks pretty good here."

Hans had gotten up, and now he circled the desk and planted himself over Dar's other shoulder, leaning down and peering at the screen with interest. "Bah," he grunted.

Meyer went to the phone on the conference table and hit a few buttons. After a brief ring, there was an answer. "Bob? This is Jason Meyer in New York."

There was a pause. "Oh...ah, yes, yes, sir," Bob answered. "Is there something wrong?"

Meyer's head jerked back a little. "You tell me."

"Sir?"

With a frown, Jason leaned closer to the phone. "Can you have someone connect to the system and tell me if you see a difference? Not that I expect you to, but we did something here and I'm just checking."

He glanced up as Stewart Godson walked in, with Nelson Argos and a cameraman at his heels. "It seems we were taken down without warning, sir."

Argos pointed to the corner of the room, and the cameraman swung into place, turning on his light and pointing the camera at them. "Josh, make sure you get all of them," he instructed. "This should be a good clip as it plays out."

"Got it," the cameraman said, tightening his focus.

"Eh?" Godson walked over. "We were? Didn't notice." He glanced curiously at the group at the head of the table. "What's going on here? Didn't leave for but a minute." He turned toward Argos. "Brought this fellow in, seems he knows you all."

"Certainly do." Argos gave them both a smile. "Ms. Roberts, Ms. Stuart. I'm sure you won't mind having this on the record."

Kerry felt her heart skip as the big, round lens pinned them. She could see Meyer's angry profile from the corner of her eye, and sensed the tension in Dar's body.

"Not at all," Dar replied, in a deceptively relaxed tone very much at odds with the slight clenching and unclenching of her hands.

"Check the system? Oh, okay, sir," Bob answered. "Hang on."

Kerry shifted her hand, draping her arm over Dar's shoulder instead and moving a step closer, so her hip was brushing her partner's sleeve. Were they about to be hoisted on their own petard? Undoubtedly this would make a very satisfying news clip for Argos' story if the change Dar had made didn't work.

She wondered how Dar felt about it. She could see her reflection in the laptop screen, and for a second, the blue eyes lifted and their gazes met. Kerry grinned a little, and was rewarded with the flicker of a wink.

"I don't think we're going to be pleased at all with these results sir." Meyer shook his head. "And the entire company was disrupted. You know what I think? I think we need to..."

"Sir?" Bob's voice came back. "I don't know what you did, but boy, it's flying here. Wow. The entry people are all pretty excited."

Dar folded her hands together and smirked. "You need that translated, Hans?" she asked the programmer. "It worked."

Godson clapped his hands. "Wonderful! Bob, are you in Arizona?"

"Yes, yes...ah, is that Mr. Godson? Yes sir, we are." Bob sounded confused, but happy. "Are we a test group? I didn't get that email."

"No one did," Jason ground out through clenched teeth.

"That's great, Bob." Godson leaned over the phone. "Can you ask all your colleagues there how it's going? Life's not just one cup of coffee you know!"

"Uh." Bob rattled some papers, then muffled the phone. "Hey!" He could still be heard, though. "You guys try the system? No, I mean like now!"

There was a brief silence, then a yammer of voices. "Yeah, mine too! About freaking time!" He came back on the line. "Looks great here, sir. Big thumbs up."

"Fabulous," Godson said. "Thanks!"

"Of course it worked." Hans sniffed. "You are brilliant, I am brilliant, it is a wonder the room does not melt with the combined brilliance of us. Can we go have a beer now?"

Kerry felt her entire body relax, and she leaned against Dar quite unconsciously. "I have no idea what else he said, but I got the beer part. I'm up for it." She caught Argos watching them and almost stiffened and moved away from her partner.

Almost.

But something inside her rebelled, and instead she reached over and tweaked Dar's ear, giving her boss an affectionate look. "Rocket scientist."

"You want a beer for lunch?" Dar did a subtle little dance of triumph in her seat, shifting her shoulders and bumping Kerry with the left one. "Stewart, can you put a note out to everyone, and let's get a consensus before we close the books on this. I want to know that everyone's happy."

"Absolutely--just hold on a sec." Godson was on his cell phone. "Hello, Harry? Yes...yes, it's Stewart...listen, I think I've got our performance problem cleared up. Want to give it a go? What?" He listened. "It did? You are? Fabulous! Great to hear...what did I do? Oh, well, you know, it was all a matter of getting some of the kinks worked out...you know, new system and all that."

Dar snorted and rolled her eyes.

"Well, thanks, Harry." Godson beamed. "Glad you feel that way, and I hope to continue to earn that respect from you. Listen, if you hear any other feedback, let me know, hm?" He closed his phone and faced them. "Ladies and Gentlemen, so far so good. That was our CFO. He's been one of the biggest critics...he's in Boca Raton."

"We saved his ass," Dar translated for Hans. "Bet he gets a bonus out of it."

"Hah." Hans snorted.

"Well, I'm glad we could get the problem solved, Stewart." Dar continued in English. "Hans and I figured if we threw the change into production now, we'd know by the end of the day if there were any issues with it. If we did it off hours we'd have to wait till Monday to test and we knew you had a lot of pressure on you."

Stewart nodded briskly. "Good plan. Well, Jason? Let's go take credit for this, shall we? I told you it'd all work out. You should have more faith, sometimes."

Meyer looked like he was unsuccessfully trying to swallow a peeled lemon. "Yes, sir," he eventually got out. "I guess you were right," he admitted. "But I think we need to discuss how we put together our outsourcing contracts, to make sure we have more control over what this process is." He turned and walked off, without pausing to wait for his boss. "I won't forget how it was accomplished, regardless of the result." He left, and the door slammed shut behind him.

Godson chuckled. "He should lighten up." He glanced at the reporter. "That's what I was telling you about, see? These people? The best." He pointed at Dar. "I called 'em up, they came right here and fixed everything. Wonderful."