"Yes?" Alan said.
"Back off, okay?"
"I'm going to call them and let them know we're going to be late."
"We're *not* going to be late," Kurt said, his fingers going into claws
on the keyboard.
"We're already late," Alan said.
"Shit," Kurt said.
"Let's do this," Alan said. "Let's bring down the two that you've got
working and show them those, and explain the rest."
They'd had a fight, and Kurt had insisted, as Alan had suspected he
would, that he was only a minute or two away from bringing everything
back online. Alan kept his cool, made mental notes of the things that
went wrong, and put together a plan for avoiding all these problems the
next time around.
"Is there a spare?" Alan said.
Kurt sneered and jerked a thumb at his workbench, where another junction
box sat, bunny-ear antennae poking out of it. Alan moved it into his
tub. "Great," he said. "Tested, right?"
"All permutations tested and ready to go. You know, you're not the boss
around here."
"I know it," he said. "Partners." He clapped Kurt on the shoulder,
ignoring the damp gray grimy feeling of the clammy T-shirt under his
palm.