Chapter 13

Friday dawned clear and cold, which is not that unusual for February in this part of the country, but the weather mavens were calling for highs in the low 60s which is positively tropical. I had managed to get a good night sleep and was up before the sun, although, with the days getting longer, it wasn't long before the sun was breaking the horizon, lighting my way into work and I stopped and picked up some donuts for the team. Engineers, like the army, operate on their stomach, and while some of them were counting their carbs, a well timed donut did not count against the day's intake. So, with coffee and sweets in hand I headed into my office.

Luci was already there, hard at work, but she turned around and took full advantage of the fact that my hands were full to reach up and kiss me. It was a long, languorous kiss, full of tongue and tease and pelvis and there was nothing I could do but stand there and kiss her back, my hands supporting my goodies.

"Oh, that looked delicious," I heard Nikki say from the door. "Can I have one too?"

"Sure," Luci said and before I could move, she walked around me with a grin and wrapped her arms around Nikki's neck and kissed her in the same manner as she had kissed me. Her hip pushing hard against Nikki, and it was clear that Nikki was pushing back. I took the opportunity to divest myself of my goodies and my coat.

Nikki and Luci broke their kiss. "Hmm, very nice," Nikki sighed, "but I wanted him," she said with a little giggle and walked over to me and proceeded to wrap her arms around my neck and kiss me. It was all Nikki, hard, deep and full of energy. Her tongue battling mine, her hips pressed hard against me, her nails running over my head. I was breathless when it ended.

"Are those for us?" Luci asked when we had come up for air. Nikki was not letting go of me, content to stay in the circle of my arms for a moment, her head resting on my chest. I stroked her head as I looked and Luci.

"Yes, those are for us," I said, referring to the donuts. "One box anyway. Put the other in the library, and let the horde know it's there."

"Hmm, I have what I want right here," Nikki sighed pulling herself closer to me.

"Feeling unloved, darling," I asked as I stroked her back. She was wearing the standard issue shirt in her emerald green and had swapped the khakis for a pair of jeans that fit her well. I ran my hands over her back and ass, noticing the lack of panty lines, which was not surprising; Nikki rarely wore anything but a thong. Her ears were adorned with her emeralds.

"Not unloved," she murmured. "Just not enough of your love," she looked up at me as she said it.

"You have to share me," I said bending down to kiss her.

"I don't have to like it," she said leaning into to meet me half way.

"Come on you two, we have work to do," said Luci, sounding very much like a drill sergeant this morning and we snapped to.

"Party pooper," Nikki responded, giving me a quick kiss and moving over to the workbench to start building the gateway server. I walked around my desk, plugged my laptop in and helped myself to breakfast while the system booted up. It also gave me a chance to look at Luci. She was wearing a pink t-shirt with a scoop neck and loose jeans. Gold dangle earrings danced in her ears as she moved. She was quite pretty, even from behind and I just sat and watched her for a moment, my mind not really thinking anything. She must have felt my gaze because she looked over her shoulder at me and winked. That broke my focus, or lack of focus, and I finished logging in and checking through the morning emails.

"Nothing in the panics this morning, although there is a yellow light on the number 2 drive in Delta," she said, her back to me.

"Pre-failure?" I asked, pulling up the server in question.

"Probably. I called Support and the new drive will be here Monday."

"We don't have a spare," I asked, trying to remember where the spares were.

"Hot spare on board," she said. "I was hoping we could make it through the weekend without having to reconfigure."

"Did you run diagnostics on it?" I asked.

"Yes, minimal write errors. Looks like the head may have gone," she said, walking around my desk to look over my shoulder. I had pulled up the diagnostic tool and was probing the drive. She swore slightly as the new numbers started coming in.

"Those don't look minimal to me," I said and saw her nodding her head behind me. She leaned across my body to type a couple of commands, her full breast pressing into my arm. I tried not to distract her as she typed. She kissed my ear after she had hit the enter key though while we waited for the system to process her instructions.

"Do we have any spares off-line?" I asked.

"Hmm, I would have to look. We had a couple in the closet but I don't know if they are the right size," she said, reading the output of her command. I had to reach around her to answer my phone.

"Gary Preston," I said, trying to untangle Luci as she backed out and under the phone cord.

"Good morning, Gary," Maureen's voice oozed over the phone. If I was not already excited, the sound of her voice alone would have been enough.

"Good morning, Maureen," I replied taking another bite of my donut. "What can I do for you this morning?"

"Well, since you asked, I would like you to start by kissing me, long, tenderly and with some passion," she began.

"I am sure you would. Would you settle for a donut?" I asked with a grin, even though I knew she could not see it. Luci nibbled my neck and then walked around for a donut of her own before heading out the door.

"And where would I get a donut?" she asked with skepticism in her voice.

"You mean besides the end of my desk?" I responded.

"I will be right down," she said hanging up the phone. OK. I guess she would rather have a donut.

Nikki was looking at me and I replayed the conversation to her. She started laughing and pointing a finger at me.

"And just what is so funny?" I finally asked sounding hurt.

"If you think that Maureen will settle for just a donut, you are out of that oversized head of yours," she said, still giggling.

"Maybe she likes donuts," I said, theorizing.

"For such an intelligent man, sometimes you say the silliest things," she said, turning back to the server she was working on.

"I do not," I replied, reading through a couple of headlines in the tech news.

"Did someone order a lawyer?" Janice asked from the doorway, Maureen, right behind her.

"Nope," I replied, "we already have one. We could use an Amazon Goddess though."

"Good thing I do double duty then," Maureen said as she and Janice came into the office. "Now where are these donuts that you are plying me with?" she asked. I pointed to the box on the corner of my desk and both she and Janice helped themselves.

"See Nikki, she has a thing for donuts," I said as if to prove my point.

"No," Maureen said, "I have a thing for smart, sexy men who offer me donuts." This, of course, got the entire room laughing.

"Why do I always seem to be coming in on the end of a joke? Good morning all," Jerry said as he came into the middle of the laugh fest.

"Must be the sugar," I said by way of an answer.

"Don't let him lead you down the garden path, Jerry, it is NOT the sugar," Janice said.

"Jerry isn't the type to let Gary lead him down the garden path," Luci said coming back into the room.

"Do you people speak in anything but double entendres?" he asked choosing a donut himself.

"You mean there are triple entendres?" Maureen asked, powder dripping off her long fingers.

"Quadentenders I think are the next level," Janice said with a straight face. The silliness of the statement got us all laughing again.

"Speaking of quads, Luci what is up with delta?" I asked.

"I changed the configuration and the hot spare is now active. The failed drive is off-line, but I will leave it seated until we get the replacement in. The ones we have in the closet are all too big."

"Too big?" Jerry was looking a question at me as I was looking around the room.

"Maureen, would you pass me the red binder behind you, please," I asked. She handed it over to me and I flipped a couple of tabs to the one I wanted.

"Delta can't be that old," I said. But sure enough it was.

"Delta blew a drive this morning," I told Jerry spinning the configuration book around so he could see it. "Luci already called it in, but it looks like we have another PC to replace. Or in this case a server."

"I thought you had all of those replacements in your calendar," Jerry said, a hit of a question in his voice. I was way ahead of him searching through the tasks I had preprogrammed, including the server swaps. Delta was not on the list.

"Now how did I miss this," it was a rhetorical question, but it bugged me that I had missed a server.

"Maybe you were being distracted," Nikki said helpfully from across the room.

"Maybe," I said. Janice picked up the binder and tucked it under her arm.

"Consider it done," was all she said.

"Jerry, I am going to ask you a question that you are not going to like," I said, gears meshing in my head. I had been thinking about Craig's R&D idea, and there was no way I could ride herd on a cast of characters like that and do my job, whatever that turned out to be.

"Nikki, you are closest, close the door please, everybody find a perch," I instructed. Jerry sat down in front of my desk and Maureen leaned against my filing cabinets. Luci and Janice took up station on the couch and Nikki rested against the workbench.

"Craig and I were talking last night," I said in way of a preamble, "and I like the idea of an R&D shop. I hate the management issues." This got me a knowing smile from around the room.

"I have a proposition I want everyone to think about. I am about leave this department, which will mean some sort of reorganization. Jerry, I would like to take Janice with me to manage the R&D section. I would propose that you put Nikki in Janice's slot." Maureen was nodding her head, either agreeing with me or running through some invisible calculations.

"I would have thought you would take Luci," Jerry said thoughtfully.

"There are two problems with that," I responded, looking at Luci who had a rather forlorn look on her face. I smiled as I continued. "First, I do not want her in my chain of command. There would be too many messy questions and potential issues that could harm her reputation. Second, I can't leave the company without a technician of her caliber in the slot she is in." Janice was nodding her head and Maureen had a huge smile on her face. Luci had a tear in the corner of her eye and a smile on her lips.

"You have thought through this haven't you," Jerry asked.

"No. Actually I haven't. I make some of my best decisions that way," I replied.

"What if we put Luci in charge of the operation?" he asked. I heard a gasp from Luci and I looked over at her.

"Networks? Or the whole enchilada?" I asked. Jerry shrugged. I looked over at Nikki who simply nodded. Janice was smiling and nodded as well. I picked up the phone and dialed a number.

"Pete? Would you and Steve wonder down to my office for a minute?" I thanked him and hung up the phone. Nikki opened the door and shortly Pete and Steve were in the office. Nikki closed the door again.

"What's this, a palace coup?" Steve asked with a laugh.

"Actually, yes," Jerry replied. "The issue on the floor gentlemen, is this, can you work for a woman?" Jerry looked at both of them and so did everybody in the room.

Steve looked at Pete and then at Luci and Maureen. "Sure," Steve said after a moment's hesitation.

Pete took a couple of minutes and seemed to really be thinking about the question. "Not a problem, Jerry," he finally said after weighing all the options.

"Thank you gentlemen," Jerry said and Nikki held the door for them as the headed out, a donut for their troubles.

"Maureen, I am going to need a half a floor, preferably attached to the IS department. We need about the same square footage as the server room has now, maybe a smidge larger. Two, no, four labs say 20 by 20. Janice, open floor or cubes?"

"Open floor, Gary," she responded.

"Go talk to Louise and find out how many malcontents she is sitting on, please, so we can give Maureen an idea of how many table stations we will need. I think we should have a small conference room, and no less than six offices, secured facilities. We can work up the rest of the requirements over the next couple of weeks." My brain was already cranking some ideas around.

"I haven't said yes, yet," Jerry said. I just smiled at him.

"Doesn't matter, Jerry, I am building this facility and if I don't get Janice to help, I will find someone else who is equally qualified. In which case, Janice takes over here and Nikki slides into her slot," I said.

"You build very strong arguments, Gary; you should have been a lawyer." The room started laughing again.

"I have a better idea," Maureen suggested. "Let's go talk to Craig before Gary changes his mind."

"With that, Jerry, Maureen and I headed upstairs while Janice went to take care of the server order and talk to Louise. Nikki and Luci went back to working on the servers. We spent about 20 minutes briefing Craig on the discussion we had and the suggestions I had made.

"On the surface, they sound like the right ideas," Craig said. "Jerry, I know you hate to give up staff, but I have to agree with the resource allocation Gary has come up with."

"Oh, I agree as well, I just don't want to make it easy on him," Jerry said. "In some ways, I am relieved that he isn't asking for anyone else."

"I suspect he knows exactly what he is asking for, correct?" this last bit to me.

"Correct," I replied.

"Maureen, can we do this?" Craig asked.

"Well, we scaled down the facilities department, so whatever we do, it will take a little bit of coordination, but I suspect working with Gary and Janice, it will fall in to place. The toughest job is going to be finding a home for security," she said spinning a pen in her hand before making a note.

"I had a thought about that, too," I said and all eyes turned to look at me.

"What if we did a complete makeover?" I outlined the idea I had. While it looked expensive on paper, it might actually wind up costing less to implement and save the company some money in running costs over time. We discussed some high level details and covered a couple of issues that were important to getting going in the right direction. Craig suggested that Jerry and I put our heads together and come up with a new staffing plan and organizational chart for our respective operations and he would pass it on for the board's approval, just as soon as Patricia had seen it. I knew that if Patricia did not approve it, the whole project would die a quiet death. Jerry and I went back to his office, closed the door and made a mess out of his white board. By lunch time, we had a rough idea of where we were heading, besides out to get lunch.

I walked around to my office, still thinking about some of the issues and nearly ran into Luci, who was coming out of my office. I managed to catch her before we collided and she did not seem to mind being held.

"Ready for lunch?" I asked her as she stepped out of my arms.

"Nikki and I were just talking about that," she said.

"Well, go grab your coats and meet us at the elevator."

We took Jerry's car because it was the only one that could seat four people without having to rearrange things and headed out to our favorite restaurant. After placing out order, Jerry set the table.

"Gary and I have been talking," he started, getting the attention of both Luci, who was sitting beside me, and Nikki who was sitting beside Jerry.

"You were both there this morning when Gary went into gear," he said with a grin, "so you have both heard his suggestions. Further, we went upstairs and talked with Craig who is in general agreement with the concept and a few other things that Gary has suggested that will come out in the fullness of time. Anyway, we have been talking some more and here is the point we are at."

"Nikki," he said, looking at her, "if Janice takes the job Gary is offering her, I would like you to take over her role. There is of course a pay increase associated with it. You don't have to answer now, because Janice has not been formally approached." "Luci, you are a trouble spot," he said looking at Luci. I gently squeezed her leg, offering my support. I knew what was coming; I just hoped she would accept it. It was the best for all involved that we could come up with.

"I cannot see my way clear to promoting you into Gary's position. It was a good thought, but will cause a couple of other problems that, as Gary has so rightly pointed out, will cause more headaches and raise the wrong types of questions. Again, it is not that you are not talented, because you are, but I don't think it would be a good fit. Further, I suspect it would frustrate the heck out of you." He paused for a moment to gage her reaction. So far, so good. She knew her limits and while I think she would some day make a great manager, at the moment there were too many questions.

"That being said, Gary has come up with a rather unique solution. I don't want to loose your skill set and I sure as heck don't want to loose Gary's. I am going to loose Gary and I know he won't take you with him for the reasons that he explained. There is, I believe, general agreement there?" I could see nods around the table as Luci slipped her hand over mine. "What we have come up with is, I have to admit, an obvious solution. Gary still has several tasks on his plate that won't just go away because he is moving up. In fact, for a while, he is going to need all the help he can get. Further, with most of the test equipment being in Gary's office, where ever that might be, we are going to need to maintain a liaison with the dark side. It makes perfect sense for you to be that liaison because you both work well together and that will keep us informed of the new things that the evil professor is working on before he springs them on us." By now Luci was almost crushing my hand in glee.

"I think that is an agreement?" I asked with a slight wince as I extracted my hand to a round of chuckles. We finished our lunch discussing the state of the industry and other general topic. Liberally spiced with quadentendres. Poor Jerry was out of his league.

We returned to the office and I found Janice in her office.

"Got a second?" I asked knocking on her door.

"For you, I will make a second," she said, looking up. I walked in closing the door behind me and made myself comfortable in one of her guest chairs.

"If you are interested, I have a job offer for you," I said. "It will entail menial grunt work, significant cat herding, a little scouting, and putting up with me as your supervisor."

"Hmm, you had me right up until the part about you being the supervisor," she said with a grin. "I understand you can be a hard man to work for."

"You do?" I said, playing dumb. "Now who would say a thing like that?"

"I have a list if you want it?" she said laughing.

"Oh, well so long as there is more than one," I said. "Janice, I need you to manage a group of bright, probably wild talent that we both know I have no skills to control. I know you can do it because I have seen you do it and manage to get some work out of them at the same time. Of course, I don't even know what I can pay you, but we can negotiate that."

"Do I get fringe benefits with that?" she asked with a coy smile.

"Absolutely. You can put all the fringe around your benefits you want."

She got up and walked around her desk to where I was sitting and I stood up to meet her. She slid her arms around my waist and rested her hands on my ass and leaned into kiss me, softly, tenderly and lovingly. My cock stirred in my pants as she pressed against it.

"Yes," she said as she broke the kiss. "I will take the job if you will have me."

"I would not have asked you if I did not want you Janice," I said softly, kissing her back again and holding her tight. "Let me figure out how this is all going to work and I will get the paperwork going."