Chapter seventeen. Hi. I'm so sorry to have to drag you back like this, Michael began

" HI."

" Hi. I'm so sorry to have to drag you back like this, " Michael began. She stood holding the door open, watching the other woman walk in. It was three o'clock in the morning, and she should have looked like hell, but JT Sloan was the best thing Michael had laid eyes on in days. Mixed with her intense relief was a pulse of something visceral that she couldn't quite describe. And it wasn't something she wanted to examine too closely at the moment.

" Forget it, " Sloan said, shaking her head, a faint smile lifting her mouth at one corner. She dropped her briefcase on the leather sofa in Michael's office, and shrugged out of her leather jacket. She wasn't aware of Michael's appraising glance gliding over the tight T-shirt and then moving slowly down her jean-clad thighs. She looked automatically toward the computer workstation. " You're not troubling me. This is my job, and what you've been paying me to do. Obviously, I missed something and it's my responsibility to straighten things out." She glanced at her watch, and saw that it was 3: 20 AM. " Where is Jason? "

Michael walked to the coffee machine and poured them each some. " He's down the hall in Mayfield's office checking something on the main system. He got here about an hour ago. The last time I saw him, he was mumbling colorfully under his breath."

Sloan appreciated Michael's attempt at levity. It was clear how stressed she was. The fine lines around her eyes seemed deeper, and there was a gaunt pallor to her face that signaled her fatigue. Michael had shed her suit jacket and was wearing only a light silk blouse tucked into her casual slacks. Despite her air of weariness, Sloan thought she was beautiful.

Michael turned with the coffee in her hands to find Sloan staring at her. For a second, she forgot about the disaster threatening her and saw only the appreciative glow in Sloan's violet eyes. She colored slightly, but smiled back. " I think you had better let him know you're here, because he looked about as frazzled as I feel."

Sloan took several steps forward to take the coffee mug from her, nodding. " I'll do that. Then I'm going to come back here and take a look at your machines. Until I see what is down, there's no way to analyze what's going on. Can you tell me exactly what happened? "

With a sigh, Michael sat on one of the sofas and propped her stockinged feet up on the edge of the glass coffee table. She ran a hand through her hair, smoothing the golden strands back from her cheeks. Her voice was flat, nearly defeated, as she began to speak. " I was working with one of the graphics programs, finalizing some details for Tuesday's meeting. I had checked email from several of my techs earlier, too. I think that was still open. First the screen display changed, like pixels were dropping out, and the color faded. It corrected after I rebooted, but then the graphics program froze up -- that's not common, but it happens." She laughed humorlessly. " Usually when I'm in the middle of something crucial. I tried the usual things, but I couldn't get it up again. Then other files simply disappeared, and finally the hard drive crashed. When I had exhausted the few tricks I knew, and it became obvious something major had happened, I called your office and left a message."

" Why didn't you call me in New York? " Sloan asked gently.

Michael looked away. " Because you were in New York." She didn't add that she had already turned to Sloan once that day when she needed help, and she was afraid of what that meant. Because she knew, even if she didn't want to admit it to herself, that she thought of Sloan nearly all the time. Sometimes it was because she wanted to hear Sloan's voice, and sometimes it was because she needed advice, and sometimes it was simply because she couldn't forget the feel of Sloan's hands on her. She bit her lip and remained silent.

Sloan let it go. She could see how upset Michael was, and it was no time for interrogations. " Has anything seemed strange the last few weeks with your system? "

Michael gave it some thought and recounted a few things that in retrospect seemed odd. While she talked, Sloan took a seat on the couch adjoining Michael's and crossed one booted ankle over the opposite knee. She leaned forward intently as Michael spoke, quickly assessing, considering, and discarding possibilities Eventually, Michael halted, shrugging helplessly.

" I just don't know enough to tell the difference between the normal glitches and something really wrong! " She was exhausted, and worried, and emotionally stretched to breaking. She struggled to hold back tears.

" I'm not going to tell you not to worry, " Sloan said quietly. " You're much too intelligent to believe that. I'm worried too, but these things are not unheard of and sometimes the solution can be relatively simple. The problem is going to be narrowing down exactly where the system has failed. Once we've identified the cause, hopefully we'll be able to resurrect and reconstruct your hard drive and your critical files. With any luck the encryption program we installed for your personal design portfolio will have protected the information. It may be there, and only temporarily inaccessible."

Michael didn't pretend to understand all of the details, but she took hope from the confidence and certainty in Sloan's voice. " I don't want to put any more pressure on you than there already is, but I have critical deadlines Monday and Tuesday. I might be able to postpone them for a short time, 12 to 24 hours maybe, but after that people are going to know there's a problem. If I miss these deadlines, I'm afraid Jeremy will attempt a major takeover, and I will very likely lose."

Sloan nodded grimly, her intense dislike of Jeremy escalating. The timing was too suspicious to think he didn't have something to do with what was happening. He couldn't have done more damage to Michael unless he had physically assaulted her. Unfortunately, proving computer sabotage was difficult, and at the moment she had little recourse but to attempt to identify and undo the damage.

" Michael, my business is deadlines. Jason and I are here until the problem is solved. I can't give you a time estimate, but if I need to, I'll call in some favors and bring in some techs to help us if we have to do major data retrieval or reprogram the BIOS chip. It will get done, I promise."

Michael leaned over and took Sloan's right hand with her left. She squeezed lightly, and when Sloan slipped her fingers between Michael's, it felt as right as anything she had ever experienced. She looked into Sloan's eyes and found the welcoming warmth she was coming to count on, and for the first time in days, she felt safe.

" I trust you, Sloan, " Michael said quietly, and she knew there was more than just her career in Sloan's hands. She was slowly losing her heart to the dark-haired, violet-eyed woman with the tender touch.

Sloan found Jason in the network administrator's office, sitting in a swivel chair staring at a monitor, a legal pad next to his right hand covered in shorthand notes to himself.

" Do you think it's a virus? " she asked as soon as she walked in.

He looked up at her over his shoulder, his blue eyes dark with worry. " Don't you? "

Despite the fact that he had not even gotten the few hours sleep that she had managed before driving back from New York, he looked fresh and immaculately groomed as always. He wore casual pants and a polo shirt. The dark blue shirt was tight enough to show off his nicely muscled arms and shoulders. Sloan noted almost unconsciously how attractive he was before her mind returned once again to their problem.

She edged a hip up onto the corner of the long counter and nodded grimly. " That's what I'm afraid of. If it is, I'm willing to bet it's a polymorphic virus that's been hanging around for a while, slowly infiltrating everything on the network. What I'm really afraid of though is that it's some kind of stealth virus or Trojan that was dropped sometime earlier and remotely triggered recently. With the network running all the time and god knows how many people using it, it could be anywhere by now. We're going to have to look at all the backup copies, clean the system thoroughly, and hope there's no permanent damage to critical files."

He had already turned back to what he was doing, but his face was stony with anger. " I can tell you right now it's probably armored, because the TSR you loaded should have picked up most known and in-the-wild species. This has the feel of a malicious infection to me. If some bastard did this intentionally, I'm going to find out how."

Sloan got up, and moved close enough to rest a hand lightly on his shoulder. " First things first, Jason. We need to get Michael back to work. She's got deadlines she needs to meet. Once we can do that safely, we can start backtracking and hopefully find out how this started."

" You got it, " he said.

" And Jason, " she added, " I appreciate your quick response time."

He turned again to stare at her, surprised. " This is war, Sloan. Someone has taken a shot at our client right in our faces. Besides, I really like Michael. She doesn't deserve this."

Sloan smiled just at the mention of Michael's name, but there was a dark fire simmering in her eyes. " No, she doesn't. Sorry about ruining your weekend, though."

Jason flushed, and looked at a point over her left shoulder. " Not as sorry as you're going to be when I have to break my date with Sarah, " he said.

" Oh no, " Sloan chided good-naturedly. " Don't get me in the middle of that one. Sarah likes nothing better than an excuse to beat up on me."

He grinned, but he looked uneasy. Finally he said quietly, " You've known her a long time, haven't you? "

Sloan was taken aback by his remark. Despite their long association, Jason almost never talked to her about personal matters other than to reprimand her for what he considered her loose lifestyle. If he was initiating a serious conversation, it must be very important to him. She glanced at her watch, aware of how much they had to do, but she could spare him a few minutes. She sat back down. " Yes, I've known her a very long time. I think she's the only person in my life, other than you, who I trust completely."

He looked at her quickly and this time he was the one who was surprised. Sloan had never said anything that revealing to him before. In fact, she never said much of anything to him. He had learned to trust her because she had always treated him with respect and honesty. With Sloan, her actions were sometimes more revealing than her words. " I've never met anyone like her, " he said softly. " She doesn't seem the least bit put off by the fact that I'm a -- transvestite."

Sloan raised an eyebrow. " You know, Jason, I've never thought of you that way. I guess you are, technically, but Jasmine is more than just an invention of clothing and make-up. She's another dimension of you, and sometimes I even forget that she is you or you are her -- or something, " she finished with a laugh. It was damn difficult to describe exactly how she perceived the two of them, but she was clear that there were two of them. It wasn't a case of multiple personality, because Jason was well aware of Jasmine, but Jasmine did certainly have an essence all her own.

He lifted a shoulder, grinning himself. " Don't you think I've tried to explain it to myself? The only time I've ever tried to explain it to anyone else, it was a disaster. But you know that, " he added bitterly. " But with Sarah, I don't really need to explain it. She doesn't seem to need me to."

" So what's the problem? " Sloan queried.

" I'm afraid she'll change her mind when she gets to know me better."

" You mean you're afraid she'll change her mind if you let her see how much a part of you Jasmine really is? "

He nodded. " It's one thing to see Jasmine as a performer a couple of times a month. It would be a lot different if Sarah realized that Jasmine is always around, more or less."

Sloan thought about that for a few minutes, realizing that she had never thought about Jasmine anywhere other than at the Cabaret. She hadn't imagined that perhaps it was something Jason did even in private. It was personal, and not something she could ask him. " I think if you and Sarah become serious, you're going to have to let her see Jasmine in all those other situations. In fact, maybe it would be a good idea for Jasmine and Sarah to spend some time together outside of the Cabaret."

She thought she could actually see him turn pale. But when he looked at her, there was something like hope in his eyes.

" Do you think that could actually work? "

Sloan shrugged, standing. " I don't honestly know, but I trust Sarah to deal with whatever comes up. I think you can trust her, too."

She left him then, because she was anxious to get back to Michael. Even though the work ahead looked daunting, Sloan was grateful for the excuse to be there. She just wanted to be in the same room with her.