Part 1 - Hangover
The door was broken - again. Nothing she could really do about that. The reputable tradesmen wouldn't touch her - or her alcoholic temper - with a ten foot barge pole. The unscrupulous tradesmen would charge her a fortune she'd rather spend on whiskey. So the door stayed slightly wonky and you had to slam it to get it to stay shut. At least this time the glasswork bearing her name was still intact.
Better than last month, anyway.
She was roused by a knock on the door. Her face unstuck from the desk strewn with files and she grimaced as the hangover headache kicked in. What time was it? She glanced out the torn vertical blinds. As someone who woke up and worked at all hours of the day/night she'd guess it was somewhere around mid-afternoon. She'd missed breakfast and lunch - may as well start dinner.
A hand pulled open a drawer in the desk and rooted around the bottles kept there until she found one that didn't seem so empty. She put that on the desk before she stood and made her way to the door.
Halfway through another knock, she opened it.
Outside her door - admiring the various scuff-marks and dents in the wall (door, again) - was a girl that had to be no older than fourteen. Around Jessica's age when she was orphaned, anyway. Unlike Jessica, this girl's hair was the brightest shade of red she'd ever seen. She was in a plaid school uniform that Jessica recognised as one from upstate New York. She was clutching a backpack.
'Jessica Jones?' The girl frowned. 'Alias Investigations?'
Oh great. A kid who wanted her to follow her boyfriend, probably.
'Yeah?' Jessica leaned against the doorway as another bout of headaches hit. The girl walked straight past her and into the office and while Jessica could have stopped her - manhandling a preppy little kid would not do her reputation any favours - especially if the preppy little kid wanted to be a client.
'Do you always have a hangover?' The girl asked quietly.
'I do my job. Which, I assume, is why you're here?' She turned and closed the door, hard. Hard enough for the glass inside it to shatter and tinkle to the floor. 'Shit.' She hissed under her breath as the cacophony of sound irritated her hangover.
'Surprisingly, yes.' The girl replied and unslung her backpack.
'I don't usually take jobs from minors, so I want paying upfront.' Jessica warned, hoping really that this would deter the girl from wanting her services. Most minors could not even afford the basic private investigator package and she definitely didn't do installments or commission - at least, not for minors.
A wad of cash hit the desk first. 'Is that enough?' The red-headed little girl drawled. It was a big wad. A substantial amount of cash for a teeny little teenager to be toting around - okay Jessica, get a grip and stop alliterating everything. This was either a very big operation or she wanted something done - fast. Or it could be a set-up. The last time a client dropped that amount of money on her desk, she'd actually intended to kill her. 'Alias Investigations does primarily work on cases that other agencies would struggle with, am I right?'
The kid had done her homework which, somehow, made Jessica uneasy. Nobody ever did their homework for a cheating boyfriend. 'Yes, we do.' She answered. 'Uh, I'll need a name for the files.'
The girl was now pulling her own files out of her backpack - they was intermingled with school-books. 'It's Florence Romanova-Barnes. I can't stay very long - my mother has a tracker on me or I'd be looking into this myself.'
A….tracker? If she wasn't an oddball client before this, she was certainly one now. Jessica's curiosity may just get the better of her later, she'd have to look the girl up online - everyone had an online presence, especially teenage girls. Why would her mother need a tracker? 'Okay.' She wished she didn't have a hangover now, it was easier to think straight. 'What am I looking into, exactly?' She flipped open a file and read the contents of the first page. At the very top was a stamped symbol of a skull and tentacles; which was ominous to say the least.
'There are signals in New-York that I'm having trouble triangulating. They're not your normal kind of signals.' Florence warned and speared Jessica with a deep look to emphasise it before Jessica could even coherently say that New York was full of random things like that. 'They're around schools and parks - places children congregate.' Conspiracy theorist? She didn't seem the type to be caught up in the "UFOs built the Pyramids!" kind of conspiracies. Jessica glanced down at the charts and readings in her hand - clearly if she was a conspiracy theorist, then she had the decency to thoroughly research it first. She wouldn't have been able to find some of these - they looked like they were piggybacking on other signals. You'd have to be well versed in communications and technology - not her strong suit - to find some of these.
'You look like a smart kid, why don't you investigate them?' She questioned.
For the first time, Florence Romanova-Barnes looked...troubled. 'Nobody else will listen to me. My mom got so annoyed with how much time I was spending with these things that she burned them.' Jessica glanced down at the papers in her hand and then up at Florence who smiled slightly. 'Only a few copies of them.'
'Okay.' For the cash on the table she'd buy into whatever nutty conspiracy the girl had going on. It was her money after all. Wait - was it even her money? Jessica did not want a wrathful parent at her door demanding their life savings back.
'Don't worry, nobody's going to come looking for a refund.' Florence promised. 'That's from my... part-time job. I just want to know exactly where the signals are coming from. I can handle the rest.' She was packing her bag again but left the files on the desk.
Part-time? What - a paper route? The kid wasn't old enough to legally hold a job. The last sentence finally caught her hungover attention. Don't you mean the Government or the police?' Jessica demanded. 'They can handle the rest?' A little fourteen year old girl involved in some sort of conspiracy theory and then dying would do wonders for her reputation after all. It'd only go down.
Florence Romanova-Barnes looked - for a second - caught out but then smiled charmingly. 'Of course. I meant for the proper authorities to handle.' With that, she turned and said 'Thank you for taking on my case. I'll be in contact in a few weeks for the information.'
More shards of glass fell out of her door as the school-girl opened and then slammed it shut.
Jessica stared from the wad of cash to the files and back again before a groan made it's way up her throat and she grabbed the neck of the whiskey bottle. This was a weird way to start her Fridays.
A/N: so I've done Cage and Spiderman in Ultimate so I thought I'd play with Jones. Who would like to see Murdoch at some point?
Also this is just the first part of Jones. Next comes the best bit - Soldier and Widow. *madly cackles into the distance*.