I don't own Frozen.
The façade of the Moore house was ugly. Hideous. Unattractive. Aesthetically irredeemable, and so on, and so forth. Sprouting like a wart on the otherwise picturesque landscape of upstate New York, the Gothic behemoth was an exercise in pretension. It even had its own gargoyles, for crying out loud.
Like what the literal hell.
Anna pulled up to the estate drive in an unmarked black sedan, the kind that car services used to chauffer important people to important places. She turned off the headlights and crept about five hundred yards down the road, where she saw another unmarked vehicle parked on a gravel cut-through path, the kind landscapers traversed with their shovel-laden ATVs. She glanced down at the digital clock on the console: 8:30. Just enough time to meet the third and hash out a preliminary plan.
Anna parked and stepped out of the car, praying she didn't break a heel on the gravel. No one emerged from the van.
Anna sidled up to the white vehicle and knocked twice on the side door. The door slid open faster than a Formula One car, and a covered hand was dragging Anna into the back before she could properly recover.
It was eerily dim inside.
An entire wall of monitors covered the left side of the vehicle behind the driver's seat, slim keyboards and plastic receivers and snaking wires pooling in curlicue loops on the carpeted floor. The interior of the mansion was displayed on every screen from multiple cameras. Black and white footage subdivided four sections on three separate monitors, so the van occupant essentially had every angle of the mansion covered.
Anna was flabbergasted.
"What is—"
"I hacked into the estate's security mainframe, and have a feedback loop playing over the three angles in front of the vault. All clear. You'll just need to run interference with the security patrol."
The voice was low, detached, but had a soft vulnerability to it that attracted Anna. The auburn-haired girl was a gifted mimic, but a voice like that would take ages to counterfeit if she ever used it for a con. Anna turned to her right to see a form, definitely female, leisurely typing onto a touchscreen tablet.
"But I… that's… I had a whole performance planned. And I thought I was going to do the lift."
"We'll do it my way."
"It's rude not to look at people when you're talking to them."
"I try not to talk to people," the woman said, swiveling in her desk chair to face Anna.
She was clad in some skin-tight black cat suit from toe to head. Whispy bits of blonde hair poked out from under a black beanie, hiding a regal forehead that sloped down into ice-blue eyes. She was unexpectedly young, or would have been, had her demeanor and care-worn creases at the vertexes of her eyes not aged her so.
Anna had never seen someone so pale.
Did Hans team her up with some sort of vampire delinquent?
"Would you like to synchronize watches?" the woman asked, blank faced. The soft glow of the monitors shimmered on her cheeks, flawless phosphorescence.
There was something vaguely familiar about her, and it put Anna on edge. It was a disconcerting recognition, uncanny almost, as if she had known the woman in another life. Of course, Anna had lived as many lives as a thrice-charmed cat. It would take weeks to sift through her sea of contacts to know if she had, in fact, worked with the woman before. Yet her con instincts weren't telling her to run, quite the opposite. The blonde wasn't dangerous, just… intriguing.
"Does it look like I'd wear a digital watch with this ensemble?" Anna gestured to her slinky velveteen gown, black for the season with simple pearls for embellishment. "I'm going for Audrey Hepburn, not Laura Croft."
"Uh… okay. I don't know what that… I mean, you can have my spare, they're already synched." She tossed a bulky wristwatch into Anna's lap.
"I'm not wearing this. Floor-length black gowns do not pair well with Swiss Army watches. And I won't be able to make it past the ballroom at a specific time, anyway, so synchronizing is pointless. I haven't done enough prep for this to know security patrol times. I'm going to have to work the room, gauge the atmosphere of the place."
The woman's brow furrowed and her cheek spasmed. Anna could sense the discomfort, and went on the defensive. The little grifter was quite skilled at the cold read, after all.
"Don't worry, I've got a rock-hard back story that'll have the host swooning over me. What's your in? We can decide on a rendezvous point."
"What's an 'in'?" the woman asked.
"Your cover? Your story? How are you planning on getting into the party? In a suit like that, you look like you're just gonna scale the walls."
The woman tilted her head with a hostility that made Anna feel like a chided six-year-old.
Oh god.
"You're gonna scale the wall? Seriously?" Anna asked.
"For all it's security, it's easily penetrated," the woman said. "And no talking for me. With those people. It's better this way."
Her lids sunk down over large doe eyes. Anna could see her pupils darting back and forth under the skin flaps, the woman's hands raised, fingertips spread and moving minutely, as if she were typing in air. Her black gloves chaffed and Anna heard static build.
"There," she said. Typing onto her tablet for Anna's benefit, a 3-D hologram was suddenly projected between the two women in electric blue lights, an exact rendering of the fugly Moore mansion.
The blonde took a gloved hand and rotated the hologram, spreading two fingers to zoom in on the third floor window in the south wing.
The action seemed so practiced that it took moments for Anna to realize:
She was manipulating a hologram. Just what kind of tech is she working with here?
"Here's the vault," she said. "Cameras and motion sensors here, here, and here." She directed the light show with deft fingers, opening the top of the holographic mansion like some bizarre electro-cookie jar. "They're taken care of."
"What do you mean?"
"Scrambled the feeds."
"Won't that make them suspicious?"
"I haven't scrambled them yet," she hissed.
"Hell, sorry. Chill out," Anna said.
"Two patrols, here and here," she continued brusquely, as if Anna was nothing more than a pesky sunbeam that she needed to strangle.
Seriously, did this woman have a vitamin D deficiency?
"That's where you come and do…" she gave Anna an appraising look, like a bored feline. "…whatever it is that you do."
"Wow, thanks."
The woman turned away with no response and rummaged through a black bag.
No wonder they called her the Ice Queen.
Anna had never seen such a lack of social skills.
"Here, EPs."
She deposited a small, flesh colored piece of plastic into Anna's palm.
"What?"
"EPs. Ear pieces? Do you ever use these on collaborative jobs?"
"No, normally I meet my second or third beforehand. Get to know them, get a feel for their style," Anna joked. "Dinner, movie, 'what's your favorite color', are you a chloroform or mace type of gal?"
"If that was an attempt at levity, I do not know how to respond. It seems irrelevant to our objective."
No shit Sherlock.
"I'll wear the earpiece."
"Here, like this," the woman said, and pressed her own securely into her ear canal.
Anna followed suit.
"There's a mic in it that registers your specific vocal pitch. Talk a little bit and I'll adjust the settings." She turned to one of the keyboards on the left wall of the van.
"Alright, talk, my greatest talent… let's see. Oh! I can tell you all about my last job. See, I only do jobs for hire on the side. I'm more of a liberator, I like to think. 'Cause I love art, and the stories it tells. Anyway, I was at the Met earlier today—"
The woman stopped typing. "You were at the Met?"
"I just said that, now let me finish. They were doing some restorations on this gorgeous painting, circa 1550s France, the earliest known rendering of Joan of Arc. Anyway, basic schoolgirl grift, but those nuns do tend to drone—"
"You were wearing pigtails."
"Right! But once I got out of that uniform—wait, what? How did you know I wore pigtails?"
The blonde kept typing, but her eyes shifted to Anna. No smile. Not even a bob of the head. Just... placid.
"I was at the Met, too."
Anna's cheeks suddenly felt hot. First off, how dare that woman comment on her pigtails! Anna hadn't even noticed her there, and well, it was unnerving because if she had noticed her, that meant Anna was slipping. And secondly, this had to be the woman who had stolen her primetime spot on CNN.
Not that I do it for the recognition.
"Did you steal that jewel thing from the Luxembourg exhibit?" Anna asked.
"It was a jeweled tunic, with quintuple facet diamonds hand-sewn into the fabric. Large carrot sapphires running the length of the sleeves. Exquisite."
"Oooooh! So how did you get past security?"
The blonde's pursed lips straightened to a thin line, and her forget-me-nots found the monitors once again.
"I… don't talk about my work. I actually prefer to work alone. So let's get this over with, shall we?"
"Fine by me," Anna said, patting the underside of her gala-ready hairdo. She smoothed out a wrinkle over the skirt of her gown and touched the EP at her ear. The woman's blatant staring had her more on edge than that pack of Rottweilers she'd encountered while slipping past the consulate bodyguards in Madrid.
"Test, test."
"You don't have to do that," the blonde snapped, opening the door to the van. "I built it. It works."
"You're strange."
The woman cocked her head and a brow shot up. It would have been charming, or even… alluring, if Anna hadn't taken part in the previous sporadic conversation.
"Yes, I've been told that before."
"You can call me Sarah," Anna said. "That's my name for this job. What about you?"
"What about me?"
"What do I call you, in case I need to get your attention?"
"Oh, hmm. I've never used titles before. As I said, I prefer to work alone."
"As do I," Anna continued. "But I'm not calling you Agent 99 or Miss MoneyPenny or anything Bond-like."
"There's only two of us. Why would we need to use such high numerals?"
"It all just goes right over your head, doesn't it? Like African swallows with coconuts."
"I believe this conversation has taken a turn for the metaphorical, and the night is growing short."
"That's not— meta— just tell me what to call you!" Anna said, exasperated.
"You can call me… uhm… well, what do you know me as?"
"Hans said you were the Ice Queen."
"Ice Queen?" the woman asked, head popping forward. Her neck careened out, straining against the turtleneck of her black shirt. Her eyes widened, lips parted and upturned at the corners.
Easy read for Anna. Tell-tell facial tics of interest.
"Yeah, 'cause of your diamond fetish," she explained.
"It's not a fetish," she barked. "And I never knew I had a title…" she readjusted the strap to a dark duffel bag that was nearly the size of her slim body.
Anna could barely see her in the dark of the night, the cool fall air blowing a few of her face-framing layers into her eyes. Had the woman turned sideways toward the grounds, she would've faded away like dissipating shadow. Like she was never there. The wind picked up again and Anna shivered. It stung her eyes so Anna blinked, trying not to mess up her warpaint.
"You can call me Queen."
Anna tried not to roll her eyes, tried to negotiate the stillness of the Queen's face with the rest of her body. The blonde betrayed nothing, probably because she felt nothing. It was a test in passivity with this woman. People who feel, who allow themselves the passion and anger and joy of inhibition are easy marks and easy reads. Anna learned this lesson too well and much too young. But the Queen was cold. The Queen gave nothing away.
And hell if it didn't make her all the more interesting.
"Fine, good luck," Anna stretched out a hand.
The Queen looked at the hand with the same expression one might use when viewing a crocodile's teeth.
"Luck is a fallacious cornerstone for people easily taken in by gambling and the superstitious."
"Just shake my damn hand! If I'm caught, I like to think the last hand I touch before incarceration could be a friendly one."
"We aren't friends."
"Then criminal comrades. It's not like I'm going to tase you."
And then, as if the meeting couldn't get any more peculiar, the woman laughed.
"Haha! Sarah, sure," said the Queen. "I likewise hope your notions of superstitious fallacies support you in your endeavor." She tentatively reached her hand toward Anna's, and grasped her fingertips in the worst handshake the caramel-headed girl had ever had the misfortune to experience. It was like the woman had never shaken another hand in her life.
And along with the dead-fish handshake came a static shock that went all the way down to Anna's toes.
"Ouch! Dammit, dammit, hell."
"Sorry," the Queen said. "All the wires, and the tech gloves. And the monitors—"
"Sure whatever," Anna said, shaking out her arms from the jolt. "I'll try to be on the third floor shortly. Give me at least twenty-five minutes though, half an hour's probably more like it."
"Alright."
The Queen shouldered her bag and leapt on the side of the stonewall surrounding the estate, shimmying up the smooth surface like some sort of tree lizard.
Forget Queen. She's part fuckin' squirrel.
Anna turned on her heel and got ready to put on her performance as 'Sarah'. She could very well worry about the offbeat woman once the job was done. The Queen was just another enigma garnished with shavings of conundrum, a common occurrence in Anna's chosen occupation. And just because she was pale as a ghost, had the peculiar talent for vanishing into thin air, seemed as though she'd not spoken to anyone in eons- it shouldn't have stimulated Anna to this degree. It bothered her, for no one had burrowed under her skin like that in years. And for good reason.
Anna didn't let them.
There were many things Anna did not know about the Queen, but there was one thing she was quite sure of:
Anna did not like her.
A/N: A quicker update, in honor of Oscar night. #breakalegidina and Go Frozen!
Also, thanks to all the followers taking a chance on this. I really appreciate all of your feedback.