I don't own Frozen.
Four weeks later, and Jane was standing atop the green-slate roof of the Trump Building, nine-hundred feet of dead air space between her skeleton and the pavement of Nassau Street. She liked to sneak into this one building the most, transfer a few hundred thousand in funds, cash out a few bonds, rearrange some assets. Mainly because she didn't like that fake comb-over the man sported in all of his headshots in the Journal. Without knowing it, Mr. Trump had built and funded three different orphanages in Africa.
The air was crisp, clear, and charged this high. The distance dwarfed the city, twinkly lights blinking like fireflies in the countryside. It made Jane miss the nights she'd walked the fields, slept under the stars, climbed trees during soft southern rains. It had smelled better, less persistent, more open. She had been so young then. Too young.
And then the day came when Jane, near starving, had walked by an ATM. Cash just started pouring out. There weren't enough people around to notice. Being only eight, she had tried to shove the green notes back into the slot, fearing she had irreparably damaged the device. When the money kept coming she scooped it up in her threadbare pockets, finally visiting that St. Louis candy store she'd been eyeing for two weeks. She'd bought out the entire chocolate section and made herself sick.
Action. Consequence. In that order.
But she never had to sleep outside again. And something about that lack of exposure, knowing she could have anything, stay anywhere… it crippled her. Lost innocence at the hands of a necessary consumerism.
She gathered herself up and stopped thinking, double-checking the cinched knot at her harness, black ropes cascading over the edge of the building like stringy strands of hair. She shut her eyes and numbers flashed.
Calculating…
Fifty-second floor.
She started her descent, nimbly piloting her body into leveraged footholds while counterbalancing herself with her arms. Reaching the desired floor, Jane managed to unlatch a window and land in graying cubicle, the entire office powered down for the night. She navigated through the abandoned space until she reached the elevator. She pressed the button to call it, her hand remaining on the panel, eyes shut, numbers and circuitry swimming in her cranium.
When it arrived, Jane looked inside to make sure no one was there. Cameras, other floors calling she could disable. But not actual eyes. That required a separate kind of disarmament she wasn't comfortable performing. Riding the car down, she waited til about the tenth floor before climbing through the sky hatch. It reached the ground level and opened onto the lobby. The information desk clerk saw it open, empty, then shook his head at the unusual occurrence.
Jane was through the air duct and in the alley before the elevator doors slid shut again.
Because she had a supplementary assignment for her 'special project'.
She walked a few block east then turned north, hurrying past the two massive craters that marked the fallen towers. Jane had been so young when it happened; she vaguely recalled the fear of it all, not fully understanding the international implications at the time. She did remember thinking: what if they worked there? What if someone in my family worked there, and I didn't get the chance to know them?
The same for Hurricane Katrina.
The same for H1N1 confirmed in the states.
Wildfires in the west. Tornadoes in the plains. Flashfloods in the south.
The BP oil spill.
The Boston Marathon bombing.
An entire life spent not knowing whether the victims of a tragedy were actually related to you.
No. Don't go down that spiral again.
Jane found it, some swanky open space on West Broadway habitually rented out to a higher clientele. This time an open event, some 'save the arts' campaign SUNY schools had thrown together. Student showcases experimenting in minimalism, with Mondrian's Composition No. 10 acting as headliner and public draw, on loan from the Tate Gallery in London.
She had studied the building before, and found easy access via a side fire escape and an easily picked window lock. It was a building trying too hard to be artistic, too focused on aesthetic and distancing itself from practicality. This distancing meant the architects and designers favored exposed triangular rafters, close enough together for Jane to skip silently from beam to beam, ever-present duffel bag over her shoulder. She sat on one of the beams, legs swinging while scanning the room. The spot-lighting in the space was selected for its ability to draw one's eyes to the art, not the ceiling. She was safe from discovery.
A bobbing flash of red caught her eye, and sure enough, the girl known as 'A' was meandering through the crowd. But something was different: her head was bent forward low over her chest, posture the poorest Jane had ever seen her walk with. Gone was her carefree stride; she walked in clipped trots, buttoned up to the ear lobe in a grey suit one size too big for her with a matching skirt that hit the middle of her shin. Other people were leaning in to talk to her, suggesting she had discarded her vocal projection. Her hair was in an unflattering nest at the nape of her neck, haphazard layers accentuating a pair of horrendous black glasses that doubled the size of the girl's eyes. Her shoes were clunky and her face was fixed in a permanent scowl.
Had Jane not known her, not seen her affect different personalities, different masks, she would never have recognized her. A's seamless ability to lose herself in a crowd made Jane feel uncomfortable. She wondered if it was jealousy.
Instead of having to hide from life, A got to live it unnoticed. Or noticed, if she preferred.
A had the best of both fuckin' worlds.
Jane was instantly and irrationally pissed.
The lights in the building flickered. People started looking up, and Jane had to duck behind a center beam to avoid detection.
Dammit. Get it together.
"I'm sure it's just a quick outage, nothing to worry about folks!"
There was a wiry, bespectacled man at the north end of the hall. A raised platform with a miked podium had been constructed for the showcase, and patrons were starting to gravitate in that direction.
"Perhaps we should get on with the presentation, then?" the man said into the microphone.
Jane watched as the portraits were abandoned, everyone turning their attention to the stage. She paced the beam, arms crossed, eyes alert. Her beam was situated at the rear of the group, the podium facing her; she oversaw the spectacle like an anxiety-ridden guardian angel. A few feet behind and below her, she heard noises. A man and woman in tailored business suits were moving an easel with some black lines and red and blue blocks on a canvas into position while everyone else was focused on the speaker. While everyone else was watching the speaker, Jane watched A.
And A was watching the easel.
Elsa was then struck with an idea. It wasn't planned. She had not run through the logistics. But—
She shut her eyes, and blue and green numbers rained underneath her lids, arch trajectories, rate of acceleration, 9.8 m/s2, hang time, recoil, factoring in added weight and relative dimensions— the piece was just over 2x1 feet— on canvas no less.
Jane opened her eyes.
The ruddy haired girl in a poor-looking skirt and blazer combo went to take a seat near the stage with two others.
"And now, a word from our presenters. We have here a student from our sister school in California, one of our own MFA participants, and Professor Dwight Carmel, a noted painter in his own accord. Miss Desmond?"
The man gestured toward the mic and Jane watched as A shuffled awkwardly toward the platform. She tripped going up the stairs, and Jane saw the collective shoulders of the crowd draw skyward in a wince. They all felt bad for the girl. She was harvesting a collective sympathy, probably to be exploited at a later time. A pulled out a crinkled piece of paper from the depths of her blazer and readjusted the mic, the thing squealing and shouting its protests as feedback filled the room.
"Sorry, s-s-sorry," A mumbled.
Jane's eyes' never left A. As she watched, Jane was systematically knotting her rope, rearranging the caribiners on her harness, checking the tension of her bungee cords. She moved back four beams so that she was hovering just behind Composition No. 10.
A started talking. Jane wasn't much paying attention. She didn't want everyone to focus on A. That girl got attention whenever she wanted it. Jane didn't really want attention from the whole crowd, but messing with this girl… she wanted to do that.
Jane closed her eyes and extended her gloved hands, feeling the slight warmth, the familiar tingle of supernovas in her synapses, jolts and phantom energies stinging her tendons, her capillaries, her bones, her organs. She was her own closed circuit, but amenable to connectivity, if she focused enough.
The lights flickered again and died.
People started murmuring.
Jane jumped.
When the lights came back on, the bespectacled man was hovering over the microphone, guiding a shrinking A back to her position.
"As I was s-s-saying," the girl started, meddling with her paper, "—P-Piet Mondrian experimented early with cu-cu-cubism, a departure from—"
A stopped speaking, and looked directly where Composition No. 10 had been displayed not moments earlier.
Still speaking, A tilted her glasses down minutely, unnoticeable if you were unawares.
Jane was not unawares, and, with a cheekiness she hadn't felt in a decade, she jumped once more, winking at A as the bungee cord yanked her back up to the rafters. Composition No. 10 was propped safely behind the center beam.
A proceeded to have a coughing fit into the microphone, but then continued on with her speech.
Jane noticed A had lost her stutter. But the copper-haired girl finished her speech, voice an octave lower than it should have been, dark, uninspired, and angry.
A was angry. Her little plan had worked.
Then why do I still feel like shit?
Because her plan was petty. Jane had not played much with children, choosing instead to, well, survive during her early years. But even she knew the quid pro quo of 'you took my toy so I'm taking yours'. She was not a child; she had never been given that luxury. So her actions didn't sit well, didn't feel satisfying in the way she had hoped.
What had she hoped?
To shock A.
Not like that, not with her powers; but she held the distinct impression that she liked to show off… for her. Not for anyone, because so many are easily awed. But A was not. She was impressive in her own right. And something about possessing the esteem of your peer, your equal, your better, in some regards… it was fulfilling.
Fulfilling in a way that diamonds could never be.
Jane didn't need to piss her off. She didn't want her angry. She wanted her respect.
A finished speaking to beleaguered applause, slinking off the stage with her tail between her legs. She moved along the side of the crowed, inconspicuous, as the next speaker came behind her. He was not overtly charismatic, or even charming for that matter, but he spoke like Martin Luther King, Jr. following A's sorry speech.
The red haired girl sniffled below her, eyes dancing about at the patrons, glancing up to the rafters. She slipped by the two people who had put the easel in place, the rest of the room still focused intently on the speaker. A looked up.
Their eyes met, blue steel boring down into the sea.
A raised her hand, then, thinking better, dropped it. She gnawed at her jaw and exhaled heavily, raising her hands in a defensive position.
She mouthed 'you win' skyward.
Jane's stomach was in her throat, and she wasn't even bungeeing. She crossed her arms back over herself, staring down at the girl. Here, standing above her, holding her toy just out of reach, it could have seemed smug; the action was anything but. She hugged her elbows, tried to contain whatever this feeling was, because it was overpowering. She had taken A's painting. But she truly wanted nothing more than for the girl to like her, for some inexplicable reason. Jane shut her eyes and numbers flew, senseless, illogical, meaningless. Spurts of yellow zapped in the darkness and then, when she opened her eyes, the room was black once more.
She hadn't meant to do it. Maybe her body knew better than her mind. Some subconscious yearning for redemption.
Jane snatched the painting from its hold and crossed her arms over it securely, falling silently to the floor below. One swift inversion later and she had the artwork back on its easel, then rerouted the rope through the caribiner so that she could start climbing into the darkness.
Something brushed her shoulder, and her nerves nearly exploded. Jane held a death grip on the rope.
"Hey."
"Hi."
"Why'd you put it back?" A asked.
Jane tried to shrug it off. She would sound so desperately callow if she revealed she had done it for her. Jane wasn't quite sure she had done it for A. Maybe for what the other girl represented.
"I never wanted it. This was more of a lesson."
"What if I didn't learn it?" A asked.
"I'm not showing you again. We need to draw a line, and keep this civil. This nonsensical back-and-forth is detrimental to us both."
"Yeah, but it's fun."
Fun? Was that what that feeling was?
"I wouldn't know," Jane said soberly. "Take it if you want it, but know that we should end this before it gets out of hand."
"Why are you so uptight?"
"In case you haven't realized, we could easily be killed or incarcerated for the least severe of our actions."
"Don't," A said sharply into the darkness. Other people were still milling about, talking animatedly about generators and breakers and unreliable building management.
She didn't touch her, but A stepped closer to Jane, voice low in sibilant hostility. Her breath was so hot and forceful that it blew fine baby hairs against the blonde's ear. The darkness made things easier for Jane, like talking to A, standing next to A, concealing the bodily shudders A's breath was inspiring.
"I am grimly aware of that fact, but I do not, and will not harp on it," A growled. "And I don't need you chastising me like some hypocritical older sibling."
"Fine then."
"Fine."
"Just—" Jane gripped the rope tighter, pulling away from the girl. The air felt less charged, and she could breathe again. "In the spirit of criminal camaraderie, I urge you to be careful."
"Where's the fun in that?"
Jane couldn't stay, could barely stand. Her brain was flickering… or that might have been the lights.
She scampered up her cord and got the thing pulled back into the rafters, art patrons oblivious, auburn-haired girl frowning at the ceiling. Jane granted one final, blank glance back down at A, then turned and skipped over the beams to the fire escape. She didn't stop sprinting until she was five blocks away.
She was still over a mile from her skyscraper loft when the EP started beeping.
"Olaf?"
"Sorry to bother you, Jane, but you've got an incoming message from the supercomputer."
"How'd the source put it out?"
"Spammed nearly every Manhattan email, wide net circulation. Broadcasted through an ad, on a website for a Caribbean resort. It's data encrypted under one of the image files, and reroutes through servers with untraceable IPs. But when we run the encryption code through the processor, there's no doubt they're asking for you."
"How do you know?"
"Because the code translates to 'Ice Queen' to an infinite power. They want you bad," Olaf replied.
"What's the ad?"
"It's for… Caneel Bay Resort, on the island of St. John. There's some sort of corporate retreat-come-merger going on in two weeks."
"Company?"
"Seven Seas Trading. They're buying a cruise line."
"CEO?"
"Ursula Carroll."
"Current company standings?"
"Equivalent networth of an American Fortune 100."
"They're not U.S.?"
"Affiliated, but they're run out of Jamaica. The deal is taking place on U.S. territory, though, which could help them with their own domestic legalities if something shady is happening. The biggest corporation in the Caribbean, it looks like. Beat out Sandals and Atlantis and other resort-esque tourism conglomerates," the line went dead as Olaf processed more information. "Appears there's been several disputes concerning their board of directors. CFO Triton Carroll is trying to get his daughters in with corporate management."
"But Ursula's not going for it? She's his spouse or sibling?"
"Sibling. And the man's got seven daughters, with grandchildren subject to trickle down inheritance shares. That split would tie up investments—"
"And I bet Ursula's not one for sharing. The company's at a tipping point. This would be the perfect time to strike… Anything else?"
"It's a big job, Jane. The estimated payout… you've never taken a job like this."
"Ballpark it for me."
"Upwards of seventy five million."
That number startled her. She almost had that, certainly had access to that, but that big a payout on one job? If everything went well, she could liquidate all of her assets, set up some legitimate accounts, maybe retire from this whole thing. Start a new life. Learn to talk to people.
It was tempting.
"A job like this… it must be joint operations," she said. "Is that number split?"
"No. Seventy-five for all parties involved."
"But there are other parties?"
"Yes, Jane, that's why I wanted to tell you about it in the first place."
"What is it?"
"Whoever sent this out, they're calling for specific people. I think it'll be four, maybe five in on the whole thing. Jane… they want A in on it, too."
Jane stopped walking, stock-still under a street light. She hitched her duffel bag over her shoulder and hugged her arms across her chest.
Inhale. Exhale. Repeat.
"Run three phantom codes with the outgoing message. Double back over NASA's IPs, just to make sure no one can trace it."
"So… that's a yes to the job then?" Olaf asked.
What the hell was she doing?
"Yes. I'll take it."
Goodness gracious alive... did it seriously just take almost 20k+ words to get to the plot? I might have bitten off more than I can chew here folks... wild ride ahead. Would love a little love with that big square review box below you. Come on, you know you want to. I'll give you cookies! Eventually, maybe, probably not. Thanks for your readership though, as always!
*Additionally, I know nothing about computer terminology aside from what I hear on crime shows. Much of the dialogue concerning electronics is probably idiotic rubbish. Fair warning for any tech people out there.