I don't own Frozen.
Dazed.
Stuporous.
Insensible.
Jane was drowning…again. Her limbs felt dumb, heavy, and inarticulate, and whenever she tried to move against the resistance, she felt as though she were swimming through custard. She couldn't breathe, either, and when her head broke through the surface of the pudding muck she would gasp, and rattle, and struggle for oxygen. She gulped air, sweet, precious air, and clawed at whatever filmy cellophane was stretched across her trachea.
But the room was white and she couldn't move, and Anna wasn't by her side.
Her eyes were shut, her ears were open, and her mind was lost.
"Give Alpha another ten cc's of the solution."
"Another ten and I can't promise she won't be comatose, Doctor."
"Better Alpha being comatose than us being dead. Mr. Westergaurd has been in talks with Subject Beta for hours now. He seems to have struck a deal with her, one that will ensure Alpha's cooperation."
"With all due respect, sir, Mr. Westerguard hasn't had our best interests at heart in the past. The holding cells still aren't fully equipped! That's why we're drugging her so heavily in the first place. It'll be like Project Frost all over again."
"Project Frost got us this far, Bates. The subject's demise was unfortunate, but we now know much more because of its failure, which is a success in itself. And, not that it's any of your business, but Westerguard cleared it with me before he moved in on the subjects. They were planning on leaving the country, and we both know how difficult international tracking can be. I couldn't take any more whining from the guys running all the electronic traces."
"Yes sir."
"And don't refer to the subject as 'her'. Do not attempt to humanize a tool."
"Yes, Dr. Weselton."
How long had she been here?
Why did nothing… nothing make sense? Voices seemed to filter through water before reaching Jane's ears, and strings of coherency were delicate as unspooled cotton, clumping together and then fluffing off on the wind. There were subjects, and doctors, and why did she feel so heavy?
"You don't really have a lot to bargain with here, A. No, it's Anna now, isn't it? Suits you."
"I've got more than you think I do. We've been here for three days, Hans, and you haven't done anything to us. I'm starting to think you're not adequately prepared for your little experiment."
"You should know better, I'm always prepared. I did my part of the job."
"Well, whoever you got into bed with isn't as meticulous as you are. That little one with the mustache? Ridiculous. But I expected nothing less than perfection from you. We had the same goal, after all."
"Really? And what was that?"
"Come on Hans, don't be an idiot. You think I didn't keep her glued to my side as soon as I saw what she could do?"
"So you've just been using her? You mean to tell me that ring on her finger is a part of the job you've been pulling?"
"You taught me, Hans. Find her weakness, and exploit it. She's lonely, so I give her companionship. And you wouldn't believe what she gives me in return. She won me half a million at a poker game that you hosted last week. I walked right into a museum in Amsterdam and stole not one, but two Golden Age masterpieces with zero prep time. With her, I can get whatever I want, and I don't even have to do anything."
"It was smart to keep her around. But you don't know everything, Anna."
"I know they're trying to run the tests, see if they can transfer her powers onto someone with similar genetic makeup. I saw the gene-splicing story on the news. That's why you needed us alive."
"I always did underestimate you. But A— Anna, they're going to figure out how to hold her eventually. The only reason you're conscious is because you keep saying you can do something for us. You've stalled long enough, so talk."
"Hans, it doesn't have to be this way—"
"I've been working on this for years, Anna! You think I'd throw it away because you got all mooney-eyed over me as a teenager?"
"You're still underestimating me if you think that's where I'm going with this. Look, I know your Dr. Weselton doesn't have the power to hold her. Not with what she can do, because I've seen it. All of it. But he needs her discharges, to start measuring volts and whatever the hell else he's trying to calculate. How can he curtail something when he doesn't know the extent of its power?"
"And what? You do?"
"I'm saying, I can get her to do anything you need her to do, at any level you need her to do it. I can keep her here, without escape attempts, as long as you don't hook me up to one of those machines like I'm some fucking lab rat."
"That's what he sees you as. 'Subject Beta'."
"I'm not just spare parts in this experiment, Hans! I've got something none of you have, and you'll need me when the time comes for it."
"And what is that? An acute sense of self-preservation?"
"Call it that, or an intimate knowledge of my own leverage. Put me in here with her when she's conscious, and I'll give you a show."
"What makes you think she'll do what you say?"
"You saw the ring, isn't it obvious? She's in love with me."
"Fuck, Anna."
"She's in love with me. Just like half a hundred other marks from here to Hong Kong, Hans."
"Are you in love with her?"
"Well, you always told me you had to be a little in love with all of your marks to come off as convincing. She's beautiful, I'll give her that."
"Anna, what the hell? You told me you knew she was your sister!"
"I do… But she doesn't."
"So you just… fuck, that explains why Al thought you two were together."
"I did what I had to do to keep her close to me. If it meant playing the love-sick fool, then I did. You know how easy that one is to pull off."
"You're a little twisted, you know?"
"I had a decent teacher."
"Jane? Jane, sweetheart, it's me, can you hear me?"
The steely whiteness of the holding room was so bright it shot vectors of pain straight to her brain. It burrowed in through her pupils and pulsed along the nerves, throbbing as it hit the quadrants of grey matter. Jane felt so groggy she was sure she would vomit.
She was vertical, of that she was sure. Her equilibrium was compromised, which would explain why her body was sagging against what looked to be cuffed restraints. Her arms were spread, as were her legs, and she felt like da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, displayed and vulnerable before eyes and needles and invasive instruments.
Until she saw Anna's face in front of her, and something within her heart quieted.
"A— Anna?"
"Yes, Jane, it's me."
"What—?"
"Hush, now, Jane. You're just a little sick, okay?"
"Anna, why—"
"Jane, can you do something for me? Please?"
"I don't… I don't under—"
"Jane, can you spark for me? Just a little bit?"
"What? Why?"
"Because I asked you to. You'd do that for me, right?"
Jane tugged against the cuff at her wrist, and felt stinging sensations at the interior of her elbows. She cocked her head to the side and noticed thick, plasma-like liquid pouring into her body from a looping IV. "It hurts, Anna."
"I know, but it will be better if you let off some steam, right? That's what you told me. Back on the beach, in the Hamptons? If you just let off a little bit of the pressure, I'm sure it will all feel better."
"Anna, I c-can't move, I'm s-s-scared."
"I know, Jane," and Jane felt warmth against her cheek. A palm, or another cheek, or a breath, she was unsure; opening her eyes was strenuous, and her head still felt like butter. But Anna's touch was a form of reprieve.
"If you release a little bit of the power, maybe it'll make you feel better? I think it will, and you trust me, don't you?"
"Anna..."
"Don't you, Jane? You said you did, that you loved me, and you trusted me to take care of you? So spark for me, please. Just a little, and you'll feel better."
The warmth at her cheek was gone; only cool lack remained. And she wanted that back, needed that certain heat, the friction of another body near hers, of Anna, beside her; so if Anna needed her to spark, then she would do it.
Jane wiggled her fingers and flexed against the cuffs at her wrists. The belted restraints ran across her torso, her hips, and she still didn't understand, but she did know that Anna needed this from her. And Anna loved her, so very much, and would never hurt her. So she gathered her remaining wits and concentrated, then issued spurts of electric pulses out of her fingertips to the sides of her body, and her skeleton felt a little lighter for it, just as Anna said it would.
And suddenly the warmth returned to her cheek, and Jane nearly cried for the comforting heat.
"You did such a good job, Jane," she heard Anna say.
"Anna, can we go home now? Where are we, what's going—?"
"Shh, I'm taking care of it. You just rest now."
"I can't. I feel… ill. And I'm bloated, and nauseous, and ravenous with no appetite—Anna, I don't understand—"
"Trust me, Jane. I've got it all under control. Sleep now."
"But I don't want to sleep," Jane whispered, and hot tears fell over her cheeks.
"I know. But you're going to, whether you want to or not."
"Anna? Wait, Anna, why won't you tell me what's happening?" she sniffled.
…
"Anna?"
…
"Anna?!" Jane screeched, but her voice was soft as goose down, and her mind was hurtling back towards the dazed clouds. "Anna… I love you."
No one answered her.
"I told you, Doc. Hope you got your stupid readings because of it."
"Miss Arrendale, there's no reason for such hostility. This is all for science."
"You plan to make human generators for science? You're torturing her."
"This advancement could solve the world's energy crisis!"
"So a couple of lives ruined isn't that big a deal in the grand scheme of things? Not to mention it would certainly put enough money in your pocket for every future Weselton generation to be sitting pretty from now until doomsday. Hell, leave the torture bit out and you'll get a Nobel."
"If that should occur—"
"Hans told me you killed the last test subject."
"Watch your tongue, Miss Arrendale. You've only been granted leniency at Mr. Westergaurd's request. Just because you're allowed in Alpha's quarters doesn't mean you have any power here."
"Tell that to the wobbly lines on her monitor that perk up every time I come in this room."
"Don't try me, Miss Arrendale."
"Whatever, I'm more than aware I'm still your little prisoner: 'Subject Beta'. But if you don't let me go soon, I'm not going to cooperate any more. You wanted her to spark? I got her to. You want a bolt next time? I can do that. I'm doing your blood tests, and I'm letting your people inject me with all sorts of crap. But I'm not talking with her unless you give me something on good faith. Release me."
"There's no guarantee you'll return."
"No, but as I told Hans, I didn't spend that much time building good will with her just to give her up so easily. She's my ticket out. So if you let me in on this, give me something worth my while, I promise to cooperate. I'll get her to do whatever the fuck you want. I could make her rain lightning over NYC if that's what you needed."
"We're not seeking world domination, just trying to determine if her powers are transferable. We've spent too much money and too much time finding the both of you to let you ruin it with some sibling crusade."
"I don't care what you do to her as long as you let me go."
"But we need you! To test Alpha. To measure the subject, to extract samples and place them in another host. We can't keep Alpha drugged much longer, but we need her not to fight back."
"Look Dr. Weaselman—"
"Weselton!"
"Whatever, if she knows you're holding me captive, then she most definitely will fight back. She already feels threatened and helpless. I know what she can do when her emotions get the better of her, and with how I've made her feel about me over these past few months? She'll rip this place apart trying to find me."
"I don't care about your personal affairs. But I'm willing to make concessions on the professional front if you agree to cooperate. So what is it that you want, Miss Arrendale?"
"I want in on the project."
"No."
"Then let me go! Stop tracking me. I'll give you a disposable cell phone number and you can contact me if you need me to do stuff with her, but I'm no one's test subject."
"You overestimate your worth to this project. We will figure out how to manipulate her, how to control and stimulate her without you. And then you'll be back in your own holding cell. It will happen, as science does… eventually."
"Yeah, well your 'eventually's tend to end with dead test subjects. And from what Hans has told me, he had to go about killing people for the money you needed to get this equipment, these facilities, to hire the people you needed to track her. Is it true you've enlisted the MIT computer engineering grads just to study her code? That they've been tracking her for years? It took you a whole MENSA team to find her!"
"Again, our efforts are none of your concern."
"And then you make Hans cash in his ties to fund your experiment? Fossil fuels for new world energy, is that it? Is that why you've tied your special projects fund to the oil futures?"
"Mr. Westerguard offered to acquire the funds himself. He knew the longevity and eventual rewards this project would return."
"I'm not criticizing his investment choices. It sounds like a grand idea. But Doc, listen, you're going about this the wrong way if you think making me an enemy is a good idea."
"Is that a threat?"
"It's as close as I'll come while in your custody. So let me out of bumfuck New Jersey."
"No."
"Then don't expect any help from me."
"Again, you overestimate yourself."
"You underestimate me."
"We'll see about that."
"We certainly will."
Jane was starting to get used to it. The in-and-out of coherency. The journeys were arduous, and she struggled, and never felt completely herself within either state. Blackout. Consciousness. Jane felt as though she preferred one to the other, but she couldn't remember which.
"Jane!"
That voice, she should know that voice…
"Jane, please, wake up, you've got to wake up!"
Darkness this time. And it was still warm, but maybe that was just the voice.
"I don't have a lot of time, they'll come to check on me in a few minutes. God, I'm so sorry Jane, please—"
"A?"
"Yes, it's me, it's A. It's Anna."
"What…?"
"Jane, Hans got us. But it's not just him. He was just… I don't have a lot of time to explain. But know that I love you, that everything I do I'm doing for you, alright?"
"Who—?"
"Jane, this is going to take time. It's so extensive, the information, the security they have, the tracking… I'm not like you, I can't get in and out of here super quick. But I promise, I will get you out. I just need more time— dammit. There they are. I need you lucid, Jane. I can't do this without you. I can't touch you, the cameras, they'll see—"
The sounds were tripping in through Jane's ear canals, bumbling like drunkards up staircases in the early morning. There was no sense, but Jane felt comfort, somehow, and might have registered the soreness of her body. Bits of perception were returning. She could see, but not really. All the forms rippled at the edges.
Visual not visible.
"I love you so much, Jane. And I'm going to fix this. I swear, I can do this for you."
"I can't believe you cowed to them. You ate companies like this for breakfast, Hans."
"Anna, you know sometimes you have to accept concessions to get what you want. I didn't have the power to hold her on my own, so I teamed up with the people who did."
"I expected more from you, Hans. You were my hero."
"I'm no one's hero, and you were a fool to think that."
"Maybe your brothers were right—"
"Give me another year, and my brothers will be taking orders from me! We all know the upcoming decades will be ruled by energy magnates. Between oil and electric and nukes, I will own them."
"That's assuming WGT makes any progress in a year."
"I've seen the projections, Anna. Patience."
"I just don't understand…"
"What? What is it you don't understand? I got what I've always wanted!"
"Did you, really? Why did you need WGT in the first place? Why couldn't you have just approached me, if she's all you wanted? I had her, I would've given her to you! You know I… I would've done anything for you, Hans. You saved me."
…
…
…
"I can't trust you, Anna. I taught you that routine."
"I know. Shoot first, ask questions later. I assume you told the same to the team that picked us off in Louisiana?"
"I knew you'd try to talk your way out of it. I couldn't give you that chance."
"You never gave me any chances, even after everything I did for you."
"You've got the power on your side, Anna. She'd kill me if I even threw a glance your way."
"You have a greater power on your side. You always have."
"Really, Anna? And what is it?"
"That I never stopped loving you."
…
…
…
"They want you back in here with her today for a demonstration."
"Yes."
"And will you comply?"
"Ha, I'll comply alright. But they won't make the mistake of underestimating me again. But… Hans… don't watch today. Don't stand in the observation room."
"What? Why not?"
"Because I'm going to show them exactly what you turned me into. Exactly what I'm capable of."
"Jane?"
The return to reality was jarring this time. Sudden as an exploding grenade. It stung.
"Jane, please."
"A—Anna?"
"Jane, listen to me."
She was back to brightness. But it wasn't debilitating this time, and she could see her, Anna, oh Anna, right there in front of her. And she looked okay. Okay, but not well. Her eyes were wet and drooped like a bloodhound's, and her complexion wasn't the brilliant bronze Jane was so accustomed to. Her hair was pulled back off of her face in a tight ponytail, and she was dressed in little more than a paper gown.
"Anna, are you alright?" she managed, and her voice was even lower than usual. She sounded like a teenage boy on the cusp of puberty, words crackling. "We're… how long have we been here?"
"About a week, now, Jane."
"What is this place?"
"We're at WGT headquarters in New Jersey. Remember that?"
Squealing feedback echoed from above, surround sound bursting through her sensitive eardrums.
"No conversing with the subject, Miss Arrendale. You know the terms."
"Fuck off!" Anna shouted to the incorporeal voice.
"Anna, who was—?"
"Intercom."
"What's—"
"They're pumping you with this sodium ion solution. There's sedative, or something else in there that keeps you knocked out, but it's like, neutralizing your charges so they can run tests while you're unconscious."
"But where have you been—"
"They want you to spark, Jane."
"Why should we help them?" Jane asked, regaining brain function. It was a lot of information thrown at her, all at once, and she was angry, and terrified, and she felt as though she could blow the top off an energy plant with little prompting from Anna. "Why should we give them anything they want, Anna?"
"Miss Arrendale, this isn't quite living up to expectations," the voice said. Even over the intercom Jane could sense his irritation. "You'll be joining her on a table if you can't deliver."
"Do you hear that, Jane?" Anna asked.
Jane did. And at least one thing clicked.
They're threatening Anna.
My Anna.
"Are they hurting you?" Jane wheezed.
"Not yet. They say they will, if you don't comply. They want you to spark, just a little, but I think you should fry them."
"Where are they?"
"In the control booth, above my left shoulder," Anna whispered. "They don't think you'll do what I say."
"SPEAK UP, MISS ARRENDALE!"
"What do you want me to do?" Jane murmured.
"I need some leverage against them. You won't comply unless I tell you to. And if they hurt me, well, let's kiss your cooperation goodbye. They keep drugging you because they don't have enough power to hold you, but I overhead a tech say the solution is running out—"
"MISS ARRENDALE!"
"So I say, we give 'em hell while they think they're still in control," Anna whispered again. She then sidestepped so that Jane was facing an empty white wall. The ceilings were high, higher than Jane had noticed before, and there was a glass window looking down on them from about ten feet above her. A roomful of men in white lab coats observed from stadium seating.
"Give me a little more time, and I promise to get you out of here," Anna whispered, and Jane felt emboldened, aware for the first time within a week of haze.
Her fingertips prickled and the hairs at the back of her neck stood on end. She felt like an alley cat, spitting, hissing, or a wolf with hackles raised. She certainly didn't feel human. And with the anger, and the drugs, and Anna's request bubbling in her system, she felt like letting off some steam.
A lot of it.
"What's the guy's name? Is it Hans?" Jane asked.
"No. His name is Dr. Weselton."
"That's a stupid fucking name."
"Tell me about it."
"Hey Doctor!" Jane yelled, and it was fatigue and recklessness and some attitude tinted with a nothing-to-lose carelessness about it that had her shouting with such irreverence.
"Hey! Asshole, down here!" Jane yelled hoarsely, straining against her bonds. "Anna tells me you're running some tests."
"Please refrain from interaction. We don't want to have to hurt you," the intercom said, and his voice was stuffy and clipped.
The voice of an old man. No one with power.
"Hurt me? Who do you think you are?" Jane released a bolt of energy that missed the glass pane by inches. A black spot of burnt sheet rock above the viewing panel sizzled, smoking and crumbling. "Touch Anna, and I will kill you."
"Readminister the injection. She's too aware, she'll end up ruining the facility—"
The intercom cut out.
"We don't have a lot of time, Jane," Anna said, and her voice was measured and low. "Show them what you can do. Show them what happens with your powers when you let your emotions control you. When you get pissed off."
Jane did. Anna sat at her feet, unharmed, while Jane destroyed the room about her. The restraints at her wrists gave way from the burning, boiling sensations in her hands, and it was with astonishment that she realized her bonds had completely disintegrated. Plaster from the roof fell around them. Lights sparkled and sizzled. The glass panel separating them from the viewing room shattered, and Jane thought she saw a bloodstain on the far wall of the facility.
"Good girl, Jane. You can hurt them if you want to."
And Jane didn't have time to consider the implications of that suggestion, that the person saying these things with such levity might just be A, not Anna… but what did it matter when she was throwing lightning bolts from her fingers, from her ribcage, when her pupils felt white-hot and her tongue was heavy and tingling? When she could feel her lover running a soothing hand over her kneecap, trailing her fingers up and down the inside of her leg in a bizarre show of support and approval, when lightning spiked from her arms and flew toward bodies and walls and Tesla coils?
She felt something prick her, not her powers, but something foreign, the same surprising prick she had felt in Louisiana, just before she lost consciousness.
"What are you doing, that was the last dart!"
"Doc, she would've brought this place down otherwise!"
Jane's head swam. Back to the muddle again, foggy and hazy and depressing, because Anna wasn't coming with her.
"When we wake her up next time—"
"You still won't be able to contain her," and it was Anna's voice, distant and harsher than normal. "I just had to whisper to her, and she nearly killed you."
"Think of what will happen when she wakes up and Anna's not here."
That voice was accented slightly, maybe German? There were spots behind Jane's eyes and she was fading into darkness, but she could still just make out a smoking room, and figures moving in it.
Anna…
"Anna…" Jane grunted.
"See, even when she's out of it she wants to help me."
"Fine. You win," a fussy male voice said. "What do you want, then?"
"First off, you've got to let me out of here. I'll come back tomorrow. I want to know everything. Schematics, the science, what you've used to get us here. Hans says you have projections of what you plan on doing with her. That she'll be some sort of prototype for human energy emission. What kind of money are we talking? Because I want a cut."
"In the long run, it's inestimable. She's the first of a new generation."
"Not the first, Hans said you had another subject. The one that died, remember?"
Died?
Jane's lids fluttered over her eyes. She was using so much strength to remain semi-coherent, but the drugs were fast-acting, and she was falling into Wonderland or Hell or sleep.
"Fine. Mr. Westerguard can get you up to speed," the shorter form blurred into nothing, but Jane heard the remnants of his voice. "I'm holding you personally responsible for her, Hans."
"I'll put her back in her cell the moment she steps out of line."
That German voice again.
"No you won't."
A feminine one. Anna, maybe?
"You like to think you know me better than you do," the male voice said.
"I like to think a lot of things, like maybe you're on my side again. It's nice, isn't it? Being on the same side, with the same goal?"
"I know my goal, always have. What's yours?"
"Yours and mine were the same, though I've never thought on the massive scale that you always have. But I did... do, want power. The power to keep people with me, to have someone like I've always wanted."
"You don't know what you want, Anna."
Anna? I know what she wants! She wants me, she loves me! She wants to get me out of here, she wants…
But Jane couldn't hear as well anymore, and she had to have been mistaken in what she saw through the last dregs of coherency, because this wasn't what Anna wanted:
"I do know what I want... who I want," Anna said, and the two shadowy forms in the smoking room came together, right there in front of Jane.
Jane then blacked out. From the drugs, or possibly from a betrayal that had been sealed with a kiss.
I actually kinda like the fragmented nature of this chapter. I initially had this in Anna's POV, but it just felt like a huge info dump. But now, there's still a lot to be answered because of Jane's addled state. And as always, thank you for your readership!