protocol_01.01: initialize
Three years ago.
The funeral was this afternoon. It rained all day. The universe, it seemed, at least got that right. Anna is still dressed in her black mourning outfit, all alone in the empty apartment. Someone from Social Services will be here tomorrow to take her to...wherever it is fifteen-year-old orphans go. And someone else will take care of her parents' stuff, she doesn't need to worry her pretty little head about something so hard.
Anna's felt like screaming ever since the accident, ever since she was dragged out of class and told by the principal and the guidance counselor with such sad and pitying eyes. "Anna, we're sorry, but there's been an accident…"
But right now, right now she's alone and she can curl up in her blanket on her bed and not be under everyone's watch. She's all alone and all the pity in the world isn't going to bring Mama and Papa back. So for the first time since that horrible day, she's logged on and maybe, maybe she can deal better with sympathies when they're not staring at her.
Sure enough, Frost is logged in. It's actually comforting. Frost is always logged in. Ever since they met online over nine years ago, Anna doesn't remember ever logging on and not seeing Frost. If she's honest, Frost is probably her best friend, despite the fact that she barely knows anything about the person behind the username. Well, she knows Frost is a girl who'd probably a few years older than her. But Anna doesn't know where she's from or what she looks like.
It'd honestly be a little concerning, if Frost hadn't proved time and time again that she could be Anna's rock. Within thirty seconds, Frost proves it again.
[Frost:] Anna! Oh my god, are you okay?
[Frost:] I heard about the accident. And then you weren't logged in and...I'm glad you're here.
Anna winces. She didn't even think about that. Poor Frost must have been worried for days. It's funny, how this question, the "are you okay" that she's heard so many times over the last few days, sounds more sincere coming from words on a screen.
[LaPucelle:] I'm alright. Still here, you know? Sorry I wasn't on before, couldn't deal.
[Frost:] ...
[Frost:] ...do you...do you want to talk about it?
Yes? No? She sat awkwardly in the guidance counselor's office when he went through the spiel. Gave him single-word answers because, really, what could she say? That she was sad? Well, duh.
[LaPucelle:] I've done that so much already. It's just not gonna bring them back. They went out, the car went out of control and bam, flew off the skybridge. It's just so...stupid and pointless and they're gone and not coming back.
There was a long pause.
[Frost:] I'm sorry.
Anna feels both guilty and relieved. Relieved to get it finally off her chest, but guilty that it took her venting it all over her poor internet friend. Her internet friend she didn't even know the name of.
[LaPucelle:] I should be the one saying that. I just dumped all that on you.
[Frost:] No, it's okay. I did ask.
[Frost:] Better...better to talk about it, right?
[LaPucelle:] I just miss them. I miss them and they're gone and there's no one left.
[LaPucelle:] Everyone's just patting me on the head and acting sad but no one wants me around. They'll take Mama and Papa's stuff, but I'm just useless.
[LaPucelle:] I think you're the only one who actually MEANT it.
[LaPucelle:] You're all I have, Frost.
And she doesn't even know who Frost is. How sad is that?
Frost is silent for a long time. Anna's almost afraid that she finally scared her off. That even Frost has a limit to how much drama she'll put up with, how much of Anna's shit she has time for.
[Frost:] Anna, do you trust me?
There's no hesitation.
[LaPucelle:] Of course.
[Frost:] No, seriously. Anna, do you trust me?
Anna stares at that chat window. It feels like she's standing on a cliff or a bridge. There's two paths she can take. And she doesn't know what's below her.
But there really was only one answer.
[LaPucelle:] Yes.
[LaPucelle:] I trust you, Frost.
[LaPucelle:] I always have.
Frost is again quiet. It's strange. While Anna often dominates their conversations, Frost usually doesn't let them go quiet like this. It adds an extra weight to everything, and she doesn't quite know how to deal with it. But before Anna can add anything, though, Frost finally responds.
[Frost:] Your parents didn't die in an accident. They were murdered.
The bottom drops out from the world.
[LaPucelle:] Wait, what? Frost what
[Frost:] Anna, you have to trust me. Your parents were murdered. You're not safe here.
Anna can't breathe. This can't be happening. She knows Frost isn't joking. Frost can't be joking. She would never, ever joke like this. But how? How can this even be real?
[LaPucelle:] How do you
[Frost:] I looked. It didn't sound right. So I dug. And it doesn't matter because you have to listen to me. You have to get out of there.
[LaPucelle:] Frost I trust you okay? But how. I need to know how you know.
It hurts to watch that blinking cursor in the chat window. Her lungs are burning, because she can barely breathe. It's like when she was a kid and out in the snow, when the air was so cold it hurt to pull it into her lungs.
[Frost:] I know because they were looking for me.
[Frost:] Your parents were killed because they were trying to find me.
[Frost:] It's my fault.
[Frost:] And the people who killed them are going to be after you now.
Oh god. Oh god. She should have asked before. Why did she never think to ask who her friend was? What...was Frost that dangerous? Why were her parents looking for her? What is going on? There's layers of secrets here, and Anna just got thrown in the deep end.
[LaPucelle:] Who ARE you Frost?
Because she has to know now. Because she still does trust her friend, but there's a limit. And Anna's pretty sure she's earned this much, at least. Because what Frost is telling her now...she has to know.
[Frost:] My name is Elsa.
[Frost:] I'm your sister, Anna.
Grief burns away as her temper flares red-hot. It races through her, flashing in her muscles and bones, twisting in her stomach. Suddenly, Anna is angry. How dare she? How dare she do this? She trusted her.
[LaPucelle:] Don't you dare. Don't you DARE say that. Elsa is DEAD.
[LaPucelle:] You DO NOT get to use her!
She's shaking. She should just log off. Never speak to Frost again. Because Anna remembers, she remembers long nights spent crying until she couldn't anymore, dreams of fire and screaming metal, and waking up tasting ash and fuel. She remembers catching herself knocking on a door that no one would ever answer again, remembers Mama and Papa moving like zombies through their lives. She remembers clutching to Papa's coat, the smell of his jacket, as they made her say goodbye to a too-small coffin.
Frost does not get to use Anna's forever-eight-years-old big sister.
[Frost:] There was a car accident. I last saw you when you were five. Your hair was barely long enough to put into pigtails.
[LaPucelle:] Fuck you.
Anna grits her teeth. She doesn't have to put up with this. Frost can go fuck herself. If she's even a girl. Anna moves her cursor to block the asshole forever when Frost starts typing very, very quickly. As if she knows this is her last chance.
[Frost:] Do you remember, you must have been four, when you wanted to build a snowman in the middle of July? And you were throwing a tantrum and crying because you just wanted a snowman and not a sandcastle?
[Frost:] And our parents sent you to your room. And I snuck in with two sand buckets full of crushed ice and a baking pan and we sat in the middle of the floor and built a tiny snowman on the tray.
It's impossible. It's just not possible. Anna can't breathe, it's impossible to breathe, and she can feel her eyes pricking. She thought she had no more tears left. But she thought a lot of things.
[Frost:] And then we
[LaPucelle:] And then we shared a chocolate bar you'd been saving since Easter.
[Frost:] Yeah.
[LaPucelle:] I never told ANYONE about that.
[Frost:] I know.
It was one of those memories that Anna kept close to her heart, locked away forever. The only way Frost — Elsa — could know is if she is Elsa. If her sister was back from ten years dead.
Her screen seems blurry, and her face is wet, but Anna couldn't care less.
[LaPucelle:] It's just oh my god Elsa. You're ALIVE.
[Frost:] I'm sorry.
[Frost:] I'm sorry I couldn't tell you sooner.
And that's it, isn't it? Anna's known Frost for over nine years, but never once knew who she really was. On some level, it makes sense, that Frost was her rock all this time and turns out to be the one person who's been there all her life. It explains why there was that instinctual trust, even from the first chat. But ten years is a long time to let the person you talk to every night think you're dead.
To say nothing of why Elsa never came home. She let them all think she was dead. There was a funeral. Anna mourned Elsa, never stopped mourning her. And now, after losing her parents too, to find out she's still alive?
[LaPucelle:] What the hell, Elsa! You let us think you were dead! Where were you?
[Frost:] I had no choice.
[Frost:] I'm trapped.
[Frost:] Mother and Father were trying to save me. And they got killed for it.
[LaPucelle:] I don't understand. Where are you?
[Frost:] I don't know.
[Frost:] I remember the crash. I pushed you out of the car. I don't remember getting clear of the wreck. I must have passed out, because when I woke up I...you and Mother and Father were gone. And I was...elsewhere.
[LaPucelle:] Where? Elsa, WHERE?
[Frost:] I don't know where I am. I...
[Frost:] ...I've been stuck here for a long time.
The words are like a hammer, shattering the last her anger. She's been lost for ten years, trapped and alone for all that time. Anna can barely handle staying in her room by herself for ten hours. But where? Where is her sister?
[LaPucelle:] How are you talking to me, then? How did you find me?
[Frost:] ...
[Frost:] ...there's...a network here. I'm cut-off from most of it. But I broke through some of their firewalls and security, enough to let me out into the wider Net.
[Frost:] As for how I found you...well, you're my little sister. I'll always find you, Anna.
There's a warmth that spreads through her, from her heart all the way to her fingers and toes. It's like coming into a warm house and being wrapped in a fuzzy blanket after wandering around for hours in a blizzard. Anna reads the words and can almost imagine her sister's voice again. Except Elsa isn't forever eight-years-old, her voice would no longer be high and childish. She imagines that voice tempered and smoothed by adolescence, the eternal child now replaced with an eighteen-year-old.
Elsa never left Anna, never let a little thing like being legally dead stop her from being there.
[LaPucelle:] Did you tell Mama and Papa?
[Frost:] I...no. I didn't. The people who have me...I couldn't find much, but they scared me.
[Frost:] Killing people for knowing too much is the least they can do.
[Frost:] I was scared. Scared of what they would do to you, to our parents.
[Frost:] I could hide behind Frost. That had to be enough. As long as...as long as you were safe.
[LaPucelle:] But it wasn't.
[Frost:] No. Mother and Father...I don't know how, but they figured out that they'd been lied to. That I wasn't actually dead. That I'd been, well, kidnapped.
[Frost:] I suspect they didn't take it well.
Now that she thinks about it, she remembers a slightly desperate intensity around Papa's eyes from weeks ago. She caught Mama crying silently in her study, but Mama waved her off, said it was nothing. If this is what it was, her sister has not lost her skill for understatement.
[Frost:] I didn't realize, I didn't know until it was too late.
[Frost:] I couldn't stop them. Couldn't save them.
[Frost:] But I can save you. Anna, you have to get out of there.
[Frost:] Because now you know and they will kill you.
[LaPucelle:] Social services is supposed to be here tomorr
[Frost:] No. Do not go with them. You'll be dead in 24 hours.
Anna doesn't even pretend Elsa might be exaggerating.
[LaPucelle:] Then what? There's no one else to go with.
And that's the sad truth. All of her parents' friends, for all their pretty words, they've left her here by herself. No one could be bothered to care for her, to care about her. Suddenly, Anna understands what Frost — Elsa, it's Elsa, ElsaElsaElsa — is so afraid of. She's got no one now. No one who will care if she ends up missing or dead. No one except Elsa, and Elsa can't be here by her own admission.
Anna is going to have to save herself first.
[Frost:] You're going to have to disappear. Fall into the undercity and vanish.
[Frost:] Take only what you can carry. And leave tonight.
The undercity. The lower levels, far away from the gentrified heights of the skyscrapers and skyways. The place good girls don't go, unless they have no choice. She's heard the stories, of the crime and the hookers and junkies. Of the gangs and blacksiders, of the lost and abandoned and forgotten in the wastelands below the shining towers.
It's been a cautionary tale staple of school hallways for years. Anna should be, by all rights, terrified to go there. That she's going to have to fall.
[Frost:] I'll help you. As much as I can. I'm not leaving you alone again.
But she's not. She can do this. She will do this. Because Anna wants to live. And, she realizes as she's throwing sturdy clothes and any cash she can in a backpack, along with food and water and her tablet, because she wants to do what her parents died trying to.
Anna wants to save her sister.
The night of her parents' funeral, a fifteen-year-old girl leaves her family's apartment. By the time anyone tries looking for her, she's vanished completely. Her disappearance is a minor note on a news site five days later.