Dress Off 00: Origins - Jane vs Kate

[Back in 2013-14, I wrote a series of stories based on an international spy agency full of women who were prone to losing their clothing. I had to take a break due to personal reasons. This is my attempt to kickstart things off again. Dress Off 0 follows on from the events in the flashback in Dress Off 4. Tanya Munro and Sarah Lowell, having escaped from Elizabeth Harrington, are now trying to live new lives as Tess Trueheart and Sonya Foxwell. After several close encounters with Harrington's own agents, Tess and Sonya have decided to leave the U.S. and hide out in the remote pacific island country of New Zealand. To get there, they must first take a long haul flight with a stop-over in Sydney, Australia...]

[Transit Lounge, Sydney International Airport, late 2004]

The tired hum of the airport transit lounge continued unabated as Sonya sunk deeper into her seat. She almost had to pry her eyes open after the long-haul flight that they'd just suffered through, and right now all she wanted to do was sleep.

She lazily leaned over and glanced over at the nearby bookstore, where she could just make out the figure of her partner browsing in front of a stand of magazines.

"Come on Tess." Sonya muttered to herself, rubbing her eyes and absent-mindedly checking their travel documents one last time. Not that there was a huge rush. There was still half an hour before their connecting flight to Auckland, New Zealand was due to board.

Sonya poked in a desultory manner at the muffin that she'd just bought from the cafe. She pulled a face both at how stale it was, and at just how much staleness apparently cost these days. Sonya couldn't even force herself to read through the guidebook for the fifth time since they'd left the U.S. Instead, the red-headed beauty had to content herself with scanning the crowd and making wild guesses about her fellow passengers.

Old lady heading towards her, she noted. Mid fifties, Sonya guessed. Looks like she works out even in her later years, and with a no-nonsense suit that spoke of a certain familiarity with - and expectation of - power. Possibly some high-flying executive, Sonya thought. Still, no noticeable laptop case she pondered, and executives seemed chained to them these days. Instead, she was only carrying a small purse and a coffee cup.

Sonya shifted slightly in her seat as she suddenly realised the woman wasn't just heading in her general direction, but was actually on an intercept course for the table she was at.

Sonya was already half way out of her seat and furiously signalling to Tess Trueheart as the older woman arrived. Without even saying a word, she gracefully took a seat opposite Sonya, laid her purse neatly to one side, placed her coffee directly in front of her, and smiled warmly.

"Miss Howell. I do believe we need to talk."

Sonya froze. It had been four years since she'd last heard her old name so casually tossed out by a stranger.

"Umm. Tess!" Sonya called out, finally attracting the attention of her friend.

********

Tess Trueheart drew back a chair next to Sonya, treating the stranger to a cold stare as she sat down.

"Who are you, and what do you want?" Tess demanded, forsaking any pleasantries in favour of the direct approach.

The woman smiled back despite the frostiness of the welcome, and delicately pushed a card towards the two travellers.

Sonya leaned forward slowly, and retrieved the card from the middle of the table, and handed it over to Tess, who glanced down at it with a grim expression.

"Angelica Highsmith. Decider Enterprises." Tess read out loud. She flipped the card on to Sonya, before returning to stare back at Highsmith. "Is that supposed to mean anything to us?"

The lady held Tess's stare as she replied. "Well my dear. I hope that one day it means a lot to you both. In the meantime though, I'm afraid it'll simply have to do that it means I'm a friend."

"A... friend?" Sonya repeated. "Any why exactly are you... Angelica... our friend?"

Highsmith coughed delicately. "Well. Perhaps dear Sarah..."

"It's Sonya now." Sonya interjected, firmly.

Highsmith paused, before acknowledging the correction and moving on. "Well then, perhaps dear Sonya I should confess it's more a case of 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend.'"

Both Sonya and Tess arched their eyebrows with near perfect synchroneity, as Highsmith allowed her permanent smile to thin slightly. "We have, you see, a mutual acquaintance. I believe you know her as Elizabeth Harrington."

"Really." replied Tess abruptly, involuntarily tensing at the name of the woman whose organisation

had chased her and Sonya to the ends of the Earth. "And how exactly do you know her?"

Highsmith sighed, and took a sip of her coffee.

"I don't think that's really important right now. I suppose I could say that what is important is that Harrington and her employers pose a very real threat to the stability of the world. I suppose I could say that I surprisingly find myself with no-one else to ask for help, and that the good people of free nations need your help. However," Highsmith said, sipping her coffee again, "I think it's fair to say that what is of the most immediate importance is that we're having this conversation. Which means I'm afraid that I've found you. Which means that Harrington - with all her resources - will eventually find you too. Not even New Zealand is outside our little global village any more, you see."

Highsmith paused, and placed her palms out on the table, one each in front of the two best friends and fugitives, in silent encouragement for both Tess and Sonya to hold her hands. "So I'm very much afraid that sooner or later it'll be time to turn and fight. And I think you're going to need my help."

"Do you want to know what the good news is though, in the midst of all this doom and gloom?" Highsmith sighed happily as she took in her latest reluctant recruits. "Well, it's that I think I'm going to need your help too..."

********

[Three months later, early 2005 and the middle of another hot Sydney summer.]

"... and so that's why, Miss Barton, we very much look forward to seeing the work that you and Miss Houston deliver at the board meeting on the 18th."

The old man behind the desk smiled, and leaned back in his chair with a satisfied expression on his face.

"Of course," he added, "it'll mean we'll have to work a few late nights." he beamed.

Oblivious to the metaphorical steam coming out of Jane Barton's ears, and the fact that the woman's fixed smile and wide-eyes barely held back the rage within, he added as an after-thought. "That's why I decided it was best to bring you both on board rather than just one of you, as I originally suggested."

Standing up and politely indicating the door to Miss Barton, he watched as the latest addition to his accountancy firm stood up, almost robotically he had to admit, and muttered a few thanks through a thin crack between her perfectly white teeth.

Jane Barton excused herself from the meeting, pivoted quickly on her feet, and marched out of the room. Had the partner not been lost in his own personal daydream brought on by the sight of the retreating figure, it might have struck him as vaguely rude the way the door was closed with more than the necessary amount of force.

He enjoyed his conversations with both Jane Barton and Kate Houston, and considering he was the partner who'd approved their hiring as interns at LQMG over the summer, he mused to himself that he deserved some congratulations on being able to spot such... talent.

They were certainly both destined to be top flight accountants, and absolutely no-one could accuse him of hiring them purely for their looks when he could show anyone and everyone a pair of academic records that had more A's than the first five pages of a dictionary. Not that A's were everything, the partner reminded himself, mentally picturing Miss Barton's pair of delightful Ds.

No, the fact that both Jane Barton and Kate Houston were absolutely beautiful specimens of womanhood, each a youthful twenty years old and approaching the peak of their physical prime, was merely a wild coincidence that had absolutely nothing to do with him cancelling all subsequent hiring interviews once he'd first set eyes on their profile photos. They'd go far in the accountancy industry.

That Kate Houston wore a skirt whose length (or lack thereof) might in more prudish circles be considered unprofessional (and yet - surely, he thought - entirely forgivable) was absolutely not a consideration when the partner had decided to assign the academically gifted brunette to his own personal project.

Similarly, Jane Houston's recent inability to do up quite a few of the buttons on her blouse - often the sign of a slack approach to personal presentation for most people, and yet strangely not without appeal when superimposed on Miss Houston's 32D bust - was clearly not a factor in the intellectually stimulating blonde finding herself being made part of that same personal project of his.

And now, the partner thought to himself, these two beautiful and undeniably talented women would have the chance to do all the hard work of presenting a business case that he stood to benefit from greatly. If he could convince the board back in Europe that they could get enough new clients to justify expanding their Sydney operations further, then his little empire here down under could more than adequately fund a meteoric rise to millionaire-hood.

Yes, everything was going swimmingly, he thought. His two interns will be in such a good mood now that they both know they have an opportunity to learn from a master such as himself, that who knows what may happen.

******

The air conditioning whirred away, competing with the oppressive heat of a scorching Sydney summer afternoon. The noise of the office was a symphony of keyboards, phone calls, and murmured conversations, as Jane Barton sat down rigidly in her chair. The plastic, fake smile that she'd held all the way through the latter half of her talk with the senior partner still hadn't broken, although there was now an almost-manic quality to it.

"Everything okay?" asked the woman in the next cubicle. Jane turned to face her neighbour, and tried to visualise positive, warm and fuzzy thoughts.

"Oh, great, great!" Jane said, through clenched teeth.

The other woman - blonde, immaculately dressed, and with a youthful look that nevertheless hinted at years of hard experience - raised a single, perfectly manicured eyebrow in a questioning reply.

"Really?" she added, pausing for effect, before pushing back on her desk and sending her office chair scooting over to where Jane sat, knuckles slowly turning white.

"Okay." the woman said, slowly. "How'd the meeting with the senior partner go?"

"Oh, you know." Jane replied, with a failed attempt at off-handedly waving off the maddening disappointment. "I'm on the team!" Jane added, with a far higher pitch than she probably intended.

"That's... good, isn't it?" her colleague offered, nevertheless noting the complete disconnect between Jane's cheerful tone and her spring-loaded body language.

"Oh, yes, yes!" Jane replied, as her smile showed no sign of abating even in the face of the burning sensation coming from her cheeks.

"Apparently though," Jane continued after a few moments of tense silence, turning back to face her computer rather than let her face be seen by her new friend, "the senior partner had to meet some kind of bitch quota for the team as well, seeing as how Kate's on the project too!"

"Oh." the other woman replied. Out of peripheral vision, she could already see their three nearest work colleagues spontaneously discover that they were urgently needed in some meeting somewhere else. Had anyone taken the time to quiz them on what the meeting was about, they would have answered that it about something that they'd undoubtedly be able recall, just as soon as they were safely outside the eruption zone.

The woman merely leaned forward and waited for the inevitable explosion.

"It's not fair Tess!" Jane shouted, her voice going from forced calm to wild rage quicker than a mere human ear could distinguish. "She steals everything! You know that, don't you?" Jane pleaded, partly succeeding in regaining control over herself - at least for the time being - and spinning around to face Tess imploringly.

"Boyfriends, essays at University, she takes it all!" She muttered. "I just know that I'm going to do all the hard work on this project, and that brown-haired butt-faced boyfriend-stealing bitch-slut is going to come through and take all the credit for everything I do!"

Jane flung herself back on her chair and let a look of defeat mar her otherwise perfect features.

"A little premature, don't you think?" Tess said gently, before reaching forward and placing a friendly hand on Jane's knee. "Look. Jane. I know you and Kate have had this feud for a while." With an understanding smile, Tess squeezed Jane's knee as a gesture of support. "Perhaps it's time to find a way to... you know... end this feud?"

"Come on Tess!" Jane said, in an exasperated tone. "Kate's not going to apologise, and she's not going to stop being Kate! No amount of psychobabble from some mediator is going to make any difference."

Tess narrowed her eyes for a moment as she pondered the best way to proceed.

"Well, I wasn't exactly thinking of 'psychobabble' to be honest." Tess pushed back her chair to her own desk, and reached over to a pile of papers. Retrieving a business card buried under the stack, she looked at the card for a few moments, seemingly thinking something through. Finally, hesitatingly, Tess handed the card over to Jane. The card was a simple affair, with simply the words "Decider Enterprises" and an email address laid out in a clean font.

"I don't know." Jane said, doubtfully. She looked long and hard at the card, clearly conflicted as to what to do. "I mean, what makes you think Kate has any interest in ending this? What makes you think she'd have any interest in actually being a half-decent human being?"

"Oh." said Tess, all of a sudden radiating a confidence and calmness that was at complete odds with the uncertainty and confusion that was plaguing Jane. "I think... if you'll let me have a go... that I could talk Kate into seeing the benefits of ending this."

Tess smiled broadly at Jane. "Don't you worry Jane, I have a feeling all this bad-blood between the two of you is about to come to an end."

****

The meeting room felt an order of magnitude smaller than it really was as an oppressive silence settled in around it's two occupants. Jane absent-mindedly ran a hand through her blonde hair, purposefully avoiding eye contact with the brunette who sat uncomfortably close beside her.

The corridor outside was quiet, which in of itself was unusual even allowing for the fact that it was 6:00pm at night and a large number of their colleagues had already headed home. However, both women were far too focussed on ignoring each other to notice anything else untoward.

In the middle of the table in front of them, a laptop sat open and passive. The computer had been delivered by a courier - no return address supplied - some ten minutes back, and both Jane and Kate had wordlessly taken possession of it, both privately wondering what they were about to get themselves into. The innocent-enough desktop background of a mountain range seemed utterly at odds with the clandestine nature of their meeting.

Jane heard Kate cough, and tensed herself to avoid subconsciously turning to even acknowledge the existence of her bitter rival. The bitch could choke for all Jane could care. Her business tonight was with the laptop. So it was with an audible sigh of relief that Jane greeted the sudden burst of noise that emitted from the computer. An application fired up unbidden by the two interns, and neither was left in any doubt that they now had a live audio link with... someone, out there.

"Ladies." It was a woman's voice. Calm, authoritative, and surprisingly young sounding. "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I'm informed that you have a problem that I may be able to help with."

Neither woman replied for a moment, and for the first time since entering the room, they turned and looked at each other. The nervousness was evident in both of their eyes.

"Well..." Kate started, slowly. "You've been recommended by a mutual friend."

"She's done you both a huge favour then." the voice responded. "I believe it's fair to say that you have an relationship that's... ahh... incompatible with you both remaining in Sydney?"

Breaking a long standing tradition, both Jane and Kate found themselves quickly agreeing on something.

"Good." the voice said, in a satisfied tone. "You see, we have a game we like to play that I think will be of great help to you both. Perhaps, " the voice added after a moment's reflection, "it's fair to say that one of you will be helped in a slightly unusual way. Still, those in trouble can't always be choosey about the help they receive."

Kate cautiously leaned towards the laptop, and asked in a quiet voice. "So just to be clear here, we're talking about embarrassment and humiliation for the loser."

"Oh yes Miss Houston. As much embarrassment and humiliation as you would each wish for the other. Rest assured that the loser will be looking for a new life elsewhere. We are not without compassion as well, and you can count on us to help in that regard."

"How... umm... how does it all work?" Jane now asked, matching Kate's pose.

"Quite simple Miss Barton. You'll each have a series of clues to solve, and each clue you solve will bring a little more embarrassment to your opponent."

"How, exactly, is that supposed to happen?"

"Well," the voice on the laptop replied smoothly. "Are either of you familiar with Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction at the Superbowl last year?"

The two women nodded mutely. Somehow the voice at the other end of the connection must have sensed this.

"Let's just say that we have wardrobe malfunctions that will make Ms Jackson's look like something Disney would put together..."

****

The streets of Sydney's central business district were busy, even at this early hour in the evening. It was too early for most of the nightclubbers to be out just yet, but there were plenty of office workers still enjoying a couple of drinks after a long, drawn-out Friday, and the glorious summer weather was all the encouragement that people needed to sit outside.

Not everyone was outside though, and not everyone was thoroughly relaxed. Jane Barton jiggled nervously from one foot to the next, trying to get her feet comfortable in the new shoes she'd been provided with. The entire outfit she now wore was alien to her. That was one undeniable component of the sense of fear that threatened to derail her thoughts. Another component was that tonight was also the night of the big presentation to the board in Europe. Timezones being what they were, the presentation was set for 11:00pm. That only gave her two hours to complete this game and get to the presentation. She had a sneaking suspicion that the timing of the game was not a coincidence.

Outside the door she faced, she could hear the conversations get increasingly louder as the relieved bar patrons slowly drank their way towards forgetting the woes of their latest work week. Behind her, safely secured in a plastic bag buried deep in the rubbish bin, were the clothes that she'd walked into the bar wearing. The clothes had been soaked with water from the basin by the bin, and Jane was eternally grateful that she'd caught a lucky break while changing. By some small blessing, she'd been the only woman who needed to use the ladies toilet at Ferguson's Bar & Grill for the two minutes it had taken her to strip off and get changed.