[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.
