ellectrical | one more assignment

And now, she's twenty-four. The office is as it was the last time she saw it – the sofa with the right pillows, gramophone and cello in their places, sunlight spilling in through the windows, file folders strewn over the carpet. But instead of her father's body, she's the one seated in his high leather chair, facing the door. Elle looks down at herself – blue blouse, black slacks, high heels. No blood.

"What are you going to do?"

Elle swivels to her right to see her father. Horn-rimmed glasses, silk red tie, black suit, his skull still intact. Her eyes fall to the floor and she takes her time to answer, despite sensing his impatient gaze on her.

When she looks up: "I want your money."

His expression doesn't change. The room itself seems unnaturally still, as though they're standing in a photograph.

"You won't be able to get what hasn't been liquidated." It's not quite forced, but he sounds distant, and has all the inflection of an answering machine. Elle watches him in silence for another long moment.

"Are you here to help me?"

He sighs, but with none of his usual disappointment, like it was incised, stopped before she could see.

"I never wanted you dead, Elle," her father tells her.

It will work for now.

Elle turns away, back to the desk. The computer monitor is blank – she tries tapping on the keyboard, then fiddling with the monitor, then reaching to the hard drive –

"No power," he reminds her. For the first time, his voice isn't even – the tone picks up, close to teasing, challenging. "What are you going to do?"

But this is easy. Elle slips to the floor, locating the computer's plug in an outlet built into the indent of the desk. She yanks it out, and pulls herself back into the chair, pausing for a moment before reaching to her hair, which she only now realizes has been pulled back. It falls over shoulders and the black tie is twisted around her fingers, before she uses it to affix the plug to her left arm. The computer powers on.

"That won't get you on the server."

"That's not where our files are, Daddy," Elle mutters. "Not since Matt Neuenberg." When her father doesn't answer, she glances away from the monitor, and sees him smiling.

He'd always kept their own aliases, identity codes, and financial records off the main server in case it was breached, again. Since the Company's tracking satellite had been taken out, it meant that he was the only one who could track Elle's movements. And now, she could erase all of it.

The smile unnerves her, and she looks back to the monitor. A password requests pops up, which she bypasses without thinking.

"I didn't know you could do that." A dim observation. She doesn't look up, or answer. It happens twice more as she clicks through the screens, finally reaching their own private files. Then, she looks back up to him.

"I'll need it in my account."

Her father nods, though he's no longer smiling. "You were named in mine. But you'll have to call to make a transfer."

She blinks down to the left side top drawer and reaches over to tug it open. Inside, in addition to a number of objects including what are actually pens, white-out, as well as small vials of tranquilizer, is a thin, black flip phone, which she lifts out, and switches on.

"You trusted me?" Elle asks, offhand, as the keys light up, and the screen illuminates. It's not blurry, but – somehow she is seeing it, but knows she can't, not really. Not here. Her father sighs.

"I didn't have to."

It's the closest he's come to sounding disappointed during this conversation. Elle snaps the phone shut, and slams it on the desk, before step out of the chair and turning to face him. He doesn't look away as she steps toward him, or make any attempt to step back. Her father was not a very tall or imposing man (something he often used to his advantage in his work), but Elle still has to tilt her head to meet his eyes once she's only a few inches away from him. The computer's cord, still affixed to her arm, is tugged along with her. It's long enough that she doesn't have to stop short.

"What are you doing, Elle?" he asks

She doesn't look away. "You kept our files in two places."

Without saying anything else, she reaches forward, slipping the thumb of her right hand under the side of his suit jacket. She doesn't look down until she's pulled it aside, to see the small pocket sewn into the black silk lining. With her left hand, she reaches to it, and pulls out a small, gold-plated jump drive from inside.

Her father never stops her, but once she holds it up for him to see, his eyes darken, just slightly.

"Destroy it."

Elle nods, and moves away again, back toward the desk.

"It's a shame you never improved your accent," he remarks, following her as she takes the seat again, tosses the flash drive aside. She ignores him, tapping on the keyboard again – the screen appears to erase itself every time she does so, until her father steps between them, forcing Elle to move the chair back away from the desk.

"What are you going to do?" he asks her. She glances away, annoyed, but still rattles it off all the same –

"Get the IDs, call and transfer your funds, wipe and destroy the computer, destroy the phone, get the drive off your body and get rid of it –"

"It'll buy you a few months, if they're busy." Elle doesn't look up to him again, not even when he puts a hand on her arm, leaning in to add, "And you lay low."

Her father tugs the cord from her arm as he says it. When she still doesn't look up, his hand moves from her arm to under her chin, and pushes lightly. "Look at me."

Now she does, meeting his eyes with a blank expression. He releases her chin, his fingers moving to push the hair out of her face.

"I was starting to forget," he murmurs, as his thumb moves across the right side of her forehead.

The pain is enough to make her want to scream. She shuts her eyes to hold it back.

"You're going to be okay." Elle's eyes open to her father again. His hand moves away as she nods, silent.

And in one swift movement, her palm slams up, and crushes his nose.