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[A direct sequel to 'Dress Off: Sasha vs Tara', as we learn more about the new career of Stacey Shackleton. As Agent Shackleton sets out on her first mission, two new characters enlist the charitable support of Decider Enterprises to end their feud, by putting it all on the line...]



The black Volvo had now been parked outside the main administration building of the community college for a solid hour and a half, the steady rain outside seeming to go from vertical to horizontal as the wind worked its way along the spectrum from playful zephyr to pre-cursor for a gale. Inside the waiting car, a man and a woman were also speeding along their own spectrum. They'd briskly departed anticipation station shortly after arriving outside the college, and were now a mere five minutes away from their final destination of complete and total frustration. The woman in the passenger seat - a beautiful brunette whose strikingly blue eyes were hidden behind an entirely unnecessary and wildly optimistic pair of sunglasses - flicked a bit of paper back across to the man in the driver's seat. The man glanced down at it, thought for a moment, spun a pen in his hand, and made a mark before passing it back, returning his gaze back to the entrance to the college for any sign of their unsuspecting target.



For the past twenty minutes, the woman had been trying to convince the man of the folly of hanging around. Several spirited arguments had been made about the merits of returning to base, and the needlessness of loitering around when the afternoon sun had clearly given up doing likewise, and was now hiding behind several layers of black cloud. The man had rebuffed all such arguments with appeals to the importance of the "mission", along with pointed reminders of the responsibility handed to them by their employers. The woman had long since begun to suspect that the man's dedication to the mission was also in no small part down to the fact that he'd be staying in the car when, or indeed even if, their target showed up, while she'd be the one having to get out in the rain.



The woman looked down at the paper handed to her, and realised that the latest in an interminable sequence of noughts-and-crosses games had once again reached a stalemate. As she summoned the last vestiges of her willpower to try and convince her companion of the futility of this exercise, the man nudged her and pointed out the windscreen. The main entrance doors to the college slid open.



From the relative warmth of the administration building, an agitated yet statuesque redheaded woman, around 27 years of age, paused momentarily as she re-arranged the green raincoat that covered but in no way hid the curves of her clearly well-maintained body. There was, the woman in the car mentally noted, an awful lot of gym visits required to allow you to look that good even when the weather was this bad. Either that, or some breathtakingly unfair genetics at play. The redheaded lady pulled the green raincoat hood over her hair now, looked up critically at the black afternoon clouds, and managed to exceed the temperament of the wild weather around her by storming off towards the car park.



The man leaned over, smiled encouragingly at his companion, and theatrically gestured towards her door.



"Perhaps you'd be a gentleman and hop out and open it for me." the female companion suggested, with a slight edge to the request. The man's smile only widened, and in a mock show of regret he declined the kind offer to show off his gentlemanly side. The woman raised an eyebrow in response, but nonetheless removed the superfluous sunglasses and made sure her own coat was zipped up tight as she turned to open the door. The wind and rain suddenly buffeted into the interior of the previously warm car, and the man hurried her out, unceremoniously slamming the door shut as the woman began to hurry across the street to intercept Miss Green-coat, who was already halfway to her own car.



The man reached for his phone, tapped a button the interface and waited for someone at the other end to pick up.



"Agent Mitchelson here" the man said as a voice at the other end acknowledged the call. He saw his companion `accidentally' bump into their target, share a surprised and necessarily brief conversation, and then hurry to shelter with their red-headed quarry under the doorway of a neighbouring building.



"Agent Shackleton has made contact with the target."



*****************************



"Stacey, it's just not fair. That stupid bitch gets all the breaks and I'm sick of it."



Stacey took another sip of her coffee as Erica launched into the now familiar rant about her arch-nemesis and sole fountain of all that was wrong with life: one Miss Kimberly Reed. Stacey had known Erica Matthews for almost exactly one month now, having enrolled in the same community college classes as both Erica and Kimberly at the beginning of the term, and in those short four weeks Stacey had heard a dozen takes on the same tale of woe, from both sides.



As Erica settled into the routine for one more encore performance, Stacey tried hard to focus on what she was saying and not on the general awfulness of the college cafe coffee that was currently her single source of warmth. Erica had, as expected, been more than happy to coincidentally run into her new friend outside the administration building, and had been quick to suggest a catch-up and de-brief on the latest atrocity against justice that Erica has just suffered. Stacey already had a fair idea of what had happened, it being the reason she'd been bored out of her mind in a car in the middle of a storm for an hour and a half. Still, it wouldn't pay to let on that she knew, so Stacey put her acting skills to good use, and leant forward in concern.



"Erica, I know things seem a little rough right now, but I'm sure there's someway we can sort this out."



"Oh Stacey, you don't know Kimberly like I do. I mean, she's only got half the qualifications I do for that library job, and yet somehow she's managed to get promoted ahead of me! It's blatantly unfair, and I wouldn't put it past the slut to have slept with the head librarian."



Stacey involuntarily lost her focus on the conversation for a moment, as she tried to suppress a mental image of the 26 year old Kimberly Reed sleeping with the 70+ year old head librarian. She was half-way to suggesting that this seemed unlikely - though not, Stacey corrected herself, entirely implausible - when she realised that overly defending Kimberly's character wouldn't exactly play to the mission objectives.



"Well, you know how it is Erica. Kimberly isn't one to mess around when she wants something, and she's a risk taker. Sometimes when you're a risk taker you win big."



Both Erica and Kimberly had worked in the community college library for over two years now, while also taking their anthropology courses together. Close proximity in both study and work had made their early attempts at friendship fall foul of the old saying that `familiarity breeds contempt'. They'd begun to compete, as so many before them, for grades, for men, and for status in their jobs. Erica and Kimberly were, Stacey noted to herself, extraordinarily beautiful women, gifted with natural sporting prowess and a reasonably sharp intellect. In fact, if they weren't so easily distracted by this and past feuds, then both had glittering and highly successful careers ahead of them.



A senior position in the community college's not-overly-impressive library had opened up only a fortnight ago, and of course Erica and Kimberly had both jumped at the chance. The job came with a pay rise, but that was almost inconsequential compared to the fact that the job meant that the successful applicant would effectively be the boss of the unlucky also-ran. Stacey wondered if it occurred to either woman that they could of course just change jobs, and that both had the qualifications - both mental and undeniably physical - to walk into any decent administration job, especially if men were on the hiring committee. Of course, Stacey thought, to be fair it wouldn't have occurred to her if, no, be honest now, _when_ she'd been in a situation not-dissimilar to Erica's.



The final decision had been made thirty minutes ago, and Erica had been in the same room as a beaming Kimberly when the victor was informed of her promotion. Stacey hadn't known who was going to win the position, although she knew someone would be coming out of those doors upset and in need of a friend with a helpful suggestion. The fact that it was Erica did make Stacey's life slightly easier, Kimberly would be the easier sell on the idea even though she was already winning life's little contest. A victorious Erica would have been harder to convince.



"I take risks too Stacey, it's not like I'm just sitting back and letting Kimberly walk all over me. It's just that the bitch is on a winning streak at the moment."



Stacey looked across at Erica's emerald-green eyes and saw hopelessness begin to well up in them, a hopelessness that seemed completely at odds with everything Erica had in her favour. Stacey reflected on that for a moment, and saw a lot of her old life in Erica. Unbidden, she felt genuine empathy for both Erica and Kimberly at the moment. Still, on to business.



"You know Erica, it's a times like these when the chips are down that sometimes you've just got to roll the die and hope for a hard six."



"Yeah, well, right now I'm open to suggestions because I'm all out of ideas. I'll be damned if I'm going to work under her, and I'll be damned if I give her the satisfaction of quitting."



"Right, right. So, seems like we're at an impasse," Stacey continued, smoothly, "perhaps what you guys need is a little outside help. Some professional assistance that can figure out a way to settle this. It's not healthy for either of you, after all."



"What, you mean counselling? I have to sit down in a room with her, and what, talk about our feelings?" Erica couldn't hide the incredulousness in her voice as she sank back into her chair, her lithe body managing to incidentally turn a defeated slouch into something approximating a sexy pose.



"Sort of... sort of...," Stacey went on slowly, "although counselling is perhaps a little too protracted for what I was thinking of. You know, back before I met you both, I was in a certain situation that I needed help in, and someone put me in touch with a group that helped resolve that."



Stacey managed to suppress the shudder as the thoughts of exactly how that had been resolved flooded back to the forefront of her mind. It had been eight months though now, and Stacey was a new person, so to speak. Time to move on, time to step up. She continued.



"So, there was this group, they had a couple of suggestions, and things resolved themselves, making me the woman I am today!" the irony of that statement was suitably lost on Erica, who had stopped sniffling in self-pity for a moment while her interest was piqued.



"... and I think they can help you too Erica. Both of you, because, you know, I'm a friend and friends help out friends." At this point, Stacey pulled a card out of her wallet and handed it to Erica with a supportive smile.



Erica hesitantly leaned forward, took the card and looked at the uncomplicated plain white business card that simply advertised a name and an email address.



`Decider Enterprises'



***********



Agent Stacey Shackleton, promising future star and latest recruit at Decider Enterprises, stood in the corridor on the fifth floor of the Majestic Hotel, trying to not scratch the deeply irritating blonde wig that currently sat on top of her own luscious brown locks. The floral red dress that she wore wouldn't exactly pass muster in a roll call of "costumes to wear when trying to blend into the background". That said, Agent Stacey Shackleton was the kind of woman who could have been wearing state-of-the-art military urban camouflage gear and still stood out like a beacon to any man in a one kilometer radius. She'd maintained her interest in sports after her enforced relocation, and her frequent gym visits had made the exercise bikes a popular destination for male gym-goers when she was ass-up in the front row pounding the virtual roads.



Right now though, she wasn't looking to hide from men, and women were at least less likely to look at her face and recognise her in this current ensemble. One of her targets, Miss Kimberly Reed, had just disappeared into room 5F, and Stacey afforded herself a moment's relaxation as she signalled over the phone that both Miss Reed and Miss Matthews were now safely at the designated rendezvous point. She re-adjusted the earpiece in her left ear, and heard Agent Mitchelson confirm that he was ready too.



This was it, the culmination of months of effort. Ever since a scout for the organisation had first reported back that there was a promising feud going on in the local community college, Stacey and Mitchelson had been laying the groundwork for this day. Stacey had befriended both Erica and Kimberly, getting to know them and juggling the tricky assignment of being a confidant to both while not being seen to be an enemy of either. She'd been right that Erica would be the tougher of the two nuts to convince about the merits of what was about to happen, and it was fortuitous that the job had fallen to Kimberly, so as to give Erica the extra push she needed. Stacey idly wondered if Mitchelson had pulled some strings on that one, as she'd be damned if she could think of anything else he might have contributed so far. Typical of the man to allow her to do 90% of the work, knowing he'd get at least 50% of the credit.



Kimberly had been even easier to convince than Stacey had dared thought. She'd had the slight concern that Kimberly would be too satisfied with her latest victory to risk anything too final against Erica. However it quickly appeared that her total dislike of the green-eyed, red-headed beauty was more than sufficient for her to consider riding her luck one more time. That must be how they suck them in on the roulette tables, Stacey thought.



Stacey couldn't have helped but notice that as Kimberly had disappeared into the hotel room, she'd been wearing a badge on her shirt that had read "senior librarian". Way to rub in, Kim.



If Kimberly had worn that badge all the way from home, then libraries across the city would see a sudden influx of male visitors, seeking the obscure-book-finding assistance of a certain gorgeous raven-haired, brown-eyed goddess. Kimberly was the kind of woman who was more than happy to strut around in a skirt that seemed wholly unprofessional for someone who had to occasionally climb ladders to access the highest shelves, but you couldn't argue with the results. A promotion was a promotion. Still, the nature of the game about to be proposed would go beyond anything even Kimberly had a history of doing.



Over her earpiece, she could hear a conversation playing out between Erica, Kimberly, and Mitchelson, the latter safely ensconced back at base and amiably chatting with the ladies over a video link to the laptop Stacey had left in the room. Mitchelson was a charmer, and if she hadn't known him like she did, Stacey could have almost believed he was genuinely interested in helping these two poor women out of their current predicament, rather than just intensely interested in helping them out of their clothes. As she focussed back in on the dialogue going on in her ear, she realised that Mitchelson was now going over the game rules.



"So Miss Matthews, Miss Reed, it's all fairly simple. We at Decider Enterprises hate to see such feuds ruin the lives of two of our dear city's most promising and - dare I say beautiful - citizens, and we believe we have a solution that will ultimately be win-win for everyone. A modest game, with perhaps an immodest end, that will provide closure for both of you. The winner gets to stay here and live the life they deserve. The loser gets to move on and find the life they seek."



"So", cut in Kimberly, "what exactly are we talking about here?"



"A fair question Miss Reed, a fair question from a fair maiden." Stacey couldn't help rolling her eyes at that as the charm seemed to drip from Mitchelson's voice, "the game itself is also a simple affair. You both are supplied with playing outfits befitting your beauty, and we send you out to solve clues befitting your intellect."



"Umm, where?" Erica asked, the nervousness coming through her voice as loud as day.



"Well," Mitchelson replied, pausing for effect, "I would suggest that as the Library has been the latest battleground of your unfortunate war, that it should also be the final place where we settle this once and for all. I do always find the Library is a constant source of answers for all our problems".



Stacey snorted at that, doubting very much whether Mitchelson had seen the inside of a library, or even a book that didn't have naked women in it, during the past decade.



"Hell yes," Kimberly called out, "I can't think of anywhere better to put this bitch in her place than my place. My library."



"Screw you Reed", Erica retorted, "you may have slept your way into that badge you're wearing, but after I'm through with you, you'll be sleeping back out on the streets where you belong!"



Stacey heard Mitchelson fall silent as Erica and Kimberly continued to trade insults, probably sitting back in his chair at the base with that goofy grin of his plastered all over his face. They both knew that neither woman was going to back out now, and Mitchelson let the tension ramp up a little bit more before interrupting the heated argument.



"Ladies, ladies, if I may suggest, I think it's time for you both to settle this on the pitch, and leave all this tension behind. As well as that, I think it perhaps fairer that we play in the City Library than your own college library. After all, we wouldn't want Miss Reed's position to possibly influence the result, and the City Library is of course the pinnacle of knowledge and a crown jewel for our beloved metropolis. I can think of no grander place to end this feud. As you both know, we'll send you your game outfits in the next day or so, and we'll give you instructions as to where to start. Needless to say, any transgressions against our simple and easy to remember rules will involve meting out some penalties. We'll only fire one warning shot, so please do try to observe the niceties of fair play. Please don't attempt to get external help to solve the clues, interfere with your outfits and their behaviour in a manner we think is against the spirit of the game, and lastly, don't hide out of sight or stop walking or running out in public."



"So," Kimberly interjected, "when I solve these clues, Erica's outfit malfunctions totally humiliate her, right? Because just to be clear as her boss, I'm totally fine with that."



"Bitch! When I finish solving those clues I just hope I'm there to witness you being fully exposed as the total and abject loser that you are."



"Oh Erica, is that any way to talk to your superior?" Stacey wasn't even in the room but she could still see the sneer on Kimberly's face that accompanied that last comment.



"Yes, yes," Mitchelson replied, having temporarily lost control of the conversation and now determined to bring it to an end, "the winner will have no regrets I can assure you, and we offer the loser a generous all-expenses-paid trip to an entirely new you. Of course, there is a small matter of the legalities..." at this point Stacey jolted back into life as she remembered her one and only task in this matter, and hurriedly walked over the door of room 5F. She slipped a package under the door, and then turned and half-sprinted for the stairwell, making it through the fire door to the stairs just before she heard the room door open and Kimberly Reed call out to the unseen phantom courier.

