Diana Peterfreund - Under the Rose

“Why? I’m pretty pissed at you, remember? I mean, all of this huggy stuff aside, I’m still furious at you for everything you did.”

“But you also cared whether I was alive or dead. Which is more than I can say for anyone else. If I’d called you earlier this week, I bet you would have been there for me, no matter how mad you were. You really believe in your oaths, don’t you? You believe we should love each other.”

“Sometimes,” I said. “But I wouldn’t start preparing the application to beatify me just yet. Mostly, I think we should try to keep each other safe from danger.”

“Well, you found me. So right now, you’re my best friend.”

“Poe found you, too,” I reminded her. Fines, at the moment, were a bit moot. “Believe me, he’s been working his ass off. Why can’t you trust him?”

She pulled on her coat. “After what I’m about to tell you,” she said, standing, “you won’t trust him, either.”

I hereby confess:

Confession, barbarian

or otherwise, is good

for the soul.

This time, the super merely gave me a curious look as Jenny swept us past him and up the landing. “Everything okay, Miss Lovelace?”

“Fine,” she called.

“I still can’t get over the idea that you have another alias,” I said, as we climbed the flights.

“I’ve even got a few more online.”

“You’re a mystery, Jenny. I don’t understand why all the pretending.”

“You get used to it, I guess. I grew up on computers, where no one was who they said they were: not their age, or gender, or nationality, or name. Nobody knew who I really was except for kids at school or church. When I sold my software, they didn’t even know I was fifteen until we were so far into the deal they couldn’t back out. They didn’t know I was a girl either, for that matter. After a while, it seemed weird to use my real name for anything. You’re so vulnerable. Everyone knows your business. It’s impossible to stay off the grid, but you can reduce your presence.”

And somewhere between her cyber-background and her strict upbringing, she started hiding more and more of herself away. How come none of us had seen this? “But you have property under a false name—is that even legal?”

She frowned outside her door. “I don’t know. Maybe I should ask my lawyers. I just assumed they had it covered. I don’t think I own the property under the false name. I think my alias is ‘renting’ from myself. Whatever. I let the lawyers handle the paperwork.”

She undid several locks on the door and stepped inside, but I was too busy trying to make sense of it to follow right away. “How can I possibly trust you?” I asked. “You’ve lied, you’ve spied, you’ve been throwing pseudonyms and fifty-dollar bills around for who knows how long, and to top it off, I don’t think you like me very much.”

“I know,” said Jenny, relocking (and relocking and relocking) the door behind us, then throwing the chain for good measure. “I would have a hard time trusting me if I were in your position, but bear with me a little longer.”

“I’ve been making a lot of allowances lately,” I said. “I was even nice to Poe.”

“I bet I’ll be a cinch after him.” She hung up her raincoat. “Welcome to my humble abode.”

Humble was right. There was a lot of space, to be sure, and a lovely hardwood floor, but not much else. Wall-to-wall computers, a coffee machine, and a mattress in the corner. No new paint, no curtains, no decorations of any kind, and the only furniture was purely utilitarian: folding tables for the computers and a big ergonomic chair.

“I’d offer you something to drink but I think you may have had enough caffeine today, and everything I’ve got falls into the Jolt category.”

“Jenny,” I said, “when we get back to school, you’re going into therapy. Or at the very least, sitting down with your folks and your priest and talking about some of this stuff.” I sat on the nearest office chair. “I’d say you should take your problems to Rose & Grave, but—”

“You don’t think they’ll have me back?” She shot me a rueful smile.

Frankly, no. But aside from that…“I was going to say, it doesn’t seem like you put a lot of faith in what we do.”

“And you do?”

“I—”

“It won’t matter pretty soon anyway. Take a look.” She sat in front of one of the consoles and brought the screen to life. “Remember back at the beginning of school when we got those weird e-mails?”

“The rhyming ones?”

“That you guys made non-stop fun of? Yes, that one.” She pulled up a few windows. “Well, I sent it. And in an unprecedented display of disinterest, you promptly ignored it.”

“No, we just didn’t understand it.”

“I was trying to spark a little investigation, Amy. Thought if the Diggirls were worried about what was happening, they’d look into it.”

Well, we’d tried to look into it. Even tried to get Jenny to do some research, but she’d washed her hands of the whole matter. “Jenny, please. What do you mean, ‘what was happening’?”

“Your society is being pulled out from under you and you don’t even know it.”

“What? Why didn’t you just tell us, then?”

“Hi, remember, secret agent bent on destruction? I couldn’t really help you outright.”

I rolled my eyes. “Like we’d run and tattle on you to your boyfriend? Jenny, I repeat: therapy. Sometimes it’s okay to come out and tell a person something.”

“I’m trying to do that right now. Look.” She pointed at the screen and I leaned in. “Certain members of the club have, since the beginning of school, been involved in a secret pact to form a society within Rose & Grave. A males-only version that they feel has been unjustly taken from them. I’ve been tracking their e-mails since shopping period.”

Cut through the web in which you’re caught. “Wait, you’ve been what?”

She shrugged. “It was an easy hack. Phimalarlico security is designed to keep outsiders out, not to keep insiders from snooping around.” Kind of like the doors on Old Campus. “I can read anyone’s e-mails if I want.”

“I’ll sleep better knowing that. Now, what are these guys doing?”

“Systematically disenfranchising you.” She handed me a stack of printouts. “They meet in secret to discuss the details of their society, and have slowly been siphoning off money from the trust.”

“They’ve been stealing our cash?”

“Through the help of interested parties on the TTA board. The unfriendly patriarchs? They aren’t gone, they’ve just transferred their ‘allegiance’ to Elysion. If Elysion gets enough support, enough money, your society will be a joke.”

I skimmed through the e-mails, all of which were addressed to people called things like Theseus-X1 and Hector-X1. Some of the conversations were little more than chatter, or harsh rundowns of what had happened at Rose & Grave meetings and how to avoid such “embarrassments” once the switch took place. They’d increased in frequency ever since the Straggler Initiation Night, and mentioned losing Howard as a catalyst to gain support. Many spoke of money, or how the movement within the patriarchy was gaining ground. “Elysion, huh?” I said. “Like the Elysian Fields, the heaven of the Greek underworld, reserved for heroes?”

“Exactly.”

“So who are they?”

“I’ve been slowly putting together a key to their identities, based on timing and content of the messages. It would usually be easy, given ISP addresses, but the Eli wireless system makes that tough.” Jenny looked at me. “This is all I’ve got so far. Brace yourself.” And then she handed me a list: