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:

ELYSION MEMBERS

Hades = Kurt Gehry

Hector = Nikolos Kandes

Theseus = George Harrison Prescott

Ajax = Benjamin Edwards

Orion = Omar Mathabane

Orpheus = Kevin Lee

Nestor = James Orcutt

I swallowed hard and leaned back against my seat. Stay cool. You don’t have enough energy left to indulge in rage. Deal with it. “Who started this?” I choked out.

“I’m not sure. It hasn’t been discussed on e-mail. But I bet it happened this summer. Nikolos appears to have been one of the first organizers.”

No surprise there. Learn of the thief who can be bought. It was a reference to Graverobber. I was right again. Go, me. “And there are five of them. Every man in the club except—”

“Josh, Greg, and Harun.”

George was on the list. And Poe. How could I not have known this? Of course, Poe was no big shock, though it did make my little street performance ring with a sudden truth. But George! How the hell had he made time for Elysion with all of our other activities? If he was involved in both societies, he definitely wasn’t seeing anyone else. It wasn’t a matter of desire, it was a matter of scheduling.

She picked up another sheet. “I’ve been trying to track the other patriarchs involved as well, but it’s much harder to learn their identities. They don’t send e-mails. Here’s what I’ve got so far….”

But I never got a chance to look. Someone started pounding on the door. “Jennifer Santos!” an angry voice called. “Open this door. We know you’re in there.”

We both froze, but Jenny regained her wits quickly. “Put these in your bag,” she whispered, and handed me a stack of papers. “We’ve got to run.”

“What?” I said. “What if that’s the police?”

Jenny was busy doing something to her computer. Within a few seconds, she’d closed everything down and was pulling out flash drives and unplugging little metal boxes. “Please,” she said. “It’s the Elysions. They’re back, and this time, my super didn’t hold them off. We can’t let them catch us. We can’t let them find out how much we know.”

“I think they know exactly what it is we know,” I said. “Why else would they be here?” Had Poe called them? Had he figured out that I’d ditched him because I’d found Jenny?

The pounding on the door gave way to a much more insidious sound—that of locks giving way. Apparently, some pockets ran even deeper than Jenny’s. Wonder what bribe—or threat—had finally won over the prickly super? So much for all bark and no bite. “What are we going to do?” I said. “This is an apartment. There’s only one exit. They’ve definitely got the fire escapes guarded.”

“Got it covered. Let’s go now.” Jenny pressed a few more keys and all of the computers in the room began making a hideous grinding sound. She grabbed my hand and pulled me across the room to one of the windows. “Go!”