The following morning, Trinity found herself late to school. Usually she had no problem getting up at 7:30 even after a late night, but after her strange conversation she'd slept as if drugged.

"Shit." she muttered as she half walked, half ran the couple blocks to her school, Saint Peter's. Trinity lived with her mother, who was reasonably well off. Trinity's father had left when she was young, and she hadn't had much contact with him since, but both her parents had agreed to send her to a parochial private school, and thus she found herself attending St. Peter's.

"Damn damn damn," she swore as she entered the silent school building and skidded on the slick polished floors. Everything about St. Peter's bothered her, and today she added the stupid floors to her list.

"Miss Andrews!"

Trinity grit her teeth and turned around. Sure enough, she found herself looking at Mr. Forthsworth, student counselor and royal pain in the ass.

"I know I know. I'm late."

"Miss Andrews, it's ten o'clock. You've missed your first two periods! What is the meaning of this?"

Trinity shrugged. "I slept in."

Forthsworth crossed his arms disapprovingly, but before he could say another word, the bell rang and Trinity sighed gratefully. Here was an excuse to make her escape.

"I have to go to class now," she said as she walked into the throng of students and put distance between herself and the counselor.

As Trinity walked down the halls, she was joined by chattering girls, all curious as to where she'd been. Trinity knew many girls, but she had no friends. Not that any of them knew it.

"I slept in. Was up half the night doing that bastard Hick's research paper," she lied easily.

Third period was calculus, a class that bored Trinity to death. Although an average student, Trinity was far from average intelligence. She merely saw no incentive to apply herself. Everyone had been astonished with her perfect SAT and SAT II scores, but their assumptions that her grades would start to pick up as well had been sorely wrong. Trinity knew the tricks to getting what she wanted out of the world, and she did not mind using them.

The rest of her day was just as uninteresting, and when she got home, Trinity gladly peeled off her uniform. St Peter's girls wore dark grey plaid skirts, white collared shirt, white knee-socks, and grey ties. "So not my style," she said as she looked at her uniform on the floor with distaste.

With her mother away on one of her numerous business trips, Trinity had the house all to herself and kept her own hours.

Shrugging off the rest of her clothing, Trinity switched on her computer and went into the bathroom to take a shower. Fifteen minutes later, she emerged wet and clean. After a glance at her computer, she was also pleased to note that there was a message on the blank screen for her.

Enjoy your shower?

Trinity grinned and plunked herself down on her swivel chair, not caring that her wet towel and hair were thoroughly soaking it. I did. How did you know?

I know a lot about you.

When will you find me? Trinity bit her lip. This was the million-dollar question. After last night's events her adrenaline was still rushing and she wanted to play this story out to the end.

When you are ready.

Trinity glared at the screen, frustrated. This was complete and total bullshit. Whoever had hacked into her system was probably nothing more than pimply, introverted computer geek.

Fine. she type angrily and left her desk.

She put on some underclothes (lacy and black, of course) and rummaged through her closet for some clothes. After a few minute's deliberation she decided on a pair of black leather jeans that were like a second skin. To throw off the stereotype, on top she put on a red sleeveless blouse of a Hindi design with gold embroidery. She slicked back her short black hair and added a touch of kohl around her eyes. She'd have a night out, and when she got back, she'd totally wipe all her files. She'd have to start over on everything that she'd done in the past few weeks from scratch, but that wasn't so bad. Better than having an annoying faceless ghost on her desktop.

"Fuck him," she said slowly, gazing at her computer. She smiled. "Fuck him, and the world."