A/N: Editing this is driving me crazy. I'm only a little over half done. How long can a story beeee! And I still have two stories left to edit...

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Two years later, Jackson Rippner sat, relatively bored, in the back of a Towncar driving through rural Michigan. Dressed in a sharp suit with not a hair out of place and wearing the glasses he'd been prescribed only a week earlier, he seemed to perfectly fit the stereotype of a gifted fifteen-year-old who would be going to a more than fifty-thousand-dollar-a-year boarding school. In the front seat, Sharena Douglas drove, giving him a look in the rear-view mirror every now and then. The sound of the tires on the pavement changed as they started going over a bridge, and Jackson looked away from the lake on either side to meet her eyes in the mirror.

'So, if you're posing as my nursemaid, can I call you Mammy?'

Sharena gave him an absolutely dangerous look before reaching back and hitting him upside the head. He put his hands up defensively and then adjusted his glasses, which had been thrown askew. Despite years of attempts, he'd still been unable to faze the woman, and that did nothing but piss him off every moment he spent with her. With a decidedly childish look on his nearly adult face, Jackson crossed his gangly legs and looked back out at the lake that was now on his side only. Silence filled the vehicle as they drove along Route 22, the edge of Lake Michigan visible in the distance. Traffic increased as Sharena turned onto a small road that led them deep into the woods, and within a moment, they were pulling up to a commons building with tonnes of students and luggage piled about. Jackson stared at all of them, having already convinced himself that all of this was a horrendously bad idea.

As they parked, a couple of upperclassmen ran up to the car and under Sharena's watch grabbed up Jackson's tweed Hartmann luggage. Jackson just watched them with slight disinterest from his place on the leather seat before the nurse gave him a look and he stepped out of the car, straightening his suit after slamming the car door. Sharena re-pinned her nurse's cap in her hair before pressing her hand to his back and shoving him forward after the upperclassmen.

'So, what's your name?' asked the boy who was carrying Jackson's hard-side bag.

Jackson pushed his glasses up on his nose. 'Jackson Rippner.'

'Is it ever Jack for short?'

'No,' he said tensely. 'Never.'

'That's always the issue with an easily shortened name, isn't it?' the teenager asked, shifting the bag in his hand. 'I'm Andrew, but people always feel the urge to call me Andy, which wouldn't be a huge issue except for the fact that my surname is Crandy.'

Jackson smiled inwardly. At least his moniker had some interesting connotations.

'Where are you from?'

'Albany,' Jackson replied as they walked through the front doors of the commons building. 'But I've been living outside of New York City for the last four years.'

'NYC, nice,' Andrew replied as they walked up to the registration table. 'Jackson Rippner.'

The woman manning the table looked up at Sharena before fingering through a list in front of her. 'Andrew, go ahead and take Mr Rippner's bags up to his room. He's in Kindall Hall, room eight.'

'A single?' Andrew said, turning to look at Jackson, gaping. 'Who did you have to kill to get a single as a freshman?'

A jab in the back from Sharena stopped Jackson from giving one of his normal snarky answers. He cleared his throat. 'I'm here through a special programme, so that's probably why.'

Andrew glanced over at the registration woman and shrugged before nodding his head over to a door that led back outside. The group of guys carrying Jackson's luggage left before the woman behind the table spoke again.

'It says here that you have a meeting with the Dean of Studies,' she said with a smile, obviously completely oblivious. 'I'll send someone to get him for you.'

'That's not necessary,' said Sharena, putting a hand on Jackson's shoulder. 'Jackson's benefactor graduated from here and already told me where to take him. The Dean's probably expecting us right now.'

'All right,' she said, quickly turning her attention to the waiting freshman behind Jackson.

Jackson followed Sharena as she left the lobby and turned down a mostly deserted hallway. Their footsteps echoed against the walls and not a word was spoken between them as they passed closed office doors. In his mind, Jackson was taking in information that perhaps the typical teenager wouldn't take into consideration in a new place; he was more concerned with identifying which professor was in each room than anything physical about the location. He'd studied up on these people, finding out where each was schooled, their social and political beliefs, their families – everything was provided by Dr Greene from the mysterious society that Jackson was being trained to participate in. He'd had plenty of time over the summer to learn how to best manipulate each professor and had been informed that not a single one, even the one they were meeting, had any clue about the society.

As Sharena knocked on the door, Jackson straightened. The door opened and a grey-haired man beckoned them in. 'You must be Jackson Rippner. It's a pleasure to meet such a bright young man.'

Jackson reached out with a refined smile and shook his hand. 'I assure you, sir, the pleasure is shared in meeting such a renowned academic such as yourself, Dr Simons.'

The man puffed up his chest a little in pride before gesturing them to the two chairs in front of his desk. 'Would you please take a seat?'

The two of them sat down as the man walked back around to sit at his desk. Sharena was smiling, obviously gracious that Jackson hadn't chosen to be an ass.

'So Mr Rippner,' Dr Simons said, leaning against the desk's writing surface. 'You're the recipient of the World Society's scholarship this year. That's a very high honour.'

'Yes, my benefactor was quite pleased.'

'Now, looking at your files here, it seems like you've had a very different life from most of the other recipients,' said Dr Simons, picking up a thick manila file and thumbing through it. 'Usually our World Society Scholars are international students, but it seems that you haven't travelled outside of the United States in the last five years, but have rather been institutionalised since the deaths of your parents in 1987.'

'It was very difficult for Jackson to adjust to life without Alice and Michael,' Sharena said, reaching over to pat Jackson's hand. It was absolutely cold. 'At Rockland, he was able to have constant support so that he could continue his academic endeavours without the roadblock of mental trauma.'

'Of course, of course,' said the doctor, giving a pitying smile to Jackson. 'It says in the paperwork that he was chosen for his abilities in foreign language, political relations, and business management. Those are pretty lofty subjects for a boy your age.'

'My father was a businessman,' said Jackson with a slight grimace hiding in his smile. 'And my mother was a lawyer. The first ten years of my life were steeped in politics, law and business.'

'How lucky of you!' the doctor replied, and Jackson nearly cringed. 'Now, your school reports say that you attended a francophone school in Albany for all of your elementary education and have spent the last few summers taking courses at Columbia University. What languages do you have a good handle on?'

'French, German and Spanish,' he replied succinctly. 'I will begin Slavic languages this coming summer.'

'Fantastic!' the doctor said, leaning back in his seat. 'We're absolutely enchanted to have the chance to teach a student like you here at Leelanau.'

He stood and walked to a filing cabinet, pulling out a large envelope and handing it to Jackson. His name was on a label affixed to the top right corner right next to the now-familiar crest of La société mondiale des investigateurs privés, a simple Latin phrase written in a ribbon below it: Fiat justitia, et pereat mundus – let justice be done, though the world perish. It always seemed vaguely ironic to him.

'This is your class schedule, student and faculty directory, and other pertinent information from the World Society,' said Dr Simons, tapping the top of the envelope. 'If you have any questions, any at all, please don't hesitate to call me. Have a great time here at Leelanau.'