A/N: I wanted to get so much done yesterday, but I've come down with the flu! I got the flu the first time I was writing these stories up last year! The story is obviously out to get me!

---

'Oh my God, and he always wears suits! There's nothing better than a well-dressed man!'

'No, no, it's the eyes! Has he ever looked at you? They're so beautiful!'

A couple of tables over, Jackson dropped his book to glare at the table full of giggling girls.

'He's looking! Hurry, look away!' one of them whispered loudly, and they all went back to pushing around their salads.

By early sophomore year, Jackson had already grown tired of the multitudes of girls who seemed to be interested in him. At first, it was fun to toy with their little female emotions, but it got old pretty quickly. Every day at every meal, he'd bury himself in a book, growling at the giggles that were aimed directly at him. The only girls he'd had to deal with for the previous five years were nearly as crazy as he was, and that at least gave them an excuse for being completely frivolous flirters, but these girls had absolutely no excuse. They were everywhere though, like the plague, their giggling like the boils on the lymph nodes alerting the bearer to the fact that doom was imminent. He'd become very adept at hiding, whether it was in a class building or the woods, and more than once he'd found his way into the air ducts weaving their way through the ceilings.

'Jesus Christ, man,' said his chemistry partner, taking a seat beside him at the dinner table as he watched the girls who were looking Jackson. 'Level with me… are you gay?'

Jackson looked over the top of his copy of Crime and Cover-Up, rolling his eyes. 'Is it completely unbelievable that I just have absolutely no interest in those self-involved, lusty, incredibly dense co-eds?'

Looking between the table girls and Jackson, the fellow sophomore raised his eyebrows. 'Yes?'

Snapping the book shut, Jackson scooped up his tray and took it over to the kitchen without another word. The girls, who had obviously finished their meals long ago, got up and came over, unloading their trays as he did. He absolutely refused to make eye contact with a single one until a girl stepped on his foot, which made him swing around to glare at her. He was surprised, however, when it was someone he didn't recognise.

'Ah, sorry,' said the obviously Australian redhead, setting down her tray heavily. 'You have sort of a gaggle of girls following you, so… well, I'll be honest, I was hoping I'd get one of them.'

The four girls who were slowly unloading their trays smirked a bit as he looked at them, but then gaped when he turned and spoke to this new girl. 'I prefer to call them a murder of females.'

'No, that's what you want to do to them,' she said with a smile that reminded Jackson much of his own. She held out a hand. 'Melissa Bayley.'

'Jackson—'

'Rippner,' she interrupted. 'Dr Simons told me about you. I'm the new recipient of the World Society scholarship.'

Jackson tipped his head and gave her a little smile, which caused all the girls to glare at Melissa. 'Pleasure to meet you.'

---

Late that night, Jackson was climbing deftly up one of the outer walls of the girls' dormitory. Stopping at a window that glowed light blue, he looked in to make sure there was no movement before jamming his knife under the jamb. The window creaked loudly, but Jackson didn't have to open it that much to slip in. There was a humming coming from the Macintosh PowerBook Duo that was sitting on the desk, so he leaned closer to the screen before realising that Melissa's picture was open in a graphics-editing programme, snuggled to the left corner of a very legal-looking Michigan ID.

There was a soft sound behind him, and before he could respond, his arms were braced behind him.

'Need something, Jackson?' asked a soft Australian-accented voice beside his ear.

'I didn't realise you were in,' he said, fighting a little against her grasp, but not really putting much strength into it. 'Just checking up on the competition.'

She laughed a little and let him go. When he turned around, she was standing in a nightgown, her hands on her hips. 'It's after lights out.'

'Rules have never really stopped me.'

They stared at each other for a few long minutes before Melissa's screensaver came on and they were thrown into darkness.

'Why are you here?'

He could hear her move to her bed and throw herself down on it, the mattress springs creaking.

'Because I was sent here.'

'You know what I mean,' he hissed, pulling out her desk chair and sitting backwards in it, his arms crossed over the wooden back. 'There's only supposed to be one of us here at a time.'

'All I know is that my parents got a call from Switzerland and I was on a flight from Melbourne to Detroit the next morning.'

'Your parents know?'

She made a little scoffing noise. 'Of course my parents know. People in the organisation can have kids too; it's not just the civilians that procreate. Mum's a manager and Dad's her main sniper.'

He rolled the chair a little closer to her. 'So then you know all about how the organisation works.'

'Don't get excited,' she said, rolling her eyes in the darkness. 'I may be an organisation brat, but that doesn't mean I know some huge secret that you haven't been told yet. I'm not even being trained as a manager like you; I'm just doing forgery. I was studying at an Australian arts high school, but you know, things change.'

He could hear her pulling her sheets up and began to feel vaguely uncomfortable about being in a girl's room, which all at once seemed ludicrous to him. 'Where were you hiding?'

'Closet.'

'Ah.'

'I always won hide and seek at school,' she said, humour apparent in her voice. 'When you have people trying to kidnap you all the time, you get really good at hiding.'

---

Jackson picked up the phone after the first ring. 'Rippner.'

'You seem to be getting pretty cosy with Melissa Bayley.'

'Hello, Sharena,' Closing his management science book, Jackson rested his elbows on the desk. 'I should have known you had something to do with this.'

'Don't you wish,' said the woman with a hefty laugh. 'Always blaming everything on Sharena, honey.'

He smiled into the receiver. 'Did Dr Greene send her?'

'Oh no, she was sent from the top,' replied Sharena in a gossipy tone. 'Her Momma and Daddy are the top organisation members in Australia.'

'Is that why she came here? Influence?'

There was a long sigh. 'She was sent because you're not attaching to your peers, and that looks questionable.'

'I haven't tried to kill anyone,' he said quite matter-of-factly.

'Good job,' the nurse replied dryly. 'Should I send congratulatory cookies?'

'Will they be peanut butter?'

'Honey-child, I tell you this every time I call you: try to make friends, have a girlfriend even if it's just lip service to the institution. If you don't mingle, lips are gonna start waggin'. You're a pretty boy, and if a pretty boy doesn't make himself available, somethin's goin' on,' she said, begging.

'The girls here are daft.'

'Girls everywhere are daft, especially when they see a fine specimen like yourself,' she replied sharply. 'If you think that you were chosen just for your management and language skills, you're lying to yourself. For your line of work, you have to have a pretty face to get information.'

Jackson grumbled and dropped his head to the desktop. 'Sharena…'

'You need to learn to act. It may not be sincere, but it'll get you plenty of work,' she said. 'The best people in this institution are the ones who can just take on personas and run with them.'

'I'm not going to lie to some girl.'

'Girls are going to lie to you!' she said, laughing. 'Don't get too worried—girls your age want something to boast about to their friends; they're too young to know what love is.'

There was silence before he sighed, and although she couldn't see him, she knew he was rolling his eyes.

'Okay, I'll ask one of the murder out.'