‘The first thing you need to know is that I don’t know everything,’ Carter said. ‘I’m a new initiate as of last term. There’s a full year of training before they accept you.’
‘OK.’ Allie sat on the bed with her arms wrapped around her knees, her eyes watching his intently. ‘But you grew up here. You must know something.’
‘I know what they’ve told me,’ he said. ‘And it’s pretty serious stuff.’
He leaned his elbow on the back of the chair. ‘This is the first step to a larger organisation. Kids are recruited to Cimmeria specifically to join Night School, because people in this bigger organisation want them for life – does that make sense?’
Allie looked confused. ‘Kind of …’
‘OK, what I’m saying is, you start Night School at Cimmeria, then you continue it at Oxbridge – and if you’re in Night School, you will get in to Oxford or Cambridge or LSE, without doubt. And you’re a member of a club there. Then, when you graduate from university, you go and work for a company run by a member of the organisation. And eventually you run a company that hires people who started in Night School. And you do what you’re told. What I’m saying is, this is for life.’
Frowning, Allie tried to process what he was telling her. ‘What is this bigger group called?’
He shook his head. ‘I have no idea. I’m not sure it has a name. It just … is.’
‘So …’ Allie was still trying to understand. ‘You’re in Night School now, and when you finish at Cimmeria you’ll go, let’s say, to Oxford, where you’ll be in the university-level version of it, then you’ll go to work and get really rich … I don’t get it. Wouldn’t that happen anyway? What’s the point?’
Carter lowered his voice to a whisper.
‘I can only tell you what they tell us, Allie. And what they tell us is that Night School runs the world.’
‘Runs the …’ Allie stared at him, ‘what do you mean?’
‘I mean presidents, prime ministers, MPs, CEOs, journalists – the people you see on T V, the people you read about in newspapers, people who run the world – Night School is everywhere.’
As Carter ticked the professions off, she looked doubtful. ‘What? All of them?’
‘No. But a lot of them. And at all levels. Night School runs newspaper corporations. Television companies. Government departments. Militaries. Everything. It’s everywhere.’
‘And it all starts here?’ she asked doubtfully. ‘Carter that’s impossible.’
‘I don’t know if it’s just here, though. We have exchange students all the time from schools in other places – like Sylvain.’
‘So, it’s like a giant, kind of … conspiracy?’
‘Yes.’
Stunned, she searched his face for any sign that it was all some elaborate joke. But there was nothing.
‘How does it work?’
He shook his head. ‘That goes beyond what they tell the neos.’
‘Neos?’
‘Neophytes,’ he explained. ‘It’s what they call us the first year.’
‘How embarrassing,’ she said dryly. ‘So what do they tell you?’
‘We get the big marketing pitch – the whole “society of power” speech – and a fancy dinner with a bunch of rich guys in tuxedos who used to be us,’ he said.
‘OK, but what do you do?’ she asked, wrinkling her brow. ‘I mean, here, at Cimmeria. All this training you all do, what is it?’
He took a deep breath. ‘God, it’s hard to explain. They’ve got all these theories of war and strategy being the basis of everything so, I know it sounds weird, but the first thing they do is teach us how to play chess. We play chess for days. While they feed us all this stuff about how knights are warriors and pawns are foot soldiers …’
‘Wait, I’ve heard that before.’ She stared at him. ‘Jo said those exact words to me a few weeks ago. Is Jo …?’
‘In Night School?’ He looked uncomfortable. ‘Not exactly. Her dad is, and he’s insisting that she should be too, but Isabelle thinks she’s not ready. She has these … problems, you know. So they’ve given her like introductory to introductory training, and Gabe keeps an eye on her.’
‘What? Her own boyfriend?’ Allie was horrified. ‘Is, like … spying on her for these guys?’
‘No!’ Then he paused. ‘Well, sort of, I guess. But it’s not like he’s pretending to like her.’
‘No,’ she said sarcastically. ‘He would never do something like that.’
He held his hands up in surrender.
‘So,’ she continued, ‘after chess, it’s like … what? Wa r games? Is that what you’re doing out in the woods at night?’
He nodded. ‘More or less. Combat training, techniques in subterfuge. That kind of thing.’
‘Crazy. Why are they teaching you that? You’re just kids.’
‘War is a strategy for life and for business. And some of us will end up running militaries. And governments.’ He shrugged as casually as if he were talking about a maths test. ‘Look, this is what Cimmeria is about, to an extent. And everybody at this school is connected to it in some way.’
He gave her a direct look. ‘Except, apparently, you.’
‘Except me,’ she said.
‘So,’ he said, ‘what are you doing here?’
Allie sat still, staring at him for a long moment. Then she slid to the edge of the bed, poised to bounce off of it.
‘I don’t know. But I’m ready to find out. Are you with me?’
‘In theory …’ he said cautiously, ‘yes. What do you have in mind?’
Her face was animated with a mixture of excitement and determination. ‘You know how yesterday in the library we decided I should pretend nothing was going on and nobody was talking about me, while you tried to find out what was happening?’
He nodded.
‘Well, bollocks to that. Whatever is going on here, the place to find out is Isabelle’s office. Let’s go there. Now.’
‘No way!’ He looked shocked. ‘That’s insane, Allie. If we got caught in Isabelle’s office they’d kick us out. No question. We’d never get into a good university. It would ruin everything.’
‘But I know how we can avoid all of that,’ Allie said, jumping to her feet.
‘How?’
‘By not getting caught.’
She headed for the door.
‘Allie …’ She ignored his warning tone and opened the door, but he reached past her to close it again. ‘Hang on a minute.’
He lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘What exactly are you looking for? What do you think you’ll find?’
‘Two things,’ she said. ‘Why Ruth died. And why I’m here.’
When he didn’t appear convinced, she raised her chin defiantly. ‘I’m going Carter. I’m doing this now. I’m not waiting for later, or for someone to maybe someday decide to tell me this information out of simple human kindness. That’s not going to happen. OK? So are you coming with me? Or is being the future president of Cimmeria Incorporated really that important to you?’
He stared into her eyes for a long minute, then seemed to make up his mind.
He opened the door.