For some reason Luke felt mildly guilty. As though he’d been caught talking about her. He wished his conversation with Zac had been about something so simple.
‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Great house.’
‘Yeah, I know.’ She dropped her arms and sighed. ‘And do I really live here? We’ve done this before.’
‘You want us to go now?’ he said.
‘Ah, no,’ she said. ‘You just got here. You’ve done nothing remotely entertaining, and I’m terribly bored. It’s raining, I’m alone, and I thought you two might be something I could play with.’
‘Play with?’ said Luke.
This chick was an accident waiting to happen. The kind you read about on the web, after she’d been missing for twenty-four hours. She’d just invited two strangers into her home, and she wanted to play. They could have been anyone. Well, actually, they were a psychopath and an immortal, he reminded himself, so she hadn’t exactly made good choices. She was your typical spoiled teenager, looking to shock the oldies, to find an experience that money couldn’t buy. Maybe she’d found it.
‘Yeah,’ Georgia said. ‘Aren’t you two supposed to be villains? Don’t you want to go and do something illegal?’
‘Actually,’ said Luke. ‘I just want to go shopping for some new clothes.’
‘Yeah,’ said Zac. ‘So we’ll be leaving now.’
‘Thanks for everything, Georgia,’ said Luke.
Georgia walked over and opened a kitchen drawer, then she turned and began digging with a fork into the cake.
‘This is great,’ she said, chocolate on her lips. ‘You guys haven’t had any.’
‘We’re good,’ said Zac.
‘Well, you don’t need to leave right now, anyway,’ she said, grabbing another forkful of cake. ‘There are heaps of clothes upstairs – they’re my brothers’. They’ll never know they’re missing. They won’t want them by the time they get back anyway.’
‘Where are they?’ said Luke.
‘Boarding school.’
‘Why aren’t you at school?’ he said.
‘Well, I am,’ said Georgia. ‘I’m tucked away nicely at boarding school. Out of harm’s way. That’s what my parents think.’
‘Why didn’t the school tell your parents you’re missing?’ said Zac, arms folded.
‘Because my parents wrote them a lovely letter explaining that I’ll be away with them for the winter.’
‘But you wrote it?’ said Luke.
Georgia smiled widely.
‘Now what’ll it be?’ she said. ‘Cake first or clothes? You don’t want to go outside today. It’s pouring. Plus, I’ve got the latest Halo game.’
Georgia led them up the stairs to the third floor.
‘Those are my brothers’ rooms,’ she said, pointing to two closed doors. ‘Help yourselves.’ She kept walking, pushing open a door that was part of a double set. Luke glimpsed Elizabeth Bay through the opening. That had to be one hell of a bedroom, he thought.
‘This is mine,’ she said. ‘Stay out.’ She stepped in and closed the door. But before they could even look at one another, the door reopened.
‘Oh,’ she said, black pigtails swinging with her sudden reappearance. ‘That door -’ she pointed a black fingernail at the far end of the corridor, ‘- is off-limits. That’s my older brother’s room. He’s away at school too, but he’s kinda – ah, funny about people touching his stuff. So stay out of there. Otherwise, have fun. I’m going to have a nap. I find sleeping when it’s dark such a waste of the night. Later.’
She pulled her door closed again.
‘She’s crazy,’ said Luke. ‘She just said she wanted to play. We could take off with anything.’
‘I think we should go,’ said Zac. ‘I don’t trust her. Who lets strangers walk around their house while they sleep?’
‘Well, I think she’s right,’ said Luke. ‘It’s freezing out there. And I’m in no hurry to take off. I mean, it’s best that we lay low a while. I know we’re not going to be broadcast on Australia’s Most Wanted, but it can’t hurt to stay off the streets for a couple of days.’
‘A couple of days!’ said Zac. ‘I thought you wanted to find your sister?’
‘Well, I’m sure Georgia’s got a great online set-up. I was going to head to the library to do some searching, but I bet I can get everything I need right here.’
‘I think we should go back to my house,’ said Zac. ‘They could know more about where your sister is. What can you find online?’
‘You’d be surprised what I can find online, Zacster,’ said Luke. ‘You take that room, I’ll take this one. See if you can find some clothes to fit your skinny arse.’
Luke emerged from the bedroom wearing the coolest jeans he’d ever seen, brand new Adidas sneakers and a badass hoodie. Zac was waiting impatiently for him outside the door, dressed in similar gear.
‘Not bad,’ said Luke.
‘Can we get on with it?’ said Zac.
‘I wonder where the computers are.’ Luke moved across the carpeted hallway and tried the door next to the off-limits room. He pushed it open.
‘So cool,’ he said. ‘You have to check this out.’
They stepped into a study wrapped floor to ceiling with bookshelves. Hundreds of books filled three walls of shelves, with a ladder waiting nearby to take the happy reader right to the top of the stack if there wasn’t enough available within reach.
But it was the fourth wall that made Luke hold his breath. Five computers: the latest Apples, all widescreen, two touchscreen, and all of them in sleep-mode, blinking quietly, waiting for him to wake them. Who needed books? So far, there was nothing he had ever wanted that he hadn’t been able to access online.
‘Let’s get to work,’ he said to Zac, cracking his fingers.
‘What about Georgia?’ said Zac.
‘What about her? If she has a problem with us using this stuff, she’ll tell us.’
Luke took a seat and randomly stabbed his fingers into the two keyboards closest to him. The machines whirred efficiently, flashing into life.
Zac plonked down next to him, scowling at the two Siamese cats who’d just sashayed through the door.
‘I don’t like it here,’ he said.
‘Yeah? Well, that’s getting old,’ said Luke, typing rapidly.
Within seconds he was negotiating the Births, Deaths and Marriages website. Using one of the hundreds of false IP addresses he’d created before being locked up, he registered as a random civilian.
He clicked Next, Next, Next, as screens popped up, informing him about privacy policies, security information and blah, blah, blah. Finally, he arrived at a screen he was happy with.
Enter a name and date range, the website invited, cursor blinking.
M-o-r-g-a-n M-o-r-e-a-u, he typed. 1947-1997. That should do it, he thought. That made his mother any age up to fifty when she died. If his brother was born in 1997 he would be fourteen now. The thought of having a younger brother sent a teensy thrill flashing through his stomach, surprising him. He hit Enter.
The website shot up a warning screen.
You cannot search for any person born after 1909 due to privacy considerations.
Luke snorted in frustration and read on to learn that accompanied by three forms of identification, he could personally attend the registry office, and then they would assist him with yada yada yada.
I don’t think so.
He began typing furiously, navigating out of the program and into the one-zero world he loved so much. The world of logic, of cold, clever code, where emotion was irrelevant, irrational, completely useless. Perfect.
This was his favourite place. And it loved him right back.
‘Where did you learn how to do that?’ said Zac, watching reams of digits scroll the screen before them.
Luke had forgotten Zac was even there.
‘Foster parents three,’ he said, tabbing, scrolling, typing. ‘They liked the welfare cheques, but not me so much. She worked for Telstra, though, and she had unlimited download access. So they left me alone with the laptop. They liked it when I was quiet.’