Zac slid his chair backwards and Luke rolled over to the next computer.
‘How are you going to find them?’
‘I’m hacking into a few databases,’ said Luke. ‘The Department of Community Services, the AFP and Interpol.’
‘This is how you got locked up, isn’t it?’ said Zac.
‘Well, it helped,’ said Luke. ‘But I figured out what I did wrong last time.’
He skated his chair back to the other computer, typing furiously again. ‘It’s all about timing. I’ll dip in and out too fast for them to catch me.’
‘So I don’t need to prepare to get you out of here when the Feds come and bust in the door?’
‘Nope,’ said Luke, eyes glued to the screen. ‘I’ve never needed anyone to get me out of anything. Besides, this time I’m using two cloaking sites before launching simultaneous dictionary, brute force and pre-computation attacks on their networks.’
‘Have you ever heard anyone speaking Elvish?’ said Zac.
Luke kept typing.
‘You’d probably understand about as much of it as I understood what you just said,’ Zac continued.
‘It’s simple,’ said Luke, sliding back to the other screen. ‘I’m hiding within a web of thousands of people across the world to prevent anyone learning of my physical location, and I’ve launched multiple-platform software weaponry that sniffs out and cracks the encrypted passwords I need.’
‘Yep, that sounds simple,’ said Zac.
Luke grinned. ‘But I might not be able to chat for a while now,’ he said. ‘I’m going in.’
‘Going in?’ said Zac.
‘I’m just going to be concentrating for a while. I might not answer when you speak to me – I sort of zone out a bit.’
Luke tuned out to the sounds around him and unfocused his eyes. Instinctively, his fingers continued to seek and find the keys he needed. The numbers on the screen became maps and pathways. The pathways transformed into three-dimensional streets and laneways. A pulsing light scudded down an alleyway ahead of him. He dived in and followed it.
Although he was starving, fully dressed – shoes and all – and not remotely tired, Luke couldn’t make himself leave the bed.
Zac’s knocking and calling from outside the locked door made no difference.
It wasn’t the plush pillows and the super-soft bedding that kept him there, even though he’d never experienced anything nearly so comfortable. And it wasn’t the mesmerising view of the boats through the rain-smudged windows.
It was what buzzed about his head that kept him from getting up – information about who he was, why he was, and who had planned for him to turn out like this.
Morgan Moreau. Mother.
Welfare had a lot to say about her. Nothing nice. They had a record of eight children she’d given birth to over a fifteen-year span. She’d raised none of them. And two hadn’t even made it out of nappies. The Feds had a detailed file – they’d begun it after baby number three had died under suspicious circumstances. They’d questioned her, even detained her following the drowning death of baby number four, but there was never any hard evidence that she’d actually physically harmed her children.
Welfare didn’t care about the evidence. After finding her next two children malnourished and neglected, they’d made them state wards until the age of eighteen, finding her unfit to parent ever again.
Luke noticed that the data trail on his mother had then been dormant for a couple of years until a pre-set alarm had been activated on a computer in a Sydney hospital, prompting the nurse on duty to call authorities. Morgan Moreau had been admitted to the maternity unit. And she’d just given birth to twins.
Welfare sent the district supervisor and two case workers, accompanied by a police officer from the local area command.
The Feds sent an agent, Fairlie Merryweather.
There’d apparently been a complication during the birth and the obstetrician on-call had insisted that no one have access to the patients until he gave the all-clear. But by the time he’d done that, Morgan Moreau and her babies, a boy and a girl, were nowhere to be found.
Luke had read Merryweather’s report. It had been particularly scathing of the hospital’s lack of cooperation with authorities. The obstetrician, and the nurse who’d called in the alarm, had both been transferred from the hospital. Given her reports to the AFP, Fairlie Merryweather had apparently searched the country for the trio, but the trail in Australia went cold.
But Luke’s tracking software found it. Interpol had picked up the case. He learned that Interpol had logged the last known sighting of Morgan Moreau in Geneva, Switzerland. It was one year later, June 1997, and she’d been in the state’s largest hospital, giving birth.
He found the birth certificate – Jake Grey Moreau.
Next, he found the death certificate for his mother, Morgan Moreau, signed off by her midwife, Jamala Creole.
He read Fairlie Merryweather’s Interpol report about his mother’s death. Merryweather had actually travelled from Australia to Switzerland and had interviewed nursing staff, the on-call doctors and Jamala Creole. Morgan Moreau is deceased, the agent had coldly concluded in her report. There was no mention of Jake, or the whereabouts of his twin.
But Luke had the names of his three other siblings. They were in Australia. There were no fathers listed for any of them. Samantha White Moreau, his twin sister – the empath; Jake Grey Moreau, his younger brother – the supposed genius; and three older siblings, all born in Australia: Kyle Green Moreau, Daniel Brown Moreau and Liza Blue Moreau.
What was with the ridiculous colour thing?
He’d found the Welfare files on Daniel Brown and Liza Blue. After being removed as babies from his mother they’d both apparently been adopted into happy families. Their case files were minuscule, with brief yearly notations about their progress until they turned eighteen, and then their files had been closed. His own Welfare file, well, that was not so thin. He’d sent everything to his online storage files – maybe he’d go back to it one day, but the parts he’d seen were not exactly happy reading. Besides, he’d lived it, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to go over his memories so soon.
Luke pulled the quilt up to his chin, freezing on the inside. He supposed he could track down Liza and Daniel, but they probably wouldn’t want anything to do with their old life, especially if they knew anything about their mother: the witch and child killer.
And she dumped me like trash, he thought.
He pulled the quilt up over his head, shivering.
‘Get up, already! It’s night-time!’
Luke peeled the covers back from his face. Although his eyes had been closed, he was wide awake and he was still freezing.
Georgia stood in the doorway.
‘Why, do you want us out of here?’ said Luke.
‘No, dummy,’ said Georgia. ‘I want you to eat. I’ve been cooking since seven.’
‘What time is it?’ said Luke.
‘Nine,’ said Georgia. ‘At night.’
‘I’m starving,’ said Luke.
‘Well, of course you are,’ she said.
‘What have you been making that takes two hours to cook?’
‘Why don’t you come and find out, instead of just lying there interrogating me?’
Georgia left the room and Luke climbed out of bed. The rain had really kicked in again, battering at the windows and causing the boats to bob and bounce about on the bay. He realised how lucky they’d been to find Georgia; it would have absolutely sucked to be sleeping outdoors tonight. He wondered where Zac was, but, more importantly, he wondered about the food. He really was ravenously hungry.
After visiting the bathroom, he stepped into the hallway, and… yep, he should have known.