James lay in the dark, waiting. No one had said anything to him. No asking for his side of the story or giving him a lecture. Just silence. To his face. He had heard every word of the not so quiet fight when Ian got home. A fight which answered one question, Ian had never wanted James there. That's why he worked late, why he was merely polite. He had agreed only because it was temporary and he was avoiding James, waiting for the boy to be gone.
Finally it felt like it had been long enough. Everyone should be asleep. James slipped out of his room and down to the den.
They weren't allowed to be on the computer at night. It wasn't a new thing. Almost every house James had lived in had a similar rule. Only this was the first time the adults had been smart enough to figure out how to lock things down. Or so they thought. It had taken James less than a day and a book from the library to find a way around their protection software.
A few quick keystrokes and James was in the computer. It was text only but it worked. James wasn't going to wait for the inevitable breakfast conversation. And fortunately for him, guidance counselors weren't the only ones with sloppy password habits. He just needed to find the right computer.
James flipped open his notebook. Some pages were simple, but effective commands. Others were programming scripts he'd copied from books or written out by hand. They had been mostly random exercises just to see what he could accomplish. Tonight they were his weapons. He felt in control inside computers. They made sense to him. Sometimes he wished he could just jump inside and live in computers like Kevin Flynn or Neo.
It only took four times before James found the system he needed. The stolen username and password worked perfectly. James found his record with ease. Most of it was what he expected, Mrs Caldwell had never been one to hide from him what she was writing in his records or how it might affect his future. If anything she talked about it far far too much for his liking.
James quickly found the entry he was expecting to find. Debra had called, from the timestamp it was while they were still at the hospital. Violent outburst, assault, etc etc. Requesting immediate removal. None of it was a shock, of course they would put their own kid ahead of some foster kid. It was the next entry that caught James off guard. It was mostly typical psychobabble BS about how he was emotionally detached, didn't follow rules, didn't socialize, refused to talk about the trauma of his father's death. But the last part, that was the bit that burned. "Recommend immediate removal from foster home to placement at Stanwick." He'd heard the name before. Not from Mrs Caldwell but from chatter. Stanwick was listed as a group home for troubled kids but really it was more of a juvenile detection center. Kids were sent there because they didn't fit out in the real world. And once in, the only way out was turning 18. There was no pleading to the courts for emancipation, no graduating early. There was no way he was going to let them send him there. Screw that. He had tried playing by their rules. Time to write some of his own.