UNDERGROUND

Over time, the drugs became less and less fun. Then, one Sunday, he came down off some speed hard. A big crash. The worst he had ever experienced. Depression set in, and then paranoia. He knew the police were still watching him. They had followed him before.

At his police interviews, he learned that an AFP officer had followed him to an AC/DC concert less than two weeks before he had been busted. The officer told him the AFP wanted to know what sort of friends Prime Suspect associated with – and the officer had been treated to the spectre of seven other arm- waving, head-thumping, screaming teenagers just like Prime Suspect himself.

Now Prime Suspect believed that the AFP had started fol- lowing him again. They were going to raid him again, even though he had given up hacking completely. It didn't make sense. He knew the premonition was illogical, but he couldn't shake it.

Something bad – very, very bad – was going to happen any day. Overcome with a great sense of impending doom, he lapsed into a sort of hysterical depression. Feeling unable to prevent the advent of the dark, terrible event which would tear apart his life yet again, he reached out to a friend who had experienced his own personal problems. The friend guided him to a psychologist at the Austin Hospital. Prime Suspect decided that there had to be a better way to deal with his problems than wasting himself every weekend. He began counselling.

The counselling made him deal with all sorts of unresolved business. His father's death. His relationship with his mother. How he had evolved into an introvert, and why he was never comfortable talking to people. Why he hacked. How he became addicted to hacking. Why he took up drugs.

At the end, the 21-year-old Prime Suspect emerged drug- free and, though still shaky, on the road to recovery. The worst he had to wait for were the charges from the AFP.

Trax’s recovery from his psychological instabilities wasn’t as definitive. From 1985, Trax had suffered from panic attacks,