UNDERGROUND

about his son. His father probably did more harm than good. When asked if he thought his son would offend again, his father replied, ‘I don’t know’.

Anthrax was livid. It was further unconscionable behav- iour. Not long before the trial, Anthrax had discovered that his father had planned to sneak out of the country two days before the court case. He was going overseas, he told his wife, but not until after the court case. It was only by chance that she discovered his surreptitious plans to leave early. Pre- sumably he would find his son’s trial humiliating. Anthrax’s mother insisted he stayed and he begrudgingly delayed the trip.

His father sat down, a bit away from Anthrax and his lawyer. The lawyer provided a colourful alternative to the prosecutor. He perched one leg up on his bench, rested an elbow on the knee and stroked his long, red beard. It was an impressive beard, more than a foot long and thick with reddish brown curls. Somehow it fitted with his two-tone chocolate brown suit and his tie, a breathtakingly wide creation with wild patterns in gold. The suit was one size too small. He launched into the usual courtroom flourish – lots of words saying nothing. Then he got to the punch line.

‘Your worship, this young man has been in all sorts of places. NASA, military sites, you wouldn’t believe some of the places he has been.’

‘I don’t think I want to know where he has been,’ the mag- istrate answered wryly.

The strategy was Anthrax’s. He thought he could turn a liability into an asset by showing that he had been in many systems – many sensitive systems – but had done no malicious damage in any of them.

The strategy worked and the magistrate announced there was no way he was sending the young hacker to jail.

The prosecutor looked genuinely disappointed and launched a counter proposal – 1500 hours of community service. Anthrax caught his breath. That was absurd. It would take almost nine