UNDERGROUND

Dreams in about 1988, and Prime Suspect on Megaworks, where he used the handle Control Reset, not long after that. When he set up his own BBS at his home in Tecoma, a hilly suburb so far out of Melbourne that it was practically in forest, he invited both hackers to visit 'A Cute Paranoia' whenever they could get through on the single phone line.

Visiting on Mendax's BBS suited both hackers, for it was more private than other BBSes. Eventually they exchanged home telephone numbers, but only to talk modem-to-modem. For months, they would ring each other up and type on their computer screens to each other – never having heard the sound of the other person's voice. Finally, late in 1990, the nineteen- year-old Mendax called up the 24-year-old Trax for a voice chat. In early 1991, Mendax and Prime Suspect, aged seven- teen, also began speaking in voice on the phone.

Trax seemed slightly eccentric, and possibly suffered from some sort of anxiety disorder. He refused to travel to the city, and he once made reference to seeing a psychiatrist. But Mendax usually found the most interesting people were a little unusual, and Trax was both.

Mendax and Trax discovered they had a few things in common. Both came from poor but educated families, and both lived in the outer suburbs. However, they had very dif- ferent childhoods.

Trax's parents migrated to Australia from Europe. Both his father, a retired computer technician, and his mother spoke with a German accent. Trax's father was very much the head of the household, and Trax was his only son.

By contrast, by the time he was fifteen Mendax had lived in a dozen different places including Perth, Magnetic Island, Brisbane, Townsville, Sydney, the Adelaide Hills, and a string of coastal towns in northern New South Wales and Western Australia. In fifteen years he had enrolled in at least as many different schools.

His mother had left her Queensland home at age seven- teen, after saving enough money from selling her paintings to