`Yes, seems to fit,' Stuart said matter of factly, then turned away.
Craig felt relieved. He changed back into his clothing.
That night, and on many others during their trips or during Craig's overnight visits to Stuart's uncle's house, Craig lay in bed wondering about his secretive new friend.
Stuart was definitely a little weird, but he seemed to like women so Craig figured he couldn't be interested in Craig that way. Stuart bragged that he had a very close relationship with a female newspaper reporter, and he always seemed to be chatting up the girl at the video store.
Craig tried not to read too much into Stuart's odd behaviour, for the young man was willing to forgive his friend's eccentricities just to be part of the action. Soon Stuart asked Craig for access to PI—unrestricted access.
The idea made Craig uncomfortable, but Stuart was so persuasive. How would he be able to continue his vital intelligence work without access to Victoria's most important hacking board? Besides, Stuart Gill of Hackwatch wasn't after innocent-faced hackers like Craig Bowen. In fact, he would protect Bowen when the police came down on everyone. What Stuart really wanted was the carders—the fraudsters. Craig didn't want to protect people like that, did he?
Craig found it a little odd, as usual, that Stuart seemed to be after the carders, yet he had chummed up with Ivan Trotsky. Still, there were no doubt secrets Stuart couldn't reveal—things he wasn't allowed to explain because of his intelligence work.
Craig agreed.
What Craig couldn't have known as he pondered Stuart Gill from the safety of his boyish bedroom was exactly how much innocence the underground was still to lose. If he had foreseen the next few years—the police raids, the Ombudsman's investigation, the stream of newspaper articles and the court cases—Craig Bowen would, at that very moment, probably have reached over and turned off his beloved PI and Zen forever.