Jax liked libraries. They were places of solitude. Places of silence. There were no exams and no tests. No questions. No judgements. His school library had been his refuge. No one came looking for him there. But this was like nothing like his school library. Nor his army library, which had been his second lounge room, mostly because of the lightning-fast WiFi, but also for the quiet. He was glad he wasn’t here for the books.

‘Can I use a computer?’ Jax asked the guard who doubled as prison librarian.

‘Have you got a log-on?’ she replied.

Jax shook his head.

‘I’ll need your cell card,’ she said.

Jax handed over his ID and watched as the guard battered her computer with her index finger, so hard it made the desk shake, until she had the information she was looking for.

She was much better with a pen, writing neatly on the back of Jax’s ID before handing it back.

‘Use this to log-in, and away you go,’ she said before pointing to a row of four computers at the back of the room. They were all free.

Jax chose a computer that was facing away from both the guard and the one security camera that monitored the room. He’d resisted his urge to go to the library so far because he thought it was likely a good place to get killed. But the lack of books, computers and inmates suggested it was rarely used, and the lack of security suggested it was relatively safe. He sat down and got to it.

Username: 60079. Password: Password123.

He changed the generic password to a randomly mashed combination of letters, numbers and symbols that he committed to memory with one look. He didn’t need to write it down. Jax was a little bit surprised to be confronted with a version of Windows he hadn’t used since high school. At least it wasn’t a Mac: they were for graphic designers and hipsters, not for soldiers.

He opened the internet browser and typed in the bald man’s name.

Restricted. Access denied.

Weird. He moved on, this time typing ‘George Charalambous’.

Restricted. Access denied.

He typed in his own name.

Restricted. Access denied.

He changed tack, typing in the Prime Minister’s name instead. He thought his search bar had loaded as per usual, until he saw some of the search results had been censored. On a hunch he decided to search a simpler term: crime.

Restricted. Access denied.

Really? He’d figured porn sites and how-to-escape-from-prison pages would be blocked, but this was ridiculous.

Jax walked back to the counter. ‘Excuse me,’ he said when the guard refused to look away from her computer screen. ‘Do you know what I can actually look at on the net?’

‘Depends on your privileges. What’s your classification?’

‘Maximum security,’ Jax answered.