THE next morning, Jax lined up with his cup of water just as he had done the day before. Today he knew what to expect. He smiled at the nurse as she handed him his meds: an antibiotic and a tramadol. He popped them into his mouth and took a swig. Then he opened wide.

‘Thanks, miss,’ he said. ‘All down the hatch.’

He put his hands in his pockets and walked, scanning the room, looking for a guard. He couldn’t see one; the only officer on duty was in the fishbowl with the nurse. He directed the bald man with his head. Towards the rear of the room, away from the mob. Jax got there first and backed into the wall, propping himself up. Now he only had to worry about what happened in front of him. Elliott and George were soon upon him, right up in his face.

‘Well?’ asked Elliott. ‘What are you waiting for? Hand ’em over.’

Jax looked down at his pockets, still containing his hands. He waited until they were both looking down too.

And then he launched, pulling out the homemade shivs he’d hand-carved in the night from a bedspring he’d wrenched off his bed, one in each hand.

Pop! Pop!

He hit them simultaneously – right hand for the bald man, left hand for George – thrusting the sharpened bed wires into their stomachs.

Pop! Pop! Pop!

Elliott and George backed away, both holding their guts, both lost for words. Their faces were white with shock, their hands red with blood. Jax threw the shivs on the floor and walked away. He didn’t care if he got caught. He wanted to get caught. The more people that knew about it the better.

CHAPTER 15

Supermax, Goulburn Correctional Centre, Goulburn, NSW, Australia

WENSLEY was relived to find his chalk. He thought he must have dropped it when the Serpent had returned. Apparently, the Serpent wasn’t interested in playing chalk games because the Professor had found the white stub on the cell floor directly under the equation he had been working on when the light was taken.

The Serpent had carved more Arabic into the wall. Deeply dug and obsessively neat. Wensley figured it was important, at least to the Serpent. But he didn’t have time for that now. He needed to get on with solving P versus NP and the rest of the Millennium Problems.

He felt a sharp pain in his leg when he bent down to pick up the chalk. He wasn’t surprised by his nakedness or the blood-soaked bandage that was wrapped around his thigh. Another ritual, he supposed. The Serpent was a self-mutilator. He had told Wensley that pain invoked the word, and that his visions had to be earned through agony. Wensley thought it was preposterous. The Serpent hurt himself because he could no longer hurt others.

Wensley’s deepest fear was auto-cannibalism. He dismissed the horrid thought and went back to his equations.