ASIO would have been proud of the way the contact was set up for this story.

   The photographer and I were to take the train to Glenferrie station, where we were to just wait on the platform.

   Around 1.30pm, we were told, contact would be made. We didn't need to know what he looked like. He'd find us.

   So we did it.

   Around 1.30 one particular character appeared to be sizing us up, to make sure we had kept our word and had come alone. We had been warned that if anyone else was standing with us, the whole deal was off.

   He was careful and he did not approach until 15 minutes later, when he walked past and muttered: "Give me a few moments and then follow."

   We followed. he had disappeared. No. There he was by the phone box.

   "We'll walk," he said. he did not seem to be much of a talker.

   We were to meet The Future Four, a "crew" in their language, who are turning eastern Melbourne's blank railway canyons into canvasses for a dazzling array of mind-boggling "sub art."

   There'd been a split in the four, and they were now three, but two of them seemed reluctant to break cover, so we were stuck with one.

   "I forgot to give the signal," our contact confessed. the other two would not appear unless they saw the contact bend down and pull up his socks. He did and they did.

   The elaborate security was necessary, they said. What they were doing was a crime and at worst could attract jail sentences.

   Criminal damage, it is called, although they dispute that they are criminals and that their work is damaging anything.

   The Future Four wanted the world to see their latest "piece", a triumph, they said. It was their best "piece" yet. They had "burned" the "enemy crews" with their "wild style".

   It was the most unusual press conference for a new art work you could imagine.

   The piece covers the back wall of an electricity sub-station along the railway line between Hawthorn and Glenferrie stations.

 It is 27 metres long and, at its highest, reaches 2.5 metres.

   It consumed 35 cans of spray paint, used 12 different colors, and was sprayed into creation over five hours after midnight on a moon-lit night last week.

   It is titled: "3 Wise Kings." I don't know why. You can make out just one king and burning city.

   Many more hours went into it's design stages. The design was created first on paper and the colors chosen.

   Days were spent on site selection.

   Then came the long and intricate process of obtaining the paint.

   You can't just walk into a shop and ask for six cans of blue, five of green, one of gold, three black and so on without raising suspicion.

   It has to be obtained in different places at different times.

   Once the logistics were solved, the three remaining members of Future Four took the last train to Glenferrie, walked back along the track and set to work.

   They finished not long before dawn.

   The three call themselves GS38, AG27 and PS19. The letters are abbreviations of other nicknames. the numbers are their house numbers. "The cops think that's quite silly."

   GS is 18-years old. AG is 14 and PS only 11 and already a veteran of "quite a number" of nocturnal "pieces." GS has painted about 20, he says.

   At times someone called Mr.B helps. And sometimes they collaborate with another crew known as Baze. There are perhaps 10 or 12 crews working Melbourne, with names as flamboyant as their painting.

   The Future Four crew has made contact with their New York comrades, who are now famous for turning that city's sleazy subways into mobile pop-art.

   The word from New York to the Melbourne "writers" is to leave the rails yards alone. Many New York writers have been busted. They've gone legit and now work for galleries and community arts programs.

   Future Four do not see themselves as vandals, criminals or defacers of public property. They seem to have a code of ethics which demands they use walls which would only otherwise attract the Kilroys, the "Biters" (copiers) or the "toys" (incompetent graffitists).

   Bleak factory walls backing on to rail lines are favored.

   Concrete rail cuttings are acceptable, but The Met obliterates their pieces from time to time.

      Sometimes they have to leave a piece unfinished, drop the cans and run when chased by the police or railways officers. PS has trouble with chasing business. His legs are not very long.

   "If one of our writers hit something like the Shrine say, he'd be out. Absolutely. We do our pieces on blank walls where it hurts no-one, and makes the wall look good. Defacing? We'd never go for that.

   "The cops claim we influence others, the Biters and Toys and Trash, and unfortunately that's true. But what else can we do?" GS said.

   By this time we'd left 3 Wise Kings in case one of the passing train drivers alerted the law. We were now in a school yard.

   "If we want to do our art, where else can we do it? They won't let us paint on the graffiti board. We want to do our art."

   AG cuts in: 'We just want to be known to be good at something. Everybody's got his own scene that he fits into, and this is our part of the scene." You get the idea that AG is 14 going on 42.

   Why paint otherwise neglected walls? Is it the excitement, the adrenalin of getting away with it?

   GS again: "There's not much excitement while we're doing the piece. We're usually having arguments about who's supposed to be doing what.

   "The excitement comes later. When you go back in the daylight and you know you've burned 'em again (out-daubed the opposition) and you're the top crew. We're the best!"

   If it's not the excitement, then why?

    "Fame - and money," says GS.

   "We'd like a bit of fame. Recognition for what we do."

   The money side of the art has not been too lucrative. The Future Four's highest commission so far was $60 for a piece of "wild style" art on paper.

   They'll do the backs of jackets and shirts for a fee - and they will do wall pieces on contract.

   "People pay us to put their tags (names) up for them. But that's hard to get."

   They've done a paid job supplying a theatrical back-drop. it was for Shakespeare's MacBeth done as a "hip-hop sort of thing."

   Which bring us around to the genesis of sub art. It is linked in with break dancing, of which Hip-Hop is an off-shoot.

   It has its own language, words like "biting, trash, ridgies (old silver trains with rippled metal sides) and flats (blue trains)."

  All three survivors of The Future Four go to school. Their families know what they do. Some of the parents like the art, but do not necessarily approve of where their children out it.

    A former member of the Four had a disagreement with the other three and left in a rage some time ago. He took out his revenge by defacing a lot of their older pieces.

   They allege the drop-out was "dropping the dime" - talking too much to the wrong people about where they planned their next piece.

    The Four is searching for a replacement, hopefully a girl, who has a feeling for the style.

   She must be able to develop established ideas, because the Four claims pride in being unique and not just "biting" the New York stuff.

   They talk a lot about style and execution and great store is placed in originality. "3 Wise kings" grew from a pen-drawing on paper. Although the overall style is borrowed from New York, the details change.

   The fellow who painted those curious outline figures around Richmond and Camberwell was Keith Haring,  a New York sub artist paid by our State Government.

   The Four find that a bit hard to understand.

   Negotiations are starting with some community groups to find community art work, paid art work.

   We want to have have things more legal, community art stuff. Imagine if we had all day just for one piece. All that time. it'd be unbelievable. We have trouble working in the dark all the time."

   AG sums it up: "Certain people don't see our work as art. They see the negative and don't try and see the positive."

   And GS says he regards it as preferable to having "big advertisements all along the track which are sexist and stuff like that. Now that's disgusting."