Author's Note

  This story is rife with computer geek nomenclature that many 
readers may not be familiar with. For the previously uninitiated, I have 
included a glossary of terms and my descriptions of them.
  I had something else prepared for this introduction, and at the last 
minute I tossed it out. I realized what I had intended to say with this 
story was not what ended up being said.
  I'll keep this new note plain and simple:

  Viva Taarna!


  Nicolas Valenzuela
  March 13, 2007



Chapter 1

  It was an exceptional ball game, no matter who had to die.
  The baseball game was only in its third inning, and many people 
were walking around the concession areas in search of beer, food and 
restrooms. The ballpark employees mixed with the fans and were 
going about their various jobs with workaday indifference. A few fans 
noticed an attractive female, wearing the stadium employees' standard 
aqua-blue jumpsuit, momentarily stop sweeping litter into her 
dustpan. Before these fans continued on their way, they saw her pull 
out of her pocket what looked like a tiny brass telescope and peer 
through it across the field toward home plate. Nothing unusual about 
someone trying to get a better view. Even stadium employees could 
be fans of the team. 
  After replacing the telescope, the pretty employee with the light 
blonde ponytail went back to sweeping for another minute or so, then 
stopped again and began walking along the concession hall toward the 
other side of the stadium. She had the same look of dissatisfied 
boredom as the majority of her coworkers.
  When she neared the side of the stadium where the VIP seating was, 
she produced a set of jangling keys and opened a metal door next to a 
Humongous Dog stand. She entered the utility room with her broom 
and dustpan, letting the door close behind her.
  When she exited a few minutes later, she was no longer wearing the 
blue jumpsuit. Instead she was sporting the black and white uniform 
of the VIP servers. She was carrying a circular, cellophane covered 
aluminum tray weighted with canapés, and she was chewing some 
gum. She headed up the stairs toward the VIP area. Her expression 
had changed to a bright and cheerful one. She blew bubbles with her 
gum and popped them while she climbed the stairs. She eventually 
emerged on the VIP floor.
  She turned to the right and walked down the hall, then entered the 
kitchen area. There was one other employee there, a man. He was 
loosening a bag of ice. He looked directly at the woman with the 
ponytail as she entered the room. His shift had started a couple of 
hours before, and everyone else was out serving at the moment. It 
was odd she would come in with her own tray of food, instead of 
taking one from the cooler. She blew a bubble and popped it loudly, 
setting down the appetizers.
  "Hey," he said.
  "Hey," she said, and commenced filling four medium cups with pop 
from the dispenser. She hadn't looked in his direction.
  "You must be new," he said. "My name's Jeb."
  She stopped chewing her gum.
  "Nice to meet you Jeb. I'm Deb," she said, then recommenced 
chewing.
  Jeb chuckled, and the woman briefly smiled at the coincidental 
rhyme. Jeb continued speaking to the pretty woman named Deb, 
hoping he might say something to gain her interest.
  "The ice machine's broke again. You're gonna have to use this 
instead," he said, indicating the ice he was now spilling from the bag 
into the receptacle on the counter, which was close to where the 
woman was placing lids on the filled drink cups.
  "That's okay, these are all no-ice," she said, still not looking at him. 
Even from the side, Jeb could see how big her lips were. He didn't 
care much for big lips, but they didn't take away from the rest of her 
attractive features. He was hoping she would at least glance at him. 
He figured being helpful might turn her head.
  "Do you need any help? Where's this one going? We haven't had a 
ring in ten minutes."
  "No," she said. "This is Steinberg's in eleven. It's a special order from 
earlier they want delivered now."
  Jeb was disappointed, but no problem. She'd be back after she took 
those in. Seemed like a strange time to start her shift. She must have 
been running late. He tried one more time to help her.
  "Are you sure I can't help? I'm not doing anything right now," he 
said. Then he was shocked by his good fortune when she answered 
him, though all he saw was her nice backside as she left the kitchen.
  "I'm sure, gorgeous. Thanks for offering. I'll be back in a few, so 
don't go away," she said with a sexy smile in her voice.
  Jeb didn't go away, of course. Unfortunately, much to his 
disappointment, the sexy woman with the light blonde ponytail and 
nice posterior, whose name just happened to rhyme with his, 
well...she never did make it back to the kitchen, or even return to 
work at all. The rest of Jeb's evening was interesting nevertheless. 
Grant Lawrence, senior vice president of the world's largest software 
distribution company, chose Jeb's shift to die of a heart attack in VIP 
room number five. Friends, family and a business associate 
surrounded Lawrence in panic as he pumped his final pints of blood.
  Later that night in the wee hours, the stadium custodian who 
handled first floor garbage was emptying the cans and never saw the 
VIP server uniform in the middle of one of the large black refuse bags. 
He did scrape a pink wad of gum off the floor nearby, however.


Chapter 2

  Melvin C. Hughes was an Alpha Geek. Long a label of ridicule in 
decades past, the title now carried a prestige unattainable by no-neck 
jocks and designer debutantes. These days, a person who displayed 
exceptional prowess with computer technologies was respected and 
revered. Melvin was no genius, he just had a knack for networks and 
programming.
  Melvin was a nice looking, average sized young man in his late 
twenties, with just enough quirk to his features to keep him from 
becoming vain. His forehead was a normal one as foreheads go, but 
his inclination to gel his brown hair and raise the front bangs high on 
his head made his forehead seem tall. He had mischievous green eyes 
and a goofy smile. When he smiled, his lips looked like the opposite of 
almost everyone else's; the bottom lip ran straight across, and the top 
lip curved like a rainbow. It wasn't unattractive, but it was unique and 
drew attention away from the rest of his other, more pleasant facial 
features.
  Like most Alpha Geeks, Melvin had his clan of computer cronies who 
also possessed similar talents to some degree. It was more a coterie 
of supercilious matrons than a manly group at times, especially when 
they sat around mocking SuperMegaByte. SuperMegaByte was the 
world's most successful software company, thanks to creating one of 
the world's worst, though most ubiquitous, operating systems. 
SuperMegaByte just happened to have its home office in none other 
than Melvin's hometown: Wormwood, Ohio.
  Melvin and his friends all sang the praises of the Best OS. Best was 
the name of an operating system that had been created by a 
European university student as a class project. It was then made 
available free to anyone who wanted to download it from the Internet. 
This one act finally set the open source movement in serious motion.  
Open source simply meant a program's source code was available for 
anyone to use  and alter for free. The concept was a bit too radical for 
greedy entrepreneurs, but for people like Melvin, it was a philosophy 
of life.
  And so, because SuperMegaByte was the world's quintessential 
business model, yet ironically made its fortune with an inferior 
product, it was just too sweet a morsel for sarcastic computer gurus to 
pass up.
  "SuperMega Bites."
  "Everyone knows the MegaByte blows."
  "Best kicks MegaBooFoo's ass."
  "Help! I'm the CEO of MegaSuck and my dog ate our latest build." 
  "Planet Earth. I am SuperMegaByte, Lord Rama of the digital realm. I 
will now impregnate you with my bug-ridden code." 
  Such were the imaginative quips of this group of adolescent twenty-
somethings.
  Melvin and his friends also lived for LAN parties. Sometimes they 
played RTS games, but mostly FPS games. That was how Melvin and 
two others had met. They used to frequent the Internet café near 
campus and often joined in the after hours LAN parties hosted there. 
Most of those parties continued until the light of the next day. While 
other college students were blowing off steam with alcohol, drugs and 
videotaped sexual antics, Melvin and company were shooting each 
other to virtual bloody pieces. All this digital destruction raged amid 
shouting, laughing, liberal cussing, gallons of pop and boxes of pizza. 
Unfortunately, the Internet café went out of business before they 
graduated, so they started having their parties at Dot's place. Over 
time, many of the original members abandoned the clan for other 
activities. Melvin, Dot and Steve were all that remained from the 
college days.
  It was at one such raucous party, about five years after graduation, 
that Melvin met Mallory.
  Dot (his real name was Zack Dotson) was the best FPS gamer in the 
group, so it only made sense that he host the parties and ply everyone 
with free food and drink for the joy of blowing them all to smithereens 
on a regular basis. Though truth be told, Dot's place was actually his 
older brother Mack's house, and Mack was the one who paid for all the 
consumables. Dot was a couple inches shorter than Melvin and skinny, 
with messy, sandy blonde hair and a blotchy face from his battles with 
acne. His eyes were lightish blue and projected an unimpressed 
disposition. That was on a good day, which most of the LAN parties 
produced; the rest of the time Dot was incorrigibly sardonic. The rest 
of the clan had learned to ignore his caustic commentary.
  "C-man, where's that cool mouse?" Dot asked Melvin. Melvin was 
never called Melvin by his friends. To them he was known exclusively 
as C-man, after his middle name. Melvin avoided his first name like a 
dirty diaper.
  "Batteries are dead. It wasn't working right anyway," Melvin said.
  People were still showing up and Melvin was helping Dot by 
arranging tables, chairs and electrical power strips. LAN parties 
required many power strips. Dot was also setting up the router. He 
had talked his older brother into going in with him on the most 
expensive 16-port router available. Dot refused to let anyone touch it, 
even his own brother, who had contributed half the cost.
  One by one, all of the gamers arrived, their gaming computers in 
tow. Most of them owned multiple computers, but a couple guys 
owned only one. These unfortunate souls were constantly razzed for 
having to install dual boot programs, instead of just using one box for 
the SuperMegaByte OS, which was unfortunately the only operating 
system all the games worked on. Dual booting enabled them to use 
SuperMegaByte for gaming, and Best for everything else. More than 
once they had been accused of having malodorous computing devices 
due to Best having to rub partitions with SuperMegaByte on the same 
hard drive platters. 
  The last gamer to show up, named Press (his first name was 
Preston), was dropped off by his sister Mallory. His hair was longer 
than his sister's, and its stringy strands fell anywhere they wished, 
surrounding a pale face that carried piercings in several places. Press 
was the youngest in the clan at twenty-one, and had just recently 
joined within the past few months. Playing chauffeur to her slacker 
brother was not one of Mallory's favorite pastimes, but after Press 
totaled his car, she had been saddled with providing constant rides to 
and from Electron Empire, Guitars Plus and Computer Dudes. On this 
particular night, she had informed him that this was really the last 
ride, she was sick of it. She had been planning only to drop him off, 
but then decided to help him bring his computer equipment into Dot's 
basement, since this was his last ride.
  And then she saw Melvin.
  It was love at first sight for Mallory Lennis.
  "Thanks. I'll give you a call if I can't get a ride home," Press said to 
his uncharacteristically silent sister. She just smiled and stood near the 
stairs. This went on for a minute or two, while Press finished setting 
up his rig. He then noticed that she hadn't moved from her spot.
  "I'm cool. Thanks again. See ya," Press said, sitting down and 
fiddling with his mouse while his computer booted. Mallory started to 
turn to go up the stairs, but then she paused. Press was watching her 
now, puzzled by her behavior.
  "What are you waiting for?" Press asked.
  Dot was checking the game server, but also paying attention to Press 
and Mallory, and he took exception to Press's question. After all, this 
girl was easy on the eyes.
  "Dude, what's with the rude?" he asked. Then Dot turned to Mallory. 
"Don't listen to him. Did you want something, like a Valley Juice or a 
beer?"
  Mallory smiled.
  "Sure, a Juice sounds good, thanks. Do you mind if I stay and watch 
for a while? I've been kind of curious about what these parties are 
like," she said.
  Dot's reply of "Sure, make yourself at home" was drowned out by 
Press.
  "Since when?" Press blurted.
  "Since now, Goofus," she replied. Press gave in with a sigh.
  "Okay everyone. This is my sister Mallory, who's never played a 
computer game in her life, except maybe Solitaire," Press announced 
sarcastically.
  Thus marked the beginning of Mallory's first LAN party, and her 
devotion to Melvin, also known as C-man.

  It was two in the morning, and the war was still waging. It was a 
battle of epic proportion. No life spared, no mercy displayed and no 
pizza uneaten.
  Mallory had only stayed to find out more about Melvin, but much to 
her surprise, the LAN party was actually fun. The gamers were all 
sitting around a large rectangular table that was made of four smaller 
ones pushed together. During the first couple of hours, Mallory made 
several laps around the table, moving her chair every five minutes or 
so to watch over the shoulders of the cyber-soldiers. She didn't want 
to appear obvious, so she continued her movement around the table 
here and there during the night, though she spent most of the latter 
part of the party near Melvin.
  She pretended to watch his performance, but she had things on her 
mind other than video games. He was nothing like Press's flaky 
musician friends. She gazed at his hair; nice and thick, it would be 
perfect for running her fingers through. She thought his gelled 
forehead-fountain was cute. Mallory concluded his taste in clothes was 
the best in the room, and she enjoyed his clean, deodorant-soap 
smell. She loved his light green eyes and funny looking smile. He had 
a strong looking frame underneath his clothes. During the evening her 
mind occasionally floated to sexual thoughts, as she pondered what 
kind of lover he might be.
  The other gamers were all interesting in their own ways. One was a 
girl. Her name was Wendy, but her clan name was LoRD_Breeze. She 
was very pretty, which surprised Mallory. Like most people, Mallory 
assumed only homely girls would be into something as geeky as a LAN 
party. Wendy's button nose and porcelain clear blue eyes were her 
most striking features, and a very nice body, in Mallory's opinion. The 
only outward sign Wendy might be Alpha Geek material was her 
wristband: it had an embroidered joystick and the message U R Toast. 
Wendy was the second youngest in the bunch at twenty-two, and she 
was dating Steve, also known as LoRD_Rama. Steve was the founder 
of the clan and both he and Wendy worked at Computer Dudes, where 
Melvin also worked. She figured the next time she took her brother to 
Computer Dudes, she'd come in and say hi to Melvin, instead of going 
to the mall and shopping. The prospect of "accidentally" running into 
Melvin had magically eliminated her aversion to carting her brother 
around.
  Half of the clan was around Melvin's age, and he was twenty-eight. 
Four years wasn't much of a stretch, and Mallory liked older guys 
anyway. Dot's brother Mack was the oldest person there. He was 
thirty-two, but looked more like forty-something. Mallory wondered 
what had aged him so fast. He was big-boned, and it looked like two 
Dots could make one Mack. He had a great sense of ribald humor; his 
clan name was LoRD_BenDover. He was also one of the dual-booters, 
and was never allowed to forget it. Mallory wondered if he truly 
minded being teased so much, but he seemed to laugh it off well, 
even if he was offended.
  Mack was the only person in the clan whose computer skills were 
noticeably less than stellar. He was also the only one with a non-
computer-related job: he was a plumber. All the other members of the 
group, except Mack's brother Dot (LoRD_Frag), were working for 
minimum wage at electronics stores, and they were quite proud of it. 
Dot worked at a software development company called Wormwood 
DevCore, but he goofed around too much and was never considered 
for promotions.
  There was one other gamer there, named Jason. Mallory already 
knew Jason because he worked with Press at Electron Empire. Jason 
was fond of illegal drugs. He was laid back and got along with 
everybody, even Dot. He had homemade tattoos all over his arms and 
his clan name was LoRD_420.
  Mallory didn't care much for cussing, and that night she was treated 
to an endless barrage of expletives strung together in imaginative 
ways. Melvin did his fair share but somehow he had a way of making 
it seem funny. During one of the fifteen-minute cease-fires, Melvin 
tried to explain what was going on, and Mallory thought she 
understood most of it. All the other gamers busied themselves with 
scoffing down junk food and discussing key moments of the games so 
far, while Melvin spoke to Mallory.
  "Instead of killing each other, tonight we're battling another clan, 
called Fraggers Unlimited. We all connect to our game server through 
the hub, and the server is connected to the Internet. Dot's hosting the 
game, so the other clan is connected to us over the net. Anyway, we 
play hundred-frag limits on each game, and the clan that first 
collectively reaches the frag limit wins that game. We usually play all 
night, and the clan with the most games won at the end of the night is 
the overall winner."
  "What's a frag?" Mallory asked.
  "It's a kill. When a player kills someone, it's called a frag," Melvin 
answered.
  "The name of the game you're playing is Boom?"
  "Yep. Boom 4, actually. It's the latest shooter game from The Coding 
Gods."
  "Why is the LoRD thing in front of all your player names?"
  "That's called a tag. It's how players identify their clan to other clans. 
It's usually an acronym. That's why ours is LoRD, because we're the 
Lords of Relentless Destruction. The other guys have the FU tag. 
They're Fraggers Unlimited."
  Mallory glanced again at Melvin's screen.
  "So why are you LoRD_C-man? What does C-man stand for?"
  "C-man is my name."
  Mallory had heard the other players use the moniker during the 
evening, but figured it was because of the game that everyone called 
him C-man. Her brother had mentioned a C-man several times before, 
and talked to him on his cell, but it wasn't until tonight that she had a 
reason to care.
  "No, I mean in real life," she said.
  "That is my real name," Melvin said.
  Mallory tilted her head a little and looked at him with a quizzical 
expression. Melvin decided to share his not-so-secret secret. He 
figured what the heck, Press's sister was cute. He leaned in and 
whispered in her ear.
  "My real name is Melvin, but everyone calls me C-man."
  Mallory smiled, cheek to cheek with Melvin, then whispered back.
  "Okay C-man, but I like Melvin better."
  Melvin backed away and smiled his goofy smile, and Mallory forgot 
all about wanting to learn what C-man actually stood for.


Chapter 3

  The Lords of Relentless Destruction lost the war, which ended 
around ten in the morning. Melvin brought his computer home and 
stumbled into bed. He later woke up, booted his computer and pulled 
up the game recordings from the night before. He wanted to see if he 
could learn from the mistakes his clan had made, but mostly he just 
enjoyed watching replays of his best frags of the night.
  He was into his second hour of watching game playbacks when he 
received an IM from Press over the Internet. LoRD_Fret was Press's 
clan name because he played guitar in a band.

LoRD_Fret: you there?

LoRD_C-man: ya

LoRD_Fret: sup?

LoRD_C-man: watchin us get r azz reamed, u?

LoRD_Fret: lol
LoRD_Fret: nm ... dude i need a favor

LoRD_C-man: ?

LoRD_Fret: i found this hot site, but i can't dl the pics
LoRD_Fret: the ahole running it put a burn on the 404 page

LoRD_C-man: wut wuz it?

LoRD_Fret: called me a dumbass

LoRD_C-man: really

LoRD_Fret: pissed me off, lol
LoRD_Fret: the wank thinks he's the IQ shit

LoRD_C-man: wutz the addy?

LoRD_Fret: 2bit.com

LoRD_C-man: k brb

LoRD_Fret: k


  A few minutes passed while Melvin looked the site up and verified 
that yes, the site had hot pictures. The webmaster had indeed decided 
to make downloading difficult by forcing the surfer to download each 
picture individually, as well as not allowing the surfer to save the 
picture to his or her own hard drive. And as Press had said, if a surfer 
tried to circumnavigate the restriction by keying in a picture's page 
manually within the address bar of the browser, the surfer was instead 
sent to a 404 page calling the surfer a "Fucking Dumbass."


LoRD_C-man: i c wut u mean

LoRD_Fret: so wup

LoRD_C-man: u want the pics?

LoRD_Fret: yep ... but can u hose the dude 2?

LoRD_C-man: can do

LoRD_Fret: cool

LoRD_C-man: D2tE

LoRD_Fret: D2tE


  "D2tE" was their clan's own special acronym. It stood for Death to 
the Enemy.

  Melvin didn't take long to figure out the webmaster's protection 
scheme, use an automated downloader to grab the entire site's picture 
content and burn a CD of all the pictures for Press. To add injury to 
insult, he also uploaded all the pictures to several newsgroups. By 
doing so, Melvin made a mockery of the webmaster's attempts to 
protect his content, and simultaneously made the content available 
free to anyone for download and trade. Melvin also created a false e-
mail account to send the hapless webmaster an obnoxious e-mail 
message, a typical example of hacker hubris in a digital pissing 
contest. Humiliation was the sword of the realm.

To: a-fresh@2bit.com
From: 1029384756@megasuck.com
Re: your 404 page calling visitors dumbasses

Dear a[nus]-fresh,

  I see you've brilliantly managed to baffle a handful of 
backwoods jackoff artists with your cheesy JavaScript 
lockdowns on the picture display window. I'll bet you're 
arrogant enough to believe none of us wretched Internet porn 
idiots are sufficiently enlightened to be aware of basic 
browser commands such as:
javascript:void(document.nameYourFuckingDumbassLockdown=null
)
or the ever astounding F11 key.
  Perhaps I may easily identify your "hidden" query page as 
showpicture.html. And...oh my, perish the thought...some of us 
unwashed morons out here might know how to reveal source in 
permission-only 2bit.css and super-duper-secret 
showpicture.js. If you wanted to make this at least a 
*little* more challenging, you might have considered PHP...I'm 
sorry, is writing original code outside your scope, Genius? 
Or is it that you just couldn't find any appropriate source 
to plagiarize from the net?
  That's right, scurry off now and try to "show that bitch" 
who's The Man by studying your activity and packet logs in 
earnest. I would enjoy knowing you wasted additional time 
devoting yourself to a pathetic attempt at defending your 
"honor." As if I'd gift you my real IP. Your precious cargo 
has now been distributed freely against your will. I hope 
those lawyers of yours who will "prosecute to the full 
extent of the law" are good at chasing ghosts.
  Congratulations on showing the world in no uncertain terms 
that it is indeed *you* who is the Fucking Dumbass. I 
wouldn't have bothered cracking your script if you would 
have had the common courtesy to respect your visitors. And 
don't think I won't return (with some friends) to your 
domain if you decide to up the insult ante. Do all the 
security prep you want; the Feds love wasting time on the 
government dime. If I do come back, all I can say is you 
better have copies of everything on some other disk, because 
all that'll be left of your site will be a collection of 
negatively charged particles on the platters.

love,
the invisible man

  The next day, Melvin met Press at Burger Queen to give him the CD 
of pictures from the site, and a copy of the e-mail he had sent to the 
webmaster of 2bit.com. Press had a good laugh, then abruptly 
changed the subject.
  "I think my sister likes you," Press said.
  "Where'd that come from?" Melvin asked.
  "I'm serious, C-man. I think Mallory has the hots for you, dude."
  Melvin didn't respond for a few beats. He grabbed a bundle of french 
fries, put them in his mouth all at once and was still chewing them 
when he asked Press his next question.
  "What's up with that?"
  "Dude, didn't you notice how she spent most of her time with you 
Saturday night? And she's been asking me all these freakin' questions 
about you ever since yesterday. Like she's never heard me mention 
you before like a zillion freakin' times," Press said, shaking his head. 
He pulled his long hair back into a ponytail and fastened it.
  Melvin swallowed the last of the fries in his mouth.
  "What kind of questions?" Melvin asked.
  "Obvious shit like 'Does he have a girlfriend?' and 'What kinds of girls 
does he like?' You know, shit like that."
  "She told you she likes me?"
  "Well, no. She hasn't come right out and said it. But you know how 
chicks are, dude. They beat around the bush unless it's a bunch of 'em 
together talkin' about some guy's package or something."
  Melvin took a drink and swallowed.
  "This is kinda random. I mean, she's cute, but she's your sister," 
Melvin said.
  "Well yeah. Think how I feel. She's weirdin' me out," Press said.
  Neither of them said anything for a few beats.
  "So you gonna ask her out or what?" Press asked.


Chapter 4

  Steve opened the store as usual at nine-thirty in the morning, as he 
was the senior supervisor. This didn't net him much more pay than the 
clerks, but he enjoyed lording it over his coworkers. "Senior 
supervisor" was the table-scrap dividend bestowed on whomever had 
been around the longest at the small business sweatshop known as 
Computer Dudes.
  Melvin showed up at ten, right behind Wendy. The day would have 
been a typical Monday, with not many customers until after three in 
the afternoon. On this Monday, however, Mallory came in with her 
brother Press.
  Press liked to hang out and converse with his fellow clan members 
on the days he wasn't working at Electron Empire. Electron Empire 
was larger, more successful and part of a national chain. It also had a 
huge computer book section and stocked every computer accessory 
imaginable. The one thing Electron Empire lacked was the coolness 
factor. No matter what the Electron Empire chain tried to attain it, 
they would never achieve Computer Dudes chic.
  That was the advantage and allure of underdog computer stores, 
and why all true Alpha Geeks made them their homes away from 
home. Melvin had a lot of respect for several of his customers. One 
guy named Diego had a really disfigured face, but he was some kind 
of super-genius. Steve said Diego had created his own Best OS 
Werewolf cluster. Sixty-four computers running in parallel. Amazing. 
  Mallory dispensed with appearing ambivalent. She walked right up to 
Melvin while he was working behind the glass counter. He was 
entering some kind of data into the store's computer with one index 
finger, while his other hand held up a succession of old CD-ROM 
drives. She stifled a giggle when she saw his name tag, which of 
course read "C-man."
  "Hi C-man," she said from her side of the counter. Melvin stopped 
typing and looked past the monitor to Mallory's smiling face.
  "Hey," he said.
  "How's it going?" Mallory asked, but she was drowned out by a high 
decibel Press.
  "Dude! Did you hear who died yesterday?"
  Steve and Wendy, who had of course also heard Press, walked over 
to the counter.
  "Who?" Melvin asked. Mallory was wearing a nonplussed expression 
because her brother had the irritating habit of interrupting all the time.
  "You're not gonna believe this," Press said. He waited until everyone 
was obviously ready for the answer.
  "Grant Lawrence!" Press announced with volume.
  Everyone was silent. Then the appropriately reverent responses 
came.
  "No freakin' way!"
  "Are you serious?"
  "Come on, quit screwin' around."
  Mallory, like most people, had no idea who Grant Lawrence was. 
Although she didn't comprehend the gravity of the event, she was the 
only one who thought to ask the next logical question.
  "How did he die?"
  "Heart attack. At a baseball game. I saw it on the game channel right 
before we came here. I still can't believe it, you guys," Press said.
  The reason Melvin and his friends were so shocked and upset by the 
death of Grant Lawrence was because of Grant's position in the 
computer world. He was far too young to die of a heart attack for one 
thing, but the most shocking aspect of his death was the massive 
vacancy it created in vocal support for the Best OS. Lawrence was the 
most outspoken proponent of Best in probably the entire world. In his 
high-level position at the software distribution company Powerhouse, 
he called shots in the computer world that were enabling Best to 
slowly creep up on SuperMegaByte.
  This made Lawrence a hero to those who longed for SuperMegaByte 
to bow to the superiority of Best.
  Now Grant Lawrence had been instantly transformed into the Patron 
Saint of Best.
  Steve's expression was reminiscent of someone who had just 
witnessed his life's work burn to the ground. Wrinkles appeared on his 
shaved head. He looked at his girlfriend Wendy. His response was a 
precise reflection of the clan's sentiments:
  "Now what are we gonna do?"
  The mood was markedly sullen, and Mallory was angry with her 
brother for being the bearer of bad tidings. She didn't know how long 
it would take to get Melvin back into a good enough mood to ask her 
out. She decided to try.
  "So when's the next LAN party?" she asked with enthusiasm and a 
big smile. Press erased her smile.
  "Mal, what the hell? This is serious shit," he said with blatant 
annoyance.
  Melvin laughed.
  "Dude, why are you so rude to your sister?" he asked, looking at 
Mallory and shaking his head for her benefit.
  "She's clueless C-man, what can I tell ya," Press said.
  Everyone stood silently without moving much, until the pause grew 
awkward. Steve decided to change the tone, despite his own 
depressing thoughts.
  "Press, check this out," Steve said, walking back to where he had 
been when Press and Mallory first showed up. Press and Wendy 
followed Steve, and just like magic, Mallory was back in position to 
start working her own magic. At least that was her intention.
  "I'm sorry about the Lawrence guy," Mallory said.
  "That's cool, I know you're not into this stuff," Melvin said, smiling.
  Mallory paused, then made her first pitch.
  "So what do you do for fun besides LAN parties?" she asked.
  "I don't know. Hang out. Movies. Nothing much."
  "Yeah, same here. I haven't been to the movies in a while though, 
unfortunately," she said.
  "That sucks," Melvin said. He had no follow-up, and he completely 
ignored the ball.
  Strike one.
  "I've been wanting to see that new Chad Twit movie," she said.
  "Chad Twit? I can't stand that guy."
  Strike two.
  "I like action and sci-fi movies too. I don't always watch dramas," 
she said.
  "Nothing looks good to me now anyway," he said. "All the movies 
suck right now."
  Strike three.
  Mallory stood silent. She turned to see where her brother was. With 
disappointment, she considered throwing in the towel. She figured 
Melvin must not be interested. As she turned back to say "See you 
later," Melvin spoke first.
  "Wanna get something to eat when I get off work?"
  Mallory smiled. And she got to pick the restaurant.

  They had dinner at Scarlet Sparrow. For Mallory, it was a perfect 
night and a wonderful first date. Melvin wasn't as tall as the men she 
usually dated, and he wasn't as handsome as some of them, but she 
was still drawn to him somehow. He wore his hair exactly as he had at 
the LAN party, with the front bangs gelled up high. That, plus his 
goofy smile, gave her butterflies in a way the "hotter" guys didn't. He 
wasn't lacking self-confidence, he just wasn't very slick.
  His non-macho demeanor was appealing. He seemed more 
comfortable with himself than the guys who worked out and played 
the tough protector role. She didn't need protection, she wanted 
someone fun to spend time with. He seemed truly interested in her, 
and the conversation between them reflected that. Most guys either 
pretended to listen to you while they stole looks at other girls, or they 
couldn't stop talking about their own supposedly attractive traits. The 
funny thing was, Mallory never could figure out why so many girls still 
preferred those kinds of guys. She had become bored with them.
  Mallory had steered the conversation to Melvin's clan.
  "So how long have Wendy and Steve been going out?" she asked.
  "For a while. They started dating soon after she got the job at 
Computer Dudes, and that was about a year ago," Melvin said.
  "Hmm. I wonder why she chose him instead of you," she said, 
teasing him.
  "She likes guys who shave their heads, I guess," he said.
  "They seem like they get along pretty well."
  "Yeah, most of the time. She can be a little flirty sometimes, and he 
gets jealous."
  "Really? I didn't get that when I was at the party."
  "Give it time," he said. "Steve's a nice guy but he gets a little tense 
about Wendy now and then."
  "She's a lot younger than him though, isn't she?"
  "Not too much. He's twenty-seven I think, but she's twenty-two. 
That's not too big of a difference."
  "Oh!" she said. "I thought she was eighteen or something."
  Melvin laughed.
  "Don't tell her that," he said.
  "Speaking of ages, I don't mean to be rude, but what's up with 
Mack? Press said he's only thirty-two. I would have guessed a lot 
older."
  "What you should be asking is why Dot looks like a teenager when 
he's the same age as Steve."
  "What? No way! Dot's twenty-seven? Wow!" she said. Neither spoke 
for a few beats, then Mallory rephrased her question.
  "I wonder why there's such an obvious difference in how Dot and 
Mack are aging."
  "Well," Melvin said, "there's probably a lot of reasons, but the main 
one I think is that Mack shoulders a lot of responsibility, and Dot 
avoids it like the plague. Mack's married and has five kids. That'll age 
you right there," he said with a snicker.
  "Five kids?! Wow!" Mallory exclaimed. "I don't remember any kids at 
the party."
  "Mack keeps them out during our parties. His wife Kathryn takes 
them with her to her sister's house. We tried having LAN parties with 
the kids there in the beginning, but Mack was getting pissed every five 
minutes, so that changed pretty quick."
  "I guess that sort of explains it then," she said.
  "Well, another thing is I think Mack's lived a tougher life than Dot. I 
guess their dad didn't make as much money when Mack was a kid, but 
did later after Mack moved out. Mack jokes around that Dot's a spoiled 
brat, but sometimes it seems like he's leaking some true feelings when 
he says it."
  Mallory didn't respond and Melvin continued.
  "Mack's also more aggressive than Dot. He's protected Dot a few 
times that I know of, when Dot shot his mouth off at the wrong guy."
  "I really like your friends, C-man," Mallory said.
  "Thanks," he said.
  The server brought their food. They both took bites of their gourmet 
burgers.
  "Awesome!" he said, before he finished chewing.
  "Didn't I tell you? I love this restaurant," she said, taking another 
bite.
  At the end of the date, Melvin was a gentleman and only kissed her 
goodnight.
  That went on for about three weeks, until he accepted her invitation 
to come over and watch television.
  The next morning, neither of them could have told you what they 
had watched the night before.


Chapter 5

  It didn't take Mallory long to insinuate herself into Melvin's life. He 
had a lot of free time he had been devoting to video games and 
television. Now his nights were spent either with Mallory or talking to 
her on the phone while he played video games.
  Mallory was a pretty girl. She had long, straight dark hair she wore 
just past her shoulders. She usually brushed it straight back and left 
the bangs forward, but sometimes she liked zigzag parting it instead. 
Her facial features were angular with soft corners, and her teeth were 
perfectly straight and white. This was to her advantage when she 
smiled, so she smiled a lot. Her lips were plump and curvy, a feature 
Melvin had appreciated from the night he first saw her. Her 
complexion was without blemish and a shade darker than pale. Her 
eyes were her most noticeable aspect, being larger than average and 
deep brown. They projected a sincerity that was difficult to contrive.
  Mallory worked at the Heavy Horse bakery. Melvin had mentioned he 
liked chocolate chip cookies, so at the end of the day she'd always 
make sure there were some left for him. It was against policy, but 
employees at Heavy Horse were not known for following company 
rules. Mr. Squellumbetto, the store's general manager, was a 
hyperactive gerbil of a man who sped around the store like he had an 
overwhelming urge to urinate. As long as he didn't catch you idle 
when he flashed by, you were usually safe. He tended to favor the 
female employees, especially the younger, cuter ones. Therefore, 
Mallory got away with a little more than most other people did.
  One night when Mallory accompanied Melvin to Dot's basement for 
yet another orgy of Boom 4 and unhealthy food, there was an 
exceptionally long break between games.
  The conversation once again turned to mocking SuperMegaByte. 
Mallory didn't have the background to do anything more than chime in 
with the same comments as everyone else. One thing she never could 
understand, though, was why these mostly talented people were 
ecstatic to purposely shun any sort of personal success. It was 
irksome and somewhat disappointing that Melvin didn't seem to have 
any ambition at all. He had a great degree of talent, but Mallory felt it 
was going to waste for no good reason. So she decided to join the 
ridicule session with her own perspective. The result was not what she 
had hoped.
  "I know SuperMegaByte sucks and everything, but I bet any one of 
you could get a job with them and make a lot of money," Mallory said.
  There were several shades of pale on faces around the room, and 
Mack choked on his own cigarette smoke. Even he knew what Mallory 
had said was taboo, though he certainly wasn't as into computers as 
his younger brother. Melvin was visibly embarrassed, and he spoke 
first.
  "Mal, that's not the point. It's not about money. The reason we hate 
SuperMegaByte is because it goes against what we believe in."
  "I hate to sound stupid, but just what is it you believe in?" she 
asked.
  "Well, for one thing, practically the whole world is forced to use an 
inferior operating system just because the head of the company is a 
shrewd businessman," Melvin said.
  "I got that, but why do you all have to accept less than what you're 
capable of just to spite a company that isn't affected by your actions 
at all?"
  It was one thing to make an unsympathetic observation, but it was 
entirely another thing to insinuate these proud geeks were making 
fools of themselves. The room filled with less than friendly comments. 
Melvin got up and headed for the stairs.
  "Mal, could you come upstairs with me a second?" he asked. Mallory 
followed him up and Melvin stopped when they were in the kitchen.
  "What's up?" Mallory asked.
  "I'll tell you what's up. You're making me look bad in front of my 
friends," Melvin said.
  "What are you talking about? How does me giving my opinion make 
you look bad?"
  "Well, for one thing, you just insulted everyone downstairs, except 
maybe Mack."
  "I just don't understand why they're so dead set on sacrificing 
themselves for a computer thing," she said.
  "Well there's part of the problem right there, Mallory. Sacrificing 
what? What you call a 'computer thing' is very important to all of us. 
Just because you aren't into it doesn't mean it's not important," Melvin 
said, a shade louder than before. Mallory noticed the increase in 
volume and didn't like it. She had heard clan members refer to 
Melvin's temper now and then, but this was her first encounter with it.
  "The world doesn't revolve around computers, you know," she said.
  Melvin didn't reply for a moment. His face turned a little red.
  "So what does it revolve around? Cakes and cookies?" he asked 
sharply.
  "Hey. I make almost twice what you make, so don't go there, 
Melvin."
  Their voices were rising, and now the whole clan was standing 
around the bottom of the basement stairs, listening. A couple of them 
climbed up a few stairs to better hear the argument. When they heard 
Mallory call him Melvin, they knew it was going to get ugly.
  "So that's what this is about? You'd rather be with a guy who makes 
more money?" Melvin asked.
  "Oh, that's brilliant. I just don't understand why you're happy making 
peanuts. I don't have to be into computers to know you're really good 
at them," she said.
  "That's my decision, not yours. I have my reasons. I don't need you 
to tell me what I should do."
  Mallory was getting a red face herself, and she decided to up the 
ante, as well as the volume.
  "So, Melvin...what are you going to do? Retire from Computer 
Dudes? Really, that's just brilliant!" she said, almost yelling her 
sarcasm.
  "Where do you get off with this shit!? Why do you care where I 
retire? You act like we're gonna still be together when we're old!" he 
yelled.
  "Why not!? I'd love to spend the rest of my life with someone who's 
afraid to realize his potential!" she yelled back.
  Melvin's reply had much less volume, but a touch of cruelty.
  "You know what? This is bullshit. If that's the way you really feel, 
then why don't you just go home. I can catch a ride with someone 
else."
  "Fine. I will then," she said, not moving. Melvin and Mallory stared at 
each other, and everyone listening downstairs held their breath, in 
order to hear better.
  "What are you waiting for, Christmas?" he asked.
  Mallory was going to say something but stopped. They were looking 
each other in the eyes, and hers suddenly got bigger. Her face 
became more red, but not from anger. Melvin saw her eyes glisten. 
She finally looked away and walked quietly past him out of the 
kitchen, heading for the front door.
  When Melvin heard the door close, he felt horrible. For a second he 
thought about going after her, but decided not to. Dot and Press came 
upstairs.
  "Dude, what's the deal?" Dot asked.
  Melvin was still facing where Mallory had been standing, and he was 
staring straight ahead.
  "She left," Melvin said.
  "Was she crying?" Press asked. Melvin wasn't sure if Press was going 
to get mad, but he answered anyway.
  "Yeah...I think she was when she left," Melvin said.
  Press shook his head.
  "She takes stuff too seriously sometimes. She can be a little intense," 
Press said.
  "I feel like an asshole now," Melvin said.
  "Nah," Press said, smiling. "Just give her a call tomorrow. She only 
got upset because she really likes you."
  "C-man the heartbreaker," Dot said, mocking him. Melvin finally 
smiled.
  "Break's over. I'm kicking your ass," Melvin said.
  "You and what army?" Dot asked.


Chapter 6

  Just like Press suggested, Melvin called Mallory the next day.
  "Hello?"
  "Hi. It's me, C-man."
  "Hey," she said, with no enthusiasm whatsoever.
  Some silence.
  "I'm really sorry about last night, Mallory."
  "Why'd you yell at me?" she asked.
  "I was just mad. I'm sorry. I felt like you were judging me."
  "I don't like being yelled at," she said.
  "I know. I'm sorry. Really. Seriously, I am."
  More silence.
  "Mal, what can I do to make it up to you?" he asked.
  "I don't know," she said, a little less stiff.
  "Come on, really. I'm serious. What can I do to make up for it?" 
Melvin asked again.
  Small pause.
  "Weeeeeell...there might be something you can do," she said, 
injecting some girlish charm into her voice.
  "What's that?" he asked.
  "You won't do it. That's okay, never mind," she said.
  "No, come on. Tell me, I'll do it."
  "Okay, but do you promise?" she asked.
  "Yes."
  "For real?"
  "Yes, for real. What is it?"
  "SuperMegaByte has a job fair downtown at the end of the month," 
she said.
  "Yeah, so?" he asked, uneasy about what she would say next.
  "I'd like you to go and at least try to get an interview," she said.
  Silence.


Chapter 7

  Melvin drove through a whirlwind of leaves as he entered the parking 
lot for Building H in the gargantuan business complex that was 
SuperMegaByte. It was late autumn, and fallen leaves of the uniformly 
planted deciduous trees were swirling and flapping in a chaotic flock of 
lemon yellow, amber and burgundy. Melvin would have been 
awestruck if his perception of the world at the moment hadn't been 
soured by the humiliating prospect of asking SuperMegaByte for a job.
  He pulled into a spot and got out of his car. He noticed a couple of 
other guys in business attire walking toward the building's entrance. 
Above it was a large white banner proclaiming in bold red letters Job 
Fair 8am to 8pm. Make a difference at SuperMegaByte!
  "This sucks," Melvin muttered as he walked toward the entrance 
doors. He was wearing worn sneakers, a pair of jeans with holes in 
them and a black T-shirt that said Best Rules The World. He knew it 
was inappropriate clothing for a job interview, but he couldn't care 
less. He had no intention of working for SuperMegaByte, and Mallory 
didn't have to know how he had sabotaged her request. All that 
mattered was that he showed up and "tried." That should be enough 
to make Mallory stop harping.
  He stopped at the bottom of the entrance steps and pulled out his 
cell phone. He had come up with an idea that would make this wasted 
time at least a little fun. He called Dot. Dot was at work, where he 
loved to be interrupted.
  "Wormwood DevCore, Zack Dotson."
  "Dude, you'll never guess in a million years where I am right now," 
Melvin said.
  "Probably not," Dot said. Melvin knew Dot would rather talk on the 
phone than work, so he wasn't put off by Dot's distinctive preoccupied 
tone.
  "I'm standing on the steps of a building at SuperMegaByte."
  "That's nice."
  "I'm here to get a job," Melvin said, trying not to laugh.
  "Yeah, get me one too," Dot said.
  "No, I'm serious," Melvin said.
  "Me too, I'm thinking of burning this stack of crap on my desk, so I'll 
need a new place to hang out anyway."
  "No, really. They've got a job fair here today, and I'm going in."
  There was the expected pause from Dot, and Melvin covered the 
phone and laughed. A potential interviewee walked by Melvin and 
rolled his eyes when he saw Melvin's T-shirt. Melvin finally got himself 
under control as Dot answered.
  "What are you on, dude?"
  "Okay, check this out," Melvin said, fleshing out the details to his 
scam as he spoke.
  "Mallory wanted me to go to this thing, and at first I was like, no 
way. But I just came up with a sweet plan."
  "I'm listening," Dot said, his preoccupied tone fading into potential 
interest.
  "Okay...here's the deal. I'm going to go in here and give you the play 
by play, so you can share in the funky experience that is 
SuperMegaByte, complete with mindless clones and hopeful dork 
wannabes. But..." Melvin said, then lowered his voice, "if I actually get 
a job, I can use the opportunity to hose 'em!"
  "And how you gonna do that?"
  "Well, I could do some net cracking and find out stuff, whatever, I 
don't know. The whole idea, though, is I could somehow gather 
information that we could give to some Best gurus. Basically give 
SuperMegaByte a dose of its own thieving medicine."
  Melvin waited, then Dot finally answered.
  "Dude, that shit is crazy enough to work," he said. "Are you seriously 
doing this or just screwing around?"
  "Serious as a drive crash, Fragman," Melvin said.
  "Well get to it then," Dot said, sitting back in his chair and pushing 
himself away from his desk and the overdue work waiting there. Dot's 
blotchy face was edging at a smile, which was indeed a rare 
expression for him.
  Melvin walked up the steps, pulled the large, polished brass handle 
on one of the glass doors and went in. The air somehow smelled 
cleaner inside the building than outside. He walked to the receptionist 
and asked for directions. She pointed down the hall to the right. As 
Melvin got closer to the open door of the indicated room, he noticed 
the room was huge. And full of people.
  "Dude, you should see this. I can't believe how many losers want to 
work for MegaSuck."
  "Talk to me, C-man."
  Melvin was inside the room now, sizing up its contents.
  "This place is humongous. You could land a freakin' jumbo jet in 
here. Dude, I can't even see the other side," Melvin said with a 
chuckle. Then he continued.
  "There's a bunch of tables set up and people are filling out apps on 
one side, then they're getting interviewed on the other. Whoa!" He 
stopped his play by play and looked around in earnest.
  "Yeah? What? What's up? You still there? What are you doing?" Dot 
asked.
  Melvin brought the cell phone back up to his ear.
  "You're not going to believe this," he said.
  "What?"
  "Every single, and I mean every single interviewer is a hottie. They're 
all like models, man."
  "Come on," Dot said.
  "No, for real. They're all either like really beautiful, or they've got 
boobs to the elbows."
  Dot laughed.
  "You should get your lazy ass down here. Plenty to go around," 
Melvin said, smiling like a kid with a bag full of Halloween candy.
  "I bet they hired them just to sucker people into that cheese hole," 
Dot said, his eyes in a faraway gaze, trying to imagine what the girls 
might look like.
  "Okay, enough of that. I'm getting an app. Damn. The interview lines 
are long, dude. You should see some of these guys applying," Melvin 
chuckled. "They look like they're right out of the nerd brigade. Hey, let 
me call you back, I'm gonna fill this out and stuff."
  Melvin hung up and sat down to fill out his application. It wasn't 
extensive, just a typical two-sided application with a place for work 
experience and personal references on the back. The section where 
you listed your achievements was fun, because he was proud of his 
accomplishments. When he finished, he got in the interview line and 
waited.
  And waited. Melvin called Dot back and talked for a while, but Dot 
hung up abruptly with a whispered expletive when he saw his boss 
walking toward his cubicle. The clock went from one thirty to three 
before Melvin got his turn. The interviewer motioned for him to 
approach. She smiled when Melvin reached the table. 
  "Hi, my name is Shayna," she said, extending her hand to shake his. 
Melvin introduced himself and sat down when she did.
  "Let's have a look at your application," she said, and Melvin handed it 
to her across the table. While she quickly read through it, Melvin gave 
her the once-over. She was as gorgeous as the rest of the 
interviewers, maybe more. He didn't have time to burn a hole into her, 
though, because she suddenly looked up and smiled.
  "Nice shirt, Melvin," she said.
  This caught Melvin by surprise.
  "Thanks," was all he could think to say.
  "So why do you want to work for SuperMegaByte?"
  This also caught him off guard, because up until that moment he had 
only been thinking about how funny it would be when he told his 
friends about how his plan to destroy SuperMegaByte was thwarted.
  "It's a great company," he said, looking her in the eyes only for a 
second.
  "I agree, but something tells me you don't really think so," she said.
  Melvin suddenly felt self-conscious about making a mockery of her 
efforts. He wasn't sure what to say next. She spoke instead.
  "Melvin, we get a lot of negative publicity from the geek crowd, 
there's no way around it. A lot of talented people think Best is better 
than us. But look at it this way. If those same people would come on 
board with us, just think how much better SuperMegaByte would be."
  Melvin remained silent and avoided her direct gaze. The last thing he 
had expected to encounter was in-your-face honesty from these 
people. Shayna continued.
  "I see you've got some impressive knowledge. Seven programming 
languages. Extensive networking experience. Multiple academic 
awards." Her eyebrows arched as she finished reading the app. "I 
don't mean to be disrespectful, but why are you only working at 
Computer Dudes? You could make a lot more money here and get 
better benefits, the whole deal."
  Flattery from a beautiful woman was not something Melvin was used 
to, so her words disarmed him.
  "Well...I guess I never thought about leaving Computer Dudes. It's a 
fun place and I really like the people I work with," he said.
  "If you never thought about leaving them, why are you here now?"
  "Looking for something better?" he offered.
  Shayna chuckled.
  "Let's change gears for a second," she said with her magazine smile. 
"What kind of work are you looking for?"
  "Hmm..." Melvin said, causing her to look at him strangely. She 
chuckled again. Melvin finally relaxed and started enjoying himself.
  "What about web design? Of all the previous jobs I had before 
Computer Dudes, that one sucked the least," he said.
  "I have to say Melvin, I don't believe I've ever interviewed anyone 
quite like you."
  Melvin smiled also, confident he had sufficiently subverted his 
chances of working for MegaBlow.
  "Can you come in for a second interview this Thursday?" she asked.


Chapter 8

  Melvin was hired by SuperMegaByte at his third interview. He now 
earned over three times as much as he had at Computer Dudes. It 
was almost too good to believe at times, because as a web designer, 
he felt like all he did every day was have fun. He worked long hours 
sometimes, but they were filled with things he liked to do, so the time 
passed quickly. SuperMegaByte made extensive demands on its 
employees, but it also compensated them in uncommon ways beyond 
the financial. For example, most programmers had walled offices with 
a door instead of the anorexic cubes that employers typically loved to 
squash together. SuperMegaByte's code crunchers also had permission 
to bring in any furniture they wished for their offices. The logic was 
simple: since the employees often had to work into the night, it was to 
everyone's advantage to make them as comfortable as possible.
  Melvin personalized his office with a small couch, portable television, 
CD player, mini-fridge and microwave.
  It was about four months after he was hired, and Melvin was at 
Mack's house, hanging out with Dot and Press down in the basement 
family room where they did all their gaming. Mallory was at work, so 
Melvin was having a blast figuring out how he and the clan would 
sabotage SuperMegaByte. He had made it clear to the guys that she 
could never know his real intentions, because she thought he was 
seriously working there for her. They all played along when she was 
around.
  When she wasn't around, they cackled like scheming crones as they 
devised the ultimate coup de grace: stealing whatever innovations 
SuperMegaByte had, if any at all, and then anonymously uploading 
them to a high profile Best development group.
  What Melvin's friends didn't know was that he grew fonder of 
working there each day. It was something he would never be able to 
tell them, and now he was confused because his loyalties were being 
clouded by the success he used to scoff at. He was earning almost as 
much as Dot and Mack put together, and up to this point they had 
been the highest paid members of the clan. He had never thought 
money made any difference at all, but having it was quite different 
than not. Mallory had been right all along. It was hard enough to 
admit to himself, and there was no way he could ever admit it to his 
friends.
  Dot had a pertinent question.
  "C-man, when are we going to start cracking? I told you I had every 
night free this week, and so far we haven't done squat."
  Press chimed in.
  "Yeah dude, when are we gonna burn 'em? You've been there like 
forever now."
  Melvin wondered how he was going to push it off this time. When 
their confabs got to this point, the fun started to dissipate for him.
  "Well, I still don't have a server list, so we're going to have to wait a 
little longer," Melvin said.
  Dot looked at Melvin with a hard gaze.
  "What's the hold-up? You're not being suckered by all those 
MegaBlow bucks, are you?"
  Press looked at Dot, then at Melvin with the same skeptical 
expression. Melvin felt uncomfortable and hid behind humor.
  "Yeah, and I killed Grant Lawrence. That's why they hired me," 
Melvin said.
  Dot and Press both smirked, but Melvin wondered how long he 
would be able to keep up the masquerade. The truth was he hadn't 
even tried poking around the network yet.
  "Look, you've got to get going on this," Dot said. "Otherwise, what's 
the point of working there? Don't be a traitor, dude."
  "Up yours. I'll try to get a server list before the end of the week," 
Melvin said.
  And so he did.


Chapter 9

  SuperMegaByte had many reputations: a den of thieves, a collection 
of incompetents, a greedy monopoly. They were most commonly 
thought of as ruthless salespeople. Only a company of exceptionally 
smooth talkers could sway the world into using something as glaringly 
inferior as the SuperMegaByte operating system.
  Within the walls of SuperMegaByte, however, the ethos was 
markedly different. They saw themselves as brilliant innovators, and 
champions of the computer world. There was truth in both 
assessments, good and bad. Melvin was not just another unimportant 
sprocket in the machine, he was a valued member of an accomplished 
team. He hadn't been with the company very long, but they made him 
feel at home, and he could see that most of the people he worked 
with had a decent degree of talent. Though he did work long hours 
sometimes, he was proud of his contributions. His vision of all the 
employees at SuperMegaByte being mindless, moronic clones was 
changing. These were people just like him. Doing a job, and in most 
cases doing it well.
  One fellow who did his job extraordinarily well was Ira Griffith. Ira 
wasn't a part of Melvin's web group, he was manager of a different 
area. Ira was the one who would stand in the way as the Lords of 
Relentless Destruction attempted to bring SuperMegaByte to its knees. 
And Ira would stand strong.
  Melvin had heard Ira's name around the office and at lunch a few 
times. He was a living legend at SuperMegaByte, and that was 
probably why he was in charge of Network Security. Unlike most 
bureaucratic managers, he was still very hands-on. He fought in the 
trenches, side by side with his lowest minions. The Network Security 
gang had many different jobs, but only one goal: to keep the bad guys 
out.
  That included Melvin.
  The first time Melvin tried to access SuperMegaByte secure nodes, he 
was amused by how easily he was able to enter. He had obtained a 
server list from the receptionist at Network Security, because she was 
too busy talking on the phone and hadn't noticed him sneak into an 
employee's empty cubicle. It was just dumb luck that the first cube he 
tried happened to have the information he sought.
  After trying a few simple network commands, he decided to try one 
of Dot's special network exploits. Dot was a lazy goof at his job, but 
he was a gifted programmer. He was better than anyone in the clan, 
including Melvin and Steve, and Steve was no slouch with the C 
language. Melvin plugged his USB drive into his work computer and 
ran a program designed to check for specific port vulnerabilities on the 
network. The program was running fine, then suddenly crashed.
  Melvin opened up the text file that contained a dump of all the data 
gathered, and scrolled to the last line. His eyes almost popped out 
when he read it.

  Melvin C Hughes, you have been bitch slapped. Iggy no like 
crackerz.

  Melvin sat back in his chair and thought, while staring at the line. 
There was no way Dot's program would print a message like that 
unless it had tried to access a computer that was running its own 
program that recognized his. That wasn't possible because Dot had 
written the program himself. In addition to that, the other program 
had to have a way of masking text as port and IP data, which is the 
only way Dot's program would have printed out a custom message. Or 
perhaps there was a TSR program running on his own computer that 
waited for specific activities to trigger such a custom message. Either 
way, the result was no small accomplishment.
  The bad news was his node's IP address had probably been logged. 
The only way his name could be printed out is if the other program 
could access a database that contained a list of employees and their 
assigned computers. There was now a record somewhere in Network 
Security of Dot's inquisitive program, and that someone had executed 
it on the computer in Melvin's office, or at least spoofed his IP.
  One thing was certain: Melvin could no longer risk trying any exploits 
from his office computer. Which meant he had to try and figure out if 
the SuperMegaByte network had any insecure nodes connected to the 
Internet, or if they had some dinosaur dial-up somewhere on the 
network that no one remembered or properly protected.
  Melvin rebooted, despite company policy against rebooting. He took 
out the USB drive and left his office in a hurry, making sure no one 
saw him. He also tried to think of an alibi, in case anyone asked where 
he had been during the exploit.

  Melvin sat at his computer desk at home and stared at the server 
and firewall list he had gotten at work. He kept thinking about the 
message that Dot's program had spit out. The best he could come up 
with was that Iggy was a phonetic version of the letters I and G, 
which were Griffith's initials. Any person who could write an obviating 
program like that was indeed worthy of legend status. Melvin realized 
the person who stood in the way of his clan's master plan was 
probably smarter than anyone in the clan.
  But, as Melvin's pride and testosterone kicked in, he told himself Ira 
Griffith could not be better than everyone in Melvin's clan, if they all 
worked together.


Chapter 10

  "It's about damn time," Dot said, spying the list of computer nodes in 
Melvin's hands from across the table. All seven of the schemers were 
seated around the gaming table in Mack's basement. They had been 
waiting for a night when Mallory would be out with her girlfriends.
  This was that night.
  "I brought copies for everyone," Melvin said, passing them out. The 
list was several stapled pages and was a real gold mine for those with 
deleterious intent. Everyone took one. Even Mack, who had no idea 
what he was looking at. Wendy whistled and Jason said, "Shazam!"
  "This rocks!" Steve said, looking over the list. "Dude, you've got like 
everything in here." He paused on one of the pages. "Wow! You've 
even got a flow chart of their entire network architecture! Woohoo!"
  "Yep, it's all there," Melvin said, beaming in his regenerated 
spotlight. He had been highly fortunate to find such an exhaustive list, 
which should never have been just sitting on top of the absent 
employee's desk. But that was Ira's problem, not Melvin's.
  Ira was to be the first order of business.
  "The cheese I told you guys about, Ira, is going to be our biggest 
problem," Melvin said.
  "Yeah...he sounds real to me," Steve said.
  "I'll make him eat my shorts," Dot said with contempt in his voice 
that made a couple of clan members roll their eyes. Melvin snickered, 
then continued.
 "The guy might be management, but he's no pointy-haired boss. I 
have no idea how he managed to return that message to Dot's port 
pinger, but if that's any indication of his brainwidth, we're going to 
have to get serious."
  "You think he's really that good?" Press asked.
  "Well, I hear he's a troglodyte, for one thing. He just about lives in 
the Data Center," Melvin said.
  "So basically the dude's a propeller head," Steve said.
  "Did Dr. Propeller Head design this architecture?" asked Dot.
  "I don't know, but judging by the armor-plated smell I'm getting 
from people at work, I'd say yes," Melvin said.
  "So where do we start footprinting?" Wendy asked.
  "I'm thinking once we decide on one route in, and two or three 
alternates, then we can think about the equipment itself and how to 
crack each box. Also, I should probably start poking around and find 
out if any of this stuff is dusty with a dialup. One thing's for sure...if 
this guy's as intense as he sounds, we're going to need more than just 
a pathway in. We're also going to need some real-life distractions. And 
I'm not just talking about smurfing. I mean we need phone calls, fire 
alarms, exotic dancers, whatever."
  This brought renewed interest from Mack, who hadn't been quite 
following what was being said. Then everyone turned and looked at 
Wendy.
  "Uh...did I miss something?" she asked.
  "How'd you like to visit the Data Center?" Melvin asked with a smile.
  "I don't know. What's this Ira guy look like?"
  "Middle-aged übergeek with a long gray ponytail. He's a toothpick 
even though I hear he eats Chinese food by the truckload. Wears 
nothing but black, except for a beat-up pair of tree hugger sandals 
with cartoon socks. His glasses look like magnifying lenses."
  "Sexy," Wendy said.
  Steve frowned, even though he knew she was joking.
  "I'm not talking about anything scandalous," Melvin said. "Just some 
sort of diversion that will keep him from the screens for about ten 
minutes. We can figure out that part later. So do you think you'd be 
up for it?"
  "Sounds like fun," Wendy said.
  "You might have to wear some makeup for a change," Dot said. 
Steve sighed and looked at Wendy, knowing what would happen next.
  "Hey, eat flaming death, you pathetic tape monkey," Wendy said.
  "Suck my OC-12 and like it," Dot said as he stood and motioned with 
both hands as though he were hefting a huge pipe in her direction.
  "Come on you guys, chill. Let's get to work on this," Melvin said.
  And so they did.


Chapter 11

  It wasn't even Melvin's birthday.
  "What did you do?" Melvin asked. It was Sunday. He had woken up 
to Mallory grinning, and a neatly wrapped present on the covers over 
his chest.
  "I think that's sort of obvious," she said, her grin growing into a 
smile. Melvin sat up and lifted the present off his lap. It was probably 
a shirt. She liked to buy him clothes occasionally, for no reason he 
could figure out, other than his ability to make her toes curl. She 
normally didn't use gift-wrap, so this must be different. As he smiled 
and unwrapped the present, he also thought that the box didn't feel 
like a shirt box, though the size was about right.
  It was a video card for his computer. And not just any video card. It 
was the top of the line, and one he had been drooling over lately. It 
cost over six hundred dollars. He frowned. Mallory stopped smiling.
  "What's wrong?" she asked.
  "This is too much Mal, I can't take this," he said.
  "What are you talking about? Isn't that the one you wanted?" she 
asked.
  "Yes, it is. But it's so expensive. It's not even my birthday or 
Christmas," he said, staring at the box. He really wanted it, but 
something felt out of balance. He cared for Mallory, but this was just 
one more uncomfortable reminder that she cared a lot more for him.
  "Can't a person do something nice for the person they love?" she 
asked.
  Melvin hesitated. He looked in her eyes.
  Why did she have to say that? he thought.
  Mallory could tell in an instant that she shouldn't have said it. She 
looked away toward the television. It was playing the cartoon channel 
with the sound muted. Melvin sat quietly, feeling her embarrassment, 
though she said nothing.
  "I'm sorry, I just..." Melvin began.
  "That's okay, you don't have to say anything," Mallory said, cutting 
him off. She turned back around with a half-hearted smile and gave 
him a kiss.
  "It's just hard for me to say. I'm sorry," he said.
  "So do you like it?" she asked, looking at the box.
  "Yes, it's awesome. I just don't feel right..." Melvin said. Mallory cut 
him off again.
  "Don't worry about it. I would have gotten it for you at Christmas 
anyways, so don't feel bad. And as far as what I said...don't worry 
about saying it back. Just know that I do," she said as she gave him 
another kiss, this time on the cheek.

  "She bought you a DeForce 7000?!" Dot said with volume, his voice 
almost cracking.
  "Yeah. It's sweet, man," Melvin said. Melvin and Dot were at Burger 
Queen, waiting for Press and Steve to show up. Wendy and Jason 
were working, and Mack was only into gaming, so he never came to 
meetings unless they were at his own place.
  "Dude, you're the one makin' all the cash. You could buy your own, 
and your girlfriend does instead? Is there anything else I should 
know? Did you win the freakin' lottery last night too?" Dot asked, 
visibly irritated.
  "It sucks to be me," Melvin said, smiling.
  "I'll still make you my cyber-bitch," Dot said with scorn, referring to 
his video gaming talents.
  "That's true, but at least I'll be blown up in ten G texels," Melvin 
retorted, pouring additional lemon juice into Dot's jealous wound. The 
graphics card in Dot's gaming computer was also powerful, but the fill 
rates were nowhere near the specs for the new DeForce card.
  Dot changed the subject to avoid making a scene.
  "So I was thinking about where we should place the sniffers," Dot 
said, pulling out his rolled-up copy of the server list and hitting the top 
of the table with it.
  "Cool. I've got some ideas too, plus I actually found a dial-up in their 
mix," Melvin said.
  "Get the feep out of here!" Dot said.
  "Oh yeah...It's connected via their building's engineering structure. 
They've got an HVAC system that enters the cloud here," Melvin said, 
opening up to the flow chart and pointing at a server near the edge of 
the page.
  "Sweet," Dot said.
  "That's the only one I know of. There's probably more, but it doesn't 
matter. We only need the one to get the sniffers loaded," Melvin said.
  At that point, Steve and Press showed up. Press had come with 
Steve, because he was still without a car.
  "What took you dorkwads so long?" Dot asked. "We're starving."
  Steve and Press sat down in the booth and Steve spoke up.
  "Amp down, Killer. Mallory was grilling Press about what we were 
doing. I'm surprised we even got out of there when we did."
  "Seriously?" Dot asked, then turned to Melvin. "Dude, what's up with 
your girlfriend?"
  "She gets a little possessive sometimes," Melvin said.
  "She needs to chill or take a hike," Dot said. "Who cares if she knows 
what we're doing anyway?"
  "Dot, I told you a million times. She thinks I got that job to make her 
happy, and if she knew what we were doing, she'd crap a purple 
brick," Melvin said.
  "I'm just getting sick of her ass making things difficult," Dot said.
  "What does my sister have to do with any of this? Shut up already," 
Press said.
  No one said anything, and Dot stared at Press. In Dot's opinion, 
Press was a little too new to the clan to be taking rude liberties.
  "As I was saying..." Melvin intoned with exaggerated patience, "we've 
got a dial-up, so this should be a little easier than we were thinking. 
It's on an HVAC field controller, so now I've just got to get my hands 
on some documentation for the system they're using. It's Handover 
Controls. I'll try and find a manual this week. And the best part..." 
Melvin paused for effect. After everyone was staring at him, he 
finished.
  "...The best part is it's a live, unused RJ-11 socket!"
  "Sweet," said Steve and Press, almost in unison. Locating an active 
but vacant telephone jack on an insecure node was like striking gold 
for network crackers.
  "Now I just have to figure out what software the building engineers 
use to dial into it. I know where the chief engineer keeps his disks and 
manuals, so I'll check down in the boiler room when no one is 
around," Melvin said.
  Dot got up without a word and went to order his dinner. He was still 
pouting from the previous verbal exchange.
  "I guess it's time to eat," Melvin said.

  Two hours later, they completed their plans to assault Mt. MegaSuck.

  Two days later, when Melvin acquired the documentation and dialing 
software they needed to crack into the serendipitous HVAC dial-up 
connection, they had the last required element, thus completing their 
footprinting.

  Two weeks later, the fateful event took place. Dot took a sick day 
from DevCore, and Wendy had the day off from Computer Dudes. It 
was exactly 11:11 a.m. on a Monday when the first key was stroked. 
Dot had a fetish for that time of day and insisted he begin his part at 
that time.


Chapter 12

  It was 11:15 a.m. and Melvin waited in his SuperMegaByte office 
with Wendy. He had his cell phone's wireless headset on and was 
listening while Dot typed away on his laptop at the other end of the 
line. Dot was at a luxury apartment complex in the east end of town, 
using the cable modem connection in the cabana's small courtesy 
office for tenants. The cabana was never locked. It was one of the 
clan's favorite places from which to crack.
  Dot was connected to a web site that converted his already spoofed 
digital identity to an anonymous one. He was checking the online 
status of the three hundred or so zombie boxes that he, Melvin, Steve 
and Press had set up over the past two weeks. Things were going 
well.
  "Yes! Sixty percent connected and rising. Prepare for jacking, 
MegaDorks," Dot announced over the cell.
  "Seventy!" he exclaimed. About thirty seconds went by and Dot 
yelled.
  "YES! Topped at seventy-three percent! Over two hundred zombies. 
Eat it!"
  Melvin winced at the volume and was about to relay the information 
to Wendy, but when he looked at her he could tell she had heard Dot 
yell the results. Wendy's smile was a little hesitant. Melvin kept 
listening to Dot but turned most of his attention to Wendy.
  "Are you okay?" he asked.
  "Yeah. Just a little nervous," Wendy said. She shifted in her chair and 
looked around the office.
  "Are you still up for this? You can bow out if you want to, it's cool," 
Melvin said.
  Dot's loud and anxious voice blared through the headset, making 
Melvin wince again and preempting Wendy's response.
  "What? What the? What are you doing? She's not quitting, is she? 
Son of a...I knew she was a mistake, I knew..." Dot said before he was 
cut off by Wendy. Instead of raising her voice, she leaned near 
Melvin's microphone.
  "I'm not quitting anything, so shut up, Dot."
  There was silence as none of the three said anything. Melvin and 
Wendy almost giggled as they both imagined Dot's acne-scarred face 
growing beet red.
  "Are you still there?" Melvin asked Dot.
  "Yeah..." Dot said in his most unimpressed tone ever.
  "Okay, come on. When do we go to the Data Center?" Melvin asked.
  "Like now, Mr. Tuber Head," Dot replied.

  Melvin stopped before they rounded the corner that led to the entry 
ramp of the Data Center.
  "Are you ready?" he asked.
  "As ready as I'm gonna get," Wendy said.
  "Okay. Who are you?" Melvin asked.
  Wendy rolled her eyes.
  "I'm your friend Wendy," she answered.
  "Why are you here?"
  "To take a tour of the Data Center."
  "Why?"
  "To play hide the salami with Ira."
  Melvin frowned in irritation.
  "Okay, okay. I'm here for a tour because I'm studying networks at 
school, and I need to see a good example of one," she said, adjusting 
her overly tight pants.
  "And?"
  "And my teacher said that the Ira Griffith model was like an ANSI 
standard for networks."
  "Yes! Excellent. Perfect. Okay, you ready to go in?" Melvin asked her 
one more time.
  "Yep. Let's do it."
  They rounded the corner and stopped in front of the receptionist's 
desk. Melvin had already set up the tour with Ira the week before. The 
receptionist had them sign their names in a logbook, gave them both 
temporary ID badges to clip to their shirts and hit the button that 
opened the automatic door to the Data Center with a loud buzz. The 
door was large, white and metal, with a small, square, wire mesh 
window at peephole height. Melvin and Wendy walked up the ramp 
and into the temperature and humidity controlled environment. It was 
a bit on the chilly side. The only décor anywhere was white on white, 
with the exception of some inner office windows and the computer 
equipment itself. Even the employees wore white lab coats.
  All except for Ira, who walked up to them in his cyber-ninja black. 
The dramatic contrast reminded Melvin of Dot. The same Dot who 
would bust a vessel if the Data Center was too shielded from their cell 
phones, and had no repeater in it. Melvin hoped for the best; he 
hadn't been able to confirm cell phone use in the Data Center 
beforehand.
  "Melvin and Wendy?" Ira asked.
  "Yep, that's us," Melvin said.
  "Great. Have either of you ever been in a Data Center before?" Ira 
asked.
  "I have, but not this one," Melvin said.
  "No," Wendy lied.
  "Okay, well follow me, and I'll give you the ten cent tour," Ira said, 
walking off to the right.
  They walked toward an area with cubicles. As they passed it, Ira 
spoke.
  "This is where the staff hangs out when they're not breaking my 
equipment," Ira said. Melvin noticed none of the nearby employees 
even smiled at Ira's joke.
  "Over here is the tape library," Ira said, as they moved toward an 
open door with its own smaller ramp. Melvin took the opportunity to 
play dumb.
  "Why are there ramps into here and the Data Center itself?" Melvin 
asked. They arrived in the tape library and Ira turned and answered.
  "We elevate the floor to accommodate the cabling, and also to keep 
air flowing throughout the entire Data Center. It's not the most 
efficient cooling method in the world, but the suits upstairs don't take 
to new ideas very well."
  Wendy wondered why Melvin would ask a question he already knew 
the answer to, and she looked at her friend with a quizzical 
expression. Melvin smiled and looked up at the ceiling for a moment. 
Then he winked at Wendy when Ira turned away again.
  "This is where we store all the tapes before they're moved offsite. 
Looks like an easy job, but we have one person every shift whose 
entire duty is handling all the backups, as well as filing and shipping 
these dinosaurs," Ira said.
  "I know a tape monkey named Zack," Wendy said, hoping the 
microphone on Melvin's headset would catch her comment. Dot was 
supposed to be waiting for Melvin's signal to begin the smurf attack on 
SuperMegaByte servers.
  Ira turned and snickered, looking at Wendy.
  "I'm guessing he didn't choose that moniker himself," Ira said.
  "You guess right," Melvin said, and threw a sidelong glance at 
Wendy. The last thing they needed right now was Dot blowing a 
gasket. Dot hadn't done the tape archiving job in a long time, but he 
still took a lot of guff about it.
  "On with the show," Ira said, walking between Melvin and Wendy 
and back out the door they had come in. Melvin and Wendy followed 
him through a short hallway that opened up into a huge area with 
numerous columns of metal shelving. They were facing the ends of 
the server racks, and Melvin was impressed by how far back the rack 
shelving went.
  "These are the data servers for almost all our operations. Most of our 
departments' servers are located in these racks here," Ira said, 
indicating the racks on the left side and center.
  "These are also department servers, but there's some security and 
miscellaneous stuff on this side. UPS's, some routers, etcetera," he 
said, waving his hand toward the right side of the room.
  It struck Melvin how truly massive the collection of servers was. On 
paper it hadn't seemed quite as impressive. In person it felt as though 
he were standing in a cold metal library of countless books. Instead of 
books, the rows and columns of rack-mounted computers filled every 
available space on the seven-foot-high shelves. At first he thought the 
air conditioning was making the white noise. Now he realized it was all 
the cooling fans running in the computer equipment.
  "Is this where you do the security?" Wendy asked, jarring Melvin 
from his awe. Melvin looked at Wendy, wishing she hadn't tried to 
move things along. They didn't want to make Ira suspicious.
  "Nope. That would be this way," Ira said, apparently not fazed at all 
by her question.
  I'm just being paranoid, Melvin thought.
  They followed Ira into a sizable room in the back that was visible 
through a large, thick-paned glass window that had wire mesh in it. 
The glass was about the size of a patio door, but raised a foot off the 
ground. Before they went into the door that was positioned just to the 
right of the window, Melvin could see all the Twisco network 
equipment inside, as well as the monitors for the controlling nodes. 
There were easily millions of dollars of equipment in that one room 
alone. Melvin suddenly got a twinge of how potentially dangerous 
what they were doing truly was.
  Once inside the room, Melvin gave Wendy the hand signal they had 
agreed on, so she would be ready to answer her cell phone. It had a 
high quality camera they intended to record Ira's keystrokes with at 
just the right moment. The video was theoretically going to stream 
over the Internet into Dot's laptop. Dot was running illegal software 
that enabled him to place free and anonymous VoIP calls. Melvin and 
Dot had decided on live streaming video because they didn't think 
Wendy's cell had enough memory to record the activity directly to it. 
They were concerned about how long it might take to get Ira's 
keystrokes once the recording started.
  Wendy felt in her jacket pocket for the phone. Using just her left 
hand, she opened it and tried positioning it in her jacket sleeve. It felt 
good so she slid it back down into her palm and closed it. Melvin 
meanwhile had pressed the 3 key on his cell phone, where Dot was on 
the other side and waiting. Dot already had movie-creating software 
running. Once he heard the tone from Melvin's 3 key, Dot dialed 
Wendy's phone from his laptop.
  Wendy felt her phone vibrate and opened it in her pocket. Keeping it 
in her pocket, she opened it and started the streaming video. Melvin 
waited for Dot's acknowledgement in his headset.
  And waited.
  Suddenly he heard Dot cuss.
  "Dude, tell her to get the stupid phone out of her pocket," Dot said.
  Melvin looked over at Wendy while Ira droned on about his brilliant 
network setup. She felt Melvin looking and casually glanced his way. 
Melvin furrowed his brow and made a motion with his head toward her 
pocket.
  "Is something wrong?" Ira asked, startling both Melvin and Wendy.
  "No," Melvin said, relieved when Wendy understood his movement 
and finally removed her hand from her pocket. Her cell phone was 
positioned in her sleeve near the inside of her wrist, with the camera 
eye pointing out. Melvin heard Dot's reaction a moment later.
  "YES!" he yelled in Melvin's ear. "I've got video, ladies and 
dickweeds." The Data Center was a noisy place, so Ira couldn't hear 
the exclamation.
  Dot clicked the Record button.
  Now was the tricky part.
  "Crap!" Melvin said, causing Ira and Wendy to look directly at him.
  "I've got to take a call, I'm going to have to go." Melvin turned to 
Wendy. "You don't have to go. At least I don't think so..." Melvin said, 
looking at Ira.
  "No, it's fine. I'm sure she can find her way back out," Ira said with a 
smirk.
  "Cool, see ya later," Melvin said to Wendy, then he turned and 
walked quickly back the way they had come. Melvin looked around 
and made sure no one could hear him, then he spoke to Dot.
  "Dude, how's it looking?"
  "Perfectamundo, bubba. I wish I had her freakin' cell. What a cam. I 
don't know why Steve spoils her stupid ass," Dot said, then Melvin cut 
him off.
  "Cool. So you can start anytime," he said as he stepped out of the 
Data Center, onto the outer ramp. He had just dropped off his visitor 
badge with the receptionist and rounded the corner to the elevator, 
when he heard Dot's response.
  "All your base are belong to us," Dot said with a cackle. The bad 
grammar was a deliberate reference to a poorly translated foreign 
video game that somehow had made the Gamer Hall of Fame. Dot 
was fond of quoting from it.
  Melvin's elevator finally opened on the lower level, where the 
building engineers plied their trade and read X-rated magazines. It 
was now nearing noon and they should all be out of the "dungeon," as 
they referred to it. Just as Melvin arrived at the unguarded field 
controller, he heard Dot articulate a customized version of another 
classic phrase.
  "Things are going to start happening to Meg...a...Suck...NOW," Dot 
said, pressing his Enter key.
  Right at that moment, 224 zombie computers started flooding the 
first pre-selected SuperMegaByte server with an overwhelming 
number of packets.
  "See you in Hell," Dot said, then took a solid swig of the two-liter 
Valley Juice he had next to his laptop.
  Back in the Data Center, things got interesting.
  Wendy noticed a sudden beeping sound coming from in the room 
somewhere, and Ira stopped talking mid-sentence. About fifteen 
seconds passed, and Ira seemed impatient as he looked around in 
several directions. He then faced a white lab coated employee who 
was walking briskly toward them.
  "What's the problem?" Ira asked the employee, who looked surprised 
to be asked that question. Surely Ira recognized the breach alarm, the 
employee thought.
  "We're being attacked," the employee said.
  "Oh. That's why the security breach alarm is sounding," Ira said with 
an acrid inflection.
  The employee stood blank faced.
  "What's the target?" Ira asked.
  "I don't know," the employee said.
  "What do you mean you don't know?" Ira asked, agitated.
  "It keeps changing," the employee said, knowing from experience it 
was better to give Ira short, quick answers.
  "What? How many boxes are affected? One, two, three? Come on," 
Ira said, sharply. "Just check the watcher and disconnect the boxes 
under attack until we can reconfigure the NATs."
  "I can't," the employee said, visibly anxious.
  "What do you mean you can't? You don't know how? Christ, then get 
Eightball or someone to help you," Ira barked.
  "I know how, it's just that..."
  "Just that what??" Ira asked, cutting him off. The beeping seemed to 
get louder as the silence grew between them. The hesitant employee 
finally answered.
  "As soon as it started, the attackers moved from box to box 
randomly. It's like they already know our setup, because they're 
randomly hopping instead of going through the chain. The firewall isn't 
stopping them and all the boxes are locking up with BSoD's," the 
employee said, steeling himself for Ira's impending explosion. Ira did 
not find amusement in the Blue Screen of Death.
  Wendy was watching all this, barely able to keep from smiling. If 
there was one thing Melvin and Dot were good at, it was network 
attacks. Ira didn't say a word, but Wendy could see him stiffening. 
Then he abruptly turned away from the employee and marched off in 
another direction. The employee went back where he came from, and 
Wendy followed Ira. It could be the moment they all were waiting for.
  It was. Ira and Wendy arrived at a monitor, and Ira moved his hands 
toward the keyboard. Wendy moved her hand with the cell phone 
tucked in the sleeve and hoped she was properly aiming it. She was 
fairly certain she was pointing the cam directly toward the keyboard, 
but slightly peeking it out of her sleeve by her wrist prevented 
adequate visual verification.
  Back at the cabana office, Dot was leaning into his laptop screen.
  "Come on...come on..." he said, watching Ira's hands pausing above 
the keyboard.
  Back in the Data Center, Ira turned to Wendy.
  "Do me a favor and turn your head for a second, will you? I've got to 
log in," he said.
  "Sure, sorry," Wendy said. She turned her head and hoped for the 
best.
  Back in the cabana office, Dot panicked as the camera's view started 
to shift from the keyboard.
  "Shit!" he yelled.
  But he had yelled too soon. Just before the camera view shifted 
completely off the keyboard, it managed to catch Ira's last password 
keystroke and his pressing of the Enter key.
  Back in the dungeon, Melvin had the palm device hooked into the 
field controller via the RJ-11 jack, and was waiting.
  "Dude, hurry up! They're going to be back from lunch any minute," 
Melvin said to Dot.
  Dot was replaying the captured video over and over again, trying to 
discern Ira's password. He smiled when he realized what the entire 
password was.
  "Okay, are you ready for this? Propeller Head is a gamer. He's a 
Boom fan, dude. The password is port666killer," Dot said with pride in 
his voice. "We may be hosing him, but at least the dork's got taste."
  "Got it," Melvin said. He typed the password into his palm device and 
tried logging in.
  It worked.
  "Whattaya got?" Dot asked.
  "I'm in," Melvin said. "What's left that hasn't been zapped?"
  "Okay, you've got plenty left. Try anything in dot three after one 
hundred, and everything in dot four. On second thought, stay in dot 
four, I don't know how long you're gonna take," Dot said, then burped 
for emphasis.
  "Yeah, yeah," Melvin said, annoyed by Dot's little dig. He changed 
permissions on the pre-selected boxes and began uploading the 
sniffers. The progress percentage wasn't moving very fast. Melvin 
looked around anxiously and pressed his finger against his earpiece.
  "Dude, it's taking too long. Why is it taking so long?"
  "The total byte size is larger than we talked about originally," Dot 
said, burping again.
  "What??" Melvin blurted, his face tightening in anger.
  "Relax dude, it's only five meg," Dot said.
  "Five meg? What the hell! Dot, this is a freakin' 28-8 modem! What 
about Propeller Head's packet logs? Are you fu..."
  Melvin stopped abruptly in mid-sentence.
  He heard two voices coming toward the room.
  "Shit! Shit! Crap!" Melvin whispered to himself. It felt like ice water 
had suddenly been injected into his bloodstream. Dot was making 
some moronic comment regarding patience, and Melvin pulled his 
headset out to clear his mind. He looked around and noticed a 
workbench and metal cabinet against two walls that formed one 
corner of the room. The space between them in the actual corner 
might be enough for him to slide down into. He decided to run for it, 
as the voices were just about to round the door frame into the 
dungeon.
  He ran and jumped up onto the bench, and right as he managed to 
scrunch down behind it, the engineers entered. There were three of 
them. Melvin could see them through the thin crack between the edge 
of the workbench and the edge of the cabinet. He almost passed out 
when Dot yelled through the cell phone; Melvin thought it had to be 
loud enough for the engineers to hear.
  He could barely move in the position he was in, but he managed to 
turn off his cell. He started sweating.
  "Hey, what's this?" one of the engineers asked.
  Melvin's face lost color when he realized he had left the palm device 
hooked into the field controller.
  "I don't know," one of the other engineers said.
  Melvin peered through his tiny crack while the engineer picked the 
device up to examine it closer.
  "It's one of those Palm Berries."
  There was a pause.
  "It's doing something. It's got a percentage thing on it."
  "Better leave it, Junior. It's probably Scott's. You know he's always 
messing around with that stuff."
  Junior didn't say anything right away. He set the Palm Berry back 
down and turned to his coworkers.
  "Hey, speaking of Scott, where is he? I haven't seen him since this 
morning."
  "I don't know. Grab your belt, we've got to get over to H. They've 
been bitching about the temperature there all day. And you've got to 
finish checking on the boilers in south lot, Mitch."
  Melvin watched Mitch leave. Junior and the third engineer seemed to 
take forever puttering around before they both left. Melvin waited 
another minute, then stood up. His shirt was soaked with sweat. He 
felt a chill as he raised himself out of the corner and climbed back over 
the bench.
  When he got over to the Palm Berry, it was at ninety-nine percent. It 
had been over twenty minutes, and Melvin was pissed. When it hit 
completion, Melvin removed the phone cord and stomped out of the 
dungeon. Dot was going to wish he hadn't pulled a stunt like that. Dot 
had known that Melvin had a very small window of time to get in and 
get out. Going from the expected thirty seconds to forty times as long 
was ridiculous.
  Melvin briefly met up with Wendy out in the parking lot. 
  "What is that? Is that grease? How'd you get that all over your 
pants?" Wendy asked.
  Melvin wasn't in the mood to answer. After seeing Wendy off, he 
returned to his office, still fuming.
                              

Chapter 13

  The estate was large enough to qualify as its own separate county, 
or so it seemed when one had the opportunity to explore its vast 
reaches. It was owned by one of the dotcom multimillionaires who 
semi-retired in his early thirties. He sold all his companies except one: 
the one that was devoted to the promotion and proliferation of the 
Best operating system around the world. He had so much money, in 
fact, for the rest of his life he could wipe his backside with thousand 
dollar bills instead of toilet paper, flush them out to sea and never 
notice a difference in his net worth. His full name was legendary, but 
anyone who was close to him referred to him as Dandy, and that was 
the way Dandy liked it. The tabloids called him The Dandy, which 
provided him much amusement. Dorian Gray was his given name.
  Dandy had many employees who took care of his mansion and the 
rest of the enormous property he called home. Being a young man, 
and purposely unattached, he was given to debauchery in certain 
manifestations; the most frequent of which were sexual perversions. 
Women, men, orgies, sadomasochism, animals...his efforts to sate his 
unquenchable lust were not limited by the reservations of the average 
adult.
  His hiring practices were transparently salacious if one spent any 
time observing his estate. There were no male employees except for 
his cook. James used to be the head chef at the most exclusive 
restaurant in Los Angeles, until Dandy offered him a job with all the 
dissolute fringe benefits imaginable. Even the security guard who 
looked after the attack dogs was a woman.
  Dandy's hiring process was also quite stringent, for obvious reasons. 
A person with his kind of wealth and standing was a target, and Dandy 
made sure every female employee on his estate was qualified, 
gorgeous and not a threat to his safety and security. As it turned out, 
his live-in employees, who were good at their official jobs, were also 
amenable to the idea of joining in Dandy's "delicious excursions," as 
he liked to refer to them.
  All was well in Dandy's world, until the second month after he hired 
Brandy, the sexy woman with the reddish-purple hair, gloss-glistened 
voluptuous lips and huge tattoo on her stomach.
  When she first hired in and began her job as one of the landscapers, 
Brandy immediately became Dandy's favorite. Unlike all the other girls 
under his employ, she was never impressed nor eager to please him, 
beyond the simple performance of her paid duties. She would join in 
the orgies of course, and was particularly good at subjugating the 
other girls, which thrilled Dandy to no end. She seemed to have an 
appetite for the twisted and perverted that matched Dandy's.
  But he could sense that, unlike everyone else, she had no other 
designs on him beyond collecting her allotted pay for landscaping 
services rendered. This pleased and puzzled Dandy at the same time, 
and he found himself wondering if the feelings he was developing for 
her were the "love thing" he didn't really believe in. She would rock his 
world in the bedroom or wherever else the action was, and then when 
it was over she just left. No fluttering eyes, no lingering looks, no 
extra flirty smiles, nothing. She would just leave and take a drive to 
the city for the night. The few times he tried to ply information from 
her, she was politely evasive. She wouldn't even give him a straight 
answer about her bizarre tattoo.
  Dandy was by no means a puppy dog. He couldn't recall ever being 
concerned with how a woman felt about him, even before he made his 
millions. He just wasn't built that way. He felt uneasy when he caught 
himself staring longingly at her swaying ponytail as she walked out to 
her car, chewing bubble gum. Brandy would speed away, creating a 
dust cloud behind her on the dry gravel road that led from the main 
gate to the freeway. He wondered where she was going, what she 
was doing once she got there and most importantly, why she didn't 
want to stay and bask in his presence. As silly as that thought 
seemed, it was exactly what all the other girls did, and he had grown 
used to it. He expected it. He needed it.
  About two months after Brandy started landscaping, Dandy decided 
to follow her one night and see where she was going. He didn't want 
to embarrass himself by paying a private investigator to stalk her. As 
ridiculous as it was for him to do such a thing, he couldn't suppress 
the desire that had taken over his imagination. He absolutely had to 
know more than what she was sharing.
  Dandy never made it to the city, or anywhere else. His Italian sports 
car was found in a field near the interstate. It was speckled with dirt 
and weeds, mangled by multiple revolutions, yet still glimmering with 
the glory of the six figures required to purchase it.
  Two weeks later, when the grief-stricken employees collected their 
final checks from Dandy's lawyer, only one failed to show up.


End of excerpt

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