***** THE ADVENTURES OF MOLLY MODEM ***** Molly was gazing out the window of her Dallas road apartment. Her mind was not really on the project she was working on. It was far away on the bridge of a freighter heading out the straits to the open ocean. RING-RING-RING!! The phone startled her back to reality. Joyce was on the phone and was almost to the point of tears. Molly had met Joyce about six months ago at a Big Blue computer club meeting and the two had hit it off from the start. Joyce needed a bit of help getting her new XT up and running and Molly was glad to be of assistance. So many of the yuppies these days seemed computing illiterate. "Some rotten bastard stole my password" sobbed Joyce. "I just got my Visa bill today and Compuserve says I owe them nine hundred dollars!! What am I going to do?" Molly tried to remain calm. "The first thing you do is change your password before the bill goes any higher. And pick something difficult to crack like a random mix of letters and numbers." "By the way what sort of password did you use?" Joyce was getting a little calmer by now. "I thought it was a good one and rather clever ....... PERRIER$VOLVO. " Molly muttered "Just what you would expect from a yuppie." Later after Molly had changed her own password from BAGEL*SNARF to a mix of lotto numbers and her dogs name she sat thinking. A few months ago she had seen a message on an American bulletin board. It was left by some nerd hacker who bragged he could hack into any system alive and even figure out peoples passwords from their conversations. Molly vaguely recalled that this evil fiend used the name VonCriptic. Something had to be done before VonCriptic used his evil software to go after Victoria's Farwest bulletin board. Farwest was dear to Molly's heart, it had kept her from wasting her time and money in singles bars. That settled it Molly decided to out hack VonCriptic. Nothing like fighting fire with fire. The only problem Molly thought was "my old XT may not be up to a fire fight with VonCriptic!!! Maybe my old buddy Joe Truckk can lend me one of his high power machines? Besides he still owes me one for that wild weekend at Harrison Hot Springs." Joe Truckk had left Vancouver a couple of years ago looking for warmer climes. He ended up in California at the Lawrence Livermore labs working on ultra powerful hardware for the SDI program. He was worth a try. Molly dialed up Compuserve and left Joe some E-mail detailing the problems Joyce had and who she suspected was behind it. Late that night Molly logged back on and found Joes reply waiting. "Hi Molly how is Victoria these days. No problem with the Hardware you need. I've got a prototype here that we call the BEAST. Fifty meg of memory and a clock speed of half a giga hertz. The unit I'm sending you has a few bugs so we can't use it. Should not affect your project unless you want to calculate PI to the last decimal place or fire a particle beam weapon. It's also hardened to one mega rad of radiation. Am sending it up to you via air freight. Should be there tomorrow morning. Have FUN." "Sure nice to have friends like Joe on your side, would hate to have him as an enemy" thought Molly as she climbed into bed. The next morning dawned cool and clear in usual Victoria fashion. Molly dressed had a quick cup of coffee and drove out to the airport near Pat Bay. The clerk at Air Canada Freight gave her the way bills and other papers and directed her to Canada Customs. At the customs desk the officer looked at her papers consulted his manual and stamped the forms DUTY FREE ITEM. Molly was relieved, she usually had a hassle with customs people and paid the highest duty. It was not until she picked up the package that she noticed that Joe had written as contents "MINERAL SPECIMENS" "NO COMMERCIAL VALUE". It was just like Joe to call silicone chips "mineral specimens." Actually quite accurate thought Molly. When Molly got back to her apartment she did what every true computer user does with a new piece of equipment. She took the case off! There right in the middle was the heart of the most powerful computer she had ever seen. The main CPU was a black cube about three inch's on each side. Every edge had about a hundred connections coming out. And right on top in small white numbers 80666 !!! The number of the BEAST. Molly had a quick look at a few of the other strange devices inside the case. Many had strands of fiber optic material sticking out. Heady stuff! Molly closed the case tightened the screws and slid it under the bed. Now for a peek at the manual...................... Would Molly have been more concerned if she had known that at that very minute stepping off a plane in Vancouver were the infamous software pirate Doctor Node and his oriental henchman Baud Job. What will happen to Molly Modem will she be able to use the BEAST to zap VonCriptic? And what of Doctor Node and Baud Job. Will they try to steal the 80666 processor and sell it to Toshiba for a ton of platinum??? STAY TUNED FOR THE SECOND EPISODE OF *****THE ADVENTURES OF MOLLY MODEM***** X-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-X Another file downloaded from: NIRVANAnet(tm) & the Temple of the Screaming Electron Jeff Hunter 510-935-5845 Rat Head Ratsnatcher 510-524-3649 Burn This Flag Zardoz 408-363-9766 realitycheck Poindexter Fortran 415-567-7043 Lies Unlimited Mick Freen 415-583-4102 Specializing in conversations, obscure information, high explosives, arcane knowledge, political extremism, diversive sexuality, insane speculation, and wild rumours. ALL-TEXT BBS SYSTEMS. Full access for first-time callers. We don't want to know who you are, where you live, or what your phone number is. We are not Big Brother. 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