he throws his book bag onto the small couch, not even bothering to wriggle free from his jacket before landing in the desk chair. In one fluid motion he settles into the chair and leans over to flip the switches on the back of the unwieldy beige boxes resting on the desk. A low hum begins, followed by a familiar series of beeps and clicks and whirs. Instantly he jumps up again, sprinting from the room only to return within two minutes, falling back into the chair with a hand full of cookies, just as the tiny indicator lights on the beige boxes turn from solid to blinking slowly.
"Jim, do you have homework to do today?" a voice queries from another room.
"Did it on the bus, it's done!" he calls back absently, his fingers hovering over the keyboard, waiting. The very instant the lights stop blinking and the text on the screen halts its scrolling, he types with furious speed in answer to the prompt, slamming the "enter" key and leaning back in satisfaction, at last taking a breath and cramming a cookie into his mouth.
As the program loads, he squirms out of his jacket, tossing it easily over to land on top of his nearly-forgotten book bag. Barely able to keep still as he waits, he munches on another cookie and watches the lights blink and glow, trying as he has countless times to discern the bizarre link between the patterns of flashes and the growling sounds from the computer - they have never quite aligned as they should. At a brief pause in the quickly-scrolling text, he deftly flips a switch which causes a large black square of plastic to pop out from one of the bulky boxes, slipping in another in its place. A pause, a new light blinks, as fresh sounds burble from the box. Pouncing again the second another prompt appears on the screen, he types a brief command before turning to the odd looking contraption wired to both the phone jack on the wall and the back of the computer. Fiddling with switches, wires, and buttons for a minute, he is soon greeted by a series of static and electronic squeals, and he grins brightly at the grating screeches. He hums along with the varied pitches, which are familiar as a mother's lullaby to him, and just as welcoming. Taking a deep breath of contentment as the lights again slow, he poises his fingers in the air over the thick square keys, his eyes eagerly searching the screen of glowing green text for the prompt which will let him access his world. It appears - he types - he is in, and the room around him fades as he falls into a place filled with intangible company.
His eyes quickly skim the list of file and announcements which fills his screen, soon finding the most recent one he had seen, late the night before. From there, he works his way up the list, looking for anything that catches his interest.
"comic.txt", "gargband.txt", "mytapes.mus", "beefstar.hum", "partcoll.oct", "pezramble.oct", "rfpl.fun", "angela.art"... He has little idea what most of the files appearing on the screen are, his local service often neglecting to post titles or descriptions of the tiles it provides for exchange, yet the upload areas are his favorite to frequent. Though it takes longer to get the text onto his computer from theirs, he can read them later, after he has disconnected from the phone line. The damage to the phone bill following his first month on-line drove home a need to be conscientious of his computer time, and it had taken a great deal of convincing on his part to persuade his parents to continue using the modem.
That, however, was a year ago, and since then he has become adept at the world of Bulletin Board Systems. He knows that he has about half an hour before his mother will want to call someone - her soap is on now, he has peace until it ends. After that, he will have about an hour before she asks him to do chores - that hour will give him time to read what he has downloaded, and then delete most of it, in the event his father should begin to snoop. (He has no evidence of his father ever having done so, but a light dose of paranoia and a good bit of discretion he has found often comes in handy for his sort of person, so any files he decides to keep, he hides deep within system folders to avoid detection.)
Having started the desired files downloading onto his computer, he gets up and folds his jacket more neatly on the couch. Unzipping his book bag, he pulls out the various sheets of mostly-complete homework, grabbing a pencil and taking the ones in need of completion over to the desk. Shortly after he sits down, the first file completes copying, and he quickly keys in the command to download the next, noting the size of the file and mentally estimating how long it will take. Laying out the worksheets on the desk, he quickly fills in his homework, glancing up at the screen at decreasing intervals, waiting for the file to finish. Once it does, he begins to next download as fast as his fingers will type the command, then turns back to working on homework as he waits, repeating this cycle several times over.
When he has obtained copies of the newly posted files, he enters several more commands, calling to his screen the main bulletin board, full of a long list of messages from various visitors, both known and unknown. Names are optional here, and what names are used are self-proclaimed, but even before his eyes reach the signature of each post, he is now often able to tell who the author is simply by the tone, content, and visual style of the message. CaptJack tends to alternate lines of capital and lower-cased text, endlessly plugging his own BBS, which no-one visits. ZERONE surrounds his postings with intricate interlaces of text and symbols, stunning fields of ASCII art, while cr4kd uses a simple dashed line to box in his posts. ThInG1 posts short cryptic messages to no-one in particular which make little to no sense, but are amusing anyway, particularly late on weekend nights. klepTo promotes his latest text files on cheating businesses and "the system" in general out of anything imaginable, while titrix specializes in lewd comments and simplistic but suggestive stick figures.
But it is messages from KINGPIN and pyr01 that he watches especially for - the rest he will read later, when he has more time. KINGPIN is the board's operator, and as sysops go, he is pretty reasonable. He had initially "met" him on another board, not long after he dialed in his first connection. Still painfully new to the scene, he had made some rather egregious breaches in etiquette, as well as a general fool of himself. Yet KINGPIN had been kind, and contrary to the cruel, mocking barbs most of the others sent his way, had actually helped him out, in explaining some basic usage issues and pointing him in the direction of the right text files to read. And so, when he best friend Brad had gotten a modem for his computer as well, and wanted in on the BBS business, it was to KINGPIN's new board that Jim had sent him. Of course, this was not before hours of careful crafting of Brad's handle, pyr01. The choice of a handle could make or break your persona, Jim had soon learned, though his own had been surprisingly well-chosen, for as little as he had initially known.
By this time, vector is fairly well known on the local boards, as well as making occasional appearances on some of the more prominent non-local ones, though his access to these is limited out of necessity. While he had culled a few games here and there from the warez boards, and laughed at the posts his computer teacher from school had put on the town boards, these areas are only of passing interest to him. It is the boards filled to bursting with text files that draw him in, with their endless variety of information and discussion, rebellion and sarcasm side by side with boredom and senselessness. He has read files on how to rig a traffic light to operate however he wishes, how to build a bomb in a chemistry lab, the history of the Apple Corporation, traded insults between different groups producing and distributing the files themselves, artwork made of ASCII characters, tips for sysops, along with endless gripes and mockeries of sysops, the study of gemology, ludicrous dating strategies, video game walk-throughs, virtually any topic under the sun is possible to uncover. All is relayed in a confidential and no-holds-barred manner, with incredibly liberal use of grammar, language, spelling, and style. Some formal, some hysterical, some knowledgeable and others laughably made up on the spot - the surprise of each file's contents is half the excitement he gets from them. Though by now he knows the names and affiliated groups of the best authors, he still seeks out new files with and endless voraciousness, wanting to know of every topic posted, to know the sum total of all the knowledge jumping through the phone lines - because it is possible.
In midst of scrolling through the day's posts on his favorite message board, the screen suddenly halts, a prompt appearing at the bottom, the cursor blinking tauntingly.
"CONNECTION LOST. RECONNECT (Y/N)?"
"Jim? I need to use the phone, would you mind for a bit?"
Rolling his eyes, what can he do but agree? "Sure Mom, I'm off." He knows she "accidentally" jostled the kitchen phone on the hook before asking, knowing it would disconnect the modem. His files have downloaded, however, and he will have time later to check the boards.
Eagerly, he types rapidly, ending the telephone program and pulling up the directory of downloads. Knowing his vulnerability, that a family member might enter the den at any moment at this time of the day, he chooses from the less-incriminating looking files - avoiding the art files entirely for now, knowing they are typically images of less-than-clothed women, of varied quality.
"gargband.txt" sounds innocuous enough - he keys in the command to open it, and his screen fills with an intricate title image followed by a page of so of text, everything a simple yet beautiful grouping of characters and symbols, flat yet intriguing, words made of light and carried by sound.
He reads.
After dinner, there is a phone call, and he panics for a moment, hoping it is not for his mother, or he may not be able to use the line for hours.
"Jim? It's for you."
Relieved, he runs to the kitchen and returns to the den almost instantly with phone in hand. Moving as far away from his parents as the cord will allow, he is just able to sit on the arm of the couch. "Hello?"
"Hey, it's Brad, can I come over tonight? Mom's planning some big party at work, and she'll be on the phone all night. I was lucky to get it long enough to make
this call."
Grinning wickedly, he answers in a serious tone. "Well, I don't know, I mean, I had an awful lot of pretty specific plans for tonight, I'm not sure if I want them interrupted..."
He can hear the returning smirk as his friend replies: "I can make it worth your while."
He grins broadly now, all pretense gone. "Whatcha got? Text, game, a number..?"
"A number. You know those awesome texts we got, written by some guy Slipped Disk? Found the number to his home board, some jerk must have replaced it with his own board when he distributed it, 'cause I found the same file we'd seen before on another board and accidentally downloaded it, but the tag at the bottom was totally different, and I realized it was the original one. So I've got the number. Can I come over?"
He chuckles, nodding. "Awesome, yeah. Just bring your book bag with you so we can use a homework excuse if we need to."
"Sure thing. See you in ten."
"See you."
Once the phone is hung up and his mother informed of his plans, he darts back to the den and boots the computer, not wanting to waste a minute once in possession of the new board phone number.
A quarter of an hour later, a boy with ragged blond hair enters the room, dropping into the old floral couch, which is largely covered by a more tasteful beige throw. He flings his book bag into a nearby chair, and slouches comfortably. "Hey, how're things?"
"What are you doing, give me the number already!" he laughs, jumping up from the chair and launching into his friend, punching him playfully. "C'mon. As rent payment for sitting on my couch."
"Ahh! It's not even
your couch, and like you sit anywhere but the desk chair," he retorts with a grin, flourishing a slip of paper.
His hand moving too quickly for the other to see, he snatches the paper free and quickly rolls off the couch, scrambling back into the desk chair. "Mine now!" he proclaims with a victorious grin.
"Hey! That's not fair, stupid asswipe."
"Boog."
The two dissolve into laughter as he begins to punch the number in. But as he reads the number to type it, he pauses, looking at the number with furrowed brows. "This isn't in our area code, and my parents will kill me if there's another long-distance charge... You got a code by any chance? Mine died a few days ago."
Biting back a grin, he fishes in his pockets, pulling out a folded sheet of looseleaf covered in calling card numbers - another form of information available on the boards. All but two of the numbers are crossed out. "That's why you should always have a back-up code, never know when Ma Bell will shut you down."
"Hey, that's why I keep you around," he counters, taking the paper and keying in one of the numbers, effectively granting himself free long distance for the time being, until the phone company realizes that particular number is being used by dozens of people. Once inside the system, he adds in the BBS's number, and they wait eagerly as the connection is gradually made.
His eyes slowly grow wide as the green text begins scrolling, putting new color into his brown eyes. "Whoa... hey, come here, you've gotta see this..." In a moment his friend stands at his shoulder, munching on a Twix bar.
"Mmm? What's so special abou--- oh holy mother, you're kidding!"
Typing quickly, he logs in and moves through the directories of the unknown computer at the other end of the line. "Surprised there wasn't a busy signal, this place must get hammered," he mutters as he types and waits for responses. Finally, a long list appears on the screen, and he starts backward in his seat in sheer amazement. "No way... they weren't kidding, Brad, they've got twenty goddamn
megabytes of text files here! Look at all this shit... I mean a bunch of them we've already seen, but... they must go to every board out there to get all this stuff! God, there must be thousands here..."
"Hey look! More of Slipped Disk's, shit he's done a bunch more... Whoa, wait, go back, did you see that? Go into that directory there," he demands, pointing to a line on the screen.
Nodding agreeably, he punches in the necessary commands and pulls it up. "You know these?"
"You don't?" he gasps in disbelief. "You
are always on the wrong boards, how do you not know AnarchyInc? They're one of the biggest and best groups out there!"
"Nah, I don't usually go in for the bomb-building stuff, I'd rather---"
"No no no, only maybe half of it is, see?" He gestures at the long list of files and descriptions.
"Ooo... yeah, I guess you're right, there's all kinds of stuff here... an awful lot of stories, that's awesome... what else is---"
"
There! Oh my God, get that! It's "The Zen of Boog"! Get that, then we'll look around more, but we have
got to get that."
Joining in the other's eager laughter, he nods eagerly as he types. "Oh hell yeah! Wow, how long have we been looking for that? Man, I know what my new favorite board is," he adds, grinning broadly.
"Think your dad will go for a new hard drive?"
"More disks I bet, anyway... I really need to get a second phone line. Man... I think it's good that most boards have a time limit, I swear I'd forget to eat if I didn't have to leave or get busy signals."
"Yeah I know... hey, when we're done looking around here, want to go nag old Crusty on the town boards? He put a note on my last report card saying I didn't pay attention or something, which got my parents all over my back, even though my grade in his class is perfect. Never really did get him back for that, and I'm feeling pretty creative tonight." Smirking, he shoves the now-empty Twix wrapper into the back pocket of his jeans, and cracks his fingers.
"Sure, once we're done here..." His voice is quiet, clearly distracted. "But look at all this... I hardly know where to start..."
"Hey, the Neon Knights' stuff is here too! Octothorpe, they're really new but they're pretty funny... Wow, I feel like such a geek, you know? I know so many of these names..."
They both laugh, acknowledging their addiction, but also each feeling warm and comfortable, relaxed and excited at the same time. It is as if they have finally found the party where all of their friends are, and are just walking in the door to see a room full of faces they know well. For a brief moment they meet each other's eyes, and see the same jittery energy and curious enthusiasm doubled in strength.
"Ah, Crusty can wait. This is way cooler."
