
      ***** 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*****


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