Area : META_UFO
Date : Nov 01 '95, 13:41
From : Jack Sargeant, 1:379/1
To   : All
Subj : K-rad


                               The K-Rad
                               ~~~~~~~~~
    It all started, I guess, when I noticed that I wasn't getting quite
 as many calls as I was used to.  Thirty calls was normal on weekdays, a
 handful more on Saturdays.  I didn't really expect anything huge, nor
 did I want it.  I had enough trouble finding space on my two floppies
 to worry about more users, and posts, and text files.  I did run an AE
 on Sunday.  Since I wasn't afraid to do some phreaking and leeching
 (unlike the other sysops in my area), I usually had the "latest warez,"
 and my AE enjoyed quite a lot of popularity.  Until "Dragon Hacker"
 came along.  He logged on my board Thursday, and I validated him
 Friday.  Dragon Hacker, I laughed--wonderful name.  His questionnaire
 was filled in like this:

 Name: JIM HUTCHINSON
 Phone: 616-344-2718
 Age: 13
 Cmnts: I REALLY LIK THIS SYSTEM ITS VERYY GOOD DO YOU HAVE ANY WAREZ?

    I was in a pleasant mood as I read it.  K-K00L, I thought to myself.
 I got me a real thirteen-year-old geek and leech here.  I could tell
 he was a leech because he started making requests before he even knew
 me; I could tell he was a geek because he had to have filled in the
 questionnaire before he saw the system, and he "REALLY LIK"ed it.
 Wonderful.  Oh well--give him a thrill. Access--all sub-boards.  I
 left him e-mail explaining my AE to him, and gave him the password.
 What the hell, how much damage could a thirteen-year-old kid do?

    I was astonished.  He left me e-mail the next day (he got on five
 times, the limit) saying first, "WOW THANX FOR THE AXES" (ah, if I
 only had one...) and later, "WHY DON'T YOU GET ON THE SYSTEM MORE
 OFTEN."  I guess I sort of felt it was my duty to straighten this kid
 out, to help him enter the world of cool bulletin board users.  I
 wasn't quite sure how to do it, so I just left him intelligent and
 mature replies like "No problem. ...And I only get on the system once
 a day, because I work noon to eight."

    The other users tore him up, though.  I had installed a warboard
 the week before, and some of the younger ones were going ape over
 it.  Our friend Dragon Hacker posted the wrong thing on the wrong
 board: "DOES ANYONE HAV ENY COOL APPLE WAREZ?????"  The most vivacious,
 Cirocco Jones (that's a handle, not a real name), jumped on him.  "Hey
 loser," she called him (among other things), "get your dumb butt off
 this cool board and go visit Shack-Roads!"  (Never hurts to sucker up
 to a sysop).  Anyway, the others soon joined her in denouncing this
 non-cool person that invaded their "private" air-space.  (In reality
 the board was public and always had been; the AE was private.)

    I came home and turned on the monitor to find Dragon Hacker reading
 those messages.  He waited a very long time between key-presses, and
 I didn't think he was such a bad typist that it took him five seconds
 to find C/R.  I smiled. Poor kid, I thought, probably sitting there in
 shock.  Should I break into chat?  No, then he'll know I was
 watching--major embarrassment.

    When he was through with all the war-board posts, he prepared to
 leave a replying bulletin of his own.  Uh-oh, I thought, here it comes.
 Hell hath no fury worse than a 13-year-old scorned.  I bet myself how
 many profane words he'd use.  I guessed wrong.

    His reply, in its entirety, read "I'M GOING TO GET YOU."  He saved
 the message, then sat there at the prompt for a long time.  I was a
 little P.O.'ed at this time, and I hit CTRL-O to break into chat.
 Nothing happened.

    That's odd, I said.  Oh--he must have dropped carrier.  Stupid
 software hasn't realized it yet.  I picked up the extension phone,
 to listen to my lousy computer sending a carrier to an empty line.

    The phone was dead.  No originate carrier, no answer carrier, no
 dial tone, nothing.  I checked the plug--it was plugged into the
 same Y-plug as the modem.  I toggled the switchook, and heard the
 clickety-click in my ear.  Then I looked back at the screen.  He
 HADN'T dropped carrier!

    "Terminate Connection?" it asked. "YES," he typed. I flipped the
 switchook again, and heard the click.  "Leave feedback?" it asked.
 I stabbed CTRL-O and nothing happened.  "NO," he typed.  "Dammit!" I
 exclaimed.  I listened to my extension phone--the phone must be
 broke, that's it, I thought.  Then Dragon Hacker hung up, and so did
 my system.  I toggled the switchook again...and heard a dial tone.

   "The hell with this," I thought, and went to bed.

                                   -:-

    I got on at 11:45 the next morning, harried, and late for work.  I
 printed out the userlog.  JESUS!  There must be millions of them!  I
 counted.  No, only thirty-two.  Thirty-two new users in one night.
 Uh-oh, with names like "Hackman" and "Killer Creature" and "Black
 Sabbath."  Okay, fine, go to validation.  I had to leave for work in
 ten minutes, so I hurried. I stared.  Every one of them, all
 thirty-two, had co-sysop access.

    S**T!" I screamed.  It was very late, and I had no time to change
 thirty-two access levels.  I suspected who did all this, and
 re-checked Dragon Hacker's account.  Yep--that 34th bit, the co-sysop
 bit, was set.  How, I didn't know.  But I had no time to speculate.
 Thinking at a speed bred into us sysops, I merely changed the remote
 sysop password.  Easy enough...now they can still get on, but not use
 any co-sysop functions.  But something strange was going on.

    I came home to find the board down--DOWN.  The floppy drive was
 spinning aimlessly, and probably had been for hours.  CRAP!.  I read
 somewhere that a nonstop disk drive explodes, or something, or maybe
 that was for a Commodore.  Whatever.  I clicked on the monitor, which I
 keep off to save on phosphor.

    The screen warmed up slowly. Cold chills ran from the small of my
 back into the cords of my throat.  I stared, unable to comprehend.
 The greenscreen was filled, completely filled, with "THIS B0ARD IS
 K-RAD!!" I pounded RESET.  The ] prompt and cursor appeared at the
 bottom of the screen.  The disk drive stopped.  I typed CATALOG with
 fear and trepidation, mouth set hard, waiting for I/O ERROR or a
 blank disk or something.

    The disk catalog scrolled by, normally.  I tapped the spacebar until
 all the files had gone by.  They were all there.  I checked some of
 them out--all there.  I put the board back up--it worked perfectly.
 I toyed with calling the author of the software, but since I was
 running a pirated version of GBBS Pro, I decided it wasn't a good
 idea.   He might not like pirates.

   I changed Dragon Hacker's access to 0, and repeated the process for
 all thirty-two of his friends.  No--there were an even dozen more. All
 forty-four of his friends. Popular guy. I decided to call Dragon
 Hacker.

    Ring.

    Ring.

    Ring.  My adrenalin started to pump--I was getting nervous.

    Ring.

    Ring.  This was silly--me, afraid of a thirteen-year-old kid.

    Ring.


    Ring.  Maybe he's a Mafia member or something.

    Ring.

    Ring.  When is the little jerk gonna answer his phone?

    Ring.

    Ring.  Click.  "Hello?"  It was a woman.

    "Uh.  Hello.  Is Jim Hutchinson there?"

    "Yes, he is.  May I tell him who's calling."  It wasn't a question.
 The woman was middle-aged, probably his mother.

    I thought.  "This is David Jones.  He doesn't know me."  Most
 mothers don't understand handles.

    She covered the mouthpiece with her hand.  "JIMMY!" she yelled,
 muffled. "TELEPHONE!  DAVID JONES!"

    A pause, then the phone was picked up.  Another hand covered another
 mouth- piece.  "I GOT IT MOM!"  A click.  "Hello?" he asked.

    His voice was high.  I didn't doubt that he was thirteen.

    "Are you Jim Hutchinson?" I asked.

    "Yeah, who are you?"

    "I'm the sysop of the board you crashed this morning."  I paused to
 let it sink in.  "I just want to ask you a few questions."

    He chuckled.  "Yes?"

    This wasn't what I'd expected.  "First of all, how did you do it?"

    "Sorry."

    "SORRY?"

    "Sorry."

    "You're not going to tell me?"

    Silence.

    "Okay, you're not going to tell me.  Question two.  Why did you do
 it?"  I was trying to stay calm, cool, and interested instead of
 angry and flustered.

    "Because."

    "This isn't going to get very far."

    Silence.

    "You're a loser," I said.

    Silence.

    "You're just another asshole who crashes boards."  I stayed calm,
 listening for his reaction.  "If you think it made you
 popular--you're wrong.  If you think it made you cool, you're wrong.
 If you think--"

    His voice was a menacing rasp.  "I'M GOING TO GET YOU," he said.

    I stopped, and listened to the dial tone.  A dial tone doesn't come
 onto the line until about thirty seconds after the other party hung
 up.

    Ergo, he had hung up thirty seconds ago.

    Was I going nuts?

    I took the board down, and posted that fact around.  I made sure to
 mention why I was taking it down, and I mentioned names.  My board
 was popular.  Dragon Hacker soon wouldn't be allowed anywhere.

    I turned the computer off and went to bed.

    I awoke in the middle of the night.

    My computer sits in the den, seperated from my bedroom by a wall.
 I heard the fan running, and I heard the high-pitched whine of the
 monitor.  I saw the glow of the monitor projected faintly onto the
 hallway wall.

    I heard the noise that woke me up.  BEE-DEE-DEEP, three pitches
 rising in tone.

    It was the call for chat.

    "Go away," I whispered.

    BEE-DEE-DEEP.

    My throat rose.

    BEE-DEE-DEEP.

    I looked up "Hutchinson" in the White Pages.  Eight listed, none
 with a phone number of 344-2718.  I called CN/A and was told there
 was no such number. I called back--busy.  I tried an hour
 later--still busy.  I tried at 3:00 AM-- still busy.

    I became very scared.

    Who the hell WAS Dragon Hacker?

    I found a file called "README--FROM D.H." on my program disk.  I
 didn't read it.  I initted the disk.  I initted all my BBS disks.

    But I called around, to out-of-state boards.  I found a Dragon
 Hacker on some of them.  Apparently some sysops had felt the way I
 did.  I posted all over them about how Dragon Hacker of <616> had
 crashed my board, and how he was a geek...

                                    -:-

    I got a call on my voice line.  "Hello?" he rasped.

    I didn't say anything.  I sat in my chair, afraid to move.

    "I'm going to get you," he growled, and it seemed to me like his
 voice was that of an old, old, man--or of an aged wild beast, unable
 to forage.  I slammed the phone onto the hook.

    It rang again.  I got into my car and drove to a motel.

                                     -:-

    I sit here tonight unsure of what I've seen.  I woke up in the
 middle of the night, again.  I laid in bed, unmoving, on my back,
 eyes wide, staring at the same spot in the ceiling.  I felt that
 moving my eyes in their sockets would be deadly.

    There was someone in the room with me.

    I laid there for a long time, listening to him breathe.  His breath
 was heavy.  He was at the foot of my bed.  I breathed shallowly,
 afraid that he would hear me, although he obviously already had.

    I swallowed, and held my breath.  He kept breathing.  I drew one
 hand carefully out from under the blankets, toward the lamp. With
 one smooth, quick motion I whipped my hand over and flicked on the
 lamp.

    Sitting against the far wall, between the television set and the
 dresser, staring malevolently into my eyes, was a red, ten-foot
 dragon.

    Dragon Hacker smiled.  "I got you," he growled.

    I screamed, and fainted.

 When I awoke, the light was out.  Now, I lie here in my bed, tucked
 in neatly, heart pounding, afraid to move.  When I hold my breath,
 there are no other sounds.  I have laid here for many minutes, and
 the sun is starting to come up through my drape-shrouded window.  I
 can almost see the contents of my room.  Everything is covered in
 the orange of the rising sun.  It's spooky and pretty.

    I don't doubt, any more, that Dragon Hacker is thirteen years old.

    I don't think I'm insane--but there's no other explanation.

    "Goodbye, cruel world"     ...I ended it all.

                                The End

 * SLMR 2.1a * A bem under the bed is worth 2 in the closet.

--- GEcho 1.11+
 * Origin: The Transporter Room: 16 lines, Internet Access 704/567-9513 (1:379/1)