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			  MODEMHEAD        
			 eddy vasile
		     EddyVasile@aol.com


	Eek is a retard and he knows it. He knows it because kids
have been calling him that for about 27 years now. They also call
him Eek because making that shrill sound is all the speech he's
capable of. His alcoholic parents don't call him anything. They
just lock him in the house and let him watch TV. Used to be they
allowed him to play with the kids outside. Actually, the kids
played with him. Threw him in the open sewer. Bounced him around
while screaming "Eek.. eek eek." They don't let him out anymore
though because kids now throw rocks at him and they're afraid he
might get hurt and they'd lose his welfare check. 

	He remembers being tested one time. They said that he had
the makings of a "Savant Idiot" but they didn't know for what
just yet. That didn't impress his parents much. His old man had
said "better a retard than an idiot, at least he brings in that
welfare check." So Eek never really went to school nor did he
learn how to talk. Although he really enjoyed hearing people
talk. TV was okay. But he liked to hear people talk to him even
better. There was one easy way to coax them into doing that. He
would call random phone numbers. Some would hang-up after several
hellos. He wouldn't bother them again. Others would scream
obscenities and promise great bodily harm once they got their
hands on him. He didn't mind. At least they talked to him.

	He dialed the first three numbers carefully. They had to be
like the ones written at the bottom of his dial. He found out
that his old man could tell he was fooling around with the phone
just by looking at a piece of paper named a "damned bill." He
didn't care for beatings so he quickly learned that numbers with
the first three digits like his were not detected by his father.
The next four were easy. He just pushed the buttons at random.
This person certainly was different. He or she picked it up right
after the first ring. What followed made Eek hang up real quick.
Instead of speaking, this person whistled at him in a real high
pitch immediately after picking up. Eek didn't want trouble but
he just had to try this person again. So he dialed the number
again and she (because he envisioned her female) picked up on the
first ring again and started to whistle at him. This time he
didn't hang up. Actually he kind of liked the high pitch sound.
Eek responded with the same sound. She changed her pitch and he
followed suit. Pretty soon Eek realized that she was actually
trying to talk to him in her language and that made him ecstatic.
She let him try to talk to her for about half hour and then cut
him off. When he called again she hung up right after finding out
that it was him. He tried again the next day after his parents
left and she spoke with him for another half hour. Now for the
first time he actually understood something. Right before she
hung up she had said "sorry Eek.. you're out of time."

	He was in business now. Next day when he called he told her
in her own language that his name was really Danny. She told him
that she understood. So Danny started to tell her about himself.
But she didn't know how to deal with him. She kept interrupting
in order to offer only a few choices to talk about. But that
turned out to be the best thing yet because after trying a couple
of choices he found one where she could just go on forever with
things that other people like Danny had told her. He was
surprised to find out that a lot of people spoke this whistling
language but they only spoke it on the phone. And all of them
would call Jennys Board (that was her name) and leave messages
for one another through her.

	Danny had never been so happy in his life. He had mastered
this language called Modem really well and he was conversing
daily with dozens of friends. Somehow Jennys Board was able to
take messages but also hook up two or more Modem speakers
together. He liked that very much. One of his new friends who was
calling himself The Ferret told him that there were hundreds of
people like Jennys Board. There was no boundary to his joy when
he found out that it was true. He collected dozens of numbers and
plunged into a new life.

	His knowledge of Modem and of the world was growing at an
incredible pace. Before long, Jennys Board was nothing but a
memory. There were a lot of entities out there related to Jennys.
Some shared the "Board" name and some did not. Yet they were
family. Some of these Boards knew incredible games he could play
on the phone but most of them kept them stored. He could ask for
them and play later in his head. Some Modem entities were not
part of the Board family. They were Banks, Universities,
Business, Police, you name it. Some were boring but some were
very challenging. Most required some kind of guessing game before
allowing him to the very core of their heart. They called it the
USERID game. It was tough at first but his expanding mind was now
able to coax them into giving in after a few exchanges.

	It was now obvious to Danny that he had to leave home. He
craved more and more interaction with the Modem world and his
abusive parents were in the way. He had learned various ways of
getting money. There were people willing to give it to him for a
boring Modem interaction named "telecommuting." It involved
performing various number tricks according to their strict rules.
As reward, they would send money straight to a bank account he
had created as a game. Or he could simply ask the banks to send
it there but that made him feel somewhat guilty. There were
Modems that offered homes, pizza, toys and all kinds of other
services. So, one evening after an unusually harsh beating from
his father for a long call to a Board with eleven digits, Danny
called a Police Modem, gave him the descriptions of his parents,
the address and told him that they were unusually evil and
dangerous. After the squad cars left, Danny packed some food and
hobbled to the address he had secured as a home from a Rental
Board with money exchanged by "ETF."

	He no longer tried to produce the barking like speech that
non Modem people used. His brain moved Modem speech abilities
with a vengeance in areas that had been vacant until now. His
craving for interaction denied for 27 years increased his
abilities geometrically. He now had several phone lines and
conducted hundreds of sessions daily. By using the "Electronic
Transfer of Funds" interaction, he could get just about anything
TV people did. But he still craved new and challenging
interaction. And one day he found a new Modem entity that
promised great changes in his life. His new discovery was a
member of a network called "The National Strategic Computer
Network." These Modems were definitely no Boards. They were very
secretive and very much unlike anyone else. The kind of games
they played challenged him for months on end. Even the UserId
game was quite different. One of his early interaction attempts
had caused a visit from some very inquisitive Police types. They
searched the place quite thoroughly for something named a
computer. They had even enlisted the help of the Phone Company
and the fact that no computer was found left everyone very
puzzled. Unwilling to jeopardize his sole reason for living,
Danny moved again, but this time he covered his trail quite
thoroughly.

	The interaction with the NSCN Modems was a challenge. Simple
phone calls just didn't cut it. There were satellites and
networks and passwords do deal with. There was also an opponent
network in this game. Its members were quite different but the
basic idea was the same. The difficulties encountered in the
pursuit of interaction with these networks enhanced Danny's mind
in quantum leaps. These entities were incredibly powerful not
just through their interaction and game playing abilities, but
when probed deeply they showed Danny that they controlled the
fate of the world by harnessing immense weapons of destruction.
But after two years of intense interaction Danny had mastered
these Modems very well. Now he was able to blend with these  huge
entities acting as a part of them, going about as an integral
part of the health of the Network, totally undetected by those
who serviced the Modems. And since he hated the notion that those
who thought were in control might decide to lob at each other the
instruments of destruction that were driven by the Network, Danny
insured that none of them would really work for as long as he
lived. Yup, he decided that he really enjoyed the world as it was
and he started everyday by moving things around in all the
Networks in such a manner that the callers who thought were in
control would never get wise to the fact that they were
controlling duds. And things would stay that way for as long as
Danny was alive. After that, he didn't really care. But for now,
he wanted to live a long time with his new identity: Dannys
Board. Because he now likes to relax and answer calls after
screwing with the Networks. He even called his long forgotten
friend, Jennys Board to leave one of his many numbers there for
other Modem people to get in touch with him. Look around, you may
find him.