I head to my room, and put the Slackware CD into the disc drive.

  Text-only installer. Blue screens, white text, arrow-key menus. Questions I barely understand.

  First step: partitioning. The hard drive is one piece—2.1GB with Windows filling all of it. To install Linux, I have to carve out space. Like cutting a house in half while people are still living in it.

  Dad's and Mom's saved documents. Family photos. Everything we have.

  One wrong number and it's all gone.

  The installer asks how much space to give each side. I type the numbers. Hit enter.

  Text floods the screen. Clusters moving. Partition boundaries shifting.

  My hands hover over the keyboard, not touching anything. Sweaty palms. Heart hammering.

  This could go wrong *right now*. Everything—gone.

  Ten minutes of watching numbers scroll.

  Upstairs, I'm in my bedroom. Downstairs, my parents are watching TV, no idea how at any moment our computer might get permanently borked.

  Finally: "Operation complete."

  Exhale. Hands shaking.

  Reboot to Slackware. The installer walks me through the rest.

  Each step has warnings. Each step could fail.

  The screen goes black.

  Then two options: linux and dos

  It works.

  Finally I login.

  No Start menu. No desktop. No mouse. Just a blinking cursor.

  This was a real Unix system. The kind that ran university servers and research labs.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Linux is running, but I have a problem.

  No IRC client.

  On Windows, I'd downloaded mIRC as an .exe file—double-click, install, done. Linux doesn't work that way. Programs come as source code. You have to compile them yourself.

  I need an IRC client for Linux. The folks in #linux recommend BitchX. A command-line IRC client, what the real operators use.

  Download the source to a floppy, copy it to Linux.

  ---

  Next morning at school, I can barely keep my eyes open.

  Mr. Peterson hands back essays. Mine has "C-" written in red at the top. "See me after class."

  I stuff it in my backpack. Doesn't matter right now.

  At lunch, my friends ask if I want to shoot hoops. "Can't. Got stuff to do."

  Probably the last time they'll ask.

  That night, I compile BitchX from source. Takes twenty minutes of running commands, watching text scroll by, hoping nothing breaks.

  But it works and I run the BitchX IRC client.

  The screen explodes with color. ANSI/ASCII art logo, status bars at the top and bottom, everything organized and clean.

  Way cooler than mIRC.

  I connect to EFNet.

  I try to set my nickname to SKa. Right. Still taken.

  I change my nick to SKa_ and join #linux.

  The underscore sits there next to my name. A reminder that someone else has what's mine.

  ---

  Over the next few days, I'm in #linux asking questions. Someone mentions exploits. Packet attacks. The same ones that froze my machine.

  I ask around. Someone DCC sends me a file: boink.c.

  I don't fully understand the code. C is still mostly foreign. But I see enough—socket creation, packet fragmentation, targeting an IP address.

  The weapon that was used against me.

  I look up the person who is using my nickname.

  * SKa is

  * on channels: #linux

  * SKa is idle 2 hours 14 minutes

  * End of /WHOIS list.

  Dialup IP. Windows user, probably. Two hours idle.

  I think about what Kaos said. The line between IRC operations and actual hacking. Channel bots versus breaking into systems.

  This isn't breaking in. Just disconnecting someone from IRC. That's... that's just IRC stuff. Right?

  I compile boink and run it, targeting their IP.

  Wait.

  Thirty seconds later:

  * SKa has quit IRC (Ping timeout)

  I change my nick immediately.

  * SKa_ is now known as SKa

  Success.

  No underscore. My name. My actual identity.

  I'm SKa again.

  But the next day when I connect, again the person has my nickname.

  So I do it again. Find them. Get their IP. Use boink. Take the name back.

  This becomes routine. Every time I connect, the same person has taken it. So I knock them off and reclaim it.

  For a few hours, I'm SKa. Then I have to disconnect—phone line needed, homework, sleep. And when I come back, it's gone again.

  I can take the nickname. But I can't hold it.

  I need something that never disconnects. Something running 24/7.

  But I don't know what that is yet.