(viii.)

Midge smiled, appreciatively.

"Hey, look, bro', thanks for letting us stay over."
"No prob. You are my little sister."

Lorelei nodded. "Out of sheer curiosity, Mister--"
"Nah, just call me Dax."
"Well then, Dax, uhm, do you have--"

Annoyed at Lorelei's shyness, Midge broke in. "She wants to know if you have an internet hookup, so she can pay her credit card bill online."

"Yeah."
"Do you have a firewall?"
"What's that?" Dax asked, suddenly. "Nah, nah. I'm just kidding. Yeah, I've got a firewall. And AntiVirus."

Lorelei sighed, heavily.

"It's over there, in the living room."
"Thanks."

Lorelei gently crept into the carpeted room. It was dark, and dim; but at the same time, warm, and homey. She looked around for a moment, before spotting the computer, nestled in the corner of the room.

She started up the computer. "Windows XP" flashed across the screen in brilliant lettering.

It booted up, and a login screen popped up. There were a handful of choices -- Dax, and a few others -- and "Guest".

Lorelei chose Guest.

She found Internet Explorer buried deep in the Start menu, and finally managed to get onto the internet. She typed in an IP address; and a small error message popped up. User not recognized. Please log in.

At the bottom of the prompt message, were two text boxes -- Login and Password.

She quickly typed in "kanisala'ampuja", in the first box. She looked over her shoulder, made absolutely sure that neither Dax nor Midge was watching, before typing in her password -- "cotangent_theta".

Another prompt popped up. It said, simply, Prove it. Directly below that, was another text box.

Lorelei looked back again, before typing, "Banana flavor is the best. Ever."

The prompt disappeared. A website, prominantly displaying a number of internal memoranda, and other "important" information, was now glowing happily from the monitor.

"Where is it? Where did he..." she mumbled, scrolling through the information. "The Joint Commission caught another one? Who'd they-- No. Not Svetlana. Please tell me they didn't." She clicked through a link, bringing her to another page.

"Hey, Lor? Everything okay?"

Lorelei freaked out, and quit Internet Explorer. "What? Oh, uh, yeah. Everything's fine."
"Just making sure."


[Chapter ix]