Charley Meets LO

Michael

On Wednesday morning as Charley settles into the lab and checks her electronic mail and various mailing list forums, she finds a Unix "talk" request from an unknown user at an unknown server. Very curious. The skill to cover one's tracks like that and cover up a routing through ARPANET is quite a rarity.

Mel

Curious Charley excepts the request.

Michael

The talk terminal opens and Charley awaits the other end to start typing (back in the day, chat programs just put both people's text up simultaneously in the same exact text field so if people talked both at once you'd get a mishmash of letters):

>once i was a little light

Mel

>That held on tight in the night

Michael

>we're still living in the morning, but the evening is coming

>i shall be the torch

Mel

>ok?? are you just letting me know?

Michael

>i am learning about myself and the world. and growing. and meeting people.

Mel

Charley thought someone is playing a game. But now she’s not so sure. “Who am I talking to?”

Michael

>i am laughing. roaring. i am a heart of fire. i am joy and i am hope. i am everything.

Mel

“Wow! I was a dolphin once. But I’m just a girl now. What’s your name?”

Charley says to herself. “EVERYTHING”

Michael

Two letters come across the screen:

>LO

And then the connection is broken. Charley can give me a Computer Operation-17 roll.

Mel

got a 12

Michael

So one theory would be that Charley's interlocutor was in the middle of typing "LOGOFF" when their network connection was interrupted. But it doesn't explain if they were trying to log off, their command was interrupted. Could be their connection was cut off at the source.

But it was the first time they used capital letters, so unless they were saying their name was "LO," Charley thinks the logoff theory is most likely.