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THE KEY

It was Max's impulsive side that made his friends resolve not to tell him about the key.

The Meridian geeks had found the key ring in an unlocked desk at the back of the chemistry lab. For a time, they just watched it, sliding open the desk drawer when the lab instructor wasn't around and checking to see if it was still there. Finally, they swiped it, smuggled it from the lab, and discreetly began testing its keys against various locks on the Meridian High campus. That was how they discovered that one of the keys was a master key to the school; it opened the front door and every door behind it.

Four copies were made, one for each of them: Tim, Seth, Luke, and John. The key ring was returned to the darkness of the chem lab desk after being carefully wiped down for fingerprints. They all agreed that Max must not know. A master key to the high school is a very special talisman that must be wielded with great care—not squandered on foolishness. So the juniors vowed to save the key for an epic senior-year prank. They would sneak into the school and hijack the PA system, blaring music into every classroom. Until that day, the four keys would stay in hiding, a burden borne in silence by the four of them.

Nobody liked keeping secrets from Max, but they could see that he was already on a collision course with the school's administrators. Max scoffed at the curriculum, and while instructors droned on about history or sketched equations on the blackboard, Max would sit at his desk thumbing through computer printouts from dial-up bulletin board systems and the pre-Web Internet. His favorite read was an online hacker newsletter called Phrack, a product of the late-1980s hacking scene. In its plain, unadorned text, Max could follow the exploits of editors Taran King and Knight Lightning, and contributors like Phone Phanatic, Crimson Death, and Sir Hackalot.

The first generation to come of age in the home computing era was tasting the power at its fingertips, and Phrack was a jolt of subversive, elec-