Spring term finals were coming up fast, and the Miami/Dade University library was crowded with students, all searching for books on their subject, or else already hunched over them at the many tables and carrels that lined the walls and main floor of the library. The overhead lights looked down on a scene being played out at colleges around the world, but none seemed so significant as that happening right here…not to the lurker in the stacks known as BobaFett.
Study was not exactly on his mind. He was moving slowly, purposefully through one set of stacks of reference books, but his gaze was directed not on the books, but through them…
The object of his attention sat square in the center of the main library floor, at one of the study tables, surrounded by four of her friends. They had come to the library to study together, but she was really the only one of the group actually serious about study. The others seemed more interested in preening for the nearby table of boys, who seemed more interested in the girls than in studying.
She was different. Fett had seen that immediately. She was bent over her books and actually reading them, and doing her best to tune out the mirthful undertow of her friends who surrounded her. It had taken some maneuvering, but with a bit of luck and a pocket telescope, he had learned her name was Melanie….and that her subject was architecture….
Now he waited, having actually left the library for a ten minute span to move quickly off-campus and return again. She had still been there, but now something else was needed. It was going to be necessary to get her to move away from her books for a short amount of time. That was going to be a problem. Yes, she was a serious student…and that meant that she was firmly embroiled in her subject at the moment. If a table full of eligible boys couldn’t distract her, how was he going to get her to leave her place for the few precious moments he needed, and then return?
The answer turned out to be surprisingly simple. The study tables were also occupied by internet computer terminals…and she was dividing her time between books and the internet. Over the past ten months or so, Fett had taken the time to study the architecture of the library LAN, and had learned that, while the terminals all maintained communication with the web via a central server here on campus, it was possible to send a message from one terminal to another, via a WAN chat program called Cyrus. Cyrus had been developed by another Miami-Dade student who was graduating this year, and whom BobaFett had met online in a campus chatroom. He had been glad to share his little invention with someone willing to give him cash for it, and now Fett literally had the run of the University terminals…provided he knew the LAN-assigned number of the terminal he wished to reach.
That was something he had found out by accessing the System Manager’s layout of the University library…the terminal numbers were all printed on the master schematic.Melanie was sitting at terminal 419, and Fett now had a message window opened that would pop up a LAN message window on her screen.
He moved back through the stacks to his own machine, over by the Geography section of reference, having satisfied himself that she was still there…and that her friends were still distracted by the table of boys next door. Moving quickly on the keys, he entered his message: “…additional material on Mies van der Roh is available in the discussion room lobby, where a lecture was held earlier this morning.” Perfect. Now, to see if she would take the bait…
He was up again and moving through the stacks…a man on a mission. He reached his observation point and waited. The other girls were engaged in an animated discussion (in lowered tones) with the boys at the next table. Melanie still poured over her book before her…and on the screen in front of her was now a bright blue Cyrus message window…
Three of her friends stood up and went over to the next table to be a bit closer to the objects of their attention. The remaining friend was now sitting largely with her back to the table. Melanie turned a page of the book and read on a bit, then looked up at her terminal screen…and froze…Fett felt his heart pounding. This was it. THE moment.
She read the message, then looked around the main room of the library in momentary confusion, shrugged, stood up, and began walking toward the discussion room near the back of the reference section…
Fett moved out slowly, but in a straight line…acting as if he had just found the book he had been seeking and was now looking for a spot to camp and read. Between the tables, all the way up to her spot…where he carefully set down his little gift in passing, completely unseen by her friends, hung a right and another right, doubling back on his course, and headed back into the stacks…
Melanie returned with two magazines, which Fett had planted outside the discussion room deliberately with her in mind – Architectural Digest, featuring works of Mies van der Roh, and Fett watched, exulting inwardly.
She stopped at her place and looked down, blinking. There was a color photo book on her subject, the architectural work of Mies van der Roh, and a single fresh rose laying atop it, along with a card. She picked up the card and opened it.
“For a fair lady…a small gift,” it read. Hardly a small gift: the book itself was priced at thirty dollars. The card was unsigned. She blushed slightly, and began looking around the main room again. There was no sign of anyone doing anything out of the ordinary……except for the pair of eyes watching her between geographic reference books, two stacks over…
Perfect! Perfect! Fett broke off observation and moved to his terminal, shut down Cyrus and returned the screen to the blank message window of the Campus browser. He picked up his books and moved out of the library….
Melanie was confused, but in a happy and simultaneously annoyed way. Somebody obviously was studying her, and having someone interested in herself was both flattering and interesting…however, this person was a mystery….and, much to her annoyance, her friends were clueless.
“You didn’t see anyone?” she asked Angela, her best friend, who had remained at the table.
Angela shook her head. “But I was talking to Mike,” she admitted. “I had my back to the table.”
“So what happened?” asked Korinne, walking back over to the table. “What made you get up and leave in the first place?”
“This message,” said Melanie, nodding at her terminal screen. Her friends clustered around her and read the message window.
“Hey, that’s a Cyrus window!” said Dawn, the only computer science student of the group. “Somebody Cyrused you! “What’s that?” asked Melanie.
“Cyrus is a targeted chat application Doug Freund wrote for his term project last year,” said Dawn. “He wanted a way to chat with other terminals on campus, even though it’s not supposed to be possible, so he designed a client-server protocol that fools the server….”
“…yeah, yeah, tekkie-tekkie,” said Korinne, laughing. “So what does it mean, Dawn?”
“It means that Melanie has a secret admirer,” said Carmen, the last of the group. “AND he’s a tekkie, like Dawn.”
Melanie smiled, a little bemused. “So how do I find out who he is?” she asked.
“It might be a she, Mel,” said Korinne, wincing as she took an elbow from Angela.
“Well, Cyrus always leaves an address for both ends of the chat message on the server,” said Dawn, sitting down in Melanie’s chair and hitting the keys rapidly. “All you have to do is go into the message logs for the past hour or so and look for a Cyrus signature.” She hit enter and waited…a list of times and terminal addresses came up, along with request messages. She pointed to one that had a .cyr suffix. “There’s your secret admirer,” she crowed.
Melanie squinted at the tiny numbers. “That’s just a string of code,” she said. “That’s not him.”
“True,” said Dawn, “but he sent the message from terminal 392, and he did it less than ten minutes ago.”“So he might still be in the building!” said Carmen. “Ooohhh! This is exciting! It’s better than watching SURVIVOR!”
“No, he won’t be in the building anymore,” said Korinne, shaking her head. “He’s gone, Mel.” Korinne was the Psych major. “He’s not going to stick around: guys who do stuff like this never do.”
Melanie looked at her, pouting slightly. “Why not?”
“Because he’s probably a wallflower,” she said. She got blank looks and went on. “It’s an ancient term for a geek,” she said. “He’s probably not very good looking and he doesn’t want to be seen. He just likes you and wanted to give you something.”
“You mean he doesn’t want me to see him?”
“Probably not. He’s probably terminally shy and not very good with women.” Melanie frowned.
“Well, he’s certainly got my attention,” she mused.
Angela was smiling. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?” she said. She looked at Carmen. “She’s a total softie for shy guys.”
Melanie glared at her, but only mockingly. “I think it’s sad,” she said. “This guy is probably really sweet…and he’s probably really lonely…”
“Oh, he’s lonely all right,” said Korinne knowingly. “But he’s found a way to deal with it.” She looked at Melanie. “This is the equivalent of a kiss,” she said.
Melanie blushed again. Angela shook her head.
“Nice going, Korinne – you just set the hook,” she said, watching Melanie. Melanie ignored her, looked at Dawn.
“Is there any way of finding out who this guy is?” she asked.
“Well, you can download Cyrus off a floppy,” said Dawn, “so he probably took it off the machine as soon as he was done. The best way would be to see if we can trace him while he’s doing it.” She looked at Korinne. “Do you think he’ll try again?
Korinne shrugged. “Impossible to predict,” she said. “But if we repeat the circumstances identically tomorrow…”
Melanie nodded. “Okay, so we all meet back here tomorrow, same time?”
“Okay by me,” said Paul at the next table.
“Yeah, and take a shower before you do!” said Carmen, laughing at him.