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DEADLY WEAPONS

One of the in-world wizards got Max’s Internet IP address from the server—a unique identifier that was easily traced to Boise State University. The MUDers looked up the phone number for the Ada County Sheriff’s Department in Boise and called in a warning that a potential murder-suicide was unfolding.

The year had begun hopefully for Max. He excelled at the part-time job his dad gave him at his computer store, HiTech Systems, performing clerical work, making deliveries in the company van, and assembling PC-compatible computers in the shop. And he managed to stay clean of probation violations—though he’d stopped taking his bipolar medication; his father didn’t want him drugged, and, anyway, Max didn’t agree with the diagnosis.

He began dating Amy in February of 1990, four months after meeting her at the Zoo, a dance club in Boise that catered to an underage crowd. A year younger than Max, she was blond, blue-eyed, and, when he first saw her, on the arm of Max’s friend Luke Sheneman, one of the former Meridian key bearers. As Max finished up his last year in high school, they began getting serious.

Max did nothing in half measures, and his devotion to Amy was absolute. She planned on attending Boise State University, so Max applied there, postponing his dream of attending CMU or MIT. He brought her home to meet his computer, and the couple played Tetris together. Their relationship was everything his parents’ hadn’t been. They both thought it would never end.

His old friends barely saw him over summer break. Then the fall term began at Boise State. Max declared a major in computer science and enrolled in a battery of courses: calculus, chemistry, and a computer class on data structures. Like all students, he was given an account on the school’s shared UNIX system. Like a few of them, he started hacking the computer right away. Max’s path was eased by another student, David, who’d already