`Friendly letters. Real friendly.'
Par wanted to know, but at the same time, he didn't. He could have arranged root access on Altos long ago if he'd really wanted it. But he didn't. He didn't want it because it would mean he could access Theorem's mail. And Par knew that if he could, he would. Theorem was popular on Altos and, being the suspicious type, Par knew he would probably take something perfectly innocent and read it the wrong way. Then he would get in a fight with Theorem, and their time together was too precious for that.
`Too friendly,' Corrupt went on. It must have been hard for him to tell Par. Snagging a friend's girlfriend's password and breaking into her account was one thing. There wasn't much wrong with that. But breaking that kind of news, well, that was harsh. Especially since Corrupt had worked with Gandalf in 8lgm.
`Thanks,' Par said finally. Then he took off.
When Par tried out the MOD password, it didn't work of course, because Gandalf had disabled the account. But Par didn't know that. Finding out that Theorem's account was disabled didn't bother him, but discovering who disabled it for her didn't make Par all that happy. Still, when he confronted Theorem, she denied that anything was going on between her and Gandalf.
What could Par do? He could believe Theorem or he could doubt her. Believing her was hard, but doubting her was painful. So he chose to believe her.
The incident made Theorem take a long look at Altos. It was doing bad things to her life. In the days that she was locked out of the German chat system, she had made the unpleasant discovery that she was completely addicted. And she didn't like it at all. Staring at her life with fresh eyes, she realised she had been ignoring her friends and her life in Switzerland. What on earth was she doing, spending every night in front of a computer screen?
So Theorem made a tough decision.
She decided to stop using Altos forever.
Bad things seemed to happen to The Parmaster around Thanksgiving.