"All right pal, put `em up!"

Les Angeles looked up in alarm. Lights flashed and a stern voice came from every speaker and radio in the house.

"This is the deal," the stentorian voice went on. "Your picture has already been taken, recorded, and sent by wireless relay over the Internet to our central office where someone is right now preparing to call the police. Leave immediately without taking or damaging anything and we won't hand you over to the Man. Failure to comply will mean arrest, incarceration, trial, jail time. Don't come back, we know who you are. Have a nice day."

Les didn't realize his jaw had dropped open until he picked it off the floor.

"Haw, haw, haw." The V-Boys came in through the front door. Slapping each other, giving the high five, low five, and tandem twenty.

"Well, what do you think, Mr. Angeles?" asked Bob-o-Link.

Les shook his head, amazed. It was still hard for him to believe that these young men were the same punks he used to chase out of his knick-knack shop (Knickknacks) in downtown Nedville for shoplifting just a few years before. "And it really worked the way you said?"

"Fire up your computer and we can look at the pictures right now."

Sure enough a few minutes later Les was looking at a recording of himself blinking in the bright light at the V-Boys "Home Security" web site.

"You can change cameras like this." Now he could see the car outside where the V-Boys had sat giggling moments before. "A quick adjustment and you've got the license plate number!"

"The best thing," broke in L'il Ed, "is that you can watch your home or business from anywhere in the world! The automatic program alerts you to a problem in seconds through a pager and if you don't like what you see you can notify friends, family, or the police."

"Dang," Les murmured. "Sign me up, boys, sign me up."

Never put off until tomorrow what you can put off until the day after tomorrow. — Babe Martin

Later they celebrated the sale at L'il Ed's home. They toasted one another with soft drinks because they were still too young for anything stronger and L'il Ed's mom wouldn't stand for anything else.

"What are you going to do with your first million?" Sam "Eager" Baskins asked him.

"Probably get my own place."

Formerly known as the V-Chips, they had been the toughest little rural street gang from Honky's Hollow in Vinegarroon County. They changed their name when they incorporated. It took them awhile to figure out what they were going to do but knew that it had to be on the Internet.

Nobody knew breaking and entering like they did. And there were no pranks any kids were likely to think up that they hadn't already done. So it was an application of their natural talents that led them into the security business.

Before long they had attracted national investors and were featured on the covers of Newsweek and Time as the new "Wunderkind" of the Internet. They made a commercial with Don Marsh and were invited to sit around the big round table and chat with Charlie Rose™. They leased Babe Martin's leaky old warehouse on Smert Road, down by the lime pit, hiring 16 employees.

Unfortunately it all ended before any papers were signed when Bill Gates announced his company was bundling a product they called Microsoft Security™ into Microsoft Windows™ at no extra cost to the consumer.

The V-Boys were depressed for about a day, then went swimming.

They say their new company will be a Virtual Bank™ to exchange Micromoney™© (a penny or less) over the Internet. Their offices are in half of Li'l Ed's Mom's garage. Her '84 Chevrolet occupies the other half.

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