Copyright 1999 -  Robert Baer Jr.  Revised - 2000.

PROLOGUE


This is the story of a superhero, The Computer Renegade, as told through
the eyes of his faithful bionic German Shepard Otto.  Disguised as
Accountant Nathan Lovejoy, the Renegade and his friends fight a never
ending battle against crime, injustice and danger.   This is yet another
entry from Otto's 'personal' log.

The Renegade Files - "On a Wing and a Prayer"

It was a hot Friday afternoon, my master and I zapped over to the Colonel
Krispies factory to pick up our friend, the Computer Dinosaur, and give
him a "lift" home.  Of course, my master had his "Renegade" costume on so
as not to reveal his secret identity.  When we appeared at the front gate,
the security guard on duty told us that our large green friend had left
work a little early and saw him going south towards the old warehouse
district of town.   As we saw the Colonel leaving in his limo, we asked
him about the Dinosaur.  He told us that he had finished his photo shoot
early and confirmed the security guard's story.  We had a bad feeling
about this, so I scanned the immediate area for him and found nothing.  
We had only one lead, that our friend was heading south, so we walked
several blocks until we reached an old abandoned warehouse.  I thought I
heard a noise inside, so we both walked through a narrow, boarded up
doorway.  All of a sudden, someone tossed a canister of sleeping gas at
us, and before either of us could react, we were both unconscience.

When I awoke, I found myself on top of a large table and strapped securely
do it.   Something was wrong, I couldn't move!  I couldn't access my
computer core and none of my weapons and 'black box' systems were online. 
When I attempted to speak, I could only bark!  I knew someone had somehow
disabled me, but I had no idea why until two ladies in labcoats approached
me.

"Well, looks like the flying lizards were right!" one of them said to the
other.

"Be kind," the other one said,"after all, they gave us want we wanted,
this big green goon in the cage hasn't yet."

The two ladies walked by my table and laughed.

"Once we got these two knocked out, it was easy to disconnect Otto's
circuitry!" one of them sneared, "we sure outsmarted them this time! 
Using our computer to create a force field so that they couldn't find the
big lizard on their sensors!"

"Yeah," the other laughed,"Now look at Wonderdog here!  Just unplug a few
wires and the mighty Otto is just a normal ugly mutt!"   I barked several
times, which made our captors laugh even louder!   I could barely turn my
head, so I couldn't see that my master was shackled  spread eagle on a
warehouse wall.

"I can't believe it was so easy to catch the Computer Renegade!" the one
lady boasted,"let's take his mask off and ...."

"No need to do that till later!" the other one interrupted,"he's still
out, and we only need him to make sure the green guy delivers."

With that, the two ladies walked back in front of me and towards a large
tarp-covered cage.

"Allow me to introduce myself to you, Otto!" the one lady bragged,"my name
is Doctor Divalla, and this is my assistant Hanna Dolana.  We have taken
you two captive to convince your large friend here to cooperate with us."

Hanna pulled the tarp off to reveal our friend, the Computer Dinosaur, in
a large steel cage.  He looked very unhappy, lying in the middle of the
cage with his head lowered to the floor.

"Ok, you fossil!   Listen up!" Dr Divilla shouted,"now are you going to
give us the blood sample we want, or do you want something terrible to
happen to your friends here!"

The Dinosaur lifted his head up, and saw me on the table and the Renegade
tied to the wall.

The Dinosaur yelled "YOU LET THEM GO OR I'LL......"

"Or you'll WHAT, you longed necked reptile!" Dr Divilla shouted,"you are
quite helpless in that lion cage we had brought here just for you!"

"Now be a good little lizard, like your other dinosaur friends were,"
Hanna added.

"Those two are no friends of mine!" the Dinosaur muttered,"how did you get
Romulas and Remus to give you a blood sample, pay them?"

"Only cost us twenty bucks!" Hanna said with a smile,"and they even told
us how to catch you and your 'friends' to boot!"

"That figures..."  the Dinosaur said sadly.

"You should feel proud, Dinosaur!" Dr Divilla exclaimed,"you and your
winged pterodactyle comrades will help to usher in a new age!   The day of
the dinosaur will return!   When I get your DNA copied and with the other
samples we have, Hanna and I will clone all of you!  Think of it, an army
of geneticly engineered pre-historic monsters under MY control!    We'll
conquer the world!   Now enough stalling, lizard, extend your leg out and
let us take that sample NOW or your friends will be my NEXT experiment, in
PAIN!!"

Sadly, the Dinosaur lifts his front foot up and puts it through the bars. 
 I start barking wildly, but it was no use, I was helpless with all of my
systems offline.  As I watched Hanna take the blood sample from the big
guy, I had one idea left!   There was my emergency signaler located near
my artifical heart!   I attempted to send out a low level compressed
transmission, but without my main systems I would not be able to set the
frequency or range.   I had to do something, so I set out my 'message'
hoping that maybe Starlight could pick it up.   Meanwhile, our captors set
the Dinosaur's blood sample in an electron microscope hooked up to their
large computer.   Hanna sat at the keyboard, typing away as her boss
turned to me and smiled sinisterly.

"In a matter of seconds, I'll have that big bafoon's DNA code!"  the
Doctor giggled,"and NO one will stop me!"

I looked around the room, desparately hoping for any sign of a rescue.  
High above me was a broken skylight, but all I could see up there was a
few birds flying in circles.   I looked at Hanna, and noticed a look of
confusion on her face!

"Doctor, something must be wrong with our equipment!" she said to her
boss,"look at this analysis!   This isn't DNA code!"

"You're right, Hanna!" the Doctor yelled in disgust,"this isn't DNA code,
it's BINARY CODE!!!" 

"Binary code?" Hanna asked,"but how?"

"Why do y'all think they call me the Computer Dinosaur for!" the big guy
said with a snicker.

"YOU TRICKED US, YOU OVERSTUFFED ANIMAL CRACKER!!"  Dr Divilla growled in
rage,"YOUR FRIENDS WILL PAY FOR THIS!!'

Now I was scared, so I looked around the warehouse once more hoping that
help was on the way.   I looked up once more at the broken skylight, and I
noticed that there were now a large number of birds perched in the
rafters.   My enchanced optical sensors were not working, but I could
still see that there were a number of robins, a blue jay, a thrush .... 
YES, I couldn't believe my eyes, these were my friends from BirdWorld!    

"NOW!" Robin Mallory chirped and the strange flock of birds desended on
the two lady scientists.   They kept flying around them, scaring them and
even landing on their faces and pecking their noses!   It was all of my
friends, Robin and Joe Mallory, Wild Bill Bluejay, Thrush Limbird, Babs
Finchly, Gloria Songbird, Daniel Quail, Edward R Sparrow, and many, many
more!    There were four little robins who landed beside me on the table,
it was Robin's children:  Zoe, Nancy, James and Chuck!   They saw my open
side panel and all of my unplugged wires sticking out of it.

"Hurry, help me with these wires!" Zoe chirped to her brothers as I barked
loudly.

"His vocal circuitry must be disconnected!" Nancy said as she grabbed a
wire with her claws,"it's a good thing we studied your design diagram on
our computer, Otto, we know where all these wires need to be plugged into!"

Robin Mallory flew down to the table beside my head.

"Girls!" she chirped,"hurry up and get his systems functioning again, we
can't keep distracting these humans all day!"

I barked again.  "Otto, we received your distress call,"  Robin said as
she put her wing on my ear,"good thing it was on a low frequency so that
our radio unit could pick it up!   It's times like these that I'm so glad
that my daughters are geniuses!"

"I think I have his vocal circuits up now!"  Zoe chirped as she plugged
another wire in place.

"I .... I ......  I thank you ladies!"  I said in a low tone,"now, please,
reconnect my laser targeting controls.... I'll need them to even the odds!
 It's the large blue ..."

"Yes, we know Otto!"  Nancy shouted,"ok, James, Chuck, help me plug this
wire in!"   The young robins inserted the wire back into it's proper
place, I could feel my laser systems coming back online!   I focused my
sight on the Dinosaur's cage door, and fired a quick,hot burst into the
keyhole lock.   It worked!   The lock melted as I shouted,"NOW, BIG GUY! 
YOU'RE FREE!   GO GET'EM!!!!"

The Dinosaur pushed the door open with his long neck, and jumped out of
his cage, pouncing on the ladies huge computer, smashing it flat!   The
ladies, now frightened out of their wits, tried to make a run for it.  
The Dinosaur leaped in front of them, lowering his head in front of them
and using his huge tail to surround the evil scientists.  

"NOW," the Dinosaur roared,"you threatened me and my friends!   Now it's
MY TURN!!!"

The Dinosaur roared loudly and lowered his open mouth toward them.

"NO!!!!!" Dr Divllla shouted.

"DON'T EAT US!!!"  Hanna begged.

Robin flew up to the Dinosaur's head and chirped,"DINOSAUR, STOP!    YOU
CAN'T DO THIS!"

He stopped and turned to her and said,"Why not?   These two gooberettes
were going to harm Otto and the Renegade and use my blood to make killer
dinosaurs and enslave the world!    Can I just swallow them for a while?  
Y'all know I don't eat meat!"

"No, my huge friend!" Robin said as she landed on his head, "we used our
radio to contact your friends!   Let them bring these evil humans to
justice!"

A loud BOOM!!!!  shook the warehouse, and instantly the Masked Melitta,
Starlight and my wife Samantha appeared!   Melitta ran towards her
husband, Starlight used her laser eyes to free him from the wall shackles.
 Samantha cried when she saw me, partially disassembled on the table in
front of her.  She "lost it" and attacked Dr Divilla and Hanna.  Starlight
had to 'zap' them into their own lion cage to keep Samantha from tearing
them apart!   

"Let me finish them, Starlight!"  Samantha growled,"look what they did to
my husband!"

"Relax, Samantha!"  the Renegade shouted,"I'll have Otto repaired in no
time!"

As Melitta handcuffed the two scientists, all of our bird friends landed
on the table near where the Renegade was working on me.

"Hey!" he said in amazement,"half of these wires are already hooked up,
Otto?   How did that happen?"

"It was my daughters, sir!" Robin answered him,"they knew how to ...."

"You!" the Renegade shouted,"you can talk!"

"Yes, Mister Renegade, we all can talk!" Robin chirped,"your dog and the
Computer Dinosaur are heroes in our world, so when we heard they were in
trouble, we came to your rescue!"

"We even contacted your talking horse!"  Edward R Sparrow said coldly.

"Hey, now that you have them all handcuffed, can I dive bomb them?"  Wild
Bill asked.

"You just can't enough of that, can you?" Thrush Limbird chirped back.

"Thank you all, for your help!" the Renegade said as he replaced my side
panel,"There!   Otto's all fixed now!   Status report, Otto!"

"All systems functioning!" I reported to our friends as I jumped off the
table.   Samantha ran up and hugged me.

"How can I ever thank all of you wonderful birds enough?"  Melitta said
with tears in her eyes.

"You already have, ma'am!" Robin chirped happily.

"All of our work is ruined!" Dr Divilla grumbled,"that stupid lizard
destroyed my computer!   All of my DNA data was in it!"

Wild Bill flew up to her and said,"so sorry to hear that, evil lady, have
a worm!" as he tossed a earthworm into her open mouth.  She tried to spit
it out, but swallowed it instead.

"I got one for you two, madam!" he said as he tossed a worm into Hanna's
mouth, but she was able to spit it out.

"Ingrate!" Wild Bill snorted as he flew back to the table.

"Everyone!" Starlight called out,"I've contacted the local police, they'll
be here shortly."

"Time for us to leave, then," Robin said to her bird friends.

"Good idea, darling!" her husband Joe said,"the outside world need not
know about OUR role in this arrest!"

"Hey!"  Wild Bill protested,"can we stay long enough to bring back more
tasty worms?"

"No, we have to go now, I can hear the police sirens in the distance," 
Robin said sadly,"goodbye, my friends!  Stay in touch with us, call on us
whenever you need assistance!"

"Thank y'all for everything!"  the Dinosaur said as he waved goodbye with
his front foot.   Robin leads all of her 'friends' out the open skylight
as the police arrive.   The officers present were disbelieving when Dr
Divilla and Hanna tried to tell them about all the talking birds that had
help capture them.   

"Once more, excellent work, Computer Renegade and Masked Melitta!" one of
the arresting officers said,"you all seem to know where the trouble is,
how did you know about this evil laboratory?"

"Well, sir," I said with a wink,"let's just say it was all 'on a wing and
a prayer'"

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