I’ve told this story before. The original version—Badge of Fandom, Mark of Mischief—was more amused by itself. I almost got thrown out of my course for hacking a sign-on message. A neat anecdote. A shrug of nostalgia.
But that’s not the part I remember most.
What stays with me is the bag. Or rather, what it signaled: a full teenage logic, fixed in place like a dare. If you’re going to be caught, make sure it’s for something that mattered to you.
This version edges a little closer to that—less hack, more longing.
Going Underground
The bag gave it away. Not the code, not the keystrokes—just the bag. Industrial green, heavy-duty nylon. Cylindrical, with a thick zipper that ran the full length. Heavy with textbooks and the kind of certainty that doesn’t age well. Across the top: an embroidered patch I’d sewn on myself, and a scatter of cheap Jam pins—fuzzy print, bent backs, slogans already soft with wear. As if I could badge my way into becoming the kind of person their lyrics demanded. As if being noticed for something you loved might be enough to hold a shape in the world.
It was March 1980. I’d just turned nineteen. My A-levels had been polite but not persuasive, and I’d ended up at Wolverhampton Polytechnic, in a Combined Studies course that sounded like something invented mid-panic. The computer labs were more advanced than they had any right to be. Dumb terminals clustered across campus, all tethered to a minicomputer running on trust and default passwords.
Everyone in Computer Science had to buy the manual. Page 74: a tidy list of access credentials, unencrypted and unembarrassed. It felt less like security and more like a suggestion.
I didn’t think of it as hacking. Not then. Not really. It felt like editorial work. A minor correction to the system’s cultural awareness.
That week, The Jam had gone straight to number one. I decided the network ought to show some respect. System availability out. National significance in. Going Underground had arrived. You’re welcome.
Took fifteen minutes, maybe less. I typed it once. Then again, to check the spacing. Then again, just to watch it happen. The new message looped like a secret handshake—private enough to feel personal, public enough to be noticed. I stayed logged in, watching it scroll.
Then footsteps.
He entered like a warning. Senior lecturer. Senior scowl. Already sure of what he’d find. His voice made the terminals flinch. He’d traced the change to this bank of machines, narrowed it to two still glowing. I looked busy. The other student had only just sat down. We both claimed innocence with the reflexes of small mammals.
He grunted and left.
Relief showed up early, and I let it settle. I stayed in my seat, hands still on the keyboard, breathing like stillness might protect me. The terminals kept humming. The other student had already moved on.
I hadn’t.
Two minutes passed. Long enough to believe the danger had shifted elsewhere.
Then the door slammed open again. This time, he didn’t speak. Just pointed.
“Come with me.”
I didn’t argue. Just gathered my things, the bag swinging like punctuation.
His office was small, beige, and quietly certain of my guilt. He didn’t ask for a confession. Just listed consequences: no more computer access, which meant no assignments, which meant failing the course. He couldn’t expel me, but he could make staying pointless. It was surgical, and it was practiced.
I apologized. Not out of strategy—just the flat panic of realizing that admiration, when worn too loudly, can turn on you.
He paused. Something shifted.
“You did show us the weaknesses,” he said. “Tell me how.”
I did. Quietly. No performance. Just the facts—testifying not to guilt, but to a version of myself that still thought cleverness counted as protection. Cocky. Hopeful. Afraid of being ordinary.
He let me go. Warned me there’d be no next time. I nodded. Waited, unsure if this was a reprieve or the setup for something else.
Just as I reached the door, he asked if I wanted to know how he’d known it was me.
I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to.
He pointed at the bag.
“That thing,” he said, almost laughing.
Not because I’d broken the rules. But because the bag had already confessed, louder than I ever would.