Appearing in "Byte of the Binary Bug"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Peter Spaulding
- Delmar Insurance Company offices
- Harry Wilkins (First appearance)
- Frank Cirrado (First appearance)
- Maggie Jones
- Pamela Quinn
- Byron Benjamin
- Eddie Harris
Antagonists:
- Binary Bug (First appearance)
- Khan (First appearance)
- Miles Brickman
Other Characters:
- Hiram Goldstein (First appearance)
- Toy (Only in flashback)
- Tinkerer (Mentioned)
Locations:
Vehicles:
Synopsis for "Byte of the Binary Bug"
Machine Man and Peter Spaulding go to visit Byron J. Benjamin in the hopes of gaining MM some gainful employment. However, they find a villain known as the Binary Bug attempting to steal bonds from Benjamin's safe. Machine Man prevents him from stealing the valuables, but the villain gets away. Grateful for his efforts, Benjamin offers him a position as an insurance investigator for Delmar Insurance.
Delmar's last investigator, Joseph Rambo was fired for tampering with policy files. He has since hired the Tinkerer to design him some technological hardware so that he may gain revenge upon Delmar as the Binary Bug.
Machine Man discovers that the Binary Bug is hacking into Delmar Insurance files to acquire details concerning clients' assets and then robbing those clients of those self same items. His goal is to not only acquire material wealth, but also to undermine the monetary success of his former employers at Delmar. One of the clients he attempts to rob is Khan of Xanadu. Machine Man tracks the Bug into Khan’s dirigible, but when the Bug attempts to escape, he flies downward into some high tension wires, killing himself.
Notes
- First and only appearance of the Binary Bug (Joseph Rambo)
- First appearances of Byron J. Benjamin, Edward W. Harris and Maggie Jones.
- Guest appearance by Miles Brickman.
- A footnote defines several computer-related concepts, attributing them to a real-life book: The Home Computer Book, by Len Buckwalter, published in 1978.