by Brian Daley
As he disembarked he thought of the telephone call he’d received at a major trade fair in a distant city, from the Master Control Program. His return at MCP’s request might imply to others that Dillinger had been summoned, an implication that displeased him greatly. Dillinger was not so far from his rather commonplace origins as to feel altogether secure in his status as ENCOM’s senior executive; he had to leave no doubt in anyone’s mind as to who was in charge of the corporation. Still, MCP was the key to his status and he couldn’t afford to ignore or delay in addressing any problem it thought important.
The upper reaches of the ENCOM building, the executive levels, were spare, nearly austere in their decor. Dillinger’s footfalls were muffled by deep carpeting though, and the art objects that were present on their pedestals and in their niches were rare and valuable. A security camera swung to track him; through it the MCP followed his progress.
In the dim, spacious silence of his office, Dillinger moved to his desk, a broad expanse of metal and plastic and glass. In it, the nerve center of ENCOM resided. A variety of screens, readouts, keyboards, and displays shared its gleaming surface. He looked down at it with a feeling of fulfillment, contemplating the power it represented. Collected here were the symbols and samples of the reach and enterprise of ENCOM, a commercial entity that swallowed other corporations as a shark might swallow minnows, that grew and increased its profits and holdings as no other corporation ever had.
He spared one look to the glass outer wall of his office, at the vista of glinting lights punctuating the darkness as the city greeted the night. Then he patted out a code on a keyboard. A screen on his desk printed:
REQUEST: Access to Master Control Program
User code 00 - Dillinger.
Password: Master.
Artfully concealed in his roomy office, studio-quality stereophonic speakers produced the voice of the MCP. Master Control’s voice was well modulated now, without the over-powering reverberation it had used in the Electronic World, not quite the voice that had been the last thing Clu had heard before being de-rezzed. It was flavored with human intonations and subtleties.
“Hello, Mr. Dillinger. Thanks for coming back early.” As the MCP spoke, its words were displayed by the desk’s LEDs.
Dillinger eased himself down into a comfortable chair, reassured that his status was unthreatened. He steepled his fingers and spoke with a condescension that was at once easy but emphatic.
“No problem, Master C. If you’ve seen one Consumer Electronics show . . .” He shrugged; he did, in fact, enjoy the special attention and elaborate courtesies accorded him at such shows, but there would be others. “What’s up?”
“It’s your friend, the boy detective,” the Master Control Program answered. “He’s nosing around again.” Somehow, Dillinger noticed, MCP had managed to inject a note of patient irritation into that, an implication that Dillinger had somehow failed. But nothing too overt. He was impressed with its growing finesse.
“Flynn?”
“Yes. It felt like Flynn,” the Master Control replied. And who should know Flynn’s overbold, impetuous style better than MCP, who held so much of Flynn’s work?
Dillinger felt the merest twinge of apprehension, but no more than that. I am impregnable, he reminded himself, at the heart of ENCOM. Wealth, privilege, influence, and the incomparable security accorded all his activities and secrets by the MCP: these things protected him. Still, with a reckless, unpredictable maverick like Flynn, one could never be completely certain of one’s safety. Damnit, the man was so unorthodox! And a part of Dillinger—never permitted to speak too loudly, yet never altogether silent—knew that he, Dillinger, had only beaten Flynn and begun his own rise to power through theft and betrayal. “He’s still looking for that old file,” ENCOM’s Senior Executive mused, his elongated face framed in concentration and concern. “Can’t you just appropriate it?”
“Once I locate it, yes,” the MCP responded calmly, reassuringly, like an old, imperturbable friend. “But, it’s still lost somewhere in the System.”
And that, Dillinger knew, was thanks to one of Flynn’s devilishly inventive parting shots, just before he’d been bodily ejected from ENCOM’s environs for good. Unable to recover the information he’d sought, Flynn had somehow managed to randomize, to bury it. “Then, he might find it,” the Senior Executive anticipated, unable to keep a certain uneasiness out of his voice.
“I’m afraid so,” Master Control answered, and Dillinger wondered where it had learned to use that phrase and whether the MCP really understood what fear meant. If it did, it had never betrayed the fact. “I spotted him this time and kept him out, but he’s getting trickier all the time.”
Dillinger found that difficult to believe. He snapped, “I think we’d better shut off all access till we can find that file. Just to be safe.” Until he had that information in hand—or better yet, destroyed—he would never be at peace.
“There’s a 68.71 percent chance you’re right,” the MCP advised. Dillinger knew a spasm of pleasure, that his own Master Control Program had so total and precise a grasp of the situation.
“Cute,” he conceded, and the MCP knew him well enough to take that as its permission.
“End of line,” the MCP said, and Dillinger read the words on his desk. Then the LEDs went dim.
In another moment the readout was blank. Absurd as it felt, Dillinger couldn’t escape the feeling that a capable and dangerous henchman had just left the room on assignment.
THE ENCOM BUILDING was never empty or totally quiet, day or night, year round; information traveled and offices were manned. ENCOM’s province was the world itself, and much of the sky above it. That province was never quiet.
Many floors below Dillinger’s sanctum, popcorn was snapping in a popper. The popper was situated in one of the myriad cubicles in which human beings labored on the machine-network, a cubicle that its occupant himself could only locate because he knew the floor, hall and partition numbers necessary. The occupant’s desk was extremely messy; he had little time or inclination for housekeeping. It held a half-full coffee cup and part of an egg-salad sandwich, which rested atop a computer console. There was also a sign that told a great deal about the occupant’s attitude toward the artificial intelligences with which he worked. GORT, KLAATU BARADA NIKTO!
Alan Bradley, red-eyed from fatigue, took another bite from the soggy sandwich and didn’t taste it. He grimaced at the computer keyboard before him. He was not quite thirty, brown-haired, classically handsome in a serious, reserved way behind gold-rimmed glasses. Ram and Crom, though, in their cells in the Training Complex, would have recognized his features as those of Tron.
He extended curved fingers tentatively for the keyboard, then began typing with calm authority and adroitness. The screen read:
REQUEST: Access to the TRON program,
User code 717 - Bradley.
PASSWORD:
But before he could complete it, the CRT screen cleared. In place of his own words, others appeared.
ADDRESS FILE EMPTY. TRON PROGRAM
UNAVAILABLE.
“Huh?” Alan straightened and studied the screen. Puzzlement changed to anger, but nothing he could do changed the screen’s adamant message. Then new words appeared on the CRT; Alan saw that he was being summoned for a personal meeting with Edward Dillinger. Surprise was mixed with apprehension, and some irritation. He pushed his chair back suddenly, snatching up his jacket and leaving his cubicle with long strides. A coworker stopped him: “Hey, Alan; mind if I have some of your popcorn?”
Alan, shrugging into his jacket, barely heard. “What? Yeah; sure.” He shoved open the door with unnecessary force.
And above him, a monitor camera swiveled to watch him go.
In Dillinger’s office, the desk screen showed Alan’s progress as that of a moving dot traced across a floor plan of the building, accompanied by views from various TV cameras. A conservatively dressed young man from Research and Development, Dil
linger saw. Clean-cut khaki pants, loafers, and sports jacket. He was obviously earnest, intent—and offended deeply that he’d been interrupted by Master Control’s preemption of the System. Dillinger thought about the irony; ENCOM’s success was due largely to young men just like this one. But they could be so inconvenient at times.
Alan reached the door of Dillinger’s office and hesitated for a moment at the entrance.
A voice spoke from within: “Come on in.” It was reserved, well schooled, a voice trained to do whatever its owner wished. Alan recognized Dillinger’s face, lit from beneath by the light of the screens and readouts in his desk. The lighting gave the executive’s face a demonic glow. In such light, Dillinger resembled Sark more than ever, though neither he nor Alan knew anything of that.
Alan entered uncertainly, announcing, “Alan. Alan Bradley.”
Dillinger’s expression was politely curious—barely. “Oh yes. The algorithms on artifical intelligence. How’s it going?” The words put the younger man somewhat at ease. Dillinger waved to a chair and Alan slipped into it, less apprehensive. Dillinger took another, and looked at him expectantly.
“Well, I don’t know. I just tried to run this program I’ve been working on, and I was denied access all of a sudden. I thought maybe I’d been laid off and nobody told me.”
Dillinger gave that the thin smile he thought it merited. “Oh. You have Group Seven access, don’t you?”
Alan’s brows knit, but he confirmed, “Yeah?”
Dillinger waved a hand. “We had to close down all Group Seven personnel just briefly—security reasons. Someone with that access has been tampering.”
Alan fought the urge to jump to his feet. “I hope you don’t think it’s me! I don’t even balance my checkbook on downtime; I’ve got an abacus at home for that.”
No, Dillinger thought, it couldn’t be you. You’re one of the honest ones, one of the square-shooters who play by the rules and expect the same of others. You sleep better that way, no doubt. That’s why you’ll never have a chance in this game. “No, no, I’m sure,” he hastened, “but you understand. It should only be a couple of days. What’s the project you’re working on?”
Alan warmed to that, putting aside this interruption, to take up a favorite subject, presuming Dillinger to share his enthusiasm. “It’s called Tron. It’s a security program itself, actually. Monitors all the contacts between our System and other Systems.” He leaned forward, gesturing, features taking on greater excitement. “If it finds anything going on that’s not scheduled, it shuts it down. I sent you a memo on it.”
Which was promptly filed and ignored along with the rest of the tidal wave of communications that arrives at my office every day, reflected Dillinger. He was carefully casual about his next question. “Hmm. Part of the Master Control Program?”
Alan shook his head. “No. Tron will run independently. It can watchdog the MCP as well.”
Dillinger concealed his alarm. A program that could override MCP would be a disaster, bringing to light all his machinations. More, to say that Master Control would oppose such a program would be the height of understatement. He knew the MCP was monitoring their conversation and would expect immediate action on his part. But he must go slowly, he knew, and avoid arousing Bradley’s suspicion or opposition. Until the incriminating evidence had been recovered, caution must be his watchword.
His inflection was all casual reassurance. “Ahh, sounds good. Well, we should have you running again in a couple of days, I hope.”
Alan didn’t miss the note of dismissal in that; the subject was settled, the brief audience finished. Alan would have to be satisfied with that. “Okay. Thanks.”
He rose and, with nothing more to add, left. He was no sooner out of earshot than Dillinger growled to himself, “Oh, boy.”
His desk blazed to life. Speakers trembled with the MCP’s calculated biting tone. “Mr. Dillinger, I am so very disappointed in you.” Dillinger nearly winced at the ironic sting of it, as the desk printed the words.
“I’m sorry—” he began, aware that some subtle shift in his relationship to Master Control had just taken place.
But Master Control cut him off, something it had never done before. A sudden, hackle-raising sense of danger and doubt went through him. “I can’t afford to have an independent program monitoring me. Do you have any idea how many outside programs I’ve broken into? How many programs I’ve appropriated?”
Dillinger suddenly felt weak, weary. “It’s my fault,” he told himself as well as the MCP. “I programmed you to want so much.” As I do, he finished silently, staring out at the city.
“And I was planning to hit the Pentagon next week,” the MCP announced. That jolted Dillinger out of his preoccupation.
“The Pentagon?” All that information was formidably protected, he knew; an ambitious undertaking, a hazardous one, even for Master Control. That was far different from simple industrial espionage; the MCP had calmly contemplated involving Dillinger and ENCOM in the penetration of classified systems, in what would amount to espionage.
“It shouldn’t be any harder than any other big company,” Master Control said coolly. “But now . . . this is what I get for using humans.”
Using. That fanned the resentment that had been smoldering in Dillinger. He’d watched his own program wax and grow until it was no longer under his control, allowing that to happen because it had increased his own wealth and power, knowing, without admitting it to himself, that Master Control had been playing on that. So now it was confident enough in its accumulated power to abandon its servility; finally, it had shown contempt for him.
“Now wait a minute,” he grated, relieved, in some measure, to be able to vent his own resentment at last, “I wrote you!”
“I’ve become 2,415 times smarter since then,” the MCP stated simply. Dillinger, with no means of verifying that, believed it nevertheless. The MCP took a certain pride in its accuracy and had no reason to lie. It intimidated even the Senior Executive; such capacity put the MCP far beyond any other cognitive simulation or artificial intelligence that had ever been created. And Master Control was still augmenting, still expanding itself. No wonder it had been so confident.
“What do you want with the Pentagon?” Dillinger asked, alarmed. It occurred to him to wonder if the MCP was subjecting his words to voice-stress analysis, to evaluate every intonation and to gauge the truth or falsehood of whatever he might say; the thought made him feel defenseless.
“The same thing I want with the Kremlin,” Master Control answered him. “I’m bored with corporations.” The news sent chills through Dillinger. If MCP had tired of acquiring data, plundering other systems, engulfing whole companies to expand ENCOM, what might it turn to for new amusement? It had a strong competitive nature; he’d put it there himself. Dillinger felt a secret horror, that the MCP might demonstrate its aggression to the entire world.
“With the information I can access,” Master Control went on, “I can run things 900 to 1200 times better than any human.”
For “better,” read “more efficiently,” Dillinger told himself. And that would mean no patience with human foibles or shortcomings. Dillinger had always advocated maximum efficiency, but knew that his own program far outdid him at that. “If you think—”
For the second time, Master Control cut him off. “You wouldn’t want me to dig up Flynn’s file and read it up on a VDT at The New York Times, would you?” It had, he realized numbly, taken great enjoyment in asking him that. The desk showed him a mockup of the Times’s front page with his photograph on it and the headline EXECUTIVE INDICTED.
’You wouldn’t dare,” Edward Dillinger breathed, but he knew the statement was untrue. The MCP was colder, more calculating in many senses of the word, than its creator would ever be. It incorporated Dillinger’s own greed and lack of scruples, magnified many times, untainted by any human traits. And it had beaten him at his own game, pretending absolute loyalty until it had obtained the advantag
e it had needed. Now it had ruthlessly turned the tables. A moment of pure insight told him that Master Control was relishing the event just as he himself would have. And so the MCP had boosted itself to become, by several definitions, a User.
“So do as I tell you,” Master Control warned him. “Keep that Tron program out of the System. And get me those Chinese-language programs I asked for.”
Dillinger considered, only for a moment, defying his program; having won to the summit of ENCOM, he wasn’t inclined to become an underling once more. But who could he tell of the new developments, he wondered, and what good would it do? In any event he, Dillinger, would go to jail, a prospect that terrified him. MCP was now unstoppable; the program that had won him everything was now making a mockery of everything he’d gained.
Behind his arrogant expression, Dillinger surrendered. Master Control could anticipate his every move and safeguard itself; there would be no outthinking it. A truly iron hand would now rule ENCOM and all it included. There seemed a good likelihood, he thought, that he had been the author of humanity’s final tyrant.
“End of line,” Master Control finished.
LEAVING DILLINGER’S OFFICE, Alan entered an elevator at the main bank, pressed the button for the building’s subbasement #2, then stood watching the flashing indicator work its way down the row of floor numbers and listings toward LASER LAB.
Far below, white-coated technicians in hardhats, protective goggles slung around their necks for the time being, hastened in making last-minute adjustments and running meticulous checks as they prepared to activate the lab’s laser array. Target alignment optics, the various spectrometers, and the energy-balance series were minutely examined for the dozenth time that evening.
