Tron

by Brian Daley

  Lora tried her sunniest smile on the guard; it came out with a tiny quiver.

  “Hi,” the guard said casually, not so much to the two men as to that nice young Ms. Baines who worked for Dr. Gibbs. “Working late?” He recognized the fellow in the glasses, and the other guy too, though he hadn’t seen him around in a while.

  “Oh—yeah,” Lora replied nervously, and found herself giving the man—she couldn’t quite dredge up his name—a warm look. She’s got wiles she ain’t used yet, Flynn marveled, and Alan was greatly impressed.

  The guard nodded as he passed them by, ascending the stairs, on his route. All three wilted with relieved sighs as they went on their way. They stopped in a darkened entrance area, close by the lab proper. Lora said, “Okay, Flynn; I’m gonna put you at my terminal in the lab. Alan and I will be in the control room.”

  Flynn rubbed his palms together. “Swell. I’ll log us both on, and Alan can get his Tron thing running.”

  She cautioned them both, “As long as we stay off the top floor, Dillinger’ll never know we’ve been here.” Until it was too late, at which time it wouldn’t matter if he flipped his peruke.

  Alan looked to Flynn. “Good luck, hotshot.” Flynn nodded; he liked Bradley’s composure. Alan set off for the control room.

  Flynn followed Lora toward the laser lab. He was feeling somewhere between an espionage agent and a kid playing hide ‘n’ seek. He tried his best covert-entry gait, but it felt a little ludicrous in the well-lit computer rooms, and quickly devolved into a sort of Groucho Marx burlesque of stealth, a mime burglar. He outdistanced Lora. In a typical Flynn decision to make the most of the excitement and defuse the anxiety, he decided to play a little.

  Lora brought up the rear, adjusting her glasses, preoccupied with her own thoughts. Let’s see: there’s illegal entry, trespass, treason, theft of services—

  “Boo!” Flynn remarked, popping up behind her. Lora jumped straight up, and clutched in the region of her heart, in case she should have to pound it to get it started again. Now I remember why it was interesting to be around him. And why he almost drove me bats.

  They went on, Lora stepping carefully over the structural members of the frame, Flynn skipping along them and tightrope-walking the occasional girder. Neither noticed the monitoring cameras following their progress. They reached Lora’s console in the lab, and Flynn threw himself into its chair impatiently.

  He rubbed his palms again. “Like the man says, there’s no problems, only solutions.”

  Lora laid a hand to his shoulder, speaking emphatically. “This laser’s my life’s work. Don’t spill anything.”

  He laughed, but let her know he understood with a nod of agreement. She gave him a half-smile and left to rejoin Alan.

  Flynn wriggled into a more comfortable position and interlocked his fingers, cracking his knuckles in anticipation and summoning up his electronic muse. He poised hands over the keyboard, his mind trumpeting: Flynn at the Mighty Wurlitzer! He drew a breath and typed a code, then tapped the ‘enter’ key. And was unaware of the realigning of a monitoring camera.

  It focused on him from directly above and behind, watching his every move. Flynn typed on.

  Access code 6. Password

  Series PS 17. Reindeer,

  Flotilla

  The CRT screen cleared suddenly, and the room was resonant with the voice of the Master Control Program. “You shouldn’t have come back, Flynn.”

  He knew a moment’s surprise, at how far applications of voice synthesis had come. “Hey, hey; it’s that big, bad Master Control Program everybody’s talking about! Y’don’t look a thing like your pictures!” He typed:

  CODE SERIES LSU-123 . . . activate.

  CODE SERIES ESS-999 . . . activate.

  CODE SERIES HHH-888 . . . activate.

  The MCP sounded confident, amused, but was secretly intimidated. Despite its tremendous augmentation, it could not quite analyze the random factors, unpredictable impulses, and sudden whims of the organic computer that was Flynn’s brain. But it told him, “That isn’t going to do you any good, Flynn. I’m afraid you—”

  There was a lurch in the voice synthesis, then it became a series of high-pitched squeals. Flynn grinned malevolently; try that on for size!

  The voice returned to normalcy, but sounded shaken, making Flynn wonder what moved the MCP to prove its mastery of nuances of human communication. It warned, “Stop, Flynn. You realize I can’t allow this.” Hidden from Flynn’s sight and hearing, the laser array began a warmup sequence.

  Flynn was in his element now, ignoring everything but the terminal. This was a contest he relished; it was an article of faith with him that no machine or program was a match for a human being who had the necessary skills and information. C’mon out and fight! he thought, and prepared to hand the Master Control Program its address. The screen read:

  MCP: Terminate control mode.

  Activate Matrix storage.

  Flynn tsked, “Now, how d’you expect to run the universe if you let a few unsolvable problems throw you like that? C’mon, big boy; let’s see what you’ve got.”

  Silently, without Flynn’s noticing, the entire wall behind him slid upward, revealing the frame, target platforms, and the rest of the laser lab. The laser array swung and targeted on his back, its cross hairs bracketing him precisely. Flynn played on.

  “You’re entering a big error, Flynn,” Master Control intoned. It had considered its options with typical thoroughness. Letting this troublesome interloper recover the data was out of the question; that algorithm led inexorably to disaster for the MCP. But alerting security wouldn’t do either; there would be inquiries, possibly the intrusion of the police or other authorities. At the same time, Flynn was the most adroit User the MCP had ever encountered. He stood a good chance of winning the information from the System, given time.

  That left the laser.

  But not for murder, although that lay well within the MCP’s capacity by this time; it had thrown off all limitations imposed on it by human beings. Flynn’s body, though, would bring a hue and cry; investigation that might spell ruin for ENCOM and Master Control. There was an alternative.

  The MCP had carefully monitored all the lab’s experiments. It knew even more about the process of digitization than did Gibbs and Lora, thanks to their experiment. Without a body, without a corpse, there would be no furor or danger of compromise for Master Control. But Flynn couldn’t simply be left suspended in the beam, and the MCP had decided just what to do with him. Flynn’s fate would be practical, amusing, and appropriately vindictive.

  “I’m going to have to put you on the Game Grid,” Master Control concluded calmly, as it synchronized the laser array.

  Flynn missed the implication entirely, sniggering, “Games, huh?” The cross hairs centered on his back. “I’ll give you—”

  Brilliant, coherent light issued from the array; Flynn was rocked in his chair by the spasms of his own outstretched arms and legs. As the orange had done earlier that evening, his body began to break into scan lines. The console, too, was outlined in radiance as the laser and the MCP made proper integration with it. Flynn’s body lost resolution. The whole scene became monochromatic, except for Flynn’s shining body. His form blurred, becoming indistinct, evanescing . . .

  It was entirely subjective, perhaps, but it seemed to Flynn that the CRT screen, unbelievably incandescent, rose up to meet him, to swallow him. He was without feeling, nearly without thought. He was, for a time, in complete blackness.

  Then came a speck of light, pinpoint of brilliance, to seize on his dazed attention. It grew nearer to him, or he to it. He felt as if he were midway in some eternal high dive. The globe became clearer and clearer, a gridded orb suggesting the ENCOM trademark, crisscrossed with currents of light, hinting at exhaustive detail. Flynn circled it, or it rotated before him.

  Closer and closer; somewhere in that part of him not paralyzed, questions formed, but he had no way of asking them, even o
f himself. The landscape below became one of angular towers; buildings; illuminations; banded energy; hulking, mountainlike features and rivers of brilliance; and blasted, fallow places suggesting wastelands. The whole was defined by a grid pattern resembling nothing so much as a world of circuitry. He fell feet first, arms extended upward.

  The grids and the globe itself expanded before him as he plunged toward them. Interlaced luminance, soaring spires and modular structures reminiscent of cities, became better defined. A megalopolis among these rose up to meet him, set by a trackless stretch of geometric cliffs and gorges. Around him, Flynn seemed to feel a tunnel made up of the increments of his journey, as if he were dropping through an infinite series of hoops of energy.

  He fell and fell, completely disoriented, amazed nearly to the point of thoughtlessness, absorbing all that he saw.

  And at last the tunnel ended. He shot from its mouth; the ground flew up at him.

  HE CAME TO on an open, stagelike surface atop an enormous. building, surrounded by a cylinder of light that stretched up into infinity.

  When Flynn looked at himself, checking for damage, what remained of his composure nearly fled. He was costumed in strange armor that weighted his shoulders and forearms. Over it, he wore a wraparound half-tunic. He held up his hands for a better look. He was aglow, a being of light.

  Wasn’t I always? he gibbered to himself. Incandescent lines, resembling circuitry, ran over his torso and limbs, reminding him of the meridian lines he’d seen on acupuncture charts. He shook his head to try to clear it—not a very helpful gesture—and felt the weight of headgear. The touch of his fingers told him he wore a close-fitting helmet.

  He looked around, dazed. Beyond the cylinder of brightness were a number of . . . men? Manlike beings, anyway; big, husky-looking uglies in uniforms that accentuated their breadth and bulk. They were cowled, faces hidden but for odd devices that reminded Flynn of gas masks.

  They had the air of authority, or at least of power. They carried tall staffs that shone with what Flynn regarded as a threatening inner glow, handling them with gestures evocative of menace. Beyond them, Flynn could see the walls, balconies, stages, and towers of an incredible complex, ablaze with colors, brilliant, unmatched by anything he knew. Flynn couldn’t say much for the looks of the goons, but the buildings, though bizarre and unsettling, were arresting, even gorgeous.

  There stirred in him a memory of his encounter with the MCP, and the recollection, too, of a computer maxim: “It’s all a problem of software; in hardware, there are no more problems.” As far as software problems go, his mind reeled, I think I just came across a doozy!

  He gaped, staring around himself, muttering, “Oh man! This isn’t happening. It only thinks it’s happening!” The Flynnism only partially helped him regain control. Then one of the brawny staff-wielders moved up to face him through the light cylinder, while the rest fanned out around him. The one before him raised his staff and the shimmering column that had surrounded Flynn winked out of existence.

  His memory was fragmented; this was far too much to absorb right now. His surroundings cried out for closer inspection, and he was in a dilemma that looked unpleasantly lethal. Several possible explanations for this impossible situation crowded one another for his attention: dream, coma, or hallucination? Something somebody had slipped into a drink? Except, he couldn’t recall having had one recently. The last thing he could remember was being at ENCOM . . .

  Dream or no dream, Flynn didn’t like the looks of those staffs. He shifted his weight, readied his hands, and watched them warily. The darkness of the cowls made it difficult not to be intimidated. One of those apes, unarmed, would be a pretty tough project, he judged; three or four of them with those neon quarterstaffs—bad news.

  Flynn cocked his fists, despite a determination to employ all diplomacy. Nothing left but grace under fire, he sighed to himself.

  One of the gorillas stepped forward without warning and bashed the disoriented Flynn in the arm with his staff. There was a dazzle of light, and agonizing pain rocketed from Flynn’s fingertips to his shoulder. He fell back with a yelp, and knew that he was defenseless against such a weapon.

  Those jokers were plainly not present for choir practice.

  “Hey! Take it easy!” grated Flynn as they closed in around him. Maybe he really was lying in intensive care someplace with a concussion, but he didn’t feel like dreaming about having his head handed to him. Best keep it light, he philosophized.

  “Look, if this is about those parking tickets, I can explain everything!” But the Memory Guards of the Master Control Program, herding him toward the cells of the Training Complex, gave no indication of having heard him.

  High over the Game Grid drifted the long, gleaming shape of Sark’s Carrier, impregnable and vigilant and menacing, tacit threat and reminder. Recognizers came to and departed from its hangar bays without pause. Its free-standing antennae rotated in their fixed positions around its bridge, and its crew maintained constant surveillance. It was more than a vessel; it was the manifestation of Sark’s—the MCP’s—rule.

  Sark himself, merciless Red Champion, stood within his podium gripping his energy handles, legs encased in the power outlets, consuming the energy allotted him by Master Control.

  A crackle of static sounded briefly, then an image formed before him. It scintillated, rippling like disturbed water, then resolved into a visage Sark knew well, one that filled him with awe and carefully repressed dread.

  The MCP’s ghostly image hung before him, a burnished cylinder of lustrous metal. Its face rippled in multichrome pastels. Sark heard its voice pronounced loudly, making the bulkheads vibrate.

  “SARK, ES - 1117821. Open communication.”

  Sark’s casque-helmeted head rose. “Yes, MCP,” he responded, a little hoarsely, withdrawing his attention from the power intake. He squared his armored shoulders, waiting like a faithful, ferocious dog for the orders, the approval or punishment, that his master might care to mete out.

  “I’ve a challenge for you, Sark.” The MCP’s voice was like death itself. “A new recruit. He’s a tough case, but I want him treated in the usual manner. Train him for the games, let him hope for a while, and blow him away.”

  Sark relaxed the merest bit. Easy enough assignment; he’d done precisely the same to so many programs that he’d lost track of them. And Sark had, with the orchestration of most of the MCP’s resources, captured Tron. Maybe he was about to meet one of those Department of Defense programs; Sark relished the prospect of a contest with a truly antagonistic program. And that program would, indeed, eventually be destroyed.

  A feral smile curved his lips. “You’ve got it. I’ve been hoping you’d send me somebody with a little moxie. What kind of program is he?”

  “He’s not any kind of program, Sark,” the MCP answered with no flicker of emotion. “He’s a User.”

  Sark nearly lost hold of the energy grips, dumbfounded. “A User?” he echoed, lowering his voice unconsciously in some remnant of worship, a shadow of reverence.

  “That’s right,” Master Control answered with what sounded like an element of irritation at Sark’s reaction. “He pushed me, in the Other World. When somebody pushes me, I push back. So I brought him down here.”

  Sark felt its scrutiny upon him. “What’s the matter, Sark?” it asked, as he coped with the concept of deicide. “You look nervous.”

  Sark licked his lips. “Well, I—it’s just—I don’t know. A User. I mean . . .” He who had persecuted and destroyed so many programs who’d still believed in their Users, who’d been given by Master Control the task of eradicating that loyalty, could not now deny to himself an awe of the Users. He himself had never been able to expunge it, and suspected, though he would never have voiced it, that he shared it with the MCP. “Users wrote us. A User even wrote you.”

  “NO ONE USER WROTE ME!” the MCP stormed, and the Carrier quaked. Sark shrank from that anger. “I’m worth millions of their man-years!”
It was a warning so plain that Sark dared not pursue that subject any further.

  “But, what if I can’t—” he labored.

  “You’d rather take your chances with me?” Somewhere, the MCP altered the flow of energy. “You want me to slow down your power cycles for you?”

  Sark the Champion felt the influx of power ebb, felt his own energy level plummet alarmingly. The eddy-currents of energy around the podium’s sockets faded as the power fled from him. He slumped weakly, clutching the handgrips for support. Within him a terrible emptiness rose, debilitating and not to be defied, reminder of who was servant, and who master.

  “Wait,” he gasped. “I need that.” Humbled, deprived of the strength Master Control allowed him, he saw that total obedience or total obliteration were his only options. Without Master Control he was not Champion, nor Command Program, nor even Warrior. The MCP misered its power jealously, and would accept the service only of those who obeyed it without question and without hesitation. And for Sark, existence was pointless without the high rank conferred upon him by Master Control. He’d drunk too deeply of power.

  “Then, pull yourself together,” Master Control ordered with nothing but severity in its tone. “Get this clown trained. I want him in the games until he dies playing. Acknowledge.”

  “Yes,” Sark managed, clinging to his podium, chastised. “Acknowledged, Master Control.”

  The MCP watched him for another moment, and the Red Champion could feel its scorn. It was reassured once more that it, and it alone, held sway in the System.

  And soon it would be so in that Other World; the Users would learn! “End of line,” Master Control announced, and its projection disappeared.

  Energy surged; Sark felt it rush through him, revitalizing, filling every part of him with strength and life. And still it came, swelling him until it seemed to radiate from him, lifting and exalting him. Sark threw back his helmeted head and drank it in, glorying in it. If bending knees to the MCP was the price of such indescribable power, he told himself as he rode the exultation, then it was a bargain with which he was content.