Tron

by Brian Daley

  “Dumont!” he shouted as he drew near the altar. “Where’s that program?” Flynn, bringing up the rear, searched the room for Tron but saw no one, and debated whether that was a good sign or a bad one. Certainly, a fight, here, and at these odds, would’ve been disastrous. With a shock, Flynn recognized Gibbs’ face on the being in the pod and wondered what the doctor would have thought if he’d seen his doppelgänger.

  “What program?” Dumont responded, pretending bewildered innocence. “I’m sure you’re mistaken.”

  Any additional time he could purchase for Yori and Tron would be critical, Dumont knew; even the few seconds Sark might devote to remonstrating with him. But Sark only glared at the Guardian for a moment, fury undisguised. Seeing it, Dumont trembled within his pod.

  “Take him,” Sark commanded in an even tone that was more frightening than a bellow. The lieutenant and Memory Guards moved forward.

  They wended their way back to the Factory Complex, to the design and fabrication center where Yori had worked, attracting no notice from the apathetic programs they passed in the streets. Their first need would be transportation to get them to the MCP as quickly as possible, and Sark and the MCP controlled all conventional means of travel. But Yori had come up with a daring alternative.

  And so they sprinted through Hangar 19. Above them, suspended in her berthing field, completed, was the Solar Sailer. She was an astoundingly beautiful vessel, speaking of freedom and speed even though stationary. Her forebody was shaped like an artillery shell, with an aperture for the ejection of the Transmission Beam that drove her, situated in her prow. From the waist of the forebody radiated eight sparlike masts securing the great sails that fanned out to either side like immense metallic wings. Three long, thin antennae were set around her bow aperture to maintain beam connection and emission.

  A single slender catwalk ran aft, the forebody’s only connection to the midships. Midships was the bridge, a sort of rounded, bi-level quarterdeck. The Sailer’s afterbody, a bulky, heavily shielded segment, served two functions, mounting the reception aperture through which the transmission beam entered the craft, and securing the vessel’s rigging. Four long lines connected it to the deployed sails, its only connection to the rest of the ship. The Sailer suggested a dragonfly, delicate in appearance, perhaps 250 feet in length, afterbody included.

  “This videogame ship—it’s very fast,” Yori told him. Tron considered the risks against the advantages. Riding transmission beams through the skies of the System would mean being sighted and pursued, and make them vulnerable to ground weapons as well, but they could take a roundabout course to minimize those dangers, and the craft’s speed would help. More, she was the quickest means of getting to the MCP. That decided him.

  They went to the lift-platform. It levitated them into the air, carrying them upward and passing into the center of the midships bridge, becoming part of the vessel’s deck as it came to rest. They ran to the control console of the rounded bridge, and Yori bent over it worriedly, calling to mind all that she knew from her work in the Factory Domain, and finding it odd to draw on those torpid labor shifts.

  Checking a map of the System, she examined the various transmission beams that crisscrossed its skies, the transfer points and origin fixes.

  “It can take us across the Game Sea,” she concluded, “out of this Domain, back to the Central Computer.” Tron judged that that would be all he would need. Once in the Central Computer, he would follow Alan-One’s instructions and use his disk.

  The reverberations of footsteps on the catwalk brought him around in alarm. A guard was charging at them.

  Tron pulled Yori back out of the way just as the guard leaped up the free-standing steps to the bridge. He kicked the guard squarely in the middle; the program fell back just as a dozen more swarmed up onto the Sailer.

  Tron moved forward a little to confront them, waiting, disk held ready, knowing that every cast had to count. He crouched, threw. The weapon sliced air and smashed into the massed guards, halting their advance and downing two of their number, whose auras gave way to that of the disk. Then the whirling plate of light was back in his hand again. Tron saw, from the corner of his eye, more guards running across the hangar floor toward the Sailer.

  He cast again and again as the guards bore down on him, driven by their fear of Sark and the MCP to face this defense. Many of them fell; more than enough were left. Knowing that he must keep them from Yori, so that she could pilot them to safety, he threw himself headlong at the advancing guards, striking out at them with hands and feet, throwing them overboard, driving some back against the others, hoping that no reinforcements would come over the rail behind him.

  Tron called into play all the battle skills, strength, and speed he’d developed as a Warrior, and the power given him by Alan-One, battling as if possessed. Sark had come just short of killing him on the Game Grid but, in so doing, had honed him into the perfect fighting machine.

  A guard sprang to swing a staff at him. Behind the guard, an Elite was crowding close, though he didn’t seem to be ready for attack. Tron caught the Memory Guard’s staff at its insulated points and yanked with all his might. The guard flipped backward and sideways, taking the disorganized Elite with him, as Tron had intended.

  And then, incredibly, the catwalk was clear. He looked around; Yori was patting and stroking calmly at the ship’s controls, safe. Searching for any other antagonists, Tron spotted a final guard standing atop the Sailer’s forebody. They stared at one another, the guard plainly distressed by what he’d seen but knowing what it would mean to fail Sark.

  Tron took a step toward him, and another, like some great, stalking cat. The guard gulped, looked down over the side, then glanced back to Tron. Deciding that he had a better chance of breaking or surviving a fall than he had against the User Champion, the guard jumped from the Sailer’s forebody, aiming for a resolution emitter.

  The Sailer lurched. Tron was thrown backward to fall sprawling. He looked aft to where Yori’s finger traced the circuit paths on the controls, energy flowing from her fingertip. “We’re off!” ghe called triumphantly.

  A transmission beam passed into the receiver aperture in the ship’s stern to reappear as a projection from her bow, emerging from the nozzle there like some mighty searchlight, driving the Sailer on her way. Her sails curved, full and taut to either side. The craft moved, lifting slowly at first, Yori easing them out of the gargantuan hangar, then accelerating sharply once in the clear, and gaining altitude. In seconds, she’d left the Factory Complex behind. Tron spied Sark’s Carrier off in the distance, but knew that the Sailer was out of range of the warship’s weapons, and that even the Carrier had no hope of overtaking her.

  On the Carrier, Sark, immobilized in his podium, saw hanging before him the projected image of the MCP. The Command Program writhed in agony as the MCP applied pain to him through the power outlets in the podium. Its voice was chilling, implacable, and hateful, yet honeyed. “I hope you’ve enjoyed being a Command Program, Sark,” it told him with slow menace. “I wonder how you’ll like working in a pocket calculator.”

  Gasping, battered back and forth in torment, Sark managed, “We did take care of that User you sent us—”

  “Yes! And now you’ve got two renegade programs running all over the System in a stolen simulation.”

  Another wave of pain rose through him as Sark was shaken again. “We’ll get them!” he promised, barely able to breathe. “It’s only a matter of time!” He wouldn’t permit himself to think of what would happen if he didn’t recapture the two; this was only a taste of the punishment the MCP was capable of meting out. He, who was the favorite, Champion of the MCP, was also in danger of being its most pitiable victim.

  “I don’t have time, Sark,” the venomous voice told him. “And neither do you. End of line.”

  Nevertheless, the Carrier swung onto a pursuit course, after the Sailer. And even in his anguish, Sark knew a twinge of victory; this was a tacit admissio
n that, after all, if he couldn’t apprehend the fugitives, no one could. The Carrier shone with brighter resolution, its power increased by the MCP.

  OVERCOMING HIS SURPRISE at the Solar Sailer’s acceleration, Tron hauled himself to his feet. He started back to where Yori manipulated the vessel’s controls on the bridge, treading the catwalk lightly, watching the landscape slide by below at tremendous speed. Then something caught his eye and he paused, poising for battle, ready to bring forth his disk.

  Yori, seeing it, called, “Tron, are you all right?”

  He waved to indicate that he was, but said nothing, moving to the rail. Red fingers gripped it, in a precarious hold. One of Sark’s Elite had somehow managed to cling to the rail. Tron peered over it and saw him dangling there, legs thrashing in a futile attempt to secure a foothold and draw himself onto the catwalk.

  Tron had his disk out now. Without compunction, he raised it, intending to bring it down on the hands and send the Red back to nothingness.

  The Red looked up in panic; Tron recognized him just as he yelped, “It’s me! Flynn!”

  His eyes were wide, riveted to the disk which threatened to smash his hands from the rail. “Flynn!” Tron yelled, amazed, replacing the disk on his back.

  Flynn gave an embarrassed grin. “Greetings, program!” he panted.

  “You’re alive,” Tron said, turning that concept over in his mind and seeing that no fact was absolute.

  “Yeah, I—oooops!” He’d begun to lug himself up again, but his grasp had slipped. Tron’s hands were at his wrists instantly, hauling him up while Flynn’s boots scrabbled against the Sailer’s hull for purchase. Tron’s strength surprised him, even for a Champion; Flynn found himself drawn up over the rail with relative ease. He collapsed against the bulwark, breathing rapidly, watching the electronic landscape go by. It had been a close scrape; he had several ideas about how software-engineering-degree programs should be broadened, for survival’s sake.

  Sark’s intuition about Tron’s whereabouts had been correct. From what Flynn had been able to gather, the Command Program had quickly surmised that Tron and whoever was with him would seek the very fastest means of getting out of the City, and that had meant the Solar Sailer. By shuffling forward at the right moment, head lowered, Flynn had gotten himself selected as one of the Reds assigned to face to the Factory Complex to reinforce the guards there. The balance of his detachment had returned to the Carrier, apparently at the express order of the MCP. He and the Reds among whom he’d been hiding—many of them unknown to one another, allowing him to go unnoticed—had arrived just as Tron had been hijacking the Sailer. Racing along the catwalk to conk a Memory Guard, he’d been the victim of Tron’s ferocity.

  As Flynn leaned against the bulwark, he had time to reassert control over the energies and fields that constituted his body in the Electronic World. He focused his concentration; the Red glow faded; he returned to his former appearance. Tron watched in fascination, speculating once more on just who Flynn was and where he’d come from.

  “Who is this?” asked a voice Flynn recognized. He turned and saw Yori, the eyes and the lips and the prepossessing lines of her face. He silently mouthed, Lora! But he saw his mistake in an instant, and kept himself from naming her. But he took a step toward her and Tron, not sure why he did, interposed himself with an uncertain smile.

  “Flynn,” Tron explained to the shimmering woman, as Flynn saw that they were a bonded pair and thought again what a strange mirror the System was. “Where’s Ram?” Tron finished, turning back to him.

  Memory came in a flood, saddening the reunion. “I’m sorry, Tron. He’s—he didn’t make it.”

  Tron lowered his head sadly, remembering the last concussion of the tank’s cannonfire, the havoc of it. He’d written off both Flynn and Ram; odd now, to feel Ram’s death all over again, with even more intensity. Flynn was thinking that he had at least found Tron, as Ram had urged him with his final breath.

  Tron set aside grief, turning to Yori. “This is Flynn, the one who set me free.” That wasn’t quite the way things happened, but Flynn accepted the compliment with a grin, as she gave him an appraising look; Yori’s reserved gratitude was worth more than effusive thanks from some other. She was a revelation to him: her essence was that of Lora, transfigured into a radiant creature, still very much like the woman he remembered.

  “Then, I owe you some thanks,” she said after a moment.

  Flynn dismissed it with a rather dashing shrug. “No big deal. I ought to know my way around that light-cycles routine. I mean, I did write the program for it.” Even if Dillinger got the stock options and the promo! he amended to himself. That brought him back to problems at hand.

  Now Tron was looking at him, troubled. Flynn has a way of using the most peculiar phrases, it occurred to him. Yet, he could see that Flynn had made no slip, and that there was more to it than that. “Wrote the? . . .”

  “It’s time I leveled with you, Tron,” Flynn admitted, hoping they’d be able to accept it. “I’m a—well, I’m what you guys call a User.”

  No trumpets or drums, no light from on high; just an ordinary-looking program in conscript’s armor. They gaped at him. A small part of Yori reasoned that part of the awe surrounding the Users was that they’d always been unseen; they had, for her, always conjured up mental images of huge, imperious beings, powerful and wise beyond belief, pursuing incomprehensible ends, shaping the System. Flynn did not quite measure up to that.

  But he was, undeniably, not just another program; she’d heard of him from Tron, and seen him shed his Red aura. She could not hold back all of her awe. “A User? In our World?”

  Flynn nodded sheepishly. “Guess I took a wrong turn somewhere.”

  Tron labored with this revelation. It implied so much about the System, about purpose and function and the Users that he couldn’t deal with all the doubts and questions that poured into his mind. And then again, regarding a former cellmate as a deity would take some getting used to. “But,” he said slowly, “if you’re a User, then everything you’ve done has been part of a plan?”

  Flynn chortled, unaware of how much it shocked and alarmed Tron. “You wish! Man, I haven’t had a second to think since I got down here. I mean, in here.” He suddenly looked baffled. “Out here. Whatever.”

  Tron struggled to deal with that. Yori scrutinized Flynn curiously, accepting his claim for the time being, reserving final judgment. “Then . . .” Tron began, but let it trail off.

  Flynn, exasperated and feeling a little guilty without understanding why he did, saw that he’d better make matters as plain as he could, to avoid confusion and keep them from assuming he was something he wasn’t. He didn’t want them relying on his nonexistent divinity if it came time to show hands. “Look, you guys know how it is. You just keep doin’ what it looks like you’re supposed to, even if it seems crazy, and you hope to Hell your User knows what’s going on.” There was curious satisfaction in having encapsulated the only truth he’d learned in either World.

  Tron was still dubious. “Well, that’s how it is for programs, yes, but—”

  “I hate to disappoint you, pal,” Flynn interrupted him, “but most of the time, that’s how it is for Users, too.”

  “Stranger and stranger,” Tron mused, wondering where the hierarchies ended. Yori was speculating on how Flynn’s continued presence promised to change the System utterly, MCP or no MCP.

  “So,” Flynn resumed; patting Tron on the back, taking in the Solar Sailer, “nice ship you got here. What’s our next move?”

  Under the circumstances, Tron was not unsurprised to find that he was still in charge. “Remember, you wanted to pay a call on the MCP?” And Flynn’s expression confirmed. “We’re on our way.” Tron held up the altered disk. “Alan-One gave me the coding we need to go up against Master Control.”

  Good goin’ Bradley! thought Flynn, and laughed. “Awright! Thank God Alan stayed awake, at least!” Again they were at a loss. The casual use of Alan
-One’s name, the easy familiarity of it, scandalized Tron.

  Meantime, Yori considered what Flynn had just said, asking herself, thank who?

  Sark’s Carrier cruised the System’s skies, hunting. The Command Program stood alone in thought, gazing out the broad pane of the bridge’s observation window. He knew that the key to the Solar Sailer lay in her need to use the network of transmission beams that divided those skies, but the beams constituted a tremendously complicated webwork covering much of the System. And Tron hadn’t been foolish enough to head directly for the Central Computer Area; the User Champion might be coming by any of a great number of possible routes. The Carrier must bear the major part of the responsibility for search and apprehension; Recos were too slow and short-range to be of much use. But: that Tron would come, Sark was positive.

  And there was another possibility for intercepting the fugitives soon; Master Control was giving the transmission-beam network its attention, attempting to get a fix on the Sailer and interfere with her operation if possible. Sark repressed his impatience, his desire to come to a reckoning with Tron. He berated himself for not having had the User Champion brought before him on the Game Grid long ago, and slain him. But he’d always found Tron to be a curiosity, and so had increased the odds gradually, to find out precisely where the breaking point would come.

  Except that instead of breaking down, Tron had broken out.

  Sark’s lieutenant spoke from behind him, quiet and diffident. “Sir, what do you want done with the Tower Guardian, Dumont? Put him in with the others?”

  “No, bit-brain,” the Command Program growled. He whirled on his subordinate with a brittle smile. “Prepare him for inquisition. I need a little relaxation.” The idea soothed him; punishing Dumont would be a pleasant diversion until he had Tron in hand. “But first, rez up the Carrier for pursuit.”

  He considered his humbled lieutenant. The program might be loyal, but then again, it wouldn’t do to have his servants taking the initiative. Sark’s own status with the Master Control Program was too fragile right then to allow for possible rivals. “And one more thing,” he finished balefully. “Don’t think anymore. I do the thinking around here.”