Tron

11

FLYNN HAD NEVER played a better game.

The Reco—its guidance, the idiosyncrasies of its control system, the vagaries of its responses, the difficulties of maneuvering it through the relatively narrow avenues of the City, its tendency to yaw and drift—tested him as nothing ever had. He stood at the controls, straddle-legged, bending to the task and using body language just as he had in his own arcade. The Bit hovered nearby, observing without completely comprehending.

The Reco swung rather too quickly in response to Flynn’s manipulations. It glanced off a building. “This honey doesn’t handle so good in town,” Flynn allowed by way of understatement, eyes snapping back and forth between the controls and the eyeslit.

“No!” the Bit seconded.

The buildings and other structures were closer together here. Flynn leaned over the crossbar, alert and eager, greeting the urban clutter as a sort of Advanced Reco Stunt Driving course. He saw the stuporous programs of the Factory Domain shake off their lethargy for a moment to gaze at the unusual behavior of his Recognizer. He hoped they enjoyed it.

He lost control and the machine side-slipped, clipping the corner of a building, knocking loose large slabs of the building’s side—the Reco was undamaged by such a minor collision. The rubble plunged to an empty street.

“I gotta stop this thing,” Flynn advised himself through locked teeth.

“Yes-ss!” the Bit counseled.

But the Reco’s controls didn’t agree, and what Flynn had intended as a correction became an overcompensation. The giant machine banked toward the other side of the street, blundering into more buildings. Flynn, clinging to the crossbar, was whirled halfway around the control pedestal, legs wrapped around it. He began to regret that he hadn’t experimented with the Reco’s offensive weaponry. How long’ll it be before the cops show up? he wondered.

A huge impact, the Reco jarring back against the opposite side of the street, threw Flynn away from the crossbar, landing him flat on his back. The Bit looped in close, worried about him. “I’m glad you agree,” he replied with elaborate restraint.

The Reco hadn’t stopped this time when he’d released the controls; he couldn’t tell why. A bridge span loomed before it, a Game Tank stationed on the bridge’s center. The Reco’s pincers smashed completely through the span to either side of the vehicle; tank and bridge fragments dropped to the street.

This kinda romp’s bound to upset the local gestapo, Flynn reasoned. He called it quits with the vehicle’s controls. Struggling to his feet, he held his hands wide and reached into himself for the control and ordination he’d felt growing there. Power gushed from his palms.

“Right! Confirmed!” the Bit commented. “I couldn’t have put it—”

But it was too late. The Reco had drifted too low; its pincers were knocked off by the first of a rising series of broad terraces. As the Reco hurtled on, a second terrace clipped its crosspiece and most of its midsection trusswork. The third caught the bottom of the housing-collar. That left only the Reco’s head sailing forward, unpowered.

The head lofted in the general direction in which its erstwhile body had been proceeding. Flynn, bouncing within, gave a ululating yell, eyes bugging, watching the ground rush up at the eyeslit. The Bit circled and whizzed back and forth ineffectively, less concerned about impact than Flynn, but still very alarmed.

The Reco-head hit once, bouncing high. Arcing, it fell again. Its second bounce was less spectacular, but still gouged a deep hole in the street. The third bound was negligible by comparison. Moments later, it was rolling and bumping to a ponderous halt, still knocking free the odd chunk of building or paving. It came to rest against a glittering spire.

Flynn emerged, shaken but generally whole, staggering a little, dazed. Programs passed him without taking notice, so drained and numbed that they didn’t even glance his way now that the Reco-head had come to a stop. He saw that they were far different from the programs of the Game Grid, only in part for their odd shapes and sizes. He almost forgot his landing, watching them go by like sleepwalkers.

“This town’s full of live ones,” he observed, wondering if they would even have had the presence of mind to dodge the Reco-head, had it come their way.

“Not a chance,” the Bit contradicted, extruding its spikes and strobing red.

The furnishings and decorations in Yori’s apartment had returned to their former two-dimensional state. The warmth of what had passed between them remained, though, despite what lay ahead.

Tron, seated cross-legged before the window, stared out at the shining Input/Output Tower, where the communication beam once more stretched from on high. He was torn between the desire to stay where he was and the knowledge that he must contact Alan-One. He followed the beam upward with his eye, wondering about its source, and the Users. He speculated, as he had so many times before, on what they were like, and what their World was like. So different that it was unimaginable, he concluded; so different that the mind of a mere program probably could not even comprehend it.

Soon his thoughts were back with Yori. He hated to take her into danger, but he might well need her help, particularly in swaying Dumont. And leaving her behind would offer her little safety; her life in the Factory Domain was slow death. He looked to the beam and willed with all his might that the immediate future would find him using it.

He heard her move to stand behind him, then kneel there. Yori’s arms slipped around him. The embrace spoke her reluctance to end their interlude. Tron felt the same; their time together had strengthened him, revitalized him even more than had the deep draught of power in the cavern. She began, “It’s—”

“—time to go,” he said the words with her. He half-turned, sitting, watching her sad smile. Both had returned to their former appearance, arrayed as Warrior and worker. He rose, helping her up. They left the apartment. For the last time, it occurred to Yori, either way.

They attracted little attention in the streets. Even the occasional Memory Guard seemed to presume them to be of no more significance than any other program. They made their way toward the glittering Tower.

They encountered no guards at the doors of the Input/Output Tower; the place was virtually ignored now, forbidden. Tron supposed that the local programs lacked initiative to go there even if they hadn’t been prohibited. He and Yori quickly found their way to a lift-platform, a large circular surface that gave access to the upper regions of the Tower. It raised, drawing level with a broad ledge-avenue. The two moved along it cautiously, amid blazing colors and the lights of Tower energy systems.

Without warning a Memory Guard stepped around a corner to face them with staff held in an attack grasp. Yori gasped; Tron responded as a Warrior was trained to—snatched his disk from its resting place on his back and hurled it before the guard could react. It struck the Memory Guard with a hissing explosion; he dropped his staff and collapsed to the floor, the glow of Tron’s disk spreading over him.

Tron caught the returning disk and grabbed Yori’s hand to pull her on. They leaped the de-rezzing guard and rushed on, unsure if the destruction of the guard or use of the disk had triggered any alarms. But they heard none, and saw no indication of pursuit.

They came to a hallway of cyclopean size, one that led to the Inner Chamber, where Dumont would be. At the corridor’s other end was the door, a half-mile wide, which gave access to the Chamber, now three-quarters open. Near it was a cluster of Memory Guards. Peering from concealment, Tron looked around for some way to distract them or steal past.

Yori silently pointed across the vaulted corridor, and he understood what she meant; while the stupendous door was the main entrance to the Inner Chamber, there were others, one in particular that was not so likely to be guarded. He nodded to her plan, and they set off across the corridor. They ran lightly, making no sound, but the corridor was so huge that it would take long seconds for them to traverse it. As they ran, Tron heard the sound he’d been dreading, a yell of alarm from one of the distant guards.

Whether their movement had attracted the guard’s attention or a chance sideways glance had permitted him to spot them, they never knew. Tron and Yori dashed to the opposite side of the hallway as more Memory Guards took up the cry and started toward them at a run. The two squeezed through a narrow opening in the wall as Tron silently thanked the Users that he and Yori were familiar with the layout of the Tower as a result of their friendship with Dumont, perhaps more familiar than the Memory Guards.

Tron slid a panel over the opening and secured it; a number of such panels were in this area of the wall. The guards would be delayed in finding the right one, then forcing it. The two were in a utility shaft a hundred yards wide; it stretched upward through the Tower, crowded with coiled, intertwined cables and lines and wires, some of them narrower than Yori’s little finger, some many times thicker than Tron was tall.

Selecting one of the widest cables, Tron started climbing, followed by Yori. The two hauled themselves hand over hand, finding abundant footing, ascending from coil to tangled coil. The climb was demanding, and both were careful not to look down. Yori watched Tron, using the purchases he found. Tron listened constantly for Memory Guards’ voices, for commands to halt. But none came; the pair struggled upward.

After what felt like hours of climbing and straining they reached a ledge high above the corridor level. Tron dragged himself onto it and helped Yori after. They paused, regaining their strength and breath, leaning on one another. Again they embraced, Yori running her hands over his chest.

Tron could bring himself to let her go only by an application of willpower. “Ready?” he asked, with a smile that was an apology. She nodded; they started off along the ledge, past the walls of service instrumentation and circuitry that serviced the Tower. At the end of the ledge a window admitted a strong golden light from the Inner Chamber. They stepped over twisted cables and thick bundles of bound lines, and peered down through the opening.

The Walls of the Inner Chamber, sloping inward toward their base at a 45-degree angle, were smooth and reflective, their incline even more gentle at the bottom. Far below was the main altar, raised above the floor on its circular dais, against one wall. Beyond it lay a darkened passageway. The main altar rested on a secondary one, this one fifty feet square. On the secondary altar was Dumont in his control pod; it was difficult to tell from where they watched, but he appeared to be asleep. The Inner Chamber was filled with a droning chant, a continuous reminder that this was the place in which the Users spoke. Being there again, Tron was unable to understand how any program could deny the existence of those who had created the System. Yori, too, was plainly moved at being within the Input/Output Tower once more.

A sound from the utility shaft interrupted them. They raced back to look down it, and saw a barge rising toward them, carrying guards who were inspecting openings and hiding places at every level, and examining the cables.

Kneeling on the shaft’s rim, Tron watched the craft’s ascent pattern. The very slow, methodical ascent meant that the guards had no idea where their quarry had gone.

“They don’t see us,” Yori breathed. Tron looked up at her. “I’ll go first,” she said, indicating the Inner Chamber.

“All right. I’ll watch that thing.” There might be danger ahead as well as behind, but the plan seemed best for now. Yori drew herself halfway through the window, then paused to give him a mischievous wink. Tron marveled at her courage. He held her arm as she lowered herself gingerly from the window, sliding onto the pitched surface of the wall. He took another look at Durmont, who hadn’t moved, then released Yori’s arm.

She began her long slide to the floor of the Chamber, gathering speed on the sloped wall, thankful that her durable working attire would protect her from friction. Tron, gripping the window ledge, watched her anxiously. Yori steered herself skillfully downward with hands and feet and by leaning her body. Tron returned to the shaft for a quick look, only to find the guards’ barge rising toward him sharply. Somehow, they had spotted him. He heard the shouts of approaching Memory Guards.

Tron turned from the shaft at once and vaulted through the window with less regard for control than Yori had shown, gathering speed quickly. He doubted that the Memory Guards would follow him down the wall, since that would make them vulnerable to his attack at the bottom, and their craft would have to remain in the shaft. But a detachment of guards would be on their way to the Inner Chamber very soon; he had to deal with Dumont before they got through the titanic doorway.

Below, Yori slid to a halt out on the Chamber’s floor, her momentum spent. She looked again to Dumont, whose eyes were closed, then up at Tron, who was swooping down the inclined plane of the wall faster than she had.

Tron skidded to a stop near where she sat and was at her side in an instant, gripping her shoulders. “Are you all right?”

Yori laughed and the big, alluring eyes shone. “That was fun! I should have used that entrance before!”

He looked back to the window. “The guards saw me. Come on!” He helped her to her feet and they ran toward the secondary altar and Dumont.

The Guardian of the Input/Output Tower was ensconced in his control pod; he and it were one. He resembled a sphinx rendered in instrumented, alien style, his circuitry aglow. The bulging headpiece which enclosed his face rose above him like a lofty miter, or the abdomen of some giant insect. He had no visible limbs or torso; he merged directly with the squat control pod.

As Tron and Yori reached the foot of the staircase leading to Dumont’s altar, a hot defensive field began to radiate from it, forcing them to halt. Dumont’s eyelids opened; Tron and Yori saw that he had been aware of their presence all along.

“Halt!” Dumont commanded, his voice aged and stern.

Confused and hurt by the rebuff, not understanding how a friend could act so, Yori exclaimed, “Dumont!”

The Guardian ignored that. “I can’t stand all this commotion!” he complained in an irritated tone. Tron wondered if he meant only their own intrusion or the general furor they’d touched off. “What do you want?” Dumont finished testily.

Tron began tentatively, “I—I have come to communicate with my User.” It would have been such a perfunctory explanation at one time, and now it was a prohibited phrase.

“Hmm,” Dumont considered it. Yori, hearing him, found herself suspecting that Dumont had already made up his mind, and not in their favor. “A difficult proposition; difficult proposition at best.” His eyes swept the emptiness of the Inner Chamber. Their gazes followed his as he told them, “Not so long ago you could’ve come in here and seen programs lined up all the way back to those doors, waiting for communion with their Users.”

He’d meant the doors at the far end of the gigantic corridor, but when he turned that way, Tron noticed that the huge innermost door was now closed, the Memory Guards shut out for the time being. That could only be Dumont’s work. But is it to protect us, or to prevent our escape? he asked himself.

“But now,” Dumont sighed, “this so-called Master Control Program is cutting programs off from their natural creators. Why, I could get myself de-rezzed just for letting you in here.” He raised his eyes to the upper reaches of his province, observing, half to himself, “They hate this Tower. They’d close it down if they dared to. But they keep me around, in case one of them wants to deal with the Other World once in a while.”

He sounded infinitely weary, disillusioned with a System where such things would be permitted. But his voice had held a particular distaste in speaking of them, the MCP and Sark and their servants. Perhaps there was a chance yet.

Tron took a step nearer, feeling the heat of the defensive field. “Dumont, my User has information that could—” He groped for the right words; mention of Sark and the MCP might have the wrong effect. “—could make this a free System again!”

Dumont’s answer was a brief bark of scornful laughter. “Really,” Tron maintained doggedly. “You’ll have programs lined up around the block to use this place, and no MCP looking over your shoulder.” He watched the old Guardian’s face.

Dumont’s voice held less sarcasm, more resignation. “When you’ve been in the System as long as I have, you hear many promises, many reassurances, many brave plans.” There was, though, a note in his voice that spoke of a wavering, a suppressed desire to be convinced.

Yori walked up to the stairway, giving Dumont time to see what she intended, and the defensive field died away; he had always been fond of her. She came up the first few steps. “Dumont,” she begged, and the name also held a certain sadness, a pity for the Guardian. A sound attracted her attention, and Yori glanced over her shoulder. “The guards are coming!”

Tron’s eyes snapped back to the window through which they’d entered. Memory Guards were gathered there and, against his expectation, were preparing to descend the wall. He wondered how many armed, alert Memory Guards he could get with his disk if they reached the floor, those he saw seemed a high number.

He glanced back to Dumont, who was watching him, deliberating. “All right, all right,” Dumont conceded at last, relief and peevishness mixed. The window abruptly snapped shut in the guards’ cowled faces. Yori’s expression held unutterable gladness.

“Who is your User, program?” Dumont intoned, in the formalized procedure they all knew so well.

Tron ascended the stairs halfway. “Alan-One,” he proclaimed. “He calls me. May I pass?” There was more entreaty to the request than Tron had ever put into it before.

Dumont’s voice was steady and dignified now, borne up by his faith. “All that is visible must grow and extend itself into the realm of the invisible.”

The words appeared to fortify the Guardian, as Dumont was reminded of his own purpose and that of the System. Things had suddenly become clearer for him. Activating some unseen linkage within his pod, he rotated his altar a quarter turn; he swung to face the darkened opening that led to the primary altar.

Suddenly it was no longer dark, but a rectangle of light. It would permit access. “You may pass, my friend,” Dumont announced quietly.

With a last look to Yori, Tron hurried up the steps. He paused for a glance to Dumont, lacking words to thank him. Then he hastened on, for the Communications Chamber. Dumont sealed the opening after him and rotated his altar back so that he faced the staircase and Yori. She seated herself on a step with an affectionate look for Dumont. The Guardian was amazed to feel how at peace his decision had left him. Together, they waited.