Tron 2.12 – Source Address.

Jet woke up disoriented, the heavy blankets cascading off him as he lifted to a sitting position, his heart suddenly pounding. It was dark in here and at first he wasn’t sure where he was.

But the sudden rush of adrenaline brought clarity with it and he remembered where he was. Feeling safe, he lowered himself back down and closed his eyes to collect his thoughts.

He started to remember where he was - at Flynn’s place - and he had managed to get Flynn to agree to help him so far. But it was late and Flynn said he wanted to get back to sleep and insisted Jet get some sleep before they continue.

His mind went through the details of the previous night’s happening. After he had managed to show Flynn the inexplicable trick he had picked up, Flynn sat down and explained that getting to the other side of the screen meant getting into the old Encom building and could have serious ramifications if either of them were caught.

But after the events of a year ago, Jet had gone through a tough time coming to terms with what he saw on the other side of the video screen.

At first, Jet had begun to believe it was all just a hallucination caused by the digitizing process. He was lucky to get out alive as the new correction algorithms weren’t completely tested. It was certainly understandable that he might be a little damaged by the process.

For a while, Jet believed he had gone through his own personal Oz, met the wizard and returned to the real world when he clicked his data discs together. In a manner of speaking.

But then he had looked for and was found by Walter Gibbs. The old man was certain that there was something inherently spiritual connected to the experience Flynn had gone through and that subsequently he had gone through later.

It was when he met Gibbs’ cousin, Gabriel, who was travelling with him however that he became convinced his experience was real. He had written some of the original operating system code for some of the early nodes such as the 12-82.

The likeness was so exact, Jet almost called the old man I-no when he saw him. Except this wasn’t I-no. This was the man who created the help systems information retrieval application. This was I-no’s creator. The Original application started out as “Export what I know”. It was intended, the old man said, to locate systems help files and documentation buried deep within applications source and compile it into a database.

“Export what I know” was a cleverly written application that could examine the source scripts for comments and format. Even determine functionality sometimes from the code. Programmers were notorious for not creating documentation early on and the application became a cornerstone of the 12-82’s operating system.

Later, the executable was shorted to I-No. Just like the operating system plugin Jet recalled from his time inside the five-eleven.

Jet had never met I-No’s author before. He left Encom when Dillinger started making major changes to the company – before his father had started there and met his mother. Then he had moved to Canada and Walter Gibbs had been living quietly with him for twenty years.

But the man Jet was getting to know both inside and outside the digital realm was the same man. The personality was the same. The quiet intelligence was the same. It was as if they were identical brothers that had never met each other.

The meeting with Gabriel Gibbs had opened Jet’s mind to the possibility that other programs he had encountered had similarly been created by users in the real world. So Jet started tracking down some of the original programmers of the system.

It was hard going and usually unsuccessful, but he found a couple of the original authors and discovered that they too resembled their applications, although the degree of resemblance to one was only slight – it had seemed to resemble a much younger version of him.

This was enough to convince Jet that Walter Gibbs belief that a user’s spirit remained with the program was quite possible and that he really had visited something tangible on the other side of the screen while in digitization.

Then he started to realize what he had left on the other side of the screen when he had left Mercury behind. Suddenly the feelings of loss and bereavement at having left Mercury behind on the packet transport came flooding back.

Jet realized it was not his choice in the end to leave Mercury. He had been knocked into the digitizing stream by the F-Con merge. But he still felt like he had betrayed her.

The last minutes with her replayed in Jet’s mind. The feel of her pressed against him, feeling so real in his arms. The kiss. The tear.

Mercury had given her life for him by fleeing into the structure as it failed, it’s correction bits damaged by Jet, it would never transit the frame buffer correctly and would be terminated upon reception. If she had not left him, he would have refused to leave – refused to merge with the digitizing stream that brought him back to the real world. Every second with Mercury was worth dying for.

And he had given her his promise to return, to find her and restore her.

A promise he had failed to keep when he started to believe that none of it was real.

And now Jet intended to return to the digital realm to keep his promise. Whatever the personal cost to him.

But there was only one person who knew enough about the Encom building even now to help him get back onto the digitizing pad of the five-eleven. Kevin Flynn. Master programmer, hacker extraordinaire and one-time executive director of Encom.

Also, Jet’s former mentor and employer and a good family friend.

This morning, his head clearing after a good night’s sleep Jet opened his eyes and took stock of his surroundings.

Although it was dark, a glint of morning sun was still shining in around the gaps where the curtain couldn’t hold back the light. In the dim light, Jet made out the camp stretcher he was laying on and a spare room filled with arcade machines that filled the gloom with sharp lines and jagged edges which as they caught the light looked so much like the world he was attempting to find a way back into.

Jet stretched himself and stood up, yawned once, and shifted his weight slowly trying to find his way to the door without knocking anything over.

As Jet opened the door, he heard the sounds of the arcade downstairs and much closer he could hear Flynn talking to someone. After a couple of unanswered questions from Flynn, he realized Flynn must be on the phone.

At first Jet wondered if Flynn had called his father – the two old men were still good friends, but Jet realized he didn’t know the other party when Flynn thanked Alison, whoever she was, for looking into something and that was as much of the conversation as he picked out.

Flynn was downstairs in the kitchen again as Jet made his way through Flynn’s living area to the kitchen adjacent to the arcade.

“Good morning Jet,” said Flynn. He was an old man now, but if his attitude this morning and his manner was anything to go by, he didn’t show it.

“Your father would like a call if you feel like talking,” he added as he walked to the coffee machine, a cup already under the spout, and hit a button on the front. The coffee machine responded instantly, it’s automatic grinder initiating the first part of its cycle.

“You called Dad,” Jet suddenly realized, alarm edging into his voice.

“I let him know you’re back and staying here at the moment,” Flynn set Jet with that stare again. “You need to respect his concerns even if you don’t want to talk to him just at the moment. Besides, I needed his assistant’s help and I don’t want her getting into trouble with her boss.”

Jet sniffed a response, not wanting to say anything in case he said the wrong thing. If Flynn wanted to berate him, it was his privilege under the circumstances.

“Alison,” Jet mentioned, taking a seat across the table from Flynn, their positions almost swapped from the previous night. He blinked and squinted as a beam of sunlight from outside caught him square in the face.

“Yes, Alison.” Said Flynn, his tone indicating he didn’t approve of Jet listening in to his phone call. “Damn good programmer and if you’re still serious about your crusade this morning, we might well need her help, so if you do speak to her, you’d better be damn nice.”

Flynn punctuated the last of his sentence with a quick head not to make it clear he was serious. Jet responded with a small flurry of nods to keep Flynn from driving the point home further – he got it.

“So you think that she’ll help us?”, asked Jet carefully.

“If she doesn’t, then you may not have a chance. We may need others too.” Flynn said.

Flynn turned back to the coffee machine to complete the coffee. “Still the same way,” he asked.

“Strong, long black,” responded Jet. Then felt compelled to ask about his father’s assistant.

“Are Dad and Alison,” he started, causing Flynn to turn around in surprise. Jet noted the turn and continued, “I mean, it’s been a while since Mum, well, and”

Flynn cut him off. “Not that I’m aware of. He’s not her type. She’d been coding for him freelance for a few years out of France with her sister but she came over here on a H1B just after Encom folded and she’s been helping him set up a coding business. Your father knows her father.”

Flynn then took the finished coffee from the machine and passed it over to Jet, setting it before him, vapours lifting from the coffee surface lit in the morning sunlight.

Flynn resumed his partly consumed cup from near the phone and sat down at the table again.

“Your father has set up a business now. He’s attempting to redevelop the digitizing technology. He believes he can used it for medical purposes.

“Digitize people and then remove cancers by software. He’s hired about a dozen former Encom guys. Looks after them. He’s changed a lot since you went away, even if it’s only been a year.”

“He’s trying to continue mom’s work then,” Jet said.

“He’s a good man, Jet. He was devastated over the accident in the lab. But your mother continued after Wally left and I guess your father felt it was important to her.”

Jet nodded, then took a slow sip of the coffee. It was good. He had missed good coffee when he had been travelling. Without a lot of money, he had travelled light and he had needed to travel to Canada to speak to Walter Gibbs.

After an uncomfortable silence Flynn started the conversation.

“Anyway after the feds took over Encom, fired all the programmers and sealed the place security-wise, I believe they kept the five eleven running.” He started.

“What are they doing that for,” asked Jet. “Even if they do find a way in to the five eleven, I can’t see an awful lot of use to the Government. Do you think they want to hack other networks? The F-Con gig?”

Flynn shook his head slightly and say back, one arm thrown back over the chair and the other stretched out to hold his mug.

“Quantum Cryptography,” said Flynn. “Wally was right about the quantum effect on packets. What he discovered led to a way to intercept quantum data streams without alerting the monitoring parties - or so my sources believe. They might not have succeeded yet but they’re on their way there.”

Jet gave him a quizzical look, then blew out through his nose and mouth at the same time as the significance hit him.

“So if the world starts using quantum encryption,” began Jet.

“Then the government could effectively intercept communications and everyone would think that their communications were secure.” Flynn finished. He twisted the cup slightly as he looked at it. “Scary isn’t it.”

“And the world on the other side of the screen?” Jet asked.

Flynn shrugged. “I don’t even think they believe it exists” he said.

Jet picked up on the comment, “And you do believe again?”

Flynn smiled briefly. “I’m not sure Jet, I think I don’t but I know you do and I said I’d consider helping you, but I’m not sure you understand what’s necessary to go back.

“I don’t think it’s dawned on you just what that means. It’s not as simple a request as you might think.”

Jet thought to a moment. Then spoke slowly, as if he always knew the truth but hadn’t admitted it to himself.

“I guess I’m asking you to help me break into Encom, Access the five-eleven if it still works and get me inside the computer for as long as you can.” Jet’s measured tones sounded out.

“I guess that makes me pretty crazy after all huh”

Jet took a long sip of coffee. Someone walked past outside, causing the light to flicker and Jet to flinch. It was clear to Flynn that he wasn’t over his time in his other world.

“Not just Encom,” corrected Flynn. “A top secret government run research facility that is patrolled by armed guards, day and night, which possibly may provide the feds with their only chance to crack quantum secured fibers.

“And then you want to jump straight into a live computer system and spend your entire life there, or at least enough time to keep your promise - if that’s even possible, then to get back out again without spending the rest of your real life in Gitmo.”

Flynn raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure you really want to do this?”

Jet took a deep drink of his coffee, taking most of it into his mouth, swallowing long after he put his mug back down on the table.

Jet finished the swallowing. “I’ve never been so certain in my life Flynn. I need to do this”

Flynn looked down at his hands around his coffee at the words.

“or at least give it my best shot.” Completed Jet.

At this, Flynn smiled and looked back up. It was the right comment to make. Now, Jet knew Flynn was in. He would help him. Jet was determined to get in, but he also realized he had given Flynn his word with that comment that if he couldn’t, he’d accept it.

Flynn raised his cup and drained it, holding it almost inverted for a while then rinsed his mug and put it on the sink to dry. He wondered off in the direction of the arcade from which the odd sound still emanated.

“OK, Kid, go get yourself cleaned up and I’m going to make some calls. If we’re going to do this, I don’t want you stinking up the place.”

Jet smelled himself slightly and got up, realizing how badly he needed a shower after his travels. He hadn’t stopped on his way here and his clothing was a little on the rough side also.

“Thanks for the coffee, Flynn,” he said, handed his nearly empty cup over and started towards the shower.

“And your clothes,” added Flynn. “Put them in the wash’n’dry. Should be ready in an hour, so you might as well soak.”

Jet nodded and continued up the stairs.

“Then come back and have some food.” Yelled Flynn out behind him.

Jet waved behind his head. He was hungry, but he was well slept and had eaten before he came to Flynn’s.

When Jet got out of the shower, the sound of voices outside was coming through the door. He had sat back and soaked as Flynn had suggested, so his ears had picked up little as he sat in the water. The white noise of the falling shower often cleared his head of other thoughts and gave him time to thing.

But now without that noise, the voices – and there were several talking in hushed tones – were audible if not clear.

Jet grabbed his clothing from the wash’n’dry and pulled it on, then moved quietly and slowly to the door.

“What does he know,” asked a quiet female voice from beyond. “Does he know we’re here?”

“You can ask him yourself,” Flynn’s voice came through. “He should be here soon.”

“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” came the female voice again. Then something quiet, a man’s voice, but not Flynns. Jet couldn’t pick it out.

Flynn had obviously guessed Jet would be within earshot. He called out loud enough to be respectable about it however.

“Jet, Come on down if you’re ready. There’s some people here you need to meet.”

Jet waited a few seconds before opening the door, self conscious now about listening in. He hesitated momentarily as he considered fleeing, realized the flaw in his thought, and opened the door.

Stepping out on the staircase, Het noticed five people in the room – including Flynn. A girl around his age, an older man and two younger guys, one again around his age and another looking barely out of high school.

They were all staring at him. On the table, several fast-food wrappers were opened and food was sitting around the table in various states of consumption.

Flynn pushed an untouched meal towards Jet, ironically into the centre of the table, and beckoned him forward. “Have some breakfast Jet.”

Jet nodded and made his way down the stairs, acutely aware of the eyes on him and causing his stomach to feel queasy. He hadn’t expected to see anyone here, especially not people he didn’t know.

It was worse that they all seemed to know about him, so were it not for Flynn’s presence, he may well have bolted at that point.

Jet locked the feeling down and continued down the stairs. Despite his apprehension, he didn’t actually have a bad feeling about this. Yet.

“So you are Jet Bradley” mumbled the older man. He had an accent that sounds vaguely European.

Flynn held out his arms with palms open and slightly angled upwards. “The Flynn’s crew,” Flynn offered as a suggestion to explain the others around him.

“You all seem to know me” Jet said Hesistantly.

The large guy nodded. “By reputation if not in person,” he added.

Jet looked to Flynn, who got up, looked around and waved his hand as if to encompass everyone.

“These are the people who might – just might – help you with your problem.” Flynn added.

Jet’s stomach was still queasy. Flynn hadn’t discussed telling others with him. He hadn’t even wanted to discuss this with his father, so he felt a little betrayed.

The girl stood from the table and stepped back, then over to Jet. She extended a slim fingered hand to Jet. “Hi, I’m Alison. “ She said. She spoke with a beautiful French accent.

Jet glanced briefly at Flynn as he made the connection, a slight change in Flynn’s expression confirmed it was the same Alison. Jet took her hand cautiously as if she might bite – so much so he half expected her to point that out, but she didn’t.

“Please Jet, take a seat. We need to speak to you.” She said.

“Need to speak to me?” he queried. It didn’t sound right. Why would they need to speak to him if they were going to help him. Did he need to convince them all as he had Flynn? He took the seat carefully and looked to Flynn for an explanation.

“There’s a few things going on that you don’t know about, that may have a bearing on whether you’re able to get back into Encom Jet,” started Flynn. He gestured to the food again. Flynn started to eat it, even though he didn’t feel like eating at all just presently.

“These are your sources,” Jet reasoned, before taking his first bite of breakfast.

Flynn nodded to Jet’s comment. “There’s a few things you need to know,” he began.

“First off, Encom, or FedEncom as we call it, is being shut down. The lab always was a secure facility – it was built during the cold war, but we don’t think the Government want anyone to know what they are doing there. Since the current facility is in the middle of a city, it’s a liability.

“So they’re moving the facility – they’ve even built a new supercomputer using upgraded versions of Wally’s tech, probably out to area 51 or more likely some Echelon base.

“Second, they’re destroying the original building and its contents. They can’t move it and they can’t relocate everything. It seems Wally’s legacy doesn’t want to run anywhere else. So it’s only going to remain for a little while longer. They’ll transfer what they can and shut it down.”

Flynn shifted position and tone as he got to the heart of what he needed to say.

“Finally, my friends here have an equal need to get into Encom. It’s not really anything to do with your personal crusade to access the five-eleven again. Steve here needs.”

Steve, apparently the big guy’s name, cut him off. “I have my own reasons for needing access.”

Then he looked at Flynn, “But Flynn won’t help me if I don’t help you, so I guess I need to know why you want into the Encom facility so badly and how we’re going to achieve that without screwing up our own plans.”

For Jet, the lights finally came on. “You were already going to break into Encom weren’t you Flynn.” He accused.

Flynn didn’t deny it. “What did you think I was going to do to help you Kid. It’s a government facility now. All of the original staff are gone. It’s locked down. It was a fortress more than twenty years ago the last time I did this and now it’s an upgraded fortress.”

Flynn held out an arm towards the others. “And normally, there’s no way I’d have considered helping you back into the five-eleven, but under the circumstances, I might have an opportunity. And if it comes to it, you may be able to help us out too.”

Jet looked purposefully from each stranger to the others now. As he watched, the detail started to settle into his mind amidst the confusion.

There was Alison. She was young, blond and pretty enough, although she was dressed in blue coveralls that did little to show if she had a shape equal to her face. She seemed nervous and tended to make sharp movements when she did move. A little shorter than Jet.

Steve was the big guy. For some reason he looked familiar to Jet, but Jet couldn’t spot the similarity. He was solidly built and around the same size as Jet. He was also wearing blue coveralls – same design as Alison’s.

Flynn was in the middle, dressed in slacks and shirt like he usually did. He sat back down and rocked back in his chair.

The other two guys – there was a young kid barely out of high school. Glasses and now that Jet noticed it, he too was wearing coveralls, leading Jet to make a mental note question this later.

The final guy was leaning back against the outside door with his shoulders set firmly against it. He had a dark green shirt – perfectly pressed, long black trousers and well shined black shoes. His buckle gleamed even without a direct beam of light to illuminate it.

“Right place at the right time Jet.” Said Flynn. “I guess you got lucky that you came here tonight, because in a week, there’s not going to be any five-eleven left.”

There was still one unexplained issue Jet needed to sort out. “Why do you need to get in.”

Although Jet addressed the question generally to everyone, it was clearly directed to Steve.

Steve didn’t answer it however, as Flynn put a hand on his upper arm to let him know he’d answer.

“Steve is a doctor who has been working with your father on alternate uses for digitizing technology, Jet. He believes that once a human is suspended in the system, you can surgically – even digitally – remove problem areas like tumors. Cure the incurable with an algorithm that can cut out data at the near-molecular level.

“Even if it’s not perfect, you can repeat the process over again if it grows back, and you can get to areas that traditional medicine can’t – when it’s too deep in an organ or too far spread around the body.”

A the last comment, Steve made a sound almost like he was in pain, otherwise his expression didn’t change.

Jet’s intuition put together the final missing pieces. Limited time to access the EN511 before they shut it down to move operations to a permanently secure location. Something serious enough for Flynn to risk breaking into a pseudo-military installation and a connection with his father and his recent research.

One missing aspects began to gnaw at the back of Jet’s mind. Alison and her sister were writing code for his father. Her sister wasn’t here and her father was willing to risk having his daughter present prior to committing an act that could be misclassed as terrorism.

“Your sister” he directed at Alison.

Alison made an uneasy smile at Jet and fidgeted.

Jet realizing he was on the right track continued. “You intend to see if you can get your idea working enough to help someone who’s actually sick aren’t you.”

The tension came out of Steve as he heard it. “You’re pretty insightful, just like Flynn said you were”.

Jet nodded. Now he understood what was going on. He didn’t know what they wanted him to do yet, but it was clear that Flynn needed him as badly as he needed Flynn.

He wondered for a moment if Flynn was using him but then recalled how much effort Flynn had put into talking him out of it the previous night. It was only Jet’s completely unwavering insistence that had brought him to this point. And even then only after Jet was able to demonstrate something Flynn hadn’t expected.

Jet knew he could trust Flynn, as he always had.

Looking from person to person, making eye contact with each, Jet wanted to make his next point clear. “Whatever it is, I’m in and I’m willing to help. But I need to get inside the five-eleven through the digitizing pad. If you can help me with that, then I’m with you.”

Alison smiled uneasily. “Thankyou Jet. You don’t know how much this means to me.”

Jet smiled back and realizing he was still holding a burger took a bight and started to chew. He was thinking fast now and that always made him hungry. The butterflies had also gone from his stomach now.

“So tell me,” asked Jet, wondering about the other plan as well now. “Once you know you can operate on someone, isn’t it going to be difficult to gain approval to take someone in later and complete the operation?”

Steve didn’t smile. The doctor’s expression if anything turned to one of concern.

“We’re not going in to test this, Flynn, we’re going in to operate – tonight. We only may get one shot at this.”

Jet stopped chewing. The word tonight started to sink into his thoughts.

Abruptly the butterflies returned.

Next: Chapter 2.13 – Destination Address