Tron 2.13 – Destination Address.

Alison came and sat down with Jet as he watched the activity. Flynn’s garage was usually filled with old arcade machines and storage crates containing pieces of old arcade machines – mostly PCBs, harnesses and controllers, although a few physical enclosures were also stored, such as the original space invaders machine Flynn was slowly restoring.

Jet acknowledged her with a weak smile and she simply sat and watched with him for a moment, without saying anything.

The activity below was presently intense. The young boy with the glasses, Jet didn’t know his name yet, was out the front manning the video game arcade just as Jet had done for so many years when he was younger. As he had disappeared immediately after the meeting, were it not for his presence at the table Flynn would have assumed that he was otherwise not a part of their plans.

Flynn was actively and carefully packing a van with equipment that had been carefully stored in boxes at one end of the garage. A lot of it looked quite ancient, judging by the size and layout of the keyboards in the mix. Even a few of the CRTs looked like some Jet had only seen in museums and the hard-drive pack – a 20 Mb acrylic encased monstrosity - looked like the front wheel of a lightcycle scaled up to human level.

Doctor Gurimin – Alison had told Jet their surname just a little earlier – was assisting and checking of each item as Flynn loaded it into the van. The van itself left Jet curious. An old Encom van that looked like it was from the late eighties.

The other guy – Brian Leibicz was Alison’s boyfriend. As it turned out, he was also a security guard from the contracting firm that looked after the security at FedEncom although Brian only referred to it as contract 3207.

It seems that Doctor Gurimin had tried to petition the government for access to the laser digitizing system but had been rejected with the government denying any such equipment existed and stating that all legacy equipment have been removed from the building.

Alison hadn’t known Brian was a guard at the old Encom building when he approached her in a café. She had been waiting in the place just outside the Encom site to meet her father. It wasn’t that hostile at the time, as quite a few ex-Encom employees could discern that activity was still occurring at the site and many were trying to get jobs with whoever had taken over.

Many of the ex-Encom staff met daily in this location and since it was the only source of decent food near the Encom building, none of them bore the guards who came there any grudge. They were only doing their job. At least, that was how they all viewed it at the time.

In hindsite, Brian must realize his job was at risk in helping his girlfriend and her father so Jet assumed they must have cemented the relationship quite a lot in the short time since the lockdown.

“Jet,” she said quietly after a while then waited for him to turn his head to her before continuing. “Did you want to tell me at all why you need to go to Encom?”

Jet looked at her questioningly. It seemed from her question that Flynn had only mentioned that he needed to go but hadn’t told anyone why.

That must have been enough in itself coming from Flynn for them to accept. Still, all of these people were, he now realized, risking the life of someone they cared for and still making room for him in the group without questioning his motives or reasons for needing to piggyback on their own operation.

Jet could understood why Alison wanted to know what his motivations were. She knew very little about Jet or what he needed to do but her sister was about to undergo a completely radical form of surgery and might not return at all.

This was the first time Alison had come out to Jet with exactly what she wanted to know and she was polite enough to put it in a way to allow Jet to refuse to tell her.

For a moment, Jet considered keeping his reasons to himself, but his empathy for her situation won out.

“There’s something I left behind that I need to go back for.” Said Jet.

“Some equipment? Something of your mothers?” asked Alison. Her voice was soft and quiet. But it was the softness that seemed to have the most effect. He hadn’t listened to too many soft feminine voices since his mother was killed.

“Some code,” jet answered, looking back to the van as he spoke and away from Alison. “Some code I promised to retrieve for someone I care about a lot.”

“This code is special, non?” she asked, but Jet knew she didn’t expect an answer.

She was quiet. Then she changed the subject. “You are a lot like you father Jet.”

Jet thought about it. “Stubborn and obstinate?” he asked, turning to her slightly.

Alison smiled. Something in it pricked Jet’s memories and he felt like he knew it from somewhere else.

“No,” she said, “Loyal and compassionate. You give so freely to others yet expect so little in return. My father said you could hack into Encom from outside if you chose, but you have come with us to help.”

The words surprised Jet. He certainly hadn’t considered anything other than his own selfish motivation for going. He felt ashamed suddenly and had trouble looking Alison in the face.

“I need to access the digitizing bay directly,” he said. “And it’s me who should thank you for taking me along”

Alison smiled uneasily again. “But Flynn said you could change the permissions our applications is running under. It was the one thing he was not certain he could accomplish but he said you would be successful. Is this the same server you need to access?”

Jet realized that Brian kept looking at the two talking and looking away whenever Jet glanced in his direction. He wondered what it must be like for him, his new girlfriend asking him to commit a serious crime.

“Yes, I need to get into the same server. I guess our destinations lie along similar paths.” Jet said.

Alison appeared to shiver slightly. “Will what you are doing affect what we are doing at all?” she asked. Jet understood her concern. She was worried that his goals might affect hers.

“No, it won’t.” He reassured her. “Once I’m in the digitizing bay and I’ve done what I need to, you are free to use the equipment. Flynn asked me if I’d spend a little time helping you before I do my work, and I’m pretty sure I can.”

Her smile came back genuinely at this. “Thankyou,” she said and in a move that surprised him, leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek before jumping off and walking over to hug her boyfriend, who was by this time glaring.

Jet moved his hand to the side of his face, where the warm feeling remained still. The feeling lingered with him even as he returned his attention to what was happening around him. For a brief moment, he remembered Mercury’s last kiss before they parted.

It was then that Flynn came out of the van, looked up at him and walked over to sit directly beside him. Flynn was moving around quite quickly despite his age.

“Something else you need to be aware of Jet,” said Flynn.

“What’s that,” Jet asked, removing his hand from his cheek. He was wondering is Flynn was about to say something about Alison.

“You’re father’s involved in this,” Flynn said.

The comment took Jet by surprise and initially Jet didn’t know how to respond.

Seeing this, Flynn continued. “You’re father has been working with the doctor for a while and they’ve successfully digitized small objects about the size of a match head, but your father came to me looking for help with this about a month ago. He’s actually the one running this operation.” Flynn said.

“Dad?” Jet managed to say. “Dad’s breaking into Encom and came to you for help?”

“You came to me for help,” Flynn said defensively, emphasizing the you. “Why wouldn’t your father?

“ I am the second best hacker Encom ever employed.”

Jet was completely shocked by the revelation.

“That’s not what I mean,” said Jet. “I just can’t imagine my father, always so straight and insistent on doing the right thing, breaking into a military installation.”

Flynn nodded. “He is doing the right thing, Jet. If I thought his motives were out of greed, there’s no way I’d help him.”

Jet was still shocked, but the motivation Flynn mentioned still registered in his scrambling brain. Before coming to Flynn’s he thought the hardest part would be convincing Flynn to help him, but he was coming to realize that this was just the start of the problems he had to overcome.

“But, well, it’s my Dad,” said Jet. “He’s never done anything like this before in his life and he’s always looked up to you. If he was planning this, he’d never have told you.”

“How did you think I got involved with his staff,” asked Flynn. “Your father introduced the Gurimins to me.”

Jet shook his head. “But if he was doing this, why did he involve you?”

Flynn looked out at something beyond the walls of his place, his gaze fixed to a distance that didn’t exist in this enclosed area.

“Because I owed him Jet,” Flynn said.

“A long time ago, I was in a similar situation to that which you’re in now. I needed access to Encom and I was out of options. Your mother asked him to help me at the time and he did.”

Flynn looked back to Jet. “He helped me break into Encom and access the five-eleven.”

Jet was completely shocked by now. “You mean, you’ve done this before - all of you?”

Flynn smiled, realizing how hard Jet was trying to understand all of this, his mind not catching up with the anachronisticity of the conversation.

“Not the Gurimins, no,” Flynn started. “Just me, your father and your mother.”

“Mom was involved too?” Jet eyes opened wide. He was having a hard time with this.

“Deeply,” said Flynn. “You heard about the time when I was able to get the proof that Dillinger stole my work?”

Jet nodded.

“Well,” continued Flynn, “We had to break in and steal the proof. Dead of night thing. Just the three of us. Your dad waiting to upload a virus to the system while your mom broke me into the digitizing lab with her level 7 access to get onto the five-eleven through the main console.

“And the security system inside the damn five-eleven managed to redirect the laser to the console somehow and bang! (Flynn slapped his hands together for emphasis) managed to digitize its first human and lock me inside the loop.”

“You’re digitizing experience,” said Jet, starting to put the pieces together.

“Well, it was your father that got me out. We didn’t have safety overrides on human digitization then and he coded the virus, on the fly I might add, which took out the MCP and kicked me back out of the system.” Flynn concluded. “All I had to do was deliver his countermeasure program which I did somehow before the accident.

“Once the MCP was down, we managed to locate the evidence and all was well, but if we hadn’t succeeded, we probably all would have gone to jail.”

“And so now Dad’s asked you to help him do the same?” Jet concluded.

Flynn nodded high and slow. “Yep, except this time it’s for slightly less selfish reasons.”

Jet found himself nodding a little too as he came to understand Flynn’s motivation in this.

“What’s her name?” Jet asked.

“Melanie Gurimin” Flynn said. “And you’re father is driving her there tonight in the ambulance.”

It was a lot to take in. Jet had always seen his father as a stalwart figure for authority. He had always been so strict – so disappointed in Jet’s actions. So hurt when Jet got caught hacking the school computer. Now he was starting to understand his father in a different light. Starting to understand that sometimes the reasons for doing something were as important as what was actually being done.

Jet suddenly felt lonely and missed his father. They hadn’t been too close since his mother had died, but even then, his father had never given up on him. Jet always took this to be becausehe thought his father was just interfering but now started to understand a little more of his father’s perspective.

“Does dad know I’m part of this now?” he asked.

Flynn slumped, caught out by his own indiscretion. “Yeah, kid, he knows. He’s not happy about it either and he gave me hell for even considering not sending you away but,”

Flynn paused and then continued. “But, he knows your possibly the only one who can guarantee that we get past the security on the five-eleven and I think deep down he’s proud you want to help and a little grateful you’re here too.”

Jet nodded. “So you didn’t tell him why I really want to go?”

Flynn looked out into space again. “I told him you had some other business retrieving some code that was important to you and that you wanted to do that at the same time if it wasn’t going to get in our way.”

Jet realized Flynn was playing the mediator here, only releasing as much information as was needed to be heard at the time.

“Thankyou Flynn,” he said.

“Yeah, well, lots to do. You might want to give some thought to what you’re going to do once we get in too. And have some sleep if you can get any.”

Flynn got back up and went to work again loading the van with the doctor’s help.

Jet sat there a while longer absorbing what he had just heard. His mind was busy rewriting opinions of his father as he considered possibilities he had never thought of before.

After a while he got up and walked out to the arcade, planning on killing some time while his mind cleared, like he used to do just after his mother’s death while he was still coming to terms with the harsh reality around him.

It seemed he had some reconciliation to undertake with his father when this was all over.

The young boy Came and tapped Jet on the shoulder as he stood before a Space Paranoids machine - one of the originals. The one Jet had identified for Flynn.

Jet himself had worked on Space Paranoids 3D but that was only for console and cellphone ports although he still marveled at the beauty of the old style programming which originated from the same era he had.

“They’re waiting for you,” he simply said and walked away.

“Thanks, Manny,” Jet called out after him.

Jet watched the boy walk away quietly and wondered how the family could keep together under the stress of what was about to happen. The young boy with glasses was only fourteen and although he looked older, Jet felt for how he must be feeling at the moment, being forced to grow up so suddenly.

Jet had spent some time talking to the young boy as the others were all engaged in preparations and Jet didn’t want to get in the way.

Manny was happy to talk when he wasn’t giving out game tokens to customers, some of whom Jet recognized as regulars from the past.

The two had a lot in common. Manny’s mother had died, when he was just ten, from an aggressive cancer that was spread throughout her body. It was his sister older Melanie who had subsequently fallen ill to the same disease only a year ago.

Jet could relate to Manny’s loss of his mother at such a young age. He’d been around the same age himself. The young kid would have had a hard enough time being teased about his appearance as it was, being a geek, and then to lose his mother? It was something neither of them deserved.

His father had already been working on a cure even before then, driven by the memory of his wife. He was a programmer of medical surgery equipment at the time of his wife’s death. It had become a family affair with their two daughters becoming programmers and subsequently young Manny following in their footsteps.

However after the death of his wife, Doctor Gurimin had come to realize that it was not the software of the modern equipment that was flawed – it was the limitations of the physical technology that rendered even the Gurimins advanced equipment insufficient.

Steve Gurimin had been a member of the International Academy of Intelligence Artificielle – IAIA, and had become interested in some of Jet’s fathers work with the digitization technology. At the time he was having little success with his own efforts to use a laser to selectively remove tumors from tissue in cadavers, mainly due to the laser’s need to get inside the body to have access to the tumor in the first place.

He had believed that such technology as Lora Bradley and Walter Gibbs had developed might be able to allow surgery to occur digitally, allowing unprecedented access to parts of the body that couldn’t be reached through conventional methods.

As the friendship between the two men grew, Jet’s father had taken on the doctor’s two girls as contract programmers even back as far as when he was with Encom.

Steve Gurimins daughters turned out to be exceptional programmers, working with a synergy that exceeded all of the older programmers who worked for Encom at the time.

The girls possessed a genius for data manipulation and as a pair were able to produce code to support Jet’s father’s later work with the laser and had even assisted with the correction algorithms as these were the first step towards further manipulating the data that would be required for surgery.

The rapport between the two men had grown slowly until Melanie Gurimin had fallen ill just days after the fall of Encom and Steve Gurimin had realized that this was the only chance his daughter might have.

The doctor had begged Jet’s father to help him and by Flynn’s account, Alan was working towards completing the work Lora had begun and assisting the Gurimins, although Alan was never the genius physicist that Jet’s mother had been.

The work was slow and the results still often disappointing, but it seemed Alan had succeeded in building a small laser storage array in their new lab and for the first time since the fall of Encom, they made some headway.

Using the Bradley Technologies research setup allowed Dr Gurimin to continue his work and develop algorithms that could identify a tumor in the data and remove most of it from the data steam before reintegration.

By recombining the modified data stream, they were able to restore some of the damaged tissue around the tumor after the tumor was removed, leaving only traces of the original tumor behind.

Believing they had finally achieved a breakthrough, Doctor Gurimin started to petition the federal government for access to the Encom facilities to conduct tests on small animals for medical research but was refused access every time. Eventually, the government denied that the equipment ever had the capabilities that Dr Gurimin claimed or that the equipment was even functional anymore.

It seemed hopeless and then one night, Melanie’s boyfriend overheard the news that none of them wanted to consider – The workers were preparing to decommission the five-eleven and tear down the facility.

It was then that Alan Bradley had taken the course of action that had subsequently intertwined all of their fates.

The situation with the decommissioning of the server was also a problem for Jet. He only had a limited amount of time now to keep his promise to Mercury. Even then, he had no idea how much longer the other side of the screen would remain in existence. Jet had no idea if Mercury could even survive on a backup tape if the five-eleven was shut down or even if she would be backed up.

Jet walked away from the video machine towards the garage. There would be no turning back.

Inside the garage the others, except for Brian, were all in the van waiting for him. Room was tight and Alison was squatting on the floor of the van with her father. Flynn had left the passenger seat empty for Jet and the passenger door was open and waiting.

They were all waiting patiently with the engine running and as soon as Jet closed the door, Flynn thumbed the remote for the garage door and started to move.

“Where’s Brian?” Jet asked as he fumbled and struggled for the seatbelt, which kept resisting him due to the movement of the van.

“On shift” Flynn responded. “He’s working the night shift.”

As the van drove out into the night, Flynn realized how much time had passed during the day. He had taken brief breaks to eat but hadn’t consciously followed the passage of time. He had been too busy thinking about things to sleep, but he still didn’t feel tired.

“It’s past eight p.m. Jet” called Alison from the back. “We need to get in by nine so we’re still covered by cleaning staff schedules to avoid some of the security.”

“And hopefully Brian and Flynn will take care of the rest.” Said Steve Gurimin.

Jet looked ahead at the artificial lights of night through the windscreen. They seemed so much like the other world, like rendered objects. He remembered that the other world was strangely like early era graphics and wondered briefly why it wasn’t more like modern rendered graphics.

He made conversation with Flynn as they drove.

“So my mom actually helped you break in last time,” he asked.

“Just before her and your father got busy having you,” Flynn responded.

Jet looked at him quizzically, but Flynn kept his eyes on the road the entire journey, speaking to Jet via the windscreen.

“You said she used to be a physicist back then. When did she become a programmer?” Jet asked. He only really remembered his mother as a programmer.

“Lora always did some script programming that I remember, Jet.” Flynn said, recalling the early days.”But she needed programmers to write modules for her. That’s how I met her in the late seventies.”

“Before Dad?” asked Jet.

“Yeah why,” asked Flynn, then regretted it when he realized where this was going.

“So did you ever go out with her?” Jet asked.

The answer was a little too close for comfort, so Flynn changed the subject back to the original so he could answer the query in a roundabout manner.

“She used to write scripts to co-ordinate the modules we wrote for her. Things like packet transport simulations so we could gain an understanding of what was happening when the data from the digitizing pad entered the stream.

“That was what led to us discovering the efficiency benefits of a scanning laser over a single pulse exposure.

“I think there were quite a few of us on the project. I left in 79 but your father came on in 80. I think a lot of programmers wanted to date her but she fell for your father and that was that.”

Jet noticed that Flynn hadn’t answered the question and decided against re-asking it.

Flynn drove for a while in silence then pulled into a parking spot near the Encom building.

“Now we wait,” he said.

“What are we waiting for?” Jet asked.

“Alan is bringing Melanie. We need to move in at the same time.” Alison said.

Flynn took his mobile out and placed it on the dash of the old van, waiting for the call.

Outside the sidewalk traffic was heavier than usual for this time of night. The city must have become a more interesting place since he left, Jet thought. Then again, this wasn’t really his scene anyway, so he might just be imagining it.

After a few minutes the phone rang. Flynn picked it up and listened.

“Hello, Flynn. Yes. OK moving now.” He said into the handpiece.

Flynn started the car and pulled out, heading towards the old Encom basement entry.

“Won’t it be locked?” Jet asked.

“Brian’s inside,” answered Flynn as he pulled around the corner into the downramp.

Sure enough, Jet caught a glimpse of Brian at the base. Then the access door opened and they drove straight through, Flynn driving directly to the back of the facility and parking in a little used area not far from the service elevator and well hidden from view.

A moment later, a blue ambulance that also had Encom badges pulled in to the bay beside them and shut down. Without the engines running, Jet could hear the sound of sliding doors and of the entry gate behind them grinding shut.

The driver of the ambulace stepped down from the cabin and as he stepped towards the car, Jet recognized the face immediately. The face likewise recognized him.

“Hello Jet,” came the voice through the window.

“Hi Dad,” Jet replied.

“It’s good to see you again son, I only wish it were under other circumstances.” Alan said. “I’ve missed you.”

“Yeah, I , me too,” Jet commented back.

“I hope we’ll find some time to talk when you have a moment,” Alan said then nodded once and moved to the back of the ambulance, the large door making hollow noises as Alan pulled them open.

Jet began to think about what he would say to his father when the time came.

Next: Chapter 2.14 – Encapsulation